Awkward Lovers
Episode 8 of Daybreak sees us switch perspectives to Sam as we see her walking through school in the past. She and Josh grow closer together until he gets cold feet at the prospect of having sex with her. However, they do awkwardly get together in bed but almost immediately it results in Josh headbutting Sam in the face. As Sam holds an ice-pack up to her nose, they discuss what happened before he asks her how many people she’s slept with. She takes offence to the question and storms out the house…only to actually walk into Josh’s Mum’s bedroom. It’s a hilarious move and certainly reduces some of the hostility she feels as she instead heads into the bathroom and puts make-up on. With renewed confidence, midway through kissing on the sofa, the delivery-man arrives and puts the food down in the kitchen, hastily leaving as he sees the smeared lipstick across both Josh and Sam’s face. Following their Asian cuisine, Sam and Josh go swimming together where he tells her he loves her. It’s a move that gets them talking about the online videos before the conversation turns back to sunflowers. It’s a touching moment and one that sees them both in bed together again, this time in a more natural manner without the earlier awkwardness. Throughout the episode we see Josh ignoring calls from his Mother but this time he answers the call, courtesy of Sam’s playful banter. As she passes the phone to him, he suddenly bolts upright and gets dressed. He silently puts his clothes back on and heads outside where we find out his Dad died. Overcome with grief, he shouts at Sam and tells her to go to homecoming alone. He blames himself for trying to sleep with her during the time his Dad was dying and goes on to talk about how people genuinely love her. There’s no way she can feel how he feels given how perfect her life is and Josh is quick to hammer this point across to her in the most hurtful way possible. As Sam heads to homecoming alone, holding back the tears, Josh wallows in self-pity where we leave the episode. Aside from the last 10 minutes, there really isn’t anything worth noting in this episode. There’s no clever visuals or playful comedy and most of this drama revolves around the awkwardness in Josh and Sam’s relationship. If the goal here is to show how little chemistry these two people have together than Daybreak certainly does its job well but given the ending, we’re supposed to feel more empathy for both characters and for me personally, I just can’t see these two in a healthy relationship. In the little time we’ve seen KJ on screen, Josh is far better suited to her and their natural, flirtatious behaviour together only further reinforces that perhaps Sam and Josh are just not meant to be together. Don’t get me wrong, some of the drama is quite well-placed and the later explosion of emotion is certainly nicely implemented but beyond that, there isn’t a whole lot else going on here that wouldn’t have been better served in flashback format in another episode.
