Cheating
Episode 5 of White Lines begins with Zoe being dropped off by the shore and deciding to stay with her Father after a tough night. Clint rides off on his bike in the morning just as Boxer is called to hospital following Andreu’s car crash. With Andreu in a bad way and hooked up to machines, Conchita deliberates over the best way to tackle the Martinez family going forward. Clint speaks to Inspector Juan and they talk about Zoe’s mental state. While they do, we cut back to Zoe herself who heads back into town and meets Marcus, telling him that Boxer killed the Romanians. Marcus proclaims him a hero, as Anna arrives too and they all sit and share drinks. When Zoe leaves, Anna and Marcus end up getting together as she climbs on top of him in his wheelchair. Boxer heads off to visit Oriol in his hotel room. Shooing the hookers out the room, he finds Oriol face-down on the ground and in a bad state following his ordeal with the toads last episode. When he regains consciousness, he tells Boxer that he saw his Father in a bad way on the road but drove off given he was high. While Boxer waits for him downstairs, Kika visits her Father in hospital while Conchita tops herself up with drugs and alcohol waiting outside Andreu’s door. When Kika bumps into her Mother, she admits to her daughter that she had no part in Axel’s murder given she tried to convince him to have an affair behind Kika’s back. Meanwhile, Zoe speaks to Anna about her marriage but midway through starts to question just what she’s doing in Ibiza. As she heads back to see her Father, she speaks to him about how directionless she feels. Clint has a plan though, and encourages her to use her therapy and shaky mental health as a way of getting her off the hook with the police. Midway through talking, Zoe receives a call from Kika and hurries off after learning Andreu has been in an accident. While she spills the truth to Kika about exactly what she’s been up to, involving the harpoon gun and the drugs, Clint phones through to Joanna and demands answers. We then cut to the moments in the club we ended on last episode, as Zoe leaves and starts walking off down the road. Only, Boxer follows after her and admits he struck the Romanians first as he knew that they would come back and hurt Marcus. He did it to protect him and more specifically, to prevent harm coming to Zoe. Instead of heading home, Zoe goes out dancing with Boxer. After a great night, they head home and spend more time together and make love. This is interspersed around scenes with Kika talking about Zoe’s night too and quizzing her over what happened. Learning that her Father has spoken to Joanna and stopped them talking, Zoe confronts him and tells Clint to leave the island so she can find herself and learn just who she is. Reluctantly, he leaves Zoe on the island as he drives off in his camper. As the episode closes out, Boxer leaves a voicemail for Zoe and admits the feelings he has for her. Whenever it comes to series that has over 8 episodes, it’s worth giving the benefit of the doubt for the first few chapters. After all, there’s a whole slew of shows that have been slow burners, starting off poorly and quickly rising to prominence across the season. As we hit the halfway point of White Lines, the show nosedives drastically and brings with it some questionable character motives. Even worse, it also throws in some confusing editing to try and act artistic but failing to do so. The jarring moments with the nightclub scenes midway through the episode drastically alter the pacing of the scenes that follow. After establishing its characters early on, White Lines has really struggled to add much depth and flesh them out, with the bulk of this drama now taken up by Oriol’s family feud with Cristobal and Pepe. The biggest problem with White Lines though comes from Zoe herself. There seems to be a growing trend of trying to make empathetic characters out of women who cheat on their husbands and its a trend that’s alarmingly common right now on the small screen. Just this month, Valeria and Run have both struggled with this and White Lines unfortunately joins that list. Hopefully the next episode improves but if this is a sign of things to come, White Lines may well be drawing a line in the sand over where the rest of this is going.
