DVD Review: ‘Recipes For Love And Murder’ Season 2
by Rachel Bellwoar
As in season one, season two of Recipes for Love and Murder doesn’t overdo it with the murders or try to suggest Karoo is a perilous place to live. One person is killed at the end of the first episode and that’s the main case that gets investigated. More so than murder, however, it’s the “love” part of the title that season 2 seems preoccupied by and not necessarily for the better.
The very first scene of the season is Tannie Maria (Maria Doyle Kennedy) having car trouble and meeting newcomer, Ricus (Gérard Rudolf), who just happens to be a mechanic and driving by at the time. Rudolf is actually one of the great additions this season but the show’s insistence on presenting him as a love interest for Maria is completely unnecessary.
For one thing, it’s like the showrunners knew they couldn’t have Rudolf and Jennifer Steyn be on screen together because once Hattie and Ricus meet it’s as though the romantic tension with Maria never happened. And it didn’t have to – they could’ve just been friends – but instead it creates all this manufactured drama and stalling from the show actually dealing with what a Maria and Khaya (Tony Kgoroge) relationship could look like.
The less said about the love triangle between Jessie (Kylie Fisher) and the Snyman brothers (Arno Greef and Wynand Ferreira) the better but it points to the problem in making Jessie ambitious. Knowing her career goals, it doesn’t really make sense to have her stay in Eden, but that either means writing her out of the show (which would be a major loss) or rigging a storyline to keep her involved. Instead her character’s a little stuck, though this does allow time to spend with her family and the growing pains Jessie’s experiencing with her mom and her changing role in the home. The messiness of that feels unexplored and gives Fisher her best material.
Not getting her best material… played straight, having Hattie run for mayor of Eden could’ve been great. Instead her campaign is treated like comic relief and filler when she deserves better.
As for Maria, in my review of season one I questioned the need to create a mystery around her past. With the arrival of Maria’s sister-in-law, Aileen (Robyn Scott), and Aileen’s husband, Gordan (Richard Wright-Firth), that mystery plays an even bigger role in season 2. Gordon is a one-note menace who’s determined to make Maria pay for the death of her abusive husband, Mickey (Ashley Dowds), who he believes was murdered. While it’s never clear how seriously to take his threats about getting the police to reopen the case (especially since the cops seem to hate his guts), his threats about having Maria’s house taken away from her prove to carry some weight and add stakes to their visit. While Aileen could’ve been equally one note, too, Scott makes her a wildcard who’s not beyond reason and, as a result, one of the more compelling characters this season.
Tannie Maria’s recipes continue to be overly complicated. Maybe ostrich is readily available in Eden, in which case, kudos to the show for highlighting local delicacies, but,if not all ostrich does is ensure many international fans won’t be able to find the key ingredient at the grocery store.
Ultimately, the main problem with the show focusing on romance this year is it keeps the cast in separate storylines, instead of working together. At one point late in the season Maria, Jessie, and Hattie are in the office of the Karoo Gazette and comment on the fact that they haven’t done this in a while. It raises the question ‘why not?’, though, and hopefully if the show gets a third season they won’t waste so much time keeping the characters apart, especially when there’s no story reason for them to be so. It’s not like they had a fight and it took all season to heal their rift. They’re just not communicating.
Recipes for Love and Murder Season 2 is available on DVD in the UK and streaming on Acorn TV. It will be available on DVD in the US starting June 17th. While there is a behind-the-scenes featurette included, it’s nothing of substance.
