Max is the eccentric member of the group. Loyal to his friends yet always has the desire to prove him when in their company. His public life is merely a facade that intends to camouflage all the problems he faces at home including he’s fluctuating relationship with his father and his nurturing mother. As the eldest of 3 kids, the pressure is on Max to perform well a school, a task that he constantly battles to control where he turns to the Melbourne nightlife to run away from his problems. Hence, parties and drugs are a way to bury he’s inner demons. In effect, Max develops two different circles of friends – the ones he sees out at night and his school fiends, two sides from two different ends of Max’s personality. However, his newfound link with 5 strangers unexpectedly begins to change his perspective of himself as he attempts to battle his anxiety and depression in a whole new manner.
The episode is called ‘Flame’ – a metaphor referring to the old lighter given to Max by Hitch. The first scene shows Max sitting at a Park bench in the early hours of the morning after a long night out clubbing with his so called “night crawlers”. Viewers see Max flicking the lighter, staring at the bright flame that seems to be fading away.
We are taken back 24 hours where Max wakes up, gets out of bed and gets ready for school. He wakes up and finds he’s mum making breakfast for his younger brother. His dad walks into the room gazing at Max’s appearance, belittling him in front of his family. At home he is shy and timid and that resonates at school in front of his mates – lost in his own little world. Even though he does well at school there’s always that voice in his head saying ‘he is not good enough’ – a trait passed down by his dad.
At school, he subtly continues to ask his friends on joining him on a so-called “adventure” later on that night yet he already knows the answer to the question – they emphatically decline the offer with the intent of staying home and studying on a Friday night.
Once again, Max tiptoes down the stares and goes out the back door of the house where he will soon make his trek on a train from the suburbs to the city alone with no one by his side. There he will meet the “night crawlers” and begin their escapades in the early hours of the morning – changing his personality overnight into someone totally different – eccentric, loud and always living on the edge.
Only this time, Max is at the bar ordering a drink and he sees an unfamiliar face. It’s Ingrid. Not knowing that the pair is both mutual friends of Hitch, they begin to tell each other their problems that continue to engulf their lives. Ingrid, a psychologist, begins to comfort Max and tells him of a story of a patient she currently is dealing with who shares the same problems as Max (the patient is in fact Hitch). She details her struggles to “understand his problems” and at some points, she feels that she is “letting him down” – resulting to her to draw to alcohol as a form of “medication”.
After talking to Ingrid for over an hour, Max begins to return home earlier than expected. As he walks through the door, the light turns on and it’s his father sitting at the kitchen table. He begins to berate Max waking up the whole house in the meantime. For the first time Max responds in kind where he’s shy nature is overrun by anger and hate as he unleashes on his father “for never being there for him when it mattered most”.
Max storms out of the house and that’s where the scene returns to our protagonist sitting at the park bench. As he stares into the flame of the lighter, Max has come tot the realization that something has to change. Either he continues down a path of destroying himself and everyone around him, or he mends the broken bridges that stop him from finding out what he truly wants in life.