The Last Anniversary is an Australian mystery drama about two sisters who find a baby in an abandoned house and decide to raise her as their own. Decades later, this baby is now a grown woman, but one of the sisters, Connie, dies of old age. She leaves behind a great mystery and many women who must find their way in the world. Will they manage to do so? The basic premise of this series is super mysterious, but it's really a family drama about motherhood, trauma, and the lives of women in different situations, as their lives are intertwined and connected. It's an exciting series with only six episodes and a central mystery: What happened to that baby's parents? Who were that baby's parents? And have we been getting the story wrong all along? That said, let's jump straight into episodes 1 and 2.
Many years ago, sisters Rose and Connie were invited to dinner by a couple named Jack and Alice. By the time the sisters boarded the boat and arrived home, Jack and Alice were gone, but they had left behind a smiling baby girl in a crib. On the stormy night, Rose and Connie decided to take the baby home to safety. Having heard nothing from the parents, they decided to raise the child as their own and named her Enigma Munro. Enigma now runs a museum and tour about what happened to her parents all those years ago. It's basically a tourist attraction: "The Case of Baby Munro." In the first episode of The Last Anniversary, Rose finds Connie freezing in bed after missing her daily morning baths. It seems Connie has passed away, and Enigma finds out as soon as she begins her first tour of the day.
Stars: Teresa Palmer, Miranda Richardson, Danielle Macdonald
Enigma has a daughter named Grace, who seems to be closer to Connie's biological daughter, Margie. Grace is heavily pregnant and has a very important presentation to give. Only after finishing the presentation does Grace look at her phone and call her mother. She finds out about Connie's death and immediately breaks down, but Enigma doesn't seem to mind at all. In fact, it's Margie who genuinely empathizes with Grace and tells her to take her time coming home, even though Enigma needs her back immediately. However, this isn't possible because Grace realizes her water broke prematurely, drives herself to the hospital, and has a baby. Oh, and besides, her presentation went wonderfully, and the publisher wants four of her children's picture books.
On the other hand, there's a woman named Sophie, 39, who's trying to find a healthy and happy relationship. She has a ritual she repeats every time she sees an attractive man: checking her watch shortly after seeing him, something she learned from her late father. She lost them both as a child. Anyway, the dating scene for women at that age isn't great, so she finds herself single even though she's trying her best to make things work. Sophie's ex is Margie's son, Thomas. He keeps calling her, and she answers when she's desperate to make up a new story to get her boss's approval. It turns out she's got it right, because Connie left her house to Sophie. Connie also left her a letter saying she might find the man of her dreams on the island one day. I guess to Connie, Sophie is a lost soul, and the island welcomes them.
Now, Grace is married to Callum, who just happens to be a man Sophie slept with in Thailand. When they meet at the funeral, Sophie hits Callum with her car door, not seeing him coming and realizing where she knows him. But he's too caught up in what's going on and doesn't even look at her. Grace shows up at the funeral, having left her son behind, almost in a daze because she just wanted to say goodbye. Rose talks to Sophie after the funeral, and it seems like she's not only upset about Connie's death, but it also seems like the sisters had a strange relationship, as if Rose was very jealous and Connie was too selfish. Rose invites Sophie to the island, not for Connie, but for herself.
In a flashback, we learn that Connie was the one who told Sophie not to marry Thomas just for the sake of it. She basically told her to be a free spirit, even though she was referring to her grandson. Ultimately, Sophie left Thomas at the altar. Meanwhile, Sophie's boss wants her to write an article about how Connie left her fancy island home for her. At the end of episode 1, Sophie moves into Connie's old house, and the family tries to figure out how they're going to accept this new situation.
Sophie learns that Ian is raising his son with his ex-wife, who also lives with him. That's when the boat floods, and Ian panics, leaving a bad impression on Sophie. It's Callum who saves them. At dinner (their first without Connie), Veronica says she's going to start a podcast about the Munro baby case, but Ian tells the family that Sophie might have found something interesting. He explains that the idea came about because Billy was talking about Russians, so he looked up Russians who moved to Sydney in his time and discovered two people, Alice and Jack, who changed their Russian names to English ones.
It seems like the perfect story, but then we learn that Jack and Alice were siblings. Rose denies remembering anything about Alice and Jack, even though it's clear she does. Now everyone is thinking that Enigma could be an incestuous child, but what if the child never belonged to Alice? At the end of episode 2 of The Last Anniversary, Margie shows Sophie another door that has never been opened because Connie wouldn't let anyone in. When Sophie goes into the dark room, she finds Alice's dress, which appears in a famous photograph in the museum, but she almost thinks she's also seeing Alice's ghost. The two of them take out the dress, and everyone wonders if there's blood on it. Finally, Rose goes outside alone and looks inside the old house.
Rose is hiding a big secret: she's either the mother or she was assaulted to have the child, and Jack could be involved, but only one of the women. The episode ends with Rose looking inside Jack and Alice's house, and a young Rose watches Alice dance. Does this imply a connection between Rose and Alice? Were they lovers? The truth is, I don't know. It could be that Enigma was Rose's baby all along, but why hide the truth? Or perhaps I'm far from the truth, and there's more to the story.
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