TV
SERIES EPISODE GUIDE
Episode 1
 In the
final decade of the 19th century, Hester
Appleyard – a beautiful, mysterious
widow – arrives in Macedon,
Australia. She pays cash for the local
white elephant – a formal mansion
isolated out in the bush. Here, she
establishes a school for young ladies.
Six years later, Appleyard College is a
success. A bastion of Victorian England,
ruled with an iron fist by its enigmatic
headmistress. But something haunts
Hester. Is it the bush – dangerous
and untamed? Or is it her own secret
past?
Appleyard College
has three star pupils. Sophisticated
Irma, a Rothschild heiress. Whip-smart
Marion, daughter of a High Court Justice.
And rebellious tomboy Miranda, a
cattle-station princess. Their friendship
ignites the magical and dangerous energy
of adolescence. They resist the
edicts of society. Confronted by the
unwelcome advances of a young
soldier headed for the Boer War,
Miranda impales his foot with a
pitchfork, earning her
headmistress’s contempt for her lack
of self-regard. But the girls have
already convinced Hester to allow a visit
to the local landmark. And so, as she
punishes devoted young orphan Sara for
Miranda’s recklessness by keeping
her back from the outing, and Miranda
retaliates by showing the headmistress an
unseen object which clearly reveals some
unwelcome truth, on Saint
Valentine’s Day, 1900, the Appleyard
girls and governesses go on a picnic, to
Hanging Rock. And there, in the strange
brooding landscape, something unthinkable
happens…
Episode 2
 Hester’s
three star pupils & a governess have
disappeared. Led by dogged Sergeant
Bumpher, local men search for
the missing ladies. Not a trace to be
found. Faced with a mystery, the locals
resort to speculation. Has something
supernatural befallen the young ladies?
Or has a human outrage occurred? The last
person to see the girls at the Rock was
the Honourable Michael Fitzhubert.
Mike has recently arrived in the colony,
trailing a discreet hint of scandal. The
revelation that he has Miranda’s
stocking in his pocket indicates a
special fascination with the missing
girl, but Mike is contemptuously
dismissive of Bumpher’s insinuation
that his voyage to Australia was
motivated by anything improper.
Hester tries to
contain mounting hysteria among her
pupils by putting the college into
lockdown. She believes the young
orphan, Sara,
obsessively devoted to Miranda, knows
something about the disappearance.
But Sara’s loyalty to Miranda cannot
be breached. Two strange riders
were seen at the picnic ground. Are they
men from Hester’s past, attempting
to ruin her? What is the missing
governess’s shocking secret revealed
in an ancient letter from her estranged
Hebridean father? As the days pass
and the mystery remains unsolved,
tensions increase to breaking
point. When the search is finally
abandoned, Mike feels compelled to return
to Hanging Rock, where he spends a dark
night with the ghosts of his own
past. Then, under the searing
Australian sun, he searches for
redemption, joined belatedly by his
uncle’s coachman Albert
– with whom he has forged a strong
bond. Delirious Mike points up the Rock
to where Albert finds one of the missing
girls lying exposed to the elements. But
is she dead or alive…?
Episode 3
 It
is the Rothschild heiress Irma who has
returned, remarkably unharmed. As she
recovers from her nine day ordeal at the
Fitzhuberts’ summer mansion, she
claims to remember little about the day
of the picnic and nothing since.
She doesn’t know where the other
missing girls are. She takes refuge
in dreams of a future with her rescuer
Mike, the handsome young nobleman she
loved at first sight the afternoon of the
fateful excursion. Mike’s
uncle and aunt encourage him to marry the
heiress – Irma would be a prize to
rival the great debutantes of London.
But Mike is falling in love with
the possibilities of this untamed
colonial world. Where he can change
the path mapped out for him by his
ancestors. His friendship with
Albert flowers. He is haunted by
the missing girls – but has also
been infected by their rebellious energy.
Meanwhile,
rumours abound and the Sergeant turns his
attention to the College. What
secrets lie hidden behind the locked
gates? His ongoing investigation
intensifies Hester’s growing
paranoia. Memories of her dark past
loosen her decorous façade. Does she
recognise the marble mason Tomasetti
who passes in his cart? And the orphan, Sara,
knows too much. Is increasingly
defiant – as if being driven by the
wild energy of the missing. When
Mike romantically rejects Irma, events
spiral out of control. Heartbroken,
Irma returns to the college, where she is
interrogated by the headmistress, then
surrounded by a hysterical mob of girls,
all demanding to know what happened at
Hanging Rock. Irma reveals
nothing. She leaves for Melbourne,
to await the ship that will take her and
her secrets back to the old world.
But not before she makes one parting
confession to kindly French governess Mademoiselle
de Poitiers: I hate Miranda. The
shadow of the Rock continues to lengthen
…
Episode 4
 Hester
takes the remaining girls to church, as a
display of normality. She leaves
the young orphan, Sara, behind, as
punishment for ongoing defiance. When a
malign intruder breaks in, Miranda’s
impaled young soldier, Sara locates the
headmistress’s Enfield revolver and
shoots at him. The Sergeant is
galvanized. Why does an upper-class
English lady own a highwayman’s
pistol? Sara tries to warn him that
Mrs Hester Appleyard is not what she
seems, but he dismisses the child as a
fantasist.
An ongoing series
of flashbacks have been telling the story
of the missing girls, in the months
leading up to the picnic. Their
dawning fear of what the future holds for
young women. Their growing sense of
the erotic. Of their unbridled
power. We’ve watched the
volatile, competitive friendship between
Miranda and Irma. Now we discover
there was an unconsummated romance
between Marion and the missing governess,
Miss Greta McCraw.
Meanwhile,
aftershocks from the disappearance
continue to disrupt the old order.
Students are withdrawn by worried
parents. Irma’s influential
father arranges for a Scotland Yard
detective to sail out to the colonies, to
investigate. The publicity has
focussed attention on Hester – now
the marble mason Tomasetti pays her a
menacing visit and clearly they share a
history. Mike rejects his
family’s conservative demands and
invites Albert to explore Australia with
him, perhaps to pay a visit to
Miranda’s family in Queensland,
however, fearing they would not be
equals, Albert declines. When
Albert receives a generous reward for his
role in saving Irma, he immediately
starts searching for the sister he left
behind in a local orphanage. He has
no idea how close she is – a pupil
at Appleyard College, but when he is told
that her guardian would take some time to
contact, Albert writes to Mike to accept
his offer to travel together.
Meanwhile, Sara has become the focus of
Hester’s fear and paranoia.
Wise beyond her years, all-seeing,
all-knowing. When Albert visits the
college to seek help in writing a letter
to Mike, Sara sights him from afar, and
is overjoyed to learn that her beloved
brother is coachman at nearby Lake
View. Later, Sara tries to run
away, only to be forcibly detained by
brutal hands at the college gates.
We must fear for Sara’s safety.
Episode 5
 French
governess Mademoiselle
is plagued by guilt. She was in charge of
the girls at the picnic. At the college,
more students are being withdrawn, and
the “dark stain” of the
unsolved mystery continues to spread.
When Mademoiselle discovers Sara is
missing from class, she is informed that
the young orphan has been unexpectedly
collected by her guardian. But
Mademoiselle grows suspicious when no
staff can testify to seeing her
collected, and Mrs Appleyard’s
increasingly erratic behaviour fosters
fears for Sara’s well-being.
Mademoiselle visits the Sergeant, who is
beginning to suspect that the girls may
simply have run away, “not wanting
to be found”. Bumpher tells her that
without proof of the danger Sara’s
in, he cannot act. That night
Mademoiselle spies a drunk and tormented
Mrs Appleyard wandering the college
hallways. In her delirium Hester revisits
her own days in an orphanage, and her
removal by her future husband, Arthur,
into a childhood of crime. The past, and
recent events, are closing in on her and
the next morning Hester dismisses
Mademoiselle and the remaining staff. But
not before Mademoiselle, searching for
the proof Bumpher needs, finds
Sara’s abandoned suitcase. However,
Bumpher is in Melbourne, prompted by his
conversation with Mademoiselle to seek a
last interview with Irma before she
departs for England. Through flashback,
it is revealed that the girls planned to
make a vow to their secret selves at the
top of Hanging Rock. But the only
revelation Irma shares with Bumpher is
their collective determination to
“never surrender”.
Episode 6
 It
is the Christmas holidays before the
picnic, when Sara joined Miranda on her
family’s cattle station. Sara is the
happiest she has ever been but Miranda is
furious at having to return to the
college, refusing to be groomed for
marriage, and threatening to run away.
Back in the present, Hester has grown
increasingly paranoid that vengeful
Arthur is behind the disappearances and
coming after her. As Mademoiselle arrives
to present Sara’s abandoned suitcase
to Bumpher, Sara’s guardian Cosgrove
reaches town, further confirming Mrs
Appleyard has lied to them all. At the
college, Mrs Appleyard is packing her
things and preparing to flee. She
remembers her final night in London,
having abandoned shot-wounded Arthur, and
stopping to buy soap to wash the
bloodstains from her skin. Appleyard
Soap. The soap from which she took her
name and motto. Her new identity. Refine
and Purify. Her memories are interrupted
by traumatised gardener Whitehead,
who takes her to the flowerbed under the
tower window, where Sara’s bloated
body lies dead. Mrs Appleyard is happy to
let the befuddled old man believe Sara
jumped, instructing him to stay at the
college whilst travelling directly to
Tomasetti, determined to find out once
and for all whether Arthur is behind the
disappearances. But when she arrives, she
learns that Arthur is long dead, that he
perished the very night she left him, and
she realises that all her fears of
retribution have been unwarranted. She
travels to Hanging Rock, and, as she
ascends, we see in full all that led to
her demise. Miranda threatening to reveal
Mrs Appleyard’s fraudulent identity,
which she has discovered from the soap
tin. The rivalries and jealousies that
consumed and bonded the girls, the climb
up the rock on the day of the picnic.
Mike following them. The girls finally
feeling free as they remove their corsets
and stockings. Their secret vow. Finally,
Mrs Appleyard reaches the top of the
Hanging Rock. All lost, she throws
herself from it, surrendering to the
mysterious power of nature. And, like the
audience, to never knowing for certain
what actually happened to Miss McCraw,
Marion and Miranda.
"Picnic at Hanging
Rock" Site. Created by Sandra
Gambino. 2005 - 2019
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