So, Women telling women’s stories is all the rage, and no one from the sistren is complaining. It is high time stories about women of all ages are told through movies and television shows, and through these, we hope to be projected as normal human beings, not some exotic creatures with superpowers to make things right. “Wellmania,” a Netflix Original, is all about a woman who will have to deal with her family after a health scare and the fact that she will have to consider staying back in her home country for some time. Will she make a fuss about living at home or deal with the reality that is right in front of her?
Spoilers Ahead
Olivia Is In Sydney
Olivia “Liv” Healy wakes up inside an ambulance, surrounded by leads on her body and paramedics trying to help her. But she ends up acting all disoriented, and she believes there is nothing wrong with her. A few days back in New York City, we saw a different Liv, a well-known and passionate food writer and critic working for a popular magazine. Apart from that, Liv is all set to be a judge on a food reality show run by her magazine. Liv has been passionate about what she eats, and she wants to stay true to this field where she can enjoy good food and write extensively about it. Her boss, Valerie, is consistently lobbying for her to help her land the job. All Valerie is expecting from Liv is for the latter to submit an article on a topic that would create a buzz amongst food enthusiasts all over the world. If people talk about Liv, the producers would be keener on casting Liv as the judge, making her life set for the foreseeable future. Liv has worked very hard to reach a position such as this, and she cannot let it slip away from her. She has been with the magazine for a while, and being a judge on the reality show is another step towards a successful life.
In between all the good news that is pouring in, she must travel to Sydney for the weekend to surprise her best friend, Amy Kwan, who is celebrating her 40th birthday. Amy Kwan is her best friend, and she is equally successful in her field. The two women have been friends since high school, and even though their lives have taken them on different trajectories, they have been constant in each other’s lives. As she makes a grand entrance to Amy’s birthday party, her husband Doug and Amy’s other friend feel left out because Liv takes over the party. Liv and Amy have always been there for each other, and Doug is an understanding husband who will always have to be supportive of what his wife wants. Amy is truly surprised to see Liv, and they both decide to spend as much time as possible during the weekend, after which Liv plans to go back to New York.
Liv is more excited to see her best friend than her mother, Lorraine, and brother, Gaz. She has a complicated relationship with her mother and brother, as they have always considered her to be too self-involved and rich to stay in touch. Liv believes that her immediate family never seems to understand or come to terms with the fact that her life is hectic, and she has to remain in America for her career to progress. She also has some unresolved issues with her family, which she is not ready to deal with as of now. Liv remains under the impression that she is considered a wreck, so she tends to exit people’s lives way before she makes it about herself and ruins it. Liv is in no mood to attend her brother Gaz’s wedding because she is too busy with her work. Her mother and brother are not surprised, and they do not force her to stay back. Liv, unfortunately, has the worst luck possible when someone steals her bag, which had all her legal documents and, most importantly, her green card.
Thanks to Amy’s contacts, Liv barely manages to get an appointment at the American consulate to get the necessary documents to fly back. But on the day of the submission, Liv has a panic attack, because of which she faints. A blackout following a panic attack led to Liv losing her green card. The doctor assigned to her reveals that Liv has severely high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and a high resting heart rate. Liv is in shock, for she did not see this coming. She must be in New York in a few days just to be able to meet the deadline and be part of the show. Liv will have to stay back, that too with her family, and get back in shape in the hope of getting her green card reinstated as soon as possible.
Olivia’s brother, Gaz, is a fitness trainer at a local gym in Sydney, but she is refusing to get help from him because of their falling out over her not attending his wedding. Now that she will have to stay back and attend the wedding, her ego won’t let her deal with Gaz. Her mother, Lorraine, repeatedly requests that she get help from Gaz, but Liv refuses. In the hope of getting an article for her assignment from Valerie, Liv goes through a Bondi cleansing ritual that will not just help to get the toxins out of her body but will also stabilize her vitals. Liv must keep up with the deadline because she can’t afford to lose the coveted job. None of her story pitches work out for her boss Valerie because Liv’s submissions reek of desperation and do not reflect her usual exquisite taste. Valerie rejects all her ideas from there and requests that she work on something that genuinely gives her inspiration.
Liv, being a seasoned writer, figured writing about offbeat topics would come easily to her. But the stress of losing the green card and being healthy enough for its reinstatement takes a toll on her mind, and a strained relationship with her family adds to the pressure. This probably led to Liv submitting articles of below-par quality, which infuriated Valerie because she knew Liv had it in her to deliver quality write-ups.
Amy Kwan And Her Marriage Woes
Amy Kwan is Liv Healy’s best friend, and they have been each other’s closest companions since their high school days. Amy has now become a renowned journalist, and Liv has become the most sought-after food critic. The distance between them never stopped them from being friends; they updated each other about every monumental life decision they took. Amy, though she is a successful journalist and has a beautiful family with Doug, reveals that her intimate life with her husband has come to a standstill, and she has no clue how to make it work. She finds a waiter at a restaurant hitting on her, and she finds herself attracted to him as well. This makes Amy desperate to find a breakthrough in her marriage because she does not want to cheat on her husband. Amy reveals all this information to Liv, and she requests that she not mention it to anyone else.
‘Wellmania’ Season 1: Ending Explained – What Happens With Liv In New York?
Liv tries her level best to get her green card fast-tracked as the pressure of getting back to New York before the launch of the show mounts on her from Valerie. She has not informed Valerie about her immigration situation because if she did, she might get fired from her job, which would be the end of her career. Liv makes sure to do nothing but ask her brother to help her find a better way to bring her vitals down to normal. After a heartfelt apology from Liv, Gaz finally agrees to help his sister out, and in return, Liv will help him with the wedding preparations.
Liv starts on her path to becoming a healthier person with her brother, but she has still been unsuccessful at writing and putting across an interesting article for Valerie to approve. She comes across a wellness guru who talks about making themselves feel bare when talking about their feelings, which will help people be more accepting of themselves. Liv comes up with the idea of writing an expose on this wellness guru Camille for Amy’s boss, and hopefully, this will help her gain some traction and get Valerie’s attention. After several failed attempts to meet Camille, this mysterious French wellness guru, Liv finally gets to meet her, and she has an eye-opening experience while talking about herself. Camille reveals that her real name is Karen, and she is Australian. She had to change her identity for an exotic identity that would help sell her books vastly and widely. Liv is transfixed by the lengths Camille or Karen went to make herself successful in her field of expertise. This forces Liv to change her mind and write a positive article about the wellness guru. Liv finally shows a sensitive side of herself by finally understanding what Camille or Karen must have gone through to put herself out there as a different person for people to accept her.
Liv’s article becomes successful, but her mentioning of Amy’s intimate life details in the article puts her friendship through a test she did not see coming. Amy is livid because, as a best friend, she does not expect Liv to publish her private life for everyone to read. Though Liv showed sensitivity towards Camille, she showed none while revealing Amy’s life. Amy and Liv take a break. As Liv starts concentrating on her health, thanks to Gaz, she is pursuing the doctor assigned to her to help her find a solution to the green card problem. Though Liv’s body reaches the proper vital ranges after severe workouts with Gaz by her side, her doctor suggests she also do a psychiatric evaluation for green card approval. Liv gets her psych evaluation after going through a weird day of mishaps. Liv is the kind of person with whom something weird would happen on an important day. There is not one time in her life so far that she did not go through in case of an emergency. Her life so far in her homeland has been a line of mishaps happening to her, and she is somehow recovering from it.
With her psychiatric evaluation coming through, her green card gets approved, and all she can wait for is her brother’s wedding. Though at her brother’s wedding, she goes through another blackout, which freaks everyone out. Even with all of them trying to understand why she is going through frequent blackouts, Liv refuses to talk about it and leaves for New York, which was her plan anyway. She leaves her brother and mother back in Sydney on a sour note because she does not have the energy to explain to them why she is going through recurring phases of anxiety and panic attacks along with blackouts. She tried to talk about her father’s death but ended up receiving the cold shoulder from her mother.
On reaching her home in New York, she is all set to be introduced to the media as one of the judges when she goes through another panic attack. Liv never experienced nervous breakdown symptoms in New York, and the only person she could contact was her Sydney-based doctor, who approved her health parameters. The doctor helps her calm her nerves, and Liv finally comes to terms with her present. She knows this is the job she always wanted, and she cannot let this opportunity go. But unfortunately, Lorraine, Liv’s mother, meets with a car accident. Gaz tries to reach out to her in New York, but she does not pick up the phone. There could be two reasons: either she does not want to deal with her family at the moment, or she is busy with the shooting schedule. Liv has worked a long way to make herself successful, but by the looks of it, she will have to pay for it for the rest of her life if her mother does not make it after the accident, and she isn’t there beside her.
What Can We Expect In Season 2 Of ‘Wellmania’?
Season one of “Wellmania” ended on almost a cliffhanger note, with the question of whether Liv’s mother would survive the accident or not. With Liv living in New York and not picking up the phone, it would be interesting to know where the story would go from here on. Liv will have to live with the guilt of not talking to her mother if she passes away. Liv will be confronted by her brother, and Liv will eventually try to correct her mistakes from then on. Her friendship with Amy, too, will be tested yet again if Lorraine passes away without meeting her only daughter. All her relationship dynamics will be shaken and questioned. As viewers, we would like to see Liv go through a massive change of heart and probably move back to Australia to stay close to her family. These are just speculations because season two of “Wellman” has not been announced yet. One can only hope for some good news from here on.
