Hotel Babylon: Season 4, Episode 2

Hotel Babylon
Season 4, episode 2
Aired: June 26, 2009 on BBC1

SYNOPSIS

Sam, Babylon’s new owner, stumbles out of the gate. He has no prior experience at running a hotel, and he accidentally offers guests more than the hotel can deliver. Perhaps the worst blunder is offering several rooms to his old friend Carlton Foreman. Foreman is a boxing promoter, and he’s bringing his new protegé Don ‘Pitbull’ Morrison to the hotel for his fight over the weekend. What Sam doesn’t know is that Morrison’s opponent, Spanish fighter Fernando Gomes, has already been booked into the hotel. It’s a colossal blunder, and Babylon’s staff scramble to keep the two camps separated.

Meanwhile, Babylon has been chosen at the site for the joint 40th birthday parties of lifestyle gurus Ed and Erin Martyn, the stars of a Martha Stewart-type show. But when the Martyn’s nanny ditches the family, Anna is appointed to take care of their son, Tyler. She quickly finds out that the “perfect couple” do nothing but argue all day long. When Tyler lashes out at them, Anna steps up and becomes a lifeline for the family. They’re still getting divorced, but perhaps they’ll be nicer to their son now. Anna’s interactions with Tyler also calm some of her fears about up impending motherhood.

Sam has signed up Babylon for a “green certification” program, and he appoints Emily as the liaison with the certification officer. However, the more the officer looks, the more problems he finds with Hotel Babylon. Emily and Tony begin to get suspicious when the officer begins finding ridiculous faults with the hotel, and eventually they figure out that the officer only wants a night with his wife in a glamorous hotel. Sam blackmails the officer into giving them the “5 Green Pillows” award, but as soon as the officer leaves he tears it up, indicating that he will defer to the better judgment of Babylon’s longtime employees from now on.

Sam does this not only because of the environmental officer, but because he has a close call with his old friend Carleton. It seems that Morrison injured his hand a month before the fight, and Carleton heard through the grapevine about Sam buying the hotel. Foreman’s entire stay was a ruse to sue the hotel after a “staged” fight in the hotel lobby. When none of the hotel staff remember Morrison throwing a punch during the scuffle, Sam and Juliet confront Foreman and Morrison, and Morrison admits to hurting his hand earlier and Foreman says that they did it to recoup some of the money they would have lost from canceling the fight. Sam escapes a massive lawsuit by the skin of his teeth, and Hotel Babylon lives another day.

OTHER STUFF

Early in the episode, James holds up a copy of Radio Times magazine with the Martyns on the cover. Radio Times is the British version of TV Guide, although the Times dates back to 1923, when it listed radio shows (as the name indicates).

MY THOUGHTS

This was a much better episode than last week’s, although Geno’s “boxing dreams” really brought the silly. Poor Geno – it seems like all of his storylines are stupid, no? And has he always been Spanish? I could have sworn that he was Italian in earlier seasons. Perhaps Geno only defended fellow Romance country Italy against British jingoism in earlier episodes? Or am I just crazy?

I liked seeing so much of the sweet side of Anna in this episode. She’s so cute and so ditzy, but she’s so often portrayed as overly ambitious and selfish. It’s nice to know that a sweet heart beats under that sexy chest of hers.

Speculation can now run rife about who the father of Anna’s baby is. Tony’s expression when she whispered it in his ear was telling… although he seemed far too surprised for it to be Charlie (they used to have a “thing”, remember?). Given the news that Charlie (Max Beesley) is returning for a few episodes this season, I thought the pergnancy was the reason for his return. Perhaps it’s supposed to be some celebrity that stayed at the Babylon?