Bump Season 5 review: abundantly gorgeous

Olympia ‘Oly’ Chalmers-Davis (Nathalie Morris) is about to give birth for the first time, and she’s freaking the f*** out.

Wait. What?

Didn’t we do this way back in the first episode of beautifully bonkers Stan show Bump? In a school toilet cubicle?? When she was in Year 11???

Yes, yes, we did. But the whole conceit of the show, way back then, was that Oly had even less of a clue as to what was happening than her teacher mum, Angie (Claudia Karvan, co-creator with key writer Kelsey Munro).

What Oly thought were simple stomach cramps turned out to be Jacinda – so-named for the then NZ Prime Minister, played by Ava Cannon in this season – the unexpected baby she never knew she was having. Who wasn’t due to her then-boyfriend Lachie (Peter Thurnwald), but instead a one-night stand with Carlos Sanson Jr’s Santi.

It’s all very complicated (and at the same time very much not) in this cosy, Sydney-set, boisterously adorable family drama of mishaps, clashes and pashes that’s taking a valedictory lap on Stan, dropping every episode of the fifth and final season on Boxing Day.

Watch the Bump Season 5 trailer.

Sure, Oly’s pregnant again – definitely with Santi, but look out for a lovely Lachie cameo in a season littered with cute call-backs and special guest appearances, including the inimitable Kate Box and Catherine McClements.

But this is the first time she’s known about it and what to expect. Googling graphic birth videos is not helping. When Santi asks if a currently unemployed Oly regrets being pregnant again, her response, after an aching delay, is simply, ‘I don’t know how to answer that today’.

Bump: highs and lows

As much as the headstrong Oly is prone to occasionally making things all about herself, Season 5’s main arc is all about Angie and her recent cancer diagnosis, the far less joyous return plot. Facing a mastectomy, chemo and immunotherapy, it’s going to be a difficult six months for the woman who has spent most of the show attempting to carve space for herself.

Fat chance, with Bump’s cast and subplots having swollen to unwieldy proportions. That means a few folks are pushed to the edges – sorry, record-loving Tim (Ryan Johnson), bromantic interest of Angie’s ex Dom (Angus Sampson), Matias (Ricardo Scheihing Vasquez), ex of Rosa (Paula Garcia), and her current boo Hector (Oscar Leal). Even Santi is a bit sidelined.

One of our finest, Karvan delivers a tour de force performance, particularly in a bottle episode that holds us unflinchingly in a cycle of chemo treatment, with Angie trying to be Zen about it all, but constantly disturbed by a host of not equally welcome hospital visitors.

Anita Hegh, as Angie’s partner Edith, is also excellent as the lawyer, Dom’s sister, who tries to navigate the right balance between being a supportive partner, not smothering Angie and also making time for her own breakdowns.

In a show that also finds time for surreally silly stuff, like the ace comic timing Steph Tisdell’s bossy boss Shauna Johnson’s all-consuming parrot obsession and her inappropriate work flirting with Dylan Alcott’s Marcus, Angie’s cancer journey is at times confronting in its candour and incredibly rewarding for it. Christmas viewing is as much about all the weepy feels as it is happily ever afters, after all.

Bump: bumping out

Elsewhere in a jam-packed final run, Claudia De Giusti continues to be a sublime if occasionally prickly presence as great-grandmum Bernardita, and Rosa never fails to deliver chuckles while addressing a prophetic plane crash fortune and her increasingly unruly sons, Santi’s half-brothers Gabriel (Alexander Sanson) and Sebastian (Jeronimo Romero Llorente). A rerun of the original central premise is great fun, right down to her exasperated shriek: ‘Why can’t anybody in this family be gay, or frigid?’

Of all the (many) support stories hustling for space in the show’s final run, the most heartfelt is the bumpy ride back to friendship or more between abundantly charismatic Ioane Saula’s big-hearted nurse, Vince, and now-London-based lawyer in training Reema (an equally sparkling Safia Arain). They’re not really talking since their bad breakup, and Reema still has the hots for her most recent ex, Arlo Green’s sweet Rakim. There’s more melodramatic plot here than Days of Our Lives, barring demonic possession.

And who could forget Bowie? Christian Byers’ daffiest member of the gang, Oly’s big but kinda hapless bro, continues to bring hippy dip silliness to the show as the perfect counterbalance for Bump’s rockier roads, managing to score one of the show’s sweetest outros when a final time jump brings us to our last goodbyes.

Directors Margie Beattie, Rebecca O’Brien, Ismail Khan and Geoff Bennett admirably wrangle all the moving parts thrown up by a writers’ room including Shanti Gudgeon, Chika Ikogwe, Nick Coyle and Timothy Lee. As gloriously messy as any family Christmas, Bump’s final season might be a bit busy, but spending time with this unruly clan is abundantly gorgeous.

They’ll be sorely missed next year.

Bump Season 5 premieres on 26 December 2024 on Stan.

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