Stan’s original Aussie comedy series Bump just keeps delivering family drama and belly laughs. Here’s Stephen A Russell on what’s happened so far, and why it works.
Bump: Season 3
When Bump bumped headlong into our lives with a totally unexpected baby born in a school bathroom stall on New Year’s Day 2021, the chaotic-good show propelled stars Nathalie Morris and Chilean-Australian Carlos Sanson Jr—as shellshocked teenagers Olympia “Oly” Chalmers-Davis and Santiago ‘Santi’ Hernandez—into our hearts.
Birthed from the creative minds of The Secret Life of Us alumna Claudia Karvan—who also plays Oly’s equally astounded teacher mum Angie—and Kelsey Munro, it was just the breath of fresh air we needed. We didn’t have to wait long for season two, which came just as quickly as feminist thinker Oly’s bub—promptly named Jacinda after New Zealand’s inspirational Prime Minister—birthed on Boxing Day of the same year.
As season three prepares to drop, we look at why this Sydney-set dramedy is so gloriously gorgeous.
It’s all about the ensemble
Canberra native Morris steals the show as the OCD-prone Year 11 student Oly, who initially finds sudden motherhood an incredibly inconvenient distraction from her plans to become a United Nations-based social justice warrior. Spiky and sassy one moment, vulnerable and self-confessedly clueless the next, she felt authentic from the get-go to woe of dealing with rampant school rumours about who the baby daddy might be.
At first it’s presumed to be her boyfriend Lachie, played with adorkable energy by South Korean-born, Gold Coast-raised actor Peter Thurnwald, but it didn’t take long for the truth to come out. Oly secretly hooked up with Santi, making for a super-awks teen love triangle and a welcome dissection of gender politics and the blame game, all handled with spunky panache.
Emotionally adept performances from the young cast kept us hooked, with the crew that flanks Oly and Santi at school providing super-cool support too. They include the wildly charismatic Ioane Sa’ula as Santi’s Samoan-Australian bestie Vince, and Safia Arain as Oly’s BFF Reema, who wind up with the hots for one other minus the guts to fess up. We also love Sarah Meacham as loose unit Madison.
But it isn’t just the kids who are all over the place, as Bump winds its wild way to season three.
Life is messy—for parents of all ages
You’d think the grown-ups would be focused squarely on helping the kids navigate school while bringing up baby. But in a refreshingly real twist, Bump’s Olyanti (that’s Oly + Santi) drama has nothing on the problematic parental shenanigans.
Angie has an affair with Santi’s hunky PE teacher dad Matias (Ricardo Scheihing Vasquez), which spins Oly’s dad Dom (Angus Sampson) into a three-season-spanning midlife crisis. Dom has a momentary thing with Santi’s do-not-mess step-mum Rosa (Paula Garcia), before she too moves on romantically. There are sidepieces aplenty as the show progresses, with season three throwing another spanner in the works. Angie, recovering from cancer and now pretty much over everyone else’s drama, starts to feel something for Dom’s sister Edith (Anita Hegh).
Season three also re-joins Oly and Santi at a very different point in their lives. The pressure of young parenthood has driven them apart and into other folk’s arms. Oly’s jolly with her uni tutor Michael (Harry Greenwood) *insert grimace emoji*. Santi’s lost touch with his art, labouring in a construction job and pairing up with newcomer ‘Ana Ika as Keeks, spinning Oly into jealous mode. Santi’s still fielding disapproval over his love life choices from his gran, Bernardita (the inimitable Claudia De Giusti), who’s not getting any younger and wants to marry him off, ideally to Oly.
It’s a hot mess all round, basically, with an expanded role for Oly’s moonchild big bro Bowie (Christian Byers) only adding to the brouhaha. We love the quieter confusions of Vince as he goes on his own baby-daddy journey with his queer couple housemates (Henrietta Amevor and Matilda Ridgeway), and the now-five-year-old Jacinda (Ava Cannon) has her say too.
We’re here for the fact that getting older doesn’t necessarily mean becoming wiser and that life can get derailed pretty easily.
Big laughs with a side of feels
Sometimes dramedies go a bit too hard on the emosh stuff and forget to sprinkle ample chuckles into the mix, but Bump blends the ingredients just right. You’ll be frustrated by—and totally fall for—the craziness of Oly and Santi, ignoring the bleeding obvious that they’re made for one another. Everyone else’s story feels just as fully rounded on this emotional rollercoaster.
That’s the joy of the show. One minute you’re snort-cackling at ludicrously silly stuff like a jellyfish fight on the beach, the next, you’re weeping at life-or-death hospital drama. Behind the scenes of season three the cast and crew battled the Omicron surge and Sydney’s wettest summer on record, but you wouldn’t know it. It all comes together beautifully.
