My New Life in Malta

Continuing from last week’s episode, there was a part two to the program about Mario. Tista Tkun Int received a record number of phone calls (and I assume a record number of viewers, which means a record price for the adverts for the sponsors of part two). But I had to keep you in suspense, because I had to wait a whole week to find out the outcome.

First, they found that Mario’s mother had visited Malta several times, the latest visit being only in 1992. Not only that, but her husband’s family lives just 300 metres from Mario’s house! Her husband’s family provided a video that showed her during her last visit. The physical resemblance to her abandoned son was uncanny. Poor Mario was made to sit through a whole long video presentation summarising the prior week’s episode and a bit more information on his mother. Then Rachel handed him his mother’s rosary beads and the necklace that she was wearing on the day that she died.

But there was a bit of a happy ending to the story. It turns out Mario did have one living uncle in the UK. Colin flew out to see him and to inform him about the long-lost nephew that he never knew he had. But here is where it gets good. The uncle was not playing along with the bullshit! He was supposed to act surprised, and was giving very exaggerated “oooohs” and “aaahs” as Colin informed him of the details. But the funniest part was when he told Colin “you know, I had no idea my sister was even dead until YOU CALLED ME LAST WEEK!” 

HA! Take THAT, Tista Tkun Int! Your bluff has been exposed!

The uncle did say that he never knew that his sister had had a child. And she left Malta immediately afterwards. Obviously, it is something that she chose to hide from everyone. Which leads us to my question, also mentioned by David in the comments to the last post, whether she would have even wanted to see him if they had found her alive. What if they had shown up on the doorstep of an 80-something-year-old, whose husband did not know she had ever had a son, with her full-grown 57-year-old child? Perhaps things turned out for the better, for poor Mario’s sake.

Mario then followed his uncle’s cue. When Rachel started her exaggerated and draaaaaawn out speech about how they had found the uncle, alive, in England, and Colin had gone to try to convince him to– “Did you bring him here?” blurted out Mario, impatiently. She was shocked, but had to admit defeat: “yes, he is right here in the studio!”

I got a perverse joy from having watched both Mario and the uncle break down the show’s supposed fantasy.

Then the uncle and aunt came out, and it was beautiful. For the second time, I cried my eyes out. (I swear, I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of films that have made me shed just one tear, and here T.T.I. manages to get me to cry like a baby two weeks in a row). In addition, Rachel informs us that the family of the mother’s husband are waiting at a restaurant to meet Mario (the restaurant’s name is repeated several times, of course). They are not actually his relatives, but I guess they felt a bit guilty that they got to enjoy his mother as an auntie all their lives while Mario had nobody.

And so that ended an emotional episode of Tista Tkun Int. After that, the following two stories just did not hold my interest. After Mario, nothing could measure up. I found myself talking to the TV set and saying “get over it lady, your mother is alive!”