Wellmania follows Liv, a food writer who needs to get healthy within a month in order to get back to the US in time for a career-defining opportunity. The series is now streaming on Netflix.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
Olivia “Liv” Healy is a food writer for the Banquet magazine in New York. She gets the opportunity of a lifetime when her boss, Valerie, agrees to make her a judge on a cooking show that will feature the world’s top chefs.
However, before that, Valerie tells her that to convince the show’s executives of her worth, Liv needs to write something that will raise her profile globally.
Liv then goes to her hometown, Sydney, for a weekend to surprise her best friend, Amy, who is a journalist. Liv’s mother, Lorraine, and her brother, Gareth, also known as Gaz, want her to stay for longer, as Gaz is getting married soon, but she refuses because of the show.
Unfortunately, Liv’s green card gets stolen, which means she cannot go back to the US just yet. Liv accompanies Amy to the Journalism Awards because Amy has been nominated for an award, but Liv gets high and insults Amy’s boss, which ruins the night for her.
As her green card is missing, Liv goes to the US consulate to get a travel document but ends up passing out there. Liv’s lifestyle is anything but healthy, and it takes a toll on her.
Her green card gets canceled, as the consulate believes that she can be a burden to the US because of her poor health.
Liv decides to get healthy in a month to get to New York in time for the show, even though the consulate-assigned doctor, Dr. Singh, who has to pass her, tells her that it is nearly impossible with her current state.
Although Gaz is a fitness professional, Liv cannot ask him for help because she had earlier fought with him and told him that she will not be attending his wedding. Instead, she goes for a Bondi cleanse.
She also decides to write about the cleanse and her experience, but the cleanse does not make much difference to her health, and the article fails to impress Valerie.
Even though the Bondi cleanse does not help much, it helps Liv learn that her eating habits need to change. She finally apologizes to Gaz and promises to help with his wedding. Gaz, in turn, helps her get healthy.
Meanwhile, Lorraine gets fired from her job when she follows Liv’s advice and tells her boss, Dr. Price, that he should get tested for dementia. She does not know what to do with her life for a while but eventually decides to retire.
When Liv sees Gabriel Wolf, a chef known as the “King of Meat” in New York, making vegan food and competing in the famous Sydney Duck Crawl, she gets an idea for a story that might make her popular.
Valerie likes her idea, and Liv visits Wolf’s various restaurants to find the vegan dish. She succeeds in finding it, but she fails to get Wolf to give her the scoop, even after partying with him instead of going out for ice cream with her new crush, Isaac.
Isaac finds out about it when Liv pukes at Gaz’s gym due to the drugs and alcohol she used at the party. However, she later apologizes to Isaac and confesses that she likes him, but they decide to be just friends, as Isaac is trying to be celibate and sober.
Liv’s third attempt at getting a story sees her attending the seminar of a sex and self-empowerment guru, Camille Lavigne. After the seminar, Liv’s plans to get Camille drunk and find out more about the elusive woman’s life fail miserably.
Liv does not give up and continues pushing, which ends up with her confronting her worst fear — of messing up like she always does — with Camille. Liv also finds out Camille’s biggest secret, but Liv chooses not to expose Camille’s true identity.
Instead, she writes about her experience of confronting her fear with Camille for Amy’s newspaper. The article also mentions the personal problems Amy is having with her husband, Dough, which upsets Amy a lot and causes a rift between the two friends.
Liv’s observation about Gaz’s relationship also messes with Gaz’s mind, who ends up cheating on his fiancé, Dalbert, with his ex-boyfriend.
While Valerie likes Liv’s article, which gains her the popularity she needed for the show, Liv continues to make things worse for herself by accidentally headbutting Dr. Singh and then stalking her to get her to pass her in the medical evaluation.
Dr. Singh finally agrees to evaluate Liv again, but before that, she wants Liv to get a psychological evaluation done. Additionally, Liv finds out that her green card was never stolen; her mother had hidden it to make her stay in Sydney for longer.
Liv gets upset with her mother and ends up fighting with her. When she goes to Canberra for her psychological evaluation, Liv thinks about how she met Amy for the first time on the day Liv’s father died.
The two girls became very close in one night, and Amy provided Liv with the comfort that she failed to find at home. Amy and Dough sort out their problems. Additionally, Amy finally calls Liv and forgives her for writing about her.
Liv passes the psychological and medical evaluation. The US consulate accepts her green card application, and she is allowed to return to the US.
Valerie tells Liv that the event, where the judges of the show will be introduced, is being pushed forward, which means that the event will coincide with Gaz’s wedding.
Instead of choosing between the show and Gaz’s wedding, she decides to attend the wedding and leave soon after.
Gaz and Lorraine find out before the wedding that she is leaving the same day and did not bother to inform them, which upsets them both. Gaz believes that Liv only cares about her show and not about his wedding.
Liv does her best to ensure that the ceremony goes smoothly so that she can leave on time, but problems keep arising one after the other.
Wellmania ending explained in detail:
Do Gaz and Dalbert get married?
Gaz feels guilty about cheating on his fiancé and cannot get married to him without telling him the truth first. Gaz decides to push back the wedding and meet Dalbert.
He confesses the truth to Dalbert, as he does not want to start a life with him based on a lie. He tells Dalbert that he was having doubts before the wedding, and he messed up. He knows that he made a mistake and apologizes to Dalbert.
Gaz confesses his love to Dalbert, and he forgives him, but not without telling him that Gaz needs to talk to him if he ever has doubts again. The two decide to go ahead with the wedding, and Gaz promises Dalbert that he will never do anything like this again.
Do Liv and Isaac end up together?
After the ceremony, Liv decides to take out time to have ice cream with Isaac, as promised long ago. She admits to him that coming home is never easy for her but meeting him was not one of the bad things.
Isaac tells her that he will miss her once she leaves and that he wishes that they had met at a different time. The two realize that things would have been different between them if the timing had been right. For now, they cannot be together.
Does Liv leave for New York?
Before leaving, Liv needs to give her speech at Gaz’s wedding reception, but she never gets to do it because she passes out. She expresses her true feelings towards her family in a dream but never gets to tell them about it.
She is taken to the hospital once again and misses her flight. The doctor asks her about feinting, and she admits that it has happened to her several times since she came to Sydney.
She is told that she is physically fine, but she might be having panic attacks. As soon as she is told that she is fit to fly to the US, she leaves the hospital. Gaz, Dalbert, and Lorraine insist on being there for her, but she rudely pushes them away.
Lorraine does not want her to leave and follows her home. Liv finally confesses to her that she was partly responsible for her father’s death. She forced him to swim with her, even though he was sick that day and wanted to go home. Liv kept pushing him, and he had a heart attack, which killed him.
An upset Lorraine does not say a word to her, and Liv asks Amy to give her a ride to the airport. She miraculously gets a ticket and leaves for the US without making up with her family.
Does Liv get well?
After Liv leaves, taking inspiration from her, Dalbert becomes the life of the party at his and Gaz’s wedding reception. He also asks Gaz to cut his sister some slack.
In New York, Liv meets all the big names in the industry and gets right back to work. However, at the launch, just before she is introduced as a judge, she has a panic attack when she notices that she does not have her father’s watch with her.
Liv calls Dr. Singh, who comforts her and advises her to see a mental health professional; she believes Liv is physically fine now but not mentally. With Dr. Singh’s help and encouragement, Liv manages to pull through.
Liv is great as a judge and makes a name for herself. She continues eating healthy, exercising, and taking better care of herself. She also tells other people that she is feeling well.
However, back home, Lorraine meets with an accident, and Gaz repeatedly calls Liv, but he cannot reach her. As she is busy with the show, Liv ignores all his calls and does not hear about her mother’s accident.
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