The Jason Hahn Files: The Real Reason Why Rebecca Lim Looks Unhappy In Hostage Drama Third Rail

In the second group, I include people like my mother and her sister, my auntie Soo-Ling. The last time they took public transportation was about 10 years ago when they both emerged from lunch at Paragon and realised they had no easy way of getting home. Coincidentally, both their drivers had taken the day off, and their respective husbands had taken the cars for a brother-in-law golf day.

Somehow, after asking five different people, they managed to make their way to a bus stop. “My God,” Auntie Soo said, clutching her Ferragamo handbag close to her chest, “I haven’t been on a bus since I was in school!”

And when the 111 arrived, like a pair of excited teenagers on a school excursion, the two elderly aunties stumbled up into the back of the bus and sat down, marvelling at how clean and bright the bus was compared to the rickety old heaps of their childhood. After a while, my mother piped up, “Aren’t we supposed to pay for a ticket?

“Aiyoh, wait, lah!” said Auntie Soo in a piercing tone, still gobsmacked that the bus was air-conditioned. “The bus conductor will be on his way soon! Do you have coins?”

For weeks after, they dined out on their experience, earning plaudits from their mahjong kakis for their bravery.

“I’m amazed you even knew where the bus-stop was!” said Auntie June, while Auntie Ching said she’d heard the MRT was even more amazing.

“Oh, I’ll never take the MRT,” Auntie Soo said firmly. “So dangerous. You’re so far underground, if anything happens, you’ll never be able to get out!”

“She had a point,” Saffy said recently when I remembered this story while we were watching the first episode of Third Rail. “Some of those stations are, like, a hundred metres below street level!”

Amanda turned a beady eye towards Saffy and sighed. “You do know this is just a show, right? It’s not real!”

Saffy’s bosom inflated. “With that incredibly realistic CGI, how could anyone tell?” she asked, sarcasm dripping from every word. “But I’ll tell you what’s real. Jason Godfrey’s major hotness!”

“Oh my God…” Amanda sighed. “Why do I never meet men like that?”

“I know I say this a lot,” Saffy went on, “but I really hope he does the rest of the show in his underwear!”

“Oh my God…” Amanda repeated.

“Because it really would be too much to ask for him to be completely naked…” Saffy trailed off.

For a few minutes, the popcorn bowl was passed around in thoughtful silence.

“Why do these Mediacorp actresses always look so unhappy?” Amanda said after a while.

“Rebecca Lim looks more bored than unhappy, if you ask me,” Saffy said, mouth full as she munched.

“Which one is she?” Amanda asked.

“That chick in white!”

“Oh. Yeah, she looks mad.”

“Maybe she’s mad at the wardrobe person for making her wear white for a hostage show!”

Amanda squealed. “I know, right? I mean, who wears a full on frilly white dress onto the MRT in the first place?” Amanda asked, her Harvard-trained mind temporarily derailed from her one-track obsession over Jason

Godfrey. And the fact that Rebecca’s dress still looked pristine white after the bomb blast, though it was hard to tell for sure in the gloomy lighting, irritated her for days after.

What I couldn’t get over was the prostitute-mum. “If you were a hooker, would you arrange to meet your trick on the MRT?” I asked Barney Chen later over lunch at Greyhound Cafe. “What could possibly happen in a crowded train?”

Barney flexed his muscles as he gave the matter some thought. “And the guy paid her $2,000! Is that the going rate these days? In my day, it was only…”

We were spared further details when our pad Thai arrived and by then, Barney’s attention had moved on, this time to the prostitute’s teenage son. “Imagine bumping into your mum while she was working!”

“Well, she wasn’t really working at the time,” I pointed out, “and, anyway, everyone has to make a living somehow, but I take your point.”

Mother later told us that Auntie Soo said Third Rail confirmed what she’s been saying for years. Her exact words were: “The MRT is a dangerous place filled with terrorists, predators and troubled teenagers!”

Mother said the last bit about the teenagers kept her and her mahjong kakis screaming with laughter for days.

Meanwhile, Barney Chen continues to be obsessed with Jason Godfrey’s jawline. “It’s so rugged you could ride a mountain bike on it!” he told me. “I wonder if he’s had fillers. No one can be that hot, naturally!”

Watch the first episode of Third Rail here: