Red Ranger 1

Alf's episode count this week:Two. Now that he's finally found the right end of the stick, Townsend is back to being refreshingly blunt with Cash and pointing out the flaws in his behaviour.He did a better job than Levi, who just seemed to turn up to rant about "Why aren't you doing anything?" without having any real idea what exactly it was he wanted Cash to do.He did have some better points about the way Cash has treated Eden.Even here, Cash has basically fobbed Eden off and expected her to hang around Tim instead of actually taking responsibility for himself, blind to how problematic it all is.Despite her beating herself up, I don't think Eden's indiscretion here is really on a par with how Levi behaved with Mackenzie and Imogen. Still, it's understandable Tim would be upset about it, even if he's hardly a saint and maybe he should have had a think about whether an inappropriate relationship like that was likely to work out. Cash did at least take some overdue responsibility for kicking this hornet's nest and go to apologise to Tim. Given Eden's reluctance to leave the hospital before, it was a bit much that she suddenly decided to go wandering around on her own in the dark: Couldn't she have called Levi or Remi and asked them to pick her up? It's like she wanted to be attacked! Whilst I can understand her concerns, Dana is better off staying out of Harper's business here. It's not like her advice has done much good (she was pretty much convinced this was a fairy tale not too long ago) and if Harper's determined to go down this route, keeping quiet and letting her make her own decision is about all you can do.

Ha, yes, I forgot to mention that scene of Levi and Bree geeking out about emergency brain surgery, thanks for the reminder! I twigged faster than Mali did that Abigail was mostly concerned about wanting to be safe from Nerida, as seen when she was practically begging Levi not to leave her alone.They took an awfully long time to realise that the thing to do with that text wasn't to ignore it, it was to give it to the police! Levi really has been out of the loop recently, as demonstrated when he didn't know what was going on with Tim a while back, and has to be filled in on absolutely everything that his sisters have been doing for the last month or so here, despite it being on the front page of the paper! Harper's house of cards seems to be crumbling now. Even her schoolgirl infatuation isn't enough for her to get excited about Tane treating their "big day" as an exercise in box-ticking to get a transactional marriage. He doesn't want to marry her as a person, he just wants to marry the mother of his child and that just happens to be her. His response to be putting on the spot about whether he loves her is becoming more and more transparent.It was nice, after all those odd references to her being his ex-wife and him no longer being his next of kin last year, to finally get confirmation that there was no way Tane and Felicity could have got divorced in the time frame given. Justin and Remi tried their best to be non-commital but Remi's ended up making a promise that he might not be able to keep...

Abigail's had much the same reaction to Tim recovering as Cash did, and unfortunately Cash isn't obsessed with her, so he's left her to worry about her own protection.Theo finally twigs about Abigail and Mali.It's hard to say what was behind Mali's awkwardness around Theo: Is he jealous that Theo was first choice or just uncomfortable about the idea of having to break it to him? Oh well, moot point, given their habit of kissing within view of anyone wandering out of the surf club.Abigail announcing she's moving in with Mali seemed like a bit of a kneejerk reaction, I wonder if he even knows.She was unnecessarily rude to Levi about letting him know where she was but did apologise. Turns out being arrested makes Leah and Justin frisky, but then most things do! I was expecting more of a follow-up to that, but maybe they need the police actors for other episodes... It was amusing seeing Marilyn try very very hard not to say anything to Alf while Leah refused to play along. So, that's Bree off then. We seem to be entering one of those periods where there's hardly any characters left in the Bay, the actors must have all booked their holidays at the same time. I can see why Mackenzie would want Lyrik back but it's really not the best time, given Kirby and Eden are still busy with other storylines! Maybe they can manage to all appear in the same episode again some time soon?

Townsend isn't showing much more competence even now the victim has pointed him in the right direction, given that he still couldn't find Nerida even though she was wandering around the Bay bold as brass. (What was the point of a radio announcement to people to look out for her? Unless you know Nerida personally, "mid 20s" isn't much of a clue!) Oh well, at least he's belatedly got a police guard in place and, despite his bravado to Gary, apologised to Cash.Gary off again, despite his reluctance to leave a job half done.I guess we'll see if any of his parting words to Cash sunk in.I did quite like the relaxed camaraderie between Rose and Townsend despite everything. Given the words upthread about Stunning Organics, I'm hoping this doesn't end with someone getting blown up.Contract Advertising haven't managed to put the genie back in the bottle and the protest seems to be free of backlash online so far, even if the law aren't quite as forgiving.It was kind of amusing watching Justin and Theo trying to keep track of what Leah's got herself involved with now as if she was an errant child.

Cash did seem to be pulling away when Gary interrupted and is back to his "I'm cursed to being miserable and so is everyone around me" sulk. Good news for him in a sense that Tim has come round and cleared him (hopefully he's someone Townsend will finally have to listen to), but it shows how daft his deal with Nerida was when it could all fall apart so easily. If he'd kept proper tabs on her instead of giving her what she wanted and hoping she'd go away, the police might be able to take her into custody without any trouble now.Gary leaving Cash and Eden alone was nicely honest. Well, I prefer Kirby standing up to herself than hiding away with low self-esteem. Getting her story out there was an obvious response to the ad agency's media blitz and Contract Advertising really should have thought of that one and chosen a photo whose subject wouldn't object. Still no reaction from Mali, who's in the photo right alongside her and thus being associated with this.

Alf's episode count this week:Four. Gary meets Townsend and is as unimpressed by him as I am, although the feeling very much seems to be mutual.Cash was being typically pig-headed and typically overly macho in insisting it would be Gary's fault if anything happened to Eden.It's put Gary and Rose very much on the back foot, as they discover that Cash (at least in his eyes) has a vaguely rational reason for not wanting to clear his name.And he actually manages to treat Eden like a human being (and the rest!) which may have confused him further. Eden was being melodramatic in insisting she and Remi are over for good, so I'm glad she's sorted it out by the end of the episode, even if it was in a half-hearted "Well, if Cash is okay with it, so am I" way. Looks like that's the end of Remi's moving plans though. Kirby should probably have a word with Mali about reading the small print, but he's used up his three episodes so it'll have to wait until next week. Leah and Marilyn get points for good intentions but they really need a better plan than "We fight." It feels like maybe they should have told their side of the story on the photo, but from what little I know of social media, that might have been like putting blood in the water for sharks.

Well, Mackenzie and Dana pretty much said what I was thinking. There's a distinct lack of passion from Tane and it's pretty obvious he doesn't love Harper and is talking around any attempt to pin him down.Yes, he cares about her, and yes, he fancies her enough to use her for a rebound hook-up, but he wouldn't dream of being a couple with her, much less married, if he didn't see it as a chance to be a family. And Harper is just deluding herself that she's got what she wants.Yet in the midst of it we get Dana saying she think they could be a good people, so I wouldn't be surprised if the show tries to insist Tane does love her not too far down the track.Personally, I think Felicity was the love of Tane's life and Harper will never measure up. Remi has the germ of a good idea in there but is going about it all wrong.He should not have presented moving as a fait accompli without consulting anyone, and he's ironically stepped into Cash's role of insisting he's the one protecting Eden when he's focusing on all the wrong things (although at least, unlike Cash, he isn't actually making the danger to her worse).Even if they decide against moving, this warehouse could make a good rehearsal space. Abigail's used up her three episodes so Mali can only tell her about his move over the phone and it's left to Mackenzie to react to it.I'm not sure he really convinced her. Bit of a slap in the face to Kirby to use her altered photo like that.

Things seem to be progressing between Sally and Flynn.Nice of Jesse to help Hayley look for Nick and Kirsty.

Well, Levi dealt with that in a pleasingly level-headed manner, accepting Mackenzie's reasons for keeping quiet and talking to Mali in a reasonable way. It might have been nice for Abigail to give Mali a heads-up that he knew though! Levi's logic for basically saying "It will devastate Abigail if you break up with her so you should do that" was a bit lacking, even if he did try and explain later that he wanted to end things before it got serious. Anyway, Mali hasn't jumped the way Levi expected him to, having apparently decided that he can't be Abigail's housemate, boss and boyfriend but not dropped the one Levi wanted. I really can't decide whether Tane and Harper are meant to be a really awkward and unconvincing pairing or if the show sees them as a long-term couple. As she said, at the hospital they seemed like a normal couple at times, but then you get episodes like this where it seems Tane's only with her because it's convenient and Harper is acting like a clingy schoolgirl with a crush who's wowed by the fact she's dating the cool boy.

I guess Townsend gets a small amount of credit for actually speaking to Nerida but otherwise, despite a long queue of people lining up to tell him she should be a suspect, he's still sticking doggedly to his belief that it's an open and shut case and he's already solved it. Cash's attitude towards Gary reinforces that he and Felicity had more in common than he'd like to think: She could be pretty together at times, while he can be pretty self-destructive and push away people trying to help him. It's a shame Gary and Townsend didn't meet because he'd probably rip a hole in him more effectively than Rose has, but maybe that's to come. Still, Gary and Rose investigating on their own seems fraught with peril so we'll see how that turns out. While I get the point that Mali and Abigail needed to be honest sooner rather than later, Mackenzie laying down ultimatums wasn't especially helpful. It's a moot point by the end anyway: They should probably have taken Mackenzie's advice to be more discreet if they're going to hide it, rather than kissing in a public place like that!

There didn't seem to be much reason for Roo to play a trick on Alf, except her getting in a strop about Alf insisting they could never fool him. I'm not sure it really worked either, since he just turned up anyway. Am I missing a nuance here? Did Roo ask Marilyn to keep Alf away because she knew Marilyn would be terrible at it and Alf was bound to turn up anyway? Still, it's nice to see the stalwarts getting a decent bit of screen time together rather than the one token scene of them huddling in the Diner talking about other people's storylines that made up their episode counts last week. Talking of which, John and Roo's different perspectives on telling Gary about Cash was telling: John was thinking about it from the point of view of a parent while Roo was thinking about it from the perspective of an adult child. At this point, I think Abigail would be perfectly justified in battering Eden about the head.So, to the surprise of no-one, and despite Remi trying to insist otherwise, Eden wrecked Abigail's counselling for the sake of copping off with a guy that she doesn't even really like. She's lucky Abigail's still trying to protect her, and probably doing a better job of it than Cash. He has to be bluffing Nerida, right? If he really could get her arrested just like that, he probably would. Unless his desire to protect Eden has got so self-destructive that he's decided to get himself shut up in jail before he does any more damage.

Alf's episode count this week:Three, and he was credited on Tuesday for no appearance. Well, there were only two suspects for Tim's attack and we were pretty sure it wasn't Cash, so no surprise that Nerida's confirmed as the culprit here. What is a surprise is Tim's utter lack of self-preservation instincts: He's apparently just seen Nerida whack Cash over the head, and made a failed attempt to talk her into dropping the weapon, then just turned his back on her and conveniently crouched down to give her a clear shot at him? Some people really are too dumb to live. So Nerida has obviously learnt her lesson about running her mouth off to Abigail, leaving it as just Cash's word against hers, and we all know who Townsend's decided to believe. I was getting pretty sick of Eden playing the victim with Abigail, so at least she had the decency to put a sock in it. Abigail didn't say anything about Tim that wasn't true and wasn't deserved. And it doesn't help that it now looks as though Eden put Abigail's counselling and Tim's career at risk for the sake of a rebound relationship that she only sees to be sticking with out of guilt and obligation. I don't know how you've drawn that conclusion. Tim's been going around telling everyone, including his employers, that she's lying, notably Eden, and her rambling journal entries are pretty much public record.

He's literally been told there's another suspect. He's chosen to ignore all other suspects, and indeed not bother to do a proper investigation, and instead charge someone within 24 hours with no real evidence beyond three witnesses who didn't see anything. It's left to Rose to follow up on the information behind his back. Mali is already showing how an age gap relationship can be a problem, treating Abigail like a little sister that he wants to boss around and keep out of trouble.Maybe he'd be the same with a girlfriend his own age, but the difference in ages makes it feel like there's a power imbalance, and Abigail's left sneaking around behind his back like the wayward teen she is.Nerida has definitely gone into the highly suspicious category, even if there's no firm evidence she's responsible, telling Abigail a string of lies.Rose's hands are tied though and she's probably exceeding her authority even by authorising a wire. I kind of got Mali's point with regards Kirby, in that there's no point her asking for her job back if she doesn't actually want to do the job.Still, I'm glad Theo went to bat for her, both pleading her case to Mali and giving her a pep-talk. Some nice scenes between them again.

Exactly. They don't want to make 5Star the "flagship" transmission. That's the one on the main channel.

I'd say Townsend is definitely biased: He decided Cash was guilty pretty much the moment he saw him which means he can conveniently ignore anyone who says otherwise because, in his mind, they're either lying or wrong. The Summer Bay grapevine definitely seems to be flawed at the moment: I get that we're only a day or so on from last season's cliffhanger, but it's well into the episode before Mali and Abigail find out what's gone on.So, Abigail thinks it was Nerida as well.And it turns out that, despite the small time frame, things have definitely progressed between them since we last saw them. Again, I can see why Mali would be going for it, but I'm not really sure why Abigail is, her liking him seems to have come out of nowhere, which does leave me wondering if Mackenzie might have a bit of a point, however much she's in no position to judge given the similar list of red flags when she and Levi got together. Then again, talking of relationships that have come out of nowhere, I struggled to maintain interest in Tane and Harper's scenes, not helped by the fact they're just so boring together. Tane wants to move in with her? With Cash in a cell, that's going to leave the house rather empty. Seems it's not just Bree then, Kirby's got a confidence boost from her medical heroics. I did like her chat with Theo, but it's a bit odd that, John appearing yesterday aside, there's been a distinct lack of stalwarts so far this season, and then Alf, Leah and Marilyn all pop up for one scene!