Jimbo

Not Irene and Barry, you would not be so cruel, would you? No, not them please, especially Irene, bump off Hayley she was always a pain the butt Great fic I enoyed it, cant wait too who gets the heave ho

Irene looked really hot to trot last week, she looked FAB U LOUS,. Lynne was excellent as usual. I was smitten, and so was Lou. I don't trust him, villains come in all shapes and sizes. This one is Lou shaped. Lynne /Irene however remains a bright shining star.

I am not a fan of the actor or the character. They have done nothing to make the character interesting yet, and the actor has not been very inspiring. He is pretty wooden IMO.

Celeste has been fanatstic. I have been gobsmacked by some of the judgemental reactions to Melody, or maybe I should not be as after all a lot of folk are pretty shallow and are not bothered about why someone behaves like they do or about their suffering etc... they just sit in judgement and make judgements on a superficial level. Melody has been a different sort of character, who has broken the mould. Its not been the usual formulaic bad kid comes good story for her. Its been the one where its the good kid who is totally lost, and thefore does the bad kid bit before coming back to the good kid bit. I dont think they have done that before. Celeste has been amazing showing all sorts of levels of confusion as she adjusts to having to deal with the real world without her horrendously controlling mother. Its been powerful stuff and I figure from the comments that a lot of folk have not understood it, which is sad as there are kids like Mel all over the place.

Neither of these two is perfect and that is what makes it work IMO. Several of the other relationships on the show are a bit idealised and expectations are a bit too perfect.

What annoyed me vey much was how under used they were. I understand tat the majority of HAA viewers are teenagers and may not be interested in a middle aged couple or their relationship; in fact they may think any one over 35 should not be on the radar. However, HAA is a family show and there are a lot of middle aged and older viewers and and I do know also that a lot of viewers, including some younger ones, loved Barry and Irene, so it annoyed me that the writers went with the accepted view that middle aged couples are not worth the bother. They had two really good actors who clicked, they had great chemistry which is half the battle with these things; they were often funny as well as romantic and the little things which they injected into the situation made it all very real and solid. What a waste. They could have done so much more. A lot of people were sad when they split up and when Barry left, but how much more heartbroken would they have been if they had made far more use of them as a couple of longer standing with a more complex history. Barry's leaving would have been tremendous in those circumstances and the implications for Irene would have been enormous. There was a lot left unsaid between them as far as I am concerned, and they really need to bring him back. Irene is lost without him, she needs him to anchor her and he needs her for so many reasons.