Latest UK Episode Discussion (2006-2017 Seasons)

[Brian]

Red was in the papers this weekend. He is being hunted in Somerset and maybe killed if found. He is being protected by security guards and is safe for the moment if he stays where he is.

[Red Ranger 1]

I have...no idea what you just said.I'll Google it later.Both Casey and Heath were qualified at the gym, Casey before Heath.I always assumed they were the only ones but now it sounds like Spencer and Andy are as well and Maddy's reference to getting her certificate when she's got the money suggests it's pretty easy.Mind you, Heath seemed to get his by ticking a couple of boxes on the internet so maybe it's not that hard.(Incidentally, Heath was giving instructions to gym users in his first shift, so Casey keeping Maddy away from clients seems a bit excessive.)

Anyway, today's episode and Cheating Couples One and Two getting a truckload of karma.That's for Maddy, Chris and Spencer.It's kind of sad in a way that the only enjoyment I'm really getting from this storyline is seeing a lot of characters I don't like suffer and a lot of pathetic women learn the consequences of choosing the dodgy boyfriends over the nice guys:Presumably we were meant to be cringing at Evelyn's whimpering but I just wanted them to hurt her a bit more.So yeah, cheering for the bad guys here, who have a surprising bit of nous about them.Even the apparent flaw of them letting Denny wander around freely and send a message to Brax, when I really wanted them to hurt her too, turned out to be a plan.Of course, they fail a bit when instead of taking Josh and Evelyn some place no-one knows about they take them to...Evelyn's house, which must be the first place most people would look for them.Fortunately, the Braxton/Barretts aren't smart enough to think of it. I'm in danger of going on too much about this storyline but in all seriousness, I think it's a massive shame and a huge disappointment that the Braxtons are right back where they were when they first came in, when the show's done a good job of moving them away from the drug stuff.Maybe it's an attempt to show how far they've come, with them being the mostly innocent bystanders trying to put out the fires rather than the instigators, but basically it just means Andy's in the old Brax/Heath role and we're expected to sympathise with him despite having no real reason to.(Yep, he has disappeared with Brax's money instead of paying his debt.What a guy.)

Meanwhile, Shandi's back.It's a disappointment as ever that she's been recast.Part of me thinks she seems older than the first one (she could pass for Roo's sister), another part thinks she's nothing like her personality-wise, but then she's only been in an episode and a bit before now so maybe that's not enough to judge.Marilyn should probably remember that her stepdaughters always hate her when they first meet her.I found Shandi's reaction a bit OTT given that John didn't even know about her:The script tries to justify it by indicating John wouldn't have been there for her anyway but it didn't really work.

[haaf14]

Red was in the papers this weekend. He is being hunted in Somerset and maybe killed if found. He is being protected by security guards and is safe for the moment if he stays where he is.

Brian have I missed something?

Thanks Red and c120701, yeah I thought he'd qualified but was 100% sure.

In today's episode I see another kidnapping has occurred. I probably make that what the 58th involving a Braxton or has some sort of connection to a Braxton. You do wonder sometimes why they keep on going back to their beloved kidnap storyline's.

I see that good old senior Barrett still hasn't paid the dealers off yet, the question now is whether he will return to pay them off. Red I have no sympathy for Andy, he deserves everything coming yo him. All he cares about is number one. As far as we know he still has the money.

As for Evelyn, she does have a gob on her and it ain't wise talking back to your captors who at any time could snap.

[Brian]

Red, in the newspapers, is a stag, that frequents an estate where hunting is banned, unless the landowner agrees. The local staghunt is trying to drive Red onto land where he can be legally killed. A bit different from the Braxtons/Barretts and no female deer pining for him.

I wouldn't call Josh a dodgy boyfriend. He's always kept his head down and tried to do the right thing, apart from going behind Maddy's back, which she had got herself to blame for. Who are the good guys these girls ought to go for?

[Psychic Wombat]

Meanwhile VJ is still missing, doesn't anyone care!

[H&Alover]

Casey did leave Maddy alone and even if was for a short time, anything could have happened. I don't remember Spencer qualifying and Andy definitely hasn't.

Seems both the Braxtons and Andy underestimated the dealers, they knew who everyone was. Clever ploy of them getting Casey and Brax to the gym so they could get to the farm house. Got to give it to Evie, she's got some pluck but I guess after her years at the retreat she's known more scarier people.

Leah and Zac would make a good couple, shame he laughed at her suggestion Sophie had set them up but after Sophie saying 'he'll turn up at places you are and he hasn't got s good explanation' and he does just that at the gym and looked disappointed when she said she had plans for that evening.

John is going to have act quick if he wants to tell Jett before he accidentally meets Shandi. So she's miffed he has now fostered Jett when he didn't want to know her, but as he himself said he was a different man back then and didn't know about her anyway. He was honest enough to say he wouldn't have been good dad material 20 odd years ago. Shandi obviously didn't meet Marilyn last time she was in the bay otherwise she would have known who was who.

[Red Ranger 1]

I wouldn't call Josh a dodgy boyfriend. He's always kept his head down and tried to do the right thing, apart from going behind Maddy's back, which she had got herself to blame for. Who are the good guys these girls ought to go for?

Zac, Chris and Spencer, who the girls traded in for Andy, Casey and Josh. This does not seem like an upgrade.Even Chris has the advantage over Casey that no-one has ever been kidnapped for dating him.As for Josh, he might not be much of an instigator but he's supported and covered for Andy way more than he should have done, including lying for him when Maddy reported him for drugging her.Which is Exhibit A for the defence if you're trying to make out that it was Maddy's fault he cheated on her:Despite this perception of her as a rubbish girlfriend who deserved to lose him, he treated her a lot worse than she treated him, continually directing streams of bile at her to impress Andy, and the fact he went full circle and trotted out Andy's old comments to justify cheating on her is a big mark against him.

To continue going on about this storyline a bit, it feels like the writers decided which characters they wanted involved and came up with weak plot devices to link them:Casey is made Josh's brother out of nowhere to get the Braxtons involved, Hannah randomly starts sleeping with the biggest lowlife in town, Evelyn abruptly goes from hardly knowing Josh to spending every waking moment with him, and Casey and Denny decide they're madly in love because they've spoken a couple of times.(The fact that a lot of those characters weren't actually single hasn't really helped get the audience on their side.)So, bit disappointing that Josh and Evelyn got released so quickly without much torture.I'm not really a fan of Brax acting the big hero in these storylines so I was disappointed at how quickly Cody backed down and cheering at his parting shot.I couldn't even enjoy the ostracising of Andy because the two people ranting at him, Hannah and Evelyn, are so unlikable that they just felt like self-righteous hypocrites.Only Josh's rejection of him, and the realisation that you can't put someone in danger under the guise of helping them and expect them to be grateful, really worked, and even then Josh has said he wants nothing to do with Andy loads of times and it always ends with Andy worming his way back in, usually with idiots obsessed with the idea of family helping him out.(I've never really forgiven Heath for pretty much threatening Josh into going to see Andy.)Casey singling Heath out as the one that makes things worse by "helping" is giving himself and Brax a bit more credit, although it makes a change from Kyle being his personal butt monkey.Hannah got let off way too lightly and the scene of Saint Evelyn forgiving her was presumably meant to convince us it's okay to like them, but instead felt forced and unsatisfactory and pretty much had the opposite effect.I wonder if we'll ever see Zac and Oscar's reaction to the consequences of Hannah's (and Evelyn's) poor relationship choices?Wonder where Andy got the extra money from...It's a bit pointless acknowledging that the police exist if you're just going to forget about them halfway through.What exactly did Hannah tell them?If she just said Josh and Evelyn were missing, they could have just said they'd found them.But if she said Andy really was dealing drugs and they think his suppliers have taken them, that would usually need a bit more than a "Whoops, I made a mistake."The only interesting thing was Brax, for once, being in favour of it.

Sadly, I'm not really liking the other storyline either.Shandi is coming across as too hard, which is disappointing since I quite liked her in her previous appearance.And it feels like John's history is being rewritten to suit the plot, with everyone acting like he abandoned his daughter when he did no such thing and assuming he was a bad person back then just because people didn't like him when he first appeared.(This was 20 years before that when he was living in a hippie commune.)Still, Jett's increasing maturity is a good point.

EDIT: I completely forgot about the Nate/Sophie storyline.Surprised they moved in so soon, or indeed at all given that Nate doesn't seem that keen.I was wondering if Zac would get that room but Nate might need it again soon, while Sophie seems to have gone from manipulative to deluded.

[haaf14]

Meanwhile VJ is still missing, doesn't anyone care!

He's left school to become a magician, that's what you call a disappearing act.

I wonder if we'll ever see Zac and Oscar's reaction to the consequences of Hannah's (and Evelyn's) poor relationship choices?Wonder where Andy got the extra money from...It's a bit pointless acknowledging that the police exist if you're just going to forget about them halfway through.What exactly did Hannah tell them?

[Psychic Wombat]

I don't think the kidnap storyline is over, there's more to come out this week I reckon.... I'm beginning to think they've got VJ as well

[Slade]

In today's episode I see another kidnapping has occurred. I probably make that what the 58th involving a Braxton or has some sort of connection to a Braxton. You do wonder sometimes why they keep on going back to their beloved kidnap storyline's.

Wonder if we've had as many kidnappings as we've had rapes, although we haven't had one of those in a while. Well not since Rosie so they might as well throw another one into some storyline.

I don't think the kidnap storyline is over, there's more to come out this week I reckon.... I'm beginning to think they've got VJ as well

I don't think that's it either. I agreed with what Brax said in that it was too easy.

I've found the last couple of episodes with the drug dealing storyline really funny actually. From the dead possum to Cody and crew, pretending to be prospective customers, jumping Casey and threatening to crush his hand with the weights machine. And then we had Josh and Evelyn trying to escape, going one way and there's Cody, going the other way there's henchman #1, the third way there's henchman #2. Then after she and Josh are tied up, Evelyn mouths off to Cody appearing to show she's got more front than Phoebe. Suppose there's a fine line between being incredibly brave and incredibly stupid. Then we have Brax to the rescue once more. Regardless those scenes seemed like something out of a movie.

I couldn't understand why Andy took off like that. He obviously cared about Josh but just left him at the mercy of the drug dealers. So when he revealed to Brax he needed to make more money (either gambling or more drug dealing I'm guessing) I could understand his reasoning, even though I don't agree with it. I think he did want money to look after Josh but it was selfish because he put his own brother at risk so he could pay off all his debts and have a bit of cash to tie himself over.

I see Nate is having doubts about living with Sophie already (did he ever really want to in the first place?) and it's only been a day since they moved in together, lying just to get away from her. And Leah's there sticking her oar in again. Has she learned nothing from what Sophie did last time? It wouldn't surprise me if Nate decides to bail on Sophie although it will be interesting to see how she reacts and how she plays it if he does.