Latest UK Episode Discussion (2006-2017 Seasons)

[Red Ranger 1]

To be honest, I'm at a loss as to how Andy could have got that money:Selling drugs doesn't seem to fit, gambling is possible but risky.He could have borrowed it off someone else, but why would he if he was so keen to pay back Brax and Casey(/Indi) as soon as possible?Hopefully we'll find out one day.

So.I've never been that impressed with Sasha and Matt but, underneath the bad attitude, both of them showed a promising capacity for self-sacrifice today.Sasha was willing to lose her marks rather than betray Matt's secret, whereas Matt owned up to something he found embarrassing in order to get Sasha off the hook.I did wonder if Zac's original fairly harsh punishment was a ploy to get the truth, although if it was I don't think he expected Matt to be behind it.Making Sasha start her coursework from scratch is a decent penalty.

I think I need to revise my comment from yesterday: Phoebe's the one that you really don't want to tell a secret to.After her whole "I didn't know it was a secret" after being told it was a secret, here Kyle again asks her not to tell anyone about Ricky's miscarriage and she goes straight up to Ricky and goes "So, I heard you had a miscarriage."She just about got away with it by being well-intentioned, although she was somewhat sanctimonious previously.Kyle gets to play the sage advisor with Brax so he can sort things out with Ricky.

Oscar continues to push himself too hard and snap at those trying to help him.It was good to see Spencer and Maddy teaming up to try and help out their friend, and it emphasises that Maddy likes Oscar even if she doesn't Like him.Her attempted intervention over lunch was quite good.Spencer seemed to take a while to get worried seeing as how he was already concerned last week.And we did see a non-speaking gym assistant in this episode!

[Psychic Wombat]

Why doesn't selling drugs fit, that's what Andy has done in the past, that's how he got into this mess.

Poor Oscar is going to explode soon, I can see the hospital set getting more use next week. He needs to find another girl to vent his frustrations with, but I guess the bay is a small place.

I agree Phoebe's behaviour is terrible she has no concept of personal boundary's, I can't believe she confronted Rikki about her miscarriage they're not exactly sisterly close. I agree with Brax it's not her business.

[H&Alover]

Sure gambling is a risk, I think Andy has mentioned he has in the past, but looks like he was lucky this time.

So Zac had to do Sophie's dirty work for her by deciding what Sasha's punishment would be. Sasha could have so easily dropped Matt in it so was pretty brave of him to own up to Zac, considering how sensitive he is about people knowing how bright he really is, that it had been his poem and his idea to submit his work as Sasha's. Zac's revised punishment was fair.

There's more behind Oscar doing all this extra gym work than trying to impress Maddy or doing it to get back at the bully, part of his anxiety problem maybe. As much as they want to help Spencer and Maddy can't handle this on their own, they need to speak to Zac or Hannah. I noticed there was only Spencer and Maddy there when Oscar nearly collapsed unless one of the un-named assistants is qualified.

OK yes Phoebe doesn't get the concept of a secret as in you don't tell anyone about it. But she does have the good grace to admit she's made a mistake and apologise to the person concerned. She may have been in the wrong telling Ricky she knew about her miscarriage, but having another woman to talk to may help Ricky. Of course Brax couldn't get what Ricky was worried about he didn't have any idea of what Ricky had been through before until Kyle put him straight that she is scared it will happen again.

[Brian]

There's more behind Oscar doing all this extra gym work than trying to impress Maddy or doing it to get back at the bully, part of his anxiety problem maybe. As much as they want to help Spencer and Maddy can't handle this on their own, they need to speak to Zac or Hannah. I noticed there was only Spencer and Maddy there when Oscar nearly collapsed unless one of the un-named assistants is qualified.

OK yes Phoebe doesn't get the concept of a secret as in you don't tell anyone about it. But she does have the good grace to admit she's made a mistake and apologise to the person concerned. She may have been in the wrong telling Ricky she knew about her miscarriage, but having another woman to talk to may help Ricky. Of course Brax couldn't get what Ricky was worried about he didn't have any idea of what Ricky had been through before until Kyle put him straight that she is scared it will happen again.

It was unusual to see Phoebe giving relationship advice to Ricky. Usually it is Ricky who gives advice to all the others. Maybe Ricky will have a good influence on Phoebe and help her to see what she should not say. It seems that Phoebe has never been in a close family circle before in her life and has no elders to turn to for advice.

(Sorry - can't delete the parts of your post that I don't want to comment on).

[Red Ranger 1]

Why doesn't selling drugs fit, that's what Andy has done in the past, that's how he got into this mess.

That's kinda why it doesn't fit:Let's assume he took the money Brax gave him (I assume he already gave the money from Casey to Cody) and used it to buy $4,000 worth of drugs from someone.He then makes enough money to pay back his new supplier, pay back his old supplier, pay back Brax and Casey, and still have enough left over to get a place for himself and Josh?That's a heck of a mark-up and seems uncharacteristically competent for Andy.

Alf's episode count this week:None! Was Ray Meagher doing something else?

Maddy is a good friend to Oscar again and even takes his sniping on the chin.(So Hannah now knows about that, but perhaps fortunately for Maddy it's not the most important thing going on at the moment.)The only thing I didn't like was Maddy going to Andy: I loved how the conversation played out - suddenly Maddy isn't dating Josh so she doesn't have to be nice and put up with Andy's nonsense - but it annoyed me that she went to Andy rather than Zac, I'm not even sure Oscar does look up to him anymore.(But of course Zac wasn't in the episode.It seems we're back in the days of the MacGuires never being in the same place, made worse by Zac having moved out.)I actually agreed with Oscar at Hannah sticking up for Andy, are we really back there already?Even though she did eventually tell Andy to go, the script seemed to imply she was wrong to do so and should be helping Oscar instead of having a go at Andy, as if the two are mutually exclusive:Andy should have butted out and left her to concentrate on the important things.Of course, I'm still having a hard time viewing Hannah as a caring guardian after everything that's happened, another reason why Zac should be involved.I also had to raise an eyebrow at people saying Oscar's never been this angry before.What, not even at the start of the year when he was picking fights with Matt and punching Zac for no reason?

I'm surprised that Irene and Marilyn enjoyed the boot camp more than Roo (although Irene's boxing seemed a bit limp), I wonder if they were only pretending so she'd back down and if they actually will go back without her.Some more great lines from John (his inevitable "What have you done?" to Jett and pretending he knew Marilyn was at the surf club) but there's a serious undercurrent to Jett's insecurities which I hope gets addressed soon, it was painful to watch the way his face dropped whenever something went wrong or John misunderstood his intentions.

[H&Alover]

That's OK Brain, I haven't got the knack of using the quote key.

Actually I think Andy is the one Oscar would take notice of, Maddy certainly let Andy have it with both barrels, didn't she? I guess she went to Hannah as she is the one still living at the farm house so in more of a position to keep an eye on him, though she hadn't picked up on the fact he hadn't been eating. Not that she should blame herself for that, plenty of parents in the past have had the wool pulled over their eyes by their kids lying about food. They're the last ones they open up to.

Funny that Roo was all for the boot camp and Marilyn and Irene weren't sure and at the end of it Maz and Irene were up for another session and Roo cried off. Irene's hitting the punch bag was pathetic, but it was her first time.

Jett half revealed why he was going all out to please John and Marilyn very cleverly put the rest together, he's scared Shandi will replace him in John's affections. John going about it would be nice if Shandi may one day be more part of their family. It is time John stopped thinking Jett had done something wrong every time he does something nice for him.

So Brax was right it's not over, Cody is back next week.

[haaf14]

The Andy and Hannah relationship does remind of Brax and Charlie. There is a lot similarities between both of them and I feel that it's only a matter time before they hook up again. I get the feeling a previous storyline just being recycled.

[Slade]

I don't what your take on the storyline was but I got the impression it wasn't fully given the attention as it could have been. I may just be overly critical but it is a sensitive subject to get right.

It's not so much that the storyline wasn't done properly but going back to the point you made about H & A and kidnappings in general, the rapes have be done to death too so when it does happen to me it just doesn't feel that important. It's only now I'm writing this post for example that I've just remembered that Bianca got raped not too long ago.

My draw dropped when Sophie wanted to cover up the whole business of Sasha using Matt's poem. She's obviously devoted to her job. But does she want the school to do well in terms of reputation or does she actually want to do what's right and best for the pupils? I'm glad Zak changed his mind about Sasha's punishment when he found out the truth from Matt. Considering that she was repeating a year it would have been harsh on her to fail like that even though it was partly her fault.

This fickleness with Nate re Sophie is starting to get frustrating. I don't believe in his heart of hearts he wants to be with her but he's now in a situation where it's all moving too quickly but still possibly wants to take things very slowly to see what happens and keep his options open. It doesn't help that Sophie's continued the manipulating by getting Leah to all but promise to give Zak his old room back to cut off Nate's easiest get out of jail card.

From what I've seen of the new Shandi, I don't particularly like her. Although I could understand her frustration/jealousy with John taking on Jett she acted childishly.

Kyle is an idiot. Brax tells him something very personal, that he hasn't told Heath or Casey, tells him not to tell anyone and what does Kyle do? Immediately triggers off Ricky's alarm bells by treating her differently and gives the game away to Ms Motormouth. Did he actually think Phoebe was going to keep quiet? I'm finding her pretty unbearable at the moment and honestly don't know how Brax hasn't managed to strangle her yet. I've said this before but can you imagine living or working with her? Absolute nightmare.

Loved Oscar telling Maddie how it was with regards to her sleeping with him and in part her motivation for helping him i.e. she's an attention whore. I was actually quite annoyed when he apologised to her afterwards because what he said IMO was true. And he was just telling it how it was. Even I can't deny that as a person, Maddie definitely likes him but in addition to the attention thing, I think another reason why she's going out of her way to help him is guilt, probably even more so. She's guilty for leading him on and using him so she feels partly responsible for the state he's in at the moment. She's obviously wrong and Oscar told her that later on in the episode but this again all goes back to her mindset in that it has to be about her. She was the one who used him and played with his emotions so she has to be the one to save him for her own piece of mind. I've always thought that she should back off and give him some space for a bit and she's still not really trying to do that but fair play that she recognised she wasn't getting anywhere and had the sense to involve Andy. In spite of what happened with the drug dealing stuff I believe he is equipped to deal with Oscar so can't fault her for that. I don't know why but I actually think that scene with Maddie and Andy worked really well. Dunno, maybe because they're both effectively outcasts with regards to the people who they've interacted most with as of late so it was kind of a subconscious mutual understanding.

Can't believe I'm saying this but...I think I'm beginning to like Andy. It's funny because although he was OK on Friday, I don't normally find him to be particularly likeable or charming. I think a massive plus is that there's no mistake about the type of person he is. He is consciously being portrayed as selfish, reckless and he's a risk taker. And although he's been extremely fortunate, I think for the most part although at times they could have done it a lot better, every time he's stepped out of line there have been consequences. I think for some reason as well I also like the fact that everyone hates him and he doesn't really seem to give a damn.

Similarly I don't find Hannah likeable either (even when she is being nice) but conversely just cannot warm to the character. So much so that when she was within her rights to have a go at Andy with regards to taking the money Brax lent him, running off and putting them all in danger it annoyed me. Who wants to place a bet for how long it will take her to jump back into to bed with him this time round?

[haaf14]

I don't what your take on the storyline was but I got the impression it wasn't fully given the attention as it could have been. I may just be overly critical but it is a sensitive subject to get right.

It's not so much that the storyline wasn't done properly but going back to the point you made about H & A and kidnappings in general, the rapes have be done to death too so when it does happen to me it just doesn't feel that important. It's only now I'm writing this post for example that I've just remembered that Bianca got raped not too long ago.

I agree, when we first had kidnapping about 3 years ago, there was an element of shock and realism but watching last week's kidnapping it was like here comes another one. It has just become the norm. When was the last time we had a full scale brawl? We are due one.

[Psychic Wombat]

Yes, I agree Hannah and Andy are like Brax and Charley - good girl falls for bad boy, very Mills and Boon. I don't mind them, just don't find them that compelling compared to other characters.

To say this is the actress that plays Phoebe's first acting role I think she's doing really well. Better....than Brax.... de livers...his lines :-) I think Brax will hang her off the quay by her ankles soon though lol. (and me).

H&A has reoccurring themes, teen pregnancy - all teens must get pregnant first time, cancer (the bay is a hot spot) and kidnap which the Braxtons specialise in. Tropical cyclones sometimes appear to bring the community together, boating mishaps and car crashes are popular too. IMO we're long overdue due a surf contest.