Latest UK Episode Discussion (2006-2017 Seasons)

[CaptainHulk]

Maybe it's because He'd prefer to hit the surf rather than the books and the house is in closer proximity to the beach than the school! 

[Red Ranger 1]

While Hannah and Denny are friendly enough now for them living together to not be too weird, the fact she hasn't even mentioned is very odd.It actually felt like she'd been completely forgotten when we saw Hannah eating alone as if she's the only person that lives there.

So...starting at the end, did King just set fire to Leah's house? They seemed to be implying that by the way she was earwigging on Oscar saying the house would be empty.Even if she thought no-one was there, if she did do that then she truly is psychotic, especially since all she needed to do to cover up her misconduct was to steal Matt's computer or delete the photos from it.(Worried about other copies?)Andy putting pressure on Matt annoyed me and I'm struggling to find his motivation.Does he think he owes Charlotte one?Does he think that people have given him more chances than he deserves so he'll do the same?Or does he just fancy her?While I appreciate she was trying to be a friend, not sure Maddy stoking Matt's resentment was the best idea and may have precipitated things.

And having failed to give Nate the lynch mob treatment, the town is now doing it to Billie.Is it significant that they turned on a messed up young woman while giving an alleged attempted rapist the benefit of the doubt?Or did they just read the script?I was going to say that at least Andy isn't a hypocrite and is giving both King and Billie a chance despite their wrongdoing...and then he didn't.Even though it's still hard to tell how sincere she is, I do feel sorry for her, although I can't blame Nate for what he said even though I wish he hadn't. (VJ being catty seemed a bit unnecessary.)Still, the fact that we haven't seen the Braxtons' reaction to any of this and have no idea of her home life feels like a massive oversight.I'd be remiss not to observe that she's the next most credible suspect for the fire, although unless there was a big time skip somewhere I'm not sure what opportunity she'd have had, I doubt she'd have done it before her run-in with VJ and she didn't seem to have an opportunity afterwards if they were going home and she was going the other way.

I found Chris hanging around Nate amusing at first and loved his babbling while kayaking ("I think I just hit a fish.Sorry, mate!Oh well, he'll have forgotten it already") but his clowning got a bit much after a while, although the scene at the house with Nate slowly losing it and Chris not noticing was funny.But it was a nice twist to find out that Chris was overcompensating because of guilt and realised he might be going over the top.

[atrus]

I'm really struggling to summon any sympathy for Billie. It's impossible to tell whether she's genuine about wanting the forgiveness of Chris and others, but I guess that's the problem when you cry wolf. As for her job at the gym, Nate was a customer and the incident took place on gym premises - so regardless of whether she's damaging the business's reputation by continuing to work there, it's entirely fair for Andy to let her go purely on the basis of the incident itself. I think the only thing that can redeem her now is a pretty sob-worthy backstory (i.e. more sob-worthy than the stuff we already know about), which I'm fully expecting to be clobbered with any day now.

Andy really needs to butt out of the whole Matt/Charlotte situation. Once again I enjoyed Maddy and Matt's friendship, even if their chat perhaps didn't have the ideal effect.

So do we think Billie set fire to Leah's house, or Charlotte, or neither? I wouldn't put it past either of them, at this stage - although if I was a betting man, I'd probably put my money on Charlotte, in an attempt to destroy Matt's computer and therefore the images he has of her. She also overheard that the house would be empty; although Billie, who has already proven her psycho credentials, probably had good reason to suspect the same, given that she saw Leah, Zac, VJ and Evie at the beach and possibly wanted revenge for VJ supposedly doing the graffiti. She doesn't necessarily even know Matt and Oscar (?), so perhaps torched the house not realising they could've been inside.

Looks like we're being treated to another 'Chris appoints a new bestie and attaches himself to them like a limpet' storyline (previous victims having included Irene, John, and for most of the time Spencer too). I still enjoy these kinds of storylines because I love Chris, but I also feel a bit sorry for him, as he's obviously perpetually lonely. Isn't it about time they gave him a love-life?

[c120701]

Why didn't Matt & Oscar just head straight for the window? 

The mystery of Leah's expanding house is resolved slightly as we saw that there are two doors in the hallway off the back of the lounge where there was once just one. Not sure how the rooms fit though.

[Slade]

Can't believe I'm saying this but I actually felt sorry for Billie.  She really doesn't deserve it though.  I wasn't sure about her apology to Chris.  I would like to think it was genuine but the cynic in me is thinking that it was more about damage limitation.  I think she's only sorry about what happened with Nate because she got caught.  Not that she tried to ruin his life.  Still I'm satisfied overall with how this storyline has progressed.  Now that everyone is against her perhaps this will help her come to realise what she did.  I don't agree with Chris that she is beyond redemption.  I think with enough time if she proves herself people might change their opinion of her and perhaps trust her.  But for now she is going to have to keep her head down.  It's going to be hard.  I was quite pleased that Andy initially didn't want to fire her immediately but was disappointed that he did even though I don't think he had any choice.  My question is though how is she going to find another job now?  Who in the bay is going to employ her?  The only place she would have a hope in hell of getting work is Angelo's and even then she's faced with the same problem she had at the gym.

I'm surprised Andy and Charlotte were naive enough to think that Matt would just delete the photos like that.  I'm very surprised he would store them locally on a computer.  It would have made more sense to upload them to a file sharing site on the Internet.  Multiple sites if possible.  Although I found Maddy slightly annoying in the scene with Matt, overall I think it was OK.  Once again the way she was looking at him made me think that they have good chemistry.  And I find their scenes better than the ones with Maddy/Oscar.  Interestingly, they seem to be focusing more on the Maddy/Matt friendship than the Maddy/Oscar relationship at the moment.

I still quite enjoyed the interaction with Andy and Charlotte.  I think there is a mutual attraction there but beyond that nothing else.  When I saw the preview last week I was certain that Billie would be the one to start the fire but surely she wouldn't have had time as I'm assuming Leah, Zac and everyone else went straight home.  So I think it has to be Charlotte.

[CaptainHulk]

I'm sorry but I would find it hard to forgive/feel sorry for Billie (don't care how hot she looks) for being so malicious and almost flushing Nate's career down the Khazi. It's people like that make it hard for Genuine victims to speak out. She's lucky she's not getting egged/spat on/stoned! (There are Communities who would actually do that).  Nobody in town with male genitalia is going to want to even be within 30ft of her after that stunt (Ash don't really, count he's her bro).

And Andy isn't the brightest bulb in the box. 

For the first time since "The Murder", I decided to 5* the next ep. I'll say this; I wasn't sorry about it. 

And Chris could HAD Denny but messed that up, the berk. Still he's actually one of the better characters in the modern product

And if Colleen were still around this she'd flip-flop like a someone tossing a Pancake on a trampoline. Team Bille one minute, Team Nate the next (she was prepared to write off Kim over the same incident with that Tara girl)

 

[H&Alover]

My money is on Charlotte being the fire starter, as bad as she is I don't see Billie being an arsonist, though her words to VJ and the rest about losing everything could come back to bite her on the bum. Graffitting her car is not any of the kids style, though having said that, didn't VJ go through a stage of doing just that when he was old VJ?  Plus I'm with Slade, atrus and Red the time scale is all wrong for Billie to have set the fire.

I did think at the time Matt agreed too easily to delete those photos, obviously had already up/down loaded them. Rather dumb of him telling Charlotte though and why doesn't she keep a wide berth from him? Whoever did do it, if anyone is badly hurt it'll be one of the usual excuses 'no-one was supposed to be there'. I'm guessing here, but I reckon an accelerant was poured through the front door and set alight. I don't know if smoke alarms are installed in most houses as they are here, but as both Matt and Oscar had their headphones on they wouldn't have heard it anyway.  It was only Matt smelling the smoke that alerted them, the fact the bedroom door handle was hot should have 'told' Oscar that maybe it was a bad idea to open the door. Matt did the right thing by blocking the bottom of  the door with the towel or whatever it was and C120701 I was wondering why they didn't try to get out of the window. The same with the mystery of the extra room, not as if there is any under the stairs space.

Andy has been where Billie is, as in the unemployable state, but as the gym isn't his business he is kind of stuck. Probably why he is trying to help out Charlotte as she did him a favour by not reporting him for drink driving. She did explain although sleeping with Matt that she's not breaking any law as Matt is 18, she is his teacher and he is in her care so would never be able to teach again.   Andy did kind of morph into Leah later quizzing her about her life before the bay, which she was very evasive about and nicely deflected his question about ex's/children.

I think Billie is genuine about being sorry, she just has to give the folks time (her actions tonight may go someway towards it) part of Chris' reluctance to believe her is he was manipulated by her and it hurt. Wasn't there someone else recently (Andy again?) who had to redeem themselves? Not wrong there CaptainHulk Colleen would have been swapping sides like nobodies business. Wait until the Charlotte/Matt business comes out as it surely will.

Chris can be like an enthusiastic puppy when he gets a new BFF and it was amusing to see Nate and Kat first humouring him then trying to find ways to gently 'lose' him. Nate initially felt guilty as Chris had got him of the hook and he's right Chris is lonely, doesn't necessarily need to be fixed up with a woman though. Did love the 'which snuggly do you want' scene, if it had gone on any longer Nate would have blown a gasket!! 

I rather liked that Zac and Leah asked Irene and Alf for advice as to how to cope with a house full of teenagers, arranging for one night a week to be kids free so they can have a date night, then having the house to themselves and finding it too quiet!!!!   

I thought Maddy gave good advice to Matt, wasn't judgemental and although I see them as very good friends I don't think they would work as a couple.

[atrus]

The fire scenes were mostly very believable (I didn't spot any CGI, although I'm sure there must have been some), but the impact was dampened significantly by the fact that I spent most of the sequence screaming at Matt and Oscar to just smash the window, dammit! It's not as if they didn't have enough furniture in there to do the job. I think if the script required them not to escape through the window as was clearly the case, then they should've just retconned their room not to have a window - as it looked seriously silly that they were just sitting there choking to death when they could have smashed it. The fact that Oscar made the same point himself in the hospital later, without explaining why they didn't smash it, didn't help matters.

Lots of nice moments in the aftermath. 'Fire brothers' was sweet; and it was nice that we got a bit of mourning for the house as well, which after all has been an integral set on the show for very many years.

So it wasn't a past sob-story that redeemed Billie, but her heroism in the present. The question is what prompted it: was it just the guilt of having set fire to the house in the first place? Or is Charlotte, conspicuous in her absence today, responsible? Somehow I suspect so.

[c120701]

I liked fire brothers too.

I agree, they took quite a while to even consider the window and then when they did try and it was locked they didn't think to smash it. They should have put bars on the window or something as you could understand an old house having those.

Leah sobbing over the house was probably one of the saddest scenes in years, comparable with Ailsa's loss of the Bayside Diner and Don's second house burning down. I was hoping for a mention of Vinnie & Dan, but maybe that's to come. I hope it's not the end of the house.

 

[Slade]

Well done Billie!  Thought she was crazy running back into a burning building but she helped to save Oscar, Matt and Zac. When Zac was still inside I thought Leah was thinking to herself "not again".  Having a third partner die on her.  Well I guess this solves the issue about who's staying where.  Don't understand why Oscar and Evie just didn't go back to the farm.  Surely Hannah can't be that selfish.  So they did actually show Oscar and Maddy embracing (but Matt got a hug too).  Actually really, enjoyed the scene with Matt and Oscar.  Probably my favourite scene of the episode.  It felt like they now truly see each other as friends and all their past differences are behind them.  Felt really bad for Leah.  All those memories gone.

I have to admit I found Nate's look of total contempt and hatred towards Billie really quite funny when she was being brought into the hospital.  And it seemed as though Nate couldn't stomach being told that Billie was the hero.  We'll she's certainly paying for what she did to Nate now.  I actually hope she gets better as I'd rather try and see her deal with fallout from her false accusation.  Although I'd imagine people will probably start to forgive her after doing that.  I quite liked the scene with her and Hannah just before she had a serious problem with her lungs that caused the doctors to put her into an induced coma.  I wonder what Nate was thinking when he looked at her as she was just lying there towards the end of that episode.  Was he guilty because he secretly wanted something bad to happen to her after what she did and now it has?