Latest UK Episode Discussion (2006-2017 Seasons)

[Trudy Heine]

When Roo was in hospital how old did they say she was, older than 46?

[H&Alover]

Assumptions about the person in black are all we have at the moment Angelica!!!

At least Charlotte isn't behind Zac taking out  a loan whatever else she may (or not) be up to. Will she use the knowledge Zac has done it in secret to her advantage though, subtle hints to Leah perhaps?

I felt sorry for Josh, trying to study when the others were all larking about, as he explained to Evie later studying means a lot to him and doesn't come as easy as it does to them.  I would have taken myself off somewhere quiet, that would have made the point better.  Was a nice reminder of his and Maddy's time together when she alerted Evie to how stressed he got last time. As for popping pills, ah but these are 'different' aren't they? Andy will not be impressed though after he tried to keep Josh out of all that.

I know Roo has been out of the dating game for a while, Harvey would have been the last time, but she's a clever independent woman perfectly capable of making her own decisions, it's as I said before she's acting like a teenager when James is about which is probably why she let herself be talked into listening - and taking - Marilyn and Irene's totally daft advice.  Although it doesn't happen often John gave the only sound advice. He do and try his best to keep Maz and Irene from snooping which must have unnerved Roo even more. At least they did see the error of their ways, well nearly, hiding behind a tree wasn't very grown up.

Alf may well have been joking when he said those things to James, but not everyone 'gets' Alf's sense of humour, he's not exactly known for having one.

Alf/Roo may not expect Matt to contribute but he may feel he should, he's taking up a van which they could let out so are losing rent. 

Despite Roo and Alf saying  Leah, Zac, the twins and uncle Tom Cobley can stay as long as they need to, Leah and Zac are both independent characters and I think would much prefer to have their own space, the sooner they get hold of enough money they could afford to rent somewhere, even if it means the twins staying at the Stuart house a little longer.  For the size of house to big enough for them all would cost  a lot. Not sure though why Leah hasn't approached her mum and dad, they seemed to have moved into that space reserved for relatives that have been airbrushed out of peoples lives, nary a sign of them during both Leah's recent spells in hospital.

Didn't take Kyle long to get himself in bother wherever he is.

[Red Ranger 1]

Well, I got my wish: Josh apologised to Maddy, good on him.Shame that by the end of the episode he's fallen out with all his other friends.And is lying unconscious in a heap but more on that later.I was not expecting Josh's pill popping to come out that quickly.Even when Oscar found out, I wasn't expecting Evelyn and Matt to know by the end of the episode. Unless he goes back for more, seems a bit of a storm in a teacup.Evelyn's sudden anti-drug stance is sudden and makes her joining the Andy Barrett Fan Club seem even more unlikely.

Zac continues to drop IQ points all over the place, relying on something that's not certain to pay back his debts, not reading the fine print and then choosing to confide in Charlotte rather than Leah.There isn't any overt sign of her taking advantage of the situation yet but she may well start.A new principal starts to a chorus of "Hey, that's Aden's dad!": He's probably meant to be a tyrant but he gets a round of applause for pointing out the stupidity of half the students wearing the wrong uniform, something Bianca, Zac and Sophie have been handwaving for about two years.Leah ending up back at the Diner after doing something different for a bit seems like a backwards step.Chris' suggestions were a bit annoying, Roo's only slightly less so.Nice bit of brief interaction between Maddy and Roo.

We can now be certain the black clad person isn't Charlotte, given that we've seen them together.And given that their name was given in the cast list.Clue: It's not Belle back from witness protection, despite her having form pushing people down those stairs.Still, we're seeing more of that upstairs than we have done in years.Oh, and a resurrection of the old "Person walks in on other person in the bathroom at Irene's house" chestnut.

[H&Alover]

Don't think we've seen the end of it, how do we know he chucked all of them away? Oscar did the right thing by telling Matt but Evie certainly wasn't meant to overhear. Andy wasn't pleased to hear about it going by the trailer, as I said earlier, he knows where it can lead, despite Josh''s assertion the ones he is taking aren't the same, good point made by both Oscar and Evie he hasn't  a clue what is in them.  Still he's got other things to worry about now, getting shoved down the stairs by mystery man in black.  I know MIB saw Leah and Alf walk away but he couldn't be sure no-one else was in the house, there are two back doors. Note that Leah and Zac have what used to be Kirsty and Jade's old room.

Characters in soaps really should have learnt by now as soon as they think their problems are solved something comes along to clobber them over the head.  Not all Zac's fault getting his loan on the assumption he'd be made Principal, the loan lady was remiss taking his word for it. As an aside has Zac been getting his teachers wage while being acting Principal? That is one heck of a penality for withdrawing from the agreement, do many people read all the terms and conditions? Double whammy of Leah losing her job, at least we know Charlotte isn't behind either of those events.  He, forgotten his name already, seems he is going to be a toughie in the mould of Donald Fisher, but right to get all thMango River kids to start wearing Summer Bay High uniforms, it has been long enough for them to get over their differences with the SBH kids.

It wasn't until Zac mentioned it but how come Charlotte has got £20,000 to spare?  Plus how is Zac going to explain to Leah the shortfall of £30,000 from his 'godfather's will'? I could be way off here, but is Charlotte changing her plans (whatever they were) because she is getting to know Zac again and maybe thinking he's not such a bad guy?  She certainly didn't look too pleased with the MIB in the trailer. Btw what was he looking for in Zac & Leah's room as Josh is going to tell her that is where he found the intruder.

Needed that light relief of what they are going to do for the fund raiser, from bikini clad girls/women cleanig cars to topless waiters via a hunks calendar.

[c120701]

Yeah, you'd think that Irene would have installed a lock on her bathroom door by now, unless she enjoys walking in on people.

Zac & Leah are in the master bedroom aren't they? I'm sure Jade & Kirsty's room had a window on the side wall (where the wardrobes used to be). Unless they've changed stuff again.

[Red Ranger 1]

It looked to me like Zac and Leah's room was entered by different doors in different scenes yesterday, so goodness only knows where it's meant to be.I think it was pretty clear that Josh got rid of all the pills: He only had that one bag and it all went down the sink.I'm not quite sure if I can take Andy's "Just say no" message seriously, even though I accept that just because he's dealt drugs in the past it doesn't mean he'd be okay with his brother taking them.Evelyn, while morally right, was being such a sulky brat, snapping at Oscar for trying to make small talk and showing her ignorance by assuming Josh imagined the intruder, that I couldn't actually sympathise with her.I've pretty much moved on from resenting her and Josh as a couple (after all, Madeleine has and I guess they've both made up for going behind her back by now), but I still don't see them as some Golden Couple that will be together forever, as this episode seemed to imply.Zac continues to lie to Leah, in fact he's in a web of lies now and it's going to blow up in his face sooner or later.Charlotte gave him the money to give to the loan company, so he and Leah won't see a penny of it.It's a bit of a stretch that Leah decides not to sell her share anyway, although as others have pointed out they've got an indefinite place to stay so it's not really an emergency.

Charlotte King: A new blonde teacher, superficially pleasant but seems to be a bit of a sociopath underneath it, the ex-girlfriend of a main character, had a child with him that he doesn't know about and likes sleeping with pupils around the same age as her son. I can't see the similarity with Angie Russell at all, can you? (Was Dan Bennett working on the show then?I know Angie was Coral Drouyn's creation but I think he was one of the writers at the time.)Except in this case, her son seems to be at least as big a psychopath as her, given what we suspect he's involved in.In fact, there's no need to suspect, since the promo pretty much confirms he was behind the fire.I'm going to leave off too much analysis until then but the promo seemed to imply that Charlotte lied that Zac knew about him: Even so, that seems like a very thin motive.Kat clearly not paying attention either to Ash's advice or the concept of "innocent until proven guilty", dismissing Leah's suggestion that the fire and the break-ins are linked just because Billie didn't do the break-ins and ignoring the possibility that she didn't do any of it.

[c120701]

I've just checked the positioning of the step & railing by the door and Leah & Zac are definitely in the master bedroom.

I've checked against the pilot and the position of the master bedroom off the landing is definitely different though - it's swapped positions with the girls bedroom (Fletcher/Ross days)/ Dani & Brodie's room.

[atrus]

So it looks like The Department is back up to its old tricks, appointing an abrasive outsider to run the school rather than the friendly local favourite. To be honest I was expecting Charlotte to somehow land the job, so I'm glad it's an unknown (besides being Aden's dad). Judging by the little we've seen of him so far, it will be good to see a bit of teacher/pupil conflict again, as the school seems to have been run by the trendy, caring, sharing oligarchy of Zac/Leah/Bianca et al for far too long. Great for the pupils but not so great for drama. 

Somehow I suspect that being beholden to Charlotte might eventually turn out to be worse for Zac than being in hock to the loan company, especially given what we now know about their shared offspring. Even though the credits gave away the prowler's identity on Monday and I guessed he must be Charlotte's son, Tuesday's cliffhanger was more of a surprise as we learned he was Zac's son too - although it's not exactly an unforeseeable development. It was nice to see the old bedroom at Summer Bay House which I can't recall being on screen for ages, even followed as it was by an Attack of the Wobbly Sets as Josh fell downstairs. And yes, the parallels between Charlotte and Angie Russell are now impossible to ignore. Hunter is clearly no Dylan, though; and given Charlotte's penchant for schoolboys I hope we're not going to get some kind of horrific Oedipus backstory, because that would seem to be about the only way to explain away this kid's actions and have him land up happily living with Zac and Leah long-term if it indeed turns out he set fire to the house. Then again, H&A has good form on redemption, so it's safe to assume the writers have a few extenuatory tricks up their collective sleeve.

Even though I'm increasingly feeling he needs a proper storyline for a change, I can't deny Chris works very well in the role he's carved out for himself on the show. He was comedy gold as ever, repeatedly praising Nate and Andy on their abs in an attempt to secure nude calendar models/topless waiters. And speaking of nudity, I'm glad to see I wasn't the only one wondering when, oh, when Irene will get that pesky bathroom door seen to. I've lost count of the times she's shrieked 'Gawd save us!' as she's walked in on some unsuspecting soul. Well okay, I was never actually counting. But it seems to have happened an awful lot over the years.

The latest drugs-are-bad storyline isn't doing anything for me, I must say - and while I can understand Evie being upset about drug-taking (because Evie is easily upset), it's particularly galling to see Andy moralising on the subject, thus officially securing his place among the ranks of the Summer Bay pious. At least the storyline appears to have been knocked on the head fairly quickly, thankfully, although my initial thought is that there are likely to be health ramifications for Josh from that fall, having ignored Nate's sagely advice and refused to get checked out for concussion.

[Red Ranger 1]

So…on the evidence here, both members of the King family seem like pretty twisted individuals. While Charlotte’s poisonous brand of parenting may have played a part in how he’s turned out the way he has, I really hope the show doesn’t try and absolve Hunter of responsibility over the fire. Maybe he can be redeemed but he needs to face the consequences of his actions first, not have them whitewashed in the way we’re apparently meant to forget Andy’s many crimes and see him as an innocent drawn into Charlotte’s web. While Hunter dismissed the four deaths he nearly caused with “It wasn’t meant to go that far”, he seemed positively proud of the fact he framed Billie, a girl who’s done him no harm and is the main reason he’s not facing a manslaughter charge. And let’s look at that, shall we? He says he saw Billie arguing with the Patterson-MacGuires and that’s why he chose her to set up. But in order to know that was her bag, he must have been hiding nearby watching when she threw it down, meaning he just stood there and watched as his actions put four people’s lives at risk, including his father and cousin. Then again, and I rewatched the episode to double check, Ash definitely said that Kat found the bag at Billie’s home so… how did Hunter know where she lived? (Did he follow her home after witnessing the confrontation?) I thought Charlotte was meant to be meeting him at the bus stop but apparently she just sent him away, since next thing we know she’s at the barbeque. (Which was incredibly sparsely attended, by the way: Not only no Roo but no Alf, no Irene, no Hannah, no Denny, no John and Marilyn, no teens…) Hard to work out Charlotte’s motivation for lying to Hunter, did she want him all to herself? To be fair, 16 years ago Zac was hardly the straight arrow he is now, but if Hunter was going to run away and find him then how old was he when Charlotte told this lie? And…why is she in town if she wants to keep them apart? (The “I’m going to tell him” thing seems increasingly like her peddling a line.) Kat really is coming across badly in all this. “The evidence against Billie is overwhelming,”she insists. Nope, the evidence is largely circumstantial, the motive is flimsy, and given that Billie’s fingerprints can’t have been on the fire lighting gear they’re left with the theory that she went to all the trouble of wearing gloves and then stashed the evidence in her room anyway. It’s hard not to feel that, despite Billie saving her life, Kat wants her to be guilty so she can punish her for all the trouble she caused.

 

I was doing my best to ignore the Ash/Phoebe scenes and unnecessarily prominent use of the L word (which Ash has actually already used to her, back when she was still dating Kyle…). But then the closing scenes make that impossible. It’s slightly frustrating that of the four women living in that house, Phoebe is probably the least interesting to get pregnant, despite the eye-rolling “Who’s the daddy?” development. Marvel at the irony of her getting pregnant after her not wanting children led to the breakdown of her and Kyle’s relationship, although at least birth control was covered. I’m also finding it hard to accept Denny holding her hand when she was sleeping with Ash herself around the time conception occurred. I thought that Hannah’s string of one night stands was to set up the possibility of her being pregnant, but then Denny assumes it must be Andy’s anyway.

[H&Alover]

Re Zac and Leah's bedroom, way back when it was Kirsty and Jade's, but I do remember it being Sally and Flynn's.

Maybe we have misjudging Charlotte, we now know she wasn't behind the fire, Hunter did that off his own bat , so apologies Charlotte. She did say to Hunter that Zac was a good guy. Also maybe she finished with Matt because he reminded her of her own son, Matt is only two years older than him, as he did say he was 16. Regarding the 'evidence' being found in Billie's bag, I thought he said he dumped it in it when it was lying on the path outside Leah's so didn't need to follow her home. Never, ever a good idea to lie to your children about an absent parent, it always comes back to bite you on the bum. He and Charlotte had just finished High School which would have made them what 17/18, I assume Zac was off to uni and far too young , perhaps, to be good dad material, she did chose after all not to tell him. I did suspect he was Zac's son as it was Zac Hunter was more interested in.  I was hoping TPTB wouldn't go down the long lost/unkown child route but hey ho they did!  Btw Hunter??  He does seem a boy with 'problems' and she trusted him to get to the bus stop by himself, she was going to take him wasn't she? Only natural she would protect him even at the expense of Billie taking the wrap.

Remiss of Kat not to take on board Zac and Leah's thought the two things, the fire, robbery and assualt (not quite a break in because as usual no doors were locked at the house and Hunter was able to just walk in) were connected. You're right Red all the evidence against Billie is circumstancial, no prints found and she certainly isn't daft enough to leave anything (if she had done it) in her room. I can't see Kat being that petty though. Btw that is the excuse of anyone doing anything that puts other people's lives in danger, 'it wasn't supposed to get out of hand/end up like that, go that far, etc. etc. 

I was astonished at Evie not believing Josh and blaming it on his taking drugs so must have been hallucinating, she felt suitably ashamed when it was revealed VJ had not only seen him but tackled him. Wonder if Matt, Maddy or Oscar will drop her in it? Odd there was no clue as to who Hunter was in his backpack. That was an odd BBQ, held indoors and sparsely attended. I know Ricky felt the odd one out but I'm glad she went and is getting back out there, as they weren't there maybe John and Maz were looking after Casey, though we will skip over the emabarrassing question to Charlotte 'do you have children?'

I am assuming Hannah is also on the pill like Phoebe (and yes she admitted to missing the odd one or two) and Denny,  but I do hope she, Hannah, is also taking other precautions what with her bringing home assorted randoms. Now I know you can get pregnant the first time you sleep with someone but have Phoebe and Ash slept together any more since the time they were 'cleaning his caravan'?  It's only been a couple of weeks since they got together properly if you get my drift. Are pregnancy testing kits that good?  My initial thought when I read the news was it had to be Kyle's from just before they broke up. Looks like a trip to the docs or the hospital will be needed for her to be sure. Ash may have told Phoebe he loves her but is he ready to be a dad, assuming Phoebe goes through  with it knowing how she feels about children.

That bloody bathroom door, if Irene can't be bothered to fit a lock, surely one of the many guests she has had could have done it!