Latest UK Episode Discussion (2006-2017 Seasons)

[H&Alover]

Seeing as it would have been a double celebration for Oscar and Evelyn I think we would have heard about an 18th for them so it's likely still to come.  Though after what has just happened will they still be allowed one, especially as it was Evie's 'boyfriend' who caused all the trouble?

Wasn't Sash under 18 when she had hers done and I don't think she had it done at a regular tat parlour anymore than Stuart did so it's odds on Twank would know someone who can do it no questions asked.

There was more than one phone about so why didn't someone other than Oscar call the police, answer, end of drama and a rather dull episode. Of course Leah and Zac had no idea of all this going on and blissfully assured Alf all was OK, don't any of them watch soaps with teens in?  Chris initially wanted to be one of the kids, I'm guessing he must be in his mid 20's?  I was surprised at Matt though, one moment he's acting all mature the next he's reverted to skate board guy!

I see both Marilyn's and John's arguments, she is younger than John and after nearly losing all her recent memories she'd like to create more.  John on the other hand has travelled more than Maz and doesn't feel the need to do it again even if it is with the one he loves. There are indeed trips to the Antarctic from Australia, not many places in the world now that you can't visit. Marilyn has again decided to put her wishes aside, but how long will she be able to keep up the pretence she's fine about it?  

We should have learnt by now they always keep you dangling until the last few moments to have a big reveal like they did with James, been OK if we'd only had the weekend to wait for more explanations.  More of an instinctive thing for James to do by trying to catch the spray can before it hit the fire than brave, but that's just my opinion. That action briefly changed Alf's opinion of him, sadly it'll be just that briefly!  Mrs Edmunds introduced herself as his wife (not ex) so even if they are living apart, she's still down as his next of kin.  I don't the legality of it but once a divorce went through would his parents  (if here are any) revert to being his next of kin if his child isn't old enough? It does bring me back to the wedding ceremony at which point would James have become a bigamist allowing for the fact nothing was signed?

Have a Merry Christmas And A Happy New Year everyone and see you on the other side!!!

[atrus]

Well I finally got here to comment on the last few episodes, and was thinking I'd have four more to discuss than I did, but wow - there's the break already. Here's hoping we claw back some time on the other side of Christmas with a nice early start on January 4th - but I'm not holding my breath.  

So the swimwear modelling shoot debacle was as bad as I feared, as my interest in the Ricky/Nate/Kat triangle continues to wane. But to make matters worse, another spin of the relationships carousel means that suddenly Kyle is contemplating feelings for Ricky? Oh, for heaven's sake. I don't actually have a fundamental problem with this; they aren't actually related and they do think Brax is dead. And I suppose it even sort of makes a degree of thematic sense, given Phoebe's miscarriage, that he might start to see Ricky and Baby Casey as a substitute - and that may be the route they go down (although given the focus on the bikini shots, it's not really looking like it). But in any case, so soon?

Ricky's comment about the Braxtons not being good at cooking made me laugh. It's often occurred to me how surprising it was that their house was always immaculate - since I can't imagine any of them wandering around with rubber gloves or feather dusters.

Interested to learn more about the guy who's stalking Charlotte, and whoever he's talking to on the phone. Zac was silly getting as close to Charlotte as he did, given recent circumstnaces. He could've been sympathetic without all the hand-holding and hugging. The Hunter situation is confusing me. I think I'm right in saying we've had no real on-screen reconciliation between him and Leah, yet he suddenly feels comfortable enough to ask to move in?

While I never doubted that Alf was right about James being up to no good, it's one of those situations where I don't think Alf himself had seen enough evidence of that until Morag came through with the intel, even if we, the viewers, had more reason to be suspicious. And even then, the intel proved inconclusive at worst. I didn't really take James's previous remarks to Alf as a threat - he was just expressing that he and Roo would be sad not to have Alf in their lives; and the way Alf was reacting (at the time on fairly threadbare evidence), it seemed like he was the one threatening not to be.

On the other hand, I fully understand why Maddy was upset at not being invited to the shotgun wedding - and why Alf and Irene were less than supportive. It doesn't seem like the sort of thing Roo would do, just snubbing her family like that, so clearly her judgement has been clouded. But then we got James playing hero at the party, and things looked even more ambiguous. Until - James has a wife! I can't for the life of me begin to contemplate why he would engage in that level of deception, and his feelings for Roo seem genuine enough. So very intrigued to learn all the hows, whys and wherefores.

I spent most of Friday's episode wondering why Oscar (or someone else) wasn't following through on the threat to call the police. It was obvious that Alf would bring an even fierier apocalypse flamin' down on them if they didn't take action, since there was no way on earth they were going to get all that mess cleared up by the time the adults came home.

I felt bad for Oscar at the party. Yes, he was only ever going to provoke laughs trying to do the hard-man routine, but Tank (for whom I've now sadly run out of PG-rated alternative names) had made it clear his intention to 'have' both his sister and his girlfriend as if they were possessions - and faced with that, what's a man to do but roll up his sleeves? Well, okay, a man could react in many other ways - but Oscar's a young man, and one with self-esteem issues at that. So all things considered, I can forgive him for his reaction and actually rather admired it.

And then that cringy moment where Josh pointed out how much Maddy liked gold jewellery. I suppose we're expected to think that Matt got Maddy the more thoughtful present and that therefore he deserves her undying love - but I'm sorry, we haven't heard about Maddy's violin-playing in ages. Last I knew she seemed fairly indifferent to it, whereas it's a fairly common assumption that girls do like receiving jewellery as gifts. And Maddy seemed to be acting as if Oscar's concerns about Tank were unfounded for much of the time, when anybody could see that they weren't. All in all, there was a clear sense that the writers were attempting to put an artificial schism between Maddy and Oscar, which I found myself thinking was a real shame - even though, for me at least, the jury's still out on whether she and Matt could make a better couple.

And all that remains is for me to wish everyone a very merry Christmas. Look forward to chewing the Summer Bay fat again come Jan.

 

[TessyBear]

On 12/3/2015 at 8:30 PM, Dan F said:

It was the 2nd part of the double episode in Oz on Thursday 8th October - UK sees them separately.

Yeah but that's not gonna make any sense to us at that time is it?? I still don't understand why Oz gets to see them together but for us these two eps. are well separated. Anyway moving on...

Soooo... Tomorrow's the day people!!! Y'all excited?!! I struggled that first week during the break. I was doing some seasonal work for that first week so I reaaaalllly wanted to come home and chill out with H&A. I dunno then I just got over it. I discovered Once Upon A Time during the break which I've been really enjoying so that's helped I think!

Anyway quick analysis of the "finale" coming up (don't know how much I can still remember at this stage in the game):

Evie was remarkably dumb in this ep. I think. I mean Tanks line to her about "I didn't know they were all coming". ARGH WAKE UP EVELYN!!!! I mean how can that even be remotely true?? Pretty dang big coincidence right? Plus when you're driving you have to be aware of who's on the road with you right? He'd know what his friend's cars would look like. Anyway GRRRRRRRRR Tank. Someone had a cool nickname for ole Tank although it's probably quite rude.

No tact Chris was back again. Pfft. That was just rude what he said to James. Seriously I like Hannah (glad she pulled him up on the issue I mentioned being in the previous episode waaaaaaaaaaay back when) but I LOATHE absolutely LOATHE Chris sooooooooooooooooo much. OK so he helped out in the end. That was actually a good surprise and an effective way to get rid of people too! Doesn't mean I like the man or anything. Far from it. I just always give credit where credit's due is all.

I enjoyed the adults dinner party! The story about Zac choosing the wine was cute I thought!  Then they were all lingering so much and I was just like "It's time to go home now. Let's go home!!" That being said it was quite an interesting discussion they had together in the Diner I suppose. Bit of Alf and Zac banter. Always fun!

Soooooo onto the biiiiiiig issue. Was pretty devastating seeing Alf and everyone's lovely lovely house being slowly destroyed.  Yeah the thing with Oscar threatening and then not calling the police was pretty stupid and exasperating. The last time he said it possibly I was just like "OK SO CALL THE POLICE OSCAR!!!!!!!!!"

But then oh boy when Alf and all the adults got back it was soooooooooooooo great!!!!!! I just love those guys so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Um so yeah was good to see James show up but then that dumb, arrogant disrespectful kid threw the can to the fire and he oh so heroically jumped in front of it and thus had to be rushed to casualty (or whatever the Aussie equivalent is) for his trouble.

Then shock horror along comes lovely Miss Roo the loving fiancé only to find James' wife at his bedside.  DUH DUH DUUUUUUUUH!!!!!!!!!!

We will all jointly find out tomorrow what the ensuing result of this shall be. Oh James. I seriously liked him.

Soooooooo psyched about later on!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Catch y'all later my friends.  

[Red Ranger 1]

Aaand we're back! With 10 weeks of 2015 to go.Why did we have a 5 week break when Neighbours only had 2?Oh yes, because Channel 5 hates us.

So, we finally get some answers about James.His parents know he has a family and don't know about Roo, and he has a wife and at least two daughters.No real explanation for his attempted bigamy yet though.Even if he only proposed because Maddy got the wrong end of the stick (unconfirmed), why rush Roo into a marriage that wouldn't have been legal? Was he hoping that she'd be so used to being married to him that she wouldn't mind?Now he's given her a "My wife doesn't understand me" speech.But will she listen?I must admit I was a bit annoyed at Hannah's behaviour towards him, it seemed unprofessional.I get that she was trying to stick up for Roo but I'd have thought that passing on a message from a patient was part of her job.

After a few weeks (minus the break) when Evelyn insisting on thinking the best of Tank was just about understandable, she's gone sliding off the end of the scales into being deluded now and is at her bratty worst here.It's the only way to explain her convincing herself that Tank wasn't part of the party being trashed.After being the one most willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, Maddy finally washes her hand of her when it becomes clear she won't face facts and so does nearly everyone else.Matt has less than half a dozen lines and still manages to annoy me with his dismissive attitude towards Maddy's birthday being ruined.Leah and Zac came across as woefully naive here, did they actually expect Evelyn or Tank to go "Oh, okay" on being told to stay away from each other?Their final hardline approach did at least have a slim chance of working but Evelyn was quick to ignore it.I'm torn between disliking Tank and being intrigued by the root cause of his behaviour.It does seem like there's more to it than him just being "bad".

[atrus]

Happy New Year, everyone! Good to be back.

I don't honestly know what to make of the James situation. His mea culpa to Roo seemed heartfelt but even if so, it surely just shows him up to be totally delusional as opposed to callously manipulative - and therefore doesn't change the fact that surely there's no way on earth she can get over this and still trust him? If I were Roo there's no way I could have concealed my identity from the wife, but I guess they're just hoping to drag out the story a little further. Part of me's hoping that Alf gets wind of what's happened before Roo gets a chance to think about it for too long, so that he can barge on in there and blow James's secret to his wife, and the decision is thus taken out of Roo's hands. At the moment it feels like she could still get sucked back in, which I can only think would be disastrous for her.

I'm not sure who's frustrating me more at Summer Bay House - bratty Evie, who's definitely now exhibiting very strong and worrying symptoms of brainwashing, or Zac and Leah who seem to be doing absolutely everything they can to fuel her attitude by treating her like she's 12. In practical terms they're fighting a losing battle because you can't really ban a 17-year-old from seeing her boyfriend - all that's going to happen if they continue in this vein is she'll end up packing her bags and probably moving in with Tank, in which case they really will have lost her. I'd suggest setting up a meeting with them both and laying down their concerns, then giving Evie and Tank the opportunity to propose ways of addressing them. Hey, it might still fail miserably -  but at least they'd be treating her like an adult, and thus potentially regaining some of her respect. 

So does Tank have genuine feelings for Evie? While we've had a degree of evidence to the contrary - him drafting in a load of dropkicks to trash her house, for example, and implying to Oscar that he's going to try it on with Maddy - I also felt when he was talking to Zac on the beach as if he was genuinely upset about the prospect of losing Evie. Which is not to say he's good for her - clearly he isn't - but I wonder if some of the less pleasant things he says are more designed to keep people at arm's length from him, rather than because he's fundamentally a baddun and just using Evie. Do we think his tattoo is real, or just a transfer? I'm intrigued to know more about Tank's relationship with seldom-seen Greg, as I think there's probably more grey area here than the latter's acccounts of their relationship would suggest. In any case, Tank's certainly come nowhere near as close to the redemption event horizon as say, Hunter has, so I'd still say there's still a way-better-than-evens chance of him becoming an upstanding pillar of the community before all's said and done.

[H&Alover]

Hi everybody, Happy New Year to you all.

So James' parents (were they mentioned?) turn out to be his wife and children, not child, as in the daughter Denny saw, but children as in the plural, quell surprise!    Roo was desperately trying to kid herself they could be separated, but that still wouldn't excuse James trying to rush her into marrying him.  His cool attitude towards Megan indicated he didn't feel much for her, didn't even fake it in front of Hannah for appearances sake. Roo was rather taken by surprise (or rather shock) when Megan introduced herself so she could be forgiven for not saying who she is (as in girlfriend). I suppose she could have said she is a friend/work colleague, though isn't Megan at some point going to want answers as to how James got his injuries? OK so now Roo has to keep fielding questions about James from Maddy and Alf, lucky she has Hannah (and Irene) to offload on, who by the way he shouldn't have been that surprised by Hannah's refusal to pass on a message to Roo, other than that she was perfectly professional. So we get the 'things haven't been good between us for years' line and hadn't done anything about it because he didn't want to lose his children. But now he has meet Roo, his one true love, yeah right.  He said he didn't tell, her because he didn't want to lose her, another well used line. If he  really, really means it he has to give Roo some space, leave Megan, make it official, hard as it may be for her and the kids, then get back with Roo, if she'll have him. Harvey lied to her about having  been married and having a daughter so once bitten twice shy as the saying goes. At least he was divorced when he married Roo. Once Alf finds out and he will, all I can say is it's just as well James is already in hospital because he soon would be! 

Back to The party at Summer Bay house and the aftermath of that disastrous party.  I like how Leah and Zac made them all clear up, innocent of any wrong doing or not and put them on caravan cleaning duty the next day. The only excuse I can make for Evie (and it is a pretty poor one) is she is a 17 year old girl and in the first flush of a new romance, add the fact it is a forbidden one which makes it all the more exciting. Think she'd know all about being brainwashed having been at the cult/commune but Twank has his own methods. Twank  obviously has had previous experience in seducing young girls as confirmed by his dad so knows exactly how to play Evelyn, different methods for different girls. The old throwing stones at the window has come back into play.  I thought Leah and Zac had decided not to go down the banning Evelyn from seeing/contacting Twank route, but she had lied to them about not seeing him anymore.  Fair enough he did just turn up, but the lie about the others 'just' happening to see it on FB or whatever and all turning up at the same time.    The thing with sitting Evie and Twank down and talking it through would be if he agreed to it in the first place and could they trust him to keep his word about backing off until she has done her exams. It can't be long before she is 18 and can do what she likes. Despite Maddy and Oscar disowning her I feel when (rather than if) she does need them they will be there for her.

I'm of the same mind as you atrus, Twank may be be an out and out wrong 'un , but then like Matt, but on a bigger sale, it could be a front  and a persona he has got locked into. He did seem to threaten Zac with taking Evie away from him though, so maybe not.   Greg has admitted he wasn't the best father after his wife died, but then we have had other story lines where widowed dads have had trouble bringing up their kids alone - Alf and Roo anyone?

[DialMforMorag]

All these mentions of Morag in current episodes are great, can't wait for her long awaited return.

I think Georgie Parker is portraying a fantastic job as lovestruck Roo.  

I also thought Hannah did a professional job in handling the James/Roo situation (suprisingly). Was the actress who plays Megan in H&A before, face is familiar?

Be awesome if Greg and Irene did become a couple, could see Tank getting in the way of them. Some meaty material for Lynne McGranger, too.

Surprised Hannah didn't hear Evelyn and Tank talking in their room when she left... And finally, Evelyn... What's happened to her?! A complete change in persona.

[Red Ranger 1]

A very interestingly structured episode, with the parallels between Roo and Evelyn increasingly obvious.Both are in a relationship that's not particularly healthy, and both are treating their family and friends like the enemy when they try and tell them this.Roo at least hasn't resorted to assuming everyone's lying when they tell her bad things about her other half.I was half expecting James to be gone when she came back to the hospital, but Alf has as much chance as Zac of being able to order someone to stay away from his family.I almost believed Roo's offer at the end could work, but her turning on Alf and Irene does suggest she's in denial.

Evelyn, meanwhile, is in a whole continent of denial.Hannah did her best not to alienate her but still couldn't get through.It was nice continuity for Oscar to point out how easily she's been to brainwash in the past but even that didn't sink in.Tank...he's manipulative and bordering on psychotic but could he love Evie in his own twisted way?He seemed genuinely rattled with Oscar and I do feel some of his behaviour in the past was largely for effect, to drive a wedge between Evelyn and her friends.I forgot to mention, but if he was telling the truth about reporting Azza to the police for injuring James, then that's another grey area.Oscar's shock at the gulf between him and his twin was believable.Evelyn continues to be able to do whatever she likes at night.

2 hours ago, DialMforMorag said:

Was the actress who plays Megan in H&A before, face is familiar?

Yep: Quick look at IMDb shows that not only was she Martha's doctor when she had cancer back in 2008, she was also Jett's mum in 2012!

[c120701]

Evelyn's bedroom window shouldn't be on that side of the house should it? 

It is great that they have that level of access to the house though.

[Angelica]

2 hours ago, Red Ranger 1 said:

A very interestingly structured episode, with the parallels between Roo and Evelyn increasingly obvious.Both are in a relationship that's not particularly healthy, and both are treating their family and friends like the enemy when they try and tell them this.Roo at least hasn't resorted to assuming everyone's lying when they tell her bad things about her other half.I was half expecting James to be gone when she came back to the hospital, but Alf has as much chance as Zac of being able to order someone to stay away from his family.I almost believed Roo's offer at the end could work, but her turning on Alf and Irene does suggest she's in denial.

Yeah, I did find it an interesting parallel between the two of them. It was quite frustrating to watch on both parts.

Evie continues to act like a brat. I did think Hannah was in her element here, trying to tactfully talk about the subject without alienating Evie. But even when trying to be reasonable, Evie will still lie. Seems a bit discordant for someone who is usually on her moral high horse. I rolled my eyes when Evie said that she never felt that way about anyone before - I was never a Josh/Evie fan but she seems to have gotten over Josh extremely quickly. I think this whole Evie/Tank - Us vs Them thing would have worked better if there had been an evidence of a disconnect between Evie and her friend/family. However, it is hard to buy that Evie would feel no conflict or regret about the terms on which she stands with her friends and family given that they had worked hard to bring their family unit together after the fire. At least, with Josh/Maddy, for example, Maddy was actually semi-isolated anyway, so it made slightly more sense that she would attach herself so readily to a perfect stranger at the expense of her friends/family. In addition, for someone who is meant to be smart, Evie is sure being very sloppy about sneaking Tank around - as if neither of them would take precautions to ensure that Tank had left the house before everyone was up. I do think Tank cares about Evie to a certain extent, but I also think he is intentionally manipulating her and isolating her from her family

So I think we all at this stage were not surprised that James had a hidden family. However, I was slightly surprised that he was married, only because I can't think why he was in such a rush to marry Roo. After all, he would be committing bigamy, which is a criminal offense that he could go to jail for. It makes no sense, when there was no pressure for him to do so.