Latest UK Episode Discussion (2006-2017 Seasons)

[atrus]

Billie's storyline continues to be pretty engaging and I continue to warm to her, especially as she put the horror of what happened to her at the hands of Irene's son aside to give her the self-defence training. Leah once again stands at the front of a long, distinguished roll-call of Summer Bay HSC nags - with Zac not far behind her. It's in the show's DNA, I know, but if I've heard it once I've heard it a thousand times. And much as she may have a point about VJ's exams, I really dislike the way she dresses him down about it in front of Billie, which was always bound to have the opposite-to-intended effect. While I do think Billie should probably be encouraging VJ to do more work for his exams than he is at the moment, I don't think that means they can't spend time together. At the same time, I don't think it's wise for them to be living together, though, given VJ's age and especially given what we know about Billie's baby - but at least we know Billie shares those concerns. I did feel a bit sorry for Leah after he moved out; despite her heavy-handed haranguing, VJ is her only child, and having him march out like he did has to sting.

Similarly to John Palmer, I always find a Matt Page intervention to be ten times more effective (and less annoying) than the hectoring-by-numbers from all the usual suspects - Roo, Leah, Zac, etc. His blunt but emotionally intelligent way of tackling awkward situations continues to brighten scenes for me, and I liked his role in making Alf see flamin' sense. Perhaps they could set him on Irene next and have him prod her into getting some counselling?

Wasn't so keen on him intervening to reunite Josh and Evie though. Yawn at the prison cell kissathon, and whatever shady dealings Andy's up to at the garage.

Part of me is wondering whether the reason for Hunter's distant behaviour is that he's aware Josh killed Charlotte by accident, and that maybe he's reflecting on how he could have achieved the same thing several times over in setting fire to Leah's house - but that level of reflection is probably way too much to hope for. Once again I partly find myself wanting to like Hunter and thinking it's a shame that his character was wrecked so early on in his run by making him a selfish psychopath, and then failing to address why he's suddenly deemed one of the Upstanding. But on the other hand, his routine this week has felt like a rerun of Alf and Irene's stories - pushing his family away and stubbornly refusing to talk about his feelings - which I've had just about enough of lately. Not that I especially blame him with Olivia nagging away in one ear and the combined Leah/Zac machine in the other.

On reflection I'm happier with the John/Marilyn resolution than I thought I was. I'm not sure it's so much that Marilyn couldn't envisage her marriage continuing without foster children, as that she knew how important it is/was to John and felt he was giving up on it for the wrong reasons - which in fairness, he was.

[Red Ranger 1]

On 8/21/2016 at 4:14 PM, H&Alover said:

I was a bit surprised the sonographer didn't ask Billie how far along she was and that somehow didn't match with the size of the baby. 

To be honest, aside from there apparently being a magic test that can tell to the day how pregnant you are, with less than two weeks between Billie being raped and her first sleeping with VJ, I don't think you'd be able to tell any noticeable difference.

I think it's a shame that VJ moving in with Billie is being almost universally portrayed as a Bad Thing.Frankly, with the way he was cooking and cleaning (which seemed to stop Zac in his tracks and make him realise that maybe VJ can cope more with this grown-up stuff than he thought), he seems more ready for living with his newish girlfriend than Matt was when he shacked up with Maddy after a few weeks together.I couldn't quite work out what was at the root of Billie's problems: She seemed to go from not being entirely adverse to living with VJ but not liking the way it came about, to thinking they weren't ready at all.I didn't feel at all sorry for Leah: Her treating VJ like a child was always going to backfire big time sooner or later, yet she refuses to accept she's handled it wrongly, continuing to wax lyrical about "my little boy" and pointlessly dubbing him a "brat" for standing up to her.It's a shame that she'll probably come out on top and get what she wants.Some of the logic was distinctly lacking: Zac says VJ won't be able to support Billie and the baby, to which the first question is "Why not?" and the second is that if that's the case, wouldn't Billie and the baby living on their own be even more hard up than if they had VJ with them?But I do recognise that VJ's brushing aside of Billie's concerns did demonstrate youthful enthusiasm and naivety overturning logic.

Saint Andy has well and truly left the building, as Barrett plunges headlong back into the world of crime as part of his continued quest to help Josh get away with killing someone.I didn't appreciate Matt pressuring Josh to see Evelyn and didn't really see the point of their meeting aside from giving their shippers another crumb of comfort: They said a perfectly adequate farewell on the beach.Josh describing their first kiss after their impromptu horse ride as "the best day of my life" sums up everything that's been wrong about this couple from the start:Because it wasn't a particular good day for Maddy, or Roo for that matter.But then Josh and Evelyn, both as individuals and as a couple, have always been deeply selfish.The way Josh is brought to the station for the night so half the Bay can visit him was bordering on ridiculous: Wouldn't he have been taken straight from remand to the court house?But judging by another gives-away-too-much promo, it seems we've got far more ridiculous stuff to come.

[H&Alover]

You could be right there Red, but wasn't it longer between the rape and her sleeping with VJ?

Leah handled the whole VJ moving out totally wrong, demeaning him in front of his girlfriend was completely the worse thing she could do no wonder he flipped.   Billie wisely didn't say anything because (a) she was taken by surprise and (b) she didn't want any more confrontation than there already was.  The way Leah carried on was way over the top, he's still living in the bay and she knows where he is, not like he'd left town and is sleeping rough somewhere.  I loved the fact he'd cooked them all dinner (something Leah had done right teaching him to cook) but also washed up!  That'd endear him to any girl, a guy being able to fend for himself tends to tick the right boxes.  It came across to me as Leah being bad cop and Zac being good cop, he has to tread carefully though as he isn't VJ's dad so can't come down too heavy.  He did look pleasantly surprised about VJ cooking the meal. I liked his line to Leah about 'what did she want him to do drag VJ home by the ear?' I think you're right Red Billie may have wanted to live with VJ at sometime but not under these circumstances. I'm glad Billie went to Leah and said she understood her wanting VJ back home. Under normal circumstances VJ ignoring Billie's reasons for living together would be OK if she wasn't pregnant, but did show the age difference although the fact she is older than him shouldn't have anything  to do with it. He was acting like any 17 year old in love for the first time would act.

So far Josh is blissfully unaware of what Andy has planned for him, he's quite prepared  to accept his punishment.  Personally I'm glad Matt arranged that meeting between Josh and Evie again he's proving he's more than just a skateboarding kid.  Their last goodbye came across as unfinished business, it took Evie by surprise, at least this time they had a chance to have a proper talk. Now of course with Andy's big idea it looks like Evie won't even get the chance to visit Josh in jail for however long their romance may have lasted.

[Red Ranger 1]

That's it, I give up. Any semblance this show had of still having any semblance of morality just left the building.Josh and Andy kill four people between them and get away with it?And we're, what, supposed to cheer?(No offence to anyone that did cheer.If you can get enjoyment from that, good luck to you, but scum coming out on top while innocent people suffer and die isn't what I signed on to this show for.)Do they think we don't care about Hannah and Oscar?Do they expect us not to be bothered that Andy's got away with killing them?Do they expect us to share Matt's belief that a cold-blooded killer killing another cold-blooded killer is okay?(A very bad episode for Matt, who I'd been quite impressed with lately.)Morality aside, did no-one on the show feel that spending six months on a murder mystery and then having the killer get away at the end was a complete anti-climax?They've lost any credit they might have gotten by making a sympathetic main character responsible by bottling out of the consequences.Maybe I'm misinterpreting this, maybe we're meant to agree with Roo that the life they've chosen is no freedom or with Evelyn's anger at Matt's attempts to portray it as the right thing.But Josh and Andy say a lot of pretty words about doing the right thing, then do the selfish and cowardly thing.They don't care about the people who've died, they don't care about Kat and Ash(who took a chance on them, thinking they could trust them to do the right thing, and got repeatedly stabbed in the back, guilt money aside), they don't care about Evelyn.My one consolation is that if this was treated realistically, Barrett will go straight back to dealing drugs and get them both killed.But on this show, with the utter cop-out of Brax's last appearance, I'm fully expecting that when Evelyn leaves, Josh will turn up, announce that he's now a free man for some vague reason and they'll sail off together.

Trying to analyse it: Well, for a start it feels slightly manipulative to fill the court with the "Josh is lovely, don't be mean to him" crowd and leave the "Send that filthy killer down" crowd at home.(What happened to the braying lynch mob from when Zac was accused?)And giving him the maximum sentence feels like a cheap way to justify Josh's choice: If he'd been given 5 years or 2 years or 6 months, would his choosing a life of crime over paying his debt to society still be regarded as "right"?The security is even worse than the one that let the Barretts sneak in and shoot at Brax in front of his guards.Why does Josh only have one (easily bribed) guard?Why is the security van parked on a public thoroughfare where his criminal brother can just drive up and give him a lift instead of in a secure courtyard?How did the police lose the car that was just seconds in front of them?(Not to mention the luck of Josh being sentenced just a week after his confession, while Andy and Hunter are allowed to swan around reoffending for weeks/months after their confessions.)Josh seemed to understand the plan in more detail than his guard's vague whispered instructions, so I'm guessing Andy told him everything when he visited him?The judge was the same one Kat exposed as corrupt: How does he still have a job?(On a less serious note, Evelyn should have realised the guard was dodgy: It's one of the guys who kidnapped her in the 2013 finale!)

Sitting awkwardly alongside this, we get some cute scene between Nate and Tori.Brody met Tim/Spike at the restaurant last week and didn't react.Here, Tori seems to vaguely know him but nothing more concrete than that.

When I heard about this storyline, I said I'd stop watching when it happened and I meant it.If I'd seen it spoiler-free or at Oz pace or even a week or two later, I'd be saying goodbye for good now.As it is, I'm going to keep watching but I'm not going to be on the forum as much.If I continue like this, I'm going to be making angry posts or reading posts that make me angry and that's not going to be good.I might not be gone for long, I don't know.I can't see the show getting any better with what I've just heard spoilerwise.I wish you luck and hope you keep this thread going, it's just been me and H&Alover in here at times.I respect all your opinions, even the ones I disagree with 90% of the time.I might even pop in once a week with my Alf Episode Count for old times sake.But I really am losing all respect for the show this forum's dedicated to.

6 hours ago, H&Alover said:

You could be right there Red, but wasn't it longer between the rape and her sleeping with VJ?

She found out she was pregnant the episode after she slept with VJ, which seemed to be the same day, and was told she was 10 days pregnant.

[atrus]

Couldn't agree more on Andy and Josh. The best ending they could have hoped for under the circumstances, and the most redemptive, would have been for both of them to walk into jail with their heads held high - and then they go and do this. Why? I don't mean why did the Barretts abscond - that much is clear, they're no-good cowards - but if they're leaving the show anyway, why did the writers feel the need to spare them the ending they so richly deserved? I love Matt but I absolutely hated his rationalisation for this behaviour, about Andy 'turning off the life-support of a cold-blooded killer', as if the one negates the other. And the judge - corrupt though we know he is - made a good point about Josh having shown zero remorse for killing Charlotte. I don't care what someone's done; you don't leave them to wash up dead on the beach and then let your friends and acquaintances take the blame for months on end. I felt that the editorial line of the show should have been very much against their behaviour; and yet most of the time it seemed to be making excuses for them using the other regulars as mouthpieces, with even Kat being depicted as an angel of mercy, doing her damndest to make things as easy as possible for them. (I'm still hoping the sarge finds out what she's been up to and that she's thrown off the force at the very least, although it's starting to look unlikely.) The whole thing reeks of an eye-for-an-eye mentality and, dare I say it again, the hypermasculine: violent, selfish, vengeful alpha males looking after their own and to hell with everyone else. Sad to say that in recent years, that kind of aura has become as much a part of the show's DNA as foster families, HSCs and Alf's straw hat.

With all that going on, it was difficult to care much about the Morgans today, or Murderous Stalker #3,596 sticking Nate with a syringe.

Red, I share your concerns about the show's direction, and have for some time. I've had my tune-out periods in the past, and most likely will again - already I'm tending to binge at weekends as I don't have the energy on a night. But I am sticking with it for now, in the (perhaps vain) hope that it will become a more bearable show to watch now that the Braxtons and most of their associates have moved on. I hope you're back soon - I always enjoy reading your posts.

[CaptainHulk]

Wow, Red.

Guess they finally pushed your Popeye button ("I've had all I can stands and I can't stands no more!") I guess you're handing in your fan club badge.

But the whole story in honesty has been stupid and shows incompentence all round. They could have f***ing caught them! Shoot, Alf with his walking stick could have stopped them ("You two flamin' geese are goin' nowhere! You're going to cop for what you did!")

With those two gone, hopefully things will settle. Though, I would like to see Evie get a postcard and she and Matt fly to wherever and Matt caries out his threat of a punch to Josh, then they fly home. 

Kat needs a good rap for everything and to be stripped of her badge and uniform (There's a dirty joke in there somewhere but I'm not going to bring it to the fore)

It's been as the Americans say, "A Hot Mess". 

[Slade]

I'm really enjoying the scenes with Nate and Tori.  Love the flirting between them even though Tori claimed that the other nurse was flirting with Nate.  She was definitely jealous but I liked it nevertheless.  I'm looking forward to seeing how this pans out.

Wow 25 years for manslaughter with a non parole period of 20 years.  The judge might as well have sentenced Josh for murder instead.  Regardless I've never been so proud of Andy.  The way he went above and beyond for his brother really impressed me.  And that's one thing I've especially liked about Andy and Josh.  How they've always looked out for each other.  I absolutely loved the scene where they escaped from the court.  Although as I mentioned last week this demonstrates precisely why Andy should not have been granted bail.  I found it quite amusing when Kat tried to chase after them.  That's a lot of money she stood to lose.  Andy's been one of my favourite characters for quite a while.  I actually wasn't sure if the writers wouldn't send both of them to jail but I didn't expect both of them to escape.  Good for them!  I'm absolutely delighted about that and very happy with the ending.  And I agreed with Matt.   IMO Josh doesn't deserve to go to jail for 25 years and to this day I'm glad Andy killed Pirovic.  So I was a bit disappointed that he apologised to Evelyn later on as I quite enjoyed the way Andy escaping wound her up.  I'd like to think that Matt was right.  Somehow Andy and Josh will find a way to escape from the country and end up on a beach somewhere.  Irrespective of whether they are looking over their shoulder, I'll still take that over both of them in the slammer.  I wasn't this pleased about a departure since Coleen left although for different reasons.  Yes, yes, yessssssss!!!!!!!

 

12 hours ago, Red Ranger 1 said:

When I heard about this storyline, I said I'd stop watching when it happened and I meant it.If I'd seen it spoiler-free or at Oz pace or even a week or two later, I'd be saying goodbye for good now.As it is, I'm going to keep watching but I'm not going to be on the forum as much.If I continue like this, I'm going to be making angry posts or reading posts that make me angry and that's not going to be good.I might not be gone for long, I don't know.I can't see the show getting any better with what I've just heard spoilerwise.I wish you luck and hope you keep this thread going, it's just been me and H&Alover in here at times.I respect all your opinions, even the ones I disagree with 90% of the time.I might even pop in once a week with my Alf Episode Count for old times sake.But I really am losing all respect for the show this forum's dedicated to.

That's a major surprise.  Well until next time..........

[atrus]

The Morgan drama certainly stepped up a gear today. While the current direction of travel with the family seems to promise another lengthy crime saga, at least in this case, our characters are the victims of crooks as opposed to the crooks themselves - which immediately places them several points above the Braxtons in my eyes. I wasn't surprised at all that Lara turned out to be one of the baddies - there was always something a bit off about her. This Decker character must be seriously incompetent if he can't even keep them safe for longer than a month; and we pretty much know they haven't changed their names because Lara knew Mason as Mason from his last witness protection placement, which must make them pretty easy to track down.

In a way it was good to see Chris back to his old self, more or less, although it could do with being punctuated with a bit of residual angst about Hannah; especially in the wake of Andy, who caused her death, fleeing town, you'd think Chris might have something significant to say about it.

I'm not sure whether Andy's done Ash a favour leaving him an envelope stuffed full of ill-gotten cash, or more likely, stuck the nail in the coffin if Kat finds out as I presume she will. She's not in much of a position to be making moral judgements at the moment, though, and neither is Ash - who we know has been supportive of jailbreaks in the past. So I just wasn't particularly bothered about these developments either way.

[CaptainHulk]

Shouldn't the Garage be seized about now as the Barretts have legged out of town?

[Slade]

Couldn't understand why that guy injected Nate when I initially saw the preview - so it was just to punish Tori.  I quite liked the her reaction when she realised Nate was targeted and then when she checked the video footage and saw the guy she thought she recognised previously.  After Justin took him out when he held Tori captive they really should have tied him up straight away.  So he's working with Lara.  That proves even more how much of a liability Mason is.  And then we have the other annoying brother Brodi.  Although I guess that arrogant expression he has on his face is more when he's at work.  I did like the way he handled Chris when Chris had the audacity to challenge him purely for being competition and to try and offer him advice.  Seems as though Phoebe is quite keen on Brodi.

I'm glad Andy left Ash money as compensation for skipping bail.  Not sure how he can invest it back into the business without Kat finding out.  Ash actually might not decide to use it.  Will be interesting to see what happens either way.