Latest UK Episode Discussion (2006-2017 Seasons)

[Slade]

How many weeks behind will the UK be then? I dont really mind though, as I watch the Australia episodes on Youtube

It will probably be six as we are two weeks behind at the moment but assuming there are no breaks at Christmas we might be back to two years by the end of the year. It would probably have been better to stop it for two weeks during the summer and two weeks during Christmas.

I’m glad Roman fessed up to Miles and was also pleased that he didn’t judge him on his past. Gardi is able to read people pretty well though. As soon as he walked in he could sense that Roman had come clean (still left out the bit about the robbery he pulled though). Hated the way he threatened Miles at the bar after he saw him talking with Charlie. She knows he was behind the robberies. When Gardi’s henchmen carted Roman off, for the first time I actually saw fear (I don’t remember him getting afraid when Elliott tied him up and even with Johnny Cooper a while back I thought he was calm enough).

I think Tony’s definitely up to something regarding Angelo. I’m not sure what but he’s got something planned. When Rachel was being her typical sanctimonious self and accusing him of not caring about the baby and he agreed to spend the weekend with her, after she left his reaction seemed like self-contained annoyance. I’m a bit surprised Angelo hasn’t suspected something though. When Martha laid into him at the police station he attributed Tony’s friendliness as his attempt to get past the grieving process but he’s being far too friendly. Again last week when he offered him a lift, that was better because his facial expression suggested that he was only doing it because it was the right thing to do. Not because he wanted to be friends with him. Still think Angelo’s in a lose – lose situation though. If he blows Tony out then he’s being heartless, if he spends time with him he’s only doing it to make himself feel better.

At times I don’t get Martha. I understand that she doesn’t want to betray Jack but it’s almost as if she’s annoyed at Hugo and blaming him for falling for her. She was the same with Roman (but even worse) except in this case I do feel she actually likes him too. She’s probably slipped back into denial, although Ruby, Xavier and Hugo are now convinced that no feeling’s reciprocated on her part.

[Zetti]

I think Martha is genuninely confused and while trying to make sense of things, she lashes out at people or objects that are in her way. I am not saying it is right but I think she has been alone and feeling alone for a while that the thought of being that close with another man again scares her.

[Red Ranger 1]

Bad news I'm afraid, I thought it was too good to last.

Home and Away will be off air from Five for 4 weeks - 3rd August to 28th August, returning on the 31st.

Well, I'm astonished we've lasted this long, I was sure we'd have a break over Easter.Guess August was the last hurdle to clear given that's when they took it off last year.Glass half full, at least it means we won't have that long a break over Christmas.So, that's five weeks after this one until I need to start avoiding the spoiler section and character discussions again.Shame it couldn't be September when I'm on holiday.I was away for Ric and Mattie's departure last year.I'll probably be away the week

Belle dies

this year...

Anyway...Had a hard time finding much of interest in that episode.Gardy's not that interesting a character and pretty much the whole episode was devoted to his machinations.Bit melodramatic of him to perform a snatch and grab on Roman in broad daylight if he was just going to take him home:why not wait for him there?But then this is Gardy and he probably does these things just for the fun of it. Roman needs to work on his poker face, he was pretty much screaming guilty when he got back into the van.At least it seems the end is finally approaching.Bit odd that Miles had to introduce himself to Ken:I'm not sure if we've seen them together before but he's usually pretty clued up on who's who in Summer Bay.

Meanwhile, an increasingly noted Nicole seems to be hitting the self-destruct button.Have to say Tessa seems to be having a few problems with the "acting angry":Her rants about how much she hates Roman didn't quite ring true.She was a lot better in the little moment when she apologised to Ruby. Nice to see Martin acting like a human being as well.Unfortunately, she's back to collaring Trey for revenge sex.And worse, he's back to going along with it.I think she was secretly hoping Roman would come home in the middle of it and catch them.

[Slade]

I really enjoyed that episode. I liked how it focused around Roman, Nicole and Miles.

Again really liked the stuff with Nicole and Trey. I like the way he’s really sweet with her. Very thoughtful of him to offer to accompany her to see Roman in case of Gardy. Wasn’t sure about her wanting to sleep with him (for the third time) as it seemed spontaneous. Felt sorry for her when VJ spilt the orange juice over her assignment and really sympathised with her when she told Ruby that she just wanted to go home and be with her dad. It just goes to show how much she’s changed from being that spoilt materialistic girl she was when she first turned up.

Good stuff with Miles and Roman. Roman did the right thing sending the text message to him giving a heads up about the robbery and Miles did the right thing going to Charlie. He was right. Roman is way over his head. As I said before Roman just keeps assuming that once the main job is over Gardy will be gone but I just don’t think it works like that. Now that he knows he’s prepared to cooperate he’s just going to keep blackmailing him.

The way Gardy’s acting with Roman suggests this is going way beyond helping him pay off his debts. It’s almost as if he’s trying to punish him. It’s just the way he looks at him and makes him pull the robberies when he doesn’t actually need him. I wonder if it came to it whether he would actually hurt Nicole, Jai, Kirsty or Ollie. The fact that he only wanted him and Roman to pull to robbery in broad daylight suggests that it’s reached the point that he doesn’t really care whether they get caught. It’s almost as if this is a substitute for the being back in the war-trodden Afghanistan.

[H&Alover]

How many weeks behind will the UK be then? I dont really mind though, as I watch the Australia episodes on Youtube

It will probably be six as we are two weeks behind at the moment but assuming there are no breaks at Christmas we might be back to two years by the end of the year. It would probably have been better to stop it for two weeks during the summer and two weeks during Christmas.

I think you mean two weeks there Slade, at least I hope you do. This is going to sound terribly selfish (and yes it is) but I will be out of the country during part of the time H&A is off the air so I am relieved I won't be missing any of it. I suppose whatever time they have a break it is going to spoil it for someone. Do we know why?

Last nights episode did seem a bit of an anti-climax after Friday's. I did think the police could have played it differently when they showed up at the warehouse. Was it really a good idea to turn up with sirens blaring and lights flashing? I would have thought they could have driven up quietly to take them all by surprise, but I suppose they had their reasons.

Gardy keeps banging on about Roman being bothered about killing people when he 'killed' Mark in Afghanistan, but I don't think Roman intended to kill him, just stop him from driving the jeep at Gardy. I think your'e right Slade about Gardy missing the action, perhaps he should have become a mercenary or taken on security work out there.

When Gardy gave Jai Roman's phone he must have known that he would give it to Miles and he would take it to the police, so perhaps he does want to get caught or has a death wish. Of course it does mean Roman will also be nabbed!

Miles was quite right IMO for having a go at Roman, it's not just Nicole who is now being threatened but now Kirsty, Jai and Ollie have been dragged into it.

One problem with your thought RR, Roman had already been 'kidnapped' by Gardy, by the time Trey and Nicole got home. I was expecting them to find Roman's trussed up body and Gardy waiting for them.

It was understanding of Martin and another sign how much Nicole has changed, once upon a time she wouldn't have been bothered about late homework.

According to the TV Times -next Monday - Tony leads Angelo and puts his plan into action. Tuesday - Angelo's life hangs in the balance.

[Red Ranger 1]

One problem with your thought RR, Roman had already been 'kidnapped' by Gardy, by the time Trey and Nicole got home. I was expecting them to find Roman's trussed up body and Gardy waiting for them.

Yeah but Nicole doesn't know that.What I meant was she went to the house looking for Roman and then when he wasn't there she decided to go and have sex with Trey in the house.It was almost as though she wanted him to come home and catch them so she'd get some sort of reaction from him.

Anyway, I found that episode enormously better.Gardy works best when used sparingly and when they put some sort of thought into the character.It's fascinating that in Gardy and Roman we've got two characters who went through the same experience and had completely opposing responses, even though they didn't dwell on it.(Was that an original commercial break?It did seem like the perfect time to leave us thinking.)Roman was horrified by what he had to do to Mark and made sure he was never in that situation again, Gardy coped by deciding they hadn't done anything wrong and it was okay to do it again.Given how trigger happy he's behaving, calling him by name in front of witnesses probably wasn't the best way for Roman to keep them alive.Watching them finally go at each other was rather satisfying and cathartic, even if it was hard to tell them apart at times.Is Gardy really going to go and plug the workers or was he just testing Roman to see if he'd fire at him?Things don't look good for Roman, I don't see how they're going to find him unless one of Charlie's boys gets lucky.Possibly significant that Nicole didn't really care about Trey staying with her at the station, if he was important to her she'd want him with her.It seems their bout of sex was just a case of her grabbing onto the nearest person.(Chances of Trey not having done that before:High.)Shame the subtitlers got it wrong and Miles actually calls her "Nic."

Irene's storyline similarly becomes enormously better now she's back in her own environment and interacting with real characters rather than stuck in a low-grade women's prison drama.Loved her look of disdain to Donna, it's obvious which one of them was in love with Lou's money.Nice touch to keep her hair messed up, showing she's still not her old self.Starting an episode with Aden and Belle kissing always makes me worry but they actually worked well here because after the first twenty seconds it was about them as characters rather than a couple.Aden was spot on when Belle said Annie and Geoff should know about Irene.(Interesting Belle calls them "the kids" when they're only two and four years younger than her respectively and used to go to school together.)Irene putting off telling them until the next day was reminiscent of Belle delaying telling Geoff about her addiction when Aden and Nicole encouraged her to, although here there's less chance of someone blowing the gaff first.Not sure why Belle wouldn't want Annie buying Irene flowers, unless she somehow thinks she's going to come back "changed."And some nice cute moments for Geoff and Claudia:Yes, I'm going to mention her every appearance since I'm just about the only one that likes her.(Where's she going to sleep now Irene wants her room back?If it was anyone but Geoff the answer would be obvious...remember the pointed way Annie asked before?)Irene guzzling the booze underlined the real problem of addiction: You can never just have one sip.Annie coming down the stairs and seeing her and then running off was a great touch...shame no-one told the director.It should have been about her world crashing down: She's been through so much with Belle and Irene and just as everything was back on track another problem appears.Instead it was all done in long shot.(By the way, when Belle says Aden had to help one of the boys on the wharf, have they had a recruitment drive?At last count there was only him and Gibbsy working there.)

Nice to see Hugo and Xavier interacting properly as brothers, even if we did get Hugo being abrupt and Xavier throwing a strop in the middle of it.At least they sorted it out by the end and Hugo confided in him.He actually bought the shark cage?I thought they only agreed with it to humour Xavier.

[Slade]

I wonder how long Martha's planning on staying at the farm for. Still seemed very awkward between her and Hugo. Alf copped on that something was amiss so she might have to do some explaining further on down the line. I think Xavier had a point when he told Hugo they weren't really like brothers. It always seems as though to the other one, neither person can do anything right. Having said that I thought it was quite big of Hugo to confide in Xavier regarding his recent behaviour concerning Martha.

I’m sort of glad Nicole and Trey got the sex part out of the way. It was bound to happen and I wasn’t really that keen on the way they kept on making a big deal about it and then something stopped them each time. If Charlie had turned up 5 to 10 minutes earlier it would have ruined it again. I did like the way she looked at them, saw Trey’s shirt half undone and said “I take it you dad’s not at home” obviously realising what they had been up to. Nicole’s remark about wishing she hadn’t left Roman with Gardy was pleasing in the sense that at least she doesn’t blame him now for “rejecting” her.

Following from yesterday Gardy tampering with the shotgun seemed to be all part of this game he was playing. I actually didn't think Roman had it in him and was willing him to shoot Gardy but I was wrong. Seems as though he was one step ahead of him. If he shot him with a shotgun in the arm at near point blank range surely that would have done a lot more damage. Don't know how he's going to get out of this one.

[Red Ranger 1]

Found that episode pretty hard to like, mainly because, aside from Annie and Charlie, everyone in it seemed to have had their brain surgically removed.(I'm temped to blame Dan Bennett:There have, in my opinion, been two substandard episodes this week and I think he wrote both of them.)Seems SAS training allows Roman and Gardy to spontaneously recover from serious wounds whenever they need to.Either that or they've both had a dose of whatever Geoff and Jai were taking.Roman's sudden disappearance from where he was supposed to be lying helpless was a bit dumb but then his big plan seemed to be "Knock the guy out and then just lie there next to him until he recovers."Hugo trying to shoot Gardy when he was holding Xavier hostage was a bit dumb but pretty cool and understandable in the circumstances.Then Roman miraculously recovers again in time to shoot Gardy.Then he disappears, only instead of grabbing the gun that Hugo and Xavier have left right next to him and shooting them all, he decides to jump into the water for a hackneyed "Is he dead or isn't he?" exit. (Just to prove that he's been lobotomised even more thoroughly than usual, having left a gun where any not-as-helpless-as-he-seems psycho can get it, Xavier then picks it up after Gardy does his disappearing act despite having no reason whatsoever to do so.Contaminating evidence much?No wonder Angelo's trying to pin something on him.)Hugo and Xavier once again spent an episode alternating between bonding moments and petty bickering.(Although they did at least explain the shark cage, kudos for that.)Angelo seemed to be operating a bit outside his jurisdiction:If he's meant to be with Marine Area Command rather than the local police, only concerned with the sudden rush of deaths in the nearby waters, why is he involved here?I'd understand if he went along on the raid as a favour to Charlie but suddenly he's taking statements like he's involved in the investigation.Didn't take long for him and Hugo to get back to their ridiculous macho behaviour, although his "I'm just stirring" did raise a chuckle.

On to the other plotline...Belle's great in her confrontations with Irene and when comforting Annie but unfortunately monumentally stupid elsewhere.Why the hell does she back off from Irene, not once but twice?It was the worst thing she could have done, she needed to force the issue and see it through, even if it meant revealing Irene's drinking to Leah(or at the very least threatening to do so).Even worse, she then twice leaves Irene unsupervised when she knows she's got alcohol hidden in the house and is going to be guzzling it as soon as she gets the chance.The second time she even leaves her alone with Annie, who's obviously uncomfortable around her.(I don't think she even stopped to ask if Annie was okay.)Then Annie, apparently the only person in the house with any common sense, goes and does what Belle should have done and gets a smack round the chops for her trouble.(Dare I ask where Geoff and indeed Claudia were while all this was going on?Belle said she was meeting them last episode but they don't even get a mention.)

By the way, what exactly is Irene's legal status?As far as I can tell from last week, they've dropped the murder charge on the grounds it never made sense in the first place but she's still facing charges for shooting the police officer, she's just out on bail.But in the last two episodes everyone's been acting as though it's all over.

[Slade]

I thought it was a tad bit unrealistic the way Roman managed to get up and get Gardy in a sleeper hold and applied enough pressure until he passed out, considering how he was hindered. Still really like Gardy playing the psycho. Putting on an English accent at the same time looking for stuff to loot whilst Roman was laying on the floor. I'm glad Roman shot him but it probably would have been better that he killed him rather than aiming for the leg. Roman seemed pretty convinced that the police wouldn't catch up with him. If they don't he will probably do this sort of thing again so perhaps he should have killed him. That also would have solved all his problems regarding what happened with Mark as there would be no one blackmailing him.

Whatever Roman's going to confess to couldn't it have waited until the morning. I wonder if he's going to come clean about the first robbery he pulled with Gardy when he gave the lady that had a heart attack CPR.

Again surprisingly really enjoyed the scenes with Hugo and Xavier. Liked how he wanted to take him diving and how he was a bit disappointed that Hugo didn't open up to him more about Martha. Best bit was where Gardy held him captive and Hugo threatened to shoot him with the speargun unless he released him. Gardy didn't and as soon as Xavier broke free Hugo actually did shoot him but unfortunately missed. I like that he was prepared to take no prisoners. It seemed more like the older brother sort of protection, “Nobody touches him but me”

Angelo annoyed me with his attitude towards Hugo at the police station. He was deliberately trying to provoke him into some sort of reaction. It was petty and immature. If he wants people to warm to him he's certainly not going about it the right way.

Irene playing the drunk at times can be quite amusing. I know I should feel sorry for Annie when Irene hit her but I didn't. It probably would have been more satisfying it she'd smacked her after she'd made some sort of judgemental remark (like she usually does) but can't really fault Annie for anything in that episode. She did everything right.

[H&Alover]

I thought it was a tad bit unrealistic the way Roman managed to get up and get Gardy in a sleeper hold and applied enough pressure until he passed out, considering how he was hindered. Still really like Gardy playing the psycho. Putting on an English accent at the same time looking for stuff to loot whilst Roman was laying on the floor. I'm glad Roman shot him but it probably would have been better that he killed him rather than aiming for the leg. Roman seemed pretty convinced that the police wouldn't catch up with him. If they don't he will probably do this sort of thing again so perhaps he should have killed him. That also would have solved all his problems regarding what happened with Mark as there would be no one blackmailing him.

Whatever Roman's going to confess to couldn't it have waited until the morning. I wonder if he's going to come clean about the first robbery he pulled with Gardy when he gave the lady that had a heart attack CPR.

Again surprisingly really enjoyed the scenes with Hugo and Xavier. Liked how he wanted to take him diving and how he was a bit disappointed that Hugo didn't open up to him more about Martha. Best bit was where Gardy held him captive and Hugo threatened to shoot him with the speargun unless he released him. Gardy didn't and as soon as Xavier broke free Hugo actually did shoot him but unfortunately missed. I like that he was prepared to take no prisoners. It seemed more like the older brother sort of protection, “Nobody touches him but me”

Angelo annoyed me with his attitude towards Hugo at the police station. He was deliberately trying to provoke him into some sort of reaction. It was petty and immature. If he wants people to warm to him he's certainly not going about it the right way.

It did seem unreal, especially as it was his injured right arm he was using! Why Roman didn't grab the gun while he had the chance is a mystery, still I suppose the writers had their reasons. I did wonder when I read Xavier 'wanders into the warehouse' what he was doing there, but as we saw all was explained. The place where Xavier and Hugo picked up the shark cage just had to be next door - didn't it! Quite nice moments between Xavier and Hugo, I had to smile when Hugo said to Xavier 'I'm taking relationship advice from you?' Real brotherly love when Hugo threatened to shoot Gardy and then did, the look of shock on Gardy's face, he obviously didn't expect him to do it. I thought it was a bit stupid of Xavier to pick up the gun (even it was by the barrel), but Charlie took it from him bare handed and she knows better. I know Roman could have killed Gardy but he is not a cold blooded killer like Gardy. What's the betting Roman didn't know about Gardy's dishonourable discharge from the SAS.

I agree Angelo was being childish towards Hugo, but then they both rub each other up the wrong way.

Obviously Roman felt he coudn't wait any longer to confess ( and I think he is going to admit everything) starting with what happened in Afgahanistan. Poor Nicole is going to be so devestated.

As for Irene and her drink problem, Belle wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt and I believe Irene would have been O.K if Donna hadn't stuck her oar in. We did see her get the bottle out of her bag, but not drink anything. It would have been a hell of a shock for Annie to see Irene swigging out of a bottle knowing Irene is an alcoholic. I honestly believe Annie would have accepted that Irene was drinking again if she had told her, it's being lied to Annie can't bear. For someone who hadn't had any dealings with alcoholics before she certainly knew enough to search out any hiding places that Irene could have hid the booze. Hopefully (?) slapping Annie will bring Irene to her senses, remembering what had happened to her own children. Not holding my breath though.