Latest UK Episode Discussion (2006-2017 Seasons)

[Red Ranger 1]

I think Roo and Harvey are starting to gel a bit more with the rest of the show:I still wouldn't miss them but their scenes aren't the intrusion they have been the past couple of weeks.I just hope that now they've weathered the latest storm they can fade into the background for a bit.

I agree with the comments about Gina, she does seem to be blowing the whole thing with John and Marilyn out of proportion.That said...I think it's just about entirely innocent on Marilyn's part but on John's, with the way he bounded over to chat to her by the beach, it does seem like he sees being around her as an escape from the constant aggro with Gina.I don't want to use the words emotional affair because I don't think it's gone that far but after admitting he's crossed the line he does seem to be staying on the wrong side of it.Shame Jett overheard half the conversation and went and yelled at Marilyn.(Shame Roo wasn't there, I was expecting her to recall that Sally did the same thing to her over Frank and Bobby a few decades back.)

They seem to have done a good job with Dexter's storyline this week.I'm glad we got to see some interaction between him and Marilyn and loved his frustrated "Are you serious?!" after turning up the Death card.I also like that the focus has shifted away from Dexter and April and they're being allowed to interact with other characters, like April and Gina here, while Dexter's family get brought to the foreground more.I'm hoping they delay Dexter getting better as long as possible partly because I don't want them to just switch back to how they were before the accident.There's some nice work on Sid and Sasha, who seem to be the most troubled about what's happened, it was telling that Sasha was the only one who picked up on Sid's mood.It's a shame that, aside from a good episode last week where it was just her and Sid, Indi always seems to be the one shunted to one side when all the characters are there.

I'm kind of used to Home and Away dropping storylines for half a week but I agree that they are taking an absurdly long time to catch up on what's happened to Casey.It's not like anyone's seemed particularly bothered about him being missing since Monday.

[H&Alover]

Such a relief Rocco is OK, well done April for getting Heath back to the hospital, liked her "So am I getting the bus or are you driving me?". Thinking about it after, why Heath left the hospital, maybe he blamed himself for not getting Rocco there quicker and Bianca's unsaid accusation was too close for comfort. April was pretty good in that, no unwanted advice given, just being supportive. I think that night away from Dex was good for her, gave her time to think about what to do next. Poor Dex, I so wanted to give him a hug when he came out with his "I should've died in the crash". It must be hard for him having the short term memory problem knowing how smart he had been before. It did make sense to cancel the lease on the house/flat if no-one is living there it's undeeded expense. Sash has been really astute on picking up on Sid's mood, shame she had to go before he was able to tell her what was wrong. Sid would never have agreed with the Tarot reading, but it did lift Dex's mood and Maz didn't make any false promises, just gave her interpretation, it'd up to Dex to make of them what he will. Dex is certainly still there, as displayed when he said he wanted to watch The Lord of The Rings trilogy and Indi said only if you don't do your Gullom impression which he immediately did! Just shows how different we are, some want Dex to get back to normal as soon as possible and others (like me) would like the story to be as realsitic as the writers can make it.

Have to agree with you Red, I think it is totally innocent on Maz's side and John bounding over to her, does make you wonder if he would like there to be more to their friendship. She is uncomplicated and a good listener. His misunderstanding of who Jett was referring to kind of confirmed it. Gina certainly isn't helping the situation, in fact she is doing a good job of pushing him into Marilyn's arms. That's the problem with only hearing half a conversation (or not all of it) you do get the wrong end of the stick. Quiet sweet of Jett to stick up for Gina, though Marilyn a marriage wrecker.

Roo & Harvey, still surprised one of them didn't throw the other overboard! All that icky sweet talk between them was pretty toe curling, loved it when Alf came back and overheard them rowing and was as pleased as punch because they were back to normal.

Casey has had his three days 'off' and is back tonight.

[Red Ranger 1]

Well.Marilyn confronting John and Gina didn't go the way I expected it to and Gina was out of order using it to have another go at them both.At least she made the decision to apologise and she and John talked things over afterwards but I found their decision to have a temporary separation rather abrupt and odd.What are they hoping, that they'll miss each other enough to want to make a go at things? Admittedly, all their recent efforts to patch things up have sent them back to square one but it seems rather extreme.Might help if we knew exactly what this Tower card Marilyn's jabbering about was meant to represent...

I take it we're meant to assume Romeo's aggressive behaviour is somehow connected to his steroid abuse but given that it doesn't actually seem at all out of character for him, I'm not sure why.Liam really didn't deserve that punch.

Brax's insistence on jumping to the wrong conclusion continues to grate.On the plus side, his relationship with Natalie is starting to be written a bit better as she tries desperately to grab hold of a personality, challenging Brax but also belatedly opening up to him since he doesn't actually know anything about her.She is starting to come across as the therapist who's more screwed up than her patients.At least the police have finally noticed Casey's gone missing.Is he really meant to have been unconscious for all of the three or four days he's been gone?So, we get the big revelation that Kyle is Danny's son.Um.When he says "And the penny's dropped", I was left wondering which penny.Exactly where has he come from, where has he been and who's his mother?He calls Casey "little brother" but he seems to be younger than Brax and Heath so what happened?I'd rather know that than get all the "Casey chained up in the desert" scenes, which I'm mildly interested in but it's hard to believe anything really bad's going to happen to him so it just comes across as unnecessary melodrama.

[izzyhoyland]

Just shows how different we are, some want Dex to get back to normal as soon as possible and others (like me) would like the story to be as realsitic as the writers can make it.

Agree. My favourite thing by far about this Dex story is that it's given us so many other sides to his character. Far too often he;s the comedic light relief character and I am so happy they've shown how something like this can affect such a cheerful character in real life. It hurts and it breaks people and it changes them and I am very impressed with how they've handled certain aspects of his story.

[H&Alover]

Wow I don't think I've Marilyn lose her temper like that before!!!! It did make them both think about who was/was not to blame about it all. Although I'm not too sure about them parting (the fact they haven't had enough time alone together) I'm glad they decided to keep Jett involved so at least he (a) won't blame himself and (b) won't get the wrong end of the stick or only half of the story.

How sweet was Alf when Maz was telling him she was nervous about going into work, her asking him to ring in and say she was sick was funny.

Btw It suddenly struck me last night how brilliantly white and perfectly straight Marilyn's teeth were, that cannot be natural.

I can understand (kind of) Romeo being angry with Liam, though I thought he'd got over that, but snapping at Alf was out of order then blowing up at John because he was behind with the entry forms for the carnival then taking a swing at him was not Romeo. That type of behaviour is due to steroid use, as it seems Liam has caught onto tonight. Wonder if he will work out who the supplier was?

Has Brax thought maybe Casey's phone has run out of charge (though of course we know different), I can see why he's so uptight, although Case is his brother and he'd do anything for him, it is going to cost him money he can't afford. If I remember correctly Nat briefly mentioned her mum before to someone else (Gina). Perhaps that is why she became a counsellor as she knows what her patient is going through. I liked that Brax comforted her and made him realise it's not all about him.

I assume that Case has been in and out of consciousness since he's been chained up. Handy Kyle came back just as he came round, or had he been back before to check on him? I couldn't make sense of 'the pennys dropped' remark either, Case had only seen him once before unless he was supposed to know who he was, Kyle thinking maybe Danny had mentioned him to Case? As for the 'little brother' jibe he could be 19/20? I can't see Danny being the stay-at-home dad/husband when he wasn't inside, he probably roamed all around the country when he was doing his various theiving, for we know there are quite a few Braxton brothers (even sisters) about. Kyle did seem to think he was the chosen one, he obviously doesn't know about the one way ticket (for one) out of the country Danny had. Was that drawing Kyle mentioned the same one Heath showed Brax?

[Red Ranger 1]

Alf's episode count this week:Four.

Brax seemed to slide back a bit here:Once again, he prefers to leave Casey in potential danger rather than involve the police, who'd be far more equipped to help him out than just Brax and his hanger on in a battered truck.He used the same "They'd just arrest him" excuse during the armed robbery and that didn't exactly work out.As far as I can see, the only explanations for what's happened from Brax's point of view are that Casey's been taken away by force and needs the police to rescue him or he's done a runner and if Brax finds him and brings him home he'll be arrested.So it's hard to see the logic of trying to do the police's job once again.And once again, Natalie is far too quick to back down and do things Brax's way.Which has a tendency to get his girlfriends killed, as Liam seemed to be thinking when he warned her to watch out.Meanwhile, Kyle's proving to be a pretty uninspiring villain and it's increasingly bewildering that Casey would be so helpless against him.He makes an obvious villain's mistake by letting Casey make a phone call to tip Brax off, which was unlikely to stop Brax looking for him in any case.

Okay, Romeo's aggression is a bit more relentless than it has been before now but he has spent most of the year, and earlier, acting like a bad-tempered jerk, so I don't really buy the "This isn't like you" schtick.Frankly, I'd be happy for Liam and Indi to take his advice, go off together and let him carry on wrecking his life.For all his attempted justification, I don't think Romeo hit Liam for any reason other than that he was there.

Forgot to mention earlier, on Wednesday it was once again implied that Dexter's eighteen when he should probably be nineteen by now, given he was seventeen in late 2010.And those of us sad enough to track down some of Kate Ritchie's post-HA work were left sitting up at the promo for next week going "Hey, it's the girl from Cops LAC!"

[cadyctslover]

Wow, the outback scenes this week have been absolutely beautifully filmed. What an amazing landscape they have, and a fantastic location for these scenes. Very, very impressive. It's just a shame the storyline is such a waste of this opportunity.

Brax and Natalie have been particularly vomit-inducing this week. I get what they're trying to do. Natalie's supposed to be an equal match for him, able to overpower him (i.e. different from Charlie) by having her win a few arguments with him by shouting the loudest, they've been trying to ram this down our throats for a while now. It all falls apart though when her life revolves around him. She started off so well as a councillor at SBH helping Casey and (non-Braxton ) Sasha, but it became quickly apparent that she's very similar to Charlie, and that her character focus is on Braxton-based storylines.

We were given the 'backstory alert' signal from about 10 miles away in Thursday's episode this week as she blurts out 'You are not the only person in the world who has ever been scared, and you do not have a monopoly on pain OK!'

Although they did subsequently follow through with this development, it was clearly more a method to facilitate Brax's current storyline.

It is unfortunate also to see Brax hasn't learnt anything following Charlie's death as Red says, by agreeing to take Natalie with him. He knows nothing about Casey's situation, other than imagining it's likely to be dangerous. If so, what is he doing bringing Natalie with him (?), the one woman he's been able to 'love' since Charlie.

How on earth did Casey have phone signal? Also it's funny to count the number of times we see Brax on the phone to background character#7 saying something along the lines of 'Well stuff you, thanks for nothing.' Watch out for it, it happens surprisingly regularly, 3 times this week I think .

Okay, Romeo's aggression is a bit more relentless than it has been before now but he has spent most of the year, and earlier, acting like a bad-tempered jerk, so I don't really buy the "This isn't like you" schtick.

Exactly my thoughts, this behaviour is hardly out of character for Romeo.

[630si]

I too bought the same about Romeo! hasn't be been moody for months now?!

anyway, I've been working a lot so I have just done a triple bill that I had taped this morning. I don't know if its he way I have watched them, but this whole Casey in the desert/Rescue, has t been great at all. As per previous comments, it looks amazing and has been filmed really well, credit to the production team, but that's all it really is. Feels like a kind of flashy show off of scenery and what they can do. In my opinion, there was t enough scenes between Casey and Kyle doing the whole threatening thing, and Kyle is too calm to be a psycho kidnapper. Having said this, it's a nice change and it's good to have something a little bit exciting happening sandwiched Inbetween Romeo a d Indi.

Brax is also suppose to be pretty skint right? He organisd a plane and a wad of cash for the driver in next to no time, but I guess that's scretly why I love home and away sometimes, they don't feel like they should explain everything and its like... Just roll with it.

Hoping the desert-gate is good next week!

[Slade]

I thought it was really sweet Sasha ringing Casey to check if he was OK, worried that he left because she wouldn't let him apologise.

When Dex was cuddling Marilyn for a moment I thought that as a result of his injuries we'd seen the return of the fixated Dex. I have to admit I did feel sorry for him when he said he wished he died in the accident. Although Sid mentioned that Dex suffered from depression I wonder if Sid himself is almost borderline hence the drinking last week.

I very often find Romeo quite dull so I like the more aggressive side he's shown over the last week and I have to admit I found it quite funny how Indy's tried to help him and he's bitten her head off a couple of times. Also the stuff with Liam has been mildly amusing.

I wasn't sure at first but funnily enough I actually thought Kyle was Danny's son so it was no surprise what's happened with Casey.

I've said this before but the Natalie/Brax stuff turns my stomach. I'm sick and tired of them. I don't think Natalie's that good a character if I'm honest and if I had to choose between her and Brax it would be Brax.

[H&Alover]

Brax is also suppose to be pretty skint right? He organisd a plane and a wad of cash for the driver in next to no time, but I guess that's scretly why I love home and away sometimes, they don't feel like they should explain everything and its like... Just roll with it.

Exactly my thoughts, even given the likelihood Brax obviously was using his, um, contacts from before. Case, given his condition, was thinking pretty clearly to be able to give those clues to Brax, hoping he'd pick up on them. Just what is so special about that place anyway? Though is it very spectacular! I can see your arguments about Brax 'letting' Nat go with him, but she's a pretty stubborn person. She did seem poorly dressed for someone heading off into the outback, even I would know to wear something to cover yourself up, yet there she was dressed ss if she was going off for a day on the beach.

OK I get your point about Romeo having been on the moody side lately, but since he's been using the steroids he's gone way over the top, even snapping at Alf. Liam, once again, gets the 'why should I listen to you, your'e only a junkie' routine. As I said before, it's precisely why he is/was that he can recognise the signs, the only other one who would of course is Sid.