Latest UK Episode Discussion (2006-2017 Seasons)

[Red Ranger 1]

Casey's right, Heath needs to accept help.He can't look after Bianca on his own and she can't look after herself.His frustration at her inability to remember how the fire started was very understandable but it doesn't mean he can go around snapping at everyone who tries to help.Does Leah not know about Bianca's memory loss?She seemed completely bewildered when she witnessed it.Still, the fact Bianca's beginning to access old memories rather than forming new ones is a good sign.Scenes were obviously shown in the wrong order here with Leah transported from place to place:Her chat with Josh at the surf club presumably should have come after her chat with Bianca at the Diner but instead it was shown in the middle of it.Josh is just starting Year 11?Shouldn't he be starting Year 12 or has he been deaged?Andy's sudden desire to help out with Josh's schooling is a bit, well, sudden, but this is the sort of thing that's needed if we're meant to find him likable.

Well, it was no surprise that Alf didn't mind Marilyn's youthful indiscretion, a whole lot of water's gone under the bridge since then.We could probably guess it was in 1989 since that was the only time Roo and Marilyn were in the Bay at the same time until they both came back in 2010 but nice to get confirmation.Still, doing Jett's chores probably was decent calmer.But another round of punishments from John?Really?The last round was meant to be the last and now we get more on top of this lot.

[Eleri]

Perhaps it's time for Leah to put her newly acquired student counselling skills to the test with Jett as John's hard labour punishment regime is not working.

Jett's stunts are becoming increasingly nasty. Running away with Nina was irresponsible and put unnecessary stress on John, he then threw a party (for random strangers) at Irene's house while she was away caring for a desperately ill Bianca and to cap it off, he's blackmailing Marilyn. I think Marilyn could have nipped it in the bud if she'd reacted like an adult but that's just Marilyn and Jett exploited her foibles which made it all seem so much worse.

With Bianca sick and her deputy in a secure unit it will be interesting to see who will be in charge of SBH this term. Hopefully the absence of Montgomery and the music festival bonding experience will mean the students will be better integrated and the school will be calmer.

I'm also intrigued to see how they will divide the teenagers into teaching groups as year 11 seems to be the default regardless of age.

As an aside, Josh's need to cover his school expenses raises the question of how Tamara is going to pay the rent etc now she's given up her job at Angelo's. And did Josh ever return Spencer's school uniform after he borrowed it last term?

[H&Alover]

Yes indeed good to have it confirmed Marilyn's thieving occurred in 1989. Depending on how old Roo is, late 30's, the timeline could put her as a teenager. Jett came unstuck again as Alf blew his and VJ's cover, Marilyn confessing put paid to any further blackmail.

Casey was right to call Nate, Bianca needed checking out if only for any smoke inhalation she may have had. I can see Heath sees her as his responsibility, but he shouldn't be so proud/stubborn and accept help. I wondered that about Leah not seeming to know about Bianca's memory loss, Irene would have told her surely? Looks like from what we saw at the Diner her memory could be coming back, that phone ringing has triggered something the same way it jogged Ricky's memory. Although good in one way, it could cause more problems as now she will/may remember the actual explosion whereas until now she has been ignorant of what happened, apart from Heath keep telling her.

Maybe Josh is retaking year 11, as he missed out a lot of the year, seems to be a recurring thing for students to do. Certainly seems Andy is turning over a new leaf and glad he accepted Casey's offer of money. Couldn't Josh do part time work to help out Andy, other kids do.

[Dan F]

Yes indeed good to have it confirmed Marilyn's thieving occurred in 1989. Depending on how old Roo is, late 30's, the timeline could put her as a teenager. Jett came unstuck again as Alf blew his and VJ's cover, Marilyn confessing put paid to any further blackmail.

Yeah it came up in discussion when it aired in Australia - it can be narrowed down to a 5 week window in 1989 and simply doesn't work, moreso given that the episodes have been repeated in the last few years:

So Maz stole money from Alf in her first 5 weeks of being in the bay (long before working with him - did he leave his wallet at Morag's?)... and an 18/19 year old Roo, who had a good job at the Macklin Corporation and left to live in the city within weeks, was blamed and "grounded"....? Righto!

I appreciate the attempts at a bit of history, but only if it would feasibly work in the timeline...

[Red Ranger 1]

Well, Marilyn did say that Alf left the wallet on the wharf while he was fishing so that bit's vaguely plausible.I think she and Roo crossed over by slightly more than 5 weeks and from what I recall of Roo's age she was 17/18 at the time but yeah, she'd left school and had a well-paid job and was way past the age of being grounded.The odd thing is that we haven't even seen any reaction from Roo, unless it's yet to come, and Alf didn't mention her either so about 90% of the problems with this back story are down to one line of dialogue where Marilyn could just as easily have said that Emma or someone was blamed instead.Did the writers choose someone they thought the audience had heard of?Or just someone that they'd heard of?

So...today's ep.While she's presumably not 100% better, it seemed like Bianca got too many memories back too quickly, it would have been nice to have it carry on a bit longer.Ricky's probably making the right decision moving away from the Braxtons and putting an end to that chapter of her life but she's still going to need them to watch out for her, as I think they all realise in their own way.Another case of one of Brax's solutions just causing more problems.I'm guessing Kyle was meant to be visiting Phoebe at the caravan park but it felt very odd seeing him just hanging out there on his own.

Josh was a bit quick to think the worst of Andy but Andy should have been straight with him from the start, not closed down and refused to explain.At least Casey managed to talk some sense into him.

Hannah's paranoia about Denny was frustrating if understandable and it got to the point where she was clearly haranguing an innocent girl and really needed to wake up.Thankfully Zac managed to talk her round in the end and it's nice that he seems to instantly be a bit protective of Denny.The photo was a surprise, although I guess they needed something to prove Denny's story:Did Ethan really have no interest in seeing her or did he have no way of contacting her?Either way, he seems to have kept quiet about it pretty thoroughly.After some decent scenes with Oscar, Evelyn was back to being petulant the moment the subject of Zac's love life came up so I cheered at the end when Zac turned the tables on her and revealed she was grabbing completely the wrong end of the stick.

[Brian]

Well it's good to see Josh getting some money for school. Hope he sticks it out this time, but he'll have Maddy to keep him in line. He could get a job to help out, because Andy's advance won't last that long and then when they get more money from? Casey managed to sort them out with wise words and he certainly has grown up now he has a gym to run. Does Heath, the other gym manager, ever go to help? Casey probably does a good job without him.

We won't have to put up with Heath shouting at Bianca any more, now she has memory back. How did she know that it had all come back? I know that Bianca thanks Heath for looking after her, but he didn't really do much. Be interesting to see how Bianca manages at school in a few days time, that is, assuming that an acting principle hasn't been put in place by the Department.

yes, what was Kyle doing in the caravan park, stoking a fire? Like the way Heath called him "Pyro". Is Kyle still chasing Phoebe? If so, to do what?

[Dan F]

Well, Marilyn did say that Alf left the wallet on the wharf while he was fishing so that bit's vaguely plausible.I think she and Roo crossed over by slightly more than 5 weeks and from what I recall of Roo's age she was 17/18 at the time but yeah, she'd left school and had a well-paid job and was way past the age of being grounded.

6 weeks in total, but I wasn't including Maz's handful of scenes in her first week when she briefly visited the bay for the boat trip. She came back to 'stay' in 314 and Roo left in 339. I think she said Alf left it on "the side" and whilst it's vague I did think it suggested it was in the house or store (even though I'm sure they had nothing to do with each other at that point). But anywhos, I'm clearly overthinking it when it's really just a continuity blip

[Red Ranger 1]

^Roo didn't leave properly until 345 of course, and that last week was actually the only time Roo #1 and Marilyn had a scene together, but she was out of town for most of that week and only came back for Duncan's christening.

But anyway, today's ep.I was frustrated when Oscar backed off from asking about Denny after Evelyn's strop so I'm glad he turned round and decided to meet her and glad that Hannah supported his decision after her wavering earlier.Evelyn missed the point when wondering why he'd want another sister:The fact is he's got one.I sympathise to a point that her image of Ethan is being shattered so thoroughly but it's not really fair to take her issues with Ethan out on Denny.

I don't think it was until this episode that I realised how much I've missed Spencer and Maddy interacting, which is a surprise since I was more sold on the idea of them than the reality last year.Mind you, the bit where Maddy runs to Spencer like old times and then remembers that Sasha's there was rather awkward:Sasha did feel like the odd one when it was the three of them together, which kind of reinforces my belief that the show made the wrong relationship choices.Chris latching onto Sasha calling him a hero was rather fun.He took a big risk phoning Harvey like that and it didn't entirely come off, even if he did manage to make a few good points to him.John proved far more effective when he's not spending most of his screen time bullying Jett and I loved the way the love-hate relationship between him and Harvey got resurrected.

[Pierced Musie]

I have tried to warm to Hannah but I just can't because she comes across as smug instead of worried about the twins safety. I hate the way that Ethan was just made to be the evil one and the way Hannah talks about him you would think he had been abusing the twins for years, even though he hadn't.

I think I just hate how that whole 'family' came together in the end. So false & heavy-handed when it could have been so graceful & heartwarming. Am I the only one who would have prefered Ethan to have remained alive and stuck around to come to terms with the death of his wife, with the help of Zac?

Grrr.

[H&Alover]

Marilyn originally came to the bay as a girlfriend of Lance's so naturally she'd have hung around the caravan park and whatever café/diner there was then. I was wondering why no input from Roo, but she does have more important things on her mind than a probably long forgotten grounding.

Not sure Bianca is as out of the woods as she is hoping. Dex had one step forward and two back. She did remember something heavy lying on her chest, the rest of it she was unconscious. What I found odd was she, Irene and Heath came back from the café, she and Irene went into their place and Heath went into the main house where he immediately got caught up in the row about Casey telling Ricky about Brax being transferred. His news about Bianca was totally forgotten. I started to think I'd imagined it, until we saw Irene and Bianca talking about her going back to work. I can see why Casey told her, better to hear it from one of them, than she go all the way to the prison and have them tell her. So Ricky is going to be staying at 'that' motel, how is she going to pay for it as far as I know she doesn't have a job.

Brian, Heath was rather tied up with looking after Bianca, I dare say he'll get back to work now she doesn't need 24 hour care. I like how he has come out from under Brax's shadow and makes good decisions and the others agree with him. His deciding that they should let Ricky have some space but be there for her should she need them.

I think I know why Evelyn was so against meeting Denny, she isn't the 'only' daughter anymore, maybe if had been a boy Oscar may have felt the same as she does. Denny was a secret not only from them but maybe also his wife. She's found out her parent wasn't perfect and had a life before her mum. I'd like to think it was the latter Red, he didn't know where Olivia was. At least he didn't throw Denny's photo away so it must have meant something to him. Good that Zac talked Hannah round, she was being paranoid.

Josh did rather jump to conclusions but Andy had said he'd do anything to get the money for his school things. Good for Casey for getting Andy to explain to Josh, all the lads seem to be blossoming since Brax has been gone.

Chris still seems bothered about what he did, which wasn't anything as Sean was already injured. Are we going to see a more serious side to him? His teasing Sash about calling him a hero was nice touch. I guess he knew how much Spencer meant to Harvey which is why he made the call, even though it didn't work out the way he hoped. Surprise that Harvey turned up at John's at the end. They may have had their differences in the past, but I thought the last time Harvey was in the bay they had decided to let bygones be bygones.

Nice idea of Sash, Maddy and Marilyn hold a girls night for Roo, loved how Alf decided to go and gut some fish to get out of the way. Roo was very touched that Spencer had tried to find Harvey in return for all they had done for him and Maddy.