1991 Episode Discussion

[Natasha]

Adam is back to his old tricks again. He will never change. Poor Marilyn, she has a good heart and Adam is using her. Some friend.

Don't like the principal trying to split Hayden and Blake up. I love their friendship.

The downfall of Karen Dean was so sad.

I am really bored of Nick/Lu and Ryan.

[Old H&A Fan]

Why can't Nick and Ryan learn to be mates with each other, and share Loo, instead of one being jealous of the other?

[dncllpyk]

Does anyone know when Sophie comes back?

[Blaxland 89]

Adam is back to his old tricks again. He will never change. Poor Marilyn, she has a good heart and Adam is using her. Some friend.

Don't like the principal trying to split Hayden and Blake up. I love their friendship.

The downfall of Karen Dean was so sad.

I am really bored of Nick/Lu and Ryan.

Hah! Your already bored of Nick/Lu and Ryan. Prepare to be bored for a while yet. Bit of a modern episode story those three.

[Red Ranger 1]

Does anyone know when Sophie comes back?

Episode 850, I believe, so not long at all.

Seen up to 845.Much as I used to like her, I can't bring myself to feel sorry for Karen.It would be a slight exaggeration to say she hasn't shown any remorse for everything she's done but it's pretty obvious she doesn't care about anyone but herself.I'll save my sympathy for the family mourning a son and brother and the family who, in effect, are mourning her.She came in a sweet-natured girl and left a criminal sociopath.Given that Alf was willing to wash his hands of her simply for moving in with Revhead, I'm a bit bewildered as to why he and Ailsa are continuing to support her when she's done far worse(including leaving Alf for dead, albeit reluctantly), I actually think Ailsa would have covered for her if necessary.I'd understand if they were doing it for Blake's sake but they actually seem to have convinced themselves that she's just misunderstood, when it's clear she only sees them as a convenience and would abandon them without a second thought if she could.(I'm reminded of Alf being the only person not to realise Angel's story was about Sarah:"Come on, Don, that girl's parents were idiots who believed everything she told them.")Bobby seemed uncharacteristically naïve insisting she was innocent until I remember she'll be doing the same thing with Tug in about a year's time.I don't think we need to see every stage of the legal process and Karen being led to that police car felt very final(and curiously reminiscent of Ruby's exit last year, although I don't find Karen nearly as sympathetic)but it is odd she never had a proper last moment with, well, anyone.But then, thinking back to Carly's non-existent farewell and then going back further, has anyone had a decent farewell scene yet?Tom died and Lance and Morag stick in the mind but other than that they always seem to be either buried in the middle of an episode so they're dwarfed by the surrounding events or happening off screen between episodes(Roo even managed to disappear while Duncan was being rushed to hospital!).

What is Michael on at the moment?First he wants to keep David away from Sophie, now he wants to keep Blake away from Haydn.Is there anyone he does want them to spend time with?Is he going to start choosing Sally's friends for her next?It's almost like he and Haydn have swapped personalities from when they first came in and Michael was encouraging Haydn to befriend the locals while he thought he was above them.Despite chiding Michael for keeping David's death quiet, Pippa's now going along with it and probably is hoping that Sophie will come back and announce she's over him so they can go "Well, that's good, because you couldn't have seen him anyway..."Fair enough, she didn't want to tell her over the phone, but why not go up there in person, rather than taking the rather cruel option of letting her build up her hopes and spend two weeks looking forward to seeing him again only to crush them in the worst way imaginable?They've already robbed her of the chance to go to his funeral

although I guess closure is relative when she's going to be left with a permanent reminder.Given how long it takes her to notice and given that we're all scratching our heads trying to work out when they had time to sleep together, is anyone else wondering if the writers actually knew Sophie was pregnant at this point or decided it when trying to work out what to do in 1992?Maybe David was just there because Karen needed to kill someone and they didn't want it to be a random passerby.His relationship with Sophie could just have been misdirection.

I'd refute the suggestion Pippa would be more likeable simply if she still looked like Vanessa Downing though:She was equally unlikeable at times and I find Debra's performance perfectly warm when the script requires it.I'd say she's unlikely to be smiling and joking when someone she knows has just died...but then everyone else is.

I can't really blame Adam for running away from Marilyn's Kathy-Bates-in-Misery act.Her heart might be in the right place but let's face it, Marilyn can be a bit irritating at times. Oh-and Bobby can be briefly seen wearing her glasses near the end of 845.They still pop up from time to time but I'm not sure if anyone's really decided what she needs them for.

[Blaxland 89]

Would Karen have been charged for assaulting a police officer as well?

I like Steven's last scene. It ended the episode too and seemed a proper farewell. The are characters like Stacey and Andrew Foley that I can't even remember their last scene and I have watched them more than once.

[Old H&A Fan]

Thanks for the warning Red Ranger. Be prepared for a major sulkfest by Sophie next week.

As for Karen, who got rid of that mongrel, I have to disagree with you on several points. Karen is sorry she killed David (moreso than he deserves), she is not just looking out for herself. She also wasn't the one who knocked Alf out, she was just a mule with a silly crush on Revhead.

Oh and speaking of silly crushes, what's so wrong with Michael trying to stop David from making Sophie pregnant? Was it the way Michael was doing it, ie. failing to explain the consequences of the stupidity between David and Sophie? Red Ranger, why is it you're making out that David (who she has only known for a few episodes, not much more than a week after he came to Summer Bay?) he is the be-all and end-all of Sophie's life, like he is her life-long lover?

BELATED EDIT: That's the word I've been looking for — Sophie will be sulking and sulking like mad......

[Red Ranger 1]

I did say it was a slight exaggeration to say Karen feels no remorse but it is only a slight exaggeration.She's never once taken responsibility for it:When she was telling Revhead, she was acting like she was the victim.She was perfectly prepared to put all the blame on Adam and see him go to jail and when she realised that he wasn't going to keep quiet her next instinct was to run.Ailsa even acknowledged that she doesn't care about what she's done, she's just blaming everyone else.I didn't say that she hit Alf but she did run off and leave him there and not do anything to help him;she did consider calling an ambulance but Revhead easily talked her out of it.Given that Revhead named her as his accomplice, I imagine she's facing a number of charges including burglary, car theft, accessory to assault and resisting arrest, unless they've just decided to concentrate on the manslaughter charge.

Michael wasn't trying to stop David getting Sophie pregnant, he was trying to stop him breathing the same air as her.You could argue that he could have handled the situation better, sat them down and explained their concerns and perhaps set some grand rules rather than riding roughshod over everyone, pretty much literally throwing David out of the house and generally making the situation worse. (Indeed, you could argue that if he hadn't overreacted and dragged Sophie home like she's a five-year-old, he might have been able to convince them to take it slowly and Sophie might not have got pregnant.)But at the end of the day, Sophie's old enough to make her own choices and I can't actually see any reason, aside from his age, why David would be considered a bad choice. Whatever an objective analysis might suggest, in Sophie's mind, at the moment, David is the be-all and end-all of her life:She's fallen for him hard and they were still in that first stage of the relationship when you want to spend all your time together last time she saw him.I'm not convinced they'd have stayed together if he'd lived, it may well have fizzled out naturally if they'd been left to get on with it(although the baby might actually have helped, they could have stayed together and made it work once they realised they were a family)but she'll never get the chance to find out, she's just left to grieve for what might have been.

[Blaxland 89]

I still find it hard not to compare Michael with Tom and think about what Tom would have done in all these situations.

[Old H&A Fan]

But wasn't the responsibility on David to at least use condoms if not abstain from sex? That's the thing about unplanned pregnancy cases like Sophie's, they always leave out those little yet important details, it's like the biggest elephant in the room there is in the world of Home And Away!

As for Karen, she was scared, she could have got a good lawyer, but was the option even considered? As for not rendering assistance for Alf, she was under Revhead's spell &/or scared of him.