1992 Episode Discussion

[beau_t]

Rachel1990, you don't say! Poor Meg, she is an innocent victim of this cruel and terrible cancer, she faces a death sentence even though she did absolutely nothing wrong. And yes, poor Blake too, while I can never understand why he in particular so quickly "fell in love" with Meg (the guys would be queuing up in real life, she is such a princess!), he is going through hell and unlike in 1992 when I first saw these episodes (in parts), I have to admit, neither he nor Meg or Julia deserve this.

While I am glad they got their time together at that posh hotel in Sydney (after a lot of begging against Alf's wild prejudices and "moral" bull****) I do wish she and Blake were allowed to sleep in the same bed in her last days, just for the sake of getting as much happiness as possible out of her short life.

A lot of people have moral bull****, as you so elegantly put it. I personally believe that it's wrong for two people to live together or sleep in the same bed before marriage, if they are dating.

If that's your belief, fine, no-one's forcing you to do it. But for other people (fictional or otherwise), if they are happy to do it, no-one else should use their beliefs to stop them. Even when it's NOT a dying person's last wish!

[Old H&A Fan]

I agree with you BeauT. The reason why I made it Meg's last dying wish is to try to rationalise and to reason against the people who believe in the hard and fast rule of "no sex before marriage, no ifs, no buts" and to hell with wanting a bit of pleasure and a bit of fun even under sensible moderation. Some people, unfortunately, are brainwashed by Bible-bashing parents into believing that any kind of sexual pleasure (outside of procreation) is a sin and something to be ashamed of and they'd "burn in hell". Call me a religion-basher but that's the sort of belief system I am totally opposed to and find abhorrent.

Unfortunately, future teen romances are denied this pleasure, like

• Alf telling Simon off for having it off with Toni

• Mr Fisher refusing to let Shane & Angel see each other

because of this kind of bigotry.

Anyway, back to the tragic storyline with Meg, I am surprised and disappointed this didn't make it into the Top 10 famous TV deaths, while we keep hearing about this Molly character's death on A Country Practice, and 2 other Home And Away storylines are mentioned (Alsa's cliffhanger heart attack death, and Sally's stabbing), our Meg is left out and forgotten in the mainstream press — I only find mentions of this in smaller, more niche media like Australiatimes.co.uk.

[Natasha]

Adam is back and up to his old tricks again lol

The storyline with Lucinda painting Nick in the nude is more of a plot filler IMO

[Blaxland 89]

I thought this when Alf and Don were talking about Alan. And I though it even more when Alf was talking about Alan to Simon. Its written as if they've forgotten that Alan was Alf's nephew. His own sister's son.

[Old H&A Fan]

Adam is back and up to his old tricks again lol

The storyline with Lucinda painting Nick in the nude is more of a plot filler IMO

They could have instead included more footage of the Meg storyline instead of the plot-filler Loo painting Nick parts?

[beau_t]

I thought this when Alf was and Don was talking about Alan. And I though it even more when Alf was talking about Alan to Simon. Its written as if they've forgotten that Alan was Alf's nephew. His own sister's son.

That's because, until someone suddenly remembers in the late 90s, the writers have completely forgotten about Barbara!

[CaptainHulk]

Some people are closer to certain relatives more than others. Given Barbara lived in the city and Alan and Rebecca were farmed out to boarding school, I doubt they came to the Bay that often.

[Red Ranger 1]

Having caught up, I'm left slightly confused by some of the comments on here.People seemed to be saying that Blake and Meg wanted to spend her last night together and the adults wouldn't let them but nothing like that happened.I'm not sure it even crossed their minds, which may be because they thought they wouldn't be allowed or may be because they actually needed a rest after spending pretty much every other minute with each other.Timescale was a bit confusing but as far as I can see, despite it taking five episodes, Meg did live three days, despite the doctor amending it to "three to five" to cover them.It's been interesting to watch it in context.The show keeps pinching that "watching the sunset" bit for later storylines but we've seen Blake and Meg in that position so many times, right up to her previous trip to the beach before she went to hospital, we know it's something she loves, giving it a greater resonance rather than it just being a random moment.It's astonishing how little they appear in her last episode, in later years they'd probably try and have one or both of them in every scene, yet this is far more effective.Some incredibly sad characterisation of Julia with her acceptance that Blake's given Meg something that she couldn't.Ailsa suggesting she scream if she wants to and Julia simply answering that it won't change anything underlines that nothing can make it better.

Meg's farewell party was a bit random though.People like Nick, Lou, Greg, Bobby and Sam are there because they happened to be in the episode, even though Meg doesn't actually know them, but no sign of Fin or Sally, who are meant to be her friends, or Alf and Ailsa, who she's had far more to do with.

As I recall, Lou's painting of Nick will crop up again at a later date.Which scarily reminds me we're only about five weeks away from when I started watching...Sophie's attachment to Ryan is kind of intriguing looking ahead to his last stint.

Fin continues to be a bit of a brat at times and it doesn't help that her character seems to change from episode to episode or even scene to scene.At least we're laying the groundwork for Damian's arrival.Hearing Irene being talked about as if she's the devil incarnate kind of falls under Early Installment Weirdness.Simon once again demonstrates that, whatever his faults, he's a very good friend, with the way he's been there for Blake.

And yes, Alf has always been a bit forgetful about who he's related to.I'm not sure he even remembers Bobby's his niece, let alone family members he doesn't see anymore.

[Fyn3]

Having caught up, I'm left slightly confused by some of the comments on here.People seemed to be saying that Blake and Meg wanted to spend her last night together and the adults wouldn't let them but nothing like that happened.I'm not sure it even crossed their minds, which may be because they thought they wouldn't be allowed or may be because they actually needed a rest after spending pretty much every other minute with each other.

I think people are referring to their trip to the city, not her last night.

Her last wish of things she wanted to do before she died was to "be" with Blake. They wanted to go away so they could be alone and grant this last wish. The adults were initially opposed to the idea but they eventually came around and allowed them to go.

[beau_t]

Yes. I think one person mentioned in passing it would be nice for them to spend their final night together, but other than that we were talking about their trip to the city.

It's a bit annoying about the wrong people being at Meg's farewell due to who was in the episode. And then Greg mentioning that Sam and Meg got along like a house on fire when breaking the news of Meg's death. Yes, they got along like a house on fire for the whole 45 seconds they hung out.

Where was Meg's grandfather when all this was going on?!