2018 Season - UK Episode Discussion

[Homeandawayfan.]

I still feel the storyline regarding Alf is a moderate rewrite of history.

[Pierced Musie]

Alf & Roo's storyline? I'm sorry... I don't know what you are talking about .

Just want to go back to earlier in the week and the Willow/Tori scenes... In fact all Willow scenes at the moment. Her trashing Ash as a thug would have meant more if she hadn't been one herself. Bonus points for the fact that she (quite rightly) bagged Ash out about his violence but in the next sentence said she wanted to thump him for his behaviour. How does that work?

As for her behaviour to Colby. I know we don't have the full story yet (and i am really looking forward to the reveal) but it feels yet again that I'm supposed to be rooting for her. I just wanted Colby to verbally smack her down.

And yeah, I am still getting the heartbroken vibe from this Colby/Dean connection. Would make it all the more interesting & Dean doesn't seem to know what personal space is. Holy flirt, Batman .

[Red Ranger 1]

I think I've just about got past the WTF reaction to Alf's revelation and it's quietened down enough for us to get at least some feel to how the news is affecting people.I really hope someone's given some thought as to where we go from here though: There's no point having a big dramatic reveal if there's no story to go with it and the characters are just going to shrug their shoulder and carry on as normal after a week or two.So, Alf's chat with John seemed to suggest that he found out the truth in between him marrying Ailsa and Roo giving birth, for what it's worth.(Confusingly, Roo continues to say it's been "over 30 years", despite Alf's mention of Ailsa being around yesterday.Maybe it didn't click.)Again, the worry that he'll be annoying me again soon is there, but I did feel some sympathy for Ryder caught in the crossfire and not having a clue what's going on, and it's to his credit that he tried to help Alf instead of throwing a tantrum.Ironic that Roo makes all those big speeches about stability and then promptly leaves him behind with a brief "Call me if you need anything, I'll see you at school." Not so easy this parenthood thing, is it? I did like the almost scared way she threw down the letter from her mother when she realised what it was, it felt like a very human response.

The Astonis continue to improve as a family unit.Maggie's becoming more sympathetic: practical and businesslike but with more of a hint of the trauma under the surface.Ben is being wonderfully supportive and I loved the subtle way that Ziggy realised Ben and Maggie needed space and quietly got Coco out of the way without making a big deal out of it, even paying Raffy to keep her occupied.It feels like something she wouldn't have done just a few weeks ago.Them all hanging out at the hospital to keep her company during her chemotherapy was sweet too.

I hope Olivia doesn't mess her career up after all this...and that's pretty much all there was to that storyline.

[c120701]

I posted this in the 5 Star thread yesterday, but as this is more active...

They really haven’t written this Martha story well, there’s so much more they could have done with it and so many plot holes. Has Alf had the letter is his wallet all this time? If not, why would that survive the mudslide when the Stewart family records didn’t? (As Dan suggested, maybe a Safety Deposit box)

Roo said that Summer Bay House didn’t feel like her home anymore, but they should have played more on the fact it was her home at the time of Martha’s “death” and that’s why she couldn’t stay there... i.e. “This is where you told me my Mum died” “This bedroom is where I cried myself to sleep...”

The one thing that does fit, although is probably by chance, is Alf said in the pilot how obsessive Martha was in keeping the house clean. Often those who are hiding personal issues, be it mental illness or addiction, try to hide it by keeping up appearances.

[630si]

Im feeling the same regarding the Martha story. Willing to reserve judgement for now though as we’re learning bits slowly.

Red I do have to agree about the Astonis Imoroving together and I’ve found myself changing my mind about them and warming to them. I think it’s because Ben had calmed down and the girls aren’t as in your face. I’m even starting to like coco and I never thought I would say that. The scene at the hospital playing games during the chemo was really heartwarming 

[Slade]

22 hours ago, H&Alover said:

Being vegetarian doesn't exclude eating cheese and eggs.

I never said it did!  In fact quite the opposite.  If you refer back to the quote I highlighted from the episode, Marilyn had specifically mentioned to Alf that being Vegetarian was all low fat and low cholesterol.  Vegetarian's can eat cheese which is high in fat.  Vegetarian's can eat eggs which are high in cholesterol.  She was talking cobblers.  That was my point!

I can understand Coco was worried about her mother but I found her annoying as hell.  Neither Ben/Maggie wanted her to be at the appointment but she wouldn't respect their wishes and just kept insisting.  Ziggy had to come up with a plan to get her friends to spend time with her.  Oddly enough out of all the characters involved, the one I feel the most sorry for is Ben given I hated him at first.  The storyline does seem to have taken an interesting turn with Maggie's response to the Chemo.  I'm guessing she's not going to lose her hair.

Interesting that Roo is so upset by Alf that she appears to have ditched mother duties with Ryder.  I thought her pet project was very important to her but this appears to override it.  I don't agree with Alf keeping this from her even though I can understand why but at least she knows the truth now.  I am still finding Ryder annoying in most of the scenes he's in but can see how much he cares about Roo and Alf for that matter.  So Alf has 2 heart attacks and a brain hemorrhage in around 18 months and he's practically straight back to work.  I think he needs time off and to have his medication reviewed.

[H&Alover]

Yes Red, Roo accused Alf of hiding the secret of her mother still being alive for 35 years, um no thirty love, call yourself a teacher! I have asked before but Alf told Roo Martha was alive - if as she asked in that letter he didn't try and find her how does he know she's still alive, she would be around his age so could be dead. I know we keep going round and round in circles over this but if Martha is alive, wouldn't that make Alf & Ailsa's marriage null and void at least if not illegal and how about Duncan does this news  make him illegitimate?   I liked his talk, reluctant as he was at first, with John, hearing how he felt about it was quite  sad.  He admitted things weren't perfect, whose marriage is, but didn't know how bad it was from Martha's point of view. Although he owned up to being hurt and angry and didn't try and find her as per her instructions, likely thinking sod it then, telling he didn't throw the letter away but kept it safe all these years. Very good work there by the props department btw making the envelope look well worn with the sticky part where the gum was being all brown.  Not a long letter from Martha, just telling Alf although she loved them she couldn't be his wife or Roo's mum anymore, so I guess a kind of relief for Roo that it wasn't anything she had done or hadn't done.

I liked Ryder in this episode, showed real concern over Grumps, trying to help him but  getting the brush off from him  & Roo as to why she'd moved out.  I know 'it's complicated' to use that well known phrase/cliché  and it doesn't have a real impact on him, but he's living there so deserves some kind of explanation.  He made the right and adult decision to go and speak to John and Marilyn and get their advice.  He was later also supportive to Coco along with Raffy, though still had his fun side when he joked about Raffy feeding him.

It's not a jolly story by any means but good that TPTB are tackling cancer via Maggie.  She is putting on a brave face but you can see she is scared of what's next. It has drawn the Astoni family together which is what the bay is all about after all. Good thinking on Ziggy's part by getting Raffy to get Coco out of the house so Ben & Maggie could go to the hospital alone - no school then?  Good news and bad news then - she certainly got a quick appointment for her chemo!  Brilliant idea by Ben of them having a family day treating it like a picnic and playing games.  We see it so many times on TV -  the person having chemo just sitting there, reading  a book or magazine - it must have made the time pass quicker.  Looks like Maggie has some kind of allergic  reaction to whatever chemical is in the treatment, must happen, you don't know if you are allergic to something until you are given it apart from the usual question - are you allergic to anything e.g penicillin.

The Olivia hearing from Axel (not sacked then) and him asking how the designs were coming along scene did seem a bit of an add on.

Forgot to say, as an aside I did like the top Jasmine wore the last time we saw her.

[Red Ranger 1]

Alf's episode count this week: Five, for the third week running!

Sooo.I can't quite decide if I found Olivia annoying or amusing here.She was out of line but it was played with such a light touch that I couldn't help but like her all the same.Irene probably shouldn't have encouraged her to think of Hunter as the missing element of her design process: Hopefully she just needs someone to bounce ideas off, since it's hard to see Hunter making himself available for that any time soon.Mason continues to be a good friend to both of them despite being caught in the middle, and nice to see him getting a bit of interest himself from Jasmine, who's probably saner than Jennifer.Who is therefore a good match for Hunter and at least it keeps him away from Olivia.

The Astoni stuff continues to be quite decent.I was expecting a big reveal about Maggie's collapse but apparently it was just the chemo doing what it does and no cause for (more) panic as yet.Coco was a bit irritating but it's excusable by her age and her sitting up researching it all felt in character.It was also nice to hear Ziggy acknowledge that she's giving being a good sister a try.It crossed my mind that Brody seems to have decided to look for a place of his own just as the Diner flat becomes available...

So, I'm assuming that's meant to be Jasmine's stalker in her caravan (and he's credited as David so it seems a fair assumption). Well, it seemed unlikely he was just going to get arrested off screen without us meeting him.Still, while it's a neat visual clue for the audience, it made very little sense for him to be looking at a photo of her on his phone.Had he forgotten what she looks like?Or does he just like looking at her picture now and again? Incidentally, the actor was last seen in 2015 as a guy that chatted up Hannah in a club and got punched by Andy.

Re Alf's marriages. I saw a similar scenario in a US show (so possibly it's different in Australia and possibly they were making it up) where the woman whose dead husband turned up could have had either of the marriages annulled and in the end had her current marriage annulled and went back to the not-dead-after-all one.Of course, since Alf's second wife is dead (and he saw it happens so he's pretty sure about that one) it's arguably not really an issue.

[atrus]

Hmm. Alf and Roo: it's difficult for me to comment on the timeline discrepancies, as I'm not as familiar with the very early days of the show as others here. But from what people have said, it sounds like a bit of a dog's breakfast continuity-wise. Even if Alf found out after he married Ailsa that Martha was still alive, I guess it makes him a bigamist in spirit if not in law that he didn't declare it to anyone. Not that there aren't far worse things than being a bigamist, especially when your first wife is widely presumed dead, has informed you she wants nothing to do with you, and you have no means or intention of tracking her down. Did he declare it to Ailsa, I wonder? (Sorry if I've missed it, if we already know.) Either way, he certainly didn't declare it to Roo and it looks like he had no intention of so doing until the whole sinkhole affair - guess it just didn't occur to him on the many previous occasions he's been in mortal danger. I certainly don't blame her for being mightily annoyed, and I think the authentic-feeling portrayal of Roo's fear of what she'd find out went some way to mitigating her baffling lack of curiosity as regards the detail of Martha's alive-ness last week. While her anger definitely excuses Roo's behaviour towards Alf (and Marilyn's hectoring in this regard really started to get up my nose - at least give her a bit of time to simmer before begging her to go home), I was annoyed at how little regard she appeared to have for Ryder when she moved out, especially after all her sanctimonious judging of Quinn not being a good enough mother. Considering Roo's ultra-maternal behaviour towards him thus far, you'd have expected her to drag him off to the motel with her (but then I suppose there's only one room there, and them sharing would be weird) - instead all he got was relative coldness and a promise that they'd see each other at school, as if she had no intention of having anything to do with him besides professionally. Clearly it affected Ryder to the extent that he's started paying more regard to Alf, though, so maybe it's not all bad.

Not a huge amount to say about how the whole Robbo thing wound up, other than that I'm glad Ash didn't succumb to his baser instincts and dash Robbo's head against the Rocks of Denouement (which felt like the same ones Kat was hanging off when Billie rescued her the other year - and possibly the same ones Heath and Rent-a-Crim had their duel to the death on in the special?) I intensely dislike the way that both Ash and Tori have been behaving, for different reasons, and I think the most that can be said is that they're highly incompatible and, despite my initial instincts, best off apart. Ash has violence and vengeance in his heart, and for doctor Tori, I feel that's an insurmountable problem. But she's far from blameless, and it felt to me like she was harbouring Robbo out of resentment of Ash and his tendencies, almost to pay him back, rather than to protect him as Justin repeatedly claimed in his endless moralising to Ash this week. In fact Justin's ranting made me less, rather than more, sympathetic to the older Morgans' behaviour, as did the realisation that they had put Brody's parole (or whatever the word is) in potential jeopardy by hiding Robbo in the garage.

Wow; Dean and Colby have some chemistry, don't they? Of course, even if the show had the faintest intention of going there, it would be about the only item of interest in this storyline - unless you count Willow, who so far has more personality than the two blokes put together. This whole New River Boys thing has a bit of a feeling of the Tiny Toons or the S-Club Juniors about it; are we really supposed to be interested in these stock, derivative characters? I was never a fan of the Braxtons' domination of the show, but credit where due - they were pretty well-rounded characters. Perhaps I should give them more of a chance to bed in, but these 'juniors' just seem paper-thin so far. Presumably Colby has got away without anyone guessing his affiliation thus far because he's been posted some distance away from Yabbie Creek and its environs, where the cops might not have recognised the tattoo as significant during his physical? Nonetheless it seems daft that he suddenly seems to want to stay in the area now, and expects that he'll get away without his old acolytes mentioning it to his colleagues. Dean just seems to be a stock antagonist type, wheeled in to tell Ash to do whatever's the opposite of sane and reasonable in any given scene.

In other news: not a great deal to remark on in Maggie's cancer storyline, other than it's bringing out the Astoni family's strength as a unit, I feel. The Jasmine storyline was beginning to feel like an extended public service announcement, with Leah and Colby alternately delivering leaden, patronising dialogue in Jasmine's direction about how brave she is/how bad her stalker is, and seemingly endless exposition about how AVOs work - while all major plot developments appeared to be happening off-screen. So seeing the stalker actually turn up felt like an 'it's about time' moment. Elsewhere, Olivia is still stressing about designing clothes, leading me to wish she'd go off and do so in Paris or Milan so we needn't be party to it; and 'Huntifer' actually feels like an improvement on 'Huntivia', although I have absolutely no doubt that Jen is bang on the money that she's ultimately going to prove to be nothing more than a complication in the reunification of the latter. Plus it feels odd that her crazy/mean girl side hasn't surfaced for weeks, so I'm expecting that any day now.

[c120701]

Would we say Xavier is about Colby’s age? If they’d been in the Academy together then Xavier would have made the connection with the River Boys.

Also, why hasn’t he just had the tattoo removed or tattooed over?