2018 Season - UK Episode Discussion

[Red Ranger 1]

It is nice to see the show continuing to try and repair the damage they did to Ash's character.I hadn't thought of Ken, but it's good that Tori is clued in on toxic shock and didn't let Justin kill Ash the way Will did Ken.Er, probably.It's hard to be sure since he's still in danger at the end.I felt they went a bit far in having Ash treat Tori like she's some sort of saint and Tori continue to insist she's been doing everything for him, both of which had me rolling my eyes.

I continue to think that, despite her having a few issues, Hunter has treated Jennifer very badly: He was the one pushing for it despite her reservations and now he's dumped her once he's had enough.I also found Leah and Hunter's inability to use a doorbell increasingly frustrating: Are they really so dependent on their little phones that they're incapable of speaking to someone if they don't answer and don't think to go round there in person? Olivia didn't quite admit that she gave the right advice for the wrong reasons but seemed to be leaning that way.Mason was great again, being a good sounding board for both Hunter and Olivia.

[atrus]

This episode felt suspiciously like Jennifer's write-out, and a pretty unsatisfactory one too - fitting perfectly into the well-worn 'upstanding Bay denizens teach dysfunctional guest characters a lesson' trope. Nick Dutton even says it outright: "I think it's safe to say we both have a few lessons to learn." It's a good job you met the morally unblemished Hunter and healthy family relationships expert Leah, then. Not only is this trite; it also appears to be a means of redeeming Hunter for his poor behaviour towards Jennifer by showing him being all holier-than-thou towards her dad; and in this regard, again, it doesn't really cut it. I really hope I'm wrong and that we see Jen back again, possibly to see her eating disorder addressed; she's been a really lively presence over the past few weeks.

As for Robbo - I don't know whether his amnesia fits the legal definition of insanity, but it certainly doesn't fit the layman's definition, since he seems to be fully in control of his actions from day to day. Although, I imagine with real-life amnesia, patients don't just neatly forget all the plot-convenient elements of their backstory and actually struggle with with basic cognition, so it may be a case of the legal situation being depicted soundly, but not the original condition. Anyhow, I can see why Robbo, being in apparent full possession of his faculties, would rather go to jail than risk being bundled off to an asylum, so I felt his response to the lawyer was probably fair - and she didn't seem particularly invested in his case either.

I felt for Jasmine today having to deal with Tori at her snootiest; I get she was scared for Ash, but it's no excuse for talking to nurses like they're dirt - especially since she wasn't speaking to anyone else in the same kind of way. But I thought Jasmine did a good and professional job of standing up for herself, without retaliating in kind, which made me warm to her somewhat.

[H&Alover]

Well it wasn't who I thought it might be riding to Ash's rescue!  That would have opened up  whole new storylines! Shame it takes a tragedy (or near one, we'll have to wait and see) to bring people to their senses.  Neat little mention of Ash only having one kidney (due to him donating the other one to Kyle), that is the Ash we knew before he went into vigilante mode. Your natural instinct like Justin's was would be to get whatever is pinning someone down off them but after so long, couple of hours, a lot of damage would have been and could be done.  Will back in the day wouldn't have known that and had no doctor handy to warn him. It was certainly a long and deliberate task to perform adding to the tension until finally they had to get the car off him and get him out as his life really was in the balance.  I think a lot of truths were coming out, as it does in situations like that, I think the opposite actually, Tori does still love Ash and even he in his dire state accepted what she had been doing was for him. Of course Tori had to do what all doctors do when someone is trying to tell them something important, to shut up and save their breath - don't do that!!!!  I guess the garage is quite a distance from the hospital, other side of town perhaps, as it seemed to take forever to get there. More drama at the hospital of course there is, was Tori still actually treating Ash even if he is her ex, he is still close enough for her not to be doing so.  I blinked at Alf's turn around in his attitude towards Robbo, no atrus,  he wasn't but Tori was being sarcastic. 

Hunter was foolish rather than deliberately cruel towards Jennifer, she soon changed her mind about taking things slowly and was the one pushing it further.  It was good he felt able to confide in Leah admitting he cocked up,  getting her advice and listening.  He couldn't have let it carry on any longer, painful for her now but much worse if he had chickened out and kept on seeing her as a friend'. For a young guy he did well explaining he did wrong initially by letting her think he was ready to move on, even he was convinced, as he later explained to Mason.  I do feel sorry for Jennifer when she isn't bullying people and making snide remarks I think there is a really nice girl/young woman underneath.  Leah, it may have been a good idea to stop telling Nick you were ringing on behalf of his daughter which appeared to be the very reason he wasn't ringing back!  Do they know where Nick and Jennifer live, anyway it looks like Hunter takes the initiative and tracks down Nick at work, love the 'oh there's your phone, I thought you had lost it' comment from him.

Great dynamic between Mason & Olivia and later Hunter, he is a good confident, listens, offers advice but doesn't judge.   Had to smile when Irene bustled over and they shooed her off, I believe Olivia when she told Mas she was giving Hunter advice as a friend.   Later too when Hunter admitted to him Jennifer was a rebound but wasn't prepared to admit to himself let alone anyone else, no judgement. Mind you just knew as soon as he said 'she'll be OK' something was going to go awry.

Will it be called ironic it's Olivia that finds Jennifer taking shelter in that gazebo? and offers her a place to stay at Irene's?   That last bit was a guess btw no prior knowledge.

OK Robbo has his issues and amnesia but to be advised by his lawyer to plead insanity - he's certainly not that!  Where did Tori find her?

[Red Ranger 1]

Well, having read atrus' comments prior to seeing the episode, I was left wondering if I'd be nodding my head in agreement at how horrible Tori was or, as often seems to happen in cases like this, going "Well, she wasn't that bad." And it was mostly the latter: There was only one scene where she crossed the line, and to be fair Jasmine did seem rather casual (for want of a better word) during that scene, not keeping the charts up to date.I do think Tori's attitude was affected by it being Ash, and I think she's kidding herself when she says it wasn't, but for the most part she was just abrupt: I was cringing when Jasmine tried to have a girlie chat with her but she didn't really bite her head off like I was anticipating.So, Ash's condition...well, technically I guess it is still life-threatening, but he's in the right place so he shouldn't actually die.It remains to be seen whether they'll follow through on this or whether his kidney will suddenly start working again as he hopes.

On the face of it, there doesn't seem to be any reason why we shouldn't see Jennifer again, as she and Hunter improbably agree to stay friends and she's still in classes with Coco and Raffy.That said, there's a strong sense of "Storyline over" if not "Character gone" here, with Jennifer suddenly infodumping family history and the frustrating way that we don't even get to see Jennifer and Nick's conversation, just them patting Leah and Hunter on the back for making them talk.For the most part, I found Hunter's behaviour nothing short of frustrating: You don't get to use a vulnerable girl as a rebound, break her hurt, and then hang around her going "Hey, I'm a really nice guy who will sort out all your problems for you", and it was annoying that after rightly giving him short shrift for much of the episode Jennifer is suddenly back simpering over him at the end.I am glad that the show didn't go to extremes and make Nick out to be abusive or mentally cruel, and while the episode jumps through hoops to justify much of his behaviour, his "I'm not backing down" attitude is one that we've actually seen quite often from "good" parental figures like Alf, Irene, John and indeed Leah herself.I appreciated Olivia making up for her recent snideness towards Jennifer by refusing to walk by on the other side, less so her going back to flirting with Hunter in a scene that seems to demand we want them back together when I've actually enjoyed seeing them apart.

Oh good lord, Robbo. The more they focus on this storyline, the more its evident that it's completely ridiculous.What exactly does Robbo think is going to happen?For that matter, what exactly does Tori think is going to happen?Is he admitting to murdering Novak, along with escaping custody and assaulting Ash, as he implies, because if so that's years in jail even without the Beckett Reid stuff (which suddenly seems to amount to a few minor misdemeanours instead of the multiple murders implied before)?If he's using his amnesia/trauma/whatever as a defence, then that pretty much is an insanity plea, or mitigating circumstances.Or does he just plan to walk in there and go "Okay, I tied a man up in a car boot and then shot him, but that's okay because he was mean and I'm lovely"?If he's suddenly acting all fussy about the word insanity or psych hospitals, why has he been looking smug about Tori pulling her psychiatrist friends out of the wood to argue exactly that? Given that Tori spent weeks (or did it just seem like weeks) stamping her foot in the police station insisting he shouldn't be in jail because he needed psychiatric help, I imagine she'd have been fully on board with his lawyer.It increasingly feels like the show is just doing and saying whatever it needs to keep Robbo on the show this week, and then next week they'll be saying something completely different.

[c120701]

Colby (Tim Franklin) reminds me of a less brooding Aden Jefferies (Todd Lasance) looks wise.

[atrus]

23 minutes ago, Red Ranger 1 said:

Well, having read atrus' comments prior to seeing the episode, I was left wondering if I'd be nodding my head in agreement at how horrible Tori was or, as often seems to happen in cases like this, going "Well, she wasn't that bad."

I think the reason it struck me (which I was going to mention in the first place but decided not to) was that it reminded me of several incidents I've seen in real life, where incredibly hard-working (and underpaid - but that's another story) nurses are just absolutely cut down, sometimes in front of patients, by bad-mannered doctors. And one of Tori's key objections seemed to be that Jasmine was wasting time looking after other patients on the floor, which felt a little off. I don't know; I don't think she was appalling, but her haughtiness just wound me up.

[atrus]

Kurt Adams is an absolutely delicious character - please can he stay? If you're going to have an archetypal grubby lawyer, you might as well have one who's so shamelessly honest about his cynicism and amorality that you actually find yourself rooting for him. He had some of the best lines in a while (although the real fun was in the delivery), and brought some much-needed levity to the often heavy-going Robbo saga.

Less levity was in evidence for Colby, Dean and Willow, as we continue to peel back layers of their backstory. It sounds like Colby made instinctive decisions in the heat of the moment after the crash - most of us probably like to think we'd be heroes in that scenario, but many of us wouldn't be - and while I get that Dean would be angry about it, I suspect that in fact it's Colby's complete disappearing act from Dean's life afterwards that has done the real damage to their relationship. We don't really have a satisfactory explanation for that yet - but Colby strikes me very much as tortured hero material, so I'd be surprised if one isn't forthcoming.

I won't remark on the Roo/Alf thread today, other than with brief reference to Soap Law #107: stop looking for a long-lost relative and they'll invariably turn up at your door within a week. Or at least, I'm assuming that's where this will be heading next.

I won't remark on Ben/Maggie either, because nothing of any significance seemed to happen.

[Razabaza]

I felt sorry for Jasmine. I'd hate to be spoken to like that. I understand Tori was worried, but still, don't be so aggressive and snooty.

[Red Ranger 1]

Ooh, where to start?Well, our Mangrove River imports seem like a decent place.I like Colby but frankly it's hard not to agree with Willow, and introducing a new police officer with the revelation that he's keeping quiet about a crime he committed in the past seems a curious decision to say the least.We get a few hints about what happened that night (and there's more in the promo but I'll ignore that for now), with it sounding like they were chasing after someone when the crash happened.Colby really didn't do a good job of apologising to Dean, although I kind of appreciate his refusal to romanticise the River Boys.I'd love to hear him say that to Brax, who pretty much treated them like cannon fodder rather than brothers most of the time.

I had to scoff at Tori saying it's not by choice that her life's chaotic, as she clearly loves being Superwoman and acting like everyone's personal saviour.So it was definitely nice to see her world get rocked by an unkempt uncouth force of nature.It's tempting to speculate whether Kurt has been drafted in because go-to lawyer Morag is unavailable as a result of Cornelia Frances' illness.Either way, I liked him and found him entertaining, but it's hard not to feel like he's basically a personification of the show's makers with his attitude of "It doesn't matter that you murdered someone, so long as we can work out a way for you to get away with it."I did like his bluntness though.

Talking of bluntness, with Roo back from Georgie Parker's week off, I liked John's matter of fact observation that she's hit a wall when Marilyn's trying to mouth platitudes.As for Ben and Maggie, aside from thinking that a surgical mask might be a bit overkill, my main point of interest was the discovery that Baz is the school's contractor, which gives us a hint of what Dean was doing before he lost his job.(Some sort of labourer, presumably?)So my prediction that newly qualified Roo would be acting principal by the end of April kind of faltered thanks to the school being closed the whole time, although she's clearly angling for it...

[H&Alover]

He is suffering from amnesia so Robbo isn't insane and although we didn't hear him say it  I would have cheerfully have told his not very interested lawyer to get stuffed!   She made it seem more like a chore she was 'kindly' fitting him in. He's not denying he killed Novak, assaulted Ash and escaped custody, it's the rest of it he's contesting as he doesn't remember what happened during his Beckett Reid days.  He only had Novak's word and a passport in that name to go on which is strange in itself. Why would anyone have a passport in the name of a dangerous and wanted man? To some copping a plea of insanity would sound a lot better option than risking x amount of years in a regular prison but that isn't Robbo.  Going off on a tangent a minute it was found there was no such person as Ryan Shaw but did not anyone ask the neighbours of where Lauren and the children used to live if they recognised or knew him?  At the risk of sounding boring I still feel there is still a lot beneath the surface than we currently know as in mysterious PTB erasing any life/lives he had. Tori brought in Carol - sorry Juliet - to try and release his buried memories which may or may not help find out what he had been up in between 'Ryan' and Robbo.

Wow Kurt Adams may not be your everyday lawyer but like you Red and atrus I like him!  Looks and initial attitude can be deceiving and I reckon he is a lot sharper than he looks. Robbo and Tori looked very sceptical at first as you would but his directness was refreshing. He certainly got things moving in a few short hours, loved the comment someone in the DPP owed him as they had made a pass at his second wife!  My thoughts too Red him being a replacement for Morag and boy you couldn't get any different could you? 

Unless we missed it Tori didn't/hasn't mentioned to Robbo why she was unable to attend the meeting with useless lawyer. I know Robbo isn't Ash's biggest fan but I like to think he would be sympathetic and tell her to go be with him, who btw we saw nothing of last night just a brief update when Dean asked Jasmine about him. Hospital protocol once again went right out of the window with Tori doing most of the treatment on him, they may not be a couple anymore but their closeness was very apparent. It cwuld explain why she snapped at Jasmine who to be honest was a tad casual about the way she kept notes, it's not a great help to anyone else working on the same patient. She did thank Jasmine for her concern  later when she had calmed down. As said already the main reason was it was Ash, but I'd like to think she'd be just as critical over any other patient.  He's certainly not out of the woods yet, it will certainly curtail his life a lot if he has to have daily dialysis. 

The thlot pickens as regards Colby, Dean, Jai and the accident, they were after a mysterious 'them' and 'they' got away.  Colby went after them on foot but lost them and by the time he came back the cops were all over the accident site. Maybe one reason he joined the police was so he had a better chance of finding them. I did get the feeling Willow knew/knows nothing about that.  Revelation Dean lost his chance at playing for AFL - which thinking about it later meant Australian Football League?  Maybe Dean and others like him who didn't have close family would regard the River Boys as a surrogate family that's why a lot of young lads join gangs because  they look out for each other, though the leaders such as Brax indeed, do tend to use them. It had to come another soap law -  the old 'If you don't, I will' threat this time from Willow to Colby!   Will she carry it through though and let's not forget it wasn't a minor crime, car theft, leaving the scene of an accident, possible manslaughter charge.

Rather liked the Olivia/Jennifer confrontation, showed Olivia could be the bigger person, and OK although she did offer to take Jennifer back to Irene's it was declined yet she, Jennifer, had no problem with Olivia taking her back to Leah's!  It must have been weird as Hunter commented seeing Olivia and Jennifer together.  We did get Nick's side of the story behind his and Jennifer's troubles, she had been spoilt by her mum who has now left and is with someone new leaving dad to be the strict parent which I guess he tried to be when he and his ex were together and Jennifer isn't with her mum as she didn't get on with her new man, don't believe for  moment although they have agreed to listen to each other this is going to be the end of it. Just because he and Jennifer aren't an item anymore shouldn't mean Hunter isn't allowed to care about her as a friend, could also be a sort of atonement for leading her on. That was  a pretty  lame excuse of Nick's to Leah 'I didn't recognise your number so that is why I didn't answer my phone'. 

Totally off subject I did like Olivia's dangly gold earrings.

True not much happened on the Astoni front but I thought that was rather sweet and practical  the things Ben brought Maggie to try and keep her safe.  I'd forgotten he'd been a builder/handyman in the city and I can see why he is doing it now, wanting to take some of the earning burden off Maggie.  Baz did come across as a con merchant regarding the pricing of the work at the school and of course it is running over and will cost more  due to the change in the weather, there's a  r in the month, they delivered the wrong colour bricks etc. I didn't like the way he gave Roo the once over either.  Did chuckle at Maz putting John back in his place when he boasted he did all the DIY jobs at home by saying she'd be sure to call him If anything needed doing. What a  wicked thought Red about Roo being acting principal sooner rather than later, how cynical.  Though Maggie did seem to be having a bit of  a melt down tonight.

As for your thought atrus about Soap Law #107 - I'm saying nuffin!