2018 Season - UK Episode Discussion

[D.B]

This episode:

Well now we know the true story of Robbo, and while I was relieved that he is proved to be a good guy after all and not a hardened murderer and criminal, I wasn't completely satisfied. I mean, if the feds knew the true story, why did they not bring this forward earlier. I know the whole deal was to bring the corrupt cops down, but could they not have intervened when the trial was over. Kat said they were sentenced, the feds' job was over, they could have rocked up anytime before and save Robbo, Kat, Ash and Tori a whole lot of grief ( and Kat her life). As Red pointed out, there's still the body that Robbo and Kat found. I don't think Robbo killed her, but I like to know what her connection was in this case. There's also Dylan to consider. Is he dead? Did he hold Robbo at gunpoint because he found out he was a federal agent or because he still 'loved' Kat and thought Robbo was going to kill her?  I want to see all these questions answered, it's been too long. But I disagree with your last comments Red, Robbo didn't go rogue on his own accord, he had no idea what or who he was, that hardly seems like going rogue, he had only one intention: keeping Kat alive. And, just because they're covering it up, doesn't mean that Robbo 'executed' Novak; to me it still probably was self-defence. Probably the same for Dylan since he was holding a gun to Robbo. 

As for Colby's past, it is very interesting. I'm glad we're getting more of his past than just he's a old River boy who saw the light. I can't wait to see where the show goes with it (I'm also dreading it).  He was a bit harsh towards Jasmine, but it was understandable. I'm glad they made up. 

Dammit Marilyn! Raffy is home, I know she wants what's best for her, but what's best for her right now is for her to be with her actual family. 

Same as you Red, I'm finding the community support of the Morgans and Astonis the most enjoyable part, even Hunter and Olivia's support was sweet. I hope they rescue Ava soon. I'm also looking forward to see why this Hazel woman is doing this, I hope they arrest her soon. 

30 minutes ago, Red Ranger 1 said:

No, I still think Colby was out of line.At the end of the day, he was acting as the public face of the police and he can't just yell at everyone who comes in with a request that he thinks is unimportant.Was he planning on telling everyone who had their bike pinched or their homes graffitied that day that he didn't care because there was a missing girl and the police are incapable of multi-tasking?Ash made a reasonable request, and deserved a reasonable response.Even the other police officers seemed to look at Colby as if to say "What the hell are you doing?" I think the fact that Colby later calmed down and gave Ash the information he wanted shows that he knew he was wrong as well.

Ash said, and I quote when Colby told him that he didn't find out what happened to Robbo "What you got bigger things to worry about?" Well, how about your best friend's kid being missing and her fate's unknown and a whole family worrying about it, Ash. That seems more important than his own personal vengeance.  I think Colby could have handled it better, but given how serious the situation is and his past, I can forgive him.

[630si]

It was (very) briefly explained that the feds didn’t bring Robbo in earlier because they didn’t trust his amnesia. This suggests he’s been watched for some time from the feds. We just haven’t seen it. I guess this resolution is good because it means he’s not banged up in prison and I guess Robbo being a cop was the only way the writers could get him out of this big hole of a mess. Do we call him Ryan now he remembers it all? A tiny part of me was still hoping the family we’re not dead and his earlier memories were false ones because I thinks that’s  very sad.

im glad also that Maggie had chosen to accept Ziggys help with the stem cells.

The ransom note was a bit of a shock. Who is that woman who has Ava and why does Ava trust her?!

[Red Ranger 1]

45 minutes ago, D.B said:

And, just because they're covering it up, doesn't mean that Robbo 'executed' Novak; to me it still probably was self-defence.

It wasn't self-defence.As I've said before, he had Novak tied up and helpless and could have easily handed him over to the police.But then Novak would have told the police he was Beckett Reid, so he went there with a gun intending to kill him.Novak might have made it a bit easier on his conscience by putting up a fight, but Robbo never intended to let him leave there alive.

8 minutes ago, 630si said:

It was (very) briefly explained that the feds didn’t bring Robbo in earlier because they didn’t trust his amnesia. This suggests he’s been watched for some time from the feds. We just haven’t seen it.

So they were watching when a polygraph test proved he was amnesiac, when he shot a guy dead and buried his body in a deserted cove, when he started brawling with the local cops, when he went on the run after holding a local doctor hostage, when DI Shepherd was planning to shoot him dead at the slightest excuse, when he escaped legal custody leading to a car accident that left a pregnant woman dead, another woman in a coma and him with injuries that would have been fatal if Tori hadn't gone underworld doctor, when Ash chased him to a cliff edge and came close to killing him, when he was locked up in the local police station for days and only escaped being sent to remand because of the psychiatric report that supposedly tipped them off, when he was turfed out onto the streets of a town where everyone hated him, when he was set to stand trial with a very eccentric lawyer, a flimsy defense and the testimony of his arch-enemy as his only hope...and at no point did they think "Hmm, maybe we ought to do something about this"?

That only makes sense if the feds are deeply deeply deeply stupid.

[630si]

17 minutes ago, Red Ranger 1 said:

It wasn't self-defence.As I've said before, he had Novak tied up and helpless and could have easily handed him over to the police.But then Novak would have told the police he was Beckett Reid, so he went there with a gun intending to kill him.Novak might have made it a bit easier on his conscience by putting up a fight, but Robbo never intended to let him leave there alive.

So they were watching when a polygraph test proved he was amnesiac, when he shot a guy dead and buried his body in a deserted cove, when he started brawling with the local cops, when he went on the run after holding a local doctor hostage, when DI Shepherd was planning to shoot him dead at the slightest excuse, when he escaped legal custody leading to a car accident that left a pregnant woman dead, another woman in a coma and him with injuries that would have been fatal if Tori hadn't gone underworld doctor, when Ash chased him to a cliff edge and came close to killing him, when he was locked up in the local police station for days and only escaped being sent to remand because of the psychiatric report that supposedly tipped them off, when he was turfed out onto the streets of a town where everyone hated him, when he was set to stand trial with a very eccentric lawyer, a flimsy defense and the testimony of his arch-enemy as his only hope...and at no point did they think "Hmm, maybe we ought to do something about this"?

That only makes sense if the feds are deeply deeply deeply stupid.

Precisely!! It’s a hard pill to swallow

[D.B]

29 minutes ago, Red Ranger 1 said:

It wasn't self-defence.As I've said before, he had Novak tied up and helpless and could have easily handed him over to the police.But then Novak would have told the police he was Beckett Reid, so he went there with a gun intending to kill him.Novak might have made it a bit easier on his conscience by putting up a fight, but Robbo never intended to let him leave there alive.

You're maybe right and I maybe wrong here, but I always thought that Robbo might have just been trying to scare him off, I mean, he did prove that he was capable of stopping Novak without killing him, I still don't believe that he intended to commit murder, but it's just my opinion, we'll just have to wait and see. 

33 minutes ago, Red Ranger 1 said:

So they were watching when a polygraph test proved he was amnesiac, when he shot a guy dead and buried his body in a deserted cove, when he started brawling with the local cops, when he went on the run after holding a local doctor hostage, when DI Shepherd was planning to shoot him dead at the slightest excuse, when he escaped legal custody leading to a car accident that left a pregnant woman dead, another woman in a coma and him with injuries that would have been fatal if Tori hadn't gone underworld doctor, when Ash chased him to a cliff edge and came close to killing him, when he was locked up in the local police station for days and only escaped being sent to remand because of the psychiatric report that supposedly tipped them off, when he was turfed out onto the streets of a town where everyone hated him, when he was set to stand trial with a very eccentric lawyer, a flimsy defense and the testimony of his arch-enemy as his only hope...and at no point did they think "Hmm, maybe we ought to do something about this"?

That only makes sense if the feds are deeply deeply deeply stupid.

On the other hand, I agree 100% with what you say here, the feds failed big time.

[Red Ranger 1]

8 hours ago, D.B said:

You're maybe right and I maybe wrong here, but I always thought that Robbo might have just been trying to scare him off, I mean, he did prove that he was capable of stopping Novak without killing him, I still don't believe that he intended to commit murder, but it's just my opinion, we'll just have to wait and see. 

He'd already tried to scare Novak off before and he'd come back, and Robbo has made a lot of references to doing it to protect Kat: I think he knew that if he let Novak out of there, he'd have gone after her again at some point.He hesitated at shooting him in cold blood, so I guess we don't know for sure if he'd have actually gone through with it if he hadn't been presented with a moving target, but I don't think there was a Plan B.

Forgot to say earlier: Liked the injoke of the book Jasmine found being by S.ELMALOGLOU, presumably a reference to the former Max Sutherland actor who now works behind the scenes!

[D.B]

4 hours ago, Red Ranger 1 said:

He'd already tried to scare Novak off before and he'd come back, and Robbo has made a lot of references to doing it to protect Kat: I think he knew that if he let Novak out of there, he'd have gone after her again at some point.He hesitated at shooting him in cold blood, so I guess we don't know for sure if he'd have actually gone through with it if he hadn't been presented with a moving target, but I don't think there was a Plan B.

You're probably right in that Robbo didn't probably have a plan B, but the fact is that unlike certain characters who did sought out harm to people (like Andy or Hunter), Robbo didn't set out to hurt people in the beginning. If he did mean to kill Novak, protecting Kat or not, he was wrong, but he probably felt like he had no choice so it's sort of understandable though wrong, as you said, Novak would have gone after Kat again at some point and she may not have been so lucky. I think that Robbo felt like he had no choice. Again, he wouldn't have sought out Novak if he didn't nearly kill Kat. Also, it's true that the scare tactic failed before, but this time, Robbo proved that he can be stronger than Novak,  he probably hoped that Novak would have realised he picked the wrong man to fight. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe he did mean to kill Novak when he did, but my point is that Robbo never tried to kill anyone except when he thought he had no other choice.And Novak could have easily killed Robbo, they were as skilled as each other, it's not like he intentionally hurt anyone who wouldn't stand a chance against him. 

[CaptainHulk]

Back in the day, Colby would have been told to pull his head in by McGrath/Harper/Carter (Joel's boss/Jesse's nemesis)/Whoever ran the show at YCPS before being de-badged. That was really unprofessional.

"You're too close to the case, Thorne! Go home!" is more than likely what would be said.

And Ava's kidnapper looks like she'd mince dogs into pies for fun. Run Buddy!

Novak had to go.

 

[Pierced Musie]

4 hours ago, CaptainHulk said:

 

And Ava's kidnapper looks like she'd mince dogs into pies for fun. Run Buddy!

 

Are you trying to make me cry? Absolutely savage behaviour.

On the whole Robbo retcon... I thought I had stumbled on a Blindspot spinoff & was waiting to find out what his tattoos meant. I would have probably been #1 fan of this plot/character if it hadn't been such a blatant rewrite to the story.

As for Ash with Colby. Figured it was yet again a way of ripping away everything Ash was becoming in the last week or so. Heaven forbid if he starts being seen as a good guy again by viewers. After all, he is the baddie... right?

[atrus]

I went off Colby quite a bit today. You can't just sleep with someone and then say it can't happen again because of professional ethics, after you've already used the same excuse to do a runner after kissing them. And then losing his mind over the missing person file too. Nonetheless, he redeemed himself somewhat by apologising later, and actually trusting Jasmine sufficiently to explain why he had the file, which I wasn't expecting. I feel like ethics is just Colby's excuse for not wanting to get too attached, for reasons that are now becoming clear - because apparently if he got word of where Bella was it would automatically necessitate him upping sticks for a months-long chase through the outback.

I felt like the proportion of the Robbo/Beckett Reid conclusion that actually made sense to me was pretty much commensurate with the degree to which I've bothered to pay attention to the storyline over the last few months. So I was assuming after watching today's episode that I only had myself to blame for not getting why such an elaborate plan was necessary to protect the people on the list; or why the feds hadn't bothered to intervene before now; or what Dylan Carter had to do with anything; etc etc etc. But I think the responses of others above go some way to illustrating just how many shades of stupid this storyline is. At best you can say it's an efficient means of tying up a lot of loose ends without dwelling on them - and as someone whose interests in those loose ends is very limited, that's probably fine by me. Don't get me wrong; I think Jake Ryan's done a great job as Robbo - but for a new character, this amount of convoluted backstory is really unnecessary and difficult to engage with.

So it's cash that Genevieve Lemon is after, not revenge. (Or possibly both, but definitely not just revenge.) Perhaps someone could sell raffle tickets?