2018 Season - UK Episode Discussion

[Little bean]

9 hours ago, Red Ranger 1 said:

And Roo's off again?! It feels like she's only been back about a month! Does Georgie Parker get about 36 weeks holiday a year or something?

She had a hip replacement so I’m wondering if they filmed a few bits before she took a long break to recover and are just popping them in to make it seem likes she’s about when she wasn’t IYSWIM!

[atrus]

It's been another of those 'fortnight of H&A in 24 hours' kinds of days, so apologies for rambling.

I'll start with John and Marilyn, neither of whom I was very impressed with. Although actually, I thought Marilyn was doing the wrong thing for the right reasons -- and so therefore just about trumped John, who I felt was doing the right thing for the wrong ones. I think it's fairly clear that Marilyn was desperate for Ty not to miss out on at least the chance of a relationship with his real mum, but at the same time, if she's going to be a foster parent she needs to respect the boundaries. The absolute most she should have done would be to talk to Ty again and offer to go and meet his mum on his behalf, to see if she felt she was deserving of being let back into his life, and then report back to him. If he'd said yes (as I feel like he might well have done), then all well and good; if not, she'd have just had to accept it. But at least that would have avoided going behind everyone's back in a decision that should have been neither hers nor John's, but Ty's; and if she shouldn't have gone to see Jodi without Ty's blessing in the first place, then she certainly shouldn't have brought her back to Summer Bay without his explicit permission. Maz is entirely well-intentioned on all this, I think, but she clearly didn't know all the history between Ty and Jodi, and couldn't reasonably think she had learned it all through one meeting with her - she could have been letting someone very toxic back into his life for all she knew. Meanwhile, I was with John in disagreeing with Maz's actions, but the justification he kept using was that Maz was going to end up splitting up their family by allowing Ty's mum back into his life. Not for the first time, I got the sense John doesn't quite understand what fostering is; they haven't adopted Ty, they are looking after him on an emergency placement. As such their 'family' being 'split up' is a possibility he should not only be prepared for, but actively welcome for the kid's sake when it happens, since it means that the child in question has managed to reconcile with their real family. For all her mistakes in how she handled it, I felt like Maz was actually starting to understand that here (contrary to her previous behaviour with Raffy), whereas it still felt completely lost on John. Anyhow, all that said, I am glad that Ty is at least giving Jodi a chance. She doesn't seem like a bad person - though of course it's far easier for the writers to paint his unseen grandparents as the bad guys, and quite possibly they'd have had a completely different tale to tell about how things played out if Maz could have spoken to them too. While I hope Jodi can make things right with Ty, from a viewer's perspective I'm kind of hoping she doesn't, as we all know what that will probably mean: goodbye, only gay in the Bay.

So, yes, a lot of relapses into old-school Summer Bay puritanism to discuss - not just by Alf and Leah, but in the writing of the teens themselves. While there was admittedly some humour to be wrung out of the whole "everyone and his dog wants to give Ryder the Talk" scenario, really it's way OTT - and I'm afraid that the days that kids of Ryder and Coco's age needed to be taught the facts of life by their parents or guardians have long gone. Okay, at younger ages there might be an argument for it, but these lot are in their mid-to-late teens, and have probably learned more about sex (yes, contraception included) on the internet than Alf has ever forgotten. And his house rules now seem to extend to shooing Coco away whenever he gets an inkling that they might be planning to spend some time together, regardless of what their intentions are and whether they're supervised or not. It's definitely overkill and, given his maturity in recent weeks I'd have liked to have seen Alf cut Ryder a little slack to be honest. He and Coco are old enough to decide their own minds. And, maybe I would feel differently if I was in Alf's shoes, but it seems fairly obvious to me that it would be better if they were doing it in the house than on a bench somewhere, or in the sand dunes after dark.

Which of course they would be if this was anything other than H&A, and if both Coco and Ryder weren't being written as so implausibly chaste and uninterested in going there. Far be it from me to suggest that they should if they aren't ready; of course if there's any doubt about that, then it's better to wait. But there doesn't even seem to be any significant curiosity about it from either of them. Even Coco's decision that she wanted to do it (which quickly died a death when push came to shove) seemed to rest on some kind of convoluted logical process about making the most of life because of what was happening to her mum, rather than on the basis of any kind of impulse or passion whatsoever. And Ryder just seems completely indifferent to it, too; hell, Roo and Alf seem more interested in him having sex than he does. I know it's ridiculously unlikely to happen but it does make me think again about what an opportunity may have been missed with Ty and Ryder, and whether we might not still revisit that at a later stage? Because, honestly, sweet as Ryder and Coco are to a degree, I've seen noble gases with stronger valency - and for all Ryder's talk about being besotted with Coco, I still get a strong sense that he's only saying and doing what he thinks he's expected to. And that just compounds a more general feeling that the writing of these characters is very saccharine and dare I say old-fashioned; for the most part they're written like twelve-year-olds, and very polite ones at that.

Hunter and Christina: okay, I could entirely see why Leah had some concerns about the relationship, and the potential implications for Hunter's uni degree in particular. But as far as I'm aware, they haven't broken the law; and any university rules or (more likely) soft guidelines that Christina may or may not have broken are between her and the university. As his (ex?) stepmum, Leah's not wrong to be keeping a look-out for Hunter -- but that conversation was for her to have with him, and nobody else. I really didn't like her approaching Christina, let alone berating her in the way she did. The fact that her rant really gave Christina pause for thought makes me think that she didn't have any kind of master plan to seduce Hunter; things have just bubbled up unexpectedly. And absolutely, if things do end badly then it may make their professional relationship very tricky indeed, and Leah is right to point that out. But at the end of the day, Christina isn't a schoolteacher, and Hunter isn't a child; and so I thought that Leah's blanket assertion that the relationship was morally and ethically wrong was a little bit simplistic. Still, at least the show seemed to acknowledge this, with Roo providing a more moderate viewpoint and Leah later apologising.

Elsewhere, not much to say about the Ebony wrap-up - the story had gone on long enough, and so I welcomed it when it came. Robbo's charges seemed to evaporate as quickly as the vapours from that petrol can, although understandable if Ebony did indeed confess, I suppose. For the rest of the fortnight's episodes, Jasmine was winding me up intensely with her Project Robbo storyline. It felt very much like a case of 'I have nothing to do so will poke my nose into this person's life for no good reason', which was more or less the same rationale behind Leah's Project Jasmine storyline when she first arrived. Plus, I've sort of accepted that Robbo stands apart from the rest of the Bay a bit; his lack of integration is almost his USP. I'm not much interested in him anyway, but I think I'll be even less so if he just undergoes the usual Summer Bay assimilation, which is clearly what Jasmine has in mind. Apart from anything, it will make his cops-and-robbers scenes less clear-cut and therefore more difficult to fast-forward through if they're too embedded in everyday storylines. Anyhow, I guess the investment in theJasmine-Robbo pairing means we're going to get a relationship between them at some point, although that will at least be better than her following him around just because.

I have to say that I liked Colby's defence of his past to the police board. I didn't like the fact that they'd commanded him to stay away from Dean, who's essentially been his best friend since childhood - and so it was good to hear him say he wouldn't sacrifice that for his job. Presumably the police then realised they didn't have much legal or procedural basis to make him do so and reinstated him; I don't know whether that would be a realistic response in real life, but I can imagine forcing someone to remove a tattoo or to stop associating with an individual would be difficult in practice for various reasons. I think it's clear that he's sticking to the spirit of the rules, anyhow; OK, he didn't declare his connections to the River Boys, but neither does he appear to have any intention of being one in the present.

Tori and her decision to be a single mum: well, I'd have felt better about it if it had come six months on from Ash, rather than more or less immediately after he'd left, which makes it seem like a bit of a kneejerk reaction. But in principle I don't see that there's anything wrong with her wanting to have a baby on her own. Tori's in a well-paid job which I'm sure she can return to after she's had the baby, and so is in a much sounder position to support a kid than I'm sure many couples are who decide to have one. Equally, though, I think Leah was right to highlight the various challenges it would entail, and I don't think it warranted Tori stomping off in the way she did.

Astonis: I get the feeling the cancer story isn't over by a long shot, even if Maggie's on the way to recovery. She seemed to be far more concerned about germs than she ever has been thus far, although perhaps that's understandable - having been effectively handed another chance at life, I can see that she'd be keen to ensure it wasn't compromised by something silly like using improperly washed crockery. Meanwhile, some nicely observed marital teething problems between Ziggy and Brody; I'm sure it's perfectly normal to feel that nothing has changed after a wedding, and also to feel that they should have. But Ziggy in particular is still very young, and so I think Brody will have to disabuse himself of the notion that she'll be wanting to spend every waking minute by his side.

Not much to say about Willow, Justin and Dean, other than that I think all three of them have probably known all along who Willow should be with, and no doubt we're halfway to realising that again. Hopefully the 'robbery' at Salt will draw a line under the Dean/criminal stuff for the time being.

Bye, Olivia. I won't miss her fashion storylines or the endless on-off with Hunter, and the continuity around her was pretty iffy; but I will say that I think she's been a nicely observed, flawed but redeemable character, and that Raechelle has put her all into the performance, which often left Olivia seeming more likeable and sympathetic than by rights she should have been based on the writing alone. Glad there was no sunset ending with Hunter and that they appear to be taking his character in a totally different direction, although I'm not ruling out a return for her whenever his own departure may be.

[CaptainHulk]

Yeah, I'm afraid for Maggie that it'll get to the point where she's in an Oxygen tent and is putting Ben out for the night like he's the cat or something or turning the the hose on her daughters!  "Unclean! Begone!" 

5 hours ago, atrus said:

Robbo's charges seemed to evaporate as quickly as the vapours from that petrol can

I dunno WHY but found this funny af.

I'm still having Palmer rap flashbacks... Oh lordy lou.

[H&Alover]

On ‎01‎/‎09‎/‎2018 at 23:34, CaptainHulk said:

 

I'm still having Palmer rap flashbacks... Oh lordy lou.

Are you in need of counselling Captain. Was there anything in particular that disturbed you or perhaps some part of you found it rather erotic? Please free to talk, it's just between you and me.

So Hunter finally got round to finding out about Olivia leaving that evening by way of Mason putting up the balloons in Salt.  You would have thought after all they had gone though together she would have found time to tell him alone rather than a quick "Oh yeah, I'm off to Melbourne"!  I did notice Irene skipped the whole Axel episode from her speech.  I'm glad they did manage to squeeze in a proper goodbye though.  When she told him to follow his dream I'm not sure that what followed was what she had in mind. Christina may not be Hunter's teacher but she is his lecturer which I believe is the same thing in uni, unless someone knows different.  She didn't need a lot of persuading to go to the motel despite earlier telling his she couldn't do  do it and they had till then just shared a kiss.

Red mentioned on an earlier post about Irene being too old to be Olivia's 'mum' but at a stretch she could be.  Irene was 14 when she had Mick, he's now in his 40's putting Irene in her 50's, Olivia is 18/19? so possible. Wasn't Alisa an older mum when she gave birth to Duncan?  Alf is in his 70's so right to be someone young's  granddad (or Grumps as Ryder calls him). 

You know I'd  really forgotten the connection, if you can call it that, between Jasmine & Robbo if they hadn't all been at that same spot at that exact moment he & Jasmine wouldn't be having that conversation.    Like you atrus while it'd be good for Robbo to have more to do with the locals I wouldn't want him to completely lose his aloofness. 

Still a ways to go with the cancer story, risks of infection still high, Brody working at Salt, Coco at school, Ziggy at the garage  all with dangers of bringing home germs. 

Ty was indeed only intended to  an emergency placement with John & Marilyn when his granddad had his stroke so if Jodi hadn't turned up and his granddad had recovered would Ty have gone back to him? Was his reserved behaviour down to the fact he'd suddenly been placed with strangers or something else?

Do TPTB use the same room at the motel each time and just change the door number and move the furniture around?

 

 

[Homeandawayfan.]

I thought Irene was born in 1953 so is now 65. Well past her 50s. I think Mick Jennings is older than Kristian Schmid who played him. Schmid is 44 and Mick is about 50.

Olivia was born c1999/2000 so Irene was about 46 or 47. Just about old enough to be her mother. It is not unknown for women to have babies in their mid 40s.

[pembie]

On 01/09/2018 at 23:34, CaptainHulk said:

Yeah, I'm afraid for Maggie that it'll get to the point where she's in an Oxygen tent and is putting Ben out for the night like he's the cat or something or turning the the hose on her daughters!  "Unclean! Begone!" 

I dunno WHY but found this funny af.

I'm still having Palmer rap flashbacks... Oh lordy lou.

The John Palmer rap I pretty much had the same reaction as Raffy and Ty It wasn't funny it was just like what the heck did I just watch it was awful haha

[CaptainHulk]

1 hour ago, H&Alover said:

Are you in need of counselling Captain. Was there anything in particular that disturbed you or perhaps some part of you found it rather erotic? Please free to talk, it's just between you and me.

Believe me, there was nothing erotic about that. Even if I dug dudes, John'd be waaaaaay too old and the rapping would  be an instant dealbreaker! 

It was just so bizarre, is all.  Every bit as cringey as the directors intended.

[Dan F]

7 hours ago, H&Alover said:

Irene was 14 when she had Mick, he's now in his 40's putting Irene in her 50's

Mick was born in August 1970, so has just turned 48, and Irene would likely have been 15 by the time she actually gave birth. So if we were solely going by that, despite it ignoring past continuity around Irene's age/birthday (which has always been dodgy), that would make her around 63ish.

[CaptainHulk]

And that's even dodgier continuity as Nathan turned 30 in 2002 and she was dating Paris who wasn't that much older than him!

She must have married Mud Super Young in some shotgun wedding business.

I think when discussing H&A lore, the producers should issue us Neurofen!

 

[Red Ranger 1]

I was just thinking that every single one of Irene's children is old enough to be Olivia's parent.Even her youngest was older than Chloe! So it definitely feels like it should be more of a grandparent relationship than the show insisted on portraying it as.(Heck, Morag even referred to Irene as the "de facto grandmother" of the "real" Olivia! So why they've insisted on all this "You're like a daughter/mother to me" stuff I don't know, except that that's what Irene has always said to whichever teenage girl it is at the moment.)

Anyway...today.And once again I got the feeling that John and Marilyn were hoping that Jodi wouldn't react so well to Ty being gay.Part of me thinks it might have been nice to have at least one character not be immediately comfortable with Ty's sexuality (well, I guess Raffy wasn't but that was for different reasons), but by the same token I don't think Jodi was the right character to give that reaction to.Raffy continues to be the jewel at the heart of that household.I'm not entirely convinced that she and Ty would have slid into a brother/sister relationship as easily as they have, but it's so cute that I'm willing to go with it.That said, I loved that we got a Raffy/Mason brother/sister scene of the type we've been denied somewhat this year since they've been living apart.I really like their relationship.

So, Hunter should probably have learnt more about Christina than "She's my lecturer and she's hot" before sleeping with her...although to be fair, I don't think Mason knew much more than that about Dempsey.Still, it's a bit bemusing to have him saying he's never felt this way about anyone before when he was proposing to Olivia only six months ago.Hunter has done a lot of the running, although Christina crossed the line first.It's really hard to work out her motivation still: It sounds like her marriage was on the rocks anyway, but she seems to be risking an awful lot for a bunk-up with one of her students.Is she really that into Hunter?I'm guessing she wasn't wearing a wedding ring: I doubt Hunter was looking at her hands but Leah would definitely have noticed it.

It would have been nice to get an explanation as to exactly why Mason and Dempsey haven't seen each other since the wedding, but I guess it's one of those things we just have to accept.A bit of a jolt to his world to learn that Dempsey's pregnant, it'll be interesting to see how he copes with it.