2018 Season - UK Episode Discussion

[630si]

Holy smokes! Runaway criminal, Gas leak, explosions. Another explosion. Alf in a Sinkhole and yes Red it looks like the clock is significant. Perhaps we will find out how Alf came to be where he was etc? Did anyone think Robbo climbed into the boot of the car pretty well considering the state he was in on Friday?? 

its made the 30th anniversary a bit of an event anyway which I’m not going to grumble at. 

I cant watch any episodes until Thursday now because I’m throwing a home and away party and we’re watching marathon episodes of this weeks buried alive lolol

[christine king]

18 hours ago, Slade said:

 

 

Well how about the three of you not discuss it at all or at least have the courtesy to use spoiler tags.  Yes, I know it's not strictly a spoiler in the truest sense of the word but it's definitely a teaser and they shouldn't be allowed either IMO!

 

Sorry, won’t happen again.

[Slade]

Quite enjoyed that episode.

I think in a way it's a good thing by directly getting involved Justin and Willow are now implicated as it means Tori isn't the only one who will get in trouble.  I don't know perhaps if Justin had given Ash a lift when he asked he might not have gotten suss earlier on.  Not that it would have made much difference.  I did find it funny when Justin shook Robbo's hand.  I don't even think he dislikes Robbo.  I found Robbo's reaction to the photo interesting with what presumably was/is his family.  I wonder if this will trigger his memory to return.  I do feel he has missed his chance to escape (Perhaps the accident will deter any potential roadblocks that may be set up by the police to allow the emergency services to get through).  Thought the car chase was quite exciting.  Can't wait to see what happens next although yes I do think judging by the preview it's going to contain sort of flashback.

Can't get into the Maggie Big C storyline at all but at least she and Ben aren't as bad as they were before.

[H&Alover]

4 hours ago, christine king said:

Sorry, won’t happen again.

Me too, are theories allowed?

[H&Alover]

I thought differently about the car, surely the Summer Bay Council aren't that lax they'd let an abandoned car sit there for as long as Robbo has been in town which has been a lot longer than two months, but it was deliberately dumped.  My thought/theory, if that is allowed, is that the car would eventually have been towed to the police pound and they would have found the photo and make the connection to Robbo. Be too much of a stretch that it would be the car that Justin just happened to decide to steal for Robbo and that he would find it. It certainly looked like he has/had a wife(?) and two children, may or not be significant that  she was dark like Kat was. Certainly had a profound effect on him, I felt really sorry for him. As an aside I know Justin is a mechanic but I didn't think modern cars could be hot wired and the battery was still alive after two months!

Robbo did seem to have made a very quick recovery, Tori is one hell of a doctor, last week he couldn't lift his head off the pillow and this week he's all but leaping into the boot and able - or would have been - to drive off across country and out of state.

How many explosions has SBH had, that place is as safe as the rest of the bay.  I'm glad you put your theories, Red, Slade and 630si because it makes it a lot clearer to me now.  When it we saw the lab blow up I thought at least the place was empty, then we saw the kids packing up their bags and Ryder mucking about on the tannoy.  It also, I hope, explains why Alf was nearby when the last we saw him he was at the bait shop.

Where would soaps and dramas be without coincidences to knit the plot together eh? Justin refusing Ash a lift, which at first he didn't think anything of until later, then all the River Boys just happening to be gathered en masse, including the two who had been nicked, in time for that call to come through and thus enabling the penny to drop for Ash  and charge off after him.  I'm guessing it was that guy lurking in the bushes where Justin and Robbo were. I can't remember how Justin got to know about it but I think he did right to try and lay a false trail, Ash wouldn't have been able to tell who was at the wheel, with Justin and Robbo both being dark. 

Once we saw the road works, interspersed with the shots of Justin & Ash speeding along the highway, it was a foregone conclusion they were going to meet in a spectacular way.  I hope Ash drags Justin out of the car and saves his anger at him until later.

Colby does have a funny way of policing, giving Ash a 'caution' which seemed more of a brotherly talk.  If, of course, he had taken him in the chase and crash wouldn't have happened.

I'm with Ben, Ziggy and Coco already know Maggie is/was awaiting the results of her tests so delaying tactics is only prolonging their agony, I suppose we could put it down to her still taking the news in herself, she did say to Ben she stopped listening after hearing the word cancer. Maggie is obviously worrying about Coco's bulimia rearing it's head but Ben said they are sensible girls and isn't lying to 'protect' them worse?  They'd want to be there from the start. She's going to have to explain where she's gone when she has her PET scan next week.

[Red Ranger 1]

Well, the episode pretty much ended where the previous one did, complete with re-running the ending of Monday, which was a bit frustrating.I guess we were meant to be worrying throughout who was going to be in the hole with Alf.(Mind you, since if there any fatalities Justin would likely be up for manslaughter, I think we can guess they'll all be okay.)I actually thought for a moment the episode was going to end without showing up. So Alf and Roo are trapped.Anyone else?We can probably rule out Ryder and Raffy since they were outside at the time (and the promo confirms they're okay).John and Marilyn seemed to have left (although they left after Ryder and Raffy who were still just outside...), not clear about Hunter and Jennifer.

And Hunter was being a brat for at least the first half of the episode yet as I predicted, everyone was queuing up to offer him help.No surprise he's ended up back at the caravan park, however tenuous his connection to Leah is.And a nice touch that Olivia's having therapy, since it's understandable old troubles would be in danger of resurfacing.Leah was already threatening to annoy me with her cloying "I know what it's like" and then actually did it by deciding to treat Olivia the same way she treated Zac a year ago: I wasn't on her side then and I wasn't now. I'm glad Irene actually had Olivia's corner at last and refused to let Leah treat her like the town pariah.And I guess I should give Hunter credit for stepping in as well.

Ryder is pretty much what Ben was six months ago: Whenever something happens that makes me think that maybe he's okay after all, straightaway something else happens that reminds me that no, he actually is an obnoxious tit. The fact that Coco found his behaviour charming rather than annoying and Raffy happily went along with everything he said for no real reason just served to lower my opinion of them rather than make me like Ryder.Even Roo seemed to be being a bit too soft on him.Incidentally, more evidence than seniority at Summer Bay High is related directly to whether or not you're a regular, as Roo is seemingly left running the school on her first day as a qualified teacher.She'll be acting principal by the end of the year, mark my words.Probably the end of the month.(Oh no, wait, that's Saturday...end of next month!) I'd like to be able to blame Ryder for them still being in school when the explosion happened, but actually if they'd stuck around to the end of detention, they'd all have still been in school. (But maybe they'd have been in a safer part of it? Huh. We'll see.)

[Slade]

Ryder is highly annoying, extremely disruptive and clearly has no desire to learn.  Worst of all his attitude stinks!  I am actually wondering if Roo/Alf should have just let him get a job instead of going back to school.  If he wants to stuff up his own education the fine but I don't see why he should be allowed to perturb other students.  I don't think they were hard enough with him after he let himself into the principal's office and started playing DJ.  I didn't really like Raffy's role although at least she did it for selfless reasons and seemed to take the detention seriously initially.

I was shaking my head at Hunter's attitude towards Alf when he found him just as he was about to open the Bait shop.  The Hunter/Olivia stuff was slightly eye-rolling but I did think Leah was a bit ridiculous when Olivia came into the Diner so I was glad Irene stuck up for her.  At least he took the grownup approach and told both of them not to take sides.  I wasn't entirely sure before but now I believe Jen fancies him.  I hope she's OK because presumably she's caught up in explosion.  Not sure he should be sharing bedrooms with Ryder although I wasn't sure if they were joking as with the previous setup he had his own caravan.

I'm assuming that Alf and Roo are going to be OK.

[Red Ranger 1]

Well. The Robbo stuff continues to be eye-rolling, no matter how serious they try and make it, and I'm left thinking that Tori maybe should have realised that things had gone too far and called the police before her brother ended up in hospital and two innocent bystanders got trapped in an underground cavern.Her constant whining "You were meant to wait for me!" when she hid a wanted criminal in their garage without consulting the rest of the household just made her even more annoying.When I saw that clip of Willow slapping Colby in the promo, I thought she was blaming him for Justin's accident, but turns out he's another new character that she knows.Is it going to turn out she knows Jasmine too?Justin seems to share my theory as to where the car came from, guess we'll have to see.

I'm not quite sure what Maggie's plan here was: Throw the girls a nice picnic and then they won't mind that she's got a life-threatening illness so much? Not sure if that's Coco's first proper Obligatory Bikini Scene after all her time in swimmers last year, and it's a bit odd that she seems to have forgotten her two week environmental activist phase and gone back to being someone who always follows the rules.Even April stuck at it longer than her.Still, I did like the Astoni family scenes, and I'll say again that it's nice to see Ziggy being properly sisterly towards Coco these days.Around the halfway mark, I was left musing that the person I was feeling least sympathy for was the person I should be feeling most sympathy for:Maggie. But she clawed her way back a bit with that scene at home.

Ryder continues to be an obnoxious brat and drags down everyone around him.(And we didn't even get a proper scene of Raffy with Justin.)Odd that, aside from a throwaway "Do you think the others got out okay?" from Alf, we don't hear anything about John, Marilyn, Hunter and Jennifer, all of whom were at the school not long before the explosion.But they all looked fine in the promo so, they got out okay, I guess? As for Alf going all Peter Baker on us...well, jury's out for now, but they'd better have a good explanation.To be honest, first indications aren't good: I'm guessing when they ended the episode with Alf bellowing "She's alive!!!!!" like he suddenly thinks he's Doctor Frankenstein, the intention wasn't to make me start laughing.

[H&Alover]

Did my hearing deceive me or did Willow say she knew Colby from when she was a cop?  She's certainly had an interesting life if so, would this have been before or after she knew Dean or during? That was one hell of a slap she gave Colby so not a small misdemeanour  on his part I'm guessing. Colby seems to have a hidden agenda himself in regards to Robbo/Beckett Reid. 

Well TPTB certainly kept you (well me at least) guessing as to whom got caught in the explosion,  all the little clues, Raffy's workbook, Ryder's laptop in the rubble.  Ryder locking himself in Maggie's office and barring the door, Ryder and Raffy getting detention in the lab where the explosion was centered, Marilyn & John turning up to pick Raffy up and finally Hunter & Jen arriving to collect her text book.  We saw Maz & John  leave but until we saw the trailer last night we didn't know about Jen & Hunter. That would really have been crushing for Olivia if he had been hurt or worse. Ryder and Raffy exited by the front entrance and thank goodness he did duck out of detention and persuaded Raffy to join him, when the explosion happened at the back, that's how it looked to me at anyway, neither of them would have any reason to think anyone would have been hurt inside.

Actually I thought what Ryder did was rather sweet, he did it for Coco to cheer her up and it worked, it was just what she needed, he could have a side line as a DJ!  Raffy didn't need a lot of roping in she's Coco's friend and wanted to help her. At least he acknowledged he was a prat by not wanting to home which if he had he may have wondered where Alf (or Grumps) & Roo were long before Leah started to actually worry.

There did seem to be only one other teacher about and we only got a brief glimpse of her when she stuck her head in the classroom where the kids were dancing and quickly withdrew it again.  Maybe Roo was the one in charge by default, from our viewing the end of the month is Saturday but maybe in Aussie time as it was the beginning of February when those episodes were screened.

It looks like Ash did pull Justin from the car, then got himself nicked by Colby which he had to do, considering his earlier light treatment of him. Tori, of course, broke the protocol rules again by treating Justin!  At least for the moment Ash is behind bars giving Justin, Tori and Willow some time to sort Robbo out currently holed up at 'The Bates' motel.  Btw Slade did you notice Tori was back to forehead clutching again,  oh btw Justin couldn't afford to 'wait for you', he needed to get Robbo out then not wait for you to come home and give him the all clear.

Willow was well out of depth trying to cope with Robbo in his catatonic state.  I don't think I'm giving anything away but seeing as he is in that state the woman and children in the photo must dead, if they were alive and well he wouldn't have had such a devastating reaction to it. I don't find it eye rolling just sad, I have the feeling we'll find out what turned him into the bad guy he was before the Robbo we now know. Justin does an inkling what it could feel like, there was a time he didn't know if he'd see Ava again and she could have been in danger or dead. Two minds with but one thought regarding the car eh Red?  Stand by my theory, Novak, if it was him, was expecting the cops to tow it away but earlier than two months later. As we saw from the trailer Ash & the River Boys raid the Morgan's now empty garage, yet to see how they made the connection unless Ash put two and two together and actually made four.

At least Hunter was responsible and had locked the door to the bait shop while kipping in  it overnight, he didn't go whining to anyone not wanting their pity, which it wouldn't have been, just common decency not wanting to see anyone having to doss down when they are perfectly good rooms/vans going at the caravan park. Jen's motives at the moment seem just her wanting to be friends with Hunter and she did persuade him to accept Leah & Alf's offer. Leah & Irene were just sticking up for their 'kids' as you would but it did get a bit this Diner ain't big enough for the both of you when Olivia walked in and saw Hunter sitting there with Jen and both Leah and Irene were saying the other should leave prompting Hunter to be the most adult of them all and tell them to back off.  Did have to smile when Alf reminded Leah & Irene Hunter and Olivia were adults and could work it out themselves, like he hasn't interfered in Roo's  love life. Thank goodness Olivia didn't come out with that old cliché 'maybe in time we can be friends' in her talk with Hunter 'just saying perhaps we can just say hello now and again.

For such a clever woman Maggie was being incredibly dumb, Ziggy and Coco aren't daft, confirmation btw they are still only 19 & 16, both knew something was up and that the test results would have to have been back by now and all that 'it's lovely here' ambling by Maggie adding to it.  I'm putting Coco  putting her  environmental issues aside due to concern about her mum.  Ben could hardly deny Coco's direct question about it being cancer and the family scene at the end was moving.

Got rather confused about the Jasmine situation, was Colby saying she'd have to give the AVO people her new address so they could issue a new one but she was worried about revealing it as David's solicitor would have to know so was unsure about giving it out.

Several questions raised about Alf's revelation that Martha (Roo's mum) is alive - how long has he known, I'm guessing after he married Alisa and after she died, 'cos I can't see Alf knowingly marrying bigamously, he married Alisa three years after Martha 'died'. Is he still married to Martha?  It does mean though Duncan is illegitimate - oops!  Alternatively Red - Gordon's alive!!!!!  he did have a struggle to tell her to listen though with  her keep saying 'don't talk, save your breath' as always happens when a character is trying to say something very, very important  and someone else keeps telling them to be quiet, to rest etc.

 

 

[Red Ranger 1]

5 hours ago, H&Alover said:

Did my hearing deceive me or did Willow say she knew Colby from when she was a cop?

It deceived you. She said she knew him when he wasn't a cop. The episode studiously keeps Colby and Dean apart, so not clear if they know each other. And it studiously avoids giving us much more details about Alf's revelation as well, except for him indicating he's known all along.(So...did they get divorced in secret?)Still trying to keep an open mind here, since the Milco storyline for the 20th anniversary sounded weird on paper but ended up quite good.That said, Roo was in her early teens when her mother died so you'd expect her to have pretty clear memories of what happened.I'm not quite sure that Mason, who's neither a qualified doctor nor employed at the hospital, would be allowed to take charge of the situation ahead of medical professionals, but I guess it's that thing where seniority depends on how high you are in the cast list again.He did a good job anyway.

So now Tori's belief that she knows best has placed her brothers in danger: It's lucky that Ash and Dean backed off from threatening Brody and Mason, neither of whom knows anything anyway, and it's hard to imagine the posse gone to search their businesses being particularly gentle on past evidence.Just how much collateral damage does there have to be before she faces up to reality and calls the police?Dean bailing Ash out leaves me wondering where he gets his money from: Does he have a job? Scant information too about that photograph, it seems even Robbo doesn't know why he had such an extreme reaction to it.