It feels like, as with Jo's blossoming friendship with Dana, this episode was designed to show us a softer side of David.All I could think though was "Hug your daughter in your own time", with another example of one rule for him and one rule for everyone else. Comforting Jo in his office when she'd been brought there on official business was one thing, but now she's dropping by for a gossip and a takeaway, and actually standing at his shoulder while he's dealing with a case..? Incidentally, we get a constable who isn't Cash or the departed Rose, and the actor was in two episodes in 2016 as a uni classmate of Oscar et al. Hilariously, he was in the same episode as Dylan Carter, although I don't think they shared a scene!
Well, it was good timing that Roo came back and signed back up as a foster carer within 24 hours of another troubled youngster turning up! I wonder how Alf will react, given it seems he's being as unpleasant as ever on the subject. I was kind of disappointed to see what Roo did with Eliza's card. Keeping it on display wasn't healthy, but boxing it up with the stuff to send back to Eliza wouldn't be good for the girl's mental health, and I'd rather she'd put it away somewhere to remember it wasn't all bad. Still...was that a photo of Alf and Ailsa next to it?! It's not much, but after seven years of virtually pretending she didn't exist, it was very welcome!
I'm usually on John's side, but I was glad everyone gave him short shrift here, given he was just tittle-tattling in a rather judgemental manner. Given how much he was on at Mali to hire someone to run the board shop, I thought he'd have been more motivated to keep quiet rather than trying to get Lacey fired just to crow over Mali. I'm glad Mali decided to keep her on: He was running what lessons there were himself anyway, so it makes sense to have Lacey run the shop while he does that and the boards. It wasn't until the credits came up that I realised Lacey was in the same episode as her family and didn't cross paths with them at all. I don't think that's a bad thing, she's benefiting from getting to interact with a lot of characters.
Dana lost a lot of my sympathy by sniping at Jo like that. Ironically, when he took a deep breath and stepped up, Sonny actually gave her good advice!