2023 Season - UK Episode Discussion

[H&Alover]

3 hours ago, Psychic Wombat said:

Is that Mali in the background sitting on the stool?  

They are wearing a dress but do look bloke like so confused.com. 

[H&Alover]

What is all this ha-haing?????

Seems the Robbie/Jujstin conflict has died down as Robbie twigged Justin won't be pushed or cajoled into doing what he wants.  Where was Leah when Justin got home, was she working?  it was dark too, it appeared light when he left his 'gig' for want of  a better word. 

This trip of Irene's - do we know where she's going? 

Anyways seems Justin has got something else to ponder on. I did, initlally, think it was something dodgy Robbie had slipped into Justin's bag and he'd get nabbed for it but it appears it's from this mysterious guy who lives at the blue post box house.   This week does look interesting and I wondered who this Andrew was in the TV mags blurb in for this weeks H&A episodes. 

That's the problem with close families isn't it,  you feel  you should help them out  but then they can take advantage of being family expect it every time.  Tane did say to Felicity Kahu had had money problems before. 

It was good Tane run it by  Felicity before he offered Kahu the money,  gift or a loan btw, they are a couple  and it wouldn't matter if married or not, a decision like that has to be talked about. 

Mali was a busy boy, helping Xander when he collapsed on on the beach - but hey he's 'fine nothing to worry about.   I reckon and just mho it's because of Rose hovering over him all the time, he's NOT going to want to be told "I told you so".  Guess Xand did get taken to hospital?

Then Mali rides to the rescue when he found out via Flick that Gabe had died.  I'm supposing the guy/gal who rang her had been given the dubious job of ringing round folks to give them the bad news.  Felicity did try and give Mac her sympathies and understanding but Mac was also playing the "I'm fine" game but did go home if only to get away from Flicks obvious concern. She may not have been happy Mali was there but I think she did appreciate him being there.  Perhaps he felt she wouldn't have wanted his to see her crying. She obviously didn't listen to herself when she told herself it wouldn't hurt so much. Now I may be getting way ahead of myself but I think she may be hearing news which may to be to her advantage. 

Ap propos of nothing but I did like the dress she was wearing. 

 

 

[atrus]

I've been really struggling to summon the will to watch again, but has it really been a month? Oh, well, here goes...

I'll get the gristle out of the way first. Lots of daftness with Love's Young Dreams: we have Felicity barely getting in the door from her honeymoon before whining that marriage isn't what she expected; while Eden pretends to have got engaged to Cash when he was drunk and then gets annoyed when he's not exactly mad about the idea. Cash managed to get on my nerves too, though, with his grouchy reaction to Remi and Eden behaving as they always have. And then a whole episode of Eden navel-gazing about the prospect of having to sing her ridiculous song again. Bree being mopey and prickly is getting a bit old, so that didn't much interest me either. And not too keen on the arrival of another hot-but-not-particularly-interesting Parata - hopefully his status in the credits points to villain rather than a permanent extension of the family.

I spent most of the paramedic attack/aftermath story thinking, 'If you have to get a tattoo every time you lose a patient, what is it for a colleague? A piercing?' - but interestingly it seems to have been a route into getting Xander into a different career path, rather than retreading too much old ground. Not that interested in Rose going all 'gung-ho cop' in his defence, and I get why Mali found it offputting - plus, for professional reasons, she was too close to the case and should've let others handle it.

Meanwhile, offscreen Gabe continues to dominate Mackenzie's storylines and I continue to wonder why we're really supposed to care about him, even at the point where we learn he's dead. It has generated some nice bonding scenes between Mackenzie and John/Mali, though, so I liked the story more than I did when Gabe was actually in the show for a few weeks.

The Stunning Organics storyline is pretty by-the-numbers Marilyn fare, though still pretty much the most interesting thing going on except for Justin's story (which I'll come to in a minute). But even I'm getting frustrated by Marilyn at this point. Before we even get to the shonky cosmetics, it struck me that most of this silliness could've been avoided if Marilyn hadn't decided to use paying for Jett's wedding as a distraction technique from doing what she was really feeling guilty about: not having met his fiancée yet because she's always felt secretly inadequate and secondary to John as Jett's parent. This could have been really easily resolved with a trip to the City (she could even have combined it with another stint at the food truck) but instead she sets about embarking on a pyramid scheme without reading the contract, to compete with John and assuage her guilt for her lack of presence in Jett's life. (I hope this subtext with Jett gets addressed before all's said and done, unlike with the Heather saga where Marilyn's neglected child just doesn't get mentioned again once the drama's over and done with.) After which point, both Marilyn and Roo annoyed me in equal measure; I do think it was premature for Roo to demand Marilyn close the business purely on the basis that she had had a bad reaction to one of the products, before having gauged anyone else's experience. But on the other hand it clearly was a reaction to the product, and not to a passing horse. And so they were behaving as badly as each other - although of course, H&A being what it is, we knew Roo's presumptions would eventually prove correct and that the company would turn out to be shonky.

So, the Justin stuff: I was disappointed that Ava got shunted off yet again, as I'd hoped we finally had our first proper family unit in several years, but no such luck. Her explanation for her stalky behaviour - that she was jealous of Theo's relationship with Justin - does have some ring of truth, and it certainly puts events such as her photographing herself in Theo's bedroom in a slightly different light, as in different circumstances it would probably be her room. But her abandonment issues made it all the more important that she should've stuck around, rather than being marched off to her mum's again. Then again, I suppose if she'd stayed, the writers would have finally had to address the fact that Summer Bay High and its entire student population have fallen into an even bigger, off-screen sinkhole than the one Alf and Roo landed up in a few years ago. Which simply wouldn't do.

I wondered if the lack of a courtroom was more about avoiding paying all the speaking barristers, judges, extras etc than the location itself, given that they shunted all the main actors out on location anyway, but I'm not an expert on how much all these things cost. Anyhow, I'm glad Justin got off with community service, and that this in itself seems to be an in-road into an intriguing new storyline with the mysterious misspelled note in the rucksack. Oh, and I wish that fellow offender had put in a complaint about Cash, because he clearly was giving his mate Justin preferential treatment without having any idea what it was they were arguing about.

A couple of heavy-handed references to Irene 'jetting off', which will probably give the character more to do than she's ever given when she's actually present. But did it say where she was going? If so, I wasn't paying close enough attention. Sounds potentially further afield than 'up the coast', at any rate - possibly visiting one of her kids, although I think we're way beyond the years when they'd get the occasional token namecheck.

On 13/06/2023 at 01:43, j.laur5 said:

But John has been a bully himself at times and he wouldn’t even say hello to Romeo. Romeo once said hello to him and he rudely ignored him

Wow, you have an impressively long memory!

[CaptainHulk]

14 hours ago, atrus said:

Wow, you have an impressively long memory!

Better that than a selective short memory where people try to paint over characters' misdeeds!

[Red Ranger 1]

Well, after Xander's dramatic collapse at the end of last week, we begin this one with him undramatically back on his feet! He was being unnecessarily stubborn and pig-headed here, and his embarrassing Rose showed a rather unpleasant side to the character, but at least he apologised afterwards. It occurred to me that he'd actually got his own way and had Rose and Mali leave him, but he didn't take advantage of it so maybe he felt a bit guilty.And he did agree to get checked out, although I'm guessing they won't find anything serious given how casually it was treated.

Meanwhile, Justin investigates the note and it appears that, yes, it was a genuine cry for help.It's not entirely clear why Andrew chose to reach out for Justin: He says he seemed nice but he might as well have said "Because you're a main character." Good that there's nothing much physically wrong with him, but he definitely seems to have some sort of social issues.You'd think there'd be some record of who owned the house, and if not, that would be a red flag in itself.It's got an old school Home and Away vibe about it, but once upon a time, something like this would have been the introduction of a new main character, whereas the fact Andrew's listed as a guest, when regulars seem to be listed as such straightaway these days, suggests it's just going to be a storyline.

[atrus]

Hmm, intriguing developments with Justin and the mystery boy, whom I'm getting distinct Tasha Andrews vibes from, albeit the circumstances are a little different. Dangerously undernourished; doesn't know (or won't tell) his own birthday; afraid of cops; seemingly afraid of medical procedures. All seems rather grim and none of it exactly spells "happy and fulfilling childhood". Could possibly be a Bella-esque situation, too? Agree that it's got an old-school feel to it, whatever the case.

Couldn't be arsed with Xander's "character stubbornly pretends not to need medical attention" storyline - unlike Andrew, seemingly, he doesn't have much of an excuse for it - so wasn't really paying attention to what happened there.

[c120701]

On 15/06/2023 at 16:46, Dan F said:

Little reminder of how the juice bar first looked following the surf club revamp 13 years ago...

I think the current design is better, but a splash of colour wouldn’t go amiss. They did well stripping that purple wall back to brick.

[c120701]

Will Andrew end up with Leah & Justin? It seems like we’re leading that way and Justin’s violent behaviour is just going to be overlooked by DoCS.

[H&Alover]

I will repeat many people have got trapped into a pyramid scheme con like Stunning Organics - which is a misnomer in itself.  They, for whatever reason, want to earn a  quick buck or quid and fall for the spiel.  May be said many times but if it sounds too good to be true it usually is. 

Xander may have been acting a stubborn git, but the way I saw it the more Rose and now Mali was nagging him into going into hospital - just to get checked out - the more he'd dig his heels in.  Him saying he's the paramedic and the - to me -  silly comment Rose made about 'ex paramedic', does him being an ex paramedic for about five minutes - make him any less qualified than Rose and Mali?  One good thing came out as it looked like Rose and Mali had made their peace.  Mali could see how concerned she was over Xander which he didn't get when she 'left' him alone in the hospital.  I know  Rose is  the big sister but Xander is whatever age he is not 12 so she had to learn to back off and treat him as an adult. 

Interesting, but odd little chat between Cash and Bree who are missing their respective partners and how they are handling it.  Cash does have Tane and Felicity to fall back on but Bree, apart from Rose, is on her own.  We never hear of any pals from the hospital she hangs out with.   

Now the big one - Andrew!   The CS crew only showed up on that day so he either acted on instinct by putting that note in Justin's bag or just took a chance.  what had he been doing until then?  It was a good while, not until he got home, before Justin dug in his bag and found it - did he hand it over to the cops aka Cash  the next day btw?   

OK once Justin did the right thing by calling an ambulance then letting the cops know did they do any investigating, like asking the neighbours, not that next door obviously but the other side, over the road or am I being too naive? I suppose Justin could broken in seeing someone lying there but it may have not looked good. He, Andrew, did appear to be very afraid of other people and no social skills, and it was only Justin who could talk to him and get him to agree to let Bree treat him.  He's 17, so he said or he's been told,  so still a minor. Is there nothing in the house to give any clues, family photos, address books, any signs of other people living there?   If, as Andrew, said he wasn't supposed to go out of the house how was he being fed?  With Belle she was held in a remote place not in a neighbourhood with other houses around, unless it's the kind of place where people don't interfere with their neighbours as 'it's none of their business'.  Seeing as Justin seemed to have spent most, if not all, of the day at the hospital  did he not have any CS duties that day?   As we saw from the trailer it seems Justin has taken it upon himself to put Andrew up at his and Leah's, did he ask or just tell her, he was doing that? It did look creepy when we saw Andrew looking in on Justin and Leah sleeping.

18 hours ago, c120701 said:

 

 

18 hours ago, c120701 said:

I think the current design is better, but a splash of colour wouldn’t go amiss. They did well stripping that purple wall back to brick.

That colour scheme/design was a sign of the times I guess. 

[CaptainHulk]

20 hours ago, c120701 said:

Will Andrew end up with Leah & Justin? It seems like we’re leading that way and Justin’s violent behaviour is just going to be overlooked by DoCS.

 

I'm sure there'll be some scrutiny.

Also, I know it's a little early but I'm getting Charlie McKinnon vibes from Andrew based on the scenes shown in Les Previews....I could be wrong.

Marilyn vs Beach Bay Botanicals/Ocean Breeze Pt 500. Wake me when we're done. Though, I would rather John and Alf racing around with their health warnings:

"If you wanna burn your flamin' face off, keep using that rubbish! "

"Not to alarm you but you WILL die if you continue to use it! Chuck it in the bin!"