2025 Season - UK Episode Discussion

[James Martin]

Also, why does Leah need to see the body to be sure he's dead?  Surely as Next of Kin she would have been the one with the job of identifying him, or would Lacey have had that job as his girlfriend?  Or was David able to do that a. as a cop and b. as his girlfriend's dad?

I'll say it again, blatant conflict of interest.  Even though he video recorded the interview, Police interviews that are potentially admissable in court just aren't done 1:1.  There's always someone else in the room.

Which has reminded me... Wendell attended the cop shop for what's known as a "voluntary interview" in England.  Here, you still have the right to bring a solicitor to those sorts of interviews, just as you do when under arrest.  If he already knew he was guilty, why did he wait until after the interview to lawyer up?

 

[H&Alover]

It is a very delicate line between murder and manslaughter, Wendell did intend to run down Lacey, but did he intend to kill her before  he arrived or was it when she treated to go to the press.  Going off subject a bit but then two people get in a tussle, one gets pushed or punched down, hits their head and later dies firstly it's called murder but then it can come down to manslaughter if it can be proved the assailant didn't intend the victim to die.  Anyways that is for now a long way down the line, he's got to be found first. David certainly has got his crew tracking him down, but dare say he'll have enough mates to call on and call in favours. 

I think 5 made the right decision  though of course on H&A's fb page people disagree but then you always get those. Normally we would be left hanging and then there would be those putting spoilers up. 

Naturally Lacey was in total shock when David first found her, she did have the presence mind though to ring the ambulance and or cops, was it because Yabbie Creek was nearest or did she ring David direct?   Something he said at the cop shop snapped her out of it.  I was wondering how ethical, police wise it was for him to interview her, but he did deal with it very well, though yes someone else should have been there.   Jo will need to know of course.  

I'm guessing, again, that when Wendell turned up for his voluntary interview he didn't think it would go the way it went.  Also  bringing  a lawyer/solicitor along could raise eyebrows by the police on why would you need a brief with you.  He got his online after the interview. 

May be bizarre but a relative/loved one may want to see the body to be sure it is her/him.  Is Leah down as Theo's n-o-k? Wouldn't that be Cassandra - his mum? If Leah hadn't been up to it, David would as a police officer and someone who knew Theo could or even Justin. Leah did take it upon herself to ring Cas sand tell her but as she said better/easier being told that news by a relative rather than a cop knocking on your door.  We saw Justin crumble a bit but then in  a promo we see  it really hits him, must have brought memories of Mason back. 

It was the next morning when Justin said he rang Maz and I'm guessing she told Alf which is why they both turned up.  Leah certainly needed that hug and Alf looks upon Leah as another of his surrogate daughters, she did live at the Caravan park for quite a few years. 

I hope I'm not stereo-typing but Leah is Greek so would react in a Mediterranean way along with the ranting at Lacey who was pretty gutsy wanting to go and see Leah, she could have hidden away.  On the subject of her obsession of nailing Wendell, I think it's guilt as for two years she thought it was Jo who killed their mum and by extension her distrust of her dad aa she thought he was covering for her so wants to make amends. 

Back to the SL, not many hours earlier Leah was telling Theo she was looking forward to welcoming Lacey as a niece-in-law, then went back to raving she was right not to take what she said to be true as she didn't trust her when she first met her.  Again her Mediterranean temperament coming into play.  Not wanting to give anything away but Leah herself gets a roasting by someone.

We don't know yet what Theo actually died of, was him being struck by Wendell's car or did he hit his head when he landed on the road?  I'm supposing Bree will have that task. The paramedics would have  declared him dead at the scene.

It was a relief to get some lighthearted moments, like in real life, life does go on as normal when tragedy  like this hits someone near you.  It seemed Dana, Sonny and Harper had  a good  evening/night/morning.  Sonny cracked the knack of putting on Archie's nappies.  Tane came back, showed the photos of the Wedding and casually mentioned Theo took off with Lacey.  Had Maz already packed the picnic hamper that Dana picked up at the Diner, I think she said Maz wasn't there?  Sonny and Archie get on very well, it did get hi-jacked rather when Tane and Harper came by and said they had to go to the hospital. Then of course Archie peed over Sonny.  

Yeh we've all got mobiles now so news like Theo would be flying around, but I'm supposing Justin and Leah wouldn't be thinking of letting others outside of the family know.  Dana, obviously, wasn't at work so wouldn't have been there when Theo was brought in if she was on shift. I'm wondering if Alf will  be the designated bad news giver.   It's going to hit Sonny hard as Theo was his first friend in the bay, aside from Remi, who will also be hit hard, he and Theo had just agreed that Theo would be signing up for his record label. 

Before I forget it was John's last scene as he was off to see Irene in gay Paree and Leah said to give her her love. 

 

Edited November 25 by H&Alover

[Medea Fleecestealer]

Well, said in today's episode that Theo's mum is next of kin so no reason for Leah to be allowed to see him.  

Yeah, would have thought David wouldn't have been allowed to interview Lacey as not only a conflict of interest, but he's her dad so double conflict I'd say.  Unfortunately Cash and Eden on honeymoon so no other "character" cops they could use for it I guess.  

[Red Ranger 1]

2 hours ago, H&Alover said:

Wendell did intend to run down Lacey, but did he intend to kill her before  he arrived or was it when she treated to go to the press.

Makes no difference. Either would be murder. But I suspect it was after he got there.

So yes, as confirmed today, Leah's only an aunt, not next of kin, so wasn't the one to identify the body. (For all her feeling hard done by, I doubt she'd want some Cyprus-based relative trying to pull rank over her with VJ.) I'm kind of on the fence with Leah so far. When she was at the station demanding Lacey be arrested for a crime she was a victim of, it really did feel like she's just being given the same annoying scripts as she was a few months back. Fair play to Ada for playing it differently, coming across as broken and pulling back on the self-righteous anger, but if we're going to see Leah having a go at Lacey twice a week for the foreseeable future, it's going to get very tired. At least she's being reasonably civil with Justin and didn't lose it at him going to Bree.

I've seen a lot of criticism of Lacey by Oz pace fans but I like her a lot, and I hope seeing a different side to her here will win people over. She's had a couple of moments of being a bit too forthright but mostly she's burdened with the fact that, yes, she did contribute to the death of someone she loved, in a mirror of her blaming Jo. (Her being at the police station just so Leah could have a go at her was desperately contrived though. What is this, bring your kid to work day?) Ironic that Leah's making the same cover-up accusations to David as Lacey once did. Maybe he should investigate cases involving his family less? His being rude to his officers would be more understandable if he's not like that half the time anyway.

This continues to be the slowest breaking of bad news in a long time. Maybe we should be generous, since it's still less than 24 hours since Theo died, but it's like they're sending everyone letters. When Jo checked her phone in the first scene, I thought David or someone was calling to let her know, but nope, it's setting up light-hearted scenes with Tane. Fairly good light-hearted scenes but it's still a lot later than it should be before someone tells her that her sister's boyfriend is dead. Harper suddenly having the patch off does reinforce the idea that they could only take so many actors with them for the wedding shoot and had to come up with contrived reasons for why close friends weren't there.

[c120701]

1 hour ago, Red Ranger 1 said:

This continues to be the slowest breaking of bad news in a long time. Maybe we should be generous, since it's still less than 24 hours since Theo died, but it's like they're sending everyone letters. When Jo checked her phone in the first scene, I thought David or someone was calling to let her know, but nope, it's setting up light-hearted scenes with Tane. Fairly good light-hearted scenes but it's still a lot later than it should be before someone tells her that her sister's boyfriend is dead.

I agree, after the fantastic spreading of the news of Felicity’s death (reminiscent of Shane’s) which was slow for modern day, this seemed to be at a real snails pace to the point it seemed like no-one cared but just didn’t know - but then it just shows how isolated Marilyn & Alf are from most of the Bay that they have little interaction with anyone outside of Roo, John, Leah & Justin.

 

[James Martin]

There's more than a few people who still don't know.

Even though the bulk of the action of the two episodes this week has taken place over the 24 hours following the wedding reception, the "3 episodes" thing really shows up pacing here.  On a British soap if a prinicpal character had been mown down at the end of Friday's episode, everyone would know by the end of Monday's episode.

[H&Alover]

Of course Theo's mum, Cassandra, would be his NOK so be the one to identify him even if he had been living with Leah and Justin. How would the police have known who to contact?   I thought David was very patient, calm but firm when Leah demanded to see him.   It seems then Theo was taken to the mortuary rather than the hospital or have I got that wrong? I wonder if the reason she wanted to see Theo was so she could say sorry to him seeing as she shouted at him the last time she saw him, weird how our minds work. It could also be the reason why she's so angry with Lacey. 

We do tend to forget that what is next day or the day after for us, in the bay it could still be the same day so that is why news like that doesn't get around as fast.  It seemed Jo had just got off duty but not being in ED she wouldn't be aware of anything. At least David has now broken the news and Lacey has give her an update.   But, and this is an afterthought all Lacey had was Wendell's word he would go to the cops and confess, seeing sharp she usually is I would have thought she'd record his confession on her phone, he could easily have denied everything but he's gone to ground so therefore admitting his guilt of trying to run down Lacey at least.  Not surprising David was snappy, it was his daughter who nearly got killed. 

Tane pretending the call he made to Jo was a drunken one didn't work as Harper correctly pointed out he drove Remi and Abby home so must have been sober.  He did try and wriggle out of talking to Jo but Harper, again, pushed him into talking to her so it seems she is over Tane.  Funny way of her telling Tane about Theo dying, all she said was my sister's boyfriend has died, it's not as if he wouldn't know who Lacey's boyfriend is/was. I'm supposing he will now break the news to Harper and Dana then Sonny will find out.  With Felicity she didn't die quickly, she was in a coma  for about a week so the news about her dying would have got around quicker.

Very nice that Alf asked how Justin was coping, Theo may have been Leah's nephew but Justin was family by marriage.  I can see why he asked Leah if she was OK seeing what she had been through as it wasn't that t long ago she had that breakdown.  She didn't  fly off the handle though  but understood his concerns.  

it looked, going by the promo, like the SL has shifted to Mac and Levi and the aftermath of her miscarriage and  she is burying her head in the sand.

I have noticed Theo is still on the opening credits.

Edited November 26 by H&Alover

[Red Ranger 1]

The glacial pace continues to cement my feeling that Channel 5 had very good reasons to reject this as the big return week for next year, with the caveat that we'll see what we get instead. The fact that people are now having to go round saying that Theo died "the night before last" underlines just how badly it's been handled. I can see the wisdom in keeping the storyline going with the characters available for these episodes, so from that perspective maybe the restrictions of the format play a part, but I feel like there's better ways of handling it, even if they have characters already know when they reappear and still be processing it.

Anyway, Remi, Mali, Abigail, Levi and Mackenzie are slowly filled in over the course of the episode, although only Remi's really allowed a chance to process it, with everyone else caught up in Mackenzie's dramas. I'm trying to show her some compassion here, but it's hard when she doesn't have any for anyone else and thinks "getting back to normal" means being cold and unpleasant to everyone. It did reach the point where I wanted someone to stop pussyfooting around her and take a sledgehammer to that wall she's built up. We get some fairly decent fallout for Tane and Jo as well, I assume/hope he filled in the absent Harper off screen.

[c120701]

1 hour ago, Red Ranger 1 said:

The glacial pace continues to cement my feeling that Channel 5 had very good reasons to reject this as the big return week for next year, with the caveat that we'll see what we get instead. The fact that people are now having to go round saying that Theo died "the night before last" underlines just how badly it's been handled. I can see the wisdom in keeping the storyline going with the characters available for these episodes, so from that perspective maybe the restrictions of the format play a part, but I feel like there's better ways of handling it, even if they have characters already know when they reappear and still be processing it.

Anyway, Remi, Mali, Abigail, Levi and Mackenzie are slowly filled in over the course of the episode, although only Remi's really allowed a chance to process it, with everyone else caught up in Mackenzie's dramas. I'm trying to show her some compassion here, but it's hard when she doesn't have any for anyone else and thinks "getting back to normal" means being cold and unpleasant to everyone. It did reach the point where I wanted someone to stop pussyfooting around her and take a sledgehammer to that wall she's built up. We get some fairly decent fallout for Tane and Jo as well, I assume/hope he filled in the absent Harper off screen.

I felt a little like the delayed spreading of the news of Theo’s death was to allow Mac’s miscarriage space to breathe, it might have got lost a little if Mac & Abby were also grieving Theo. I don’t think they’ve really touched on Abby & Theo having briefly dated, although her reaction played into that.

[James Martin]

I feel like we're being set up for a parallel Mac/Leah storyline here, where both are mishandling, or maybe "misprocessing" is a better word, their grief.  Which does happen in real life.