2026 Season - UK Episode Discussion

[Red Ranger 1]

Despite an understandable amount of grief, it feels like Mackenzie and Levi are handling things better this time round. Mackenzie gives her mum a call and we find out the gender of the baby: I wondered if we ever would. Mali gets to pay a visit, although I was expecting him and Lacey to clear the air and instead she's not in the episode.

John says he'll be keeping an eye on Sonny and straightaway Sonny's heading back to the gym trying to have a second session. I'm not sure Remi letting Sonny emotionally blackmail him into backing off was at all wise. It means that, while Dana's got an inkling that something's wrong, she's not getting the whole story.

Alf and John don't cross paths so Alf's snapping at Dana instead. If he's going to take the attitude of "We're not going to protect our volunteers and if they have a problem with that, they can stop volunteering", then he's not going to have a surf club left.

[H&Alover]

Levi and especially Mac do seem to be handling  it better, though Mac did bring up that she had done everything right, eating all the right food, no drinking, taking the right supplements and she still lost the baby.  But as Levi said and he may have been wearing his doctors hat that these things do happen.   It may help Mac to talk to other women who have been there. 

Mali is a surrogate brother to Mac and he had designed that muriel for the nursery.  It was moving when he called on Mac and Levi.  Talking of brothers will she be letting Dean know?  I'm guessing  she will be ready to face others, but maybe just one or two at a time.  A neat little drop in that she did know the sex - a girl - she asked before the op.  Mayhap Lacey wouldn't know how close Mali is to Mac..I suppose Leah have been informed to hold back with the cake and ditto with Maz and the cup cakes. 

Sonny was lucky being excluded from the police enquiry into the theft from the garage.  As been mentioned he is now down to one crutch, but I was confused.dot.com. one day he was using  it on one side, then the next day it was the other?    Despite him trying to convince  John and Remi he would obey the rules he's doing all he  he can to sneak round them.  

Not sure how the scenes with Justin taking Leah for a romantic picnic fitted in but hey ho.   We did see Cash backing off when he came across them on his run. 

It made a  change that it was Dana getting it in the neck from Alf, she may have been  a tad OTT, but she had  a point, just because she is 'only'  a volunteer doesn't mean she is any less important than others who work there.  His "they're generation"  comment was rather snide. But Roo as Club Secretary, forgotten she  had that job, did point out his folly by not listening to Dana and her fears.  It did get me thinking though we don't see many older folk like John, Alf and Roo in the Surf Club, people who work/volunteer there are young as as are the customers. 

Moving on a bit from Mac and Levi's news, it has had a knock on effect on Eden  which got Harper's SW's antenna twitching, which resulted in Eden having one of those 'talks' with Cash. Going off piste I do like that top Harper wears.   There was an amusing scene between Haper and Jo in Salt.   Wonder if Tane's ears were burning? 

[Red Ranger 1]

Alf's episode count this week:Four.

Alf again demonstrates that he wouldn't last five minutes with a proper HR department rather than the vaguely feudal set-up at the surf club. At least Roo did actually threaten to put it in front of the committee if he didn't sort it out.(Of course, she then announced she was leaving town in an incredibly left field manner.It feels like she's only just got back!) But okay, he managed to talk to Dana in a polite manner eventually.

That was a pretty big bombshell for Eden to suddenly drop on Cash. It does feel like a bit of a kneejerk reaction and I don't imagine anyone else in the family would be happy at her basically going "If Levi's not going to have children, neither am I." Cash handled it as well as he could. Like he said, if Eden's going to be that unwavering about it, there's nothing he can do. Perhaps a conversation further down the line might be in order?

Given how neglected and mistreated Jo's been lately, I'm glad she and Harper had their bonding moment with the Ex-Girlfriends' Club. I'd like to think Tane will come to regret messing things up with her but we'll see.

Leah tries to help Justin out, and I loved her logic to Marilyn, but it seems things have escalated: Instead of stealing tools from vans, now someone's stolen the entire van.

[H&Alover]

At least Alf took Roo's threat seriously and took Dana's worries on board.

  I may be being a  bit dumb but this 'crime wave' does appear to be happening to properties and to people we've never seen/heard of.  Well until the Surf Clubs garage got broken in to. 

Talking of break-ins Tane's finally been told about Sonny breaking into the gym and he came down pretty heavy on him, BUT as was hinted at Sonny could be going down a different route entirely.  

I did love drunken Jo, she was so funny.  Jo did mention Harper crashing her and Tane's first date and here we are they are  all pally.  I hope Harper gets to tell her it was her Jo was talking to NOT Tane before Jo apologies to him.    moment for David getting that call from Harper that he needs to pick Jo up from Salt, Lacey he wouldn't have been surprised about but his 'sensible' daughter.    

Another surprise was David having that meaningful talk with Cash when he saw how distracted Cash was, who would have thought that would happen  after their previous clashes.   He had good advice that Cash and Eden should have a proper talk and Eden got the same advice after talking to Tane.  I could see why Eden would feel bad if she and Cash were able to have children if Levi and Max can't.  They would be glad for them but in Eden's present mid set it would seem like they are rubbing their noses in it. A lot of people out there in the real world think like that if they can have children and their brother/sister can't.    

Hope more people go to visit Mac and Levi, though not overcrowd them.  They'll  be worrying people are  avoiding them.  Not just Mac of course but Levi needs to talk to other guys even if they can't begin to imagine what they going through. 

Leah's idea of putting up good reviews for Justin's business did backfire somewhat.  He was bloody lucky the carjacker only wanted the van and it's contents.  Whoever it was are smart using a burner phone so likely they've done this before.    It did i prove one thing  no matter how smart these new phones are you still get black spots where you can't get  a  signal. 

Edited June 29 by H&Alover

[Red Ranger 1]

Despite everyone else saying otherwise, I think Tane pretty much did need to hear what Jo had to say, so I wish they'd let her go ahead and drunk dial him, however embarrassing it might have been for her afterwards.Tane needs to face up to the effect he's having, rather than swanning around acting as though he can arbitrarily dumb someone and then pretend they don't exist.

Talking of which, Tane glossed over a lot when he said Felicity lied, ignoring the fact that she was honest with him to start with and his response was a drunken ramble about how they couldn't survive without kids. David probably gave Cash the best advice he could in the circumstances (although it does underline how you never know which David you're going to get). But I'm not sure that keeping quiet and waiting to see if Eden changes her mind is a particularly good strategy.

Justin's phone apparently works only when the plot needs it to, given he had a signal a few moments earlier and then apparently lost it as soon as the van was stolen. I'm not sure that getting Sheriff Alf on the case is particularly helpful, given his tendency to lurch from one extreme to another.

[H&Alover]

I think Harper was saving Jo from feeling embarrassed about that drunk call she thought she made  to Tane.

Flick was honest about not wanting kids before they got married, but she did lie about being OK about having them and was taking the pill, so maybe he wanted to  defend her.

Soap plots do have mobile phones working/not working at certain times, but it does happen in real life, Justin was amongst a lot of trees which do block signals.  How handy was it that Alf just happened to be driving by.  Alf did take Dana's suggestion on board and surprisingly he and John worked together without too much hassle. 

Some tender scenes in the 'new' episode with Mac, Levi and Mali. Levi hadn't  disposed of the baby scan photo. 

New bloke Dale  is not going to be  a good guy.  I do hope Sonny won't be tempted. 

[Red Ranger 1]

I don't know whether to be touched or worried at how grateful John was that Alf actually asked his advice for once. It must be one of the first times his Neighbourhood Watch knowledge has been appreciated, although Alf made sure to get his sniping quota in first. It does feel a bit like they're just trying to do something without it necessarily being likely to be effective though.

Sonny gets his riot act read once again, I guess Tane's the last remaining authority on the subject so he might get a rest now. Or not, if he's going to do something equally stupid with Beau and his "supplements". (Did you read the wrong spoiler, H&Alover?)

There continued to be a feeling that Mackenzie and Levi are handling things in a more healthy manner this time and she's not going to be running off to Dean this time...until that ending, which just made me sigh.It feels like they've had this conversation before and I'm not sure why it's come up again. I'm hoping the answer is "To provide an over the top cliffhanger that will be easily resolved next episode."

[H&Alover]

Oops put Blake the actors name instead of his character Beau. I was really hoping Sonny wasn't going down that route.  Methinks Beau has played this game before.  I think I know why Sonny  has done this. Confused with time scale again, one moment it was daylight then it was night time.  

Tane did the right thing with Sonny,  as he said before if anything happened to Sonny he'd be responsible. 

It is the first time John's Neighbour Watch has been  spoken about directly.   Putting posters up may make people more aware of strangers hanging about.  We saw in the trailer that came to fruition but by cops. 

Levi did get in  a panic that Mac had done another runner when she went 'missing', she could have left a  note for  him.  They had been cooped up together so not really surprising she wanted time on her own.  Luckily Mali found her and got her to talk to Levi. Some very in depth and moving conversations between them which appeared to get resolved. 

 

[James Martin]

It's not just you if you're wondering, for whatever reason 5 haven't uploaded today's episode.

Apparently it was there earlier but with no sound after the recap.

Honestly the way they treat the show now, can we just have ITV back?

[Red Ranger 1]

Mackenzie continues to be a tiny bit annoying, which is a bit unfair perhaps, but as Levi said, she's just found another way of pushing him away. His options were basically telling her she's right and breaking up, or telling her he doesn't want to break up and not being believed, and it was pretty much the second one, with Mackenzie acting as though she wants to break up because there's a chance they might break up in the future. And it kind of got left dangling like that. I did find it interesting though that they don't seem to have completely ruled out the possibility of having children.

Abigail was being a bit annoying with Remi, but ended up making insightful comments to Eden: How can she be sure she'll never be pregnant? Unfortunately, I can hear the words "Cash, I want you to have a vasectomy" coming out of her mouth, which may be a step too far for him.

Meanwhile, all it takes is one less-than-perfect date night and Sonny's turning to the dark side.This is not going to end well.

Edited July 1 by Red Ranger 1