Episode 5024

Australian Air Date: 4th March 2010
UK Air Date: 11th March 2010

Romeo confesses all to Xavier. Mink’s decides to leave town and reveals the real reasons behind her attitude. Leah tries to deny her growing feelings for Elijah. Miles thinks he knows the identity of the Bay’s rampant graffiti vandal.

MINK CARPENTER (MATYLDA BUCZKO)
RABBIT (MITZI RUHLMANN)
ELIJAH JOHNSON (JAY LAGA’AIA)
DAVE MORGEN (REL HUNT)

Written by Sam Meikle
Directed by David Gould

Extended Summary

Xavier has overheard Mink admitting that she never actually killed her dad and that’s turned Mink and Romeo’s worlds upside down. Mink’s shattered, convinced that Xavier is going to blab the news to anyone who’ll listen. Romeo convinces Xavier to keep the secret and confides to him that it was actually his mother who hit his step-dad with the cricket bat and he hit his head on a coffee table when he fell, and that killed him. Romeo and Mink knew that their mum wouldn’t cope with jail and that’s when Mink decided to take the rap for her. Xavier can’t believe Mink endured juvenile detention for something she didn’t do. Mink simply can’t cope with Xavier knowing the truth and decides to leave town within the week. Nobody can talk her out of it. The only consolation for Romeo is that he learns that Mink is meeting with a potential sponsor. Romeo hopes that she secures a decent sponsorship and won’t have any financial worries when she’s on the surfing tour.

Mink’s moods are up and down, mostly down, and she turns up at the meeting late and then sabotages it by abusing the potential sponsor and throwing a drink all over the representative. Romeo is furious can’t believe what she did, but Xavier nails the truth when he asks if she thinks she deserved the oppurtunity. when she angrily replies that she deserves everything she gets, he realises the depth of her self-loathing. Mink does try to smooth things over with Romeo before she leaves and tries to give him an insight into why she is like she is, by telling him a horrifying story about how she nearly died while in juvenile detention. She had no-one to visit her, and her whole outlook changed – she was never going to allow anything like that to happen again. Romeo’s shocked and realises just what a hefty price his sister has paid in trying to protect their mother.

When Elijah had to cancel a one-on-one Jiu-jitsu session with Leah, she found herself disappointed and has started to realise that she may be developing feelings for him. She’s very awkward when Elijah comes in to apologise to her, but agrees to have a coffee and a walk with him. She finds him very kind and patient as he asks her if his classes are helping her get her self confidence back, and he then suggests some practical ways of dealing with her panic attacks. Leah has to take some stick from Miles and Irene who can tell she has feelings for Elijah. She copes, but Miles plants an idea in her mind when he suggests that maybe Elijah has feelings for her too. Leah dismisses the idea, but later, when she’s training with Elijah there’s a moment between them and Leah, heart racing, wonders if just maybe there could be something going on with him, but it’s too much for her to deal with and she cuts the session short.

Summer Bay doesn’t see too many graffiti vandals, but all of a sudden there seems to be a splurge of them – or is it just one person? Firstly the caravan park signage is attacked and later the Bait Shop is defaced. And it seems the culprit’s colour of choice is orange, or more correctly amber, as Miles points out. He then suddenly realises he knows someone that likes that colour – Rabbit. He confronts her about the graffiti, but Rabbit denies she did it. Miles has to accept that for the moment, but his suspicions have now been aroused.