 2006
opened with a lot of huge storylines hanging over from 2005.
The 2005 finale was a cyclone which ripped through town
leaving the lives of several of our favourites in danger.
Luckily they all lived to see another day but for Flynn,
diagnosed with terminal skin cancer in 2005, time was
running out. After being knocked down the stairs by Belle he
became weak and after the Doctor made it clear that he
didn't have very long left to live we were treated to one of
the most emotionally charged episodes of home and away ever.
Telling Ric he had to be the man of the house, Cassie he was
proud of her and getting a promise from Alf that his family
would be looked after, Flynn had one final dance with Sally
to their song and passed away in her arms.
His funeral was another real tear jerker with Cassie
breaking down whilst reading a poem, only to be rescued by
Colleen and the return of Pippa and Flynn's father and
sister. the episode ended with a quiet scattering of ashes
at the beach and the whole town surprising Sally by turning
out to honour Flynn, all carrying candles.
In another story carried over from 2005 Tasha was heavily
immersed in the world of the Believers, a cult headed by
Mumma Rose and her son Jonah but what Tasha didn't realise
was that this seemingly innocent group of people were
referring to her as the chosen one and had some mysterious
plan in store for her. Eventually Tasha realised what was
going on and escaped from their clutches to be reunited with
Robbie but Mumma Rose managed to escape arrest and finding
out she was pregnant without sleeping with anyone it became
clear that Tasha had been drugged and raped by Jonah. With
Robbie's support she decided to keep the baby but with Mumma
Rose still on the loose and determined to get hold of
Tasha's baby, this storyline was to run.
The Believers wasn't the only storyline involving Tasha and
Robbie that carried over from 2005. Beth's father Graham
Walters had recently married Amanda Vale, convinced she
loved him but everyone else knew different. Amanda was
seeing Josh West and heavily embroiled in Project 56, a plot
to build a bridge through Summer Bay, practically
demolishing the town and Graham's money was central to the
plan. When Graham found out what his wife was up to he
suffered a heart attack and before slipping into an
irreversable coma he asked Beth not to keep him alive but to
let him die with dignity. Amanda though, bound by a pre-nup
which meant Graham had to survive for a certain amount of
days before she could inherit his money, refused to turn off
the life support machine.
The Hunters went to court to force Amanda's hand but with
Josh paying off the judge they lost the case. One member of
Beth's family wasn't willing to let it go though and turned
off Graham's life support machine.
Early 2006 was a tough time for several Bay members. With
Alf locked up in prison after being framed by Josh West, Ric
was subject to some major bullying at work from the boss's
nephew Dom who, amongst other things, framed Ric for shobby
work and poured acid on his legs. Eventually though, Ric got
the better of him and Dom was revealed to be a bully.
Another bully was Rachel's collegue Dr Helpman who at first
was supportive of her until she refused to sleep with him,
at which point he started to make her life a misery. Finding
out about her growing relationship with her patient Kim, he
blackmailed her but Rachel's feelings for Kim were too
strong and she reported Helpman to the hospital board,
admitting her own errors at the same time. Keeping her job
thanks to her father, Rachel and Kim became a couple and Kim
was soon to need her support through a really difficult
time.
Somebody had shot Mayor Josh West dead in his office and
provided Morag with the evidence to stop Project 56 at the
eleventh hour. The list of suspects for his murder
practically covered the whole town.
After many twists and false hints, the killer was
revealed by Morag to be Principle Barry Hyde, in a desperate
attempt to keep Josh from revealing the truth that he had
murdered his wife years earlier in an attempt to save his
son. Driven out of town, Barry headed to the City to await
trial, where as far as we know, he's still waiting.
For Kim and Rachel, they became stronger as a result of what
happened with Barry and managed to overcome several hurdles
together. They befriended a young boy by the name of Charlie
who seemed at first to be innocent and lonely but Rachel
soon became suspicious about the amount of time Charlie was
spending with Kim. Stealing his clothes and name badge,
cutting Rachel out of photographs and kidnapping Rachel,
holding her hostage in the gym, it quickly became clear that
Charlie had major problems. Rescued by Kim, Charlie was
admitted to a psyciatric unit for help.
Another major storyline at this point in the year came when
Martha's brother Macca came to town and got together with
Cassie. A seemingly nice guy, Macca was revealed to have a
violent temper, lashing out at Cassie. Eventually told by
Matilda and Ric what was going on, Sally confronted Macca
and took Cassie home.
During the who shot Josh case the newly returned Peter
Baker seemed to be acting very mysteriously, receiving
emails from a person known as TT, taking mystery phone calls
and knocking Jack out when he started to pry. Already
revealed to the viewers in the 2005 finale cliffhanger, Jack
eventually found out the real reason for Peter's weirdness.
Zoe McAllister, the psycho stalker responsible for
terrorising the town had somehow survived the explosion at
the old abbatoir and was back, hell bent on revenge.
With Sally finding 'tick tock' scrawled on a red
lightbulb, she realised the truth and when a video arrived
at Jack and Martha's engagement party the secret was out and
the games began. A series of fake and real bombs, emails,
taunts and a wild goose chase eventually culminated in Zoe's
arrest and everyone happily attended Jack and Martha's
wedding, safe in the knowledge that Zoe was in prison.
Except that Zoe had escaped and turned up at Jack and
Martha's wedding. With the revelation that Detective Tracy
Thompson, Peter's collegue, was actually working with Zoe,
Sally announced that she could smell gas and a seemingly
oblivious girl entered carring a wedding cake and causing an
explosion that left many of our favourites fighting for
their lives. At the hospital Peter and Rachel's mother were
both announced dead and Jack was fighting for his life, in
desperate need of a liver transplant, which he got, when Dan
gave permission for Peter to donate. A grieving Rachel,
organised for a helicopter to take some of the burn victims,
Kim, Belle, Kit, Robbie and Martha to hospital in the city
but the helicopter crashed onroute and the five were lost in
the bush for days. With the search for survivers running out
of time and those out in the bush slowly losing the fight,
they were saved when Amanda 'felt' Belle be bitten by a
spider and led the search teams to the survivors.
Amanda as Belle's mum was a revelation the viewers found out
in 2005 but the truth did not emerge in Summer Bay until
Amanda's mother Kitty arrived in town and turned out to be
the same woman as Belle's grandmother. Having told Belle her
mother was dead and Amanda that her daughter had died as a
child, they were shocked to realise they'd been lied to and
after the truth came out, Amanda desperately tried to forge
a relationship with her daughter but Belle didn't want to
know. She eventually relented though, won over by the idea
of having a 'cool' mother and moved in with Amanda.
Another storyline from 2005 was to be resurrected as Mumma
Rose made a re-appearance whilst Tasha and Martha were away
together, taking them both hostage. She then tried to force
Tasha into labour kidnapping Dr Rachel in the process but
when a syringe filled with a potentially lethal dose and
aimed for Mumma Rose hit Tasha instead, her life was on the
line. With the police arriving to arrest Mumma Rose, Tasha
was rushed to hospital; where she eventualy survived as did
her baby. Tasha though had trouble bonding with her daughter
Ella but with help from Charity, a seemingly reformed member
of the Believers, Tasha did come to love her baby. When
Charity kidnapped Ella and reunited her with the escaped
Mumma Rose, Tasha was determined to get her baby back.
Eventually convincing Mumma Rose to hand over Ella, a moment
of chaos ensued with Mumma Rose hanging out of a window and
Tasha, rather than punishing her for all the trouble she had
caused, saved her life and she was sent back to prison.
There was more heartache in store for Robbie and Tasha
though as Robbie was revealed to be the person responsible
for turning off his grandfather Graham's life support
machine. Standing trial, his case was strengthened by
Amanda's support and though he was found guilty, the judge
decided to release him without making him do time and Robbie
and Tasha decided the time was right to make a fresh start
in America with her Aunt Josie.
The explosion and helicopter crash had caused some chaos for
the town. For Jack and Martha it was not the best start to
marriage and within a few months they had separated, both
finding new loves with Ash and Sam. For Rachel it meant
further heartache when Kim was revealed to have slept with
Kit whilst lost in the bush but managed to forgive him. When
a new girl Tara O'Neill started making eyes at Kim, Rachel
felt threatened but Kim quickly talked her round, telling
Tara he wasn't interested. Except that Tara did not take
rejection very well and threw 'an Angie' accusuing Kim of
sexual assault. With her father as the Police Chief, the
case looked bleak for Kim, until Lucas found evidence that
Tara was lying but her reaction was to set Lucas up for
assault as well. Eventually though it was Rachel who managed
to get through to Tara and she admitted that she had lied to
get her father's attention, leaving Kim off the hook and he
and Rachel, much stronger.
For Matilda, the horrific burns she suffered as a result of
the explosion, caused a re-emergence of the self esteem
issues she had previously battled. Overeating and making
herself sick, it quickly became clear that Matilda had
bulemia and she was sent to a retreat to receive help. There
she met Dean, who much to the disgust of Lucas, became her
boyfriend. Except that Dean turned out to be gay and Matilda
turned to Lucas once more, only to realise they no longer
felt anything anymore.
Another major storyline to originate from the explosion was
the arrival of Drew Curtis, Peter's son, who nobody knew
even existed until after Peter had died. An angry Drew
arrived in the Bay, intitially unwilling to have anything to
do with his father's family, he eventually changed his mind
when Dan supported him as he was accused of being the
pyromaniac who was setting fire to the town. Drew also had
girl issues when he started to fall for Amanda Vale, Dan's
ex wife and his current girlfriend Belle's mother. When
Amanda too gave into her feelings for him, his life was put
at risk when he was kidnapped whilst meeting Amanda out of
town. Although he was returned unharmed, it quickly became
clear that something more sinister was afoot and after the
truth about his affair with Amanda blew up and Amanda
cruelly dropped him, Drew decided to leave town only to be
followed by the black car that had been stalking him. Just
as he was about to be kidnapped somebody else arrived and
bundled Drew into their car, taking him to an abandoned hut.
There Drew's captor was revealed to be Peter Baker, Drew's
seemingly dead father. Forced into faking his death after
the explosion, Peter had been in witness protection, except
that the people after him knew he wasn't dead and began
framing Drew in an attempt to force Peter out in the open.
It worked as Peter went to hand himself over to the
gangsters only to get the better of them and escape.
Although initially angry, Peter's family were relieved to
see him alive and he and Drew began to build a relationship.
It was threatened when Peter fell for Amanda, the woman who
had hurt Drew so cruelly but he eventually came to terms
with it and set his sights back on Belle, now with Lucas.
The end of 2006 bought a new love interest for Sally, in
Rachel's brother Brad Armstrong, who Sally supported during
the death of his wife Emily to luekemia and a new character
called Rocco. Sally and Brad initially clashed over ex-gang
member Rocco but after finding him badly bashed, they agreed
to help him and Sally offered him a bed in her house. Brad's
suspicions about Rocco seemed to be justified though as it
was revealed that behind the scenes Rocco's brother and gang
leader Johnny, was still very much pulling his brothers
strings. Co-erced into a spate of robbieries and Johnny's
personal vendetta against Brad, Rocco eventually turned on
his brother and tried to shop him into the cops. Johnny,
however found out what Rocco had done and changed the plans
but a suspicious Sally found the new ones and foiled the
robbery causing Johnny to threaten that Rocco had to finish
sally or be finished.
In the season finale, Martha's new man Ash was revealed to
already be married with children, Kit returned heavily
pregnant with Kim's baby and a sobbing Rocco found Sally in
the school car park. She tried to comfort him only to be
brutally stabbed and left for dead meaning that 2006 ended
in a similar way to how it had begun. With a major character
fighting to stay alive and Sally at centre stage. |
