Episode 6512

Extended Summary

Justin guides a tipsy Hope out of the Surf Club. She suggests they go home together, but Justin lets her down gently. Back at the farmhouse, Phoebe hears the car pull up and rushes off to her room. Hope checks again if Justin wants a drink, but he declines and quickly leaves. Phoebe comes out and can tell that Hope’s into Justin. The next morning, Hope asks to borrow Phoebe’s sunglasses and eyeliner. Phoebe reluctantly agrees, but can’t deal with the uncertainty anymore, and goes to the garage to tell Justin he saw Hope kissing him last night. He explains that he stopped it two seconds later, and he’s not interested in Hope. Phoebe suggests he makes it clearer to Hope.

Evelyn arrives at Matt’s to check on Ellie’s assignment. Ellie’s deflated when Evelyn thinks it needs some work. At school, Evelyn suggests that Ellie asks for more time on the assignment, but Matt thinks that’s unnecessary, it’s good enough as it is. Zac introduces them to Raffy, and Ellie takes it as her chance to escape, offering to show her the library. Matt tells Evelyn she should be building Ellie’s confidence, but Evelyn thinks honest feedback will help her more in the long run – her teachers won’t tell her everything’s brilliant. Matt’s left with food for thought.

Olivia is relieved when Zac tells her Tabitha’s been expelled, for the prank she played on Olivia (pretending to be Olivia’s attacker, Kirk). Olivia’s caught off guard, however, when Tabitha arrives to clean out her locker earlier than unexpected. Tabitha immediately blames Olivia for her expulsion…. Olivia can’t believe Tabitha could be so deluded, exploding at her in front of the rest of the school.

Brody later finds Hope anxiously negotiating a debt over the phone. She stumbles, accidentally cracking her phone screen on a table. Hope is distraught; she doesn’t have money to pay for something like this. A sympathetic Brody offers her a free coffee. He’d like to offer her a job… She just needs to chat to Phoebe, who’s in charge of hiring. Hope sinks, believing Phoebe hates her. Justin enters and Hope immediately lights up, it’s clear she still has a massive crush on a very awkward Justin. Keeping Phoebe’ advice in mind, Justin shows up at the farmhouse to finally let Hope down properly. They agree to remain just friends.

Olivia and Hunter have another run in with Tabitha at the Pier Diner, but this time Tabitha has her sister, Juliet, with her. Olivia can’t bring herself to dissuade Juliet of the false notion that Tabitha and Olivia are still best friends. The group shares lunch together for Juliet’s sake. While Hunter pays for lunch, Tabitha finally apologises to Olivia, she’s sorry for how things turned out. Afterwards, Olivia admits to Hunter that she no longer hates Tabitha; seeing her chronically ill sister reminded her of why Tabitha was so messed up in the first place. It seems like Olivia and Hunter are in a good place again. Olivia is about to leave when she suddenly charges back for a romantic kiss.

Ellie, meanwhile, reacts badly when Raffy inadvertently offends her by pointing out a mistake on the assignment Ellie’s about to hand in.

Phoebe checks on a sad looking Hope at the beach, she reveals her embarrassment over being rejected by Justin. Phoebe is sympathetic but Hope doesn’t believe her, stalking off and running straight into John, quite literally. Hope drops her phone onto the ground. When John picks it up, we see the screen is cracked, and Hope immediately assumes that John will pay for the damages. Taken aback, John offers to take it for a quote but Hope demands three hundred cash up front, There’s no way she should be out of pocket for an accident John just caused… John puts his foot down, he’s not paying for anything without a quote. Phoebe grows suspicious that Hope may be running a scam on John. When she raises this with Justin, he’s at his wits end, telling her to back off…

Matt arrives once more and asks Evelyn to ease off with what he perceives to be criticism of Ellie’s schoolwork. Evelyn argues that it’s wrong to falsely boost Ellie’s confidence if what’s really required is constructive criticism.

Back at school, Zac’s class is interrupted by smoke. He emerges into the corridor and realises one of the lockers is on fire!