Red Ranger 1

Hard to get a handle on Valerie.It's pretty much confirmed the drugs aren't prescription given her statement they don't have a list of ingredients, although the show remains typically vague otherwise.She's obviously got demons but she also seems determined to involve Theo, not that he needs much encouragement.Leah and Justin apparently went home to change before their date night but presumably didn't take much notice of what Theo and Valerie were up to? (Had Theo come down at that point?)Kirby seemed to be protesting a bit too much with her insistence that she's not jealous (Remi didn't really seem convinced), but now she's got a good reason to mistrust Valerie. Yep, Bree returns and it turns out both she and Remi have been keeping secrets from each other, for pretty much the same reason, not that either of them really seems willing to admit it.Some communication problems there perhaps!

Episode counts this week:The only characters to manage three were Irene, Justin, Mackenzie and Mali. Possibly the first definite evidence that Valerie may not be an entirely positive influence.I wondered if that was some sort of medication she was taking at the start, but given she gave some to Theo, probably not.The mood swings aren't exactly a good sign either.It feels like we've been here before with Theo trying to do everything and getting burned out.I'm not sure how long he's got to go on his apprenticeship but, while I understand him not wanting to drop it again, I can't see him keeping this up for long.Until the end, Valerie actually seemed fairly reasonable, being polite to Kirby and offering to take a rain check so Theo could meet her on his own.I'm not quite sure what Kirby's problem is, since Theo's only hung out with Valerie a couple of times and she's not really got the right to give an opinion on that again. Kirby storms away in the opposite direction to the house but is somehow inside it in the next scene? Did she go all the way round the front and through the door there? Xander and Harper actually made a cute pair so I was a bit disappointed that they decided to keep it platonic (let's face it, neither of them's exactly spoilt for choice!), although they made a decent point about male/female friendships being just as important.(And hey, who knows who'll be dating who in a year or two's time?) I was expecting Rose's obsession with Xander's date to create more tension with Mali but he took it in his stride and didn't object to her delaying their breakfast for a conflab with Kirby either: Maybe he's just accepted his lot in life!

Thanks for the correction, Dan, knew I should have double-checked that! I got the feeling Justin was hoping Theo would say no to Valerie moving in, but he turned out to be very enthusiastic for it.Whether Justin has really decided to trust Leah and Theo's judgement or is just keeping his peace for now, I'm not sure. I like that, having apparently accepted that Tane isn't going to change his mind, Felicity is trying to put her money where her mouth is and just be a good friend to him.Harper definitely seems to have been superseded as his go-to person! I'm not saying Felicity's motivation is entirely altruistic, because she probably wants Tane to stick around as well, but she's right that he'd be giving up a lot if he just up and left. A lot of people failing to arrange dates here, with Mali, Dana and Xander all failing to properly think things through. Xander standing in the living area as Dana tries to convince Harper to go on his impromptu date was rather embarrassing and rather funny.

The whole "It's been a while since we last spoke" would definitely seem to rule out Alf or John: I'd think it would be someone that's been gone from the Bay for a few months at least. No, Roo doesn't know, she just knows that Cash does, and she's kept even that much from John. Mackenzie should have a think about why she's getting defensive: For all the "I'm not married" schtick, she knows she's doing the wrong thing. And she's now finding that being "the mistress" isn't all that easy after all, since it involves waiting around for her married lover to make time for her. Tane and Mali both had a go at giving her a dose of common sense, but she's obviously not in the mood so they seem to have given up. I was actually expecting Tane to twist the conversation and make a point at the end, but seems he was genuine about calling a truce. I notice that, even though Mali didn't break her confidence, he didn't do anything to stop Mackenzie blurting it out! That did seem to be a quick turnaround from Valerie, who went from being head shipper on deck for Leah and Justin, to feeling a bit left out now they're making progress.Maybe she expected Leah to need her for longer? She was another one that was rather defensive in response to a few subtle questions from Justin, who definitely looked like he was feeling the odd one out when Leah and Valerie went off together!

Seemed to be some promising progress for Leah and Justin. So...apparently she didn't actually give him an answer when he asked her to move in, given that she just turned up with her bags?! Meanwhile, Mackenzie and Levi seemed to be living in a fantasy and that rather blunt reply to her flirty text may be the reality check she desperately needs. Eden did have the right to make whatever statement she wanted, so I'm glad Cash and Remi kind of cottoned on to that and let her do it. Remi seemed to come round to her way of thinking a bit too quickly but maybe he understood she was just being balanced. So, with Cash admitting he knows who the donor is, are we to assume that's the person he was speaking to on the phone last episode? I've toyed with Dean, Nikau (probably using Bella's money...) and, yes, even Jasmine, but how would any of them know the amount needed? Is there anyone obvious I'm missing who those involved are likely to have spoken to? At least Roo backed down with John a bit, even if she wasn't willing to let him say "I told you so."

I continue to side more with John than Roo, even if John was a bit over the top at times, and I think there was a very good case that Roo was misusing surf club funds to satisfy her personal curiosity.Again, Irene just seemed tired of the whole thing.So I'm glad Roo accepted that she should use her own money if she wants to hire Cash to look into this, and I think it's fair enough that John decided not to splash money about on expensive equipment, because I continue to think that not wanting John to treat money required to make up a shortfall as extra money to play about with was the only valid point Roo was making. I think Remi and particularly Cash were being very unreasonable here.Eden's not saying anything about helping someone get away with something, she just wants to make sure that the responsibility is allocated fairly, for all Cash's claims of lawyers spinning things to let people get away with big crimes with a slap on the wrist. (Yeah, and most of them were members of the regular cast...) I'm glad that, whether they entirely agree with her or not, Felicity and Levi are giving Eden the respect of trusting she knows her own mind. That said, I think Remi is equally within his rights to make a statement from his perspective. One of those daft scenarios where characters act more suspiciously by trying to cover something up they don't need to: It's not like Levi and Mackenzie were in bed or something when Eden showed up, so why not just let her in and say Mackenzie popped round for a chat, rather than hiding her? After many of us were beginning to think we'd imagined Eden referring to Levi leaving his "sisters" when he first showed up, it's nice to get confirmation that, yes, there is two of them. Also glad we got a reminder of Eden growing up in a funeral home, because I was beginning to wonder if this new back story had overwritten it, so thanks for the consistency, show!

Alf's episode count:Suspended. Never has the fact that Cash and Harper both ended up with a chaotic younger sister who's now more responsible but just as chaotic been more obvious: I could just see Xander thinking "Oh boy, not another one" during his first encounter with Dana! Nice to find out that Harper does have a bit of history beyond being a social worker and Dana's sister.Not sure Facebook stalking her ex is an entirely healthy way of dealing with things! I'm assuming, although it's not clear, that this would have been their wedding anniversary? Well, fair play to Levi for at least going to see Remi before his assignation with Mackenzie.Turns out it's not as bad as it looked, he just needs to adjust, I guess.So, it turns out Eden knows Levi's married, which hasn't been clear until now.Good job she does, because Mackenzie and Levi seem to have given up caring.They just seem to be digging themselves a bigger hole now.

Valerie gives Leah and Justin another push and this one seems to have worked out okay, with them deciding to take things slowly (but hopefully it won't take "forever" as Justin suggested!). And we get a bit of back story from Valerie as she opens up to Theo.So, it sounds like she really doesn't have anywhere else to go.Well, I guess she's in the right place:Summer Bay, capital of waifs and strays! Remi is being almost ridiculously stubborn. I guess I should feel some sympathy for the pain he's in but he just seems to be pressing ahead without any real plan.Yeah, Leah being listed as Patterson-Baker, a name she hasn't used since before Eden knew her, was downright weird: I suspect the props department are still using an outdated resource!

Justin did eventually realise that hanging around outside Leah's house wasn't a good look.And just as he's decided to back off and leave things be, Valerie steps in to bring everyone together.It's hard to figure Valerie out at this point:As Theo points out, instead of going home, she's ended up going to see her new friend Leah.Does she not have anywhere else to go?(We get a reference to a death in the family here.) Maybe sorting Leah's life out is all she's got to do at the moment.Of course, it's possible some of it was about spending time with Theo... I can't really blame Justin for not knowing how far to take it at the end, hopefully it's not too big a setback. Quite a lot going on elsewhere.It doesn't say much for either Cash or Roo's investigative abilities that he needs Dana to fill him in on the Hendersons and the significance of the size of the donation...although her career as a detective's plucky girl assistant didn't last very long. (She suggests both Simon and Banjo as the donor so...does that mean they're not?) And then she gets roped in as an advisor by Xander as well! Cash was reading way too much into that hug so it's good that Felicity filled him in and that she seems to have taken a healthy attitude to it all.

Roo continues to try and be as absurd as possible, with even Irene having got fed up of her dog-with-a-bone attitude.She definitely deserved that serve from Rose for pretty much wasting police time with wild suspicions.I'm glad that Cash went and had a word with Rose first and gave her a bit of a pep-talk: I like that their friendship's continuing although I'm not sure what it says for her and Mali that they were unable to communicate.Anyway, it seems Cash is on the case.Hopefully it'll turn out to be a lot of fuss about nothing. Mackenzie spilled the beans to Mali eventually, which he kind of took in his stride.It seemed to add to the tension between him and Rose though: Even Mackenzie grimaced when he made that comment about her finding time to have coffee. Irene tried to give Justin some tough love about stalking out Leah's place of work, but probably didn't intend for him to stake out her house instead.

Roo continued to be utterly ridiculous, dubbing a donation "suspicious" just because she's (irrationally) suspicious of it.Did she really expect the committee to agree with her bizarre argument of "We shouldn't spend an anonymous donation because we don't know who it's from"? About the only sensible thing she said was that the money was needed to cover normal operating costs and John shouldn't be treating it like extra money for them to splash about.Maybe if she'd focused on that, instead of insisting the money shouldn't be spent at all, she might have got a few more takers.I was slightly confused when it was referred to as sponsorship money: How do you sponsor something anonymously? Isn't the idea of a sponsor that their name's plastered over everything? No sympathy for Mackenzie here, how did she think this would end up? She threw herself at a man she knew virtually nothing about, then decided to sleep with him despite knowing he's married to "get it out of our system" (does that ever actually work?). I guess I do respect her for belatedly putting a stop to things. Unfortunately, despite the episode drawing a line under Levi, there's still that feeling that he's a regular now so he'll probably be back. Mali went from enthusiastically celebrating Rose's promotion to sulking about her lack of free time pretty quickly! Even though her pep-talk was a bit lame, I liked Felicity's enthusiasm when first rocking up at Salt: There's always that feeling that Jacqui plays scenes a lot lighter than they might seem on paper and makes her character a lot more likable than she could be.

Alf's episode count this week:Five, for the second week running. Storing them up before this break? You can see the money's being saved elsewhere: Only Marilyn and Justin manage three episodes, and for the second week running there's no sign of Irene at all. I'm actually considering digging out her last appearance to see if there was a line about her going away that I missed. Mackenzie just went from being kind of innocent in all this to not being innocent at all. Frankly, Levi's right that there's no reason for him to tell his patients his marital status, but once Mackenzie kissed him, he really should have clued her in then, not kept coming back for more. Mali's advice seems to have backfired big time. And yeah, I have to agree that for someone just out of hospital, Mackenzie doesn't seem to know the meaning of the words taking it easy. Roo is being utterly ridiculous now. I can understand curiosity but she's looking a gift horse in the mouth and imagining problems that aren't there. If she's going to refuse to spend legitimately donated money, then she's just as big a problem for the surf club as Henderson is. It takes a lot to get Alf and John in agreement but she's managing it. I'm hoping that's not the last we see of Banjo, it's a bit of a sour note to end on if so, for us as well as Dana. I can understand Justin's desperation but he really did have Theo too low down his list of priorities there.

I get his concern, but how did Mali think that "house visits" comment was going to land? Again, I get where Mackenzie's head is even if I don't think it's a very healthy place to be: She's been through a scary experience and become attached to the person that helped her through it. (She's even continuing to make jokes about him being her doctor, so that's clearly at the front of her thoughts.) But what is Levi playing at? Is Mackenzie really so irresistible that he's willing to risk his career and, it now seems, his marriage in order to sneak around with her? Felicity really did assume a lot about that hook-up rather than reading the room and seeing how awkward Tane was. To be fair, Tane did seem to be sending out mixed messages, especially with that comment on the rings. In the circumstances, I guess getting away and putting some space between them isn't the worst idea. Roo was lucky Tane and Felicity were likely to agree to just about anything to get out of that meeting! This new surf club triumvirate is at least giving us an alternative to Alf and John butting heads. So, $30,000 donation. Am I barking up the wrong tree to wonder if Banjo might have made it to make up for the trouble his father's caused?

Maybe. If I thought it was true. Awkwardness abounds between Tane and Felicity, from their small-talk at the start, to her not being sure whether or not to say anything later and settling for an awkward smile and walking away grimacing. I was actually quite enjoying Dana being the irritating little sister, although she didn't really think the consequences through: That said, neither did Harper! (Not really any reason for Dana to close her eyes except so she couldn't see Felicity right there?) I did like Felicity's low-key reaction but in the end...her and Tane falling back into old patterns of behaviour? I don't think it was Kirby's place at all to tell Remi about Bree's family and she's lucky it didn't blow up more than it did. Similarly, Remi lurching out into the corridor to prove a point is likely to have done more harm than good. I was glad Alf pulled Marilyn back into line and stopped her scheming to get Leah and Justin back together: They need to sort this out themselves. I must admit I'd completely forgotten about the surf club losing the sponsorship money and had to check back to find out what Alf was talking about when he talked about losing $30,000! I guess that's the secret Dana's been told?

Cash might be prepared to paint on a smile and insist he's happy for Rose but he wasn't fooling anyone, least of all her. I do like that they remain friends throughout all this and at least she gave him a reasonable pointer in the right direction, which is probably a good thing since he just seemed to want to sit around and wait for someone to tell him what comes next. Leah's friend seems nice enough: I can't quite tell if she's meant to be younger than Leah or not, given that Leah's in good shape for her age! It wasn't the most sensitive for Leah to go and see Justin and then pretty much refuse to discuss anything. I don't want to be suspicious of what Valerie did to end up in a clinic for eight months: She's apparently well enough to be discharged, it should be immaterial. But it's a soap, so it's probably going to come out at some point! Bree is still playing guard dog with regards Remi's friends visiting him, but to be fair, she does seem to be going along with the treatment plan and trying to get him well again rather than keeping him in a bubble. Have we heard much about her parents before? Seems like it's not something she wants to deal with either way.

Not a surprise that Rose got offered Cash's rank: What else were they going to do, offer it to one of the extras? I wondered if that news has crystallised Cash's thoughts at a point where he seemed to be indecisive about whether to accept the reduced rank or not. I think both Xander and Rose made good points: Xander chose to get out of that sort of career and seems happy enough, but Cash has made an impulsive choice that he may come to regret. Elsewhere, Rose seemed rather embarrassed at how ineffective she was where Simon Henderson was concerned, getting out of there quick sharp when Alf drily commented on him being above the law.About the only good thing is that, now people are asking questions, he might be a bit more reluctant to throw his "gifts" around.Of course, he may feel the damage is already done. Theo did rather resemble a ping pong ball here with Justin and Leah sending him back and forth between them, so it's probably for the best that Leah's decided to take the bull by the horns at the end.

Alf's episode count this week: Five! Possibly to make up for this, the only characters to make three were Marilyn, Justin, Eden and Levi...and now it's Irene's turn to not appear at all! (Did I miss another line?) I really hope Rose actually followed up on that call to Simon and didn't let Kirby monopolise her for the rest of the afternoon.(Good intentions, Kirby, but really not a matter of life and death.)She even turns up at the surf club later on, but instead of giving Alf and John an update, she just decides to play irritating big sister to Xander.It seems she may have spooked Simon given his response: Is this his last shot before withdrawing or is there more to come? Roo getting herself semi-officially signed up is the first sensible thing anyone's done about this. Felicity really shouldn't have listened to Eden: There's a big difference between drawing a line under a broken marriage and rushing straight to another guy for "fun". (Which...has never really been Felicity's thing anyway? Certainly not for a long time?) The chats between her and Xander were interesting: Felicity's been doing quite the apology tour recently, and she's right that they've always been colleagues rather than friends, with both of them preferring to go to Mackenzie for anything personal. This may have changed...but hopefully it is just friends, for all Rose's eyebrow wriggling. I can't remember how long ago I first said that, with Rose here, they don't really need Cash to be the resident police officer anymore. Apparently he's decided the same thing? A bit throwing his toys out of the pram but there you go.

Dana to the rescue again, solving the mystery while Alf is grumbling about the state of fishing. Is it going to be as simple as that? Putting a stop to Simon's sabotage would help but they still don't seem to be doing anything about putting the committee back together.I'm not sure whether John's encouragement to Banjo was genuine or just brown-nosing. Mali spells out to Mackenzie why her dalliance with Levi is daft but she apparently still thinks a bit of fun is worth opening up a can of worms, prompting him to give up and back off.The girls' day was okay and I continue to enjoy seeing Felicity in a positive frame of mind, but Eden telling her to date again seems way premature.

Okay, I can get Mackenzie. She's got a handsome doctor who's been a bit more attentive towards her than he should have been and she probably needs a distraction. But what the hell's in this for Levi? Is Mackenzie really that irresistible that he's willing to risk his career and possibly his home life to cop off with her? (From his phone call it's clear someone lives with him: Maybe a daughter, maybe a partner.) As Mali says, no-one's going to be fooled by her being out of his care for a matter of hours before he rocked up at her house evidently prepared to sleep with her. There doesn't even seem to be any real connection between them, they just fancy each other. Does Mackenzie really want to risk all that hassle for the sake of a bit of lust? Justin took a while to get the message that Leah didn't want to come with him but backed down fairly easily in the end.At least Leah has some sort of plan now, even if it's a rather vague one: Get fully recovered (whatever that means), then worry about sorting things with Justin. The surf club stuff is a bit confusing: Do they not have any procedure for replacing committee members that resign? Or is the idea that there's no longer enough members left to appoint replacements? In which case, they really should have started looking into it when the first ones went...

Marilyn might have got a bit prissy about Alf breaking Leah's confidence, but it wasn't really fair for Leah to have put him in that position without even having the decency to ask him to his face, which she kind of understood when he explained to her. (I did love Marilyn being sent out of the room to let the grown-ups talk!) Justin did stick to the rules...for about a day.He may have been satisfied with Alf simply passing his letter on, but given that he went to the house rather than handing it to him in the Diner or something, he was probably hoping Leah would jump out at the sound of his voice.If so, that may have backfired.I'm finding Leah's logic a bit lacking.She says she couldn't bear it if she hurt Justin, but what's her solution? Never see him again? Bree's behaviour becomes more and more controlling as she issues a stark warning to Kirby.If she doesn't pull it back soon, I think someone should probably have a word with the hospital hierarchy about just how appropriate she's being.Whilst I don't think her intentions are anywhere near as sinister, I do wonder how much of what she's doing is behaviour she observed from Jacob. Tane and Harper deciding not to be friends for an episode kind of feels like a way of giving them something to do this week.

I'm not sure what to make of the fact that Tane's so short of friends he's reduced to confiding in his soon-to-be-ex-brother-in-law! To be fair to him, he's simply giving Harper what she said she wanted, and if Harper's changed her mind, she should say so.(Dana's suggestion that she let Tane use her for rebound sex is not to be recommended though!) It didn't take Alf long to fill in Justin, although despite what Marilyn said, I don't think he ever actually made a promise to Leah.From the sounds of that phone conversation, it seems Roo is in town, we're just not seeing her? Bree continues her campaign to be the most annoying character on the show at the moment.She refuses to admit she might have been wrong about Levi and is now taking it upon herself to obsessively protect Remi instead of letting people do their job.

Allf's episode count this week:Four. Roo didn't appear at all: Did I miss a line explaining she was somewhere else? Tane's mixed messages continued, at least to start with. I'm not sure he really needed to follow Felicity again, but at least it led to them having a chat and him admitting that this was about more than her messing up and he hadn't been honest about what he wanted.Somehow, unless one of them's leaving soon, I still can't quite believe that that's it, even though they seem to have been left in a place where they can't get back together without one of them doing something they don't want.Tane making a move on Harper was a pretty self-destructive moment.I remember him trying to hook up with Mackenzie on the rebound once, and it's not really the best way to keep a friendship! Xander maybe had a point about Harper needing to protect herself. In amongst all the angsting, I can understand Marilyn and Alf not wanting to trick Leah or whatever, but has no-one bothered to ring the clinic and ask them if it's okay for Justin to send her a letter? Is it just partners who are banned from contact? Bree is becoming more and more irritating. Maybe I should be more sympathetic but she needs to be either a doctor or a girlfriend and stop throwing her weight around and thinking she knows better than those who are more objective.

Ah yes, that's right, I'd forgotten.

If Mackenzie wasn't keen on being the centre of attention, then she didn't really get her wish, what with everyone crowding around her and Levi making her the focus of his speech! Fortunately, she didn't seem to mind and was touched by what everyone had done and how much they cared.Of course, she seems to have decided they care a bit too much, as, after he's basically annoyed her into going, she decides to plant a kiss on Levi, who took his time pulling away.Well there's an ethical minefield for them.(In fact, the situation's pretty clear-cut: He met her as her doctor and, for all the socialising and mutual acquaintances, that's what he still is.) Theo might as well have said "Hey, you remember this time last year when Remi and Eden were out of action after the season cliffhangers? Well..." There was an odd moment when he talked about those that couldn't be there and Irene leaned over and patted John on the hand: It felt like it was meant to signify something but I can't think of anyone close to John it could be referring to. Gina?! That was some definite mixed messages from Tane. As Felicity said, why would he follow her? I get that he cares but it was just likely to make things worse. Okay, being fair on him, maybe he didn't know why she left. Despite what some write-ups suggested, he seemed to spend very little time with Harper at the event. Weren't he and Felicity actually sat at the same table earlier on? I can see why Justin would feel hurt that Marilyn's heard from Leah and he hasn't, but what good did he think ringing up the clinic and losing his rag would do? It takes Alf to point out that if Marilyn's written to Leah maybe he should try doing the same.

Could it have been a hire car?