Red Ranger 1

To be honest, my reaction to Tane's jokey baby names was to instantly think of the nasty uncle from Harry Potter and the nasty vampire from Buffy the Vampire Slayer! Wonder if Tane's a fan? Xander finally finds out that Mackenzie has stabbed him in the back and she doesn't even have the decency to look remotely sorry or talk to him about it, treating him like a skivvy because she's too busy catastrophising over Abigail to show genuine human decency. It would serve her right if he quits (again) and she found out what running Salt on her own is really like.Before, he had Felicity to play good cop when Mackenzie was up herself but not anymore.(And of course, Mackenzie basically set Eden up to be in Abigail's firing line by scaring her into going to look for her.)Abigail's clearly not over being surly with Remi then even if she was willing to tolerate Kirby. And I think Xander has chosen the wrong person to go and talk to: It's Mackenzie who's changed the rules, not Cash, but I guess Mackenzie has used up her episodes and we're going to have to wait until after our Christmas break to get a follow-up. I did think Cash was very unfair on Eden. I don't think it's about him being possessive of Michelle, he seemed to be willing for Tane to be involved if he was up for it, I think it's just that he can't deal with Eden being around him at the moment so that's why he doesn't want her there. I'm glad Michelle has stood up to him and pointed out it's not all about him. They had a few dicey moments but for the most part, Eden's involvement aside, Cash seems to be keeping things in perspective.

Cash was doing a pretty good impression of a freight train here, ploughing ahead with his plan to meet Michelle without giving himself a chance to think. To be fair, I think the reasons he gave Remi sounded pretty reasonable: Not expecting her to somehow be Felicity but wanting to see that something good came out of Flick's death. Of course, then he goes into a panic attack, only to reverse course and decide he can't pull out of his commitment. Mackenzie really has forgotten about Xander, hasn't she? And has apparently decided to instead get Levi to bankroll her buy-out. I see Abigail seems to have let go of some of her animosity towards Kirby, given she seemed to have no problem socialising with her here, unless she was putting on her best behaviour for Mali's sake.Anyway, good on her for giving Levi a kick up the backside to get back to work and agreeing to counselling.It was amusing that Kirby has been so out of the loop obsessing over Mali that she completely missed Abigail's drugs problem!

I take your point, but we really need to see some indication of it on screen, rather than being left to assume. As it is, it seems like the moment Harper told him she was pregnant he went from being devastated to acting like Felicity never existed.

It's got nothing to do with the child. There is no child yet and Tane's already fussing over Harper as if this is the only thing that's important to him and he doesn't give a damn about Felicity now he's got someone who'll give him what he wants. He doesn't even seem to give much of a damn about Perri anymore, as his complete lack of interest in supporting him in court or checking on him afterwards demonstrated.

Alf's episode count this week:Three. Cash was in four, although he only appeared in one scene without dialogue on Tuesday. The only other characters to make three were Justin and Tane, and Kirby didn't appear at all. One of those annoying moments when a character says something spot on and then apologises for it: Cash was absolutely right that Tane has already moved on from Felicity to his new family, and Tane's response was pathetic. He wanted a baby with Felicity more than he wanted Felicity, and he probably wants a baby with Harper more than he wanted Felicity, and I continue to think that in many ways it's mightily convenient for him that he doesn't have to deal with Felicity still being around while he plays out his fantasy with another woman. At least their "romantic" picnic turned out to not really be romantic at all, at least on Tane's part, although Dana's obviously worried that Harper's crush is getting worse. I'm pretty sure I know a guy who's a full-time artist, I hire out his services once in a while. Anyway, Mali's decided it's not him, and he's probably right. Meanwhile, Mackenzie is also making decisions and rather high-handedly as well. Not too long ago, Xander was keen to buy Cash's share, so it's a bit rude of her to, in effect, cut him out and make plans to own Salt herself. (Because that worked so well for her last time...) Cash, of course, has found a new "legacy" of Felicity's to obsess over. It's hard to tell how concerned we should be: As he pointed out, he's not trying to track down every person who received one of Felicity's organs, just meet someone who contacted him first. That said, if he's expecting her to somehow be Felicity reincarnated, he's possibly setting himself up for a big disappointment.

Eden had lost her memory...but very selectively! Kind of disappointed that everyone was treating Cash with kid gloves after Abigail gave him that well-deserved serve.I wasn't even convinced by his advice, which seemed like he was thinking as a cop rather than as a brother, but Abigail seemed to appreciate it in the end so that's good, I guess. And she continued her trajectory by being friendly to Mackenzie despite her reversion to stroppiness, and Mackenzie seems to be making an effort with her too. Cash was definitely out of order trying to get Rose to break the rules (law?) for him and I'm glad she refused, although he seems to have found an alternative method. Justin was both harsh and not harsh enough with Claudia. He's obviously not comfortable with her leaning on him for support but she doesn't seem to have accepted his implication that they're not friends.We're at the point where he really should talk to Leah:She hasn't made it easy at times but the alternative of her finding out another way is far worse. Mali meets the art gallery guy and gets an offer that he...maybe can't refuse? I guess we'll have to see which way he swings but he didn't seem to be immediately against the idea.

Okay, thanks. I did remember that one but had a vague idea there was another time. Like I say, I'm probably wrong.

I'm not sure anything more can be done with Cash at this point. People have tried to talk to him time and again, yet he remains fixated on the idea that breaking up with Eden will stop her dying, and until something shakes that out of him, he just won't listen to reason. Maybe Abigail's serve will have an effect, since kid gloves isn't working, but given that he seems to want to be sad and lonely, maybe not. Anyway, we got some nice scenes with John and Eden, with him again showing his surrogate parental side to his neighbours. (I loved him pushing Eden onto the couch with one finger!) I did actually enjoy those scenes with Levi, Abigail and eventually Eden. I'm not sure why Levi was so against Abigail running round outside, which would be more likely to burn off energy than sitting in front of a screen (the subtitles had him saying "You can choose the game" but I'm not sure if that was right or not). Is that Abigail's first Obligatory Bikini Scene? Justin basically says he's lying to Leah because she's a bit high maintenance. It'd be nice if Theo actually pointed out to Leah that Claudia had every reason to be angry with him. It does feel like Claudia turning up to unload to Justin about her marital problems is moving their friendship(?) into new territory. After weeks of trying to remember what it was, I recalled that Leah and Justin's fiftieth cult run-in was last year's UK cliffhanger, so it makes sense it would be the anniversary about now!

I think the fact that, about five seconds after telling Tane to go to Perri, Harper was swooning over him saying he's not going to leave her alone instead of pressing the issue means it qualifies as "half-hearted". It's all right saying Tane's facing up to his responsibilities with Harper, but he took on a responsibility with Perri too and that doesn't seem to mean as much to him. I realise it's easy sitting here but Perri really missed an open goal there. Carl's obviously too much of a coward to do anything to anyone in public, and if Perri had made a fuss, he'd have a surf club full of witnesses to the fact Carl immediately broke his AVO. And I get that he's worried for Tane, but keeping it from him isn't going to make things any better. I think we saw why Marilyn and Kirby get on here, with Marilyn being equally as much of a dog with a bone at "You should celebrate the anniversary of when you had to stagger around a wilderness suffering from dehydration and hallucinations to get help for Justin while he was crushed under stuff and dying from internal bleeding!" Even with Alf telling her to give it a rest.I had to double check the timescale to see if Theo was actually right about him seeing Justin with Claudia "yesterday". (Marilyn was wrong to say Leah and Justin got married last year though: It was this year!) Justin should be honest with Leah, but her inability to talk about Claudia without calling her "that awful woman" doesn't make it easy. After Bree's performance here, I think even Remi has to admit there's something wrong with her. He seems to have been allayed by her promise to see a counsellor but will she? Bit of mixed messages from Eden: Not too long ago, she was going to quit Salt because she couldn't stand to be around Cash, but now it looks as though she's upset at him avoiding her? Isn't that what she wanted?

Tane pretty much spelt out here than his bun and the oven it's in are his priority, with Perri being a distant second at best. At the start of the episode, despite knowing what's happened to Perri and that he needs support, he's still fawning over Harper and palming Perri off on Rose, without even the decency of a phone call to check on him, while Harper again makes a half-hearted attempt to suggest he goes to Perri and then goes back to preening herself at all the attention she's getting from him ("The obstetrician thought we were a couple": Could she sound any more like an adolescent schoolgirl with a crush? She'll be practising writing her name as Harper Parata next), at least until Dana was there to take over giving her attention. I'm glad Perri gave Tane that serve and was disappointed when they went back to being all buddy-buddy so quickly. I wonder how long that will last with Carl still hanging around though? I thought of the comment about Bree having OCD when she started folding towels and especially when she was obsessively cleaning a fridge (whilst holding the door wide open so all the cold gets out and the food goes off!). And naturally Xander bombed off and didn't see her lose it with Dana...

My instinct is to say no. We had that Gabe chap last year whose cancer came back, but he was only a guest and the first one was off screen. I keep thinking Irene did, but I've no idea when, so I'm probably getting confused.

Apologies if I've misunderstood you, but we've actually got two weeks to go: The last episode before Christmas is on the 15th.

Alf's episode count this week:Three. I think that episode pretty much demonstrated that Tane's a terrible father. Or at least that Perri was quite right that he's way down the list of priorities now that Tane's got a biological child to coo over. Perri didn't enter his head once, not even when Theo reminded him where he was supposed to be.He didn't even know anything was wrong and still he was hanging around the surf club, ringing Harper every five seconds like he's got separation anxiety, instead of doing what he promised to do.Harper briefly attempts to keep quiet and send him to Perri, then as soon as Dana ignores her wishes and patient confidentiality because she thinks she knows best, she forgets about Perri as well and goes back to hanging off Tane's coat tails.And while Tane's busy preening himself over what his wild oats are growing into, everything goes wrong back where he's well and truly dropped the ball. And yeah, maybe Carl would still have walked if Tane had been there, but it couldn't have hurt, and it's not like he was really needed at the hospital. And having been her usual mouthy self on the phone, Dana just stands there like a stunned mullet instead of standing up to Bree's "Me doctor, you nurse, speak when you're spoken to, you lower form of life" attitude. Instead, she goes running to Remi. Who, oddly, doesn't take her claims seriously but then acts flummoxed when Bree asks him to back her up. Justin and Claudia...It's a tricky one. It sounds like Claudia's job is hanging by a thread and she really does need someone who can be there at a moment's notice. But then it's not as if Justin is sitting there waiting for her. Would she be able to immediately get a taxi at short notice? To be fair, Justin initially offered his services before Claudia had a chance to think of a better arrangement, but she did ask him to carry on here. Justin does need to come up with a better reason for keeping it quiet than "Leah made a snap judgement about you on a few seconds' acquaintance" though...which for some reason Claudia thinks is fine.

Points to Tane for effort.He was trying to calm Perri down with the chat with Rose and the punchbag, but neither of them really seemed to reduce his stress levels.At least he liked the television! A shame that was the day Justin decided to play the heavy boss with Theo. Tane was doing everything he could...up until the point where he decided to twiddle his thumbs waiting for Harper rather than accompanying Perri to court. What, she can't get herself there now she's pregnant with his child? She got herself to the hospital easily enough! Just ping her a text saying "Had to go, hope to see you there" and focus on the job at hand. Bree is getting ridiculous now. She spends her whole time doing pointless jobs, and then when she actually has a patient that needs her, she's more interested in the laundry. It's moving past the point where Dana can try and sort it out with friendly chats that Bree is clearly ignoring: If patient care is being compromised, she needs to take it higher up. In fact, Bree is so incapable of doing anything normally, it's a wonder no-one else has noticed. Does she save the eccentricities for her "shift buddy"? I should be worried about Harper, but I doubt the show would have her lose the baby and I wouldn't be that bothered if she did, so it's probably just there for drama. Talking of ridiculous, Justin is continuing to come up with convoluted stories rather than just telling Leah the truth. (Theo wasn't credited incidentally: Given that he only appeared in the first two scenes, I suspect those were moved from the previous episode.) And it seems Xander's sudden agreement with Kirby was down to him applying her advice to himself and deciding that, if he can't buy into Salt, he'll own a business some other way. Nice that Rose supported him, but if he does leave Salt that'll leave Mackenzie another staff member down: She might be begging Cash to come back soon!

I agree that subtitles aren't reliable which is why, even though I was defaulting to them in the absence of anything else, I didn't say anything until we'd seen Abby's shortened name written down in an actual episode. I've tended to sympathise with Claudia more than most people have, and we seemed to get to know her a bit better here. So, it turns out she's not an arrogant businesswoman as some people assumed, but someone who helps vulnerable people, which increases my feeling that she was perfectly right to be frustrated at Bree keeping her away from her work to put her through unnecessary anxiety. This arrangement with Justin isn't really an ideal solution though. It's only (barely) working for Claudia because Justin is bending over backwards while getting himself tangled up in a web of lies. (Is Justin driving her around in his own car? What happened to the hire car? Is her husband using it?) Of course, Leah continues to be self-absorbed and act as though Claudia's the villain of the piece and Theo's the one that's hard done by, which doesn't exactly encourage him to speak up. I'm glad John was there for Cash. This is why I'm not convinced the show needs to flood the Bay with relatives of Alf, Irene and John: In many ways, they're the whole town's parents. John didn't intrude but he was there when Cash needed him. (As an aside, it was a nice touch that Justin mentioned Jett, albeit not by name.) I'm beginning to suspect that the people making the show aren't seeing Kirby the way I am. Again, she was on the wrong side of the line pressuring Mali, and I'm surprised Rose got dragged into it so easily. Xander even argues that she should leave Mali alone and respect his choice, only to back down straight away. And by the end...Mali has given in to Kirby's badgering and we're apparently meant to think she did the right thing?

I haven't seen Abby's name spelt "Abi" anywhere other than on here, certainly not anywhere official: It's always Abby on the subtitles and in Eden's text. We've been told Carl is out on bail. It's almost harder that Cash is almost back to normal, communicating with everyone and getting on with his life, but he's still treating Eden like a stranger, or at least like someone who's not part of his life anymore. He's got this idea stuck in his head that they need to break up and nothing will shift it.Even though John put his foot in it, it's nice Cash went to him for advice. I'm not sure Cash needed to be a true silent partner, I think he could still have had regular meetings with Mackenzie without being at the bar all the time, but fair play to him for backing off and making things easier for Eden.Kind of ironic that after all the fuss Mackenzie made, she's not told of his decision even though she's in the episode! The show does seem to be struggling to address why Lyrik aren't back performing, with Remi basically saying "No, we're not doing that now." Talking of Mackenzie...Abigail kind of carried on in the same vein, putting Mackenzie's back up and being rude to everyone. But give her credit: Getting to just have a normal chat with Mali seemed to bring her out of herself, and she and Mackenzie, the latter having accepted Levi's not going to give up on her, do seem to genuinely be making an effort to get on. The fact they carried on with it when Levi wasn't there indicates they're for real rather than putting on an act. Incidentally, similar to above, where's Eden in all this? The last time we saw her and Abby together, she was arranging for Abby to stay at her place, then Abigail through a tantrum at Remi and walked out while Eden was at work, and we haven't seen any reaction from her! Kirby does seem to be using her powers for good at the moment, with Mali appreciating her enthusiasm.She did have to make several attempts to draw his attention to that certificate!

I found myself hoping Mackenzie would call Abigail's bluff and kick her out but she's kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place: Levi obviously isn't just going to give up on Abby, so if she wants to stay with him, Mack has to find some way to deal with her.Of course, Abby then does the usual soap thing of only eavesdropping on half a conversation... I wonder if Mackenzie is wishing she'd kept the troubled youngster she had before, she certainly seems to get on better with him! And Tane's again asking her for advice with Carl apparently prowling around.It's felt in the last few episodes as if Tane and Cash are never home at the same time, so it was nice to see their plotlines intersect near the end. I appreciate Eden forcing Cash to talk to her but I was disappointed at her using the opportunity to try and convince him to take her back again. Given that Cash seems to be behaving a bit more human, it's a shame that he's so fixated on this idea and refuses to back down over Eden. Her resigning feels a bit like cutting her nose off to spite her face.

Alf's episode count this week:Two, and he was credited on Tuesday for no appearance. Abigail seemed to be full of energy again...at least until she had to cope with people other than Eden and Levi and wasn't the centre of attention anymore.I can kind of see her perspective at having all her family members abandon her one by one, but while you can understand her resenting Remi and Kirby because they were the ones Eden was spending time with instead of her when she was a child, it's a bit much that she's still acting like they did something wrong now she's basically an adult.(Did she not have friends of her own to hang out with? Huh. Maybe not.) Levi springing her on Mackenzie wasn't the smartest move either and it'd serve her right if her attitude gets her thrown out. It was unfair of Mackenzie to leave Xander to wrangle Cash when he doesn't even have her authority, although fortunately (with a bit of help from Remi) he did manage to keep him in line. Xander's idea wasn't without merit - even though they were both closer to Mackenzie, Felicity liked and trusted him and would probably be fine with him taking over - but expecting Cash to agree to it so readily was always a tricky prospect. Even though he seems to be being a bit more friendly to everyone else, Cash continues to be as cold as ice with Eden.It's a shame he had such an easy riposte to Levi trying to take him to task.Maybe Remi should have persevered? I think she handled it the best way at the end, going "You want to run this place? Fine. But I still work here and I'm not going to get out of your face just because of your weird hang-ups. Deal with it."

Well, I'll give Harper points for managing to stop thinking the world revolves around her enough to realise that her neediness is causing Tane to neglect a vulnerable teenager that he's accepted responsibility for.Cash did, at her invitation, ask her some blunt questions of the kind everyone else seems to be avoiding, but he treated her a lot better than he's treating most people.And by the end, he seems to have signed up to them all being one big happy family, although I'll acknowledge that Felicity probably would want Cash and Tane to be there for each other. It looked as though Tane's put Perri in his (and Flick's) old room and taken Nik's old room for himself. Mali was being a bit ridiculous in keeping the competition results from Kirby: As Alf said, it wouldn't be too long before she found out anyway. And as it turns out, it was a waste of time as she was fine with it! I don't really mind Levi keeping secrets from Mackenzie, although that may be because I don't really care about them as a couple and I do acknowledge that Levi finds lying very easy. But he handled everything appaliingly here, leaving Eden to cope with Abby (we finally get an on-screen spelling of the shortened version of her name, although I expect half the forum will still get it wrong!) while he hangs around Salt trying to annoy Mackenzie into forgiving him. And the result is Mackenzie giving an undeserved serve to Cash, who was being a bit of a pain but not as much as she made out. And even when she apologised, she still tried to bulldoze him. Yes, Cash hanging around "helping" and randomly throwing out ideas isn't the best way to handle this, but neither is Mackenzie trying to cut him out. I guess her resolve that having him as a partner might be good didn't last very long. Really, they need to find time to sit down and work out what his role is going to be and whether he might actually have some good ideas.

Forgot to mention: That's a really weird throwaway off-screen departure for Gary when it looked like he was sticking around.

Leah was in full-on shrew mode with her ranting about Claudia, which reinforces my belief that she definitely wouldn't be any more reasonable than Claudia if the shoe was on the other foot and someone she didn't know had made a mistake that left her injured with a relatively long recovery period. (I'm not sure why Claudia's being criticised for thinking Theo was at fault when, platitudes aside, he was at fault and has admitted it.) To be fair, Leah did calm down once she was off her hobby horse, and Justin really isn't doing anyone any favours by sneaking around with Claudia behind her back. Isn't Theo going to notice that Justin isn't at the garage when Leah thinks he is? Harper was being spectacularly needy, but did have a point about Tane making vague promises without making any real attempt to do anything to support her or the baby. Perri was unnecessarily short about Tane being out when Rose came round, but I'm willing to cut him some slack given he's only young and doesn't really have anyone other than Tane. Harper is meant to be a grown-up and needs to start behaving like one. I wonder if Cash walking away from the sight of Tane cuddling up to Felicity's understudy means we might get a reaction other than gushing enthusiasm to two people who've never dated having an unplanned pregnancy. Alf actually gives John another compliment, even if he is soon calling him the new Colleen Smart. At least it was said light-heartedly but I don't think John really has Colleen's nasty judgemental side. I was sure it was being set up for Mali to win. Kirby really shouldn't have got his hopes up as much as she did.

I feel I have more sympathy for Claudia than some people do, and I'm sure if it was someone like Leah or Mackenzie in this situation then she wouldn't be condemned quite so much. I actually think Leah was out of line here, or at least completely unhelpful. Claudia could have taken Theo's apology with more grace, but she's been injured through no fault of her own, she's facing days/weeks of inconvenience as a result, and she's just had Bree scaring the living daylights out of her because of her own issues, so she obviously needed someone to take her frustrations out on, and while Leah going Momma Bear on her was entirely in character, I don't think it helped the situation at all.I think once she's had the opportunity to say her piece, Claudia has actually been pretty reasonable with Justin and recognised that he's trying to make up for the garage's mistakes.I guess Justin decided to keep quiet about his latest offer so as to avoid a further argument with Leah but it didn't really help. Bree is coming across as a pretty cold fish, and given Claudia's attitude, she's lucky she didn't end up on the receiving end of a complaint. She did seem to soften up a bit when she was back with Remi, see how long that lasts. I'm not sure what deal Dana thinks she has with John: Last we saw, she was refusing to tell him anything at all, so it's not surprising he decided to go to the horse's mouth.All that questioning obviously hit a sore point with Harper: Despite Tane's vague promises about her being his priority, he doesn't really seem to have a clue what to do with her.

Despite Dana's camaraderie with Bree, the latter seemed to be colder and colder towards her as the episode went on, eventually slipping into full-on "rude doctor" mode. Claudia seemed fairly reasonable, if quick to blame everything on Justin when it went wrong again. I guess she thought it's better to have a car she can't drive than no car at all, although I'm not sure why that seemed to be the clincher.Theo finally finds out what happened and, despite Justin trying to downplay it the next day, seemed mortified. It was a bit puzzling the way Bree just let Levi walk out on an underexplained home visit: I remember Nate getting into trouble for pulling a stunt like that back in the day. Still a bit of tension between Levi and Eden over the former's terrible track record over honesty, but the thaw seems to continue with Abigail being more ready to join in as well.

Yes, exactly: Don Fisher even pointed that out in the episode where it was introduced. Biologically speaking, they'd have been no different to non-twin siblings, and it was always said to be the result of them being inseparable growing up, with the bond fading as they became more independent. But no matter how many times I point that out, someone always tries to make out it was a huge inconsistency, when in fact it fitted perfectly!

Finally someone else says it! Honestly, it always astounds me that of all the objections to that storyline, people keep coming out with "But they had special super twin powers!" as if that's somehow incontrovertible proof that they were twins, rather than pseudo-science that was never presented as having anything to do with biology anyway. Seb and Duncan barely knew each other and were barely on the show at the same time, and Jade wasn't with Seb until after she was with Nick, so if they'd been endgame we'd have been spared that one. So really, there's only the issue of Nick dating two sisters, and ironically, if inconsistently, it felt like the show built up the bond between Nick and Jade a lot during the time he was with Kirsty, and then Nick and Jade were together about two years and were shown to have a strong relationship throughout, which is why a lot of us are frustrated at how it ended and what came afterwards.