2018 Season - UK Episode Discussion

[atrus]

Intrigued about what Colby is searching for via the police databases and contacts - evidently Dean already knows, so is it something common to both of them? I'm going to hazard a guess at years-old police surveillance footage of them making sweet love on the banks of Mangrove River, which both of them want to destroy at all costs - and that's the only reason Dean hasn't shopped him as a River Boy yet. While I feel like Willow's being unnecessarily vengeful towards Colby, I'm also enjoying her friendship with Dean which feels very familiar and natural. He seems to be different around her than with any other character, with a bit of welcome vulnerability showing through.

Maggie was having a dreadful day with no-one but the Disappearing Secretary to support her - other than Roo who seemed to disappear almost as quickly after each conversation, and Ben who was more of a hindrance than a help. "Shut up, we're supposed to be quiet," doesn't feel like a line that ought to be spoken unironically to a roomful of noisy pupils by Ryder - a boy who not so long ago was holding the principal's office hostage in order to broadcast music over the PA system. Although being generous, you could surmise that he's toeing the line for Coco's sake, as he knows she won't want her mum stressed out at work under the current circumstances.

Nice stuff with Brody and Ziggy; I'm sure it wasn't Brody's intention to suggest they embark on parenthood because of a fun afternoon with Ava, but clearly that's the way Ziggy took it. Is it perhaps what part of her wanted to hear?

[Red Ranger 1]

I'm not entirely unsympathetic towards Willow's point of view, and I hope that there's a good explanation for what Colby's doing and done because at the moment it's hard not to feel like he's a coward and yet another corrupt if broadly decent police officer.It sounds like he's looking for someone, which has me speculating about family and maybe even a child: Could his pregnant girlfriend's family have been taking her out of town the night of the crash and that's why he's done all this?

It never rains but pours for the Astonis, with the pier electrics going and Maggie being put through a conga of problems, which ironically made her look like a real principal after her rather leisurely existence last year. Ryder does seem to have well and truly completed a transformation into resident "good" teen, although I agree that it's partly because he's dating Coco now and wants to look out for her family.Raffy was rightly bewildered at him expecting her to sort it again.

I think Ziggy looked freaked out as much as anything by Brody's apparent desire for children.I felt a bit sorry at Willow seeing that Justin is okay with Brody's girlfriend hanging out with Ava but not her, even if he did try and make up for it.

[Trudy Heine]

I remember Ric also got a car dropped on him, luckily he survived.

[H&Alover]

Definitely something both Dean & Colby are keeping from Willow and don't want her to know about.   It's obviously important to them as Dean seemed to accept Colby's explanation why he joined the police and agreed to ask Willow to back off. Is Willow's anger against Colby because she was left to pick up the pieces after Colby left? Rather a cryptic comment from Dean to Willow about Colby having secrets which will come back to bite him on the bum, sounds like he has his own hidden agenda. Can't see how Colby is corrupt, to me that means a cop is being bribed to look the other way when crimes are being committed, so far we've seen no evidence of this with Colby.  It does bring me back to me to the tat Colby has on his left breast just how did he explain that away to the cops as he must have had a medical examination when he joined up. 

Not the best of first days back for Maggie, two of the regular (unseen) teachers call in sick, a previously unseen secretary pops in and out landing Maggie with more hassle. Liked how Coco, Raffy and Ryder kept an eye out for her. Was  a bit of an awkward moment when Coco asked Raffy if it was OK she sat next to Ryder. Ryder was right though when asked by Coco to tell the others to shut up, who would listen to him!

Another failed attempt of Ben's to 'protect' Maggie, though to be fair to Ben the electrics had only just failed and bothering Maggie about it while she was at school wouldn't have helped any.  He was wise enough not to even think about tackling the problem himself not being an electrician.  As landlord though he does need to get the problem solved smartish because if the Diner and bait shop are losing money he won't be getting any rent from them and therefore won't be able to pay the electrician.  No idea of how long it has been since the electrics were last checked but the system can't be that old can it?

Ziggy and Ava soon clicked which was nice to see, as she said having a little sister helped.  Justin kind of made a promise to Nina about keeping Willow and Ava apart while Ava was in town so not something he wanted to do.  I'm sure Ziggy was reading far too much into Brody's comment that she would make a great mum, it was just a throw away remark, though of course just because she gets on with a near teenager it doesn't necessarily follow she'd be  a good mum.  In the interests of equality would Brody have freaked if Ziggy had told him he'd be a great dad!

I don't think I'm giving anything away as we saw the mysterious woman speaking to Ryder and she looked rather shocked when he said he'd have to ask his granddad, then Alf appears who looks equally shocked when he recognises her. Is this scene going to follow the usual pattern of being shown at the end of the episode? Some old timers may remember her.

 

 

[Dan F]

 

[atrus]

Brody and Ziggy continue to be quite good value, and I felt their slight clash over the issue of having hypothetical kids at some point in the future was quite an authentic depiction of a relatively new relationship.

Felt bad for Raffy being left out of everything, but at least it didn't go unnoticed by Ryder and Coco - and you still get the feeling they're a bit more comfortable when she's hanging around than not. I was almost as shocked as 'Gordon' looked when Raffy spoke to him and he actually spoke back - part of me wondered if Olivia had adlibbed it and he was never supposed to get a line at all! Seems unlikely he's about to become part of the gang, in any case.

Oh, and of course Soap Law #107 came to pass. Very curious to hear Martha's story.

[D.B]

22 hours ago, Red Ranger 1 said:

I'm not entirely unsympathetic towards Willow's point of view, and I hope that there's a good explanation for what Colby's doing and done because at the moment it's hard not to feel like he's a coward and yet another corrupt if broadly decent police officer.It sounds like he's looking for someone, which has me speculating about family and maybe even a child: Could his pregnant girlfriend's family have been taking her out of town the night of the crash and that's why he's done all this?

While I am also sympathetic to Willow, Dean and the mentioned Jai, the dialogue Colby has had with Dean suggests that there's more than Colby just trying to save his own skin. I don't necessarily think that he's corrupt, he's still trying to be a good police officer, still duty-bound to his badge, no matter what he's done in the past. Should he be held accountable? Probably yes. But I believe there's more than him maybe being a supposed "coward".

[Red Ranger 1]

9 hours ago, H&Alover said:

Can't see how Colby is corrupt, to me that means a cop is being bribed to look the other way when crimes are being committed, so far we've seen no evidence of this with Colby. 

 

4 hours ago, D.B said:

I don't necessarily think that he's corrupt, he's still trying to be a good police officer, still duty-bound to his badge, no matter what he's done in the past.

I think the fact that he's lying about his past activities and covering up a crime he committed in the past, to the extent of leaning on the only surviving witness, is fairly corrupt behaviour.Yes, he's doing a good job as far as things go, but his whole career is built on deceit, and he apparently has his own agenda which seems to involve misusing police resources.It sounds like I'm condemning him more than I am, because I do find the character essentially likable, but there are a lot of unattractive elements to his character and I'll be intrigued to see whether the show can justify them or if it ends up as a bit of a cop-out.

Alf's episode count this week:Four, and he was credited on Tuesday for no appearance.

As Maggie herself admitted, Ben's idea to step down as a class teacher and concentrate on being principal was actually a pretty good one.There was some discussion a while back about how unusual it was for Maggie to be teaching as much as she was, so maybe this is an attempt to address it.Of course, then Ben finds himself out of his comfort zone as he has to consider the possibility of stepping down from being self-employed.Meanwhile, while Ziggy did misread Brody's comment, she has opened up a can of worms which perhaps underlined the age gap between them: In ten years, Brody will be nearly as old as Ziggy's parents are now.Coco demonstrated her immaturity with her well-meaning but impractical attempt to insist money wasn't important and Ziggy again demonstrated character growth by sensibly getting her out of there.I did love Coco's reaction to the idea of Ziggy being a mum though.

So, Raffy didn't find being a third wheel as much fun as she thought: Having made a point of giving Coco and Ryder alone time a while ago, she suddenly realises being on your own all the time isn't much fun.It makes sense they'd want to be on their own sometimes, and their easy interaction in English class and having fun without her at the start suggests they're okay when they are, but it felt like a watershed moment when Coco finally realised she can be a bad friend sometimes and invited Raffy to hang out with them.All about balance, I guess.

Well, to anyone paying attention to the Photoshopped images Roo's been waving about the last few weeks, the identity of the caravan park's visitor was no surprised, although Alf spells it out for the sake of anyone else.I'm hoping she heard Roo was looking for her and decided the mountain should go to Mohammed, otherwise it's a coincidence of unbelievable proportions.Oh, and Alf's clearly got a bit confused: That's not his first wife, that's Michael Ross' first wife.(Yes, okay, it's the same actress, who also popped up as a blind woman Alf befriended in the late 90s.)I'm surprised at how blasé she was about finding out Ryder was Alf's grandson: We know he's not her grandson, but does she?

[H&Alover]

Cop-out - like that!  Colby didn't take advantage of the fact he was an ex River Boy when he nicked Dean just took him in as he would have anyone.

Didn't Nat also take classes when he was principal?  The family put forward good arguments why Maggie should step back from teaching leaving her to concentrate on being principal and alleviating the added burden of teaching.  It'll be tough Ben having to take orders after all this time and he'll have to resist the urge to say 'well this is the way I did it'.  Quite amusing him having to write a CV or resume as they call it in Australia, but he'll get there with Ziggy's help.  Talking of Maggie should we be worried she's having trouble remembering certain words?  Is it her meds or something else?  I liked how Ziggy offered to contribute some her wages to pay for her keep and personally I think Maggie was wrong to turn her down, doesn't have to be much just a couple of dollars, they have been subbing her for years.

Ziggy taking advice from Coco, that's got to be a first!   After dodging Brody, she bit the bullet and asked him about his comment only to find out it was meant as a compliment.  His idea of the future did differ as regards time line of having children, her thinking 10 years, him thinking maybe five, both assuming they would still be together that long anyway, this is soap land after all.

What happened between Coco and Raffy always happens when a girl - and it does tend to be girls - gets a boyfriend, her best mate gets side-lined, it' s not intentional just one of those things. More galling when it was Raffy who encouraged them to get together in the first place Luckily Coco clocked how Raffy was feeling and made amends by inviting her to join them. 

Finally Martha turns up out of the blue, and of course it was at the end of the episode, just happened to be passing did she - yeh right!   Her surprise at hearing Ryder was Alf's grandson made me wonder if she thought he was Roo's son, boy has she got a shock coming! She doesn't know the half of it yet, Alf had been a busy boy back in the day. Are TPTB going to keep us dangling or will it or some of it, be resolved tomorrow and despite it being a Bank Holiday H&A is on at its normal time.  Spot on Red re Martha/Cynthia Ross and for those of us with even longer memories Belinda Giblin was also in Sons & Daughters where she played Alison Carr aka Pat the Rat after extensive plastic surgery! For record Rowenna Wallace the original Pat also appeared in H&A as June Reynolds and ended up marrying Donald.

Don't fret folks Kurt is back next week.

[Slade]

Of course Olivia was prepared to go out of her way to help Jennifer.  She's realises that she probably has Hunter all to herself now so she's happy (as was indicated with her conversation with him on the beach).  I thought Jennifer was spot on about him.  He proved to be a good friend the way he went and spoke to Nick but not really a good boyfriend.  Although hopefully this will serve as a lesson to him.  I did like that Nick changed his opinion about him and Hunter and Jennifer parted on amicable terms.  Really hope it's not the last we've seen of Jennifer though.

I enjoyed the scenes with Tori and Ash when they were trying to save him after the car fell on his leg.  It felt like they both really came to an understanding with each other.  Whatever Tori felt for him before, despite Ash declaring his love for her I don't believe she loves him now and has moved on.  Although the way she was with Jasmine...sheeesh.  Luckily Mason explained the situation to her so Jasmine understood Tori's little outburst wasn't personal.  Have to admit I found Ash's reaction after suffering renal failure quite amusing.

 

I thought the insanity argument was fairly sound when Robbo's first lawyer suggested it in Tori's absence.  I'd take a psych ward over prison any day of the week.

 

Whilst I didn't agree with the way she spoke to Jasmine one of the main highlights for me was Tori's reaction and facial expressions when Robbo's second lawyer showed up.  They were hilarious and reminded me of how funny she can be (e.g. when she put her foot in it with Scarlett and Justin).  I actually really like his cynicism and dry sense of humour.  Wasn't sure about him taking on Robbo's case.  A legal aid lawyer pushing fifty trying to now make a name for himself.

Willow is absolutely insufferable.  I actually think she probably has a point about Colby but she's being so utterly self righteous about it and the way she threatened him just makes me hate her.  I did wonder at one point last week if she was still actually dating Justin.  I did quite enjoy the fact she was out of shape that Dean valued his friendship with Colby more than he did with her.  So a former River Boy that doesn't have a criminal past can't apply for a police officer's position.

 

Will be interesting to see how they progress the two's company, three's a crowd thing with Raffy.

Really enjoyed Alf's reaction to seeing Martha.  Going by the preview can't wait to see him lose it.