2018 Season - UK Episode Discussion

[Red Ranger 1]

Colby has almost completely screwed up and I'm not sure he even knows or cares.I should probably give him more credit than I am for keeping hold of Bella, but he's blundered into a murder investigation that he wasn't a part of and scared off the main suspect, who, if only because he's a character in a soap opera, is unlikely to go to ground for another six years and is probably planning a bloody vengeance.And he's justifying it by saying Bella's "safe", which he defines as "being held prisoner in a basement by a bunch of 20-somethings who assault her if she doesn't co-operate".The fact that he's refusing to involve someone who might actually know what they're doing suggests he's less interested in keeping Bella safe or what's best for her, and more interested in keeping her with him.I guess that's understandable given how long he's been looking for her, but it increases the feeling that he really doesn't belong in the police.So, we now know Bella saw her mother five years ago, meaning she was alive for about a year after leaving town and probably killed around the time Ross visited Karen.So if Colby had actually gone back to check on Dean after the accident, he may well have got hold of the recording then and got the police after Ross a lot sooner and possibly saved her.I really hope Chelsea reports him, but she probably won't, she's too compromised.

At the risk of being a broken record, there do seem to be disturbing parallels between Bella and Raffy.I'm not saying John and Marilyn are as bad as Ross, but both are impressionable teenage girls who just seem to be parroting the negative things the adults looking after them have told them about their families instead of showing much sign of being allowed to think for themselves.I think we need a better reason why Colby forcibly removing his sister from her home is considered okay while Justin is portrayed as in the wrong for moving his sister home without asking her what she wants than "John and Marilyn are main cast and Ross is a guest villain who we haven't even heard speak".If Bella wanting to go back to Ross is wrong, why is Raffy wanting to go back to John and Marilyn right? It reinforces the feeling that instead of giving in to them, Justin should have done the legal version of what Colby's done, told John and Marilyn to stop interfering and confusing her, and given Raffy space to realise the truth about her family.

That said, I didn't mind John so much here, possibly because he was being well-intentionedly annoying rather than deliberately malicious, but also because the focus was on Ben.When Maggie mentions how far they've come in the last twelve months, she doesn't mention him, but, having got over his wobble with Justin a few weeks back, Ben cemented his newfound maturity by avoiding the direct confrontation with John and quietly getting things sorted.

11 hours ago, H&Alover said:

what is 5 mil in English money not even a inch?

Not even a centimetre! About 0.2 inches.

[D.B]

Well, as anyone with half a brain would have suspected, Colby and Dean's abduction of Bella (because that's what it is, even if he's family or if Bella's better off with them than with Ross, which I think she is but that's beside the point) hasn't has gone as smoothly as they had hoped. The fact remains that even if Colby is correct in thinking that Bella is "safe" now (as in being held in an abandoned house which we have seen has already caused another child serious injury (Seriously, what the hell were they thinking bringing her there, assuming they were thinking at all) and not being allowed to leave 'safe', and assuming that Ross won't come looking), he compromised the police investigation into his own father's murder, allowing a dangerous man on the loose, placed the freedom of Dean and Willow at terrible risk and now attempting to place Chelsea's integrity and job at risk too! And what's worse is that he doesn't even seem to care about any of the possible consequences (it's almost as if he read the writer's script for the rest of the year), just as long as he gets to keep Bella. Well, he's certainly feeling the consequences from Chelsea now that she's made her position clear. Now that I've seen these episodes, I really don't understand all the claims of others that Chelsea was being unreasonable and annoying, when she's pretty much being the definition of reasonable in this situation. She's given Colby chance after chance again, and he's still breaking the law and keeping her in the dark. I think she was well in her rights to walk out on him, though, if I'm honest, I did feel some sympathy for him when Bella was talking about how their mother "walked out on them", makes you wonder what other lies Ross has been telling her. 

I honestly forgot to comment on the John and Ben rivalry, which was actually a bit of fun, even if John was being unbearable towards Ben. Thankfully Alf intervened, and in the most intimidating and hilarious way that Alf could have. The scene with Alf and Roo on the pier, whom we haven't seen much of together this year, was veyr nice and needed, and the banter with Ben and Maggie was sweet to watch as well. I have to give Ben points, he has matured over the last year; a while ago, he wouldn't have handled John's interference as well as he did. 

On 08/02/2019 at 23:49, Red Ranger 1 said:

(this isn't that dissimilar to what Brax did with Evie and I didn't mind that)

That's what this who[e thing with Colby, Dean and Bella reminded me of! I was watching and was sure that I saw something like it before. And you're right, even if what Colby did was the same as Brax, he should have known and behaved better since he's the police. But wasn't Oscar taken with them as well? I remember that he wasn't as brainwashed as Evie was, but didn't the Braxtons have to take him too?  

[H&Alover]

There are no parallels between Marilyn and John and Ross.  At least Raffy gets to mix with other people, gets to go to school, have friends, even see her family plus she was a teenager when 'kidnapped' by John and Marilyn, whereas Bella has been denied all that, she's been with Ross for six years since she was eight and alone with him for five since Michelle 'left' so a lot more vulnerable to being bent to Ross' will.  Justin and the rest of the Morgan's did Raffy a disservice by not asking her feelings of where wanted to be  after she came out  of hospital , though it did make sense as there were more of them and there were one and half doctors on hand. That was a reveal that she believes, thanks to Ross, her mum deserted her and although both Colby & Dean know the truth now is hardly the right time to tell her. Did he kill her because she was becoming a liability or a loose end he needed to get rid of. I don't quite see how Colby going back to help Dean would have lead to him getting his hands on the tape as we don't know when Michelle gave it to Karen. 

At the risk of being unpopular I'd say Bella is a lot more safer with Colby & Dean than Ross, even though yes it is abduction, he seems to have done  lot of damage mentally and although no visible signs maybe physically too. Colby has royally screwed up, but he was using his heart not his head.  I thought he wasn't telling SG what was going on so as not to compromise her, but that secret phone call to Willow was ill timed as SG isn't stupid and knew something was sus.  Guess that house was the only choice, as we have seen it before so less expensive than TPTB finding somewhere else and how would Ross know anything about it, he was no River Boy and didn't know Colby was back on the scene anyway. I totally agree with SG apart from her saying Colby 'dragged' Dean into it so risking him being put back into prison, Dean knew exactly what he was doing, he knew Bella back when  she was a kid so of course he'd want to help same with Willow.  Shame Colby didn't get to tell SG that Bella doesn't know her mum is dead.   The last we saw Ross was headed back to his house so it is unlikely he'll be going far, he'll be hunting, yes hunting, for Bella.  We did see in the trailer Colby playing Bella the tape of Ross telling Michelle he'd killed Colby's dad, but he had handed it in to the cops so was that a copy?  

I think I agree with Ben, it was better having John as an 'enemy' than a less than helpful 'friend', we all know John is rubbish at DIY. Didn't rise to John's digs about him slobbing about when he could have been finishing the board shop then standing there gobsmacked when Ben showed him the finished product.   Looked good too, not too flashy but stylish.  Lovely that meal between Ben & Maggie, celebrating how far they have come and what they have survived in the past year, they aren't the perfect couple, no-one is - but they are close to it.

The actress - Courtney Miller - who plays Bella is 22 which she does look nearer to age to then her supposed age.  Lukas Radovich - Ryder - also 22 is more convincing as an 18 year old.  Looking young can be a curse as well as blessing, especially for men.  You have to try harder to convince people you can play older roles.

[D.B]

30 minutes ago, H&Alover said:

At the risk of being unpopular I'd say Bella is a lot more safer with Colby & Dean than Ross, even though yes it is abduction, he seems to have done  lot of damage mentally and although no visible signs maybe physically too. 

Oh no no, I do agree that Bella would be safer with Colby than with Ross, but that wasn't exactly the point to me; my opinion is that the point is that there was a much better way for him to go around this that could have gotten Bella back to him and put Ross out of the picture. But instead, he decided that only himself and Dean are capable of doing it (even though all the past points to the opposite), puts those he cares about at risk because of his recklessness, and doesn't even seem to care about the realistic consequences. 

[H&Alover]

1 hour ago, D.B said:

Oh no no, I do agree that Bella would be safer with Colby than with Ross, but that wasn't exactly the point to me; my opinion is that the point is that there was a much better way for him to go around this that could have gotten Bella back to him and put Ross out of the picture. But instead, he decided that only himself and Dean are capable of doing it (even though all the past points to the opposite), puts those he cares about at risk because of his recklessness, and doesn't even seem to care about the realistic consequences. 

But Colby isn't thinking rationally, he's been searching for her for six years and it now appears she hates him.  Of course if he had done things the proper/legal way we don't know what danger Bella would have been in if Ross had been cornered by the cops, he may well have used  her as a hostage and made his escape. 

[Red Ranger 1]

13 hours ago, D.B said:

But wasn't Oscar taken with them as well? I remember that he wasn't as brainwashed as Evie was, but didn't the Braxtons have to take him too?  

Oscar went with them willingly, although it was probably technically kidnapping since he was 15 and they were taking him away from his father.

10 hours ago, H&Alover said:

I don't quite see how Colby going back to help Dean would have lead to him getting his hands on the tape as we don't know when Michelle gave it to Karen. 

Well, I think we can narrow it down to before she died, and probably to before she left town! Karen said Michelle told her to give it to Colby if anything happened to her but Colby disappeared.In fact, given the recording seemed to be made right before they left, then unless she sneaked back to Mangrove River at some point during that year, we can probably narrow it down to that night.So yes, if Colby had gone back to help Dean instead of being a coward and disappearing for 5-6 years, he might have seen Karen and she might have given him the recording and the police might have found out in time...not that Colby's showing much ability to let the police know before it's too late even now.

So, Colby's managed to break through Bella's defences.And we get told she's 16, presumably making her 10 when she disappeared, although I haven't been paying enough attention to know if that's consistent with what we've been told before.(I notice with amusement that Colby's photo collection suddenly includes images that resemble Courtney Miller.Of course all this reference to "six years ago" (although confusingly I think the website said she was last seen in 2011!) underlines the fact that this would have been right in the middle of the Braxton Era yet nothing was said!)Bella's obviously better off with Colby than with Ross, but she'd be even safer if Ross had been arrested instead of Colby messing up and letting him get away.I really can't bring myself to be happy for Colby because he's just so selfish and arrogant.I'm disappointed that once again Chelsea doesn't have the courage of her convictions and keeps quiet: She seems to be spending most of her time turning a blind eye to Colby's wrongdoing, often quite serious wrongdoing.I doubt Bella would press abduction charges but Colby's screwed with a murder investigation, messed up a chance to catch Ross and put at least one possibly two civilians in danger.(Note that Dean twice had to restrain him from charging in and confronting Ross, which seemed guaranteed to get Bella caught in the crossfire.)He should be up on a disciplinary again and at the very least busted back to constable if not slung out for good this time.And he's actually arrogant enough to tell Chelsea she's making a mistake when she breaks up with him?

Mostly holding pattern with the Robbo/Tori stuff but Jasmine continues to come over well, guiding them both towards having a conversation but refusing to interfere too much.I'm not sure if Irene knew what she was doing tipping her off or not.

[D.B]

20 hours ago, H&Alover said:

Of course if he had done things the proper/legal way we don't know what danger Bella would have been in if Ross had been cornered by the cops, he may well have used  her as a hostage and made his escape. 

That might have happened. Or Ross would have been successfully captured and taken to justice, and Bella would be given proper help. You're right in saying that we don' know what would definitely happen in a "What-if" scenario- but if you look at it logically, getting the police involved would have been a much better option than Colby going on his own, since he did just that, and it hasn't really made Bella 100% safe, and is still in danger since because of Colby's actions, Ross is on the loss, and knows that the police is onto him.

[Red Ranger 1]

Why wasn't Raffy at the barbecue?! It would have been the perfect way to demonstrate John and Marilyn do occasionally let her out of the gulag.(They did, after all, often pull her out of the Morgans' house without asking her what she wanted:Marilyn wouldn't even let her celebrate Tori's pregnancy with them.)Maybe the idea was she at school (but if so, why was Roo wandering around free as a bird all day?), but it feels more like we've gone back to pretending she isn't related to them, which is another frustrating backwards step.Good news for Mason though.I can't make up my mind about Simone.I don't think she's "evil", but it does seem at times like she has a crush on Brody, even though she hasn't crossed any lines yet.Then again, maybe she is just using him to get a step up professionally?It's hard to know what to make of her messing about with his chef's whites: Is it because they're his or because they're chef's whites?My first thought when Ziggy looked at Mason with inspiration was that she was going to flirt with him to show Brody what it's like, so setting him up with Simone was slightly less insane!

Tori's single-mindedness resurfaces and this time Robbo's on the other end of it, as she disregards his feelings in favour of what she wants.There's some pretty big consent issues here:I'm sure Robbo did sign all the relevant paperwork, but I'd hope he has the right to withdraw permission at any point and is simply trusting Tori to do the right thing rather than having no say in it as she claims.(After all, given all the counselling needed for them to get approval, it seems very contradictory to, in effect, force him to become a father.On the other hand, this may be a grey legal area since fertilisation has already occurred?)Meanwhile, it seems we're back to Robbo and Colby occupying the same flat at different points in the space/time continuum again: It felt very weird to see Robbo and Jasmine alone in the flat where the big family reunion was going on last time we saw it.I hope next time they appear we're going to get a few lines about Colby and Bella having gone away for a few days or something, because you would expect Robbo to have at least some reaction to a teenage girl suddenly appearing in his home.(You'd expect the police to say something about it as well, but that's a discussion for another time.)

[H&Alover]

Yes - Bella was two years older than I thought - oops.  Courtney Miller still looks too old to be playing a 16 year old though.  Does kind of throw my age time line out, if it was six years ago could he really have been 20? His reason why Ross left was he, Colby, was finally big enough to stand up to him  so like all cowards he, Ross,  bolted. I don't know if we got such a detailed back story about the time Michelle, Ross and Bella left before, but interesting to get how each saw it from their side of the fence. They all keep banging on about it being six years since the botched attempt to stop Ross taking Bella so it must be. Colby still wasn't making much headway until Dean had that idea of Colby playing her a copy of that tape, how handy he had that eh?  She would be much more likely to believe Ross's own words than anything Colby told her, then she worked out for herself what had happened to her mum and who was responsible.  Although it does seem Bella is over the worst of it, going by the big hugging scenes going on, there is still a way to go I'd say.  They do all seem to have faded away but there was an explanation for Willow not being around when Mason invited Robbo and Jasmine to the barbecue  he said she was on a PT course - I think that is what he said.  SG did have the choice of reporting what she had found out to the cops but didn't for her own reasons which maybe is why she dumped him.  Be interesting to see if there is any fallout.  Yep the old 'gone away for a few days' ploy - OK'd sudden leave did he?  Dean couldn't go far, if he went with them that is, as he's still got his CS to do.  The subject of Dean risking breaking his licence conditions came up but as he said he knew what he was doing and that was what mates did for each other.  Would Willow be breaking her licence conditions too?

Wasn't it just adults at the BBQ, didn't see any young ones, but didn't see Marilyn or John either though Leah was there, Irene was working wasn't she.  Mason thumping away at his laptop reminded me of when Olivia was doing the same when she was waiting for her exam results to come through.  Don't remember her laptop having a breakdown though!  Really great that he passed after all the hassle he's gone through, losing Beth, and giving up for a while then Dempsey. Terrific to see how the rest of the Morgan's with the exception of Raffy being so over the moon for him even Tori putting her own woes aside.  I liked how Mason invited Robbo to the celebrations a thank you for letting him off his shifts.

Seems as if Roo could be off again soon, hope Alf is right about Ryder being OK with it this time as he's a different lad from the last time.  Did Alf really say Ryder was in 'a different headspace'?

I was giving Simone the benefit of the doubt, but her behaviour at the BBQ made me think otherwise.  Started off OK with her bringing the cake and the steaks and mingling, Ziggy wasn't overjoyed when Brody said she could stay, but held her tongue.  The thing that got me wondering about Simone was when Justin I think or it may have been Mason pointed out where Brody & Ziggy were living, then later she asked where the  loo was I'm pretty sure Justin didn't point her in the direction of the granny flat. It did seem a bit creepy her poking around the place then trying on Brody's whites.  I feel Brody is still totally oblivious to her feeling about him, just being Brody, happy to have someone around who is just as keen on cooking as he is. Heard but not seen Buddy!

That was some drama with Robbo/Tori/Jasmine.  That talk between Tori and Robbo did need to happen because until it happened everything was in limbo somewhat, pity then that wires were well and truly crossed with Robbo thinking Tori understood what he meant but Tori getting it totally wrong, if they hadn't been interrupted it could have been sorted then.  I don't think Tori should have told Leah & Irene Robbo was up for another go, it should be private between them, especially as she had got it so wrong. Jasmine handled the whole thing so well, she could so easily have blurted something out when Irene praised her for being so brave about 'their' decision to try IVF again. She then treated her conversation with Tori so delicately suggesting she speak to Robbo and when pressed said it wasn't her place, but she, Tori, needed to talk to him properly. Robbo, for someone who doesn't  find it easy to express himself just kept It simple but gentle.  Although I can find sympathy for Tori, can't be easy for a 34 woman to be told your biological clock is clicking a lot faster than most women her age, it would make her panic and the thought of starting the whole process again would be very daunting.  But I don't like the way she is thinking, pushing Jasmine to 'work' on Robbo, thinking in a couple of weeks he would have changed his mind because at the moment he is grieving for the baby which brought up bad memories and he'll feel different.  She is grieving too but, her time line being what it is aside, it seems to me is rushing back into it, she hasn't had time to come to terms with it.  Even Justin, who hasn't been Robbo's biggest fan, looked like he was looking at it from Robbo's point of view.  He certainly wasn't happy about her plan to go ahead with the IVF without Robbo knowing.  Don't know what the legal implications are but it must be morally wrong.  Wouldn't the specialist wonder where Robbo was when she goes back?

[Red Ranger 1]

8 hours ago, H&Alover said:

Wasn't it just adults at the BBQ, didn't see any young ones

Well, it was Mason's barbecue, so he's hardly likely to invite a bunch of schoolchildren, plus with Coco away there aren't any teens apart from Raffy and Ryder. He didn't invite Alf and Roo either, despite them being right there and free, just his (other) siblings, Robbo (his boss), Jasmine (his friend) and Leah (his maybe-surrogate mother!).And as we learned today, Raffy was invited but would rather sit in the Diner staring at a blank screen while John and Marilyn dither over her, looking very unhappy and unrelaxed and perhaps demonstrating that just because the Palmers' is a nice place to visit doesn't mean it's a good idea to live there.Of course, if she did have responsible adult figures who can offer more than ice cream, manicures and comic expressions, she wouldn't have needed to go to Ryder.I suppose we did at least get some brief Justin/Raffy interaction and I should credit Marilyn for at least asking her if she wanted to go to the barbecue even if she didn't really encourage it.Ryder stepped up well and...hmm.There have been times when I've been wary of the idea of them getting together, since I think it might blunt the teasing relationship they have, but from their interaction here they could be quite sweet together so I'll give it a chance.

I'll continue to give Simone the benefit of the doubt: That thing with the outfit was odd but it's not like she was sniffing it or anything and it was Brody's idea for her to try it on.Ziggy needs to stick to her resolve to trust Brody because by constantly stirring she's in danger of putting his back up, although Brody isn't helping by being completely blind to the non-platonic vibes Simone is giving out.

Turns out Ryder was fine with Roo going away, but he's not the one she has to worry about.Maggie seemed very shady here and I suspect it's her rather than the students who needs continuity: She's probably worried how she'll cope without the only other teacher allowed to speak!