2019 Season - UK Episode Discussion

[H&Alover]

First off - it may be just me but that photo - the one and only photo Jasmine has of her dad I might add - you didn't see much of his face and even Jasmine had her face turned away from the camera.  It looked very odd to me almost as if he didn't want his photo taken and was taken unawares.  Now why would that be I wondered - surely it couldn't be that he - no, no way - he's in the same business Robbo/Ryan was or something more sinister.  She didn't mention if she had one of her mum?  Of course I could just be reading too much into it. Lovely offer of Robbo to try and track her dad down - he does have contacts -  but it'd be too late for the wedding. 

The way Justin and Tori were talking made it sound as if Raffy is staying more or less permanently with John & Maz.  If Brody's old room is going to be the nursery that makes it how many bedrooms they have -  five?  I guess Jasmine & Robbo had other things on their mind.   Don't know if it was a bloke thing about Justin & Robbo not noticing any difference in the colour.  I loved Tori's sudden panic about the fact she had nothing to wear.

I didn't catch the message saying why 'Tommy'   was late that he sent Bella when she got home,  before we saw him draw up in his car and sit there watching her  and Raffy that is. Methinks Bella is worried on one level about him hence her being so defensive towards Raffy when she brought it up again.  That was very creepy the way he drove past them, though they were too busy chatting to notice him, seemed he was properly checking Bella out. We've certainly seen he is in his 20's as he said.  OK Bella might be able to con Irene about her 'headache' but Colby will want to go and see if she's OK when she doesn't turn up at the wedding.  He never said he was a pupil at SBH when he started 'chatting' and Raffy is assuming he is a pupil there.

Oh, yes, the other night they had the 'if you have been affected by any of the stories in tonight's episode' line at the end.

 

 

[CaptainHulk]

On 16/08/2019 at 23:58, Red Ranger 1 said:

Did Raffy scare him off? 

Most likely and had to cook up a Plan B.

[H&Alover]

It is rare for a groomer to turn up at the victim's house, usually they lure them away so the victim is not around family and friends.

[Red Ranger 1]

The cynic in me suspects the photo of Jasmine's father didn't really show him because no actor has been cast and they want to keep it as vague as possible in case they bring him in in the future.(See the photos of Bella that looked nothing like Courtney Miller in the first part of last year.)And I forgot to mention until I saw the recap Roo saying it's the wedding of the decade until Leah's: Leah's already been married once this decade.

So, Robbo and Jasmine finally got married and good for them:They're not one of my all-time favourite couples but I like them enough.They managed to be awkward but happy at the same time.As ever, the guest list was rather random: Alf and Marilyn are there but not John and Roo? No sign of Mason, who works for Robbo and is friends with Jasmine? Robbo's new old friend is played by Trent Baines, who was Macca Mackenzie (adopted brother of Roo's daughter Martha) from 2006 to 2007.Of course, we've then got Lance's dodgy phone calls to add a bit of tension to matters...

Bella rather foolishly chooses to hoodwink everyone in order to meet Tommy.And it isn't going well.Despite her ignoring everyone's advice, I have to feel sorry for her:She was obviously looking forward to meeting with him and it turns out he's a psycho.

[CaptainHulk]

Red Flags. Red Flags everwhere!

[H&Alover]

Not to mention alarm bells!!!!

I know Jasmine was facing the camera.

The wait to see her dress was well worth it, it was lovely, I like that design.  Robbo scrubs up very well and they made  a wonderful couple  Being trivial for the moment, all the ladies looked great,  Willow's dress really suited her, not forgetting the men of course with Alf in his Sunday best straw hat.  I wondered about the missing people, why wasn't John there or Mason or Raffy.  Considering neither Jasmine or Robbo knew that many people church was very full - the old 'rent a crowd for a wedding'  again?  Colby didn't appear to be that concerned Bella wasn't there. 

Rather lovely, heartfelt vows and I don't want to appear niggly, but didn't Robbo feel the same about Kat at one time?  Oh yes his vow he'd give his life to defend Jasmine, I do hope that is not going to be put to the test.

I know Tori gave her excuse not to go to the ceremony was in case she went into labour or fell over yeh right. I reckon she didn't go  because she didn't want to meet Robbo's mum and dad and was waiting until the reception as hopefully they would be more relaxed, sadly that  didn't work out due to them having car trouble and hadn't even turned up yet.  At least we hope that is all it was seeing as we know now the people who killed Robbo's wife and children have resurfaced. What's taken them so long, Robbo has been in the bay for two years and where did the tip off come from, have the Feds been watching out for Robbo all this time just in case? Is it only now he's got himself a new wife so they can target her?  Lance and Scott are easy on the eye for Feds btw - sorry to sound so shallow.   Lance was very professional at his job and so discreet even Robbo didn't suspect anything was wrong and he and Scott gave them as long as possible before moving in. 

I remember Macca - started taking drugs then began knocking Cassie about more than once.

Bella finally managed to persuade Irene to go to the wedding without her, who by the looks of what goes down tonight is going to be home earlier than  she or 'Tommy' thought she would be.  That bottle of champagne standing there is significant.  Did 'Tommy' turn up at the church for a reason, checking Irene was there? When Lance asked Colby who he was Colby said he thought he was a friend of the hospital padre. 

I get 'Tommy' has been there before to drop off the camera at the back door but as a first time 'visitor' he used the front door as most seem to do.  Although I know Bella is 16 so can quite safely be left alone shouldn't she know better than just to open the door when she had no idea of who was there?    He looked to be OK at first and no way making excuses for him but he hadn't asked Bella to do anything pervy on line, he objected when she tried on that skimpy top and wore all that slap so perhaps he likes them looking innocent.  Warning bells rang too late for Bella when he stopped her leaving. He drew her in so well praising her photos and work, picking up somehow she wasn't very confident.  As I said before he's taking a huge risk going to his victims house, anyone could turn up.

Just read Ben Unwin who played Jesse was  found dead on 14th August - he was 41.   He left H&A in 2005 and became a solicitor. RIP Ben.  He always reminded me of Marti Pellow.

[Red Ranger 1]

Lance and co obviously haven't lost their flair for the overdramatic, although at least Lance took time out to explain the situation to Robbo this time.It must have been an awfully quiet car journey if Robbo only told Jasmine what was going on when they were nearly at the safe house.As H&Alover said, the question is: Why now? Robbo's been living pretty openly in Summer Bay for over a year, despite his claim to deliberately not use his real name the other week. Whilst in a way it's good that the show's makers have recognised there's an awful lot of loose ends from Robbo's hastily created new back story when they decided to make him a regular, just thinking about all the conflicting stories about what happened gives me a headache and it might have been wisest to leave it in the past.Maybe they'll surprise us.We'll see.As ever, it bristled to see John and Marilyn taking the job of talking to Raffy off Justin, although it's probably just a way of keeping her at a distance for a bit.

At least the abrupt end of the wedding reception led to Irene going home early, although not until after the cliche of Colby going to check on her and being stopped by someone.So, did Tommy really just buy those exhibition tickets as expensive bait? Did he even have a plan? If he'd been planning to abduct her, then insisting they stay at her house seemed an odd way to do it, and he seemed generally affronted that she didn't like him.He seems too unstable to have had a coherent plan, so it seems like he mostly just became obsessed with Bella from their online interaction.It's hard to tell if his rant about girls making promises they can't keep is from face to face approaches or if he's done this before: He was, after all, trawling a forum intended for teenagers.(His claim to be a teacher was probably a lie, unless his employers have an even worse vetting process than Summer Bay High.)Whether this will be explored or whether he'll be a plot device remains to be seen, because next on the list of things it might have been wisest to leave in the past... I'll give them this: It makes more sense for Irene to lash out at another predatory male using the phrase "our little secret" than it did for Olivia using the phrase to give her PTSD flashbacks, make her obsess about a never-before-seen blanket and turn back into an abusive drunk for a month or so.But that was still a silly storyline that we didn't need revisiting.And it's rather disappointing that Irene really does lose her claim to be a stable influence on Bella by handling things exactly the same way as Ross or Colby would have done. Indeed, the character dynamics were exactly the same as the beginning of the year: Irene/Colby harms an antagonist unnecessarily and tells Bella/Dean to alert the authorities but, despite trying to stop them, Bella/Dean drags them into a cover-up instead. I suppose at least they dropped him outside a hospital rather than in a ditch.Still, the cover-up makes Irene's claim that "There are no little secrets" unintentionally funny.

[Dan F]

Channel 5's been snipping again (I thought they might given the subject matter) - they cut out a portion of Tommy's assault of Bella where he started kissing her, and also Irene bludgeoning Tommy after the initial blow with the champagne bottle.

[Posy]

Thanks Dan, I thought what we saw wasn’t quite as i’ve seen described..

[CaptainHulk]

Good thing it's not ITV as we'd only get the aftermath with them freaking out, done with the most intelligence-insulting edits. (The kind they were known for from about 1994-2000)

I still think had Reenie NOT come home, Tommy would have more than likely raped Bella. He had her pinned to the bed, FFS! If Irene had her way, she'd have left him to the Dingoes/Possums/Feral cats/Whatever else was out there to nibble on the remains! (Talk of which, I'm still expecting the dogs to start growling around Ross' gravesite)

On a lighter note, I'm expecting the next time the feds come down on the bay Alf to be all like "Oh, Stone the flamin' crows! What now? Leah's Moussaka's good but come on!"

Robbo and Jas would be better off moving to Uruguay at the rate things are going!