Photo: © Channel 5.
None of us watch Neighbours for gritty realism, but even I am having to suspend my disbelief rather a lot with this current Finn plotline. Don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining at all – I love Neighbours in all its bonkers glory, and this storyline is no exception. It’s gloriously ridiculous.
I predicted that Imogen would have to do a bit of legal gymnastics to stop Finn from going to prison for a very long time, but she didn’t really. She argued that because Finn didn’t remember the trauma that had turned him evil, that he wasn’t evil, so therefore he shouldn’t go to prison. It was a pretty weak argument, if you ask me. He still committed the crimes, and there’s no doubt about that. The trial basically hinged on the statements from Finn’s victims.
Gary got up and wobble-voiced his way through Xanthe’s statement, which was pretty damning, and Bea and Elly were expected to make equally negative statements. Susan’s statement was expected to be positive, and she didn’t disappoint. Susan loves nothing more than a delinquent child as a project, even one who is actually a grown man with retrograde amnesia, so she sang his praises and begged the judge not to send him to prison. Her championing of Finn supposedly holds more weight because she is one of his victims, but let’s not forget that this is the woman who pushed him off a cliff and then tried to hide it from the police. Are we really going to place huge importance on her view of criminal justice?
Susan makes her statement. Photo: © Channel 5. Source: Digital Spy
Anyway.
Bea also did an about-turn and said Finn shouldn’t go to prison, much to Gary’s displeasure. Elly’s life continues to spiral further downhill, and she finally found out that the father of her baby is none other than Finn’s very dull and very orange brother, Shaun. Due to some super awkward dialogue delivered inexplicably in front of Shaun, he figured out her secret, and then used it to blackmail her. In return for him keeping the secret about the baby from Mark, he asked Elly to change her statement and side with Susan and Bea. Never one to miss an opportunity to make the wrong decision, Elly did as he asked.
OK, so three of his victims don’t feel that he should go to prison. That’s all very well, but I’m not sure that would hold enough weight in most legal systems. But this is Erinsborough, where you can push a man off a cliff and still be the school principal, so the judge came up with the utterly mad solution that Finn should not be given a custodial sentence, providing Imogen could find him ‘suitable’ accommodation within 24 hours. It seems a bit weird to me to offer this option in the same way that a travel agent might offer a 50% off flash sale – either you want this man to go to prison or you don’t, I’m not sure that treating his custody arrangements like some sort of last minute weekend getaway is helpful to anyone.
But obviously the writers did this to make the whole situation more urgent, and it meant that Shaun could play the baby truth bomb card again and make Elly put pressure on the Kennedys to take Finn in, which she did, and the judge agreed to.
Wait, what?
Yes, the judge is absolutely fine with Finn going to live with the Kennedys.
Finn doing his best sad face. Photo: © Channel 5. Source: Digital Spy
This whole storyline is absolutely mad, but this part of it really takes the cake. I’m not sure if the judge had downed several bottles of wine between court hearings, but her judgement must have been seriously impaired for her to have agreed to this absolutely bonkers option.
Finn tried to poison Susan, and he set up a spy camera in her home. He pretended to be someone else entirely and tricked Bea into having a serious relationship with him, then locked her, Susan and Elly in a shipping container and left them to die. Susan eventually pushed him off a cliff – and the judge thinks it’s a great idea to put all these people in a house together? That’s her definition of ‘suitable’ accommodation?
It comes to something when Elly isn’t the person making the most baffling decisions in Erinsborough any more…
