It’s one of those weeks again where I haven’t managed to watch Friday’s episode, but it’s been a pretty rip-roaring four days on Neighbours so there’s plenty to talk about.
Hendrix Has a Gun in the Oven
I knew that the Hendrix situation was going to end badly, but I don’t think anyone could have predicted that it would end up with Shane getting shot by Karl and Susan’s pizza oven. This is Erinsborough though, so that’s exactly what happens. Hendrix takes the gun from one of the dodgy extras at Kane’s blackjack game, but then immediately panics, because although he’s taken to wearing a big gold chain like some sort of gangster, really he’s a rich boy from the suburbs and doesn’t have the faintest idea what to do with a gun. Bea and Levi nearly catch Hendrix and Jay with the gun, so Hendrix stuffs it into the pizza oven to hide it. Of course, Bea and Levi are about to make pizzas, so when Dipi and Shane come over to confront Jay about what’s been going on, the heat from the oven sets the gun off and shoots Shane in the leg. That’s two out of the three Rebecchi brothers that have a bullet wound now, and honestly, I would not be surprised if it turns out that Stoney has one as well. I bet he wasn’t shot by a pizza oven though.
Despite the fact that Shane and Amy have only had one date and a quick fumble, when she hears Shane has been injured, Amy rushes to the hospital dressed like Birthday Party Barbie. She proceeds to be a bit put out that nobody phoned her, and that visitation priority is being given to Shane’s brother, kids, and a woman who’s been his wife for a couple of decades. Wind your neck in, Amy.
Sausage-gate Largely Forgotten
I asked if everyone could stop mentioning Gary’s sausage, and my wish was granted. I had one question throughout most of last week, and that was, is the sausage lady OK? She throws up in the Lassiters car park on Friday and then we never hear anything more about it until Thursday when we learn that poor Jacinta is in hospital. Kyle finds out that one of the judges has been poisoned, so he double-checks the sausage ingredients with Roxy, and she proudly shows him the patch of death cap mushrooms that she used to make the gravy. They destroy all the pies they made using the gravy, not knowing that Toadie has already half-inched a box of them. He immediately tries to palm them off on Aaron and David, but strangely enough, they decide they don’t want kangaroo pies made on a tram by a lawyer, so the rogue death pies will presumably be off to another house on Ramsay Street to hospitalize its occupants.
Hostage Harlow
In the middle of all the panic about Shane getting shot by the pizza oven (and no, I’m not going to stop describing it that way), we see Harlow gets dragged into a van. Well, more accurately, we see a van pull up and a comedy shot of Harlow’s feet levitating, so we presume that’s what has happened. She ends up chained up in some outbuilding at a boatyard, and naturally, everyone assumes that Kane is behind it. Detective Nicolette figures out that it’s one of the other players from the blackjack games, and embarks on a very risky rescue plan. Luckily, the tiny pregnant lady somehow manages to overpower the kidnapper who is armed with a baseball bat, and Harlow is saved. Nicolette thinks that Aaron and David are going to be furious with her, but it turns out David is really hard to predict sometimes. Apparently, in his eyes, going to an illegal card game is one of the most irresponsible things you can do – but confronting an armed kidnapper alone, while pregnant with his child, is a tip-top idea, so this appears to be Nicolette’s redemption. Honestly, you just don’t know which way David is going to flip sometimes.
Rather than take Harlow home to have a nice hot shower and get into some clean comfies after her kidnapping ordeal, Paul and Terese just plonk her down at a table in The Waterhole with chicken schnitzel. Was anyone else wondering where she’d been going to the toilet while she’d been chained up? Sheila had better wipe that seat down. Obviously, Paul is relieved to have his granddaughter back safe and sound. “I’ll never let anything like that happen to you again,” he says to the person whose dad is in prison (when he isn’t escaping), whose mother exploded, and who got thrown down an abandoned mine by a psychopath. Teenagers, eh? There’s never a dull moment.
