Neighbours last week was one of my favourite sort of weeks – one with a number of silly, comedy storylines. Even better when they distract from the boring Brent/Harlow debacle which seems like it will never end. Here are a few of my thoughts on last week.
Toadie’s Love Life is a Disaster
I have made my views on the Toadie and Melanie romance very clear, but the mess he found himself in last week amused me greatly. Karl and Susan have got nothing better to do than to speculate about Toadie’s love life, and who his mystery woman might be, while Toadie scrabbles to keep his fling with Melanie under wraps. Thanks to Mackenzie, who has never met a secret that she didn’t immediately blab to someone else, Karl and Susan get the wrong end of the stick and think that he is dating Super Karen, Angela Lane. What he’s actually doing is representing her daughter in some legal trouble she’s got herself into, but Mackenzie reports to Karl and Susan that Angela is Toadie’s mystery woman. Meanwhile, Angela happens to be there when Toadie gets sprung with a package from Juicy Jungle, which appears to be a website dealing only in the very niche item of animal print lingerie.
Susan, who lives for interfering, decides to give Angela the “don’t you dare hurt Toadie” speech during a meeting with her, which is incredibly unprofessional since Angela had asked to see her in her capacity as a school principal, although quite why I expect anyone on Neighbours to show any sort of professionalism by now is beyond me. I’ve got to mention Suze getting absolutely trolleyed on piña coladas to numb the pain of finding out that Toadie’s doing bedroom gymnastics with her arch-nemesis as well, although I wish we’d seen drunk Susan and not just the hungover version. Susan’s protective speech leads to Angela getting totally the wrong end of the stick and thinking that Susan is hinting that Toadie is interested in her. Angela makes a purchase from Juicy Jungle, which clearly has very efficient same-day delivery, then goes round to his house to flash a bit of her new “brassiere”, which was simultaneously one of the funniest and most awkward things I’ve ever seen. I hate the word “brassiere”, it makes me throw up a little bit in my mouth.
The whole sorry saga culminates in Karl and Susan inviting Angela round for dinner in order to show support for Toadie, then Melanie barging in to set everyone straight. At least it’s all out in the open now, which has to be less stressful for everyone (including us) than all the subterfuge.
Brent Still Hasn’t Gone Away Yet
Oh god, when is this storyline going to end? I thought it would end when Brent went to prison, but now we get to see him in the prison courtyard in those green T-shirts that all the prisoners wear. At least Brent will feel at home in a drab T-shirt. I’m just so bored of this story. I don’t care about Brent, I don’t care about Harlow and Paul’s feud – I don’t care about any of it.
Jane’s Still Being a Super Pain
Jane is still in full chihuahua mode and will take literally any opportunity to slag Curtis off, especially after finding out that he purposefully organized her stint in Mildura to get rid of her. Who can blame him, really? Despite the fact that she loved it in Mildura, Jane is still salty about it all and even tries comparing Curtis to Brent, which is a bit of a stretch. I’m not sure you can compare burglary and handling stolen goods with calling in a favour from an old colleague to get Plain Jane the Super Pain out of your hair for a couple of weeks. Jane needs to get a hobby or something.
There’s Some Volleyball
Roxy’s volleyball tournament seems to have been going on for about three months, and all that’s really happened there is that Nicolette wore a sun visor and became some sort of pushy nightmare, and Kyle got whacked in the face with a ball. Sheila cooked up a batch of some mysterious ‘Canning Cure’, which Kyle had never heard of despite it apparently being an old family recipe, and smeared it all over his face. I’m genuinely not sure how rubbing lavender and turmeric slime all over yourself would help a sore nose, but I enjoy any opportunity for Kyle to look daft.
Fancying Someone Makes You Lose All of Your Spatial Awareness Apparently
Hendrix tells Mackenzie that he likes her as more than a friend, and then immediately loses all sense of spatial awareness, unable to do anything without walking into things, tripping, or knocking things over. As someone who does all of these things on an exhaustingly regular basis, I can confirm that fancying someone a bit does not make you more clumsy. It’s such a weird TV trope that I’ve never understood. I’m still not on board with Hendrix and Mackenzie either.
Ned and Sheila are My Favourite Thing
Ned and Sheila are a ray of sunshine and I wish Sheila would stay on as a regular, although that seems extremely unlikely considering the way Shareena Clanton was treated on set. She’s so likable and she and Ned are super cute together, making art puns and doing painting lessons. It’s adorable, and he has way more chemistry with Sheila than he’s ever had with Yashvi.
Nobody Cares About Your Podcast, Bea
I honestly don’t think I can accurately put into words how little I care about Bea’s podcast, and that is coming from someone who consumes a truly heroic quantity of podcasts every week. I just don’t care. Bea is so boring, I bet her podcast voice is even more monotonous than the Casefile man, and that’s saying something.
