*UK PACE*
This is my last round-up before I go on holiday. I’m already feeling slightly panicked by the idea of having three weeks of Neighbours to catch up on when I get home, so you guys might have to be patient while I wade through the backlog.
Enough of that, though; let’s get on with rounding up last week’s episodes.
Freya Tells a Few More Lies
With the blackmailer’s demands for money being too much for David and Freya to handle alone, Freya contacts her estranged brother and feeds him a few lies about why she needs his help to borrow some money from their parents. It seems like Freya was forced to choose between a relationship with her family or one with Gareth, and she picked Gareth, which we all know now was a terrible decision. Another terrible decision is the one her brother makes to give her the money himself.
Freya and David pay the blackmailer, but the tension doesn’t end there. David sees Creepy Dean driving a new car and assumes he bought it using the money they just paid, so he confronts Dean and then keys his car, which is exactly the sort of thing he should avoid doing, considering he just committed a huge crime which he’s trying to hide from the police. Incidentally, Creepy Dean turns out not to be the blackmailer, after all, so now he has a terrible moustache and a scratched-up car for no good reason.
It all turns into a big old mess, so in the end, David persuades Freya that they have to go and confess, making the fact they just gave away thousands of dollars to their blackmailer absolutely pointless. But, of course, we could all see that David was going to crumble like a Cadbury’s Flake, so I don’t know why they didn’t all save their cash for their legal fees and confess before now.
The proverbial hit the fan in a big way when they arrive at the hospital to find Levi telling Clive that an accusation has been made against them because the police in Erinsborough have never met a friend, neighbour, or on/off romantic partner that they didn’t want to arrest for something or other. Despite the huge conflict of interests that Sergeant Rodwell even points out to him, Levi is way more involved in Freya’s arrest than he should be, but outside the station, he wants absolutely nothing to do with her. He’s noticed that she lies as often as most people change their socks, so he’s not interested in anything she has to say to him. Aaron tries to talk to Levi about her, and he has the decency to excuse himself on account of the conflict of interests. Still, Aaron is clearly dying to throw her under the bus to deflect blame away from David, so I don’t think it’s going to be too long before Levi learns a few more things about Freya.
Susan Discovers That Karl Has Lost His Mind
Karl is normally the tightest man in Erinsborough, but he’s gone temporarily insane and thinks it’s a good idea to plunge almost all of his life savings into Montana’s new make-up business. The investment would be unwise enough if it was just his money he was risking, but it isn’t. The money also belongs to Susan, who explicitly told him she didn’t want to invest in Montana’s business. Susan finds the canceled cheque for $20,000 that Karl was originally going to invest, and he has to admit that he upped the amount by casually adding another zero.
Susan is devastated and furious, which she has absolutely every right to be, but Karl still doesn’t seem to be able to see what her problem with it is. He is all of a sudden so incredibly enthusiastic about eyeliner and contour kits that he thinks it’s worth chucking their entire retirement fund at it. Still, Susan demands that they find out how to get their money back. Toadie looks over the contract and finds a clause that says they can call off the investment as long as both parties agree, so Karl invites Montana round, and Susan drops a lot of heavy hints about how they don’t have money to waste. Karl still isn’t helping, he’s trying to talk Montana up, but Susan seems to be starting to chip away at the ice queen with her sob story until Montana overhears her saying that the cosmetics industry is exploitative. At that point, Montana flounces off, rather more indignant than she has any right to be, considering she’s on the verge of being arrested for some sort of fraud, and she’s knowingly about to lose most of the Kennedys’ retirement fund.
Mackenzie Has Also Lost Her Mind
Mackenzie has been totally swept up in her new role as a model for Fashion Week and is putting her studies on the back burner to accommodate it. So much so that she decides not to turn up for a mock trial which is part of her final assessment, just so she can wear a succession of uncomfortable-looking dresses to be photographed by Mick. Honestly, if the fact that he’s the photographer doesn’t raise at least a couple of red flags, I’m not sure Mackenzie is really cut out for a career as a sharp-witted legal eagle anyway. Only Hendrix seems to be a bit panicked at the thought of her not turning up to such a big part of her final assessment, and when the voice of reason is a person who gambled away a house he didn’t even own, then I think we can safely say the wheels have rather come off your life. This is surely going to end up in disaster – for one thing, I do not trust Mick to be able to take and edit decent photographs, as glorious as he is, but the main issue is that it would be obvious to a blind man on a galloping horse that Mackenzie is about to fail her university course.
Chloe and Nicolette Team Up to be Stupid Together
I cannot get my head around what these two have been up to this week. They’ve both noticed that Glen is acting a bit weirdly around Kiri – Chloe even walks in on him having a quick snoop through Kiri’s keepsake box – but bizarrely, they decide that the best way to deal with the situation is for them to team up to monitor Glen’s behaviour. Even more bizarrely, once they’ve decided he’s definitely being a bit sketchy, they think the best course of action is to approach Kiri and Glen’s boss about it.
They have no proof that Kiri has even noticed Glen’s awkwardness, let alone any evidence of her being uncomfortable because of it. In fact, Kiri seems to enjoy spending time with Glen. So, of course, the normal, rational thing for them to do would be to just have a word with Kiri, but this is Neighbours, and everyone is mad, so they complain to Leo about the possibility that he’s harassing Kiri, who clearly remains blissfully unaware of all of it. It’s almost as if Chloe and Nicolette detected a minor issue and then workshopped the stupidest and least effective way they could possibly deal with it. They both need to take up pottery classes or something, and they obviously have too much time on their hands.
