*UK PACE*
How is it June already? I do not like how fast we are hurtling towards the end times, but the writers are definitely doing their best to keep us all hooked. Last week was a fun week in Erinsborough.
Hendrix and Mackenzie Decide To Plan a Wedding in Minutes
In true Erinsborough style, Hendrix and Mackenzie have brought forward their wedding because is it really a Neighbours wedding if it isn’t hurriedly thrown together in a few days? The catalyst for this decision is Hendrix’s transplant surgery, which is on and then off and then on again, after a serious lack of judgment from Hendrix. He gets the news that he’s about to get his lung transplant but becomes fixated on finding out the identity of his donor, despite it being against the rules. With some detective work from Mackenzie, they figure out who the donor is and sneak into his hospital room so that Hendrix can thank him. Predictably they get sprung by a relative, who thinks they’re just being rubbernecking ghouls and is rightly furious. Minutes after returning home, Hendrix gets the call that his donor has been taken off the list, and he won’t get his transplant after all.
Mackenzie decides that the way to fix the situation is to do the exact thing that caused the problem in the first place, so she goes to the hospital to speak to the donor’s family again. Luckily, she manages to convince them to change their minds, and Hendrix’s surgery is back on. They then decide to get married before the transplant, in a week’s time, because that’s the perfect way for Hendrix to feel nice and relaxed before he gets one of his major organs replaced.
Pierce 1 is Back
The heady mix of a lung transplant and a wedding is too much for even the most apathetic parent to ignore, so Pierce feels the need to come to Erinsborough to do a little bit of light fathering. Although what he seems more intent on doing is rubbing everyone up the wrong way – getting into a shouting match with Nicolette outside the coffee shop and having a barbed exchange with his arch-nemesis Paul.
My second favourite part of Pierce’s return so far is when he incredulously asks Paul, “Did you really try to buy a baby?”. Yes, yes, he did. Because he’s Paul Robinson, and he is an actual trash bag disguised in a designer suit. But my top favourite is Chloe ripping him a new one over his past behaviour and making reference to him being “a completely different person”. Ha! I see what the writers did there…
Estelle Joins Forces With Paul
I thought Terese’s mum was going to be good fun, but it turns out she’s pretty awful. For one thing, I don’t think the lady who plays her is going to be troubling the Oscar nominations this year. Or any year, for that matter. For another thing, she’s an emotionally unstable child-woman who only cares about money and just loves wafting around the house in a negligée. Apparently, she has a track record of trying to steal Terese’s partners, and it certainly looks like she might be attempting that with Glen at first, but then she sets her sights firmly on Paul Robinson. She says she’s loyal to Terese and only trying to get close to him to find ammunition to help her daughter get her divorce settlement. Still, after Paul gives her a diamond bracelet, it seems she might have abandoned any noble intentions she might once have had.
In an effort to ingratiate herself with Terese, Estelle offers to do the food shopping, and it appears that despite her being a fully-fledged grown-up, she’s never actually been food shopping before. She attempts to carry the shopping home in her handbag, which breaks and spills everything all over the floor. Designer handbags aren’t meant for lugging your four-pack of Heinz Beans home from ASDA. Estelle, for that job you’ll require a shopping bag. The clue’s in the name. When she gets home, she throws a full-on hissy fit because Terese’s groceries broke her bag and Terese won’t buy her a new one, then she flounces straight over to the penthouse to see her new best friend, Paul. She is such a brat.
I don’t quite know what Paul is up to with Estelle, and I don’t know if he’s just flirting with her to annoy Terese or if there’s more to his scheming. Whatever he’s up to, Terese is definitely not going to like it, which is fun for us because Terese is very entertaining when she’s angry.
Harlow Becomes a Drug Dealer
Glen has been struggling with his back pain since the accident at the vineyard, and he’s reluctant to take narcotics due to his problems with addiction. Harlow offers to keep hold of the drugs for him so that he won’t be tempted to take too many, and he initially refuses, but the pain gets so bad that he starts self-medicating (I told you this would happen!) and decides that he needs some support after all.
Harlow offering to help Glen is awfully kind but terribly misguided. Glen should be supervised by someone who knows what they’re doing, like, I don’t know, Clive? A doctor who is aware of Glen’s problems and who offered him a supervised treatment plan when he was in the hospital? That guy? Instead, Glen decides that rather than going to a medical professional with years of experience, he’s going to entrust his opiates to his great-niece, who’s only been out of high school for a couple of years. Just last week, she was on some sort of hallucinogenic tea after being kidnapped by a cult. What could possibly go wrong? The answer, of course, is everything. Everything is going to go wrong.
Levi and Freya Get Their Act Together A Bit Too Enthusiastically
After weeks of blowing hot and cold, Levi and Freya are finally on after Levi makes a toe-curlingly embarrassing public declaration of love. He rocks up on the street in a police car, sirens blaring, and asks Freya out on a date, which I am sure is some sort of misuse of publicly funded equipment. It’s unlikely anyone would have the motivation to do this to me, but a grand gesture like this would have me running for the hills as fast as my chubby little legs could carry me. Absolutely horrific.
As if the public spectacle wasn’t bad enough, the two of them get a bit too enthusiastic and end up naked in some bushes at the lake, and once they come up for air, they find that some local oiks have half-inched their clothes. This reminds me of the episode from approximately 700 B.C. when Scott, Charlene, Mike, and Jane went to the beach, and the girls persuaded the boys to go skinny-dipping, then scarpered with their clothes. Ahh, the past…
