Welcome to this week’s Ramsay Street Round-Up! There were some absolutely peak-Neighbours moments this last week, and there a few different storylines rumbling along nicely. Let’s get into it.
Reece’s 90s Necklace
Reece is being very mysterious about a necklace she’s had squirrelled away in a jewellery box in her room, because we all take a massive jewellery box with us when we go on holiday. She sees some of the staff going through the lost property and mucking about with a sun pendant that seems to be a part of the set that her moon pendant belongs to. I can’t get over the 1990s vibe of this jewellery, we loved a sun or moon motif back then. I had an absolutely grotesque blue mirror with gold suns and moons all around it that all appeared to be set into a background made of poly filler, it was heinous.
I’m getting sidetracked.
Reece finds out that lost property gets donated to the Foundation, so she goes rooting around the boxes trying to find the pendant she saw, and she eventually spies it on the floor. This necklace is obviously very significant to her, and I’m dying to find out what the story is here.
Meanwhile, Byron is still trying to show Reece “his world”, which seems to involve Reece reminding him every five minutes of quite how rich she is and how strange she finds his little world of peasantry. It all made me feel quite icky actually, she’s acting like she’s never been inside a “normal” house before. What’s Byron going to do next week? Take her on a bus? A romantic outing to the local tip? I can’t wait to find out.
GI Jane
Jane is still reeling from the news that Terese wants to bulldoze the school and pop a “retirement experience” there instead, and she seems ready to fight to the death. Incidentally, “retirement experience” sounds like some sort of theme park for old people. I’m thinking mobility scooter racetracks and shops where you can bedazzle a customised tartan shopping trolley.
Wendy tries to help Jane brainstorm what to do about the school’s plight, and Jane repays her with a bit of advice, telling her to sort out her argument with Cara. Apparently it’s fine for Jane to be fighting with Terese, but Wendy and Cara aren’t allowed to be arguing. My favourite Jane moment is where she says, “Thanks for the wine, Wendy,” having drank exactly none of it, and just buggers off as soon as Wendy sits down. To be fair, I’d do the same.
Mack’s Man
Mackenzie goes on a date to try to distract her from the fact that she’s incredibly sad about Haz having a “relentlessly nice” new girlfriend. Her date doesn’t turn up, so she gets the barman at the Waterhole to make her increasingy less appetising drinks until she can barely stand up. She’s rescued by a stranger who’s been lurking around in the shadows, staring at her like some sort of massive creep. I got bad vibes from this guy straight away, he looks like a charming vampire from a YA novel.
Of course, it turns out the this mysterious “Ed” is Holly’s ex-boyfriend Eden, and the proverbial is going to hit the fan in a big way when she finds out who Mackenzie’s new love interest is.
Sadie and Holly decide they have to check Mack’s new guy out, so they head to the vineyard, where he is working his first shift. I’m sorry, but this strikes me as really weird behaviour. It’s extremely over the top, especially considering that Mackenzie hasn’t even been on a date with him yet. Sadie is unnervingly invested in Mackenzie’s love life and it’s weird.
Eden sees Holly at the table and manages to get the heck out of there, but it’s only a matter of time.
Incidentally, what does Sadie do? Is she Abigail’s nanny? She doesn’t go to school any more, but the only thing I’ve seen her doing which vaguely looks like work is minding Abigail for Leo. Has this been addressed in the show at all?
Terese Goes Casual
In his quest to get Terese to relax, Toadie decides to try to get her into a pair of tracksuit bottoms. This made me laugh a lot, because when he produces the trousers, Terese is perched at her kitchen counter in a cocktail dress. You know, just normal weekend attire. You’ll definitely find me in my cocktail dress at the weekend, and absolutely not in some holey leggings and a knock-off Oodie with soup down the front.
Somehow, he does manage to get her to put them on, and they’re a revelation to her. I actually like this aspect of Terese and Toadie’s relationship, it’s fun to see her being a bit less uptight. I do think she’d be more at home in some sort of velour designer number though.
Trouble for the Varga-Murphys
With the threat from Cara’s dodgy previous employers hanging over their heads and the homophobia incident at school, the Varga-Murphys are a bit on edge to say the least. This isn’t helped by someone yeeting a brick through their car window.
My main takeaway from this moment was that seconds before the Varga-Murphys saw the smashed car window, Wendy had been across the street, merrily waving to them. She was on the side of the car with the smashed window, so how did she not see it? Why did she just give them a cheery wave instead of telling them their car window was smashed? I’m sure it’s just a weird Neighbours oddity and not further evidence that Wendy is an absolute psychopath.
Andrew is Almost as Daft as Wendy
Wendy confesses to Andrew that she found her watch, and he urges her to go and apologise to the Varga-Murphys for accusing JJ of stealing it. She does this, and it goes down about as well as a cup of cold sick with Cara. Remy tries to be a bit more gracious, but Cara is having absolutely none of it.
With the Varga-Murphys’ car out of action, Wendy suggests that Andrew takes JJ for his driving lesson instead, probably as a way to try to win favour with JJ’s mums. JJ is pretty thrilled to spend some time with Andrew, who he think is his dad, but the whole situation is making Dexter really nervous about their mums finding out about JJ’s theory. He’s not very good at playing it cool either, let’s hope that Dex never gets taken in for any sort of interrogation, because he will crumble immediately.
Now, I know the point of this bit was to see Andrew bonding with his possible son, but I get really bogged down with the minor details and all I could focus on was that Andrew decided to take JJ to practice parallel parking right next to open water, where there was no guard rail. Is he thick?
Also, what kind of monster buys a Cornetto for someone and unwraps it before giving it to them? The Rodwells are all so incredibly strange.
And Finally…
I always like to see a heritage character pop up, however briefly, and it was very fun to see Hilary Robinson again. It’s so strange, she seemed incredibly old to me way back in the 1980s and 1990s, but she can’t have been really, unless she’s about 117 now…
