Around 85% of this week’s Neighbours script was made up of poo jokes, which I didn’t mind one bit, but there were a few other bits and pieces that I should recap as well.
Dex Has the Most Uneventful Bush Escapade
The Varga-Murphys decide that the best way to get their family dynamic back on track is to drag the kids into the middle of nowhere on a camping trip they don’t want to go on.
Once they get there, Dex gets overruled about where to pitch the tent and then is yelled at for knocking over some food, and he finally loses the plot. JJ has been getting all the attention because he is biologically incapable of making a good decision, and Dex is feeling neglected. He’s also mad that he’s been forced to go camping on account of his brother being a moron. He calls JJ a “loser with a criminal record, no friends, and probably no future,” and I may or may not have yelled, “YES, DEX!” at the TV at this point. Someone had to say it.
After his outburst, Dex storms off, and it’s a while before the rest of the family realise he’s missing. Now, we all know how trips to the bush usually go in Neighbours – someone falls off a cliff or down a mineshaft, gets bitten by a snake, or is trapped in a bushfire. Sometimes more than one of these things happen at once. So, there I was, expecting Dex to have some sort of bush-related mishap once he disappeared, but what happened to him? He went home. Seriously, Neighbours? Whoever went missing in the bush and just went home?
I am DISAPPOINTED.
It was cute that Byron invited Dex around to do some baking and give him a pep talk, though. Byron is becoming an increasingly pure soul.
Is This Haz’s First Week on Earth?
I’m not sure I have enough words to describe how annoying and absolutely clueless Haz has been this past week, but I’ll try. The man is acting like this is his first week on Earth, and he’s interacting with humans for the very first time.
Mackenzie is unwittingly meeting up with the person who has been targeting the residents of Ramsay Street with the deepfakes and hacking campaign, thinking he too is a victim. It transpires that Wade was indeed a victim of Haz’s pathetic little hacker gang, but when he lost his job he retrained as a computer whizz so he could get his revenge, and he’s been the one trying to ruin everyone’s lives. You really have to admire that level of pettiness.
Haz is dumbfounded, and stupidly asks Wade, “You did all of that just to get back at me?” YES, HAZ. Why wouldn’t he? You ruined his life, what were you expecting, a box of Celebrations?
After Mackenzie breaks up with Haz over the whole thing (finally!), Wade can’t help himself from gloating to Haz, thus revealing himself to be the person responsible for all of it. Improbably, he’s decided that he wants to start up a business doing the same thing that Haz’s group did to him, and he threatens to get Mackenzie into legal trouble unless Haz agrees to join him.
Meanwhile, Haz decides to come clean to his friends about his shady past, which makes him indirectly responsible for the things that have happened to them. He writes apology letters to everyone, and I’m pretty sure he expects them all to forgive him because he seems quite surprised when everyone either yells at him, boycotts his business, or gives him death stares from across the street.
I swear Haz has absolutely no clue about human feelings or interactions. If he thinks he can tell everyone about the things he did and that they’ll be OK with it, then he is even more delusional than I originally thought. Is he leaving soon? I’m bored of him.
Aaron Needs to Get in the Bin
Aaron is usually harmless enough but this week he really ground my gears. I understand that he’s still grieving for his husband, and this deepfake stuff has brought a lot of painful feelings back up for him, but that does not give him a pass for enabling Krista’s relapse.
Now, you could argue that Krista is an adult and she’s pretty far along into her relapse by the time she and Aaron go on a bender together, but that doesn’t excuse Aaron for going along with it rather than trying to get her help of some sort. I’m so mad at him over this. They definitely drink together, and it’s heavily implied they do drugs together too. What on earth is Aaron thinking? She’s an addict!
While Aaron and Krista are having a heart-to-heart the next day, Krista drops a bag of pills, which Aaron finds, and it’s only at this point he decides to call her out on it. Better late than never, I suppose.
Bonus points for Leo for being so blisteringly unaware that his girlfriend is in crisis as well. She just went through an absolutely heartbreaking experience, she told him she was tempted to take drugs, and now she’s dodging his calls and going AWOL for hours on end, and he’s just trundling around Lassiters with a dopey grin on his face asking people if they’ve seen her. Men of Erinsborough: DO BETTER.
The Queen is Back!
Susan chooses exactly the wrong (or possibly right) moment to walk back into her house, as Melanie screeches, “You weren’t pooping in public, you were stealing lemons!” at Karl. I think I’d have just done an about-turn and gone back to Sydney. More on the poo in a minute.
I didn’t realise how much I missed Susan until she came back, I’m so glad to see her! Karl is too, even if she is having trouble hiding the fact that she finds his current predicament quite funny.
Terese is looking for an operations manager for the new development, and she realises that Susan is the ideal candidate for the job. Susan is really keen but wonders how Karl will accept her as his boss.
He finds the job contract before she can tell him about the job offer, and he’s surprisingly enthusiastic about it. It’s very sweet how he hypes Susan up actually, and I think she’ll absolutely boss being the operations manager, she and Terese will be a total dream team.
Dr. Pooper
Right, first of all, I enjoyed the poo puns, but I DETEST the word “poop” with every fibre of my soul. I HATE IT. It used to be purely an American word, but it appears to have infected British English in the last decade or so, quite often usurping the word “poo”, which was always our go-to before. I don’t know what it is about that final p that turns it from an innocuous word into something that makes me want to bite my own hand off, but here we are.
Having said that, the graffiti on Karl’s poster that said “Dr. Pooper” was a stroke of genius. Therefore I will give that obnoxious word, which I have had to hear far more than usual this last week, a pass on this one occasion.
It seems that Karl’s shifty behaviour on the bike rides with Melanie was not connected with the spate of phantom poos, but was actually just a spot of fruit-based fraud. He’s been stealing lemons from people’s trees, and then claiming them on expenses from Terese.
So the mystery of who is pooing in gardens remains, but most of the neighbourhood still thinks it’s Karl, thanks to Melanie and Wendy discussing it loudly in the pub. This has led to a crap ton of poo jokes. My favourites were Andrew saying he’d make the graffiti his number two priority and Melanie said, “Defamation? More like defecation!”
Neighbours at its absolute best. But please can we use the p-word a bit bit less next week? Or I might vomit.
