It felt like a bit of a quiet week in Erinsborough, but I suspect because that’s because we’re gearing up for some sort of outback catastrophe soon, judging from the trailers. Honestly, why does anyone ever go into the outback? Someone always falls down a mineshaft or gets bitten by a snake or something. Anyway, there’s probably lots of setting up going on, so let’s recap what happened.
Nic and Aaron Clash Again
Nicolette overhears Aaron calling Logan about their Hepatitis B situation, and she is understandably angry that he’s been hiding it from her. She’s furious that he slept with Logan, knowing that he was a bit of an unhinged stalker, and she gives him a real dressing down.
Kiri talks her into being a little bit more chill about it all, and eventually she shows Aaron some support… to his face at least. Behind his back, she’s still making notes on her phone about all the things he’s done wrong, presumably for some future custody battle which she is gathering evidence for. On the one hand, it’s Aaron’s business who he sleeps with, but on the other hand, some of his actions do affect Isla and Nicolette, so she’s got grounds to be concerned.
After all the drama, Aaron goes to the hospital for some tests, and it’s discovered that he’s been vaccinated for Hepatitis B before, so it’s all fine. It was a little bit of a storm in a teacup, this one, and it felt a bit pointless, other than to give Nicolette a little bit more ammunition against Aaron. At least Leo and Krista are being supportive towards him, he might need them at a later date.
Dex Gets in a Mess
It’s Dex’s turn to be the thicko-deluxe of the Varga-Murphy household this week. Cara is struggling with her college assignment, and Dex decides to give her a boost by sneakily doing it for her. He’s rumbled by Haz after he asks him some IT questions, and Haz gets suspicious about why he’s asking. Haz goes to Remi and tells her what Dex did, and Remi tells him he needs to tell Cara.
Before he gets the chance to come clean, Cara receives a high distinction for the assignment, but then receives word that the university think she cheated. Dex is forced to admit what he did, which causes Cara a huge setback in her confidence.
Honestly, I don’t understand these kids. Cara and Remi are really awesome mums, but their kids are absolutely incapable of making good decisions. I don’t know what Dex thought was going to happen if he did Cara’s assignment for her. What’s the point in her thinking she’s really good at something, when in reality she isn’t? All this was ever going to do was backfire on Cara at one point or another.
The two people in the Varga-Murphy household who need to go on a course are JJ and Dex. Are there courses for common sense, or maybe decision-making? Because these two kids desperately need one.
Toadie is Still Struggling
Toadie’s quite inexplicable descent into some sort of deep malaise continues, with him being entirely nonplussed by Terese’s suggestion that she adopts his surname so she matches him and the kids. Karl urges him to go to therapy, which he does, and he spends most of the session talking about Dee and Sonya.
Nell then adds to his woes when she visits Sonya’s nursery with JJ, and finds it in disarray. Toadie then has to admit that he was aware the place had gone to rack and ruin, and Nell’s insistence that it be kept open as a nursery gives him one more problem that needs to be addressed.
I’m kind of bored with this storyline now. I still don’t really understand why he’s suddenly having such a crisis about his past relationships, aside from spending a little bit of time in his old house. His midlife crisis kind of reached its peak in terms of interest for me a couple of weeks ago, and I’m wishing they would speed things along. We’ve got limited Toadie Time left, and I would rather have Fun Toadie than Midlife Crisis Toadie.
I also really feel for Terese in all of this. She forgave him after he cheated on her, and she thinks they’re in a really good place in their relationship, while all the time Toadie is having some sort of crisis about his collection of past wives. She’s going to feel utterly betrayed and humiliated when she eventually finds out.
Holly is Doing a Holly Again
Holly is going full steam ahead with her relationship with Keith despite there being more than a couple of signs that he’s not a good egg (I know his name is Heath, but I misheard it as Keith and that’s just who he is now).
Keith goes into the law office to ask about some legal work on a house sale and introduces himself to Mackenzie under a different name to the one he’s using with everyone else. She looks into his background and finds out that he’s been convicted for fraud. She immediately tells Krista, who passes the information on to Tess. Tess then has to pretend that she wasn’t already fully aware of this information, so we get to see the most wooden actor on Neighbours try to act as though she’s acting, and Keith has to deliver the sob story to end all sob stories in order to wriggle out of the sticky situation. He later threatens Mackenzie to stay away from him.
Despite the casual fraud, the lying about his name and him threatening one of her friends, Holly is still hell bent on continuing her fling with him, because she obviously couldn’t spot a red flag if it wrapped itself around her head. Later, Sadie even sees Keith and Tess cavorting in the bushes, but that’s not even enough to persuade Holly to call things off with Keith, especially when he gives her some expensive jewellery. Holly’s had her fair share of criticism for her mum, but it turns out the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree.
Paul is Back
Keith and Tess are still up to something, and it appears to be a plot to oust Krista from the Sinclair business empire, for some reason. Krista seems pretty oblivious to it all until Paul comes back and straight away smells a rat. Leo is also suspicious, and the three of them cook up a plot to try to lure Tess into revealing what her nefarious plan might be. Paul is absolutely living his best life as soon as he’s back, with a bit of plotting and scheming. It’s good to see Paul back again, and nice that he’s got some wheeling and dealing to do right away.
A Few Random Notes
As usual, here are a few random notes I took while watching Neighbours this week:
- Keith looks like Aldi Zac Effron.
- Holly is colourblind – can’t see red flags.
- Ew, Toad’s hands are filthy!
- “It kind of struck me how crazy my life has been.” Yeah, you could say that, Toadie 😂😂😂
