It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, so hang your Jim Robinson bauble on the tree and settle in for the final Ramsay Street Round-Up of the year.
Paul and Terese Get Back Together
I’ll be quite honest, this special episode felt a little bit pointless to me. We all knew Paul and Terese would eventually get back together, so devoting a whole episode to it and filming on location seemed a little over the top, especially since I was expecting some sort of life and death situation for Leo, and it seems the only casualty in the whole affair was Leo’s jacket.
How it all comes about is that Leo thinks he’s got info on where Seb is hiding out, so he goes to find him, but Paul finds Seb at the Waterhole instead, and Seb tells Paul that Leo is in danger. Paul and Terese jump in the car to go and track Leo down.
As pointless as this all is, it’s very well filmed, and the bit where Paul and Terese are searching the run-down house is genuinely creepy, but they find nothing but some old pizza and a scrap of Leo’s jacket caught on a fence. Paul starts frantically searching for Leo, and for a while it was looking like a second Tanaka twin might have fallen from a cliff. This bit of the episode made me laugh out loud, because we see Paul picking his way precariously down the cliff, leaving Terese at the top, but by the time he’s scrabbled his way down, she’s already at the bottom. I can only think she has some sort of executive utility belt, like Batman, with grappling hooks and repelling equipment.
Anyway, Leo isn’t at the bottom of the cliff, and there’s no sign of him anywhere. Paul is panicking, but then he gets a message from Leo to say he’s fine, which feels like such a huge anticlimax.
It’s at this point we move on to the actual point of this caper, as Paul and Terese are unable to get home due to a roadblock, so they have to check into the world’s tackiest Air BnB, owned by hosts who seem intent on making sure their guests spend their entire stay boning. If I were Terese I’d have been inspecting those sheets carefully to make sure they’d been thoroughly cleaned.
Predictably, neither of them can sleep and they end up having a big deep and meaningful heart-to-heart. Paul lays it all on the line for Terese, but she’s adamant they shouldn’t get back together because they always end up hurting each other. Her resolve doesn’t last though and the next day they do get back together, and not a single one of us is surprised.
They seem very happy to be back on, but Terese is keeping it a secret from people because she’s worried that people will judge them for their endlessly on again/off again romance. I’d say people would be completely over that by now after the number of times they’ve broken up and got back together. But it’s clearly not all sunshine and rainbows and there are going to be a few bumps along the way for Paul and Terese.
Yaz Is Just Openly Hating Holly To Her Face Now
Yaz is being more and more openly hostile to Holly, not even making an effort to hide the fact that she hates her guts, which is awkward since she gave her a job. Yaz is snapping at Holly every time she says or does anything, and Holly is acting like a kicked puppy who keeps on coming back for more.
After Holly mentions her therapist, Yaz gets the bright idea to break into her office and steal a look at Holly’s notes, but for some reason she decides to do this in the middle of the night when she has Nicolette staying over, which seems like an absolutely mad time to do it.
I still can’t quite get a read on Yaz and Nicolette’s relationship, does Yaz genuinely like Nicolette or is she useful to her in her revenge plot somehow?
The House Share Is Falling Apart
Vera decides she’s making a festive brunch of chocolate chip and prune pancakes for everyone on Christmas Day. Nobody wants to go, because they’re all idiots who can’t see what an absolute icon Vera is, and sadly Vera hears them talking about how they don’t want to spend time with her. She cancels brunch and decides it might be time to move out.
Max is also feeling decidedly unwelcome there as well, since he made a move on Sadie and didn’t respect her boundaries when she told him she wasn’t interested. I can’t cope with him moping around feeling sorry for himself while he tres to find somewhere new to live, he has nobody to blame for this but himself.
Nicolette is also moving out, since Jane has finally deigned to give Nicolette permission to live with her own child again. I’ll never be OK with the way Jane handled this, and she shouldn’t get to stand there and enjoy the warm and fuzzy feeling she gets from inviting Nicolette back to live with them.
Holly Is Traumatised
Holly is home alone for Christmas, but instead of a cheerful romp with two incompetent thieves, she’s treated to a hefty dose of trauma courtesy of Yaz and her unhinged plot to get revenge for Keith’s (Heath’s) death. Yaz has managed to gain access to Holly and Keith’s text messages, and she finds a reference to an expensive perfume she asked him to buy for her, so Yaz posts some to her, with a note saying it’s from Heath.
Poor Holly is understandably terrified and traumatised by this. At this point I’m feeling very sorry for Holly, she’s really been through a lot, and I don’t know how she’s still on her feet – and Yaz clearly hasn’t finished with her yet.
Krista Gives Seb an Ultimatum
Seb returns, and Krista demands an explanation from him. He tells her his whole sorry tale, and she gives him an ultimatum – if he wants to stay with her he has to get clean. Unable to promise that, Seb takes another $20k from her to pay off his debts and slinks off, saying he’ll stay out of her life from now, but it seems he hasn’t gone very far as Dex later sees him sleeping in one of the offices on Power Road.
Cara and Remi Book a Trip
I couldn’t really understand why Cara and Remi booking a trip to New York was such a big plot point, because I didn’t care in the slightest and thought it was just a way to explain their absence for a few weeks, in the normal way that characters are rotated in and out.
But, the whole point of this storyline turns out to be so that Cara can catch sight of Chelsea at the airport, with a very pronounced baby bump. I absolutely knew this was going to happen! Right as Paul and Terese get back together, here comes Chelsea with a Robinson branded bun in the oven. This is going to be very tasty in the new year. All that remains to be determined is if the baby is actually Paul’s, or if she might be lying about it for money. We’ll see….
Sadie and/or Seb In Danger
Max, Sadie and Byron end up at the penthouse for Christmas after Trevor ruins the Harris/Stone Christmas meal by pinching the turkey (he deserves it for being such a good boy). Max leaves early and goes home to find Vera eating alone, and she tells him she heard them all talking about her the previous day. Max rushes out to get takeaway for the two of them and runs in Sadie and Byron on their way home.
They’re all mortified that Vera heard them, and so they start trying to figure out how they’re going to make it up to her. While they’re organising themselves, a car comes speeding along Power Road intent on knocking Seb down, but Sadie is also in the line of fire. Max rushes to the rescue and we hear a thud, but we have no idea who’s been hit. And we’ll have to wait until the new year to find out.
I’m a little bit disappointed that the year didn’t end on Yaz’s revenge plot, as I thought that’s where we were heading before the Christmas break. I know we’ve been left with a cliffhanger, but it’s a little bit of a disappointing one compared to what I thought we were going to get. I thought we were going to get a massive disaster involving more than a couple of the residents, with us not knowing who’d made it until January. Here’s hoping that the new year starts with a big bang instead.
A Few Random Notes
As usual, here are a few random notes I took while watching Neighbours this week:
- This is the tackiest Air BnB ever.
- Terese’s belly laugh is everything.
- The singing at the piano bar looks like an absolute nightmare.
- I’m sorry Holly, but in what world do you go and crash your boss’ date?!
- Vera’s Christmas brunch consists of chocolate chip and prune pancakes that’ll make everyone crap themselves.
- Who’s popping down to the local coffee shop for a latte on Christmas Day?!
