I can’t believe that we’re still in January as I write this, but this is finally the last Ramsay Street Round-Up for the first month of 2025, which has seemingly been about seven months long. Before we hurtle headlong into February, let’s recap where we’re up to.
Uncle Taye is a Tool
The intruder living in the house right under Andrew’s nose turns out to be Dex and JJ’s Uncle Taye, who is intensely unlikeable from the word go. I’m all for embracing our inner children, but this tit seems to do nothing but play with toys and trash the house. Apparently he’s on the run from three angry girlfriends who all found out about each other, so there is so literally nothing to like about him so far.
Straight away he starts trying to get the boys to skip school. Having been expelled once already, JJ isn’t keen on getting into trouble, but Dex is so easily manipulated that it’s laughable, and he’s under Taye’s spell from the second he arrives. The Varga-Murphy boys have never demonstrated a great talent for being able to make great decisions, but drinking underage with the rogue uncle you’re hiding in your sunroom is a new low even for Dex. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again – I’ve no idea how Cara and Remi ended up with two such dimwits.
Needless to say that this is all going to end badly, with the two of them getting themselves into big trouble. Helping dodgy adults with their misdeeds is almost a pathological behaviour with these two.
Paul Lashes Out at Nell
I’ll admit it’s a bit strange for Nell to buy Terese’s jogging bottoms from the Foundation and bring them home to remind her of her failed marriage, but Paul overreacts to it in the most unhinged way imaginable.
Terese has been quite cautious about letting Nell see her and Paul together too much, wanting to help her transition back to living in Erinsborough and adjust to Terese’s new relationship in her own time. Because Paul is a big brat who wants everything his own way, he doesn’t like Terese’s approach, and he starts to imagine that Nell is plotting to split the two of them up, like she did when Toadie and Terese first got together.
Instead of going to Terese with his concerns, as a normal adult would, he instead confronts Nell and demands that she stops plotting to separate them. The way he speaks to her is absolutely outrageous, and if I was Terese I wouldn’t have let him off the hook quite so easily. His excuse is that he’s upset about the anniversary of David’s death, but that does not give anyone the right to behave so aggressively towards a child.
What he probably hasn’t managed to put together is that Nell was actually starting to come to terms with the fact that he’s with Terese, but now he’s made an enemy out of her, and if she wasn’t plotting to split them up before, she absolutely will be now.
Jane Flip Flops Over Clint
Jane was all at sixes and sevens over what to do about her younger love interest Clint, but she decides to give it another go. The two of them seem to be getting on like a house on fire, but they’re apparently not getting on well enough to talk to each other about what they both do for a living. Surely that’s one of the first things that comes up in conversation on a date? If you don’t know what someone does for a living after two dates then you’re doing something wrong.
Jane eventually finds out what he does for a living when she goes to speak to the new cleaner at school, and it’s Clint. It seems that a teacher having a relationship with one of the cleaning staff isn’t against the rules, but Jane still decides it isn’t ethical or appropriate for her to continue seeing him. I can understand not wanting all the school kids to know about your love life, but if you’re professional at work, what’s the issue? I think Aaron hits the nail on the head when he questions Jane about whether she’s ashamed of dating a cleaner – it’s somewhat shattered her image of him as intellectual, academic, bookworm type.
I have a feeling that this isn’t the last we’ve seen of Clint though, and I also have a feeling Jane is going to turn herself inside out trying to resist having anything to do with him, only to give in at the worst possible moment and get sprung in a comprising position. Again.
Max Opens Up to Holly
Holly is still feeling guilty about what happened to Max at the Lights Up event, and she finds herself temporarily unemployed, so she decides to go to the garage and be Max’s “hands” for him, which is surely a total health and safety nightmare.
Sure enough, she’s a little bit useless, dropping tools and injuring herself, but Max obviously appreciates her efforts, and there’s some definite chemistry between them.
Now, I know Shane and Izzy were never married, but they were in a relationship for quite some time, which means that Holly and Max were sort of step-siblings for a while, but they definitely seem on course to end up in a relationship. I shouldn’t be surprised by this, considering how often people in Erinsborough date their way around an entire family, but it just gives me the ick a little bit.
Anyway, Holly notices how jumpy Max is, and persuades him to confide in her. He’s reluctant to tell her what’s bothering him, but we finally learn about the back story behind how he ended up in Erinsborough. A friend of his was given a date rape drug, and Max decided to get revenge on the perpetrator by drugging him and leaving him in the wilderness to give him a taste of his own medicine. While I love that a man is willing to go in to bat for his female friends, vigilantism is not ideal, especially when the creep in question almost died. Oh, and he happens to have connections to powerful criminal gangs. It’s quite obvious why Shane wanted to dump Max in Erinsborough until the heat died down in order to keep him safe.
My prediction is that him and Holly will get together, and then the gang will come looking for him, thus putting Holly in the firing line for another dose of trauma, because she hasn’t had quite enough already.
Seb Ramps It Up
I love me a woolly garment but, aside from the black jumper with the hearts, Seb has bedecked himself in a parade of such truly heinous knitwear that it’s made me question whether to have a ceremonial burning of all of my knitting needles in the garden. That’s a lot of bulky items of clothing for someone who’s been a nomad for so long as well – how big is his suitcase?
That’s all beside the point, because the main thing we need to talk about is how the two big man babies in Krista’s life are vying for her attention in some of the most unattractive displays of behaviour I’ve ever seen.
Leo has been trying to “manage” Krista’s friendship with Seb without her knowing, as he doesn’t think Seb is a good influence on her and suspects that he has feelings for her. Meanwhile Seb has been sucking up to Krista whilst quietly waiting for the right moment to torpedo Leo’s character in order to turn Krista against him and have a crack at her himself. Both of them are gross. They’re manipulating her and forgetting that she’s a walking, talking adult human who can make her own decisions about who she wants to spend her time with.
When Krista overhears Leo and Nicolette talking about their pact to keep each others’ secrets, the proverbial hits the fan in a big way. Krista is heartbroken and furious that Leo asked Nicolette to sack Seb, although she defends him to an extent because she believes he was doing it to protect her. But her anger at Leo sends her running to Seb for comfort, who wastes no time trying to badmouth Leo even more and starting to put the moves on Krista himself. If I was Krista I would want to go away somewhere on my own and have a break from men for a while, and give these two clowns time to get over themselves.
Queen Vera
Vera moves into Erini Rising and causes a stir almost as soon as she sets foot in the door. The two current queens of the complex, Hilary and Moira, come to welcome the new resident, but Vera immediately gets them both offside by ragging Moira for double dipping the guacamole on Taco Tuesday and Hilary for not actually reading any of her highbrow books. Step aside, ladies. The new Queen has arrived.
I need more Vera, she’s so iconic.
A Few Random Notes
As usual, here are a few random notes I took while watching Neighbours this week:
- JJ and Dex’s uncle is going to stay hidden for about five minutes, even with a police officer as useless as Andrew around.
- Exceptionally weird that Nell rescued Terese’s tracksuit bottoms and brought them home. “Here are your divorce trousers!”
- “It’s just the last time I had alcohol it was poisoned,” Dex says, casually.
- Ohhhh, Leo. Trying to deflect the conflict by using your dead twin is not a good look.
- Is Paul really going to wear a suit to volunteer at the food bank?
