It’s finally returned to a normal temperature here in the UK, but I also have a new job and my car was written-off this week, so my brain is just as fried as it was when the interior of my house was hotter than the surface of the Sun. That said, I will do my best to arrange my thoughts on the past week of Neighbours into some sort of semi-coherent structure. Let’s go.
Jane Reinvents Herself As An Absolute Cow
Grief does funny things to people, and everyone reacts in different ways, but Jane seems to have taken the unusual route of choosing to become an awful, tetchy Mrs Mangel wannabe.
She’s less than sympathetic to Byron when he comes over to scrounge for food, after apparently agreeing she would cook extra for him while he recovers from his injuries. I’ll have more to say on Byron in a second, but I think they were both being absolute hooves over this issue – to be fair, Byron looks perfectly capable of cooking now, but then Jane should have told him she didn’t plan on making him any more food, rather than just abruptly stopping. Anyway, she also gave him a savage read in front of everyone about being immature and rudderless, which is not exactly what one would want to hear after being dumped by your partner and then almost beaten to death.
Nicolette encourages Jane to get back into dating, thinking it might give her a bit of a spark back, but in true Neighbours style she accidentally goes out with kidnapper and poisoner Gavin Bowman, so it doesn’t exactly lift her spirits. As soon as he realises she lives in Ramsay Street he makes his excuses and leaves, prompting Jane to send him a truly unhinged message afterwards. There’s just no stopping her at the moment.
Lastly, she’s been spending a lot of time agreeing to look after Isla and Abigail with a very hangdog and martyred expression on her face, and the girls are not escaping the wrath of Mrs Mangel II, with Abigail in particular coming off worse. The poor kid is scared of Jane and is reluctant to keep spending time with her. Both Leo and Krista are aware that something is not quite right, so Leo sets up an iPad to record Jane looking after the girls. The sparks are going to fly here, I absolutely cannot wait to see what Mangelesque activities Jane gets up to when nobody is watching.
Jane is usually so meek, I am actually enjoying watching her have a little bit of a diva moment, but I’m sure everyone else will be very relieved when she gets over it and goes back to being like a nervy chihuahua in human form.
Byron Reinvents Himself As A Sad Sack
Byron has been through the wringer recently, and things are about to get worse. He’s still reeling from being dumped by Sadie and despite encouragement from others to “get back on the horse”, he knows he’s not ready for that. We all love a man who is aware of his own feelings and need for healing.
The healing gets derailed somewhat when he catches Taye and Sadie in the hot tub however, and the knowledge that his housemate and his ex-girlfriend have immediately hooked up the second she became single is too much for Byron to cope with. He’s understandably furious with both of them, with it all being a bit too close to home.
What would probably be best for him right now would be to try to get on with his life as normal and maybe see a therapist a few times, but what he seems to want to do is sit around on the sofa, eating junk food and day drinking. He doesn’t even want to go to work any more, which Leo is none too pleased about.
It’s very difficult to pick yourself up when the universe keeps knocking you down, but Jane is a teensy bit right about Byron needing to have a bit of a word with himself. There’s only so much time you can spend wallowing before you have to put your big boy pants on and get on with things.
The Varga-Murphys Get Badly Photoshopped
Cara graduating was pretty much a non-event, but I had to mention it because of the quality of the Photoshopping that was on display here. We didn’t see the ceremony, but the writers felt for some reason that we needed to see photographic proof of it, so we get to see a “photo” that Aaron took of the Varga-Murphys at the graduation.
I use Photoshop as part of my job, and I would be willing to offer my services FOR FREE to TV and movie producers, just so that I never have to see another badly faked Photoshop again, where the lighting is all wrong and the background looks like the subjects were standing in front of a printed backdrop.
In this storyline it didn’t even add anything to the scene, apart from making me really angry. If you really must have a picture, just have them stand on a lawn or something and pretend it was in the grounds of wherever the graduation ceremony took place.
And there ends my rant.
All That He Wants Is Another Baby
After Krista’s possible pregnancy, Leo is going all guns blazing into trying for a baby, downloading ovulation apps and not picking up on any of Krista’s very obviously negative body language. She strings him along for a bit and then eventually she plucks up the courage to tell him that she’s not ready to have a baby. He’s very understanding once what should have been very obvious has been explained to him, but he’s very much thinking in terms of “not yet” whereas Krista is secretly thinking in terms of “maybe never.”
You’d think babies would be a thing that a couple discussed at length before getting married, but this is Neighbours and we never have a simple conversation when we could spend weeks or months talking at cross-purposes instead, do we?
Wendy Continues Being Unhinged
Andrew invites his biological dad and sister to Sadie’s birthday party, and Wendy decides that this is the best possible moment for her to pick a fight with Gretchen about her trying to prevent Steven and Andrew from meeting each other.
Did Wendy get dropped on her head as a child or something? Because this is not the time to have that conversation. It’s a family party, you nod and smile and say how lovely it is for the family to be all together, and you maybe decide to shelve that conversation for when you all know each other better and things are less awkward, or maybe you even decide that reconnecting with long lost relatives can be a bit of a minefield, and you choose to just be a grown-up and leave it in the past.
Not Wendy though. She forges ahead, repeatedly goading Gretchen into a fight, to the point that her and Steven up and leave before the birthday girl even arrives. So because of Wendy and Holly’s meddling, Sadie still hasn’t met her auntie and her grandad, and the shine is is ever so slightly taken off her birthday party. Nice one, Wendy.
Saskia Latches On To Susan
Saskia has shifted her fixation from Byron on to Wendy and she follows Wendy around like a little puppy at the party, volunteering to help with food and drink. She doesn’t pick up on Wendy’s stress levels as her and Andrew try desperately not to have a fight at Sadie’s birthday party, and when the guests have all gone, Saskia is still hanging around like a bad smell. Wendy finally snaps and asks her to leave, and Saskia is fuming. The next day at school she takes the opportunity to lock Wendy in a cupboard and leave her there.
With the infatuation with Wendy over, Saskia turns her attention to Susan, who gives her a job at Eirini Rising and shows her some attention. Saskia is clearly troubled and has some sort of disorder which means she obsessively latches on to people, but nobody else seems to have really noticed what’s going on – not even Wendy, who is a teacher. Surely Susan has the experience to recognise that all is not well with her? If Susan can’t then there’s no hope.
A Few Random Notes
As usual, here are a few random notes I took while watching Neighbours this week:
- I love that Cara uses words like “Wowee.” She’s such a dag.
- Is now the time for Jane to road test her new Mrs Mangel persona on a man who kidnapped someone and tried to poison a load of people?
- Holly: “The guy who tried to kill me.” You might have to narrow that down a bit, there have been a few.
- Wendy and Jane are going to be trollied. Those are MASSIVE glasses of wine.
- Could Karl not find a jacket that fit him for his interview? It looks tiny!
- I’d love to lock Wendy in a cupboard.
- I love how everyone is just having to deal with the fact that Jane is a bitch now.
