There’s some sort of rip in the time-space continuum because I swear it was five minutes ago that I was writing my round-up for this week. But no, it’s a full week later, and I find myself yet again attempting to explain the actions of the people of Erinsborough. Let’s begin.
Jane is Turning Into Mrs Mangel
Jane has been reacting to the grief of losing her mother by being incredibly spiky and unpredictable – basically, she’s turning into her nan, the legendary Mrs Mangel.
After Abigail expresses some reluctance to go and spend time with Jane, Leo decides to record her using Abigail’s tablet. Jane bakes a cake with the girls, and notices that they both seem scared to make a mess because of her losing her temper. It hits her that she has been very harsh with them recently, and she softens her attitude to both of them.
But then Jane accidentally finds the tablet when she is giving it back to Leo and knows that he’s been recording her. Now, I thought she was going to react by doubling down and causing a huge family drama, but she reacts quite differently. She does cause some mild drama by going AWOL for a while, but it seems that she uses the whole experience as an opportunity to do some soul searching.
She assembles the family to tell them all that she’s just been feeling incredibly lonely, with a string of fractured and failed relationships behind her, including her relationship with her mum. She seems to want to change things, so it looks like we’re going to be deprived of Jane fully transforming into Mrs Mangel, which I thought would be incredibly fun to watch. Not to live with though…
Bye Bye Byron
Byron is finding it increasingly difficult to live with Taye knowing that he is hooking up with Sadie. He’s also not feeling very inspired by his career, so he makes the big decisions to leave town for a bit. His plan is to take Trevor on a boat to Paris to reunite him with Mackenzie and Haz and, if he does this, I am never going to forgive him for taking sweet Trevor away.
Byron is about to tell everyone he’s leaving, but then Jane has her big Mrs Mangel Moment, and he decides it isn’t the best time to tell her. But what he does instead is go round the whole neighbourhood telling literally everyone else except for Jane, saying that he’ll break the news to her when the time is right. What could possibly go wrong?
My prediction is that Jane will find out and be devastated that she was the last to know, they’ll have a bit of drama and a reconciliation, and then Byron will IMMEDIATELY leave for Paris with about an hour’s notice.
Saskia Finally Raises Some Concerns
Despite showing some very serious red flags with almost every adult she’s interacted with so far, it takes Susan to realise that all is not well with Saskia.
She’s been very clingy since she got the job at Eirini, wanting to spend all her time with Susan instead of spending time with the residents, which is what she’s supposed to be doing.
Susan approaches Jane and Wendy, and they decide that perhaps they need to do some digging into Saskia’s previous school records to get a proper sense of what’s going on. I’d say that if you have a kid who’s coming to you after being severely bullied that this sort of record check should have been done from the outset, but then we wouldn’t have had the jolly fun of seeing Wendy get trapped in a cupboard.
Andrew Is Being An Idiot
Andrew has decided he needs to spend less time with Holly because of the obvious attraction between them, but in typical Andrew style, he’s handling everything in the worst possible way.
With Gavin Bowman on the loose, everyone is taking it in turns to watch over Holly. Andrew feels uncomfortable doing this, so what he decides to do instead is lurk in the bushes, you know, like a pyscho kidnapper would. Holly is on edge all day, feeling like she’s being watched, and she’s furious when she finds out that the weirdo in the bushes is Andrew rather than Gavin.
Meanwhile, he’s been making sure that he doesn’t arouse any suspicion with Wendy over his attraction to Holly, and he’s doing this by being incredibly dismissive of her, not listening to a word she says and picking a fight with her very five minutes. She’s never going to suspect a thing.
Remi Forgets Cara
Cara is obsessed with investigating Gavin Bowman, and she won’t drop it, regardless of what happens. She sees him in the complex and goes running after him, even though he’s committing no offence. In the process of chasing him, she wallops Remi into a wall, and she suffers a head injury.
Things don’t seem too bad with Remi at first, but then she argues with Cara again over Gavin Bowman. Even after Remi’s injury, Cara doesn’t want to drop it, although Remi has asked her to leave it alone. Remi gets very upset about it, and later suffers a strange turn while she’s speaking to Terese about Cara’s persistence.
The next day, it appears that Remi has completely forgotten Cara. She can remember everyone else, but the theory is that her brain has blocked out Cara to protect her, because Cara keeps causing Remi trauma. Cara is obviously distressed, but someone needs to tell her that staring balefully through the window at Remi, like a zoo lion eyeing up a particularly juicy toddler, isn’t going to help anything.
How many people on Neighbours have suffered from some sort of amnesia over the years? Susan, Finn, Harold – I’m sure there’s more. Scientists should be studying the frequency of what is a pretty rare disorder in such a small geographical area.
Let me tell you, there are a few people I wish I could erase from my brain, like shaking an Etch-A-Sketch.
A Few Random Notes
As usual, here are a few random notes I took while watching Neighbours this week:
- Mike is engaged. That’s going to send Jane even more into the Mrs Mangel zone.
- It’s all very well Holly saying she’s not going to let fear rule her life, but it’s pretty rational to be afraid of someone who kidnapped you.
- Karl should not have to tell Andrew and Cara to call an ambulance. They are POLICE OFFICERS.
- “Shake it and they will come!” 😂
- Karl’s office is going to be at the community centre because there’s no point making a council office set at this point.
- Why is the doctor smiling the whole time she’s talking about Remi’s mystery illness?
- “I wasn’t trying to start a fight with you,” Wendy says, after trying to start a fight with Andrew.
