This week has been dominated by one of the most annoying storylines in recent years, but there have also been a few other highlights, so let’s get on with rounding them up.
A Roller Coaster Week For Aaron
There’s an overload of cute as Aaron and Rhett have a tea party with their girls. Everything is going so swimmingly that Aaron casually tells Rhett that he loves him. At first he thinks Rhett is blanking him by not replying, but then he’s not sure that Rhett even heard him, so then he panics about whether to come clean or not.
Aaron is freaking out and Rhett can tell, so he corners Jane, who is back (from the trip that she made out was some sort of life-altering voyage, but actually only lasted a matter of a few days), and Jane spills the beans. Rhett takes the bull by the horns and performs a quick round of very cheesy charades to declare his love to Aaron.
Everything seems to be going well until Rhett’s ex-partner declares that she’s moving to Adelaide with their daughter, sending Aaron into a tailspin at the thought of him losing Rhett already. A number of different options are discussed, including Aaron sharing his time between Adelaide and Erinsborough, but Nicolette is less than thrilled about that one.
I think I can see where this is all going. Nicolette has started to think about having another baby, and she doesn’t want to split up their family, so I think they’re all going to move to Adelaide together with a view to Rhett helping them extend their family further. I’ll be genuinely sorry to see them all go if this is the case – especially Nicolette, who is absolutely hilarious.
Holly Goes Full Izzy
I really don’t want to have to talk about this storyline because I hate it, and from what I’ve seen online, not many other people like it either. Is anyone enjoying this plot? I suppose some people love the drama, but I just can’t get over the ickiness.
Holly’s behaviour this week is pathetic, she’s overwhelmed with jealously every time she sees Andrew with Wendy, who is his damn wife – a fact I think both Holly and Andrew need to be reminded of. She seems irritated by her own boyfriend, and the only time she seems to be interested in going anywhere near Max is to try to make Andrew jealous. She also lies again and pretends she’s seen Bowman, pretending to be freaked out and in need of Andrew’s protection. It’s horrible and I hate it.
Eventually she checks herself into the hotel for a night to give herself some space, but Andrew turns up to check on her, despite him knowing that she never saw Bowman at all. She comes on to him really strong and he initially rejects her, but then he comes back and the two of them finally get down to what they’ve been gagging to do for weeks.
Don’t think for a second that I’m putting all the blame on Holly for this awful nonsense, because I’m not. Andrew could easily have walked away from the hotel, he made the choice to go back and cheat on his wife. He is knowingly throwing his entire family dynamic into jeopardy, because let’s not forget that the person he’s having a dalliance with is his daughter’s best friend. EWWWW.
The next day, Andrew is trying to treat it like a one-off and just the two of them getting it out of their system, but it’s clear Holly is expecting more. What did she think – that he was going to leave Wendy, just like that?
Andrew goes into full guilty conscience mode, trying to do lots of special things for Wendy, who still thinks they’re in the best place they’ve ever been in terms of their marriage. I can’t believe I’m actually feeling sorry for Wendy, but that’s what this storyline has driven me to.
Wendy unwittingly gets Holly to help model her hideous entry for the jewellery competition, pushing her husband and Holly even closer together for the world’s most awkward publicity shots.
I must quickly mention the jewellery. Being a character who had a whole storyline about learning to appreciate her own heritage, you’d think she’d have some appreciation for other people’s, but no. Her jewellery entry is just a huge dollop of cultural appropriation, looking like an Aldi version of an Egyptian Pharoah’s necklace that’s arrived in Erinsborough via a Native American reservation. It’s horrible.
Paul Does a Bit of Crime
Lucy is in town, and she immediately wants to see the Lassiters quarterly financial report, and is suspicious as soon as Paul starts going out of his way to put off showing it to her.
What Lucy doesn’t know is that Paul has basically embezzled money from the company to help Terese out with her financial problems at Eirini Rising. Leo overhears them talking about it and makes Paul confess to Krista, who understandably goes ballistic. It seems to be the final straw for her, especially after the silly battle he instigated between her and Annaliese.
Lucy can’t be fobbed off either, and eventually Paul has to tell her what he’s done. He keeps trying to pass it off with everyone as no big deal, joking about people turning a blind eye, but it’s an actual crime that he could go to prison for. He came down pretty hard on Holly last week when he thought she might have stolen the jewellery, so he’s displaying some pretty gigantic double standards here as he tries to pass his casual fraud off as just a jolly little jape.
Lucy is having none of his yap anyway, and bans him from the hotel immediately, while Krista tells him she wants him to step away from the business. How’s he going to get out of this one without having a brain tumour to blame it on?
The Kennedys Roll The Dice
Karl finds one of Taye and Sadie’s sex dice in the garden, and when he finds out what it is he immediately goes out and buys some for him and Susan. What follows is several scenes of Karl and Susan getting down and dirty in various ridiculous places – Karl whipping up the back of Susan’s dressing gown as she climbs on to the dining room table is a particular highlight. I love it when Karl and Susan get to do a cheeky midweek comedy storyline, and it was good to have some distraction from the Andrew and Holly car crash.
A Few Random Notes
As usual, here are a few random notes I took while watching Neighbours this week:
- Hahahaha! Taye not realising Romeo and Juliet die at the end.
- Nicolette: “Keep thinking about your wand” 😂
- Nicolette to Aaron: “Do you want me to slap you?”
- Krista’s outfit is giving me Colonel Sanders vibes.
- Does Annaliese own any clothes that don’t have huge lapels?
- Holly and Max sitting on the floor to watch something on a laptop is mad when there’s a TV and a sofa right there.
- Lucy’s make-up looks insane. Did someone apply it on a bouncy castle?
