For some reason, this week feels like a year, but also that it flew by in about five seconds. How is it only four days ago that Elle nearly got run over? Surely that was weeks ago. Anyway, anomalies in the time-space continuum aside, let’s get on with rounding up this week’s episodes of Neighbours.
Elle Continues to Be A Whiny Little Drip
Elle very nearly got run over by a car, and yet all she seems worried about is that she strained her writing hand, as if she still writes with a quill, and laptops were never invented.
Terese is under the impression that Elle is going to drop the Linwell story, but Paul knows that it’s just on pause while things settle down a bit. When Terese finds this out, she goes ballistic and makes Paul pick a side. It’s not a particularly dignified way to handle it, but it gets the job done. Elle finally agrees to drop the story, sever ties with the mulleted child editor’s website, and try to find a different job instead, although I have my doubts that she’s being honest.
Things between Elle and Terese seem to be on the mend, and they bond when Elle has to ask Terese to do up the zip on her trousers, which did cause me to wonder what on earth she’s going to do for the rest of the day when she needs to go to the toilet. Just pop on some joggers or a skirt, Elle.
Holly Has Fully Lost Her Mind
Holly is behaving like a lovesick teenager, talking to her forbidden love through a hole in the fence and daydreaming of them running away and starting a new life together. She’s honestly being so childish right now, and it’s causing problems for Andrew.
She suddenly forgets that things like texts, emails or even video calls exist and decides she needs to invite Andrew’s biological sister, Gretchen, to come all the way to Erinsborough in order to ask her about what it’s like to live in Sandy Point.
Andrew sees Gretchen in the complex and automatically assumes that it’s Wendy who invited her, and he gives her the hairdryer treatment without giving her a chance to explain it wasn’t her.
Wendy, who of course knows Gretchen, sees her talking to Holly and awkwardly joins them for coffee, obviously unaware that Holly is trying to plan her and Andrew’s new life.
Andrew obviously has to apologise to Wendy for having a go at her for something she didn’t do, and then he has to have a conversation with Holly about her descent into acting like an emotionally stunted ten-year-old.
When Andrew tells her that she’s making things worse for him, as he tries (not very hard, admittedly) to extricate himself from his marriage. Her response of, “I’m helping” is the most childish thing she could have said. She sounds like a toddler who wants to “help” bake a cake, and you dread it because you know they’re just going to end up making a colossal, inedible mess. If this behaviour doesn’t give Andrew the ick in a big way then there’s honestly no hope for him.
Andrew Reveals He Can Indeed Be More of a Melt
We already know that Andrew is a total trash person, as he carries on an affair with his daughter’s unhinged best friend, but he’s now being even worse. Wendy has finally started to get the feeling that things aren’t all they should be in her marriage, so she sits Andrew down for a conversation. He flip-flops between flat-out ignoring her questions, and giving her mixed and confusing answers. He tells her he still resents her for the things that have happened recently, but then he insists that their issues aren’t her fault, and those two things don’t seem consistent to me at all.
He’s still labouring under some sort of delusion that he can end his marriage, reveal his relationship with Holly and somehow salvage something of his family. Has he ever met humans before? And does he know what the word “betrayal” means?
The climax of this storyline is going to be dramatic and worth a watch, but I need it to hurry up now, because I’m getting too annoyed at Andrew and Holly, and I need to see them get tarred and feathered and driven out of Erinsborough.
Greg is a Baddie
This I did not see coming!
Greg is hailed a hero after swooping in and getting Elle to safety when she nearly gets mown down deliberately by a car. Paul cannot stop thanking him, and everyone thinks he’s just a fair dinkum bloke who was in the right place at the right time.
Later on we see the Linwells in their crime layer, and then a shadowy figure comes in to give them the latest info on what’s going on, and it’s Greg! Incidentally, I love the Neighbours writers’ idea of criminals – they can’t just be doing their criminal plotting in someone’s living room, they have to be in a dodgy warehouse.
This casts Greg in a whole new light, and the fact that not only is he putting his daughter and her family in danger, but he’s also trying to buddy up to Cara and salvage their relationship at the same time, makes him a truly despicable man. The kind of person who can start a cutesy birdhouse DIY project with their daughter while actively working with people who’ve repeatedly threatened her life is, quite frankly, a monster.
I have a sneaky feeling that Elle is going to somehow be the one to uncover Greg’s secret life, which means she’ll wind up being the hero, and I’m going to be mad about that.
Krista Tells Leo the Truth
Krista has been spending too much time at work and not enough time at home, and Leo is feeling neglected. He desperately keeps trying to schedule time with her but she keeps sacking him off to spend time doing funny old-timey movie voices with her new work bestie, Zac.
The situation becomes even more tense when Abigail draws a picture of the family which includes a baby sister for her to play with, which brings the topic of expanding their family up again. After previous conversations, Leo is under the impression Krista isn’t ready to have a baby yet, but she drops the bombshell that she’s never going to be ready. After losing Hope in such traumatic circumstances, she can’t face the idea of being pregnant again, which is absolutely understandable.
Leo is disappointed, and I don’t love the “give it more time, you might change your mind” vibe that he has at first. Eventually though, he seems to have accepted that it’s not going to happen for them.
This happens to have coincided with Nicolette hankering after having a second child. Now, I thought she was going to end up flitting off to Adelaide to have a baby with Aaron and Rhett, but it’s now looking more likely that she’s going to enter into another co-parenting agreement with Leo and Krista. And you know, it makes sense – with Abigail and Isla being so close, they all spend an awful lot of time with each other and they already have a ready-made support network to share the load. It might end up being complicated, because everything involving Nicolette always does, but I reckon they can make it work.
Max and Jane are Besties
Max is an absolute sweetheart anyway, but he has a particularly cute manner with older ladies – his relationship with Agnes was adorable, and now it appears that he and Jane are the besties I didn’t know I needed.
Jane finds out that Max has fully qualified as a mechanic, but hasn’t really made a big deal of it. She decides that she needs to rectify that, so firstly she takes him out for the cutest picnic, where they have a major heart-to-heart, and then she throws him a party to celebrate his status as a fully fledged mechanic. Of course, it’s a typical Neighbours party, with a grand total of five guests, but it’s sweet all the same. More Jane and Max please, it’s the wholesome duo we all need.
The Eirini Gang Get Another Nothing Storyline
Don’t get me wrong, I love it whenever we get to see the Eirini Rising gang, especially Vera, but this little mid-week diversion was an ideal time for some real comedy, but it ended up being a big miss.
Taye and Sadie are trying to test their natural face masks, the recipes for which have been perfected in record time, so they get Vera and the gang over to test them out. This could have ended with comical face rashes all round, or amusing patterns of sunburn on their faces where the masks weren’t covering them, but no. We just get Colton being a bit of a worry wart and that was it. You have this excellent comedy troupe, Neighbours, use them!
A Few Random Notes
As usual, here are a few random notes I took while watching Neighbours this week:
- Elle is alright, that’s disappointing.
- Nic wearing a “You turn me on” shirt to visit Cara is a bit on the nose.
- Max dissing Sataye as a brand name is hilarious. “Can I put that on my kebab?” “It sounds like something you sit on.”
- Did Leo and Krista just have sex on the sofa when apparently anyone can just get the lift into their living room?
