Neighbours – Ramsay Street Round-Up (8th – 11th December)

Well, here we are again – saying goodbye to the residents of Ramsay Street, possibly forever. It was a week of two halves, with all the drama at the start, and then a parade of old faces and nostalgia. Let’s get on with rounding it all up.

Where’s JJ?

Last week left off with the cliffhanger of JJ being missing, and there being a ransom-style notice announcing that his disappearance was due to something sinister.

Everyone goes out to search for JJ, and Addison finds his phone in the bushes. Numerous people handle it, making it absolutely useless in a police investigation, but at least now they have confirmation of where JJ was before he was snatched. Everyone is convinced the Linwells are involved, so photos of them are sent around so they can ask people if anybody has seen JJ and/or the Linwells.

Remi and Cara are beside themselves waiting for news. Wendy comes over to help by cooking dinner, but then fannies around trying to find a pressure cooker in their kitchen, which is incredibly weird. If you’re making food at someone else’s house, surely you want convenience? Whack some sort of traybake in the oven, or make a pan of pasta – why the hell are you looking for a pressure cooker? Even better, cook it at your own house and bring it over.

Anyway, I digress.

Holly spots one of the Linwells hanging around in an ambulance, not looking at all like a medic of any kind. She goes over to ask a question about how to get to the hospital, and the man’s response makes it very clear that he isn’t legit. Rather than call the police, Holly decides the best option is to make it very obvious that she’s on to them, which means they flee from the scene. She runs after them, but suffers from cramps and collapses.

Meanwhile, Cara attempts to appeal to her old friend Tania’s better nature by telling her how worried she is about JJ and that she wants him back safely. When the Linwells come to pick Tania up, she refuses to go with them and they’re spotted. JJ is rescued from the back of the ambulance and returned home without injury.

The Linwells really are stupid. They abducted JJ from the complex area and then just hung around there in the ambulance for hours. Why didn’t they drive far away where they wouldn’t be spotted? They’re idiots.

Tragedy for Holly

After her collapse, Holly is unable to get up due to the pain. Luckily, Wendy spots her and takes her to the hospital. She sits with Holly while she has tests, and discovers that her baby is no longer alive. I know I give Wendy a hard time for being incredibly annoying, but I have to acknowledge her kindness in this moment. It would have been entirely understandable for her to declare Holly’s plight as not her problem, and excuse herself at the first opportunity, but it was really big of her to hang around to support her. I did think there was a distinct lack of thank yous directed to Wendy by Karl, Susan and everyone else. She definitely deserved thanks for how she showed up for Holly when it can’t have been easy for her.

I really loved the moment when Krista turned up at the hospital to support Holly, having been through baby loss herself. It’s a lovely moment with Krista and Holly as Holly is wheeled off to have her treatment. They didn’t even need words, just silent solidarity. 

Andrew is devastated by the loss of their baby, and even Sadie and Wendy both soften towards both Holly and Andrew in the wake of what’s happened. I can’t help but think that ending this storyline in this way was done entirely to make Andrew and Holly more sympathetic at the end, rather than finishing on a sour note.

Remi Remembers

Amidst all the chaos of JJ being missing, Remi is having odd feelings – she keeps having little snippets of memory, and eventually she realises she remembers Cara and their life together. I’m really glad this incredibly tedious storyline was resolved before the end, but I feel like we were robbed of a proper Cara and Remi reunion. In the scenes after Remi gets her memory back they just stand awkwardly near each other, and don’t seem at all like they were before Remi hit her head. Obviously if this was a real situation (somehow) you wouldn’t just spring back to normal in an instant, but there’s barely any affection at all between them.

Baby News For Krista

Immediately after being at the hospital to support Holly through her miscarriage, Krista realises she’s not feeling quite herself and does a pregnancy test. It’s positive, and she’s very conflicted, having decided that she didn’t want to have a baby. I expected Leo to annoy me by being ecstatic, as he has been wanting another baby for ages, but he actually deals with it sensitively, which is more than I can say for Nicolette.

I didn’t like the whole flashcard thing when Jane used it to encourage Nicolette to start the process of having another baby, but I like it even less when Nicolette uses it to persuade Krista that her unexpected pregnancy is a good thing. Krista’s reason for not wanting another baby is due to the horrible trauma of a very late term miscarriage, so I feel like the flashcards are an extremely flippant way to react to her feelings about pregnancy.

It’s absolutely none of Nicolette’s business whether Krista keeps the baby or not. Sure, Krista might have eventually come round to the idea anyway once she got used to being pregnant and felt bonded to the baby, but she also might not have done, and trying to push the issue just really hit a dud note with me.

Ramsay Hills vs Robinson Towers

Shane and Paul are both trying to persuade everyone to get on board with their new planning ideas, and Shane has invited a bunch of old faces back with the intention of trying to sell them a home in the place they’ve all willingly moved away from and barely had the motivation to return to.

I should have just focused on the fact that lots of characters were back, but I got very distracted by all the dramatic hair changes. There’s brunette Roxy, Kiri’s cute new fringe, Melanie rocking a bob, Byron sporting approximately 40% more hair than he used to, and Lucas looking like some sort of beardy wildman.

Everyone gathers at the pub to hear Shane’s pitch, but Paul hijacks Shane’s presentation by putting some sort of joke shop japery into Shane and Max’s drinks, making them unable to speak. He then tries to give a presentation on Trump Towers, but Karl is having none of that, and gets up to deliver Susan’s speech from the last time the show got canned, which means absolutely nothing in the context of people deciding which housing development they want to move to.

Everyone heads out to view the sites, but Susan is MIA. She finds Annaliese in the coffee shop, who hints that there might be some hope for saving Ramsay Street after all. Paul and Karl find Susan staring wistfully at the houses, and she declares that she wants to stay and fight for the street.

The ending is much more optimistic than last time, last time it really felt like goodbye. This time it feels like everything is being left open in case some other TV network or streaming service decides to pick it up again – not only do we have the possibility of Ramsay Street being saved, we also have the two alternative options of a brand new suburb or an apartment block, which gives a future production a lot of scope for picking it up and running with it. There are also a couple of reminders for TV execs that long-running soaps can survive, with references to other soaps, most notably the “little community about an hour out of Sydney” who’ve found a way to continue.

The downside of a finale that doesn’t feel so final is that it has a bit less impact than last time, with Susan’s heartfelt and emotional speech. I don’t know whether Neighbours will ever come back again, but if it doesn’t, this didn’t quite feel like an appropriate farewell for me. I’m not really sure what sort of ending would have satisfied me, but I needed a little bit more.

Farewell

So all that’s left to say is goodbye – goodbye to the show I have watched since I was a neon cycling shorts-wearing 8-year-old in the 80s, and also goodbye to the wonderful bunch of fans who tuned in every day. I always liked being within the community of Neighbours fans for the exact same reason I liked Neighbours – we could discuss big issues and big feelings, but on the whole we didn’t take things, or ourselves, too seriously.

It’s been a blast. Maybe we’ll get our show back one day, but if not I wish you all well. Thanks for all the laughter and the tears and the silliness.

A Few Random Notes

For the final time, here are a few random notes I took while watching Neighbours this week:

• Why is Andrew here? He’s not a cop any more and everyone hates him. 
• Remi: “JJ never takes a jacket.” Cut to JJ wearing a jacket. 
• Paul doesn’t understand why Krista is taking it personally? Her business is likely to tank because of the new freeway and he wants to sell her home from under her. How is it not personal?
• Is Paul planning a secret wedding when Terese is barely speaking to him? This could backfire horribly. 
• “Are you going to be a sex worker, a lawyer or something else?” NICOLETTE!
• “How’ve you been, Holl?” is a bit of a small question considering what’s been going on with her. 
• One final outing for Nicolette’s horrible green leather coat. 
• “Why are you here, Sue? No-one likes you!” One last iconic quip from Vera. 
• “All day I’ve had this sense we’ve been here before.” We sure have, Susan.