Red Ranger 1

David is definitely proving to be the person Lacey claimed he is: Totally by the book until it's his family drama, at which point he's happy to ignore the rules and expects other officers to play ball. This is, of course, ameliorated by the fact that David and Jo are listed as regulars (even if they're still not on the opening credits!) suggesting that they're meant to be broadly sympathetic characters and around long-term, so if David is keeping a secret then it's probably not going to be too earth-shattering. I find my sympathy is mainly with Kirby here. If Remi wants to be on Avalon's album, that's up to him, but he made a commitment to Kirby and he's not keeping to it. I wasn't keen on the way Avalon convinced him to stand his ground with Kirby, it just felt like stirring up trouble. Alf and John both had a word with Mali but didn't really get a satisfactory response.On the one hand, Dean did kind of drag Mali away from his old boarding shaping business to run the board shop.On the other hand, as Alf and John point out, he's worked hard to make it a success.

Tane came across as a bit unhinged here. Fair enough, pulling over when you see someone broken down is just good manners, and Jo was unnecessarily rude to him, showing she's definitely her father's daughter. But why would anyone in their right mind drive out there the next day and work on the car without the owner's permission? How did he even know the car was still there? What would he have done if Jo hadn't come back while he was there, stuck a note on it saying "Fixed it"? In a way, he's lucky she is David's daughter, because a complete stranger turning up and finding him there would have been even more creeped out. Alf, Irene and even Leah seemed to be charmed by David but Cash is seeing a different side to him.Still, Eden needs to realise that the police station being a drop-in centre isn't a thing anymore.Cash ended up helping Eden come to a sensible solution, going to see Debra instead of making assumptions about how she feels.I'm not sure Abby was invited, but it gets her out of the way for the rest of the week! Seems like Mali is having a bit of trouble being a one man band again. I noticed Alf only said he "looks after" the caravan park: An acknowledgement that Sally and Miles still own it after all these years? So, reading between the lines, it seems like Jo was the driver who killed their mother who Lacey feels David forgave too easily. It being his daughter is both more understandable and more disturbing, since he'd probably be quicker to convince himself she wasn't to blame, and try and demand Lacey do the same, than if it was a stranger. Despite him saying he wouldn't use his police authority to force a meeting with Lacey, he's done that already. I think Jo pushed it way too far with Lacey at the end, including grabbing her to stop her walking away, and she seemed to give as good as she got in that fight.

It was kind of one extreme to the other with Eden there.She started off having some nice sibling banter with Abby and it was quite sweet of her to ask her to be maid of honour.But as soon as she saw that message from their dad, it was like a hair trigger for her.She didn't even have the self-awareness to realise that this is one of the reasons she and Abigail ended up so alienated in the first place, her demanding Abigail hate Jimmy and Levi just because she did and wrecking her chance of having a relationship with them.So, now Abigail's issued a challenge, how will she respond to it? Whilst I'm glad in one way, Harper and Dana have been at odds for so long that it really felt like we needed a better wrap-up than "We talked all night and we've sorted it." But at least it left Dana and Sonny free to discuss what they are in their own not-giving-anything-away manner. I was amused by Sonny's claim to be the father of twins and the way Dana clearly wasn't taken in for a second. Unfortunately, it left Harper free to indulge in even more toxic past-times. Irene telling her to go and declare her undying love to Tane again was utterly terrible advice. And Harper's response, basically deciding to go on holiday with Tane in the hope something will happen, was even more terrible.Tane looked more than a bit bemused by the whole thing. Leah continues to be concerned that she knows more about Lacey than Theo does!

Harper is in full on crazy person mode here. And if that wasn't enough to endear Sonny and Dana to me, then they were wonderfully quirky. I loved Sonny's response to Harper's increasingly rambling questioning, and his kicking Dana out in the nicest possible way to go and sort it. I also like that Irene seems to have belatedly twigged that Harper's being a drama queen and shut her down at every opportunity. Marilyn, one episode after sniping at John for doing the same, decides to chime in with her opinion of Sonny so I was quite glad Irene gave her a taste of her own medicine. But yes, it makes sense that Harper would be overcompensating for her poor choices with Tane. Mackenzie seemed to have emptied out her own glass of crazy, but was back drinking it by the end with her multiple purchases. And yes, Levi even pointed out to her that getting stressed will just make it harder but she's determined to do this now. Justin ends up as Remi's confidante, even if he did stop him getting any sleep.I guess it might work for a couple of nights but hopefully Remi doesn't have to keep it up for too long. I liked Justin's deadpan attempt to convince Theo the surf is terrible and the byplay between Sonny and Theo.

Will was Alf's boat hand and Gypsy worked at the drop-in centre. I am struggling really hard to remember the details. My instinct is that Justine was still at school when she was working as a babysitter, and I seem to remember her studying drama at uni. However much of a villain 2005 Brett was, I'm not sure he ever went that far!

Alf's episode count this week:Two. Only Leah, Justin, Theo and Lacey managed three, and Bree didn't appear at all. Did I miss a line about her being out of town? Well, Dana and Sonny weren't fooling anyone there, especially not Irene. They've kind of missed out on both breakfast and lunch now, I hope they don't waste away. (And how did Dana not notice Harper turning up again when she was in the bathroom?) There were some very funny moments with Harper and Dana's Moonlighting-style bickering (Dana: "Good!" Harper: "Good!" Sonny: "...Good") but Harper really has gone sailing over the line now. I think she does need to accept that Dana has to be left to make her own choices, and also that she's made a much bigger mess of her life lately. Even Irene has stopped blindly taking her word for it that Dana should stay away from Sonny. Marilyn went back to being annoying and rather unlikable with her sniping at John for calling Sonny a good bloke, even though she's been saying the same things herself. It's as if sneering at him just comes automatically to her. Abigail really did seem to have regressed to her childhood with her present hunting, but she gets huge points for her sensitive handling of Mali's insecurities and the way she defused things. She even inspired Mackenzie, only for her to find out that good news is just as unwelcome as bad news because now she doesn't even have a reason why she isn't pregnant. When we saw Irene having the same conversation with both Alf and Marilyn, I thought at first that one of them was meant to have been cut and they forgot, but then John commented on it too so I guess it was intended!

She left three years after it happened. Some people aren't even on the show that long. I always feel people overstate how much she was against the idea, she may have felt it was the wrong timing in 2002 or whenever but I think she always knew it would happen eventually.

So after that big dramatic moment in the previous episode, Eden just goes along and takes part in the recording session anyway. It is a bit odd that Lyrik are basically making an album together without being Lyrik. I did like that scene of Eden watching the old music video with the slow melody of Someone Like You playing over it. Avalon's plan seems to have been to annoy Remi into playing with her. I appreciated that Kirby felt guilty about walking out once she thought about it. Of course, Eden then does make another dramatic exit anyway, as she's forgotten little sister's birthday. Abby was a bit of a big kid running around telling everyone it was her birthday, although I accept her point that it's the first time she's celebrated it with both her siblings in a long time. Debra makes a birthday phone call but no mention of Abigail's U-turn on living with her. Eden's horrified expression at realising she'd agreed to buy half a car was rather amusing and I think Levi let her off the hook a bit easily. Also love that John just wandered over to join them in the unveiling. It's a shame it's made Mali a bit insecure. Levi and Mackenzie's baby issues take a back seat but looks like there's news coming.

I didn't hear anything until late 2007. I doubt they planned it a year and a half in advance!

When Leah said she wasn't Lacey's biggest fan at first, I thought "You weren't her biggest fan yesterday." At the start of this episode, we were still only a day on from Friday's episode with Leah defensively asking Justin if Lacey was there when he took Theo's stuff round: That's quite a turnaround! But anyway, Leah gave her some good advice. We get some more hints about the rift between Lacey and David: They disagreed over the driver that killed her mother and Lacey feels David didn't support her. Still, if her mother died two years ago and she only moved out six months ago, that suggests she stuck at it for quite a while. So, Leah is now in the awkward position of knowing more about Lacey than Theo does... We saw a bit more of a human side to David but he still thinks a "clean slate" involves putting Cash on traffic duty, even if he did admit he abused his power to bring Lacey to the station. When Eden was talking about the amazing coincidence of the new sergeant being Lacey's dad, I thought "Yeah, that'd be like the hospital getting help from a top heart surgeon who turns out to be your brother." Cash gives Tane a "That's another fine mess you've got me into" look on seeing him at the station. Elsewhere, Kirby has a new arch-enemy. It did seem a bit odd that they were basically trying to put Lyrik back together without putting Lyrik back together, so I'm glad Eden thought it was weird too. Kirby really should have let her answer and I'm surprised Remi and especially Cash didn't notice she wasn't particularly enthusiastic for it.

That has to be one of the most bizarre cases of a reused actor ever, on a par with Vinnie's dad playing a random homeless person, Aden's dad being the new school principal and Robert Robertson turning up as a random counsellor. I've seen enough spoiler photos to get used to it but when I first saw him I immediately thought "Dylan Carter's back?!" And he's even playing another arrogant and corrupt police officer, although he's listed as a regular (not on the opening credits yet, have to keep an eye out for that!), so presumably there's a heart of gold in there somewhere. We didn't see much evidence of it here, with him being a hypocrite with Cash, needling him about breaking protocol while blatantly abusing his position, and coming across as rather controlling with Lacey. I'm not sure what Tane thought he was doing turning up at the station: Did he really expect New Sarge to go "Oh, okay then" when he said it was all his fault? He's obviously good at twisting people's words. I remember Lacey saying a while back about having been let down by the police in the past. I would guess Lacey is around the same age as Theo, yes. (25?) I did like Justin getting Leah to be his new gaming buddy in order to stop her dismantling the house and putting it back together again, and despite his protests last episode, Theo seems to be fine with just walking in as if it's still his home. (Mind you, most people do that on this show.) I was kind of expecting Dana and Sonny's storyline to continue, we've kind of been left hanging there!

It was good to see Leah back to her old self, I guess it finally dawned on her that she'd pushed it as far as she could. Theo seemed to be the one making the most waves, reacting in a defensive manner to fairly innocuous comments from Leah and Justin. But once Leah had offered an apology, things seemed to go well between everyone involved, with Leah and Lacey soon bonding. So we learn a bit about Lacey's background, her mother's dead, it sounds like her father's still around and she has a sister. It's kind of ironic that, when Theo was there, Leah and Justin couldn't wait to have the house to themselves, but now they've got it to themselves all the time, they're miserable about it. I actually found myself cheering Marilyn here as she was the only person willing to speak up for Sonny and Dana being together while Harper had a permanent sour face on and Irene was once more judgemental about someone she doesn't seem to have spent nearly enough time with to form a considered opinion. (Her baby snatcher tendencies resurfacing over Archie, not so much.) I think I've been thoroughly won over to Sonny and Dana by Harper's constant bleating.

Lacey only got added on Tuesday, around the time she was added to the main cast on the closing credits, so yes they're updating them, and probably fairly promptly.

Alf's episode count this week:Three. Well, Remi and Kirby's spat ended up being a bit of a storm in a teacup and it feels like they've already had this conversation once.I found myself leaning more towards Remi's point of view even if he didn't handle it well at times.Kirby's claim that Remi's never had to worry about money didn't really hold true: A year ago, he was supporting himself and paying his contribution to the household by picking up whatever music gig he could manage. And did she forget when their electricity got cut off? He might come from a rich background, but he's never liked accepting handouts any more than she does. Leah seemed to have lost all touch of reality here: She's moved from blaming Lacey for everything that's happened with Theo to blaming anyone even tangentially involved, including Justin and Bree. At least Bree's got a couple of new flatmates out of all this: Is Lacey intending to stay at a backpacker's indefinitely? Anyway, a bit of friendly advice from Alf and Marilyn, and some bluntness from Justin, and Leah's at least approaching Theo in a calm manner, but I guess we'll see if having to accept Lacey is a step too far. I liked that spectacularly awkward meeting between Sonny and Dana, especially Archie giving Sonny a totally-not-impressed look.

It's a tricky one because in many ways these things are almost undefinable. Sometimes a couple click, sometimes they don't. (The experts call it chemistry.) It was based on a long-standing close friendship: Even when they were still with other people, they seemed to be each other's go-to person. They seemed to be better people together. They were together about two years and were very solid during that time. They felt like a couple that you could imagine staying together forever. I guess sometimes a couple captures the audience's attention and for some of us, they were one of them.