Red Ranger 1

Having criticised Kirby for pushing Remi about his new lady last week, I was firmly on her side here.I think Bree was being utterly ridiculous and actually rather selfish and hurtful. It was clear that Remi has lost the appeal of their relationship being treated like a dirty secret yet Bree shut down all his attempts to discuss it and looked utterly disgusted at the idea of people knowing she'd lowered herself to dating him again. I really hope she's got a good explanation for this, and certainly a lot better than the facile one Theo gave, because I think it's finally dawned on her just how much she's been hurting Remi. I did like Kirby dropping that bomb and Theo's "Really?" reaction. Was it me or did Theo say he was giving Justin a hand at the garage? Isn't Justin still in the city? Or was Theo not being careful with his language and meant he'd agreed to give Justin a hand by running the place? Leah seemed to be being more than a little pushy, but maybe it only appeared that way because we know something she doesn't and because John's been put in the awkward position of keeping her friends away from the truth.(And because Irene isn't in the episode, so she can't go and see her.) Leah trying to grab John's phone to talk to Irene was a bit silly: Why not just phone her herself? So...Harper's going for intense training sessions with Tane without letting him know she's pregnant? Good grief, if there's anyone in the show deserving of the label "dumb blonde", it really is her, I think she must have performed a self-lobotomy before her daft behaviour in court and has never got over it. And now of course she's fainting: Well, what does she expect after going on a workout and then just picking at her food in the Diner? I would probably be agreeing with Tane's "Some people don't deserve to be parents" speech except he said virtually the same thing about Poppy's mother, and even though he's probably right in this case, it just leaves me thinking who the heck Tane thinks he is to stand in judgement on who gets to be a parent and who doesn't without even meeting them. I think he's going a bit far in getting Perri's school records without even talking to Perri about it. Boy, Mali really is suffering the consequences of his macho behaviour with the Allens, isn't he! Cash obviously knows he's hiding something but can't do anything about it.

So it sounds like Rory and Dingo disposed of Franklin's body at the very least.We've known for a while they've been involved in something dodgy but this is next level.Felicity does seem very smitten with Rory but at least she hasn't let herself be dragged in as much as Mali has! John did do a good job with Irene, very much in firm but fair mode, but as soon as she's got over that crisis, there's another upset with the newspaper article.At least it didn't make the front page! I'd be interested to know exactly what was said, just how much did they need to gloss over to make Irene sound worse than Bronte?

Alf's episode count this week:One! It's not even like the other characters were picking up the slack, only Irene, Leah, Marilyn and Cash managed three. Cash went in too strong and had to back down, but he's not going to give in to Rory's blackmail.Cash did privately acknowledge that Rory wasn't originally interested in Flick because of the connection to him but is probably using her now.Which raises questions about whether Rory's bluffing or not: I suspect part of the reason he talked Felicity out of moving in with him was that he needs her where she can pass on gossip about what Cash is up to.Felicity lugging that huge suitcase around everywhere was vaguely amusing.I'm not sure Cash needed to apologise to John, who was being a bit annoying.I'm pretty sure we've seen large groups of River Boys before, especially in the early days when they spent their time hanging around the beach indulging in vaguely homoerotic wrestling. Yes, Leah, this was not your brightest idea ever.I had to admire the journalist's cheery self-interest and utter delight at Irene doing something other than giving the usual carefully-worded rehearsed responses.Still, it seems John's onto her now. Remi and Bree were kidding themselves thinking Theo was fooled by their "I'm going to go home and make use of the empty house" innuendo.He cottoned on quicker than Cash though!

A lot of tension between Cash and Felicity here. I think the problem is that, rose-tinted as her view might be, Marilyn actually has a point: Sure, Cash has plenty of circumstantial evidence that the River Boys were involved in a murder, but there's no clear evidence that Rory is any worse than Dean. So Cash doesn't really have any arguments to get Felicity to stay away from them. His assertion that she'll end up running drugs for them was absurd: Felicity's always had a wild side to her, and she seems to be going through a self-destructive phase at the moment, but there's not really anything in her history to suggest she'd get messed up in that sort of thing, so it came across as over the top. Meanwhile, Irene's hell of well-meaning friends continues, with John, Leah and Marilyn all, in their way, pushing her to do something she doesn't really want to and probably shouldn't...and that's before we get to the drinking.I'm reminded that, while Irene's always been a nasty drunk, she's not always that pleasant sober! I wish someone would point out that her real problem wasn't believing Bronte, it was the fact that once she got fixated on the idea that Bronte was ill and she was going to save her, she refused to listen to anyone presenting her with facts and viewpoints that didn't fit her narrative.

Cash pushing Eden really wasn't a good idea, he should know by now that she feels things in extremes. I do feel that James/Jimmy gave in to a bit too much: What's he going to do, never visit Levi while he lives there? Bit of a flying visit from him then! I did like the chat between Cash and Eden, showing what a good unit they are, even if Jimmy did seem to wind up the Eden and Remi shippers (assuming there's any left that still haven't given up!). Leah and Marilyn seem to be demonstrating that hell is well-meaning friends as they take away Irene's coping mechanism and then push her into a limelight that she's really not ready for. So, yes, it turns out there is more than three River Boys.A lot more.

Harper might not have physically dragged Dana away from her post but she turned up while she was on duty, saying she needed to talk in a pretty intense way and blurting out her pregnancy news.I'm guessing she didn't actually mean to discuss it in on the beach? Anyway, tension aside, it seems to have done Xander and Dana a favour since it forced them to stay together and talk things over.They were very cute here as they talked around things with each other ("It was kind of involuntary"). Xander was nastier to her than most of the disbelievers, but it was him, not Irene or Harper who were conspicuous by their absence, who was worried enough about her disappearance to poke holes in Bronte's story and track her down. Anyway, neither of them are perfect but they're better off together than apart, so I'm glad they've put it behind them. If Harper's going to wear as few clothes as she did today, her pregnancy's going to be obvious to everyone pretty soon! So, it turns out Perri actually didn't go back to his father, he was just worried his father would find him there, or possibly find other people there with him.There's no real reason for him to go looking at Tane's, but I'd love to see Mackenzie's reaction to Tane following in Mali's footsteps and moving a guy with volatile people after him into "his" place. That was a pretty extreme reaction from Eden, marching all the way over to Levi's place and punching him.(Did she walk out of work, again? While they were short staffed?)Levi's dad couldn't exactly judge him given his own family history and instead seemed to validate his choices. I wondered if Cash leaving his uniform behind when he went to Mangrove River was a blooper but seems he's hanging around while off duty. Alf and Rose give Mali some unwanted prods about his apparent deal with the devil...

Yes, Perri said last week that his mother died when he was young and his father brought him up.

Shame no-one mentioned Harper being so self-absorbed that she drags Dana away from her lifesaving duties right before there's an accident to babble about the mess she's made of her life.It's a shame that Theo's beating himself up too much: I'm not sure there's anything else he could have done in the circumstances, he probably saved Xander's life.Xander demonstrates that ex-paramedics make bad parents, with his mind constantly going to the worst case scenario.I thought it was a nice touch that Rose sent Dana in to Xander: Despite Dana's flaws, Rose knows Xander's happier with her around. I was worried it would backfire but fortunately he accepted it. Harper actually thought Perri would respond well to sending Rose round? Wow, she actually is inept. ("I'd tell you if I hooked up with some random!"she declares here, as if that's worse than "I hooked up with a technically married man who'd firmly friend-zoned me and only did it because he thought he was going to jail.") I'm not sure Tane could have done more at winning Perri round (although the huge mixed messages he's been giving him didn't help), it seems like Perri still has a strong connection to his dad despite everything. If Remi and Bree want to keep their relationship on the downlow (which I get the feeling Bree is more keen on than Remi is), they should stop the romantic lunches at work given the high probability one of their friends will be a patient there.

Alf's episode count this week:Four. Maybe they're making up for Roo, Justin and Mackenzie all being on the absent list now! So, yeah, it turns out that Tane giving Perri some generic advice without really knowing the situation was not the best thing he could have done, but he knows the details now, or at least most of them.He's back to getting over-involved with other people's children, but at least this one's old enough to make the decision for himself.(The constant references to him needing to be careful do feel a bit like the show hoping we won't notice if Tane does anything reckless.)I suspect she was mostly looking out for Tane rather than Perri, but Harper's advice to get Rose to pay a visit, even in an unofficial capacity, was never going to go down well.(Isn't it only a short time ago that Mackenzie was saying there weren't going to be any more randoms staying there?)Oh, and of course neither Tane nor Harper is smart enough to get birth control right.Despite the ashen face, I suspect there's a part of Harper jumping for joy that Tane finally has to see her as something other than a convenient sympathetic ear (and the rest). Well, Kirby seemed to have turned her annoying meter up to maximum. (Honestly, if she'd referred to herself as Agatha Kirby one more time, there's a good chance Remi would have snapped and thrown a heavy object at her.) She's got at least part of the truth out of him but fortunately she was too far away to recognise Bree. Given that Bree was happy to, ahem, go for a ride with Nelson, I don't think she really had any right to carry on being dictatorial about Remi's bike, but I'm surprised there wasn't more of a discussion of it.It's a shame that both Bree and Harper bailed on Kirby's single girls afternoon. I wonder if Marilyn was angling for an invite?

Tane seemed to keep putting his foot in it with Perri (it must be something in the water in that house and again, why did Harper leave crucial details out of his family history?) but made progress in the end, although Perri wasn't keen to give the full story of how he ended up asleep on the beach. It's hard to say whether Alf's advice helped or not, really. Dingo turns up with fellow amusingly named River Boy, Spanner (because he's a mechanic or because he's got a face like a bag of them, no offence to the actor?). It's a wonder Rory has a reasonably sensible name. At least Dingo told him to put a shirt on, so some things have improved since the Braxtons' day! Actually, Spanner ended up being the voice of reason stopping Dingo from pushing his luck too far. Would even Felicity really be totally fine with Eden just walking out of Salt mid-shift? (There didn't even seem to be that many other people working there, just one extra who was staying out of it.) Levi seems to have decided it's the day for small victories: I did like his little smile of "Okay, I'll take that" when Tane let him watch the game with him. Remi and Bree continuing to sneak around. Remi's lucky that Theo and Kirby enjoyed the gig, although maybe they're not that fussy. Kirby seems to have made at least some deductions, although how close is she?

She was in yesterday's episode! (She's easy to miss, you could mistake her for one of the chairs in the Diner.) Frankly, I doubt Marilyn donated anything, she seemed to be determined to be Switzerland. I forgot to say yesterday: Alf actually complimented John! Did I miss hell freezing over? Anyway, not many compliments for John today: He's running around trying to break up fires, bless him, but everything's still burning. Despite holding out through her dark night, Irene decided it's time for her relapse of the decade and I'm mostly wondering who she'll hit this time to make her immediately stop drinking. And despite everyone having an opinion, Dana's finished things with Xander. I suspect there's a big part of her that didn't want to do it: She knows she's being unfair to him but she can't get over the feeling of betrayal, however irrational it is, so she thinks it's best just to draw a line. Levi's attempts to befriend Tane, who obviously couldn't care less were kind of painful. He was doing okay at the gym until he said all the wrong things about Ari. (Seriously, does Mackenzie never tell anyone anything?) So, is Tane doing one-on-one sessions with the youths now, or has he taken Alf saying he only needs to make a difference to one of them way too literally?

At first certainly but he was the one most suspicious about Dana's disappearance (Irene just believed everything Bronte said, while Harper pretty much shrugged her shoulders and disappeared for a week), which was really what set the ball rolling for Bree admitting what she'd found, Rose being presented with evidence, and Xander and John following Bronte to the silo, leading to her arrest. That's a pretty big hand, I'd say! I sympathise with Dana but I do feel sorry for Xander being the one singled out to get the blame for not supporting her, which isn't really fair. At least Dana spoke to him eventually but she didn't really give him that much reason to feel optimistic! Hell turns out to be well-meaning friends with Leah pressuring Irene into giving up the wrong thing that's distracting her, and their rather empty platitudes not doing anything to stop her feeling like an idiot. I grimaced a bit at them going down the drinking route with Irene again (because those storylines are never particularly good) but at least she called the helpline. It's really hard to know what to make of Rory. He's told Dingo he's using Felicity to get information, but he was interested in her before he found out she was a police officer's sister. It doesn't help that his rose-tinted view of the River Boys is exactly the sort of thing Dean used to spout, and we were apparently meant to see him as a suitable boyfriend for Ziggy. Or that Eden comes across as a bit of a hypocrite when she says she was working on different facts when she pushed Felicity into seeing Rory, those facts basically amounting to "He's good looking and has a pulse so you should go for it." On the other hand, Joanna Devlin seems to be painting a far from rosy picture of him.

I was talking about the bad old days of Brax and Heath running a drug operation, putting Angelo in hospital and having Liam beaten up when I said the River Boys haven't been portrayed as this villainous since 2011. Their antics here, vandalising Cash's car, are on a par with what they've been up to since then, although if Cash is right and they are involved in the murder of a police officer, that's something that even Brax would have thought twice about. (Even Colby only murdered a murderer.) Rory did at least get the smile wiped off his face momentarily when he discovered just who "the new cop" was, but he quickly seems to have turned it to his advantage. Okay, fair play to her, we did see Harper apologise to Dana.Dana is indeed being extremely selective in immediately forgiving Irene, Harper and everyone else who pooh-poohed her but leaving Xander out in the cold.I wondered if it was because he was the nastiest to her (ignoring the fact he was the one that did the most to make up for it), but it seems it's mostly down to her seeing him as another boyfriend who's let her down and "betrayed" her. It could be argued she could have expected loyalty and respect from Harper at least as much as him, but I guess Harper has years of history of being there for her when she needed her, and Xander doesn't have that. I think people are pushing it a bit saying it's down to Irene that people are going to get their money back: If she hadn't had people around her to see what she couldn't, Bronte would have run off with hers and everyone else's cash. It's down to Dana, Bree, Xander, John and to a certain extent Rose, not Irene. I scratched my head a bit at Rose saying the other victims didn't know they'd been conned and thought Bronte was in Canada getting treatment and then that Bronte had sent them letters saying she was getting better: Did they not notice the letters weren't from Canada? I didn't even think about the fact they've been going around telling their customers they're raising money for charity when it turns out to have been a con. Maybe Felicity and Mackenzie could donate the returned money to a genuinely worthwhile cause?

I just meant that he was the one that came to Tane, rather than Tane having to make the effort to get the others involved again.

Uh, no. Just because the article calls them River Boys doesn't mean the episode did.

Yes, well, things can change from character outlines, and most people are still just going to watch the show rather than reading all the supplementary material.

Irene was a bit harsh on Gypsy. Hopefully Nick and Kirsty are right that going away is the best thing: I must admit, even though I preferred Nick/Jade, I've always had a soft spot for them.

I was going to say that I wondered if that was the same sign Dean and Colby graffitied on their way out of Mangrove River! I guess it's a sign of how dilapidated the town is that no-one's fixed it by now... (Mind you, if I'm remembering right, Colby changed it to -3, so I guess at least they cleaned that bit off!) Alf's episode count this week:Four. I know Perri was the only one to come back, but I hope Tane is going to give his other proteges another chance (especially the one that didn't do anything!) and not just focus on the one that's easy. Looks like we're not going to get a guest appearance from Dean after all then, as it turns out Mackenzie has kept an awful lot from him. Spectacularly awkward for Levi to be stuck in that house without Mackenzie, with her friends that don't really like him! I think most people seemed to work it out from the fact Dean had him on speed dial, but Rory asking Mali for a "Blood and Sand" board like his tattoo was the first real confirmation that he's a River Boy.What is interesting is that, probably for the first time since 2011, these River Boys seem to be genuinely villainous rather than the Boy Scouts-cum-vigilantes that Dean, and to a certain extent Heath, used to insist they were.That said, Rory also seems genuinely affectionate towards Felicity, so maybe he's not all bad.Anyway, looks like his and Cash's lines of work are going to dovetail beautifully...

I realise we've just had about six consecutive episodes of it and everyone involved has used up their episode counts, but ye gods, Dana's been kidnapped and is owed a massive apology by just about everyone, and instead Harper barely mentions her because she's busy with her favourite past-time of hanging off Tane (she's even taken him back on as her trainer by the end of the episode!). I guess I should give her credit for sticking around and helping him out after saying she would. That punch would have more impact if there was even the slightest sign of a bruise. Remi and Bree reuniting has seemed inevitable since their replacement love interests got written out. I'm not sure why they're keeping it quiet, except to stretch the storyline out. Mackenzie and Levi...did some stuff. They were pretty much just there to fill their episode quota, although we got a twist at the end with the promise of a visit from Dean!

A lot of chickens coming home to roost: Ironically, I found it just as satisfying watching Irene get her bubble burst, with Bree's revelations wiping the self-satisfied smile off her face, as I did seeing Bronte get wrestled to the ground and handcuffed (I think Rose enjoyed that a lot, complete with a quip). Bronte and Chase really didn't know when to cut their losses. Even right to the end, Bronte's trying desperately to convince people they've got it all wrong, but boy, was Irene the perfect ally to her. Irene was practically doing Bronte's work for her, convincing everyone of her story and ignoring anything that contradicted her belief that she was doing a great and glorious thing.I think Dana forgave her a bit too easily, but at least reality has hit with a bump.John's been in a curious on-the-fence position throughout, not necessarily believing Dana or disbelieving Bronte, but also doing his best to see the best in Dana and recognising people were going overboard where Bronte was concerned.Xander, while he's redeemed himself somewhat here, was unnecessarily vicious towards Dana a lot of the time.A shame Harper was absent because she owes some apologies too. Elsewhere, we have some rather simplistic matchmaking from Kirby.I like how Theo is fast becoming one of the show's best sources of humour, with his bemused dry wit in response to Kirby's enthusiasm.

Well, the pieces are falling into place for a few people at least.Irene's being as bluntly myopic as ever, refusing to listen to even the tiniest hint that she might not be doing the right thing, while Leah seems to have been won over by her rhetoric and Marilyn is just happy that everyone's getting on now.But Xander finally seemed to twig that Dana is absolutely right about the way Bronte suddenly plays up her "illness" every time she's asked difficult questions.And John's concern for Dana seems to have superseded any concerns he might have had about her reasons for mistrusting Bronte, especially with Dana having now provided the missing pieces. And Dana has obviously learned from the last time she was kidnapped, making sure she can get out of her prison before knocking her captor out!

Thank you for the comments, Zig, pembie, John and j.laur5! Nope, definitely not!

I wonder if Cash and Eden are starting to regret pushing Felicity to go out with the first random that left his number. Because much as I love Felicity, let’s face it, she has absolutely no concept of taking things slowly, so it’s not a surprise that having a drink together translated to dragging him back to hers for an extended session. What is perhaps more surprising is how dodgy Rory suddenly seems to be, as he moves from simply refereeing Mali’s vigilante crusade to making sinister references to “jobs” and “gear”. Meanwhile, most of the town are proving that, yes, they’re idiots. What’s one of the first things you’re warned about scams? Always be wary of people insisting you need to urgently give them money. But Bronte suddenly announces out of nowhere that she needs the money in a matter of hours or she won’t get a spot on the trial, and Irene just swallows it like she has every other piece of illogical nonsense Bronte’s come out with. On the other hand, Bronte has well and truly scored an own goal. Dana running around town spouting accusations without evidence was easily dismissed, Dana vanishing without talking to anyone and not taking any calls is a cause for suspicion. Xander finally seems to have remembered how his brain works and realised Dana’s not the type to go somewhere for quiet meditation (she wouldn’t be able to sit still for five minutes) and even if she did, she wouldn’t use her one phone call to phone the house and get Bronte to pass on a message, she’d call him or Harper on their mobiles. Bronte had a choice between relying on everyone continuing to ignore Dana for another day and lumbering herself with an even bigger mess to explain away and she went for the latter!

Thanks. I thought it was a fitting fate for them. Well, I didn't want to overegg it and make out that there'd somehow be a crime on every voyage they go on, but I'm sure they'd make themselves available if there was!

Tane might not be claiming to be a saint but it feels like that's what the show and quite a few of the characters in it are saying! Alf's episode count this week:Three. The only other characters to make three were Irene, Leah, Eden and Dana. Bronte is fast showing that she's the biggest idiot in a town of idiots, as she reaches the Allens' level of Stupid Evil. She's having a hard trouble keeping all the plates spinning, floundering when Xander highlights a few logic flaws in the way she's handling things and then struggling to keep up her act with Alf. In retrospect, Xander actually gave her the perfect out to remove herself from the danger zone and maybe still get the money, by saying she was going to Canada now and to keep sending her donations. Or she could have just trusted in no-one listening to Dana for a bit longer. Instead, whereas before she could only have been charged with obtaining money by deception, she's decided to add kidnapping at least to her rap sheet. It really is remarkable that Dana's the first person in three scams to notice she's a one trick pony. Bree has been shown to be the closest thing to an ally Dana's had in the past, at least being willing to listen to her, so it makes sense she'd be the first one to stick her neck out. Cash is lucky to be able to walk back in as senior constable, given he was meant to be being demoted when he quit.That said, maybe being made senior constable of Mangrove River actually does qualify as a demotion!