Red Ranger 1

Alf's episode count this week:Two. Now that he's finally found the right end of the stick, Townsend is back to being refreshingly blunt with Cash and pointing out the flaws in his behaviour.He did a better job than Levi, who just seemed to turn up to rant about "Why aren't you doing anything?" without having any real idea what exactly it was he wanted Cash to do.He did have some better points about the way Cash has treated Eden.Even here, Cash has basically fobbed Eden off and expected her to hang around Tim instead of actually taking responsibility for himself, blind to how problematic it all is.Despite her beating herself up, I don't think Eden's indiscretion here is really on a par with how Levi behaved with Mackenzie and Imogen. Still, it's understandable Tim would be upset about it, even if he's hardly a saint and maybe he should have had a think about whether an inappropriate relationship like that was likely to work out. Cash did at least take some overdue responsibility for kicking this hornet's nest and go to apologise to Tim. Given Eden's reluctance to leave the hospital before, it was a bit much that she suddenly decided to go wandering around on her own in the dark: Couldn't she have called Levi or Remi and asked them to pick her up? It's like she wanted to be attacked! Whilst I can understand her concerns, Dana is better off staying out of Harper's business here. It's not like her advice has done much good (she was pretty much convinced this was a fairy tale not too long ago) and if Harper's determined to go down this route, keeping quiet and letting her make her own decision is about all you can do.

Ha, yes, I forgot to mention that scene of Levi and Bree geeking out about emergency brain surgery, thanks for the reminder! I twigged faster than Mali did that Abigail was mostly concerned about wanting to be safe from Nerida, as seen when she was practically begging Levi not to leave her alone.They took an awfully long time to realise that the thing to do with that text wasn't to ignore it, it was to give it to the police! Levi really has been out of the loop recently, as demonstrated when he didn't know what was going on with Tim a while back, and has to be filled in on absolutely everything that his sisters have been doing for the last month or so here, despite it being on the front page of the paper! Harper's house of cards seems to be crumbling now. Even her schoolgirl infatuation isn't enough for her to get excited about Tane treating their "big day" as an exercise in box-ticking to get a transactional marriage. He doesn't want to marry her as a person, he just wants to marry the mother of his child and that just happens to be her. His response to be putting on the spot about whether he loves her is becoming more and more transparent.It was nice, after all those odd references to her being his ex-wife and him no longer being his next of kin last year, to finally get confirmation that there was no way Tane and Felicity could have got divorced in the time frame given. Justin and Remi tried their best to be non-commital but Remi's ended up making a promise that he might not be able to keep...

Abigail's had much the same reaction to Tim recovering as Cash did, and unfortunately Cash isn't obsessed with her, so he's left her to worry about her own protection.Theo finally twigs about Abigail and Mali.It's hard to say what was behind Mali's awkwardness around Theo: Is he jealous that Theo was first choice or just uncomfortable about the idea of having to break it to him? Oh well, moot point, given their habit of kissing within view of anyone wandering out of the surf club.Abigail announcing she's moving in with Mali seemed like a bit of a kneejerk reaction, I wonder if he even knows.She was unnecessarily rude to Levi about letting him know where she was but did apologise. Turns out being arrested makes Leah and Justin frisky, but then most things do! I was expecting more of a follow-up to that, but maybe they need the police actors for other episodes... It was amusing seeing Marilyn try very very hard not to say anything to Alf while Leah refused to play along. So, that's Bree off then. We seem to be entering one of those periods where there's hardly any characters left in the Bay, the actors must have all booked their holidays at the same time. I can see why Mackenzie would want Lyrik back but it's really not the best time, given Kirby and Eden are still busy with other storylines! Maybe they can manage to all appear in the same episode again some time soon?

Townsend isn't showing much more competence even now the victim has pointed him in the right direction, given that he still couldn't find Nerida even though she was wandering around the Bay bold as brass. (What was the point of a radio announcement to people to look out for her? Unless you know Nerida personally, "mid 20s" isn't much of a clue!) Oh well, at least he's belatedly got a police guard in place and, despite his bravado to Gary, apologised to Cash.Gary off again, despite his reluctance to leave a job half done.I guess we'll see if any of his parting words to Cash sunk in.I did quite like the relaxed camaraderie between Rose and Townsend despite everything. Given the words upthread about Stunning Organics, I'm hoping this doesn't end with someone getting blown up.Contract Advertising haven't managed to put the genie back in the bottle and the protest seems to be free of backlash online so far, even if the law aren't quite as forgiving.It was kind of amusing watching Justin and Theo trying to keep track of what Leah's got herself involved with now as if she was an errant child.

Cash did seem to be pulling away when Gary interrupted and is back to his "I'm cursed to being miserable and so is everyone around me" sulk. Good news for him in a sense that Tim has come round and cleared him (hopefully he's someone Townsend will finally have to listen to), but it shows how daft his deal with Nerida was when it could all fall apart so easily. If he'd kept proper tabs on her instead of giving her what she wanted and hoping she'd go away, the police might be able to take her into custody without any trouble now.Gary leaving Cash and Eden alone was nicely honest. Well, I prefer Kirby standing up to herself than hiding away with low self-esteem. Getting her story out there was an obvious response to the ad agency's media blitz and Contract Advertising really should have thought of that one and chosen a photo whose subject wouldn't object. Still no reaction from Mali, who's in the photo right alongside her and thus being associated with this.

Alf's episode count this week:Four. Gary meets Townsend and is as unimpressed by him as I am, although the feeling very much seems to be mutual.Cash was being typically pig-headed and typically overly macho in insisting it would be Gary's fault if anything happened to Eden.It's put Gary and Rose very much on the back foot, as they discover that Cash (at least in his eyes) has a vaguely rational reason for not wanting to clear his name.And he actually manages to treat Eden like a human being (and the rest!) which may have confused him further. Eden was being melodramatic in insisting she and Remi are over for good, so I'm glad she's sorted it out by the end of the episode, even if it was in a half-hearted "Well, if Cash is okay with it, so am I" way. Looks like that's the end of Remi's moving plans though. Kirby should probably have a word with Mali about reading the small print, but he's used up his three episodes so it'll have to wait until next week. Leah and Marilyn get points for good intentions but they really need a better plan than "We fight." It feels like maybe they should have told their side of the story on the photo, but from what little I know of social media, that might have been like putting blood in the water for sharks.

Well, Mackenzie and Dana pretty much said what I was thinking. There's a distinct lack of passion from Tane and it's pretty obvious he doesn't love Harper and is talking around any attempt to pin him down.Yes, he cares about her, and yes, he fancies her enough to use her for a rebound hook-up, but he wouldn't dream of being a couple with her, much less married, if he didn't see it as a chance to be a family. And Harper is just deluding herself that she's got what she wants.Yet in the midst of it we get Dana saying she think they could be a good people, so I wouldn't be surprised if the show tries to insist Tane does love her not too far down the track.Personally, I think Felicity was the love of Tane's life and Harper will never measure up. Remi has the germ of a good idea in there but is going about it all wrong.He should not have presented moving as a fait accompli without consulting anyone, and he's ironically stepped into Cash's role of insisting he's the one protecting Eden when he's focusing on all the wrong things (although at least, unlike Cash, he isn't actually making the danger to her worse).Even if they decide against moving, this warehouse could make a good rehearsal space. Abigail's used up her three episodes so Mali can only tell her about his move over the phone and it's left to Mackenzie to react to it.I'm not sure he really convinced her. Bit of a slap in the face to Kirby to use her altered photo like that.

Things seem to be progressing between Sally and Flynn.Nice of Jesse to help Hayley look for Nick and Kirsty.

Well, Levi dealt with that in a pleasingly level-headed manner, accepting Mackenzie's reasons for keeping quiet and talking to Mali in a reasonable way. It might have been nice for Abigail to give Mali a heads-up that he knew though! Levi's logic for basically saying "It will devastate Abigail if you break up with her so you should do that" was a bit lacking, even if he did try and explain later that he wanted to end things before it got serious. Anyway, Mali hasn't jumped the way Levi expected him to, having apparently decided that he can't be Abigail's housemate, boss and boyfriend but not dropped the one Levi wanted. I really can't decide whether Tane and Harper are meant to be a really awkward and unconvincing pairing or if the show sees them as a long-term couple. As she said, at the hospital they seemed like a normal couple at times, but then you get episodes like this where it seems Tane's only with her because it's convenient and Harper is acting like a clingy schoolgirl with a crush who's wowed by the fact she's dating the cool boy.

I guess Townsend gets a small amount of credit for actually speaking to Nerida but otherwise, despite a long queue of people lining up to tell him she should be a suspect, he's still sticking doggedly to his belief that it's an open and shut case and he's already solved it. Cash's attitude towards Gary reinforces that he and Felicity had more in common than he'd like to think: She could be pretty together at times, while he can be pretty self-destructive and push away people trying to help him. It's a shame Gary and Townsend didn't meet because he'd probably rip a hole in him more effectively than Rose has, but maybe that's to come. Still, Gary and Rose investigating on their own seems fraught with peril so we'll see how that turns out. While I get the point that Mali and Abigail needed to be honest sooner rather than later, Mackenzie laying down ultimatums wasn't especially helpful. It's a moot point by the end anyway: They should probably have taken Mackenzie's advice to be more discreet if they're going to hide it, rather than kissing in a public place like that!

There didn't seem to be much reason for Roo to play a trick on Alf, except her getting in a strop about Alf insisting they could never fool him. I'm not sure it really worked either, since he just turned up anyway. Am I missing a nuance here? Did Roo ask Marilyn to keep Alf away because she knew Marilyn would be terrible at it and Alf was bound to turn up anyway? Still, it's nice to see the stalwarts getting a decent bit of screen time together rather than the one token scene of them huddling in the Diner talking about other people's storylines that made up their episode counts last week. Talking of which, John and Roo's different perspectives on telling Gary about Cash was telling: John was thinking about it from the point of view of a parent while Roo was thinking about it from the perspective of an adult child. At this point, I think Abigail would be perfectly justified in battering Eden about the head.So, to the surprise of no-one, and despite Remi trying to insist otherwise, Eden wrecked Abigail's counselling for the sake of copping off with a guy that she doesn't even really like. She's lucky Abigail's still trying to protect her, and probably doing a better job of it than Cash. He has to be bluffing Nerida, right? If he really could get her arrested just like that, he probably would. Unless his desire to protect Eden has got so self-destructive that he's decided to get himself shut up in jail before he does any more damage.

Alf's episode count this week:Three, and he was credited on Tuesday for no appearance. Well, there were only two suspects for Tim's attack and we were pretty sure it wasn't Cash, so no surprise that Nerida's confirmed as the culprit here. What is a surprise is Tim's utter lack of self-preservation instincts: He's apparently just seen Nerida whack Cash over the head, and made a failed attempt to talk her into dropping the weapon, then just turned his back on her and conveniently crouched down to give her a clear shot at him? Some people really are too dumb to live. So Nerida has obviously learnt her lesson about running her mouth off to Abigail, leaving it as just Cash's word against hers, and we all know who Townsend's decided to believe. I was getting pretty sick of Eden playing the victim with Abigail, so at least she had the decency to put a sock in it. Abigail didn't say anything about Tim that wasn't true and wasn't deserved. And it doesn't help that it now looks as though Eden put Abigail's counselling and Tim's career at risk for the sake of a rebound relationship that she only sees to be sticking with out of guilt and obligation. I don't know how you've drawn that conclusion. Tim's been going around telling everyone, including his employers, that she's lying, notably Eden, and her rambling journal entries are pretty much public record.

He's literally been told there's another suspect. He's chosen to ignore all other suspects, and indeed not bother to do a proper investigation, and instead charge someone within 24 hours with no real evidence beyond three witnesses who didn't see anything. It's left to Rose to follow up on the information behind his back. Mali is already showing how an age gap relationship can be a problem, treating Abigail like a little sister that he wants to boss around and keep out of trouble.Maybe he'd be the same with a girlfriend his own age, but the difference in ages makes it feel like there's a power imbalance, and Abigail's left sneaking around behind his back like the wayward teen she is.Nerida has definitely gone into the highly suspicious category, even if there's no firm evidence she's responsible, telling Abigail a string of lies.Rose's hands are tied though and she's probably exceeding her authority even by authorising a wire. I kind of got Mali's point with regards Kirby, in that there's no point her asking for her job back if she doesn't actually want to do the job.Still, I'm glad Theo went to bat for her, both pleading her case to Mali and giving her a pep-talk. Some nice scenes between them again.

Exactly. They don't want to make 5Star the "flagship" transmission. That's the one on the main channel.

I'd say Townsend is definitely biased: He decided Cash was guilty pretty much the moment he saw him which means he can conveniently ignore anyone who says otherwise because, in his mind, they're either lying or wrong. The Summer Bay grapevine definitely seems to be flawed at the moment: I get that we're only a day or so on from last season's cliffhanger, but it's well into the episode before Mali and Abigail find out what's gone on.So, Abigail thinks it was Nerida as well.And it turns out that, despite the small time frame, things have definitely progressed between them since we last saw them. Again, I can see why Mali would be going for it, but I'm not really sure why Abigail is, her liking him seems to have come out of nowhere, which does leave me wondering if Mackenzie might have a bit of a point, however much she's in no position to judge given the similar list of red flags when she and Levi got together. Then again, talking of relationships that have come out of nowhere, I struggled to maintain interest in Tane and Harper's scenes, not helped by the fact they're just so boring together. Tane wants to move in with her? With Cash in a cell, that's going to leave the house rather empty. Seems it's not just Bree then, Kirby's got a confidence boost from her medical heroics. I did like her chat with Theo, but it's a bit odd that, John appearing yesterday aside, there's been a distinct lack of stalwarts so far this season, and then Alf, Leah and Marilyn all pop up for one scene!

The question seems to come up a lot, with us watching the show at three different paces at least so, hopefully for the last time, yes, Kirby has mentioned that her family wanted to be a doctor and she studied medicine before joining Lyrik. Townsend has quickly turned out to be one of those frustrating police officers who decides straightaway that they know who the culprit is and doesn’t look at anything outside their narrow view. Sure, Cash is the obvious suspect and they should be investigating him, but it’s a mistake to ignore all other possibilities, not least because you can bet that if it goes to court, his lawyer will be quick to point out that the case is based on circumstantial evidence that can be explained by things the police didn’t bother to investigate. I don’t blame Remi for going to the police, especially with Cash heading straight for Eden the moment he got out of hospital and generally acting like he’s the person she most needs protecting from. It’s a shame Eden cut him off as a result, but I think they’ve been through too much for it to be permanent. Rose is not doing anyone any favours by being so blatantly Team Cash. This was not the time to bend the rules, when she’s got a detective who already questions her loyalty breathing down her neck. So, it seems Bree rediscovering her mojo is enough to get her back at work. I still feel like she hasn’t done enough to safeguard against things getting on top of her again, but I think we’re meant to think “Storyline over.” Harper comes through the surgery then. Tane was being obnoxious still, snapping at Dana because he thinks people should be coming out of theatre to talk to him rather than focusing on Harper and the baby. To be frank, Dana loves Harper more than him, she did not deserve to be his punchbag. Anyway, she’s basically gone “Well, that’s my episodes for the week done, I’m off.”

Well, you can tell it's a new season from the new intro and outtro! I'm guessing Australia still has the same generic Channel 7 closing titles that they've had for 20 years or more, so those shots of the Bay at the end must be just for us overseas viewers! And as is often the case after a big cliffhanger, nothing's really been resolved at the end of the episode: Tim's still unconscious and Harper's still in surgery. And Cash and Tane are both starting to grate somewhat. Not much else to say about the medical drama but there continues to be a mystery over what's happened to Tim. Remi seems to think Cash is responsible and Eden seems to think it's Nerida. Going by who's a main character and who isn't, Eden's more likely to be right but Nerida would have to be a bit of a ninja to knock out both Cash and Tim. Maybe that's not what happened? Cash seemed to get a flash of seeing Tim hit the ground... Meanwhile, Victor Stone from Neighbours has turned up as a detective who isn't taking any of Cash's nonsense and is probably going to be even less inclined to indulge him than Rose is. Cash has at least managed to move on from "You need to stay away from Tim!" to saying they need to be protected but still isn't very convincing even without the concussion. Bit remiss than neither Remi (who found out from John last episode) nor Cash (who was there) mentioned the vandalism to anyone until Justin, Theo and Kirby walked in on it. Did Cash not even mention it in his rambling voicemails?

Alf's episode count this week:Three. Things go mad in finale week once again with Mackenzie, Cash, Tane, Eden, Levi and Abigail all appearing in four episodes...but bizarrely, Leah doesn't appear at all, despite a number of references to her being around. Thinking about it, the cliffhanger is better than I thought. Nerida might have been parachuted in at a late stage to provide a catalyst for it all, but this isn't really about her, it's the culmination of the self-destructive behaviour Cash has been exhibiting even since Felicity died and his irrational belief that everything he's doing is to protect Eden when in reality he's just making things worse and worse for her.Yet again he goes charging in acting like a crazy person and achieves nothing except getting Tim's back up.It was even worse timing than usual, as Tim's rather poor lack of insight finally kicks in as he realises he's the rebound guy. Kirby's insecurities are flaring up as well with her getting prickly at Justin filming her. Mali did a spectacularly bad job of communicating with Abigail, who was apparently completely unaware of the gala being cancelled and the issues with the promo posters. Fortunately, he managed to take it in his stride, with a bit of help from a reluctant John. Mali going to kiss Abigail and then laughing was very weird, and her kissing him was even weirder. We know he likes her, and she's grateful to him for giving her a chance, but there's not really been any sign that she sees him like that. Harper finally twigs that "Do nothing and hope for the best" wasn't the best plan she could have come up with and opts for the surgery. Levi really doesn't seem comfortable with it but I guess we'll see how that pans out!

It's the way the world seems to be going so I guess it was inevitable. It doesn't seem to have affected the linear broadcasts, with the 6pm 5Star showing of the day's Channel 5 episode apparently not being touched.

Certainly in the only phone call we heard, to Tim's sister, he identified himself as a police officer. Cash might be slightly more plausible if he didn't insist on boiling everything down to "You need to stay away from Tim", as if that's an automatic guarantee that Nerida won't just go after Eden anyway, rather than just a solution that suits Cash. Tim's declared that Nerida isn't violent and Eden and Rose seem happy to accept it. To be fair, assuming it was her behind the vandalism, she's only gone after property so far, although that could still lead to someone being hurt. And yeah, you'd think by now that the folks of Summer Bay would avoid going to remote spots near the end of the year. (It's not like Eden and Remi didn't make that mistake last year!) It was a nice touch to have Cash and Tane touch base on their respective crises. Harper's almost certainly right that she and Tane wouldn't be together without the baby and he doesn't love her the way she wants him to, although she may also be right that it's not affecting her judgement over the baby. But yes, there's still a risk either way. At least she's agreed to talk to Levi. It was a bit odd that Mackenzie, Levi and Abigail suddenly popped up for one scene that could have been saved for next episode (and even odder that Levi isn't credited and the other two are!).

You know, you can be too rebellious.

Frankly, I think my biggest takeaway from that was that Eden needs to get her head out of her backside. Any sympathy for the way Cash is treating her (which is pretty awful) is offset by the way she seems to be paying it forward to Abigail. Her rant at her was completely narcissistic: Abigail's realised she made the wrong call and is trying to apologise and make up for it, and Eden just keeps on trying to make out she's the superior one and Abigail should have listened to her, ignoring the fact that as soon as Eden said Nerida was lying, Abigail looked into it and realised she was right. To be honest, I'm in two minds about Abigail withdrawing her complaint: I can understand her wanting no part in Cash and Nerida's vendetta, but everything she said was valid and Tim has behaved very unprofessionally, which he's probably now going to get away with. To be blunt, both Cash and Tim deserve to be hauled over the coals now and I think Rose was a bit too kind to Cash with Tim's complaint. It feels like the main point, that Cash was identifying himself as a police officer to try and get people to give him dirt on Tim, kind of got glossed over. Even now, when Cash realises he's wrong about Nerida, he still can't let go of his agenda and is just doing the same thing for a different reason, just using it as another excuse to try and scare Eden into staying away from Tim. It's no wonder everyone's out of patience with him. Not much else going on except for Lyrik regretting buying those bigger amps still, and Alf and Marilyn popping up to make up their episode counts. I guess we're at the point where these episodes were shown mashed up together in Australia, which may explains why the cast list was a mess, with no credit for Abigail and instead credits for Kirby and Harper, who didn't appear. (Also, somewhere along the way the spelling of Nerida's surname has changed from Mullens to Mullins?)

I had to roll my eyes at Eden here, insisting that Abigail's only listening to one side of the story when she's even more guilty of that, given that she decided Nerida's lying on the basis of nothing but a few seconds of conversation and "Tim says". She's almost certainly right, but she's hardly being objective, and even she admitted that half of the complaints about Tim are right, so he's hardly as white as snow.In fact, Abigail's the one coming over best here: She may have done this for the wrong reasons, having listened to Cash and Nerida more than she should, but she hasn't done anything wrong.The penny finally seemed to drop for Cash that he's been so fixated on Tim being a wrong 'un that he's ignored any evidence that didn't fit and leaped on the one thing that did. Tane definitely put Levi on the spot there and Levi had to give him something.Mackenzie's attempt at a pep-talk didn't seem to work so it's up to him now. Roo was another one having everything click into place as she finally realised just why Alf was asking her all these questions.Some fun moments between the three of them there.

After I found Harper tolerable last week, she's back to being annoying and actually making me feel sorry for Tane with the way she dogmatically insisted what they were doing and gave him no say in it. It feels like she's burying her head in the sand and failing to grasp the fact that there's risks either way.Levi blatantly breaks patient confidentiality by ringing up Mackenzie to tell her what's going on, he's lucky no-one seemed to object. If the nephew who died that Tane mentioned was Ari and Mia's baby, didn't we already know he was born premature? I should probably have more sympathy for Kirby than I do.I get it's not much fun to have your self-esteem take a hit and I guess you can't help how you feel and even she wishes things were different, but she's bitten some poor girl's head off (I hope she got her lesson in the end!) and left Mali in the lurch. Even him cutting ties with the ad agency hasn't helped her much, she's probably wishing she'd never suggested all this publicity. Roo completes the set of annoying characters by railroading Mali and dropping John in it in the hope that he'd cover for her with Alf. Alf, meanwhile, has apparently decided to have some fun at her expense.

Alf's episode count this week:Five! Well, that turned out to not be the fun sisterly day out that Harper envisaged. We did get to see Dana's reaction when Harper finally let her in on the fact they're having a boy before that. I'm surprised Tane was so willing to step aside given how excited he'd been moments before, and I wonder how much John's comment about the way to find love stung for Harper... Levi's having to give up his fun day as well! Any Doctor Who fans watching are probably going to be amused to see the other doctor is named Dr Liz Shaw according to the credits, the name of a regular from Doctor Who's 1970 season! Elsewhere, the stalwarts (minus Roo, who seems to be on a strict two episode a week ration these days so gets packed off to see the council) are building Alf a shed in his rather large back garden. I wouldn't have said Justin was the first choice to put something like that together, John even less so (so it's probably a good thing his main contributions were to stand and watch and to look forward to the sandwich run). Of course, despite all her efforts, Leah turning up again on the basis of "I brought you a sandwich" got Alf's spider-sense twitching and he's more alert than they think...