Home and Away: #Willex

Monday 13th – Friday 17th January 2020

Things remain tense between Robbo and Jasmine as they look after baby Grace.  Robbo continues to shut Jasmine out of Grace’s care, suggesting that she return to work as she’s not needed at home.  He is oblivious to how much he is hurting her, believing that she shouldn’t have to look after Grace as being a full time Mum isn’t what she signed up for. 

Ava is desperate to meet her baby cousin Justin ends up arguing with Robbo over the baby.  Taking matters into his own hands, Mason takes Ava to see Grace himself.  Robbo and Jasmine are pleased to introduce Ava to her cousin.  Unfortunately, the day is ruined when Justin charges in, threatening legal action if Robbo doesn’t let him have access to his niece.  While Leah and Jasmine attempt to calm the boys down, it’s Mason that eventually puts Justin in his place, reminding him that he needs to stop wasting time fighting Robbo over Grace and be there for Ava instead.

  • Justin and Robbo both want the best for baby Grace…

Robbo does the rounds introducing Grace to everyone but with his hope beginning to fade for Tori, Justin backs away from his niece.  When Marilyn mentions that Justin snapped at Ziggy and sent her home from the garage, Leah is concerned enough to go and find him.

Alex expresses concern about Bella after the incident the other day.  When Willow speaks to Bella, the teenager assures her that she is fine now that Colby and Mac are over for good.  However, Willow remains concerned, as Colby admits that he and Mac are just on pause until Bella feels more settled.  Bella’s hopes are shattered when she witnesses Colby and Mac meeting up in secret, putting their relationship in jeopardy all over again.

Willow and Alex have resumed their flirtatious relationship.  Later, Mason teases Willow about her ‘date’ with Alex that evening and it does very much seem that way as Willow is all dressed up, waiting nervously and downing shots as she waits for Alex to arrive.  In a moment of panic, Willow invites Jasmine (who also remarks that Willow looks like she’s waiting for a date) to join them.  Jasmine declines and Willow and Alex enjoy a night of flirty banter, exchanging life stories and a lot of tequila.  Willow couldn’t make her attraction to Alex more obvious.  Okay, she could.  She does.  At the end of the night, she kisses Alex, who reluctantly turns her down, not wanting to take advantage of her when she’s been drinking, or wanting to be a morning regret.  Willow is mortified, not least when she realises that Irene has seen everything.

  • Alex and Willow get closer…

After being turned down by Alex, in front of Irene, Willow crashes in Dean’s caravan, although she doesn’t feel able to tell him what happened.  The next day, Irene, desperately tries to find Willow to talk to her about what she saw.  Willow bumps into Alex and panics, lying to her that she doesn’t remember what happened the previous night.  Irene gives Willow the chance to talk through her feelings for Alex.  Willow then texts Alex to confess that she does remember.  They meet up and talk honestly, deciding to take things slowly and not label their relationship while they explore their feelings for each other.

Ben gets the happy news that all charges against him have been dropped.  He decides he wants to open the board shop and asks Dean to help him.  Unfortunately, this leaves Dean in a very difficult position.  He is already struggling to manage the Surf School alongside his shifts at Salt.  The Surf School doesn’t bring in any money yet but Salt pays the bills.  Adding in the Board Shop only applies more pressure but he doesn’t want to let Ben down.  To solve the problem, Mac fires Dean!  She then gives him a hefty loan for the Surf School which he can pay back over time.  She wants him to live his dream and be able to help Ben.  What a brilliant sister!  Maggie looks after Ben when he has a wobble over his ability to run the business.  Going forward, he decides to go back on the antidepressants in order to make everything be as successful as possible for himself and his family.

John completely misses the point when Marilyn worries about how Raffy is doing and is desperately lonely without any kids to look after at home.  Thankfully, sensitive Ryder realises and offers her the hand of friendship.  He raises the alarm with John who eventually supports his wife and understands how she is feeling.

Channel 5, 1:15pm & 6pm (sneak peek, weekdays on 5STAR at 6:30pm)

(These reviews are based on the Channel 5 episodes)

Soap Blog: Monday 6th January – Sunday 12th January 2020

Coronation Street: Judas Jade

Jade sets the wheels in motion to take Hope away from Fiz.  She goes to Doctor Gaddas with her fake tears, fake photos and fake fears that Fiz is abusing her daughter.  The GP has no choice but to contact Social Services who go straight round to the house and then to the school to speak to Hope who confirms the story that Jade has drilled into her.  She and Ruby are removed from the family home immediately.

The next day, the kids sneak back to see their parents but are caught by Jade who reports it to Social Services who have no choice to take them into formal foster care.  Fiz and Tyrone get a further shock when Jade, who has moved into a proper flat in preparation to take the kids from them, steps forward as John Stape’s daughter and Hope’s sister.  She lies to the Social Worker that she met Fiz in Birmingham and was upfront with her from the start before Fiz invited her to move in with them.  Jade is distraught when she is refused custody of the kids on the grounds that she was a resident of the house when the abuse accusations were made.  She sticks the knife in a little deeper by informing Social Services about the gun, landing her in trouble with the police.  Later, Fiz tracks Jade down and confronts her but thankfully, Tyrone arrives and drags her away before things get too serious.  Tyrone is frustrated when Fiz and Gary lie to the police about the gun, believing that they will just get into more trouble and lose the kids.  Well, yes.  Probably.

Leanne is delighted when she overhears Paula and Tracy arguing over their night of passion.  Cue lots of amusing conversations between Tracy and Leanne and Leanna and Paula, plus lots of sexually charges arguments between Tracy and Paula.  Things eventually come to a head when Steve arranges to spend the afternoon in the hot tub with Tracy only for it to have been double booked by Sally, Paula and Leanne.  Leanne cannot help herself, sharing a hot tub with Steve, Tracy and Paula.  Tracy storms out, followed by Paula and even hapless Steve knows there’s something going on.  Now, I know Steve and Tracy kind of belong together but am I the only one who feels like Coronation Street have accidentally unearthed some chemistry between Tracy and Paula?  I kind of want them to see where this goes!  But for now, Steve challenges Tracy and is absolutely stunned to discover that it’s a woman that she spent the night with.  Tracy attempts to manipulate him and blame him for her infidelity.  But the poor guy is genuinely heartbroken as he loves her and wants to work through their problems.

Geoff continues his manipulation of Yasmeen, spoiling her with clothes but not wanting her to go out and spend time with her friends, even accusing her of fancying Brian.  Meanwhile, Cathy becomes concerned that Yasmeen always cancels on her and never socialises anymore and seems to clean the house to the level of OCD.

Michael and James put their mother forward for a hero award with the local paper when they realise how guilty she feels for not being able to save Robert.  She is uncomfortable with the attention and opens up to Roy about why she gave up nursing.  A patient died after a mistake, even though the mistake wasn’t hers.  She was torn up with guilt and it impacted her work to the point she has to resign. 

The hospital performs a critical procedure on Shona and she is finally able to breathe on her own.  David does everything he can think of to bring her round.  He also gets the news that Josh has been found guilty of two counts of rape (including against him) and been sentenced to fifteen years.  Delayed justice but finally, justice to one of the most emotive, powerful storylines the show has done.  When David hears about Aggie’s award and that she used to be a nurse, Aggie offers him support that he genuinely accepts. Gemma and Chesney take the quads to a posh photoshoot with Frescos but upon discovering that his employee is advertising his rival, Dev sacks Chesney on the spot.  But just as Cathy persuades Dev to change his mind, Bernie messes everything up and the war is back on even worse than before!  Well done, Bernie.  Just as this boring story was almost over…

Doctors: Cold Snap

Al is worried after he goes to visit monosyllabic Jimmi in prison.  Behind bars, Jimmi begins to make himself useful as a Doctor, earning himself some protection from his cellmate.  He helps him with his back pain and advises the prison officer girlfriend of another prisoner about a mole, sending her to see Sid at The Mill.

Worried about Jimmi’s state of mind, his colleagues organise a rota of visits but Daniel is reluctant to let Bear participate.  Bear has just met up with his ex-girlfriend, the one that he clearly isn’t over and so is fuelling all his hatred towards Jimmi.  While Bear recalls Jimmi being unsympathetic and regrets the termination, his ex has a completely different recollection.  She barely even remembers Jimmi and believes the termination was the right thing.  She was able to go onto University and carve out a career for herself, none of which she would have been able to do if she’d gone ahead with the pregnancy.  She has also moved on and met someone.

Meanwhile, Al, Emma and Rob meet up, scratching their heads trying to work out who on earth could have set Jimmi up in the first place.  If it wasn’t the guy who was hanging around The Icon and it wasn’t Gareth who could it be?  Maybe the manager of The Mill?  Well, Bear does go to visit Jimmi, who is surprised to see him.  And for me, it seems like he just wants to see the poor guy behind bars and suffering.  It’s an awkward meeting to say the least and Bear doesn’t disclose their past, which Jimmi has no recollection of.  Jimmi struggles with his OCD when he and the other prisoners are locked in their cells as the officers deal with another prisoner acting out.  A patient of Jimmi’s goes above and beyond to start a campaign to help free him but his conscience gets the better of him when Al uncovers his own criminal past and he hands himself into the police.

Zara pulls rank when Ayesha who is now a fully qualified Nurse Prescriber is signed off to go ahead with prescriptions, forbidding her to be independent yet.  When Zara is busy one day, she sets Al the task of checking the prescriptions, which Al blatantly doesn’t do, trusting Ayesha to perform the job she is qualified to do correctly.  Bear uses Joe’s eye infection and the rules about not prescribing for your own family to trick Zara into realising that nurse prescribers are legitimate and that she should loosen the reins on Ayesha.  I don’t like the guy but he does have his uses.

At the beginning of Wednesday’s episode we see some pretty harrowing scenes where a drunken group from a rowing club, assault a homeless man and urinate on him.  They then attack a homeless young woman, throw her stuff around and urinate on her.  It’s absolutely hideous and very upsetting.  While the man ends up dying of hypothermia, the girl reports her attack to the police.  In a particularly interesting story, it turns out that the girl knew the man Frank (and found him dead, taking £20 from him and running away in a moment of regret).  Emma and Rob track down Frank’s next of kin, who is devastated that she had been living nearby her Dad, who she hadn’t seen for fifteen years and could have helped him if he had only reached out to her.  They locate the arrogant, posh thugs who caused his death and they are arrested.

Eastenders: Broken

Things come to a head when Chantelle and Gray return from their trip.  First, Kat drops Karen in it and tells Gray about the party, which gets Chantelle into trouble.  Then he spots her helping Jags home with some shopping.  When he then demands she take a pregnancy test and isn’t suitably disappointed that it’s negative, they argue and he breaks her arm.  At first, he refuses to take her to hospital but eventually, he has no choice.  Then in an even more gut wrenching scene, Chantelle attempts to make her vile husband feel better by blaming the whole thing on herself.  She tries to persuade herself that really she hadn’t lied to her Mum about how it happened.  Technically, it had happened at the bottom of the stairs.  And it was her fault really because she had moved awkwardly.  She then reels off a list of stupid things she has done over the years, heaping blame on herself for the fact that he has just broken her arm.  Absolutely hideous and utterly heartbreaking.

Struggling to keep control, Chantelle panics when Keegan and co. including Jags all show up at her house the next day and in the end, terrified about getting into trouble with Gray for entertaining, she throws them out.  Of course, this later leads to a falling out with Keegan.  When she advises him not to get involved with Vinny (the other Panesar Brother – I am really getting the hang of new characters’ names now) Keegan loses his temper with his sister, believing that she doesn’t care about her family anymore.

Speaking of Keegan, he does strike up a friendship with Vinny who gets hold of a scooter to help with the sandwich deliveries.  Against her better judgement, Iqra agrees to let Vinny become involved in the business but on their first trip out, Vinny and Keegan are victims of racial profiling stop and search.  It makes them late to bring Gray’s order of sandwiches for a business meeting.  He has already had to order different food and wipes his hands off their business.  The boys cannot agree over how they handled the stop and search, having both been stopped before for no reason.  Vinny was angry but Keegan was compliant, not wanting more trouble than necessary.

Whitney is horrified when Leo takes up a stall on the market in a bid to be close to her.  Thankfully she has all the other market traders, including Martin and Kush on her side.  Well, if Martin is on her side, Leo she probably be worried!  Whitney agrees to a ‘date’ with Leo where she makes it clear that she wants absolutely nothing to do with him.  He doesn’t seem to get the message.

Big Mo decides to take Jean’s grief into her own hands (and earn some cash) by holding a séance for Daniel.  When Kush catches the pair together, Jean decides to play along and while she, Mo and Kat are in the kitchen with a crystal ball, Mo calls on Daniel’s spirit, only for Daniel to walk into the kitchen!  Kat is furious with Daniel, Kush and Jean until it’s revealed that Daniel has been paying the shortfall in their rent.

Karen and Billy have the most mild (not to mention brief) breakup in the history of soap, rivalling the most unremarkable getting together in soap, AKA Jack and Denise.  Karen also snaps at Honey about spoiling Janet’s fun regarding the pageant, prompting her to change her mind and let her take part.  Unfortunately, Honey’s eating disorder overwhelms her during the show and Janet nearly misses out as she remains backstage, worried about her mother throwing up in the toilets.  Billy finds them and Janet is brought on stage where she wins the pageant (much to Lexi’s annoyance but everyone else’s pride).  Billy later confronts Honey.  At first his shock comes out in anger but he is later determined to support and care for his ex-wife. I feel another breakup with Karen coming on.

Emmerdale: Downward Spiral

Matty delivers some home truths to Moira, reminding her that today would be hers and John’s anniversary and that she also cheated on him.  Victoria helps Moira and Matty begin to work things out.  Moira then overhears Pete and Nate bitching about her.  Well, that’s unfortunate.  While Matty moves out of the farm, he is immediately suspicious of his mother when Pete and Nate inform him that someone has dumped herbicide all over their farm.  When they tackle her about it, she isn’t even sorry.

Things go from bad to worse when Moira goes on a drinking binge, nearly getting knocked over by a car and ending up in a ditch.  Thankfully, the driver of the car, who is quite obviously Nate’s mother, Cara, stops and picks Moira up, taking her to the hospital.  She stays with her and tracks Matty down at the pub.  But Moira loses it when she learns that Nate drove Matty to the hospital, which is when Cara reveals that Nate is her son.  Cara is horrified to discover what her son has been up to since his arrival in the village and her dislike of Cain who finally bothers to show up, is clear.  What a bloody mess!  But it does lend to an excellent moment of gossip between Marlon and Charity as they discuss the arrival of Nate’s Mum.  While Cain and Cara finally talk through their past, Moira is quick to tell Cara all the worst bits of the Dingles.

In the wake of the news that the church may close and Harriet is likely to be relocated, the church is robbed.  Harriet immediately suspects that the Bishop has started clearing the building out already.  However, it was actually Will in a misguided attempt to keep Harriet in the Village.  Yes, I’m sure that will work.  Moron.  When Harriet discovers what he has done, she is understandably furious and has it out with him.  Dawn begs Harriet to lie to the police and cover up her Dad’s crime.  If he gets into trouble and their home life changes, her chances of getting her son back are over.  With Nicola’s campaign and a big, anonymous donation saving the church roof, the church is saved and will not close.  But Harriet is torn up with guilt for lying to the police, the community and the Bishop for Will’s crime, despite him insisting that he felt he was doing it for the right reasons.  Because he’s a moron.  The family, including Billy, have a successful home visit with Lucas.

I’m going to be honest here.  Emmerdale is seriously weak at the moment.  They have some fantastic characters, relationships and a few plots that are engaging.  But a lot of it is so boring.  They have some really weak characters that they need to get rid of i.e. Nate, Will and Al.  Their storylines are distracting and hard to focus on because they’re just not interesting enough.  They should be bring characters like Ryan into the light.  They should be moving Victoria, Wendy and Luke’s storyline on and other, stronger storylines.  There seems to be a lot of dithering in every episode at the moment.  Quite frankly, Emmerdale, you need a plane crash.  But please leave Charity and Vanessa intact.

Moving on… Noah lies to Charity about returning to hospital and needing a blood test, not wanting her to fuss.  Graham does finally alert Charity over the hospital admission and despite a hideous row with him where they both say some awful things, Charity rushes home to be with her son.  Noah accuses Charity of not loving him as much as Graham does but she makes it clear just how much she adores him.  She books the required blood test and takes him out for a special dinner.  Sarah is under more pressure to help Danny who is in trouble over the missing drugs.  But again… maybe Sarah and Danny should make friends with the kids from Hollyoaks.  All these storylines seem to be the same at the moment.  However, there is a twist in the tale as Sarah finally discovers what a liar Danny really is and backs out of the plan, sending him into the hands of the police.  Well done!

David rushes Theo to the Doctor, meaning that he has to register him and make his existence official.  Social Service become involved but after locating Maya abroad, she and the authorities are happy for Theo (who is named as Alex on his birth certificate) are happy for David to have custody (and be called Theo) and to begin making things official.

While all the kids, including Jacob are furious with Liam and Leyla, Diane merely scolds Liam and gently breaks the news that Bernice is staying in Australia permanently for the sake of her daughter.  However, she is more than happy for Liam to continue living with her and the girls.

Rhona is annoyed when Graham starts working at the outdoor adventure retreat with Kim but he has a cunning plan.  The first thing he does is trick Kim’s banking password out of new recruit Ryan steal a load of cash.

Hollyoaks (and Hollyoaks Later): The Serial Killer

Breda is absolutely brutal to poor, oblivious Jack and hands him back his ring.  Hapless Goldie becomes even more worried about her mother’s ‘dementia’ and moods and what she might do, still believing that her illness caused her to kill Harry.

Armed with his box of evidence, John Paul turns to recently released Mercedes and tells her everything he knows: Breda is the real serial killer.  When he discovers that Breda never sold the pig farm, he opts to keep the creepy old Nanny busy while Mercedes heads to the farm to find out everything she can.  Unfortunately, Breda had spotted the pair plotting and drugs John Paul’s tea, knocking him out – but not before she’s got out of him where Mercedes is headed.

Down at the farm, Mercedes is shocked to discover Tony locked up and half dead.  She attempts to rescue him but is attacked by Breda.  Tony makes one last ditch effort to save himself and Mercedes but he’s stabbed with a rake for his efforts.  Ugh!  Surely it can’t be that he has been held captive for so long and then die like this?  Breda locks them both up and Mercedes desperately tries to keep Tony talking and alive.  She lies to him that Diane has never given up on him or stopped looking for him.  However, in a rather boring distraction to the Hollyoaks Later episode, Diane attends a party with Edward, alongside Edward’s daughter, Verity who is getting it on with Sami who has clearly forgotten all about Sinead.

Jack returns his ring to Goldie, who puts it up for sale where Lisa recognises it as belonging to her Dad.  This obviously confirms to her that Mercedes really did kill Louis but between the ring and those hideous dolls, Goldie at last begins to put two and two together.

While the villagers gather together for a meeting to discuss the way forward, Goldie and Sylver track their mother down to the pig farm.  In fabulous serial killer style, she tells them the whole story.  The pig farm is a graveyard.  She murdered her abusive father and fed him to the pigs.  She murdered Sylver’s father and buried him at the pig farm.  She killed Goldie’s father and let Sylver take the blame.  Sylver is utterly destroyed.  They argue and she shoots him with a stun gun.  When Goldie goes for help, Breda sets the whole farm on fire, ready to die with her son.

Goldie rescues Mercedes and Tony who is pretty much dead already (please, no!)  Mercedes rushes into the inferno to save her husband, leading to a pretty brutal fight between her and Breda, ending only when Sylver stabs his mother in the head with her own knitting needles!  We absolutely knew that’s where it was heading, so to speak.  There were just too many shots of the needles at the beginning of the showdown.  They had to be important!  But still… ouch!

Diane and Edward are at it at the hospital and are just deciding to make a go of things for real when Tony is rushed into the emergency department.  Diane gets quite the shock!  Hollyoaks really is one for timing.  Misbah comforts guilty Diane, who confesses her relationship with Edward.  Edward delays calling for help when Tony goes into cardiac arrest, knowing that if Tony was out of the way then he could continue to pursue Diane.  However, he does eventually save Tony’s life himself.  When Tony wakes up, he is shocked to see Edward and to meet his sister, Verity for the first time.  But it’s a touching reunion for Tony and Diane as she vows never to let anything bad to happen to him again and he begs her to promise she knew he was lying on the phone and that she still loves him.  She reassures him but she is clearly torn up with guilt over Edward, who she has firmly rejected.  They close the episode with a lovely rendition of ‘Back For Good’.

John Paul returns to the shocked pub to tell them the truth – Breda is the real serial killer and she has been keeping Tony hostage for months.

The next episode takes place over a series of therapy sessions with Nancy’s doppelganger.  Diane supports Tony while Darren and Jack have a joint session and Sylver goes it alone before Mercedes joins him as they all attempt to process what Breda has done to them.

Tony lies about having nightmares as he discusses his time in captivity, missing his family and attempting to escape to escape.  But then he breaks down and admits that he misses Breda and has come to need her.  It’s an awful moment to see how utterly broken he is, hating himself for his attachment to his kidnapper.  He is going to have a hell of a lot to work through and he doesn’t even know about Diane and Edward.  Speaking of, when Tony spots Edward in one of the kids drawings, he is alarmed by how close his father has come to his family (if only he knew) and insists that Diane and the kids stay away from him, warning her that she has no idea what Edward is capable of…

Sylver struggles to control his anger during the session.  He claims to hate Breda for everything she has done to him, taking away his childhood and punishing him for a crime he didn’t commit.  While the therapist gives Sylver permission to miss Breda, Sylver is scared that he is a psychopath, just like his mother.  Mercedes is quick to reassure him that he is a good man and a good Dad.  Later, Mercedes misunderstands his hope that they can start again as an intention for them to get back together.  He just wants them to forgive each other.  He still wants to be with Grace.

Jack also struggles in the therapy session, torn up with guilt for not seeing what Breda was really capable of or being able to prevent the deaths of so many people.  The therapist suggests that he take a break in Portugal like he had originally planned and Darren supports the idea, taking him the airport himself.

Diane makes it clear that she has chosen Tony who has his own struggles as the children believe that he abandoned him.  Determined to remain part of the family, Edward concocts a story about how Tony’s Mum forced him to abandon the family home, that he tried to stay in touch (providing fake letters and cards which he later dumps) and that he has kept abreast of everything Tony has done in his life.  Actually, he has just done a lot of research.  And so while Diane is ready to send Edward (whose name is really Brian) away, Tony decides to ask him to stay.  I think this is the beginning of seeing just how dark Edward can be.  Goodness, we have only just got rid of Breda!

It’s an emotional day for Tony as he returns home to Diane and the kids but he struggles to adjust to every day noise and normal life.  The sound of a dripping tap triggers him to panic and lock himself in his room.  This is going to be a very long road.

Meanwhile, unaware that Warren has returned to the village with the twins, Sienna is struggling with her jealousy over the friendship between Brody and Liberty.  She organises for herself and Brody to spend the day together with no interruptions, only for Liberty to be rushed into hospital with hypoglycaemia.  Feeling guilty, Sienna admits her insecurities to Brody who promises that she is the only person he would ever be interested.  Warren then locates Brody alone and abducts him.  Sienna is immediately worried when poor Brody doesn’t come home.  Locked up, we witness a very strange pissing contest between captor and prisoner as they both try to prove that Sienna loves them the best.  Sienna comes running to meet her mystery texter in a bid to save Brody.  She is livid to come face to face with Warren but he interrupts her, desperately worried about their son.

Jesse and Courtney’s wedding is falling apart so Scott persuades Azim to step in as their wedding planner to help them pull it all back together.  Working together on the wedding, Scott, who has firmly rejected Mitchell, finds himself kissing Azim.

Home and Away: Grace

Robbo calls Justin to let him know about Tori as he races to get to her in time for the birth.  Robbo and Tori share a happy moment as they greet their daughter.  They name the baby Grace.  Robbo reassures Jasmine that the investigation is over and they are all safe.

The next day, as they prepare to go home, Tori becomes unwell and passes out.  She is helicoptered to the nearest hospital with post-partem pre-eclampsia.  Oblivious, Justin, Leah, Mason and Ava celebrate Tori and the newest addition to their family.  Robbo then has to break the news to Justin over what has happened.  As Tori goes into cardiac arrest, Justin and Mason rush to the hospital to see her.  Tori is diagnosed with having had a stroke and is now in a coma.  Willow accidentally puts her foot in it when asking Mason about Tori in front of Ava, who is already struggling to keep the seriousness of Tori’s condition from her.  Ava challenges Mason about the situation and finally, Justin has to explain exactly what has happened.

Robbo is overprotective when he and Jasmine bring Grace home to the Bay, leaving Justin frustrated that he has taken her away from Tori and not given the rest of the family a say in any of the decisions.  Jasmine is hurt when Robbo doesn’t seem to want to let her near the baby.  When Robbo asks Justin for the cradle he made for Grace, the boys get into an argument, Justin blaming Robbo for Tori’s situation.  A second confrontation sees Justin demanding custody of Grace but Robbo sends him away.  Robbo is angry with Jasmine for her perceived lack of support.

Ryder lies to Maggie that the incident with the bottle was just a joke.  She has no choice but to exclude him from his final exam, meaning that he will not pass his HSC.  He admits the truth to John, who recommends that he tell the truth.  Ryder obeys.  Maggie is shaken and angry (not with Ryder) by the news.  Ryder is anxious when Maggie wants to contact the police, aware of the pressure Blake is under at home but Maggie insists that what Blake was prepared to do was very serious.  Blake is furious with Ryder for betraying him.  Ryder is thrilled, however, when he finally finishes his HSC and therefore high school for good.

Continuing to take his medication, Ben is bad tempered as he struggles with his side effects.  He and Maggie end up arguing when she catches him throwing away his medication.  He also refuses to see the counsellor.  A talk with Dean prompts him to change his mind.

Dean gets annoyed with Ziggy and her promotion of the surf school, especially as the surf lessons are free.  He has to work flat out at Salt as well just to make ends meet.  He is exhausted and overwhelmed with the amount of work he has to do with setting the business up.  He tries to explain how he feels to Ziggy but she won’t listen, leading to a big argument the next day.  Getting the wrong end of the stick, Ziggy persuades Mac to cancel Dean’s shifts at Salt so that he can concentrate on his business.  Dean is livid.  When Ben explains to Ziggy that her exuberance may be a little overbearing, Dean easily gets his shifts back alongside the offer of getting time off for the business when he needs it.

Willow is also fretting about running the gym by herself, especially the prospect of hiring a new member of staff to replace Mason.  Seeing how much she is struggling with her workload, Alex ditches her PT session and helps her get organised.  Cue a very flirtatious interview role play as Alex teaches Willow how to interview potential new employees.  Their friendship is definitely back on.

Bella does everything she can to keep Colby away from Mac.  She persuades Dean to take him on as his assistant but Colby just ends up shouting at the students.  Ben takes over and Dean and Ziggy make up, leaving Colby free to get back together with Mac, enraging Bella.  Later, Alex finds her bashing a pole with a piece of wood, which has cut her hand.  She talks the angry teenager down and treats her hand, without thanks.  Colby and Mac decide to put Bella first.

Neighbours: The Boss

David, Harlow and Paul visit Robert in jail.  Robert apologises for initially letting David down and also asks him to pass on his apologies to Elly.  Paul actually thanks Robert for saving David’s life.

Chloe and Pierce are faced with having to fire people from Lassiters but things get even more serious when Lucy tells Pierce that Chloe is also for the chop.  She has two weeks to prove herself or she is done.  Terese is on hand to help Chloe get her act together and make a good presentation to Anita and also get a booking for a hundred people for the hotel.  Unfortunately, Anita and Pierce catch the women celebrating and their deception prompts Anita to recommend that Chloe loses her job after all.  Well, what did they think was going to happen when they were talking about it so openly?  Terese talks Anita round but Paul thinks Chloe should just hand herself in – she was only hired in the first place because she is Pierce’s wife!  Charming!  When Chloe overhears Pierce confirming what Paul has said and doubting her capabilities, she is beyond hurt.  However, Terese is certain that with some more training and support, Chloe will make an excellent General Manager and Pierce finally agrees.  Sadly, despite accepting the job, damage has clearly been done to their marriage.

Hendrix discovers Karl and Susan’s infamous blue box!  He hands an item over to innocent Harlow, claiming it’s a cat toy, which she uses to try and get the missing cat back.  Imagine her embarrassment when alarmed Ned informs her what the item really is!  Imagine how Karl reacts when Harlow angrily hands it back to Hendrix in front of him.  Furious Pierces demands that Hendrix apologises to Karl and Susan and change his behaviour.

Susan is furious that Elly and Finn have renewed their attraction to each other and are risking hurting Bea.  When Finn isn’t allowed to move himself and Bea out of the house, Elly decides that she needs to leave instead and moves in with Aaron and David, who despite being half dead a couple of days ago, is already out of hospital and up to visiting Robert who is already back in jail despite just having a serious operation.  But anyway, Karl and Bea are upset at Elly’s departure but she blames it on Hendrix, who is an absolute nightmare housemate.  She also claims to feel smothered.  Elly struggles through the night with a crying baby.  She and Finn miss each other.  Desperate, she eventually calls him and he helps to settle her.

Between living with baby Aster and seeing pictures of Amy and her new life in New York, Kyle struggles to cope with the future he had planned being taken away.  Toadie is increasingly worried about his state of mind and tries to involve him in the Buddy Club.  Kyle steps up to take on his first session at the Buddy Club and gets permission to use Amy’s yard to teach some kids woodwork.  However, in preparation the day before, he manages to lose Nell…

Soap Blog: Monday 30th December 2019 – Sunday 5th January 2020

Coronation Street

Tim is in trouble with Sally for agreeing to work over New Year’s Eve so Steve lies to Tracy in order to take on his shift.  Tracy, who is desperate to go to an Evanescence gig (who knew Amy was conceived to ‘Bring Me to Life’?) in a bid to escape the horror of everything that has happened recently with Derek’s rampage and Robert’s death, is bitterly disappointed.  She is also extremely upset when she catches Steve out in his lie.  Tracy ends up spending the evening getting drunk with Paula, who Amy is doing work experience with, in the pub instead and it turns out that the women have a connection they didn’t expect.  They lament over their broken relationships – Steve has let Tracy down and Sophie has gone off with a backpacker.

Tracy is shocked to wake up in bed with Paula on New Year’s Day and instantly regrets cheating on Steve, although Paula seems to find the whole thing amusing.  Well, it is a bit funny, especially the scene where Tracy is running around looking for her pants and Paula remarks that the previous night, Tracy was showing off about how during her prison days, she had ‘bedded more women than Madonna’!  And of course, during all of this, Amy pops round to give Paula some files and although Tracy hides, Amy knows that Paula has pulled.

When Tracy makes it home, Steve tries to make things up to his wife but Amy is mostly curious that her mother is wearing the same clothes from the night before and has brought home the wrong coat.  Tracy also lets slip that she knows Amy went to Paula’s that morning.  She meets Paula later to swap coats but things soon escalate into a row, Tracy claiming Paula took advantage of her and Paula insisting that Tracy initiated the whole thing.  When their argument spills out onto the Street in front of Amy, it doesn’t take long for the kid to work out what has happened.  She is horrified by her mother for cheating on her father, although Tracy tries to explain how hurt she has been feeling lately.  Oblivious Steve buys Tracy a cat, still trying to make things up to her.  Amy agrees to stay quiet but also decides to move out, citing Tracy ending her work experience with Paula due to apparent homophobia as the reason.  Tracy is horrified and quickly denies it, nearly dropping herself in it with Steve and the couple have no choice but to let their daughter leave home.

Izzy bumps into Derek’s widow and is shocked to learn all about the trouble he was in, owing money to loan shark, Gary, prompting her to confront him in the pub in front of everyone.  With no options left, Gary admits more or less everything to Maria, although he leaves out the part where he murdered Rick and buried him in the woods.  Maria is horrified, holding him responsible for both the roof collapse and the events of Christmas Day and therefore Robert, Rana and Derek’s deaths.  In a bid to fight his corner, Gary tells Maria about Ali’s drug addiction.  When Maria witnesses a man begging Gary for money and Gary insisting that he is out of the business but then taking pity on him and giving him an item from the shop instead, telling him how much Maria means to him, the muppet forgives him and pledges her commitment to him.  As if that whole thing wasn’t set up!  But gullible Maria falls for it and then outs Ali for his addiction in the pub.  Gary evicts Nick and Sarah from the factory building and changes the locks until they pay the full rent.  Adam proposes to Sarah properly and in public.  Gary is not impressed.  Because not only is Gary lying to Maria about his criminality, he’s also using her to get over Sarah as well.  You’d think with Maria’s history, she would have learnt a thing or two about bad men…

Ryan quits his job at the Bistro but Bethany and Faye are keen to impress their new boss, Ray.  Abi just cannot get things right when it comes to starting off a relationship with Kevin and ends up getting it on with Ray.  David remains by Shona’s bedside as she remains in a coma but eventually agrees to give evidence at Josh’s trial.  He tells the court of his rape ordeal but escapes the stand as soon as possible, explaining that he needs to be with his wife.  Hope accuses Ruby of hurting her arm but while her parents ignore her, Jade takes her to the hospital (via John Stape’s grave) for an x-ray as soon as possible.  When she gets there, Fiz explains that she fell off a bench but Hope has already mentioned that she slammed her arm in a door.  Now she has a very small fracture.  I wonder if Jade is friends with Leo from Eastenders.  I mean, they basically have the same storyline…

Doctors

Doctors is on its Christmas Holidays!

Eastenders

When Gray and Chantelle set off on their ‘honeymoon’ Karen is left to look after the house in their absence.  Of course, the first thing she does is arrange a New Year’s Eve party to distract her from her fears for Keanu.

Linda promises Mick that she will stay sober but continues to lie about her whereabouts on Christmas Day and ignore calls from an unknown number.  Clearly haunted by the events of Christmas Day, Linda escapes to Karen’s party in what is an absolutely fantastic episode (New Year’s Eve).  A huge round of applause to Kellie Bright for leading the entire episode!  Amazing!  We follow Linda as she arrives at the party sober but Karen’s trauma over Keanu pushes her into drinking more and more.  We see her partying with Kat and Denise.  We see her comforting Honey, insulting her and then warning Billy that she isn’t happy (Honey and Billy have been caught kissing and of course, Honey is battling an eating disorder and has broken up with vile Adam).  We see her locking herself in the bathroom, hiding from Mick.  We see her arguing with Shirley.  We see her losing time.  We also see her trying to contact Martin, suggesting that she was definitely involved with Keanu.  She has a horrible row with Sharon but she’s so drunk she can barely keep up with her own side.

It really was interesting to see her so drunk, knowing she has a drink problem, alongside characters who were equally drunk but who don’t have a drink problem and how you perceive the same actions but in different ways.  It was clever to include the time lapses she has and to make us as viewers experience the confusion about conversations she can’t remember, making us try to keep up when we has the same fractured information that she does.  It’s a very cleverly written episode and it’s brilliantly executed.

So, speaking of execution, on New Year’s Day, we have another great episode that finally fills in the blanks of Christmas Day.  For starters, Martin drives Keanu down to an old warehouse in order to kill him.  Of course, he struggles to do it.  There’s a rather nasty fight – a little too nasty, actually, for 8pm.  Poor, drunk Linda has fallen asleep in Martin’s van and the gunshots wake her.  After much debate, Linda comes up with the idea that they fake Keanu’s death by shooting him in the shoulder and filming him on the floor, covered in blood as if he was dead.  It doesn’t exactly go to plan.  For starters, Linda shoots him in the shoulder before they’ve even got the camera out!  But they manage it and off he goes, Linda and Martin promising never to speak of it again.  Martin burns all of Keanu’s things, crying his eyes out.

Meanwhile, back on the Square, Daniel returns and helps the Panesar Brothers put the Slaters electricity back on.  He also negotiates to pay the rent top up for them and decides to take the risk of revealing the truth to Jean that he is actually alive.  They argue at first but then admit that they love each other and decide to spend the rest of Daniel’s life together.

We also discover who attempted to steal money from Dot.  It was Sonia!  Can you even believe that?  I assume she did it because she is besotted with Martin and she was trying to help him.  But in the Christmas Day flashback (on New Year’s Day), she decided to prove that it was some hacker in Russia but phoning the bank with the landline plug pulled out.  Again though, there was a flaw in the plan, just like the idea of murdering someone to correct an accidental hit and run: Christmas Day is a BANK Holiday.  She would be extremely unlikely to have been able to call them.  They would very likely have been closed.  And nobody, including the girl who should have been an Oxford student by now, was capable of figuring that out.

And as everyone already knew, this Isaac bloke that Sheree was talking to on the phone was her son.  So what’s the big deal?  Why didn’t she just tell Denise that instead of walking out on Patrick?  Why does it matter if she has a son?  Is it going to be an interesting reveal or something utterly boring?  Time will tell, I suppose…

I have to say that although Coronation Street won Christmas for me, Eastenders were definitely on top when it came to strolling into 2020.  Definitely.  Emmerdale have yet to up their game.  They haven’t been on top for a while.

Linda wakes up feeling absolutely shocking on New Year’s Day with no memory of throwing Sharon out at 3am or of the awful things she said to her husband, including that if he had been a real man, he would have sorted out Dean after what he had done to her.  She also doesn’t remember physically attacking him.  It’s a difficult day as Linda recovers and pledges to do dry January and rebuild her life and her relationship with Mick, who has to spend the day apologising to everyone she offended the night before.

Ian stands up to Ben who is absolutely livid to learn that he has taken in Sharon who has nowhere else to go.  And when he sees just how broken Karen is over Keanu and also discovers that she knew all along about the affair but kept it secret, Martin tells her the truth – her son is alive but makes her swear to never tell.  When she still cannot cope with the loss of her boy, Martin takes pity on her again and takes her to the airport for one final goodbye with Keanu before he sets off for a new life with a new identity far away from any Mitchells that want to kill him.  Maybe.  I mean, it depends on how long Danny Walters has left on his contract.

Ash is horrified to discover that her brothers are moving into Adam and Honey’s old flat.  Iqra attempts to help Ash build bridges with her brothers but it all backfires when she discovers what Kheerat in particular is really like.  Not only does he dislike Ash for being bisexual and now in a relationship with a woman, he is horrified to realise that Iqra is a Muslim when they are a Sikh family.  Well, I take back what I said about him last week then…  It’s a shame really because he’s the only one of the three that isn’t irritating.

Emmerdale

David and Jacob, as well as the rest of the family are struggling to look after the baby as they wait for the DNA results.  The results reveal that David is the father.  He admits to Victoria and Eric that although he wanted to be the Dad over Jacob for the sake of his son, he doesn’t now know if he can cope with the baby or if he can love it, after all that Maya has done to their family.  They name the baby Theo Eric and he begins to come round to the idea of a new son.

Charity brings Noah home from hospital.  The family pretend that they have forgotten Ryan’s New Year’s birthday but while Vanessa distracts him and the other organise the party, he and Vanessa end up getting drunk so he is sick by the time he arrives!  Vanessa thinks Charity is hot when she’s angry!  It seems like their brief breakup did them the world of good…

Jamie is desperate to oust Rhona from the vets and undermines her with her colleagues and friends, revealing her previous plans to up and move away without even telling anyone, including taking Leo away from Marlon and Paddy.  Rhona tells Graham she still wants to leave.

Drunken Moira has a go at Wendy in the pub, when it has taken all of Bob’s charm to get her there in the first place.  Even Victoria doesn’t object to be being there!  Deciding to turn her life around, she arranges a work meeting but the drink starts flowing again and she then has to fight the client off when he hits on her and won’t take no for an answer.  She turns to drink once more, falling asleep on the couch, oblivious to Isaac calling for her.  It takes Vanessa arriving the day and physically having to shake her before she wakes up.  With Moira still over the limit from last night and Isaac seeming to have a chest infection, Vanessa takes the little boy to the Doctors on her behalf.  Moira and Chas end up in a huge argument about Moira’s behaviour but Chas finds compassion for her.  Nate interrogates Vanessa over why she has Isaac but Vanessa will not be moved.  Nate then raises his suspicions about Moira with Cain who bans Moira from seeing the kids until she has sorted herself out.  She is quick to blame Nate for stirring the pot.  Matty is horrified and embarrassed by his mother’s behaviour.  Vengeful, Moira gets into touch with Nate’s mother.  Things go wrong when Nate intercepts the meeting, leaving Moira a mess in front of Cain yet again.  She turns back to the wine before angrily lobbing a bottle at poor Matty’s head.  What a waste of wine!

Victoria goes into labour and Diane and Amy manage to get her to hospital without Wendy noticing.  She has the baby and despite some initial anxiety, holds her son for the first time and falls in love with him.  She changes her name back to Sugden.  Welcome to the world, Harry Sugden.

Luke rescues Aaron when he is thrown out of a bar and when he takes him to the hospital, he spots Diane visiting Victoria, thus discovering that she has had the baby.  He therefore tells his mother the news but forces her to hang back and not demand to see her grandson.  Victoria brings baby Harry home to the Village but Wendy is heartbroken not to be allowed to meet him properly.  She sends a hamper of gifts instead but Luke dissuades her from adding one of Lee’s old teddy bears to it.  Aaron avoids spending time with the baby.  Chas notices.

Leyla continues to flirt with Liam, who persuades her to help him at the beauty salon when Kerry doesn’t show up.  Leyla finally makes her move and kisses him.  Gabby gives Liam a Christmas present from Bernice, apparently telling him that Bernice still loves him.  However, when Liam confesses all to Bernice, she ends their relationship.  To be fair, it was wrong of her to dangle the poor bloke on a shoestring in the first place.  She is clearly using the kiss an excuse not to be the bad guy!  Anyway, Nicola, Leanna and Gabby are full of pity for Liam when they learn of the breakup.  Then they learn of the kiss.  In the world’s worst timing, Leyla tells Liam that she has feelings for him but all he wants to do is make things right with the kids.

Kim and Al get it on, only to be caught out by Jai.  He also catches Al taking money from the petty cash but Al talks his way out of it.  I’m sure all this will lead to a bigger story but I just don’t care enough to pay much attention to it.  I don’t care about Al.  I don’t care about his money.  I don’t care about his shenanigans, either business or pleasure.  I just don’t care.  It is so, so boring.  Harriet worrying about the possible closure of the church is more interesting than this and I can literally only write one sentence about it.

Hollyoaks

Cindy and Leela take Mandy out to cheer her up over her breakup with Darren, having also sent Luke out to talk some sense into Darren.  While out, Mandy tells Juliet off for being in a club underage, a decision she will live to regret as vengeful Juliet decides to spike Mandy’s drink with ketamine.  With Mandy off her face, Cindy walks her home but she somehow ends up waking up in the middle of the village in a fur coat she doesn’t recognise with absolutely no memory of the events of the night before.  Damon fills in some of the blanks but Juliet feels extremely guilty when she discovers what kind of state she put Mandy in by spiking her.  Mandy is even more scared when she finds a wad of cash in her bag with a note that says ‘you saw nothing, keep it shut’.  We then cut to a flashback of the night before where Mandy accidentally wanders into Toby and Celeste’s flat.  They are worried about her seeing something she shouldn’t and let her have the coat she has picked up by accident, hoping she’ll just think she walked into her own flat.  Then they bundle her out the door.

Darren also appears to have changed his tune, presumably due to Nancy getting engaged to Kyle and is keen to make things work between him and Mandy.  She is reluctant after he, you know, slept with Nancy behind her back and told her their whole relationship was mistake.  And now of course she is dealing with a whole night that is missing from her memory.

Juliet also has a rough night on ketamine, as Sid has to drag her home for help from Peri to look after her, where Juliet promptly wets herself.  Seriously?  Peri ends up in love with this girl?

Breda is acting creepier and weirder than ever as she comes under pressure to move to Portugal with Jack but of course, she has Tony locked away at the pig farm and she has big plans in place for Mercedes.  John Paul and Matthew arrive back in Hollyoaks Village only to walk in on Breda hiding her murderous souvenirs under the floorboards.  However, the next episode doesn’t carry on directly and we see John Paul curiously about to look under the rug only to be interrupted by Mercedes and Breda preparing to go to Portugal.  He tells Sally that it’s all over between himself and Craig, who is now dating a personal trainer.

Meanwhile, Sylver is annoyed that Sally took Bobby to see Mercedes but she explains that the little boy is worried about his mother.  He listens and holds an olive branch out to Mercedes.  Breda overhears the whole conversation.  She leaves a picture Bobby has drawn with a confession written on the back on DS Cohen’s car.  The prints on the picture belong to Mercedes.

Jack is frustrated with his son, as are we all but takes pity on him when Darren explains that he has nobody and is terrified that Mandy will throw him out and block access to DJ.  Breda is utterly furious and even threatening when Jack has to cancel the trip to look after Darren.  She had planned to go forever.  Later, Darren is in The Hutch when he is stabbed from behind by Breda, who is then trapped there by unwitting Nancy who has come to end their marriage for good.  Now, it’s shocking but we at least know from the Flash Forward episode that Darren survives (even if he was in a rather sorry state) so that’s at least a relief.  We’re due for a Hollyoaks Later episode on Monday so it looks like Breda is stepping up her reign of terror for the big climax!

Breda manages to slip out of The Hutch and return to the pub where the McQueens are hosting a second Christmas.  This is promptly interrupted by the arrival of the police, ready to ransack the place and arrest poor Mercedes on suspicion of being the serial killer.  However, they don’t find Breda’s secret little box, previously hidden under the floorboards as John Paul has already found it and taken it.  Is someone onto Nanny Breda at last?

Meanwhile, Nancy and Mandy rush Darren to hospital where thankfully he will be just fine.  He and Mandy reunite and Mandy and Nancy become friends again at last.  Nancy and Darren sign their divorce papers.

Sienna is uncomfortable around Brody and Liberty.  She finally breaks and pretty much tells them she knows the truth and then storms out.  When she returns, she gives them the opportunity to tell her the truth but they refuse to take it.  I suspect this is a big mistake.

Home and Away

Home and Away is on its Christmas Holidays!

Neighbours

The Rebecchi Family welcome Kirsha home for New Year and then barely even speak to her.  No wonder she left in the first place, quite frankly.  Toadie receives an email from Piper – a video of Sonya from a year ago, full of her hopes and dreams for the future.  Heartbreaking.  But lovely to include Sonya in the New Year celebrations.  He takes the video as inspiration to be more like Sonya and include her values and ethics in their daily lives, to keep reminding the children of who she really was.

Yasvhi and Hendrix reluctantly attend the New Year’s Eve party together.  Jealous over Ned chatting up another girl, Yashvi finally takes the plunge and she and Ned get back together.  This is not met happily by Shane, although he doesn’t his best to keep his feelings from his daughter.

David’s infection has almost gone.  Yep.  Just like that.  He was half dead about two days ago.  Now he’s sat up and chatting away!  But that’s Neighbours for you.  With Roxy keeping visiting him, he easily works out that the other successful donor he was told about is her.  She feels terrible but he completely understands.  Paul does not.  Harlow and Paul fall out as she continues to defend Robert and is upset to learn that he was right all along – Paul would never have gone ahead with the deal they made.

Toadie looks after Kyle in the wake of his breakup with Amy.  Paul is distraught to learn that Amy is moving to New York.  While Kyle refuses to say a proper goodbye to the woman he loves, he looks on from a distance as she bids farewell to her family and friends.  Then she heads off with Jimmy and Leo.  Well, I think it’s a rubbish end.  Fine, she needs to go and look after Jimmy.  Give Kyle a reason to stay behind.  But did you have to absolutely destroy them like that?  Really? 

Kyle and Roxy end up getting drunk together and upset over Amy, Kyle hits on Roxy who is hurt that Kyle just assumes that she would be up for it.  She rejects him and runs off to seek support from Shane, who she growing rather close to at the moment.  Shane is very kind and supportive, backing up that it’s her life and her body to make decisions about.  Nobody should ever assume that she is just available because they want her.  He reiterates this to Kyle the next day, as does Roxy.  Kyle is aghast that Roxy believes he was trying to use her.  Which he was.  But probably not intentionally.  It’s a genuinely interesting story.  Roxy has a persona.  She dresses a particular way.  She has a particular attitude.  Mark Brennan used her horribly and completely forgot that she was a real person with real feelings.  (Well, not actually a real person, she’s a soap character but you get what I mean!)  But just because of Roxy’s style and attitude and just because she may choose to have one night stands or flings, doesn’t mean she should be expected to have them.

Meanwhile, Elly is struggling to settle the baby but Finn seems to have the magic touch and helps her out in the middle of the night.  With a house full, including Hendrix crashing on the couch, Finn upgrades his commitment to Bea by moving into her room so Hendrix can have his room.  Elly doesn’t look thrilled.  When Elly struggles again with baby Aster, Finn returns home to help (only for Elly to literally put the baby down and she goes quiet) but it creates a conveniently charged moment of comfort for Susan to walk in on.  Elly then has no choice but to confess to Susan that she has started to have feelings for Finn.  You know, that Elly just cannot stop having inappropriate romantic feelings, can she?  She may want to see someone about that.  I believe David went to the Karl Kennedy School of Medicine and qualified to be a psychiatrist in the course of about a day.  Maybe when he’s back on his feet?  As for Elly, she slept with boyfriend’s sister.  She got pregnant by her stalker’s brother when she was married and then tried to pass the baby off as her husband’s.  And now she fancies her stalker again who just so happens to be in a relationship with her sister.  And that doesn’t even cover the things she got up to when she used to be called Martha Mackenzie and she lived in Summer Bay…

Soap Blog: Monday 23rd – Sunday 29th December 2019

Coronation Street

Gullible Sean and Billy believe that Jade is sleeping rough when she comes to their soup kitchen and immediately inform Fiz who takes her in over Christmas.  Only Evelyn is smart enough to have the girl’s number.  Emma panics over the reappearance of Alina and prematurely breaks up with Seb, believing that he would never choose her, although he does eventually reassure her.  Tracey is annoyed with Steve for spending too much money on his new daughter for Christmas.  When Robert keeps quiet about what Michelle did to him, she persuades Vicky to agree to meet him.  Elated, he plans to start a new life in Ireland where he can be part of his baby’s life in what capacity he is allowed to be.  Max rebels yet again and informs Shona that he wishes she was dead.  Well, that doesn’t bode well for Christmas Day, does it…?

Rita is set for a sad and lonely Christmas when she feels that nobody has time for her and when Jenny tries, Rita ends up wishing she hadn’t bothered.  Subsequently, Rita lies to her friends about going away for Christmas, not wanting to be a burden to them but alone, she attempts to decorate the Christmas tree and has a fall.  She ends up injured, lying on the fall all night.  It’s only when Jenny ends up with a stab of conscious and a funny feeling that’s something is wrong (having spent weeks not bothered about Rita, the sole reason she even has a life on the Street at all) that she discovers her deception and rushes round to rescue her.

Gary reveals that he now owns the factory and is quick to throw his weight around with Nick and Sarah.  He then tackles Derek who has tried to demand money from him again, tying him up and holding him against his will overnight, ruining his one last chance to make things right with his wife and kids.

Christmas Day starts for Gary in a panic when he discovers that the gun and a packet of bullets that he locked away have gone missing.  Fiz brought them back from a house clearance with Jade and Hope, not realising what they were so he confiscated them, only for someone to break into the shop and take them.  He tackles Fiz, who tackles Hope, which causes a row but actually, Derek is the culprit and he has one target at the top of his list.

While Jenny brings Rita home to stay with her after her ordeal, she and Johnny hold a party for her in the pub to show her how much they and everyone love her.  I should think so too!  Subsequently, most of the Street are gathered in the pub for when drunk, vengeful Derek appears, demanding to know where Gary is (he’s in the toilets, demanding to know if Ali stole his gun.  He didn’t.  Obvs.)  I have to say, the siege scenes, were actually pretty exciting and surpassed Christmas Day expectations.  You know when a soap promises a lot for Christmas but it doesn’t deliver?  I would say, Coronation Street really did this year.  Of all the soaps, I would crown them the Christmas Winners.  The only thing I would say was a bit weird was Shona in a Box.  But I’ll get to that.

Derek calls Gary’s bluff about the gun being a dud and shoots the gun at the door, shooting poor Robert, who has been excitedly preparing to meet Vicky was just about to walk in.  He collapses alone in the street.  We all heard the rumours that Robert would be shot on Christmas Day and being that he was leaving, he would likely die but this was an awesome way of doing it.  Really unexpected.

There’s a huge cat and mouse chase through the Street and into the Winter Wonderland, Derek calling out Gary and the Platt family who had been doing some sort of hide and seek treasure hunt thing for David’s birthday.  This leads me to Shona in a Box.  Basically, the show just ran out of ways to hide Julia Goulding’s baby bump so they put her in a box, drinking beer, waiting for David to find her.  Instead, all the family are scattered, hiding from Derek until little Harry runs out and ‘brave’ Gary steps in to save him, getting shot in the process.  Sadly, he survives and Sarah thinks he’s a big hero, as do the rest of the Street by the end of the episode. 

While armed police descend on the Street but pretty much do absolutely nothing, Gary tackles Derek himself.  During their scuffle, a bullet goes astray and shoots directly into Shona’s box, rushing her off into maternity leave.  I mean, surgery.  Gary does attempt to save Derek at the last minute but he falls off the giant staircase anyway and dies.  Gary is hailed a hero by everyone.  Max is distraught, having treated Shona so badly before she was shot.  Oh and during all this, Adam and Sarah found the time to get engaged.

Michelle rushes to the hospital as soon as she hears what has happened to Robert and they manage to make peace before he dies.  There’s actually quite a sweet moment where she makes a pretend call to Vicky, allowing him to believe that she forgives him too.

While reporters descend on the Street in the wake of Christmas Day, the residents are attempting to pick up the pieces of their lives.  Furious that Gary is being hailed a hero, Ali goes to the police and informs them that he is a loan shark.  Shona takes a turn for the worse and ends up in a coma that she may never wake up from.  Still grieving for Robert and guilt ridden over how she treated him in the weeks before he died, Michelle is distraught to learn that she has sold the Bistro to Ray.  Unable to change anything, she leaves the Street for a new life.  Tyrone is furious with Fiz for bringing the gun to the Street in the first place.  Well, he does have a point.

Doctors

Doctors is on its Christmas Holidays!  Ho, ho, ho!

Eastenders

Phil and Ben’s query into Sharon’s acquaintances around the time of her pregnancy suddenly piques Louise’s suspicions.  The only person her step-mother was really spending time with was Keanu.  Lisa confirms to Phil that Mel told her that Sharon did cheat on him but she is too scared to tell him everything she knows.

Keanu and Louise bring baby Peggy home for Christmas but things go awry when Sharon and Keanu separately tell stories about a Santa themed stag party they saw at a hotel, accidentally confirming their affair.  It’s genuinely emotional when Phil confronts Sharon.  He cries!  He has really softened over these past few months and it was nice to see that remain during their showdown rather than it just being anger.  However, he has also started divorce proceedings and intends to keep custody of Denny.  He then physically throws her out onto the street.  Meanwhile, Louise also confronts Keanu who admits the truth and begs forgiveness and persuades her to run away with him, which she agrees to.  And of course, poor Lisa gets blamed for keeping the truth to herself.

When Sonia attempts to confront Martin about his behaviour, he physically shoves her out of the way, determined to complete the robbery he has planned with Tubbs.  The boys are successful but in their jubilation, Tubbs accidentally knocks someone over.  Having already run over and killed Jamie Mitchell many years before (is that why they’ve mentioned that so many times in recently months?), Martin is distraught and wants to get help but Tubbs insists they leave.  Martin begs Ben to help him get rid of the van but he refuses.  Distraught by his actions, Martin clings to gullible Sonia and they end up in bed together, although he is casual with her again the next day.

With Phil on the rampage, Ben takes the problem of Sheanu into his own hands.  He tells Martin that he will sort out the van on one condition: Martin must kill Keanu.  Well, that’s all very dramatic but there’s one problem, Eastenders.  How is it logical that Martin would solve the problem of a hit and run where he wasn’t even driving and even a robbery by actively murdering a human being?  How does that make it better?  Stupid, stupid storyline.  I mean, I as we didn’t actually see the murder, I am sure he didn’t actually do it but still, the premise of it, is ridiculous.

The most shocking part of it all comes when Keanu and Louise are about to run away and it turns out that Louise was setting him up!  My wife saw it coming but I didn’t.  Shame on me, really.  It’s not often I don’t guess these things.  I’d forgotten that Louise was a Mitchell, I think.  She has just been so in love with Keanu all this time.  I never thought she was capable of sentencing him to death.  But sentence him she does and then she and the rest of the clan set themselves up with alibis in the pub where they (including Denny) publicly reject Sharon who confesses all to everyone gathered.  Karen immediately panics at what may have become of her son.  Later, Martin shows Ben footage on his phone of him apparently shooting Keanu, confirming that he is dead and the deed is done.  Ben then gets rid of the van.

Linda dismisses Mick’s concerns about her drinking which soon spirals out of control during lunch with Max and Ruby.  It starts badly when Linda wears a sexy Santa outfit, thinking Ruby is going to as well.  Then Linda drinks more and more and becomes more and more abusive towards Ruby, thinking the younger woman is looking down on her.  The whole thing erupts into a huge row between Mick and Linda.  She storms out drunk, only to pass out in the middle of the Square.  Lee, who has returned as a surprise for Christmas, finds her and takes her to hospital, where Mick refuses to visit.  Broken and alone, Linda discharges herself and carries on drinking, remaining absent for the whole of Christmas Day.  Mick is beside himself, resulting in a panic attack.  When she does come home, she lies about her whereabouts and cleans blood off her shoe.  So… was she somehow involved in Keanu’s ‘death’?  And how on earth would that even have happened?  This is Eastenders though.  They enjoy the ridiculous even more that Hollyoaks these days.  She promises Mick that she will stop drinking.

Enraged by Leo still hanging around and heartbroken over losing Ben, Callum attacks Leo, forcing Jack to have to arrest him, putting Callum’s future career in danger.  However, when Whitney agrees to meet up with Leo, he tells her he loves her and believes her about Tony and agrees not to press charges against Callum.  Ben lets Callum leave Walford for Christmas utterly heartbroken.

Locked in their house with no electricity, the Slaters are set for a miserable Christmas.  At breaking point, Kat, Kush and Big Mo all go out searching for someone to take them in and all of them are successful, meaning that they end up going to the Taylors, the Beales and to Honey and Billy.  The eldest Panesar brother, Kheerat (I’ve learnt his name as I’ve actually started to come round to him) overhears Kat breaking down on Kathy about Jean and cancels their rent increase, bonding the two families.  It’s a Christmas miracle!

Things go wrong when Chantelle and Gray’s wedding vow renewal venue falls through.  When Chantelle is unable to find another, Gray scares her by losing his temper, making her unsure as to whether she wants to go through with the renewal at all.  So when a venue comes through after all, she turns them down.  Realising that his wife is having doubts, Gray manipulates Karen into setting up a renewal at the house and pretending it was all her idea, although the truth quickly comes out.  At the ‘altar’ Chantelle almost doesn’t go through with it.  Afterwards, Gray is short tempered and demanding, resulting in him dragging Chantelle upstairs, claiming that they need to start trying for a baby immediately.  She has no choice in the matter.  A horrific ending to that particular episode.

Denise becomes more suspicious of Sheree when she believes she is dating a man named Isaac.  She gives her no choice but to walk away from Patrick.  She doesn’t say goodbye, prompting Patrick to blame Denise for her departure but some helpful words from Lola make him forgive her.

Emmerdale

The Villagers turn out for the Panto which is a roaring success, with Kim Tate of all people ending up as the surprise star of the show.  Liam takes a call from Bernice during the show, ending their relationship and cancelling the wedding, resulting in a particularly emotional climax to the show.  He remains oblivious to Leyla growing feelings for him.

Noah lies unconscious in the woods while Sarah harasses him for the drugs he took from her and Danny harasses her for the drugs she has been looking after for him.  When Charity realises that her son is actually missing, she and Vanessa become frantic but thankfully, a dog walker finds him and rushes him to hospital.  They are told that thanks to the drugs he took and the hypothermia, his kidneys are damaged.  Sarah pressures Noah at the first available opportunity not to tell anyone anything.  Graham steps up immediately to tell Charity about the drugs he took away from Noah but her response is just to be furious that he didn’t warn her at the time.  While I do agree that he should have said something, I also agree with Graham that she has been oblivious to her son’s unhappiness for too long.  Danny and Sarah throw Noah some hush money for his ordeal.  Noah tries to explain to Charity that he took the drugs because he felt alone.  He had had a huge row with Sarah, Graham had reminded him of Joe and Charity was always too busy to talk to him.  Unfortunately, all Charity hears is that Graham upset him (and didn’t alert anyone about the drugs).

On Christmas Day, David, Jacob, Leyla and Eric get a shock when they discover that Maya has left a baby on their doorstep and David or Jacob are the father of the child.  Leyla realises that should Jacob be the father, it would prove that Maya abused him.  David asks Liam to fiddle the DNA results in order to make it that he is the father, not wanting to traumatise his son further.  Yes, dishonesty has worked out so well in your lives so far, David.  Liam and Leyla attempt to track Maya down at her mother’s house but find that she has left the country.  Her mother also appears to hate her anyway.  This doesn’t appear to be solely related to her being a paedophile.

Aaron, who is continuing to hook up with random men in secret, actually says thank you to Wendy for helping Liv.  Things get tense at the Dingles when Nate and Cain are forced to spend Christmas Day together.  Moira spends Christmas Day alone and by Boxing Day it’s apparent that her drinking is spiralling out of control.  Perhaps she and Linda from Eastenders should become Facebook friends.  Nicola and Laurel start meeting up in secret.

Kim and Marlon bond when he caters Home Farm’s Christmas Dinner.  Millie reveals to Kim that Rhona took five of her hairs in a ‘game’ and when Kim confronts Graham about it, he reveals the results of the DNA test – Jamie is the father.  They have an extremely bitter row and Kim says some unforgiveable things.  Subsequently, Graham interrupts Christmas Dinner and announces that he and Andrea had an affair and that Kim has been aware for months that he could have been (but isn’t) Millie’s father, leaving Jamie utterly devastated.  Marlon is then left furious when he discovers Graham’s plans to move to France with Rhona and Leo, which Kim confirms were all down to her.  He tells Rhona under no uncertain terms that she will not take his son away from him.  Despite being angry with Graham, Rhona blindly sticks with him and assures Marlon that France is cancelled.  Meanwhile, Jamie has lost all faith in his mother and his wife.  He remains in the family home for the sake of his daughter but his relationships are dead.  Perhaps a potential relationship with Belle is on the cards?  She was certainly the first person he turned to (after he punched Graham).  He also cannot forgive Rhona for her part in everything.

Hollyoaks

Plagued by her discovery that Brody and Liberty have betrayed her, Sienna locks them in the flat together and spies on them from next door with anxious Martine.  However, Sienna is heartbroken to listen in and discover that the last of her eggs was found to not be viable and actually, they only slept together once and it was a misguided attempt to provide her with the baby she so desperately desires.

Word begins to spread about Luke’s diagnosis so in order to cheer him up, Nancy decides to throw a New Year’s Eve party in his honour.  Also in response to his news, Cindy pledges her commitment to him, in sickness and in health; she still wants them to get married.

While Nancy wants to divorce Darren, her ex has other ideas.  He has finally realised that he and Nancy belong together!  Unfortunately, Charlie has got wind of what happened in the tunnels and he isn’t very happy about Darren and Nancy confusing the family situation all over again.  Then while Leela tries to get her head around the fact that Nancy, Mandy and Cindy have all slept with all the same men, Mandy is uncharacteristically defensive of Nancy and what a good person she is.  Feeling guilty, Nancy admits that she and Darren cheated on her and Kyle.  Excellent.  Mandy is devastated and Kyle punches Darren and breaks up with Nancy.  Darren admits that he feels they were a mistake.  Lovely!  However, Nancy doesn’t feel the same way and persuades Kyle to give her another chance, revealing to him that she is pregnant.  They decide to get engaged, announcing their news (not the baby) to the party.  Darren is devastated.

The younger kids, Charlie, Leah and Ella are all spending New Year’s together and play a game of truth or dare when Charlie has to sneak into the adults’ party and steal something.  He bags a tub of ice cream and Darren’s wallet.

Ollie persuades Brooke to make friends with Juliet after all the upset between them.  Juliet’s day gets even better when she and Sid, who is being fostered by Leela, decide to be a proper couple.  At their party, Imran feels like a fifth wheel until Sid storms out completely, having been turned down for sex by Juliet.  When Imran and Ollie catch up with Sid, they find him buying drugs, prompting Luke to give him a firm but kind talking to, asking him not to blame himself for his Dad’s death and imagine a future of happiness and success.  He draws on enough of his own experience that Sid hands the drugs over.  Inspired and impressed, Ollie decides to start playing football again and move on with his life.  Luke backs out of telling him about his diagnosis.

Meanwhile, back at the party, Brooke is consoling Juliet who admits that she is a virgin and then tries to kiss Brooke.  Well, I didn’t see that coming.  Oh wait, yes I did.  Brooke is really kind as she tries to persuade Juliet to explore how she feels and whether she might be gay or bisexual and offers her full support (while making it clear that she is straight).  Juliet closes up, denying that she is interested in Brooke or any other female.  We’ll see.  Unfortunately, Juliet decides to sleep with Sid to prove her heterosexuality.  I’m sure that will end well.  Peri interrupts and after a spat between the girls, Juliet almost has second thoughts but Sid’s promises that he is committed to her persuade her otherwise.

Tom changes plans to go clubbing for his birthday so that Yazz can join in.  His kindness and thoughtfulness prompt the two of them to get together!  Well, he’s definitely a better catch than Finn!

Nancy gives a speech to all the party goers as they count down to midnight, bringing in 2020, unaware as we are of what is to come, as during the New Year episode, we see several ‘flash forward’ clips (I really do love Hollyoaks for their unique creativity in this way).  So, we see:

Someone dramatically asking Charlie what he has done, later revealing Nancy in shock at the police find drugs hidden in his games controller.  Leela on the phone, presumably waiting for Sid and finding a guitar smashed on the ground.  Ollie sat in a toilet cubicle, clearly hooked on drugs and missing someone so much.  Has Luke died?  Mandy horrified to find wads of cash in Ella’s bag.  This is all to do with the county lines/drug running storyline one would assume.

Marnie and Misbah are apparently the best of friends and Marnie couldn’t have got through the last year without Misbah.  Their families are also now joined in marriage.  Who?!?!?  In wedding suits, Tom tells Romeo to get a grip or he’ll ruin the wedding.  Romeo is in tears as he tells Tom he ‘still loves her’.

We also see Darren in tears.  Peri and Juliet are in a relationship (and attending this mystery wedding).  John Paul breaks down over a mystery dead body outside The Hutch.  Who’s dead?!  Apart from (presumably) Luke?!

Home and Away

Home and Away is on its Christmas Break until January 2020.  Instead, on My5, there is a Christmas themed behind the scenes episode every Monday, hosted by Jason Smith who played Robbie Hunter between 2003 and 2006.

This week is the last episode, a Home and Away Christmas with a large portion of the cast: Ray Meagher (Alf Stewart), Lynne McGranger (Irene Roberts), Emily Symons (Marilyn Chambers), Ada Nicodemou (Leah Patterson-Baker), Georgie Porter (Roo Stewart), Belinda Giblin (Martha Stewart), Shane Withington (John Palmer), Sophie Dillman (Ziggy Astoni), Patrick O’Connor (Dean Thompson), Tim Franklin (Colby Thorne), Sam Frost (Jasmine Delaney), James Stewart (Justin Morgan), Emily Weir (Mackenzie Booth), Penny McNamee (Tori Morgan), Lukas Radivich (Ryder Jackson) and Rohan Nichol (Ben Astoni).

They discuss their first scenes with Ray, showing Jason’s own first scene with him, a clip that also includes Chris Hemsworth as Kim Hyde.  Rohan discusses the arrival of the Astoni family and how a scene with Ray felt like they had truly arrived.  Their car broke down and Alf told them they happened to have broken down in Summer Bay, the best place on earth to which Ziggy responded she had had never heard of it.  Ray has mutual admiration for Rohan.

Talking about highlights of the year, James immediately mentions marrying the love of his life, Sarah Roberts (who plays Willow Harris).  Lynne talks about the abuse storyline and Tim discusses Colby’s on-off relationship with Mac.  Sam jokes that her highlight has been chasing Irene around the Bay complaining about her relationship problems!  Georgie tells Ray that her genuine highlight of the year was him returning to work after his triple heart bypass.  And so say all of us!

Shane and Ryder share some funny stories and playing jokes on each other.  Sophie admits that she once accidentally sprayed herself with shaving cream instead of deodorant just as a crew member walked in.  Emily W reveals that during a surfing scene she one lost the entirety of her bikini!

Jason separates the cast into Team Ray (Ray, Ada, Emily S, Patrick, Penny, Georgie, Rohan and Belinda) and Team Lynne (Lynne, James, Lukas, Emily W, Tim, Shane, Sophie and Sam) to answer questions, some of which reveal some spoilers for 2020:

So, we will see:

  • Two wedding dresses
  • A new family of four
  • A new love interest for Ryder
  • Leah goes missing
  • Roo will receive some life changing happy news

Team Lynne are the winners!

The whole cast gather round the table and exchange their Secret Santa gifts, which also may reveal some spoilers for 2020:

Ray:                 A new hat for a ‘special event’

Ada:                 A veil

Martha:           A CD of Alf and Martha’s favourite songs

Emily W:          A Magic 8 Ball (she asks if Mac’s love life will get easier – it says Not Likely!)

Emily S:           A really creepy looking dog handbag

Sam:                A Motherhood Survival Kit

Lukas:              Boxing Gloves

Sophie:            Car Dice

Tim:                 A Moon Boot

Jason:              Glasses (like Robbie used to wear)

Ray then asks the cast to go round the table and say the word that they associate with Home and Away:

Lynne:              Friends

Shane:             Sunsets

Sam:                Romance

Tim:                 Surf

Emily W:          Relationships

Penny:             Peaceful

Lukas:              Grumps!

Martha:           Forgiveness

Rohan:             Beginnings

Sophie:            Family

James:             Mates

Ada:                 Love

Patrick:            Laughter

Emily S:           Happiness

Georgie:          Home

Ray’s word is Community, explaining that although things change all the time, the one thing that’s consistent is the community and Summer Bay spirit.  He thanks viewers for support this year and the past thirty years asking us to keep watching and wishing us as Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.  Then they all sing a very merry ‘Walking in a Winter Wonderland’.  Lovely!

Neighbours

Amy begins to suspect that Jimmy could be using drugs.  However, when she confronts him, the real truth comes out.  He has brought his girlfriend, Maya home with him from New York, having wanted to protect her from her violent father.  With Liam not interested in helping them, Jimmy has brought her to the one person he knew would take care of them: his Mum.  Amy talks to Maya’s mother, also a victim of the domestic violence and arranges for Maya to go home and begin to sort out the situation.  She agrees to return to New York to help Jimmy but her son doesn’t feel it’s enough.  He doesn’t have the right support from Liam and begs Amy to move to New York permanently.  Amy agrees but while Kyle offers to come with her, she turns him down.  Kyle isn’t someone she can now see a future with.  It’s over.

Robert is brought to the hospital for his transplant and is allowed to meet members of the Robinson family for the first time.  Harlow breaks to rules to see her father before he and David are prepped for surgery and she is the only one who cares whether he too survives.  Of course, his apparent kindness has all been a lie and he sneakily refuses the sedative which is conveniently given to him as a tablet rather than intravenously like it would in any other hospital situation.  He removes the tablet from his mouth as soon as his handcuffs are removed.  He knocks out his guard and escapes the hospital.

Robert stalks Paul back to Ramsay Street but is distracted when he spots Elly from a distance.  To prevent her from contacting the police, he chases her back into her house, threatening her with a knife.  She promptly goes into labour (well, it is Christmas Day) and he refuses to call for any help.  Thankfully, heroic Finn pops back from the concert (guess who’s performing?!) to check on her and miraculously turns into a midwife and delivers baby Aster, named after Shaun’s favour flower.  Once the baby is born, Robert trots off.  As Elly settles into her new life as a mother, the growing attraction between her and Finn is now visibly clear.  He anxiously admits his feelings for Elly.  She dismisses her own as confusion over the feelings she had for Shaun and both promise they would never betray Bea.  We’ll see how long that lasts, shall we?

Guilty Roxy seeks Shane’s advice and he admits that if he was a match, he would donate.  Frantic Paul tracks a kidney down on the black market but time is fast running out.  David gathers his family together, one by one in a bid to say goodbye.  Watching David and Aaron attempt to say their goodbyes breaks Roxy who admits to Terese that Harlow has arranged to see Robert.  She is about to admit that she is a match when Harlow walks through the door with Robert and the police.  Faced with the ultimatum of weekly visits while he is in prison or never seeing his daughter again on the run, Robert has relented and handed himself in as well as agreeing to go through with the transplant which looks to be a success.

Toadie and the kids face their first Christmas without Sonya.  Yashvi and Ned make peace.  Hendrix continues to battle his feelings for Chloe.

Soap Blog: Monday 16th to Sunday 22nd December 2019

Coronation Street

After just one night, Gemma and Chesney are weighed down by the responsibility of their four new babies.  However, the one resource they fail to utilise is Rita who is absolutely crippled with loneliness and would love to be included in helping them.

Robert is outraged at Michelle’s plans to sell the Bistro but he has bigger problems when the police zone in on him.  They have discovered that his SatNav took him to the woods on the night that Vicky disappeared, which he denies.  Concluding that Michelle must have taken his van that night, Robert accuses her of killing Vicky but Peter and Carla walk in on him threatening her, which does not help his case.  The next thing he knows, Robert is charged with GBH, a stack of evidence against him: witnesses heard them having an argument, he has a scratch on his face, the house was bleached clean, there is blood evidence both in the house and in his van and now his SatNav shows that he went to the woods after he argued with Vicky.

However, what the police don’t know is that during Robert’s most recent argument with Michelle, she slipped up and mentioned the woods, something she shouldn’t know about.  And in one of the most obvious plots ever, while Robert is being charged and held in custody, she heads off to a hotel to update Vicky of Robert’s arrest, who is hiding out and very much alive!  The plan is to sell the Bistro and share the profits.

Things go south, however, when Vicky goes into premature labour.  It’s a tender moment when Michelle acts as midwife and helps Vicky bring her son into the world.  And it’s even sweeter when Michelle puts her own plan aside to call an ambulance, looking out for the welfare of Vicky and the baby and she is taken to hospital.  Of course, that means that Vicky is no longer ‘dead’ and Robert is off the hook for her murder.  Released from custody, Robert attempts to see his son but Vicky is long gone, leaving Robert to confront oddly repentant Michelle.

Kirk kindly donates his football t-shirt and scarf to Roy so that he can enjoy some quality time with his brother.  James also gives him a signed football programme.  But when Roy has to leave him to sort out a disaster at the café and the carer doesn’t show up in his place, Richard ends up collapsing and dying alone.  While Roy is furious with the care team, Nina directs the blame at Roy’s door.  While Roy continues to reach out to Nina, even paying two month’s rent for her, Nina continues to out the world.

Tim finally confesses the truth to horrified Sally that he is already married after a drunken mistake in Vegas.  Gary gives Ryan the chance to work off his debt, which is obviously not going to end well.  Michael creates an entire Winter Wonderland on the Street with his Dad but Grace fails to bring their daughter along to enjoy it.

Gary gets wind of Derek’s plan to get a quick sale for the factory and demands that he buy it from him.  For a pound.  He has no choice but to agree.  Hope ruins the school Nativity and continues to reject Fiz, reaching out to Jade on the phone.

Doctors

Emma arrives at the station, pledging her full support to spikey Zara as they both try to come to terms with the truth of who Gareth really is and what he is capable of.  Zara cannot accept support from Adam who obviously looks exactly the same as her attacker.  Unable to stay with Emma where Gareth has been living or stay with Adam, Zara returns home alone absolutely broken.

Daniel is heartbroken to learn of what has happened to Zara.  He offers his full support to her when she bravely faces work the next day, which clueless Valerie takes the wrong way.  She then faces the prospect of ending things with Adam, unable to disassociate him from his brother.  Daniel breaks the news to Joe.  Is the beginning of Zara and Daniel getting back together?  I would hope that the show wouldn’t rush the story in light of what has happened but I would assume this is where we’ll be heading in 2020.

Tempted to gamble after a bad day, Daniel takes himself off to rather shoddy Gambler’s Anonymous meeting.  But it’s a good job that he’s there as the man running it, who seems like he is suffering from severe OCD as much as a gambling addiction, has taken an overdose and needs to be rushed to hospital!

A man named Trevor Evans tracks Jimmi down to The Icon, holding a grudge for being sent to prison based on his medical testimony.  He hangs around the bar all day, intimidating him until Jimmi threatens to call the police.  I suspect we haven’t seen the last of him…  And seems likely that he is connected to the shock of the week when Jimmi is suddenly arrested for drug dealing and a huge amount of heroin is found in the boot of his car!  While at first it looks like it will all be sorted out quickly as the idea that Dr Jimmi Clay could be a dealer is quite frankly, preposterous, very quickly, he is arrested and charged and then breaks his bail conditions when he confronts a witness who claims he regularly sees him dealing in a car park.  Well done, Jimmi!

While Rob rules out Trevor as the person behind the obvious set up, people accuse Valerie of gossiping.  However, she makes it clear that she is genuinely concerned about her friend and colleague and has noticed that Bear is not, leading Daniel to discover an old and somewhat ridiculous grudge he has against the medic.  I’ve been suspicious of Bear for a while but is it weak storytelling or is there more to it?  Enough to put one of the nicest guys in soap behind bars?  We’ll find out in the New Year, I suppose!

In celebration of Christmas, Emma helps Al host the cocktail night that Gareth had organised.  It doesn’t start off terribly well, with Emma breaking down and confiding in Ayesha what happened to Zara.  But Valerie takes over as Queen of the Cocktails and everyone has a lot of drunken fun.  Hurrah!  With all the darkness going on the moment with Zara’s trauma and now Jimmi’s wrongful arrest, they need a bit of light in Letherbridge at the moment!

Eastenders

Phil is determined to put a literal end to Jack, incorrectly believing that he has got Sharon pregnant.  I mean, I know he’s got previous with the Mitchell Blondes but still…  He stops short of running him over when Jack is suddenly joined by his kids in the road.  Ben desperately tries to get his Dad to think more clearly about his decisions but I don’t think it’s worked as by the end of Monday’s episode, Phil is brandishing a gun.  By the next episode, he has the poor bloke tied up and beaten unconscious at the bottom of the pit in The Arches.  By the time Ben and Keanu rescue him, he has already poured petrol on him.  Dragging him out of the pit, Phil is still not done but the boys finally manage to talk him out of shooting him.  Jack is adamant that he did not sleep with Sharon or father her child, leaving Phil determined to find out who did and forces Ben to stick with him on the plan to end whoever did.  All I can say is, watch out, Keanu… watch out!

Callum witnesses Ben returning bloodied and broken Jack back to his house and while Jack agrees to leave things as the Mitchells owing him a favour, Callum demands answers from Ben.  When Ben refuses to tell his boyfriend anything, wanting to protect him, Callum opens his heart and declaring his love.  Clearly also in love with Callum but scared of him getting hurt (I mean, look what happened when he was in love with Paul), Ben closes himself off and breaks up with him.  It’s at least temporarily the end of Ballum.  So sad.

Sonia kindly persuades Kush to let Martin have some quality time with his son.  The three of them spend the day at the Christmas Fair, which of course leads to Martin attempting to kiss Sonia because nobody in soap can ever just be mates.  Sonia pulls away but later confides in Tina (who else would she choose?) that she thinks she is still in love with him.  Well, that’s going to work out well when Lacey Turner (Stacey) gets back from her maternity leave, isn’t it?

There is an error at the undertakers and to be honest, I’m not sure whose error it is, with two bodies going to the opposite places.  But Stuart fixes it and saves the day (with newly returned Rainie’s help) and scores himself a permanent job with Jay.  Stuart then decides an insane Christmas display at a funeral home is absolutely appropriate.  Yes, really.

Honey is feeling out of place and out of sorts since leaving Adam and finding that Billy has moved on with Karen, who has made herself right at home with the kids.  The two women disagree about Janet participating in the beauty pageant and Honey objects to Karen doing her hair.  Karen calls her on why she is really so upset.  Well, we all know!  Poor Honey.  However, she does stick to her guns about the pageant, not wanting her daughter to face the same self-esteem issues that began when she was modelling.  If nothing else, I am really enjoying her new friendship with Ash.

The Panesar Brothers reveal to the Slaters that they have bought their house and they will now be evicted, although they will be given until New Year to leave.  Another case of unsound housing law in the East End.  Kat and the oldest brother (I haven’t quite learned their names yet, they’re too annoying but I’m sure I’ll get used to them), seem to reach a compromise but then it all goes wrong when the new landlords decide to just let themselves in the property and the Slaters respond by barricading themselves in.  But not before Kush spots Daniel at the hospital.  He begs him to contact Jean, who is struggling without him but Daniel won’t be persuaded.

Mitch accidentally agrees to write the autism friendly panto for the Queen Vic but of course, is unable to complete the task so with amusing legal advice from Gray, Bailey steps in and takes over.  Mick asks the school Mums to come and be part of the fun but they unkindly refuse, not because of Ollie but because of Linda’s drinking.  The panto is a genuine hit and Ollie is the cutest little polar bear I’ve ever seen.

Emmerdale

Moira is distraught when Cain refuses to let her spend Christmas Day with her sons.  Amy is also horrified when she overhears Cain warning Kyle that Nate is a bad man and he should always stay away from him.  Good parenting can always be witnessed amongst the Dingles!  Cain is furious when the Dingle clan begin to welcome Nate into the fold.  He makes it clear that the family need to choose between him and Nate.  Obviously they choose Cain, which upsets Nate.  He storms out in a rather threatening manner.  Oops.  Well, he is Cain’s son, I suppose!  While Moira rather gleefully informs Nate that he will never be accepted amongst the Dingles.

He tries to communicate with Cain who rejects him in favour of searching for Aaron, who has gone missing after Robert sends Victoria a letter and she and Liv attempt to keep it from him (and the letter doesn’t so much as mention him).  The Dingles all search for Aaron (without Nate) but while out hunting, Liv has a fit all alone.  Wendy finds her and gets her to hospital, leaving Aaron wrought with guilt that he put his little sister in such a vulnerable position.  His response is to engage in a random hook up in a bid to get over Robert and move on with his life.  Yes, I am sure that will work.  I really hope he snaps out of this soon though.  I can’t stand his grumpy little face at the moment.

Rhona is informed that Pierce is up for parole.  It scares her into deciding that she needs to take the job in France.  She cannot even contemplate the idea of having to face the man who raped her ever again.  Compelled by his love for Rhona, Graham forgets his concern that the job has been pushed by Kim and agrees to the move.  I know this whole thing is going to go epically wrong but for now, I do think that the way Graham loves Rhona and wants to protect her is very sweet.  Unfortunately, she backs out of telling Marlon her plans.

Nobody has time for Noah.  Charity and Vanessa are too busy with their lives, the younger kids, monitoring Sarah and that horrible Danny boy and their own relationship.  What they haven’t noticed is that Sarah has been delving into the world of drugs with that horrible Danny and that Noah is desperately worried about her but is also worried about being a snitch.  He does take the drugs away from her, only to be caught with them by Graham who confiscates them.  But when he is left with nobody to talk to, Noah finds one remaining pill and takes it himself.

Andrea and Jamie decide to wait before trying for another baby.  Jacob and Leanna begin to rekindle their friendship but this time in a happier and healthier way.  Leyla battles her feelings for Liam during panto rehearsals and Kim comes on board as the wicked landowner.  Pete and Tracey decide to just stay friends.

Hollyoaks

Mitchell lets Scott down again when he fails to come out and tell his family about their relationship.  In a bid to make things right, Mitchell and Scott spend the whole day together and when they bump into Azim, Mitchell comes out to him and then decides that it’s time to come out to his family.  Well, time will tell about that…  But the romantic scene does complete to a lovely rendition of ‘Finally’.

Alas, everything goes wrong the next day when not only does Mitchell back out of coming out but he panics when he loses a photo reel of him and Scott together.  Witnessing his sheer panic at the idea that someone might find evidence of them as a couple, Scott has finally had enough of the hiding, secrecy and shame.  He doesn’t want to be Mitchell’s dirty little secret anymore.  The next day, Mitchell is jealous when he mistakenly thinks that Scott has moved on with Azim, who encourages Scott to understand things from Mitchell’s perspective.  Scott realises the pressure Mitchell has on his shoulders and doesn’t want to add more by forcing him to come out.  However, after his suicide attempt, he also cannot live a life where he is ashamed of himself.  Their relationship is over.  Martine offers her son unwavering support, although she doesn’t know the full facts.

James and Liam team up for their ‘protection’ business and attempt to intimidate Mercedes into signing up.  Refusing but scared, it’s Bobby’s Christmas list, where all he wants is his Dad’s return, that pushes Mercedes to change her statement and set Sylver free.  However, she is in for a big shock when she discovers that he has been lying to her – he doesn’t love her anymore and he wants to be a family with Grace and Bobby.  Sylver cannot forgive his mother for her betrayal.  She in turn, turns on her daughter in law who is left a complete and utter broken mess.  I have always championed Mercedes, even at her worst.  She is one of the best soap characters in history.  But I think it’s right that her world implodes so that she can start again afresh.  She needs this.

James is alarmed when Liam plans to smash up the pub in order to pressure Mercedes to sign up to their protection scheme.  They are interrupted by Mercedes herself who decides to try and win Liam back.  She is shocked beyond the telling of it when she realises that he is now hooking up with James!  While the boys make fun of Mercedes’ desperation and that she got shot, it’s quite clear to the observant viewer that deep down, Liam still does have feelings for his ex.

That night, Grace and James bump into each other, Grace discovering that James is now sleeping with her brother.  Liam then overhears the pair of them quietly but smugly remarking over the truth of what happened to Mercedes – they both shot her.  In a flashback, we see that Grace fired the first shot and missed.  James then appears behind her and steadies the gun so they are able to shoot her together.

Liam confronts his sister and his boyfriend (?!) about shooting Mercedes.  While Grace attempts to defend herself over how much Mercedes hurt her, James is unrepentant, explaining that he was intent on revenge for Harry.  He also reminds Liam of his own guilt and the role he played in Harry’s death, which prompts Liam to break down in tears and a little bit of bad acting.  Liam reveals that he found Mercedes in the club after she had been shot but he ran away, taking the gun with him, scared that he would be accused of the crime.  He even burnt his clothes to hide any evidence that he had been there.  Armed now with the knowledge of who shot her, Liam is determined to tell Mercedes the truth.  Grace and Liam do everything they can to persuade him not to.  Grace is also desperate for Sylver not to find out, not wanting her new little family to be destroyed.  Ignoring them, Liam and Mercedes admit that their feelings for each other were real.  James interrupts Mercedes asking for a second chance.  Liam struggles to make a choice between them.  He chooses James and the three of them revel in their success at defeating Mercedes and getting a second chance of survival.  Meanwhile, Mercedes has bigger problems as Breda gathers together DNA to ‘prove’ that she is a serial killer!

On Christmas Day, Walter gathers together as many locals as possible to attend church where he gives an impassioned sermon on the importance of family, praising his own family members on how amazing they are.  In the back, Daphne and Celeste, sorry, Toby and Celeste seethe as he tells the locals what a wonderful mother Martine is to her son, Mitchell.  So… we finally know who her mystery child is: Toby!  That’s the big reveal.  I’m disappointed, to be honest.  They’ve only been here for five minutes and they’re already annoying me.  And I heard a rumour that Martine’s secret child was actually Blessing (remember her?)  Now that would have been a good story.  Anyway, Celeste stops Toby from confronting his mother and by the end of the Christmas episode, we see that it was actually them that stole Mitchell and Scott’s photo.  They clearly have plans for the family and judging by their boring storyline with Jesse, the whole village.  I’m sure it will be utterly thrilling.  I don’t apologise for my sarcasm.  Consider it a Christmas present.

Liberty’s pregnancy test is positive, creating what should be the happiest day of Sienna’s life.  Filled with Christmas spirit and inspired by Walter’s sermon, she invites Maxine and Minnie to dinner, pushing Maxine and Damon together.  He cannot trust her when he finds her taking cold medication but actually, she is freezing at home so probably does have a cold.  Sienna tests out a new plot device, I mean, drone and overhears her boyfriend and her sister discussing their infidelity and resultant pregnancy.  For a secret, they really do discuss it openly a lot.  I mean, a lot!  Sienna loses the plot, of course and is rescued by Martine who calms her down and suggests that she plays along.  Otherwise, she loses everything, including the baby.

Luke finally tells his family about FTD and Nana does a fabulous Queen’s Speech.

Home and Away: The Surf Club

Home and Away is on its Christmas Break until January 2020.  Instead, on My5, there is a Christmas themed behind the scenes episode every Monday, hosted by Jason Smith who played Robbie Hunter between 2003 and 2006.

The Surf Club has always played a central role in Home and Away and is a communal area for family and friendship for all the characters.  In this episode, we meet Rohan Nichol (Ben Astoni), Sophie Dillman (Ziggy Astoni), Patrick O’Connor (Dean Thompson) but Kestie Morassi (Maggie Astoni) is unfortunately absent.  Later, Lukas Radovich (Ryder Jackson) and Shane Withington (John Palmer) join the group.

Patrick and Sophie, who are a couple in real life, discuss their relationship on the show, including Ziggy’s previous marriage to Brody before her friendship with Dean developed into love.  They are described as ‘Summer Bay’s Hottest Couple’.  I don’t think I agree (Willex, anyone?) but I do like them paired up.  They talk about filming the rally where they finally got together and how it was so hot that the cameras were literally melting!

Rohan discusses Ben’s wrongful arrest and how it led to a longer mental health storyline, which he felt flattered to be trusted with as it was such an important story to tell.  He discusses the wider reaching story of what happens to a person’s loved ones, in this case Ziggy and Maggie, when someone is suffering from depression and the helplessness they go through when trying to support them.  He and Shane talk about the strength of friendship in the Bay and how people supported Ben and how that support is returned to John when he is in need, although they didn’t always get along.  This friendship spills over into the friendship between Shane and Rohan who share a dressing room.

Lukas and Patrick also share a dressing room and seem to get up to a lot of mischief!  Ryder really looks up to Dean on the show.  Lukas requested that Dean teach Ryder how to surf, which is leading to an upcoming storyline involving a girl who will potentially stir up some trouble for Dean and Ziggy!  (I think this is a new character called Jade).

Do the cast prefer a White or Beach Christmas?

White Christmas:        Rohan and Lukas

Beach Christmas:        Sophie, Patrick, Shane

Sophie meets a tour bus of fans and joins them as they explore Palm Beach where the cast are filming.  She takes pictures with them and chats to them, eager to find out who their favourite characters are.  There are lots of people from the UK!  I really want to do this one day!  And go to the Neighbours set.  Not that I’ve ever visited any of the available soap sets in the UK…

What do the cast want for their characters in the New Year?

Rohan/Ben:     Peace and quiet and perhaps a new hobby

Sophie/Ziggy:  More work as a mechanic

Neighbours

Having made a very weak excuse to Paul and Terese, Roxy and Harlow head off to the prison to meet Robert who is reasonable and creepy all at the same time.  He cleverly gleans as much information from Harlow about Paul and their home life as he can without her even noticing and agrees to be tested to be a donor as soon as she mentions that Paul would do anything for David.  So… this is the big Christmas story then!  Psycho Robert. 

Back at home, Harlow and Roxy decide to keep their day trip a secret but Paul is already suspicious.  When Robert passes stage one and two, Harlow tells Paul and Terese the truth.  Her Granddad is not happy but with David in severe danger of death – the infection has taken over, his kidneys and liver are all failing and he now needs to be fed through a tube – he and Terese have no choice but to go and see his son.  Robert agrees to donate his kidney in return for Paul assisting him with moving to a lower security prison nearer to Erinsborough so that he can have more access to Harlow.  Well, this is going to end well, isn’t it?  I mean, if only someone else was a match.  Roxy, I’m talking to you!!!

Claudia buys tickets to The Nutcracker for herself, Finn and Bea only for Finn to overthrow his girlfriend for Elly on the basis that Elly and Claudia need to spend more time together.  With Bea really disappointed, Susan buys them both tickets as well to push Bea and Finn back together again.  She also tells Finn off for side lining his girlfriend.  Just like Susan, Claudia is onto him.  Backed into a corner, Finn admits to his mother that he has feelings for Elly.  And quite frankly, I am so disappointed.  I love the journey that Finn and Bea have been on together.  Has someone at Neighbours gone through a bad time or something and now feels the need to destroy every relationship?  They killed Sonya, they let Elly and Chloe last all of an episode, they broke up Ned and Yashvi, Dipi and Shane wouldn’t stop fighting, Kyle and Amy are heading for disaster, David is half dead, Finn fancies his girlfriend’s sister.  If they dare touch Karl and Susan…!

Anyway, conniving Claudia goes right to Elly with her information but Elly insists there is nothing between them and Finn is furious when he finds out what his mother has done.  Claudia is unrepentant and eager to push her last remaining son and the mother of her grandchild together.  We also finally solve the mystery of who set fire to his records before the trial!  Claudia!  But rather than this proving her love for him, Finn is horrified by the callousness Claudia has shown and demands that she leave.  When oblivious Bea asks her to stay, she tells her that Finn and Elly have feelings for each other.  Oh dear.  This is not helped when Bea returns home to find Finn and Elly mucking around with a new baby sling.  They do their best to allay her concerns and Finn goes to enormous effort to show his girlfriend just how much he loves her.  When she makes him a phot album of their relationship, he finally dumps the one of him and Elly, although I suspect this storyline is far from over…

Chloe gets the promo for the Sonya Rebecchi Foundation Concert all wrong, upsetting Toadie but she manages to turn things around.  Toadie admits that he is struggling with the idea of facing his first Christmas without Sonya.  We all are, Toadie.  We all are.

Amy begins to fret that she cannot reach Jimmy in New York.  When she gets word that her son is actually missing, Kyle awkwardly has to confess that he had been told that Jimmy was going through a rough patch and tried to talk to him but when he gave him some attitude, they had words and he hasn’t been able to get in touch with him since.  Amy immediately blames Kyle and shuts him out of any effort in trying to find her son.  Then when Jimmy shows up at the house, a completely different person to the lovely boy he used to be, uncommunicative and a thief as soon as Amy’s back is turned, she also refuses to let Kyle help work out what’s going on with him.  I just object to this story so much.  It’s like the show has completely changed Kyle’s personality, Kyle and Amy’s relationship and now Kyle and Jimmy’s relationship.  The way Kyle is behaving is the way Gary would behave, not thoughtful, kind Kyle.  I understand they’re gearing up for Amy’s exit but I don’t know why they have to do it this way.  Why bother getting us all invested in them back together if this was the plan all along?  It’s all wrong, I tell you!  Wrong!

Soap Blog: Monday 9th – Sunday 15th December 2019

Coronation Street

Maria is living in denial this week when she is literal told the bare truth about Gary’s crimes and yet refuses to believe it.  She starts the week by revealing to Gary that she’s pregnant and the pair of them get completely swept up with the idea of moving in together and starting a family.  He even buys her a car.  Worried and also rather jealous, Ali confronts Maria with the truth about Gary’s life as a loan shark and complete with her discovery that her stupid handbag isn’t really a fake, Maria does confront Gary with her suspicions.  However, the slimy rat somehow manages to explain everything away and the silly idiot somehow believes him.  I mean, boring Ali isn’t exactly a better option but still… with her wealth of experience with terrible men, you’d have thought Maria would be a little choosier by now!

Speaking of terrible men, Geoff returns home from Las Vegas with poor Yasmeen and somehow, he has manipulated and bullied her into marrying him.  I mean, we didn’t witness it but I’m pretty sure that’s how it happened.  Because he is one of the vilest characters that soap has ever seen.  I absolutely hate this storyline.  But I love it for its purpose and importance and education.  It is absolutely breaking my heart and I hope that everyone is learning a lesson from it.

Anyway, aside from the utter stupidity of Tim suddenly discovering that Las Vegas weddings are in fact legal and legitimate (has he never watched Friends?!), meaning that his current marriage to Sally is null and void, we are now stuck with the horror of our Yasmeen being legally bound to Geoff.  His first port of call is to begin driving as big a wedge between her and Alya as he possibly can, sniping at her for apparently staying the night at the house without permission and accusing her of not being happy for them.  Eventually, he manages to persuade her to stay away from the celebration party, explaining that it’s for Yasmeen’s own good but then tells his new wife that Alya was rude to him and didn’t want to come.  The party is generally successful apart from Sally being handed a glass with a lipstick mark on it and Cathy finding a small piece of crab shell in her food.  Minor incidents, one would think.  Not in Yasmeen’s situation.  Things become very dark after the party when Geoff lashes out at her, attempting to force her to eat a discarded crab shell.  It’s horrific viewing, with Yasmeen backed against the wall, looking genuinely frightened of her new husband as he warns her not to make such a mistake again.  I’m sure I wasn’t alone as I begged her to reach out and seek help.

Meanwhile, Robert is the Street’s least popular resident and finds himself arrested for assault, backed up with blood evidence from the house and his van.  Daniel gets drunk and falls into the road in front of poor Cathy’s car.  Then he decides to prove he can grow facial hair.  While Rita continues to feel like a lonely spare part, Gemma and Chesney bring all four babies home.  Tim thinks he can solve the mess he’s in by proposing to Sally.  Yes, confirming your fake marriage.  That will help!

Doctors

It’s a very dark week in Letherbridge as we finally discover the truth about Gareth.  He fails to get his job back and the complaint against him is escalated as he is quite rightfully accused of drug abuse, specifically cocaine.  Well, that would explain stealing from the till at The Icon and all the money he has been gladly accepting from hapless Emma.  He decides to solve his problems by taking more cocaine and is caught out by Emma who is so desperate for love and also caught up in this weird competition she’s having with Zara that she gets over her horror and forgives him, determined to get him help to overcome his addictions.

In the meantime, Gareth has an argument with Adam who is on his way back to see Zara who is getting herself very excited (and undressed) and ready for her boyfriend’s return.  He has great news – he has been granted a prestigious award and is eager to tell his brother all about it.  But Gareth, who let’s face it must be the disappointing child in the family, takes his brother’s achievement as a sign of showing off.  He abandons Emma and heads round to Zara’s house where she understandable mistakes him for Adam and drags him off to the bedroom.  He doesn’t correct her, eager to take her for himself and therefore take her away from Adam.  Thankfully, Zara realises her mistake pretty quickly but Gareth is intent on getting what he wants.  In some pretty horrific scenes, especially for daytime telly, Gareth attempts to rape Zara who fights back spectacularly.  She stabs him in the leg with her six inch heels and locks him in her bedroom, running downstairs to call the police.  She refuses to be treated like a victim when he escapes and the police, led by Rob give chase, although it’s clear that she is very shaken.  It will take her a long time to recover from this, I think and I also think it’s a safe bet that her relationship with Adam is dead in the water.  For starters, he looks identical to Gareth.  And secondly, his instinct was to play the hero and capture him rather than to comfort her.  Cue Zara and Daniel getting back together?

While Gareth remains unrepentant in his cell, both The Icon and Emma’s house are searched for cocaine and Jimmi misses his chance to break the news gently to Emma over what has happened.

In other news, Karen is delighted to learn that it wasn’t actually her who was speeding in the Pool Car, it was Valerie and wastes no time in breaking the news to her.  Well, to be fair, Valerie has been less than gracious about the whole thing.  Bear gets tested for dyslexia and decides to treat it as a superpower instead of a disability.  Excellent!

Eastenders

Phil finally grows suspicious of the baby’s paternity but gets the wrong end of the stick and thinks that Jack might be the father of the baby, recalling that once upon a time, he and Sharon nearly got married.  Oh yes, that time she wore a really strange black wedding dress.  I remember.

With the walls closing in around her, Sharon tells Lisa everything, banking on the fact that if she knows it’s actually Keanu that’s the father, she won’t ruin Louise’s life by telling the truth.  This backfires, however and Lisa rushes to the hospital more determined than ever to spill the beans.  After some quite hilarious birth scenes thanks to some excellent one liners from Louise, baby Peggy Melanie Taylor (fabulous tribute to Dame Barbara Windsor) is born.  Lisa continuously tries to find a moment to tell Louise the truth but is interrupted when baby Peggy suddenly stops breathing.  By the time she is stable again, Lisa gives up, deciding that Louise deserves her happy ending with Keanu and the baby.  She tells Phil that she made a mistake.  I suspect that this is not over.  I mean, Christmas is only round the corner everyone…!

Louise is released from hospital and everything looks like it’s all going to be fine for the Mitchell and Taylor clan at last.  Phil is even behaving like Scrooge after he has been visited by the Christmas Ghosts.  That is, until he catches Sharon out in her lie about having been at Dennis’s parents’ evening when she should have been at the hospital (she was visiting Lisa).  When he casually questions her, she lies again and this time, everything slots into place (apart from the actual paternity of the baby, which he still thinks is Jack).  This theory isn’t helped by sending Ben round to see Jack and him finding the necklace that Sharon lent to Linda for court, which she must have left there when she passed out after a night drinking with Max.  So, we’re definitely on course for a big Christmas Mitchell Showdown then!  Excellent.

Weirdo Leo is alarmed when his mother shows up in Walford, having got wind of his location and likely his intentions.  She clearly knows exactly what sort of man his vile father was, even if he doesn’t believe it and she begs him to come home.  He insists that he has not and will not come into contact with Whitney but when she phones him, he is quickly caught out in a lie.  And he does what any sane person does when caught out in a lie to their mother, beats the living daylight out of her!  In the middle of the Square where apparently nobody even notices.  Then a few hours later, he wanders into the pub to meet Whitney as if nothing even happened.  As you do!  Honestly, the attack just came out of nowhere.  Awful.  Really violent.

Callum continues to be suspicious of Leo, especially when he warns him to stay away.  His fears reignite Tiffany’s concerns.  She phones good old Bianca, demanding to know why she told her to stay away from him at the wedding.  The truth comes tumbling out and it’s a race against time for Tiffany and Callum to track the couple down at a hotel.  I mean, I say that but just FYI, if I was relying on someone to rescue me, the time it took them to arrive, I would not choose Callum and Tiff to be my heroes.  At the hotel, Leo and Whitney have been enjoying a rather intimate time in the shower (yuck!) when Callum and Tiffany finally get through to her on the phone, spelling out to her exactly who she has just slept with.  Leo stops her from making her escape.  He is determined to force her to tell the truth about what happened between her and Tony but struggles to come to terms with the actual truth – that he groomed and abused her.  Hats off to Shona McGarty for her retelling of that particular storyline.  I’m glad that Eastenders have started to put her centre-stage again and they realise how lucky they are to have her.  With the truth having hit him in the face, Leo leaves and rescues his battered mother from the boot of the car and attempts to make friends again.  Funnily enough, she isn’t interested.  Callum and Tiffany finally arrive but Whitney has saved herself.  Her family and friends do their best to look after her the next day and everyone is relieved that Leo is gone.  Except he hasn’t.  The creep is still lurking in the shadows.  Watching.

Ian continues to treat hardworking Ruby like dirt but the final straw comes when she realises that he has been lying to her about granting her a late licence for E20 and then demands that she publicly distances herself from her father.  With the help of Max, she humiliates him at his launch, messing with his speech and defacing his poster.  Oh well.  It couldn’t have happened to a less pompous, selfish, arrogant guy.

Martin has given into the darkness and taken up a new job with Tubbs now that Ben is ‘going straight’ so to speak.  He begins to splash the cash, buying Bex a car and some intensive driving lessons.  On the other hand, he completely loses it with Kat and Kush for sending Arthur away to spend time with Stacey and her new boyfriend.

Emmerdale

Aaron’s stalker-like behaviour continues to frighten Wendy and it leads to a telling off at work from Liam and Manpreet when she thinks he has followed her to work.  Apparently he had just made an appointment.  Chas and Liv are desperately concerned about his behaviour but as it turns out, he is being steered by Victoria who is determined to get Wendy out of the village so she can raise her baby in peace.

One morning, Wendy drives off to work, accidentally leaving her bag on her roof.  Bob chases after her, sending her into sheer panic, thinking that Aaron is hunting her down.  Having been the only person to show her any kindness, he looks after her but questions whether the Village is the right place for her if she is this stressed out.  I predict a Christmas romance…

Meanwhile, Aaron has nabbed Wendy’s keys and let himself into her house, coming face to face with Luke.  They argue, Luke defending his mother despite the fact that he clearly disagrees with her (he really is a nice guy, what a shame it was Lee that Victoria met that night – although, that wouldn’t have been a very good storyline, I suppose!) and begging Aaron to stop his terror campaign against her.  He refuses, of course and smashes up the house.  Liv arrives in time to stop him from smashing Luke up but gets hit in the face in the process.  Ouch.  Afterwards, Luke begs his mother to leave the Village and in front of Aaron, Diane and Victoria, begs her to face reality – Victoria is telling the truth.  Lee was a rapist.

Archie ruins a special moment for Arthur as he is about to put a sentimental decoration on the Christmas Tree in memory of Ashley.  Surprisingly, Arthur’s bullying seems to go down a treat with Nicola’s kids, particularly Angel who cruelly joins in with the taunting.  It gets too much for little Archie who snaps and slaps her, right at the wrong moment as Jimmy sees and grabs him away from his daughter.  Of course this leads to Jai jumping to the wrong conclusion that Jimmy has been hurting his son after all and a huge row ensues.  For a moment, Archie wavers over telling his father and Laurel the truth about why he slapped Angel but Arthur’s presence soon warns him not to.  Have I mentioned how much I object to this storyline?

Arthur persuades Archie to run away and hide in the woods.  Taking him at his word, that night, the little boy does just that, causing chaos and distress in the morning when nobody can find him.  Arthur is sent to school as usual but worried and guilty, he slips away and goes to find Archie himself, bringing him back with a cover story.  Of course, Archie’s disappearing act has yet more consequences for Jimmy – everyone now believes that Archie was so frightened of him that he felt he needed to flee.  Devastated, Jimmy apologises to Archie but Jai is furious and accuses him of child abuse in the middle of the whole pub.  Jimmy insists that he had nothing to do with any bruising and good old Dan is quick to stand up for his friend.  Jai is defensive and hostile when Social Services come knocking.  When pushed to choose between her friends and her partner, Laurel chooses Jai.

Convinced that Graham will find out for himself whether he is Millie’s father or not, Kim sends Andrea, Jamie and Millie away on a short holiday to get them out of the way.  However, the trip is pointless because:

  1. Rhona manages to get a DNA sample from Millie before they leave
  2. They only go away for about 24 hours
  3. Kim doesn’t manage to do anything other than fart arse about and have slightly threatening conversations during their absence.  Oh and she also arranges for Nate to set Rhona up to look like she’s left a gate open at the farm to let some turkeys to escape – wow!

I think Kim of Home Farm has lost her touch since the days of watching Frank Tate die so heartlessly!  Or is she just gathering momentum for the big finish?

Rhona is contacted by an old friend who offers her a job in France.  However, Graham warns him away, believing that he is working for Kim, which he is.  But while Rhona and Graham argue about Graham’s apparent paranoia about Kim and Rhona’s understandable anxiety about violence, Kim warns Rhona’s friend that their deal is off if he cannot persuade both Rhona and Graham to move away.

As if they have read the spoilers for an Eastenders storyline, the villagers decide to put on their own pantomime, carefully putting Leyla and Liam together as a future couple.  It seems like only a week or two ago that Liam was in love with Bernice.  Oh wait…

Oh and a random bloke shows up and everyone instantly recognises him as Ellis even though he looks and sounds absolutely nothing like the Ellis that left a few weeks ago.  Odd.  Also, in some irony, one of his first scenes involves him breaking up a fight and fighting is how the actor who played the previous Ellis got sacked.  And that’s your soap trivia for the week!  You’re welcome!

Hollyoaks

John Paul is quite rightfully appalled to have been brought back to the Village under false pretences and then be faced with having to deal with the boy who raped him when he has spent all these years trying to put that trauma behind him.  He refuses to even engage with Edward and Sally and immediately arranges to return to Singapore.  He bumps into James having a spat with Liam about dealing drugs to Sid, who he found in a right state with Juliet desperately trying to look after him (they have since been separated), casually mentions that he and Craig have split up for the millionth time and is then persuaded to finally get to have his say with Finn before he goes home.

It’s an emotionally charged scene between John Paul, Finn and Diane and all credit the writers, the actors and everyone at Hollyoaks for pulling it off.  I was genuinely upset by the end of it.  The whole repentance storyline for Finn has been hard to deal with over the past few weeks because those of us who watched the original story will know how hideous and brutal it was.  Finn was an absolutely monster.  He bullied and tormented John Paul before eventually raping him, not to mention the mental torture he inflicted on him afterwards.  Then he attempted to rape Nancy.  But now, he genuinely seems to be trying to make up for what he has done.  It’s not like a typical soap story where there is an underlying evil working behind the scenes.  It’s genuine repentance for the most hideous crime and cruelty.  It’s the hardest request for forgiveness.

However, the issue that John Paul really raises in his discussion with Finn and Diane (and Edward, Nancy and Sally when they join them) is that if he truly is sorry for all he has done, he needs to leave the Village because he needs to understand that his presence there is causing people yet more pain.  It’s damaging Diane because of her constant need to protect him.  It’s damaging Nancy because it reminds her every day of what he did to her.  It’s damaging Sally because it reminds her that she wasn’t there to protect her son and it also stops her from seeing him because he can’t visit while Finn lives there.  Returning to the scene of his crime makes his crime continue.

Taking John Paul’s words into account, Finn leaves and sadly, doesn’t say goodbye to Yazz.  Edward, the person that actually is scheming behind everyone’s backs, tells her that Finn was only using her to gain sympathy from people.  He destroys her by informing her that people feel sorry for her now that she is deaf.

James starts out the week trying to punish Liam for his role in Harry’s death and also for selling drugs to Sid.  By the end of the week, they have teamed up together as business partners.  And just as I was musing to myself that they seemed to be a little flirty and I was dismissing it as Liam is one of the most heterosexual men soap has ever seen, they were at it right there in the club office!  Well, there you go then.  Soap wonders never cease to create very interesting pairings!  Two slightly psychotic, power hungry villains, both of whom always want to be in charge all the time, dating.  Or at least sleeping together.  As for poor Sid, he’s now sleeping rough.

Mercedes is left panicked when she finds herself being left notes and is also attacked by some barrels.  She is left in shock however when she realises that it is her own son, Bobby who is tormenting her.  He apologises, explaining that he was just so sure that Sylver is not guilty.  Maintaining to Breda that she is telling the truth about Sylver, Mercedes considers retracting her statement for the sake of her son’s wellbeing.  Breda is being sickeningly nice to Mercedes.  I just don’t trust her.  She is obsessed with Sylver.  There is no way she would abandon him (especially not after having already let him serve her time once) and adopt Mercedes.  Well, not unless she was the shooter…  Then she would sacrifice anyone!

Anyway, more evidence comes to light on Mercedes’ case, casting doubt on Sylver being the culprit.  Some blood has apparently been found at the scene (but has only been mentioned now apparently).  Grace is quick to broadcast this in the pub in front of as many people as possible.  This causes Diane a lot of anxiety as it turns out, the blood is hers.  She went to The Loft that night to confront Mercedes but backed out before they even saw each other.  The police are sceptical of her story until she can provide proof from CCTV at The Hutch.  Edward saw her and called her back and once in The Hutch, they ended up kissing, interrupted by shots being fired, therefore confirming the time that Mercedes was actually shot.  One thing Diane doesn’t mention is that outside, they bumped into Grace.  Aware that at some point people will find out about them anyway, Diane decides to go for it with Edward.

With Bobby pining for Sylver, Mercedes decides to taking him to the prison and bring out her husband’s angry side in front of their son to show him who he really is and that he belongs behind bars.  Firstly, way to mess up your kid a bit more, Mercedes.  Secondly, as if you’d ever be allowed to go and see the man who you say shot you, just like that – and bring your child along!  Anyway, she does attempt to wind him up, as they argue about Grace (who he rejects again despite her fighting for his release) and Liam (who has clearly forgotten all about Mercedes now!) but rather than getting angry, Sylver suddenly realises that it was all a jealous revenge plan and that they still love each other.

Home and Away: Mangrove River

This week, we are with the gang from Mangrove River – Patrick O’Connor (Dean Thompson), Emily Wier (Mackenzie Booth), Tim Franklin (Colby Thorne) and Courtney Miller (Bella Nixon) who is actually well into her twenties and has a degree, something which kind of freaked me out a little as she’s still in school on the show.  I know there are often age gaps on TV but this one seems massive.  Anyway, sadly one of my favourites, Sarah Roberts (Willow Harris) is missing.

The group discuss following in the footsteps of the legendary River Boys Gang and the Braxton Family, although their version of the River Boys is very different.  They talk about their first scenes on the show including recusing Bella from her father and that Colby’s main reason for joining the police force was to find his sister.  They suspect that Ross’s death won’t stay a secret forever.  They discuss Bella’s online grooming storyline.

We see Emily’s audition tape and chemistry test with Tim.  It was always the plan to get Colby and Mac together.  They are very complimentary about each other!  Courtney comments on the fact that Colby was dumped by Chelsea for being a River Boy and then he was dumped by Mac for being a cop.  She thinks that Bella will go to any lengths imaginable to interfere in her brother’s love life but she hopes she will find love herself one day. 

Patrick (who is dating Sophie Dillman (Ziggy Astoni) in real life) is happy with Dean and Ziggy’s relationship and that Dean has some stability in his life now.  They discuss his mental health storyline involving his mother, Karen.

Patrick takes the audience in to the writer’s room to meet various members of staff including Series Producer Lucy Addario, Editor Terry Coombes and Head Writer Louise Bowes.  Apparently it takes about three and a half months to script an episode!  They have twenty freelance writers and ten in-house writers.  They reference a new family coming to the Bay.  (I believe we meet the first member of this family in the Australian Season Finale, which UK viewers will see in February).  I don’t know why there is such a massive gap between episodes in Australia and the UK.  It’s not the same with Neighbours.

What do the cast wish for their characters for the New Year?

Emily/Mac:                 To sort out her relationships with Colby, Dean and Bella

Tim/Colby:                  Romance!

Courtney/Bella:           That she calms down!

Patrick/Dean               A long term relationship with Ziggy

Neighbours

With Hendrix having attempted to run off to Sydney, Pierce manages to catch up with him just in time.  When Pierce decides to cancel the wedding completely, Hendrix agrees to attend, not wanting to ruin Chloe’s special day.  However, after the wedding, he decides not to go on holiday with them or live with them anymore.  Now, I’m not a massive Hendrix fan but it’s nice to see a bit of depth to him at last rather than just a cocky teenager.  We still have yet to see anything deeper than a puddle in Pierce’s personality.  So dull.  The most we have ever got out of him is his explanation that he was basically a sperm donor to create his kids and asked to stay away by his ex-partner but of course Hendrix cannot know that.  But still, I am waiting for some kind of personality to emerge.

Finn’s hopes that his mother has changed and wants to build a relationship with him in the wake of Shaun’s death are dashed when he discovers her intentions over Elly’s baby.  She is convinced that Elly is going to mess up and she wants him to spy on her so that she can be there to swoop in and take over when she does.  He refuses.  Unfortunately, in light of the whole photo album incident, Susan gets the wrong end of the stick when Finn tries to draw Elly and Claudia together so his mother can see how great Elly is.  Well, I say the wrong end of the stick…

Leo flies in from New York to see David, who is struggling to fight an infection.  Leo gets tested to be a donor (he isn’t a match and nor is Roxy who also gets tested).  Kyle, meanwhile decides to use a large portion of his class action money to pay towards Aaron and David’s mortgage.  The boys reluctantly accept and David genuinely forgives Kyle for running him over, knowing it was an accident.  And that’s why David is one of the loveliest characters soap has ever seen.  If they kill him or ruin him in any way, they will not be forgiven.  They already have a black mark against their name for killing Sonya!  I think I’m more upset than Toadie!

Meanwhile, Amy has a pregnancy scare, which from her perspective genuinely is a scare as it seems everything with Kyle since the sex tape scandal and now David’s accident seems to have changed.  While Kyle is eager to start a family with Amy ASAP, she doesn’t feel she is ready at all.  This is such an annoying storyline.  I mean, why put Amy and Kyle back together at long last if they are just going to destroy them?!  They’re not Aaron and David, of course but they’re such a lovely couple.  Anyway, Kyle has the bright idea of bringing Jimmy over from New York to see his mother but Leo puts him off.

Gary helps Dipi and Shane make up.  Shane, Ned and Yashvi hopefully put an end to this stupid fight club story.  I mean, please.  It’s on my Christmas list along with the end of the Robert storyline in Coronation Street.  And Harlow and Roxy head off to meet Harlow’s psychotic father, Robert Robinson.  So that’s going to end well…

Soap Blog: Monday 2nd December – Sunday 8th December 2019

Coronation Street – Wedding Hell

Vicky barges onto the Street very loudly and very pregnant, shouting at Robert and making it clear that she is scared of him when he sends her away.  Once alone, she warns him that she is out to ruin his life, which I think she’s pretty much about to do.  At home, when Robert begins to fret about Vicky destroying him financially, Michelle comes up with the bright idea of him signing over the Bistro to her, as if it has only just popped into her mind.  When it looks like Michelle is going to confront Vicky herself, Robert goes to visit her and warns her to stay away from the wedding.  A huge row erupts, complete with Vicky hurling things at him and the neighbours coming out of their houses in concern.  He returns home and tells Michelle that Vicky is no longer a problem.

Despite how the wedding was always going to turn out, it’s quite a beautiful scene when Carla walks Michelle down the aisle.  But during the vows, Michelle outs Robert for his double life, reading texts messages that have been passed between Robert and Vicky and announces that he has got her pregnant and also proposed to her.  Tyler then bursts in demanding to know what Robert has done to Vicky – she is missing.  He knows there was a huge argument last night and now the house has been bleached clean.

While the police begin to suspect Robert of murder, as do the rest of the street, Michelle is devastated and plans to sell up and start afresh.  My personal opinion is that he is being set up by both Michelle and Vicky.  And it couldn’t happen to a nicer bloke!

Hope starts school again, meaning she and her family have to say goodbye to Jade.  Daniel gets his laptop back and quickly becomes obsessed with the videos that Sinead left behind.  Paul bravely tells his boss and colleagues about Kel’s abuse as he begins police proceedings.  Bernie ends up in trouble with the law herself when she confronts Kel at his place of work.  Derek does a deal with Nick and Sarah in a desperate bid for cash.  Rita begins to feel like a spare part.

Doctors – Clash of the Icons

Predictably, things become a little tense between Zara and Emma now that they are dating twins, Adam and Gareth, especially when Zara turns down Emma’s invitation for the four of them, plus Joe to all spend Christmas together.  Well, personally, I think Gareth is definitely shifty.  I mean, what on earth did he do with the money Emma gave him for decorations for The Icon?  He definitely didn’t use it all for its intended purpose!

Meanwhile, Adam attends a school career day with Joe only to have to talk him down when he is frightened of a clown.  But he and Zara fall out when he dismisses her worries about her son.

The new pool car, named Dwight, arrives at The Mill and immediately causes trouble when Karen is caught speeding with Valerie and Ayesha in the car.  With maximum points already on her licence and not wanting to lose it or embarrass Rob, Karen tries and fails to persuade Valerie to take the blame.

Bear is defensive over the suggestion that he may be dyslexic and distracts himself with decorating The Mill with some non-traditional decorations with Valerie.

Sid helps Al with the marketing of The Icon and invites locally famous Beer Vlogger to the

launch night of Al and Jimmi’s Beer.  After a lot of nerves, the night is a success and Al even helps the vlogger get together with his cameraman.  Jimmi has problems with his burglar alarm.

Eastenders – Honey Takes Her Power Back

The Wife Swaps draws to a close with a quiz rather drunkenly and hilariously hosted by Shirley and won by Mick and Ruby.  When Honey discovers Adam’s latest fling, enough is finally enough.  Propelled by the sense of self worth that Ash has given her over the previous few days, Honey stands up in front of the whole pub and calls Adam out for his abysmal treatment of her.  It’s a fantastic moment and worth the wait.  At home, she packs his things amid some cruel abuse.  When he pushes her too far, hits him in the mouth with a bin.  Hope you know a good dentist, Adam!  I also hope that Honey will pursue a friendship with Ash and Iqra.

Martin overhears Billy fretting about Karen’s money worries and drops Ben in it for being a loan shark.  When Billy manages to sort things with Ben, Karen is so grateful that the pair end up in bed together!  Honey turns to Billy for support and gets quite a shock!

Max is horrified when Ruby bluntly tells him about sleeping with Martin.  She makes it clear that she would prefer a more casual relationship.  Max confronts Martin, leading to what can only be described as a pissing contest between the men, which is much more about Stacey than Ruby.

Lisa and the Mitchells (minus Sharon and Phil) attend Mel’s funeral, which Sharon has paid for.  However, at the wake, Lisa loses her temper and labels Sharon a murderer in front of everyone as well as telling everyone that Phil isn’t the father of the baby.  Seeds of doubt finally begin to form in Phil’s mind, especially when he sees Sharon looking close with Jack.  Louise goes into labour!

Gray finally confesses to the counsellor that he is physically violent towards Chantelle.  He breaks down over the violence he lived with from his father but Chantelle won’t let the counsellor push him to deal with the violence between them.  Instead, she decides they should sweep it all under the carpet again and renew their wedding vows.  What a hideous plan.

Jags plants rat droppings at the salon.  Sheree calls his bluff but Denise insists the ‘problem’ needs dealing with, prompting another falling out between the pair.  Worried Mick suggests that he and Linda do an alcohol detox.  He puts together a ridiculous plan to try and persuade Ollie’s teacher to grant him Learner of the Week only to discover that he is going to be awarded Learner of the Term.  Cue a drunken announcement from Linda to the whole pub, which embarrasses and worries Mick.  He suggests that they go on an alcohol detox.  Yes, I am sure she’ll stick to that.

Emmerdale – Wendy House

Pete and Moira fall out when she drunkenly messes up a client meeting at the farm and loses their business.  Despite also being angry with Nate, Pete is then persuaded to ditch Moira and take up a job with him at the rival farm.  How fickle.  Although, I don’t think I’d want much to do with Moira right now either, to be honest.  Interestingly, Cain stands up for Moira.

Victoria, Diane, Liv and Aaron are horrified when Wendy, having secured a job with Liam and Manpreet, moves into the Village.  Even her own son, Luke cannot believe that she has made the decision to crowd Victoria in such a way.  In an emotionally charged scene, Chas almost gets through to Wendy who still stubbornly believes that Lee could never have raped Victoria and that Victoria is lying.  It’s clear that Luke believes Victoria over his brother and knows his better than his mother does.  But I do wonder if her move to the village and her growing friendship with Chas and Victoria’s own grace and compassion for her may lead Wendy to finally come to terms with the truth.  She’s clearly not a bad person.  She just loves her son and wants to believe in him above all else.

Unfortunately, Wendy is not made to feel welcome in the Village and on her first night, she gets a brick thrown through her window.  She also has ‘rapist’ sprayed across her house, which she discovers during the turning on of the Christmas lights, in front of the whole village, when she has just helped Victoria through a bout of Braxton Hicks.  Bob very kindly cleans up the graffiti for her.  Aaron’s loved ones beg him to leave Wendy alone, not wanting him to go down the same road as Robert.

Andrea is in bits, knowing that Kim is gunning for her and has ordered a DNA test to prove whether Jamie or Graham is the father of Millie.  She is soon rushed into hospital with a miscarriage where we see Kim’s rare compassionate side.  She is uncharacteristically kind to Andrea and totally looks after her at the hospital.  She then tears up the DNA results without looking at them, not wanting Jamie to lose another child or to destroy their family.  Kim then sets about paying Graham off and sending him away.  Something tells me that he will not go quietly…

Despite Jimmy’s willingness to forgive, things are difficult between Nicola and Laurel, although they all manage to work things through in the end.  However Laurel and Jai remain ignorant (emphasis on the word ignorant – it’s literally happening right in front of them) of Arthur’s bullying of Archie.  Personally, I hate this plot.  I understand that it happens and it’s good to shine a light on it but I think they’ve absolutely chosen the wrong characters.  Arthur is the epitome of a nice, good child.  He was a tower of strength to Laurel when Ashley died and he’s always doing the right thing.  There has been no lead up to this story whatsoever.  It’s like they’ve given him a personality transplant overnight.  It’s a horrible storyline and it’s destroyed a lovely character.  But then, Emmerdale hasn’t exactly been firing on all cylinders this year, I suppose.  It’s had some great moments but it’s had some real flops and this storyline, for me is a prime example.

Lydia is struggling with her mother trying to be more involved in her life than she is ready for.  Charity and Vanessa are at it all over the place, although Charity calms things down, aware that Vanessa is avoiding grieving for Frank.  Sarah lies to Charity about spending time with Danny.  Worried Noah tells Danny the truth about Sarah’s illness.

Hollyoaks – Brody and Liberty, Too Stupid for Words

Brody, like the rest of the audience cannot believe that Liberty would even suggest that they sleep together and pass of their baby as Sienna’s.  Even by Hollyoaks standards this plot is insane and horrific.  As if her boyfriend cheating on her with her sister wouldn’t be more upsetting than not getting pregnant.  Nonsense!  However, after some misguided advice from Damon, Brody decides to go for it.  I mean, even if they decided to conceive a child and pass it off as Sienna’s, they didn’t have to do it the ‘natural way’ and actually cheat on her, did they?  Of course they did.  This is Hollyoaks.

In hospital, Mercedes wakes up in fright, believing that the shooter has just been in her room.  Well, Sylver is locked up.  So who has been in her room?  None other than Diane!  So… was it her?  She has been acting very shifty recently…  Feeling helpless, she discharges herself from hospital.

Brave Tony gives Breda a piece of his mind, blaming her for Sylver’s crime and the state of his and Mercedes marriage.  In response, creepy Breda befriends Mercedes and denounces her beloved son.  When Bobby returns home, Breda pledges her commitment to the family and moves into the pub to help Mercedes look after them both.  The police drop the investigation into the hit and run.

Yazz helps Finn get a job delivering Christmas trees.  However, things go wrong on his first day when he has to deliver to the school and finds himself in the very classroom where he raped John Paul – and is discovered by horrified Nancy.  He is quickly sacked by his boss upon discovering the full truth of his crimes.  Encouraged by nasty Edward, Finn attempts to make a public apology but it goes drastically wrong, ruining Marnie’s grand opening of the café.  In response, Yazz and Finn delve into Edward’s own past and discover that he was once accused of murdering his wife.  Wiley Edward is easily able to explain it all away.  Edward and Sally conspire to bring John Paul back to sort Finn out once and for all.

Sienna worries Luke when she notices his shaky hand and mentions her Dad had MND.  Darren goes to the hospital with him where he is diagnosed with Frontal Temporal Dementia, a progressive condition and yet another destruction of a once amazing character.  Let’s face it, Luke is basically unrecognisable from his original self, one of those situations where you dream of Luke Morgan returning to the show but when he does the writers mess him up so much you wish they hadn’t bothered.  And now there’s this horrifically sad story to deal with.  In the meantime, Cindy mistakenly believes that Luke is about to propose.  Instead, he breaks up with her rather harshly in a bid to set her free from having to watch him fade away.  Well, let’s hope this condition is treated a little more realistically than Duffy’s in Casualty.

Home and Away: The Morgans

Home and Away is on its Christmas Break until January 2020.  Instead, on My5, there is a Christmas themed behind the scenes episode every Monday, hosted by Jason Smith who played Robbie Hunter between 2003 and 2006.

This week we are with the Morgan Family, who started off as a four (Tori, Justin, Brody and Mason), added a fifth with Raffy, lost two (Brody and Raffy who moved away with Brody’s girlfriend Simone) and are now more of a blended family with Justin dating Leah and also having a daughter called Ava plus Tori having had baby Grace with Robbo who is married to Jasmine.  So they’re pretty much as complicated as any other Home and Away family.

For this episode, Jason Smith is joined by Ada Nicodemou (Leah Patterson-Baker), James Stewart (Justin), Penny McNamee (Tori), Orpheus Pledger (Mason), Sam Frost (Jasmine) and Jake Ryan (Robbo).

Tori, Justin, Brody and Mason arrived under false names, living in witness protection, which was probably a silly idea considering what a dangerous place the Bay is!  They then found out they had another sister, Raffy.  Robbo also arrived under a cloud of confusion, amnesia and in the thick of a criminal investigation (he worked as a Federal Police Officer) and his whole family having been murdered.  Jasmine arrived on the run from an abusive boyfriend and was taken under Leah’s wing.  In a similar way, Sam explains that Ada looked after her on set.

The episode looks at Jasmine and Robbo’s complicated relationship and the current investigation involving Dylan Carter.  We take a look back at the arrival of the original Morgan family and take a moment to appreciate Orpheus’s perm.  The actors discuss their hopes for Leah and Justin’s future and laugh about their inability to keep their hands off each other.  They wonder if Mason will ever find love.  I think it’s unlikely.  Penny discusses being pregnant in real life alongside her pregnancy storyline on the show – James was very impressed with how she handled things.  Jake has also just become a new father.  Ada discusses her Ryan Kwanten (Vinnie Patterson) and how successful he has become.  Sam jokes about how obsessed she is with Christmas.  Olivia Debble (Raffy) sends her Home and Away family a Christmas message.

Sam Frost takes the camera into the make-up room and introduces us to none other than Laura Vasquez, who any true Home and Away fan will know played Sarah Thompson in the nineties!  Awesome!  She reveals that the person who takes the longest in makeup is Emily Symons (Marilyn) as she looks nothing like her character in real life (she looked completely different in Emmerdale) and the person who takes the least time is Ray Meagher (Alf).

What do the cast want for their character for the New Year?

Penny/Tori:     More making out and making jokes!

Ada/Leah:        Happiness and laughter

Jake/Robbo:    Love and good times with Jasmine & telling her he loves her

Neighbours – Unrequited Love

David’s loved ones, including Kyle all rush to be tested to be a kidney donor, all to no avail.  They also attempt to contact Leo, who would presumably be the obvious option.

Paul nearly comes to blows with Kyle during their mediation session.  He then sells Pierce a bigger share of Lassiters in order to settle the lawsuit and put the whole thing to bed, so to speak.  With his new powers, Pierce promotes Chloe to permanent General Manager, at least for as long as their relationship lasts.  Hendrix and Roxy meanwhile, conspire to make Pierce miss his wedding rehearsal.  Cue, Hendrix stepping in and awkwardly confessing his feelings for Chloe, except she doesn’t really get what he’s trying to tell her.  However, later, he decides to make it clearer by actually attempting to kiss her.  She is horrified and makes it clear that she’s not interested but she misunderstands his genuine feelings for her and thinks he is just out to cause trouble for Pierce.  Chloe tells Pierce what has happened and it slowly dawns on her that Hendrix’s feelings for her are actually real.  He moves into the Kennedy’s House of Never Ending Bedrooms.

Ned continues to freak out over Scarlett and reluctantly begins counselling.  Worried about him, Bea follows Ned to the fight club and steps up to fight in a bid to shock him out of the state he’s in.  It’s a huge risk and it makes both Ned and Finn very angry but essentially, it works.  He steps in and pulls her out of the fight, which makes the guy running the club angry.  But it stops him from fighting, gets him back to work and brings him and Yashvi closer again.

Harlow forgives Terese for handing her over to Prue in order to cover up her drinking.  Susan becomes concerned that Finn may be harbouring feelings for Elly when she finds the photo album of their past relationship in his bag.  Finn’s mother arrives and is ready to play nice but there is clearly more going on beneath the surface.  Dipi and Shane’s marriage is in trouble.

Soap Blog: Monday 25th November – Sunday 1st December 2019

Coronation Street – No Hope!

Fiz and Tyrone are at their wits end again with Hope, unaware that Jade is busy stirring the pot.  Keen to build up a case against Fiz, Jade covers Hope in fake bruises and takes photos of her.  She also attempts to plant seeds of doubt about Fiz’s capabilities of a mother to Evelyn.  Well, she messes that up.  Evelyn absolutely has that girl’s number!  She practically throws a party when Fiz and Tyrone give Jade the boot in favour of putting Hope back into school when a place magically reveals itself.  She doesn’t even take Jade’s side when Fiz completely loses her rag with Hope and smashes up her tablet.  So besotted is Hope with Jade though that she takes the blame when she finds Jade smashing up a photo frame of Fiz and Tyrone.  When the little girl accidentally cuts herself on some glass, Jade sees it as an opportunity to rush her to the medical centre to get patched up and sets the wheels in motion to raise some hypothetical concerns about Fiz.  She also gives Hope a secret phone so they can stay in touch behind her parents’ back. But the truth about Jade’s sinister plot is revealed to the audience alone when she visits John Stape’s grave one night – she is his daughter, therefore Hope’s half-sister.

Roy butts heads with his niece, Nina, over the care of his brother, Richard.  However, Richard soon requests that when he is gone, Roy look after Nina, who is quite annoying but it will be nice to have Roy have some family ties (besides Carla, obvs) on the Street again now that Hayley has gone.  May she rest in peace.

It all kicks off on The Street as news of Kel’s abuse of Paul spreads and he arrested for abuse and burglary.  Nick tries and fails to enlist Kirk’s help to double cross Sarah and the factory girls.  Michelle continues to plot against Robert in the most boring story in Coronation Street history.

Doctors – Woman Up!

Somehow, Ayesha and Bear manage to persuade Emma to being filmed having a smear test for their new Smears Without Fears Campaign.  Cue very funny scenes with Ruhma trying to film the girls doing a smear test to be presented at an evening at The Mill where other women are encouraged to have their tests.  Zara bursts in on them and is thrown out and there is lots of squabbling, which is always delightfully written in Doctors, I think.  Zara yells at the others for being petty and tells them to Woman Up!  Also, the campaign itself is brilliant so any woman reading this – make sure you go for your test if you haven’t already!

Zara concludes that she was right and they have made completely the wrong choice in Bear when she reads his rubbish minutes.  However, Al concludes that he is merely dyslexic and Daniel is impressed with his ingenuity while Karen worries that he is actually putting in too much hard work.  Daniel and Bear invest in an electric car for The Mill.  How exciting.  Not.

Daniel struggles with a temptation to gamble and feels shut out of his kids’ pre-Christmas plans as Adam continues to sweep Zara and Joe off their feet.  I don’t feel sorry for him.

Eastenders – Wife Swap!

Louise is worried about Lisa’s mental health as she remains convinced that Sharon bumped Mel off.  I mean, I totally understand where she’s coming from but actually, after all of Sharon’s bad behaviour, she really did tried to save the woman!

In his wisdom, Mick organises The Queen Vic Wife Swap as part of his attempt to win the Best Pub in London, which I think is actually a pretty good storyline.  I hold my hands up.  I love that show!  So, the game involves Mick and Linda swapping with Max and Ruby.  Iqra and Ash swapping with Adam and Honey.  Kat and Kush swapping with Patrick and Sheree.  And thanks to a bit of cheating on Gray’s part, he and Chantelle swap with Mitch and Karen.

When Linda gets caught accidentally smashing into the Playground Bitch’s car and driving away, the police are called and it turns out she is over the legal alcohol limit, meaning she is arrested and charged with drunk driving.  Mick finds out and after she’s given a fine and a ban, an inevitable argument ensues.  She storms off to Max’s where she gets so drunk that she passes out on the couch.  At the Vic, meanwhile, Ruby and Mick get on like a house on fire and she especially bonds with Ollie.  A few people have suggested an affair but I would hope that they wouldn’t repeat the Whitney storyline.  I mean, it would be almost carbon copy.  But anyway, Ruby is too busy getting it on with Martin.  Yes, really.  Do these people have any kind of loyalty?

While Kat can barely keep up with Patrick, Karen is having a lovely time with Gray (who is as moody and two faced as ever).  However, he is genuinely kind to Bailey when Mitch lets her down on a father/daughter evening.  The hurt from Chantelle is crystal clear – Mitch has let her down in the same way so many times before and she obviously feels very protective of Bailey because of it.  Thankfully, Mitch does do his best to make things right.  He’s a nice guy but fundamentally selfish.

Adam and Iqra endure and awkward dinner, exploding into a huge row when Iqra reads (and replied to!) a text revealing that Adam is sleeping with yet another random woman.  Meanwhile, it takes Ash about ten seconds to spot that Honey has an eating disorder and her kindness and support creates a genuine safe space for Honey to open up to her about her low self-esteem.  Please let this storyline mean that Ash and Iqra will help Honey out of this awful relationship she is in with Adam!  Please!  We want our amazing Honey back!

Ian continues his desperate bid to become a local counsellor.  Emphasis on desperate.  And it looks like Eastenders are about to hook Billy up with Karen just in time for Honey to become single.  Of course they are.

Emmerdale – Get Them to the Church on Time!

Kim announces to the whole pub, including Rhona that she and Graham are actually married!  He responds by telling her the truth about Millie’s paternity, which Andrea denies.  He also tells Rhona the truth about Millie and his life with Kim in a bid to be completely honest with her and make their relationship work.  While he asks Kim for a divorce, Andrea announces she is pregnant.  Also, the whole family move to the B&B without explanation.

Charity meddles in Pete and Tracey’s love life and eventually manages to get them back together, earning herself a ‘romantic’ reward from Vanessa!

Jacob drops the charges against Liam and attempts to make things right with Leanna.  In a bid to eradicate Maya from his life, Jacob accepts a counselling referral.

Bernice and Liam enjoy their hen and stag nights, in some excellent scenes involving both groups singing ‘Get Me to the Church on Time’.  Unfortunately, things go wrong when Dee Dee takes a call informing her that her father has been in a terrible car accident and is in critical condition.  After she berates her mother for never having been there for her the way her father has been, Bernice makes the decision to go to Australia immediately with her daughter, aware that it won’t be a short trip.  Backing out of telling Liam or Gabby the truth, Bernice is heartbroken to cancel/postpone the wedding and leave the country.

Al labels Billy as his attacker when in actual fact, he’s in some serious trouble with loan sharks, as Dawn discovers.  Things remain tense between Cain, Moira and Nate, especially when Nate announces he has taken over the lease of the farm next door.

Hollyoaks – Who Shot Mercedes?

Mercedes wakes up and identifies Sylver as the shooter.  He is arrested and charged with attempted murder, turning him into a raging bull behind bars.  Having rejected Grace in favour of his wife before Mercedes turned on him, he quickly has to eat humble pie in order to get some sort of help, especially as his own supposedly devoted mother has turned against him.  Well, I guess she’s not that devoted.  She let him go to jail for a murder that she committed when he was just a kid!

Thankfully, Grace really is sweet on Sylver and does her best to help, talking to Mercedes and discovering that she knows her husband isn’t responsible but wants revenge for his ‘affair’.  To be fair, Mercedes, you’ve been running around with Liam for months!  I don’t think what Sylver did even compares!  However, Grace makes a good point – while Mercedes has Sylver locked away for a crime he didn’t commit, the real person who presumably wants her dead is still out there, free to strike again.

At the news of Sylver’s arrest, Diane looks pretty darn shifty…

It’s an awkward day when both Damon and Maxine return to Hollyoaks Village – him from prison and her from America.  He ignores her apologies and in fact, demands the engagement ring back!  He is also a little bewildered when Liberty hits on him, as are we all, not least because she is trying to get pregnant and pass off the baby as Sienna and Brody’s.  I mean, come on!

Sienna takes Sid under her wing.  She attempts to reconnect him with his step-mother but when they uncover his knife, Alice isn’t interested.  Sienna is keen to foster Sid herself and when she is also keen to push on with the surrogacy, Liberty comes up with the worst plan she’s ever had – she thinks she and Brody should sleep together and pass it off as Sienna’s baby.  If this plot goes ahead, it will be one of the most awful stories Hollyoaks has ever done and it has some stiff competition.

Scott is disappointed when he discovers that Mitchell has actually got rid of his whole flat just to avoid living with him.  The flat is taken over by cool new couple, Toby and Celeste.  While Mandy and Darren fail to impress them, they do make friends with Jesse and Courtney.  I don’t like them.

Luke confesses that he isn’t actually buying the house – Tom is.  However, what he hadn’t banked on was that Tom is going to live there with them and they will have to pay rent!  I mean, great for viewers (possibly), not so great for Luke and Cindy!  Luke fails to convince Darren that his scans have come back clear when his symptoms continue.

Home and Away – Christmas at Summer Bay House

Home and Away is on its Christmas Break until January 2020.  Instead, on My5, there is a Christmas themed behind the scenes episode every Monday, hosted by Jason Smith who played Robbie Hunter between 2003 and 2006.

In Episode One, we go to Summer Bay House with Ray Meagher (Alf Stewart), Emily Symons (Marilyn Chambers), Lynne McGranger (Irene Roberts), Ada Nicodemou (Leah Patterson-Baker), Georgie Parker (Roo Stewart), Shane Withington (John Palmer) and Lukas Radovich (Ryder Jackson).

They discuss Christmas in Summer Bay with the odd clip, past cliff-hangers, including the time that John had a brain tumour and became the Summer Bay arsonist (apparently based on a real life story), when Marilyn got electrocuted and lost her memory, the amount of disasters that have befallen poor Leah such as bus crashes, plane crashes and a couple of comas, Alf getting caught up in an explosion at the school and Roo in an explosion at the caravan park plus Ryder and Raffy getting stuck in a tunnel.

What do the cast want for their characters for Christmas?

Emily/Marilyn:            A new handbag!

Lukas/Ryder:               A surfboard!

Georgie/Roo:              Too private to say on camera! (or a four wheel drive)

Ray/Alf:                       A friendlier personality!

Lynne/Irene:                A bedroom instead of a cupboard to sleep in!

Shane/John:                 A gift card (for a hardware store)

Ada/Leah:                    A new outfit or a holiday

Lukas takes the camera behind the scenes during filming around the caravan park and reveals that the sign directing people to the beach is misleading at the beach is actually nowhere nearby.  He also reveals that the caravan park is due to be part of a big story soon (I think it’s already aired in Australia – a storyline between Ryder and a new girl called Jade).

They all speak exceptionally highly of each other and Georgie particularly mentions the crew.  They discuss Alf’s rekindled love with his first wife, Martha who was supposed to be dead and how much they love working with her.  Then Belinda Giblin (Martha Stewart) appears!  The cast all send the viewers some lovely messages for Christmas.

What do the cast want for their character for the New Year?

Emily/Marilyn:            A handbag dog and another foster child

Ada/Leah:                    Another wedding!

Shane/John:                 To win some money!

Georgie/Roo:              A family trip to Europe

Ray/Alf:                       Happiness with Martha

Neighbours – David’s Down!

Prue uses her new knowledge of Terese falling off the wagon to persuade Harlow to move back to the UK with her, blackmailing Terese into backing her in the move being a good idea.  Between that and Terese and Paul being too busy for Harlow, she decides to give her mother another chance, only for the truth about her allegiance to The Order to be discovered at the last minute.  Faced with a choice between The Order and her daughter, Prue leaves without Harlow, who returns home to Paul and Terese. 

Ned begs Aaron not to reveal the truth about the fight club for fear that he will be in trouble with the law.  Well, yes, probably.  However, he does tell David eventually, causing a big row between the Street’s best couple.  David storms out only to be hit by a car and knocked off his bike!  Terese, who has sneaked out to get more booze from the off licence discovers David on the ground and calls for help, prompting the whole family to rush to the hospital.  David is critical but survives, minus a kidney.  And the other needs a transplant.  The lesson here is to never storm out of an argument!

At the hospital, Terese confesses to Paul why she was even out that night, admitting that she has been drinking again.  While Paul does support Terese, for a moment, he cannot help but wonder if she hit David.  Terese promises that she didn’t and it’s an extremely sweet scene when Harlow overhears them talking and very simply offers full faith in Terese.  It’s a shame then when she realises that Prue was blackmailing her into sending her back to the UK in a bid to keep her drinking quiet.  Terese asks Susan to be her sponsor now that she doesn’t have Sonya anymore.  Nope.  Still not over it.

But the big shock comes when Amy notices a busted headlight on her van, which Kyle had been driving the night before.  He admits that he fell asleep at the wheel – at the same time and location as David’s accident.  He is horrified to realise that he is responsible for hitting David and immediately hands himself into the police.

Soap Blog: Monday 18th – 24th November 2019

Coronation Street

So, while Sinead’s loved ones gather for her funeral, some little cretin breaks into hers and Daniel’s flat and robs the place.  I mean, that really is quite hideous.  Daniel loses his mind when he discovers Sinead’s laptop missing, containing all the video messages she left for Bertie.  Well, who wouldn’t be upset?  But he does go a little far when it comes to smashing up a pawn shop.  Luckily, Peter is on hand to persuade the owner not to press charges.

With all the support that Billy has been giving Paul in recent months, it’s been inevitable that the pair of them would get back together, which they do this week.  And it’s all looking lovely until the truth about the robberies comes out.  While at first, Gemma and Paul suspect their mother has been up to no good, the finger of suspicion soon lands on Kel, who was with Bernie on her one and only day working for Billy (all the local robberies seem to have occurred when people are busy with funerals or church events).

Bernie and Gemma locate the laptop at Kel’s house but they also find a box of pictures of Paul as a child.  They confront Paul who breaks down and finally reveals the abuse he suffered as a child in some genuinely heartbreaking scenes.  Having been accused of not protecting her son when he needed her, Bernie takes the laptop and the pictures to the police station and reports Kel for theft and for historical sexual abuse.

The inane story of Robert’s double life continues.  I feel like I’ve lost track of who knows what.  I think Robert might have done as well.  James fears being outed after a random hook up.  Michael attempts to make contact with his never before mentioned baby daughter, who has appeared from nowhere, as has his ex girlfriend, Grace.  David and Shona plan to adopt Max and Lily.  And in the best news of the week, Adam has finally washed his hair.

Doctors

Daniel and Zara hold interviews for the new Practice Manager – a timid woman who reads off cards, an adventurer and a cocky guy who wants to change the role into Business Manager and has no real relevant experience.  They go for the adventurer, only for him to have had a better offer, leaving them with the cocky guy, named Bear Sylvester.  Maybe he was named by Cheryl Tweedy-Cole-Fernandez-Versini-Now-Just-Cheryl and Liam Payne.  He starts fairly abysmally, although he is charming enough when it comes to staff.  Just don’t expect him to be able to take minutes for meetings!

As expected, Emma and her new lodger, Gareth (the identical twin brother of Zara’s boyfriend, Adam – and played somewhat better by the same actor) get it on.  Predictable.  Although I really am intrigued as to where this whole storyline is going.  I feel like it’s not going to be anywhere good.  But between the twins’ love lives, Gareth also starts work as the Manager of The Icon.  They are definitely getting their feet under the table.  Daniel’s nose continues to be out of joint about it all, which is only a good thing as far as I am concerned!

There are a few interesting side stories this week, including an investigation into a man murdering his wife for a lottery ticket and attempting to cover it up.  There is also a story of forgiveness from a mother to a girl who killed her son when they were children, which would have been very emotional had it not been for some hammy acting.  But the sentiment was there.

But my favourite moment of the week was Jimmi Clay’s Bad Day.  Everything went wrong for him, building and building his frustration to the point that he actually turned into Basil Fawlty, beating up his car with a branch.  I mean… Doctors, you get a round of applause from me.

Eastenders

Albert Square remains in shock in the wake of Mel Owen’s untimely death.  Lisa remains adamant that Sharon is responsible for her demise and is determined to prove it although uncharacteristically dense Phil is having none of it.  Has the baby really turned him that soft?  Once upon a time, if some woman had burst into his kitchen claiming that his wife had been having an affair and the baby wasn’t his, he’d have had a DNA test before the end of the credits!  But suddenly he thinks Sharon is some kind of angel?

Chantelle desperately tries to keep her family together, torn between her love for her husband and her fear of him.  They attend his counselling session together and Chantelle is disappointed when Gray admits to violence – but not towards her.  But once again, it all blows over.  As if more violence won’t be around the corner, especially now that Karen has revealed that Chantelle is no longer pregnant.

Jack arrests Leo for aggressive protesting at court but he avoids charges, being that he is a paralegal.  Jack is surprised then to find that Leo is dating Whitney.  Well, not more surprised than viewers.  And I don’t mean because he is Tony King’s son.  I mean because his personality is about as sparkling as a storm cloud.  What on earth is Whitney seeing in this man?  Every time they have a conversation, he looks like he is chewing a wasp!

After a slap from Kathy, Ben decides to clean up his act and ‘go legit’ so that he can be a loving boyfriend to Callum and support him in his quest to become a cop.  He even gives Martin the green light to bring Stacey home.  But alas, it’s too late as his lie to Stacey worked too well (meaning her maternity leave isn’t up yet) and she has moved onto a random new guy called Jerome who comes to the Square to collect her things, even making a particularly insensitive comment about how lovely the kids are.  Ouch.  Martin responds by getting drunk and attempting to lay into Ben.  But he falls over instead.

After Max is mistaken for Ruby’s Dad, he decides to propose.  Obviously.  She says no.  Obviously.

Emmerdale

Mandy arranges a long awaited meeting between Lydia and her mother, Agatha, who is indeed still alive.  It is not the happiest of outcomes, however, when Lydia is informed that she has a 50/50 chance of inheriting Huntington’s Disease from her late father.

When Maya is released from prison, Jacob immediately rushes off to track her down but thankfully, David is able to stop him.  While David had believed that his son had begun to put his life back together, Jacob explains that it was all fake and he has just been waiting until the day he could see Maya again.  He bombards her with messages, which she ignores, deleting his number and revealing only to the audience that she is pregnant!

Angry at the rejection, Jacob mistakes Leanna’s kindness as an assumption of sex so he sleeps with her, not realising that it’s her first time and that that should be a special thing.  When he does realise, he panics and rejects her, so confused from Maya and everything she has done to him that he still hasn’t processed and understood.  The most he offers her is to check that she’s on the pill.

Upset over what has happened, Leanna turns to Bernice for support, begging confidentiality.  Bernice gets her the morning after pill, which makes Leanna sick and along with the vomit, the truth comes tumbling out.  Not only is Bernice in trouble for keeping secrets, Liam charges over to the shop to confront David and Jacob, the latter of whom says some utterly disgusting things about Leanna, sex and women in general.  Knowing that his attitude is borne out of his experiences just makes it even worse.  Liam punches him.

Jacob’s friends and family despair of him, upset that the boy they love has vanished.  Opting for some tough love, David, Leyla and Eric tell him that he has to move out and they cannot cope with him anymore.  They don’t like the person he has become; someone who doesn’t even know the difference between right and wrong.  Distraught, Jacob begs for another chance and through their conversation he seems to begin to realise that everything he’s going through began with Maya.  They admit that they were never going to kick him out, they just wanted him to understand.

Charity is furious when Noah and Sarah throw a party behind her back, especially when she comes home to find Sarah vomiting.  Noah is very aware that his mother would be even angrier if she knew that it wasn’t just vodka she was throwing up – Danny gave her a pill.  It takes a little bit of persistence but as Vanessa supports Charity with Sarah, Charity is able to convince her to give her another chance.  Vanity are back together!  Hooray!

Lee’s Mum, Wendy helps Chas with breast feeding (she’s a nurse, not a random woman in the pub) and finds that Eve is slightly tongue tied.  Al gets knocked out by an unknown assailant.  Hands up if anyone cares?

Hollyoaks

Ste and his family support Sid in the wake of his father’s death.  Proving that they are actual heroes, the Maalik family also support Sid (and Ste) despite everything they and their gang did to them and Sami even acts as Sid’s lawyer when he is faced with questions over how Stuart died.  Everyone present explains it was an accident except Jonny who calls him a murderer and poor Sid, who feels terribly guilty for what he has done.  Sami persuades him not to claim responsibility and gets him off all charges.  However, he is too caught up with grief and his own conditioning to be grateful for any help.

Sami is horrified to discover that there is a hint of romance between Ste and Azim and attempts to put a stop to it.  To be fair, forgiveness is one thing but romance is a little far-fetched, even for Hollyoaks.  They hit a hurdle anyway when Azim sees Ste’s racist tattoo.  Well, I guess that sort of thing can be a bit of a passion killer.

Ste meanwhile, is the town pariah.  Nobody wants to speak to him or serve him in the shop.  He gets an earful from everyone he sees and he is shaken when he is confronted by the damage he has done to Yazz and how frightened she is of him.  Deciding that he needs to get away from the Village, work with Prevent and sort his life out, Ste sends a goodbye text to Leela and Peri.  He departs in a taxi so he can spend a few months doing a ‘Band of Gold’ with several other soap stars, including Jane Beale from Eastenders.  In all seriousness though, that was one hell of a storyline and everyone involved should be really proud.  I’ve watched so much of it in tears.  It’s been heartbreaking, disturbing and deeply uncomfortable to watch from start to finish.  And so it should have been.  That’s the point.  Well done, Hollyoaks. 

Overhearing Luke joking about changing DJ’s name to LJ, Darren knocks him out!  Of course, this leads to a brain scan revealing some life threatening health condition that Luke will decide to ignore for an irritating amount of time until it becomes really serious.  And in the meantime, he decides to propose to Cindy and buy her old house from the racists.

Ollie breaks Sienna and Brody’s hearts by admitting that he wants to be a Dad to his baby.  The adoption is off.  However, he then tells Brooke that he chooses her over the baby so they agree to let strangers adopt him.  When Brody is confused, Ollie reveals that he is convinced that when Brooke meets the baby, she will fall in love with him and change her mind and the three of them can be a happy family.  Well, this plan doesn’t have disaster written all over it, does it?  Also, this storyline hasn’t already been done with Tom and Peri having Steph, has it?  Oh, wait…

An overinflated conversation about the importance of Christmas between Sienna and Brody leads to an amusing joke about how creepy the Ghost of Christmas Past is in The Muppets Christmas Carol (voiced by Jessica Fox AKA Nancy Osbourne!)  Just thought I’d mention it for a little fact of the day.

Home and Away

Ben reluctantly seeks medical advice from Hot Doc, Alex about his mental health.  I see the Australian Soap Doctor Theme is still going strong – every Doctor specialises in everything!  Last week Alex was running the Emergency Department.  This week, within the Emergency Department, she’s doing a mental health assessment, complete with a treatment plan.  It’s like in Neighbours when Karl Kennedy started as a GP and now he performs life saving surgery…  Still, Alex is fast becoming one of my favourite characters so I won’t complain about extra scenes.

Alex diagnoses Ben with severe depression.  He agrees to counselling but refuses antidepressants until he has a heart to heart with Dean.  I have found this storyline a bit slow and long winded but having said that, a mental health storyline, particularly focussing on ‘a bloke’ is an important one, I think.

While Willow is thrilled that Mason finally has his internship at the hospital and is one step closer to becoming a Doctor, the prospect of running the gym by herself is extremely daunting.  He also cannot resist teasing her about Alex.  He and Willow are shocked to learn that his internship begins the very next day.  Subsequently, Alex finds herself in Willow’s exercise class instead of Mason’s – she’s obviously been avoiding Willow since their kiss.

Meanwhile, Mason begins his first day as an intern and is desperate to impress Alex.

Colby has to cancel on Mac yet again when Robbo shows up at home, battered and bruised after his encounter with Dylan Carter.  Colby and Robbo get into an argument over Robbo’s secretiveness and that he hasn’t even bothered to ask after Jasmine.  Unable to cope with the danger Colby constantly puts himself in for work and for his friends, Mac breaks up with him.  Bella is livid, bordering on a little bit psychotic over the breakup.  I’m going to say it.  I don’t like Bella and I don’t like Robbo.  They’re both intensely annoying.  Anyway, with Colby asleep, drunk on the couch, Bella breaks into Salt in an attempt to set fire to it but Dean and Willow catch her.

With Dylan Carter as his prisoner, Robbo arranges to meet his enemies, ready to trade him in for Victor, the man who really killed his family.  Face to face with Victor, Robbo demands a confession.  Just as Victor believes he has the upper hand, the whole of the Federal Police Force appear.  And yet, when Victor runs, none of them move or shoot or respond in any way.  It’s as if they’re all just extras or something.  Only Robbo gives chase, following him to the top of the building.  Victor is cruel about murdering Robbo’s family, pushing him to shoot him.  However, Robbo is a better man than that and arrests him instead.  And one can only hope that this boring story is finally dead and buried.

At the safe house, Tori is alarmed when her waters break.  Jasmine helps her through her labour.  The Doctor arrives and Robbo is contacted just in time.

Blake engages Ryder in a cheating scam involving swapping their papers around for the HSC but he is not comfortable with the idea at all, not least when two of the guys involved are caught out.  Blake then comes up with a new plan – putting a sleeping pill in the examiner’s drink.  Even more horrified, Ryder absolutely backs out of the plan.  Maggie is the moderator and when she opens her bottle of water, Ryder panics and swats the bottle out of her hand, getting himself into trouble both with Maggie and Blake.

Neighbours

Prue is struggling to pay her debt to The Order and gets caught attempting to steal from Gary.  When he catches her, she has no choice but to tell him all about The Order but rather than laying into her, kind hearted Gary gives her the money she needs to clear her debt.

Things are not going well between Amy and Kyle, post sex-tape.  Amy continues to feel uncomfortable with intimacy, as if the cameras are still watching them and Kyle is burdened with his secret class action against the hotel.  When Amy finally plucks up the courage to make a move on her boyfriend, Kyle bursts out with the truth, somewhat ruining things.  And while the class action gathers momentum and Paul attempts to pay as many people off as possible, Terese is secretly turning to alcohol to numb her pain.

Concerned by how quickly Pierce and Chloe are planning to marry, Susan (their celebrant) sets them a marriage quiz.  Cue Hendrix messing with the answers to prove that they are not compatible, also proving to Roxy that Hendrix has a crush on his future step-mother.  Aware that she is likely to lose her job now that the legal action against the hotel is causing financial trouble, Roxy is quite happy to help Hendrix cause trouble.  However, realising their ‘mistake’ on the quiz, Susan gives the happy couple a second chance.  Well, personally, I still have hope for Elly and Chloe.  They wrote themselves off too quickly!

Finn is uncomfortable when he happens upon an old photo album of his past relationship with Elly, a relationship he doesn’t remember, while he is helping her sort out her bedroom in preparation for the baby.  To be fair, it is kind of a complicated relationship.  He dated Elly.  He was a psycho.  He then dated her sister, Bea in an equally psychotic bid to get revenge but she didn’t know about his past with Elly.  He nearly killed them both and several others.  He lost his memory.  He’s now back dating Bea.  And Elly is pregnant with his dead brother’s baby.  And that’s just your average relationship in Ramsay Street.

Ned returns to the fight club.  I can’t decide whether this Stalker Scarlett storyline was a bid to return Ned to the dark or to as many topless scenes as possible.  With his friends concerned about his behaviour, Aaron follows him to the fight club and ends up having to pull him off his opponent when he goes too far.  (And I gather the Aussie scenes were a lot more violent than the UK ones).

Soap Blog: Monday 11th – Sunday 17th November 2019

Coronation Street

Michelle warns Alya not to work with Ray but Ray claims that the inappropriate move he made on her was a mutual attraction.  Geoff continues to treat Yasmeen as if she is controlling.  He manipulates her into begging him to go on holiday with him and eventually they leave together.

Michelle finally begins to suspect that Robert is telling her lies.  And things come to a head when, while on the phone to Michelle, Robert has a car accident – and he is not in the place he claimed he was.  When she finally locates him, Michelle’s suspicions are further rouse when one of the nurses recognises him from the maternity ward, she finds a necklace that says ‘big daddy’ on it and high on morphine, he asks after the baby.  Later, Robert narrowly avoids his two fiancées from meeting each other but it seems that the game is up.  At home, suspicious Michelle steals Robert’s phone.  She confirms that the young offender’s program he is always running off to has never even heard of him and then tracks him down to Vicky’s house, where he is in the process of breaking up with her.  Confronting Robert at home, he explains that Vicky got pregnant after a one night stand when they were separated but lies that nothing has happened since then.  Michelle confronts Vicky herself and she tells her the truth, horrified that Robert has been stringing them both along.  Michelle comes home and tells Robert that Vicky is a liar and that she believes him.  But secretly, she contacts Adam in a bid to put her affairs in order, so to speak.

Gemma and Chesney accept a huge promo deal, securing the future for them and their children.   With the help of Carla, Roy tracks down his brother, the product of his mother’s secret affair.  His brother is dying and being looked after by his daughter, Roy’s niece.  Gary continues to try and impress Maria and keep her away from Ali.  He secretly seethes when she puts in a good word for Ali at his meeting with the hospital.  Amy fakes an injury in order to keep Emma at home with her, but confesses in order to go to a Little Mix concert with her.  Saint Emma doesn’t mind and is touched that Amy wants to spend so much time with her.

Doctors

Daniel turns to Jimmi for support over the situation with Zara, who he is struggle to remain civil with after her refusal to reunite with him – especially now that she has decided she wants to introduce Adam to Joe.  Daniel objects for the sake of it, although he doesn’t have a leg to stand on after how quickly he introduced him to Becky and moved her into his house!  Daniel has his first counselling session and pours his heart out about his and Zara’s turbulent relationship.  He agrees to continue the sessions, finding the first one useful and also agrees to his homework – to complete a video diary through the week.  He meets up with Adam in order to bond before he gives Zara the green light to introduce him to Joe.  He then vents to his video diary his frustration that Zara has picked someone genuinely nice and not someone he can hate.  He says he hates him anyway but promises to be the perfect man.  He is desperate for Zara to fall back in love with him.

Adam, meanwhile, tells Zara that his twin brother, also a surgeon has been suspended from work and thrown out by his wife.  He and his brother then rent a room from Emma.  Well, it’s obvious where this is going…  And Zara seems to agree with me!  When she brings Joe to the house to meet Adam and his brother, she took picks up on the level of flirtation between them.  Adam, meanwhile, is quick to bond with his girlfriend’s son.  Zara is delighted when Adam invites her and Joe to Rome for the weekend.  Playing the ‘perfect man’, Daniel is nothing but supportive.

Rob and Karen take on a new foster child called Martha who has been kept indoors by her mother who has serious mental health problems.  The little girl has serious allergies and so has been restricted from doing a lot of things due to her mother’s anxiety over what will happen to her.  The first thing Rob and Karen do is take her trampolining, as she puts together a list of all the things she has never done but would love to!  Predictably, when Karen takes Martha for lunch at The Icon, despite Karen making specific arrangements with Al and the kitchen, she has an allergic reaction and goes into anaphylaxis.  Thankfully, Zara is having lunch with Adam at the time and the GP saves the day before sending Karen and Martha off to hospital.  Before they leave, Zara quietly tells Karen that she found a bag of peanuts in Martha’s bag.  It wasn’t the food she ate – Martha has poisoned herself.  However, it turns out that she had genuinely believed that her mother was wrong about the allergy and feeling like Rapunzel, locked away in a tower, desperate to break free, she had been trying to prove that there was nothing to be afraid of.  Al and Jimmi struggle with bad reviews in the wake of the incident.

Emma supports a woman struggling with post-natal depression while her wife returns to the army.  Ayesha is furious with her cousin for impersonating a nurse in order to bag herself a date with Finn (the original) from Hollyoaks.  Sid is horrified at a company’s initiation programme which results in a young woman taking ketamine and throwing herself down the stairs, all condoned by the boss.

Eastenders

Mick and Linda approach Ollie’s autism diagnosis from different angles.  Mick has lots of questions for the doctor, wanting to be informed but Linda is still deep in denial and clearly becoming dependent on alcohol.

Chantelle learns the Gray attacked a man in a bar and confronts him about his violence.  However, big mouth Karen puts her foot in it and assumes that they are talking about the miscarriage.  She completely drops her foot in it but even she doesn’t know the depth of what she is done by revealing the truth to her son-in-law.

E20 is all decked out with creepy pictures of Sharon and Louise.  In a normal situation, it might be nice but we all know what Mel has in store for Sharon at the party.  I mean, really, it’s no more than Sharon deserves but Mel is behaving rather erratically lately!  And nobody knows it more than poor Lisa, who begs her to go and see a counsellor, only for Mel to turn on her friend again, telling her that she and Louise have only ever put up with her all the time, waiting for her to finally give in and put them all out of their misery one day.  I mean, it’s just awful.

However, things come to an explosive head in Thursday’s episode when Sharon desperately tries to stop Phil, who is on his way back from the airport, Louise and the rest of the gathered party-goers from finding out the truth.  So while Sharon races to the airport, Mel is hot on her tail.  Mel phones Billy and persuades him to put her on speakerphone at the microphone in a throwback to the Sharongate storyline where Grant revealed Sharon’s affair with Grant.  Unfortunately for Mel, she gets distracted as she is also racing Sharon in her car.  She loses control and ends up in a huge smash, her seemingly lifeless hand hanging out of the car.  It’s very Steve Owen.

However, the biggest twist ever comes in Friday’s episode when while the party desperate hanker for news of Mel, it turns out she is actually still alive.  And despite everything she has done and could still do, without a second’s though, Sharon pulls her from the wreckage of the car and saves her life, just before it bursts into flames.  They sit and wait for the emergency services except Mel is convinced that while she was in the car, she could hear Hunter calling to her.  Before Sharon can stop her, Mel walks towards the burning car and then – BAM! – she’s run over by a lorry!  Well, I didn’t see that coming!  And sadly, nor did Mel.

Emmerdale

Sadly, it looks like it’s the end of the road for Charity and Vanessa as Vanessa can’t get over the lies and betrayal, not to mention lack of remorse from Charity.  It’s a genuine shame as these two have been a lovely couple for ages and the way Vanessa supported Charity through the abuse storyline was fantastic but I suppose it was only going to be a matter of time before Charity misbehaved and Vanessa isn’t going to put up with it.  I do hope they get back together though.  I like them!  While Charity mopes over her lost relationship, Noah and Sarah beg Vanessa to give her another chance.  She feels guilty when she has to turn the children away, breaking down on Tracey afterwards.

Cain warns Nate that he is not welcome in Emmerdale Village.  He and Aaron are under pressure with their stolen cars.  In the car, they receive a phone call demanding the cars back.  When they refuse, Moses is kidnapped.  Charity is heartbroken and livid when for a moment, it looked like her son has actually been murdered (as if) but Nate manages to bring him home.  It brings Nate some acceptance within the Dingle clan but of course, not with Cain.  Charity breaks down on Vanessa over nearly losing her son.  She refuses to speak to Cain and rewrites the bar rota so that she and Chas do not have work together anymore.

Arthur’s jealousy and aggression towards Archie spirals out of control when he perceives that the rival for Laurel and Jai’s affection makes a memorial day for Ashley all about him.  Things go too far when Arthur hits Archie and then blames him for making him do it.  Archie lies to Laurel and Jai about how he got his injuries but when they are treating them, they find old bruises.  Panicked, Arthur tells them that he saw Jimmy hitting Archie, prompting a huge row between the friends.  Arthur’s bullying continues when he breaks Laurel’s phone and blames Archie.  The poor little kid takes the blame but thinking he is still traumatised by what Jimmy has done, Laurel and Jai are not too hard on him.

Mandy forces Lydia’s sister to come and speak to her and give her some answers about their mother.  She clearly has a lot of resentment towards the woman her parents have not stopped searching for all this time.  Suspicious, Mandy follows her home and hey presto – Lydia’s Mum is alive and well!

Amy takes pity on Kerry during her time of despair.  Bernice is distraught when a surprise visit from Dee Dee, planned by Liam, backfires and makes her think that her daughter is ignoring her.  Sarah spends more time with her new boyfriend.

Hollyoaks

Yasmine’s deafness makes her feel excludes from her family’s festivities as they prepare from Sami and Sinead’s wedding.  She opens up to Imran about her growing closeness to Finn.  He agrees that what Finn did was awful but points out that even people who do awful things deserve forgiveness if they are truly sorry.  Unfortunately, Edward works it out and deliberately tells Sami, who swiftly puts an end to their friendship.  However, when he overhears just how lonely his sister and how much her friendship with Finn means to her, he relents and allows her to invite him to the wedding.

Ste persuades Sid, who is babysitting him, to go out on his date with Juliet.  He then manages to break out of the house and meet Leela and Peri who whisk him off to see a former right wing group member, who works with the police who are prepared to rescue him from Stuart and Jonny.  Ste gives a false name (as permitted) and he opens up about everything that has been happening.  They make a plan to help him exit the group, although he has to be prepared to give up his life in Hollyoaks Village and move away to start again.

However, when Stuart finds out that Sid left Ste alone, the frightened teenager spills the beans that Ste went off in a taxi with Leela and Peri.  Ste makes an excuse, claiming that they had merely shown him a kindness and allowed him to see his kids but secretly, they don’t buy the story.  They stage a fight in which Jonny gets stabbed but poor Ste doesn’t realise that it’s all fake.  Stuart is actually the person who has stabbed Jonny in order that Ste will open up to him and believe him when he claims to want out of the group too.

Despite warnings from Azim, who Ste has become extremely close to (they even kiss!), not to tell Jonny his plan, Ste cannot help but pity Jonny who begs for his help.  He gives away his plan, allowed Stuart and Jonny to trap him and plot to give him exactly what they believe a traitor deserves.

On the day of what is supposed to be Sami and Sinead’s wedding (except Sinead doesn’t show up), Ste is dragged into a taxi by Stuart and Jonny (and poor Sid who is dragged along for the ride.  Ste does manage to escape and bless Sid, he rushes to the non-wedding to raise the alarm, sending Sami (with whom Ste has made his peace), Azim, Leela and Peri off to find him.  Unfortunately, Stuart and Jonny find him first – and capture Sami in the process.  They drag him off to where ‘the traitors’ are taken to make it ‘look like an accident’, which at least means Sid knows where to find them.  Apparently his father used to take him there to fly kites!  Cue a dramatic clifftop showdown where Sami is knocked out and Sid saves Ste from being pushed off the cliff by knocking his father over it instead.  A fitting end to a pretty amazing, important story actually.

Still hurt over Mercedes’ lies, Sylver gets closer to Grace.  Feeling pushed out over Luke and DJ, Darren becomes confused over what happened between him and Nancy.  However, upon Kyle’s return, Nancy pledges her commitment to him instead.  But as is the way with soaps, Darren and Nancy’s conversation regarding their ‘tunnel sex’ has been captured on Charlie’s webcam.

Home and Away

Confused by her kiss with Alex, Willow attempts to talk to Colby but his teasing makes her clam up.  She then successfully confides in Jasmine and admits that she is now very confused.  Jasmine queries whether Willow wants to pursue something with Alex and Willow admits that perhaps she does.  However, when she speaks to Alex, the Doctor is so full of apologies that Willow doesn’t get a word in.  They go back to being friends.  However, Mason has clocked the chemistry between them and doesn’t buy it when Willow insists that things are platonic.  He cannot resist questioning Alex about it when she very kindly arranges for him to begin his internship at the hospital but she insists that she and Willow are just friends.

Jasmine discharges herself from hospital, desperately worried about Robbo.  Jasmine is sent back into protective custody with Tori until Robbo is found.  Scott is also at the house, recovering from his injuries.  Meanwhile, Robbo has been locked up in a cage.  He finally comes face to face with his captor – it’s Dylan Carter himself.  Robbo manages to get the better of Carter who denies killing his family.  However, he does identify the person who did.

Mac becomes anxious over the danger Colby is willing to put himself in for his job and his friends.  This infuriates Bella but Dean reassures his sister that Colby is in less danger as a police officer than back where they grew up as River Boys in Mangrove River.  Dean makes it clear to Bella that Mac has done nothing wrong but Bella is furious with the whole world in her brother’s defence and she confronts Mac herself.

Ben tells John that the arrest in Indonesia doesn’t mean he is off the hook.  However, he does very well teaching his first surf lesson.  When John puts his foot in it and Ben realises that Dean and Ziggy handed him the lesson to make him feel better, Ben takes it out on everyone else, prompting Maggie to give him some tough love.  Ziggy panics that her mother may have pushed her Dad too far.  Deep in despair, Ben hands back the keys to his caravan and a note for Alf before disappearing.  His family and friends panic that he is suicidal, which he quite possibly is but he does eventually return home, hopefully ready to ask for help with his mental health.

There is tension at Summer Bay house between Alf, Martha and Roo as Ryder tries to study for his HSC.  Martha challenges Alf over how bad tempered he is being, realising that he has decided he wants her to move in with him without her actually consulting her.  Irene is told that Tommy’s family are not pursuing the civil case and all charges are dropped.  She then discovers that Leah’s vlog has been shut down.  Ava’s mother is having problems settling the divorce with her husband, requiring Justin to keep custody of his daughter for the foreseeable.

Neighbours

Finn confesses that he came to the school and approached a student who became scared of him.  In light of the reason why he came to the school, Elly is fired.

With the situation at Lassiters, the business is beginning the fail and Terese is feeling completely lost at home with nothing to do with Paul, Pierce and Chloe are all hands on deck.  To make things worse, Terese is faced with criminal charges for ‘destruction of evidence’ for covering up the cameras.  Kyle and Amy cannot agree over the cameras.  Chloe and Pierce give a public statement regarding the future of the hotel, reassuring everyone that there are no more cameras in the hotel and offering people the chance to check for themselves.  People in the crowd who have been filmed, call for Terese to be jailed and Pierce publically separates the hotel from Terese.  At home, Terese turns to alcohol, although she does tip the rest of the bottle away.

While Paul pays several people off, Kyle is determined to get justice and turns to Toadie for legal support.  However, things remains awkward between Kyle and Amy, who can’t seem to talk to each other and certainly can’t touch each other.  All I can say is this stupid storyline had better not break them up!  David and Aaron aside, they are my favourite couple!

Chloe and Pierce set a pretty quick wedding date but when Hendrix learns of Chloe’s previous relationship with Elly, he is eager to wind his father up about it and make his paranoid.  When Pierce and Hendrix spot Chloe talking and sharing a hug of condolence over Elly losing her job, it results in Pierce and Chloe falling out.  Karl reveals that Elly was fired and suggests to Pierce that Chloe might have just been supporting her.  Meanwhile, Hendrix works on Chloe, attempting to drive a wedge between them.  Despite his best efforts, Pierce and Chloe make up.

David feels conflicted when he is offered a pay rise, aware that he is in receipt of the knowledge that Clive and Sheila are having an affair behind Beverly’s back.  Clive is quick to reassure him enough but the affair is still going on.  He finally grows up and ends things with Beverly but opts not to confess to the affair.  Believing he has told her the actual truth, Sheila apologises to Beverly and gets a bucket off manure dumped over her head for her troubles.  But she still loves Clive anyway, despite him getting off scot free!

David offers to refer Ned for counselling after the stabbing.  Instead, Ned goes to see Aaron at the gym and takes up boxing which he takes a little too seriously.  When Aaron sends him off to calm down, another guy takes him aside, inviting him to a fight club to take out his aggression over what happened to him.  He participates and knocks his opponent out.

Harlow feels pushed out when Prue has a night of fun with Roxy ‘Row Row’ so Prue pledges her full commitment to her daughter.  However, a secret phone call reveals that her true commitment is still to The Order and she isn’t really in Erinsborough for Harlow at all.  Out at the tram with Prue and Roxy, Harlow warns Gary away from her mother, worried that he is going to get hurt.

Neighbours: Erinsborough High

While the school students have been asked to put together video diaries, this Neighbours spin off focuses mainly on the students of Erinsborough High and also on some of the teachers with some cameos from the main cast.

We see Yashvi as she prepares to finish high school and celebrates coming towards the end of her exams.  A central storyline in the series sees student, Olivia going missing, having bumped into Finn Kelly in last Friday’s episode of Neighbours, who the kids believe is a frightening villain and banned from school grounds.  She missed her final exam and nobody has seen her since, worrying her parents, friends and teachers.  Olivia’s mother berates Finn.  Yashvi finds her hiding in a cupboard.  She persuades her to alert her family and the school of her safety but then discovers that she is in a secret relationship.  When she sees Olivia getting into their teacher, Mr Muggleton’s car, Yashvi rightly reports it to another teacher, Cherie.  However, a text message from Olivia’s ‘secret boyfriend’ soon shoots round the school about Mr Muggleton, only for ‘him’ to be a her.  Olivia has been seeing Cherie, who has sacrificed her colleague to deflect attention.  Unable to keep up the lie anymore, Olivia tells Yashvi the truth and provides her with evidence.  Cherie is arrested.

We meet a new character called Jeremiah, referred to as The Ghost, never noticed by students and teachers alike, constantly dismissed and whenever he is noticed, he is often bullied, usually by Ollie, the main bully of the school.  He gets caught up in Hendrix’s plan for a mass exam failure in order to cause problems for Mr Muggleton, his most hated teacher.  However, at the last minute, Ritchie backs out, ruining the plan.  He, Hendrix and the Ghost work hard in the exam but Jeremiah doesn’t pass on the message to school bully, Ollie and his friends.  Impressed, Hendrix invites Jeremiah to his party.

Jeremiah spends ages getting ready for the party but when he finally arrives, Ollie is waiting for him and beats him up.  The next day, he goes back to hiding in the shadows, upset that his one attempt to stand up for himself backfired so badly.  When Hendrix asked Jeremiah to be his tutor, he is shocked to discover his injuries.  Hendrix is torn up with sorrow for Jeremiah and wants to help him.  He calls the police on Ollie but Jeremiah isn’t grateful – he is furious.  However, he is grateful for a friend.

Mackenzie is also a central character, having begun to embark on a potential relationship with Ritchie, a reformed school bully.  But while they get along famously via text, things are much more awkward in person.  He is also under a lot of pressure to do well at school from his father.  At Hendrix’s the party, the fledgling couple finally talk properly and share a kiss but the next day, Mackenzie is upset when he blanks her.  Confiding in his video diary, Ritchie tries to explain to his future self that he really likes Mackenzie but he knows that a relationship has no choice but to be different because she is transgender.  People will have questions including whether he is still straight.  He wants to pursue things but he wants to talk to her and worries that his own questions might offend her if he doesn’t ask them correctly.  Overhearing Mackenzie break her heart over him to Harlow, Ritchie decides that he doesn’t want to let Mackenzie being trans be an issue because he likes her so much and genuinely wants to be with her.  He clumsily tells her exactly how he feels, including his nerves over her being transgender.  They get together at last!  When Mackenzie discovers that Ritchie is not a virgin, she panics about what he is expecting of her and also what her physical body looks like.  They talk and Ritchie reveals he has already researched that she is pre-op and is happy to take things at her pace.

If nothing else, this mini-series has been a great way to explore some themes at a deeper level than they might not be able to in the main show.  Erinsborough High was a bit random but I’d say it was a success and well worth a watch!