Fletcher Fire Cake, Exploding Caravans and Tom Fletcher's Short Shorts- Episodes 42-47

Things have gone a bit dull in the bay. That's what happens when you go through 70 major storylines in 40 episodes. There is another rock concert coming up that the 'Summer Bay City Rollers' have organised. Roo is still at boarding school in the city, so they still don't have a lead singer. Donald Fisher is obvo against this happening and kicks up a fuss saying it will get out of hand and they'll probably get drunk. He calls the police to try and cancel it. By police I mean the one police man in the Bay. The police man says it'll be fine and they'll behave. Then in the caravan park, Lance's caravan explodes because of the grog (alcohol) they're brewing (what is the science behind this plz). It's like a low budget Breaking Bad episode. So the rock concert is cancelled. UNTIL!! The Summer Bay City Rollers convince Pippa and Tom to have it at the caravan park. They eventually say yes despite it being a caravan park with nowhere to put a stage and also, like... it's residential and people live there...
Alf and Ailsa decide to keep Celia out of everyone's business by setting her up with the police Guy (have not learned his name cos the scenes with him put me to sleep). The four of them have dinner at Alf's gaff. Celia gets blind drunk and starts making a show of herself. At the end of the night she tries to cycle home and the copper put her over his shoulder and carries her home. She can't remember the next day. Alf reminds her. He says "At least you woke up with all your clothes on, that's more than some people did". I think this is a joke about him and Ailsa boning but like, don't make that joke with your sister, hun!

                                 Celia being carried home after 4 bottles of wine 

Sam Barlow is still being an abusive dick to his family but he's been "in a good mood lately" according to his wife (Sandra's Mam). He's gotten a new job and then showed up to Pippa's house when she was on her own and was scary and intimidating to her. Anyways, At the end of episode 46, the sergeant police officer fella drives over to Pippa and Tom's with a tape from "the nutter" - "the nutter" who burned down the town hall, and killed the cow and dogs. He has disguised his voice by slowing down the tape and basically says that if the rock concert gets out of hand, he'll take action again. I mean, "the nutter" as they keep referring to him as, is clearly Sam Barlow, isn't it??? Like... ISN'T IT!?!?! It's getting very 'zodiac killed' up in the bay.


It's Stephens birthday, they are having a family dinner and he wants to invite Sandra who he is now going out with. Pippa convinces Sandra's Mam to let her go to the dinner and Sandra's Mam let's her go saying she'll "cover for her". Stephen tells Sandra earlier in the day that his parents died in a fire while he was at his friends house one night. He saw the fire engines and ran to his house where he watched his parents banging on the windows trying to get out and eventually burning to death. Horrific, especially for day time tv like! It's his first birthday without them. Pippa makes him the "traditional Fletcher cake" which is a house cake surrounded by cake people. She's brings it out with the candles lit. Basically she brings out a cake house full of people with flames coming out of it to a boy who's parents died in a fire. GOOD ONE PIPPA!!! And then in another horrific home and away scene; stephen thinks he can hear sirens and his parents screaming while they burn to death. He then bolts out the door...
                           

 
                                        The Fletcher's "traditional house cake"
Random observations
-Ailsa's shop, which seems to be attached to her house, now has a random table in the middle of it. I don't know if this is what is to become the diner, because there hasn't been a shop in home and away for years. I don't know why she has a table there, it's just a newsagents, there's no food served there or tea or coffee so... like... wtf Ailsa!?
-Ailsa has a big red telephone like Adam Wests bat phone for some reason?

                                         Celia using Ailsa's bat phone

-Sam Barlow is being weirdly inappropriate with his daughter; I don't know if this is suggestive or just something that people didn't question in the 80's?
-NEW CHARACTER ALERT: A cool, sexy, younger teacher called Mr. Farley
                               

                                         "Cool, sexy teacher" Mr. Farley
-There is a weird tension and kind of cute friendship between Lance and Bobby. I'm not sure what age Lance is, he's not in school but old enough to drink and bobby is about 16. But he is literally twice her height so it just looks mad They have a nice, fun friendship developing and maybe... something more?
                               

                                       Little Bobby and giant Lance
-just more pics of Tom Fletcher's short shorts

The Rape Of Carly Morris

Episodes 33-41:                             The Rape Of Carly Morris

32 episodes in, Home and Away have already dealt with some big issues; from mental health issues with Nico, to domestic abuse issues with Ailsa's father, to Tom and Pippa's pregnancy issues. But H & A keep plunging straight into 'DE ISSUES', by adding the first of many story lines of sexual abuse. The ever-petulant Carly gets into a car with a strange man to get to the city and returns home disheveled and sullen. She is angry and takes her anger out on Lynn and Bobby (who is trying to do her Macbeth essay). Lynn and Bobby, however, see this as nothing new and Bobby tells Lynn that Carly "has a brain like a retarded goat sometimes". I KNOW that retarded was more of an acceptable term back then and they ARE teenagers but Home and Away YOU'VE GOT TO STOP USING THE WORD 'RETARD' 600 TIMES AN EPISODE!!
Carly, who has always been popular with the lads and enjoyed the attention, starts to freak out when all of a sudden a load of guys start coming on to her. She finally tells Bobby and Lynn about the rape. She tells them about how he told her he was taking a shortcut and turned onto a dirt track. She eventually escapes after the assault and makes a run for it. Lynn and Bobby try to convince her to go to the police and to tell Pippa and Tom. Carly won't because she's afraid people will think she deserved it. It is a sad state of affairs when 27 years later, this is still the case. Women today are still being told that they got what they deserved because they were being provocative or dressed a certain way.
The pious, dickhead sister of Alf, Celia Stewart is trying to convince young Lynn to return to church. Lynn, who is 14 years old but seems to be the only sound person in the Bay rn has an outburst and asks why God would let her dog be killed, her friend Nico sent to an asylum and Carly "attacked by that man". Celia being the ULTIMATE GEEBAG then tells her friend so then obviously now the whole fucking Bay knows.
The horrible man who works with Tom tells him and sure enough, Horrible Man blames Carly. Tom and Horrible Man then scrap but Horrible Man wins the fight. Horrible Man's daughter, Sandra has bruises on her. Lynn, her best friend (who should be a fucking detective in Summer Bay at this stage!!), finds out that Sandra's dad, Horrible Man (who's name is Barlow) has been hitting her but Sandra is quick to defend him saying "He hates hitting me"
Don Fisher has been acing as principal for basically every episode (except maybe the first 2) while the actual principal was away after being in a car accident (which they have never mentioned ever) . The actual principal is coming back and Don is raging and does loads of angry cry acting. At the same time Carly is having flashbacks of running through the woods to get away from the rapist. The scenes are so so disturbing. They play this weird freaky horror music over the scenes where Carly is alone. Anyways when Don Fisher finds out what happened to her he is acting like a giant douche and basically blames her, saying she's stupid for getting in the car with the guy.
Tom then gets Barlow's (Horrible Man's) job. Barlow, it turns out beats his daughter and his wife and is arrested, thanks to the Australian Nancy drew: Lynn Davenport. The police then also question Barlow about Nico, burning down the town hall and poisoning the cow and dog. Looks like the whole thing WAS Barlow (You see why he is Horrible Man now!?!?)
HOME AND AWAY JUST LASHING THROUGH THE ISSUES AMIRITE!?
In more boring H&A sub-plots, absolute dolts Lance and Martin are making their own home brew, I can't even remember why tbh. Floss is still being the nanny to her grandson who doesn't know he's her grandson. She's won him over and she decides to bring him to Summer Bay, to her husband, Neville's horror. Neville and Floss also talk about having no money (Floss' palm reading business seemed to be abandoned after episode one). Neville tells the sixty-something year old Floss "We could enter you into one of those wet t-shirt competitions."

The rape of Carly Morris is handled really well. I remember in later years, some of the sexual assault story lines were a bit dodgy and were settled with 'Sorry for raping you". The scenes are really well done and it feels very realistic. The actress, Sharyn Hodgson, plays it really beautifully and it is absolutely heartbreaking and devastating to watch. Now that they've done every major soap story line and wrapped them all up, I am guessing that they will soon add new characters. We saw the first appearance of Coleen Smart who is an absolute H & A veteran and I think Marilyn Chambers isn't far behind!

                                            LIVING IN SUMMER BAY (episodes 27-32)

Floss finds out that her estranged son has gone away with his wife and they are looking for a nanny for their child. Floss goes for the interview without her son knowing and is then given the job, again without her son knowing for some reason. Not really sure why her son doesn't talk to her or her husband anymore. Also not really sure where/why her son and his wife have gone and why they decided to leave the child at home with just some rando nanny they haven't met. Her grandson (Ben) turns out to be a little shit and he calls her an old hag.
The whole Bay start gossiping about Ailsa after finding out about her having murdered her father, especially Alf's nosy-hole sister, Celia. He tells her, "You've got a mouth like Lunar Park except occasionally Lunar Park is shut". Then for some reason, Alf, Donald and a police officer are doing a stake out, I think to find the cow-killer. Alf yells 'Up yours!" in a very tense moment of drama.
I also found out that Roo is short for Ruth and not Kangaroo. I don't understand then, why it's not spelt Ru. But anyways, Roo is being her usual arsehole self and Alf decides that she's gonna have to go to boarding school.

Then Home and Away did this weird '3 DAYS LATER' thing which I've never seen before. This big school gig that they've been talking about for fucking ever is FINALLY happening. It's called 'Summer Bay Variety Night' and it's for anyone who wants to perform. Because Roo has been sent away to boarding school and can't sing in the band anymore, Frank desperately looks for a new lead singer and is having no luck. Then Pippa decides to try out. Frank bluntly tells his foster mother "This is the 80's? Music's different!". But turns out Pippa is p. good!

Frank's lame-ass band before Pippa saved it

Anyways, The variety show is p. pathetic. Floss and her hubby do a lame comedy routine and are also MCing the whole thing. Then Celia sings a religious hymn awfully. Next up, Alf and Tom Fletcher do this disturbing, camp drag act where they can-can dressed like weird rag dolls.

                                        Tom (left) and Alf (right) camp it up to the can-can
The best was saved for last. Pippa comes out with Frank's band who have name themselves The Summer Bay City Rollers. Okay, I have to admit that was a p. good, v. clever name for the band. They sing the hit song 'Livin' in Summer Bay'. And let me tell you...  it's a fucking TUNE! Like, seriously guys, GET THIS TO XMAS NUMBER ONE! How did we ever forget this one? How did we let this slip through the cracks of time? Here it is if you want to give your ears a massive treat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_O4LynPtU4

GLORIOUS! Although, I was kinda  hoping that they would do some sort of rock version of the Home and Away theme tune but I think that would be way too meta!
Donald Fisher who is the vice-principal and has been acting as principal while the actual principal was injured finds out that actual principal is recovering and will be coming back soon. Poor Donald is very upset to be demoted and gets very emosh. He says to Ailsa "It hurts! It hurts like hell!!" in a very tense moment of drama. He threatens to quit. Ailsa comforts him and nosy-hole Celia sees them.
Carly and Lynn go to the city. They miss their bus and have to wait an hour until the next one. Carly decides to hitch a ride on her own. Carly gets back from the city hours after Lynn does. It is extremely late and she goes straight to her room, slams the door and in a genuinely emotional scene, breaks down crying.
Things are about to get very serious in Summer Bay in this very important and controversial storyline.

Episodes 17-26: First mentions of 'The City', Morag and Terminations
Frank and Roo decide to wag (skip school). A v. cheesy montage of them kissing and frolicking on the beach follows.
Pippa has conceived despite having been told she couldn't have kids. She is at risk of Rheumatic Fever and the baby would have a high risk of dying so has Pippa. Her and Tom talk about their options and they talk about termination but they ultimately decide to they will try to have the baby. Pip and Tom go to the city to see a 'specialist'. This is the first mention of 'The city'. The city seems to be an hour away or a day away depending on the episode. Sometimes, for example, Brax will go to the city at lunch and be back for dinner. Other times people need a day to get there and end up staying in a hotel for the night. I assume the city is Sydney although they never mention this and keep it purposefully (I think) vague.

Roo and Frank kissing and frolicking

Alf finds out about Roo and Frank going on the mitch (wagging). Alf confronts Frank who initially denies it and Alf come out with one of the best one-liners of all time "Pull the other one, it plays jingle bells". Alf then let's Ru and Frank go out as long they keep no more secrets from him but then for some reason they continue to hide the band they are in from him.
Poor Nico's bike is destroyed with a sign saying GET RID OF DUMMY on it.
Roo keeps trying to come between Ailsa and Alf and Ailsa decides to cool off again. Alf then decides he needs Ailsa in his life and thus, the greatest proposal of all time ensues;
Ailsa is arranging flowers to beautiful music and there's a knock on the door. It's Alf.
Alf: Damn you woman!
Ailsa: Wh... what's wrong?
Alf: You, damn you!
Ailsa: Well, what have I done now?
Alf: MARRY ME, okay?! That's what you wanna hear, isn't it? Let's get hitched.
How could Ailsa have possibly said no? But of course, Ailsa has a dark secret past! She has no family and has never mentioned her past life...
Roo obviously is incredibly pissed off about this and listens to music on our favourite giant Walkman. In an act of rebellion she decides to 'do it' with Frank. But when they get close to 'doing it' Roo comes to her senses and decides against it. She then decides to run a background check on Ailsa with the help of her aunt (Alf's sister) Morag. Hardcore H&A fans will know about Morag; the only competent barrister in Australia. She has popped up for the last 26 years anytime anyone has ever been in any kind of legal trouble and I don't think she has ever lost a case. We only get mention of Morag though, as Roo only speaks to her on the phone.

Nico (right) with cow (middle)

Nico (our mentally challenged friend) comes home and goes straight to his only friend, Jessie the cow. The cow has been killed. This scene was actually incredibly moving and I might have shed a tear as Nico breaks down and cries and screams PLEASE GET UP over and over again. Nico blames Donald Fisher because of his constant petitioning to have Nico institutionalised and Nico attacks Fisher. Nico is then locked away. Lynn goes to see him in the mental home and it really is just heartbreaking. He just sits there silently in his little pyjamas and then Lynn has just one of the weirdest lines of all time - "but now I know God's like Nico. He doesn't exist either". Wow, v. philosophical for a 14 year old girl.

Bobby and Carly: They love to hate each other 

Bobby and Carly continue to be at each other's throats and Bobby calls her a 'Rich bitch'. Which apparently was ok to say on Australian tv in the 80's.(BTW In episode 24 I realised that Frank doesn't go to school. I have no idea why but he works with Alf full-time in the bait shop.) Roo being the sneaky bitch she is finds a card to Ailsa from Donald. Roo starts going around saying nasty shit about Ailsa. She says to her friends "She probably made Fisher pay for it" and Bobby has it out with her and a catfight ensues.
After being engaged for what seems like two hours, Tom and Pippa throw an engagement party for Alf and Ailsa. Roo then gets a phonecall from Morag revealing Ailsa's big dark secret. Roo rushes to the engagement party and then announces on front of everyone that Ailsa is in fact.... A MURDERER!!!
Ailsa confesses and admits that she killed her father when she was 18 years old. She admits to showing no remorse in court because it was defense against her abusive father . Ailsa leaves the party mortified. Bobby punches Roo in the face.
Thing are getting dark in H&A and it's only going to get darker!!

                            
                        
                                   Episode 13-16 'THE LOCAL RETARD'
So these four episodes are focused on a mentally challenged man called Nico. He is a man in his 30's with the mental age of maybe 10. He is taking medication which seems to control his anger. So Lynn who has run away from Pippa and Tom has taken refuge at a farm that Nico's Greek grandmother owns. Nico is helping Lynn and keeping her a secret from his grandmother (who speaks no English), his neighbours and just about everyone who is looking for young Lynn. All the kids in the Bay make fun of him and he is referred to as 'the local retard' by the young people and 'Dummy' by just about everyone.
Lynn is trying to convince him not to take his medication and to try to control his anger himself. Her mother got addicted to similar pills and died (although it is never said exclusively what the pills are or what they're for). There is a vaguely interesting idea here of the nature of addiction to prescriptive drugs and also idea of over prescription and using alternative methods for mental health issues. BUT WAIT THIS IS HOME AND AWAY AND THAT IS WAY TOO SERIOUS SO IT IS ONLY SLIGHTLY HINTED AND OH MY GOSH LOOK FRANK HAS STARTED A BAND!.

                                         Poor Nico Pappas; the mentally challenged local

Ru and Frank are still seeing each other in secret. And now Frank has decided to start a band with him playing guitar and Ru singing, Lance on bass and Martin also auditioning to sing and turning out to be VERY GOOD. But Ru has to also keep this a secret from Alf, her dad. It is interesting to see Alf as a dad and not the wise fishing guru that he is now. When Ru tells him Frank has a band, Alf reacts in the weirdest way telling her that rock music is basically evil and says to her something along the lines of 'The Beatles are evil, you should listen to country music like me, it's the only music worth listening to.' So there you have it, the first thing we've learned in this home and away post; ALF IS A HUGE COUNTRY FAN.
Anyway, eventually Lynn comes home after Alf finds out Nico has been hiding her. But now Donald Fisher is on the war path and has started a campaign to get Nico put in a home for special people. This upsets Lynn and so Bobbi takes revenge on Fisher by spray painting 'abusive' graffiti (see below).

The only Dummy in Summer Bay is Fisher

For some reason the whole vandalism scene is accompanied by some sort of creepy music from a 1920's B-horror monster movie. BUT THE MAJOR CLIFFHANGER OF THE EPISODE..... PIPPA IS PREGNANT!!!!! What is gonna happen??? idk
Right so that's kind of it. Not enough fighting or crying or riding going on for my liking. But here are a few other miscellaneous Home and Away things I learnt from these episodes:

-Tom casually mentioned in one episode that he fought in Vietnam. He chuckled as he recalled being lost in the jungle with the lads in 'Nam.

-Speaking of Tom, Tom is a huge fan of short shorts. I know Australia is hot. Very hot but Tom, come on! Your bulge is showing!

Tom's ridiculous short shorts

Close-up of Tom's short shorts

-And finally, Ailsa does like a read of a dirty magazine when she's in the shop on her own. When Tom walks in and catches her, Ailsa says "It's been good enough for you fellas for years, why shouldn't us girls have a perve" (Actual quote!).

That's about it for this blog. Any questions, request observations just comment below x

The Summer Bay High/ Mangrove River High 'merger'

Okay so this weeks Home and Away sees the students of Mangrove River High merge with Summer Bay High after someone burned down Mangrove River Highschool. Let's not talk about the fact that this merge is incredibly ridiculous and would never happen or make sense.
Mangrove River, for those of you who don't know, is where all the 'rough kids' live. I don't really ever remember it being mentioned before Brax, Heath and Casey (the so-called 'River Boys') came on the scene. I guess we never really bought the recurring story line of 'guy from the wrong side of the track' act before because everyone in Summer Bay is beautiful and pretty much all middle class. So at some point one of the producers or something must have decided they needed a working class 'bad' area where there could be loads of incredibly sexy bad boy criminals (with hearts of gold obvo). So the River Boys came on the scene a few years ago, caused some mayhem, we fell in love with them and their tragic upbringing and that was that. And since then really, MR (Mangrove River) has very much been as much a part of the vague Summer Bay geography as 'The City' or Yabbi Creek (not The Abbey Creek as I thought it was for years!).

                             The very fine looking (Mangrove) River Boys, Heath, Brax and Casey

So the idea behind this whole school 'merger' debacle is that all the bad kids are going to ruin Principal Bianca's nice idyllic school. She wants to help them with positive assurances and support but their principal who is referred to as The Sniper by the students is more into the negative 'they're born bad eggs and that's that' side of things. She is discouraging and a bit of a bitch really. There is already a power struggle between these two women so I guess that will play out as Biance tries to 'save' the students just like she did with her hubby ex-River boy Heath Braxton and The Sniper is revelling and indulging her bold students in them creating chaos in the suddenly pristine Summer Bay High.
My first impression when seeing the MR students get off the bus was why is there only about 30 of them? Is that the whole school? Surely that's the world's smallest school in Western civilisation? Any smaller and it'd just be homeschooling.  Also, I noticed that among the MR students there was a black kid. Is this the first black kid to ever set foot in the bay? Besides Leah and  her Greek family and that priest a few years ago, Elijah, who seemed to be of some sort of Maori or Aborigine origin, Summer Bay has the most Aryan race of people I've ever seen on tv since since they televised the Nuremberg rallies. Or maybe there's some sort of diversity quota they need to fill every ten years. Either way, exciting times ahead for Summer Bay with this new found "diversity"
And my final thought is about the new bad boy of the bay. I knew he was trouble when he walked in (as Taylor Swift would say) as soon as I saw that bad boy scowl. And he also has a over-sized skateboard because that says 'Don't mess with me' (if you're a 10 year old in a 90's episode of Goosebumps). He repeatedly called Bianca a 'slag'. What a dick!!! He must be evil through and through. BUT WAIT NO!!! He was blamed for accidentally bumping into Tamara and when some MR bullies were trying to steal from young Summer Bay child, who stepped in? Yes, that's right skateboard boy. But who got the blame for trying to steal the bag? THAT'S RIGHT, SKATEBOARD BOY!!!! Is there more to him that meets the eye? Is he really as bad as he's made out to be? COULD THIS WHOLE ACT JUST BE SOME SORT OF CRY FOR HELP??? I really have no idea, anything could happen at this stage.
And truthfully, it is the most original and exciting story to come out of H&A in a while. With Brax in jail, Maddie being a cuntish teenager and the Marilyn/John story line being dragged out to it's fucking core, this is a fresh and welcome idea with potential for loads of deadly new characters and plots.
Mangrove River High vs. Summer Bay High; BRING IT ON!

Episodes 1-12: Introductions, Roo's dramatic 'change' and Sally's stupid Milco
Okay so the first couple of weeks of home and away was kind of a non-event. Nothing really happens story-line wise. I guess we're really just being introduced to the characters. A new family have moved to Summer Bay, they've bought the caravan park and they're a foster family (we know this stuff). There's Pippa and Tom and the foster kids. The girls are Carly and Bobbi (we all love Bobbi) who are constantly at each others throats. Carly is vain and selfish, Bobbi a bit of a rebel. And of course 8 year old Sally Fletcher who has an imaginary friend (we'll get to that later) and who's role is to just generally be very cute. There is also a teenager called Lynn who no one understands (or cares about). And the lads are Frank and Stephen the messer and the brainbox.
Principal Fisher's car is crashed by teenagers, Ailsa breaks up with Alf because his daughter doesn't like her and Lynn brings home a dog which is poisoned and killed because it was barking. I'm sure we'll find out who eventually but like... really? It's been pretty boring so far, a ghost better show up soon is all I'm saying.
At one point Carly goes to see her father (who she's been protected from through social services) and there is a hint that there was some form of abuse and then it's just never mentioned again. It's only been 12 episodes I suppose but the most exciting thing that happened is a dog was barking and then died. The most shocking thing for me really is Roo Stewart played by Justine Clarke. Her father is Alf Stewart who we obviously all know. She left the show after a couple of years only to return years later in 2010 this time played by Georgie Parker. Now I know when a new actress takes the part of an already existing character it's tough. It's tough to get the look right as well as the personality but in Home and Away's case they may as well  have made her a different character she's that different. Not just in looks but in personality. I know Roo is grown up now and won't look exactly the same but it's literally like they went out and deliberately found an actress that looks 100% different to the original Roo in every way!

                                                               Roo Before

                                                             Roo After
When Roo first came into it, I thought she was going to be Leah's  Greek sister or aunt or something!!!
Another thing I would like to talk about is Sally's imaginary friend, Milco. Years ago a homeless character came into home and away and his name was Miles Copeland played by Josh Quong Tart (lol). Him and Sally had an instant 'connection' and he was eventually revealed as Sally's brother who she used to call MilCo. Geddit? MILesCOpeland??? It's ridiculous, I always knew that but now that I'm watching the actual episodes where this imaginary friend originated it's even more ridiculous. It makes no sense. Pippa and Tom would've known about a brother and they constantly talk about how Milco is imaginary. And why did Sally never mention the fact she had a brother? She never shuts up about her dead parents in the show! The whole thing is really really dumb. Okay?
Anyway, I will leave you with the original theme tune which seems like it takes up half the episode, it's that long. There must be 16 verses in it. They also play haunting instrumental excerpts of the theme song throughout the episode which really creeps me out. And instead of doing a 'Last time on Home and Away' they play the last three minutes of each episode as the start of each episode so it's this weird continuous story. Anyway, hopefully things start kicking off in the bay soon!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hM8Hi3grIqk