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

Home and Away: The beginning

The Beginning
Ever since I was a child I have watched Home And Away. My mother and grandmother would watch it from time to time and it's the only soap I ever watched as a child. During my teen years I would watch it, usually after The Den was over on RTE when they'd have 'young adult' programs which for some unknown reason included H&A.It is the only soap, the only program actually that I have stuck with over the years. I'm not a tv person, I do not really remain faithful to shows. I love television, don't get me wrong but I usually just watch whatever happens to be on when I'm watching. Now of course, we have the internet which is very good. This is also where I watch Home and Away. Not just because I can watch it whenever I want without worrying about missing it, but also they are about 2 weeks ahead in Australia and I need to know what is happening, okay? I NEED TO KNOW.
Why Home and Away?
Although I will watch other soaps if they happen to be on or if I'm at my grandmothers house, I wouldn't go out of my way. Although I wouldn't call Eastenders or Coronation st. 'real life' they just don't have the same fantastical element that H&A has. There have been more than a few ghosts make an appearance in some form in H&A. From Bobby's ghost coming out of the fridge (one that everyone seems to remember) to Sally's foster dad Tom's ghost showing her the future and most recently of course, Gina Palmer's ghost appearing to her before she died. It is absolutely mental and doesn't even try and explain itself. I love how unapologetic it is. H&A also stars the most good looking people you've ever seen in your life and there are few exceptions to this rule. I like watching a show where I fancy basically all the men and women.
It's not all light fluff though, the show has never shied away from serious issues. One of the first major storylines was the rape of Carly Morris. And again when I was a teenager there was Danni who claimed Cain had raped her and most recently Rosie, who was raped by a classmate. It has always sparked controversy, especially in the case of Carly Morris in 1988 (the word 'rape' was never even used). It was a very risky move but I think the writers have always been brave and should be congratulated for how they've always dealt with the issue of sexual abuse and raising awareness for the issue.

The Challenge
So in a fit of infinite madness I have decided to watch every episode of Home and Away from the pilot episode which aired January 17th 1988. There are so many storylines that happened before I properly started watching and lots I have forgotten. With  the return of characters like Ru and Celia who hadn't appeared since the start, I wanted to see their origin. I will also be using the blog to talk about the current run of H&A aswell as any news/gossip/info that is in any way Home and Away related.