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!).
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!
