Heart To Hard (Mon, Jul 2 '07)

Alright, a bit happening in this one, including the arrival of more family members. Although THE CHANGE IS still COMING, this renewed ‘family-focus’ the press talked about has already been ramped up a fair bit over the past few weeks, giving Frazer & Ringo a mum (and presumably dad to come), Ned a son, Paul an ex-wife and tonight bringing Karl’s dad to the street. Tom arrives in Ramsay Street outta the home he was causing trouble in, and he’s pretty damn senile. He’s got the mental deterioration going on a treat, and with his constantly loud outside voice, thinks Karl and Susan are namby-pamby nurses, and Zeke is Karl. Crikey Tom, you’ve lost it mate. He gives a lot of shit to Karl over the course of this episode, and over the course of a few scenes in the loungeroom/dining room, the family deals with the new arrival. Susan basically just offers Karl sympathetic looks, Karl cops it something bad from Tom about getting his hands off his stuff, and stop calling me Dad, Rachel does nothing memorable, and Zeke is called Karl. The real non-doc Karl advises that the best thing to do with senility patients is to play along with their fantasies, so Zeke assumes the role of Karl, playing chess with Tom and looking over old pictures. Eventually irl Karl gets a bonding idea, grabs a record player from the garage, and plays one of Tom’s old favourite ‘40s songs about loving his love, and the two do bond. Although Tom still has no idea who anyone is. Susan’s taken (MORE!) leave to help with him, and the kids are more than happy to lend a hand, but Karl’s not so sure, saying he needs nursing, not just minding. We’ll see. Fingers crossed for a recovery.

Another forgetful dad is Paul who’s helping Elle out with Lassiters again. They’re having a coffee at the shop when she gets a call from Oliver that two regular customers, Misters Wrigley and Wong, have had stuff stolen from the cloak room, and the only 2 suspects are 2 longterm and trustworthy staff. Elle says to fire them etc, but Paul adds a bit of diplomacy and with Elle reluctantly agreeing for him to dip his finger back into management, he negotiates a WIN-WIN-WIN solution for the hotel, the high rolling lunchers and the probably not actually guilty staff. I don’t know how he did that, but Elle seemed very impressed. Paul wasn’t, however, when he walked in on Elle & Oliver getting a bit pashy at the hotel. He was mildly shocked and didn’t really say anything, but later on in a sweet scene when he’s inexplicably helping Harold clean up the General Store, he admits he thinks Oliver’s on the rebound and he only wants what’s best for Elle. They do all the “Do you come down hard or let them learn from their mistakes?” conversation, and Harold tells Paul he’s sounding like a Dad, and Paul’s pleased. It’s only because Harold’s the only face he really knows in the street, but the relationship between these two has always been intriguing, the angel and devil in the street, and each responsible for each other’s salvation at one point in time, so it’s wonderful to see them so friendly. Paul being not nasty really hasn’t gone boring yet at all either – it’s still good tele.

Friday night’s Caleb/Sky/Boyd arc continues as well, and it’s just as boring. I can rant about how fucked Boyd is every night if you want, so I’ll try to keep it brief. The episode started with a continuation of last night’s kiss Caleb gave Sky with Boyd busting them. For some reason, Boyd appears to have just had a shower, and I think they’re still at the Timmins’ place, so why the dickens he’s walking around wet and with no shirt on is a really really hard question. The hell? Anyway, when he sees them kissing he’s all aggro, shoves Caleb off her and he’s all “Get off her!” and Sky’s all “WTF?” and screams “Get out!”, and Boyd’s all “You heard her!” and Skye’s all “I meant you! What are you doing? Get out!” and Boyd’s all “I’ll be next door if you need me” and everyone in the country is all “Who the fuck does he think he is?” and you guys are all “Yeah yeah you don’t like Boyd, we get it” and I’m all “Sorry, I’ll just get on with it, but he’s worse than ever now” and yeah.

Because there’s nowhere else to cop a milkshake in Erinsborough, Boyd runs into Caleb at the store again later (we’re really missing the Scarlet Bar) and ends up yelling at him some more, esp when Caleb says Boyd’s probs jealous. Holy dooley, that fires him up, and Caleb ends up having a heart attack, all “My pills! In my bag!”. Anyone else would feel bad about pressuring a heart transplant dude into having an attack, but Boyd is very Boydlike so feels nothing of the sort, and in fact at the hospital with Sky it comes out that maybe dorkheart was on the money, and Boyd’s feeling stuff for Sky again, a good few years after they broke up, and only a coupla weeks since he last broke up from his last shonky doc gf. She tells him he’s dreaming, her first good choice in forever. There’s then a prolonged scene of bedside Sky chatting with Caleb. Harold arives with Kerry a while in, which gives Boyd a chance to tell Harold that maybe they were wrong, and they should give Sky the benefit of the doubt. Ok whatever, we don’t really care, just someone of you guys leave already, would you?

This bedside chat gives the opportunity for one of the worst performances in recent Neighbours memory however. Cutting back from another scene we see a hospital sheet being helf up, and it comes down quickly to Caleb’s face offering a surefire surfwear-model-with-no-acting-experience smile saying “Peekaboo!” and he and Skye falling into a round of utterly forced laughter. It’s already just awful, the sort of fake, stilted and unnatural scene that critics of soapies offer up as an example of how shallow and worthless the genre is, but then, after the most pissweak tryhard attempt at a peekaboo every commited to tivo, Caleb asks for serious “I’m not over-exciting her, am I?” Oh man. Dude, just stop it, or at least look like you know you’re pulling the piss, because right now, this has gone from dull to embarrassing. I really hope that was the lowest rating 10 seconds in Neighbours history. Nonetheless, they keep talking, and Sky decides that it’s weird she finds herself fancying the guy who’s got Stinger’s heart, but that’s just science, and she really likes him, so bugger all that stuff, they should get plugging away. Can’t wait. Last month was the 20th anniversary of Scott & Charlene’s wedding, and I read that when they left for Qld, Kylie’s contract ran out about 3 months before Jason’s, so she had to go up there first, and he had to stay back to finish an apprenticeship or something, I dunno, and then leave. It made for a soft departure instead of lovebirds going off together, but was inevitable. I feel that way about Sky, that Stinger’s gone, and she’s just sticking around til her contract expires. She’s really truly deadweight and this plot is fucking shit. *feels strongly*

We saw Oliver quickly before in the Lassiters restaurant, but he’s got the other major revelation tonight. Paul busted Ollie snogging his daughter when he walked in with an urgent message – Alan Napier is asking for him. Alan Napier’s been in a coma for a month or 2, was a family friend and business partner to the Barnes family, and collapsed while trying to tell Oliver a deep dark family secret. Tonight he’s munbled “Oliver” a few times, had a flashback to his heart attack, which he saw from the camera’s pov, and is now awake but talking… slowly. Oliver takes Elle with him, and Alan’s clearly still a bit crook, as the scene is packed with potential twists and revelations, but not much dialogue. “Alan, this is Elle. Elle, this is Alan, an old family friend.” “Not… friend…” “What?” “Grand… fath… er” “On whose side, my mum’s or dad’s?” “They’re… not… your… p… a… re… n…ts” “What? What do you mean? Alan, tell me more” “*passes out again*” Right before he passes out though, Alan spies Paul Robinson peering into his room between the venetian blinds, and when Oliver looks up, Paul’s gone. It’s all very mysterious indeed, and does Paul have anythign to do with this secret, having mentioned he knew the Barnes family? Is it possible Paul had a fling with Alan Napier’s daughter, whoever that might be, 20 something years ago, and Elle and Oliver are half-siblings? It certianly wouldn’t be the first time they’ve done sibling incest in Erinsborough, the last one being Serena and that dude from Perth (Lukas or something?) and apparently there were more before. But that seems an unlikely chance. Maybe there’s somehing more sinister even. Oooh! Did Oliver just get interesting? We’ll find out soon enough. Unless, of course, we’re waiting for Alan to tell us.