Sin And Crispy

Neighbours has a pretty good run with excellent episodes, and Tues night's was all action-action-action, meeting new characters, Steiger coppin the malaria etc, but reasonably often there'll be an episode where you get to the end and nothing's changed. Last night's was a bit inconsequential, but still had a completely gold scene, predictably involving Susan & Karl.

UPDATES ON VARIOUS STORYLINES:
*The biggest was undoubtedly Ned's kid Mickey, who's still there and staying for at least "another week" as his mum rang on a private number with no forwarding address to tell him. Man, this bitch bad news. Janae's taken to the kid like Sky to a conman, and she's being great with him, but Ned was pretty standoffish, but he's getting the hang of it. One of Ned's only consistent traits since starting as a distinct non-character has been the way he's good with kids, from being Oscar's over-protective minder, to the glory of Oodles & Noodles, but he's all "I'm this kid's dad but he doesn't know, maybe if I pretend to be barely awake he'll go away", but he hasn't. Mickey in fact pulled out a pearler, telling Janae that Ned acts like a wooden pole when he's around or something, and Mickey's due to discover that that's got nothing to do with him. Anyway, in looking after the little tyke, they've pulled out all the "Won't Ned be a good dad" examples, taking him to the garage and letting him pretend to drive a car, letting him try to box, and eventually Ned giving him tips, and Mickey's dog Jack going missing and Ned finding him, but it's Janae that's the really good one here. In fact, the biggest progress in these scenes is not Mickey's introduction to his Dad, but how much of a couple Janae and Ned are acting like. That's yuck, but looks like something we'll have to get used to. Not happy about it though. Oh, and Mickey';s staying with Ned at Paul's house, but since he's coming home (see below), Elle wants Mickey out. She'll put him up at Lassiter's, but he can't have Jack there. I smell a Timmins take-in.

*Paul spoke to Gail again last night as he answered Elle's phone she'd left behind, and the forgetful pirate was a bit shocked when Gail abused him and slammed the received down. He got Elle to admit that she hadn't been completely upfront with him about his past, and he wants to have a BBQ with all his neighbours when he goes home tomorrow (prob tonight). Elle's being very cagey about telling her Dad he was a real prick, because she wants him to set things right, but it's a bit annoying as a viewer. Her and Paul's relationship was a great Dad-daughter one, with 2 sneaky conniving pricks who could be totally honest with only each other, and at least when she was conning him to sign over everything, it was a great scheme, but this is running a bit long. I just really want to see how Paul fits back in to life now that his dodgy past has disappeared. It looks like Gail might be part of that too, as Paul told Elle he doesn';t care what she has to say, he wants Gail to come up to see him. Paul and Gail had well and truly left the show by the time i started watching, but their reunion last year was pretty good, and Gail coming back full time would be a really positive thing I reckons. Also, it's a real chance for Paul to settle down with one woman preoperly, which would again be an interesting prospect, at least til he gets him in the head with an anvil and reverts back to slimy ole backdoor business Paul. Bringing Paul back a coupla years ago was one of the best casting decisions ever. He's great, whether he's good or evil, and never boring.

*Rachel's continuing her descent into annoying whiny teenager, although last night it wasn't really her fault. Zeke and Lolly, keen for revenge for the pashing internet video, stole Crispy, Rachel's pink pony toy that she can't sleep without, and made a cute ransom video. A little bit of "What? We didn't do it" poker-face later, and Rachel was convinced it was Ringo, so went and abused him. He cracked the shits, saying not everything was about Rachel, and he's really worried about Carmella right now, so shove off. Not sure where I stand on this: Ringo's right in that Rachel's self-obsessed and can be pretty damn irritating with it all, but Ringo's wrong in that his relationship with Carmella, even though nothing's happened and neither of them have expressed a desire to, is fkn downright creepy. Carmella's just an older, less pretty and dumber version of Rachel anyway, so stick with what you got, doofus. Looks like tonight's a climax of that relationship-amp-up, as the ad makes Ringo out to be a... well, that can wait til tomorrow. *suspense*

*Ringo and Carmella were also involved in Karl's minute storyline - he's plum tired cos Davo can't sack him for being married, not that that would worry the Davo we know, but anyway, he's trying to overwork Karl out of the business. Karl's pulling late shifts, getting in at 2am, back out again for breakfast meetings, he's such a go-getter! He's also falling asleep a lot, so asleep int he driveway, he woke up to find his drug kit missing! Shit! Where'd it go? It's not in the (open) boot, not in the back seat, not buried in the garden but really in China, where? OMG!!! Ringo was there to help him look, as Karl traced back his step... let's see Icame out of the house, talked to Carmella for a bit, fell asleep in my car... And at that Ringo's gone "Carmella? Did you put them on the ground when you were tlaking to her?" and freaked that the girl he's having inappropriate adolescent hardons for is back on the pills, after he discovered her last bottle of pills in her purse last week. SuperRingo goes into action, looking for the pills everwhere, under her bed etc etc, which is when Rachel came in and blasted him for something the poor guy hadn't done. Anyways, Karl had just left his drug suitcase on the couch, so there's no drug thief, but Ringo doesn't know that, and we can only see what krazee rehab measures he's gonna try ot dish up.

*I mentioned the gold scene with Karl & Susan - when Karl was asleep on the couch at the start of the episode, and Zeke and Lolly were hatching their Crispy-kidnap plan, Karl's head was right back, facing up, and he was doing a funny little stage-snore, kinda like Big Bird. Zeke quietly put a tissue over his mouth so that when he did the *whistle out* part of teh snore, the tissue blew up in the air. That was pretty awesome. Then Susan came home, had a how's-it-hangin chat with the kids about something, and they left. She then looked at Karl thoughtfully, quietly grabbed a tissue and put it over his mouth. Karl woke up "Wha-who-why you do that for?" and Susan, suppressing a laugh, was all "It was the kids. I'll have a talk to them." Pretty much the best thing on tele all week.