MON
At Charlie’s, Lou and Lucas discuss ways to make Vanessa and Rhys break up, paving the way for Lucas to grease his way into her heart.
Lou is happy to go along with this because… he hates Rhys?
I really hope Rhys uncovers this plot and knocks Lucas’ teeth out. Oh boy would that be sweet.
Meanwhile, it’s Andrew’s birthday, and he receives the greatest gift of all – love, in the form of two totally non-bogus looking cheques for 25k apiece, from the ‘APAC gaming consortium’ – because competing casinos love forming consortiums.
Andrew: “Uh yeah, Hi Mr. Bank Manager Sir, I’d like to cash these cheques please. Could you also give me a value for these property deeds for mayfair and fleet street? Oh, and the waterworks.”
Andrew then heads over to no.28 for a birthday lunch hosted by his 3 best friends.
I always found it odd that Andrew’s best friends are girls he dated, and cheated on, one with the other, and this doesn’t appear to bother anyone. Let’s have cake!
Andrew’s friends then announce they’ve purchased him a gift – a ticket to the Jezabels, and they’re all going – even Ed, which leads to a confrontation, with Andrew asking “Why is he here? He’s not my friend and it’s my party!”
“And I’ll cry if i want to!”
Meanwhile, Sophie, banned from attending the concert by Paul, sneaks out of her house and walks down the street, before climbing into the car boot and closing the door
A feat made all the more impressive by the fact that she did so in plain sight of both Ed and Summer
Sophie’s plan to be a stowaway for the duration of the trip comes unstuck when her phone rings and she’s discovered hiding in the boot. However, despite Chris’ reservations, she manages to convince them to let her travel in the car sitting on Summer’s lap, where she passes time by making insufferable hipster observations. “Endless Summer is a bit mainstream for me,” she remarks. “I liked the Jezabels before they were big.” she adds, smugly.
“Oh, you mean before they released their debut album? You know, the only album they’ve recorded so far?” says no one.
Luckily, Andrew is on hand to change the topic of conversation, as he advises Summer to check the tickets for the starting time of the concert, the tickets being in his wallet, which is in Summer’s bag and not in his pants. Unfortunately for Andrew, in the process of locating the tickets, Summer inadvertently finds the cheques, also in Andrew’s wallet
because having 50k worth of cheques in your wallet is the sort of thing that would skip a person’s mind.
Anyway, this leads to squabbling between Andrew and Tash about the sale of the app, and, hilariously, said squabbling causes Chris to veer off the road, down a dirt path, and up an embankment – at no point remembering to brake – before the car flips over, for dramatic effect.
This all seems like a very heavy-handed lesson from a fed-up neighbours writer to his disobedient children about the dangers of bickering while on car trips to grandma’s house
TUE
In the ensuing carnage, Tash gets free and hails the next passing car on this deserted, isolated road, hundreds of kilometres, presumably, from Erinsborough.
The passing motorist turns out to be Rhys. This surprises no one.
Anyway, Andrew and Sophie are unconscious and are taken to Erinsborough Hospital, and not one of the many closer, and better equipped, hospitals in Melbourne, despite the crash occuring, as mentioned by Rhys, “On Panorama Drive, just outside Melbourne”.
At any rate, Andrew soon wakes up and cries to Paul that ‘it’s all his fault’
And I intend to hold you accountable. After all, we the viewers are the real victims here.
By which I mean, every time a ‘big event’ like this happens, the following several days, if not weeks, are spent reflecting upon it, with every useless character submitting their own worthless, unsolicited opinion.
I can’t wait to see who Sonya thinks is at fault for the crash!
Seriously, for this to be worth it, Sophie had better die.
Elsewhere, Tash goes into Ed’s hospital room, where she’s informed by a nurse that he’s fallen asleep after having taken some painkillers for his fractured collarbone.
“Wake up soon.” she sobs. “You’re so special and I promise to treat you better,” et cetera.
I’m assuming that Tash is under the impression that a fractured collarbone is life-threatening. That’s the only explanation for this dialogue.
Outside, in the waiting room, Rhys talks to Vanessa, telling her that their long-awaited trip to Japan will have to be cancelled. “I cut my hand on the wreckage, and it needs to heal,” he tells her. This show being what it is, Vanessa accepts this explanation unquestioningly and does not fly into a tearful rage
“You worthless cunt!” she might have said. “A cut hand? If you didn’t want to go to Japan with me you could have just been honest!”
In the morning, Ed awakes, and is immediately kissed passionately by Tash, prompting a typically nerdy response.
“This must be how Chewbacca felt when he freed Endor from the Imperial Stormtroopers!” says Ed, or something.
WED
This episode begins with Chris experiencing traumatic flashbacks of the crash. It’s highly reminiscent of Zeke’s traumatised flashbacks from his rafting accident.
Time will tell whether the experience has gifted Chris too with spontaneous kung-fu powers
Inside the hospital, Tash, angered by Andrew’s decision to sell the app to evil businessmen instead of using it to help people, tears up her cheque.
“That app could have been used to help people! Instead it’s wasted!” says Tash as she throws away 25 thousand dollars.
Paul then learns that Sophie wasn’t wearing a seatbelt and directs his anger at Chris. “You overloaded your car!” he screams, furiously, in a tone that suggests that ‘overloading’ cars is the foulest of transgressions. I really am sick of this show’s endless moralising. Sometimes it feels like i’m watching a fucking Public Service Announcement.
Hey, you know what viewers like? Being lectured.
Chris then begins blabbering justifications for the crash. “Summer and Andrew were arguing, and I got confused!” stammers Chris, while acting his hardest.
to be fair, driver confusion is the #2 cause of road accidents, second only to shuffling slightly in your seat because you have to fart.
THU
Sitting in the coffee shop, Toadie attempts to divine the sex of Sonya’s foetus through a printout of the latest ultrasound. “I think it’s a boy!” announces Toadie, to a less than impressed Karl. “This long thing here…”
“Is an umbilical cord.” replies Karl, playing the role of Dr. Hibbert in this rip-off of a joke from the Simpsons
To provide relief from the seriousness of this week’s subject matter, the writers then treat us to some light-hearted moments involving toadie’s harebrained efforts to determine the sex if the baby, via all kinds of wacky methods! It’s excellent comedy.
If you’re not particularly discriminating with your comedy. Also, an asshole.
Meanwhile, Lou has taken up painting, and after spending an afternoon on a sarcastic, half-assed effort at modernist art, he takes his canvas to a local art critic, who is effusive with praise for his work, calling it a fusion of abstract art, or some shit.
I’ve seen this one before – eventually Homer falls out of favour with the Springfield art community and winds up flooding the town
The critic then suggests that Lou enter his painting in a local art competition, which, as terrible scriptwriting would have it, starts tomorrow!
Over at the garage, Paul demands Lucas fire Chris, ‘or else.’ Lucas chooses ‘or else,’ and Paul elects to make good on his idle threats, placing the garage in jeopardy by cancelling the contract of the Lassiters ‘corporate fleet.’
hahaha! ‘corporate fleet!’ Good one, writers.
FRI
Ok, two things – a service generally runs to a couple of hundred bucks per car – and are undertaken once or twice per year, so how many cars are we expected to believe are in the lassiters fleet for the termination of their business to bring the garage to the brink of financial ruin? 1000? Yeah, let’s go with one thousand. Secondly, wouldn’t Lassiters have to pay some kind of financial restitution for breaking their contract? Isn’t that the point of a contract? That one party can’t just bail out because they feel like it?
Ahh, neighbours writers. You’d think over-analysing their many follies would become tiresome. It totally doesn’t.
Elsewhere, Karl realises that Summer has herself become traumatised by her experience and can’t bring herself to enter a car. To help her, Karl suggests she ‘take control’ and try to drive herself. We, the lucky viewers, then get about 10 minutes of Summer tearfully stressing that ‘she just can’t do it!’
Will Summer be able to overcome the horror of being involved in a crash that resulted in zero fatalities or serious injuries?
Recap - Neighbours 