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Weekly Reviews > Episodes 4193-4196 by Jamie

UK Broadcast: Monday 14th April - Thursday 17th April 2003
Writers: Elizabeth Huntley, Linda Stainton, Piet Collins, Noel Maloney. Directors: Julie Bates, Jovita O'Shaughnessy

The theme of marriage ran through this week’s series of (four, due to Good Friday) episodes, whether it be desperate proposals or a secretly wedded Bliss...

The previous week’s cliffhanger had Nina about to confess all to Taj about her tryst with Jack. She is about to spill when a breathless Jack shows up, having just found out that the threat of his “dirty little secret” getting out was just Boyd’s hoax. He manages to reveal this to Nina through code. She instead tells Taj that her secret with Jack was that they were planning a double date for the four of them. At the same time, unbeknownst to her, Jack is telling Lori that he wants to treat her to a night at the Lassiters Charity Ball. Sadly, Taj and Lori somehow convince themselves that the double date is the charity ball, and poor Jack is left trying to find four tickets for the expensive, sold-out event. Darcy proves the answer, and interestingly seems onto Jack’s scheming. He declares the two “alike” and cuts Jack a deal so that he gets the tickets instead of Lou - who was planning to take Harold. Not that there’s anything wrong with that...

Meanwhile Darcy’s evil plan is coming together nicely – having confirmed that Darren Turner is coming to the Lassiter's charity event, he convinces Toadie not to give up on finding an outfit. In fact, Dione dresses him and together they go as a 1920s couple, him in a white tux and her in a green number with feathers in her hair.

Karl and Darcy go stag to the ball, since Susan is on a residential course. All of the Ramsay Street residents share a table, of course. Jack and Nina’s storyline essentially ends when they slow dance when Taj and Lori are dancing and their feelings are obvious to everyone with half a brain who may be looking... with the exception, it seems, of Lori and Taj.

The rest of the ball is dedicated to Darcy’s evil plans, which go exactly as he - and, sadly, the audience - knew all along. Darren arrives sure enough, and the cliffhanger is predictably that he reveals his previous marriage to Dione.

The next episode focuses on the aftermath of Darren’s revelation. Darcy unctuously goes from Toadie to Dione, pretending to be a friend of both, while selfishly furthering his own agenda. He tells Toadie that Dione should have trusted him, and Dione that Toadie is untrusting for demanding to know everything of her past relationships. When she finally confronts Toadie in the morning - he slept in the spare room - she admits that yes, she was married, but she was young and stupid and it was only for a week. Toadie shouts her down by reminding her of all of the other secrets she has kept from him recently – Cookie and Ray’s assault and sleeping on Darcy’s couch and sharing a hotel room with him while Toadie was away. He tells her that he has always shared everything with her, that he poured out his feelings about Maggie Hancock. He tells her in a later encounter that this seriously affects the state of their relationship, and that, disappointingly, is where the storyline is left.

Elsewhere in Erinsborough, Lou is excited to hear that a gourmet food critic is visiting the pub the next day, with views to adding him to an international gourmet cuisine book soon to be written! Lou is ecstatic and immediately goes to work creating exotic names to put on the menu, while Harold points out that he will actually have to serve the dishes he advertises. Rosie and Harold promise to look into it and actually come up with some decent recipes, which they present to Lou the next morning. Of course, Lou can’t resist and adds a couple more to the list when Harold and Rosie aren’t looking to create a sense of diversity; predictably the connoisseur chooses the pigeon – the made-up dish – and Lou has to explain to Harold and get a freshly-cooked pigeon, quick! Luckily Lanzini’s is apparently famed for its pigeon, and Rosie and Harold order take-away to decant onto another dish. The connoisseur is delighted with his meal and leaves his calling card after being awarded the food free gratis by Lou. His card thanks Lou for yet another free meal – it is from the scammers he caught last week! Duped Lou finally concedes defeat and laugh it off. Rosie admits that her services have been boycotted since Ruby revealed her breach of trust to the Bishop. Her service has just two parishioners, one of whom is “hilariously” asleep. However the turnout is instantly doubled by the appearance of Harold and Lou, showing support for their friend.

Also in the pub, poor Max is getting sick and tired of Alex waxing lyrical about Steph. To add insult to injury, Alex keeps offending him inadvertently. At first he insinuates that Max should join a proposed over-40s dating service, despite Max’s protests that he wouldn’t fulfil the age criteria, then Steph accidentally says that Max dresses like Lou which doesn’t help his ego. He even starts shopping at Alex’s logo stores to appear more fashionable to Steph. But lightning strikes when Alex privately tells him he’s going round Australia with a mate, and wasn’t planning on things with Steph getting so serious, he’ll be leaving within a week! Max finds it hard to conceal his delight. He’s still having trouble with Boyd and Summer too, but when they try it on with Stuart and he goes to Max for advice, Max soon cottons on to exactly who the know-it-alls are that know everyone’s “dirty little secret”. Interestingly when Stuart gets the hoax call, he is drafting a letter to Flick, trying to let her down gently and propose a split from their engagement. But yes, Summer and Boyd are soon caught and Max offers them to Stuart for five dollars. Well, he doesn’t, but he says they can be his chore monkeys for the day, and he revels in his new slave-driver status. He has Summer washing up (when she claims her arm hurts he hilariously swaps the washing-up brush to the other hand), Boyd getting him drinks and them both of them picking up Bob’s “presents” from the garden (apparently the new dog food goes straight through him – lovely).

The “dirty little secret” is still reverberating about Ramsay Street though, Karl gets his court date from Toadie and feels he has to admit the full extent of his driving offences to Libby. She is touched that he is confiding in her and in a (slightly cheesy and predictable, but quite lovely too) way, she calls him “Karl”, echoing to how she told him she felt Susan was a friend now as well as a parent. The next day they go for a walk in the park with little Ben. When Susan finally returns from her course she finds Karl has found a rat in the house! Of course, in typical Karl fashion he refuses to pay the $245 for a professional, and here begins one of Karl and Susan’s funniest moments since her amnesia. Karl comes in to find cheese everywhere, and a hole in a packet of flour. Susan apologises for rubbishing his previous claims of infestation, and begs him to do something about it. She then panics as she sees a tail behind the fridge – Karl goes at it with a golf club and it bounces out and lands near the table (do rats bounce? No, because it’s plastic). Susan can’t hide her delight at tricking Karl so easily and completely, he declares it possibly the funniest thing she’s ever done in all their marriage. She agrees, but is so busy gloating that she doesn’t believe him when he tells her the real rat is behind her on the counter! She moves pretty quickly however when she sees the vermin.

This week really belonged to Connor and Michelle, and their elopement (for better or worse). Sick of the same old reaction from Joe and Lyn – Joe angrily answers the phone only for Lyn to snatch it from him and beg the Scully girl to come home. Frustrated, girl hangs up. Next time, Lyn answers the phone and tries to talk to girl, only for phone to be snatched by angry Joe. Repeat to fade... Michelle calls Steph on her cellphone and asks her to bring their passports to their motel. It seems they’re going to go abroad, and when Steph arrives in the country Michelle admits that it is to elope, since they can do it in New Zealand without parental consent. Joe begs her not to go, and is angry that she gives them the passports, but Steph is furious with him and argues that his approach of chasing her down will only chase Michelle further away. As speculated upon on this site's message board, it seems that maybe this storyline was swapped from Lyn to Steph at a last minute; it seemed a very out of character outburst for Stephanie and the whole thing was a little stilted and unlikely. Either way, the star-cross’d lovers disappear to the airport and are about to get on a flight to New Zealand when Connor reveals that actually he is flying the London, to let Michelle get away from his bad influence, so that her dad won’t get into trouble and that it would just be easier that way. He has already called Joe to ask him to collect her and he apologises. She begs him to reconsider, but eventually throws his gift of a crescent pendant back at him and sends him away, in tears. Joe arrives at the airport and finds Michelle, but moves on the stop Connor just before he goes through the departure gate. He confronts him to ask him if he’s going to be a man about facing the consequences with Michelle and immigration, or if he’s going to run “as is his specialty.” The credits roll.

It appears that the problem with the Michelle and Connor storyline is that they are desperately trying to turn her into a Flick II, when actually the previous Michelle – who campaigned against animal cruelty and had a strong moral and ethical conscience – was far more interesting than a thin pastiche of the middle Scully sister that she has become. There is no real reason that Connor and Michelle cannot be together, so they have turned Michelle into a selfish arrogant little girl like her sister in order to recapture the same family/boyfriend/friends tensions that Flick brought.

That said, Katie Keltie’s performance in the role has been admirable over the storyline, despite any misgivings about the actual characterisation. Stories which will be interesting to follow include Jack potentially going down the same path as Darcy, Max and Steph finally - please! - getting it together, and the full consequences of Nana Scully’s death.