The street also waved goodbye to a much loved young resident on Monday, when Summer got accepted at music school and headed off for her first term away. Despite Summer’s well-voiced reservations about Boyd’s conduct in recent weeks, she was pleased when he accompanied them on the long drive. Young Marisa Siketa’s time on Ramsay Street as Summer has been eventful, and it’s hard to believe she first appeared more than three years ago. In that time she’s endeared herself to a whole generation of Neighbours fans. It’ll be interesting to see the character’s reappearances in the show in the future, and whether or not she’ll follow the trend set by Lucy Robinson of being played by a different actress on each visit home from school.

At No.26, Stingray was facing uncertainties as his relationship with his boss, Go-Go got out of hand. His reservations over her flirting with him and inappropriate touching resulted in him taking Susan’s advice and confronting her about it. She mocked him for being so precious and looked set to make life difficult for her newest courier boy. Janelle meanwhile was busy trying to think up ways of earning some extra money to cover the costs incurred by her credit card abuse, including trying to capture Janae singing embarrassingly in a bid to win a TV-blunder show called ‘Stupid Aussies’, and writing her own memoirs! Dylan, however, bit the bullet and confessed all to Harold about the break-in at No.24. Harold was furious at first until Sky made him realise he had to apply his same forgiveness routine to his own misfortune as he did to others’. Dylan’s punishment was a ban from seeing Sky for a month, which he duly accepted.

Connor and Serena’s relationship, working at the bikini store together, was a little tense this week when she suggested that she visualised him at times in a bid to stop herself getting carried away with some of the beautiful men who came into the store! He was offended until she later admitted that Connor was quite cute! Serena also had reason to be pleased at the end of the week when her mother finally realised what a fool she’d been in going off with Paul, and decided to move back into No.24! The family were thrilled, but Lil suggested she and David sleep in separate bedrooms for a while, until things were more comfortable. This story, as good as it has been up until now, doesn’t quite ring true when we see how quick David has been to accept Lil back into the family home, given her apparent willingness to leave it so quickly a few weeks ago!

Izzy’s paranoia set in again this week when she discovered Karl and Susan would be supervising an overnight sleepover-fast at the school. Concerned Darcy may have passed information on to Susan about her caused Izzy to worry, but she had to swallow her fears and hope for the best. Indeed, Susan was about to reveal everything Darcy had told her about Izzy to Karl, until the scarlet woman appeared at the door, but Karl knew something was amiss with his ex-wife. Later in the week though, Susan was undergoing a routine check up at the hospital when she seized her chance to search online patient records. Looking at Isabelle’s page she discovered Darcy was indeed right, Izzy had been pregnant a month prior to getting together with Karl and that the father was listed as “unknown”. Susan had all the evidence she needed to confront Izzy, and she gave her an ultimatum: either she confess all to Karl within 24 hours, or Susan would. In the end, Izzy was overcome by some form of decency and decided to tell Karl the truth. However, he didn’t take it well at all and threw her and her belongings out of the apartment! Suddenly realising she had nowhere to go and would have to gain Karl’s forgiveness somehow, she took Paul’s earlier advice of lying about being raped by Gus. Karl was horrified Izzy had been through such an ordeal and immediately took her back. Later, Susan visited Karl to either spill the beans or offer support if Izzy had indeed confessed. Seeing Karl was upset she guessed he’d been told the truth, but she hadn’t banked on Izzy making up further lies and so she got the shock of her life when Izzy provocatively put her face around the bedroom door. Karl was furious that Susan had assumed Izzy was guilty and had given her the ultimatum, but Susan couldn’t believe Karl’s gullibility and wanted to know what new lies he’d been told. These scenes mark the beginning of the end of a story that has been running for nearly two years since Izzy first arrived in Erinsborough. The ways in which the writers have managed to draw out the plot with each new twist and turn, without once causing viewers to tire of it is on a par with that of the Karl and Sarah saga of 1998-1999, albeit with a little more spice this time.

Finally, it was a week of reunions when Annalise Hartman popped into the General Store looking for Lou. Her former flame was running scared in case Annalise was back to rekindle their whirlwind romance, and went to extreme lengths to avoid her. However, despite her playing along with his fears when she finally did catch up with him, he soon realised that perhaps he’d been thinking a little above his station! Annalise revealed she was in fact married to Sam and living happily in London as a documentary maker for the BBC. Her reason for returning to town was in order to film the pilot for a new series examining small communities, and Ramsay Street was her chosen spot, returning to a community she knew so well. She spent a couple of days interviewing various residents, including Paul, David, Susan and Harold before some other long-forgotten faces reappeared for various reasons on Friday. Philip and Doug surprised Lou at No.22 and showed their playful sides by facepainting him in his sleep! Phil later had to face an enemy from the past when his brother-in-law, Paul, appeared at the Scarlet Bar, pushed in his wheelchair by Lucy, another returnee. Phil had to be held back by Doug, but didn’t hesitate in venting his anger towards the man responsible for almost getting him jailed for fraud he didn’t commit. Lucy had returned to town with Rosemary, both to see Paul and to view the rough-edit of Annalise’s documentary. Rosemary, meanwhile was already busy conducting business by making Paul an offer to buy back Lassiter’s, worried his now blackened name would be disastrous for the Erinsborough branch of the hotel. Although initially reluctant to sign over the complex, Paul began to have second thoughts when both Phil and Serena had a go at him.

Notes: A slight continuity error occurred in Wednesday’s episode when Annalise made reference to having been friends with Madge. Madge, however, left the series a few weeks before Annalise arrived at the end of 1992.