The West Warratah caravan park saw all sorts of shenanigans throughout the week as Lou and the Timmins brood settled in. Lou had to incur the wrath of Harold, wearing a fetching yellow jumper, when he started taking leftover food from the General Store back to feed his fellow campers. Harold’s main problem was that Lou wasn’t just taking the leftovers from the end of the day’s trading, but rather ‘leftovers’ from half past ten in the morning. But when Harold saw the effect Lou’s generosity was having on the residents of the caravan park, he changed his tune as he witnessed first hand how Lou had created a real sense of community there by gathering everyone around for a barbecue at the end of the day. Meanwhile, the Timmins family had plenty of drama of their own to contend with, thanks largely to the romantic dilemmas of the Timmins girls. Janae became increasingly convinced that Boyd wasn’t interested in her, and started to take Janelle’s advice on the matter, leading to her playing it cool with Boyd whenever she saw him. Bree, on the other hand, went for broke with Zeke and planted a smacker on him after they went on a date to Grease Monkeys. Zeke wasn’t the least bit excited by the kiss, and told Bree he was relieved that the kiss confirmed there wasn’t an attraction between them. Bree put on a brave face and agreed, but by the time she got back to the caravan park, she was heartbroken and in floods of tears.

Alex’s search for an alternative cure for his cancer was nicely interwoven with book-ending a storyline from two years ago as creepy Jonathan Verne, former Life Mechanics guru, finally got what was coming to him when Steph identified him and Stuart got to swoop in and arrest him. Meanwhile, Karl came ever closer to telling Susan about Alex’s fatal illness in the face of a barrage of criticisms from her regarding his attitude towards her new fiancé. But Karl managed to bite his tongue long enough to consult Harold on the matter, who likened Karl’s doctor/patient confidentiality oath to that of a clergyman’s oath not to break the trust of his parishioner. However, this convinced Karl that, in this case, breaking his oath would be justified and he resolved to tell Susan the truth.

Ned Parker’s acclimatisation to life in the big smoke has been a pleasure to watch since he arrived in Ramsay Street a few months ago. Ned’s been a breath of fresh air around the neighbourhood, taking anything and all that the other, more juvenile residents of No.30 throw at him. But this week, Ned lost his cool when Toadie and Stuart started pressing him to tell them where he was mysteriously disappearing to of an evening, complete with a gym bag that he wouldn’t let them look at. Toadie eventually got it into his head that Ned was secretly gay, and prompted Stuart to try and talk to his younger brother about his sexual orientation. The talk didn’t really go as planned, with Ned just telling Stu that there were some things he would never understand about him. Besides, Ned had other things on his mind, and it wasn’t boys. His attraction for Izzy had been evident since his arrival, and he acted upon it when he consoled her at No.22 over the treatment she was receiving at the hands of Elle. Ned misread Izzy, however, and kissed her – leading to her throwing him out and accusing him of thinking she was the town slapper.

Elsewhere in Erinsborough, Liljana slapped Carmella across the face when she tried to undermine Serena at the bikini shop, Steph found out the sex of her baby (it’s a boy!), Stingray was kidnapped by Dylan’s nemesis Roo (more on that next week) and Ned managed to get through the whole week without appearing topless. Then again, there were only four episodes…