The first half of the week was dominated by the culmination of one of Neighbours' most adult stories to date – that of Jack Scully’s drug addiction. Last week saw the troubled twenty-something speed out of Ramsay Street in his parents’ car following a heated conversation with Steph. Far from stick to his word and try and get his life back on track, Jack went to see Olivia and spent all night partying. However, when they had an argument, and Jack refused to spend the day with her, he sped off again, high on drugs and exhausted from all night dancing. Mac was quite worried about the erratic way in which he drove off, and desperately tried to reach him on his mobile. Jack finally answered the call and a combination of sheer tiredness and the distraction from the phone call sent him and the car careering off the road and into an electricity pylon.

Emergency teams were quickly on their way, as was Olivia who guessed by the sounds on the other end of the phone that Jack had crashed. Arriving at the scene, she managed to use her position in the police to get close to the wrecked car and hid evidence of the mobile phone, so as not to incriminate her. Jack’s smash also managed to knock out the electricity supply across most of the suburb, as well as causing damage to some electrical equipment at No.24 Ramsay Street. Coincidentally, Max and Stephanie were out in the car when they came across the commotion caused by the accident. Steph’s realisation that whoever crashed the car had also cut the electric quickly turned to horror as she realised the badly wrecked Commodore was in fact Lyn’s. Later at the hospital, a recovering Jack vowed to Steph that he would end his partying days and take responsibility for his actions from now on. However, his upset condition caused a minor relapse as he began coughing up blood.

His prospects looked no better later in the day when Stuart and Olivia arrived in their official capacities. It transpired that the drugs in Jack’s system had shown up in blood tests, and he was charged with driving under the influence of an illegal substance. He made Steph promise not to divulge anything about the accident to Lyn or Joe, and in turn the neighbours were warned not to spill. Olivia and Stuart, meanwhile, grew closer as Mac too made a decision she would end her partying days as a result of Jack’s accident – how long it will be before Stuart guesses Mac’s true colours remains to be seen. Whilst Neighbours couldn’t discuss the issues of drugs in as much detail as perhaps they should have, it’s encouraging that given the tea-time slots that they did acknowledge many aspects of the story that they wouldn’t have a couple of years ago.

The second big story of the week, continuing but certainly not concluding, was that of Izzy’s illegitimate pregnancy. Her worst nightmares appeared to come true as Darcy’s work at the hospital, combined with his suspicions of Izzy, led him to break open her medical records and discover that Izzy was in fact over a month ahead in her pregnancy calendar than she should have been had the baby been Karl’s. Additionally, the records showed the baby’s father as “unknown”. Darcy’s exclamation of “gotcha” sealed Izzy’s fate, or so one would be led to believe. However, his mistake was in trying to confront her with the news before divulging and trying to persuade her to leave town. This led to a heated argument between the two of them in the hospital’s car park stairwell, resulting in Darcy falling backwards down two flights of stairs – knocking himself out on the brick wall as he fell. Isabelle, fuelled with emotion, confusion and desperation, ripped off her jewellery and planted them along with money on Darcy’s half-dead body, and returned to her flat to trash the place, making it seem as though Darcy had returned to his illegal ways and burgled Karl and Izzy. It wasn’t until local resident, the elderly Rose Belker, found her former doctor lying unconscious on the stairs, that Izzy’s quickly conceived plan started working. Now, to all except Izzy it seemed as though Darcy had robbed his own family again and taken an unfortunate tumble. It was just as well her plan worked, for Izzy had only a day earlier had proposed to Karl in a desperate bid to have some form of official linking between them both.

Rose Belker had previously been busy down at Lassiter’s that same morning when a gust of wind (on the calmest day of the year) had apparently taken the hat off her head and blown it into the lake. Cue a morning’s work for Constable Parker in trying to retrieve it. Meanwhile, Serena and Scott’s relationship continued to be plagued by troubles, and Serena decided to end it. However, she found it difficult because of how attached Stingray seemed. Her cousin, however, was more infatuated with her TV-personality science hero, another Dr Karl, who happened to be visiting the district to film for a programme. But, when she refused to act out the Grease Monkeys posse dance in front of the cameras for fear of embarrassing herself, she decided to literally thrown in the towel and quit. Harold tried to tempt her back to the Coffee Shop and Izzy, but Sky was having none of it. And finally, Sindi and Toadie’s relationship seemed to be suffering from a little setback as Toadie made it quite clear he didn’t want to have children quite yet, despite Sindi’s obvious cluckiness. Thankfully, Sindi lost interest after a hectic day babysitting Ben for Libby, and turned her attention to a new business venture with Sky – holding lingerie parties! Toadie didn’t seem to be taking much interest in her new career, though, as he and Connor had decided to take on the elusive Seamus from Lou’s Place’s rival bar to build a terrifying and destructive robot! This followed Connor’s visitation by said creature at the pub one morning.