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♫ Neighbours, everybody needs good neighbours.
With a little understanding you can find the perfect blend.
Neighbours, should be there for one another.
That's when good Neighbours
become good friends ♫
The show's theme song

Neighbours is an Australian soap opera series that follows the lives of the residents of Ramsay Street, a street in the fictional suburb of Erinsborough that doubles as most dangerous residential area on earth and Melbourne, and Australia's answer to the Bermuda Triangle. The show originally featured two main families, the Ramsays (who the street is named after) and Robinsons, but the Ramsays gradually faded away to be replaced by other families, such as the Kennedys and Scullys.

Premiering in 1985 on Channel Seven but later moved to Channel 10, it's the oldest of the two main Australian soap operas, the other being Home and Away. It is primarily known as the series that launched many a career, including those of Margot Robbie, Russell Crowe, Chris Hemsworth, and most famously Kylie Minogue, whose character Charlene's 1987 wedding to Jason Donovan's Scott became the signature moment of the series.

In February 2022, it was announced that Neighbours would be ceasing production in August of that year following the decision of the UK broadcaster, Channel 5, to withdraw its funding (barring the unlikely event of another UK channel picking the show up). The final 90-minute long episode aired on July 28, 2022 and was watched by 1.2 million people, the highest viewing figures the series had seen since 2009. Totaling at 38 seasons and 8903 episodes (the finale comprising episodes 8901-8903), for all intents and purposes, the longest-running soap opera in Australian history had come to an end.

However, in November 2022, it was announced that Amazon had purchased the entire backlog of Neighbours for streaming and had commissioned a brand new run of episodes to commence in 2023, with the new episodes being viewable on Amazon's Freevee channels and airing on Australia Channel 10.

Not to be confused with a Tommy Wiseau sitcom, a show about aliens landing in New Jersey, or with the various films titled Neighbors.


This TV show has examples of:

  • Aborted Arc: Perhaps inevitably, a few storylines had to be cut short following the series cancellation in 2022, most notably Karl and Susan's financial troubles resulting from a bad investment. The 2023 revival picked this up by revealing that they had managed to recover to some extent when Susan was given a generous retirement package, but she's not happy about retiring and still resents Karl for it. Susan and Terese's conversation about it has a bit of Leaning on the Fourth Wall regarding the fact that it wasn't resolved at the time due to everything else going on (i.e, Hendrix's death).
  • Abuse Mistake: When Dee Bliss returned from the dead in 2017, she told Toadie that when she was injured in the car accident, she was mistaken for an abuse victim by the woman who found her, and she was in no condition to correct her at the time. She provides Toadie and Sonya with a photograph of her injuries at the time (an actual photo of Madeleine West from when she was recovering after being hit by a bus.) It then turned out that "Dee" is an imposter named Andrea Somers and the photograph was from a domestic violence incident in her past, turning this into an inversion.
  • Accidental Pervert: On two occasions, Harold Bishop has been mistaken for a peeping tom while birdwatching from a tree.
  • Aesop Amnesia: Paul Robinson is seemingly incapable of solving his or anyone else's problems without doing something incredibly underhanded at best, which he knows his loved ones wouldn't approve of, no matter how many times doing so blows up in his face and ends up ruining one of his relationships. Any time it looks like he's starting to learn his lesson about this, he will backslide in a matter of weeks.
  • Affably Evil:
    • No matter what nasty (and sometimes downright evil) deeds Paul Robinson has planned, he will always do them with an air of debonair class.
    • There's also the super wealthy and classy Hamish Roche, who manipulated both Tyler and Sheila while trying to grab his hands on the former's boat to escape the country.
  • Age-Gap Romance: Connor O'Neill and Serena Bishop had a relatively minor example of this, as Serena was still in high school while Connor was an adult at least a few years older than her. Despite such moments as Serena learning that Connor had an infant daughter due to a one-night stand with another woman, their relationship seemed strong until Serena and her family were lost in a plane crash.
  • Alpha Bitch: Fairly common at Erinsborough High School going back to 1986: standouts include Sue Parker (who wasn't much better when she was reintroduced nearly 30 years later), Jacinta Myers, Erin Perry, Jessica Wallace (who had become a Lovable Alpha Bitch by the time she died), Amanda Fowler and Lisa Devine (who was a combination of a traditional, glamorous Alpha Bitch and an Academic Alpha Bitch).
  • Ambiguously Bi: Finn Kelly.
  • Amnesiacs are Innocent:
    • Played with in 2005 when Darcy Tyler woke up from a coma with no memory of the fall that put him there the previous year, and by extension no memory of the argument he was having with Isabelle Hoyland at the time. His memory started to return after a few days but when he realised that he was going to be charged with robbing Isabelle's apartment, he resorted to Faking Amnesia, using a polygraph test to confirm that he had no memory of the burglary, no doubt helped by the fact that he was innocent of the burglary and knew that Isabelle had framed him. He managed to get off with a 12-month good behaviour bond.
    • In early 2019, Finn Kelly woke up from a coma claiming to have no memories since 2007, erasing both his Start of Darkness (he and his brother had been kidnapped while travelling and his parents had paid the ransom for Shaun but abandoned him) and his numerous crimes against the cast in the last two years. At the time, the evidence indicated that he was genuinely amnesiac and genuinely horrified by what he did, leading several of his victims to believe that he doesn't deserve a custodial sentence under the circumstances, though others such as Gary Canning raised the question of what he might do if he did get his memory back, and it was made clear that if he did remember anything his sentence would have to be reconsidered. When his memory did return in early 2020, his dark side eventually took over, especially after he learned how his father had tried to raise the ransom for him only to lose the money and give up. Tragically, one of the two people he killed afterward was Gary, who had by then seemed to accept that he wasn't dangerous anymore only to be proved right all along.
  • Animal Theme Naming: The extended Rebecchi family tree has numerous aquatic nicknames: Toadfish (Jarrod), Stonefish (Kevin), Tadpole (Wayne Reeves, usually shortened to Tad), Stingray (Scott Timmins), Gemfish (Gemma Reeves), Coral (though not a nickname), Squid (Toadie's adopted son Callum Jones), Jellyfish (Toadie and Sonya's then unborn daughter, who would later be named Nell, and by extension Nellyfish), Clownfish (Yashvi), Lionfish (Kirsha) and Sunfish (Hugo). How often any of these nicknames are brought up varies between characters: Toadie, Stonie, Tad and Stingray were always credited as such, but others may go months without being used.
  • Annoying Laugh: Melanie Pearson was infamous for her animalistic guffawing, which was established in her first scene in 1987 when she overreacts to Henry's lame quip about No. 24 having pretty thick walls. It hasn't improved much when she returned in 2021, though she does seem more aware of how annoying other people find it.
  • Anti-Villain: Paul Robinson. He's an on-again, off-again villain Depending on the Writer.
  • Armoured Closet Gay: It's implied that Georgia's ex-fiancee Scotty suffers from internalized homophobia.
  • Back for the Dead: Does happen sometimes, most notably Daphne Clarke, the first regular character to die, who died in 1988 in a car crash (she had left the street late the previous year to look after her dying father and already been removed from the opening credits), and Helen Daniels, who was the only original character left in 1997 and died in her sleep just after returning from a long spell in hospital.
    • Jack Lassiter made a guest appearance for the first time in over twenty years, only to tell Paul he was dying and thus making Paul re-evaluate his own life.
    • Doug Willis was killed in the Lassiters' boiler explosion in one of his guest appearances.
    • Faye Brennan spent her last few days being nursed by Nicolette back on the street.
  • Back for the Finale: Several dozen past characters returned for the show's (seeming) final weeks, some of whom hadn't appeared in decades. A few of them only appeared on computer screens (eg, Joe Mangel, Andrew Robinson, Donna Freedman and Nina Tucker) but plenty more returned to Ramsay Street in person, including Scott and Charlene Robinson, Shane Ramsay, Joel Samuels and Mike Young. Even some dead characters get to show back up for a couple seconds in Susan's imagination.
  • Back from the Dead: Rare compared to US soaps, but it happens:
    • Harold Bishop, five years after he supposedly drowned at sea. Particularly ironic in that he read out the eulogies to his friend Helen Daniels and wife Madge Bishop (as a matter of fact, the former was the one who reunited him with the latter), given that both of them originally read out eulogies to him.
    • Mark Brennan, though his supposed death was offscreen, a while after his departure, and under circumstances where he would plausibly be forced to fake his death.
    • Dee Bliss, over thirteen years after Toadie accidentally drove their car into the sea. Subverted when she turns out to be an imposter named Andrea Somers. Double subverted when the real Dee returned in 2019.
    • Shaun Watkins, who reappears after going missing, presumed dead in an avalanche in Switzerland.
  • Bait-and-Switch: Most of the first episode of the 2023 revival is spent building up to a wedding, going out of its way to imply that it's a vow-renewal ceremony between Paul and Terese. It instead turns out to between Terese and Toadie.
  • Batman Gambit: Pretty much ALL of Paul Robinson's schemes are this.
  • Bed Trick: Andrea Somers having sex with Toadie while he still believed she was Dee.
  • Big Bad:
    • Charles Durham in the 1985 season, a Corrupt Corporate Executive Villain with Good Publicity who made repeated attempts to obtain an incriminating cassette tape from Terry Inglis, threatening her and those around her. He was shot dead in a confrontation with Terry in the final week of the season.
    • Robert Robinson in 2005 and 2006, who made several attempts on the lives of his father and sister, while disguised as his triplet brother.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Heather Schilling.
  • Black Boss Lady: Tess Carmichael, who is Conrad Sinclair's second-in-command and comes to Erinsborough in order to get his daughter Reece back home.
  • Bratty Teenage Daughter: Amy Greenwood's daughter Zara, who starts to get better after her supposed 'friends' frame her for several fires.
  • Breakout Character: Harold Bishop was originally only supposed to be a short-term character who was Madge's old flame, yet he went on to be the longest-serving character from the 'classical' 1980's era apart from Paul Robinson. See here for more details: http://perfectblend.net/comment/ltn-harold2.htm
  • British Stuffiness: Characters seen as pompous and uptight usually have (pseudo) English accents - Mrs Mangel, Edith Chubb, Hilary Robinson. Helen Daniels, and to a lesser degree Harold Bishop, could be seen as inversions however - they may still be high-class but they are loving and approachable.
  • Broken Pedestal: Yashvi and Mackenzie towards Shane, after he admitted that he had been no better than Mackenzie's transphobic father Grant back when they lived in Bourke, and had in fact outed her to Grant without realising the impact of what he was doing. But while Shane has become The Atoner for this, it's clear that Grant has made no attempt to change his views when he meets Mackenzie again.
  • Brother–Sister Incest: Very briefly between Glen Donnelly and his half-sister Lucy Robinson.
  • The Bus Came Back: Plenty of characters, often years after their departure, with quite a few not only becoming regulars again but staying for longer than their original stints (Julie Robinson/Martin, Harold and Madge Bishop, Paul Robinson, Lauren Carpenter, Brad Willis, Clive Gibbons and Jane Harris stand out).
    • At one point the record between appearances was Kim Taylor/Tanaka (Jenny Young), returning 32 years and 7500 episodes after her storyline wrapped up. (This record has since been beaten by Shane Ramsay returning in 2022 after a 35-year gap.)
    • Taken to extremes in a 2019 storyline where several of Paul's ex-wives return to the show over a course of a few weeks in the lead-up to his marriage to Terese. The first three seem to have legitimate excuses for being in town anyway (Gail meeting her newly-introduced granddaughter Harlow, Lyn needing to sort out some hiring at the Flametree retreat and Rebecca wanting to help with Toadie's foundation), but they all take an opportunity to warn Terese against marrying Paul. This leads to Paul and Terese deciding to elope somewhere else, but when they end up in a resort in Queensland they run into an equally bitter Christina. At this point Paul is ready to give up on happiness with Terese until Caroline shows up and reveals that all of this was an elaborate setup arranged by Elle, who doesn't want her father to get married again when he hasn't learned from the mistakes that messed up those previous marriages. Paul does end up marrying Terese, with help from a celebrant dressed as Elvis hired by Caroline, but their warnings end up being proven correct two years later.
    • The 2020s saw a surprising number of returns even outside of anniversary or Back for the Finale celebrations, with Jane Harris, Clive Gibbons (though both had been recurring for a while), Amy Greenwood, Melanie Pearson and Glen Donnelly becoming regular characters again decades after their original departures.
  • Call-Back: When Mark Gottlieb returns to Erinsborough in 2020 he marries Lucy Robinson, but almost stops after looking at Jesus on the cross and saying to Lucy "I can't do this", just like he did with Annalise Hartman in 1994.
    • Some deaths in Neighbours undergo remarkably similar patterns: When Cody Willis died in 1996, it looked like she was recovering fully in hospital only to suffer a cardiac arrest. She then appeared as a ghost to her lover - all echoing the death of her ex-boyfriend Todd Landers in 1992. Likewise, not long after Ringo Brown died in 2010, people were watching a video he made about himself - just like when Stingray Timmins died three years prior. Also of note is the number of characters who have died in their houses - Jim Robinson and Helen Daniels both died in No. 26 four years apart; Madge Bishop and most recently Faye Brennan both died in No. 24 twenty years apart.
    • Krista is looking at baby names and comes up with Finn or Izzy (depending on the sex), to which Leo states that those names carry bad memories in Erinsborough. She then goes on to suggest Darcy, at which point Leo jokes that she might as well consider Robert or Andrea (which is a bit of a stretch, since Darcy Tyler's crimes were nowhere near at the level of Finn Kelly, Robert Robinson or Andrea Somers, nor would his reputation in the street be as bad as Isabelle Hoyland).
  • Career-Ending Injury: Frequently:
    • Shane Ramsay's diving aspirations were ruined due to spinal damage in a car crash.
    • Joel Samuels was a promising triathlete until his leg was injured after being trapped under a car.
    • Dr. Rhys Lawson injured his hand while responding to a car crash, ending his surgery career.
    • Josh Willis was injured in an abseiling accident, ending his swimming aspirations, as well as resulting in an inability to process alcohol.
    • Chris Pappas's career as a mechanic ended after he was punched out by a drunk Josh.
  • Cassandra Truth: When Helen Daniels claimed to have spotted her supposedly deceased neighbour Harold Bishop alive, her family thought she was losing her sanity, until Lou Carpenter (the only other resident on Ramsay Street to have known Harold at the time) also spotted him.
    • Paul and Elle Robinson were initially dismissive when Izzy realised how dangerous Rob Robinson was and that he was playing mind games.
  • Catchphrase: Whenever Terese stumbles on someone keeping secrets, she usually exclaims "Start talking. Now!"
  • Celebrity Paradox:
  • Child by Rape:
    • Julie Robinson/Martin was revealed to be this shortly after Jim died.
    • Declan Napier was conceived when his mother Rebecca was raped by her abusive ex-boyfriend, though the show stopped short of calling it that.
    • After Izzy finally came clean to Karl about him not being the father of her (since miscarried) baby, she claimed that she had been raped by her previous boyfriend Gus, who everyone knew had been mentally unstable. He found out she was lying a day later.
    • Hugo was conceived as a result of Andrea Somers's Bed Trick on Toadie, when he still believed she was Dee.
    • In a statutory rape example, David and Leo Tanaka were conceived as a result of Paul unwittingly sleeping with 15-year-old Kim Taylor.
  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Shane Ramsay. It seems to have happened to Libby Kennedy too.
    • More of a Long Bus Trip: We were given an explanation for why they left, just not for why they never came back, although we only learned that Shane had moved to Brisbane after the fact.
    • One could also argue it has happened to Liz Conway, who for several months now has not even been mentioned, let alone made an actual appearance, despite all the drama Elly and Bea underwent with Finn, the aftermath of his death and his brother Shaun (also Elly's baby's father) reappearing from the dead.
    • Des Clarke in his recent extended guest appearance just left without notice.
    • Scott Robinson was a borderline case: although we knew he was moving to Brisbane, he never had a proper send-off and just disappeared without trace.
  • Clark Kent Outfit: Dr Karl Kennedy posed for a topless calendar and has a surprisingly good physique for a man his age.
  • Commuting on a Bus: Lucas Fitzgerald still lives close enough to Erinsbourgh to keep an eye on the garage he owns and was occasionally involved in Stephanie or Sonya's storylines. This can be attributed to Scott Major remaining on the show as a director.
  • Continuity Nod: Donna and Ringo's wedding is accompanied by Sam Clark's cover of Angry Anderson's "Suddenly". Ringo tells him that Paul put him on to it, having heard it at his brother's wedding years ago. This was, in fact, the song played over Scott and Charlene's wedding in 1987.
  • Contrived Coincidence:
    • Leaving aside the circumstances of his surviving being washed out to sea, Harold's return to the show required him to be assigned to work in a Salvation Army shop in Erinsborough, and then be brought back to No. 24 Ramsay Street by a customer, Marlene Kratz, where he was recognised by Helen Daniels - while still suffering from amnesia and having no idea that he lived there before.
    • The retconned backstory of Dee Bliss and Andrea Somers has created a string of rather massive ones. To put it chronologically: In 1979, Heather Schilling gives birth to twin girls at a women's shelter in Perth. The nuns who helped her decide that she's in no condition to look after both babies and arrange for one to be illegally adopted by John and Magda Bliss, who name her Dione. Heather blocks out all memory of the second baby and raises Andrea to the best of her abilities. Years later, Andrea briefly dates a member of the Zantuck crime family and unwittingly ends up on a hitlist. In 2003, shortly before Dee's wedding to Toadie, her adoptive sister Cecile is dating Riley Cooper, who also has connections to the Zantucks. When Dee is seen by Riley's boss and mistaken for Andrea, they send someone to the wedding and attempt to kill Dee by sabotaging both the limousine and the car that they actually ended up taking (despite having no way of knowing Stuart or Connor would offer it to them). After the "accident", Riley rescued Dee without being noticed and went into hiding with her. Years later, after the Zantucks had been arrested with Riley's help, Dee decided not to interfere with Toadie's new relationship with Sonya and started a new life as "Karen." In 2016, Toadie's former girlfriend Sindi Watts ran into Andrea while traveling through Western Australia and was amazed by her resemblance to Dee. Andrea latched onto this and put together a scheme to impersonate Dee and get her hands on her inheritance from Dee's adoptive parents. With the reluctant help of Sindi, she managed to convince Toadie and others she was Dee, and while there was no inheritance left, she managed to scam thousands of dollars from him and Sonya before disappearing. Sometime later in Hobart, she ran into a man named Ian who mistook her for "Karen", raising the possibility that Dee really was still alive, and when Toadie's family found out about this they attempted to track him down, leading to Dee's return.
    • Beth Brennan's involvement in the 2022 season finale, since it's fairly clear that the producers wanted to bring back Natalie Imbruglia because of her real-world fame but had to work around the fact that Beth had almost no connection to the then-current residents of Ramsay Street (she did know Paul, however briefly, but by this point he's been in the Lassiters penthouse for a while. She also would have met Terese offscreen, but it's doubtful they were ever friends given her role in breaking up her marriage to Brad. Ironically her son Ned had been living in the street until a matter of weeks earlier, and also returned for the finale). The sequence is triggered by Karl posting one of his songs on a recently-created Facebook page dedicated to Ramsay Street. Beth, despite never having met Karl, happens to be watching it within earshot of Felicity Scully, who recognises Karl's voice. (Note that Flick was last stated to be living and working in Los Angeles, while Beth was last mentioned to be in Perth.) The two start talking and realise they both lived in the same house at different times. Later, when Flick records a message for Toadie to congratulate him on his wedding, she involves Beth in it, even though (as Beth herself points out) she had never met Toadie or Melanie.
  • Crying Wolf: Shortly after Paul's attempt at winning Terese back by Playing Sick is exposed, he collapses for real from internal bleeding, with none of his family coming to help except for Glen.
  • Curse Cut Short: When Nicolette expresses her dissatisfaction with Jane's mollycoddling of her brother Byron, she says "his nappy needs changing, it is full of" before Jane exclaims "Nicolette!"
  • Dating What Daddy Hates: Libby Kennedy's relationship with ex-con Darren Stark for a while caused an enormous rift between herself and her father Karl.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Frazer.
  • Dead Person Impersonation: Andrea Somers as Dee Bliss in 2017. Subverted as of 2019.
  • Death of the Hypotenuse: Bridget's death may have been written in to allow Declan and Kate to hook up.
  • Defrosting Ice Queen: Madge Bishop was quite a cold and snobbish character to begin with, but became much warmer and kinder within a year or so of first appearing in the programme. Furthermore, though she may have been relatively modern and progressive compared to e.g. Harold and Mrs Mangel (though that is hardly saying much), she was in her own way very bourgeois and conservative too, particularly when e.g. insisting that Charlene should finish school and take up a secretarial course rather than become a mechanic.
    • Subverted in the case of bitchy American model Montana Marcel. She softens up to Leo Tanaka, albeit only so she can have sex with him in exchange for participating in the Lassiters' Fashion Week. Upon discovering this, Paul and Lucy Robinson pull the plug on the event.
  • Dog Got Sent to a Farm: Played with when Aaron Brennan mentions how his dog Harvey ran away when he was were kids and he eventually accepted that he wasn't coming back. In response, Mark reveals that Harvey was actually put down by the vet after he was poisoned by rabbit bait, which their parents never told him about even after Aaron had been searching for months.
  • Doom Magnet: Hannah Martin - between 1993 and 1997 she lost her grandfather Jim, who had a heart attack after playing with her in the garden, mother Julie, surrogate sister Cody, and great-grandmother Helen, who died in her sleep while next to Hannah on the sofa. Furthermore, once Helen died, Madge effectively became Hannah's surrogate Gran, and she also died just 18 months after Hannah and her family left the show. (Even Hannah's introduction could be arguably included in this, as the original pretext for bringing the Martins back to the show was for them to attend Todd Landers' funeral).
    • Sky Mangel - her mother was shot when she was a toddler, her step-grandmother died of cancer, her uncle, aunt and cousin were killed in a plane crash, her baby had cancer, her boyfriend died following an operation to save said baby. (Not to mention that her grandfather disappeared for five years at sea, of course).
  • Double Standard: Chloe's lesbian relationships are usually portrayed more explicitly than Aaron and David's gay marriage.
  • Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male:
    • Could have its own page. Lamentation of supposed male careless insensitivity and sexual insatiability emerges in unchallenged sneers, shouted castigation, and hefty slaps across the face.
    • A glaring example is Yashvi punching Ben in the groin because she was annoyed with him. Her assault is portrayed as endearing feistiness; Ben's rueful note of the bodily soft spot almost resembles an apology.
  • Do Not Call Me "Paul": Apart from Harold and Madge, virtually everyone calls Charlene "Lenny".
  • Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: The show comes uncomfortably close to this with Andrea's Bed Trick on Toadie, because while her actions as a con-artist are never excused, with Toadie even calling her a monster when he finds out, he's more focused on the fact that he's losing Dee all over again than the fact she just legally raped him, something the show never really acknowledges by name (or even treats the same as other rape cases that didn't acknowledge it by name) and if anything seems to blame him for it afterward by emphasising his decision to cheat on Sonya.
  • Dr. Jerk: Nick Petrides, a world-renowned cancer specialist determined to set up a cancer research centre at Erinsborough Hospital. His jerkass behaviour includes: inviting his sister's fiance's ex-wife and child to the wedding, supposedly to test Brad's loyalty to Terese, attempting to seduce Georgia Brooks to win a bet with Paul, forging a blood test to convince Paul that he has leukaemia in order to get him to support the cancer centre, and then setting up Georgia to get fired from the hospital after she makes her suspicions clear.
  • Downer Ending: Helen Daniels' sudden death from old age sticks out, since most of the episode was portrayed as her triumphant return from a long spell in hospital and her bringing peace between the Martins and Madge Bishop.
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him: The three members of the Bishop family were the only casualties of a crashed plane, which they only boarded at the last minute.
    • Also Connor, who was either killed by Paul Robinson's crazy son or went on a Long Bus Trip overseas. (The latter as it turned out, since The Bus Came Back in late 2012.)
    • Bridget Parker's death fills the 'awkward' part of this trope: She died as the result of a mysterious rampaging white horse running out in front of her car and causing it to crash. The horse is never seen, heard of or mentioned again. (Considering her family were in the car, you'd think they would have looked into that; Possibly even sue the owner of the horse for negligence causing death?)
      • While the horse did play a role, the crash was also the result of sabotage by a gambler who Lucas was in debt to.
    • Hendrix Greyson's death would have been a powerful, memorable Tearjerker... except it happened a matter of weeks before the show ended for good, making it seem completely unnecessary, especially since he continued to appear in dreams or via video messages for the rest of the show's run, meaning the actor didn't even need writing out! The decision to deny him and new wife Mackenzie a Happily Ever After was jam-packed with Unfortunate Implications, as the show promoted the hell out of the first wedding involving a transgender character only to have it end in tragedy after less than a week. The death was also incredibly awkward, since it required him to have no fewer than three "very rare" conditions in order to die of a failed lung transplant.
  • Early Instalment Weirdness: The entire first season only focused on three of the six houses in the cul de sac and a dozen regular cast members (the Ramsays at No. 24, the Robinsons at No. 26 and Des and Daphne at No. 28), with No. 30 only rarely appearing until late in the year when newlyweds Paul and Terry moved in. Clive moved into No. 22 in early 1986, followed soon after by the Mangels at No. 32, but No. 30 was strangely ignored until 1988 (and when it returned, it looked nothing like it did in 1985). Since then none of the houses have been unoccupied for long, and the regular cast has usually hovered around 20, sometimes more with characters living outside the street (such as Karl's apartment in the mid-2000s or the Lassiter's penthouse). In addition, the Lassiters complex and associated businesses weren't introduced until 1986 either.
  • Easy Amnesia: Harold Bishop; Amnesia used to explain a five year absence after he was swept out to sea, during which time he was living as 'Ted'
    • Susan Kennedy; slipped on some milk and believed herself to be 16. Her memory was restored when she re-newed her wedding vows to husband Karl.
    • Paul Robinson; after the removal of his 'evil brain tumour' he suffered amnesia and couldn't remember most of his crimes
    • Zeke Kinski; suffered amnesia following a rafting accident
    • Sonya Mitchell; suffered amnesia following an explosion on her wedding day which removed her memory of the day.
    • Finn Kelly woke up from a coma having lost over a decade of his memory, including his Start of Darkness.
  • End-of-Series Awareness: The (seeming) final weeks of the show saw so many changes that five of the six houses were put on the market at once, though all of the people involved except for Chloe at No. 24 ended up changing their minds for one reason or another.
  • Enemy Mine:
    • Despite their own petty rivalry, Paul and Pierce work together to fight against the troublesome Nicolette. That said, all their interference does is end up causing the very betrayal they were so worried about, with both being quick to blame the other for the consequences afterward.
    • Ironically, Paul and Nicolette themselves agree to work together to find out Glen's secret. It backfires when Paul spitefully uses what they learn to expose Glen's relationship with Kiri, with Kiri standing right there, and Nicolette gets a fair bit of the blame for it. (It was also telling how Nicolette was the first one to agree with Paul about hiding the disappearance of Krista Sinclair from the police).
    • Even though their own animosity towards each other never really went away, Lyn Scully and Rebecca Napier (as well as Paul's wife before them, Gail) worked together to try to convince Terese not to marry Paul.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse: Karl and Susan Kennedy were originally portrayed as a fairly mundane, middle-class couple who probably would have only lasted a couple of years or so in the programme. However, they became two of the longest-serving and most important characters of all.
    • Also arguably true of some other characters like Toadie Rebecchi and Terese Willis, who have long outlasted other members of their original families that departed from the programme after not that long.
  • Entertainingly Wrong: Brad and Lauren's long-lost daughter Paige comes to Erinsborough in search of them. After a day or so of observation without telling them who she is, she comes the conclusion that Brad and Lauren are married with three children (leaving her wondering why she was given up for adoption if they had a son so soon after she was born) and that Brad has a sister, Terese, working at Lassiters. After she summarises the above conclusion in a phone call with her adoptive brother Ethan, she immediately has an encounter with Brad and Lauren, who are then joined by Lauren's husband Matt (the words, "I knew there was a reason why I married you," are used) and Brad's wife Terese. Her expression at this point is priceless.
  • Estranged Soap Family: Rare in this series, but there are a handful of characters who have not shown up for a while, despite both the importance of events and the teasing of the PR. This is usually the result of actors becoming major stars and not wanting to come back. One of the worst examples was Madge Bishop's funeral in 2001, which neither her children (played by Craig Mc Lachlan and Kylie Minogue) nor her brothers turned up for. (Max would have been impossible without recasting, as Francis Bell had died in 1994, though Tom, played by Gary Files, notably would reappear in 2015).
    • To a lesser extent, this was also true of Julie Martin's funeral in 1994 and Helen Daniels' funeral in 1997. Although on both occasions Rosemary Daniels and Michael Martin showed up, a whole host of other relatives didn't.
    • Ringo Brown's official funeral in 2010 took place off screen, with viewers only seeing a private memorial service held by his wife and friends, in order to avoid bringing back any of his blood relatives.
    • Even Scott and Charlene's wedding itself has elements of this. While Max and Maria Ramsay, Rosemary Daniels and Clive Gibbons all send telegrams, other once-prominent characters such as Danny, Shane and Tom Ramsay and Julie Robinson-Martin aren't heard from at all.
    • Other funerals also had elements of this: Bridget Parker's funeral in 2009 saw no mention of her brother Riley, uncle Ned or cousin Mickey; Kate Ramsay's funeral in 2014 saw no sign of her brother Harry. More recently, David Tanaka's funeral saw not even a mention of his mother Kim, and nor did any of Aaron's siblings come along to support him. (Chloe was mentioned as unable to attend due to flights being cancelled, but there was no mention at all of Tyler or Mark).
  • Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Or in Paul Robinson's case, his grandmother Helen. She was the one person he would always listen to and never ever harm.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Comes up a lot with certain villains, albeit usually with other villains who they don't actually have much of a moral high ground over:
    • As scheming and evil as both of them can be themselves, Paul Robinson and Tim Collins regard Nick Petrides as the lowest of the low. That said, it's open to interpretation whether this is a case of standards or just It's Personal, since Paul was the victim of Nick's crime and refuses to accept it when Nick undergoes a Heel–Face Turn, since Paul is unable to grasp the concept of someone getting out of jail and not wanting revenge. And while Paul has every right to be angry with Nick, whose actions were despicable from a medical ethics standpoint, Tim isn't actually any better when it comes to his legal ethics, considering he once agreed to screw over a client at the request of Paul, who was paying his bill.
    • In addition, Paul assisted Paige in getting rid of the corrupt Dimato brothers.
    • Furthermore, Paul and Izzy both regard Andrea Somers with utter contempt - posing as someone's dead wife to get money is too low an act even for them. Izzy even pitied Toadie for it, gave him free wrestling tickets and referred to Andrea as "that awful woman", while Paul assisted Sonya and Toadie in tracking Andrea down through a detective friend of his.
    • What's more, Paul was suspicious of the supposedly rehabilitated Finn Kelly before most others were. He even hired his ex-stepmother Beverley Marshall (now a neurological specialist) to assess Finn (though to be clear, he was genuinely amnesiac at the time), and during the "Endgame" storyline he played a major part in rescuing people from him.
    • Paul tends to act like this regarding Nicolette Stone, who admittedly has done her share of selfish, unethical and manipulative things, but has also done far more to atone for them than Paul ever does. (All the same, as explained in Enemy Mine above, the two of them have come to a reconciliation of sorts, principally provoked by their mutual disdain and suspicion towards his half-brother Glen).
      • In turn the late Gary Canning acted this way towards both Finn Kelly and Paul himself, despite his own decidedly violent and criminal history.
    • Despite turning out to be pretty nasty and insane herself, saucy nurse Nicola West was nevertheless useful in fighting against criminals like Pete Ferguson and Jay Duncan.
  • Even the Guys Want Him: Hunky gardener Cassius' good looks and body have stunned not only most of the Ramsay Street women but even Toadie and Shane.
    • Also an example of Double Standard, since the women all objectify him in a way that would be seen as downright perverted and retrograde were the men to behave in such a way towards a female character.
    • This is also how several of the other men reacted to Mark Brennan when they all filmed a topless calendar.
  • Everyone Has Standards: Although he was far from being a liberal hippy himself, Jim Robinson did at times find Harold Bishop's stuffiness and religiosity too overbearing and risible.
    • Notwithstanding Paul's own history of philandering and mistreating women, even for him Scott's attitudes towards women and sex during the early stages of his relationship with Charlene were deeply sexist and retrograde.
    • Despite Amy Greenwood's own flighty and sexual personality, she comforts Toadie regarding Melanie Pearson, who is even more unstable and unfaithful than her!
    • Although Eileen Clarke did have some of Mrs Mangel's busybody traits and got on better with her than did most other characters, even for her Mrs Mangel was too extreme and judgemental.
  • Evil Twin:
    • More accurately Evil Triplet: Robert and Cameron, in a rare example of the evil twin being introduced first, albeit while pretending to be the good twin.
    • Andrea Somers for Dione Bliss, though she was presented as an Identical Stranger for over two years before the reveal.
  • Evil Versus Evil: Several storylines since Paul Robinson's return have had him pitted against people at least as corrupt as himself, in particular recurring Amoral Attorney Tim Collins, the Hamilton Group in the 2011 season and the Quill family since 2015. The 2011 storyline has a scene where Toadie (then working for the developers' legal team, before he realised how shady they were) explicitly points out that Paul has no moral high ground after what he did while working for Affirmacon in 2005.
    • Finn Kelly (albeit before his memory returned and thus made him evil again) helped rescue Elly Conway and deliver her baby while Robert Robinson took her hostage.
  • Extra-Long Episode:
    • Episode #7337 in 2016, an hour-long episode covering the aftermath of the boiler explosion at Lassiters, which resulted in the deaths of Josh and Doug Willis.
    • In February 2018, Episodes #7776 and the double-length #7777 were aired back-to-back in Australia (though #7777 was split in two in the UK).
    • The "Endgame" storyline in March 2020, five double-length episodes split between the Lassiters Wedding Expo and Finn Kelly's murderous plan on Pierce's Island.
    • The 2022 season's final weeks had two or three regular episodes stitched together every night (the intent being to catch up the UK, which had been ahead of Australia for some time), culminating in the Grand Finale, effectively a ninety-minute-long episode dedicated to the wedding of long-time characters Toadie Rebecchi and Melanie Pearson which also featured the return of many former cast mates as one final send off to Neighbours.
  • Fake Guest Star: Katya, Will, Nicola.
  • Fanservice: Not to the extent of Home and Away, but there are still quite a few racy shots of both male and female characters.
  • Fidelity Test: Happened offscreen when Nicolette tried to expose Sasha McLain as an adulterous hypocrite, which backfired horribly by not only breaking up Sasha and Veronica but also Nicolette and Kiri.
  • Flashback with the Other Darrin: When Kim Taylor (now Kim Tanaka) was reintroduced after 32 years, her relationship with Scott Robinson was brought up when her son found yearbook photos of the two. The Scott pictured was Jason Donovan, who replaced Darius Perkins a year after Kim's departure.
    • In 1993, a flashback to Loretta Martin's 1985 death used Ian Rawlings (who took over the role in 1992) as Philip rather than Christopher Milne.
    • Chloe's wedding album featured photos of Pierce as played by Don Hany rather than Tim Robards.
  • Fourth-Date Marriage: The show's first season was ridiculously prone to Fourth Date Engagements, though only one of those actually made it to a wedding by the end of the year. The worst was the relationship between Jim Robinson and Anna Rossi, which progressed from meeting to engagement to breakup in the space of seven half-hour episodes, spanning two weeks.
  • Friends with Benefits: Kyle and Jade tried this, though Jade was already in love with Kyle by this point.
  • Full-Name Ultimatum: When Sheila Canning is very angry or determined about something, she will often shout "Kyle Francis Canning".
  • Funny Background Event: An episode in 2007 had a cameo by David Walliams and Matt Lucas as Little Britain characters Lou and Andy. The characters have no impact on the surrounding scene (involving a disastrous date between Pepper and Karl's boss Dave at the Scarlet Bar), but it plays out like a typical Lou and Andy sketch, with Andy getting out of his wheelchair to play an arcade game while Lou is distracted talking to Harold.
  • Game Show Appearance: The Canning family appeared on Family Feud (which at the time aired half an hour earlier on the same channel) in 2016, winning $10,000 despite almost being derailed by Xanthe's stage fright and Sheila learning about Gary's affair with Terese.
  • The Ghost: The show has had plenty of these, though a few stand out given that they supposedly lived in the cul de sac at the time:
    • Mrs. Mangel's husband Len was never seen when the two moved into No. 32, and he left her for another woman towards the end of the year. He did however make an appearance in 1994, years after Nell and the extended Mangel family had left the street.
    • The Simpson family moved into No. 30 after Terry was arrested and Paul went back to No. 26, but "mostly kept to themselves" before moving out in 1988.
  • The Glasses Gotta Go: Jane Harris' makeover in large part revolved around this.
  • Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Played straight on numerous occasions, with at least two stories where a girl was considering an abortion to the point of making an appointment at a clinic, only to be either talked out of it by the father (Bridget and Declan) or distracted by the father being in a fatal accident (Phoebe and Todd). Subverted in the backstory of Charlene Mitchell, however, who got pregnant a year before she joined the show and (as was briefly mentioned onscreen but depicted in one of the tie-in books) chose to secretly induce her own miscarriage with a bottle of gin and a hot bath.
  • Gosh Dang It to Heck!!: Aaron Brennan saying "I can smell sh sh Sheila!"
  • Granola Girl: Dee Bliss and Sonya Rebecchi.
  • Happy Ending Override: The 2023 revival begins by breaking up Toadie and Melanie, who had married in the 2022 finale, while also revealing that Paul and Terese's reconciliation didn't last (though how "happy" the latter ever was is debatable).
  • Have You Told Anyone Else?: Shortly before he was due to leave on a holiday, Connor learned that the missing 'Robert' (who is really Cameron) is in a coma at a nursing home. He immediately went to tell Robert's identical twin 'Cameron' (who is really Robert) the good news. This was the last time he ever appeared on the show, and Robert was later seen driving Connor's ute and digging up the front garden. In what is either a genuine subversion or a Retcon, Connor was seemingly proven to be alive and well later in the year, when police found his wallet in China, and the following year (long after Robert was arrested) he sent Toadie and others gifts for St. Patrick's Day, also from China. He subsequently returned for a few weeks in 2012.
  • He Cleans Up Nicely: Both Toadie and Shane Rebecchi look a lot more slim, well-kempt and generally attractive than as teenagers.
  • Helicopter Parents: Eileen Clarke, to the point of moving in with Des without warning, trying to set him up with his ex, and later trying to get him to name his son Winston Kingsley Clarke.
  • Heterosexual Life-Partners: Harold and Lou. They actually started off as fierce love rivals but now they're like an old married couple.
  • Hippie Name: The Gottliebs: Cosmic and Freedom, and sister Serendipity. The brothers call themselves Mark and Stephen; Serendipity, being something of a free spirit herself, kept her name but uses "Ren" as a nickname.
  • Hollywood Healing: In an early episode, Shane Ramsay ends up with spinal damage after a car crash, and the doctors say that he might be able to walk again, though his diving career is over. Two episodes later, he's out of bed and on a camping trip with his brother, and the only longterm consequence is that Danny is persuaded to take up diving instead.
    • A sort-of example with Krista Sinclair. She is introduced as a kidnap victim and drug addict, but within a matter of weeks becomes a highly-polished businesswoman.
  • Hot Teacher: Michael Williams, Dan Fitzgerald and Pepper Steiger. To a lesser extent Finn Kelly. Also principal Andrew Simpson, who was even mistaken for a stripper at a party for Libby Kennedy.
  • Hotter and Sexier: Hendrix Grayson.
  • Hypocrite: Julie Robinson complains about Mrs. Brown's inability to stay out of other people's business, apparently forgetting how she just staged a vindictive crusade to get rid of Anna, the first love interest her father has had in the ten years since her mother died.
    • Karl Kennedy is often among the first to ridicule and criticise Paul Robinson for his past infidelities and inability at maintaining relationships, with the latter usually correctly retorting that the former's own record isn't exactly squeaky clean either.
    • Karl's judgementalism towards Melanie Pearson for her history of infidelity is a bit rich too.
    • Paul himself has a rant at Nicolette - calling her a terrible person, liar, schemer, etc, none of which he has any moral high ground for. note  One particularly galling moment is when he finds out that she knew about Pierce and Dipi's affair and didn't tell Chloe, instead engineering a situation where she'd walk in on them. When he feigns disgust about it, Terese has to point out to him that he also knew about the affair before Chloe did, and chose to blackmail Pierce over it.
      • Nicolette herself points out to her mother Jane Harris after she calls Amy Greenwood a terrible mother because of Zara's (supposed) misdeeds, "what does that make you?" For her part, Jane denies that she would have ever let Nicolette get away with half of what Zara had seemingly done.
    • Nicolette is furious at Aaron for running away after David's death, apparently forgetting how she herself ran away when she was pregnant. (In fairness, Aaron does call her out on it).
    • "People like Brent almost always end up behind bars". Have you looked at your own record, Paul? (Though admittedly, he did somehow have it expunged back in 2013, and the last time he was in prison in 2016 was genuinely a frame-up.)
    • Paul is appalled when Leo announces he is legally handing over baby Abi to Aaron and David, calling him "selfish", despite the fact he himself was seldom around when any of his children were growing up.
    • Other examples of Paul's hypocrisy include him criticising Byron Stone for his history of prostitution, even though Paul has probably slept with just as many women as him - the only difference being that Byron got paid for it; furthermore, he blames Krista Sinclair for his son David's death, despite him semi-conspiring with Eden Shaw by informing him about the group holiday in the countryside, which would prove fatal.
    • Mrs Mangel used to ridicule Madge for being pompous, gossipy and having an unfaithful husband and criminal son...all traits that she was at least equally guilty of herself.
      • She also tells Hilary Robinson to "mind your own business" at Scott and Charlene's wedding after the latter criticises her for her argument with Dan Ramsay, despite the fact the two women are about as pompous and interfering as each other.
    • Toadie and Steph practically disowned Darren Stark for cheating on Libby, yet a few years later Steph slept with Libby's recently separated husband Dan Fitzgerald and became pregnant in the process, with Toadie conspiring with her by pretending that the baby was his.
    • Susan got angry with Karl for helping Andrea Somers and called her "a con-artist", yet she was the one who insisted on hosting Finn Kelly, who was at the very least equally nasty.
    • One reason why Claudia Watkins was unhappy about Elly Conway having custody over baby Aster was due to her dislike of her mother Liz Conway, despite the fact that Claudia herself is at a minimum equally untrustworthy, uncaring, manipulative etc. as the latter.
    • A much more benign and minor example than the above: in 2014 Lou Carpenter staged a campaign for Karl and Susan Kennedy to stay in Ramsay Street, yet just one year later he moved away himself.
  • Identical Stranger:
    • A woman who looked exactly like Kerry Mangel (and played by the same actress) visited Erinsborough some years after Kerry's death. This understandably shocked everyone who knew Kerry, especially Harold.
    • Andrea Somers, who impersonated Dee Bliss for months in hopes of getting her parents' inheritance. As of 2019, they are related after all.
  • If It's You, It's Okay:
    • When Mark confronted Elly about her cheating on him with Chloe shortly before their wedding, he asked if she was bisexual now. Elly denied it, saying, "I guess I was attracted to what she represents: someone who loves me unconditionally." She did briefly pursue a relationship with Chloe after her annulment from Mark, but it didn't last and Elly was only involved with male characters for the rest of her tenure. However, she eventually returned for the 2022 finale week and got back with Chloe.
    • One interpretation of Sky's feelings for Lana. They did kiss in 2004 but Sky stated outright she wasn't attracted to females in general and exclusively dated males throughout her time on the show. When she returned in 2020, it was revealed she had reunited with ex-boyfriend Dylan shortly after leaving and only broken up with him six months earlier...and was now marrying Lana. The fact she'd never shown interest in females otherwise was handwaved with a remark about how she wasn't ready to love Lana when they first met.
    • Nicolette Stone was introduced as a lesbian in 2020, but as of 2024 she has been shown questioning this after what happened between her and Sasha McLain.
  • Informed Attractiveness: Kyle Canning. Faye Brennan even asked him to pose nude for a drawing session she wanted to carry out just before she died. In reality, his face is quite average and his physique is more stocky rather than truly muscular.
  • Instrumental Theme Tune: When a long-standing character dies, Neighbours will sometimes end the episode with a sad piano version of the theme tune, together with a montage of photos of the character's time in the show. This has been done with Todd, Jim, Helen and Madge.
    • Though in Madge's case, the sad piano theme tune played over the regular 2001 credits, but with a montage the next episode of her recent period on the show. This was because, from 2000 onwards, Neighbours started filming in widescreen.
  • Internal Homage:
    • In April 1986, Scott Robinson saw someone climbing through the window of No. 24, ran up the stairs to intervene, and got punched in the face by Charlene Mitchell for his trouble. Thirty years later, this scenario plays out again with Scott and Charlene's children Daniel and Madison. The scene was referenced again in the 2022 final episode when Scott and Charlene returned to the street.
    • When Des Clarke returned to the street in March 2020, accompanied by an instrumental of the 1980s version of the theme song, the first thing he saw was Dipi Rebecchi accidentally spraying her husband Shane by turning on the sprinkler, the same way Daphne used to do to Des in the 1986 opening titles.
    • Paul Robinson told Ringo Brown about the song "Suddenly" by Angry Anderson, which was the song played during Scott and Charlene's famous wedding in 1987. Thus, in 2010, the actor Sam Clark recorded his own version for Ringo's wedding to Donna.
    • A sort-of example from Aaron and David's wedding, where Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan's hit "Especially For You" plays over it. The song is used again to introduce Scott and Charlene's return in the 2022 finale.
  • It's All About Me: Julie Robinson, especially in the 1985 season - she sabotages the first romantic relationship her father has had in the ten years since her mother died, to the point of manipulating her younger sister and slapping Anna at her engagement party, simply because she didn't want her role in the household usurped (never mind that she's 21, has a job and doesn't have much trouble finding another place to live after her father justifiably kicks her out for the above). She improves a lot after falling in love with Philip, encouraging him to go back to his children and give Loretta another chance (though that didn't end well) and apologising to Jim for the above.
    • When she returns in the 1992 season...she hasn't improved much. Practically her first act is to turn down a job Philip wanted (and lie to him that he didn't get it) because she considers it beneath him. (This backfires when he instead takes the even less glamorous job of school caretaker.) Her other social climbing actions include getting her superior Benito Alessi sacked to manoeuvre Philip into his job, and inadvertently causing daughter Hannah to keep quiet about the fact that Philip's prospective boss tried to abduct her by telling her it's important they be nice to him. She basically blackmails Philip into sending troublemaking son Michael back to boarding school, and she refuses to let Lou use business funds to bail out Wayne Duncan (before declaring she never doubted him when the charges are dropped). She's on bad terms with Jim when he died after objecting to another of his relationships (although admittedly she had reason to be suspicious of Fiona). In the end, she makes life so miserable for her family that when she finally falls to her death from a roof during a drunken self-centred rant, it's hard not to cheer.
  • Karma Houdini:
    • Even considering the Amnesiacs are Innocent factor, people have been remarkably tolerant towards Finn Kelly compared to other certified villains such as Andrea Somers and Robert Robinson, who usually are treated with weariness or even outright contempt. Finn himself has said this to other characters specifically regarding the contrast between how they treat those two and him. One of the few consequences he did have to deal with aside from his sentence was Lucy Robinson banning him from the Lassiters complex, which ended up putting a target on her after he got his memory back.
    • Paul Robinson is the ultimate Resident Villain with a huge case of Joker Immunity. In 2004, he murdered a man and torched the Lassiters complex but never received any legal punishment and only a token karmic punishment: It's now basically treated as an open secret among the residents. He has since committed a number of frauds and even attempted murders, as well as framing people for crimes both successfully and unsuccessfully, and is a massive Control Freak towards his family, yet never receives any real punishment and is always Easily Forgiven unless someone's leaving the show: He even managed to get the woman whose life he had been routinely making hell for the best part of a decade to marry him, and despite giving her numerous reasons to file for divorce, she still takes him back in the 2022 series finale, which also contrives a way for him to retain control of Lassiters yet again.
    • Rebecca Napier received no punishment for pushing Paul off a balcony in 2010, which actually led Terese to have a massive rant about her to him when Rebecca made her guest appearance along with Paul's other ex-wives in 2019.
    • Tim Collins never faced any consequences for his unethical actions as a lawyer, up to and including attempting to screw over a client on Paul's orders.
    • Donna Freedman receives no punishment for stealing her father's police car and knocking down Nicola West.
  • Killed Off for Real: It's to be expected in a soap opera, but if a character leaves Neighbours they either get Put on a Bus or are Killed Off for Real. There are very few inbetweens. A few examples of characters Killed Off for Real are: Daphne Clarke (1988), Kerry Mangel (1990), Todd Landers (1992), Jim Robinson (1993), Julie Martin (1994), Cody Willis, Cheryl Stark (both 1996), Helen Daniels (1997), Madge Bishop (2001), Drew Kirk (2002), David Bishop (2005), Stingray Timmins (2007), Marco Silvani (2008), Bridget Parker (2009), Ringo Brown (2010), Kate Ramsay (2014), Doug and Josh Willis (2016), Sonya Rebecchi (2019), Gary Canning (2020), Finn Kelly (2020), David Tanaka (2024) etc.
  • Knight of Cerebus: Robert Robinson is this in his 2019 return. During his initial stint, he committed several murders single-handedly, and even caused the deaths of several Ramsay Street residents by bombing a plane. As a result, he was locked away in a supermax prison (supermax's in Real Life being facilities designed to hold those whose escape would pose a threat to national security). The current residents fear and loath Robert to an extent far beyond the likes of Finn Kelly or Andrea Somers. The prospect of Robert being a kidney donor for the dying David is seen as an absolute Godzilla Threshold, and the show's tone is completely serious whenever he's on screen.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: When Jim Robinson died of a heart attack, his scheming girlfriend Fiona Hartman left him for dead and ran off with all his money. A few months later, off-screen she found a new young boyfriend who conned her out of her (partly ill-gotten) money and eventually she died in a car crash with him.
  • Last-Name Basis: Mark Brennan was subject to this for a while, including to two of his previous love interests Kate and Paige. Notably, after their first breakup Paige almost hooked up with his brother Tyler, until she called him Brennan and he interpreted it as her not being over him, rather than simply applying Last Name Basis to him as well as she claimed. The show seems to have dropped this trope since the rest of the Brennan family were introduced, in particular after a scene where all four Brennan men answer to the name at once and Paige notes that she'll have to get into the habit of calling him Mark.
  • Latin Lover: Rick Alessi. To a lesser extent his brother Marco.
  • Lawof Inverse Fertility : Steph and Max; Spent months trying for a child, and went through an unsuccessful adoption process before she naturally fell pregnant
    • Steph later fell pregnant from a one night stand with her best friends husband
    • Despite being told it was difficult for her to conceive, Izzy Hoyland fell pregnant from a one night stand with her ex-boyfriend, Karl Kennedy, who had just reunited with his ex-wife Susan.
  • Layman's Terms: When Hugo asks where Melanie is, Toadie responds "in remand"; Nell explains that this means "prison".
  • Lingerie Scene: A bonzer courtesy of Dichen Lachman.
  • Living Prop: Sienna Cammeniti (played by model and 2006 Miss Australia Erin Mc Naught) was added for the sole purpose of sexing-up the cast and helping boost ratings. It didn't work.
    • Lisa Hayes seemed to exist for the sole purpose of getting dumped by Lucas.
  • Long Bus Trip: Marlene Kratz went on a three month cruise and never came back. A similar fate had earlier befallen Sally Wells and Eileen Clarke.
    • Averted with Rani and Ajay Kapoor. They originally left the street temporarily to take care of Ajay's ailing grandmother in India. The show seemed happy to leave it at that but Rani eventually returned to explain that her father had found a job in London and they were moving there.
  • Long-Runners: Terminated after 37 years on screen, albeit brought back again a year later.
  • Luke, I Am Your Father:
    • Paul Robinson was retconned to be the father of Kim Taylor's children David and Leo.
    • Glen Donnelly turned out to be the father of Kiri Durant, though he went to great lengths to keep this secret for as long as he could.
  • Luke, You Are My Father:
    • In the 1990 series final, Glen Donnelly shows up at No. 26 and reveals that Jim Robinson is his father, the result of a one-night stand when he was serving in Vietnam.
    • Paige shows up in Erinsborough after learning that Brad and Lauren are her parents and spends weeks getting to know them under an alias. She decides against telling them on several occasions, but Lauren finds out for herself just as Paige has decided to leave the street and return to Adelaide. She catches up with her, and the two reveal her secret to Brad together.
    • In the 2023 revival, JJ Varga-Murphy finds evidence that Andrew Rodwell may have been the sperm donor that his mother Cara used to conceive him when she and her wife Remi had been struggling with an unnamed American donor. When JJ's suspicions are revealed, Andrew confirms that he did donate to Philippa Wade, a mutual friend of Cara, behind his wife's back, but as far as he knew she had destroyed the sample when he chose to back out of the agreement. In turn, Cara confirms that she used the sample Philippa gave her, but didn't know which sample succeeded. When Andrew and JJ take a DNA test, it turns out not to be a match, but the fact that both were somewhat disappointed about the result continues to cause tension for both families. The story was revisited in February 2024 when Andrew discovered evidence that his brother Felix could have possibly been the donor.
  • Manipulative Editing: Danny and Eddie record a private and extremely sensitive conversation between Scott and Kim, then edit it to make Scott sound like a rapist (exploiting Scott's sarcastic use of the words "Yeah, I'm the school rapist.") and Kim sound like a prostitute. They then make the mistake of bringing the tape and the recorder to school, where it gets found by their teacher - Kim's mother - who forces them to play it to the entire class.
  • Mercy Kill:
    • Susan performed euthanasia on her mother Grace (at her request) when she was a teenager. It's treated as her Dark Secret, coming up once every ten years or so.
    • Stephanie was falsely accused of this after her grandfather's death from emphysema, thanks to her mother and uncle walking in on her holding what looked like a Vorpal Pillow moments after it happened. She was charged with assisted suicide and convicted, but received a suspended sentence that she was later able to overturn on appeal. When Lyn admitted to suspecting her, Susan spoke up in her defence, confessing her own experience, which Lyn, a Catholic, did not take well.
  • Middle Name Basis: Shannon Louise Carpenter and Shannon Zachary Willis, for (initially) obvious reasons. What really made it strange was that Zac and his parents Gaby and Jack left the street a matter of weeks after the births, as did his grandparents Doug and Pam two weeks after that, yet Louise was nearly always credited as such (or as her nickname Lolly) afterward.
  • Mistaken for Junkie: After seeing Danni Stark inject insulin for her diabetes, Michael Martin spreads a rumour that she is using drugs. She goes along with it to get attention.
  • Monochrome Casting: Very much the case during the 80's and to a lesser extent the 90's, but has gradually got better since then.
  • Moustache de Plume: Inverted when Philip Martin became an award-winning romance novelist as Philippa Martinez.
  • Murder by Mistake: During the "Endgame" storyline in 2020, Finn Kelly attempted to kill Lucy Robinson for banning him from the Lassiters complex because of his past (something that hadn't been that much of an issue for the businesses in question in recent months and which, as far as she knew, he didn't even remember), planting a bomb in one of the giftboxes for the Lassiters Wedding Expo that was meant to go to her and Mark Gottlieb. However, due to a few couples switching the boxes around, it ended up in the hands of Prue Wallace, who set it off. Finn found out about the boxes being switched around in his penultimate episode, though he never found out who the eventual victim was and wasn't especially concerned about it.
  • Musical Theme Naming: The Brown family: Johnny, George (first introduced under an alias, Frazer Yeats, which he was always credited as), Ringo (who briefly passed himself off as Rick Yeats until Frazer's cover was blown) and Pauline (who never appeared on screen). There was also Paul, who drowned at the age of thirteen months, when Frazer and possibly Johnny were too young to remember him.
  • My Greatest Second Chance: David atones for refusing to save Gareth Bateman by insisting that Aaron and Leo save Eden Shaw before him.
  • Naked People Are Funny: Happens regularly with Karl and Susan being caught Skinny Dipping or characters, especially Toadie, being forced into nudie runs.
    • A standout moment came in Episode #7000. A week earlier, Toadie and Sonya decided on a whim to be naked around the house for a day, due to them finally having it to themselves for the first time in years. They were interrupted by a prospective client of Toadie, who got the wrong impression entirely and convinced them to host a naked lunch for herself and her husband. Toadie went through with it, being that desperate to earn their business, and Sonya agreed as well. The lunch was interrupted by an intersecting plotline, Karl and Sheila's search for the former's winning scratch ticket. Toadie told them they would have to strip to come in - Sheila refused, but Karl didn't, and he soon found the ticket stuck to Toadie's bum. Once the lunch was over and the clients apparently on board, they invited Toadie and Sonya to a naturists camp. Toadie decided to come clean, but the clients didn't care, declaring him the most dedicated lawyer they'd ever had.
  • Naked People Trapped Outside: On numerous occasions. At least twice this has resulted from a male character being forced to hide in the backyard from their secret love interest's family.
  • Never Found the Body:
    • Harold Bishop was washed out to sea by a wave and presumed dead. He turned up alive but amnesiac five years later.
    • Liljana Bishop and Serena Bishop supposedly drowned following a plane crash in the Bass Strait, but their bodies weren't found.
    • Dee Bliss was never found after Toadie accidentally drove their car into the ocean on their wedding day. In January 2017, she seemingly returned, with a …relatively plausible story of what happened to her after the accident (compared to Harold's, for example), though not everyone was convinced. And then she was revealed to be an Identical Stranger by the name of Andrea. As of July 2019, the real Dee has returned, with a significantly less credible explanation than Andrea came up with, involving her hiding from an organised crime family that had put her on a hitlist thanks to a case of mistaken identity which was apparently set off by Andrea in the first place, but which Dee's sister Cecile and her boyfriend Riley had found out about and went into hiding with her.
    • Connor O'Neill was thought to have been murdered by Robert Robinson after his sudden disappearance in 2006, but he was later hinted repeatedly to be alive, ultimately returning in the flesh for a guest stint in 2012.
  • Never Mess with Granny: Sheila Canning.
  • New Jobs As The Plot Demands: When Sky Mangel returned for the Lassiters Wedding Expo in 2020, she was revealed to have become a police detective at some point and was assigned to work on the Finn Kelly investigation. Admittedly, it had been nearly thirteen years since she was last in Erinsborough, but she never showed any interest in law enforcement in her four years as a regular.
  • Nice Mean And In Between: In the show's early days, the three main elder women were basically like this - Helen Daniels was the nice, compassionate and open-minded one, Nell Mangel was the nosey, unpleasant and highly judgemental one, and Eileen Clarke was somewhere in between the two (closer to Mrs Mangel in terms of her social views and general outlook, but closer to Helen in terms of her demeanour and way of relating to others).
    • Of the Robinson children, villainous Paul was of course the mean, Scott and Lucy were pretty nice, and Julie was the in-between - she had a much stronger moral code than Paul, but unfortunately it coincided with a rather unpleasant personality and demeanour.
  • Non-Indicative Name: Ramsay Street is actually a court (Pin Oak Court, to be precise), a point brought up by Sam Young when she visits with her father Mike in the 2022 final episode. This was something of an Outside Joke, since evidence suggested the "court" was actually only a small part of Ramsay Street: The next house along (inhabited by Vera Punt in the later years) was No 34.
  • "Not So Different" Remark: When Finn Kelly tries to rescue Elly Conway from Robert Robinson while she's giving birth, Rob says to him "Yeah, you're just like me - only you're free, and I'm not."
    • Finn himself lampshades this earlier in the hospital when Robert was (supposedly) being sedated in order to donate his kidney to David, saying to Karl that the crimes for which the residents cannot forgive Robert are not actually that different to his own crimes, to which Karl responds "you can't compare."
    • When Terese goes to a marriage counselling session with Paul, she gives a speech about his pattern of deceitful behaviour going back decades, explaining why she can't trust him anymore and why she may not even want to save the marriage. Paul angrily describes this as the pot calling the kettle black, citing her own choices like cheating on her fiance Gary (with Paul), perjuring herself to send Paul to prison for the Lassiters boiler explosion which killed Josh and Doug (which he was innocent of, and he had long since forgiven her for) and for covering up the hidden cameras at Lassiters.
  • Not What It Looks Like: Toadie says this in one episode after Sonya catches him with the plant she gave him to look after.
    Sonya: It looks like you're trying to repot a dead plant.
    Toadie: ...Then it looks pretty accurate.
  • Novelization: Several of these were written in the 1980s by Carl Ruhen, spanning the time period from the first week of the show to shortly after Scott and Charlene's wedding.
  • Oireland: Connor very much epitomised this, to the point where he couldn't even read.
  • Old Friend, New Gender: In 2019, Mackenzie Hargreaves came to Erinsborough in search of her father, (who she hadn't seen since she and her mother left him years earlier because he couldn't deal with her transition) and was reunited with Yashvi Rebecchi, an old classmate who had known her as Michael at the time. Yashvi recognised her but couldn't place her, and a misunderstanding involving her father Shane, who had been friends with Mackenzie's parents, forced her to come out sooner than she would have liked. The Rebecchis adjusted to this pretty well at first, but Yashvi ends up accidentally outing her to the school, first by talking about it without realising there was someone outside the classroom, then by getting a little overzealous in defending her. She redeemed herself for it by showing solidarity with Mackenzie after she received threats to stay out of the girls' bathroom.
  • One-Steve Limit: Literally subverted when the show made a plot point out of Stephen Gottlieb having the same first name as one of Phoebe's classmates, so when Marco told her someone called Steve was looking for her she assumed it was the other one.
    • Also subverted in 2021, when Sheila Canning met another Sheila Canning, after accidentally receiving her mail for a few weeks.
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: Several members of the Rebecchi family with fish nicknames. Outside of professional situations, the only characters in Toadie's life to regularly call him Jarrod have been Sonya, and to a lesser extent Paul and Harold.
  • Our Zombies Are Different: From the non-canon Youtube special, Neighbours Vs Zombies: the zombies are implied to be a result of toxic waste dumping, though this has affected characters who've been dead for as many as twelve years, were buried far from Erinsborough, or were cremated. The zombies themselves retain their memories up to the day they died, as well as their personalities, friendships and rivalries, and while they do crave human meat, they seem to possess enough self-awareness to at least try to control themselves - at one point Stingray appears to be about to attack Karl and Susan until Karl reminds him that the hospital canteen is still open. We eventually learn that Paul was responsible for their creation, his intention being to bring back his murdered niece Kate along with other loved ones. However, the zombies all end up becoming mindless predators, with the exception of David, and whether anyone in Erinsborough survived the night is left ambiguous.
  • Out of Focus: Lou Carpenter's appearances have become very irregular ever since Harold Bishop left, and even when he is in the show he seldom has any significant storylines.
    • Tom Oliver's contract gave him 4 month blocks alternating between filming and holiday which later changed to 2 month blocks. This has led to Lou's sudden preoccupation with visiting his daughter Lauren in Mt. Isa and (upon Lauren moving to Ramsay St.) his half-Chinese lovechild Mai Ling and adoptive daughter Lolly. He left the regular cast in 2015, and hasn't appeared as a guest since late 2016.
    • Erinsborough High School and the associated staff and students (the ones who are not regular characters) are featured much less than in the past.
    • Madge Bishop's appearances became notably less frequent and prominent in the last couple of years she was in the programme.
  • Outliving One's Offspring: Quite a few of the main characters:
    • Helen Daniels outlived her daughter Anne (who died from complications after giving birth, about ten years before the show started) and her granddaughter Julie (fell off a roof in 1994).
    • Harold Bishop outlived both his children (Kerry was shot by duck hunters in 1990, David drowned after the plane he was on went down in 2005) and one of his granddaughters (Serena, also killed in the plane crash).
    • Doug and Pam Willis outlived their daughter Cody (shot during a drug sting in 1996), as well as their grandson Josh, albeit only by about half an hour in Doug's case (both killed after the boiler explosion at Lassiters in 2016). By extension, Brad and Terese also outlived Josh.
    • Marlene Kratz outlived her daughter Cheryl (hit by a car in 1996).
    • Paul Robinson and Gail Lewis (formerly Robinson) outlived their son Cameron (hit by a car in 2006). Paul also outlived his son David (died from internal injuries after a fall in 2025).
    • Janelle Timmins outlived her son Stingray (died of an aneurysm in 2007)
    • Steve and Miranda Parker outlived their daughter Bridget (died of a pulmonary embolism after a car crash in 2009)
    • Sheila Canning outlived her son Gary (murdered by Finn Kelly in 2020).
    • Pierce Greyson outlived his son Hendrix (died from a botched lung transplant in 2022)
  • Pac Man Fever: this show loved showing people playing old style Game Boys with no cartridges in the slot, even in 2008, where the Nintendo DS was out by then.
  • Parental Favoritism: Max Ramsay made little secret of his preference for Shane over Danny, which was revealed to stem from his suspicion that he wasn't Danny's biological father. He was right, though ironically their relationship started to improve considerably after both found out the truth.
  • Parental Hypocrisy: Defied after Sadie Rodwell comes clean to her parents about Paul paying her to spy on Leo and Krista. While both Andrew and Wendy are disappointed in her. they acknowledge that they haven't set her a good example given that Wendy had asked her to take photos of Cara's resume and Andrew had gone behind Wendy's back with Philippa years ago. This, along with Sadie being an adult by now (and possibly also the fact that she did the right thing in the end by exposing Paul's collusion with Eden Shaw), convinces them not to punish her.
  • Platonic Prostitution: Chloe Brennan discovers she has a talent for this after she unexpectedly gets paid for a date with an older man, Orian, who was only interested in conversation. After getting a similar request from one of his friends, she realises there is a market for this and goes so far as to set up a side-business with a website, Cash For Company. It eventually gets her in trouble with her bosses at Lassiters when they find out she's behind it, but they're forced to admit she's done nothing illegal, and can't exactly shut her down as long as she puts some distance between Cash For Company and the hotel. Which naturally immediately gets tested after a wine supplier to the hotel, Pierce Greyson, takes an interest in her.
  • Polyamory: Ned Willis suggests that Amy Greenwood date both him and Levi Canning simultaneously. Despite jealousy issues, they do manage to make it work for a few months.
  • Promotion to Opening Titles: Charlene, Hilary, Melanie, Lou, David, Cheryl, Toadie, Darcy, Sindi, Carmella, Dan, Paul (in his 2005 return), Declan's new actor, Natasha, Summer, Sonya, Chris, Kyle.
    • The first characters added were at the start of 1986 when Zoe, Mike and Clive (who were all introduced in the season's first two episodes) were added on (curiously, Paul's first wife Terry was added to the regular cast in the end credits when Maria Ramsay left, but not the opening). Madge, who was also introduced in the season premiere, and the new Scott, who was introduced after a couple of weeks, were added about 50 episodes in.
    • Basically, anybody who is in the show for more than a few episodes as a guest part, will likely end up appearing on the title sequence the next time it's changed. If they don't, it means that they're most probably about to leave.
  • Prophecies Are Always Right: Sarah Beaumont dreams about Ben Atkins' racing car crash just weeks before it happens.
  • Protagonist Journey to Villain: Paul Robinson started this after being shot by his first wife Terri towards the end of the 1985 season, and only occasionally looked back.
    • Based on what he revealed in his counselling session with Terese, to some extent it goes back even further than that to his mother's death when he was a child, since which he has always felt guilty because he didn't take it seriously and support the family at the time.
  • Public Exposure: Matt volunteers to model for a life drawing class, on the basis that his wife Lauren was the only person who signed up. Lauren's father Lou makes a bet with her that Matt won't go through with it and then spread the word about the class, claiming to be worried that it will be cancelled because Lauren is the only one who signed up. As a result, when Matt steps out in a towel, he is shocked to find that at least a dozen have turned up. Right when he's about to drop the towel, the fire alarm goes off (pulled by his son Bailey, having been alerted to Lou's prank) and they are forced to evacuate. He's still left thoroughly embarrassed, though, as he's now trapped outside in a towel when Sheila refuses to let him go back inside for his clothes until the fire brigade has declared the building safe.
  • Put on a Bus: As with all soap operas, the show mills through a prodigious amount of cast members, especially the younger ones who set their sights on Hollywood a year or two into their contracts. 2013 was a particularly egregious year for this, sending Summer, Andrew, Tash, Sophie, Rani, Ajay, Vanessa and Lucas to various locations as the actors' contracts ran out.
  • Race for Your Love: Downplayed - Lauren learns that her long-lost daughter is headed for the airport and goes after her to stop her leaving. She catches up with her on the airport shuttlebus, about a block from the bus stop.
  • Real Life Writes the Plot: Actor Shane Connor was abruptly fired so his character Joe Scully implausibly disappeared to run a farm in Bendigo.
    • Due to Anne Haddy's rapidly deteriorating health, Helen Daniels was killed off in 1997.
    • Delta Goodrem's character Nina Tucker took a trip to Bollywood, when Delta got cancer (and treated for the cancer). She came back for a week or two the following year to wrap up her storyline with Jack Scully and wasn't seen in the street for over a decade.
    • Chris Milligan (Kyle) broke his leg in 2010, necessitating the introduction of his cousin Dane who filled in for Kyle's job and storylines while Kyle recuperated from his own broken leg in Frankston.
    • Russell Kiefel's death in November 2016, which had a long-term effect on subsequent storylines for the Brennan family, from Russell Brennan's offscreen death, to the introduction of Tyler's biological father Hamish Roche, to Tyler's false conviction for murdering Hamish and eventual exoneration, and possibly including Chloe's Huntington's diagnosis (she initially believed she'd inherited the gene from him because her mother hadn't shown symptoms).
  • Really Gets Around:
    • Paul Robinson. Now on his sixth marriage and has had many more girlfriends and mistresses over the years.
    • Melanie Pearson has a history of having affairs with her bosses.
  • Recurring Character: Neighbours loves this trope. Kim, Mishka, Steiger, Kirsten, Taylah, Sam, etc.
  • Refuse to Rescue the Disliked: When Gareth Bateman is critically injured in a car crash, shortly after shooting Levi Canning and beating up Aaron Brennan, David Tanaka is the first on the scene and chooses to do nothing, to the point of throwing away the necessary equipment so he can claim he didn't have it. May qualify as Murder by Inaction, though it is possible Gareth was already beyond saving. This breach of his ethics causes him considerable guilt afterwards, and when he ends up in a similar situation with Eden Shaw three years later, he downplays his injuries to Aaron and Leo and insists that they save Eden first.
  • Remember the New Guy?:
    • Jessica and Taylah were randomly introduced in late 2007 as the school bullies, and everybody on the show treated them as though they has always been there, harassing the main teen characters and bullying other students, despite the fact that (story-wise) they clearly hadn't been.
    • In episode #8000, the show introduced, and quickly killed off, Valerie Grundy (Patti Newton) who had been living at No. 34 Ramsay St (just outside of the cul-de-sac) for the entire run of the show. Apparently she was close enough to the rest of the street that she'd been invited to all of Paul's weddings and various other functions (the invitations being collected in a scrapbook found after her death), but it seems she didn't actually go to any of them.
  • Retcon: David Bishop was a childless singleton in 1988 but he had a 16-year-old daughter and a wife when he returned in 2003.
    • Elle Robinson was born off-screen in October 1989, so when she arrived in Ramsay Street in 2005, she should have been sixteen. Instead, she was nineteen.
    • Sonya Mitchell started off as Toadie's girlfriend with a history of addiction and mother figure to Toadie's adoptive son. She was then retconned into being Callum's actual biological mother who had kept her identity secret for almost two years.
    • The introduction of Jill Ramsay and her kids in 2009, complete with a backstory that original character Max Ramsay had had an affair with best friend Jim Robinson's wife and had a daughter with her prior to the series. This just came out of nowhere, and stands out because of three previous revelations involving the same families: in the show's first year Max had claimed the high ground over estranged wife Maria on the grounds that even though they had both cheated, he had never had a child with someone else (namely Danny). In 1991, Jim was revealed to have had a son from an affair while serving in Vietnam. And in 1993, Julie was revealed to be the result of Anne being raped by Jim's boss. In short, there's no way this wouldn't have come up earlier. Amusingly, the show seemed to lampshade the absurdity of this in the final week of the 2022 season, when Shane Ramsay looked at Paul's photo of Jill's kids and commented that he couldn't believe Max and Anne had an affair.
    • Similar to the above: In 1985, Scott's 15-year-old girlfriend Kim Taylor ran away from home and got pregnant by a creepy guy named Brad who planned to sell the baby. In 2017, it was revealed the father was actually Paul, a character she seemed to have a barely passing acquaintance with. And her father was retconned as her stepfather and her as half-Japanese, in an attempt to explain why two white characters have Japanese children, despite the fact that the big reveal of the original storyline was that her mother had a daughter out of wedlock who wasn't Kim. And Brad is inexplicably given a Race Lift and turned into her on-off boyfriend. The Kim of 1985 was so shy, inexperienced and repressed that she had to pretend to go to the library just to meet Scott for a milkshake: The idea that three months earlier she was going to uni parties and sleeping with not one but two older men was absurd. Likewise, the show seemed to lampshade this in the same conversation between Paul and Shane.
    • The number of retcons needed to make Dee's 2019 Back from the Dead even remotely plausible somehow managed to top this, with her disappearance being blamed on her then 16-year-old sister Cecile dating a mob hitman, resulting in her being mistaken for an Identical Stranger (after visiting him the day before wedding, even though she was seen that day doing no such thing) and targeted for death. (The accident in which she disappeared had always been portrayed as...an accident.) Said hitman somehow managed to both follow her car and be at the bottom of a cliff to rescue her from a lake (despite no other car being seen in the episode it happened) and then go into hiding with her and Cecile, who was shown to be in Erinsborough attending her memorial service at the time. It even contradicted details about how Cecile died from two years earlier. And then, just to cap it off, it was revealed that said Identical Stranger, Andrea Somers, was actually her Separated at Birth Evil Twin and her mad mother Heather was Dee's mother, even though a DNA test had already shown Dee and Cecile to be sisters.
    • A minor but especially baffling case occurred in 2020, in the lead-up to the 35th anniversary. When Jane Harris was asked if she could handle an engagement celebration (specifically between Lucy Robinson and Mark Gottlieb) given what was going on with her, she replies that "Lucy and Mark are two of my oldest friends," which is a stretch for Lucy (they were never particularly close when they lived on Ramsay Street together in the 1980s) and virtually impossible for Mark, who was first introduced four years after Jane left Erinsborough in 1989. The show has yet to elaborate on this remark. There's also a subtler moment where Paul seems to recognise Mark and greet him like an old friend despite appearing together in all of four episodes, 27 years earlier.
    • Another minor example was when Hannah Martin was helping Harold and Madge Bishop write Helen Daniels' eulogy, asking them "did you mention the play she was in with Cheryl?" This is despite the fact that Harold would not have known about Cheryl at all, while Madge would have only indirectly known her through Helen and Lou.
    • When Sky Mangel returned in 2003, she explicitly stated that Joe and Melanie split up as far back as 1993. Nevertheless, when Harold Bishop returned in 2022, Melanie said that the last time she saw Harold was when he had just reunited with Madge in Queensland, "just before Joe and I broke up", which would have been in 1996. Melanie also calls Harold "Jelly Belly", a nickname that had only been used by Lou in a couple of episodes before Melanie became a regular, while Lou only moved to the street permanently a few months after she and Joe left.
  • Retool: Until 1991, the cast was relatively stable and familiar. However, between Harold Bishop's disappearance in 1991 and Jim Robinson's death in 1993, the cast had undergone major flux, the overall tone of the programme became Darker and Edgier and, apart from the presence of Helen Daniels, for a number of years there was barely any trace of the programme's 1980's origins.
    • Other major changes occurred in 2004-07, which effectively began with Paul Robinson's return and introduced several very wacky and violent storylines (often involving Paul himself). In turn, this came to an end when Paul had a brain tumour removed and another major cast turnover occurred.
  • Rich Language, Poor Language: Certain characters like Paul Robinson and Malcolm Kennedy have become a tad posher as they have become wealthier, e.g. pronouncing words like 'chance' and 'answer' with a long 'ah' rather than a short 'a', and rarely calling people 'mate'.
    • For that matter, Toadie and Shane Rebecchi are noticeably better-spoken than their staunchly working-class parents Kevin and Angie.
  • Rising Water, Rising Tension: In the 1998 season final, Joel is trapped under a car that rolled backwards into a river. When it starts raining heavily, Karl has to work hard to keep him breathing until help arrives.
  • Runaway Bride/Groom: Isabelle, Toadie, Bronwyn and Marc have been in this position for various reasons.
  • Runaway FiancĂ©: Lorraine calls off her engagement to Des on the morning of the wedding, leaving him with a hefty mortgate on No. 28. And while she does apologise to him later, she is furious when she discovers that he's taken in a female tenant - admittedly, the stripper from his bachelor party, who had been there when she came by to break up with him - and vindictively decides to reclaim all the furniture in the house that she'd paid for.
  • Running Gag: Karl's terrible singing and his family's reactions to it.
  • Same Character, But Different: Paul Robinson's return in 2004, though the actual change arguably occurred in 1993 when he framed Philip for fraud and fled to Brazil.
    • The same could also be said for Madge Bishop on her return in 1996. The fact that she was far more meek, passive and peripheral than before was precisely why Anne Charleston quit for good. (Curiously, when she came back in 2015 as a figment of Harold's imagination, she was actually much closer to her original feisty and outspoken self).
    • PerfectBlend has argued this about Cody Willis's recasting in 1993:
    On more than one occasion new actor would seem to equal new character. A key example of this is Peta Brady replacing Amelia Frid in the role of Cody Willis. The Cody that returned from two years in America had changed more than just her face and hair colour. The cheeky kid who didn’t give two pins for school had become mature, responsible and a spiritual, forward-thinking young woman. A great character, but Cody Willis in name only. Given that Amelia Frid has confirmed on this very website that she was not even asked to reprise the role of Cody, it seems Neighbours simply wanted a new character, and an absent Willis daughter was easier to write in than an unconnected newcomer to Ramsay Street.
    • Samantha Fitzgerald, during her 2008 guest stint, was a fairly sympathetic Romantic False Lead to Dan and Libby, trying to make her marriage work despite her struggle with bipolar disorder, and came across as a Graceful Loser when the relationship did end. She was also an ethical attorney who had no trouble working with Toadie. Two years later, after Libby and Dan had broken up, Sam returns and has taken on the job of prosecuting Stephanie, who had also been involved with Dan and had a baby with him, for culpable driving, ignoring the obvious conflict of interest (though even here she didn't look too bad given that Steph was guilty of causing Ringo's death and Libby was willing to perjure herself for her). When she returns in 2020, she's still holding a grudge over Dan leaving her and blaming the Kennedys for it, to the point of getting involved in Claudia Watkins' custody suit against them after Susan's niece Elly is arrested for murder and helping her blackmail a judge to ensure that Elly ends up in prison despite the DPP's recommendation. When Toadie finds out that she was behind the blackmail, he calls her a disgrace to the profession.
    • Brad Willis in his 2013-17 incarnation was far more serious and even melancholic than the famously laid-back surfer dude he was in 1991-93.
  • Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: During Aaron and David's surrogacy storyline, Paul, Leo and Pierce were so convinced Nicolette was going to betray the boys they end up going out of their way to create an environment where she doesn't feel trusted and doesn't trust them, causing her to leave town and eventually hand over another baby to them.
  • Separated at Birth: Heather Schilling's daughters. She raised Andrea while the other was illegally adopted out and named Dione.
  • Series Fauxnale: Was supposed to end in July 2022, featuring the return of many cast members and a wedding between Toadie and Melanie. However, Amazon Freevee revived it just a year later.
  • Sexy Priest: Father Jack Callahan.
  • Shipper on Deck:
    • On learning that Kate fancies Declan, Donna goes all OTP and declares that Bridget was Declan's soul mate and he should never ever be with anyone else. She cools down later, though.
    • Sonya was steadfast in her belief that new parents Lucas and Vanessa should be together (and not just for the sake of their newborn son either) despite the fact that Vanessa still had feelings for her ex Rhys. They ended up quite Happily Married.
    • Toadie for Karl and Susan, on the numerous occasions their marriage was in trouble.
    • Harlow for Paul and Terese, after she kicks him out when the truth of his deal with Nicolette comes out. At first Harlow just tries to encourage Terese to give him another chance, before participating in Paul's scheme to win her back. She then takes it to an unhealthy extreme when she suppresses her own anger with Paul over what he did to her boyfriend Brent because she still wants to see the two reconcile. When she goes so far as to feed Paul lines that might convince Terese to take him back based on a private conversation they had earlier, Terese sees through it and confronts Harlow, eventually telling her to Get Out! after Harlow tries to argue that she knew what Paul was when she married him. However, even Harlow reaches her limit a few months later when she finds out that Paul tried to manipulate Terese into taking him back by Playing Sick, to the point of paying off a dodgy doctor for a fake diagnosis, and she refuses to support him this time.
    • Zara for her mother Amy and Toadie, though for her part Amy has no interest in interfering with Toadie and Melanie.
    • Nell for her father Toadie and Melanie, to the extent that she previously schemed to break up Toadie and Terese's marriage despite Melanie having walked out on them. She eventually comes around on Terese, though, and after Toadie does cheat on Terese during a Moment of Weakness, Nell calls out Melanie as "selfish" for pushing for it to happen as hard as she did.
  • Shout-Out: Andrew Robinson once made a reference to Scandinavian Pop music, complaining about how catchy it was
    • Amy Greenwood crosses her legs similarly to Catherine Tramell in Basic Instinct while dating two men at the same time.
  • Slobs vs. Snobs: A mild example in the early episodes, with the working-class and (at least in the cases of Max and Tom) foul-mouthed Ramsays contrasted with the more professional and aspirational Robinsons.
  • Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome: While it's never taken to the extremes of US soaps, there seems to be a trend of (re)introducing characters old enough to have been born before their parents had even got together.
    • This syndrome is especially prominent in the Robinson family, beginning with Lucy Robinson being suddenly aged up about two years after changing actors in 1987. Likewise, her third actor was a year older than the second.
    • Lucinda "Elle" Robinson was born off-screen in October 1989. When she was introduced in September 2005, she should have been fifteen going on sixteen. Instead, she was closer to eighteen or nineteen, played by 22-year-old Pippa Black, and her parents Paul and Gail didn't get together until 1987. By extension, this applies to her brothers Cameron and Robert.
      • The triplets' case appears to have gotten worse in 2019, with the introduction of Robert's daughter Harlow, born from a brief fling when he was backpacking. She was introduced as a 17-year-old, and celebrated her 18th birthday in July 2020, indicating that Robert slept with Harlow's mother when he was about 15 going by the triplets' retconned age. As such, he may have been aged up again to match his actor Adam Hunter (born 1982, as was Pippa Black). But it doesn't help that Harlow's mother's actress Denise van Outen is still several years older than him (born 1974). Incidentally, the fact that Harlow is played by the daughter of Jason Donovan creates a somewhat amusing effect given that his character Scott is her great-uncle.
    • Paul's first daughter Amy was conceived during his brief career as a flight attendant in 1985 but was stated to be three and a half in 1988 and a nine-year-old in 1992. May have been rectified after her 2015 return, though her actress Zoe Cramond was born in 1984.
    • Rebecca believed (or rather hoped) that Paul was the father of her son Oliver, the result of a weekend fling when he was a flight attendant (again, for a few months in 1985). However, onscreen evidence states that Oliver was born in 1981, and his actor David Hoflin was born in 1979. (For the record, the actual father was the same abusive bastard who had later raped her, resulting in her second son Declan.)
    • Hannah Martin is introduced as eight years old in 1992, but is later identified as sixteen in 1999 despite being portrayed by the same actor. Worse, her parents Philip and Julie didn't even get together until 1985, and she wouldn't have been born until at least 9 months after that.
    • Louise "Lolly" Carpenter, born onscreen in 1994, left in 2001, reintroduced in early 2007 as a 15-year-old played by Adelaide Kane. Not only would this imply she was born before Lou and Cheryl had even met (or by extension, Cheryl's affair with John Allen), she would have been born before Lou was even living in Ramsay St. May have been reversed after her original actor made an appearance in late 2013.
    • Serena Bishop, introduced as a 15-year-old in October 2003 even though her father David had been last seen in May 1988, still single.
    • Ben Kennedy/Kirk was born onscreen in December 2001. As of June 2014, he's a Year 10 student (15-16). May have been slightly rectified since, as he was still in high school in 2017. (Or not, since he was still said to be 18 and it was strongly implied that he had to repeat a year after being suspended for accidentally setting fire to the school.) Either way, like the above examples it's still skirting the timeframe of Libby and Drew's relationship.
    • When we last saw Liz Conway in 2002, she was pregnant with her second daughter. This daughter, Bea Nilsson, would be introduced in 2018, in her early 20s.
    • Holly Hoyland was born onscreen in 2007. She was 15 by 2018 and 19 in mid-2022, which would place her date of conception long before her parents had even met.
    • Nell Rebecchi was born onscreen at the beginning of 2013. She was mentioned to be in her first year of high school (i.e, 12-13) in (flashbacks to) 2023. What's more, just weeks later she was stated to be 15 in a scene set in December 2024. Again, either of these would clash with the timeframe of Toadie and Sonya's relationship.
    • Inverted with Jack Scully, who was introduced as a 19-year-old in 2001 who had been living and working in the UK away from his family for a few years. He was reintroduced late the following year under a new actor and aged down about two years so he could attend Erinsborough High.
    • Inverted with Andrew Robinson (ironically, considering his family history): born onscreen in November 1991, reintroduced as a 16-year-old in late 2009. His retconned birthdate(s) in August 1993 would require him to be born about a year after Paul and Christina left the street for Hawaii, but just before Paul's brief return (during which he framed Philip for fraud, then exonerated him and fled to Brazil, asking Christina and Andrew to meet him there).
    • Zigzagged with Summer Hoyland - first introduced as a 9-year-old in 2002, started high school and turned 13 in 2004 (same actor), spent a few years Commuting on a Bus before disappearing (around the time her father and brother left the street), reintroduced under a new actor as a 16-year-old in 2010.
  • Spear Carrier: Various characters associated with the Lassiters complex, the hospital and the police station. Kev Duve, Kristy, Susie Quilty, Nurse Jodie, Veronica Olenski, Det. Kevin Summers.
  • Spirit Advisor: Madge for Harold Bishop in early 2015. Jim Robinson for Paul on Christmas 2018. To some extent Finn Kelly for Susan in March 2021.
    • The first two involved Harold and Paul respectively crashing their cars, so Jim's appearance in Paul's imagination could be said to be a Call-Back to Madge's appearance in Harold's imagination.
  • Spot the Imposter: Upon Dee Bliss's return in 2019, she arrives at No. 30 in time to interrupt Andrea again attempting to impersonate her to Toadie. While Dee's first attempts to convince him who she is by bringing up their first kiss and their wedding vows are thwarted by Andrea having learned the same details, she succeeds by reminding him of the last words he said to her before their car accident, before revealing that she still has visible injuries from it, caused by her seatbelt.
  • Stalker with a Crush: Naomi towards Toadie.
  • Straight Gay: Chris Pappas, Nate Kinski and David Tanaka. Aaron Brennan is mostly this, though he did display a campier side during his dancing career.
  • Surprise Incest:
    • Done between Serena Bishop and Luka Dokich, the latter turning out to be Liljana's illegitimate son who had been adopted illegally without her knowledge. The two didn't go beyond kissing, but it was a close call - they probably would have had sex had they not been interrupted by a phone call about Liljana's health scare, and it was only because Luka turned out to be a match for Liljana's liver that her mother came clean to Serena.
    • Done again between Brad Willis's children Josh and Paige - with exactly the same illegal adoption story as above - but here the flirting is one-sided and Paige finds out who he is pretty quickly.
    • When Rebecca Napier learned that her long-lost son Oliver was dating Elle Robinson, she immediately went to visit old flame Paul and told him that Oliver was his son. Subverted when it turned out she was wrong.
    • David and Leo Tanaka's search for their biological father led them to Erinsborough and to their mother Kim's ex-boyfriend Scott Robinson, which put Leo's relationship with Paul's daughter Amy in jeopardy. As it happened, Paul was their father instead, thanks to a previously unhinted at affair shortly before the series started. As with Serena and Luka, Amy and Leo came very close to sleeping together, only being narrowly interrupted by Paul and Kim showing up to reveal the truth.
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute:
    • Tom Ramsay for his brother Max, hastily written in after Francis Bell walked off the set.
    • Will Grigg's (AKA Sebastian Barnes) never-before-mentioned brother Oliver, likewise hastily written in to replace Will when actor Christian Clarke left the show earlier than expected.
    • Dane Canning filled in for his cousin Kyle when Chris Milligan broke his leg.
    • Connor O'Neill for Lance Wilkinson, something that Lance himself was rather put out by when he returned in 2005.
    • Dan Fitzgerald for Pepper Steiger in the Ringo anorexia storyline.
    • In some ways, Cheryl Stark was this for Madge Bishop - a feisty, no-nonsense woman who became Lou's love interest. It is more than a little ironic that Madge was reintroduced to the programme just weeks after Cheryl's death.
  • Switched at Birth:
    • Bree Timmins was switched with another baby, Anne Baxter, which turned out to have been an act of spite by Janelle's mother-in-law Loris.
    • A sort-of example. When Paul bribes Nicolette to hand over her baby Isla to Aaron and David, with the condition that she never contact them or her mother again, she hands over to Paul a different baby, who is later revealed to be the daughter of David's brother Leo and his ex-girlfriend Britney. When Britney comes to regret this deal, she goes to Erinsborough and takes Abigail back, forcing Nicolette to return to the boys and come clean.
  • Teacher/Student Romance:
    • Rachel Kinski and Angus Henderson, who met at a nightclub while she was pretending to be much older. He only found out the truth after he started his teaching job soon after.
    • Libby Kennedy slept with her student Taj Coppin, who she knew had a crush on her, in a Moment of Weakness after Dee's apparent death. In contrast to Angus, this didn't destroy her career, in part because her principal Candace sympathised with her, having gone through something similar when she was starting out as a teacher.
    • Kate Ramsay was in a similar situation with Noah Parkin, kissing him shortly after hearing that her ex-boyfriend Mark had been killed (as it happened, he wasn't). It puts her career in jeopardy until Priya finds out about Mark.
  • Teen Pregnancy: Several storylines involving regular cast members, namely Phoebe Bright, Sky Mangel, Bridget Parker and Amber Willis.
    • One of the show's first major storylines centred on the teenage cast involved Kim Taylor getting pregnant after running away from home. She was Put on a Bus with her parents soon after, but the story was revisited in 2016 when her twin sons came to Erinsborough trying to track down their biological father - though they were only revealed as such after Kim herself returned.
    • Natasha pretended she was pregnant to punish her boyfriend for cheating on her.
  • Tempting Fate: After Paul is sentenced to community service for his theft of a petition to prevent the school closure and his discovery that Tim Collins has been named interim Mayor and is planning to demolish the community centre along with the rest of his legacy, he asks "How can this day get any worse?" Cue the arrival of his fourth ex-wife Lyn Scully.
    • When Hannah's grandfather Jim Robinson died, she said to Helen "Anyone can die? Does that mean Mummy and Daddy could die too?" 18 months later her mother Julie duly died.
  • Tie-In Novel: Two of these written in 1989 by Valda Marshall and Ray Kolle, both early writers for the show: The Ramsays: A Family Divided, begins with Madge's first meeting Fred Mitchell in 1965 and tracks the eventual breakdown of their marriage in 1985 (coinciding with Henry going to prison and Charlene's secret Teen Pregnancy), and The Robinsons: A Family in Crisis, the story of the month leading up to Lucy's birth and Anne's death in 1975. Both are generally consistent with the information presented onscreen at the time, to the point of Loose Canon, but the former changes Charlene's ex-boyfriend's name from Greg to Ian, and the latter has since been contradicted by retcons. context 
  • Time Skip: The 2023 revival picks up two years after the 2022 cancellation. Flashbacks to the events of 2023, including the breakups of Paul and Terese and Toadie and Melanie, have filled in the gaps.
  • Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Arguably how Helen Daniels and Harold Bishop have been seen - particularly in the eyes of the extraordinarily sinful Paul Robinson. In the former's case, Paul would always listen to Helen and could absolutely never harm her, however nasty and vindictive he might be to everyone else. In the latter's case, Paul refused to bring charges against Harold when he strangled him, feeling that he largely brought it upon himself. More recently, in Harold's guest appearance in 2015 when he crashed his van into the Erinsborough Festival, Paul refused to directly blame Harold and instead took out his anger on Matt Turner for the police not organising sufficient security around it.
  • Took a Level in Jerkass: Harlow Robinson, originally portrayed as very clean and straight-laced, has become increasingly manipulative and deceitful in ways not unlike her grandfather Paul, especially regarding her desire to improve her position at Lassiter's. She then combines this with a troubling Lack of Empathy regarding Kyle's cancer and Roxy's struggle to deal with it, which gets to the point where her friends wonder if she's actually being influenced by her father Robert's genes and turning into a psychopath. The show then seems to walk back from this implication, suggesting she's suffering from Compassion Fatigue.
  • Took a Level in Kindness: Leo Tanaka was introduced as a dodgy nightclub businessman, but became a much nicer person and much more ethical in his behaviour.
  • Trading Bars for Stripes: When Paul schemes to have Brent Colefax convicted for a robbery he was coerced into, to get him out of Harlow's life, Brent accepts a deal to join the military to avoid prison.
  • Trash the Set : Most notably at the end of the 2004 season when an arson attack on Lassiters completely destroyed the pub, doctors surgery and Coffee Shop. This was due to asbestos being found in the back-lot set.
    • The excuses for the 2005 set revamps included a fire-bomb attack on No. 32 and a vandal attack on No. 24.
      • Averted in 2000 when a fire at No. 26 resulted in no major changes to the set.
  • Ungrateful Bastard: In January 2021, after Nicolette personally rescued Harlow from a kidnapping, Paul managed to forget about this within barely two weeks before resuming his antagonism towards her and trying to get her out of David and Aaron's lives. In contrast, David, who had been far angrier with Nicolette at the time over her stealing from a dead patient years earlier, was quick to forgive her after the rescue. Though strangely, even David seems to forget about this later in the year when he agrees with Paul that Nicolette has caused them enough heartbreak.
  • Unrequited Love Switcheroo:
    • Kyle and Kate; Kyle pursued Kate while they in High School, but she wasn't interested. She proceeded to fall in and out of love with him over the following four years, starting around when he got together with Jade.
    • More a case of unrequited lust when Brett got the hots for Libby when he first met her. He managed to get himself a role in a school play where his character shared a kiss with hers. He found the kiss a complete let down and immediately went off her; she found it electric and wanted more.
    Libby: (to Packo) You know how I always said he was a total dweeb? I was wrong, totally wrong. After tonight, I reckon we're made for each other. The way he kissed me on stage was incredible. Just blew me away totally.
    Brett: (to Danni) There she was, in my arms, just as I had imagined... and then we kissed. And I couldn't believe it: Libby Kennedy is wetter and colder than a fish!
  • Variations on a Theme Song: The show has two versions of its theme song - the usual, upbeat version and the stripped-down piano version reserved for when someone dies.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: Roxy Willis and Harlow Robinson started out as bitter enemies, but are now a duo who snark at each other constantly but will go above and beyond for each other when things get tough.
    • The much more prominent, long-term example of this being Lou Carpenter and Harold Bishop.
    • An emerging example appears to be Paul Robinson and Nicolette Stone. Having previously been sworn enemies, to the point where he even bribed her to cut off all contact with Erinsborough - including her mother Jane - they are now much more on friendly terms, even to the point where she confided in him before her own family about the situation with Veronica, much to their annoyance.
  • Wacky Parent, Serious Child: Quite a few examples over the years, including Isabelle and Holly Hoyland, Andrea and Willow Somers, Estelle Petrides and Terese Willis, Cassandra and Donna Freedman (while the latter is wacky in her own usually loveable way, she is much more responsible and decent than her mother) and arguably Paul Robinson viz-a-viz his children Amy, Elle, Leo and David. (Rob Robinson is even more nasty and unstable than his father, and Andrew Robinson was a layabout).
  • Walking Shirtless Scene: All three of the Brennan brothers, one of whom used to work as a stripper (and is gay too, no doubt to the disappointment of much of his clientele).
  • Why Won't You Die?: Brad Willis in 1992: He was shot by Bob Landers, attacked by a shark, saved Beth and Hannah from a burning cottage...and none of it killed him.
    • Not to mention the various attempts on Paul Robinson's life. He has been pushed off a cliff (twice), lost a leg, sent poisoned letters, almost strangled to death, shot in the chest by his own son, kidnapped and mind-tortured, suffered from a life-threatening brain tumor, and pushed off the mezzanine of a building. Even he has expressed surprise over not being dead yet.
      • And the climax of the very first season back in 1985 involved him being shot by his first wife.
      • Furthermore, in the second season he survived a car crash, along with his brother Scott and friend Mike Young (Guy Pearce).
    • Another example is Harold Bishop. He had a heart attack, and ironically when on holiday celebrating his recovery with wife Madge he was washed out to sea by a wave, picked up by a trawler and ended up in Tasmania. He returned five years later with amnesia, and since then he has endured a stroke, another heart attack and prostate cancer.
    • Mrs Mangel in the two years she was in the programme endured appendicitis, a heart attack and a fall. She also had an even worse heart attack a year after leaving the programme when she had moved to England, meaning her granddaughter Jane had to move to England to look after her.
  • Yandere: Scarlett Brady, who meets Ned Willis at an airport lounge, sharing with him a drink and a sob story about her recent broken engagement. She becomes obsessed with him, following him back to Erinsborough where she cons her way into a job with him at the hotel and a room at No. 32 Ramsay St. She then drives a wedge between Ned and his girlfriend Yashvi by arranging for his ex Bea to be electocuted, while giving Yashvi the impression that Ned had broken off their plans because he was overreacting to a case of stage fright. She then exploits Ned's protective streak by claiming that her ex-fiancĂ© Rex is stalking her (even though this same fiancĂ© supposedly called off their engagement to begin with), and sabotages his attempts to reconcile with Yashvi. Before too long, Ned has agreed to start a casual relationship with her, but when Scarlett takes him on a romantic getaway at a B&B and shows up for dinner in a wedding dress, he finally realises how obsessed she is, leading her to stab him when he tries to end things with her. He only manages to escape thanks to the arrival of Bea and Yashvi, who have by this point have got in touch with Scarlett's actual ex-boyfriend Scott and learned that she treated him the same way.

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