Tonight’s episode of Home and Away in Australia revealed that former character Jett Palmer is engaged, setting up a new storyline for Marilyn Chambers.
With Felicity (Jacqui Purvis) and Tane (Ethan Browne) eventually getting hitched on Monday in the show’s historic 8000th episode, it’s been a wedding-heavy week in Summer Bay.
The following episode showed Cash (Nicholas Cartwright) waking up next to Eden (Stephanie Panozzo) and discovering the engagement band he had intended to use to pop the question to his previous girlfriend Jasmine on her finger. (Sam Frost).
After Eden plied Cash with drinks at Flick and Tane’s wedding reception, Cash had little memory of the previous night. Eden then spent the remainder of the day convincing Cash that he had drunkenly proposed when, in fact, it was just a prank.
Now we have another wedding in store, with the announcement that John and Marilyn’s adopted son Jett (Will McDonald) is engaged.
When Liz James and Richard Bozic’s son Jett first came in the bay in 2012, John and his then-wife Gina (Sonia Todd) took him in as a foster child. He later became John and Marilyn’s legal adopted child, departed the bay in 2015 to attend boarding school on a cadet scholarship, and made brief trips back in 2017 and 2019.
Jett sustained an injury while serving overseas in 2019 and was informed he would never walk again. He went back to the bay to be with his foster parents, but at first he lied, then he told Jasmine that he was afraid John and Marilyn would have to take care of him.
He was ultimately given a place to live in the city, and John and Maz have since paid him sporadic visits. John recently mentioned that Jett now had a girlfriend.
Early in Thursday’s episode, John (Shane Withington) told Marilyn (Emily Symons) in the diner that their son had called to inform him that he had proposed to his girlfriend Lyndsey and she had said yes.
Before Maz checked her phone and discovered it was on silent with a text from Jett asking her to contact him right away, she seemed a little annoyed that he hadn’t informed her as soon as they had hung up the phone with John.
John spoke to Jett on the phone a second time later on, where Jett informed him that that he and Lyndsey decided to go low-key on the wedding as they’re saving up for a house deposit – opting just for a simple registry office ceremony and “dinner at the local”.
However, John immediately decided that their son would be doing no such thing, and told Marilyn that he would be paying for Jett and his fiancée to have the wedding of their dreams – “our boy deserves a proper wedding.”
When asked how much that was going to cost, John replied to Maz: “It doesn’t matter, my treat.”
However, Marilyn wasn’t happy with this, telling John he couldn’t pay for it on his own, seemingly not wanting Jett to think only one of his parents had contributed.
John kindly responded that he’d simply tell Jett that the money was from the both of them, but it was clear that Maz had no intention of letting him do so.
Jett’s proposal appears to be creating a new plot for Marilyn. We were unsure of what to expect because the synopsis for tonight’s episode stated in a mysterious manner that “Marilyn needs to get rich, quick.”
Now that we know, Marilyn desires a 50/50 split of the cost of the extravagant wedding instead of John footing the bill alone. She therefore needs to quickly gather money.
In additional scenes from tonight’s episode, Maz told Irene (Lynne McGranger) that she would work any extra shifts at the diner because she needed to quickly collect as much money as possible.
Marilyn explained to Irene that she hasn’t even met Jett’s fiancée, while John, who recently visited the pair in the city, is acting as if they are best friends – so she just wants to show Jett how much he means to her.
Irene suggested that Maz expand her tarot reading as a way to make some extra cash, but Maz said she doesn’t have enough customers in Summer Bay to make any money.
Irene also suggested she restart her hair and beauty business, but while Maz liked the idea, she pointed out that by the time she’d got it set up and making money, the wedding would have been and gone.
She needs a “side hustle”, she added, something she can do on top of her existing shifts at the diner.
Next week’s synopses give us some hints as to what’s in store as Maz does anything she can to earn some extra cash.
In next Tuesday’s episode, “Kirby is Marilyn’s marketing saviour,” while in the final episode of next Wednesday’s triple bill, “Marilyn’s stuck in a sales trap.”
As ‘get rich quick’ schemes never usually end well, we imagine plenty of things will go wrong for Marilyn in the weeks to come…
Next week in Australia, Home and Away will air single episodes on Monday and Tuesday as usual, followed by a triple-bill on Wednesday. There are no episodes next Thursday evening.
UK viewers will see these scenes in late May.
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