Connor Is A Goner

I've always liked Connor O'Neill on Neighbours, and have even taken quite a shine to the actor who portrays him, Patrick Harvey.




But during the course of last week (and late the week before), we saw his storylines being drawn to a rapid close. Actually, the first signs of his imminent departure were laid when he received a call from Carmella's mother asking him to track down her missing daughter. This is when the warning bells went off for me (plus, I had already learned, at least a month earlier, that Patrick had left the series).

When he found Carmella (which he managed surprisingly easily, considering her mother hadn't been able to accomplish the same task in six months - but I guess those two hours he spent completing his private detective course at Erinsborough TAFE were worthwhile after all!), she was in a convent, naturally, ready to take her vows and become a nun. She had been driven to this point in her life after being wracked with guilt for what she had done to Connor and his then-girlfriend (it'd be pretty sick to continue a relationship with her after she'd died, after all) Serena Bishop.

For those of you not in the know, this previous plot had involved blackmail, deception, and Connor having to steal money from the business he ran with Toadie and Serena (the bikini shop) to pay Carmella's fictitious debts to her father's loan sharks. After he did so and Carmella felt bad about it, she returned the money to the store anonymously, although Connor thought he was going to be arrested for burglary when the plane he and several other Ramsey Street characters (including Paul, Izzy, Serena and her parents David & Liljana) were traveling on across Bass Strait arrived in Tasmania.

This is when Robert Robinson's bomb (intended for Paul, apparently; although Robert's 'plan B' has been a lot more elaborate and slow to progress) went off, bringing down the plane and costing the three Bishop family members' lives (David, Liljana and Serena all perished, although only David's body was recovered -- an opportunity for a surprise comeback some day for the two women, perhaps?). Knowing that Serena had died, Connor (who'd washed up on shore with Dylan) decided to fake his own death and start a new life on the run.

Carmella, obviously not hearing of Connor's eventual return to civilisation a few weeks later, had run away to a convent to seek forgiveness. When she saw Connor the week before last, she was relieved and asked him for the forgiveness she was seeking. Initially he was peeved with her and wasn't exactly generous in the mercy department. However, he returned to the convent a few days later to try to talk her out of taking her vows, or at least to come and stay in 'The House Of Trouser' with them for a week to catch a glimpse of her old life again -- before it was too late -- to see if this 'nun thing' was what she truly wanted.

She agreed to give it a go for a week, and I started to think that maybe he'd convince her that life with him was worth another shot and his farewell storyline would revolve around the two of them leaving Erinsborough to start a new life together somewhere else. But then TV Week spoilt that for me by showing spoiler shots of Robert threatening Connor with physical violence, and the ever-so-subtle text emblazoned across the bottom of the pic: "Connor's tragic farewell - MURDERED BY ROBERT?" Nice. Thanks for leaving some mystery for me!

Within two or three days last week, the remainder of Connor's storylines were wrapped up, as he came to a crisis of conscience and decided that his life was in a major rut and he needed to go traveling around Australia alone 'to find himself'. He accepted that Carmella had changed as a person and that the 'nun thing' was right for her. Stu had moved back with his family, Toadie had the lawyer thing to give his life purpose, but Connor's self-worth was at an all-time low. I must say I liked that this was even tackled as a 'motivation' point at all. It's very true to how many people feel, but we don't often hear TV characters saying this kind of thing (unless it's on a sitcom, and someone's about to make them feel even worse for a cheap laugh).

From this point on, things were handled in such a way so as to telegraph the fact that if Connor were to go missing, nobody would even notice. Here are the main warning points I noticed, in a nutshell:

- He assured Toadie that his share of the mortgage repayments were going to be deducted automatically, so there was no need to worry about that while he was traveling;

- He was going to be gone for at least six months, maybe longer, maybe a year, he didn't know;

- He gave Toadie his secret family beer recipe, which was supposed to be handed down from family member to family member only (Toadie: "You can't tell me that - I'm not family!" Connor" "Yes you are." Audience: "Awwwww.")

- His final words to Toadie were: "Hey, name your first kid after me!" (Famous last words to haunt Toadie thereafter if ever I heard them - that's why I also predict that Toadie will eventually father a child that will be named after Connor ... and this will possibly happen around the time that Connor's disappearance/death is discovered. Six months? One year? Two years?)

- The whole idea of his travels mean that it's likely he'll be out of range of communication on-and-off for the whole time, stopping his friends in Ramsey Street from being suspicious when they can't get through to him on his mobile;

- And finally, Carmella going on a two year sojourn after she took her vows in her final guest appearance last week; the first month of which is in the country somewhere, so it's quite likely that no one will even suspect anything's wrong until she returns to Erinsborough after her 'nun thing' has run its course. Although it's equally possible, with the Robert/Cameron Robinson having taken a new twist this week, that things may come to a head earlier than that, and some light will be shed as to Connor's whereabouts.

Unfortunately, I don't see how Connor could still be alive. I wish he was, and that Patrick Harvey will one day return to the show, but it seems strange to me that Robert, who happily put a bomb in a plane full of strangers and then in his sister's car, would do anything other than eliminate the one person who (at that time) stood to unwittingly uncover his twin-swap ruse. We saw Robert driving Connor's ute out of Ramsey Street, with the camera focusing on the covered tarpaulin across the tray in the back, as if to underline the fact that Connor was inside. Then we didn't see anything else.

It's possible that he was simply unconscious or tied up, and Robert threatened his life if he ever came back or said anything to anyone, and sent him on his way (but unlikely as far as character motivation goes, and would also make Connor an inexcusable coward), so I fear that the young Irish lad is dead. There's also the possibility that somehow Robert left Connor to die, but he recovered, and suffered from that old soapie staple, amnesia. Or something like that. It's a tried-and-tested formula (it worked for Susan several years ago), so maybe this is where they're going with the Connor storyline.

In all honesty, I think what's really happened is they've found a way to keep it 'open-ended' until they know for sure if Patrick Harvey is going to return to the show. The writers have kept it mysterious and unstated on purpose, so that in the case of Patrick being happy to return, they can turn his disappearance into something plausible like the above suggestions (or hopefully better -- after all, that's why they get paid the big bucks). And if they get confirmation that he doesn't want to return, they an always have someone stumble across his remains or something. (They can still do this and have him return later, of course -- that's the beauty of TV soaps.) How can you not want this sexy lad to be back on our screens?




But all of the above points coming out in less than two days of dialogue between Connor and Toadie really made it clear that Connor was going to disappear and no one was even going to realise he was in danger. This troubles me no end. The idea that someone could be murdered or dying or in some kind of danger, and that their friends wouldn't even realise there was any cause for alarm for anywhere between six months and two years really disturbs me.

I feel quite bad for the character, and I know how stupid that sounds. I wonder how any children watching feel about it, though. Is it the sort of thing that might worry them? The idea that Robert possibly killed Connor, possibly not, and that no one's even raising any alarm for him?

I wonder if Toadie's gonna have a kid with Katya. It's gonna be someone, I'm telling you. He has already had his own 'crisis of conscience' lately, particularly in relation to girls, and it's clear that he's destined to eventually have a relationship with Katya once the Robert/Cameron thing has run its course. Whether that means Toadie and Katya marry (or don't marry) and have a kid together, I don't know. But I'm tipping that Toadie will father a child (probably a son) at some point in the next two years, and sometime before then Connor's disappearance (if not his actual whereabouts or whether he's alive) will become known ... and Toadie will remember Connor's last words to him and name his kid after him.

That's a pretty specific tip I'm giving. And it's one that's not necessarily going to play out soon. So I hope you all take note of when I said this, so we can re-visit this post in the years/months to come and see how close or not I really was.

Personally, I hope Patrick Harvey returns to the show, and Connor is discovered alive and well somewhere, only to come back to Ramsey Street once more (even if the writers have to resort to the amnesia idea, and the other characters first think he's dead and mourn him -- including the Connor Rebecchi idea).

So has Connor got the luck of the Irish? Or has time run out for him, once and for all?