Maybe it's just endemic of the low quality and writing ambition that we arrived at this episode on Boxing Day. After the cliff hanger that Mick went back into the water to save Linda, in this episode he's disappeared. Ooooh. So the fall out is Janine and Linda both heading back to the square under their own steams, to face off in the Vic. A distraught Linda has to tell Shirley that her son went in the water to save her but hasn't been seen coming out. Janine of course assumes he's drowned while Shirley, who suffers a brief fit of strangulation of Janines neck, goes through all the emotion of a penguin, when we the viewer knows full well that in soap opera land, if there is no body there is no death of said character. So all in all, the acting talents of the three ladies is just one waste of time if any viewer fell for the emotion of the storyline. It is so transparent that while Mick has certainly been written out, and we've been left to believe he died, we have to accept that given the parallels to Den and Angie with Mick and Linda, that this can only be a dirty den canal moment. It can be nothing else. So what a waste of effort this episode transcends to, the only satisfaction being that Janine is also being written out. Hurrah.