Fan favourite Sky Bishop returns to Erinsborough this week in Neighbours, concerned about the violent break-ins at the new retirement village Eirini Rising, where her beloved grandfather, Harold Bishop, is now a resident.
And when Sky (Stephanie McIntosh) overhears a conversation among those in charge, her fears for Harold (Ian Smith) only grow.
“Sky hears Susan [Jackie Woodburne], Toadie [Ryan Moloney] and Karl [Alan Fletcher] talking about more break-ins and the residents not feeling safe,” Stephanie, 38, tells TV WEEK. “It validates everything she’d feared about him returning to Erinsborough and leaving her in the first place.”
This week, Sky looks into Harold’s living conditions, wanting him to return with her to Queensland, where he’d been living before making the major decision to move.
“Sky wants Harold to live stress-free,” Stephanie explains. “When she learns of the robberies and how reckless the kids [the youths breaking into the complex to steal things] can be, it shakes her faith in him being so far away from her at his age.”
Sky questions the ability of the three women running the complex – Susan, Terese (Rebekah Elmaloglou) and Jane (Annie Jones) – and angrily declares she wants to take her grandfather out of Eirini Rising.
“Sky is imagining the worst-case scenario, which would be Harold getting hurt or being in a vulnerable position where he can’t fend for himself – or that no-one will look after him the way she does,” Stephanie says.
Sky is in Erinsborough to bring Susan, Terese and Jane back to reality – considering all that’s gone wrong already, are they really equipped to run the retirement village? And will Harold be leaving sooner than the Ramsay Street residents could have imagined?
“No-one seems to have it together to put her mind at ease,” Stephanie says of what Sky has encountered. “On top of what she feels about it, she witnesses Jane in a slightly intoxicated place thanks to the emotional strain in her personal life, and it all feels very wrong.”
Neighbours airs Monday to Thursday, 4pm on 10 and 6.30pm on 10 Peach.
