Packed To The Rafters - Tuesday 25th

I AM not sure how or why, but the two Rafters brothers and their crew Carbo, Jake, Coby go to a club tonight that isn't the one where Ben works.

The Rafter family

I AM not sure how or why, but the two Rafters brothers and their crew Carbo, Jake, Coby go to a club tonight that isn't the one where Ben works.

And even though they're dressed in the clothes they go to work in, they get corralled to a roped-off area and are given free drinks. Treated like girls, basically.

Turns out it's that club that Tom's friend of a friend's son owns, and to whom Tom wants Ben to fork over all his money. All Mel's insurance money $125,000, which buys a lot of free drinks.

Tom. That new haircut isn't fooling anyone. Is it?

I don't think just because Ted's gone all quiet means we should be less vigilant. Because where's the balance in Packed to the Rafters then? Nowhere.

So let me see if I've got this straight? You're saying even Tom's moved to Stepford and become a smiling, obedient part of the family? Or not exactly smiling. Tonight he mainly grunts. He reminds me of Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade who decapitated his mother with a sling blade and then used a lawnmower blade on someone else.

This is a controversial episode of Rafters. The shocking outing not to the Boat Club comes on the back of Nathan and Ben informing Julie (Rebecca Gibney) she's a hovering, smothering presence in their little sister Ruby's life. Over-protective helicopter mother may have been their exact words.

She doesn't actually know what a helicopter mother is, but she's astounded. She wasn't like that with them, they tell her forgetting they lived with her for the first 30 years of their lives before relocating next door. They're concerned Julie's raising a princess. They'll have a lot more to worry about before the show's over.

Packed to the Rafters
Channel 7, 8.30pm
Rating: 3 Stars.