A Marriage Made In Hell!
From TV Week, 15 March 1986. Written by Stephen Cook.

               

    Scheming Jilly walks down the aisle again, but love has nothing to do with it

    LOVE? That's one emotion which is out of the question when super-schemer Jilly Stewart remarries her insipid former husband in this week's episode of Return To Eden on Network 10.

    Since getting out of jail hellbent on revenge, Jilly, played by beautiful Peta Toppano, has been plotting to re-enter the life of Phillip Stewart (John Lee) in a big way.

    But it's not for love - she's been having a sizzling romance with her male counterpart in the cunning stakes, Jake Sanders (Daniel Abineri), since she set eyes on him!

    Jilly, however, knew she needed to remarry Phillip, and she got her way (yet again) when the poor man stupidly proposed to her a couple of weeks ago.

    This week her dream - and what will become Phil's nightmare - is realised.

    As she t ells her rich hubby: "It's a whole new beginning, a chance I thought we'd never have. I wish I could show you just how much this means to me. "

    It certainly isn't love, that's absolutely for sure !

    "Jilly's been stringing Phillip along like a fish on a line for a while now," said Peta of her conniving character. "She's been manipulating him and conning him and telling him how much she loves him, how much she's changed and how trustworthy she's going to be from now on. Yet all the time she's been seeing Jake, sleeping with him, and then coming home to Phillip and telling him what a wonderful man HE is! He really loves her but she's playing this double-handed game and deceiving Phillip right down the line - destroying him. I think she hates him; she despises him for being weak and loving her so much. She sees Phillip as somebody to step on and destroy. He's just a pawn in her masterplan to get everything that Stephanie Harper (Rebecca Gilling) has ."

    In this case, Phillip has shares in Harper Mining. Jilly wants them so that she and Jake can take over Stephanie's powerful company. Phillip gives them to her as a wedding gift - and falls right into her hands.

    "Jilly marries Phillip for the money and the power," said Peta. "She also marries him to get back on the social ladder again because she is hurt at having been ostracised by both his family and friends and by the Harpers. She sees her marriage to Phillip as a way back into the money and social sphere she used to know."

    The wedding, in Stephanie's huge mansion, Eden, is a simple affair held before a small group of the Harpers and friends Sarah (Nicki Paull), Dennis (Peter Cousens) and Dan Marshall (James Smillie), and Cassie Jones (Megan Williams).

    But before Jilly gets to the ceremony, she has already paraded around in her wedding dress for Jake, back at his hotel suite. "I wanted you to see i t first, " she tells her lover.

    Once the formalities are over, Jilly is back with Jake, escaping the post-nuptial party to whip down to Stephanie's private wharf and hand over the all-important shares in the Harper Mining company.

    "She really does love Jake," Peta said. "But he doesn't give two hoots about her! He's using her and as soon as she gets in his way he's going to cut her down."

    Those shares, however, give Jake enough influence in Harper Mining to get him on the board and, in Stephanie's absence, voted in as chairman!

    But company problems aren't all Stephanie has to contend with - her marriage to Dan Marshall (James Smillie) is as shaky as Jilly's is to unfortunate Phil.

    "Yes, they're having a bad time and, of course, Jilly gets in a bit of a parting shot about "my marriage could never be as happy as yours", knowing full well that Stephanie and Dan are going on the rock s," Peta recalled.

    And as for Phil?

    "Jilly keeps him around for as long as she needs him to get where she wants."

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