Let us all take a moment to appreciate the wonderfully batsh*t world of vintage Home and Away.

And while we’re at it, the entire fictional suburb of Summer Bay, that some of us only recently discovered isn’t an actual place on the NSW coast.

In the late 90s/early 2000s, the soapie was the giver of many great gifts, including but not limited to:

• Alf Stewart repeatedly shouting Flamin’ Galah and generally being furious at everything and everyone for reasons that were never apparent.

• The very funky opening jingle in its 2000s form below, which many of us (my siblings and I) were convinced the lyrics were “cosserage day” (?) not “closer each day”.

• The inspiration, much to our parents’ and teachers’ objections, to have our school uniforms hemmed well above our upper knees. Well above.

In hindsight, it was also the era of pretty messed up plotlines that we’re not so sure would fly in 2019.

Some of them involved cults, many of them involved pregnancies, and one was quite easily the most savage move by a dying person we’ve ever borne witness.

Here are seven utterly nuts Home and Away storylines we desperately need to unpack, and we’d like to remind you that it has always aired at 7pm:

When Kirsty Sutherland fell in love with her sister’s rapist.

Right. Well this one was just f*cked.

Cast your minds back to 2003, when Christie Hayes’ character Kirsty Sutherland fell in love with (and later married) Kane Phillips (Sam Atwell), despite the fact that he had RAPED her sister Dani (Tammin Sursok).

Um.

NO.

That’s not OK Channel 7.

Speaking to Digital Spy this week, Christie herself wholeheartedly agreed, saying she didn’t think such a storyline would ever air in 2019.

“That would never be okay now!” she told the publication, and we don’t know why it was ever OK in the first place but moving on…

When Tash thought she had fallen pregnant to the leader of a cult’s son.

Isabel Lucas’ character Tash was truly fascinating… We are quite literally in awe of whoever came up with such a being.

She was raised in a fortress camp in the bush by parents who were madly preparing for Y2K (standard), but when they died protecting their camp in a bushfire, Tash was forced to flee.

Naturally, she spoke nothing but pig latin when she was found washed up on a beach, but the best Tash plotline by far was when she joined one of the many cults floating around Summer Bay.

She wound up being drugged and forced to become pregnant to the cult leader’s son, Jonah, BUT after a few episodes of trying to figure out who the baby belonged to (a soapie plotline as old as time) it soon became clear that the baby was actually her boyfriend Robbie’s.

Phew. 

When Vinnie came back from prison/the dead as a giant TEDDY BEAR.

When Vinnie (Ryan Kwanten) was shipped off to prison for something to do with fraud (we think), hearts collectively broke for Leah.

Even more so when news of Vinnie's alleged death in a prison fire filtered down to the Bay.

BUT, because Home and Away bloody loves a "jks not actually dead" storyline, it is later revealed that Vinnie survived the fire and is living in witness protection.

OH BUT WAIT, on the day of his son's third birthday party, a mysterious stranger in a teddy bear costume arrives to entertain the children, which the parents just let happen, because why not?

When the strange and terrifying giant bear leaves, Leah learns that it was actually Vinnie in disguise. Yep.

He later writes her a letter telling her to move on with her life and the whole thing was very, very weird.

When the iconic Sutherland twins who could read each other's minds weren't actually... twins.

The twins' ~telepathic connection~ was a device commonly used in the Sutherland family era of Home and Away.

Whenever one of the twins was involved in some sort of boat crash, diner hot chip fire, ferris wheel accident or stray-dog related animal bite, they could feel each other's pain and often save each other's lives.

But it turns out it was all complete BS because Kirsty and Jade weren't twins at all. There was some mix-up at birth and they weren't even sisters. 

Kirsty, in fact, had an identical twin named Laura who wasn't even there when she was bitten by the stray dog, which is an episode we may or may not have invented.

So that's cool. Their mind communication was actually all a lie, and we no longer have fictional television evidence to prove all twins have magical powers.

Thanks.

When a homeless guy turned out to be Sally’s long-lost brother/former imaginary friend

This one's a little convoluted, so bear with us. It's important you get the full picture.

When Sally Fletcher was a kid in 80’s Home and Away, she had an “imaginary friend”/ghost child she spoke to called Milco, because we all need another reason to be low-key terrified of children.

But in the 2000s, Milco came on the program as a real life adult human being named Miles Copeland AND HEY, he just so happened to be Sally’s long-lost brother because WHAT. Nup. We don't like it, it's weird.

Later on, Miles becomes an alcoholic and starts seeing an imaginary character called Rabbit who turns out to be his dead daughter and come on, stop.

When John Palmer's brain tumour turned him into a serial arsonist.

Remember when John skulked around Summer Bay in a creepy black rain coat setting everything on fire?

Yeah.

That.

When Ailsa waited until her final dying breath to rip into Colleen for burning down the diner.

We leave you with the ultimate, bad-arse way to get back at someone who annoys you:

Waiting until you're on your death bed to call them out for something you pretended you didn't know about.

(TBH, Colleen annoyed everyone, so fair).

After Colleen burnt down Ailsa’s beloved diner with hot chip grease of all things, Leah took the blame. The secret was kept right up until Ailsa was minutes from dying.

So how did she choose to farewell Colleen - Summer Bay's nosiest resident?

She tells her she knew she’d caused the fire all along.

BOOM.

Ahh, memories.