Ollie (Oliver) has survived the cliffhanger crash but he's kinda brain-dead and his father thinks it's better to take him off life support.
But then Jeanette Dunkley waltzes in, does a little bit of SM on comatose Ollie and voila - a miraculous resurrection!
Anika and Oliver think she has The Gift and because they're shrewd and opportunistic characters they persuade Jeanette to share her healing powers with the rest of the world e.g. books, DVDs, private sessions, demonstration tours etc.
Jeanette is more dumb than evil and thanks to a few fake-sick people hired by Anika & Ollie she actually starts to believe that she can save the incurables.
There's no attempt from the show itself to take it seriously or to come up with an unexpected twist, and there's nothing gratifying about the fact that
Awakenings With Jeanette falls apart in the most simple and obvious way possible - like Trisha Watson and her fake-cancer scheme in the parent show. Incidentally, Trisha makes a guest appearance in Extra Time because Shannon believes that Jeanette can help her.
Nevertheless, dirty nurse Dunkley is one of the best FW characters so even if the story sucks she's still very entertaining to watch.
Darius Fry's storyline in Footballers' Wives ended in the hospital (the "accident" arranged by Earl's Park boss Garry Ryan) when he heard on the news that his career was over.
Well, he happens to be in the same hospital as Ollie (this shouldn't be surprising and yet it is) and now we get to see how he's coping. Not very good, but then he meets Jeanette Dunkley and she is the first woman who manages to ehm…
inspire him since the Spain-rape debacle.
Actor Peter Ash is like a little ball of energy and all his scenes are great.
Darius' career may be over but he's still a wealthy man, and after Jeanette has been exposed as a fraud (which is not entirely true, come to think of it) he and Dunkley leave for Barbados to live it up and (hopefully) live happily ever after.
It's kind of ironic and also satisfying that these two FW underdogs would get the loveliest happy ending.
The biggest part of season 2 focuses on the Salters and how they form a new family with Joly's new husband Matt Bryant.
There are plenty of scenes that seem way too optimistic ("we're really going to do this, aren't we"), and in true soap fashion their happiness is constantly being challenged and overshadowed by various misunderstandings and secrets from the past.
I've never seen any of the UK soaps but I imagine it's something like the Salters storyline.
It just soap-bubbles along and you simply tune in to see what will happen next. If Footballers' Wives was the prime time soap then Extra Time is more like a daily soap.
From that point of view it's not inferior to its parent show, just different.
The romance between Yasmin and footballer Seb Webb fizzles out but Seb isn't really aware of that.
Apparently, the bond between Yasmin and former lover Cash Brown is stronger than I initially thought, and even though it's not particularly convincing it only makes sense that they would bring him back into the story.
Because Cash is a villain with an Achilles heel: he truly loves Yasmin.
Which means that Seb has to go, which means there's going to be yet another unceremonious exit for one of the Earl's Park players. Who knew football was such a deadly sport.
But before he's killed by Cash he goes to visit his father Roger Webb who's in the hospital after the shooting during Shannon's party.
It makes perfect sense that this didn't happen in Footballers' Wives because Roger refuses to see him. Of course he couldn't see his son even if he wanted to.
Seb also buys an expensive antique necklace for Yasmin, but Cash nicks it after he's killed Seb and then pretends he's bought the necklace himself.
However, Seb's taken out insurance on the necklace - a fact that comes to light in the final episode and ultimately proves that Cash was the killer (and then also framed and killed his friend Woody).
Yasmin's brother Rees has his romantic storylines too, but it's lighthearted filler and there's nothing interesting about the two female friends. I found Chanel mega-annoying.
There are also two runaway kids in season 2, the first one to make a run for it is Angelica after her mother tells her that she's going to have a baby, and Angelica Milligan fears for her position as The Big Favourite.
The second one is Matt Bryant's son Rory when he overhears that his parents are actually his aunt and uncle.
Back story: Rory's real mother/Matt's first wife was killed in a car accident, and Matt killed - well, manslaughtered - the man who was responsible for the accident. He served 7 years in prison for it, hence why his baby son was raised by his sister-in-law.
Anyway, they're all frantically searching for the missing boy and it's typical that Cash Brown (of all people) should spot him and save the day.
Cash is also being very helpful during Joly and Matt's wedding day and of course he does all that to make a good impression on Yasmin and her family, but the very idea that he
wants to impress - as opposed to the lowlife from season 1 who only threatened and bullied to get what he wanted - indicates some sort of a character development. But as soon as the going gets tough he relapses into his psychopathic state.
Ollie and Anika mastermind another brilliant business venture in order to build their empire: Eager Beevor Inc. This brand new company provides the super-rich with a special sexy cleaning service i.e. (half-)naked hunks with a duster.
Lucky for them it proves to be a very in demand fetish, but not lucky for me because it's just as stupid as Shannon's "Adopt A Granny" charity storyline.
And even if there was potential (like, seriously kinky and even slightly sinister) then it's killed by the lighthearted and comedic tone of it.
Tanya Turner had her fair share of OTT storylines but it was always played for high-stakes, you never get that from Anika & the Ryans.
Nevertheless, one of the customers is the Slavonic tycoon's wife Vanya (doing a thick Zsa Zsa Gabor accent even though she looks very French rather than East-European) and there's something very familiar and also mildly intriguing about her.
Extra Time doesn't have a huge cast so I wonder why they couldn't simply integrate them with the Salters and create more complex and twisty storylines.
It happens one time though, but in a very unusual and most unexpected way.
What's Cash Brown doing in Anika's office, well he's walking into Joly's restaurant next to Anika's desk!
This gives a whole new meaning to "cheap production" but it's also one of the most thrillingly bizarre goofs I've ever seen.
The spin-off ends with a big fight between Yasmin and Cash (she's pregnant with his child and she was going to surprise him, but then discovered the insurance note under a pile of unopened mail) and there's definitely an effort to make it look as spectacular as possible. It also looks a bit unintentionally hilarious but I don't have a problem with that.
And that's it!
