Neighbours welcomes new character Saskia Ramsay next week

Next week on Neighbours, Max’s sister Saskia arrives in town, and immediately develops a crush on Byron. Elsewhere, Cara discovers the truth about Lydia and Taye.

Shane Ramsay (Peter O’Brien), one of Neighbours‘ original characters, brought his son Max (Ben Jackson) to Erinsborough late last year to help him avoid revenge from a dangerous gang in Queensland.

Max was at risk after he’d roofied the gang’s leader, Carter (Linc Hassler), in revenge for Carter doing the same to his best friend.

It took a while for Max to settle into Ramsay Street, and he soon made an enemy of Byron (Xavier Molyneux) after hitting on his then-girlfriend Sadie (Emerald Chan).

Next week, the Ramsay clan grows ever larger as Max’s mum, Yvette (Libby Tanner), brings his little sister, Saskia (Mia Foran), for a surprise visit to Ramsay Street.

We discover that she wants her daughter to follow in Max’s footsteps and take refuge on the street named after her family. Yvette asks Max if Saskia can move into No. 32 as she’s being bullied back home in Brisbane.

The share house has taken many forms over the last year, with the revolving door of housemates previously including Vera (Sally-Anne Upton), Sadie and Nicolette (Hannah Monson), as well as Haz (Shiv Palekar) and Mackenzie (Georgie Stone).

Will the house’s current residents be willing to accept high school student Saskia?

Max is keen to be there for his sister, but doesn’t know how to get Taye (Lakota Johnson) and Byron on board with a new share house set-up.

However, he finds a way to get them on side when he realises the extent of Saskia’s struggles and explains why she needs a fresh start away from the trouble.

Once it’s agreed, things continue to look up for Saskia after Jane (Annie Jones) arranges her school transfer to Erinsborough High.

Next week, Saskia’s anxious when her first day comes around. However, she’s motivated by everyone’s care, and the ‘welcome to the street’ celebration Max is planning for her after school.

Saskia is surprised when everything is smooth sailing on her first day, and Dex (Marley Williams) is delighted to welcome her as he’s smitten with his new classmate.

Could this be Dex’s chance at love after losing out on Nell (Ayisha Salem-Towner) to his brother JJ (Riley Bryant)?

It’s also Wendy’s (Candice Leask) first day as a teacher at Erinsborough High, as she finally fulfils her ambition to get a job at a local school.

Andrew (Lloyd Will) offers his support for her big day, despite their recent setbacks after she went behind his back to track down his biological family.

Later, Max finishes the final preparations for his sister’s party and he shares his hopes that she’ll be able to overcome her shy and timid demeanour while in Erinsborough.

However, it’s not long before Saskia’s openly flirting with her new housemate Byron and boldly asks him to adjust her bikini before going in for a kiss!

It seems Max’s sister isn’t the shy girl he thinks she is anymore.

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Elsewhere, Taye bails out of his planned poker game with Remi (Naomi Rukavina), claiming he has to head to work – but really, he’s received a message from Lydia (Cassandra Magrath) to meet.

Taye took on Lydia as his first escort client after she came looking for Byron, who was no longer in the escorting business.

Despite Taye trying to give up the gig in recent weeks, thanks to his escorting world colliding with his everyday life, Lydia this week uses her connection as his sister-in-law’s manager to strike a deal.

Remi assumes that Taye has gone to deal with something urgent at The Piano Bar, but she’s upset when she realises he wasn’t there and stood up their sibling date for something else.

Later, she calls Taye out on his lies, while a protective Cara (Sara West) pipes in with her questions.

While trying to dodge their third degree, Taye accidentally drops a large wad of dollars out of his pocket, raising more suspicions for the Varga-Murphys…

Cara, who’s currently in training to be a cop, uses her detective skills to search Taye’s car where she’s shocked to come across the ID badge of her manager, Lydia!

When Cara demands answers from Taye, he finally reveals the truth after realising that she could jump to worse conclusions if he doesn’t fess up.

Remi and Cara have to take a minute to get their heads around the scenario of Taye being hired as Lydia’s escort and then her demands for him to keep seeing her as otherwise she’d make Cara’s life difficult!

Later, Cara speaks to her manager, but Lydia denies any wrongdoing and threatens action against Cara for the accusations.

Things are not looking good for Cara in her first few weeks at the training academy, but thankfully she’s soon assigned a new manager. But Cara’s not out of the woods yet, as this person happens to be a close friend of Lydia’s…

Desperate to put things right after his side hustle’s interference with his sister-in-law’s career prospects, Taye approaches Byron for help.

He’s forced to confess that he secretly stepped in as Lydia’s escort when he was desperate for cash. Given Byron’s former connection to Lydia, the housemates agree that he’ll try to convince her to leave Cara out of it.

It seems to go well on the surface, but with Lydia no longer getting what she wants and her secret out, will she really let this go?