Throng

8:30pm Tuesday, November 10 on TV One

Tonight on Packed To The Rafters, the moon is nearly full and something strange is in air (at 8.30pm on TV ONE). Ben begs the moon goddess for five minutes with the lost Melissa; Rob wants to make Rachel the mother of his children; and Carbo waits for his ominously silent mother to explode.

Going off in search of Melissa, Ben calls every Bannon in the Perth phone book, and finds her mum, but she knows less about Melissa than Ben. Dave is the only one who helps when he discovers a camera he found is Melissa's. He sets up a meeting, and Ben apologises to Melissa and bares his heart.

At a dinner party with Julie and Dave, Carobo's mother, Rita, remains politely silent as long as she can. She finally makes one comment which sets Julie off, and the two old friends argue in the street. Julie insists it is not her fault Rita's house was burgled, and Carbo is old enough to choose his own girlfriends. But Rita feels Julie has let her down, and Ben is a bad influence on her son. When she tries to apologise the argument gets worse, and a tearful Julie attacks a contentious tree with a chainsaw.

Over lunch with Rachel, Rob raises the idea of taking custody of his sons, and implies they can all be one big happy family. Seeing Rachel's reaction, Rob back-pedals, but he decides to experiment by having the boys over for dinner with Rachel. The ploy backfires, and though things seem to go well, Rachel suddenly flees.