Baby back
Tshidi starts coming apart at the seams when Tau and Karabo reclaim their son.
Tau (left) and Karabo (holding baby Amo) mean business – and there’s nothing Tshidi and Gadaffi can do about it. Weekdays SABC1 (*191) 20:00
Never in a million years could Tshidi (Letoya Makhene) have guessed that her brother Tau (Rapulana Seiphemo) would find out that she and her husband Gadaffi (Vuyo Dabula) have been raising the baby Tau thought had died at birth. A year ago, Gadaffi’s revenge plan on Tau led to him stealing his baby and replacing him with a dead one that Tau and his wife Karabo (Connie Ferguson) buried. At the time, Tshidi wasn’t aware of the scheme and thought that the baby was adopted from a druggie mom, but when she found out the truth in January, her obsession with baby Amo (Noluthando Nxumalo) grew and she decided to keep him. She even had her mom Zondiwe (Abigail Kubeka) carted off to a mental home after she insisted that Tshidi tell Tau the truth and give the baby back. Fast-forward six months later and the truth is out, thanks to a very dangerous enemy…
GUNS & SONS
After a few mysterious deliveries to the Moroka house, on Wednesday 3 August, the awful truth spills out when Tau finds DNA test results that link him to the baby he didn’t even know exists. It’s only on Monday 8 August that Tau is made aware that his son is still alive and everything changes for him and wife Karabo, signalling the Morokas’ biggest enemy Jack Mabaso ( Vusi Kunene) to reveal himself on Wednesday 10 August as the source of the information and the cryptic clues that they’ve been sent.
It isn’t long before Tau and Karabo are headed to the Phakade household to fetch their son, whom they named Thapelo at birth, and Tshidi’s world collapses on Thursday 11 August. “She has no idea what’s going on when they take her son at gunpoint,” says Letoya. “She falls apart and blames Gadaffi for everything. She cares more about that baby than she does about her husband and makes it clear if he doesn’t do something about it, he can forget about having her in his life.”
FAMILY TORN APART
Tshidi still has no idea how Tau and Karabo found out and it drives her insane, on top of the grief of losing Amo. “Her love for this child has driven her to do crazy things,” recalls Letoya, referring to the Mamlambo saga back in March. A witchdoctor gave her a snake to take home and feed her own blood to in order to protect Amo from the wrath of the ancestors because he was in the wrong home. “This changes her relationship with Tau dramatically as he wasn’t aware that his sister was capable of such evil. Gadaffi maybe, but Tshidi? He hates her for a good while after this,” she says. Meanwhile, settling Thapelo into the Moroka home isn’t as easy as anyone hoped it would be for the new parents on Friday 12 August. Jack watches all of this with delight on Monday 15 August and then he gets an unexpected visitor…
KEEPING WITH THE ENEMY
“Tshidi goes to Jack as a last resort to help her, not knowing this is all his doing,” explains Letoya. “He acts concerned because Tshidi doesn’t know that Jack knows that she had betrayed him. She had a part in the plan to get him in jail and bring him down in July. Jack says that he can’t help unless Tshidi tells him how to help… and she doesn’t know how either.” Remember how crazy Tshidi went earlier this year when Gadaffi insisted that they return Amo? How far will she go to get “her” baby back – with or without Jack’s help? Tshidi breaks down with her “son” gone.