Do Eastenders and its ubiquitous powers that be realise now just how much the character of Kat is hated and reviled? Do they realise the extent to which she is disliked by a viewing public who used to consider her iconic? Do they realise that she is now past redemption?
Sure, the public love a tart with a heart - Bet Lynch, Bev in Brookside, even Eastenders' own Pat, who developed into a much-loved matriarchal figure; but everyone, without exception, hates, loathes and despises a common slut with no redeeming qualities.
Those of us who are long-term viewers, and even those of us who only started watching the show from the beginning of John Yorke's tenure and were old enough to understand just where he and, subsequently, Louise Berridge, Kathleen Hutchison and Kate Harwood took Kat's character, understood Kat's character arc perfectly.
She was an abused child, whose mother either refused to believe her stories of abuse at the hands of her uncle or hid the fact from her husband. Because of this, when she fell pregnant, Kat contrived the inevitable story of a faceless, nameless boy behind the bike sheds, which resulted in her much-loved father considering her nothing less than a common little slapper who'd indulge in such behaviour.
Kat then proceeded to make his assumptions a reality; but such behaviour was only a manifestation of low self-esteem and self-hatred. She needed redemption in the form of someone who loved her for what she was and understood her trauma. That was Alfie, whose surname was a play on her wishing for a "man in the moon."
Kat won Alfie and lost him through her behaviour, but worked her ass off and succeeded winning his love again. When they left, as a couple, there was closure to their characters. They were the couple for whom everyone rooted and wanted happiness, and you knew that they would achieve it. Also, they proved that in soap terms, closure on characters doesn't necessarily mean death.
Their return should have seen such a positive couple on a higher level. Instead, Bryan Kirkwood brought them back in order to toy with him along his own specifications. Kirkwood took established characters and played with them as though they were human manifestations of Barbie and Ken dolls. Anything established by another producer was made to be "unestablished" by Kirkwood.
And Kirkwood weakened any man whose surname wasn't Branning.
Thus, we saw Kat return as a vile, self-obsessed, narcissistic, ball-breaking, domestic abuser. He may not have intended it thus, but he presented viewers with a well-known statistic: that abused children often grow into abusers, themselves. We'd already seen this pattern in Phil, Billy and Archie Mitchell; now we had it in Kat - the way she physically assaulted Alfie in person, the way she publically humiliated him by impugning his sexual prowess, the way she emotionally and psychologically wore him down from the getgo. She was even singularly unsympathetic during the babyswap storyline. She certainly was thereafter.
The nadir of her behaviour, until now, was the random shag-with-a-stranger in an alleyway because she was pissed off that Alfie didn't comment on her new whore-tailored frock. When she ultimately confessed her bad behaviour, she absconded any and all responsibility for the act. She was a "dirty girl." She dressed like a slut and men smelled the slut on her, so they wanted to rut her and she wanted to rut back. That was just the way she was. End of.
Alfie should have kicked her skank ass to the curb; she's not worthy of his love. Even later, when she was away, and Roxy confessed her genuine love for him, he turned her down out of loyalty to Slut Slutter, something Kat found hard to believe.
You see, Kat almost wants an Alfie infidelity. Had he slept once with Roxy, Alfie would have lost the moral high ground that Kat knows he holds over her; had he actually slept with Roxy over the period of time she lived in the Vic, Kat would have regained a version of that moral high ground. Part of her was hoping for that, but part of her is scared shitless at the fact that Roxy revealed that Alfie had turned her down out of love for Kat.
Why? Because Kat knows Alfie doesn't do casual sex. He establishes a friendship with the object of his affections first, he gets to know the girl as a friend, and then love develops from the friendship - the way he courted and cemented his relationship with her. Kat suspects that Alfie has feelings for Roxy, which he probably does and which is why he's invested so much of himself into the football team.
That brings us to the ludicrous Shaggerman storyline. First and foremost, treated as a mystery, we know that the only reason Kat's fucking around is for the excitement of the sexual element. There's no emotional involvement, which brings her down to the level of a guttersnipe slut. Her dress-style is even more sluttier than previously - hip-high dresses, excessive bra-and-tit exposure. A man would have to be drunk to the gills to respond to an obvious whore like that.
The fact that she suddenly becomes irresistably sexy and awe-inspiring in a matter of minutes to men with whom she'd previously had no interaction and who had no interaction with each other in any form is preposterous. The writing is cringeworthy; the acting more than dubious; the storyline utterly embarrassing.
Apart from that, no one gives a damn who Shaggerman is. The viewers do, however, give a damn about Alfie, who's the innocent party in all of this, no matter how much the writers try to present him as an ineffectual fool.
Consider this: Max Branning is probably the most morally bankrupt character in the programme, but he owns it. Kat is equally as morally bankrupt, but doesn't hesitate to assume the moral high ground - blaming Michael for sleeping with her to Alfie's face, without assuming any soupcon of responsibility and only five minutes after telling Michael that in the course of a drunken one night stand, she fell in love with him. WTF? This is the stuff of fucking high school kids!
Now, she's about to tell Janine that Michael had doubts about marrying her on their wedding day.
Believe me, this bitch needs karma. Her behaviour needs to be found out by her long-suffering husband. She needs to be publically exposed, humiliated and kicked from the pub to the gutter on a cold, windy and rainy night. I'm hoping Shaggerman proves to be Derek.
He's got a score to settle with Alfie and what better way to do so than by porking his slut of a wife. And Derek would be cheeky enough to admit to the assembled throng that he'd done Alfie a favour by exposing the fact that Kat is just a callous, horny whore. He would also be callous enough to step on her as she lay in the gutter after having been kicked out by Alfie.
This needs to happen, but what really needs to happen after all of this is for Kat to leave Walford. She is now a spent character. There should be no reconciliation with Alfie, no apologies, no second second chances. If Newman knows the code of Eastenders, she knows that marital cheats, once exposed, never prosper and never stay in the Square. Alfie deserves his chance with Roxy. Kat should go, as she's gone from hero to zero since her return.
Her nine lives just imploded. She should leave Walford and take the pointless Big Mo and creepy-crawly Jean with her.
Sure, the public love a tart with a heart - Bet Lynch, Bev in Brookside, even Eastenders' own Pat, who developed into a much-loved matriarchal figure; but everyone, without exception, hates, loathes and despises a common slut with no redeeming qualities.
Those of us who are long-term viewers, and even those of us who only started watching the show from the beginning of John Yorke's tenure and were old enough to understand just where he and, subsequently, Louise Berridge, Kathleen Hutchison and Kate Harwood took Kat's character, understood Kat's character arc perfectly.
She was an abused child, whose mother either refused to believe her stories of abuse at the hands of her uncle or hid the fact from her husband. Because of this, when she fell pregnant, Kat contrived the inevitable story of a faceless, nameless boy behind the bike sheds, which resulted in her much-loved father considering her nothing less than a common little slapper who'd indulge in such behaviour.
Kat then proceeded to make his assumptions a reality; but such behaviour was only a manifestation of low self-esteem and self-hatred. She needed redemption in the form of someone who loved her for what she was and understood her trauma. That was Alfie, whose surname was a play on her wishing for a "man in the moon."
Kat won Alfie and lost him through her behaviour, but worked her ass off and succeeded winning his love again. When they left, as a couple, there was closure to their characters. They were the couple for whom everyone rooted and wanted happiness, and you knew that they would achieve it. Also, they proved that in soap terms, closure on characters doesn't necessarily mean death.
Their return should have seen such a positive couple on a higher level. Instead, Bryan Kirkwood brought them back in order to toy with him along his own specifications. Kirkwood took established characters and played with them as though they were human manifestations of Barbie and Ken dolls. Anything established by another producer was made to be "unestablished" by Kirkwood.
And Kirkwood weakened any man whose surname wasn't Branning.
Thus, we saw Kat return as a vile, self-obsessed, narcissistic, ball-breaking, domestic abuser. He may not have intended it thus, but he presented viewers with a well-known statistic: that abused children often grow into abusers, themselves. We'd already seen this pattern in Phil, Billy and Archie Mitchell; now we had it in Kat - the way she physically assaulted Alfie in person, the way she publically humiliated him by impugning his sexual prowess, the way she emotionally and psychologically wore him down from the getgo. She was even singularly unsympathetic during the babyswap storyline. She certainly was thereafter.
The nadir of her behaviour, until now, was the random shag-with-a-stranger in an alleyway because she was pissed off that Alfie didn't comment on her new whore-tailored frock. When she ultimately confessed her bad behaviour, she absconded any and all responsibility for the act. She was a "dirty girl." She dressed like a slut and men smelled the slut on her, so they wanted to rut her and she wanted to rut back. That was just the way she was. End of.
Alfie should have kicked her skank ass to the curb; she's not worthy of his love. Even later, when she was away, and Roxy confessed her genuine love for him, he turned her down out of loyalty to Slut Slutter, something Kat found hard to believe.
You see, Kat almost wants an Alfie infidelity. Had he slept once with Roxy, Alfie would have lost the moral high ground that Kat knows he holds over her; had he actually slept with Roxy over the period of time she lived in the Vic, Kat would have regained a version of that moral high ground. Part of her was hoping for that, but part of her is scared shitless at the fact that Roxy revealed that Alfie had turned her down out of love for Kat.
Why? Because Kat knows Alfie doesn't do casual sex. He establishes a friendship with the object of his affections first, he gets to know the girl as a friend, and then love develops from the friendship - the way he courted and cemented his relationship with her. Kat suspects that Alfie has feelings for Roxy, which he probably does and which is why he's invested so much of himself into the football team.
That brings us to the ludicrous Shaggerman storyline. First and foremost, treated as a mystery, we know that the only reason Kat's fucking around is for the excitement of the sexual element. There's no emotional involvement, which brings her down to the level of a guttersnipe slut. Her dress-style is even more sluttier than previously - hip-high dresses, excessive bra-and-tit exposure. A man would have to be drunk to the gills to respond to an obvious whore like that.
The fact that she suddenly becomes irresistably sexy and awe-inspiring in a matter of minutes to men with whom she'd previously had no interaction and who had no interaction with each other in any form is preposterous. The writing is cringeworthy; the acting more than dubious; the storyline utterly embarrassing.
Apart from that, no one gives a damn who Shaggerman is. The viewers do, however, give a damn about Alfie, who's the innocent party in all of this, no matter how much the writers try to present him as an ineffectual fool.
Consider this: Max Branning is probably the most morally bankrupt character in the programme, but he owns it. Kat is equally as morally bankrupt, but doesn't hesitate to assume the moral high ground - blaming Michael for sleeping with her to Alfie's face, without assuming any soupcon of responsibility and only five minutes after telling Michael that in the course of a drunken one night stand, she fell in love with him. WTF? This is the stuff of fucking high school kids!
Now, she's about to tell Janine that Michael had doubts about marrying her on their wedding day.
Believe me, this bitch needs karma. Her behaviour needs to be found out by her long-suffering husband. She needs to be publically exposed, humiliated and kicked from the pub to the gutter on a cold, windy and rainy night. I'm hoping Shaggerman proves to be Derek.
He's got a score to settle with Alfie and what better way to do so than by porking his slut of a wife. And Derek would be cheeky enough to admit to the assembled throng that he'd done Alfie a favour by exposing the fact that Kat is just a callous, horny whore. He would also be callous enough to step on her as she lay in the gutter after having been kicked out by Alfie.
This needs to happen, but what really needs to happen after all of this is for Kat to leave Walford. She is now a spent character. There should be no reconciliation with Alfie, no apologies, no second second chances. If Newman knows the code of Eastenders, she knows that marital cheats, once exposed, never prosper and never stay in the Square. Alfie deserves his chance with Roxy. Kat should go, as she's gone from hero to zero since her return.
Her nine lives just imploded. She should leave Walford and take the pointless Big Mo and creepy-crawly Jean with her.
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