Kudos to Pete Lawson for the most watchable episode of the week. He knew whom to feature and the writing for the principals was spot on. Lest there be any doubt, I'm talking about Shirley, Carly, Phil, Denise, and Jay.
First off, why do I have the sneaking suspicion that June Brown isn't coming back? I'll tell you why ... because Jean is morphing into Dot - or rather, her own brand of Dotlike character.
Now, that worked earlier this week when Shirley was in need of a friendly word and some compassion. But - lordy - Jean was used in overdrive tonight, and it bordered on being tiresome. There is such a thing as using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. To the one level of viewer, most of whom seem to idolise and revel in the icon that is Jean, they'll all be extolling the power of positive Jeaning, keeping alive the mediaeval myth that people who suffered from mental issues were touched with a special wisdom. No doubt, Jean is effective; but there are times when she's creepy and bloody annoying. It kinda sorta bordered on that tonight.
I can accept the fact that June Brown may not be returning. I hope I'm wrong; she is, after all, 85 years old. Maybe she is only gone for six months; but Eastenders has been less than - shall we say, forthright - with viewers recently, and if Dot's being phased out as a character (with a non-departure decidedly below her status), then we have a right to know. Some of us aren't so stupid as to blindly watch Jean veer from wisdom to wittering and one day suddenly wake up from the torpor and realise, "Oi, that Dot Branning isn't anywhere to be seen!"
But there she was, Jean, popping up here and there like a Greek chorus. Left behind at the B and B, she scurries (Jean scurries a lot) back to the Vic - in full witter mode - scolding, in wittering fashion, Alfie and Kat for not including her in Kat's impromptu homecoming. Maybe for an evening, they were genuinely happy, camping out on camp beds in the hall with Tommy. The last thing, I suppose, either of them wanted was Jean ladling out generous portions of sausage surprise along with tales of Stacey and Sean.
That prompted, as well, Jean's admonitions about their beds being in defiance of Health and Safety regulations yadda yadda yadda ... Before reminding Alfie and Kat that everything had to be back to normal for Shenice's arrival today.
The funny bit about that was, like everyone else who watches the programme, Alfie and Kat had totally forgotten about Shenice. As in, who is she and why is she relevant.
Then, later, we were treated to Jean, the Wise Woman of Walford, ladling out platitudes and analogies to Jay about his dilemma. This was Dot minus the Scripture references, but replaced by folk psychology of the Dr Phil (of daytime television, not Mitchell) variety. Likening Jay's plight to a game of darts, hoping for a better score with each throw, whilst reminding him that what he did in not telling what happened to Heather was wrong. Yes, we know.
Later still, she brought in overt symbolism as she watched Kat changing the sheets on the bed she shares with Alfie - wittering, yet again, about fresh starts and second chances, life being pristine and knew. Hark that ... this told Kat that she could put the affair behind her and everything would be pure as the driven snow now with her and Alfie, all the time the lippy-sodden "I Love You" bandage is displayed in he kitchen by Alfie as a gift of Katshit's love. Everything is being prepared for the return of the prodigal - Shenice. Katshit's even ironed her uniform and bought her new shoes.
But then, the clencher of the episode. Shenice isn't returning. She's staying with her mother. And Kat's remark was hilarious:-
"She's got no right."
Er, sorry, but Martina has every right. Martina is Shenice's mother; and I don't know what the hell Alfie and Kat were, but they had no legal document identifying them as her guardians, so Martina just took possession of what was hers: her daughter.
I doubt anyone will miss Shenice anyway. Daisy Harvey secured the role on the strength of being Lacey Turner's sister. Now I suppose that Turner is throwing out hints about how she'd like to return, herself, Harvey's role became redundant. Well, it was redundant from the beginning.
But Shenice's departure harkened yet more symbolism to sprout. Kat laments cleaning the whole of the flat for Shenice, Alfie comforts her, only to hear the words "Dirty, dirty, dirty" being chanted by a futuristic Fatboy, dressed as an exterminator and chasing Mo. Cue funny look from Kat.
Yes, we get it. It's the old Dirty Girl shit again, and we're going to be asked to sympathise with Saint Kathleen the eternal victim. So now Shenice has rejected her, she'll go wander off and fuck unseen Derek once again.
Marc Elliot can decide to go, and John Partridge can leave "by mutual consent." Jessie Wallace left "by mutual consent" seven years ago. Maybe it's time this was repeated.
Who is this woman impersonating Sharon? I don't like her. All of a sudden, there's precious little interaction between Sharon and the people who know her best and need her most - namely Ian and Phil. Started out with lots of action, and I caught a fleeting glimpse of Sharon Watts, once Mitchell and lately Rickman.
But this imposter seems to be stuck to the Brannings like glue. Imposter Sharon had a ONS with Jack the Plank
Jack Branning: The Walking Penis of Walford
and now she variously flirts with him and allows him to sniff around her wantonly. He now refers himself to Widdle Denny as "Uncle Jack." I have a sneaking suspicion that Widdle Denny's been through a lot of uncles in the past six years. Now he's dumb enough to think he can buy his way into Imposter Sharon's knickers again by buying Widdle Denny a remote control car. (Push on off and play, sonny, while I fuck your mother over the desk in the office. Yessir, I've even had my ex-wife over the top of this little beauty. If this wood could only talk - whoops, I forgot! I can talk).
I find I'm about to commit blasphemy. I'm not liking Sharon. Not in the least. I don't like her, and I don't like her fey, sissified, drama-school-always-aware-of-the-camera son. Jesus Christ, what a mother! If I hear anymore of this "baybeee-Mummy" shit, I'll scream! At least Carly Wicks trusted her month-old son to Patrick's care in another room, which is something which would send Imposter Sharon into fits.
Widdle Denny had a temperature, so he's kept home from school; and I didn't like the imperious sort of way she spoke to Denise at the B and B, literally ordering her to make a warm squash for Widdle Denny. And then her neurotic panic at the sight of fey widdle Dennis playing on the exact same spot his hero father (you know, the one who gunned down a man in cold blood) was killed. Hit the panic button ...
There's something not quite right about Sharon. I don't know if it's the writing or the fact that, maybe the timing of her return was wrong, affording her little time to interact with the characters with whom Sharon is most familiar and most at ease. Shoe-horning her in with the Brannings - Jack sniffing after her and a new BFF in Tanya - simply is not working for the character. It might for the tween viewers who are unfamiliar with her or the shallow end of longer-term viewers (e g Froghopper or *Betty* from Walford Kindergarten or vald from Digital Spy); but it doesn't work for the more perspicacious of EastEnders' fans.
Widdle Dennis is six years old; he's treated like an infant barely out of training pants, and his plethora of aches and pains are indicative that he's as neurotic as his mother, and she's made him that way. When she was six years old, Caroline Kennedy's father was killed by an assassin's bullet. Live on television. She knew what happened to him. No reason for Widdle Denny not to know his old man was killed. Time enough in the future to tell the kid Daddy Dearest was a murderer and an thug who was easily manipulated into beating up innocent people on the whims of the gangstas with whom he consorted. But there you go.
Still, it was enough to earn her the sympathy of Walford's own warped Madonna, Tanya. Parenting advice from the woman who's arguably one of the worst mothers in Walford? Please. Line of the night from Tanya to Sharon:-
"Some of the stories I could tell you ..."
Yes, Sharon ... like how she got pregnant by Max when he was married to another woman and with a child. Like how, when she found he'd cheated on her one too many times, with his son's wife, she slept with the local psycho and enticed him into helping her kill Max by burying him alive. Like how she moved Jack into that same house and lived with him for a year whilst she was still married to Max. Like how Lauren tried to kill Max by running over him. Like how she tried to cover it up. Like how she reunited with Max only to leave him when his money ran out. Like how within three months she had hooked up with Gormless Greg, the nice-but-dim builder with a fat wallet and took him for all he was worth, only to cheat on him with Max. Yet again ... the list goes on.
But, hey ... Widdle Dennis has a fwiend now in Gurning Oscar, and Tanya and Sharon crack open - yes - a bottle of wine (the first of about six, I'll bet) to toast their new-found friendship. Tanya has serious drink issues, as does her daughter and mother. Sharon's mother died an alcoholic, and Sharon can pull a bender when she wants to do so too. But, hey ... Gurning Oscar and Widdle Denny are pwaying upstairs.
I want Widdle Denny to go away to school someplace, as in boarding school. I want Sharon to stay the hell away from all the Brannings, unless they want to do a storyline where she catches an STI from Jack as horny as he's been lately. Let's see Lorraine Newman have the gumption to do that to an icon, who's well on the way to being ruined - like Kat and Bianca - already.
Finally, the good bits ...
This entire episode should have been about Shirley's reconnection with Carly. The other bits were pure and simple horseshit. OK, there were a couple of bits which raised my eyebrows, like ...
- Kim greeting Carly as if she'd known her already. Although I recall Denise's daughters mentioning "Auntie Kim" and her infamous caravan when Denise was married to Kevin, I don't recall a time when Denise took all the kids, including Kevin's two, for a visit. Yet Kim knew Carly right away.
- Tanya's effusive welcoming of Carly when she saw her outside the B and B. If I recall correctly, Tanya beat the shit out of Carly once when she thought she was fucking around with Max, and it was Tanya who lured Sean Slater (Carly's boyfriend) away from her. I don't recall the two even making up or apologising.
- Denise self-effacingly remarking that if she's such a good mother, why aren't her two daughters there with her. Well, Denise, you sent them away and told them not to come back to Walford. Chelsea's in Marbella, and you told Libby not to come back for any holiday from Oxford, instead to spend it with her Grandmother in Spain.
This was the most beautiful and most watchable portion of the episode, and - once again - Linda Henry played a blinder. Now we know that Shirley, like Phil, is an alcoholic, but of a different variety. She's a binge alcoholic. When something goes wrong in her life, she hits the bottle until she hits rock bottom.
Arguably, the best scene of the night was that epic one in Phil's front room where Shirley lathered him from top to toe with a gaggle of painful home truths and assertions, and Phil never denied a single one:-
- That he never loved her. She can admit that now and to his face. (Ah, but, Shirley, he says, he cared for her). Not enough.
- That he only ever manipulated her and controlled her for his own wants and needs. Good. She said it: she was a warm body and someone to raise his "psycho kids."
- That Phil was afraid that Shirley would grass him up to the police for covering up Heather's death.
- When Shirley mentioned possibly telling Peggy, and Phil blanched at that prospect. Odd thing ... why doesn't Peggy know? A thing like Heather's death and cover up would be all over the London papers.
- The most poignant and angering bit of the night - when Phil told Shirley he'd called Carly because he thought Shirley needed something on which to focus and make her want to live again. Shirley responded that once she had something on which to focus, something positive - Phil, Heather, Ben and Jay. Her faux family. Now one was dead, another had killed her, and two covered the fact up.
I thought that really sad. Shirley walked out on her husband and children, one of whom was disabled, and the only people she ultimately cared about and grieved at losing in some way were Heather, a needy friend-cum-surrogate child for whom she abandoned her small children, Phil (a man who only used her), and Ben and Jay, two kids who weren't even her own, for whom (she said sarcastically) she did an excellent job of raising. Not.
I'm glad that the demons behind Shirley's abandoning her children were laid to rest, but this was something that was done too quickly and in a rushed way. Let's deal with it briefly and move on. We never knew why she walked out on all of them - except that James was so needy with his disability, yet she never went back; and when she'd heard he'd died, she drowned her sorrows. She walked back into her kids' lives only after Kevin had dealt with all the hardes bits - bringing them up, with two of them not even his.
I also still like Carly Wicks. I liked her the first time she was around, and - like Diane Butcher - I feel she'd be an asset to the show. She and her family would point Shirley in the right direction, enhance her friendship with Denise, and move her away from the Mitchells, an association which all but destroyed her. I wouldn't mind seeing Dean back as well - he's now of the age demographic in short supply on the Square. And good to see that Carly was mature enough to face Phil down, telling him she'd known the part he played in Kevin's death, but she didn't blame him - because Kevin knew exactly what he was doing with those illegal cars. Let's see if Sharon displays as much maturity in dealing with Phil's almost same analogy in the death of Saint Dennis the Murderer.
Another pleasant surprise was seeing Shirley soften and actually smile when she held her grandson, named after her own firstborn. I'm glad she's gone to live with Carly for a bit. I daresay, as she warned Phil, she will be back. Probably closer to Christmas and just in time to see him cosy with Sharon in a new relationship, which will tip her jealousy over the edge enough to get drunk and tell Derek the part Phil played in Heather's cover-up ...
Because it's not all just about Phil, you see. Now it's actually beginning to be all about Derek. Watch this space.
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