What a coincidence that it happened to snow heavily in early February, eh? Especially this week in the Southeast, the hordes of snow and slush on Albert Square gives an aura of reality to the programme this week.
That's as close as one gets to the real thing in Walford, especially under the current regime in charge of the programme.
Tonight's episode was watchable, even with the stock appearances of the Brannings. EastEnders, in case you haven't noticed, is totally incapable of airing one episode without the appearance of at least one Branning, reminding us that they are the go-to family on the Square, by virtue of size only, it seems; because nobody likes them, except the shippers who'd like anything about EastEnders even if the show broadcast thirty minutes of a picture of steaming shit ...
Can't you just hear Bianca saying these words?
There I was completely wasting, out of work and down
All inside it's so frustrating, so I drift from town to town
Feel as if nobody cares if I live or die
So I might as well begin to put some action in my life
So much for the golden future, I can't even start
I've had every promise broken, there's anger in my heart (Ever the victim)
You don't know what it's like, you don't have a clue
If you did you'd find yourself doing the same thing too ...
Breakin' the law, breakin' the law ...
Bianca knows her slimey little toerag of a son, Liam the Lunk - he of the low brow and flat head - is involved in a crime. OK, he didn't mug Tamwar - one could actually say that Bianca did her share in psychologically mugging him - but he's guarding the stash of cash in his moneybelt. And now the police want to speak to Bianca about Liam.
Bianca's no fool. She knows the bizzies aren't coming around for some biscuits and a cuppa. They have reason to believe Liam's involved with the drama school kids practicing for their school's production of West Side Story ...
Liam hasn't as much got a rocket in his pocket as he has a pea for a brain, but then Bianca isn't the brightest lightbulb in the pack either. She and Carol exhibit their total chav mentality by refusing to believe that, even though Liam pilfered the school's stationery and forged a letter praising himself and her (feeding her enormous chav ego), she still finds it hard to believe he'd be involved in the mugging of a neighbour.
She's not without her Greek choruses, however. It seems Shirley's been relegated to the position of occasional popper-upper with sound advice - offering some words of wisdom to Kat in the wake of Alfie coming to his senses and throwing her out on the street where she belongs; coming up with the same for Bianca, parent-to-parent, when Bianca's discovered Liam's truancy. (Of course, Shirley was a paragon of parenting, wasn't she?)
And there she is tonight, randomly in the launderette, informing Bianca that Liam's in with a rough crowd .. "dodgy" she calls them. Shirley should know rough when she sees it, but Bianca blows off her advice in her arrogance. Liam's not involved. He's being bullied, that's all.
Exit Shirley and enter Dot, in full Matriarch mode. It's amazing how Dot can be staring down eviction and yet offer words of wisdom to Bianca, and these were words of wisdom. Liam's not a bad boy. There's good and bad in all people, and sometimes good people do bad things. When that happens, a person should step up to the plate and take responsibility for his actions, even if it hurts him. There was an excellent reference Dot made to Nick - good continuity here, because in the early days of EastEnders, Dot was presented as an abysmal parent, and now she acknowledges it.
She taught Nick that he could always depend on his Ma to get him out of a scrape. So she went from soothing a crying baby, to dodging the police for him. She even went so far one time as to buy heroin for him. The moral of her story? Bianca should encourage Liam to accept responsibility, because she's not always going to be around to protect him.
So what does Bianca do? Why the same thing Phil Mitchell did after Ben killed Heather? Hide the evidence and lie through his teeth for Ben. Now let's hear the boo-boys have a go at Bianca, because she's now no better than "Philth", himself. In fact, she's worse. For all he's done, Phil has no criminal record and he has a damned good lawyer on his side. Bianca has neither. And she does have form; so if the bizzies find she's been lying for Liam the Lunk, not only will he go to YOP, she'll go back inside ... this time, for perverting the course of justice.
One wonders at creepy Steve's taste - a probation officer getting involved with a thoroughly chav family. Does he think he'll better their circumstances? Is he like Gladstone, ministering to the fallen women of London?
Two-and-a-Half Men
Not much to say about the Masoods, except nothing happened ... but this: I like the quiet dynamic that's building between Tamwar and Lucy. Surprisingly enough, this is how relationships often begin in real life - not something sudden, earth-shattering and mind-blowing, not a brilliant ray of light, but quietly developing - a question here, a question there, a gesture, a look. Today we've reached the exchanged look part. I'm patient. If this develops into a friendship and a relationship subsequently, it will be one to last. I like Lucy away from her shitty, entitled and selfish friends, Lauren the Lip and Twitney; and I like Tamwar with Lucy.
Please ... Just Go
This is a song for Kim ...
Just go now.
This was a secret sex episode - Abi and Jay skulking about, Ian creeping out of Denise's at the crack of dawn, Roxy stripping under the covers to ease Alfie's tension ...
The Mystery of the Man's Belt, an unfunny vignette where Kim tries to guess the identity of the man sleeping with Denise by matching the belt to the man was distinctly unfunny; but Kim added to the already-established truth that Ian Beale's bedroom performances leave a lot to be desired in the pithy way she treated any assumption that he could have slept with Denise.
Denise seemed satisfied, but you wonder if she mentally compared him with Arthur's performance last year, considering that she was a cougar who came back for more, until she became ashamed of the age disparity and called a halt to the proceedings. Maybe she thinks the entertainment will get better.
Whilst I'm glad to see Denise and Ian move centre stage and like, overall, the idea of them together, I'm wary of that. Any union with Ian Beale is the kiss of death for any woman. There's only one place Denise will go after this, and if Yam Man is made a regular (and he's a hunk of the right age demographic), we can imagine into whose arms she'll run on the sly. Myself, I'd rather not see Ian embark on yet another relationship. I'd like him to have had some time on his own, considering what he's suffered, and build on his relationship with the children who live with him. But as they rushed Alfie into a rebound relationship with Roxy (and ruined something which had potential last year), they've rushed Ian into this with Denise - mostly, I think, to give the actors (two of the most accomplished in the programme) something to do. And that's sad that TPTB can think of nothing more to give these people.
Two Desperate Women and a Major Cock-Up by the Writing Room
Roxy's desperate, because she's insecure. She knows Alfie still has a lot to sort with Kat in the wake of this divorce, and she's not exactly convinced the divorce will happen. Kirsty's desperate because her husband's ex is still skanking around Walford too. You'd think these two would have something in common about which they could commiserate with each other; instead, they're at loggerheads.
Alfie, however, is genuinely distracted, because he's learned from his solicitor that he has no rights to Tommy because he's not the child's biological father.
Fucking poppycock.
EastEnders, and Simon Ashdown fucked this story over.
Cast your mind back to January 2011, the day Alfie and Jack had to go register the births of James and Tommy.
This is the law: If a couple are married, no matter who the birth father of the child is, the woman's husband is listed ON THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE as the child's father, and becomes the LEGAL father.
That is the law. That is why Phil Mitchell had to go to court to claim Louise back from Social Services, because Mark Fowler was on her birth certificate as Louise's father, and the Social was about to send her to live with her legal next-of-kin, Martin Fowler, in Manchester.
If a woman is married, she or her husband can register a child's birth. If a woman is unmarried and she wants her child to have her partner's surname, the partner in question has to attend the registry office with her or give her a signed, sworn statement to agree to this in absentia.
The gist of this preamble? There is absolutely no fucking way Alfie would have been able to register Michael Moon as Tommy's father, which is what he did on that day. It simply could not be done; and if any smartarse is saying he pretended to be Michael, he couldn't have - because you have to show identification when you register the child.
Please understand this, because some numpties on Digital Spy are wondering if an auntie or a cousin or an uncle can register a child's birth.
They simply can't. And EastEnders ballsed this up bigtime by either not doing research or by making shit up as they go along in order to fit the storyline.
Anyway, even though she wasn't there, the Alfie-Roxy dynamic is still being controlled by Saint Kat, so Roxy is presented as even more of a bitch, who isn't in the least concerned that Alfie wants to fight for Tommy, she just wants him to help out behind the bar.
Kabuki theatre ... for an entire year ...
Even in Japanese, it's more interesting than this year-long piece of tripe, whose ending we already know. I just hate the thought of Roxy being sacrificed at the altar of all things Kat.
Better episode than the rest this week, but nothing to write home about.
That's as close as one gets to the real thing in Walford, especially under the current regime in charge of the programme.
Tonight's episode was watchable, even with the stock appearances of the Brannings. EastEnders, in case you haven't noticed, is totally incapable of airing one episode without the appearance of at least one Branning, reminding us that they are the go-to family on the Square, by virtue of size only, it seems; because nobody likes them, except the shippers who'd like anything about EastEnders even if the show broadcast thirty minutes of a picture of steaming shit ...
(such as xTonix of Digital Spy infamy) or the fanboi bullies who dream of suckling Tanya (these souls can be found exclusively populating Walford Web).
Last night, TPTB planted Jay and the pleasingly plump piglet-in-training, Abi (a Branning) to swan about the Square, planning a night of serious fucking in the B and B, just to remind viewers that the Brannings are still about.
Derek is dead. Tanya is leaving and so is Jack. Simon Pantsdown Ashdown must be close to experiencing withdrawal symptoms, which means that the rumours flying about concerning the eagerly anticipated new family just might be true - that they're Jim's nephew Gordon Branning and his brood. Ashdown's addiction to the Brannings is like Dot's addiction to cancer sticks and just as deadly.
The Brannings have killed EastEnders, especially since 2010.
At least, Wednesday's episode had a couple of unifying elements - desperate women and lies.
Liar: Tanya
Abi's in love with Jay, which is a joke. Who the hell knows what love is at sixteen? Or even eighteen? Remember, Sam Mitchell married Ricky Butcher when she and he were the same ages as Abi and Jay, and how long did that one last? Or what about Libby Fox and Darren Miller? Toast.
The Abi-Jay connection is tripe. It demeans Jay, and I have a feeling it's being promoted to divert Jamie Borthwick's talents in order to give scenes he'd normally do to the Little Cock, the Fresh Prince of Hot Air stereotypical token black yoof character who's come on the scene with Aunt Esther Ava the Rava.
What TPTB are giving us is a totally unreal depiction of what they imagine first love - or rather, first sex - is like. As in, the earth moved for Jay and Abi. Well, no, it didn't, because they have no other sexual experiences with which to compare this. As Abi was totally inexperienced and Jay's sexual experience was limited to his right hand, in reality, it would be more of an ordeal than an ecstasy - messy wet and sticky spots on the sheets, Abi objecting to the smell, and then the endless worry and counting of the days until her period arrived before she could breath easy - because it was patently obvious tonight that they hadn't been using precaution - Tanya actually made them a gift of some condoms, which was like locking the barn door after the horse had bolted.
And for all the dewey-eyed understanding of first lurrrve, the witless Tanya was giving to Abi tonight, it'll be screaming blue murder and swearing castration for Jay next month when Abi's monthly flux doesn't appear.
I can see it now.
Abi: Mum, mum ... whatamIgonnado? I ain't come on.
Tanya: Abi, dahlin' ... are you sure? 'Ow long's it been? Ah mean ... d'you remember yer last time?
Abi (crying): Mum, I'm two weeks overdue. I took a pregnancy test vis mornin'. Hit's positive!
Lauren: What, Abs? Are you preggers? (Laughs). And here I was thinking I was the loser. Dad will be pleased.
Abi (panicking): Mum! You can't tell Dad! 'E'll kill Jay.
Tanya: 'E won;'t 'ave to. Ah'll do it fer 'im, Abi, how could you be so styoopid, 'avin' sex wiv a no-mark like Jay and not thinking to take precaution. This is what comes of not talkin' to me before your first time!
Cora: You shoulda done that, girl. Yer mum was goin' at it like a rabbit when she was two years younger than you. She'd a showed you a few tricks. (Takes a swig from the whiskey bottle and hands it to Lauren) 'Ere ya go, love. Fancy a swallow?
The Branning girls - the epitome of spoiled brats - never cease to amaze me. I'm hard put to decide whom I hate more - the entitled, lazy, little bitch Lauren or the entitled, arrogant, self-important little bitch Abi.
As much as I dislike Tanya, Abi was well out of order the way she spoke to Tanya tonight, especially throwing Tanya's marital problems in her face with self-satisfied smugness. Abi's arse and thighs are now equal to Tanya's in their massive proportions, so she better watch her smugness, especially that level of smugness she used the following morning when she confidently and prissily bragged to Tanya about having sex with Jay.
You see, Abi, karma loves a big fat arse to bite; and while your massive arse and thunder thighs might please Jay by providing more of a cushion for the pushin', it gives karma a bigger target and more flesh to bite when you've fallen on your fat arse after you discover that two times of having unprotected sex is enough to render you up the duff, and then ... how the mighty will have fallen!
Abi is a smug, self-righteous, boring little bitch, played with utter mediocrity by a mediocre actress, who looks and sounds twelve and is tarted up to look her age -sixteen. Instead, she looks like Renee Zellwiger, who chewed a wasp which promptly stung her. Tanya is wrong - Abi is not an amazing and clever young woman. She's a naive, sixteen year-old girl who's confused sex with love. Jay is horny. He might like her now, but remember the Butcher marriage and the Fox-Miller relationship, especially since Abi is banking on going to uni.
As far as that goes, she'll have to do better than two C's and a B. Mediocre grades, especially for someone who wants to be a veterinarian.
Another instance in which Tanya is wrong is in deciding to keep this a secret from Max. A secret leads to a lie, but secrets and lies are the stuff of Tanya's life. Her entire relationship with Max the first time was an elaborate web of secrets and lies - he was a married man with a family. Her second liaision with him was the same, only that time, she was in a marriage and was unfaithful. Her cancer cold was one big secret kept with her vulnerable older daughter and a pack of lies to all on the outside world, including her other relatives. And now this. She's keeping the fact that her daughter is fucking a horny kid under the same roof that her father inhabits, and even when it's worrying her (the fact that they've had unprotected sex), she still lies to Max about Abi's whereabouts the night before.
But, hey ... Abi and Jay are in love. Have some condoms. Better yet, have a pickle, Abi. Having had Jay's pickle, you'll be craving them when you're in a pickle of your own and pregnant. Let's see what Max will have to say about that, especially since your new stepma, Kirsty, has witnessed you departing from the scene of your sex crime.
I really want to slap Abi for the mouth she has on her, for the disrespect she shows her mother, when Tanya was really right to be worried about her whereabouts, and for the disgusting way she uses Max only for money. I hope she leaves with Tanya.
Observation: Tanya should not wear any kind of skirt that shows her knees. She and Abi have seriously chunky legs, thunder thighs and bottle arses. That's not me being bitchy, that's the truth.
Bianca Morphs Into Phil Mitchell: Breaking the Law
This is Bianca's specialty:-
There I was completely wasting, out of work and down
All inside it's so frustrating, so I drift from town to town
Feel as if nobody cares if I live or die
So I might as well begin to put some action in my life
So much for the golden future, I can't even start
I've had every promise broken, there's anger in my heart (Ever the victim)
You don't know what it's like, you don't have a clue
If you did you'd find yourself doing the same thing too ...
Breakin' the law, breakin' the law ...
Bianca knows her slimey little toerag of a son, Liam the Lunk - he of the low brow and flat head - is involved in a crime. OK, he didn't mug Tamwar - one could actually say that Bianca did her share in psychologically mugging him - but he's guarding the stash of cash in his moneybelt. And now the police want to speak to Bianca about Liam.
Bianca's no fool. She knows the bizzies aren't coming around for some biscuits and a cuppa. They have reason to believe Liam's involved with the drama school kids practicing for their school's production of West Side Story ...
Liam hasn't as much got a rocket in his pocket as he has a pea for a brain, but then Bianca isn't the brightest lightbulb in the pack either. She and Carol exhibit their total chav mentality by refusing to believe that, even though Liam pilfered the school's stationery and forged a letter praising himself and her (feeding her enormous chav ego), she still finds it hard to believe he'd be involved in the mugging of a neighbour.
She's not without her Greek choruses, however. It seems Shirley's been relegated to the position of occasional popper-upper with sound advice - offering some words of wisdom to Kat in the wake of Alfie coming to his senses and throwing her out on the street where she belongs; coming up with the same for Bianca, parent-to-parent, when Bianca's discovered Liam's truancy. (Of course, Shirley was a paragon of parenting, wasn't she?)
And there she is tonight, randomly in the launderette, informing Bianca that Liam's in with a rough crowd .. "dodgy" she calls them. Shirley should know rough when she sees it, but Bianca blows off her advice in her arrogance. Liam's not involved. He's being bullied, that's all.
Exit Shirley and enter Dot, in full Matriarch mode. It's amazing how Dot can be staring down eviction and yet offer words of wisdom to Bianca, and these were words of wisdom. Liam's not a bad boy. There's good and bad in all people, and sometimes good people do bad things. When that happens, a person should step up to the plate and take responsibility for his actions, even if it hurts him. There was an excellent reference Dot made to Nick - good continuity here, because in the early days of EastEnders, Dot was presented as an abysmal parent, and now she acknowledges it.
She taught Nick that he could always depend on his Ma to get him out of a scrape. So she went from soothing a crying baby, to dodging the police for him. She even went so far one time as to buy heroin for him. The moral of her story? Bianca should encourage Liam to accept responsibility, because she's not always going to be around to protect him.
So what does Bianca do? Why the same thing Phil Mitchell did after Ben killed Heather? Hide the evidence and lie through his teeth for Ben. Now let's hear the boo-boys have a go at Bianca, because she's now no better than "Philth", himself. In fact, she's worse. For all he's done, Phil has no criminal record and he has a damned good lawyer on his side. Bianca has neither. And she does have form; so if the bizzies find she's been lying for Liam the Lunk, not only will he go to YOP, she'll go back inside ... this time, for perverting the course of justice.
One wonders at creepy Steve's taste - a probation officer getting involved with a thoroughly chav family. Does he think he'll better their circumstances? Is he like Gladstone, ministering to the fallen women of London?
Two-and-a-Half Men
Not much to say about the Masoods, except nothing happened ... but this: I like the quiet dynamic that's building between Tamwar and Lucy. Surprisingly enough, this is how relationships often begin in real life - not something sudden, earth-shattering and mind-blowing, not a brilliant ray of light, but quietly developing - a question here, a question there, a gesture, a look. Today we've reached the exchanged look part. I'm patient. If this develops into a friendship and a relationship subsequently, it will be one to last. I like Lucy away from her shitty, entitled and selfish friends, Lauren the Lip and Twitney; and I like Tamwar with Lucy.
Please ... Just Go
This is a song for Kim ...
Just go now.
This was a secret sex episode - Abi and Jay skulking about, Ian creeping out of Denise's at the crack of dawn, Roxy stripping under the covers to ease Alfie's tension ...
The Mystery of the Man's Belt, an unfunny vignette where Kim tries to guess the identity of the man sleeping with Denise by matching the belt to the man was distinctly unfunny; but Kim added to the already-established truth that Ian Beale's bedroom performances leave a lot to be desired in the pithy way she treated any assumption that he could have slept with Denise.
Denise seemed satisfied, but you wonder if she mentally compared him with Arthur's performance last year, considering that she was a cougar who came back for more, until she became ashamed of the age disparity and called a halt to the proceedings. Maybe she thinks the entertainment will get better.
Whilst I'm glad to see Denise and Ian move centre stage and like, overall, the idea of them together, I'm wary of that. Any union with Ian Beale is the kiss of death for any woman. There's only one place Denise will go after this, and if Yam Man is made a regular (and he's a hunk of the right age demographic), we can imagine into whose arms she'll run on the sly. Myself, I'd rather not see Ian embark on yet another relationship. I'd like him to have had some time on his own, considering what he's suffered, and build on his relationship with the children who live with him. But as they rushed Alfie into a rebound relationship with Roxy (and ruined something which had potential last year), they've rushed Ian into this with Denise - mostly, I think, to give the actors (two of the most accomplished in the programme) something to do. And that's sad that TPTB can think of nothing more to give these people.
Two Desperate Women and a Major Cock-Up by the Writing Room
Roxy's desperate, because she's insecure. She knows Alfie still has a lot to sort with Kat in the wake of this divorce, and she's not exactly convinced the divorce will happen. Kirsty's desperate because her husband's ex is still skanking around Walford too. You'd think these two would have something in common about which they could commiserate with each other; instead, they're at loggerheads.
Alfie, however, is genuinely distracted, because he's learned from his solicitor that he has no rights to Tommy because he's not the child's biological father.
Fucking poppycock.
EastEnders, and Simon Ashdown fucked this story over.
Cast your mind back to January 2011, the day Alfie and Jack had to go register the births of James and Tommy.
This is the law: If a couple are married, no matter who the birth father of the child is, the woman's husband is listed ON THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE as the child's father, and becomes the LEGAL father.
That is the law. That is why Phil Mitchell had to go to court to claim Louise back from Social Services, because Mark Fowler was on her birth certificate as Louise's father, and the Social was about to send her to live with her legal next-of-kin, Martin Fowler, in Manchester.
If a woman is married, she or her husband can register a child's birth. If a woman is unmarried and she wants her child to have her partner's surname, the partner in question has to attend the registry office with her or give her a signed, sworn statement to agree to this in absentia.
The gist of this preamble? There is absolutely no fucking way Alfie would have been able to register Michael Moon as Tommy's father, which is what he did on that day. It simply could not be done; and if any smartarse is saying he pretended to be Michael, he couldn't have - because you have to show identification when you register the child.
Please understand this, because some numpties on Digital Spy are wondering if an auntie or a cousin or an uncle can register a child's birth.
They simply can't. And EastEnders ballsed this up bigtime by either not doing research or by making shit up as they go along in order to fit the storyline.
Anyway, even though she wasn't there, the Alfie-Roxy dynamic is still being controlled by Saint Kat, so Roxy is presented as even more of a bitch, who isn't in the least concerned that Alfie wants to fight for Tommy, she just wants him to help out behind the bar.
Kabuki theatre ... for an entire year ...
Even in Japanese, it's more interesting than this year-long piece of tripe, whose ending we already know. I just hate the thought of Roxy being sacrificed at the altar of all things Kat.
Better episode than the rest this week, but nothing to write home about.
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