I guess we're all addicts now, as bad as a lot of the addictions depicted on EastEnders at the moment. Tonight's episode featured addicts all around, some who don't even know they're addicts - from recovering addicts (Phil) to unrecognised addicts (Kim, Tanya, Cora) to pill-popping addicts (Sharon) to sex addicts (Max and Jack) to religious fanatics (Dot) to addicts in denial (Lauren), they were all out in force tonight,
But then, we're also addicts too, those of us who recognise that this just isn't the show it used to be, but we still keep watching the tripe anyway. Last night, after a long and tiring work week, I was too knackered to sit and watch something in which I'm finding it increasingly difficult to invest, so I turned on BBC2 instead, and feel asleep to the drone of an informative documentary about a 16th Century political thug, Thomas Cromwell. I feel asleep because I was tired, not bored.
As one historian noted recently, the Tudors were a living, breathing soap opera, because all those people lived and breathed, and the sensationalism they endured was a product of the times. Today, it seems that even the best imagination of the EastEnders' writing room comes across as mediocre at the best.
This show is aimed at teenagers, when most of the population of this country isn't. Ian Dury's song has lyrics which could have been written for EastEnders in its present state ...
Keep your silly ways, or throw them out the window
The wisdom of your ways, I've been there and I know
Lots of other ways, what a jolly bad show
If all you ever do is business you don't like.
Here's a silly piece of advice
You're quite welcome, it is free
Don't do nothing that is cut price
You know what that'll make you be
They will try their tricky device
Trick you with the ordinary
Get your teeth into a small slice
The cake of liberty.
I think we've sussed it as an audience: We're being tricked with the ordinary and being told that this is the best there is.
The Girl with the Gun Tattoo.
Kirsty has a tattoo of a gun on the inside of her right wrist.
Ugh!
How fucking common! I'm not one who's heavily into what's called body art these days, but there's nothing more unattractive than a middle-aged or elderly woman with wrinkly tattoos on their bodies. Kirsty may be in her thirties now, but she won't always be, and the tattoo will age with her.
It will be bad enough for her child to be confronted in polite society by a mother with a tattoo emblazoned on her arm, but the tattoo of a gun is just sick.
What is its significance? A gun, in literature and popular society, has long been identified as a phallic symbol ... Happiness is a warm gun and all that, the happiness and the phallic warm gun being supplied her at the moment by Max.
I find Max's three wives an irony. Rachel was his first teenaged impregnated wife, and she was clearly from a middle-class background, something to which Max obviously aspired. Tanya, his second wife, was as much poor white trash as he was, but he scrubbed her up, and together, they presented a middle class facade to down-market Walford. Now, nearing middle age, himself, he's returned to his roots, where he now acknowledges his comfort zone, and has settled down with the trashiest of white trash queens, Kirsty ... or Krusty, as she's fondly known on the IMDB forum.
Krusty's got a past which matches the gun tattoo on her inner forearm. Her ex-boyfriend Carl-with-a-C (as opposed to Corrie's Karl-with-a-K) is about to be released from prison, and his brother keeps contacting her, saying Carl-with-a-C wants to see her. This, plus the fact that she's living a lie about her pregnancy, is taking a toll on Krusty.
She's under pressure ...
Come to think of it, there was a Kirsty on Corrie too ...oh yeah, she's in prison.
Max the Knife
Yeah, he's a-sneakin' round the corner ... with his Jack-knife ... babe.
Max the tough. The Branning bruvs are back.
Remember that frightening hair-raiser of Jack being kidnapped by Harry Gold, only to be revealed to be in the boot of Max's car all along ... what a stag night trick.
Max the Protector, protecting his wife and the child that doesn't exist. Everyone talks about how Phil Mitchell doesn't use his fists as much as he uses a baseball bat, but Max's weapon is Jack the knife. Max wants to stop Krusty getting bothersome phone calls, so he and Jack pay Adam, Carl-with-a-C's brother a little visit, in yet another embarrassing fight scene, complete with mattress placed conveniently on the ground so Adam can fall easily.
The scene of Max standing on the grass verge outside a council estate wearing shades and smoking a ciggie was almost laughable in its attempt to be iconic. Equally as laughable were Max;s appalling table manners.
And carrots ... why was everyone chopping and cooking carrots in the episode? Was Ian Beale offering a special on carrots on the market?
Alone Again Naturally.
Fat Barbie, of course.
When did Sharon become so excessively needy? Granted, she still has a soupcon of her pride, which enables her to put a face on her current troubles, but - Jesus Christ - the writing room have made a right cock-up of this iconic, original character.
I'm glad Letitia Dean is stepping back temporarily from this mishmash of what this millennial bunch of storyliners and piss poor writers, who've fashioned an absolutely appalling character, but one who fits in with the latest dynamic of weak-willed, overly man-dependent and patently stupid bunch of women characters on this show. I'm even gladder that Dean has recognised what a shit character NuSharon is, and has politely requested that Ms Newman and Co "sort it" for Sharon while she's on break.
Yes, Sharon belongs with Phil - if not Grant, and - as yet - there's been no sight of Grant on the horizon. I do believe that one of the best storylines that can occur in the programme is for Sharon to get with Phil (finally) and for Grant to return and for there to be a Sharongate in reverse.
As for Saint Dennis and Sharon finding out Phil's "secret," as they say in Brooklyn, fuggedaboudit.
It simply ain't gonna happen.
So Digital Spy Shannistas and people who aren't thinking critically should just shut the fuck up about "the secret." No one knows.
Dennis knew that Phil spoke to him, and he's dead. Besides, Dennis was a thirtysomething man with a pregnant wife, who had the intellectual and emotional level of a fourteen year-old. He made an incredibly wrong decision to pursue a dangerous man who'd threatened his wife. He lost. Get over it. (Besides, Letitia Dean doesn't even remember the plotline about Phil speaking to Dennis).
Jonnie Allen probably knew, but he's dead too.
Danny Moon may have known, and - guess what? - he's dead.
Peggy and Grant know, but they're not around, and may not even return. Granted, if one of them do, there's a possibility it will be accidentaly (on purpose) revealed, but until that time, no.
And no need of people speculating that Phil revealed all concerning this to that non-love of his life, Shirley. He didn't. Had he done so, she would have blabbed about it now and taken pleasure in doing so.
The fact that Sharon's still desperate to get back with Phil, hinting about how quiet his house must be, even using her son's predicament to prey on Phil's conscience. No doubt, Phil does love Sharon, and no doubt he's disappointed in finding out that she's got an addiction problem. He isn't being too harsh, it's just a jolt to his ideals that a woman he's loved forever and even idolised is revealed to possess the same feet of clay as he does. He also knows, as a recovering addict, himself, that she's got to want and seek help, herself, and she's got to realise that, herself.
Dean's asked that her character be restored to the strength that was Sharon's single recogniseable trait. I hope Newman and Co take this on board. The clingy, needy, over-dependent Sharon has been a trial to watch, especially knowing that Jack Branning's jilting of her caused this latest crisis. And please, wherever she goes to take her break, can she please leave Denny there? Another and a big part of the problem with Sharon this time around, for long-term fans, has been the fact that she has a son. Even her parenting has been inconsistent - introduced as a neurotic, over-protective mother, she degenerated into someone who appeared forget for long periods that she even had a son. The son, too, was annoying - a fey, pretty boy (much like his over-hyped father) who was a classic stage school kid.
Consider this: It was said that Tony Jordan, who wrote and storylined the majority of episodes surrounding the return of the Mitchell brothers in late 2005 and the reveal of Chrissie Watts as Den's murderer, wanted to capitalise on Sharon and Grant being in the same place at the same time, and have Sharon cheat on Saint Dennis with Grant. The story goes that Jordan's idea would have seen Sharon tell Grant about her abortion, Grant to go beetle-browed, break a few plates, chase Sharon around the table in the Vic kitchen, before both succumbed to each other's desires and indulged in a session of angry, make-up sex behind Saint Dennis's back.
Sharon would elect to stay with Dennis. Grant would depart and Sharon would discover she was pregnant ... with Grant's child, which Saint Dennis would die, believing to be his.
That idea was poo-poohed by none other than Kate Harwood, then the EP, for fear of offending the Shannistas.
But, I ask you, consider the significance of having given Jordan the freedom to pursue this storyline, with Sharon now returning to Walford with Grant Mitchell's son.
Instead, we have Dennis Rickman's son about to fill Ben's dancing shoes.
Making Up for Lost Time
Yes, it's a shame about Ray. A totally retconned character, but one with scores of potential, which was wasted. Ray was a genuinely positive male role model, whom the lazy writers allowed to degenerate into a pathetically stereotypical white man's version of a sex-fuelled, street-suss, misogynistic, angry black man: a suspect in the Shaggerman storyline, the object of the dire and unfunny Kim's sexual desires, ultimately a love rat and a liar.
Let's be honest: TPTB are shoving Black Man I aside to make way for Black Man II, Sam the Sham, who's going to be part of The Magic Negro dynamic, a Big Cock to compliment her strutting Little Cock - honestly, getting one Negro off the ethnic quota to fill that position with another.
If I were Tameka Empson, I'd be looking over my shoulder, now that Clare Perkins seems to be Newman's particular pet.
So after watching Ray's character degenerate over the past year, and stagnate, our screens are now going to be rush-filled for the next week, with Ray agonising over leaving Walford to be with his weird daughter Sasha - with no thought of the fact that he has a son, Mowgan Le Fat, in Walford. No mention of Mowgan at all, he's just off to be with Sasha ... with Kim in tow, or so he thinks.
What an insulting end and tenure for a good actor like Chucky Venn.
Pantomime Dame
Dot's got another non-story. Well, it's going to attempt to emulate the sort of humour Dad's Army and the like engendered years ago, but until then, we've got Dot in all her Chrisian arrogance, making capital about a fellow parishioner who was less than honest in her church duties, with Dot milking the situation to present herself as one more worthy of the role, and her fanbase, Fatboy and Poopy Le Dim, building her ever-increasing ego.
Dot prides herself on being a Christian, when her biggest sin, itself, is pride.
Alcoholics Anonymous
First of all, I feel no sympathy for Lauren, and tonight's featured vignette was Newman's attempt to get the major part of the viewing audience on Lauren's side. She's an extremely unlikeable and unpopular character, played by
THE. WORST. ACTRESS. EVER. IN. EASTENDERS.
Also, I'm not at all impressed with Jossa's acting, which is pretty poor, and she's an actress who seems all too conscious that the camera is on her, and she likes that. She over-acts, over-enunciates, over uses her arms and facial expressions and she gurns, which is most annoying.
She still hasn't learned that stage mannerisms aren't necessary in the medium of film or television, and I'm surprised someone on the production team hasn't apprised her of that situation. Still, Newman thinks she's beautiful, and Newman likes pretty people, and hopes that Jossa can gain some genuine fans outside of the retard contingent like xTonix, the pre-pubescent boys who wank to Jossa's picture and the actress's numerous family members.
Let's emphasise the stupid aspect: Cora the Bora, who is so not a matriarch that even her immediate family don't respond to the shit she spews masquerading as wise words of wisdom. Cora warns Lauren about the worrying aspect of being a parent, when Cora the Bora didn't give a rat's arse enough about her daughters to right their foibles. No, she was off getting a permanent buzz at the local brewery.
Tanya keeps going on about Joey, and Lauren keeps referring to him as her cousin, wondering why he doesn't return her calls. Maybe it's just dawned on the dumbass that they're cousins, and cousins shouldn't fuck around with each other.
Doing so, would present Max and Tanya with a grandchild who'd look like this ...
Cora's words of wisdom to Lauren were that Tanya sometimes said things that came out the wrong way ... just like you, Cora, and that's when you're both sober. Sober, doesn't that reflect stupidity on Tanya's part?
Everything about her, in dealing with this situation, is stupid and hypocritical. Yes, she'd suspect Lauren's early morning shopping spree to have been a booze run, yet it wasn't that long ago, that Tanya woke on a morning after a booze-filled night before to find Phil Mitchell in her bed. Cora starts to drink the moment she leaves the house for the launderette. She kept a bottle of booze in the backroom of the charity shop and she keeps one in the backroom of the launderette. She was sucking on a flask on the way to Derek's funeral, where she delivered a drunken address.
Tanya uses the slightest excuse to suck on a bottle. She was guzzling wine whilst doing The Magic Negro's nails just the other day, and Cora props the bar at the Vic.
Awwww, and not only do the viewers not like Lauren, but Lauren has no fwiends now either. Neither Whitney the Walford Mattress nor Bag o'Bones Beale want to know her.
The worst thing Tanya could do to Lauren, she did - hand her money, and tell her to buy a bottle of wine to consume with her (imaginary) friend.
One thing ... Cora remarked that Lauren reminded her of "someone else" she knew at that age, implying Tanya. This is the second time it's been mentioned that Lauren is behaving the exact same way Tanya did at nineteen.
Once again, it's down to a viewer to remind TPTB that when she was nineteen, Tanya was a wife and mother.
One other piece of retconning tonight ... Jim Branning never had an allotment. That shed and allotment belonged, originally, to Arthur Fowler. A few years after Arthur's death, it was acquired by Charlie Slater, but it never ever belonged to the Branning family and not to Jim, although it seemed that anyone and everyone used that garden shed for some sort of purpose. Whitney spent a night there, I recall. Martin Fowler and Carly Wicks copulated there, and Trina was killed and left to rot there by Lucas.
Yuck.
Still, the scene of Patrick playing paterfamilias ex-Walfordium was sweet, even if it were wasted on the non-talent that is Jossa. As for her remark about Patrick's non-relationship with Cora, is that another off-screen wonder, like Carol's established sex life with creepy Steve was? We haven't seen Cora the Bora go around Patrick in months, so why would he even remember what her kisses were like? I'd have thought he'd have wanted to forget, and is Patrick so down on his charm offensive that the only thing he can attract is a wizened and wheezing, putrid old drunken turd like Cora the Bora?
Jim got a reference tonight. Strange, how Jim's condition changes depending on who's doing the visiting. Dot implied weeks ago, that Jim was barely compos mentis; yet Patrick implied in this episode that Jim, although he couldn't speak, understood everything enough to have his face light up at the mention of Lauren's name. Strange that, since Lauren had very little to do with either of her paternal grandparents in the days when she was a lollipophead (Duggan); it was more Abi who was always at Granddad Jim's and Grandma Dot's.
And is widdle Wauren dwinking because he cousin doesn't wanna fuck her anymore? This was not a grand lovestory, except for Newman, who gurgled stupidly about how beautiful Joey and Lauren were together. The public didn't buy it, so don't come fishing for our sympathy vote.
And, yes, Lauren is as much an addict as everyone else in the Square. The most honest piece of dialogue came from her collagened lips when she confronted Tanya about her pathetic state.
She drinks because she likes it, which is the reason behind most alcoholics' perceived problems. For Tanya to bring up Rainie was the height of hypocrisy. Lauren's alcohol-related behaviour she learned from observing her mother, her aunt and her putrid grandmother, all of whom have drink addictions. If EastEnders is going to address Lauren's alcoholism responsibly, they have to include the fact that Tanya, Raine and Cora are also alcoholics. Rainie has admitted her addiction, sought help and recognised that it's fed incessantly and encouraged by her mother and sister to such a degree, she can no longer be around them. This is a generational problem for the Cross women as much as it is for the Mitchells. And the way The Magic Negro was knocking back the wine in front of Billy the other night, I'd say the only thing she inherited from Cora the Bora was the alcohol addiction gene.
Not a brilliant episode, but you get the feeling that we're slowly creeping down the road to a real couple of storylines in the future.
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