Shades of Mediocrity - Review: 16.09.2013

Back to life, back to reality ... and the reality is that mediocrity, and its safeness, abounds and is the norm in EastEnders these days. A poor script by a poor writer, Carey Andrews, which was predictable and featured most of the show's characters at their unlikeable worst.

Presently, there's an interesting link currently on Digital Spy (and surprisingly well-spelt, considering Digital Spy's usual fare - Will Alfie and Kat Be the Vilon (I ask you)), wondering why Emmerdale is currently beating EastEnders in the ratings.

That's easily answered: Emmerdale has better storylines, is better acted and is better written all around. Simples.

One week of pandering to a particular demographic with a fetish for psychopathia isn't the way to gain viewers and influence the viewing public.

To her credit (and also to her detriment), Newman staked out her intentions and cack-handedly went about achieving them - making heretofore pejorative characters ruined by other EPs (but Newman's favourites) have public epiphanies and making their redemption as simplistic as that of mediaeval saints' tales. Kat, Lauren and now the ultimate psychopath Ronnie have been or are all being sanctified.

There'll be a Holy Grail for Walford in the near future. I can't wait.

The Girl with Half a Brain.

Is there a witch on Waford Square? I mean a witch as in cackling, broomstick-riding, spell-inducing witch? Because it seems that Flabbi the Dough-Faced Girl woke up with Lauren's attitude and Lauren woke up doing a passable impersonation of Daddy's Widdle Girl.

Lauren's belief in Max's innocence has never wavered, yet Flabbi the Dough-Faced Girl is adamant that he's guilty as accused and must be punished. Even more unusual is the fact that Flabbi is flapping on about telling Tanya, even running off to stay with Tanya, when normally it would be Lauren making these sorts of noises.

So what gives?

Well, it's obvious that this is part and parcel of the on-going redemption of Lauren Branning, who's gone back into full gurning mode. Flabbi has been going down the shallow bitch route for quite sometime, so the remark she made about being the only person in the Branning family with half a brain is telling. Ironically, it must mean that the Brannings - Jack, Kirsty, and Lauren - have their full quota of brain cells, as they believe Max to be innocent. Flabbi really does have half-a-brain.

Her other mistaken assumption is that all of this to-do with Max is based on his chasing skirt, when Max is doing what he's doing to protect Lauren - and that defeats Flabbi's assumption too, because Max, believe it or not, in his own way, always had Flabbi, Lauren and Bradley in his thoughts. Nice to get a mention of Bradders, instead of Oscar.

The other interesting dynamic in this situation is how Flabbi is suddenly blaming a lot of Max's troubles on Lauren's prior actions.

The Awful Truth.

Line of the night goes to Michael Moon, in a conversation with Jack:-

She's a functioning psychopath!

Well, it takes one to know one. And he spoke the truth. That coy little scene where RoNostril  slinks out of Jack's flat, with that arrogant, little secret smile she cultivated all throughout her obsession with Jack before. Manipulation, pure manipulation; and RoNostril triumphant because she knows she's got another sucker onside.

Flabbi the Dough-Faced Girl thinks Max's brain is in his trousers; it must be hereditary, because Jack's brain is clearly located in his groin. This is the woman who lied to him in the biggest way for four months, led him to believe his son was alive, flaunted the child in front of his real parents. This is the woman who began divorce proceedings immediately she went into prison. She dumped Jack, pure and simple. And she never wanted to hear from him until she heard he might be getting married again. Now she's out and she's sucked him into her little game, and she knows she's in a position of control.

For the simple-minded soul on Digital Spy who's using a personal experience to denigrate every person who's ever assumed parenthood for someone else's child, the fact that Michael Moon carried Tommy downstairs and even referred to him as his son does not make him the child's father. Michael idenitifies with one child in the piece, and that's Scarlett. Time and again, he's reiterated that Tommy is Alfie's son and has stood back. The episode earlier in the summer where he told a two year-old of  his real identity (which made zero impact on the child) was one of the worst continuity pieces ever in the history of the programme. It was gratuitous and it served no purpose.

However, Michael Moon is what he says he is - euphemistically, "one of the difficult ones", but in speaking of RoNostril, with whom he identifies, he's more specific. Both are, indeed, functioning psychopaths. And as Jack, as Michael also identifies him, is Michael's oldest friend, someone on whom Michael, in his psychopathic way, also obsesses, he's warning him of RoNostril's true nature. He's telling him, in his own way, that RoNostril is narcissistic, obsessive, control-minded, cold-natured and cares only about herself and her own desires.

Jack should listen.

Obviously, the whole idea of her return is to pander to her insipid fanbase, but this character is also very divisive; and she's committed a crime against a child. The scene with Lexi tonight had one purpose and one purpose only - as does the return of the Ice Queen: not only to redeem RoNostril, but also to wipe away all the bad effects of the babyswap storyline.

Fact: A helluva lot of people stopped watching the show after that storyline, many of whom were devoted viewers, who thought this storyline was one step too far. Fact: The show's never recovered from this.

So, here we have RoNostril's return, all strong and mended, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, faster than a speeding locomotive, more powerful than a bullet, knocking all and sundry from her path, eviscerating some iconic characters and mind-numbing others in an effort to say, not only that EastEnders 2.0 rules, but also that the babyswap storyline is over because, hey, the mother of the kidnapped child has forgiven the perp - as you're supposed to do in EastEnders' fantasyland. In EastEnders fantasyland, they've made up their own laws. So the husband of a woman who has a baby whilst married to him doesn't have to go on the birth certificate, he can just put the birth father's name down, without his permission. That could never EVER happen, so the nicnac woman should just stick to nicnacs and realise that viewers formery liked EastEnders' realism, not Kirkwood's and Newman's incessant pandering to pretty people and shallow viewers.

So the babyswap is trivialised and poor pitiful RoNostril becomes the victim, forgiven by Lola, whose reaction was realistic last week, when all it took was seeing RoNostril do her party piece of gulping loudly for air, to realise that - wow, she's fairmly.

I still like Billy I'm-A-Mitchell Mitchell not being able to stand up to Janine. Good. Now I want to see Janine headbut the lineless forehead.

Kidneygate II - The Magic Negro.

Yes, folks, there's about to be another Kidneygate, back by popular demand,and concerning those immensely popular characters - Ava the Magic Negro, Sam the Sham and Dex-TAAAAA.

Cue mysterious music ...

OMIGOD, something's wrong with Sam. He was supposed to fix Kat's drip, but didn't. (Psssst, Sam needs a kidney). And Ava needs a kick up her wide arse. It's school time again, and all she seems to be doing is ordering a coffee in the cafe and drining gins and tonics at the bar of the Vic.

That's how you know school has started in Walford - when the Magic Negro walks the streets.

Good-Bye Creepy Jean.

The moral of this story is that Kat doesn't always know everything, and sometimes Roxy's right.

Kat is being over-protective of Jean, but she's also being a passive-aggressive bully in her own right. She's now convinced herself that because Alfie's with Roxy, there's no one for her, and she envies Jean her new love; so she's convinced Jean that he's not right for her, because he doesn't "understand" Jean's medical condition.

Yes, Kat loves Jean, but this is what is meant by choosing your life partner over your family. Sometimes, ofttimes, this has to happen. Jean loves Ollie, and it's obvious that he loves her.

One thing I won't miss, however, is Jean using her medical condition as a free-for-all to say what she thinks, however tactless, to some characters. In that scene where she was ironing linens for Ian's restaurant and talking at Lucy, she was saying some truly awful things, not only about Ian but about Lucy as well, when Lucy was having a real moral dilemma about having to confront Janine's tenants about raising their rents. Instead, Jean uses this opportunity to diss Ian and Lucy, herself, for assumed greed and single-mindedness.

She then berates herself for allegedly passing onto Saint Stacey her bi-polar condition. Well, at least Lucy Beale's never killed anyone, and we know that Stacey's killing of Archie had nothing whatsoever to do with her bi-polar condition.

It's a sad episode when Jean and Ollie were the most watchable characters.

Back to the same old same old.