Here was a really big week in SoapLand, a week featuring love and death, amongst other things - or, as the French would say l'amour et la mort.
Along with Britain's Got Talent, the Big Two pulled out all the stops - EastEnders had the aftermath of the mother-and-child reunion, with their own version of The Beverly Hillbillies, the Carters, followed by their Deliverance cousins, the Butcher-Beale-Jacksons, preparing for a wedding that wasn't, complete with a mutton-dressed-as-lamb bride and a bubba groom.
Meanwhile, just up the M1, Corrie was showing us what one should do with a gobby, self-righteous, little mare who positioned herself as the moral arbitre of a community only to end up breaking up a marriage by an affair with a much older man. Stuart Blackburn killed offMancStacey Tina in a double blow. As someone remarked, she survived one accident, only to meet her end by the efforts of her big gob. Too bad Tanya never had a brother.
EastEnders had yet another good episode. What a shame the viewing figures don't reveal it.
The Addams Family of Walford.
Thus was Dean's description of his relatives. Scary? Well, Shirley Queen of Scrotes certainly can be, but Mick Prince of Dicks can veer between charming niceness and utter ugly entitlement bordering on bitter jealousy as we saw in this episode.
I've sussed Stan. His mojo is "divide and conquer." He wants to pit Dean against Mick, just to watch Shirley's torment. Once again, however, Team Dean comes out on top. Fair dos, however, to Mick. He recognises the money Stan provided was a loan. Queen Shirley is still bleating on and on about Stan "owing" them the money for the way he treated them? What did he do, precisely? Max Branning's father nailed him inside a box for a night, and I don't see Max with his hand out for money to which he reckons he's entitled from Jim. Pete Beale was a crap dad to both his boys, but neither of them ever demanded money due for lax parenting?
He never beat his children, he didn't sexually abuse them. He was a drunk,and after the wife left, he found he couldn't cope with the demands of three children... but we know better.
Shirley, Queen of Scrotes, the patron saint of whining self-perpetuating victims who never claim responsibility for their own actions and use any action against them in the past to validate their own vile behaviour in the present.
Shirley thinks they are "owed" Stan's money, which is rich; but Linda was worse tonight. She thought they were entitled to it. At least, Mick recognised that Stan loaned them the money; his rationale was surprise that Stan wanted it back so quickly. In truth, I don't think Mick really intended repaying theh debt, rather he thought Stan would conveniently forget that over time as long as they provided him with a roof over his head, a warm meal and the odd brew. But Mick was tinged with jealousy as well, thinking that Stan was actually investing in Dean by giving him the money to start his own business, at the expense of Dean.
I wonder if Mick would have reacted so adversely if Stan had reclaimed the money in order to give it to Lee or to help Johnny with his uni fees? I don't think so.
Shirley was even worse. When presented with Stan's intentions, she was conflicted for precisely one minute, before she was back bleating on against Stan to Mick. I hated how she used the phrases "our home" and "our business" as if she made everything possible for them, when in truth, she revealed their own naivete and inexperience, for all the years spent managing Elaine's pub - buying a creaking old pub without a survey or solicitors. If she'd put them onto a sound property and had they gone the proper route, they would have had no need for Stan's money.
Stan did this deliberately and for a reason. He wants both of Shirley's sons there with her smack dab in the middle, forcing her to choose between the pair - Mick,the son who was raised as her brother, and Dean, her real son, whom she willfully abandoned. This is Shirley's last chance saloon to prove herself as a mother of sorts. Shirley wouldn't even defend Dean against Linda second-guessing a lad she doesn't even know when Linda maligned Dean by saying he'd take Stan's money and run with it.
You saw what he was like in'ere yesterday.
As if Dean were in the wrong. Sorry, Linda, but Dean wasn't the one stinking up the pub on Monday. Shirley said absolutely nothing. If a relative by marriage made a character assumption about one of my kids like that, she'd certainly answer to me.
And now we get a little closer to Shirley's psyche as a mother, or rather a non-mother, when we hear a bit more about the drowning episode. Mick was a baby who got caught up in he family's redecorating the flat. He got red paint on him, and Shirley ran a bath to wash it off him. But Mick, being a baby, didn't like the water and started thrashing his fists about ... you can surmise the rest. Shirl, never the most patient of people, lost her cool and tried to drown him. So the drowning escapade was a good old fit of Shirley's temper, which hasn't matured all that much since adolescence.
Consider this: Shirley was fourteen when Mick was born, but she wasn't much older - seventeen - when she was married to Kevin and a mother to Jimbo. She spoke the truth, at last, tonight, when she admitted to Mick that she wasn't cut out to be a mother, and I would suppose that therein lies the reason she abandoned her three other children and why she lost her rag and tried to drown Mick. Some people aren't cut out to be parents, and Shirley's failed epically on two grand occasions.
But she's exonerated from this claim by Mick, who points out that Shirl wasn't a mum, and how heavy hang those words. And if I had a pound coin for every time a character admonished another with the phrase "no more lies," I'd be wealthy. The Carter dynamic, like everyone else in Walford, is based on lies.
Line of the night - Dean referring to the rest of that lot as "the Addams family." I'm still Team Dean, and I hope he rocks up on their doorstep just to incur Mick's insecurities and jealousies (because deep down, Crown Prince Mick knows Shirley is his mother), but I think, somehow, that Dean is going to chew the entire dynamic up and spit it right back in their faces.
I am so Team Dean in this one, especially watching the Carters sniping after Stan and trash-talking him as soon as he's out of the way. I'm going to enjoy watching Stan pull strings.
The Addams Family? Nope. More along the lines of ...
Can't you just see Shirley's miserable mug sat atop that truck in the rocking chair?
The Deliverance Wedding.
Carol's waited thirty-seven years and fifty-nine men to get to this moment. She's bought a white dress, to signify her status as a self-perpetuating virgin, whilst giving a good imitation of mutton dressed as lamb.
It used to amuse me how Tanya used to buy a brand new white wedding dress for whatever annual wedding she planned on having. These women amaze me, with their man-dependency juxtaposed with their so-called self-imagery as strong women.
Carol is such a miserable scrote of a woman, and David, Beale that he is, is looking for a mummy figure with whom he can have some comfort sex.
This was the wedding that wasn't, and the end of the Great Carol-and-David retcon, which tonight, included a photoshopped picture of a teenaged Lindsey Coulson with a spotty-faced Michael French. Carol and David hung out together, but it was never a great romance, and Carol shared her favours with several other young swains. When David got her up the duff, he conned the money for an abortion out of Pete, she took it, had her three older brothers (Carol had three older brothers when she related the story to Pat and Pauline twenty years ago) beat David up and run him out of the area. But this was never a great romance.
Even if we hadn't any idea of what was about to happen to David, you would know from the innate happiness radiated by Carol, that this was only ever going to end in tears. And the foreshadowing - talk about laying it on thick! Especially near the end, when Morgan broke the "something borrowed" caketop piece, splitting the happy couple in half. (On a more subtle note, as this was Sonia's wedding present, that's also a foreshadowing of what's in store for The Sellf-Righteous One and much-maligned Martin). Then, we watched Carol knot David's tie in an increasingly tighter knot as she sat in the car awaiting his return, and with every tightening of it, we watched David - ironically on the opposite side of the hedge separating the green from the actual Square, David collapsed in a heap, suffering a heart attack. The irony of all of that was David had to suffer an "attack of the heart" to save him from the binding a committed heart attachment and the damage it would do, not only to him, but also to Carol.
I don't think David will die, but I do think this is the end of David and Carol and the departure of Michael French, who will be sorely missed.
Mrs Malaprop's Surprise.
Just as one Village Idiot is leaving, is another about to return?
Surprise of the night - seeing Honey again! That was nice. What wasn't so nice is that Billy is stealing from an employer again. Has there ever been a time when he hasn't? He stole from Billy when he worked for him previously. Then he stole from Janine. Now he's back stealing from Ian again. Billy points out that there's only one wage coming into the household at the moment. Wait a moment - Peter lives there. Doesn't Peter at least contribute to the housekeeping, chipping in on food etc?
And ...
I'm glad they're pulling away from Ian's grief somewhat, and Sharon was shown at her best tonight, with Ian and lastly, with David and another reminiscence of Pat and an unspoken thought about Dennis. Sharon saying she didn't have a second chance at happiness ... hmmm, with a certain Mr Kemp waxing nostalgic about his days at EastEnders recently, might Sharon just have that chance?
Along with Britain's Got Talent, the Big Two pulled out all the stops - EastEnders had the aftermath of the mother-and-child reunion, with their own version of The Beverly Hillbillies, the Carters, followed by their Deliverance cousins, the Butcher-Beale-Jacksons, preparing for a wedding that wasn't, complete with a mutton-dressed-as-lamb bride and a bubba groom.
Meanwhile, just up the M1, Corrie was showing us what one should do with a gobby, self-righteous, little mare who positioned herself as the moral arbitre of a community only to end up breaking up a marriage by an affair with a much older man. Stuart Blackburn killed off
EastEnders had yet another good episode. What a shame the viewing figures don't reveal it.
The Addams Family of Walford.
Thus was Dean's description of his relatives. Scary? Well, Shirley Queen of Scrotes certainly can be, but Mick Prince of Dicks can veer between charming niceness and utter ugly entitlement bordering on bitter jealousy as we saw in this episode.
I've sussed Stan. His mojo is "divide and conquer." He wants to pit Dean against Mick, just to watch Shirley's torment. Once again, however, Team Dean comes out on top. Fair dos, however, to Mick. He recognises the money Stan provided was a loan. Queen Shirley is still bleating on and on about Stan "owing" them the money for the way he treated them? What did he do, precisely? Max Branning's father nailed him inside a box for a night, and I don't see Max with his hand out for money to which he reckons he's entitled from Jim. Pete Beale was a crap dad to both his boys, but neither of them ever demanded money due for lax parenting?
He never beat his children, he didn't sexually abuse them. He was a drunk,and after the wife left, he found he couldn't cope with the demands of three children... but we know better.
Shirley, Queen of Scrotes, the patron saint of whining self-perpetuating victims who never claim responsibility for their own actions and use any action against them in the past to validate their own vile behaviour in the present.
Shirley thinks they are "owed" Stan's money, which is rich; but Linda was worse tonight. She thought they were entitled to it. At least, Mick recognised that Stan loaned them the money; his rationale was surprise that Stan wanted it back so quickly. In truth, I don't think Mick really intended repaying theh debt, rather he thought Stan would conveniently forget that over time as long as they provided him with a roof over his head, a warm meal and the odd brew. But Mick was tinged with jealousy as well, thinking that Stan was actually investing in Dean by giving him the money to start his own business, at the expense of Dean.
I wonder if Mick would have reacted so adversely if Stan had reclaimed the money in order to give it to Lee or to help Johnny with his uni fees? I don't think so.
Shirley was even worse. When presented with Stan's intentions, she was conflicted for precisely one minute, before she was back bleating on against Stan to Mick. I hated how she used the phrases "our home" and "our business" as if she made everything possible for them, when in truth, she revealed their own naivete and inexperience, for all the years spent managing Elaine's pub - buying a creaking old pub without a survey or solicitors. If she'd put them onto a sound property and had they gone the proper route, they would have had no need for Stan's money.
Stan did this deliberately and for a reason. He wants both of Shirley's sons there with her smack dab in the middle, forcing her to choose between the pair - Mick,the son who was raised as her brother, and Dean, her real son, whom she willfully abandoned. This is Shirley's last chance saloon to prove herself as a mother of sorts. Shirley wouldn't even defend Dean against Linda second-guessing a lad she doesn't even know when Linda maligned Dean by saying he'd take Stan's money and run with it.
You saw what he was like in'ere yesterday.
As if Dean were in the wrong. Sorry, Linda, but Dean wasn't the one stinking up the pub on Monday. Shirley said absolutely nothing. If a relative by marriage made a character assumption about one of my kids like that, she'd certainly answer to me.
And now we get a little closer to Shirley's psyche as a mother, or rather a non-mother, when we hear a bit more about the drowning episode. Mick was a baby who got caught up in he family's redecorating the flat. He got red paint on him, and Shirley ran a bath to wash it off him. But Mick, being a baby, didn't like the water and started thrashing his fists about ... you can surmise the rest. Shirl, never the most patient of people, lost her cool and tried to drown him. So the drowning escapade was a good old fit of Shirley's temper, which hasn't matured all that much since adolescence.
Consider this: Shirley was fourteen when Mick was born, but she wasn't much older - seventeen - when she was married to Kevin and a mother to Jimbo. She spoke the truth, at last, tonight, when she admitted to Mick that she wasn't cut out to be a mother, and I would suppose that therein lies the reason she abandoned her three other children and why she lost her rag and tried to drown Mick. Some people aren't cut out to be parents, and Shirley's failed epically on two grand occasions.
But she's exonerated from this claim by Mick, who points out that Shirl wasn't a mum, and how heavy hang those words. And if I had a pound coin for every time a character admonished another with the phrase "no more lies," I'd be wealthy. The Carter dynamic, like everyone else in Walford, is based on lies.
Line of the night - Dean referring to the rest of that lot as "the Addams family." I'm still Team Dean, and I hope he rocks up on their doorstep just to incur Mick's insecurities and jealousies (because deep down, Crown Prince Mick knows Shirley is his mother), but I think, somehow, that Dean is going to chew the entire dynamic up and spit it right back in their faces.
I am so Team Dean in this one, especially watching the Carters sniping after Stan and trash-talking him as soon as he's out of the way. I'm going to enjoy watching Stan pull strings.
The Addams Family? Nope. More along the lines of ...
The Deliverance Wedding.
Carol's waited thirty-seven years and fifty-nine men to get to this moment. She's bought a white dress, to signify her status as a self-perpetuating virgin, whilst giving a good imitation of mutton dressed as lamb.
It used to amuse me how Tanya used to buy a brand new white wedding dress for whatever annual wedding she planned on having. These women amaze me, with their man-dependency juxtaposed with their so-called self-imagery as strong women.
Carol is such a miserable scrote of a woman, and David, Beale that he is, is looking for a mummy figure with whom he can have some comfort sex.
This was the wedding that wasn't, and the end of the Great Carol-and-David retcon, which tonight, included a photoshopped picture of a teenaged Lindsey Coulson with a spotty-faced Michael French. Carol and David hung out together, but it was never a great romance, and Carol shared her favours with several other young swains. When David got her up the duff, he conned the money for an abortion out of Pete, she took it, had her three older brothers (Carol had three older brothers when she related the story to Pat and Pauline twenty years ago) beat David up and run him out of the area. But this was never a great romance.
Even if we hadn't any idea of what was about to happen to David, you would know from the innate happiness radiated by Carol, that this was only ever going to end in tears. And the foreshadowing - talk about laying it on thick! Especially near the end, when Morgan broke the "something borrowed" caketop piece, splitting the happy couple in half. (On a more subtle note, as this was Sonia's wedding present, that's also a foreshadowing of what's in store for The Sellf-Righteous One and much-maligned Martin). Then, we watched Carol knot David's tie in an increasingly tighter knot as she sat in the car awaiting his return, and with every tightening of it, we watched David - ironically on the opposite side of the hedge separating the green from the actual Square, David collapsed in a heap, suffering a heart attack. The irony of all of that was David had to suffer an "attack of the heart" to save him from the binding a committed heart attachment and the damage it would do, not only to him, but also to Carol.
I don't think David will die, but I do think this is the end of David and Carol and the departure of Michael French, who will be sorely missed.
Mrs Malaprop's Surprise.
Just as one Village Idiot is leaving, is another about to return?
Surprise of the night - seeing Honey again! That was nice. What wasn't so nice is that Billy is stealing from an employer again. Has there ever been a time when he hasn't? He stole from Billy when he worked for him previously. Then he stole from Janine. Now he's back stealing from Ian again. Billy points out that there's only one wage coming into the household at the moment. Wait a moment - Peter lives there. Doesn't Peter at least contribute to the housekeeping, chipping in on food etc?
And ...
I'm glad they're pulling away from Ian's grief somewhat, and Sharon was shown at her best tonight, with Ian and lastly, with David and another reminiscence of Pat and an unspoken thought about Dennis. Sharon saying she didn't have a second chance at happiness ... hmmm, with a certain Mr Kemp waxing nostalgic about his days at EastEnders recently, might Sharon just have that chance?
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