Wow, the tension in that episode was palpable. If it could be, this was an even more perfect episode than the previous one. Yes, I know, we've had an overdose of the Carters lately, but involving Mick, first in Alfie's dilemma, then having him be a sounding board for Sharon's doubts, worked a treat. In the frame of things, who else could have or would have worked?
Ian's away, Max was nowhere to be seen, Phil has his own problems and Patrick is ill. I know Mick hasn't been on the Square a long time, but sometime an independent perspective is needed, and in any consequence, we had a bit of foreshadowing regarding the trauma Mick's about to suffer.
Plus, the continuity was spot on!
Mick and Alfie Do Polonius and Laertes.
I like these two together. I like their friendship, far more than Alfie and Ian or Alfie and Terry or even Mick and Ian. Alfie and Ian seemed to fizzle out with time, Alfie and Terry were just silly and Ian stitched Mick up. Mick grew up hard and poor, and, more than anyone, seemed genuinely sympathetic to Alfie's plight. I know the lead-in storyline was far-fetched and full of gaping holes. As other viewers have pointed out on this forum and others, the insurance scam didn't hold water because of the Moons' situation. People want to liken this to Frank's situation or Grant burning the Vic, but in both instances, these were their properties, and at the end of the day, the Moons wouldn't receive that much in contents compensation to cover what they owed in rent.
Mick was genuinely suspicious of Alfie and didn't miss a trick. He knew exactly what Alfie had been about when he left that gathering and what he was going to do. I know Danny Dyer was, is and has been good playing against type, but he and Shane Richie carried the show tonight. They were the stars.
I know Alfie has been a popular hate figure recently, and Shane Richie has come in for some well-deserved flack, but there's no denying that he played an absolute blinder tonight, from beginning to end.
I said the tension was palpable, and it emanated from Richie -sitting, watching and willing the cigarette butt to catch fire in the bin, ferretting away the picture of Nana Moon (which, most definitely, will be discovered and lead to suspicion that Alfie started the fire), the antsiness and unease Alfie felt when he returned to the matchstick poker game (ironically winning) - all this contrasted with the tense wariness of Mick, who kept watching him like a witch, until, realising the depth of what Alfie did and why he did it, literally bade him go off to his fate with Mick's blessing. It was as if Mick looked into Alfie's desperate soul and saw himself at some point. The lines of the night belong to both Richie and Dyer:-
Alfie: I've lost everything! I've got no job, I've got no home, no pub, I've got no dignity!
Mick: You go and do what you gotta do.
I'm sorry for the fact that Mick is Shirley's son. He shows no judgement of people and understands the motives behind their actions - something Shirley would never do. He was genuinely grieving for Alfie and took no joy in the proceedings at the stag planning. He was even right there for Alfie in the wake of the explosion. It was Mick who made Alfie take some positive remnant from this fire who went wrong - reminding Alfie that he'd saved Kat, and for that, he was a hero.
Anybody still wanting to see the back of Alfie? Shane Richie is, without a doubt, one of the strongest actors in the show - when you think of the quartet or Richie, McFadden, Wood and Dyer, you've got some of the strongest actors in the soap genre. The pretty boy youngsters in the cast need to take note.
Mick the Marriage Counsellor with Sharon.
This writer got Sharon right. In any other episode, I may have found it a bit de trop for Mick to become involved in the quirky situation of Phil and Sharon, but that worked a treat as well.
Sharon's doubts are genuine and in tandem with the history she and Phil shared on the show. Try as they might, Sharon and Phil have never made it as a bona fiderelationship because there was always some obstacle - Sharon choosing to return to Grant, her supposed infertility, whatever. I would hope that she remembered how, in the wake of Sharongate, Phil threw her under the proverbial bus.
It's true what she admitted to Mick - that Sharon and Phil bring out both the worst and the best in each other. Shirley and Phil bring out only the worst. Entirely prescient was Mick's assessment of working every day in a relationship, through the ups and downs, as his is going to be sorely tested in the near future. I found it quite poignant when Sharon remarked about she and Phil bringing out the worst and best of each other, when Mick said that that sounded like a marriage.
I did find Michelle's RSVP pithy and a bit sniffy. I can't remember Michelle ever not liking Sharon with Phil. (And this is the woman who, not only had a child by Sharon's father, but one by Sharon's ex-husband). I was more than a bit put off by Michelle's excuse for not attending the wedding (as if she would, as she didn't attend her own mother's funeral), moreso for the appalling grammar in her RSVP than anything else. This woman is supposed to be an academic.
"Owing to Ian's health, me and Ian will not be attending your wedding."
"Me and Ian"? Really, Michelle? And Ian's health? Ian was packed off to the States blubbing like a baby because his latest mummywoman had told him a few home truths about the way he treated her within their relationship and returned to her home. Ian's suffering from a massive bout of self-importance crossed with a dollop of self-pity.
So Michelle won't be at Sharon's wedding. She wasn't at her wedding to John, and guess what? Peggy won't be there either.
On the other side of the same coin, it was funny to see Phil's unease at Sharon not being at the hen night. He was genuinely perturbed and worried that she wasn't there, and Sharon's explanation to him, which was brutally honest, about why she'd left the hen night and how she was very close to leaving the relationship, but then realised how much she loved Phil.
Sharon told Mick that she's known Phil most of her adult life. Phil would agree with this. He's known Sharon for over twenty years. He would also know that Sharon doesn't have a lasting deceptive bone in her body, and as much as the tension was palpable with Alfie tonight, the sincerity in Sharon's declaration with Phil was positively tangible. If he's deceiving her, he deserves to be taken down.
Letitia Dean gave a genuinely good performance.
Shirley Queen of Scrotes and the Hen Party.
I really hate this woman, and it has nothing to do with Sharon at all. She is just a genuinely nasty, bitter, vindictive and jealous piece of work. She was revelling in knowing all the answers to trivial questions about Phil, and she had to get in a nasty jibe here and there, indirectly, about Sharon and her relationship. The look of hatred on her face at the end was disgusting. She really is a drunken, bitter old crone. I also hated her giggling whispers to her court jester sister at Sharon's expense.
As for the hen party, Linda was the star. Kellie Bright can do comedy. Her panic as "losing" Sharon and her frantic "Let's play a game!" line was hilarious. It was also good seeing so many women laugh - and women who, formerly, didn't do enough laughing - i.e. Carol and Stacey.
The Yoof. Dean is closer to thirty than he is twenty, and most of those people at the Branning get-together were twenty or twenty-one. Dean was stuck with them, Fatboy, who's supposed to be a couple of years Peter's senior was sat with a bunch of middle-aged men, Jay, Abi and Lola were nowhere to be seen and Whitney was babysitting, supposedly with Lee, who was also nowhere to be seen. And who was watching Amy and Denny?
Even the "yoof" were good tonight. There seems to be a grudging friendship between Lauren and Nancy. Nancy genuinely finds Tamwar funny. Johnny was just Johnny, telling family stories and blushing (bless him). There was a good, edgy moment between Dean and Peter the Prick, when Peter snottily upbraided Dean about his tactlessness in asking for liquor in a house where Lauren was a recovering alcoholic, with Dean, rightfully, snapping back at Peter about Peter's utter tactlessness in the way he dropped Lola.
I thought Dean and Lauren were headed to some swank do in Dalston, yet Dean was last seen propping up the bar at the Vic in the wake of the explosion.
The Explosion Itself. The interplay of characters here was brilliant. The direction was good too, making the audience perceive the aftermath from Alfie's point of view, with his initial deafness from the blast with the sounds of voices muffled, his dash into the burning house, followed by Peter and Johnny - even Johnny's bashful acknowledgement of the danger he faced (~ Well, it's what you do~), the momentary fear that one of the twins was in the house, with Kat's remark about Ernie not settling, leading to Stacey's dash to Carol's house to find them all there with Whitney. Kat's wounds and the sight of her in hospital with Alfie looking on (he's not her husband, he's her partner as yet) - all of that was spot-on perfect; but the scene I found most affecting was the close-up of Roxy after Alfie had run into the burning building, when she crumpled her face and cried, "Oh, Alfie!" She still carries a torch.
The other poignant piece was Tamwar, when he saw the flames, silently turning and walking stolidly away from Nancy, who was calling after him. The viewers would know why Tamwar reacted this way, and then the shot of him in the Masood kitchen, closing the door against the sound of the sirens and blocking his ears with his hands. Tamwar bears the physical scars of a fire, but the mental ones as well. Considering Zainab suffered horrific burns in a fire, I'm surprised she wasn't more sympathetic to him in the aftermath with his injuries. Good continuity, however.
Brilliant, beautiful episode, and perfect all around.
Can you believe I said that?
Ian's away, Max was nowhere to be seen, Phil has his own problems and Patrick is ill. I know Mick hasn't been on the Square a long time, but sometime an independent perspective is needed, and in any consequence, we had a bit of foreshadowing regarding the trauma Mick's about to suffer.
Plus, the continuity was spot on!
Mick and Alfie Do Polonius and Laertes.
I like these two together. I like their friendship, far more than Alfie and Ian or Alfie and Terry or even Mick and Ian. Alfie and Ian seemed to fizzle out with time, Alfie and Terry were just silly and Ian stitched Mick up. Mick grew up hard and poor, and, more than anyone, seemed genuinely sympathetic to Alfie's plight. I know the lead-in storyline was far-fetched and full of gaping holes. As other viewers have pointed out on this forum and others, the insurance scam didn't hold water because of the Moons' situation. People want to liken this to Frank's situation or Grant burning the Vic, but in both instances, these were their properties, and at the end of the day, the Moons wouldn't receive that much in contents compensation to cover what they owed in rent.
Mick was genuinely suspicious of Alfie and didn't miss a trick. He knew exactly what Alfie had been about when he left that gathering and what he was going to do. I know Danny Dyer was, is and has been good playing against type, but he and Shane Richie carried the show tonight. They were the stars.
I know Alfie has been a popular hate figure recently, and Shane Richie has come in for some well-deserved flack, but there's no denying that he played an absolute blinder tonight, from beginning to end.
I said the tension was palpable, and it emanated from Richie -sitting, watching and willing the cigarette butt to catch fire in the bin, ferretting away the picture of Nana Moon (which, most definitely, will be discovered and lead to suspicion that Alfie started the fire), the antsiness and unease Alfie felt when he returned to the matchstick poker game (ironically winning) - all this contrasted with the tense wariness of Mick, who kept watching him like a witch, until, realising the depth of what Alfie did and why he did it, literally bade him go off to his fate with Mick's blessing. It was as if Mick looked into Alfie's desperate soul and saw himself at some point. The lines of the night belong to both Richie and Dyer:-
Alfie: I've lost everything! I've got no job, I've got no home, no pub, I've got no dignity!
Mick: You go and do what you gotta do.
I'm sorry for the fact that Mick is Shirley's son. He shows no judgement of people and understands the motives behind their actions - something Shirley would never do. He was genuinely grieving for Alfie and took no joy in the proceedings at the stag planning. He was even right there for Alfie in the wake of the explosion. It was Mick who made Alfie take some positive remnant from this fire who went wrong - reminding Alfie that he'd saved Kat, and for that, he was a hero.
Anybody still wanting to see the back of Alfie? Shane Richie is, without a doubt, one of the strongest actors in the show - when you think of the quartet or Richie, McFadden, Wood and Dyer, you've got some of the strongest actors in the soap genre. The pretty boy youngsters in the cast need to take note.
Mick the Marriage Counsellor with Sharon.
This writer got Sharon right. In any other episode, I may have found it a bit de trop for Mick to become involved in the quirky situation of Phil and Sharon, but that worked a treat as well.
Sharon's doubts are genuine and in tandem with the history she and Phil shared on the show. Try as they might, Sharon and Phil have never made it as a bona fiderelationship because there was always some obstacle - Sharon choosing to return to Grant, her supposed infertility, whatever. I would hope that she remembered how, in the wake of Sharongate, Phil threw her under the proverbial bus.
It's true what she admitted to Mick - that Sharon and Phil bring out both the worst and the best in each other. Shirley and Phil bring out only the worst. Entirely prescient was Mick's assessment of working every day in a relationship, through the ups and downs, as his is going to be sorely tested in the near future. I found it quite poignant when Sharon remarked about she and Phil bringing out the worst and best of each other, when Mick said that that sounded like a marriage.
I did find Michelle's RSVP pithy and a bit sniffy. I can't remember Michelle ever not liking Sharon with Phil. (And this is the woman who, not only had a child by Sharon's father, but one by Sharon's ex-husband). I was more than a bit put off by Michelle's excuse for not attending the wedding (as if she would, as she didn't attend her own mother's funeral), moreso for the appalling grammar in her RSVP than anything else. This woman is supposed to be an academic.
"Owing to Ian's health, me and Ian will not be attending your wedding."
"Me and Ian"? Really, Michelle? And Ian's health? Ian was packed off to the States blubbing like a baby because his latest mummywoman had told him a few home truths about the way he treated her within their relationship and returned to her home. Ian's suffering from a massive bout of self-importance crossed with a dollop of self-pity.
So Michelle won't be at Sharon's wedding. She wasn't at her wedding to John, and guess what? Peggy won't be there either.
On the other side of the same coin, it was funny to see Phil's unease at Sharon not being at the hen night. He was genuinely perturbed and worried that she wasn't there, and Sharon's explanation to him, which was brutally honest, about why she'd left the hen night and how she was very close to leaving the relationship, but then realised how much she loved Phil.
Sharon told Mick that she's known Phil most of her adult life. Phil would agree with this. He's known Sharon for over twenty years. He would also know that Sharon doesn't have a lasting deceptive bone in her body, and as much as the tension was palpable with Alfie tonight, the sincerity in Sharon's declaration with Phil was positively tangible. If he's deceiving her, he deserves to be taken down.
Letitia Dean gave a genuinely good performance.
Shirley Queen of Scrotes and the Hen Party.
I really hate this woman, and it has nothing to do with Sharon at all. She is just a genuinely nasty, bitter, vindictive and jealous piece of work. She was revelling in knowing all the answers to trivial questions about Phil, and she had to get in a nasty jibe here and there, indirectly, about Sharon and her relationship. The look of hatred on her face at the end was disgusting. She really is a drunken, bitter old crone. I also hated her giggling whispers to her court jester sister at Sharon's expense.
As for the hen party, Linda was the star. Kellie Bright can do comedy. Her panic as "losing" Sharon and her frantic "Let's play a game!" line was hilarious. It was also good seeing so many women laugh - and women who, formerly, didn't do enough laughing - i.e. Carol and Stacey.
The Yoof. Dean is closer to thirty than he is twenty, and most of those people at the Branning get-together were twenty or twenty-one. Dean was stuck with them, Fatboy, who's supposed to be a couple of years Peter's senior was sat with a bunch of middle-aged men, Jay, Abi and Lola were nowhere to be seen and Whitney was babysitting, supposedly with Lee, who was also nowhere to be seen. And who was watching Amy and Denny?
Even the "yoof" were good tonight. There seems to be a grudging friendship between Lauren and Nancy. Nancy genuinely finds Tamwar funny. Johnny was just Johnny, telling family stories and blushing (bless him). There was a good, edgy moment between Dean and Peter the Prick, when Peter snottily upbraided Dean about his tactlessness in asking for liquor in a house where Lauren was a recovering alcoholic, with Dean, rightfully, snapping back at Peter about Peter's utter tactlessness in the way he dropped Lola.
I thought Dean and Lauren were headed to some swank do in Dalston, yet Dean was last seen propping up the bar at the Vic in the wake of the explosion.
The Explosion Itself. The interplay of characters here was brilliant. The direction was good too, making the audience perceive the aftermath from Alfie's point of view, with his initial deafness from the blast with the sounds of voices muffled, his dash into the burning house, followed by Peter and Johnny - even Johnny's bashful acknowledgement of the danger he faced (~ Well, it's what you do~), the momentary fear that one of the twins was in the house, with Kat's remark about Ernie not settling, leading to Stacey's dash to Carol's house to find them all there with Whitney. Kat's wounds and the sight of her in hospital with Alfie looking on (he's not her husband, he's her partner as yet) - all of that was spot-on perfect; but the scene I found most affecting was the close-up of Roxy after Alfie had run into the burning building, when she crumpled her face and cried, "Oh, Alfie!" She still carries a torch.
The other poignant piece was Tamwar, when he saw the flames, silently turning and walking stolidly away from Nancy, who was calling after him. The viewers would know why Tamwar reacted this way, and then the shot of him in the Masood kitchen, closing the door against the sound of the sirens and blocking his ears with his hands. Tamwar bears the physical scars of a fire, but the mental ones as well. Considering Zainab suffered horrific burns in a fire, I'm surprised she wasn't more sympathetic to him in the aftermath with his injuries. Good continuity, however.
Brilliant, beautiful episode, and perfect all around.
Can you believe I said that?
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