Sunday, October 5, 2014

Wedding Week: The Weakest of the Week - Review:- 03.10.2014

 Weakest episode of the week. 

Interesting. Watchable, 90% of the time, but weakest of the week. First, it was written by a writer whom EastEnders should have shown the door ages ago - arguably, a writer only marginally above Katie Douglas. Secondly, it wasn't EastEnders. It may have gone out under the banner thereof, but it was trying to be too many things to the point that it was succeeding in being none.

S.W.A.T., a romcom, a dash of comedy, and Matt di Angelo inadvertantly auditioning for a future production of A Streetcar Named Desire. Dean Wicks, screaming for his mother, a cut-price Stanley Kowalski screaming ...



Or maybe he was just following in the tradition of yet another Wicks, crying after an abandoning parent ...


Still, it was an entertaining - and mildly intriguing - half hour, but it was still the weakest episode of the week.

The Shot Heard Round the World ... Well, around Walford. So now we know. To paraphrase Suellen Ewing in one of the last Dallas episodes of the early 1990s, someone shot Phil Mitchell. Again. Well, we know who it was. Shirley shot Phil. Blasted him one at close range, in the chest, with much blood. The shooting occasioned one of the best lines thus far this year on the programme, uttered by Dean near the end of the thing.

He'll be all right. Phil Mitchell can survive anything. He'd survive a nuclear holocaust and come out king of the cockroaches.

Both Shirley and Sharon are in different forms of shock. Shirley's catatonic, Sharon's hysterical. Leave it to Ronnie's inner psychopath and self-preservation to take control.

Ronnie really doesn't give a rat's arse about Phil. She'd even forgotten about the gun, judging by the look on her face when she asked Sharon who owned the gun, and Sharon told her it was hers. A gun is a serious thing, and a gunshot wound even worse. Paramedics are obliged by law to involve the police in such a situation. Handguns are illegal, and Sharon wasn't thinking straight when she kept reiterating that she wanted to tell the police that Shirley did it.

In an perverse way not, Sharon, Ronnie and Phil have all got to unite and protect Shirley, even if they don't want to do so, because Shirley's possession of a gun which belonged to Ronnie and which she'd dumped on Phil and which Sharon had found. Ronnie was actually right and thought quickly on her feet. She's ditching the gun and steering clear of the situation because anything implicating her ownership of the gun would mean a trip back to prison and her baby being taken from her. Turning the table on Sharon to reiterate that the same might happen to her, and she might lose Denny as a result of this convinced Sharon that she had to play things the Mitchell way.

Ronnie needn't have reminded her. Sharon was married to another Mitchell brother when she had to play dumb about the shooting of someone close to her. Just ask Michelle.

And for those of you who don't remember or don't realise that Sharon's been through a Mitchell shooting before and concealed it, here's a reminder:-


Just like Phil, the gun refuses to die. The scene in the Arches between Jay and NuNuBen was highly reminiscent of the aftermath of Heather's death. Somehow, I don't expect Ben will dispense with the gun, and I don't think this is the last we'll see of it. I'm actually liking NuNuBen, although I wonder how he's suddenly regained his hearing in one ear enough to dispense with the hearing aid. He's gone from being the tap-dancing only gay in the Village to being an assertive part of the Mitchell conundrum.

The Arches scene held special significance for me in revealing the dynamic between Jay and Ben. Cognizant of the fact that Ben's out on licence (and has already been sailing close to the wind by committing a robbery), Jay offers to dispose of the gun, only to be put in his place, firmly, by Ben.

Ben: It's MY family!
Jay: It's OUR family!


Aye, there's the rub. Try as he might, Jay will only ever be a Mitchell appendage. Jay was at his worst, character-wise, when he was assimilated into the Mitchells. Once again tonight, he got that obnoxious swagger back, disrespecting Max in his own home and in front of Abi, whom he'd unceremoniously dumped. Abi's as much to blame for her own actions as Jay, who was the catalyst behind her behaviour. Still, there's no reason for Jay to have been so cockily rude, announcing to the remaining Mitchells in the pub that he wasn't afraid of Max and making insinuating remarks in the presence of Summerhayes the Dim, who was sincerely only trying to be nice to Abi under the circumstances.

Bottom line, Jay shouldn't cast stones at Max's glass house, when he's rocking in MitchellLand.

Mother Superior Jumped the Gun. The episode belonged entirely to Shirley and Dean, and I'll admit, I was in tears at their scene in the kitchen of Dean's flat. From the moment Dean rushed from the Vic on hearing the sirens, steering a blood-soaked, catatonic Shirley into the Vic, I was actually mourning the loss of a newly-returned and much-improved character, who's nuanced, layered and interesting. DTC can bleat all he wants about the actor who plays the unseen Kush as being talented and "very pretty" in the bargain (as if the last aspect is that important), but we already have someone fitting that description already on the show. 

The upcoming rape storyline is going to be unlike anything ever shown before, because the antagonist in the storyline has gone from coldly angry to creepy to being what he really is - a frightened little boy wanting his mother's love. Suddenly, Dean became Shirley's protector - although how he managed to get her across the Square in broad daylight daylight without anyone commenting on the fact she'd been soaked in blood is amazing. He, too, thinks on his feet. Cleaning Shirley up, getting fresh clothes for her - and seeing her sit there wearing Tina's top emblazoned with the word MEOOW across the front seemed humourously ironic.

Then there were the reactions of the Carters when Dean told them what happened. Babe is truly evil and the worst kind of influence on Shirley. It doesn't take much for Babe to convince Shirley to run (cue: Linda Henry's annual long break at her holiday home in Greece), but her question ~Did you make him suffer?~ was camp almost to the point of being comic. Seriously, is everyone in Walford a psycho? What Shirley's done may have been an accident, but it's still a serious crime, and I can appreciate Shirley not knowing what actions the Mitchells might take, but her innate weakness showed through tonight. Responding to Dean's protectiveness, she asserted first of all to Babe that she wasn't going, that she couldn't leave Dean. But we all knew that she was going to leave him yet again.

The last scene between the Dean and Shirley was heartbreaking, and I admit that I welled up, hearing Dean beg to let him go with her, that he didn't want to lose her again and that he loved her. This should have been something Shirley had been waiting for all her life. No need for her to encourage him to stay with "his family" and mentioning Mick and Linda by name. These people are strangers to him, and Mick is not his family. That he was willing to give up everything - his livelihood and his home - to go with Shirley should have touched her to the core, and I'm sure it did, but in the end, she sneaked away from the flat in the same way she sneaked from his life 27 years ago, except this time, instead of an infant, she's left a psychologically damaged and fragile young man screaming in agony.

The stage is set for something else now.

What Made the Episode a Bit Whiffy

From Bad ... Oh, the Brannings, Max and Abi. That poor dog. Truth be known, I was more upset about that poor animal being run over by Abi than Phil Mitchell copping a bullet.

Really, was it necessary to kill off a dog? A well-known wag on another forum remarked that DTC has axed everyone and everything he didn't introduce, except Dexter. Yep, the dog dies and Dexter stays. I'd have rather seen Abi run over him.

I understand this means the re-boot of evil Abi (Things die - what a cold and callous line), but really I do think the Branning girls (more on the putrid sister below) have run their course. Sometimes, it's time to go, and Abi should definitely go. What's she going to do? Obviously, she won't go to uni now, so she'll probably stand around and snipe in the background and torment Lola, until they decide to cast Paul Coker and he redeems her.

Even worse was Emma Summerhayes. Was she the best of a bad lot who showed up someplace on police recruitment day? She's back now and risking whatever professional integrity she has left to tell the suspect in a murder investigation that she missed him. That's enough to corrupt the case from the get-go. She ran the gamut from insipid ...

I'm sure Tramp didn't feel a thing ... (Oh no, as the wheel crushed the life out of him).

Maybe he was trying to tell you not to go to Bolton, that you weren't ready for the motorway. (And maybe she's a muppet) ...

... to bricking it in her panties when she sussed from Jay's remarks that he knew she was seeing Max.

B-b-b-but what if he reports me to the police?

Darling, Max is right. Jay's in with the Mitchells now; they don't talk to the police, and they certainly aren't going to be anytime soon.

Actually, you know, Jake Wood deserves better than this tripe.

To Worse. Oh, please! Peter and Lauren! Who the f*ck cares? They are two extremely pretty people - one reasonably talented, the other the last paradigm of why this programme should cease and desist hiring for looks alone - who are selfish, snobbish, condescending, self-centred, and entitled, and they've found each other at last. The Branning girls think Lola is a chav? Lola is trying to forge a career for herself and support her daughter. She works. The Branning girls hold out their hands, palms up, and demand money. Lauren is so fitting to Peter's aspirations that she can't even speak using proper grammar. In fact, her grammar is as bad, if not worse, than Lola's. The Brannings are scrubbed-up trailer trash with the manners and mannerisms of guttersnipes, and if Peter thinks this is his idea of social mobility, then he really is Tim-Not-Nice-but-Very-Dim.

That badly written romcom drama amidst a lot of slurping and close-ups of an actress who gurns, uses high-pitched screechy-voiced delivery and waves her arms like Don Quixote's windmills and who is all too very aware of the camera on her, had no place in tonight's episode. Peter was going to see Steven, who parted on bad terms with the family, and now he isn't. Now we have the love story that wasn't. Peter's always love Lauren? Well, what was Whitney? IIRC, he was going to buy Whitney a ring until she dumped him for Connor.

The fact that Peter wanted to leave Walford from the day after Lucy's killing doesn't jive with the reason he gave Lauren - that he wanted to get away to someplace where people didn't feel sorry for him. Sorry, but he's been doing a beee-yoo-tiful imitation for several months now of someone who takes advantage of people's sympathy toward his plight to come and go as he pleases at work - why isn't Tamwar giving him grief about not being on his pitch? - and to be overtly rude to all and sundry, most particularly to Lola, who did nothing but love him. This is suspicious, and Peter is still my Number 2 (in more ways than one) suspect in Lucy's death. It says a lot that for the singularly unlikeable Beales, that Ian is the most likeable. Lucy was a bitch. Peter is an anal snob. Cindy isn't particularly likeable and Jane, when she returns, will, most likely, assume her previous headuparseitis position of total self-rightousness.

I wish Peter and Lauren would just go. Oh, and Peter, there are things known as rubbish bins, but instead, you throw your cowardly good-bye letter to your father onto the pavement like the entitled creep you are.

The most intriguing thing about that was the mystery man who picked the letter up. At first, I thought it might be Nick Cotton, but I'm not so sure, especially since Peter the Prick and Lauren are about to be followed in the coming weeks.

Finally, notice how when the bizzies entered the pub, Mick made a dash to get to Shirley. Linda demanded he accompany her. Too right.

Mommy Dearest will return with another Mommy Dearest, no doubt. The incongruity is going to be when a tanned Linda Henry returns with Sylvie, telling everyone she's spent the past two months holed up in Babe's flat, not seeing the light of day. Oh well, I guess Babe has a tanning bed.

Good episode, but weakest of the week.

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