The Godawful Beales. I have to dive right in, because this lot of dysfunctional wotsits had me SCREAMING at the television. If we ever needed any reminder of just what awful parents Ian and Jane are, how clueless and hypocritical she is and how self-serving he is, as well as how flaming entitled any child under that roof turns out to be, it was all there tonight in front of us.
Shall I say the absolutely dreadful word that everyone hates to hear? I will.
RETCON.
There. Suck it up. Here's the retcon, in case you don't remember or you weren't around to watch it.
Cindy's story about Auntie Gina was a total retcon. All those stories Auntie Gina told me about you ... about you dumping me with her and not coming back for me.
WTF?
I know Gina was a flake, but it was Gina who wanted Cindy in the first place. Ian gave Cindy to Gina to raise because Gina couldn't have children. He made a big speech and spiel about it at the time, at the same time he, himself, named the baby Cindy. He didn't "dump" Cindy on Gina, Gina wanted the child and he gave her to her. Ian and Cindy were divorced - there was a big custody hearing for custody of the three Beale children (Steven and the twins) right before it was discovered that Cindy had tried to have Ian killed - and it was a well-known fact that Cindy Jnr was the spawn of Nick Hammond, who dumped her mother when he found out she was capable of hiring a hit man.
So either Gina was on the sauce or off her rocker or that line was a total retcon, and Christopher Reason should know better.
I know a lot of people hate the word "retcon," and many aren't averse to seeing the past changed to suit whatever storyline is currently in vogue, but there are some facts that never change just as there are some parts of a person's character that never changes. One of the most fragile egos on the Square belongs to Ian Beale. He hates, more than anything, anyone, either above or below him in the general scheme of social things, maligning either him or his family. However much Ian wanted to manipulate CindyBoy into convincing Jane to stay as her own personal, unpaid babysitter, he'd have blown a gasket upon hearing such a blatant lie about how CindyBoy came to be raised by her aunt and her grandmother, and not by Ian, who's no relation to her at all.
The dialogue isn't open to interpretation, but if anyone wants to believe that it is, then that's perfectly fine with me. I hope all such who do have managed to get their letters to Father Christmas in the post, as he doesn't read e-mails.
Both Ian and Jane slay me the way they allow children to dictate the odds to them. Jane hasn't changed much in her handling of Bobby since the days she let him destroy the house with a bottle of ketchup. Bobby wants to come back to London, and Ian is eager to encourage that, and when that doesn't work with the awful Jane, he enlists Cindy - has there everbeen a less interested mother in the programme?
I find the dynamic of Ian and Cindy Jnr creepy at the very least. They remind me of Humbert Humbert and Lolita. If living with Auntie Gina looks more appetising than sticking around lairy, leery Ian, then let this disrespectful, condescending and rude little bee-yatch be on her way. The sooner, the better. Why is she even there? She swans around, doing and saying what she wants, and Ian is cowed by her; because she's quick to tell him that he has no judisdiction over her. This is true. She was sixteen this month. She can do as she pleases, so maybe she should shove off. My guess is that sometime in the next year, she will, leaving the baby - the Cindy-gened baby - with Jane, who's always wanted an infant.
Ian is a smarmy, self-serving git, and at least this girl was quick to see through his ruse about getting Jane to stay - use her as a babysitter, which is par for the course for Ian. After all, Jane has experience in that - she spent the first few years in her relationship with Ian as an unpaid skivvy - looking after Ian's kids, working in Ian's businesses and cleaning Ian's house, with Ian quick to tell her then that she held no authority within the Beale domain. So now, he hopes for Saint Cindy's child to appeal to poor, pitiful Jane's denied maternal instinct - a biological function denied her by the fact that Cindy Jnr's brother shot Jane in the stomach, a fact concealed by Cindy Jnr's now-dead sister and by Ian, himself, from the police - in order to secure her services as an unpaid babysitter so Jane would stay with Ian.
Ian really is a craven, pathetic man.
And Jane is just as bad. I'm actually glad she ran into Phil and ranted about Rainie. A couple of things I picked up about the Rainie rant, both at Ian's house and at Phil's. First, the idea that sanctimonious, judgemental, po-faced Jane had to go to the Clap Clinic after being spoonfed gossip about Ian and Rainie from her toxic friend, Tanya, was a joke in and of itself, especially since Tanya never bothered to go to any sort of clinic when Max was putting it about, and considering Tanya, herself, happened to sleep with the biggest male slut on the Square, Jack. Pot, meet kettle. And second, that the fragrant Jane was so morally offended by Ian going with a prostitute, that she was actually astounded that Phil reminded her of her own hypocrisy in sleeping with Grant Mitchell whilst still with Ian.
Very true.
Jane slept with Grant. Ian found out and continued their relationship. When Ian slept with Janine in 2009, Jane left him for a month. She later tried to seduce Masood. When Ian found this out, he had an affair with Glenda (at the same time Phil cheated with Glenda on Shirley).
When Jane has to accept relationship and parenting advice from Phil Mitchell, you can readily see how clueless she is. Phil's advice is that a boy needs his dad and that Ian loves Bobby, as well as the fact that Ian is a prat. Yet we all know that Ian's children are his possessions, and that he will go to any length to retain his possessions.
And now we have Bobby coming along in the same deceitful mould as Ian. He's deceived Jane already. People complain about Dennis Rickman Jnr, but Bobby is yet another spoiled, entitled little brat who demands and gets exactly what he wants, insisting that he and Jane move to London tomorrow. He insists again and again and again. I half expected him to start stamping his feet, but he didn't have to do so - as he smugly expressed in that cheesy, group hug moment with his selfish father and ineffectual, clueless mother, he got exactly what he wanted.
What a smug, little prat!
Jane is moving to London, determined to live close by Ian. Has she employment, or does she expect to work for Ian for a share of the profit from the restaurant about which we hear less and less? Rents in that part of London are more than a grand a month. We all know the bleeding obvious - the Beales, a family which has become far more co-dependent than the Brannings, are back in action.
They are truly an awful, awful family, an infuriating family, an unlikeable family ... eminently watchable, but also very unsympathetic.
Jane is still as judgemental, sanctimonious, disdainful and hypocritical as she's ever been. If Lucy ran rings around her, Cindy will shred her to bits.
Not-so-Gentle Ben. NuNuBen's the motivating force behind Jay's bad judgement. Keeble knows something is up with Ben. She knows exactly what he was up to the night Lucy died, and she suspects something. Moreover, Phil suspects she suspects something.
NuNuBen is quite frightening, actually - another Mitchell infected with the psychopathic - or at least, sociopathic - gene. Somehow, Ben, with Jay in tow, acquired Lucy's purse and phone, and entrusted Jay to get rid of the damning evidence - this comes just days after that cosy scene where Ben fixed the cafe's toaster and commiserated with Ian about not being there more for him, Lucy and Ben - this is the same Ben, who - today - referred to his older niece as "Lucy Beale" in the same way as Bianca used to refer to her uncle as "Ian Beale."
NuNuBen is well aware of Patrick's disdain of him, after his killing of Heather - good continuation there - and despatches Jay, a favourite of Patrick's, to wheedle his way into the house and steal the items before Denise could go to the police. Actually, I was quite amazed that Jay suffered no moral qualms about this, but I suppose he was in survival mode and thought to get rid of damning evidence.
I was glad Denise showed up in time to retrieve what was necessary, and I want to hear Ben's story about how he's come by Lucy's things.
All Things Denise. Once again, Denise and Patrick were the stars of the show, and we've subtly had introduced yet another red herring into the fray - nay, two. Tonight, we get the first intimation that Patrick entrusted Peter with looking after his allotment - not that posh Pete would have ever deigned to get his expensively manicured, middle-class hands dirty - but, there you go. Peter's brought into the frame as a possible suspect, by dint of the possibility that Denise thinks he may have buried the purse and the phone. We also learn that Peter has a bad temper, and that's not surprising either, since we already know he's a snobby, manipulative, little passive aggressive bully.
Denise posits a plausible scenario for the possibility that Peter could have killed Lucy - in a fit of pique, the way Ben struck out at Heather and killed her unintentially: confrontation with her about her cocaine habit (subtle hint pointing elsewhere) or anger about her relationship with Max (again, another subtle hint pointing even further elsewhere), but we know what Peter heard in Lucy's and Ian's argument that night, and we still don't know where Peter was.
Although Peter is high on my suspects list, I don't think he did it; nor do I think that Ben is the killer, although I can actually see bringing Ben back to be revealed as Lucy's killer is something well within the ken of this EP. Ben as the killer would have the sort of maximum impact I think DTC is trying to achieve.
A Carter-less episode, infuriating at times, but a good one - apart from a bit of a retcon moment.
Shall I say the absolutely dreadful word that everyone hates to hear? I will.
RETCON.
There. Suck it up. Here's the retcon, in case you don't remember or you weren't around to watch it.
Cindy's story about Auntie Gina was a total retcon. All those stories Auntie Gina told me about you ... about you dumping me with her and not coming back for me.
WTF?
I know Gina was a flake, but it was Gina who wanted Cindy in the first place. Ian gave Cindy to Gina to raise because Gina couldn't have children. He made a big speech and spiel about it at the time, at the same time he, himself, named the baby Cindy. He didn't "dump" Cindy on Gina, Gina wanted the child and he gave her to her. Ian and Cindy were divorced - there was a big custody hearing for custody of the three Beale children (Steven and the twins) right before it was discovered that Cindy had tried to have Ian killed - and it was a well-known fact that Cindy Jnr was the spawn of Nick Hammond, who dumped her mother when he found out she was capable of hiring a hit man.
So either Gina was on the sauce or off her rocker or that line was a total retcon, and Christopher Reason should know better.
I know a lot of people hate the word "retcon," and many aren't averse to seeing the past changed to suit whatever storyline is currently in vogue, but there are some facts that never change just as there are some parts of a person's character that never changes. One of the most fragile egos on the Square belongs to Ian Beale. He hates, more than anything, anyone, either above or below him in the general scheme of social things, maligning either him or his family. However much Ian wanted to manipulate CindyBoy into convincing Jane to stay as her own personal, unpaid babysitter, he'd have blown a gasket upon hearing such a blatant lie about how CindyBoy came to be raised by her aunt and her grandmother, and not by Ian, who's no relation to her at all.
The dialogue isn't open to interpretation, but if anyone wants to believe that it is, then that's perfectly fine with me. I hope all such who do have managed to get their letters to Father Christmas in the post, as he doesn't read e-mails.
Both Ian and Jane slay me the way they allow children to dictate the odds to them. Jane hasn't changed much in her handling of Bobby since the days she let him destroy the house with a bottle of ketchup. Bobby wants to come back to London, and Ian is eager to encourage that, and when that doesn't work with the awful Jane, he enlists Cindy - has there everbeen a less interested mother in the programme?
I find the dynamic of Ian and Cindy Jnr creepy at the very least. They remind me of Humbert Humbert and Lolita. If living with Auntie Gina looks more appetising than sticking around lairy, leery Ian, then let this disrespectful, condescending and rude little bee-yatch be on her way. The sooner, the better. Why is she even there? She swans around, doing and saying what she wants, and Ian is cowed by her; because she's quick to tell him that he has no judisdiction over her. This is true. She was sixteen this month. She can do as she pleases, so maybe she should shove off. My guess is that sometime in the next year, she will, leaving the baby - the Cindy-gened baby - with Jane, who's always wanted an infant.
Ian is a smarmy, self-serving git, and at least this girl was quick to see through his ruse about getting Jane to stay - use her as a babysitter, which is par for the course for Ian. After all, Jane has experience in that - she spent the first few years in her relationship with Ian as an unpaid skivvy - looking after Ian's kids, working in Ian's businesses and cleaning Ian's house, with Ian quick to tell her then that she held no authority within the Beale domain. So now, he hopes for Saint Cindy's child to appeal to poor, pitiful Jane's denied maternal instinct - a biological function denied her by the fact that Cindy Jnr's brother shot Jane in the stomach, a fact concealed by Cindy Jnr's now-dead sister and by Ian, himself, from the police - in order to secure her services as an unpaid babysitter so Jane would stay with Ian.
Ian really is a craven, pathetic man.
And Jane is just as bad. I'm actually glad she ran into Phil and ranted about Rainie. A couple of things I picked up about the Rainie rant, both at Ian's house and at Phil's. First, the idea that sanctimonious, judgemental, po-faced Jane had to go to the Clap Clinic after being spoonfed gossip about Ian and Rainie from her toxic friend, Tanya, was a joke in and of itself, especially since Tanya never bothered to go to any sort of clinic when Max was putting it about, and considering Tanya, herself, happened to sleep with the biggest male slut on the Square, Jack. Pot, meet kettle. And second, that the fragrant Jane was so morally offended by Ian going with a prostitute, that she was actually astounded that Phil reminded her of her own hypocrisy in sleeping with Grant Mitchell whilst still with Ian.
Very true.
Jane slept with Grant. Ian found out and continued their relationship. When Ian slept with Janine in 2009, Jane left him for a month. She later tried to seduce Masood. When Ian found this out, he had an affair with Glenda (at the same time Phil cheated with Glenda on Shirley).
When Jane has to accept relationship and parenting advice from Phil Mitchell, you can readily see how clueless she is. Phil's advice is that a boy needs his dad and that Ian loves Bobby, as well as the fact that Ian is a prat. Yet we all know that Ian's children are his possessions, and that he will go to any length to retain his possessions.
And now we have Bobby coming along in the same deceitful mould as Ian. He's deceived Jane already. People complain about Dennis Rickman Jnr, but Bobby is yet another spoiled, entitled little brat who demands and gets exactly what he wants, insisting that he and Jane move to London tomorrow. He insists again and again and again. I half expected him to start stamping his feet, but he didn't have to do so - as he smugly expressed in that cheesy, group hug moment with his selfish father and ineffectual, clueless mother, he got exactly what he wanted.
What a smug, little prat!
Jane is moving to London, determined to live close by Ian. Has she employment, or does she expect to work for Ian for a share of the profit from the restaurant about which we hear less and less? Rents in that part of London are more than a grand a month. We all know the bleeding obvious - the Beales, a family which has become far more co-dependent than the Brannings, are back in action.
They are truly an awful, awful family, an infuriating family, an unlikeable family ... eminently watchable, but also very unsympathetic.
Jane is still as judgemental, sanctimonious, disdainful and hypocritical as she's ever been. If Lucy ran rings around her, Cindy will shred her to bits.
Not-so-Gentle Ben. NuNuBen's the motivating force behind Jay's bad judgement. Keeble knows something is up with Ben. She knows exactly what he was up to the night Lucy died, and she suspects something. Moreover, Phil suspects she suspects something.
NuNuBen is quite frightening, actually - another Mitchell infected with the psychopathic - or at least, sociopathic - gene. Somehow, Ben, with Jay in tow, acquired Lucy's purse and phone, and entrusted Jay to get rid of the damning evidence - this comes just days after that cosy scene where Ben fixed the cafe's toaster and commiserated with Ian about not being there more for him, Lucy and Ben - this is the same Ben, who - today - referred to his older niece as "Lucy Beale" in the same way as Bianca used to refer to her uncle as "Ian Beale."
NuNuBen is well aware of Patrick's disdain of him, after his killing of Heather - good continuation there - and despatches Jay, a favourite of Patrick's, to wheedle his way into the house and steal the items before Denise could go to the police. Actually, I was quite amazed that Jay suffered no moral qualms about this, but I suppose he was in survival mode and thought to get rid of damning evidence.
I was glad Denise showed up in time to retrieve what was necessary, and I want to hear Ben's story about how he's come by Lucy's things.
All Things Denise. Once again, Denise and Patrick were the stars of the show, and we've subtly had introduced yet another red herring into the fray - nay, two. Tonight, we get the first intimation that Patrick entrusted Peter with looking after his allotment - not that posh Pete would have ever deigned to get his expensively manicured, middle-class hands dirty - but, there you go. Peter's brought into the frame as a possible suspect, by dint of the possibility that Denise thinks he may have buried the purse and the phone. We also learn that Peter has a bad temper, and that's not surprising either, since we already know he's a snobby, manipulative, little passive aggressive bully.
Denise posits a plausible scenario for the possibility that Peter could have killed Lucy - in a fit of pique, the way Ben struck out at Heather and killed her unintentially: confrontation with her about her cocaine habit (subtle hint pointing elsewhere) or anger about her relationship with Max (again, another subtle hint pointing even further elsewhere), but we know what Peter heard in Lucy's and Ian's argument that night, and we still don't know where Peter was.
Although Peter is high on my suspects list, I don't think he did it; nor do I think that Ben is the killer, although I can actually see bringing Ben back to be revealed as Lucy's killer is something well within the ken of this EP. Ben as the killer would have the sort of maximum impact I think DTC is trying to achieve.
A Carter-less episode, infuriating at times, but a good one - apart from a bit of a retcon moment.
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