Sunday, March 1, 2015

Daddy's Almost Home - Review:- 27.02.2015

You heard it here first: Gavin Sullivan is Sharon's birth father, and he's looking for her. The way Kathy will come back to Walford will by through Sharon finding her birth father and finding that Kathy is alive. Just sayin'.

The gangsters are coing, the gangsters are coming, the gangsters are coming ... over to Walford for a party tonight.



The Past Becomes the Future. Sooooooooo ... Kristopher, who was Christopher Hanley, would now be about 32 years old. Posh, respectable, well-spoken and a middle-class professional. That means, if he ever set foot to settle in Walford, he'd become yet another stark, raving psychopath. Still, I wouldn't be averse to seeing Kris crop up from time to time, if Sharon ever needed her brother. There's another brother and a sister, whom Kris was quick to tell Sharon had inherited Carol Hanley's house, along with everything else. (Mr Hanley must have pre-deceased Carol).

(Aside: Really, make-up should put Letitia Dean's hair up on a regular basis. Letitia looked absolutely equisite in the past two episodes - much more elegant and less blowsy than she does wearing her hair long.)

This was a brilliant woman-centric episode with Sharon and Linda as the centrepieces, each with a score to settle and each vulnerable. Sharon's feeling like an outsider in the Mitchell mould. Just where is Phil? What does "away on a job" mean? And where is Denny in all of this? Fine and dandy, Linda pronouncing Sharon the real Mitchell matriarch, but there wasn't a mention of her son, her flesh and blood. Who was looking after the child whilst she was at the pub with all and sundry? Aleks must be the solitary, sole and singular babysitter of Walford, because I can't figure out where else the child would be.

All it took was encouragement from Linda to turn Sharon into a functioning mother-figure in the House of Mitchell. The next thing you know, she's home sorting out Abi's culinary disaster, apologising to her for snapping at her and promising to do some sort of girly thing at the weekend. She even wins Jay around with what was a pretty cheesy line - well, it was enough for Jay to get up the courage to ask Lola out, only to be blown back.

The one thing I objected to in that storyline was Sharon referring to Carol as her "real mum." She wasn't. Leo Richardson should have used the term "birth mother," because Angie was Sharon's real mother. I suppose Carol Hanley must have told Kristopher and his siblings exactly who Sharon was, for him to vaguely remember her and know who she was. At the time, Carol would only describe her as her friend.

But, of course, the Hanleys were only a smokescreen to the real Sharon story - her search for the elusive Gavin, who - it seems - has been looking for her all these years. Clever of the writers not to let us see the name of Sharon's birth dad - or as she mistakenly refers to him as her "real dad" (no, Sharon, that's Den) - but I have a feeling that that 16 year-old Gavin in the shoe shop is now a full-blown gangster Mr Big called Gavin Sullivan. This would mean that Sharon is now Ian's step-sister, Ben's step-sister as well as stepmother, and Kathy, as well as being Phil's ex-wife, is now his mother-in-law.

You couldn't make this inbreeding up if you lived in DeliveranceLand.



Where's the Beef?


Funny, how Kim has to tell a lie in order to convince Denise that the initial truth she told was actually a lie. Get the picture? I know it's confusing, but count the number of times we heard the name "Vincent" tonight. That means there most definitely is a Vincent, and we know he's Richard Blackwood's character, who's the latest TMN* to take the place of Ava, but in a more sinister way. Well, if we believed Kim's lie about making Vincent up (which would have meant her "marriage" was a lie too), we certainly didn't after she texted Vincent a picture of his daughter.

I guess getting an entertainment job on a cruise ship must be lucrative, as it kept Kim in furs and diamonds, but then, again, as I see Gangstaland rising in the distance - and I don't give a flying fuckwhat DTC says about hating the gangster era, he hated that because he didn't create it -I suspect "Vincent" has a link to just about everyone in the Square, and I've yet to see how he'll be linked to the Brannings or the Carters.



Kim's baby is getting better. Did we ever think she wouldn't? And now that Patrick has been confirmed as the only male role model Pearl will need in her life, he's determined to get better. That can only be good. We can't get enough of Patrick.

Optical Delusion. Oh dear. Ben and Abi and Jay and Lola. Or not. Abi's making spaghetti bolognese, reading a recipe and putting chili pepper in the mix? Really, Abi. Lines of the night go to her:-

Ben: I helped too.
Abi: You peeled an onion and cried.


Whilst Sharon may think that Jay still has feelings for Abi, Jay is only concerned because Abi is on a hiding to nothing, as Ben is gay; and he's using Abi as a beard to convince everyone, mostly Phil, that he's straight.

I don't know if Abi loves Ben as much as she wants to stick it to Jay for dumping her and to Lola for believing Jay dumped her to be with Lola. The scenes in the Vic with this quartet were hilarious, and I felt sorry for Lola, as well as Jay, who thought to bring a self-fulfilling prophecy to fruition by making the first move and asking Lola out. Abi makes a bitch face on seeing her and Jay is also ill at ease. I whooped out loud when Jay told Abi that Ben tried to kiss him a couple of weeks ago, which Ben strenuously denied.

On second thought, I guess Jay didn't really want to hurt Abi's feelings in such a public place. His monotoned apology was classic deadpan:-

I don't really know why I said that.

At times Borthwick can be a right lazy little actor, and I'd like to see him more to the forefront of this show. The real shocker tonight was Lola turning down the prospect of a romantic relationship with him. Jay should try talking to Nancy. Nancy so deserves someone better than Tamwar.

Speaking of Nancy ...

Secrets and Lies in CarterVille. Wow, Mick ... really? It's enough you spent all of last year playing the subtle passive-aggressive with Linda, and it took her being raped for you to promise to treat her differently and put her first; but that doesn't mean you could replace the object of your passive-aggressive bullying with your child! Honestly, his first scene with Nancy, when they were wondering about the whereabouts of Linda was just short of disgusting.

The way he said ~ I know you told your muvvah about Dean, Nance ~ bore all the earmarks of a Danny Dyer threat. Poor Nancy didn't know what the hell to think or do. She's seen the anger of which her father is capable, and she doesn't know whom to believe when it comes to Dean's disappearance. Mick keeps saying Dean walked away, and that he'll never return to Walford. What, exactly, does that mean? Is Dean dead? We know he doesn't fear Mick, and as Nancy has discovered the lighter Stan gave him, which he valued, she knows he'd come back for that.

My guess is that Mick thinks he killed Dean, hopes he killed him, but he didn't. Still, he's lying to Nancy, and he's lying to Linda. But what's a little lie amongst families? Hell, Elaine even lied to Linda about the theatre tickets, and before the episode is out, everyone's lying to poor Nancy.

Linda leaves the Square to give support to Sharon and to have a break from Mick, who's jumping out of his skin because she won't answer his calls, and then convinces herself that it's best all around if families sing from the same hymn book, so she lies to Nancy and says she's spoken with Dean, something Mick knows isn't true, but Linda tells him that all this stress about Dean isn't good for either Nancy's epilepsy or their baby (who might be Dean's baby). And Linda assures Mick that she believes him. Is her faith that big in a man who's consistently lied to her?

As good as Maria Friedman's voice is, I thought the musical interlude - an excuse for the actress to sing - got a bit cheesy in moments, but I have to say that Shona McGarty is another one who benefits from wearing her hair up. She looked fantastic, even if her romance with Lee isn't that believeable.

Of course, everyone got caught in their lies at the end, because you kinda sorta know why the police are looking for Shirley about Dean.

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