Thursday, December 15, 2016

The Christmas Spirit - Review: Thursday 15.12.2016

Jesse O'Mahoney, arguably a writer only marginally better than the insipid Katie Douglas, pens an episode so trite and such an obvious combination of bad Dickens and maudlin Frank Capra, that it brings tears of frustration to the eyes.

Let me start the ball rolling,

The Sex Offender. I've never been a fan of Jay's. I've never wanted him to leave, but I've never thought he had the presence to be front and centre either. He's committed the cardinal sin of growing up, without a break, on the show, which condemns him, like his running buddy Jack P Shepherd, with whom he remorselessly gay-baited Shepherd's colleague, Anthony Cotton, on Twitter one night aound four years ago, and Shepherd's other Corrie colleague, Sam Aston, to perpetual residency in Walford and Weatherfield, respectively.

Jamie Borthwick has a tranche of fierce, obsessive fans - most of whom are young, subtly misogynistic men who fear women of intelligence and who hate to have their opinions about the general awesomeness of Jay debunked and consigned to the wastebin of personal opinion-presented-as-fact. To them, Jay is a wonderfully complex character, and to them, that's a fact.

Well, you're certainly entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts; and if you can't differentiate between the two, you seriously need to develop your critical thinking skills, and try to find a bit of tolerance for opinion divergence along the way.

Fact is, Jamie Borthwick is a lazy actor who does very well portraying Jay Brown-sometimes-Mitchell, but he lacks any sort of discernible ambition as an actor, or otherwise, he'd be expanding his talent by taking on other roles; but it's all to easy to hang around Eltree and cop a wage off the taxpayers' money - enough, at least, to keep you in the top-range white Beemer in which you scoot around London.

Anyway, fact also is that Jay is a sex offender. With a sentence to serve. And that sentence is five years being openly listed on the sex offenders' register. This means he's subject to certain inconveniences of liberty - like the police making unannounced and regular checks on his person - to examine his cellphone or look at his laptop, or just to see if the permanent address he's listed meets police criteria.

The police, known fondly in Walford  as The Old Bill, only know sex offenders as sex offenders. They don't care about the mitigating circumstances of Jay being too stupid to ask the young girl he picked up her age. They don't feel sorry for him. To them, he's just a young nonce who asked a fourteen year-old to send him naked pictures of herself and kept them on his phone. So one of the conditions of him being kept out of prison is that he he not live with any underaged vulnerable children, especially young girls.

Initially, when Billy and Honey asked him to live with them, the police alerted Social Services, and the couple went to great lengths to convince the social worker that Jay could be trusted around their children; but Jay's crime was with a young woman, underaged, but on the cusp of adulthood, and now he's in a house with just such a young woman - a young woman of fifteen, who looks twenty-five and has the dialogue of a nineteen year-old.

This isn't unjust, it's the law. It's also a fact that, prior to his adventure with Star/Linzi, the woman Louise came onto him. Now the police have issued an ultimatum: Jay simply has to find alternative living arrangements, as he cannot be seen to be sharing accommodation with a young, underaged woman. Jay has to leave the house immediately, and if Phil refuses to turf him out, the police will alert Social Services, and there;s a good chance Louise could be taken into care.

What's poor Jay's response ... the pity party routine..

This is never going to go away.

No, you entitled little scrote, it isn't. If you've learned anything from this, it's that actions have consequences, and this is one of those times. No, this isn't going to go away. The fact that you were on a Sex Offenders' register for five years is something that's forever going to be on your record, there for everyone to see. 

I'll always be pegged as a bad'un.

Well, let's see ... you perverted the course of justice in keeping schtum about Ben killing Heather, Oh, but wait, you sorta kinda had to do that because the Mitchells were your fairmly and you were calling yourself Jay Mitchell at that time, so that really wasn't your fault, even though you knew what Ben did was wrong.

And you got an electronic tag for being an accomplice in Ben's cack-handed attempt at robbing an off-licence on the night Lucy Beale was killed.

Oh, yes, and you exchanged naughty nude photos on your phone with an underaged girl, whom the authorities see that you were grooming to spend a night away at a hotel with her. They found that booking form on your computer, amongst other things.

So, yes, Jay, you are probably a bad'un - if for no other reason than you were deeply offensive when you strutted through Walford at one time, demanding respect from people who knew you only as a rude and offensive little prick who grew up into an even bigger one.

I'm sure I'll get shouted down and bullied by the JayBros, once they peel their Y-fronts down from the ceiling, after having creamed them at the sight of their icon in his signature white cardigan tonight.

Ben's a far more interesting character, who can exist without Jay; and at the moment, Jay's playing the good son to Ben's sulky one. Humouring Phil, cosying up to him, making him see the sense of having his family around him.

Odd, how in this hodgepodge of an unlikable family, the only one I care about is Ben.

The Lying Little Toerag Thief. Since Lee was so blasé tonight when learning about the robbery at Billy's and Honey's flat, I'm beginning to wonder if he was in on that raid as well - if not in its organisation, then in the actual execution of it. This was a one-man job, and Lee seemed to dismiss it out of hand.

Not long ago, he watched his work colleagues terrorise his family and rob them of charity profits. Now he merely shrugs his shoulder at another robbery close by. Lee is in debt. Billy's wedding money and Janet's tablet will come in very nicely.

I think at last Mick is beginning to suss that something is slightly skewed with Lee, because he was inquisitive about why Lee had chosen to stick around the pub that evening, nursing a cheese sandwich rather than cohorting with his lovely young wife, and promising his mother he'd get his baby brother walking by Christmas.

Mick knows that's guilt talking, that this is something that Lee can't hope to achieve, that he's hoping, however, to atone for whatever it is that Mick can't quite fathom is bothering him.

The best moment of the piece tonight was the scene between Linda and Honey and their bonding in the aftermath of Honey's burglary. Mick joked about Linda taking Honey food, but more than the burglary, it was the subtle sight of seeing Honey bleaching every article of furniture, every counter top in their flat which struck a nerve with Linda. 

Honey felt violated. Not only had someone been in their flat, touching their possssions, they were actually there when Honey returned. She felt she couldn't stay in the flat that night, but if she had to, she was simply going to bleach the violation away.

Linda's simple remark was brilliantly effective.

I know that feeling.

Linda would.

Downtrodden Billy Finds the Spirit of Christmas. Bad luck follows Billy by nature. Not enough people have died to enable Les to give him a bonus, so he's stretched for Christmas, and now, he's been burgled and doesn't have insurance.

Why would he have insurance? Billy moved into that flat as a squat. Who owns it?

But Billy, like George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life determines that he's going to make his daughter a doll's house, and he, Honey and the kids are going to have a wonderful Christmas.

This is enough to dispel Linda's gloom-and-doom and swing her around to the Christmas spirit.

Ah, I suppose the miracle magic of Holy Mother Denise's unborn child has sprinkled fairy dust on Billy.

Nobody Likes Carmel. Well, they don't  No one entertained attending a dinner with Carmel present. Kush, from the look on his face, took it upon himself to get her not to attend. 

No one likes Carmel. Is this a sign?

Phil and Phil's Liver. It must be - what? - 7 AM in the morning or thereabouts, and Sharon's talking to Michelle. If it's 7AM in Walford, it's 2AM in Florida. Do the writers not get that? What the hell is she doing up at that hour?

Anyway, the Royal Free Hospital, nice plug there, have a liver on hold for Phil and it's all hands on deck - except sulky Ben doesn't want to know or go, and Denny simply carries on eating his oatmeal.

There's a moment of hope and a scene in the hospital that's supposed to be poignant, Phil reminisces about his favourite Christmas as a child - toys, a goose and  cheap crackers. That's what he would ideally want this time around. Sharon will get the goose and the cheap crackers, and he wants a couple of drones with which to annoy Ian Beale.

The best part of this entire thing was the sweetly poignant look on Sharon's face but the Mitchells' hopes are dashed because the liver they have on tap for Phil isn't a match, and he's sent home. Fearful of being exiled to Epping Forest, Jay the Sex Offender talks Phil into spending time with his family in what could be his last Christmas. After all, Jay's been homeless and Jay's been alone - only briefly, mind you, but it's enough to restore Phil's good humour.

In the meantime, Louise is distracted briefly by the pathetic Shakil ferrying about a silly song, caterwauling Rebecca Rednose has sent him. She sings like she acts - chin thowon up and nose a festive red. Kudos to Louise for telling him that he and Rebecca were pathetic compared to the problem Louise is facing at the moment - the death of a parent.

I gather Shakil found RedNose alone and willing. I hope Martin walks in on them.

This was a falsely happy duff-duff, with Phil finding his mojo at seeing off the cops and emphasizing his self-importance by sitting in Sharon's invalid chair.

Oh dear.

In the meantime, Phil's liver is currently trying to sell her house before her wedding. Not long to wait then, Phil.

No comments:

Post a Comment