Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Poignancy, Pathos, Pitiful, Putrid, Pukeworthy and Po-Faced - Review:- Tuesday 02.05.2017

Consider the plight of three women - Denise, Michelle and Tracey - all middle-aged, either pushing fifty or past fifty. These three women have been placed in the unenviable position of being unemployed in Britain where women of a certain age are seen, by some, to be at a particular disadvantage. In two of the three cases, the unemployment situation can be laid firmly at the feet of the women concerned. Michelle lost her job in education by abusing her position of trust and sleeping with an underaged student. In other words, she committed statutory rape. Denise lost her job by the singular inability of her oversized mouth to engage with her brain. She assaulted a minor - a vile, rude and eminently slappable minor, but a child all the same. She was regularly rude to her clientele. She pilfered products from her place of employment. She openly criticised her employer's marketing practices and price philosophy and refused to accept a disciplinary warning and to attend an anger management class. Tracey was the victim of market forces and was made redundant from an unskilled job where she'd worked, part- and full-time for almost 30 years.

Of the three, Tracey immediately found employment with a rival publican on the same Square where she'd always worked. Why? Because her reputation preceded her. She didn't abuse her position, she remained steady and constant in her job and was unfailingly polite to her clientele. She listened,and the one time she dared criticise her employer, she did so discreetly.

Tracey has a job. Michelle and Denise are unemployable.

Poignancy. In an episode that was short on most of everything, the actual high point was watching Jack, struggling with his children - well, his two children and Ronnie's son, who has a living father out there somewhere. Sean O'Connor has got few things right, but one of the few is Jack's continuing struggle with grief over Ronnie's death.

I know Ronnie was a psychopath, a murderer, a bully, and an all-around Class A bitch; but in the fairytale world where background histories change from producer to producer, we're asked to believe that Jack and Ronnie were a loving couple, and Ronnie was your average yummy mummy suburban housewife, who'd just happened to have killed a couple of men.

At least Jack loved her. It's brought home to him tonight, through his sick daughter, that the kids are, in Jack's words, missing their mother. (Amy referred to Matthew missing "Mummy" as if Ronnie were Amy's mum. Roxy was Amy's mum, and she always knew the difference between Mummy and Auntie Roxy). There's no doubt Amy misses Roxy, and you wonder if Matthew actually misses Sam, his mother; because out of the three kids, Matthew is the only one who has two living parents. He lost nothing. I think, more than the kids missing their respective mothers and the woman who looked after him - don't forget how Ronnie paid Sam off in order to scoot her and Ricky away from Walford when she was pregnant with James? - I think it's Jack just missing a woman's touch, when a woman very much like Ronnie pops up every now and then at the Vic across the road.

Still, this is a very real depiction of a spouse dealing with the death of a much-loved partner and struggling to cope with family life in the aftermath. Sure, it's been five months, but this is real time, and sometimes grief takes years to conquer.

Additionally, this segment pitted Scott Maslen in scenes with Jake Wood, which always causes Maslen to raise his game. Jack, like Carol, recognises that Max has lost a close family member as well as they, individually, and I like that he's on hand with Jack and was on hand with Carol to remind them that he knows every inch of hurt they're expecting. I felt the poignancy of his line to Jack about waking up every morning and realising what he'd lost. That was a beautifully oblique reference to Bradley, and that's realistic too, that Bradley's death should be so raw with him, seven years after the fact.

With Jack's open plea for help at the end of that segment, and the camera resting on Max's stone-still face, you wonder if this were a subtle foreshadowing of Max's part in finding and inducing Charlie Cotton to return for his son.

Just an aside, but Amy's almost nine years old, a little too old to be having The Three Billy Goats' Gruff being read to her.

All in all, that was the best part of the episode.

Pathos. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, to the latest episode of that heart-warming har-dee-har-har sitcom, Beales Are Best. Here's the blurb for tonight's episode.

It's Jane's birthday, and Ian figures out a way to cheat with the pedometer Jane's bought him for a present. Ian continues to outfox Jane, until Kathy tips Jane off that Ian will cheat to get anything he wants. Jane confronts Ian and then presents him with a wonderful surprise, by walking six steps on her own.

This is goofy, sitcom stuff - dorky dad cheats on his diet (although Adam Woodyatt looks to have shed more than a stone already), mix in a little public service announcement via Jane's indignant remark to Kathy about diabetes not being a game or a joke, but a very serious matter, and end with some schmaltzy feel-good scene which is supposed to tug at our heart strings and not leave a dry eye in the house. 

However, I can't look at Ian's weight struggles or Jane's effort to walk again and not remember that both of these people harboured a murderer, that both were well prepared to see an innocent man imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit (indeed, Ian tried to have his own brother charged as such), and that Jane dumped the body of Ian's dead daughter in the boot of her car and dragged her across the Common, leaving her to the elements all night.

They warm the cockles of your heart, these two. Not. How can anyone ever forget something like that? If these two can compartmentalise that thought in their minds, they should at least mention the unmentionable from time to time - psycho Bobby, who doesn't want to see them. They should be fighting to re-establish contact and bond with him. After all, he is their son, and he will be released to their custody when he's served his time. I can't remember the last time they referenced him.

The star of that segment had to be the kid who plays Louis. He's already talking, and you can tell Woodyatt had spent time with the kid, as the little boy looks really comfortable with Woodyatt and Aaron Sidwell, babbling and talking easily with them both.

Pitiful. It's also Shirley's birthday, but the only thing she appears to have gotten is a card from Sharon. Shirley's suffering the wrath of the neighbourhood, with community spirit decidedly against the the Vic in general. The sum total of their clientele today consisted of Vincent and Kim, with Kim bragging about their upcoming holiday. 

I daresay, judging by Shirley's remark to Kathy in the café that she doesn't know Vincent's given Tracey a job. Shirley's worried about the boycott, but Kathy's worried about whether or not the Vic still want her to provide lunches for the lunchtime crowd, something which Woody later shoots down as a cost-effective exercise.

Johnny makes an equally pitiful appearance, off to take his first final. Woody's bonded with Vincent through running and introduces himself to Jack, now billed as Mick's BFF. There has to be a reason for Jack's encounter with Woody, and I'm still thinking that Woody will apprise Fi of Jack's "need."

Putrid. I don't like Sharon and NuMichelle as a team. Louise was right in ranting at them both, particularly Sharon, about their behaviour the previous night. Sharon needed reminding that she's the daughter of one alcoholic and the wife of another, one who died and one who almost died. As part of Phil's rehabilitative process, she agreed to ban liquor from the house, although Michelle openly and blatantly flouted that rule during her stay there. 

Louise is just a kid. She saw what happened to Phil in the throes of alcohol, and she looks to Sharon for some form of stability. Now Sharon's brought Michelle into the household, a person neither Dennis nor Louise has any reason to respect. Louise is right to castigate Michelle, and her pithy retorts that this was "only once" and that they weren't that drunk ring hollow with Louise. 

She's right. Sharon is her stepmother and she should be providing a role model.

But Sharon's desperate text apologies were wrong too. They stank of desperation. They actually stank of fear that Louise would tell Phil of Sharon's drunken hijinks. She should have just taken Louise aside and apologised, seriously, admitted that she was in error and was upset at losing her job and promised her she wouldn't do it again. The "I'll-Do-Anything-if-You-Forgive-Me" line gave Louise (being egged on by the bullies) licence to badger Sharon for literally carte blanche.

At the end of the day, Sharon is the parent-and a bad one. 

I like Dennis, but I don't like the way they are presenting Dennis as a sexually precocious child. He's ten, for goodness sake. Having him spy on teenaged girls undressing at Christmas was one thing, having him leer at the prospect of being in the house in the company of three teenaged girls is quite another thing. He's 10 years old, for goodness sake. He's a child. Yes, we know he's the grandson of Den and the son of Dennis Rickman, both inveterate womanisers, but the last thing this show needs is a prurient pre-pubescent sex fiend.

Michelle's plight doesn't resonate with me at all. And I deplore TPTB pushing this character on us. It must have been a veritable wankfest for Sean O'Connor when he contrived a scene between his two muses, Denise and Michelle, to discuss their various unemployment plights - plucky, middle-aged women pounding the pavement in search of employment after their own stupid mistakes rendered them unemployable. Maybe at one point, Sharon can sub Michelle enough money for a couple of bottles of wine, Michelle can then help Denise study for her English lit exam and the pair can exchange notes on toyboy relationships.

Michelle's job quest ends in failure. The executive position in educational sales, the interview (of course) was off-screen. It wouldn't do to show two unsuccessful interviewees' hopes being dashed, so the obvious choice was Denise. Michelle's job resulted in a job paid on commission in a glorified call centre, making cold calls. Obviously, with Sharon paying the bills, Michelle is in no hurry to find a job. Please stop making this character so nobly recite how inspiring the job of teaching was and how she made a difference. She made a difference to Preston, all right. The fact that she ruminates about wanting to teach again, but realising that she can't, is prescient. Somehow, SOC will find a way to bring her into the classroom again.

As well, with Louise and the cartoon teens remembering what Michelle did, we had to watch her getting catcalls of approval and wolf whistles as she strides through the market, whilst Martin glares at her and struggles to spell "asparagus."

Pukeworthy. Sniggle and Snaggle never cease to annoy me. It dawned on me tonight that Sniggle reminds me of a brainless horse. Aside from the fact that she sounds as though she smokes 40 cigarettes a day, when she laughs, she brays like a mule, and what was the point of having her suddenly jump up and kick the locker in that awful school scene.

Of course, Sniggle and Snaggle have Louise exactly where they want her, and Louise's naivete never ceases to amaze me. It's obvious that these girls want the Mitchell house, not for the innocent sleepover that Louise thinks is taking place - cf: the list she was making at the time of Rebecca's visit consisting of marshmallows et al - but for some sort of party, and I would imagine, with all Louise's talk of control and drink making you lose control, that the girls will spike her drink, she'll get drunk and either sleep with Travis, the boy on whom Snaggle has her eyes set, which will rile the pair even more. This bullying storyline seems to be a never-ending story. 

Rebecca susses their intent and tries to approach Louise as a friend. Funny that, when Louise was trying to re-establish their friendship a couple of weeks ago, it was Rebecca who rejected Louise's efforts. Now Rebecca comes with a warning for Louise, citing friendship as her motive. Of course, deep down, Louise doesn't trust Sniggle or Snaggle, but she thinks that by playing nice to both of them, she'll be safe from their machinations. The fact that Rebecca called Louise a bully struck a chord, however. 

It will probably be Rebecca who mops up the mess Sniggle and Snaggle make of Louise.

Please, end this storyline now.

Po-Faced. Oh, my fucking god, more of this...


I could hear "Hearts and Flowers" on a loop in my head. This is the most ridiculous storyline the show has ever presented in its history. Denise isn't even starving for education, she's starving because her big hoary-breathed mouth burned bridges which offered her employment.

Maybe the penny dropped for her tonight. Yes, it's fine getting qualifications to better yourself, but exactly how is one GCSE in English Literature going to get you dynamic and fulfilling employment? This was embarrassing - first of all, having her stand, virtually leaning on Kush and eyeing whatever he was eating hungrily, then righteously refusing to be treated to a slap-up meal at Fargo's. 

She started to tell Kush she didn't have the money, but I was under the impression that this was supposed to be a date. She didn't object to him bringing around a take-away, before the never-before-seen Darius showed up, and Carmel commanded a family meal.

So we're supposed to think it's noble and poignant that Denise hides her hunger behind her quest for education? What the fuck is this supposed to be? Some La Boheme fantasy about people dying for their art. How long before we have Denise staggering about the Square, coughing prettily and warbling out Mi chiamo Mimi?

She was another one who was duped into the sort of job for which she thought she was too fine - "the service sector" is exactly what it says - it's providing a service: cleaning, serving food in a cafeteria, working as a hospital porter - that sort of stuff. Did she think it was something to do with sociology? And if you're walking, sweetheart, you don't traipse about the street in stiletto'd marital aid shoes like that.

How the mighty fall hard! She pointedly thought she was too good for what turned out to be a cleaning job. Loved the interviewer who brusquely told her perhaps she should come to see him once she got her GCSE, but at the moment, this job suited her skill set to the tee. Because she has no skill set. She can't type, she's barely computer literate, she's rude. She can just about operate a till, but considering that most perspective employers in retail would want a reference, this is as good as it gets.

And so we're inevitably shown the sad scene of Denise eating another meal of dried rice and tinned tomatoes.

The best scene of that lot was the exchange between Denise and Kim - another pathway blocked. Kim's cooking a slap-up meal and invites Denise. This is what makes this situation so ludicrous, because Kim wouldn't let Denise starve, even though this is of her own making. The exchange of home truths was brilliant.

Kim, rightly, accused Denise of thinking she was that much better than everybody else, and this is very true. That's been the core of Denise's offensive personality since she arrived in Walford. She always looked down at everyone as if she'd encountered a bad smell. On the other hand, Denise accused Kim of being a kept woman who lived only for spending her husband's money and who lived off a man. Those words will come back to haunt her, because inevitably, it will be a man who rescues her from a plight of her own making yet again.

Denise struggling with Shakespeare? I thought knew his entire works by heart.

Spare me.

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