There it was, all laid bare tonight - everything you love to hate about EastEnders. You've got NuMichelle, making a shove for the front of the queue again; you've got the incessant teen bullying storyline, played out by no one who's even in their teens. You've got Lauren obsessing about herself so much, she can't see she's being set up to be the company whore; and you've got Denise, the omnipresent, omniscient patron saint of every silly-arsed person who had a gumpf load of book sense, no common sense and spades of pride and ingratitude, having - of all things - the allusion of a literary conversation with Kim. You had Dot, head-bobbing, lecturing and smoking like a chimney.
You even had fucking community spirit wade into the mess,
The only thing that moved forward was Charlie and Jack, agreeing to Charlie having custody of Matthew, but even that is tied up in the snails' pace that's supposed to be Max's revenge.
Watching this unmitigated tripe, is anyone really surprised that EastEnders came away lame-handed from the BSAs?
Worshipping at the Altar of Saint Denise (Not). Sorry, DeniseBots, I gotta say it, and say it, I will. I fully expect the furies to be unleashed, especially by one shit-stirring passive-aggressive in particular, but you know what? I don't give a fucking rat's arse.
Here's the gib Diane Parish is an accomplished actress who's latched onto a money-spinner in EastEnders, She probably gets paid an impressive salary, and it pays her bills. She's been on the show for a decade, and a large part of that decade was spent standing around in a shop set, making snide remarks about people. You'd think a graduate of RADA and a recipient of a few prestigious gongs would want more from a career. Maybe she's got lazy, or maybe it's the regular income from a soap subsidised by the licence fee-payer which pays for her au pairs and her kids' school fees, not to mention the holidays, the nice house and the designer nails (can't forget about the nails).
But once again, this year, for the umpteenth consecutive year running, Parish was nominated for Best Actress at the BSAs, and she failed to make the cut. That was odd, because out of the two other actresses from the soap, who garnered nominations (June Brown and Lacey Turner), only Parish has had a definable storyline ... after storyline ... after storyline ... after storyline ad infinitum.
Guess what?
The public voted for Lacey Turner, and it was she who went through to the shortlist and lose to Charlotte Bellamy.
That's right. Once again, Parish failed to make the cut. Ne'mind. Linda Henry's never made it, nor did Lindsey Coulson, the other esteemed thespian who landed a stint in EastEnders and, like a lady, always knew when to bow out.
The moral of the story, throwing in a huge chunk of irony, is this: Just because you're a well-trained thespian doesn't necessarily mean you'll carry a soap as the central star. Oh, Jessie Wallace, Samantha Womack and Lacey Turner all did, and successfully so; but for all they've done other things, they are comfortable in the soap genre and display the sort of chutzpah and general popularity a soap diva has to have. Letitia Dean has it. Jo Joyner had it. Sue Tully had it. Jenna Russell doesn't.
And neither, sadly, does Diane Parish.
The fact that Denise is now irretrievably linked with "community spirit" makes her smell even shittier as a character, basically because both she and Kim never gave a monkey's dong about anyone in Walford except themselves or someone who was related to them. Instead, we had various characters tut-tut and worry aloud about what had happened to "poor Denise", how she managed, by the sheer strength of her will, to last for weeks without food, whilst raiding every rubbish bin on the Square, picking up chips off the floor of the Tube station and subsisting, for a time, on half a biscuit per day. The Sainted Mother even gave her food bank rations to a single mum with two young children.
If she were Catholic (like Patrick), she'd by-pass Purgatory altogether.
Carmel worries about her. Donna asks if she's doing OK, and gets the rough side of Denise's tongue. This is what I mean about this character. She doesn't deserve the love, honour and worship of anyone else in the Square because she, quite frankly, is a singularly rude and ungrateful bitch.
In actual fact, Kush spoke the truth about her in this episode, when he said that she created her own problems and her own situation, and he was right. She doesn't understand the compassion and care shown her, even by her closest relative, because she's never shown compassion or care for anyone else.
She doesn't deserve anyone else's concern.
She makes a point of literally acting like Kim's skivvy, not because Kim has given her a blanket excuse not to present herself at the DWP office weekly for her benefit cheque, but because she has to make a point of being a martyr; and when she sees that Kim doesn't expect her to cook, clean and really mind Pearl, even the thought of that is beneath her. In the end, it's Kim, who has to play up to her enormous ego, allowing Denise to intersperse literary terms into their heart-to-heart in the most pedantic way:-
You even had fucking community spirit wade into the mess,
The only thing that moved forward was Charlie and Jack, agreeing to Charlie having custody of Matthew, but even that is tied up in the snails' pace that's supposed to be Max's revenge.
Watching this unmitigated tripe, is anyone really surprised that EastEnders came away lame-handed from the BSAs?
Worshipping at the Altar of Saint Denise (Not). Sorry, DeniseBots, I gotta say it, and say it, I will. I fully expect the furies to be unleashed, especially by one shit-stirring passive-aggressive in particular, but you know what? I don't give a fucking rat's arse.
Here's the gib Diane Parish is an accomplished actress who's latched onto a money-spinner in EastEnders, She probably gets paid an impressive salary, and it pays her bills. She's been on the show for a decade, and a large part of that decade was spent standing around in a shop set, making snide remarks about people. You'd think a graduate of RADA and a recipient of a few prestigious gongs would want more from a career. Maybe she's got lazy, or maybe it's the regular income from a soap subsidised by the licence fee-payer which pays for her au pairs and her kids' school fees, not to mention the holidays, the nice house and the designer nails (can't forget about the nails).
But once again, this year, for the umpteenth consecutive year running, Parish was nominated for Best Actress at the BSAs, and she failed to make the cut. That was odd, because out of the two other actresses from the soap, who garnered nominations (June Brown and Lacey Turner), only Parish has had a definable storyline ... after storyline ... after storyline ... after storyline ad infinitum.
Guess what?
The public voted for Lacey Turner, and it was she who went through to the shortlist and lose to Charlotte Bellamy.
That's right. Once again, Parish failed to make the cut. Ne'mind. Linda Henry's never made it, nor did Lindsey Coulson, the other esteemed thespian who landed a stint in EastEnders and, like a lady, always knew when to bow out.
The moral of the story, throwing in a huge chunk of irony, is this: Just because you're a well-trained thespian doesn't necessarily mean you'll carry a soap as the central star. Oh, Jessie Wallace, Samantha Womack and Lacey Turner all did, and successfully so; but for all they've done other things, they are comfortable in the soap genre and display the sort of chutzpah and general popularity a soap diva has to have. Letitia Dean has it. Jo Joyner had it. Sue Tully had it. Jenna Russell doesn't.
And neither, sadly, does Diane Parish.
The fact that Denise is now irretrievably linked with "community spirit" makes her smell even shittier as a character, basically because both she and Kim never gave a monkey's dong about anyone in Walford except themselves or someone who was related to them. Instead, we had various characters tut-tut and worry aloud about what had happened to "poor Denise", how she managed, by the sheer strength of her will, to last for weeks without food, whilst raiding every rubbish bin on the Square, picking up chips off the floor of the Tube station and subsisting, for a time, on half a biscuit per day. The Sainted Mother even gave her food bank rations to a single mum with two young children.
If she were Catholic (like Patrick), she'd by-pass Purgatory altogether.
Carmel worries about her. Donna asks if she's doing OK, and gets the rough side of Denise's tongue. This is what I mean about this character. She doesn't deserve the love, honour and worship of anyone else in the Square because she, quite frankly, is a singularly rude and ungrateful bitch.
In actual fact, Kush spoke the truth about her in this episode, when he said that she created her own problems and her own situation, and he was right. She doesn't understand the compassion and care shown her, even by her closest relative, because she's never shown compassion or care for anyone else.
She doesn't deserve anyone else's concern.
She makes a point of literally acting like Kim's skivvy, not because Kim has given her a blanket excuse not to present herself at the DWP office weekly for her benefit cheque, but because she has to make a point of being a martyr; and when she sees that Kim doesn't expect her to cook, clean and really mind Pearl, even the thought of that is beneath her. In the end, it's Kim, who has to play up to her enormous ego, allowing Denise to intersperse literary terms into their heart-to-heart in the most pedantic way:-
- It's so ironic how she's looking after the cousin of her son that she gave away. (Shut UP, talking about this child! I never want to see him enter either her life or Phil's).
- The fact that Kim remarks that Denise has subsisted for years, building a defensive wall around her and not letting anyone in on her innermost thoughts and feelings is deemed "metaphor" by Denise. But it doesn't stop there, they continue talking about this "metaphorical" wall in dialogue worthy only of Noel Coward, were he a Mockney.
And finally, her ego is inflated yet again, when Kim tells her that, to everyone in the Square, Denise is a heroine, like one of those literary heroines she so loves.
How, exactly?
By starving herself? By walking out on a job people are bending over backwards to allow her to keep after dissing the company publically? By not even bothering to look for work after leaving her job, instead, just carrying on drinking in the pub, eating at the café and fucking the son of her best friend, a man young enough to be her son?
Come on, whoever wrote this shit certainly doesn't know pragmatic, hard-working, salt-of-the-earth East End people or even working-class Londoners. They wouldn't be calling Denise a heroine in real life. The least they'd call her is a silly cow; the worst is a dumb c***.
And they'd be right.
I think the old term is: She made her bed hard, she'll lie in it.
But Kim, in spinning a fairy story for the woman with the biggest ego in Walford, tells Denise that she needs a hero, and that hero is her toyboy, Kush. Wouldn't it be nice if Kush told her some ugly home truths about her arrogance and stupidity and told her to fuck off and live with the equally po-faced Libby?
Wouldn't it just? But it won't happen, because for all his muscles, Kush has no balls. He's yet another Oedipal man, whose testicles have gotten mislaid someplace and never found. Like Vincent, who spends his mornings choosing his daughter's co-ordinated wardrobe and takes her to the park as soon as her mother makes the demand.
The Making of The Company Mattress. Lauren might have ambition, but she can't string a sentence together using grammatically correct English, and I don't really think the posh monied investors Josh is trying to impress would be impressed with Lauren's English.
But it isn't her English Josh is selling. If anything, he's grooming her to be the ultimate corporate whore.
Did anyone catch the covert bitchiness in Corinne's (the HR woman) sideswipe at Lauren tonight, when she remarked about how Josh seemed to like her and how if she carried on pleaseng him like that, she'd be heading her own department in a year's time? I'll bet Corinne was right where Lauren is now at one time, except she didn't succeed in holding Josh's interest and got banged back to HR after Josh finished his bang.
Lauren is so stupid - and so stupidly self-obsessed - that she doesn't realise the game she'll have to play with Josh in order to climb the ladder of success - or even that she'll have to climb it on her back. She's pissed off that he's pissed off that she appears to be ill. Of course, we know she's pregnant.
Of course, Lauren doesn't want this child. She's having serious second thoughts about her first child, and she actually loved the kid's father. She doesn't love Steven. At best, she's grateful to him, for picking up the pieces left behind by Peter and sticking by her. He's also bonded with her child and makes a good babysitter; but he bores her to tears, and whilst he's content to build a family life in Walford, she thinks she wants more.
Was it dupitious of Steven to pierce the condoms and get her pregnant when she was adamant about not wanting a second child? Of course, it was. Lauren is supposed to be Peter's partner. He should have listened to her reservations about not wanting another child and respected them. If he couldn't live with that decision, he should have just dumped her. Really, he owes her nothing, and in the cold light of day, that decision on her part, and the fact that she's hanging around like a bad smell, would serve to make him realise that she's only using him.
On the other hand, she's too naively egotistical to realise that the price she'll ultimately have to pay to climb the ladder of success at Weyland & Co is sleeping with her boss; and it won't be a love affair either. She's the latest toy with whom he's infatuated. Lauren should look at Corinne. Better, she should talk with her.
The best part of this segment was Abi, playing devil's advocate just enough to make Steven realise the truth of the situation - that Lauren has never been satisfied with what she has. Abi is jealous, but the more this goes on, it's clear that Abi sorta kinda really doesn't like Lauren, otherwise, this would never have happened:-
Abi is too young to remember how unstable and insecure Steven is, and Lauren is too stupid to do so, because surely Lucy must have told her about some of Steven's antics when he was going through his mental phase. Abi has just planed a big seed of doubt in Steven's mind about Lauren, and later on in the evening, Steven sees Abi's seed manifest itsefl.
Shit gonna hit the fan when she has her termination.
BabyDaddies. So now we know the real reason Dot was fighting Jack's corner for Matthew - because Charlie planned to raise the child in Ireland, away from Dot. What a selfish old woman! Even now, she's fighting Jack's corner, playing down Charlie's concept of a farewell party for Matthew.
Jack playse the sad-eyed victim again, but I get the impression with Max's arrival that Max didn't want Charlie to play nice in taking Matthew away. Mick knows that Max isn't kosher. How long before Jack susses?
The Interminable Boredom of Michelle and the Teens. Michelle is whining about Tim divorcing her, which means a new interest with a nosebleed is just around the corner; and now Sniggle and Snaggle are back telling jealous lies to the insipid Louise about the manboy Travis.
Will this shit ever end?
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