The End - Review: - 05.12.2013

Cometh the end of Lorraine and love and warmth.

People question whether or not the recent spate of watchable episodes is really entirely down to Lorraine Newman, arguably one of the worst Executive Producers EastEnders has ever had, experiencing a late surge of creativity, or whether this is the fabled saviour Dominic Treadwell-Collins injecting his genius into the fix.

Difficult to call, but considering that the writer of tonight's episode was the infamous Jesse O'Mahoney, one of the weaker writers and that most episodes are written and signed off months in advance of their filming, most of this surge was down to Newman. Whether or not the previously dire (pun intended) writers decided, suddenly, to pull their fingers out of their collective arses and impress the new boy on the block is always a moot point for discussion.

Speaking of new kids, it was announced last night that none other than that noted thespian, Lacey Turner, is returning to reprise her role as Stacey Slater, which means that three years after spending time playing Stacey-Slater-Does-Comedy, Stacey-Slater-Does-Horror and Stacey-Slater-Joins-the-Army, the roles have dried up.

Yes, *Betty*, stop stamping your foot, we know that Stacey-Slater-Does-Afghanistan has been commissioned by the BBC for a five-part series, but that's more than likely a one-off deal. The pull-out from Afghanistan begins next year. The truth is, whilst Turner is awfully good at what she does (which is playing Stacey Slater), she's really not a versatile actress at all, and at 26, she's getting a bit long in the tooth to be playing piquant (but mouthy) Cockney sparrows. She'll be back in her comfort zone.

And that begs a question of DTC's ego. After all, he's brought back botox queen Sam Janus Womack, and now Turner is returning for a redux of The Stacey and Ronnie Show, which dominated our screens entirely from 2007 until 2010 and beyond. One wonders whether such returns are an indulgence of this EP's ego, but speaking as someone who is neither a fan or the porcine-featured Stacey Slater nor the porcelain-featured botox mask known as Ronnie Mitchell, I have to say that Slater's return is infinitely more viable than Ronnie's ever was.

I'll blog more about that this weekend - on with the review.

The Evil Woman of Walford.

People say Alfie Moon is weak, but tonight proved just what a weak and spineless coward Phil Mitchell is. Alfie was right when he asked Phil if Ronnie were making his business decisions now. Because she is. As the estate agent was explaining the timescale involved in the sale of the pub, all that poker-faced, cold-blooded psychopathic bitch wanted was Alfie, Kat and Tommy on the street. Not just on the street, but out of Walford altogether.

Why?

For jilting Roxy? If anyone is still sticking up for that piece of stinking cold turd shit, Ronnie Mitchell (and that includes the Ronnie-shipper who shows up occasionally on this blog to tell me how "sick" poor Ronnie is and was, cop this line from the episode spat out by Ronnie to Alfie:-

I don't owe you! That's how forgiveness works!

Really, Ronnie?

Because I was always raised to think that if someone you'd wronged had afforded you an apology, you were forever morally indebted to them. If Kat had stolen a Mitchell baby, the Moons would have been ridden out of Walford on a rail - and I don't mean courtesy of Walford East station either.

Phil's a stickler for family, sure, but even he wouldn't go as far as selling the Vic because someone dumped one of the runts of the Mitchell litter, and for all Phil says he "has plenty," the Vic is his major moneyspinner. The Arches? That's an archaic anomaly - a backstreet garage which originally serviced old bangers, but which now services late model cars, without properly trained and certificated mechanics or computerised mechanics. The R and R? That place is so small, they only get about four customers nightly.

The fact that Phil and Ronnie had kept all this from Roxy is also an anomaly, because out of that trio in this episode, Roxy was, clearly, the adult in the room. As things stand, even though Alfie dumped Roxy, she is still the manager of the pub, but Mummy Turd wants the Moons out now, this instant, set onto the street ...

Me-and-Roxy-can-run-the-pub.

Me-and-Roxy-me-and-Roxy. Me and Roxy can run the pub. Me and Roxy can run the R and R. Me and Roxy can raise Amy. Me and Roxy can sleep together. Me and Roxy can love each other.

Put a lid on it, please. Phil at least knew a bit about the law to know if he did things her way, he'd be hit with a lawsuit. Roxy's reaction was brilliant, and the scene between her and Kat was electric - Roxy wanting to talk to Alfie and Kat reckoning, rightly, that Roxy felt bad about what had happened because of the fact she wanted to talk to Alfie.

But the scene of the episode was that between Alfie and Phil, with Shitface trying to interject enough manipulation to try to scare Alfie off. I really wanted him to smack the shit out of her porcelain face. Who does this bitch think she is? She owes him nothing? That scraggy-haired manipulative whore took his child and paraded him around Walford for four months. The only reason she was crying and shitting herself was the fear of getting caught and losing Jack, whom she's since binned.

And where was the moral conscience of Phil Mitchell, whose son murdered a harmless citizen of the community, when she was saying all of this? The Mitchell hypocrisy is beyond belief, but the moment of the night came when Alfie sussed that Peggy knew nothing of this, and thus, he revealed the real power behind the Mitchell throne; because Peggy would never have allowed things to go this far. Another thing that neither Phil nor Shitface ever considered is that whoever bought the freehold of the Vic just might want to re-negotiate the leasehold again with Alfie, and there'd be nothing the Mitchells could do.

In that singular mention of Peggy's name, Phil's miniscule conscience was pricked, and I think he was impressed at the way Alfie stood his ground. He certainly was surprised that Alfie didn't go down on his knees, as Phil demanded, to beg Roxy's forgiveness.

This isn't what Roxy wanted, and she certainly didn't want Alfie thrown onto the streets with his family. She was the only one of that family dynamic who rose above the rest, and she asserted a subtle bit of independence, too, in standing up to Ronnie.

Roxy wants to leave. She genuinely does, and that's her choice; but leaving means she'll be out of Ronnie's immediate control.

When Ronnie demands to know why Roxy should leave, Roxy then throws something back into her face which she doesn't want to hear - that one day, Roxy will meet someone who'll love her and make all of this seem insignificant; but the only person, in Ronnie's mind, who'll love Roxy and make all of this seem insignificant, is Ronnie.

Because Ronnie has psycho-sexually inappropriate feelings for her sister. And that's the truth.

Kudos to Alfie for shoving the bust of the Queen Vic through the Mitchell front window, and to all the Alfie-haters who are whining about "oh-what-if-poor-Amy-had-been-sitting-there" ... Shut up. She wasn't. Amy is kept out of sight and mind and was probably at school, you numpties. It was a way of Alfie telling the Mitchells to take their pub and shove it up their collective arse.

The Tragedy of Alice the Goon.

I wouldn't say Janine was a psychopath. She's more sociopathic, and they are curable and can show empathy. The nightmares she's having of Michael aren't about guilt, but more about her fear and horror at what he was trying to do to her.

I'm glad Janine is uneasy about her association with Joey, although at first, I think her sexual reaction to him was more in line with a release of shock and grief, much the same as Carol's was with Connor. But the fact remains that Joey's association with Janine from the moment he banged on the Butcher-Beale-Jackson door is nothing more than witness harassment, and he could be arrested and prosecuted for that.

The truth is that Alice is not innocent at all. She's even admitted that she plotted with Michael to drug and subsequently overdose Janine and kidnap her daughter. Yes, she was totally manipulated by Michael, but her having been described anti-depressants, is news to me and a lot of other viewers, just as the presentation of Derek's wife as being an uncaring cow, who refuses to see her daughter or her son, washing her hands of them. Once again, the old demon of inconsistency rears its head, because Joey's initial scenes showed him badgering Alice to come home, on behalf of their mother.

The losers in life get scruffy, seedy solicitors, and Alice is no different. Actually, the solicitor's advice wasn't so bad - plead guilty to manslaughter and be out in a year, but Alice can't fathom that she will, eventually, be guilty of something - like assault, conspiracy to murder and kidnapping.

Another inconsistency:- If Joey reckons Janine is feeling guilt (and not fear) at killing Michael,and if he reckons (quite rightly) that Janine killed Michael because he was trying to kill her ... isn't that self-defence?

Alice should go down, and for a long time, and Janine should get away with this, because this time, she was and had been since her marriage to Michael, the victim of a psychopath - as Roxy is also a victim of a psychopath.

The Other Woman.

I'm surprised that Sadie didn't puke all over the house, what with her lard-arsed husband poncing about, naked under a pinny and sporting the cheapest kind of tattooed body art -really, a Native American?

Jamie Lomas has no screen presence, and no sexual chemistry whatsoever, with Jacqueline Jossa. This storyline, which should be a moral epiphany for Lauren, is nothing more than a poor excuse to move her into young adulthood. It's the beginning of what will probably be a big reveal and one in which Max will not have a moral leg on which to stand.

Decent enough episode on which to depart. Now let's see what Jesus Christ has up his sleeve.

Corny Beefcake Hash and One Psychopathic Bitch - Review: 03.12.2013

The penultimate episode of Newman's EastEnders. Let's cut to the shit bit first.

Mummy Turd.

In Walford, psychopaths are like Number 10 buses.  You get rid of one and another crops up to take his place.

For anyone doubting that plastic-faced Ronnie The Walking Nostril Mitchell is anything but a psychopath, the proof was in the pudding tonight in one of her penultimate lines of the piece.

With Kat succinctly reminding the po-faced, rancid-eating bitch that she, Kat, actually brought her back to Walford, that she and Alfie had actually forgiven the slapper, even reminding her of Tommy as part of the equation, she had the unmitigated gall to say that she didn't care about anyone or anything but her precious widdle sister.

But anyone with any kind of memory would realise that Ronnie has never really given a rat's arse about the Moons or their feelings. As early as the episode of the 17th April 2011, when Ronnie was being interviewed by a police psychiatrist, she was asked if she never once considered what the Moons must have been going through whilst she was parading around Walford with their son, she shrugged and said that it didn't matter to  her, that she didn't know them, that she didn't care about them in the least. That's not someone "watching a different programme" (according to the deluded Ronnie-shippers inhabiting Digital Spy); that's what happened in the actual episode.

She said that, and she said it again tonight. And it's true. Psychopaths don't care about anyone. They have no empathy. They obsess about something or someone. In Michael Moon's case, he obsessed about his daughter. In Ronnie's case, she obsesses about Roxy. In fact, I would put it to you that Ronnie actually creams her dirty knickers every tie Roxy falls apart. You could tell that last night when Roxy fell off the table, and you could even smell her sexual arousal when Roxy went even moreso over the self-pitying edge tonight, hungover and feeling sorry for herself, incapable of even dressing Amy and getting her to school - and later, when she was hunched up under a blanket and clutching a teddy bear, like a spoiled child being deprived of a favourite toy.

Roxy loved Alfie? She may have done so. She certainly was fond of him, and this probably was her first adult relationship, formed when Mummy TurdSister wasn't around to hijack the development. But it certainly was the first instance in Roxy's life where she was actively dumped. I would imagine that, heretofore, it was Roxy who did the dumping, then ran off cackling with her twisted sister. Sean left her, but only after she'd been caught in her deceptive lie about Amy's paternity. And, if I recall correctly, Ronnie did a disappearing act after this too, and for the life of me, I can't remember Roxy grieving the traumatic end of that relationship. 

If anything, I can remember her trying to come onto Jack and being knocked back when Jack told her he'd financially support Amy, but Roxy didn't come as part of the package.

But then, Jack was a handsome man, in love with her ice queen botoxed sister. In this instance, her dumper was a podgy middle-aged man returning to his ex-wife, a blowsy woman over forty.

The Mitchell sisters aren't nuanced at all, and I'm saying that as someone who's always liked Roxy. If anything at all, they're shallowness embodied with entitlement.

Ronnie isn't sorry for anything she's done. And part of the great inconsistency and retconning in this storyline comes with the trivialisation of the babyswap. Kat wiped any discomfort away, by telling Alfie that she was past the trauma because Tommy didn't remember it, but cop this clip from May 2011, when she confronts Ronnie, who - despite the alligator tears - doesn't give a shit about what she put Kat through. You can watch this here.

Go on.Watch it. I fucking dare you, and tell me how Kat got from that point in 2011 to the point where she was in September, when she brought this vinegar-lipped figa back to Walford. In fct, I would put it to you that everything that Ronnie said during that instance when she was released was a manipulative con to get Kat to bring her back to the Square.

How anyone can think that what Alfie did to Roxy is worse than what Ronnie did to the Moons is beyond my ken. As for Ronnie's assumption that Alfie is an insensitive idiot, she couldn't be further from wrong, and Roxy, who whined on and on about "living in the Vic for a year with her fiancé", she needs to fucking grow a pair and grow up.

She should know Alfie after living with him for a year, but she doesn't. She should know that Alfie puts on a front of trying to make everyone around him feel better, even when he's hurting inside. When she saw him chatting with Terry in the cafe, he wasn't "being himself" as if she didn't matter, he was hiding the shame he felt at having done what he did. In fact, if she had another braincell, she would have twigged then that this is exactly what he was doing when he fell into her arms the day after ending it with Kat, even though she'd been summarily warned by Big Mo to give him space. Alfie deals with his own hurt by putting on a front. Otherwise, he gets very dark, which he is about to do in the near future.

So that is proof positive that the relationship, to Roxy didn't get Alfie at all, and that Ronnie is a psychopath.

As for Phil Mitchell, I find it hard to believe that Roxy threatening to swan off to Portugal and live with Peggy (which would mean living with Sam and Richard, her son and Roxy's daughter's half-brother), would induce him to sell the Vic,easily the cash cow in the Mitchell empire. To begin with, Phi has previously been as disdainful of Roxy as he has been of Billy Mitchell, who seems to be totally removed from this situation. 

The only reason Phil wants these peroxided leeches to stick around, is because there are no Mitchells or Mitchell satellites on the horizon. He's lonely, but he surely cannot be lonely enough to sell the pub in order to displace the Moons. And does he seriously expect them to leave Walford?

Maybe in another era, but Phil either doesn't know or doesn't realise that Alfie Moon has spent two stretches in prison with the hardest of cases, and he didn't have to bend over and hold his ankles.

I'm just at a loss at how much Phil Mitchell appears to have mislaid his balls - either that or, considering his own history with bonking his aunt (AssFace's mother) and the propensity for EastEnders to promote quasi-incestuous relationships, maybe Ronnie made use of the mouth too wide for her nipped and tucked face and gave Cousin Philip a blow-job, or as Shirley once described it ... "that fing that you like."

The mind boggles. Dominic Treadwell-Collins has a goldmine of a storyline lying in his lap, if he bothers to use it - a psychopathic woman psycho-sexually obsessed by her younger sister. Otherwise, the redux of the Mitchell sisters, two self-obsessed saddoes rapidly approaching middle age with memories rampant of Eye-bee-tha, simply become a regression and a statement regarding the Executive Producer's ego.

Lauren Becomes the Chick on the Side.

Boy, is this Manc-meets-Skank storyline a rehash of Stax, with little variation. The secret phonecalls, mobiles ringing at inopportune moments, the teenaged bit on the side hiding out in the marital home when the unsuspecting wife unexpectedly returns home, the unbelieveable meetings in the most obvious places in broad daylight.

Tonight there was even an incident where Jake's daughter is injured at school and he can't be reached because he's having it off with Lauren, reminiscent of the time Deano Wicks hit Abi Branning whilst Max was off entertaining Stacey.

Thing is, the storyline is so obvious - the introduction of the mysterious Sadie, a character who showed more than a bit of promise, if by being a part of a dwindling dynamic, then revealing that she is only a guest character and there as a plot device for the first adult storyline featuring ...

THE. WORST. ACTRESS. EVER. TO. APPEAR. IN. EASTENDERS.

Worked appropriately, this could be a great epiphany for the morally self-righteous Lauren,a character almost as entitled as Ronnie Branning. Lauren has tried to kill her father, she's demolished a shop front in a stolen car whilst drunk-driving, she's criminally damaged a business and assaulted Lucy Beale, yet she has no police record. (Just like Phil Mitchell, I might add).

Yet above all else, she's sat in judgement of her father, whilst remaining blissfully unaware of her mother's legion of amoral sins, for her entire life. Again, worked appropriately, this storyline could be the awakening of Lauren to the sad reality that she is no better or no worse than her white trash parents, who've selfishly satiated their sexual desires with no thought of hurting anyone else.

And that's exactly what Lauren intends to do. Her unmitigated joy at the fact that she had three entire weeks off college - as I recall, Lauren is still trying to get her A-Levels - at Christmas, giving her and Jake ample time to (as she puts it) "sneak around," is pukeworthy. She knows that this man has a wife and, also, a child, and she cares as much about that child's psychological welfare as Stacey did about hers and Abi's when she was bonking Max in the front room whilst Abi did her homework in the kitchen.

Considering that this is Newman's storyline and Jossa was her go-to girl, then I'm reckoning that any resemblance to Stax or Sadie turning into a clone of material girl and social-climber Tanya is circumstantial. I'm thinking that we're intended to root for Lauren and Jake, when - as a couple - they have less sexual chemistry than Jack Branning and Sharon. But Sadie's leaving and Jake is staying, slotted right into the Beale restaurant kitchen. Can someone please show Jamie Lomas a bathroom and a tub?

It will all end in tears. Somewhere along the line, Jake will miss his daughter and start drinking again, and Lauren will drink with him, irregardless of the stated fact that another drink will kill her. This can easily be retconned in Walford.

Tagged onto this storyline was - believe it or not - a real shaggy dog story. Abi finds a well-kept, healthy-looking mongrel barking outside the Branning home and promptly adopts it - no responsible advertisements about a dog found in the street, no health checks for microchips or anything. Dogs either disappear without a trace in Walford (Chips, Albert), are forgotten (Terence) or appear from nowhere and are instantly adopted by a family who can't look after themselves, much less a dog (Wellard,Tramp).

The sitcom-contrived reaction of Abi and Lauren to Tramp's arrival produced one of the few bad performances from Jake Wood in his career. That was embarrassing.

As for the name, if this dog is a bitch, it could easily apply to the majority of the female population of Walford. 

Speaking of which ...

That's Why the Lady Is a Tramp.

The shining light that is Janine is about to depart, and tonight we get words of wisdom from, of all people, Billy Mitchell.

I love the Billy-Janine dynamic and their friendship, especially how when she's in clover, she looks after him by giving him a job and some security, and he subtly keeps an eye on her.

At last, it took Billy to voice something that's been bothering me for ages, since Michael died: Janine shouldn't be anywhere near Joey Branning. In fact, the first time he approached her, badgering her about Alice in the wake of Alice's arrest, she should have phoned the police, and Joey would have been banged up inside to keep his sister company.

As Billy is at pains to point out, this is the man whose sister killed Janine's husband. This puts nobbling the witness into a whole new perspective, because that is exactly what Janine is - a witness to Michael's death, in the eyes of the law. Yep, we know what Janine did, but Alice is far from innocent. After all, she plotted with Michael, first to drug Janine, then to kill her and kidnap her child. She also broke a court injunction by allowing Michael to see Scarlett.

The fact that sheer sense emanated from Billy's cakehole seemed to jolt Janine into reality, especially when she realised Joey had taken Scarlett out. She realised what this would look like to the public and called a halt right there with Joey, who's refusing to take the bait; but the old, familiar trust issue has reared itself with Janine, and not before time.

You can't play a player, and Janine now knows what Joey's game is.

I absolutely adore Charlie Brooks and her expressive face, which belies dialogue. The show will miss her, because it sounds as though it's going to be a long time before she returns.

The Walton Butchers.

That's what it feels like at the Butcher Arms at the moment. The Walton Butchers or, rather, the Chav Waltons. 

Can you imagine the Waltons as the Butchers?

John-Boy-Liam, whur's yer grandmaw?

Grandmaw didn't come home last night, Mamma. She stayed out all night with that that Masood Godsey.

Mamma, when can I stay out all night with Bobby Joe Beale? After all, he's my cousin and we oughta start makin' other little cousins afore too long.

You shet your mouf, Tiffany-Erin. Else you'll end up like your older sister Whitney-Ellen. Folks call her the Walford Mattress.

Mamma, why does Uncle Ian Beale call you a foghorn?

Shet up, Morgan-Jim-Bob. It's time fer school.

Bianca's worried that Terry's a chancer with women, based on Nikki's chance remark, so she asks her "overprotective father" (who didn't bother with contacting her for over ten years before just stepping back into her life again) to explain why Terry did that, because David was a chancer also.

David, of course, cleverly dodges the question. (By the way, how does David know that Bianca loves Christmas when he's never been there for Christmas with her before? Previously, he spent Christmas in Walford with Pat and a teenaged Greek Janine).

What I need to know is why Nikki and Terry split up? Did she kick him out because of his infidelities or what? He's got the kids, but they seem to be shifting around depending on his amours. And it's obvious that the dying father and losing his flat were lies. Putting up a few fairy lights in the front room won't win you Bianca's trust.

Another thing ... the ever expanding Butcher house. I know most of those terraced houses are the same layout inside, and you can see that. Just compare the Masoods' house and the Branning's house. Originally the old Victorian terraced houses had a front room and a dining room behind it, connecting with the kitchen. Pauline's house used to be this way, but the front room had been converted into a bedroom for Lou.

Ian, as David pointed out, had knocked through and created a lounge-diner - as the Masoods' house, the Branning's house, the Stones' house, and Janine's are. Dot's house and the Slaters' seem to retain the old layout - small front room, another room behind it, next to the kitchen. In these instances, rarely is the small room ever used as a dining room, but as a spare bedroom.

Charlie Slater used this as his bedroom. Subsequently, Eddie Moon did. And Dot converted it into a bedroom for her and Jim after his stroke. Last night, we saw, for the first time, a door leading into this room at the Butchers'. Funny, because, for all their front room is tiny, I could never figure out what lay behind it, because the kitchen hadn't been extended. Last night, Terry seemed to want to convert it into a bedroom for the boys. Eh? And I also thought that the Butcher house, formerly the old Mitchell house, had four bedrooms upstairs - one for Morgan and Liam, one for Tiff and Whitney, one for Bianca (and originally Ricky) and one for Pat (probably Carol now).

As Janine was using the couch a few weeks back and Carol hasn't cheated on Masood with David yet, I thought he was bunking down with the boys.

Phil Mitchell's house is all over the place - one minute he's got a through lounge diner with connecting French doors, the next, the dining room is across the hall from the lounge.

Carol spending Christmas with the Masoods? Funny, how the Masoods never really celebrated Christmas before.

Watchable episode, but still filler, except for the POS that is Ronnie Mitchell.

Recycling - Review:- 02.12.2013

One picture is worth a thousand words.

Better yet, how about a sound effect?

An hour-long episode to accommodate Robbie Williams at the Paladium on Friday night, taking advantage of the fact that Corrie's second instalment tonight was ditched in favour of I'm a Celebrity.

But tonight's episode only served to prove how weak the show still is at the moment. When the highlight of the first hour was Peter Beale and Lola (and the beginning of that was embarrassing) and the highlight of the second was the appearance of Terry's ex-wife, who was, as Bianca described her, a Sam Mitchell clone, then something's still terribly wrong with the show - chief amongst the problems being a preponderance of extremely unlikeable characters.

And for the record, EastEnders, the babyswap happened. Your then-executive producer signed off on it. It was your Class-A cock-up. Now own it.

You failed on owning your own fuck-up by trivialising a traumatic storyline just to redeem an actress, who needed a bit more regular work than Pleasant Valley had to offer, in order to assauge her ego and help contribute to her children's school fees and also just to pander to the calibre of viewer who reckons that if a psychopathic bully is pretty, she's a heroine.

When I read, again and again, how many people reckon being dumped at the altar is a far worse crime than kidnapping someone's child, dumping a dead child's body in its place and parading the baby in front of his parents for four months, then showing absolutely no remorse, I have to laugh at the stupidity of person who is supposed to be the future of this country. 

The people who enjoy the Mitchells, all of whom have done far, far worse than what Alfie did to Kat thuggishly victimising the Moons out of spite and a childish attitude for revenge, are exactly the type of people who enjoy seeing the weak be harassed by the brutish.

Just to refresh our minds of Mitchell mishaps:-

• Phil stole money from Roxy and then set her mother up as the thief, that's after having slept with Glenda, who was his aunt.
• Phil betrayed Sharon's trust and told Dennis Rickman what Jonnie Allen had said and done to her.
• Phil started the fire in 2010, which levelled the Vic.
• Ronnie lied about Damien assaulting her.
• Ronnie egged Sean on in order to get him to hit her, hoping to sway Roxy away from Sean.
• Ronnie broke up a marriage, just because she thought she was entitled to Joel, the father of Danielle. When she found out he'd had a vasectomy, she dumped him.
• Ronnie bullied Sam Mitchell into lying about Richard's paternity, not giving a rat's arse about breaking up Ricky's and Bianca's marriage. At that time, Bianca was her niece.
• Ronnie lied to Sam Mitchell and bribed her into leaving Walford with her son, then lied to Jack about why Sam left.
• Ronnie kidnapped a baby and left her dead one in its place.
• Roxy trashed Jack Branning's flat and subsequently slept with him, knowing Ronnie was interested in him.
• Roxy lied to Sean about Amy being his daughter.
• Roxy has never divorced Sean, so Roxy was committing bigamy.

So the Mitchells have no right takiing the moral high ground over the Moons on this score. It's just petty high school thuggery. In Phil, it's just pathetic, considering he doesn't give two figs about either of these retconned peroxide blondes; in Ronnie, the plastic-faced walking nostril with hair like a hedge row, it's pathetic and disgusting.

This episode was weak. It's fitting that it begins the last week of Lorraine Newman's tenure.

The Decimation of the Newman Negroes.

In the first half of the hour, Ava had a job interview. I assume it was for the role of Black Marge Simpson, because she certainly had a Marge pineapple hair-do.

Hang on, a job interview? Ava's never at work at the best of times, and judging by the second half hour, where she isn't working, but cleaning up the flat, one assumes her contract had been terminated at Walford Primary, because she certainly has enough days off - when teachers, apart from being ill, aren't allowed time off unless it's for training purposes, until the organised school holidays.

Clare Perkins actually sucks. She has a voice like chalk grating on a blackboard, and you can add the Ava-Dexter dynamic as another creepy familial relationship developing on the Square. I wouldn't be surprised if Ava has yet to wean Dexter. The pathetic 21st birthday party was an example of this - Dexter is, ostensibly, a man. It looks as though he thinks his mother is a man as well, the amount of times he refers to her as "Mum man." (Well, I've always thought she looked like a man in drag. Who, at twenty-one, wants a family party with your parents hanging around?

Now that she's leaving, it seems Ava has forgotten the man and woman who raised and parented her and now seeks guidance from the drunken old trout who was too far gone in drink to attend her newly-found grandson's major birthday. However, this doesn't stop her offering Max's hospitality to Dexter, inviting him, without previously consulting Max, to live at the Branning house.

There you go .. I was right. Dexter, upon departure of the Magic Negro, will morph into Black Bradley ...

I will praise Phil Mitchell, however, for basically telling Ava to "do one" when she came skulking around the Arches wanting to "talk" to Dexter. Of course, Ava's taking it on her predominant chin, hiding the fact from her baby boy that Daddy Dearest only wanted to make a connection because of a bodily organ.

The inadvertantly comic piece of this situation was the sight of Ava the Rava running down the street, screeching after Dexter.

She won't be missed, and I only wish Black Bradley was going with her.

Blonde Bradley and Stacey.

Please, can Poppy just go now?

Her incessant attempts at match-making are boring, and she's essentially a shallow character and, really, an insult to young women of the 21st Century. Hooking Fatboy into the initiative only provided another poor romcom escapade that became the signature piece of Newman's EastEnders - the sight of Peter shouldering an astonished Lola to take her around the corner and kiss her. All the clever camera shots in Hollywood, including the overhead shot of  ...the kiss ...

could save the romcom rubbish that surrounded the vignette, dialogue included. As appealing as Peter and Lola are, and we have a soupcon of what was to come, when Ian referred to Lola as a "chav," prompting Peter to scam him with the minced pies, they deserve better than dross like this.

Still, it was nice to learn that Shirley and Tina, two more entitled marmite characters, are annoying Lola to the point that she refers to them as "the gruesome twosome."

Manc and Skank Stax.

Yet another storyline featuring ...

THE. WORST. ACTRESS. EVER. TO. APPEAR. IN. EASTENDERS.

This time, this is a Stax redux, or a Tanya-Max-Rachel redux, however you want to view it. I suppose, since we watched Stax unfold on the screen, with socially ambitious Tanya befriending Stacey and Max doing the obvious dipping, this has to be this EP's version of Stax - or rather, Manc and Skank Stax.

The way both these two characters look, prompt a reminder of an okd Gary Puckett song from the Sixties ...

Because Jake looks and sounds like a perv, and Lauren is being dressed and styled like a schoolgirl. Even scrubbed up, Jamie Lomas looks like he needs a bath.

I'm wondering if TPTB are pushing the viewer to root for Lauren and Jake in this instance, unlike the Stax scenario, where both Yummy Mummy and and Saint Stacey were both presented as victims, whilst Max was the Big Bad Wolf.

(Hmmmmm ... come to think of it, Tanya's attempted murder of Max is another crime that's been swept under the carpet, with the worst thing Max ever having done is now marrying a woman after Tanya divorced him).

I would think we are being asked to root for these star-crossed lovers because (a) Jossa was Newman's go-to girl and (b) Sadie is now being presented as somewhat of a conrtolling bit of a bitch. There's a touch of Mad May about her, I sense.

Whatever it is, it isn't working. Lomas might be Mr Soap Opera with his Hollyoaks' credentials, his Emmerdale sister and his Corrie ex, but he doesn't fit EastEnders. Besides, he and Jossa have no sexual chemistry whatsoever. Also, remember all those clandestine broad daylight trysts in Max's ageing Merc in front of Walford East station that Stax used to enjoy? I mean, that's right off the Square. People come and go there all the time, yet they were never seen.

Today, we had Lauren shouting the odds at Jake about why he wouldn't see her right in front of Ian Beale's house. Didn't that rouse Ian's suspicions? Was he aware that they were even acquainted and, if so, why was Lauren in such an agitated state? Even though Jake plays the noble horse-mouthed beast at first in evading Lauren and telling her that he loved his wife, all it takes is her help in Scarlett's kitchen for him to run to her, eating her face.

This should be an epiphany story for Lauren, who always sat in moral judgement of Max and his amoral forays. It should be intended for her to discover that she's really no better or worse than either of her parents. Her mother was a homewrecker; she inherited that propensity along with her alcoholism, from her putrid mother. And as Kate Magowan is leaving, and Lardy Lomas is sticking around, unfortunately, we'll be seeing a lot more of this godawful couple.

Nightmare on Albert Square.

OK, I have to admit it. I have a sneaking liking for Terry Spraggan. He might not be perfect - and Nikki's last line tonight implied that he was prone to impulsive romances and moved from woman to woman, which - of course - left Bianca gobsmacked.

I actually like the dynamic of friendship developing between Terry and Alfie, the way Terry isn't judgemental of Alfie, after that escapade with Roxy, and the easy banter between them. A Terry-Bianca-Alfie-Kat friendship looks good, although I'm not too fond of either of Terry's kids, especially the girl, who comes across as a childish version of Heather - if there can be such a thing.

I also liked Nikki, and I hope she becomes a recurrent character as she's an airline hostess, and - based on something one of his kids said about starting new schools being something to which they were accustomed, gives you pause for thought that they and Terry have moved around a lot. Now we know why. I do agree with Bianca that she reminds one immensely of Sam Mitchell - or, as Bianca describes her, "that trout pout Sam Mitchell." At least, she knew how to put Bianca in her place. The lunch, with David roped in as mediator, was one of the few good things about this episode, and you actually got a suspicion that, given other circumstances, David would have really fancied Nikki.

I'm also convinced that Bianca wearing Elizabeth Walton braids in an effort to make her look a lot younger than her father, who looks more like her contemporary than her parent.

Overgrown Children.

Plus

Equals

I find it preposterous that people like Cora-the-Bora are sympathising with Roxy the Overgrown Child. She's actually treated like a child because her behaviour is that of a spoiled child. She sulks around the Square, feeling sorry for herself, until Phil comes along and pushes a wodge of money her way, telling her to treat herself, shopping.

Roxy's always been indulged, especially by Ronnie, and it's resulted in her never growing up. The problem is that puerile behaviour looks stupid on someone pushing forty, and why ... why do the Mitchell women always think it "kewl" to dance on tables. Sam Mitchell did it when she returned home after jumping bail. Ronnie and Roxy did it, harkening Eye-bee-tha at the hen do, and Roxy jumped at the chance to shake her drunken booty again tonight, and promptly fell off the table. Did my eyes deceive me, or did big bad Phil and Alfie just stand there, not attempting to touch the overgrown child, but she only fell when the Nostril reached out to her?

This is Roxy's forte - she always recognises Ronnie's control element of her, yet when Ronnie's around, when Roxy protests this, you know that the minute Ronnie leaves her to her own devices, Roxy falls apart. This is what Ronnie wants.

And Roxy only adds to her stupidity and her self-pity by reacting in this way. What would getting drunk in front of Alfie prove? It only proves that she's pathetic, and I'm saying that as someone who actually likes Roxy. The sight of those two cackling at the bar and making snide remarks wondering how long it would be before Kat cheated on Alfie, was cheap and despicable - especially since both of them have cheated, themselves - Ronnie in breaking up Joel's marriage and Roxy when she slept with Jack.

Here's a point to ponder: Alfie loved Roxy - not as much as he loves Kat, but he could have happily settled with Roxy, as long as Kat was gone and Ronnie never returned. But I don't think Roxy really loved Alfie. She was fond of him, yes; but she even told Ronnie that Sean was the love of her life, and I do think she convinced herself that she loved Alfie after being knocked back by Max Branning - he called her "hamburger" compared to Tanya's "sirloin," I believe - and, being lonely, she responded to his kindness.

How long would it be before Roxy got bored and cheated on him? He just dumped her first.

The Mitchells are hypocrites, none moreso than that Plastic-Faced bitch who shows not one iota of humility and shame for having committed a heinous crime. 

Weak episode.

For BumbleSquat on DS Forums

Bumblesquat, here are THREE examples of Ronnie manipulating Roxy for you to throw in the face of the recalcitrant millenial child iMatt101:-

• When the Mitchell sisters arrived in Walford, they used the excuse of Phil's wedding for Ronnie to get Roxy away from what she described as Roxy's "controlling" fiance', Damien, who owned half share in their bar in Ibiza. It was mentioned that some years before Roxy had had a cocaine addiction. Nothing was mentioned about Damien being the cause or the supplier of it. Damien showed up a few weeks later, wanting Roxy to come back with him, and Roxy, for once, wanted to return. When Roxy was out of the room, Ronnie tore her own top and screamed that Damien had tried to rape her - which, of course, wasn't true. Roxy believed Damien and stayed with Ronnie.
• When Roxy told Ronnie she was pregnant, Ronnie attempted to bully her into having an abortion. You can watch the clip here. When Roxy admitted that Sean was the baby's father, Ronnie talked her into returning to Ibiza where they would raise the baby together. They left Walford, but Roxy subsequently ran away from Ronnie's smothering, and ran directly to Archie for rescue. That's right, Roxy would rather be with Archie than her mothering, smothering sister.
• When Roxy finally decided to be with and marry Sean, Ronnie deliberately goaded Sean into hitting her, knowing that Sean was suffering from PTSD, just to convince Ronnie that he was no good for her.

Ronnie just hasn't been manipulative with Roxy. She wantonly broke up her ex-boyfriend Joel's marriage, because she felt she was entitled to have him in an effort to create a Danielle clone. When she found out that he'd had a vasectomy, she binned him.

Who can forget her pricking (bad pun) holes in Jack's condoms trying to trick him into getting her pregnant? She was sleeping with anyone and everyone, trying to get up the duff - from Ryan Molloy to Owen the wife-beating alcoholic. She also manipulated Sam Mitchell into lying about her baby's paternity, and she didn't give a rat's arse that it would have split Ricky and Bianca up. And finally, she lied to Sam, conning £30k off Roxy to pay Sam to leave Walford with Richard because she didn't want Jack's son to be around his father.

If anyone cannot see Ronnie's manipulations, they're willfully blind. Or just stupid. Or both.

The End? - Review:- 29.11.2013

Apologies for the delay in the reviews this week. There was a death in my family, so all the usual death threats and snide remarks and accusations from the haters who, somehow, can't help reading this blog actually paled into the insignificance that they are in view of that.

There's a battle raging right now on Digital Spy forum about the Mitchell Sisters and their value to the programme. As I've said before, the Mitchell Sisters are retconned children of a retconned character. For years, we only knew that Eric Mitchell had one brother, Clive. Suddenly, as of 2007, he had another brother, Archie, who had two daughters.

I appreciate some of the cultists' devotion to the Mitchell sisters, but it's usually been the Ice Queen who's received their adoration. (And, people, if you don't think that woman's had cosmetic surgery, you don't know anythin about cosmetic surgery). Normally - until recently, actually - the distaff half of les soeurs Mitchell - Roxy, that is - has retained the same lack of affection reserved for the other runt of the Mitchell litter, Billy, who featured heavily in Friday's episode.

Roxy was always deemed the dim slut, to put it succinctly.

Now there seems to be an element of viewer on Digital Spy, who've probably finished teething and have been weaned in the six years since the peroxided blondes arrived, who are creaming their y-fronts about the "return" of the Mitchell Sisters.

You're forgetting one thing:- Ronnie Mitchell turns forty next year, and Roxy's thirty-six. Both these women are old enough to be the mothers of teens, and you're forgetting that if the sainted, soppy Dani-elle had survived, Ronnie would have been the grandmother of a toddler today.

So this regression of the sisters to cackling, insulting, entitled partygirls (or one partygirl puppet whose strings are being pulled by a psychopath) is a bit much to comprehend, especially since most of the tweenies would be bum-clenchingly embarrassed to see women of that age behaving like airhead banshees and sidling up to men young enough to be their sons. Even moreso in Ibiza.

The battle waging on DS at the moment concerns Ronnie's manipulation of Roxy, which one erstwhile teenager, iMatt101, refuses to see. You remember iMatt101. He's the child who decided to watch Emmerdale, and after one episode,deemed it a pile of crap. When other forum members nicely tried to tell him that you need to give a programme more than one episode for making a judgement, and that his reasons for dissing the programme being that people "talked too much" in scenes were not quite valid, iMatt101 started squealing like a stuck pig, pleading his youth and whining that people were picking on him.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet a Class A Millenial - incapable of thinking critically, sustaining a discussion, tolerating any difference of opinion and thinking that if something happened before he was born or before his memory, it's not worth it. Hey, history can be changed, ya know.

Of course, it can, in the eyes of people who live in a dream world and cannot reason. But, why take my word for it? Read the thread for yourself. You can find it here. 

Pages 2 and 3 are particularly insightful into the mind of a narrow-minded millenial, who, when challenged, resorts to petty insults.

If this is the target audience Dominic Treadwell-Collins is aiming to sell the show, it's lost. How long before this becomes the standard fantasy staple of vampires and zombies?

Friday's episode sucked mightily.

A Tale of Two Kidneys.

It's time for Daddy to go ...

Absolute line of the year has to go to Ava the Rava ... you cannot deny that when she wants to do so, the Magic Negro can pull it deep out of the hat:-

Please tell me you didn't come back here just for my son's kidney!

Well, that one was about as bad a secret as Jake and Sadie being married. Everyone knew from the very beginning, of if they didn't know,they suspected, that Sam suddenly appeared, not out of fatherly devotion, but out of need of a bodily organ.

This is the beginning of the end for two-thirds of the worst family to appear on the show since the infamous Ferreiras (and they had a kidneygate too). Why is it always a kidney transplant that's foisted on unpopular characters in a last-ditch effort to get them to appeal to viewers?

Ava the Rava was an insult to teachers everywhere - note to DTC: Teachers, unlike most other professions, can't just take the odd day off here and there. Their "leave" comes with the copious mid-term and summer breaks during the school term. Teachers cannot have "days off" to grade papers or to host twenty-first birthday parties for their children. Judging by the amount of time Ava's had off from her classroom duties, Walford Education Authority must have bags of money to lay out for supply teachers.

Sam the Sham went from being James Earl Jones to Billy Dee Williams to Lenny Henry's impersonation of a stereotypical Jamaican. At times, I almost thought he was ready to burst into a rendition of Old Man River.

As for Dexter, not only is he about to become the worst actor on the programme (with David Witts's departure), but his character is an offensive racial stereotype. He's the only member of what we now know was Newman's surreptitious "new family" who's staying, but that isn't because he's popular. He isn't.

The only things that are saving Khali Best's bacon right now are the fact that he comes cheaper than most of the other older actors on the show and the colour of his skin. That's a fact. Three of the first five actors axed by DTC were ethnics - two Afro-Caribbeans and an Asian. If DTC had wiped out one Afro-Caribbean family in one fell swoop, there'd have been hell to pay from the PC brigade. 

So, basically, Dexter gets to stay and morph into Black Bradley.

The problem with this trio, Branning satellites that they are, is that they were so badly portrayed and badly written, that the public couldn't seem to invest properly in them.

Tonight's scenes between Ava and Sam the Sham were embarrassing in the extreme. For fuck's sake, this is a prime time soap opera, not Ibsen at the National Theatre. I saw enough of Cornell S John's tombstoned teeth in his clipped enunciarion to last a lifetime, but we also had to contend with shots of Clare Perkins's tonsils and her screaming. Oh, and enough allusions to the effing pint of milk story.

This is Dexter's 21st birthday. It just dawned on me tonight that he's older than Peter Beale. He's actually the oldest of that demographic comprised of himself,Peter, Lola, Jay and Flabi the Dough-Faced Girl. A group that ranges in age from twenty-one to seventeen. The oldest behaves more like a twelve year-old than someone who's proverbially come of age.

So Sam is gone (but not for good - he's got one more appearance to make), but I wasn't moved by Dexter's pithy speech - another retconned moment, being that Dexter has pined for Daddy Dearest since he was  wee lad, but instead had to make do with mountain bikes and Playstations. Sounds like the proverbial spoiled brat to me.

Anyway, his mamma and daddy both love him, but Daddy simply can't stay - to accommodate a "child" that's really an adult - because he really couldn't abide a lifetime with Mommy.

Well, who could live with this?

Sam the Sham went back to the Pharoahs ...

Well, Dexter thinks he's gone to Birmingham for the weekend.

This was a disgrace when you think of the non-departure Scott Maslen, an actor whose character had stayed at the forefront of the show for six years, received, in his three-minute decision to be psychologically bullied out of Walford by his psychopathic ex-wife leave town.

One wonders why?

The Famous Five Goes to a Party.

In the beginning, there was Spanky (the fat one), Darla, Jackie, Alfalfa and Buckwheat.

Now we're served up with Flabi (the fat one), Lola, Peter, Jay and Dexter.

I found it totally unreal that Sam managed to wind his way to the hospital, casually "find" one of the nurses who'd taken care of Dexter, and brought her home as a birthday present for him. Even stranger is that I find both Dexter and Sam, each with one kidney and newly recovered from the operations, were drinking Patrick's 100-proof rum drink. Does this show not do any research? Like with Max and Phil, both of whom have lost spleens, is there any reference to them being consigned to take daily doses of penicillen for the rest of their lives? Sam will still have to take anti-rejection drugs to keep his kidney intact.

I also find it incongruous that Peter Beale's twin is moving in adult company circles, whilst Peter is still seeking harbour in the company of children. But, as I said, I find it difficult to believe Dexter is the oldest of this lot. The scene on the market was cringeworthy, including the shot of Peter gratuitously removing his shirt in order to change for the children's party. (This is supposed to be the end of November, and already one of the dynamic was complaining about "freezing.")

Ah, yes, there was the ubiquitous remark made by gossipy Flabi the Dough-Faced Girl, who sanctimoniously opined that if she were Roxy, she'd never forgive Alfie for what he'd done. Well, miss, perhaps you'd like to remember Phil engaging your boyfriend in concealing a murder or Ronnie dumping her dead baby on the Moons and taking their child. Maybe you'd like to remember your sister trying to kill your dad.

The scene where the "gang" were ribbing Dexter about being dumped by the clearly reluctant nurse was one of the worst I've seen on the show. Oh, and we're getting the lead-in to the new big romance between Lola and Peter, by having her invite a moon-faced drama school student trying to sound like a pool hall chav and looking more like a long-lost juvenile Mitchell relative, having him make remarks which clearly indicated that he was more of a Daily Mail reader than a chav ...

Single mothers are gagging for it.

She's a tramp.

All within Lola's hearing, of course, and all designed to make Peter defend her honour. Actually, I like this couple. They have the accidental making of another Stacey and Bradley. And the slow-burn of their attraction had been the most natural and subtle storyline around. I don't approve of the way they'll eventually get together (involving the atrocious Fatboy and the equally atrocious Poopy-La-Dim.

Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves.

As much as I like Tina Carter as a new character, her "quirkiness" might begin to wear thin if they keep her as a dippy comic foil to Shirley's bitter old bat.

So Phil's hospitality wears thin, and he kicks them both out, but it also was bloody hypocritical for Tina to assert that Phil should have beaten Alfie for what he'd done to Roxy. Shirley surely wouldn't have been too good to politely point out that it was Phil who'd harboured a murderer - the murderer of her best friend, no less - under his roof with Shirley living there. If what Alfie did to Roxy is worse than what Ben did to Heather and Phil hiding his guilt, then there's a skewed sense of morality in this programme. We're certainly being asked to consider the kidnapping of a child far less serious than dumping a woman with a dubious sexual history on the wrong side of thirty at the altar. I suppose now, we'll be asked to consider Heather's murder a non-entity because she was fine, fat and over forty.

Seems like the Mitchells can commit the most heinous of crimes and expect to be thanked for it, whilst the victims are treated like pariahs.

So Shirley pimps her sister out to get Billy Mitchell, the runt and Village Idiot of the Mitchell clan, to secure them a place to stay. Hang on ... I thought Denise had given Shirley an advance on her wages so they could get a deposit for a flat? Bad continuity again?

This was a poor episode, the second of as many in a gaggle of good episodes. It's this inconsistency which affects EastEnders as much as the poor writing, dire acting and bad characterisation.