The Queen of Bovine - Review:- 05.12.2014

I watched that episode getting angrier and angrier at the obvious culprits. I know the show seeks to provoke emotion, so maybe it's achieving it's purpose, although I doubt my reaction mirrors many others. Watching the episode tonight was like watching a train wreck about to happen. Knowing what's transpired with some of the characters featured for the past year or so, it's difficult to fathom some of the reactions we saw tonight.

We saw the Carters briefly. Shirley aside (and she and Dean were part of the problem), Linda, Mick and Johnny were subtle perfection and a joy to watch. I was almost wishing them back on our screens instead of the calamity of co-dependence that the Beales have become.

Jane the Pain and Peter the Prick Prevail. Let me make it abundantly clear. Ian Beale is not a nice or a likeable person. He's selfish, he's greedy and he's a weasel. However, without a doubt, Ian loves his children more than he loves life, itself, and I thought he was well within his reason to do and to say what he did to that posh piece of shite that Peter has become in the previous episode.

Peter whines to Jane, an interfering, clueless and sly hypocritical bitch, that poor widdle Peter has to do all the fence mending whilst big bad Dad does nothing. I mean, petulant Pete, figuratively stomps his feet and wonders what Ian has ever done to him.

Well ...

Listen up, Scrote ... he's your father. For all his faults, he loves you more than life, itself. There isn't anything he wouldn't do for any of his children. Your mother plotted to have him killed and then absconded to Italy with you and weird Steven. Maybe that's why Ian bonded so closely with Lucy, because she was inadvertanly left behind in the melee. He spent a lot of time and money looking for you and fought tooth and nail for custody of you. He may have cut a swathe through a number of wives, but he was always there for you. He encouraged you in athletics - something the writers and DTC seem to have forgotten; he's provided you with a comfortable home, warm clothes and money whenever you held your grubby hand out to get you what you wanted. He gave you the run of the market stall and probably tops your wages and most likely gave you extra money for your extended trip to see your putrid brother. It was almost certainly some of Ian's money the bought the drugs for Lucy.

Has Ian made mistakes? Of course, he has. Whoppers, the biggest of which being the fact that he told a massive lie about Lucy having cancer as a child in order to keep Mel onside to marry him. Ian is petty, vindictive, childish and weak, but his sense of family is strong, and since Jane and her brother Christian came into his life, they've often undermining his parenting techniques, when the pair of them were less than clueless. Since 2007 and the advent of Steven and slightly before, Ian has allowed Lucy to call the shots. She treated Ian with absolutely no respect and did as she pleased from early adolescence.

One of the most accurate lines Ian has ever said in his entire adult life on the show was when he uttered earlier this year - I think it may have even been to Peter - that there were times when he didn't even like Lucy; but whilst Lucy was running riot in her previous incarnation, Ian was bigging up and supporting Peter's endeavours. Funny, how this has all changed.

The most bizarre aspect of all of this was Jane's unmitigated support of Peter in all of this, asserting that Ian was entirely wrong to cast him out and declare Peter dead. So much for Jane's support. Undermining again. So, let me get this straight ... Jane's perfectly all right with Peter buying drugs and supplying Lucy with them as a means of "controlling" her addiction and keeping her from dodgy folk? She's OK with drug dealers coming to the house when Bobby is there or even coming to Billy Mitchell's flat when Lexi was there?

Yet more undermining of Ian's position, because Jane is oh-so-wise. The truth is that Peter would listen to anyone who would denigrate his father right now, and Jane was playing a despicable game of divide and conquer. First of all, Ian was compelled to apologise - apologise - to Peter when Peter was the one who'd manhandled his father and spewed a lot of verbal shit in his face when what he'd said was mostly his interpretation of events (as well as being retconned content) filled with ad hominem insults. Peter's apology had the aura of a spoiled child, awfully sorry for being caught out, but not sincere. Peter wanted an apology on his terms and then backed it up with the pithy and pathetic reaction of a seven year-old by demanding Ian, literally, tell him whom he liked best - him or Lucy.

I was as astounded as Ian, who was being presented as the bad man of the piece, and who, belatedly, decided that he wanted to hand the phone and the purse over to the police, if only for DNA purposes; but Phil is panicking because of Ben's revelation, and Jane, inexplicably, wants to get rid of the things - so much so that she stands up to Phil Mitchell and says she's thrown the stuff in the canal.

Phil has the line of the night:-

Fings frown in the canal have a strange way of coming back!

And so do things buried under floorboards. Question is: Why did Jane hide them? I know she is odds-on favourite for being Lucy's killer, and I would so love it if she were. I'd love to see that smug Stepford Frump being handcuffed and escorted to a waiting cop car. Instead, Jane's found a flat - above the bookies, no less - no job, no income, but just like that, she's found a flat to accommodate both her, Leave-It-To-Beaver-Bobby and Peter the Prick. (No mention of the odious Cindy and the child she carries around like a bad smell; she gets to stay with Ian). That was a ploy. Jane is sly enough to know that, more than anything, Ian hates being alone, and more than anything, this threat would spur him to try to mend fences with Peter - in other words, Jane knows Ian would compromise himself morally in order to keep his Oedipal object closer. Once again, Ian is de-balled within his own home. Lucy dies, and he gets the Stepford Frump and the odious Cindy in return. Were I Ian, I'd turf them all out and fight tooth and nail, yet again, for his youngest child.

Ian's dependence on Jane and craven Masood's inexplicable devotion to her are appalling. She stuck it to Masood big time the last time she was around, yet - as Denise pointed out - he's sniffing around and protecting her yet again. I just want to know why and what the attraction of this supercilious, condescending and judgemental beeyatch is.

Family Affairs. Charlie wants to expose Aleks's lies? Well, maybe someone should expose Charlie's lies. Sorry, but you don't get to take the moral high ground with someone when our entire existence in Walford has been one great, bit, stonking lie.

I felt sorry for Aleks's daughter in all of this. Roxy is a mother, herself, and had to undergo a similar experience with Amy when Alfie abandoned her for Kat. You'd have thought she would have had some compassion for the child, who was standing there, bewildered at what she'd witnessed.

For me, this was the highlight of the episode, although the use of Latvian and English was totally inconsistent. Marta went from speaking Latvian to speaking an sort of English no one in Walford can even hope to speak (I want to know with whom ...) to speaking broken, pidgin English in the end. The two highlights of the piece was the market scene where Marta overhears Aleks and Roxy exchanging words of love and contrives to give Roxy a vicious shove as she passes her, and the scene where she and the child show up on Roxy's doorstep.

That was classic, and there was one word that came through in all of this that everyone understood - Marta called Roxy a prostitute. That was a single comedy moment. The look on both of the Blisters' faces was brilliant - they, who think their shit doesn't smell. It never once dawned on either of them that Roxy was, indeed, the other woman of the piece, and that from the getgo, Aleks told her that he couldn't divorce Marta because of the daughter and his love for her; it's also obvious that Aleks also had deep feelings for Marta, and you knew that the way he told Charlie he needed one more day before he split with his wife was indicative that he didn't want to go through with this.

Roxy may not have been a prostitute, but she wasn't above, basically, becoming the mistress of a married man. At first, I thought the writers had got it wrong again, when Roxy referenced Aleks promising to divorce his wife, but then I remembered when Marta showed up, in a panic, Aleks made a promise to Roxy to divorce her and stay with Roxy. Of course, Roxy had no way of knowing that his wife and child were in Walford.

The game-changer wasn't Marta leaving. The game-changer was that she left and left her daughter with Aleks, promising that England held a better future for her with better schools. Roxy's eyes were daggers, and Ronnie's look she gave the little girl as she swept from the room was truly frightening.

Aleks was smarmy, and he was a bit oleaginous, but he was likeable, and I hope the sight of him, his daughter and the Christmas tree traipsing away from the Square wasn't the last we see of him. Still, it means Roxy gets to spend another miserable Christmas. What was that she was saying about this being the first time the Blisters would both have a man by the fireside?

Pater Noster Nunc. Here's some more unbelieveable facts. Dean was raised by Kevin Wicks. He bears his name, yet he's seen a poor man's Phil of a sperm donor once in his life, and he's now referring to Buster as dad?

Dad won't see me.

No, he won't see you, Dean, because Kevin - you know, your dad? the man who raised you after your putrid mother left - is dead. The deadbeat in the prison cell just donated the sperm. So that's how they whitewash Kevin out of the equation. Of course, it does help that he's dead. No thanks, just a passing kind word from the scrote who duffed up Kevin's asshat of a wife.

Oh, and what's this? Dean does anger? Dean? Deano? What the feck does Shirley know about her son's anger issues, when she didn't see him from the time he was a toddler until he was in his late teens? The only anger issue she saw from him was when he left Walford the first time and left her snivelling in the street after a few unfounded remarks, reminiscent of the bully session Peter gave Ian and equally as undeserving?

Then there's Stacey, who's fast becoming my favourite character in this piece, but wait ... Stacey may have forgiven Dean's drugging her in an attempt to seduce her as a teenager, but she surely hasn't forgotten how Dean was responsible for Sean being wrongfully imprisoned on Dean's set-up? In fact, Sean hasn't even been mentioned this time around by Stacey, and surely she'd remember what Dean's lies did to him?

But then, Ian appears to have forgiven Steven. Has Dot's Christianity enfolded Walford?

Ironic line of the night by Johnny Carter, whose scooter heralds the beginning of what appears to be a limp leaving line for the sausage ...

Sometimes Dean does nice fings. (Cue the look of Death from Linda).

Fat Bastards. I have no sympathy for Sonia and no sympathy for the insipid Tina, who does nothing but lie to Tosh. I don't condone domestic violence, but honestly, Tina would try the patience of a saint. Sonia is so deluded that she honestly thinks Martin doesn't love her because she's fat. He doesn't love her because she mouths about him like shit.

Is she ever home? She spends all her time, it seems, at Carol's. Does she work? Again, she seems to spend all her time on the Square. Not only has she stolen the charity money, she's used it to cheat at Fat Bastards and win the prize, herself.

The absolute highlight of the piece was the appearance at the very end - hazy focusing to sharp - of James Bye as the new Martin Fowler. I like the look of him.

Dicky Dichotomy - Review:- 04.12.2014

It was the best of episodes, it was the worst of episodes. It was an episode showing great performances, it also showed the worst performances. There were characters you loved to hate, and there were characters you simply hate. There were things which happened, which were suprising ... and things that were drawn out almost to oblivion. The big surprise reveal of a lie fell flat. Blink and you would have missed it. I'm not even sure I caught it.

We also have two adolescent girls who need to be smacked, not once, not twice but literally bounced around the Square.

When the most interesting character in an episode turns out to be Max Branning, a formerly nuanced character turned into an actual foot-dragging caricature, something's not firing on all cylinders.

Still, there's always Leave It to Beaver Bobby ..






The Truly Awful Beales. They're like a horror show, aren't they? They're truly so bad, that you can't help rubbernecking in horror at what a dysfunctional, co-dependent set-up they are. Pathetic Ian, clueless Jane, tarting themselves up as caring, sharing parents, preening about bringing their children up so properly when, in the classic words of Sonia, they can't even bring up phlegm.

By the way, what happened to that declaration that parents wouldn't be seen through the eyes of their children? There was plenty of that perception tonight.

Firstly, let's get something straight about dear, departed Lucy - or should I say dire, deceitful Lucy? Are they doing a post-mortem whitewash of her character? Because I can't ever remember Lucy being a nice person. From early adolescence, she caused Ian (and Jane) nothing but grief. As for Jane, she and Christian. both of whom had never been parents, consistently ridiculed Ian's attempts at seriously parenting his children and undermined him, Christian, openly encouraging Lucy to backchat Ian and go against the grain.

The entire home truth scene in the Beale abode infuriated me, because of the way things were twisted against what actually happened in real time in recent years. Clever of DTC to tie in one of Adam Woodyatt's panto breaks in the past (the excuse given was that Ian had to rush to Devon because the twins had been in a car crash) as the crash having been caused by Lucy's cocaine habit. Then there was the mention of Lucy's Devon friend, who was "heavily into it" - could this have been the briefly-mentioned Leanne, about whom Lucy castigated Peter upon his return?

Then there was Lucy's habit, itself - or as Pathetic Peter the Posh Petulant Prick (who was doing his damnedest to sound common tonight) put it ...

She took it in the morning, before meetings, at family meals.

Hel-looooooooooooooooooooooo?

Lucy had to be one of the most lackadaisical character ever to appear in the soap. The way she amblingly loped across the square, languidly crossing one long leg over and in front of the other, catwalk style, shoulders drooped back, chin lowered and pelvis thrust forward, was the epitome of slow deliberation.

Cocaine is a stimulant. Why wasn't Lucy constantly wired, if her usage of the drug was on a daily basis? Why didn't she have a red, runny, congested nose? Why wasn't she inattentive at work? Janine was no slouch. She'd have noticed something was amiss. She showed absolutely no signs or symptoms of drug use, whatsoever.

Then there's the sudden transformation of Peter, from responsible all-around nice guy to a drippy, condescending, class A prat of an arsehole. Blaming Ian's breakdown for Lucy's return to drug use? Pardon me for remembering, but Lucy was so strapped for cash when Ian went walkabout that she was lucky to have a pot to piss in, much less money for Charlie (and I don't mean Cotton ... but then, again, maybe I do - who knows?). She sold Bobby's toys and games to pay the bills, not the shills. But I guess that's changed now too. However, it's more than a bit rich for Peter to blame Ian for Lucy's problems again, as if Ian planned on having a mental breakdown - even more horrible and disturbing for this pratty little piece of posh shit to suggest that Ian would have called the police about Lucy, had he heard of her drugs' problem.

I'm no fan of Ian Beale, but I know his character a damned sight better than Peter does, and certainly better than Jesse O'Mahoney does. The last thing Ian Beale would ever have done is shop his daughter to the Old Bill. He'd have locked her down to go cold turkey, even paid for rehab, but there is no way in hell he'd have called the police. And, sorry, Ian was such a horrible parent that Lucy felt she had to retreat to cocaine, a stimulant? Really? When a person was that edged by a life situation, you seek to mellow out. I'd have thought cannabis would have been more the drug to which Lucy turned.

Then there's Peter's curiously arrogant assertion that he bought drugs for Lucy in order to "control" her addiction. You what? It seemed that the very idea of "controlling" Lucy's addiction was for Lucy to demand that Peter buy her drugs and for him to do so, even having the pushers deliver the stuff to the Beale house. If I recall correctly, when Peter returned from Devon, he was quite critical of Lucy and her treatment of Ian, even upbraiding her for the way she spoke to him; yet shortly after all of that, even when he was living with Lola, he was buying drugs for her? Did he have the pushers deliver it to Billy's flat, with Lexi there? Peter wasn't controlling Lucy's habit at all. What he was doing was what everyone did for Lucy - when she said "jump," they would ask "how high." And didn't Lucy plant drugs on Mandy in order to bring her into disrepute with Ian?

The effort to present Ian as a clueless parent went further when Peter purported to know about Leave-It-to-Beaver-Bobby's bullying in Birminham - how alliterative was that? So Peter was in constant contact with Bobby that Bobby told him all about it, and Peter never once thought to clue Ian in? Even worse was yet another example of Jane's totally abysmal parenting skills. Bobby was being name-called and intimidated at school to a serious extent, and she didn't tell Ian? More to the point, she offered the pathetically weak excuse, using that same sad-eyed "don't-blame-me" face she always uses, that she didn't want to worry Ian. 

Ian is the child's father. He has a right to know when the child is being tormented to the point that he doesn't feel safe at school, and all Jane can do is lie to him and withhold the truth, whilst Peter gets physically obnoxious, physically poking and prodding Ian, getting in his face and accusing him of the worst kind of shouting and intimidating behaviour with his children. Sorry, but the only obnoxious arsehole I'm seeing here is Peter.

Ian isn't a perfect man - by no means; and he's certainly a bad parent. Ian spoiled all of his children, lavishing them with money and state-of-the-art toys and gadgets, if only to buy him a peaceful life and a fleeting promise of his children's good behaviour. He was more concerned, at times, with finding a woman to share his bed and mother him, never mind his children. But Ian loved his children, and - like Phil - he put his children and their welfare before the importance of any of his wives - especially after that disastrous lie he told about Lucy's faux cancer in order to get Mel onside romantically.

Ian allowed Lucy to take the lead in protecting Steven, even allowing him into their home, after his having shot Jane. He fully supported Lucy in her assertion that she was too young to have a child, and in doing so, he lied to Jane. That's right. Ian chose his children over Jane. What was particularly disgusting and ugly was the way Peter treated Ian, manhandling and shouting at him, driving Ian to tears and then demanding that he shut up, calling him all manner of names for expressing such a troubling emotion.

Who is this shit? And has he forgotten that Ian had a significant mental breakdown, something he didn't choose to happen, and when he returned to the Square, couldn't even live in his own home without being tricked into signing over his assets to Lucy, who ran rampant with Joey Branning. The nervous affectations commonly associated with his breakdown - the scratching of his arm and his shuffling gait - are back, not that Peter would notice, because when he wasn't wafting off to New Zealand, he was off around the Brannings sucking the gurn off Lauren's face.

Finally, there's the wonderful sylph that is Cindy - a misfit horned in through her own volition into the Beale dynamic. In fact, it's Cindy who calls the shots in the household, and - just as Peter (and Ian) enabled Lucy's behaviour, Ian and now Jane enable Cindy's arrogance. She accuses Ian of speaking to her as if she's a servant? Pardon me, but it wasn't Ian who slammed the babycom down on the shelf on Tuesday night and ordered Ian and Jane to mind her kid whilst she went to the shops.

Peter can dish the shit out, but he simply cannot take it - like the coward he is. After everything he said to Ian, all he wanted was for Daddy to forget everything he said, show up at the Brannings and act as if nothing had happened. But Ian's inner Pauline and Lou surfaced. In Ian's mind, Peter's behaviour was sneaky, undermining and could very well have been the underlying and indirect cause of Lucy's death. Even more arrogant was Peter's casual assumption that he'd have this row with his dad, and he could just return home as if nothing had happened, and I used to cringe at Ian Beale allowing these deadbeats to live under his roof. Not only Peter, but also Jane, begged Ian not to say anything at the bum-clinchingly awful public proposal, but I'm glad Ian did.

The last scene was a corker. Ian's manned up and who's crying now? Peter the Prick. And here's the irony - the twins were always bigged up, one way or another, because they carried the Cindy gene. Remember back in April when Bobby told Ian he still had him, Ian replied that Bobby wasn't Lucy, meaning he didn't have the Cindy gene? Well, now both the CindyKids have turned out rotten to the core, and plain little Laura's son is now the focal point of Ian's world, for better or for worse - probably worse.

Oh, Ian, while you're busy casting out the Cindies, cast out the other one who's filched herself into your domain. 

The Truly Dreadful Brannings. To everything, gurn, gurn, gurn ... There is a reason that I gurn. And gurn she did. Who was the worst - Lauren, trying to act mature now that she's got a proposal under her belt (actually, what she had was a poorly concealed baby bump) or the atrocious Abi?

Absolute line of the night goes to Max Branning:-

Abi, you ain't goin' out wiv no gay, convicted murderer!

Wow! Ya think?

Leave it to Dummerhayes to let the cat out of the bag by saying that Lauren's boyfriend was, at least, better than Abi's, and then disclosed she'd been seeing Ben. Arguably, the most surreal scene of the night was Max's intrusion into Mitchell territory, with some unintentionally hilarious dialogue.

Phil: Whaddayou got against Ben seein' Abi?
Max: Well, 'e's gay, for a start.
Phil: 'E ain't gay no more.
Max: Oh, and that's the way it works, is it?

All of that played out against Jay's increasingly astounded looks of disbelief. Phil's so desperate for the Mitchell heir to be hetero, that he's deluded himself into believing that "prison straightened Ben out" (Ben's words, which were also unintentionally hilarious). It was rather sadly poignant that Phil's clutching at straws so much that he remarks how nice it is that he and Ben can talk like this again. I wonder where Sharon and Denny were in all of this? She was obviously at The Albert, but Denny should have been there with his stepfather at least.

Phil's desperation to believe Ben's homosexuality was a phase is poignant and sad, but Abi's is just willful ignorance and pride. She honestly reckons that Ben's not gay because she thinks he fancies her? Honey, scores of gay people start out adult life married to someone of the opposite sex. Some even have children. Abi needs to get out more, and she seriously needs her arse smacked. She thought she was being clever cluing Dummerhayes in on Max's propensity for serial adultery, claiming that all Max wants was someone to show him a little affection and promising to be there with a broad smile on her face when Max cheats on Dummerhayes. 

Abi needs to what what she says, because karma has a way of biting your arse, and Abi's is a prize target. Just wait until Ben dumps her because ... well, because he's gay.

Here's the fleeting bit ... Lee's seen someone who was someplace they shouldn't have been on the night Lucy was killed. I thought, from the blurbs, this would turn out to be Whitney, but it appeared to be Lauren, and it concerned Lee that Lauren had said she was someplace when she didn't appear to be where she said she was. She was going into the Beale house. Why? I just watched that clip again, and Lee's perturbed, but gets interrupted. This is going to be interesting. Does this bring Lauren into the frame? Maybe one of her windmill arms not only clipped Lucy on the back of the head but propelled her all the way to Walford Common. Or maybe Lucy was frightened by the screechy voice and the gurning?

Max thinks Peter is a good kid? Someone who would provide an addict with the stuff to which she's addicted? Has he forgotten that his daughter is also an addict? Think twice, Max; besides, you'd only end up supporting the pair of deadbeats.

Speaking of deadbeats ...

Sorry Sonia. Sonia embezzled the charity money to fly to Bulgaria for gastric band surgery. As you do. Do I care? She's spent almost a year trash-mouthing Martin, and she thinks he hasn't touched her because she's fat? No, Sonia. He hasn't touched you because you probably treat and speak to him like shit. And he's fed up with being called names by a stranger screeching down your phone.

Tina the Court Jester promises to fix Sonia's debt, for which she's scathed over poor Pam, and also to fix Martin. I wouldn't trust Tina to fix a cup of tea. Sonia's father-in-law went to prison for doing much the same as Sonia did, minus the gastric band surgery. Sonia needs to go to prison too. And, Sonia, when you go to a foreign country, the signs aren't in English.

The Vogue Episode - Review:- 02.12.2014

This had to be the "vogue" episode. So much posing, preening, gurning and tossing of hair by the two resident ingenues who are all too keen to cosy up to the camera.

A Family Full of Clichés. The Beales are one truly awful family, watchable because you love to hate them. Seriously, from the portly weasel with an Oedipus complex to The Stepford Frump to Peter the Petulant Posh to Leave It to Beaver Bobby right down to the snotty, little pouter who can't resist tossing her hair for the camera, the only likeable being in that house is baby Beth, and that's debatable because she bears the dreaded Cindy gene.

Cindy is one of the most annoying characters ever to appear on the programme, and one of the most pointless. I've no aversion to her existence as she's Cindy Beale's daughter; I just feel that there is no place for yet another adolescent girl with a terminal case of headuparseitis and one who is all too aware of the camera's presence. Moreover, I hate the way she lolls about the Beale home, forever lying on her arse on the Beale sofa with her pouting, sullen face stuck to the screen on her phone. I hate the way she orders the Beales about as if they were servants catering to her needs. She's off to the shops, so she plops the baby monitor down on the sideboard, ordering Ian and Jane to look after Beth. Most of all, I hate the way she speaks to Ian. When he had a question to ask her, she barks back a WHAT.

Someone needs to hand this little chit her almighty self-loving arse, and I deplore the fact that she's made an even more lumbering lug of Liam, but I'm glad that the intelligent Rebecca, worth fifteen of that spoiled, entitled little beeyatch, has seen through her. She knows that Cindy treats Ian like a piece of shit, much as she treats everyone else. It would be nice if someone summoned up enough courage to dropkick her back to Devon. This is one of the few moments I'd love to see Kathy on the Square. Knowing her opinion of Cindy and the fact that Cindy Jnr is cut from a more rotten piece of wood, I'd take great pleasure in watching Kathy smack her arse around the Square to the point where she runs babbling to Walford East, never to be seen again.

And, please ... let's stop with the "I-don't-want-to-go-to-school" refrain as a staple of kids, especially the latest stage school munchkin to play Bobby ...

Sorry, kid. You wanted to come back to live with your dear, old dad. You're eleven. That means you gotta go to school, so shut up, grow a pair and go to school; and once again, The Stepford Frump allows a child to control her behaviour. Leave-It-to-Beaver-Bobby asks Jane not to tell Ian that he doesn't have a temperature, so she obliges. Bad move, Jane. Keeping secrets from Ian, yet again? But then, mother knows best, and I'm surprised The Stepford Frump hasn't published a Guide to Successful Parenting. 

Bring back Alex Francis.

On the Beast That's Steven. Warning ... this is a Retcon Alert.

I know some won't like it, but it is the most obvious retcon of recent times. 

Steven Beale. Remember him?

Last seen departing Walford at St Pancras train station with a flea firmly planted in his ear, telling him he simply wasn't welcome at chez Beale anymore. He shot The Stepford Frump, rendering her infertile, he stalked Lucy and had her believing her mother was still alive. He stalked Ian with gory packages arriving, sneakily breaking into his home and kidnapping him. He tried to kill Pat, his own grandmother. He was tricked out of the closet by Christian, and by the time he was kicked out of the Beale dynamic, neither of the twins wanted anything to do with him.

Here's a much skinnier Ian finally twigging what a nasty little piece of work Steven really was back in 2008 ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1yq8KvGK84

Time might heal all wounds, but there is no way in hell Ian would ever forgive Steven some of the shit he's dished him, above all, some of the mess in which he involved Lucy. I believe Ian's last words to Steven were "Don't come near my family again" or something to that affect.

With all that in mind, I was mildly amazed that Peter would even want to go to New Zealand, specifically, to visit Steven, and that Ian would even approve, although I realise Peter is an adult and can do as he pleases.

What I do not buy is that bullshit retcon soliloquy Steven gave Max tonight about visiting Steven and how they sat for a long time and talked of nothing but Lucy, with poor pitiful Steven being so far away. I wonder ... did Steven reminisce about the time he e-mailed Lucy under the guise of Cindy to the point that Lucy, at fourteen, was actually insisting that Cindy was alive and even Peter was almost believing it? Did they discuss Jane and the injury he inflicted on her or Christmas 2007 when Jane dictated that he only be allowed to stay for an hour? Did he confide to Peter that he tore Jane's image from the Beale family picture, which would look so very different today? Did he talk about how he helped Lucy run away, how he kidnapped Ian and held him captive for weeks on a diet of cream crackers? Did he talk about shooting Jane and how Lucy lied for him and helped Ian get rid of the gun?

And what I most definitely do not buy is that pithy little message from Steven to Ian via Peter ...

Steven sends his love. He misses you.

Before anyone waxes lyrical about mending fences and such, Steven Beale is a certified nutter who endangered the lives of Ian's family. He's on par with Ben as a manipulator. Even at fourteen, Peter knew exactly what Steven was all about by the time he was told to sling his hook. Peter was a pretty prescient kid at the time and infinitely more mature than Lucy. He would have realised exactly how hurt Ian was by Steven, and that conciliatory message would have meant jack shit to Peter, who would have known better than to have relayed this to Ian.

Since she's also his relative, maybe it's time the odious Cindy went to visit the brother she's never met. They deserve each other.

Yet another backstory sanitised and re-written to serve a plotline - and to give Peter the Posh Petulant Prick a place to go when he leaves Walford in the near future.

I wonder ... has Ian forgotten that he also has an uncle and a cousin about his own age in New Zealand?

Peter the Posh Petulant Prick. What a flaming incognito! That was almost as hilarious as Stacey's red coat and Hamas scarf. I would have loved to have seen someone pass him on the street - Lee Carter, maybe - and just mumble ...

'Ello, Pe'urgh. Been away?

... and then just keep walking. Instead, we get this Man from U.N.C.L.E. ducking and diving all to liaise with putrid Cindy to buy an engagement ring for Lauren.

I'll actually be glad to see Ben Hardy go. It dawned on me tonight that he knows he's going and now he's phoning in the lines. It didn't help, having to utter dialogue written by Jesse O'Mahoney, arguably one of the two worst writers on the programme. That soliloquy for Max's benefit was pretty drippy and dire. Max was right to interject that Lucy came onto him. He should have told Peter that she slept with him for money - the tidy sum of £1000 to be exact, enough to start her short-lived and unbelievable business venture.

Peter was accusing Max of being a sleaze when Peter's father slept with one young woman whom he'd watch grow up from a small child and was prepared to do the same with another. Peter's father is a kerb-crawler, and Peter thought nothing of treating a loyal and loving young girl whom he pursued like a piece of shit to chase after Lauren - the demure young damsel whom Peter thinks Max wants to save herself for a doctor type. Believe me, the only need Lauren would have for a doctor is for pills for the clap. Pure as muddy water, she, and if Max is a sleaze, what do you call a girl who wrecked a marriage involving a small child before she was twenty.

Lauren bagging a doctor or a solicitor? Lauren can't even do a day's work, bar the odd shift at Ian's restaurant, which got a mention tonight, and that for minimum wage.

It doesn't surprise me that Peter bought drugs for Lucy, which doesn't mean that he's her dealer, just that he bought them for her, and this is interesting. One of the hallowed and oft-mentioned quotes from DTC reference the fact that someone may not even be aware that he or she has killed Lucy. In that respect, maybe Peter bought the drugs for her, never imagining that they might be behind the reason she was killed. Silly boy. Silly, unlikeable boy.

Mad Max and the Vixens from Hell. Things have to be pretty dire when Dummerhayes is the most sympathetic member of a trio consisting of her, Lauren and Abi. Abi is another one who could benefit from being bounced around the Square. At least Lauren has accepted her father's relationship with Dummerhayes, probably because when she asked Dummerhayes to go shopping (on the market), Dummerhayes probably offered to stump for her dress, but there really is no excuse for Abi's rudeness.

The driving lessons she's demanding is yet another piece of poor continuity. Abi was prepared to get into Max's motor - yes, a Merc can cost $30K, but Max's car is ten years old - and drive all the way to Bolton. Instead, she hit and killed her poor dog, which is a traffic crime, to say the least. It was understood that she had a driving licence, hence the remark "I'll go by myself". Who are these people, and didn't DTC also say that parents were going to cease to be seen through the eyes of their children? The Branning girls have always been spoiled, thanks to Tanya's undermining of Max's attempts to discipline. Abi may be eighteen, but there was no call for her to speak to Dummerhayes like that, nor was there any need for Dummerhayes to attempt to buy her loyalty by using Max's car to give her a driving lesson, resulting in Abi causing her damage.

The thing with Ben is all going to end in tears. Abi isn't his girlfriend. She's the means by which he hopes to be accepted by Phil. Did I hear him say he was going to get her a car?

The only other thing worth noticing about Abi is how her eyebrows are virulently at odds with her hair colouring. Ben remarked upon how "cute" she was when she frowned. That's a matter of opinion, but he couldn't help but notice those eyebrows.

As for Lauren, nothing's changed there. The screechy funny voice, the flailing windmill arms and the gurns have returned. She's the only damsel I've seen on a soap who gurned for the camera when she got an engagement ring. Not even Fiz from Corrie or Laurel on Emmerdale did that.

Lauren is a recovering alcoholic, an addictive personality, and she wants to marry someone who bought coke for his sister's habit?

The Sweethearts of Men Who Lie.

Wow, Roxy takes a break from men to walk her daughter to school and observe that this will be the first Christmas in years (possibly decades) that both Blisters have men in their lives - a bog cleaner and an adulterer. That means lots of presents for them.

So now Charlie knows Aleks's lie - that he's married, that he hasn't even broached the subject of divorce with Marta. Aleks, playing both sides of the fence isn't attractive, and in the past two episodes, I've noticed make-up giving him a slightly more oleagenous appearance. He drips smarm and charm. To Marta, Roxy is some drunken woman; to Charlie, his explanation is that Marta is like his sister, yet the mother of his child, whilst Roxy is wild, passionate sex.

Where I come from, Aleks would be a good, old boy, and they aren't cute. Their motto is to find a nice girl to marry and a bad girl to have fun with, and from Aleks's last scene, it's patently obvious that Roxy is the latter. He can never divorce Marta. He'd love it if she weren't there, because he can then compartmentalise his life - living the high life with Roxy and seeking out Marta and their daughter for quiet times.

It's not nice, but he did tell Roxy that he would never divorce the mother of his child. Still ... Champagne Charlie has no right to dictate that Aleks get a divorce. Charlie has big enough fish to fry in a vat of lies - faking the death of his father and keeping that a secret, hustling Phil for ten grand, lying to Dot -the absolute worst kind of lie, and Ronnie is now part and parcel of that, if not more.

Who the feck is he to come the moral high ground with Aleks? By the way, I like Marta, but I hate the way she and Aleks natter on in Latvian, especially the way she says something in Latvian and he answers in English in a way that tells the viewer what's being said. Unnatural and annoying. As for his teaching her to speak English, she speaks better English than some of the local yokels.

Liar Liar Pants on Fire. So Sonia's been gone for a weekend, Rebecca's around at Carol's and Sonia still hasn't returned to Martin. She still hasn't returned the charity money to the bank either. Carol sussed her game, and the shelved BRCA storyline has now become one of body dysmorphia which will undoubtedly lead to vile Sonia shacking up with even viler Tina. Martin's about next week, but I don't anticipate him making a permanent return until Peter the Posh Petulant Prick gets exiled from Walford.

What were the points of Tamwar and Fatboy and the twirling belt buckle?

Meh episode.

Coyote Ugly - Review:- 01.12.2014

I gave this episode 8 out of 10, but the high points aren't what most people would expect for me. The characters who stood out for me in this episode were Denise, Shabnam, Patrick, Aleks, Marta and Roxy Mitchell.

The Beales are, indeed, a watchable family, but watchable only in their total dysfunction, their co-dependence, their total ineptitude as parents, their insufferable smugness, and their appalling personalities. To think that Ian Beale is the last man standing of that family in Walford, and his kids are some of the most abysmally entitled and unlikeable characters is beyond imagination. The self-satisfied faces sat around that dining room table, feasting off their own self-importance was a less-than-salutory lesson about what this programme has become, and I applaud DTC for his vision. 

No, wait ... I'm not being sarky at all, because he honestly does get the ethos of EastEnders, and he's taken the show's original concept and turned it in on itself.

Originally, the programme was about gritty, EastEnd working-class families. There was the kindly, old doctor and the odd yuppie who got run over. Then, early in the next decade, EastEnders introduced a particular type - the middle-class professional who seemed to be the sort of person to which every inhabitant of the Square aspired - kind, jovial, friendly, an all-around good chap.

Except James Wilmot-Brown wasn't any of those things. He was a rapist. More important, he was the first in a long line of well-spoken, educated professionals in positions of trust in the community who turned out to be rotten to the core - weedy deceitful bankers (Rob and then, briefly, Fatboy's father), mad doctors (May and Yusef), unbalanced solicitors (Stella) and a serial killer who happened to be a pastor (Lucas).

However ...

The tide has turned. Now we're seeing an entire generation, the grandchildren of working class stiffs, whose parents aspire to middle class values, with all the incumbent snobbery but minus the education and the veneer of gentility which usually differentiates the middle class from the working class.Ian Beale can make all the haute cuisine meals he can, Max Branning can wear a suit and tie every day, but neither disguises the fact that both are common as muck and one is trailer trash.

Instead, we have their gaggle of sprogs and hangers-on, who would readily identify themselves as middle-class and even disdain some of their Albert Square contemporaries as chavvy, but who are rotten to the core in values, morality and outlook. Lucy was a cokehead, and I'd be willing to guess that the person who got her drugs for her didn't fall far from the tree; Lauren is a drunk and a homewrecker; Abi is a sociopathic stalker who's delusiional; Dean might own an up-market salon, but he's a rapist, the Wilmot-Brown of his generation; Whitney, the carefully-groomed teaching assistant, is an ex-prostitute and still dresses like one most of the time.

Their parents should be proud of the lot of them. They've achieved what their parents never could. They are part of the corrupt, amoral middle-class as is often depicted on the programme.

The Real Beales. Somebody smack Cindy. Seriously. Who the feck does she think she is? She's not related to any one of the people mooching about the Beale house on this day, yet she's dictating the odds about people shouting in the night and risking waking the baby about whom she doesn't give a rat's arse. Waking Beth would mean Cindy would have to haul her lazy arse out of bed and care for the child, whom she carries about like a sack of potatoes.

She's amazed that Ian only has to take the kid from her arms and she stops catterwauling.

She's just not that into you, Cindy ... Sorry, girlfriend, but even though you CHOSE to have sex with a boy you didn't even like, SHE didn't choose YOU for her mother, and she's twigged that early on ...

Seriously, a baby picks up on a person's emotions, whether they're relaxed or tense, even whether they are affectionate or not. We see Cindy holding the kid, but only because she has to do so. We don't see her cooing over her, kissing or caressing her. Just like a puppy or a kitten, a baby isn't a toy you can give back when you're tired of him or her. All Cindy seems to do is fob the kid off on Ian, Jane or whoever is around. Ian enjoys the child with the Cindy gene and is kind and affectionate to her, yet Cindy, instead of showing gratitude, treats him like shit. When she's not fobbing the kid off on any unsuspecting sucker, she's lying about on her arse staring at her Smartphone.

Yuck.

Please. Get this beeyatch off the screen. It was almost laughable that we had the two actresses on the programme who are most conscious of the camera, both swanning about at the same time today and each trying, surprisingly, to downplay each other.

Another thing I want to know is this ... what's happened to Ian's restaurant? There was a family lunch today, and Lauren works sporadically as a waitress at the Beales, totally destroying something that even a deficiente could ruin - bruschetta. Who's minding the restaurant? I thought Masood was fleetingly taken on as a part-time chef at one point, yet when he wasn't doing his post round, he was out limping about the Square, trying to run with Kush, who should have been minding his stall. How long has it been since we've even seen Beale's? Is it earning money? And speaking of money and the market, who's minding the Beale stall whilst Peter Posh has been away? We caught a fleeting glimpse of part of it today, when Aleks or Ben or someone stopped briefly in its vicinity, but all we saw was a couple of withered bananas, looking like a phallic symbol in dire need of viagra.

Ian is still sneaky, Cindy is still sarky, but all is happy because The Stepford Frump and Leave It to Beaver have come home. The Frump and the Beaver have gone to look at Walford High and are hoping that he'll make a good enough impression to have him as a student. Of all the Bobbies, this one is the most obnoxious. 

I wanna be a businessman, like you.

Well, he's well on his way to possessing a fair amount of Ian's tact, to cast a disparaging remark about Lauren's culinary ability whilst she was sitting right there. All of this was a celebratory welcoming dinner, minus the fatted calf, for the prodigal son returning from visiting the psycho brother, from whom the entire family had distanced themselves after the fiasco of an association seven years ago. (cough, cough ... retcon ... cough, cough)

Yes, Peter was coming home. Peter was on his way ... Peter was arriving today. Did you get that? Oops, wait ... Peter missed his connection. Oh, ne'mind, he'll get the next one, and then he'll be home. Did you get that? I'll repeat it. Peter's coming home.

Jesus, repetition for emphasis can only mean one thing ... something's about to happen that concerns Peter.

But ...

Because interrupting the dinner was none other than Phil, himself, with a few home truths about Ian's parenting abilities. Pot, meet kettle. Phil and Ian both suck as parents, but Jane sucks even more for bigging up the myth of Ian being a good dad. According to Ian, Lucy, the favourite child, was like an open book to him, yet he felt he didn't even know her the last night of her life.

And here's Jane's absolutely plebeian pronouncement on children, spoken as the abysmal mother that she is:-

Children hide things from their parents.

That's when Ian makes a classic rejoinder - now listen carefully ... Bobby tries to hide things (how would you know, Ian? you haven't seen the boy since early this year, and even so, he managed to hide his trip to London from his ineffectual mother ... and Peter hides things (oooh, what?), but Lucy apparently never hid things from Ian (Steven, anyone?)

The climax and salutory ending of this piece came with The Stepford Frump, once again, treating Ian like a recalcitrant adolescent and whipping out Lucy's phone to show Ian how many loving messages she sent him, only to find an unsent message from Lucy to someone near and dear, asking for some drugs.

Hmmmm ... I wonder if Peter were unavoidably detained in Thailand for any reason ...

Ben's There, Done That. For all the shit Phil dished Ian about his lack of parenting abilities, Phil is just as bad a dad as Ian, throwing money at a newly heterosexual Ben so Ben can treat the "girlfriend" Phil's prayed for Ben to acquire.

Jay stood out in this as well, for his integrity, and Ben stood out for being the complete whackpiece that he is. I know Harry Reid's received a lot of criticism, but I like NuNuBen and his desperate lies, attempting to manipulate Jay back onside. He knows poor Jay is the real loose end of the Square without any familial connection to be found. He exists almost entirely for the crumbs of affection doled from Phil's table - once Brown, then Mitchell, now Brown again. Jay's got a conscience and a moral quotient, and he's uneasy with the secret both he and Ben are harbouring about Lucy's phone and purse, and he doesn't believe Ben for a moment when Ben said that he'd sorted everything with Ian and that Ian's ok with Ben's explanation of events.

Ben even invites himself, via The Stepford Frump, to the family meal - another nail of stupidity hammered into the Stepford Frump's eventual coffin, because Ian doesn't want Ben anyplace near him. Ian's assessment of Ben is pretty much on par with that of Jay - that Ben continues to get himself into mess after mess after mess.

In amongst all the angst of Ben and Jay is a fly in the ointment and an avenging angel. Abi is the first, and Johnny Carter the other. Abi is really one of the most delusional, naive and disgustingly smug people on the Square. Honestly, Lauren is almost more bearable than she is. All she did tonight was slink around after Ben asking him why he hadn't been returning her texts, why he'd been standing her up, almost everything.

He's just not that into you, Abi. He's GAY!!!!

Johnny the Avenging Angel knows that, and he's constantly on at Ben to acknowledge his sexuality, which Ben is now adamantly denying yet again. He wants to please Phil, and so he tells him the one thing he wants to hear, inadvertantly getting the idea from Abi, herself, who satisfyingly assumes Jay's mood with her is because she's now the girlfriend of Ben. Abi is so pleased with herself, she reeks; she doesn't even realise that Ben is giving her the brush-off.

Jay is absolutely right in assessing that Phil is allowing himself to be controlled, once again, by Ben, but his insistence that Phil ask Ian what the problem with Ben was became one grand fiasco.

Pig in the Middle. Aleks's secrets are catching up with him. Well, at least Marta knows now, even if Roxy doesn't. Roxy is about to get shafted (in the wrong sort of way) again. Last time, her man left her at the altar for his ex. This time, the man's ex isn't even his ex, she's still the wife about whom Roxy knows nothing.

Aleks determines the life and livelihood of all who work on the market. It pays to consider how he trumped up the loss of Alfie's stall, whilst doing nothing when Peter is absent for weeks on end, and Kush jogs around the market. Then, there's Roxy, offering him the distraction of fixing a lightbulb in her bedroom that's getting "too hot."

Honesty. Denise is hungover, but I don't agree with Patrick about Denise speaking ill of Lucy. Denise spoke the truth and even moreso when she described this year as being the year from hell for her. She was being lied to by Ian as long ago as last Christmas, he's treated her appallingly. The only person on whom Denise can depend and who loves her truly, is Patrick, and she decides to spend the day with him, putting up Christmas decorations.

Instead, some jobsworths from Head Office show up at The Minute Mart, there to do a stock report. Denise's honesty in showing up at the store only made a minor situation worse. She lost her job, and reaches for a glass of wine.

Sometimes, honesty isn't the best policy.

I bloody love Denise, a character of integrity, who's now being subtly maligned by the atrocious Beales, who were intent on hiding the evidence she literally dug up, in order to protect Ben from returning to prison. They'll doubly hide it now when another does of amorality hits closer to home. Denise is worth a dozen of The Stepford Frump. 

Good episode.