I was going to begin this blog with that celebrated song from The Wizard of Oz, substituting the word "witch" with "bitch," but one mustn't speak ill of the dead, even if the dead are ficititious soap characters. Wait ... I will, Here's a different version to honour the death of Lucy Beale and the impending death of Tina McIntyre of Corrie (otherwise known as MancStacey, as she was shoehorned into virtually every storyline. Ding dong The bitch is dead Which blonde bitch The East End bitch Ding dong the skinny bitch is dead ... She's gone where stick insects go Belooooow below below Yo Hoooo Let's open up and sing ... Ding dong The bitch will die Don't know how And don't care why Ding dong the orange bitch will die She'll fall from a massive height Ker-splatt with all her might That's right Let's all rejoice and sing ... Ding dong those nasty girls Big dark hair and golden curls Won't be 'round To bore us all to tears Ding dong designer wings Catwalk clouds and heavenly things Ding dong We hear the angels sing Ding dong they're down below That's where all the bitches go Soapdom's two annoying girls are dead. The Funeral from Hell.
In an otherwise magnificent episode, the funeral and all things Beale generally stunk the place up. One wonders if anyone ever taught Dominic Treadwell-Collins about the dangers of over-egging, but every episode since Skeletor died has featured an over-the-top performance of Ian Beale crying. The Beales' grief has been selfish,self-centred and cruel in its honesty. It was awash in self-pity, both re Ian and Peter. Their true manipulative, ugly, self-centred characters have come to the fore, and innocent people will suffer. The irony of the entire piece is that it took the death of someone who looked down her nose at the people in her neighbourhood and whose family were generally disliked behind closed doors, to show us all, especially in Ian's case, how deeply unpleasant this family is. Let's be honest about Lucy Beale. She liked no one better than herself. She hated her father,and her relationship with her brother was tense. Her so-called friendship with Lauren was a joke. They shared men and talked about themselves at each other without ever hearing a word the other said. When Lauren remarks that she didn't really know Lucy, she's right. She never listened to anything Lucy said, because she was too busy hearing her own voice. But then, Lucy never really knew Lauren either for the same reasons. Lucy has caused enormous trouble for her family. She was responsible for her stepmother being shot, she harboured a boyfriend who mugged Patrick, she trashed her father's house in an impromptu party and when he reprimanded her, she smacked him full in the face. She got pregnant, promised the baby to childless Jane and then had an abortion. She cheated on her GCSEs. She never listened to or respected any of Ian's authority. She simply didn't give a rat's arse about anyone but her. And her funeral was significant for those people who didn't attend as much as for those who did. Dot didn't go. Nor did Alfie and Kat. Carol wanted to go, but David and Bianca, Lucy's uncle and cousin, discouraged her. Honker didn't even show up to represent all that's left of the Fowler tribe in Walford. Yet everyone is remembering this totally recreated angel of love and understanding, when most of them hated her as much as she hated them. At least, Whitney was honest in her indifference. She didn't like Lucy, and Lucy didn't like her. They hung out together for Lauren's sake, and that's that. But as much as this was the funeral of a stick insect, it was more about Ian and his incredible regression from weak man to spoiled child,and the root of all his problems lies in his longing for his mother and his unquelled desire for Cindy the Dead. I'd so much reached saturation point with Ian's self-pitying and cloying exhibition of grief, I almost laughed at his physical appearance on Tuesday. He looked so corpulent in that suit that at times he resembled an annoyed John Prescott ...
... or rather, Harry Enfield doing his stock impersonation of Prescott, when he used to wear a shirt with the neck too tight. Mostly, this was Ian doing an impersonation of Harry Enfield doing John Prescott acting like a spoiled brat wanting either his mummy or his Maypo.
Really, Ian's mummy issues were all over the place again last night, compounded by his finding out that Max had been boning Lucy. And Abi as the phantom e-mailer puts her in the same light as Lauren was in Stax, able to harbour a secret until it has to come out.
In the end, the funeral, like this entire storyline has become all about Ian's self-pity, his fear of losing grip with his tenuous link with Cindy and his mummy issues coming to the fore. Now we know why Ian has always needed a woman. He's gone past the trophy wife stage to the point where he needs a wife as a mother figure-cum-household drudge. She's someone who needs to know that she lives in Ian's house, takes care of Ian's kids and gives prominence to Ian's businesses.
My singular distaste for Ian went from bad to worse when he subtly psychologically manipulated Denise into taking a taxi to the funeral with Patrick and Libby, whom he barely acknowledged. Libby's face at Ian's relief that Denise would not be in the "family" car instead of Christian, plus the very poignant picture of the three people of colour, still part of Ian's family dynamic, shoved aside in favour of the lilywhite adopted uncle who, at that moment, was the tenuous link to the mummy figure Ian wanted, but who hadn't arrived just yet, was representative of something simmering below this entire storyline. Libby recognised it for what it was.
And there she was ...
Jane horned in again. After telling Christian she couldn't attend the funeral, she slopes along and sneakily keeps a watch outside the church, until horning in on the Max moment and further planting herself into Ian's sphere of hope, before pulling out yet again. Jane seems to make a living on giving vulnerable men some sort of hope. It's obvious that although she loves Ian, it's almost a maternal love and not at all the sort of love that exists between spouses. Besides, when they were together before, it was more a marriage of convenience, with fondness, but no real love. Now Ian only loves Jane, because he misses her mommying, but when he can't have her, he's now begging Denise to stay, playing the little boy act again.
I hope Denise is strong and leaves him. She's right. He doesn't want her. He hasn't wanted her for ages, and now the only reason he wants her is because Jane has gone.
Watching Ian and Peter the way they've treated Denise and Lola throughout this ordeal has been pretty ugly. Ian tries to slot in with Denise once again, after Jane goes away, and Peter surreptitiously slots in beside Lola after discovering that Max was boning Lucy. Lauren was part of the Branning dynamic, after all, but he's still interested, and now Lola realises it. As for the eulogy, two observations:-
1. Either Ben Hardy will leave within the next 18 months and go onto other things, judging by his performance in the eulogy tonight, or:- 2. He'll stay and become the natural successor to Adam Woodyatt as the resident crying male.
Sorry, but "Lucy was amazing when Ian was ill?" What? Lucy was the one who shacked up with and moved Joey into the Beale house and refused to have Ian in the house unless he signed the house and all his businesses over to her. That was amazing? That she couldn't show one iota of compassion for her father's illness then and afterward in the way she and Joey treated him? If anything, this is proof positive of the wiping clean of anything that happened during Kirkwood's or Newman's tenure. Sorry, but that was wrong.
Big highlight of this was Masood handing Jane her arse in a dignified way. Jane thought she was in for an easy forgiveness. She thought wrong. And latest mystery to compete with Abi the Mystery E-Mailer was Tamwar's discovery. Did Shabnam write the "Rot in Hell" card? Short answer? Probably. A Man of Constant Sorrow.
Max is now the pariah of the Square, warned out of town by Sheriff Phil Mitchell and his Deputy Alfie Moon - yet another pair of characters whose bitter Newman-based feud has been forgotten. Many people think Max's sexual association with his daughter's best friend both wrong and unseemly. Many of these people don't remember that Den Watts impregnated the 16 year-old best friend of his daughter Sharon and that Sharon and Michelle remain friends until this day. More importantly, consider this: Several people think, and rightly so, that Max's and even Den Watts's sexual associations with Lucy Beale and Michelle Fowler, wrong because the men in question had known the women as children. They had watched these women grow up. Well, Ian Beale, who objected so vociferously to a single older man having an affair with Ian's daughter, who'd been around the block more times than he'd care to admit, had sex with Janine Butcher, whom he'd watched grow up on the Square. Ian paid Janine for sex, the same way that Max paid Lucy for her favours. The Carter Family.
I give credit where credit is due, and this episode was owned by the Carters. I found them totally more interesting than the tedious, self-obsessed pity party that was Lucy's funeral, complete with rivers of tears and the OTT exposure of Max as (one of) Lucy's lover(s).
I was willing that duff-duff to be what it was, and it was worth it. Now we know at least that Sylvie left the family fold before this happened, and that Shirley tried to drown Mick. Now let's find out why. I even liked her scene with Dean. Matt di Angelo has come so far as a young actor. He's really a pleasure to watch, and - bar Ben Hardy and Maddie Hill - he's head and shoulders above the other fair-to-middling youngsters attempting to act on the programme. It was nice to see two emotional ships collide with Dean finally breaking ice with Shirley at the same time Shirley's realising that it may be mete to break the ice with her old man. How lucky is di Angelo to have benefitted from acting masterclasses with Robert Vaughan and now Timothy West.
Now I want to know why Shirley tried to drown Mick.
I'm not a Shirley fan, but Linda Henry played a blinder tonight, as did Kellie Bright, in a more subtle and nuanced way. Linda Carter is arguably the best new character on the programme, and if anything, Nancy's simple line near the end of their storyline, where Linda was struggling to come to terms with Johnny wanting to go the gay club, was beautifully poignant, when she asked What's the matter, Mamma? and Linda hugged her close.
We knew the outcome of this situation, but it was still powerful, all the same.
Tina, go. Just go. Your incongruent remarks are neither endearing or charming. They're just dumb.
We're one month into Lucy's death saga and a week away from Corrie's Tina meeting her maker. One thing for certain, the afterlife is going to be a lot more orange and fashion-conscious now that those two are winging away on designer clouds.
Last night's episode covered two varieties of a pity party and a hen party that will all end in tears.
Crying for His Mummy.
The more the Lucy saga doesn't unfold, the more I'm convinced that this is all a story of Ian focused on his own self-pity. Ian's so fucked up psychologically. All he's ever wanted is a Yummy Mummy to mollycoddle him and a trophy bird in his bed to fuck. Captain Beale at the helm. Over-egging isn't the word to describe one entire month of Adam Woodyatt honing his party piece of crying. One wonders if this is included in his panto performance. But then, this producer - he whom viewers must never criticise - was always one to go one bridge too far in presentation. Yes, Ian's lost a daughter. Yes. Ian's sad. But, no, this isn't all about Ian except to show what a cravenly awful little man he was, and a creepy one at that. Weaselly isn't the word to describe him. For weeks, he's milled about the Square - first telling his youngest and unwanted child that he didn't matter to him because "he wasn't Lucy." Then he's brushed aside his oldest son's grief as insignificant. Inbetween that, he was caught blubbering and running after a fourteen year-old pregnant girl, who was no blood relation. He's told everyone from Phil Mitchell to Max Branning how nothing matters anymore and how he's lost everything, and many times he's said this within earshot of Peter. The real truth of the matter is that Ian's lost a female member of his family who bore the blood of Cindy. And he ran after yet another female, underaged this time, who was no relation at all to him, simply because she, too, bore the blood of Cindy. And that's more than just a little creepy, dontcha think? In Ian's perfect world, he'd have Jane in the kitchen ...
... and Ian would be in the next room fixated on Lucy or Cindy, whoever was there, bearing the blood of Cindy Beale. As for Denise, well, she's just "the help," good only for cleaning toilets, but secondary to Miss Scarlett Jane when she's about issuing orders.
And certainly not white enough to go in the Beale family album. Here's another hard bit of truth: If DTC really wanted to go for realism, instead of sensationalism and maudlin sentimentality, Ian and Peter would be the prize suspects here. The police always go on the premise that a murder victim knew his or her assailant, and they immediately start looking close to home before they fan out into the neighbourhood. Ian and Lucy's relationship was fraught with tension. In a nutshell, Lucy neither loved nor respected Ian, and she was egged on in her behaviour a lot by Christian when she was younger. Lucy's relationship with her twin brother wasn't the easiest either. They had fallen out when she left for Devon and were cold to each other when she returned. Ian admitted to the police in their initial questioning of the family that he and Lucy quarrelled before she left the house. Had they questioned Peter, they would have found that there was tension between him and Lucy as well. It would have taken no more than a brief questioning of Lauren Branning about the state of Lucy's relationship with her dad to land Ian a position as Prime Suspect in the murder of his daughter. And maybe he did just that. Who knows? One thing for certain was that Ian was chomping at the bit for Mummy Jane last night - so much so that he left Peter, Lauren the LipGirl and "the help" to look after last-minute arrangements for the funeral. Here's something strange ... Denise spoke of having received RSVPs for the funeral. WTF? Are the Beales so damned grand that they hold a funeral by-invitation-only or is that the only way they can be sure of people showing up to mourn a prissy, dishonest, unlikeable walking skeleton who treated everyone as if they were a piece of shit? So desperate was Ian to see Jane that he fairly flew by magic carpet to Birmingham, where, it seems, that Jane the Bovine is mooching off Christian. Seeing Christian again only reminded me of how awful an actor John Partridge is. Nice man, can't act. It looks as though Christian's and Syed's roles have been reversed now and that they seem to have Yasmine living with them. Syed actually has a job, probably in the financial services industry, conning people out of their hard-earned cash, whilst Christian is a house-husband. Jane's moral cowardice has increased tenfold since fleeing Walford. She can breeze into Walford, use Masood as some sort of sexual toy, appropriate his home as "hers," horn in on his family whilst trying to assume a leadership role in a family from whom she divorced herself, only to have sex, yet again, under guilt-ridden circumstances, and then run from the fact. Christian was right to hand her her arse. Jane doesn't give a shit about Denise, whom she conveniently used as an excuse. In fact, she's jealous of Denise and jealous of the fact that it would be Denise at the bosom of the Beale family on funeral day and not Jane, on whom all eyes would be pealed ... or Bealed, I should say. What a bitch! As for Ian, he seeks solace in, of all people, Max Branning, and that's an obvious incongruent irony, considering Max was sleeping with Lucy almost at the time of her death. Still, Max has lost a child,and when Ian was whining, yet again, about not being able to go on, it was Max who stepped up to the plate and gave him a pep talk. I was hoping for a repeat performance of that beautiful dialogue and reminiscence of Bradley in the wake of Billie's death in October 2010, with Carol. Instead, we got hardcore "man" truths (risible, really, since all male characters on the programme are moral weaklings) about carrying on for your kids, which is what Max did.
Of course, we know that this scene was a set-up contrivance - and it worked. It gave Ian the amoral courage to go home, decide to pick out his daughter's burial outfit, and to lie to Denise about where he'd been - until his mobile rang and Denise found out the truth. As for Max, this was a double-whammy of a duff-duff, with Abi revealing that she knew Max had been sleeping with Lucy. But how did she know? Did she send the ubiquitous e-mail, having spotted Max snogging Skeletor? Doubt it. She's got a mouth bigger than her rapidly expanding arse. But know she did - and that makes a change from Lauren finding something out, and it made for the best duff-duff of the year. It's Five O'Clock Somewhere.
Five o'clock is not Shirley's Happy Hour. No hour is a happy hour for Shirl, especially when she's drowning her sorrows in a self-pity pool party of vodka. Line of the night goes to Mick:- Shirley's on the sauce again.
Again? When is she ever off the sauce? This time in a welter of self-pity at Dean's home truths. Stuff like that can hit hard at someone who's never taken responsibility for their worst actions.
As much as I like Mick, the one moment I didn't like him was when he attempted to talk to Dean, and came across as the passive-aggressive uncle with the veiled threat of anyone disrespecting his sister. Well, Mick, what about your sister and the way she disrespects your wife? You stand by and allow it, make excuses for it. And the other condescending remark about every story having two sides? Hypocrisy much? Dean was the bigger man for not responding to his jibes. Mick made it abundantly clear that whatever Dean's side of the story was, he was backing Shirley's ... but we've never been told why Shirley left her children.
Here's another thing to consider: Dean was the child who accepted Shirley when she returned, who reconciled with her and bonded with her. I still am at a loss as to why he was so angry with her when he returned in his last episode in 2008, but there was an oblique reference to the fact that he may have been raped inside. But Shirley certainly wasn't the cause of Dean's imprisonment. That was his own fault.
However, his anger suits him toward her, because we simply have to have the issue of her abandoning her children addressed, just as her alcoholism has to be addressed. Nice to see Dean's delight at seeing Denise and his rememberance of Pat. That was sweet. Then there's the continuing saga of the drowning of Mick. Tina tells a different story, and this further confuses the facts, but not in the way that you think, and I'm confused. It was originally inferred that Mick was a baby when he was put into care and Tina slightly older. There's two years' age difference, it seems. Later we learned that they were back home with Stan by the time they were in school, because Shirley took them to school in the brief time between their returning from care and her marrying Kevin. All of the above colours into the drowning story. According to Stan, Mick was a baby. According to Tina, she was a small girl, helping with the painting. So how old is a "small girl?" Tina said Mick "slipped" in the bath, which at least meant he was able to stand ... but who leaves a one- or two-year-old alone in the bath? If he were three, then Tina was five and in school. Of course, as a very young girl, her memory could be suspect, just as Stan's could be deliberately manipulative; considering Shirley's face when Stan told the tale originally, I'd say Tina, being small, was caught up in the confusion, and the story of Mick slipping was one porky pie told to a small child in order to hide the awful truth. And Sylvie had left when all this took place? Do I sense a pattern here? Final Observations. Just get Sharon right. You got the impression that, had that been anyone else pushing a comedy night, Ian would have gone ballistic. Carol's ambivalent about a hen night, Sharon wants to cancel a comedy night. Life does go on. The awful truth is that, had this been any other person's child on the Square, Ian Beale would barely have batted an eyelid. And David Beale Wicks is eating far too much. Good episode.
More important than anything that happened in Friday's episode, is the sneaky announcement that Michael French will be departing EastEnders. Will be? Honey, he's gone. He's bowing out Wedding Week, which is Bank Holiday week, so he's already been gone some six weeks already. This is one of EastEnders' sneaky announcements. It seems that French only wanted a short-term return, which actually makes some viewers' speculations of him leaving at Chistmas viable; however, he agreed to a brief extension of his contract with The Messiah ...
... and that amounts to a grand total of a stay of about 8 months. French was never going to commit long-term. He's a very private person, and he remembers from his earlier stint how intrusive the media can be into private lives. If you remember the cast photo released shortly before Skeletor became birdfood, French was one of three main characters who didn't appear in the shoot. Lacey Turner (Stacey) and Samantha Womack (Ronnie) were off filming other projects, so it was left for professional Company Man Adam Woodyatt to tweet that French was on holiday. He very well may have been, but he'd also left the building at that point as well. Consider this: Dominic Treadwell-Collins has seen/will see the departures of such established characters as Janine, Bianca and now David. Add Lucy Beale, the least significant, to the list,and the irony is glaring, considering that the storyline about this unlikeable and unimportant character will form the backbone of the programme until February 2015. The departures of these three characters are far, far more important to the future of EastEnders than Lucy dying and Ian crying. Their departures seriously do mean the end of an era. Ricky Butcher has gone. Soon Bianca will leave with her children. Then David. Janine has gone. I suppose we can safely say now that Charlie Brooks won't return. There is no link for Janine left in the Square. More importantly, there is now no direct link with Pat. The Butchers, more succinctly, the Beale-Butchers, are gone. With Lucy's death and Bianca's and David's departures, the Beales are also depleted. They will now consist of Ian and Peter, with the addition of non-Beale CindyBoy the Greek, at some point. We know that all cows some home at some point ...
... so sooner rather than later, we'll probably hear the tinkle of a cow bell to signal the return of Jane and Bobby with a head transplant. The other fear I have about Michael French's departure is that it will open the door for Lindsey Coulson to leave. Face it, there was never a viable dynamic between Carol and Honker, and I find it insulting to the show's heritage that the only remnants of the Fowler family are Honker the Righteous and her hairy, silent daughter RebeccaBoy. Since I highly suspect that Letitia Dean will slam the door on Sharon considering the pisspoor treatment her character has received at the hands of Kirkwood, Newman and that silver-tongued liar DTC, we are now well into the age of Millennial EastEnders - where retconning rules and beauty is the design of the day. Still, why worry about the departures of well-established legacy characters from the 80s and 90s when you have the return of ...
I ask you. Pity Party at Beale's.
It's only been a month, and already, I'm getting pissed off with the incessant weeping, wailing and moaning at the death of a character liked by few and who liked even fewer. TPTB left it too late in the day to try to make Skeletor the Stick Insect sympathetic by implying that she had poor self-esteem and sought the approval of a distant father. Bullshit. The truth is that the image of someone as selfish in her own right as Ian was in his, but with her mother's acuity in seeing what a weaselly and weak bullyman Ian was, is too too strong in the public's mind, because most people identify Lucy as Melissa Suffield. NuLucy was unlikeable, but in an unwatchable way. The only one of her contemporaries in this grief-piece who's acting normally is Whitney. Whitney hated her, and she didn't care. Whitney knew that Lucy looked down her carefully sculpted cocaine-tinged nose at her, and Whitney thought and still thinks she was a cow. People don't become good because they die tragically. Whitney knows that from Tony King's death. Still the bulk of this episode consisted of Pretty Peter, who hasn't exactly emerged from this predicament smelling of roses, gadding about the Square, emotionally blackmailing friends and residents to attend the latest re-opening of Ian's up-market junk food joint. Evidence of his own headuparseitis was his encounter with his cousin Bianca, completely discrediting Bianca's reason for not attending the event by offering her a free meal. Patronising much? And it didn't even register when Bianca stated that the real reason she couldn't attend was that she was attending a hospital appointment with her mother. You know, the one who has cancer? The other big surprise in this was how suddenly Millennial Queen Lauren, played by ... THE. WORST. ACTRESS. EVER. TO. APPEAR. IN. EASTENDERS.
... has suddenly acquired insight and wisdom. There's a middle-class love affair blooming between two picture perfect middle-class people, who, at all other times, have been self-obsessed and self-absorbed. Please, let's do put Peter and Lauren together, so they can spend the rest of their lives talking at each other and not listening because they're too much in love with themselves. For Lauren, this is life imitating art, because no one is more aware of the camera than the surgically-enhanced poor man's Jennifer Lawrence, Jossa. Lauren's gone from art student to dropout to drunk to student to car-washer to cleaner to drunk to businesswoman (for two weeks) to professional e-mail reader and now she's back as a waitress. Gee, Peter's even offered her a full-time job waiting tables at Beales, which is just miles above someone giving manicures. It does make you wonder how any of Ian Beale's businesses are successful since he allows staff and relatives just to hand out jobs willy-nilly to any passing waif and stray. I'm also getting more than a bit impatient at Ian's incessant crying.and - I must say it - self-pitying posture. More and more, it seems that Ian's mojo isn't grief over Lucy's death as much as it is feeling sorry for himself at having lost "everything". Lucy's death and the return of Jane the Bovine Queen brought home to him that, without the female Cindy link and the Mummy link, Ian has, in his mind, nothing. Probably the best moment and best line of the night came when Peter reminded him that Lucy's death was a loss for him as well. He'd lost a twin, which is essentially one half of his existence. Still, that was no excuse for Ian's treatment of "the help" (otherwise known as Denise). Denise was consigned to toilet-cleaner as her task of helping with the restaurant, and Denise was blatantly lied to by Peter when WPC Hollyoaks appeared to say that Lucy's body had been released and was safely ensconced in the Chapel or Rest at Les Coker's. The subtle white privilege contained in the Beales' attitudes toward Denise really need to be addressed. It's not pretty and it's not right. Ian is the weasel of the Beale dynasty, and it's sad he's their sole survivor. A lot of people were variously impressed and confused by the last scene, which saw Peter bond with Lucy's corpse. I wasn't as much put off by the fact that he chose to stay as there was a daycot incongruously situated in the Chapel of Rest. I come from the Southern United States, where there has long been a tradition in our culture of "sitting up with the corpse". This entails close family members and friends (usually male) who sit up as a guard of honour around the departed the night before the funeral. It's a custom followed in Spain and in Southern Italy as well, but "sitting up" is, well, "sitting up". Not taking a nap on a cot placed by the deceased. Pity Party in the Gutter: The Great (Ret)Con
Wherever Shirley goes, controversy follows. With news that there are more Carters on the way, one has to ask if this family are fast becoming the new Brannings? Remember how retconned the Brannings were as more and more and their satellites appeared? Well, the same is happening here. DTC promises more are on the way. (Only the fanbois approve). He also says that the arrivals/returns are people who have been mentioned previously. The most obvious (and necessary) one of that category would be Sylvie, Stan's wife. We need Sylvie (but not as a permanent character) to give credence and closure to Shirley's retconned backstory. But no more, really. Not even the much-mentioned Elaine, Linda's mother. Others who've garnered a mention have been Zsa Zsa and Carly. No. Just no. And really, like the Brannings, the sky is the limit. I mean, does Aunt Babe have children? Does Stan have brothers? Are there cousins? It doesn't bear thinking about, except to remember that familiarity breeds contempt. Speaking of which, that leads us to the subjects of Linda and Sharon. A commentator on a forum recently noticed, quite rightly, how cold Mick was to Linda. I agree. We were lulled into a false sense of contentment with them as a couple when they first arrived, an overtly sexual couple with slaps and tickles and sexual innuendo. But that's all there is. Mick adheres to and respects the opinions and desires of his two feckless, thieving drunks, rather than listen to his wife. Linda is being sidelined, and after his adverse reaction to her attempt to help Shirley, it won't be long before someone is playing away. Then there's the continuous problem with Sharon. The way the part is being written is all wrong. I've been discussing this with another long-term viewer, and, yes, there is a problem with Dean's acting this time around, but the big part of her acting problem comes with the way this Sharon is being depicted - shallow,selfish and bitchy. The fact that Phil is still buzzing around Shirley is eminently incongruous. Isolating Sharon is never a good idea, and if DTC knows his EastEnders and has been reading the Julia Smith-Tony Holland books from the 1980s, he'd sit up and take notice. Setting up Sharon to be undermined by a marmite character such as Shirley will anger a legion of long-term fans. Someone has noted, quite aptly, that EastEnders doesn't do subtlety. Wrong. EastEnders 2.0, from 2006 onward doesn't do subtlety, which was why Kat's redemption year hit us like a brick, going from slut to Mother Teresa in less than a couple of weeks. It's obvious that the entire Carter storyline, winding up now to start now, will be all about presenting Shirley as a more sympathetic character - in other words, showing how her "traumatic" past entitles her to behave in the vilest sort of way. Already we see this, in what I reckon to be the either the most glaring retcon or the worst piece of continuity in the show's history. As per usual, Shirley is sulking at Dean's home truths, which were well-placed and, well, true. But Dean had forgiven Shirley during his last time there. In fact, Dean was the Wicks sibling who was accepting of Shirley, who called her "mum" from the get-go, who called out to her as he was led away to go to prison. In fact, I was amazed that he was so harsh on Shirley when he was released from prison, but I'm wondering if that were down to the fact that he was regularly beaten and (it was implied) raped whilst inside, and he blamed her. Go figure. The retconned moment occurred in The Minute Mart in a three-way conversation between Shabnam, Shirley and Denise. There's a debate raging elsewhere about this conversation, considering the fact that, in Thursday's episode, Shirley alluded to the fact that she had abandoned Dean when he was a baby - specifically, when Dean was an infant, when Carly was 3 and when James was 6. The Voice-of-Kevin-Faceless-Shirley video of the couple with their three small children was dug out and shown again, and one recalls the episode wherein we first saw it, where Kevin reminded Shirley that she disappeared shortly after that video was taken, which caused her to run into the street and get her locketful of baby pictures crushed. Awwww, diddums. The debate raging about the Minute Mart conversation, where Shirley openly alluded to having left her children fourteen years ago hinges on some people saying this alluded to Shirley breaking off contact with Mick after having burned dwon his pub. Not at all. I've watched this clip three times, and either this is very bad continuity that was overlooked by both the writer and DTC or it was, indeed, a deliberate retcon for a deliberate person. The conversation was between Shirley, Shabnam and Denise and it was all about Dean and the effect of his return on Shirley. Dean is a known entity to all of those concerned in the conversation - Shirley is his mother, Denise was his stepmum and Shabnam a close friend of his sister's. The conversation quickly degenerated into a whingeing bout of self-pity on Shirley's part about her maternal qualities, even questioning Denise's right to comment on her situation because neither of Denise's daughters were with her. (Most adult children aren't with their parents full-time.) The conversation in question started with Shirley identifying herself as a "mother of three" and wisecracking to Shabnam that no one would notice. Why? Shirley: Wanna know my secret? I left fourteen years ago and never regretted a moment of it. What? I wasn't the only one who caught and interpreted that to mean that Shirley had left her children fourteen years ago. Nothing to do with Mick or the fire to his pub, which was fifteen years ago. And Shirley was told by Linda and her mother to clear off when that happened. No, this was totally about Dean. I'm inclined to think this was an intentional error and done with a purpose of making Shirley look not so bad. We know from 2006 that Shirley abandoned three very small children. Had she done this 14 years ago, we're talking about a 19 year-old James, a 16 year-old Carly and a 13 year-old Dean. When Shirley appeared in 2006, that would have been a mere 6 years after she'd disappeared, and yet Dean and Carly never recognised Shirley when they inadvertantly accidentally on purpose met then, and DTC, who's been infamous for retconning for storyline purposes, has some 'splainin' to do. It just reeks to me as deliberate. Shirley leaving 14 years ago would meant that she left two children who were, for all intents and purposes, adults; and a thirteen year-old is a bit easier to take care of than an infant. The Great Shirley Redemption has begun. And with more Carters on the way, Branning City will soon become CarterVille.
Dom Dom should be taken out and slapped for allowing that big retcon to happen tonight. Proof positive that the Wicks kids were abandoned as a toddler and a baby, that Shirley was gone from their lifes for seventeen years as of 2006 and that they didn't recognise her. Oh, and as per Kevin, an honest man, she turned them against her by bunking off and never coming to her eldest's funeral. Millennial bullybois, take note. History is important. Just like the fact that Shirley's had veneers done. She was doing the pity party even then, and not taking responsibility.
Yes, don't we? There's just one thing about secrets ... they keep getting found out.
On with the show ... Yet another seriously good episode, and I do mean seriously good ... It had drama, it had suprises, it had pathos.
So why don't I give a rat's arse about the characters it featured? Is it because there were some obvious retcons creeping out of the woodwork tonight? Is it because some real history of the programme, sealed in stone, was broken apart to serve a storyline's purpose? Was it because, to me, a long-term viewer, it was obvious that the writer in question is writing certain characters and certain circumstances all wrong?
Or is it simply because most of the people featured tonight were deeply unpleasant people, especially two, who were caught up in scenes contrived to curry sympathy in their favour?
Think critically. It is very possible to find a drama watchable and interesting, without liking the ratbags it features, except that if I liked said ratbags and empathised with some of them, it would make the drama damned near perfect.
I guess the theme of the episode tonight had to be the prodigal sons - two of whom came home and one pulled a fast one. The Messiah Breaks His Promise.
Yes, he is a very naughty boy, for not living up to the promise he made, via Twitter, to scores of long-term viewers, who looked to an Executive Producer who went on record in 2010 saying that Sharon was his favourite character, to salvage the brutal destruction of her character effected by his two predecessors and Simon Ashdown. But we now know that either he has no intention of redeeming an iconic character, one of two remaining original characters, because he's too interested in promoting the publicity of those whom he created - one in particular, who's anything but redemptive or likeable. With Sharon, EastEnders has been the first British soap to take a much-loved and established character and drag her reputation and characterisation through the mud. Can you ever imagine Coronation Street getting Suranne Jones or Sarah Lancashire back and then rubbishing Karen McDonald or Raquel? No, nor can I. Dominic Treadwell-Collins, explain yourself. Let me get the real downside out of the way before I comment on the rest of the episode, and that was Sharon. I'm almost wishing for Sharon to leave the show, and it isn't because I dislike her. If anything, I'm disappointed at having been conned by this EP, who went on record in an interview on the old WW, to say that Sharon was his favourite character of all time. Well, if that's the case, I'd hate to see how he treats characters he hates.
I'm sorry, but this is beginning to look and smell like a con. It's May now, and we still haven't seen Sharon brought back to what he spuriously described as the "Sharon of old". We've seen her bar just once. When she appears, it's usually in some minor sequence with the odd line or two, and she's always upstaged by Shirley, Queen of Scrotes. But more than that, the writing for her, once again, is all wrong.
And the writing for Phil is all wrong. This is Sharon, whose history with the Mitchells goes back for more than 20 years. Phil is supposed to love this woman, yet he continuously gravitates toward a bitter, venomous, stinking, fag-breathed old hag, who abandoned her children and tried to kill her sibling. Tonight we had Ritchie Scott being blatantly rude in blanking Sharon and Phil keeping Ben's release secret from her. Not only that, but Neanderthal-browed Jay actually expected Sharon to possess some sort of radar that would hone in on the fact that Ben is out.
She had a good night at a bar which Phil has financed, she didn't know the Crown Prince of Scrotes was released from prison, and she returns home in a good mood to be castigated. Even more than that, the writer - Colin Wyatt, an experienced writer who should have known better - made her reaction to Ben's release and Phil's despair shallow and superficial.
This is f*cking Sharon, who knows a thing or two about rejection and deception, having her old man disappear from her life for fourteen years, and in that interim, finding her birth mother and being rejected by her. I hope she's seriously screwing Phil out of money, but more than that, I hope Grant pays a visit long enough for her to leave with him, whilst flipping the stiff middle finger in Phil's direction.
Once again, this is Sharon, who always, only and ever got the better of the Mitchells. This is Sharon, who is the only woman to walk away from either brother a better person, a stronger person and with her dignity intact. Any writer, and any producer who's thinking of portraying one of the two remaining original and very iconic characters in the show in such a second-rate manner should be taken out and smacked. Not once, but again and again.
No matter how much he bleats on blissfully about how iconic Shirley, Queen of Scrotes is (and she's not), Treadwell-Collins knows that Shirley will never be Sharon, nor will she ever be as important to the show's history as Sharon is.
Prodigal Son I: Peter the Prat.
Peter and Lauren are two pretty people who look good together and are about as collectively shallow as the puddle in the pavement in the middle of Bridge Street. Pretty Peter is a classist snob, and suddenly the self-obsessed, selfish and entitled recovering alcoholic has acquired wisdom beyond her years, encouraging Peter to connect with his father - yeah, sure, like she connected with hers, when she took the wheel of a car and tried to run him over.
I almost gagged a maggot when Lauren said she and Peter didn't really "do" anything by their kiss. Sorry, toots, but you're yet again, the other woman, just like your mother. Peter is in a relationship with Lola, a relationship which he initiated and he pursued. He led Lola to believe he loved her, he even moved in with her; so now, he's cheating on her, and the snipey little toerag has the gall to text her a message after "connecting" with Daddeee to apologise. For what? Maybe he should apologise to poor Lola for being a first-rate cad, a liar and a deceitful toerag in the bargain.
And using the death of his sister to mask and excuse his bad behaviour.
And speaking of his sister, the Lucy Ian and Peter reminsced about tonight was nothing like the Lucy the viewers saw on screen, be she Suffield or Bywater. Remember the good times Ian had with Lucy?
Let's see ... how about the time she brought Steven back into their lives, only to have him kidnap Ian and injure Jane so badly she had to have a hysterectome? Remember Lucy ordering Ian to fling the gun Steven used into the canal and lying to the police about some unidentified mugger at the abandoned flat shooting Jane? That was a real hoot. We had such a good time!
Or how about the time Ian hired Craig at the chippie and fourteen year-old Lucy took a shine to him? She concealed the fact he'd mugged Patrick Trueman in his shop? That was a real corker! Wasn't it a riot that Denise's daughter and Kevin Wicks's son had an axe to grind with Sean Slater and unwittingly helped Lucy out by blaming him for Patrick's mugging. Peter and Ian should be rolling on the floor at the memory of that good time. Why, they should walk across the Square to the Vic and have a drink with Dean. He can have them in stitches, telling them about his time in prison.
Then, there was the time Lucy brought Ollie the tree-hugger home and threatened to have sex with him? She moved out to Christian's, but even he couldn't handle her.
Or how about that time she threw an impromptu party when Ian and Jane were out and trashed the house entirely. She didn't like the way Ian spoke to her so she smacked him across the face, and he - quite rightly - smacked her back. And then apologised. That was a bellyacher, that one.
Or, hey, remember the time she had the abortion and they all lied to Jane and said it was a miscarriage? Couldn't stop laughing for weeks.
Or the funniest ... when Ian told Mel and had her believing for months that Lucy had cancer just so Mel wouldn't leave Ian. Do you think Peter remembers that one, amongst all the studio posed pictures of the Beale empire adorning the walls of his newest enterprise. Who the hell wants to eat jumped-up junk food in a restaurant that does nothing but brag on the perceived greatness of the family who founded it. I'm as bored by Ian Beale owning the majority of eateries in the confines of Albert Square as I am by the rivers of tears he's shed in every episode in which he's appeared, because this is beginning to look less like he's mourning his daughter and more like he's pitying himself for losing "everything" - "everything" being that maternally interfering dominatrix Jane. Crying is Woodyatt's party piece. We get it. But there's such a thing as overkill.
And nice to know that Peter had been informed by "the help" that Phil had spoken to Ian. Prodigal Son II: Ben the Sociopath.
Ben is out there in London someplace, at a halfway house, the whereabouts of which Phil is not entitled to know, and that's a decision Ben's made because Ben is now an adult. I laughed when Phil remarked that the staff at the house were glad to see the back of Ben.
The big surprise for me in this episode is that Ben's not only been in contact with Jay, he's actually met with him. Now Jay is treading dangerous ground here, especially if Phil finds out this deception. Jay's life simply won't be worth living. And as much as respecting the confidences of a friend is important, Phil's given Jay a roof over his head and he employs him. Phil's desperate to rebuild a relationship with his son, even recognising that he pushed his son adversely the way Eric Mitchell pushed him, and still Jay sits there, watching him suffer, bold as brass and says nothing. Jay lost his father in a senseless act of violence. He should have more compassion for Phil's predicament and speak up.
Entwined in this is poor Lola, who's rejected by Peter, and Abi, who now realises she's being subtly binned by Jay. Jay can be a hard-arsed little prat, paying lip service to Abi's academic ambitions, yet not wanting her to achieve her dream at all. He is controlling and immature and was just as pig-headed in his own attitude to Abi as Peter was to Lola.
But wait a moment ... I thought we were getting away from this teenaged angst element in EastEnders. What was the remark? About parents no longer being seen through the eyes of their children? Or was that a con as well? At any rate, Abi was the gooseberry tonight, and she realised it. But Phil was infuriating as well, being put out that he'd been out trying to find Ben, and the three kids had been sitting there doing ... well, doing nothing. Prodigal Son III: Dean the Mean.
Dean is back, and this is a more successful return than Stacey's, in my opinion. I like Matt di Angelo, and I think he served himself well, professionally, in being away from the show. He's matured, and that shows in his vocal range and his delivery.
A down point before getting to the praise - retconning. In 2007, it was established that Shirley had abandoned Dean when he was a baby. Dean was a baby, Carly was three and Jimbo was six. When Shirley returned to their lives in 2007, neither Dean nor Carly even recognised Shirley, yet now it's established that Mick and Linda had seen Dean when he was five years old. Shirley had been long-gone from his life by then, and I find it hard to believe, although maybe plausible, that Kevin would have retained close contact with Shirley's family after her desertion.
The sum total of Shirley's arrogance and self-absorption was revealed in that she expected her son to be returning to Mummy Dearest. Instead of bounding for him with an embrace, she offered to buy him a drink. Well, she is an alcoholic, even if TPTB refuse to acknowledge that fact. Almost as hard to bear was Mick pushing the mother-and-child reunion, without knowing or taking into consideration that Dean had every right to be well-annoyed with his mother. He was the one child who reached out to her during his last stint in the Square, and she failed him miserably, preferring to feck about with a Polish builder rather than spend time with her son.
But a great deal of this storyline was intended to drum up the sympathy vote for the Queen of the Scrotes. Poor, pitiful Shirley running upstairs to boo-hoo because Sonny Jim was blanking her. She gets all the sympathy from Bubba Mick, who thinks the sun shines out of her behind. She's even reeled in Linda, FGS. She knows she's done wrong, because she then runs outside to the alleyway to sulk.
I just wish they'd go ahead and put Phil with Shirley. They're obviously now going to bond over their filial predicaments, and somewhere along the line, some sort of pathetic comment will be made about Heather being too good for this world and Ben having done her a favour in braining her. You watch.
Dean's home truths about Shirley were pretty accurate, save for her abandonment of him whilst he was in prison. To her credit, she did try to see him, but she did abandon Jimbo, who was disabled, she did walk away from him and Carly, she did lie to them about their father and she certainly did stitch Kevin up badly. It was heartening to hear Dean speak so about hisfather. However, Dean is Shirley's son, and that is an unbreakable bond, and no matter what my son had said to me, I'd certainly have something to say to my brother who raised a hand to strike my child. Mick was out of order.
Star of the show, however, was Stan. Timothy West, CBE, is doing a masterclass in acting, assisted from time to time by one Miss Ann Mitchell. Stan wants his family back together. This is his swansong and his opportunity to right the wrongs of the past. He knows that Shirley has done bad and vile things the way he has, and that's what bites the tits of the Queen of Scrotes - that she's like her old man in every way. Stan lied to Dean to bring him back into the fold and make things good with his mother, and Queen Shirley is blaming him for Dean's telling the world what a crap woman and sleazy human being she is. That's not Stan's fault. That's Shirley's. And as much hatred and venom she throws her father's way, and he lies to save her face. And yet she can't understand the hatred and venom coming from Dean.
I don't want Dean to reconcile with Shirley. She doesn't deserve any retribution because she's such a vile creature until we know the reasons behind her abandonment of her children and why she treated Kevin the way she did. I still remember her drunken cry at Denise when Kevin died - that she loved him first and she loved him best. That was certainly some love she gave him.
