Digital Spy's resident aquisitive sage PerfectPrincess has started a pretty good discussion thread on the Soaps' forum, asking various questions about the current hot-topic couple in Walford - well, they should be the current hot-topic couple.
Truth is, they've never been allowed to be.
Michael and Janine should be the couple we're all tuning in to see, wondering what's coming next in their relationship, watching two people, broken and embittered by the consequences in their lives turn to each other, focusing on their child, to try to make a go of things and finding love.
I guess EastEnders doesn't do that anymore. There are other things which seem to distract the public - like watching the man-in-drag playing Sharon flirt with Jack, or the tango'd man-in-drag imitating Kat cheat on Alfie with Derek. Come to think of it, EastEnders could seek to replicate that infamous reveal from The Crying Game, only this time between Kat and Derek. Derek's reaction would be priceless, maybe even award-winning.
Janine has certainly been with EastEnders long enough to have earned her stripes and to have moved centre-stage, especially since one of the few things Bryan Kirkwood did do right was to move her character away from grifting and scamming older men and sleeping with and blackmailing Ian Beale onwards and upwards.
With Kirkwood, Janine, unwittingly, allowed herself to fall in love with the insipidly shallow Ryan Molloy, only to have him betray her with Stacey Slater not even six weeks into the marriage - oh, and Stacey was aided and abetted by Slut Slutter.
Many viewers, hardcore Janine fans who have watched her since her childhood in all three variations, have understood why she was the way she was and didn't buy into the "evil Janine" genre first perpetrated - I have to say - by John Yorke and continued therein.
Janine was the late, last and unexpected child of Frank Butcher's middle age, whose mother died before she could remember her. Because Frank could barely cope with two adolescents, she was passed onto her adult sister, Clare, to be brought up. Between the ages of Five and twelve, she was passed between Clare and Frank and Pat, removed whenever she became too irritating, and always (as perceived by Janine) let down by an adult she should have been able to trust.
Michael was the oldest child of a feckless father and a mentally ill mother, who decided to kill herself when only she was at home with her five year-old son. He was constantly made to feel the outsider within his father's second family, and - like Janine - was made to feel bad for being, well, what he was.
Both Janine and Michael have enormous daddy issues. It's one of the things they first recognised in each other. And trust issues. Well, Janine's got an issue with trust, because everyone she's ever trusted has either let her down or betrayed her in life. With Michael, his issue is more of having an inferiority complex, having to garner success to prove something big to his old man.
The cult of "evil Janine" was actually started by Peggy Butcher, when Frank abandoned her and Peggy threw Janine onto the streets. Janine sought assurance from Terry Raymond, the first of many older men to whom she looked as a combination of sugar daddy-cum-protector. Billy Mitchell was one of those men, believe it or not, but their relationship has mellowed into a firm friendship. Indeed, Billy's probably the only friend Janine has, even though they sometimes do horrible things to each other.
In the beginning, they were a joy to watch, with their tentative natures not wanting to believe they had anything more than something physical. The scene after Derek has spooked Michael, when Janine texts a message of love to him was poignant.
And who hasn't forgotten when Michael discovered her pregnancy, the night Pat died, when Janine poured out all her insecurities to Pat about being pregnant by a man she didn't trust.
Watch these scenes. EastEnders could so have built on this.
It wasn't enough to build on a simmering relationship between two damaged people trying to make normal for the sake of themselves and the child they shared.
No.
Add to the blend a pre-nuptual agreement, a groom whose insecurity complex at being associated with a wealthy and powerful woman morphs into a cruel flim-flam of a vulnerable woman and morphs even further into psychologically undermining his wife with a view to ultimately controlling her, taking advantage of her hormonal condition post-partum and the fact that she may even be suffering from post-partum depression.
Michael knows Janine is isolated. She's still grieving Pat, she's a new mother with no familial support. Her sisters live in France and Australia, her brother lives elsewhere. Bianca is in prison and Carol is in Suffolk. Instead of having Sharon, a familiar face from her childhood, bond over the shared experience of giving birth and insecurity, Sharon, instead, is retconned into stranger status; and Janine is presented with Katshit accidentally on purpose telling Janine that Michael told Kat on Janine's wedding day that he didn't really love Janine. And then, we're shown Tanya sympathetically trying to bond with Janine by making all of Janine's adjustment problems all about Tanya, to the point where Tanya even suspects Michael, like Max, might be having an affair.
This is all a recipe for disaster and the best a turgid group of tired writers could effect to allow Charlie Brooks an escape route in order to begin her six-month break.
The result of the past three months, since Scarlett's birth, has been Michael becoming so "mysterious" and enigmatic, that he's actually become boring. Worse than boring, he's become almost evil. The only positive outcome of all this is that it's awakened the scheming part of Janine's psyche.
What I hope her absence doesn't achieve is pariah status upon her return by having the local yokels cast judgement upon her as a mother who abandoned her chid, another aspect of "evil Janine." And what I don't want to see is bloody Jean becoming involved in any way with the upbringing of Scarlett Moon. That's an even worse recipe for disaster and would be toxic for Janine.
I want to see Janine return triumphant and reclaim what is hers. She may never trust Michael, and she probably is right not to trust him, because I think she knows he's up to something with her money about which he's ultra secretive and could end in disaster. Above all, I want to see her return, rich, reclaim her daughter and boot Michael out of Walford.
Steve John Shepherd has said, after all, that Michael was a psychopath, and we know he's a control freak's control freak, a trait which is emblematic of psychopathy. Characters such as that (remember Archie Mitchell?) have short shelf lives.
Besides, Janine's the ultimate player. She's long-term. She's old Walford, and she'll win.
Truth is, they've never been allowed to be.
Michael and Janine should be the couple we're all tuning in to see, wondering what's coming next in their relationship, watching two people, broken and embittered by the consequences in their lives turn to each other, focusing on their child, to try to make a go of things and finding love.
I guess EastEnders doesn't do that anymore. There are other things which seem to distract the public - like watching the man-in-drag playing Sharon flirt with Jack, or the tango'd man-in-drag imitating Kat cheat on Alfie with Derek. Come to think of it, EastEnders could seek to replicate that infamous reveal from The Crying Game, only this time between Kat and Derek. Derek's reaction would be priceless, maybe even award-winning.
Janine has certainly been with EastEnders long enough to have earned her stripes and to have moved centre-stage, especially since one of the few things Bryan Kirkwood did do right was to move her character away from grifting and scamming older men and sleeping with and blackmailing Ian Beale onwards and upwards.
With Kirkwood, Janine, unwittingly, allowed herself to fall in love with the insipidly shallow Ryan Molloy, only to have him betray her with Stacey Slater not even six weeks into the marriage - oh, and Stacey was aided and abetted by Slut Slutter.
Many viewers, hardcore Janine fans who have watched her since her childhood in all three variations, have understood why she was the way she was and didn't buy into the "evil Janine" genre first perpetrated - I have to say - by John Yorke and continued therein.
Janine was the late, last and unexpected child of Frank Butcher's middle age, whose mother died before she could remember her. Because Frank could barely cope with two adolescents, she was passed onto her adult sister, Clare, to be brought up. Between the ages of Five and twelve, she was passed between Clare and Frank and Pat, removed whenever she became too irritating, and always (as perceived by Janine) let down by an adult she should have been able to trust.
Michael was the oldest child of a feckless father and a mentally ill mother, who decided to kill herself when only she was at home with her five year-old son. He was constantly made to feel the outsider within his father's second family, and - like Janine - was made to feel bad for being, well, what he was.
Both Janine and Michael have enormous daddy issues. It's one of the things they first recognised in each other. And trust issues. Well, Janine's got an issue with trust, because everyone she's ever trusted has either let her down or betrayed her in life. With Michael, his issue is more of having an inferiority complex, having to garner success to prove something big to his old man.
The cult of "evil Janine" was actually started by Peggy Butcher, when Frank abandoned her and Peggy threw Janine onto the streets. Janine sought assurance from Terry Raymond, the first of many older men to whom she looked as a combination of sugar daddy-cum-protector. Billy Mitchell was one of those men, believe it or not, but their relationship has mellowed into a firm friendship. Indeed, Billy's probably the only friend Janine has, even though they sometimes do horrible things to each other.
In the beginning, they were a joy to watch, with their tentative natures not wanting to believe they had anything more than something physical. The scene after Derek has spooked Michael, when Janine texts a message of love to him was poignant.
And who hasn't forgotten when Michael discovered her pregnancy, the night Pat died, when Janine poured out all her insecurities to Pat about being pregnant by a man she didn't trust.
Watch these scenes. EastEnders could so have built on this.
It wasn't enough to build on a simmering relationship between two damaged people trying to make normal for the sake of themselves and the child they shared.
No.
Add to the blend a pre-nuptual agreement, a groom whose insecurity complex at being associated with a wealthy and powerful woman morphs into a cruel flim-flam of a vulnerable woman and morphs even further into psychologically undermining his wife with a view to ultimately controlling her, taking advantage of her hormonal condition post-partum and the fact that she may even be suffering from post-partum depression.
Michael knows Janine is isolated. She's still grieving Pat, she's a new mother with no familial support. Her sisters live in France and Australia, her brother lives elsewhere. Bianca is in prison and Carol is in Suffolk. Instead of having Sharon, a familiar face from her childhood, bond over the shared experience of giving birth and insecurity, Sharon, instead, is retconned into stranger status; and Janine is presented with Katshit accidentally on purpose telling Janine that Michael told Kat on Janine's wedding day that he didn't really love Janine. And then, we're shown Tanya sympathetically trying to bond with Janine by making all of Janine's adjustment problems all about Tanya, to the point where Tanya even suspects Michael, like Max, might be having an affair.
This is all a recipe for disaster and the best a turgid group of tired writers could effect to allow Charlie Brooks an escape route in order to begin her six-month break.
The result of the past three months, since Scarlett's birth, has been Michael becoming so "mysterious" and enigmatic, that he's actually become boring. Worse than boring, he's become almost evil. The only positive outcome of all this is that it's awakened the scheming part of Janine's psyche.
What I hope her absence doesn't achieve is pariah status upon her return by having the local yokels cast judgement upon her as a mother who abandoned her chid, another aspect of "evil Janine." And what I don't want to see is bloody Jean becoming involved in any way with the upbringing of Scarlett Moon. That's an even worse recipe for disaster and would be toxic for Janine.
I want to see Janine return triumphant and reclaim what is hers. She may never trust Michael, and she probably is right not to trust him, because I think she knows he's up to something with her money about which he's ultra secretive and could end in disaster. Above all, I want to see her return, rich, reclaim her daughter and boot Michael out of Walford.
Steve John Shepherd has said, after all, that Michael was a psychopath, and we know he's a control freak's control freak, a trait which is emblematic of psychopathy. Characters such as that (remember Archie Mitchell?) have short shelf lives.
Besides, Janine's the ultimate player. She's long-term. She's old Walford, and she'll win.
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