The Branning Show: When Bitchery, Booze and Boredom Collide - Review 30.11.2012

Let's start off with a song for Cora the Bora, Lauren the GurnGirl and her Yummy Mummy Tanya. This song was just made for them and their alcohol addiction:-

Honestly, if this is the exciting autumn and build-up to Christmas promised us by Newman and co, then we should sue for false advertisement.

There were so many lows about this episode that it's difficult to pinpoint the positives. 

We had the Brannings. (We always have the Brannings these days, as well as their satellites, and we had all of those tonight).

We have the writers' poor attempts to recreate a Romeo-and-Juliet-esque young(ish) couple with whom we can sympathise. (Here, they have a contingency plan - if Turdhopper and GurnGirl don't work we have the poor man's Damon Albarn and Baby Huey - three-quarters of these couples are from the same family, I might add - Brannings).

We have the dead man walking - a Branning.

We have the cheating wife and the cuckholded husband - the nefarious Shaggerman is a Branning. 

We have the drunken old man in drag - a Branning relative.

We have the poor, starving, skint, harassed, loud and self-pitying mother of a gaggle of kids who still haven't seemed to find their way to school yet - Branning relatives.

We have the iconic original cast member and daughter of the first and best landlords of the Queen Vic ... yes, you guessed it ... reduced to being a worshipper at the Altar of BranningHood.

They infest any and every storyline. Someone remarked that they hadn't managed to touch on Chryed's leaving line, but Tanya attended his stag night, and later Syed begged  her for a job.

Let's look at the good points, before I start dissecting the bad. The good points won't take long, because there are so few of them.

Patrick. Any time Patrick does the patriarch bit, he's brilliant. Rather than search aimlessly and try to force a matriarchal figure upon us, TPTB should just go with the flow and let Patrick eke out words of wisdom. He's such a strong and compassionate man that people naturally turn to him for guidance. His scene tonight in the Vic, with Jean - normally, a character who keeps me on edge so much that my teeth begin to chatter - was priceless, natural, easy and - although it was supposed to be a subtle catalyst that will put Shaggerman in play again (zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz) - it was warm and cosy and a surprising joy to watch.

Jean works best when she ditches the ditzy mannerisms, the sudden jerks and shrieks she effects, as well as the dippy New Age philosophy. Tonight, they were two parents, whose children and grandchildren were far away and who connected over a parenting matter - getting a small boy to go to sleep. One of the nicest things was Patrick's remembrance of Pat. Has it been almost a year since she died?

I miss Pat, and I suspect a lot of the older actors in the programme do as well. Patrick was attracted to Pat as a woman, but he genuinely loved her as a friend. I hope he comes to realise that Cora is a poor substitute for this remarkable woman. Pat would never wallow in self-pity and selfishness the way Cora did tonight.

Derek with Bianca in the Kitchen. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, and Derek got this moment right. Bianca's having adjustment problems. She's come from prison back to the real world, and she's trying too hard to make up for lost time with her children, one of whom is staying with her father, and the others who are more comfortable around their grandmother than around her. Derek understood that Bianca had been institutionalised and has to take her time to integrate back into life the way it is. That was a nice moment between the two of them. It showed me what - had he been written correctly - the character of Derek could have become.

I'm not the biggest Bianca fan, but I know she's little more than a child, herself. She can only cope when she's got Ricky or Carol doing the heavy work, and when she tries something, herself, she fails. We saw this the last time, with her ascertaining that a television was more important for keeping the kids happy, than food on the table or clothes on their backs. Tonight, when Carol's been buying groceries for dinner, Bianca's scheduled chicken nuggets and chips - her usual fare. Even the takeaway Derek got was from McKlunkey's, and has she even registered Liam and Morgan for school? Since Carol's return, I've always thought of Bianca as the oldest kid amongst a slew of children usually attached to Carol. Whitney functions with the kids better than Bianca ever did, which says a lot for her parenting skills. Still, that was a nice moment shared between her and Derek.

The rest was blather.

Alfie and Kat Shat. Please ... get this tripe off our screens.

OK, this is only my opinion, but I think that this storyline was Bryan Kirkwood's stiff middle finger to EastEnders. I remember when the spoilers for this storyline were released. They were accompanied by almost manic hype, which sought to involve audience participation in a guessing game for the mystery man shagging Kat. 

Aw, c'mon ... this'll be fun ... guess the porker porking Kat, the ultimate goodtime girl.

It reeked of something, at once, sinister and puerile, almost as if TPTB were condoning a woman having an affair behind her husband's back for no reason other than she could. Kat wasn't a wife who was mistreated. Au contraire, her husband loved the bones of her. He'd taken her back when she got pregnant by his cousin and raised that child as his own. In the almost nine years they've been married - has anyone remembered that Christmas Day is their wedding anniversary? - Kat's been unfaithful to Alfie five times, four of them for no reason, really ... and TPTB wanted us to root for her?

The original PR also said the identity of the Shaggerman would be revealed "in the autumn," and it would be massive. I actually think - and again, I stress that this is my opinion and not fact - that Kirkwood meant the storyline to be no more than a few months long and to end, possibly in late September-early October ... and that it would be Jessie Wallace's leaving line.

Please try to remember and cogitate this: usually, when a major couple break up in a soap, someone leaves. Sharongate was the portal for Letitia Dean's original departure. Patgate saw Mike Reid leave the show for the last time. Chris Gasgoyne left Corrie when his Peter Barlow parted with Jane Danson's Leanne - as she did the first time she left the show. Katherine Kelly eked her revenge on Simon Gregson earlier this year and scarpered from Wetherfield.

This happens.

Split a couple, keep them in the same vicinity and you have the beginnings of kabuki theatre commonly known as "will-they-won't-they." Think the dysfunctional unit that is Max and Tanya (there you go - the Brannings again), think Zainab and Masood.

Kat did what Sharon and Frank did before her - cheated on the landlord/landlady of the Queen Vic. Her punishment should be humiliating, public and should end with her sloping off the Square in a black cab or a speeding car in the dead of a cold, windy and rainy night.

But if there were any storylines of Kirkwood's that were tweaked by Sweet Lorraine ...

this was the storyline. Why? In order to salvage Kat, a creature in whose creation she participated. Ne'mind, the public now hate this once-iconic character, ne'mind people have almost unanimously called for her to leave ... Lorraine wants Kat to stay and stay she will.

Newman says that Kat and Alfie have miles to go; Shane Richie says that Kat was meant to be with Alfie or with no one. Let's hope that Newman doesn't have it in mind to make Kat grow into the Square's new matriarch in coming years. (Make no mistake: Jessie Wallace is going nowhere, especially not after being given a second chance when she was sacked at the end of her first stint). That would be disastrous.

Kat is caught between the rock and the hard place. Using another old saying, what she basically wants is to have her cake and eat it too. As I said, not many people have invested in what is arguably the worst storyline since Kidneygate, simply because from the angle we've seen, this has all been about surreptitious sex. Not just surreptitious, but dirty and sordid - the bedsit, the bedbugs, the alleyway (again). If people think back to the beginning of the year, they would remember how repulsed they were at Whitney whoring around behind Fatboy's back with Tyler, or Max's and Roxy's dirty, little flirtation.

This is the same genre. Now Kat literally wants to be joined at the hip with Alfie, because he's safe - or so she thinks. As long as Alfie is close at hand, she's frightened enough to behave herself for the moment and repel Derek (let's be honest; this is who Shaggerman is), because she remembers the encounter she had when she semi-confessed her affair to Alfie.

Alfie doesn't buy the It's-not-my-fault-I'm-a-dirty-girl-victim anymore. She also knows that when he finds out, the game is up for her and she'll have to go back on the game.

But, you know, I can't take this seriously; because Newman has as good as said that these two will be back together. Keep them in the Square, and they'll slither back into each other's life. Their reunion is 2013's Christmas storyline, mark me. They will re-bond again, probably over Tommy, who'll probably end up being Alfie's. Until that time, we got treated to endless shots, from all angles, of Kat's miserable face and her jiggly booby bits being thrust in our faces.

One wonders if a woman of her age realises how much she looks like mutton dressed as lamb ...

(with apologies to the mutton and the lamb) or why her husband doesn't quietly suggest something a bit different for her? I mean, who wants their wife parading around looking like a cheap whore (which is what Kat has become)?

I also don't like the way TPTB have cheapened Alfie, making him - along with Masood - a candidate for Wimp of Walford. There's a three-way contest for this prize this year, with Alfie, Masood and Ian Beale in contention. The fact that Alfie and Mas are probably the two most genuinely nice male characters on the Square tells you the contempt in which the writers - or the people pretending to be - hold nice men. Zainab walks all over Mas; Kat literally tells Alfie she's ashamed of him because people laugh at him. Ian gets his comeuppance from his shitty, skinny-arsed daughter, demanding he sign his livelihood and his house over to her, give up his bedroom so she can be shafted, literally and figuratively by a Branning piece of shit (the Branning connection again). Men are weak in this Walford man-hating universe, but nice men are reviled.

Go figure.

Anyway, this storyline sucked. It has always sucked and it continues to suck. It is an embarrassment to the show, to its heritage and to the actors who are forced to enact this shambles.

Good luck to Ms Newman in her mission to save Kat or be damned. The show who created her, slated her - and Ms Newman signed off on that. Now, follow suit. Put your hand up, admit responsiblity and kill the monster you've created. Otherwise, you're really life becoming art and eschewing any sort of responsibility for your actions, just like the character you've created.

Love's Young Dream (Not). Lorna Fitzgerald is a victim of the Chesney (pronounced "Ches-neh") Syndrome. Like Sam Aston on Corrie, Fitzgerald started on 'Enders as a child. Neither she nor Aston were stage school kids; rather, they were natural performers who recreated a comfort zone with the older actors playing their parents by bonding with them. This worked as long as they were kids. They could essentially be themselves with their pretend parents around, but they didn't really appear full-time because of their age and scholastic commitments. Thus, every time we saw them, they seemed fresh.

Now, they're old enough to have proper contracts, which means they have to work - and in their profession, that means act, creating reality from an illusion. So, they're out of their comfort zone. Their characters might have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, and they might not like the actor playing that person. Are they professional enough to pull it off? Can they deal with having lost the "cute factor?"

Because that's a major problem with Ches-neh and Abi. They were cute kids. They're anything but cute adolescents. 

Since her return from her GCSE break, Fitzgerald's been phoning in her part. She looks totally uncomfortable and ill-at-ease, and part of this, I think, has been her so-called new look - the bleached hair, the false eyelashes and overt make-up. At best, she looks like a little girl dressing up in her mother's clothes; at worst, she looks like a paedophile's dream. (This isn't the first time EastEnders has fed this fetish: think Ruby Allen, in bustier and fishnets reclining on a bed and waiting for Juley).

Apart from being three dress sizes bigger, Abi, for the most part, looks, acts and sounds much the same way she did when she was ten or eleven. It's a credit that a street-suss guttersnipe like Jay would be so sensitive to her insecurities that he recognises she's not ready for a sexual relationship yet and is wanting to initiate something for the wrong reasons, but we know that in the real world, he'd probably slope off and boff Lola - or that in EastEnders' world, this will probably happen. Jay will soon get tired of waiting for Abi to "put out" (as both he and Lola referred to the sex act in reference to her on separate occasions) and end up bonking with Lola, which means Abi will probably drown her sorrows in drink. (It's in her genes).

Ladies Who (Liquid) Lunch. EastEnders did an adequate enough job addressing the fact that Phil Mitchell is an alcoholic - even though it goes against their grain to show him regularly attending AA meetings and going through the Twelve Steps (and that's not a dance).

What EastEnders fails to address is that there are actually more women alcoholics on the Square than men. Kim has a binge-drinking problem - yet, we were meant to laugh at her antics when she raided the Minute Mart at night and ended up asleep in a skip. Or when she crawled the length of the bar in the Vic just to plant a drunken kiss on the lips of a startled Fatboy.

Of course, the emphasis here should be on the three generations of alcoholics the Cross-Brannings have managed to shit out, starting with Cora the Bora - the self-pitying old lag filled with hatred and bitterness, going onto Tanya, who's never without a drink or a reason to have one; finishing up with Lauren the GurnGirl, who apes the behaviour of her elders. Some believe that alcoholism is a trait that can be passed through generations.

I find it truly horrific that Cora "allowed" Joey to lodge in Dot's house. I truly can't remember who owns her house - whether it's owned by the council or whether Jonnie Allen actually bought it and rented it to the Brannings. If the latter be the case, then Ruby Allen is her landlord. If the former, isn't there some sort of procedure one goes through when a council tenant vacates the property for a period of time? Are sub-tenancies legal? For example, would Dot even have been allowed to let Patrick and Cora lodge with her as she did previously? We know Mo is subletting the Slater council house (whose tenancy should be in Charlie's name, surely) illegally to Derek.

I keep marvelling at the fact that Dot is going to return home shortly to a drunken old biddy, a grandson she's never met, a ditzy young girl she doesn't know and a mountain of red reminder bills. Turdhopper was a louche entitler tonight, expecting food on tap when most lodgers provide their own fare.

Still, Cora's mired herself so deep in her self-pity she's become a parody of herself, all the while looking more and more like a man in drag. I keep expecting her to launch into a blowsy rendition of "I Am What I Am" ...

Now that would cause Joey's ever-gaping hole of a mouth to widen unto the floor until he'd disappeared within himself (which might not be such a bad way for this awful character played by an even more awful actor to go). Picture the scene:-

Lauren: I want Joey, where's Joey ... waaaah-waaah-waaah!

Tanya: Sorry, dahlin'. 'E's disappeared inside 'is mouf an' now we can't find 'im or 'is mouf.

Instead, Cora the Bora is existing on a diet of black coffee and cigarettes in the morning (minus Sarah Vaughan, who should be singing in the background) ...

We know of what her evening diet consists. We also know that it's from Cora that Tanya and Lauren have inherited their selfish attitude. The irony of this situation is that Cora berates Tanya for making every situation about herself, when Cora is doing exactly the same thing - and no one points this out to Lauren, maybe because the people who should haven't recognised this flaw in themselves.

What impressed itself upon me tonight was the realisation that Cora really does hate Tanya. I mean that. Truly. She meant it in every vicious, vindictive, accusatory word she leveled at her - accusing her of lies, sneaking behaviour, undermining - when all of the selfsame things could have easily been levelled at herself. Even more evil and sinister was relaying her version of events to Lauren, who was in no condition to hear what Cora had to say, whilst plying her with drink and less-than-subtly undermining Tanya's authority as her mother. In fact, Cora was pretty openly encouraging Lauren in the wrong way to defy what parental authority Tanya has as Lauren's mother. The drink bit was the last straw. Cora knows damned well that Lauren has drink issues - her birthday would have reminded her of that - and she knows that Lauren's parents are worried. She did this deliberately, but it has more repercussions than plying a fifteen year-old Abi with enough booze to make her sick and then laughing that it was all a part of growing up.

Lauren may be eighteen and an adult, but she has no job and is totally dependent financially and otherwise on her parents, which means that Tanya and Max call the shots. She is in no position to challenge that unless she gets a job and makes herself financially independent of their help.

For anyone who still thinks Cora is matriarch material, I hope tonight was a real eye-opener as to what sort of person she really was.

Cora is projecting. She got pregnant when she was eighteen, back in the days when single motherhood was something shameful, and gave her baby up for adoption. Try as she might, she can't bring herself to say why she really gave the child up - because she was mixed race; and she didn't tell Lauren that tonight either. Her parents made her do it, according to what she told Ava - and that may very well have been true; but there were women in that time, and many who were Cora's age, who kept their illegitimate children, no matter what their colour. Cora didn't, and now that she's been forced to face down her child, that guilt has been brought back to her. For that, with some justification, she blames Tanya; but she also told Tanya in very cold and certain terms that her entire attitude toward Tanya and Rainie had been founded on the fact that she'd given her first child away - so the other children suffered.

The double blow comes from the fact that one of these children, Rainie, has, effectively, rejected her now - realising through Alcoholics Anonymous, that Cora actively encouraged Rainie's addiction instead of helping her overcome it. Chickens come home to roost.

Someone on one of the fora reckoned that Cora was more battle-axe than matriarch. She isn't even that. She's just a bitter, twisted, vindictive old drunken lag and bigot awash in her booze, her fags and her own self-pity. Whoever thought to foist her upon the viewers as the natural successor to Pat should be taken out and slapped. Whichever viewers think she's better than Pat ever was should slope off, grow up and gargle with arsenic.

And finally ...

The Branning Satellite. 

In re-introducing her as a hange-on of the Branning clan, especially in her forced and phony relationship with jack and her friendship with Tanya, TPTB are on the road the road to perdition with the ruination of yet another iconic female character. A hattrick - first Kat, then Bianca and now Sharon. Who can be any more iconic than those three?

Watching Sharon sidle desperately up to Tanya, craving her friendship, ferrying unsolicited cups of tea to her in the craven hope of receiving some sort of crumbs from the royal Branning table and then virtually going orgasmic when Tanya offers her prize position of Maid of Honour at her (third) white wedding. White means "virginal" or "the first time." Tanya gave up all rights to those accolades when she was about fourteen, and Sharon hasn't been a "maid" since 1990. Sharon brings Tanya tea, and Tanya wants a real drink. (Alcoholism, see - seven shades, just like the book). So Sharon suggests they repair to the Vic later ... and confidently asserts (without asking) that Ian can look after Damien Den. I fucking ask you.

I would have loved a scene where Sharon rushes up breathless to the Beale back door, dragging Denny.

Sharon: Ian... I know it's last-minute, but can yer babysit Denny fo'me? Only I promised Tan we'd have drink at the Vic, an' then I have ter go shag Jack ter keep him sweet about my phony engagement ter Phiw.

Ian: No. Piss off. And what the fuck are you doing hanging around with those loser poor whites? If Den Watts were alive, he'd beat your arse with Jack Branning and think he was holding a piece of wood.

This show is hitting rock bottom fast.

And VALD Says ...

Alfie is not just thick he is an utter bore. I used to like him but even Alice has more going for her.

Thus speaketh she who has just so much going for her ...

Well, at least she has her own song ...

Just Some Thoughts About Alfie

This thread is making the rounds now on Digital Spy, started by one of the most intelligent and astute commentators on the forum, Scrabbler.

Scrabbler posits the observation:-

Firstly he cannot tell the difference between a dinosaur and a reindeer. 

Then he didn't see how defensive Kat was in tonights episode, surely he would be more suspicious of things like getting a letter about a bedsit through the post and thinking that someone may want him out of Walford thats why their giving him the cash, I mean really, are we meant to believe that he is that Stupid?

Good observation, but it unleashes a torrent of replies and observations which don't make it past the basest level of character interpretation. Sorry, but that's so. And some of the commentators are of the highest level of people who participate in the fora, which proves either that the writers for the programme have achieved what they set out to achieve - which is making yet another man into Wimp of the Western World, or rather, Wimp of Walford; or rather, the commentators have lowered their own expectations in alignment with what the writers are trying to achieve.

You see, I've watched EastEnders since the getgo, and I can never remember a time when there were so many outright weak characters, male and female, in its history. 

Strong women? Believe me, a woman doesn't have to be mouthy and loud to show strength. Pat rarely raised her voice, yet she was - morally, emotionally and psychologically - the strongest woman on the Square. Most of the women resident on the Square today are totally dependent in some way on a man's services or presence, and without that, they shrivel into nothingness (example: Shirley).

As for the men, if we're going to label Alfie a doormat, what about Masood? He rightly told Zainab some blatant home truths at the time of Syed's wedding. In fact, he did more than that - he kicked her ass out. He told her to leave, and she left. End of. But not even a week later, she shows up on the doorstep, effectively stops a Guy Fawkes celebration and barges right back into where she was before. And all it took for Masood to forgive her, take her back into the fold and look lovingly at her was Syed's departure. She learned nothing from that ordeal and he's back right where he was before.

Or Max, who repeatedly cheats on Tanya yet somehow manages to weasel his way back into her bed, simply because he knows she can't resist him. Yet Tanya - Tanya - has always been labelled a strong woman.

The only really strong woman resident in the Square is absent for the moment, and that's Janine. She might be down at the moment, but she'll recoup her strength and come back triumphant - and Janine is one of the few left who doesn't feel the need to raise her voice incessantly.

OK, in answer to Scrabbler's observation and to the thread in general, in the first place, Alfie knew the toy was a dinosaur. He even referenced it as such in the subsequent conversation he had with Kat. He was simply using his imagination with the toy in telling a story to Tommy, as you do with kids.

Also, I don't particularly think Alfie is stupid; in fact, since Kat's less-than-half-truthful confession, he's been watching her surreptitiously with a jaundiced eye. He also understands something about relationships that Kat doesn't - and that's when someone cheats in a relationship, there's usually something wrong on the home front; and Alfie is the sort of person who wonders maybe he's been doing something wrong. He also realises that whenever Kat feels she's ignored, she strays; but at the same time, he's been burying himself in keeping busy with other things - the Christmas malarkey, for example - because it takes his mind off worrying about what Kat might be doing on the sly. He wouldn't be the first person to bury his head in the sand and tell himself that everything was getting better or even work at it getting better when it was a hope against all hope. No less than Ian Beale and Tanya have done that in the past with their respective partners.

A lot of people making these blase' remarks about Alfie being a doormat etc may never have been on the receiving end of a marriage or long-term relationship breaking up. It's no picnic. It's always been mooted that Alfie has a dark side, and I think we just might see that; however, reading Lorraine Newman's interview, she seems determined that Alfie and Kat have miles to go together, which means the up-coming year will probably see kabuki theatre of Alfie getting with Roxy, only to have something drastic happen, and he will draw closer to Kat. It's only my opinion, but I'll bet it will be discovered, around about September 2013, that Tommy is actually Alfie's son, which means that Christmas 2013 will see a Kat and Alfie reunion, something, I think, the character of Kat doesn't deserve. But Ms Newman is the boss, she was in on the creation of Kat as a character, and she wants her to stay onside - when under any other dictate, she'd leave Walford in disgrace.

I also don't think the public, as a whole, was laughing at Alfie. Whether the Branning brothers were or not is debatable, but we'll see how much they have to laugh about during the Christmas period. One will be dead, the other will be left exposed a fraud and the third will be dumped for Phil Mitchell.

Har-dee-har-har-har.

The Branning Show: Much Ado About Sluttin' - Review: 29.11.2012

Much ado about sluttin' ... and gurning ... and gawping ... and that terminal illness of selfishness and self-centredness. The culture of memememememememememe which comes as a genetic trait in any female with Cross blood.

Like a Shakespearean drama (of which EastEnders at the moment is the furthest thing), here are its features tonight with appropriate musical interludes:-

Lauren the GurnGirl Does Her Party Piece

Lauren's got a gash on her forehead, which will heal within the next week and will leave nary a scar. I wonder, did she mash her mouth against the steering wheel? Because since Jacqueline Jossa started on the show, it seems her upper lip has enhanced itself greatly. As in collagen greatly.

Here's a picture from her early days, post-fringe:-

And here's another, taken after she began to believe her own publicity:-

And here's one showing a couple of other things which she's "enhanced."

Not only are these photos shown in order that Digital Spy's xTonix could have himself a good wank over his laptop, they're also being shown to illustrate that the difference between the first picture and the last two symbolises the difference between the acting exhibited by Jossa when she first undertook the role of Lauren and how that acting ability has regressed to the point where she's constantly aware that she's playing a role, that the camera is rolling and that it's honing in on her. And if it isn't, it should be.

The over-emphatic arm and physical gestures, the exaggerated facial expressions - amoungint to gurning, the loud delivery, and - as an astute observer noted - she's beginning to gawp that mouth open a lot. Wonder where she learned that party trick? As well, the total wailing and weeping she's done in an earlier episode this week and also tonight, was an embarrassing attempt. 

Derek aside, Lauren is vying with Tanya and Joey for the title of Most Unlikeable Branning, although I'll give her fair dos tonight: she actually wanted to take responsibility for her actions in ploughing Derek's car through that shop - all for lurrrrrve, mind you; but however much she might protest that her one-week-one-fuck tangle with the unintelligible hulking Neanderthal, who can't shut his mouth except when he talks is the real thing, it must not be and she must know it; because at the end of the day, she didn't have the courage to tell the police the truth - either face-to-face in her own front room of by going to the copshop.

The fact that she's harbouring a mega lie from her father, with her mother's collusion and at her mother's instigation, is just that much evidence of the straw upon which the House of Branning is built. We know Max is keeping a major secret from Tanya - so major that it will most likely make their wedding arrangements implode. And Tanya's keeping the secret of Lauren's involvement in the crash from Max for various reasons.

Yes, it's true that Lauren, with her track record, would most likely do time for dangerous driving and driving under he influence. Also for perverting the course of justice. Tanya, in this instance, really is no better than Phil Mitchell in protecting a child who's committed a major crime. This isn't the first time Tanya's done this, however. It's the second. But also, Tanya's doing this, as evidenced in her last scene with her daughters and Max.

Yep, this is a bad patch through which the Brannings are going, but - according to Tanya -they've been through worse and survived. This is true - but have they really survived? I'm amazed at Abi's maturity, although Cora is quick to want her to go off the rails. The Brannings spoil one daughter and ignore the other. The real reason Tanya wants to sail through this is her wedding.

That woman collects weddings like Jessie Wallace collects fiances. Did anyone ever tell her it's bad taste to have such an overt display of tackiness after her last wedding to Greg, which was laughably all white and virginal?

Tanya's worried because she wants to get this minor incident out of the way, doesn't want Max to find out and she wants everything perfect for her wedding.

Lauren's not a tragic lovesick heroine; she's a spoiled little brat of a bitch who's whining now because her beefcake cousin seems to have gone off her after one fuck and an escape attempt. And what a cowardly cousin he is too - he'd rather dump the girl he's supposed to lurrrve rather than share a roof with his old man, who saved his bacon, by the way. So Lauren is acting out, whining, crying and running after Joey - which shows that she really isn't the adult she claims to be. And when Turdhopper rejects her, what does she do?

She reaches for the vodka - just like her mother and grandmother before her - except she has to have an overly-dramatic Camille-cum-Sydney-Carton line to express the full level of the tragedy of losing such a noble penis soul as Joey Branning.

Looks as if the money Jossa's dad embezzled from the citizens of Enfield to fund the expensive education afforded Jossa at Bromley's DB Theatre School was all in vain. This girl sucks. We're supposed to like, root and feel sorry for Lauren Branning, but the writers who wrote her and the actress who portrays her have fucked the character up so bloody badly, that she's nothing more than a pejorative waste of space. Her entitled, lazy and selfish character is a blight on and an insult to all the worthier young characters from previous years in the programme.

Then, there's Cora the Bora. Another bitter and twisted old man-in-drag lag feeling sorry for herself and making everyone around her suffer. She writes Tanya off on Monday, literally cuts her out of her life, and then complains because no one in the family thought to run knocking on her door to tell her about Lauren's accident - as if Cora is the hands-on grandmother on a normal day. She'd probably castigate Lauren about not being 'ard enough to hide her booze level and drive in a straight line.

Once again, tonight, this was less about the fact that her daughter had been involved in a serious car accident and more about Cora's huge ego and even huger feelings being hurt. Once again, it's Tanya's fault. Hell, it's anyone's fault but Cora's.

Was it me, or when she was standing on the doorstep of her house feeling sorry for herself to Tanya, did she look like Derek in drag?

Cora could convincingly play Albin in La Cage aux Folles.

Musical interlude:-

Well, Dot's house, really ... not that anyone would remember. But you'd think Fatboy would, since he "advised" Poppy to take in a lodger to help with the bills it looks as though Cora hasn't been paying. Yes, Cora's lost her job at the charity shop, but Final Demands for payment don't come right away. Cora's been spending her earnings on false eyelashes, plaster-of-Paris make-up and liter bottles of vodka to keep her embalmed going.

So now, we've got Cora, Poppy and Joey all living in Dot's House. Soon, Fatboy will repair there, himself, when he remembers the sex bomb the writers want us to think Joey is. And Dot will come home to a pile of bills, a drunk who's feeling sorry for herself, a young girl she doesn't know, a grandson she's never met and Fatboy.

I would love to see Dot channel one of the Bible stories she loves so much and, like Jesus drivig the moneylenders from the Temple, cast all these scroungers out from the realms of Castle Cotton. Dot's too good to be associated with a family of losers like the Brannings.

Bianca Is Not Lucille Ball

This is not Bianca. This is genuinely funny redhead:-

With the return of Bianca, TPTB are asking two things of us: our sympathy for the poor, poverty-stricken Butchers, who - for some reason - haven't heard of the benefits system and who live, virtually rent-free in a house purchased by a relative to keep them off the streets; and laughter at Bianca's noble attempts to carve out a career for herself as a hairdresser.

OK, she's a klutz at this, with her "stificates" (which probably mean little or nothing), but we just know that within three months, TPTB will have turned her into a dynamic and successful businesswoman.

Whilst the highlights of the Bianca scenes tonight were, undoubtably, the wonderful Lindsey Coulson as Carol and - surprisingly - Whitney, Bianca still stank. And she's still stupid.

Common sense would have told her that, with Lauren's accident and the police crawling all about, Tanya just might be distracted. Leaving Bianca to train under the guidance of Poppy was like leaving Dumb with Dumber. The scene where she's shouting in the face of the old lady customer, assuming she was deaf  - and later learning that she'd ruined the woman's wispy hair - wasn't funny at all. As for Carol suggesting that Bianca get businesscards printed and become a mobile hairdresser, she's forgetting that (a) Bianca has no money, (b) Bianca has no transport by which she can ferry essentials needed for this trade and (c) even if she did, Bianca doesn't drive.

I despair of these writers. Still, there we have plucky Bianca, and we should all be on her side.

I'm not. She's just one of a trio of iconic female characters who's been fucked up - as much by the writers as by the various producers accommodating Palmer's laissez-faire attitude towards her role. It's clearly there as a cash cow, which she could take or leave. With that in mind, I wouldn't be averse to TPTB finding some balls and terminating the character of Bianca. She and her kids can bugger off and bother Ricky. I haven't missed that Tiff the Mouth isn't about - but then, neither is Damien Den, and I'll bet Lorraine Newman is planning a veritable cutefest for Christmas featuring Tiffany and Denny in order to see who can out-cute the other one. Please. Throw in Simon from Corrie visiting, and you'll have a triumvirate of devil's spawn.

I say I was surprised by Whitney tonight, and I was. Whitney works well with Bianca and also with Janine - older women who mentor her and support her psychologically and emotionally. She doesn't work with Tyler (less seen, soonest mended) or with the awful girlfriends who share boyfriends but don't seem to share STD's. More of this Whitney, please.

Katshit Is Not Sweet Charity but Derek Is Probably a Big Spender

Do these ladies remind you of anyone on EastEnders?

I mean, without the talent of these professionals.

OK, let's state the bleeding obvious: did anyone notice tonight how much like a whore Kat looked? The leather gear, the tits hanging out, the garish, overly-made-up and hard face? More secrets and lies. They abound in EastEnders these days.

The only "sweet" thing about this sordid Shaggerman tale is, in my opinion, Alfie now doesn't trust Kat one inch. You caught the look of mistrust fleet across Alfie's face when Kat started whingeing about Alfie's German market plans. Alfie may act stupid, but I don't think he's half as stupid as some people think he is. Certainly, he's more intelligent than Kat gives him credit for.

I think he's spent the past few weeks, since her half-hearted and only half-truthful confession, "playing possum" (as we say in the South), going through the motions, trying to humour her, yet trying to convince himself that he still loves her. No one can still love a partner who is regularly unfaithful.

Kat is just a cold-hearted bitch, an abuse victim who's happily become an abuser. She uses sex as a retreat when she feels she's being unwittingly ignored by Alfie or when he does something of which she doesn't approve. She fully intended to do the deed when she swanned off from the Vic tonight to go back to the same bedbug-ridden doss house she fucked around in before, except this time, she got a case of cowardice.

This is no love story. If it is, it's not something in which the viewer has been allowed to invest any emotion. We know the Shaggerman is a Branning, and the constant camera play on the laughing Brannings tonight, with the red herring being the red hairless one, was pukeworthily amateur. Who are these writers entertaining? Retards? Seriously.

First, the Brannings forgetting all their current kerfuffles to encourage Alfie to go to Cologne and buy marketware, then - with Tyler in attendance - making light of his efforts by making totally ignorant, jingoistic remarks about Germans, in general. Kat was even worse, undermining Alfie by goading him that everyone was laughing at him, then backtracking to say this was all about money they didn't have.

Shaggerman is so obviously Derek, and because we haven't been allowed to see this affair develop, the viewers can only see it as a sexfest, because Alfie has given Kat no need to be unfaithful, and he isn't buying the dirty girl shit she's dishing up again. She wants her cake and wants to eat it too. She wants Derek's dick, but she also wants the safety of Alfie the Dependable Bloke and the status of being the landlady of the Vic.

I hope karma bites her ass soon, but what dismays me is the fact that Newman as good as intimated that the entire 2013 is going to be kabuki theatre of, first, Alfie with Roxy, then Kat miserable, then Alfie and Kat dancing around each other before an eventual reunion next Christmas. It would have been nice if Newman could have put her "creative ego" on hold and put an end to someone who has become a most unpopular character: Kat.

The scenes with the Moons were the most painful to watch - not only because of the surreal aspect of, out of the blue and within minutes of suggesting a trip to Cologne, "someone" sends a recorded delivery letter with money and a ferry ticket for Alfie, but also because we know how badly Alfie is going to be hurt by this.

Surprisingly, those scenes gave us a genuinely and unintentionally funny and very brief scene of humour. When Derek Branning enters the pub, Jean's dancing around with hors-d'oeurves and asks Derek if he'd like one. When she approaches him, he jumps back and shakes his head with a weird look on his face, saying, "No, thank you." That was a natural reaction from Jamie Foreman.

Fatboy and Tamwar ... just go. Along with many others.

Phjl and Shirley Are Not Rocket Science

That is to say, they don't or didn't enjoy a complex relationship. I know Moaning Lisa has a favourite meme of Phirley being "complex" or "complicated," but those are words she uses not only to inexplicably justify Phil and Shirley, but also to make her sound like a big thinker, when - in reality - she's much more a small, annoying troll.

In point of fact, Phil and Shirley couldn't be more of a couple of convenience if they tried.

Yes, Phil always thought of Shirley as a mate. She was a person with "lady bits" who dressed and acted as tough as a man. She wasn't remotely attractive. She wasn't maternal. She wasn't feminine. 

If Moaning Lisa would care to remember, Kevin Wicks was the love of Shirley's life. Who can forget Shirley drunkenly wailing after Kevin's death that she "loved him first and loved him the best?"

When Phil coupled with Shirley, he was doing so, ironically, for Ben's sake. After the Stella fiasco, he was putting Ben's interests first; and when Ben bonded early with Shirley, this intrigued Phil, on whom Shirl had a massive crush at the time. Be that as it may, Phil had to get drunk first before he could even sleep with Shirley. Shirley realised this, and determined that if that were the only way Phil would sleep with her, she'd keep him drunk and drink with him.

So from Phil's end, Shirley provided him with someone whom his son liked, who would care for him, as well as a friends with benefits in the sex department for Phil.

But what about Shirley?

Yes, she loved Phil, but not only for any notion of romantic love. Phil was a well-known, affluent and powerful man in the local community. People feared him. He owned the pub where they drank, the garage where their cars were mended, the club where they played and the cafe where they ate. His position in the community was conferred onto Shirley by sexual injection. All of a sudden, via Phil, Shirley was someone who mattered. She was respected (she thought), she was feared (she believed). She had the right to demand service of people simply by reminding them who she was. She was, in her own mind, "she who must be obeyed."

All it took to legitimise this was a marriage offer from Phil, which would come with the ensuing promise of fidelity, and Phil couldn't offer that. On the day he was to marry Shirley, he couldn't ever promise her fidelity after having been caught in the act ith Glenda because (his words) that's the way he was.

Marriage to Phil, or at the very least, Phil's heartfelt declaration of love for Shirley would not only have validated her self-esteem, it would have established her position within the Walford hierarchy.

So Phil neither respected Shirley nor really loved her. She was a convenience. Sex on tap. The mother figure for his son. Oh, he was grateful to her, and he was fond of her; but he didn't love her. In choosing to hide Ben's crime of killing Heather from the authorities and from Shirley, he betrayed her in a far worse way than he ever did when he was unfaithful romantically. The worst thing Phil feared was Shirley finding out that Ben had killed Heather - even worse, that he was part and parcel to the deception, himself. With one fell swoop, Shirley could put Ben away for years - and Phil as well.

In the end, she was the instrument of Ben's incarceration, but not of her own volition. She had to be shamed into revealing her knowledge by the police, and her confession was only half-assed. She cleverly neglected to admit to the authorities Phil's part in the cover-up. Instead, she sought to guilt-trip and blackmail him into remaining connected to her in a perverse way, because, I guess, she thought that having Phil on those terms was better than not having him at all - just the  way she thought that if having Phil drunk were the only way to have him, she'd settle for that. But this way, Shirley would have the upper hand, and Shirley would have the power in that relationship.

By assuming that, Shirley's proven that she really doesn't know Phil at all. So much for love.

So Shirley's back next week, and it would seem that all her pent-up revenge which she expressed for Heather is for nought; because all she's intent on doing now is denying Phil any association he might have or hope to have with Sharon.

Because the bedrock of Shirley's insecurity, whilst with Phil, is knowing that the only woman Phil ever truly loved and loves is Sharon - and she's returned.

For Phil, Shirley was a convenience that was easily discarded when her purpose had been served; for Shirley, Phil was a means to an end and justification that she should be respected.

No love there, and certainly no complex psycho-emotional attachment. 

Move on.

STFU: Cora Is NOT Better Than Pat

That's my message to someone called EEfansince1990, who's just become Digital Spy's Asshole-in-Chief with these remarks about Cora:-

I love her when she kicks off she's such a Good actress but when she's just having a normal conversation she sorta makes me cringe it's like she forgets shes acting 
I do like her tho she's like the new pat

 Like the new pat but better lol

LOL? LOL? EEfansince1990? I don't think so.

Anyone who's watched the show since 1990 would be the last person to consider Cora better   than Pat. 

The simple truth is that Cora isn't better than Pat ... LOL. She isn't even Pat. 

Now go stuff your LOL up your backside. In fact, I'll let the commentator bass55 hand EEfansince1990 his or her asshole on a platter:-

I really don't have any strong opinion on Cora either way; but I do dislike the way she has been hailed as the new 'matriarch' or 'wise woman' of the Square when she is anything but. Cora is an ok character, but to compare her to Pat, Pauline or Peggy is just ludicrous, and anyone who does clearly has no understanding of what the show is about (or, at least, what it used to be about). And when Tanya leaves next year, Cora will become totally redundant.

This person has it spot on. Cora is neither a matriarch nor a wise woman. Whilst I would say that Peggy and Pauline were matriarchs as applied to their own immediate and extended families in general (the Fowlers and the Beales, the Mitchells and their various wives), Pat was the Walford resident wise woman. 

She wasn't always that. In fact, when Pat arrived on the Square, she was a blowsy blonde in her mid-forties, returning to Walford to confront an ex-husband on whom she'd cheated with his brother. Remind you of anyone on the show at the moment?

Pat was also an abysmal mother, who bonded and successfully mentored both the son of her third husband and the son of her first husband's subsequent marriage. In time and over the years, she became the person to whom everyone from Phil Mitchell to Mandy Salter turned for guidance and wisdom. Pat never gave bad advice. And just as Pauline and Peggy fought ferociously for their own, Pat fought for her own and the rest, standing up to the likes of Jonnie Allen, Den Watts and, on occasion, the Mitchells, themselves.

Apart from Tanya and her children, Cora doesn't have much of a family connection. The girls, especially Abi, are actually closer to Dot as a grandmother, and Cora made her deep seminal feelings toward Tanya abundantly clear on Monday evening. Besides, what kind of matriarch gets rat-arsed drunk whilst babysitting her grandson or plies her underaged grandaughter with booze for a laugh? What kind of "matriarch" tells a belligerant single mum charged with GBH, whose baby has been taken from her by Social Services to charge into the local Social Services office, bang on the door and demand the return of her child?

As for Cora becoming irrelevant after Tanya's departure, yes, we're all aware of the existence of Ava, and we're even more aware of the fact that she's a plot device for this purpose. I'll let bass55 elaborate:-

clearly the original plan was to introduce Ava for just a handful of episodes. I'm sure I read somewhere that she was originally signed for 5 episodes, in the same way the Zoe Lucker was. Ava has not mentioned anything about a son (Tanya asked her outright if she had children of her own, and she said nothing), which shows that the writers did not have a long-term plan for the character. It was only after they saw her on-screen that they decided to invent a backstory for her.

Actually, bass55 is totally correct. Lorraine Newman, herself, said that originally the character Ava was only written for a five-episode storyline concerning Cora. However, during the "workshop" held in order to cast Ava, Newman liked Clare Perkins so much that, there and then, she hired her and declared that Ava would be a permanent character. So after casting and filming, the relevant backstory was created to fit the character, which was exactly why the character, when asked by Tanya if she had any children, replied ambiguously - because TPTB hadn't thought out how many kids with whom they were going to lumber her.

I would say that perhaps the original intention was to introduce Ava for five episodes, see how she gelled with the audience, and then, perhaps, have her return in a few months, if she proved popular, with her own storyline. Instead, Newman's story of her "instant hiring" totally exposes her assertion in the same interview that she and the writing staff plan storylines and characters from 12 to 18 months in advance as an outright lie.

But that's EastEnders and its shallow pandering to the shallow end of the gene pool of viewers these days.

Anyone thinking that Cora is better than Pat in any way is just a confirmed dumbass. Move on.

Rah-Rah-Siss-Boom-Bah Blue Angel EE's Chief Bitch

Tell me, do you get the impression that you're being coerced, passively-aggressively manipulated into just loving EastEnders?

The shippers are one thing. We can live with a xTonix who'd be happy to love EastEnders if the BBC test card were tarted up with its logo and masqueraded as such, but when sinister forces come into play, it's time to take umbrage.

This happy soul, who likes to make us think she's wittering on with a wit that would rival Dorothy Parker's, is really a public relations bod, sent amongst us to spy. In other words, a plant. 

B's back! It's so nice to see Patsy Palmer return. Bianca isn't always my favourite character in the show (they can sometimes miss-pitch her), but I think she's a legendary character and Patsy has given some great performances as her over the years. Poor Bianca does seem quiet doesn't she? She's always so vivacious usually. I like that they had B apply herself while in prison and gain some experience and qualifications. I really hope it works out for her. Although the fact that she can't get a job on the market or Bridge Street does limit her prospects. If only there were some sort of transport the public could use to leave Albert Square for work...some sort of multi story automobile or underground train service for instance. I know it wasn't all that popular with some people, but I loved the story with her having money troubles before she went back to prison. Yes, it had it's fault, but the essence of the story was great. I know lots of people at the moment who are in financial crisis, then get a job and back on their feet, then made redundant again etc, so it's a particularly important issue to continue with, even if it is in a bit of an over the top EE style. Especially brilliant to have Carol back properly too. There seems to be a story on the horizon for every Branning member, except her though. I really hope they give her a great story soon, as Lindsey is absolutely stellar and deserves it. "I can't live without him" - Lauren...dude...you've been together for a week. Joey dumped you rather than flat share with Derek. This storyline doesn't exactly fall into the 'slow burner' pile. Love means never having to say you're sorry...or having to live with your manipulative father. . Perhaps she may feel slightly different about him once she realises he's been Ben-Styley watching her sleep. Joey's so love sick that he couldn't even eat his iced bun. What a waste. Not to worry though, plenty more finsh in the sea and plenty more cousins to make his way through. I think B has put herself at the front of the line. Even though the Joey/Lauren story doesn't exactly keep me gripped, it's not bad. I'm actually loving the Derek and Tanya tension that's coming from it. That's the best part and great performances from Jo and Jamie there. 'Put the Kettle on Max' is fast becoming the new 'Get the door, Abi'. Not only do I feel like I've missed the episodes where Lauren and Joey became love's young incestuous dream, I've also seemed to have blocked out part of Fat Boy's story. At what point exactly did he move on from Denise to Poppy? I don't care how fit they were, how rich, how smart or how kind...if someone sent me a watch with a time based romantic pun I would never see them again. Take heed, Kat. Today it's a time pun, tomorrow a full barbershop quartet, and they are a lot tougher to shove into a pedal bin. It felt like a bit of a quiet episode after Monday's, but it was nice to see Carol and Bianca back. I also enjoyed the scenes with Tanya and Derek and I think they have a nice dynamic together. I can't say all the stories in this episode were especially cohesive with one another, but there wasn't anyone or anything that especially bored me or got on my nerves. I give this episode a C-.

Make no mistake, the slight criticism is there to confound us, but it's all push, push, push the meme of EastEnders, especially as Christmas approaches and the ratings' wars hot up.

If you've missed blue angel, don't worry. She only appears when there's a message to plug. She slithered around the parameters of Digital Spy before back in the mid-summer, when word of Shaggerman surfaced and Kat was due to return from her suspension break. Talk was pejorative (rightly so) because of Wallace's return, the Shaggerman storyline and the character's general unpopularity.

Up pops blue angel, scattering smidgeons of fairy dust over everyone and trying to promote jittery-gittery excitement about a storyline that was anything but. Now, with the audience faced with watching a Christmas Branningapalooza featuring characters about whom no one really gives a rat's ass and with Derek about to be exposed as the source of bedbugs in the Vic (i.e., he who fucked Kat), up pops EastEnders' own PR Tinkerbell to promote the storylines and the show, in general, surreptitiously.

Ironic that blue angel should try to emulate the classy Marlene Dietrich, whose name in the film was Lola-Lola, in promoting EastEnders' Lola, who is neither blue nor an angel.

Instead, she comes across as a bullying, hectoring cheerleader.

Love, if you're going to do the job, take some cheesy lessons ...

That's about her speed.