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.