The Masoods' party aside, which is New Year's Eve, it's nice to see a bit of continuity on the part of EastEnders.- meaning that they've ended the year the way they started the damned thing: mediocrity abounds. Simon and Garfunkel wrote a song about that. EastEnders: Homeward Bound ...
Start as you mean to finish, they say, and boy, did they ever!
We had a few episodes of decent quality, better writing and adequate acting, and then a return - and with the end of the week, hour-long episode - to that oh-so-familiar shade of mediocrity.
Another filler. Not just one filler, but two, cobbled together to make an hour-long episode, which was nothing special in the least.
We did, however, get to see the Mitchells, briefly, with their storyline relegated to the Second Division of importance in the face of the almighty Brannings, who get more unlikeable with every episode.
OK, question time ... who likes the Brannings? Hands up? I mean, apart from Max and Carol, what and who's there to like? Tanya? Yummy mummy arch hypocrite of the Square? Lauren the LipGirl - lazy, entitled, spoiled, shallow, self-obsessed and totally unlikeable? Joey, the master of inarticulace, full of mouth-breathing charm? Gormless Alice and her wee-wee? Bianca and her mouthy urchins? Jack the Peg with his famous impregnating third leg?
Seriously.
They are the epitome of jumped-up white trash, who hide their guttersnipe upbringing behind fancy suits and middle-class Middle England twinsets and hope they aren't involved in an accident because their dirty knickers will be shown.
As I said, this was mostly filler stuff and uninteresting, but it did have its moments, which are:-
Team Kirsty. That's me all the way. The more I see of Kierston Wareing's character, the more I like her - and it didn't take her long to snare that job behind the bar at the Vic. Apart from strongly resembling Roxy, from a distance, she looks as though she belongs there.
I am looking forward to her systematically tearing Tanya's perfect little hypocritical faux middle class world apart. Because - make no mistake - Kirsty is the victim here. Not Tanya. And everything Kirsty told Tanya tonight rang true, which is why Tanya turned heels and got Max the hell out of Walford for - where?- Spain. Jog your memories any? Let me explain.
Tanya can divorce Max and marry Greg, after living with Greg for the better part of a year. OK, she's entitled to do that. But she then started cheating on Greg with Max, which imploded the moral high ground she held over him. Max, remember, is single at this time.
When she found out she had cancer, she kept it a big secret from everyone, but mainly from Max and the girls. However, she allowed her affair with Max to be found out. Greg kicked her out, and she implied to the girls that Max seduced her, that he coerced her into the affair, which prompted Tanya, backed by bigshot Lauren the LipGirl, to order Max away from Walford. Into exile.
So Max is a single man, alone in the world. He meets Kirsty and falls in love. Is this a rebound romance? You bet, but sometimes, these things work, and it's obvious that Max and Kirsty haven't based their relationship on sex and secrets - well, not entirely. They have, at least, talked.
Max was called back to Walford in November 2011, having been gone since August. He must have been married to Kirsty long enough for her to be pregnant, but once he'd sussed Tanya's illness, he called Kirsty to tell her the marriage was over. She doesn't see or hear from him in over a year, only to receive a wodge of money and divorce papers for her to sign pushed through the door of her house.
Max abandoned Kirsty. And as long as he didn't have to see her, come in contact with her et al, he was fine with Tanya. Never forget what moral cowards the Brannings are.
Everything Kirsty levelled at Tanya tonight was true. Doubly true. Tanya is the other woman. Again. Kirsty could never be that, because Tanya had effectively written Max off when she exiled him from Walford. He was a free agent and could do as he pleased. Does some of the blame lie with Max for not telling Tanya about his situation? Yes, but then, as Max stated, when he first returned home, Tanya was so ill and refusing treatment, that was not the time to tell her of his marriage. Max's mistake was entrusting Derek to sort out the divorce arrangements.
But Tanya is the other woman. Yet again. But she is so obtuse and has her head up her arse so damned far that she still cannot see that she was ever the other woman when it came to splitting Max and Rachel up. She was too arrogant to see the karma in Stacey doing to her what she did to Rachel, and now, she hates having it pointed out to her by Kirsty, that it's actually Tanya trying to snake another woman's husband.
I love it when home truths are told to Tanya. It's one of the few things I like about Cora the Bora - how Tanya gets on her high horse and runs home wittering about what was said. Kirsty is not Stacey. She's got fifteen years and a world of experience on Stacey, and I'll bet she knows more about Max Branning in the couple of months she spent with him than Tanya knows in 18 years.
She knows because she spooked Tanya. Tanya knows that Max is in a quandry about Kirsty. He was in a quandry about Bradley when Tanya forced him to break with Rachel and marry her. Max had to leave the area and not see his son at all in order to live with himself and Tanya. Now Kirsty's put herself back into the picture, now that she's stood before Max and told him about the child she aborted, Max is having a major guilt trip, which is why he's conflicted whenever he has to speak alone to Kirsty or why he chooses to see her in the company of his siblings.
The ironic thing about all of the Tanya-Max-Kirsty situation is that when Kirsty wouldn't rise to Tanya's threats to run her out of town - and who the hell does Tanya think she is? - when Kirsty told her she was going nowhere, what does Tanya do? The same thing Max did when Stacey gave him 30 minutes to tell Tanya they were through with a couple and live with Stacey - Max scarpered to Spain. And that's what Tanya does - packs a bag and - hey presto - she's on good terms with Max again. Get him out of Walford and away from the bimbo, and maybe when she returns, Kirsty will be gone.
As if. The moment she said she had bar experience, I knew she'd land a job at the Vic, the very place - aside from their front room - that Max and Tanya frequent the most.
Kirsty is going no place, but Tanya is. Good riddance to white trash rubbish. And I hope she takes her skanky daughter Lauren with her.
Once again tonight, after being royally put in her place by the inarticulate mouth-breather known as Joey, Lauren's still trying to ring him, but he isn't answering. What is it she didn't understand about Joey's father having just died when she tried to assure him that after two weeks, they could just be fucking away as normal? OK, maybe she didn't understand a word he said, but the fact that he stormed off and left her sitting on the pavement, the fact that he's not taking any of her annoying phone calls today must tell her something. Probably not, as her head is stuck even further up her arse than her mother's is.
You know that somehow she believes, yet again, that this is Max's fault. Can someone please sit her down and tell her the tale of her mother's pedigree? She needs to know that Tanya is a moral vacuum as much as she is. Along with her alcoholic gene, this is where she gets her shallowness from.
Team Roxy. I understand perfectly what Mo and Jean said to Roxy yesterday and that it was not said in a mean way. Alfie is their family, and he's still raw from Kat's betrayal. They were warning her about his vulnerability, for her own sake as well as his own. Poor Roxy's confused now too. She desperately loves Alfie, and Alfie knows this. She's worried about being the rebound love affair and is also worried from what Michael said tonight - about people considering Alfie and Kat to be the Vic.
What is he saying yet again? Maybe I'm obtuse, but I got confused by the signals he was sending out last week to Alfie, about how he had to just accept Kat for what she was, literally let her shag it about, because she still loved him, that's the way she was and he'd miss her if she weren't in his life. WTF? I'd like to see him accept a wife like that. And there he was tonight, literally implying that Roxy didn't belong behind the bar and Alfie and Kat were the fixtures there.
Sorry, Michael, with your own warped sense of morality - and were I Alfie, the relative who shagged and impregnated my wife would be the last person to whose word I would give any credence - but Kat lost her moral high ground when she slept with and got pregnant by you. She lost it further when she had the knee-shaker in the alleyway with the creepy deliveryman and she sank into the shit and mire when she spread her legs for Derek in the Vic's kitchen, during working hours, when she met up in the alleyway again and once again in the cellar, whilst her husband and child were upstairs. Don't even mention the bedbug bedsit and all that entailed.
Grant chucked his cheating wife out of the Vic, and she was no less than Den Watts's Princess. The pub survived. Peggy chucked her husband, Frank Butcher out for sleeping with her best friend, Pat Evans. The pub survived. The Vic will be that much better for not having a jumped-up piece of mutton dressed as lamb, looking like a classic prostitute and spray-tanned within an inch of her life, hiking down her bra and hiking up her skirts behind the bar.
Actually, Michael Moon would be better off tending to his own affairs and looking after his daughter - or finding his wife.
That said, I'm wondering if Michael is involved in fencing Liam - who speaks like a public schoolboy - out selling Derek's dodgy knock-off gear? The look on his face when Bianca was talking to Jack at the fight club - and really, what 36 year-old woman calls her 40 year-old uncle, "UNCLE" Jack?
Patrick the Patriarch. Forget about this matriarch hoo-hah. Cora the Bora is a drunk, a bully and more white trash. Patrick is the sort of loving and understanding father figure the Square needs. He was brilliant with Jay tonight - slipping the lad a free breakfast and twenty quid with which to treat Abi. Then providing counsel for Denise. He's providing the same function to all and sundry that Pat previously provided, and I'd be more than happy to see a patriarch on the Square for the foreseeable future than some battle-axe drunk.
The Brannings As Cowardly Lions.
I'd say that was Jack the Peg upping the ante in that song. The Brannings are moral cowards. Max and Derek were intrinsically old-fashioned. Max genuninely believed that when a bloke got a woman up the duff, he married her. Rachel was pregnant when he married her, and he dumped her to marry a pregnant Tanya. When Max emotionally connects with a woman, he finds it difficult to break the connection.
That doesn't mean he's emotionally connected to Tanya, except for the fact that they have three children together. Max got burned when he left Rachel. She refused him access to Bradley, and Tanya is no better than to do the same thing. Max is with Tanya for stability and for the children's sake. Tanya knows his pedigree as well, and knows that, eventually, he'll stray again - whether she realises or not that she no longer holds the moral high ground or the stick with which to beat him is debatable.
Derek lived for respect and believed that respect didn't have to be earned, it became incumbent with age and family position. When it became obvious that Derek wasn't receiving the respect he felt was due him, that's when he began to crumble psychologically. Respect, also for Derek, had an awful lot to do with control.
Jack is just one moral vaccum, dropping kids all over the Continent and telling himself he's a good dad because the cheque is in the post once a month. He's content playing Daddy to Sharon's fey son, when he hasn't seen Richard - whose mother is Sharon's ex-sister-in-law since he was born.Jack is the biggest slut in Walford, and Sharon should be tested for chlamydia.
But there they all were, sauntering into the Vic this evening and picking a fight with gormless Ajay because of an innocuous remark he made about Derek. And the eyeballing they gave Alfie. What the hell did they expect - a soliloquy of respect about Derek's death? This was the man who broke up Alfie Moon's marriage, FFS?
And what did Aaa-aaass say about Joey? He'd "left Walford to visit a friend?" Another act of cowardice. I found it unusual that Alice was remaining in the Slater house, sleeping on the couch and wailing about a father whom, this time last year, she didn't know, whilst Kat, presumably, was ensconced with Tommy someplace upstairs. Where's St Kat the Compassionate, who might try to comfort the girl? She has lost her father. And Alice is whining about not having a home ... she has a living mother, who was always begging her to come home after becoming so enamoured of Daddy Dearest, who didn't even know she existed.
Aaa-aaasss has a place with her mother. She should just go there.
Bianca is Still Poor and the Writing for Her Family Is Embarrassing.
Bianca's Theme:-
In the true spirit of an English Christmas, EastEnders gives their own version of Charles Dickens characters - the Butcher-Jackson tribe, with newly added member, Tyler Moon. The Butchers are left instructions by Granny Jackson to have a fun day, but the problem is that they have no money. They decide to fix a slap-up lunch of ribs and chips for Carol as a surprise and to bake a cake. But they have no food and no money with which to buy food.
If they have no food, why is Morgan so fat?
So Bianca sends her urchins outto pick a pocket or two to be industrious, to sing for money or foodstuffs and to sell Derek's Christmas knock-off gear on Tyler's redundant stall.
This is straight from Oliver Twist:
This was the closest thing to begging I've ever seen on EastEnders, and the kids weren't even cute. Please stop promoting Tiffany. She's rude, gobby and annoying. And she's past the cute tyke stage and is turning into - sorry to say it - a very plain pre-adolescent. Liam sounds as though he's been educated in a public school. And the storyline about him selling Derek's dodgy gear is Rodney Trotter Meets Fagin. You knew the Butchers would epically fail in their cooking attempts and revert to Liam's staff discount at McKlunkey's, where he's working illegally. If Patsy Palmer's still on her "working mum's" contract, then their next excuse for her six-month hiatus will be Liam being carted off to YOP for fencing stolen goods or working illegally.
Palmer is phoning in her role at the moment, just the way she was when she was there this time last year. It's patently obvious that the actress isn't interested in investing any effort into her role. It's just something the salary of which pays her au pairs, her kids' school fees and finances her luxurious holidays. All on our tick, by the way.
The Butchers are poor. Poor they are and poor they'll remain. I miss Ricky's presence. He doesn't even get a mention nor does he get to spend a holiday with his children. I'd like to see this lot go.
Poor Pitiful Lola and the Mitchell Heir. And Shirley. Lola is learning. Like what a christening entails and what godparents are. Good that she's learning young. I recall when a fortysomething Heather was arranging George's christening, she thought it was a big party where you could play George Michael music.
Lola at least understands that a christening has something to do with the church - what, she doesn't know, but she learns about godparents from Abi, who's angling for the opportunity to be a godmother. She's angling even more when Lola appoints Jay Lexie's godfather - Abi is gagging to be standing at the altar by Jay's side, but no ... Lola appoints Cora the Bora, with a classic line levelled in the direction of the Brannings "even though your family isn't setting a great example at the present time." (Proof, if nothing else that Cora the Bora is part and parcel of the Mitchell dynamic).
Lola is also learning about habeas corpus and Phil. That's a Latin legal term which means, literally "we have the body" or possession is 9/10ths of the law. Phil's got Lexie, and Lola will do as he says, so he's arranged for Grant and Peggy to be godparents. As if. (And just wait until you hear the retconned reason for Peggy not showing up.)
Anyway, Sharon's on Phil duty today. We know that because she's acting normal and isn't doing that awful impression of a Miss Piggy-Marilyn Monroe lovechild she does around Jack the Peg. She negotiates three hours unsupervised for Lola to have Lexie, when Lola is offered an afternoon's work at the salon for real money. And therein she show's how irresponsible she is. Three hours come and go and Phil cannot get in contact with her. She won't answer the phone. She walzes into the salon, followed by Shirley, who helps herself to various hand cremes and even watches Lola smear some cream on the baby's forehead and cheek. When Phil spots that, he goes ballistic.
Listen, adult body creams and lotions are not made for children. They have chemical combinations and fragrances that are too harsh for the skin of infants and small children. If you've any doubt about this, remember the episode where Dawn put fake tan on Summer, and Lola was warned about this when she put red paint on Lexie's foot. So Phil was right about his concern.
I still find it difficult to sympathise with poor, pitiful Lola. I'm Team Phil in putting her in her place, and the way she calls Billy "pops" is nothing but annoying.
The Masoods' Sitcom. Unfunny. They are so unfunny when Zainab goes into Goodness Gracious Me mode, and the longer Ajay hangs around, the more I find him an irritating male version of Roxy circa 2007 or 2008, without the charm. Everything about the family today was contrived - from Ajay's return to frighten Ayesha, from the snickering and bickering between him and Zainab, to the awful scene at the garage and back to the plan to hook up Ayesha (way-hey-mon) to miserable Tamwar. I'm glad Ajay was perspicacious enough to remember that Tamwar was still married, and I'm surprised that Zainab's Muslim morals are now lax enough to consider that a mere hindrance and also to consider herself Masood's wife ... which she isn't.
Another thing that is becoming more obvious and that is that the remaining Masoods are toast without Zainab. I don't know if this Ayesha is staying - I see her as short-term, considering what's going to happen - but I can't see Ajay or Tamwar lasting. Or Masood for that matter, but I thinkTPTB plan on linking him later in the year with the mystery known as Ava.
Filler episode in a week where nothing should be made to fill up space and time. If this is still what we have to look forward to in 2013, then this show is in serious trouble.
Start as you mean to finish, they say, and boy, did they ever!
We had a few episodes of decent quality, better writing and adequate acting, and then a return - and with the end of the week, hour-long episode - to that oh-so-familiar shade of mediocrity.
Another filler. Not just one filler, but two, cobbled together to make an hour-long episode, which was nothing special in the least.
We did, however, get to see the Mitchells, briefly, with their storyline relegated to the Second Division of importance in the face of the almighty Brannings, who get more unlikeable with every episode.
OK, question time ... who likes the Brannings? Hands up? I mean, apart from Max and Carol, what and who's there to like? Tanya? Yummy mummy arch hypocrite of the Square? Lauren the LipGirl - lazy, entitled, spoiled, shallow, self-obsessed and totally unlikeable? Joey, the master of inarticulace, full of mouth-breathing charm? Gormless Alice and her wee-wee? Bianca and her mouthy urchins? Jack the Peg with his famous impregnating third leg?
Seriously.
They are the epitome of jumped-up white trash, who hide their guttersnipe upbringing behind fancy suits and middle-class Middle England twinsets and hope they aren't involved in an accident because their dirty knickers will be shown.
As I said, this was mostly filler stuff and uninteresting, but it did have its moments, which are:-
Team Kirsty. That's me all the way. The more I see of Kierston Wareing's character, the more I like her - and it didn't take her long to snare that job behind the bar at the Vic. Apart from strongly resembling Roxy, from a distance, she looks as though she belongs there.
I am looking forward to her systematically tearing Tanya's perfect little hypocritical faux middle class world apart. Because - make no mistake - Kirsty is the victim here. Not Tanya. And everything Kirsty told Tanya tonight rang true, which is why Tanya turned heels and got Max the hell out of Walford for - where?- Spain. Jog your memories any? Let me explain.
Tanya can divorce Max and marry Greg, after living with Greg for the better part of a year. OK, she's entitled to do that. But she then started cheating on Greg with Max, which imploded the moral high ground she held over him. Max, remember, is single at this time.
When she found out she had cancer, she kept it a big secret from everyone, but mainly from Max and the girls. However, she allowed her affair with Max to be found out. Greg kicked her out, and she implied to the girls that Max seduced her, that he coerced her into the affair, which prompted Tanya, backed by bigshot Lauren the LipGirl, to order Max away from Walford. Into exile.
So Max is a single man, alone in the world. He meets Kirsty and falls in love. Is this a rebound romance? You bet, but sometimes, these things work, and it's obvious that Max and Kirsty haven't based their relationship on sex and secrets - well, not entirely. They have, at least, talked.
Max was called back to Walford in November 2011, having been gone since August. He must have been married to Kirsty long enough for her to be pregnant, but once he'd sussed Tanya's illness, he called Kirsty to tell her the marriage was over. She doesn't see or hear from him in over a year, only to receive a wodge of money and divorce papers for her to sign pushed through the door of her house.
Max abandoned Kirsty. And as long as he didn't have to see her, come in contact with her et al, he was fine with Tanya. Never forget what moral cowards the Brannings are.
Everything Kirsty levelled at Tanya tonight was true. Doubly true. Tanya is the other woman. Again. Kirsty could never be that, because Tanya had effectively written Max off when she exiled him from Walford. He was a free agent and could do as he pleased. Does some of the blame lie with Max for not telling Tanya about his situation? Yes, but then, as Max stated, when he first returned home, Tanya was so ill and refusing treatment, that was not the time to tell her of his marriage. Max's mistake was entrusting Derek to sort out the divorce arrangements.
But Tanya is the other woman. Yet again. But she is so obtuse and has her head up her arse so damned far that she still cannot see that she was ever the other woman when it came to splitting Max and Rachel up. She was too arrogant to see the karma in Stacey doing to her what she did to Rachel, and now, she hates having it pointed out to her by Kirsty, that it's actually Tanya trying to snake another woman's husband.
I love it when home truths are told to Tanya. It's one of the few things I like about Cora the Bora - how Tanya gets on her high horse and runs home wittering about what was said. Kirsty is not Stacey. She's got fifteen years and a world of experience on Stacey, and I'll bet she knows more about Max Branning in the couple of months she spent with him than Tanya knows in 18 years.
She knows because she spooked Tanya. Tanya knows that Max is in a quandry about Kirsty. He was in a quandry about Bradley when Tanya forced him to break with Rachel and marry her. Max had to leave the area and not see his son at all in order to live with himself and Tanya. Now Kirsty's put herself back into the picture, now that she's stood before Max and told him about the child she aborted, Max is having a major guilt trip, which is why he's conflicted whenever he has to speak alone to Kirsty or why he chooses to see her in the company of his siblings.
The ironic thing about all of the Tanya-Max-Kirsty situation is that when Kirsty wouldn't rise to Tanya's threats to run her out of town - and who the hell does Tanya think she is? - when Kirsty told her she was going nowhere, what does Tanya do? The same thing Max did when Stacey gave him 30 minutes to tell Tanya they were through with a couple and live with Stacey - Max scarpered to Spain. And that's what Tanya does - packs a bag and - hey presto - she's on good terms with Max again. Get him out of Walford and away from the bimbo, and maybe when she returns, Kirsty will be gone.
As if. The moment she said she had bar experience, I knew she'd land a job at the Vic, the very place - aside from their front room - that Max and Tanya frequent the most.
Kirsty is going no place, but Tanya is. Good riddance to white trash rubbish. And I hope she takes her skanky daughter Lauren with her.
Once again tonight, after being royally put in her place by the inarticulate mouth-breather known as Joey, Lauren's still trying to ring him, but he isn't answering. What is it she didn't understand about Joey's father having just died when she tried to assure him that after two weeks, they could just be fucking away as normal? OK, maybe she didn't understand a word he said, but the fact that he stormed off and left her sitting on the pavement, the fact that he's not taking any of her annoying phone calls today must tell her something. Probably not, as her head is stuck even further up her arse than her mother's is.
You know that somehow she believes, yet again, that this is Max's fault. Can someone please sit her down and tell her the tale of her mother's pedigree? She needs to know that Tanya is a moral vacuum as much as she is. Along with her alcoholic gene, this is where she gets her shallowness from.
Team Roxy. I understand perfectly what Mo and Jean said to Roxy yesterday and that it was not said in a mean way. Alfie is their family, and he's still raw from Kat's betrayal. They were warning her about his vulnerability, for her own sake as well as his own. Poor Roxy's confused now too. She desperately loves Alfie, and Alfie knows this. She's worried about being the rebound love affair and is also worried from what Michael said tonight - about people considering Alfie and Kat to be the Vic.
What is he saying yet again? Maybe I'm obtuse, but I got confused by the signals he was sending out last week to Alfie, about how he had to just accept Kat for what she was, literally let her shag it about, because she still loved him, that's the way she was and he'd miss her if she weren't in his life. WTF? I'd like to see him accept a wife like that. And there he was tonight, literally implying that Roxy didn't belong behind the bar and Alfie and Kat were the fixtures there.
Sorry, Michael, with your own warped sense of morality - and were I Alfie, the relative who shagged and impregnated my wife would be the last person to whose word I would give any credence - but Kat lost her moral high ground when she slept with and got pregnant by you. She lost it further when she had the knee-shaker in the alleyway with the creepy deliveryman and she sank into the shit and mire when she spread her legs for Derek in the Vic's kitchen, during working hours, when she met up in the alleyway again and once again in the cellar, whilst her husband and child were upstairs. Don't even mention the bedbug bedsit and all that entailed.
Grant chucked his cheating wife out of the Vic, and she was no less than Den Watts's Princess. The pub survived. Peggy chucked her husband, Frank Butcher out for sleeping with her best friend, Pat Evans. The pub survived. The Vic will be that much better for not having a jumped-up piece of mutton dressed as lamb, looking like a classic prostitute and spray-tanned within an inch of her life, hiking down her bra and hiking up her skirts behind the bar.
Actually, Michael Moon would be better off tending to his own affairs and looking after his daughter - or finding his wife.
That said, I'm wondering if Michael is involved in fencing Liam - who speaks like a public schoolboy - out selling Derek's dodgy knock-off gear? The look on his face when Bianca was talking to Jack at the fight club - and really, what 36 year-old woman calls her 40 year-old uncle, "UNCLE" Jack?
Patrick the Patriarch. Forget about this matriarch hoo-hah. Cora the Bora is a drunk, a bully and more white trash. Patrick is the sort of loving and understanding father figure the Square needs. He was brilliant with Jay tonight - slipping the lad a free breakfast and twenty quid with which to treat Abi. Then providing counsel for Denise. He's providing the same function to all and sundry that Pat previously provided, and I'd be more than happy to see a patriarch on the Square for the foreseeable future than some battle-axe drunk.
The Brannings As Cowardly Lions.
I'd say that was Jack the Peg upping the ante in that song. The Brannings are moral cowards. Max and Derek were intrinsically old-fashioned. Max genuninely believed that when a bloke got a woman up the duff, he married her. Rachel was pregnant when he married her, and he dumped her to marry a pregnant Tanya. When Max emotionally connects with a woman, he finds it difficult to break the connection.
That doesn't mean he's emotionally connected to Tanya, except for the fact that they have three children together. Max got burned when he left Rachel. She refused him access to Bradley, and Tanya is no better than to do the same thing. Max is with Tanya for stability and for the children's sake. Tanya knows his pedigree as well, and knows that, eventually, he'll stray again - whether she realises or not that she no longer holds the moral high ground or the stick with which to beat him is debatable.
Derek lived for respect and believed that respect didn't have to be earned, it became incumbent with age and family position. When it became obvious that Derek wasn't receiving the respect he felt was due him, that's when he began to crumble psychologically. Respect, also for Derek, had an awful lot to do with control.
Jack is just one moral vaccum, dropping kids all over the Continent and telling himself he's a good dad because the cheque is in the post once a month. He's content playing Daddy to Sharon's fey son, when he hasn't seen Richard - whose mother is Sharon's ex-sister-in-law since he was born.Jack is the biggest slut in Walford, and Sharon should be tested for chlamydia.
But there they all were, sauntering into the Vic this evening and picking a fight with gormless Ajay because of an innocuous remark he made about Derek. And the eyeballing they gave Alfie. What the hell did they expect - a soliloquy of respect about Derek's death? This was the man who broke up Alfie Moon's marriage, FFS?
And what did Aaa-aaass say about Joey? He'd "left Walford to visit a friend?" Another act of cowardice. I found it unusual that Alice was remaining in the Slater house, sleeping on the couch and wailing about a father whom, this time last year, she didn't know, whilst Kat, presumably, was ensconced with Tommy someplace upstairs. Where's St Kat the Compassionate, who might try to comfort the girl? She has lost her father. And Alice is whining about not having a home ... she has a living mother, who was always begging her to come home after becoming so enamoured of Daddy Dearest, who didn't even know she existed.
Aaa-aaasss has a place with her mother. She should just go there.
Bianca is Still Poor and the Writing for Her Family Is Embarrassing.
Bianca's Theme:-
In the true spirit of an English Christmas, EastEnders gives their own version of Charles Dickens characters - the Butcher-Jackson tribe, with newly added member, Tyler Moon. The Butchers are left instructions by Granny Jackson to have a fun day, but the problem is that they have no money. They decide to fix a slap-up lunch of ribs and chips for Carol as a surprise and to bake a cake. But they have no food and no money with which to buy food.
If they have no food, why is Morgan so fat?
So Bianca sends her urchins out
This is straight from Oliver Twist:
This was the closest thing to begging I've ever seen on EastEnders, and the kids weren't even cute. Please stop promoting Tiffany. She's rude, gobby and annoying. And she's past the cute tyke stage and is turning into - sorry to say it - a very plain pre-adolescent. Liam sounds as though he's been educated in a public school. And the storyline about him selling Derek's dodgy gear is Rodney Trotter Meets Fagin. You knew the Butchers would epically fail in their cooking attempts and revert to Liam's staff discount at McKlunkey's, where he's working illegally. If Patsy Palmer's still on her "working mum's" contract, then their next excuse for her six-month hiatus will be Liam being carted off to YOP for fencing stolen goods or working illegally.
Palmer is phoning in her role at the moment, just the way she was when she was there this time last year. It's patently obvious that the actress isn't interested in investing any effort into her role. It's just something the salary of which pays her au pairs, her kids' school fees and finances her luxurious holidays. All on our tick, by the way.
The Butchers are poor. Poor they are and poor they'll remain. I miss Ricky's presence. He doesn't even get a mention nor does he get to spend a holiday with his children. I'd like to see this lot go.
Poor Pitiful Lola and the Mitchell Heir. And Shirley. Lola is learning. Like what a christening entails and what godparents are. Good that she's learning young. I recall when a fortysomething Heather was arranging George's christening, she thought it was a big party where you could play George Michael music.
Lola at least understands that a christening has something to do with the church - what, she doesn't know, but she learns about godparents from Abi, who's angling for the opportunity to be a godmother. She's angling even more when Lola appoints Jay Lexie's godfather - Abi is gagging to be standing at the altar by Jay's side, but no ... Lola appoints Cora the Bora, with a classic line levelled in the direction of the Brannings "even though your family isn't setting a great example at the present time." (Proof, if nothing else that Cora the Bora is part and parcel of the Mitchell dynamic).
Lola is also learning about habeas corpus and Phil. That's a Latin legal term which means, literally "we have the body" or possession is 9/10ths of the law. Phil's got Lexie, and Lola will do as he says, so he's arranged for Grant and Peggy to be godparents. As if. (And just wait until you hear the retconned reason for Peggy not showing up.)
Anyway, Sharon's on Phil duty today. We know that because she's acting normal and isn't doing that awful impression of a Miss Piggy-Marilyn Monroe lovechild she does around Jack the Peg. She negotiates three hours unsupervised for Lola to have Lexie, when Lola is offered an afternoon's work at the salon for real money. And therein she show's how irresponsible she is. Three hours come and go and Phil cannot get in contact with her. She won't answer the phone. She walzes into the salon, followed by Shirley, who helps herself to various hand cremes and even watches Lola smear some cream on the baby's forehead and cheek. When Phil spots that, he goes ballistic.
Listen, adult body creams and lotions are not made for children. They have chemical combinations and fragrances that are too harsh for the skin of infants and small children. If you've any doubt about this, remember the episode where Dawn put fake tan on Summer, and Lola was warned about this when she put red paint on Lexie's foot. So Phil was right about his concern.
I still find it difficult to sympathise with poor, pitiful Lola. I'm Team Phil in putting her in her place, and the way she calls Billy "pops" is nothing but annoying.
The Masoods' Sitcom. Unfunny. They are so unfunny when Zainab goes into Goodness Gracious Me mode, and the longer Ajay hangs around, the more I find him an irritating male version of Roxy circa 2007 or 2008, without the charm. Everything about the family today was contrived - from Ajay's return to frighten Ayesha, from the snickering and bickering between him and Zainab, to the awful scene at the garage and back to the plan to hook up Ayesha (way-hey-mon) to miserable Tamwar. I'm glad Ajay was perspicacious enough to remember that Tamwar was still married, and I'm surprised that Zainab's Muslim morals are now lax enough to consider that a mere hindrance and also to consider herself Masood's wife ... which she isn't.
Another thing that is becoming more obvious and that is that the remaining Masoods are toast without Zainab. I don't know if this Ayesha is staying - I see her as short-term, considering what's going to happen - but I can't see Ajay or Tamwar lasting. Or Masood for that matter, but I thinkTPTB plan on linking him later in the year with the mystery known as Ava.
Filler episode in a week where nothing should be made to fill up space and time. If this is still what we have to look forward to in 2013, then this show is in serious trouble.
It was a big mistake to make this a one-hour episode. There wasn't nearly enough to sustain interest for an hour, and I found myself getting bored to tears with it. I would guess that many people switched channels or switched off (and, unlike MacArthur, they may not return).
ReplyDeleteI think the actor playing Ajay has a degree of talent for comedy acting but he needs better material. Humour in soap needs to mirror the humour we can all sometimes find in real-life situations, but this was just forced, contrived and not remotely funny.
Glad to see that some of the more savvy and discerning viewers of EE (you) are Team Kirsty here. The woman is thoroughly justified in wanting to know what the fuck her husband has been playing at for the past year. Max is Kirsty's HUSBAND. Tanya IS the other woman. Regardless of how much history they have - the fact remains that Kirsty married a single man who then bailed out on her with no explanation. She has every right to want to know what's going on and she has every right to fight for her HUSBAND. And if that happens to result in her kicking the shit out of Tanya's ass just in time for Jo Joyner to fuck off on her EXIT - oops, 'break'! - then good fucking riddance.
ReplyDeleteKierston Wareing is the best signing EE have managed since Mitchell - who has been shamefully wasted with the shitty characterisation of Cora. I hate to be over-enthusiastic, but I can thoroughly see Wareing carrying EE single-handedly through a shitstorm, just like Tracey-Ann Oberman found herself doing between 04-05. If they don't make the absolute most of her, they deserve to be publicly flogged and castrated.
Tanya is like an old pair of steel-capped boots for Max. They're dependable and they get the job done, at the end of day. But what he REALLY wants is something fancy and exciting to try on; and that's what Kirsty is. I hope she rids Walford of the vapid Tanya for good and shacks up with Max and gives him a woman the character (and the viewers) deserves - a woman who can actually challenge and excite him and prove to be his equal.
Ugh to it all (the storyline, not your review.). I think Kirsty is an utter embarrassment, looks and acts like trash, and should get a life that doesn't involve stalking a bald headed moron. That said, I think Tanya is a pathetic little doormat who fancies herself as an ''independent businesswoman'' when all she has ever done is skank off men. She never mad it on her own, no matter what she likes to think.
ReplyDeleteAs for Max, he's repulsive beyond belief. I find it disgusting that any kind of female would lower herself to fighting over a lying, cheating runt like him. Is this what females have been reduced to? Pass the sick bucket.
Give me Kirsty over Tanya (or Tarrnnyaaaa as certain characters call her) any day.
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