I blame the storyliners. And some of the writers. Tonight's episode was an enormous vortex of nothingness, propaganda and poop. But Rob Gittins, one of the longer-serving writers, did the best with what he was given, I suppose. Sitting around and trying to write 30 minutes where nothing happens must be easier and less taxing on the imagination than thinking up relevant storylines and character development in which we can invest.
Oh, woe is EastEnders! When new characters prove eminently unlikeable and old, familiar characters devolve into something downright hateful, something is rotten in the London Borough of Walford. On every fora I read, the long-term viewers - from people who've watched since day one to people who've watched for twenty years right down to people who started watching at the Millennium - are all saying the same thing: that EastEnders is totally unrecogniseable now, that it's losing its brand name, with the undue emphasis on the Branning family with at least one popping up in every episode to the over-inflated influence of the Bratpack of late adolescents who swan about the Square in rude, entitled arrogance with little to offer in talent but who fill in all the blanks and definitions about what a pretty person should be.
At least, Rob Gittins remembers one tenet of EastEnders' storytelling: linking all the vignettes with a theme, however subtle; and tonight's linking theme was the most tenuous link of all - a postman and postal services.
But since Lorraine Newman is pitching this ware to the sub-2006 demographic, that subtlety would have been lost on them, as would these cultural icons ...
Masood is a postman. He delivers letters.He delivers. It's a shame Lorraine Newman doesn't.
Tonight's fare:-
It's Just a Little Crush: The Disintegrating Masoods.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have only little over a week left of Zainab, and my only thought is that TPTB must dislike Nina Wadia very much. Since the announcement just before Christmas that she was leaving - not just leaving, but leaving soon ... not just leaving soon, but finishing her scenes before Christmas - most of the viewers have watched this dismal leaving line with total disinterest mingled with complete dismay.
Zainab has been a part of the programme for the past five years. She's a strong character, and her family have been the most successful Asian residents of the Square since Sanjay and Gee'urgh way back in the 90s - not that anyone whom Lorraine hopes to please would even remember the Kapoors, much less the infamous Ferreiras.
The more we find out about Wadia's leaving, the more TPTB at EastEnders really begin to stink ... like the fact that she let it be known that she didn't want to renew her contract back at the beginning of 2012, begging the question of why TPTB tell us at the last minute that Zainab's leaving within the next few weeks, whilst giving us a year's notice on the departure of Dame Jo Joyner. I know ... Joyner has a large contingent of obsessives (see Digital Spy) and fanbois who wish to suckle her maternal mammaries (see Walford Web Kindergarten), and I suppose Lorraine had to prepare these desperados amply in advance.
Wadia wanted Zainab killed off, which would have made sense for the remaining family's future, but even this request was denied. Newman, it's alleged, might want Zainab to return in the future ... but to what?
Instead of Zainab, we're now presented with Pejorative Zainab, a clone made up of all of Zainab's worst qualities - the biggest, tonight, being extreme obtuseness. Zainab is so full of her own self-importance now, with relation to the boring Ayesha's non-dilemma, that she sees the girl as the embodiment of love in bloom - except she doesn't realise that Ayesha is in love with Masood.
The Masood's predicament is rife with contrived instances - Ayesha wanting milk and Mas averting the possibility of interaction only ends up with his hand touching hers over the milk. Sexual tension?
No.
This has turned into an unfunny comedy of errors, watching Masood bumble and bustle about, beating a retreat from anything Ayesha, but only managing to stoke her fires even higher. His whole vignette centred around a couple of samosas Ayesha had made for him, as if the offering of the samosas to Masood was emblematic of Eve offering Adam the fated apple.
'E-yah ya go, I ma-yud these fer ya.
Masood is running around the Square like a headless chicken, clad in his Royal Mail jacket (but never seeming to be delivering mail), the samosas firmly entrenched in his pocket.
Of course, Masood isn't used to being pursued by an inappropriate woman ... What am I talking about? Zainab was a very young married woman in Pakistan when she turned her illicit attentions on Masood. He didn't run a mile then, even though he was playing with fire. I guess thirty years of complacency is taking a toll enough for him to seek relationship advice from ...
(Drum roll)
Ajay.
Walford is full of relationship advisors whose advice is just a tad skewed. Remember when Kat convinced Jean that the guy following her about fancied her? He turned out to be a Benefits Inspector alerted to the fact that she appeared to be illegally claiming housing benefit. Lately, we've seen Michael Moon tell Alfie to stick with Kat and let her fuck around, because she's such a major part of his heart. WTF? Pretty soon, we'll see Bianca convince Kat that Alfie wants to take her back.
Seriously, would you trust any of these divs?
Of course not, but then Ajay tells Mas what he wants to hear, and what Ajay believes: Ayesha isn't serious. She's just winding Mas up and getting a giggle out of him being nervous that a seriously fit bird would want to pant after a middle-aged postman with a paunch.
Ajay should be so lucky. He's destined for Bianca and a future of scrounging whilst he listens to his MP3 player to drown out her voice.
Of course, he's wrong, and Mas has gone from thinking Ayesha just has an innocent crush on him ...
... to thinking she's toying with winding him up and treating this as a joke. Confronting her with this, he informs her that he's taking the symbolic samosas to Zainab as a gift, only to be shown the door by his wife-to-be (seriously, I'm getting confused by all these married couples in the Square who aren't - Zainab and Mas, Tanya and Max, Kat and Alfie), who's trying to impress a Regional Manager young enough to be her son.
So he trudges home, and gives into biting into the fates samosa. Sensing he's not alone in the house, he goes upstairs, only to be confronted by a wet and very willing Ayesha, clad only in a towel and offering it to Masood on a plate ... and he nearly takes the offering, only to pull back at the last minute and bolt from the scene of the potential crime.
He's sickened with himself, but maybe the penny has just dropped that what he has with Zainab isn't exactly what he imagines it is.
This, dear reader, is the beginning of the end of the Masoods ...
But don't be too sad, because in a couple of weeks, he'll be eyeing up the only other woman in the Square within his own age demographic.
Can you guess who it is? Well, here's a clue ...
Max: An Innocent Man.
Hey, give Max a piano and a microphone, and here's what you get ...
Boy, with those words, Max could sing that song to Tanya and Kirsty and have them ripping each other's hair extensions out to get to Max.
After all, in this circumstance, he is an innocent man. And it's not rocket science. If the resident village idiot of the triumvirate of the Butcher, Beale and Branning families (Bianca) can figure this out, then what the hell is wrong with Tanya and the girls?
To Bianca, goes the absolute line of the night:-
What is wrong wiv vis fairmly? Max tells the truth, and Tanya runs away ...
Yep, that's pretty much it in a nutshell.
Max is out of his comfort zone, and he's being blanked by his children - chiefly, Abi who's acting like a bigger numptie than she usually is. OK, kids love their parents, and especially, maybe their mothers. Mums nurture, after all. But both Abi and Lauren seem all too willing to see and list Max's sins, but somehow cannot seem to divest Tanya of the many she's committed.
For all we know, they still believe that Max seduced Tanya and broke up her marriage to Greg, when we all know that this was six of one and half a dozen of another. Both girls know Tanya is selfish, and both of them certainly know that she's fobbed them off when they had problems, concentrating only on herself. They're quick to call out Max's foibles and even offer to have him leave, but now - like zombies - they fall prey to the machinations of the awful old drunken bitch who's taken up residence in Max's house, which is owned by Max's brother - not out of any concern for her grandchildren, but because she was booted out of her other abode, where she lodged (by the children's other grandmother) for abusing Dot's hospitality. She's homeless. Send dumbass Tanya away and she has to look after the kids.
That speech she gave Max was a corker. Max brings Tanya down?
Pull the other one, sunshine, it's a brandy.
The truth, as most of us all know and acknowledge it, is that Tanya pursued a married man. Tanya broke up a marriage. Before she'd even hit twenty. Did Cora take umbrage with Tanya doing this? Or did she issue her usual sage piece of advice (not) to fight for Max? Max brings Tanya to her knees? Well, only if she wants to give him head.
That line would have been ample opportunity for him to grab the old crone by her skanky wrinkly throat shove her up against the wall and tell her the tale about Tanya trying to bury Max alive, how she slept with the local psycho, brought a psychologically damaged much younger man into the household amongst his children and slept with him, in order to get him to help her murder Max. Or how she slept with Jack for a year, and was attempting to leave the country, again illegally, with Max's children.
Tanya was Max's bit on the side. He was already a cheater, and he continued to cheat after he married her. Because he could. Because she let him. Their marriage is one based on secrets and lies, because that's how it originated - him keeping secrets from her about his marital status and lying to sustain both women until Tanya found out about the true nature of his situation and doubled-down her efforts to wrest Max from his family.
Now things have come full circle, and once again, Tanya is the other woman, trying to wrest a man from his wife. Max wants back with Tanya, not because he loves her - oh, he's fond of her and has a bond with her because of the children; but because she's the easy option. She's the familiar presence who eventually welcomes him back - because she can't do without his member. Sex. And once that happens, the secrets and lies will follow. From both. Because Tanya's as dishonest and as amoral as Max, except Max owns his shortcomings, and his hypocritical partner never will.
Max should have kicked Cora's rancid old wrinkly ass down those steps. And who does Abi think she is, sitting in judgement of her father?
Kirsty sent her wedding ring back to him. That's rejection. Something Tanya never did. She collects wedding rings, you see. And white wedding dresses.
Alfie: Leave Him Alone, He's a Family Man.
Well, that's essentially what Alfie told Roxy when she declared her love for him last spring.
And now ... now ... does anyone have a curious sense of deja vu here? Alfie skirting between Roxy and Kat - as Jean observed, trying to please one and then trying to please the other ... Think back to 2005, when Alfie was seeing Little Mo, after he and Kat had split (again, due to her infideltiy).
This is a woeful reprise of that situation.
A commentator on Walford Web, Nebraska, lobbies for a Kat and Alfie split and wonders why this can't be effected with both staying on the Square. After all, she reasons, people divorce every day. Well, yes, they do. But divorced people may live within a stone's throw of one another, but they don't live on the same street, or across the street or flaming next door. When people split in Walford and both parties remain on the Square, it's a recipe for yo-yo-ism - Max and Tanya (they wrote the book),Stacey and Bradley, Mas and Zainab and now Alfie and Kat.
If Kat left the Square, then probably Alfie could move on in a more healthy manner.
Wake-Up-Creepy-Jean is back in oracle mood tonight. I'm one who's not a fan of Jean, especially when she's being the creepy oracle - and a disapproving one as well. But she has a point tonight, when she raises the point of Alfie moving too fast with Roxy.
Yes, he has done; and this is down to many factors, but it's chiefly down to the writers doing a snow job on the public trying to drum up sympathy for Kat. Kat's behaviour tore up her marriage. She has yet to acknowledge that she was the catalyst in this, she has yet to apologise to Alfie for breaking his heart.
Months ago, when Roxy first confessed that she loved Alfie, he reminded her that he was married to Kat, but also that if this just concerned Alfie choosing between Kat and Roxy, he'd choose Roxy. But the situation entailed Kat, Jean, Mo, and the kids (Shenice was there too then), and the business; so Alfie had priorities he had to meet.
And Roxy backed down from that situation.
In the wake of Kat's betrayal, I can easily understand what Alfie must be feeling: rejected, worthless and lonely. Even embittered. Who wouldn't welcome someone's loving arms of comfort on such an occasion? It's just that TPTB are making Roxy out to be the opportunist and the desperate schemer in this frame of things, and poor Kat is yet again the blameless victim.
And Alfie is seen as doing everything wrong. As usual.
Alfie is a welter of confusion. I don't think he loves Roxy, but he's grateful for her being his emotional saviour. Yes, he still has feelings for Kat, but he doesn't think he can trust her and wants to move on. He has to move on, for his own emotional well-being; however, Alfie is a kind man and a caring person. he's spent almost a decade with Kat - and once again, TPTB abscond Kat from any responsibility by having Alfie liken her situation with Derek to that of her abhorrent situation with Harry Slater. As much as Kat's hurt him, he doesn't want to see her suffer.
And he likes a peaceful life. So if he keeps Kat happy and Roxy equally happy, then he'll be fine.
Putting Roxy's name on the licence bar is an open symbol of Alfie moving on from Kat, and this public inaugural of re-dedicating the pub was contrived to make poor Kat feel even more like a victim.
That wicked, evil Alfie being so mean to Kat. All she did was fuck around on him repeatedly and treat him like a piece of shit. He should be thankful for that.
Seriously, it amazes me that Kat thinks she's so entitled to Alfie; and it amazes me even more that Alfie would go to bat with Ian like that for Bianca and also for Kat, after what she put him through. Too right for Ian to say he'd speak up for Bianca - she's his niece, after all; but I don't think Ian would lift a hand to help any of his ex-wives. In fact, he wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire by the side of the road.
So just remember that ... we're all supposed to feel sorry for Kat. Roxy will be sacrificed at the altar of Holy Mother Kat. And so will Janine. You watch.
Alice: It's My Party and I'll Cry If I Want To.
Please, what is the point of Alice? A non-story that featured a totally weird interaction with Michael Moon - a sop to the fangirls who think the sun shines out of his cadaverous arse.
Of course, Alice had to get a job on the Square. That was a given. The obvious choice was something more genteel, in keeping with her sweetness and innocence: being a nanny to Michael Moon's daughter, which coincides with a phantom postman delivering a welter of post, only for Alice to pull out a piece of correspondence addressed to the father she's still mourning.
I can't figure out why, since the death of her father whom she really didn't know that well at all, she hasn't once either mentioned or gone back to visit her absent mother. Not that I want her to make an appearance, mind you; I'm well full of the Brannings. It's just that there is no reason, really, for either Alice or Joey to hang around.
The one-sided confession of Alice to Michael about how much she misses her father, which results in Alice reckoning that the rest of her family are trying to hide their grief about Derek (when they've really moved on and are more concerned with shit going on in their own lifes - really, Alice, you should realise that the Brannings are the most selfish of people). So she plans a tribute drink in the pub for he relatives.
Of course, no one comes, so once again, Michael interacts with her, in that weird stilted Kraftwerk way. Alice doesn't reckon Michael Moon is a bad man.
Alice is a fool.
Shitney. Again. And Again. Again.
Just when you though that dog wouldn't bark anymore, it howls. Digital Spy reports that Shona McGarty "knows" a lot of gypsy wedding dressmakers and wants a big white gypsy wedding for Whitney.
I'd long suspected McGarty of being part of the travelling community, and she's proven it with that remark.
Maybe Shitney can trip down the aisle to this trendy little number, which should become Whitney's theme song:-
Whitney looking sad, Tyler looking gormless, Whitney whining about having told the truth and suffering for it (hey, that's life); and Bianca bullying Tyler into seeing sense, only to have Whitney tell him off for doubting her. Shut up, you silly bitch. You told your friends before you told Tyler that you were attracted to Joey.
This couple ran out of steam before they started. They were an epic fail last year, and I want to know why they are being pushed at us again this year and by whom.
Poor episode. Again.
Oh, woe is EastEnders! When new characters prove eminently unlikeable and old, familiar characters devolve into something downright hateful, something is rotten in the London Borough of Walford. On every fora I read, the long-term viewers - from people who've watched since day one to people who've watched for twenty years right down to people who started watching at the Millennium - are all saying the same thing: that EastEnders is totally unrecogniseable now, that it's losing its brand name, with the undue emphasis on the Branning family with at least one popping up in every episode to the over-inflated influence of the Bratpack of late adolescents who swan about the Square in rude, entitled arrogance with little to offer in talent but who fill in all the blanks and definitions about what a pretty person should be.
At least, Rob Gittins remembers one tenet of EastEnders' storytelling: linking all the vignettes with a theme, however subtle; and tonight's linking theme was the most tenuous link of all - a postman and postal services.
But since Lorraine Newman is pitching this ware to the sub-2006 demographic, that subtlety would have been lost on them, as would these cultural icons ...
Masood is a postman. He delivers letters.He delivers. It's a shame Lorraine Newman doesn't.
Tonight's fare:-
It's Just a Little Crush: The Disintegrating Masoods.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have only little over a week left of Zainab, and my only thought is that TPTB must dislike Nina Wadia very much. Since the announcement just before Christmas that she was leaving - not just leaving, but leaving soon ... not just leaving soon, but finishing her scenes before Christmas - most of the viewers have watched this dismal leaving line with total disinterest mingled with complete dismay.
Zainab has been a part of the programme for the past five years. She's a strong character, and her family have been the most successful Asian residents of the Square since Sanjay and Gee'urgh way back in the 90s - not that anyone whom Lorraine hopes to please would even remember the Kapoors, much less the infamous Ferreiras.
The more we find out about Wadia's leaving, the more TPTB at EastEnders really begin to stink ... like the fact that she let it be known that she didn't want to renew her contract back at the beginning of 2012, begging the question of why TPTB tell us at the last minute that Zainab's leaving within the next few weeks, whilst giving us a year's notice on the departure of Dame Jo Joyner. I know ... Joyner has a large contingent of obsessives (see Digital Spy) and fanbois who wish to suckle her maternal mammaries (see Walford Web Kindergarten), and I suppose Lorraine had to prepare these desperados amply in advance.
Wadia wanted Zainab killed off, which would have made sense for the remaining family's future, but even this request was denied. Newman, it's alleged, might want Zainab to return in the future ... but to what?
Instead of Zainab, we're now presented with Pejorative Zainab, a clone made up of all of Zainab's worst qualities - the biggest, tonight, being extreme obtuseness. Zainab is so full of her own self-importance now, with relation to the boring Ayesha's non-dilemma, that she sees the girl as the embodiment of love in bloom - except she doesn't realise that Ayesha is in love with Masood.
The Masood's predicament is rife with contrived instances - Ayesha wanting milk and Mas averting the possibility of interaction only ends up with his hand touching hers over the milk. Sexual tension?
No.
This has turned into an unfunny comedy of errors, watching Masood bumble and bustle about, beating a retreat from anything Ayesha, but only managing to stoke her fires even higher. His whole vignette centred around a couple of samosas Ayesha had made for him, as if the offering of the samosas to Masood was emblematic of Eve offering Adam the fated apple.
'E-yah ya go, I ma-yud these fer ya.
Masood is running around the Square like a headless chicken, clad in his Royal Mail jacket (but never seeming to be delivering mail), the samosas firmly entrenched in his pocket.
Of course, Masood isn't used to being pursued by an inappropriate woman ... What am I talking about? Zainab was a very young married woman in Pakistan when she turned her illicit attentions on Masood. He didn't run a mile then, even though he was playing with fire. I guess thirty years of complacency is taking a toll enough for him to seek relationship advice from ...
(Drum roll)
Ajay.
Walford is full of relationship advisors whose advice is just a tad skewed. Remember when Kat convinced Jean that the guy following her about fancied her? He turned out to be a Benefits Inspector alerted to the fact that she appeared to be illegally claiming housing benefit. Lately, we've seen Michael Moon tell Alfie to stick with Kat and let her fuck around, because she's such a major part of his heart. WTF? Pretty soon, we'll see Bianca convince Kat that Alfie wants to take her back.
Seriously, would you trust any of these divs?
Of course not, but then Ajay tells Mas what he wants to hear, and what Ajay believes: Ayesha isn't serious. She's just winding Mas up and getting a giggle out of him being nervous that a seriously fit bird would want to pant after a middle-aged postman with a paunch.
Ajay should be so lucky. He's destined for Bianca and a future of scrounging whilst he listens to his MP3 player to drown out her voice.
Of course, he's wrong, and Mas has gone from thinking Ayesha just has an innocent crush on him ...
So he trudges home, and gives into biting into the fates samosa. Sensing he's not alone in the house, he goes upstairs, only to be confronted by a wet and very willing Ayesha, clad only in a towel and offering it to Masood on a plate ... and he nearly takes the offering, only to pull back at the last minute and bolt from the scene of the potential crime.
He's sickened with himself, but maybe the penny has just dropped that what he has with Zainab isn't exactly what he imagines it is.
This, dear reader, is the beginning of the end of the Masoods ...
But don't be too sad, because in a couple of weeks, he'll be eyeing up the only other woman in the Square within his own age demographic.
Can you guess who it is? Well, here's a clue ...
Max: An Innocent Man.
Hey, give Max a piano and a microphone, and here's what you get ...
Boy, with those words, Max could sing that song to Tanya and Kirsty and have them ripping each other's hair extensions out to get to Max.
After all, in this circumstance, he is an innocent man. And it's not rocket science. If the resident village idiot of the triumvirate of the Butcher, Beale and Branning families (Bianca) can figure this out, then what the hell is wrong with Tanya and the girls?
To Bianca, goes the absolute line of the night:-
What is wrong wiv vis fairmly? Max tells the truth, and Tanya runs away ...
Yep, that's pretty much it in a nutshell.
Max is out of his comfort zone, and he's being blanked by his children - chiefly, Abi who's acting like a bigger numptie than she usually is. OK, kids love their parents, and especially, maybe their mothers. Mums nurture, after all. But both Abi and Lauren seem all too willing to see and list Max's sins, but somehow cannot seem to divest Tanya of the many she's committed.
For all we know, they still believe that Max seduced Tanya and broke up her marriage to Greg, when we all know that this was six of one and half a dozen of another. Both girls know Tanya is selfish, and both of them certainly know that she's fobbed them off when they had problems, concentrating only on herself. They're quick to call out Max's foibles and even offer to have him leave, but now - like zombies - they fall prey to the machinations of the awful old drunken bitch who's taken up residence in Max's house, which is owned by Max's brother - not out of any concern for her grandchildren, but because she was booted out of her other abode, where she lodged (by the children's other grandmother) for abusing Dot's hospitality. She's homeless. Send dumbass Tanya away and she has to look after the kids.
That speech she gave Max was a corker. Max brings Tanya down?
Pull the other one, sunshine, it's a brandy.
The truth, as most of us all know and acknowledge it, is that Tanya pursued a married man. Tanya broke up a marriage. Before she'd even hit twenty. Did Cora take umbrage with Tanya doing this? Or did she issue her usual sage piece of advice (not) to fight for Max? Max brings Tanya to her knees? Well, only if she wants to give him head.
That line would have been ample opportunity for him to grab the old crone by her skanky wrinkly throat shove her up against the wall and tell her the tale about Tanya trying to bury Max alive, how she slept with the local psycho, brought a psychologically damaged much younger man into the household amongst his children and slept with him, in order to get him to help her murder Max. Or how she slept with Jack for a year, and was attempting to leave the country, again illegally, with Max's children.
Tanya was Max's bit on the side. He was already a cheater, and he continued to cheat after he married her. Because he could. Because she let him. Their marriage is one based on secrets and lies, because that's how it originated - him keeping secrets from her about his marital status and lying to sustain both women until Tanya found out about the true nature of his situation and doubled-down her efforts to wrest Max from his family.
Now things have come full circle, and once again, Tanya is the other woman, trying to wrest a man from his wife. Max wants back with Tanya, not because he loves her - oh, he's fond of her and has a bond with her because of the children; but because she's the easy option. She's the familiar presence who eventually welcomes him back - because she can't do without his member. Sex. And once that happens, the secrets and lies will follow. From both. Because Tanya's as dishonest and as amoral as Max, except Max owns his shortcomings, and his hypocritical partner never will.
Max should have kicked Cora's rancid old wrinkly ass down those steps. And who does Abi think she is, sitting in judgement of her father?
Kirsty sent her wedding ring back to him. That's rejection. Something Tanya never did. She collects wedding rings, you see. And white wedding dresses.
Alfie: Leave Him Alone, He's a Family Man.
Well, that's essentially what Alfie told Roxy when she declared her love for him last spring.
And now ... now ... does anyone have a curious sense of deja vu here? Alfie skirting between Roxy and Kat - as Jean observed, trying to please one and then trying to please the other ... Think back to 2005, when Alfie was seeing Little Mo, after he and Kat had split (again, due to her infideltiy).
This is a woeful reprise of that situation.
A commentator on Walford Web, Nebraska, lobbies for a Kat and Alfie split and wonders why this can't be effected with both staying on the Square. After all, she reasons, people divorce every day. Well, yes, they do. But divorced people may live within a stone's throw of one another, but they don't live on the same street, or across the street or flaming next door. When people split in Walford and both parties remain on the Square, it's a recipe for yo-yo-ism - Max and Tanya (they wrote the book),Stacey and Bradley, Mas and Zainab and now Alfie and Kat.
If Kat left the Square, then probably Alfie could move on in a more healthy manner.
Wake-Up-Creepy-Jean is back in oracle mood tonight. I'm one who's not a fan of Jean, especially when she's being the creepy oracle - and a disapproving one as well. But she has a point tonight, when she raises the point of Alfie moving too fast with Roxy.
Yes, he has done; and this is down to many factors, but it's chiefly down to the writers doing a snow job on the public trying to drum up sympathy for Kat. Kat's behaviour tore up her marriage. She has yet to acknowledge that she was the catalyst in this, she has yet to apologise to Alfie for breaking his heart.
Months ago, when Roxy first confessed that she loved Alfie, he reminded her that he was married to Kat, but also that if this just concerned Alfie choosing between Kat and Roxy, he'd choose Roxy. But the situation entailed Kat, Jean, Mo, and the kids (Shenice was there too then), and the business; so Alfie had priorities he had to meet.
And Roxy backed down from that situation.
In the wake of Kat's betrayal, I can easily understand what Alfie must be feeling: rejected, worthless and lonely. Even embittered. Who wouldn't welcome someone's loving arms of comfort on such an occasion? It's just that TPTB are making Roxy out to be the opportunist and the desperate schemer in this frame of things, and poor Kat is yet again the blameless victim.
And Alfie is seen as doing everything wrong. As usual.
Alfie is a welter of confusion. I don't think he loves Roxy, but he's grateful for her being his emotional saviour. Yes, he still has feelings for Kat, but he doesn't think he can trust her and wants to move on. He has to move on, for his own emotional well-being; however, Alfie is a kind man and a caring person. he's spent almost a decade with Kat - and once again, TPTB abscond Kat from any responsibility by having Alfie liken her situation with Derek to that of her abhorrent situation with Harry Slater. As much as Kat's hurt him, he doesn't want to see her suffer.
And he likes a peaceful life. So if he keeps Kat happy and Roxy equally happy, then he'll be fine.
Putting Roxy's name on the licence bar is an open symbol of Alfie moving on from Kat, and this public inaugural of re-dedicating the pub was contrived to make poor Kat feel even more like a victim.
That wicked, evil Alfie being so mean to Kat. All she did was fuck around on him repeatedly and treat him like a piece of shit. He should be thankful for that.
Seriously, it amazes me that Kat thinks she's so entitled to Alfie; and it amazes me even more that Alfie would go to bat with Ian like that for Bianca and also for Kat, after what she put him through. Too right for Ian to say he'd speak up for Bianca - she's his niece, after all; but I don't think Ian would lift a hand to help any of his ex-wives. In fact, he wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire by the side of the road.
So just remember that ... we're all supposed to feel sorry for Kat. Roxy will be sacrificed at the altar of Holy Mother Kat. And so will Janine. You watch.
Alice: It's My Party and I'll Cry If I Want To.
Please, what is the point of Alice? A non-story that featured a totally weird interaction with Michael Moon - a sop to the fangirls who think the sun shines out of his cadaverous arse.
Of course, Alice had to get a job on the Square. That was a given. The obvious choice was something more genteel, in keeping with her sweetness and innocence: being a nanny to Michael Moon's daughter, which coincides with a phantom postman delivering a welter of post, only for Alice to pull out a piece of correspondence addressed to the father she's still mourning.
I can't figure out why, since the death of her father whom she really didn't know that well at all, she hasn't once either mentioned or gone back to visit her absent mother. Not that I want her to make an appearance, mind you; I'm well full of the Brannings. It's just that there is no reason, really, for either Alice or Joey to hang around.
The one-sided confession of Alice to Michael about how much she misses her father, which results in Alice reckoning that the rest of her family are trying to hide their grief about Derek (when they've really moved on and are more concerned with shit going on in their own lifes - really, Alice, you should realise that the Brannings are the most selfish of people). So she plans a tribute drink in the pub for he relatives.
Of course, no one comes, so once again, Michael interacts with her, in that weird stilted Kraftwerk way. Alice doesn't reckon Michael Moon is a bad man.
Alice is a fool.
Shitney. Again. And Again. Again.
Just when you though that dog wouldn't bark anymore, it howls. Digital Spy reports that Shona McGarty "knows" a lot of gypsy wedding dressmakers and wants a big white gypsy wedding for Whitney.
I'd long suspected McGarty of being part of the travelling community, and she's proven it with that remark.
Maybe Shitney can trip down the aisle to this trendy little number, which should become Whitney's theme song:-
Whitney looking sad, Tyler looking gormless, Whitney whining about having told the truth and suffering for it (hey, that's life); and Bianca bullying Tyler into seeing sense, only to have Whitney tell him off for doubting her. Shut up, you silly bitch. You told your friends before you told Tyler that you were attracted to Joey.
This couple ran out of steam before they started. They were an epic fail last year, and I want to know why they are being pushed at us again this year and by whom.
Poor episode. Again.
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