The Always a Branning Show: Cackety-Cack - Review New Year's Day 2013

Start as you mean to finish, as they say, and if that's the truth, EastEnders ended with shit, started the new year with shit and probably has officially become shit.

Since Lorraine Newman's given a new fob-off spinned-out interview interview on the BBC website, where she tries to walk back a few of the things she asserted  on her Digital Spy debut and tries to get the people who've steadily been alienated by the past decade of substandard EastEnders, I'll be blogging about that later.

Right now, I'm concerned with what is arguably the worst New Year's Day episode in the programme's history. I'm uncertain. Was this two episodes cobbled together into one or a thirty-minute fare expanded when it needn't have been?

Who is Jesse O'Mahoney when he is at home? Obviously a new bod, who needs some lessons in EastEnders' history, not just pre-2010, but how about pre-2000? This man should never be allowed near an important holiday episode again.

To think, New Year's Day last year was on a Sunday. Pat died. We got a forty-minute episode at 8:30pm. Tonight, we're asked to sit through an entire hour of a christening that ended a storyline that was not only inaccurate and insulting to a particular profession, it was drawn out to the extent that it had become a total and utter bore. We also had to sit through an arranged wedding storyline about a character in whom we'd invested nothing and whom we know will be the vehicle by which a long-term character's exit line will be plotted. Besides which, the new character joins the ranks of the seminally inarticulate society consisting of Joey Branning and Tyler Moon. 

Perhaps Ms Newman might think about investing in a speech pathology department especially tailored for David Witts, Tony Discipline and Shivani Ghai.

Now to the dissection of this tripe.

The Old Grey Hag, She Ain't What She's Supposed to Be.

Here's a song for Cora the Bora:-

From the very beginning that whiskey-sodden, stale fag-breathed old coot was dipping in and throwing her opinion about willy-nilly. She's not been in Walford for five minutes, and she knows jack-shit-on-a-stick about Phil Mitchell and his family's history. She is a sodden old drunk.

For her to be telling Jay Mitchell her theories behind Phil's relenting for her and Jay to be godparents at Lexi's christening is not only presumptuous, it's preposterous. Was she drunk? That early in the morning? Plausible.

For a start, her assumption that Phil's allowing the pair of them to be godparents was all about control and Phil's assumption of an empire, by joining various families - his own, Lola's, Sharon's and now Jay's and hers. OK, that's horsehit.

Lola and Billy are part of the Mitchell dynamic. Jay is also part of the same. He chose to change his name by deed-poll and spent the better part of two years, swaggering about Walford in Shirley's wake, never ceasing to remind people that he was part and parcel of the Mitchell clan. He's now reconciled with Phil. Sharon was once a Mitchell and will always be indelibly linked and connected with the Mitchell tribe.

But Cora the Bora?

To what family, for her sake, was she referring? The Crosses? Phil only knew Rainie Cross when he was off his head drunk and stoned on crack cocaine. He wouldn't wipe his feet on Tanya, and he'd call Cora the Bora out on the drunk she is. Takes one to know one.

The Brannings? The Brannings are inbred losers, and that is why the Mitchells will always come out on top. Phil caught Max out in his scam of Peggy. The fact that Jack had to resort to emotional blackmail tonight is evident of their loser status.

The truth is, Cora the Bora, Phil relented and allowed you and Jay to stand as godparents is because Peggy refused to come (in the biggest and most inaccurate retcon in the history of the show) and for some reason, Grant couldn't show as well - that was never specified; but suffice it to say that had Grant known Sharon was about (and unattached) wild horses couldn't keep him away from Walford.

So the old man in drag the old grey hag should just STFU on that respect.

But that wasn't all ...

The first comment she made upon entering the pub and seeing Roxy and Alfie was that Kat hadn't been gone five minutes. OK, I know the drunken old bag was sweet on Derek, herself, and would have been a goer if Derek had been seriously into geriatrics, but she was actually in the pub the night that Derek's and Kat's affair was made public knowledge. She was quick to jump on the judgement bandwagon when it was thought Max was the culprit, and she's drunk and been drunk in the Vic long enough to see that Alfie was actually the innocent party in the marriage from hell, so she should cut out the judgemental remarks there. Maybe she needs reminding that no sooner than her fragrant daughter Tanya had kicked Max to the curb for dallying with Stacey, than she had actually linked up sexually with the local psycho (who happened to be Stacey's brother) and then, in the space of a month, had moved Max's brother into the family dynamic, had him play babydaddy for a year and even contemplated illegally leaving the country with him. 

So Cora the Bora can just STFU there again.

Thirdly, somehow DamienDen got left in her charge (although he seemed to disappear during the christening ceremony), to the extent that when she arrived at the church, she got caught blythely telling the kid that when you've seen one church, you've seen them all. If there's a God in heaven, only he knows when the last time this old trout saw the inside of a church enough to recognise it. For her to take it upon herself to "remind" the vicar that this even was a "Mitchell christening" - as if she were some sort of expert on Mitchell christenings. The last Mitchell christening to occur, as I recall, was Amy's christening four years ago, with Christian as godfather, and that went off without a hitch. Once again, sticking her oar in where it wasn't necessary, as well as smoking her incessant fags outside the church on its premises and blowing fag-smoke into the vicar's face, before stubbing the fag-end out on the driveway. Classy, Cora. Totally poor white trash.

And your performance as godmother left a lot to be desired as well.

If this were Jesse O'Mahoney's attempt, blessed by the Reverend Mother Lorraine, to establish Cora the Bora as the Walford matriarch, it was an epic fail. Together she and Lola amount to one young chav and the old lag Lola will become in fifty years' time, propping up a bar stool, egging Lexi on in her fifth relationship with five children by five different fathers and casting judgement on all and sundry.

I cannot wait for the Wrath of Dot to return and turn this drunken old miscreant back onto the streets where she belongs.

The Cross Family Reunion (by Hogarth)

Wey-Ayesha-Mon

Ayesha's homesick. Maybe this will help her ...

As we all know Zainab's leaving and as we all know, from the spoilers, the part Ayesha is going to play in all of that (we got broad enough hints tonight, if you were perspicacious enough to pay attention), the Masoods and everything about them, for me, have taken on an air of phoniness now.

Look, we know there isn't going to be a wedding. We know that Zainab is going. The atmosphere in the household now is next to frantic, as if they were trying to convince the remaining viewers that the family, itself, is still a viable force.

When Zainab goes, it won't be long before the rest will follow. In fact, EastEnders proved it was so good at keeping secrets regarding the Christmas and Shaggerman episodes (although most people had figured the secrets out) and they've proven so good at lying about established characters departing (Jane Beale/Laurie Brett, Ricky Butcher/Sid Owen and now Tanya Cross Branning Cross Jessop Cross/Jo Joyner), they could have sprung the same sort of surprise on us about Nina Wadia.

At least, they're not saying that Wadia is "taking a break." So she really must be leaving for good, never to return.

Once again, this was much ado about nothing. Zainab frantically ordering the menfolk about to make the house respectable to mirror the Masoods' new-found-again respectability. She's resorted to Mrs Bouquet mode again, wanting to be liked and respected, when the truth is thus: In the eyes of her community, she has a gay son, whose wedding she attended and blessed, she committed adultery in the eyes of her community years ago, when she responded to Masood's attentions whilst married to Yusef. She is currently a widow, living in sin with a man who isn't her husband. Her youngest son is separated from but not yet divorced from his wife. Her brother-in-law is a secular Muslim who drinks and who was married to a non-Muslim. In her community, Zainab would be a pariah, and the way things will go, Ayesha will soon be a pariah as well, because she'll be committing the ultimate cardinal sin - pursuing a married man.

The Masood's vignette devolved, yet again, into a very bad sitcom.

Observations: Justin Bebe. Please. Just go now. And Mas's playfully nudging the Geordie chick's arm. Just stop.

The Memory Lapse Goes On.

Two years ago, James Branning died. Last year Pat died. Seven years ago, Dennis Rickman died. We got a lingering shot of Pat's final resting place, but - boy - the hearts and flowers came out for James Branning tonight.

However, strange that Sharon never once mentioned Dennis's death's anniversary - not to  her son, and certainly not to Phil. She could have tit-for-tatted Jack - more of that scene to come.

Come to think of it (again), Sharon hasn't once mentioned Michelle or Vicky - not to anyone, and certainly not to Ian, who is their kin.

Emotional Blackmail Served on a Plank.

Jack's song:-

Suffice it to say that Jack and Sharon have zilch chemistry, almost to the point that I actually hate Sharon when she's in a scene with Jack. In fact, I want to rip her hair extensions from her head.

Does Phil love Sharon? The answer to that, Luddites, is yes. He's always loved her, and he wants to spend the rest of his days with her. He might be clumsy in this respect, with regard to his approach and his timing, but that's because this is the first time in donkey's years, he's been within reach of Sharon without any other complication. His message to Jack on New Year's Eve was simply to remind Jack that Sharon had history with him and still does.

Does Jack love Sharon? How can he? The method by which Sharon was introduced to Jack was so totally skewed regarding her character, I'm surprised Lorraine Newman signed off on this. Sharon would never run from the wedding to one man and jump into bed with someone she'd met only a couple of hours before. She'd never place herself and her young son under the roof of a stranger - she actually would prefer the anonymity of the B and B before something like that.

She knows nothing of Jack's antecedents - his days as a bent copper, how he was responsible for his daughter's disablement, the true extent of his relationship with Tanya, his ONS with her sister, his various children by various mothers, including the fact that marriage to Jack would mean Sharon becoming stepmother to Sam Mitchell's son. And Jack knows nothing of her past, except snippets of her time with Phil and/or Grant and her pill addiction.

At best, as she referenced, he treats her like a sex object, to be ordered about and who should always obey his word. He spends hours playing babydaddy to her son, when he doesn't give a rat's ass about his own children. He actually summed up the situation tonight to Michael Moon when he said he didn't give Sharon a proposal, he gave her an ultimatum. He's not only interested in her because she's the closest thing to a blonde Mitchell there is available on the Square - well, there is Shirley - but also because he knows Phil Mitchell loves and wants her. It's the same old same old he had with Max, only now Phil's the Max figure who has something Jack wants.

That he had to resort to emotional blackmail was just more evidence of how much the Brannings are losers. 

Actually, the cryptic little talk Sharon had with Ayesha in the Square over sweets was significant. Ayesha voiced what Sharon was feeling - when you're comfortable with something from your past and that association lasts, it's for a purpose. She feels drawn to Phil because they have so much shared history and so much unfinished business.

Let's, like Sharon, forget pretty Dennis's death. The only people alive, apart from Phil, who know Phil's secret are Grant and Peggy. Do you see either of them around? And, honestly, by the time it comes out, I do think Sharon will forgive Phil's peripheral involvement. If you go back and watch any episode from the Shannis time, watch Sharon's behaviour around Dennis - the way she treats him and the way she speaks. She wins the prize over Jane Beale, who treated Ian like a recalcitrant adolescent. Dennis was as much Sharon's child as her lover, and that was creepy.

The absolute worst scene of the episode was Jack's attempt at emotion beside James's grave with Sharon in the picture. Please. Steer Scott Maslen clear of any such scenes in the future. He was butt-clinchingly bad as he watched Roxy take his daughter Amy seven steps away from him across the street. He was pukeworthy in this instance.

If Newman and her writing room had balls, they'd do an entire storyline about Jack's past as a bent copper catching up with him. Re-introduce properly Jesse Birdsall as Sharon's ex John, who happened to be the drugs baron on whose payroll Jack was as a policeman and whom Jack grassed up. Jack is not a romantic lead. He sucks. And it sucks even more that Sharon has now found herself engaged to a Branning. Yes, the spoilers reveal that she says yes (from pity, according to Letitia Dean) to Jack the Peg with the third leg. And from all the hints being thrown out, she leaves him at the altar. So poor Jack is the victim again.

Whoever decided that Sharon should be brought back to compliment and validate the Brannings, should be slapped around the entire Elstree lot.

Oh, and Jack, Phil did not choose the church as a smack in the face to you about James. Most of the church sequences have been filmed at that Church, which is probably the Walford parish church - Bradley's funeral, George's christening, Pat's funeral, Den's funeral etc. It's not all about you or the Brannings.

Rolfie.

I like them together, but like the Masoods, we know it's all going to be kabuki theatre. Myself, I think Alfie moved too quickly, but he's hurting from Kat's betrayal and needs some love and comfort. Roxy loves him, and she'll be loyal. I just hope he's not rebounding and using her. She's insecure at the moment, moving into a place which, even with all reminders removed, simply reeks of Kat.

I was glad, however, to see Alfie visit James's grave, which has a poignance for Roxy also in that he was her nephew, but more importantly, to see him reference his grieving during the babyswap time and to reference Kat's overall behaviour - how the grief was all about her, how every emotion she encapsulated into being all about her - love, grief, anger - to the point that he, her husband, felt left out and alone. Good on Alfie for saying that whoever found himself with Kat would experience that awful loneliness as well.

Kat seriously needs to go. Newman needs to put her own ego on the back burner and do what the public want. Axe the spent character.

Sharon the Bimbo.

Stop dumbing Sharon down. The old Sharon would have seen right through Jack's charade.

Lola the Chav.

Let's face it. The reason Phil wants to raise Lexi is that her other alternative would be being raised by Lola, a thief and a chav with anger issues, and Billy, who is always represented as the all-time loser. Actually, I'm surprised they don't pair Billy up with Bianca.

Her attitude sucks. And she never learns that the way to Phil's softer side is through Sharon. Once she starts dictating measures, she never gets what she wants. Her miserable face tonight did nothing for me.

Oh, and for the record ... Lexi's name is still Lexi Pearce, if that's on her birth certificate. Because she was premature, Scarlett was christened in hospital before being registered. She was christened "Patricia Moon." Her name on her birth certificate is "Scarlett Patricia Moon."

Michael Moon as Devil's Advocate.

What's his name? Seriously trying to put Roxy off moving in with Alfie - reminding her that Sharon said she'd never go back there (as bloody if), how it had ruined Kat and killed Roxy's father. Janine can't come home quick enough.

Other Observations. Jay is so getting over Abi. How soon before he gets jiggly with Lola?

Piss poor.