Well, tonight we saw even more of the beginning of Lorraine Newman's proposed changes for the new warm, fuzzy Branning-centric programme, including her push to the fore of her crush couple, the ones who are just so beautiful. The more I see of this show under Lorraine's auspices, the more I wonder if she isn't stunted someplace in middle school, the geeky girl sat by the food table, minding the handbags and sneaking cucumber sandwiches whilst pining for the head boy, who's groping some horny little slut on the dancefloor.
Ah well ... such is EastEnders.
Tonight, we saw Kat morph into Pat and the Brannings morph into the Mitchells, complete with abusive, boxing-obsessed, negligent father abusing eldest son.
Oh please ...
Stand by Your Man.
It's a well-established observation that the Branning men treat whatever woman with whom they are romantically associated like the proverbial chattel and prize piece of shit. A woman is only a complement to their ego, and she exists - whoever she may be, wife or mistress - for the Branning male's sexual pleasure. If she's his wife, she'll bear his children; if she's his babymamma, she'll bear his children and pocket the ubiquitous cheque monthly, in order to stay out of sight and out of mind.
The philosophy of the Branning woman, unless you're Carol Jackson or Bianca, is summed up in this time-worn song ...
At least, that's Tanya's philosophy, as she'd have Lauren understand it, albeit an even more warped version of the late serial monogamist Tammy Wynette. (She was a hairdresser, like Tanya, you know).
In the 21st Century, we begin tonight's EastEnders with a mother, interspersing her explanation to her dimwit, self-obsessed daughter about the complexities of grief, with advice about holding onto the man of your dreams - ne'mind if he's married to another woman with a kid, ne'mind the fact that he's your cousin and you share the same set of grandparents. Joey's not paying much attention to widdle self-obsessed Wauren? Well, that's because Daddy Dearest is toast. But Joey didn't like Daddy Dearest. Well, when a relative dies, you stick together - and above all, you stand by your man.
Tanya as good as implied that it was Lauren's duty to give Joey a sympathy fuck to help him in his grief, just like Tanya was going to perform according to another Tammy Wynette song, in order to keep Max reined in ...
Well, we know Tanya isn't exactly a "good" girl. She plays at being all refined and elegant, but the truth is that when she met Max, she was as big a slut as she reckons Kirsty is. She managed to get up the duff and wrangle Max into dumping his first wife and child, so she could scrub herself up and pretend to be middle class. Now at the eleventh hour, she's actually found out that, she's not Max's wife - in fact, she's the other woman again, so she's got to get down and dirty and play the slut in the bedroom, in order to keep Max onside.
It behooves any viewer of EastEnders with more than one braincell to be reminded that Max and Tanya's relationship is based on sex. That three children are a result of this sexual relationship does give Max a special bond with Tanya - she is the mother of his children; but he certainly doesn't love her enough to be faithful to her. Two years ago, he was ready to leave his children and his new girlfriend to swan off to parts unknown with Stacey Slater, and I would say Stacey would be the only woman who could appear out of the blue and witness Max put the dampers on both Tanya's and Kirsty's affections, but that ain't gonna happen - that is, not until the thirtieth anniversary episode or the roles of Stacey-Slater-with-another-name dry up for Lacey Turner, whichever comes first.
You see, that's Max's problem ... his first marriage was another relationship based on sex. He got a seventeen year-old Rachel pregnant when he was only eighteen, and married her. Six years later, he reprised the same scenario with Tanya, whilst he was still married to Rachel. If Kirsty had walked in that door on Christmas Day, carrying a baby boy or girl, Max would have dropped Tanya like the proverbial hot potato. The women Max has married have never captured his heart completely, or else he would never have been tempted to stray.
And Tanya's remedy to the Kirsty dilemma is to out-sex Kirsty; and if spoiled, little Lauren is worried about Joey dumping her, then she should just up the ante and stand by her man, dang it!
All of this interspersed with Tanya blithely reminiscing about her father's funeral and grieving for the man she actually killed as if it were the most normal thing in the world. This is how the Brannings do normal, they compartmentalise their dysfunction and try to pretend it never existed. Then up pops karma and takes a lick out of someone's arse.
Kirsty Stands by Her Man.
Ye-a-aaah, but Kirsty's not really the Tammy Wynette little woman. I'd say she's more Alanis Morissette. In fact, you could just imagine Kirsty singing the lyrics to this song to Max, all in his face ... as she does ...
I love Kirsty. Even though they had to make her part and parcel of this dystopian, dysfunctional family of inbreds and poor whites, I love how she fits them so well and how she's able to stand up to their hypocrisy and their pretensions; and there is nothing nothing any of them can do about it. In fact, their reactions only make them look stupid.
And people of Digital Spy or Walford Web or whatever, if you aren't screaming in Kirsty's corner, you're just stupid too. Why?
Because Kirsty is Max's wife. Legally. When Max was run out of Walford in August 2011 by his lying wife and criminal daughter, Tanya made him believe that he had nothing with her. No future, no life, nothing. They were divorced. Shortly after he left Walford, depressed, vulnerable and drinking, he met Kirsty; and somewhere within the next three months, they fell in love and married.
Max did nothing wrong. In fact, he was on his way to collect Kirsty to go to Manchester, when he was summoned by Jack, back to Walford to deal with a family crisis. That situation - Tanya's cancer cold - convinced him to make a phonecall to Kirsty and tell her they were through.
Kirsty married him in good faith. Out of the blue, he dumps her. Unbeknownst to him, she's pregnant. He makes no contact with her for an entire year, until it's time that he can get a legal divorce, then he shoves an envelope containing money and the divorce papers through her letterbox.
Really, for the last year and now, as Tanya says, Max has been cheating on his wife. The only problem for Tanya is that she isn't the wife on whom he's cheating. She's the other woman.
It pisses me off when people self-righteously brand Kirsty a bunny-boiler and deluded. She isn't. She's a woman who fell in love with a man - and please, don't call her a gold-digger. Max Branning barely has a pot to piss in - married him in good faith and was abandoned by him. She had every right to roll up in Walford when she did, search him out and demand answers and an explanation. I would even put it to the naysayers that it's true what Kirsty says: she does indeed "get" Max, far better than Tanya does.
She's not desperate. Or deluded. Or mental. She's a woman who's been betrayed by her husband and she wants the truth. The reason she's being so tenacious is that she knows, in her heart and in her gut, that Max still has feelings for her, and she's going to fight for what is hers.
She's going to stand by her man.
The irony of this situation is that Tanya, in Max's life, has come full circle. She is now, once again, the other woman.
Arguably the best scene of the night was that kitchen scene between Kierston Wareing and Lindsey Coulson. Coulson embodied the totally illogical rational by which the Brannnings justify their dysfunctional amorality, and Carol, like Max, oddly, is one of the more compassionate members of the family.
Every accusation she leveled at Kirsty was scooped up and thrown right back in her face until Carol issued her a challenge to ask Max if he felt anything for her and if he didn't and told her to go, she would. Carol looked like the cat who'd eaten the canary when Kirsty took up the challenge - little knowing that Kirsty knew exactly how to play Max and the Brannings at their own game. Kirsty reminds them too much of their own origins, how if you scratch the dirt off the surface, you still come up with inbred white trash.
Kudos to Carey Andrews for that scene, but thank Fat Elvis it was carried by two of the programme's three strongest actresses.
In the end, Kirsty bagged her man (pun intended) and bagged him in the ubiquitous AlleyKat alley, in the same place where Kat got porked by the slimey delivery man and later by Shaggerman Derek, and where Roxy Mitchell offered it on a plate to Max Branning, only to have him compare Roxy and Tanya as hamburger to steak. Max proved today that Kirsty was filet mignon grossier. (But filet mignon nonetheless). And just as clueless, hypocritical Tanya stood just around the corner from the alley, trying to ring Max.
Stupid Girls
Lauren the GurnGirl and Bag o'Bones Beale in the launderette.
Boy, this song is so about Lauren and Lucy ...
Except when Lucy was forced by that encounter in the launderette to recognise how completely stupid, selfish and self-centred Lauren was, Lucy actually grew up a bit and realised that maybe it's not too smart to hang out with poor white trash like Lauren.
We were subjected to Lauren forcing herself and her self-centred whining and whingeing about Joey, Joey, Joey.
How she doesn't feel at ease in having a sexual relationship with her cousin ... well, bitch, don't go there then.
How she thinks she really should dump him, and did Lucy "want him back." Dude, you don't go offering someone who's supposed to be your best mate your cast-off boyfriends. Glad Lucy told her in no uncertain terms that she didn't want Joey back. And even gladder that Lucy shamed this totally unpleasant and unlikeable little bitch into almost admitting that by keeping schtum and letting Joey take the rap for her misdeed, isn't very loving at all - it's just pures selfish.
Even after Lucy imposed upon her how shitty that sort of behaviour was - let someone else take the rap for me, go to jail for me etc - Lauren's initial reaction was, "But I have a criminal record!"
Tough shit, sunshine. You do the crime, you do the time. Funny, how Lauren went on a crusade to expose Stacey Slater's crime, when Stacey set back and allowed Lauren's brother to die branded a murderer and justified that by reminding herself that Bradley loved her, and this is what you do for love. Not.
So GurnGirl's gone down to the copshop - unfortunately, she doesn't confess, and we're forced to endure her whiney, selfish presence for the unforeseeable future entirely because the EP thinks she's beautiful.
Line of the night, however, goes to Lucy Beale: Lauren, your boyfriend IS your family.
Crack that nut with that sledgehammer, girl.
Jah-WAHHH, Aaaa-aasss, Poppy and the Kat in the Pat.
Meanwhile over at the old Slater Arms, JahWAHHH is acting like a spoiled kid having a hissy fit. Mean Uncle Max and sleazy Uncle Jack try to manhandle him into going to the funeral. Waahhh-waahhh-waaahhh, he doesn't wanna go. You can't make him. If you do, he'll hold his breath (but with his mouth open).
Last night, I amazed myself, because I understood three complete lines of dialogue that David Witts uttered. Tonight, it was back to being completely unintelligible.
While he was being a prick, Aaaa-aaaasss was weeping and wailing for her daddy, whom she didn't know from Adam one year ago. Waahh-Waahh-waahh, Mummy's not coming (Please, God, do not introduce Derek's ex-wife) ... Jah-WAHHH's not coming. Woe is me. The music hasn't been chosen.
Poppy to the rescue for Alice, giving us ...Meditation Techniques for Dumbasses...
Some nonsense about Alice letting worries go by her head like little clouds. Honestly, Poppy's nice, but I don't like the EastEnders' tradition of the sweet-natured female village idiot anymore than I liked their sad, fat clowns. Little Mo was the female Frank Spencer (Ooooh, Beeelleeee), Honey playing Mrs Malaprop, and now we have Aaaa-aaassss, her little clouds and her wee-wees.
In the meantime, we continue to see Ms Newman's all-too-obvious metamorphosis of Kat from selfish, self-centred slut who treated her loving husband like shit, into the Mary Magdalen of Albert Square ...
Pretty soon, she'll be warbling this about Alfie to all and sundry ...
Alfie as Jesus Christ, fancy that.
All of a sudden, after observing the failure of Max's and Jack's cack-handed persuasion techniques and Joey's sullenness, Kat channels the spirit of Pat and reminds Joey that he's got a "widdle sister" who's depending on and trusting him, accusing him of revelling in his hatred for his father, whilst Jah-WAAHHH throws back a bit of poor-me-I'm-a-victim because Dadda threw his jelly sandwiches into the sink in front of all his widdle mates at Jah-Waahh's seventh birthday party. Along with the tales of Dadda beating Jah-Waahh's mummy.
Well, well, based on what we heard at the Brannings about the dynamic between Jim and Derek, Derek was abused and became an abuser, himself. Kat was abused and became an abuser, herself. There's the attraction, but here's another wonder ... Kat actually took responsibility for her involvement with Derek tonight. When Jah-WAAHH tried to shove back the fact that Derek used and manipulated Kat (something she's been shipping for the past week, herself), Kat stepped up to the plate and admitted she involvled herself in that palaver too.
Well, nice to see Newman's doing what she said she'd do, but we all know where it's going to end. Alfie and Kat, sitting in a tree. Just start calling Roxy "Vanessa" now.
The Brannings Morph into the Mitchells.
Now we get another Branning retconned backstory courtesy of Jack and Carol, talking about Dot and Jim. Jim's in a bad way, and Dot's staying with him. Even though they haven't told him Derek's dead, Jim knows, because he's making praying gestures (this is Jim the old atheist lag, remember). Now we get a trip down memory lane about animosity between Derek and Jim, how Jim used to beat Derek (shades of Eric Mitchell beating Phil and Grandpa Phil Mitchell beating Eric and Archie - shit, there's even a boxing connection). And suddenly, we're treated to the revelation of weekly Sunday visits the Branning boys and Carol would all make to Jim, with Derek doing the Big I Am routine at the foot of Jim's bed. Then the brilliant psychological analysis that Derek's obsession with head of the table and head of the family was nothing to do with taunting Max, but proving himself to Jim that he could hold the family together.
Yeah, like herding cats ... Here's what happened to Uncle Ike Branning's branch who went West into Texas ...
Sharon and Cora the Bora: Dorothy Meets the Wicked Witch of the West
OMIGOD ... Auntie Glenda showed up to the funeral too.
Brief moment of good measure in tonight's first part - Cora the Bora, who's obviously been hitting the bottle, otherwise she wouldn't have donned those sunspecs on a cloudy winter's day, offers some comment on the funeral procession which obviously isn't up to Derek's standards. (As if she'd know, and by the way, Cora, Derek is toast).
It seemed for the first time Sharon suddenly became aware of what such an intimate association as marriage into the Branning tribe of poor whites would mean for her - that part of her extended family would include that old grey hag of a man in drag, Cora the Bora.
I've never seen Sharon shove her arse inside that car so fast, visibly shuddering.
And finally ...
The Letter
After spending the majority of the episode weeping onto the sarnies for the wake no one will attend, Carol is handed, by Poppy, a missive found on the floor of Derek's bedroom, addressed to her. From David Wicks, no less, and kept from her knowledge by dear old Derek.
(Poppy's handing Carol the letter is a direct replay of Little Mo Slater finding Frank's confessional letter to Peggy about his affair with Pat, back in November 2000. Who says EastEnders doesn't use the same shit different day ...)
Second half to follow. Go, Team Kirsty!
Ah well ... such is EastEnders.
Tonight, we saw Kat morph into Pat and the Brannings morph into the Mitchells, complete with abusive, boxing-obsessed, negligent father abusing eldest son.
Oh please ...
Stand by Your Man.
It's a well-established observation that the Branning men treat whatever woman with whom they are romantically associated like the proverbial chattel and prize piece of shit. A woman is only a complement to their ego, and she exists - whoever she may be, wife or mistress - for the Branning male's sexual pleasure. If she's his wife, she'll bear his children; if she's his babymamma, she'll bear his children and pocket the ubiquitous cheque monthly, in order to stay out of sight and out of mind.
The philosophy of the Branning woman, unless you're Carol Jackson or Bianca, is summed up in this time-worn song ...
At least, that's Tanya's philosophy, as she'd have Lauren understand it, albeit an even more warped version of the late serial monogamist Tammy Wynette. (She was a hairdresser, like Tanya, you know).
In the 21st Century, we begin tonight's EastEnders with a mother, interspersing her explanation to her dimwit, self-obsessed daughter about the complexities of grief, with advice about holding onto the man of your dreams - ne'mind if he's married to another woman with a kid, ne'mind the fact that he's your cousin and you share the same set of grandparents. Joey's not paying much attention to widdle self-obsessed Wauren? Well, that's because Daddy Dearest is toast. But Joey didn't like Daddy Dearest. Well, when a relative dies, you stick together - and above all, you stand by your man.
Tanya as good as implied that it was Lauren's duty to give Joey a sympathy fuck to help him in his grief, just like Tanya was going to perform according to another Tammy Wynette song, in order to keep Max reined in ...
Well, we know Tanya isn't exactly a "good" girl. She plays at being all refined and elegant, but the truth is that when she met Max, she was as big a slut as she reckons Kirsty is. She managed to get up the duff and wrangle Max into dumping his first wife and child, so she could scrub herself up and pretend to be middle class. Now at the eleventh hour, she's actually found out that, she's not Max's wife - in fact, she's the other woman again, so she's got to get down and dirty and play the slut in the bedroom, in order to keep Max onside.
It behooves any viewer of EastEnders with more than one braincell to be reminded that Max and Tanya's relationship is based on sex. That three children are a result of this sexual relationship does give Max a special bond with Tanya - she is the mother of his children; but he certainly doesn't love her enough to be faithful to her. Two years ago, he was ready to leave his children and his new girlfriend to swan off to parts unknown with Stacey Slater, and I would say Stacey would be the only woman who could appear out of the blue and witness Max put the dampers on both Tanya's and Kirsty's affections, but that ain't gonna happen - that is, not until the thirtieth anniversary episode or the roles of Stacey-Slater-with-another-name dry up for Lacey Turner, whichever comes first.
You see, that's Max's problem ... his first marriage was another relationship based on sex. He got a seventeen year-old Rachel pregnant when he was only eighteen, and married her. Six years later, he reprised the same scenario with Tanya, whilst he was still married to Rachel. If Kirsty had walked in that door on Christmas Day, carrying a baby boy or girl, Max would have dropped Tanya like the proverbial hot potato. The women Max has married have never captured his heart completely, or else he would never have been tempted to stray.
And Tanya's remedy to the Kirsty dilemma is to out-sex Kirsty; and if spoiled, little Lauren is worried about Joey dumping her, then she should just up the ante and stand by her man, dang it!
All of this interspersed with Tanya blithely reminiscing about her father's funeral and grieving for the man she actually killed as if it were the most normal thing in the world. This is how the Brannings do normal, they compartmentalise their dysfunction and try to pretend it never existed. Then up pops karma and takes a lick out of someone's arse.
Kirsty Stands by Her Man.
Ye-a-aaah, but Kirsty's not really the Tammy Wynette little woman. I'd say she's more Alanis Morissette. In fact, you could just imagine Kirsty singing the lyrics to this song to Max, all in his face ... as she does ...
I love Kirsty. Even though they had to make her part and parcel of this dystopian, dysfunctional family of inbreds and poor whites, I love how she fits them so well and how she's able to stand up to their hypocrisy and their pretensions; and there is nothing nothing any of them can do about it. In fact, their reactions only make them look stupid.
And people of Digital Spy or Walford Web or whatever, if you aren't screaming in Kirsty's corner, you're just stupid too. Why?
Because Kirsty is Max's wife. Legally. When Max was run out of Walford in August 2011 by his lying wife and criminal daughter, Tanya made him believe that he had nothing with her. No future, no life, nothing. They were divorced. Shortly after he left Walford, depressed, vulnerable and drinking, he met Kirsty; and somewhere within the next three months, they fell in love and married.
Max did nothing wrong. In fact, he was on his way to collect Kirsty to go to Manchester, when he was summoned by Jack, back to Walford to deal with a family crisis. That situation - Tanya's cancer cold - convinced him to make a phonecall to Kirsty and tell her they were through.
Kirsty married him in good faith. Out of the blue, he dumps her. Unbeknownst to him, she's pregnant. He makes no contact with her for an entire year, until it's time that he can get a legal divorce, then he shoves an envelope containing money and the divorce papers through her letterbox.
Really, for the last year and now, as Tanya says, Max has been cheating on his wife. The only problem for Tanya is that she isn't the wife on whom he's cheating. She's the other woman.
It pisses me off when people self-righteously brand Kirsty a bunny-boiler and deluded. She isn't. She's a woman who fell in love with a man - and please, don't call her a gold-digger. Max Branning barely has a pot to piss in - married him in good faith and was abandoned by him. She had every right to roll up in Walford when she did, search him out and demand answers and an explanation. I would even put it to the naysayers that it's true what Kirsty says: she does indeed "get" Max, far better than Tanya does.
She's not desperate. Or deluded. Or mental. She's a woman who's been betrayed by her husband and she wants the truth. The reason she's being so tenacious is that she knows, in her heart and in her gut, that Max still has feelings for her, and she's going to fight for what is hers.
She's going to stand by her man.
The irony of this situation is that Tanya, in Max's life, has come full circle. She is now, once again, the other woman.
Arguably the best scene of the night was that kitchen scene between Kierston Wareing and Lindsey Coulson. Coulson embodied the totally illogical rational by which the Brannnings justify their dysfunctional amorality, and Carol, like Max, oddly, is one of the more compassionate members of the family.
Every accusation she leveled at Kirsty was scooped up and thrown right back in her face until Carol issued her a challenge to ask Max if he felt anything for her and if he didn't and told her to go, she would. Carol looked like the cat who'd eaten the canary when Kirsty took up the challenge - little knowing that Kirsty knew exactly how to play Max and the Brannings at their own game. Kirsty reminds them too much of their own origins, how if you scratch the dirt off the surface, you still come up with inbred white trash.
Kudos to Carey Andrews for that scene, but thank Fat Elvis it was carried by two of the programme's three strongest actresses.
In the end, Kirsty bagged her man (pun intended) and bagged him in the ubiquitous AlleyKat alley, in the same place where Kat got porked by the slimey delivery man and later by Shaggerman Derek, and where Roxy Mitchell offered it on a plate to Max Branning, only to have him compare Roxy and Tanya as hamburger to steak. Max proved today that Kirsty was filet mignon grossier. (But filet mignon nonetheless). And just as clueless, hypocritical Tanya stood just around the corner from the alley, trying to ring Max.
Stupid Girls
Lauren the GurnGirl and Bag o'Bones Beale in the launderette.
Boy, this song is so about Lauren and Lucy ...
We were subjected to Lauren forcing herself and her self-centred whining and whingeing about Joey, Joey, Joey.
How she doesn't feel at ease in having a sexual relationship with her cousin ... well, bitch, don't go there then.
How she thinks she really should dump him, and did Lucy "want him back." Dude, you don't go offering someone who's supposed to be your best mate your cast-off boyfriends. Glad Lucy told her in no uncertain terms that she didn't want Joey back. And even gladder that Lucy shamed this totally unpleasant and unlikeable little bitch into almost admitting that by keeping schtum and letting Joey take the rap for her misdeed, isn't very loving at all - it's just pures selfish.
Even after Lucy imposed upon her how shitty that sort of behaviour was - let someone else take the rap for me, go to jail for me etc - Lauren's initial reaction was, "But I have a criminal record!"
Tough shit, sunshine. You do the crime, you do the time. Funny, how Lauren went on a crusade to expose Stacey Slater's crime, when Stacey set back and allowed Lauren's brother to die branded a murderer and justified that by reminding herself that Bradley loved her, and this is what you do for love. Not.
So GurnGirl's gone down to the copshop - unfortunately, she doesn't confess, and we're forced to endure her whiney, selfish presence for the unforeseeable future entirely because the EP thinks she's beautiful.
Line of the night, however, goes to Lucy Beale: Lauren, your boyfriend IS your family.
Crack that nut with that sledgehammer, girl.
Jah-WAHHH, Aaaa-aasss, Poppy and the Kat in the Pat.
Meanwhile over at the old Slater Arms, JahWAHHH is acting like a spoiled kid having a hissy fit. Mean Uncle Max and sleazy Uncle Jack try to manhandle him into going to the funeral. Waahhh-waahhh-waaahhh, he doesn't wanna go. You can't make him. If you do, he'll hold his breath (but with his mouth open).
Last night, I amazed myself, because I understood three complete lines of dialogue that David Witts uttered. Tonight, it was back to being completely unintelligible.
While he was being a prick, Aaaa-aaaasss was weeping and wailing for her daddy, whom she didn't know from Adam one year ago. Waahh-Waahh-waahh, Mummy's not coming (Please, God, do not introduce Derek's ex-wife) ... Jah-WAHHH's not coming. Woe is me. The music hasn't been chosen.
Poppy to the rescue for Alice, giving us ...Meditation Techniques for Dumbasses...
Some nonsense about Alice letting worries go by her head like little clouds. Honestly, Poppy's nice, but I don't like the EastEnders' tradition of the sweet-natured female village idiot anymore than I liked their sad, fat clowns. Little Mo was the female Frank Spencer (Ooooh, Beeelleeee), Honey playing Mrs Malaprop, and now we have Aaaa-aaassss, her little clouds and her wee-wees.
In the meantime, we continue to see Ms Newman's all-too-obvious metamorphosis of Kat from selfish, self-centred slut who treated her loving husband like shit, into the Mary Magdalen of Albert Square ...
Pretty soon, she'll be warbling this about Alfie to all and sundry ...
All of a sudden, after observing the failure of Max's and Jack's cack-handed persuasion techniques and Joey's sullenness, Kat channels the spirit of Pat and reminds Joey that he's got a "widdle sister" who's depending on and trusting him, accusing him of revelling in his hatred for his father, whilst Jah-WAAHHH throws back a bit of poor-me-I'm-a-victim because Dadda threw his jelly sandwiches into the sink in front of all his widdle mates at Jah-Waahh's seventh birthday party. Along with the tales of Dadda beating Jah-Waahh's mummy.
Well, well, based on what we heard at the Brannings about the dynamic between Jim and Derek, Derek was abused and became an abuser, himself. Kat was abused and became an abuser, herself. There's the attraction, but here's another wonder ... Kat actually took responsibility for her involvement with Derek tonight. When Jah-WAAHH tried to shove back the fact that Derek used and manipulated Kat (something she's been shipping for the past week, herself), Kat stepped up to the plate and admitted she involvled herself in that palaver too.
Well, nice to see Newman's doing what she said she'd do, but we all know where it's going to end. Alfie and Kat, sitting in a tree. Just start calling Roxy "Vanessa" now.
The Brannings Morph into the Mitchells.
Now we get another Branning retconned backstory courtesy of Jack and Carol, talking about Dot and Jim. Jim's in a bad way, and Dot's staying with him. Even though they haven't told him Derek's dead, Jim knows, because he's making praying gestures (this is Jim the old atheist lag, remember). Now we get a trip down memory lane about animosity between Derek and Jim, how Jim used to beat Derek (shades of Eric Mitchell beating Phil and Grandpa Phil Mitchell beating Eric and Archie - shit, there's even a boxing connection). And suddenly, we're treated to the revelation of weekly Sunday visits the Branning boys and Carol would all make to Jim, with Derek doing the Big I Am routine at the foot of Jim's bed. Then the brilliant psychological analysis that Derek's obsession with head of the table and head of the family was nothing to do with taunting Max, but proving himself to Jim that he could hold the family together.
Yeah, like herding cats ... Here's what happened to Uncle Ike Branning's branch who went West into Texas ...
Sharon and Cora the Bora: Dorothy Meets the Wicked Witch of the West
OMIGOD ... Auntie Glenda showed up to the funeral too.
Brief moment of good measure in tonight's first part - Cora the Bora, who's obviously been hitting the bottle, otherwise she wouldn't have donned those sunspecs on a cloudy winter's day, offers some comment on the funeral procession which obviously isn't up to Derek's standards. (As if she'd know, and by the way, Cora, Derek is toast).
It seemed for the first time Sharon suddenly became aware of what such an intimate association as marriage into the Branning tribe of poor whites would mean for her - that part of her extended family would include that old grey hag of a man in drag, Cora the Bora.
I've never seen Sharon shove her arse inside that car so fast, visibly shuddering.
And finally ...
The Letter
After spending the majority of the episode weeping onto the sarnies for the wake no one will attend, Carol is handed, by Poppy, a missive found on the floor of Derek's bedroom, addressed to her. From David Wicks, no less, and kept from her knowledge by dear old Derek.
(Poppy's handing Carol the letter is a direct replay of Little Mo Slater finding Frank's confessional letter to Peggy about his affair with Pat, back in November 2000. Who says EastEnders doesn't use the same shit different day ...)
Second half to follow. Go, Team Kirsty!
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