Actual EastEnders: The End of an Era - Review 07.02.2013

I thought I'd begin with something positive, which is ironic because this episode was about the sad, but inevitable end of what had formerly been a strong, commited relationship. 

Kudos to Pete Lawson, on whom I've been relatively harsh of late. He's proven that he can still pull it out of the hat, and, really, what you saw tonight was exactly what EastEnders used to be. There wasn't one superfluous character, not one incongruous line of dialogue. Every scene, every character played an essential part surrounding the sad end to the Masood marriage.

Was Zainab's leaving line rushed? Absolutely. Could it have been better? Most definitely. This should have subtly started with the home truths thrown at her by Masood when Syed's stupidity came to the fore. Those words should have been left to simmer, and - really - we, the viewers, should have been told earlier about Nina Wadia leaving. We should have been treated to an intricately developed leaving line worthy of the actress and the character; but having said that, this episode encapsulated everything EastEnders used to be and still could be again. 

And you know something? Bianca apart, who's as much Beale and Butcher as she is Branning, there wasn't a single Branning to be seen, heard or smelled.

And because everyone had a purpose and no one was relegated to the secondary storyline status, everyone - absolutely everyone, including Tyler and Whitney - stepped up to the plate.

It's obvious now that Ayesha was the catalyst in ending the Masoods. She was the avenging Angel sent with a purpose: to force the Masoods to look at their relationship over the years and to recognise its eventual deterioration to the point where it became unfeasible, to the point where, reluctantly, Zainab is forced to acknowledge silently that she no longer loves Masood and he acknowledges that he feels the same.

The Water Feature

The water feature was, in effect, the Masoods' relationship. Several times during the episodes, reference was made to the Masoods' associaition as being "solid" and even "like a rock." The water feature was the way Zainab wanted her family to appear - dignified, unique, above everyone else in the community. The water feature was a superfluous folly, but Zainab felt it set the Masoods apart on quality from the rest of the residents of Walford, all of whom were disdained by Zainab.

When Masood destroyed the fountain, it freed him to give vent to all the thoughts he'd repressed and ignored dealing with Zainab's imposing personality which had festered and grown inordinately over the years. Ayesha? As he said, that was his weakness. Nothing happened, but - as Ayesha, herself, said - it could have; and this is what hurt Zainab.

Masood saw Ayesha as someone young and fresh, someone who saw him as a man and, more importantly, as a desireable man. He laughed with Ayesha, and before that, his association with Jane, when they finally and briefly became a couple after his divorce from Zainab, Masood laughed a lot.

In the end, his feelings toward Zainab were much the same as Max's convoluted feelings toward Tanya and what Alfie is probably feeling toward Kat at the moment (and Roxy as well, because Alfie is even more convoluted than Max): she is the mother of his children and with that, they will always have a bond. And because of that, he'll feel protective toward her.

On a thread in Digital Spy today, someone posited that Max Branning always made himself the fall guy for the foibles that Tanya and his ungrateful daughters always foist upon him because of his perceived behaviour. Masood is the same. Masood was treated disgracefully during the summer of 2011, when Afia, Tamwar, Syed and Zainab turned against him in favour of Yusef, when they were manipulated by Yusef into considering Masood the bugaboo in maligning Yusef. He literally was excluded from his own home. He was discredited.

Tonight, Masood assumed responsibility for the physical and emotional hurt Zainab endured under Yusef's domination. He didn't have to do that, but he did; because he's Masood. If nothing else proved what a man of worth he is, then this single selfless act did.

A high point of the Masood scenes tonight was the role playing scene, which eventually revealed what the couple really thought of each other, especially Zainab. The clearing out of the house, initially, was Zainab's attempt to clear the house of the influence of Ayesha, to start again. It turned into an exorcism of the past, and a testament to the future.

Zainab and Masood are history, and she will leave at the end of tomorrow's episode. An established couple end their association and one must leave the Square. This will happen with Max and Tanya, and it should happen sooner, rather than later. This analysis of a relationship and its repercussions should have been allotted to the Moons as well, considering their recent problems, but it won't be. Such a confrontation would mean someone, the party assuming responsibility for the fall-out (in this case, Kat), would have to leave, in order for Alfie to grow and move on.

This won't happen. Will Masood grow from this and move forward? That remains to be seen.

A little bit of mood music for the deft exocism we've just witnessed:-

Caught in the Crossfire: Ajay - The Man Behind the Earphones

I used to wonder and still do wonder about the point of Ajay, a comical figure who elicits no laughs. Like Kim, a fortyish man caught in the aura of an adolescence twenty years behind his age.

He's a secular Muslim, who drinks and sleeps around. He's got a twenty-year failed marriage under his belt, and he hates kids. (So he sniffs around Bianca, right?) He dislikes and doesn't get along with Zainab, who thinks him wanton and shallow, which he probably is.

But it was obvious that the solidity of his brother's marriage and his brother's happiness mean a lot to Ajay. Phaldut Sharma may have been the weakest link in tonight's episode, but he did his best,and it was interesting that Denise emerged tonight as one of two women to whom various people turn in times of distress.

Ajay is so emotionally stunted in adolescence, he's afraid of letting his image of cool slip, lest it be deemed a sign of weakness. So, rather than sit and talk with Denise about his concerns regarding his brother and Zainab, who not only works with Denise but is also her best friend, he does what Ajay always does - avoid the issue and take the easy route: spending a day in the Vic, drinking with Kat and her new BFF, Bianca. (Yes, I know ... how these women get any money to indulge in their favourite pastime is beyond me, and who is looking after Tommy?)

So the trio sit in judgement of marriage, in general, in the Vic, epitomised by that budding couple Twitney, who've just announced their engagement. Ajay indulges in a soliloquy about his own marriage, measured in increasingly pejorative spates of five-year periods, whilst Kat carries on speaking to no one in particular about the inefficacy of bliss, all the time giving the fish eye to Alfie as he overtly displays affection for Roxy. He's fooling no one, except Kat and Roxy, and Roxy's being sacrificed at the altar of Saint Kat. Bianca sits and expostulates about her disapproval of Whitney and Tyler's happiness. Three people, together but alone, talking at each other, but not even listening. They're there and they're together because there's no one else, and the only reason Kat and Bianca can be convinced to stay is down to Ajay chickening out on talking to Denise and, instead, proposing to buy a bottle of bubbly (which is probably in Alfie's fridge).

Instead, in begging for credit, he ends up expressing his concerns about Zainab and Masood, to Alfie, who's distracted enough to fob him off with his own perception of how solid Zainab and Masood really are, which - actually - is a triumph for Zainab, because this is the image of her tribe she's always hoped to project. Still, Alfie is struck enough by Ajay's concern to realise that if something as solid as he thought he had with Kat can shatter, then why couldn't Zainab and Masood - and he sends Ajay away, ostensibly, to go home. Instead, we later see him passed out and clutching a half-finished pint in the Vic, and still later, being helped home by the combined efforts of a giggling Kat and Bianca and a phlegmatic Roxy.

Caught in the Crossfire II: Tamwar 

One of the potentially saddest things about tonight's episode was the possibility of this week being the last we see of the adorable Kamil, who should be shortly turning three and who can actually handle dialogue, as evidenced tonight by his asking, not once but twice, where Ayesha is.

Tamwar is a manchild, who begs to be treated like an adult. Yet Zainab still treats him like a small child. Unlike Lauren, his contemporary, Tamwar has been married and has also run his own business. Until Zainab summarily took his Minute Mart job away from him, he was gainfully employed at that establishment.

He knows something's wrong, and he knows it's connected to Ayesha and her inexplicable absence. He's not a fool, even though he can be socially inept. Unlike the platitudes and excuses, and the refusal of a sincere offer of help that Ajay endured, Tamwar's pleas for help in understanding meet with realistic replies.

First Arthur - and Fatboy was in Arthur mode today - reminded him that when his own parents split, it was deep. It involved closed doors and quiet arguments and more than the fur flying, he sought to stay out of the crossfire and seek his own way, which is what he was urging Tamwar to do.

Later, Tamwar's the fly in the ointment as Twitney announce their engagement to Arthur and Poppy, making deadpan pronouncements on marriage as he holds onto Kamila as if for life. It's only when he talks to Dot that he begins to see things in perspective.

Again, the Dot scene was one of the real highlights of the episode.

Lorraine Newman has got few things right since she took over as Executive Producer. Correction, she's got sod-all right - from hanging onto Tyler Moon to hiring David Witts for looks and not for experience, for shamelessly promoting the dire Jacqueline Worst-Actress-Ever Jossa as the go-to girl for EastEnders, for seeking to repair Kat at the expense of Roxy and, quite possibly, Janine to (sin of all sins) fucking up Sharon's character entirely; but she has got Dot right.

I was never a Dot shipper. In fact, I quite frequently am annoyed by her hamminess; but since her return, she's rightfully earned my epithet of the Wrath of Dot - tossing that old ingrate of a skank Cora the Bora out on her wrinkly, drunken arse; giving Lauren what for; being supportive of Max, and handing Sharon her hypocritical arse. 

The way she honed in on Tamwar being troubled tonight and took him under her wing for a quiet talk and a cup of cocoa was the action of the Square's matriarch-in-residence. Whoever thought to promote the drink-and-fag-ridden Cora as such a character needed their head examined. Dot listened to Tamwar's concerns, offered some back history of her own - how her own father abandoned the family and how Dot returned from evacuation to find her mother re-married and with two younger half-siblings, how she hated her step-father, how she stayed married to Charlie, even though he betrayed her by selling her jewelry to fund his drink and even living with her sister. In this respect, Tamwar has been lucky with his parents. And Dot offers the only realistic advice she can - maybe the Masoods will weather this storm, maybe they won't. Tamwar just has to accept what happens and move on.

In the end, he congratulates Twitney, promises to join their celebration after taking Kamil home, and arrives in time to overhear his parents' relationship ending.

Great episode. The week may end strongly. The downside is that the following Moon-centric week looks full of shit.