One of the most unlikeliest (and unlikeable, in my opinion) sex symbols in EastEnders' history is taking a hike ... as you will have heard. Many a female fan on Digital Spy is crying into her cornflakes (and a fair few fanbois as well, I imagine) as they digest the fact that Michael Moon, Prince of Darkness, is taking leave of EastEnders later this year.
Am I happy? Well, yes, in a way, I am. I warmed to Michael the way one might warm to a corpse; in fact, I called him a walking cadaver. He actually reminded me of the lovechild conceived by a vampire with Mr Spock; and whilst Michael inherited Mr Spock's ears (a comment which resulted in my being banned from Digital Spy - go fucking figure), he inherited nothing of Mr Spock's charm.
I also hated the way he treated Janine last summer and autumn, although as a couple, when they initially got together, I thought it an inspirational pairing, because both were so similar and broken, and both brought out the hidden goodness in each other. I don't know if TPTB would have gone the sick route they chose to go with them, had Charlie Brooks not decided to take a six-month break; but at the beginning, you felt that maybe - just maybe - they were the next go-to couple for whom the viewer could root.
Both had massive daddy issues, and both had equally massive abandonment issues as well. Both had lost their mothers at an early age, and both felt on the periphery of their siblings' relationships - Janine as the much younger, afterthought child with whom her father couldn't cope, and Michael as the child of a loveless first marriage adjusting to his father's second wife and second family.
The most poignant moment of the Michael-Janine dynamic came when she told him of her pregnancy and he begged her to keep the child, saying they would raise the baby, as it would give them both a chance to be normal. There were also several instances in their relationship where they quirkily told one another that they loved each other, ending with Michael actually vocalising the sentiment in a desperate whisper as Janine drove away, her spirit finally broken by his psychological mistreatment.
Still, one felt (especially knowing that Brooks sabbatical was approaching) that there was something not quite right about their relationship.
First, Janine admitted to Pat, as Pat was dying, that she was pregnant by a man she didn't trust. Pat told her, succinctly, to have the baby; she never mentioned the man. Then, there was the fact that, back in 2011, when Michael arrived to stay on the Square and was drinking in the pub, a skint Janine approached him and chatted him up, only to be summarily put in her place by Michael, who didn't want to know.
Yet when she came onto him in the wake of having inherited a fortune, Michael was more than receptive. In fact, Janine's money became the driving point, from his perspective, of their relationship, and was probably the modus operandi of his mistreatment of her after Scarlett's birth. Hormonal, most likely suffering from post-natal depression, and exhausted from dealing with a sick baby, Michael knew just which buttons to push in order to prey upon Janine's fragile self-esteem and insecurities, all the while trying to divert her attention with increasingly expensive gifts (bought with Janine's money) whilst he assumed control of her finances and her business interests. But Janine pulled a blinder at the end of it all.
Michael Moon, you see, is a con man, like all of his family to varying degrees - from Alfie's inveterate charm, to Danny's and Jake's incompetent criminality, to Eddie's poor man's Lovejoy right down to the Moon Goons' general incompetence overall, the Moons con. The difference between the majority of them and Michael is that Alfie, Jake, Eddie, Tyler and Annannee (using Derek's pronunciation) all had or have a heart. They are capable of genuine love and compassion.
Even Alfie, treated abysmally by his skank of a wife, loves her still and doesn't want to see her hurt.
Michael, however, punches down. He strikes a person, usually a woman, when her defences are down and she is at her most vulnerable point, and he preys on that vulnerability. Look at his victims:
Am I happy? Well, yes, in a way, I am. I warmed to Michael the way one might warm to a corpse; in fact, I called him a walking cadaver. He actually reminded me of the lovechild conceived by a vampire with Mr Spock; and whilst Michael inherited Mr Spock's ears (a comment which resulted in my being banned from Digital Spy - go fucking figure), he inherited nothing of Mr Spock's charm.
I also hated the way he treated Janine last summer and autumn, although as a couple, when they initially got together, I thought it an inspirational pairing, because both were so similar and broken, and both brought out the hidden goodness in each other. I don't know if TPTB would have gone the sick route they chose to go with them, had Charlie Brooks not decided to take a six-month break; but at the beginning, you felt that maybe - just maybe - they were the next go-to couple for whom the viewer could root.
Both had massive daddy issues, and both had equally massive abandonment issues as well. Both had lost their mothers at an early age, and both felt on the periphery of their siblings' relationships - Janine as the much younger, afterthought child with whom her father couldn't cope, and Michael as the child of a loveless first marriage adjusting to his father's second wife and second family.
The most poignant moment of the Michael-Janine dynamic came when she told him of her pregnancy and he begged her to keep the child, saying they would raise the baby, as it would give them both a chance to be normal. There were also several instances in their relationship where they quirkily told one another that they loved each other, ending with Michael actually vocalising the sentiment in a desperate whisper as Janine drove away, her spirit finally broken by his psychological mistreatment.
Still, one felt (especially knowing that Brooks sabbatical was approaching) that there was something not quite right about their relationship.
First, Janine admitted to Pat, as Pat was dying, that she was pregnant by a man she didn't trust. Pat told her, succinctly, to have the baby; she never mentioned the man. Then, there was the fact that, back in 2011, when Michael arrived to stay on the Square and was drinking in the pub, a skint Janine approached him and chatted him up, only to be summarily put in her place by Michael, who didn't want to know.
Yet when she came onto him in the wake of having inherited a fortune, Michael was more than receptive. In fact, Janine's money became the driving point, from his perspective, of their relationship, and was probably the modus operandi of his mistreatment of her after Scarlett's birth. Hormonal, most likely suffering from post-natal depression, and exhausted from dealing with a sick baby, Michael knew just which buttons to push in order to prey upon Janine's fragile self-esteem and insecurities, all the while trying to divert her attention with increasingly expensive gifts (bought with Janine's money) whilst he assumed control of her finances and her business interests. But Janine pulled a blinder at the end of it all.
Michael Moon, you see, is a con man, like all of his family to varying degrees - from Alfie's inveterate charm, to Danny's and Jake's incompetent criminality, to Eddie's poor man's Lovejoy right down to the Moon Goons' general incompetence overall, the Moons con. The difference between the majority of them and Michael is that Alfie, Jake, Eddie, Tyler and Annannee (using Derek's pronunciation) all had or have a heart. They are capable of genuine love and compassion.
Even Alfie, treated abysmally by his skank of a wife, loves her still and doesn't want to see her hurt.
Michael, however, punches down. He strikes a person, usually a woman, when her defences are down and she is at her most vulnerable point, and he preys on that vulnerability. Look at his victims:
- Kat, alone with Alfie in prison and frightened at the prospect of being hunted by gangsters rabid for the money the Moons owed them. Alfie sent her to Michael, thinking he could trust him. Michael got her drunk and slept with her, impregnating her (at least, we think he did, watch this space).
- Roxy, who was lonely and isolated, with a small child. He honed his way into her life and tried to live out his Ronnie fantasies by controlling her and trying to mould her more into a Ronnie image.
- Ronnie, the wife of the man who was supposedly his best friend. He bonded with her, again, through his perception of her daddy issues, and tried in the weirdest way, to seduce her. When that didn't work, he tried to paint her as an inveterate predator, desperate enough for a child to try to kidnap Tommy twice over.
- Jean - we all remember the monumental monetary scam he instituted this summer, including subtly convincing Jean to embezzle from Alfie and the Vic.
- Janine, his own wife, at her lowest point emotionally, psychologically and physically.
- And now, his next victim looks to be the insipid and naive Alice. Boy, is she in for a revelation!
The actor, himself, has long described his character as a psychopath, a character type which always has a short shelf life - cf: Archie Mitchell.
Yes, Michael is quirky and edgy, and at times, incongruous (offering marital and relationship advice to Alfie, of all people, whilst sleeping, again, with his wife). His facial expressions and one-liners are the stuff of legend; but a character like Michael can only stay so long on the Square before he loses his edge and either becomes a nice guy or degenerates into an unfunny and repetitive cartoon.
So, yes, I'm happy that he's going in that respect, and that the actor who portrays him, Steve John Shepherd, knows when it's time to make an exit.
But on the other hand, this is the third actor (the fourth in total, if you count Jo Joyner) to leave this year who numbered amongst the 25-55 age demographic - Zainab, Jack and now Michael Moon (although I expected he would leave after Janine returned and kicked his ass). What replacements I see are few, far between and unimpressive (Ava, whose mojo is to pop up here and there with the odd remark and nothing really to offer, because she was a spot creation with no backstory and no direction) or uncertain (Danny Pennant - is he the new Jack? the new Michael? or a combination of both?)
Whilst I can see Ava moving in on Masood via encouraging his teaching ambitions - like maybe he could teach her grammar, because for someone who's supposed to be a deputy head, she talks like a guttersnipe chav - and whilst I can definitely see Danny Pennant involved, at least financially, with Janine, I can equally see TPTB bump up various yoof to the positions previously held by Jack the Peg and Michael Moon. So I fully expect the equally wooden Joey to suddenly experience an infusion of testosterone and fuck every remaining Mitchell blonde in sight, take over the boxing gym and bounce off Max verbally, and Tyler to start making faces and start psychologically manipulating Whitney.
Spare us.
Lorraine Newman wanted to stop the revolving door. She didn't bank on so many using the one-way exit.
I really hope we get a satisfying end to Michael something closer to Archie's last breathe and something very far from Derek's final moments. Maybe it will be something like Laura where he trips down the stairs but Alice get blamed like Janine did... that could be interesting.
ReplyDeleteI'm amazed that so many people on Walford Web are surprised that he's leaving, it was fairly obvious, IMO, that he wasn't going to a particularly long term character.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, when he first spotted Janine, she was giving him the eye, and he responded. Jack saw this and warned him against getting involved with her, because she "is trouble". Michael listened, and when Janine came onto him, he rejected her. When they did finally get together, Michael was at his lowest ebb, and she was the only one who was there to care for him. As we saw when she left him, he does genuinely love her - or did. Who knows what they'll do with them now? Personally, I am devastated he is leaving, because Michael and Janine are the only EE couple I have ever found remotely interesting. This truly means the end for them, and that makes me sad.
ReplyDelete