This is The Awful Truth. It's class:-
At the moment, EastEnders is not. Class, that is, although it used to be. Having said that, it approximated something of what it used to be in Tuesday's episode - most likely because this was an episode based primarily on the circumstances of either the very established or the more established, long-running characters. Newbie participation was minimal, but effective.
EastEnders needs more of the sort of episode Tuesday's was, but it also needs better writing, more research and infinitely better continuity. And it needs to give us characters in which we can invest something emotionally. Sadly, that's still lacking - even in Tuesday's episode.
That's the awful truth about EastEnders, and this episode revealed some awful (and sometimes necessary) truths.
The Awful Truth I: Fat Barbie, the Matron Saint of Hypocrites and Phil.
Here's an awful truth, and I know some of the thought police who think they have a right to patrol my blog will be out in force, crawling from the woodwork and patronisingly trying to lecture me about what I'm going to say. My advice - find a popsicle and suck on it.
The awful truth: Sharon is fat. There's no denying it. She's fat. She has the arms and shoulders of an NFL linebacker, and that's without the padding. Hers is natural. She also has no neck and a masculine jawline. She is one of four women on the programme who look like drag queens - the other three being Kat, Cora and Kim - and Ava could be a contender too.
Therefore, I wonder at the styling EastEnders have given Sharon, because it's ridiculous. Is this supposed to be so comical? Is she one of these comic queens who wear the wrong sort of clothing and think it makes them look chic? Please. Lay off anything that's off the shoulder. Lay off any top which is flowing. Sharon is fat. She's portly. Buxom. She is a middle-aged woman suffering from middle-aged spread, and she shouldn't be swanning around Walford looking like Dolly Parton with bad taste.
And the perma-tan. That's not Sharon.
Another awful truth (and something we all know): Sharon's in love with Phil. Her romantic liaision with Jack is a convenience and a dick tease for both him and Phil. She likes being the centre of male attention to the point that this Sharon, Bimbo Sharon AKA Fat Barbie, positively craves a male in her life. Call it a male-dependency syndrome, something from which her new BFF, Tanya (Matron Saint of Hypocrites) has suffered from for years.
Previously, Sharon was a strong woman who rose above conflict on her own. Now she's a pathetic, pouting, over-plump flirt, with a streak of bitchiness, who pimps herself out for the attention of a man (on whom she inveterately dumps her effete kid). That's progress? In the 21st Century? Apparently it is, in the Gospel according to EastEnders, where every woman is dependent on a man and takes no responsibility for her own actions.
And now for some awful truths about Yummy Mummy: She is the ultimate man-dependent. Tanya doesn't do single. She doesn't cope without a man - and a solvent man - because when she's on her own, she simply falls apart. Look at her initial scene in this episode, allowing a four year-old to lock her out of her home (and having to depend on the conveniently good grace of Phil Mitchell and her husband being nearby to bail her out of this circumstance).
Don't forget Sharon's arch advice for Yummy Mummy - the best way to get over Max is to get another man. Forget concentrating on her business. Forget focusing on her children. Forget trying to forge independence. Single ladies, put a ring on it.
Clock the obvious remark by Sharon about her ring finger during her manicure. Tanya is jealous and admits as much. Sharon has a man and Tanya doesn't. More to the point, Sharon has a man whom Tanya formerly has and she's jealous; so what does Tanya do?
She cosies up to a man Sharon formerly has, accepts a dinner date, which ends with a chaste kiss, and now Sharon's jealous.
These two pathetic women with their phoney friendship and shallow aspirations are now like scrubbed-up chav cougars hunting for a meal ticket (which was mentioned tonight as well, coincidentally). During the meal scene, you could just see Tanya's mind go into overdrive in trying to assess Phil's worth.
What a statement about women's equality in the Twenty-First Century.
And a final home truth about this vignette: Phil doesn't give a rat's arse about Tanya. This was all to give Sharon a taste of her own medicine. Just as Sharon knows pretty much all there is to know about Phil (well, almost, but let's not get into the Dennis argument again), Phil damned well knows what makes Sharon tick. He also knows she wouldn't have allowed him to kiss her as tenderly as she did, without it affecting her emotionally too.
Sharon is trying to play clever, but Phil is cleverer. His dismissive treatment of her when she accidentally on purpose dropped by (knowing that Tanya was due for dinner), was to give her a taste of her own obdurate, play-hard-to-get behaviour.
Her face at the end of the episode was a portrait of pure green-eyed jealousy.
The Awful Truth II: Katshit Stinks of Entitlement.
Nothing stinks worse than cat shit, and Katshit is living proof of that. She's in bully mode now and full of gross entitlement.
She was quick enough to take refuge in the council house the now-unseen Big Mo illegally sublet to the late Shaggerman, himself, Derek (his presence is still with us, just as unseen as Mo is now); but suddenly her newly-found hygiene habits make Joey's and MyAlice's presence unwelcome. (Basically, Katshit hates doing housework).
Nice bit of continuity from Jeff Povey in showing us that the ghostlike Big Mo, who's little more now than a disembodied unheard voice on the end of Kat's expensive Smartphone, is still as intransigent toward Kat as she was when she found her betrayal of Alfie so distasteful - and rightfully so. Kat thinks she's entitled to stay in an illegally sublet council house for a fraction of the rent Mo is charging.
Wait a moment ... Mo was charging Derek and co a monthly rent of £900 - she liked Derek, she was charging the Moon Goons £1000. This must mean that Kat, Joey and MyAlice are responsible for £300 apiece. Joey might be able to manage that, but MyAlice is being paid in IOUs by the Prince of Darkness. And Katshit made it patently clear tonight that she has no money - despite having a market stall.
Faced with the prospect of having to find a smaller place for her and Tommy, what does she do? Why, she approaches Alfie and demands he help her out with a deposit for a new flat ... all in Tommy's interest, of course. Shane Richie played an absolute blinder, calling her front. He'd already subbed the deposit on a market stall for her ... for Tommy's sake. She's pissed off that he wants to establish a legal footing for contact with Tommy, but at the same time, she expects Alfie to fork over money to support her interests, whilst still treating him like shit when she doesn't get her way. And she still has the audacity to wonder why Alfie doesn't trust her.
I loved the way he refused her bluntly and blew her off to seek financial help from Tommy's biological father - Michael Moon, Prince of Darkness, who lives in a house owned by his estranged wife, due back any moment and who could kick his arse from the premises with impugnity ...
(Can't you just picture Janine, the Walford Queen of the Night, dispensing with MyAlice ...)
Anyway, when Kat less-than-subtly eyes up her so-called "meal ticket," she gets short shrift as well. Besides, Michael doesn't have a pot to piss in. He's depending on MyAlice to scrounge around for pennies to come up with a couple of halves. Ne'mind, the price of beer went down by a penny from today.
The insipid thing about the Kat-Alfie dynamic is that we know where it's all going, and the journey is pointless. I'm surprised Newman didn't direct a more sympathetic portrait of her favourite character in this episoden. Still, it was nice to see that skank get handed her arse.
The Awful Truth III: Nuanced Lucy.
Ian Beale wants to be a player again. Deep down, he wants to wear a suit and bully the little people - all to impress the fragrant Denise. So he wants to buy a restaurant (presumably, the defunct Argee Bahjee). Forgetting the fact that he's signed all his assets, including the house in which he lives, over to Lucy (please lay off the exotic eye make-up and the false eyelashes), he arranges a meeting with a personal financial advisor to see how he can borrow money to invest in a new restaurant venture with no capital and no collateral.
Lucy is wary, for two reasons - one obvious and one ulterior. (This is actually clever. It shows depth, and it's something characters used to have in EastEnders, once very long ago).
Lucy is, understandably, concerned that her father hasn't sufficiently recovered psychologically and emotionally to be able to sustain the pressure of establishing a new business, with all the stress it entails. She's afraid Ian would suffer yet another breakdown, and she wants to keep him safe.
This is what Denise sees.
On another level, Lucy likes the control of having Ian work for her. She likes being the boss and having the upper hand. She's greedy, in the same way Ian was greedy before his epiphany. If Ian starts a venture and is successful, he just may decide one day to either buy her out of what she's procured from him, or he'll force her to sign the businesses back to him. Ian was forced to sign those assets over to Lucy, when he wasn't in the right or healthy frame of mind. He needs a good solicitor. I recommend Richie Scott.
The Awful Truth: Liam Pulls It Off.
Locked in his room for more than 24 hours, one wonders ... where does Liam pee? And if he's so tough and can dismantle his entire bedroom, why hasn't he figured out that he can break out through the window? Well, he's either afraid of hurting himself or he's just dumb (as the remark about reporting Bianca to the RSPCA evidences). Well, the Butcher children, as raised by Bianca, are little more than animals (and that's an insult to animal).
Uncomfortable awful truth: Liam is a big, flat-headed lunk. Calling his mother by her Christian name didn't help matters much. One of the things from which Liam suffers, I would imagine, is he's missing a male role model - specifically, he's missing his father. Ricky encouraged Liam to do his best. Bianca's self-appointed substitute, Ray, is all physical, and his man-to-man talks still consist of a threat to smack. Carol's frightened naivete matched his all-too-eager willingness to write Liam off as a lost cause, when he matter-of-factly told a mother that her son was a different child to what she knew.
Liam's deceptive streak, which he used to butter Bianca up and get her to unlock the door to his room, preyed on her ego and her vanity. But the words he uttered afterward were the brutal and truly awful truth - that he way Liam is today is down to Bianca, the way she dealt with him and the way she raised him. She offered no discipline, she had anger management issues, and she's committed crimes. She offered him no encouragement - rather she blamed any of his failures and difficulties on anyone but herself - the school, the government, Janine, anyone. In Ricky's absence, the only positive feedback about himself Liam was receiving, was from the gang with whom he's involved. And that was pejorative encouragement.
At the very end of the day, Liam is the product of his own environment, and that was an environment controlled by Bianca - it was an environment which saw him abandoned by her as a toddler so she could "find herself," it was an environment which saw her make him homeless, and it was an environment which saw her exile his father from the family home. It's an environment where his mother is little more than an overgrown child, herself, with no other thoughts of anything but herself, for the most part.
In this instance, I do blame the parent, and Liam was right to point that out to her. The truth does, indeed, hurt.
On the whole, a good episode, if only for the use of characters who are familiar to us and in whom we formerly invested some sort of emotional attachment.
At the moment, EastEnders is not. Class, that is, although it used to be. Having said that, it approximated something of what it used to be in Tuesday's episode - most likely because this was an episode based primarily on the circumstances of either the very established or the more established, long-running characters. Newbie participation was minimal, but effective.
EastEnders needs more of the sort of episode Tuesday's was, but it also needs better writing, more research and infinitely better continuity. And it needs to give us characters in which we can invest something emotionally. Sadly, that's still lacking - even in Tuesday's episode.
That's the awful truth about EastEnders, and this episode revealed some awful (and sometimes necessary) truths.
The Awful Truth I: Fat Barbie, the Matron Saint of Hypocrites and Phil.
Here's an awful truth, and I know some of the thought police who think they have a right to patrol my blog will be out in force, crawling from the woodwork and patronisingly trying to lecture me about what I'm going to say. My advice - find a popsicle and suck on it.
The awful truth: Sharon is fat. There's no denying it. She's fat. She has the arms and shoulders of an NFL linebacker, and that's without the padding. Hers is natural. She also has no neck and a masculine jawline. She is one of four women on the programme who look like drag queens - the other three being Kat, Cora and Kim - and Ava could be a contender too.
Therefore, I wonder at the styling EastEnders have given Sharon, because it's ridiculous. Is this supposed to be so comical? Is she one of these comic queens who wear the wrong sort of clothing and think it makes them look chic? Please. Lay off anything that's off the shoulder. Lay off any top which is flowing. Sharon is fat. She's portly. Buxom. She is a middle-aged woman suffering from middle-aged spread, and she shouldn't be swanning around Walford looking like Dolly Parton with bad taste.
And the perma-tan. That's not Sharon.
Another awful truth (and something we all know): Sharon's in love with Phil. Her romantic liaision with Jack is a convenience and a dick tease for both him and Phil. She likes being the centre of male attention to the point that this Sharon, Bimbo Sharon AKA Fat Barbie, positively craves a male in her life. Call it a male-dependency syndrome, something from which her new BFF, Tanya (Matron Saint of Hypocrites) has suffered from for years.
Previously, Sharon was a strong woman who rose above conflict on her own. Now she's a pathetic, pouting, over-plump flirt, with a streak of bitchiness, who pimps herself out for the attention of a man (on whom she inveterately dumps her effete kid). That's progress? In the 21st Century? Apparently it is, in the Gospel according to EastEnders, where every woman is dependent on a man and takes no responsibility for her own actions.
And now for some awful truths about Yummy Mummy: She is the ultimate man-dependent. Tanya doesn't do single. She doesn't cope without a man - and a solvent man - because when she's on her own, she simply falls apart. Look at her initial scene in this episode, allowing a four year-old to lock her out of her home (and having to depend on the conveniently good grace of Phil Mitchell and her husband being nearby to bail her out of this circumstance).
Don't forget Sharon's arch advice for Yummy Mummy - the best way to get over Max is to get another man. Forget concentrating on her business. Forget focusing on her children. Forget trying to forge independence. Single ladies, put a ring on it.
She cosies up to a man Sharon formerly has, accepts a dinner date, which ends with a chaste kiss, and now Sharon's jealous.
These two pathetic women with their phoney friendship and shallow aspirations are now like scrubbed-up chav cougars hunting for a meal ticket (which was mentioned tonight as well, coincidentally). During the meal scene, you could just see Tanya's mind go into overdrive in trying to assess Phil's worth.
What a statement about women's equality in the Twenty-First Century.
And a final home truth about this vignette: Phil doesn't give a rat's arse about Tanya. This was all to give Sharon a taste of her own medicine. Just as Sharon knows pretty much all there is to know about Phil (well, almost, but let's not get into the Dennis argument again), Phil damned well knows what makes Sharon tick. He also knows she wouldn't have allowed him to kiss her as tenderly as she did, without it affecting her emotionally too.
Sharon is trying to play clever, but Phil is cleverer. His dismissive treatment of her when she accidentally on purpose dropped by (knowing that Tanya was due for dinner), was to give her a taste of her own obdurate, play-hard-to-get behaviour.
Her face at the end of the episode was a portrait of pure green-eyed jealousy.
The Awful Truth II: Katshit Stinks of Entitlement.
Nothing stinks worse than cat shit, and Katshit is living proof of that. She's in bully mode now and full of gross entitlement.
She was quick enough to take refuge in the council house the now-unseen Big Mo illegally sublet to the late Shaggerman, himself, Derek (his presence is still with us, just as unseen as Mo is now); but suddenly her newly-found hygiene habits make Joey's and MyAlice's presence unwelcome. (Basically, Katshit hates doing housework).
Nice bit of continuity from Jeff Povey in showing us that the ghostlike Big Mo, who's little more now than a disembodied unheard voice on the end of Kat's expensive Smartphone, is still as intransigent toward Kat as she was when she found her betrayal of Alfie so distasteful - and rightfully so. Kat thinks she's entitled to stay in an illegally sublet council house for a fraction of the rent Mo is charging.
Wait a moment ... Mo was charging Derek and co a monthly rent of £900 - she liked Derek, she was charging the Moon Goons £1000. This must mean that Kat, Joey and MyAlice are responsible for £300 apiece. Joey might be able to manage that, but MyAlice is being paid in IOUs by the Prince of Darkness. And Katshit made it patently clear tonight that she has no money - despite having a market stall.
Faced with the prospect of having to find a smaller place for her and Tommy, what does she do? Why, she approaches Alfie and demands he help her out with a deposit for a new flat ... all in Tommy's interest, of course. Shane Richie played an absolute blinder, calling her front. He'd already subbed the deposit on a market stall for her ... for Tommy's sake. She's pissed off that he wants to establish a legal footing for contact with Tommy, but at the same time, she expects Alfie to fork over money to support her interests, whilst still treating him like shit when she doesn't get her way. And she still has the audacity to wonder why Alfie doesn't trust her.
I loved the way he refused her bluntly and blew her off to seek financial help from Tommy's biological father - Michael Moon, Prince of Darkness, who lives in a house owned by his estranged wife, due back any moment and who could kick his arse from the premises with impugnity ...
(Can't you just picture Janine, the Walford Queen of the Night, dispensing with MyAlice ...)
Anyway, when Kat less-than-subtly eyes up her so-called "meal ticket," she gets short shrift as well. Besides, Michael doesn't have a pot to piss in. He's depending on MyAlice to scrounge around for pennies to come up with a couple of halves. Ne'mind, the price of beer went down by a penny from today.
The insipid thing about the Kat-Alfie dynamic is that we know where it's all going, and the journey is pointless. I'm surprised Newman didn't direct a more sympathetic portrait of her favourite character in this episoden. Still, it was nice to see that skank get handed her arse.
The Awful Truth III: Nuanced Lucy.
Ian Beale wants to be a player again. Deep down, he wants to wear a suit and bully the little people - all to impress the fragrant Denise. So he wants to buy a restaurant (presumably, the defunct Argee Bahjee). Forgetting the fact that he's signed all his assets, including the house in which he lives, over to Lucy (please lay off the exotic eye make-up and the false eyelashes), he arranges a meeting with a personal financial advisor to see how he can borrow money to invest in a new restaurant venture with no capital and no collateral.
Lucy is wary, for two reasons - one obvious and one ulterior. (This is actually clever. It shows depth, and it's something characters used to have in EastEnders, once very long ago).
Lucy is, understandably, concerned that her father hasn't sufficiently recovered psychologically and emotionally to be able to sustain the pressure of establishing a new business, with all the stress it entails. She's afraid Ian would suffer yet another breakdown, and she wants to keep him safe.
This is what Denise sees.
On another level, Lucy likes the control of having Ian work for her. She likes being the boss and having the upper hand. She's greedy, in the same way Ian was greedy before his epiphany. If Ian starts a venture and is successful, he just may decide one day to either buy her out of what she's procured from him, or he'll force her to sign the businesses back to him. Ian was forced to sign those assets over to Lucy, when he wasn't in the right or healthy frame of mind. He needs a good solicitor. I recommend Richie Scott.
The Awful Truth: Liam Pulls It Off.
Locked in his room for more than 24 hours, one wonders ... where does Liam pee? And if he's so tough and can dismantle his entire bedroom, why hasn't he figured out that he can break out through the window? Well, he's either afraid of hurting himself or he's just dumb (as the remark about reporting Bianca to the RSPCA evidences). Well, the Butcher children, as raised by Bianca, are little more than animals (and that's an insult to animal).
Uncomfortable awful truth: Liam is a big, flat-headed lunk. Calling his mother by her Christian name didn't help matters much. One of the things from which Liam suffers, I would imagine, is he's missing a male role model - specifically, he's missing his father. Ricky encouraged Liam to do his best. Bianca's self-appointed substitute, Ray, is all physical, and his man-to-man talks still consist of a threat to smack. Carol's frightened naivete matched his all-too-eager willingness to write Liam off as a lost cause, when he matter-of-factly told a mother that her son was a different child to what she knew.
Liam's deceptive streak, which he used to butter Bianca up and get her to unlock the door to his room, preyed on her ego and her vanity. But the words he uttered afterward were the brutal and truly awful truth - that he way Liam is today is down to Bianca, the way she dealt with him and the way she raised him. She offered no discipline, she had anger management issues, and she's committed crimes. She offered him no encouragement - rather she blamed any of his failures and difficulties on anyone but herself - the school, the government, Janine, anyone. In Ricky's absence, the only positive feedback about himself Liam was receiving, was from the gang with whom he's involved. And that was pejorative encouragement.
At the very end of the day, Liam is the product of his own environment, and that was an environment controlled by Bianca - it was an environment which saw him abandoned by her as a toddler so she could "find herself," it was an environment which saw her make him homeless, and it was an environment which saw her exile his father from the family home. It's an environment where his mother is little more than an overgrown child, herself, with no other thoughts of anything but herself, for the most part.
In this instance, I do blame the parent, and Liam was right to point that out to her. The truth does, indeed, hurt.
On the whole, a good episode, if only for the use of characters who are familiar to us and in whom we formerly invested some sort of emotional attachment.
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