Friday, March 15, 2013

EastEnders: I Blame the Parents - Review 14.03.2013

And so it goes.The Gangabanga saga continues, and the world is turned upside down. Within one family, alone, a mother reaps the harvest of her own fecklessness and stupidity in not raising her children properly. Across the Square, her uncle is made to feel, yet again, a fool by his ex-wife, who regularly undermined his parenting skills, his spoiled and arrogant sixteen year-old daughter, her thuggy boyfriend and the current wife, who knows nothing about children or parenting in general.

EastEnders doesn't show enough of parents reaping what they've sown, unless you're Dot and it's all about Nick.

Someone started a discussion recently on a forum, asking who the best father was on Albert Square. Probably the best dad is the one who isn't really a dad at all - or is he? (Watch this space). Alfie.

Now ask the same question about who's the best mum, and suddenly a stink arises that can only be identified as rank shit from a sewer.

There's simply no one. Think about it.

Denise's kids don't even visit her (even though the writers have forgotten that she told them not to do so). Shirley abandoned her children when they were little more than toddlers.Kat is rarely seen with her son, unless it's to use him as a weapon or a shield to make Alfie look bad. Tanya wants to be more of a mate than a mum and regularly undermines Max's parenting. Cora ... don't even go there. Carol and Bianca are feckless - the only difference there is that Carol at least knows how to take care of children; Bianca can't even do that. Cross Carol, and she disowns you. Bianca lies to defend her children's wrong-doing - how does that make  her any better or any worse than Phil Mitchell? Sharon leads her effeminate son on a pubcrawl from man to man and dumps him at will on any soul willing to babysit him for free. Zainab placed one child above all her others and worshipped at his altar. Roxy would sometimes party for days and forget about Amy (with another babysitter).

So the mothers smell pretty bad in Walford.

What a Drag It Is Getting Old ...

For Bianca ...


What a drag it is getting old ...
Kids are different today, I hear every mother say ...

Didn't Carol say that to Bianca once? And isn't Bianca just the fifth kid in Carol's household? Because she's not taken very much responsibility in bringing up her children properly - no discipline, encouraging rudeness and cheekiness, trash-talking authority, going in debt for luxury items instead of buying food and clothing for them. Two periods in prison hasn't helped either as well. She's got a rap sheet made up of assault and stealing. Worse, she stole from her own community.

And tonight, we find she lied to the police about Liam's whereabouts the night Tamwar was mugged. She gave him an alibi. Remind you of anyone else? Think back almost a year ago ... Phil Mitchell and Ben.

Now, all you Phil-haters, how can you justifiably say Bianca is any better than Phil Mitchell? Both people lied through their teeth to "protect" their children. In the end, Ben still ended up in prison, and I wouldn't be surprised if Liam did as well.

The Butcher kids miss their dad. Ray's prancing and preening, and his philosophy of smack first and ask questions later doesn't cut any ice with me, but I can see Bianca being snowed by a male presence, particularly since she doesn't mention Ricky anymore. For those of you who may have forgotten, Ricky didn't ask to leave - he was exiled by the combined efforts of Carol and Bianca.

So Bianca's lied about Liam. She lied and hid Tamwar's moneybelt, evidence that the police suspicions about Liam being involved in rehearsals for West Side Story a gangabanga were right. Moreover, Bianca shits herself and before Carol can inhale the pungent smell in the kitchen, she tells her mum that if the police ever discovered her lie, she'd go right back to prison. For perverting the course of justice.

(Does anyone know if Patsy Palmer still has that infamous "working mother's contract" - you know, the six-months-on-six-months-off thingy that's not on offer to any female working pleb? If it be so, then we've got her leaving line - the bizzies discover Liam's involvement and Bianca's lie, and they're both carted off to jail. Do not pass GO, do not collect £200, no matter how many chicken nuggets that would provide Mowgan Le Fat.)

Carol's naivete is theh shocker here. Considering everything she went through with Billie and the BMX boys, you'd think she'd know the signs and be as suspicious as Bianca, but for once, Bianca's maternal gut instinct goes into overdrive, whilst Carol keeps wittering about "oh-Liam's-a-good-boy-oh-Liam's-being-bullied" ... How about the truth?

How about the flat-headed, little posh-talking twerp is lying through his teeth and playing up his putrid mother's big ego?

Bianca's scene with Liam laid the groundwork for one of the underlying themes of tonight's episode: in EastEndersLand, a parent really can't tell a kid what to do, even if they're living under a roof maintained by the parent, even if that child is only fourteen years old (and played by a seventeen year-old). Even Bianca's cottage pie couldn't tempt Liam the Lunk to stay home - actually, it probably made him want to leave even more, because when have we ever seen Bianca successfully cook anything, much less cottage pie? If I recall correctly, there was a time when Liam told Kim, shortly after she'd arrived on the Square, that Bianca didn't cook. No. Pat or Carol or even Ricky did the cooking. Bianca didn't. And, as Liam implied tonight, she never tidied up. That's Nana Jackson's job too.

Because Bianca's still just a kid at heart, innit? I mean, she just wants to have fun, like any girl ...


Like Tiffany. Like Twitney-Shitney. Like Tanya drunk. Like Abi the Fornicator. Like ... well, this video could apply to people like Bianca, Roxy, Kat, Kirsty and any ageing ingenue currently resident in Albert Square. (Actually, I'm amazed how much the young Cyndi Lauper resembles Kierston Wareing).

With everyone waxing lyrical about Patsy Palmer's performance, I want to say that she was involved in the weakest scene of the episode - the scene in the launderette with Kat. Pardon me, but it was the late evening, and I thought the launderette closed after a certain hour, but what was a plot device (to ensure Bianca got the low-down on Kane and the Gangabanga from Kat, who'd been questioned by the police - again), ended up showing both women as maudline and unable to carry what evolved into being a badly written, melodramatic vignette (coupled with the fact that Bianca's only now just returning to retrieve the duvet that should be going on Tiffany's bed).

Bianca's vocalised "anguish" in that scene, ending with her collapsing in the arms of the much shorter Kat (whose sympathy is extremely foreign and alien to her Queen Bitch character, so much so, that she fails to convince), was simply butt-clinchingly embarrassing.

She finds out the gang peoples a sink estate nearby - "somebody wuz shot vere las'monf" - she's certain Liam's with the gang, or with Kane the Neanderthal, specifically. 

'" 'E's wiv'IM." (As if Kane were Liam the Lunk's seductive lover  ... wait ... there's a storyline there for Emer Kenny to develop!) Kane the Neanderthal ... you could almost paraphrase a song with that name ...

When Kane the Neanderthal gets here
Little Liam's gonna run to him ...

So off she trots to what is obviously the stereotypical, assumed depiction of a sink estate, as envisioned by a white, middle-class, private school-educated academy writer sat in the EastEnders' writing room ...

I say, Simon, old chap ... what about having several of these low-browed types with bicycles simply standing sinisterly in the shadows? Isn't that what they do on those ... you know, those estate things?

It's a middle class laddie's idea of a modern sink estate with sounds that haven't been heard since the days of the tenement slums, and there - surprise surprise - Bianca, laden with shopping (bad idea, considering the area), finds Liam ... and guess what he's doing...

Rehearsing for West Side Story!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They're rehearsing The Rumble Dance ...


Worse yet ... he could have been rehearsing Shakespeare for his school production - like, you know, Liam's playing Mercutio and Kane's playing Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet and they're rehearsing the fight scene ...

So, there, you see ... Bianca's look of horror at the end of that episode was the same look of horror on Phil's face when he discovered Ben liked tap-dancing. Liam loves Shakespeare, something which would embarrass Bianca to the core!!!!!!!!!

The Bitches' Coven Eye Their Sacrificial Lamb (Or Why, When Couples Split, Someone Should Leave).

Kirsty's insecure. Roxy's insecure. Kat's intent on playing the victim. Still. I almost gagged a maggot earlier in the week, when she very reluctantly admitted:-

I know I'm MOSTLY to blame for this break-up.

MOSTLY to blame? Darlin', how about it's all your skanky fault? Alfie did nothing to merit your constant and repetitive cheating, every time he failed to worship at your altar 24/7. It's the middle of March now, and we still haven't discovered why she entered into an affair with Derek. We still haven't seen any signs of her redemption. The forced friendship with Bianca doesn't count, and the alliance with Kirsty is just a bitchfest, borne by jealousy on Kat's part that Roxy was there to pick up the pieces of the mess Katshit left behind (and, I tell you, nothing stinks like  Katshit), and Kirsty's bitchery is borne by resentment that Roxy refused her a rise in wages.

Why she should effect to take this out on sabotaging Alfie, I don't know. Alfie let her leave without a moment's notice and gave her her wages and a bonus to boot. He's shown her nothing but kindness, and this is how she repays him. Of course, she's insecure, herself ... Because Max has a family matter with which he has to deal - specifically a matter concernin one of his kids.

In reality, Kirsty's insecure for the same reason Roxy is ... the ex is still hanging around, and the ex has a hold over their current squeezes due to a bond, which is a child.

Max's situation, I'll discuss in another section, but I don't feel that Alfie handled this instance badly. Alfie's right to be insecure. All he has to do is look at Kat in the wrong way, and she won't be above using Tommy as a weapon or a shield. She's done so already, in a way. He wanted to discuss this in private with Kat, but the pub was busy, and he told her he'd do so when things were quieter; but Kirsty plied her with free liquor in order for her to make a scene, forcing Alfie's hand. He's right to get an access order for Tommy. It looks as though Tommy's with Alfie most of the time, anyway - Kat didn't seem to be taking him back to her place in this episode, so why should he say she'd be the custodial parent? The kids spends most of his time living in the pub with the man whom he considers his father.

As for Kirsty, she needs to grow the fuck up. She's married a man who comes with baggage and other responsibilities. He has kids. That means he'll have to have contact and consultation with the mother of those kids, and that is something in which Kirsty cannot and should not interfere.

I hate the cackly little vendetta the Skank Sisters initiated tonight against Roxy, for not other reasons other than bitterness and jealousy. They need to remember that karma bites asses hard ... Here's a song they might like to consider for their own karaoke. The words are apt.


Max's Free Children and Jack the Peg's Forgotten Somefink

Abi will a-fucking go, and although she's not up the duff
Abi's done a fucking ho, and two times is enough.

Thanks to Kirsty's eagle eye and her jealousy of Tanya, Bitch II catches Bitch I's lie and tosses the truth to Max. Tanya must have been concerned about Abi's attitude and predicament, or else she wouldn't have showed up on the doorstep of the B and B to talk to Max.

Max was perfectly right in telling Kirsty that he and Tanya, although they're divorced, still have three children and still have a bond because of those children. They are still their parents,and it's he and she who will make decisions about their future. Kirsty is a step-parent and has no say, whatsoever. This is the mistake Tanya made when she was with Greg, dangling his relationship to Max's children in front of Max like a red rag to a bull, when Greg had no rights at all to those kids - even to sending Lauren on her abortive school mission in the US, which ended in failure. Max should have had a say in that, but didn't. Now, he's willing to play fair with Tanya, and she lies to him.

Look, a lie is a lie; and this isn't the first time Tanya's lied to Max about the kids, or kept a secret from him. Look at her colluding and giggling on Wednesday with Abi.

We won't tell yer dad about vis (tee-hee-hee-hee-hee).

Because Abi's such a wonderfully organised and brilliant young woman, dontcha know? And Tanya's pithy excuse about how she lied to Max because she knew the way he would react doesn't cut any ice at all. She lied to the father of her child. How, exactly, would she explain a pregnancy if that happened to Abi (and, rest assured, it will)? I suppose she'd hope Max would believe in virgin birth. In the next instant, she's, again, exonerating herself of all blame by whining about how she has to cope with everything, whilst Max romps the beds in the B and B. She's hardly including him in the scheme of things, is she, unless she wants money?

I didn't find Max's reaction at all over the top. He wants better for his children than what he had, and - quite honestly - if any kid on the show is gunning for a smack at the moment, it's Abi. Her attitude is awful. Throwing back at Max what Tanya was up to at sixteen and wondering what Max was all about at that age. Max was married and a father by the time he was eighteen - not because that's what he'd planned, he'd got his girlfriend up the duff. And you know, I reckon that spiel Max lowered on Jay at the Arches was the same spiel Rachel's father lowered on Max when he found out his sixteen year-old daughter was pregnant by her eighteen year-old boyfriend. And I would imagine Max said the same thing to Mr Rachel's Father that Jay said to him, and he probably meant it at the time - that he loved Rachel, that he'd never hurt her, that he only wanted to make her happy, that he'd kill himself first before he would hurt her ... and six years down the line, he's abandoned Rachel and their child and taken up with the eighteen year-old slut Tanya, who willfully got pregnant and held out for marriage - the sink estate versio of Anne Boleyn.

You know something? Abi is right about one thing. She's sixteen with a bullet (probably up her vagina and growing at the moment). She can do what she wants, and Max can't tell her what to do. Nor can Tanya. Max's and Tanya's response to that would be to agree with her. She's right. She can do what she wants, including leave home and set up housekeeping with Jay. They don't even have to support her. So if her love for Jay is that strong and he wants her, then let her go. But don't expect any money for Sixth Form. She'd be on her own. Miss Independent. See you working at McKlunkey's with Shirley and Liam the Lunk.

Let's see whom Abi runs to when she misses a period, and I don't mean at Sixth Form college.

As for Kirsty, her attitude that, where she came from, if you hadn't had sex by sixteen you were a wierdo or a nun would rightly rile Max. It would rile any parent. It would rile me. It would rile my husband, because you think, Max thinks and Tanya should think, that Abi and Lauren are better than that. Max does, I'm sure; but Tanya wants to be too much of the good-cop-yummy-mummy. And that stinks.

Bit of foreshadowing when Max tells Kirsty she's not a parent. Not yet, but she's probably got bread cooking in the oven and Max was the baker.

As for Jack's attentions to Tanya, at least Max has a memory of what Jack got up to all during 2008; but Max should have been quick to remind Jack that he had a "fiancee" and a stepchild, sitting at home in his flat with whom he should be having dinner - not plying Max's alcoholic wife and older daughter with more wine.


You know, some of the Brannings are leaving. Good. The Fowlers and the Wattses all used to decamp to Florida in the US. Well, if Jack or Tanya (or Joey and Lauren) were to decamp to the US ... have I got the state for them? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you a state where the Brannings would feel right at home - the home of white trash and inbreeding ...


Could be Joey and Lauren ...

Still, the scenery would be nice ... not that they'd appreciate it ...


Semi-decent episode, but I don't feel any sympathy for any of the characters concerned, including Bianca.



3 comments:

  1. You know the funny thing is I couldn't even read past the whole post "What a drag its getting old" bit before I could call out that no one gives a shit about any of the mothers of Walford. They all have had their moments but you know that looking at it currently, you wouldn't know that. As an American that used to love to show, its sad to see the state that it's became of now. So sad . . .

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    1. That's what you get when the lunatics take over the asylum. Kinda like the Christian element of the Republican party re-writing history. That's what EE's writer's room is like at the moment.

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  2. loved your ann boylen line, there really hasn't been a lot of examples of good parenting, Roxy has made more of an effort after getting Amy back from Jack but I think we are going to have to see if it lasts or if she is trying a bit more to make a good impression on Alfie and distance herself from being compared to Kat. I did always love that Scene after Amy's paternity is revealed when Sean goes over to the Slaters and tells Charlie he is a good Dad.

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