Eastenders loves breaking up couples, affairs and babies. That's all that's really transpired during the past couple of years. Brian Kirkwood took malicious pleasure in systematically breaking up practically every couple on the Square, leaving every household dismantled psychologically and emotionally. He herded every character past the age of sixty, with the exception of Big Mo, into Dot's house - creating part of the situation which almost lost her her home and instilling the image of segregating the elderly from the rest of the population of Walford.
Sadly and misguidedly, Lorraine Newman has continued that process, replacing the endless cycle of breaking up and making up with countless love triangles, unnatural friendships and associations, calling these link-ups friendships or love affairs or whatever.
Kirkwood ruined Kat and Bianca, upon her return from a maternity leave that was really a euphemism for not renewing her contract. He killed off Heather for no reason other than he could, and Heather was a harmless and well-loved character.
Newman has aided and abetted the shredding of Sharon's character beyond recognition. She signed off on Sharon sleeping with Jack from her first night back in Walford and cosying up in a sudden friendship with Tanya, easily the shallowest woman in Walford, She dispensed with the character of Big Mo in the most callous way and in a manner totally disresectful of Laila Morse's twelve-year tenure.
Janine's return is imminent. My instinct with this motley crew in production is that the hattrick they accomplished in decimating three iconic female characters from the three decades the show has been aired, is about to become a full house in the next couple of weeks.
I hope I'm wrong, but when I'm thinking that Kat and Bianca have been irreparably destroyed and should go, whereas Sharon's return has failed irrevocably and somehow needs to be repaired simply by pretending that this past year never happened; and Janine (whose development is one of Kirkwood's few successes as EP) should be brought forward and further developed.
But hope floats.
Last night, on a Thursday night, in a very cold and unseasonable spring, EastEnders captured 6.6 million viewers.
There's something about the phrase "going down."
Tonight's episode was back to mediocrity and warm fuzzy feelings ... and stereotypical characters.
All Roads Lead to Ava.
The wise Magic Negro has taken up residence on Albert Square. However, either she's not that wise of Pete Lawson is playing to the peanut gallery.
The Magic Negro is omniscent. She knows all about Lexi and her illness, when she doesn't know Lexi at all, or her grandfather or even her mother. The Magic Negro has her eye on Mrs Olunbumni's flat, which herdisciple son, the Little Cock
is properly naff. He actually looks down on Albert Square after living on a sink estate. However, poor pitiful Ava, who promises the estate agent that she'll return that very afternoon after work (which she never does) with the deposit for the flat, so she can move in.
First Observation: Ava is a Deputy Head Teacher. Even in times of recession, I don't know any estate agent who starts work at 07:30 in the morning, because if Ava hasn't gone to work yet, that's the time she'd be seeing this flat. Heads and Deputy Heads are chief administration in schools. They're the first to arrive (before anyone else) and the last to leave. Ava would have been at school by 08:00 AM at the latest, but here she is, again, swanning around Walford, and ... look! There she is, yet again, in the cafe later in the day where she sees Tanya. But hang on a minute .... here's even more incongruity.
It's Easter break.
So why are Mowgan Le Fat and Tiffany coming home from wherever in their school uniforms? And why is Ava working, but not working, and sitting in the cafe? And why is she never at work when Deputy Heads aren't supposed to troll around neighbourhoods. Come to think of it, why is Tanya always in the cafe, buying teas and coffees for her staff? When I go to the hairdressers, the first thing they ask me when I sit down is if I want a cup of tea or coffee, and it's made there, on the premises, not in the cafe down the street and around the corner.
Who are these people who write this shit?
Second Observation: It doesn't take long for Billy to come trailing after Ava, only to get the hearts and flowers ding-dong about her having "lost everything." It's one thing getting the flat, she says, but there's nothing to go in it. They "lost everything."
No, you didn't, you stupid moo ... Ava, have you ever heard of a wonderful invention? It's called "insurance." You pay a certain amount of money monthly to an insurance company, then when disaster strikes - when you wreck your car or your home's destroyed in a hurricane or some asshole West Side Story wannabes break in and break dance all over your house, destroying "everything," you simply contact your insurance company, make a claim and - voila' - everything is replaced. They give you the go-ahead (and the dosh) to replace the flat-screened telly, the leather suite, the microwave, the hob, the oven, the dishwasher, the washing machine and dryer, the sound system, your CD collection, the laptops, the beds, the carpets etc. They even pay for the place to be re-decorated and for a security system to be installed. And they'd pay for you to stay in quality accommodation, not forking our £120 of your own money nightly for you and Cock to share a bedroom at Kim's fleapit.
And if it were a council property, they'd either re-decorate or re-house - although, I still can't see how anyone on £65k a year would live where she lived and regularly swan about the dick end of the council estate.
In short ... it's all a contrivance to get the Magic Negro onto Albert Square and into the bosom of her white privileged family.
And tonight's Ava Adventure was all about the community clubbing and blubbing together to donate tat to Ava's new place of residence. Billy rushes back to his squat and finds rusty cupcake trays and a naff sign left by the people who'd abandoned the flat before, even Liam the Lunk donates his duvet cover, his pillow and his mattress, sacrificed at the altar of the Magic Negro who gave her home so that Liam could have his maternal epiphany and return to the bosom of his family and await retribution by Kane the Ugly Neanderthal.
Kane should be so cute.
Of course, the flat on which Ava has her eye, is also the flat coveted by Kirsty, who's pressuring Max into putting a deposit down. So all this is, unbeknownst to Ava, a malicious game of One Upmanship, played behind her back, between Tanya and Kirsty.
The best scene of the night in this tepid and mediocre episode was The Magic Negro handing her "sister" her lily-white ass. When Ava sussed that a jobless Billy Mitchell couldn't have stumped the deposit, himself, it wasn't rocket science to suss that Tanya's hand was at play in this.
It's a *sister* thing, says Tanya, with that falsely friendly smile of hers.
No, Tanya. Ava is not your sister. She may be your biological sibling, but she is not your sister. She has nothing in common with you, she doesn't share your lack of morals, your shallowness or your life experiences. She shares a mother, and Ava was fortunate enough to have been adopted, so she never knew how truly awful you, Cora the Bora and Rainie really were, but you can bet your bottom dollar, she's thanking her lucky stars that Cora didn't keep her. Ava feels no sisterly affection for you. To her, you're a stranger who shares some of her heritage; and if you were brutally honest with yourself, you'd admit you feel the same way. If she'd turned out to be a flake like Kim, with no qualifications and cleaning the toilets at Stratford, you'd run a mile from her; but because she bears the distinguished title of Deputy Head Teacher, it ups your social mobility ante, doesn't it?
So Ava, politely and firmly, informs Tanya that she doesn't intend to be a pawn in Tanya's little game of psychological warfare with Kirsty (first prize: Max), and returns the depost Tanya paid for the flat. (But she doesn't return the flat).
Walford doesn't have a GP anymore, but it's got Ava, the woman who knows everyone and has advice for everybody, but can't seem to work out that you don't just walk away from a house that's still standing.
Believe me, folks, Ava is less this:-
And more likely this:-
(All I'm saying, is that she's a well-educated professional in a position of trust ... Just remember May, Stella, Lucas and Yusef ... Just sayin'.)
Come to think of it, maybe this is why she never seems to be working ...
Dirty Skanky Female Gives Clueless Advice.
Whitney, who's developing a double chin and who looks like she's in need of several hot baths, gives Liam some New Age psycho-babble, whilst sitting on the sofa at Butcher Towers. It confuses Liam so much that he has to put his flat-backed pin head on her shoulder, and will probably contract scabies from contact, to add to his problems. Oh, well ... he can pass it on to his homie, Kane.
What is it about Bianca's poverty that causes Mowgan Le Fat and Whitney to gain weight?
Shona McGarty is said to be recording some songs "for her own private use." Yep. Sure. If you believe that, I've got a bridge in New York I want to sell you. She's after a recording contract, and if Newman had psychological balls, she'd dump this puppy, because she does nothing, she contributes nothing and she's deeply unpopular. And all she'll do is get soused at the BSA's and mouth off to someone from The Star about how she really, really, really, really, really wants to leave the programme for a singing career, before back-peddling that remark with a hangover the following morning.
Dirty Skanky Katshit and Dirty Skanky Michael.
I fail to see the attraction of Michael Moon, who looks like Dracula on a good day.
... and Henry VII's death mask on a bad one ...
I realise a tranche of EastEnders' viewers are heavily into The Vampire Diaries, but this isn't Twilight, and Michael isn't Robert Pattinson.
For the benefit of everyone who's knickers are creamed at the thought of Steve John Shepherd, he, himself, and TPTB describe his character as a psychopath. As in Archie Mitchell.
It looks as though Katshit is on speaking terms with Kimshit again. Two skanks migrating toward each other - and look! Kat's being nice to Kirsty too. Kim ... Kat ... Kirsty. KKK, get the picture? Two men in drag and another woman, sporting a gun tattoo and also needing a bath.
Michael's microwaving dinner for Kat. Kat says the dinner is a play date for Tommy and Alice, and an excuse for her and Michael to iron out some financial support for Tommy. Kim actually is clued up enough to inform Kat that Michael probably wants to wine and dine her, then fuck her and hope she'll forget about her demands.
So what does Kat do? Doll herself up to the point that she looks like a porn version of Morticia Addams, complete with tits bouncing up and down, and shows up sans Tommy. So they play a downmarket version of a drawing room tete-a-tete, each telling the other that they don't want the other one. Michael, at least, is honest. He really doesn't have a pot in which to piss, so the chances of Kat getting financial support from him is nil.
There are two more instances of honesty here, when Katshit brings up Janine, and The Prince of Darkness asks rhetorically, "Who's Janine?"
Hark! What's that? I hear a noise anon in the distance? Could it be? Yes, the Queen of the Night is returning for vengeance ...
If I were Kat, I'd be afraid. I'd be very afraid, but then, I'd pay money I didn't have to see Janine bitch-slap Kat around the Square, up the centre of the pithy market and into the pub, itself.
Kat, however, can't conceal the fact that she misses Alfie ... sometimes ... well, most of the time. No shit, Sherlock. Because we all know that Kalfie is Lorraine Newman's pet project this year, at the expense of the ethos of the show. And for what purpose? She's okayed Shane Richie's misguided spin that "the public love seeing Alfie and Kat make up and break up."
Sorry, Shane, no, we don't. That's why everyone is sick as a parrot over the endless merry-go-round that is Max and Tanya and that threatened to be Mas and Zainab. For Mr Richie's information, Kat and Alfie were always the go-to couple, the one who would surely succeed, who'd been to hell and back to find each other and whose love redeemed themselves. Thanks to Bryan Kirkwood and the collusion of Lorraine Newman, we now have a hopelessly entitled slut who refuses to take any responsibility for her behaviour and a weak doormat of a man, who isn't really what Alfie Moon is supposed to be at all.
The rest of Kat's soliloquy is a joke and a lie. She's finished with men. Her future consists of Tommy (puke-a-buzzard, Tommy's more with Alfie and Jean than he is with Kat), and the stall (another joke - funded by Alfie and treated like a hobby by her.) Pull the other one.
I'm tired of one character and never liked the other; but these two are so disgustingly amoral, that they actually deserve each other. Kat's a narcissist who demands worship 24/7, and Michael is, as he says, a psychopath, incapable of loving anyone.
I'll be glad when he goes, and I would love for her to go with him. Fat chance of that.
The Real Reason Why This Show Is Failing.
You've heard of Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice?
It's a story about wife-swapping in the 1960s.
Well, I give you Jack and Sharon and Max and Tanya. Jack and Max have both had Tanya, so I'm wondering if Sharon will eventually make it to Phil's bed by way of Max Branning?
Another circular bout of boring dialogue that accomplished nothing about a wedding that never will be and a bride and groom with no chemistry, who should never have been paired by a writer with an eternal hard-on for anything remotely Branning, and who now are both pretending to love each other in order to save face.
Sharon has been completely Branning-ised for this episode. The big hair, the linebacker's shoulders on view and the thick neck of a sumo wrestler.
What is it with EastEnders casting women who look like men in drag, and not only men in drag but gridiron football players in drag. They've almost got a team ...
There's Sharon the linebacker, Kat the punter, Kim the tight end, Ava the running back and Cora the Head Coach. I'm surprised she doesn't sport a cigar.
Fashion point: both Sharon and Kirsty were wearing tops tonight with large holes where their shoulders should be. The top looked good on Kirsty, who's slender, and looked preposterous on Sharon, who's Fat Barbie approaching menopause. If you didn't understand the term "mutton dressed as lamb" before tonight, you do now.
The crisis of the night is the fact that - zut alors! - Jack has asked Max to be his witness and best man at the Charade of the Century, and Sharon has asked Tanya to be her witness andbest man er, matron of honour (as much as she tries to pretend, Tanya will never be a self-perpetuating virgin), and - oh dear! - that might prove a problem.
(What should be proving a problem is the closeness of Max and Jack. Jack, after all, spent a year fucking Tanya, whilst she was still married to Max and he was probably fantasizing that she was Ronnie and thinner in bed, all the time, the two of them continuously and publically humiliating Max. Jack beat Max to a pulp and threatened to kill him, and both he and Tanya were conspiring to take Max's children abroad, without his consent. But hey, what's someone's wife amongst brothers?)
So, we're treated to an all-important scene between Jack and Sharon and Max and Tanya, at Jack's flat (which, so far, Sharon has failed to recognise as the one she shared with Saint Dennis, her brother-husband), which is the absolute nadir of bad - very bad - cardigan sitcom dialogue. I don't know what's worse - the actual dialogue ...
Sharon thinks ...
Er, your fiancee thinks ...
My fiancee thinks ...
Shit, who talks like that, even now, in sitcoms. As I said, I don't know what was worse, the dialogue or the actors' performances. Jake Wood usually rises above a bad scene, but even he couldn't on this occasion.
And central to all of this - because the Charade of the Century was just the backdrop linking Max and Tanya (remember Sharon stirred the shit by telling Max Tanya missed him) - was Kirsty's insistence on Max putting a deposit on Mrs Olunbunmi's flat, as well as her gradual metamorphosis into a fully-fledged, unlikeable stereotypical bitch.
How much clearer could TPTB be in telling us that we should all hate Kirsty, when everyone, from Kim to the sainted Magic Negro treat her like a bad smell? Kat likes her, but Kat's a bad smell too. I hate seeing Kierston Wareing's character go this way, but I can fully understand why she's rubbing Tanya's delicate nose in the mire at every opportunity, because of the way Tanya has treated her all along. Her taunts to Tanya about the flat, only served to entice Tanya to do what Tanya does best as soon as she thinks Max is about to settle down with someone else - make a pointless visit to his office about nothing at all, but with the underlying reason of whetting his whistle in her direction again.
The saving grace of this entire episode was that it was a vehicle for Jake Wood in his portrayal of Max as the ultimate Peter Pan male.
Max is a wanker - a watchable wanker, but a wanker just the same. Like all the Brannings, he compartmentalises his relationships. When Tanya got up the duff, he had to abandon Rachel and Bradley, leave them and go out of the area, in order to be with Tanya and not be tempted to see his son. When Tanya was shacked up with Greg and living off the Square, he was able to move on with Vanessa. Once Tanya returned, however, Vanessa was doomed, and so was Greg. Only when Max was ordered out of Walford, was he able to bond, fall in love with and marry Kirsty. He abandoned her for Tanya. But now Kirsty's back in Walford, so is Tanya and he's conflicted.
Whereas a few weeks ago, he was telling Tanya of his compassion for Kirsty because she had no on in the world but Max, now he's telling Kirsty that he's got an unbreakable bond with Tanya because they have kids together. He even admits to wanting to go back to "the woman he loves," and is further cruel to Kirsty again in reminding her that she could never understand the bond children create with a couple (like Kat and Michael?) because Kirsty has never had children.
Kudos to the girl for reminding him that she was pregnant, but had an abortion, only to have Max taunt her about ditching a kid because she was alone and afraid he'd dumped her. (Well, no, actually, she got the abortion because Derek insinuated this. She was alone, pregnant, hormonal and vulnerable).
Max doesn't love Tanya; he likes the comfort and familiarity of her, because he knows that - come what may - she'll always have him back. Kirsty is the first adult relationship he's ever had. She's the first wife he married who wasn't pregnant when he married her. She is, for him, the great unknown; and what's unknown to him is how far Kirsty will go to fight for him, even though she deserves better.
She tells him she's pregnant.
My instincts say she isn't and that EastEnders will copy the Tracy Barlow-Becky McDonald storyline as a prelude to Tanya's leaving line.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so they say.
Here's EastEnders' predicament:-
Final Observation: Simon Ashdown and Lorraine Newman should be taken out and slapped silly for officially turning Sharon into a bona fide bitch. I'm not the biggest Ronnie fan, but for Sharon to tell Billy blithely that there was a box of old tat that Ronnie had left behind which he was welcome to scrounge through for stuff for Ava, was disgusting behaviour. Even more disgusting was the way she shut her fat mouth up when Jack appeared on the scene. She's not only a bitch, but a cowardly one - which means that she really has officially become a Branning.
Sadly and misguidedly, Lorraine Newman has continued that process, replacing the endless cycle of breaking up and making up with countless love triangles, unnatural friendships and associations, calling these link-ups friendships or love affairs or whatever.
Kirkwood ruined Kat and Bianca, upon her return from a maternity leave that was really a euphemism for not renewing her contract. He killed off Heather for no reason other than he could, and Heather was a harmless and well-loved character.
Newman has aided and abetted the shredding of Sharon's character beyond recognition. She signed off on Sharon sleeping with Jack from her first night back in Walford and cosying up in a sudden friendship with Tanya, easily the shallowest woman in Walford, She dispensed with the character of Big Mo in the most callous way and in a manner totally disresectful of Laila Morse's twelve-year tenure.
Janine's return is imminent. My instinct with this motley crew in production is that the hattrick they accomplished in decimating three iconic female characters from the three decades the show has been aired, is about to become a full house in the next couple of weeks.
I hope I'm wrong, but when I'm thinking that Kat and Bianca have been irreparably destroyed and should go, whereas Sharon's return has failed irrevocably and somehow needs to be repaired simply by pretending that this past year never happened; and Janine (whose development is one of Kirkwood's few successes as EP) should be brought forward and further developed.
But hope floats.
Last night, on a Thursday night, in a very cold and unseasonable spring, EastEnders captured 6.6 million viewers.
There's something about the phrase "going down."
Tonight's episode was back to mediocrity and warm fuzzy feelings ... and stereotypical characters.
All Roads Lead to Ava.
The wise Magic Negro has taken up residence on Albert Square. However, either she's not that wise of Pete Lawson is playing to the peanut gallery.
The Magic Negro is omniscent. She knows all about Lexi and her illness, when she doesn't know Lexi at all, or her grandfather or even her mother. The Magic Negro has her eye on Mrs Olunbumni's flat, which her
is properly naff. He actually looks down on Albert Square after living on a sink estate. However, poor pitiful Ava, who promises the estate agent that she'll return that very afternoon after work (which she never does) with the deposit for the flat, so she can move in.
First Observation: Ava is a Deputy Head Teacher. Even in times of recession, I don't know any estate agent who starts work at 07:30 in the morning, because if Ava hasn't gone to work yet, that's the time she'd be seeing this flat. Heads and Deputy Heads are chief administration in schools. They're the first to arrive (before anyone else) and the last to leave. Ava would have been at school by 08:00 AM at the latest, but here she is, again, swanning around Walford, and ... look! There she is, yet again, in the cafe later in the day where she sees Tanya. But hang on a minute .... here's even more incongruity.
It's Easter break.
So why are Mowgan Le Fat and Tiffany coming home from wherever in their school uniforms? And why is Ava working, but not working, and sitting in the cafe? And why is she never at work when Deputy Heads aren't supposed to troll around neighbourhoods. Come to think of it, why is Tanya always in the cafe, buying teas and coffees for her staff? When I go to the hairdressers, the first thing they ask me when I sit down is if I want a cup of tea or coffee, and it's made there, on the premises, not in the cafe down the street and around the corner.
Who are these people who write this shit?
Second Observation: It doesn't take long for Billy to come trailing after Ava, only to get the hearts and flowers ding-dong about her having "lost everything." It's one thing getting the flat, she says, but there's nothing to go in it. They "lost everything."
No, you didn't, you stupid moo ... Ava, have you ever heard of a wonderful invention? It's called "insurance." You pay a certain amount of money monthly to an insurance company, then when disaster strikes - when you wreck your car or your home's destroyed in a hurricane or some asshole West Side Story wannabes break in and break dance all over your house, destroying "everything," you simply contact your insurance company, make a claim and - voila' - everything is replaced. They give you the go-ahead (and the dosh) to replace the flat-screened telly, the leather suite, the microwave, the hob, the oven, the dishwasher, the washing machine and dryer, the sound system, your CD collection, the laptops, the beds, the carpets etc. They even pay for the place to be re-decorated and for a security system to be installed. And they'd pay for you to stay in quality accommodation, not forking our £120 of your own money nightly for you and Cock to share a bedroom at Kim's fleapit.
And if it were a council property, they'd either re-decorate or re-house - although, I still can't see how anyone on £65k a year would live where she lived and regularly swan about the dick end of the council estate.
In short ... it's all a contrivance to get the Magic Negro onto Albert Square and into the bosom of her white privileged family.
And tonight's Ava Adventure was all about the community clubbing and blubbing together to donate tat to Ava's new place of residence. Billy rushes back to his squat and finds rusty cupcake trays and a naff sign left by the people who'd abandoned the flat before, even Liam the Lunk donates his duvet cover, his pillow and his mattress, sacrificed at the altar of the Magic Negro who gave her home so that Liam could have his maternal epiphany and return to the bosom of his family and await retribution by Kane the Ugly Neanderthal.
Kane should be so cute.
Of course, the flat on which Ava has her eye, is also the flat coveted by Kirsty, who's pressuring Max into putting a deposit down. So all this is, unbeknownst to Ava, a malicious game of One Upmanship, played behind her back, between Tanya and Kirsty.
The best scene of the night in this tepid and mediocre episode was The Magic Negro handing her "sister" her lily-white ass. When Ava sussed that a jobless Billy Mitchell couldn't have stumped the deposit, himself, it wasn't rocket science to suss that Tanya's hand was at play in this.
It's a *sister* thing, says Tanya, with that falsely friendly smile of hers.
No, Tanya. Ava is not your sister. She may be your biological sibling, but she is not your sister. She has nothing in common with you, she doesn't share your lack of morals, your shallowness or your life experiences. She shares a mother, and Ava was fortunate enough to have been adopted, so she never knew how truly awful you, Cora the Bora and Rainie really were, but you can bet your bottom dollar, she's thanking her lucky stars that Cora didn't keep her. Ava feels no sisterly affection for you. To her, you're a stranger who shares some of her heritage; and if you were brutally honest with yourself, you'd admit you feel the same way. If she'd turned out to be a flake like Kim, with no qualifications and cleaning the toilets at Stratford, you'd run a mile from her; but because she bears the distinguished title of Deputy Head Teacher, it ups your social mobility ante, doesn't it?
So Ava, politely and firmly, informs Tanya that she doesn't intend to be a pawn in Tanya's little game of psychological warfare with Kirsty (first prize: Max), and returns the depost Tanya paid for the flat. (But she doesn't return the flat).
Walford doesn't have a GP anymore, but it's got Ava, the woman who knows everyone and has advice for everybody, but can't seem to work out that you don't just walk away from a house that's still standing.
Believe me, folks, Ava is less this:-
And more likely this:-
(All I'm saying, is that she's a well-educated professional in a position of trust ... Just remember May, Stella, Lucas and Yusef ... Just sayin'.)
Come to think of it, maybe this is why she never seems to be working ...
Dirty Skanky Female Gives Clueless Advice.
Whitney, who's developing a double chin and who looks like she's in need of several hot baths, gives Liam some New Age psycho-babble, whilst sitting on the sofa at Butcher Towers. It confuses Liam so much that he has to put his flat-backed pin head on her shoulder, and will probably contract scabies from contact, to add to his problems. Oh, well ... he can pass it on to his homie, Kane.
What is it about Bianca's poverty that causes Mowgan Le Fat and Whitney to gain weight?
Shona McGarty is said to be recording some songs "for her own private use." Yep. Sure. If you believe that, I've got a bridge in New York I want to sell you. She's after a recording contract, and if Newman had psychological balls, she'd dump this puppy, because she does nothing, she contributes nothing and she's deeply unpopular. And all she'll do is get soused at the BSA's and mouth off to someone from The Star about how she really, really, really, really, really wants to leave the programme for a singing career, before back-peddling that remark with a hangover the following morning.
Dirty Skanky Katshit and Dirty Skanky Michael.
I fail to see the attraction of Michael Moon, who looks like Dracula on a good day.
... and Henry VII's death mask on a bad one ...
I realise a tranche of EastEnders' viewers are heavily into The Vampire Diaries, but this isn't Twilight, and Michael isn't Robert Pattinson.
For the benefit of everyone who's knickers are creamed at the thought of Steve John Shepherd, he, himself, and TPTB describe his character as a psychopath. As in Archie Mitchell.
It looks as though Katshit is on speaking terms with Kimshit again. Two skanks migrating toward each other - and look! Kat's being nice to Kirsty too. Kim ... Kat ... Kirsty. KKK, get the picture? Two men in drag and another woman, sporting a gun tattoo and also needing a bath.
Michael's microwaving dinner for Kat. Kat says the dinner is a play date for Tommy and Alice, and an excuse for her and Michael to iron out some financial support for Tommy. Kim actually is clued up enough to inform Kat that Michael probably wants to wine and dine her, then fuck her and hope she'll forget about her demands.
So what does Kat do? Doll herself up to the point that she looks like a porn version of Morticia Addams, complete with tits bouncing up and down, and shows up sans Tommy. So they play a downmarket version of a drawing room tete-a-tete, each telling the other that they don't want the other one. Michael, at least, is honest. He really doesn't have a pot in which to piss, so the chances of Kat getting financial support from him is nil.
There are two more instances of honesty here, when Katshit brings up Janine, and The Prince of Darkness asks rhetorically, "Who's Janine?"
Hark! What's that? I hear a noise anon in the distance? Could it be? Yes, the Queen of the Night is returning for vengeance ...
If I were Kat, I'd be afraid. I'd be very afraid, but then, I'd pay money I didn't have to see Janine bitch-slap Kat around the Square, up the centre of the pithy market and into the pub, itself.
Kat, however, can't conceal the fact that she misses Alfie ... sometimes ... well, most of the time. No shit, Sherlock. Because we all know that Kalfie is Lorraine Newman's pet project this year, at the expense of the ethos of the show. And for what purpose? She's okayed Shane Richie's misguided spin that "the public love seeing Alfie and Kat make up and break up."
Sorry, Shane, no, we don't. That's why everyone is sick as a parrot over the endless merry-go-round that is Max and Tanya and that threatened to be Mas and Zainab. For Mr Richie's information, Kat and Alfie were always the go-to couple, the one who would surely succeed, who'd been to hell and back to find each other and whose love redeemed themselves. Thanks to Bryan Kirkwood and the collusion of Lorraine Newman, we now have a hopelessly entitled slut who refuses to take any responsibility for her behaviour and a weak doormat of a man, who isn't really what Alfie Moon is supposed to be at all.
The rest of Kat's soliloquy is a joke and a lie. She's finished with men. Her future consists of Tommy (puke-a-buzzard, Tommy's more with Alfie and Jean than he is with Kat), and the stall (another joke - funded by Alfie and treated like a hobby by her.) Pull the other one.
I'm tired of one character and never liked the other; but these two are so disgustingly amoral, that they actually deserve each other. Kat's a narcissist who demands worship 24/7, and Michael is, as he says, a psychopath, incapable of loving anyone.
I'll be glad when he goes, and I would love for her to go with him. Fat chance of that.
The Real Reason Why This Show Is Failing.
You've heard of Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice?
Well, I give you Jack and Sharon and Max and Tanya. Jack and Max have both had Tanya, so I'm wondering if Sharon will eventually make it to Phil's bed by way of Max Branning?
Another circular bout of boring dialogue that accomplished nothing about a wedding that never will be and a bride and groom with no chemistry, who should never have been paired by a writer with an eternal hard-on for anything remotely Branning, and who now are both pretending to love each other in order to save face.
Sharon has been completely Branning-ised for this episode. The big hair, the linebacker's shoulders on view and the thick neck of a sumo wrestler.
What is it with EastEnders casting women who look like men in drag, and not only men in drag but gridiron football players in drag. They've almost got a team ...
There's Sharon the linebacker, Kat the punter, Kim the tight end, Ava the running back and Cora the Head Coach. I'm surprised she doesn't sport a cigar.
Fashion point: both Sharon and Kirsty were wearing tops tonight with large holes where their shoulders should be. The top looked good on Kirsty, who's slender, and looked preposterous on Sharon, who's Fat Barbie approaching menopause. If you didn't understand the term "mutton dressed as lamb" before tonight, you do now.
The crisis of the night is the fact that - zut alors! - Jack has asked Max to be his witness and best man at the Charade of the Century, and Sharon has asked Tanya to be her witness and
(What should be proving a problem is the closeness of Max and Jack. Jack, after all, spent a year fucking Tanya, whilst she was still married to Max and he was probably fantasizing that she was Ronnie and thinner in bed, all the time, the two of them continuously and publically humiliating Max. Jack beat Max to a pulp and threatened to kill him, and both he and Tanya were conspiring to take Max's children abroad, without his consent. But hey, what's someone's wife amongst brothers?)
So, we're treated to an all-important scene between Jack and Sharon and Max and Tanya, at Jack's flat (which, so far, Sharon has failed to recognise as the one she shared with Saint Dennis, her brother-husband), which is the absolute nadir of bad - very bad - cardigan sitcom dialogue. I don't know what's worse - the actual dialogue ...
Sharon thinks ...
Er, your fiancee thinks ...
My fiancee thinks ...
Shit, who talks like that, even now, in sitcoms. As I said, I don't know what was worse, the dialogue or the actors' performances. Jake Wood usually rises above a bad scene, but even he couldn't on this occasion.
And central to all of this - because the Charade of the Century was just the backdrop linking Max and Tanya (remember Sharon stirred the shit by telling Max Tanya missed him) - was Kirsty's insistence on Max putting a deposit on Mrs Olunbunmi's flat, as well as her gradual metamorphosis into a fully-fledged, unlikeable stereotypical bitch.
How much clearer could TPTB be in telling us that we should all hate Kirsty, when everyone, from Kim to the sainted Magic Negro treat her like a bad smell? Kat likes her, but Kat's a bad smell too. I hate seeing Kierston Wareing's character go this way, but I can fully understand why she's rubbing Tanya's delicate nose in the mire at every opportunity, because of the way Tanya has treated her all along. Her taunts to Tanya about the flat, only served to entice Tanya to do what Tanya does best as soon as she thinks Max is about to settle down with someone else - make a pointless visit to his office about nothing at all, but with the underlying reason of whetting his whistle in her direction again.
The saving grace of this entire episode was that it was a vehicle for Jake Wood in his portrayal of Max as the ultimate Peter Pan male.
Max is a wanker - a watchable wanker, but a wanker just the same. Like all the Brannings, he compartmentalises his relationships. When Tanya got up the duff, he had to abandon Rachel and Bradley, leave them and go out of the area, in order to be with Tanya and not be tempted to see his son. When Tanya was shacked up with Greg and living off the Square, he was able to move on with Vanessa. Once Tanya returned, however, Vanessa was doomed, and so was Greg. Only when Max was ordered out of Walford, was he able to bond, fall in love with and marry Kirsty. He abandoned her for Tanya. But now Kirsty's back in Walford, so is Tanya and he's conflicted.
Whereas a few weeks ago, he was telling Tanya of his compassion for Kirsty because she had no on in the world but Max, now he's telling Kirsty that he's got an unbreakable bond with Tanya because they have kids together. He even admits to wanting to go back to "the woman he loves," and is further cruel to Kirsty again in reminding her that she could never understand the bond children create with a couple (like Kat and Michael?) because Kirsty has never had children.
Kudos to the girl for reminding him that she was pregnant, but had an abortion, only to have Max taunt her about ditching a kid because she was alone and afraid he'd dumped her. (Well, no, actually, she got the abortion because Derek insinuated this. She was alone, pregnant, hormonal and vulnerable).
Max doesn't love Tanya; he likes the comfort and familiarity of her, because he knows that - come what may - she'll always have him back. Kirsty is the first adult relationship he's ever had. She's the first wife he married who wasn't pregnant when he married her. She is, for him, the great unknown; and what's unknown to him is how far Kirsty will go to fight for him, even though she deserves better.
She tells him she's pregnant.
My instincts say she isn't and that EastEnders will copy the Tracy Barlow-Becky McDonald storyline as a prelude to Tanya's leaving line.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so they say.
Here's EastEnders' predicament:-
Final Observation: Simon Ashdown and Lorraine Newman should be taken out and slapped silly for officially turning Sharon into a bona fide bitch. I'm not the biggest Ronnie fan, but for Sharon to tell Billy blithely that there was a box of old tat that Ronnie had left behind which he was welcome to scrounge through for stuff for Ava, was disgusting behaviour. Even more disgusting was the way she shut her fat mouth up when Jack appeared on the scene. She's not only a bitch, but a cowardly one - which means that she really has officially become a Branning.
Yeah i don't believe she's really pregnant either, its gonna be a whole Zoe thing where she tries to get pregnant after to back up her claim or Suzy where she'll have a "miscarriage" for pretend sympathy to keep Max close, its so tired and predictable.
ReplyDeleteNope. This is going to be an EastEnders' version of Tracey Barlow and Becky McDonald. She'll fake her pregnancy and get into a fight with Tanya, provoking Tanya to hurt her and then she'll claim a miscarriage, like Tracey. Tanya will then be the pariah, like Becky.
DeleteThis is all about Tanya's leaving line.
How did they explain Big Mo's absence? I think I missed it.
ReplyDeleteThey haven't. In fact, they've never even announced that Laila Morse is no longer a permanent cast member. For all intents and purposes, Big Mo is located someplace unseen upstairs at the Vic or she's someplace with the equally unseen Fat Elvis.
DeleteHowever, Laila Morse stated in her autobiography that in June 2012, Lorraine Newman informed her that her contract would not be renewed; however, they wanted to use her from time to time as a "guest" character - much in the same way Auntie Sal was used.
Big Mo was last seen in the Boxing Day episode, talking to Roxy in the kitchen upstairs at the Vic.