This was, arguably, the best and most watchable episode of the week.
Doesn't mean it was a brilliant one, mind. Brilliant episodes are things of the distant past on EastEnders nowadays. Episodes such as this - the aftermath of the wedding of an iconic character with the character billed for so long as the romantic lead, would have brought millions of bums onto seats on a rainy, cold, early spring night when people are still huddled around fires or having the heating turned up on full.
Tonight's episode, if it were lucky, sandwiched beween Corrie's Karl the Killer and Sunita's funeral (does anyone realise that before Sunita was Sunita, she was the social worker who handled the adoption of Chloe-Rebecca? I wonder if Trish Barnes knew her?), EastEnders may have pipped 7 million viewers, and many of its most vociferous shippers (dan2008) on DS and otherwise would be scraping their knickers down from the ceiling in glee.
Truth is, this was a mediocre episode, and things have come to a pretty pass when we recognise the mediocre as the good. The couple with the least sexual chemistry ever in the history of EastEnders broke up at the altar. The scion of an upstart family, one of the most unlikeable and proliferate on the show, humiliates an original character, daughter of the most iconic landlord of the Queen Vic, and that's acceptable? She pastes on a plastic smile and makes sure everyone jollies themselves at a hallelujah borne in hell. And everyone knew exactly where she'd end up.
Yep, the episode stated the bleeding obvious, whilst introducing a couple of other storylines which are about to start, and subtly. That's an improvement. Before, the cast almost took to wearing yellow Post-Its on their foreheads emblazoned with NEW STORYLINE STARTING HERE, just so people were aware.
Mind you, maybe David Witts, Tony Discipline and Khali Best can take to ferrying around armfuls of white cardboard with their dialogue on them so they can hold them up to the camera every time they have a line. The audience could read what they're trying to enunciate then,
TPTB saved the best for last, but the best was only mediocre.
Jack's Hooked on a Feeling.
Looks kinda like Jack, doesn't he, B J Thomas?
Anyway, as the song says, Jack's hooked on a feeling. He's high on believing that Ronnie's in love with him. He'll just have to feed his addiction and hope he can endure ...
Sure, it's not that Jack doesn't love Sharon. He does. He really, really does. It's just that he doesn't love her as much as he loved ... loves Ronnie. (Aw, c'mon ... how many of us haven't heard or used this phrase in a break-up: It's not you, it's me? This is just a variation).
Here's the truth behind the euphemism:-
Yesterday I went to see the woman who's the love of my life. She stuck with me even though I was unfaithful to her with my first wife, even though I impregnated her sister and went onto impregnate her cousin, who used to be your sister-in-law. We married, had a child and lost that child. Sure, she kidnapped a baby and had me believing for four months that that child was mind, but that was just a blip. Anyway, when I saw her yesterday, all ice blonde and Queen of neurotic cool, I realised why should I settle for a plump, matronly piece of mutton dressed up as lamb with a kid who's about to become a prize diva and who needs a haircut, when I can make the Ice Queen cometh? See ya around, Sharon. Don't let the door hit your fat arse on the way out, and tone it down a bit ...babe ...you're too old for that.
Get the picture?
After months of Sharon running to Phil's beck and call at the drop of the proverbial hat, after his own insecurities ringing alarm bells in his head about this relationship started on a whim with a stranger, all it took was Jack seeing Ronnie to realise that Sharon just didn't do it for him.
Sharon's the pleb here. She was willing to "settle" for Jack and call it love. Why? Well, from her consternation, it would seem that Denny was the issue. Jack could walk out on here, but what about her son? Sorry, lady, that's your problem. Lord Fauntleroy is no concern or responsibility of Jack's. Obviously, her sudden jilting of John at the altar back in August (boy, was this a piece of walking karma biting a big fat arse), it becomes almost obvious now that maybe rich John wasn't too keen on being baby Den's babydaddy? That's just a theory, but we should explore the reason why she walked out on John and climbed into bed with Jack, that very night, which could have been her wedding night, and Jack was a stranger.
(Well, she'll probably spend what could have been her wedding night now with Phil. At least she knows him).
That pathetic soliloquy she gave about having been there and done that with a passionate relationship, about how those relationships only end badly, was codswollop - especially the accusation she leveled at Jack about him driving their relationship. She was just as much at fault as he was. She came onto him her first night back in Walford, and she literally offered him sex on a plate in order to get a free roof over her head and a place to stay for her and her boy.
So, she was afraid all this time of getting involved with Phil because of their history of passion? Shannis shippers, believe all you want that she was talking about Dennis in that soliloquy (ah, the beauty of ambiguous writing!) but she most likely was including fey Dennis in a triumvirate of passion that included the Mitchell Bruvs as well. Hey, let's make that a Fab Four and add Fireman Tom to that equation.
Tom and Dennis died tragically (she was engaged to one and married to the other who was her brother), she and Grant split after a tempestuous marriage, and she's always come back to Phil for love, sex, and protection. At least three of those Fab Four, she's called "the love of her life" - the odd man out is Phil.
This is not Sharon's fab four, consisting of Phil, Grant, Tom and Dennis on the drums. This is the real thing, singing what all of Sharon's four might have sung:-
Sharon loved Grant, and Grant loved Sharon, with a passion. Sharon loved Tom, and Tom loved Sharon, with a passion. Sharon loved her brother, and they committed incest, with a passion.
Phil loves Sharon. She is he love of his life. And Phil will settle for him not being the love of her life; however, she's afraid of the passion. Afraid of Phil dying (some chance) or leaving her or just doing something that will destroy an illusion; so she was willing to settle for Jack the Peg.
Jack is also a liar, and that's something the old Sharon wouldn't have tolerated. Jack lied to her on the day before they were to be married, and he was lying to her then. Jack never told Ronnie they were finished. He may have intended to do so, but when he saw her, realised he couldn't. Ronnie was realist enough to accept what was told her as fact. Had Jack finished it, she'd have accepted that part of her life was over. He didn't. That's why she wanted to see him again.
That she was infuriated enough to call him out about his lying, but still desperate enough to want to go through with that charade of a marriage, was unfathomable? Her final reason, that they both weren't getting any younger and they'd end up two miserable and lonely old people - WTF? That sounded curiously like the line Mandy threw Ian in January 2012, after she'd told him Ricky Butcher was better in bed than he - when she followed that up by assessing that Ian was afraid of being old and alone, which is why he'd continue to seek out companionship (with added benefits on the side). Maybe she realised she was the wrong side of forty, painted up like a poor man's Dolly Parton and looking for love in all the wrong places, and this was her last chance.
The old Sharon would have nipped this relationship in the bud the moment any doubts set in, child or no child. And especially for the child.
The one thing this whole debacle did for Jack, however, is that it made him remember his real child, Amy. That was symbolic that Jack picked up Amy and walked away from that hellhole, leaving a whining, spoiled brat Denny wailing behind. Good for Jack. His duty is to his own children, not to someone else's. Nice to see him reading silent Amy a bedtime story too.
Little Lord Fauntleroy is a budding Justin Bieber, and there's one too many of them in the world.
Bianca is skint, yet she found the money to get Mowgan Le Fat a haircut. Sharon has money. Why doesn't she get Lord Fauntleroy's haircut? When Sharon is settled in with Phil, I hope TPTB develop a week's worth of storylines about the repercussions which occur when Denny finds Ben's magic tap shoes.
(Psssss! Dennis didn't die. He just went up West.)
It's Fat Barbie's Party and She'll Cry if She Wants To.
In EastEnders The Musical, can you just imagine Sharon singing this?
Actually, the only people wanting to cry, were the viewers out of embarrassment at such a low turn-out and the guests who went running for the door on the flimsiest of excuses. And if I'd been Sharon's son, I'd have died of embarrassment too. The last thing a six year-old boy wants to do is dance with his mother, especially a slow, romantic love song.
And was it me, or did Sharon's reminiscences, which Denny had, thankfully, blocked out, about him crawling into bed with her when he was "smaller" and her stroking his hair until he'd gone to sleep, strike you as singularly creepy?
That kid is going to need all kinds of therapy when he gets older.
FFS, she looked as though she was even coming onto Ian when they were dancing, although the drag show of Kim, Cora the Bora and Shirley was good with their jealous (and in Cora's case, drunken) one-liners.
The reception that wasn't provided a backdrop for a welter of other activity - Dot's nosiness at wanting to know what was going on with the closed-doors conflab between Jack and Sharon, Tanya trying to use their instantaneous friendship to get to the bottom of why Jack had jilted Sharon, and Sharon totally floored that Jack could want to be with anyone but her sexy self and seeking to blame Phil for stirring.
Meanwhile, Lauren's getting rat-arsed. Is anyone surprised.
WORST. ACTRESS. EVER. IN. EASTENDERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wah wah wah ... My dad's wife is pregnant. Wah wah wah ... I won't be the centre of attention anymore. Wah wah wah ... I'm gonna get drunk.
The Lip Sisters Trip the Light Fandango. Lauren seriously needs to shut the fuck up. It's no business of hers if her father's new bride is up the duff (which she isn't, but Lauren will be the first to suss that too). You see, in the Branning family, the men can't make their minds up, and Lauren always discovers the secret. Because everything is always about Lauren. Or Abi. Or Joey, who got handed his ass when he thought the pre-marital break-up at Jack's altar was down to his appalling performance at the stag do. Sharon will look back on this debacle and thank her lucky stars she didn't become indellibly entangled with poor white trash.
(That's gurning Oscar on the banjo).
Anyway, all's well that ends well whenMiss Piggy ends up on the doorstep of Porky the Pig. (Many thanks to Digital Spy Forum Member tenchgirl for that brilliant analogy.
Spot the resemblance:-
Doesn't mean it was a brilliant one, mind. Brilliant episodes are things of the distant past on EastEnders nowadays. Episodes such as this - the aftermath of the wedding of an iconic character with the character billed for so long as the romantic lead, would have brought millions of bums onto seats on a rainy, cold, early spring night when people are still huddled around fires or having the heating turned up on full.
Tonight's episode, if it were lucky, sandwiched beween Corrie's Karl the Killer and Sunita's funeral (does anyone realise that before Sunita was Sunita, she was the social worker who handled the adoption of Chloe-Rebecca? I wonder if Trish Barnes knew her?), EastEnders may have pipped 7 million viewers, and many of its most vociferous shippers (dan2008) on DS and otherwise would be scraping their knickers down from the ceiling in glee.
Truth is, this was a mediocre episode, and things have come to a pretty pass when we recognise the mediocre as the good. The couple with the least sexual chemistry ever in the history of EastEnders broke up at the altar. The scion of an upstart family, one of the most unlikeable and proliferate on the show, humiliates an original character, daughter of the most iconic landlord of the Queen Vic, and that's acceptable? She pastes on a plastic smile and makes sure everyone jollies themselves at a hallelujah borne in hell. And everyone knew exactly where she'd end up.
Yep, the episode stated the bleeding obvious, whilst introducing a couple of other storylines which are about to start, and subtly. That's an improvement. Before, the cast almost took to wearing yellow Post-Its on their foreheads emblazoned with NEW STORYLINE STARTING HERE, just so people were aware.
Mind you, maybe David Witts, Tony Discipline and Khali Best can take to ferrying around armfuls of white cardboard with their dialogue on them so they can hold them up to the camera every time they have a line. The audience could read what they're trying to enunciate then,
TPTB saved the best for last, but the best was only mediocre.
Jack's Hooked on a Feeling.
Looks kinda like Jack, doesn't he, B J Thomas?
Anyway, as the song says, Jack's hooked on a feeling. He's high on believing that Ronnie's in love with him. He'll just have to feed his addiction and hope he can endure ...
Sure, it's not that Jack doesn't love Sharon. He does. He really, really does. It's just that he doesn't love her as much as he loved ... loves Ronnie. (Aw, c'mon ... how many of us haven't heard or used this phrase in a break-up: It's not you, it's me? This is just a variation).
Here's the truth behind the euphemism:-
Yesterday I went to see the woman who's the love of my life. She stuck with me even though I was unfaithful to her with my first wife, even though I impregnated her sister and went onto impregnate her cousin, who used to be your sister-in-law. We married, had a child and lost that child. Sure, she kidnapped a baby and had me believing for four months that that child was mind, but that was just a blip. Anyway, when I saw her yesterday, all ice blonde and Queen of neurotic cool, I realised why should I settle for a plump, matronly piece of mutton dressed up as lamb with a kid who's about to become a prize diva and who needs a haircut, when I can make the Ice Queen cometh? See ya around, Sharon. Don't let the door hit your fat arse on the way out, and tone it down a bit ...babe ...you're too old for that.
Get the picture?
After months of Sharon running to Phil's beck and call at the drop of the proverbial hat, after his own insecurities ringing alarm bells in his head about this relationship started on a whim with a stranger, all it took was Jack seeing Ronnie to realise that Sharon just didn't do it for him.
Sharon's the pleb here. She was willing to "settle" for Jack and call it love. Why? Well, from her consternation, it would seem that Denny was the issue. Jack could walk out on here, but what about her son? Sorry, lady, that's your problem. Lord Fauntleroy is no concern or responsibility of Jack's. Obviously, her sudden jilting of John at the altar back in August (boy, was this a piece of walking karma biting a big fat arse), it becomes almost obvious now that maybe rich John wasn't too keen on being baby Den's babydaddy? That's just a theory, but we should explore the reason why she walked out on John and climbed into bed with Jack, that very night, which could have been her wedding night, and Jack was a stranger.
(Well, she'll probably spend what could have been her wedding night now with Phil. At least she knows him).
That pathetic soliloquy she gave about having been there and done that with a passionate relationship, about how those relationships only end badly, was codswollop - especially the accusation she leveled at Jack about him driving their relationship. She was just as much at fault as he was. She came onto him her first night back in Walford, and she literally offered him sex on a plate in order to get a free roof over her head and a place to stay for her and her boy.
So, she was afraid all this time of getting involved with Phil because of their history of passion? Shannis shippers, believe all you want that she was talking about Dennis in that soliloquy (ah, the beauty of ambiguous writing!) but she most likely was including fey Dennis in a triumvirate of passion that included the Mitchell Bruvs as well. Hey, let's make that a Fab Four and add Fireman Tom to that equation.
Tom and Dennis died tragically (she was engaged to one and married to the other who was her brother), she and Grant split after a tempestuous marriage, and she's always come back to Phil for love, sex, and protection. At least three of those Fab Four, she's called "the love of her life" - the odd man out is Phil.
This is not Sharon's fab four, consisting of Phil, Grant, Tom and Dennis on the drums. This is the real thing, singing what all of Sharon's four might have sung:-
Sharon loved Grant, and Grant loved Sharon, with a passion. Sharon loved Tom, and Tom loved Sharon, with a passion. Sharon loved her brother, and they committed incest, with a passion.
Phil loves Sharon. She is he love of his life. And Phil will settle for him not being the love of her life; however, she's afraid of the passion. Afraid of Phil dying (some chance) or leaving her or just doing something that will destroy an illusion; so she was willing to settle for Jack the Peg.
Jack is also a liar, and that's something the old Sharon wouldn't have tolerated. Jack lied to her on the day before they were to be married, and he was lying to her then. Jack never told Ronnie they were finished. He may have intended to do so, but when he saw her, realised he couldn't. Ronnie was realist enough to accept what was told her as fact. Had Jack finished it, she'd have accepted that part of her life was over. He didn't. That's why she wanted to see him again.
That she was infuriated enough to call him out about his lying, but still desperate enough to want to go through with that charade of a marriage, was unfathomable? Her final reason, that they both weren't getting any younger and they'd end up two miserable and lonely old people - WTF? That sounded curiously like the line Mandy threw Ian in January 2012, after she'd told him Ricky Butcher was better in bed than he - when she followed that up by assessing that Ian was afraid of being old and alone, which is why he'd continue to seek out companionship (with added benefits on the side). Maybe she realised she was the wrong side of forty, painted up like a poor man's Dolly Parton and looking for love in all the wrong places, and this was her last chance.
The old Sharon would have nipped this relationship in the bud the moment any doubts set in, child or no child. And especially for the child.
The one thing this whole debacle did for Jack, however, is that it made him remember his real child, Amy. That was symbolic that Jack picked up Amy and walked away from that hellhole, leaving a whining, spoiled brat Denny wailing behind. Good for Jack. His duty is to his own children, not to someone else's. Nice to see him reading silent Amy a bedtime story too.
Little Lord Fauntleroy is a budding Justin Bieber, and there's one too many of them in the world.
Bianca is skint, yet she found the money to get Mowgan Le Fat a haircut. Sharon has money. Why doesn't she get Lord Fauntleroy's haircut? When Sharon is settled in with Phil, I hope TPTB develop a week's worth of storylines about the repercussions which occur when Denny finds Ben's magic tap shoes.
(Psssss! Dennis didn't die. He just went up West.)
It's Fat Barbie's Party and She'll Cry if She Wants To.
In EastEnders The Musical, can you just imagine Sharon singing this?
Actually, the only people wanting to cry, were the viewers out of embarrassment at such a low turn-out and the guests who went running for the door on the flimsiest of excuses. And if I'd been Sharon's son, I'd have died of embarrassment too. The last thing a six year-old boy wants to do is dance with his mother, especially a slow, romantic love song.
And was it me, or did Sharon's reminiscences, which Denny had, thankfully, blocked out, about him crawling into bed with her when he was "smaller" and her stroking his hair until he'd gone to sleep, strike you as singularly creepy?
That kid is going to need all kinds of therapy when he gets older.
FFS, she looked as though she was even coming onto Ian when they were dancing, although the drag show of Kim, Cora the Bora and Shirley was good with their jealous (and in Cora's case, drunken) one-liners.
The reception that wasn't provided a backdrop for a welter of other activity - Dot's nosiness at wanting to know what was going on with the closed-doors conflab between Jack and Sharon, Tanya trying to use their instantaneous friendship to get to the bottom of why Jack had jilted Sharon, and Sharon totally floored that Jack could want to be with anyone but her sexy self and seeking to blame Phil for stirring.
Meanwhile, Lauren's getting rat-arsed. Is anyone surprised.
WORST. ACTRESS. EVER. IN. EASTENDERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wah wah wah ... My dad's wife is pregnant. Wah wah wah ... I won't be the centre of attention anymore. Wah wah wah ... I'm gonna get drunk.
The Lip Sisters Trip the Light Fandango. Lauren seriously needs to shut the fuck up. It's no business of hers if her father's new bride is up the duff (which she isn't, but Lauren will be the first to suss that too). You see, in the Branning family, the men can't make their minds up, and Lauren always discovers the secret. Because everything is always about Lauren. Or Abi. Or Joey, who got handed his ass when he thought the pre-marital break-up at Jack's altar was down to his appalling performance at the stag do. Sharon will look back on this debacle and thank her lucky stars she didn't become indellibly entangled with poor white trash.
Anyway, all's well that ends well when
Spot the resemblance:-
Sharon
Miss Piggy
Phil Mitchell
Porky Pig
The Prince of Darkness Sheds Some Light.
Michael is a shit-stirrer, as only a psychopath can be. (If you don't think they can, just cast your mind back to the way Archie inveigled his way into Billy's trust). Apart from being a psychopath, Michael also has other advantages over your average Walford resident - he's got a university degree and he's able to think critically. Thus, it wasn't rocket science to figure out why Jack jilted Sharon at the altar - although Michael might have done the same with a bit more finesse and tact, but then, that's what education does for you.
He sussed tha Jack didn't want to risk being on the married end of Fat Barbie when Malibu Barbie's about to be released from Barbie Jail - a fact which startles cousin Alfie.
Alfie never ceases to amaze me. After all the shit Michael's not only stirred in his family, but forced him to wallow in,why is he even sitting next to him at the wedding? Michael knew from that morning that Jack had seen Ronnie; he would also have surmised that the authorities had contacted Kat, apprising her of the situation; and he knew damned well Roxy would have known.
Add this to Michael's curriculum vitae:-
(I'm sure a certain matron at the Walford Web Bullyboi Club wouldn't mind sharing the honours or the title with the Prince of Darkness).
If that isn't enough for Michael, he accidentally on purpose lets Roxy know what he's done and implies that Alfie just might be found around at his wife's abode.
Shane Richie, again, stepped up to the plate tonight, rightfully accusing Kat of excluding him from the knowledge that Ronnie was about to be released. But of course, Kat won't take responsibility for that. No, she shifts that bit of crumpet onto Ronnie's shoulders. After all, Ronnie is Alfie's girlfriend; but Katshit is still his wife and was his wife when Tommy was kidnapped.
I liked the heart-to-heart between Alfie and Roxy, and I really wish this couple were staying together. I hate the fact that Roxy will be sacrificed as a character at the altar of Queen Bitch Kat. But I loved Alfie's painful reminiscence of the night Tommy was taken, telling Roxy how he felt like Tommy's dad, how he loved him more than anything, but wondered if he'd have acted more instinctively had he really been Tommy's dad.
And Roxy considers Alfie a better dad to Amy than Jack. No surprise there, but is this foreshadowing? In one way, and possibly two.
We know Roxy's going to want a baby with Alfie. We know Shane Richie has said the Alfie-Kat saga has a twist in the tale. We also know that both Shane Richie and Jessie Wallace have stated that very possibly Tommy could be Alfie's biological son.
Watch this space for my prediction: Alfie will be found to be Tommy's biological father just at the time Roxy announces her pregnancy.
Scene and Line of the Night: Phil drinking orange juice at the bar of the Vic, only to have Shirley approach him humming (off-key) "Here Comes the Bride." Classic.
And that, ladies and gents, was the best, albeit mediocre, episode of the week.
Take it away, Phil er, Porky ...
I really can't figure out what the costume department are trying to do with Sharon. She looks fine when she's dressed down and her hair isn't teased into some desperately over-styled coiffure. When they try to tart her up she just looks bizarre. I can't figure out whether it's actually their aim to make her look like mutton dressed as brassy, camp-as-tits lamb, or if they actually believe they're making her look glamorous and sophisticated. All I saw when I looked at her in that overstuffed wedding dress with that dodgy hairdo was Mae West in the later years of her life (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_0bcVChLB-CA/TS3CEjklVVI/AAAAAAAAAEw/qpou_4FncCE/s1600/Mae_West_Allan_Warren.jpg).
ReplyDeletefirstly I want to thank you for actually being kind about Ronnie, you hit the nail on head here, it was the most watchable episode in weeks but if I start to really think about it wasn't even up to the stand of mediocre it just wasn't a train wreck this time. Michael lied to everyone and set up Ronnie which could have doubled her sentence why was he even at Jacks, at the wedding, and why on earth would Jack tell him that bit of sensitive information???
ReplyDeleteI also hate this implied storyline that Jack finished with Ronnie bc of Tommy and has in time forgiven her but still won't go back to her. Jack was still with Ronnie before she was sentenced and even after Michael set her up Jack still wanted to run away with Ronnie because he loved her that much, Ronnie was the one who told Jack to let her go, and even after that he visited the prison a couple times until she sent him divorce papers.
So the "baby snatching" as Sharon so tactfully put it wasn't the reason you two broke up. It was because Ronnie loved Jack so much and she wanted him to find a normal girl with out so much baggage- she wanted Jack to be happy.
Michael did have say one thing that has been bugging me since Sharon announced the location for their wedding, not the best idea to celebrate these nuptials in a club he owned with Ronnie, named R&R bc ronnie and roxy couldn't agree who's name got to go first, and even the paint on the walls was done by hand by ronnie and roxy whilst Jack was in a wheelchair, see this is also the place he was shot in the head, probably something else Sharon was unaware of but still, not a good jumping off point for a lasting marriage.