Well, that was embarrassing, wasn't it?
An entire episode devoted to nothing but drawing room vignettes, all of which reminded me of stale 1970s sitcom situations, even down to the decor in Ava the Rava's flat. The most surprising and self-satisfying bit of the whole badly-executed charade was the fact that, in her youth, Ava really was known as Ava the Rava.
But this really was one of the worst episodes of the year. Totally incongruous situations, butt-clinchingly maudlin attempts to justify one's professional nomenclature as an actor (emphasis on the last syllable) and yet more mindless attempts to create couples from people whose very cultural existence would preclude any sort of social integration whatsoever.
Is it any wonder, then, that the show is bleeding viewers? Tuesday night saw the lowest viewing tally of the year, with the show barely scraping 5 million viewers in the wake of a clash with Emmerdale.
People are turning off. The brutal truth is that people no longer want to watch EastEnders, and tonight's episode showed us exactly why people no longer want to watch.
The show, its writers and producers, are playing to the peanut gallery - the lowest common denominator of viewer: low-intellect teens, all of whom share one collective braincell and all of whom have never watched the show prior to the advent of Saint Stacey Slater. People who have no concept of the art of critical thinking, much less the ability to do this. People who are unable to fathom that good people can sometime be driven to do bad things, and that bad people may be capable of some goodness. Thus, Phil can only be understood as a thug; Ian is a weasel,and Janine is always and only Evil Janine.
Janine left her baby, and that was bad. Mothers don't leave children, but these people have no concept of PND and what that condition can make women do. Women with PND have been known to kill their children. Does that make them bad? And a known psychopath, who operates as a con man psychologically punching down on vulnerable women, is the hero of the piece because he, seemingly, cares for his infant daughter. So successful is the illusion that the viewers (being dim) don't see that his "care" for the child came as a result of palming the baby off on unsuspecting (and unpaid) carers.
Tonight's episode was more and embarrassment of bitches than anything else. EastEnders, as the song says, is going down ...
EastEnders ... the show where nothing happens ... and no one is talking about it.
Tonight's show had a putrid air of the 70s sitcom about it, and its running theme was dinner.
Not Abigail's Party
Dinner parties never fare well on EastEnders. From the traditional Mitchell bunfests (with Auntie Sal doling out home truths) to the godawful bragfests characterised by Ian Beale's dinner party from hell to the terribly frequent bore-and-boozefests which symbolise the Brannings, something is bound to happen that makes someone want the floor to open up and swallow them.
When Sharon put together a dinner party for the remaining Mitchell "family" as a sop to curry favour with Lola, the self-appointed moral arbitre of the Mitchells, we knew something was bound to happen.
Look, we all know Sharon is an addict and that she's in denial; but we also can see how deft she was in deflecting Billy's suspicious observation that she must be on the meds because she poured her wine down the sink. Billy bought cheap plonk - something that Billy would, naturally, do. Tripping up and losing her balance was down to new shoes, with four-inch heels.
The Mitchells give a shindig, and you never know who's going to show up - but that's true for any gathering in EastEnders. First Trish Barnes, the redeemed over-zealous social worker just "popped in" to see how Lexi was - ne'mind the fact that it was dinnertime and the child had long since been put to bed. Anxious to show Barnes how "normal" they are, Sharon and Phil impose upon her to stay for tea and dessert. As you do.
It wasn't enough the poor woman had to sit there listening to Alfie's bad jokes and suffering Lola's looks of death directed at Sharon, yet another unexpected guest had to arrive ... and what a guest.
What the hell business Shirley had showing up to crash a dinnerparty to which she hadn't been invited is anybody's guess. I genuinely thought Shirley had begun to move on from Phil, but the likes of Lauren Klee have regressed her in this instance back to a welter of jealousy and bitterness. Tuesday's episode, showing Shirley slumped at the bar in the Vic, wailing jealously about Sharon's place in the Mitchell dynamic, a place and a prestige she no longer enjoyed.
Shirley, as a faux Mitchell, was a bully and a beast, swaggering about the Square, challenging people with the aggressive phrase, "Do you know who I am?" She was Phil Mitchell's squeeze, and her power derived from Phil, who would never commit to her. Now, bereft of Phil and knowing that she never really had his love, she is a nothing, a no one, a lonely, bitter woman who'd rather skulk around the Square in a pathetic effort just to be near Phil, whom she hopelessly loves, and just to make his life a misery. She hopes to prick his conscience about Heather, hoping that he'd have her back within his sphere so she could use that guilt as a lever with which to control him, both physically and emotionally.
That didn't work.
So out of the blue, she shows up tonight. Why? Not to pick at Phil, but to sit drunkenly at one end of the table and level open insults in Sharon's direction.
Why?
Sharon has done nothing to Shirley. She wasn't responsible for the breakdown of Shirley's relationship with Phil, although Shirley knew for years that Sharon was the only woman Phil loved, and the moment she walked into Walford, Phil would walk away from Shirley. The visit tonight was the height of pathetic bitchery, plopping herself arrogantly into the chair she knew to be Sharon's and heaping insult after bitchy insult, for no other reason than to see Sharon discomfited; and landing Roxy's insensitive remarks regarding Sharon, squarely on the table, embarrassing no one but Roxy.
Sharon was right to allow her to stay. Her behaviour only reflected badly on herself. As Lola told her, she was truly pathetic, showing up at a private event, stinking of booze and so drunk that she could barely sit up.
I've yet to figure out the reason for this incongruous appearance, if only as a contrivance to show Lola as capable of ascertaining that, whatever Sharon's done, she's a better bet for Lexi's welfare than Shirley would be, as well as showing Sharon in a good light and Shirley in a dubious one. We all know that Sharon means more to Phil than Shirley ever did, so in order to do this, a contrived scene had to be developed.
An entertaining scene, but a contrived scene, nonetheless. It;s always good to see Shirley kicked back to the gutter where she belongs; but Linda Henry's character deserves to be moved on from her own pity party.
Shirley had to be told to leave. Ths song is for her ...
The words of this song apply so much to Shirley.
I don't want to spoil the party
So I'll go
I would hate my disappointment
To show
There's nothing for me here,
So I will disappear ...
I've had a drink or two
But I don't care ...
Masood the Horny Muslim Meets a Menopausal Blackwall Tunnel
Tonight we were introduced to Masood the Horny and Carol the Coy. I thought the retarded Bianca and the equally challenged Ajay had taken the kids out for a scrumtuous meal at McKlunkeys, but they were sat in the pub with nary a child to be seen.
I just thought of something: If Masood and Carol get married and Bianca marries Ajay, then Carol's daughter would be her sister-in-law and Masood's brother would be his son-in-law.
Go figure that incest.
Carol and Masood had a rivetingly boring date, talking about nothing, and I mean nothing. Bacon and tea in the cafe, delivering the post with barking dogs, only to reach Carol's doorstep where Masood suddenly starts sucking on Carol's face.
Right, we've had Masood the loving husband, Masood the observant Muslim, Masood the devoted father, Masood the postman and Masood the aspiring teacher. Now we have Masood the Horny Muslim, who's so desperate to grope Carol's chicken-skinned flesh that he's willing to risk the presence of Tamwar and the inarticulate Ajay to achieve his end.
Surely, he knows that Carol is the middle-aged bike of Walford. If Whitney be the Walford mattress, Carol is the Sealy posturpedic model, made for everyone from teenaged boys to grandads like Eddie Moon ... and Masood.
This is an unbelieveable couple, and not in a good way. That Lorraine Newman can't think of anything to do with Lindsey Coulson's character than pairing her with the only man in her age demographic who isn't related to her, speaks volumes for Newman's lack of imagination.
Masood and Carol simply don't fit. Carol is a woman who, on any given day, would be identified as an easy lay. In Masood's culture, she would be tagged as immoral. Masood is a man who, three months ago, stood, crying, on his doorstep as his wife of thirty years drove off in a taxi. Immediately she'd gone, he toyed with eloping with a woman young enough to be his daughter, and now he's chewing on the face of a woman's whose oldest grandchild is a contemporary of his youngest son.
I guess we've just been introduced to the Asian Branch of Brannings Incorporated.
Daddy's Home (But the Milk's Gone Sour).
Ava the Rava and Sam ... or rather, Aunt Esther
meets Big Sam ...
This was the most embarrassing part of tonight's bunfest. It was taken straight from a bad situation comedy and it featured two actors, basically being actors, preening and showing their stage-honed emotive skills ... and failing badly.
Cornell S John spoke as if all the world's a stage, but he was a particularly wooden player, and his intonation and delivery can only be described as James Earl Jones-meets-Johnny Nash (but without the collective talent). If this is the supremely talented and experienced actor, whose chief claim to fame is an obscure part in a couple of niche movies, then he is not the salvation EastEnders is seeking.
So much of this was trite and cliched and just plain dumb, it was insulting.
First, I seriously doubt that there are many people who give a rat's arse about the Magic Negro teacher who doesn't teach or work, her Cock of a son or the man who popped out for a pint of milk 20 years ago and didn't come back.
(Do you think he sussed he was living with a man-in-drag?)
A serious piece of advice to Clare Perkins ... love, my licence fee is paying your substantial salary. Get your arse down to some bespoke lingerie specialist and get fitted for a decent bra. With Sharon's linebacker shoulders and neck, Carol's chicken-skinned neck and bosom, the last thing we need to see is lards of chunky, wobbly fat hanging down from your underarms because your bra's too tight across your tits.
My point is that Ava the Rava is still an unknown quantity. I can understand her prickliness, but she's yet another unlikeable character, who inspires no warmth or affection. The screech factor was a turn-off tonight as well.
If Big Sam is being introduced to flesh (bad pun) out Ava's backstory, that's incongruous too. Ava is forty-eight, which means Cock was born when she was twenty-eight. That's hardly a child. Yet, it appears she was living in a squat at that time. With Big Sam.
WTF?
We know that, courtesy of her white, middle-class parents, Ava received a university education, qualifying as a teacher. She must have had at least two decades of experience to be in educational administration. At twenty-eight, when Dexter was born, she would have been teaching some six years ... and she's living in a squat and partying down on rooftops? Not only that, but Big Sam pops out because Ava won't put out three months after Dexter's birth?
Why do I sense a Crying Game moment here?
I mean the moment the guy's date comes out of the loo in "her" dressing gown with "her" willie dangling down and ... you get the picture.
Run, Sam, run!
Perkins's and John's overt emoting aside, which came across as amateurish and OTT, the other annoying aspect of this vignette was the utter stupidity of Dexter the Little Cock.
Was he born stupid or is he just another retard? Because the most clueless of kids would have certainly realised that there was something more to whoever "Jacob" was by the way Ava the Rava was putting on the vapours. And his offer to go after "Jacob" to get his telephone number was just dumb. As was his remark about his own perfection. And how did Sam find Ava's address anyway?
And why, pray tell, does Cock presume to think that "Jacob" would be any better catch for Ava the Rava than Billy Mitchell? He knows nothing of this man, who could be a serial killer for all he knows. Come to think of it, so could Ava the Rava. It couldn't be a racial thing, could it?
One thing for certain, as clearly and precisely as these experienced actors emoted and enunciated tonight, it's a shame that Khali Best was never taught enunciation in his drama course. He is as unintelligible as Tony Discipline and David Witts and as unlikeable.
And, please, just how many long-lost relatives and assholes with daddy issues do we have to endure before overkill sets in? Stop insulting our intelligence.
Let's hear it for Father Knows Best ... Not.
You Can Get Anything You Want at Ian's Restaurant ...
So now we know ... Ian only ever interviewed Jean for the position of sous-chef for his new restaurant because she would be the cheapest.
This is Jean, who - prior to this retcon - could only cook sausage sur-priiiiiiiiiiiiiiiise and not very good at that. Sean hated it. Last year, during Heather's murder investigation, DCI Crisp almost gagged on it, and Phil Mitchell got red in the face pretending to like it.
So now, her cooking test for Ian's venture, boils down (bad pun) to ...chicken surprise.
Once again, Newman's curious brand of bland sitcommy non-humour, featuring the professional stage school kid (or midget) now playing Bobby Beale. When he made the remark tonight about something being like a plum, I thought to myself that the only thing plummy about that kid is his posh voice.
Of course, we all knew what the result would be and I felt that the contrivance was that, once Jean threw a wobbly and threw the Beale bunch out of "her" kitchen, she'd passed the stereotypical temperamental chef test.
I guess Ian and goldigger Denise got shelved, huh?
Out of all this welter of nothingness, warmth and friendship, we can count on one thing from Newman .. the continued development of characters like Jean Slater - from hapless, screeching, clingy mum, to chaser of inappropriate men, to New Age Dot, to Events Manager to an unqualified sous chef. What next? Leaping tall buildings in a single bound? The rise of SuperJean.
I think I'm getting sick again.
An entire episode devoted to nothing but drawing room vignettes, all of which reminded me of stale 1970s sitcom situations, even down to the decor in Ava the Rava's flat. The most surprising and self-satisfying bit of the whole badly-executed charade was the fact that, in her youth, Ava really was known as Ava the Rava.
But this really was one of the worst episodes of the year. Totally incongruous situations, butt-clinchingly maudlin attempts to justify one's professional nomenclature as an actor (emphasis on the last syllable) and yet more mindless attempts to create couples from people whose very cultural existence would preclude any sort of social integration whatsoever.
Is it any wonder, then, that the show is bleeding viewers? Tuesday night saw the lowest viewing tally of the year, with the show barely scraping 5 million viewers in the wake of a clash with Emmerdale.
People are turning off. The brutal truth is that people no longer want to watch EastEnders, and tonight's episode showed us exactly why people no longer want to watch.
The show, its writers and producers, are playing to the peanut gallery - the lowest common denominator of viewer: low-intellect teens, all of whom share one collective braincell and all of whom have never watched the show prior to the advent of Saint Stacey Slater. People who have no concept of the art of critical thinking, much less the ability to do this. People who are unable to fathom that good people can sometime be driven to do bad things, and that bad people may be capable of some goodness. Thus, Phil can only be understood as a thug; Ian is a weasel,and Janine is always and only Evil Janine.
Janine left her baby, and that was bad. Mothers don't leave children, but these people have no concept of PND and what that condition can make women do. Women with PND have been known to kill their children. Does that make them bad? And a known psychopath, who operates as a con man psychologically punching down on vulnerable women, is the hero of the piece because he, seemingly, cares for his infant daughter. So successful is the illusion that the viewers (being dim) don't see that his "care" for the child came as a result of palming the baby off on unsuspecting (and unpaid) carers.
Tonight's episode was more and embarrassment of bitches than anything else. EastEnders, as the song says, is going down ...
EastEnders ... the show where nothing happens ... and no one is talking about it.
Tonight's show had a putrid air of the 70s sitcom about it, and its running theme was dinner.
Not Abigail's Party
Dinner parties never fare well on EastEnders. From the traditional Mitchell bunfests (with Auntie Sal doling out home truths) to the godawful bragfests characterised by Ian Beale's dinner party from hell to the terribly frequent bore-and-boozefests which symbolise the Brannings, something is bound to happen that makes someone want the floor to open up and swallow them.
When Sharon put together a dinner party for the remaining Mitchell "family" as a sop to curry favour with Lola, the self-appointed moral arbitre of the Mitchells, we knew something was bound to happen.
Look, we all know Sharon is an addict and that she's in denial; but we also can see how deft she was in deflecting Billy's suspicious observation that she must be on the meds because she poured her wine down the sink. Billy bought cheap plonk - something that Billy would, naturally, do. Tripping up and losing her balance was down to new shoes, with four-inch heels.
The Mitchells give a shindig, and you never know who's going to show up - but that's true for any gathering in EastEnders. First Trish Barnes, the redeemed over-zealous social worker just "popped in" to see how Lexi was - ne'mind the fact that it was dinnertime and the child had long since been put to bed. Anxious to show Barnes how "normal" they are, Sharon and Phil impose upon her to stay for tea and dessert. As you do.
It wasn't enough the poor woman had to sit there listening to Alfie's bad jokes and suffering Lola's looks of death directed at Sharon, yet another unexpected guest had to arrive ... and what a guest.
What the hell business Shirley had showing up to crash a dinnerparty to which she hadn't been invited is anybody's guess. I genuinely thought Shirley had begun to move on from Phil, but the likes of Lauren Klee have regressed her in this instance back to a welter of jealousy and bitterness. Tuesday's episode, showing Shirley slumped at the bar in the Vic, wailing jealously about Sharon's place in the Mitchell dynamic, a place and a prestige she no longer enjoyed.
Shirley, as a faux Mitchell, was a bully and a beast, swaggering about the Square, challenging people with the aggressive phrase, "Do you know who I am?" She was Phil Mitchell's squeeze, and her power derived from Phil, who would never commit to her. Now, bereft of Phil and knowing that she never really had his love, she is a nothing, a no one, a lonely, bitter woman who'd rather skulk around the Square in a pathetic effort just to be near Phil, whom she hopelessly loves, and just to make his life a misery. She hopes to prick his conscience about Heather, hoping that he'd have her back within his sphere so she could use that guilt as a lever with which to control him, both physically and emotionally.
That didn't work.
So out of the blue, she shows up tonight. Why? Not to pick at Phil, but to sit drunkenly at one end of the table and level open insults in Sharon's direction.
Why?
Sharon has done nothing to Shirley. She wasn't responsible for the breakdown of Shirley's relationship with Phil, although Shirley knew for years that Sharon was the only woman Phil loved, and the moment she walked into Walford, Phil would walk away from Shirley. The visit tonight was the height of pathetic bitchery, plopping herself arrogantly into the chair she knew to be Sharon's and heaping insult after bitchy insult, for no other reason than to see Sharon discomfited; and landing Roxy's insensitive remarks regarding Sharon, squarely on the table, embarrassing no one but Roxy.
Sharon was right to allow her to stay. Her behaviour only reflected badly on herself. As Lola told her, she was truly pathetic, showing up at a private event, stinking of booze and so drunk that she could barely sit up.
I've yet to figure out the reason for this incongruous appearance, if only as a contrivance to show Lola as capable of ascertaining that, whatever Sharon's done, she's a better bet for Lexi's welfare than Shirley would be, as well as showing Sharon in a good light and Shirley in a dubious one. We all know that Sharon means more to Phil than Shirley ever did, so in order to do this, a contrived scene had to be developed.
An entertaining scene, but a contrived scene, nonetheless. It;s always good to see Shirley kicked back to the gutter where she belongs; but Linda Henry's character deserves to be moved on from her own pity party.
Shirley had to be told to leave. Ths song is for her ...
I don't want to spoil the party
So I'll go
I would hate my disappointment
To show
There's nothing for me here,
So I will disappear ...
I've had a drink or two
But I don't care ...
Masood the Horny Muslim Meets a Menopausal Blackwall Tunnel
Tonight we were introduced to Masood the Horny and Carol the Coy. I thought the retarded Bianca and the equally challenged Ajay had taken the kids out for a scrumtuous meal at McKlunkeys, but they were sat in the pub with nary a child to be seen.
I just thought of something: If Masood and Carol get married and Bianca marries Ajay, then Carol's daughter would be her sister-in-law and Masood's brother would be his son-in-law.
Go figure that incest.
Carol and Masood had a rivetingly boring date, talking about nothing, and I mean nothing. Bacon and tea in the cafe, delivering the post with barking dogs, only to reach Carol's doorstep where Masood suddenly starts sucking on Carol's face.
Right, we've had Masood the loving husband, Masood the observant Muslim, Masood the devoted father, Masood the postman and Masood the aspiring teacher. Now we have Masood the Horny Muslim, who's so desperate to grope Carol's chicken-skinned flesh that he's willing to risk the presence of Tamwar and the inarticulate Ajay to achieve his end.
Surely, he knows that Carol is the middle-aged bike of Walford. If Whitney be the Walford mattress, Carol is the Sealy posturpedic model, made for everyone from teenaged boys to grandads like Eddie Moon ... and Masood.
This is an unbelieveable couple, and not in a good way. That Lorraine Newman can't think of anything to do with Lindsey Coulson's character than pairing her with the only man in her age demographic who isn't related to her, speaks volumes for Newman's lack of imagination.
Masood and Carol simply don't fit. Carol is a woman who, on any given day, would be identified as an easy lay. In Masood's culture, she would be tagged as immoral. Masood is a man who, three months ago, stood, crying, on his doorstep as his wife of thirty years drove off in a taxi. Immediately she'd gone, he toyed with eloping with a woman young enough to be his daughter, and now he's chewing on the face of a woman's whose oldest grandchild is a contemporary of his youngest son.
I guess we've just been introduced to the Asian Branch of Brannings Incorporated.
Daddy's Home (But the Milk's Gone Sour).
Ava the Rava and Sam ... or rather, Aunt Esther
meets Big Sam ...
This was the most embarrassing part of tonight's bunfest. It was taken straight from a bad situation comedy and it featured two actors, basically being actors, preening and showing their stage-honed emotive skills ... and failing badly.
Cornell S John spoke as if all the world's a stage, but he was a particularly wooden player, and his intonation and delivery can only be described as James Earl Jones-meets-Johnny Nash (but without the collective talent). If this is the supremely talented and experienced actor, whose chief claim to fame is an obscure part in a couple of niche movies, then he is not the salvation EastEnders is seeking.
So much of this was trite and cliched and just plain dumb, it was insulting.
First, I seriously doubt that there are many people who give a rat's arse about the Magic Negro teacher who doesn't teach or work, her Cock of a son or the man who popped out for a pint of milk 20 years ago and didn't come back.
(Do you think he sussed he was living with a man-in-drag?)
A serious piece of advice to Clare Perkins ... love, my licence fee is paying your substantial salary. Get your arse down to some bespoke lingerie specialist and get fitted for a decent bra. With Sharon's linebacker shoulders and neck, Carol's chicken-skinned neck and bosom, the last thing we need to see is lards of chunky, wobbly fat hanging down from your underarms because your bra's too tight across your tits.
My point is that Ava the Rava is still an unknown quantity. I can understand her prickliness, but she's yet another unlikeable character, who inspires no warmth or affection. The screech factor was a turn-off tonight as well.
If Big Sam is being introduced to flesh (bad pun) out Ava's backstory, that's incongruous too. Ava is forty-eight, which means Cock was born when she was twenty-eight. That's hardly a child. Yet, it appears she was living in a squat at that time. With Big Sam.
WTF?
We know that, courtesy of her white, middle-class parents, Ava received a university education, qualifying as a teacher. She must have had at least two decades of experience to be in educational administration. At twenty-eight, when Dexter was born, she would have been teaching some six years ... and she's living in a squat and partying down on rooftops? Not only that, but Big Sam pops out because Ava won't put out three months after Dexter's birth?
Why do I sense a Crying Game moment here?
I mean the moment the guy's date comes out of the loo in "her" dressing gown with "her" willie dangling down and ... you get the picture.
Run, Sam, run!
Perkins's and John's overt emoting aside, which came across as amateurish and OTT, the other annoying aspect of this vignette was the utter stupidity of Dexter the Little Cock.
Was he born stupid or is he just another retard? Because the most clueless of kids would have certainly realised that there was something more to whoever "Jacob" was by the way Ava the Rava was putting on the vapours. And his offer to go after "Jacob" to get his telephone number was just dumb. As was his remark about his own perfection. And how did Sam find Ava's address anyway?
And why, pray tell, does Cock presume to think that "Jacob" would be any better catch for Ava the Rava than Billy Mitchell? He knows nothing of this man, who could be a serial killer for all he knows. Come to think of it, so could Ava the Rava. It couldn't be a racial thing, could it?
One thing for certain, as clearly and precisely as these experienced actors emoted and enunciated tonight, it's a shame that Khali Best was never taught enunciation in his drama course. He is as unintelligible as Tony Discipline and David Witts and as unlikeable.
And, please, just how many long-lost relatives and assholes with daddy issues do we have to endure before overkill sets in? Stop insulting our intelligence.
Let's hear it for Father Knows Best ... Not.
You Can Get Anything You Want at Ian's Restaurant ...
So now we know ... Ian only ever interviewed Jean for the position of sous-chef for his new restaurant because she would be the cheapest.
This is Jean, who - prior to this retcon - could only cook sausage sur-priiiiiiiiiiiiiiiise and not very good at that. Sean hated it. Last year, during Heather's murder investigation, DCI Crisp almost gagged on it, and Phil Mitchell got red in the face pretending to like it.
So now, her cooking test for Ian's venture, boils down (bad pun) to ...chicken surprise.
Once again, Newman's curious brand of bland sitcommy non-humour, featuring the professional stage school kid (or midget) now playing Bobby Beale. When he made the remark tonight about something being like a plum, I thought to myself that the only thing plummy about that kid is his posh voice.
Of course, we all knew what the result would be and I felt that the contrivance was that, once Jean threw a wobbly and threw the Beale bunch out of "her" kitchen, she'd passed the stereotypical temperamental chef test.
I guess Ian and goldigger Denise got shelved, huh?
Out of all this welter of nothingness, warmth and friendship, we can count on one thing from Newman .. the continued development of characters like Jean Slater - from hapless, screeching, clingy mum, to chaser of inappropriate men, to New Age Dot, to Events Manager to an unqualified sous chef. What next? Leaping tall buildings in a single bound? The rise of SuperJean.
I think I'm getting sick again.
Spot on, as usual. Although Bobby actually said he wants to be a plumber...don't blame you for not catching that piece of superb dialogue mind, I was more engrossed in painting my toenails tonight to be honest. What a pile of crap this programme has turned out to be. Shame
ReplyDeleteAnd the Ice Queen cometh now again. This is turning into Psychopath City.
DeleteShirley was shit, when are they going to axe this non character.
ReplyDeleteAs for Ronnie am I the only one who thought she was overrated and finished when she left.
No, you aren't. We've just got EastEnders back from The Branning Show, and now we've got to gear up for The Ronnie Show again.
DeleteWithin the first few minutes I was getting all annoyed that Ava, a professional, would even give the time of day to the failure in life that is Billy Mitchell. Ugh. But Dexter was far more irritating: he enters the house, bumps into Sam, and goes "OOYOO?". Not only is he a thief (viz. trying to scam customers at work) who hasn't been taught to speak properly, it seems that he wasn't taught any decent manners either. How can Ava expect her child to get anywhere in life if his first reaction on seeing a perfectly respectable-looking gentleman at his house (who didn't exactly break down the door or anything) is to make that ghastly face and grunt like a fucking animal?
ReplyDelete