Ladies and gentlemen, the new EastEnders' theme song:-
Yep, this is the current state of EastEnders: We. Are. Family.
Now, I know that this, to some, means a reflection of Lorraine Newman's ethos of love and warmth, but scratch the surface.
Take the Brannings (please, and shove them all over a cliff). They are connected with the Beales and the Butchers through Bianca. They are related to the Mitchells through Amy. Ronnie was married to Jack. Bradley Branning was married to Stacey Slater, so the Slaters are brought into the equation. Dot married Jim, so she becomes the Branning matriarch - in fact, before Dot married Jim, she was never ever considered a matriarch, more of a tragic comedy figure. Through Alice's brief association with Michael, the Brannings are now associated with the Moons, as well as Derek's Shaggerman stint with Kat.
Extending the web further, the Foxes, through Denise's relationship with Ian, are indirectly connnected to the Brannings too. Then there's Cora, who brings in Ava the Rava and Cock ... and Sam the Sham. Cora's got a friendship with Patrick, which associates him with them. Cock is friends with Lola, another Mitchell connection. Jay is sleeping with Abi, yet another faux Mitchell connection. Jack slept with Bimbo Sharon, and she was Tanya's BFF. So the Brannings are connected with another iconic original character.
All roads lead to BranningVille. The new character about to arrive, Carl, will be associated with the Brannings, not only through Kirsty, but also through his association with Derek.
This is more than a community. This is incest.
Haunted Walford: The Ghost and the Vampire.
Whoda thunk EastEnders would have become a horror show? But that's what it has become, in part.
It's now June. Derek died on Christmas Day, almost 7 months ago, yet he's still being mentioned, discussed, referenced. Alice's grief has been acknowledged, although a couple of weeks ago, the reason for her kleptomania, as she explained to Poopy-La-Dim, was down to the pressure of having to juggle Janine's agenda against Michael's manipulations. But now, tonight, we see it's really down to her undying grief for Daddy Derek.
I find it amazing that Derek Branning, a character so universally unpopular with viewers, the much-heralded hard man who was a comic version of DelBoy on speed, is still the focus of so much discussion and angst amongst the citizens of Walford. He's there as a reminder to Alfie of Kat's unwarranted and, as yet, unexplained infidelity. To Carol, Max and Jack, he's the brother who dominated them and whom they lost. To Bianca, he's the possible key to finding David. To Ian, he was an unintentional financier. To Kirsty, he was the man who introduced her to Max. The list goes on.
This is a character who stayed a year and was hated, At best, he was a joke. At worst, he was dire. Yet Derek still hangs over the Square and exerts more influence in death, than he ever did in life.
Now consider Pat. Pat was the definitive matriarch of the Square. If you wanted a lychpin to every family, you had Pat, who was linked by blood, marriage or friendship to everyone. Pat died on New Year's Day 2012. Yet by this time last year, no one was mentioning Pat. Janine was under immense pressure and about to give birth. We all knew she was still grieving Pat, yet it was never mentioned. The only mention she got was when Janine named her daughter "Patricia," and her husband promptly took it upon himself to register her name as "Scarlett."
It boggles my mind that the driving unseen force behind Walford these days is Derek Branning and not Pat Evans.
Bianca the Retard is poor ...
so instead of saving for her children's clothing and food, she's surfing the Internet (a luxury) in search of a private detective. Why? To trace her errant and absent father. Her cousin, Peter - whom she still refers to as "Pe'urgh Beale", gave her the letter he found in a box at Ian's house. Now Carol has it, and she scuppers any notion Bianca might have of getting David to return, because it appears this letter says he's not coming back.
I know people are awaiting the return of David Wicks like Christians await the second coming, but at this point and time, it certainly looks as though it ain't gonna happen - at least not by September, anyway.
What this entire shenanigans did expose was the fact that Ian Beale actually stole money which, if it be legitimate, should have belonged to Joey and MyAlice. Now the even bigger question would be this: if he'd given the box, money intact, to Carol, after finding the letter, do you seriously think Carol and Bianca would have parted with that ten thousand quid and given it to Joey and Alice? Remember, Bianca's the one who, indirectly, profited from Tiffany pinching the Millers' lottery ticket.
So much for families.
I didn't like Ian's weaseliness tonight and his evasiveness about explaining how he came by the letter. TPTB like playing up Ian's cowardly side, but the idea that Ian's afraid of his bullying, blowhard of a niece is ridiculous. Ian had her in tears when he slipped on a wet floor in the cafe a few years back, with her crouching in the house crying about him calling the police. All of a sudden, Bianca is this bully. Maybe Ian needs to remind his niece that her father, his brother, cheated the hell out of cheating with Ian's wife, who happened to be Steven's, Peter's and Lucy's mum. And that David has lately done the same with Simon's (his other brother) wife.
Instead he hands back the box, devoid of funds, to Carol and Bianca. And Bianca gives a brilliant example of why it pays to think critically. Seeing a cellphone number scribbled on a scrap of paper, she automatically assumes it's David's and calls the number. Dumbass cow. And now she gives just too much information, which will cost both her and Ian dearly in the long run.
Enter Carl-with-a C.
On the other side of the coin, we have Joey running all over the place, finally worrying about MyAlice, and Saint Kat, the Mother Teresa of Walford and Jack, running all over the place worried shitless about Michael, who is in another manipulative mood, pullling the strings again in all the right places and at all the right intervals, by pretending to be catatonic.
This is similar to the same "sleepwalking routine" he enacted when Ronnie was still around. And he's using his mum's old psychopathic control tricks - causing concern by going missing, then locking himself in the office of the boxing club ... Hurry, hurry, he might do something drastic. Kat's radioactive tits are on GPS duty and they lead the way to where he's hiding out.
And - eh voila' - Michael ends up staying in Jack's flat with Jack playing nursemaid to a grown man, who's stitching the pair of these planks up like kippers. He's got what he wanted - he couldn't stay at the Slater Hotel any longer because of the state in which he'd left Alice, so without as much as lifting a finger, and spending a mere one night in the boxing club, he's got accommodation courtesy of Jack, who should be belting the daylights out of his morbid flesh for popping the cherry of his niece, a girl young enough to be his daughter.
This is what slays me about this creep - Alfie, Kat, Jack, Roxy, Jean all have cause to hate the sight of him, yet they bend over backwards to feel sorry for his psycopathic ass.
Joey, himself, is worried now, because he's spent so much time fucking his cousin, he neglected to see the trouble his baby sister was getting herself into. Sad to say that David Witts's acting hasn't improved in the least in the year since he's joined the cast. He stank up the place tonight. I know the writers are attempting to write him as a Mini-me Derek, but he patterns his vocal intonations and accent on Jake Wood (badly) and it comes out as preposterous, which is why the writer - Jeff Povey, an experienced one of long-standing - has to insert Alice's gratuitous line about Joey being more like Derek than he realises, followed by his discovery of a picture one presumes is Joey as a young child.
Daddy Issues ... who'd have'em?
Well, plenty do ...
People About Whom We Don't Give a Rat's Arse ...
Or rather, aliens invade Walford.
There's Ava the Rava, who's buying a sandwich to sustain her hunger on her daily patrol of Walford (the teacher who doesn't teach), the Magic Negro with the Klingon brow and her antennae stowed in her pineapple-shaped weave; her part Klingon-part Vulcan- totally Will Smith rip-off son, Cock; and Sam the Sham (without the Pharoahs) ...
This is totally mindless malarkey, which gives a new definition to going around aimlessly in circles. Ava trolls the streets, Cock is repeatedly rude. Sam the Sham senses Cock has a girlfriend, so we have another totally meaningless scene where he awkwardly tries to ingratiate himself with Lola.
If there was another stench about the Square tonight, it was Danielle Harold, who either was having an off-day or who sensed how stupid these filler scenes were. She was awful - from the stupid lines about advising Sam of what sort of male beauty treatment he needed to the snide remarks she gave about Alice helping out, when it's obvious now that Tanya's business is less than thriving - is anyone surprised? - she, like Witts, stank up the place.
Honestly, the writers are so hard put to find something to write which would justify Ava's continued presence in the Square, along with Dex-TAAAAAAAA's and Sam the Sham's, it's pathetic. It's worse than pathetic, it's embarrassing. It's the same old same old. Ava and Dex-TAAAAAA are out and about. Dex-TAAAAAA sees daddy and runs off; Daddy seeks son. Ava the Rava magically appears (well, she is the Magic Negro) ...
... Dex-TAAAA is rude and calls her a liar; Ava tells Sam the Sham "I told you so," which really means "I fancy you, let's fuck, but don't tell the kid" and Sam keeps grinning. I keep expecting him to burst into a chorus of Old Man River ...
Same old same old here. Move on. I think when Ava and Sam eventually do fuck and Cock finds out, they mosey on off together and live someplace else ... and take the rancid old crone with them.
In the World of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man Is King ...
In this instance, we've got a one-eyed woman, and that's Kirsty.
So tonight we know that Kirsty was an addict - addicted to what, she doesn't say (although, earlier in the year, remember, she told Lauren that she was hooked on drink once, herself). Kirsty recognises the signs of addiction - Lauren's trembling hands, constantly being cold because her body heat is off-kilter, sleeping, vomiting. Of all the people involved in this storyline, she's doing the best in dealing with Lauren - but Lauren, addict that she is, is refusing to see. She has to hit rock bottom.
This is a pity, because we know what's about to break loose with Kirsty and her big lie, as well as Carl-with-a-C turning up. Max is the father of four children. Under normal circumstances, Kirsty would be sporting a small bump; instead, she's skinny as the day she arrived. Don't even mention how she conceals her periods and tampons etc.
Tanya's the asshole here, and here's more proof that her leaving line is more about Lauren and less about her; however, on thinking about it, it's just karma, for the shit parent she's been. She's the Hyacinth Bucket of Walford, scrubbing up her kids and making them presentable, like herself, but hiding the rottenness within. Wrong, Tanya ... Abi is not your priority today. At the best of times, Abi is probably the more mature of your two daughters - albeit both are mightily entitled - the child who should be your priority is the child you kicked out. And now you want her back because maybe, just maybe, she's settling in at Max's. Wouldn't do for Max to claim parental responsibility, would it? He's only there to cough up money and pay the bills.
As she reiterated to Max tonight about Lauren, "She's my baby." Well, she's Max's baby too, and one he abandoned another baby, who's now dead, for; and he'll be damned if he sees another baby die. This is Tanya, who scurries a drunken Lauren upstairs with a promise to give her a painkiller for her headache. Really, Tanya? Drugs and alcohol? Are you that stupid?
Still, Max is one of the ostriches as well, refusing Kirsty's advice to get Lauren to see a doctor. Like Tanya the other week, he thinks this is something all teenagers do and it will blow over. Are these people seriously retarded?
This is why the Brannings will never be the premier family of Walford.
Jossa was almost bearable tonight, until she went into fever pitch and started screaming. Is there never time she won't resort to this? Seriously, it does nothing to distract from her lack of talent.
Oh, and if you want to see where Lauren and Abi get that misplaced sense of entitlement, check out Tanya calling around Max's and attempting to push past Kirsty when she opened the door, without so much as a request to be allowed to enter. This is someone else's home, dumb bitch, and your daughter is living there with her father. You ask permission to enter. You're quick enough to call Max out when he tries that trick. Kudos to Kirsty.
Moment of the Night: When MyAlice started crying and her mascara ran down her cheeks. The make-up department have been laying it on too thick lately.
Another watchable episode. Watchable. Good, by this current team's standing, mediocre by Matt Robinson's.
Yep, this is the current state of EastEnders: We. Are. Family.
Now, I know that this, to some, means a reflection of Lorraine Newman's ethos of love and warmth, but scratch the surface.
Take the Brannings (please, and shove them all over a cliff). They are connected with the Beales and the Butchers through Bianca. They are related to the Mitchells through Amy. Ronnie was married to Jack. Bradley Branning was married to Stacey Slater, so the Slaters are brought into the equation. Dot married Jim, so she becomes the Branning matriarch - in fact, before Dot married Jim, she was never ever considered a matriarch, more of a tragic comedy figure. Through Alice's brief association with Michael, the Brannings are now associated with the Moons, as well as Derek's Shaggerman stint with Kat.
Extending the web further, the Foxes, through Denise's relationship with Ian, are indirectly connnected to the Brannings too. Then there's Cora, who brings in Ava the Rava and Cock ... and Sam the Sham. Cora's got a friendship with Patrick, which associates him with them. Cock is friends with Lola, another Mitchell connection. Jay is sleeping with Abi, yet another faux Mitchell connection. Jack slept with Bimbo Sharon, and she was Tanya's BFF. So the Brannings are connected with another iconic original character.
All roads lead to BranningVille. The new character about to arrive, Carl, will be associated with the Brannings, not only through Kirsty, but also through his association with Derek.
This is more than a community. This is incest.
Haunted Walford: The Ghost and the Vampire.
It's now June. Derek died on Christmas Day, almost 7 months ago, yet he's still being mentioned, discussed, referenced. Alice's grief has been acknowledged, although a couple of weeks ago, the reason for her kleptomania, as she explained to Poopy-La-Dim, was down to the pressure of having to juggle Janine's agenda against Michael's manipulations. But now, tonight, we see it's really down to her undying grief for Daddy Derek.
I find it amazing that Derek Branning, a character so universally unpopular with viewers, the much-heralded hard man who was a comic version of DelBoy on speed, is still the focus of so much discussion and angst amongst the citizens of Walford. He's there as a reminder to Alfie of Kat's unwarranted and, as yet, unexplained infidelity. To Carol, Max and Jack, he's the brother who dominated them and whom they lost. To Bianca, he's the possible key to finding David. To Ian, he was an unintentional financier. To Kirsty, he was the man who introduced her to Max. The list goes on.
This is a character who stayed a year and was hated, At best, he was a joke. At worst, he was dire. Yet Derek still hangs over the Square and exerts more influence in death, than he ever did in life.
Now consider Pat. Pat was the definitive matriarch of the Square. If you wanted a lychpin to every family, you had Pat, who was linked by blood, marriage or friendship to everyone. Pat died on New Year's Day 2012. Yet by this time last year, no one was mentioning Pat. Janine was under immense pressure and about to give birth. We all knew she was still grieving Pat, yet it was never mentioned. The only mention she got was when Janine named her daughter "Patricia," and her husband promptly took it upon himself to register her name as "Scarlett."
It boggles my mind that the driving unseen force behind Walford these days is Derek Branning and not Pat Evans.
Bianca the Retard is poor ...
so instead of saving for her children's clothing and food, she's surfing the Internet (a luxury) in search of a private detective. Why? To trace her errant and absent father. Her cousin, Peter - whom she still refers to as "Pe'urgh Beale", gave her the letter he found in a box at Ian's house. Now Carol has it, and she scuppers any notion Bianca might have of getting David to return, because it appears this letter says he's not coming back.
I know people are awaiting the return of David Wicks like Christians await the second coming, but at this point and time, it certainly looks as though it ain't gonna happen - at least not by September, anyway.
What this entire shenanigans did expose was the fact that Ian Beale actually stole money which, if it be legitimate, should have belonged to Joey and MyAlice. Now the even bigger question would be this: if he'd given the box, money intact, to Carol, after finding the letter, do you seriously think Carol and Bianca would have parted with that ten thousand quid and given it to Joey and Alice? Remember, Bianca's the one who, indirectly, profited from Tiffany pinching the Millers' lottery ticket.
So much for families.
I didn't like Ian's weaseliness tonight and his evasiveness about explaining how he came by the letter. TPTB like playing up Ian's cowardly side, but the idea that Ian's afraid of his bullying, blowhard of a niece is ridiculous. Ian had her in tears when he slipped on a wet floor in the cafe a few years back, with her crouching in the house crying about him calling the police. All of a sudden, Bianca is this bully. Maybe Ian needs to remind his niece that her father, his brother, cheated the hell out of cheating with Ian's wife, who happened to be Steven's, Peter's and Lucy's mum. And that David has lately done the same with Simon's (his other brother) wife.
Instead he hands back the box, devoid of funds, to Carol and Bianca. And Bianca gives a brilliant example of why it pays to think critically. Seeing a cellphone number scribbled on a scrap of paper, she automatically assumes it's David's and calls the number. Dumbass cow. And now she gives just too much information, which will cost both her and Ian dearly in the long run.
Enter Carl-with-a C.
On the other side of the coin, we have Joey running all over the place, finally worrying about MyAlice, and Saint Kat, the Mother Teresa of Walford and Jack, running all over the place worried shitless about Michael, who is in another manipulative mood, pullling the strings again in all the right places and at all the right intervals, by pretending to be catatonic.
This is similar to the same "sleepwalking routine" he enacted when Ronnie was still around. And he's using his mum's old psychopathic control tricks - causing concern by going missing, then locking himself in the office of the boxing club ... Hurry, hurry, he might do something drastic. Kat's radioactive tits are on GPS duty and they lead the way to where he's hiding out.
And - eh voila' - Michael ends up staying in Jack's flat with Jack playing nursemaid to a grown man, who's stitching the pair of these planks up like kippers. He's got what he wanted - he couldn't stay at the Slater Hotel any longer because of the state in which he'd left Alice, so without as much as lifting a finger, and spending a mere one night in the boxing club, he's got accommodation courtesy of Jack, who should be belting the daylights out of his morbid flesh for popping the cherry of his niece, a girl young enough to be his daughter.
This is what slays me about this creep - Alfie, Kat, Jack, Roxy, Jean all have cause to hate the sight of him, yet they bend over backwards to feel sorry for his psycopathic ass.
Joey, himself, is worried now, because he's spent so much time fucking his cousin, he neglected to see the trouble his baby sister was getting herself into. Sad to say that David Witts's acting hasn't improved in the least in the year since he's joined the cast. He stank up the place tonight. I know the writers are attempting to write him as a Mini-me Derek, but he patterns his vocal intonations and accent on Jake Wood (badly) and it comes out as preposterous, which is why the writer - Jeff Povey, an experienced one of long-standing - has to insert Alice's gratuitous line about Joey being more like Derek than he realises, followed by his discovery of a picture one presumes is Joey as a young child.
Daddy Issues ... who'd have'em?
Well, plenty do ...
People About Whom We Don't Give a Rat's Arse ...
Or rather, aliens invade Walford.
There's Ava the Rava, who's buying a sandwich to sustain her hunger on her daily patrol of Walford (the teacher who doesn't teach), the Magic Negro with the Klingon brow and her antennae stowed in her pineapple-shaped weave; her part Klingon-part Vulcan- totally Will Smith rip-off son, Cock; and Sam the Sham (without the Pharoahs) ...
This is totally mindless malarkey, which gives a new definition to going around aimlessly in circles. Ava trolls the streets, Cock is repeatedly rude. Sam the Sham senses Cock has a girlfriend, so we have another totally meaningless scene where he awkwardly tries to ingratiate himself with Lola.
If there was another stench about the Square tonight, it was Danielle Harold, who either was having an off-day or who sensed how stupid these filler scenes were. She was awful - from the stupid lines about advising Sam of what sort of male beauty treatment he needed to the snide remarks she gave about Alice helping out, when it's obvious now that Tanya's business is less than thriving - is anyone surprised? - she, like Witts, stank up the place.
Honestly, the writers are so hard put to find something to write which would justify Ava's continued presence in the Square, along with Dex-TAAAAAAAA's and Sam the Sham's, it's pathetic. It's worse than pathetic, it's embarrassing. It's the same old same old. Ava and Dex-TAAAAAA are out and about. Dex-TAAAAAA sees daddy and runs off; Daddy seeks son. Ava the Rava magically appears (well, she is the Magic Negro) ...
... Dex-TAAAA is rude and calls her a liar; Ava tells Sam the Sham "I told you so," which really means "I fancy you, let's fuck, but don't tell the kid" and Sam keeps grinning. I keep expecting him to burst into a chorus of Old Man River ...
Same old same old here. Move on. I think when Ava and Sam eventually do fuck and Cock finds out, they mosey on off together and live someplace else ... and take the rancid old crone with them.
In the World of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man Is King ...
In this instance, we've got a one-eyed woman, and that's Kirsty.
So tonight we know that Kirsty was an addict - addicted to what, she doesn't say (although, earlier in the year, remember, she told Lauren that she was hooked on drink once, herself). Kirsty recognises the signs of addiction - Lauren's trembling hands, constantly being cold because her body heat is off-kilter, sleeping, vomiting. Of all the people involved in this storyline, she's doing the best in dealing with Lauren - but Lauren, addict that she is, is refusing to see. She has to hit rock bottom.
This is a pity, because we know what's about to break loose with Kirsty and her big lie, as well as Carl-with-a-C turning up. Max is the father of four children. Under normal circumstances, Kirsty would be sporting a small bump; instead, she's skinny as the day she arrived. Don't even mention how she conceals her periods and tampons etc.
Tanya's the asshole here, and here's more proof that her leaving line is more about Lauren and less about her; however, on thinking about it, it's just karma, for the shit parent she's been. She's the Hyacinth Bucket of Walford, scrubbing up her kids and making them presentable, like herself, but hiding the rottenness within. Wrong, Tanya ... Abi is not your priority today. At the best of times, Abi is probably the more mature of your two daughters - albeit both are mightily entitled - the child who should be your priority is the child you kicked out. And now you want her back because maybe, just maybe, she's settling in at Max's. Wouldn't do for Max to claim parental responsibility, would it? He's only there to cough up money and pay the bills.
As she reiterated to Max tonight about Lauren, "She's my baby." Well, she's Max's baby too, and one he abandoned another baby, who's now dead, for; and he'll be damned if he sees another baby die. This is Tanya, who scurries a drunken Lauren upstairs with a promise to give her a painkiller for her headache. Really, Tanya? Drugs and alcohol? Are you that stupid?
Still, Max is one of the ostriches as well, refusing Kirsty's advice to get Lauren to see a doctor. Like Tanya the other week, he thinks this is something all teenagers do and it will blow over. Are these people seriously retarded?
This is why the Brannings will never be the premier family of Walford.
Jossa was almost bearable tonight, until she went into fever pitch and started screaming. Is there never time she won't resort to this? Seriously, it does nothing to distract from her lack of talent.
Oh, and if you want to see where Lauren and Abi get that misplaced sense of entitlement, check out Tanya calling around Max's and attempting to push past Kirsty when she opened the door, without so much as a request to be allowed to enter. This is someone else's home, dumb bitch, and your daughter is living there with her father. You ask permission to enter. You're quick enough to call Max out when he tries that trick. Kudos to Kirsty.
Moment of the Night: When MyAlice started crying and her mascara ran down her cheeks. The make-up department have been laying it on too thick lately.
Another watchable episode. Watchable. Good, by this current team's standing, mediocre by Matt Robinson's.
I have to agree about Pat. Though I watch EE I'm certainly no hardcore fan in terms of reading soap guides or knowing (or wanting to) what is going to happen in that evenings or any future episode.
ReplyDeleteSo I had no prior knowledge or indication when it came to Pats sudden, shock death - it just seem to come from out of nowhere like it was a last minute script change.
What then really began to bug me was that as you rightly refer to her Pat was an iconic/matriarch character & yet more was made of Heather Trotts death - a huge, huge storyline for a character in the soap for just 5yrs & I'm sorry but a matriarch ? Fuck!ng likely !