Here's my prediction, now that we know a little bit about the way Tanya leaves this shower.
We say farewell to Yummy Mummy on the 28th of this month. Judging from the spoilers, her departure is just one rung up the ladder from Zainab's and one rung down from Peggy's.
It looks as though Tanya leaves "for the good of her child," Lauren; but on the face of it, it looks like just another selfish gesture and the ultimate cop-out for the matron saint of selfish parents, Tanya. What does this mean? Does she think her behaviour and her own drinking habits encourage Lauren's likewise behaviour? If that's the case, then she should take the putrid old trout, Cora the Bora with her. And does she leave Oscar behind? Maybe she thinks gurning runs in Max's side of the family, especially as Oscar gurns (but talks as little as Amy), Lauren gurns naturally, and Abi's taken to gurning with a giggle.
Who knows? All we know is that Yummy Mummy waddles off and the swinging door harbouring the secret of Tanya's attempted murder just manages to miss her wide arse.
That only leaves the departures of Jack and Michael.
I predict Jack's departure will be a happy ending. He might not leave with Ronnie - she's due to leave the show after he does; but I think he'll send for her and she'll go to him. After all, both Womack and Scott Maslen are tweeting "Rack is back" all over the place, and maybe TPTB giving the Rackistas what they ultimately want will ensure that the higher echelon of the peanut gallery shut the fuck up and learn to think critically.
Some hope. It floats, like ...
Then there's Michael.
Loads of numpties on Digital Spy are predicting - nay, hoping - for a Michael suicide.
Well, let me enlighten them.
Whilst I do think Michael Moon will leave in a box, he won't die by his own hand. I wouldn't want that, simply because it would make him to be the victim in all of this shenanigans that's happening between him and Janine, and he simply isn't. And those people who are willfully having trouble understanding Michael's devious, deliberate and absolutely evil manipulation and psychological and emotional bullying by him of his hormonal wife in the wake of her traumatic birth experience just need to grow up and bone up on what post-natal depression entails.
They also need to understand that this man is a psychopath, and psychopaths do not, not, not commit suicide. They're narcissists. They think too much of themselves.
Ah, the numpties and Michaelgirls say, but Michael's mother committed suicide. Well, yes, she did - and that was an accident. It wasn't meant to be. Michael's mother, also a psychopath, used suicide attempts to keep Eddie Moon on a short lead. It was a control mechanism, and psychopaths are control freaks. Just look at Michael - Mr Passive-Aggressive.
Whilst psychopaths don't commit suicide, they have absolutely no compunction about killing another person, even a child.
So Michael will leave a corpse - but he'll either be killed by someone else (my guess is Alice or Joey) or else he'll die in a bungled attempt to kill either Janine and/or Scarlett.
And he won't be a victim. He shouldn't be. He isn't. He never has been.
The Heiress Apparent.
Well, that would be Janine, wouldn't it? If Sharon is now the Queen of the Square (elevated from her days as Den's Princess), then Janine is the rightful Crown Princess.
Charlie Brooks is carrying this programme at the moment. She's always watchable, and Janine is one of the best characters developed for this programme ever. Janine never gets drunk, she never shouts and screams, never raises her voice and is extremely well-spoken.
Add to all of that, she looks classy. Not for her the look of a streetcorner prostitute, adopted by Kat; nor the bursting sausage in a dress fashion effected by Tanya, or even the pure chav effect that is Bianca. Janine has always been understatedly well-dressed, even when she was on her uppers.
One of the few good things Bryan Kirkwood did was develop Janine's character beyond the grifting material girl whose only success came in sleeping with and blackmailing Ian Beale occasionally. Under Kirkwood's tenure, we met the (retconned and heretofore unmentioned) maternal grandmother of Janine, Lydia Simmonds, who was filthy rich and who left Janine a financial legacy as well as one of heritage, for we learned a lot more about Janine's mother, June, Frank's wife who died of cancer when Janine was only a toddler.
One of the few good things Newman's continued is the development of Janine's character. I know some of the numpties about still find it easy to think of Janine as Evil Janine - especially with their vision of the emaciated walking cadaver whom they deem sexy - but whilst Newman's returned Janine stronger and more confident than the emotionally broken woman who was driven from Walford by her psychopath husband, she's also still vulnerable.
Some marvel at Janine's niceness, but she's always had a heart and compassion, looking after and protecting her family - the Butchers and the Jacksons, as well as Billy Mitchell and his satellites. She's appreciative of Alice, when Alice, initially, started out to scam her emotionally under Michael's tutelage.
This has been the most interesting thing to watch recently on EastEnders, if - at times - it's been difficult (and by that, I mean the cruel, passive-aggressive bullying of Michael Moon). For once, it's been touching to see Janine actually trust someone, as trust issues are amongst her biggest problems. Too many people whom she's trusted in the past have let her down or have been perceived to let her down.
She reached out to Alice, listened to her advice on Scarlett and trusted her implicitly - so implicitly that Alice came to like her employer and found deceit difficult.
Alice, you see, is one of those rarities in EastEnders: a decent person.
As much as she tries to stand up to Michael, he runs roughshod over her, and this is where the pressure starts. Feeling guilty at Janine's trust and pressured by Michael into flouting Janine's authority, she's seeking a means of control in kleptomania, but today, she's caught when she's trying to lift some obviously expensive piece of jewelry from Janine.
Of course, not much gets past Janine, and we have Alice's tearful confession that the pressure from Michael and the unintentional pressure from working for Janine has stressed her into this unusual release of tension. (Remember this ... it gets retconned in a month).
Important to note that Janine didn't blow a gasket, or start smashing things up a la Stacey Slater. She calmly went for a walk and returned to ask Alice not to tell Michael anything about their conversation, instead to tell him that Michael could see Alice the next day, at the restaurant's opening.
Ah, but the proof is in the pudding, and we're left with a great scene of Janine's quirky little enigmatic smile and tilt of her head, which indicates she's got something scrumptuous up her sleeve - a real ironic treat for Michael Moon, and he'll deserve it.
Nice continuity tonight with a mention of June Butcher, and even nicer, earlier in the week, seeing the picture of Pete Beale on his market stall. It's important to remember that Ian and Janine are legacy characters and their children are third generation legacy characters, but it behooves us all to remember the original and early characters from whence these current ones sprung.
Janine's song for Michael:-
Ian Stealing from Himself.
Ian's embezzling from Lucy. Not only that, he's taken money hidden by Derek Branning and used it to finance his restaurant venture. I'd be careful of that - you don't know where that money's been or, more importantly, to whom it rightly belongs. Is it Joey's or Alice's legacy, or something else?
Ian's ripping cheques from Lucy's chequebook, and this provokes a couple of questions:-
Yes, folks ... It's Newman's Negroes. Ava the Rava, the Magic Negro, herself, her wooden ex and her little Cock.
Hands up .... who really, I mean really, gives a rat's arse about these characters, who do nothing and offer nothing?
Ava's got another day off again. Newsflash: Teachers do not not NOT get days off to mark papers, and Deputy Heads do not not NOT mark papers. Deputy Heads and Heads are the first to arrive at their respective schools and the last to leave. Heads, Deputy Heads and classroom teachers are generally on site at 07:30 daily and don't leave before 16:30 hours at the earliest.
Ava is a joke. She's even more of a joke than her lilywhite sister, Tanya, the hairdresser, who spends more of her time sitting in the cafe. I mean, who knows a hairdressing salon who doesn't have a kettle on the premises for tea, coffee or chocolate. In fact, just the other day, when Alice dropped by to shoplift, Tanya went upstairs to make some chocolate. Oo-er, inconsistency.
Instead, we have Ava, who has "papers to mark," trolling the Square, looking for things in which she might interfere. She's so much of a streetwalker, maybe she should look for employment with Kim at the brothel. How long before The Magic Negro loses her "job"? This is really an insult to all teachers, and I'm glad scores of teachers are speaking out against this pisspoor character.
Let's face it. I'm not at all impressed with either Clare Perkins or Cornell S John, and certainly not with that unintelligible poor man's Will Smith, Khali Best. Did no one, in his drama studies class at the glorified polytechnic where he studied ever draw a correlation between enunciation and acting?
Perkins is a bog-standard journeyman actress. John plays a bounder as though he were James Earl Jones (and - believe me - he's not James Earl Jones), and Best is ... well, suffice it to say, he's not the best.
Ava's backstory has been retconned beyond recognition, and she's another screamer and shouter, with a fucking awful voice.
Besides all that, she looks like a Klingon, and her partial weave gets longer week by week. We had so much time wasted tonight by her chasing after the ex to whom she's still attracted, verbalising what is supposed to be mental anguish about yet another long-lost daddy trying to subtly do a favour to his son, enabling him to go on holiday (shudder, puke). The endless lecture about buying someone's love from an arch-hypocrite. I seem to recall Tanya putting a deposit down on Ava the Rava's flat, and Ava upbraiding her about "buying her love." But I didn't notice Ava giving the deposit back, either.
And has no one ever told Cock not to look a gift horse in the mouth. What the fuck difference is it who bought the car? In a perfect world, it would be a perfect stranger; but no, we had the contrived scene of Ava sweating and sneaking around prying into the identity of the buyer, when she knew full well who it was, Jay playing cloak-and-dagger, and then the ultimate scene which EastEnders does best - have a spoiled, entitled, petty, little brat bust up something he's spent days putting together simply because he doesn't like the person who bought the thing. He doesn't have to love the old man. Shit, he's paid money for a banger. Take it and run.
These people are simply awful. Ava and her crew are Newman's Moon Goons. Characters plucked from nowhere, with no character arc, a continuously retconned backstory, brought in for no purpose. They are as vile and unlikeable as putrid Cora the Bora, and the sooner they go, the better.
Alas, we're to suffer them for the duration of Newman's tenure. To think the hype and hope offered by Ava's character, when she is a total epic fail.
This latest daddy issue shit, along with Snakegate, spoiled an otherwise watchable episode.
Things can only get better ... can't they?
We say farewell to Yummy Mummy on the 28th of this month. Judging from the spoilers, her departure is just one rung up the ladder from Zainab's and one rung down from Peggy's.
It looks as though Tanya leaves "for the good of her child," Lauren; but on the face of it, it looks like just another selfish gesture and the ultimate cop-out for the matron saint of selfish parents, Tanya. What does this mean? Does she think her behaviour and her own drinking habits encourage Lauren's likewise behaviour? If that's the case, then she should take the putrid old trout, Cora the Bora with her. And does she leave Oscar behind? Maybe she thinks gurning runs in Max's side of the family, especially as Oscar gurns (but talks as little as Amy), Lauren gurns naturally, and Abi's taken to gurning with a giggle.
Who knows? All we know is that Yummy Mummy waddles off and the swinging door harbouring the secret of Tanya's attempted murder just manages to miss her wide arse.
That only leaves the departures of Jack and Michael.
I predict Jack's departure will be a happy ending. He might not leave with Ronnie - she's due to leave the show after he does; but I think he'll send for her and she'll go to him. After all, both Womack and Scott Maslen are tweeting "Rack is back" all over the place, and maybe TPTB giving the Rackistas what they ultimately want will ensure that the higher echelon of the peanut gallery shut the fuck up and learn to think critically.
Some hope. It floats, like ...
Loads of numpties on Digital Spy are predicting - nay, hoping - for a Michael suicide.
Well, let me enlighten them.
Whilst I do think Michael Moon will leave in a box, he won't die by his own hand. I wouldn't want that, simply because it would make him to be the victim in all of this shenanigans that's happening between him and Janine, and he simply isn't. And those people who are willfully having trouble understanding Michael's devious, deliberate and absolutely evil manipulation and psychological and emotional bullying by him of his hormonal wife in the wake of her traumatic birth experience just need to grow up and bone up on what post-natal depression entails.
They also need to understand that this man is a psychopath, and psychopaths do not, not, not commit suicide. They're narcissists. They think too much of themselves.
Ah, the numpties and Michaelgirls say, but Michael's mother committed suicide. Well, yes, she did - and that was an accident. It wasn't meant to be. Michael's mother, also a psychopath, used suicide attempts to keep Eddie Moon on a short lead. It was a control mechanism, and psychopaths are control freaks. Just look at Michael - Mr Passive-Aggressive.
Whilst psychopaths don't commit suicide, they have absolutely no compunction about killing another person, even a child.
So Michael will leave a corpse - but he'll either be killed by someone else (my guess is Alice or Joey) or else he'll die in a bungled attempt to kill either Janine and/or Scarlett.
And he won't be a victim. He shouldn't be. He isn't. He never has been.
The Heiress Apparent.
Well, that would be Janine, wouldn't it? If Sharon is now the Queen of the Square (elevated from her days as Den's Princess), then Janine is the rightful Crown Princess.
Charlie Brooks is carrying this programme at the moment. She's always watchable, and Janine is one of the best characters developed for this programme ever. Janine never gets drunk, she never shouts and screams, never raises her voice and is extremely well-spoken.
Add to all of that, she looks classy. Not for her the look of a streetcorner prostitute, adopted by Kat; nor the bursting sausage in a dress fashion effected by Tanya, or even the pure chav effect that is Bianca. Janine has always been understatedly well-dressed, even when she was on her uppers.
One of the few good things Bryan Kirkwood did was develop Janine's character beyond the grifting material girl whose only success came in sleeping with and blackmailing Ian Beale occasionally. Under Kirkwood's tenure, we met the (retconned and heretofore unmentioned) maternal grandmother of Janine, Lydia Simmonds, who was filthy rich and who left Janine a financial legacy as well as one of heritage, for we learned a lot more about Janine's mother, June, Frank's wife who died of cancer when Janine was only a toddler.
One of the few good things Newman's continued is the development of Janine's character. I know some of the numpties about still find it easy to think of Janine as Evil Janine - especially with their vision of the emaciated walking cadaver whom they deem sexy - but whilst Newman's returned Janine stronger and more confident than the emotionally broken woman who was driven from Walford by her psychopath husband, she's also still vulnerable.
Some marvel at Janine's niceness, but she's always had a heart and compassion, looking after and protecting her family - the Butchers and the Jacksons, as well as Billy Mitchell and his satellites. She's appreciative of Alice, when Alice, initially, started out to scam her emotionally under Michael's tutelage.
This has been the most interesting thing to watch recently on EastEnders, if - at times - it's been difficult (and by that, I mean the cruel, passive-aggressive bullying of Michael Moon). For once, it's been touching to see Janine actually trust someone, as trust issues are amongst her biggest problems. Too many people whom she's trusted in the past have let her down or have been perceived to let her down.
She reached out to Alice, listened to her advice on Scarlett and trusted her implicitly - so implicitly that Alice came to like her employer and found deceit difficult.
Alice, you see, is one of those rarities in EastEnders: a decent person.
As much as she tries to stand up to Michael, he runs roughshod over her, and this is where the pressure starts. Feeling guilty at Janine's trust and pressured by Michael into flouting Janine's authority, she's seeking a means of control in kleptomania, but today, she's caught when she's trying to lift some obviously expensive piece of jewelry from Janine.
Of course, not much gets past Janine, and we have Alice's tearful confession that the pressure from Michael and the unintentional pressure from working for Janine has stressed her into this unusual release of tension. (Remember this ... it gets retconned in a month).
Important to note that Janine didn't blow a gasket, or start smashing things up a la Stacey Slater. She calmly went for a walk and returned to ask Alice not to tell Michael anything about their conversation, instead to tell him that Michael could see Alice the next day, at the restaurant's opening.
Ah, but the proof is in the pudding, and we're left with a great scene of Janine's quirky little enigmatic smile and tilt of her head, which indicates she's got something scrumptuous up her sleeve - a real ironic treat for Michael Moon, and he'll deserve it.
Nice continuity tonight with a mention of June Butcher, and even nicer, earlier in the week, seeing the picture of Pete Beale on his market stall. It's important to remember that Ian and Janine are legacy characters and their children are third generation legacy characters, but it behooves us all to remember the original and early characters from whence these current ones sprung.
Janine's song for Michael:-
Ian Stealing from Himself.
Ian's embezzling from Lucy. Not only that, he's taken money hidden by Derek Branning and used it to finance his restaurant venture. I'd be careful of that - you don't know where that money's been or, more importantly, to whom it rightly belongs. Is it Joey's or Alice's legacy, or something else?
Ian's ripping cheques from Lucy's chequebook, and this provokes a couple of questions:-
- It's virtually impossible to rip cheques - stubs and all - from a chequebbook without leaving the telltale ripped evidence. Also, the first cheque Ian "lifted" from Lucy's chequebook came from the middle of the batch, and they're numbered consecutively. Lucy is supposed to be a sharp-eyed businesswoman, who doesn't miss a trick. Anyone with a clue would notice when cheque numbered 18 comes after one numbered 16. There's something missing. She'd also notice the handful of cheques ripped from the back of her book. Already, she's wondering where he's getting all the money for the posh accoutrements at the restaurant.
- Also, Ian's written at least two cheques in front of two providers - Sam the Sham and the man who provided the cloth table napkins emblazoned with the restaurant's name and logo. The printed name on the cheque is "Ms L Beale." Ian signed the cheques "L Beale." Ok, but anyone looking at those cheques would clearly see that Ian is not "Muzz" (really pronounced "Mizz) Beale. You'd think Sam would question that.
We've more cooking reality television inspiration tonight, testing Ian's tarnished Silver Service waitresses on their knowledge of the food served, with a totally unfunny and unnecessarily dense remark by Poopy-Le-Dim and reinforced by Jean, about how one can roast a cod. And the waitresses uniforms look like lycra versions of French maid outfits. Oh well, Whitney should feel at home.
The irony about Ian's venture is that he's paid all that money for his logo and the restaurant's name, when the sleeping partner (financially speaking) will only change the restaurant's name entirely.
And we get our first hint of Danny Pennant tonight - he is the unnamed investor recommended by Mr Lister, so he arrives on the Square with some sort of association beforehand.
Don't get me wrong ... I'm all for Ian getting back his businesses, which Lucy bullied him into handing over when he was at his most vulnerable; but I'm worried that when she does find out what he's done - and she will - that she will attempt to take the restaurant as well.
Lucy is a character who's all over the place at the moment. I liked her when she was away from the entitled brat pack, a young woman working and trying to build a reputation as a responsible business person in the community; but the jealousy over Joey and her feud with Lauren came out of nowhere and has only regressed the character. Add to that the fact that Hetti Bywater isn't the strongest of actresses (like most of the rest of the young "actors" on the show) and yet another inexperienced catalogue model thinking she can act. Yes, I know she's a legacy character, but with the Beale scion returning imminently (and played by a young actor with real training and professional credentials), I wouldn't miss her if Bag o'Bones Beale sloped off indefinitely.
Tarts and Vicars.
We've got Pantomime Dot again. That what amounted to being one of the worst mini-storylines in the show's history - Snakegate - not only dominated Tuesday's episode, but is still running today is an embarrassment.
Now we have to contend with the unfunny aspect of Kimberly's Palace being targeted as a brothel by pervs and the unscrupulous press. Even Shirley's zingers couldn't salvage this fiasco.
As for Pantomime Dot, with the rolling eyes and the bobbing head, there was the ubiquitous Bible quotation and an explanation of the serious duties of a Church Warden. It's obvious that Dot doesn't want this position entirely out of a sense of Christian duty, being a church warden - literally a layperson who administers the church's business and liaises with titled episcopal officials, is a sop to Dot's enormous ego.
And anyone who doesn't think Dot's got a big ego which is prone to succumbing to flattery, doesn't know Dot. Her biggest sin as a "Christian" is her pride.
EastEnders really should put this one out to pasture. Not funny. And it's June Brown at her worst.
The Most Pointless Characters EVER.
Yes, folks ... It's Newman's Negroes. Ava the Rava, the Magic Negro, herself, her wooden ex and her little Cock.
Hands up .... who really, I mean really, gives a rat's arse about these characters, who do nothing and offer nothing?
Ava's got another day off again. Newsflash: Teachers do not not NOT get days off to mark papers, and Deputy Heads do not not NOT mark papers. Deputy Heads and Heads are the first to arrive at their respective schools and the last to leave. Heads, Deputy Heads and classroom teachers are generally on site at 07:30 daily and don't leave before 16:30 hours at the earliest.
Ava is a joke. She's even more of a joke than her lilywhite sister, Tanya, the hairdresser, who spends more of her time sitting in the cafe. I mean, who knows a hairdressing salon who doesn't have a kettle on the premises for tea, coffee or chocolate. In fact, just the other day, when Alice dropped by to shoplift, Tanya went upstairs to make some chocolate. Oo-er, inconsistency.
Instead, we have Ava, who has "papers to mark," trolling the Square, looking for things in which she might interfere. She's so much of a streetwalker, maybe she should look for employment with Kim at the brothel. How long before The Magic Negro loses her "job"? This is really an insult to all teachers, and I'm glad scores of teachers are speaking out against this pisspoor character.
Let's face it. I'm not at all impressed with either Clare Perkins or Cornell S John, and certainly not with that unintelligible poor man's Will Smith, Khali Best. Did no one, in his drama studies class at the glorified polytechnic where he studied ever draw a correlation between enunciation and acting?
Perkins is a bog-standard journeyman actress. John plays a bounder as though he were James Earl Jones (and - believe me - he's not James Earl Jones), and Best is ... well, suffice it to say, he's not the best.
Ava's backstory has been retconned beyond recognition, and she's another screamer and shouter, with a fucking awful voice.
Besides all that, she looks like a Klingon, and her partial weave gets longer week by week. We had so much time wasted tonight by her chasing after the ex to whom she's still attracted, verbalising what is supposed to be mental anguish about yet another long-lost daddy trying to subtly do a favour to his son, enabling him to go on holiday (shudder, puke). The endless lecture about buying someone's love from an arch-hypocrite. I seem to recall Tanya putting a deposit down on Ava the Rava's flat, and Ava upbraiding her about "buying her love." But I didn't notice Ava giving the deposit back, either.
And has no one ever told Cock not to look a gift horse in the mouth. What the fuck difference is it who bought the car? In a perfect world, it would be a perfect stranger; but no, we had the contrived scene of Ava sweating and sneaking around prying into the identity of the buyer, when she knew full well who it was, Jay playing cloak-and-dagger, and then the ultimate scene which EastEnders does best - have a spoiled, entitled, petty, little brat bust up something he's spent days putting together simply because he doesn't like the person who bought the thing. He doesn't have to love the old man. Shit, he's paid money for a banger. Take it and run.
These people are simply awful. Ava and her crew are Newman's Moon Goons. Characters plucked from nowhere, with no character arc, a continuously retconned backstory, brought in for no purpose. They are as vile and unlikeable as putrid Cora the Bora, and the sooner they go, the better.
Alas, we're to suffer them for the duration of Newman's tenure. To think the hype and hope offered by Ava's character, when she is a total epic fail.
This latest daddy issue shit, along with Snakegate, spoiled an otherwise watchable episode.
Things can only get better ... can't they?
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