Et in Arcadia Ego - Review: 22.07.2013

Today is a good day to bury news. So if the Tory government, over the next few weeks, wants to rip the NHS to shreds or pare benefits back to the bone, all the time the peasants are rejoicing at the Royal birth.

We, the taxpayer, are celebrating a scrubbed-up piece of trailer trash, the niece of a cocaine dealer, giving birth to a child for whom we'll pay for the rest of its life, and it will have a better damned life than any of our children will have. On its mother's side, the kid's descended from chavs, on his father's side, he's descended from the result of a battle between two horny blokes fighting over a blonde. One was her uncle, with whom she was sleeping; the other was a bad boy, also with whom she was sleeping.

Gee, kinda like EastEnders.

That Smell.

Ooh that smell ... can't you smell that smell?

Well, in Walford, that stink is Shirley.

Shirley's stink just isn't BO; it's bitterness and rancid hatred. Granted, most of her hatred is actually self-hatred, projected onto Phil Mitchell. Shirl hates herself, deep down, because she knows that Phil spent the better part of 5 months, covering up the fact that Ben killed Heather; she knows that she possessed the knowledge and the proof to have sent Phil down for a long time.

But she chose not to disclose this knowledge. She betrayed Heather more than the person who killed her. Throughout all their friendship, as Heather would constantly remind her, Shirley abandoned Heather for whatever man took her fancy,and in the end, she abandoned Heather, yet again. For a man she loves hopelessly, but who doesn't love her.

There's a big Shirley-shipper on Digital Spy forums. We all know who she is. She hides behind her innocence and other things I'll not mention to push the wholly untrue meme of Phil and Shirley being something akin to a Shakespearean star-crossed lovers. In this pathetic troll's mind, Phil simply doesn't realise that he loves Shirley, and this stalking troll, who hijacks every thread where Phil or Sharon be mentioned to make it all about the great love affair that isn't Phil and Shirley, will big up the myth in her mind to insist that this whole episode was a foreshadowing of Phil eventually getting back with Shirley. 

Believe me, it isn't.

And when people disagree, she'll send nasty personal messages about them or hit Twitter, making ludicrous suggestions and telling lies about people threatening her. If she's angry enough, she'll even create a false twitter account and pretend that this account is the person with whom she disagrees, attacking her. She's an evil little twat - as evil and toxic as the relationship between Shirley and Phil was.

Shirley tells Phil:-

I'm the best fing that's ever happened to you, and you don't know it.

Doesn't he?

Shall we have yet another trip down memory lane regarding Shirley and Phil as a couple?

• Phil had to get drunk - and I mean shit-kicking drunk- before he could sleep with Shirley. Shirley realised this; and even though she knew he was a recovering alcoholic and another drink could kill him, Shirley kept him drunk and drank with him so he would continue to sleep with her. This was leading up to Archie's death in 2009.
• In 2010, when Louise suddenly appeared, Shirley lied to Social Services that she was Phil's fiancee, in order for Phil to get custody of Louise. However, when Louise went back to her mother and Ben went to YOP, and Phil went on the crack cocaine, Shirley scarpered.
• When he got clean and Shirley returned, she asked him if he'd ever have done that if Sharon were around. Phil's non-answer told Shirley the extent of Phil's regard for Sharon, and she hadn't even shown up in Walford.
• The Shirley-Phil association brought out the absolute worst in both of them. If people think of Phil as a thug now, that thuggery began in earnest when he took up properly with Shirley. He handled stolen goods, employed people like Connor to fence them, had Ryan selling coke at the club. He was mean, unpleasant and threatening to all and sundry. As for Shirley, who can not forget her swaggering about Walford, bullying any and all by asking, "Do you know who I am?" Association with Phil Mitchell gave Shirley power and respect, something she never had before she crawled into his bed.
• Phil was unfaithful with Glenda. When Shirley found out, she agreed to forgive him if he could promise fidelity to her. He couldn't. When she asked him if he'd be unfaithful to Sharon, he didn't reply, indicating that he never would.
• When Phil found out about Ben's Kevin 68 internet prank on Heather, he laughed in Heather's face. For Phil, Shirley was always a warm body in his bed and someone who could handle his recalcitrant son, Ben.

This was never a love affair. Ever.

And tonight, this wasn't a big epiphany for Phil. He didn't quietly acknowledge his love for Shirley by paying for two months' stay in the B and B. That was pure, human compassion. Much the same thing when Alfie left Heather money from the scam money he and Kat had. Like Alfie for Heather, Phil felt sorry for Shirley, especially when he found that the Social had cut her Job Seeker's Allowance.

Wait a moment. Two things here:-

• Shirley was claiming job-seeker's allowance and working at the same time? Isn't that kinda sorta illegal?
• And Phil paid Denise £500, which Denise said would cover 2 months' rent at the B and B. Really, Denise? Kim charges an average of £8.30 per night or £62.50 per week?That's not a London B and B. That's a doss-house. Respectable establishment, my arse.

I really want Sharon out of this place and into a flat of her own. At the moment, we have the Chryeds' flat and the old flat upstairs from Jack (ex-Ray, ex-Roxy, ex-Glenda) standing empty. Why can't Sharon - who of all the losers hanging about the B and B at least has a paying job - move into one of those?

This Shirley malarkey wasn't the beginning of the great love affair that wasn't, it is damage limitation for Phil's overdue character development.

Suck it up, mona-effing-lisa.

Here's a song with sound effects you won't  hear from Shirley and Phil. (You might hear it from Sharon and Phil, however.)

Mamma Mia.

It's called "character development Carl-Style". 

Awwwwww ... we got some good memories and banter between Carl and Kirsty tonight. And, just like a plethora of other characters on the show, Carl has parental issues.

Welcome to Walford, Carl.

Except he has Mommie Issues. It's his Mommie's birthday and for some reason, he doesn't want to visit or send her a card. Awwww ... he says it's because Mommie thinks he and Kirsty are still a couple. As bloody if.

Hey, I just thought. Carl could share a pint with Ian and both could bond over their mother issues. I wonder if Carl is as Oedipal as Ian? And why am I thinking about Steve Owen?

All Roads Lead Through Jean.

I just twigged tonight that Jean's romance with Ollie is really the catalyst for two other stories.

The preparations for her date are played out against the backdrop of the impending announcement of Alfie's and Roxy's engagement. We have the ubiquitous chemistry-filled moment between Kat and Alfie, where it's obvious that he hates the thought, secretly, that he is moving on, and it's obvious also that she hates the thought of losing him.

This is really Andy Hunter in reverse, with Alfie suffering in silence as Andy leads Kat closer and closer to the altar. But the real crux comes when Kat is helping Jean with her make-up, and Jean begins a soliloquy about what how she misses her husband, how she's botched it up with several different men and how she'll probably do the same with Ollie.

Jean tells Kat that all she really wants is someone there for her at the end of the day. Someone who'll share the mundane things, like working out a crossword, but someone who'll make her feel special and just love her. The look on Kat's face - and it's Kat's face on whom the camera dwells during this dialogue - is classic; and yet another all-too-obvious moment of epiphany in her realisation that she had all of that and more with Alfie and she threw it all away.

I have a feeling in the next couple of weeks, we'll have a monumental epiphany for Kat. It's been a long time coming. I hope it's worth it.

But Jean is also one of the few characters in the show at this time who is in possession of a conscience. Jean is troubled and feels that her actions the night of the fire caused Ian a lot of problems, himself. Jean remembers what he was like the previous year and knows how easily things can get on top of a person.

What's ironic is that Kat and Bianca are trying to dissuade her from approaching him and telling him what actually happened - for different reasons. Bianca's reason is purely selfish. If her part in the break-in, the theft, the vandalsim and the fire are discovered, she will go back to prison. All about her.

Kat is thinking more about Jean and what Ian's reaction will be, which is rich, because Ian is supposed to be Alfie's best mate. Surely if Alfie and Kat approached Ian with Jean, he'd be rational.

Once again, this dilemma is played out against the backdrop of Ian having to cope all on his own with his businesses. He's spent all night at the restaurant; Lucy's on strike and didn't tell him she'd given Marie a holiday. There's no one at the chippy for the fryer service, and Peter has the shits (literally) on the stall. 

OK, the chance encounter with Lucy in the pub was more than contrived, and one of the weakest scenes in this episode. I mean, as if Lucy Beale would expound on Ian's personal problems to someone like Jean Slater, a woman to whom she's not said more than two words in her life. Yet there she is, sat at the bar, waxing lyrical about how Ian's lost the love of his daughter because the restaurant and what happened to it had turned him into his old self, and he was on a downward spiral because he couldn't cope.

(Aside: Why didn't he ask Carol to cover at the cafe? She does work there, after all).

It's this confession and the fear that Ian might just be going over the edge which spurs Jean into action - and gives us another contrived scene of Ian in the restaurant staring blankly as a saucepan overheats. This results in his confessional about his insecurities to Jean, and prompts Jean's confession that the fire was all down to her.

Of course, this is the lead-in to the storyline of the summer - the star-crossed lovers who are Bobby and Tiffany.

Moon Drops.

Michael and Janine playing games with each other, involving Danny. 

It's turned into boring one upmanship,and I keep expecting one or the other to bellow, "Hard cheese, old chap."

Watchable mediocrity, which passes for better these days, but awkward at times.

Final Observation: I just want to say, that I'm liking Ollie immensely; and whether or not he ends up as Jean's squeeze (will he be able to stand her screeching?), I hope he's a permanent character. Since the departure of Charlie Slater, the show has cried out for a gentle, older gentleman - like Charlie or Roy Evans - to offer the occasional comment and come to the fore for decency from time to time. I like him. But beware. He has grown children, and you know what that means.