Gee, isn't it nice to be back to the old, familiar mediocre EastEnders - the show where nothing happens and the same old same old scenes are shown from a different angle every day it's aired.
This is why the show is faltering badly at the moment. With a singularly good episode shown on Friday night, the show still managed to fall into third place behind both episodes of Coronation Street and Emmerdale.
If EastEnders were a football team, they'd be prime candidates for relegation.
Sexy Sadie ...
Sexy Sadie, what have you done? You've made a fool of everyone ...
How to introduce a new character - more than just a new character, a new female character who's part of an important demographic which is sorely lacking in the programme at the moment: introduce her in the middle of an episode which results in being the lovechild of a borefest and a snooze session.
Meet Sadie Young, people.
She's different. Or she appears to be. First of all, she's not blonde. Secondly, she's late thirties, possibly fortyish. Thirdly, she's a businesswoman - she's bought Booties, the salon, which two successive men bought to be fronted by the last "independent businesswoman" to be seen in Walford - Tanya.
Okay, well, maybe not Tanya, who couldn't manage an orgy in a whorehouse when she was sober; but at least the first impression says that Sadie is a mature woman, she's well-spoken, she appears to have bought the premises with her own money and she hasn't got (yet) a significant other.
Give the writers time. As we speak, they're already conjuring up an ex-husband (possibly David Wicks?), a couple of teenaged kids to add to the general population of Walford ... wait, wait ... she mistook Poppy for Lola. Wait ... could that mean? It couldn't, could it? Could she be ...
Lola's mother?????????????????
I can hear the speculation now.
The first of the Walford fools she met was the standard bearer for fools in general, Poopy-La-Dim, who's been suffering from severe delusions of grandeur since having been appointed "Acting Manageress".
Poopy can't figure out why workmen are renovating Booties, even after having received a letter from Tanya's solicitor, confirming that the property had been sold. No one told Poopy! And her indignation in the face of Sadie, the new owner, is palpable.
I ran vis place.
(Poopy, you couldn't run a bath).
Poopy-La-Dim's enormous ego is fed consistently by Fatboy, who assures her she's an "ideas" person. Yes, Poopy has ideas, but they mostly are unworkable and get lost in the plethora of witless witter emanating from her cakehole. When next she meets Sadie, she wants to get down to discussing ideas in the middle of the street, with Sadie - unlike any businesswoman before in Walford - actually appears in a hardhat and high viz jacket. And Poopy-La-Dim is astounded when she's told she'll have to earn her job - as much as she's curious about the notes Tanya has given Sadie about her two unreliable employees.
The rest of Sadie's introduction to the programme is spent, chasing Max Branning about the Square.
Yep, Max is back and in a bad mood, but all Sadie wants to do is tell him she's got a few bin bags full of tat Tanya's left behind that they might want. During the course of this gadabout, of course, she got to meet the Walford Sperminator, Jack. They shook hands and Jack, introduced himself, asserting that he had no women problems.
Sadie: Come by the Salon, and we'll soon sort that out.
Not much chance of that, babe, considering the fact that (a) Jack is leaving, (b) the Ice Queen cometh soon, (c) Sadie is a brunette and (d) her surname isn't Mitchell (unless, of course, it's subsequently revealed that she's Clive Mitchell's daughter). Who knows?
Her first appearance was too bland and too fleeting to form a viable opinion. Enough to say that she didn't scream or raise her voice or sound like a chav. In fact, oddly enough, she reminded me a bit of Alison King, the actress who plays Carla Connor on Corrie, but without the flat-voweled awful voice.
I'm passing on an impression.
Change Partners and Dance with Max.
Max is back and looking like a bear with a sore head.
First, he spies Kirsty traipsing out of the Vic in her trademark Leboutin marital aid shoes. (How she manages designer footwear on a barmaid's salary, much less the rent on that flat, is beyond me).
Then he comes into the Branning abode to find Cora-the-Bora and Patrick passed out on the sofa and the chair, and the dining room table littered in booze bottles.
Cora does to Patrick what Shirley did to Phil: She's managed to envelope a previously much-loved character in her filthy mantle of hateful dislike. Max's reaction was absolutely correct. Max left for two weeks to visit his daughter, who's receiving help in a drying-out clinic, and his young son. He left Abi behind, in the knowledge that her grandmother would look after her - as if Abi the Dough-Faced Girl, at seventeen, isn't capable of looking after herself for a fortnight. Instead, he finds the old crone dead drunk and her doxy snoring away in the chair, after having pulled a right bender.
He was right to demand that they clean up the putrid mess they made, and later, in his confrontation with that drunken old trout, it was Team Max all the way. I truly hope he was serious in kicking her shitty old wrinkled, drunken butt out of the house, because she has no right to be there and even less right to treat the property as a doss house for entertaining her fancy man.
And, I'm sorry, but Max was totally right in demanding that Patrick leave, and Patrick was wrong to stomp off in a huff. Who the hell does he think he is? He was a guest in Max's house, an unpaying guest, I might add, and how would he act if someone treated Kim's precious B and B like that?
Cora saying the house wasn't Max's home, that he'd given up that right when he "moved in with that woman" (who happened to be his wife and with whom he moved in after Cora's precious white daughter kicked him out for telling the truth) and she was wrong to say that Max doesn't own the house.
Last things first: No, he doesn't own the house, but his brother does, and Cora wasn't even asked by Tanya to stay there. She horned her way in, after being thrown out by Dot. Max also pays the rent, and he pays the bills. We know that from the time Tanya left back in March, when Cora spent all the housekeeping money on booze and cigarettes, and sent Abi across the Square with the bills for Max to pay. Max raised his children there, and in the wake of Tanya's departure and his split from Kirsty, he's moved back into his brother's house to whom Max pays rent.
Cora can fuck off to the B and B and live with Patrick. See how soon their sugar-shacking gets up the four tits of Denise and Kim.
Patrick is combing the gutters when he associates with trailer trash like Cora. I hope the fable DTC sorts this one out.
Max is having trouble reconciling his feelings for Kirsty with what is obviously the final break-up with Tanya ...
Abi the Dough-Faced Girl is in wise mode tonight, complete with that annoying giggle, but earlier, she was just plain annoying, when Sadie made an entrance and announced she was binning Tanya's tat for them to sift through. Like Poopy-La-Dim earlier, entitled Abi was affronted by the fact that Sadie was gutting Booties and re-designing it to her specifications.
Why not? She owns the premises and the business now. It's nothing to do with the Brannings now. Abi's fat cheeks are wanting a smack. However, at least her conversation with Max forces him to admit that he and Kirsty were fine until he heard that Tanya had caught a cancer cold and then he dropped the pregnant Kirsty in the lurch to return to his family, without as much telling her why (yet relying on Derek).
So Max goes to see Kirsty, and of course, it's obvious that he still has feelings for her - or rather, now that Fatanya's gone away for good, Max is gonna love the one he's with because he's not with the one he loves ...
Hey, if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with, Max ... that's always been the story of your life.
Helpless Helpless Helpless Helpless
Kirsty.
Still mooning (bad pun) after Max.
You know, I actually like her when she's interacting with Carl. Now that Carl's settled in. and they've laid off the subtle threats and the passive aggressive menacing behaviour, he shows much promise of being a likeable villain - or something we've not seen for awhile in EastEnders: a character with depth.
Daniel Coonan's miles above a lot of these journeymen actors, and his softly-softly approach, in gratitude to Kirsty for interacting with his mother, added to the obviously complex relationship he has with his mum, makes him interesting.
For the record, this is not the same sort of sick, creepy, quasi-incestuous hidden storyline shared with Steve and his mother. Carl's mother genuinely disdains him. For some reason, she equates him with her (dead?) husband, whose manhood she disdained, and her brief scenes a few weeks ago, alluded to the same sort of sentiment towards her son.
This is a relationship and a backstory which needs exploring.
One of the few bright spots in tonight's episode was the dichotomy of Carl's character - his polite demeanor in asking about Kirsty visiting his mother and the way he deflected Kat's apology was nothing less than gentlemanly.
Then his devious side came to the fore when he found out Max had returned and that Kirsty was hoping to see him. When he first met with Warren (more of this man, please, he also looked interesting), and it became obvious that Warren was the punter interested in buying all four of Max's SUVs on sale, I thought at first, Warren was going to beat the shit out of Max, alone in the office. Instead, it was a clever ploy to make Max late for his 18:05 date with Kirsty, making her believe he wouldn't show because he didn't care, and Carl arriving instead.
The duff-duff was a weak one.
Do any of us really care that this is yet another of Newman's endless love triangles?
The Beatification of St Kathleen.
We're one day on from Kat's epiphany, and a miracle has occurred.
The stall is back up, and she's working with Bianca, she's apologised to Carl for her inappropriate behaviour, and when that sly minx Roxy takes devilish pleasure in informing her that she and Alfie have set a date for their wedding - Valentine's Day, no less (cheesy) - she only goes and buys Tommy a cute little suit so he can be a pageboy at Alfie's wedding.
Awwwwwwwwwww ...
(Alfie Smells a Fart).
We all know that this is insignificant tat, because the Valentine's Day wedding simply won't occur. We know that Alfie and Kat will reunite and we know why. Just fucking do it, because stating the bleeding obvious is an insult to the viewers' intelligence - well, most of the viewers' intelligence. I can think of at least three people on Digital Spy forum who'd praise EastEnders if the BBC broadcast thirty minutes of a steaming pile of shit.
Anyway, first we get Alfie's heart-to-heart with Tyler, apologising for discussing a wedding date with Roxy,when he's cognizant that Tyler's just broken up withthe Walford mattress Whitney. This leads to more of Tony Discipline's smell-the-fart acting, where he screws up his face and tries to look confused by the fact that Alfie can still be civil to Kat, even though they've split up.
Alfie then supplies a simplified one-syllabled word explanation of how he and Kat have spent ten years together, and when you've spent that long with someone, then you're bound to have feelings for them in some way for the rest of your life. For both Alfie and Kat, this is the longest relationship either has had. He neglected to say the most important thing, and that's that they share the parenting of a child, and they have to be civil for Tommy's sake.
I have to say I hate the fact that Roxy's being sacrificed at the newly-built altar of St Kat. Far too many people who don't think critically and don't have the attention span to comprehend this programme think that Roxy is a slut. One well-known troll on Digital Spy ...
actually thinks that Roxy is a husband-stealing home-wrecker. Er, how? Kat, herself, fucked up her marriage, and Roxy and Alfie didn't get together until after Kat had left; oh, and Alfie was well within his remit to kick her ass out. This abject, little shit-stirrer doesn't know her own ample backside from her elbow in trying to brand Roxy a home-wrecker.
Stacey breaks up marriages. Tanya breaks up marriages. Ronnie has even broken up a marriage or two. But Roxy? Nah. Pull the other one, sunshine.
The Fart Brigade.
Whitney's annoyed that Tiffany is wearing her necklace. OMIGOD, it's the half-moon necklace that Tyler gave her when they started dating.
Tiffany, that ugly, entitled child, reckons it's hers by right as Whitney isn't dating Tyler anymore.
Uhhhh ... no, chav-child, actually the gift should go back to Tyler, just like the Fiat Punto parked outside your door should go back to Fatboy; because Whitney, like the gypsy, tramp and mattress that she is, doesn't return any of the gifts given her by the assorted bevy of nice blokes on whom she's trampled on her way to the next bad boy.
When the newly epiphanised Whitney actually tries to return the necklace to Tyler, he decides to act on Alfie's advice and suggest that they be mates.
But he can't.
Why? Because a year of their shallow lives, and a few bunk-ups don't equate the decade Alfie spent with Kat. They've only just now addressed her abuse problem, and he certainly cannot deal with the continued presence of Neanderthal Joey, who hulked into the pub tonight, not once but twice, to do his mouth-breathing specialty.
Of course, all this non-story ballamory is the lead-in to Tyler's departure tomorrow night.
Don't let the door hit your fat arse on the way out.
The Road to Nowhere.
If there's one thing Lorraine Newman knew how to do is to string out a storyline which seemed to be interesting on paper, and turn it into a bore.
For example, Michael and Janine ...
Yes, we know Michael is leaving - and that can't come quick enough. We know that Janine's return will immediately hoist right into the lead-up to his leaving line, which appears to be near-enough Christmas. But Newman promised us sensationalism, and all we've got for weeks has been the same mind game played over and over again.
Michael tries to get one up on Janine. Janine tries to get one up on Michael. Usually, Janine comes out on top, even when it seems that she shouldn't.
Why shouldn't she? Well, she's a perenniel favourite on EastEnders. She's a legacy member of a premier family, and she's staying. And Steve John Shepherd is going.
What we're seeing now is a woman who's spent her life hiding her vulnerability only to have it exposed cruelly by her psychopathic husband, playing him now at his own game.
The interesting part of this dynamic tonight was Danny Pennant, who took a step further to defining himself tonight.
Danny's first scene was when Michael entered Janine's house only to find Danny feeding Scarlett. (This, oddly, reminded me of the scene in September 2010, when Craig Jessop came into Max's house and proprietorially lifted Oscar away from his father). If Michael were normal, I'd have understood his anguish.
The total OTT reaction of getting Danny checked out as a paedophile was disgusting, but it revealed a side of Michael that could be something deeper. On the face of his fear, is the ignorant assumption shared by the lowest common denominator of society that gay people shouldn't be around children because they are paedophiles.
What horseshit.
Michael assumes Danny is gay, but really, it's never been established that he's gay. In a recent episode, when he seemingly came onto Michael, it appeared that he might be bi, and his retort to Michael's announcement that he was calling the police to run a check on him, was brilliant ..
Why? Because I like boys?
The leg-touching incident today was amplified when Janine hugged him in gratitude and he was seen to wink at Michael.
But then later, when Michael ran into him in the pub, Danny was goading him again, about wanting to protect Janine, when he introduced Michael to the contact who put him onto the property he was showing Janine - a very sexy young lady, with whom it seems that "Daniel" was very familiar.
His parting line to Michael - never say never - leads one to believe that Danny Pennant isn't gay; he isn't even bi-sexual. But what he may be is a total moral reprobate willing to do anything to achieve a goal or get what he wants. At one and the same time, that makes him a very interesting and very dangerous character.
Oh, and Saint Kat is also prescient. She's figured out that Michael's jealousy isn't about Danny with Scarlett, it's about Danny with Janine. Now here's a thought: I wonder if the perceived animosity Michael exhibits toward Danny is a masked attraction. The sexual tension between the two of them is palpable, and Danny's moral reprobate nature would maybe attract Michael, considering the implied "beating" Derek gave him in the Arches in 2012.
Wow, I could so see Michael singing this song, the way this storyline's going ...
I'm Mr Weird of Albert Square
I spread riddles everywhere
But that's all right
Daniel, I'm a fright.
A few high points, but if you blinked, you missed them. Same old same old.
This is why the show is faltering badly at the moment. With a singularly good episode shown on Friday night, the show still managed to fall into third place behind both episodes of Coronation Street and Emmerdale.
If EastEnders were a football team, they'd be prime candidates for relegation.
Sexy Sadie ...
Sexy Sadie, what have you done? You've made a fool of everyone ...
How to introduce a new character - more than just a new character, a new female character who's part of an important demographic which is sorely lacking in the programme at the moment: introduce her in the middle of an episode which results in being the lovechild of a borefest and a snooze session.
Meet Sadie Young, people.
She's different. Or she appears to be. First of all, she's not blonde. Secondly, she's late thirties, possibly fortyish. Thirdly, she's a businesswoman - she's bought Booties, the salon, which two successive men bought to be fronted by the last "independent businesswoman" to be seen in Walford - Tanya.
Okay, well, maybe not Tanya, who couldn't manage an orgy in a whorehouse when she was sober; but at least the first impression says that Sadie is a mature woman, she's well-spoken, she appears to have bought the premises with her own money and she hasn't got (yet) a significant other.
Give the writers time. As we speak, they're already conjuring up an ex-husband (possibly David Wicks?), a couple of teenaged kids to add to the general population of Walford ... wait, wait ... she mistook Poppy for Lola. Wait ... could that mean? It couldn't, could it? Could she be ...
Lola's mother?????????????????
I can hear the speculation now.
The first of the Walford fools she met was the standard bearer for fools in general, Poopy-La-Dim, who's been suffering from severe delusions of grandeur since having been appointed "Acting Manageress".
Poopy can't figure out why workmen are renovating Booties, even after having received a letter from Tanya's solicitor, confirming that the property had been sold. No one told Poopy! And her indignation in the face of Sadie, the new owner, is palpable.
I ran vis place.
(Poopy, you couldn't run a bath).
Poopy-La-Dim's enormous ego is fed consistently by Fatboy, who assures her she's an "ideas" person. Yes, Poopy has ideas, but they mostly are unworkable and get lost in the plethora of witless witter emanating from her cakehole. When next she meets Sadie, she wants to get down to discussing ideas in the middle of the street, with Sadie - unlike any businesswoman before in Walford - actually appears in a hardhat and high viz jacket. And Poopy-La-Dim is astounded when she's told she'll have to earn her job - as much as she's curious about the notes Tanya has given Sadie about her two unreliable employees.
The rest of Sadie's introduction to the programme is spent, chasing Max Branning about the Square.
Yep, Max is back and in a bad mood, but all Sadie wants to do is tell him she's got a few bin bags full of tat Tanya's left behind that they might want. During the course of this gadabout, of course, she got to meet the Walford Sperminator, Jack. They shook hands and Jack, introduced himself, asserting that he had no women problems.
Sadie: Come by the Salon, and we'll soon sort that out.
Not much chance of that, babe, considering the fact that (a) Jack is leaving, (b) the Ice Queen cometh soon, (c) Sadie is a brunette and (d) her surname isn't Mitchell (unless, of course, it's subsequently revealed that she's Clive Mitchell's daughter). Who knows?
Her first appearance was too bland and too fleeting to form a viable opinion. Enough to say that she didn't scream or raise her voice or sound like a chav. In fact, oddly enough, she reminded me a bit of Alison King, the actress who plays Carla Connor on Corrie, but without the flat-voweled awful voice.
I'm passing on an impression.
Change Partners and Dance with Max.
Max is back and looking like a bear with a sore head.
First, he spies Kirsty traipsing out of the Vic in her trademark Leboutin marital aid shoes. (How she manages designer footwear on a barmaid's salary, much less the rent on that flat, is beyond me).
Then he comes into the Branning abode to find Cora-the-Bora and Patrick passed out on the sofa and the chair, and the dining room table littered in booze bottles.
Cora does to Patrick what Shirley did to Phil: She's managed to envelope a previously much-loved character in her filthy mantle of hateful dislike. Max's reaction was absolutely correct. Max left for two weeks to visit his daughter, who's receiving help in a drying-out clinic, and his young son. He left Abi behind, in the knowledge that her grandmother would look after her - as if Abi the Dough-Faced Girl, at seventeen, isn't capable of looking after herself for a fortnight. Instead, he finds the old crone dead drunk and her doxy snoring away in the chair, after having pulled a right bender.
He was right to demand that they clean up the putrid mess they made, and later, in his confrontation with that drunken old trout, it was Team Max all the way. I truly hope he was serious in kicking her shitty old wrinkled, drunken butt out of the house, because she has no right to be there and even less right to treat the property as a doss house for entertaining her fancy man.
And, I'm sorry, but Max was totally right in demanding that Patrick leave, and Patrick was wrong to stomp off in a huff. Who the hell does he think he is? He was a guest in Max's house, an unpaying guest, I might add, and how would he act if someone treated Kim's precious B and B like that?
Cora saying the house wasn't Max's home, that he'd given up that right when he "moved in with that woman" (who happened to be his wife and with whom he moved in after Cora's precious white daughter kicked him out for telling the truth) and she was wrong to say that Max doesn't own the house.
Last things first: No, he doesn't own the house, but his brother does, and Cora wasn't even asked by Tanya to stay there. She horned her way in, after being thrown out by Dot. Max also pays the rent, and he pays the bills. We know that from the time Tanya left back in March, when Cora spent all the housekeeping money on booze and cigarettes, and sent Abi across the Square with the bills for Max to pay. Max raised his children there, and in the wake of Tanya's departure and his split from Kirsty, he's moved back into his brother's house to whom Max pays rent.
Cora can fuck off to the B and B and live with Patrick. See how soon their sugar-shacking gets up the four tits of Denise and Kim.
Patrick is combing the gutters when he associates with trailer trash like Cora. I hope the fable DTC sorts this one out.
Max is having trouble reconciling his feelings for Kirsty with what is obviously the final break-up with Tanya ...
Abi the Dough-Faced Girl is in wise mode tonight, complete with that annoying giggle, but earlier, she was just plain annoying, when Sadie made an entrance and announced she was binning Tanya's tat for them to sift through. Like Poopy-La-Dim earlier, entitled Abi was affronted by the fact that Sadie was gutting Booties and re-designing it to her specifications.
Why not? She owns the premises and the business now. It's nothing to do with the Brannings now. Abi's fat cheeks are wanting a smack. However, at least her conversation with Max forces him to admit that he and Kirsty were fine until he heard that Tanya had caught a cancer cold and then he dropped the pregnant Kirsty in the lurch to return to his family, without as much telling her why (yet relying on Derek).
So Max goes to see Kirsty, and of course, it's obvious that he still has feelings for her - or rather, now that Fatanya's gone away for good, Max is gonna love the one he's with because he's not with the one he loves ...
Hey, if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with, Max ... that's always been the story of your life.
Helpless Helpless Helpless Helpless
Kirsty.
Still mooning (bad pun) after Max.
You know, I actually like her when she's interacting with Carl. Now that Carl's settled in. and they've laid off the subtle threats and the passive aggressive menacing behaviour, he shows much promise of being a likeable villain - or something we've not seen for awhile in EastEnders: a character with depth.
Daniel Coonan's miles above a lot of these journeymen actors, and his softly-softly approach, in gratitude to Kirsty for interacting with his mother, added to the obviously complex relationship he has with his mum, makes him interesting.
For the record, this is not the same sort of sick, creepy, quasi-incestuous hidden storyline shared with Steve and his mother. Carl's mother genuinely disdains him. For some reason, she equates him with her (dead?) husband, whose manhood she disdained, and her brief scenes a few weeks ago, alluded to the same sort of sentiment towards her son.
This is a relationship and a backstory which needs exploring.
One of the few bright spots in tonight's episode was the dichotomy of Carl's character - his polite demeanor in asking about Kirsty visiting his mother and the way he deflected Kat's apology was nothing less than gentlemanly.
Then his devious side came to the fore when he found out Max had returned and that Kirsty was hoping to see him. When he first met with Warren (more of this man, please, he also looked interesting), and it became obvious that Warren was the punter interested in buying all four of Max's SUVs on sale, I thought at first, Warren was going to beat the shit out of Max, alone in the office. Instead, it was a clever ploy to make Max late for his 18:05 date with Kirsty, making her believe he wouldn't show because he didn't care, and Carl arriving instead.
The duff-duff was a weak one.
Do any of us really care that this is yet another of Newman's endless love triangles?
The Beatification of St Kathleen.
We're one day on from Kat's epiphany, and a miracle has occurred.
The stall is back up, and she's working with Bianca, she's apologised to Carl for her inappropriate behaviour, and when that sly minx Roxy takes devilish pleasure in informing her that she and Alfie have set a date for their wedding - Valentine's Day, no less (cheesy) - she only goes and buys Tommy a cute little suit so he can be a pageboy at Alfie's wedding.
Awwwwwwwwwww ...
(Alfie Smells a Fart).
We all know that this is insignificant tat, because the Valentine's Day wedding simply won't occur. We know that Alfie and Kat will reunite and we know why. Just fucking do it, because stating the bleeding obvious is an insult to the viewers' intelligence - well, most of the viewers' intelligence. I can think of at least three people on Digital Spy forum who'd praise EastEnders if the BBC broadcast thirty minutes of a steaming pile of shit.
Anyway, first we get Alfie's heart-to-heart with Tyler, apologising for discussing a wedding date with Roxy,when he's cognizant that Tyler's just broken up with
Alfie then supplies a simplified one-syllabled word explanation of how he and Kat have spent ten years together, and when you've spent that long with someone, then you're bound to have feelings for them in some way for the rest of your life. For both Alfie and Kat, this is the longest relationship either has had. He neglected to say the most important thing, and that's that they share the parenting of a child, and they have to be civil for Tommy's sake.
I have to say I hate the fact that Roxy's being sacrificed at the newly-built altar of St Kat. Far too many people who don't think critically and don't have the attention span to comprehend this programme think that Roxy is a slut. One well-known troll on Digital Spy ...
actually thinks that Roxy is a husband-stealing home-wrecker. Er, how? Kat, herself, fucked up her marriage, and Roxy and Alfie didn't get together until after Kat had left; oh, and Alfie was well within his remit to kick her ass out. This abject, little shit-stirrer doesn't know her own ample backside from her elbow in trying to brand Roxy a home-wrecker.
Stacey breaks up marriages. Tanya breaks up marriages. Ronnie has even broken up a marriage or two. But Roxy? Nah. Pull the other one, sunshine.
The Fart Brigade.
Whitney's annoyed that Tiffany is wearing her necklace. OMIGOD, it's the half-moon necklace that Tyler gave her when they started dating.
Tiffany, that ugly, entitled child, reckons it's hers by right as Whitney isn't dating Tyler anymore.
Uhhhh ... no, chav-child, actually the gift should go back to Tyler, just like the Fiat Punto parked outside your door should go back to Fatboy; because Whitney, like the gypsy, tramp and mattress that she is, doesn't return any of the gifts given her by the assorted bevy of nice blokes on whom she's trampled on her way to the next bad boy.
When the newly epiphanised Whitney actually tries to return the necklace to Tyler, he decides to act on Alfie's advice and suggest that they be mates.
But he can't.
Why? Because a year of their shallow lives, and a few bunk-ups don't equate the decade Alfie spent with Kat. They've only just now addressed her abuse problem, and he certainly cannot deal with the continued presence of Neanderthal Joey, who hulked into the pub tonight, not once but twice, to do his mouth-breathing specialty.
Of course, all this non-story ballamory is the lead-in to Tyler's departure tomorrow night.
Don't let the door hit your fat arse on the way out.
The Road to Nowhere.
If there's one thing Lorraine Newman knew how to do is to string out a storyline which seemed to be interesting on paper, and turn it into a bore.
For example, Michael and Janine ...
Yes, we know Michael is leaving - and that can't come quick enough. We know that Janine's return will immediately hoist right into the lead-up to his leaving line, which appears to be near-enough Christmas. But Newman promised us sensationalism, and all we've got for weeks has been the same mind game played over and over again.
Michael tries to get one up on Janine. Janine tries to get one up on Michael. Usually, Janine comes out on top, even when it seems that she shouldn't.
Why shouldn't she? Well, she's a perenniel favourite on EastEnders. She's a legacy member of a premier family, and she's staying. And Steve John Shepherd is going.
What we're seeing now is a woman who's spent her life hiding her vulnerability only to have it exposed cruelly by her psychopathic husband, playing him now at his own game.
The interesting part of this dynamic tonight was Danny Pennant, who took a step further to defining himself tonight.
Danny's first scene was when Michael entered Janine's house only to find Danny feeding Scarlett. (This, oddly, reminded me of the scene in September 2010, when Craig Jessop came into Max's house and proprietorially lifted Oscar away from his father). If Michael were normal, I'd have understood his anguish.
The total OTT reaction of getting Danny checked out as a paedophile was disgusting, but it revealed a side of Michael that could be something deeper. On the face of his fear, is the ignorant assumption shared by the lowest common denominator of society that gay people shouldn't be around children because they are paedophiles.
What horseshit.
Michael assumes Danny is gay, but really, it's never been established that he's gay. In a recent episode, when he seemingly came onto Michael, it appeared that he might be bi, and his retort to Michael's announcement that he was calling the police to run a check on him, was brilliant ..
Why? Because I like boys?
The leg-touching incident today was amplified when Janine hugged him in gratitude and he was seen to wink at Michael.
But then later, when Michael ran into him in the pub, Danny was goading him again, about wanting to protect Janine, when he introduced Michael to the contact who put him onto the property he was showing Janine - a very sexy young lady, with whom it seems that "Daniel" was very familiar.
His parting line to Michael - never say never - leads one to believe that Danny Pennant isn't gay; he isn't even bi-sexual. But what he may be is a total moral reprobate willing to do anything to achieve a goal or get what he wants. At one and the same time, that makes him a very interesting and very dangerous character.
Oh, and Saint Kat is also prescient. She's figured out that Michael's jealousy isn't about Danny with Scarlett, it's about Danny with Janine. Now here's a thought: I wonder if the perceived animosity Michael exhibits toward Danny is a masked attraction. The sexual tension between the two of them is palpable, and Danny's moral reprobate nature would maybe attract Michael, considering the implied "beating" Derek gave him in the Arches in 2012.
Wow, I could so see Michael singing this song, the way this storyline's going ...
I'm Mr Weird of Albert Square
I spread riddles everywhere
But that's all right
Daniel, I'm a fright.
A few high points, but if you blinked, you missed them. Same old same old.
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