Teen Week: The Predictable Ending - Review: 30.08.2013

Meet the New Bad Girl.

Toot toot ... Heyyyyyyyyy ... Beep beep.

The surprise that wasn't a surprise. Cindy the Greek took the money. Yet another teen pulls it off, literally. 

Who recalls when Whitney Dean, then fifteen, found and cashed in on the Millers' lottery win? Now we have Cindy the Greek, the strong-featured, big-chinned, hirsute daughter of Cindy Beale, not only stealing the money for Phil Mitchell's carsale, but shifting the blame on Kitty and her dad, a friend of Phil's for thirty years, trashing the caravan and making things all the more worse for the people on whose holiday she horned in.

Just what we need. Another spoiled, quasi-psychotic little bitch running riot in Walford.

She's skint. Well, we know she's a liar, and if she wasn't, how did she come about any money? Is Ian now subbing the daughter of the woman who tried to kill him?

I don't like this kid. She's nothing like her mother, who at least had a heart, and I hope her old man comes gunning, literally, for her; and if he doesn't, I hope it's Lola who finds out what she did and grasses her up to Phil. Then I want to see him smack her skanky, hairy little Greek ass right back to Devon.

I don't like this bastard at the Beale family reunion, who isn't even a Beale - and school starts next week, by the way. Does she go back to Devon, or does Ian miraculously find her a place at Walford High, without any sort of legal documentation making him responsible for her in her grandmother's absence? Besides, Bev Williams isn't even her legal guardian. Gina Williams is. Where is she or has she been forgotten in a welter of retconning? 

Oh wait ... I forgot. This is Millenial EastEnders. If things happened before the storyliners were borned, could remember or even started watching EastEnders, it doesn't count.

Along with Dexter, with whom I actually sympathised by the time this episode's duff-duffs came along, I hope hairy Cindy the Greek is plainly in the crossfires of DTC when he comes to make a cast cull. She stinks. Like feta cheese.

Five Plus One Pull It Off and Fail.

OK, so hairy Cindy the Greek has to be the youngest drag queen on television. How many women are there now in this show who look like men in drag?

• Cora
• Sharon
• Kim
• Ava
• Kat

And now hairy Cindy the Greek, whose features are more masculine than anything. Pretty soon, she'll start sprouting stubble on her prominent chin.

It occurred to me, watching the denouement of this pathetic storyline tonight, that all of the kids on the holiday were stereotypes - the skinny boy with his fat girlfriend (Jamie and Sonia morphing into the faux-Mitchell Jay and Sonia's cousin Abi the Dough-Faced Girl); the cockney sparrow and the posh boy (Stacey and Bradley becoming Lola and Peter; the caricatured black urban yoof (Dexter jumping and jiving around in a panic), and the wild child who's going to wreak havoc (think Bianca, Janine, Stacey and, more recently, Lola, when they burst on the scene).

All types all too familiar to EastEnders, with predictable character arcs.

Lola and Peter are still the most interesting of the lot, and their attraction is watchable, if you get past that silly pyjama thing Lola was wearing. The difference of a day and the familiarity of the caravan has meant that she can now voice her concerns over what Peter told her. She's in for an even bigger shock when he confesses he didn't tell his mate's parents exactly what happened at the moment of their son's death.

Lola's now maturing as a character and as a mother. She understands how this boy's mum must have felt. This introduces the theme of "running away" which becomes a point of irony with this lot. 

Lola accuses Peter of running away, which is true to a great extent; but it's also true what Peter said, that it was presumptuous of Lola to judge him, when she had never been in that same situation. And moments later, when she elects to leave the campsite early, with Abi, not only does Peter accuse her of running away, but Jay also levels that same accusation at Abi, who throws it back at him.

All this is played out against the backdrop of a panicking Dexter, who simply can't run away. He can't go home, because he's not got the money intended for Phil.

And so evolves the Abi plan which works, but doesn't - because it now seems that not only have they got the car purchased by Bob, they've also, unbeknownst to five of the six, have his money too - and that's really a double theft.

Either Hairy Cindy the Greek is extremely stupid or she's extremely dumb or both; because if she thinks this money isn't going to be discovered, then she's seriously retarded, and if she thinks it won't have very serious repercussions on her half-brother and his friends, when she's discovered as the thief, she needs to think again. Actually, I'd like to see Phil Mitchell have her prosecuted and then see her sent away to a Young Offenders' Prison and forgotten about.

Now we have this simmering in the background, along with Jay's nasty little kissing secret, which will probably get more air time than this missing money will.

Still, I like the bond being forged between Peter and Lola, if nothing else.

And I wanted Phil to smack the shit out of Dexter the Dumb.

The con/theft scene at the pub was embarrassingly bad.

The Fool on the Hill.

Well, Billy, of course, and the inevitable end to his brief relationship with the mysterious Tara, who - at least - had the decency to come and tell him good-bye - a fact which took Billy aback for a bit. He'd rather have had her just leave, because it took him a bit to suss that the reason she wasn't taking his calls was that he turned out not to be Mr Moneybags, after all, just a guy who'd hit upon some luck.

That said, the scene where he told Kim what it actually meant to be seen with an attractive woman and have some money in his pocket, the superficial respect he received by people who don't see beyond those criteria, was quite affecting, actually. 

Billy has some good points, and Perry Fenwick always steps up to the plate when he has to do so. Maybe it's time the show moved away from Billy-the-Eternal-Fool and moved  him in another direction. Although there are many who want an end to Billy Mitchell, he's one of the few trustworthy points of reference Janine has. I like that dynamic also.

Jean Genie.

God knows, Jean is one annoying character; but that doesn't mean that Gillian Wright isn't good at what she does.

So Jean is having an episode. She's so wound up at the prospect of Ollie finding out about her bi-polar, something she could never have kept from him, that she works herself into a frazzle as well about this condition, to the point that Ollie, after having read as much as he could about the condition, is genuinely perplexed about the way Jean's gone off on a tangent of wanting an evening of a meal, a film and wandering around, only to be distracted by the sudden and urgent need to clean the Moon kitchen.

The scene in the allotments with Shane Richie was very affecting. Jean's only ever loved Brian,and now she feels much the same for Ollie, whom she thought had abandoned her.

I won't miss Jean, but I'll miss Ollie.

Roll on Carl Week - it's a week before Corrie's Karl Week, which coincides with Ronnie Week.

Let the Games begin!

Just to Clarify a Point Being Raised on Digital Spy: Abi finally explained to Jay her concerns about them becoming a married couple so soon, especially since Jay has proposed to her twice in the past two years.

She cited not wanting to be like her parents, whom she loved, but - and this was great honesty - who were rubbish parents, mainly because they'd started the parenting game too young to know themselves before they knew their kids.

Lots of people are pointing out that Max was in his twenties when he got together with Tanya. Yes, true, but an eighteen year-old Max Branning married a seventeen year-old pregnant Rachel. By the time Max married Tanya, he was edging towards twenty-five, she was nineteen, and they had a five month-old Lauren. 

Tanya was a teenaged mum. Max had been, with Bradley, a teenaged dad, who went wandering and abandoned his child for another woman whom he'd impregnated. Both of Max's first two wives became his wives because he got them pregnant. Tanya was still too caught up in what SHE wanted and Max had been selfish all along, and the children - all of them - suffered.