Fat Legs, Lineless Faces and Retcon - Review: 13.09.2013

Classy girl, eh?

Well ...

(Different nose and chin).

Some people just exude class, even when they try to apologise for their past lack of it. Regrets, the actress has had a few, but regretting your past means jack shit. These pictures were done for two reasons - publicity and money. The other sort of publicity for which the actress was known in  the 90s was that of being a serial homewrecker, which made an irony of one of the lines in Friday's episode - which was difficult to watch.

First, it was difficult to watch because it was written by the odiously untalented Katie Douglas. I thought she'd gone and taken her bad smell with her. One of the biggest mistakes Newman made was assigning this pisspoor writer to write for Sharon. Epic fail.

The other reason the show was difficult to watch was the stench of retconning which seems to follow a certain character about.

Ronnie has a botoxed face
She has a plastic nose
And everywhere that Ronnie goes
A retcon's sure to go.

Awful episode and it fomented an awful message.

Piaf Had Class.

Consider this: It's New Year's 2011, and instead of RoNostril Mitchell Branning nicking the Moons' baby, Kat Moon's Tommy dies and she dumps him in RoNostril's baby's crib and takes James. For the next four months, she leads Alfie to believe that this child is theirs, until eventually, she confesses.

As the victim would have been a Mitchell-Branning sprog, with emphasis on the Mitchell bit, do you honestly think that Kat would have been allowed back to Walford on bail? Or even that she'd be allowed back after having been released on licence? Would Alfie even have been allowed to keep the pub?

The answer to all that is a resounding NO.

What's more, the people in the Square, egged on by the Mitchell machine, would have ensured that Kat was sufficiently ostracised and driven from the vicinity. One type of crime that people find difficult to forget is a crime against children, and that's exactly what Ronnie did commit - even though the Moons got their child back, relatively unscathed.

The community would not be so ready to forgive RoNostril the four months of hell through which she put the Moons. And if the shoe had been on the other foot, the Mitchells certainly wouldn't have allowed Kat back into the community, family or no family.

To watch her strut about Walford with total entitlement based only on the fact that Phil deemed it her duty as a "Mitchell" was a total joke.

Look, I understand what this is all about. The show is suffering, and it seems that nothing they do can put things to right. But it's suffering because of bad management decisions, inadequate writers who disregard the history of various characters and their personality and character arcs. It's bad because there's been no sustainable continuity, nor have there been any definable storylines so far this year. You get the odd mediocre episode, which people (starved of entertainment) identify as good, and the rest is dross. Emmerdale had Cameron, Corrie had Carl, EastEnders had Monty the Snake.

After swearing blindly that she wouldn't be bringing back old characters, Lorraine Newman buckled and brought back three, including the Ice Queen to pacify all the weeping divas who missed her unmissable presence, the tragic victim. These are the people who started watching the show seriously in 2006, who fail to understand that RoNostril and Archie, retconned though they were, were really an extension of Harwood's darker Den and Sharon, but the EastEnders 2.0 crowd prefer the slimmer, younger, cosmetically enhanced tragedy queen than the older, chunkier version.

Was the babyswap saga the definable jump-the-shark moment for the show? For many long-term viewers it was. In the words of one of the few sane contributors to Walford Web bullyboi emporium, rosalie, the babyswap saga was trash television.

In many ways since then, the show has been trying to regain its credibility that it lost during that time, and with the return of RoNostril, it's obviously seen the only way of doing so would be to trivialise the babyswap into a non-entity. Yes, in reality, RoNostril would never have been allowed back into the community of Walford. By this moment in time, she would have had to have informed her probation officer of her address and would have at least have had one meeting with him or her. Instead, we've been given to believe that she's been allowed to roam about the world unfettered, even planning a new life in Ibiza, establishing a business without the capital involved. And she can swan right back into the community where she committed a heinous crime and befriend the woman whose child she snatched, because she thought she was entitled to that child.

Entitled.

That's the word which defines RoNostril more than any other. And manipulative, which is what she's done from the very beginning: manipulate various residents of the Square in order to get what she wants.

Jack is the prime object now. Of course, like any true psychopath, RoNostril knows her prey. Michael spoke the truest line of the piece in this episode, when he alluded to the psychopaths both he and Ronnie are.

I'm one o'them, Jack. I'm one of the difficult ones.

He knows exactly what RoNostril is. Because he's a psychopath, himself. She reads him and he reads her, and I suppose there's only room for one psychopath in Walford.

Almost the entire episode was RoNostril following Carl around and Jack following RoNostril around. Of course, RoNostril was reinforcing her entitlement and the Mitchell brand. Quite honestly, this "I'm a Mitchell" shit has got to stop.

RoNostril is doing a pretty good job of strutting her stuff and confronting Carl - which is an absolute joke. Carl is actually a pretty nuanced and believeable villain; yet in one fell swoop of an episode, Katie Douglas has managed to make him DerekLite without the laughs, in order to accommodate the power that is RoNostril, who increasingly reminds me of an extra from the film Death Becomes Her ...

Wouldn't this be a great scene for Michael Moon's funeral featuring RoNostril and Roxy?

The fact that Jack cannot stay away from RoNostril is the obvious aim of this episode. And, of course, it includes the ubiquitous scene with Sharon which is a retcon from beginning to end.

First of all, there's the entitlement issue of RoNostril referring to the premises as my club. Then, there's the queer line RoNostril made about hearing that Sharon had broken up a few marriages in her time and another allusion to Peggy's hatred of Sharon. 

Last things first. Sharon and Peggy were reconciled in January 2006. If you don't believe me, you can watch the clip here. You can clearly see that Peggy and Sharon had been reconciled. In fact, Sharon stayed with Peggy during her last days on the Square.

Secondly, let's examine how many marriages Sharon has broken up as opposed to RoNostril. Sharon has only been responsible for the break-up of one marriage - her own to Grant. And she did that by sleeping with Phil, and furthermore, she assumed entire responsibility for that, allowed Phil to throw her under the proverbial bus in order to keep his relationship with Phil, and was ostracised by the whole of Walford, except for Michelle and Pat.

When Sharon returned to Walford in 2001, her significant other was Ross, who was a divorced man; and when she became involved with Tom, he was also a divorced man.

So, where were these "few marriages" Sharon had broken up during her time?

RoNostril broke up Joel's marriage, simply because she felt she was entitled to Joel in order to recreate another Danielle. She didn't give a rat's arse about his wife or his three children, one of whom pointedly told her a few home truths, which prompted her to tell Joel that he didn't have to worry about them, they'd have a child of their own. However, when she found out that he'd had the snip, she dumped him, there and then. She also lied to Jack about Sam and Richard and bullied Roxy into giving her 30K in order to lie to and bribe  Sam into leaving Walford with Jack's son.

It was RoNostril who dumped Jack when she was in prison, only for the purpose of enhancing her own victim status. She didn't want to know him until she found he was about to marry someone else, and her prim-and-prissy remark to Sharon tonight about "that was down to Jack" - nuffink to do wiv'er - was the absolute ultimate in absconding responsibility. Jack would never have given RoNostril a second thought, had he not received those letters from RoNostril and had she not wanted to see him.

This is RoNostril at her manipulative best.

I wonder how long it will be before she learns that Roxy slept with Jack on the night he got the decree absolute - or are they going to retcon that out of existence as well?

As for RoNostril showing up Sharon's security skills, what a load of old bollocks. Sharon's been fronting pubs and bars since she was a girl. She has handled far worse than Carl, and that whole episode, ending with the "I'm Ronnie Mitchell" piece of shit was written as a pandering for the actress, the character and her one-dimensional fanbase.

As well, the only thing poor RoNostril reacts to is when someone challenges her over what she's done - which was pretty heinous. Anyone thinking Alfie shouldn't think the way he does about her is just plain stupid. Alfie has raised Tommy as his own son. Let's count other men on the Square who've raised other men's children as their own - Patrick Trueman, Ian Beale, Keith Miller, Kevin Wicks. Even Brian Wicks raised David Beale as his son. The biological fathers of Paul Trueman, Steven Beale, Mickey Miller and Dean and Carly Wicks were sperm donors. The men who raised them were fathers. Anyone who denies Alfie the right to react adversely to the woman who stole his son is insulting the plethora of parents who take on and raise their partners' children.

But RoNostril isn't remorseful for such confrontations. Instead, when Lola, rightfully, confronts her, she all but threatens the kid. And so much for Billy's pep talk.

You ain't the first person round'ere who's done somefink they're ashamed of.

Oh no, Billy? What about your cowering in the shower whilst Jase was killed next door? What about your stealing from Janine? Or stealing post? Or stealing from Peggy's charity box? Or, once again, what about Ben? Will he be welcomed back to Walford in two years' time when he's released on licence for killing Heather? Will he be accepted back in Walford because he's a Mitchell and will Shirley, when she returns (because we know the bitch isn't dead), forget all about Heather and welcome Ben with opened arms?

The way the show is going, you know that would happen.

Because they're the Mitchells.

The Mitchells for me should be fronted by Peggy and should include Phil, Sam, Sharon, and - if possible - Grant.

The sisters are pisspoor retcons, and people need to realise that the Mitchells were created for Sharon. Without her, there would have been no Mitchells, so the two are indelibly linked. But not the retcons.

One Fat ChibbyChub Interfering.

Misery loves company, and because Fat Kat's manless at the moment, she wants company with Jean and Bianca. Little does she know that Bianca's about to move on in that category.

So she's convinced Jean that Ollie is detrimental to her and cites his reaction to her medical condition. Sorry, Katie? But I seem to recall that Ollie was very accepting of Jean's medical condition and had even researched bi-polar online. It was Jean who summarily dismissed Ollie.

So why is Kat taking it upon herself to sit judge and jury in Jean's corner, when it's nothing to do with her? Jean had made and independent and adult decision to go to Ollie's retirement do, in order to see if their relationship was worth salvaging. That's fair enough, and fair enough that Alfie encouraged her.

When someone does love another, it's all about taking risks. Oh well, Jean's only got two more episodes. I won't miss her or her attempts to wear short skirts on the wrong side of fifty.

Another Fat Chibby Chops Interfering.

Boy, that scene between Kirsty and Lauren in the hall of Branning Manor was Battle of the Collagened Lips.

I loved Kirsty's line to Abi:-

How old are you?

It doesn't take much to sway Flabi the Dough-Faced Girl, does it? If Lauren, who's been - until late - the most shallow and self-obsessed of the Branning daughters can see Max is lying about cutting the brakes, why can't Flabi?

She doesn't want to be a part of the family anymore and does the Branning symbolic thing of breaking a picture (that wasn't there before). Fine. Send her to her mother, so the two of them can eat pizza and cake to their heart's content and have a thunder thighs contest.

This is all another cog in the wheel of Lauren's redemption.

Carl.

Shirley was another hard woman of Walford, and Carl seems to have dealt with her. I don't think she's dead, but neither do I think she's in a healthy place. Maybe he's taken her off and got her addicted to heroin.

Just a thought.

Poor episode.