The Ice Queen Cometh

A valid battle is raging on Digital Spy at the moment about problems raised by the return of the Ice Queen. You can check out how stupid some of the Ronnie-shippers are here.

The commentator elliecat is right - arguing with these idiots is like banging your head against a brick wall. But then, it's the same with the Michael Moon-shippers.

As another commentator remarked, I don't know what the hold this character has over viewers, turning them into assholes barking at the moon. And EastEnders is still in the pandering mode it's been in for the past seven years, pandering to the emotions of the lowest common denominator of viewers and, thus, damaging the show's credibility in the first place.

First, we had to contend with the Shannisites, but now it's everything Ronnie. Her circumstance shows either that the people who watch this show are very stupid or very young or that they've never been parents or had a child.

Ronnie is not a nice person. Like Michael Moon, she's a psychopath. She doesn't care anything about anyone else except herself and whichever person on whom she's obsessing. Psychopaths are manipulators, and even though Ronnie was interviewed by a police psychiatrist, the woman determined that Ronnie was certainly fit to stand trial or be sentenced as opposed to being sectioned.

She played that woman like a violin, but then, she would. People having any doubt, should watch again, the episode from 18 April 2011. Here it is:-

You'll have seen Ronnie dismissing what she did to the Moons because she "didn't know them" and they "meant nothing to her." She shrugged her crime off as viable because she didn't know or care about the people concerned, even though she cultivated Kat's friendship in the months leading up to the births. She did, however, love Tommy. 

I've no doubt about that. Tommy was her goal, which meant that she knew exactly what she was doing when she left a dead baby and took a living one. She was entitled. She was a Mitchell, there was something she wanted and she took it. She knew what she had done, because in a fit of guilt, she was trying to return the child when Jack turned up.

Thereafter, as another commentator pointed out, it was all about self-preservation. Lies were heaped upon lies, even after she was viscerally confronted with the Moons' grief, but she clung to Tommy. If the public hadn't landed an outcry, she would be clinging to him still. Only the shortening of the storyline resulted in the cack-handed visit to the hospital after Max's accident and Ronnie's epiphany.

Another thing: Ronnie isn't free. She's out on licence, just like Bianca. Like Derek. Like Carl. This means that she's served a shorter sentence and she's freed with various stipulations. If she commits another crime, for example, she goes back inside. Immediately. This was why Bianca left the Square so suddenly and in police custody last year. She is also freed under probation, which means there are certain criteria she must fulfill and a probation officer is assigned her to ensure that she behaves within the norm of her probation terms.

Now, earlier this year, the Probation Services contacted Kat, who - as Tommy's mother - is responsible for the victim of Ronnie's crime. They asked Kat if there were any conditions she wanted imposed upon Ronnie's Probation terms, and Kat told Jack that she'd asked that Ronnie not be allowed to return to the Square and live where she would be in daily contact with Kat and Tommy. The Probation Service usually grants the victim's probation requests, within reason, and this most certainly would be within reason. Even if Kat hadn't imposed this, the authorities would have forbidden her to return to the Square. The fact that this has been summarily ignored and deliberately forgotten by the writers shows that this entire stint is going to be written with a view to presenting Ronnie as the new Hard Woman of Walford and making her out to be the victim of the piece.

And that's another thing. Most people are damning Alfie and/or Kat in this situation. Some even ask why they can't leave the Square, allowing Ronnie the freedom of the community. Why? Are these people just stupid or are they really so blinded by Ronnie-love that they'd ask two people to up roots and leave their livelihood and their families behind so that Ronnie can enjoy a stress-free existence in her new life? Alfie manages a business owned by Ronnie's cousin. Kat has a business. Ronnie has Roxy, but Phil has never been fussed by her, she consistently made light of Billy, she doesn't know Lola, she's divorced from Jack (she dumped him), and - as someone poited out - she has no friends. Not because she wants friends, she just thinks herself above the rest.

One other thing about probation: there would be no way Ronnie could leave immediately for a life in the sun in Ibiza. The terms of her probation would insist that she be available at all times for a visit from the probation officer to ensure she's living within the terms of her probation.

Ronnie has not "paid the price" for her crime. She's behaved herself sufficiently during her time in prison to be afforded an early release, but the slightest slip-up and she goes back inside.

Make no mistake: Ronnie's crime was heinous and cruel. She dumped the carcass of her dead baby in another woman's crib and took her living child, simply because she could and she figured herself entitled to do so. She kept that child for four months and watched his parents literally tear themselves apart with grief. She led her own husband to believe that this child was his. She denied him the opportunity of grieving and saying good-bye to his own son. She played God and she got caught.

Kudos to her for assuming responsibility for her actions, but that doesn't preclude the fact that she also literally told the authorities that she didn't give a rat's arse about Alfie and Kat or their suffering.

EastEnders putting her to the forefront of their show trivialises what she's done and is a very pejorative move.