It contained everything bad and generally complaint-worthy that has brought the show to its knees in recent months - a preponderence of teens, unlikeable characters, retconning, badly written established characters so terribly recreated that they're unrecogniseable, ignorance and bad research and Brannings. Oh, and that ubiquitous Branning gathering. And the worst side of the Mitchells, not to mention the presence of the Walking Ice Nostril, who's suddenly become the reincarnation of Peggy Mitchell as an Earth Mother.
It sucked shit. And the more they continue to allow tripe like this to be written and filmed, then this can only serve to make a putz like Danny Dire a success. Hell, this show is desperate.
Why not make it a cartoon for children, for fuck's sake?
Ignorance is Not Bliss.
Since social workers en masse protested the ignorant portrayal of Trish Barnes during the Lola-Lexi fiasco, why don't teachers en masse protest the ignorant, lazy, badly-researched and unprofessional portrayal of Ava the Magic Negro, Super Teacher-Sometimes-Deputy-Head and her sidekick Whitney the Walford Mattress, whose experience in deftly and expertly dealing with children comes from undermining Bianca against Tiffany.
First of all, Ava's "cutting down her school hours"? WTF? Sorry, Rob Gittins, but do you have children? And if you do, it's patently obvious that you've had nothing to do with their places of education at all. Or are they educated at leafy independent schools where teachers might have that option?
Just what the fuck is Ava anyway? Originally, she was a Deputy Head Teacher, which means she isn't in the classroom at all, but administering the school and meting discipline. Yet at Walford Primary, she seems to be teaching, as well as running the After-School Club, which isn't really possible.
Let's say, she's a Deputy Head. This means that, along with the Head, she arrives at school before any staff and pupils and leaves long after everyone's gone. An average day for an administrator would be, roughly from 07:30 hours until 17:00 hours. So there's no way possible, she could do After-School Clubs.
Let's say she's a teacher. Her hours are now roughly 08:00 until 16:30. Again, no way she could supervise After-School Club.
Furthermore, there is absolutely, positively no way in hell any teacher or administrator could "cut down their school hours." In case Mr Gittins hasn't realised (and he wouldn't with his massive BBC salary), this is the age of austerity, and schools are hit hard. Ava's school could not afford to let her "cut her school hours" because they couldn't afford the additional salary of a supply teacher to cover her classes. What the fuck, she shouldn't have been allowed to start a new job mid-term anyway. It's simply not done. It's never done.
Those things and the number of times she's had "time off" to grade papers or has been seen trolling the streets of Walford and drinking in the pub during school hours, is as much an insult to the teaching profession as Trish Barnes's Wicked Witch of the West was to social workers.
First of all, there is no way an educational authority would let someone supervise family members, the way they've allowed Whitney - dressed like a living slut to boot - to supervise a facility with her younger brother and sister as part and parcel of the make-up. It's called conflict of interest.
Secondly, contrary to what the Magic Negro says, Whitney did not handle that situation well with Dennis. Dennis is a victim of his domestic circumstances. Like most children, he needs security and structure and he has neither. I've no doubt his mother loves him, but she's trying to be everything to him and succeeding at being nothing. He has no father, no male role model or relative in his life and no extended family. Just ogling the gaggle of maggots called Branning in the party scene tells you how important an extended netword of family is. We saw that with the Masoods. Shit, we saw it with Peter coming to the rescue of his half-sister from his own uncle.
Dennis has his mother, and his mother has Dennis. She's defensive about her own son because she's fearful of losing him as she's lost every living relative she's ever had, and there's no one familiar to whom she can listen and respect who'll tell her what for - Pat and Pauline are dead. Those who are left, have their heads rammed firmly up their assholes of their own self-importance - Phil, Ian and Dot.
This is all about Dennis and Sharon and his cry for the right sort of attention from her. If he can't get the response he wants from Sharon, then he'll get it via a third party. Maybe an adult can make her respond. The only adults with whom he's in contact are via the educational authority. Yet all Ava and Whitney are doing are screaming at him and belittling him to his face.
Whitney handled the situation with Sharon well? My arse. And Ava showed what an epic failure as a human being and as a teacher she is when she praised the way she handled it.
Sharon was called in, and her son was present, well within earshot. A professional would never, never, never, never refer to any child - and a small, impressionable one, at that - as poisonous, either to the parent, herself, or within earshot of the child. Whitney is an ignorant bitch, and if Ava thinks Whitney's right for a teaching assistant's job, the Mattress should be prepared to get the living shit knocked out of her for saying something like that to some parents.
As for their gossip session at Carol's party, most educational professionals would be looking for reasons behind Dennis's behaviour. Very few people blithely write 7 year-olds off as poison without looking into their domestic backgrounds and their current situation. For a start, the kid is still living at a bed and breakfast facility. That should set alarm bells ringing immediately.
For any and all the dimwits screaming for Dennis to be beaten, drop-kicked or flogged, it's fucking Ava and Whitney who need slapping. And what school authority would condone a former prostitute as a teaching assistant in the classroom?
Pull the other one.
And I don't give a flying fuck about kidneygate either.
Buster Bloodvessel's Manor.
Tell me, what was the purpose of this Mitchell interlude tonight? Phil, stalking about like a bear with a sore head, stomping the streets of Walford with misery on his mind, spooked by Carl, fending off the ridiculous mother hen cluckings of the Walking Nostril and demanding loyalty from Jay - who (by the way) isn't Mitchell anymore but Brown.
Phil obviously needs reinforcement in his role as the Hard Man of Walford, just as the more discerning viewers - ya know, the people to whom this show used to aim in the days before fanbois and teenaged retards - are being asked to accept a functioning psychopath, a kidnapper who trivialises a major crime as an entitlement as The Wise Woman of Walford.
Something's bothering Phil. My guess is that it's money problems. It's certainly not Shirley. NostrilFace seems to be the only one concerned about Ms Bitter-and-Twisted. Maybe they will have a lesbian affair. How's that for novelty?
Anyway, I think this is a precursor to the great Vic sale which will give us the EastEnd saviour alighting on Christmas Day, Danny Dire. Aren't we all happy?
Phil's main problem seems to be the fact that he employs both a Branning satellite and a former wannabe Mitchell who's boning a fat Branning. The crashing of the party was stupid; even more stupid was the Walking Nostril BabySnatcher there as his protection.
Even more stupid was the subsequent scene at Casa Mitchell, where Ms Psychopath informs Phil that he has nothing to prove to the Walford community. Well, I'm sorry, but he does; and so does she - and she should start by showing some real remorse for the heartache she cost and the crime she committed.
Tonight was the Mitchells at their worst.
Listen to the Music
Oh joy! Another excuse for a Branning family conflab. How many have there been this year? At least two a month.
It's Carol's birthday - not that we've never known before - and it's complete with retconning.
David's back, and somehow, he's more sinister and conniving than I remember. This is all about settling him down in the role of grandad to the Butcher bunch.
David's an interesting character - part of the Beale, Butcher and Wicks dynamics; but make no mistake - as important a character as he is, David Beale Wicks was never iconic. What was interesting tonight was his encounter with hairy Cindy the Greek, the boy-in-drag.
Let's establish one thing now: David is not Cindy's father. Nick Holland is. Holland is a half-Italian businessman, who met Cindy Beale when she was on the run from having attempted to murder Ian. Yes, David had an affair with Cindy, which ended in 1996. He called time on the thing when he discovered she'd paid a hitman to kill his brother. He did, however, take her and her two sons, Steven and Peter, to St Pancras station to catch the Eurostar to Paris, where he dumped her on the forecourt, reminding her that running out on relationships is what he does.
David remained behind, a pariah, in Walford, for the next two months, where he had a comfort fling with Carol. He then left for Milan. Early in 1997, after receiving word that Cindy was spotted in Milan, Grant and a pregnant Tiffany made a reconnaisance trip to the city (where they married) and saw Cindy and the boys, but didn't speak to her. When Ian's private investigator firmly established Cindy's whereabouts, later in 1997, Ian, the PI, and Grant and Phil went to Milan, found Cindy - who was then in a serious relationship with Nick Holland - and kidnapped the boys.
Cindy returned to Walford early in 1998, with Nick Holland and determined to fight for custody of all three of her children. She was then pregnant by Nick Holland.
Cindy the Greek was born in prison in 1998, when Cindy died. Cindy the Greek is the daughter of Nick Holland. Were she David's daughter, she would have to be at least seventeen years old, and she clearly isn't. So, shut up. There was no fleeting meeting in Milan, no resumption of the affair, no pregnancy by David and no cuckholding of Nick. Anything otherwise would be a massive retcon and an even more massive jumping of the shark.
What shocked David was the fact that Cindy's daughter (well, her hairy, boy-faced Greek other daughter) is living in Walford, and David's grandson, who has Beale blood, is showing an interest in her. His advice to Liam was crapshit, however, and Liam should show some kind of sense in listening to him. All David achieved at fourteen was getting Liam's nan up the duff, and there's more to life than teenaged pregnancies or parenthood. I hate the sort of too-cool-for-school grandparents who like to urge their grandchildren to "get in there, my son". The Greek obviously knows who David is, but she's saved her efforts at asking him questions about her mother by David's nephew, Peter Beale.
There was a retcon tonight, however. Carol's birthday. Like Jack's birthday, something that heretofore was never acknowledged. David gave her a cassette tape of the greatest hits of 1976, which was the year when she and David fucked behind the bike sheds and got Bianca, who would have been born in 1977.
David and Carol reminisced about how he'd also promised and got her The Greatest Hits of 1977 the next year, but sorry ... that wasn't possible.
David gave Carol money for an abortion when he found out she was pregnant - two hundred quid, conned off his dad Pete Beale by telling him he needed it for a French trip. Subsequent to that, he was beaten up by Derek and two other since-forgotten nameless Branning "older brothers" who were eventually retconned into Max and Jack. David thought Carol had got an abortion, and the Branning bunch ran Pat, David and Simon away from the area. Indeed, David didn't know about Bianca until Carol returned to the area in the 1990s and Bianca was a teenager.
So there was no 15th birthday present, no Greatest Hits of 1976 because by the time Carol was celebrating her 15th birthday, she'd had Bianca and David was long gone and none the wiser. Rob Gittins, who's written for the programme since 1986, should know better, but what the hell! This is anything goes territory nowadays and we re-fit the past to fit the current storyline. Right, so Sharon is in dire need of Pat. Let's forget she died and bring her back.
Bollocks.
As if to emphasize the impending breaking up of the Branning clan,we had to be treated to Sister Sledge bellowing out "We Are Family." We also had to endure yet more gurning and more weird enunciation and asshole acting techniques from
THE. WORST. ACTRESS. EVER. IN. EASTEDERS.
The Gurning Girl has returned, and we're subjected to yet another cack-handed OTT Newman redemption of yet another immensely unlikeable character. She's given up incest - and what a putrid combination of the Brannings, their satellites and their incestuous partners - for a lardy, unshaven Manc who looks as though he needs a bath with carbolic soap and who looks distinctly pervy to her new image of Little Girl Lost.
Even worse was fat Abi the Dough-Faced Girl. She's silly, she's shallow and she's just generally annoying - sniggle sniggle snort snort. The conversation between these sisters was like a public service announcement encouraging alcoholics in support groups to enter into sexual relationships in order to - well, support each other. A kind of sexual healing.
This is going to be a creepy storyline, but it won't be served well by two actors who just cannot act.
Speaking of talentless actors, David Witts is still there and his mouth is still hanging open.
Even more disparaging was the sight of Masood, playing mein Host, dancing about and making sure that everyone's wineglass was filled. This is a Muslim who doesn't drink and who's observant. He should be warned that Carol isn't sincere in what she tells him. She chooses, all right. She'll get snookered into David until someone comes along whose neck doesn't remind him of raw chicken skin, and then she'll hope Masood will be there for her. I hope he isn't.
Shit for the Birds.
Poppy. Just Poppy.
Boo-hoo, you passive aggressive bitch. It isn't golden labs that Fatboy doesn't like. It's you. Your departure cannot come quick enough.
Damn, this was some shit.
Good grief, agreed on Dennis and co. I've got myself into trouble before for being so unspoken, but good heavens I've never called a child "poisonous" to his own mother. Whitney is the poisonous little skank, and Ava is incompetent.
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