Just when you think the news couldn't get any worse, we learn that Natalie "Just-Doing-This-Now" Cassidy may be returning to EastEnders.
That's right. Sonia Jackson Fowler, separated from Martin, newly blonde,botoxed and liposuctioned, is going to return to Albert Square in what DTC describes as an "explosive" storyline.
Let me anticipate the spoilers. After a curry night out with a colleague, a familiar face shows up at the Jacksons' door begging to use the toilet. Five minutes later and the drains in Walford are blocked, Call Den Watts! He'll know what to do!
I sometimes wonder if DTC didn't apprentice as a plasterer, because - just like under his tenure with Santer - he's papering over the cracks, giving big PR and hoping the viewing public, such as those who are left, will be diverted to such an extent that they'll forget what's really been plaguing the show for ages - bad continuation, awful retconning, lazy writing, terrible research, inexperienced actors, unlikeable characters, an imbalance of demographics and no storylines whatsoever. But hey! Let's jump up and down in anticipation of Danny DIRE taking over the Vic. Ronnie the eternal victim is back. David Wicks is hanging around, and we're suddenly learning that he and Carol are a love story - well, for EastEnders 2.0, it is. And now - Gabriel, blow your horn and hope it's a trumpet - Sonia's back.
Who can forget Sonia-the-Lesbian? Who can forget how appallingly she treated Martin? Who can forget the totally unbelieveable and unrealistic story of Sonia getting back the baby she gave up for adoption? Who can forget the character who sounded like Ed Miliband? Who can forget Sonia, stripped naked, and waiting in Phil Mitchell's bed?
And never ever forget that with Sonia, also comes Rebecca, who's all of thirteen now. Yes, another adolescent to add to the fray. Most importantly, Sonia, like the Jacksons who are being propelled to the front, is indelibly a Branning Satellite.
I am a viewer who's watched since Episode One, and I'm losing the will to watch.
Cheaters.
A cheat is a cheat, and there's more than one way to cheat. The best part of Friday's episode concerned the Alfie-Roxy dynamic and their own various satellites.
TPTB. seeking to trivialise a horrificallu over-the-top, trash television and terrible storyline which marked seriously the spiral downward of EastEnders - the Babyswap - are going out of their way with the fanbois and retarded teens (the demographic who are currently ecstatic over DIRE's casting and Sonia's return) to convince them that a functioning psychopath is a victim of sympathy. But then, they're the same demographic who want to make lurrrve to Michael Moon, another functioning psychopath.
For the record, Alfie never ever prohibited Roxy from seeing her sister, initially. He told her he was perfectly happy for her to see her sister, just not in his home. That's not being unreasonable, considering what Ronnie had done to his family. What altered Alfie's point of view was when he returned to the Vic to find Ronnie upstairs with Roxy and Tommy. Totally out of order and totally out of order and stupid of meddlesome Dot to sneak Ronnie into the Vic, whilst Alfie was out.
For someone like Dot to think herself so self-righteous and judgemental to do something like that is preposterous.
Alfie was being honest in saying he didn't think he could cope with Ronnie living on the Square, and - again - that's understandable; but for all TPTB contrived the absolutely unbelieveable fact that Kat brought that ice-veined bitch back to a place where - again, in reality - she would be prohibited from going near, Ronnie's not shown one iota of contrition, not a smidgeon of remorse for what she's done. She struts about the Square as if she's entitled to be there.
Just because she's a Mitchell.
Last year, Kat was the one who was cheating on Alfie with Derek. Cheating in infidelity and lying to her husband.
This year, Roxy's the liar and the cheater. She's continuing to see her sister, even allowing her to walk into the flat above the pub where she lives with Alfie as if she's entitled to do so. Again. And she's lying to Alfie.
I believe her when she says she genuinely loves Alfie, but I also think her relationship with her sister is dysfunctional, co-dependent and sick. Roxy is a 35 year-old woman with a child. When under the influence of Ronnie, she becomes a child again. She was actually beginning to grow as a person, as a character and as a woman without Ronnie about. Alfie was her first adult relationship.
As for Alfie, yes, there's no doubt he still loves Kat; but he's trying to move on from what was an abusive relationship. All Alfie wants in a relationship is honesty. He may not love Roxy in the same way he loves Kat, but I think, were she totally honest with him about Ronnie, he would love her as much but in a different way. On Friday, she proved that she's totally dishonest now and that he can't trust her.
Roxy is afraid of losing Alfie - so afraid that she can't see that she's being played, but she isn't being played by Alfie.
One of the best scenes of the evening was Michael's typically cryptic conversation with Roxy, which totally unnerved her. Line of the night:-
Michael:- But this morning, Roxanne, I saw a three-legged kitten.
Roxy:- I would rather die than hurt Alfie.
Michael:- Then I fear your death may be imminent.
The Art of Manipulation.
Surprisingly and coincidentally, Channel 5 is doing a series on those people with mental issues who can never be cured of their affliction - psychopaths. Funny that, because at the moment, there are two at the front and centre of EastEnders - and they're being promoted as heroes.
Ronnie's sleeping with Jack again. Smiling at the right time, making all the right noises (probably faking orgasms too) ...
... saying all the right things, making Jack, poor bastard, believe that they have a future, the same way that she made him believe for four months that he had a son. She's doing the classic hard-to-get manoeuvre of stopping just short of committing herself to moving in with him, but not so much that his hopes die.
In the meantime, she's desperate - or so she says - to speak with Roxy, and their reunion scene is both creepy and informative. I've never seen sisters so close, not even twins. It's as though their very existence depends on one another. Well, it does. Ronnie's existence is dependent on her ability to manipulate and control people on whom she obsesses - who are Roxy and Jack.
For the first few moments of their meeting, all the sisters do is talk at each other. Roxy is upset because she's undermining her own relationship with Alfie, and she feels guilty for what she's doing to him. Ronnie's wittering on about Jackattack until she's forced to listen to Roxy's concerns.
Make no mistake, Ronnie's pissed with Alfie because he's got influence over her sister. She's pissed with him the same way she was pissed with Damien, with Sean, with anyone who held sway over her own manipulation of Roxy. That much was wordlessly expressed in the look she exchanged with Alfie outside the pub when she spied him with Roxy.l
Ronnie's advice for Roxy to tell Alfie was arrogant in the extreme. She knew precisely that Alfie wouldn't tolerate that behaviour, nor would he tolerate having to associate with someone who'd committed such a vile criminal act against his family. Of course, it would never occur to Ronnie to make some sort of sincere act of contrition or show a bit of humility toward Alfie. In her selfish, self-absorbed mind, she's "done her time." But that's not enough. Her attitude toward Alfie is entitled and arrogant.
Put the shoe on the other foot. Let's say Kat swiped a Mitchell baby. Right now, the Mitchells would be organising a family posse to get the Moons out of town. No consideration, no apologies accepted, no explanations necessary.
Ronnie, hoping Roxy would take her advice, knew exactly what she was doing when she told Roxy to tell Alfie the truth. She knew she wouldn't, and she knew exactly that Alfie would eventually find out. Roxy is a terrible liar and is soon found out. Even now, Alfie knows that, even though Roxy loves him, she's a liar. Like Kat,
And now there's the second part of Ronnie's manipulation. From nowhere, she's now amenable, cooking up a pot of spagbol, to moving in with Jack - once again, smiling the right smile, saying the right things. After all, Roxy told her how much Jack loved her, even though she binned him off whilst in prison and only wanted to see him once she'd learned he'd found someone else and was planning to marry. The only way Ronnie can allow Roxy to sustain a relationship is if she is in a relationship as well, so she may as well manipulate Jack.
How anyone can see any positives in this deeply unpleasant, psychopathic character is beyond my ken.
Fly Boy.
Yes, David Wicks was a rogue and a scoundrel the last time he lived in the Square, but he did have a conscience, and he was a pretty reasonable businessman. He just couldn't cut the family man image.
Now, in this incarnation, he's the scoundrel rogue - nicking from the market and scamming a tenner from the trader. As much as I don't like the Carol-Masood forced dynamic, I don't like the incipient love triangle, and I don't care for the retconned Carol-and-David Love Story.
Still, David was interesting to watch in this episode, although there were a couple of niggles.
Please tell me that it's not been forgotten that Pete Beale is David's dad. I want him to walk into Scarlett's and see Pete's picture there. Peter's warning for David to "stay away from his family" is ironic, considering that Peter's family is David's family too, and that David is Peter's uncle. A fitting response to Peter's warning would have been thus:-
Oi, young man, this is yer uncle you're talking to!
I'm looking forward to his scenes with Ian, considering his inability to look him in the eye and his sincere attempt at apologising to Ian before he left Walford the first time in 1996.
Also interesting was his attempt to help the hapless Joey, easily honing in on the fact that Joey and Derek weren't the best of friends; however, Rebecca Wotsit, who wrote this, needs to hone up on her research a little more. Derek didn't prohibit David from finding out he had a daughter. It was thus:- David got Carol pregnant. David conned 200 quid from his dad, Pete, to pay for Carol's abortion, and gave it to her. She didn't use it, but she sicced her brother(s) - Derek and two other unnamed older brothers who subsequently morphed into the younger brothers Max and Jack, to beat him up. After that, the Brannings ran David, his brother and his mum out of Walford. David wasn't bothered at all about ever trying to find out if he had a daughter. He simply assumed that he didn't. He then married and abandoned a wife and two small children.
The best of the David scenes tonight were with Janine. That's cracking. TPTB actually remembered that David and Janine were step-siblings. Both Michael French and Charlie Brooks looked as though they were enjoying that scene, David's quip about buying his something-like-a-sister a sandwich and offering to make money for her. Although he's a dodgy businessman, and Janine will be all to aware that he served time for tax fraud, I would like to see him look out for her, and for all his talk of family, he needs to remember he's got a brother and a niece and two nephews in Walford.
And I'm still waiting for someone to wake up, smell the coffee and remember that Janine is also Phil Mitchell's stepsister too.
Fairly decent episode, especially when Michael Moon referred to Jack as "MonkeyBoy."
That's right. Sonia Jackson Fowler, separated from Martin, newly blonde,botoxed and liposuctioned, is going to return to Albert Square in what DTC describes as an "explosive" storyline.
Let me anticipate the spoilers. After a curry night out with a colleague, a familiar face shows up at the Jacksons' door begging to use the toilet. Five minutes later and the drains in Walford are blocked, Call Den Watts! He'll know what to do!
I sometimes wonder if DTC didn't apprentice as a plasterer, because - just like under his tenure with Santer - he's papering over the cracks, giving big PR and hoping the viewing public, such as those who are left, will be diverted to such an extent that they'll forget what's really been plaguing the show for ages - bad continuation, awful retconning, lazy writing, terrible research, inexperienced actors, unlikeable characters, an imbalance of demographics and no storylines whatsoever. But hey! Let's jump up and down in anticipation of Danny DIRE taking over the Vic. Ronnie the eternal victim is back. David Wicks is hanging around, and we're suddenly learning that he and Carol are a love story - well, for EastEnders 2.0, it is. And now - Gabriel, blow your horn and hope it's a trumpet - Sonia's back.
Who can forget Sonia-the-Lesbian? Who can forget how appallingly she treated Martin? Who can forget the totally unbelieveable and unrealistic story of Sonia getting back the baby she gave up for adoption? Who can forget the character who sounded like Ed Miliband? Who can forget Sonia, stripped naked, and waiting in Phil Mitchell's bed?
And never ever forget that with Sonia, also comes Rebecca, who's all of thirteen now. Yes, another adolescent to add to the fray. Most importantly, Sonia, like the Jacksons who are being propelled to the front, is indelibly a Branning Satellite.
I am a viewer who's watched since Episode One, and I'm losing the will to watch.
Cheaters.
TPTB. seeking to trivialise a horrificallu over-the-top, trash television and terrible storyline which marked seriously the spiral downward of EastEnders - the Babyswap - are going out of their way with the fanbois and retarded teens (the demographic who are currently ecstatic over DIRE's casting and Sonia's return) to convince them that a functioning psychopath is a victim of sympathy. But then, they're the same demographic who want to make lurrrve to Michael Moon, another functioning psychopath.
For the record, Alfie never ever prohibited Roxy from seeing her sister, initially. He told her he was perfectly happy for her to see her sister, just not in his home. That's not being unreasonable, considering what Ronnie had done to his family. What altered Alfie's point of view was when he returned to the Vic to find Ronnie upstairs with Roxy and Tommy. Totally out of order and totally out of order and stupid of meddlesome Dot to sneak Ronnie into the Vic, whilst Alfie was out.
For someone like Dot to think herself so self-righteous and judgemental to do something like that is preposterous.
Alfie was being honest in saying he didn't think he could cope with Ronnie living on the Square, and - again - that's understandable; but for all TPTB contrived the absolutely unbelieveable fact that Kat brought that ice-veined bitch back to a place where - again, in reality - she would be prohibited from going near, Ronnie's not shown one iota of contrition, not a smidgeon of remorse for what she's done. She struts about the Square as if she's entitled to be there.
Just because she's a Mitchell.
Last year, Kat was the one who was cheating on Alfie with Derek. Cheating in infidelity and lying to her husband.
This year, Roxy's the liar and the cheater. She's continuing to see her sister, even allowing her to walk into the flat above the pub where she lives with Alfie as if she's entitled to do so. Again. And she's lying to Alfie.
I believe her when she says she genuinely loves Alfie, but I also think her relationship with her sister is dysfunctional, co-dependent and sick. Roxy is a 35 year-old woman with a child. When under the influence of Ronnie, she becomes a child again. She was actually beginning to grow as a person, as a character and as a woman without Ronnie about. Alfie was her first adult relationship.
As for Alfie, yes, there's no doubt he still loves Kat; but he's trying to move on from what was an abusive relationship. All Alfie wants in a relationship is honesty. He may not love Roxy in the same way he loves Kat, but I think, were she totally honest with him about Ronnie, he would love her as much but in a different way. On Friday, she proved that she's totally dishonest now and that he can't trust her.
Roxy is afraid of losing Alfie - so afraid that she can't see that she's being played, but she isn't being played by Alfie.
One of the best scenes of the evening was Michael's typically cryptic conversation with Roxy, which totally unnerved her. Line of the night:-
Michael:- But this morning, Roxanne, I saw a three-legged kitten.
Roxy:- I would rather die than hurt Alfie.
Michael:- Then I fear your death may be imminent.
The Art of Manipulation.
Surprisingly and coincidentally, Channel 5 is doing a series on those people with mental issues who can never be cured of their affliction - psychopaths. Funny that, because at the moment, there are two at the front and centre of EastEnders - and they're being promoted as heroes.
Ronnie's sleeping with Jack again. Smiling at the right time, making all the right noises (probably faking orgasms too) ...
In the meantime, she's desperate - or so she says - to speak with Roxy, and their reunion scene is both creepy and informative. I've never seen sisters so close, not even twins. It's as though their very existence depends on one another. Well, it does. Ronnie's existence is dependent on her ability to manipulate and control people on whom she obsesses - who are Roxy and Jack.
For the first few moments of their meeting, all the sisters do is talk at each other. Roxy is upset because she's undermining her own relationship with Alfie, and she feels guilty for what she's doing to him. Ronnie's wittering on about Jackattack until she's forced to listen to Roxy's concerns.
Make no mistake, Ronnie's pissed with Alfie because he's got influence over her sister. She's pissed with him the same way she was pissed with Damien, with Sean, with anyone who held sway over her own manipulation of Roxy. That much was wordlessly expressed in the look she exchanged with Alfie outside the pub when she spied him with Roxy.l
Ronnie's advice for Roxy to tell Alfie was arrogant in the extreme. She knew precisely that Alfie wouldn't tolerate that behaviour, nor would he tolerate having to associate with someone who'd committed such a vile criminal act against his family. Of course, it would never occur to Ronnie to make some sort of sincere act of contrition or show a bit of humility toward Alfie. In her selfish, self-absorbed mind, she's "done her time." But that's not enough. Her attitude toward Alfie is entitled and arrogant.
Put the shoe on the other foot. Let's say Kat swiped a Mitchell baby. Right now, the Mitchells would be organising a family posse to get the Moons out of town. No consideration, no apologies accepted, no explanations necessary.
Ronnie, hoping Roxy would take her advice, knew exactly what she was doing when she told Roxy to tell Alfie the truth. She knew she wouldn't, and she knew exactly that Alfie would eventually find out. Roxy is a terrible liar and is soon found out. Even now, Alfie knows that, even though Roxy loves him, she's a liar. Like Kat,
And now there's the second part of Ronnie's manipulation. From nowhere, she's now amenable, cooking up a pot of spagbol, to moving in with Jack - once again, smiling the right smile, saying the right things. After all, Roxy told her how much Jack loved her, even though she binned him off whilst in prison and only wanted to see him once she'd learned he'd found someone else and was planning to marry. The only way Ronnie can allow Roxy to sustain a relationship is if she is in a relationship as well, so she may as well manipulate Jack.
How anyone can see any positives in this deeply unpleasant, psychopathic character is beyond my ken.
Fly Boy.
Yes, David Wicks was a rogue and a scoundrel the last time he lived in the Square, but he did have a conscience, and he was a pretty reasonable businessman. He just couldn't cut the family man image.
Now, in this incarnation, he's the scoundrel rogue - nicking from the market and scamming a tenner from the trader. As much as I don't like the Carol-Masood forced dynamic, I don't like the incipient love triangle, and I don't care for the retconned Carol-and-David Love Story.
Still, David was interesting to watch in this episode, although there were a couple of niggles.
Please tell me that it's not been forgotten that Pete Beale is David's dad. I want him to walk into Scarlett's and see Pete's picture there. Peter's warning for David to "stay away from his family" is ironic, considering that Peter's family is David's family too, and that David is Peter's uncle. A fitting response to Peter's warning would have been thus:-
Oi, young man, this is yer uncle you're talking to!
I'm looking forward to his scenes with Ian, considering his inability to look him in the eye and his sincere attempt at apologising to Ian before he left Walford the first time in 1996.
Also interesting was his attempt to help the hapless Joey, easily honing in on the fact that Joey and Derek weren't the best of friends; however, Rebecca Wotsit, who wrote this, needs to hone up on her research a little more. Derek didn't prohibit David from finding out he had a daughter. It was thus:- David got Carol pregnant. David conned 200 quid from his dad, Pete, to pay for Carol's abortion, and gave it to her. She didn't use it, but she sicced her brother(s) - Derek and two other unnamed older brothers who subsequently morphed into the younger brothers Max and Jack, to beat him up. After that, the Brannings ran David, his brother and his mum out of Walford. David wasn't bothered at all about ever trying to find out if he had a daughter. He simply assumed that he didn't. He then married and abandoned a wife and two small children.
The best of the David scenes tonight were with Janine. That's cracking. TPTB actually remembered that David and Janine were step-siblings. Both Michael French and Charlie Brooks looked as though they were enjoying that scene, David's quip about buying his something-like-a-sister a sandwich and offering to make money for her. Although he's a dodgy businessman, and Janine will be all to aware that he served time for tax fraud, I would like to see him look out for her, and for all his talk of family, he needs to remember he's got a brother and a niece and two nephews in Walford.
And I'm still waiting for someone to wake up, smell the coffee and remember that Janine is also Phil Mitchell's stepsister too.
Fairly decent episode, especially when Michael Moon referred to Jack as "MonkeyBoy."
Noooooooo
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Natalie Cassidy !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Please don't being 'it' back - I hate Sonia more than ANY other character on TV EVER ! I do not say that with a pinch of salt, nor am I ashamed to admit that I would have loved to wrap a trumpet round her head - or over it - anything to cover that moon shaped face of hers.
Back in the day I simply had to mute the volume & turn away when she was on screen. THAT'S how much I hated her. Kat's annoying fake laugh will pale into significance if 'it' returns.
If there is a God up there ^^^ don't let this happen.
Sorry for such dramatics but I just cannot ever put into words how much I detested the rise to prominence of 'it' & her spare tyre.
Hi, another amusing recap as usual. I did wonder Emilia you often state how you dislike the show, does that mean one day you may stop with this blog? I'd be very sad if you did, makes great lunchtime reading :)
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