The penultimate episode of Newman's EastEnders. Let's cut to the shit bit first.
Mummy Turd.
In Walford, psychopaths are like Number 10 buses. You get rid of one and another crops up to take his place.
For anyone doubting that plastic-faced Ronnie The Walking Nostril Mitchell is anything but a psychopath, the proof was in the pudding tonight in one of her penultimate lines of the piece.
With Kat succinctly reminding the po-faced, rancid-eating bitch that she, Kat, actually brought her back to Walford, that she and Alfie had actually forgiven the slapper, even reminding her of Tommy as part of the equation, she had the unmitigated gall to say that she didn't care about anyone or anything but her precious widdle sister.
But anyone with any kind of memory would realise that Ronnie has never really given a rat's arse about the Moons or their feelings. As early as the episode of the 17th April 2011, when Ronnie was being interviewed by a police psychiatrist, she was asked if she never once considered what the Moons must have been going through whilst she was parading around Walford with their son, she shrugged and said that it didn't matter to her, that she didn't know them, that she didn't care about them in the least. That's not someone "watching a different programme" (according to the deluded Ronnie-shippers inhabiting Digital Spy); that's what happened in the actual episode.
She said that, and she said it again tonight. And it's true. Psychopaths don't care about anyone. They have no empathy. They obsess about something or someone. In Michael Moon's case, he obsessed about his daughter. In Ronnie's case, she obsesses about Roxy. In fact, I would put it to you that Ronnie actually creams her dirty knickers every tie Roxy falls apart. You could tell that last night when Roxy fell off the table, and you could even smell her sexual arousal when Roxy went even moreso over the self-pitying edge tonight, hungover and feeling sorry for herself, incapable of even dressing Amy and getting her to school - and later, when she was hunched up under a blanket and clutching a teddy bear, like a spoiled child being deprived of a favourite toy.
Roxy loved Alfie? She may have done so. She certainly was fond of him, and this probably was her first adult relationship, formed when Mummy TurdSister wasn't around to hijack the development. But it certainly was the first instance in Roxy's life where she was actively dumped. I would imagine that, heretofore, it was Roxy who did the dumping, then ran off cackling with her twisted sister. Sean left her, but only after she'd been caught in her deceptive lie about Amy's paternity. And, if I recall correctly, Ronnie did a disappearing act after this too, and for the life of me, I can't remember Roxy grieving the traumatic end of that relationship.
If anything, I can remember her trying to come onto Jack and being knocked back when Jack told her he'd financially support Amy, but Roxy didn't come as part of the package.
But then, Jack was a handsome man, in love with her ice queen botoxed sister. In this instance, her dumper was a podgy middle-aged man returning to his ex-wife, a blowsy woman over forty.
The Mitchell sisters aren't nuanced at all, and I'm saying that as someone who's always liked Roxy. If anything at all, they're shallowness embodied with entitlement.
Ronnie isn't sorry for anything she's done. And part of the great inconsistency and retconning in this storyline comes with the trivialisation of the babyswap. Kat wiped any discomfort away, by telling Alfie that she was past the trauma because Tommy didn't remember it, but cop this clip from May 2011, when she confronts Ronnie, who - despite the alligator tears - doesn't give a shit about what she put Kat through. You can watch this here.
Go on.Watch it. I fucking dare you, and tell me how Kat got from that point in 2011 to the point where she was in September, when she brought this vinegar-lipped figa back to Walford. In fct, I would put it to you that everything that Ronnie said during that instance when she was released was a manipulative con to get Kat to bring her back to the Square.
How anyone can think that what Alfie did to Roxy is worse than what Ronnie did to the Moons is beyond my ken. As for Ronnie's assumption that Alfie is an insensitive idiot, she couldn't be further from wrong, and Roxy, who whined on and on about "living in the Vic for a year with her fiancé", she needs to fucking grow a pair and grow up.
She should know Alfie after living with him for a year, but she doesn't. She should know that Alfie puts on a front of trying to make everyone around him feel better, even when he's hurting inside. When she saw him chatting with Terry in the cafe, he wasn't "being himself" as if she didn't matter, he was hiding the shame he felt at having done what he did. In fact, if she had another braincell, she would have twigged then that this is exactly what he was doing when he fell into her arms the day after ending it with Kat, even though she'd been summarily warned by Big Mo to give him space. Alfie deals with his own hurt by putting on a front. Otherwise, he gets very dark, which he is about to do in the near future.
So that is proof positive that the relationship, to Roxy didn't get Alfie at all, and that Ronnie is a psychopath.
As for Phil Mitchell, I find it hard to believe that Roxy threatening to swan off to Portugal and live with Peggy (which would mean living with Sam and Richard, her son and Roxy's daughter's half-brother), would induce him to sell the Vic,easily the cash cow in the Mitchell empire. To begin with, Phi has previously been as disdainful of Roxy as he has been of Billy Mitchell, who seems to be totally removed from this situation.
The only reason Phil wants these peroxided leeches to stick around, is because there are no Mitchells or Mitchell satellites on the horizon. He's lonely, but he surely cannot be lonely enough to sell the pub in order to displace the Moons. And does he seriously expect them to leave Walford?
Maybe in another era, but Phil either doesn't know or doesn't realise that Alfie Moon has spent two stretches in prison with the hardest of cases, and he didn't have to bend over and hold his ankles.
I'm just at a loss at how much Phil Mitchell appears to have mislaid his balls - either that or, considering his own history with bonking his aunt (AssFace's mother) and the propensity for EastEnders to promote quasi-incestuous relationships, maybe Ronnie made use of the mouth too wide for her nipped and tucked face and gave Cousin Philip a blow-job, or as Shirley once described it ... "that fing that you like."
The mind boggles. Dominic Treadwell-Collins has a goldmine of a storyline lying in his lap, if he bothers to use it - a psychopathic woman psycho-sexually obsessed by her younger sister. Otherwise, the redux of the Mitchell sisters, two self-obsessed saddoes rapidly approaching middle age with memories rampant of Eye-bee-tha, simply become a regression and a statement regarding the Executive Producer's ego.
Lauren Becomes the Chick on the Side.
Boy, is this Manc-meets-Skank storyline a rehash of Stax, with little variation. The secret phonecalls, mobiles ringing at inopportune moments, the teenaged bit on the side hiding out in the marital home when the unsuspecting wife unexpectedly returns home, the unbelieveable meetings in the most obvious places in broad daylight.
Tonight there was even an incident where Jake's daughter is injured at school and he can't be reached because he's having it off with Lauren, reminiscent of the time Deano Wicks hit Abi Branning whilst Max was off entertaining Stacey.
Thing is, the storyline is so obvious - the introduction of the mysterious Sadie, a character who showed more than a bit of promise, if by being a part of a dwindling dynamic, then revealing that she is only a guest character and there as a plot device for the first adult storyline featuring ...
THE. WORST. ACTRESS. EVER. TO. APPEAR. IN. EASTENDERS.
Worked appropriately, this could be a great epiphany for the morally self-righteous Lauren,a character almost as entitled as Ronnie Branning. Lauren has tried to kill her father, she's demolished a shop front in a stolen car whilst drunk-driving, she's criminally damaged a business and assaulted Lucy Beale, yet she has no police record. (Just like Phil Mitchell, I might add).
Yet above all else, she's sat in judgement of her father, whilst remaining blissfully unaware of her mother's legion of amoral sins, for her entire life. Again, worked appropriately, this storyline could be the awakening of Lauren to the sad reality that she is no better or no worse than her white trash parents, who've selfishly satiated their sexual desires with no thought of hurting anyone else.
And that's exactly what Lauren intends to do. Her unmitigated joy at the fact that she had three entire weeks off college - as I recall, Lauren is still trying to get her A-Levels - at Christmas, giving her and Jake ample time to (as she puts it) "sneak around," is pukeworthy. She knows that this man has a wife and, also, a child, and she cares as much about that child's psychological welfare as Stacey did about hers and Abi's when she was bonking Max in the front room whilst Abi did her homework in the kitchen.
Considering that this is Newman's storyline and Jossa was her go-to girl, then I'm reckoning that any resemblance to Stax or Sadie turning into a clone of material girl and social-climber Tanya is circumstantial. I'm thinking that we're intended to root for Lauren and Jake, when - as a couple - they have less sexual chemistry than Jack Branning and Sharon. But Sadie's leaving and Jake is staying, slotted right into the Beale restaurant kitchen. Can someone please show Jamie Lomas a bathroom and a tub?
It will all end in tears. Somewhere along the line, Jake will miss his daughter and start drinking again, and Lauren will drink with him, irregardless of the stated fact that another drink will kill her. This can easily be retconned in Walford.
Tagged onto this storyline was - believe it or not - a real shaggy dog story. Abi finds a well-kept, healthy-looking mongrel barking outside the Branning home and promptly adopts it - no responsible advertisements about a dog found in the street, no health checks for microchips or anything. Dogs either disappear without a trace in Walford (Chips, Albert), are forgotten (Terence) or appear from nowhere and are instantly adopted by a family who can't look after themselves, much less a dog (Wellard,Tramp).
The sitcom-contrived reaction of Abi and Lauren to Tramp's arrival produced one of the few bad performances from Jake Wood in his career. That was embarrassing.
As for the name, if this dog is a bitch, it could easily apply to the majority of the female population of Walford.
Speaking of which ...
That's Why the Lady Is a Tramp.
The shining light that is Janine is about to depart, and tonight we get words of wisdom from, of all people, Billy Mitchell.
I love the Billy-Janine dynamic and their friendship, especially how when she's in clover, she looks after him by giving him a job and some security, and he subtly keeps an eye on her.
At last, it took Billy to voice something that's been bothering me for ages, since Michael died: Janine shouldn't be anywhere near Joey Branning. In fact, the first time he approached her, badgering her about Alice in the wake of Alice's arrest, she should have phoned the police, and Joey would have been banged up inside to keep his sister company.
As Billy is at pains to point out, this is the man whose sister killed Janine's husband. This puts nobbling the witness into a whole new perspective, because that is exactly what Janine is - a witness to Michael's death, in the eyes of the law. Yep, we know what Janine did, but Alice is far from innocent. After all, she plotted with Michael, first to drug Janine, then to kill her and kidnap her child. She also broke a court injunction by allowing Michael to see Scarlett.
The fact that sheer sense emanated from Billy's cakehole seemed to jolt Janine into reality, especially when she realised Joey had taken Scarlett out. She realised what this would look like to the public and called a halt right there with Joey, who's refusing to take the bait; but the old, familiar trust issue has reared itself with Janine, and not before time.
You can't play a player, and Janine now knows what Joey's game is.
I absolutely adore Charlie Brooks and her expressive face, which belies dialogue. The show will miss her, because it sounds as though it's going to be a long time before she returns.
The Walton Butchers.
That's what it feels like at the Butcher Arms at the moment. The Walton Butchers or, rather, the Chav Waltons.
Can you imagine the Waltons as the Butchers?
John-Boy-Liam, whur's yer grandmaw?
Grandmaw didn't come home last night, Mamma. She stayed out all night with that that Masood Godsey.
Mamma, when can I stay out all night with Bobby Joe Beale? After all, he's my cousin and we oughta start makin' other little cousins afore too long.
You shet your mouf, Tiffany-Erin. Else you'll end up like your older sister Whitney-Ellen. Folks call her the Walford Mattress.
Mamma, why does Uncle Ian Beale call you a foghorn?
Shet up, Morgan-Jim-Bob. It's time fer school.
Bianca's worried that Terry's a chancer with women, based on Nikki's chance remark, so she asks her "overprotective father" (who didn't bother with contacting her for over ten years before just stepping back into her life again) to explain why Terry did that, because David was a chancer also.
David, of course, cleverly dodges the question. (By the way, how does David know that Bianca loves Christmas when he's never been there for Christmas with her before? Previously, he spent Christmas in Walford with Pat and a teenaged Greek Janine).
What I need to know is why Nikki and Terry split up? Did she kick him out because of his infidelities or what? He's got the kids, but they seem to be shifting around depending on his amours. And it's obvious that the dying father and losing his flat were lies. Putting up a few fairy lights in the front room won't win you Bianca's trust.
Another thing ... the ever expanding Butcher house. I know most of those terraced houses are the same layout inside, and you can see that. Just compare the Masoods' house and the Branning's house. Originally the old Victorian terraced houses had a front room and a dining room behind it, connecting with the kitchen. Pauline's house used to be this way, but the front room had been converted into a bedroom for Lou.
Ian, as David pointed out, had knocked through and created a lounge-diner - as the Masoods' house, the Branning's house, the Stones' house, and Janine's are. Dot's house and the Slaters' seem to retain the old layout - small front room, another room behind it, next to the kitchen. In these instances, rarely is the small room ever used as a dining room, but as a spare bedroom.
Charlie Slater used this as his bedroom. Subsequently, Eddie Moon did. And Dot converted it into a bedroom for her and Jim after his stroke. Last night, we saw, for the first time, a door leading into this room at the Butchers'. Funny, because, for all their front room is tiny, I could never figure out what lay behind it, because the kitchen hadn't been extended. Last night, Terry seemed to want to convert it into a bedroom for the boys. Eh? And I also thought that the Butcher house, formerly the old Mitchell house, had four bedrooms upstairs - one for Morgan and Liam, one for Tiff and Whitney, one for Bianca (and originally Ricky) and one for Pat (probably Carol now).
As Janine was using the couch a few weeks back and Carol hasn't cheated on Masood with David yet, I thought he was bunking down with the boys.
Phil Mitchell's house is all over the place - one minute he's got a through lounge diner with connecting French doors, the next, the dining room is across the hall from the lounge.
Carol spending Christmas with the Masoods? Funny, how the Masoods never really celebrated Christmas before.
Watchable episode, but still filler, except for the POS that is Ronnie Mitchell.
Mummy Turd.
In Walford, psychopaths are like Number 10 buses. You get rid of one and another crops up to take his place.
For anyone doubting that plastic-faced Ronnie The Walking Nostril Mitchell is anything but a psychopath, the proof was in the pudding tonight in one of her penultimate lines of the piece.
With Kat succinctly reminding the po-faced, rancid-eating bitch that she, Kat, actually brought her back to Walford, that she and Alfie had actually forgiven the slapper, even reminding her of Tommy as part of the equation, she had the unmitigated gall to say that she didn't care about anyone or anything but her precious widdle sister.
But anyone with any kind of memory would realise that Ronnie has never really given a rat's arse about the Moons or their feelings. As early as the episode of the 17th April 2011, when Ronnie was being interviewed by a police psychiatrist, she was asked if she never once considered what the Moons must have been going through whilst she was parading around Walford with their son, she shrugged and said that it didn't matter to her, that she didn't know them, that she didn't care about them in the least. That's not someone "watching a different programme" (according to the deluded Ronnie-shippers inhabiting Digital Spy); that's what happened in the actual episode.
She said that, and she said it again tonight. And it's true. Psychopaths don't care about anyone. They have no empathy. They obsess about something or someone. In Michael Moon's case, he obsessed about his daughter. In Ronnie's case, she obsesses about Roxy. In fact, I would put it to you that Ronnie actually creams her dirty knickers every tie Roxy falls apart. You could tell that last night when Roxy fell off the table, and you could even smell her sexual arousal when Roxy went even moreso over the self-pitying edge tonight, hungover and feeling sorry for herself, incapable of even dressing Amy and getting her to school - and later, when she was hunched up under a blanket and clutching a teddy bear, like a spoiled child being deprived of a favourite toy.
Roxy loved Alfie? She may have done so. She certainly was fond of him, and this probably was her first adult relationship, formed when Mummy TurdSister wasn't around to hijack the development. But it certainly was the first instance in Roxy's life where she was actively dumped. I would imagine that, heretofore, it was Roxy who did the dumping, then ran off cackling with her twisted sister. Sean left her, but only after she'd been caught in her deceptive lie about Amy's paternity. And, if I recall correctly, Ronnie did a disappearing act after this too, and for the life of me, I can't remember Roxy grieving the traumatic end of that relationship.
If anything, I can remember her trying to come onto Jack and being knocked back when Jack told her he'd financially support Amy, but Roxy didn't come as part of the package.
But then, Jack was a handsome man, in love with her ice queen botoxed sister. In this instance, her dumper was a podgy middle-aged man returning to his ex-wife, a blowsy woman over forty.
The Mitchell sisters aren't nuanced at all, and I'm saying that as someone who's always liked Roxy. If anything at all, they're shallowness embodied with entitlement.
Ronnie isn't sorry for anything she's done. And part of the great inconsistency and retconning in this storyline comes with the trivialisation of the babyswap. Kat wiped any discomfort away, by telling Alfie that she was past the trauma because Tommy didn't remember it, but cop this clip from May 2011, when she confronts Ronnie, who - despite the alligator tears - doesn't give a shit about what she put Kat through. You can watch this here.
Go on.Watch it. I fucking dare you, and tell me how Kat got from that point in 2011 to the point where she was in September, when she brought this vinegar-lipped figa back to Walford. In fct, I would put it to you that everything that Ronnie said during that instance when she was released was a manipulative con to get Kat to bring her back to the Square.
How anyone can think that what Alfie did to Roxy is worse than what Ronnie did to the Moons is beyond my ken. As for Ronnie's assumption that Alfie is an insensitive idiot, she couldn't be further from wrong, and Roxy, who whined on and on about "living in the Vic for a year with her fiancé", she needs to fucking grow a pair and grow up.
She should know Alfie after living with him for a year, but she doesn't. She should know that Alfie puts on a front of trying to make everyone around him feel better, even when he's hurting inside. When she saw him chatting with Terry in the cafe, he wasn't "being himself" as if she didn't matter, he was hiding the shame he felt at having done what he did. In fact, if she had another braincell, she would have twigged then that this is exactly what he was doing when he fell into her arms the day after ending it with Kat, even though she'd been summarily warned by Big Mo to give him space. Alfie deals with his own hurt by putting on a front. Otherwise, he gets very dark, which he is about to do in the near future.
So that is proof positive that the relationship, to Roxy didn't get Alfie at all, and that Ronnie is a psychopath.
As for Phil Mitchell, I find it hard to believe that Roxy threatening to swan off to Portugal and live with Peggy (which would mean living with Sam and Richard, her son and Roxy's daughter's half-brother), would induce him to sell the Vic,easily the cash cow in the Mitchell empire. To begin with, Phi has previously been as disdainful of Roxy as he has been of Billy Mitchell, who seems to be totally removed from this situation.
The only reason Phil wants these peroxided leeches to stick around, is because there are no Mitchells or Mitchell satellites on the horizon. He's lonely, but he surely cannot be lonely enough to sell the pub in order to displace the Moons. And does he seriously expect them to leave Walford?
Maybe in another era, but Phil either doesn't know or doesn't realise that Alfie Moon has spent two stretches in prison with the hardest of cases, and he didn't have to bend over and hold his ankles.
I'm just at a loss at how much Phil Mitchell appears to have mislaid his balls - either that or, considering his own history with bonking his aunt (AssFace's mother) and the propensity for EastEnders to promote quasi-incestuous relationships, maybe Ronnie made use of the mouth too wide for her nipped and tucked face and gave Cousin Philip a blow-job, or as Shirley once described it ... "that fing that you like."
The mind boggles. Dominic Treadwell-Collins has a goldmine of a storyline lying in his lap, if he bothers to use it - a psychopathic woman psycho-sexually obsessed by her younger sister. Otherwise, the redux of the Mitchell sisters, two self-obsessed saddoes rapidly approaching middle age with memories rampant of Eye-bee-tha, simply become a regression and a statement regarding the Executive Producer's ego.
Lauren Becomes the Chick on the Side.
Boy, is this Manc-meets-Skank storyline a rehash of Stax, with little variation. The secret phonecalls, mobiles ringing at inopportune moments, the teenaged bit on the side hiding out in the marital home when the unsuspecting wife unexpectedly returns home, the unbelieveable meetings in the most obvious places in broad daylight.
Tonight there was even an incident where Jake's daughter is injured at school and he can't be reached because he's having it off with Lauren, reminiscent of the time Deano Wicks hit Abi Branning whilst Max was off entertaining Stacey.
Thing is, the storyline is so obvious - the introduction of the mysterious Sadie, a character who showed more than a bit of promise, if by being a part of a dwindling dynamic, then revealing that she is only a guest character and there as a plot device for the first adult storyline featuring ...
THE. WORST. ACTRESS. EVER. TO. APPEAR. IN. EASTENDERS.
Worked appropriately, this could be a great epiphany for the morally self-righteous Lauren,a character almost as entitled as Ronnie Branning. Lauren has tried to kill her father, she's demolished a shop front in a stolen car whilst drunk-driving, she's criminally damaged a business and assaulted Lucy Beale, yet she has no police record. (Just like Phil Mitchell, I might add).
Yet above all else, she's sat in judgement of her father, whilst remaining blissfully unaware of her mother's legion of amoral sins, for her entire life. Again, worked appropriately, this storyline could be the awakening of Lauren to the sad reality that she is no better or no worse than her white trash parents, who've selfishly satiated their sexual desires with no thought of hurting anyone else.
And that's exactly what Lauren intends to do. Her unmitigated joy at the fact that she had three entire weeks off college - as I recall, Lauren is still trying to get her A-Levels - at Christmas, giving her and Jake ample time to (as she puts it) "sneak around," is pukeworthy. She knows that this man has a wife and, also, a child, and she cares as much about that child's psychological welfare as Stacey did about hers and Abi's when she was bonking Max in the front room whilst Abi did her homework in the kitchen.
Considering that this is Newman's storyline and Jossa was her go-to girl, then I'm reckoning that any resemblance to Stax or Sadie turning into a clone of material girl and social-climber Tanya is circumstantial. I'm thinking that we're intended to root for Lauren and Jake, when - as a couple - they have less sexual chemistry than Jack Branning and Sharon. But Sadie's leaving and Jake is staying, slotted right into the Beale restaurant kitchen. Can someone please show Jamie Lomas a bathroom and a tub?
It will all end in tears. Somewhere along the line, Jake will miss his daughter and start drinking again, and Lauren will drink with him, irregardless of the stated fact that another drink will kill her. This can easily be retconned in Walford.
Tagged onto this storyline was - believe it or not - a real shaggy dog story. Abi finds a well-kept, healthy-looking mongrel barking outside the Branning home and promptly adopts it - no responsible advertisements about a dog found in the street, no health checks for microchips or anything. Dogs either disappear without a trace in Walford (Chips, Albert), are forgotten (Terence) or appear from nowhere and are instantly adopted by a family who can't look after themselves, much less a dog (Wellard,Tramp).
The sitcom-contrived reaction of Abi and Lauren to Tramp's arrival produced one of the few bad performances from Jake Wood in his career. That was embarrassing.
As for the name, if this dog is a bitch, it could easily apply to the majority of the female population of Walford.
Speaking of which ...
That's Why the Lady Is a Tramp.
The shining light that is Janine is about to depart, and tonight we get words of wisdom from, of all people, Billy Mitchell.
I love the Billy-Janine dynamic and their friendship, especially how when she's in clover, she looks after him by giving him a job and some security, and he subtly keeps an eye on her.
At last, it took Billy to voice something that's been bothering me for ages, since Michael died: Janine shouldn't be anywhere near Joey Branning. In fact, the first time he approached her, badgering her about Alice in the wake of Alice's arrest, she should have phoned the police, and Joey would have been banged up inside to keep his sister company.
As Billy is at pains to point out, this is the man whose sister killed Janine's husband. This puts nobbling the witness into a whole new perspective, because that is exactly what Janine is - a witness to Michael's death, in the eyes of the law. Yep, we know what Janine did, but Alice is far from innocent. After all, she plotted with Michael, first to drug Janine, then to kill her and kidnap her child. She also broke a court injunction by allowing Michael to see Scarlett.
The fact that sheer sense emanated from Billy's cakehole seemed to jolt Janine into reality, especially when she realised Joey had taken Scarlett out. She realised what this would look like to the public and called a halt right there with Joey, who's refusing to take the bait; but the old, familiar trust issue has reared itself with Janine, and not before time.
You can't play a player, and Janine now knows what Joey's game is.
I absolutely adore Charlie Brooks and her expressive face, which belies dialogue. The show will miss her, because it sounds as though it's going to be a long time before she returns.
The Walton Butchers.
That's what it feels like at the Butcher Arms at the moment. The Walton Butchers or, rather, the Chav Waltons.
Can you imagine the Waltons as the Butchers?
John-Boy-Liam, whur's yer grandmaw?
Grandmaw didn't come home last night, Mamma. She stayed out all night with that that Masood Godsey.
Mamma, when can I stay out all night with Bobby Joe Beale? After all, he's my cousin and we oughta start makin' other little cousins afore too long.
You shet your mouf, Tiffany-Erin. Else you'll end up like your older sister Whitney-Ellen. Folks call her the Walford Mattress.
Mamma, why does Uncle Ian Beale call you a foghorn?
Shet up, Morgan-Jim-Bob. It's time fer school.
Bianca's worried that Terry's a chancer with women, based on Nikki's chance remark, so she asks her "overprotective father" (who didn't bother with contacting her for over ten years before just stepping back into her life again) to explain why Terry did that, because David was a chancer also.
David, of course, cleverly dodges the question. (By the way, how does David know that Bianca loves Christmas when he's never been there for Christmas with her before? Previously, he spent Christmas in Walford with Pat and a teenaged Greek Janine).
What I need to know is why Nikki and Terry split up? Did she kick him out because of his infidelities or what? He's got the kids, but they seem to be shifting around depending on his amours. And it's obvious that the dying father and losing his flat were lies. Putting up a few fairy lights in the front room won't win you Bianca's trust.
Another thing ... the ever expanding Butcher house. I know most of those terraced houses are the same layout inside, and you can see that. Just compare the Masoods' house and the Branning's house. Originally the old Victorian terraced houses had a front room and a dining room behind it, connecting with the kitchen. Pauline's house used to be this way, but the front room had been converted into a bedroom for Lou.
Ian, as David pointed out, had knocked through and created a lounge-diner - as the Masoods' house, the Branning's house, the Stones' house, and Janine's are. Dot's house and the Slaters' seem to retain the old layout - small front room, another room behind it, next to the kitchen. In these instances, rarely is the small room ever used as a dining room, but as a spare bedroom.
Charlie Slater used this as his bedroom. Subsequently, Eddie Moon did. And Dot converted it into a bedroom for her and Jim after his stroke. Last night, we saw, for the first time, a door leading into this room at the Butchers'. Funny, because, for all their front room is tiny, I could never figure out what lay behind it, because the kitchen hadn't been extended. Last night, Terry seemed to want to convert it into a bedroom for the boys. Eh? And I also thought that the Butcher house, formerly the old Mitchell house, had four bedrooms upstairs - one for Morgan and Liam, one for Tiff and Whitney, one for Bianca (and originally Ricky) and one for Pat (probably Carol now).
As Janine was using the couch a few weeks back and Carol hasn't cheated on Masood with David yet, I thought he was bunking down with the boys.
Phil Mitchell's house is all over the place - one minute he's got a through lounge diner with connecting French doors, the next, the dining room is across the hall from the lounge.
Carol spending Christmas with the Masoods? Funny, how the Masoods never really celebrated Christmas before.
Watchable episode, but still filler, except for the POS that is Ronnie Mitchell.
Ronnie Mitchell makes me fucking sick. And the bunch of braindead fuckrags defending her every move insisting that what she's doing is acceptable because she's just looking out for her sister make me just as sick. I wouldn't mind half as much if they were playing her as the villain and we could all be promised she'd get her arse handed to her and a good kicking at some point but you just know the goons at Eastenders are pushing her as the hero who we'll all rally around. They can get fucked. Thankfully the tide seems to be turning even with the usual dross on Facebook. A lot of people aren't liking bitch-from-hell Ronnie. Lets hope it gets too much for Womack like it did last time and she disappears. Fucking revolting character and in very bad taste for the showrunners to be having her act the way she is and expecting us to get behind her. But then they've been making a bit of a habit of miscalculating viewer reactions and showing up their own questionable moral values lately, expecting everybody to join in the laughs as Bianca and Kat bullied Tamwar or thinking we'd all feel sorry for poor widdle Whitney even though her conduct was highly unprofessional.
ReplyDeleteI don't care about Ronnie - one bit, but I just can't swallow the loved up K&A.
ReplyDeleteI know you posted something about this recently Emilia - but I did regularly comment about Tanya being a doormat, & that's what makes me sick about K&A.
Yes he loves her unconditionally but I don't think that would have overcome what he had with Roxy. Time has passed, he has always fancied Roxy & to lead her all the way to the alter only to have a last minute epiphany - well he's gonna get it in the neck for a while.
Ronnie is doing what I hope my brother would for me. So I was glad that she wiped the smile off their happy faces.
I find it really hard to believe that David is still plotting with Carol in mind. As you've said before she's just comfort sex - a roof over the head shag.
Talking about shag-gy dogs - WTF ?
So you think being jilted at the altar is far worse than dumping a dead baby on a couple and taking their living one because you think you're entitled to something like that because of your name? After doing what she did and being rightly reminded by Kat that it was by the good graces of the Moons that Ronnie's sorry arse was even allowed to be back in Walford, she had the tactless audacity to say she didn't give a rat's arse about anyone but her sister. She said the same back in 2011 when a police shrink was interviewing her - that she didn't care at all about the Moons when she took Tommy, because she didn't know them. Frankly, I hope she leaves Walford in a box.
DeleteI can't stand Ronnie and her damn Mitchell entitlement. She knew what she was doing when she took Tommy as she was going to put him back until Jack came home. She then had the gall to keep Kat from Tommy for those 4 months she kept him, even going as far as making sure that Kat got no chance of looking at Tommy. She knew exactly what she was doing and she watched as they suffered one of the worst things to happen to a parent and as someone who had lost her baby Ronnie should have known what that was like. A broken heart can be mended, losing the first 4 months of your baby's life can't be got back. What Roxy is suffering will go in time, what Ronnie did to the Moon's will be there forever. It is only down to the Moon's that the stupid entitled bitch is allowed back to be with her family, Ronnie should remember that.
ReplyDeleteI actually wonder if Whitney is cleaning her act up. We havent seen her look at any since Tyler left, how many months ago? Or is it she just hasnt had much screen time? The other question I have, is her employment status. I dont know how things are in the UK, but she is trained as a preschool teacher, wouldnt she make more money at that, rather than a teacher aide? (teacher aides here are paid enough to cover their costs and thats about it. They have a little training, but are mainly there to help children with disabilities, rather than playground supervision, which is all I have seen Whitney do).
ReplyDeletePP
Right - so you think Ronnie is a psycho...
ReplyDeleteGet that everyone ? FE thinks RONNIE IS A PSYCHO !
As it happens I think we've all got it. Why ? because you've been banging on & on & on & on about it since she returned in nearly EVERY blog you've posted since.
So Ronnie is a psycho, & guess what ? I agree. But a lot about Ronnie is that she is also very cold hearted. I'm not going to jump on the K&A bandwagon though because it is down to Kat that Ronnie is back in their lives.
Kat was a heartless cow for going to meet her and pardoning her for her crime and then inviting her back to the square without consulting anyone.