Death is a funny thing, you know. It edges up on someone very quickly.
Just since the last episode of EastEnders last week, Nelson Mandela has died, I had to have my oldest and sweetest dog put to sleep at fourteen, and John Swallow pulled the plug on Walford Web Bully Emporium.
Mandela was a very old man and had been infirm for quite some time. My dog had lost the use of her hind legs, so we knew she was knocking on the proverbial door; but Swallow threw the baby out with the bathwater, staunched the blood in full flow. In short, he brought the website down whilst many of his most loyal contributors were posting commentary on it. Without warning, he shut the thing down.
I'll be blogging on that singular occurrence in a separate blog, but suffice it to say that many people had contributed to that site in many ways over many years, and to squelch the thing, for whatever reason as quickly and callously as he did shows a singular lack of respect to everyone who participated in that venture.It was petty, vindictive and rude.
And it happened on the eve of the return of the Saviour - Dominic Treadwell-Collins, I mean, not Jesus Christ, although many would consider him to be just that as far as EastEnders are concerned.
We shall see.
Monday's episode was actually quite good, considering Jesse O'Mahoney wrote it. Either someone did some ghost re-writes or O'Mahoney is upping his game in hopes of joining the writing room proper.
The Only Adult in the Room.
Ronnie's song for Roxy:-
Whenever Phil's "honour" has been offended, he reaches for his trusty baseball bat and starts smashing. For the life of me, I can't figure out why Syed and Christian didn't call the police when he smashed their flat to smithereens when Ben told a porky about Christian making a move on him.
And, sure enough, in last night's episode, there he was stalking down the hall, followed by the plastic-faced psychopath who's currently pulling his strings - I'm talking about putrid Ronnie, here - egging him on into violence.
On the other side of the coin, why didn't the Mitchells call the Old Bill on Alfie? Chucking the Queen Vic bust through their window is as much criminal damage as Phil banging up Chryed's flat and attacking Christian with the baseball bat.
It's only Roxy who saves the day here, and it's supremely ironic that the Mitchell over whom all this kerfuffle started, the Mitchell who's been encouraged by her Sugly Blister to remain suspended in perpetual dolly-birdism bordering on infancy, steps up to the plate and hands Phil and the Walking Nostril their collective arses.
Roxy is right. She is the one who was dumped. This is her battle, if - indeed - there is a battle to be fought. She's certainly savvy enough to realise that the only reason Phil's been coerced into selling the Vic was to keep her in Walford. Really, Phil?
You see, this is the thing I find hardest to comprehend - that Phil would allow himself to be morally compromised to such an extent, and by Ronnie, into selling the Vic, arguably his principal source of income and something held dear by his family for two decades, over Roxy.
Yes, Roxy is a Mitchell, and family has been Phil's byword, but little over a month ago, Ronnie, the asshole who's pulling his puppet strings, was telling Phil where to go and how to get there and moving in (again) with Jack. The truth is that Phil could give a rat's arse for either of these Sugly Blisters. He certainly wouldnt sell the Vic over a slight done to Roxy, and oddly enough, Phil Mitchell once was a man of uncommon good sense. He's lost children, himself. Kathy took Ben to South Africa. Lisa absconded with Louise. Does he not understand what Ronnie did to the Moons?
Roxy doesn't want Alfie hurt - not because she wants Phil to go to prison as much as she still loves Alfie. If she didn't, she wouldn't have high-arsed it to the Vic as soon as she found out it was for sale and waited to see Alfie. In reality, I'll bet Phil wouldn't lose any sleep over Roxy leaving Walford and going to live with Peggy. He certainly wouldn't lose the Vic over it.
The most ironic line of the night came from the plastic-faced, botoxed, bitch, who views Walford as her entitlement.
Stop being a child!
Strange words from a woman who's totally intent on keeping her 36 year-old sister an adolescent child in action and thought, convincing her that she's totally inept in organising her own life and making her own decision. The ones acting like children were Ronnie and Phil, especially in that cafe scene, the way they talked down to Kat.
Ian Beale used to be the wally of Walford - the petty little man who looked down his nose at everyone and was laughed at behind the hands of all the Walford citizenry. No one likes Ian, but no one likes Phil. He's the one who's feared by the peasants of the Square, but fear doesn't equal respect.
The fact that the Mitchells want "revenge" because their tarty litter runt got stood up at the altar, when the Moons, in another life, would have sent a lynch mob Ronnie Mitchell's way, makes the Moons the bigger people in the long run.
Phil's ultimate revenge - selling Alfie's Capri for scrap and treating the pub to free drinks on its proceeds - is, at once, the most petty act of revenge I've ever seen, and the most unrealistic. Alfie's car is almost 30 years old. It's not a classic; it's a banger. I doubt it would have garnered twenty quid, much less enough dough to plaster an entire populace in a pub.
The fact that Phil just had to find something of Alfie's to destroy, if he couldn't destroy Alfie, is spoiled childishness to the extreme. You know, Roxy should just give the stiff middle finger to both Phil and her sister and go. And take Amy with her. The kid, who's four years old, just might learn to walk and talk, living elsewhere.
More than anything, Roxy needs a smack. I'd give anything to see her rubber face bouncing down Bridge street off the pavement.
Kudos to Billy Mitchell, who doesn't seem to be a part of this vendetta, but then - judging by Billy's advice to Jay in the immediate aftermath of Heather's death - Billy knows what a sublime asshole Phil can be.
Phil needs a good dose of Sharon.
The Dinner Party from Hell.
Re-hash City once again. Remember that eventful social-climbing dinner party consisting of Ian, Jane, Max,social-climbing Tanya and Rob and Dr May way back in 2007 or so? Max was banging Stacey, Rob was banging Dawn, and the Beales were desperate to move in the same social circle as a bank manager and an upper-crust doctor.
Now it's Ian who's reluctant to attend a dinner party thrown by the new kids on the block. There's lots of less-than-subtle Ian-esque humour abundant here. For example:-
Ian: It's just not a good idea to be so friendly with an employee.
Denise: Because then you couldn't be mean to him at work?
Ian: Yes.
And here I thought Ian had had a great epiphany from his mental breakdown.
Add to the ingredients Max being invited on the spur of the moment by Sexy Sadie and being told, peremptorily, to bring a date. And who, exactly does he bring?
Why, Lauren, of course.
Plot device alert! Plot device alert! Plot device alert!
I get it that Sadie, a temporary character, is being depicted as a cold, controlling and totally unsympathetic bitch. (Psst, we're meant to hate her and lurve RoNostril). And because of all of the above, this means we're meant to root for Lauren and Jake, two tortured souls driven to alcoholism by the awful events in their lives.
Most people remember Stax. I do. And I remember at the time a huge surge of sympathy for Tanya, distaste for Max, and - curiously - sympathy for Stacey. (Go figure). But now, we're being asked to root for a teenaged homewrecker, the natural successor to Tanya (who was one) and Stacey (who was another one), simply because Lauren is a Branning and the GoTo Girl-of-the-Moment.
For me, the most incongruous moment, and one which is repeated throughout various permutations, was the scene at the dinner party, in Sadie's and Jake's small, open-planned front room/dining room/kitchen, where everyone could see everyone else at close quarter and within earshot. We're asked to believe that, as Denise and Sadie examined the draperies with a fine-toothed comb at one end of the room, and whilst Ian and Max lightly conversed at the table smack-dab in the middle of the room, Lauren and Jake manage to have a sexuall-charged and provocative conversation at the breakfast bar/kitchen counter in direct vision of Lauren's father.
OK, the women had their backs turned to the proceedings and were engrossed in curtain fabric; but Lauren was in Max's direct line of vision. And Max has been around the block enough times to know when something is going on between two people, and Lauren's face told the entire story. I found it hilarious that Max and Stacey used to sneak around the main venues of Walford in full sight, and that they managed to have sex on the sofa in the Branning front room whilst a nine year-old Abi did her homework in the kitchen.
I found it even more weird that Sadie was so up her own rear end that she was that flattered by Lauren's deliberate lie about sneaking around the marital bedroom in order to "admire" Sadie's jewelry. Believe me, the only jewels in Sadie's bedroom which Lauren truly admires are found between Jake's legs.
I still don't buy this re-hase, nonetheless because Jossa and Lomas have absolutely zilch sexual chemistry. She still looks like a kid of fifteen, and he looks like a perv who needs a bath.
I'm only sorry that Sadie's leaving. She'd make a far more interesting character to stay in the Square - an independent businesswoman and a classy lady. And one who doesn't raise her voice.
Another interesting titbit gleaned from this fiasco - Ian is obviously trying to talk Max into going into partnership with him and buying the Vic, even planning to keep Kat and Alfie on as management. Did I hear correctly that Ian said Phil's asking price for the pub was £850K? Eight Hundred Fifty Thousand Pounds?!
TPTB do live in a bubble. An EastEnd boozer the likes of the Queen Vic, within walking distance of public transport, would be worth a cool million, even two. But even if it weren't, where the hell would Max Branning find that sort of money, and Ian is being financed by Janine. Max is trying to buy Jack's house. Wow.
You Don't Play a Player.
I don't get it. Joey, doing his best Max impersonation, has sussed that Michael (and Alice) were trying to kill Janine, and he reckons that Janine killed Michael to prevent him from killing her.
Er ... isn't that self-defence - or rather, justifiable homicide? And whatever happens, Alice is certainly not innocent. So maybe Joey is dumb, after all. Because Alice has admitted that she plotted to drug, then overdose Janine and take her child. She stabbed Michael. She'll be in prison for the foreseeable future.
Watching this episode made me realise just how much I'm going to miss Charlie Brooks. Stuff your Samantha Womacks and their ilk. Brooks is, arguably, the best actress on the show, and the most naturally attractive.
Oddly enough, apart from the Ava twaddle, this was the one of the weakest parts of the episode, especially the bit where Joey went out of his way to tell Janine not to tell Carol anything he said, about him trying to convince Alice to plead guilty. Did he not think that a player like Janine wouldn't go directly to Carol and play the truth right out of her.
(For all she's popular, Carol can be a rude, ungrateful bitch. She forgets that, were it not for Janine, she and that brood, would be out on the fringes of some sink estate someplace. One wonders who'll be Carol's landlord when Janine departs).
The show will miss Brooks badly, as Janine is one of the most nuanced characters in the programme's history. Like Phil Mitchell, like Ian Beale, we've watched her develop over two decades, and the long-term viewer understands exactly why Janine is the way she is. Her suss of Joey at the end, and his whiney attempt to re-convince her of his trust, was pure Janine at her best.
Janine leaves, and in her wake arrive the sibilant trio of Stacey, Sonia and Shabnam. Go figure.
A Brief Word about Alfie and Kat.
Dominic Treadwell-Collins really needs to address the issue of pejorative male characterisation on EastEnders. He shows Alfie standing up to Phil one moment and wanting to flee for his life the next. This show is already becoming boring in its depiction of mouthy, gobby women, who can't seem to exist without an innate dependency on a weak, inoffensive male in their lives.
On the other hand, it's interesting to note that most of the people who are sympathetic to Alfie and Kat are people who have, themselves, been victimised by the Mitchells in the past - Patrick, who was targeted by Phil when Ben allowed Phil to believe that Patrick had hit him; Bianca, who grassed Sam Mitchell up to the police for having entered the UK on a false passport and who also exposed Ronnie Mitchell's duplicity in manipulating Sam into lying about her baby's paternity; and Billy, who's never really been accepted by the Mitchells unless it suits them.
Offensive Racial Stereotypes.
Dexter is an insult to young Afro-Caribbean males and is a racist stereotype. He's a white privilegist's wet dream of an urban youth. As a character, however, he's a pissy, little spoiled brat who - as Cora says (her first words of wisdom) needs a slap.
He's the product of an ineffectual mother. Poor Ava the Rava may weep and wail about her fait as a single mum and how she struggled and suffered for her "boy," but in reality, she created the prototypical Little King - the spoiled brat whose every whim and mood change ruled the roost.
He's stormed off and moved in with Cora, who lives in Max's house, by Max's good grace. His first scene absolutely risible, walking in, sporting Foster Grant designer shades in the dead of winter and looking like a streetcorner pimp from Harlem, opening up the Branning fridge as if that were his right - another entitled asshole who needs a smack across his miserable, gobby, helium-voiced face, of which we saw too much in the lingering close-up to which we were treated as he rudely berated his mother in the Vic and accused her of chatting up Billy. That was atrocious behaviour, and he deserves to be made to apologise not only to his mother but also to Billy Mitchell.
Whatever Dexter thinks of Billy, he's worse.
The Hartmans were an epic fail of a cluster of characters created to assauge the vanity of an inept executive producer. The Magic Negro is leaving, being hoisted away to Newcastle on the back of a flying taxi, whils the poor man's poor attempt at Will Smith remains. It's so obvious what's about to happen here. He will slowly bond with Max to the point where he will morph into Black Bradley. I predict he'll have a romance with the Carter girl. I hope her father lands him one in his putrid gob, and then I hope he gets the axe.
Awful character. Just awful. Just go.
Well, all I can say for the first episode is "A" for effort and that Newman actually left the show in better shape for DTC than Kirkwood did for her, but I agree with Steve McFadden. The show needs new viewers and not the return of Treadwell-Collins' favourites who dominated the screen from 2007 until 2010. In short, I don't want EastEnders to be The Stacey and Ronnie Show by this time next year.
That would be a massive turn-off.
Just since the last episode of EastEnders last week, Nelson Mandela has died, I had to have my oldest and sweetest dog put to sleep at fourteen, and John Swallow pulled the plug on Walford Web Bully Emporium.
Mandela was a very old man and had been infirm for quite some time. My dog had lost the use of her hind legs, so we knew she was knocking on the proverbial door; but Swallow threw the baby out with the bathwater, staunched the blood in full flow. In short, he brought the website down whilst many of his most loyal contributors were posting commentary on it. Without warning, he shut the thing down.
I'll be blogging on that singular occurrence in a separate blog, but suffice it to say that many people had contributed to that site in many ways over many years, and to squelch the thing, for whatever reason as quickly and callously as he did shows a singular lack of respect to everyone who participated in that venture.It was petty, vindictive and rude.
And it happened on the eve of the return of the Saviour - Dominic Treadwell-Collins, I mean, not Jesus Christ, although many would consider him to be just that as far as EastEnders are concerned.
We shall see.
Monday's episode was actually quite good, considering Jesse O'Mahoney wrote it. Either someone did some ghost re-writes or O'Mahoney is upping his game in hopes of joining the writing room proper.
The Only Adult in the Room.
Ronnie's song for Roxy:-
Whenever Phil's "honour" has been offended, he reaches for his trusty baseball bat and starts smashing. For the life of me, I can't figure out why Syed and Christian didn't call the police when he smashed their flat to smithereens when Ben told a porky about Christian making a move on him.
And, sure enough, in last night's episode, there he was stalking down the hall, followed by the plastic-faced psychopath who's currently pulling his strings - I'm talking about putrid Ronnie, here - egging him on into violence.
On the other side of the coin, why didn't the Mitchells call the Old Bill on Alfie? Chucking the Queen Vic bust through their window is as much criminal damage as Phil banging up Chryed's flat and attacking Christian with the baseball bat.
It's only Roxy who saves the day here, and it's supremely ironic that the Mitchell over whom all this kerfuffle started, the Mitchell who's been encouraged by her Sugly Blister to remain suspended in perpetual dolly-birdism bordering on infancy, steps up to the plate and hands Phil and the Walking Nostril their collective arses.
Roxy is right. She is the one who was dumped. This is her battle, if - indeed - there is a battle to be fought. She's certainly savvy enough to realise that the only reason Phil's been coerced into selling the Vic was to keep her in Walford. Really, Phil?
You see, this is the thing I find hardest to comprehend - that Phil would allow himself to be morally compromised to such an extent, and by Ronnie, into selling the Vic, arguably his principal source of income and something held dear by his family for two decades, over Roxy.
Yes, Roxy is a Mitchell, and family has been Phil's byword, but little over a month ago, Ronnie, the asshole who's pulling his puppet strings, was telling Phil where to go and how to get there and moving in (again) with Jack. The truth is that Phil could give a rat's arse for either of these Sugly Blisters. He certainly wouldnt sell the Vic over a slight done to Roxy, and oddly enough, Phil Mitchell once was a man of uncommon good sense. He's lost children, himself. Kathy took Ben to South Africa. Lisa absconded with Louise. Does he not understand what Ronnie did to the Moons?
Roxy doesn't want Alfie hurt - not because she wants Phil to go to prison as much as she still loves Alfie. If she didn't, she wouldn't have high-arsed it to the Vic as soon as she found out it was for sale and waited to see Alfie. In reality, I'll bet Phil wouldn't lose any sleep over Roxy leaving Walford and going to live with Peggy. He certainly wouldn't lose the Vic over it.
The most ironic line of the night came from the plastic-faced, botoxed, bitch, who views Walford as her entitlement.
Stop being a child!
Strange words from a woman who's totally intent on keeping her 36 year-old sister an adolescent child in action and thought, convincing her that she's totally inept in organising her own life and making her own decision. The ones acting like children were Ronnie and Phil, especially in that cafe scene, the way they talked down to Kat.
Ian Beale used to be the wally of Walford - the petty little man who looked down his nose at everyone and was laughed at behind the hands of all the Walford citizenry. No one likes Ian, but no one likes Phil. He's the one who's feared by the peasants of the Square, but fear doesn't equal respect.
The fact that the Mitchells want "revenge" because their tarty litter runt got stood up at the altar, when the Moons, in another life, would have sent a lynch mob Ronnie Mitchell's way, makes the Moons the bigger people in the long run.
Phil's ultimate revenge - selling Alfie's Capri for scrap and treating the pub to free drinks on its proceeds - is, at once, the most petty act of revenge I've ever seen, and the most unrealistic. Alfie's car is almost 30 years old. It's not a classic; it's a banger. I doubt it would have garnered twenty quid, much less enough dough to plaster an entire populace in a pub.
The fact that Phil just had to find something of Alfie's to destroy, if he couldn't destroy Alfie, is spoiled childishness to the extreme. You know, Roxy should just give the stiff middle finger to both Phil and her sister and go. And take Amy with her. The kid, who's four years old, just might learn to walk and talk, living elsewhere.
More than anything, Roxy needs a smack. I'd give anything to see her rubber face bouncing down Bridge street off the pavement.
Kudos to Billy Mitchell, who doesn't seem to be a part of this vendetta, but then - judging by Billy's advice to Jay in the immediate aftermath of Heather's death - Billy knows what a sublime asshole Phil can be.
Phil needs a good dose of Sharon.
The Dinner Party from Hell.
Re-hash City once again. Remember that eventful social-climbing dinner party consisting of Ian, Jane, Max,social-climbing Tanya and Rob and Dr May way back in 2007 or so? Max was banging Stacey, Rob was banging Dawn, and the Beales were desperate to move in the same social circle as a bank manager and an upper-crust doctor.
Now it's Ian who's reluctant to attend a dinner party thrown by the new kids on the block. There's lots of less-than-subtle Ian-esque humour abundant here. For example:-
Ian: It's just not a good idea to be so friendly with an employee.
Denise: Because then you couldn't be mean to him at work?
Ian: Yes.
And here I thought Ian had had a great epiphany from his mental breakdown.
Add to the ingredients Max being invited on the spur of the moment by Sexy Sadie and being told, peremptorily, to bring a date. And who, exactly does he bring?
Why, Lauren, of course.
Plot device alert! Plot device alert! Plot device alert!
I get it that Sadie, a temporary character, is being depicted as a cold, controlling and totally unsympathetic bitch. (Psst, we're meant to hate her and lurve RoNostril). And because of all of the above, this means we're meant to root for Lauren and Jake, two tortured souls driven to alcoholism by the awful events in their lives.
Most people remember Stax. I do. And I remember at the time a huge surge of sympathy for Tanya, distaste for Max, and - curiously - sympathy for Stacey. (Go figure). But now, we're being asked to root for a teenaged homewrecker, the natural successor to Tanya (who was one) and Stacey (who was another one), simply because Lauren is a Branning and the GoTo Girl-of-the-Moment.
For me, the most incongruous moment, and one which is repeated throughout various permutations, was the scene at the dinner party, in Sadie's and Jake's small, open-planned front room/dining room/kitchen, where everyone could see everyone else at close quarter and within earshot. We're asked to believe that, as Denise and Sadie examined the draperies with a fine-toothed comb at one end of the room, and whilst Ian and Max lightly conversed at the table smack-dab in the middle of the room, Lauren and Jake manage to have a sexuall-charged and provocative conversation at the breakfast bar/kitchen counter in direct vision of Lauren's father.
OK, the women had their backs turned to the proceedings and were engrossed in curtain fabric; but Lauren was in Max's direct line of vision. And Max has been around the block enough times to know when something is going on between two people, and Lauren's face told the entire story. I found it hilarious that Max and Stacey used to sneak around the main venues of Walford in full sight, and that they managed to have sex on the sofa in the Branning front room whilst a nine year-old Abi did her homework in the kitchen.
I found it even more weird that Sadie was so up her own rear end that she was that flattered by Lauren's deliberate lie about sneaking around the marital bedroom in order to "admire" Sadie's jewelry. Believe me, the only jewels in Sadie's bedroom which Lauren truly admires are found between Jake's legs.
I still don't buy this re-hase, nonetheless because Jossa and Lomas have absolutely zilch sexual chemistry. She still looks like a kid of fifteen, and he looks like a perv who needs a bath.
I'm only sorry that Sadie's leaving. She'd make a far more interesting character to stay in the Square - an independent businesswoman and a classy lady. And one who doesn't raise her voice.
Another interesting titbit gleaned from this fiasco - Ian is obviously trying to talk Max into going into partnership with him and buying the Vic, even planning to keep Kat and Alfie on as management. Did I hear correctly that Ian said Phil's asking price for the pub was £850K? Eight Hundred Fifty Thousand Pounds?!
TPTB do live in a bubble. An EastEnd boozer the likes of the Queen Vic, within walking distance of public transport, would be worth a cool million, even two. But even if it weren't, where the hell would Max Branning find that sort of money, and Ian is being financed by Janine. Max is trying to buy Jack's house. Wow.
You Don't Play a Player.
I don't get it. Joey, doing his best Max impersonation, has sussed that Michael (and Alice) were trying to kill Janine, and he reckons that Janine killed Michael to prevent him from killing her.
Er ... isn't that self-defence - or rather, justifiable homicide? And whatever happens, Alice is certainly not innocent. So maybe Joey is dumb, after all. Because Alice has admitted that she plotted to drug, then overdose Janine and take her child. She stabbed Michael. She'll be in prison for the foreseeable future.
Watching this episode made me realise just how much I'm going to miss Charlie Brooks. Stuff your Samantha Womacks and their ilk. Brooks is, arguably, the best actress on the show, and the most naturally attractive.
Oddly enough, apart from the Ava twaddle, this was the one of the weakest parts of the episode, especially the bit where Joey went out of his way to tell Janine not to tell Carol anything he said, about him trying to convince Alice to plead guilty. Did he not think that a player like Janine wouldn't go directly to Carol and play the truth right out of her.
(For all she's popular, Carol can be a rude, ungrateful bitch. She forgets that, were it not for Janine, she and that brood, would be out on the fringes of some sink estate someplace. One wonders who'll be Carol's landlord when Janine departs).
The show will miss Brooks badly, as Janine is one of the most nuanced characters in the programme's history. Like Phil Mitchell, like Ian Beale, we've watched her develop over two decades, and the long-term viewer understands exactly why Janine is the way she is. Her suss of Joey at the end, and his whiney attempt to re-convince her of his trust, was pure Janine at her best.
Janine leaves, and in her wake arrive the sibilant trio of Stacey, Sonia and Shabnam. Go figure.
A Brief Word about Alfie and Kat.
Dominic Treadwell-Collins really needs to address the issue of pejorative male characterisation on EastEnders. He shows Alfie standing up to Phil one moment and wanting to flee for his life the next. This show is already becoming boring in its depiction of mouthy, gobby women, who can't seem to exist without an innate dependency on a weak, inoffensive male in their lives.
On the other hand, it's interesting to note that most of the people who are sympathetic to Alfie and Kat are people who have, themselves, been victimised by the Mitchells in the past - Patrick, who was targeted by Phil when Ben allowed Phil to believe that Patrick had hit him; Bianca, who grassed Sam Mitchell up to the police for having entered the UK on a false passport and who also exposed Ronnie Mitchell's duplicity in manipulating Sam into lying about her baby's paternity; and Billy, who's never really been accepted by the Mitchells unless it suits them.
Offensive Racial Stereotypes.
Dexter is an insult to young Afro-Caribbean males and is a racist stereotype. He's a white privilegist's wet dream of an urban youth. As a character, however, he's a pissy, little spoiled brat who - as Cora says (her first words of wisdom) needs a slap.
He's the product of an ineffectual mother. Poor Ava the Rava may weep and wail about her fait as a single mum and how she struggled and suffered for her "boy," but in reality, she created the prototypical Little King - the spoiled brat whose every whim and mood change ruled the roost.
He's stormed off and moved in with Cora, who lives in Max's house, by Max's good grace. His first scene absolutely risible, walking in, sporting Foster Grant designer shades in the dead of winter and looking like a streetcorner pimp from Harlem, opening up the Branning fridge as if that were his right - another entitled asshole who needs a smack across his miserable, gobby, helium-voiced face, of which we saw too much in the lingering close-up to which we were treated as he rudely berated his mother in the Vic and accused her of chatting up Billy. That was atrocious behaviour, and he deserves to be made to apologise not only to his mother but also to Billy Mitchell.
Whatever Dexter thinks of Billy, he's worse.
The Hartmans were an epic fail of a cluster of characters created to assauge the vanity of an inept executive producer. The Magic Negro is leaving, being hoisted away to Newcastle on the back of a flying taxi, whils the poor man's poor attempt at Will Smith remains. It's so obvious what's about to happen here. He will slowly bond with Max to the point where he will morph into Black Bradley. I predict he'll have a romance with the Carter girl. I hope her father lands him one in his putrid gob, and then I hope he gets the axe.
Awful character. Just awful. Just go.
Well, all I can say for the first episode is "A" for effort and that Newman actually left the show in better shape for DTC than Kirkwood did for her, but I agree with Steve McFadden. The show needs new viewers and not the return of Treadwell-Collins' favourites who dominated the screen from 2007 until 2010. In short, I don't want EastEnders to be The Stacey and Ronnie Show by this time next year.
That would be a massive turn-off.
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