Tonight, I realised that the strongest male character on EastEnders is Patrick Trueman. This show is at its lowest ebb in its depiction of men, in general. It's not on its own. It's in very good company with Coronation Street, who is losing Peter Barlow, the character who is arguably one of the two last flawed Alpha males left in the English soap genre, the other being Cain Dingle on Emmerdale. Phil Mitchell is led via a psychological hook through the brain by his psychopathic cousin, Ronnie, and via a ring through his dick by Sharon. Ian can't be without a female companion; David is defined by the women who control his libido. Masood is a shadow of the man he once was without Zainab around. Max is another one whose life decisions have been influenced by whatever woman he happened to be fucking at a particular time. Jack left town, crying because Ronnie dumped him. Jay is ordered about by Abi; Lola dictates to Peter and Billy. Hairy Cindy the Greek is calling the shots with TJ as much as Bianca does with Terry, and Alfie has long been labelled Kat's doormat. Johnnie Carter is a mamma's boy. Women drive Jake Stone to drink. And now we know that Mick Carter, brought in to front the Vic, is a pussy man too. He's not the central male focal point in charge of the central focal point of action on the show. He's a plot device, a weak and wavering man caught between his shill of a wife and his skank of a sister. He will be the bitch of whoever can psychologically play him best. It's about time this dynamic changed. Emotional Blackmail.
So now we know that the big star is but a plot device to set up Dominic Treadwell-Collins's continued promotion of Shirley Carter as the face and main character of EastEnders. Almost as soon as he arrives, Danny Dyer is shunted into the background of the piece. Like the football team he supports, West Ham, he's in serious danger of being relegated into the Alfie Moon position of doormat, not to one, but to two women. As annoying as she can be (which means Kellie Bright is doing her job to perfection), I'm Team Linda here. Linda is right. There should be no "choice" for Mick to make between his sister and his wife. His loyalty first is to his wife and the mother of his children. To be held and twisted by the short and curlies by Shirley telling what was essentially a tissue of lies is degrading. Let's disabuse Shirley of some of her ego-inflated notions. I got that money for you. You agreed to see your father after 25 years. It's not unusual for a parent, no matter how bad they'd been, to want to see a child after a lengthy amount of time. But pardon me for thinking that Stan's condition was that Shirley come upstairs and he'd give Mick the money. Mick walks around like a scared little kid because Daddio told Shirley that "her type" would be dead before thirty. That wasn't something awful to say, especially if he were speaking to a woman who'd walked out on her husband and three small children, one of whom had special needs. Shirley left Kevin and their three vulnerable children to party down with Heather. In fact, she was much more of a parental figure to Heather than she ever was to her kids, so much so that Heather was jealous of them. Mick's frightened at "what happened" between Stan and Shirley. Well, nothing happened, except he told her a few unpleasant home truths about the fact that Mick had established his own family - a wife and three kids - and Shirley was on the periphery. She had no right to dictate and interfere in Mick's life, because she had a son, with whom she'd not been in contact for years, and she owed him one hell of an explanation. That wasn't anything bad; it was the truth. Just as it's the truth that Shirley doesn't want to face Dean because it would mean explaining to Dean, and to Mick, why she really wasn't any better than her father. In fact, she was worse. Linda's stated that Stan was "a monster," and that's sparked speculation amongst the one collective braincell on Digital Spy that maybe Stan raped Linda - you know, the way Derek raped Tanya. Stan was a weak and ineffectual man whose loins produced a weak and ineffectual man whose loins produced two weak and ineffectual men. We've had the off-screen tale of a man who consigned his children to care because he couldn't cope - Billy Mitchell's father, and the senior branch of the Mitchells thought him the epitome of weakness. We've had the father whose wife died, who was unable to cope and consigned his youngest and most vulnerable child to a lifetime of being passed between pillar and post and treated as an inconvenience. Step forward, Frank Butcher. That's Stan's sin - putting two very young children in care. And so, because she's been told a few home truths, Shirley is going to take Mick's balls, in the shape of ten thousand pounds and leave. Mick should have taken his balls back and called her bluff. There's such a thing as a loan, and even if it meant Mick would have to - heaven forbid - mortgage the Vic, he'd still get the money to pay for the repair of the rising damp. Shirley is more interested in getting in a position of power within Mick's dynamic and thus displacing Linda. She's more interested in doing that, than in seeing her son. Why? Because Mick is more malleable to emotional manipulation than Dean. Dean is the son she abandoned. He's the one who sussed she'd rather fuck a Polish builder than spend time with her child. When Mick found Dean's telephone number and confronted Shirley, it gave her the opportunity to play the victim and tell him what Stan had said about Mick's duty to his wife and children. As much as Mick recognises this as Stan playing Shirley, he doesn't recognise that Shirley is playing him. It's emotional blackmail. I'm so insecure and I have no one. Make me the licencee and give me a stake in the Vic, so I'll feel important. After all, I found the place for you. Shirley took advantage of the fact that Mick had spent most of his married life working for his dominant mother-in-law and coddling his dominant wife. So Shirley convinced him to buy the Vic, sight unseen, and was handed a bill of sale, at half-a-million pounds more than the asking price. And now Mick is forced into the position of having to choose between Linda and Shirley. And then Mick plays Linda. There is no choice when it comes to you, L. But there is a choice, and Mick made it: he chose to make Shirley the licencee of the pub he bought with his money. And once again, Shirley, has achieved a position of power and influence via emotional blackmail. She gained the position of living with Phil by lying to Social Services in an effort to gain custody of Phil's daughter for Phil and she cashed in on her faux position as the quasi-Mrs Mitchell. She also emotionally blackmailed Phil into giving her money (which Carl took) in order to buy a bar in Greece. Now she's in the DoyouknowwhoIam mode again, not through any efforts of her own, but by emotional manipulation of a more vulnerable and weaker person - Heather, Jean and now Mick. It astounds me how Mick can judge his father for putting him into care, and not spare a single judgemental thought for Shirley abandoning her three small children. Linda's been displaced, and I hope she makes Mick live to rue the day. This couple, because of Shirley, is now living on a time bomb. Within a year, one will be ensconced in an affair with a secret partner who "understands" him or her better than the spouse, and the other will be a fully paid-up member of the lush club, but who will it be? The Carter siblings are nothing more than three overgrown and very puerile children. Tina's only concerned about them all "being togevva" again - we're talking about two adult women, one pushing forty and the other post-menopausal, living under the care of their younger brother, who's being emotionally manipulated by both. And we also are going from the sublime to the ridiculous with the Carter dynamic with Mick telling his twenty-one year-old adult daughter that he wanted to keep her right with him, always. There's no balance at all here, just blatant immaturity all around. DTC says this isn't going to be The Carter Show. Maybe not, but it's fast becoming The Shirley Show. Shirley makes a demand, doesn't get the answer she wants right away, and so she sulks enough to make her object suffer from enough guilt to oblige her demands. Linda isn't happy. I don't blame her. A Partial Admission of Responsibility.
Carol is all loved up, having been fucked by David, and so she can afford to be generous and show some patronising compassion to Masood, who's in a very bad place. He's drinking, he's gambling and he's stolen from his son. He's on suspension from work and in danger of losing his job. Why? Because of Carol. So desperate, so alone and so frightened is this man, who's never put a foot wrong as a husband or father within his faith, that he misinterprets Carol's concern for his having cut himself as a return of the affections she stopped. When he breaks down and tells Carol what he's done to Tamwar, she tells him what Arthur has told him - he has to talk to his son. David clocks him leaving and is immediately suspicious. Let's get one thing straight. David might be fond of Carol, he might have a bond with her via Bianca, but he doesn't love her. David, like Ian, wants comfort sex, and at the moment, Granny Carol is the only thing on offer. With her, comes free room and board and the opportunity to be the Big I Am father figure to a family of idiots, headed by his Village Idiot daughter. When something better comes along, in the form of a woman like Nikki Spraggan, Granny Carol will be forgotten. So convincing is David's motif that Carol's feeling smug enough to admit that "part" of Masood's problem just might be because of her, but hey ... she's not losing any sleep over it. Unbelieveable line of the night came from David:- I'm going to make this all about you, and it's time you started thinking about yourself too. Carol has never ever stopped thinking about herself. She's a Branning, after all. And now David has given her tacit permission to acknowledge the fact that she comes before anyone else, in sickness and in health. This cancer crisis has been all about Carol, but for the wrong reasons. More Carter Pejoratives. Mick to Nancy: Have you farted? That was as charming as the scene at Christmas 2007 when Heather was sitting on the sofa beside Shirley and lifted one half of her fat arse to cut a loud fart. OK, this is normal and natural daily activity/dialogue in the privacy of one's own home, but we don't need it shoved down our throats. It's disgusting. What's next? Shots of Mick wiping his hairy arse in the family loo? Shots of Nancy or Linda flushing bloody tampons down the toilet? Honker the hero tonight, when Tina is still skanky enough to try to pull special privileges after having worked in the pub for only a couple of days. It's this stuff that isn't charming, but grating on some viewers' nerves about the incredibly stupid and entitled Carters. Poopy Pops Out. I'm glad Arthur called out Poopy's passive-aggressive nature. She was wrong to say what she said to the caller on Dot's phone, but I was curiously sympathetic to her when she confronted Denise about what went on between her and Arthur. Poopy is much younger than Denise, and rather than admitting she'd done something wrong, Denise stood her ground, irrespective of the fact that she's engaged to Ian and really shouldn't have kissed Arthur at all. I agree with Denise that what happened between her and Arthur last year, the affair, happened well before he was attracted to Poopy. This is Poopy's exit. We won't miss her, but the repercussions of her final act of revenge as a woman scorned, was classic. She deserved the duff-duff. And, Poopy, there is no rule in the laws of love about who dumps whom. Deal with it. Watchable episode, but infuriating the way Shirley is being forced on the viewer.
So ... the Messiah is going to yuppify Walford, allegedly to reflect that real part of London. Are we going to see Somalis in the street, women in burkhas, and Eastern Europeans using their cacophonied language in the background? When DTC gave his original interview, it was all about taking the show back to its roots, with a tip to the 80s and 90s. There were yuppies in the original cast - Ross and Debs. Ross got run over by a bus, as I recall, and I can't remember what happened to Debs. Then there was James Wilmot-Brown, who owned the Dagmar, which is now the venue Sharon has bought. Oh, yes ... Wilmot-Brown was a rapist. He raped salt-of-the-earth Kathy Beale, such an icon of Walford that several fanbois who never knew her whine regularly to have her dug up and her zombie brought back to Walford. The next time we saw yuppies was when DTC earned his stripes during Santer's tenure. Ah, yes ... there was Mad May, the doctor who blew up the Millers' home and tried to gut Dawn for her baby, and there was Stella, the solicitor and child abuser. Bryan Kirkwood continued the tradition of vilifying educated middle-classs professionals with Yusef, the wife-beating doctor. So now I understand why Max Branning has become a home owner and why David Beale Wicks used blackmail to set himself up as a businessman. The gentrification of trailer trash. But that isn't all. We now learn, from the Messiah's latest gushing Gospel, that Sharon is going to be the doyenne of the yuppy watering hole, whilst his own iconic (only to him) Shirley becomes landlady of the Vic. Of course, the bad guys will drink at Sharon's venue, because that's the tradition established on the Show. So much for Sharon being brought back "old style." She's going to be plopped behind an up-market bar to play second fiddle to a character who spent seven years on the periphery of several dynamics and belonging to none. A divisive character who's done nothing of any merit to deserve being touted as star of the show. And so much for Danny Dyer, the name star being the face behind the bar. That was a con too. It's all about Shirley. And people said that Newman lied. Tonight was the ugly show.
The Ugly Carters or Poor Pitiful Shirl. There they are in all their glory. Mick the Weak, Linda the Bigot, Zara Phillips slumming it, Tina the Court Jester ...
... and Poor Pitiful Shirl. Years ago, when I was a child, there was a doll everyone wanted called Poor Pitiful Pearl, an ugly doll dressed in rags ...
Pearl was a down-and-out, who came in rags, but also had a party dress, which indicated that, somewhere along the line, she came into some good fortune. Well, now EastEnders has Poor Pitiful Shirl. Because in the Gospel according to Dominic Treadwell-Collins, we're supposed to root for Poor Pitiful Shirl. She's iconic, dontcha know? So he tells us. We keep learning more and more about the Carters, past and present, and none of it is pretty. Tonight, we saw Johnnie hanging around the pub again, doing a lunchtime shift. When does he go to classes? Where are his books? Has he taken the place of ridicule once occupied by Ava the Rava, who was a teacher who didn't teach? Johnnie is now the university student, who never leaves home. Last night, we learned that Mick was weak. Tonight, we saw even more evidence of this - how he and his feckless siblings sat drinking the bar's booze all night, celebrating the fact that they'd filched their old man into handing over 10 grand of his money to them to do over the pub. We learned how ignorant and shallow Linda is, if we didn't already know, from her remark upon seeing the bag of money ... Sharon won't know what'it'er ... ... to the ridiculous notion of putting knickers on a dog to fend off the fact that she's on heat. Is this woman so stupid that she doesn't realise that doing that won't mask the scent. Doggie knickers are designed for animal incontinence, so taking her out for a leak, not only would attract male dog attention, she'd pee or poo in her knickers anyway. That Mick is caught between his rock of a wife and his hard place of a sister. At the moment, Mick the Meek (didn't take long from the whispery-voiced hard man to become the latest pussyman like every other male on the Square),is leaning Team Shirley, based on the fact that she managed to be "brave " enough to face her father, hear a few well-deserved home truths and take the money and run. Nice one. And we learned tonight, that not only Shirley, but also Tina, was a shit mum. Basically, what we're being asked to believe is that Shirley, as little more than a child, exerted so much maternal care for her much younger siblings that she had nothing to give to her own children. Like her mother, she abandoned them. Neither of her sons matched whatever feelings she had for Mick, who is not her son. Stan was right to remind her of Dean, and tonight we saw that Shirley is totally incapable of understanding the unconditional love and devotion a child might feel for his or her mother. She totally couldn't understand Johnnie's defence of his mother's attitude toward Shirley, and she tried to undermine this, by asking Johnnie how he could blanketly defend his mother when she was in total denial about his sexuality. Johnnie's answer was simple and eloquent - Linda was his mother, and he'd defend her, no matter what. It's what a son does. Not Shirley's son. Later, she asked Tina if she ever thought of Zsa Zsa - now pay attention, because there's a little bit of retconning here. (Remember when Zsa Zsa left for Spain back in 2010 to go live with her heterosexual boyfriend and her boyfriend? Remember when Shirley went to visit her when Tina was ill in Spain?) Well, the new, younger, slimmer Tina shrugs off Zsa Zsa. She's called her a few times, and the girl doesn't want to know her. Then she admits that Tina was off her head most of the time and just sat back and watched Zsa Zsa bring herself up. Anyway, she wished her daughter well. Hardly sounds like a mother. That's because Tina still is a child. She hasn't grown up and doesn't want to grow up. In fact, she now looks at Mick and Linda as parental figures. When the eponymous name of Aunt Babe is mentioned, Tina is all for seeing her. Go on, Shirl. Then we could all be togevva again, a family ... And herewith the revelation ... Come on, Shirl ... you was like the mum, and then we'ad Aunt Babe, and now we got Mick and Linda ... As if Mick and Linda were now, in Tina's mind, duty bound to care for Mick's puerile sisters. But Shirley is worried about the influence Linda still has on Mick after twenty years. Stan's words ring clear - at the end of the day, Mick has a wife and children, and his first devotion is to them, not Shirley. So now, all of a sudden, even though Mick and Linda have somehow found, on their own, bags of money - over a million quid - to buy the pub, and Shirley's meagre "contribution" - not really a contribution, but guilt money ferreted from her elderly father - entitles her to have her name above the door of the pub. To be the licencee. To be the landlady. So that's how you get ahead in the world of DTC's iconic heroine - you drink yourself rotten, leech off various men doing nothing, and then you blackmail your family into getting what you want. If this sulky old slattern is to be the face of EastEnders, then it will be the face that will launce a million viewers into deserting the show. A miserably, bitter old trout who's done nothing and achieved less. Pass me the puke bucket. Carol's Pity Party.
Carol the Martyr. The little red hen. Buying Morgan's trainers, working at the cafe, whining about people taking care of her, and yet loving every minute of it. I've got cancer. I've got cancer. I've got cancer. Yes, love, so do a lot of other people, who will probably die, but the fact that you're ill doesn't give you the right to treat other people like shit under your feet. She doesn't like David's "interfering" in getting Honker ...
sorry, Sonia to cover Carol's shift at the cafe. What a business Ian must run, when anyone and everyone can show up and work there. Does he even know that Carol has given Tina a job? Carol? Since when did she have responsibility for the cafe? Speaking of Honker Sonia, how rude was she when she arrived at Carol's house? Polite to Terry, who was a stranger to her, but she was openly rude to David ... David: 'Ello, Sonia. Still playing the trumpet? Sonia: Hello, David. Still playing the field? First of all, with her track record and the way she treated Martin, she's in no position to make that sort of remark to David. Plus, the last time she saw this man, she was a child. Then, this is the house where David lives. It's the house owned by his mother and now owned by his step-sister. You don't walk, uninvited, into someone's home and insult them in front of a stranger. Finally, David, whatever he is, is her sister's father. But I'm not surprised by her rudeness, considering the way Carol treated Nikki, abruptly telling her to leave. Nikki didn't impose, she was invited into the home by David. And she referred to Nikki as "that woman." Who is "that woman?" She's the mother of Terry's children, and the wife who kicked him out. No, Carol doesn't want mollycoddling and breakfast in bed. She'll tell David where to go for that. Carol wants raw sex. She wants to spread her legs and get thrusted. Do that, and she's anyone's. Oh, and there really was no need for David to get Nikki to come around in order to organise that "special break" in Paris. That's easily done on the internet, and a phonecall to Nikki would have got him the discount. He wanted to see her. End of. If they're settling David down with Granny Carol and a cardigan, the entire ethos of the character will be killed off. Maybe DTC should consider bringing David's forgotten son, Joe, back to paper over Carol's wall in aluminium? By the way, I'm still under the impression that there may be a wife waiting someplace in Spain. David didn't spend 16 years away from Walford without some sort of dalliance that may have ended in a marriage. Carol and David deserve each other, and she deserves to be dumped by him. Where does Bianca get her rudeness? Look no further than Carol. Rude Masood.
So Fatboy, the eternal nice guy, was the adult in the room and took one for Masood, who was about as low as he could be, implying that Fatboy was a thief, who abused the hospitality of the Masoods by stealing from TamBore's university fund.
And Masood is gambling and desperately doing overtime in an attempt to put the money back.
He's on this slippery slope because of Carol dumping him and his daughter's racism.
The countdown starts here for Zainab to return. It's a given.
In Her End Is His Beginning.
In case you didn't realise, the end of Poppy will herald the beginning of Charlie Cotton, another grandson Dot never knew she had.
Another example of rudeness - who the hell is Poppy to speak that way to anyone ringing for Dot, whether it be Nick or not? This is Dot's home, not hers.
Black Bradley Dogging It.
I wonder, now that Max is a homeowner with a mortgage, if Black Bradley pays any kind of rent. He's another peripheral with no real family connections at the Brannings, not even wanting to take the dog for a walk.
Who didn't see him getting involved with Zara Phillips-Slums-It? They flirt and the dogs get it on.
If anyone was offended at last night's puppy farm attempt, any dog lover and breeder would be even more offended at the reactions of both Dexter and Nancy when the dogs mated. You are NOT supposed to even attempt to separate them. They are "tied" (that's the term) together for anything from fifteen to thirty minutes, and to attempt a separation before the tie is finished will cause a big injury to both dogs.
The only one injured was Nancy, who had an epileptic fit. I guess Dexter has that affect on people.
It's official. Daran Little is my favourite EastEnders' writer. And what a difference a good script and an experienced and talented actor make to a show. Timothy West's much-heralded debut came tonight, and everyone connected with him rose to the occasion, behind Mr Little's superb script. The sub-title to the whole episode could have been Life's a Bitch, and So Are Shirley and Carol. My Heart Belongs to Daddy: The Selfish Daughter of a Selfish Man.
When Carol sat in the waiting room of Jim's nursing home tonight and bitched about how selfish Jim was, I thought, chip, meet block. The Brannings' defining characteristic is their selfishness - Max, Lauren, Abi, Carol, Bianca - everything is always about them, first and everyone else be damned. Max putting his women before his children, Lauren making her incorrigible behaviour all about herself, never mind the consequences to others, Abi demanding that Jay give her money for food or pay for a holiday, Liam's truancy was all about Bianca's fear of returning to prison, and every crisis in the Butcher-Beale-Jackson household, ultimately, is all about Carol. Carol is a Class A bitch, and in many ways, I prefer Shirley's type of bitch to Carol's. Shirley, like Janine, is a bitch and she owns it. Carol, like all the Brannings, behaves pejoratively and blames something or someone else. When Carol's happy, everyone around her celebrates her good fortune. When Carol's unhappy, everyone associated with her has to feel her anger and her blame. Yes, we know she has cancer, and I know that cancer makes you want to rage against the world, but Carol showed how callous, petty and immature she is in taking a perverse pleasure in wanting to tell Jim that she has cancer, just to hurt and worry him. That action, in and of itself, showed abundantly, just from whence Bianca's immaturity derives. What would informing Jim of Carol's illness accomplish? She whines and drones about being tired of waiting for information and waiting on other people - well, in the first instance, that's the National Health, baby; and if you didn't want to wait, why didn't your sugar daddy David fork over his blackmailed money so you could go private? And as for waiting on others, let your useless Village Idiot daughter take some of the weight. Max was the voice of reason here. No one has more reason to hate and be bitter about Jim than Max, but he recognises that Jim is now a very sick, old man, and all the bitterness and recriminations matter for nothing now that he's nearing the end of his life. He is, after all, their father. Carol telling Jim about her illness would have been cruel and selfish and would have branded her as cruel and callous as he'd been in his youth. Besides, Carol is angry about her cancer, but blaming Jim for it is baseless and stupid. When Max implored her not to tell Jim as they were about to go in, I wanted to smack that smug smirk off her face. Maybe some smidgeon of compassion showed through in the end, but I'll warrant it was cowardice more than cruelty and anger. At the end of the day, Carol is all mouth and no trousers, like the legion of men with whom she's slept.. My Heart Belongs to Daddy: The Prodigal Daughter.
After seven years on the show, Shirley finally gets a back-story, complete with a retconned family. Yes, I know the Carters are a big retcon job, but the way to make a retcon work, is to ensure that it isn't in contradiction to established fact. For example, Ray Dixon was a retcon that didn't work. It was established that Bianca didn't know who Morgan's father was, not even his race. Four years down the line, and not only did she know Ray, she had a protracted affair with him, stole five hundred quid from him, and he even knew Tony King. The Carter backstory keeps what we know about Shirley intact, and doesn't impede upon anything established about Shirley, her relationship with Kevin or her children. I liked Stan. Timothy West is a consummate actor, and he's an example of what being an actor is all about, compared to the one-trick ponies such as Lacey Turner, who can't go beyond portraying Stacey-Slater-by-Any-Other-Name. This is a man who's played a King of England and who's now playing an East End fishmonger, living alone in a seedy flat and estranged from his family. What was interesting about the dynamic was Tina's eagerness to see her father, and the fact that she was the one child who'd remained in touch with him. Stan's a drinker, and I liked the way he referred to Tina and Mick, in Shirley's presence as "the little'uns." With so many people gagging a maggot in anticipation of it being revealed that Mick was Shirley's son, I was beginning to dread this, because EastEnders has more than a passing way of cooking their cabbages twice. They did so tonight, but not with the old chestnut variation of "You're not mah muvvah." The cause of the animosity towards Stan from Mick and Shirley was down to the fact that Stan's wife abandoned the family (notice the pattern ensuing), and left him with an adolescent Shirley and two very young children. There's a wide age gap between Shirley, who's in her fifties, and her siblings in their late thirties - much the same that exists between Clare Butcher and Ricky and Diane. Unable to cope with two very young kids, Stan opted to put them in care. Shirley resented that, and Mick resented being in care, although at the time, he couldn't have been more than a toddler, because, keeping in mind the age difference, a seventeen year-old Shirley, who married Kevin, would have meant a four year-old Mick and a five year-old Tina, so the care period must have come well before that. The interesting pattern is that Shirley's mother abandoned very young children, and Shirley went onto do the same, as her father succinctly pointed that out to her, admonishing her for caring more about Mick's welfare than she did her own son. And herewith, we get the first intimation that Dean Wicks is looming on the horizon. We also learned something about Mick from Stan that's par for the course about men, in general, on the show. Mick is weak, and he'll be caught in a vice between what his wife wants, and what his sister wants. Stan is also right that Shirley is not a part of Mick's immediate family dynamic. I'm glad the old man left Shirley with a few home truths. And she hadn't seen him for some 25 years, which would have been just about the time she abandoned Kevin and the kids. The Real Bitch in the Vic.
Tonight was the first time I really couldn't stand Linda. The OTT Angie act, combined with just general bitchy silliness was appalling, as was the silly sub-plot about breeding the bulldog to make money. As a dog owner and a breeder, I found it offensive their talking about the number of litters Lady Di could achieve in a year and how they'd be quids in. Bulldogs are cute, but they have short lifespans (seven years) and breathing problems. Puppy-farming is not something that's going to endear the Carters to viewers; neither is Linda's incessant squealing and screeching at every perceived crisis. Nice to learn tonight that, for all their stuff and bother about being in the pub trade for twenty years, the Carters were effectively employed by her mother and lived with her as well. So not only is this their first business, it's their first home. And I'm wondering if Johnnie is one of those uni students who never goes to class or studies, but stays around the pub all day, the way Ava, the teacher who never taught, did. The Sharon feud is wearing thin as well, and it does annoy me that DTC promised Sharon's redemption, yet continues to show her in a bitchy light, although I agree with her unspoken disapproval of the Queen Vic decor. Kat's leopardskin barstools were foul, but the over-emphasis on all things kitschy East End is also ludicrous. Musical posters from Oliver! is not something you see in a traditional East End boozer. And as much as I like Johnnie, Zara Phillips can give over the common people act and go back to her Royal status, which isn't in the Queen Vic. Good episode, however, thanks to Timothy West, CBE, and the actors who rose to the occasion of his performance. Aunt Babe and Dean are on their way. Nice to know that Linda's mother and Shirley's mum are floating about there someplace, as the show morphs from The Branning Show to The Carter Show, something we specifically were not promised. My bet is that Shirl's old mum ran off with a smooth talker named Basil, and they've spent the last thirty-odd years fronting a cheap B and B in Torquay.
Since the Messiah took the helm, this has, arguably, been his worst week. Oh, you'll get the usual numpties on all the fora, jumping up and down and frothing at the mouth about how good the damned thing is, but the actual truth is that EastEnders has a long way to go, and there are fans who are a bit cynical about it making its destination.. Whinge all you want about certain fans never deserting Coronation Street, no matter what, but that's one of the reasons Corrie's still on the air after more than fifty years, and it's one of the reasons why, at its worst - and it's going through a meagre patch at the moment, it will still be there or thereabouts in being at the top of the soap genre, despite having many of the major problems EastEnders has. It hasn't lost its brand. You know when you watch Coronation Street, you're watching Corrie. There's something in the show for every sort of viewer, from the old to the young, from the sublime to the ridiculous. Last night's episode illustrated magnificently why I'm cynical and wary to trust Dominic Treadwell-Collins. Yes, I know he's a good storyteller, and that's the reason why all the fanbois and cheerleaders are raving about every episode and magnifying by ten how good each one is. But there are many who are not, and most of the ones casting a disparaging eye are people who have watched the show from its inception, or at least, from the 1990s. DTC has two dynamics to which he's aiming his fare - people who have only seriously started watching the show since 2006, and those who started in 2000. He obviously views the ones who've watched since 2000 as significantly long-term viewers. These are the people who refer to John Yorke's tenure as "the Golden Age" of the programme, when it's not. In fact, Yorke is responsible for many of the problems the show still has today - namely, the epitome of the "strong" woman as a gobby, mouthy cow with a loud voice; the sibling friendship to the exclusion of all others; and the beginning of the depiction of male characters as inherently weak. And as Head of Continuing Drama at the BBC, Yorke subsequently was responsible for hiring Louise Berridge, Kathleen Hutchison, Kate Harwood, Diederick Santer, Bryan Kirkwood and Lorraine Newman as Executive Producers. That's quite a line-up. The Peter Principle (known in the UK as "Sod's Law") saw Kate Harwood now in Yorke's old role, and she's hired DTC. Of course, he's pitching his ware to the EastEnders 2.0 crowd. They're the ones who started watching when he started devising storylines. Under Santer's tenure, they papered over the cracks of a show who'd been bleeding viewers sinde Dirty Den rose from the grave, and they did this by bringing back old characters as a sop to the older viewers and by sensationalist storylines. Yes, DTC had a lot of success, but he had a lot of stinkers too - the Range Rover in the Lake (which was supposed to end the Mitchell-Beale feud and only got about 4 million viewers in the bargain), Max Branning being buried alive by his wife and being run over by his daughter in the space of one year - the Brannings treat his burial now as a joke and neither Tanya nor Lauren have ever paid for any of the crimes they've committed), Mad May blowing up the Millers' house, and Darren Miller fathering Heather's baby. He's promised a lot of things to viewers this time around, but increasingly, EastEnders is looking like a vehicle of his own ego. Yes, we know he's on record as saying Sharon is his favourite character. We know he loves the Mitchells and created the Mitchell sisters. We also know he wants Shirley, his first creation, at the centre of the show. And yet, he's promised to bring Sharon back to the glory she held in the 80s and the 90s, he's promised that the show wouldn't be The Stacey and Ronnie or The Carters Show, and he's already failing on two of those three counts. But ... Certain people will give him a break,because - gee, because he's DTC, that little charmer and he just lurrrrves this show so much. Well, so do I, but it's already been abundantly apparent to me that he's turning the show into a vehicle of his own creation, taking a peripheral character with little sympathy, turning her into the power force of the Square and totally retconning and creating a family around her to suit whatever storyline he has for her. I'm waiting with baited breath (not) for two murderers to run rampant in the Square - Stacey and Ronnie - because punishment for your crimes, if you're female and pretty - is a thing of the past. And DTC is not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy who should know that those who are ignorant of the past are condemned to repeat it. Last night we saw a Newman production. I'm willing to bet a tribute to Kirkwood is on its way.
Fanfare for the Common.
Of course, you realise that the past two Carter-centric episodes were all a fanfare for the introduction of Daddy Carter, played by no less than Timothy West, CBE, who appears on Monday. Some souls are relishing the fact that West is joining the cast of EastEnders, but West had a very successful professional life before EastEnders, and he'll have a very successful one afterward. The man is 80 years old and accustomed to the occasional television appearance, films and stage productions. In other words, genres where lines are learned to be repeated night after night or for one weekly or annual appearance on TV or in film. To expect West to adapt and work within the soap genre, one of the toughest in the business, at his age is expecting too much. He "joined the cast" of Corrie last year for three months, following in the footsteps of Sir Ian McKellan and Robert Vaughan, who also did similar stints. He'll probably stay that long in EastEnders. After all, he's there for a purpose. Apparently, he has loadsa money the sibllings want. Oh, and he was mean to poor, pitiful Shirley, who's become the heroine for whom we should all root, because the family dog loves her. The Carters are almost ridiculously British - and by British, I mean English. They are a caricature of everything pejorative in British culture. That most of them can manage to be remotely likeable is a feat in itself. I do like Mick and Linda, but each time I see them in the pub, I see someone taking off Alfie Moon and another person who can't decide if Angie goes best in the pub or Peggy. Even the "nice gel" commoned up Zara Phillips clone is coming along nicely. But once again, at twenty-one, is all her life's ambition to serve drinks behind the bar of the Vic? As for Johnnie, the hit of the family, how is he expected to go to classes at some phantom university conveniently nearby (which wasn't so conveniently nearby when they lived in Watford), and cook lunches and dinners daily in the Vic? Friday night, cooking up the menu was far more important for his mother's ego than doing an essay for uni. The Carters have been shown to be not the brightest lightbulbs in the pack. This is obviously the first time they've ever owned a business outright, so all the gumpf about having been in the pub trade for twenty years is a load of old codswallop.They got a bill of goods off Phil Mitchell. They've got rising damp, and Shirley, the so-called matriarch of the clan bought a brace of dodgy meat off Kat and proceeded to bake it into pies. It may be dog meat,but then again, it may not be. Still, people ate it, including Linda, and now Elf'n Safety have been called, and the Carters could be fined. They've spent all their money they had - and I'm still trying to figure out how they came by having 1.25 million quid in cash on hand - and now they've got to fork out thousands more on the upkeep of the Vic. Linda keeps screeching for Mick to go to his old Dad, from whom he's been estranged and who, allegedly, has money to burn from being a Billingsgate fishmonger. Go figure. Shirley's estranged from him also, allegedly because he predicted that "her type" would be dead before she was thirty. But this is the problem. We don't know what Shirley's "type" is. We don't know why she abandoned her small children. Now it appears she brought her younger siblings up, but how could that be, as they were small children when she was married, at eighteen, to Kevin? To add insult to injury, this is all being played out against a backdrop of Bar Wars, with Sharon - Sharon! an original and iconic character, the daughter of Den and Angie no less - being depicted as the villain of the piece. From the first scene in last night's episode to the last one, we saw a snobby, entitled Sharon trading barbs with Shirley, ending with Shirley referring to her as a "menopausal Barbie." That whole shabang was totally out of Sharon's character, but it was obvious that DTC meant the audience to think of Sharon as a bitch and root for Shirley and the newest Carters. It almost got to the point that it was implied that Sharon had no right to open a bar, in the old Dagmar premises, because the Carters were ensconced in the Vic, and you know that DTC is going to orhcestrate an epic fail on Sharon's part because the Carters are set to dominate the programme as Vic landlords. Look on any EastEnders' site and you'll see their gobs plastered all over the place, especially on the BBC. They are the programme now, and if that isn't making EastEnders into The Carter Show, I'm the heir to the throne of England. The New Kid in Town.
DTC has finally recognised the fact that there is a growing number of Eastern Europeans in the East End and has added an Eastern European character. Enter Aleks, the new Latvian market inspector, replacing the recurring character of Mr Lister.
Aleks is more in the line of Tricky Dicky Cole, the suave Northern market inspector of the Nineties, who bedded, amongst others, a teenaged Bianca and Rachel the university lecturer.
He's a nice piece of eye candy, and apparently the actor is a well-known German television actor, who makes no secret of the fact that he's using his casting in one of Britain's best-known television shows as a means of widening his repertoire and in hopes of breaking into the English speaking media market.
Having said that, he speaks better English than most of the cast.
He's as dodgy as Tricky Dicky as we saw at the end, when his sly announcement earlier to Kat and Bianca, as they dissed what a pushover Tamwar was, resulted in Tamwar getting three weeks' pitch rent off Kat, only to pocket it when Tamwar wasn't looking, taking advantage of the fact that Tamwar didn't get a receipt from Kat because he didn't have any to hand.
Line of the night goes to Bianca, in a shining example of her ignorance.
Kat: 'Ere, where you from?
Aleks: I am from Latvia.
Bianca: Is that in Poland?
And they say Americans are dumb.
Aleks will probably stay one or two years, have a dark secret, shag Roxy and get killed by Ronnie.
Teenaged Kicks.
Another trait of DTC is his love of pregnant women having babies on the show. During his last stint Tanya had Oscar, without making any mess at home, Dawn had Summer, Roxy had Amy (and forgot about her) and Heather had George. Already we have Kat having twins and now we have to sit through nine months of teenaged kicks with hairy Cindy the Greek having a baby with TJ Spraggan. This tells me two things - first that the EP may be a closet misogynist, with a view that all women were made to be pregnant, including teenagers. Secondly, this is an elitist's view of working class youth or his idea of them, that they automatically start fucking like rabbits as soon as puberty sets in and then start breeding. Another teenage pregnancy is something this show doesn't need. It's obviously being done to "redeem" hairy Cindy the Greek, a totally unsympathetic character who's yet to be punished for lifting ten grand off Phil Mitchell. People thought Melissa Suffield a cold actress, but this girl is so entitled she makes Suffield's Lucy look kind. I'm just surprised that some otherwise intelligent viewers fell for this poor-little-girl-lost routine she fed TJ. Allegedly, she wants to keep the bay-bay because no one else loves widdle Cindy. Well, she's not even likeable much less loveable. Further, I think she's playing TJ because he's a soft touch, and he'll be willing to stand by her in the pregnancy. Just what this means, I don't know, because he's fifteen and still in school. I suppose it means that his family will stand by her, as will the Social Services and the government with benefits.
But hairy Cindy the Greek was feeding TJ a tissue of lies.
First, she said that neither Peter nor Lucy cared about her. Not true. Both the twins on Thursday and Friday admonished her about bunking off school, with Lucy even reminding her that this year was critically important to her.
Then she said Ian only tolerated her because he felt guilty. That's an obvious lie. Ian has no reason to feel guilty about this child. Her mother, his first wife, tried to have him killed, then kidnapped two of his children for a year, got together with a wealthy businessman and produced Cindy. He owes her nothing, and she scammed him into allowing her to stay.
She says her grandmother is "nearly dead." That's a lie and a gross exaggeration. Bev Williams housed and cared for both Peter and Lucy at various times. And what happened to Gina Williams, who is Cindy's legal guardian and with whom she was living in 2007? Bad DTC - you've forgotten dippy Gina.
She's obviously in touch with her father, because she referenced Nick Holland bringing her an expensive phone from Japan.
So hairy Cindy the Greek isn't without concern or support. I'm calling this that she has the sprog, dumps it on the Spraggans and then leaves, which means that we've got several more months of angst with this unlikeable and superfluous teenaged character.
So much for DTC's telling us that the kids would be taking a backseat to the parents. Bullshit.
Third-Rate Romance Low-Rent Rendezvous.
Well, for me this was the most entertaining aspect of the programme, and I wasn't proven wrong. I wondered how long it would take for Nikki Spraggan to come onto David Wicks. She's certainly his type, moreso than the selfish and self-centred Granny Carol, who's willing to believe that any man is the man as long as he shags her.
Yes, she has cancer, and yes, we all feel for that, but just like everything is all about Bianca, then everything, equally, is all about Carol. She wants her "family" (which curiously includes Kat, but doesn't include Nikki who's the mother of Terry's children whom Bianca doesn't want those kids to see) to have a normal night of drinking in the pub before she begins three months' chemo and then a mastectomy.
Hang on, that diagnosis doesn't sound right. Yes, chemo first to contain the cancerous clusters,and then a lumpectomy to remove the cancerous mass, but in real time, the mastectomy would come first, and the cancer would have to be severe for that measure to be taken (yet Carol said the cancer hadn't spread), and then the chemo would come after as a precautionary measure. Oh, DO get cancer right, EastEnders!
But the big question is will Nikki and David have a third-rate romance with oodles of low-rent rendezvous?
Thursday night was sitcom night, and projected a strange aura of leftover Lorraine Newman. Watchable only because we were actually seeing actual storylines and not little comedy vignettes like Tunagate or Snakegate, the episode deserved a medal for stating the bleeding obvious. Who didn't see what coming? Father Knows Best ... or Does He?
David Beale Wicks is hardly Father of the Year material, but TJ Spraggan, misguided son of Terry Spraggan, seeks his counsel. TJ certainly has a problem with taste. He's fucked hairy Cindy the Greek, who looks and sounds like a boy in drag. One wonders, if he kissed her, if he scratched his tender skin on her stubble. David's advice is similar to the advice he gave himself when he knocked Carol up at fifteen - don't tell daddy. Instead, David phones Nikki, TJ's mother, but not without reason, and tells her of the problem at hand. Nikki is concerned enough not to want her son to be saddled with a baby by some dimwit girl whom he saddled along the way, and once TJ and Nikki are sure that hairy Cindy the Greek has had an abortion, Nikki is about to move on when David, the Father of the Year, decides to lecture her on abortion and regret, saying he often thought about the baby he could have had during the years he thought Carol had had one. Bullshit, David only thought about one thing in the sixteen years before he knew Bianca existed - himself, leaving a marriage, two children, the death of one and the mental illness of another in the wake of his destructive life. And he only thought about one thing in the sixteen years after he was banned from Walford for breaking up his brother's marriage - himself. Just like he's only thinking of himself now, manipulating Nikki into sticking around to be a thorn in the side of Bianca and to sabotage her relationship with Terry, although goodness knows why. And if that's not enough, David's now officially lied to Carol. That didn't take long, did it? When Carol came to the portacabin to suggest some lunch for David, she found him with Nikki, discussing TJ's widdle pwobwem. David told Carol Nikki had dropped by to hunt for a car to buy and brushed her off. Oh, those Beale boys, so alike, yet so determined not to admit it. I propose that for the next Children in Need, Adam Woodyatt and Michael French, in character, sing this song, as an anthem for the Brothers Beale - because they'll both eventually end up crying in the rain. Take it away, Ian and David.
Gossip Girl.
Oh, she's too cool for school, that hairy Cindy the Greek, so she's off to an abortion clinic, instead. The star of this piece was clearly Tina, whose transformation into a person of real compassion and understaning was remarkable. She doesn't try to influence Cindy in either way, but she clearly thinks it's beyond her ken or ability to embark upon motherhood. She tries to steady her nerves with a lie about having had an abortion, herself; and then later, she tries the truth method - yes, she had a daughter, Zsa Zsa. But, she admits, even though she loved Zsa Zsa, she was a terrible mother, and her child deserved better. She accompanies hairy Cindy the Greek, along with the confused TJ, to the abortion clinic, and here's the first hint of Stating the Bleeding Obvious: Could there have been any more mothers with babies and toddlers on that bus? You knew the minute they got on, when you saw the mother with the pram, that hairy Cindy the Greek was going to be swayed into keeping the baby. Even TJ was encouraging her, and EastEnders is delving into dangerous territory here. Yes, abortion is terrible, and it shouldn't be used as a means of birth control. As Bill Clinton once said, abortion should be availabe, safe and rare; because with more information on birth control and more access to it, abortions become less and less common. TJ and hairy Cindy the Greek are kids. They don't love each other anymore than David Cameron loves Tony Blair. Sex was a silly game to them, and they've found out that - hey - you can get pregnant the first time ... just like Sonia and Martin, just like Carol and David. For once, the show should present abortion as an option for a very young teenaged girl who clearly has a future ahead of her. But hairy Cindy is so dumb, she probably thinks the baby will pop out and stay a doll-like infant forever, whom she can pass to Ian and Denise for feeding, bathing and changing shitty nappies. By seventeen, she'll have a toddler. By twenty, she'll have a child in school. If the same pattern is followed, she could be a grandmother at twenty-nine. Great one, DTC. Give us another teenaged mother to add to the sensationalist nature of the programme. This is Carol and David of the modern times, with him thinking she's had an abortion, and her there right under his nose getting fatter by the day. Maybe this heralds hairy Cindy's departure, because I can't invest in yet another teenaged drama, which will be in our faces until she slips the sprog. So much for DTC not emphasising children. Bachelor Father Meets Lost Weekend.
The Brannings were caught up in a cross between a 50s American sitcom and a 40s film noir about alcoholism.
Is this the last we see of lairy, pervy Jake, who's dissolved into a weeping, blithering, drunken idiot because he was sleeping with a teenager behind his wife's back? I'm surprised Mr Soap-Star gets such an understated departure, if, indeed, he is going. I have a feeling he'll be back, unfortunately, like a bad penny. At least, according to him, he's contracted until July, and he sounds as though he's casting broad hints for a contract renewal, which he hasn't received as yet. I guess there's no opening on Corrie now that he's divorced Kym Marsh.
So Lauren's redemption continues apace, complete with her dictating to Max in his own home. The most self-obsessed and entitled character in the show played by ...
THE. WORST. ACTRESS. EVER. TO. APPEAR. IN. EASTENDERS.
according to Soapsquawk, has been floated a new, big and majo storyline by Santa's elf, himself, DTC, which means we're slated to see more of The Lauren Show, when we're not watching The Stacey and Ronnie Show or The Shirley Show.
Lauren brings lairy Jake back to Branning Manor and ticks Max off, telling him Jake hasn't done anything worse than either she or Max have done. Er, I think so, Lauren. Jake was responsible for the death of a child. Now I know Lauren's tried to kill Max, driven drunk through a showroom window, chucked a brick through the window of the cafe on a busy day and criminally assaulted Lucy Beale, but she hasn't killed anyone. Yet.
Give her time. Jossa is angling for DTC to make her a killer, and since two of his favourites are murderers already and will be living on the Square, there's always room for a third. If Janine returns, they could start a support group. This year's murderer is last year's dirty girl, and that will entitle them to further bad behaviour.
Lauren's all for getting rid of Jake now that she's broken up his marriage and she sees what a weak, pathetic man, like all the rest in the show are, he is. She tries to get him to fight for Bella. Line of the night:-
I want my dad, even though he ain't perfect.
(Did you ever notice how Lauren's grammar is positively atrocious? She isn't ignorant, so why does she speak this way?)
Yes, Lauren wants Max around so she can dictate her impossibly high moral standards, inapplicable to herself, to him when she perceives he misbehaves, which he'll do soon, because Max has just bought the house off Jack. Along with Janine and Ian Beale, that makes him one of three homeowners in the entire Square. And he's pledging himself to his daughters, which means Stacey's about to appear again.
What's DTC done to Cora? He's made her positively likeable again, even if she were sitting at the kitchen table guzzling wine whilst Abi cooked.
All in the Family.
This was a song just made for Mick and Linda. Can't you hear them warbling these lyrics?
And you knew where you were then
Girls were girls and men were men ...
This was the hammiest sitcom of them all, and it showed the Carters at their worst, with Danny Dyer continuing to channel 2002's version of Alfie Moon, and Kellie Bright trying her damnedest to be Angie Watts.
This was Project Get Rid of Wayne, the offensive racial stereotypical boyfriend. When he proved to be working hard enough in curing their rising damp, they resorted to mollycoddling him, until both he and Zara Phillips Nancy saw through that ruse. But Linda the Detective lifts his phone when she sees him showing something off to his mates and finds what I assume are nudie, sexy pictures of Nancy she'd allowed him to take. When these are made known, DTC contrives the Carters to humiliate Wayne by showing pictures Nancy had taken of him on her laptop.
It puts paid to the myth that size matters. This was not funny, and even less funny was the third scene we've been shown of Danny Dyer prancing about in his underwear.
Get a fucking grip.
Only Fools and Horses.
Basically, it was this:Boycie sells Delboy some raw meat. Delboy reckons he'll bake it into meat pies and make a fortune. He grinds it up and bakes it into pies, proudly presenting Boycie with a free sample, which Boycie refuses. Then Rodney finds a dog tag in the meat. Cue end credits. DTC's weakest effort yet, and proof of why a weakened Corrie walked away with two major awards at the NTAs.
