Fathers' Day - Review:- 27.01.2014

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.