Last night's episode proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that DTC has feet of clay. Across the fora, there was resounding criticism of the show, the producer and many of his decisions that, in the cold hard light of day, people are beginning to see as shams. Memories are short, and Millennials - DTC's core target groups, along with the obvious no-brainers like -hyuck hyuck xTonix, who'd watch EastEnders if it were paint drying and praise the colour scheme - don't remember much, but they know something is rotten. More astute viewers, like DS's lordo55, know exactly what's wrong, because they remember that DTC learned his craft under that master of sensationalism, smoke and mirrors, Diederick Santer. Well, there are seven shades of sensationalism, and DTC knows that he doesn't have to have the odd physical explosion to curry that. Besides, people are beginning to voice what I have said all along - that this producer's immense childish ego will get the better of him to the detriment of the programme. 6.5 million viewers on a cold, rainy night at the end of February, in the week which saw the return of EastEnders 2.0's darling does not bode well. The Pig, the PussyKat, the Prince and the Plonker. So Alfie and Luke spent the night with the kids, basically wondering where the hell Kat and Stacey had gone. It seems that they had to have a night together (because Kat absolutely adores a distant cousin), after hearing Janine's ultimatum, in order to decide. Let's consider the Pig and the PussyKat first off ...
Carey Andrews wrote last night's episode, and the dialogue was filled with Kat's lewd and crude commentary on breakfast in a cheap hotel with a reference to pubic hairs, and Alfie's flatulence in the mornings, neither of which added anything of note to EastEnders. Yes, I know people speak this way in normal life, but EastEnders is showing realism on the one hand, and utterly impossible situations on the other, both juxtaposed in this episode to create the biggest crock of shit we've seen on this show since Newman was at her height. Basically, Kat wants to throw Alice under the bus, in exchange for giving Stacey back her real life and her identity. Without even assauging her conscience of what life imprisonment might mean for a sheltered and naive girl like Alice, she's ready to lie and throw her to the pi-dogs in order that a real murderer might get her life back. Alice, according to Kat, will be "all right." Yes, Kat, I'm sure she's the bitch of some Big Bertha inmate on remand as we speak, so I'm sure Alice, who'd only ever been with two men in her life, will be quite "all right" in prison. On the other hand, Stacey seems to be speaking with reason, up to a point. She doesn't want Kat to lie for Janine, and that's rich, considering that Stacey, herself, is a murderer, yet doesn't connect with the atrocity she committed, thus enabling her to sit in judgement of Janine. In fact, her entitlement comes into play here, because she blithely tells Kat she will tell the police she didn't stab Janine, and that she ran away from Walford because she was overcome with grief for Bradley and suffering from a bi-polar episode. Same. Shit. Different. Day. Stacey is still willing to use anyone and anything else to deflect any sort of responsibility she should feel for her actions. She's living a nice lie with Luke, who seems to want her back, and she'd rather have that than Walford. She drops the bombshell of telling Kat - and when the hell did Kat ever learn to drive? - that she's gone off her meds in order to try to have a baby with Luke. (Watch this space. What did I tell you? Bi-polar episode for sympathy and another pregnancy. Been there, done that). Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Alfie and Luke are doing some serious bonding here - that is, until Luke overhears a cryptic telephone call Alfie makes - not to Roxy, numpties, but to Mo - wherein he quotes the fateful words ... You know what Stacey's capable of ... Contrived situation? You bet. This episode was chocked full of contrivances and contraventions. In fact, this storyline is positively built on contrivance - Lauren seeing Stacey, then seeing her again with the express purpose of taking on the guilt Stacey doesn't feel; and now that old chestnut of the overheard phonecall, this time Luke overhearing Alfie. Of course, off-screen, this means Alfie has to tell Luke what it is, exactly, that Stacey has done. Obviously, he spared no detail. Before I go any further, let me offer a few observations about Luke.
Excessive tattoos apart, I like Luke. I know Matt Willis isn't much of an actor, but he's good enough for the crock EastEnders has become, and besides, he's a touch Bradley-esque. According to Stacey's version of their meeting in Mexico, she tried to put him off her by being as bitchy as she could and telling him as much of her bad points as she truthfully could, just like she did with Bradley. Also, Luke, like Bradley, seemed to be the ubiquitous dependable bloke, there to be lied to and shat upon by Stacey, but remaining to pick up the pieces of the trail of detritus which Stacey always leaves in her wake. Yet, most of all, I liked Luke because more than any character on this programme, temporary or permanent, Luke has a defineable moral code. Without mincing words, he castigated Stacey for having murdered a man. And he was having none of her poor pitiful excuses ... Stacey: 'E raped me. Luke: That doesn't give you the right to kill him! Even then, even with her latest meal ticket about to walk out the door and out of her life, Stacey is lying through her teeth. I was defendin' mahself!!! Really, Stacey? Hmmmmmm .... Let's see. I seem to recall Janine fighting for her life and killing the husband who'd tried to poison and strangle her and who would have stabbed her, given the opportunity. I even remember that there may have been a remote possibility that Carl was intent on assaulting Ronnie, but Stacey? Nope, Stacey sneaked up behind Archie and brained him with the Queen Vic bust. Oh, and did I mention Archie was a dying man already? Rapist, he may have been, and a thoroughly despicable man, but - soap opera or not - for the BBC's flagship programme to promote the idea that murder is OK as long as pretty young girls are allowed to take the law into their own hands and kill anyone (man) who slights them in any way, is a dangerour precedent to take. Joanne Dennehy, anyone? I, for one, was glad of Luke's reaction and of Alfie's disclosure. I'm thoroughly sick of the way Stacey has been presented this time in a prolonged introduction of her as the wronged victim. In one fell swoop, DTC has also managed to regress Kat to the unlikeable banshee form, even saying that - without Stacey around - Kat might cheat on Alfie again. WTF? And to cap this all off, she who must not be seen dashes frantically into the Square to chase after Luke's departing car, smack dab in the view of Max. What's that about re-hash? The Putrid Mother.
The other utterly ridiculous storyline last night was the Saga of Tosh and Shirley. Let's get one thing perfectly clear- we're embarking on yet another Long Hello here, and it will last about a month. Clock it, yourself, if you don't believe me, Every episode which features the Carters and Shirley fromhere until the end of March will contain at least one oblique reference to Dean. Oh, they may not name him directly, but there will be some sort of snide reference to Shirley getting to know her kids, Shirley being a mother etc. Last night Shirley was on the warpath because her 39 year-old retarded Court Jester sister ...
... decided to get back together with her firewoman girlfriend. This prompted a visit to the local fire brigade, where a professional firefighter was seen to turn a firehose, full force onto a member of the public (Shirley). Of course, this was supposed to be a comic scene, ending with Shirley being elbowed out by Tosh's burly male colleagues. It wasn't funny. It was pathetic. If something like that had happened in real life, the member of the public could have been seriously injured by the force of the water, and the fire professional have been summarily sacked. From that point onward, the whole vignette descended into a whirl of literal toilet humour. Shirley: Tina's in serious trouble. Tina: No, I'm not, I'm in the bog. Tina (upon being locked in the Vic lounge by Shirley): I gotta use the loo. Shirley: Use a plant pot. Tina: Not that kinda loo. Shirley: Use a bigger plant pot. Was it Carey Andrews or DTC who is obsessed with bodily functions? If this wasn't enough, the whole spiel finished with Tina calling Tosh, after appealing for help from Billy in the street, with DTC's ultimate scene symbolically depicting the ineptitude and emasculation of the straight male. Billy offers to get a ladder in order to rescue Tina from her captivity. In the time it took him to find the ladder, Tosh has arrived, complete with the station's watch, fire engine and the big phallic bell end of a ladder, which saw Tosh ascend this to rescue Tina with a big sloppy snog. Shades of Lorraine Newman's love, warmth and humour, and that was dished out with a healthy dollop of Mick using his own self-confessed "female intuition" to advise Shirley on her parenting skills regarding a 39 year-old childwoman. Spare me. The Kids Are (Not) All Right. And here's where DTC is a liar. He pointedly said that parents would not be seen through the eyes of children. Yet here's Ian chasing the daughter of his ex-wife, who's no relation whatsoever, to Ian and who's pregnant to boot, through the streets of Walford. First, she's pregnant, of which he knows nothing. Secondly, she's bunking off school. Thirdly, Ian is responsible for this hairy little scrote, and yet she speaks to him like a piece of shit. And where is the punishment for her having stolen Phil Mitchell's 10,000 pounds? Cindy the Greek looks and sounds like a boy in drag on the verge of shaving. But the most common-arsed scene was that of the aftermath of drunken sex, enjoyed on the floor of Ian's front room, with Cindy the Greek hiking down her skirt after the act, and Liam the Lug (why this actor gets such praise for playing himself as the dork that he is, is beyond me), zipping up his trousers and fastening his belt. If you thought the scene where Max and Tanya cheated on Craig, with Tanya hiking down her skirt and taking a drag off Max's cigarette was pukeworthy, this takes commonness to a new level. Even worse than that scene was Ian getting the news from Bev Williams that she was moving to Portugal and wanted to take Cindy with her. Ian's remark:- I'll tell Cindy- I'll ASK Cindy. Ask Cindy? Pardon me, but who is the adult here? Ian is the adult responsible for this common-and-garden little whore, he shouldn't have to ask her permission for anything. If her grandmother, who is her legal guardian, wants to take her to Portugal, then she isn't asked, she's told to go. That little slut, who's chosen to have a child, now decides to neck six pints of lager, and this is someone who's going to be responsible for a child? Send the bitch to Portugal and forget about her. Awful character, awful actress. She's no Michelle, she isn't even a Lola, and she certainly isn't fit to lick Cindy's boots. Awful episode. The halo is slipping.
For all the fanbois creaming their knickers in the Ratings' thread on a particular forum, cop this:- Stacey's return has done nothing for the show thus far. Yes, yes, I know, the ratings are up and have been up since the Messiah has returned ...
... but they are still behing Coronation Street, and they still haven't managed to crack the magic 8 million mark, which eludes them consistently. In short, like Ronnie's return, most potential viewers and returnee viewers didn't bat an eyelid. It was ... meh. So let's cut to the chase with, apart from one unbelieveably impossible storyline, what was essentially yet another filler episode. The Queen of Mean vs Two Rank Skanks.
So now we know that Stacey has, not only a false passport, but a false National Insurance number as well. Since she left the UK on Christmas Day 2010, she probably obtained the forged passport from some shady character on a backstreet in Mexico, the way Sam Mitchell obtained hes in Rio, except poor Stacey probably had to pay for her in instalments of some sort - nudge nudge wink wink. How she got the NI number upon her return is anyone's guess, but got it she did, for the prescription for her bi-polar medication is in the name of Jenny SMIF. And, of course, it seems that Stacey hasn't been taking her medication, which Alfie discovers. That's no surprise either, because Stacey is so super-cool and entitled, she really doesn't have to take her medication. She can take care of herself. Not. Besides, an immediate bi-polar episode would help in swaying us recalcitrant, down-right ornery viewers who don't see Stacey the way her number one, one-brain-celled fan dancing.queen does, (Quite honestly, if I ever began to think the same way as that bimbo thinks, I'd volunteer for sectioning) absolutely love her skanky arse. That doesn't matter either, as it seems Alfie is the only adult in the room regarding Stacey, as Kat and Stacey, bold as brass, have gone to visit Janine. So entitled are these two dumb bitches that they actually think Janine will do as they wish and drop all charges against Stacey. Just who do they think Janine is? I'll tell you this way - Janine is a bitch and she owns it. She accepts responsibility for what she's done, even though she'll never admit openly what she's done, espicially if it means separation from her daughter, but make no mistake - Charlie Brooks made that entire episode, and watching her only made one realise just how sorely Janine will be missed, in comparison to the piss poor loud-mouthed mares who remain in her wake. Brooks played a blinder, a masteclass of icy control and measured vocal tones, in contrast to the perpetual yet annoying sad-eyed "pity-me" furrowed frown and flared nostrils of Lacey Turner, who looked like a sow about to be shot between the eyes and the scratchy tones of Jessie Wallace, whose character reckoned for one brief moment that she could get the better of Janine. A couple of observations - Stacey kept wittering about "getting life" if she went to prison, and I'm not certain about what she meant, because Stacey is only wanted for stabbing Janine (as well as absconding the country and re-entering on a false passport and having false National Insurance details on which she has received drugs). Hmmmm .... maybe life isn't so far off being wrong. And Janine had the brass balls to mention someone whom everyone else has studiously avoided until this time - Archie Mitchell. Janine knows that Stacey killed Archie and she drives his death home to her with a sledge hammer, brushing aside Kat's lame assertion that Bradley killed Archie with the contempt it deserved. Throughout that scene at the prison, which was constantly being interrupted to cut back to other, less interesting vignettes, the power of Charlie Brooks's presence carried the storyline and proved how she stands head and shoulder above the one trick ponies that are Turner and Wallace. In the end, Janine drives a hard bargain. She'll drop charges against Stacey, but only after Kat has told the police that she saw Alice kill Michael. So with one fell swoop, Kat is left with the decision to throw the cousin of her friend under a bus or let her own cousin, who's actually a real murderer, go on the run again. Nice one, Janine. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?
Well, it's not Dean, for certain, in what is set to be yet another long lead-in to the return of a character who was sacked almost six years ago and branded as ridiculous. Now that he's matured into a fine young actor elsewhere, EgoBoy is going to take credit for bringing Dean Wicks back to Walford and back to Mummy's hard-face. I predict that he'll be back for two episodes before we get the ubiquitous shirless scene, which seem to be as much for DTC's benefit as for the screaming horde of teenaged girls to whom he purports to pander. Since his return to the helm, we've had Peter Beale strip off in the market in December, a couple of up-close-and-personal shots of Danny Dyer's tackle, Dexter stripped to his remarkably scarless torso (considering he donated a kidney in the autumn) in the cellar of the Vic, and Aleks draped in a towel, prowling the B and B. The time is rife for Dean to strip off, shortly after arriving. No doubt, we'll get constant reminders that Dean is on his way, four times weekly until he finally appears at the end of this month. Or is it next month? Ne'mind. He's on his way, because Shirley's cleaning the joint. Instead of Dean, we got Tosh, the firefighting ex-girlfriend of Tina, whom I'm increasingly beginning to believe is borderline retarded, because something got left someplace in childhood. I used to think Shirley was depressing as mutton dressed as lamb (a titled since inherited by Linda), but Tina takes insipidity to a new level with her silly leggins, Court Jester attire and hair tied in bunches. Subtle moment of the episode was watching Linda's homophobic disapproval melt away as Tosh regaled her with tales of Broadway and musicals after having made a trip to New York. But there they go, Mick and Shirley, wittering on about Shirley "rescuing" Mick and Tina from care and "raising" them. Mick is supposedly thirty-eight and Tina thirty-nine. Shirley is fifty-one - thirteen years older than Mick and twelve years older than Tina. They were babies when taken into care, and Shirley was a young adolescent. By the time she was eighteen, she was married to Kevin and expecting James. Please get your fucking continuity right - when Shirley was allegedly "raising" Mick and Tina, she was Kevin's wife and the mother of three small children, whom she abandoned. And she didn't abandon them to raise her siblings either. Not all viewers are as clueless as the bullybois and fangirls found on the fora, And Speaking of Bullies ... Having cancer doesn't give you the right to behave inappropriately. Just who does Carol think she is, passive-aggressively bullying Tamwar into visiting or writing to Alice? Is Carol stupid or does she not realise that Alice treated Tamwar like a piece of shit, belittling him and rejecting him for Michael Moon? Tamwar owes her nothing, least of all the skin off his arse. Alice is a big girl, and let's stop with the "poor innocent girl" shit. She was sleeping with a married man and plotting to kill his wife and aid him in kidnapping his daughter. Alice is in deep shit, and she's the second Branning vestal virgin to become a homewrecker before she hit twenty. Tamwar should have told Carol to do one, but now that Masood has interfered on his behalf, he'll end up capitulating. Patrick Deserves Better. He certainly doesn't deserve to be alone, but Denise had no right to dictate to Ian that his ten year-old son could move in with his twenty year-old sister so Patrick could move in with the Beales. Conversely, Patrick shouldn't be that desperate that he offers Cora the Bora and her infinitely unlikeable grandson rented accommodation, which Cora thought was a euphemism for OAP sex. Patrick was right to recoil - who wouldn't upchuck at the sight and smell of that old trout lunging at you, functioning alcoholic that she is. And it's about time too, that Max chucked the freeloaders out. I'm guessing Cora, the eternal uninvited guest, pays no rent, and Black Bradley Dexter, who assumed he had a given place in the establishment, pays next to nothing. I'm also guessing the state of the kitchen was down to that shitbreathed little toerag, who's now gone from "Mum man" to "Nan man." How offensive a racial stereotype is Dexter, conceived and constructed by lilywhite, middle-class fanbois who'd run a mile and shit a brick at the prospect of any real encounter with a Dexter. The sooner that little prick leaves, the better. And the sooner more people start realising that DTC really isn't that much better than Newman at her worst, the sooner he might pull his finger out and give us some gritty, realistic storylines ... Oops, there's Stacey a pig flying.
What's EastEnders these days without the ubiquitous Carter scene? Even when they aren't featured, they're right there in the background, serving pints and breeding dogs for money. But they only lurch to the forefront when Mother Shirley, the new-found matriarch, who destroyed her brother's livelihood fifteen years ago and who subsequently stole from him, then walked all over those balls of whom DTC places so much emphasis (because Danny Dyer is the only male whose character remotely still possesses testicles) and emotionally blackmailed him into giving her a share of the Vic and making her landlady. Poor Linda! As much as she would like to believe that this is her pub and that she's the landlady, she's not; and when she realises as much, it will be too late. She'll be out on her ear. At every turn, Shirley's trying to undermine her judgement and play the kids and Mick against her. Last night, the Carters began the show, with Shirley snarling and sniping and being generally more miserable and bitter than usual because she'd been told that Dean was staying with Stan. She didn't "ask Stan nicely" so she didn't get Dean's address, which is just as well, because he was standing behind Stan. She is yet another classic example of the childishly stupid female character viewers are constantly being asked to admire. Does she want to see her son or not? Obviously not, because her pride is miles bigger than any affection she might hold for Dean - oh, because Dean's supposed to love his mother unconditionally, even though she walked out on him when he was a baby and didn't see him again until he was eighteen years old. And they we have the first of our morality play motifs ... the love of family ... in a lesson given by the family Court Jester, Tina. Yea, even a fool shall speak wisdom ...
We're treated to Tina preaching the importance of having loved ones around you and how being there with Mick and the kids - oh, and Linda, too, as an afterthought - has made her realise the importance of family ... not that she thinks that much of her own child, mind you. Later, at the cafe, Sonia, who seems to spend more time working at the cafe than in her career as a nurse, and Tina discuss family some more. Tina tells Sonia that Shirley "raised" her and Mick. Now, either Tina's lying or Pete Lawson didn't do his continuity research. Shirley did not raise Tina and Mick. Babe did. When their mother absconded, Shirley was a very young adolescent, and the children were put into care. Some years later, they were returned to Stan, and by that time, Babe had moved in and took over raising them. Where was Shirley? Married to Kevin and having children, which she didn't even attempt to raise. Shirley bring up kids? To quote another Sonia from another age, she couldn't even bring up phlegm. Sonia was another beatified character last night, and she's in danger of turning into Sonia the self-righteous martyr, who advises Tina that one might never know what will happen in life, so one should treasure one's loved ones - which is the perfect introduction for the impending introduction of Tina's ex-girlfriend Tosh, whom she trots off to find. As Tosh is of a violent bend, the stage is set for lezbo Sonia to re-appear, in her most unlikeable form - a self-perpetuating martyr in love with an appalling child-woman. Oh well, at least it provides a link between the Carters, the Jacksons, the Brannings and - indirectly - the Beales. Et in Arcadia Ego or Brideshead Demisted.
After much speculation about her unannounced and lengthy disappearance, the viewers are allowed a glimpse, via pre-recorded webcam footage, of Kim - who met a man in a kebab shop, spent Christmas in Magaluf with him and is now someplace on a cruise. All of this, of course, is to belatedly explain that Tameka Empson was on maternity leave, and if you don't blink on her webcam chat, you can just about glimpse the baby bump. Kim's news, to a dumbfounded Denise and an equally gobsmacked Patrick, is that she's married Mr KebabShop. At least, that's the gist of her Skype call as she does most of the talking to Denise, Ian and Patrick. Her main message is that she's actually beaten Denise to the altar, and at first, I thought Denise was jealous and taken aback by this. But she's not. You see - and this is actually rather clever - it weaves in an element of permanence in Denise's mind about her relationship with Ian. When a visiting Peter remarks about going "home" (to Billy's flat, Ian scoffs behind his back to Denise, remarking that half of Peter's belongings are still in his room upstairs. Why? Because, according to Ian, deep down Peter knows this thing with Lola isn't going to last, and he's keeping his own room as a "bolt hole." When news of Kim's marriage and duties on his own at the B and B become too much for Patrick, he tells Denise he's closing the B and B ... wait a moment. Can he do that? I seem to recall that the B and B is actually owned by Kim. She bought and developed the business, Kimberley's Palace, with a pay-out from her ex. She bought the adjacent property and added it to the Truman house (which used to be a B and B) and founded the business. Later, after the fire, Zainab gave her the inheritance she got from Yusef to re-develop the business. So how can Patrick "close" the B and B? Presumably any hotelier licence is held by Kim, so she's the signatory on all business cheques. Once again, a lazy writer manages to push shabby,inaccurate and totally impossible detail past an audience, who's caught up in adjusting reality to fit the appropriate storyline to the point that they actually challenge anyone who disputes the feasibility of such happenings in the show. On the one hand, they defend beyond the point of verbal bullying, that such a circumstance could happen, and when presented with facts showing how impossible such a situation is, they either call the challenger a coward or they shrug their shoulders and say, "It's only a soap." Yes (and I'm pointing at the Taliban-esque bully Enders89), but this show was founded and grounded on reality, and the shit that's been being dished since the rising of Dead Den a decade ago would make Julia Smith and Tony Holland puke in their graves. Meanwhile, it seems that all isn't bucolic in Mitchell Minor Arcadia - the flat where Peter lives with Billy, Lola and Lexi - except now, Billy has suddenly remembered that he has two other young children, Janet and William, and has had them spending a few days. Peter is getting fed up with being crowded out, and in another morality play motif, he convinces Ian to be charitable and give Billy a job at the chippie - purely for selfish interests, of course, as he wants to get a leg over Lola. It was nice to see the seldom-seen Mitchell kids again. Ego Te Absolvo ... Not.
If there had to be a high point of this low lifed episode, it occurred, as always, with the re-appearance of Janine, who always lifts whatever scene or episode in which she appears. However, it was obvious from the getgo that this is Dominic Treadwell-Collins's version of Janine, and that is pure pantomime. Here we had Janine the Villain, evil Janine, to whom most Millennials subscribe - after all, it's so easy to see people as simplistically good or bad, and besides, remember evil Janine, kicked that empty pram over. On the other hand, this was yet another ludicrous motif - first of all, that Kat could obtain a visiting order to see Janine was totally unbelieveable. As a member of the family of the deceased victim, Michael Moon, and the mother of one of his children, as well as his housemate, she wouldn't be allowed within shouting distance of Janine. On another tack, Janine has a charge outstanding against Stacey, and she is a witness to that prosecution. Kat's contact with her could be rightly interpreted as knobbling a witness (as was what Joey did) and illegal. Why Kat thought she was special enough to convince Janine to drop charges against Stacey, I don't know. Maybe her ego matches the Messiah's - after all, she's the Mother Teresa of Albert Square. As well, the police still hold Janine's statement. Even if she drops the charges, it's up to the CPS to decide whether or not to proceed, and Stacey was seeing to flee the country. And what was this shit about her and Janine having some sort of "bond" based on the fact that Michael's sperm resulted in both their children. There was never any attempt, apart from initially, to establish the fact that Tommy was Scarlett's brother. The children spent very little time together and barely knew each other. In point of fact, Kat's yet another character who's regressed mightily under the watch of DTC, especially with the arrival of Saint Stacey. A distance cousin, with whom she spent little time until she returned in 2010 and spent Stacey's last few months, slapping their way around the Square and with Kat encouraging Stacey to break up yet another marriage, Kat has done nothing but wail and obsess about Stacey being her "fairmly" for the past two weeks. She's lied to Alfie, indeed she thinks almost nothing of him, so great is her lust to get Stacey back to where Kat thinks she belongs. Stacey's the family that Kat wants? What about her father, her grandmother, her three sisters, or her daughter, who has yet to meet her younger brother? What about her husband? And Janine becomes DTC's ususal panto snake-in-the-grass, hissing her lines and seeing through Kat's lies to announce that she would think about dropping charges ... if Stacey asks her to do so, face-to-face. Now, if the producer really wanted to see justice done on the show, the way it's supposed to be done, he'd have had Janine lure Stacey to the prison, and then scream out loud that the woman who'd stabbed her had weaseled her way inside. Stacey is arrested - job jobbed. But this is all a vehicle to promote the cult of St Stacey the Eternal Victim, and to emphasise the the evil that lies within the panto soul of Janine, the kicker-over of empty prams. Shit, this is the stuff of mentally challenged children. Mea Culpa Mea Culpa Mea Maxima Culpa.
Oh, please ... yes, I know professional Millennial bully Enders89, hates that phrase because (stamping his spoiled, little designer-clad foot), it's so dismissive, but I am dismissing this piss poor overt attempt to thrust a skanky homewrecker and murderer, some porcine little slut who's not above having sex with someone else's husband on the bonnet of a car, whilst her baby daughter sleeps on the backseat. Horror upon horror was heaped upon poor Stacey in this episode, and quite honestly, I'm bored with watching Lacey Turner run around manically with her little piggy eyes squinched up and her nostrils flared in a bad imitation of a professional eternal victim awash with fear. Alfie was perfectly within his right to ask her to leave. Even if Kat's priorities aren't her husband and children, Alfie's priorities are his pregnant wife, the children she's carrying and his son. Harbouring a wanted fugitive would have severe repercussions for his family and the children. I'm surprised Kat isn't thinking of that. Add to this, a sick child and Stacey frantically darting about trying to find medicine. Oh, and Dot is still so damned trusting, after her robbery at Christmas that she still leaves a spare key under the front door mat? Especially with it known that Dot is away? But this was all yet another contrived incident in order to get Stacey and Lauren together, but for a completely different reason. We've had the ubiquitous Lauren-Makes-a-Discovery scene. But people now have to remember that a lot of water has passed under the bridge with Lauren since Stacey left. I was all for her epiphany moment, when she managed to break up Jake's marriage, and realised that she was really just as bad as her mother, Tanya, another teenaged homewrecker, and Stacey, the perpetrator of Stax. Yet, at the time, if you recall, Lauren admitted that she was, deplorably, just like Max. If there were any redeemable part of this entire debacle, it was Cora plying Stacey with some much-valued home truths about what she'd done. But Lauren ... Lauren not only asked fucking Stacey's forgiveness, blythely and briefly mentioning Archie's murder along the way, she actually assumed the blame for everything that had happened to Stacey since Stax. If Lauren had kept the secret of Stax, Bradley might be alive and with Stacey today. Of course, that would have been Stacey's dirty little secret too, and Callum Monks would have still been hanging around. And then she honours Stacey by saying she now knows that Bradley assuming the guilt of a murderer and taking that to his grave, is what he wanted - this after Stacey lies and tells her she thinks of Bradley every day. Yeah, sure, whilst spending Luke's money and looking after Ryan's child. So it's OK now for Lauren to sacrifice her brother's good reputation and have him branded a murderer beyond the grave? Perhaps someone should ask Abi her opinion? Even better, perhaps someone should ask Bradley's mother, Rachel? Without a doubt, that was morally the lowest and most craven point of DTC's tenure, an open and appalling plea to viewers that Saint Stacey is the victim for whom we all should show our fullest support. After all, she gets the gongs. It was positively depraved and done for no reason whatsover other than to showcase the EP's favourite star and as a tip to his own ego and cleverness. And still, the ratings hover a million behind Coronation Street and haven't touched 8 million.
The big news emanating from Elstree this week was the demise of Lucy Beale, to occur within about eight weeks' time and sparking a storyline that will run the rest of the year, only with resolution in February 2015, marking the show's 30th anniversary. So now we know this much - that the 30th Anniversary special is going to centre around the same crux as the 25th Anniversary special did - the resolution of the murder of a member of one of the Square's important, long-term families. In 2010, the murderer of Archie Mitchell was revealed. Yes, Archie was a Mitchell, but a rather recent (and retconned) member of a long-serving family on the Square. This time, Ian Beale's daughter, Lucy, whom we've seen grow from an infant to a young woman, with various heads along the way, for the past twenty years. That this incarnation of Lucy has only been around for the past two years qualifies her as a rather recent face as well. Certainly, of all the Lucies, Hetti Bywater was probably the weakest actress to portray her. In other words, the storyline for the 30th will be the same strain as that of the 25th, with different names substituted. But, you see, that will work with the audience that Dominic Treadwell-Collins is targeting, an audience much like himself - a legion of manboi-fanboi Millennials with little more than a token respect for any history to do with the show, but with a strong penchant for sensationalism. Considering the fact that the reaction of most of that target audience to the upcoming Beale murder has ranged from "ridiculously excited," "wonderfully delirious," and "deliciously dark" to the more watered-down "totes excited" (their words), I'd say DTC has achieved his aim - to get everyone talking about the programme again and to get bums on seats for the beginning of the storyline, right up to its grisly end. Apart from lame-brained theories about Lucy "faking" her death - believe me, Lucy Beale has neither the nous nor the reason to do that, and, anyway, EastEnders learned a thing or two about jumping the shark when Zombie Den was brought back a decade ago - it's patently obvious that this storyline is being played out for two reasons, only one of which has been sinisterly stated. First, it's sensationalism, pure and simple; and we know that this producer likes the creamy feeling over-egging a situation gives to his sensibilities. Secondly, and here's where he gives himself away for the fraud that he is, is - as he says - Lucy's death will mark the end of an era for the Beales. How? Yes, an important legacy character, the daughter of one of two original characters left in the show, is being killed off, at a time when legacy characters from the 80s and 90s are thin on the ground. Ricky Butcher isn't returning. Janine will be gone for a long time, if not forever. One of Phil's children is in prison and the other one, still a child and somewhere with her mother. Denny Rickman is a small child. Ian's remaining children are a young adult son, the actor who plays him distinctly saying he's not in the role long-term, and a child. It may mean the end of an era in which the Beales (and the Mitchells and the Watts and the Butchers) played a significant part. They will now be relegated to the hinterlands of the Shoreditch end of Walford,whilst attention is paid to the pretty but gobby-ended lot who hang about the Vic. Or post-2006 characters, more succinctly. The truth about Lucy Beale's demise is simply that Treadwell-Collins didn't like the actress portraying Lucy, so much so that he wasted no time in excitedly telling the media that he'd planned her demise the moment he took over the realm. This is the same overgrown manchild who pointedly told a real established television actress and a BAFTA nominee, Kierston Wareing, that her character was boring, and took as much pleasure in that act as if he were the cheeky kid at the rear of a classroom cutting a fart under the teacher's nose, which is a pretty apt description of the way this man-boy behaves. He didn't like the actress and with another of the late Cindy Beale's boyishly Greek-looking sprogs on the Square and enceinte in a storyline (and we know this EP loves pregnancies and babies), Hetti Bywater was expendable. When you get his excited fanbase making comments such as:-
I'm not as concerned as some about the legacy thing. I don't have that kind of connection to the history of the show. I'm just excited that it seems a big story is coming and it gets rid of one of my least favourite.
And:-
Its great DTC is not scared to kill off characters. Sharon, Phil, Dot even Ian himself are all at risk under him now. That keeps people on their toes.
You know the future of the show is on a hiding to nothing, because these people care nothing for anything that happened before they were born or were able to remember. That way, history can be changed to fit whatever storyline is on the horizon. And the fact that characters like Sharon, Phil, Ian and Dot define the original ethos of EastEnders, means nothing to them at all, which is surprising, since they are a generation which lives and dies by the ability to be defined and identified by a brand. Get rid of the above, and EastEnders becomes just another sensationalist soap peopled by a gaggle of beautiful people trying to act as if they are the salt of the earth. But then, there's something else about the death of Lucy Beale which reverberates across the entire level playing ground of the British soap genre. With the announcement of the Beale murder, this spring, each of the three major English soaps - EastEnders, Coronation Street and Emmerdale - will feature a central storyline about the violent killing of a young woman. In all instances, the victim will meet her end at the hands of someone she knows, maybe even trusts, and there's a strong possibility that in each instance, the killer may, in fact, be another woman. In Emmerdale's case, that is a certainty, and of all three examples, this programme seems the most responsably handled story. Two teenagers, Belle Dingle and Gemma Andrews, will get into a teenage catfight (the hair-pulling variety) over the affections of a boy. Belle will smack Gemma, she'll fall and hit her head, quickly come around and the two will reconcile, only for Gemma to collapse on her way home and be found dead in a ditch. The crux of this storyline will centre on the aftermath - the reactions of and repercussions for Gemma's father (the family is being written out of the soap), the community, itself, and, more importantly, Belle and her family, because the Dingles are one of the premier families of Emmerdale. Had Belle been in Walford, she'd have been a Mitchell or a Beale. In fact, it's going to be a centrepiece for the Dingle clan, who - like the Mitchells - put fairmly above all else, but who, in this instance, want their child to own up to the responsibility of her actions and accept her fate for acting precipitously. It's the story of a tragic accident with a moral. However, with the other two soaps, there's a different agenda. Corrie's principal girl, Michelle Keegan, wanted to leave the soap, and killing off Tina, Coronation Street's Stacey and just as self-righteous and judgemental, seemed an apt revenge on the EP's part for an ingenue jumping ship. Take that ... now you won't be able to return. For both soaps, it's a means to an end - getting bums on seats and getting the viewing figures up.
That's not only cynical, that's something else. Considering that, of the trio of producers, Kate Oates of Emmerdale, is the only woman, it's not surprising that she's looking at this storyline from the prospective of victim and perpetrator, with the perpetrator being considered as much an innocent victim as the child killed. The producers of Corrie and EastEnders are men, and it's telling, insensitive and borderline misogynistic, that they're emphasizing the sensationalism of star characters, who happen to be women, meeting violent endings, enabling them to trail the storylines out over months into next year as a whodunnit. It's not enough that, almost daily, we open newspapers or turn on televisions or radios to hear of yet another young girl being missing/found dead and killed in some horrifically violent manner. And it usually ensues that she was killed by someone to whom she was related or with whom she was involved - anyway, someone she knew, if not trusted. Yet, here we have the two executive producers of the flagship programmes for BBC1 and ITV1 pitching their wares about the suspects for Tina's murder/Lucy's murder and how these stories are going to be game changers. What's even worse, in EastEnders' case is the legion of fanboi-manbois who worship at the newly re-established altar of DTC, extolling how "incredibly excited" they are about this news. Of course, either of these storylines could happen in daily life. One wonders how these men-children would react if the victim of a violent crime had been their sister, cousin, aunt, mother, friend? Would they even wonder that such a headline-grabbing crime might be appropriated and turned into pulp fiction by a media person intent on his own personal success? Michelle Keegan is leaving Corrie, but so is Chris Gascoigne, who plays probably the most important legacy character in British soap history, Peter Barlow. From Gascoigne's words, he isn't about to return. Why wasn't Peter killed? Why not kill Peter Beale, as Ben Hardy has indicated that EastEnders isn't his long-term goal? It's insufficient for DTC's appeasers to say oh well, Bradley died for the 25th anniversary, let's do a girl character this time. I'm not saying these storylines shouldn't air, just that they should air in the ethos of Logie Baird's remit for the media of television - to instruct, inform and entertain. The impending deaths of Tina McIntyre and Lucy Beale are doing precious little to instruct the viewer of the motives behind these deaths or inform the viewer of how many young women daily meet a violent end; instead, they are seeking the cheap entertainment thrill of a whodunnit. And the fact that the victims are young women, neither of whom, ultimately, was that popular with the audience (one through over-exposure, the other through simple lack of talent), speaks volumes for both Stuart Blackburn's and Dominic Treadwell-Collins's insensitivities and egos. What's even creepier is that, on various fora, the biggest Treadwell-Collins apologists are fanboi-manbois who hide behind an avatar of a female character who is an unpunished and unrepentant murderer, who's currently returned as the star of the show. It should bother some viewers, in view of everyday occurrences in the news, that violence against women is being inadvertantly pushed and promoted as a means of getting bums on seats, a rise in the viewing figures and gongs at the BSAs.
I wake up this morning to the news that Bag O'Bones Beale is about to go to that Great Food Hall in the sky. So DTC is killing off Lucy Beale, who is one of the most important legacy characters in the show, and the daughter of one of two original characters remaining. That's a stiff step to take, considering that the pre-Millennial population is a bit thin on the ground. I have mixed thoughts about this. I've never been the biggest Lucy fan, either of Melissa Suffield's interpretation of her or of Hetti Bywater's. Suffield was too cold and mean a character. You just wanted to smack her. Bywater's total lack of acting experience showed. She mumbled her lines, looked every way but at the camera or the person speaking, and affected a grossly unattractive open-mouthed pout. In the entire two years of her tenure on the programme, she learned absolutely nothing about the craft. I knew that DTC wouldn't entertain retaining Bywater. After all, she wasn't his casting. I envisaged him sending Lucy away to work or live with her grandmother again, and return five years later with a new head. And whilst the usual squad of cheerleading bullybois are creaming their knickers, here's the real reason Lucy's being killed off. She simply isn't The Messiah's creation (pun intended).
Not only that, but there's got to be some gripping occurrence that will hold the viewers' interest and capitalise on getting the long-term viewer to return. Let's face it, the results of a poll taken yesterday on that great one-celled forum, Digital Spy, indicated that the bulk of current viewers started watching under John Yorke's tenure and list him, Diederick Santer, Bryan Kirkwood (!) and DTC as the best executive producers. Anyone before 2000 is almost non-existent. So you have the factors of Bywater's Lucy not being up to DTC's speed, the desire to keep the public salivating in their seats until the 30th Anniversary and then there's a third factor ... imitation being the sincerest form of flattery. Corrie's killing off their version of Stacey, Tina McIntire, this spring, in a whodunnit storyline which will run until their 55th Anniversary special, which also airs in 2015; and Emmerdale is set to run a storyline which sees Belle Dingle accidentally kill her best friend Gemma. My guess is that this is going to be a clever amalgamation of the two. Is it sensationalist? Well, yes, considering that since 2009, we've had Archie's death, Yusef's death, Pat's death and Heather's death, and Archie's murderer is still swanning about the Square, unpunished. Will it work? That depends. You have to wonder who's going to make an exit as the killer, unless DTC plans on making the Square a murderer's paradise, allowing Stacey and Ronnie full rein. My guess is that Ronnie will kill her, because I don't think Sam Womack will last past the 30th. On the other hand, Jacqueline Jossa (who also wasn't cast by DTC) wants the chance to shine as a killer. Shit, they could even have Denny do it. On the one hand, this could work, but on the other hand, it could land a big stinker. One thing for certain, the show needs to move on from the hour-long tripe dished out last night, and people want to man up and feel free to call tripe tripe rather than fear repercussions from the fanboi bullies. The Eternal Victim of the Mind.
We're two-thirds of the way to where DTC wants us to be, so make no mistake. Last night's double-header was all about Stacey and Shirley, with a tip to the long-term viewers (crumbs from the table) and a tour of Walford from the time DTC was first there. Stacey, the Eternal Victim, is back. Note how, since she first showed up, snarling and spewing, she's suddenly been turned into the helpless little victim, who's just been a victim of bad circumstance. Key word ... victim. She would have been quite happy living out the rest of her cush life with Luke, who reminded me of a tattooed Bradley, with her SORAS'd daughter - oddly, this child reminds me of the first young actress to have played Janine, very similar physically and certainly not three years old. A three year-old, even those who are approaching four, are still toddler material. They have rounded, fleshed-out faces and bodies. You have only to think of that famous photo of Madeleine McCann to remember what a three-year-old's bone structure is like. Or just think of Tommy. Or Amy. Seriously. This child's face is too defined, too mature to even resemble a three year-old. I would say she's five, even closer to six. And she's too tall. Stacey's been with this bloke for two years, which means he took her and her kid on when Lily was still a baby. Stacey's entitlement knows no bounds. How can she hope to say to a man that she loves him, when she can't even be honest enough with him to tell him who she is. And she wasn't even entirely truthful then. Yes, she told him she was wanted for stabbing someone, which she didn't do; but not a word was mentioned about her having murdered a man. That led me to wonder who exactly knows that Stacey killed Archie - there's Max and Lauren and the Blisters, but do Kat and Alfie know? They seemed only worried about the fact that she was wanted for stabbing Janine, nothing about Archie. Oh well, let's hope Ronnie tortures the pig-faced piece of trash. And yes, dancing.queen, who really ought to pay more attention in grammar class, I can say that on my blog. The most putrid piece of television last night was seeing Stacey curled up in bed with her demon sprog, an open plea by EgoBoy for the viewers' compassion and sympathy for poor, pitiful homeless fugitive Stacey as she lay, a virtual captive in the Moons' front bedroom, with Kat making inane remarks about how Lily should remember her, how she and Alfie were her family. Oh please - and I can say that here, without offending the delicately entitled sensibilities of EastEnders' own Taliban representative Enders89 - the kid was six months old when she left Walford. If she didn't remember being in the backseat of Dot's old car whilst Ryan and Stacey fucked on the bonnet, she's hardly going to remember Kat. The gist of this storyline now switches to Kat being determined to get Janine to drop charges of assault against Stacey. I bow to the magnificent observation of one of the stellar lights (and I mean that most sincerely) of Digital Spy kitkat1971, who observed in a comment that it really wasn't Janine's decision to make to drop the charges. The case was passed to the CPS, who are the ones pursuing Stacey for justice. It was the same with Max, when he tried to stop proceedings against Lauren for attempting to murder him. It was out of his hands. So there's nothing Kat can realistically do. In fact, she cannot even visit Janine without applying for and receiving a visiting order; and if Janine doesn't want to parley, that's tough shit. But this is EastEnders! More importantly, this is Dominic Treadwell-Collins's EastEnders, where detail doesn't matter and we can make up the rules as we go along, because - let's face it - we're aiming to please the lower end of the market - the kids who speak and write atrocious grammar and who've never been told they're anything but special, the xTonix's of the world, the fanbois who are up for a little sensationalism. You know, the ones who'll take his fiction as fact. I hate Stacey. She's everything that is bad about this programme and more. She is common trash, and she makes everyone with whom she associates common trash - Max, Kat, even Alfie. It amazes me that Kat is so obtuse that she cannot understand Alfie's reluctance to harbour Stacey. Both he and Kat have criminal records. Harbouring a fugitive is a major offence, and he's looking out for his family the best way he knows how. I never thought I'd ever say I'm, looking forward to Ronnie coming back, even though she shouldn't have returned in the first place. If anyone can stick her past into the porcine gob of Saint Stacey Slater, it's Ronnie Mitchell. Bring it on. The Embarassment of Bitches. I'm sorry, I have to play this, because this song will never be the same again.
Yes, we get the picture. DTC likes Les Mis, but there's no need to cram home the truth. The protest was always a statement of the bleeding obvious. You always knew that Ian would come up trumps in the end, you just knew it - just as you knew that Tamwar would throw down his tie, rip off his council badge and join the protest, after an entirely rhetorical comment from Lauren, which was this side of stupid ... Why are you doing this, Tamwar? Well, that was easy enough to answer. It was his job, you dumb entitled bitch, something which you've never had in your life as Dadd-i-o is still financing your skank arse. Her comment was seconded by that infamously other piece of entitled female flesh on the show, Whitney. It seems that somehow DTC has forgotten that Whitney has a job as a teaching assistant, but I suppose that's fallen by the wayside as that was Lorraine Newman's idea. The protest was cheesy and embarrassing. The minute the resident Court Jester, Tina, threw a bread roll at Aleks, the thing became violent, and let's face it - the Carters were only in this game because closure of the market would affect their business. And Linda was only in the game for her own publicity. And here's another question: Is anyone seriously going to address Shirley's alcoholism? She downed a bottle of vodka neat, during the protest, then topped it off with various bottles of wine during dinner. Ian leaping to the parapet of a truck to speak and reference his family's history with the market as well as Pauline working in the launderette, was but a few crumbs from the high table for the long-term viewer, and a lesson in history for the Millennials, which no one will give a toss about. This was DTC's party trick of bringing together community. Where was Max in all this? Oh yes, I forgot. He was visiting Dot in hospital. Beale-istic
Of course, any Beale activity pales into insignificance now we know that Lucy is brown bread. We had a bit of everything with this lot tonight - some history lessons, with a tip to the ignorance of the Millennials in Lucy wondering what the poll tax was, Ian's extolation of Maggie Thatcher and Denise's party political manifesto definition of what exactly the poll tax was. But this was all about the cow coming home.
In the midst of Lucy being bumped off, we'll probably see Ian get back with Jane, as it seems that the most sanctimonious, judgemental piece of bovine flesh is willing to return for another dose of Ian Beale, probably most likely behind the back of Denise. Have you noticed how, when Jane's around, Ian speaks to Denise as if she were a piece of shit? OK, they don't love each other, but I hate the snide way Lucy sneakily asks Ian if Jane's back in the picture, and this after everything Denise has done for her in the past. The plain truth where this is concerned is that Denise wouldn't let Lucy get away with half the shit Jane has. I suppose DTC has forgotten that Lucy is the real reason Jane can't have the calf she wants. Denise can try to talk Ian around to supporting the market with all the same references Jane makes to history and heritage, and yet Ian listens to Jane. If that isn't enough, we had to take an extended tour of Walford as Jane walked around, cadging a drink off Masood and finally gazing up at Scarlett's. She's a sous-chef in a poxy restaurant in Cardiff. How the hell does she come by having so much money to invest in a London eatery? Once again, the figures don't add up. And this is just another bit of window dressing in wiping the memory of the past three years from viewers' minds - not difficult to do, considering most of the viewers who cream their knickers over the show today don't have one collective brain cell to rub together. Another Pointless Return. What was the point of Bushra in this episode? This was yet a continuation of her last appearance, the one where Zainab knocked her for six. This time was Masood's turn to do so - booted and suited and ready to go the the mosque fundraiser. The weirdest thing about Bushra's dressing down was Masood's reference to Syed and his husband, with nary a blink from Shabnam the Muslim poster girl. I'm still trying to get my head around the fact that Shabnam has a degree in pharmacy. She was well ove the age of a graduate the last time she was on the show, yet she was only fit to work in the post office with her mother - something Bushra referenced tonight. My understanding was that Syed had a finance degree (which was about as useless as a chocolate teapot) and Tamwar was going to Oxford. Actually, my most favourite bit about the Masood-athon in this episode was Masood finally admitting that Tamwar as good as would never get to university. At least there's some sort of realism waiting around to get snuffed out by EgoBoy. But please, let's don't re-visit that old chestnut that is Masood and Jane. I'd sooner see Nitin Ganatra leave. Drink and Drugs at Home in the Vic.
I'll ask it once again: When will Shirley's alcoholism be addressed? She was drunk throughout the show, and if Mick is having financial problems, it's because Shirley is drinking up the profits. I'm certain Shirley and lame-brained Tina would be sad to see the market go. They'd have no place from which to steal. And last night's episode proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Shirley should have nothing to do with the Vic. Aunt Babe. I decided last night that I don't like this character. I hate her whispery, low-pitched voice and her snide comments about all and sundry. Her proposal to sell pot from behind the bar of the Vic was ludicrous beyond comment - almost as ludicrous as her having to deal to provide for Mick and Tina. Stan was a working fishmonger, FFS, that's a profession with a living wage! That she was serious about Mick doing this and that Shirley and Tina backed her showed just how incredibly stupid they were. Not dealing to kids is one thing, but they'd get caught before long and then Mick would not only lose his business, he'd lose his home. That Mick even considered bringing this to a vote is indicative of the fact that he's just another weak male. His wife was dead set against it, and his son is a law student. He has his livelihood to think about and he put it to the vote. I'm glad the kids didn't approve or else, I think Mick may have gone along with this. The absolute irony of that scene was Babe whispering (always whispering) to Shirley that Dean had been staying with Stan and that ... (whisper whisper) ... he's not a good influence. How? He likes a drink, but he's prone to telling Dean a few home truths about his mother, some things he found out, himself, when he was there the last time? At least Stan isn't trying to deal drugs or steal from fellow business traders. In fact, the final scene was better than the whole turgid hour, yet you knew damned well that Dean was lurking someplace within the bowels of Stan's flat. Shirley is a piece. Would it have cost her that much to ask her father nicely for news of her son? Obviously her pride is that great, but an even bigger irony is how DTC is making big the return of a character whom he disdained before. I've always lobbied for the return of Dean Wicks, but not for him to be paired with Stacey Slater, which is obviously what's going to happen.
