No, He's Not the Messiah - Review: 27.02.2014

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.