Slip Sliding Away - Review:- 07.03.2014

This is how I feel the show is at the moment - slip sliding away from the people who have watched from the very beginning, or at least the 1990s. This was the brand that established EastEnders, and although the other two ITV soaps have made noticeable changes in their 54- and 42-year histories, respectively, people still recognise them for who and what they are, and a big way of this recognition goes to the fact that there are many characters in those programmes who've been there for decades. Occasional viewers tuning in will recognise familiar faces.

Not so much on the beautyfest that's becoming EastEnders.

It seems 2014 is open season on culling important original and legacy characters, in anticipation of the show's 30th, after which, as The Messiah will say Walford will never be the same.

Brookside lost its brand too. Look what happened.

Oh, and by the way, viewing figures are like unemployment figures - there to be manipulated and massaged by those people looking hard to see what they want to see. Don't patronise me.

Welcome to the House of Fun.

Whoah and I know a man, he came from my hometown
He wore his passion for his woman like a thorny crown
He said Dolores, I live in fear
My love for you's so overpowering, I'm afraid that I will disappear

That would be the Mitchell abode at the moment because it's a laugh a minute. It's odd to think that all four of this week's episodes took place on the same day and evening. Even so, there are still some gaping holes in the storyline.

Psychopaths are master manipulators,and we saw Ronnie manipulate her situation to her own advantage once again. And once again, DTC has been shown to be a liar. Well, I think he has, because he continues to undermine Sharon's character at the expense of Ronnie and Shirley, who has now been shoehorned into the events surrounding Carl's death.

So, let's see ... the secret of Carl's murder is now known by Ronnie, Phil, Sharon,Shirley and Roxy. Five people. Did no one ever hear of the old saying that the more people who know a secret, the more chance it stands of being outed?

Shirley is still trying to score points with Phil against Sharon. The fact that she's all too willing to help him cover up the death of this man, when she raged against the world for his part in covering Heather's death up is nothing short of hypocritical. And her coy come-hither line to Phil at the near end about "If you ever wanna talk, you know where I am" was pukeworthy. So much for her love and esteem for Heather.

Several people, including the troll formerly known as Monalisa and who now tweets inanities as LindaHenryFan, are wetting themselves in hopes that Phil cheats on Sharon with that scrag-end of grisly meat, Shirley. Sharon's reaction at the end of their vignette, when she appeared to be all right with Shirley being trusted with Phil's secret before she forced his hand was a front, if her expression in the brief scene when she was alone was anything to judge by. She's planning something, but as a commentator on Walford Web aptly pointed out, Phil never ever trusted Shirley with anything. He couldn't even promise fidelity to Shirley and as good as told her he'd never have descended into the hell of substance abuse if Sharon had been with him.

And yet, formerly, Phil always trusted Sharon and respected her. So if this is where the writers are aiming, once again, they're wrong. But then, why worry? The writers know the bulk of the viewers watching the show today are brain-dead entitled Millennials, the likes of which cannot discern fact from opinion and vice versa. When presented with documented proof from clips from the 1990s showing how David Wicks and Carol were never the star-crossed lovers Kirkwood, Newman and now The Great Pretender presented them, I'm told that BBC archived material is "my opinion."

I really shudder when I think of the future of Britain.

It's obvious that the devolvement of Sharon into a pejorative back-ground character is DTC's intention and that his promise to bring Sharon back as she was was another lie - or else, it was well-intentioned until the big ego of a little man got in the way.

Either way, it sucks.

Carl was a bad man, but no one deserves to have one person act as judge and jury and take a life. In fact, Ronnie's constant whine of doing whatever she does for Roxy or Amy (now) is wearing thin, as was some of her story, which didn't ring true.

While it's true that Carl did call her damaged goods, he pinned her against the wall, whereupon she brained him with a bottle of champagne, then somehow lugged his inert and unconscious body to the Arches, dropping him in the pit.

And I seem to recall that Amy was left with Roxy, who fell asleep in Carl's flat on New Year's morning. Amy made her way, alone, to the Mitchell house, and Ronnie took her in. Then Carl appeared (after some earlier encounters with Ronnie and Phil), and Ronnie left the house with Carl and the bag of money, but left Amy in the Mitchell house alone.

Obviously another case of the forgotten child, because it must have taken awhile for Ronnie to kill Carl, shove him in the boot of the Arches car, drive it to breakers' yard (open on New Year's Day) dispose of the car and body and take public transport back to Walford, collect Amy from the house where she was alone and go wake up Roxy.

Holes, holes, holes, holes, holes.

Yet Ronnie turns the screws and presents the story as one of attempted rape. And this begs the question ... the policeman in Spain did nothing, and this was witnessed by Roxy. Carl, most likely, may have raped Ronnie, given the chance, but I think he was more into scaring the shit out of her; now one begins to wonder if what she said about Archie were actually true.

Psychopaths manipulate, and psychopaths lie.

But it achieved its goal. She gets to stay in the Mitchell abode.

The crowning glory of this storyline occurred at the very end, when Roxy discovered Carl's smartphone stashed in her coat pocket and turned it on.

Voila!

After more than two months, even turned off, the battery still has charge - charge enough to record an incoming call from Carl's mother.

And that sets up the action for next week.

The other mystery to be solved is the shadowy figure seen following Shirley from the Mitchell house. Opinion is divided between it being Adam, Carl's brother, or Dean. I'm sticking with the latter,even if it looks as though Dean's a smoker now. He's already been established as a shadowy figure before.

It's Five O'Clock Somewhere (It Has to Be).

I know a woman, (who) became a wife
These are the very words she uses to describe her life
She said a good day ain't got no rain
She said a bad day is when I lie in the bed
And I think of things that might have been

Now for the continuing drama of Carol's breast ... and the breasts of Bianca and Honker.

I find it very hard to feel any sympathy for any of these three women, because they are such awful characters. Carol has always been one of the most brittle, caustic and miserable characters in the show's history. Good actress, yes; totally unlikeable character. In reality, Carol is as emotionally immature as Bianca, a point that was proven tonight (see below) and proven twenty years ago, as seen in the clip below, which is the actual episode in which David learns that Bianca is his daughter - just as he's about to seduce her.

This isn't my opinion, children, it's BBC fact. Carol and David were never love's young dream. Far from it, they were the one-off (as referenced by David in these scenes) as a couple of teenagers. And the line from Pat, a woman who was the least judgemental of any character - past, present or future - in the show's history, shows the viewer exactly what Carol was. (Oh, and by the way, Pat called a spade a spade).

Her line to Carol?

The way you were at it back then, Bianca could have been any one of ten other people's daughters.

So there you have it. It takes one to know one. Carol was the archtypal teenaged slapper, well-versed in the ways of sexual games enough to be putting it out and about amongst various boys at fourteen, but not well-versed enough to reckon on a pregnancy.

Friday's episode concentrated on Sonia's reaction to the news that Carol has the BRCA gene. Some years ago, when I had breast cancer, I was also tested for the gene, since my mother and an aunt had the disease. I was told by my consultant that if I had the gene, then - since my cancer consisted (like Carol's) of a tumour surrounded by clusters of cancerous flesh, which had not spread to my lymphs, I would have a lumpectomy op, with the lymph node under my right arm being removed as a precaution. Then, instead of six monthly check-ups in the aftermath, I would have three monthly checks and scans. My daughters, had they tested positive, could have expected much the same from the age of eighteen onward. The object being to catch any cancer early enough to give the most effective and least invasive treatment.

That's my experience. At no time was I told or even recommended to have a double mastectomy and/or to have my ovaries removed.

Well, it's obvious now that Honker will be the one who'll have the BRCA gene. So we'll be treated to more of Natalie Cassidy's smell-the-fart acting when she gives that sad-eyed, open-mouthed expression of concern, which masks the fact that she's the show's original mouth-breather. More than that, she's EastEnders' Ches-neh - appealing child actor, boring adolescent and deplorably unlikeable young adult.

And this was all set up against the backdrop revelation that Honker and Martin were having marital difficulties. In fact, they hadn't had sex in awhile, which is what marriage and a relationship is all about. I'm not surprised Martin's gone off Honker. The way she treated him during the course of their marriage is nothing short of disgraceful - looking down her nose at him with her arty-farty friends and then abandoning him and Rebecca to go off on a lesbian affair with Gnomi, only to discover she wasn't a lezza and to run back to Martin when her sorry arse got into trouble. The next time we saw Honker was when Ricky and Bianca re-married - ah, Ricky, there's another viable legacy character who's been literally wiped from the collective memory of viewers - and during that time, she stripped naked and offered herself to Phil Mitchell, who could hardly keep himself from puking.

Then we had to endure the cock-and-bull story about Martin having an affair with a supermarket girl. As bloody if.

This marital difficulty back-drop is a set-up for Honker's return to the Square. Of course, mean man Martin will reject her, once she's had her "chesticles" and lady bits removed, thus opening up the door for her to go full-on lezza and be the mangirl to Tina's bitch. It's a clever ploy to shoehorn Tina, a Carter, into the collective established families of Beale-Jackson-Butcher-Wicks-Branning.

Whilst I was impressed with Honker's initial episodes, she quickly went down the pan for me. First of all, I'm offended that TPTB have chosen to do a character assassination on Martin Fowler, off-screen, an original character, who was born during the first year of the show, and who grew up on screen. He is, like Janine (who's leaving) and Lucy (who's dying), an important legacy character. As things now stand, the only Fowler representative standing is the insipid and oddly silent daughter of Honker, who's hardly aware of her heritage.

Kill off Nick, kill off Lucy, sideline Peter - and that was made most obvious last night, that - since this Peter Beale was not a DTC casting - that it won't be long before he's out on his ear and Lola and Jay are a couple. God only knows where that will leave Abi. What's left of legacy characters and original, identifiable ones?

Secondly, Honker has annoyed me from the getgo, the way she's spoken to both Ian and David. She's shown both those men nothing but the most high-handed and utmost disrespect. Why? They've done nothing to her. Ian has treated her and referred to her as family. which she is. She is the wife of his first cousin. Yet she's been openly rude to him, interposing herself in Cindy the Greek's situation, when this is really no concern of hers. In fact, it's no concern of Ian's because Cindy the Greek forced herself into his household and still treats him like a piece of shit. So much for DTC's promise of not allowing views of adults through children's eyes. Another lie.

Honker's staying as a guest in the house owned by David's late mother, and he is the father of her half-sister, Bianca. Yet she's made pithy self-righteous comments about him as well. Both David and Ian are plonkers, but they do seem to be doing the best they can at difficult times of their lives. Are they perfect? No. Far from it. But neither is Honker. And most importantly, David and Ian are blood relatives of Honker's child, from her father's side. In fact - and consider this for in-breeding - Rebecca is related to Bianca through both her mother and her father. At once, Bianca is Rebecca's aunt as well as her first cousin once-removed. Go figure.

What a Boy Doesn't Need.

And I know a father who had a son
He longed to tell him all the reasons for the things he'd done
He came a long way just to explain
He kissed his boy as he lay sleeping

Then he turned around and he headed home again

Bianca points out that it's a school night. Honker and Honkette are staying over. Where are they sleeping? In the room behind the lounge, the door to which has mysteriously disappeared again?

That aside, Bianca interposes herself on the situation at hand between Terry and TJ - and that's the fact that, at fifteen, TJ is to become a father.

Full points to honesty for the lad, who pointed out that he was only fifteen, and Cindy the Greek was still in school, herself. What did they know about bringing up a kid?

This is true, and heartbreakingly honest, especially for a boy, who, a few hours before, was speaking about going to university. It's admirable that Terry wants to stand by his son in his determination to do well and acknowledge the child of a girl, whose recent behaviour has been nothing short of slutty. I have an awful feeling that Cindy the Greek, a pointless and unnecessary character, will drop the child and disappear, herself, leaving TJ and Terry to step up to the pjate.

What the scene didn't need was Bianca's screeching and wittering, especially her apocryphal story about Carol blessing out a teacher after Bianca had cut off a fellow student's braids as a child. That showed nothing but what a dumb fuckwit bully Carol was. Whatever the child said about Bianca's paternity, Bianca's physical reaction to the child was nothing short of assault, and Carol could have found herself being prosecuted.

Bianca is one mouthy ignorant retard. I'm so surprised that Terry would want to entrust his children to her care. She's an abysmal mother. In fact, I wouldn't want either Ronnie or Bianca around any sort of children.

On the other side of the coin, we had Jay enticing Lola, a young mother in a relationship of her own, out for a drink at the Vic, whilst Peter stayed in with Billy baby-sitting her child. Yet another regression of a character, with Lola reverting to her feckless and unlikeable ways she fostered when she was introduced three years ago. It's clear DTC wants Lola with Jay, and whilst it's good to see Jay as something more than Dexter's wingman, the sidelinging into virtual non-entity of Peter Beale, a far more important (legacy) character than Jay, is indicative even moreso of DTC's subtle plan of re-branding EastEnders as EastEnders 2.0, the Millennial version.