Tonight's episode made me realise just why I can't muster any sympathy for the Beales right now.
They simply aren't very nice, or likeable, people. Oedipus Beale.
Ian Beale, the man of constant sorrow and the Oedipus Rex of Albert Square. Ian has been going in circles for the past 20 years, and tonight, his entire ethos was summed up behind the meaning of three very cruel words he exclaimed to his youngest child:- You're not Lucy. DTC is a great con artist, and he's got the Millennials chomping at the bit and munching the carpet in eager anticipation of resolving their newest hero's dilemma. The Millennials have discovered Ian Beale, arguably the greatest weeper in the history of EastEnders. Poor Ian has replaced "Poor Dot," for whom they allow a smidgeon of sympathy each time she's allotted a storyline. Now that the Millennials have latched onto Ian Beale, of course, they know everything there is to know about him, having watched the show since it's beginning (for them) in 2006. Seriously. Anyone of us who've watched the show from its beginning, or at least since the late 1980s understands Ian Beale very well. He's a person who never learns from his mistakes. He's greedy, grabbing, weaselly, snobby, condescending, mean-spirited and selfish. In his entire life he's only had two friends, and one of those friends was his cousin. Fair dos to Dominic Treadwell-Collins for unintentionally summing up Ian's greatest psychological dilemmas tonight in one fell swoop and defining the governing motivation of Ian's entire adult life, joining it with the biggest guiding factor of his childhood. The Jesuits say Give me the child until he is seven, and I'll show you the man. Ian and his brother David are the biggest sort of manboys on the Square, and they both suffer from terminal Oedipal complexes. Forget Pete Beale. He was a crap dad to both his sons. Instead, look at Kathy and Pat. Kathy spoiled Ian rotten (the way she later spoiled Ben rotten, and look how he turned out). Pat neglected David. Jane the Cow is a Kathy replica. She even sounds like Kathy and treats Ian like a recalcitrant schoolboy. Carol the Slapper, on a good day, is a no-nonsense earthmother, who thrives giving good advice to a gaggle of kids who aren't hers. Ian wants to be mollycoddled and mildly disciplined by Kathy-Jane and then he wants to fuck her for comfort. David wants to be looked after by Carol-Pat and then he wants to fuck her for comfort. However, there's an even more important guiding factor in Ian's adult life, which might be categorised as The Hunt for Lost Cindy. Lost Cindy has dominated Ian's life for more than 20 years. Cindy was the absolute love of his life. It didn't matter to Ian that Cindy treated him like shit, that she cheated on him repeatedly and tried to pass another man's child on him as his. It didn't matter that she slept with his brother and paid to have Ian killed or that she kidnapped two of his children and nabbed a sugar daddy to pay for the best kind of legal advice to get her children back. Ian simply loved her, and he would have had her back a third time, if he could have done so. Ian named Cindy's youngest child after her, and he would have taken the baby to raise, had Gina Williams not wanted to do so. Everything connected with Cindy Ian loved best, and that included his cacky daughter Lucy. It's why he allowed Lucy to speak to him as though he were a piece of shit and to disrespect him openly. It's what her mother used to do. It's why he ran, blubbing, after hairy CindyBoy the Greek, being chauffered away in a car; and it's probably why he'll "appropriate" CindyBoy and her child as his own, and probably why, at some point past her sixteenth birthday, Ian will probably shag hairy CindyBoy the Greek. She's part of Cindy Snr and part of the legend that wasn't Lucy. Grossed out? Don't be. Ian Beale isn't tragic. He's horny, and his horniness lays about his shoulders like a flasher's coat. CindyBoy isn't related to him by blood, but she's the daughter of the love of his life and the mother of two of his children. And Ian has been well-known for sleeping with women or wanting to sleep with women whom he'd watched as chilldren at play in the Square. Janine Butcher and Clare Bates will attest to that. And as we listen to Ian lament openly the fact that he's only left with an adult son and a younger child, both of whom don't measure up to the anorexic little mouth-breather who got whacked, consider this:- People need to realise that Ian spent the better part of 1999 emotionally blackmailing a potential trophy bride into staying with him by telling her that Lucy, who was then six years old, had cancer. That's right, he blatantly lied about the health of his only daughter in order to keep a beautiful woman in his bed. Last night, he sat at the table and used his youngest child as bait to induce that child's adopted mother to return to him as his wife. He was quite open in telling Jane that he wanted Denise out of the house, quite blasé in suggesting that both he and Jane just casually dump Denise and Masood. After all, who cares, as long as they're together. Besides, there are Peter and Bobby, above all, Bobby, Jane's son, to consider. When Jane kept demurring, Bobby sought to comfort his father by reminding him that he, Bobby, was still there for him. Yes, but you're not Lucy! Aye, there's the rub. You see, Bobby's never been big in the grand design of the Beale legacy. Even Steven was more important to Ian, and Steven isn't even a Beale. Steven and the twins were Cindy's children. Bobby was the unplanned and unwanted afterthought - the child of a plain, overweight woman who nannied for Ian and who was driven to infidelity by his passive-aggressiveness, a trait she aptly learned to acquire, herself. So horrified at the thought of having a child with Laura was Ian, that he had a vasectomy - or at least, he thought he did. When he discovered she was pregnant, he hit her with that fact, which led to her confession of infidelity. Ian didn't want to know Bobby until he found out that he was his son, then he wrenched him from Garry Hobbs's arms forcibly. Ian had a new toy - except that toy never issued from the loins of Saint Cindy. Bobby is ten years old, old enough to remember that line; and even though it was spoken in grief, Bobby will feel that to be the truth, and it was. Ian is one psychologically fucked-up dude. He lives in a fantasy welter on the one hand of longing for some idealised version of Cindy, along with his mother, whilst needing female attention and assurance on the other hand, but revelling in psychologically mistreating these women to the point where they inevitably cheat on him, and he justifies his subsequent behaviour, by telling himself that Woman A or Wife B just didn't measure up to Cindy. The Cow Goes Home.
How nice to see Jane reap what she had sown, and to react in typical Jane fashion, by running away. Jane's now acting the way she did in the wake of her husband David's death -moping about, face like a smacked bum, eyes downcast.This isn't grief for Lucy, this is good old-fashioned guilt. We saw it again, in the wake of her little gymnastic work-out across the table with Grant. She does the deed and then ponders the circumstances she's caused other people.
The truth is this: Ian would never have latched onto her cowhide if she hadn't come back the second time, sidelining and patronising Denise, acting smug, passing judgement, posing herself as the Wise Woman of Walford.
And now she's faced with the responsibility of what she's done. She's cheated on Masood, after using him relentlessly and imposing upon his hospitality, leading him to think that they had a future. And at the same time, she cannot have been so obtuse not to realise how Ian would react and how much she was undermining Denise. The very fact that she knew that Ian was lying and keeping things from Denise should have sounded alarm bells in Jane's brainless, self-obsessed skull, because Ian was treating Denise the same way he treated Jane, yet Jane carried on, disregarding Denise,bragging to Masood how she thought of the Beale kids as "her babies" when that was a bare-faced lie.
She confused the issue even more at the end by telling Ian that she loved him. Ian is, in no way ever capable of understanding the nuance behind that declaration. Didn't she stand on the steps of the register office and tell him that she loved him, but wasn't in love with him?
Jane's truth is that she's a moral coward. She knows that giving into Ian's lust and her own greed at the prospect of being Mrs-Beale-Local-Businesswoman will mean that she will be living on the doorstep of the man she led to believe that she loved. She'll have to face Masood every day, and the prospect facing him is far worse than living with Ian's sulky latent adolescent hissy fits about Grant Mitchell. She also knows that re-uniting with Ian would mean facing down Masood and Denise every day of her life she spent in Walford,and Jane can't abide the idea of anyone considering her a hypocrite or of anyone judging her, which is why Shabnam, doing a good impersonation of a Muslim Dot Cotton, refused to judge Jane the Cow and actually came out the better person for it, especially as Jane sloped away from Walford without as much as an explanation to Masood, the man whom she's used for the past few weeks. You deserve better. Yes, Jane, he does. Now, back to the cowshed for you.
Peter Pecker.
I am convinced now that Lola is Peter's Denise. He's condescending towards her, tries to control her ambitions, is rude and oafish and doesn't credit her with being intelligent enough to have either a heart or a brain. Lola took no pleasure in finding those troll comments on Lucy's social networking page, yet Peter treated the matter as if he felt that she did. Her efforts to support him by bringing together a group of Lucy's friends - including an acquaintance Johnnie Carter, to make up the numbers, was something shallow and self-obsessed beauty queen Lauren would never have thought of doing, yet Peter the prick credits Lauren with the idea, and Lauren is too dimwitted to protest otherwise. Other Thoughts. Good Carter/Bad Carter. I love the dynamic of Mick, Linda and the kids. I hate Tina. More trash-talking of Martin. Sonia plans a night out when Martin has already made plans. Tina interposes herself in a situation that is none of her business. I don't blame Martin. I'd hang up too, if someone called me a div. But Sonia's encouraged this. She bemoans the fact that Martin's always out doing something, but when the hell does Sonia have time for Martion or silent Rebecca, when if she isn't playing Linda Lovelace at some hospital, then she's serving at the caff in place of Carol and whining about Martin's burps offending her delicate tastes.
On the other hand, I love Linda Carter, offering to bring ready meals disguised as casseroles over to the Beales. Mick's reaction to Linda's offer was comic and classic, as was Johnny advising Peter not to go home for a meal.
Donna is DTC's newest version of Adam. I totally buy the inference that disabled people can be as snarky and generally unpleasant as anyone, but this is the second disabled character DTC's introduced who's less than likeable. I know Bianca can be hard-going, but in this altercation, I was totally Team Bianca. Donna is a gossip and a generally malicious person. She's the female version of Adam without the posh voice and Oxford education. She's such a judgemental cow, maybe she should bond with Jane.
Kat diffusing the situation, especially Donna's disrespect of a young person who's just died would have driven the point home further, if Bianca had revealed to Donna that the person she was disrespecting was, in fact, Bianca's cousin.
Tommy was too cute.
He and the Carters saved this episode. I want to see Ian end up miserable and alone. He deserves it.
Because of work commitments, illness and trying to sell seven puppies, I decided to watch the much-touted "Beale Week (Weak) episodes as a whole and give a review of the week which was touted to begin 10 months of a storyline destined to climax on the night of the show's 30th anniversary in February 2015.
I'm old enough to have watched and remembered Sharongate - a story with two years' duration. I also watched and remembered Saskiagate, which took one year to resolve.
Unlike the argumentative, intractable Millennial, who resorts to personal insults when people refuse to view history and people of another time through his limited 21st Century vision, or who is unable to see another side of an argument to the point he ties himself up in knots and contradicts himself consistently, I appreciate that these stories occurred when the production of the show was better, its research top-notch and its writing room tight, capable and talented.
EastEnders' faux Messiah ...
... can wave his hand like a magic wand and brag with aplomb that this storyline will carry on for 10 months, and automatically his rabid following of Millennial fanbois are already crediting him with "turning the ship around", and consigning the likes of Coronation Street and Emmerdale to the dustbins. For the record, Stuart Blackburn is who he is, but he has an uncanny knack of making lemons from lemonade. People will do well to remember that EgoBoy has already been caught in a tissue of lies, that as much as he might give us this story, he also gave us Darren Miller fathering a child on Heather, the burial and resurrection of Max Branning (again on an Easter weekend 2008) and Mad May blowing up the Millers' house. DTC will have turned the ship around when the show is "there-or-thereabouts" consistently with Coronation Street. As it was once some years ago. However, as a fellow fan of Agatha Christie, I have to say that if Treadwell-Collins is doing what I think he's doing - and if it works - it's going to be bloody brilliant. If you aren't familiar with Christie, let me explain to the Millennials what to look for -
A murder is committed and a body is found (check)
Detectives begin to interview a wide range of suspects, each of whom had a connection to the deceased
It's discovered that each suspect is harbouring a secret.
Toward the resolution of the matter, there will be several unexpected twists, and it will be discovered that a seemingly unrelated event, resulting in a domino effect of events/evidence that all tie together to explain the murder
The culprit is found to be the least likely character to have been affiliated with the victim.
If this sounds like Broadchurch, consider this: Broadchurch, and indeed all murder mystery, is based on Christie. And expect a scene in the 30th episode where the detective in charge, a person we'll know well by then, to assemble everyone associated or remotely associated with Lucy in one venue to reveal the murderer. I expect everyone will be summoned to the Boxing Club.
My theory? I'm saying that they key reason behind Skeletor's death was the drugs, and I'm saying that Lucy's death will be linked with the death of Carl White (a dealer), the key on a chain around Stacey's neck (now in Lauren's possession), the body in the coffin (not Nick Cotton, but quite possibly Ryan Molloy), the character posing as Charlie Cotton (who's neither a policeman, Charlie Cotton, nor Dot's grandson) ... and the least likeliest person the fanbois would consider murdering Lucy ... Ronnie Mitchell.
Walford will never be the same.
On the general scheme of things, this week was probably the strongest week for the programme for the past two years, but DTC had his reasons for focusing on the Beales for this storyline.
First, it was a way of getting rid of someone who was, arguably, one of the weakest actors ever to appear on the programme, Hetti Bywater. Nice girl, shame she can't act. She'd never had a professional acting job before, was hired on the basis of her looks, had weird eye make-up, and - quite frankly - is anorexic.
Secondly, DTC wanted to use Adam Woodyatt's party piece - his ability to cry - to its extreme.
Sometimes, less is more.
The direction in Monday's episode was very good - moreso, the juxtaposition of Ian, juggling his concern for Lucy and Peter with his restaurant run-through, the other scenes of life on the Square - the pool tournament etc with people all going about their business, and then the quiet solitude of Lucy's body on the common and the child that found her. Interesting that it was also a child who found Saskia's body in Epping Forest, a boy on a bike. And even more interesting that Lucy's bag was no other place than with Lucy at the time of her death.
This was a really good and watchable episode, especially for the variety of characters brought together and interspersed with people whom we know will be considered suspects - Lee, Max, Jake, Whitney. Not that any of them will be the killer. There really could be a killer amongst them, but tonight, I don't think there was.
Tuesday's episode's juxtaposition of the Beale family absorbing Lucy's death alongside the birth of puppies at the Vic, with Shirley being the hero of the piece and, yet again, bonding with Phil, was overshadowed by a Freudian slip spouted by EgoBoy in the nine-minute publicity blurb about the making of the death of Lucy Beale. I have a question - if the current Executive Producer goes to the lengths of tweeting publically that he's restoring Sharon to her rightful place in Walford, and she's still coming across as a minor player - indeed, playing second fiddle and negative foil to Queen Shirley - what is the point? If he always intended to marginalise the character, then, by all means, tell the actress that she's surplus to requirements and let her go. If he's trying to create a situation where Phil is more attracted to Shirley to the point of him cheating on Sharon, then I call bullshit on this producer and his faux interest in the history of the show.
In the publicity blurb, DTC fired speculation regarding his real feelings toward the character of Sharon Rickman when Treadwell-Collins remarked that Adam Woodyatt's Ian Beale was the only remaining original character on the programme. Dude, please. Just shut the fuck up. Letitia Dean plays Sharon, who was featured in a scene in initial episode before Ian had even appeared. I realise this has sparked an attempt amongst the Millennial fanboi brigade, who champion every fart DTC cuts, to re-define "original", but I'm sorry, you are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts. "Original" means "there from the beginning." It doesn't matter if Philip Lawson left Corrie years ago and didn't return until a few years ago. His Dennis Tanner is as much an original Corrie character as Bill Roache's Ken Barlow. Originality isn't judged or measured by tenure. It means who was there at the beginning, and Sharon was there as well as Ian. The fact that Dean left and returned means simply that Letitia Dean was more up for taking risks and expanding her portfolio than Adam Woodyatt, who milked the cash cow that Jo Joyner described as EastEnders. Thursday's episode began in a welter of silence. I liked that the whole of the action took place within the Beale-Fowler house. That gave the episode the feel of a stage production. At first I was uneasy with that, especially for the first couple of wordless scenes - scenes like this are always more palpable and powerful when seen on stage. On film, they seem a bit pretentious, as stage productions tend to be more physical in nuancing behaviour than film, which has a camera and a close-up facility.
But in hindsight, it worked.
Pretentious, but it worked.
Friday's episode was the weakest of the lot. It was OTT from beginning to end, but had some good moments.
Now for the nitty gritty.
The Winners:-
Denise. I bloody love Denise, and although I'm supposed to feel sorrow, sympathy and all kinds of empathy for the Beales, proper ... I just don't.
Why? Because the Beales, as a whole, aren't very nice people. Come on, is Ian likeable? He's had his moments, but under this producer, he's regressed to the same old same old weaselly, cheating, unpleasant, condescending prick he's been since God was a boy - or at least, since Cindy left him and Mel told him some home truths.
But Denise doesn't deserve the shit she's being dished.
Since the cow came home ...
... it's Denise who's been put out to pasture.
Ian's been lying to her since she moved in. And since the bovine woman, Lesley Clarke, returned, calling herself Jane Beale, Denise has been virtually non-existent.
I feel immense sympathy for Denise. I want to cry every time I look at Diane Parish's face - and she has, easily, the most emotive face on the programme, as well as being one of the strongest actresses. She had made up her mind to leave Ian, and now she's indelibly tied to him for the foreseeable future, until the resolution of the murder or until Ian comes to terms with events enough to know that he definitely wants Jane back, and then bins Denise. The actress, like Letitia Dean, deserves better.
I feel immensely sorrier for Denise than I do for the Beales in their grief, because whatever the outcome in all of this, Denise is about to get shat upon from a great height.
Diane Parish has the most beautifully expressive face of all the cast. The anguish reflected in her eyes showed genuine grief for the ending of a young life and horror at the thought of being trapped in a loveless relationship with no way of extricating herself, gracefully. I know Ian was grieving and upset, but I thought his gesture of pushing Denise's comforting hand away from his shoulder was petty and puerile.
Watching her face imperceptibly change as she heard about the events of Lucy's last day was one of the best pieces of wordless acting I've seen on the show, and later that brilliant look of mistrust and loathing on her face as she watched Jane after the DNA swabbing, spoke volumes. It said Who the hell are you and why are you here? And I'll tell you what. She saw through Jane's flimsy lie about Ian not wanting to spoil Denise's trip to Oxford. Witholding that information about Lucy was excluding, patronising and reeking of distrust.
In many ways, that small scene was my favourite of the week, because the look Denise gave Jane was a total look of death, which said Denise really wanted to smack the living shit out of Jane. Jane, for her part, knew exactly what Denise was feeling, and being the cowardly bully she is, looked as though she'd shat herself. I bet the hall smelled rancid.
The Beales neither like nor respect Denise, and now she knows it. She owes them nothing in their grief, and she's a better and bigger person, for staying there to support them. They wouldn't do the same for her. Peter Beale.
If anyone came into his own this week, it was Peter Beale. I don't know if this is a good or a bad thing, but Ben Hardy showed us what he was hired for - to act. Then he did the topless photo shoot for Attitude magazine. I don't think Peter's long for EastEnders. The actor, himself, has expressed a preference for stage, he's got filmstar looks, can act and - given the right period piece - can become one of a bevy of floppy-haired pretty British boys cutting it in Hollywood. Hey, one's even from Coronation Street. Besides, DTC didn't re-cast him, and under the Treadwell-Collins tenure, Peter's degenerated into a slothful, socially gauche, snobbish oaf. Even this week, after the death of his sister, Peter was still obsessing to his father and to anyone who would listen about how Lucy was Ian's favourite. Wah-wah-wah ... so add "spoiled brat" to the list above. This doesn't mean I think that Peter was Lucy's killer, even though he whined and moaned about Ian calling Lucy four times the night she died and calling him only once. It does mean, however, that sometime after Lucy's murderer is found, Peter will scarper. His hasty intention to go this week, where he begged Lauren to make excuses to Lola enough to distract her so he could pack his bag and flee was the desperate attempt to run away from the reality of grief at losing his sister. I understand the twin mystique. I lost a cousin recently, who had a twin brother, and he said to me that with her death, he feels a part of himself is missing. Maybe this is what Peter feels, which would explain that long soliloquy about being with Cindy and Steven in Milan, when Peter was all of three years old and missing Lucy's presence. But then, maybe that was a recitation inserted by whoever wrote this episode, with instruction to "play it to the olds" by mentioning as many past characters from the 1980s and 1990s as possible. Keep those Boomer bums on the seats. At times, however, I felt Hardy's acting (as well as Woodyatt's) was well over the top. The scene where Ian entered the pub to inform Peter of Lucy's death, was a bit too maudlin for my liking, especially when he led his son from the premises by the hand as though he were a child. The last scene, where the two men fell into each others' arms in the middle of a dank London street, unbelieveably empty, roaring grief at the top of their voices, failed to move me. This was sensationalism at its worst. The rest of the week re Peter consisted of various shots of Peter looking adorably and prettily sad. Girls wanted to smother him with hugs and fanbois wanted ... well, they wanted him to bend over. But it served a purpose. At least Ben Hardy got noticed by the right crowd in the media. (Translation: Whew! Maybe he'll want to go, and we won't have to sack him.) The Losers:- Lucy Beale. Modelling the new De'Ath range of clothes and posed affectingly as a corpse. She still looked like someone from the catwalk. Death becomes her, but she can't even play a corpse. Ian Beale:-
I'm utterly convinced that DTC nominated the Beales for this particular storyline because of Adam Woodyatt's propensity to cry excessively in the role of Ian Beale. Yes, Woodyatt is a good actor, but the fact remains that, in all of his professional life, he's only ever played Ian Beale, apart from the forays into pantomime. So Woodyatt is a good actor at playing Ian Beale. And, yes, Ian was a shocked and grief-stricken dad. That's a given, but Ian's behaviour was no different from Ian Beale bankrupt and following Phil down the street on his knees, begging. It was no different from Ian Beale being binned off by Melanie. Examples?
And this:-
Pretty much the same kinda crying. And notice something odd ... Ian comes across in both these clips as cowardly impulsive, dishonest and sneaky. All of that, all of that, came across in this week, with particular reference to the subjects concerning the clips above, especially the second clip. Immediately before telling Peter that "Lucy's gone," there was an emotive scene where Ian gazed at a rain-specked window and related the events of Lucy's birth - how she came into the world, angry and punching the air. Not much changed, did it? As I listened to him waxing lyrical, I could only remember arguably the biggest lie of Ian's life - the one he told Melanie to keep her from breaking their engagement: that Lucy had cancer. This is the man who thought that, together, he and his daughter were "special." Here is the dead daughter who, to Ian, was "the one." And yet he lied about her health in order to keep a trophy bride in his bed. The scene with Phil, not only could be juxtaposed with the scene where Phil ended up comforting Ian and giving him a man hug - make that mug. Steve McFadden carried that scene, with Ian managing to do a real Bianca line. 'Owmahgonnalookaftermekids? Ah've lost everyfinkkkkkkkkkk! Ian, your daughter died. The daughter who not only didn't like you very much, she thought you didn't like her very much, almost to the point that she was spooked when you told her how much more important to you she was than either of her brothers. You've lost everything? Believe me, you will. And more important, the fact that Ian is an established liar was brought home to roost when Denise found out the secrets he kept from her regarding Lucy's drug habit. Even in death, Ian is still worried about the good name of the Beales staying intact, castigating hairy CindyBoy the Greek for telling the truth to the police about Lucy's habitual drug use. Ian kicked her out. At last. Something he should have done long ago - at the very latest when she was caught nicking 10 grand of Phil Mitchell's money. Instead, he kicks her out for handling Lucy's virginal jumper and calls dippy Gina Williams, Cindy's legal guardian, to collect her, only to end the association by being emotionally blackmailed into running after Gina's car, screaming pitiably for Cindy. Cindy, a fifteen year-old girl, who looks like an adolescent hermaphrodite, speaks with the voice of a forty year-old woman who's been smoking Woodbines for 20 years and speaks to Ian as adult-to-adult, and not the way a child should speak to an adult - certainly not the way the child of someone's ex-wife should speak. For all DTC's claims about how EastEnders was going to cease depicting a child's view of his parents, DTC is doing a pretty damned good job, with the Beale kids, of depicting a child's view of his parents. Watching this, I suddenly realised why hairy CindyBoy the Greek and Ian creep me out so much. I know that the little snipe, who spent much of the week, saying What? and hanging her mouth open in that awful pout (when Ian told her to keep her mouth shut, I laughed out loud), will return. Ian will all but adopt her and her sprog, stop the Spraggans from having anything to do with the child (they're leaving, anyway). He will view her as some sort of weird agglomeration of Lucy (being Lucy's sibling) and Cindy Snr (being her mother), and when CindyBoy the Greek hits sweet sixteen ... Ian will shag her.
Shocked? Consider this: Ian knew Janine as a small child when he was first married to Cindy's mother. He's shagged Janine. He knew Clare Bates as a young child when he was married to Cindy's mother and raising the twins. He would have shagged and was hoping to shag Clare, had Clare not run for the hills. Believe me, Ian shagging CindyBoy the Greek isn't beyond the realms of possibility. Bossy the Cow.
The worst loser of the week was Queen of the Bovines, Lesley Clarke. Lesley, you'll recall, left Walford a couple of years back, when her son Bobby was cute and blonde and didn't look like a smirking drama school kid, calling herself Jane Clarke. She abandoned her son, for a career in a provincial pie-and-mash shop, with dreams of introducing the Parisiens to British cuisine. She certainly wasn't thinking of her son, either when she moved to another part of London, or when she decided to re-locate to Cardiff. On both occasions, she could have taken her son with her, but she chose not to do so. Shit, she preferred spending Christmas, gossiping with Tanya, rather than with her son. All she's done, since she's returned is step on Denise's toes, sideline her, undermine her and make her feel like a bastard at a family reunion. This is the same Lesley Clarke, who, when summoned to Walford by Peter, when he was concerned about Ian, pointedly and succinctly told the Beale siblings, including her son, that she was no longer a part of the Beale family dynamic, and every concern they have for Ian, from now on, they should direct at Denise. Yet here Lesley Clarke is again, now calling herself Jane Beale, investing Monopoly money into Ian's jumped-up junk food restaurant (I thought sous-chefs in country digs weren't that well-paid), preaching not only to Ian, but also to the Spraggans about CindyBoy the Greek's pregnancy, taking her for a scan, interfering in Ian's decision to send her back to Devon, preaching, again, in the face of Gina Williams, CindyBoy's legal guardian, about Ian's "wrong" decision to send CindyBoy back where she belongs. Who does this woman think she is? She gives up the Beale family, but refers nostalgically to the kids as "her babies." WTF? She had nothing to do with bringing them up. The twins were brought up by their mother, Mel, Laura, and - for the most part - by Nana Pat and Auntie Pauline. Both Lucy and Peter treated Jane with mild cynicism and open disdain. She feared them, and they knew it. Bobby didn't even call her "Mum" until he started school, and she was powerless as a four year-old demolished the decor in a house with a bottle of ketchup. Who does this woman think she is? Not only does she presume simply to open the door of a house which is no longer her home, as if she's entitled to do so, she opens the door whenever the bell or a knock is sounded, and she's appropriated the home of the man whom she is using sexually, casually, as her own. Bobby spent the night at ours. Cindy is staying at my house. Memo to Lesley Clarke:- Masood Ahmed is not your partner or your husband. The house he's so nicely offered you hospitality is not your house. Check your pejorative privilege at the door. And there was nothing worse than the constant, condescending and schoolmarmish reminder to Denise (as if Denise were the idiot) - You and I have to hold this family together. What a self-righteous, condescending, judgemental, superior, hypocritical, greedy bitch. For me, the scene of the week occurred after Jane and Denise had submitted to DNA testing. Standing in the upstairs hall, waiting for the forensics officers to finish their work, there was an uneasy silence. Denise had just sussed that Ian had been lying to her about various things, mostly Lucy's drug use, whilst he had kept Jane apprised of the situation. Denise spent up to twenty seconds giving Lesley Clarke what can only be described as a look of death, the camera scrutinising her expression carefully. Denise looked as though she could have smacked the living shit out of the bovine Lesley Clarke and cooked up a steak from her remains for dinner. Lesley knew what Denise was thinking. She's just a craven and cowardly as Ian - which is why they deserve each other. The more Denise looked at her, the more Jane looked as though she were massively shitting her knickers. I'll bet that house stank to the rafters. When Denise found her voice, she wondered why Ian didn't tell her about Lucy's problem. Lesley Clarke lied. 'E didn't want to ruin your day wiv Libby. Denise wasn't buying that, so Jane had to remind her ... You an' me 'afta'old this family togevvah, Denise. But it's not your family, Jane. But I imagine another backhanded purpose of this storyline is to get Ian and Jane, arguably, the most shallow, greedy and self-obsessed couple in the show, back together. Shagging on the Beale floor. Classy. I want Denise to smack Jane. And the murder? Just remember these links:- Carl White - Carl's death - Stacey's key - the body in the box - not Charlie Cotton - that incongruous scene in the pub ... This is all about cocaine. And the dealer (the killer) is a lady.
Due to Easter, illness and a power cut for 4 hours tonight, I've not been able to write as much as I want. Reviews of all four episodes for this week will be online Saturday. Rest assured, I have a lot to say.
Wow, the legacy characters continue to fall by the wayside. EastEnders has already lost Janine Butcher, and Lucy Beale has just shed her mortal coil. Bianca's leaving in the autumn, and over on Coronation Street, the soap the Millennials are bashing right, left and centre at the moment, the Big Daddy of all legacy characters, Peter Barlow, will be departing the show. I know some people will wail and gnash teeth to hear it, but Barlow is played by a seriously good actor, and his departure will be the equivalent of Bianca, Janine, the Beale twins and whatever Mitchell is hanging about, leaving collectively. Another interesting coincidence is that Peter Barlow, son of the show's longest-serving character, is a twin, whose sister was killed off-screen. Oh well, at least Corrie are brave enough to kill off their version of Stacey Slater. That said, this was a seriously good episode, in terms of photography and direction, if not acting. (Please, let's face it, the seriously anorexic Hetti Bywater couldn't act her way out of a polyethelene bag, if her life depended on it). On its own, I liked the episode. I'll go as far as to say that I think it was the best DTC has produced since taking over, and if he's doing with the Lucy storyline what I think he's doing, it's going to be bloody brilliant. Since his arrival, I think he's had one thing in his sights - the 30th Anniversary episode, and I think this will ultimately tie together the interspersed storylines concerning Carl's death, Nick's "death" and Lucy's real death. Some people might not like the resolution, but it's got its purpose, and, as the producer says, it will make sense. My one criticism is that this storyline is so plot-driven that it's easy for the long-term viewer to spot how established characters have had personality transplants in order to accommodate the storyline. I'd love for Treadwell-Collins to work on characterisation more. The Surprising Highlight.
Oddly enough, I was glad to see Libby, and that's amazing because I thought the character so much of a general pain-in-the-arse the first time around, I was dreading her po-faced presence, even for one episode. Maybe it was the location shots of Oxford, a place I always find uplifting (because critical thinking is valued there), but also, I think it was more that someone was seeing Denise in a sympathetic light, enough so that she was honest about what was happening to her in her relationship with Ian. I found the scene in the research assistant's office between Denise and her daughter the most affecting scene in the whole piece.
I feel genuinely sorry for Denise, who now realises her mistake in getting involved with Ian, where she put former impressions aside and now realises that everything everyone said about him and his treatment of his wives was true. Several people have questioned these scenes and the one-off appearance of Libby, but I understood the significance. Denise has been feeling more and more insecure about her feelings for Ian and her place in the Beale family, especially since the Cow came home.
She's been sidelined and made to feel an outsider. I wouldn't be remiss in detecting a slight whiff of subtle racism here, especially considering Ian's tactless oven glove gift at Christmas, as well as his eagerness for Jane to be part of the family portrait advertising his new junk food joint, rather than Denise. Denise is longing for someone with whom she can air her insecurities - someone who accepts her and whom she can trust. Zainab has gone. Shirley is immersed with her retconned family at the pub. Patrick is on holiday in Trinidad, and Kim is working a cruise ship. Chelsea is in Spain. It was only natural for her to share her doubts and fears with Libby, and for Libby to respond so well. There was some nice continuity with a reference to Chelsea, highlighting her laziness, but commending her for finding a career in Spain. And this is part of the gist of Denise's relationship with Ian: Despite all the adversity surrounding Denise's daughters - one's father a wife-beater who was killed by a subsequent husband, the other's father a serial killer, and their shared step-father killed in a car accident, both girls have turned out well. Chelsea, for all her shallowness, laziness and self-absorption, now has a career in a salon in Spain. Libby is a research assistant working on her masters at Oxford. Ian's kids have barely achieved their A-Levels. One spent a year doing nothing but surfing in Devon and now works on the family fruit and veg stall. The other is dishonest, entitled and self-absorbed. She's also dead now. Ian has no right to look down his nose at Peter's association with Lola Pearce. The singular disrespect with which Ian treats Denise is heart-breaking. He can't tell his fiancée about finding drugs that his daughter has? Denise's assessment was apt - imagine if Ian had a child at Oxford. Denise is part of his family now, and she also had a child who was heavily involved in drugs. Yet, instead of involving her in this crisis, he lies to her and shoves her away. But then, Peter and Ian have been lying to Denise since she and Ian began their relationship. Despite all of that, I don't think Denise is a suspect in Skeletor's death. Denise returned home in a cab from the station after Lucy had left the Beale house. She rang Libby and left a message saying she was ending the relationship with Ian the next day. When Denise turned the photo of Ian and Lucy down, she was blotting out Ian from her sight and her life. This has nothing to do with Lucy. A Man of Constant Sorrow.
Another discrepancy with which I have to find fault is Ian's depiction in all of this. Ian Beale may be many pejorative things, but his brother David hit the nail right on the head a few weeks back when he lauded Ian for putting his family first. Ian would do anything for his children. Is he a good parent? Far from it. Far too often during DTC's previous tenure, Ian's method of buying himself a peaceful life was throwing money and material possessions at his children. But where Lucy gave him grief, Ian was proud to promote and support Peter. Instead of the spiel we were given in what was to be the last scene ever between Ian and his daughter, Lucy was never "the one." That accolade went to Peter - his athleticism, his business acumen, his dependability. And that so continued when Peter returned this time. He was the decent chap, supportive of his father and a buffer between Ian and Lucy, who proved to be just as dishonest as each other. Now Peter's the miserable-looking loser on the stall, the socially gauche Tim-nice-but-dim snob trying to control Lola, the oaf wolfing down cereal at the breakfast table. And so much for DTC saying parents would cease to be seen through the eyes of their children. This is exactly what we've been seeing with Ian and the twins, especially in the scene where Ian confronts Peter with evidence that Lucy's had cocaine and dashes off to confront her. Dad, I got this. What? Peter's better equipped to challenge Lucy on this score? Peter doesn't even live there anymore. The truth is, there is no set or established way to confront your child with such a discovery, no textbook with guidelines for such a shock. Ian is right to be upset. Lucy is living in his house where there are also young children. She lives under his roof, she abides by his rules, especially since it's doubtful he charges her room and board, which he should. And so much for Peter's condescending assessment of Ian's handling of the situation. Peter would have done what, exactly? And this is his sister, not his child. I'm not in favour of the personality transplant tacked onto Peter since DTC's arrival. I actually liked his romance with Lola, but the Beales are being separated from the Mitchells for a reason at the moment, and I'm certain, as this storyline progresses, we'll come to understand why. The other criticism I have is Bywater's acting. Suffield wasn't the greatest actress, but she had Lucy's Cindy hard edge down pat. And as she got older, I felt she could have grown into the role. Suffield's Lucy didn't like Ian - that was obvious. Many children don't like one or both of their parents, but Suffield's Lucy realised one thing - that Ian loved her unconditionally and would do anything for her, and she often used that fact to her advantage. Bywater's Lucy is an entitled little bitch of a moaner, who feels that, even after scamming her old man out of his businesses and treating him like a piece of shit in his own home, he should continuously give her positive re-inforcement. She doesn't like Ian either and has trash-talked him all around Walford, to white trash like Max Branning, who further trash-talked him; yet she feels Ian doesn't like her. I wouldn't like her either. And I find it amazing that Lucy could spend all night wallowing around on cushions on the floor of a restaurant and still have those false eyelashes intact the following morning. This entire episode set up other possible people with motives for her killing - the main ones being Whitney and Peter. Obviously, Peter's now become super-sensitive also, having spent the last couple of months talking to Ian as though he were an idiot. He's now upset to hear that Ian only rates him good enough for the stall or the caff, and storms off with his ego hurt. What happened to all the plans for the Beale twins to go to university? Don't parents want better for their children in Walford? That's Peter Lucy's running after and texting, but who texted her back? The other culprit is Whitney, and here the unusual dynamic of friendship between Whtiney, Lauren and Lucy comes to the fore. Lauren has been friends with Lucy since they were kids. Lauren became friends with Whitney when Lucy was away from the Square. Lucy and Whitney have always only had an uneasy truce of a friendship. The truth is that Lucy doesn't like Whitney. Yet Lauren should have owed tactful loyalty to both. Instead, she not only tells Lucy that Lee snogged Whitney, she tells Whitney that Lee spent the previous night sleeping with Lucy, which fires Whitney's ire, hence the wordless "look of death" moment between Whitney and Lucy. Taking all that into consideration, I don't think either Whitney, Peter, Lauren or Max are her killers, and certainly not Abi. Lucy's killer, however, is a woman. The Cow Comes Home.
No one has been annoying me as much as SuperJane, Queen of the Cows. A couple of months ago, she coldly informed the Beale kids, one of whom is her son, that she was no longer a part of their family and that they should defer all further concerns about their father to Denise. Now she retroactively claims parenthood over Ian's trio of children. She adopted Bobby. She is nothing more than one of a bevy of stepmothers to the twins. If anything, the stepmother they bonded with and who was with them through their formative years was Laura.
Lucy and Peter, especially Lucy, treated Jane like a piece of shit, and Ian let Jane know from the get-go that the kids were his children. The twins treated her with a type of disdain which ranged from muted (Peter) to open (Lucy). Bobby ran rings around her. She couldn't even take a bottle of ketchup from a four year-old, instead watching in open-mouthed, bug-eyed horror (who can ever forget Laurie Brett's signature comic horror face?) as Bobby demolished the decor in the Beale house with a ketchup bottle. And let's not forget that a couple of months ago, Jane succinctly informed the Beale kids that she was no longer a part of that family dynamic and that they should defer to Denise from now on.
And when Jane divorced Ian and left Walford, didn't she leave, calling herself "Jane Clarke?" Ah, but wait ... that was Bryan Kirkwood, that doesn't count. Now she's Jane Beale again, and referring to Masood, the man with whom she's now sleeping and leading to believe they have a relationship, that these children are her "babies." Good for Masood for his quip What does Denise think of that? As soon as Denise was safely in Terry's cab, Jane was doing that stupid "creeping" run she always affected into Ian's house, asking about Lucy and not even presuming to chastise Ian for not discussing this with Denise. Instead, it's we'll take her for breakfast. What is it, you dumb bovine bitch, that you don't understand when Masood tells you that those kids, Bobby apart, are not your concern? I hope Denise smacks her stupid, bug-eyed face. And I want to hear Masood say this to her face:-
The Missing Link.
Santer and DTC are infamous for their subtle hints at these sort of murder mysteries. Remember Santer being worried that his very subtle and brief tips to Stacy being Archie's killer? And they were very subtle hints, indeed.
What was the purpose of those two brief scenes with Ronnie tonight, wafting through the pub "looking for Phil" and exchanging words with Charlie Cotton. Ronnie is a secret murderer, who has form in moving bodies from one place to the next. Charlie Cotton, if - indeed - that is his name, is a policeman. I don't think Charlie is either a policeman or a Charlie or, indeed, Dot's grandson. In fact, I don't even think Nick, who is alive, is aware of what's happening in his name. I do believe the other clue lies in "charlie". I believe that "Charlie" provided Carl (another derivative of the name "Charlie") with Charlie and that Carl's killer found this out after having killed Carl. There's no way Ronnie Mitchell, now completely without morals, is making a mint from a backstreet fight club. She wouldn't hesitate to push drugs, as long as the Mitchells, themselves, weren't involved,and she wouldn't hesitate to kill another 20 year-old blonde - as long as the victim wasn't a Mitchell. Charlie and Ronnie are each other's alibis. There are your killers. Watch this space. Fasten your seatbelts. It's gonna be a bumpy (and long) flight.
