Only one day away and she's dead ...
The stick insect is about to snap, and this episode occurred on the day when we learned that Elstree's Liar-in-Chief, DTC ...
- The Carters (goes without saying; they're his creations and his newest toys. Besides, Danny Dyer is his latest man crush)
- The Scrote (probably her eventual reconciliation with Dean, which will begin the story of his emasculation, to be completed when he fucks Stacey Slater
- Sharon and Phil (the juxtaposition of their names next to the Scrote's was too close for comfort for me, but blink and you'll miss their storyline. DimDom's biggest lie he's told yet was his promise to rehabilitate Sharon and place her where she should be in the Square, as the daughter of the iconic Den and Angie.
- Carol and David (watch the deeply unpleasant Carol browbeat David into submission with a tea towel)
- and ... Patrick (they'll probably pull a magic heretofore unknown lovechild from Patrick's fabled hat).
No Alfie, no Kat and - significantly - no Stacey, who must be nearly finished filming her other series now - you know, Stacey Slater Goes to War. No Dot and no mention of whoever Charlie Cotton is. No Ronnie, but then, Womack will be filming Pleasant Valley.
As for the current Lucy line, I call bullshit. The timing of this was deliberate as a one-up on Coronation Street's killing off of Tina, but it doesn't do WonderBoy any favours to take a sideways snipe at Corrie's story, saying Tina's death is silly and won't have as much impact as that of Lucy's where we'll be treated to week on week of Adam Woodyatt's singular party piece, Ian Beale crying.
So last night saw us 24 hours from Skeletor's first steps to SkeletonVille.
She's still despicable.
Daran Little wrote last night's episode. He was having an off day.
Here are my thoughts before I get onto watching the big one ...
There were just a few niggling things - well, major niggling things, actually - like, even though it's Lucy Week, I really dislike the character. I don't know whether it's because the actress is so glaringly bad or whether the character of Lucy is simply so bad that I just don't give a rat's arse about her. Or the fact that Ian never once treated Peter as second best to Lucy. Someone needs a continuity check. Peter was always the focus of Ian's pride - the track-and-field athlete, the twin who always took an interest in Ian's business handlings. Yes, Lucy demanded a lot of his attention as well, but for the wrong reasons - acting out, selling spoiled fish which made everyone ill, copping off with Craig, who mugged Patrick, bringing Steven into the fold, which caused nothing but bother and resulted in Jane's hysterectomy, the silly interlude with Ollie, trashing Ian's house and smacking him, lying to Jane about her abortion, cheating on her exams. Shall I go on?
Even worse is the fact that the run-in to this death line feels rushed and contrived. This Lucy has been around for two years now, and it seems that, no matter who the EP is or was, they couldn't find a niche for her, and so before he even tried, DTC deemed she should go. Just like that. No matter what Kirkwood or Newman tried with Lucy, Hetti Bywater just could not pull it off, so they consigned her to the backburner of looking sly, with her cat's eyeliner and incessant false eyelashes and making snide remarks in that Thames Valley Girl voice ...
Open wide (Lucy Beale, mouth-breather) ... for sure for sure ...
Suffield Lucy was naturally cold and impudent and disrespectful to Ian, but at least she knew what side her bread was buttered on. She may not have loved Ian, but she knew he loved her, and she used that knowledge to her advantage. Bywater Lucy hates Ian and is convinced he isn't bothered about her, because that suits her game as well. If Ian were on fire by the side of the road, she wouldn't piss on him.
Even worse than Lucy was the irrelevant and superfuous CindyBoy the Greek, who is just as pejorative and unlikeable as Lucy. It seemed almost ironic to watch one mean girl trash talk another and both of them treating Ian like a piece of shit. And finally, there's Ian, himself, and his characterisation, under DTC has regressed into weaseldom, self-centredness and unintentional cruelty and meanness. Ian's always been a weasel, but he's always loved his children.
Finally, there was foreshadowing, which was laid on with a trowel - the hearse outside Ian's restaurant, Les Coker's offering of his services to Ian, should he ever need them - what was that all about? Coker's firm handled Pete Beale's funeral. If he remembered David Beale Wicks, why wouldn't he remember or know Ian? The dialogue featured heavily in foreshadowing as well, references to Ian's past and coupling these with references to Lucy's supposed future.
The only sympathetic figure in the Beale dynamic at the moment is Denise, for whom I feel immensely sorry.
Lucy, Cindy and the way Ian has been written of late annoyed me to no end.
Lucy:
Even worse than Lucy was the irrelevant and superfuous CindyBoy the Greek, who is just as pejorative and unlikeable as Lucy. It seemed almost ironic to watch one mean girl trash talk another and both of them treating Ian like a piece of shit. And finally, there's Ian, himself, and his characterisation, under DTC has regressed into weaseldom, self-centredness and unintentional cruelty and meanness. Ian's always been a weasel, but he's always loved his children.
Finally, there was foreshadowing, which was laid on with a trowel - the hearse outside Ian's restaurant, Les Coker's offering of his services to Ian, should he ever need them - what was that all about? Coker's firm handled Pete Beale's funeral. If he remembered David Beale Wicks, why wouldn't he remember or know Ian? The dialogue featured heavily in foreshadowing as well, references to Ian's past and coupling these with references to Lucy's supposed future.
The only sympathetic figure in the Beale dynamic at the moment is Denise, for whom I feel immensely sorry.
Lucy, Cindy and the way Ian has been written of late annoyed me to no end.
Lucy:
I know she's going to die, but the character was all over the place tonight. She's convinced herself that Ian doesn't care about her - awwwwww diddums - and she bins Max before finding out that someone's in on their little secret trysts. Another bit of bad continuity - when Lucy asked Max if the person who e-mailed him could be Lauren, Max replied that it couldn't be Lauren, that wasn't the way she was, she couldn't hold something like that. Really, Max? Is your memory going bad? Is DTC's? I seem to recall that it was Lauren, who captured that intimate moment between Max and Stacey on her first wedding day, which eventually revealed the Stax affair. Lauren quietly incorporated the scene into the wedding DVD, wrapped it and placed it under the Branning Christmas tree. Who can ever forget the Stax reveal, way back in 2007? Mighta been a different Lauren, but that part of her character wouldn't have changed with her new head.
Next she's watching Lee flirt with Whitney and crying like a spoiled little kid, who's been denied something she wants. She slept with Lee after knowing him five minutes and binned him for Max, had an epiphany when working with Lauren one day and decided Lee loved her because he told her she was beautiful, never thinking for one moment that he could just be horny. If that scene of poor, lonely Lucy crying was meant to make us feel sorry for her, the next, where she callously accidentally on purpose let slip to Lee that Whitney used to "charge for sex" was vile to the extreme.
We have two red herrings coming together tonight in the final scene, with Lee and the insidious Lucy preparing to have sex, and Jake glaring menacingly through the kitchen door window.
Couple of observations -
1. Lee thinks Lucy seems older than she is. It's all an act. What isn't an act, however, and is consistent with her Suffield incarnation, is that adolescent Lucy never seemed to like Ian at all, and tonight she was just full of herself, reckoning herself better than Ian, and disrespecting him by having sex in his restaurant.
2. If Jake, who's leaving the show in the summer, turns out to be the killer, Broadchurch-style (being the one character in the series about whom we knew the least), that will be one of the biggest cop-outs and cons in the history of the genre. I just find it insulting that TPTB want us to believe that Jake, who - before - had been a solid-enough married man with a young daughter and a drink problem - should go lusting after a bag of bones who only flirted with him for a website, enough to turn himself into a veritable sex pest of jealousy. Ah well, DTC, the Millennial god, says that viewers of EastEnders today are much more sophisticated. Maybe so, but they're not as intelligent as we long-termers, and they're definitely not capable of critical thinking.
CindyBoy the Greek: GO. Just go now. If EastEnders is becoming known for a habitat of murderers, it must also be known as the show who features men and boys in drag - Cora, Shirley, Kat, Kim and now hairy CindyBoy the Greek. She is the walking embodiment of entitlement, and it's an insult to Lou and Pete Beale and Pauline Fowler that Peter Beale is having her help out on the Beale's stall, when her mother all but destroyed Ian. After that bonding scene with Cindy from last week, it's now as if that never happened, as well as the entire last year being about Peter emotionally supporting Ian and Ian being grateful for that. Lucy was the asshole for the better part of last year. Ian knew it, and Peter knew it. But that was Newman's Peter. DTC's Peter is a self-pitying, socially gauche oaf, stuffing food in his mouth at Ian's breakfast table, looking jealously disgruntled as Ian sang Lucy's praises to the reporter, and most of all, listening to Cindy. In other words, Peter is a loser.
Next she's watching Lee flirt with Whitney and crying like a spoiled little kid, who's been denied something she wants. She slept with Lee after knowing him five minutes and binned him for Max, had an epiphany when working with Lauren one day and decided Lee loved her because he told her she was beautiful, never thinking for one moment that he could just be horny. If that scene of poor, lonely Lucy crying was meant to make us feel sorry for her, the next, where she callously accidentally on purpose let slip to Lee that Whitney used to "charge for sex" was vile to the extreme.
We have two red herrings coming together tonight in the final scene, with Lee and the insidious Lucy preparing to have sex, and Jake glaring menacingly through the kitchen door window.
Couple of observations -
1. Lee thinks Lucy seems older than she is. It's all an act. What isn't an act, however, and is consistent with her Suffield incarnation, is that adolescent Lucy never seemed to like Ian at all, and tonight she was just full of herself, reckoning herself better than Ian, and disrespecting him by having sex in his restaurant.
2. If Jake, who's leaving the show in the summer, turns out to be the killer, Broadchurch-style (being the one character in the series about whom we knew the least), that will be one of the biggest cop-outs and cons in the history of the genre. I just find it insulting that TPTB want us to believe that Jake, who - before - had been a solid-enough married man with a young daughter and a drink problem - should go lusting after a bag of bones who only flirted with him for a website, enough to turn himself into a veritable sex pest of jealousy. Ah well, DTC, the Millennial god, says that viewers of EastEnders today are much more sophisticated. Maybe so, but they're not as intelligent as we long-termers, and they're definitely not capable of critical thinking.
CindyBoy the Greek: GO. Just go now. If EastEnders is becoming known for a habitat of murderers, it must also be known as the show who features men and boys in drag - Cora, Shirley, Kat, Kim and now hairy CindyBoy the Greek. She is the walking embodiment of entitlement, and it's an insult to Lou and Pete Beale and Pauline Fowler that Peter Beale is having her help out on the Beale's stall, when her mother all but destroyed Ian. After that bonding scene with Cindy from last week, it's now as if that never happened, as well as the entire last year being about Peter emotionally supporting Ian and Ian being grateful for that. Lucy was the asshole for the better part of last year. Ian knew it, and Peter knew it. But that was Newman's Peter. DTC's Peter is a self-pitying, socially gauche oaf, stuffing food in his mouth at Ian's breakfast table, looking jealously disgruntled as Ian sang Lucy's praises to the reporter, and most of all, listening to Cindy. In other words, Peter is a loser.
Then, CindyBoy the Greek gives us the first and second of the Lucy Secrets we've been promised - that Lucy has a police record for shoplifting in Devon and that there's some cocaine in her jewelry box.
The first secret is believeable, because that's something Suffield Lucy would do and do with aplomb. Bywater Lucy gets caught and booked. As for the cocaine, coke is a stimulant. Deffo could I see Suffield Lucy snorting coke and running rampant through Walford, but Bywater Lucy moves as though she has dead lice dripping from her - shoulders hunched, head down. She's lethargic; even her motions on the swing with her too heavy shoes weighing down her slight legs, was lethargy in its extreme.
Ian:-
The first secret is believeable, because that's something Suffield Lucy would do and do with aplomb. Bywater Lucy gets caught and booked. As for the cocaine, coke is a stimulant. Deffo could I see Suffield Lucy snorting coke and running rampant through Walford, but Bywater Lucy moves as though she has dead lice dripping from her - shoulders hunched, head down. She's lethargic; even her motions on the swing with her too heavy shoes weighing down her slight legs, was lethargy in its extreme.
Ian:-
How much lower can his portrayal get? I suppose the object of all this is to bring Ian as low as possible, so he'll be even more awash with a combination of grief, self-hatred and self-pity in the wake of Lucy's death. I hate the deception he's inflicting on Denise. He knows he's attracted to Jane, and he knows Denise realises what's going on. Denise is an intelligent woman, and yet, Ian treats her as if she's an idiot. He's going with her to visit Libby because she's "supported" him by showing up at his interview, not because he loves her and her child will become part of that family dynamic. He's paying back a favour. I loved the way Denise's innocent comment put that smug bitch Jane in her place. And Jane is just as bad as Ian in the way she's using Masood. The thought that we're going to have to suffer this smug, self-righteous, condescending bitch, who has an answer for everything and who's suddenly acquired an MBA as a sous-chef in some provincial pie-and-mash shop. Spare me.
Hey, here's a song that's perfect for Jane ...
Not Mamma's Family.
The Carters, were, as usual, immensely watchable, but this "bait Stan" mentality of Mick's is wearing a bit thin. Stan is curmudgeonly and probably not a nice man, but he's old and he's frail. And I can't help but notice how Linda, who didn't even figure tonight, is being increasingly sidelined. Speaking of sidelining, where's this banter we all heard last summer about Sharon being restored to her rightful place in the Square? Sharon is only seen from time to time as an incidental character. Phil has almost devolved to that status as well. I know Mr Man has promised us a big storyline concerning Phil and Sharon, but how big is "big"? Not as "big" I'll waged as the "big" storylines promised Shirley. I actually thought the joke Mick Carter played on Stan wasn't funny, but borderline cruel. He and Nancy laughing about him being measured for his coffin and wishing Shirley could have been around to witness that was low. Nancy is offended by Stan's sexist remarks, but Stan is in his late 70s, and men (and women) of that age dynamic often have views about the sexes that are not in tandem with the current time. She's also offended by what she perceives as Lee taking over anything she attempts to do. If this is leading to a storyline of a strong, independent woman who holds her own in a male-dominated world without having to be in a relationship in order to define, herself, that's fine.
Lee said something interesting tonight in his talk with Lucy, about how he loves his family, but when he comes home to visit, he just has to start over again. I like this character.
For me, at the moment, the Carters - bar Shirley and Tina - are carrying this programme.
Lee is good, the actor seems to have his shit together in the performance department.
ReplyDeleteIf Hetti Bywater genuinely is anorexic (and sadly, I think you're probably right), that's worrying more than anything else and I would hope she has the family and friend support system to get through it. I'd hate to see anyone suffering that but I can't really blame her for making the right noises about it and not wanting other girls to become anorexic.
I think Melissa Suffield was the worst Lucy and along with the guy who played Danny Mitchell, is the worst actor in the show's history. She was just so, so bad. Hetti Bywater at least tried to give something different to the character and to make her more layered but her inexperience has come through at times as well as bad writing. Best thing she can do is do a James Alexandrou or Matt Di Angelo upon leaving. Take lessons, absorb what she learns and come back stronger into something else.
She's not a total write-off to me like Suffield, Witts, Discipline, Laplinskas, the guy who played Danny Mitchell and the girl who plays Cindy.
Tina acts like she was sired by one of the hillbillies in Deliverance and it's very annoying.
Just a quick note to say that this is the most insightful blog ever. Small minded people would say @how can you write so much about a soap" I say to hell. I also agree hole heartedly with your views, re: Jane and Ronnie, and if Tonnie isn't our man for Bag of Bones' death or is implicated in someway or otherwise then I'll eat my hat. Thank you, and please don't stop what your doing. EVER!!!
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