Pray welcome, temporarily, to that eminent thespian, Timothy West, CBE, who'll show this shower a thing or two about acting ...
Scrote on a Hot Tin Roof.
Or ... the singular tale of the sugliest blister of all.
With Stan Carter comes the welcome return of the nuanced character. For you Millennials who are trying to make black out of that smidgeon of white on Stan, a nuanced character is something that's strictly beyond your ken.
Phil Mitchell used to be one. Max Branning also, before they both became caricatures of themselves. Janine Butcher certainly was one. Back in the 90s, Bianca used to be one also.
Even Peggy was one at one time.
A nuanced character is one who has many layers. Quite often, through their backstory - whether observed on screen or told - you were able to see how the person came to be the sort of person he or she was - and mostly, they were complicated.
Phil Mitchell, for example, was the quieter, more cerebral Mitchell brother. He could fight with the best of them, but mostly he used his reasoning capacity. He fell in love with his brother's wife and promptly threw her under the proverbial bus rather than suffer the reprobation of his family.
Max Branning was a man who deeply loved his children and his wife, but he was a serial adulterer, estranged from his father and intrinsically selfish.
We knew Phil could be a brute, but we knew that he could also be sensitive and caring. We knew that Max thought nothing of being unfaithful to his wife, but he knew his shortcomings as a father and loved his children, although he knew he'd failed them.
Yes, Janine could be a cold, conniving bitch, but she'd do anything for her brother or his children and she craved love and acceptance, herself.
Just when these characters could be their most despicable, on a dime, circumstances could turn to make them vulnerable or even likeable. You may dislike them as people, but boy, were they watchable.
What's so complicated for the puerile Millennials, who think in terms of yin and yang, black and white, good and bad, is simple for most - good people do bad things, and bad people are capable of doing good things.
Recently, at the beginning of his tenure, it looked as though EgoBoy was turning Max back into the multi-layered character he originally was. He was worried about his sister's illness and attentive to her needs. He decided that he was going to spend more time with his children rather than chasing skirt. Then Skanky Slater arrived and the hormones started overflowing.
More of that later.
Enter Stan Carter, scion of the completely retconned Carter family, created after the fact, for the High Queen of the Scrotes, herself, the Messiah's personal favourite, Shirley.
Suffice it to say, this is Big Daddy and Brick, not Bad Daddy and Mick ...
We've always been fed the line - by Shirley and her sibling minion Mick - that Stan was a bad man. A very bad man. In fact, a very, very, very bad man. They were always vague about why Stan was so bad, but it seemed to centre around their mother, Sylvie (an even worse character than Stan) abandoning the lot, being abusive to poor, defenceless Shirley, who was only a very young adolescent then. The story thus far, related by Shirley, always with her wrinkled face puckered into a sour and threatening frown, was that Shirley lobbied her father to allow her to look after the infant Mick and the toddler Tina, but Stan put them in care.
Strange thing was that whilst Mick was openly hostile to Stan, Tina loved him.
What Stan showed up for dinner on Monday night, a few unusual comments were made:-
Scrote on a Hot Tin Roof.
Or ... the singular tale of the sugliest blister of all.
With Stan Carter comes the welcome return of the nuanced character. For you Millennials who are trying to make black out of that smidgeon of white on Stan, a nuanced character is something that's strictly beyond your ken.
Phil Mitchell used to be one. Max Branning also, before they both became caricatures of themselves. Janine Butcher certainly was one. Back in the 90s, Bianca used to be one also.
Even Peggy was one at one time.
A nuanced character is one who has many layers. Quite often, through their backstory - whether observed on screen or told - you were able to see how the person came to be the sort of person he or she was - and mostly, they were complicated.
Phil Mitchell, for example, was the quieter, more cerebral Mitchell brother. He could fight with the best of them, but mostly he used his reasoning capacity. He fell in love with his brother's wife and promptly threw her under the proverbial bus rather than suffer the reprobation of his family.
Max Branning was a man who deeply loved his children and his wife, but he was a serial adulterer, estranged from his father and intrinsically selfish.
We knew Phil could be a brute, but we knew that he could also be sensitive and caring. We knew that Max thought nothing of being unfaithful to his wife, but he knew his shortcomings as a father and loved his children, although he knew he'd failed them.
Yes, Janine could be a cold, conniving bitch, but she'd do anything for her brother or his children and she craved love and acceptance, herself.
Just when these characters could be their most despicable, on a dime, circumstances could turn to make them vulnerable or even likeable. You may dislike them as people, but boy, were they watchable.
What's so complicated for the puerile Millennials, who think in terms of yin and yang, black and white, good and bad, is simple for most - good people do bad things, and bad people are capable of doing good things.
Recently, at the beginning of his tenure, it looked as though EgoBoy was turning Max back into the multi-layered character he originally was. He was worried about his sister's illness and attentive to her needs. He decided that he was going to spend more time with his children rather than chasing skirt. Then Skanky Slater arrived and the hormones started overflowing.
More of that later.
Enter Stan Carter, scion of the completely retconned Carter family, created after the fact, for the High Queen of the Scrotes, herself, the Messiah's personal favourite, Shirley.
Suffice it to say, this is Big Daddy and Brick, not Bad Daddy and Mick ...
We've always been fed the line - by Shirley and her sibling minion Mick - that Stan was a bad man. A very bad man. In fact, a very, very, very bad man. They were always vague about why Stan was so bad, but it seemed to centre around their mother, Sylvie (an even worse character than Stan) abandoning the lot, being abusive to poor, defenceless Shirley, who was only a very young adolescent then. The story thus far, related by Shirley, always with her wrinkled face puckered into a sour and threatening frown, was that Shirley lobbied her father to allow her to look after the infant Mick and the toddler Tina, but Stan put them in care.
Strange thing was that whilst Mick was openly hostile to Stan, Tina loved him.
What Stan showed up for dinner on Monday night, a few unusual comments were made:-
- That whenever he turned up, conversations always turned to Sylvie and people got annoyed.
- Stan remarked that if it hadn't been for Shirley, Sylvie would never have left.
- And when Stan remarked that he'd once saved Mick's life, Shirley bolted from the table in a pissy strop.
Last night, we got a butt-clenchingly embarrassing scene of Danny Dyer, squinting up his face and crying at the memory of a six year-old returning home from school, hungry, to find the house locked and no one home. A child's perspective, but as the show progressed, you have to wonder how much Mick's memories had been influenced by Shirley's toxins.
Because we got the story about how Stan saved Mick's life. He returned home to find Mick being drowned by "someone" in the bathtub. He mumbled something about someone running a bath and falling asleep. He rescued the child. All the time he was relating this tale in a slow and measured tone, Stan's gaze never left Shirley's face, and Shirley looked as though she was passing a turd big enough to bleed her arsehole.
When Mick asked Stan who was drowning him, Stan hesitated for a full five seconds, all the while looking at a very uncomfortable and disconcerted Shirley, before he revealed the culprit as Sylvie.
She left the 'ouse that night. 'Aven't seen 'er since.
Is this the truth? Well, I do think Sylvie left the house that night, but not for having attempted to drown Mick.
My opinion? Shirley was trying to drown him. I put it to you that Shirley was reprimanded, probably physically, by Sylvie for playing rough with her much younger siblings. Knowing Shirley loves to take vengeance of a sort on anyone who crosses her, a bitter, vindictive and jealous adolescent would have taken advantage of her mother falling asleep whilst running a bath to kill the apple of his mother's eye and eke the blame on her.
I reckon Stan had a go at Sylvie for letting this happen, Sylvie wanted to call the authorities for Shirley, but Stan kicked her out instead and then put the kids in care to keep them away from Shirley. I guess Shirley maybe wanted to "mother" these kids to make up for what she tried to do - remember Shirley has a penchant for trying to drown people, which was he initial reaction to the discovery that Ben had killed Heather.
This makes the abandonment of her own children something that could prove very interesting. Or it could prove to be a wet blanket.
The greatest thing about this storyline is watching how Stan managed to protect Shirley, yet manipulate her at the same time.
Must be disappointing having a drunken old scrote as a daughter.
Three Little Sluts Uncool.
Lucy Beale is going to die. It can't come quick enough. The make-up department have done their damnedest to make her look grown up, with the over-red lipstick and vintage hair, but she still looks like a cross between a starving child and a walking coat hanger.
Whitney looked like a greasy whore.
The friendship of Whitney, Lucy and Lauren has long been emblematic of the Millennial youth Bryan Kirkwood brought to the fore - aimless, lazy, without ambition (Lucy expects the work to just "drop" in her lap, instead, she gets Max Branning's bald head - euwwwwwwwwww!), entitled, obnoxious, self-obsessed and selfish.
Last night's trio, horning in on Abi's peaceful night at home, just served to illustrate how selfish, singular and self-obsessed each one is. And stupid. Their stupidity knows no bounds.
After her bout with alcoholism, which included a rehab programme that highlighted her hair, upped the collagen injections in her lips and freshened up her phony boobs with some spray tan, Lauren has resorted to playing Lolita with a pervy-looking older man who was introduced as the first red herring in the hunt for Bag O'Bones's killer.
Jake Stone.
I think Lucy double-booked a rendezvous last night and was weighing up which one was her best option. It wasn't Jake, who had a real-life tale to fall back on for Aleks. Sadie and Bella were leaving the country. Boo-hoo. He's a man scorned, but he won't kill Lucy. His end will come at the hands of Ronnie and will be Mitchell-centric, mind you. The awfully arrogant scene of Lucy stopping to remove a piece of dirt from her clodhopper shoe just outside Jake's window was significant. Although Jake's penchant for a rake with hair who looks like jail bait only makes him creepier.
Lucy, Lauren and Whitney, when they meet talk at each other about themselves, and can't/won't listen to anything anyone else says because they're too self-absorbed. Lucy has no respect for her father, which sucks. Maybe Ian will kill her by smacking the shit out of the anorexic bitch. At least, the Branning girls respect Max, although they have precious little reason to do so.
Whitney is simply stupid. How someone as clued-up and accepting about someone's sexuality could suddenly want to "straighten him out" for her own purposes is simply astonishing. Everything is, indeed, all about Whitney. Suppose Johnny did succumb to her dubious dirty girl charms? He's a nice boy, and she'd soon grow bored with him and seek the bad boy that is either Dean or Lee, another idiot who prefers meatless women.
The scene were Lauren wonders where they all will be on her twenty-first (again, all about her) was maudlin and badly portrayed, especially when mouthed by ...
THE. WORST. ACTRESS. EVER. TO. APPEAR. IN. EASTENDERS.
It was positively risible, especially since Lucy will be pushing up daisies, Lauren will be doing life for her murder, and Shitney will be riddled with syphillis caught from Max Branning.
Another cheap and laughable non-surprise was pasty Max Branning, looking like the underside of the GEICO gecko's belly, emerging from the shower in the same hotel room where he'd hoped to seduce Stacey, to do the dastardly deed with Bag O'Bones Beale.
Yuck. Just yuck. I guess only the characters EgoBoy creates get to be nuanced.
The Old Slapper.
Jane, go away. You used Masood to get back at Ian. Ian knows that, Denise suspects it, Shabnam is sure of it, and Jane even shame-facedly admitted it to Masood, who accused her of stringing him along whilst thinking of Ian. Then, realising she would be turfed out and actually have to pay to stay somewhere, she changed her tune, and cooed that she was thinking of Masood instead. And the dummie bought it, hook, line and sinker.
It will all end in udder balls and methane gas.
The cow needs to get back to the herd.
Why buy the cow, when you can get the milk for free?
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