Sonny Boy and Slutty Girls - Review:- 04.04.2014

And the beat goes on ...
The beat goes on ...
People all awaiting Lucy's death

Will she snap in half?
Will she blow away?

Who the fuck cares? The ratings can't bust 8 million, and ofttimes they can't bust 7 million. And yet people keep being added to the cast by an EP who increasingly reminds me of a spoiled brat sitting in a sandbox, refusing to let other people play with his toys unless they do it his way.

Yes, he is a very naughty boy, and it's a bloody shame MummyWums didn't smack his widdle bums more before he went off to Oxford to be taught how to believe how much superior he was. He's bringing an undertaker and family to Walford - the Uriah Heepish Les Coker. Presumably, we'll have a few more deaths around the Square, starting with Bag O'Bones Beale. When they find Carl's remains, there'll be another. Ronnie's sure to contribute at least one more body to the fray. And let's not forget miseryguts Carol. Cancer kills, and she's too miserable to live.

Sonny Boy.

Last things first. Lee Carter made his appearance at the end with the duff duff.

First impressions? This ...

This is a hunk?

He resembles the natural lovechild of a skinhead, a myopic mole and Mr Magoo.

Add a Neanderthal to the mix, low-browed and close-set eyes. I don't know the actor, who has experience, but who in their right mind names a child "DannyBoy"?

We know this much - that he's been in Afghanistan, that he's on the run from the Army, that he hit his old man, that he'll sleep with Bag O'Bones Beale (and be the prime suspect in her murder) and cop off with that Walford bike Whitney.

Yes, folks, the latest amalgamation of Grant, Sean, and Dennis has arrived on the Square. Some people can't see that this character is this generation's Grant/Sean/Dennis. He could be the millennial version of all these characters. How so?

• Cuts a swathe through the young women of Walford: Dennis was the prototype. En route to settling for adoptive incest, he made his way to Sharon by way of the genitalia of Sam Mitchell, Tracey, Kat Slater, Zoe Slater and Phil Mitchell's Irish nanny. Since then, every PR-imposed hunk (i.e., Tyler and Joey) have shared amongst them Whitney the Walford Mattress, Bag O'Bones Beale and 

THE. WORST. ACTRESS. EVER. TO. APPEAR. ON. EASTENDERS.

Looks as though Lee's being pushed as a ladies' man as well, starting off with Lucy and progressing to Whitney. He'll end up with Lauren if she isn't in jail.

• Grant had the Falklands, Sean had Iraq. Lee is Afghanistan, even though it's winding down. Go figure.
• Grant hit Eric and ran away. Sean hit Brian and ran away. We actually got to see Lee hit Mick and run away.
• Sean was AWOL. Lee is AWOL.

Anyone not seeing that this is yet another version of a character for which Ross Kemp was a prototype isn't a student of EastEnders.

One Carter arrives this week, and another arrives in a fortnight. That still leaves Sylvie, Carly, her husband, and Zsa Zsa to arrive before the satellite members of Linda's side of the family start making appearances.

As much as I like the Carters, bar the old Scrote and the Retarted Court Jester, they are WonderBoy's Brannings-

Simply the Best.

Hey, even a broken clock is right twice a day, and EgoBoy has got some things right. One of them has to be Johnny Carter, easily the best male ingenue in a gaggle of years. He has the piquance of Jamie Mitchell combined with the shy charm of Bradley Branning.

Johnny is upset at being sacked from his job at Sharon's bar - not because he got caught, which is why his companions were upset (and clock that self-absorbed remark Bag O'Bones made the previous evening about Sharon telling Ian what she'd been up to; Sharon should have beaten her skinny arse). No,Johnny's genuinely upset that he's breached Sharon's trust, so he goes to see her.

When Sharon asks him why he did such a thing, his answer is heartbreakingly honest - to make friends. I liked Sharon's scene with him, giving him a chance to talk about what was going on in his home - the fact that he's held up as an example of being the first of his lot to go to uni, how close he is to his mother and how upset he is that his lifestyle has upset her to the point that he feels she's rejecting him now. He can't approach Linda. Mick is so caught up with the pub and with his Scrote and Retard, that even though he understands what's happening with Linda, he won't approach her for their son's sake, he can only pat Johnny on the shoulder and tell him that she'll "come around." 

Sometimes an independent source, like Sharon who grew up in the Vic amidst warring parents, can prove a port in a storm.

What he doesn't need is Whitney's self-obsession. Honestly, this girl knew and understood from the get-go that Johnny was gay, which meant that they would never be more than friends, but she's now so desperate and so confident in her powers of sexual persuasion that she thinks a kiss will turn him. Seeking him out during lunchtime - and Walford Primary must be so close that she can mosey on over to the pub, talk to Johnny, have lunch and then go back to work (get a fucking LIFE, writers!) - she apologises, excusing her actions as having been drunk.

Then what happens?

In vino veritas ... she gets pissed again at Sharon's opening, staggers along and falls down in the street, looking like a two-bit whore in the bagain, only to have Johnny find her and tell him that if she couldn't be his girlfriend, she couldn't be his friend.

The fact that this spent character is still mooching around after men in Walford is a testament to Dominic Treadwell-Collins's ego and his inherent disrespect for women. Newman didn't do much, but at least she got Whitney away from man-hunger, gave her a career and was pushing her in the right direction. FFS, have Janine summon her to Paris to be Scarlett's nanny, just get her off the slutwalk.

But that would involve too much integrity.

All about Myself (Bianca)

In vino veritas indeed ... that's all it took to get Bianca, in one of the poorest performances of a drunk I've ever seen on the show, to admit to Terry, that she's thinking more about herself and the implications of having the BRC2 gene than what's happening or will happen with Carol.

Bianca's spoiled little girl poor-pitiful-me crying act is lost on someone who's 37 years old. It took the drink to get the admission out of her that her primary concern, not just in this but in everything, is about herself.

Terry should have heard alarm bells going off in his head. The last thing he needs to do is involve his children with an immature and vindictive child-woman like this. Both Rosie and TJ miss and want their mother, and prefer her to the shower that's Bianca.

Terry is a nice guy. Why he wants to ruin his life with a chav bunch like Bianca and Carol, who'll only turf him out if he goes against their grain, is beyond me. His first wife was miles better than Bianca would ever be.

Any Old Iron.

I don't know what's worse about the Max and Lucy sexual connection - that even Max wouldn't find a stick insect like that remotely sexy, ne'mind she was his daughter's friend whom he'd known since she was a child; or the fact that the actress who plays Lucy is so consistently bad that the association is totally unbelieveable to begin with.

Where Melissa Suffield played a mean Lucy, she was a mean Lucy who hollared for Ian's help when she was in too deep in a situation. Bywater's Lucy is simply cruel. She thinks nothing of deceiving Lauren behind her back, never thinking that this isn't the first time Lauren's been let down by her father poking about with a much younger woman and one he shouldn't even be with - future daughter-in-law or friend of his child.

I don't like the way she's trash-talking Ian to all and sundry. Whitney upbraided her on Thursday night, reminding her that at least she had a father. In fairness to Whitney, she wasn't trying to score points, she was subtly reminding her that Ian was Whitney's stepmother's uncle. There she was again on Friday, trash-talking Ian and allowing Max to call him an idiot.

I find it ludicrous that a borough council is going to allow a "lettings agency" which is only a week old and run from the front room of a private abode by two girls barely out of their teens, responsibility to administer lettings on a new housing project. This would never have happened in real life unless it's revealed that Lucy spent the afternoon giving blowjobs to every male member of the committee in order to secure the contract.

She can't be killed quick enough. The actress looks as though she's starving to death already.

Max is never better than when he's genuinely conflicted in choosing between his loins and his responsibility to his daughter. He's another one who's cleverly used cancer, or something to do with it, as an excuse to mask shady actions. For the first time ever I felt sympathy for Lauren. Someone's obviously told the actress to tone down the windmill arms, stop with the funny voices and the gurning,and she was actually watchable.

I do think that,after his encounter with Lauren and her concern about the BRC2 gene, Max genuinely intended to bin Lucy after that one encounter. It seems to be Lucy who is doing the chasing now, just as eventually it became Stacey when Stax began. Bag O'Bones was savvy enough, when she got the bin-off from Max, to present herself physically on his doorstep, and it was just her luck the Vic caught fire that night.

Her arse will be on fire soon.

Nuanced Characters.

Hail to Stan and Linda. Good people with bad traits or bad people with good traits. They got the lines of the night, when Stan accidentally on purpose referred to Johnny as "Nancy."

Linda: Don't talk about him like that.

Stan: You mean the way you do?

Best episode of the week.