I think it was The Who who asked the rhetorical question, "Why should I care?"
Complete with a very young Phil Daniels, who played Dean Wicks's beleagured father.
So why should I care about Lucy Beale's death? Why should I care about the Mitchells now that Peggy isn't coming back and they're left to the machinations of Roswell Ronnie?
Why should I care about something that is supposed to be the BBC's flagship show, when the one brain-celled intern maintaining EastEnders' official Facebook page neither knows the history of the central family on the show nor basic English grammar?
Under a picture of Ian sitting in front of Bobby and Hairy CindyBoy the Greek, who were doing their best at pantomime crying, the caption posed was this (and I write it as it was written and posted by whatever EastEnders' intern) ...
Ian tells the younger Beales that THEY'RE sister Lucy has died.
I kid you not. This is the person charged with maintaining EastEnders' social media pages. First of all, CindyBoy isn't a Beale, not even a younger Beale. In fact, I seriously doubt she's a girl. And secondly, the possessive plural pronoun is their. This is the sort of glaring semi-literate shite the Millennials pull and then whine when their grammar is corrected ... Oh, don't pick on me, I'm only eighteen years old.
EastEnders ... a show written for Millennials by Millennials about Millennials.
Good-Carter-Bad-Carter-Good-Carter-Bad-Carter-Good-Carter-Bad-Carter-WICKS!
The success of last night's episode was all down to some of the Carters and Dean, although the graduated returns of former characters by way of the duff-duff theme is growing boring and old fast, thanks to the Stacey treatment. Dean is not Stacey, although I would stake my kids' lives on the fact that before the year is out Dean and Stacey are a couple. Yuck. How to ruin a decent character fast, and I'm not talking about Stacey.
The most interesting thing about this episode was the Mick-Stan-Lee dynamic, indeed the curious incidents wherein Stan's grandsons saw fit to approach him before they did their respective parents. Lee, indeed, may have had some knowledge of Stan from his youth, but how did Dean find him?
Dean's backstory is simply this: Shirley cheated on Kevin, her husband (again), got pregnant with Dean, had the baby and left Kevin holding him, along with toddler Carly (the result of another one night stand) and their own disabled son James. Dean never knew his mother until he was in his late teens. Knowing now Shirley's total hatred for her old man, I'd be surprised if Stan met any of her children. If Dean saw Stan at all, it was when Dean was a baby, as I can't imagine Kevin keeping in touch with Shirley's family after she disappeared from their lives. So how does Dean know, and indeed, how did he find Stan?
I suppose that story's yet to come.
I like Lee Carter. I like that he's level-headed, compassionate and has common sense. I'm looking forward to knowing why at least two of Stan's children hate him so much. I'd hazard a guess that Mick was heavily influenced by the Scrote regarding Stan, and that Stan's actually not the ogre he seems to be. Tonight, he referenced not "being there" for Mick when he was a kid growing up. Stan was supposedly a fishmonger at Billingsgate, which meant long days. He's also from another era in British culture, that of repression and the classic stiff upper lip. Before I make any judgement on Stan, I want to hear what Sylvie has to say about what went on in their household, but I did like how Lee handed Mick his arse, but with respect, concerning Stan and his obvious (or their imagined) health concerns.
Bottom line is that Mick is bothered more about why his son approached his grandfather with his problems instead of his own parents, and he's using this jealousy as a further stick with which to beat Stan. Yes, it took Mick to remind Lee that Lee was his son, but it took Lee to remind Mick that Stan was his father.
Mick needs to free himself from Shirley's psychological yoke and see Stan with his own eyes. That spiel he gave Linda in the cellar about Stan dividing families and setting one against the other was all Shirley-talk. If anyone's dividing and conquering that family, it's Shirley, who's stinking up the place along with Tina. Another thing I hate about that dynamic is how Shirley's managed to sideline Linda to the point that Mick mostly defers to her judgement now, instead of his wife's. I hated the way Shirley casually appropriated the bacon sarnie Linda had made for Lee. It reminded me of her baiting of Dennis Rickman and how she grabbed his toast from his hand at the B and B. OK, Lee's a grown man, but this was done more to spite Linda than anything else. I also don't like the way TPTB have now written Linda as being incapable of equally loving her children, how each time one of them doesn't live up to her ideal, she shoves them aside and blanks them. Now, it seems that Nancy and Johnny are being pushed aside for Lee, and Linda has the perfect excuse - he's home on leave from the Army, but on another level, Lee's the one child who, in Linda's mind, still lives up to her ideal. But for how long?
Timothy West continues to deliver, and Danny Dyer and Danny-Boy Hatchard measure his performance. I'm just unable to abide that miserable, vindictive old scrote Shirley, whose bullying personality pervaded the piece tonight in the few lines she had - demanding Stan be sent home in a taxi, literally threatening Aleks, assuming the worst about the market decision.
In fact, Stan had the most intriguing line of the night to Mick:-
Shirley leaving her kids had nothing to do with me.
Well, I want to know what did.
One final word about Dean. I've long lobbied for his return, mostly on the strength of this final scene from his last stint ...
He only said a few words last night, but his look and his entire demeanor, including the timbre of his voice indicated that this is a darker, more mature character returning. I don't want any cosy reunions and forgiveness for the Scrote. I want him to show her exactly what her selfish, bitter and twisted actions have produced. I don't want him to accept any excuses made for having a bad dad or a monster mummy. I want the Scrote to reap what she has sown, and if Dean can make her suffer, good. I'm all in. Even the darker, subdued lighting in the pub seem to foreshadow Dean's dark return.
This is the only thing I'm looking forward to with Janine's departure, because I certainly don't give a rat's arse about Lucy.
The New Kids in Town.
Boy, TPTB are really doing a Pauline Fowler-pops-her-clogs on Bianca early on! Her previous two episodes have seen her roundly and justifiably (in the case of Terry) attacked for her selfishness and self-obsession, but last night's episode preyed upon her utter, abject ignorance and prejudices.
When she and Kat spied Donna, the new disabled character playing a market trader from the heretofore unmentioned Spring Lane, Bianca pointed to Donna and remarked to Kat ...
'Ere, Tiff 'ad one of vem as a teacher once.
One of them? Really, Bianca? As if you're so perfect. Still, we all can't be village idiots, but a fair few of Walford's finest attempted that feat last night. I actually like Donna. I liked her abrasiveness, especially the way she dished the shit right back at Kat and Bianca. She's going to be interesting to watch, unlike the creepy, condescending Adam Best, DTC's last and unlikeable disabled creation during his last tenure.
Line of the night goes to Donna ...
It ain't me who's wearin' tat, darlin'.
However, I didn't like the way the posse, spurred on by inaccurate gossip from Denise, rounded on Aleks in the pub. That's mob mentality, and I wonder what would have happened if his news had been the opposite of what it was. He lobbied for Bridge Street. I like Aleks. He's a lone wolf character who doesn't give a rat's arse about anyone else, and I think he's a positive character and a chancer. I want to know what sort of "arrangement" he has with Alfie, however.
As an original fan of Kat and Alfie, I hope after she has the twins, they find an opportunity to emigrate to Australia and go into business with the unlikely couple of Spencer and Vicki. I think the couple have had their day.
Complete with a very young Phil Daniels, who played Dean Wicks's beleagured father.
So why should I care about Lucy Beale's death? Why should I care about the Mitchells now that Peggy isn't coming back and they're left to the machinations of Roswell Ronnie?
Why should I care about something that is supposed to be the BBC's flagship show, when the one brain-celled intern maintaining EastEnders' official Facebook page neither knows the history of the central family on the show nor basic English grammar?
Under a picture of Ian sitting in front of Bobby and Hairy CindyBoy the Greek, who were doing their best at pantomime crying, the caption posed was this (and I write it as it was written and posted by whatever EastEnders' intern) ...
Ian tells the younger Beales that THEY'RE sister Lucy has died.
I kid you not. This is the person charged with maintaining EastEnders' social media pages. First of all, CindyBoy isn't a Beale, not even a younger Beale. In fact, I seriously doubt she's a girl. And secondly, the possessive plural pronoun is their. This is the sort of glaring semi-literate shite the Millennials pull and then whine when their grammar is corrected ... Oh, don't pick on me, I'm only eighteen years old.
EastEnders ... a show written for Millennials by Millennials about Millennials.
Good-Carter-Bad-Carter-Good-Carter-Bad-Carter-Good-Carter-Bad-Carter-WICKS!
The success of last night's episode was all down to some of the Carters and Dean, although the graduated returns of former characters by way of the duff-duff theme is growing boring and old fast, thanks to the Stacey treatment. Dean is not Stacey, although I would stake my kids' lives on the fact that before the year is out Dean and Stacey are a couple. Yuck. How to ruin a decent character fast, and I'm not talking about Stacey.
The most interesting thing about this episode was the Mick-Stan-Lee dynamic, indeed the curious incidents wherein Stan's grandsons saw fit to approach him before they did their respective parents. Lee, indeed, may have had some knowledge of Stan from his youth, but how did Dean find him?
Dean's backstory is simply this: Shirley cheated on Kevin, her husband (again), got pregnant with Dean, had the baby and left Kevin holding him, along with toddler Carly (the result of another one night stand) and their own disabled son James. Dean never knew his mother until he was in his late teens. Knowing now Shirley's total hatred for her old man, I'd be surprised if Stan met any of her children. If Dean saw Stan at all, it was when Dean was a baby, as I can't imagine Kevin keeping in touch with Shirley's family after she disappeared from their lives. So how does Dean know, and indeed, how did he find Stan?
I suppose that story's yet to come.
I like Lee Carter. I like that he's level-headed, compassionate and has common sense. I'm looking forward to knowing why at least two of Stan's children hate him so much. I'd hazard a guess that Mick was heavily influenced by the Scrote regarding Stan, and that Stan's actually not the ogre he seems to be. Tonight, he referenced not "being there" for Mick when he was a kid growing up. Stan was supposedly a fishmonger at Billingsgate, which meant long days. He's also from another era in British culture, that of repression and the classic stiff upper lip. Before I make any judgement on Stan, I want to hear what Sylvie has to say about what went on in their household, but I did like how Lee handed Mick his arse, but with respect, concerning Stan and his obvious (or their imagined) health concerns.
Bottom line is that Mick is bothered more about why his son approached his grandfather with his problems instead of his own parents, and he's using this jealousy as a further stick with which to beat Stan. Yes, it took Mick to remind Lee that Lee was his son, but it took Lee to remind Mick that Stan was his father.
Mick needs to free himself from Shirley's psychological yoke and see Stan with his own eyes. That spiel he gave Linda in the cellar about Stan dividing families and setting one against the other was all Shirley-talk. If anyone's dividing and conquering that family, it's Shirley, who's stinking up the place along with Tina. Another thing I hate about that dynamic is how Shirley's managed to sideline Linda to the point that Mick mostly defers to her judgement now, instead of his wife's. I hated the way Shirley casually appropriated the bacon sarnie Linda had made for Lee. It reminded me of her baiting of Dennis Rickman and how she grabbed his toast from his hand at the B and B. OK, Lee's a grown man, but this was done more to spite Linda than anything else. I also don't like the way TPTB have now written Linda as being incapable of equally loving her children, how each time one of them doesn't live up to her ideal, she shoves them aside and blanks them. Now, it seems that Nancy and Johnny are being pushed aside for Lee, and Linda has the perfect excuse - he's home on leave from the Army, but on another level, Lee's the one child who, in Linda's mind, still lives up to her ideal. But for how long?
Timothy West continues to deliver, and Danny Dyer and Danny-Boy Hatchard measure his performance. I'm just unable to abide that miserable, vindictive old scrote Shirley, whose bullying personality pervaded the piece tonight in the few lines she had - demanding Stan be sent home in a taxi, literally threatening Aleks, assuming the worst about the market decision.
In fact, Stan had the most intriguing line of the night to Mick:-
Shirley leaving her kids had nothing to do with me.
Well, I want to know what did.
One final word about Dean. I've long lobbied for his return, mostly on the strength of this final scene from his last stint ...
He only said a few words last night, but his look and his entire demeanor, including the timbre of his voice indicated that this is a darker, more mature character returning. I don't want any cosy reunions and forgiveness for the Scrote. I want him to show her exactly what her selfish, bitter and twisted actions have produced. I don't want him to accept any excuses made for having a bad dad or a monster mummy. I want the Scrote to reap what she has sown, and if Dean can make her suffer, good. I'm all in. Even the darker, subdued lighting in the pub seem to foreshadow Dean's dark return.
This is the only thing I'm looking forward to with Janine's departure, because I certainly don't give a rat's arse about Lucy.
The New Kids in Town.
Boy, TPTB are really doing a Pauline Fowler-pops-her-clogs on Bianca early on! Her previous two episodes have seen her roundly and justifiably (in the case of Terry) attacked for her selfishness and self-obsession, but last night's episode preyed upon her utter, abject ignorance and prejudices.
When she and Kat spied Donna, the new disabled character playing a market trader from the heretofore unmentioned Spring Lane, Bianca pointed to Donna and remarked to Kat ...
'Ere, Tiff 'ad one of vem as a teacher once.
One of them? Really, Bianca? As if you're so perfect. Still, we all can't be village idiots, but a fair few of Walford's finest attempted that feat last night. I actually like Donna. I liked her abrasiveness, especially the way she dished the shit right back at Kat and Bianca. She's going to be interesting to watch, unlike the creepy, condescending Adam Best, DTC's last and unlikeable disabled creation during his last tenure.
Line of the night goes to Donna ...
It ain't me who's wearin' tat, darlin'.
However, I didn't like the way the posse, spurred on by inaccurate gossip from Denise, rounded on Aleks in the pub. That's mob mentality, and I wonder what would have happened if his news had been the opposite of what it was. He lobbied for Bridge Street. I like Aleks. He's a lone wolf character who doesn't give a rat's arse about anyone else, and I think he's a positive character and a chancer. I want to know what sort of "arrangement" he has with Alfie, however.
As an original fan of Kat and Alfie, I hope after she has the twins, they find an opportunity to emigrate to Australia and go into business with the unlikely couple of Spencer and Vicki. I think the couple have had their day.
Die, Already!
I'm having a difficult time investing in Lucy's last week. We were presented tonight with the first red herring in her fall in Max's office. This one, TPTB got right. A person's head is a criss-cross of tiny veins, which means when you have the slightest scrape can bleed like a stuck pig, looking worse than what it is. Lucy tripped over a chair and fell onto the carpeted floor of Max's office and got a cut scalp; Lola got knocked over the bonnet of a car and fell hard onto tarmac, hitting her head; yet there was no blood and no bruising.
It's obvious that TPTB are building an aftermath were Ian will beat himself with guilt over indirectly causing Lucy's death from being a "bad father." Ian has always been a bad father, but in the wrong way. Unlike Max, who always put himself and his needs before those of his children, Ian - as David pointed out weeks ago - always put his family first. OK, he did it in the wrong way, throwing money at his children and getting them anything they want just to a peaceful life, so he could proceed building his empire. Now, it seems that TPTB are intent on showing Ian as selfish, tactless and uncaring, totally self-absorbed with himself and his business. The dilemma tonight regarding the presence of both Denise and Jane in the "family" picture and the outcome of that had an almost subliminal meaning, akin to what what hinted at in the Christmas present of an oven glove Ian gave to Denise at Christmas.
The restaurant is billed as a family restaurant, and Jane is supposed to be a silent partner. Even though she's Bobby's adoptive mother, she showed little interest in the boy when she left him behind in Walford to pursue a new career, and a few months ago, she effectively removed herself from the Beale family dynamic, when Peter summoned her to Walford to help in what he perceived to be a crisis of confidence for Ian. What was the purpose of that photo? None of Ian's children nor his non-paying lodger, Cindy, are remotely interested in working in or supporting this venture. But if there had to be a family photo, then, it should have only included Ian, Lucy, Peter and Bobby. Denise was right: Ian has no wife at the moment.
And, no, Cindy, you're not a part of the Beale family. You're only related to the twins through your mother, whom none of you remember. It was incongruent of Lucy to reference the "bad" mother she doesn't remember, whilst proceeding to trash-mouth the father who brought her up, loved her and protected her. And it must be difficult for Denise to live in the Beale abode with that smiling picture of Jane adorning the mantlepiece in the front room.
So what was the point of the final scene in the pub with Lucy lifting Ian's credit card as revenge for him not falling head over heels to praise her business nous? Who in their right mind on a district council would trust two girls, barely out of their teens, dressed in matching outfits like the Cheeky Girls, and fronting a business less than a month old and operated from the front room of a private residence?
Lucy's death can't come quick enough.
It's obvious that TPTB are building an aftermath were Ian will beat himself with guilt over indirectly causing Lucy's death from being a "bad father." Ian has always been a bad father, but in the wrong way. Unlike Max, who always put himself and his needs before those of his children, Ian - as David pointed out weeks ago - always put his family first. OK, he did it in the wrong way, throwing money at his children and getting them anything they want just to a peaceful life, so he could proceed building his empire. Now, it seems that TPTB are intent on showing Ian as selfish, tactless and uncaring, totally self-absorbed with himself and his business. The dilemma tonight regarding the presence of both Denise and Jane in the "family" picture and the outcome of that had an almost subliminal meaning, akin to what what hinted at in the Christmas present of an oven glove Ian gave to Denise at Christmas.
The restaurant is billed as a family restaurant, and Jane is supposed to be a silent partner. Even though she's Bobby's adoptive mother, she showed little interest in the boy when she left him behind in Walford to pursue a new career, and a few months ago, she effectively removed herself from the Beale family dynamic, when Peter summoned her to Walford to help in what he perceived to be a crisis of confidence for Ian. What was the purpose of that photo? None of Ian's children nor his non-paying lodger, Cindy, are remotely interested in working in or supporting this venture. But if there had to be a family photo, then, it should have only included Ian, Lucy, Peter and Bobby. Denise was right: Ian has no wife at the moment.
And, no, Cindy, you're not a part of the Beale family. You're only related to the twins through your mother, whom none of you remember. It was incongruent of Lucy to reference the "bad" mother she doesn't remember, whilst proceeding to trash-mouth the father who brought her up, loved her and protected her. And it must be difficult for Denise to live in the Beale abode with that smiling picture of Jane adorning the mantlepiece in the front room.
So what was the point of the final scene in the pub with Lucy lifting Ian's credit card as revenge for him not falling head over heels to praise her business nous? Who in their right mind on a district council would trust two girls, barely out of their teens, dressed in matching outfits like the Cheeky Girls, and fronting a business less than a month old and operated from the front room of a private residence?
Lucy's death can't come quick enough.
Mum's Net.
Oh, Ronnie ... not a very productive day. Roxy's going through another mini-epiphany, recognising Ronnie's controlling obsession. Roxy thinks Ronnie's sabotaging of every relationship Roxy has is based on jealousy. It's based on something far more sinister. Lola smells something rotten, and her fear of Ronnie is palpable, even closing the bedroom door to protect Lexi from her presence. I wonder if she'll confide her fears in Peter. because Billy is so enamoured of the Mitchell mystique and his desire to be a fully-made man Mitchell (to use a mafia term), that he'd sign over custody of Lola and Lexi to Ronnie, if that meant he'd be recognised as a Mitchell with a capital M.
Lola smells something about Ronnie, and it's not the scent of expensive French perfume.
Lola needs to take Lexi and run.
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