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 -
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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 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.
I like tge Ryan possibility, and I'd have to agree with you, there's a woman's hand here. Somebody as been through Lucy's bag, and they were looking for something. Lucy's death remains as murder but I think they've got the wrong victim. The worst actress ever to be in eastenders is walking the square, still with a key and still has the identical grey suit and spotty blouse hanging in her wardrobe.
ReplyDeleteHi I enjoy reading your blog as your posts are the most insightful on EastEnders. And I shall throw in my twopenneth on DTC. He has a penchant for retconning the history of the show he claims to love. Willy the dog having 20 years slapped onto his age, personality changes of characters and the Ian favouring Lucy over Peter story. When Saint Stacey returns he will no doubt make her The Star Of The Show again and have her sleep with Mick Carter no doubt, Stax now Stick.
ReplyDelete