Never let it be said that I don't give credit where credit is due. Dominic Treadwell-Collins, this one's for you ...
Yeee-HAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! The best and most consistent week the programme's had in a very long time. Good story-telling, good acting - even the unlikeable was watchable for a reason.
Rudoloph Walker, at last, is given a story in which he can sink his teeth and play a blinder, Timothy West and Ann Mitchell give a masterclass in understated acting, and ... Ladies and Gentleman, Ms Watts has entered the building.
At long last, as promised, Sharon has returned. She's returned from the Barbie Doll Tanya Lite madness, the incongruency of loving a plank of wood and unbelieveable bitchery into the Sharon most long-term viewers knew, loved and admired. This is Sharon pre-Shannis and pre-John Yorke.
There were times I doubted DTC's sincerity in restoring Sharon, but I've a bit more faith in his endeavours now.
Yes, there are people who hate Sharon, and there are people who hate Shirley. I have to say something.
Sharon and Shirley are strong female characters, and they have the potential to be strong and worthy, independent women of their own accord. Add Linda Carter to that fold, and you have an unbeatable triumvirate determinating the moral compass of Walford. Give them back-up in Denise and Kat (a better-written version), and you've got a damned watchable show. Ally human women with flesh and blood and flaws.
What's hurt Sharon and Shirley the most are their shippers - two in particular, one who's lectured and hectored any and all on Sharon's amazing good points and another who's bullied, threatened and pestered people about Shirley and her complications. Take the fangirls out of the equation, let the three women confront the men who seek to play them for fools, and then front Shirley, Sharon and Linda at the Vic.
Unbeatable. Shame about the fans.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of This Week
The Good: Oldies but Goodies.
Elderly characters featured heavily in this week's clutch of episodes, and DTC has added to the diminishing number with some heavy-hitters who fit in just fine - newcomers Pam and Les Coker, the return of Mo Harris and Stan Carter, played by the brilliant Timothy West. One of the best things DTC has done is to turn Cora's character around. What had previously been a drunken, sodden ASBO Granny, unlikeable and a reprobate, is now a vulnerable, lonely, old woman who seeks solace behind a brittle exterior and a whiskey glass.
Cora is all too cognizant of her mortality. She hasn't recovered from her husband's early and prolonged death from cancer, and she ran from the bad end of it, right into a whiskey bottle. IN that brilliant scene from one of the later episodes in the week, when Cora unbended enough to confess to Stan why she didn't want to visit Patrick in the hospital, I was curiously reminded of Peggy, who had a morbid fear of hospitals for the same reason, having sat with Eric through cancer.
Stan has revealed himself to be compassion incarnate. First on the scene at Patrick's stroke, visiting him in hospital with a bottle of rum and wafting it under his nose, speaking to him constantly and being understanding to the nth degree with Cora.
The new-found friendship of Big Mo and Pam Coker looks cosy and realistic. The only person missing from the equation this week was Dot, who's curiously absent.
Rudolph Walker, take a bow. This is what real research is and accomplishes in drama. Already, we'd witnessed Patrick suffer 2 TIA episodes, which often prelude a stroke. He ignored them.
Patrick's been out of sorts for a long time, and in the moments immediately before his stroke, during the dominoes game, he relented enough in his new-found animosity towards Cora, to allow her to indulge in the lie Rainie had told her, whereas Patrick knew differently.
Walker has played a poignant and ironic blinder all week - the man who stumbled upon a dirty little secret of Ian's which could destroy Denise's illusions, only to be struck dumb at the eleventh hour.
Ian, the least sympathetic of any murder victim's survivors, continues to disgust. He's so worried that Patrick may regain his ability to speak, that he makes sure he's always with Denise at the hospital - not out of any concern for Patrick, but concern that the secret of his tryst with Rainie might be exposed. Already, he's threatened her.
It's ugly and disconcerting to think, to know that Ian would quite happily breathe a sigh of relief if Patrick were to die and take Ian's secret to the grave with him.
Like I've said, the Beales have come out of Lucy's death smelling pretty putrid.
The Good: She's a Lady.
The other star of the show this week, undoubtedly, was Sharon. This is the Sharon for whom her legion of fans have waited. Now all we need is for her shipper, who inadvertantly does more harm than good to STFU and let newer viewers get to know the old Sharon.
Sharon got her mojo back this week, with a little help from Linda Carter, and it's no coincidence that Linda channels Angie in her portrayal of the latest Vic landlady.
I'm glad that the bitchy-childish rivalry between the two has been put aside. Linda's staunch friendship and support this week was the catalyst in springing Sharon into action - from Linda's discovery of the gun and her confrontation with Sharon about it, to Sharon's discovery that Phil had been behind the attack on her, overheard by Sharon when Phil was discussing this with Shirley, Linda was right there, right on board with Sharon.
The great thing about this week's episodes were the tiny subtleties in which the characters engaged - Sharon wiping Phil's kiss from her mouth the morning after she discovered his betrayal, the look of sheer disgust that briefly crossed Linda's face when Sharon revealed that Shirley knew about the attacks, and then at the very end, when Sharon left Phil with a very seductive kiss and a promise which belay her true intent.
The absolute lines of the week were all Sharon:-
I'm not Sharon Rickman, I'm Sharon Watts.
This is my home and my manor, and I'm not going anywhere.
Angie's and Den's daughter has returned.
Watching the querulous, doubtful, wreck of a woman who'd flitted from man to man in the wake of her pretty husband's death emerge from that restrictive cocoon, remembering her upbringing and intent on getting revenge for being so horribly played and betrayed was excitiing, although some Shannistas were more than a bit put out when Sharon reverted, symbolically, to her maiden name - followed by an even more symbolic return to her signature black tailored style (yes, Millennials, Sharon invented that style, not Roswell Ronnie) and her upswept hair, the way strident, confident, Sharon, Den's Princess, would react and respond.
Reverting to Watts is something that has to be done. Watts existed on the Square before Mitchell, and Rickman, no matter what fey Dennis's roots were, was never a name established in Walford lore.
Dennis the Menace can keep Rickman. It aids in helping people forget that his mother and father were adopted siblings.
With Sharon's re-awakening came the second surprise of the week - the return of Marcus Christie, the only man, other than Dan Sullivan, to scam the Mitchells and bring them to their knees.
A lot of people have trouble understanding how Sharon found Marcus, last seen scurrying away from Samantha Mitchell with the Mitchell financial assets in a briefcase. It's not rocket science. Marcus is a bent solicitor, like Ritchie Scott and her cohort, the abysmal Jimmy. No one's complained about Marcus to the proper authority, and Marcus headed his own firm. In the aftermath of the Mitchell destruction ten years ago, he simply took a holiday, changed his name by deed poll and returned to work. His staff knew better than to question.
Sharon remembered his firm, having come across a photo of Grant, Sam and Phil (in which, I might add, Grant seemed particularly prominent), Googled Marcus's old firm, and there he was - same face, different name. So "Mrs Watson" scheduled an appointment, at the nearby park. As you do.
Actually, the fact that Marcus returned to his old practice and his old haunts, under an assumed name, undetected by Mitchell radar, indicates that Phil's not the brightest lightbulb in the pack.
Sit back and watch the fun.
The Bad: Babe the Pig and Tina the Retard.
Babe is not cute, nor is she nice; and Tina, if she isn't retarded, certainly isn't charming, fey or even honest.
Clever, how the saga of selling dope for fertility treatment is actually the start of Bianca's leaving line, and ironic that Bianca will be leaving Walford, the same way she returned - being pursued by Social Services for her dubious parenting skills.
Suffice it to say that Babe is a despicable old lag, who doesn't give a rat's arse about her family, for all she issues threats to anyone attempting to enter the hallowed Carter circle. She uses them to promote her own interests - it's been Babe who's pushed the meme of evil Stan. At the end of the day, she's a criminal, a bully and a drugs peddler.
Tina is stupid enough to work as her pusher, in the cafe, thinking this ends when she acquires the humongous sum of 200 quid to beef up Tosh's 400 for the fertility treatment. Tosh is a fireperson. As first line professionals, they get damned good wages. Two hundred quid is not a vast amount. Either Tosh or even Mick or Shirley should be able to stump Tina the loan of that amount with no problem. Linda can spend that much up West in an hour.
The entire catastrophe concerned Liam taking a container of hash brownies for Tiff's last day at school.Tiff was caught, she wouldn't tell where she'd got the pot, and Bianca turned up tipsy for a confrontation with the head teacher. You know the score.
Once the Jackson-Butchers had found out that the cannabis Tiffany had had come from the cafe, Carol was a whirling dervish, seeking out the insipid Tina, who'd called in sick to the cafe and who was hiding like the coward that she is at the pub.
Two things to consider here:-
Yeee-HAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! The best and most consistent week the programme's had in a very long time. Good story-telling, good acting - even the unlikeable was watchable for a reason.
Rudoloph Walker, at last, is given a story in which he can sink his teeth and play a blinder, Timothy West and Ann Mitchell give a masterclass in understated acting, and ... Ladies and Gentleman, Ms Watts has entered the building.
At long last, as promised, Sharon has returned. She's returned from the Barbie Doll Tanya Lite madness, the incongruency of loving a plank of wood and unbelieveable bitchery into the Sharon most long-term viewers knew, loved and admired. This is Sharon pre-Shannis and pre-John Yorke.
There were times I doubted DTC's sincerity in restoring Sharon, but I've a bit more faith in his endeavours now.
Yes, there are people who hate Sharon, and there are people who hate Shirley. I have to say something.
Sharon and Shirley are strong female characters, and they have the potential to be strong and worthy, independent women of their own accord. Add Linda Carter to that fold, and you have an unbeatable triumvirate determinating the moral compass of Walford. Give them back-up in Denise and Kat (a better-written version), and you've got a damned watchable show. Ally human women with flesh and blood and flaws.
What's hurt Sharon and Shirley the most are their shippers - two in particular, one who's lectured and hectored any and all on Sharon's amazing good points and another who's bullied, threatened and pestered people about Shirley and her complications. Take the fangirls out of the equation, let the three women confront the men who seek to play them for fools, and then front Shirley, Sharon and Linda at the Vic.
Unbeatable. Shame about the fans.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of This Week
The Good: Oldies but Goodies.
Elderly characters featured heavily in this week's clutch of episodes, and DTC has added to the diminishing number with some heavy-hitters who fit in just fine - newcomers Pam and Les Coker, the return of Mo Harris and Stan Carter, played by the brilliant Timothy West. One of the best things DTC has done is to turn Cora's character around. What had previously been a drunken, sodden ASBO Granny, unlikeable and a reprobate, is now a vulnerable, lonely, old woman who seeks solace behind a brittle exterior and a whiskey glass.
Cora is all too cognizant of her mortality. She hasn't recovered from her husband's early and prolonged death from cancer, and she ran from the bad end of it, right into a whiskey bottle. IN that brilliant scene from one of the later episodes in the week, when Cora unbended enough to confess to Stan why she didn't want to visit Patrick in the hospital, I was curiously reminded of Peggy, who had a morbid fear of hospitals for the same reason, having sat with Eric through cancer.
Stan has revealed himself to be compassion incarnate. First on the scene at Patrick's stroke, visiting him in hospital with a bottle of rum and wafting it under his nose, speaking to him constantly and being understanding to the nth degree with Cora.
The new-found friendship of Big Mo and Pam Coker looks cosy and realistic. The only person missing from the equation this week was Dot, who's curiously absent.
Rudolph Walker, take a bow. This is what real research is and accomplishes in drama. Already, we'd witnessed Patrick suffer 2 TIA episodes, which often prelude a stroke. He ignored them.
Patrick's been out of sorts for a long time, and in the moments immediately before his stroke, during the dominoes game, he relented enough in his new-found animosity towards Cora, to allow her to indulge in the lie Rainie had told her, whereas Patrick knew differently.
Walker has played a poignant and ironic blinder all week - the man who stumbled upon a dirty little secret of Ian's which could destroy Denise's illusions, only to be struck dumb at the eleventh hour.
Ian, the least sympathetic of any murder victim's survivors, continues to disgust. He's so worried that Patrick may regain his ability to speak, that he makes sure he's always with Denise at the hospital - not out of any concern for Patrick, but concern that the secret of his tryst with Rainie might be exposed. Already, he's threatened her.
It's ugly and disconcerting to think, to know that Ian would quite happily breathe a sigh of relief if Patrick were to die and take Ian's secret to the grave with him.
Like I've said, the Beales have come out of Lucy's death smelling pretty putrid.
The Good: She's a Lady.
The other star of the show this week, undoubtedly, was Sharon. This is the Sharon for whom her legion of fans have waited. Now all we need is for her shipper, who inadvertantly does more harm than good to STFU and let newer viewers get to know the old Sharon.
Sharon got her mojo back this week, with a little help from Linda Carter, and it's no coincidence that Linda channels Angie in her portrayal of the latest Vic landlady.
I'm glad that the bitchy-childish rivalry between the two has been put aside. Linda's staunch friendship and support this week was the catalyst in springing Sharon into action - from Linda's discovery of the gun and her confrontation with Sharon about it, to Sharon's discovery that Phil had been behind the attack on her, overheard by Sharon when Phil was discussing this with Shirley, Linda was right there, right on board with Sharon.
The great thing about this week's episodes were the tiny subtleties in which the characters engaged - Sharon wiping Phil's kiss from her mouth the morning after she discovered his betrayal, the look of sheer disgust that briefly crossed Linda's face when Sharon revealed that Shirley knew about the attacks, and then at the very end, when Sharon left Phil with a very seductive kiss and a promise which belay her true intent.
The absolute lines of the week were all Sharon:-
I'm not Sharon Rickman, I'm Sharon Watts.
This is my home and my manor, and I'm not going anywhere.
Angie's and Den's daughter has returned.
Watching the querulous, doubtful, wreck of a woman who'd flitted from man to man in the wake of her pretty husband's death emerge from that restrictive cocoon, remembering her upbringing and intent on getting revenge for being so horribly played and betrayed was excitiing, although some Shannistas were more than a bit put out when Sharon reverted, symbolically, to her maiden name - followed by an even more symbolic return to her signature black tailored style (yes, Millennials, Sharon invented that style, not Roswell Ronnie) and her upswept hair, the way strident, confident, Sharon, Den's Princess, would react and respond.
Reverting to Watts is something that has to be done. Watts existed on the Square before Mitchell, and Rickman, no matter what fey Dennis's roots were, was never a name established in Walford lore.
Dennis the Menace can keep Rickman. It aids in helping people forget that his mother and father were adopted siblings.
With Sharon's re-awakening came the second surprise of the week - the return of Marcus Christie, the only man, other than Dan Sullivan, to scam the Mitchells and bring them to their knees.
A lot of people have trouble understanding how Sharon found Marcus, last seen scurrying away from Samantha Mitchell with the Mitchell financial assets in a briefcase. It's not rocket science. Marcus is a bent solicitor, like Ritchie Scott and her cohort, the abysmal Jimmy. No one's complained about Marcus to the proper authority, and Marcus headed his own firm. In the aftermath of the Mitchell destruction ten years ago, he simply took a holiday, changed his name by deed poll and returned to work. His staff knew better than to question.
Sharon remembered his firm, having come across a photo of Grant, Sam and Phil (in which, I might add, Grant seemed particularly prominent), Googled Marcus's old firm, and there he was - same face, different name. So "Mrs Watson" scheduled an appointment, at the nearby park. As you do.
Actually, the fact that Marcus returned to his old practice and his old haunts, under an assumed name, undetected by Mitchell radar, indicates that Phil's not the brightest lightbulb in the pack.
Sit back and watch the fun.
The Bad: Babe the Pig and Tina the Retard.
Babe is not cute, nor is she nice; and Tina, if she isn't retarded, certainly isn't charming, fey or even honest.
Clever, how the saga of selling dope for fertility treatment is actually the start of Bianca's leaving line, and ironic that Bianca will be leaving Walford, the same way she returned - being pursued by Social Services for her dubious parenting skills.
Suffice it to say that Babe is a despicable old lag, who doesn't give a rat's arse about her family, for all she issues threats to anyone attempting to enter the hallowed Carter circle. She uses them to promote her own interests - it's been Babe who's pushed the meme of evil Stan. At the end of the day, she's a criminal, a bully and a drugs peddler.
Tina is stupid enough to work as her pusher, in the cafe, thinking this ends when she acquires the humongous sum of 200 quid to beef up Tosh's 400 for the fertility treatment. Tosh is a fireperson. As first line professionals, they get damned good wages. Two hundred quid is not a vast amount. Either Tosh or even Mick or Shirley should be able to stump Tina the loan of that amount with no problem. Linda can spend that much up West in an hour.
The entire catastrophe concerned Liam taking a container of hash brownies for Tiff's last day at school.Tiff was caught, she wouldn't tell where she'd got the pot, and Bianca turned up tipsy for a confrontation with the head teacher. You know the score.
Once the Jackson-Butchers had found out that the cannabis Tiffany had had come from the cafe, Carol was a whirling dervish, seeking out the insipid Tina, who'd called in sick to the cafe and who was hiding like the coward that she is at the pub.
Two things to consider here:-
- The advice Lee gave to Tina about the purloined brownies - she could either come clean to the Jackson-Butchers and beg that they not go to the police, or she could steal, by stages, the profit from Ian's cafe to get the 200 pounds needed. Lee is just as dishonest as the majority of his family - Shirley, Dean, Babe and Tina. And Mick.
- Had Carol not tacitly permitted Tina to push cannabis in the cafe, on the shaggy dog story of her saving for fertility treatment, this would never have happened. Had she prohibited Tina or contacted the police, then there would have been no hash brownies.
The most dismally surprising reaction to Tina's criminal activities was Mick's. He hugged her and said he loved her. Surprisingly, Linda was otherwise engaged, and Nancy was nowhere to be found. I'd love to have seen their reactions.
The Bad: Whitney and Lee - Not Another Bad Romance.
Lee's pursuit of Whitney has caused much comment. In some discussion threads, he's been deemed a stalker. He isn't.
The Lee-Whitney debacle is yet another poor attempt of EastEnders to promote romcom. It never works. Whitney was always interested in Lee,and when Lucy binned Lee after sampling his delights just once, Lee was ready to move onto Whitney, until Lucy got jealous.
Whitney was playing hard-to-get - something new for Whitney. She usually fucks first and asks questions later; and it paid off. Until it was made clear to her that Lee knew about the cannabis situation.
Never fear, Litney or Wee is still on the horizon. This is what EastEnders hopes to achieve ...
This is not Whitney and Lee.
The Ugly: Ant Knee Trueman Returns.
DTC seems to specialise in keeping up continuity by bringing back old characters in order to bin them off.
Ant Knee Trueman returned to visit his stricken father. Bad enough, that Ant Knee was one of the drippiest, most wooden characters ever to appear on the show. Even worse, that he was romantically involved with Kat and her daughter Zoe, and the medical authority never thought to remove him from Walford - Al Jenkins got sent to Devon for having gotten involved with Roxy.
A GP of the ilk of Trueman wouldn't have touched the Slater women with a barge pole, but there the Luddites are, willing him to return full-time and snake Kat, three children in tow, from Alfie.
Please, God, no. Deliver us from this stick.
And the retconning! Although I have to say that I approve of thi retconning, because it got rid of an abysmal, up-tight,repressive character.
Ant Knee abandoned Patrick because a stroke-ridden old man mistook him for his brother Paul. That incurred a hissy fit of grand proportions, prissily accusing Denise of being more of a daughter to Patrick and Patrick being more of a father to her than to him. Suddenly, from Cambodia, he's acquired a practice in Scotland, a wife and two troublesome children (which account for the baby pictures in Patrick's front room, although he's never mentioned his grandchildren.
The nadir of this horribly shallow man was his writing of a cheque for £2000 to Denise for Patrick's maintenance. Followed by Ant Knee's scurrying down the hall leaving a trail of yellow slime. Who wants this arsehole back?
Good week.
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