That Was the Week That Was - Review: 14.07-18.07.2014

That was the week that was ... started way above par, finished - well, a little below, if one is honest.

That was the week that the murder investigation swung back into full force again. That was the week that we got a new detective, DI Keeble, assigned to the Lucy case, and she's a woman who would give Marsden a run for her money. Hmmm... the thought just occurred to me that Keeble said a new DCI had been assigned to the Lucy case. I wonder if that happens to be Marsden.

Most of this week featured a couple of new surprises around Lucy's death, Billy's new involvement, and a lot of annoying and irritating youth.

My Heart Belongs to Daddy.

That's a song as much for Lauren as for anyone on the Square, but Lauren was at her most annoying this week - from running through the Square "jogging" without breaking a sweat to laying down the law to her own father to making a scene in front of the innocent man whose marriage she destroyed and whom she landed in a jail cell, she stank the place up.

Notwithstanding, she's played by ...

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

Jossa sucks. Make no mistake, and the kindest thing DTC could do is cut this abysmal piece of no-talent excrement loose. Since she's not front and centre anymore, there's a desperation about her performance as soon as Jossa's given the merest soupcon of a storyline. Always one to be conscious of the camera previously, she's literally licking the lens now - the eyes get wider, the voice screechier, the arms go into windmill rotation. Even when she's expressing remorse, she looks like the naughty spoiled little girl who got caught with her hands in the cookie jar, and who's awfully sorry, but only that she got caught.

The most annoying thing about Lauren isn't her entitlement as much as her self-righteousness.She spent the majority of the week, passing judgement on Max, when - truth be known - in her own way, she's just as sleazy, grubby, dishonest and amoral as he. At least Max has never tried to kill anyone, much less his own kin.

Line of the week was from Monday's episode: Lauren to Max:-

You're the most selfish person I've ever known.

Pot, meet kettle. 

Lauren has no right to take the moral high ground with Max because she's done worse - she's broken up a marriage, slept with a cousin, caused criminal damage to two businesses, assaulted her so-called best friend, and attempted murder.

Max has slept around and committed adultery, but when he slept with Lucy, both were of age and single. It might be a very hard concept to grasp for Lauren that someone her age might be attracted to a man old enough to be her father, but shit happens. Max is still her father, and he isn't going to stop being her father until he snuffs it. Be angry with Lucy, because - as she admitted - Lucy lied to her, but what Lucy and Lauren had was nothing remotely like a friendship. They got together to talk at each other about themselves when neither one listened and in between all that, they shared men. Lucy was well into getting interested in Jake, but chose Max instead.

Gosh, I just wish Nancy Carter would nut Lauren and shove a rag in her mouth. I wish she'd go and live with Tanya.

Another thing that annoyed me this weej was Max. Second line of the week from Max, when asked by Lauren why he slept with Lucy:-

Because she was vulnerable and I was weak.

This said, ostensibly about Lucy, in the cafe whilst looking directly at flake DC Emma Summerhayes. The viewer caught the significance of those words in their entirety. Max knows the dippy policewoman is wet and vulnerable, and he's weak and needs a woman. She's not only a flake, she's neurotic and willing to throw her career away for a quick shag with a man she knows now is unscrupulous in stalking sexual favours.

Mark me, this woman is the next combination of Stella and Mad May, and Max will rue the day he shagged an officer of the law. Watch this space.

Boys and Girls Go Out to Play: Whitney Plays Lee's Dingle.

There have been heated discussions about a brief scene this week, and that scene concerned what can only be described as The Return of Whitney the Walford Mattress.

It must have been Tuesday's episode which saw the ridiculous scene of Lee Carter darting in and out of market stalls, chasing Whitney as she wiggled her way to work whilst stopping at the cafe, as you do. Once again, the writers are doing shit research for characters. Whitney shows up at her job as a teaching assistant, looking more as if she should be frequenting Rainie's streetcorner for the higher end of the market.

No one who works with six year-olds dresses in marital aid shoes and sports nails which could be classified as lethat weapons in and of themselves. Besides, Whitney still looks as though she could do with a good scrub and a hairwash, which made her scenes as a model in Dean's trendy-wendy salon even more of a joke.

A lot of people are uncomfortable with what appears to be Dean's obsession with Linda, which went as far as him surreptitiously cupping her arse in his hand during the photo-shoot. (Perhaps he mistook Linda for Roxy, as their resemblance was so striking with Linda's new hairstyle?). But equally as many took umbrage in Lee pursuing Whitney, possibly because Whitney laughingly identified him to Lauren as her "stalker."

Someone argued that when Whitney told Lee "no," his interaction should have stopped there.

Well, I'm sorry, but Whitney's "no," didn't mean "no." Instead, it meant "yes, eventually,when I'm certain you're not using me as a substitute for Dead Lucy."

Whitney's always fancied Lee, but last time he was here, Lee copped off with Lucy before she binned him. When she saw he was then interested in Whitney, she couldn't tell him of Whitney's prostitute past quick enough, and Whitney was binned.

Whitney never liked Lucy at the best of times, and now that Lee's back - armed with Nancy's information that Lee was and always had been more of a love'em-and-leave'em type, Whitney's going to whet his appetite to a frenzy. Otherwise, she wouldn't have brazenly fronted out the Vic, where she knew he'd be nor would she have laughingly referred to him as her stalker.

Lee's got enough of the bad boy aura about him to whet Whit's whistle amongst other things ... until an even badder boy rocks up.

It's a Family Affair: Silly Billy Becomes a Suspect.

This week put a whole new meaning on the above phrase, and - notwithstanding - Walford's newest flavour of the month family was at the fore.

Lee Carter's big revelation about the night Lucy died was that he'd seen her furiously arguing with Billy Mitchell about something, which incurred a grand debate chez Carter about what Lee should do. Adults Lee and Nancy were all for Lee reporting this information immediately to the police, whilst the child-like Linda whined against it, worried that it would look fishy (pun intended, because Billy's argument with Lucy was all about stolen fish) to the police if Lee changed his statement. Adolescent Mick, as usual, sat on the fence. His balls must be blistered and splintered by now.

Wha'evah you do, son, we're be'indyer.

Well, what Lee decided to do was form a pussy posse consisting of Tosh and Tina and head for the varmint's hideout.

Bringing Billy into the fray is a plus in my opinion, even though Billy, at the best of times, can be an annoying character. At the moment, as ever, he's skint. Billy, like Bianca, has never heard of benefits, so to supplement his income, he steals. The plus factor derives from the fact that Perry Fenwick is one of the hidden jewels in EastEnders' crown.

Faced with this predicament, Billy does what any self-respecting Mitchell would do - he turns to Phil for help. The suspicion of Billy's involvement is heightened by the fact that he also had a key to Aleks's flat upstairs, which he used to siphon electricity from for his basement squat. Phil ropes in the excellent Ritchie Scott, who's subsequently joined by DI Keeble.

These two legal ladies were the highlight of the week if only to show the shallowness of some of the Millennial viewers, who caught their familiarity with each other as evidence of an earlier lesbian affair. WTF? Shut up. Scott is a lawyer with a lot of dodgy clients whom Keeble sought to investigate but whom Scott got off with a caution. Go to the naughty step for such an interpretation. Jesus, that's almost as bad as saying James Forde is a decent actor.

Here's where things get complicated. Phil, who was married once to Kathy Beale, wants Billy to daub up Kathy's grandson, Peter, with whom Lola, Billy's granddaughter, is romantically involved. Get the picture of how incestuous EastEnders is?

He doesn't, but that doesn't explain the curious find of a series of pictures of Lucy Beale, found stashed behind Billy's fridge. Billy's explanation was that he'd hidden them because Peter kept looking at them and upsetting Lola. Once Billy has the pictures back,he bins them - behind Peter's stall.

Billy is obviously a red herring, but Peter is being pushed more into the fray as a possible suspect - his rudeness to Lola and everyone, his constant crying could be interpreted as guilt as much as grief. The fact that Peter was present in the episode where DI Keeble explained to the Beales that they were still looking for Lucy's purse and phone, was significant (or significant in setting up the next red herring).

Whoever has the phone and the purse is the killer, or the person who aided the killer. In the most surprising, shocking and evocative duff-duff of the year, we saw someone bury the missing phone and purse in the ground in the allotments. Peter Beale? He is my contingency suspect, but I'm still thinking Ronnie. 

Why? Ronnie always leaves a trail, and she leaves it with someone whom she's prepared to leave as a suspect. Carl's death meant she left his bloodied phone and the hold-all with Phil Mitchell's DNA all over the place, at Phil's house. She's left the gun at Phil's (of which he's still ignorant, not knowing that Sharon has it - and I'm sure Lucy was struck on the head with that gun), so she left the purse and the phone with her accomplice ... Charlie Cotton.

Male Chauvinist Pigs

Here's a song for Max and Jay:-

Max sees nothing amiss in shagging the woman who's investigating the murder of the woman he was shagging at the time of her death. In fact, when confronted (by Jay) with this discovery, Max is almost defiant.

Summerhayes is bad news. She's Stella with a badge.

Jay, on the other hand, sees nothing wrong with emotionally blackmailing and passive-aggressively bullying Abi into giving up her ambitions to go to university in Liverpool in exchange for attending the University of East London, never bothering to understand that Liverpool offers the proper courses Abi needs to do veterinary studies.

In fact, taking his cues from that expert in women's affairs, Phil Mitchell, Jay thinks the way to put an end to Abi's obsession with "this uni thing" is to buy her some cheap chocolates.

Do one.

How NOT to Handle a Woman.

Look ... up in the sky. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's SUPERSHIRLEY ...

Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound ...

Shirley was last seen bullying, taunting and tormenting Dennis Rickman Jnr when both lived in the B and B, not to mention stealing his breakfast; but this week, when a nerve-edged Sharon reacts frantically to Denny poking about too near her hidden gun, he runs directly into the arms of Auntie Shirley, who then proceeded to tell Phil a few home truths about why it's Phil's fault the way Sharon is at the moment.

So Phil encourages the attending doctor to prescribe medication to Sharon, a recovering prescription medicine addict ... as you do ... and speaking of addicts ...

The divine Rainie is back, demanding money, and now Patrick knows what Ian's been up to.

Good week of episodes.