One of the things this past week reminded me of is the fact that Santer never did an aftermath justice. Once something big had happened or had been revealed, in the space of one episode, everything had been done, dusted, and the show had moved on, even though there was still detritus about from the last big happening (cf: Archie's demise and the aftermath).
Just watching the Beales in Monday's episode made me realise how greatful I was and how much I'm looking forward to the return of Martin Fowler. I know the Beales are original, but they've not exactly come out of Lucy's murder smelling of roses, and what we saw in this episode, in relation to Lucy's murder, is a gaggle of unlikeable, morally repellant characters lifting a toast to a cold-hearted, judgemental, snobby little madam who had the misfortune to be brained by someone on Good Friday.
Sorry to be so blunt (pun intended), but it's true.
The episode had its moments, and for me, they were surprising, but on the whole, it whiffed far more than it emitted a pleasant smell. That's life. No one and no programme can be perfect. It wasn't a Newman or Kirkwood episode by a long shot, but it still wasn't very good, and the dialogue was dodgy more than a number of times; but I was more than impressed by Keeble (no surprise there) and (big surprise) Ronnie and Charlie.
Let's dig in with something good first.
Two Psychopaths Walk into a Bar ... I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could actually like Stacey Slater, and I'm even more pleasantly surprised that I find myself liking Ronnie Mitchell. It's been ages since we've seen her genuinely smile - not the weird, coldly obsessive smile she usually gives her sister, but a warm, embracing smile that shows she's genuinely relating to and not obsessing over a person. You know, we never got that from her in relation to Jack, but it was nice to see her and Charlie interacting and bantering over films and such in what was - well, a normal sort of way.
I know that whatever happiness will come Ronnie's and Charlie's way will be transient, and the game plan will be changed when Nick turns up. I know that they're probably psychopath - they're certainly the children of psychopaths. I know that Ronnie (and Phil) doesn't know that Charlie's a bog cleaner, which might changer her perception of him, and the pair are certainly still high on my list as suspects in Lucy's death; but I'm going to enjoy the rare pleasure of liking Ronnie whilst I can.
Because I'll probably be hating her soon enough.
Bim-bo. That would be DC Emma Summerhayes. This woman is seriously dumb - as in bimbo. That's bim-bo. I mean, not only is she dumb, she's naive and stupid. It's a wonder how anyone of her calibre could have progressed as far as she had in the police force, and her comedown was a joy to watch.
How she could stand on Ian's doorstep and assert that her relationship with Max, in no way, affected the investigation! Of course, it did. Max Branning was and still should be a suspect in Lucy's murder. Her becoming personally and physically involved with him tainted the investigation and influenced her perspective regarding Max. As DI Keeble, herself, said, what if Max had been using her to garner information? As things stand (and it's something she doesn't know), Max shopped her to the police, himself.
And how many times is Summerhayes going to tell Max "it's over?" Tonight made around the fifth time, but absolutely everything she did tonight was wrong, wrong, wrong.
One of the best scenes of the episode was the scene in the park between Keeble and the bimbo. Arguably, the novice writer responsible for the episode got that scene right and Keeble's dialogue about what a woman had to endure in the police force was accurate and true. It's true today for any woman who has to work in a male-dominated environment. Whilst it's gross misconduct when a male police officer gets involved with a female suspect, it's doubly bad when a woman does it. Not just. Not right, but that's white male privilege for you.
The line of the episode goes to Keeble:-
Summerhayes: I've wanted to be a police officer since I was a little girl.
Keeble: That must have been difficult when all the other little girls were playing with Barbies.
I don't want Keeble to be a permanent character, but I'm finding myself preferring her to Marsden, who seemed fixated on charging Phil Mitchell with something. Her assessment of silly Summerhayes and her treatment of the pathetic woman was professional and realistic. Summerhayes's mental simplicity was evident in the shock she exhibited that "not everyone" (but most people) knew about her affair with Max. Prior to that, when Ian informed her that he knew of her association, it was interesting to hear her describe their affair to Max as a "fling," when it was obviously more to her than that. But then, she'd do anything to protect her job, as her job was "everything" to her.
Her total inadequacy for the job was proven decisively when she storms into Max's house, determined to tell Ian, herself, that she'd been removed from the cast. Why? She knew she wasn't supposed to do that, and she knew why she was being removed and knew that Ian knew why as well. That was something totally superfluous and - well, stupid. A typical Summerhayes thing to do, especially since Max and the Branning-Beale crewe, all closely associated with Lucy, were there. Did she think everyone knew? Does she not understand tact?
Awful character, just pathetic.
Bad Brannings, Worse Beales. Is it possible that some characters can be so unlikeable, yet so watchable? Not all of them, but Ian and Max in particular. Peter and Lauren standing on Peter's market pitch, sucking each other's face is a sure fire way to garner business, but then, I'm hard put to understand how these two can kiss, considering their heads are so far up their respective arses.
I thought Peter knew Ian was with Rainie on the night of Lucy's death. Cindy certainly knew. She's a character who offends me almost as much as Dexter, because she's so pointless and because she sounds and is treated more like an adult than a child, and that's before she had the baby. But, she has the much-vaunted Cindy gene, so Ian, no blood relation at all, will be keen to keep her close. Is she in school, I wonder?
Peter Posh was on his moral high horse tonight - another hypocrite, who goggled after Lauren and treated Lola like shit. Lauren's his middle class dream, yet he thinks nothing of referring to Rainie, her aunt, as a slag. Kudos (rare ones) to Lauren for pointing out to Peter that not only was Rainie a person - and a person with an addiction problem so severe that she has to sell herself to strangers on the street to feed her addiction - she was also Lauren's aunt. Someone needs to remind Peter that his sainted sister slept with Max Branning, initially, for a cool grand with which to start her short-lived business, and she also embezzled from her employer, Janine. She wasn't so clean, and neither is he. Prick.
The most interesting part of this storyline was, as usual, Max - the old nuanced Max of whom we don't see enough. When Peter kicks off about Ian's sins, it's Max who steps in and puts things in perspective. Max knows. He's lost a child, and he's also let his family down in a myriad of ways, often being at the mercy of being exiled from Walford by his putrid daughters. He knows full well that Ian's hurting more than Peter's shallow sensibilities or his innate selfishness will allow him to consider, so Max sends him away with food for thought ... and all of this is undone by the silly, simpering omigod unneccesary scene of Summerhayes inadvertantly confessing to having slept with Max. This, ladies and gents, was a sublime piece of bad soap opera dialogue:-
Peter Posh: What? Dad? Why are you defending her? Wait ... you didn't sleep with her as well?
(Moment of silence wherein Max squirms uneasily).
Peter Posh: OMIGOD! Don't tell me it was Max!
All this was played out against a backdrop of Abi sitting there, enforced in her toasting of Dead Lucy, with a face like thunder. Now the lightning strikes with Max's reluctant confession, which offends the hypocritical morality of his two drippy daughters. I guess he's packing his bags for Strictly.
The Carter Family. Finally, the penny is beginning to drop for Mick re Linda. Something's wrong, but he can't figure out what it is. Of course, he's apologised for "vis Shirley fing". Well, he should. He's entirely too focused on his undeserving sister/mother to notice something's not quite kosher about his wife, and Kellie Bright plays another blinder tonight. I loved her brief scene with Pam, a new character I like very much. Pam sussed something was wrong immediately and wanted to help, but was interrupted by Mick in full bully mode and kitted out in Linda's dressing gown - a quirky habit that's got old fast - shouting for Linda to "get inside."
No, Mick, you get inside. And get dressed.
Last week, Linda admitted to Ronnie that she "kept her kids young", and that's true. For the most part, her children act considerably younger than they are. Even though Nancy objected to the sandwiches and arctic roll, a lot of her mannerisms are very childlike - charming, but childlike, and it's hard to believe that this is the girl who, at the beginning of this year, was about to get married. The downer to all of that was the presence of Dexter and his impending association (again) with Nancy. Something that grates with me regarding Linda and her family is the way her requests and views are blatantly disregarded by others. OK, this was Nancy's birthday, and Mick had gone out of his way to ask Nancy to "have a quiet one" today, and do what she wanted tomorrow. Linda only wanted family at the child's party do she thought would benefit Nancy's twenty-first, and Nancy comes traipsing in with Whitney, Tamwar and Dexter.
I was glad Lee told Dexter off for ogling Linda's Page Three pic. He should have thrown him out the window.
Not the best of episodes, unfortunately.
Just watching the Beales in Monday's episode made me realise how greatful I was and how much I'm looking forward to the return of Martin Fowler. I know the Beales are original, but they've not exactly come out of Lucy's murder smelling of roses, and what we saw in this episode, in relation to Lucy's murder, is a gaggle of unlikeable, morally repellant characters lifting a toast to a cold-hearted, judgemental, snobby little madam who had the misfortune to be brained by someone on Good Friday.
Sorry to be so blunt (pun intended), but it's true.
The episode had its moments, and for me, they were surprising, but on the whole, it whiffed far more than it emitted a pleasant smell. That's life. No one and no programme can be perfect. It wasn't a Newman or Kirkwood episode by a long shot, but it still wasn't very good, and the dialogue was dodgy more than a number of times; but I was more than impressed by Keeble (no surprise there) and (big surprise) Ronnie and Charlie.
Let's dig in with something good first.
Two Psychopaths Walk into a Bar ... I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could actually like Stacey Slater, and I'm even more pleasantly surprised that I find myself liking Ronnie Mitchell. It's been ages since we've seen her genuinely smile - not the weird, coldly obsessive smile she usually gives her sister, but a warm, embracing smile that shows she's genuinely relating to and not obsessing over a person. You know, we never got that from her in relation to Jack, but it was nice to see her and Charlie interacting and bantering over films and such in what was - well, a normal sort of way.
I know that whatever happiness will come Ronnie's and Charlie's way will be transient, and the game plan will be changed when Nick turns up. I know that they're probably psychopath - they're certainly the children of psychopaths. I know that Ronnie (and Phil) doesn't know that Charlie's a bog cleaner, which might changer her perception of him, and the pair are certainly still high on my list as suspects in Lucy's death; but I'm going to enjoy the rare pleasure of liking Ronnie whilst I can.
Because I'll probably be hating her soon enough.
Bim-bo. That would be DC Emma Summerhayes. This woman is seriously dumb - as in bimbo. That's bim-bo. I mean, not only is she dumb, she's naive and stupid. It's a wonder how anyone of her calibre could have progressed as far as she had in the police force, and her comedown was a joy to watch.
How she could stand on Ian's doorstep and assert that her relationship with Max, in no way, affected the investigation! Of course, it did. Max Branning was and still should be a suspect in Lucy's murder. Her becoming personally and physically involved with him tainted the investigation and influenced her perspective regarding Max. As DI Keeble, herself, said, what if Max had been using her to garner information? As things stand (and it's something she doesn't know), Max shopped her to the police, himself.
And how many times is Summerhayes going to tell Max "it's over?" Tonight made around the fifth time, but absolutely everything she did tonight was wrong, wrong, wrong.
One of the best scenes of the episode was the scene in the park between Keeble and the bimbo. Arguably, the novice writer responsible for the episode got that scene right and Keeble's dialogue about what a woman had to endure in the police force was accurate and true. It's true today for any woman who has to work in a male-dominated environment. Whilst it's gross misconduct when a male police officer gets involved with a female suspect, it's doubly bad when a woman does it. Not just. Not right, but that's white male privilege for you.
The line of the episode goes to Keeble:-
Summerhayes: I've wanted to be a police officer since I was a little girl.
Keeble: That must have been difficult when all the other little girls were playing with Barbies.
I don't want Keeble to be a permanent character, but I'm finding myself preferring her to Marsden, who seemed fixated on charging Phil Mitchell with something. Her assessment of silly Summerhayes and her treatment of the pathetic woman was professional and realistic. Summerhayes's mental simplicity was evident in the shock she exhibited that "not everyone" (but most people) knew about her affair with Max. Prior to that, when Ian informed her that he knew of her association, it was interesting to hear her describe their affair to Max as a "fling," when it was obviously more to her than that. But then, she'd do anything to protect her job, as her job was "everything" to her.
Her total inadequacy for the job was proven decisively when she storms into Max's house, determined to tell Ian, herself, that she'd been removed from the cast. Why? She knew she wasn't supposed to do that, and she knew why she was being removed and knew that Ian knew why as well. That was something totally superfluous and - well, stupid. A typical Summerhayes thing to do, especially since Max and the Branning-Beale crewe, all closely associated with Lucy, were there. Did she think everyone knew? Does she not understand tact?
Awful character, just pathetic.
Bad Brannings, Worse Beales. Is it possible that some characters can be so unlikeable, yet so watchable? Not all of them, but Ian and Max in particular. Peter and Lauren standing on Peter's market pitch, sucking each other's face is a sure fire way to garner business, but then, I'm hard put to understand how these two can kiss, considering their heads are so far up their respective arses.
I thought Peter knew Ian was with Rainie on the night of Lucy's death. Cindy certainly knew. She's a character who offends me almost as much as Dexter, because she's so pointless and because she sounds and is treated more like an adult than a child, and that's before she had the baby. But, she has the much-vaunted Cindy gene, so Ian, no blood relation at all, will be keen to keep her close. Is she in school, I wonder?
Peter Posh was on his moral high horse tonight - another hypocrite, who goggled after Lauren and treated Lola like shit. Lauren's his middle class dream, yet he thinks nothing of referring to Rainie, her aunt, as a slag. Kudos (rare ones) to Lauren for pointing out to Peter that not only was Rainie a person - and a person with an addiction problem so severe that she has to sell herself to strangers on the street to feed her addiction - she was also Lauren's aunt. Someone needs to remind Peter that his sainted sister slept with Max Branning, initially, for a cool grand with which to start her short-lived business, and she also embezzled from her employer, Janine. She wasn't so clean, and neither is he. Prick.
The most interesting part of this storyline was, as usual, Max - the old nuanced Max of whom we don't see enough. When Peter kicks off about Ian's sins, it's Max who steps in and puts things in perspective. Max knows. He's lost a child, and he's also let his family down in a myriad of ways, often being at the mercy of being exiled from Walford by his putrid daughters. He knows full well that Ian's hurting more than Peter's shallow sensibilities or his innate selfishness will allow him to consider, so Max sends him away with food for thought ... and all of this is undone by the silly, simpering omigod unneccesary scene of Summerhayes inadvertantly confessing to having slept with Max. This, ladies and gents, was a sublime piece of bad soap opera dialogue:-
Peter Posh: What? Dad? Why are you defending her? Wait ... you didn't sleep with her as well?
(Moment of silence wherein Max squirms uneasily).
Peter Posh: OMIGOD! Don't tell me it was Max!
All this was played out against a backdrop of Abi sitting there, enforced in her toasting of Dead Lucy, with a face like thunder. Now the lightning strikes with Max's reluctant confession, which offends the hypocritical morality of his two drippy daughters. I guess he's packing his bags for Strictly.
The Carter Family. Finally, the penny is beginning to drop for Mick re Linda. Something's wrong, but he can't figure out what it is. Of course, he's apologised for "vis Shirley fing". Well, he should. He's entirely too focused on his undeserving sister/mother to notice something's not quite kosher about his wife, and Kellie Bright plays another blinder tonight. I loved her brief scene with Pam, a new character I like very much. Pam sussed something was wrong immediately and wanted to help, but was interrupted by Mick in full bully mode and kitted out in Linda's dressing gown - a quirky habit that's got old fast - shouting for Linda to "get inside."
No, Mick, you get inside. And get dressed.
Last week, Linda admitted to Ronnie that she "kept her kids young", and that's true. For the most part, her children act considerably younger than they are. Even though Nancy objected to the sandwiches and arctic roll, a lot of her mannerisms are very childlike - charming, but childlike, and it's hard to believe that this is the girl who, at the beginning of this year, was about to get married. The downer to all of that was the presence of Dexter and his impending association (again) with Nancy. Something that grates with me regarding Linda and her family is the way her requests and views are blatantly disregarded by others. OK, this was Nancy's birthday, and Mick had gone out of his way to ask Nancy to "have a quiet one" today, and do what she wanted tomorrow. Linda only wanted family at the child's party do she thought would benefit Nancy's twenty-first, and Nancy comes traipsing in with Whitney, Tamwar and Dexter.
I was glad Lee told Dexter off for ogling Linda's Page Three pic. He should have thrown him out the window.
Not the best of episodes, unfortunately.
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