For Shirley, from Dean:-
But for Dexter's presence and the stench of ripeness that surrounds him, this episode would have been perfect again.
Very interesting episode, in the continuance of Sharon's storyline, but also for subtle beginnings of other storylines. Once again, Dexter being the exception, everything was pitch-perfect.
Even with Sharon and Phil front and centre of this episode, as well they should be, the episode, itself, belonged to Linda Henry and Matt di Angelo, the latter especially. I don't just speak for myself when I lament that boxing Dean into the corner being prepared for him by DTC is a waste of a character whose demographic needs beefing up on the Square. Not only that, but Matt di Angelo is a world away from the actor he was when he was on the show before, and he has the potential of being the sort of edgy young male character we last saw with Sean Slater. Now, we know that Dean has a shelf-life, and more's the pity.
The scene in the kitchen between Dean and Shirley was clearly the best of the episode. Dean is still a child still in desperate search for his mother, seeking some sort of acknowledgement from her as to why she abandoned him. His speech to her tonight made it abundantly clear that he's ready to move forward with her, if he doesn't get some rationale about why she left him and why she keeps letting him down, and get to know her again. The soundest piece of advice Shirley's child had to give her was simple and long overdue:-
Grow up.
Really, that's the biggest problem Shirley has. She hasn't matured emotionally past her fourteenth birthday, which was when she began drinking heavily. She's an alcoholic child, who acts out and reaches for the bottle of vodka as comfort every time something doesn't go the way she wants. She drowns her sorrows in a welter of alcohol and self-pity, blaming everyone else for her woes except herself, because as an adult, she's the mistress of her own destiny.
Tonight was all about a gigantic, adolescent strop with a gun. In fact, the entire episode was about varying degrees of strops brought about via romantic or pseudo-romantic situations gone awry.
Everyone was tiptoeing aroung Shirley as if they were walking on eggshells, solicitous of her upset and concerned about her mental well-being.
All right, Shirl?
You don't have to do this, Shirl.
Why don't you give today a rest?
You don't have to be here, Shirl.
Everyone, being Mick and Babe, but it was Dean who called her out. It's too late to make sense to Shirley, however. The pathetic thing about her is that her obsession with Phil now borders on being delusional. Of course, she doesn't know that Sharon knows about the raid on The Albert or the fact that Shirley knows as well. And Shirley doesn't know that, although Phil is unaware of the gun, he knows where Sharon got it, and it wouldn't take much for him to suss why she decided to keep it.
Nope, Shirley's the Avenging Angel of Death, convinced that Sharon was intent on using this gun on Phil, which proves how much this pathetic scrap of humanity doesn't know either Phil or Sharon. She seriously reckons that Sharon was going to kill Phil? Two bullets in the gun meant for Phil are now, in Shirley's hands, meant for Phil and Sharon?
Prince Philip and Kate Middle-Aged? Have you looked at yourself lately, Shirley? You're seven years older than Sharon, you're a drunk, living off the glories of the brother who's really your son. You're the wrong side of fify with adult grandchildren, and yet you dress sense is mutton dressed as lamb, and you have the affront to refer to Sharon as middle-aged.
Dean's words fell on deaf ears. Shirley is so totally obsessed with Phil that nothing else matters - not her sons, not her family, nothing is more important to her than Phil, and she's abysmally insulted that Phil doesn't feel the same about her. As someone else said, discussing this storyline with me today, Ben sealed the deal in Sharon's favour for Phil. Shirley's never seen the need to put any of her children or their needs before whatever man after whom she was lusting, so she'd never have fathomed why, for Sharon and for Phil, their children are the most important things in their lives - because Shirley's children never have been her first priority.
Shirley was hell-bent on disrupting that reception in whatever way she could. Actually, why was she even allowed to be there? I thought Sharon made it very clear, and in Shirley's presence, that Shirley wasn't invited to either the wedding or the reception. It's no wonder both Phil and Sharon had faces like thunder when she took her place at the table, with the gun - my Lord! - upstairs under the kitchen sink. Of course, Shirley saw exactly where Dean put it.
Deluded line of the night from Shirley to Dean:-
I'm not weak.
Bullshit! She's one of the weakest characters in the show - a bitter, hateful, vindictive, spiteful, self-pitying, self-loathsome, entitled creature who foists all the blame for her own awful behaviour onto anyone standing in the firing line (pun intended) of her ire. This is the woman who trashed Ian Beale's restaurant because Ben was his brother. I ask you. In fact, most of her anger towards Ben isn't because he killed Heather, it's because she betrayed Heather, herself, by treating her like dirt most of the time.
Dean was right. Shirley seriously needs to grow up.
But then, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
We know about the upcoming storyline with Dean. We also know that rape is a violent sexual crime based on power and control. We also know that Dean had issues when he lived on the Square before about relating to women. In the recent past, we've seen how he gets off on petty power displays - giving Lola a job and then making her work like a skivvy in the salon, putting Stacey on trial as a stylist and then taking advantage of getting a free day's labour from her.
Now, he's doing the same with Lauren, styling her hair and then getting very angry and insulting when she decided to exercise her free will and wear her hair in a way with which she was more comfortable, although - I must admit - Dean's anger bore some very apt home truths about Lauren and Peter. She really is nothing more than a spoiled little girl running after another spoiled and entitled snobby boy.
Dean's also inserted himself, literally, into the Tina-Tosh dynamic, which - on the best of days - is boring. Another line of the night goes to Babe:-
I gather she's found another use for the turkey baster. (Dom, Brookside so had this story sewn up in the late 1990s).
So Dean "contributed" his seed to Tosh in her quest to become pregnant. Tosh sees this as including Tina totally as part of the child's genetic make-up, but Tina is appalled and thinks it's wrong. Not only would she be one of two parents the child would have, she'd be his or her great-aunt. Go figure. The majority of Walford is so incestuously connected, the mind boggles. Liam Butcher is Sonia's nephew and also her first cousin once-removed by marriage. Pat was both Ricky's stepmother and grandmother-in-law. David Wicks was Ricky's stepbrother and father-in-law. Amy is both a cousin and a half-sister to Jack's son Richard. Sharon slept with and married both Grant and Phil. Kathy slept with both Phil and Grant. Cindy slept with two sets of overlapping brothers - Wicksy, Ian and David. Jack and Max shared Tanya. Tany and Rainie shared Jack. The list goes on.
However Dean's conduct with Tosh is yet another example of how he controls the situation. He knew Tosh's high-minded principles would get the better of her, and she'd have to confess to Tina her quirky brand of infidelity. This is the difference between these two eminently unlikeable women - cheating and lying, to Tina, is a way of life, but once Tosh has done something of the same ilk, she owns up. How selfish it was, as well, for Tina to take her sulking and hulking fit out and put it on display, overshadowing what should have been Sharon's and Phil's day.
Kudos to Tosh for finally realising what the viewers have known for weeks - that Tina doesn't love her, at least now, she feels that Tina doesn't love her.
Being in love is something you feel, like being in the sun. Either you in it our out of it, and it doesn't feel like you're in love with me.
She should have realised that the moment she found out about Tina snogging Sonia. I think Tosh will be pregnant with Dean's child. By the time the baby's born, Dean will either be gone, imprisoned or dead, and there'll start one big godallmighty custody fight between Tosh and Shirley Queen of Scrotes.
Another slappable selfish sulk tonight was Abi, who was bordering on neurotic and making me angrier and angrier at her childish, spoiled behaviour. She sat at the reception (where was Max, by the way?), with a face like a smacked arse, glaring the entire time at Jay. The significant thing, of which Abi took note and pondered, is that when she accused Jay of being in love with Lola, Jay didn't refute it. He said nothing and went inside. That was proof enough that what Ben said about Jay and Lola was true, and someone innocent will pay for Abi's rotten ire. Oh, and she's drinking now too.
Speaking of drinking, notice how Denise deftly took two glasses of bubbly, one presumably for Patrick, which she placed on the mantlepiece beyond his reach. Is Denise about to be the next charter member of Walford's Alcoholics Anonymous?
Apart from Shirley, there was Aunt Sal spreading her calumny and acerbic comments. Surely she's been there recently enough to know that smoking is banned in pubs, and the phonecall to Peggy was a contrived hoot, especially the OTT e-mail from her. Sharon handled that with the aplomb it deserved, but this is a retcon. I wonder if Phil will ever dig deep and find his balls enough to tell Peggy the truth about how it was he who seduced Sharon and not the other way around? I guess not. Not since he was hoping that Shirley would keep her mouth shut.
The other big storyline tonight was the revelation of Ronnie's pregnancy to the obvious father, complete with Dot's opinion that there must have been a reason for God to have created this baby - well, no, Dot, Charlie and Ronnie created it, but there's Ronnie, allowing Charlie a look-in, but not a touch, and informing him that she's - yes - running away again. She's leaving Walford. For good. How many times has Ronnie said she was leaving or attempted to leave and failed or either always came back? It's like a broken record now. The dialogue between these two, at times, bordered on the trite sitcommish (~What do you want to do? Buy a house? Move in together? ~ I don't even have your phone number.~), and Charlie's excuse for not getting involved is that he knows nothing about being a dad, because he barely had one, himself.
In true sitcom fashion, this is played out with the ubiquitous second lead couple supplying the comedy - from Roxy trying to prise a bouquet from the iron grasp of newly-loquacious spoiled brat Amy ("Amy wins again," says Roxy with resignation, spoken like a truly incompetent mother) and then bribing her with withdrawing their sudden holiday if Amy failed to thank Phil and Sharon for allowing her to be a bridesmaid, to Aleks whisking them away in the taxi just as his wife and daughter round the corner, arriving in Walford.
Good scene with Tamwar-Masood-Assistant-Market-Director-how-may-I-help-you and Mrs Shirovs and daughter, even down to the daughter having to translate for her mother. Roxy is going to be hidden in the shadows when they return.
And Linda caught the bouquet. Sorry, but that's a privilege intended for unmarried wome attending the wedding. I realise the subtle wink between Sharon and Linda, but wouldn't the kids have been suspicious of their mother catching a bouquet more intended for someone like Whitney or Lauren or even Tosh/Tina to catch? To them and to the public, Linda is supposed to be married.
Good episode, but the tension is rising.
But for Dexter's presence and the stench of ripeness that surrounds him, this episode would have been perfect again.
Very interesting episode, in the continuance of Sharon's storyline, but also for subtle beginnings of other storylines. Once again, Dexter being the exception, everything was pitch-perfect.
Even with Sharon and Phil front and centre of this episode, as well they should be, the episode, itself, belonged to Linda Henry and Matt di Angelo, the latter especially. I don't just speak for myself when I lament that boxing Dean into the corner being prepared for him by DTC is a waste of a character whose demographic needs beefing up on the Square. Not only that, but Matt di Angelo is a world away from the actor he was when he was on the show before, and he has the potential of being the sort of edgy young male character we last saw with Sean Slater. Now, we know that Dean has a shelf-life, and more's the pity.
The scene in the kitchen between Dean and Shirley was clearly the best of the episode. Dean is still a child still in desperate search for his mother, seeking some sort of acknowledgement from her as to why she abandoned him. His speech to her tonight made it abundantly clear that he's ready to move forward with her, if he doesn't get some rationale about why she left him and why she keeps letting him down, and get to know her again. The soundest piece of advice Shirley's child had to give her was simple and long overdue:-
Grow up.
Really, that's the biggest problem Shirley has. She hasn't matured emotionally past her fourteenth birthday, which was when she began drinking heavily. She's an alcoholic child, who acts out and reaches for the bottle of vodka as comfort every time something doesn't go the way she wants. She drowns her sorrows in a welter of alcohol and self-pity, blaming everyone else for her woes except herself, because as an adult, she's the mistress of her own destiny.
Tonight was all about a gigantic, adolescent strop with a gun. In fact, the entire episode was about varying degrees of strops brought about via romantic or pseudo-romantic situations gone awry.
Everyone was tiptoeing aroung Shirley as if they were walking on eggshells, solicitous of her upset and concerned about her mental well-being.
All right, Shirl?
You don't have to do this, Shirl.
Why don't you give today a rest?
You don't have to be here, Shirl.
Everyone, being Mick and Babe, but it was Dean who called her out. It's too late to make sense to Shirley, however. The pathetic thing about her is that her obsession with Phil now borders on being delusional. Of course, she doesn't know that Sharon knows about the raid on The Albert or the fact that Shirley knows as well. And Shirley doesn't know that, although Phil is unaware of the gun, he knows where Sharon got it, and it wouldn't take much for him to suss why she decided to keep it.
Nope, Shirley's the Avenging Angel of Death, convinced that Sharon was intent on using this gun on Phil, which proves how much this pathetic scrap of humanity doesn't know either Phil or Sharon. She seriously reckons that Sharon was going to kill Phil? Two bullets in the gun meant for Phil are now, in Shirley's hands, meant for Phil and Sharon?
Prince Philip and Kate Middle-Aged? Have you looked at yourself lately, Shirley? You're seven years older than Sharon, you're a drunk, living off the glories of the brother who's really your son. You're the wrong side of fify with adult grandchildren, and yet you dress sense is mutton dressed as lamb, and you have the affront to refer to Sharon as middle-aged.
Dean's words fell on deaf ears. Shirley is so totally obsessed with Phil that nothing else matters - not her sons, not her family, nothing is more important to her than Phil, and she's abysmally insulted that Phil doesn't feel the same about her. As someone else said, discussing this storyline with me today, Ben sealed the deal in Sharon's favour for Phil. Shirley's never seen the need to put any of her children or their needs before whatever man after whom she was lusting, so she'd never have fathomed why, for Sharon and for Phil, their children are the most important things in their lives - because Shirley's children never have been her first priority.
Shirley was hell-bent on disrupting that reception in whatever way she could. Actually, why was she even allowed to be there? I thought Sharon made it very clear, and in Shirley's presence, that Shirley wasn't invited to either the wedding or the reception. It's no wonder both Phil and Sharon had faces like thunder when she took her place at the table, with the gun - my Lord! - upstairs under the kitchen sink. Of course, Shirley saw exactly where Dean put it.
Deluded line of the night from Shirley to Dean:-
I'm not weak.
Bullshit! She's one of the weakest characters in the show - a bitter, hateful, vindictive, spiteful, self-pitying, self-loathsome, entitled creature who foists all the blame for her own awful behaviour onto anyone standing in the firing line (pun intended) of her ire. This is the woman who trashed Ian Beale's restaurant because Ben was his brother. I ask you. In fact, most of her anger towards Ben isn't because he killed Heather, it's because she betrayed Heather, herself, by treating her like dirt most of the time.
Dean was right. Shirley seriously needs to grow up.
But then, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
We know about the upcoming storyline with Dean. We also know that rape is a violent sexual crime based on power and control. We also know that Dean had issues when he lived on the Square before about relating to women. In the recent past, we've seen how he gets off on petty power displays - giving Lola a job and then making her work like a skivvy in the salon, putting Stacey on trial as a stylist and then taking advantage of getting a free day's labour from her.
Now, he's doing the same with Lauren, styling her hair and then getting very angry and insulting when she decided to exercise her free will and wear her hair in a way with which she was more comfortable, although - I must admit - Dean's anger bore some very apt home truths about Lauren and Peter. She really is nothing more than a spoiled little girl running after another spoiled and entitled snobby boy.
Dean's also inserted himself, literally, into the Tina-Tosh dynamic, which - on the best of days - is boring. Another line of the night goes to Babe:-
I gather she's found another use for the turkey baster. (Dom, Brookside so had this story sewn up in the late 1990s).
So Dean "contributed" his seed to Tosh in her quest to become pregnant. Tosh sees this as including Tina totally as part of the child's genetic make-up, but Tina is appalled and thinks it's wrong. Not only would she be one of two parents the child would have, she'd be his or her great-aunt. Go figure. The majority of Walford is so incestuously connected, the mind boggles. Liam Butcher is Sonia's nephew and also her first cousin once-removed by marriage. Pat was both Ricky's stepmother and grandmother-in-law. David Wicks was Ricky's stepbrother and father-in-law. Amy is both a cousin and a half-sister to Jack's son Richard. Sharon slept with and married both Grant and Phil. Kathy slept with both Phil and Grant. Cindy slept with two sets of overlapping brothers - Wicksy, Ian and David. Jack and Max shared Tanya. Tany and Rainie shared Jack. The list goes on.
However Dean's conduct with Tosh is yet another example of how he controls the situation. He knew Tosh's high-minded principles would get the better of her, and she'd have to confess to Tina her quirky brand of infidelity. This is the difference between these two eminently unlikeable women - cheating and lying, to Tina, is a way of life, but once Tosh has done something of the same ilk, she owns up. How selfish it was, as well, for Tina to take her sulking and hulking fit out and put it on display, overshadowing what should have been Sharon's and Phil's day.
Kudos to Tosh for finally realising what the viewers have known for weeks - that Tina doesn't love her, at least now, she feels that Tina doesn't love her.
Being in love is something you feel, like being in the sun. Either you in it our out of it, and it doesn't feel like you're in love with me.
She should have realised that the moment she found out about Tina snogging Sonia. I think Tosh will be pregnant with Dean's child. By the time the baby's born, Dean will either be gone, imprisoned or dead, and there'll start one big godallmighty custody fight between Tosh and Shirley Queen of Scrotes.
Another slappable selfish sulk tonight was Abi, who was bordering on neurotic and making me angrier and angrier at her childish, spoiled behaviour. She sat at the reception (where was Max, by the way?), with a face like a smacked arse, glaring the entire time at Jay. The significant thing, of which Abi took note and pondered, is that when she accused Jay of being in love with Lola, Jay didn't refute it. He said nothing and went inside. That was proof enough that what Ben said about Jay and Lola was true, and someone innocent will pay for Abi's rotten ire. Oh, and she's drinking now too.
Speaking of drinking, notice how Denise deftly took two glasses of bubbly, one presumably for Patrick, which she placed on the mantlepiece beyond his reach. Is Denise about to be the next charter member of Walford's Alcoholics Anonymous?
Apart from Shirley, there was Aunt Sal spreading her calumny and acerbic comments. Surely she's been there recently enough to know that smoking is banned in pubs, and the phonecall to Peggy was a contrived hoot, especially the OTT e-mail from her. Sharon handled that with the aplomb it deserved, but this is a retcon. I wonder if Phil will ever dig deep and find his balls enough to tell Peggy the truth about how it was he who seduced Sharon and not the other way around? I guess not. Not since he was hoping that Shirley would keep her mouth shut.
The other big storyline tonight was the revelation of Ronnie's pregnancy to the obvious father, complete with Dot's opinion that there must have been a reason for God to have created this baby - well, no, Dot, Charlie and Ronnie created it, but there's Ronnie, allowing Charlie a look-in, but not a touch, and informing him that she's - yes - running away again. She's leaving Walford. For good. How many times has Ronnie said she was leaving or attempted to leave and failed or either always came back? It's like a broken record now. The dialogue between these two, at times, bordered on the trite sitcommish (~What do you want to do? Buy a house? Move in together? ~ I don't even have your phone number.~), and Charlie's excuse for not getting involved is that he knows nothing about being a dad, because he barely had one, himself.
In true sitcom fashion, this is played out with the ubiquitous second lead couple supplying the comedy - from Roxy trying to prise a bouquet from the iron grasp of newly-loquacious spoiled brat Amy ("Amy wins again," says Roxy with resignation, spoken like a truly incompetent mother) and then bribing her with withdrawing their sudden holiday if Amy failed to thank Phil and Sharon for allowing her to be a bridesmaid, to Aleks whisking them away in the taxi just as his wife and daughter round the corner, arriving in Walford.
Good scene with Tamwar-Masood-Assistant-Market-Director-how-may-I-help-you and Mrs Shirovs and daughter, even down to the daughter having to translate for her mother. Roxy is going to be hidden in the shadows when they return.
And Linda caught the bouquet. Sorry, but that's a privilege intended for unmarried wome attending the wedding. I realise the subtle wink between Sharon and Linda, but wouldn't the kids have been suspicious of their mother catching a bouquet more intended for someone like Whitney or Lauren or even Tosh/Tina to catch? To them and to the public, Linda is supposed to be married.
Good episode, but the tension is rising.
No comments:
Post a Comment