The Parent Trap (Literally) - Review:- Friday 07.11.2014

Did you notice, this week, how, the more Carter-centric the episodes became, the more the quality lowered? Familiarity breeds contempt. Just saying. I blame the parents. In every sense of the phrase. Boy, when this show wants to stereotype, there's no surpassing it. I suppose we've reached the treading water phase of filler episode until later in this month in the run up until Christmas. Tonight, the show ran the gamut from bland to bizarre. The Parent Trap I: Max and Dummerhayes. Oddly coincidental (and as over-the-top as the baby explosion on the Square) was the fact that two different characters were planning slap-up lunches for the parents of their prospective romantic partners. Max had invited Dummerhayes's parents for lunch - enter the stereotype of the judgemental, well-spoken, posh, upper-class Colonel Blimp-and-Memsahib types. Dummerhayes is so flakey that she forgot to tell Max that Mummy was a vegetarian - no, wait, a piscatarian; and Mummy was right to be on the judgemental defensive, although you'd think she'd know her daughter was a neurotic flake. Of course, she's right to be wary. She doesn't know Max, until recently, her daughter was in another relationship, engaged to another man, and now her career is on the line. Succinctly put, Mummy is a casual bitch, and Daddy is a pleasant misogynist, when it comes to women in the workplace, based on his assessment of DI Keeble. Max's daughters mature? That's a judgement based on Lauren's artifically-enhanced, early pregnancy-ridden boobs bursting from the briefest of tops worn on what, in real time, is a cold, rainy and blustery autumn day. Notice that the scene changed exactly when Mummy Dummerhayes asked Max what Lauren did for a living. Just imagine the answers. Well, she's a recovering alcoholic, who's tried to kill me by running me over, fallen in love with her cousin and drove a car through a display window whilst drunk, broken up a marriage and then fingered her ex-lover in a murder investigation, and now she's arsing about with a local lad, who's in New Zealand. She waits the occasional table, exiles me from Watford from time to time when my behaviour doesn't meet her impossibly high standards, but when she shoves her hand out for money, I'm always there to give. Charity begins at home, innit? Saying Max's daughters are mature is like saying the Pope will hold an en masse marriage ceremony in Vatican Square for 4000 same sex marriage couples. It simply ain't so. I'm actually surprised Lauren and Abi managed to behave so well during the lunch or that Max managed to impress these impossibly shallow people. The very fact that Mummy Dummerhayes warned Dummerhayes that a man with grown children might not want to start a family anew foreshadowed the fact that, with DTC at the helm, a little Dummerhayes-Branning isn't so far into the future. The surprise of the night came with Max, nonchalantly, suggesting that Dummerhayes move in with him and the girls, a statement that gave Jacqueline Jossa the opportunity to show us her latest wide-eyed gurning technique. The fourth Mrs Branning on the horizon, until Tanya decides to make an appearance, that is. The Parent Trap II: Mrs Tosh. (Sigh and yawn). Now let's deal with yet another stereotype - the impossibly religious, fundamentalist Christian Mum, Mrs MacIntosh, with emphasis on the Tosh. This is a surprisingly accurate and coincidental stereotype, considering the fact that a particular fundamentalist Nigerian-based Christian community has been pejoratively in the news lately for trying to open a faith-based school in Dartford. So DTC follows along the line that Tosh's parents are moralist, fundamentalist Christians who abhor her lifestyle and from whom she's been estranged for years. This also, miraculously, showed Tina's sudden transformation from feckless childwoman to incipient pop psychologist - all that dialogue about thinking (rightly so) that Tosh's anger issues stemmed from her parents not accepting her for what she was and she was transferring that anger into domestic violence aimed at Tina, in jealousy for Tina's supportive family base. Wow, what hormones did they put in Tina's morning tea? The result was the lunch from hell, with Mrs MacIntosh showing up with a lie on her lips about the whereabouts of her husband - something to do with a church matter - and her sitting there stiff as a board during the entire fiasco of a meal, wanting only to talk about Tosh's acceptable sister and her child, the texted picture of whom gave truth to the lie of Tosh's father's real whereabouts. The fly in the ointment was Mummy Tosh's inflexibility on receiving news that Tosh and Tina were trying for a family. She couldn't leave quickly enough, and Tosh couldn't fly off the handle quick enough for her departure. She was almost sympathetic, but I got the feeling that Tina's promise for them to try again for a child was said in the spirit of the moment, reflective of Tosh's vulnerable state. Truth is, neither woman is fit to be a parent - the difference is that Tina recognises that she's not, and Tosh doesn't. Tosh's anger issues aren't going to go away overnight. This is something that needs more than Tina's pop psychology and will only end in tears. The Croaking Cokers. OK, we guessed that this is the time of year, if not the day, when the Cokers' lost their son. I'm betting that their big secret is that the son had some sort of terminal illness or was horribly injured with brain damage, and that Pam "helped" him on his way. That's the easiest thing surmised about a couple who have come to the forefront recently. The other was the revelation to Les about Nick being alive, something he knew all along. That scene with Dot was totally weird. In the first place, Dot, being Dot, should just have castigated him for doing what he did - not passive-aggressively suggesting that the money Charlie paid him be returned or else she'd go to the police. Les was right to remind her that he could easily tell the police about Charlie's part in this charade. IIRC, Les was extremely reluctant to go ahead with the faked death, and the fact that the money was spent could account for his purchasing new quarters on the Square and moving expenses. I doubt he got ten grand from Charlie. Then the part about Dot going passive-aggressive again and threatening to tell Pam was another oddity. In fact, why did Dot have to involve Les in this at this particular moment, because it only served for Les to interpret the threat that was made as a threat to his livelihood and to his family. He knows Pam is feeling fragile at the moment, which accounted for her paranoid interpretation of Dummerhayes's comments relating to the Lucy investigation. The Cokers didn't know Lucy, and the only involvement they had in her death was Les burying her. Why should they even be questioned? But Les's overreaction to Dot's weird behaviour will now bring a secret into the open. A few things to remember: Yes, Les broke the law in faking a burial; but he was coerced into doing this by Charlie, who'd broken the law even more, and by Nick, who'd broken it even worse. All three could see prison time. And Dot, herself, "helped" Ethel along the way, so she can't sit in judgement of Pam, whom she shamelessly, one time, branded as a gossip. I actually like Pam. I find her an endearing and positive character, and for all his hamminess, I like Les too. Calendar Girls (and Boys). It seemed like more than 12 months were going to be represented, and we only got about a minute of Sharon and too much of Sonia. Natalie Cassidy is not a good actress. Even though she's only ever played Sonia, she's even bad at that now. She's as bad at being Sonia as Sam Aston on Corrie is as bad at being Ches-neh. Another chance for Kush to show us what he's made of. Is it me, or have the past three EPs at EastEnders been particularly fond of naked male torsos putting in an appearance? Just as Sonia's whining about her appearance on the calendar, so Mick is stymied by how fit Tosh is. (Question: Is there a chance Mrs Aleks might glimpse January in this charity character and get the wrong right idea that she's being played for a patsy?) Of course, inevitably, this storyline leads to more Mick and Linda woe - Linda moping about the Square, lying - yet again - in despair in their darkened bedroom, and refusing to admit what was wrong to Mick. Mick can't do right for doing wrong. Yep, you got it. He was wrong to volunteer Linda's services on the calendar, but she came around in the end - they're a team, after all, as they keep reminding us. Linda's first excuse for demurral:- I feel old. This is true, even though she's only 37. She's been having kids and playing at being an adult since she was 14. She has three adult children, any one of whom could make her a grand mother. Instead, she's about to become a mum once again - and she's afraid the child is not the progeny of her husband, especially since we got the ubiquitous line from Mick tonight about how he interpreted Linda's indifference to him by reminding her she'd barely been near him. Of course, we know that right up until the time she was raped, she and Mick were having sex. Who's the Daddy? You bet, but with a twist. This time, it'll be Mick. On this front, it was the same old same old, except there were two bright sides to the calendar storyline - we got to see Lady Di and know that she'll be a part of the calendar; and we didn't see Shirley and know that she won't be in the pictures on offer.