Go. Go. Now. Go now. Do not stop. Just walk and don't look back. We loved you once, but not anymore. When you left the first time, you were happy, and we were happy for you; but then you were brought back, re-packaged, fucked up and over, and nothing's been the same since.
Thus it is with the Moons, and thus it will ever be. One of the few things Lorraine Newman did was recognise that Kat needed fixing. What a shame she didn't realise the same about Sharon or Bianca, both iconic female characters done in by Bryan Kirkwood. And what a pity she didn't work on fixing Alfie as well, instead of letting the writing room full of Alpha male-haters depict Alfie as the worst egocentric part of the actor who plays him.
Even worse that, a week before the big Christmas episode, a filler episode of this calibre should be broadcast. Parts were interesting, but parts were bland beyond belief, with one significant nod to the future that morphed into sentimental tripe.
Something Teenaged This Way Comes? Johnny, we hardly knew ye, and this time next week, you'll be gone. Still, there you were tonight in all your elfin glory, dressed up and painted like an elf, when your replacement, off-screen, phoned in his regrets and made his grandmother cry.
Yes, folks, tonight we witnessed the first waning of Johnny Carter and the incipient waxing of Paul Coker.
From all the many brief indications, he seems to be - yes - another angry young man with an axe to grind. He's stringing up his grandparents like a pair of kippers, and I gather it's from feeling a bit put out that his nan euthanised his old man. Where's his mother? And what's he like? Will he be hetero and snog the snorting and giggling Abi Branning or will he prefer the sweetness that is Lola? Will he be gay and make a play for Ben?
Johnny goes out the door and Paul comes in, just like, in a couple of weeks, Dexter will waltz out the door and Kim will appear in all her glory. Why, if one didn't know better, one would swear the show had some sort of a quota system.
It couldn't, could it? Let's ask Angela Wynter, shall we? After all, her coup de grace occurred during the first era of DTC serving on the show.
It was a nice, Christmassy little vignette for the Cokers and their adopted family of Billy and his waifs. Pam thought that if she wished and believed hard enough, the recalcitrant Paul would miraculously appear, there'd be a huge Christmas tree and a turkey in the oven.
Meanwhile, Billy, Walford's very own Bob Cratchit, who's never on the up and has managed to squat in a basement flat for about four years now, when Alfie and Kat can't even squat for more than a few weeks in one, can only afford a sorry little twig of a tree, for which the angel ornament is too heavy and which is weighted down by even the lightest decoration.
Billy got the line of the night:-
Me balls keep fallin' off.
When Pam gets upset, the solution is simple. The Cokers donate their big tree to Billy, Janet, Lola and Lexie; Pam cooks the turkey, and they all spend Christmas together. Cue the decorating and lighting of the tree, with Phil Mitchell incongruously on hand, but curiously minus Sharon and Ben.
Lexie is Phil's granddaughter. I thought "Daddy Phil" would want her around chez Mitchell for the day.
There was only one thing missing from that final tableau at Billy's squat - Janet piping up God bless us everyone!
But at least we got the first lingering glimpse of Paul Coker looming on the horizon.
No Room in the Inn.
Saint Mick, the innkeeper wearing his wife's dressing gown, gives shelter to poor Alfie, also swanning around in what appears to be his wife's gear. Of course, this was the main storyline tonight and yet it was another nail in the coffin of Alfie Moon's characterisation.
According to Shane Richie, DTC's promised big things for the Moons next year, and tonight the truth was out about Alfie setting the fire, and the truth was out via the Nana Moon picture.
It's almost as if you knew there was gonna be a fire ...
Gee, Kat ... YA THINK???????
And, of course, there stood Stacey, a silent witness to something about which she'd known for a long time, another murderer who took the moral high ground. Don't get me wrong. I love Stacey, but this was one of the most contrived faux exits I've ever seen on the programme. A loved-up Stacey and Dean emerge from the pub, only to see the bedraggled Alfie and Kat trudging to Walford East station, their worldly possessions and their three children in tow, including little Tommy with his sack of charity toys, resigned to moving to Hull.
It seems that Walford council simply can't help them, as the council worker indicated from her metre-high pile of people waiting for council housing. The only place in the country that can help them is Hull. In fact, Walford Council will pay their fares to get them out of their collective hair.Normally, Jessie Wallace nails scenes like this, but in this one, she fell flat. It's as if both she and Shane Richie know that this constant tale of woe for the Moon family is wearing a little thin at the moment and viewers are losing patience.
It wasn't that long ago, and under the tutelage of DTC, where we saw Billy Mitchell's inane stupidity and thick-skinned pride, result in Honey, William and an infant Janet, homeless and on the street opposite the pub, Billy having not only stolen from Ian, but also from Peggy's charity bucket. (Didn't DTC say something about not repeating greatest hits?) Now we have to watch the Moons trudge from bad to worse, losing their livelihood and giving up on employment.
In hindsight, I think the couple should have left Walford when the current EP's flavour-of-the-month family, the Carters, arrived on the scene. He should have known that Alfie, as a character, never worked well on the market, although I'm still waiting for that bump-on-a-log of moral terpitude, Tamwar, to come clean about how he and Aleks connived to deprive Alfie of his livelihood, when not even an eyebrow is raised to the fact that Peter the Posh Prick Beale works on the veg stall when he bloody feels like it, and hides the fact that he doesn't behind incessant grief for his sister.
So now, Kat knows (duff duff) ... so what? What now? Do they split up again? (What was said about no more yo-yo couples? Already, we've got Ian and Jane reuniting in anticipation of one or the other's infidelity; now are we to have another Alfie-Kat split?) The bulk of 2013 saw Kat carrying a torch for Alfie. OK, people bleat on about how Kat was apart from Alfie, and she was a better character; but let's be truthful - and it's a truth many people obstinately refuse to recognise - she was carrying a torch for him. She wasn't looking for romance, but she used any excuse imaginable to hunker down around Alfie when she could. It was patently obvious to everyone that she still had feelings for him. In short, she pursued him.
Now, are we about to see Alfie exiled, in Max fashion (enabling Shane Richie to complete a pantomime arrangement), only to have him return and pursue Kat for the better part of next year? Is that the big Moon storyline? Because they've only not long ago got married, so they've got to wait at least another year for a divorce.
Make no mistake. Alfie and Kat are an endgame couple. I know some people might want to create their own fantasies where the couple split, Alfie leaves, dies or commits suicide; but the simple fact of the matter is that it ain't gonna happen. Kat without Alfie devolves into a 45 year-old woman with three kids under the age of five and a dodgy grandmother, trying to eke out a meagre living on a stall. In less time than it takes to say oi!, she's already screeching about how she's going to feed her kids. In short, you have Bianca. Again. And that worked so well the last time, didn't it?
Forget the return of the middle-aged co-dependent shriekers and shareres of one braincell, the Slaters. That horse has bolted too. As much as people hate it, Kat works well with Alfie and he works well with her. But they need a purpose, a direction and, maybe, a real business to run. Or maybe they just should leave. Together. Again.
Sometimes, you just have to know when to go.
The Odd Couple.
Stacey and Dean.
You find yourself watching them and wanting to scream, because they are so good together and really do have chemistry, and then you remember that Dean is a rapist, and unredeemable, and soon to leave. You forget all his foibles, his sociopathy, his rejection issues and his misogyny, when you see the positive effect Stacey has on him. It's such a shame that Stacey and Dean didn't get together properly before his rape of Linda; perhaps Stacey's interest and affection would have deflected his obsession with Linda, but that was never in DTC's plan and not the reason why he brought the character of Dean - a character who was axed during his first tenure - back into the fold.
This storyline draws a line under Dean for good.
There was even a postive moment of bonding through banter with Shirley, when Dean made a joke about Stan's medical condition.
Shirley: Tact, Dean, tact!
Dean: But it's a fact, Mother, a fact!
And the scene when Stacey refers to herself as Dean's girlfriend and his reaction to that was classic, almost poignant in his happiness to hear her refer to him as such.
But then ... but then ... I wonder if the success of Stean is down primarily to Stacey, or rather, the actress, Lacey Turner, an actress who manages to make any on-screen romantic affiliation look good - Stacey and Bradley, Stacey and Max and now Stacey and Dean. The only time she came off pejoratively with viewers in a relationship was with Ryan the Drip ...
Now contrast Turner and her ability to make her co-stars shine, with Jacqueline Jossa, who becomes one epic fail no matter with whom TPTB seek to associate her character of Lauren romantically.
Speaking of which ...
A Crisis of Conscience. Dummerhayes is conflicted, and her impression of a copper, intent on becoming good at her profession, desperate to stay well in with the force after what was essentially a case of gross misconduct, and - in a split second - willing to do anything to ensure that she does stay within the fold.
Keeble is simply pure malevolent excellence. She has not time for silly girls like Dummerhayes. She has a job to do - find the person who killed Lucy Beale, first and foremost. When Dummerhayes literally begs for the return of Lauren's laptop, which she stole for that purpose, she meets a closed door. In fact, Keeble is only too glad to remind her how much deep shit in which she'll find herself with the Brannings when they discover the laptop missing.
And that's another question. I know Lauren is entitled, but how is it that she hasn't missed her laptop until Dummerhayes told her she'd taken it, given it to the police and now can't get it back. I mean, surely someone would know if their laptop were missing, even if she didn't use it every day, is she that entitled to think that Max or Abi had moved it and put it someplace where she thought it was but wasn't? What would have happened if she'd wanted to use it in the meantime?
You have to come to the conclusion that Lauren is not only indellibly stupid, but still as self-obsessed as she's ever been, dreamily wondering what to get Peter for Christmas. I'm still wondering where she found the funds to buy him a camera. Peter wants to go travelling (funded by Ian, no doubt), but poor pitiful Lauren will have to sell her phone to afford a day-trip to Paris, and rather than sell her phone, she makes him a poster of Paris.
Awwwww diddums.
I do agree with Dummerhayes, however, and I can't see why Keeble didn't appear at the Branning house, complete with warrant and seize the laptop. Interesting to note, per Keeble, that whatever career the unfortunate Dummerhayes ever thought to have had, is now on the scrapheap.
Love Amongst the Ruins. Raise a glass to the great Timothy West and the magnificent Ann Mitchell. Mitchell is the one actress in the entire set-up who can convey so much with minimal dialogue, via a subtle expression on her face. She and West gave a masterclass to the others tonight. They were the highlight of the episode.
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