All. Over. The. Place.
It's been a long time, I'll admit, that I looked at the clock and wondered how long before an episode ended, but tonight I did just that. If anything, I'd dub this The Sick Episode, because a lot of what happened during the 30 minutes went from cruel and unusual to just, plain sick.
The Sick Beales. It's been noted that Ian and Peter both have hidden behind their grief in a way that enabled them to behave inappropriately. This is true, and it's despicable, and neither of them are likeable characters. In fact, the whole Beale abode is infested with disgusting people, two of whom deserve to be smacked around the head. The most likeable one is Leave-It-To-Beaver-Bobby, whose smarm ability is equal only to NuBobby's continuous smirk.
However, a word in defence of Ian. The people around him are either unaware of or have conveniently forgotten that he suffered a mental breakdown just two years ago. Since then, he's started a new business from scratch, after having been treated absolutely abysmally by the dead, little beeyatch everyone seems to have elevated to premature sainthood; he's been extorted and blackmailed by Carl White; he's entered into a new relationship with Denise, and he's had to deal with Lucy's death. All of that, and more, can be described as stressful to the extreme, something which cannot help but intrude on Ian's already fragile mental state.
Various viewers have already noticed Ian's mannerisms mirroring those he manifested during his breakdown - the constant scratching of his arm, the shuffling gait. Learning that his son was providing his cocaine-addicted daughter with the drug can hardly have come as anything less than a shock to him. If he didn't know Lucy, he knew Peter even less, and then he had this prick of a son shout the odds at him about the perceived way he treated his children - this is Ian, who put his children before himself on every occasion and spoiled them rotten - even to the point of grabbing him in the face.
Ian has every right to be angry with Peter. He enabled Lucy's addiction and may even have been indirectly responsible for her death. He bought drugs into the Beale household and had drug dealers there, in a house where a small child lived. He betrayed Ian's trust as much as and even more than Ian betrayed Peter's trust by kerb-crawling with Rainie Cross. Ian was stupid. Peter was even more stupid for thinking that he could "control" an addict's intake.
It's the twins' birthday, and don't think Ian isn't feeling this. His daughter is dead, and his son is a prick, who is entitled enough to think that Ian owes him an apology, a fact encouraged and supported by his bovine ex-wife, who for some inane reason thinks - hey, ya know, Peter did a bad thing, but he had his reasons. In the words of Dan Ackroyd ...
Shut up!
Ian was dealing with the day the best way he knew how, in the vain hope of maintaining control - there's that word again - of his mental faculties; but there sat the Queen of Bovine and the Crown Princess of Mouth harping on and on and on and on at him, telling him how wrong he is, especially Cindy, the most abject mouth-pouting brat the show has ever ever seen, carping and insisting that Ian had to make an appearance at the twins' birthday party, they were celebrating Lucy as well as Peter yadda yadda, getting more and more aggressive, even slamming Ian's laptop shut.
Just who the feck does this asshole think she is? I wanted Ian to stand up and order her sorry, lazy arse out of a household where she has no right to be. Neither one of these dumbasses even realised Ian had gone through a breakdown or even stopped to think that he might be dealing with remembering the events of the day in his own way, a way which best suits his frame of mind, something which neither of these big-mouthed, small-brained people seem willing or able to accept.
Ian is mourning Lucy, and he's angry with Peter. Give him space. That's what he's saying. He's removing himself from the memory and trying to concentrate on something else until he's able to cope with this in his own right, but in Cindy's scummy, little nature and the pea in Jane's head she calls a brain, they see him as the big bad wolf in this instance.
The absolute highlight of this vignette was Carol noticing Ian throughout choir practice, realising it was Lucy's birthday and reaching out - Carol, who's also lost a child in tragic circumstances and who reacted through grief in inappropriate behaviour, knows exactly what Ian's feeling right now. I was willing Ian to go for that drink with her, and I hope he reaches out.
As for Peter the self-pitying prick, now he abuses Masood's hospitality by bringing cocaine into the house. The party was nothing more than a poor excuse for Peter the Posh Prick to indulge in self-pity, whilst contemplating snorting a line in memory of a stranger whom he described and whom the viewers barely knew.
Peter and Lucy were a lot of things, but even as twins, I wouldn't call them close -and that includes that bum-clinchingly embarrassing scene during the Range-Rover-in-the-Lake episode where Lucy took time off from laughing at Bobby demolishing Tanya's salon to get a psychic message from her twin. As you do. In their latest incarnations, they gave little indication of being so close that they planned their 21st birthdays, their 30ths and so on. Peter went his way, and Lucy went hers. Peter was the nice guy, and Lucy was the snide little bitch. So all those shaggy dog tales Peter was telling for his own benefit and to the great discomfort of the others at the party were for nowt. It was an exercise in narcissism. Quite succinctly, no one knew where to look. Johnny Carter, who was hardly a mate, showed up with his scooter -sorry, as Mick would put it a moped - badge of honour, Abi was tactless in a way she can only be. (She wants to go away for her 21st - I want her to go away now).
Not only was Cindy the Greek trying to manhandle Ian into this party fiasco, she was also trying to do the same when the mob ran into Lauren in the Square. Lauren made it abundantly clear to Peter that they were over, and why they were over. Yet he uses his pithy, unpleasant sister as a means of trying to manipulate Lauren into attending the party. As much as this lot do not understand Ian's mental dilemma, they don't understand that Lauren has ended everything with Peter because she is an addict and he is an enabler. Even worse, Peter is so up his own arsehole, he doesn't realise this.
Instead, he takes a whiff of cocaine. Wow, that must have been some line he snorted, to send him up the Sewanee the way he was carrying on.
They say in vino veritas, but the same can be said of this drug-induced instance. Peter thinks Ian is a coward. Well true that may be, but he really needs to leave his own ego at the door and look at himself. And both he and the Queen of Bovine need to understand that Ian's mental health is now very fragile. This last scene deserved the duff-duff.
Co-Dependency CarterTime. Crikey, Mick almost had an epiphany tonight ...
Johnny, do I -er - sometimes make you do fings you don't want?
(Euphemism for: Johnny, do you think - sorry, fink - I'm a bully?)
To wit Johnny replied, diplomatically: Nah, Dad, it's just we don't wanna let you down.
(Euphemism for: Nah, Dad, you're not a full-on bully, just a passive-aggressive one.)
This comes from a real epiphany from Linda. She doesn't want the child she's carrying, and with good reason, for which she doesn't tell Mick, yet again. Not good, but her reasons for not wanting a baby were sound - the kids were "all over the place" (ok, they're pretty much grown, but I get your drift), and she feels she doesn't want another child; they're short on money, they haven't got the business up and running yet. In a normal frame of things, these are valid reasons for not wanting to have a child.
She even admits before that she only wanted to have a baby because she was afraid Mick would leave her; now she's sure he wouldn't. Mick promises he wouldn't leave her, but then tries another bit of emotional blackmail by asking her if she doesn't want to feel another baby in her mind. In the end, he accepts her decision, but does he, really? I wonder? And does she really get rid of the baby? Why do I think she doesn't?
And, please ... Johnny has a scooter, not a moped. A moped - and aren't they extinct - is a bike which has a small motor, but which can also be pedalled. Johnny has a Lambretta, a classic Italian scooter, and the scooter, itself, is a foreshadow of things to come.
The Psychopath, the Paranoid, the Eternal Victim and the Court Jester. Sonia is moping about the Butcher-Jackson abode as if dead lice were dropping from her. They probably are. She's feeling awfully sorry for herself. Obviously, she's made Carol believe that this was all down to big bad Martin. Sonia has her biggest fan to milk her sympathy.
Martin's got Rebecca. (Shut up, you gave Rebecca away ... again ... to Martin. Let's see, this is the third time you've done this. You should have told the Court Jester, that would be no big deal for her, considering that her own child brought herself up).
Rebecca will probably hate me. (Oh, she'll come around, says Court Jester, once she realises you were unhappy.)
I don't like Tosh, but her assessment of Sonia was right - she's a liar and a thief - just like Tina.
I know we're supposed to feel sorry for sorry Tina ... (Spot the Tina) ...
... but that's a difficult thing to ask, considering the amount of times she's lied and been unfaithful to Tosh. Tosh is a piece, herself, a welter of loneliness, paranoia, insecurity and control. In all honesty, she has a right to be suspicious of Tina's friendship with Sonia, considering she's been unfaithful to her with Sonia.
As for Babe, she's a malicious old trout of a psychopath. Credit to Shirley, she knew exactly what Tosh was about to do the moment Babe revealed that the watch didn't belong to her; and she should have stopped Tosh as she promised to do. Instead, she stalks her outside their flat and sits calmly reading a paper to the sounds of Tina being beaten up in the background ... before belatedly coming to her rescue and appearing the hero. Control freak, much?
I really wish Tina and Tosh were leaving - and not for Croydon, but for Canada.
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