This wasn't a bad episode. I was in the mood for EastEnders to be good on Blue Monday, after a day of listening to Cole Porter songs to keep away the blues, and it didn't disappoint, except for one niggly little bit of retconning. Grrrrr ....
It was Carter-centric, yes, but it concerned the Carters about whom I care the most ... and then some.
It Was Just One of Those Things, Fatboy.
Is it Fatboy's destiny forever to be someone's gigolo? First Denise, who bins him, now sorry Sonia, who was supposed to have gone to work, but who, somehow, ended up sitting on a wintry bench with Tina, who - for once - had better things to do than listen to Sonia obsess about her favourite subject, herself.
It's the morning after the day before, and Sonia is uneasy around Fatboy. Fatboy is uneasy around Sonia. If Sonia were drunk, then Fatboy was surely drunker, which makes Sonia's big-mouthed cry after Tina ~ as if I'd sleep with someone like Fatboy!~ look both pathetic and as stupid as she is. As if Fatboy would want to sleep with someone like you, Sonia. How much does it take to remind you that you've been dumped? Dumped by your husband before you could do the dirty and dump him, because he'd probably got wind of the trash-talk you spread around about him, and now, you're too ashamed to even tell your co-workers that (shall I say it again?) you've been dumped.
Though it was cruel, I'm glad Fatboy - and I love how Carol calls him Arthur, just like Dot - got to hear you at your best. At least Tina's grown up now, and has more things to worry about than palling around with the resident sadsack.
As for Tina, I'm amazed at the fuss and bother surrounding a readymade family who weren't even in touch with each other a year ago, ruminate and worry about a mother they hadn't seen in donkey's years, who's suffering from Alzheimer's and has to go into a care home. (Quick find, for Babe, quicker than in real time, considering all the research and such that Social Services would have to do, as Sylvie obviously doesn't have a pot in which to piss, so the Social would pick up all her expenses.) Tina hasn't seen her mother since Tina was a toddler, and Mick's only just coming to terms with the fact that she isn't even his mother.
I'm actually Team Tina here, especially since she's appeared to have grown up a bit since the departure of Tosh. At least she didn't rise to the continuous walking whine that is Sonia.
Mr Mitchell Regrets.
Dot's a conniving sneak, and to think she's deceiving one of her oldest friends, Sharon. She's even deceiving her grandson. Dot's awfully good at playing the dotty old lady, head-bobbing in the extreme, and begging Sharon not to involve Charlie, who's more than willing to step up to the plate and assume responsibility for the fraud he perpetrated with Nick.
Sharon was one of the stars of the show tonight, and she's slotting in very nicely as the Mitchell matriarch, standing up to Ritchie, sacrificing Phil's Jag in order to go the route for another bail hearing. Of course, the snag in the piece is the fact that Yvonne's gone AWOL, because it was Yvonne who'd made the witness statement and planted the dodgy evidence on Phil. She didn't blink when Ritchie made that insulting remark, implying that Phil was now officially small fry.
She stood her ground with Phil, as well, convincing him to let her go this route, revealing that Charlie wasn't a copper (something Phil had suspected), and reminding him that if Charlie went to prison and Ronnie didn't wake up, the baby would be without parents. She even sounded Peggy-esque when she showed him the picture of the latest Mitchell scion ...
Look at him. That baby is a Mitchell.
Sharon even threw Dot's plight in for good measure, reminding Phil that if he were finding prison hard, Dot wouldn't last a day, which obviously was the selling point for Phil, and makes Dot's final scene, where she's packing food and provisions for the hidden Nick and lying so easily to Charlie about going to the shops, all the time with a sly smile on her face, totally despicable.
Girls on Top.
Stacey and Shabnam continue to evolve into something for which EastEnders is most famous - close female friendships. Yes, we know that Shabnam is interested in Kush. Her remark about men like Kush needing to be taken down a peg speaks as if Shabnam has had some sort of pejorative experience with men.
She's obviously tricking him into believing that she's a novice in running, and then there's that line to Stacey about how she ran an hour a day whilst in Pakistan to keep her weight down. I'm very interested in knowing what Shabnam's secret is, and I hope it's worth waiting for.
What Is This Thing Called Love? The Return of the Carters.
First, let me get a retcon rant out of the way, because this was the only thing which spoiled this episode. Shirley's gift to Mick was some memorabilia about West Ham playing West Bromwich Albion(?) back in 1984, when Mick was 8 - which means that Mick was born in 1976. Stan referenced him, Mick and Shirley as having gone as a threesome to that game, which prompted Dean to make a remark, wondering if Shirley were making up for lost time as Mick's mother.
In 1984, if Mick were 8, then Shirley would have had a four year-old son and have been married to Kevin for as many years. She would also have been pregnant with Carly at the time. I guess Kevin must have been left to deal with the disabled tot, whilst Shirley went off to the Hammers with Stan and Mick.
Dean is still suspicious of Shirley's devotion, and the stars of this vignette were totally Kellie Bright and Danny Dyer. Mick totally believes Linda, but I deplore the secret Linda's keeping from her children, although I understand her reluctance to tell them the truth. Stan and Tina know the truth, and Mick's beginning to wonder if they actually believe that Linda had actually been raped.
Something like this has never even entered Nancy's or Lee's mind. Nancy's firmly convinced that Linda's had an affair, based on her knowledge of an unwanted kiss, and Lee doesn't know what to think. They know that the story concocted by Mick and Linda - that Dean tried something on with Linda and then started trash-talking her, Mick got wind of it and beat him up - is a lot of codswallop. To Shirley's credit, she didn't reveal anything to Nancy, but in what was probably the best scene of the piece, she was arrogant to the extreme in refusing to leave the Carter household before Mick returned.
Kellie Bright gave a fantastic performance - vulnerable, yet quietly strong in the face of Shirley's arrogance and passive aggressive bullying, going so far as to state as fact that Linda had strayed, had an affair with Dean and was not crying rape in order to keep Mick onside. Linda doesn't bite that for an instant. In fact, she goes as far as telling Shirley that Dean raped her, right in the room where they were at that time - the kitchen - she asked him to stop, and he didn't, and her children were downstairs at the time.
For a brief moment, there was a flicker of fear in the wizened face of Shirley Queen of Scrotes - fear that maybe, just maybe, Linda might be telling the truth.
I know my son, asserts Shirley. But does she really know either of them?
She abandoned Dean when he was a baby, and she didn't clap eyes on him again until he was nearly a man. She spent a matter of months, on and off, in his life, before he went to prison and returned, angry and, most probably, abused. She was unaware that Dean has, for a long time, had problems relating to women - from the cack-handed attempts he made to get Dawn Swann interested right down to his creepy obsession with Linda and his rather sad and tragic interest in Stacey, and all of his problems relating to women came from dear old mummy - or her absence thereof.
As for Mick, there was a subtle remark about his birthday which put paid to Shirleys' involvement - the fact that Elaine used to make his birthday cakes and the birthday lunch. Seems as if Elaine were more of a mum to Mick than Shirley was.
Decent episode.
It was Carter-centric, yes, but it concerned the Carters about whom I care the most ... and then some.
It Was Just One of Those Things, Fatboy.
Is it Fatboy's destiny forever to be someone's gigolo? First Denise, who bins him, now sorry Sonia, who was supposed to have gone to work, but who, somehow, ended up sitting on a wintry bench with Tina, who - for once - had better things to do than listen to Sonia obsess about her favourite subject, herself.
It's the morning after the day before, and Sonia is uneasy around Fatboy. Fatboy is uneasy around Sonia. If Sonia were drunk, then Fatboy was surely drunker, which makes Sonia's big-mouthed cry after Tina ~ as if I'd sleep with someone like Fatboy!~ look both pathetic and as stupid as she is. As if Fatboy would want to sleep with someone like you, Sonia. How much does it take to remind you that you've been dumped? Dumped by your husband before you could do the dirty and dump him, because he'd probably got wind of the trash-talk you spread around about him, and now, you're too ashamed to even tell your co-workers that (shall I say it again?) you've been dumped.
Though it was cruel, I'm glad Fatboy - and I love how Carol calls him Arthur, just like Dot - got to hear you at your best. At least Tina's grown up now, and has more things to worry about than palling around with the resident sadsack.
As for Tina, I'm amazed at the fuss and bother surrounding a readymade family who weren't even in touch with each other a year ago, ruminate and worry about a mother they hadn't seen in donkey's years, who's suffering from Alzheimer's and has to go into a care home. (Quick find, for Babe, quicker than in real time, considering all the research and such that Social Services would have to do, as Sylvie obviously doesn't have a pot in which to piss, so the Social would pick up all her expenses.) Tina hasn't seen her mother since Tina was a toddler, and Mick's only just coming to terms with the fact that she isn't even his mother.
I'm actually Team Tina here, especially since she's appeared to have grown up a bit since the departure of Tosh. At least she didn't rise to the continuous walking whine that is Sonia.
Mr Mitchell Regrets.
Dot's a conniving sneak, and to think she's deceiving one of her oldest friends, Sharon. She's even deceiving her grandson. Dot's awfully good at playing the dotty old lady, head-bobbing in the extreme, and begging Sharon not to involve Charlie, who's more than willing to step up to the plate and assume responsibility for the fraud he perpetrated with Nick.
Sharon was one of the stars of the show tonight, and she's slotting in very nicely as the Mitchell matriarch, standing up to Ritchie, sacrificing Phil's Jag in order to go the route for another bail hearing. Of course, the snag in the piece is the fact that Yvonne's gone AWOL, because it was Yvonne who'd made the witness statement and planted the dodgy evidence on Phil. She didn't blink when Ritchie made that insulting remark, implying that Phil was now officially small fry.
She stood her ground with Phil, as well, convincing him to let her go this route, revealing that Charlie wasn't a copper (something Phil had suspected), and reminding him that if Charlie went to prison and Ronnie didn't wake up, the baby would be without parents. She even sounded Peggy-esque when she showed him the picture of the latest Mitchell scion ...
Look at him. That baby is a Mitchell.
Sharon even threw Dot's plight in for good measure, reminding Phil that if he were finding prison hard, Dot wouldn't last a day, which obviously was the selling point for Phil, and makes Dot's final scene, where she's packing food and provisions for the hidden Nick and lying so easily to Charlie about going to the shops, all the time with a sly smile on her face, totally despicable.
Girls on Top.
Stacey and Shabnam continue to evolve into something for which EastEnders is most famous - close female friendships. Yes, we know that Shabnam is interested in Kush. Her remark about men like Kush needing to be taken down a peg speaks as if Shabnam has had some sort of pejorative experience with men.
She's obviously tricking him into believing that she's a novice in running, and then there's that line to Stacey about how she ran an hour a day whilst in Pakistan to keep her weight down. I'm very interested in knowing what Shabnam's secret is, and I hope it's worth waiting for.
What Is This Thing Called Love? The Return of the Carters.
First, let me get a retcon rant out of the way, because this was the only thing which spoiled this episode. Shirley's gift to Mick was some memorabilia about West Ham playing West Bromwich Albion(?) back in 1984, when Mick was 8 - which means that Mick was born in 1976. Stan referenced him, Mick and Shirley as having gone as a threesome to that game, which prompted Dean to make a remark, wondering if Shirley were making up for lost time as Mick's mother.
In 1984, if Mick were 8, then Shirley would have had a four year-old son and have been married to Kevin for as many years. She would also have been pregnant with Carly at the time. I guess Kevin must have been left to deal with the disabled tot, whilst Shirley went off to the Hammers with Stan and Mick.
Dean is still suspicious of Shirley's devotion, and the stars of this vignette were totally Kellie Bright and Danny Dyer. Mick totally believes Linda, but I deplore the secret Linda's keeping from her children, although I understand her reluctance to tell them the truth. Stan and Tina know the truth, and Mick's beginning to wonder if they actually believe that Linda had actually been raped.
Something like this has never even entered Nancy's or Lee's mind. Nancy's firmly convinced that Linda's had an affair, based on her knowledge of an unwanted kiss, and Lee doesn't know what to think. They know that the story concocted by Mick and Linda - that Dean tried something on with Linda and then started trash-talking her, Mick got wind of it and beat him up - is a lot of codswallop. To Shirley's credit, she didn't reveal anything to Nancy, but in what was probably the best scene of the piece, she was arrogant to the extreme in refusing to leave the Carter household before Mick returned.
Kellie Bright gave a fantastic performance - vulnerable, yet quietly strong in the face of Shirley's arrogance and passive aggressive bullying, going so far as to state as fact that Linda had strayed, had an affair with Dean and was not crying rape in order to keep Mick onside. Linda doesn't bite that for an instant. In fact, she goes as far as telling Shirley that Dean raped her, right in the room where they were at that time - the kitchen - she asked him to stop, and he didn't, and her children were downstairs at the time.
For a brief moment, there was a flicker of fear in the wizened face of Shirley Queen of Scrotes - fear that maybe, just maybe, Linda might be telling the truth.
I know my son, asserts Shirley. But does she really know either of them?
She abandoned Dean when he was a baby, and she didn't clap eyes on him again until he was nearly a man. She spent a matter of months, on and off, in his life, before he went to prison and returned, angry and, most probably, abused. She was unaware that Dean has, for a long time, had problems relating to women - from the cack-handed attempts he made to get Dawn Swann interested right down to his creepy obsession with Linda and his rather sad and tragic interest in Stacey, and all of his problems relating to women came from dear old mummy - or her absence thereof.
As for Mick, there was a subtle remark about his birthday which put paid to Shirleys' involvement - the fact that Elaine used to make his birthday cakes and the birthday lunch. Seems as if Elaine were more of a mum to Mick than Shirley was.
Decent episode.
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