In this episode, I realised just how much I hate Pam Coker and how much I absolutely hate, loathe, detest and despise Sonia ... and how I wish Cindy would take a long jump off Brighton Pier, taking Liam the Lug with her.
Thank goodness, the big guns are back next week!
The Hypocrisy Merchant.
Martin might not be the brightest lightbulb in the pack, but he's certainly not stupid, and Sonia would drop the Court Jester in a New York Minute, if Martin would have Sonia back in the fold and then proceed to do her bidding on her terms.
That's the only reason she's with Tina. As soon as Martin got Rebecca and started excluding Sonia from the equation, Sonia started giving Rebecca a second thought and demanding a place within the dynamic. As we saw last year, Sonia wasn't above using Rebecca as an instrument by which to control Martin, and she certainly isn't above doing that again, but this time, she's lost control of the situation.
She's desperate to keep her new relationship with Tina a secret, not wanting to have cocktails at The Albert because it was too close to home, preferring to party down up West. She's not thinking much about Rebecca then, is she? In fact, she doesn't think about Rebecca much at all, unless and until she sees Martin. She shits her gullet over the fact that Martin is now in Walford. Well, she'd best get used to it, because it looks as though he's losing his business, and quite possibly, his home - and that last bit is down to Sonia ditching her share of the responsibility of the mortgage, the self-serving, self-righteous bitch.
I daresay Martin's put two and two together regarding some of the phone abuse The Court Jester and prize stirrer would give him from time to time the past year. The confrontation in the pub was one of the rare highlights of a mediocre week, and it proved that Martin was well aware of just what Sonia was getting p to, spending more and more time in Walford. Granted, her mother was ill, but that didn't stop Sonia from finding the time to nick and neck booze from a bottle and snog her feckless girlfriend, who was in a relationship, herself, at the time.
In the confrontation, when Martin addressed Sonia's repeated claims that he was an inattentive husband, the self-righteous cow looked as guilty as sin, because she knew what was happening next - Martin revealed Sonia's association with Tina. Carol looked as though she could have fallen through the floor. Martin's bet to pull Donna was pathetic, and there was no excuse for that, but Martin has been treated appallingly by Sonia, not once, but twice, with her walking out of the family dynamic for another woman, but only when Sonia thought she wasn't being sufficiently worshipped at home.
It won't take long for Sonia to tire of Tina's deliberately child-like ways. She'll be longing for Martin's table burps, and all it will take is the sight of him snogging Stacey in the market which will see her shedding Tina like a caterpillar sheds its skin and banging on Martin's door, demanding entry.
The Court Jester had a brief period of maturity during Stan's illness storyline and the aftermath of Christmas, but once paired with the odious Sonia, she reverts to faux childlike mode. At least, from time to time, she's honest about herself and her predicament. When Sonia whined at her, wanting advice about what happened when Tina split from Zsa Zsa's dad, Tina's refusal to talk about that situation was twofold.
First, her most honest response was that she was never there for Zsa Zsa and didn't care. Secondly, the character simply couldn't talk about the "split" with Zsa Zsa's father, because there's been no great continuity between the backstories of Tina the unseen Carter sister and this Tina. The unseen sister was overwhelmingly heterosexual. She'd split with Zsa Zsa's father, her husband and had recently left her latest partner, a man, to live with another man in Spain. This Tina described Zsa Zsa's conception as a "blip," and spoke often and honestly of watching her daughter bring herself up, whilst Tina was off her nut on drugs and booze. So there was no answer Tina could give Sonia, because the writer, Pete Lawson, either didn't know, couldn't remember or couldn't be arsed which Tina about whom to write for fear of getting the backstory wrong.
She was at her most annoying tonight, especially when she put on the pouting-little-girl routine when Nancy, her niece, told her she couldn't have the night off to play when only Nancy and Lee were on hand to serve at the pub, but what I absolutely abhor the most about Sonia is her indefatigable sense of moral superiority and the fact that she is entitled to have her daughter with her. If Sonia got custody of Rebecca, she'd pull the age-old trick denying Martin access to the child. Sonia and Martin are only a team on Rebecca's behalf when it suits Sonia - which is when she's getting her own way.
Another thing I noticed tonight is how Carol and Sonia simply don't work. Carol and Bianca did, even when Bianca was at her worst, but Carol and Sonia simply don't. Maybe it was because we only saw Carol interacting with Sonia the child and not Sonia the adolescent, who was part and parcel of Jim's and Dot's dynamic. In fact, Carol cut all relations with the fifteen year-old Sonia when she decided to give Rebecca up for adoption. The other prime piece of hypocrisy on show tonight was Carol, breezing about the cafe, deigning to offer parenting advice in the form of commenting about gossip heard about Kush and Shabnam to Masood, telling him that his kids needed their dad, whilst subtly pointing out Masood's hypocrisy - this from the woman who casually used Masood as a device to make the real object of her desire, David, work harder at respectability.
I want Sonia to leave.
It's Her Party and She'll Cry if She Wants To.
Somebody, please, kill Pam now! I should think there's nothing more horrifying than Pam bending over you, in full-force nosybody mood, gurning. Put a bloody lid on it, woman! Where the hell is Aleks when she's running the entire length of the market trying to bully people into attending Donna's 30th birthday do, when no one wants to attend the function of someone as rude and tactless as Donna.
Donna the requisite disabled character is another specialty of DTC's and a carry-over of Adam Bright - disabled characters seen, nobly, to be getting on successfully in their own professions, but taking advantage of their disability to be wantonly rude and patronising to other people. Some of her remarks to Shabnam, whom she hardly knows, were atrocious.
I thought you were over him, or are you wanting to be under him again? - That remark and also referring to Shabnam as "Headscarf" was totally beyond the pale.
There were too many close-ups of Pam's face, twisted with concern, demanding people attend Donna's party and worrying about where Les was. Too much dialogue where she was bleating on and on about Donna's party, her surprise and how Donna shouldn't worry about finding Mr Right, when the ungrateful little scrote is looking for Mr Right Now.
None of the Spring Lane marketers were attending Donna's do, and many of the people asked from Albert Square didn't know her sufficiently well, but were harassed into attending by Pam.
The fight between Fatboy and Martin was embarrassing - not as embarrassing as the time Fatboy got his nipple twisted in the appalling football storyline of that worst of summers back in 2012, but bad enough. Fatboy genuinely likes Donna
but I would imagine Donna thinks Fatboy is Mr Right Now.
Speaking of Mr Right Now, so now we know how Les (and Pam) got to know Claudette and who she is - Donna's foster mother. She and Les are the most unconvincing of secret lovers ever in the history of the show. Line of the night, however, goes to Claudette, admiring her birthday gift from Les:-
You didn't get it off a dead person, did you?
Donna's "surprise", laid on by Pam and consisting of her reunion with Claudette, had to be probably the weakest duff-duff in the show's thirty-year history. If we were supposed to feel the irony of Claudette being Les's bit on the side, unbeknownst to Pam, it didn't work.
Have to say it for Donna, she covers herself well, when it's revealed she's being played for a fool.
The Start of Something Big (Not).
Gosh, it's birthday week all around this week. Claudette's just come off a birthday, Donna was celebrating hers in this episode, and it would have been Kush's wife's 30th birthday this week, which explains the flowers he was seen carrying earlier in the week.
So he gets drunk, as you do, and opens up to Shabnam, as you don't.
That was a good and honest scene between Shabnam and Tamwar earlier in the episode, where they shared a tub of ice cream and opened up, reasonably far, to one another. Shabnam knows she's a hypocrite; she also knows she really liked, and still really likes, Kush, and she thought he really liked her. He does. He's just not quite ready to let go of his dead wife's memory just yet and hasn't stopped the grieving process. Kush is one of DTC's singular successes - an experienced TV actor, easy on the eye, who plays a sympathetic - and probably a complicated - character.
Tamwar confesses that, although he was certain that Nancy wanted more from their relationship, he chickened out of the possibility, afraid of what Nancy might make of his scars. Tamwar needs to think again. Nancy isn't so shallow. He did, however, have a great line, assessing his romantic history:-
My wife left me for a scooter. My girlfriend left me to become a murderer. (A rare mention of the dire Alice). I like the possibility of Tamwar and Nancy; I don't like the possibility of this romance being a slow-burner, because it might just fizzle out.
The most obvious thing to come out of MasoodVille tonight is the re-emergence of Dark Masood as he takes his secret stash of gambled winnings and heads for the bookies' to gamble some more. He'll either make a fortune or bankrupt the family. Again.
Just When You Thought She Was Likeable. I couldn't figure out if Cora were high on happiness - this being International Happiness Day - at her engagement to Stan, or if she were drunk on a buzz. Probably a bit of both. Pam's reaction, however, completely overshadowed Cora's behaviour, It was a hurricane to Cora's gale force wind.
However, I do think she overstepped the mark in the pub, demanding a family discount and stepping behind the bar to appropriate a bottle of champagne to bring to Stan's bedside. (Bad move ... poignant, but bad. Stan's most probably on diomorphine - heroin - for the pain, and alcohol isn't recommended.) Still, the thought was there.
The Brat Pack. How much do I detest Cindy and Liam the Lug? Everything has to be all about Cindy, with her the centre of attention. How did Liam manage to buy cider, actually, being only sixteen? We know what's going to happen next - the requisite EastEnders' wild teenagers' drinking party, resulting in Ian Beale's house being trashed. Conveniently, Ian is arriving tomorrow. Cindy and Ian should be taken out and slapped.
Now that Ian's lost the last remnants of his balls to Jane the Queen, I wonder if we'll see a reprise of this scene, substituting vile Cindy for the late Lucy:-
And this is the man who is going to dare to lecture Sharon Mitchell on her parenting of Denny?
And thus endeth Mediocrity Week. Thank GOD.
Thank goodness, the big guns are back next week!
The Hypocrisy Merchant.
Martin might not be the brightest lightbulb in the pack, but he's certainly not stupid, and Sonia would drop the Court Jester in a New York Minute, if Martin would have Sonia back in the fold and then proceed to do her bidding on her terms.
That's the only reason she's with Tina. As soon as Martin got Rebecca and started excluding Sonia from the equation, Sonia started giving Rebecca a second thought and demanding a place within the dynamic. As we saw last year, Sonia wasn't above using Rebecca as an instrument by which to control Martin, and she certainly isn't above doing that again, but this time, she's lost control of the situation.
She's desperate to keep her new relationship with Tina a secret, not wanting to have cocktails at The Albert because it was too close to home, preferring to party down up West. She's not thinking much about Rebecca then, is she? In fact, she doesn't think about Rebecca much at all, unless and until she sees Martin. She shits her gullet over the fact that Martin is now in Walford. Well, she'd best get used to it, because it looks as though he's losing his business, and quite possibly, his home - and that last bit is down to Sonia ditching her share of the responsibility of the mortgage, the self-serving, self-righteous bitch.
I daresay Martin's put two and two together regarding some of the phone abuse The Court Jester and prize stirrer would give him from time to time the past year. The confrontation in the pub was one of the rare highlights of a mediocre week, and it proved that Martin was well aware of just what Sonia was getting p to, spending more and more time in Walford. Granted, her mother was ill, but that didn't stop Sonia from finding the time to nick and neck booze from a bottle and snog her feckless girlfriend, who was in a relationship, herself, at the time.
In the confrontation, when Martin addressed Sonia's repeated claims that he was an inattentive husband, the self-righteous cow looked as guilty as sin, because she knew what was happening next - Martin revealed Sonia's association with Tina. Carol looked as though she could have fallen through the floor. Martin's bet to pull Donna was pathetic, and there was no excuse for that, but Martin has been treated appallingly by Sonia, not once, but twice, with her walking out of the family dynamic for another woman, but only when Sonia thought she wasn't being sufficiently worshipped at home.
It won't take long for Sonia to tire of Tina's deliberately child-like ways. She'll be longing for Martin's table burps, and all it will take is the sight of him snogging Stacey in the market which will see her shedding Tina like a caterpillar sheds its skin and banging on Martin's door, demanding entry.
The Court Jester had a brief period of maturity during Stan's illness storyline and the aftermath of Christmas, but once paired with the odious Sonia, she reverts to faux childlike mode. At least, from time to time, she's honest about herself and her predicament. When Sonia whined at her, wanting advice about what happened when Tina split from Zsa Zsa's dad, Tina's refusal to talk about that situation was twofold.
First, her most honest response was that she was never there for Zsa Zsa and didn't care. Secondly, the character simply couldn't talk about the "split" with Zsa Zsa's father, because there's been no great continuity between the backstories of Tina the unseen Carter sister and this Tina. The unseen sister was overwhelmingly heterosexual. She'd split with Zsa Zsa's father, her husband and had recently left her latest partner, a man, to live with another man in Spain. This Tina described Zsa Zsa's conception as a "blip," and spoke often and honestly of watching her daughter bring herself up, whilst Tina was off her nut on drugs and booze. So there was no answer Tina could give Sonia, because the writer, Pete Lawson, either didn't know, couldn't remember or couldn't be arsed which Tina about whom to write for fear of getting the backstory wrong.
She was at her most annoying tonight, especially when she put on the pouting-little-girl routine when Nancy, her niece, told her she couldn't have the night off to play when only Nancy and Lee were on hand to serve at the pub, but what I absolutely abhor the most about Sonia is her indefatigable sense of moral superiority and the fact that she is entitled to have her daughter with her. If Sonia got custody of Rebecca, she'd pull the age-old trick denying Martin access to the child. Sonia and Martin are only a team on Rebecca's behalf when it suits Sonia - which is when she's getting her own way.
Another thing I noticed tonight is how Carol and Sonia simply don't work. Carol and Bianca did, even when Bianca was at her worst, but Carol and Sonia simply don't. Maybe it was because we only saw Carol interacting with Sonia the child and not Sonia the adolescent, who was part and parcel of Jim's and Dot's dynamic. In fact, Carol cut all relations with the fifteen year-old Sonia when she decided to give Rebecca up for adoption. The other prime piece of hypocrisy on show tonight was Carol, breezing about the cafe, deigning to offer parenting advice in the form of commenting about gossip heard about Kush and Shabnam to Masood, telling him that his kids needed their dad, whilst subtly pointing out Masood's hypocrisy - this from the woman who casually used Masood as a device to make the real object of her desire, David, work harder at respectability.
I want Sonia to leave.
It's Her Party and She'll Cry if She Wants To.
Somebody, please, kill Pam now! I should think there's nothing more horrifying than Pam bending over you, in full-force nosybody mood, gurning. Put a bloody lid on it, woman! Where the hell is Aleks when she's running the entire length of the market trying to bully people into attending Donna's 30th birthday do, when no one wants to attend the function of someone as rude and tactless as Donna.
Donna the requisite disabled character is another specialty of DTC's and a carry-over of Adam Bright - disabled characters seen, nobly, to be getting on successfully in their own professions, but taking advantage of their disability to be wantonly rude and patronising to other people. Some of her remarks to Shabnam, whom she hardly knows, were atrocious.
I thought you were over him, or are you wanting to be under him again? - That remark and also referring to Shabnam as "Headscarf" was totally beyond the pale.
There were too many close-ups of Pam's face, twisted with concern, demanding people attend Donna's party and worrying about where Les was. Too much dialogue where she was bleating on and on about Donna's party, her surprise and how Donna shouldn't worry about finding Mr Right, when the ungrateful little scrote is looking for Mr Right Now.
None of the Spring Lane marketers were attending Donna's do, and many of the people asked from Albert Square didn't know her sufficiently well, but were harassed into attending by Pam.
The fight between Fatboy and Martin was embarrassing - not as embarrassing as the time Fatboy got his nipple twisted in the appalling football storyline of that worst of summers back in 2012, but bad enough. Fatboy genuinely likes Donna
but I would imagine Donna thinks Fatboy is Mr Right Now.Speaking of Mr Right Now, so now we know how Les (and Pam) got to know Claudette and who she is - Donna's foster mother. She and Les are the most unconvincing of secret lovers ever in the history of the show. Line of the night, however, goes to Claudette, admiring her birthday gift from Les:-
You didn't get it off a dead person, did you?
Donna's "surprise", laid on by Pam and consisting of her reunion with Claudette, had to be probably the weakest duff-duff in the show's thirty-year history. If we were supposed to feel the irony of Claudette being Les's bit on the side, unbeknownst to Pam, it didn't work.
Have to say it for Donna, she covers herself well, when it's revealed she's being played for a fool.
The Start of Something Big (Not).
Gosh, it's birthday week all around this week. Claudette's just come off a birthday, Donna was celebrating hers in this episode, and it would have been Kush's wife's 30th birthday this week, which explains the flowers he was seen carrying earlier in the week.
So he gets drunk, as you do, and opens up to Shabnam, as you don't.
That was a good and honest scene between Shabnam and Tamwar earlier in the episode, where they shared a tub of ice cream and opened up, reasonably far, to one another. Shabnam knows she's a hypocrite; she also knows she really liked, and still really likes, Kush, and she thought he really liked her. He does. He's just not quite ready to let go of his dead wife's memory just yet and hasn't stopped the grieving process. Kush is one of DTC's singular successes - an experienced TV actor, easy on the eye, who plays a sympathetic - and probably a complicated - character.
Tamwar confesses that, although he was certain that Nancy wanted more from their relationship, he chickened out of the possibility, afraid of what Nancy might make of his scars. Tamwar needs to think again. Nancy isn't so shallow. He did, however, have a great line, assessing his romantic history:-
My wife left me for a scooter. My girlfriend left me to become a murderer. (A rare mention of the dire Alice). I like the possibility of Tamwar and Nancy; I don't like the possibility of this romance being a slow-burner, because it might just fizzle out.
The most obvious thing to come out of MasoodVille tonight is the re-emergence of Dark Masood as he takes his secret stash of gambled winnings and heads for the bookies' to gamble some more. He'll either make a fortune or bankrupt the family. Again.
Just When You Thought She Was Likeable. I couldn't figure out if Cora were high on happiness - this being International Happiness Day - at her engagement to Stan, or if she were drunk on a buzz. Probably a bit of both. Pam's reaction, however, completely overshadowed Cora's behaviour, It was a hurricane to Cora's gale force wind.
However, I do think she overstepped the mark in the pub, demanding a family discount and stepping behind the bar to appropriate a bottle of champagne to bring to Stan's bedside. (Bad move ... poignant, but bad. Stan's most probably on diomorphine - heroin - for the pain, and alcohol isn't recommended.) Still, the thought was there.
The Brat Pack. How much do I detest Cindy and Liam the Lug? Everything has to be all about Cindy, with her the centre of attention. How did Liam manage to buy cider, actually, being only sixteen? We know what's going to happen next - the requisite EastEnders' wild teenagers' drinking party, resulting in Ian Beale's house being trashed. Conveniently, Ian is arriving tomorrow. Cindy and Ian should be taken out and slapped.
Now that Ian's lost the last remnants of his balls to Jane the Queen, I wonder if we'll see a reprise of this scene, substituting vile Cindy for the late Lucy:-
And thus endeth Mediocrity Week. Thank GOD.
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