Kinda easy to see the theme of tonight's episode. This harkens back to EastEnders of yore, to the 80s and 90s when practically each episode followed a theme. It's nice to see that again, and I wish they did it more often.
If I had to pick a star to shine in tonight's episode, I'd pick Linda Henry, and I'll explain why later; but with Henry's scenes came the downer of the piece.
This was one of those episodes, as well, which used the absolute minimum of characters, and that worked a treat as well.
Secrets and sisters, eh?
The Sapphic SisTAHS.
Oh, Roxy, you poor, poor bitch.
The line of the night went to Ronnie, when she uttered the fateful command that struck fear in Roxy's heart.
Choose.
As watchable as this part of the episode was, it was still a bit queasily sick - the obsession Ronnie has with her sister is indelibly mixed with her psychopathy, but it's also eerily more than slightly tinged with sapphic incest. Roxy is the childwoman, the baby sister not allowed to grow up, but also that one soupcon of forbidden love. Ronnie obsesses on Roxy. She went as far as organising a lovelife for Roxy, with Aleks, and insisted Roxy reveal to her every bump and grind of the first date.
If Ronnie obsesses on Roxy, she's manipulated Roxy into believing that Roxy absolutely cannot cope without Ronnie. At the first instance of a declaration of independence, Ronnie starts working and worming her way into Roxy's relationship to ensure it fails. Damian ... Sean ... Alfie ... Carl.
Ronnie overheard Charlie's and Roxy's conversation, and she manipulated the situation by playing the vulnerable victim in order to get Roxy to confess her sin. Roxy's naivete and her love (mingled with a healthy dose of fear) of her sister forced her to reveal her deceit. Actually, Roxy's excuse for her behaviour tonight was a perfectly plausible one. She and Charlie were worried sick about Ronnie, shortly after her accident, for which Roxy blames herself, and in their despair, they turned to one another - for comfort sex, initially.
What Roxy's sparing Ronnie from is the fact that both have admitted since that they have feelings for each other, and that Charlie has actually admitting preferring Roxy to Ronnie. Ronnie uttered a home truth tonight, herself, when she confessed to thinking the only reason she and Charlie were together was because of the baby, and she was right. I never thought either of them were anything other than fuck buddies. Charlie may have been attracted, even intrigued; but they got together, circumstantually, right at the rime Roxy was actually enjoying romping the beds with Aleks, in defiance of Ronnie's dictate forbidding the association. Rather than live vicariously through her sister's sex life, when she didn't dare take her sister as a lover, herself, Ronnie happened upon Charlie, and the rest is history.
Roxy's been so conditioned to be dependent on Ronnie, she honestly believes she couldn't exist apart from her. When Ronnie's nearby, she has such an innate need to see and be with her, and this behaviour is much, much like that of a fearful, recalcitrant child currying favour from a cold mother. Ronnie enforces this guilt complex in Roxy. Her first words to her sister tonight were:-
You always take what's mine. (Referencing the irresistible Jack). Roxy actually "took" Jack once, when he and Ronnie were apart, and she fell pregnant; but in the end, it was Jack who "chose" Ronnie, as Roxy pointed out to Charlie not so long ago. Men "choose" women other than Roxy. Jack always wanted Ronnie; Max chose Tanya; Alfie chose Kat.
This time, unbeknownst to Ronnie, Charlie has actually chosen her sister. The only problem is that he's married to Ronnie.
Tonight, for the first time, really, we got to witness how Ronnie has her abject hold over Roxy. She guilt-trips her. Roxy "takes" what belongs to Ronnie. Roxy took Jack. Roxy took Charlie. There was even a man with whom Ronnie was involved, but Roxy indirectly prohibited that relationship from developing because Roxy was involved with Carl, and Ronnie killed Carl.
Never ever forget that this woman is a murderer. Never ever doubt that she is due a hefty dose of karma.
So the basic premise of Ronnie's control over Roxy is simple and brilliantly child-like, yet evil in its intensity - make Roxy feel everything is her fault and as her penance, make her choose between the object of her desire and her loyalty to Ronnie.
Roxy will be a sucker every time. Like a lamb led to slaughter, Roxy creepily climbs into bed with Ronnie, who issues another dictate - Charlie must never know that Ronnie knows he and Roxy slept together.
Charlie will so be killed. I'm betting Ronnie and Vincent combine to kill him, and Roxy's moral compass will be severely conflicted, because as this story progresses, she'll come to realise what Ronnie plans to do, and she knows exactly that of which Ronnie is capable. After all, Roxy knows that Ronnie's already killed one boyfriend of whom she didn't approve.
I think this storyline just might be the end of Veronica. I hope it is.
Archie even got a mention tonight. Dad messed me up. Well, yes, Ronnie, but I reckon you were pretty much a chip off the old block well before Archie was contrived to have been a paedophile.
The Mitchell sisters remind me of another pair of sisters made famous in a film many years ago - and just as creepy.
The Sibling Friends.
Any screentime for the divine Denise is all right by me, and tonight we were allowed to be party to another passel of secrets as revealed by Kim. I've lost track of Kim's story about her pregnancy. First, the child belonged to her husband, Vincent; then she didn't, she was the product of a one night stand whom Kim met in the jacuzzi whilst on a cruise.
Now ... it seems that most of what Kim had said initially was the truth, but some of her story and what we were initially fed during her absence throughout 2014 somehow doesn't add up.
Kim and Vincent met in a kebab shop. In Walford in December 2013. So the great "winter romance" between Theophilas D Wildebeast Vincent TMN and Ronnie Mitchell lasted a total of two weeks, because by Christmas 2013, Kim had been gone (to Marbella with Vincent) for two weeks. So Vincent came to Walford looking for Ronnie and found Kim in a kebab shop.
They went to Spain and then on a cruise. We know that because Denise skyped Kim regularly, and on one occasion, near the time of Lucy Beale's death, when she skyped her, Kim revealed she was married. Got that? Around the time of Lucy Beale's death, Kim was married and on a cruise ship honeymoon (and working whilst on the cruise). Yet in Anniversary Week, the flashback episode showed Vincent was in Walford or nearby on Good Friday.
From what Kim related tonight, it seems that Kim returned to England to tell Vincent about the pregnancy and caught him in the aftermath of some sort of violent act, being cleaned down by his lackey. Having someone's blood washed from him. (I have to say that Vincent looks about as dangerous as Danger Mouse). So where did Kim go after that? Back to the ship? She's told this story to someone before, but I can't remember who that was.
It's obvious that, even though she was afraid of what she saw, Kim is still carrying a torch for Vincent. He's certainly obsessed by her - or at least by the thought of their child. Another obsessive psychopath roaming the streets of Walford. That's the problem with EastEnders - there's too much of certain things: child abuse victims, rape victims, people with parent issues, murderers, psychopaths ...
The entire Vincent brouhaha paled before the big secret revealed in the vignette - that Patrick and Denise are in arrears with the mortgage on the house and it's about to be repossessed. Hang on ... I thought Kim owned the property outright as a settlement from her part of the restaurant she owned with her ex. Bad continuity?
Twisted Sisters.
Oh dear ... more Carter secrets.
Honestly, the less I see of Sylvie the better. It's a safe assumption to say that the Carters dominated a full 50 per cent of this episode. Two of the four vignettes featured them and their satellites - Shirley and Tina juxtaposed and interlaced with Sylvie's and Babe's themes. It worked to a degree, but it ended up leaving us with questions and a sense of bewilderment - not the least being ...
What the hell happened in Ramsgate and what does it have to do with Queenie Trott?
Sylvie certainly is as manipulative as Babe in her own way. She's supposed to have Alzheimer's, yet she appears to be able to turn her episodes on and off at will. The part when Babe smacked her across the face and she went into a reminscence about her mother hitting her - this after Babe's remark that Sylvie had never accomplished anything unless it was on her back - prompting Babe to feel remorse and comfort her, only to be bitten, was quite shocking and a bit sinster.
Now we know that Sylvie wasn't actually present in the caravan when Mick was born, that she was off "flirting" with someone she'd met. What exactly was going on? How was Queenie connected? Was Heather there as well at the birth of Mick? If so, this was something to which Heather never ever alluded in conversations, and we, the viewers, know the real reason why. But that's beside the point. I do remember Babe saying that the Trotts lived upstairs from Babe, and that was how Shirley came to know Heather.
The dynamic between Sylvie and Babe is sort of a more warped and inverted version of Ronnie and Roxy, except Sylvie was the more glamorous older sister who pinched all the men whom Babe desired. Sylvie's success is a measure of Babe's frustration, and as Sylvie waned, Babe stepped up to the plate and took over both Sylvie's children and Sylvie, herself, contriving to keep Sylvie's whereabouts and existence from her children.
Babe accused Sylvie of constantly denigrating her children, when it turns out that Sylvie's mother denigrated both Sylvie and Babe, calling Babe, as Sylvie recalled, the runt of the litter.
In this respect, this family have a lot in common with the Mitchells in their generational cruelty to their children.
I still don't like either of these women, but I'm grateful for the context of the backstory.
Terrahawk and the Court Jester.
Yes, haven't we been here before? Shirley and Mick at loggerheads? Shirley makes a point in the vilest way, Mick snarls, Shirley leaves and Tina the Court Jester begs Mick to make it good with Shirley.
The Court Jester is batting for Stan - pinch-hitting, we call it in the States, and she wants to effect Stan's dying wish for Mick and Shirley to make peace.
Meanwhile, Shirley and Buster Bloodvessel ...
... have de-camped to the cafe to commiserate and lick their wounds. Shirley whines that she has no home nor any family, when Buster offers himself, Dean and Tina as she walks through the door.
There's a sister-to-sister talk which - HURRAH! - goes a bit of the way into Shirley's backstory regarding her marriage and her first child, but there are still gaps and timespans, as well as incidents, that either don't add up or have changed.
I accept that Shirley is conflicted. She's affronted that Mick, effectively, asked her to choose between him and Dean. This is also like the Mitchell tale of co-dependency. Of course, Shirley doesn't want to choose. Why should she? Both Dean and Mick are her sons, but Dean has done a horrible thing, and the only way Shirley can deal with that is to keep telling herself that Dean is innocent of what he's been accused.
When Tina points out that whether Dean has or hasn't raped Linda, Mick would always believe Linda, that remark made me more than a little angry. Tina's naivete was grating also. Initially, when the rape was actually revealed, Tina was Team Mick. I still remember her telling Shirley that the best thing for Shirley to do was to take Dean and leave. Tina tells Shirley that Mick would never have sold the Vic, but Shirley had some convoluted idea that if she could make Mick leave Walford with Linda and his kids, she would have the Vic for her and Dean. In other words, the only way Dean can stay in Walford is for Mick and co to leave.
Shirley vehemently protests Dean's innocence, but as long as she does that and as long as she demonises Linda, then there's no hope ever of a reconciliation.
Then Linda Henry affects a soliloquy relating Mick's birth and her life afterward, and she gave a stunning performance. She related the horror of the caravan birth, whilst this relation was interspersed with scenes of Sylvie and Babe remembering the same event, but in different ways. Babe said Sylvie was out flirting with some man; Shirley remembered her having a smoke outside the caravan, and returning when the baby had been born, but offering little comfort to Shirley.
The fact that Shirley was asked, ordered not to think of the child as hers has echoes of the Kat-Zoe birth story which is about to be revisited.
What was very interesting was hearing her speak of meeting Kevin, especially since Denise, only minutes before, had left Kevin out of her litany of husbands. Everyone seems to be forgetting Kevin these days. Yet Shirley remembered a man of great warmth, who made her laugh and believe in herself. She blamed herself for Jimbo's disability - when CF is actually a genetic disorder inherited from both the father and the mother. She couldn't bear the treatment the boy had to undergo, which was akin to torture, and felt this was a punishment for her and that she didn't deserve to be a parent.
OK, I can buy that, certainly as a reason for leaving, but there was no explanation of why she was unfaithful to Kevin, not once, but twice. Until we hear that, the story isn't finished. Linda Henry is a formidable actress and carried off those scenes with great aplomb, but Shirley's current behaviour, not so much her staunch defence of Dean as much as it's related to her innate dislike of Linda, still makes Shirley eminently unlikeable, self-pitying and vile.
Shirley, at least, knows that she's not been a good mother, so why does everyone around her curry and coddle her ego by telling her that she is a good mother? Tina's reminiscence of Shirley being like a mother to them doesn't add up in the timescale because Shirley and Kevin were married right about the time Tina and Mick returned from care. That's another thing. Mick and Tina have always referred to being fostered in families. Mick was quite fond of his, and it's been referenced that Tina liked her foster home as well, but now, as of tonight, Tina was in a care home? Really?
Shirley dispatches Tina to the Vic to "look after Mick." Again, really? Mick is a grown man. Of what are they afraid? Of whom are they afraid? Linda? I liked the scene Tina encountered of Mick, Linda, Nancy and Lee, upstairs, with a take-away curry, talking like a real family - Lee, referencing Turkey as bordering on Syria and the problems there was a great and current remark - made Tina realise that she doesn't belong in that dynamic either, so she opts to move in with Shirley.
The Foxes should start charging room and board, and let's hope that DTC, also, realises that the Carter dynamic works best with Mick, Linda, Nancy and Lee.
Cracker of an episode tonight. The Thursday episodes rarely disappoint, and even Pete Lawson, a writer who's been known to take liberties with retconning without compunction for the sake of storytelling, even he remained true to continuity tonight.
With the latest revelations nudge-nudged and wink-winked in DTC's Radio Times interview, the stage is being set for the big guns to take centre stage again, but I have to say that I found most of the Carters as interesting as the rest of the episode tonight.
Mah SisTAHH and TMN.
DTC is clearly a fan of the Long Hello. We've had it with Stacey. We're having it with Kathy, and it's in full swing with the mysterious Vincent, who, in one fell swoop of an episode, has placed me firmly on the side of Team Kim and infinitely wishing that the psychopath in the wheelchair, emulating a gravelly-voiced Blauvelt of 007 fame, gets karma deep up her arse this time and leaves Walford in a box. I guess this is what good writing is supposed to do, as I've always been indifferent to Kim as a character before.
So ... we're being asked to believe that Ronnie spent all of December 2013, trolling the streets of London looking for Roxy as she ran around with Carl. Funny, that ... I didn't think Roxy and Carl either lasted that long as a couple nor did they wander that far from Walford or Albert Square.
Vincent, the latest TMN* to appear on the Square is a different sort of TMN to Ava, who was positive and boring. Vincent is supposed to be villainous. Well, he's villainous and boring.
This is not the way Vincent TMN is meant to inspire ...
I digress. In the course of Ronnie's trolling the streets in search of Roxy and Carl, she stumbles into Vincent's bar. Yep, folks, to paraphrase Humphrey Bogart, of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, Ronnie walks into Vincent's. So now we know, not only that Vincent is Kim's husband (that was confirmed tonight) and the father of her child, we know he owns a bar, into which the irresistable psychopath walks.
(Sigh) I suppose Vincent is a psychopath too. Well, he would have to be, He clearly feels more attracted, as Michael Moon initially did, to Ronnie than he does his wife and child. If this is the villanous path Ronnie's treading, then I hope she does get her just reward in the end.
Two things about the principal actors here:-
- Early doors says I'm not impressed at all with Blackwood. He comes over as a cross between a poor man's Shaft and Theophilas D Wildebeast ...
All of this "Blue Eyes" crapiola and cryptic references to the "winter" of 2013, which lasted all of a month alluded to yet more action that happened off-screen and which may or may not have happened. As we know with Kathy's non-death, anything can or cannot happen off-screen, depending on the Executive Producer, but sometime within that month he spent cavorting with Ronnie, sometime before Christmas, Vincent stepped inside a kebab shop ... of all the kebab shops in all the towns in all the world, he stepped into one where Kim was waiting in line to be served, and they decided to slope off to Marbella together, so really, he didn't romp around with Ronnie for more than a couple of weeks before he swanned off with Kim.
Really, Vincent? Really?
- The other bad impression I got was Samantha Womack. It's time for her to go. Seriously. The actress is committed to other ventures, and EastEnders is clearly there for her to fill up the empty weeks and months between other television ventures and pantomime, which entail her being off screen for months on end. The end result of that is she's phoning in the role of Ronnie.
The interesting angle to all of this is Ronnie and just how much she did know and hear of Roxy's and Charlie's confession. My bet is that she heard everything, and she's savvy enough a psycho to play the helpless victim, which will prey upon Roxy's sense of guilt, and she achieved the desired result. By pushing Roxy, innocently, back to Charlie, and by praising Roxy and thanking her effusively for being there for her, Ronnie forced Roxy's hand.
The last thing Roxy wants to do is hurt her "sisTAH", and maybe she remembers just how much her sisTAH is capable of hurting her, so she confesses.
Now, Ronnie is married, as she told Vincent TMN, and Vincent is married also, as he remembers to put his wedding band on.
My guess is that Ronnie and Vincent are going to effect the demise of one Charlie Cotton at some point during this year, and Roxy will eventually suss what they've done. As will Kim. And I'm sure that somewhere along the way, the Carters will be involved with things. (Sigh again).
Since villains, true villains, have a limited shelf life, I'm hoping Vincent doesn't last long and that this is the end of Ronnie the psychopath.
By the way, I loved the way Dot referred to Roxy as "Roxanne" when she reminded her that Charlie was her sister's husband.
(I just remembered that Ingrid Bergman's character in Casablanca was named Elsa, and she was a cold fish too.)
Max the Knife.
Well, Jim had the better funeral. Better, because we knew the character better and because we knew the people who knew him and how they related to him. Stan could only be viewed in the context of his family situation. He was elderly, ill and infirm when he arrived on the Square, but Jim, although elderly, was part and parcel of the Square's life.
Dot's appearance put shame to the Branning siblings, and her behaviour and eventual speech proved that both Jim and Dot knew Max and Carol and their history with Jim better than they knew it, themselves.
Max's speech was bitter, vindictive, self-centred and selfish, and it totally epitomised everything the Brannings stood for in terms of putting themselves first. Whilst Carol joined Max in the days before the funeral in harping and carping about Jim, even she was shamed at the display he gave. There is substance to the phrase that it's evil to speak ill of the dead. What seemed to start off innocuously enough, turned sour the moment Max caught sight of Phil amongst the congregation.
The fact that the host of the congregation, led by Sonia and Abi, Jim's granddaughters, was appalled by the display shamed Max further.
Cora's parting shot was the line of the night.
Don't push people away, Max, or you'll end up on your own one day.
But Dot's poignant soliloquy for Jim saved the day. It was excellent in the continuity and adherence to the history of Jim's and Dot's relationship. Who knew that Jim had told Dot about his nailing Max in a coffin? Of course, Dot would rightly have been appalled by that, and maybe Jim was repenting his sin through confession as well in that act. Who knew that Dot knew about Jim's considering Carol a proper little homemaker, but never bothered to say anything to her? Dot knew he'd been a racist, but she also knew that his best friend was Patrick Trueman. And she also knew that, even as Jim had been a bad father, he was a good grandfather - to Bradley, Abi and Lauren, Sonia and Robbie. Most of all, it was heart-rending to hear Dot declare, in a way she's never done before because Dot can be somewhat of a stick and reticent about showing her emotions, her deep and abiding love for Jim.
OK, the spontaneous rendition of "My Way" by most of the congregation (pssst! did you see? Abi didn't know the words) was cheesy, but it worked a treat.
After the funeral, Max seems to have taken Cora's words to heart, because he confessed the reasons behind his bad behaviour - the fact that he'd been selling stolen cars bought from the elusive Karin Smart, and he's forced to go cap-in-hand to Phil for help.
The handshake meant nothing, I can tell you.
Farewell to Cora. We said good-bye to Cora tonight. She hasn't always been my favourite character. I don't know how either Kirkwood or Newman expected us to warm to a feckless, bullying, alcoholic ASBO granny, but Cora is one of DTC's hidden success stories.
Under DTC's tenure, we got to see Cora as a multi-layered individual. Yes, she was a functioning alcoholic, but also a woman who kept her feelings of hurt and loneliness buried deep inside her. She found illness and death hard to take, so she drowned herself in booze as her husband lay dying, but she never stopped loving or missing him. By keeping herself to herself and developing a prickly exterior, she masked her loneliness. One daughter she never knew, the other is a junkie, the third a money-grabbing gold-digger.
In the end, I liked Cora, and I had the sad feeling as she left the Square, not in a taxi, but with a single suitcase, that even though she had told everyone she was leaving to live with Tanya, that Tanya (who wouldn't pick up the phone) had no idea that her mother was imposing upon her.
That was a sad departure. I'll miss her, considering the sorts of elderly female characters left with which we have to contend.
You Know Who and Daddy Warbucks.
No, that's not Denny with a perm and in drag, that's Stan's Shirley Temple.
The best part of the Carters tonight was the interplay between Mick and Linda. Linda's the victim in all of this mess, and she's acting like the only adult in the room. She takes a sane approach to Shirley's, Buster Bloodvessel the Scrote's and Dean's crashing of the wake. She sweeps her family into the back room and tells Mick that she didn't want Shirley to miss the funeral, although Mick assured her that Shirley refused to come because Dean wasn't welcome. At least, parried Linda, let them stay for the wake. With Dean in the same room as the rest of them, he'd be easier to control
I don't understand Babe's game, however. Is she stirring shit as per usual? Offering sandwiches to the uninvited and then letting Mick think that Shirley and co had ordered them to be served.
Dean could take a lot, but he couldn't take Mick's ire. I'm glad Mick's not warming to Buster Bloodvessel at all. What an odious man! And Shirley is still odious in her contempt for Linda and her reference to her as a liar.
Poor widdle Dean.
Life inside is'ard, reckons Bloodvessel, another woefully weak actor portraying an unnecessary character. Dean should know. Life was 'ard for him in prison when he went there for perverting the course of justice. Then he was just a pretty young boy. Now, however, he's a rapist, and - as Dean whines - anyone accused of rape in prison is scum.
Well, Dean, sorry to disabuse you, old bean, but you are a rapist and you are scum.
Dean's running for one reason - because he knows damned well that he did that of which he was accused, and even though he's a free man, he will have to live every day under Mick's unrelenting glare, and I don't think he can abide that. But toughwad Shirley has a solution.
She goes to Bank of Phil.
She needs a loan. Again. She's threatening him. She says she knows where he was the night of Ian's wedding.
Now wait a moment. Was this a bluff, as Phil parried it? Because the night of Ian's wedding, Shirley was stuck in the pub, partying whilst Dean tried to torch the place. I don't think she even saw Phil the entire evening. And I don't think - at least I hope he didn't - Phil would have confided:-
Oi, Shirl, I'm off out to meet my ex-wife, who's faked her death and that of her old man. She's Ian's mum and Ben's. Oh, and did I tell you? Her old man just happens to be Sharon's birth father?
I'd be disappointed if he'd told her only about Kathy, because that's the sort of shit Shirley would use to stir Sharon, but unless this were a bluff, why is DTC involving this woman in a storyline that's supposed to be all about Sharon, Ian, and Ben? Don't tell me, please, that Buster knows Gavin and was an associate?
I tell you, if DTC involves the Carters, or at least Shirley, in this storyline, there will be hell to pay with a lot of viewers.
Shirl gets her money. Again. And welding equipment from The Arches, currently owned by Max.
I detested that line she gave Mick when he ordered her from the pub.
I own it.
No, Shirley, you own one per cent of its worth, and your stupid little trick of cutting Mick and Linda's name off the licence and announcing that you are buying them out proves your stupidity. If they won't sell, you can't buy.
Please, just leave now with your dirty sperm donor and your rapist son. Cowards, the lot of you.
Le BOGOF episode. Buy one, get one free. Actually, Phil had the line of the night: Two for the price of one.
Two funerals, two families, someone knows something he isn't telling, someone knows something she isn't telling ... and Shirley. That about sums up the episode.
Linda and the Liar.
There's a liar in the room, and it ain't Linda. He's a rapist too. Interesting to note that Shirley and Buster Bloodvessel ...
... have reverted to Shirley's original belief that Linda is the liar of the piece, that Linda's accusations against Dean were all lies, meant to hide her misbehaviour from Mick and to make Dean suffer.
It's common knowledge that the story of Linda's rape ordeal, which was meant to be an issue storyline emphasising how women find it difficult to report rape, how rapists can very well be someone who's known and who's closely associated with his victim, and how difficult it often is to prove rape, has degenerated into a story about Mick and Shirley, or rather, Shirley and her two sons.
The ideal outcome of all of this for Shirley would have been for Linda to have been proven the liar, Mick to split with her and Shirley, babydaddy Bloodvessel, Mick and Dean could have set up nicely in the Vic; but Mick loves Linda, and he believes her story.
And, sadly, what began last night with Linda taking control of a bad situation and seeking to rectify it, once again, becomes all about Mick's fractured relationship with Shirley.
The Carters are broken, and as long as Dean and the dirty piece of wankspittle whose sperm produced him are hanging about like bad smells, I want the Carters to be fractured. Shirley, sitting in the cafe after Mick interrupted a weakening Dean, as if she knew and expected Mick to appear (down to the rudimentary cup of tea as a peace offering), warned Mick not to make her choose between her sons.
Look, yes, Shirley's conflicted. In this state, she literally has to choose. Either she believes Dean for various reasons - because she feels guilty at abandoning, because she's never had any good blood for Linda, or because she genuinely believes him to be incapable of forcing himself on some woman against her will - or she believes Mick, which negates all of the foregoing in her mind.
Cain or Abel, which is it to be?
Linda is the adult in the room once again. She knows now that Dean is safe from the police and can't be prosecuted, although she is struggling to comprehend why the police didn't press charges.
~Because there were no charges to press~ Dean informs her, smugly.
Not entirely true. The CPS found that there wasn't enough evidence on hand to warrant securing a conviction in a court of law. It's certain that something went on, and probably the police believe Linda's version of events; however, there just isn't evidence or witnesses on hand to prove Dean's guilt.
Linda accepts that Dean is free, and now she wants the next best thing to a conviction. She wants Dean to look her in the eye and admit that he raped her. At first, Dean tries his old manipulative trick, and when he tried to tell her that she really wanted to have sex with him, that she was holding him in her arms, it weirdly seemed as if Dean were trying to convince himself that this was the way things played out on that day.
But it wasn't, and Linda wouldn't relent, calling upon Dean to look into his heart and just admit his guilt to her, there, alone in that room, even to the point of reminding Dean that she knew he had a heart, she'd seen him cry.
And Dean begins to waver. It's almost as if he's brought face to face with the fact that he'd held a woman down and raped her.
Then it becomes the Mick-and-Shirley Show, with Mick barging in and issuing threats.
Don't get me wrong. I'm Team Mick on this one. He totally believes Linda, and knows exactly what sort of opinion in which she's held by Dean, by the odious Buster and, most hurtfully for Mick, Shirley. Mick bans all three from Stan's funeral, making the remark that today was the day he, Mick, was burying his dad - saying that pointedly to Buster, in particular.
I'm glad Mick isn't accepting this dirty old scrote as his father. Even a pejorative father figure like Stan at least was the man with whom he bonded and who raised him. Buster did nothing. And it stands to Shirley to remind Mick, yet again, that Stan was her dad, not Mick's.
Why is it that every time she says that to Mick, it comes across as the sort of thing a nasty, little schoolgirl would say on the schoolground? Even Linda was urging Mick to (yawn) reconcile with Shirley, and whilst he's willing for Shirley to attend Stan's funeral, as is her right, she won't go without Dean, and she doesn't.
However, what she does is even nastier and disrespectful of both Mick, and certainly, of Linda - crashing the wake, Buster, Shirley and Dean, by standing at the bar and lifting the first toast.
I hope Mick sees red.
Le Grand Adieu.
I would say Stan's funeral got top billing in this episode. One hopes Jim's receives due attention in Thursday's episode. There was a hint of humour with Billy confusing the corpses, and a lot of tit-tat at the crematorium. Tina gave the eulogy, which was a bit off-kilter remembering the very small Mick and herself, fighting to sit beside Stan alongside a much older Shirley, who would have been married to the forgotten Kevin and mothering Jimbo by then.
(By the way, disabuse yourselves of the notion that Shirley abandoned her three children because she found looking after Jimbo too much. That's a load of horseshit, and that has never been established. Only one remark was made, briefly, by Shirley, three years ago during Carly's brief visit three years ago, and that was that Jimbo was "so needy." That says nothing, and it doesn't justify abandoning three children, and if this is the case, that Shirley walked, rather than deal with her disabled son, for which she would have been receiving help from Social Services and the NHS, then that's despicable. Anyone propagating this reason for Shirley's abandonment of her children does Shirley no favours).
Tina struggles with the eulogy, dresses like a forty year-old who thinks she's eighteen and reads the thing like the five year-old she wants everyone to think she is.
The shock of the piece came with Cora telling Patrick that she's leaving Walford for good, but not without a bang and a noted glance in Babe's direction. I liked how Cora sussed that Billy had taken the wrong body, and that she got to ride in the funeral care and Babe didn't. I'll miss Cora, a character who's benefited from DTC's tenure.
Three women in Stan's life? I knew Babe carried a torch for him, but I thought he hated her, and I've a feeling that Sylvie doesn't really know Stan's dead either.
Branning Breakdown.
Max is worried, and he's taking his frustration out on a corpse and anyone else who's standing in his way. There's a curious parallel between Stan and Jim, both of whom didn't know the other.
Stan and Jim were abysmal fathers, at times petty and mean, but they were men who genuinely loved their families in their own way. I still remember Carol breaking down in Jim's arms over Billie's death; I remember Jim in a wheelchair, kissing Max's hand at Bradley's funeral and Max saying a tender goodbye to Jim as he left the Square for the final time. Yet here are Carol and Max talking about their hatred of Jim and how Carol wants to hide this for funeral purposes.
Confronted by Tina's dilemma at writing a eulogy, Carol decides that there really shouldn't be a eulogy at all. Max behaved despicably to that vicar, and Carol was fortunate that the vicar interpreted his behaviour as grief. It wasn't. Max is scared shitless by the prospect of having to sell stolen cars furnished him by Karin Smart.
After the brouhaha of the Carter funeral, it was right and fitting that Dot got the duff-duff as she clasped Jim's familiar hat and prepared to tell him good-bye.
The Blisters.
What happened to Charlie's ultimatum to Ronnie? Even as she took Matthew away (clever change, that; the Matthew who left Dot's house was totally different to the Matthew who arrived at the hospital), Charlie was sorta kinda begging her for some sort of "understanding." (Ahem).
It seems he either really does love her or he simply can't get enough of her.
Ronnie's the "she" who knows something but isn't telling. She totally knows that Roxy and Charlie have been sleeping together, and in her own manipulative way - who can be more appealing that mah sisTAH lying helpless in a hospital bed. Roxy, people like Ronnie are at their most dangerous when they appear to be helpless. Ronnie urges Roxy to attend Jim's funeral in order to "support Charlie." Ronnie's forcing the pair of them together because she knows what will happen, and she's right. Charlie can't resist Roxy nor she, him, which will only enhance Roxy's guilt, which she'll be unable to hide.
But Ronnie has a visitor of her own - Vincent, Kim's husband. I won't go into the obvious retcon of a fact that DTC has established that explains their backstory now. There's time for it when whoever brings it out into the open. Just remember that when Roxy returned from Ibiza last year, she said that Ronnie hadn't ventured out of the hotel room until the night they went clubbing, and Ronnie glassed the off-duty cop, resulting in their being deported the next day. And just remember that Kim and Vincent left Walford, initially, for Marbella, as Denise related to the Beales and Patrick at Christmas 2013.
Someone Else Has a Secret Too. Phil. Clock his face when Sharon was wondering if her birth father were already dead, and she hadn't got to know him. Phil knows different. He knows who her birth father is and, most importantly, where he is.
Kathy, come home. Ian needs his mother, and Sharon needs her dad.
