Oo-er, as Dot would say.
That was slightly more than embarrassing. I keep thinking of what the continuity announcer said at the beginning of the episode: The grieving Carters and Brannings give everyone grief.
That just about sums the episode up. Everyone was shown from their very worst angle. Surprisingly, Sonia came out positively in that episode. Choking on her own self-righteousness, but owning up to her faults. The most interesting aspect of tonight's episode was Dirty Roxy and Dirty Charlie, who scrubbed up rather well, in a sordid sort of way.
Suitable music for a stinking mood:-
The Maudlin Grief of the Mis-Begotten.
Years ago, back in the mid-19th Century, it was a Victorian pastime at parties to present what they used to call "living tableaux." Real people would pose together depicting familiar painting or scenes from mythology. The first scenes with the Carters tonight, in their kitchen, after Shirley appeared mysteriously at the kitchen door, using Stan's packed bag to answer Mick's accusing question of her having left Stan alone, reminded me of a tableaux.
Picture of a Family in Grief: East London Working-Class Type, 21st Century
Mick standing manfully at the head of the table, clutching a tearful and sobbing Tina to his bosom; Lee sitting stolidly at the table, his face like stone; Nancy sniffling, Linda looking suitably worried and upset; and Shirley,with the most tragically grieving face of all - so grieving that it was almost a caricature of grief.
As luck would have it, I spend the better part of two days defending the Carters, and someone at EastEnders puts out tripe like this.
This was bad. Very bad. Very maudlin and very over-played, and no one came out well here, bar Linda, who got the death stare from Shirley for saying what Shirl perceived to be the wrong thing.
Well, at least it's over now.
You know something? That's what a lot of people say when someone who's suffered from cancer dies, because, up close and personal, you see how much pain and suffering the person endures, and with death comes peace and freedom from that. That's what Linda meant, but because those words came from Linda - you know, the woman who was raped by Shirley's son? - Shirl's entitled to misconstrue them and charge them to Linda's in debit account for doing and saying things which upset poor Shirley.
I must admit, I was surprised when she showed up at the pub tonight with Stan's things, but only surprised that she hadn't thought to ring them in the middle of the night to tell them of his death.
As Lee said, they should have known about that. They all should have been there. I thought Shirley's words were rather hollow. I know her shippers will wax lyrical about how she saved her family from enduring Stan's last moments, and I won't pretend it's easy being by a deathbed; but Stan's death was peaceful on the whole, and I can't help but think that the selfish part of Shrley, which is 99 per cent of her, simply wanted to savour Stan's last moments by herself.
At the end of their vignette, when she was suitably lubricated with vodka, she couldn't say long enough and loud enough how her father had died and then launch into a soliloquy about how children push their parents into a home to die or how they'll have to be responsible for sorting out funeral arrangements etc. She aimed this, first, at Lee and Nancy, but ultimately she wanted to strike a chord with Mick, asking him baldly if he'd do that for her, his mother.
Mick, on the other hand, had been in a blue funk all day, thanks to the wonderful Cora, whom the Carters had neglected to inform of Stan's death. Of course, Cora would be upset. She'd only gone all the way to the hospice only to find an empty room and a chair. Her handing of a collective arse to all the Carters was epic. Not everything revolved around the family exclusively, and as for Mick ...
Her parting shot at Mick was that beneath the "nice guy" veneer, he's the same as his mother, meaning Shirley, and that's something Mick most definitely didn't want to hear.
Absolute line of the night went, poignantly, to Patrick, who was told about Jim's death today, and who learned of Stan's when Tina announced it in the pub. He lifted his glass of rum skyward, and softly said:-
Save a place at the bar for me, fellas.
Don't worry, Patrick. They will, but I hope you're with us for ages yet.
I thought the acting was well melodramatic almost to the point of embarrassment. What makes things worse is how badly Stan was treated by his family for the better part of a year.
Shirley and her Nick.
The fly in the Carter's ointment at the moment is Dean. Shirley's conflicted, and Mick is conflicted. With Stan's death spurring them into a feeling of togetherness, when Shirley goes to leave, after telling them the news, Mick and the others ask her to stay. She refuses. She has to tell Dean.
Of course, that doesn't set too well with Mick. Every time Shirley leans toward Dean, Mick and Co take that as a defection of loyalty. In this instance, Shirley was right, actually. Dean was Stan's grandson, and Stan was fond of him. She had to tell him. I think the dynamic of Buster-Shirley-Dean niggles Mick. Dean's accepted Buster as his father, which is an insult to the memory of Kevin; to Mick, Stan will always be his dad. You can't blame him for that.
Dean, it seems, is not doing well at all in prison - jumping at every sharp sound, he admits he's frightened. I'm surprised no mention is made of his previous time in prison, back in 2008. When Dean was released, he made it all but abundantly clear to Chelsea that he'd been raped inside. His behaviour, especially the ordering of the call girl immediately he arrived at Shirley's fllat, gave every indication that he'd been raped in prison and that he wanted to assert his heterosexuality.
Well, now he's in prison again, and afraid of an actual sentence. Shirley can't bring herself to tell him about Stan, so Buster does. (I think we were supposed to see Buster in a different and sensible light tonight, but for me, it didn't work. Karl Howson is not the strongest of actors)
Dean begins to cry, amid frantic sotto voce urgings from Buster and Shirley to stop crying, man up, not to let anyone see that he was weak.
Even if you have to pretend, says Shirley. But Dean can't pretend. Stan's death serves as a catharsis for everything bad that's been happening to Dean ever since he went on remand. His sobs become too much for his putrid mother, who does what she does whenever the going gets tough, she gets going ...
Well, Shirley's not tough, as Buster found out when he found her three sheets to the wind after running out on Dean. As JR would say about Suellen, the same could be said about Shriley: at the least little sign of worry or trouble, Shirley starts sucking on that bottle.
It didn't take her long to get drunk and make a beeline for the Vic, just as the Carters were lining up behind the bar to announce Stan's death. Her behaviour went from bad to worse, sniping at Mick, drunkenly soliloquizing about dead and dying parents, finally asking Buster rhetorically if she should make a speech.
This was Shirley at her worst, even to the point of self-pityingly admitting that her girlhood dreams had come true - how often had she wished Stan dead? - but she really didn't want him dead. BooHoo.
The oddest conundrum of the night came when Buster kept imploring her to "come home" and finally to let him "take her home." What? You have no home, Shirley. You have a grace-and-favour room at Denise's house, and even her hospitality can be stretched.
Buster and Shirley, King and Queen of Scrotes.
It's All About Me: Carol.
Please, please, please, please, please stop dumbing down Rebecca. She's an intelligent girl. She's a teenager going through a Goth phase, and there was something ... just creepy ... about hearing her whine like a little girl:-
Why does Nana Carol hate Grandad?
If that wasn't enough, we had Saint Sonia seated on the sofa in the front room, showing pictures of Grandad and telling Liam the Lug, suddenly reduced from a sexually active hormonally rampant young man to a child listening to a story, and Rebecca, the story about how Grandad proposed to Dot on the London Eye.
Carol's angry, which isn't unusual. Everything out of the ordinary makes Carol angry with the world - David, Bianca, cancer, being dumped, and now Jim's death.
For all Carol made a great play when David left about finally growing up, she still acts like a fourteen year-old. Linda's childishness is indulged by her children. Bianca was cowed and bullied by Carol's immaturity, but Sonia's not having any of it. Carol is so pissed at everyone, she refuses to even think about Jim's funeral.
The best scene of the night for me was the scene in the cafe between Sonia and Martin, when he told her about the house and what happened. She's on her high horse immediately until Martin is quick off the mark to remind her that she was foolish with money also - stealing from a charity and almost costing herself her life.
I punched the air, when Sonia did a Fonzarelli and chokingly admitted that Martin's troubles were partly her fault ...
She was wr-r-r-r-a ... she was w-r-r-r-r-a ... She wasn't exactly right.
I actually gave Sonia kudos for the way she handled Carol the interminable child when she told her that hers and Martin's home had been repossessed. Of course, Carol instantly flies off and blames Martin, and in doing so, shows how ignorant she is about house ownership and mortgages. Carol lives in a house owned by her ex-son-in-law's sister, who charges her a peppercorn rent. If Janine were not so generous, Carol would be someplace in a high rise on a sink estate.
She refuses to believe that the repossession was Sonia's fault too.
You've always paid your share.
Er, no, Carol, that's not the way it works. Yes, Sonia's wages were probably needed to secure the mortgage, and she probably did pay her half, but when she left Martin to move home, I would imagine that her share of the contribution stopped. Besides, she intimated to Carol nearly a year ago that they were struggling with paying the mortgage, and that was when she was skiving off work and under disciplinary action for helping Carol out when she was ill.
But first Sonia stared her down and told her life was too short to go about being angry all the time. What is the point now of being angry with Jim now he's dead?
It takes a big person to forgive, but Carol has never been that big a person in that respect.
If that isnt' enough, the divine Patrick hands her her arse in the most gentlemanly way possible. He points out that Jim's made mistakes, and he, himself, has made mistakes, but in the end Jim loved Carol very much. Carol's ungracious enough to imply that he has no right to say that, but it's caused her food for thought, as she admits to Sonia that she's going to arrange the funeral and speak to Reverend Stephens.
Carol is one of the biggest spoiled brats in the Square, and this is the side of her I dislike.
Frozen Thaws.
Sing it, Ronnie!
Once again, CharlieBoy and Roxy have a "special moment" at the wrong place and the wrong time. It's as if a semi-conscious Ronnie sorta kinda feels the vibes between them, and that's what makes her open her eyes. It's enough to scare the shit out of Roxy, who passes CharlieBoy the baby and scurries from the room.
What seemed to awaken Ronnie was Charlie's remark that it was almost as if Matthew thought Roxy was his mother. Then the moment passed.
The moment passed again, during Ineta's impromptu birthday party, when Charlie caught Roxy in the kitchen.
Now, let me get this straight. Charlie married Ronnie because he loved her, as you do. She's been in a coma for four months, and during that time, he's come to depend on Roxy to such an extent that he wishes he'd met her first.
Helloooo?
I guess Ronnie robbed him of his cojones, and Roxy found them for him. Whatever it is, he's more than a bit sorry he's married to Ronnie. Maybe it's the thought that she's killed a man that's freaking him out. I'd be afraid were I he, even now.
I like Roxy. She's a loving, kind person; it's just that she is also immature emotionally and continues to fall in love with the wrong people, as in married or committed men. Another unwanted guest at this party happens to be Marta, Aleks's wife, who notices a spark between Roxy and Charlie. It may appear that Aleks doesn't notice this, but Aleks is pretty adept at keeping things close to his chest, as we'll soon see.
Roxy, meantime, is all over the place. She's enlisted Sharon to help with Ineta's party and admits that she needs to do this for Aleks, because she loves him, but she says that in a way in which she's trying to convince herself that she does.
By the end of the piece, she's even avoiding Aleks, sneaking off to Dot's for a rendevouz over the baby with Charlie, and they're just about to experience another "moment" when Aleks knocks at the door to inform her that the hospital called. Ronnie's awake and asking for her.
It's almost spookily prescient.
This is going to be fun watching the Wrath of Elsa rain down on Roxy and CharlieBoy.
Sidelined Storyline. What is that with the Masoods and Kush and the borderline homophobe remarks? Do you think he might be like Syed?(Tamwar) Even worse, when seeing Masood buy a loudly printed shirt: Do you think he might be like Syed? (Meaning Masood).
All these remarks about Tamwar being lonely, needing a girlfriend, and Shabnam suddenly losing her brainpower to think that it might be Masood looking for a young wife on the internet.
Listen ... Tamwar will get together with Nancy. No help from the internet or Auntie Fatima is needed.
Uninteresting Note. Les is on holiday, without Pam, in Gran Canaria. Claudette is there as well. Do we care? I didn't think so.
Pretty mediocre.
That was slightly more than embarrassing. I keep thinking of what the continuity announcer said at the beginning of the episode: The grieving Carters and Brannings give everyone grief.
That just about sums the episode up. Everyone was shown from their very worst angle. Surprisingly, Sonia came out positively in that episode. Choking on her own self-righteousness, but owning up to her faults. The most interesting aspect of tonight's episode was Dirty Roxy and Dirty Charlie, who scrubbed up rather well, in a sordid sort of way.
Suitable music for a stinking mood:-
The Maudlin Grief of the Mis-Begotten.
Years ago, back in the mid-19th Century, it was a Victorian pastime at parties to present what they used to call "living tableaux." Real people would pose together depicting familiar painting or scenes from mythology. The first scenes with the Carters tonight, in their kitchen, after Shirley appeared mysteriously at the kitchen door, using Stan's packed bag to answer Mick's accusing question of her having left Stan alone, reminded me of a tableaux.
Picture of a Family in Grief: East London Working-Class Type, 21st Century
Mick standing manfully at the head of the table, clutching a tearful and sobbing Tina to his bosom; Lee sitting stolidly at the table, his face like stone; Nancy sniffling, Linda looking suitably worried and upset; and Shirley,with the most tragically grieving face of all - so grieving that it was almost a caricature of grief.
As luck would have it, I spend the better part of two days defending the Carters, and someone at EastEnders puts out tripe like this.
This was bad. Very bad. Very maudlin and very over-played, and no one came out well here, bar Linda, who got the death stare from Shirley for saying what Shirl perceived to be the wrong thing.
Well, at least it's over now.
You know something? That's what a lot of people say when someone who's suffered from cancer dies, because, up close and personal, you see how much pain and suffering the person endures, and with death comes peace and freedom from that. That's what Linda meant, but because those words came from Linda - you know, the woman who was raped by Shirley's son? - Shirl's entitled to misconstrue them and charge them to Linda's in debit account for doing and saying things which upset poor Shirley.
I must admit, I was surprised when she showed up at the pub tonight with Stan's things, but only surprised that she hadn't thought to ring them in the middle of the night to tell them of his death.
As Lee said, they should have known about that. They all should have been there. I thought Shirley's words were rather hollow. I know her shippers will wax lyrical about how she saved her family from enduring Stan's last moments, and I won't pretend it's easy being by a deathbed; but Stan's death was peaceful on the whole, and I can't help but think that the selfish part of Shrley, which is 99 per cent of her, simply wanted to savour Stan's last moments by herself.
At the end of their vignette, when she was suitably lubricated with vodka, she couldn't say long enough and loud enough how her father had died and then launch into a soliloquy about how children push their parents into a home to die or how they'll have to be responsible for sorting out funeral arrangements etc. She aimed this, first, at Lee and Nancy, but ultimately she wanted to strike a chord with Mick, asking him baldly if he'd do that for her, his mother.
Mick, on the other hand, had been in a blue funk all day, thanks to the wonderful Cora, whom the Carters had neglected to inform of Stan's death. Of course, Cora would be upset. She'd only gone all the way to the hospice only to find an empty room and a chair. Her handing of a collective arse to all the Carters was epic. Not everything revolved around the family exclusively, and as for Mick ...
Her parting shot at Mick was that beneath the "nice guy" veneer, he's the same as his mother, meaning Shirley, and that's something Mick most definitely didn't want to hear.
Absolute line of the night went, poignantly, to Patrick, who was told about Jim's death today, and who learned of Stan's when Tina announced it in the pub. He lifted his glass of rum skyward, and softly said:-
Save a place at the bar for me, fellas.
Don't worry, Patrick. They will, but I hope you're with us for ages yet.
I thought the acting was well melodramatic almost to the point of embarrassment. What makes things worse is how badly Stan was treated by his family for the better part of a year.
Shirley and her Nick.
The fly in the Carter's ointment at the moment is Dean. Shirley's conflicted, and Mick is conflicted. With Stan's death spurring them into a feeling of togetherness, when Shirley goes to leave, after telling them the news, Mick and the others ask her to stay. She refuses. She has to tell Dean.
Of course, that doesn't set too well with Mick. Every time Shirley leans toward Dean, Mick and Co take that as a defection of loyalty. In this instance, Shirley was right, actually. Dean was Stan's grandson, and Stan was fond of him. She had to tell him. I think the dynamic of Buster-Shirley-Dean niggles Mick. Dean's accepted Buster as his father, which is an insult to the memory of Kevin; to Mick, Stan will always be his dad. You can't blame him for that.
Dean, it seems, is not doing well at all in prison - jumping at every sharp sound, he admits he's frightened. I'm surprised no mention is made of his previous time in prison, back in 2008. When Dean was released, he made it all but abundantly clear to Chelsea that he'd been raped inside. His behaviour, especially the ordering of the call girl immediately he arrived at Shirley's fllat, gave every indication that he'd been raped in prison and that he wanted to assert his heterosexuality.
Well, now he's in prison again, and afraid of an actual sentence. Shirley can't bring herself to tell him about Stan, so Buster does. (I think we were supposed to see Buster in a different and sensible light tonight, but for me, it didn't work. Karl Howson is not the strongest of actors)
Dean begins to cry, amid frantic sotto voce urgings from Buster and Shirley to stop crying, man up, not to let anyone see that he was weak.
Even if you have to pretend, says Shirley. But Dean can't pretend. Stan's death serves as a catharsis for everything bad that's been happening to Dean ever since he went on remand. His sobs become too much for his putrid mother, who does what she does whenever the going gets tough, she gets going ...
Well, Shirley's not tough, as Buster found out when he found her three sheets to the wind after running out on Dean. As JR would say about Suellen, the same could be said about Shriley: at the least little sign of worry or trouble, Shirley starts sucking on that bottle.
It didn't take her long to get drunk and make a beeline for the Vic, just as the Carters were lining up behind the bar to announce Stan's death. Her behaviour went from bad to worse, sniping at Mick, drunkenly soliloquizing about dead and dying parents, finally asking Buster rhetorically if she should make a speech.
This was Shirley at her worst, even to the point of self-pityingly admitting that her girlhood dreams had come true - how often had she wished Stan dead? - but she really didn't want him dead. BooHoo.
The oddest conundrum of the night came when Buster kept imploring her to "come home" and finally to let him "take her home." What? You have no home, Shirley. You have a grace-and-favour room at Denise's house, and even her hospitality can be stretched.
Buster and Shirley, King and Queen of Scrotes.
It's All About Me: Carol.
Please, please, please, please, please stop dumbing down Rebecca. She's an intelligent girl. She's a teenager going through a Goth phase, and there was something ... just creepy ... about hearing her whine like a little girl:-
Why does Nana Carol hate Grandad?
If that wasn't enough, we had Saint Sonia seated on the sofa in the front room, showing pictures of Grandad and telling Liam the Lug, suddenly reduced from a sexually active hormonally rampant young man to a child listening to a story, and Rebecca, the story about how Grandad proposed to Dot on the London Eye.
Carol's angry, which isn't unusual. Everything out of the ordinary makes Carol angry with the world - David, Bianca, cancer, being dumped, and now Jim's death.
For all Carol made a great play when David left about finally growing up, she still acts like a fourteen year-old. Linda's childishness is indulged by her children. Bianca was cowed and bullied by Carol's immaturity, but Sonia's not having any of it. Carol is so pissed at everyone, she refuses to even think about Jim's funeral.
The best scene of the night for me was the scene in the cafe between Sonia and Martin, when he told her about the house and what happened. She's on her high horse immediately until Martin is quick off the mark to remind her that she was foolish with money also - stealing from a charity and almost costing herself her life.
I punched the air, when Sonia did a Fonzarelli and chokingly admitted that Martin's troubles were partly her fault ...
She was wr-r-r-r-a ... she was w-r-r-r-r-a ... She wasn't exactly right.
I actually gave Sonia kudos for the way she handled Carol the interminable child when she told her that hers and Martin's home had been repossessed. Of course, Carol instantly flies off and blames Martin, and in doing so, shows how ignorant she is about house ownership and mortgages. Carol lives in a house owned by her ex-son-in-law's sister, who charges her a peppercorn rent. If Janine were not so generous, Carol would be someplace in a high rise on a sink estate.
She refuses to believe that the repossession was Sonia's fault too.
You've always paid your share.
Er, no, Carol, that's not the way it works. Yes, Sonia's wages were probably needed to secure the mortgage, and she probably did pay her half, but when she left Martin to move home, I would imagine that her share of the contribution stopped. Besides, she intimated to Carol nearly a year ago that they were struggling with paying the mortgage, and that was when she was skiving off work and under disciplinary action for helping Carol out when she was ill.
But first Sonia stared her down and told her life was too short to go about being angry all the time. What is the point now of being angry with Jim now he's dead?
It takes a big person to forgive, but Carol has never been that big a person in that respect.
If that isnt' enough, the divine Patrick hands her her arse in the most gentlemanly way possible. He points out that Jim's made mistakes, and he, himself, has made mistakes, but in the end Jim loved Carol very much. Carol's ungracious enough to imply that he has no right to say that, but it's caused her food for thought, as she admits to Sonia that she's going to arrange the funeral and speak to Reverend Stephens.
Carol is one of the biggest spoiled brats in the Square, and this is the side of her I dislike.
Frozen Thaws.
Sing it, Ronnie!
Once again, CharlieBoy and Roxy have a "special moment" at the wrong place and the wrong time. It's as if a semi-conscious Ronnie sorta kinda feels the vibes between them, and that's what makes her open her eyes. It's enough to scare the shit out of Roxy, who passes CharlieBoy the baby and scurries from the room.
What seemed to awaken Ronnie was Charlie's remark that it was almost as if Matthew thought Roxy was his mother. Then the moment passed.
The moment passed again, during Ineta's impromptu birthday party, when Charlie caught Roxy in the kitchen.
Now, let me get this straight. Charlie married Ronnie because he loved her, as you do. She's been in a coma for four months, and during that time, he's come to depend on Roxy to such an extent that he wishes he'd met her first.
Helloooo?
I guess Ronnie robbed him of his cojones, and Roxy found them for him. Whatever it is, he's more than a bit sorry he's married to Ronnie. Maybe it's the thought that she's killed a man that's freaking him out. I'd be afraid were I he, even now.
I like Roxy. She's a loving, kind person; it's just that she is also immature emotionally and continues to fall in love with the wrong people, as in married or committed men. Another unwanted guest at this party happens to be Marta, Aleks's wife, who notices a spark between Roxy and Charlie. It may appear that Aleks doesn't notice this, but Aleks is pretty adept at keeping things close to his chest, as we'll soon see.
Roxy, meantime, is all over the place. She's enlisted Sharon to help with Ineta's party and admits that she needs to do this for Aleks, because she loves him, but she says that in a way in which she's trying to convince herself that she does.
By the end of the piece, she's even avoiding Aleks, sneaking off to Dot's for a rendevouz over the baby with Charlie, and they're just about to experience another "moment" when Aleks knocks at the door to inform her that the hospital called. Ronnie's awake and asking for her.
It's almost spookily prescient.
This is going to be fun watching the Wrath of Elsa rain down on Roxy and CharlieBoy.
Sidelined Storyline. What is that with the Masoods and Kush and the borderline homophobe remarks? Do you think he might be like Syed?(Tamwar) Even worse, when seeing Masood buy a loudly printed shirt: Do you think he might be like Syed? (Meaning Masood).
All these remarks about Tamwar being lonely, needing a girlfriend, and Shabnam suddenly losing her brainpower to think that it might be Masood looking for a young wife on the internet.
Listen ... Tamwar will get together with Nancy. No help from the internet or Auntie Fatima is needed.
Uninteresting Note. Les is on holiday, without Pam, in Gran Canaria. Claudette is there as well. Do we care? I didn't think so.
Pretty mediocre.
No comments:
Post a Comment