This episode was marginally better than Monday's, but it still wasn't up to the par it should be. Somewhere in the welterwhirl after the Anniversary, the show seems to have lost its way again. No doubt, it will probably find its way back to the beaten path once Kathy's return is imminent, and it will probably find its way again around Christmas, but the show shouldn't veer from big event to big event.
The odious Pam Coker stated the bleeding obvious about the programme in dialogue tonight when she lamented the fact that Billy had scheduled two funerals on the same day.
The French have a phrase for it ... de trop.
Wicked Game (Alex and Roxy and Charlie and Ronnie).
The most interesting part about tonight's episode was the Blisters.
Ronnie so knows what went on between Roxy and Charlie, and it's obvious that during all those weeks when they haven't been at the forefront of the action due to block storylining, Roxy and Charlie have been whooping it up behind Aleks's and Ronnie's respective backs - whooping it up enough for Charlie now to wish he'd met Roxy before Ronnie got her claws into him.
Ronnie so knows. She didn't have to say a thing tonight, the look onElsa's post-comatose face, from the very beginning, at strategic moments, told the viewer everything we needed to know: that Roxy and Charlie should be very afraid.
The first inkling that Ronnie knew of Roxy's betrayal came at the very beginning of their part of the episode, when Roxy was reading rubbish to Ronnie from some shallow magazine. Her look told everything - eyes narrowed, face hardened. What's more interesting is that Roxy suspects and fears that Ronnie may know, which is why she's so ueber-keen to ditch Charlie, who suddenly seems ueber-keen to continue with Roxy, as his chick on the side.
Ronnie's going to lie there in the bed, saying little but observing a lot under the guise of illness, noticing how short Roxy was with Aleks when he came to fetch her. Roxy was cold and offish with him.
Do you not understand? I need to be here with mah sisTAHHH.
Ronnie knows Roxy better than Roxy knows either herself or her sister. Yet she senses something is wrong between her and Ronnie because of the uneasy vibes she's getting from Ronnie. What's weirder is that Ronnie knows Roxy suspects and she's stringing her along like a kipper; and don't think she doesn't notice every iota of body language and chemistry between Roxy and CharlieBoy.
Roxy whines about things having changed betweeh her and Charlie, when they're alone. Well, Roxy, that's what happens when you sleep with someone. The whole core of whatever relationship went before has changed.
I doubt Ronnie ever loved Charlie, or that Charlie loved her. She used him for sex. She got pregnant. She wasn't even going to include him on that relationship until he stepped up to the plate and volunteered his part. That wasn't even for love either, but for proving a point that he could be a better father than Nick was to him. What worried me seriously about Charlie was the fact that he didn't even flinch when Ronnie told him she'd killed a man.
And, please, let's not forget that Ronnie is - to all intents and purposes - a murderer. Like Bobby Beale, and let's not forget that either.
Any normal man would have taken a hike at that confession. Luke, Stacey's ex-, was repelled by what she did, and she went onto atone for her deed. Charlie married Ronnie.
However, I don't think old CharlieBoy is lilywhite, himself, and the hapless victim in all of this is going to be Roxy.
Ronnie might be ill and on the mend, but she's well enough to snooker Roxy's good intentions and limited intelligence. When Roxy's not looking, she gives her the death stare, and in the next instance, she's smiling, playing the complacent sister and thanking Roxy for looking after Charlie - boy, that remark was a double-edged sword. Ronnie knows that all she has to do is lie still, be patient, and Roxy will come to her - Roxy's guilt is brimming over the top already, and when Ronnie admitted, innocently enough (but which was really a veiled warning shot), that she was jealous of Roxy and Charlie, Roxy looked like she shat herself.
(Pssst! Here's the underlying meaning to what Ronnie said:- I'm onto you, bitch.)
However, here's where CharlieBoy just might try to play Ronnie at her own game. The consultant explained to Roxy and Charlie that Ronnie's lengthy coma may have permanently affected her. Her speech will be halting, she'll tire easily, and - here's the clincher - she may confuse things.
Charlie's got all the ammunition he needs. Anything Ronnie says about what she heard between the two or what she observes, hubby can say it's confusion.
Then there's Aleks.
As other people have noted, I don't know where this sudden revulsion for Aleks emanated on Roxy's part. Once again, I guess block storylining accounted for that, Roxy had been happy with Aleks. So happy, that she was willing to be his mistress after finding out he was married. She was more than excited when he moved in with her, and now she's hankering after Charlie?
OK, Aleks is a crook - we know now that he's been embezzling from the market traders, dipping into the takings for his own advantage, and we know that from the supersleuth work done by detectives Nancy (Drew) and Tamwar (Poirot). But he genuinely loves Roxy, and he's probably noticed the body language and hot looks between Roxy and CharlieBoy for months. He'd be stupid not to have noticed - as in tonight, they haven't exactly made themselves discreet, have they?
Aleks even goes through the motions of asking Phil's permission to propose to Roxy, commenting that he'd given up his marriage and taken on Roxy's child for the love of her. He even tells Charlie, which provokes a strange reaction from him to Roxy - she can't accept his proposal!
Er, sorry, but she can. She's single, and Charlie's married to her sister. Poor Roxy, she always wants to do the right thing, after she's put her foot in it and done the wrong thing. She's always been the child-woman who wanted what she couldn't have - someone else's man or husband. Then she decompensated, and Ronnie picked up the pieces, often orchestrating the decompensation, herself. Roxy depends on Ronnie, and Ronnie has an unnatural, almost incestuous obsession with Roxy. But now, Roxy's betrayed her again.
Very good duff duff and such an original proprosal:-
How long have you been sleeping with your sister's husband?
Answer the question and get a prize. That question, juxtaposed with the faux hopeful and faux perky expression on Roxy's face was a classic. Aleks couldn't help but know all along what was happening.
We know now that Aleks leaves this week - in disgrace, it would seem; but I fear the Ronnie-Charlie-Roxy triangle will eventually all end in tears, and death.
The Circular Firing Squad Known as The Carters.
(Sigh)
Don't you think we've seen all of this someplace before?
Tina's sulking face. Mick's sulking face. Shirley's sulking face. No wonder Nancy wanted out of there.
Here's a thought or two: Les Coker is strapped for cash, yet he jets off, alone, on a holiday to Gran Canaria. Without his wife. Any wife would be pissed off royally - remember Jane's almighty put-out back in 2009, when Ian jetted off to the US for Sharon's 40th do? But not the saintly Pam. And Billy's in charge of organising, not one, but two funerals.
Hang on a moment. There's a tad more to being an undertaker than organising funerals. You sorta kinda have to have a licence because ... of, well, the things an undertaker sorta kinda has to do with the corpse. Like embalming? I know Stan and Jim will probably stay on ice in their respective morgues until the day before their respective funerals (which are going to be on the same day), but putrefication sets in soon enough after that, and Billy really needs to do more than just "dress" the bodies.
There was a soupcon of big family reality in the Carter situation tonight. It's true. When there's a death in the family, either differences are forgotten or they're ampliied. In this case, the latter.
Rich of Buster to step up to the plate and magnanimously offer to pay for the funeral. As he's mostly lived a crime-ridden life, I shudder to think where money he's put away has come from, but to have him openly correct Mick by insinuating that he, Buster, was "fairmly" was arrogant and presumptive to the hilt. Were I Mick, I'd have decked him.
Buster is nothing to that family but a feckless, errant asshole who occasionally got Shirley pregnant and then scarpered. He contributed nothing to his sons' upbringing and thinks he can walk in from nowhere now and be a father to Dean the man or Mick the man, by throwing money at a corpse. He isn't family. As Nancy blatantly explained to him - he has no past with them, and he certainly won't have a future, and if they (and Shirley) didn't have that pub, which he perceives as a nice little earner, you wouldn't see him for dust.
I don't know who annoyed me more tonight, Tina or Sonia, another self-righteous pukewad who assumes the mantle of Wise Woman of Walford.
Have you ever noticed how Natalie Cassidy uses the same sad-eyed look of intense constipation whenever she's asked to do something serious?
Jim's died ... sad eyes, down-turned mouth, look of intense straining on the face.
She's annoyed with Carol ... sad eyes, down-turned mouth, look of intense straining on the face.
Worried about Martin ... sad eyes, down-turned mouth, look of intense straining on the face.
Listening to and worrying with Tina's concerns ... sad eyes, down-turned mouth, look of intense straining on the face.
The woman's a walking advert for Ex-Lax.
Sonia's advice for Tina is to throw off responsibilty and be feckless. Let's see how tolerant she is of that sort of behaviour in six months' time. Tina cheated on Tosh with Sonia. She may cheat on Sonia with someone else. I want them to leave.
The Carters accomplished nothing in this episode. The highlight of that malarkey was Nancy's view on the situation to Tamwar:-
Nancy: ... Auntie Shirl ... sorry, I mean "Nannie" Shirl. That's scary, innit?
Tamwar: I dunno ... Auntie Shirl was scary enough.
True, Tamwar.
Fifty Ways to Stiff Your Brother: The Masoods and Kush.
Operation Get Tamwar a Wife. Masood's a man on a mission, with the help of the unseen Auntie Fatima, who's behind sending Masood a webpage full of prospective brides - an arranged marriage, as Masood describes it to Kush, who's well not in favour of this scheme because - well, because Kush knows that Tamwar's keen on Nancy. Auntie Fatima, you'll recall, was covered head to foot in a burkha.
Good consistency to see Shabnam's casual racism rise to the fore once again, relating Tamwar's attraction to Nancy to Masood's experience with Jane and Carol, the gist about both of them being that they used Masood and were really in love with other men. Shabnam's reservations about Nancy went from being dubious because Nancy wasn't a Muslim (in the shop) to actually referring to "these white women" again, within the confines of her home.
Memo to Shabnam: Muslims, like Christians, cannot be defined by race. There are European Muslims (in Serbia, Croatia and Albania) who are Caucasian, so the "white woman" remark was supefluous. As well, Shabnam's best friend is one of those "white women," and Shabnam's secret daughter, as is Kush, is of mixed race.
Shabnam preaches similiarities for success in a relationship, yet as Masood pointed out, Shabnam's and Kush's relationship seems to thrive on their differences and him putting her in her place about her prejudices and her narrow-mindedness. I like the name he has for her - Grumpy Guts.
Line of the night went to Mas:-
We're just trying to give the lad a push, Kush.
Briefly Branning. The Brannings, what's left of them (Max and Carol), are having their own mini-powow about Jim's burial. As Max says, he can't wait to get Jim in the ground. The brief posit toward the funeral was a foreshadowing of the upcoming Branning story. Max is flush and offers to pay for Jim's funeral. He's flush because of the gaggle of posh motors he's bought as a result of Phil Mitchell's contact.
One of the cars has a fault in the engine. I admit, at first I thought it was a cut-and-shut, but Jay discovers that it's stolen. Ben stands by and does sweet FA whilst Jay tries to be conscientious and do his work. I suspect this presages Jay throwing in his lot with Max instead of the lazy, entitled Ben.
Max doesn't like to take orders from a teenager. I thought Jay was twenty last year.
Good enough episode, but not ggod enough.
The odious Pam Coker stated the bleeding obvious about the programme in dialogue tonight when she lamented the fact that Billy had scheduled two funerals on the same day.
The French have a phrase for it ... de trop.
Wicked Game (Alex and Roxy and Charlie and Ronnie).
The most interesting part about tonight's episode was the Blisters.
Ronnie so knows what went on between Roxy and Charlie, and it's obvious that during all those weeks when they haven't been at the forefront of the action due to block storylining, Roxy and Charlie have been whooping it up behind Aleks's and Ronnie's respective backs - whooping it up enough for Charlie now to wish he'd met Roxy before Ronnie got her claws into him.
Ronnie so knows. She didn't have to say a thing tonight, the look on
The first inkling that Ronnie knew of Roxy's betrayal came at the very beginning of their part of the episode, when Roxy was reading rubbish to Ronnie from some shallow magazine. Her look told everything - eyes narrowed, face hardened. What's more interesting is that Roxy suspects and fears that Ronnie may know, which is why she's so ueber-keen to ditch Charlie, who suddenly seems ueber-keen to continue with Roxy, as his chick on the side.
Ronnie's going to lie there in the bed, saying little but observing a lot under the guise of illness, noticing how short Roxy was with Aleks when he came to fetch her. Roxy was cold and offish with him.
Do you not understand? I need to be here with mah sisTAHHH.
Ronnie knows Roxy better than Roxy knows either herself or her sister. Yet she senses something is wrong between her and Ronnie because of the uneasy vibes she's getting from Ronnie. What's weirder is that Ronnie knows Roxy suspects and she's stringing her along like a kipper; and don't think she doesn't notice every iota of body language and chemistry between Roxy and CharlieBoy.
Roxy whines about things having changed betweeh her and Charlie, when they're alone. Well, Roxy, that's what happens when you sleep with someone. The whole core of whatever relationship went before has changed.
I doubt Ronnie ever loved Charlie, or that Charlie loved her. She used him for sex. She got pregnant. She wasn't even going to include him on that relationship until he stepped up to the plate and volunteered his part. That wasn't even for love either, but for proving a point that he could be a better father than Nick was to him. What worried me seriously about Charlie was the fact that he didn't even flinch when Ronnie told him she'd killed a man.
And, please, let's not forget that Ronnie is - to all intents and purposes - a murderer. Like Bobby Beale, and let's not forget that either.
Any normal man would have taken a hike at that confession. Luke, Stacey's ex-, was repelled by what she did, and she went onto atone for her deed. Charlie married Ronnie.
However, I don't think old CharlieBoy is lilywhite, himself, and the hapless victim in all of this is going to be Roxy.
Ronnie might be ill and on the mend, but she's well enough to snooker Roxy's good intentions and limited intelligence. When Roxy's not looking, she gives her the death stare, and in the next instance, she's smiling, playing the complacent sister and thanking Roxy for looking after Charlie - boy, that remark was a double-edged sword. Ronnie knows that all she has to do is lie still, be patient, and Roxy will come to her - Roxy's guilt is brimming over the top already, and when Ronnie admitted, innocently enough (but which was really a veiled warning shot), that she was jealous of Roxy and Charlie, Roxy looked like she shat herself.
(Pssst! Here's the underlying meaning to what Ronnie said:- I'm onto you, bitch.)
However, here's where CharlieBoy just might try to play Ronnie at her own game. The consultant explained to Roxy and Charlie that Ronnie's lengthy coma may have permanently affected her. Her speech will be halting, she'll tire easily, and - here's the clincher - she may confuse things.
Charlie's got all the ammunition he needs. Anything Ronnie says about what she heard between the two or what she observes, hubby can say it's confusion.
Then there's Aleks.
As other people have noted, I don't know where this sudden revulsion for Aleks emanated on Roxy's part. Once again, I guess block storylining accounted for that, Roxy had been happy with Aleks. So happy, that she was willing to be his mistress after finding out he was married. She was more than excited when he moved in with her, and now she's hankering after Charlie?
OK, Aleks is a crook - we know now that he's been embezzling from the market traders, dipping into the takings for his own advantage, and we know that from the supersleuth work done by detectives Nancy (Drew) and Tamwar (Poirot). But he genuinely loves Roxy, and he's probably noticed the body language and hot looks between Roxy and CharlieBoy for months. He'd be stupid not to have noticed - as in tonight, they haven't exactly made themselves discreet, have they?
Aleks even goes through the motions of asking Phil's permission to propose to Roxy, commenting that he'd given up his marriage and taken on Roxy's child for the love of her. He even tells Charlie, which provokes a strange reaction from him to Roxy - she can't accept his proposal!
Er, sorry, but she can. She's single, and Charlie's married to her sister. Poor Roxy, she always wants to do the right thing, after she's put her foot in it and done the wrong thing. She's always been the child-woman who wanted what she couldn't have - someone else's man or husband. Then she decompensated, and Ronnie picked up the pieces, often orchestrating the decompensation, herself. Roxy depends on Ronnie, and Ronnie has an unnatural, almost incestuous obsession with Roxy. But now, Roxy's betrayed her again.
Very good duff duff and such an original proprosal:-
How long have you been sleeping with your sister's husband?
Answer the question and get a prize. That question, juxtaposed with the faux hopeful and faux perky expression on Roxy's face was a classic. Aleks couldn't help but know all along what was happening.
We know now that Aleks leaves this week - in disgrace, it would seem; but I fear the Ronnie-Charlie-Roxy triangle will eventually all end in tears, and death.
The Circular Firing Squad Known as The Carters.
(Sigh)
Don't you think we've seen all of this someplace before?
Tina's sulking face. Mick's sulking face. Shirley's sulking face. No wonder Nancy wanted out of there.
Here's a thought or two: Les Coker is strapped for cash, yet he jets off, alone, on a holiday to Gran Canaria. Without his wife. Any wife would be pissed off royally - remember Jane's almighty put-out back in 2009, when Ian jetted off to the US for Sharon's 40th do? But not the saintly Pam. And Billy's in charge of organising, not one, but two funerals.
Hang on a moment. There's a tad more to being an undertaker than organising funerals. You sorta kinda have to have a licence because ... of, well, the things an undertaker sorta kinda has to do with the corpse. Like embalming? I know Stan and Jim will probably stay on ice in their respective morgues until the day before their respective funerals (which are going to be on the same day), but putrefication sets in soon enough after that, and Billy really needs to do more than just "dress" the bodies.
There was a soupcon of big family reality in the Carter situation tonight. It's true. When there's a death in the family, either differences are forgotten or they're ampliied. In this case, the latter.
Rich of Buster to step up to the plate and magnanimously offer to pay for the funeral. As he's mostly lived a crime-ridden life, I shudder to think where money he's put away has come from, but to have him openly correct Mick by insinuating that he, Buster, was "fairmly" was arrogant and presumptive to the hilt. Were I Mick, I'd have decked him.
Buster is nothing to that family but a feckless, errant asshole who occasionally got Shirley pregnant and then scarpered. He contributed nothing to his sons' upbringing and thinks he can walk in from nowhere now and be a father to Dean the man or Mick the man, by throwing money at a corpse. He isn't family. As Nancy blatantly explained to him - he has no past with them, and he certainly won't have a future, and if they (and Shirley) didn't have that pub, which he perceives as a nice little earner, you wouldn't see him for dust.
I don't know who annoyed me more tonight, Tina or Sonia, another self-righteous pukewad who assumes the mantle of Wise Woman of Walford.
Have you ever noticed how Natalie Cassidy uses the same sad-eyed look of intense constipation whenever she's asked to do something serious?
Jim's died ... sad eyes, down-turned mouth, look of intense straining on the face.
She's annoyed with Carol ... sad eyes, down-turned mouth, look of intense straining on the face.
Worried about Martin ... sad eyes, down-turned mouth, look of intense straining on the face.
Listening to and worrying with Tina's concerns ... sad eyes, down-turned mouth, look of intense straining on the face.
The woman's a walking advert for Ex-Lax.
Sonia's advice for Tina is to throw off responsibilty and be feckless. Let's see how tolerant she is of that sort of behaviour in six months' time. Tina cheated on Tosh with Sonia. She may cheat on Sonia with someone else. I want them to leave.
The Carters accomplished nothing in this episode. The highlight of that malarkey was Nancy's view on the situation to Tamwar:-
Nancy: ... Auntie Shirl ... sorry, I mean "Nannie" Shirl. That's scary, innit?
Tamwar: I dunno ... Auntie Shirl was scary enough.
True, Tamwar.
Fifty Ways to Stiff Your Brother: The Masoods and Kush.
Operation Get Tamwar a Wife. Masood's a man on a mission, with the help of the unseen Auntie Fatima, who's behind sending Masood a webpage full of prospective brides - an arranged marriage, as Masood describes it to Kush, who's well not in favour of this scheme because - well, because Kush knows that Tamwar's keen on Nancy. Auntie Fatima, you'll recall, was covered head to foot in a burkha.
Good consistency to see Shabnam's casual racism rise to the fore once again, relating Tamwar's attraction to Nancy to Masood's experience with Jane and Carol, the gist about both of them being that they used Masood and were really in love with other men. Shabnam's reservations about Nancy went from being dubious because Nancy wasn't a Muslim (in the shop) to actually referring to "these white women" again, within the confines of her home.
Memo to Shabnam: Muslims, like Christians, cannot be defined by race. There are European Muslims (in Serbia, Croatia and Albania) who are Caucasian, so the "white woman" remark was supefluous. As well, Shabnam's best friend is one of those "white women," and Shabnam's secret daughter, as is Kush, is of mixed race.
Shabnam preaches similiarities for success in a relationship, yet as Masood pointed out, Shabnam's and Kush's relationship seems to thrive on their differences and him putting her in her place about her prejudices and her narrow-mindedness. I like the name he has for her - Grumpy Guts.
Line of the night went to Mas:-
We're just trying to give the lad a push, Kush.
Briefly Branning. The Brannings, what's left of them (Max and Carol), are having their own mini-powow about Jim's burial. As Max says, he can't wait to get Jim in the ground. The brief posit toward the funeral was a foreshadowing of the upcoming Branning story. Max is flush and offers to pay for Jim's funeral. He's flush because of the gaggle of posh motors he's bought as a result of Phil Mitchell's contact.
One of the cars has a fault in the engine. I admit, at first I thought it was a cut-and-shut, but Jay discovers that it's stolen. Ben stands by and does sweet FA whilst Jay tries to be conscientious and do his work. I suspect this presages Jay throwing in his lot with Max instead of the lazy, entitled Ben.
Max doesn't like to take orders from a teenager. I thought Jay was twenty last year.
Good enough episode, but not ggod enough.
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