I left off watching this until Sunday, because I was late picking up my new car on Friday and had a lot of errands on Saturday - always a better excuse for not watching a programme that's going to hell in a handcart. Learning that the episodes we've been watching aren't Sean O'Connor's (even though his name is on the mast head) or even DTC's, but that the are, in fact, the responsibilities of the nefarious fanboi and cheerleader, Alex Lamb and Sharon Batten, explains why what we've been seeing for the past month has been total, abject shite.
Friday's episode was nothing to brag about. In fact, it carried on being nothing more than a boring Mitchellfest, navel-gazing, tired old storylines, and hypocrisy. It sucked.
The entire week sucked.
I can't tell anyone enough times that getting Ross Kemp back for even a limited period of time, when Letitia Dean and Steve McFadden were on board, could only mean drawing a line under Sharongate. Instead, we have the ultimate secret son fantasy - and it isn't ending there.
I seriously do not know how Sean O'Connor can repair this fiasco.
Emmerdale, on the other hand, is firing on all cylinders.
Mitchell Madness
We are about to enter Mitchell Week, and that's done with foreboding. Remember Get Jonnie Week. Eventually, Jonnie Allen died, and there was no more big bad wolf. Remember Branning Week, which introduced Derek Branning, who was supposed to be a serious challenge to Phil Mitchell's authority. He wasn't, and the Brannings today consist of two vacuous sisters who share a brain cell and Jack, as we eagerly await Max's return and his revenge on Ian Beale. The Mitchells have been expanding beyond all proportions at the moment, bursting at the seams. It's not enough to have one secret child in their midst; they're about to have two.
Familiarity breeds contempt. It turned the Brannings into contemptible pukeshites, and the Mitchells, for all their longevity, aren't exempt from this. I used to be the biggest Mitchell-shipper going, and guess what? I hate them now. I hate Phil, the shuffling, grunting, fatuous patriarch; I hate Sharon, the mahogany-skinned, I-phone-lugging, appeaser; and I hate everyone attached to them or orbiting within their satellite. As it seems that Treadwell-Collins, Lamb and Batten brought everyone within their sphere, I suppose that includes most of the cast.
The Mitchells: The Panic Within. Oh, my goodness! Courtney the Butch and the Transatlantic Tit spent the night together on the floor of the Community Centre. Supposedly, nothing happened and supposedly she puked down the front of his shirt. Surely Vincent, who's been reduced from serious Mitchell gangsta contender to background character fretting after his spangly wife Kim, and the extra accompanying him, would have smelled and gagged at the smell of stale vomit.
But, no ... this was just a titillator for the audience, for the dummies to inhale in awe and exclaim, OMIGOD, Mark and Courtney slept together. OMIGOD! They're brother and sistier!
At least, that's what Batten and Lamb thought would be the reaction.
Lamb: Now, just a suggestion, Sharon, just a wee suggestion ...
Batten: Oh, I know, Alex. They'll all think the worst will have happened, and the exciting thing is ... they'll never know!
Lamb(giggling): Oh, I know, darling. They'll never know, because you know, just all students get drunk, and just all students will lie to their family about what they got up to. But the important thing is that the viewers won't know. It'll leave them wondering. I mean, it's incest, darling! Who'd ever go there?
Batten: Well, there's Brookside ... They actually had Nat and Georgia Simpson sleeping together and they were -
Lamb: Oh, darling! That was Channel FOUR! And anyway, who remembers Brookside? Our's is much more au courant ... just a smidgeon of suggestion.
Batten: Oh, Alex, you're so clever.
Lamb: I know ... oh, and so are you, darling. So are you.
This threw the Mitchell homestead into pandemonium. They and Ian Beale are worried because neither the Transatlantic TIT nor Courtney the Butch came "home" the night before. Home? Now, I know TIT's been staying with Ian, but I thought Courtney had her own flat - or student digs or whatever. Since when did she start mooching around Phil's? I suppose quitting uni is now on the cards as well - because woe betide, anyone in Walford or even remotely connected to Walford getting a university degree?
And where is Grant? I mean, geographically. Because whilst Sharon was worried about the logistics of Courtney and Mark, the conversation around the breakfast table was all about Phil not acknowledging Jay, who arrived late for his breakfast and was totally blanked by Phil, when Jay thanked him for allowing him to stay. The inference was that Grant would "take Jay," but where, exactly is Grant?
Grant should be in Portugal. I mean, he was in Portugal when Peggy was ill and died. Then all of a sudden, he's lost everything in Portugal - the bar, the villa, just like that. In fact, he was crashing on the floor of Courtney's flat. If that's the case, then where is he now? More importantly, he was giving a home to Sam and her son. Well, her son (and Jack's) is now living with his father, but if Grant's not in Portugal and his villa there is no more, then where's Sam staying? She must be in that big black hole where Big Mo is residing. Or if Grant's local, I suppose he's hunkering down at Auntie Sal's.
Eventually, Courtney appears and tells her tale of the night before, to Roxy tittering that Courtney's spent the night with a "transatlantic fittie". You what? He's a stringbean with a pompadour and a totally unbelievable character. Courtney appropriates a bed in the Mitchelle house. She doesn't ask, she just informs them that she's taking a bed. I'm sorry, but who the fuck does she think she is? Family is one thing. I have close family in the US, people I love and who are close to my children, but we all ask if we need to spend a night or even have a couple of hours' kip. They don't run a hotel, and neither do Phil and Sharon. Ben asked Phil for his permission for Jay to stay, and this girl, whose never set foot in Walford before, who hasn't see Phil in years, simply walks in and appropriates a bed. That's not only rude, that's entitlement. She isn't even polite about it. And what was that she remarked when someone thought of approaching Grant to "take Jay"?
He won't even take me on.
This is Jesse O'Mahoney shit combined with Lamb and Batten's masterpiece. The idea that Grant Mitchell would abandon his daughter to nothing is as unbelievable as fairies at the bottom of a garden. Grant was such a doting father, he'd be tracking ever inch of Courtney's movements and seeing that she wanted for nothing.
The other cause of pandemonium in the house is Jay's presence, and Ben's insistence on Phil acknowledging it. Jay thanks Phil for allowing him to stay. Phil grunts. Phil grunts at most everything these days, but Ben's harping on Phil's bad manners.
Dad, Jay spoke to you ... He keeps repeating that again and again, the way you do to a small child who's been naughty and rude and to someone and whom you want to see acknowledge the error of his ways. The laughable thing was that Ben was fishing aggressively for an acknowledgement by Phil to Jay's thanks - good manners, in other words - and Courtney breezes in and appropriates a bed without ever asking permission.
At that point, the drama became all about Jay. Honestly, did Jay think Phil was taking him in out of the goodness of his heart? That everything had changed? Even Ben told him later at The Arches, that Phil only allowed Jay to stay at their house - Jay needing a fixed address as a sex offender or else, he'd risk going to prison - because Phil knew that was the only way Ben would stay, which is as good as admitting to Jay that Ben was using him as means to get what he wanted from Phil as much as it was Jay admitting that he was using Ben to get a roof over his head.
Actually, I do credit Jay with knowing about Phil's discomfort; after all, he's grateful just to be there, but Ben kept pushing the issue, so it couldn't be avoided, forcing Phil to acknowledge something, and in the end, it wasn't anything Ben expected.
Of course, Phil's uncomfortable with Jay around. Jay's been done for inappropriate conduct with a minor. And suddenly, he's gone from acknowledging that he was the stupid one for not asking Star's age, to whining that he didn't know her age, and that she - legally, a child - is the one who fomented all of this. Sorry, but that's the excuse the Catholic Church used to use back in the 60s, when priests were caught diddling. Always the child's fault, never the adult's.
Louise now castigates herself and says she can't look at Jay because of how she's ruined his life. Sorry, she - legally a child, although we know she looks ten years older than the age she's playing - comes onto him and he rejects her, telling her exactly that - that she's a child. Louise isn't to blame here. She made a move, and Jay saw her off, because he knew her age. He didn't know Star's age - didn't think to ask, in the months he was seeing her what she did for a living, how old she was, nothing. He just assumed. Take Louise out of the equation, and Phil might have gone to bat for Jay, but what killed it for Phil was seeing Louise, intimately stroke Jay's neck when he was revealed to have been associated with an underaged girl. Of course, that's not Jay's fault, and Jay was too distracted at the time to push her away; so Phil is left to think the worst.
The funny part about this is that Phil actually acknowledged the Mitchells as criminals, but that mixing with underaged kids was a part of the crime fraternity, with whom they refused to cohabitate. Oh, they'll harbour a murderer or two, but anyone classified as a full-on nonce is not part of their remit.
We got another "bruv" moment from Ben tonight, immediately after he'd given Les the brush-off on the phone about Paul's reading and before Les approached him with the lyrics to an Irish ballad, "The Parting Glass", for Ben to read. It seemed like then, and only then, did Ben actually remember Paul. But Jay's occupying all his thoughts now.
Sharon wasn't connecting at all with the Jay mess. I don't think she objected to him being there. During the breakfast, she was more concerned with what Courtney and Mark had achieved the night before, and Phil had clued into that, whilst Ben was labouring Jay's point. When Jay returned briefly to confront Sharon over her ignoring him, she gave him the ultimate put-down:-
Not everything is about you, Jay.
The weirdest thing about this entire episode was that the "kidnappers" actually came and knocked on Phil Mitchell's front door. Again, it was off-screen, because Phil was upstairs trying to rouse Courtney the Butch and being taunted by the superfluous Louise, when he's called below by the commotion. Louise wants to ring the police, but Courtney the Butch says no - she calls SuperDad.
Send. Him. Home. I thought Colin was going to feature in this episode. Instead, we got Dot meeting the TIT and deliberately bowing out of the salsa competition in order to play matchmaker for Patrick and Claudette, grinning and bobbing her head all the way. Because Ian's skint, he gets Sharon to buy a ticket back to Florida - courtesy of BreezyJet (gee, I thought cutprice Transatlantic travel went out with Freddie Laker) - but now after meeting Courtney, and talking to Dot, TIT - who'd previously been happy and well-adjusted in Florida - wants to exchange all of that for rainy, wet, miserable and expensive Walford.
Ummm ... did anyone think to tell him he'd have to repay his sports scholarship IN FULL if he fucks off like this? Just more debt for Michelle and Tim NoSurname to pay.
God, I hate this poseur, not only is he a bad actor (what else is new on EastEnders when it comes to young characters), his pompadour annoys me.
Just get rid of ... quickly. And he can take his sister-lover with him.
The Mitchells: The Rainbow Mitchell. Here's the Alex Lamb Shits'n Giggles moment: Denise honestly thought that this was Kush's baby. Now she's almost 20 weeks gone, it's still not too late for an abortion. Why is this never discussed in a doctor's surgery? She's single, approaching menopause, and she acknowledges that her grown children won't be pleased. My guess is that she went into that appointment, having had Kush reveal that he knew and that he would be there for her, but now she knows the baby is Phil's, it's still not too late to terminate the pregnancy.
Instead, I reckon she'll try to pass this child off as Kush's. This is laughable, when I remember that Kush supposedly slept with Stacey during the 24 hours he was split from Shabnam, in late May; and Stacey slept with Martin the first week in June - and she delivered a full-term baby on Christmas Eve. The earliest that kid would have been due was February. And full-term December meant she had to have slept with him in March. By all of that convoluted reckoning, Denise could easily pull off the deception.
I actually think they should push this as an abortion storyline, considering the appalling way Denise bullied Libby when she had her abortion.
The other part of this scenario was Kush - his conversation with Les about death (at which I thought he was going to mention the dead wife, who hasn't come up in a long while) and his subsequent conversation with Stacey, which resulted in the single biggest hypocritical remark I've ever heard on the show.
Just tell her you know. It's too important to play games.
Says the woman who was willing to palm off another man's child on her partner, and who had betrayed her best friend's trust in the bargain. Who played games then, Stacey? Because suddenly from all of his talk with Les about cleaving to loved ones, Kush wants to see Arthur again.
Here's something funny about Arthur. I came across the picture of the NuFowlers taken at Martin's and Stacey's wedding, with a decidedly Anglo Arthur being held by Stacey. Now, we see the baby playing Arthur as a bi-racial baby. Consider this: Kush is bi-racial. His mother is English, and his father is Iranian. Arthur would be three-quarters European and one-quarter Iranian. Boris Johnson is three-quarters Anglo and one quarter Turk, but doesn't look bi-racial at all. As Stacey said when she told Kush about the baby and how she was making sure that Martin continued to think the baby was his, that she had dark hair, Lily had dark hair, if the baby had dark hair (like Martin as well), no one would be any the wiser. With so many people speculating about how this child could, just as realistically - if not moreso, because many of us remember what happened after Kush and Stacey kissed that evening (she told him about Jade and he left) - be Martin's child, it seems that Lamb and Batten have petulantly stamped their feet and cast a baby that looks Asian - as in Oriental Asian. Actually, if they wanted to drive home a point, and EastEnders is so damned basic at the moment, they could have cast any one of a dozen kids of any ethnic shade and hue and popped a yellow post-it on his forehead proclaiming: This is Kush's baby.
Thinking Denise's child is his, Kush has gone all Panda-eyed on us again, wondering how Denise's child would affect Arthur and - he hesitates to say "us" meaning him and Stacey, and she utters yet another piece of nonsensical banality.
Kush, anytime there's a baby involved, there is an "us."
You see, Kush had been mulling all of this over after being lectured by Martin about not knowing the first thing about bringing up a child, which Stacey dismisses as nonsense and Martin getting all stressed about Shakil. Actually, she's still being disrespectful to Martin in this sense, because Martin is protecting Rebecca. He's got wind of what Shakil wants from this - i.e., to get laid before he's sixteen - and Martin is determined that Rebecca not fall into the same trap in which he and Sonia found themselves at the same age. If Stacey would stop and think, he'd probably be doing the same thing in ten years' time for her daughter, Lily, to whom he's given his surname. She'd be grateful enough for Martin reacting then.
And as for Kush and Stacey being an "us", there simply isn't such a notion. Kush was afforded the status of being a part of Arthur's life, and Martin was reluctantly agreeing to that, but Kush turned down this opportunity after being dressed down about his attitude by Tamwar. He admitted it - he wasn't father material; but now the prospect of Denise having a child gives him the chance to step up to the plate. I wonder how he'll react when he realises the child isn't his - not like Martin Fowler, I'll bet.
Stacey mentioned something that it seems everyone had forgotten - this day would have been Zaair's birthday. A year ago, Kush and Shabnam were deeply involved in the two-episode stillbirth tragedy, but even Masood isn't dwelling on this today, as he's up to his neck in salsa competition with an extra. Is he still planning on travelling the world?
This is going to be another deceptive baby storyline that needn't have been. I am serious - if this is the only way the show can justify Diane Parish's continued presence, by tying her to the Mitchells, then they should just let Denise flee to Spain with her little secret, if they aren't prepared to go a positive route with abortion.
I'm tired of EastEnders' babies. And Mitchell ones.
The Salsa Non-Story. What was this? And what was Kim's off-screen hissy fit about not coming? It's just another insult to viewers' intelligence to see the Hubbards, who were supposed to be this big, bad, scary family, reduced to Care Bears even after Claudetted admitted having killed her husband and Fatboy. Everyone involved in that confession - Vincent, Donna, and even Patrick - just shrug, smile and think Claudette is lovely-jubbly and deserves to be loved.
The salsa was supposed to be a lot of things for a lot of people - some sort of therapy for Denise, matchmaking for Patrick and Claudette, a way to ease Pam out of grief ... and it was nothing. Just like the episode and the programme at the moment.
Ne'mind ... next week is Mitchell Week.
Friday's episode was nothing to brag about. In fact, it carried on being nothing more than a boring Mitchellfest, navel-gazing, tired old storylines, and hypocrisy. It sucked.
The entire week sucked.
I can't tell anyone enough times that getting Ross Kemp back for even a limited period of time, when Letitia Dean and Steve McFadden were on board, could only mean drawing a line under Sharongate. Instead, we have the ultimate secret son fantasy - and it isn't ending there.
I seriously do not know how Sean O'Connor can repair this fiasco.
Emmerdale, on the other hand, is firing on all cylinders.
Mitchell Madness
We are about to enter Mitchell Week, and that's done with foreboding. Remember Get Jonnie Week. Eventually, Jonnie Allen died, and there was no more big bad wolf. Remember Branning Week, which introduced Derek Branning, who was supposed to be a serious challenge to Phil Mitchell's authority. He wasn't, and the Brannings today consist of two vacuous sisters who share a brain cell and Jack, as we eagerly await Max's return and his revenge on Ian Beale. The Mitchells have been expanding beyond all proportions at the moment, bursting at the seams. It's not enough to have one secret child in their midst; they're about to have two.
Familiarity breeds contempt. It turned the Brannings into contemptible pukeshites, and the Mitchells, for all their longevity, aren't exempt from this. I used to be the biggest Mitchell-shipper going, and guess what? I hate them now. I hate Phil, the shuffling, grunting, fatuous patriarch; I hate Sharon, the mahogany-skinned, I-phone-lugging, appeaser; and I hate everyone attached to them or orbiting within their satellite. As it seems that Treadwell-Collins, Lamb and Batten brought everyone within their sphere, I suppose that includes most of the cast.
The Mitchells: The Panic Within. Oh, my goodness! Courtney the Butch and the Transatlantic Tit spent the night together on the floor of the Community Centre. Supposedly, nothing happened and supposedly she puked down the front of his shirt. Surely Vincent, who's been reduced from serious Mitchell gangsta contender to background character fretting after his spangly wife Kim, and the extra accompanying him, would have smelled and gagged at the smell of stale vomit.
But, no ... this was just a titillator for the audience, for the dummies to inhale in awe and exclaim, OMIGOD, Mark and Courtney slept together. OMIGOD! They're brother and sistier!
At least, that's what Batten and Lamb thought would be the reaction.
Lamb: Now, just a suggestion, Sharon, just a wee suggestion ...
Batten: Oh, I know, Alex. They'll all think the worst will have happened, and the exciting thing is ... they'll never know!
Lamb(giggling): Oh, I know, darling. They'll never know, because you know, just all students get drunk, and just all students will lie to their family about what they got up to. But the important thing is that the viewers won't know. It'll leave them wondering. I mean, it's incest, darling! Who'd ever go there?
Batten: Well, there's Brookside ... They actually had Nat and Georgia Simpson sleeping together and they were -
Lamb: Oh, darling! That was Channel FOUR! And anyway, who remembers Brookside? Our's is much more au courant ... just a smidgeon of suggestion.
Batten: Oh, Alex, you're so clever.
Lamb: I know ... oh, and so are you, darling. So are you.
This threw the Mitchell homestead into pandemonium. They and Ian Beale are worried because neither the Transatlantic TIT nor Courtney the Butch came "home" the night before. Home? Now, I know TIT's been staying with Ian, but I thought Courtney had her own flat - or student digs or whatever. Since when did she start mooching around Phil's? I suppose quitting uni is now on the cards as well - because woe betide, anyone in Walford or even remotely connected to Walford getting a university degree?
And where is Grant? I mean, geographically. Because whilst Sharon was worried about the logistics of Courtney and Mark, the conversation around the breakfast table was all about Phil not acknowledging Jay, who arrived late for his breakfast and was totally blanked by Phil, when Jay thanked him for allowing him to stay. The inference was that Grant would "take Jay," but where, exactly is Grant?
Grant should be in Portugal. I mean, he was in Portugal when Peggy was ill and died. Then all of a sudden, he's lost everything in Portugal - the bar, the villa, just like that. In fact, he was crashing on the floor of Courtney's flat. If that's the case, then where is he now? More importantly, he was giving a home to Sam and her son. Well, her son (and Jack's) is now living with his father, but if Grant's not in Portugal and his villa there is no more, then where's Sam staying? She must be in that big black hole where Big Mo is residing. Or if Grant's local, I suppose he's hunkering down at Auntie Sal's.
Eventually, Courtney appears and tells her tale of the night before, to Roxy tittering that Courtney's spent the night with a "transatlantic fittie". You what? He's a stringbean with a pompadour and a totally unbelievable character. Courtney appropriates a bed in the Mitchelle house. She doesn't ask, she just informs them that she's taking a bed. I'm sorry, but who the fuck does she think she is? Family is one thing. I have close family in the US, people I love and who are close to my children, but we all ask if we need to spend a night or even have a couple of hours' kip. They don't run a hotel, and neither do Phil and Sharon. Ben asked Phil for his permission for Jay to stay, and this girl, whose never set foot in Walford before, who hasn't see Phil in years, simply walks in and appropriates a bed. That's not only rude, that's entitlement. She isn't even polite about it. And what was that she remarked when someone thought of approaching Grant to "take Jay"?
He won't even take me on.
This is Jesse O'Mahoney shit combined with Lamb and Batten's masterpiece. The idea that Grant Mitchell would abandon his daughter to nothing is as unbelievable as fairies at the bottom of a garden. Grant was such a doting father, he'd be tracking ever inch of Courtney's movements and seeing that she wanted for nothing.
The other cause of pandemonium in the house is Jay's presence, and Ben's insistence on Phil acknowledging it. Jay thanks Phil for allowing him to stay. Phil grunts. Phil grunts at most everything these days, but Ben's harping on Phil's bad manners.
Dad, Jay spoke to you ... He keeps repeating that again and again, the way you do to a small child who's been naughty and rude and to someone and whom you want to see acknowledge the error of his ways. The laughable thing was that Ben was fishing aggressively for an acknowledgement by Phil to Jay's thanks - good manners, in other words - and Courtney breezes in and appropriates a bed without ever asking permission.
At that point, the drama became all about Jay. Honestly, did Jay think Phil was taking him in out of the goodness of his heart? That everything had changed? Even Ben told him later at The Arches, that Phil only allowed Jay to stay at their house - Jay needing a fixed address as a sex offender or else, he'd risk going to prison - because Phil knew that was the only way Ben would stay, which is as good as admitting to Jay that Ben was using him as means to get what he wanted from Phil as much as it was Jay admitting that he was using Ben to get a roof over his head.
Actually, I do credit Jay with knowing about Phil's discomfort; after all, he's grateful just to be there, but Ben kept pushing the issue, so it couldn't be avoided, forcing Phil to acknowledge something, and in the end, it wasn't anything Ben expected.
Of course, Phil's uncomfortable with Jay around. Jay's been done for inappropriate conduct with a minor. And suddenly, he's gone from acknowledging that he was the stupid one for not asking Star's age, to whining that he didn't know her age, and that she - legally, a child - is the one who fomented all of this. Sorry, but that's the excuse the Catholic Church used to use back in the 60s, when priests were caught diddling. Always the child's fault, never the adult's.
Louise now castigates herself and says she can't look at Jay because of how she's ruined his life. Sorry, she - legally a child, although we know she looks ten years older than the age she's playing - comes onto him and he rejects her, telling her exactly that - that she's a child. Louise isn't to blame here. She made a move, and Jay saw her off, because he knew her age. He didn't know Star's age - didn't think to ask, in the months he was seeing her what she did for a living, how old she was, nothing. He just assumed. Take Louise out of the equation, and Phil might have gone to bat for Jay, but what killed it for Phil was seeing Louise, intimately stroke Jay's neck when he was revealed to have been associated with an underaged girl. Of course, that's not Jay's fault, and Jay was too distracted at the time to push her away; so Phil is left to think the worst.
The funny part about this is that Phil actually acknowledged the Mitchells as criminals, but that mixing with underaged kids was a part of the crime fraternity, with whom they refused to cohabitate. Oh, they'll harbour a murderer or two, but anyone classified as a full-on nonce is not part of their remit.
We got another "bruv" moment from Ben tonight, immediately after he'd given Les the brush-off on the phone about Paul's reading and before Les approached him with the lyrics to an Irish ballad, "The Parting Glass", for Ben to read. It seemed like then, and only then, did Ben actually remember Paul. But Jay's occupying all his thoughts now.
Sharon wasn't connecting at all with the Jay mess. I don't think she objected to him being there. During the breakfast, she was more concerned with what Courtney and Mark had achieved the night before, and Phil had clued into that, whilst Ben was labouring Jay's point. When Jay returned briefly to confront Sharon over her ignoring him, she gave him the ultimate put-down:-
Not everything is about you, Jay.
The weirdest thing about this entire episode was that the "kidnappers" actually came and knocked on Phil Mitchell's front door. Again, it was off-screen, because Phil was upstairs trying to rouse Courtney the Butch and being taunted by the superfluous Louise, when he's called below by the commotion. Louise wants to ring the police, but Courtney the Butch says no - she calls SuperDad.
Send. Him. Home. I thought Colin was going to feature in this episode. Instead, we got Dot meeting the TIT and deliberately bowing out of the salsa competition in order to play matchmaker for Patrick and Claudette, grinning and bobbing her head all the way. Because Ian's skint, he gets Sharon to buy a ticket back to Florida - courtesy of BreezyJet (gee, I thought cutprice Transatlantic travel went out with Freddie Laker) - but now after meeting Courtney, and talking to Dot, TIT - who'd previously been happy and well-adjusted in Florida - wants to exchange all of that for rainy, wet, miserable and expensive Walford.
Ummm ... did anyone think to tell him he'd have to repay his sports scholarship IN FULL if he fucks off like this? Just more debt for Michelle and Tim NoSurname to pay.
God, I hate this poseur, not only is he a bad actor (what else is new on EastEnders when it comes to young characters), his pompadour annoys me.
Just get rid of ... quickly. And he can take his sister-lover with him.
The Mitchells: The Rainbow Mitchell. Here's the Alex Lamb Shits'n Giggles moment: Denise honestly thought that this was Kush's baby. Now she's almost 20 weeks gone, it's still not too late for an abortion. Why is this never discussed in a doctor's surgery? She's single, approaching menopause, and she acknowledges that her grown children won't be pleased. My guess is that she went into that appointment, having had Kush reveal that he knew and that he would be there for her, but now she knows the baby is Phil's, it's still not too late to terminate the pregnancy.
Instead, I reckon she'll try to pass this child off as Kush's. This is laughable, when I remember that Kush supposedly slept with Stacey during the 24 hours he was split from Shabnam, in late May; and Stacey slept with Martin the first week in June - and she delivered a full-term baby on Christmas Eve. The earliest that kid would have been due was February. And full-term December meant she had to have slept with him in March. By all of that convoluted reckoning, Denise could easily pull off the deception.
I actually think they should push this as an abortion storyline, considering the appalling way Denise bullied Libby when she had her abortion.
The other part of this scenario was Kush - his conversation with Les about death (at which I thought he was going to mention the dead wife, who hasn't come up in a long while) and his subsequent conversation with Stacey, which resulted in the single biggest hypocritical remark I've ever heard on the show.
Just tell her you know. It's too important to play games.
Says the woman who was willing to palm off another man's child on her partner, and who had betrayed her best friend's trust in the bargain. Who played games then, Stacey? Because suddenly from all of his talk with Les about cleaving to loved ones, Kush wants to see Arthur again.
Here's something funny about Arthur. I came across the picture of the NuFowlers taken at Martin's and Stacey's wedding, with a decidedly Anglo Arthur being held by Stacey. Now, we see the baby playing Arthur as a bi-racial baby. Consider this: Kush is bi-racial. His mother is English, and his father is Iranian. Arthur would be three-quarters European and one-quarter Iranian. Boris Johnson is three-quarters Anglo and one quarter Turk, but doesn't look bi-racial at all. As Stacey said when she told Kush about the baby and how she was making sure that Martin continued to think the baby was his, that she had dark hair, Lily had dark hair, if the baby had dark hair (like Martin as well), no one would be any the wiser. With so many people speculating about how this child could, just as realistically - if not moreso, because many of us remember what happened after Kush and Stacey kissed that evening (she told him about Jade and he left) - be Martin's child, it seems that Lamb and Batten have petulantly stamped their feet and cast a baby that looks Asian - as in Oriental Asian. Actually, if they wanted to drive home a point, and EastEnders is so damned basic at the moment, they could have cast any one of a dozen kids of any ethnic shade and hue and popped a yellow post-it on his forehead proclaiming: This is Kush's baby.
Thinking Denise's child is his, Kush has gone all Panda-eyed on us again, wondering how Denise's child would affect Arthur and - he hesitates to say "us" meaning him and Stacey, and she utters yet another piece of nonsensical banality.
Kush, anytime there's a baby involved, there is an "us."
You see, Kush had been mulling all of this over after being lectured by Martin about not knowing the first thing about bringing up a child, which Stacey dismisses as nonsense and Martin getting all stressed about Shakil. Actually, she's still being disrespectful to Martin in this sense, because Martin is protecting Rebecca. He's got wind of what Shakil wants from this - i.e., to get laid before he's sixteen - and Martin is determined that Rebecca not fall into the same trap in which he and Sonia found themselves at the same age. If Stacey would stop and think, he'd probably be doing the same thing in ten years' time for her daughter, Lily, to whom he's given his surname. She'd be grateful enough for Martin reacting then.
And as for Kush and Stacey being an "us", there simply isn't such a notion. Kush was afforded the status of being a part of Arthur's life, and Martin was reluctantly agreeing to that, but Kush turned down this opportunity after being dressed down about his attitude by Tamwar. He admitted it - he wasn't father material; but now the prospect of Denise having a child gives him the chance to step up to the plate. I wonder how he'll react when he realises the child isn't his - not like Martin Fowler, I'll bet.
Stacey mentioned something that it seems everyone had forgotten - this day would have been Zaair's birthday. A year ago, Kush and Shabnam were deeply involved in the two-episode stillbirth tragedy, but even Masood isn't dwelling on this today, as he's up to his neck in salsa competition with an extra. Is he still planning on travelling the world?
This is going to be another deceptive baby storyline that needn't have been. I am serious - if this is the only way the show can justify Diane Parish's continued presence, by tying her to the Mitchells, then they should just let Denise flee to Spain with her little secret, if they aren't prepared to go a positive route with abortion.
I'm tired of EastEnders' babies. And Mitchell ones.
The Salsa Non-Story. What was this? And what was Kim's off-screen hissy fit about not coming? It's just another insult to viewers' intelligence to see the Hubbards, who were supposed to be this big, bad, scary family, reduced to Care Bears even after Claudetted admitted having killed her husband and Fatboy. Everyone involved in that confession - Vincent, Donna, and even Patrick - just shrug, smile and think Claudette is lovely-jubbly and deserves to be loved.
The salsa was supposed to be a lot of things for a lot of people - some sort of therapy for Denise, matchmaking for Patrick and Claudette, a way to ease Pam out of grief ... and it was nothing. Just like the episode and the programme at the moment.
Ne'mind ... next week is Mitchell Week.
Oh my lord, I am loving these scathing reviews!
ReplyDelete