Guilt, Penance and Male Privilege - Review:- Friday 30.12.2016

This was a near-flawless episode. The acting was at the highest standard, yet for the last episode of the year, and the episode immediately preceeding the one where two major characters bow out, it was curiously muted and strange for what was supposed to be a cliffhanger.

Interesting concept to hinge an entire episode on the concept of guilt and penance, but it worked. It just left some questions hanging in the air - however, the foreshadowing went from overt to subtle at the episode's end, and we had a quiet re-introduction of one of the most fascinating characters in recent years, as well as the one of the most dismal ones.

Even more interestingly, it was an episode which dealt with the incipient crisis failing society today - white males facing the anticipated loss of their male privilege.

Mea Culpa: Lee. Lee's dilemma was the core emphasis of the episode, but at the end of the day, it was left like a dangling participle with nothing resolved.

As anticipate, he attempted suicide, before he was talked down by yet another named guest star, Sally Rogers, who gave him compassion, hope and a load of good, Northern common sense. A lot of the construction of this segment of the episode served as segues into other storylines (Phil's situation in hospital and Max's and Roxy's foray into the Market Traders' do), in the form of voice-overs which detailed the dilemma of other characters concerned.

Viewers anticipated that the Karen Beckwith character would prove instrumental in talking Lee out of attempting suicide and also would eventually get him to open up about what had driven him to this act. Also, as she spoke with him, it wasn't difficult to fathom, in her understanding, that she'd been at that same point at which he found himself at one time, and the final scene of her weeping alone in her office, with the picture of a young boy on her desk in the background, intimated that she'd lost a child, quite possibly to suicide or been driven to that point by that loss, herself.

Both she and Lee were poignantly eloquent in their discourse. It was important for her to stress to Lee that he wasn't alone at this moment, although he felt as such, that she was someone and she was there with him. She urged him to talk about what had driven him to this point. It's true, sometimes it's easier to elaborate your problems to a stranger who has no relation to you or your circumstances. Such people tend to listen objectively yet compassionately and to be less judgemental.

A lot of the voice-overs were juxtaposed with scenes of the people closest to Lee, illustrating the way he views them as opposed to the way he measures himself to their standards.

Interesting to note that he views Whitney as innocent and good, someone who always sees the best in people, when some viewers might take the opposite view. Yes, I know Whitney was a victim of childhood sexual abuse, but at the same time, like Kat was for years, she was one of the most entitled characters on the show, using her abused past as an excuse to behave badly with no repercussions. Bianca encouraged this, and for years we saw Whitney take up with some nice bloke (Todd, Peter Beale, Fatboy) only to bin them unceremoniously as soon as an edgy bad boy (Billie Jackson, Connor, Tyler Moon) came along - until one bad boy, Tyler, morphed into the ubiquitous dependable bloke and she fucked Joey Branning. (How she could even understand either of them is beyond my ken). We watched as she cadged money off Fatboy for an evening out with Lauren and Lucy, long after she was with Tyler.

She's stolen (the Millers' Lottery ticket), as a nursery nurse student, she presumed to lecture Jack Branning and Roxy Mitchell in public about their parenting skills, she was always second-guessing Bianca, especially taking it upon herself to tell Morgan about his birth father when Bianca had expressly asked her not to do so, and she got sucked into going on the game.

Lee idolises her, and waxed lyrical about how Whitney viewed him, and how now she was beginning to realise that he wasn't the man she idolised. 

(Love, she's always known this. She's known it since you had your first bout of depression. When she wasn't berating you to buck up your ideas, she was running a mile to snog your dad). She built that image of a superman in her mind, partly to reinforce your self-esteem positively, but mostly to help her deal with the image of Lee she could love.

He knows he can't live up to her expectations.

And, as I thought, the crux of Lee's problems lay with his parents, specifically Mick. To Lee, Mick and Linda are the perfect couple, who set the standard to which he and his siblings should aspire. His father is everyone's friend and confidante, on whose every word his mother hangs. He doesn't see and he hasn't seen how his father manipulates his mother, how he disguises passive-aggressive bullying to get what he wants, or how he sidelines her from time to time to favour his mother. It's not a perfect relationship by any means, but Lee sees it as such and strives to emulate them, knowing that he can never be as easy-going and accessible as his father.

Although he won't admit it, his sister saw the cracks in the Carter clan and got out. His younger brother is making a stab at independence through higher education and a professional degree. And here we come to the crux of Lee's problems, when he wishes he could be gay like Johnny ... because like a lot of white men, young and old, Brexiteers, Le Pen supporters and Trumpsters, they feel left behind. Their cultural identity is threatened.

Lee works in a call centre for minimum wage, as he so heart-renderingly put it ...

How can I tell my wife I'm worth so little?

Lee is a white, heterosexual male. His gay younger brother is moving onto professional success, eventually, as a solicitor. He's bested regularly at his work and bullied by a colleague who happens to be Afro-Caribbean. His boss is Asian British. Until recently, Lee would have been top of the pyramid, even with his stereotypical status in the predominantly white, male British Army, where he meant something.

Now he's low rung on the ladder, and this is the lament we heard from white working-class men from the North of England to the Rust Belt of America, these are the people who are exploited by the likes of Nigel Farage and Donald Trump, but tonight, Lee was in despair. He's doing everything right, or he's trying to do so, but he cannot be the sort of success, he said, in providing for his family, like his father or his grandfather. (I had to wonder about that, because whom did he mean as his grandfather? Stan or Buster? Stan was an alcoholic who lived in a council flat, and Buster spent most of his adult life in prison. Some successes).

I was concerned that Lee didn't mention the Army in all of this, because that's where he felt the most comfortable with his role clearly defined. If you recall, he was due to be deployed to Jordan, but Whitney kicked up such a stink at this prospect that he, instead, took a hitch in recruitment, where a lot of his self-esteem issues surfaced. Away from the Army, in close quarters with his confident father, his parents who believe their children can do no wrong, and a wife who worships at the altar of an idol, and he sees the real world moving foward and away from people whose ideas are rooted in the way life used to be fifty years ago.

And whilst he kept reiterating how he'd hurt his family and how he'd let his wife down, he didn't open up to Karen about what he'd actually done - helping organise a robbery of his father's business, dealing with financial pressures around him by amassing large debts, stealing, himself, from his parents' charity fund, and even stealing a neighbour's expensive Christmas gift and pawning it for money.

The woman left him with a telephone number of some sort of Samaritans'-like organisation if he felt he needed to talk, but Lee simply returned home to a penitent Whitney, who wasn't really pregnant at all, and who got increasingly worried throughout the evening when he was late and didn't return her calls.

Their segment ended with her telling him she loved him, whilst they embraced on their bed, and he crumpled the number in his hand - because no one in Walford ever needs counselling, do they? And he's no nearer making a full confessional to anyone about what he's done. Meanwhile, in the background, we hear a police siren.

Portents of things to come for Lee?

Simple Trust. All it takes for Stacey to revert to type is Max being around. She promises Martin that she'll say nothing to Max about Phil nobbling a juror, and then promptly tells him.

I object to Martin's avowal about Ian and Jane "going through so much" ... They haven't been through the half of it. I don't know what Martin knows about the background of all of this, or, indeed, what Walford know about it.

Max left Walford in the back of a police car, shouting the odds to all and sundry about Bobby being Lucy's killer. At the time, no one believed him, but ... hey ... very publically, the Square learned that, indeed, Bobby was Lucy's killer. More than that, I thought it was implied that the Square knew that Ian and Jane had known all along, or do most of the Square think that Ian and Jane only found out when Bobby attempted to brain Jane?

Did Ian and Jane even know that Phil had nobbled the juror to find Max guilty? Sharon didn't even know until the bent foreman showed up on the Mitchell doorstep cadging more money? That set in action an unforgettable chain of events, remember? Sharon kicked Phil out, Phil sought refuge in the portacabin and caught Ben and Paul rutting, then de-camped to the Arches where Gavin and his goons kidnapped him and turned him onto the bottle again.

Boy, time flies when you're having fun.

So, I don't see why Martin's worried that Max will gun (bad pun) for Ian and Jane by knowing that Phil nobbled the jury, unless he thinks Max will think Ian was behind this.

Be that as it may, Stacey spends most of the evening at the do eyeing Max and Roxy as they talk amongst themselves - and what a bloody waste! Jake Wood and Rita Simons work. They exude natural sexual chemistry, but again, this is Rita's penultimate episode, so we got a soupcon of what could have been but won't ever be.

And once again, we have Stacey taking it upon herself to interpose in something that isn't her business by breaking her promise to Martin and telling Max that Phil Mitchell nobbled the jury to find him guilty.

What, exactly, does she hope to achieve by that? It isn't enough to say "it wasn't right." No, it wasn't right for Phil to do what he did, but she doesn't know who Max will react to that news. As it is, knowing this, two of the three objects of his revenge are a paraplegic and a weak, ageing man recovering from a major organ transplant. Max needs to exact his revenge, but he doesn't need to go around smacking cripples and smothering transplant patients.

This is yet another example of Stacey opening her gob and expecting people to live by her standards, whilst she does what she bloody well pleases. It did look lairy to her husband that she couldn't keep her eyes off Max, huddled with Roxy at one end of the room. And where the hell does she get off telling Max he shouldn't be associating with Roxy. Why? Roxy's done nothing. As Max says, she's harmless. She didn't know a thing about what Phil had done, she rarely had anything to do with Phil. Is Stacey implying that all the Mitchells are tainted by what Phil does and has done? For the record, just to remind ourselves, Stacey's done worse - Archie Mitchell, anyone? Yep, that's right, Stacey, like her husband, has killed a Mitchell.

How many times has Stacey betrayed Martin now? The first time was the Big Lie about Arthur's paternity. Now he asks her not to disclose the fact that Phil nobbled the jury against Max, and she rushes to tell Max, because ... what could possibly go wrong?

And it all ends with Martin, ultimately, forgiving Stacey, because there's a rule somplace in the production office that Stacey Slater must always be exonerated from everything adverse, stupid and wrong that she does.

The Awful Truth. For me, the best scene of the night was Max's and Roxy's conversation at the Market Traders' do. Yet more evidence that Jake Wood's talent brings the best out of some of the less glittering talents on the show. Rita Simons, as much as I like her, is pretty mundane as an actress, but boy she matched Wood in that scene.

I also thought the two, as a potential couple, were well-paired and did have a sexual chemistry. Roxy is the type of girl to whom Max, on a good day, would be eminently attracted. He was attracted when she lured him once before, for mischief, but he chose to remain loyal to Tanya instead. But this is all useless speculation because by Monday, Roxy might be dead, and this is ostensibly the greatest couple that never happened.

Roxy can't believe Max has sworn off drink and the fags, and Max tells her that you can do anything if you put your mind to it. In another confessional, Roxy tells Max that Ronnie's adopting Amy, and they had a delightful bitching session about the suddenly morally righteous Jack and Ronnie, whose own pasts are anything but clean, when Max reminds Roxy that he and she are the misfits, the ones to whom mud sticks.

Later, Roxy's confidence is shattered when Lauren inadvertantly implies that Max didn't need to get involved with - and Roxy finishes the sentence for Lauren, referring to herself as a mess. 

As much as Lee's story has been about his self-esteem, Roxy's dying storyline has been about her family and society marginalising her and actually demonising her. When Donna queries her presence at the affair, Roxy, rightly reminds her that she's worked hard on the stall for most of the year, only getting sacked by Donna a couple of weeks previously. On the one hand, we have Lee feeling the loss of his white male privilege, and on the other, we've seen Roxy slut-shamed by two men who, themselves, had cheated on wives in their relationships, we've had her demonised as a bad parent by the worst of parents, Jack, who went years not even wanting to know his son. And now, she's deemed a mess, not even worthy of a seedy serial adulterer with a penchant for young girls.

She's on a downward spiral of drinks and cocaine, and we see her being picked up and "rescued" by the original Yummy Mummy, Glenda, and the doltish Danny, the precursor of Mark Fowler II.

Let's hope that those two twats don't ever have to share air time on this show.

Roxy's ending was a bit disconcerting. She's been marginalised by the mainstream Mitchells, and so her only recourse and haven in a storm is to call for help from the exiled Mitchells, the sidelined and shamed Mitchells, her mother and her half-brother.

Mea Culpa: Phil's Survivor's Guilt and Max the Martyr. This show was rife with soliloquies tonight, but they were given by good actors and they didn't sound like Public Service Announcements.

Sharon, who's still baby-talking Phil. and Ian visit the hospital, expressly to inform Phil that Max is back in Walford. During their visit, Phil gets a text from his unseen mate Tony's wife, telling him that Tony died that morning, which turns Phil reflective.

Immediately, he starts suffering from what appears to be a massive bout of survivor's guilt, questioning why he, who had twenty years on this man, got to live and Tony died. Sharon tried to tell him that Phil was the fitter of the two and inanely promising to send the widow flowers to let her know the mighty Mitchells were thinking of her. Phil got the line of the night from that.

He don't need flowers, he needed a liver.

Sharon asserts that Phil shouldn't feel guilty, because he's done nothing wrong. Cue Phil's turn to reflect on his life, admitting that he'd done plenty things wrong in his life, things of which he wasn't proud. Gee, I wonder what they were?

The car lot fire, emotionally manipulating Lisa, bullying Heather, getting Kevin Wicks to sell cut-and-shunts ... oh, and nobbling a jury to find Max Branning guilty. In one of the most contrived scenes, as Sharon and Ian left Phil, without telling him about Max, who should appear, ominously, at Phil's room window, but the man in question, himself, which sparked a huge scene between the show's two lions.

Max asks Phil what he'd ever done to Phil to engage his ire - and he also showed that he hadn't lost his wit, remarking that he was better looking, smarter and better dressed than Phil. Well, he did scam the Arches off Phil via Ben, and he did scam Peggy in insurance for his own graft; but he had a point. What had he ever done to Phil? Phil's Branning beef was more with Jack.

Phil, on the other hand, seems fully prepared to accept his fate - Max doesn't realise Phil's had an epiphany moment - and even invites Max to smother him with a pillow. In a great turnabout, Max gently strokes Phil's cheek and replaces the pillow ... forgiving him.

Revenge is easy, forgiveness is hard to do. Phil's left to reflect, whilst Max steps outside, as a passerby drops a half-finished cigarette to the ground. In a shocking turn of fate, Max picks it up. Expecting him to start smoking again, we see him raise his cuff, to reveal countless scars from what appears to be cigarette burns. He burns himself. So Max, self-immolates, and becomes a martyr. 

Is his revenge going to be forgiving his enemies to the point that they're driven mad?

Fascinating episode, and both McFadden and Wood delivered the goods.

Chickens Coming Home to Roost - Review:- 29.12.2016

There are bullies everywhere, and the episode tonight depicted a fair few. A lot of viewers gain inspiration from EastEnders, without even thinking that they do. Like there are seven shades of gay, there are seven shades of bully - some, like Trump, use positions of power to try to extend their sphere of threats and subtle intimidation.

But hold this thought, also like Trump, most bullies are divas, cowards and overgrown spoiled children.

Stacey's and Sharon's Collective Big Mouths. For the first time in ages, I thought Stacey was stupid tonight. Stupid, thoughtless and tactless.

Yes, I know she and Max have a past, and I'm the first to admit that ex-lovers can sometimes be very good friends, but I have to say it: Stacey began her relationship with Martin based on lies and deceit. She would happily have toodled on, talking to him like shit and allowing him to believe that Arthur was his son; but Stacey has a self-destruct button where she cannot help but let loose a secret to the very person from whom she should be keeping a secret.

She told Ryan about Lily the day Ryan returned from his honeymoon with Janine. He'd just got married, and now that marriage was going to be forever doomed, especially as Stacey was egged on by Kat to winch Ryan from Janine.

Stacey's not even thirty, and she's been responsible for the break-up of three marriages. Martin knows about her relationship with Max. He probably knows the circumstances about her relationship with Ryan - he certainly knows Janine, as his ex-wife was, at one time, a close friend of hers, and he grew up with her. He certainly knows now about how she deceived both him and Shabnam, who was supposed to be her best mate.

So, I can forgive Martin his suspicions, especially since Max always seems to make a beeline for Stacey.

There he is, hanging around Walford again today. I thought he had a job. Why isn't he trying to visit his daughters again, or Dot? Dot's at home.

And I could also forgive Martin taking umbrage at some of the things Stacey said, which were particularly tactless and unkind. She invited Max to the Market Traders' do that evening, when she had no right or call to do so, and she played stupid about it. When Martin pointed out that Max wasn't part of the market contingent and had no right to be there, Stacey replied that she wasn't on the market and she was going. She was too stupid to fathom that she was Martin's "plus one", his wife, his date for the evening. Her reply to that ...
Well, Max is my plus-one.

You what? She does understand that a person's "plus one" is their date for the evening or the event. So Stacey is Martin's date, and Max is Stacey's date.

No wonder Martin was pissed off. Any married person would be.

There will always be an element of suspicion on Martin's part, because Stacey and Max were that close. There's always an element of suspicion on most people's part, when their current partner and his/her ex prove to be extremely close friends.

And I was also Team Martin when he returned home to find Stacey and Max having a giggle in the kitchen - and that Stacey thought Martin would find it "hilarious" that their giggle was about Martin's sister "flirting" with Max. To begin with, what Michelle was doing was nothing like flirting. She was digging, sure, curious about the fact that Max, like she, was someone returning to a home they'd left, but I didn't perceive her flirting with him at all.

As well, Stacey blithely tells Martin that Max has been there most of the afternoon because, to Stacey that "made sense" since they were all going to this market do together. Why it made sense is anyone's guess, but that's Stacey being obtuse and ignorant and insensitive to the way Martin might perceive that.

On Christmas Day, when Stacey felt Sonia, through Skype, was interfering with her space, she slammed Rebecca's laptop shut and disconnected the call. If Sonia were hanging about Martin all hours of the day and night, having a giggle about one of the Slaters with him, she'd certainly have a thing or two to say about that.

Then we have the real fly that gets into the ointment. Sharon runs into Max and starts pfaffing about the Square in a lather about telling Phil he was back. The first person she encounters is Martin, who's having a whinge about Max and wondering why he's back.

Sharon doesn't need to say anything, and why is she worried about Phil finding out about Max? Max doesn't know diddly squat about what Phil Mitchell did, and Phil, sick or well, wouldn't give a rat's arse about Max being back in Walford, especially if Max didn't know about Phil's little charade, and he wouldn't care much more if he did know. Even more, Sharon, herself, wouldn't get herself all hot and bothered about Max being back - she's a seasoned pro. She's the adopted daughter of one hard man, the natural daughter of another and all her husbands have been dodgy to the extreme. She can keep a secret when it's mete to do so, and she would know that she and Phil would be best served by keeping their mouths shut. What Max didn't know wouldn't hurt him - or, more precisely, them.

This is plot-driven nonsense.

But no..... the first thing Sharon does is spill the beans about Phil nobbling that juror ... to Martin. Martin, who - unlike his wife - harbours no secrets from her. So whilst Sharon and Ian toddle off to the hospital to tell Phil - that was her second big worry, telling Phil that Max the Knife was back in town - Martin and Stacey have another discussion about Max, that was just as infuriating.

There were loads of reasons why I felt increasingly angry when watching this scene - 

First of all, when Martin brought up the fact that he was concerned about what Max's presence in the Square might mean for Ian and Jane, emphasising that they were his family, Stacey went off on a tangent about how they were the ones who'd sent an innocent man down. All well and true, and any viewer would admit that Ian and Jane were due some heavy duty karma from Max, and I'm one who's looking forward to that; but Stacey acted like some kind of high-arsed hypocrite in that scene.

For the past several months, she's been in and out of the Beale abode as if it were her second home. She's done Jane's hair, taken her out and about, socialised freely with the Beales - she even looks after their grandson; and she and Jane have had good old gossip sessions, even spending an afternoon baking Christmas cakes. She knew about the Beales' cover-up and what they'd done to Max. She knew, also, about Lauren's involvement, and that didn't impinge upon their friendship; but now, she's on her high horse about all of that.

Secondly, Martin isn't buying Max's sudden conversion to peace and light, even though Stacey has fallen for it hook, line and sinker. He's concerned Max isn't kicking off - and he even said he would kick off in his place - when Stacey comes out with an even bigger winner of a line ...

Well, maybe he's a bigger man than you.

Hello?????? This is the man you're supposed to love. A bigger man? This man stood by you after you told him one of the biggest lies imaginable. You led him to believe he'd gotten you pregnant. He looked after your children, got you into a mother-and-baby unit so you wouldn't be separated from your son, and put a roof over your head ... twice. Not many men zwould have given you the time of day, but you always had a knack for attracting decent sorts and shitting on them from a great height. Max a bigger man than Martin? A more interesting character, maybe, but a bigger man? A serial adulterer and a quasi-bigamist a bigger man than Martin Fowler?

And thirdly, because Martin makes the sublime mistake of telling Stacey about how Phil nobbled the juror to insure Max got sent down. Stacey is a moralist when it comes to everyone else's behaviour except her own. Ne'mind the fact that she high-arsed it out of Walford when her confession to killing Archie began to make the rounds and got into the hands of Janine Butcher. Ne'mind the fact that she expected Martin and Shabnam to forgive her slight indiscretion with Kush which resulted in a souvenir, she's now going to tell Max what Phil did, thinking that Phil Mitchell deserves retribution.

He does. I'm the first to say that, but think how much of a real avenger it's going to make Max look - picking his fights with a woman in a wheelchair, a weasel and a transplant patient recovering from major surgery.

Tick Tock. These are the last days of the Mitchell sisters, and whilst this storyline has given us some genuinely good moments - cf: the last scene in Tuesday's episode that they shared - it's also shown the potential to which Roxy could be developed, independently of Ronnie, if her character were allowed to remain - the friendship with Donna, for example; and tonight, a potential relationship with Max.

I know they've been there before, but Max was in a relationship with Tanya (for whom he'd abandoned Kirsty) and not free to pursue Roxy. But now Max is foot-loose and fancy-free, and after Janine, who isn't returning anytime soon, I would have liked to have seen Max with Roxy.

The storyline is plot-driven because it sought to alienate Roxy from her place as Amy's parent, marginalising her from her sister and creating the false idea that it was Roxy who was the clingy, needy sister, who destroyed every relationship Ronnie had, and not the other way around - Ronnie being the obsessive who mangled every relationship upon which Roxy embarked.

Still, it looks as though things have gone full circle. Already Ronnie's starting a marriage, again, with Jack with a secret, having asked Roxy to move with them to Ongar. And it seems that Ronnie's got another child in the bargain. Roxy waxed lyrical about how she'd done a search on the high street in Ongar and found several intersting bars, pubs and restaurants. So Roxy plans on spending her evenings as a bar fly, getting drunk and partying down with the locals. As she reminded Jack today after a particularly stupid session of babysitting, she is still Amy's mother.

Ronnie tried to urge her to act responsibly and make peace with Jack, who's acting like an all-around prick with both Roxy and Max, but Roxy couldn't even handle an 8 year-old and a 6 year-old. Her response when she freaked out and shouted at Ricky for messing with the bridal dress, was to shit herself at the thought he was going to tattle to Jack, instead rewarding them with Christmas chocolate, and falling asleep whilst they ate it all, and Ricky got sick.

Epic fail again,but at least she scored an invitation to the Market Traders' do as Max's "plus one." So let me get this straight -

Martin's date is Stacey, Stacey's date s Max and Max's date is Roxy.

Yeah.

Is That All There Is? This surely can't be the end of Lee? Leaving an apologetic two-word note on his car's dash and just walking off?

I also get it that Lee's not thinking straight. Actually, thinking about the Carters in general, and Lee, in particular, prior to the re-casting of Johnny, all of the Carter siblings and Linda were particularly childlike and who behaved and acted far younger than their actual ages.

Linda was like an overgrown child, a little girl playing house with her children as her very own playthings. Whenever she got upset or whenever Mick wanted to distract her, he threw a party, or had a karaoke. All of the kids acted at least a decade younger than they were.

Remember Nancy talking in that silly singsong voice like a twelve year-old? Before Johnny got a new head, he was literally wrapped in cotton wool by his mother.

Lee is the same. He went from the bosom of his mother's pervading care to the army, who told him what to do, how to do it and when to do it. Now, he's adrift in an adult's world, with a wife, rent to pay (for which Jack is hounding him), a job he hates and maybe another baby on the way.

I think a lot of Lee's problem is he's trying to base his life on his father's life, and he sees himself failing at that. Mick, himself, lived the life of an overgrown child playing house with his mother-in-law in charge as the adult in the room until he was almost forty. Lee is twenty-four.

His nemesis, Oz, has hit upon one of his deepest fears, and he articulated that fear tonight when Oz remarked that once Whitney found a "real man", Lee wouldn't see her for dust - which, actually, is true to a certain degree. Throughout the whole section dealing with Lee tonight, there were overshadowings of emasculation. The awful boss ended his assessment, which he passed, by telling him to "man up." As he left the building, one of his last images was of a body builder in an advert about real men, and then came Oz's remark - all of which emanated from the confrontation that morning with Whitney, when she accused him of acting like a child on the playground, trying to get his colleagues at work to like him.

I don't think Whitney loves Lee, but now she's thinking she's pregnant again, and this will tie her indelibly to a man she always thought was weak, or rather, she mistook the complexities of the factions attributing to his depression as weakness.

I dislike her. I feel sorry for Lee.

Sisters and Brothers - Review:- 27.12.2016

In my honest opinion, which doesn't count for much as far as the Millennials are concerned, this was the best episode of the week. It was laden with overshadowing, most of it overt, but Anna Karen is always a joy to watch, and I'm glad the show hasn't forgotten Auntie Sal, now that Peggy is kaput. And, of course, the best actor in the show is back, Jake Wood.

There were so many genuinely good elements to this episode ... and then it was spoiled from being a perfect ten by Denise's miserable mug stinking up the place, and her atrociously snobby daughter in the bargain.

Even Millennial Michelle was watchable, but only for all the standard stock reasons.

Let's begin with her.

Millennial Michelle Watch. If the fanbois are going to read this and piss their knickers, then I want to get it out of the way first. It's not bad, snowflakes, so just read what I say for comprehension, and then toddle off to your safe place and fume to yourselves.

Jenna Russell is a good actress, but she isn't Michelle, and the character, herself, isn't even Michelle. She's just another returning character with a secret - in other words, a bog-standard, common-and-garden soap character. Sure, she hangs out with Michelle, she even encourages her to wean Phil for a night and enjoy Ronnie's hen party - although how the hell Denny functioned upstairs with all that racket downstairs is beyond me. 

But then we got the little smidges of hints that something wasn't quite right in Millennial MIchelle's universe. First, she turned down a Tarot reading by Auntie Sal - funny that, it reminded me so much of Ethel and her tea leaves. She not only turned down the offer, when everyone else was participating out of fun, she flatly refused, after Sal, who admitted, herself, that she wasn't really trained in the reading of the cards, intoned as how the cards never lie.

Then she took herself off to sit and brood on the staircase, and when silly Tina came by, concerned about Millennial Michelle's longer than usual face, Michelle cryptically replied that she had far too many things going on in her own life now that precluded her from being the life and soul of the party, or words to that effect.

What?

Is she ill? Is there trouble afloat at home? Just what? Because Susan Tully's Michelle, apart from keeping really big secrets, like betraying Sharon's trust with her father and her ex-husband, was pretty open about airing her grievances. Yes, she'd have backed Sharon and interposed herself onto Sharon's situation with Phil and his health, but on the way to the hospital, or at least in the waiting room, she'd have come clean to Sharon as to the real reason she was in Walford.

And no mention of Pauline yet. She remembered Auntie Sal, however, and that was unusual - because by the time Peggy arrived, a woman whom Michelle casually hated, by the way, Michelle wasn't long leaving Walford, and I don't remember Sal having put in an appearance during the short time that Michelle's and Peggy's residences overlapped.

The Max Attack. It's not often that the show is graced with its best actor and its best actress. Tonight we were privileged to have Jake Wood and Linda Henry in attendance. 

Wood is easily, head and shoulders above the rest of the actors on the programme, and to whit, he even makes lesser actors, performing opposite him, look good. Scott Maslen tonight and Jacqueline Jossa are prime examples of two who raise their game when in scenes with him.

One thing stood out tonight - and that's that the person who knows Max better than anyone else is his brother. Everyone else is buying Max's contrition, his desire to move on and his forgiving nature, except Jack. Jack smells a rat, and he wants to know what Max is about; so suspicious is he that he forbids Max to attend his wedding.

Max spends most of the episode attempting to reconcile with his two daughters, and I am very suspicious of that. To begin with, that self-entitled, spoiled brat of a little piece of shit, Abi, actually has her head up her fat arse so far that she doesn't exactly remember things the way they occurred.

Lauren is thick,and she still doesn't understand why Max disowned her when he left Walford in the back of a police car, but Abi's recollection of events is skewed. (Sigh ...) I suppose Abi is like countless other Millennials, who make up their own facts to suit their purposes.

Here's a reminder - Abi remarks that she and Lauren forgave Max for everything. You what? Abi had long parted ways with Max before either he or she was accused of killing Lucy Beale. She left in a big stink well before Lauren left with Peter for New Zealand, and that was at the beginning of 2015. Prior to that, during that autumn, Abi had left in a jealous strop, and invited herself to move in with Ben.

Whilst Phil was languishing in prison, after having been set up by Nick Cotton, Abi had her feet firmly under the Mitchell table, and when Phil ensured that Max was utterly humiliated when he returned to Walford (for gypping Ben), the Mitchells bought Abi's loyalty with a new car - wonder what happened to that? Abi chose Ben over Max - just as Lauren ultimately acknowledged to Jane that she had chosen Peter over her father.

Max accused Lucy on the stand of killing Lucy Beale, not to get even with her for testifying against him, but because at the time, he genuinely believed that she did kill Lucy - although, I see that his remark tonight about everyone else knowing the truth about Lucy wasn't lost on Lauren, who really should be ashamed of herself. 

So they wrote him a letter, "forgiving" him. For what? Abi treated him like a piece of shit,and when Lauren came back, allegedly to clear his name, she did jack shit - one day she wanted his name cleared, the next day she wanted him imprisoned - and when she did get around to telling the truth, she ran slam-bang into a bent copper with a conflict of interest. Instead of shouting to the rafters, she stuck around long enough for Max to suss that she'd known who had killed Bobby for about a year and had said nothing.

They "forgave" Max? They both should be on their knees begging his forgiveness. Instead, Abi snipes demands and Lauren is living with the enemy.

I'm glad Dot was at home when Max called around. I was afraid she'd be out and about, but a scene between Wood and June Brown,when she's not in head-bobbing mode, is always watchable, because it's bound to touch upon Max's tetchy relationship with Jim. Max was never Dot's favourite - mainly because he wasn't Jim's favourite - but her talk with Max tonight was honest, forthright and encouraging. She acknowledged that Jim had made a pig's ear of bringing Max up, and that Max, himself, had never forgiven Jim for some of the things he'd done; but she assured him that Abi would come around eventually for Max. 

The irony of that situation is that Abi clung to the Mitchells in a relationship largely built on deceit on both her and Ben's part, and when the truth was out, the Mitchells slung her hook, and she was humiliated - just as they had humiliated Max.

I'm still waiting for Max to find out that Phil nobbled the jury against him, and it was interesting to note that Martin's ire is up about Stacey seeing Max. I'm Team Martin here. Stacey has form, and Martin is right to be annoyed.

The Magic Moment ... When Shirley and Sharon finally bury the hatchet and become frenemies. That was a smart, but obvious, piece of dialogue. You knew the moment Shirley said that Phil was lucky and Sharon deliberately misunderstood her remark, thinking she meant he was lucky to have got a liver, that Shirleys' rejoinder would be that Phil was lucky to have Sharon.

Letitia Dean has often stated that she;d like to see a Sharon-Shirley friendship, and at the moment, instead of dredging up Millennial Michelle, I'd like to see Sharon and Shirley become friends. 

The Criminal Mind. I thought Mick was more intelligent than that. He's an East End pub landlord, and in this day and age, you don't go putting it about to all and sundry - and, above all, a stranger who says he's a "friend" of Lee's, that you've over-ordered booze for New Year's Eve.

Of course, considering that Shirley and Tina had been dispatched to top up the depleting supply of booze at the hen party and they chose to pilfer from the Vic's cellar, either Mick isn't going to miss the booze or he'll think Shirley and Tina took it, and tell them they haven't paid enough for what was missing, and then he'll twig that something is missing.

I must admit I wondered why Whitney had suddenly decided to bury the hatchet and move on from her righteous ire with Lee from the night before, and at the end, we finally knew - she thinks she's pregnant again. This is really, the last thing Lee wants or needs, and once again, it wasn't an accident. Whitney used no precaution, and went right ahead and got up the duff - ne'mind they live in a bedsit they can ill afford, and Lee's makng mincemeat when he's not stealing or deceiving.

So, in Whitney's eyes, at least Lee can do something right.

And now he's being blackmailed by Oz, threatening to tell all to Mick because he has Lee, literally, over a barrel (pun intended). To watch Lee squirm when Oz showed up at the Vic, claiming to be a mate and then asking about Ollie and Whitney, was a picture. But at the end of the day, Whitney has forgotten all of the events of the previous day, because she's now got what she really wanted all along - a baby.

The Sisters. Above all, this episode was heavy with an emphasis on siblings. Not only was the focal point on the Mitchell sisters, who are about to bow out in a big way on New Year's Day, but we also had the tensions about their father being resolved with the Branning sisters, and we had light moments from the Carter sisters. We even had a brother act represented in Max and Jack.

But this episode belonged to the Blisters. Redolent with obvious overshadowing, this actually had the effect of making the viewer feel sad and anxious at the thought that this time next week, they'll be dead, actually dead.

From Ronnie's remark to Honey about this being her last wedding (literally) to the terrible Tarot cards chosen by Roxy - the Fool, the Devil and Death - to Sal's soliloquy about missing Peggy, the closeness of sisters and how difficult it is when the first of a pair dies, to the actual poignant last scene of Ronnie and Roxy huddled together on the sidewalk outside the Mitchell house, if you had no inkling of the fate about to befall them, you'd certainly realise from this episode that both are about to die.

Sal is a self-taught Taroist, or she would have been at pains to assure Roxy that the Death card doesn't necessarily mean death literally (although in this instance, we know that it does), but it can also mean the death of a relationship or it can signify a person moving from one aspect of their life to another.

 I know Ronnie's deserving of karma - she's been due leaving Walford in a box for a long time, and I abhorred the fact that this EP, whilst killing her off, also tried to normalise her as just another Yummy Mummy character settling down with Jack and three ready-made kids, when we all knew that she was a psychopath and a murderer. I also know that, until tonight, the tables were turned, and it was propagated, mostly by Jack, but reinforced also by Ronnie, that it was always Roxy who upturned and destroyed any and all relationships Ronnie had, when it was always the other way around. 

The instance of their first coming to Walford was due to Ronnie interfering in a relationship Roxy had of which she didn't approve. Ronnie never approved of any of Roxy's relationships. Tonight, however, we got a proper tip to the way the Mitchell dynamics actually were - with Roxy sussing that Honey had been dispatched to check on Roxy's preparations for the hen night and remarking that this was another example of Ronnie being a control freak; and finally, there was their heart-to-heart on the sidewalk outside the house, when Roxy expressed anxiety at the fact that Ronnie was moving to Ongar and leaving her, and Ronnie actually relented and asked her to move with them to Ongar - evidence that Roxy, the eternal child, was incapable of living without her sister to influence and to control her life. Ronnie's created the child-woman who won't grow up. 

Ronnie makes this decision without asking or consulting Jack, who - at the moment - has a pretty low opinion of Roxy (when he, himself, is no moral arbiter). She just assumes she'll be able to bring Jack around to the idea. Although Ronnie will be one of the Yummy Mummies of whom she plans to make light, she'll be a property developer's wife, but what will Roxy do? Well, pretty much of nothing except hang out and hope to find a man of substance and wealth, as you do.

But we know how all of this is going to end - the sisters will go out together, and I'm sure now that both of them will die. Ronnie deserves that fate, Roxy doesn't.

The Fly in the Ointment. Why is it every time Libby Fox pops back up on the show, I get the urge to reach through the screen and smack her smug face? I can't decide who is the most slappable at the moment - her or Abi Branning. Wait. They both are.

But more annoying than Libby at the moment is her putrid mother. A commentator on Walford Web put it aptly when she described Denise as doing nothing but walking around, rubbing her belly and with a face like a smacked bum. When she isn't looking shifty and miserable, she's being condescending and pedantic - cf: the remark she made to Kush at the Christmas Dinner about Pip and Estella, and when he didn't understand the reference to Great Expectations, she tutted sneeringly and remarked that he really should read more.

Bitch, shut up. You're just getting a flaming GCSE in literature. You can't even construct a sentence that's grammatically correct, and you wouldn't have such an interest in this course if you didn't fancy the teacher.

Denise has come off badly in this episode, as well as being eminently stupid. She hasn't told Libby that she's putting the baby up for adoption; she hasn't told Kim; and she hasn't told her mother - Emerald, sometimes Ada - that she's pregnant. (Please, God, no, they're adding to this abysmal dynamic).

It smacks of someone wanting attention - like all this secrecy, even though she's denying it , points to her eventually keeping the Holy Child, and all this avoidance of Phil will only mean that somehow he'll find out - so all this talk of moving on together between Phil and Sharon is just horseshit - because this is going to upset that apple cart.

I've long felt that Denise is a spent character, and she should have left with her two worthless daughters in 2010. But that's another unpopular opinion. Still, the show had to put in the ubiquitous Denise scene tonight, just to remind us that she's pregnant and near her time. It wasn't enough to show her sitting, slouched on the sofa with her belly up in the air, we had to have the lame remarks about back aches and the like. It spoiled an otherwise flawless episode.

Let the Games Begin - Review:- Boxing Day 2016

OK, he was back last night, but tonight was the episode for which we'd all been waiting - that moment when more than Stacey realises that Max the Knife is back in town.

This was a good episode, overall. Just some observations:-

Millennial Michelle Again. Listen, very carefully to what I'm going to say, because I can only say it here. Saying it anyplace else provokes patronising comments, tinged with ageism and misogyny. So, I'll be blunt: As a character, I like this person; but she isn't Michelle, not the way I remember her.

Yes, my entitled, patronising, precious, little Millennial snowflake, people do change in the course of twenty years, even five years. But not so significantly that they are unrecogniseable. For example, when Steven Beale left Walford early in 2008, he was gay. He reluctantly admitted to being gay and disclosed that this was the reason his birth father had turfed him out. Now, he's back in Walford and 100% het. No one's even mentioning bi-sexual. That's a significant change.

This new character, this Millennial Michelle, is going through all the motions real Michelle would have done - interposing herself into Sharon's life and affairs, for example, visiting her father's allotment (whilst not even mentioning her mother, Pauline's yet to get a look-in). The writers even threw in an Americanism tonight for authenticity, when Michelle asked for her "cell" as opposed to "mobile". They even had Michelle make a glaring grammar error in one line of dialogue, which is also consistent with the character. There you go - the only character in the programme to have a degree and to speak properly and correctly is Libby Fox; Michelle and Sonia can get all the education in the world and still talk like guttersnipes - yet the error came in a carefully modulated and well-spoken voise.

 But within the next sentence, they made an enormous boob.

After inviting Millennial Michelle to accompany her and Lily to the Boxing Day sales, and when Michelle demurred, Stacey asked what Michelle did on Boxing Day in the States. The proper answer should have been that there is no Boxing Day in the States, and the day after Christmas, most people are back at work, ne'mind that Christmas fell on a Sunday; and those who aren't at work and are lucky enough to have the day off, do exactly what Stacey and Lily were going to do - go to the sales, although I find it hard to believe a six year-old would be pining to go to the sales.

From her response, it sounds as if Millennial Michelle feels distinctly unappreciated at home, judging from her remark about nagging the various men in her household to get their lazy arses out of bed.

Look, take the fact that this character is supposed to be Michelle Fowler - and do we even know her surname? Why is she still Fowler if she's got a husband in the US? What does she do for a living that necessitates her extreme professionalism in continuing the use of her maiden name? - take the fact that this  is supposed to be Michelle out of the equation, and I actually like the actress and her portrayal.

I just find it difficult to be affected by someone so categorically different in appearance, mannerisms and diction to be such a seminal character as Michelle, and I think Sean O'Connor was wrong to re-cast.

I read the interview the reticent O'Connor gave recently in the wake of this character's re-birth. He justified his re-cast by pointing to the fact that James Bye had recently been re-cast as Martin.

Bollocks! Martin Fowler never had half the importance that Michelle Fowler bore. He was portrayed by at least three different actors until James Alexandrou took over at twelve. He never spoke before Alexandrou took the role, and then the character of Martin never made it to the forefront of the proceedings until a couple of years before the actor left. If O'Connor can justify the one by the other, maybe he doesn't fully understand or appreciate just how seminal the character of Michelle Fowler was and how much it was ingrained with the identity of the actress who portrayed her.

Since neither Patsy Palmer nor Charlie Brooks are returning anytime soon, if at all, perhaps he'd consider re-casting Bianca or Janine.

There'd be plenty said about that by the Millennials dominating the discussion on the show - a fact that the EP openly acknowledges, commenting that the writing now is aimed directly and especially for people who've watched the show since 2000. I suppose anything that happened before that is of no consequence.

And just a final word to the specious pedant who so painstakingly corrected my opinion ventured about how and why I found it difficult to accept Millennial Michelle - please read for comprehension. Michelle and Sharon had a unique, and apparently undying, friendship based on envy, jealousy and guilt. Each envied the other's circumstance. Sharon craved the normality of a family where a mother and father loved one another; Michelle wanted money and nice things and something better than the life she'd been dealt. I never implied that their friendship was a tissue of lies and deceit on Michelle's part. She dealt Sharon a nasty hand on two significant occasions in her life - she slept with Sharon's father and bore his child; she slept with Sharon's ex-husband and also bore his child. 

She didn't tell her of the first situation until she felt she had to do so, and never told her about the second - leaving Sharon, inadvertantly, to discover the other truth. All the rest of the time, Michelle remained excrutiatingly loyal to Sharon, without a shadow of a doubt; but anyone remarking on Sharon as being a doormat or a mug in regard to the Mitchells, she was always a mug when it came to Michelle. How many women, how many people would maintain a friendship with someone who'd done what Michelle had done to Sharon? Michelle is lucky Sharon is still her friend, which - I suppose - accounts for her almost divine sense of loyalty she feels toward Sharon, an obligation.

So please don't go to the trouble of trying to explain to me why I should think something the way you want it thought and try to tie my opinion in knots just because you think you're younger and smarter and that you understand the scope of the programme better than I. The more you do that, knowing what you do about me, the more you come across as pedantic, ageist and misogynistic.

As you so patronisingly told me one time, you're better than that. Only just, but better. Now, toddle off to sit on the Naughty Step.

Phil's Fava Bean Moment. New Year's Day is approaching, and whilst the Blisters are bowing out that day, both they and Steve McFadden are in pantomime, and the New Year's Day episode usually gives us an excuse as to why we won't see Phil until about March or thereabouts. He's got a new liver, and he's not yellow anymore. What could go wrong?

I have to say it. Sharon around Phil makes be squeeze by bumcheeks together in embarrassment. She is awful. She contributes to the infantilisation of Phil, by the way she baby-talks him, gazes at him with a look on her face that some women only reserve for their children, including the kisses on the forehead.

Sharon is either shrilling at Phil like a fishwife or she's talking to him as though he were two years old. She gives more intellectual credit to Dennis, and he's ten. That scene the day before Christmas Even when she told him to sling his hook and that she didn't care, was more of the original Sharon than I've seen in recent years.

But wait ... Sharon spoke the same way and in the same manner with Dennis Rickman, Denny's father. It used to be embarrassing, listening to her talk to a grown man as if he were a child. She spoke to long-haired Denny in much the same way, but once again, this is a Sharon as created by John Yorke - the simpering, moue-mouthed, man-dependent doormat. I don't remember her speaking this way with Grant - why babify Dennis and now Phil? Bloody hell, Phil's been babified enough through Peggy and every woman since Kathy with whom he's ever associated. Even now and up until this incident, everyone in the Mitchell household tiptoed on eggshells at the Court of King Phil.

I can't invest in this couple anymore, and I was once a big Mitchell fan and shipper of Sharon, simply because I know the shit will hit the fan once it becomes obvious that Denise is carrying the fated Blood Mitchell. So all the talk of them being OK as a couple for the future and even taking a holiday will come to nowt because there's inevitably trouble ahead, and I'm sure Millennial Michelle will be fighting Sharon's corner. She owes it to her.

Five Days and Counting. The Blisters' days are numbered. Five days until Ronnie weds and dies. Ironic that Roxy seems to have taken some sort of message from the state in which she saw Phil, after having spent two nights out drinking.

I absolutely loved Ronnie's line about Roxy being too old to continue partying like that. Bitch, you encouraged her childishness. She's two years off forty, is Roxy, and seriously venturing into Old Troutdom.

Fun and Games with Ian and Jane. What a welcome sight to see Jake Wood back again! And what a player Max is! Unless he's hired it, he's obviously earning enough money to afford a late model luxury car. This is where Ian's and Jane's real punishment starts.

Even Stacey is convinced that Max is different from when he departed before. It's no mean feat to fool Lauren, who could never understand why her father disowned her outright, and it was sublimely ironic to hear her humbly thanking the Beales for making her a part of their family.

Ian is as big a coward as Phil. His first instinct, when hearing that Max had returned, is to cut and run, but Jane believed Stacey when she told her that Max had changed, and Max put in such a virtuoso performance in convincing the Beales that he was back only to move on with his life, his quiet demeanor, his acceptance that the Beales did what they did to protect their child, his shaking of hands and offer of a drink blew all worry away from Ian's mind. 

This is the calm before the storm. I hope the revenge is worth it.

Lowlife Lee. We knew Lee had everything to do with the robbery, but by the end of that segment, I didn't know which way to look - and actually, that confusion was good. In fact, there was a moment when I actually felt sorry for Lee's confession that he told Osman what he did because he wanted those guys at work to like him. It sounded lost, insecure and vulnerable - not pathetic as Whitney proclaimed. 

This is the real Lee, the Lee who's masked his depression. He's never over this, and this encounter revealed, I think, what Whitney genuinely thinks of the real Lee, the Lee laid bare. It's what she was thinking of him after her miscarriage, not wanting to tread carefully around him, not wanting to see him cry. She built up an impossible image and fell in love with it, someone who was going to love and protect her and show that love and protection by buying/renting her an expensive home and buying her expensive items. Lee was fixated on the diamond necklace he'd bought her with the proceeds from selling that stolen item as a quiet affirmation of why he'd done what he did. He told Mick as much, figuratively when they had their conversation on the roof a few days back - that he's fearing letting Whitney down. Mick thinks she's easy to please and would understand, but Lee knows Whitney confuses material bling and sex with love.

He'll leave Walford in the back of a police car for prison.

The Return of the Native - Review:- Christmas Day 2016

This was a good Christmas episode. Was it the best? No, not by a long shot, and we had the expected and long-awaited non-surprise by the end of the episode. It was a Daran Little episode, which is usually good value for money, but in the general scheme of things, again, Little has done better. So it was a middle-of-the-road Little-esque episode, with a glaring historical retcon and a blatant, and somewhat tasteless rip-off from Are You Being Served? 

This was a strange Christmas episode, veering within seconds from excessive worry (someone awaiting a liver transplant and a family awaiting to hear about a parent who'd had a stroke) to corny, festive Christmas cheer. Interesting composition, some subtle nuancing, but some of the episode was, however, off-kilter.

Still, it made for a good watch in a year when all three of the soaps had underwhelming Christmases.

What I found interesting about this episode was that it was really a series of subtle character studies, with the actual action of storylines taking a back seat temporarily.

Bring on the New Year.

Millennial Michelle and Kathy the Lush. I'm sorry, but the only way I can deal with this sharp-featured imposter is by calling her Millennial Michelle, because that's what she is. She's Michelle Fowler for the Millennials, because that seems to be EastEnders' targeted audience. They've never known the original, the real Michelle from the 80s and 90s, so this woman will always be their Michelle, but it doesn't mean she's the real deal.

The actress is too posh, her physical featured too refined and up-market for the acne-scarred, blunt-featured, little Cockney flower the real Michelle was. And the size ... Susan Tully was a runner at one time, and I actually saw her participate in a half-marathon. She's tiny in stature, but this woman towers above Sharon, who was wearing heels at the time.

Oh, they're trying with her, TPTB. They have her say things that Michelle would say and do the things Michelle would do - like hopping into the black cab on the spur of the moment to accompany Sharon to the hospital with Phil, insisting on going; but the important thing that's missing in all of this is simply the fact that this isn't Sue Tully.

As yet, there's not the easy and natural chemistry that existed between Tully and Letitia Dean, the camaraderie tinged with the ever-present tension, caused by the jealousy and guilt which served as the basis for this most famous of female soap friendships. To me, all of those scenes she shared with Sharon were just Sharon talking with some strange woman who'd just arrived in Walford.

But there was something else as well that didn't work.

Sometime during the scene where Ian, Martin and Stacey were grappling with the mysterious turkey delivery, Michelle slipped away to the allotments. We watched her peering through the grimy windows of what was once Arthur's shed, saw her kneeling on the ground of what was once Arthur's allotment, grasping a handful of dirt, and dramatically uttering the words ...

I'm back, Dad.

That should have been a scene of great emotion and poignancy, but it wasn't, simply because Sue Tully didn't say the line. I get it. What should have been emotive and poignant only served to re-inforce to the viewers that this was Arthur's daughter. It was affirmation for the Millennials who have claimed this character as one of their own, and it was a thumb to the nose for anyone who watched during the 80s and 90s, literally bidding us to acknowledge this actress as the character they want her to be, but, I'm sorry, it's without substance.

But there was something extremely important that this character has missed altogether: There hasn't been one single reference made by her to her mother. Not a word about Pauline, and the Michelle-Pauline dynamic was the lychpin of EastEnders for the decade Susan Tully spent on the show. 

Michelle was Pauline's only daughter. There was an immense and deep love between the two, but there was also underlying conflict as well. From the moment Michelle elected to keep her child as a teenaged mother, she and Pauline were locking horns about what Pauline thought about Michelle's life and what Michelle actually wanted. There was a deep vein of selfishness which coursed through Michelle and not a small bit of entitlement as well. She was ambitious, and she didn't want the sort of life her mother had; at the same time, she often ploughed, head-first, into and out of relationships with no thought for any of the people she might have hurt along the way.

It was the stuff of which Lou addressed in the very last words she spoke to Michelle before she died ...

There's been no word thus far about Pauline made by Millennial Michelle, and that's as glaring an error as Kathy being back for almost two years now, and never once mentioning the name of her best mate, Pat. Yes, we know that Michelle was busy having a baby when Arthur died, but she had no real excuse for being absent for her mother's funeral, and you would have thought that, by now, one of her first thoughts and remarks to her brother would have been something about Pauline.

Most of what Michelle did was all about Michelle, and nowhere was this more obvious than in the complex and complicated friendship she had with Sharon. For anyone who thinks of Sharon as a doormat or a sop, this began with the friendship she shared with Michelle, a woman who'd slept with and got pregnant by both Sharon's father and her ex-husband. Not many people would tolerate that in their lives, but Sharon is right there, once again, leaning on Michelle.

When Millennial Michelle and Sharon were sitting in the waiting room at the hospital, Millennial Michelle remarked that she didn't think Phil was as bad as he was, but surely Sharon had been giving her telephoned updates, especially in all of those clandestine phone calls made at what would have been ungodly hours in Florida, and surely Michelle would have known, if not seen, what Sharon had to suffer as Angie was dying from the same ailment that's killing Phil. Evidence again of the infamous Michelle selishness, but instead we got a cryptic remark when Sharon asked why she had returned - and plenty of speculation, even from insipid Rebecca, but Millennial Michelle deflected the question back to Sharon - something Michelle Fowler would never have done; she'd have told Sharon exactly why she chose to decamp from Florida on Christmas Day, leaving her husband and son to stew in their juices. Add to that, the phonecall from the Transatlantic Twit she received and rejected, and this character becomes the stock-and-trade ubiquitous returning soap character with a new head and a secret. Just like everyone else, and Michelle Fowler was never that.

Then, we have Kathy the incipient lush. Kathy started drinking Buck's Fizz at 7 o'clock in the morning, knocking it back with one hand, whilst offering a glass to Ian with the other; and when he refused, she drank that as well. And again. And again. 

By mid-morning, she'd moved onto the wine, literally staggering about the Beale front room, wineglass in one hand, bottle in the other, slurring her words and passing judgement about any and all manner of things - Ian's choice of cooking Beef Wellington instead of turkey, and serving canapés which didn't include sausages on a stick, which Kathy couldn't stop whining about. I don't even think it registered with her when Jane reluctantly told her that the sausages on sticks were Bobby's favourite and that turkey was his favourite meal. They had wanted to visit Bobby this Christmas, but he had taken them off his visitor's list, and this was Ian's way of coping with it.

Kathy took two seconds to digest this fact, before moving on to drink some more, banging on and on about how Pete loved Brussels sprouts and Morecombe and Wise, how Ian couldn't wait to finish opening his presents in order to get to Lou's house to begin his Christmas proper. 

She was well lit by the time Ben showed up - the irony of that. He'd escaped the Mitchell house, where, as he said, he couldn't cope with Phil and Sharon pretending everything was normal, only to come have dinner at a house where his own mother was three sheets to the wind and had been drinking since daybreak. Constantly. One after the other. 

Think about it. Last Christmas we had to cope with drunken Phil at the dinner table, cracking jokes full of hurtful home truths, and this year we had drunken Kathy, swaggering about in full voice, doing a bad impersonation of Lou criticising Ian's culinary skills, dancing about and bellowing out "Give Me Sunshine", when she wasn't droning on and on and on about the way thinks used to be. 

This is the second time we've seen Kathy drunk - not just drunk, but loud and dominating drunk, and each time she's in her cups, she comes out with some trash remark about Lou. I know she had her difficulties with Lou (see the clip above), but this constant drunkenness under some circumstances is pretty out of character for her. It's one thing to begin Christmas day with a Buck's Fizz, it's another to guzzle the entire day through.

The other inconsistency with her character came when Ben received word that the hospital had a possible liver for Phil, and there was no concern from Kathy about how maybe Ben might have wanted to go to the hospital, no insistence that he go, or even go home to wait with his sister. Nothing. Because she was too much up her own arse and pissed to have this register. OK, Kathy is no longer Phil's wife, but she is Ben's mum, and she would have a natural concern about the dangerous medical procedure Phil was about to undergo, for Ben's sake if nothing else, but she didn't. She just drank and drank. She was drunk at Ian's in the morning, drunk at Ian's in the afternoon and even drunker at the Vic in the evening. 

The one thing she did happen to notice was the posh present of a Christmas pudding that was delivered to Ian's door. That and Morecombe and Wise.

Anyway, those are my opinions and impressions of that part of the episode. Opinions, not fact, and something to which I'm entitled to express. Bite me.

Wrong Sharon, Wrong Phil, Wrong Memory. Sharon and Phil haven't been right since John Yorke put the boot in on both their characters.

The episode began with Phil, having slept all night in his recliner, awaking at 5 AM to find Sharon, sweet and smiling, and stuffing stockings, and wearing the Eternity ring he'd given her. Except that the night before, she'd been righteously pissed off at his sudden decision to return to the family bosom.

We know Sharon's on edge about Phil and his condition because we saw her drop the parsnips all over the floor.

But it was the hospital scenes which had me groaning about Sharon, or this Sharon that she'd become, as well as Phil. 

Sick Phil isn't so vastly different from drunk Phil, except he's not as funny. McFadden has grunted, huffed, groaned and shuffled about. The one moment of genuine humour came when Phil fell asleep amongst the usual family pandemonium of present-opening on Christmas Day, with Louise even recording a video of him asleep in his recliner, only for Billy to make the mistake of thinking Phil was dead and to rush into the kitchen to inform Sharon, only to be confronted by Phil, who'd awoken from his slumber.

As Honey remarked, some undertaker.

I couldn't invest in the hospital scenes, firstly, because of that awful chapel scene, with Sharon bargaining with a God in Whom she scarcely believes, telling the Almighty that she was "nothing without Phil."

What? Sharon, nothing without Phil Mitchell? Sorry, but this is Sharon without Phil Mitchell ...

This is the real Sharon (along with the real Michelle, I might add) - gutsy, flash, confident, and above all, able to walk away from whatever it was that either Phil or Grant Mitchell offered her. And, by the way, at the end of this day in question, she'd left Grant crying.

But there she sat in the hospital waiting room, whining on and onto Michelle, spinning some yarn about how she had pursued Phil, whilst married to Grant, how it was she who was the instigator, having been mistreated by Grant.

NO! Lies, lies, lies, lies, lies! Look at the clip. It contains that famous reference by Sharon to Phil of the abject lie Phil told Grant in the wake of Sharongate - that Sharon was the instigator, that Sharon seduced Phil. 

We all know the truth about that. Sharon was married to Grant, abused by him, and vulnerable. We'd known for awhile that Phil was secretly harbouring feelings for her, but it wasn't until Grant was in prison, that this situation was addressed, and Phil made the first move.

I guess Sharon's bought Phil's version of their affair at last, and all Millennial Michelle could do was mutter in her posh accent that Phil had led Sharon a dog's life, that was to be sure.

The last thing Phil says to Sharon as he's wheeled off to get his new liver is that he loves her and that they would be all right. Well, no, they won't be; because sooner, rather than later, the shit will hit the fan about Denise's baby, and they simply won't be "all right."

Because, yet again, Sharon will have been betrayed; yet the way the show has increasingly made a mug of her, she'll probably become Denise's BFF and play nanny to the Blood Mitchell.

Jay and Ben: The Bromace is Over. Well, at least we don't get that awful "bruv" dialogue and the awful "You're Jay Mitchell" reminders.

The irony now is that surrogate son, Jay, is clinging to the Mitchells and showing loyalty to Phil for finally standing up for him to the police. It's Christmas Day, but once Christmas is over, there's still the small matter of Jay living under the same roof as underaged Louise.

Ben boycotts the Mitchell dinner, in order to spend Christmas Day with his drunken mother and his brother-in-law, who hid a murderer for more than a year. Instead, it's Jay who sits at the Mitchell table and who calls Ben's actions out of order, and it's Jay, who remains at home, whils Sharon and Phil rush to the hospital, staying with Louise and Ben.

Ben, meanwhile, moseys on over to the Vic with everyone else when a power cut means the whole of Walford have to use the Vic's kitchens, and is standing at the bar, when Shirley - Shirley! - interposes herself in the situation and rips him a new one for absconding his responsibilities. Shirley "just happens" to text Jay and so she tells Ben that Jay's at home, doing what Ben should be doing, supporting his sister and his young stepbrother. 

That's enough to make Ben return to the fold, and all the while, his mother was stood behind him, drink in hand, drunk. Since drunk Phil and Phil's illness has made such an impact on him, you'd think he'd be ticking Kathy off about her behaviour. Instead, he tucks his tail between his legs and trots home, obviously bothered about the fact that Jay's assuming his responsibilities. Under this producer, Jay's and Ben's relationship has been one of competitive loggerheads, instead of Ben's reinforcing of Jay's entitlement.

I liked the scene with the four of them sat around the Mitchell kitchen table, playing cards as they waited for word from Phil, only to take the initiative to go to the hospital to wait, laden with sandwiches and drink for Sharon.

Excuses for Dot and Dot as an Excuse & Derek the Luxury Character. Here's another opinion I'm about to venture that will probably prove unpopular with the majority. I looked forward to the return of Derek, especially since Martin was back on the Square and the two had formed a close paternal-filial relationship. Instead, we've got scant interaction between Derek and Martin, with Derek interacting and forming a strong friendship with Patrick.

Nothing wrong with that. There are few too many older characters on the show, of Patrick's demographic, and Patrick could do with a close friend of Jim's ilk. However, it seems that this is yet another ploy to move the latest star of the show, Denise, front and centre. Not only did she spend most of the episode yesterday with her nose in a book, which is rude, because Derek was a guest, albeit one to whom she didn't extend the spirit of Christmas compassion, she and Libby the Pill suddenly decided that Derek had a crush on Patrick and spent a lot of time giggling about it behind Patrick's back, even warning him of this possibility, so that when Derek attempts to return the courtesy of Patrick's invitation, Patrick uses the excuse of him being extremely close to Dot and wanting to bring her along, as a subtle indication to Derek that Patrick is 100% het.

Considering the fact that Daran Little, himself, is a gay man, I found this storyline offensive, if not more than a little cruel. Derek was a man, alone, at Christmas. His children were elsewhere. Patrick, who'd developed a rapport with him this time around, invited him for Christmas lunch, because who wants to see someone alone at Christmas? Denise gurned, she huffed, she turned up her nose and generally acted like a prize twit throughout. Then during the communal Vic dinner, she turns to Kush and remarks that the Derek-Patrick situation is a bit "like Pip and Estella" - and Kush doesn't have the foggiest notion of what she's talking about. 

Her reply is to tell him he really should read more. Really, Denise? This time two months previous, you wouldn't have the slightest idea who Pip and Estella were, and all you're doing is showing what an arrogant twit you are. Yes, we know you're getting your GCSE in Literature, but before you go lecturing people on what they've missed out in reading, learn to speak properly first and use good grammar. The standards must be low in your evening class if you're at the top of it. Bitch.

It isn't until the drunken trek to the Vic that Patrick suddenly remembers that Dot is sat in her house all alone and that he neglected to visit her the previous day. Dot takes this opportunity to put him firmly in his place by revealing that she wasn't alone at all, that she had adopted the stray cat which had been hanging around her door, because when humans often let people down, animals don't; and I was pleased to see her reiterated people's neglect when Patrick brought her to the Vic, especially to Jane, who tried to make her excuses about why she didn't come see her, but reminded her that they had a lovely retirement gift for her at home, to which Dot replied that if the gift really were that lovely, then Jane would have made an effort to come.

Dot doesn't mince words, and the retirement gift turned out to be a washing machine, to which everyone on the Square had probably contributed at least a pound to buy. Not much, really, for fifty years of service.

All in all, this was a sad segment, because we saw how much people take the elderly for granted and assume that they'll always be around on the one hand, and on the other it was a sad state of affairs that two pretentious idiots, like Denise and po-faced Libby, take the plight of a lonely gay man on his own at Christmas and turn it into some unrequited fancy with which to bait Patrick, who should have deflected their banter, but who, instead, used it to enhance his fear of Derek's intentions rather than accepting that the man was lonely and in need of friendship.

And It's (Almost) Good-bye to Her and (Almost) Good-bye to Him: The Carters. Babe is human. She didn't try to sabotage or poison the Christmas dinner Whitney cooked for the family. She was critical, but only in the way a good cook is about a novice. She also showed Mick Linda's special present, the oversized jumper she'd knitted herself. The character, who's spent the best part of this year being a cartoon, could have been so much more - never a major player, mind you, but a stock, dependable background character who loved her family.

I doubt this is the last we'll see of Linda, since I assume she'll have to return home at some point to pick up Ollie, unless she leaves him with Mick. But I gather her departure will be to care for Elaine in Spain.

The Carters were used best in this episode as what they were - landlords and keepers of the pub, who extended their hospitality and the use of their kitchens to the local yokels when a power cut threatened to ruin Christmas Day.

We also got a glimpse of Lee's potential end. I'd thought, when the robbery took place, that he'd be rumbled and arrested. Of course, he's done much more as well - possibly burgling Billy's flat and then handling and selling stolen goods, because the moment he took possession of his neighbour's order, it became stolen goods, and Lee's done a major crime there.

I expect Lee's exit from Walford will be to serve a prison sentence, at the end of which he'll return with a new head.

The scene in the Vic as well set up the situation where Stacey had to return home to pick up a camera to record the massive event, whereupon she runs into the return we'd all anticipated - Max.

As well, we saw the continued isolation and despair of Roxy Mitchell, caught by Jack returning home from a massive night out, barefoot and creeping down the street. Amy is now frightened of her mother, and when Roxy tried to engage her and to give her her present, Jack roughly removed the child from her presence - in short, he acted like a prat, returning home for the happy Christmas with Ronnie, which will prove to be their last.

Good episode. Like I said, not the best, but good.