That was a watchable episode, but it doesn't distract from the fact that the show is still shoddy. When the writing is good, the shoddiness in props and situations is obvious - like the tape disguising the logo on the back of Ronnie's laptop.
Tonight's show was an all-round exercise in misery, something for which EastEnders gets accused regularly, along with ritual overtly sexist male bonding, the emasculation and general disrespect of Billy Mitchell (reinforcing the notion that he, along with Roxy, are both the general runts in the Mitchell family), and the general pre-conceived notion of Ian Beale as a modern day Scrooge.
There were points in tonight's episode which could have been readily mistaken for an urban version of The Archers.
The End (Not Really). A couple of weeks ago, Phil rallied and put up the Christmas tree. Now after a bad night, he's feeling mightily sorry for himself and, in typical Mitchell fashion, throws a pity party strop and announces he wants to be on his own for Christmas. His words: He wants Sharon to clear the family out so he can be on his own to brood on what he's convinced will be his last Christmas.
Oh, the irony of it! Phil laments not receiving a liver in time to save his life, and his liver is sitting just across the Square, trying to get her wedding in order. Here's something else ironic - well, funny ha-ha, and wildly inaccurate.
Phil: I've grafted all me life to keep this family togevva.
Really, Phil? You grafted, all right. For yourself and maybe for Peggy, but all in all, you were really out for yourself. And grafting for the family around you now? You can't accept your son for what he is, and you barely know your daughter, whose real name is Fowler, not Mitchell. And you've done jack shit in treating Sharon like anything decent. That was a joke.
With Christmas on the horizon and a graveside chat on Christmas Eve with the EP's current go-to woman of the moment, the Virgin Mother Denise, who bears Phil's unknown blood Mitchell rainbow child, it seems to me that this is becoming more and more like some perverted rendering of Sean O'Connor's version of It's a Wonderful Life, when that pixie, little angel Denise gives Phil a reason to want to live again.
In the meantime, his behaviour is a curious amalgam of almost feeling guilty at the thought of dying, because the woman Louise cries every morning or because Ben's acting like a spoiled prat.
I kept hoping, throughout, that Sharon would broach a subject with Phil, that she spoke of once before - Angie and her death. Watching Phil worsen in wait for a liver must hurt her immensely. She's trying to keep him positive and to keep emotional pressure off the woman Louise, who's supposed to be fifteen years old and very emotional. At least, however, she did admit to Phil that she felt as though he were banning her.
I wish I could feel something for Phil in this instance, but I can't. He comes across as someone feeling awfully sorry for himself because he spent the bulk of his life drinking, and now there's a good possibility that he may be staring death in the face. Sharon did a good job in shoving his self-pity back in his face, telling him that if this is the way he'd want to spend his last Christmas, then Christmas would never be the same for any of them again, how he was thinking only of himself in his wallow of self-pity and of none of them.
I thought the Mitchell "family meeting" (from which Dennis seemed to be excluded) near the end seemed to resemble more of a board meeting than anything else, with the ubiquitous scene of Louise, looking twenty-five and sounding it with lines given her by Jesse O'Mahoney, one of the weakest writers on the show, lines that were written for a bona fide young adult instead of a precocious teenager.
It's funny. Apart from a few months spent with Phil as a toddler, after he kidnapped her, another few months as an 8 year-old until Peggy returned her to her mother, and this year, Louise doesn't really know Phil at all, and during this last stint, she's hardly known him a day when he wasn't either drunk or suffering. He's barely spoken to her or even treated her like a much-loved child, except to hand her money when she stuck her hand out.
And yet she has the audacity to accuse Sharon of giving in. Actually, sometimes when a person is dying and they accept their fate, you have to respect their wishes, which is what Sharon has decided to do - as Jay and Roxy have recognised. Yet I must admit that Sharon's emotional duff-duff scene was weird.
Losing yet another close relative to cirrhosis and liver failure due to drink must be utterly unbearable for Sharon, and we should see more of her distress and we should be made to understand more of her personal history in dealing with this.
Yet because of the inadequate writing surrounding this character, and because of the taint which still sticks with Phil and Sharon surrounding the Bobby conspiracy and the way Max was stitched up, I find it difficult to invest in this storyline - especially since we know that Phil is going to live, courtesy of Ronnie's death and because we also know that Phil will gain his true epiphany through the birth of his own Christ child - and I guess that makes Phil God.
The Emasculation of Billy Mitchell. And here we were, thinking that Billy Mitchell, as a character, had turned the corner. He's got a management position and fronts a well-established Walford enterprise, yet he's buying his daughter Christmas presents from the local pawn shop.
He proudly sports an invitation from the Council to an exclusive evening meet-and-greet, limited to properous and productive local businesses. He is now a man of substance, a VIP, courtesy of Les Coker, and - in Billy's mind - deserving of respect.
For far too long, he's been the runt of the Mitchell litter, and now that he has a company backing him, now that he, himself, can issue orders, he makes a declaration to that effect to Sharon when she wants to "borrow" the most entitled character (after Denise) on the programme - Jay.
Sharon basically hands Billy his arse on a platter, putting him in his place and reminding him to stay there, threatening him with bringing Honey into the equation in order to make his humiliation complete.
Billy Mitchell has no balls, and Jay, at the moment part and part of the Mitchell empire, isn't main character material - he's merely Mitchell chattel.
The Boys' Club. Jack and Mick have bonded already. The first time they met, they snogged each other. Tonight, Mick approaches Jack with a dilemma, and what a major problem it is.
He doesn't know what to get Linda for Christmas. Linda's pretty sad at the moment and can't get into the Christmas spirit. She's missing Nancy, who's in Japan, and she's dwelling on the recent robbery. Mick either wants a spiffing present or some sort of idea as to how to cheer her up. (Not karaoke, please!)
So he approaches Jack. Basically, because, apart from Vincent, he's the only male on the Square that's within Mick's social demographic.
Listening to Jack and Mick talk about their respective "missuses" was just one step further in the gross normalisation of Ronnie. If you didn't know better, you'd think that she was just another suburban Yummy Mummy, instead of a cold psychopathic killer. The pair sat talking - Mick's wife was a rape victim, Jack's partner killed two men in cold blood.
Their ultimate plan to get Linda in the Christmas spirit is to give Jack a stag party, which is just another way of cheering Linda up with a party, in a roundabout way.
Go figure.
The only thing I drew from this was just how sexist the two of them sounded in discussing their respective partners, in an almost objectifying way. I found this offending, especially since Mick's wife was a rape victim last year.
Mah SisTAH. So Roxy rocks up at Ronnie's first thing in the morning, wearing sunglasses against the dark and hung over. She's upset from Donna's suggestion that she allow Ronnie and Jack to adopt Amy, and Jack was bloody surly toward her. Neither of the two have even taken the time to understand why she's acting out the way she is; Ronnie can only lecture her.
Now she's chosen yet another psychological ploy - giving Roxy responsibility of helping to organise her wedding - specifically, booking the wedding venue and picking up the bridesmaids' dresses. Wanna bet somehow that Roxy fucks this up? Something will surely happen.
Jack treats Roxy like shit. Ronnie treats her like a naughty, recalcitrant child.
And at the end of the day, Roxy will die. I'm not sorry about Ronnie going. That's long overdue. But Roxy doesn't deserve this - or the increasing infantilisation of her character.
Scrooged. It's official. Stacey and Martin are the new Pauline and Arthur, but they're also the Walford Cratchits, and Ian is their personal Scrooge. Steven has to be the equivalent of Fred, the nephew. Ian's got more Christmas trees than he can flog, and he's pressurising Martin and Steven into selling them, even denying Martin time off the stall for an afternoon in order to see Lily's Nativity. Ian baits and switches. If he's asked for some sort of favour by Martin, Ian gives a curt negative and then disappears. Any other dirty work, and he sends a surrogate, like Steven, who reminds Martin that Ian never came to any of his or the twins' Nativities.
Curiously, I like Steven, and I never thought I would. He's being used by Ian as much as Martin, and I love the way Stacey ticked off Ian via Steven, who didn't really deserve her ire. Still, there was one way Ian could have been brought around to allowing Martin time off for Lily's play - through Jane.
At least we didn't have to suffer Denise.
Tonight's show was an all-round exercise in misery, something for which EastEnders gets accused regularly, along with ritual overtly sexist male bonding, the emasculation and general disrespect of Billy Mitchell (reinforcing the notion that he, along with Roxy, are both the general runts in the Mitchell family), and the general pre-conceived notion of Ian Beale as a modern day Scrooge.
There were points in tonight's episode which could have been readily mistaken for an urban version of The Archers.
The End (Not Really). A couple of weeks ago, Phil rallied and put up the Christmas tree. Now after a bad night, he's feeling mightily sorry for himself and, in typical Mitchell fashion, throws a pity party strop and announces he wants to be on his own for Christmas. His words: He wants Sharon to clear the family out so he can be on his own to brood on what he's convinced will be his last Christmas.
Oh, the irony of it! Phil laments not receiving a liver in time to save his life, and his liver is sitting just across the Square, trying to get her wedding in order. Here's something else ironic - well, funny ha-ha, and wildly inaccurate.
Phil: I've grafted all me life to keep this family togevva.
Really, Phil? You grafted, all right. For yourself and maybe for Peggy, but all in all, you were really out for yourself. And grafting for the family around you now? You can't accept your son for what he is, and you barely know your daughter, whose real name is Fowler, not Mitchell. And you've done jack shit in treating Sharon like anything decent. That was a joke.
With Christmas on the horizon and a graveside chat on Christmas Eve with the EP's current go-to woman of the moment, the Virgin Mother Denise, who bears Phil's unknown blood Mitchell rainbow child, it seems to me that this is becoming more and more like some perverted rendering of Sean O'Connor's version of It's a Wonderful Life, when that pixie, little angel Denise gives Phil a reason to want to live again.
In the meantime, his behaviour is a curious amalgam of almost feeling guilty at the thought of dying, because the woman Louise cries every morning or because Ben's acting like a spoiled prat.
I kept hoping, throughout, that Sharon would broach a subject with Phil, that she spoke of once before - Angie and her death. Watching Phil worsen in wait for a liver must hurt her immensely. She's trying to keep him positive and to keep emotional pressure off the woman Louise, who's supposed to be fifteen years old and very emotional. At least, however, she did admit to Phil that she felt as though he were banning her.
I wish I could feel something for Phil in this instance, but I can't. He comes across as someone feeling awfully sorry for himself because he spent the bulk of his life drinking, and now there's a good possibility that he may be staring death in the face. Sharon did a good job in shoving his self-pity back in his face, telling him that if this is the way he'd want to spend his last Christmas, then Christmas would never be the same for any of them again, how he was thinking only of himself in his wallow of self-pity and of none of them.
I thought the Mitchell "family meeting" (from which Dennis seemed to be excluded) near the end seemed to resemble more of a board meeting than anything else, with the ubiquitous scene of Louise, looking twenty-five and sounding it with lines given her by Jesse O'Mahoney, one of the weakest writers on the show, lines that were written for a bona fide young adult instead of a precocious teenager.
It's funny. Apart from a few months spent with Phil as a toddler, after he kidnapped her, another few months as an 8 year-old until Peggy returned her to her mother, and this year, Louise doesn't really know Phil at all, and during this last stint, she's hardly known him a day when he wasn't either drunk or suffering. He's barely spoken to her or even treated her like a much-loved child, except to hand her money when she stuck her hand out.
And yet she has the audacity to accuse Sharon of giving in. Actually, sometimes when a person is dying and they accept their fate, you have to respect their wishes, which is what Sharon has decided to do - as Jay and Roxy have recognised. Yet I must admit that Sharon's emotional duff-duff scene was weird.
Losing yet another close relative to cirrhosis and liver failure due to drink must be utterly unbearable for Sharon, and we should see more of her distress and we should be made to understand more of her personal history in dealing with this.
Yet because of the inadequate writing surrounding this character, and because of the taint which still sticks with Phil and Sharon surrounding the Bobby conspiracy and the way Max was stitched up, I find it difficult to invest in this storyline - especially since we know that Phil is going to live, courtesy of Ronnie's death and because we also know that Phil will gain his true epiphany through the birth of his own Christ child - and I guess that makes Phil God.
The Emasculation of Billy Mitchell. And here we were, thinking that Billy Mitchell, as a character, had turned the corner. He's got a management position and fronts a well-established Walford enterprise, yet he's buying his daughter Christmas presents from the local pawn shop.
He proudly sports an invitation from the Council to an exclusive evening meet-and-greet, limited to properous and productive local businesses. He is now a man of substance, a VIP, courtesy of Les Coker, and - in Billy's mind - deserving of respect.
For far too long, he's been the runt of the Mitchell litter, and now that he has a company backing him, now that he, himself, can issue orders, he makes a declaration to that effect to Sharon when she wants to "borrow" the most entitled character (after Denise) on the programme - Jay.
Sharon basically hands Billy his arse on a platter, putting him in his place and reminding him to stay there, threatening him with bringing Honey into the equation in order to make his humiliation complete.
Billy Mitchell has no balls, and Jay, at the moment part and part of the Mitchell empire, isn't main character material - he's merely Mitchell chattel.
The Boys' Club. Jack and Mick have bonded already. The first time they met, they snogged each other. Tonight, Mick approaches Jack with a dilemma, and what a major problem it is.
He doesn't know what to get Linda for Christmas. Linda's pretty sad at the moment and can't get into the Christmas spirit. She's missing Nancy, who's in Japan, and she's dwelling on the recent robbery. Mick either wants a spiffing present or some sort of idea as to how to cheer her up. (Not karaoke, please!)
So he approaches Jack. Basically, because, apart from Vincent, he's the only male on the Square that's within Mick's social demographic.
Listening to Jack and Mick talk about their respective "missuses" was just one step further in the gross normalisation of Ronnie. If you didn't know better, you'd think that she was just another suburban Yummy Mummy, instead of a cold psychopathic killer. The pair sat talking - Mick's wife was a rape victim, Jack's partner killed two men in cold blood.
Their ultimate plan to get Linda in the Christmas spirit is to give Jack a stag party, which is just another way of cheering Linda up with a party, in a roundabout way.
Go figure.
The only thing I drew from this was just how sexist the two of them sounded in discussing their respective partners, in an almost objectifying way. I found this offending, especially since Mick's wife was a rape victim last year.
Mah SisTAH. So Roxy rocks up at Ronnie's first thing in the morning, wearing sunglasses against the dark and hung over. She's upset from Donna's suggestion that she allow Ronnie and Jack to adopt Amy, and Jack was bloody surly toward her. Neither of the two have even taken the time to understand why she's acting out the way she is; Ronnie can only lecture her.
Now she's chosen yet another psychological ploy - giving Roxy responsibility of helping to organise her wedding - specifically, booking the wedding venue and picking up the bridesmaids' dresses. Wanna bet somehow that Roxy fucks this up? Something will surely happen.
Jack treats Roxy like shit. Ronnie treats her like a naughty, recalcitrant child.
And at the end of the day, Roxy will die. I'm not sorry about Ronnie going. That's long overdue. But Roxy doesn't deserve this - or the increasing infantilisation of her character.
Scrooged. It's official. Stacey and Martin are the new Pauline and Arthur, but they're also the Walford Cratchits, and Ian is their personal Scrooge. Steven has to be the equivalent of Fred, the nephew. Ian's got more Christmas trees than he can flog, and he's pressurising Martin and Steven into selling them, even denying Martin time off the stall for an afternoon in order to see Lily's Nativity. Ian baits and switches. If he's asked for some sort of favour by Martin, Ian gives a curt negative and then disappears. Any other dirty work, and he sends a surrogate, like Steven, who reminds Martin that Ian never came to any of his or the twins' Nativities.
Curiously, I like Steven, and I never thought I would. He's being used by Ian as much as Martin, and I love the way Stacey ticked off Ian via Steven, who didn't really deserve her ire. Still, there was one way Ian could have been brought around to allowing Martin time off for Lily's play - through Jane.
At least we didn't have to suffer Denise.
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