Like a lot of people, I've got a housefull of relatives at the moment. It's the first time in a good few years all that all three of my children, plus the son-in-law plus the two grandkids have been under one roof, so I'm savouring that for a moment.
So it wasn't until a quiet time today, after the heavy meal when everyone is out of it or just out (a toddler and a young baby still suffering the after-effects of a long plane journey) that I get time to watch last night's episode and cogitate some thoughts.
First of all, I'm harsh on EastEnders at the moment, so my ratings are probably down compared to the fanboi experts who patronise me and use my very opinion as an excuse to exercise their misogyny. There are so many things wrong with the show yet, dating from John Yorke's involvement that whatever Sean O'Connor is trying to rectify, somehow, just isn't working.
Anyway, here are my honest thoughts on the show, which saw the end of one era, the cack-handed beginning of another and a lot of reference to the past. I can be honest here, elsewhere I get ridiculed and remonstrated.
Millennial Michelle. That's what I call Sean' O'Connor's Christmas Surprise, and it stinks. In fact, it stinks worse than Dot's fish paste sandwiches. You can't get Susan Tully to reprise her role as one of the most iconic and seminal characters in the show's history so - wham, bam, thank-you-ma'am - you re-cast the character.
As you do.
It's not enough to say there haven't been re-casts in the show. There have been plenty. Some, because of death as when the first Mark Fowler ...
... became the second Mark Fowler ...
We've had two Sam Mitchells, the fist Sam being wildly divergent ...
from the nicer, milder second Sam ...
There have been two Lauren Brannings - the first being a lolly-pop headed, mumbling, non-entity ...
... and the second being loud, obnoxious, gurning and with windmill arms ...
And Sam Strike's Johnny Carter ...
who lollygagged about on the sofa all day and allowed Linda to cater to his every need, and there's also Ted Riley's Johnny Carter ...
... who's seen attending uni courses and quoting the law as well as other moral mores, inserting himself and his opinion where it often hasn't been requested.
There have been three Janines, three Bens, two Denny Rickmans and a plethora of Peter Beales, and of all the only recast character consistent with the original premise, has been Janine.
All of this is to say that sometimes re-casts work, and sometimes they don't, but that sometimes some characters are so iconic, so seminal to the show that, even when they leave, they shouldn't be recast. John Yorke tried for yonks to get Anita Dobson to return to the show to do a six-month stint at the end of which Angie Watts would die. She refused. Rather than re-cast a dying Angie, he had her die off-screen, with Sharon witnessing her death so there could be no revivalist repercussions. He didn't think to recast her, the thought never crossed his mind. No one else could play Angie, no one else could be Angie. She was and always will be Anita Dobson.
And that boils down to the Michelle recast. Simply put ... This ...
... is definitely not in any way ... this ...
Because this is Michelle Fowler, Susan Tully as she is today - not some sleek, svelte sharp-faced woman striding around Walford. It meant nothing to see her sitting on Arthur's bench. This is Arthur's daughter, but not anyone with whom I am familiar. The power that should have emanated from the last scene, when a distraught Sharon goes outside to escape from a claustrophobic situation created by her dying husband's cowardice, self-pity and extremely cruel emotional manipulation, simply didn't come off - because Sharon collapsed into the arms of a stranger, and the surprise was having Sharon utter the name "Michelle."
Surprise! Because most of the people who have been wetting their Y-fronts at the unintentionally leaked information about this character's return never saw the character in the flesh the first time around except from various grainy clips from YouTube. They'll be able to invest in the character because something established is being re-introduced as something new to them. Already, they're licking their lips at the prospect of a potential return of the ludicrous twat that slinked onto the scene during the summer as well as the return of the odious Vicki, never thinking that both Michelle's children are adults well-equipped to live in a world without their mother being at their beck and call. Fucking Vickiy is 30 years old, so it's not at all unrealistic that she'd even want to live with her mother yet.
For those of us who've watched from the show's inception or at least from the 1990s, this woman isn't Michelle Fowler at all. Granted, she's been away from Walford and the UK for twenty years, and changes in outlook and attitude are to be expected, but the entire look, her mannerisms - Michelle would have been diffident and hesitant in revealing her presence to Sharon, and, oddly, gentler, rather than striding up with a cheesy smile.
I get it that her return was always going to be the surprise at the end of this episode, and in that respect - had it have been kept under wraps - it would have had the stench of an old US soap trick emanating from within. US soaps, still and in their heyday, re-cast without compunction. Soaps, especially the ones based in New York, were stepping stones for actors on the way up, as much as those on the way down. As people moved on and got roles in a play or on prime time telly, their roles were re-cast. Sometimes, the show wanted to take a character down an different path and re-cast because they believed this would be more effective. A character would leave the show for a period of time, maybe even die off-screen, and down the line, would come a mysterious stranger, who would be revealed, by the time the organ music swelled at the end of the episode, to be an old face with a new head.
It's early days, and I'm bound to be berated for expressing my opinion, but the look is wrong, the mannerisms are wrong and the voice is certainly wrong.
But then, I'm in the minority who remember what a seminal and important character Michelle Fowler was. Brutally important. Important enough that if the original actor who played the role didn't want to reprise it, then TPTB should have left well enough alone and accepted her better judgement.
Sometimes, when something ain't broke, you don't fix it.
This is a Michelle for the Millennials, who seem to think they own the rights to EastEnders lock, stock and two smoking barrels, because, after all, isn't today's EastEnders written entirely for, about and by Millennials?
The Ghosts of Christmas Past: Dot. I'm not a fan of Dot in any way. At the best of times, I find her morbidly wrapped up in her own self-pride, and at her worst, she's a head-bobbing cartoon.
But I found this episode's depiction of Dot's plight poignant and oddly moving. It's all too au courant, an elderly person, who's part and parcel of the community for so long that people take her very presence for granted. The launderette is closing down, a place where Dot had worked for 50 years, a place where most of the older residents had seen as a place of refuge more than just an ordinary launderette.
It was, again, all too common to hear Kathy, of all people, make a point of reminding the market traders that this was Dot's last day at the launderette, and that she'd be having a leaving do; and then to see everyone in question, intend to drop in and visit her, but inevitably they found something else better to do.
Kathy was ringing Tina to cover for her, to enable her to visit Dot; obviously, Tina never came. Patrick had to go to the bank. It never registered with Sharon, because of her problems with Phil. Jane and Stacey thought to give it "just another hour" before popping over and never did. Truth was, most of these people had the all-important Christmas play on their minds, so no one visited Dot, and that's when we got some visits from the voices from Dot's past.
For me the big surprise was Dot finding an old cassette tape in the back of a drawer as she cleaned out her belongings at the launderette, addressed simply to "Mrs Branning," only to play it and to hear that it was a Christmas present from several years ago from Heather, who'd made a compilation tape of cheesy Christmas music for Dot as a gift. Hearing the voice of Heather again, after she'd been dead for four years, and her banter with Shirley, was jarring, if not a bit sad. (One wonders if Cheryl Fergison's services were obtained for the voice-over for this tape). Then, as Dot left the launderette, hearing the voices of the past in Dot's mind, voices of people who'd meant a lot to her and who'd influenced her in her past - Jim's asking her out for their first date; Lou, seeing Dot to say her own good-byes when she knew she was dying; Ethel, talking of her little dog immediately before she was forced to have him put down; and finally, Pauline, speaking of just how important Dot had been to both the business of the launderette and to the community.
The only person to have entered the launderette today was the ineffectual glorified extra known as Shrimpy, and that was to bring an elderly cassette recorder that Winston had, in order that Dot could hear this tape. He couldn't stay even for a sandwich, he had to prepare for the play. Like everyone else.
For several episodes now, we've seen a stray black cat hanging around Dot's house, an animal who refuses to leave, no matter how hard she tries to shoo it away. Eventually, alone with her sherry on Christmas Eve, she relents and allows the creature to come into her house. Dot's lonely, and animals provide an unconditional conduit by which people can give their love and compassion, when humans about them show nothing but neglect.
The Ghosts of Christmas Past: Phil. So Phil's spent the night being taken in by Shirley and, in the morning, hearing a few home truths from her.
I want to say that at the moment, Linda Henry is the strongest and best damned actress the show has, but oddly, she isn't being used nearly enough. She's got a spiffy new hairstyle too, which is very complimentary to her.
Kudos to Shirley, however.
She's the third character in less than a week to call Phil Mitchell out as a coward, and to remind him that Sharon is the brave one here, for sticking it out with all his little idiosyncracies and self-pitying ploys. Shirley takes no prisoners, and she is now, finally and to her credit, totally over Phil to the extent that she feels sorry for Sharon for having to put up with this ginormous babyman.
However, it isn't Shirley who makes Phil see the light. Oh, no ... it's Saint Denise, who's carrying his holy rainbow child. She runs into Phil (deliberately? on purpose?) as he's sat on a bench by Peggy's grave.
This is Phil's problem altogether. He's missing his mummy, as indicated by the words he uttered over her grave ...
Fat lotta good you're doing me in there.
All Phil wants is his mum to appear suddenly and kiss it better. Make it go away.
He wants Peggy back, and the days when he was powerful and feared and could rule his "manor." It's not death of which he is afraid, it's mortality, it's getting older, it's losing strength, and for Phil, that means losing face.
Denise's appearance was a blatant contrivance. Like hell, she comes by every year to mark Kevin's memorial slab. Kevin died on New Year's Eve, a whole week away, and last year, she was too busy creaming herself over seeing Lucas again and finding Jordan to ever think of visiting whatever memorial stone they have to mark the passing of a man who only stuck around Walford for two years and whom no one remembers. His rapist son showed up not referring to him as "dad" but "Kevin." Why should Denise want to remember him as well?
Instead, she used the opportunity to gurn a bit, throw some insults about, and then to proceed to tell him how his son would turn out bad and his daughter would get into drugs once she found her father had died - the inference always being that Phil intended to slope off and kill himself. How Denise suddenly obtained divine powers is beyond me, but to this producer, she's everything to everybody.She even spares a fleeting thought for Sharon too - ya know, the woman whose husband fathered her baby and doesn't even remember it.
Denise must know that Phil is dying - everyone knows this; yet when Phil remarks about how he's seen Denise staring at him from across the Square (for someone supposedly not wanting the father of her child to find out about its existence, she's certainly making it obvious enough), Denise assumes that Phil thinks she fancies him, screws up her nose in that particularly awful look of disdain she has and tells him to look in the mirror. Nice one, Denise. Because you have so much to offer on that front, yourself, don't you?
I get the irony that TPTB intended showing in this scene, with Phil not knowing about who fathered Denise's child on a one night stand (and how did he know her pregnancy was the result of a one night stand?), but irony shouldn't be so obvious as to have Denise standing there rubbing her belly and then sit down and rub her belly some more. We get the drift. She's carrying a blood Mitchell.
And of course, the further irony is that her words of wisdom convince Phil to return to the family set-up she'll probably blow apart when she shows up on the doorstep with Rainbow Baby Jesus.
Phil's enormous sulk is felt by his scurvy daughter, who sulks as much as Phil because her sugar daddy who kept her in money and material things has chosen to abandon his family at Christmas because he feels sorry for himself. Diddums. He slinks into the community centre to catch Dennis in the play, and then he slinks home to sit in the living room in the dark until the kids and Jay discover him, lurking there in the shadows. At least Dennis and dippy Louise are happy to see him, Ben and Jay are indifferent - they've been this route too far before - but Sharon's at the end of her tether, and so she sees the ghost of her Christmas past.
The Ghost of Christmas Past: The Fowlers. So Martin's taken his Cratchit costume home because it turns Stacey on and they had sex. OK. But why was this relevant? We know that, for the moment, this couple works, and everything's going swimmingly until the stray black cat nibbles the turkey - at 10 pm on Christmas Eve with nothing open where it might be replaced.
Stacey goes outside to bin it when she thinks she sees a face on Arthur's bench, a face she just may have seen in some of Mark's family photos, but she isn't sure. Then when she puts out a request on social media for anyone who could help her find a turkey ... another turkey sitting in a car in the dark, nearby, comes to her aid in a cyber manner - and we know that this is really the ghost of Christmas past for Stacey - 2007, to be precise.
The long-awaited prodigal has returned.
The Ghost of Christmas Past: The Carters and Lee. Linda is acting like the child she usually is and sneaking about the Christmas presents when Mick receives a call from Elaine in Spain, which no one wants to take. So we see the passing about of the unwanted relative, only to find by the end of the episode that Elaine has had a stroke in Spain, and now Linda has to dash off to be with her, after binning her off earlier.
Lee, on the other hand, is keeping a low profile from the neighbour next door, who obviously heard that Lee had taken delivery of a parcel he's expecting. And so it goes.
And Finally ... This Christmas Show has lasted three episodes. We were treated to all three of the nights it ran, and at last it's at an end. Louise, who seems to have forgotten that, at that time, Phil was AWOL, is geeing dipshit Rebecca up against dipshit Shakil, and Donna gets invited to the Kazemis for Christmas. Joy.
So it wasn't until a quiet time today, after the heavy meal when everyone is out of it or just out (a toddler and a young baby still suffering the after-effects of a long plane journey) that I get time to watch last night's episode and cogitate some thoughts.
First of all, I'm harsh on EastEnders at the moment, so my ratings are probably down compared to the fanboi experts who patronise me and use my very opinion as an excuse to exercise their misogyny. There are so many things wrong with the show yet, dating from John Yorke's involvement that whatever Sean O'Connor is trying to rectify, somehow, just isn't working.
Anyway, here are my honest thoughts on the show, which saw the end of one era, the cack-handed beginning of another and a lot of reference to the past. I can be honest here, elsewhere I get ridiculed and remonstrated.
Millennial Michelle. That's what I call Sean' O'Connor's Christmas Surprise, and it stinks. In fact, it stinks worse than Dot's fish paste sandwiches. You can't get Susan Tully to reprise her role as one of the most iconic and seminal characters in the show's history so - wham, bam, thank-you-ma'am - you re-cast the character.
As you do.
It's not enough to say there haven't been re-casts in the show. There have been plenty. Some, because of death as when the first Mark Fowler ...
... became the second Mark Fowler ...
We've had two Sam Mitchells, the fist Sam being wildly divergent ...
from the nicer, milder second Sam ...
There have been two Lauren Brannings - the first being a lolly-pop headed, mumbling, non-entity ...
... and the second being loud, obnoxious, gurning and with windmill arms ...
And Sam Strike's Johnny Carter ...
who lollygagged about on the sofa all day and allowed Linda to cater to his every need, and there's also Ted Riley's Johnny Carter ...
... who's seen attending uni courses and quoting the law as well as other moral mores, inserting himself and his opinion where it often hasn't been requested.
There have been three Janines, three Bens, two Denny Rickmans and a plethora of Peter Beales, and of all the only recast character consistent with the original premise, has been Janine.
All of this is to say that sometimes re-casts work, and sometimes they don't, but that sometimes some characters are so iconic, so seminal to the show that, even when they leave, they shouldn't be recast. John Yorke tried for yonks to get Anita Dobson to return to the show to do a six-month stint at the end of which Angie Watts would die. She refused. Rather than re-cast a dying Angie, he had her die off-screen, with Sharon witnessing her death so there could be no revivalist repercussions. He didn't think to recast her, the thought never crossed his mind. No one else could play Angie, no one else could be Angie. She was and always will be Anita Dobson.
And that boils down to the Michelle recast. Simply put ... This ...
... is definitely not in any way ... this ...
Because this is Michelle Fowler, Susan Tully as she is today - not some sleek, svelte sharp-faced woman striding around Walford. It meant nothing to see her sitting on Arthur's bench. This is Arthur's daughter, but not anyone with whom I am familiar. The power that should have emanated from the last scene, when a distraught Sharon goes outside to escape from a claustrophobic situation created by her dying husband's cowardice, self-pity and extremely cruel emotional manipulation, simply didn't come off - because Sharon collapsed into the arms of a stranger, and the surprise was having Sharon utter the name "Michelle."
Surprise! Because most of the people who have been wetting their Y-fronts at the unintentionally leaked information about this character's return never saw the character in the flesh the first time around except from various grainy clips from YouTube. They'll be able to invest in the character because something established is being re-introduced as something new to them. Already, they're licking their lips at the prospect of a potential return of the ludicrous twat that slinked onto the scene during the summer as well as the return of the odious Vicki, never thinking that both Michelle's children are adults well-equipped to live in a world without their mother being at their beck and call. Fucking Vickiy is 30 years old, so it's not at all unrealistic that she'd even want to live with her mother yet.
For those of us who've watched from the show's inception or at least from the 1990s, this woman isn't Michelle Fowler at all. Granted, she's been away from Walford and the UK for twenty years, and changes in outlook and attitude are to be expected, but the entire look, her mannerisms - Michelle would have been diffident and hesitant in revealing her presence to Sharon, and, oddly, gentler, rather than striding up with a cheesy smile.
I get it that her return was always going to be the surprise at the end of this episode, and in that respect - had it have been kept under wraps - it would have had the stench of an old US soap trick emanating from within. US soaps, still and in their heyday, re-cast without compunction. Soaps, especially the ones based in New York, were stepping stones for actors on the way up, as much as those on the way down. As people moved on and got roles in a play or on prime time telly, their roles were re-cast. Sometimes, the show wanted to take a character down an different path and re-cast because they believed this would be more effective. A character would leave the show for a period of time, maybe even die off-screen, and down the line, would come a mysterious stranger, who would be revealed, by the time the organ music swelled at the end of the episode, to be an old face with a new head.
It's early days, and I'm bound to be berated for expressing my opinion, but the look is wrong, the mannerisms are wrong and the voice is certainly wrong.
But then, I'm in the minority who remember what a seminal and important character Michelle Fowler was. Brutally important. Important enough that if the original actor who played the role didn't want to reprise it, then TPTB should have left well enough alone and accepted her better judgement.
Sometimes, when something ain't broke, you don't fix it.
This is a Michelle for the Millennials, who seem to think they own the rights to EastEnders lock, stock and two smoking barrels, because, after all, isn't today's EastEnders written entirely for, about and by Millennials?
The Ghosts of Christmas Past: Dot. I'm not a fan of Dot in any way. At the best of times, I find her morbidly wrapped up in her own self-pride, and at her worst, she's a head-bobbing cartoon.
But I found this episode's depiction of Dot's plight poignant and oddly moving. It's all too au courant, an elderly person, who's part and parcel of the community for so long that people take her very presence for granted. The launderette is closing down, a place where Dot had worked for 50 years, a place where most of the older residents had seen as a place of refuge more than just an ordinary launderette.
It was, again, all too common to hear Kathy, of all people, make a point of reminding the market traders that this was Dot's last day at the launderette, and that she'd be having a leaving do; and then to see everyone in question, intend to drop in and visit her, but inevitably they found something else better to do.
Kathy was ringing Tina to cover for her, to enable her to visit Dot; obviously, Tina never came. Patrick had to go to the bank. It never registered with Sharon, because of her problems with Phil. Jane and Stacey thought to give it "just another hour" before popping over and never did. Truth was, most of these people had the all-important Christmas play on their minds, so no one visited Dot, and that's when we got some visits from the voices from Dot's past.
For me the big surprise was Dot finding an old cassette tape in the back of a drawer as she cleaned out her belongings at the launderette, addressed simply to "Mrs Branning," only to play it and to hear that it was a Christmas present from several years ago from Heather, who'd made a compilation tape of cheesy Christmas music for Dot as a gift. Hearing the voice of Heather again, after she'd been dead for four years, and her banter with Shirley, was jarring, if not a bit sad. (One wonders if Cheryl Fergison's services were obtained for the voice-over for this tape). Then, as Dot left the launderette, hearing the voices of the past in Dot's mind, voices of people who'd meant a lot to her and who'd influenced her in her past - Jim's asking her out for their first date; Lou, seeing Dot to say her own good-byes when she knew she was dying; Ethel, talking of her little dog immediately before she was forced to have him put down; and finally, Pauline, speaking of just how important Dot had been to both the business of the launderette and to the community.
The only person to have entered the launderette today was the ineffectual glorified extra known as Shrimpy, and that was to bring an elderly cassette recorder that Winston had, in order that Dot could hear this tape. He couldn't stay even for a sandwich, he had to prepare for the play. Like everyone else.
For several episodes now, we've seen a stray black cat hanging around Dot's house, an animal who refuses to leave, no matter how hard she tries to shoo it away. Eventually, alone with her sherry on Christmas Eve, she relents and allows the creature to come into her house. Dot's lonely, and animals provide an unconditional conduit by which people can give their love and compassion, when humans about them show nothing but neglect.
The Ghosts of Christmas Past: Phil. So Phil's spent the night being taken in by Shirley and, in the morning, hearing a few home truths from her.
I want to say that at the moment, Linda Henry is the strongest and best damned actress the show has, but oddly, she isn't being used nearly enough. She's got a spiffy new hairstyle too, which is very complimentary to her.
Kudos to Shirley, however.
She's the third character in less than a week to call Phil Mitchell out as a coward, and to remind him that Sharon is the brave one here, for sticking it out with all his little idiosyncracies and self-pitying ploys. Shirley takes no prisoners, and she is now, finally and to her credit, totally over Phil to the extent that she feels sorry for Sharon for having to put up with this ginormous babyman.
However, it isn't Shirley who makes Phil see the light. Oh, no ... it's Saint Denise, who's carrying his holy rainbow child. She runs into Phil (deliberately? on purpose?) as he's sat on a bench by Peggy's grave.
This is Phil's problem altogether. He's missing his mummy, as indicated by the words he uttered over her grave ...
Fat lotta good you're doing me in there.
All Phil wants is his mum to appear suddenly and kiss it better. Make it go away.
He wants Peggy back, and the days when he was powerful and feared and could rule his "manor." It's not death of which he is afraid, it's mortality, it's getting older, it's losing strength, and for Phil, that means losing face.
Denise's appearance was a blatant contrivance. Like hell, she comes by every year to mark Kevin's memorial slab. Kevin died on New Year's Eve, a whole week away, and last year, she was too busy creaming herself over seeing Lucas again and finding Jordan to ever think of visiting whatever memorial stone they have to mark the passing of a man who only stuck around Walford for two years and whom no one remembers. His rapist son showed up not referring to him as "dad" but "Kevin." Why should Denise want to remember him as well?
Instead, she used the opportunity to gurn a bit, throw some insults about, and then to proceed to tell him how his son would turn out bad and his daughter would get into drugs once she found her father had died - the inference always being that Phil intended to slope off and kill himself. How Denise suddenly obtained divine powers is beyond me, but to this producer, she's everything to everybody.She even spares a fleeting thought for Sharon too - ya know, the woman whose husband fathered her baby and doesn't even remember it.
Denise must know that Phil is dying - everyone knows this; yet when Phil remarks about how he's seen Denise staring at him from across the Square (for someone supposedly not wanting the father of her child to find out about its existence, she's certainly making it obvious enough), Denise assumes that Phil thinks she fancies him, screws up her nose in that particularly awful look of disdain she has and tells him to look in the mirror. Nice one, Denise. Because you have so much to offer on that front, yourself, don't you?
I get the irony that TPTB intended showing in this scene, with Phil not knowing about who fathered Denise's child on a one night stand (and how did he know her pregnancy was the result of a one night stand?), but irony shouldn't be so obvious as to have Denise standing there rubbing her belly and then sit down and rub her belly some more. We get the drift. She's carrying a blood Mitchell.
And of course, the further irony is that her words of wisdom convince Phil to return to the family set-up she'll probably blow apart when she shows up on the doorstep with Rainbow Baby Jesus.
Phil's enormous sulk is felt by his scurvy daughter, who sulks as much as Phil because her sugar daddy who kept her in money and material things has chosen to abandon his family at Christmas because he feels sorry for himself. Diddums. He slinks into the community centre to catch Dennis in the play, and then he slinks home to sit in the living room in the dark until the kids and Jay discover him, lurking there in the shadows. At least Dennis and dippy Louise are happy to see him, Ben and Jay are indifferent - they've been this route too far before - but Sharon's at the end of her tether, and so she sees the ghost of her Christmas past.
The Ghost of Christmas Past: The Fowlers. So Martin's taken his Cratchit costume home because it turns Stacey on and they had sex. OK. But why was this relevant? We know that, for the moment, this couple works, and everything's going swimmingly until the stray black cat nibbles the turkey - at 10 pm on Christmas Eve with nothing open where it might be replaced.
Stacey goes outside to bin it when she thinks she sees a face on Arthur's bench, a face she just may have seen in some of Mark's family photos, but she isn't sure. Then when she puts out a request on social media for anyone who could help her find a turkey ... another turkey sitting in a car in the dark, nearby, comes to her aid in a cyber manner - and we know that this is really the ghost of Christmas past for Stacey - 2007, to be precise.
The long-awaited prodigal has returned.
The Ghost of Christmas Past: The Carters and Lee. Linda is acting like the child she usually is and sneaking about the Christmas presents when Mick receives a call from Elaine in Spain, which no one wants to take. So we see the passing about of the unwanted relative, only to find by the end of the episode that Elaine has had a stroke in Spain, and now Linda has to dash off to be with her, after binning her off earlier.
Lee, on the other hand, is keeping a low profile from the neighbour next door, who obviously heard that Lee had taken delivery of a parcel he's expecting. And so it goes.
And Finally ... This Christmas Show has lasted three episodes. We were treated to all three of the nights it ran, and at last it's at an end. Louise, who seems to have forgotten that, at that time, Phil was AWOL, is geeing dipshit Rebecca up against dipshit Shakil, and Donna gets invited to the Kazemis for Christmas. Joy.
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