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.
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 ...
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.
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