The Dishrag, the Diva and the Ditz - Review:-Friday 31.03.2017

Short assessment? What a load of cack!

The Missing Piece of Evidence. OK, run this by me... was Ian in the pub when Louise blurted out to Rebecca that Michelle had hit Dennis? Or was that significant piece of evidence just lost in the shouting and confusion that followed the revelation that Prestonovich had only been using Rebecca, with the collusion of Michelle?

Because when Sharon appeared in Ian's home in this episode, and Ian remarked that Louise had said that Michelle had assaulted her, Sharon immediately defended Louise, saying she wouldn't lie - although Ian was openly sceptical. But no one mentioned anything about Michelle smacking Dennis, and Sharon hasn't yet talked to Louise.

OK, fair enough, assuming Ian doesn't know, Ian and Sharon are still firmly Team Michelle. It's all about getting to the hospital and comforting poor, victim Michelle.

I can't get over Ian's silly remark ...

I mean, Michelle is never gonna go for a fifteen year-old ...

No, Ian, you stupid twerp, But she'll go for a 10 year-old, who's even more of a child. Before anyone even knew of the chippie crash, Louise and Dennis had taken themselves to Ian's house for their own safety. Neither child felt safe with Michelle in the house. I don't know what Ian told Sharon on the phone the evening before or what it was that she wasn't able to comprehend, but in all of this entire episode, Sharon never once asked about her son.

I do hope there's an eventual scene between Sharon, her son and stepdaughter; because i have a feeling that Michelle's last champion standing is going to attempt to bring her back to the Mitchell house. Sharon needs to know that Michelle raised her hand to Sharon's child.

This entire segment of the episode was a concerted effort to redeem Michelle as a victim of Preston's sexual insouciance. She wasn't. She was the adult, and this is sending out a message that is just wrong, wrong, wrong.

I question Sean O'Connor's mores and social values. We've already had him dismiss mental illness by insinuating that anyone suffering from clinical depression needs to be harangued, badgered and demeaned by the people around them, until in the end, the sufferer takes himself away, the driving message being that people with mental health issues need to be sent away, convinced to go of their own volition on the premise promoted that they don't deserve to be around the family, whose standards they've failed to live by.

Already, we're seeing the resolution of the difficulties of dealing with an elderly relative suffering from Alzheimer's - leave them alone with an electrical appliance, an extension lead and a warm bath and watch them go up in smoke. After all, it's only an accident.

And now we have tea and sympathy for a woman who's committed statutory rape. This happened in Florida. Sharon knows Florida; she knows the repercussions of an adult having sex with a teenager of sixteen - and yet, she was sniggling and giggling about Michelle being a cradle-snatcher. I don't care if Preston is being presented as the initiator in all of this sexual malarkey - he was under the age of consent, and Michelle was the adult. The onus lay with her to react responsibly.

Neither Michelle nor Preston are victims here. They're both as scurvy and self-serving as one another. Martin was right - Michelle was caught up in a tissue of lies of her own making, and she involved everyone in her deceit, most notably, her niece. I can forgive Martin for not mentioning that Michelle had struck Dennis - he was too caught up in the maelstrom of shouting and screaming that occurred around the reveal; but someone has to tell Sharon what happened, and I can only surmise that Louise and Dennis will react accordingly and read Sharon a riot act when she tries to bring poor, pitiful 'Chelle back to the Mitchell home to recuperate.

How adversely this will affect Dennis! He's a kid, and he had to endure Michelle taunting him about how Sharon would believe her before she'd believe anything he said, how he could never hope to come between his mother's and Michelle's friendship, implying that Sharon thought more of Michelle than she did her own son. And, tonight, I almost came to believe that, the way yet another skewed duff-duff showed Sharon, lovingly stroking Michelle's brow after having successfully seen off Preston. 

She did what Michelle could never accomplish - she bought him a ticket to the States. You'll recall that Michelle had, as Sharon predicted, told him on numerous occasions to leave, to go home, but Preston didn't have money for a ticket, and Michelle didn't have it either, because he kept pestering her to buy his ticket.

And that's another gaping hole in this storyline - the fact that Preston had a one-way ticket. In this day and age, border authorities at airports do more than just look askance at someone entering the country on a one-way ticket. Preston would never be allowed to stay more than six months in one stretch, but he'd have to have that return ticket to show. In an age of terrorism and illegal immigration fears, the first thing security official think decidedly fishy is someone entering a country on a one-way ticket, if he or she doesn't have a passport from that country.

Obviously, the highlight of this segment was Sharon, playing the Mitchell closer and getting Preston to leave the country, even ensuring that Martin bodily takes him to Heathrow and makes certain he gets on the plane. She bent the truth and told Preston some hard lies that were actually masked truths that she saw and that Michelle would never admit. In this instance, she got Daran Little's line of the night:-

Preston (petulantly): All you see is the age gap.
Sharon: It's not a gap, it's a canyon.

Michelle's brief appearance, huddled on her hospital bed, smiling at Sharon, not only marked her as some weak-willed, lonely, yet sneaky and sinister manipulator. She must have been happy that Sharon gave her that loving caress, instead of storming into her hospital room, guns blazing about her having hit Dennis. This now gives her a foothold of leverage over Louise and Dennis, the bitch.

The last two episodes have given us the measure of Preston, as well as allowing us to see how poor the actor was who played him. He's basically a selfish little git, as evidenced by his sense of entitlement being affronted by Martin not bringing a coffee back for him, whilst they waited for news of Michelle.

He was always there, always in someone else's space where he had no right to be, and he's still trying to establish some sort of post-coital approbrium from Rebecca, as if he wants to hold her in abeyance as the contingency plan, should he wake up in ten years' time when he's not even thirty and Michelle is pushing sixty. Does he honestly think she'd be okay with an explanation that he really liked her, but - yeah - he used her to make her auntie jealous.

It struck me that this kid is not just socially gauche, he's a sociopath. He is deeply self-absorbed - the whining line about Martin not bringing a drink back for him just reeked of entitlement - and was only thinking of the continuing relationship with Michelle as being something driven by him for his own benefit. I wish Sharon hadn't used that ubiquitous cliché about this relationship with Michelle being some sort of coming-of-age trophy, but she was able to assess that he was emotionally clingy and suffocating with Michelle. That's giving too much credit to Michelle. He was emotionally manipulative, but she was fucking addicted to him, and she was all over the place.

The only times she ever realised that her association with him was wrong was when it hit her in the face that, because of him and their sexual mesalliance, her professional career is ended, for nothing. She knew being with him wouldn't work, and she should have been able to have found funds - maxed out her credit card even more - and sent his arse packing; but she didn't. He knew exactly how to play her, setting up a relationship with her niece to raise jealousy, even sharing a bed with Rebecca and subsequently, Michelle, on one afternoon.

When she ticked him off and he left for Manchester, by the time he'd returned, she was all over him. Remember her first words, when he came back to the Mitchell house - 

Don't you ever go away from me again!

She wanted him, but as her dirty little secret. She knew the price she paid for that association back in Florida - as Sharon pointed out, Michelle hadn't spoken to her son in months ...

Do you know what that does to a mother?

Fuck off, Sharon. Because you're defending a woman who whacked the back of her hand across your young child's face, because he told her an unwelcome home truth about what she was, in his child's eye. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings and all that.

But Preston is a kid, and he's thinking like a kid. He "loves" Michelle because she's easy sex. He keeps talking about what they "have", yet thinking to keep Rebecca sweet and understanding as a back-up plan. At the end of the day, all it took was Sharon buying him a plane ticket on her credit card.

Shit, he even gave Rebecca his blessing by telling her that maybe she should go back to Shakil, that he wasn't a bad guy. (Did he even know Shakil?) And there you have it, neatly tied up with a nice bow, is the eventual text message from Shakil to Rebecca, asking "U OK"? (Such a man of words, Shakil)

And all is happy in the world now - Rebecca will go back to Shakil. Martin will realise how much better a person the doltish Shakil is, compared to Preston, and Sharon will start a campaign to redeem Michelle, aided and abetted by Ian. Sharon needs to talk to her son and step-daughter.

What a bloody awful and weak end to an atrocious storyllne. In fact, Sharon's last scene with Michelle and Carmel's last scene with Denise made me wonder at all the underlying sapphic codes just bursting at the seams with these heterosexual women - Sharon's tender caress of Michelle's fevered brow (she never did that to Dennis when he was badly hurt in the SUV crash Christmas 2015), and Carmel exclaiming that when she had to take Kush's side in his eventual break-up with Denise, that she would "lose" Denise.

Jesus fucking Christ.

The Diva. Another bloody sitcom featuring the star of the show, Denise, who never seems to be off the screen these days. Even in afterglow, she's patting herself on the back, trilling along about what sexual chemistry she and Kush have.

(Pass the puke bucket, please).

So on the basis of sex, both Denise (who puts high value on sex in a relationship) and Kush (who doesn't think past sex) decide they're the real thing for each other. The eventual scene of Carmel accidentally on purpose almost discovering their little secret was too typical and trite, right down to Denise being forced to hide under the bed.

The fact that Carmel, like Kush, puts emphasis on fucking first as a preliminary to establishing a relationship was evidenced by her assumption that Kush had chatted up a doctor at the hospital and she'd followed him home for a bit of 'owsyerfavva, which - of course -is something no doctor would do anywhere, except EastEndersLand. But the idea was that Carmel knew exactly the way Kush worked and condoned it.

It struck me whilst watching this laboursome segment, how similar it was, in many ways, to the Preston and  Michelle fiasco, except that both these people are consenting adults. I also can't help thinking about the variance in what both Kush and Denise hope to attain from this relationship. 

The first and foremost purpose of this relationship for Denise is fun. Probably because all her other relationships were so fraught in one way or another. Her other premise is the same old same old "life's too short." In other words, this is her way of having sexual fun before she's too old and her life is ended. Does she realise that in ten years' time, when she's pushing sixty and gravity is making her bits go South, that Kush will still be a young man, whose eye might stray?

Kush, on the other hand, wants fun, but a bit more. Well, we knew he was Oedipal, but if he's hoping he can get back the same thing he had and lost with Shabnam, think again. Don't forget, Denise has a propensity to use and drop younger men - Fatboy - whilst eventually, Kush is going to want a family. Also, don't forget that both of Denise's daughters are nearer Kush's age - especially Chelsea - and I wonder if we're going to see a return of either one or both for their reactions. I wouldn't think they'd be so positive, especially po-faced Libby.

Kush is never going to be a part of Arthur's life, and Zair is dead. This is also an age canyon, although not as deep, and I'm thankful that we didn't get a prolonged period of Denise and Kush sneaking around having surreptitious sex with comic near-discovery scenes from Carmel and Kim. But even the reveal scene, with Kim and Carmel on hand, was painstakingly contrived in the stinking sitcom mould which seems to follow Denise around. This was bum-clinchingly embarrassing, the highlight being the camera resting on Carmel's face as she slowly realises that Denise and Kush are a couple. Bonnie Langford played that to perfection without uttering a word - plus, I loved her cynical assessment of what is basically a relationship based on sex, but sex sought for the wrong reasons for each of these people. Denise wants fun, on-tap sex from a fit bloke - because "life's too short" and this life is now all about Denise; and Kush, all of whose relationships had begun with sex, I think is still in mourning for Zair, and feeling sorry for himself for losing Shabnam. He's looking for another Shabnam, and possibly, another Zair - but he won't find that with Denise.

Say whatever you will about Carmel, another character whom I dislike (and there are so many now in EastEnders), but she is one mother who knows her sons, like the back of her hand. She knows that this is a relationship that's bound to end in tears, but Daran Little copped out on her final assessment - that being that,when the shit hit the fan, and the two split, she'd be forced to take sides in the break-up and she'd have to side with him .. and then, she said to Denise ...

And then, I'll lose you.

You what? One would be forgiven for thinking Carmel was in love with Denise, herself. 

Well, since Daran Little scored an epic fail with that, let me give Carmel the words she should have spoken, which Bonnie Langford would deliver so well ...

Because I know this will all end in tears, and it'll be me who'll pick up the pieces for him. Again. Just like after his first wife died. Just like after he lost Zair and Shabnam left him. Just like I know how it hurts him watching another man bring up his child. My boy wants to settle down with a good wife and someone who'll give him children to make up for the ones he lost. Can you give him that? He should be running around with girls your daughters' ages, not someone old enough to be his mum! He's got me for that! And as for you, you go from the frying pan into the fire,with your choice of men. You're supposed to be my mate!

What are these people thinking who write this?

The Ditz. Once again, Luisa Bradshaw-White stole the show. For once in her life, Tina genuinely feels bereft and alone. She's lost Sylvie, Shirley is in prison, and Mick is away, not that he interacted much within her dynamic with Sylvie. It was funny to see her, inadvertantly, reject Whitney's offer to stay with her, as Whitney tries to lord it out as Queen Bee of the Queen Vic. 

There were a couple of good moments in this segment - when they found the congratulatory card sent to Stan and Sylvie on Tina's birth and when Tina rejected the idea of telling Shirley face to face. Quite rightly, Tina stated that Shirley never cared for Sylvie, in fact none of them did, and she said so, until Johnnie protested. He was right. Along with Tina, it was always Johnnie who sat with her, talked with her, listened to her stories.That was true, but then Whitney had to horn in and try to say she did as well.

But she did have a good scene with Tina, in the kitchen of the Vic, when she said she genuinely envied Tina's time with Sylvie; for all she had abandoned Tina, they had two good years, mostly of fun fraught with frustration. With Sonia gone and Sylvie dead, Tina's feeling orphaned and alone. 

Luisa Bradshaw-White has come into her own in this storyline. I hope they don't regress her character by pairing her up with Sonia's amazing tits when she returns.

Mostly, this was a pedestrian episode. Is EastEnders anything else these days?

The Stench of Brookside - Review:- Thursday 30.03.2017

Bette Davis said it, and I have to reiterate her quote: What a dump! No, wait ... What a dump!

We waited two days for that? I feel vindicated that my sarky prediction about the extent of Kush's and Kathy's injuries was almost exact. Kathy's injuries were so superficial, after having the chippy literally fall on top of her, that she required no sort of attention at the hospital - no clean up of the superficial cuts on her face, no assessment of shock, no muscular or internal injury assessment. This is a 67 year-old woman, FFS - she'd be the first of the walking wounded to be assessed and evaluated.

At least Kush was knocked out, and Denise, the star of the show, again showed why she's Sean O'Connor's own personal Supergirl, or WonderWoman. Kush was prone on the floor, unconscious, probably concussed (which means a potential head injury). Not only did he have the chippy collapse on him as well, he took the brunt of the SUV crashing through the window. Now, what's the first rule of thumb in an accident situation where someone's knocked out cold?

You don't move them. You have that drilled into you from day one on any First Aid course. Above all, you don't move them from the shoulder up, because there may also be a potential neck - and that means spinal cord - injury. But, not Saint Denise ... she plowed through the wreckage and demanded that Kathy, who knew better, help her lift Kush out of harm's way - as if he ever were in harm's way at all. He got off with a dislocated shoulder, and was healthy enough to allow Denise to give him an oral tonsillectomy, getting up close and personal in an ER bed bay. 

My most lasting impression of that scene was Diane Parish's exquisitely and expensively manicured acryllic nails, honed in a designer colour. Of course, we're supposed to believe that unemployed Cockney sparrow Denise, who doesn't know from whence her next regular income will come, with a mortgage on a terraced house in what is now supposed to be a trendy part of London, and who's never made more than minimum wage in her unskilled life, can afford that sort of manicure which probably costs upwards of fifty quid in real time,

Of course, in real time, Kush and Kathy would be dead. Toast. Brown bread. Instead, Michelle, protected by the fortress of steel and precision engineering of a Bayerische MotorWerk SUV, enhanced by airbags on all four sides, comes out with a damaged spleen and broken ribs. And bleeding. Lots of bleeding, so much bleeding that she'll have to lose that spleen. 

EastEnders should now officially start a Lost Spleen Club. Think of its members - Phil (lost his as a result of fighting Grant in the wake of Sharongate); Max (lost his as a result of being run over by Lauren); Sharon (lost hers as a result of being attacked by the thugs Phil arranged to raid The Albert), And these characters are remarkably healthy with the loss of an organ which controls white blood cell counts which fight infection. We hear nothing of either Phil, Sharon or Max having to have regular vaccinaions against pneumococcal infections and having to have annual flu jabs. Phil, especially, with his history of alcohol abuse would be particularly at risk. But, no, the spleen is such an inconsequential organ, we can just throw it into any sort of serious injury ailment suffered in some sort of accident. Why not lose a kidney? Dot did, through cancer, and curiously, never had any subsequent remedial treatment like chemotherapy or radiation. Why not have a lung collapse? You can live without one kidney or a lung ... but no, it's always the spleen in EastEnders.

And no one died as a result of this accident, yet another EastEnders' stunt that failed. Oh, Sylvie died - shades of El Dorado, she was electrocuted when her CD player fell into her bathwater. She could have been saved, if the pathetic drama queen Whitney, in one of the most amateurish performances I've ever seen in that programme, hadn't demanded that Tina, a character with whom she's had precious little interaction, remain downstairs in the bar, drinking with her to quell her nerves because the chip shop crash made her think of her getting run over by a bus, and subsequently sucking on Mick's tongue.

And I haven't even started on Preston Prestonovich Prestonofsky.

Not one of Daran Little's best ...

Stop Trying to Curry Sympathy for Michelle! If anyone should have walked away from that shower intact, it should have been Michelle. She was girded by the protection of a German-made SUV, complete with multiple airbags and a ring of reinforced steel. She should have unlocked the door, stepped out and trilled ...

Anybody hurt?

Instead, we've got an elderly woman and a horny thirtysomething gadding about, and Michelle is unconscious. I'd be willing to bet she's unconscious from the effects of a combination of barbiturates and alcohol. I hope they take a blood test at the hospital, because she's done criminal damage there, and she's committed another crime.

But it's obvious that this is supposed to be a ploy to stoke up sympathy for Michelle - to show Martin, rightfully, disgusted by her actions, especially the way in which she willfully used and manipulated his child, emotionally. Martin has every right to be upset; and then the object was to conflict him, by presenting him with his last living sibling, his last link to Pauline and Arthur, badly hurt.

I found the reactive scenes involving the Fowlers the most watchable of a bad lot. James Bye has come into his own, and it's been a great revelation to see Stacey emerge from stroppy gobshite to a calm, mature wife and maternal figure in the NuFowler household. Pairing Stacey and Martin as a married couple was an inspiration on Dominic Treadwell-Collins's part. It joined pre-Millennium Walford with Millennial Walford. It married the first baby born on the show, the last-surviving scion of an original family, with probably the most iconic post-Millennial character on the programme.

Martin is both appalled and disgusted by Michelle's actions, but sometimes, the simplistic stupidity the writers apply to Martin is uncomfortable to watch. His lack of curiosity over the past four months that Michelle has been in Walford has been difficult to fathom. Didn't he ever ask her why she'd left her husband and son or why she'd, seemingly, walked out on her job? Wasn't he the slightest bit curious as to why she had shown up, out of the blue, at Christmas,for no reason, when she hadn't even bothered to return to Walford for any reason in the past twenty years?

After all and after the reveal on Tuesday, Michelle had admitted as much that Walford wasn't her home anymore, and Martin is repelled, not only by Michelle's actions, but moreso by the fact that she'd used his daughter as a pawn in her coy little games with Preston. But the stupid line of the night has to go to Martin ...

I mean, he was her student! Isn't that illegal or somefink ...

Duuhhhhh, yes, Martin, it is, especially in Florida where the age of consent is 18, and this mess had been going on since Prestonovich was 16.

And we have another scene of utter humiliation for the hapless Rebecca. I think it would be clever if TPTB had her walk through episode after episode with a yellow Post-It on her forehead, saying ... Humiliate me ... because that's everything that seems to happen to Rebecca, the requisite teen to humiliate. 

With Rebecca's weeping and Martin's beetle-browed, but justifiable, belligerance, Stacey's comforting calm was welcome. She knew exactly what to do to comfort and offer support to Rebecca, just letting her vent until she'd calmed down, not raising her voice, just letting both Martin and Rebecca react in their own ways and just being there for them.

The rest of this segment dealt with the odious Preston, who's proven that he is exactly as Martin assessed him - a kid. Not just a kid, but a spoiled, imposing and tactless kid, who really knows no boundaries. 

One of the most subtle, yet effective moments of the episode came as Preston was jumping about, panicking that Michelle was out for the count inside the BMW, when he turns frantically to Kathy and exclaims, Michelle's inside! I love her.

The look on Kathy's face was positively priceless, as she realised the meaning behind his words. At the hospital, he totally disregards the presence of Martin and Kathy, Michelle's brother and her aunt, and doggedly imposes himself on the situation. Daran Little totally got Kathy's conflict between knowing that this association was totally wrong, yet feeling a bit of compassion for Preston because he is, ultimately, still a child.

But he's a sexually precocious child, who struts right into Martin's sphere of comfort in the waiting room, physically imposing himself on Martin's space as he waited for word about his sister. He's already blaming Martin for Michelle's predicament, which is the reaction of a spoiled brat. Michelle's situation was orchestrated by her and her, alone. And was he stupid to think that her relatives and the rest of the community would react as if their relationship was the most normal thing in the world. He's a teenager; she's two years off fifty.

The way Preston was baiting Martin in the waiting room, obviously hoping to provoke the same sort of reaction which resulted in the sort of violent altercation that occurred as a result of the reveal. Nothing of the sort happened.

Instead, Martin sat quietly, not even looking at Preston as this asshole openly boasted about his conquest of Michelle, how he pursued her, how he wanted her, how her marriage was dead - it never mattered to him that she was married or that she had a son older than he was; she was an object he wanted, and he tried to obtain her. 

I stress, this doesn't make Michelle a victim in anyway at all, because legally, Preston was under the age of consent, legally a child; and she was an adult. The onus was on her to act responsibly - to either deflect his advances or, if they became persistent, to make a complaint, first, to the principal of her school and quite possibly, to the police for sexual harassment.

But she didn't. And even though he is, legally, the victim of a sex crime, he is no more deserving of sympathy than she is. His crying in the rain outside her hotel takes on the aspect of a spoiled brat crying the first time he's been denied something that he wanted. She is someone who's almost addicted to this kid - maybe because he fed on her ego, maybe because, when he rocked up in Walford, she was caught in a vulnerable moment again. 

That she never began to imagine that their relationship was pejorative until she was presented with cold, hard evidence that her actions and her reputation for committing a sex crime followed her across continents. The supply agency to which she applied told her in no uncertain terms that her last school had spelled her gross misconduct blatantly to them. As she reiterated, her relationship with Preston was wrong, it was criminal, and she was lucky not to have been prosecuted. (Pssst, in real time, she'd be wearing an orange jumpsuit.)

It was this death of her professional career which made her break with Preston, and whenever she rebutted him or refused him, we saw him for what he was - a spoiled kid who flounced out of the room whenever he heard something he didn't like.

When she rejected Preston and told him to find someone his own age, he manipulated her cruelly, by beginning a relationship with her niece, at which time, the hapless Rebecca became a pawn in their silly bait-and-switch game.

Martin simply and quietly informed Preston that his boasting might make him think he's a man, but he's nothing like a man at all.

I was hoping this kid would die or get killed in this fray, but he's still hanging around like a bad smell, with his dodgy accent and looking at least five years older than he's supposed to be.

In the background of all of this, we find that Ian hasn't insured the chippy, as he confessed to Steven, so that means that one of Ian's businesses is, effectively, kaput; but also, we had Dennis and Louise, showing up like waifs and strays on Ian's doorstep, with Louise quick to inform Ian that "his cousin had assaulted her." (True, she did), but resulting in the two kids bedding down in Ian's house because Jane thought they shouldn't be at home in the Mitchell house, after all of this; and ending with Kathy, laying down the law to Ian, telling him he had to phone Sharon and that Sharon had to come home. 

Apart from the Fowler scenes, this is yet another one of EastEnders' stunts turning out to be less than it was promoted.

Meh.

Just stop trying to promote Michelle as a victim. If she died as a result of her injuries, I wouldn't be sad. They've ruined this character irreparably, and the actress re-cast to play her isn't working.

Strange, the people for whom I feel sorriest the most in the world at the moment, are two people in way over their heads in the jobs they've been given to do - Jenna Russell and Sean Spicer.

Horniness in the Hospital. Tonight was the night that Kush and Denise simply became trite as a couple. 

Anyone, even with Kush's physique, who absorbed the force of an SUV crashing through the chippy, would be dead in real time, or critically injured. Kush got off with a dislocated shoulder.

This was the age-old ubiquitous scene of someone being cool on another person, until that person is in danger or potentially grievously ill or injured. We even got Denise landed with the tired ol line about life being too short.

Spare me. 

If that isn't enough, it seems Denise is turned on by the sight of an injured Kush in a hospital bed and she closes the curtains around the bed for a moment of privacy and some overt foreplay.

Yuck.

She is just as bad as he is. This is just another relationship based on sex and nothing else. We'll see how far this goes when she starts being pedantic with him, quoting obscure lines from literature or bringing literary themes from classical works into the conversation. Remember, she tried this at the communal Christmas meal in the Vic, which prompted a look of morbid misunderstanding across Kush's face. 

The only thing interesting about this horny pair will be the ubiquitous scene where Carmel, like Michelle, walks in on Kush and Denise in bed, and then goes into helium mode. That may be a matter of weeks or a matter of months, but it won't be that long that we won't realise that we've already been there, done that, read the book, seen the movie and bought the teeshirt regarding yet another sordid tale. 

So gird your loins because we're about to see various scenes of Kush and Denise having surreptitious sex - down the alleyway, in Kush's flat, in the loos of the Vic - sneaking around, almost being caught, being stupidly coy, having Denise call the relationship off again and again before Carmel discovers them, and then we'll be treated to months of circular scenes involving Denise and Carmel, Denise and Kim, Denise and Carmel, Denise and Kim, discussing the same thing again and again - Carmel arguing that she wants Kush to have a nice girl young enough to give her grandchildren, and Kim whining about Denise going after a younger man.

To quote Bette Davis once again, Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy ride.

I guess it was for Denise and Kush in that hospital bed.

And It's Good-bye To Her. Well, I suppose Sylvie wasn't in SOC's grand scheme of things. That's about all we get concerning the issue storyline about caring for an elderly relative. The irony is that Tina had relented to other people's advice about getting her mother into a care home, and Queen Bee Whitney had to suggest a 60s party to celebrate the night before Social Services were to assess Sylvie for a home. 

I don't get it. The assessment didn't mean that she would have been taken there and then. But still ... sharp eyes picked up the extension lead and the CD player, reckoning that this would be something to do with Sylvie's death. I must admit, I didn't think her death would occur so soon, but this has always been the way of EastEnders, of late, in ending issue storylines abruptly and unsatisfactorily. 

The message sent out about Lee was that anyone with a mental health issue has to be sent away. Ironic that Radio 4 was all over the place on their Today programme about the BBC promoting mental health treatment in a series of documentaries and in their programming. Obviously, Sean O'Connor never read that menu.

One of the worst performances tonight came from Shona McGarty. It goes to show how much of an impression the bus crash didn't make on me that I couldn't understand why Whitney was getting so upset about Michelle crashing the BMW, when only minutes before that, Whitney was handing Preston his arse about his appalling behaviour with Rebecca and the next, she's crying about Michelle, who was someone she barely knew?

It had to take a line of dialogue to remind me and every other viewer, Johnny (who else) pontificating how "this brings the bus crash back to her." Yeah, I'll bet, and the memory of the snog she shared with Mick and all.

It's a false sense of security that bodes Tina to ask if she and Sylvie could stay that night in the Vic, and it's down to Whitney, who has no more claim on that establishment or that family than nothing, to give her consent, graciously allocating them Mick's and Linda's room.

We got a touching scene between Tina and Sylvie as she brings the CD player into the bedroom to play songs from Sylvie's youth, whilst getting her ready for bed. In the midst of her confusion, Sylvie mistakes Tina for her own mother. It gave us Daran Little at his best with a heart-breakingly beautiful exchange. 

Sylvie: I love you, Mum.
Tina: I'm not your mum, you're MY mum.
Sylvie: Well, I love you anyway.

Tina will live with that memory for the rest of her life. 

In all of this segment, Johnny kept excusing himself from dancing with Sylvie, saying he was tired and wanted to go to bed, but after Tina settled Sylvie, it seemed that she, Whitney and Johnny were drinking downstairs, Tina being stopped by the suddenly needy Whitney from checking on Sylvie.

Another piece of irony - and irony was strong tonight - was that the incident which prompted Tina to seek Social Services help, was when Sylvie mistakenly got into a cold bath in their flat. Tonight, finding some lavender bath salts, she thinks to run a bath for herself and bring the CD player into the bathroom to entertain her whilst she bathed. 

And that was her undoing. She electrocuted herself, to be discovered by Tina.

I knew the character was going to die, but this surprise death was curiously low key and had the feel of a rushed finish to a storyline. 

All in all, it was an uneven episode, and this week, heavily touted, has, yet again, failed to live up to expectations.

Oh, and as for Prestonovich's unfathomable Russian-American accent, here's what Preston, coming from the Florida Panhandle, would really sound like. Listen to the character named Gomer:-

Now imagine that voice cooing to Michelle.

The Shit Done Hit That Fan ... And the Chippy - Review:- Tuesday 28.03.2017

Once again, on a scale of 1 to 10, I was generous and gave this episode an 8, but for the wrong reasons. For all people whinged, whined and moaned about them, once again, the show proves one thing: It misses the major Mitchells. 

Love'em or hate'em - and John Yorke certainly started them both on the road to free-fall - but the show misses Letitia Dean and Steve McFadden. I appreciate many of the viewers who have only watched since the Yorke era don't realise what these two characters were in the 1990s, and the writing team on hand don't know how to handle their characters. But as many people whinged, whined and moaned about Sharon and Phil as moaned about Linda Carter, and all it took was that brief appearance by Kellie Bright for me to realise how much she's missed, but it also made me realise how much I'd like to see Danny Dyer -as much as I like Mick Carter on a good day - leave the show. I think Dyer's come to the end of his tether with the character of Mick, but I think Bright's character has countless numbers of roads down which to travel without playing nursemaid mummy to the biggest Oedipal baby on the show.

Not only that, with the brief introductions of guest characters like Konrad the shopkeeper or dodgy Tom, Jay's heretofore unmentioned friend, it's been made painfully obvious how much the show is crying out for new characters and how tired some of the staple characters have become - the Branning girls spring instantly to mind. And whilst I know that Lisa Faulkner's due to be introduced, it's patently obvious that she's the requisite savvy blonde, sexy businesswoman type whose future lies with one of the two Branning brothers.

Probably the reason I rated tonight's show so highly was because at last we've seen some sort of comeback, payback, whatever you want to call it for this version of Michelle, Sean O'Connor's dystopian wreck of an iconic character who is nothing like the original version and nothing like anything that character would have ever become, but also, in the show not releasing any spoilers concerning tonight's episode - although I somewhat knew a bit of what to expect - it was an eye-opener watching things develop in real time, culminating in "the stunt" (on the back of the cobbled-together bus crash from weeks ago), which was realistic enough in demolishing Beale's place. 

In actual real time, Kush and Kathy would be brown bread, but after the bus which fell on Martin and Whitney, Kathy's probably got a slight cut above her left eyebrow, and Kush has a dislocated pinkie finger. Or maybe not. 

We'll now have to wait until Thursday to see.

The Storyline Apart. Literally, this was the episode where two storylines collided, but before we get to them, I'd like to say something about the best and most realistic issue storyline which served as an eventual backdrop or a plot device for the shit-hitting-the-fan one. 

This would be Tina's and Sylvie's storyline. I sat thinking last night, after Monday's episode, about the BSAs coming up in the spring and wondering whom EastEnders would put forward as their nominees for Best Actress and Best Actor. I know Emmerdale will rightly tout John Middleton, and he should win; but I can see no one, actor or actress, worthy of EastEnders to nominate. Oh, they're sure to push Lacey Turner, but Turner's been little more than a supporting player, as she was tonight. 

On the other hand, Luisa Bradshaw-White has really come into her own in this storyline. 

Although it was cast as a backdrop to all the action going on with the Michelle reveal, it still was a storyline in and of itself. It was quite something to see Sylvie carry on dancing throughout the brouhaha, oblivious to the confusion around her, safe and secure in her own world. When Vincent stopped dancing with her, she danced with herself.

Throughout everything, Sylvie's safest living and re-living her life in the 60s, when she was everyone's party girl. Now, Tina is facing self-recrimination for having made the decision to put Sylvie in a care home where she can get professional help. Even though her mother abandoned her as a child, she still wants to do right by her. It was a powerful moment when some boisterous punters at the Vic started copping feels of Whitney and Tina, who had to try to eject them from the pub - once again, there's a weakness here, with Whitney and Johnnie, both unlicenced, running the pub - surely, that's illegal? Surely there has to be licenced cover?

When both women can't handle these men, it's Sylvie who rouses herself briefly to castigate them for manhandling her daughter, even recognising that Tina is a lesbian, chasing he men off, and then reverting back to her nebulous existence in the past. And finally, hearing a particular Dusty Springfield song, she's moved to reminisce and admit to Tina that she used to sing this song to her children as a lullaby, that she was an awful mother, but she still loved her children, and wondered what had become of them. The final scene of Tina and Sylvie locked in an embrace, with Tina silently crying, was powerful beyond words.

But this was only a background story.

The Victim of Circumstance. Of course, Denise featured in this episode. Featured heavily as Sean O'Connor's designated star of the show. Again,this was a backdrop storyline, the second storyline involving a much older woman being pursued by a younger man.

Watching this, played out against the revelations about Michelle and Preston, it occurred to me that, in many ways, this was the antithesis to that storyline, yet it mirrored it in many ways, and as I watched their drama unfold, I was struck with the similarities between Denise and Kush and Michelle and Preston.

Obviously, the first similarity is that they are two women in their late forties being pursued by much younger men. Like Preston, Kush is the one actively pursuing Denise, and like Preston, it seemed to me that the main purpose of Kush's interest in Denise, primarily, was for sexual purposes.

Although the two had engaged in sexual banter and quasi role playing of teacher and student in their exchange at the community centre, by the time they had repaired to Denise's house after Carmel's untimely interruption, this had given Denise time to think about the situation at hand. And she, the adult in the room, deflected Kush's advances.

For it was clear throughout this that Kush's ultimate motive in his pursuit of Denise was having a regular sexual partner. For all the talk of chemistry between the two of them, it all boiled down to him being horny, and Denise deftly deflecting this horniness. Denise is an attractive woman, and Kush is affected by this attractiveness, but it was evident that Kush has always sought sexual partners without any sort of commitment.

Denise is right to point out that men and women can, indeed, be friends, but this is an alien concept to Kush. It isn't a romance he wanted with Denise, it was casual, regular sex; and this has always been what motivated Kush, at least since his first wife died. He never acknowledged a commitment to Shabnam until she announced that she was pregnant, and even then, he had difficulty - and Carmel even recognised this.

Denise, on the other hand, seems to have learned her lesson, time and time again, reiterating that she no longer wanted to do anything stupid. For Denise, this means not getting drunk with a man and going to bed with him; but ultimately, this served to show that Denise was the more mature half of the couple - and in that respect, Kush isn't that different from Preston, except that Kush is 32 years old, and Preston is 17; sulking is a childish habit that doesn't sit well with with anyone over 30. A prime example of this is Kush's petulant admission that he doesn't want to exchange pleasantries with Denise about the weather as evident of the sort of friendship she wanted, petulantly wondering what it was that "friends" actually talked about.

The exchange in The Albert also mirrored what was going on in the main storyline, with Vincent taking on the role Martin had in the main storyline, appearing just at the moment when Kush, denied his wicked way with Denise, was proceeding to get drunker and drunker, the light-hearted banter when each tried to recommend a love interest for the other began to turn a shade darker as Kush's drinking increased and his remarks toward Denise became snarkier. When Denise subtly intimated to Vincent that Kush should go, Kush took the hint and stalked off to the chippy, making sure that he told Denise that would be where she could find him. Contrived? Yes, because I imagine in the confusion that reigns on Thursday, Denise will know that this is where Kush was headed when the shit, or the BMW, hit the fan.

I suppose what struck me throughout this was just how much Kush's interest in Denise was all about sex - like Preston, he was the horny guy out to get laid, even bumping into one of his many conquests having a drink, herself, in The Albert. This is the way Kush has always been. He doesn't want a meaningful relationship with Denise, he wants sex, and that will last only until Denise either starts to want more in the way of a commitment or until Kush meets another conquest which interests him more. He's learned nothing from his marriage to Shabnam and the loss of their son, but I do think his prurience is a defence mechanism, affected since the death of his first wife. It's a way he can sexually satisfy himself and remain detached from the situation at hand. This works, until someone penetrates that barrier, the way Shabnam did. 

As difficult as Shabnam was because of her obvious issues, she made Kush work for her love and respect. The fact that he was so ready to give up on fighting for her that in the 24 hours they had broken up during the early days of their relationship, he relieved himself sexually with her best friend.

Kush is a user of people, and Denise, 16 years his senior, isn't about to be used.

The Awful Truth. I never knew Preston was Rebecca's boyfriend. They slept together a month ago, and not much has happened since, until Michelle turfed him out, after he'd returned from Manchester. Whilst this overdue revelation panned out, I was struck, once again, by how bad an actress Jasmine Armfield is. She does ok with the teens-in-the-schoolyard stuff, but she was bloody awful in this and easily the weakest link.

Still, I appreciate that the boyfriend line was a contrivance tailor-made to make Michelle look even more like a slimy putz.

Kudos? Well, to James Bye, obviously, and to Lacey Turner, albeit her role was more along the supportive bent. She stepped up to the plate in sending Preston on his way, and this was, I suppose, one of the singular successes of this episode. 

At long last, we got some sort of history, both with Michelle and the little scrote upon whom she's fixated. 

I think it's safe to say that this Michelle has been an absolute epic fail of a character. Even more alarming was the fact that the revelation of Michelle's relationship with Preston, the length of it and its repercussions in Florida were all news to Martin, that he had never thought to question his sister why she'd suddenly appeared in Walford after 20 years' absence, leaving her job and her family.

She was on a visit, remember? Remember the leaving do the Fowlers and the Beales threw for her in the Vic? She was supposedly leaving the following day - got her return ticket all bought and paid for, as she reiterated to Stacey, who was none too glad to see the back of her. 

And yet she stayed. And her brother didn't wonder at that? He didn't wonder at her leaving his house, where she was his guest and horn in on the hospitality of a friend, whose good nature she'd abused twice before. Martin exhibited no curiosity at all, and neither, for that matter, did Stacey, and she's pretty quick to cast a beady eye on a dodgy situation.

The exchange between Martin and Michelle was probably the best scene in the episode, and James Bye has come into his own as Martin. The childhood reminiscence stuff, once again, was laid on too thick at some points - in fact, I never remember Martin referencing Michelle at all during his adolescence. As for her never returning home, Martin should have remembered that when Arthur died, Michelle had just given birth to Mark and was in no condition to return for the funeral; but it's true that she had no excuse for not returning for Mark's funeral, and she fell out (over the phone) with Mark for not showing up at Pauline's - but I can believe the part Martin referred about Pauline crying in the kitchen over Michelle's absence. Another thing that struck me was the allusion to Michelle's husband, Tim, whom Martin described as not being exactly a dynamic person, but seemingly so inconsequential that he isn't even allowed to have a surname.

Tim becomes just a faceless non-entity who loved Michelle, but Martin was right - and the continuity was good in that respect - to bring up how selfish Michelle was. This was always the downside of her personality, how she'd step over anyone and anything to get what she wanted. She married Lofty, yet let herself be convinced by a wierdly jealoous Den, that she really didn't want Lofty's child, so she aborted the baby and callously dumped Lofty.

She betrays her best friend by sleeping with the friend's father and becoming pregnant by him; she sleeps with Sharon's ex-husband and again falls pregnant;' and in both instances, thinks it the most natural thing in the world that Sharon should forgive her, which is what she did. One wonders if she'll forgive Michelle for hitting Dennis.

Of course, Michelle was all over the place. Not only was she desperately trying to cover her tracks about her dirty little secret, she was bombed out of her mind on a cocktail of sleeping pills and fizzy booze. The thing about Michelle, however, is that she's spent all her life, doing whatever it is she wanted to do, never considering whom she hurt, yet expecting a blanket forgiveness from them - Sharon, Pauline, Arthur, whoever she hurt, she expected - and got - forgiveness. In return, she offered loyalty. No one can deny, her major transgressions apart, that she's been loyal to the likes of Sharon and Ian. On the night she was killed, Pauline was off to a new life, living with Michelle in Florida.

But this time, her luck has run out. The rule of thumb in life is hurt me, but you don't hurt my kids, and this time, Michelle is on a hiding to nothing. She's hit Dennis, as the avenger Louise, is quick to inform everyone listening to her conversation with Rebecca in the pub, and this is sure to get back to Sharon; and Martin now knows that she's used his daughter as a tool in her wierd sex game of cut-and-thrust with Preston. No matter, Michelle reminding Martin that she did try to warn him and Stacey off Preston, that was too little too late and done with the express purpose of covering Michelle's arse.

In all the discussion between Martin and Michelle about Preston, it was coy of the programme to avoid Michelle mentioning that their relationship, whilst in Florida, was actually a crime. Equally pointless was Michelle saying that she was happy in her life until she succumbed to Preston's sexual pressuring. It was as I thought. He was a sexually precocious, spoiled brat, who pursued her for his amusement. She was the adult, and his teacher, who should have known better than to respond to his advances.

She was an ego trip, but for all his protestations that he loved her, he was a spoiled kid who reacted like a child - and Martin described it brilliantly in reminding Michelle that this boy is, emotionally, still a child - every time he didn't get his own way. His party piece was flouncing out of the room as soon as she said no. He showed his callous measure when his reaction to her telling him to associate with someone his own age was to get emotionally and romantically involved with Michelle's niece, even sleeping with her to make Michelle jealous.

And no more did Preston come across as a child than his behaviour tonight. He wasn't traumatised by what happened in the pub in the least. His reaction seemed to be Cool! Now we can be out in the open -because skulking around in the shadows and on the sly can become more than a bit boring. And he more than got what he deserved when Martin clouted him, bloodying his nose, not so much for hanging around with Michelle, but for using Martin's daughter for his own ends. 

Yet that scene where he confronted Rebecca made you realise that this guy was just a kid. Thrown out of Ian's house, seemingly rejected by Michelle, who suddenly realised that she really was about to lose the last remnants of her family, Preston seemed to think he could simply bounce back to Rebecca. He looked like nothing more than a simple teenager when he was trying to plead his case with her. But what did he think that would prove? He told Rebecca that he still liked her, but he loved her aunt. How is that supposed to make her feel?

That was a brilliant scene as well, not for Rebecca's po-faced Garbo-esque reaction to everyone, dramatically declaiming to Louise that she simply wanted "to be alone", but for the protective reactions of Whitney and Stacey, Stacey backing Whitney up by reinforcing the idea to Preston that he wasn't welcome in the pub Whitney was managing and yet making him feel her verbal force in graphically describing what she'd like to do to him for hurting her stepdaughter - that's the first time Stacey has referred to Rebecca as that. It was warming.

Yet five minutes later, we had Rebecca stumbling into a stumbling Michelle and breathlessly exclaiming the ludicrous line, 

You've lost everything! We've both lost Preston!

I'm glad Martin didn't stint in reminding Michelle of the litany of people she'd hurt by continuing this relationship, but I take exception in two instances, Martin making one of them, that Michelle was old enough to be Preston's grandmother. She's thirty years older than he, which means she is more than likely old enough to be his mother, so I don't know where he got off reminding her that Preston was young enough to be her grandson - Glenda having sex with 17 year-old Leon was a glamorous fifty-something woman who could have been his grandmother; but Michelle could easily have given birth at thirty. That remark was a bit overexaggerated.

And kudos for Louise - for her protecting Dennis, when Michelle started to lambast the child verbally, blaming him for telling what he'd seen. Michelle was clearly out of order and under the influence of drugs and drink when she virtually assaulted Louise when Louise said she was calling Phil, Bereft and rightfully abandoned by people who had once loved her, Michelle was grasping at straws and gunning for finding Preston, so she takes the keys to Sharon's BMW.

The rest, as they say, is history. Did Preston cop it? I'm not sure. I don't think she hit him or even clipped him, and it looked as though he took a nose dive in a pile of rubbish, which is suitable for him at any rate. I hope he's gone.

But Michelle has destroyed the chippie, with Kush and Kathy inside, and it's the type of destruction and force that could badly injure any fit young bloke, much less an elderly woman. There's some sort of overshadowing from Kush's remark about being fit and young. Yet consider this: Michelle committed a crime in Florida when she slept with Preston; driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol (which can easily be established) and causing grievous injury to a person whilst in that state is a crime as well.

Could we see Michelle, eventually, arrested and imprisoned for this? Because this was, surely, a crime.

Michelle was not a victim. She was the author of her own defeat. And this re-cast has ruined this character for perpetuity.

The Shit Hitting the Fan - Review Monday 27.03.2017

On a scale of 1 to 10, I gave that episode a 7.It was good, it was watchable, but it was spoiled by the overtly bad, terribly camp, cheesy and cheap dialogue between Denise (of whom we see far too much in this programme) and Kush. The other thing that spoiled the show was Rebecca's singing. Jasmine Armfield is OK, but her rendition of two 60s EastEnd girl singers - Sandie Shaw and Helen Shapiro (were these songs deliberately chosen, I wonder?) - frankly, were insulting and embarrassing. I'm sure Armfield has talent, but like Maria Friedman's Elaine, we don't need EastEnders to turn into a West End production or a cabaret.

Cheap Trick. I totally get Sean O'Connor's underlying theme in this episode. There were two storylines, about to collide head-on, each about a "significantly older" woman having a relationship with a much younger man, the exception being that 48 year-old Denise is pondering beginning a physical relationship with Kush, who happens to be 32 and the son of her best friend; and 48 year-old Michelle is about to be revealed as having a sexual relationship with a 17 year-old boy, which began when he was 16, and which, in the state in the country where it occurred, was totally and utterly illegal. It was, effectively, statutory rape.

The difference between these two tales is, of course, that Kush is an adult, even though he may not be, at times, emotionally. He is 32. He's been married twice, widowed and divorced. He has something or a reputation of being a sexual predator, himself, specialising in vulnerable women - Shabnam, Stacey, Nancy - with issues of their own; and a lot of his sexual behaviour, came as a result of and a reaction to his first wife's death. His way of coping with grief was promiscuity.

Kush and Denise had a fling before, and this was not Denise's first time she'd coupled with a much younger man. Some years ago, she had a brief fling with Fatboy,who took the association seriously - remember him asking her plaintively to reassure him that she wasn't just using him for sex? She was.

I don't know how far the original affair with Kush would have gone, had we not had that preposterous and unnecessary story about being pregnant by Phil Mitchell, but since this producer seems to want to give Denise umpteen different storylines, placing her in almost every episode, shoving her front and centre and making her the equivalent of DTC's Carter family, it looks as though we're getting a second shot at Denise having some sort of affair with Kush.

Juxtaposed with the equally awful and tawdry tale of Michelle and Preston, you'd have thought this would have come the opposite end of the scale, with a little bit of class, some reticence and more than a bit of poignancy. 

Instead, we got a lot of overt, smutty innuendo and Diane Parish attempting to give Davood Ghadami a sultry look whilst eating a biscuit. It failed. Another thing that made it almost as cheap and tawdry as Michelle's tale is that, in the aftermath of the failed community meeting (the third failure - hey, three strikes and you're out), when Denise and Kush were left alone to tidy up the community centre, the sexual banter that ensued consisted of Kush imagining Denise as the sexy teacher and Denise rising to the role-play.

Considering what is going on in the Mitchell house across the Square, it makes Denise and Kush come across as cheap. 

We know where this storyline is going; we knew that immediately Carmel barged into the place, late for the meeting because of work; we knew it when she wistfully spoke of Kush needing to meet a nice "girl" after he'd scurried off to nurse his tumescent hard-on, lest his mother's beady eye land on his crotch. We knew it a couple of episodes ago when Carmel expressed a wish for Kush to settle down and start a family.

Before any speculation begins now, know this: the adoption is a no-go area; it's final. Denise neither knows the name of her son's adoptive parents, nor will she be allowed to know this. And she had a menopausal pregnancy. She's 48; sometime in the next couple of years, the full-on menopause will set in. She and Kush won't have a child, and that's going to be where the problem will lie. For all Arthur is Kush's biological son, he has Martin's surname and he's being raised as a Fowler. Besides, Kush stepped back from that, for the good of the child. There's no returning to that either.

I suppose this half-hearted excuse for community action is being used as a prop to get Denise and Kush back together again. Maybe however brief their association will be might result in her attitude improving. Maybe he'll teach her a bit more compassion for people outside of her familial sphere, or gratitude to people who seek to be nice to her when she's one of the most arrogant, loud-mouthed, intolerant and condescending people on the Square. 

One thing about Denise, like several other women on that programme past and present - she equates happiness with sexual satisfaction. She was happy enough with Kevin, and before he started his killing spree, she was happy enough with Lucas. She convinced herself that she wanted companionship with Ian and ended up snogging Fatboy in the loos of the Vic at her engagement party.

At the moment, she's an attractive woman in her late 40s, but let's check in on her in 1en years' time when the pull of gravity has its effects on her body and we'll see where Kush, who'll still be a young man of 42 will be. This is the most unreal aspect of EastEnders - and, indeed, of Coronation Street. 

These are working class people, most of whom have low-end, unskilled jobs. Denise, for example, is working on the checkout in the local corner shop, probably for minimum wage. There is no way she'd be able to afford a mortgage on the terraced house in which she lives with Patrick in that part of London. Like Shirley, like the ridiculous Whitney, like Kathy whose character is 67 this year), these women with their expensively manicured nails, their lineless faces (bar Shirley) and their toned bodies which denote expensive and exclusive gym memberships are not even remotely like these working class Cockney sparrows or Mancunian lasses eking out a living on a minimum wage.

Denise is unemployed. Because she quit her job, she's not entitled to any sort of employment benefits for six weeks because she left her job voluntarily, and there she is, wittering on about the community. If this is all they brought Derek's character back for as well, it's a waste. Instead of reconnecting with Martin and Martin's family, he's being established as a busybody fusspot, a Cockney Norris Cole with a crush on Patrick and linked up with the Fox-Trueman-Hubbards for who knows what reason - probably because in Sean O'Connor's EastEnders, everything emanates from Denise. 

Kudos to Vincent for leaving that shower, but once again, he's another emasculated man, who's left holding, literally, the baby.

Party Girl. The best storyline of the moment, without a doubt, has been that of Tina and Sylvie. Sean O'Connor's one big success has been the development of Tina's character. Who'd have thought she'd turn out to be the best of the Carters, bar Linda?

Luisa Bradshaw-White and Linda Marlowe have brilliantly played blinders in this sad, poignant and sometimes funny tale. We share Tina's despair and her sadness at recognising that she can't care for her mother anymore as Sylvie's dementia progresses. No matter how much anyone - Kathy or Johnny or the insipid Whitney -tell her that once Sylvie is in a care home, Tina will get her life back, they don't realise that, although Sylvie has been a trial for Tina - because she's basically done all the caring on her own, with no help from Shirley or any of the other Carters - it's also been a joy for her. 

After having been abandoned by Sylvie, she's suddenly found her mother again; and even though Tina's been a feckless mother, herself, she's thrown herself into caring for Sylvie. It's been touching to see some of the things she does for Sylvie, who totally doesn't recognise or remember her - like making her fried egg on toast and using ketchup to make a face on the egg, or taking her to the charity shop to find a dress for her "party."

Sylvie's lost in some fluttery, ongoing party somewhere in the 60s, where she veers between being the girl everyone wanted and where she's also the fickle wife surreptitiously cheating on Stan. Some of her scenes tonight were poignantly funny - like the confusion between the Dusty who hankered after Stan being either Dusty Springfield or some woman called Dusty who served behind the bar of a pub, or her assessment of Dot as an "old hag."

I want to know how Whitney and Johnny are still running that pub, without a licencee on the premises, not even someone with a personal licence, unless Tracey has one. Big hole in that storyline. It also offends me to see Whitney throwing her weight about, issuing orders to Johnny, who sounds more and more like a walking public service announcement, especially the way he patronises Tina about how she'll get her life back once Sylvie's institutionalised. Johnny and the Carters did precious little to help her with Sylvie at all. They couldn't lumber Sonia with her quick enough, their reckoning being Sonia was a nurse who would know what to do. Remember the awful family meeting Sonia organised where all the Carters did was stuff their faces and leave Sonia with the responsibility of looking after Sylvie?

And for anyone who's forgotten, Whitney's never happier than when she's throwing her weight about, issuing orders and offering unsolicited advice to other people about subjects on which she's little qualifed to comment.

Sharon needs to come back and take control of the Vic, but she also needs to come back for another reason.

Of course, Sylvie's 60s party - yet another excuse for the Carters, or the remnants thereof, to have some sort of theme night at the Vic (cheer up Linda, cheer up Sylvie), which, in tonight's episode, was a plot device - something which offered a gathering of Square residents assembled to hear the revelation of a shocking secret.

This wasn't Sharongate, by any stretch of the imagination.

That Sound You Hear When the Shit Hits the Fan. A lot of things struck me about this episode and this storyline, and it wasn't completely shit. For example, it bothers me that I absolutely loathe Rebecca, yet - and even though she's been the weaker person - I admit to liking Louise. Why is that? Well, consider this: It's just possible that Louise is possibly the more nuanced character. She can be a bitch, she can be weak to the point of being manipulated by Sniggle and Snaggle. I totally get it that Tillie Keeper is pushing 20 and playing a child of 15 and that sometimes, a lot of the time early on, the dialogue the writers have given her would have suited someone more the age of Lauren; but they seem to have toned that down now, and at least they are approximating, badly, some sort of writing which the writing room thinks accommodates the youth of today.

Louise is conflicted. She likes Rebecca, she wants to be her friend, but she's being bullied and manipulated, herself, by Sniggle and Snaggle, and the Mitchell ethos deems she's been grassed up by Rebecca to the school authorities; and everyone knows the Mitchells hate a grass.

Sometimes, it's easy to hate Louise - indeed, most of the Brat Pack are unlikable; but Rebecca always seems to come across as smug and preening, when she's not doing the sad-faced teen act. She reminds me of Lauren, when Max and Tanya were together, always bleating on about being treated like an adult, but always having her hand out to Daddy for funding. Rebecca's like that in insisting on being treated like an adult, and Stacey has shamed Martin into going along with this; but Rebecca is a child, moreover, she's a silly girl with no common sense who's made atrocious errors of judgement to her chagrin and to the detriment of her personal reputation.

Yes, it's easy to hate Louise, but Louise was the hero of the piece tonight.

The unravelling of this tawdry tale and the big shocker that will probably happen tomorrow night (take note: Kathy's in the chippy  and Michelle's mixing barbituates and booze) suddenly became interesting tonight, because finally, Michelle is about to be revealed as a fraud.

Michelle has never gelled with the Mitchells, especially the Mitchells and their association with Sharon. 

An aside: As I watched this episode tonight, conscious of the fact that, suddenly, after years of Michelle just being "married" and living in the States, TPTB sprang to action and re-delivered her to the bosom of Walford as a teacher - an English teacher, no less - married to a significantly older man. I make this observation because it's dawned on me that we never knew Michelle's married name. I realise that some women keep their maiden names for professional purposes, but precious few high school teachers do. This happens more in the world of medicine or law - examples being professional lawyers, Hillary Rodham and Michelle Robinson, suddenly having to become Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama when their husbands became Presidents of the United States and they became First Ladies. All we knew of Michelle was that she had married "Tim." But Tim had no surname, and even though Tim had adopted Michelle's son Mark, having married her when he was a baby or even a toddler, yet Mark showed up in Walford in the summer, calling himself Mark Fowler and believing that Tim was his father. 

Go figure that one. Why is Michelle still "Miss Fowler"? Why was Mark using her surname and not the unknown surname of the man he considered his father, the man who adopted him? Legally.

And Michelle the English teacher? Really? This is the woman who wrote a note to Sharon on her wedding day which read:-

Me and Ian ain't coming to the wedding on account of Ian ain't well.

Seriously, Sharon read that note out to Linda at the Mitchell breakfast table, before she knew that Ian was returning from visiting Michelle to arrive in time for the wedding. Michelle, the English teacher, wrote that note.

Still, I suppose that's DTC's vision, which is now invalid. Instead, Michelle's an English teacher who's been sleeping with one of her students, who - by Florida law - is under the legal age of consent. Since she returned to Walford, to be followed by her immature, child-like lover, for all she's blathered on about keeping this relationship a secret, a relationship which cost her her husband's and her son's respect and ended her professional career, because she doesn't want to alienate the few real family members she has left, she's managed to use her own niece as a tool to justify her own feelings toward a kid, who's nothing more than a sexually precocious spoiled brat.

That doesn't make Michelle a victim, and it's only the legal wording which makes him one. Michelle was the adult, who should have known better than to succumb to his advances. I haven't been able to fathom why his parents haven't been on the next plane to the UK, to physically remove him back to his home and for his mother to bitch-slap Michelle about the Square.

That Michelle, this Michelle, is a weak, pathetic and emotionally immature wreck of a woman, and - once again - she's taking advantage of her best friend's hospitality. She slept with Sharon's father and got pregnant - Sharon gave her a pass; she slept with Sharon's ex and got pregnant - Sharon gave her a pass. Now, she's hit Sharon's son.

I don't think Sharon would give her a pass.

To be fair, there was a real amount of tension in this episode. You get the impression that Michelle is over Preston - over him,but she can't let go. It's interesting that the only thing that woke her up to the fact that their relationship was wrong happened every time she tried to seek employment in her professional field - which was simultaneously stupid and arrogant of her. Was she so stupid that she thought that any British school or educational employer wouldn't seek her references from her previous employer? Faced with the fact that the reason why she lost her job so precipitously (in real time, she'd have been prosecuted and imprisoned) or that she was massively over-qualified for any lesser educational job, faced with the end of her professional career, she now realises that this affair has resulted in that.

It's only then that she seeks to separate herself from Preston. Yet this little shit knows just how to manipulate her. Michelle is right, ultimately recognising that Preston's dalliance with her has merely been a game. It hits home to her with one remark from him:-

I could have had any girl I wanted, instead I ended up with ...

She knows the ending in the unspoken words. She's been facing that hard truth since the dinner date where the waitress mistook her for his mother. She wants to finish with Preston, but she needs him to leave Rebecca alone and ... just leave. But Preston won't leave - he's working illegally with Martin, who, misguidedly, believes he's a friend of Mark's and that he's from a nice family (probably true), a nicer tranche of people than the Kazemis. Martin's lack of curiosity is amazing. Not once has he questioned why Michelle is her and why her husband and son are in the US. Does he speak with Mark? Mark is his only nephew, and you'd there'd be some sort of contact. Why hasn't he asked the boy about his mother? Why hasn't he been nosy (siblings are always nosy) and called Tim to get the lowdown? Instead, because Preston's helped him out on the stall, he thinks he's ok and that this is just a holiday romance for Rebecca - but when does a holiday cease to be a holiday and become an extended stay? If Preston is in his last year of high school, he only has about 8 weeks of classes left.

I had thought Louise had seen Michelle hit Dennis. She hadn't, but Dennis has studiously avoided Michelle all weekend, and continues to blank her whenever, and especially when she tries to make pleasant to him. Louise knows something is wrong,and all through these segments, I found myself screaming at Louise, 

Call Phil and Shaorn! Just call Phil and Sharon!

As I said, Michelle has always been on a negative vibe when it comes to the Mitchells, and Louise picks up on this instantly, in the wake of Dennis's reaction to her. She almost knows something bad has happened, and she isn't buying Michelle's pithy excuse that she'd deprived Dennis of his computer. This is Louise's first threat to call Phil, even when Michelle tries to pull rank, muscling in to remind Louise that until Phil and Sharon come home, this is her domain; but she doesn't bank on Louise witnessing Michelle's encounter with Dennis in the street - and I was Team Dennis on that one, when Michelle got desperate and tried to force the child inside the house by yanking him by the arm. Dennis reacted by kicking her. Good. She deserved that, even though he tried it on by demanding 100 quid to keep his mouth shut. He knew she would never comply with that. She doesn't have a pot in which to piss.

I thought one of the best scenes of the episode was the playground scene between Louise and Dennis, one of the best enacted scenes between two young actors on the show. Louise is concerned, worried and tense, wanting to know why Dennis had reacted to Michelle the way he did. Dennis is reticent, whether it's from fear of Michelle or fear that Louise wouldn't believe him or a combination of both, he reluctantly tells her what he'd seen - that he'd seen Michelle and Preston together, kissing, that Michelle had hit him because he knew about her secret and she feared he would tell.

That's when Louise channels her inner Mitchell.

I think Michelle knew that it was only a matter of time before everything spilled out into the open, and she seeks to cover her arse by trying to talk Martin and Stacey into discouraging Rebecca from seeing Preston, but she's suitably vague about her reasons, and the Fowlers don't take her seriously. She's further spooked at the pub by Louise's unannounced appearance, and here we have the art of minimalist dialogue. Louise's attitude, her demeanor and her disdain of Michelle makes the woman wonder aloud if Dennis has said anything to Louise. Louise says nothing, except to leave Michelle with the observation that Michelle disgusts Louise. This incident occurs just moments after the insipid Rebecca thanks Michelle for talking to Martin, who's given his blessing to Rebecca's romance with Preston, and Preston acknowledges secretly that this is all an act to make Rebecca jealous. He doesn't really care about Michelle. Her association with him has lost her her family in the US; now he's taunting her insecurities and immaturity by putting her in competition with her niece.

Louise tries to talk to Rebecca about this. It's natural that Rebecca doesn't trust her, after the incident with Sniggle and Snaggle; besides, she thinks Louise is jealous. She may not have believed Louise at first about Michelle and Preston, but Louise has planted a seed of doubt, which blossoms when Preston accidentally on purpose snakes across the the bar to place an affectionate and intimate hand on Michelle's shoulder, Rebecca realises that what Louise has told her is true.

One observation: The choreography of this scene reminded me of Sharongate. There was a party that night in the Vic - Phil's and Kathy's engagement party. There was a dance tape going, the machine for  which was right where Rebecca was performing. Sharon and Michelle were standing exactly where Michelle was standing on that evening. We had a brief scene before that of Alan and Carol Jackson dancing (Sylvie and Vincent this time), and down the bar behind Sharon were standing Ricky Butcher and Bianca (Martin and Stacey). The layout, the choreography and design was very much a tribute to Sharongate.

But it wasn't.

Just remember: Michelle's mixed sleeping tablets and booze, and Kathy's in the chippy.