Has it been four days since the last episode of EastEnders? Did you miss it? I've got a confession to make: I didn't. And that's really sad, because the longer these inadequate, circular episodes, featuring either children or childlike people continue, it's fast acquiring a stench of Brookside in its latter days. The show has lost its way. It's fallen prey to harkening tributes to second-rate soap situation dramas of days gone by. It was bad enough that we now have to endure Grange Hill Goes Walford, we now have to suffer Bad Girls Where Shirley's Really Shirley and Not Yvonne.
What's next? The Desperate Housewives of Walford featuring Carmel and Denise? (Although the one positive about tonight's episode was that we got a welcome break from Denise's constant sneer). Or maybe The Real Beales, featuring Jane, Ian, Lauren, Steven and Kathy sat around on the Beale sofa watching television, with Ian urging Steven to "make himself useful and put the kettle on" - much the same way Jim Royle used to bark at "our Anthony" in The Royle Family. We got a bit of that tonight. I can see it now. Kathy can offer mindless advice like Nana, Jane can try to calm things down, Ian's got Jim's belly already, Lauren can stare blankly at the television screen and utter inanities, and Steven can make the tea. Whoda thunk it?
Tonight was Sean O'Connor at his utter worst. The writer was someone named Davey Jones, fit for a show which is currently deserving to be at the bottom of the ocean.
The Most Interesting and Timely Story at the Moment: Tina and Sylvie. Once again, who would have thought that Tina, the Court Jester, would be the one thing holding my interest right now? This is a brilliant, sad, poignant and deeply evocative storyline, because it features a problem becoming all too prevalent in society today - what to do and how to deal with an ageing parent who has dementia. In many ways, it's as good as Emmerdale's harrowing and ofttimes distressing storyline about Ashley Thomas, but Ashley is a much younger character. Linda Marlowe is playing a blinder here, and so is Luisa Bradshaw-White. It's apparent Bradshaw-White has done her homework on carers and the difficulties they encounter with parents who have Alzheimers.
Compared to Mick's problems and his all-consuming self-pity and Shirley's indifference to Tina's plight and her own difficulties with their mother, Tina is struggling; and I found myself rooting for her and feeling that immense sympathy that the writers want directed towards the insipid Rebecca or the atrocious Michelle or the condescending Denise.
Because the Carters' heads are so far up Mick's backside, no one seems to be paying any attention to Tina's pleas for help at all. For all they talk about helping and supporting each other, no one has any time for Tina, struggling with caring for a parent with dementia, someone who doesn't know day from night (so Tina, invariably, gets little or no sleep), who obsesses about certain ideas, objects or people (finding her curlers, wanting to see Shirley or intent upon getting into the kitchen), who has to have a certain regime and who is prone to react violently when something goes awry which confuses her, She deals with this 24/7, yet Mick ignores her calls for help (because he's too consumed with himself and his own self-pity.
His answer is to get Tina to bring the old lady around the Vic, where they'll sit her upstairs in front of the television, with Johnny playing babysitter; and that's as far as it goes. Far be it for him or Princess Whitney to sully themselves, sitting with the woman, cleaning her up when she messes herself, and trying to hold a conversation on her terms. Mick is one of two people who referred to Sylvie as "it", remember?
Another good piece of continuity in this segment was Kathy as an understanding and compassionate person, mindful of Tina's plight and worried for her own health and safety in dealing with Sylvie. It was this that made her suggest to Tina that perhaps it was time for Sylvie to be dealt with by professionals, after having offered to look after Sylvie whilst Tina was reluctantly coerced into visiting Shirley, presenting a faux united front for good old Shirl' who's taking one on the chin for the Carter empire. Kathy was unprepared for Sylvie's violent reaction to confusion.
She genuinely feels sorry for Tina and admires all the time she's spent with Sylvie, caring for her and addressing her needs. I like the friendship between Tina and Kathy and Tina's loyalty to Kathy as her boss. This was the old Kath, who volunteered for the Samaritans, and who understands how Tina might not want to surrender her mother to the care of professionals, but there will come a time when she will be ill-equipped and unable to care for Sylvie, because the help she'll get from the Carters will be next to nothing. They'll rally around the manchild known as MIck, but they won't help Tina, who has a real and serious problem in caring for Sylvie.
No wonder Tina got disgusted with Shirley and Mick and their deep concern about each other during the prison visit, when neither of them took any notice about what she was enduring, caring for Sylvie. Shirley asked the cursory question, and she might bleat on and on about doing time for Mick, but part of the reason prison looked inviting to her was that it would offer her a welcome break away from Sylvie.
Tina is patient, she's kind, she takes all the crap that Sylvie unknowingly throws her way, and she does so with love and a mature understanding. Out of all of this stress, there do come worthwhile moments, such as when Sylvie started reminiscing about her youth to Tina or at the end of the segment today, when she cuddled up to Tina on the sofa and lay her head on Tina's shoulder. That was sweet and very genuine.
This is a storyline, a contemporary problem, that really ought to be front and centre of this programme, not some silly menopausal woman horning after a kid younger than her own son.
One Manchild Susses Another: Dennis the Menace. The other character I'm immensely enjoying at the moment is Dennis. Michelle is such an ineffectual bitch, immature in the extreme and almost on the same emotional level as Dennis.
I can't believe she's looking at online applications to be a teaching assistant. Is she seriously arrogant, seriously stupid or does she have some sort of personality disorder? This is, again, a job in a school, with children. The same education authority would not only do a background check, they'd get references from her previous employer, and then her game would be up. She's also keeping track of Prestonovich on his social media page, and she sees where he's been whooping it up, partying iwith this "friend of a friend" at university in Manchester.
Hold this thought: Prestonovich is 17, meaning he is either in his penultimate or last year of formal schooling in the US, depending on where his birthday falls. Considering he's remarked about having taken his SATs, which are taken normally at the end of your penultimate year, I'd say he was a senior in high school. (The amount of time he's lost in what would have been his last semester might mean that he won't be finishing school in June this year at all). The "friend of a friend" being at university in Manchester must mean he is someone who's doing the optional "junior year abroad" offered by most universities in the US. BA programmes in the US are four or five years in duration, depending on the subject matter. The third, or junior, year can often be taken at a university in Europe or Asia - an example being someone stufying French doing a year at the Sorbonne; so the person Prestonovich is visiting must be 20 years old, more or less the same age as Mark Wotsit. It's rare that high school students, even in their last year, would move in the same social circles as someone who's basically one year away from finishing his degree and starting out in the proper adult world.
Maybe Preston, sulky hissy fits apart, considers himself mature; but Michelle suffers a coniption fit of jealousy from seeing him having a whale of a time with kids his own age, and that's anything but mature.
Dennis, on the other hand, is having a whale of a time as well, treating her with the contempt she deserves. Boy, is he a chip off the combined blocks of his grandfather and his step-father. The way he played her in that first scene they shared was hilarious - he totally upended her equilibrium, hiding his school uniform under his dressing gown, making her think he wanted a day off school. The surprise element and the upending of a person's comfort zone was sheer Den.
I don't want a day off school. I've got too much to tell my friends ... (leaving a pregnant pause in mid-air) ... and when Michelle queroulously asks what he'll be telling them, he simply responds ... about my new trainers.
Total Phil ... ramp up the anxiety, and then throw them to the ground, knocking the breath out of their fear. Dangling them by a psychological thread. In that one fell swoop, he reduces Michelle again to his own level, and she responds to him, arrogantly and ignorantly, like a child. Later Dennis taunts her ...
What would you do if I told my mum you had Preston staying over?
Michelle replied that Sharon wouldn't believe him, and that reply totally pissed me off. Who the hell does this woman think she is? Does she seriously think she holds a place dearer in Sharon's heart than her own son, blood of her blood and born of her body? I have friends whom I've known since I was six years old, but my children are dearer to me than they will ever be. Dennis is Sharon's son. He has no reason to know anything about Preston or what Michelle got up to in Florida that resulted in her rocking up in Walford after studiously staying away for two decades.
I daresay if he went to Sharon with a tale about some American kid named Preston who showed up and was sleeping with Michelle, Sharon would believe him without a shadow of a doubt, and Michelle would be out on her arse. For Michelle to even think that Sharon would trust the woman who's betrayed her twice monumentally in her life before she'd believe her own child is proof positive about how warped Michelle's mind is.
I liked the moment she received a phone call from Sharon (and we heard Shazza on the other end, so maybe a return is imminent). For a split second, drooling over pictures of Prestonovich, Michelle almost shat herself, hearing Sharon's voice. The school had called Sharon and told her that Dennis was ill. He needed picking up. All Michelle could muster was to wonder why the school didn't call her.
Duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ... maybe because you have an American cellphone, silly, and that would mean the school having to ring what is literally a number in America - ya know, like 001 850 (for Pensacola) 555-5555, which means a call to you down the road is really an international call, and it's charged as well to your "cell." Who's paying your phone bill, bitch? I'll wager it's not Tim; hasn't he cleared out your joint bank account? That's the least price you pay for statutory rape. The school would call Sharon or Phil, simply because they are the contact numbers the school has for Dennis, as they are his parents. She's so rattled by the call that she leaves her laptop on Prestonovich's social media page, which Dennis, inevitably, discovers for some more laughs. He certainly got the line of the night ...
Awww, are you missing him? Has he got a girlfriend?
All the while, making her believe that he wants another sick day off school, whilst he's got something else in mind. He levers his power over her in the scene where they're tussling over Dennis playing a computer game on the telly and where he threatens to tell his mother and where Michelle asserts that Sharon wouldn't believe him ...
Are you sure about that? he taunts, in a brilliant imitation of Phil at his most devious. Finally, pause for thought for Michelle. About time too. As I said, this is Sharon's child. Still, Michelle thinks he's angling for a sickie.
Oh, I don't want another day off school ... but there is this jacket I've seen that would go really well with my new trainers.
Remote control returned, normal service resumed. Michelle must have been one fuckwit of a teacher, to be manipulated so badly by a horny 17 year-old and the grandson of the man who popped her cherry and the stepson of the uncle of her second child.
Who feels sorry for Michelle? I certainly don't. But then, remember, Michelle eventually did let the abysmal Vicki walk all over her.
The Beales Officially Become a Sitcom. Yes, it's now official. Ian is the resident sad, fat clown. The Beales have transitioned from being sinister, bullies, aiding and abetting a murderer, to the lovely-jubbly resident sitcom family, with their jokeline being looking after Ian's expanding waistline.
Ian's making Martin sell healthfood fruit on the stall - blueberries and kale. He's making foul-tasting vegetable smoothies for him and Jane to drink and gag on, and Jane is trying to find a gym which Ian can join. Ian balks at this, protesting that he's on his feet all day at the restaurant - hang on, let's get some continuity straight here. It's all very well remembering Kathy was the compassionate voice at the end of the Samaritans line, but Ian handed the running of the restaurant to Steven. He literally handed the business to him, declaring that he'd only concern himself with the chip shop (where we rarely see him) and the café. I thought the restaurant was Steven's domain?
She's even suggested that Vincent ask Ian to go along on his jogging vaunts with him and Mick and gets Johnny Carter to buy Ian some running shoes. The entire ethos of the Beale family is a pseudo mock-up of The Royle Family, with the running theme being "funny ways to get fat Dad to exercise".
Eventually, we get that seminal moment with Ian and Steven enjoying a couple of Diet Cokes in the pub (why not the restaurant, their business, which both of them seem to run?) only to be subject to a Mick Carter temper tantrum as a result of a client choosing Beales' as a venue for a birthday party over the Vic and the cash-strapped Mick.
In the background of all of this, Kathy's feeling guilty about Shirley's prison sentence and the Carters' problems, because she shopped Babe. Isn't she feeling guilty about sleeping with Shirley's partner?
And in the midst of all of this, Steven gets ordered to make the tea ... Just like Anthony Royle.
Steven Beale, returned having prayed away the gay and destined to be the Anthony Royle of Walford.
There Is No Adult in the Room. There is no adult in this entire fiasco of the yoof storyline, which seems to go on and on and on and on. Martin is angry and confused, and that's understandable. He's confiscated Rebecca's phone, and that's understandable as well. He's angry with the Kazemis, and I can totally get that. Until Rebecca got involved with Shakil, he had none of the problems plaguing him now.
Carmel is fucking wrong, implying that Rebecca started all the problems with Shakil. Maybe it's time for Rebecca to come clean and tell everyone how Shakil had been pressuring her into having sex. Stacey knows this. She told her not to give into any of his demands if she felt she wasn't ready for sex.
Sound advice.
But as soon as Shakil got tired of her protests, after having called her "frigid," he tried another tack - the nude photos, which started all this bother, but which also resulted in Rebecca eventually agreeing to sleep with the horny little prick. So maybe Rebecca should start some self-preservation and set Carmel straight about who really started this steaming mess.
Stacey could vouch for her, even Tina would vouch for her; and - surprise surprise - Kush would do so as well, because he cautioned Shakil, initially, about pressuring a girl who wasn't emotionally ready, and she clearly wasn't ready.
Stacey means well, but she's not experienced in dealing with a teenager, and even though her advice is idealogically sound, she doesn't understand that teenagers will hear and interpret exactly what they want. She thinks Martin is keeping Rebecca's phone because he doesn't trust her, and in part, that's why he has it; but he's also keeping it as a means of protecting her - ostenibly, from Shakil. Once again, Martin is made to be the dolt in this situation as Stacey shames him into returning the phone.
And she means well, when she returns the phone and Rebecca receives a bevy of insulting messages. Stacey tells her to rise above this and be an adult about it, as that's how she wants to be treated. Once again, she isn't reckoning on Rebecca taking a particular slant on this, especially with Stacey's advice, telling her that she's mature and talented, and that it's what she does with the rest of her life - not school - that's important.
Rebecca may be legally of age, but she is by no means an adult, and she isn't mature, Stacey. She's a silly girl with no common sense, who allowed herself to be manipulated into having sex with a boy who was horny. She thought he loved her, he wanted to fuck. Stacey telling her to rise above the taunts, and Sniggle and Snaggle overriding her music video with their own words gives her the idea of not returning to school, but to trying to get an apprenticeship. (Sorry, but don't you need GCSEs for an apprenticeship?)
Stacey said the wrong word - "mature" - and seemed to imply that from now on, she would make sure that Martin treated Rebecca like an adult.
Wrong.
She is still a fucking child. She is materially dependent on Martin, and the reasons she gave him for trying for an apprenticeship, indeed, all of her interaction in that final scene was totally indicative that she is anything but an adult, and Stacey needs to learn that in adolescence, if you give someone an inch, they sometimes take a mile. All this shit talk about Martin "not being able to stop her" from doing what she wanted to do and how she was capable of making her own decision were just totally puerile reactions. The very fact that she sought to ram home to him the shocking fact that she'd taken those pictures of herself because she was "interested in sex" was simply stupid, because she was interested in having sex with Shakil because she thought he loved her, and he was pressuring her into something for which she wasn't ready. Part of being an adult is knowing how to make the right decision, and that comes from good parental guidance.
The fact that she's seeking an apprenticeship because she's basically scared shitless of people talking about her at school isn't an adult reaction, it's pretty cowardly. But she took Stacey's careless words about the rest of her life, not school, being what was important and what mattered, but the rest of your life is nothing if you're intelligent and don't have the academic qualifications to match your ambition.
And, as usual, Stacey has proven that she listened well in the Tanya Branning School of Undermining Parenthood, when - once again - Martin, the dad, is made to apologise to a silly daughter who's made the big mistake, for parenting, for acting like a responsible and caring parent, but whom Stacey has made to appear to be the big bad wolf. Remember Lauren stealing Max's credit card to buy the cam corder? Max wanted to punish her, and in the end, Tanya undermined his efforts to such an extent that he ended up apologising to Lauren for attempting to instill some discipline into her as she'd done wrong. In the end,that undermining reared up and bit Tanya on the arse. Stacey better be careful.
Widdle Mick. Widdle Mick is wallowing, but he's got Stacey following him around with lustful eyes and doing everything he wants, patting herself on the back as she, single-handedly, saves the Vic.
Widdle Mick has to go see Mummy in pwison. Everyone is rallying around Widdle Mick. Linda is forgotten, as usual, because Widdle Mick has to get the Vic back on an even keel so that Mummy has a business to which to return - Mummy, being Shirley and not Linda.
Tina's got the measure of Mick when she susses that he hasn't told Linda about anything that's happened - not about the debt (and that means Mick's debt and not just Lee's debt; Lee's debt was a matter of a few thousand quid, Mick's debt is bigger), not about the problems at the Vic, not about Lee leaving, nothing. He's told Linda nothing. Absolutely nothing at all.
Most of this segment was spent with various characters from Johnny to Honey to Shirley commenting on Mick's rudimentary on-the-cheap fliers for his St Patrick's Day do at the Vic and the fact that he'd mispelled the word craic as some sort of joke, the surreal bit being Honey informing him, confidentially, that she had to correct Billy's obituaries and that he'd almost had one published about someone's beloved fatter. Another EastEnders' joke that falls flat.
When Mick returns from the visit, his spirits are buoyed by the buoyant Whitney, who informs him that just about "everyone" will be attending the St Patrick's day celebration, including Steven and Lauren (wow), and to top it all, they had a birthday celebration booked for the next week, party of 60, with a grand to cover the bar. The bloke was returning later with a deposit.
Overhearing, Ian remarks that they also have a birthday celebration booked the next week - party of 60, with a grand to cover the drinks. The geezer paid the deposit just before he and Steven came to the pub. It's then that the buoyant Whitney remembers that the man in question said he had one more venue to look at before making his decision.
This little snippet tips Mick over the edge. Angered by a till that keeps sticking, he hurls it onto the floor and repairs to the dripping kitchen to brood. When we last see him, he's curled into a foetal position on Linda's side of the bed, weeping against the view shot from outside his window, with the rain hammering down.
I'm wondering if Max's boss were behind the double-booking? And Shirley did rail at him a bit about selling the freehold of the Vic. After he turns Ian's offer of sympathy and a spare till down, Jane calls Linda. So we hear Linda's voice as well.
Mick needs Linda, and he resents the attention she's giving Elaine, that much is obvious. What's even more obvious is that Mick is a weak-willed manchild, spoiled and totally dependent on women to feed his massive ego. What's even more stupendous is that Whitney can show him all the love and support and compassion she couldn't show Lee, whom she deemed was weak.
Everybody protects Mick. Shirley goes to prison for him, Whitney throws her husband over for him, Linda's got to come home for him.
Maybe Kellie Bright returns just to get Mick, on the verge of a breakdown, to go away for a bit, which would cover Dyer's break. Then again, maybe someone should just tell Mick the prick to "man up."
What's next? The Desperate Housewives of Walford featuring Carmel and Denise? (Although the one positive about tonight's episode was that we got a welcome break from Denise's constant sneer). Or maybe The Real Beales, featuring Jane, Ian, Lauren, Steven and Kathy sat around on the Beale sofa watching television, with Ian urging Steven to "make himself useful and put the kettle on" - much the same way Jim Royle used to bark at "our Anthony" in The Royle Family. We got a bit of that tonight. I can see it now. Kathy can offer mindless advice like Nana, Jane can try to calm things down, Ian's got Jim's belly already, Lauren can stare blankly at the television screen and utter inanities, and Steven can make the tea. Whoda thunk it?
Tonight was Sean O'Connor at his utter worst. The writer was someone named Davey Jones, fit for a show which is currently deserving to be at the bottom of the ocean.
The Most Interesting and Timely Story at the Moment: Tina and Sylvie. Once again, who would have thought that Tina, the Court Jester, would be the one thing holding my interest right now? This is a brilliant, sad, poignant and deeply evocative storyline, because it features a problem becoming all too prevalent in society today - what to do and how to deal with an ageing parent who has dementia. In many ways, it's as good as Emmerdale's harrowing and ofttimes distressing storyline about Ashley Thomas, but Ashley is a much younger character. Linda Marlowe is playing a blinder here, and so is Luisa Bradshaw-White. It's apparent Bradshaw-White has done her homework on carers and the difficulties they encounter with parents who have Alzheimers.
Compared to Mick's problems and his all-consuming self-pity and Shirley's indifference to Tina's plight and her own difficulties with their mother, Tina is struggling; and I found myself rooting for her and feeling that immense sympathy that the writers want directed towards the insipid Rebecca or the atrocious Michelle or the condescending Denise.
Because the Carters' heads are so far up Mick's backside, no one seems to be paying any attention to Tina's pleas for help at all. For all they talk about helping and supporting each other, no one has any time for Tina, struggling with caring for a parent with dementia, someone who doesn't know day from night (so Tina, invariably, gets little or no sleep), who obsesses about certain ideas, objects or people (finding her curlers, wanting to see Shirley or intent upon getting into the kitchen), who has to have a certain regime and who is prone to react violently when something goes awry which confuses her, She deals with this 24/7, yet Mick ignores her calls for help (because he's too consumed with himself and his own self-pity.
His answer is to get Tina to bring the old lady around the Vic, where they'll sit her upstairs in front of the television, with Johnny playing babysitter; and that's as far as it goes. Far be it for him or Princess Whitney to sully themselves, sitting with the woman, cleaning her up when she messes herself, and trying to hold a conversation on her terms. Mick is one of two people who referred to Sylvie as "it", remember?
Another good piece of continuity in this segment was Kathy as an understanding and compassionate person, mindful of Tina's plight and worried for her own health and safety in dealing with Sylvie. It was this that made her suggest to Tina that perhaps it was time for Sylvie to be dealt with by professionals, after having offered to look after Sylvie whilst Tina was reluctantly coerced into visiting Shirley, presenting a faux united front for good old Shirl' who's taking one on the chin for the Carter empire. Kathy was unprepared for Sylvie's violent reaction to confusion.
She genuinely feels sorry for Tina and admires all the time she's spent with Sylvie, caring for her and addressing her needs. I like the friendship between Tina and Kathy and Tina's loyalty to Kathy as her boss. This was the old Kath, who volunteered for the Samaritans, and who understands how Tina might not want to surrender her mother to the care of professionals, but there will come a time when she will be ill-equipped and unable to care for Sylvie, because the help she'll get from the Carters will be next to nothing. They'll rally around the manchild known as MIck, but they won't help Tina, who has a real and serious problem in caring for Sylvie.
No wonder Tina got disgusted with Shirley and Mick and their deep concern about each other during the prison visit, when neither of them took any notice about what she was enduring, caring for Sylvie. Shirley asked the cursory question, and she might bleat on and on about doing time for Mick, but part of the reason prison looked inviting to her was that it would offer her a welcome break away from Sylvie.
Tina is patient, she's kind, she takes all the crap that Sylvie unknowingly throws her way, and she does so with love and a mature understanding. Out of all of this stress, there do come worthwhile moments, such as when Sylvie started reminiscing about her youth to Tina or at the end of the segment today, when she cuddled up to Tina on the sofa and lay her head on Tina's shoulder. That was sweet and very genuine.
This is a storyline, a contemporary problem, that really ought to be front and centre of this programme, not some silly menopausal woman horning after a kid younger than her own son.
One Manchild Susses Another: Dennis the Menace. The other character I'm immensely enjoying at the moment is Dennis. Michelle is such an ineffectual bitch, immature in the extreme and almost on the same emotional level as Dennis.
I can't believe she's looking at online applications to be a teaching assistant. Is she seriously arrogant, seriously stupid or does she have some sort of personality disorder? This is, again, a job in a school, with children. The same education authority would not only do a background check, they'd get references from her previous employer, and then her game would be up. She's also keeping track of Prestonovich on his social media page, and she sees where he's been whooping it up, partying iwith this "friend of a friend" at university in Manchester.
Hold this thought: Prestonovich is 17, meaning he is either in his penultimate or last year of formal schooling in the US, depending on where his birthday falls. Considering he's remarked about having taken his SATs, which are taken normally at the end of your penultimate year, I'd say he was a senior in high school. (The amount of time he's lost in what would have been his last semester might mean that he won't be finishing school in June this year at all). The "friend of a friend" being at university in Manchester must mean he is someone who's doing the optional "junior year abroad" offered by most universities in the US. BA programmes in the US are four or five years in duration, depending on the subject matter. The third, or junior, year can often be taken at a university in Europe or Asia - an example being someone stufying French doing a year at the Sorbonne; so the person Prestonovich is visiting must be 20 years old, more or less the same age as Mark Wotsit. It's rare that high school students, even in their last year, would move in the same social circles as someone who's basically one year away from finishing his degree and starting out in the proper adult world.
Maybe Preston, sulky hissy fits apart, considers himself mature; but Michelle suffers a coniption fit of jealousy from seeing him having a whale of a time with kids his own age, and that's anything but mature.
Dennis, on the other hand, is having a whale of a time as well, treating her with the contempt she deserves. Boy, is he a chip off the combined blocks of his grandfather and his step-father. The way he played her in that first scene they shared was hilarious - he totally upended her equilibrium, hiding his school uniform under his dressing gown, making her think he wanted a day off school. The surprise element and the upending of a person's comfort zone was sheer Den.
I don't want a day off school. I've got too much to tell my friends ... (leaving a pregnant pause in mid-air) ... and when Michelle queroulously asks what he'll be telling them, he simply responds ... about my new trainers.
Total Phil ... ramp up the anxiety, and then throw them to the ground, knocking the breath out of their fear. Dangling them by a psychological thread. In that one fell swoop, he reduces Michelle again to his own level, and she responds to him, arrogantly and ignorantly, like a child. Later Dennis taunts her ...
What would you do if I told my mum you had Preston staying over?
Michelle replied that Sharon wouldn't believe him, and that reply totally pissed me off. Who the hell does this woman think she is? Does she seriously think she holds a place dearer in Sharon's heart than her own son, blood of her blood and born of her body? I have friends whom I've known since I was six years old, but my children are dearer to me than they will ever be. Dennis is Sharon's son. He has no reason to know anything about Preston or what Michelle got up to in Florida that resulted in her rocking up in Walford after studiously staying away for two decades.
I daresay if he went to Sharon with a tale about some American kid named Preston who showed up and was sleeping with Michelle, Sharon would believe him without a shadow of a doubt, and Michelle would be out on her arse. For Michelle to even think that Sharon would trust the woman who's betrayed her twice monumentally in her life before she'd believe her own child is proof positive about how warped Michelle's mind is.
I liked the moment she received a phone call from Sharon (and we heard Shazza on the other end, so maybe a return is imminent). For a split second, drooling over pictures of Prestonovich, Michelle almost shat herself, hearing Sharon's voice. The school had called Sharon and told her that Dennis was ill. He needed picking up. All Michelle could muster was to wonder why the school didn't call her.
Duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ... maybe because you have an American cellphone, silly, and that would mean the school having to ring what is literally a number in America - ya know, like 001 850 (for Pensacola) 555-5555, which means a call to you down the road is really an international call, and it's charged as well to your "cell." Who's paying your phone bill, bitch? I'll wager it's not Tim; hasn't he cleared out your joint bank account? That's the least price you pay for statutory rape. The school would call Sharon or Phil, simply because they are the contact numbers the school has for Dennis, as they are his parents. She's so rattled by the call that she leaves her laptop on Prestonovich's social media page, which Dennis, inevitably, discovers for some more laughs. He certainly got the line of the night ...
Awww, are you missing him? Has he got a girlfriend?
All the while, making her believe that he wants another sick day off school, whilst he's got something else in mind. He levers his power over her in the scene where they're tussling over Dennis playing a computer game on the telly and where he threatens to tell his mother and where Michelle asserts that Sharon wouldn't believe him ...
Are you sure about that? he taunts, in a brilliant imitation of Phil at his most devious. Finally, pause for thought for Michelle. About time too. As I said, this is Sharon's child. Still, Michelle thinks he's angling for a sickie.
Oh, I don't want another day off school ... but there is this jacket I've seen that would go really well with my new trainers.
Remote control returned, normal service resumed. Michelle must have been one fuckwit of a teacher, to be manipulated so badly by a horny 17 year-old and the grandson of the man who popped her cherry and the stepson of the uncle of her second child.
Who feels sorry for Michelle? I certainly don't. But then, remember, Michelle eventually did let the abysmal Vicki walk all over her.
The Beales Officially Become a Sitcom. Yes, it's now official. Ian is the resident sad, fat clown. The Beales have transitioned from being sinister, bullies, aiding and abetting a murderer, to the lovely-jubbly resident sitcom family, with their jokeline being looking after Ian's expanding waistline.
Ian's making Martin sell healthfood fruit on the stall - blueberries and kale. He's making foul-tasting vegetable smoothies for him and Jane to drink and gag on, and Jane is trying to find a gym which Ian can join. Ian balks at this, protesting that he's on his feet all day at the restaurant - hang on, let's get some continuity straight here. It's all very well remembering Kathy was the compassionate voice at the end of the Samaritans line, but Ian handed the running of the restaurant to Steven. He literally handed the business to him, declaring that he'd only concern himself with the chip shop (where we rarely see him) and the café. I thought the restaurant was Steven's domain?
She's even suggested that Vincent ask Ian to go along on his jogging vaunts with him and Mick and gets Johnny Carter to buy Ian some running shoes. The entire ethos of the Beale family is a pseudo mock-up of The Royle Family, with the running theme being "funny ways to get fat Dad to exercise".
Eventually, we get that seminal moment with Ian and Steven enjoying a couple of Diet Cokes in the pub (why not the restaurant, their business, which both of them seem to run?) only to be subject to a Mick Carter temper tantrum as a result of a client choosing Beales' as a venue for a birthday party over the Vic and the cash-strapped Mick.
In the background of all of this, Kathy's feeling guilty about Shirley's prison sentence and the Carters' problems, because she shopped Babe. Isn't she feeling guilty about sleeping with Shirley's partner?
And in the midst of all of this, Steven gets ordered to make the tea ... Just like Anthony Royle.
Steven Beale, returned having prayed away the gay and destined to be the Anthony Royle of Walford.
There Is No Adult in the Room. There is no adult in this entire fiasco of the yoof storyline, which seems to go on and on and on and on. Martin is angry and confused, and that's understandable. He's confiscated Rebecca's phone, and that's understandable as well. He's angry with the Kazemis, and I can totally get that. Until Rebecca got involved with Shakil, he had none of the problems plaguing him now.
Carmel is fucking wrong, implying that Rebecca started all the problems with Shakil. Maybe it's time for Rebecca to come clean and tell everyone how Shakil had been pressuring her into having sex. Stacey knows this. She told her not to give into any of his demands if she felt she wasn't ready for sex.
Sound advice.
But as soon as Shakil got tired of her protests, after having called her "frigid," he tried another tack - the nude photos, which started all this bother, but which also resulted in Rebecca eventually agreeing to sleep with the horny little prick. So maybe Rebecca should start some self-preservation and set Carmel straight about who really started this steaming mess.
Stacey could vouch for her, even Tina would vouch for her; and - surprise surprise - Kush would do so as well, because he cautioned Shakil, initially, about pressuring a girl who wasn't emotionally ready, and she clearly wasn't ready.
Stacey means well, but she's not experienced in dealing with a teenager, and even though her advice is idealogically sound, she doesn't understand that teenagers will hear and interpret exactly what they want. She thinks Martin is keeping Rebecca's phone because he doesn't trust her, and in part, that's why he has it; but he's also keeping it as a means of protecting her - ostenibly, from Shakil. Once again, Martin is made to be the dolt in this situation as Stacey shames him into returning the phone.
And she means well, when she returns the phone and Rebecca receives a bevy of insulting messages. Stacey tells her to rise above this and be an adult about it, as that's how she wants to be treated. Once again, she isn't reckoning on Rebecca taking a particular slant on this, especially with Stacey's advice, telling her that she's mature and talented, and that it's what she does with the rest of her life - not school - that's important.
Rebecca may be legally of age, but she is by no means an adult, and she isn't mature, Stacey. She's a silly girl with no common sense, who allowed herself to be manipulated into having sex with a boy who was horny. She thought he loved her, he wanted to fuck. Stacey telling her to rise above the taunts, and Sniggle and Snaggle overriding her music video with their own words gives her the idea of not returning to school, but to trying to get an apprenticeship. (Sorry, but don't you need GCSEs for an apprenticeship?)
Stacey said the wrong word - "mature" - and seemed to imply that from now on, she would make sure that Martin treated Rebecca like an adult.
Wrong.
She is still a fucking child. She is materially dependent on Martin, and the reasons she gave him for trying for an apprenticeship, indeed, all of her interaction in that final scene was totally indicative that she is anything but an adult, and Stacey needs to learn that in adolescence, if you give someone an inch, they sometimes take a mile. All this shit talk about Martin "not being able to stop her" from doing what she wanted to do and how she was capable of making her own decision were just totally puerile reactions. The very fact that she sought to ram home to him the shocking fact that she'd taken those pictures of herself because she was "interested in sex" was simply stupid, because she was interested in having sex with Shakil because she thought he loved her, and he was pressuring her into something for which she wasn't ready. Part of being an adult is knowing how to make the right decision, and that comes from good parental guidance.
The fact that she's seeking an apprenticeship because she's basically scared shitless of people talking about her at school isn't an adult reaction, it's pretty cowardly. But she took Stacey's careless words about the rest of her life, not school, being what was important and what mattered, but the rest of your life is nothing if you're intelligent and don't have the academic qualifications to match your ambition.
And, as usual, Stacey has proven that she listened well in the Tanya Branning School of Undermining Parenthood, when - once again - Martin, the dad, is made to apologise to a silly daughter who's made the big mistake, for parenting, for acting like a responsible and caring parent, but whom Stacey has made to appear to be the big bad wolf. Remember Lauren stealing Max's credit card to buy the cam corder? Max wanted to punish her, and in the end, Tanya undermined his efforts to such an extent that he ended up apologising to Lauren for attempting to instill some discipline into her as she'd done wrong. In the end,that undermining reared up and bit Tanya on the arse. Stacey better be careful.
Widdle Mick. Widdle Mick is wallowing, but he's got Stacey following him around with lustful eyes and doing everything he wants, patting herself on the back as she, single-handedly, saves the Vic.
Widdle Mick has to go see Mummy in pwison. Everyone is rallying around Widdle Mick. Linda is forgotten, as usual, because Widdle Mick has to get the Vic back on an even keel so that Mummy has a business to which to return - Mummy, being Shirley and not Linda.
Tina's got the measure of Mick when she susses that he hasn't told Linda about anything that's happened - not about the debt (and that means Mick's debt and not just Lee's debt; Lee's debt was a matter of a few thousand quid, Mick's debt is bigger), not about the problems at the Vic, not about Lee leaving, nothing. He's told Linda nothing. Absolutely nothing at all.
Most of this segment was spent with various characters from Johnny to Honey to Shirley commenting on Mick's rudimentary on-the-cheap fliers for his St Patrick's Day do at the Vic and the fact that he'd mispelled the word craic as some sort of joke, the surreal bit being Honey informing him, confidentially, that she had to correct Billy's obituaries and that he'd almost had one published about someone's beloved fatter. Another EastEnders' joke that falls flat.
When Mick returns from the visit, his spirits are buoyed by the buoyant Whitney, who informs him that just about "everyone" will be attending the St Patrick's day celebration, including Steven and Lauren (wow), and to top it all, they had a birthday celebration booked for the next week, party of 60, with a grand to cover the bar. The bloke was returning later with a deposit.
Overhearing, Ian remarks that they also have a birthday celebration booked the next week - party of 60, with a grand to cover the drinks. The geezer paid the deposit just before he and Steven came to the pub. It's then that the buoyant Whitney remembers that the man in question said he had one more venue to look at before making his decision.
This little snippet tips Mick over the edge. Angered by a till that keeps sticking, he hurls it onto the floor and repairs to the dripping kitchen to brood. When we last see him, he's curled into a foetal position on Linda's side of the bed, weeping against the view shot from outside his window, with the rain hammering down.
I'm wondering if Max's boss were behind the double-booking? And Shirley did rail at him a bit about selling the freehold of the Vic. After he turns Ian's offer of sympathy and a spare till down, Jane calls Linda. So we hear Linda's voice as well.
Mick needs Linda, and he resents the attention she's giving Elaine, that much is obvious. What's even more obvious is that Mick is a weak-willed manchild, spoiled and totally dependent on women to feed his massive ego. What's even more stupendous is that Whitney can show him all the love and support and compassion she couldn't show Lee, whom she deemed was weak.
Everybody protects Mick. Shirley goes to prison for him, Whitney throws her husband over for him, Linda's got to come home for him.
Maybe Kellie Bright returns just to get Mick, on the verge of a breakdown, to go away for a bit, which would cover Dyer's break. Then again, maybe someone should just tell Mick the prick to "man up."
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