Dot, the Vic and Max - Review:- Friday 28.04.2017

I gave myself two days off from watching Friday's episode. I had things to do on a holiday weekend, and I have to admit, I was more than a little fearful that the upswing in quality generated by Thursday's episode might not be repeated. 

I watched the episode this morning, and I was wrong. Whereas usually the Friday episode is the weakest of the week, this one was, in fact, the strongest; and what amazed me even more was that this episode was written by Jesse O'Mahoney, one of the weakest writers on the team. What next? Katie Douglas writing BAFTA material?

Watching the episode today, with some distance between it's actual airing date and the episode before that, it suddenly dawned on me why these episodes resonated so much as opposed to the rest of the tripe we've been being dealt lately.

These two episodes featured characters and situations about whom and which we care deeply, namely Dot, the Vic and Max.

There's no issue storyline being fabricated out of nothing for no one - instead, this situation is something specifically endemic to society today and concerning a believable character in the bargain, the characters that aren't that likeable are tied to a situation about which there's plenty of interest and concern on the viewers' part, and at long last, we're about to see a truly nuanced character landed smack dab in a situation which conflicts his personal concerns and associations greatly.

I was greatly impressed with the last two episodes.

Dot, Abi and Donna the Passive-Aggressive Bully. The ugly side of Donna was on display in this episode, and what annoyed me about this segment was the fact that the only reason Donna and, indeed, Jay and Ben want Abi to live in the house is for her rent money. That, and the fact that she is someone they know and not an unknown quantity - no "psycho or politician".

In fact, the "politics" of this situation has become very interesting, indeed - Donna, by virtue of being the owner of a 48-inch television, has become the power-player of that household, holding Jay and Ben in thrall to what she wants as far as the house situation is concerned.In short, she's calling the shots.

Of course, Jay and Ben don't want Abi around. She's the ex- of both, and believe it or not, Abi is a pretty sensitive young girl. She'd find it uncomfortable living with Jay and, considering, the unusual circumstances of her relationship with Ben, even more uncomfortable living with him. In another world, Ben would find it equally discomfiting. But Sean O'Connor has turned Ben into a lager-swilling couch potato, addicted to wall-to-wall sports and video gaming, usually to be found scoffing full Englishes in the caff, accompanied by Jay, who's lucky enough to have been given employment by Billy, after betraying his trust, and who still finds any excuse to skive off actually working. Minty and Garry Mach II.

When push comes to shove, Abi is feeling guilty about leaving Dot, and when Dot is honest enough to tell her that she's the one person since Arthur Chubb over whom she's been able to comfort, coddle and for whom she can do things, Abi re-evaluates her situation. Dot is lonely, and she enjoys having someone to care for. She's been far more of a grandmother to Abi than Cora, whom we'll see in some capacity next week, and Abi loves her.

Abi is anything but a fool, and she knew that Ben and Jay, literally, had been forced into accepting her as a housemate - even with Donna badgering her by text in the café, both boys still aren't keen on having her live with them. Also, the fact that Donna's plan to sway them around to letting her stay consisted of having her cook dinner for them just may have made Abi think that that would be her sole function and purpose in living in that house. 

She's comfortable with Dot, who cares for her and shows ample concern for her.Also, Abi is a young nineteen. She still looks twelve, and her recent association with the frat house, consisting of Jay, Ben and Donna has been in extensive clubbing, partying and all-night drinking sessions. I can't reiterate enough the fact that every member of Abi's maternal family has been a victim of alcohol abuse, and she very well may have an addictive personality as well.

There's another aspect, which - on second sight - is a bit skewed in her friendship with Donna.Abi is 19; Donna is 30. She's older, she has her own business,and you have to wonder why she's so keen to have Abi move into the house-share with them. It may mean that Abi is a familiar face, and everyone in the house knows her. Of course, it's easier living with someone you know rather than a stranger, but Abi is also someone who, at times, can be easily led. The jagerbomb session resulted in Abi taking a sick day off work, when Donna was hale and hearty and on her stall first thing in the morning.

There's some sort of determined desperation on Donna's part to make sure Abi takes the spare room in the house, whereas neither Ben nor Jay, who are the principal lessees on the property, don't seem too fussed; yet Donna plays the passive-aggressive bully card extensively in this episode - first by ordering Jay to stop by Dot's and subtly strongarm Abi into fulfilling what Donna perceives to be her commitment. Knowing he'll fail, she then plants an advert for a housemate strategically in the café where Abi is sure to see it.

Donna was proper nasty in this episode, and you'd think that she was the lessee of that house, trying to fill the spare room. When Abi had found the advert, she pressured her by saying that they needed her commitment now, because they needed the money for the rent. Were I Abi, and with any nous, I'd have realised then and there that the room was being offered only on the chance that Abi had a regular income and money to help with the outgoings in the house -also that she would, more than likely, be the one who'll cook, clean and answer the door.

But she was well out of order in the pub when she determined that they should tell Dot about Abi moving out, themselves,and this would have been after Abi had left a voicemail saying she'd decided, ultimately, on staying with Dot. After making that decision, you could tell by Abi's smile that she was comfortable with her decision. However, Donna was totally tactless and uncouth in barging into Dot's home like that, with the two boys reduced to subservient idiots and playing along with something of which Ben certainly disapproved - after all, he was the one who said it wasn't Donna's place to tell Dot anything - at the price of having a television available to watch. The idea of Ben and Jay being bought into subservience at the price of a flat-screened television is too preposterous to consider.

Donna's snidey, condescending attitude when they arrived at Dot's was truly nasty. At least, Jay had the perspicacity and integrity to apologise to Abi for what was about to occur.

We couldn't miss out on the fun, could we, boys?

What a sarcastic, patronising and condescending remark that was in answer to Dot's question. Abi had made her decision, and who was this woman to ascertain that, by living with her grandmother, Abi's chances of having "fun" in her life would be severely diminished to non-existence. It was sarcastic and disrespectful to Dot.

Well, we were going to stay in with our new flatmate, but when she didn't show, we thought we'd come around and see if she'd change her mind.

Passive-aggressive bullying at its best - humiliate Abi and make everything her fault. There were no documents signed and two-thirds of the residents in that house didn't want Abi living there, as she reminded them, so she's well within her rights to decide to stay with Dot.

Or this piece of snark:-

You've got board games and a cat.

Dot, however, was gracious in defeat. She was right in ascertaining that Dot was a safe haven in Abi's life after the past few years when Tanya and Max finally called it quits and the awful situation she found herself in with Ben. Dot loves her and cares for her and offered her stability. In actual fact, Dot didn't impose any restrictions on Abi at all. She came and went as she pleased, and ultimately, she was happy living there. It wasn't guilt which made her decide to stay. The look on her face after having made her decision was proof that she was satisfied.

Yet Dot encouraged her to go and live with her friends, to sample independence, even, finally, telling her that leaving suddenly like that, was often the best thing to do. Actually, it's not as if she's leaving Walford. She's only just across the Square from Dot, but you can bet from now on, until the shit hits the fan in some way in that house, that Abi won't be near Dot's house anytime soon. It was a terrific sacrifice for Dot to make, and even scurvier of Donna, acting as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, in thanking Dot,by telling her how "kind" it was for Dot to make leaving easier for Abi, but Dot knows Abi, and she knows that she's not as strong as she makes out. The words of farewell from Dot to Abi about her living with her friends had a particular bend about it. Dot knows that none of these people are really Abi's friends, and that out of the three, possibly only Jay or maybe Ben might fight her corner. 

With friends like Donna, however, Abi will need no enemies.

And once again, Dot is left alone with her pet. We're concerned for Dot's plight, because we know her, and we also know that elderly people living alone is a problem in today's society; but Abi's living in a house with her two exes, one of whom, who lied to her, cheated on her, humiliated her and left her with an STD,describes her as "one olive short of a pizza" and a much older woman who probably only wants Abi around because she's responsible enough to cook and clean.

I find it almost laughable that Abi has no friends. There surely must be people with whom she keeps in touch from school, and she surely must have friends and colleagues from the vets' practice where she works. Donna's more than a decade older than she, and you wonder if she's targeting Abi as someone whom she can easily dominate.

The Vic: Woody's Mutiny and Johnny the Whiny Little Bitch. Watching the scag-ends of the Carters bicker amongst themselves and whatching Shirley knowing that she's suddenly out of her depth and that the freeholder has the remaining Carters by the short and curlies is getting more interesting by the minute.

Johnny, however, is an insufferable and frankly whiney little bitch. He's not even qualified as a solicitor yet and with total assurance, he's telling Shirley how Fi can't do anything other than advise the Carters what to do - and you don't have to take advice.

The first dilemma is Tina waking up in Mick's and Linda's bed with Woody. Based on what was said, it looks as though Tina's sharing a room with Shirley and Woody's drawn the short straw and has to share with Johnny.

The one thing that struck me throughout this segment is that the character of Johnny was meant to be based on DTC, himself. In fact, Johnny was DTC. Now under SOC, Johnny-Dominic Treadwell-Collins has become one - dare I say it again? - whiny little bitch.

He's affronted that Tina has slept with Woody, especially after what Woody did in setting Johnny up with a non-date, and calls her a "part-time lesbian."

You what?

Jesse O'Mahoney missed his chance at relevant dialogue with that one. Tina's retort should have been:- Johnny, I'm fluid in my sexuality, at least I'm not stagnant like you.

He's totally up himself, from the remark he made to Woody - On a personal level, you're deeply unpopular - (only with Johnny and Shirley) to his final remark - This is a family business, and your last name ain't Carter.

I am sorry, but I have a big problem with supposedly educated people using poor grammar. Lauren throwing "ain'ts" about like two pence coins is one thing. She has no qualifications, but Johnny is a law graduate, When you're educated for a purpose, good grammar stays with you, and this is why I have a problem with the likes of Johnny, Sonia and NuMichelle, even Saint Denise and her GCSE course - they all have a propensity to use "ain't" exclusively, and it doesn't stick as authentic, especially with Michelle and Denise, who are supposed to be teachers/students of English grammar.

One thing is made clear, and that is that Fi was sufficiently impressed with Woody to obtain his mobile number and include him on all of the discussions about the re-organisation of the Vic. That says one thing to me, and it isn't that Woody is a tool in Max's game of take-over. It just means that Grafton Hall or whatever, via Fi, know that Woody is the one person working in the Vic with the least emotional attachment to it. The Carters and Sharon have too much of an emotional attachment to the place for Grafton Hall's purpose. To Woody, it's just a job. My guess is that somewhere along the line, Shirley/Mick/Linda are going to pull some sort of epic fail and lose the Vic, and Woody will be the last man standing. Woody's allegiance is to whoever pays his wages.

That said, I like him. Lee Ryan was even good at depicting someone, especially a man, asleep after a night of bonking,without a care in the world. The "If Looks Could Kill" prize this round goes to Whitney - first for the look on her face when she saw Tina do the Walk of Shame out of Mick's room, having spent the night with Woody and later the snarly look she gave Shirley when Shirley swept Fi upstairs to talk over the Vic's books.

I think there's still a connection between Woody and Tina, but I couldn't figure out why he'd suddenly decided to leave, ostensibly just because Tina told him no one liked him, yet then just as suddenly decided to stay, simply because Shirley and Sharon thought he would be the most logical person for the Vic to shed. Being told they need to shed two people, it was astute of Sharon to suggest to Shirley that ridding the place of Woody would be the equivalent of getting rid of two people because as manager, he would be getting the wage of two people.

I've never understood why Linda charged Sharon with looking after the place and then hired Woody as manager, but then I don't understand a lot of plot-driven drivel. Fi literally gave the game away in remarking to Woody that his staying was what Grafton wanted. And it was then that Woody fought back and like Donna with Ben and Jay, took control of the situation.

He knows he has the Carters over a barrel. They can't complain to Mick because that would entail telling him about the freehold. Now, in an unusual circumstance, the entire Clan Carter are keeping a whopper of a secret from Mick. Fi is one sharp cookie and another new character I like. She's like Ronnie without all the neuroses, the psychopathy and the tragic heroine shit. A viable businesswoman - nothing personal, she's just out to get the best dividend out of this business.

Basically, Shirley's test is shedding two, ultimately one, staff member in order to cut costs. Myself, I'd have shed Whitney and Johnny. Johnny isn't a full-time employee at all. He works as and when and he'll have his qualifying year's studies to do come the autumn, so he can't really be classed as staff and on the payroll.

And the Carters owe Whitney nothing. Why is she still there? She's no longer related to them, and it's not as if she were without family. She's got nursery nurse qualifications, and she has vague connections to Martin and Stacey, stronger connections to Bianca in Milton Keynes and even stronger connections to her brother, King Drip, in Yorkshire.

I must admit I thought the two candidates for the sack would be Sharon and Tracey, and I loved the fact that Woody called Sharon out for not volunteering to go, saying - quite truthfully - that she didn't need the job.Line of the episode:-

You don't need this job.You just use it as an extension of your social life.

The die is cast. The worm has turned. Shirley realises now that holding the leasehold, instead of the freehold means dancing to the tune of whoever owns the building. They are also de facto owners of the business, and Fi was right. The success of the Vic as a business is commensurate to the level of rent paid and profit accrued that the Carters are allowed to keep.

I like the way Fi just breezes in, warning the Carters that freebies from the bar isn't allowed (Tina's Coke) - keep in mind how much booze both Tina and Shirley have pilfered from Mick in the past; and she isn't in the least fazed or initmidated by Shirley's rudeness. In point of fact, Shirley is pretty cowed by all of this, and they all end the segment being cowed by Woody's newest assertion and clouded by the fact that they're holding a big secret from Mick.

I imagine the much-touted "big fight" to occur between Mick and Woody will be when Mick returns to find Woody in charge.There will be a big bust-up (think Mick and Dean during that infamous Christmas) until Shirley screams out, Mick, we ain't got the freehold anymore!

Max Is Now a Conflicted Man. The dominant theme throughout this episode was basically  the worm turning - Donna emerging as the dominant force in the house-share dynamic, and coming across as a thoroughly nasty passive-aggressive bully; Woody, asserting his position not only as manager but the chosen vessel for Grafton Hall or whatever; and finally, Max being upended in a turn-up for the books - that Josh the creep is actually Max's boss, most probably being Weyland's son, and his asserting his own dominance in a situation that affects the entire Square.

Think of the domino effect. If Carmel, with her planning position, is Max's useful idiot, then Max is, quite possibly, the useful idiot of Josh, and in this episode, I think Max just realised this. I thought that Max would encounter a conflict in his grand design, and that that conflict would come in the person of Lauren, his daughter. 

It seems that, at first, Max seemed to be on board with Weyland & Co's cultivation of Lauren - or, in particular, Josh's cultivation of her, offering her a job for which she was way underqualified. Josh wants Lauren for sex, and I would imagine once he found out that Lauren was Max's daughter, things became a lot sweeter for Max; but Max has had time to think about the situation, and he doesn't want Lauren involved with these people. 

Instead, Josh "creates" a job for Lauren, lying to say that people were sufficiently impressed with the photos from her phone that they had to create a position for her - Creative Team Assistant, which really means that she's probably going to do for the "Creative Team" exactly what she did with her web designer internship - make tea and serve biscuits and be on tap to bend over the desk in Josh's executive office for on-the-spot sex.

On the one hand, she has Steven the Condom-Popper, plotting an unplanned pregnancy to keep her closer to home, and on the other, we have Josh, who's a creepy obsessive and who isn't put off in the least by the fact that she has a committed boyfriend or a child. I would imagine that Josh has a wife and a kid or two, himself. As for Lauren, I don't know if she is as attracted to Josh as she initially was. Steven's made an effort, and she seemed genuinely moved by his dinner efforts to want to repay him sexually, and got caught in a revealing outfit by the unexpected arrival of Josh. 

There's going to be something happen here, that will all end in tears. I don't know if she'll suddenly become interested in him or if he'll rape her and then make it seem as though she were complicit in the act. DTC had his own rape storyline, there's no reason to think SOC won't. There'll be some doubt about this, enough to give Josh the benefit of the doubt, but I think there's going to be some sort of tragic ending to this. Steven's first action with the knife on the condom was fairly overshadowing.

But consider this - Max has "done well" with the Vic, according to Josh. Ian Beale's chippie site is up for sale, and Sharon and Phil received an over-the-odds price for the car lot. Just how far is this going to go?

The Ugly Side of Life - Review:- Thursday 27.04.2017

Life is full of surprises, indeed; and this was the best episode of EastEnders I've seen in a long time.

Think of it - no Rebecca, no NuMichelle, no Denise ... but maybe, just maybe the episode was made good for the introduction of one new character and the establishing a background history of another.

Another big surprise - how much do I like Woody? As I've said before, I knew nothing of Lee Ryan prior to this, but for the part, he's good. He's really good in the role. He's not just another jack-the-lad type with a come-on and a quick wit and repartee, tonight he was established as someone with insecurities and a past full of deprivation. Losing his father as a child made him desperate to overcompensate for being liked, starting with trying to comfort his mother and, at the age of seven, seeking to replace his dead father by becoming a provider.

And, again, not short of surprising, Lee Ryan and Luisa Bradshaw-White have an amazing sexual chemistry. It's comfort sex, I know, but in that rooftop scene, they really bonded over the loss of a parent, although Tina's memories of Sylvie singing the Dusty Springfield song to her and Shirley as children might just have been stretched a little bit, and may have actually been Shirley's memories transferred by word-of-mouth to Tina, as Shirley would have been nearly a teenager when Tina was born and would have been a child, herself, during the era when that song was popular enough for Sylvie to have taken note of it. Also, we know from Stan's tale of Shirley almost drowning Mick when Tina was a toddler, that Sylvie had been long gone by that time. Tina is two years older than Mick, so there would have been no real memories of her mother at all.

Still, it made for a nice lead-in to a scene, which allowed the viewers to know that little bit more about Woody and to know that his cocksure facade was just a front. It's also nice to know, from his conversation with Tina,that he's not really interested in dirty Shitney at all (although her ego might allow her to think that he is); he's just wanting to be liked, and - from the looks of it, considering Shitney in her new-found importance, Johnny and Shirley - he's failing. I daresay, his putting Whitney in her place when she tried to grass on Shirley to Mick, put the mockers on any attraction she may have felt for him.

After reverting to the Court-Jester-idiot-child mode for a few episodes, it's nice to see Tina return to the development we so enjoyed during her storyline with Sylvie. To his credit, SOC has brought Tina along leaps and bounds. The storyline, told from her point of view, of the hardships and emotional rewards from caring for a relative with Alzheimer's, has been the strongest thing about EastEnders of late. In the run-up to the BSA's, the show's played safe, by giving us the same old same old nominees, two of whom are capable, but who have been short of being front and centre in storylines (June Brown and Lacey Turner) and one, who's being force-fed the viewers (Denise), when TPTB should have been brave and put forth Bradshaw-White as a nominee.

Tina's lonely and feels on the periphery of her family unit. Mick has his wife and children, and Shirley's a part of that dynamic, as Mick's mother; but Tina has always been away and apart from the rest. The café is her main means of employment and she hasn't lived in the pub - living with Sonia first, and subsequently, caring for Sylvie. Indeed, she feels a lot like a spectator watching the proceedings. Consider the way she introduced herself to Fi Browning, the new freeholder of the pub:-

I'm Tina, and I'm on compassionate leave from my job. My mum just died.

No family identification, no affiliation to the business, just a relative who's grieving her mother. In that final scene where she opened up with Woody, after he'd told her of his protective front of trying to get people to like him, she confessed her fear of solitude, how it seemed that everyone she loved had left her - her mother dying, being at odds with Shirley (who also abandoned her for Kevin when she was a child) and Sonia leaving her. Very significantly, she failed to mention her daughter, Zsa Zsa, and we know that Tina failed to bond, in every way, with Zsa Zsa. People have wondered if Sylvie's death would make Tina try to reach out to her child. 

It hasn't, and as quirky as that is, I like the fact that she hasn't reverted to soap maudlin mode and made an overture to Zsa Zsa. She made it quite plain, in a brutally honest way, that both she and Zsa Zsa checked in on one another from time to time to see if each was still alive, but apart from that, their relationship had never thrived or even petered into dysfunction.

The final scene, that of two lonely people coupling together for some comfort sex, was totally unexpected, but brilliantly poignant.

I hope Woody stays.

As far as the new resident, leggy blonde businesswoman, I like Fi.Of course, her introduction was typically trite EastEnders, and her initial introduction to Shirley and the rest of the Carters was a tad too sitcommy - Shirley losing Lady Di, Fi finding her, Shirley being her usual gnarly, obnoxious, aggressive self and accusing her of kidnapping the dog.

But she comes across as a confident, self-possessed, practical businesswoman, who takes no shit from anyone. She quickly deflects Cartoon Keegan's precociously sexual come-ons by dismissing him disdainfully ...

Come back when you've hit puberty.

When Shirley celebrates prematurely and sprays her with bubbly's in the fridge (her coat must be ruined because champagne leaves spots), as the Walton-esque introductions continue, Fi mistakes Shirley for the cleaner, as she appears to be so deft with a mop.

Once again, Julia Honour injects a quick dose of sexism in everyone concerned, with everyone assuming that the representative coming to take a professional gander at the Vic would be a "suit"- i.e., a man. I'm surprised that Sharon, who's fronted several businesses, herself, including the Vic, would pre-suppose the freeholder, or the agent of the freeholder or whoever, would be a man, 

Gender assumption, much?

Overshadowing was rife amongst the Carters in this segment, with the fact that they really are a family built on a foundation of secrets and lies being even more firmly rooted. Shirley takes a call from Mick and brazenly lies about the state of things on the home front - the business is fine (in fact, it's about to turn a corner), Lady Di is doing well ... you get the drift.

The first scene between Tina and Shirley looking at the "To Let" sign over their old flat, as well as Fi Browning glancing at it as she stepped from the underground, gives you an idea of where she's going to live. I also got the impression that Shirley's celebrations at the Vic were premature as well, even though Sharon did try to warn her that this could mean something more than just the Carters being allowed to run the pub as before, which is exactly what Shirley thinks. Also, I was more than a bit taken aback at Sharon sniggering at Fi being showered with Shirley's champagne fizz as she walked through the door. Here was a stranger, and Sharon would never laugh at someone walking into something like that.

I think Fi's someone who means hard business and was actually taking a cold hard look at how the business is being run, mentally taking an inventory - the fact that there appear to be two bar managers, although I think Sharon's given herself that title. Linda merely told her to keep an eye on things, and maybe the fact that she was spending an inordinate amount of time mollycoddling Michelle was the reason Linda asked Woody to rock up. You could tell Fi was taking note of everyone connected to the Vic - that Tina was only there because she was on compassionate leave from her real job, that Shitney was the barmaid, that Johnny "helped out". (Johnny's about to get a law degree - shouldn't he also be applying for a Legal Practice Course as final preparation for qualifying as a solicitor, which would also entail clerking for a firm? We've heard nothing of that). She finally meets Tracey, in the course of the working day.

As she reiterates throughout, her brief is to see the pub maximise its profits.The freeholder will want the leaseholder to do well - it's more money in their pocket. But maximising profits means a lot of things. Fi now holds the power to decide whether or not the business is over-staffed or understaffed. Rather than people hanging around and helping out, she might want full-time people doing recognised shifts. She won't want two bar managers. The fact that she's back the next day and that she's living in the area means that this is going to be a hands-on involvement, something neither Shirley nor Linda and certainly not MIck will like.

There are going to be a lot of changes at the Vic, and throughout it all, Max stands and watches from the sidelines, catching hold of the fact that the all-too-willing Carmel has a clutch planning applications to wade through, and he instantly offers his help and expertise.Carmel is Max's willing idiot in his means of helping whoever is taking over the Square.

This comical takeover aside, these new characters, as well as Konrad, and Jay's one-time friend, Eddie, are patent evidence that new blood is needed in this programme - and by that, I don't mean the contrived Michelle or the cartoon teens; they've been abject failures. In some respects, I can see the efficacy of introduing single, new characters. It's always easier to build up a background and add family at a later date, the way they did with Tiffany Raymond and Mickey Miller, rather than dumping an entire family, fully-formed, on the Square. Still, these two characters, early doors, look promising, but who am I to judge? In three weeks' time, we could see Fi Browning crawling into bed with Jack Branning, and then what?

The Sitcom in a Soap. Men Behaving Badly meets Friends. So Abi's been burning the candle at both ends, downing Jagerbombs in an all-night drinkfest with Donna, so much so that she's now ringing in sick at the vets.

Abi's now into 24/7 partying, but even Donna, who does like a drink or two and who also has to be up at the crack of dawn to set out her stall, wants a break from that from time to time. Abi's been out all night, downing jagerbombs, and looks a wreck when she comes home at breakfast time to Dot and the Bible. Funny, how Abi was springing to Dot's defence just the other night about wanting to live with Dot to look after her. Now, she's rolling her eyeballs and affecting extreme boredom at Dot's concern and lapping up Donna's invitation to move into the frat house. More drinking games, more clubbing, more jagerbombs.

Consider this: Abi's grandmother is a functioning alcoholic who was lately living (and drinking) on the streets; her aunt is a full-on alcoholic and drug addict; her mother was a seasoned binge drinker-cum-near alcoholic, never without an over-large wineglass in her hand, filled to the brim, and her sister almost died from alcoholism. Abi is a walking gender-case for an addictive personality, and whilst she pulls a sickie from being hungover, Donna, seasoned pro that she is, who knows how to pace her drinking, is working on her stall as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as they come.

The plot is to get Abi to move into the men-behaving-badly house and thus morph into the Deborah character. Minty and Garry Ben and Jay, scoffing a full-English breakfast in the café, veto the idea. After all, Abi is the ex-girlfriend of both of them - fair enough, in that respect, but Jay was always fond of and fair about Abi's treatment, constantly reiterating to Ben how fraudulent and cruel it was for him to play straight with Abi and lead her on. Now you have Jay, deprecatingly referring to Abi as "one olive short of a pizza" with Ben, stoutly reminding Donna that Abi had the affront to pretend to be pregnant.

Donna should have reminded him that he pretended to be gay and that he also humiliated her in a very public way when he found out about her deception. The price she paid for his deception was contracting an STD from him. Yet both boys present her as the pejorative one, someone neither wanted as part of their daily regime.They're quite content for her to hang out, just not live with them. 

Donna's scheme is for Abi to cook the dinner, which not only reinforces how shallow they are, it also denotes that Abi would become the chief cook and bottle-washer, cooking the meals, keeping the fridge well-stocked with liquor and probably cleaning up after everyone. At the end of the day, all it takes to convince them of the efficacy of her staying is for Donna to physically wrench their dinners of spagbol from their greedy little hands and threaten to move her television into her room.

That's all it takes to seal the deal. 

When did Ben and Jay become such sexist dolts?

At the end of the day, Abi's conflicted. Dot fixes her favourite meal and reminds her that she promised Tanya she'd look after Abi.

Abi should stay with Dot. Seriously.

Steven Pulls a Trick and Lauren Proves She's Stupid Once Again. Seriously, Lauren is amazed that company after company reject her CV, which largely consists of nothing since she has no academic qualifications and no real work experience at all. She's - what?- 23 now,and people with a lot more qualifications and work experience than she are on the market and are infinitely more employable (and speak better English, as well, considering Lauren's propensity to use the non-word "ain't" exclusively).

She's not interested in Steven at all and only shows a perfunctory interest in her son - what a little trooper, playing to the camera like that, and looking totally relaxed in Aaron Sidwell's arms, Sidwell being a dad, himself).

It's telling that, of all the rejections, the only positive feedback comes from Weyland & Co, for the obvious reasons, and if Lauren were clever, she'd realise that, from whence that progression in the interview came and why it came; but she's self-obsessed and obtuse.

When she's out of the room, Steven takes a call from her phone from Weyland, and takes advantage of the situation to tell the caller she'd reached a wrong number. However, the woman from Weyland only e-mails Lauren, saying she'd tried to phone her earlier. 

If Lauren had another braincell, she'd have noticed the number on her phone's log and not have taken Steven's lie for granted that no one called her.

Steven wants one thing, Lauren wants another, and creepy Josh always gets what he wants. It will all end in tears.

Honey the Bitch and Cartoon Keegan. The obvious aim of this storyline is ageism and Honey's blatant intolerance. It amazed me how well the make-up department did in actually making her appear brittle and turgid. The bobbed hair,coupled with the pale white pancake make-up on her face made her seem almost like Cruella de Ville.

They played up too much the stereotypical bumbling old codger, which is something Derek isn't in any way, shape or form. They had him so incompetent that he couldn't count tins correctly nor was he able to pause in one task in order to serve customers. It's a fucking corner shop, not a massive corporation. I don't think he's incompetent at all, most probably put off and nervous by Honey's intransigent attitude. When you can't do right for doing wrong, no one ever wins. 

Of course, it's Cartoon Keegan whom Derek spots shoplifting and whom he confronts, making the little shit look even more little and shittier than normal. Confront this scrote verbally and he fades, 

Once again, this was a storyline that was quite dismissive of an attitude too often prevailing in society today, and thinking that Derek using fortitude and persistence in talking around a shoplifter - after Honey had admonished him to let Keegan leave (obviously the franchise doesn't care that much about merchandise lost through shoplifting) - was all it took to win her around.

That's that done and dusted then. They'll be the best of friends from now on. I hasten to point out that this was not out of character for Honey. She can be passive aggressive and has a bitchy tendency as well.

Good episode. Well, better than most,recently.

Half an Hour of Nothing - Review:- Tuesday 25.04.2017

It's official. EastEnders is probably now Britain's third soap, maybe even its fourth. There's no talk anymore of the show vying with Corrie and very little of it vying with Emmerdale. Tonight was the fastest 30 minutes of my life I'll never get back where virtually nothing happened. It was a filler episode for a filler episode. Shirley forged a signature. There was yet another Ladies' Night in the Vic. Jane and Sharon drank cocktails. Max superficially reached out to his daughters. We got a smidgeon of  EastEnders-Does-Men-Behaving-Badly with Donna slotting into the Dorothy role. Kim tried to be funny and failed. Bonnie Langford tried to act drunk and failed. Honey has turned into a cold-faced, intolerant bitch, who's attitude hasn't been lost on Derek, because Honey - like a lot of the writers in the show's writing room at the moment - thinks elderly people are slow-witted and bumbling. Even when Derek won Kim's pathetic quiz, which she tried to rig for Denise's benefit,for them, Honey was hard put even to crack a smile of thanks. Lauren and Abi sniped at each other when Lauren wasn't staring at her phone. Abi made a profound statement, reckoning that maybe Lauren wasn't getting any job offers because she wasn't qualified to do those jobs for which she was applying. That was a pretty shrewd assessment. Woody, who continues to get better and better each episode,is onto Whitney,but not in the way Whitney would like him to be. Johnny is too boring to pull a date on his own. And, once again, the last scene was the highlight of the episode - when Max lets a significant penny drop that selling the freehold of the pub is a lot more complicated for the Carters than Shirley thought.

And the star of the show managed to look significantly wan and worried in anticipation of her latest issue storyline concerning starvation and hunger.

Is It Me or Do Walford's Two Pubs Really Suck? Under the Carters' watch, the Vic has done so many Quiz Nights, so many karaokes, so many Ladies' Nights, that these things have become routine. At the other end of the Square, Kim's attempt at competition with a music quiz in a pub whose floor space encompasses about three tables, was a massive flop. The most exciting thing that happened was when a very drunk Carmel fell off her chair and spilled her drink.

The real star of that show, the understated star, was Vincent. The quiz was rigged by Kim for Denise to win the prize. So much for community. Kim looks out for Denise. She rigs a quiz for her, she offers her a free holiday, and throughout everything, Denise wears a po-face.Because that's just the way she is. Call it pride; it's not. It's just sheer bloody-mindedness.

Yes, yes, yes ... I know this is all gearing up to yet another Massive Issue Storyline featuring Denise - and one that's going to emphasize hunger, poverty, deprivation and food banks in London 2017. I'm all for the show doing issue storylines, if they're done well; but this is just another frivolous addition to the long list of storylines we've had to endure whilst Sean O'Connor refits EastEnders to the notion that its three biggest attributes are Denise, NuMichelle and the teens. Having given up a child for adoption - and knowing SOC and EastEnders, this won't be the last we'll hear of that, pursued the only GCSE course in the history of British education which reads and sounds like a graduate course in English Lit at Oxford, assaulted a minor, slagged off the company who re-employed her after she stole from them, refused to adhere to a disciplinary measure which may have saved her job, single-handedly organised a fund-raising fayre on the Square whilst at the same time saving Walford from rats, rubbish and an ineffectual mayor, our heroine will now succumb to financial stringency and starvation. She'll suffer in silence and sneak around to a food bank.

This - this! - is meant to illustrate poverty and deprivation in May's Britain.

Such a potential storyline with this character sucks shit. Indeed, any such storyline with any character, including the cash-strapped Carters would suck shit. Why Denise? Why not Ben and Jay, who - last week - were reduced to cadging free meals off Kathy in the café? Well, because of just that. Kathy, and by extension, Sharon, in Phil's absence, would never have let either lad starve.

Why not Billy? After all, he's the perpetual loser? Well, because Billy's gainfully employed in management now, with his wife bringing in a second income from the Minute Mart. Dot's looked after by Jack, for the most part, and Abi. Derek might have worked, considering he's only just returned and is a fairly isolated, elderly man living on his own; but he's not that familiar to a lot of viewers who may not remember his original stint on the Square.

I'll tell you on whom this storyline would have worked a treat and would have resonated too - Bianca and all her 'Owmahgonnafeedmahkids glory. Her bottoming out came right at the time when food banks were beginning to make their presence known in Britain. Instead, Kirkwood/Newman had Tanya feeding the Jackson-Butchers the leavings from her table, which consisted of a box of wine and some roast potatoes.

We're going to have to watch Denise's dignified, secret suffering, and we all know how that will pan out ... like Camille ...

... except that, instead of dying, our heroine will fall daintily into the massive arms of Kush, and he'll rescue her. As usual.

Still, I couldn't get over all the kerfuffle about the holiday offered by Kim. Paying for the flights shouldn't have been a problem. Kush would have probably have paid for Denise's (that's what toyboys boyfriends do), and flights to Spain are cheap via EasyJet and Ryan Air.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The gist of this entire torturous ordeal was Carmel forcing herself to spend time with Kush and Denise in order to try to accept them as a couple.At least, she's trying, but Denise sat there throughout the entire evening with a face like a wet weekend, and I daresay Carmel, narcissist that she is, would be pretty perceptive to spending time with someone whom she thought was her friend, only to have that friend virtually say Fuck you, I'm fucking your son. That was a nice send-off to a friendship. Even now, Carmel hesitates before referring to Denise as her "friend."

I will give kudos to Vincent for understanding Carmel and being sensitive enough to her issues. Denise attaches herself to Kush from the shoulder down in The Albert and visibly distances him from Carmel, and Vincent is perceptive enough to know how difficult it is for her, even saying such a relationship would be difficult for him to accept if Pearl one day rocked up with a sugar daddy who happened to be a mate and a contemporary of Vincent's. But like everyone else, he encourages her to continue spending time with them, only to have her insinuate herself into what Kim describes as a "family" holiday.

Meanwhile on the other side of the Square, a decision had been made. Shirley talked to Linda,and Linda decided to sell the freehold of the pub and thus, save Lady Di's life. There's one stipulation - that Mick not be told,which is a bit stupid anyway because he's going to find out eventually.

Please remind me ... what was that promise, only just reiterated during Linda's last visit to the Vic, about Mick and Linda keeping secrets from each other? Oh, well, that makes a change having Shirley and Linda keep a secret from Mick. Usually, it's Mick and Shirley keeping a secret from Linda.

Now this is going to be interesting, especially considering that Linda's unknown rival, dirty Whitney, seeks to scupper the idea and sneaks behind Shirley's back to warn Mick what's afoot. You'd like to think that Mick would sacrifice the freehold of the pub if it meant money to clear his debts and to save a much loved family pet; but the Mick of late is too obtuse and too stubborn to see anything outside his blinkered view of the world.

Woody is growing on me more and more as a character. He and Konrad are examples of just how much this show is crying out for new blood. I knew nothing about Lee Ryan, but he fits the bill well for the show, and I loved his putting the simpering, doltish Whitney in her place, by reminding her just exactly what her place in the order of that pub really is,catching her trying to call Mick on the sly  ...

Woody: Don't; you think that's Linda's decision to make and not yours? At the end of the day, we just work here. Everything else just isn't our business, is it?

Whitney: Well, if you'd seen how much he's been through and what this place means to him, you wouldn't be saying that.

Woody:No, I would. Cos I know my place. And if you want to keep yours, don't call him again.

Wow, the ultimate in handing an upstart her arse. First, he succinctly reminds her that she, like he, is paid help.Any responsibility for informing Mick about pub matters should, rightfully, come from Linda. Whitney, like Woody, needs to know her place, or else she'll lose it. And that might not be such a bad idea.

We know what will happen. Mick will return, Whitney will tell him the big secret,and there'll be a ructure between Mick and Linda. Whitney will side with Mick and then the omnipresent Denise will reveal to Linda something she will think Linda needs to know ... the kiss.

Ultimately, it was Linda who made the decision to sell the freehold and to keep this a secret from Mick.Presumably, she also knows that Shirley would have to have forged Mick's signature on the official paperwork - Mick and Linda being majority shareholders in the pub, so right away, the document is invalid, or will be when it's discovered that Mick's signature is forged. With Woody admitting that most of the pubs where he's worked have been leaseholds and Sharon confirming (great continuity) that Den and Angie were leaseholders in the Vic, what could go wrong for Shirley?

Well, Max lets the penneth drop at the end, informing her that Grafton Hall or whoever would be making an appearance soon to take a look at the pub and "make suggestions" as to how the business might maximise its profits. I imagine "Grafton Hall" will be Lisa Faulkner's front, considering that she gets on "the wrong side" of a particular family. So suddenly Shirley realises that this transition might not be as easy as she thinks.

And finally, hungover Johnny is no different from common-and-garden-stick-of-wood Johnny - so much so, that various Carters and faux Carters (Whitney) have to reiterate constantly the fact that Johnny's hungover.

He's hungover.

He's so hungover.

Johnny's hungover.

It's a not-so-subtle recognition of Ted Reilly's acting inadequacies. In fact, Johnny needs help all around, because Woody hires two mates as strippers and tips one off about gay Johnny, then bets the other stripper that the mate would chat up Johnny.

This was a ladies' night - and yet no one had the foresight to hire strippers, something of which Woody thought and everyone hailed as genius.

Really?

Has everyone suddenly become stupid in this mess? 

Same Shit, Different Day. Ben and Jay do Men Behaving Badly (again) with Donna morphing into the Dorothy character. She ends up in the Vic where Max has arranged a night out with his two reluctant daughters - how's that for originality?

Lauren continues looking for a job, registering online with an agency and sending her CV out to prospective employers twenty times a day.

The prospect of Lauren's CV is something to consider. What, exactly, has she done? What are her academic qualifications? None. What are her life skills? Self-obsession and selfishness. What is her work experience? The odd shift at Beales' as a waitress, occasional cleaner, tea-maker for web designers, nothing much, really. It was amusing when she told Max at the pub that she hadn't yet received any positive feedback, which handed Abi the most truthful line of the night:-

Well, you're obviously applying for things you're not qualified for.

Brilliant, Abi,and brilliant for Abi challenging Lauren's self-centred view and pithy excuse that she didn't want to be "reliant" on Steven, by reminding her that she'd been reliant on him for months. The plain truth, and I would bet Abi susses it, is that Lauren is bored with Steven - that much was obvious in the backhanded way she slapped down his suggestion that they spend another evening of quality time together. Oh, they could do that anytime,she dismissed it. She, quite obviously, envies Abi's freedom and has to get a dig at her relying on Dot, as if Lauren is so obtuse that she only sees the reason for two people living together in whatever circumstance is for one to sustain financially the other. It means nothing to her that Abi reiterates that if she didn't live with Dot, who would look after her? As much as Lauren asserts that they all do their fair bit, they actually don't.

Max's quality time with his daughters is all feint. He was too quick to offer Lauren praise for being "proactive" and to offer her some leads for jobs. I know Max, the former Max, was always able to forgive and love his daughters unconditionally, but I remember all too well his ultimate reconciliation scene with Lauren some months back, how she genuinely wanted to be back in his good books (remembering how stupid she was not to realise why Max spent all those months rejecting her in the aftermath of his imprisonment), and how it was obvious that Max had other things on his mind. He's encouraging both girls to think of themselves before others - but hasn't that always been the Brannings' modus operandi?

Both daughters betrayed him in different ways, and I daresay Max has them both in his crosshairs as well as everything else.

Honey, who's turned into a brittle, tense, intolerant bitch obviously thinks Derek is old and bumbling and insensitive to her criticism. It's Derek who wins their team the prize in Kim's music quiz. It's also a smack in Honey's face that he's sensed the fact that she finds him a chore to train and to be around daily, and it comes as a shock when he accedes to her secret wishes and says he's not taking the Minute Mart job except on a casual basis. 

People forget that Honey has an ugly, passive-aggressive bitchy side to her character, and also that she can be quite intolerant as well. She's another one who got subtly put in her place.

Doing the Denise Fox Strut ... Oi! - Review:- Monday 24.04.2017

The final frame in that dismally dire episode, written by Natalie Mitchelle (one of the better writers in the writers' room), was worth the 27 minutes or so that went before, if only to see Max's smug little smirk on his face when he realises he has Shirley over the barrel about the Vic freehold.

My second guess is that the person fronting this company which will take over the Vic freehold will be fronted by Lisa Faulkner, another leggy blonde who will, before long, be crawling into bed with Jack Branning.

Sean O'Connor's biggest vice is using a sledge hammer to crack the proverbial nut, and we've had it up to the eyeballs in milking sympathy for a dog. 

Ubiquitous sympathy line?

Shirley: I'm going to call the vet later and set a date.

Cue lingering shot of cute dog and pub full of Carter remnants who, up until that time, had been living a normal life - Johnny's dissertation is unimportant, Woody the Woodpecker ...

... and his incipient flirting with Whitney, fresh from cleaning the bogs with her £75 designer acrylic nails doesn't matter, Tina's face like an overgrown five year-old's smacked bum is irrelevant ... everyone's concerns pale beside what Shirley has announced that she has to do.

Increasingly, I find it damned difficult to believe that this pub can be operating in the red so much and that this family has made such a balls-up of running it. It's a local pub in an up-and-coming section of East London, within spitting distance of an underground line. It should be making a killing, and it has, under various ownerships/leaseholds until now. With all the infamous Carter theme nights, quiz nights and karaokes, with little on staff outlay (because, apart from Stacey and, lately, Sharon, they employ only family members), the place should be coining it. 

Yet Mick has never had any sort of money on hand. The Mitchells, and subsequently, the Moons, used to keep the front room safe bulging at the seams with money. OK, the Mitchells were dodgy, but the Moons earned their keep from the pub. You wonder where all of Mick's profits have gone, that the pub account doesn't have a spare £6k for a dog's operation. And with Tina suggesting hitting various and sundry Walford residents/businesses with a charity bucket emblazoned with Lady Di's picture was totally daft in this day and age - especially with people as clued-up in the internet age as Johnny (dubiously dubbed "Brains" by Woody) and, indeed, Woody, himself, who could have suggested fundraising for the op via a GoFundMe page or something of that ilk.For fuck's sake, the rural local yokels in Emmerdale had that much nous in order to raise funds for cancer treatment for that annoyingly wet child, Sarah Sugden - why can't the street suss urbanites of EastEnders think of something similar?

Instead, we get half-baked ideas like pub themes and bucket begging, with the relentless assumption driven home to us that "everybody's skint." 

Come on ... this isn't the 1980s when everybody was, legitimately, skint. When the Queen of Walford can strut the streets with no job in sight and no effort being made to find one, again,with expensive lacquered acrylic nails and no mention of tightening the purse strings,when Steven and Jane can go on an expensive shopping spree,expressly for the purpose of cheering up Lauren, when Donna and Abi can trip the tiles clubbing every night... people aren't skint.

But the Carters are.

The Carters are living in a pub with a literal gaping hole in the roof and barely a pot in which to piss.

The bulk of their part of the episode consisted of repeated scenes of Shirley moping about Walford, getting snarky with Sharon when she offered her some sort of sympathy and a reminder that people care - and that bloody annoyed me, that scene. Not because I like Sharon and dislike Shirley. Not at all. For the moment, I'm pretty much disliking Sharon in this incarnation and liking Shirley for the most part, but I do get bloody annoyed at various characters reminding such eternal ingrates like Shirley and Denise that people - i.e. people within the community - actually care about such people, who don't have a kind or polite word to say to anyone outside the parameters of their family dynamic, and then they often include relatives in their permanent ire.

Of course, Shirley's dilemma is whether or not she'll accede to Max's suggestions that she sell the freehold of the pub,which would entail the Carters becoming leasehold tenants. The freeholder would own the building and the property on which it was built, they'd take rent and a cut of the profits above a certain level. That's true, but as freeholders, they would also have the right to negotiate terms of supply with a particular brewery or supplier and the leashold tenants would have to comply. It's true that Mick and Linda wanted a pub with a freehold so that they could be their own bosses, but from the get go, they haven't been very good bosses, have they? They've been, essentially, little kids playing house.

And I cannot believe that, even now, "Lee's debts" are still being blamed for this predicament. First of all, Mick was inadequately insured. In fact, he was underinsured. Secondly, no one is mentioning the huge payday loan Mick, himself, took out - £14,000, was it?- to bring Linda and an ailing Denise back from Spain. I still cannot fathom Lee's debts being that insurmountable.He paid for Whitney's wedding, which was done on the cheap - the reception was in the Vic, she made over Bianca's wedding dress - the other essentials didn't cost the earth. They had a two-day honeymoon at a spa. He maxed out his credit cards, the credit on which couldn't have been that much. The rest of his money was made by stealing (off Jack and off that neighbour),and to this day, no one acknowledges Lee's illness, which had a big deal in the way he behaved.

In usual and predictable fashion, we have to see Shirley brought right to the brink of ringing the vet (The Urban Vet, really?) before she decides to visit Linda and tell her 90 per cent of the truth about the situation - well, about Lady Di and how selling the freehold of the pub could be the answer to their woes.

And this is what Max wanted. Interesting to know that the company he's representing isn't Weyland & Co, but another outfit; and I'm wondering if the mysterious man played by Simon Williams is part of that outfit or if the company mentioned by Max is just a front company for this organisation.

Why do I smell money laundering in all of this? After all, the pub was what Simon Williams, or whoever he was, wanted. That whole ordeal made the last scene worthwhile.

As well as everything else in this segment, I have to say, I'm not bothered at all by Lee Ryan,and I wouldn't be averse to seeing him stick around. Is he a good actor? No, probably not; but he's adequate for EastEnders' needs, and that shows you how low the bar is set for the BBCs flagship show these days. (Coming a day after the penultimate episode of Line of Duty, you notice the difference in sheer quality). He serves the purpose, and he's the right male age dynamic for the show, but the show is sadly lacking in corresponding females of that particular age group.

It's boringly typical that he should share scenes where it's made blatantly obvious that Whitney is flirting and sexually interested in this man. It's moot: handsome, provocative young bar manager and Whitney's tongue is down to her knees. Who didn't see that one coming? (Although one wonders if she's still carrying a torch for the married Mick). Wherever the Carters go in this storyline, I really wish this would be the end of the road for Whitney, especially when Linda returns and she who knows all and has a part in every aspect of life on the Square accidentally on purpose reveals to Linda that she saw Whitney and Mick share a kiss.

And Johnny ... oh, my god, how bad is Ted Reilly! The highlight of that, for me, was Woody dubbing him "Brains" for going on and on incessantly about his dissertation. It just dawned on me that Johnny will this year qualify as a solicitor. Will he still be pulling pints at the pub, or will he get sucked into the sinister machinations of Weyland & Co and their satellites as they threaten the "community?" 

Whatever happens, Johnny will, most probably, continue doing what he does best at the moment - and that is, being a whiny little bitch.

All Hail the Reign of Queen Denise. Strut, strut, strut, strut, snog, suck, strut, strut, strut, strut, smile smugly, strut, strut, strut, snog, suck, strut, strut, strut, affect a modest pose when the world of Walford bestows praise, strut, strut, strut, strut, snog, suck, strut, strut, strut, beam with pride when someone points out your picture in the paper.

There she is down Walford Town
Struts the market up and down
Smug smile on face
Doing the Big D Strut ... Oi!

Short and curlies in her hand
Leads her strapping toyboy man
People bow and scrape 
Doing the Big D Strut ... Oi!

She's much smarter than the rest
Yokels think she's just the best
Mouth out for hire
Doing the Big D Strut ... Oi!

Doesn't need to work all day
Speaks her mind and has her say
Self-appointed Queen
Doing the Big D Strut ... Oi!

All bow from the waist for the reign of Queen Denise, who struts down Walford Market to accept the cheers and benevolences from her subjects, praising her to hilt whilst she beams with pride as they praise her for her rude, loud-mouthed rant at the mayor, which has suddenly resulted in the streets being cleared of rubbish. 

#FuckOffDenise.

It's a fucking fortnightly rubbish collection. Newsflash! Most councils implement that nowadays. Because most people have cars or access to transport and can make use of the local dump.And no council anywhere in London would be so remiss as to leave rubbish to fester until rats appeared. That's a public health hazard. For fuck's sake, this is London, not Naples.

Of course, we had to have the ubiquitous Denise segment, where she's praised as the saviour of Walford, where she preens and smiles and affects false modesty and has to get a dig in, inadvertantly, as Carmel, horning in on a conversation Carmel was having with Donna about men and toilet seats, just to make her presence known and glean some recognition of her achievement at Carmel's expense. There's such a thing as tact, and she wanted Carmel to know and be cognizant of the fact that she and Kush were very much a couple - you see, Denise had to get a line in about men and toilet seats.

Instead of looking for a job, she sits out on Kush's stall - remember she didn't want to help him sell clothes, that was too much beneath her fragrant being - but she can sit there and play silly hand games with him. You do wonder how she's paying her mortgage on the property in which she lives, which must pack a hefty punch.

At the end of the day, Honey, who sounded annoyingly like the mechanical woman's voice on a tannoy at an airport, obsessing over training tips for her new shop assistant, convinces her to spend more time with Kush and Denise. I'm no great fan of either Denise or Carmel, but I can understand Carmel's discomfort at this, especially since Denise went out of her way to tell her she was throwing their friendship under the bus in preference for Kush. I'd feel uncomfortable after that with Denise as well, if I were Carmel.

Then, there's Max - and here's one character I'll never tire of seeing pop up here and there at opportune moments. He knows Carmel is vulnerable emotionally at the moment; he approaches her for advice about buying chocolates - for a date, which -we later learn,if indeed there ever was one - didn't show up. Was there ever a date? You wonder. You wonder if this were a ploy to whet Carmel's whistle of interest in Max. We all know Carmel isn't exactly Max's type, but he implied a drink was on the cards in the future, and I would imagine she'll become his useful idiot via her position on the council, for his future machinations.

I'm sure Her Imperial Majesty Queen Denise will resolve this problem, much in the same way she'll inform Linda that her husband was seen by Denise, snogging his daughter-in-law.

Omnipresent and omniscient. Is there a God complex here?

Mollycoddling Lauren. No one amuses me more than the shallow, ineffectual Branning girls.When Lauren isn't jealous of Abi, Abi's jealous of Lauren. Remember this, from 2014?

Charming.

We're witnessing the Lindafication of Lauren, undeserving of such mollycoddling as the cheating little bitch is. Jane and Steven toddle off to buy Lauren some treats which she doesn't deserve, and Abi visits and prattles on about clubbing with Donna, her newfound BFF. Clubbing and drinking and partying and doing all the things that Lauren, lumbered with a child she really finds inconvenient and in a relationship with a man whom she finds boring, cannot do at the drop of a hat.

Now it's Lauren's turn to be jealous and snipe at Abi's new-found freedom and her friendship with Donna, a friend who won't accompany her to her trysts as a front and take the moral high ground to which she, herself, isn't entitled. It's now Abi's turn to have the last word and get the line of the night:-

Jealousy's an unbecoming trait, Lauren.

Of course, Lauren's worried about not hearing from the interview she had, which she thinks she's scotched by not allowing creepy Josh to manipulate her after finding out his real motive. At the same time,she wants to get the job, and she wants to hear from him. Why else would she keep staring at her phone?

Lauren sits, self-obsessed, amidst the Beales, who express concern about her on varying levels - Steven's encouraging her decision to pack in her internship, thinking that this means she wants to spend more time with her son and with him to Ian's pronouncing how rejection would be good for Lauren in this instance,and Jane just sitting sympathetically by.

When Steven is faced with the truth from Lauren, that she's packed in her internship, not to devote time to her son (after all, she actually implies, she's got Steven as an unpaid childminder), she wants to "pursue her career," I almost fell off my chair.

What career?

Lauren has no qualifications and no real job experience beyond waiting tables and two weeks of pretending to be a letting agent from her dining room table. What exactly is the career she's pursuing? One would be forgiven for thinking that it's a career in homewrecking, considering her entanglement with Jake Stone and the route she's taking now with this creep.

She didn't feel one iota of guilt or self-consciousness that Jane and Steven had spent the entire moment,shopping for fol-de-rols to make her happy.

The brief-but-strong scene where Steven pierced the condom with a knife was strangely overshadowing. I can't help but wondering if this will all end violently.

Chapter Two and Another Bit. So now we begin Chapter Two of the Bullying saga, wherein Sniggle and Snaggle begin the systematic bullying breakdown of Louise. It's started gently - by stealing her schoolbooks so she gets detention, and then gaslighting her into believing that she actually left her books on the bus. I would imagine that they've also contrived to get her sacked from the drama club presentation, which they're cleverly keeping a secret from her. It would have been far more interesting to have had Louise develop a backbone on Friday and tell these two women impersonating schoolgirls where to go, thus ending this sad, repetitive saga.

We've gone from watching them give us ample opportunities to see Rebecca quiver and cry, and now we're about to see them sniggle at making Louise look like a bootlicking fool - until they really hurt her and SuperBex comes to the rescue - or Denise. Probably Denise, as she seems to solve things nowadays.

On the other hand, we see Honey devolve from a silly mechanical woman dictating memoranda into her Smartphone to a bit of a snide bitch, who's more than disappointed that her colleague in the Minute Mart will be Derek,who's elderly and a stickler and a bit of an old fuddy-duddy with whom she can't have a good gossip. Are we now in for a bit of ageism?

I'll bet that Denise can put things right.

Call Denise Fox. She'll know what to do.