This is exactly what I mean by gross inconsistency, and I'm sorry, but the evidence is all there to be seen.
The last two episodes were of a distinctly higher quality, even if Friday's episode was written by one of the weakest writers on the show; and yet, this week starts off with much of the same shit on a different day.
The reason for the sudden decline is obvious. Thursday's and Friday's episodes were watchable, well-written and concerned either characters or situations with which we empathised. What did we get in tonight's episode?
The return of Denise, in her 475th storyline since the beginning of the year (and yet another "issue" storyline, NuMichelle stinking up the place, and the teens. (I swear to god Snaggle must have all the fucking worries in the world, because I've never seen a "15 year-old" with such a lined brow as this woman has, and Sniggle sounds as though she's packing away 40 fags a day. I'm just waiting for the smoker's cough to emerge).
Once this triumvirate emerges, the quality in the show sinks like a lead balloon.
Remember Kirkwood's "We Love You, Kat Moon" bum-clinchingly awful moment, the nadir of the soap's legacy. Well, SOC gave us his version tonight with "Justice for Tracey", complete with cheerleader Kim giving full throttle. If this were homage to the brilliant and beautifully organised anti-Trump protests coursing the globe at the moment, it stank. It was embarrassing.
Thankfully, rather than indulge in such a cringeworthy fest, Vincent did the most practical thing and offered Tracey a job. Simples.
God, I'm beginning to think I'm watching "A Tale of Two Shows".
Sorry, Mr O'Connor, your muse, Jenna Russell might have a Tony Award nomination to her credit, but she sucks shit on this show. Sorry, Mr O'Connor, I know Diane Parish languished in the background on the people's stealth tax tick for seven years, but as fine an actress as many purport her to be, she doesn't carry the show, and throwing innumerable storylines in her direction to see which one sticks doesn't work either; and she isn't the best-placed character to carry a poverty storyline with sympathy, especially when her character is the author of her own situation and especially when the actress is sporting very expensive designer nails. And, sorry, Mr O'Connor, the twenty-something actresses you've employed to portray teenaged girls can't carry it off no matter how much you dress them in school uniforms, nor can the cypher Louise or the alternately smug-or-quivering Rebecca.
I'm starting the countdown now.
A Bit of Foreshadowing Here for Jack and the Other Brannings. Yes; it's been five months since Ronnie left us. And Roxy. I suppose Jack's been living off the rents from his hovels, but he's decided to pick himself up off the ground and start living again.
Did no one catch the obvious BIG HINT re Jack tonight?
In response to Dot's praise about how well he's been coping with the three kids and everything else, he says,
No more slacking off... As from tomorrow, everything's back to normal.
Cut to the next scene being the pub with none other than Fi Browning, a leggy businesswoman blonde striding through the front door. How long before viewers are talking about "Fick" or "Fack"?
And of course, all that decision came on the back of opening a long-left e-mail from Johnny Carter showing some wedding scenes from the day Ronnie married Jack (again) and died. So it's good-bye to her and hello to her.
The rest of the Branning bits came from Max, reluctantly telling silly Lauren that Josh was a decent bloke to have as a boss, without ever telling her that Josh was actually his boss.
As others have commented, I'm having difficulty understanding just how, as a viewer, I'm supposed to react to Lauren. I've thought about this. There are so many ways this storyline could go, but what I'm struggling with is whether I need to see Lauren as the self-entitled, self-obsessed idiot she's always been or whether she's meant to be seen as a victim.
And thinking about it, I'm beginning to think that SOC wants this both ways. To judge from Friday's episode, she was being presented as a victim, finally settling down with Steven only to be presented with Josh at her front door and totally unperplexed by the fact that she has a committed boyfriend and a child. It's difficult to gauge whether she was being coy in her remark to Josh after he, rather creepily, remarked that he'd enjoy "seeing" her every day, when she told him that could be construed as harassment. He took that as her being flirtatious.
On the other side of the coin, Steven is deceiving her by sabotaging his condoms in an effort to make her pregnant - a blatant attempt to control her and to cement his relationship with her by ensuring she has a child by him.
This entire storyline, independent of Max's scheme, is a smorgasbord which could take off in any direction. It could be another "Who's the Daddy," with Lauren sleeping with Josh, falling pregnant and thinking that the child is his, only to find out about Steven piercing the condoms. On the other hand, considering her recent behaviour, this storyline could take a darker turn.
In today's episode, she found herself sitting in the pub with Whitney, asking her opinion of expensive frocks she's planning on buying for Weyland & Co. Honestly her job title of "Creative Team Assistant" sounds like a glorifed teagirl, with the reality being someone who's paid to have sex on tap with Josh. We've never seen Lauren photograph anything more than a selfie with her smartphone; it's not like we've seen her scouring Walford taking serious pictures with a serious camera, the way we saw heroin addict Holly Barton do in Emmerdale. Whitney thinks she's dressing the part to impress Josh, and Lauren actually sounds naively sincere when she informs Whitney that she isn't interested in Josh and that Josh actually had met and knew about Steven. Lauren found herself as being no better than Max a few years ago when she managed to break up Jake Stone's marriage and family,and I thought that was an epiphany for her. Yet she's bored with Steven and bored with having a child at such a young age, and still stupid enough to think she can get someplace in the professional world without qualifications and based entirely on her charm and the magnitude of her personality.
I'm wondering if this is going to lead down the slippery slope to some sort of rape storyline, or date rape. I get the distinct impression that it's going to end nastily because I keep thinking of that kitchen knife in Steven's hand - it featured again in Friday's episode, when Max texted Steven about Lauren losing the job. That scene began with Steven slowly cutting up a pepper in the restaurant kitchen with a sharp kitchen knife.
Mollycoddling Michelle. So Sharon got the sack from the Vic as well? It's very odd that the two characters with the longest association with the Vic got Woody's boot. On the one hand, there's a lot that could be inferred in that measure as ageism, but that's another story.
Last week, we saw some of Sharon's best scenes, especially in the burgeoning respectful "frenemy" relationship that's developing between her and Shirley. I liked Letitia Dean's scenes with Linda Henry, whose presence ensures everyone ups the scale of their performance - well,everyone but Ted Reilly. Also, Sharon specifically identified Linda Carter last week as her "best friend."
Yet there she was tonight, hanging around with Ian and Jane, commensurate with pity at Michelle starting her community service for having driven under the influence of booze and drugs, demolished a business and injured two people, one of whom was her elderly aunt. Pretty light punishment. Sharon stands around looking piteously sympathetic to Michelle. I've not even seen this much concern on her face for her own child. And is she stupid? Michelle is doing community service - as Ian has had to do in his time - you'd have thought Ian would have clued her in on the lunch bit. And is Michelle, herself, stupid? She "forgot" she had to bring a packed lunch, so Sharon toddles off and buys a takeaway for her. And Ian acts as if this is the most natural thing in the world.This is the woman who demolished his business, his first business in Walford, while his mother was working inside.
Then there's Michelle's continuous whine when confronted with the graffiti Sniggle and Snaggle had put on the side of the community centre ...
It's never going to go away, innit?
No, it isn't,and I don't begrudge Louise her disdain, especially because of the way Michelle behaved with those kids in Sharon's absence. This is one thing she'll never live down, and no matter how much Ian and Sharon bewail how the mighty Michelle has fallen, it's her own doing; but there Sharon is, castigating Louise when Michelle accuses her of the graffiti crime, even though Sharon proved to Michelle that Louise was with her at the restaurant and couldn't have done the cougar graffiti. The way Sharon lingered over Michelle, with her silly simperig sympathy, sending Louise away with a flea in her ear, whilst Dennis hovers in the background, it was sickening. Once again, we have this infantilisation of Michelle, reminsicent of the way Sharon used to babify Phil. It dawned on me as this episode progressed that Michelle had taken the place of Phil. She's certainly first in Sharon's concerns as opposed to the welfare of her children. For a moment, I thought she was going to bin off going to the cinema with Dennis in favour of mollycoddling Michelle some more.
This is where things get really weird with Michelle. Later on, in the Vic, when Sharon bags free drinks for herself off Shirley and Michelle shows up with the promise of an interview, I just thought the dynamic between her and Sharon was strange beyond belief. One would be forgiven for thinking this was more than friendship here - the way Michelle stood, literally, up close and personal within Sharon's space, inches from her face as she spoke to her. There was a point when I thought Michelle was actually going to lean in and kiss Sharon on the lips.
I don't know how much wine she and Michelle drank, but Louise was right to upbraid both Sharon and Michelle for showing up drunk and thinking of actually frying food in their state. Time was, when Sharon actually ticked Michelle off for bringing booze into the house, and whilst they didn't bring alcohol into the house, they were visibly drunk, and this would be upsetting for Louise. Not only that, but it was stupid of Sharon, who had forbidden Michelle from having alcohol in the house - and as we know, that didn't stop Michelle, either before Sharon left on holiday or after she'd gone. So Sharon's willing to drop house rules for Michelle. Seems like anything goes with her as far as Michelle is concerned.
The Latest Issue Storyline for the Star of the Show. Cue the latest theme song for Denise:-
Here's Denise's storyline for May (she's had at least two per month since the beginning of the year): Her brief for this month is to illustrate the plight of the poverty-stricken poor, reduced to eating cheap budget meals, with the fridge empty and about ten quid left to her name.
Ne'mnd, that this is the woman whose gob and whose intransigence, pride and arrogant landed her without a job. She was bloody lucky the Minute Mart gave her a job the second time around after sacking her for pilfering. Instead, she throws caution to the wind as well as her job, and instead of looking for some type of employment - what's wrong with pulling pints for her brother-in-law? - she's romping the bed with Kush.
Looks as if lately she's been romping the bed with him on an empty stomach if her empty fridge is anything to go by.
Actually, if this storyline's purpose is to emphasize the plight of the poor,reduced to eating on the extreme end of the budget spectrum, later on frequenting food banks and finding difficulty in securing employment because of her age, they couldn't have given us a less exemplary example,and actually, this is an insult to the genuinely poor, people who have suffered under Tory budget cuts - people with small children, struggling to make ends meet, people who work in the gig economy or who work piteously long hours for little wages.
This is a woman who lives with an elderly man who seems to have enough money put by to afford him a lengthy annual holiday in the Caribbean. If Patrick were there, he wouldn't let poor sainted Denise starve. Then there's Kim. Kim and Vincent have money, and Vincent has a thriving business. Neither would allow her to starve, and Vincent would have given her employment. And whilst Denise is certainly willing to use Kush for sex - and this is the man who's supposed to love her and whom she's supposed to love - she can't bear to tell him she's so short of money she can't afford to eat.
Bullshit to her stupid pride and arrogance! These are two of the most unattractive traits this character has, and they're the two who make her in my opinion eminently unlikable.What's worse for this storyline is that we have to suffer endless scenes of Denise, using her signature po-faced pity-me expression.
That's the face she used as she fixed some tinned guck to eat, and that's the face she used when she emptied the contents of her purse to reveal the last ten quid to her name.
Whose fault is that, Denise?
You know, a story like this, when Bianca was living on the Square and when food banks started making their appearance, would certainly have resonated. This doesn't. We know how it will all end - when she weeps and falls into Kush's arms for a square meal and a fuck.
For everyone who cried out for years for Diane Parish to be given a storyline, any storyline,even if successive producers tried to give her storylines which either ended up unfinished, shortened or fizzling out, this producer is going the opposite way, to the point where she's been presented to the viewing public as everything - a GCSE student who's treated by the ignorant populace as a literary genius; a sacrificing mother; yet another person who finds out she's been adopted; the mother of a secret Mitchell son; a cougar with a toyboy boyfriend; a crusader for community spirit when she never gave a rat's arse for the community before; and now a postergirl for a statement of urban poverty in the 21st Century.
It's overkill,and she's one of the characters killing this show at the moment.
Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Go into the Water ... They're back, Sniggle and Snaggle, the cartoon teen bullies, played by two grown women. Snaggle has the tangly hair, crow's feet around her eyes and lines on her forehead. Just look at Snaggle's wrinkles and then look at the lineless, botoxed faces of the fortysomethings on the show. Sniggle, on the other hand, must smoke forty a day - either that or her balls have dropped.
When they're not standing on the sidelines carping at Michelle (until the community service supervisor chases them away). They're cowards, really, who disperse at the slightest inkling of authority coming their way. Why Louise is still hanging out with them is anyone's guess, but a good guess would be fear, from the look of shame on her face when Rebecca appears to go busking with Travis.
It looks as though 25 year-old Snaggle has a thing for Travis, who seems to be interested in Louise. Louise knows this, but defers to Snaggle - again, I think Louise would like to make a play for Travis, herself, but she knows what to expect from both these idiots if she makes her feelings known, so she humours Snaggle, who only laughs at her behind her back.
I think both girls were genuinely shocked at the behaviour of Sharon and Michelle in the kitchen, and I couldn't believe Sharon stifling a laugh at Louise's expense when Louise was upset to see such a display. Phil's alcoholism has resonated with her, and you'd think it should have resonated with Sharon, who also had an alcoholic mother. Louise's reaction, however, and her naively heartflet confession of her distaste for alcohol and how it makes a person lose control has given Sniggle and Snaggle food for thought in their new project of bullying and getting even with Louise.
Someone please get rid of these cartoon characters. What next do we have to look forward to - Johnny Fartpants?
Tracey Gets a Storyline about Community Spirit. The entire community gets the hump because a long-serving barmaid has been sacked at the Vic. Once again, this could very well be a story about ageism. Both Sharon and Tracey are the wrong side of forty, yet Whitney, another one who has trouble doing anything with the designer acrylic nails she has, and Johnny, who only works there when the spirit moves him and who should be training to be a solicitor, are preferred staff.
Woody fired Tracey, and for some reason, the Carters revert to their stock solution to any problem - they throw a party. This time, a farewell party for Tracey, complete with stock publicity photos from EastEnders PR department, doubling as photographs taken over the years, which - I assume - came from Sharon's personal collection of memorabilia,and a collection whip-around from the punters.
That's going to solve all Tracey's problems. In fact, we learned more about Tracey in this episode than in all the years she has been a wordless presence in the show - that she's had two divorces and a cancer scare, which marked her down, in Kathy's opinion, as the perfect barmaid - someone who listens to everyone else's troubles but doesn't say anything about her own. Vincent harkened Kim to remember that. As if.
They forgot one thing, however - the fact that, in the days of "We Love You Kat Moon"(into which this episode had devolved before it finished) we learned that Tracey was a bit of a sleeparound and had, in fact, slept with both Phil Mitchell and Ian Beale.
There was a mistake, however, in this episode. Last week, it was remarked that Tracey had worked behind the bar for 30 years. They amended that tonight to "almost 30 years" but they still got it wrong. Tracey told Ian that she started at the Vic right before Angie left. Not true. Tracey started, as a part-time barmaid, under the tenure of Frank and Pat. She manned the flower stall as her main job and filled in at the Vic. The continuity department fluffed that one.
We also learned that she didn't live in Walford,but in East Ham and commuted every day (and evening) just to work in the Vic.
But this storyline wasn't about Tracey at all. In fact, Tracey played a minimal part in the proceedings with minimal dialogue. She was the ubiquitous plot device. The animus of Shirley's continuous battle for bar supremacy with Woody,who's suddenly taking his managerial role very seriously. Shirley is conflicted. She is caught between a rock and a hard place, when challenged by the local yokels to reinstate Tracey. She knows she can't. It was Woody's call to sack her, and Shirley is powerless to reinstate her. Shirley's name might be above the door, but Woody's running the show. She's fearful of risking the ire of Grafton Hall, whose representative is sitting amongst the hoi polloi like a smiling cobra.
Instead, the populace, like the "We Love You Kat Moon" boys a few years ago, unite in unison to boycott the Vic until Tracey is reinstated. Led by Ian, they troop out en masse, much to Shirley's chagrin and Fi's curious amusement. You get the idea that Fi wanted this, that her objective is that the Carters fail in their pub endeavour and are forced out.
That, and the subsequent spontaneous protest scene outside the Vic, especially the "Justice for Tracey" chant led by Kim, were embarrassing. This was SOC's Kat Moon Football moment. It was contrived and badly acted, especially since the object of the protest, Tracey,herself, walked right by the mob without even acknowledging them.
Vincent did the right think, however. He offered her a job.
Pity about the rest of the episode.
The last two episodes were of a distinctly higher quality, even if Friday's episode was written by one of the weakest writers on the show; and yet, this week starts off with much of the same shit on a different day.
The reason for the sudden decline is obvious. Thursday's and Friday's episodes were watchable, well-written and concerned either characters or situations with which we empathised. What did we get in tonight's episode?
The return of Denise, in her 475th storyline since the beginning of the year (and yet another "issue" storyline, NuMichelle stinking up the place, and the teens. (I swear to god Snaggle must have all the fucking worries in the world, because I've never seen a "15 year-old" with such a lined brow as this woman has, and Sniggle sounds as though she's packing away 40 fags a day. I'm just waiting for the smoker's cough to emerge).
Once this triumvirate emerges, the quality in the show sinks like a lead balloon.
Remember Kirkwood's "We Love You, Kat Moon" bum-clinchingly awful moment, the nadir of the soap's legacy. Well, SOC gave us his version tonight with "Justice for Tracey", complete with cheerleader Kim giving full throttle. If this were homage to the brilliant and beautifully organised anti-Trump protests coursing the globe at the moment, it stank. It was embarrassing.
Thankfully, rather than indulge in such a cringeworthy fest, Vincent did the most practical thing and offered Tracey a job. Simples.
God, I'm beginning to think I'm watching "A Tale of Two Shows".
Sorry, Mr O'Connor, your muse, Jenna Russell might have a Tony Award nomination to her credit, but she sucks shit on this show. Sorry, Mr O'Connor, I know Diane Parish languished in the background on the people's stealth tax tick for seven years, but as fine an actress as many purport her to be, she doesn't carry the show, and throwing innumerable storylines in her direction to see which one sticks doesn't work either; and she isn't the best-placed character to carry a poverty storyline with sympathy, especially when her character is the author of her own situation and especially when the actress is sporting very expensive designer nails. And, sorry, Mr O'Connor, the twenty-something actresses you've employed to portray teenaged girls can't carry it off no matter how much you dress them in school uniforms, nor can the cypher Louise or the alternately smug-or-quivering Rebecca.
I'm starting the countdown now.
A Bit of Foreshadowing Here for Jack and the Other Brannings. Yes; it's been five months since Ronnie left us. And Roxy. I suppose Jack's been living off the rents from his hovels, but he's decided to pick himself up off the ground and start living again.
Did no one catch the obvious BIG HINT re Jack tonight?
In response to Dot's praise about how well he's been coping with the three kids and everything else, he says,
No more slacking off... As from tomorrow, everything's back to normal.
Cut to the next scene being the pub with none other than Fi Browning, a leggy businesswoman blonde striding through the front door. How long before viewers are talking about "Fick" or "Fack"?
And of course, all that decision came on the back of opening a long-left e-mail from Johnny Carter showing some wedding scenes from the day Ronnie married Jack (again) and died. So it's good-bye to her and hello to her.
The rest of the Branning bits came from Max, reluctantly telling silly Lauren that Josh was a decent bloke to have as a boss, without ever telling her that Josh was actually his boss.
As others have commented, I'm having difficulty understanding just how, as a viewer, I'm supposed to react to Lauren. I've thought about this. There are so many ways this storyline could go, but what I'm struggling with is whether I need to see Lauren as the self-entitled, self-obsessed idiot she's always been or whether she's meant to be seen as a victim.
And thinking about it, I'm beginning to think that SOC wants this both ways. To judge from Friday's episode, she was being presented as a victim, finally settling down with Steven only to be presented with Josh at her front door and totally unperplexed by the fact that she has a committed boyfriend and a child. It's difficult to gauge whether she was being coy in her remark to Josh after he, rather creepily, remarked that he'd enjoy "seeing" her every day, when she told him that could be construed as harassment. He took that as her being flirtatious.
On the other side of the coin, Steven is deceiving her by sabotaging his condoms in an effort to make her pregnant - a blatant attempt to control her and to cement his relationship with her by ensuring she has a child by him.
This entire storyline, independent of Max's scheme, is a smorgasbord which could take off in any direction. It could be another "Who's the Daddy," with Lauren sleeping with Josh, falling pregnant and thinking that the child is his, only to find out about Steven piercing the condoms. On the other hand, considering her recent behaviour, this storyline could take a darker turn.
In today's episode, she found herself sitting in the pub with Whitney, asking her opinion of expensive frocks she's planning on buying for Weyland & Co. Honestly her job title of "Creative Team Assistant" sounds like a glorifed teagirl, with the reality being someone who's paid to have sex on tap with Josh. We've never seen Lauren photograph anything more than a selfie with her smartphone; it's not like we've seen her scouring Walford taking serious pictures with a serious camera, the way we saw heroin addict Holly Barton do in Emmerdale. Whitney thinks she's dressing the part to impress Josh, and Lauren actually sounds naively sincere when she informs Whitney that she isn't interested in Josh and that Josh actually had met and knew about Steven. Lauren found herself as being no better than Max a few years ago when she managed to break up Jake Stone's marriage and family,and I thought that was an epiphany for her. Yet she's bored with Steven and bored with having a child at such a young age, and still stupid enough to think she can get someplace in the professional world without qualifications and based entirely on her charm and the magnitude of her personality.
I'm wondering if this is going to lead down the slippery slope to some sort of rape storyline, or date rape. I get the distinct impression that it's going to end nastily because I keep thinking of that kitchen knife in Steven's hand - it featured again in Friday's episode, when Max texted Steven about Lauren losing the job. That scene began with Steven slowly cutting up a pepper in the restaurant kitchen with a sharp kitchen knife.
Mollycoddling Michelle. So Sharon got the sack from the Vic as well? It's very odd that the two characters with the longest association with the Vic got Woody's boot. On the one hand, there's a lot that could be inferred in that measure as ageism, but that's another story.
Last week, we saw some of Sharon's best scenes, especially in the burgeoning respectful "frenemy" relationship that's developing between her and Shirley. I liked Letitia Dean's scenes with Linda Henry, whose presence ensures everyone ups the scale of their performance - well,everyone but Ted Reilly. Also, Sharon specifically identified Linda Carter last week as her "best friend."
Yet there she was tonight, hanging around with Ian and Jane, commensurate with pity at Michelle starting her community service for having driven under the influence of booze and drugs, demolished a business and injured two people, one of whom was her elderly aunt. Pretty light punishment. Sharon stands around looking piteously sympathetic to Michelle. I've not even seen this much concern on her face for her own child. And is she stupid? Michelle is doing community service - as Ian has had to do in his time - you'd have thought Ian would have clued her in on the lunch bit. And is Michelle, herself, stupid? She "forgot" she had to bring a packed lunch, so Sharon toddles off and buys a takeaway for her. And Ian acts as if this is the most natural thing in the world.This is the woman who demolished his business, his first business in Walford, while his mother was working inside.
Then there's Michelle's continuous whine when confronted with the graffiti Sniggle and Snaggle had put on the side of the community centre ...
It's never going to go away, innit?
No, it isn't,and I don't begrudge Louise her disdain, especially because of the way Michelle behaved with those kids in Sharon's absence. This is one thing she'll never live down, and no matter how much Ian and Sharon bewail how the mighty Michelle has fallen, it's her own doing; but there Sharon is, castigating Louise when Michelle accuses her of the graffiti crime, even though Sharon proved to Michelle that Louise was with her at the restaurant and couldn't have done the cougar graffiti. The way Sharon lingered over Michelle, with her silly simperig sympathy, sending Louise away with a flea in her ear, whilst Dennis hovers in the background, it was sickening. Once again, we have this infantilisation of Michelle, reminsicent of the way Sharon used to babify Phil. It dawned on me as this episode progressed that Michelle had taken the place of Phil. She's certainly first in Sharon's concerns as opposed to the welfare of her children. For a moment, I thought she was going to bin off going to the cinema with Dennis in favour of mollycoddling Michelle some more.
This is where things get really weird with Michelle. Later on, in the Vic, when Sharon bags free drinks for herself off Shirley and Michelle shows up with the promise of an interview, I just thought the dynamic between her and Sharon was strange beyond belief. One would be forgiven for thinking this was more than friendship here - the way Michelle stood, literally, up close and personal within Sharon's space, inches from her face as she spoke to her. There was a point when I thought Michelle was actually going to lean in and kiss Sharon on the lips.
I don't know how much wine she and Michelle drank, but Louise was right to upbraid both Sharon and Michelle for showing up drunk and thinking of actually frying food in their state. Time was, when Sharon actually ticked Michelle off for bringing booze into the house, and whilst they didn't bring alcohol into the house, they were visibly drunk, and this would be upsetting for Louise. Not only that, but it was stupid of Sharon, who had forbidden Michelle from having alcohol in the house - and as we know, that didn't stop Michelle, either before Sharon left on holiday or after she'd gone. So Sharon's willing to drop house rules for Michelle. Seems like anything goes with her as far as Michelle is concerned.
The Latest Issue Storyline for the Star of the Show. Cue the latest theme song for Denise:-
Here's Denise's storyline for May (she's had at least two per month since the beginning of the year): Her brief for this month is to illustrate the plight of the poverty-stricken poor, reduced to eating cheap budget meals, with the fridge empty and about ten quid left to her name.
Ne'mnd, that this is the woman whose gob and whose intransigence, pride and arrogant landed her without a job. She was bloody lucky the Minute Mart gave her a job the second time around after sacking her for pilfering. Instead, she throws caution to the wind as well as her job, and instead of looking for some type of employment - what's wrong with pulling pints for her brother-in-law? - she's romping the bed with Kush.
Looks as if lately she's been romping the bed with him on an empty stomach if her empty fridge is anything to go by.
Actually, if this storyline's purpose is to emphasize the plight of the poor,reduced to eating on the extreme end of the budget spectrum, later on frequenting food banks and finding difficulty in securing employment because of her age, they couldn't have given us a less exemplary example,and actually, this is an insult to the genuinely poor, people who have suffered under Tory budget cuts - people with small children, struggling to make ends meet, people who work in the gig economy or who work piteously long hours for little wages.
This is a woman who lives with an elderly man who seems to have enough money put by to afford him a lengthy annual holiday in the Caribbean. If Patrick were there, he wouldn't let poor sainted Denise starve. Then there's Kim. Kim and Vincent have money, and Vincent has a thriving business. Neither would allow her to starve, and Vincent would have given her employment. And whilst Denise is certainly willing to use Kush for sex - and this is the man who's supposed to love her and whom she's supposed to love - she can't bear to tell him she's so short of money she can't afford to eat.
Bullshit to her stupid pride and arrogance! These are two of the most unattractive traits this character has, and they're the two who make her in my opinion eminently unlikable.What's worse for this storyline is that we have to suffer endless scenes of Denise, using her signature po-faced pity-me expression.
That's the face she used as she fixed some tinned guck to eat, and that's the face she used when she emptied the contents of her purse to reveal the last ten quid to her name.
Whose fault is that, Denise?
You know, a story like this, when Bianca was living on the Square and when food banks started making their appearance, would certainly have resonated. This doesn't. We know how it will all end - when she weeps and falls into Kush's arms for a square meal and a fuck.
For everyone who cried out for years for Diane Parish to be given a storyline, any storyline,even if successive producers tried to give her storylines which either ended up unfinished, shortened or fizzling out, this producer is going the opposite way, to the point where she's been presented to the viewing public as everything - a GCSE student who's treated by the ignorant populace as a literary genius; a sacrificing mother; yet another person who finds out she's been adopted; the mother of a secret Mitchell son; a cougar with a toyboy boyfriend; a crusader for community spirit when she never gave a rat's arse for the community before; and now a postergirl for a statement of urban poverty in the 21st Century.
It's overkill,and she's one of the characters killing this show at the moment.
Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Go into the Water ... They're back, Sniggle and Snaggle, the cartoon teen bullies, played by two grown women. Snaggle has the tangly hair, crow's feet around her eyes and lines on her forehead. Just look at Snaggle's wrinkles and then look at the lineless, botoxed faces of the fortysomethings on the show. Sniggle, on the other hand, must smoke forty a day - either that or her balls have dropped.
When they're not standing on the sidelines carping at Michelle (until the community service supervisor chases them away). They're cowards, really, who disperse at the slightest inkling of authority coming their way. Why Louise is still hanging out with them is anyone's guess, but a good guess would be fear, from the look of shame on her face when Rebecca appears to go busking with Travis.
It looks as though 25 year-old Snaggle has a thing for Travis, who seems to be interested in Louise. Louise knows this, but defers to Snaggle - again, I think Louise would like to make a play for Travis, herself, but she knows what to expect from both these idiots if she makes her feelings known, so she humours Snaggle, who only laughs at her behind her back.
I think both girls were genuinely shocked at the behaviour of Sharon and Michelle in the kitchen, and I couldn't believe Sharon stifling a laugh at Louise's expense when Louise was upset to see such a display. Phil's alcoholism has resonated with her, and you'd think it should have resonated with Sharon, who also had an alcoholic mother. Louise's reaction, however, and her naively heartflet confession of her distaste for alcohol and how it makes a person lose control has given Sniggle and Snaggle food for thought in their new project of bullying and getting even with Louise.
Someone please get rid of these cartoon characters. What next do we have to look forward to - Johnny Fartpants?
Tracey Gets a Storyline about Community Spirit. The entire community gets the hump because a long-serving barmaid has been sacked at the Vic. Once again, this could very well be a story about ageism. Both Sharon and Tracey are the wrong side of forty, yet Whitney, another one who has trouble doing anything with the designer acrylic nails she has, and Johnny, who only works there when the spirit moves him and who should be training to be a solicitor, are preferred staff.
Woody fired Tracey, and for some reason, the Carters revert to their stock solution to any problem - they throw a party. This time, a farewell party for Tracey, complete with stock publicity photos from EastEnders PR department, doubling as photographs taken over the years, which - I assume - came from Sharon's personal collection of memorabilia,and a collection whip-around from the punters.
That's going to solve all Tracey's problems. In fact, we learned more about Tracey in this episode than in all the years she has been a wordless presence in the show - that she's had two divorces and a cancer scare, which marked her down, in Kathy's opinion, as the perfect barmaid - someone who listens to everyone else's troubles but doesn't say anything about her own. Vincent harkened Kim to remember that. As if.
They forgot one thing, however - the fact that, in the days of "We Love You Kat Moon"(into which this episode had devolved before it finished) we learned that Tracey was a bit of a sleeparound and had, in fact, slept with both Phil Mitchell and Ian Beale.
There was a mistake, however, in this episode. Last week, it was remarked that Tracey had worked behind the bar for 30 years. They amended that tonight to "almost 30 years" but they still got it wrong. Tracey told Ian that she started at the Vic right before Angie left. Not true. Tracey started, as a part-time barmaid, under the tenure of Frank and Pat. She manned the flower stall as her main job and filled in at the Vic. The continuity department fluffed that one.
We also learned that she didn't live in Walford,but in East Ham and commuted every day (and evening) just to work in the Vic.
But this storyline wasn't about Tracey at all. In fact, Tracey played a minimal part in the proceedings with minimal dialogue. She was the ubiquitous plot device. The animus of Shirley's continuous battle for bar supremacy with Woody,who's suddenly taking his managerial role very seriously. Shirley is conflicted. She is caught between a rock and a hard place, when challenged by the local yokels to reinstate Tracey. She knows she can't. It was Woody's call to sack her, and Shirley is powerless to reinstate her. Shirley's name might be above the door, but Woody's running the show. She's fearful of risking the ire of Grafton Hall, whose representative is sitting amongst the hoi polloi like a smiling cobra.
Instead, the populace, like the "We Love You Kat Moon" boys a few years ago, unite in unison to boycott the Vic until Tracey is reinstated. Led by Ian, they troop out en masse, much to Shirley's chagrin and Fi's curious amusement. You get the idea that Fi wanted this, that her objective is that the Carters fail in their pub endeavour and are forced out.
That, and the subsequent spontaneous protest scene outside the Vic, especially the "Justice for Tracey" chant led by Kim, were embarrassing. This was SOC's Kat Moon Football moment. It was contrived and badly acted, especially since the object of the protest, Tracey,herself, walked right by the mob without even acknowledging them.
Vincent did the right think, however. He offered her a job.
Pity about the rest of the episode.
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