This is the review for Tuesday's episode, and it's Wednesday, already. All right. I confess. I didn't watch last night, simply because I couldn't be bothered. Instead, I streamed US cable news, because all the shit hitting the fan about Russiagate is damned site more interesting, important and historically relevant than a soap which is clearly in its dying throes.
My action is relevant. I've watched this programme since Day One of its existence. I've enjoyed the highs of its excellence, and I've suffered its embarrassing doldrums. When someone such as I says they couldn't be bothered to watch, the damned thing is in dire trouble.
I watched Brookside from the very beginning too, and stayed, zombiefied and de-sensitised until the awful, embarrassing end.
How well did that one work out?
She's Here, She's There, She's Every Fucking Where. One of the main reasons Sean O'Connor's EastEnders is stinking up the place is his undue over-emphasis on Denise. Since he took over, she's insinuated herself into almost every strand of this programme's fibre. I'm girding myself on my own forum, because I know some hissyfitting, little, passive-aggressive Celtic shit-stirrer is ready to throw a massive bullyfest because I'm about to diss his favourite character, but I have to say this:-
It's time whoever is the EP of EastEnders to grow a pair and stop listening to the fanboi element. Diane Parish may be a good actress, but the character she plays is bloody infuriating, as well as being arrogant, entitled, proud, self-pitying, rude and ungrateful, and that doesn't even make a good soap bitch; it simply makes Denise a character whose smug, po-face I'd love to smack. She's not even a character you can love to hate and, thereby, love to watch, like Janine. (God, how I miss Janine, the only real strong female character other than Pat, that the show produced!)
Denise admits in this episode that her recent difficulties were of her own making, and she's worried that the people in the Square would have openly observed as much. Well, people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones; and in the real world, the residents of Walford would have thought exactly that.
The economy isn't brilliant for a lot of people, and people like the Fowlers, Donna, Dot and even Kush Kazemi might find things a bit hard going under the current atmosphere; so to these people, a job's a job. If you quit a job, your first priority is to find another, and as quickly as possible, because you won't be entitled to benefits. So everybody and their dog on the Square would have thought this about Denise:-
Silly bitch! I thought she was supposed to be intelligent. Who, in their right mind, would walk away from a job and then do nothing but keep her nose stuck in a book? You can't eat books? And all the time she could have been out finding work, she was laying around a bed, fucking a man young enough to be her son. Sympathy for her? Tell me why. She never had a good word to say to most, and a lot of the time, whenever she had to talk to you, she had an expression on her face like she'd just smelled a bad smell.
That's exactly what the good folk of Walford would have done; instead, they've been queuing up to ask after her health, show friendly, show compassion. Carmel, formerly her BFF and whose son she's been bonking, is first around with tea and sympathy in this episode, for the twofold purpose of commiserating her plight and also for the opportunity to let Denise know that Kush has actually "moved on." This was the same Carmel, whom Denise had arrogantly told that if she had to chose between having Carmel as her friend and fucking Carmel's son, then the friendship got thrown under the bus. But there she was,sitting on Kim's sofa with Denise, offering up her renewed friendship on a plate.
Sharon is another one whom Denise has treated scurvily. She slept with Sharon's husband, and never once considered the fact that she was Phil's wife, and how she would be affected when the truth about her child would out. Denise was more concerned about Shirley's feelings in this instance than Sharon's. Yet Sharon has been nothing but the epitome of kindness, compassion and understanding, even before she knew of Denise's self-inflicted problems. More importantly, she didn't judge.
But Denise cares nothing about these people. Instead, Denise wants to renew her sex-based affair with Kush, whom she patronised and infantilised and generally treated like a piece of shit at the end of their affair - an affair that she ended, by the way. Kim and Patrick feed her ego in this regard, egging her on, almost declaring that she's actually entitled to this man. In fact, Kim is already thinking wedding plans, a thought as incongruous as anything with the prospective bride pushing fifty and the groom barely in his thirties. Kush is a young man at his physical peak; Denise is, or will be shortly, menopausal.
This is what is so infuriating as well about Kim. Were that any other woman of a certain age on that Square - Jane or Sharon, both of whom are 48 - and if they took up with someone of Kush's ilk and age, Kim would fly rampant and go on and on about the age difference, muttering snide comments about "mutton dressed as lamb" and the like; but because this is Denise, Kim and Patrick feed her delusional ego about being so much better than anyone in whom Kush might be interested - you know, like a woman in his own age demographic,who just might be able to give him a child?
Pete Lawson wrote this episode, and the dialogue, especially between Denise and Kush (except for Kush's last soliloquy) absolutely stank to high heaven of rank romcom garbage; but this has always been Denise's genre, and it's probably why I hate the character so much - this soap is no place, either for cheesy sitcom tripe, the likes of which we're being fed via the Beales or the implied romcom garbage we get anytime Denise gets a soupçon of a storyline, especially a romantic one, the romcom button gets pushed in the writing room.
The scene in The Minute Mart was the worst, especially the fractured line about going for a drink "as friends", before reiterating for the umpteenth time that she's only working as Kim's nanny until she gets "back on her feet." Kush isn't stupid, and he knows what Denise wants, and all that to and fro was just embarrassing, equally as much as Denise trying to "dress down" the situation by showing up clad in leather trousers and wearing her diamanté D around her neck, not to mention the clichéd awkward small-talk scene in the pub, when Denise's dialogue devolves into gibberish, telling Kush, repeatedly, how gorgeous and fit he is -gorgeous, senstive and fit; kind and fit and eventually just fit.
Objectifying much? I'll tell you this: Women hate to be sexually objectified by men; but men absolutely can't abide being objectified thus by women. Since the bulk of Denise's and Kush's brief encounter concerned rolling around various beds having sex, then Kush - who actually is sensitive, if more than naturally self-obsessed - would have thought that for Denise, he was only a fit body with a schlong she used to pleasure herself.
Their last scene was one of the most honest depictions of Kush I've seen in ages, but their was one thing I didn't like - his comparing Denise's secrecy around her financial problems and "starvation" with Shabnam's initial problem in their relationship, and the similar way Shabnam acted by holding her own counsel and pushing Kush away. Shabnam's situation, in no way, can be compared to Denise's. Yes, both situations were brought on by the women, themselves, but Denise's suffering was simply gratuitous, and - I think - queerly made her feel even more self-righteous in her quest for the elusive GCSE; whereas Shabnam's abandonment of her child was an act couched in fear and cultural reprobation. Shabnam had far more for which to feel shame than Denise did. And with Shabnam's upbringing and background, she would have been shunned as a pariah by her community, whereas Denise only had to ask her sister for help before the situation got desperate.
However one thing Kush did do in that scene, was take the responsibility of the break-up of his marriage to Shabnam. He, at last, acknowledged this- that the trust Shabnam had for him had been broken forever by his own big secret and how quickly that secret could morph into one big lie. Kush's relationship with Shabnam broke down when he hurt her with his secrecy, and his relationship with Denise broke when she refused to take him into her confidence because of her pride and singular lack of common sense. It didn't help either when she played the pity card by comparing him, indirectly, with Owen and Lucas.
And she didn't help herself, in the end, by clinging desperately to Kush and crying pitiably as he walked away. Were we supposed to sympathise with O'Connor's chosen heroine? Maybe, but I didn't. Instead, I cheered Kush's long overdue coming of age when he walked away from a relationship that would have been the mirror image of that which he shares with his mother, enhanced only by the aspect of sex.
The last thing Kush needs is a mother or a girlfriend old enough to be his. And the last thing we need to see in this soap is more of stinking Denise.
The Baby Games. Is Stacey the new Pat? She seems to be full of worldy wisdom, and she isn't even thirty yet - although, I dare say she's lived a life.
This episode concerned Lauren contemplating abortion, and although I've been a fierce critic of hers, Jacqueline Jossa did a fair-to-middling job here. In contemplative storylines such as this, the sort of storyline which could really pack a punch and where windmill arms and gurns and funny voices aren't needed, she does well.
You could really feel the conflict with Lauren. She genuinely doesn't want this baby - mainly, because she doesn't really love the father and knows that she's only with Steven for immediate security. Although she loves Louis, I daresay, she'd gladly hand him over to the Beales if it meant getting what she wanted - in this case, a dream job. Facing the prospect of abortion means also that Lauren will need to face up to other obstacles as well - chiefly, her relationship with Steven and any future she may have with him.
Because Lauren definitely doesn't want this child. That truth came out in her conversation with Stacey moreso than it did with the health professional she saw at Walford General. There she qualified her absolute statement that she didn't want another baby, by adding "at the moment." Instead, with Stacey, she was more honest. She simply doesn't want another child.
The hard part is taking Stacey's advice - who doesn't judge her actions, but warns her of the time when Bradley, Lauren's brother, forced Stacey to have a termination, something which affected her for ages. Also, Stacey emphasised to Lauren how good a father Steven seemed to be to Louis and compared him to Martin, who considered himself Arthur's father. But her final caveat was that she needed to talk to Steven about this, something which Lauren finds impossible to do, because with every turn, Steven is reiterating his neediness. He loves her, but he needs to be a family with her. It's his feeling of inadequacy, for not being a real Beale, Ian's good son. He wants to be a father to Louis, but Lauren is constantly reminding him that he isn't, and above all this, Steven simply doesn't trust Lauren.
In the other Baby Wars story, we now have Charlie placed in another moral conundrum and revealed that he, like every other male character living on the Square is simply yet another emasculated male dominated by a woman who's successful in pushing her wants and needs before anything he wants.
Yes, he wants his son, but you get the impression from Mrs Charlie that had she not been unable to have a child, herself, she wouldn't be so keen to take Matthew on. She's certainly not keen on Dot living with them, an offer extended to her by Matthew, in a burst of compassion for depriving her of Matthew. The fact that Charlie's suggestion, alone, has sent Dot scurrying to the Council offices, head bobbing all the way, to try to find out how she can dispose of her council house.
Jack is right in this instance. Walford is where Dot's family is, and here we have the old blood-versus-nurture debate yet again. Charlie is quick to point out that all of Dot's so-called "family" in the Square is actually Jim's family, although Jack responds by reminding Charlie that a couple of years ago, Dot didn't even know Charlie existed.
This entire situation aptly reflects that, for all Dot does involve herself in the foibles of Jim's children and grandchildren, it's her blood kin, of whom Matthew is, who are her first priority.
One Door Shuts, Another Door Opens. Michelle is still obsessing over discussing divorce terms with her husband in the US (at least,they researched the area code for Pensacola), whining about him "cleaning her out." Excuse me. Michelle cheated on Tim, who took both her and her children on as his own and on his tick, with an underaged child. She's lucky she's not wearing an orange jumpsuit. And when she married Tim, she didn't have a pot to piss in, and he was the lecturer as opposed to her pithy job as a high school teacher. Tim was ringing her at 6pm UK time, which means it's just after lunch - 1pm - in Florida. It's also June, so Tim's community college school term would have finished, he'd have been well-fed, well-bamboozled and lounging by the pool, spoiling for a fight. Good. Michelle holds Sharon's hand for support. How putrid. And, of course, she's met someone who's bound to be the next Mr Michelle Fowler - from Tim to Tom. Let's hope he takes her away from the Square.
And we get the joys of four adults in their twenties pretending to be juveniles. as the endless bullying storyliine moves up a gear in Louise's direction.
Denise, Lauren, Michelle and the teens - the four things which are stinking up the show and sending it into freefall, and we're force-fed them.
My action is relevant. I've watched this programme since Day One of its existence. I've enjoyed the highs of its excellence, and I've suffered its embarrassing doldrums. When someone such as I says they couldn't be bothered to watch, the damned thing is in dire trouble.
I watched Brookside from the very beginning too, and stayed, zombiefied and de-sensitised until the awful, embarrassing end.
How well did that one work out?
She's Here, She's There, She's Every Fucking Where. One of the main reasons Sean O'Connor's EastEnders is stinking up the place is his undue over-emphasis on Denise. Since he took over, she's insinuated herself into almost every strand of this programme's fibre. I'm girding myself on my own forum, because I know some hissyfitting, little, passive-aggressive Celtic shit-stirrer is ready to throw a massive bullyfest because I'm about to diss his favourite character, but I have to say this:-
It's time whoever is the EP of EastEnders to grow a pair and stop listening to the fanboi element. Diane Parish may be a good actress, but the character she plays is bloody infuriating, as well as being arrogant, entitled, proud, self-pitying, rude and ungrateful, and that doesn't even make a good soap bitch; it simply makes Denise a character whose smug, po-face I'd love to smack. She's not even a character you can love to hate and, thereby, love to watch, like Janine. (God, how I miss Janine, the only real strong female character other than Pat, that the show produced!)
Denise admits in this episode that her recent difficulties were of her own making, and she's worried that the people in the Square would have openly observed as much. Well, people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones; and in the real world, the residents of Walford would have thought exactly that.
The economy isn't brilliant for a lot of people, and people like the Fowlers, Donna, Dot and even Kush Kazemi might find things a bit hard going under the current atmosphere; so to these people, a job's a job. If you quit a job, your first priority is to find another, and as quickly as possible, because you won't be entitled to benefits. So everybody and their dog on the Square would have thought this about Denise:-
Silly bitch! I thought she was supposed to be intelligent. Who, in their right mind, would walk away from a job and then do nothing but keep her nose stuck in a book? You can't eat books? And all the time she could have been out finding work, she was laying around a bed, fucking a man young enough to be her son. Sympathy for her? Tell me why. She never had a good word to say to most, and a lot of the time, whenever she had to talk to you, she had an expression on her face like she'd just smelled a bad smell.
That's exactly what the good folk of Walford would have done; instead, they've been queuing up to ask after her health, show friendly, show compassion. Carmel, formerly her BFF and whose son she's been bonking, is first around with tea and sympathy in this episode, for the twofold purpose of commiserating her plight and also for the opportunity to let Denise know that Kush has actually "moved on." This was the same Carmel, whom Denise had arrogantly told that if she had to chose between having Carmel as her friend and fucking Carmel's son, then the friendship got thrown under the bus. But there she was,sitting on Kim's sofa with Denise, offering up her renewed friendship on a plate.
Sharon is another one whom Denise has treated scurvily. She slept with Sharon's husband, and never once considered the fact that she was Phil's wife, and how she would be affected when the truth about her child would out. Denise was more concerned about Shirley's feelings in this instance than Sharon's. Yet Sharon has been nothing but the epitome of kindness, compassion and understanding, even before she knew of Denise's self-inflicted problems. More importantly, she didn't judge.
But Denise cares nothing about these people. Instead, Denise wants to renew her sex-based affair with Kush, whom she patronised and infantilised and generally treated like a piece of shit at the end of their affair - an affair that she ended, by the way. Kim and Patrick feed her ego in this regard, egging her on, almost declaring that she's actually entitled to this man. In fact, Kim is already thinking wedding plans, a thought as incongruous as anything with the prospective bride pushing fifty and the groom barely in his thirties. Kush is a young man at his physical peak; Denise is, or will be shortly, menopausal.
This is what is so infuriating as well about Kim. Were that any other woman of a certain age on that Square - Jane or Sharon, both of whom are 48 - and if they took up with someone of Kush's ilk and age, Kim would fly rampant and go on and on about the age difference, muttering snide comments about "mutton dressed as lamb" and the like; but because this is Denise, Kim and Patrick feed her delusional ego about being so much better than anyone in whom Kush might be interested - you know, like a woman in his own age demographic,who just might be able to give him a child?
Pete Lawson wrote this episode, and the dialogue, especially between Denise and Kush (except for Kush's last soliloquy) absolutely stank to high heaven of rank romcom garbage; but this has always been Denise's genre, and it's probably why I hate the character so much - this soap is no place, either for cheesy sitcom tripe, the likes of which we're being fed via the Beales or the implied romcom garbage we get anytime Denise gets a soupçon of a storyline, especially a romantic one, the romcom button gets pushed in the writing room.
The scene in The Minute Mart was the worst, especially the fractured line about going for a drink "as friends", before reiterating for the umpteenth time that she's only working as Kim's nanny until she gets "back on her feet." Kush isn't stupid, and he knows what Denise wants, and all that to and fro was just embarrassing, equally as much as Denise trying to "dress down" the situation by showing up clad in leather trousers and wearing her diamanté D around her neck, not to mention the clichéd awkward small-talk scene in the pub, when Denise's dialogue devolves into gibberish, telling Kush, repeatedly, how gorgeous and fit he is -gorgeous, senstive and fit; kind and fit and eventually just fit.
Objectifying much? I'll tell you this: Women hate to be sexually objectified by men; but men absolutely can't abide being objectified thus by women. Since the bulk of Denise's and Kush's brief encounter concerned rolling around various beds having sex, then Kush - who actually is sensitive, if more than naturally self-obsessed - would have thought that for Denise, he was only a fit body with a schlong she used to pleasure herself.
Their last scene was one of the most honest depictions of Kush I've seen in ages, but their was one thing I didn't like - his comparing Denise's secrecy around her financial problems and "starvation" with Shabnam's initial problem in their relationship, and the similar way Shabnam acted by holding her own counsel and pushing Kush away. Shabnam's situation, in no way, can be compared to Denise's. Yes, both situations were brought on by the women, themselves, but Denise's suffering was simply gratuitous, and - I think - queerly made her feel even more self-righteous in her quest for the elusive GCSE; whereas Shabnam's abandonment of her child was an act couched in fear and cultural reprobation. Shabnam had far more for which to feel shame than Denise did. And with Shabnam's upbringing and background, she would have been shunned as a pariah by her community, whereas Denise only had to ask her sister for help before the situation got desperate.
However one thing Kush did do in that scene, was take the responsibility of the break-up of his marriage to Shabnam. He, at last, acknowledged this- that the trust Shabnam had for him had been broken forever by his own big secret and how quickly that secret could morph into one big lie. Kush's relationship with Shabnam broke down when he hurt her with his secrecy, and his relationship with Denise broke when she refused to take him into her confidence because of her pride and singular lack of common sense. It didn't help either when she played the pity card by comparing him, indirectly, with Owen and Lucas.
And she didn't help herself, in the end, by clinging desperately to Kush and crying pitiably as he walked away. Were we supposed to sympathise with O'Connor's chosen heroine? Maybe, but I didn't. Instead, I cheered Kush's long overdue coming of age when he walked away from a relationship that would have been the mirror image of that which he shares with his mother, enhanced only by the aspect of sex.
The last thing Kush needs is a mother or a girlfriend old enough to be his. And the last thing we need to see in this soap is more of stinking Denise.
The Baby Games. Is Stacey the new Pat? She seems to be full of worldy wisdom, and she isn't even thirty yet - although, I dare say she's lived a life.
This episode concerned Lauren contemplating abortion, and although I've been a fierce critic of hers, Jacqueline Jossa did a fair-to-middling job here. In contemplative storylines such as this, the sort of storyline which could really pack a punch and where windmill arms and gurns and funny voices aren't needed, she does well.
You could really feel the conflict with Lauren. She genuinely doesn't want this baby - mainly, because she doesn't really love the father and knows that she's only with Steven for immediate security. Although she loves Louis, I daresay, she'd gladly hand him over to the Beales if it meant getting what she wanted - in this case, a dream job. Facing the prospect of abortion means also that Lauren will need to face up to other obstacles as well - chiefly, her relationship with Steven and any future she may have with him.
Because Lauren definitely doesn't want this child. That truth came out in her conversation with Stacey moreso than it did with the health professional she saw at Walford General. There she qualified her absolute statement that she didn't want another baby, by adding "at the moment." Instead, with Stacey, she was more honest. She simply doesn't want another child.
The hard part is taking Stacey's advice - who doesn't judge her actions, but warns her of the time when Bradley, Lauren's brother, forced Stacey to have a termination, something which affected her for ages. Also, Stacey emphasised to Lauren how good a father Steven seemed to be to Louis and compared him to Martin, who considered himself Arthur's father. But her final caveat was that she needed to talk to Steven about this, something which Lauren finds impossible to do, because with every turn, Steven is reiterating his neediness. He loves her, but he needs to be a family with her. It's his feeling of inadequacy, for not being a real Beale, Ian's good son. He wants to be a father to Louis, but Lauren is constantly reminding him that he isn't, and above all this, Steven simply doesn't trust Lauren.
In the other Baby Wars story, we now have Charlie placed in another moral conundrum and revealed that he, like every other male character living on the Square is simply yet another emasculated male dominated by a woman who's successful in pushing her wants and needs before anything he wants.
Yes, he wants his son, but you get the impression from Mrs Charlie that had she not been unable to have a child, herself, she wouldn't be so keen to take Matthew on. She's certainly not keen on Dot living with them, an offer extended to her by Matthew, in a burst of compassion for depriving her of Matthew. The fact that Charlie's suggestion, alone, has sent Dot scurrying to the Council offices, head bobbing all the way, to try to find out how she can dispose of her council house.
Jack is right in this instance. Walford is where Dot's family is, and here we have the old blood-versus-nurture debate yet again. Charlie is quick to point out that all of Dot's so-called "family" in the Square is actually Jim's family, although Jack responds by reminding Charlie that a couple of years ago, Dot didn't even know Charlie existed.
This entire situation aptly reflects that, for all Dot does involve herself in the foibles of Jim's children and grandchildren, it's her blood kin, of whom Matthew is, who are her first priority.
One Door Shuts, Another Door Opens. Michelle is still obsessing over discussing divorce terms with her husband in the US (at least,they researched the area code for Pensacola), whining about him "cleaning her out." Excuse me. Michelle cheated on Tim, who took both her and her children on as his own and on his tick, with an underaged child. She's lucky she's not wearing an orange jumpsuit. And when she married Tim, she didn't have a pot to piss in, and he was the lecturer as opposed to her pithy job as a high school teacher. Tim was ringing her at 6pm UK time, which means it's just after lunch - 1pm - in Florida. It's also June, so Tim's community college school term would have finished, he'd have been well-fed, well-bamboozled and lounging by the pool, spoiling for a fight. Good. Michelle holds Sharon's hand for support. How putrid. And, of course, she's met someone who's bound to be the next Mr Michelle Fowler - from Tim to Tom. Let's hope he takes her away from the Square.
And we get the joys of four adults in their twenties pretending to be juveniles. as the endless bullying storyliine moves up a gear in Louise's direction.
Denise, Lauren, Michelle and the teens - the four things which are stinking up the show and sending it into freefall, and we're force-fed them.
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