The first episode after having received the news that Sean O'Connor is toast, and the episode is just one big steaming pile yet again.
This has to have been one of the worst episodes I have seen, especially in terms of what is happening - nothing.
At the risk of being shot down, watching Denise prance about the Square as the resident beacon of happiness and light, imparting love and warmth to everyone (mainly, her immediate family) was bum-clinchingly embarrassing.
This was a Katie Douglas episode, and it showed; but it was also a Sean O'Connor signature episode, and it summed up almost everything that's gone wrong with his tenure.
The show has hit rock bottom.
All About Denise Being a Beacon of Sunshine and Love ...
That just about sums this segment up. This was less about Patirick's birthday and more about Denise spreading love and warmth and feeling good about herself. If she were half as clued up about Patrick as she pretends to be, she'd realise that he just may have wanted minimum fuss. And also, Dot was actually making him a rum cake from scratch. This was an elderly woman, an old friend and the wife of his best mate, someone suffering from macular degeneration of her eyesight, and yet she made the effort - supervising her granddaughter who actually blended the ingredients - but she put the effort in, and then she suffered for her work.
But neither Denise nor Kim could even put in the effort of making Patrick some homemade bacon rolls for his celebratory breakfast. Indeed, they couldn't be arsed to make him a special breakfast. Instead, they whipped to the café and stocked up on Kathy's/Tina's bacon sarnies.
I don't blame Patrick for being creeped out with Denise sticking to him like glue, wanting to spend time with him all day, following him about in his wanderings etc.Patrick is his own man. He's very much an individual who knows what he wants and what he needs. When he wants to be on his own, that's what he wants. When he wants to socialise, that's what he does.
Instead, we're treated to Denise strutting down the middle of the market to encounter Yolande, and to sweetly thank her for "all she did and all her help" during the little problematic episode Denise had at the Minute Mart. Funny, but I seem to recall at the time, Denise was anything but thankful. She was fucking downright rude to Yolande, and was entitled enough to expect her to have done so much more. Instead, Yolande had actually managed to secure her job for her, contingent upon her attending an anger management course, which was beneath Denise's huge ego and dignity.
Now she gushes to a bewildered Yolande about how that was the opportunity she needed and the Minute Mart was way in her past now. Oh, she flutters, there were times when things weren't easy - like when Denise sat on her arse for weeks after leaving her job and never once started looking for work until she was down to her last ten quid, then she resorted to scavenging through rubbish bins and trudging about looking po-faced and sad and never once thinking to tell her sister or any of her immediate family that she was in straights. But now, you know, she's fucking Kush again, Kim;s giving her money for nothing because the babysitting is only nominal, and armed with 1 GCSE, a guttersnipe's command of English grammar and what would be a nominally non-committal reference from Yolande (which is all she even could give), Denise thinks she's about to take the Council by storm, secure that all-important job on Reception and thereby, she'll sneak and spy around and find out how the dastardly, dishonest Council is hand-in-glove with Weyland & Co, and SuperDenise will save the Square ...
... or so it would seem in SeanO'ConnorLand.
You know what would be funny? JohnYorkLand ... where Denise gets the same sort of letter from the Council that Johnny Carter got from a firm of solicitors in this episode ...
Thank you for your application and your interview, Ms Fox, but having completed a CRB check, we find that you are currently serving a suspended sentence for assault. Coupled with the non-committal reference we have received from Mrs Yolande Trueman of The Minute Mart Ltd, we regret to inform you that your application for employment with Walford Council has been unsuccessful. We extend to you our wishes for the best of luck in all your future endeavours.
Then there would be a fretful phonecall from Libby the Pill, informing Denise that Chelsea had called her weeping about the fact that she was made pregnant by some rich gigolo, who dumped her in Marbella, and Denise would call Chelsea and soothe her with her charming and wonderful way. You can even hear Chelsea..
Ok, Mum. I'll'ave the bayBEE,but I an't got time to look after it. I mean, I got me image, I'm still after a rich footballer. I wanna be a wag. Hit's Spain, Mum! I deserve me a bloke like Neymar or Ronaldo. Nuffink less. You looked after Auntie Kim's baybee, you can just come out'ere and look after mine!
Then picture Denise telling Kush about the fact that she was going to be a grandmother, cosied up with him in bed. Can you see Kush's trademark reaction - the one where he looks like a cross between a panda and a fish, working his mouth and grunting for about 10 seconds before he manages to stammer ...
Wha ... oh ... what ... a grandmother ... a-a-as in "Nan" grandmother? Ohh ... well .. blimey ... that's nice, I mean, my mum was almost a grandmother once-... no, wait ... I didn't mean that ... it's just, well ... you see, I've ... I've never -uh- well, I've never slept with a nan, er- a grandmother before, you know and ... um, well ... you know, look, Denise, I'm ... I'm really not in the mood tonight, you know. I sorta promised that nice Norwegian nanny who works for Jack ... I mean, that Fi Browning ... Dooooh! I mean Martin, I promised Martin I'd check him out in the Vic for a drink .... But you, you go to Spain for Chelsea. I'm sure she needs you .. a-a-and so does your grandchild ... See ya!
Black cab on call!
Oh, and I thought she was phoney and patronising to Derek tonight. I hope she's the first of John Yorke's cull.
Dirty Little Secrets and Dirty Little Lies. Oh, dear ... what could Derek's criminal record entail? Yolande purportedly didn't know, but I'm willing to bet she did, of a sort. The only thing I can fathom that would upset Derek the way it did was that this had to do with a homosexual encounter - in the days when homosexuality was illegal - and it concerned, perhaps, an underaged boy.
If that's so, what the hell is it about this EP and his penchant for adults having sex with children? Besides, if I recall correctly, Derek had been a long-time friend of Pauline's. They'd known each other in school. He'd been married and had children, but many gays forced into the closet by the laws of the time did just that. I suppose, if this is about an encounter with an underaged boy, he would have kept that quiet from Pauline during the time he lodged with her, because she'd have hit the roof, especially with Martin at home and a teenager at the time.
I really hope it's not this, because I like Derek - even if the current-and-now-departing regime have conveniently forgotten any association Derek ever had with Martin Fowler. However, Sean O'Connor stiffed an icon like Michelle Fowler, not only recasting her badly, but turning her into a desperate, clinging woman who'd stoop to sleep with an underaged boy, so why wouldn't he stiff a character like Derek Harkison?
The other observation to take away from this segment was Honey's insipidly self-centred reaction to the possibility that she might be the subject of the in-house magazine cover. I imagine once the news about Derek's criminal record is out, if it is what I suspect it is, she'll cross the street with her kids to avoid him.
More Dirty Little Secrets, More Dirty Little Lies. Widdle Mick is back, chewing his finger and looking everywhere but directly at Mummy, who's ticking him off for being a naughty boy and forcing him to face some nasty home truths.
Mick is angry with Linda. He's angry with her because she sold the freehold of the Vic in order to provide money for Lady Di's treatment, amongst other things, but really he's angry with her because she's coming home, and she'll be there whilst Dirty Whitney, the current object of his new-found lust, is not. Remember their second illicit kiss? Well, Widdle Mick was on his way, I reckon, to tell Whitney that she was the one he really, really wanted, except for the fact that Shirley got to her first and told her a thing or two about Mick's relationship with Linda.
At first, Mick doesn't want to do anything for Linda's birthday, most likely because he's so angry, he couldn't be arsed, but then he decides to use the pub venue and business for that solution to any problem concerning Linda he might have - when in doubt, throw Linda a party. Not just a party, but a knees-up, taking up every inch of the pub and involving everyone. Shirley knows that he's doing this in order to avoid facing Linda down on his own in private. Well, he is a coward, after all.
Here's the irony of the situation: Shirley was part and parcel of that deception. In fact, it was she who approached Linda with the idea, and it was Shirley who forged Mick's signature on the transfer document. Yet, Mick has forgiven her, but not Linda.
I can buy the fact that the relationship between Mick and Shirley is fraught with abandonment and and honesty issues, but this is entirely the first time in their long association that Linda has even made a decision without Mick, and on the spot, acting in the best interests of all concerned. Mick is more annoyed that it was his wife who grasped the mettle and did something about their precarious situation, when all he did, after the fact,was whine and belloweather about how he had the situation "sorted."
"Sorted", my arse.
He went away to care for his injured daughter,and the only person who merited his thoughts and concerns was Whitney.
That's actually what's bothering him. He's been unfaithful to Linda. He's angry with Linda for making a decision on the spot, without consulting him first. He feels emasculated because of this, that accommodating, little Linda would presume to make such an important sacrifice for the sake of a family pet. But really, he's angry with Linda because, like an adult, she took a major decision to care for her ailing mother, rather than stay in Walford and massage Mick's fragile, puerile manchild ego. Whitney fed that ego, Whitney made him believe that he was the much-maligned hunter-gatherer Prince-in-Shining-Armour, and Whitney took every opportunity possible to trashmouth Linda in the subtlest way.
What's going to be very interesting now is Linda being back in Walford an eternal victim, Whitney, returning to the fray. And the omnipresent Denise knows about that first kiss too.
Tick tock.
The Return of the Prodigal. Robbie Jackson is back, and I'm not impressed. Minus son and Wellard, booted and suited,someone in the programme - Martin, I think - remarked that Robbie's only relatives on the Square were Dot and Rebecca. Not true. Whilst Robbie still claims kin to Martin, he actually has two uncles and four other cousins resident on the Square- Max, Jack, Abi, Lauren,Amy and Ricky.
He's the same hyper, klutzy Robbie we say in the late 1990s. The only things that are missing are Wellard and Barry Evans.
When he last left the Square, he was headed to Milton Keynes to drive taxis for Terry and somehow ended up living with Sonia in Kidderminster before that all went tits up.
Well, he'll probably end up at Dot's, now that she's taken a fall over Dave the Cat, who'll probably turn out to be the Murrays' runaway cat, Lucky.
Not much of an episode at all.
This has to have been one of the worst episodes I have seen, especially in terms of what is happening - nothing.
At the risk of being shot down, watching Denise prance about the Square as the resident beacon of happiness and light, imparting love and warmth to everyone (mainly, her immediate family) was bum-clinchingly embarrassing.
This was a Katie Douglas episode, and it showed; but it was also a Sean O'Connor signature episode, and it summed up almost everything that's gone wrong with his tenure.
The show has hit rock bottom.
All About Denise Being a Beacon of Sunshine and Love ...
That just about sums this segment up. This was less about Patirick's birthday and more about Denise spreading love and warmth and feeling good about herself. If she were half as clued up about Patrick as she pretends to be, she'd realise that he just may have wanted minimum fuss. And also, Dot was actually making him a rum cake from scratch. This was an elderly woman, an old friend and the wife of his best mate, someone suffering from macular degeneration of her eyesight, and yet she made the effort - supervising her granddaughter who actually blended the ingredients - but she put the effort in, and then she suffered for her work.
But neither Denise nor Kim could even put in the effort of making Patrick some homemade bacon rolls for his celebratory breakfast. Indeed, they couldn't be arsed to make him a special breakfast. Instead, they whipped to the café and stocked up on Kathy's/Tina's bacon sarnies.
I don't blame Patrick for being creeped out with Denise sticking to him like glue, wanting to spend time with him all day, following him about in his wanderings etc.Patrick is his own man. He's very much an individual who knows what he wants and what he needs. When he wants to be on his own, that's what he wants. When he wants to socialise, that's what he does.
Instead, we're treated to Denise strutting down the middle of the market to encounter Yolande, and to sweetly thank her for "all she did and all her help" during the little problematic episode Denise had at the Minute Mart. Funny, but I seem to recall at the time, Denise was anything but thankful. She was fucking downright rude to Yolande, and was entitled enough to expect her to have done so much more. Instead, Yolande had actually managed to secure her job for her, contingent upon her attending an anger management course, which was beneath Denise's huge ego and dignity.
Now she gushes to a bewildered Yolande about how that was the opportunity she needed and the Minute Mart was way in her past now. Oh, she flutters, there were times when things weren't easy - like when Denise sat on her arse for weeks after leaving her job and never once started looking for work until she was down to her last ten quid, then she resorted to scavenging through rubbish bins and trudging about looking po-faced and sad and never once thinking to tell her sister or any of her immediate family that she was in straights. But now, you know, she's fucking Kush again, Kim;s giving her money for nothing because the babysitting is only nominal, and armed with 1 GCSE, a guttersnipe's command of English grammar and what would be a nominally non-committal reference from Yolande (which is all she even could give), Denise thinks she's about to take the Council by storm, secure that all-important job on Reception and thereby, she'll sneak and spy around and find out how the dastardly, dishonest Council is hand-in-glove with Weyland & Co, and SuperDenise will save the Square ...
... or so it would seem in SeanO'ConnorLand.
You know what would be funny? JohnYorkLand ... where Denise gets the same sort of letter from the Council that Johnny Carter got from a firm of solicitors in this episode ...
Thank you for your application and your interview, Ms Fox, but having completed a CRB check, we find that you are currently serving a suspended sentence for assault. Coupled with the non-committal reference we have received from Mrs Yolande Trueman of The Minute Mart Ltd, we regret to inform you that your application for employment with Walford Council has been unsuccessful. We extend to you our wishes for the best of luck in all your future endeavours.
Then there would be a fretful phonecall from Libby the Pill, informing Denise that Chelsea had called her weeping about the fact that she was made pregnant by some rich gigolo, who dumped her in Marbella, and Denise would call Chelsea and soothe her with her charming and wonderful way. You can even hear Chelsea..
Ok, Mum. I'll'ave the bayBEE,but I an't got time to look after it. I mean, I got me image, I'm still after a rich footballer. I wanna be a wag. Hit's Spain, Mum! I deserve me a bloke like Neymar or Ronaldo. Nuffink less. You looked after Auntie Kim's baybee, you can just come out'ere and look after mine!
Then picture Denise telling Kush about the fact that she was going to be a grandmother, cosied up with him in bed. Can you see Kush's trademark reaction - the one where he looks like a cross between a panda and a fish, working his mouth and grunting for about 10 seconds before he manages to stammer ...
Wha ... oh ... what ... a grandmother ... a-a-as in "Nan" grandmother? Ohh ... well .. blimey ... that's nice, I mean, my mum was almost a grandmother once-... no, wait ... I didn't mean that ... it's just, well ... you see, I've ... I've never -uh- well, I've never slept with a nan, er- a grandmother before, you know and ... um, well ... you know, look, Denise, I'm ... I'm really not in the mood tonight, you know. I sorta promised that nice Norwegian nanny who works for Jack ... I mean, that Fi Browning ... Dooooh! I mean Martin, I promised Martin I'd check him out in the Vic for a drink .... But you, you go to Spain for Chelsea. I'm sure she needs you .. a-a-and so does your grandchild ... See ya!
Black cab on call!
Oh, and I thought she was phoney and patronising to Derek tonight. I hope she's the first of John Yorke's cull.
Dirty Little Secrets and Dirty Little Lies. Oh, dear ... what could Derek's criminal record entail? Yolande purportedly didn't know, but I'm willing to bet she did, of a sort. The only thing I can fathom that would upset Derek the way it did was that this had to do with a homosexual encounter - in the days when homosexuality was illegal - and it concerned, perhaps, an underaged boy.
If that's so, what the hell is it about this EP and his penchant for adults having sex with children? Besides, if I recall correctly, Derek had been a long-time friend of Pauline's. They'd known each other in school. He'd been married and had children, but many gays forced into the closet by the laws of the time did just that. I suppose, if this is about an encounter with an underaged boy, he would have kept that quiet from Pauline during the time he lodged with her, because she'd have hit the roof, especially with Martin at home and a teenager at the time.
I really hope it's not this, because I like Derek - even if the current-and-now-departing regime have conveniently forgotten any association Derek ever had with Martin Fowler. However, Sean O'Connor stiffed an icon like Michelle Fowler, not only recasting her badly, but turning her into a desperate, clinging woman who'd stoop to sleep with an underaged boy, so why wouldn't he stiff a character like Derek Harkison?
The other observation to take away from this segment was Honey's insipidly self-centred reaction to the possibility that she might be the subject of the in-house magazine cover. I imagine once the news about Derek's criminal record is out, if it is what I suspect it is, she'll cross the street with her kids to avoid him.
More Dirty Little Secrets, More Dirty Little Lies. Widdle Mick is back, chewing his finger and looking everywhere but directly at Mummy, who's ticking him off for being a naughty boy and forcing him to face some nasty home truths.
Mick is angry with Linda. He's angry with her because she sold the freehold of the Vic in order to provide money for Lady Di's treatment, amongst other things, but really he's angry with her because she's coming home, and she'll be there whilst Dirty Whitney, the current object of his new-found lust, is not. Remember their second illicit kiss? Well, Widdle Mick was on his way, I reckon, to tell Whitney that she was the one he really, really wanted, except for the fact that Shirley got to her first and told her a thing or two about Mick's relationship with Linda.
At first, Mick doesn't want to do anything for Linda's birthday, most likely because he's so angry, he couldn't be arsed, but then he decides to use the pub venue and business for that solution to any problem concerning Linda he might have - when in doubt, throw Linda a party. Not just a party, but a knees-up, taking up every inch of the pub and involving everyone. Shirley knows that he's doing this in order to avoid facing Linda down on his own in private. Well, he is a coward, after all.
Here's the irony of the situation: Shirley was part and parcel of that deception. In fact, it was she who approached Linda with the idea, and it was Shirley who forged Mick's signature on the transfer document. Yet, Mick has forgiven her, but not Linda.
I can buy the fact that the relationship between Mick and Shirley is fraught with abandonment and and honesty issues, but this is entirely the first time in their long association that Linda has even made a decision without Mick, and on the spot, acting in the best interests of all concerned. Mick is more annoyed that it was his wife who grasped the mettle and did something about their precarious situation, when all he did, after the fact,was whine and belloweather about how he had the situation "sorted."
"Sorted", my arse.
He went away to care for his injured daughter,and the only person who merited his thoughts and concerns was Whitney.
That's actually what's bothering him. He's been unfaithful to Linda. He's angry with Linda for making a decision on the spot, without consulting him first. He feels emasculated because of this, that accommodating, little Linda would presume to make such an important sacrifice for the sake of a family pet. But really, he's angry with Linda because, like an adult, she took a major decision to care for her ailing mother, rather than stay in Walford and massage Mick's fragile, puerile manchild ego. Whitney fed that ego, Whitney made him believe that he was the much-maligned hunter-gatherer Prince-in-Shining-Armour, and Whitney took every opportunity possible to trashmouth Linda in the subtlest way.
What's going to be very interesting now is Linda being back in Walford an eternal victim, Whitney, returning to the fray. And the omnipresent Denise knows about that first kiss too.
Tick tock.
The Return of the Prodigal. Robbie Jackson is back, and I'm not impressed. Minus son and Wellard, booted and suited,someone in the programme - Martin, I think - remarked that Robbie's only relatives on the Square were Dot and Rebecca. Not true. Whilst Robbie still claims kin to Martin, he actually has two uncles and four other cousins resident on the Square- Max, Jack, Abi, Lauren,Amy and Ricky.
He's the same hyper, klutzy Robbie we say in the late 1990s. The only things that are missing are Wellard and Barry Evans.
When he last left the Square, he was headed to Milton Keynes to drive taxis for Terry and somehow ended up living with Sonia in Kidderminster before that all went tits up.
Well, he'll probably end up at Dot's, now that she's taken a fall over Dave the Cat, who'll probably turn out to be the Murrays' runaway cat, Lucky.
Not much of an episode at all.
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