Daran Little, bless'im. He's doing the best he can with the cack Sean O'Connor throws him, but the reality is that this show has hit the doldrums deep. More and more as Sean O'Connor's single-minded agenda becomes obvious, the more he preaches is the more he offers up cartoon characters.
Someone whose opinion I greatly respect mentioned O'Connor's Archerisation of EastEnders today, which struck me as ironic because when he took over The Archers much brouhaha was made of the fact that he was sexing the show up like EastEnders.Now he's made normality bland and any sort of untoward incident or behaviour is so stereotypical as to be cartoonish. But worse than that, he's given the show PhD credentials for stating the bleeding obvious.
There's no tension, no anticipation, no real surprise twists anymore because we can see whatever is going to happen two miles down the road before it's even happened.
The show was rife with that on Thursday.
First Up: Meet the Taylors. The obvious twist in the tale with this lot is that we've known one of them for a good while (and hated him too). The twist at the end was finding out that Keegan is one of Karen Taylor's gaggle of kids. That was a surprise, but not so much of one, if you look carefully.
There was the casual remark he made a few weeks ago about his mother looking for a place to rent. Then there's always been his behaviour in general, his overt misogyny and mean-spirited cruelty, especially in baiting Louise, for whom he's reserved a special hatred. We also observed the way he acted with respect to women in general - his run-in with Denise, amongst other things.So the viewer would know that there must be some issue with women, particularly his mother, to engender such animosity.
Now we know, and what we saw in this episode is O'Connor's cack-handed way of beginning to make Keegan a sympathetic character. The way his oldest brother (and I actually liked the oldest son of this brood) upbraided him for not showing up, rather staying out all night, coupled with the way his mother grappled with him in the middle of the Square, in full view of everyone watching, her roughness with him as opposed to her brusque but inevitably loving demeanor with her daughter and the youngest two sons gives off a bit of stinky smell of something obvious, but something which the show has never fully addressed before.
Of all Karen Taylor's kids, Keegan is the only one of mixed race. He stands out like a sore thumb, and her treatment of him, compared with that of her other children is markedly different. Sure, she argues with the oldest boy, Keanu (could they use a name which is less cartoonish - remember The Royle Family when Denise Royle was thiinking about naming Baby David "Keanu"?) I'm sure there are chavs galore - and this family is a rank, cartoon depiction of a chav family - who give their children trendy names after celebrity monikers they deem posh or creative, but a simple "Kevin" would have done just fine.
She argues with the oldest son, who has an apprenticeship, but their arguing is yet another social commentary made by Sean O'Connor - the fact that Keanu, on an apprenticeship wage, cannot afford even to rent a place of his own, that he's forced to secretly live with his family, unbeknownst to the Council and Social Services, and because of this, is forced to sleep on the floor of an already cramped flat speaks volumes about the socio-economic depravity with which many working-class youth are faced on a daily basis. Of course, he cannot be seen to be living there; as was heard by the Murrays (more of them later) from their argument overhead, he gives all his wages to his mother - who can always afford a packet of fags- and the only saving grace in her having a council property is by virtue of the fact that she's got a gaggle of kids and no source of income. Quite ironic that Keanu opined that their unseen oldest sister was only able to get a flat on the Social by getting knocked up, which is exactly how his mother got what she's got right now.
This also explains a lot with Keegan and his hard-man front,which is shattered as soon as he's physically (Shakil) or intellectually (Travis) challenged. But seriously, I think this is Sean O'Connor's beginning of Keegan's redemption and that we'll inevitably pity him and see him in a sympathetic light. Already Louise has shown a soupçon of pity for him when Travis, Shakil and the other boys at the bus stop ripped him in song the other day, and the look on her face when she witnessed his treatment at the hands of his mother in this episode told the same tale. Of course, he, Sniggle and Snaggle have told a monstrous lie about Louise, and she believes that they're perpetrating the rumour; but considering the fact Sean O'Connor is behind all this kerfuffle - or rather, covfefe - it wouldn't surprise me if we see the community, fronted by Holy Mother Denise, shower the misunderstood Keegan with love and compassion, and ultimately, Princess Louise will choose his bit of rough over the stately, gentlemanly ueber middle class Travis Double-Barrelled Surname.
It's class, innit?
Speaking of the omnipresent Denise, consider this: Karen Taylor, when speaking to Sharon tonight, said she'd never felt the need for marriage and then alluded to the fact that "neither of them" (alluding obliquely to the fathers of her children) did either, implying that her family is the result of two relationships. She has an older daughter who lives with her partner and has two children. She has an older son. Then Keegan appears to be the third child in the pecking order, followed by a shallow idiot of a daughter who seems to be a fat, ugly version of Lola Pearce in her propensity to bunk off school and dream of winning the Lottery in order to secure a big house, and fraternal twins who are supposed to have learning difficulties.
If all of that lot is the result of two relationships, she must have taken a break with one man, between Keanu and the idiot daughter in order to produce Keegan. Maybe that's why he's treated the odd man out of the piece, but it's as subtle a bite of racism as you'll ever get on this show, and within a family as well. Speaking of which, with another daughter and partner and children who have yet to appear, there are worlds of possibilities in producing the respective fathers of the rest of the kids and Keegan. The Taylors could be O'Connor's Brannings or Carters. But here's an interesting thought: scores of viewers thought that the animosity which was apparent between Denise and Keegan from the start and which culminated in her whacking him one, could only mean that Keegan would inevitably turn out to be Denise's nephew. Find his dad, and you'll probably find her long-lost and feckless brother.
One other thing: Is Karen Taylor diabetic? There was a brief scene where the oldest boy was, at her bidding, frantically trying to find the toaster in order to make her some toast. He suggested the grill on the cooker, but she wanted proper toast and then mentioned her sugar levels. This is diabetic talk, and I'll bet she has Type II like Ian Beale, which would link in perfectly with all the emphasis tonight on Ian's healthy eating diet - carrots and houmus, organic ketchup and papaya mustard. Inevitably, she'll have a diabetic crisis, and he'll step in to help her and end up her educating mentor.
The family is a cartoon, and like so many other garish, loud and overt families before them - thinking, in particular,about the Slaters and the Jacksons - inevitably, we know they'll settle down, dig in, and win over the residents. There are so many ways for compassion to be rendered - Keegan and his mistreatment (Denise), Karen and her diabetes (Ian), the twins with their learning difficulties (Honey and Billy), and Keanu, appearing to be hard-working and willing - it won't be long until the viewers are swung around to liking this lot.
Of course, the Walford public's reaction to them is to be suitably appalled, proof positive that Albert Square is no longer a working man's paradise, but rather a genteel community with aspirations. For the second time in a row, in exactly the same spot, we had Sharon introduce herself to new neighbours as being the lady who lived down the street "in the big house" - in other words, the lady of the manor, Phil Mitchell's manor made doubly his by having wed Walford's original Crown Princess, Sharon. I didn't like that. Sharon never pulled rank in her life, and she wouldn't do so now. Pulling rank like that is something that Jane would have done in a past life, or Tanya, or Janine. Janine would have pulled that line off naturally, and with panache; but not Sharon. It portrays her as snobbish, materialistic and status-conscious. Daran Little should know better. Jack disdained them, Denise looked down her delicately refined nose at them, and Carmel definitely knew them.Whether that comes from her dealings with the Council or the fact that she may have come into contact with Karen Taylor through Keegan, I'm not sure, but apart from the Taylors being a middle-class writer's version of what council house and violent (chavs) people are like, it's not far off from what we've seen on the show before - and it's extremely predictable.
Stating the Bleeding Obvious: Weyland & Co and The Beale Brouhaha. Max drops a clanger. If nothing else, Max knows his children and all their foibles. He sees through Lauren's thinly masked attraction to Josh. From the moment I knew Josh was some sort of power broker, I knew that Lauren was only ever going to be his bit on the side.
His remark about only getting what he wanted reeked of sexual privilege which comes hand-in-hand with wealth and entitlement. I thought he'd be married, but it seems he has a fiancée, a wedding planned in November and that she wears a diamond on her finger the size of a small boulder. Max knew, and it's a bit of proof that he hasn't exactly become immune to a fatherly feeling for his daughter that he warns Lauren off Josh, because Max's (and Lauren's) morals aren't all that different from Josh's, although I would think that he wouldn't want to see his child used and abused as the sexual plaything dependent upon the whims of her boss.
I'll wager the company is littered with Josh's sexual playthings, who get carted off to various departments out of his sight (and mind) as soon as he tires with them -the HR woman springs to mind. What was very interesting was the fact that,after Max dropped his bombshell, Josh didn't even try to apologise or use the timeworn excuse about his wife/fiancée (Imogen, was it?) had lost her charm or took him for granted and Lauren was the one who understood. From the get-go, Josh got the definite vibe that Lauren was interested sexually. She was, but she was interested in something a bit more permanent that would take her away from the perceived humdrum life she leads with Steven.
I guess Abi must have messaged Josh through Facebook, as I seem to recall she said he'd accepted her friendship request. Abi ties in with this disjointed tale in what is a truly sad way, given that Max has yet to acknowledge that her milestone birthday is approaching, that she's planning the event all by herself as no one appears to have taken any notice. Steven treats her like a child,and whilst Lauren is willing to use her as a crutch for moral support in a crisis, she neither thanks her for the humongous lie she's told to cover Lauren's duplicity nor does she even care about what Abi does, as long as it's something not touching Lauren. Even tonight, she was openly disparaging her and dismissing her to Josh.
And I have to say it, as I can here on my blog, where I'm not policed by anyone, but Jacqueline Jossa is piling on the pounds. I get it that she might have found it hard to shift post-natal weight, but it's been two years now since the birth of her daughter and not only is her posterior expanding, she's hefty across the shoulders and front. Nothing wrong with being a big beautiful woman, but Jossa is getting fat.
On the other side of the equation, there was the appalling scene where Steven was forced to overhear Ian whining about being without any of his children on Father's Day this weekend. He even shot down Jane's commiseration that she felt the same on Mother's Day, and how Steven had got Ian a really lovely card, by basically saying that Steven doesn't matter, because he isn't really Ian's son.
That had to have hurt Jane, who isn't really Bobby's mother, and that prompted me to remember Peter Beale's remark on the night it was discovered that Bobby had killed Lucy:-
You're nobody's mother.
Steven isn't "the same" as Peter, Lucy or Bobby. Well, Peter is AWOL in New Zealand somewhere, Lucy is dead, and Bobby's serving time for having killed her. And Steven is there with Ian. As Jane rightly pointed out, Ian raised him from an infant, he bears Ian's name and he considers himself Ian's son. He never bonded with Simon Wicks, his birth father, and of all the nature-vs-nurture battles incipient in EastEnders since the beginning of time, the bonds that have existed between adoptive or step-parents and children are often proven to be stronger than natural bonds - Den and Sharon, Patrick and Paul Trueman, Keith Miller and Mickey, and more recently Alfie and Tommy Moon and Martin and Arthur.
In fact, until he was 13 years old, Steven Beale believed he was Ian's son. Considering the tricks Steven pulled on Ian when he showed up in Walford a decade ago and considering that Ian ultimately rejected him, exiling him from Watford upon pain and threat of death, that he returned and managed to worm his way back into Ian's affections speaks volumes for the concept of unconditional love. Steven feels the outsider in the Beale family. He doesn't belong in New Zealand with his birth father, and he craves acceptance fully into the Beale fold. Lauren lives with him, came to depend on him when Peter absconded, yet she keeps him at arm's length regarding any bonding he might share with Louis, preferring always to remind him of who Louis's father is and (as yet unbeknownst to him) aborting his child, , and now he's forced to hear this from Ian - that he's not on par with Peter, Lucy or even the psychopath Bobby. That Isn't taken him in as a second-rate substitute because he cannot bear the possibility of the Beale house not being inhabited by a Beale child, but - as Ian't pointed out tonight, he's not Ian's son.
Steven, at the moment, is rife with insecurities regarding his relationship with Lauren, and now he has to hear this. As everyone should remember, Steven's mental state is fragile, and he's just now reached the tipping point.
The Word Which No One Dares Say. They didn't say it, they implied it; and that was Sean O'Connor trying to be coy. I still say that the lie told to Louise by Keegan, Sniggle and Snaggle - that she had sex with Keegan and was too drunk to remember - is nothing but a lie. However, they're showing their ignorance as the clinic nurse (off-camera, of course) pointedly remarked to Louise tonight when she asked if Louise hadn't wanted to have sex with the person who, allegedly, slept with her.
So much happens off-screen in today's EastEnders, it could be that she had sex with Keegan at that party, but I don't think she did. She had only downed her first drink when she had to show Keegan where the bathroom was. She was tipsy, but she was in no way in any sort of state the way she was the rest of the evening. But if this did happen, or even if it didn't and this is just a malicious lie perpetrated and laughed at by three thoroughly despicable people, when you're too drunk to remember having sex, you were too drunk to give your consent, and that is rape.
Perhaps this is the explanation for Louise's puzzling reaction when she barrelled out of the clinic room and wouldn't talk to Rebecca about it. Also, the fact that Travis seems still to want to be associated with her gives me reason to think that this entire fiasco is just a malicious private joke shared by Sniggle, Snaggle and Keegan. Maybe this is yet another rape storyline, this time told by Sean O'Connor, where Louise lives in shame by the knowledge that she's actually been raped, and it's this crisis which brings Phil home to declare war on the Taylor tribe.
The Passive-Aggressive Bully. Is there going to be some sort of affair between Jack and Honey? She's sure hanging out a lot with him these days, giving him sympathy and helping him look for a nanny for his kids. She's also spending a lotof time with him, trash-talking Billy; and when she's with Billy, she's in passive-aggressive mode again.
People forget that there's an ugly side to Honey. We've seen it, more recently, with her intolerance of Derek, and we saw it ages ago when she returned and started dictating the odds to Billy again. Now she's returned to that mode, becoming a social climber by wanting to promote Billy as a high-ranking businessman in the community, inviting the mayor to the re-naming of Les's business. It isn't so much that she wants the community to recognise Billy for his worth, it's that she wants to promote herself as the wife of a prominent businessman. How long before she's comparing Billy to Jack to Billy's face?
I've always thought Honey a secret bitch, and I'm seldom wrong.
Saint Denise of Walford. A couple of months ago, when Jane started the Walford in Bloom project, Stacey initially approached Denise to help with the planting of flowers.Denise turned her nose up and refused. It wasn't her "thing." Now she's out, spontaneously helping Stacey to bed plants, harassing Kim for not wanting to beautify the surrounding community.
Is there ever an episode where this word isn't used?
This was symbolically foreshadowing as we now know that it will be the Patron Saint of Po-Face will be the Saviour of Walford. And this deification of a largely irrelevant character sucks shit.
And spare us the unfunny quips with Kim. I cannot believe that O'Connor killed off the edgy Mitchell sisters to spoon-feed us this Fox shit.
Widdle Mick. I like Lisa Faulkner. Here's another character with a secret. We learned about that, obliquely, in the Battle for Shirley's Roast tonight. By the way, Shirley was ever depicted as a bad cook. Remember the Christmas Day fiasco when she burned hers and Heather's dinners? All of a sudden, Shirley does a mean roast. Since when? It was always Babe who was the culinary expert.
But in that instance, alone with Mick, Fi reminisced about her mother doing a roast every Sunday, but when Mick asked about her mother, she clammed up in such a way that we know there's some sort of story there.
However, she seems to be going about the process of giving bad business advice to Mick. This time, it involved hiring a catering company to deliver daily consignments of pre-cooked food for Abi simply to dish up, easily a more expensive way of presenting food rather than buying locally and preparing the fare from scratch.
Shirley's onto Fi, and I hope Linda comes home soon.
The Murrays. I'm sorry, but they're boring, especially with their bingo fetish and his pipe dream for Australia. Is one of their children living there? Because flights and holidays there are relatively inexpensive now. Just like the Mitchell sisters were bumped off to give us the atrocious Fox sisters in the fore, we sacrificed Les and Pam for this tripe.
However, there was a nice moment when Kathy told the Murrays she used to live in Walford Towers, and he remembered her helping Pete with the fruit and veg, and her reminding them that her nephew ran the stall now.
However, another overt warning of something being amiss occurred when Mrs Murray pronounced it peaceful on the Square.
This show is rapidly spiralling downward.
Someone whose opinion I greatly respect mentioned O'Connor's Archerisation of EastEnders today, which struck me as ironic because when he took over The Archers much brouhaha was made of the fact that he was sexing the show up like EastEnders.Now he's made normality bland and any sort of untoward incident or behaviour is so stereotypical as to be cartoonish. But worse than that, he's given the show PhD credentials for stating the bleeding obvious.
There's no tension, no anticipation, no real surprise twists anymore because we can see whatever is going to happen two miles down the road before it's even happened.
The show was rife with that on Thursday.
First Up: Meet the Taylors. The obvious twist in the tale with this lot is that we've known one of them for a good while (and hated him too). The twist at the end was finding out that Keegan is one of Karen Taylor's gaggle of kids. That was a surprise, but not so much of one, if you look carefully.
There was the casual remark he made a few weeks ago about his mother looking for a place to rent. Then there's always been his behaviour in general, his overt misogyny and mean-spirited cruelty, especially in baiting Louise, for whom he's reserved a special hatred. We also observed the way he acted with respect to women in general - his run-in with Denise, amongst other things.So the viewer would know that there must be some issue with women, particularly his mother, to engender such animosity.
Now we know, and what we saw in this episode is O'Connor's cack-handed way of beginning to make Keegan a sympathetic character. The way his oldest brother (and I actually liked the oldest son of this brood) upbraided him for not showing up, rather staying out all night, coupled with the way his mother grappled with him in the middle of the Square, in full view of everyone watching, her roughness with him as opposed to her brusque but inevitably loving demeanor with her daughter and the youngest two sons gives off a bit of stinky smell of something obvious, but something which the show has never fully addressed before.
Of all Karen Taylor's kids, Keegan is the only one of mixed race. He stands out like a sore thumb, and her treatment of him, compared with that of her other children is markedly different. Sure, she argues with the oldest boy, Keanu (could they use a name which is less cartoonish - remember The Royle Family when Denise Royle was thiinking about naming Baby David "Keanu"?) I'm sure there are chavs galore - and this family is a rank, cartoon depiction of a chav family - who give their children trendy names after celebrity monikers they deem posh or creative, but a simple "Kevin" would have done just fine.
She argues with the oldest son, who has an apprenticeship, but their arguing is yet another social commentary made by Sean O'Connor - the fact that Keanu, on an apprenticeship wage, cannot afford even to rent a place of his own, that he's forced to secretly live with his family, unbeknownst to the Council and Social Services, and because of this, is forced to sleep on the floor of an already cramped flat speaks volumes about the socio-economic depravity with which many working-class youth are faced on a daily basis. Of course, he cannot be seen to be living there; as was heard by the Murrays (more of them later) from their argument overhead, he gives all his wages to his mother - who can always afford a packet of fags- and the only saving grace in her having a council property is by virtue of the fact that she's got a gaggle of kids and no source of income. Quite ironic that Keanu opined that their unseen oldest sister was only able to get a flat on the Social by getting knocked up, which is exactly how his mother got what she's got right now.
This also explains a lot with Keegan and his hard-man front,which is shattered as soon as he's physically (Shakil) or intellectually (Travis) challenged. But seriously, I think this is Sean O'Connor's beginning of Keegan's redemption and that we'll inevitably pity him and see him in a sympathetic light. Already Louise has shown a soupçon of pity for him when Travis, Shakil and the other boys at the bus stop ripped him in song the other day, and the look on her face when she witnessed his treatment at the hands of his mother in this episode told the same tale. Of course, he, Sniggle and Snaggle have told a monstrous lie about Louise, and she believes that they're perpetrating the rumour; but considering the fact Sean O'Connor is behind all this kerfuffle - or rather, covfefe - it wouldn't surprise me if we see the community, fronted by Holy Mother Denise, shower the misunderstood Keegan with love and compassion, and ultimately, Princess Louise will choose his bit of rough over the stately, gentlemanly ueber middle class Travis Double-Barrelled Surname.
It's class, innit?
Speaking of the omnipresent Denise, consider this: Karen Taylor, when speaking to Sharon tonight, said she'd never felt the need for marriage and then alluded to the fact that "neither of them" (alluding obliquely to the fathers of her children) did either, implying that her family is the result of two relationships. She has an older daughter who lives with her partner and has two children. She has an older son. Then Keegan appears to be the third child in the pecking order, followed by a shallow idiot of a daughter who seems to be a fat, ugly version of Lola Pearce in her propensity to bunk off school and dream of winning the Lottery in order to secure a big house, and fraternal twins who are supposed to have learning difficulties.
If all of that lot is the result of two relationships, she must have taken a break with one man, between Keanu and the idiot daughter in order to produce Keegan. Maybe that's why he's treated the odd man out of the piece, but it's as subtle a bite of racism as you'll ever get on this show, and within a family as well. Speaking of which, with another daughter and partner and children who have yet to appear, there are worlds of possibilities in producing the respective fathers of the rest of the kids and Keegan. The Taylors could be O'Connor's Brannings or Carters. But here's an interesting thought: scores of viewers thought that the animosity which was apparent between Denise and Keegan from the start and which culminated in her whacking him one, could only mean that Keegan would inevitably turn out to be Denise's nephew. Find his dad, and you'll probably find her long-lost and feckless brother.
One other thing: Is Karen Taylor diabetic? There was a brief scene where the oldest boy was, at her bidding, frantically trying to find the toaster in order to make her some toast. He suggested the grill on the cooker, but she wanted proper toast and then mentioned her sugar levels. This is diabetic talk, and I'll bet she has Type II like Ian Beale, which would link in perfectly with all the emphasis tonight on Ian's healthy eating diet - carrots and houmus, organic ketchup and papaya mustard. Inevitably, she'll have a diabetic crisis, and he'll step in to help her and end up her educating mentor.
The family is a cartoon, and like so many other garish, loud and overt families before them - thinking, in particular,about the Slaters and the Jacksons - inevitably, we know they'll settle down, dig in, and win over the residents. There are so many ways for compassion to be rendered - Keegan and his mistreatment (Denise), Karen and her diabetes (Ian), the twins with their learning difficulties (Honey and Billy), and Keanu, appearing to be hard-working and willing - it won't be long until the viewers are swung around to liking this lot.
Of course, the Walford public's reaction to them is to be suitably appalled, proof positive that Albert Square is no longer a working man's paradise, but rather a genteel community with aspirations. For the second time in a row, in exactly the same spot, we had Sharon introduce herself to new neighbours as being the lady who lived down the street "in the big house" - in other words, the lady of the manor, Phil Mitchell's manor made doubly his by having wed Walford's original Crown Princess, Sharon. I didn't like that. Sharon never pulled rank in her life, and she wouldn't do so now. Pulling rank like that is something that Jane would have done in a past life, or Tanya, or Janine. Janine would have pulled that line off naturally, and with panache; but not Sharon. It portrays her as snobbish, materialistic and status-conscious. Daran Little should know better. Jack disdained them, Denise looked down her delicately refined nose at them, and Carmel definitely knew them.Whether that comes from her dealings with the Council or the fact that she may have come into contact with Karen Taylor through Keegan, I'm not sure, but apart from the Taylors being a middle-class writer's version of what council house and violent (chavs) people are like, it's not far off from what we've seen on the show before - and it's extremely predictable.
Stating the Bleeding Obvious: Weyland & Co and The Beale Brouhaha. Max drops a clanger. If nothing else, Max knows his children and all their foibles. He sees through Lauren's thinly masked attraction to Josh. From the moment I knew Josh was some sort of power broker, I knew that Lauren was only ever going to be his bit on the side.
His remark about only getting what he wanted reeked of sexual privilege which comes hand-in-hand with wealth and entitlement. I thought he'd be married, but it seems he has a fiancée, a wedding planned in November and that she wears a diamond on her finger the size of a small boulder. Max knew, and it's a bit of proof that he hasn't exactly become immune to a fatherly feeling for his daughter that he warns Lauren off Josh, because Max's (and Lauren's) morals aren't all that different from Josh's, although I would think that he wouldn't want to see his child used and abused as the sexual plaything dependent upon the whims of her boss.
I'll wager the company is littered with Josh's sexual playthings, who get carted off to various departments out of his sight (and mind) as soon as he tires with them -the HR woman springs to mind. What was very interesting was the fact that,after Max dropped his bombshell, Josh didn't even try to apologise or use the timeworn excuse about his wife/fiancée (Imogen, was it?) had lost her charm or took him for granted and Lauren was the one who understood. From the get-go, Josh got the definite vibe that Lauren was interested sexually. She was, but she was interested in something a bit more permanent that would take her away from the perceived humdrum life she leads with Steven.
I guess Abi must have messaged Josh through Facebook, as I seem to recall she said he'd accepted her friendship request. Abi ties in with this disjointed tale in what is a truly sad way, given that Max has yet to acknowledge that her milestone birthday is approaching, that she's planning the event all by herself as no one appears to have taken any notice. Steven treats her like a child,and whilst Lauren is willing to use her as a crutch for moral support in a crisis, she neither thanks her for the humongous lie she's told to cover Lauren's duplicity nor does she even care about what Abi does, as long as it's something not touching Lauren. Even tonight, she was openly disparaging her and dismissing her to Josh.
And I have to say it, as I can here on my blog, where I'm not policed by anyone, but Jacqueline Jossa is piling on the pounds. I get it that she might have found it hard to shift post-natal weight, but it's been two years now since the birth of her daughter and not only is her posterior expanding, she's hefty across the shoulders and front. Nothing wrong with being a big beautiful woman, but Jossa is getting fat.
On the other side of the equation, there was the appalling scene where Steven was forced to overhear Ian whining about being without any of his children on Father's Day this weekend. He even shot down Jane's commiseration that she felt the same on Mother's Day, and how Steven had got Ian a really lovely card, by basically saying that Steven doesn't matter, because he isn't really Ian's son.
That had to have hurt Jane, who isn't really Bobby's mother, and that prompted me to remember Peter Beale's remark on the night it was discovered that Bobby had killed Lucy:-
You're nobody's mother.
Steven isn't "the same" as Peter, Lucy or Bobby. Well, Peter is AWOL in New Zealand somewhere, Lucy is dead, and Bobby's serving time for having killed her. And Steven is there with Ian. As Jane rightly pointed out, Ian raised him from an infant, he bears Ian's name and he considers himself Ian's son. He never bonded with Simon Wicks, his birth father, and of all the nature-vs-nurture battles incipient in EastEnders since the beginning of time, the bonds that have existed between adoptive or step-parents and children are often proven to be stronger than natural bonds - Den and Sharon, Patrick and Paul Trueman, Keith Miller and Mickey, and more recently Alfie and Tommy Moon and Martin and Arthur.
In fact, until he was 13 years old, Steven Beale believed he was Ian's son. Considering the tricks Steven pulled on Ian when he showed up in Walford a decade ago and considering that Ian ultimately rejected him, exiling him from Watford upon pain and threat of death, that he returned and managed to worm his way back into Ian's affections speaks volumes for the concept of unconditional love. Steven feels the outsider in the Beale family. He doesn't belong in New Zealand with his birth father, and he craves acceptance fully into the Beale fold. Lauren lives with him, came to depend on him when Peter absconded, yet she keeps him at arm's length regarding any bonding he might share with Louis, preferring always to remind him of who Louis's father is and (as yet unbeknownst to him) aborting his child, , and now he's forced to hear this from Ian - that he's not on par with Peter, Lucy or even the psychopath Bobby. That Isn't taken him in as a second-rate substitute because he cannot bear the possibility of the Beale house not being inhabited by a Beale child, but - as Ian't pointed out tonight, he's not Ian's son.
Steven, at the moment, is rife with insecurities regarding his relationship with Lauren, and now he has to hear this. As everyone should remember, Steven's mental state is fragile, and he's just now reached the tipping point.
The Word Which No One Dares Say. They didn't say it, they implied it; and that was Sean O'Connor trying to be coy. I still say that the lie told to Louise by Keegan, Sniggle and Snaggle - that she had sex with Keegan and was too drunk to remember - is nothing but a lie. However, they're showing their ignorance as the clinic nurse (off-camera, of course) pointedly remarked to Louise tonight when she asked if Louise hadn't wanted to have sex with the person who, allegedly, slept with her.
So much happens off-screen in today's EastEnders, it could be that she had sex with Keegan at that party, but I don't think she did. She had only downed her first drink when she had to show Keegan where the bathroom was. She was tipsy, but she was in no way in any sort of state the way she was the rest of the evening. But if this did happen, or even if it didn't and this is just a malicious lie perpetrated and laughed at by three thoroughly despicable people, when you're too drunk to remember having sex, you were too drunk to give your consent, and that is rape.
Perhaps this is the explanation for Louise's puzzling reaction when she barrelled out of the clinic room and wouldn't talk to Rebecca about it. Also, the fact that Travis seems still to want to be associated with her gives me reason to think that this entire fiasco is just a malicious private joke shared by Sniggle, Snaggle and Keegan. Maybe this is yet another rape storyline, this time told by Sean O'Connor, where Louise lives in shame by the knowledge that she's actually been raped, and it's this crisis which brings Phil home to declare war on the Taylor tribe.
The Passive-Aggressive Bully. Is there going to be some sort of affair between Jack and Honey? She's sure hanging out a lot with him these days, giving him sympathy and helping him look for a nanny for his kids. She's also spending a lotof time with him, trash-talking Billy; and when she's with Billy, she's in passive-aggressive mode again.
People forget that there's an ugly side to Honey. We've seen it, more recently, with her intolerance of Derek, and we saw it ages ago when she returned and started dictating the odds to Billy again. Now she's returned to that mode, becoming a social climber by wanting to promote Billy as a high-ranking businessman in the community, inviting the mayor to the re-naming of Les's business. It isn't so much that she wants the community to recognise Billy for his worth, it's that she wants to promote herself as the wife of a prominent businessman. How long before she's comparing Billy to Jack to Billy's face?
I've always thought Honey a secret bitch, and I'm seldom wrong.
Saint Denise of Walford. A couple of months ago, when Jane started the Walford in Bloom project, Stacey initially approached Denise to help with the planting of flowers.Denise turned her nose up and refused. It wasn't her "thing." Now she's out, spontaneously helping Stacey to bed plants, harassing Kim for not wanting to beautify the surrounding community.
Is there ever an episode where this word isn't used?
This was symbolically foreshadowing as we now know that it will be the Patron Saint of Po-Face will be the Saviour of Walford. And this deification of a largely irrelevant character sucks shit.
And spare us the unfunny quips with Kim. I cannot believe that O'Connor killed off the edgy Mitchell sisters to spoon-feed us this Fox shit.
Widdle Mick. I like Lisa Faulkner. Here's another character with a secret. We learned about that, obliquely, in the Battle for Shirley's Roast tonight. By the way, Shirley was ever depicted as a bad cook. Remember the Christmas Day fiasco when she burned hers and Heather's dinners? All of a sudden, Shirley does a mean roast. Since when? It was always Babe who was the culinary expert.
But in that instance, alone with Mick, Fi reminisced about her mother doing a roast every Sunday, but when Mick asked about her mother, she clammed up in such a way that we know there's some sort of story there.
However, she seems to be going about the process of giving bad business advice to Mick. This time, it involved hiring a catering company to deliver daily consignments of pre-cooked food for Abi simply to dish up, easily a more expensive way of presenting food rather than buying locally and preparing the fare from scratch.
Shirley's onto Fi, and I hope Linda comes home soon.
The Murrays. I'm sorry, but they're boring, especially with their bingo fetish and his pipe dream for Australia. Is one of their children living there? Because flights and holidays there are relatively inexpensive now. Just like the Mitchell sisters were bumped off to give us the atrocious Fox sisters in the fore, we sacrificed Les and Pam for this tripe.
However, there was a nice moment when Kathy told the Murrays she used to live in Walford Towers, and he remembered her helping Pete with the fruit and veg, and her reminding them that her nephew ran the stall now.
However, another overt warning of something being amiss occurred when Mrs Murray pronounced it peaceful on the Square.
This show is rapidly spiralling downward.
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