STFU About Chrissie Watts

All y'all whining about wanting Chrissie Watts back, watch this - that goes doubly for you TimWil!

Luddites, Chrissie confessed. She decided to plead guilty to murder, and she was showing remorse. As Jake and Chrissie both agreed, she'd be getting about twelve years inside. That was in 2005, so she's served seven years - still, there's absolutely no way anyone confessing to murder is going to be released after serving seven years.

There's no appeal, because Chrissie confessed. How many times do I have to say it again and again - she confessed. She pleaded guilty. She says so in this clip right here, so there'll be no appeal. Unlike most women in Eastenders now, she's actually accepted responsibility for her actions and will take the punishment meted for her crime.

So there's no appeal, no new trial (who was the dumbass on DS who said Jake could order a new trial? Jake Moon may very well be dead), no early release, no conviction overturned.

Get a bloody grip.

As for TimWil, this is England, goddammit! This is not effing Days of Our Lives with flaming parallel universes and women in their sixties having babies! This soap, before Bryan Kirkwood (but I suppose he's to your liking since he had such a stupid American take on soap retconning) took over the helm, was grounded in reality.

It was totally unreal that someone like Ronnie Mitchell be allowed to come live on the same Square as the family of the child she'd kidnapped, much less the child, himself, whilst awaiting sentencing; it would be doubly unreal to allow Chrissie Watts to come live on the same Square amongst the same group of people where she'd killed someone who was an important member of the local community, even less so, whilst his daughter was living there.

It simply wouldn't be allowed because it's not lawful, itself.

And who would really want to do that? As for Chrissie, she has no roots in Walford. It was simply a place where she lived with and murdered her husband. Chrissie would most likely go back to Spain.

So STFU about Chrissie Watts coming back to Walford. Even if she wants to do so, it's bloody beyond the realms of realism.

And she's not Cora's daughter either.

The Only Thing Tangible Reason for a Tanya-Sharon Friendship

Several people on Digital Spy are adamant that there's nothing wrong with a Tanya-Sharon friendship, and cannot see why others say it's something that would never happen. 


Here's why.


PerfectPrincess, a DS commentator, does an excellent analysis of why Tanya and Sharon would never be friends, and - seriously - it's not rocket science. There is only one thing which would ever compel Tanya to seek Sharon as a friend: social status.


Sharon is a businesswoman who's achieved all of her success in that sphere due to her own abilities. She was raised in the pub trade and capitalised on her parents' experience. She never depended on a man, in any form, to better her social circumstances. However, as she's sure to be in business in some managerial capacity whilst in Walford, Tanya will be certain to seek her out as a mate - the same way she did Jane, who was married to the local entrepreneur, and the same way she sought Mad May, who was the local GP.


Tanya is a status-seeker and a social-climber, seeking to validate her newly-minted middle-class existence as opposed to the rough upbringing of her youth.


As PerfectPrincess pointed out, when Sharon was eighteen, she was just losing her virginity in her first serious relationship. By eighteen, Tanya was a well-established party girl, well into sex, drugs and rock'n roll. Not only has Tanya confirmed this (cf: drunken afternoon spent with Stacey in 2007), but Cora recently referenced it in that classic moment of home truths. She also revealed something else about Tanya - that she'd been a thief; but then, we also found that out in the way she wantonly robbed Roxy blind. Also, by the time she was eighteen, Tanya had broken up a marriage and got herself up the duff by a married man.


Someone will point out that Sharon's celebrated best friend, Michelle, had also done that and two years earlier and by Sharon's dad. But the difference is that Michelle never tried to justify her actions or blame Den for what happened. Tanya assumes no responsibility for any havoc she's wreaked. Her head is so far up her big arse that she still cannot see that what Stacey did to her marriage, she did as well to Max's marriage to Rachel -even to the point of being able to laugh about her and Max having cheap dates because he had a wife and son at home.


Tanya's infidelities were all about lust and social fulfillment. Sharon's only infidelity came as a result of her being emotionally and physically abused by her husband. And she never used that as an excuse, she took more blame for her affair with her husband's brother, than Phil, himself, took. Tanya, on the other hand, slept with Jack whilst still married to Max, because she felt she was entitled to do so.


Tanya's friendship with Jane wasn't only about social status, however; Jane was the less attractive half of that friendship. Tanya could boast about her sex life with Max and, subsequently, with Greg, knowing that Jane was just about tolerating the Oedipal complexity that was her marriage to Ian. And Jane could be depended upon to drink herself silly with Tanya as a mask for Tanya's growing alcohol dependency. 


If Sharon has a fling with Jack, Tanya would be all ears and otherwise and ready to compare sexual notes - something that wouldn't impress Sharon in the least. If Sharon has anything to do with  R and R or the Vic, Tanya will have an endless supply of free drinks, or so she'd think.


This friendship is so incongruous, it's totally unbelieveable, unless it's Tanya doing what she did best first with Jane and now with Sharon - using Sharon to enhance her own self-worth, when - in fact - as I've said repeatedly, this is just another pisspoor example of the production team trying to establish the Brannings as a force by trying to entangle them with an established, iconic Eastenders' character.


Sharon with Carol? Most definitely and believeable. Sharon with Denise? Of course. But Sharon with Tanya?


Bollocks.

Heads Up, Digital Spy Forum: Pat, the Brannings and Sharon

There's a thread on Digital Spy (you can see it here) where people are discussing the possibility of Sharon as a Walford matriarch.


I've already blogged about that, but people are now discussing such improbabilities as Sharon and Pat not ever having been close or, more recently, how Derek Branning managed to "run" Pat out of Walford. These people obviously haven't been watching Eastenders for a long time, or they may have forgotten, or they may have been confused by all of Birkwood's retconning, so let me set the record straight. Right ... everyone sit up and pay attention.


Pat and Sharon


Sharon and Pat knew each other from the Eighties, when Pat was hired by Angie to work as a barmaid when Sharon was a teenager. Sharon sang at Pat's and Frank's wedding reception. They were both fond of Sharon and very protective of her after Angie left Walford and Den "died." Sharon used to live with Pat's son and almost married him; she babysat Janine. She continued to turn to Pat for advice and support, even after Wicksy had betrayed her and run off with Cindy.


When Frank abandoned Pat and his family, Sharon gave Pat work at the Vic. When Pat was so desperate, she was caught stealing from the Vic's till by Sharon, Sharon was sympathetic and helped her. When Sharon was revealed to have betrayed Grant in Sharongate, all of Walford, including Pauline Fowler, shunned her, except for Michelle Fowler and Pat, who never was judgemental.


When Sharon left Walford and Michelle found she couldn't cope with Grant, Sharon sanctioned her to ask Pat to manage the Vic.


For anyone to say that Pat and Sharon were not close in the least is a  travesty. Yes, Sharon was close to Pauline, because of her friendship with Michelle; but there was the time when Pauline shunned Sharon because of Sharongate and only came around to support her after having received a rollicking letter from Angie, telling her some home truths. Pat never wavered in her support of or her friendship with Sharon.


Sharon and Pat were close friends, and Pat's relationship with Sharon was almost maternal. In fact, we didn't see any of the Pauline-Sharon closeness until Sharon's marriage to Dennis and after Dennis's death.


Pat and the Brannings


Pat was married to Pete Beale. David Beale (later Wicks) was their son. Pat had various affairs after David's birth - with Brian Wicks, Den Watts and Kenny Beale, Pete's older brother. In fact, when Lou Beale discovered Pat in bed with Kenny, she despatched Kenny forthwith to New Zealand and told Pete about Pat. Pat's trump card, however, was that she was, again, pregnant. However, she went to live with and marry Brian Wicks, taking David and the new baby with her.


They did not live that far away - near enough that David saw Pete regularly and helped out on the stall. When David was fourteen, he got Carol Branning up the duff. David approached Pete for money for an abortion for Carol, lying to say that he needed £200 for a French trip, which Pat didn't have. Pete gave him the money from the stall's takings that day and he gave it to Carol. Then, Carol's three older brothers beat David up.


This story was related by Carol and David to Pat and Pauline in the launderette back in the Nineties, after Carol arrived to live in Walford and discovered David was living nearby. That was when he was told Bianca was his daughter. Carol told the story about the abortion money, David revealed where he'd got it and that Carol's three older brothers beat him up.


Well, we know Carol's brothers are Derek, Max and Jack. In the present incarnation, Derek is older and the other two younger than Carol. But originally, they were all older; and guess what? Pat knew nothing, absolutely nothing, about any beating. The impression the viewer got was it was three teenaged boys beating up another. David lived to fight another day.


The fright Pat got at seeing Derek Branning was a retcon by Bryan Kirkwood, who - face it - was no fan of Pat's. Pat stood up to the likes of Grant and Phil Mitchell. She wasn't afraid of Archie Mitchell and she put Jonnie Allen in his place. She even faced off against Den Watts with some home truths ... and she's afraid of a two-bit, greasy version of DelBoy on steroids?


Pull the other one.


Derek didn't run Pat out of Walford. Derek didn't frighten Pat. The honest truth was that after Carol Branning's pregnancy scare, Brian Wicks moved away from the area, and Pat and the boys went with him. And nothing more was known until Simon showed up in Walford in the 1980s on the assumption that Pete Beale may have been his father. It wasn't until Lou Beale died that Pat told him his dad was Brian Wicks - but it may not have been. Julia Smith always envisioned Simon's dad being Den Watts.


In fact, when Jim Branning returned to Walford and later when Max and his family arrived, no mention was ever made about David and Carol, even after Carol returned and lived in Pat's house, with Pat. None of this "Pat-fear" ever came to light until Birkwood introduced his pet toad Derek.


Birkwood did the dirty on Pat. The very idea of Pat sitting at the bar of the Vic, scheming and encouraging Ryan Molloy to inform the police that Janine had killed Lydia - something of which she had no proof and something so out of character for Pat as to almost be from the twilight zone.


Really, some people need to realise that Bryan Kirkwood's tenure was one bad blip from which it will take a long time for the show to recover.


And finally ...


TimWil and Sharon


Mr Name-Dropper really wants to pay attention. When the poster remarked that a family was created around Sharon in 2004, comprising her father, half-sister and half-brother, he wasn't talking about Sharon's birth family, but the return of Den Watts and the introduction of the abysmal Vicky and the arrival of Dennis Rickman.


Sometimes it pays not to try to be so clever.

Branningville

After Friday's episode, I began to feel more and more as if this programme is turning away from Walford and into Branningville.


Seriously, has there ever been a family as big in size as the Brannings and their assorted satellites? Although Carol was the first to arrive, she was never thought of as a Branning, always as a Jackson. She was estranged from her family as they were a lot of thugs and racists.


Then lovely-jubbly curmudgeonly old Jim arrived, repentant of his racist ways, to become the BFF of Patrick Truman. Then came Bradley, a grandson. Then Max and his second family, followed by Jack, then Suzy (who left), Bianca and her brood (now closer to the Brannings), Carol again, Derek, and now Derek's two kids, Alice and Joey. April did a short stint years ago, and don't forget that Suzy's got kids floating around someplace.


That's not to mention their dubious satellites - Cora and Rainie.


Currently, the Brannings are featuring in almost every major storyline on the go at the moment.


Cora delivered Lola the Chav Queen's baby. Cora has been revealed to have had a child whilst in her late teens, sparking speculation that the long-lost daughter could be Sharon, Shirley, Zainab or Lola's mother. Ne'mind the age discrepancy or the fact that Sharon's already met her mother or that Zainab was born in Pakistan. (It could be Shirley, though).


Joey's moved in with Lucy - ostensibly to get her to eat a square meal, since she's a walking advertisement for anorexia. We know he's really moved in with her to spite his old man and also because she's a meal ticket, if you like the idea of having sex with a female Skeletor. I'm surprised his steroidically-enhanced body isn't black and blue from protruding bones cutting into flesh, and I'm even more surprised she's not been snapped in two. So Joey is going to call the shots to keep Ian out of house and home, and maybe to do him out of his businesses.


Max and Tanya were involved in finding Ian, after Lauren initially saw him.


Alice Branning is mooning about about a Moon.


There's a sixty percent chance that the Mystery Shagger is a Branning, although I think that the only one of that triumvirate who'd even go near a dirty slut like Kat is at the moment would be Derek. 


Derek is involved with just about everything - he's bullied poor, skinny-assed Lucy, befriended Ben, tussled with Phil, been scammed by Alfie, and beaten up Michael Moon. They seem to have left off involving him with Ben's murder reveal, but in its aftermath, if Shirley splits with Phil, I can only see her snogging and sleeping with Derek, who'll pass onto her the STD he caught off Kat.


Venereal Disease Epidemic in Walford!


Even when Sharon returns, she's being plopped right in amongst the Brannings -befriending Tanya, bantering with Max and snogging Jack the Peg.


We all remember how Pat's death was turned into a BranningFest - reiterating Tanya's cancer cold (where Pat's dying became all about Tanya), recreating a bike shed bonk between two teenagers into a veritable East End Romeo and Juliet, contriving for David Wicks and Carol to remember their chance encounter as the love affair of a lifetime (which it wasn't), and finishing with Pat's funeral being all about the Brannings' shared hatred of David Wicks, effectively running him out of Walford.


There was something symbolically Kirkwoodian in that - watching David - the son of Pete Beale and the stepson of Frank Butcher being goaded out of Walford by some cheap, sleazy thugs in suits. It was as if Kirkwood were thumbing his nose at the past and forcing Branning love upon us. He even turned a dishonest, old drunken lag of a mother of Tanya (another closet alcoholic) into the natural successor of Pat.


Bollocks.


Kirkwood's gone and Jo Joyner is leaving. Didja hear that? Leaving. 

When one refuses to renew one's contract, one calls it a day at one's job. Jo Joyner did just that. She's leaving. She may say she's returning sometime in the near future, but really, that's down to the Executive Producer and how much she's needed. Tanya's never been a woman who could exist without a man in her life and has never achieved anything except through sleeping with a man. She's got Max now, and it's only a matter of time before he's done the dirty again and the whole inevitable cycle begins again. Reuniting Kirkwood's favourite couple has boxed them into a corner.


I have sneaking suspicions of my own as to why Ms Joyner is leaving, and her children definitely has something to do with it; but she's going, and there's a possibility she may not return.


I don't think Jamie Foreman has a long shelf-life there either, and I think the actor is enough of a pro to realise that. That's two down.


Jack the Peg ought to be next. Please, let's stop hiring models unless they're given a screen test first. Jack reprised his role on The Bill under a different name and together he and Ronnie became a poor man's Steve and Mel. He has children to visit.


I don't miss Carol and Bianca in the least. Lindsey Coulsen's a brilliant actress, but she's only given the opportunity to shine a couple of times a year, and that's still a couple of times more than Diane Parrish (an equally strong actress) has. Patsy Palmer pisstakes the show anyway. Lorraine Newman should show her the door and concentrate on actors who are serious about the show.


Joey Branning can go. Let art imitate life and have him get a job as a catalogue model. Alice can move in with Max and the kids. Brannings pared. Simples.


John Yorke's prime mistake as EP was introducing the Slaters, billing them as the biggest family since the Beales and one who would inherit their importance. He devoted an entire episode to introducing them and promptly slotted them into every major storyline on the show. Within five years, most of them had left, except the minor players, and we were on the Slaters Mach II. Now, the only ones who are left are non-Slaters - Mo Harris and Jean, who's annoying and a Slater by marriage.


I think it's time the show ceased to become a vehicle for justifying the continuing presence of the Brannings and found its mojo again.


That means I don't want to see Kazia Pelka or anyone appearing as Derek's bloody wife.

And the Next Matriarch Is ... Sharon

Just over a week before the real Queen of Walford returns, and already I'm dreading her being used as a means of promoting the Brannings. Again.


It's not enough that she's going to forge a friendship with that scrubbed-up bit of trailer trash hypocrite otherwise known as Tanya, but she has to have her first screen snog with Jack the Peg (as in "wooden.")


Really and honestly, what is the purpose of Jack? He was created for Ronnie, and Ronnie's gone. He looks good (well, he's another model who's decided to try "acting" for a bit), but there's precious little else you can say about him.


He's supposed to be the sexy male lead, but his sex appeal is nought. Oddly enough, he works best when he's in storylines concerning his siblings, and he always raises his game when pitted against Jake Wood or Lindsey Coulson. Jack's supposed to have been a bent copper, and Derek's alluded to him helping DelBoy hide a body. An interesting twist in the tale would be for Eastenders to explore Jack's past coming back to haunt him, but that would mean he would have to leave Walford - and really, who would miss him? I mean, doesn't Jack have children  elsewhere in the world to visit?


But I digress. The real reason I'm excited for Shazza's return is twofold.


First, Sharon Marshall is writing her return episode, and Marshall's episodes are always good. She seems to have a feel for what the long-term viewer wants and expects from this programme, and she always delivers.


Secondly, I'm excited because it seems from recent articles that Dean is committed to this project long-term. In her interviews, she's cited the inspiration the late, great Wendy Richard was to her in her career on the show and actually says she hopes to grow into the matriarch role, herself.


Now, we're cracking! And if Lorraine Newman is smart, she'll do everything in her power to keep Sharon on the Square for as long as possible. Sharon's returning a widow with a young child. She's in her early forties, slightly younger than Pam St Clement when she took on the role of Pat in the mid-1980s. Pat started growing into the matriarch role after a couple of years when she'd married Frank.


I am certain that somewhere down the road - not too far down, mind you - that Sharon and Phil will reunite, and I actually have a feeling that the Mitchell-Watts union may actually produce another Mitchell heir; if that's the case, then we've got our matriarch - a woman with a history of the Square, tied by marriage or emotional relationship to all the established families who reside there - or what's left of them. Sorry, that doesn't include the upstart Brannings or the Slaters. I am talking about the Watts, the Mitchells, the Fowlers, the Beales and the Butchers.


Forget your drunken Coras with her fag-end hanging from her mouth, her sunglasses, beehive hairdo and continuous alcoholic buzz through which she manages to bully her way about the Square, our Shazza's home to stay.


And Shirley is toast waiting to pop.

Sharon and Tanya: The Perfect Endship

According to an article on Digital Spy's website, Tanya and Sharon are supposed to become good friends.

Poppycock.

Best of enemies, maybe, but never best mates. Not even passing acquaintances.

According to Jo Joyner, "Sharon's such a beautiful, iconic character that she puts everyone's hackles up. Kat's not impressed, and Tanya's not quite sure."

OK, I can buy Katshit's reaction. Kat's a slut and a trollop, and she would naturally be jealous of the calm classiness Sharon oozes, as well as being scared of being turfed out of the Vic she's brought down to her amoral level. Then, of course, there's the part Zoe Slater played in Den's death.

But Tanya would never be friends with Sharon. Look, we're talking about pairing up the one of the shallowest, most superficial women ever to tread the streets of Walford with one of the most iconic, nicest and most nuanced characters in the show. Highly unlikely.

Tanya's had one friend since she came to Walford - Jane Beale. And that was an unequal friendship. She only approached Jane for friendship because Jane was the wife of the local entrepreneur, with middle-class pretensions that rivalled Tanya's. Also, as much as Tanya was insecure in her marriage to a serial philanderer - a marriage and relationship based almost entirely on sex - Jane's marital status was on rung below Tanya's on the relationship ladder. Tanya had a man who was regularly unfaithful, but kept her satisfied materially and sexually. Jane was involved with a man, who clearly suffered from a terminal Oedipal complex and who interacted with her more like a recalcitrant adolescent son than a marital equal. Both were unfaithful to each other; and although they were fond of each other, they didn't love each other. Jane was with Ian as guilt penance and for financial security.

Tanya felt sorry for poor, pitiful, plain Jane. She saw Jane's dilemma when she and Jane swapped households for a week. Jane made Tanya feel good about herself. Jane was also a mask to hide Tanya's incipient alcoholism from the rest of Walford and her family. And Tanya lorded it over Jane when she returned to Walford, bragging about the size of Greg's penis when Jane was in the throes of the beginning of the end of her marriage to Ian.

Sharon is a fortysomething widow with a child - a very attractive, blonde fortysomething widow. Far more attractive than the Tanya the ubiquitous phoney. Tanya is a hypocrite, a scrubbed-up kappa slapper pretending to be middle-class and a drunk. She is an abysmal parent who always puts her needs before her children's. She is as amoral as the man she repeatedly divorces and remarries. She is a homewrecker and has attempted murder.

Sharon is serious and steadfast in friendships and relationships. Once past a certain age, people cling more to the friendships of their youth, the deepest and most lasting ones, rather than initiating new ones. Sharon's connections with Walford are, explicitly, Ian (her childhood friend) and Phil (her long-term on-and-off lover). Dot is her third point of reference, but Dot is away from Walford at the moment. The rest of the people who were present during Sharon's last sojourn - Alfie, Kat, Patrick, and Mo - were little more than acquaintances or adversaries. She hasn't seen Janine since Janine was a child.

In fact, I would have thought Janine and Sharon would have been a far more realistic female relationship than Sharon and Tanya. After all, both grew up in the Vic, both were daughters of iconic Vic landlords and both have daddy issues. (Who doesn't in Walford?) Sharon babysat Janine as a child, and it would be interesting to see their interaction as grown women and mothers of children, themselves.

Instead, we'll get long cozy booze-filled afternoons with Tanya, doing each other's nails and hair and comparing sexual notes on Jack Branning's prowess (as rumour has it that Sharon will be involved with Jack); and that's totally unbelieveable that Sharon would lolligag about, gossiping the day away with Bouncy Tan. The only think they have in common is the fact that they both have kids. Tanya has the morals of a cat and the hypocrisy of a puritan. She wantonly broke up one marriage with no regard for the innocent wife and child of the man she bagged and has carried out numerous infidelities since then. She has even attempted to kill her husband.

Sharon has two marriages and one infidelity in her history. Her first marriage was abusive and her second ended in her husband's death. She is still involved emotionally with Phil.

A friendship with silly, bitchy Tanya just wouldn't happen. A friendship with Carol, yes - totally believeable; even with Denise, but Tanya ... no.

And the fact that Cora's going to be involved in this storyline will not only raise the unrealistic expectations of the youth brigade on the fora lobbying for forty-two year-old Sharon to be revealed to be forty-seven year-old Ava Anderton (shades of American soaps!), it will more realistically serve as a vehicle for implanting Cora more firmly as the resident matriarch in Walford, when she is no such thing. She is simply an alcoholic, hypocritical, bullying, brusque busybody who holds no warmth or confidence in the majority of residents on the Square. But still, Kirkwood pegged her as the heiress to the matriarchal crown and we have an instant Big Mamma - ne'mind that this is a role which falls naturally upon a woman at a certain age and is developed over the years. As a matter of fact, Pat, herself, was barely older than Sharon is now when she "returned" to Walford originally.

Think about that.

This whole friendship with Tanya, this involvement of Cora and the rumoured relationship with Jack are means by which Sharon's return to Walford is cheapened because after Phil resolves the problem with which she's initially faced, she then becomes just another iconic character whose presence is used to try to validate the Brannings and their respective satellites as the premier family in Walford.

And that is an insult to Sharon as a character.

Psychos, Tramps and Thieves: Review 02.08.2012

Sometimes, you say it best when you say nothing at all, and Adam Woodyatt, one of the three most underrated actors in the programme, was the focal point and played his part to perfection, without uttering a word.


This is one of the rare times I've actually liked Tanya, and one of the rarer times that Max was good with Tanya.


But before I actually praise this episode, something I've done sparingly of late, let's get the stinky stuff out of the way first.


Mouth-Breathers Anonymous: That's the unholy union of Lucy the Ragbone Babe and The Poor Man's Dennis, AKA Joey. Do these actors have adenoid problems? Surely, now that my licence fee is paying their five-figure salary, they can haul themselves off to Harley Street and get their nasal gland done, because I am pigsick as hell watching their mouths hang open when they're not uttering dialogue - which is an effort to understand with Joey.


Can someone at the BBC please, please, please pay for David Witts and Tony Discipline to have diction lessons? I want to know when Eastenders threw caution to the wind and started hiring underwear models and aspiring catwalk queens (and one who clearly hasn't got the message that the modeling industry have given up on heroin chic as the new sexy) who have no professional training.


A person hanging about with his or her mouth open and nothing to say is not sexy. It's ignorant and in poor taste.


However, Lucy annoys me. Another thing I wish the producers or whoever would do is stop showing her in sleeveless tops until she's put on some weight, and she should be made to do so. I am terribly sorry, but this actress is too thin, especially when compared tonight to the likes of Jacqueline Jossa, Jasmine Banks, Rachel Bright and Shona McGarty. Banks, Bright and McGarty are small in stature, but they look healthy. Their arms are toned and fleshed out. Jossa, like Hetti Bywater, is tall, but the initial scenes of her dashing to the Butcher house in search of Whitney showed what someone of that height with a healthy weight should look like, and she was damned more attractive that that twiglet playing Lucy.


To think someone like Joey Branning would even consider that rag, bone and hank of bleached hair sexy - with no boobs, no hips, matchstick legs and doorknob shoulders - is preposterous. He looks as if he could easily snap her in two with his thumb and forefinger.


I don't like Lucy, and I also think whoever wrote this episode tonight got their wires crossed. Why? Think Ben on the stall, and his line to Billy about the fruit and veg stall being "in his blood." Follow that with Lucy saying that she and Ben were the "next generation of Beales."


Wrong.


Ben's heritage has nothing whatsoever to do with the fruit and veg stall. Ben's heritage is Mitchell and Hills. Ben is a first cousin to Sarah and Tony Hills and is related to the Beale twins and Bobby through his mother, who was only a Beale by marriage. And dumbass Lucy was wrong as well. Ben is as much a Beale as Auntie Sal is a Mitchell, which is to say, not at all. Sal is Peggy's sister, and Lucy's Beale heritage is via her paternal grandfather's side. Bianca is a Beale. Ben isn't. Liam has more right to be on that stall than Ben Mitchell.


And I want some writer to explain this in dialogue: Ian obviously had a business account with the bank, through which he paid outgoings - purchases, business rates, and wages for his staff. Ian, and quite possibly Jane, when she was married to him, would have been signatories to this account. Lucy must be using this account, paying in proceeds and paying outgoings. She surely couldn't be conducting all manner of business via cash only? Surely she does understand VAT and how it's paid? Surely she understands the concept of business rates? And, if I recall correctly, the Beale house was re-mortgaged. That can't have been paid off. As well, Ian still has a flat on the Square that he owns which he rents out to someone. If she's taken over his "empire," she'll have to answer to the tenant's demand for upkeep.


So, who the hell is signing the cheques? Is Lucy forging Ian's signature? Or is she following Joey's dubious business advice and doing everything cash-in-hand?


She's such a snot-nosed, smug little bitch - especially with her line about her and Ben not being "greedy." Lucy was and always has been one of the most selfish characters on the show. She totally disdained and disregarded Ian, and threw a strop if she didn't get her way or whatever she wanted. Ian spoiled her rotten, and it's about to be thrown right back in his face. Oh, and she has no right to deny Ian his house.


As for Joey, she's known him a matter of weeks. He could be anyone, and she needs to realise that, to Joey, she's just a compliant bag of bones body who'll give him sex as long as he ensures that she gets whatever money is due her and pays her bills. That's a euphemism for prostitution. For Joey, she's his slut of the moment. Joey's real concern and respect is for his sister. Joey wouldn't want to see Alice with a man like Anthony Moon, nor would he want to see her with a man like himself or Derek. Clock the reference to Derek tonight when Alice blew him off about dating Anthony.


As for Anthony, I don't see what's wrong with Alice, and I don't like the way the writers are setting her up to be some sort of geeky girl. Even Fatboy was making snide comments under his breath about her, and Poppy was miming apologies to Anthony about landing him with Alice for a date.


Alice is one of the few genuinely nice characters on the programme. She's pleasant, she's been well brought-up and I find her likeable. Just because she doesn't flash her cleavage and get ratted of bitch about other people, she's considered weird. She's got a job, and she's responsible - which is a lot more than you can say for Lauren. She's unassuming, modest and generous - something you can't say about Lucy or Whitney on a bad day. She's also reasonably intelligent, and that's something Poppy's not.


Yet Alice is treated like a pariah. The sooner Anthony leaves, the better; and he can take Fatboy with him. He's no longer funny.


By the way, if anyone believes that Lucy Beale is going to sit down and eat a plate of lasagna, then there's a bridge in New York I want to sell you.


Right, that's the shit done ... on to the good bits.


(By the way, all of the above referred to the "thieves" part of the title; because of the Ragbone Babe doing her old man out of his businesses.)


The Psychos


Foreshadowing tonight with those brief scenes of Michael Moon - first walking into the office to find Billy and chavvy Lola having just changed the baby's nappy, in order for us to learn that Scarlett had been given the all-clear and would be home soon - presumably the next week. Then the wordless scene of Michael sitting in his house, surrounded by scores of baby stuff, and looking increasingly uneasy. 


For what it's worth, I don't think Michael is the Mystery Shagger.


And the Ben-Jay dynamic continues to disintegrate. Ben has put Heather's murder away in a far corner of his psychopathic little mind and can't understand why Jay can't do the same. Heather's dead, no one's sniffing around or suspecting him, that's all in the past. A sick attitude, but that's Ben. He can't even comprehend that Jay used the past tense in describing their pseudo-fraternal relationship. Ben's keeping of the picture frame was, he admitted, "out of order," which completely trivialises the fact that Ben killed a woman who'd shown him nothing but love, understanding and compassion. He doesn't even feel remorse.


And Jay has Ben summed up perfectly, as exhibited in their attempt to put the baby chair together. Ben put the wrong screw into the leg of the chair, but it wasn't his fault. He asked Jay for the screw, but didn't specify which type; so it's Jay's fault. Just like the fact that Jay didn't stop him from braining Heather means that it's Jay's fault Ben killed her. Total abnegation of responsibility, and their non-relationship is a boiling cauldron as the minutes tick by before the picture frame is discovered.


I'm still feeling no sympathy or liking at all for Lola, and it amazes me that the fact that she's had a baby in full view of the Square makes her some sort of Walford sweetheart. She's another one who can't leave quick enough.


The Tramp


The best part of the show, however, lay in the search for Ian by Tanya, Max and Alfie. I know the Brannings are shoehorned into every storyline - and they dominated the proceedings tonight - but I'm glad that they remembered to include Alfie in their search. After all, Alfie is Ian's best friend and had more to do with him than either Max or Tanya of late. One discrepancy: Alfie referenced the state Ian was in when he left, but Alfie was away from Walford when Ian went missing. He was off at Charlie's with Kat. In fact, Ian spent the bulk of his penultimate episode trying to contact Alfie by phone, and Alfie hasn't once remarked upon Ian's absence or wondered where he was since he returned.


Be that as it may, the search showed Alfie and Max at their best. Shane Richie needs more scenes where he's away from the cheeky, chirpy chappie, and just as Max is always better sans Tanya, Alfie is definitely better away from Kat. In fact, the whole of this week's episodes have been that much the better for having nothing to do with the Shagger affair or for having no scenes with the woman who's become easily the most unpopular character in the show.


Great performance by Adam Woodyatt, and great continuity on that part, because it was blatantly obvious that Ian was suffering from a breakdown when he left. Lucy's inability to understand only emphasizes her immaturity as well as her selfishness and her self-obsession.


It's going to be interesting seeing where Ian goes from here, especially since we know it was Ben's confession to him which tipped him over the edge.


Good episode. Not perfect, but getting there in preparation for the return of the real Queen of Walford.


Would all pretenders kindly leave the building now?