The Branning Show Part I: Poor White Trash - Review 04.01.2013

Well, tonight we saw even more of the beginning of Lorraine Newman's proposed changes for the new warm, fuzzy Branning-centric programme, including her push to the fore of her crush couple, the ones who are just so beautiful. The more I see of this show under Lorraine's auspices, the more I wonder if she isn't stunted someplace in middle school, the geeky girl sat by the food table, minding the handbags and sneaking cucumber sandwiches whilst pining for the head boy, who's groping some horny little slut on the dancefloor.

Ah well ... such is EastEnders.

Tonight, we saw Kat morph into Pat and the Brannings morph into the Mitchells, complete with abusive, boxing-obsessed, negligent father abusing eldest son.

Oh please ...

Stand by Your Man.

It's a well-established observation that the Branning men treat whatever woman with whom they are romantically associated like the proverbial chattel and prize piece of shit. A woman is only a complement to their ego, and she exists - whoever she may be, wife or mistress - for the Branning male's sexual pleasure. If she's his wife, she'll bear his children; if she's his babymamma, she'll bear his children and pocket the ubiquitous cheque monthly, in order to stay  out of sight and out of mind.

The philosophy of the Branning woman, unless you're Carol Jackson or Bianca, is summed up in this time-worn song ... 

At least, that's Tanya's philosophy, as she'd have Lauren understand it, albeit an even more warped version of the late serial monogamist Tammy Wynette. (She was a hairdresser, like Tanya, you know).

In the 21st Century, we begin tonight's EastEnders with a mother, interspersing her explanation to her dimwit, self-obsessed daughter about the complexities of grief, with advice about holding onto the man of your dreams - ne'mind if he's married to another woman with a kid, ne'mind the fact that he's your cousin and you share the same set of grandparents. Joey's not paying much attention to widdle self-obsessed Wauren? Well, that's because Daddy Dearest is toast. But Joey didn't like Daddy Dearest. Well, when a relative dies, you stick together - and above all, you stand by your man.

Tanya as good as implied that it was Lauren's duty to give Joey a sympathy fuck to help him in his grief, just like Tanya was going to perform according to another Tammy Wynette song, in order to keep Max reined in ...

Well, we know Tanya isn't exactly a "good" girl. She plays at being all refined and elegant, but the truth is that when she met Max, she was as big a slut as she reckons Kirsty is. She managed to get up the duff and wrangle Max into dumping his first wife and child, so she could scrub herself up and pretend to be middle class. Now at the eleventh hour, she's actually found out that, she's not Max's wife - in fact, she's the other woman again, so she's got to get down and dirty and play the slut in the bedroom, in order to keep Max onside.

It behooves any viewer of EastEnders with more than one braincell to be reminded that Max and Tanya's relationship is based on sex. That three children are a result of this sexual relationship does give Max a special bond with Tanya - she is the mother of his children; but he certainly doesn't love her enough to be faithful to her. Two years ago, he was ready to leave his children and his new girlfriend to swan off to parts unknown with Stacey Slater, and I would say Stacey would be the only woman who could appear out of the blue and witness Max put the dampers on both Tanya's and Kirsty's affections, but that ain't gonna happen - that is, not until the thirtieth anniversary episode or the roles of Stacey-Slater-with-another-name dry up for Lacey Turner, whichever comes first.

You see, that's Max's problem ... his first marriage was another relationship based on sex. He got a seventeen year-old Rachel pregnant when he was only eighteen, and married her. Six years later, he reprised the same scenario with Tanya, whilst he was still married to Rachel. If Kirsty had walked in that door on Christmas Day, carrying a baby boy or girl, Max would have dropped Tanya like the proverbial hot potato. The women Max has married have never captured his heart completely, or else he would never have been tempted to stray.

And Tanya's remedy to the Kirsty dilemma is to out-sex Kirsty; and if spoiled, little Lauren is worried about Joey dumping her, then she should just up the ante and stand by her man, dang it!

All of this interspersed with Tanya blithely reminiscing about her father's funeral and grieving for the man she actually killed as if it were the most normal thing in the world. This is how the Brannings do normal, they compartmentalise their dysfunction and try to pretend it never existed. Then up pops karma and takes a lick out of someone's arse.

Kirsty Stands by Her Man.

Ye-a-aaah, but Kirsty's not really the Tammy Wynette little woman. I'd say she's more Alanis Morissette. In fact, you could just imagine Kirsty singing the lyrics to this song to Max, all in his face ... as she does ...

I love Kirsty. Even though they had to make her part and parcel of this dystopian, dysfunctional family of inbreds and poor whites, I love how she fits them so well and how she's able to stand up to their hypocrisy and their pretensions; and there is nothing nothing any of them can do about it. In fact, their reactions only make them look stupid. 

And people of Digital Spy or Walford Web or whatever, if you aren't screaming in Kirsty's corner, you're just stupid too. Why?

Because Kirsty is Max's wife. Legally. When Max was run out of Walford in August 2011 by his lying wife and criminal daughter, Tanya made him believe that he had nothing with her. No future, no life, nothing. They were divorced. Shortly after he left Walford, depressed, vulnerable and drinking, he met Kirsty; and somewhere within the next three months, they fell in love and married.

Max did nothing wrong. In fact, he was on his way to collect Kirsty to go to Manchester, when he was summoned by Jack, back to Walford to deal with a family crisis. That situation - Tanya's cancer cold - convinced him to make a phonecall to Kirsty and tell her they were through.

Kirsty married him in good faith. Out of the blue, he dumps her. Unbeknownst to him, she's pregnant. He makes no contact with her for an entire year, until it's time that he can get a legal divorce, then he shoves an envelope containing money and the divorce papers through her letterbox.

Really, for the last year and now, as Tanya says, Max has been cheating on his wife. The only problem for Tanya is that she isn't the wife on whom he's cheating. She's the other woman.

It pisses me off when people self-righteously brand Kirsty a bunny-boiler and deluded. She isn't. She's a woman who fell in love with a man - and please, don't call her a gold-digger. Max Branning barely has a pot to piss in - married him in good faith and was abandoned by him. She had every right to roll up in Walford when she did, search him out and demand answers and an explanation. I would even put it to the naysayers that it's true what Kirsty says: she does indeed "get" Max, far better than Tanya does. 

She's not desperate. Or deluded. Or mental. She's a woman who's been betrayed by her husband and she wants the truth. The reason she's being so tenacious is that she knows, in her heart and in her gut, that Max still has feelings for her, and she's going to fight for what is hers.

She's going to stand by her man.

The irony of this situation is that Tanya, in Max's life, has come full circle. She is now, once again, the other woman.

Arguably the best scene of the night was that kitchen scene between Kierston Wareing and Lindsey Coulson. Coulson embodied the totally illogical rational by which the Brannnings justify their dysfunctional amorality, and Carol, like Max, oddly, is one of the more compassionate members of the family.

Every accusation she leveled at Kirsty was scooped up and thrown right back in her face until Carol issued her a challenge to ask Max if he felt anything for her and if he didn't and told her to go, she would. Carol looked like the cat who'd eaten the canary when Kirsty took up the challenge - little knowing that Kirsty knew exactly how to play Max and the Brannings at their own game. Kirsty reminds them too much of their own origins, how if you scratch the dirt off the surface, you still come up with inbred white trash.

Kudos to Carey Andrews for that scene, but thank Fat Elvis it was carried by two of the programme's three strongest actresses.

In the end, Kirsty bagged her man (pun intended) and bagged him in the ubiquitous AlleyKat alley, in the same place where Kat got porked by the slimey delivery man and later by Shaggerman Derek, and where Roxy Mitchell offered it on a plate to Max Branning, only to have him compare Roxy and Tanya as hamburger to steak. Max proved today that Kirsty was filet mignon grossier. (But filet mignon nonetheless). And just as clueless, hypocritical Tanya stood just around the corner from the alley, trying to ring Max.

Stupid Girls

Lauren the GurnGirl and Bag o'Bones Beale in the launderette.

Boy, this song is so about Lauren and Lucy ...

Except when Lucy was forced by that encounter in the launderette to recognise how completely stupid, selfish and self-centred Lauren was, Lucy actually grew up a bit and realised that maybe it's not too smart to hang out with poor white trash like Lauren.

We were subjected to Lauren forcing herself and her self-centred whining and whingeing about Joey, Joey, Joey. 

How she doesn't feel at ease in having a sexual relationship with her cousin ... well, bitch, don't go there then.

How she thinks she really should dump him, and did Lucy "want him back." Dude, you don't go offering someone who's supposed to be your best mate your cast-off boyfriends. Glad Lucy told her in no uncertain terms that she didn't want Joey back. And even gladder that Lucy shamed this totally unpleasant and unlikeable little bitch into almost admitting that by keeping schtum and letting Joey take the rap for her misdeed, isn't very loving at all - it's just pures selfish. 

Even after Lucy imposed upon her how shitty that sort of behaviour was - let someone else take the rap for me, go to jail for me etc - Lauren's initial reaction was, "But I have a criminal record!"

Tough shit, sunshine. You do the crime, you do the time. Funny, how Lauren went on a crusade to expose Stacey Slater's crime, when Stacey set back and allowed Lauren's brother to die branded a murderer and justified that by reminding herself that Bradley loved her, and this is what you do for love. Not.

So GurnGirl's gone down to the copshop - unfortunately, she doesn't confess, and we're forced to endure her whiney, selfish presence for the unforeseeable future entirely because the EP thinks she's beautiful.

Line of the night, however, goes to Lucy Beale: Lauren, your boyfriend IS your family.

Crack that nut with that sledgehammer, girl.

Jah-WAHHH, Aaaa-aasss, Poppy and the Kat in the Pat.

Meanwhile over at the old Slater Arms, JahWAHHH is acting like a spoiled kid having a hissy fit. Mean Uncle Max and sleazy Uncle Jack try to manhandle him into going to the funeral. Waahhh-waahhh-waaahhh, he doesn't wanna go. You can't make him. If you do, he'll hold his breath (but with his mouth open).

Last night, I amazed myself, because I understood three complete lines of dialogue that David Witts uttered. Tonight, it was back to being completely unintelligible.

While he was being a prick, Aaaa-aaaasss was weeping and wailing for her daddy, whom she didn't know from Adam one year ago. Waahh-Waahh-waahh, Mummy's not coming (Please, God, do not introduce Derek's ex-wife) ... Jah-WAHHH's not coming. Woe is me. The music hasn't been chosen. 

Poppy to the rescue for Alice, giving us ...Meditation Techniques for Dumbasses...

Some nonsense about Alice letting worries go by her head like little clouds. Honestly, Poppy's nice, but I don't like the EastEnders' tradition of the sweet-natured female village idiot anymore than I liked their sad, fat clowns. Little Mo was the female Frank Spencer (Ooooh, Beeelleeee), Honey playing Mrs Malaprop, and now we have Aaaa-aaassss, her little clouds and her wee-wees.

In the meantime, we continue to see Ms Newman's all-too-obvious metamorphosis of Kat from selfish, self-centred slut who treated her loving husband like shit, into the Mary Magdalen of Albert Square ...

Pretty soon, she'll be warbling this about Alfie to all and sundry ...

Alfie as Jesus Christ, fancy that.

All of a sudden, after observing the failure of Max's and Jack's cack-handed persuasion techniques and Joey's sullenness, Kat channels the spirit of Pat and reminds Joey that he's got a "widdle sister" who's depending on and trusting him, accusing him of revelling in his hatred for his father, whilst Jah-WAAHHH throws back a bit of poor-me-I'm-a-victim because Dadda  threw his jelly sandwiches into the sink in front of all his widdle mates at Jah-Waahh's seventh birthday party. Along with the tales of Dadda beating Jah-Waahh's mummy.

Well, well, based on what we heard at the Brannings about the dynamic between Jim and Derek, Derek was abused and became an abuser, himself. Kat was abused and became an abuser, herself. There's the attraction, but here's another wonder ... Kat actually took responsibility for her involvement with Derek tonight. When Jah-WAAHH tried to shove back the  fact that Derek used and manipulated Kat (something she's been shipping for the past week, herself), Kat stepped up to the plate and admitted she involvled herself in that palaver too.

Well, nice to see Newman's doing what she said she'd do, but we all know where it's going to end. Alfie and Kat, sitting in a tree. Just start calling Roxy "Vanessa" now.

The Brannings Morph into the Mitchells.

Now we get another Branning retconned backstory courtesy of Jack and Carol, talking about Dot and Jim. Jim's in a bad way, and Dot's staying with him. Even though they haven't told him Derek's dead, Jim knows, because he's making praying gestures (this is Jim the old atheist lag, remember). Now we get a trip down memory lane about animosity between Derek and Jim, how Jim used to beat Derek (shades of Eric Mitchell beating Phil and Grandpa Phil Mitchell beating Eric and Archie - shit, there's even a boxing connection). And suddenly, we're treated to the revelation of weekly Sunday visits the Branning boys and Carol would all make to Jim, with Derek doing the Big I Am routine at the foot of Jim's bed. Then the brilliant psychological analysis that Derek's obsession with head of the table and head of the family was nothing to do with taunting Max, but proving himself to Jim that he could hold the family together.

Yeah, like herding cats ... Here's what happened to Uncle Ike Branning's branch who went West into Texas ...

Sharon and Cora the Bora: Dorothy Meets the Wicked Witch of the West

OMIGOD ... Auntie Glenda showed up to the funeral too.

Brief moment of good measure in tonight's first part - Cora the Bora, who's obviously been hitting the bottle, otherwise she wouldn't have donned those sunspecs on a cloudy winter's day, offers some comment on the funeral procession which obviously isn't up to Derek's standards. (As if she'd know, and by the way, Cora, Derek is toast). 

It seemed for the first time Sharon suddenly became aware of what such an intimate association as marriage into the Branning tribe of poor whites would mean for her - that part of her extended family would include that old grey hag of a man in drag, Cora the Bora. 

I've never seen Sharon shove her arse inside that car so fast, visibly shuddering.

And finally ...

The Letter

After spending the majority of the episode weeping onto the sarnies for the wake no one will attend, Carol is handed, by Poppy, a missive found on the floor of Derek's bedroom, addressed to her. From David Wicks, no less, and kept from her knowledge by dear old Derek.

(Poppy's handing Carol the letter is a direct replay of Little Mo Slater finding Frank's confessional letter to Peggy about his affair with Pat, back in November 2000. Who says EastEnders doesn't use the same shit different day ...)

Second half to follow. Go, Team Kirsty!

Too Many Fucking Brannings: Even the Actors Agree

Yes., the Brannings annoy me, and I apologise if my language offends; but I'm chewing nails and pissing rust at the thought of my licence fee money going to tripe which EastEnders has become, presided over by an Executive Producer who seems to suffer from headuparsitis, herself.

Wasn't there an advert awhile ago telling us we "are" the BBC? The stealth tax which funds Lorraine Newman's fantasies says we are.

Anyhoo, leaving EastEnders, either of your own volition or by sacking, seems to free actors up to talk.

The dire Matt Lapinskas is singing like a caged bird now in an article on Digital Spy. If you can get passed the initial fit of giggling at the fact that Matt was shocked to be axed from the show, he does make one valid observation, concerning his release:-

The 23-year-old said that Anthony's exit could have been linked to the decision to bring in Joey Branning, played by David Witts.

 He commented: "Maybe they wanted to swap one young guy for another young guy. The show is very Branning-orientated at the moment. Almost every scene's got a Branning in it."

First of all, Lapinskas's remark about shedding him in order to retain the talent that isn't David Witts is astute and probably true. But surely, TPTB can't be that pigshit ignorant not to realise that they released one utter embarrassment only to obtain a second and worse one? Matt Lapinskas was bad - possibly he was in at the deep end before he could swim adequately; but at least you could understand what he said. Instead we get Witts, the walking Neanderthal, who - if he doesn't have a speech impediment - needs to learn not to walk around with his mouth agape. Seriously, he is arguably the worst actor ever to appear on the show. He makes Liam Bergin look proficient.

Secondly, Lapinskas is having a Jack Ryder moment here, but after having left the programme. His Branning-centric remark proves that it isn't only the viewers who have noticed the ridiculous predominance of this dystopic and dysfunctional bunch of inbreds, which only harm the show. The fact that Lapinskas was axed in order to accommodate the simian branch of the family speaks volumes.

Oh well, at least the Branning prove the theory of evolution, even if they haven't progressed that far up the chain of life.

EastEnders ... Everybody's Talking about It

... But Lorraine only listens to the numbskulls, the tweenies and the sheeple.

A discerning viewer from the IMDB forum:-

If you're after sensible answers to illogical scenarios then you won't get any. Nobody here has the first clue why the writers/producers do what they do. At this point, it seems as though they are only trying to appeal to the dumbest, most suggestible people in the country. Forget art and expression, EastEnders exists to shock and awe the dimmest of the dim-wits, to leave chavs and skanks slack-jawed in amazement at all the "twists" and "turns" while the rest of us are sat laughing at how bad every episode is. 

This is coming from me, someone who used to enjoy sitting down and dedicating a little part of my evening to EastEnders. You could almost say I was a fan of EastEnders. But for the whole of 2012 it has been the most unbelievable, nonsensical piece of trash aired on the BBC (and that's saying something). How the BBC can go from quality such as Have I Got News For You and QI to EastEnders and Strictly Come Dancing is beyond me, it baffles me every time I tune in.

Newman is channeling the lowest common denominator demographic, simply because they are too dumb to see what's been happening to this programme for the past decade. People forget she signed off on the most abject of shit pushed by Berridge (Ferreiras, Zombie Den), Hutchinson (tearing up six months' worth of script) and Harwood (killing off Kathy Beale off-screen, introducing the Branning dynamic, Stacey Slater etc).

By pitching for the lowest of the low, Newman is demeaning not only the brand "EastEnders" but also the BBC, itself.

I have only one word of warning for her: Brookside. 

Vice Is Nice But Incest ... Eeeuuuuww

Maybe Lorraine should look where she doesn't want to do so ... like what the more perspicacious viewers are saying about the Joey and Lauren poor man's Romeo-and-Juliet fiasco on Digital Spy.

First of all, this isn't a love affair, and the commentator Get Den Watts perfectly nails Lorraine Newman's motives behind her shipping of this couple, whom she, herself, gushingly describes as "just too beautiful."

If Joey and Lauren weren't young and considered to be 'fit' this storyline wouldn't have seen the light of day and you wouldn't have people trying to defend it. It's cheap titillation between two people who barely said a word to each other and are suddenly in love. If EE really wanted to tell a serious story about incest, then they would have Lauren fall pregnant and tackle the potential of a deformed baby but they don't.

Too true. And he's not the only person to think thus. Broken Arrow:-

 Agreed. If this story was about Phil and Roxy there would be revulsion. They barely knew each other when Roxy joined the cast but you can rest assured no one would have supported a ''Phoxy'' coupling.

Now, one perky presence on the forum ...

 pipes up with the rejoinder that Phil actually screwed his "Auntie" Glenda. Oh, my godfathers! Such a relevant little participant!

Glenda Mitchell was no blood relation to Phil Mitchell. She was the much younger wife of his uncle, and only four years older than Phil, himself. She was not his father's sister, which would have been immensely wrong. Someone else points out that Lola and Ben are cousins. They are, indeed.  They are, in fact third cousins, once removed - the same degree of kinship shared by Matthew and Mary Crawley in Downton Abbey.

But first cousins copulating is a degree of consaguinity that is more than a bit sickening, and it's proving relevant in Britain today. In the North of the UK, there's a lot of medical concerns among the Asian community, as a lot of them have arranged marriages between first cousins, and - as a result - are seeing more and more birth defects emanating from these marital unions.

It's bad enough that any child Lauren and Joey had would have a mouth that gaped open incessantly, a propensity to gurn inexplicably and be plagued with an uncorrectable, incoherent speech impediment, there might be other genetic hindrances as well.

Actually, the commentator Keeki, always reliable for a sensible perspective, states it best:-

Me too. The idea of a young Don Juan (played by a model) deciding that an unlikeable, self absorbed female with issues is the Bella to his Edward already proved a failure with Twitney. Unfortunately the creative team at EE learned nothing from the Twitney disaster and trotted out the same formula with Joey and Lauren complete with cheesy romantic gestures. I bet that in ten year's time another young playboy struts into the square and falls madly in love with Tiffany. Max's passive acceptance of his daughter sleeping with his brother's son is bizarre. It was silly to bother making them cousins if the only close relative who had an issue with it died shortly after the relationship was discovered.

Bang on ... pun intended.

The show is missing a sympathetic but sexy young couple for whom the viewers should be rooting. And another thing, Lauren and Joey might be easy on the eye to Ms Newman's view, but Lauren's looks have been cosmetically enhanced since coming on the show in 2010. The collagen implant on the upper lip and the boob job are both greatly in evidence, as is the propensity to pattern her dress and fashion sense on the Katniss character played by Jennifer Lawrence in The Hunger Games.

And sorry, Joey is nothing like Nigel Harman in either looks or manner. How can anyone be considered attractive with his mouth hanging open all the time.

Twitney failed miserably, due to the lack of talent on the part of Tony Discipline and the unlikeability of the character Shona McGarty played. We have the same situation here. Lauren has got to be, arguably, the most unpleasant, pejorative and negative young character ever in the history of the programme. She is entitled, spoiled and decidedly unsympathetic. The attraction on Joey's part must purely be physical, which doesn't say much for his intelligence, because only a dolt, cousin or not, would want to entangle himself with someone as self-obsessed and shallow as Lauren. Her attitude toward his father's death, alone, should be enough to turn him off any attraction felt for her. 

Quite often when a person is beautiful on the inside, one finds them atrociously ugly in character. In that respect, Lauren takes after her putrid mother.

Update: For anyone wondering why the apparently intransigent Executive Producer of EastEnders is foisting yet another unpleasant latent adolescent couple upon us like this, it's simply because she's decided that her target group is the lowest common denominator of adolescent and braindead equivalent. The rest of us will have to suffer her obsession.

Kirsty Branning

There's a thread hotting up on Digital Spy soaps forum pitting Kirsty against Tanya and asking people whom they support in the Battle for Max's Arse.

I'm surprised and yet not surprised at the level of support for Tanya's predicament and the vitriol  for Kirsty. The reason I'm not surprised is that the normal level of critical thinking, in the wake of the end of the Christmas period, is back to its usual substandard amongst the Luddites debating, or attempting to debate this.

Here are some basic facts about Max's and Tanya's history:-

• Max was married with a child when he met Tanya.
• Tanya was 18 years old, with a druggie history and seriously drinking, when she met Max. Suffice it to say, she was not a blushing virgin.
• The fact that Max was married met absolutely nothing to Tanya. Most women, out of decency, back off a married man when he comes onto them.
• Max is a serial cheat. He was unfaithful to Rachel, and he's been seriously unfaithful to Tanya.
• Max's and Tanya's relationship is based entirely on sexual attraction, lying and secrecy.

Let's look at that last point.

Max and Tanya don't talk, they just throw words at each other and fuck. Their solution to any problem they have is to have a quick fuck and then it's remedied. That usually occurs after they've hurt each other (and their children) to the extreme. Max kept secrets from Tanya from day one, and she kept secrets from him as well. They both lie like dogs to one another.

She's with him and keeps taking him back, most likely because he's the best lay she's had. That's why she took him back after fucking about with Sean Slater and with Jack for a year. Actually, a big part of her taking him back then was due to the fact that she'd just been released from prison, and Tanya doesn't function at all unless she's got a man paving a way for her. Everything she's ever achieved in her life, she's got through sleeping with a man. Max, Jack, Greg - they all provided her with things most women work for and attain through their own competence and graft.

Max got her off a sink estate and an alcoholic hag of a mother. He gave the the semblance of a middle class lifestyle. Jack promised her a villa in France. Greg had a fat wallet and bought her a house and a business and sent her skanky daughter to school in the States, losing the money when she got expelled for smoking weed.

We've seen Tanya's performances when there isn't a man on the horizon - she foists all sorts of heavy responsibilities on her children, putting them under undue pressure and treating them like shit. With Tanya, everything is all about Tanya first and foremost.

For Max, Tanya is easy stability. He bores easily and - because he is such a nuanced individual - he's clearly bored by her shallowness and lack of depth. Face it, Tanya is not a stand-alone character. She was introduced in 2006 as Max's put-upon wife, and she didn't even have a proper backstory until last year, and we didn't hear that sensationalist tripe until Branning Week 2011.

Max strays and gets found out. Tanya gets angry, he gives her an expensive present or takes her on an expensive holiday, they have make-up sex and everything's back to normal until Max strays again.

This is the classic co-dependent couple. Their behaviour and their foibles feed each others' needs. Both are as amoral as the other - the difference being that Max owns his amorality and Tanya cloaks hers in middle class aspirations. Example? For the life of her, Tanya cannot accept the fact that she was the original other woman. She broke up Max's marriage.

Max, curiously, is an old-fashioned soul. When he gets a woman up the duff, as his father did before him, he marries her. Rachel was pregnant when he married her. When Tanya fell pregnant, it was logical to Max that he would have to abandon Rachel and marry Tanya, which he did. In Tanya's narrow, social-climbing mind, that validated their relationship. 

She is blind to her own faults and actions. On the eve of Bradley's wedding, she took umbrage that his mother chose to attend and help with the organisation of it, thinking Rachel had no right, when Rachel was Bradley's mother. When Rachel told her, point-blank, that she would suffer what Rachel suffered at Max's hands one day, she ignored her arrogantly. She even refused to acknowledge that Stacey's affair with Max was the same slap in the face she'd administered to Rachel when she, herself, was eighteen.

Even now, she refuses to see that.

Ah, but consider this: Tanya abandoned Max when he went tits-up financially. She took his children and left, horning in on a younger, more affluent man, moving in with him after knowing him only two months - Tanya left Max at Christmas 2009 and was living with Greg by the time Bradley died at the end of February 2010. In 2011, a divorced and single woman, she married Greg, in a preposterous assumption of self-perpetuating virginity symbolised by a kitsch white wedding.

Get that? Tanya married Greg, which she was entitled to do as she was single. (Ne'mind that within weeks, she was sleeping with Max again, lolling about on an illicit bed in a rented flat and  laughing about Greg - dubbed "Bob the Builder" - babysitting Oscar.)

Please realise that throughout 2011, Max Branning was a single man. At one point, he even got engaged to Vanessa Gold, with whom he was living at the time. So Max, like Tanya, could have and would have been able to marry anyone he wanted, provided they were unattached as well.

In August when Tanya discovered she had cervical cancer, she did her usual lying trick and told Max she wanted nothing to do with him, ordering him to leave Walford after accusing him of breaking up her marriage to Greg. She told him succinctly that she wanted nothing more to do with him and never wanted to see him again.

Max, as Max is wont to do when asked by Tanya, left town. 

More importantly, he left town foot-loose and fancy free.

Sometime between August and November, Max met Kirsty. They bonded, initiated a relationship and married. Quick? Maybe, but then remember, Tanya was serious enough about Greg to be living with him two months after leaving Max. Suffice it to say that both Max and Tanya could have been vulnerable at that point and looking for love and/or affection after a let-down.

Whatever.

But Max certainly felt strongly enough for Kirsty to marry her, and Kirsty loved Max. She married him on trust. Another thing - Max certainly talked to Kirsty - more than he ever did Tanya. Kirsty knew Max's children's names, knew their interests; so it's even safe to say that until they married, Max was as honest with Kirsty as Max could be.

As Kirsty, herself, they were married, and were planning a new life together in Manchester. They were in love, and Kirsty was in the early stages of pregnancy.

She married Max, legally, in good faith and had every reason to believe he loved her. She did nothing wrong.

Then, suddenly, out of the blue, she receives a phonecall from Max in November, telling her the marriage was over. No explanation, no nothing, Max was even too cowardly to face her with this confession - instead, he stuffed a wodge of money and the divorce papers through Kirsty's letterbox - ostensibly because Max (who's capable of feeling guilt) still harboured feelings for his lawfully wedded wife.

I want the Digital Spy Luddites to disabuse themselves of the notion that Kirsty is in any way desperate or clinging to Max. I can assure them that if the shoe were on the other foot and Max had done this to the fragrant Tanya, they would have been howling in Tanya's favour. Well, cop this! Kirsty is Max's wife and Tanya is, once again, the other woman.

Kirsty is Max's wife, who married him in good faith, thinking he loved her, and who was callously and suddenly abandoned by him. She's not seen or heard from him in a year. Any woman in those same circumstances, of course, would seek a face-to-face encounter with the man who'd abandoned her, if only to know why. Kirsty is, at least, entitled to an explanation.

Also, I don't think Kirsty is the type to hang onto something that's over. She makes no pretensions about herself. She was honest enough to tell Tanya that she had formerly been an exotic dancer - whatever that is - that she'd left that and now did barwork. No middle class vapours for this woman. This is a woman who's taken whatever life offered and dealt with it. When she was succinctly told by Derek that Max had left her, never to return, she aborted their child rather than raise it alone, not knowing that a child would have conflicted Max even more and would have ensured her that Max would return to her.

If Kirsty had truly received a negative vibe from Max when she turned up on his doorstep, she would have signed the divorce papers and left in a trice. But she knows, deep down, that Max still has feelings for her. He's even admitted as such, before he backed down in Tanya's presence and told Kirsty to leave. What Max is doing now is cowardly and low and proof positive that the Brannings are white trash losers.

Jack drops kids on various women all around Europe and fulfills his parental duties by sending cheques each month. Max collects women but is afraid to veer from the reliable security Tanya somehow affords him.

Kirsty is fighting for her marriage. She isn't desperate or deluded or clinging to something that isn't there. In fact, she probably reads Max better than Tanya does. She sees that Tanya, with her faux mumsy ways and the kids is a security blanket for Max; but she also sees through Tanya's veneer of middle class respectability also. Believe me, if there were nothing there for Kirsty to claim, she'd be gone.

But there is, and she's about to claim it. She knows Max loves her, and she's not about to give him an easy option by sacrificing a marriage she made in good faith just so he can feel comfortable. She knows that the more she's around and in his face and space, he won't be able to mask his feelings for her. At this moment in time, Max is living with Tanya and has abandoned his wife, for no reason. 

Kirsty is the victim here, and Tanya is in the wrong. For one brief shining moment, Tanya even admitted that she was just as guilty of this situation as Max, because she lied to him and sent him away. Max, as such, didn't lie to Tanya about Kirsty. He just neglected to tell her, initially because she was so ill and had to concentrate on getting well. Then, by the time she had regained her health, Max had made the mistake of trusting DelBoy to sort out the necessaries in order for him to obtain a divorce from Kirsty - which he couldn't do until he'd been married to her for a year.

So when you're throwing your weight behind Team Tanya, you're really rooting for a skank with experience in pursuing married men and plenty of form in assuming a faux moral high ground.

Kirsty may look rough and have a degee from the college of hard knocks, but she doesn't pretend to be something she isn't, and she is, for the time being, Mrs Max Branning.

The Branning Show: Poor White Trash Justifying Their Amorality

Here's a song for little Lorraine Newman, whose every wish is coming true ...

Yes, as evidenced by tonight's episode, lovingly put together by her designated minion in the writers' room (Perrie Balthazar), little Lorraine Newman's every wish about EastEnders has come to fruition.

Tonight we had warmth in abundance, we had interaction in the community and we had a beautiful couple upon which we might gaze.

Tonight, actually, we had a crock of shit piece of cancer dominated by the single most arrogant family ever to set foot in Walford. Lumps of wood, amoral hypocrites, dimwits, gurners and mouthbreathers all ... this is what happens when white trash move into the neighbourhood.

When the contrived situation comedy vignette, which tried to be funny but wasn't, turns out to be more watchable than what was supposed to be the main portion of the episode, this shower is in trouble.

If Newman is basking in the 11 million plus viewers who plopped their satiated arses on sofas in front of the telly on Christmas Day as justification for the shit she's tossing out on a regular basis, then she's as shallow as any of the characters she asks us to love. The rest of the year needs to be consistent, and I see almost nothing that is going to entice me to be sitting around watching this stuff within a year's time. 

Ne'mind dan2008 slobbering and gibbering about everything that's a-huh-a-huh-a-huh so exciting and good about the show. Ne'mind your xTonix's sexual fantasies and gavin shipman (great plant name) spinning. 

Shippers gonna ship.

But a word to the wise, which Newman obviously thinks she is ... if you're thinking about turning viewers' opinions on a dime, the way EastEnders used to be able to do with multi-faceted characters like Bianca (her first time around) or Grant or Michelle or even Peggy Mitchell years ago, don't make it obvious. Balthazar was begging the viewers' to feel affection for the likes of pejorative skanks and hypocrites like Kat, Lauren and Tanya tonight.

It isn't working.

And this is the first episode where I came off wanting to smack the living shit out of Sharon.

Let's look at the good bits:-

Denise. Simply Denise.

Tonight I also realised something else: Ray is a seriously good-looking man.

I always thought that Ray had more of connection, however tenuous, with Denise than Kim. Ray is a father with children, and Kim had no interest whatsoever in kids. She made that quite obvious early on, to Ray's disappointment. Then she made a half-hearted effort to relate to Sasha and Morgan.

Kim is also very possessive and has made it quite obvious that she wants nothing less than marriage with Ray.

Of course, this vignette was the comedic interlude in the high quality (read: pukeworthy) tragic drama (read: sensationalism) surrounding the Brannings. It involved Tameka Empson, and anything involving her is supposed to be funny. It's not. Add the interfering Zainab to the equation, throw in the obvious fact that Ian Beale, who appears to have received a lobotomy as a result of his unseen counselling he's received, is noticeably sweet on her - but sweet in the way a fourteen year-old boy is toward a girl he fancies, but is too shy to approach. So he teases her remorselessly. Oh well, I always did say Ian had the emotional maturity of an adolescent and that Jane treated him like a recalcitrant teenager. Then garnish the mixture with dozy Ajay, yet another comic contrivance who appeared to have a brief connection with Denise when he first arrived.

This all leads us to the dinner party from hell, the purpose of which was to connect Denise romantically, either with Kim's candidate, Ian, or Zainab's candidate, Ajay. Of course it all ends in chaos, when it becomes obvious to Denise what's going on.

And of course, this leads to an emotional heart-to-heart with Ray, in a room apart from the dinner party - although why Kim wasn't up-front-and-in-their-faces with Ray alone with her sister, I don't know. And this lead to Ray's confession that he found Denise sexy and attractive, and he sealed that with a passionate kiss, which Denise returned.

I didn't know how I was going to take this scene, but Diane Parrish, again, proved why she's amongst the strongest actresses on the show. She made the scene, emphasizing the poignancy of her social situation. Denise is lonely. And afraid. She's been married three times, twice to the same man, who was a drug addict during their first coupling. Her second husband was a violent alcoholic who beat her. Her third husband, arguably the best and the one she really loved, died tragically. Husband Number One turned up, re-married her and tried to kill her (and did kill other people, including his ex and one of hers). She's afraid to embark on another relationship, and her only encounter since Lucas's arrest, has been casual sex with Fatboy. She's so lonely and down, that she's even considering visiting Lucas in prison, simply because he once loved her.

The real tragedy of tonight's episode is to see such a strong actress - who actually portrays a genuinely strong woman - being reduced to playing the bad straight man to her totally unfunny sister. That this actress has been reduced to the 21st Century equivalent of a bad cardigan sitcom in favour of the trash we had thrown at us tonight is criminal.

High point of the episode: Denise referring to Ian and Ajay as the two local desperados. More Denise, please - and less of this shit, Newman, about Denise "going on a journey." You've contrived another sitcom situation where she's going to get together with Ian Beale.

Oh Denise - ooby-doo - we're in love with you ... Shame Lorraine Newman's not.

The bad bits ...

Sharon the Bimbo Pity-Fucker Gets Sucked In by the Brannings and Has Lost Her Personality.

I want Zombie Den back. Hell, I want Angie to rise with a vengeance from the grave, along with Den, and grab Sharon by the neck as she lies in bed beside the wooden penis that is Jack the Peg. Then I want them to lift her bodily from the bed, all the time slapping her silly, with Den screaming about where the hell she seemed to lose her backbone and her dignity.

Because this isn't Sharon. Certainly not the one most long-term viewers know.

How old is this Perrie Balthazar? Ah, OK ... I've just googled her and - guess what? - she's a Bryan Kirkwood leftover and a former Hollyoaks writer. That explains it. And that vibes with Newman's continued Hollyoaksisation of EastEnders.

However, this being the BBC, I think Newman should go for something a bit more cultural and classy, when it comes to Sharon. Why not, EastEnders, the Opera? Give the thing a little Mozart, like ... imagine this scene where Zombie Angie returns from the dead to find Sharon morphed into a bimbo who's shacked up with an ex-bent copper whose idea of romance is an ultimatum and who drops kids by different women all over the face of Europe. Imagine how frightening that scene would be ... Dead Angie ripping Bimbo Sharon a new arsehole:-

Now that would really make Sharon's fabled lips quiver ...

I just want to know why Sharon's with Jack? I know these writers are young, but some of them should put their arrogance on the shelf long enough to watch old episodes from the 80s and 90s featuring Sharon to get the feel of her character. Because at the moment, she's coming across as someone who's prostituted herself to Jack out of necessity (when she really needn't have done so) and who's patently agreed to marry him out of pity. If she hadn't, she wouldn't have been so reluctant to let Phil know tonight. And when she did tell him, I got the feeling she was distinctly disappointed that he didn't lose his temper and march around to deck Jack one. It was as if she were expecting him to fight Jack for her, and how not like Sharon is that?

It's as much not like her as that phony little sexy voice she puts on every time she's with Jack - and speaking of her Branningisation, throw in the cutesy-cutesy little Hollyoaks direction tonight, splicing together scenes in rapid-fire speed, with ambiguous dialogue, implying cross-scene conversation. Sometimes simplicity works better than cute drawing room drama tricks.

Ironic though, that Sharon referenced her history with Phil - something that makes her feel comfortable, obviously - and sought, unconvincingly, to move on in the company of a man whom she's known all of five minutes - a dishonest asshole of a man, someone who focuses on jealousy toward another man and who reaches out and takes what that man has like a kid in a pram, an abysmal father, who ignores all of his children, including the one whose mother is Sam Mitchell, and Sharon doesn't know that.

Sharon was always, always a tentative and reflective person when it comes to relationships. She was eighteen before she lost her virginity to Simon Wicks, and that was after months of courtship. It was the same with Grant Mitchell. The passion that grew between her and Phil was slow-burning, as her marriage to a disturbed man disintegrated around her. She is like that in love and friendship, cleaving to that which is familiar. So this Sharon, instead of seeking solace in Ian, as a long-term friend, uses him remorselessly as an unpaid babysitter whilst she pays court to Queen Tanya. The truth is, she knows jackshit about Jack-shit. And if someone as perspicacious as Sharon cannot see how dirt-common and white trashy the Brannings are as a whole, then she really has had some sort of personality lobotomy.

Sharon the fucking bimbo.

Back tot he irony ... Sharon gave that brief soliloquy to Phil about not clinging to the past, but moving onto the future, yet in that stupid conversation she had with Tanya, she implied that Max had chosen to stay with Tanya instead of pursuing Kirsty because of Max's and Tanya's shared past, which was more important than a future with Kirsty. Sharon's been Branningised to such an extent, that she cannot see that Kirsty, actually, is the person here more sinned against than sinning. Old Sharon would have seen that, and if she didn't, then trusty Michelle would have been there to ensure that she did.

This woman is an imposter, but why am I not surprised? In reverse order, in the past two years, EastEnders has successfully managed to fuck up an iconic female character from the noughties (Kat), an iconic female character from the Nineties (Bianca), and now the most iconic female character of all, an original character and the daughter of Den and Angie, Sharon. 

And Lorraine Newman signed off on every character assassination.

One final word about Sharon: she doesn't love Jack. She's so unsure about this relationship that, at one point, I actually thought she'd become engaged to both men.

I'm also unsure about the writers having Phil march right up to Jack and announce that he's going to take Sharon away, that she'll come back to him because she always does. Phil wouldn't do that. Instead, Phil would work behind the scenes, surreptitiously, so that Sharon sees Jack's glaring personality defects for herself and now with any help from him.

Here's a headbanger for Jack ... or maybe Phil ... depending on the writer:-

The Brannings Prove Once Again That They Are Butt-Clinchingly Pukeworthy Inbred Arrogant Mofos.

Hypocrisy, Thy Name Is Tanya. Who does she think she is? That woman's head is stuck so far up her arrogant arse, it's debatable whether or not she really sees the sunshine. The spliced conversations between Tanya and her new lady-in-waiting Sharon and AlphaMax and AlphaJack were reminiscent of a Dali painting come to life, the were so surreal. 

We had a similar situation before when Cora sought to tell Tanya a few prevalent home truths. Tonight we had Tanya voicing her version of the situation with Max, Kirsty and herself and actually acknowledging - well, practically - that she was as guilty as he. 

Oh, she admits he was single when he married Kirsty, whom he'd only known a couple of months - oh, but Tanya moved lock, stock and barrels of wine in with Greg whom she'd only known a few months (yes, she moved in with him after two months, but they didn't marry until they'd been together for more than a year - has Perrie Balthazar forgotten that?). Still, it was established that Max was as single when he married Kirsty as Tanya was when she married Greg. And although Tanya realised that Max had lied to her about Kirsty - he really hadn't, he simply didn't tell her that he was married and placed his trust in Derek to sort the situation out - but Tanya's white enough to admit that she lied to Max also, about her cancer cold - excuse me, her canSAH, to use Sharon's pronunciation. But before the end of the conversation, Tanya's obliterated any fact that she was capable of lying to Max, and has focused her anger on him for lying to her.

Another glaring hypocrisy was Sharon's feeding Tanya's Max addiction by telling her Max loved Tanya, loved the history and the family he had with her, which was why he would always return to her, forsaking Kisty. Has Sharon taken leave of her senses and her innate sense of morality? Kirsty is Max's wife. Kirsty, not Tanya, is the victim here. She married Max in good faith, and he deserted her without reason - worse, he couldn't even face her to tell her his feelings had changed and he was leaving her. Instead, he shoved money through the door along with divorce papers. As if she could be bought.

And Max and Tanya are still sneaking around on each other - Tanya calling Sharon on the sly from Spain to ascertain whether or not Kirsty had gone, and Sharon being dumb enough to think that just because Kirsty wasn't at the B and B anymore, that she'd left Walford. Or Max telephoning Kirsty surreptitiously from Spain and thinking that just because she didn't answer her mobile, she wasn't around. Are these people seriously stupid or just inbred? (This is actually what imbreeding does). No, wait ... the writer of the piece is seriously stupid, and the Executive Producer is even more stupid for signing off on something so puerile.

There were several incidences in the Branning domination that creeped me out tonight - the way it was laboured home to the audiences that Max, Tanya and their kids are a normal family. That normality was driven home with the subtlety of a sledgehammer tonight, from the cheesy group hug with Tanya and her kids, to gurning Oscar actually saying a few words, to Abi actually admitting that the Brannings were as normal as the Kardashians ... actually, no. The Kardashians have more class, and the Kardashians are, without a doubt, the most ass-common jumped up trailer trash in the world at the moment, so that speaks volumes for the Brannings.

The other creepy incident was the ease with which Jack and Tanya move around each other, mindless of the fact that Tanya moved Jack in as babydaddy for the kids when Max had left in order to let her have some space (instead of marching her ass down to the nearest copshop with evidence that she'd tried to kill him). She also spent a year with Jack, who took the crew on a lujo holiday to the Carribbean, publically taunted and humiliated Max and conspired to move his children abroad illegally - all the while ignoring his own child (he only had one then). I still recall the scene from early 2011, when Gormless Greg found himself in a room at a gathering which included Max and Jack and found that Tanya had slept with all three of them. She was blithely dismissive about it, but he was totally unnerved. The Brannings are poor white trash.

I love the fact that Kirsty is still around, and the fact that she obviously knows Max better in the brief time she spent with him than Tanya knows in 18 years. What's biting Tanya's ass is the fact that Kirsty is Max's wife, whether she likes it or not; and Kirsty isn't giving Max up without a fight. Know why? Because Kirsty knows that Max still has feelings for her. Otherwise, if this relationship were truly done and dusted, she'd hand him the papers and be on her way. A woman like that doesn't stick around when there's nothing for which to fight.

Once again, this makes Tanya the other woman, and the veneer of respectability she's cultivated all these years is revealed to be nothing more than a sham. One wonders if Sharon is aware of the fact that Tanya was a teenaged homewrecker who caused Max to abandon another wife and child. So why shouldn't Kirstie stick around and fight for something she thinks is worth it? Max told her on Christmas Day he didn't want to face her because he still had feelings for her, and now he's had even more guilt laid on him after discovering she'd aborted his baby. Yet the Brannings and Sharon, their new creature, treat this woman as if she were the slut of the century.

Lauren Needs a Slap, Kick and a Punch, The Snide Little Bitch. We got a full-on from Lorraine Newman's beautiful couple she's touting so ferociously, and boy, do they both stink. 

There's never been a worse and more pejorative and totally dislikeable ingenue than Lauren Branning. She is so shallow, selfish and self-obsessed that it's unbelieveable. 

Joey Branning ...

 came a bit of a way in redeeming himself tonight before he relented totally in his last scene with the little bitch and gave her a tonsillectomy with his tongue, assuring her she could be happy. How the hell anyone could stomach a girl after the sort of behaviour she exhibited tonight either means he's stupid or desperate.

He returns to Walford to support his sister, which is right. Once Lauren finds he's with Alice, she barges in on a quiet personal moment between the siblings. Joey's acknowledged to Alice that although he hated Derek, he is grieving him too and wants to help her in her grief. Lauren was a  complete asshole, invading their space and still in a state of disbelief that Joey could actually grieve someone he hated, his own father. His answer - one of two intelligible lines he uttered tonight was telling - the fact that he hated Derek made it worse. He was actually trying to atone, but that's an action that totally alien to a jumped-up little tart like Lauren. 

I was hoping that Alice - who actually revealed that she has more acting experience and talent tonight in a couple of lines than any of her contemporaries on the show - would have jumped up and smacked the living shit out of Lauren.

Then there was the scene in the pub, which - again - Joey called it: every time Lauren doesn't get her way, she starts sucking on a bottle. Her screeching demands for a drink were a total new low in the arrogance of that puketard family, and her stupid reaction, again, to Kirsty's appearance, demanding to know why Kirsty was still there was enough to have her ejected from the pub. I wanted Alfie or someone to hoist her into the gutter, her natural habitat. I also think that, since she's the age her sainted mother was when she broke up Max's first marriage, that someone tell her the tale of how Max and Tanya met and married. It's too bad Rachel's not around to give the story a true perspective.

How interesting that Bag O'Bones Beale, who gets skinnier with every appearance, caught the kissing cousins in an act of incest. Lauren just needs to bugger off, preferably with Tanya, but since Lorraine Newman is so obsessed with the "beauty" of the couple and the story they have to tell, we're stuck this piss poor couple until the cows come home - unintelligible gibberish, gurning, over-exaggerated mannerisms and this ...

This ...

And this ...

Goodness knows, there was more than enough of that from Witts tonight. He couldn't keep it shut. Can we have a storyline where Joey accidentally swallows a fly and dies in abject agony in the middle of the Square?

The Rehabilitation of Kat Starts Here.

Actually, I was wrong. Joey had three lines tonight which could be understood, and he scored a hattrick when he slammed a home truth back at Kat, who emerged from her cocoon of self-pity to ask if Alice wanted any dinner.

And would you care to remind us, Kat, why you're still here?

I could almost like him on that line. So now we've got Saint Kat the Grief Counsellor, who bonds with Aaa-aaass over a complicated meal of salad and a story of how bad Kat felt when Viv died and she thought she'd never eat again.

And thus begins the redemption of Kat ... caring about poor, pitiful Aaaa-aass, even though poor, pitiful Kat was - as Newman would have us believe - horribly manipulated into an affair with Derek. 

The best part of that malarkey was Carol's appearance and her less-than-approving silence that Kat seemed to be putting herself into Aaa-aassss's private space. Aaa-aassss asked Kat to stay and talk about the funeral arrangements with Auntie Carol, who disapproved. Sorry, but Kat should have excused herself and left the room. After all, the bitch swore on her dead mother's life that Derek meant nothing to her. No sympathy there. Kat is just another unlikeable character who should bugger off on the express train out of Walford carrying Tanya and Lauren.

One last GOOD bit: KIRSTY.

She's staying around. Good. I hope she's the flaming beginning of the end for the Brannings as we know them. Kirsty is the victim.