Sunday, April 13, 2014

Mommy Dearest - Review:- 11.04.2014

Let's hear it ...


We need banging upside the head, especially the Millennials, some of whom thought this episode was brilliant. Various Carters aside, and the duff-duff at the end, it was shit worthy of Newman.

WonderBoy Shits on the Show's Traditions.


Dominic Treadwell-Collins embodies the philosophy of the Millennials - if something happened before he was born or before he could remember, it didn't resonate with him. It had no significance. He must have been an absolute horror in a history class, all smug Little King self-satisfaction, giving the teacher disdainful looks because he knew that history means little to such self-important narcissists as he.

And thus, we have a gaggle of plot-driven shit served up on a plate for EastEnders at the public's remit.

What amuses me is that various Millennials on various fora exhibit their total inability to think critically by pointing out that Sonia told Bianca some much-needed home truths on Friday night.

Well, yes, she did, and she had to get drunk to do it, but here's something on a different level. 

Everything of which Sonia accused Bianca, Sonia is guilty of, herself ... and this was blatantly shown in this episode.

Did Wonderboy want to show it thus? I think, subliminally, he probably did, but I also think he realises that the bulk of people watching the show at the moment have only watched seriously since 2006, are Millennials, exhibit traits of the typical spoiled brat (even though they may be in their twenties), and can't think properly ... so what the hell, let's character assassinate not one, but two established characters (and from the same family) and be done with it.

Bianca's been ruined for years, thanks to Santer the Organ Grinder and his Monkey DTC. They established the rot, and Bryan Kirkwood fermented it. Knowing what we know now about Patsy Palmer's departure, I'm wondering how long ago WonderBoy found out about it, because this week, Bianca's scenes had the distinct putrid aroma of the character assassination done by Kate Harwood on her great-aunt Pauline Fowler.

Sonia is supposed to be a nurse, a medical professional. She, more then Carol and Bianca put together, would have understood the prime implication of her being found to have the BRCA2 gene - that she is more apt to contract cancer, depending on the type of lifestyle she leads.

This doesn't mean she is going to get cancer. It does mean that she's entitled to and will receive extensive counselling and health monitoring, usually on a three-monthly basis, in order that the incipience of any abnormal cell growth (i.e., cancer) can be nipped in the bud. It's called preventitive healthcare, and it does NOT include the removal of any healthy organs. If Max is diagnosed with the gene and contracts prostrate cancer, is he going to have his dick whacked off?

But here we have Honker. There, I said it ... HONKER HONKER HONKER HONKER HONKER ... would all you priggish little children like to hear it?


Here we have Honker, wafting about the cafe, where she's come to do Carol's shift whilst Carol is bopping and bullying about the Square, with news that her tumour has shrunken a bit, unceremoniously dumping her ugly hairy daughter on the Butcher/Beale/Jackson abode, declaring that Hairy Rebecca can babysit Tiffany and Morgan Le Fat. Er ... Hairy Rebecca is only thirteen years old. Isn't there something ... hmmmmm ... not quite right about leaving a thirteen year-old in charge of children all the day? 

Ah, here we go ... and straight from the BBC, itself:-

There is no minimum age at which children in the UK can be left on their own, nor do laws specify how old someone needs to be to babysit. However, if the babysitter is under 16, then the parent remains legally responsible for the child's safety.
And, under the Children and Young Persons Act parents in England and Wales can be prosecuted for wilful neglect if they leave a child unsupervised "in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury to health". Punishment ranges from a fine to 10 years' imprisonment. Similar legislation is in force in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Without legally specified ages to guide them, parents may be left scratching their heads over this grey area.
But children's charity, the NSPCC, advises that children under 13 should not be left at home alone for long periods and children under 16 should not be put in charge of younger children.
But that won't matter for WonderBoy, because the plot calls for it.

Anyhoo, isn't that a bit .... mmmmmmmmm ... selfish of Honker? Especially since later, she informs Bianca that Hairy Rebecca is going to stay for dinner whilst, she, Honker nips out for a drink with her new-found BFF, Tina, the resident thief, and Court Jester to the new Royal Family of Walford ...


They even shared a cuddle in the caff because Honker wailed out the first of what will become her standard pity cries ...

Ah got the geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeene!

Of course, and then we got the ubiquitous, throwaway line about getting her boobs whacked off. Dude, please.

Fast forward to the Vic, where Sonia threw herself the mother of all pity parties tonight, complete with a drinks session courtesy of drinks purloined by her new BFF Tina, who thinks nothing of stealing from her brother and his wife. Sonia spent the evening trash-talking Martin to the vile court jester and bonding over the fact that Tosh has a temper and Martin offends Sonia by burping at the table. Well, maybe Sonia offends Martin by her constant mouth-breathing and her self-righteousness. Sonia treated Martin like a steaming pile of shit, and I can still recall that scene where she told him how his working class ways disgusted her, yet he took her back unquestioningly and left his home for this ungrateful, rude and sanctimonious little bee-yatch. Yep, Bianca's selfish, but what the hell was Sonia when she stumbled through the door of someone else's house, rat-arsed and shouting the odds, without a care for her own child.

Sonia the Martyr - working all day in a hospital, then doing Mummy's shift at the cafe. No wonder she doesn't see her husband, who's only "just learned to take the garbage out." FFS, this is Martin Fowler, the son of Pauline and Arthur, the grandson of Lou, the first child born on the programme and the unborn subject of one of the earliest storylines. Yet he's painted, off-screen, into an uncaring lout, as much as his cousin, Peter Beale has evolved, under this producer, as a snobbish, bullying oaf. And for WHAT? For Sonia, who - as an adult -was one of the most unlikeable, self-righteous and judgemental characters on the show and for Lola, an all-of-a-sudden addition to the Mitchell family who hasn't been on the show except for a couple of years? So much for respecting the show's history and traditions - all lip service and nothing else. 

Sonia is the patron saint of Self-Pityers and Self-Righteous Bitches, and in her own way, she's just as selfish and self-obsessed with herself and her self-importance as Bianca. During her marriage to Martin, she treated him like shit, and did I hear correctly Bianca referring to "other women" in her warn-off to the insipid, amoral Tina? Is this a retcon or something the viewers don't know about?

Because Sonia's only same-sex encounter came with her affair with Gnomi, the ugly nurse who pursued her through nursing school, the one who was part and parcel of those snooty group of friends who made fun of Martin as a barrow boy the night he went out with them. It was after that session that Sonia told Martin how much he disgusted her and how ashamed she was of him because he had no qualifications. That's when she walked out of the Fowler home, and away from her hairy daughter, and went to live with Gnomi in Minty's and Garry's flat ... until she decided she really wasn't a lesbian and started smarming Martin for forgiveness again.

So if there have been other "women," what does that mean? If she cheated on Martin in Manchester with other girls, then what right does she have to take the moral high ground when he played away and leave him, taking their daughter? We know she was hot up to fuck Phil Mitchell the day Ricky and Bianca re-married? (Phil almost puked at the sight).

If she messed around with other women when she and hairy Rebecca were living in Southend, away from Martin, then she's no better than he is. In fact, she's worse, because she was still married to him.

Anyway, with this information, Bianca's given Tina the Shithead all the ammunition she needs to move in on Sonia. It was on the cards for these two to get together, and those of us who still watch the show and who can think critically recall that Sonia was at her most unlikeable when she was in her lezza phase. So, off with the boobs and out with the ovaries and she can become Tina's asexual bitch.

Natalie Cassidy and the hairy female equivalent of Cousin Itt with the guitar can bugger off.

I want Natalie Cassidy to leave along with Patsy Palmer. I'm sick of Cassidy's party piece of looking tragic, and her performance as a drunk tonight was piss poor. Sonia's an annoying character, and Cassidy is an annoying actor. I'd almost rather they brought Robbie and his wife and kids back from India and binned Sonia and her silent daughter off someplace.

And if I ever hear the line I'm your sister, I want to protect you again, I'll scream.


The Ronnie Horror Picture Show.


Ronnie now has a new obsession - Danielle-Lola, and the nurse's remarks to Lola in her last scene has really given Lola pause for thought - Ronnie, whom the nurse thought was Lola's mum,is never going to let Lola out of her sight. She's acquired another blonde Mitchell whom she deems vulnerable and whom she'll try to protect.

Once again, Shirley's shoehorned into this storyline, being first on the scene of the accident with a mobile, phoning the ambulance. And once again, Sharon is sidelined almost out of existence. She's the unseen babysitter, who's charged with caring for Lexi (Phil and DTC have obviously conveniently forgotten that Phil threw Sharon out onto the street for daring to pop pills whilst babysitting the sprog). And she's also babysitting NuAmy, and probably Denny too, as he's her son. So she's little more than the Mitchells' unpaid nanny, but where the hell was she? She lives with Phil in that tardis house? Phil told Lola Sharon was watching Lexi, Roxy found out that Amy was with Sharon too, but where? She wasn't at the house and it was evening. Surely she didn't have them all three safely ensconced in the rabbit-hutch office of The Albert?

Ronnie got her rocks off being mistaken for Lola's mother, and Lola jokingly calling her "mum" has only added fodder to the fire. I think Lola began to realise this and sought to fend it off, when she feigned sleepiness and asked Ronnie to leave, but the penny dropped big time when the nurse made her remark. Lola is pretty astute when it comes to judging people, and she would have noticed Ronnie's behaviour around Roxy.

Another contrivance was Roxy calling Aleks, thus resulting in a chance encounter on the Mitchell sofa and the ubiquitous shirtless scene with Roxy accidentally spilling wine on Aleks's shirt. Really, who, when someone spills something on your shirt, removes it there and then, especially when that person only stopped by to deposit Roxy and to see that she was all right? Aleks lives down the street. A five-minute walk to his house wouldn't have taxed him. Instead, we get the ubiquitous shirtless scene, which seems to have become a stock scene on the show now, but for whom? For the audience of giggly teenaged girls who didn't show up in record numbers for Tyler, Joey or even Dexter stripping down or for DTC, himself? Is Aleks added to his growing list of male crushes?


Notice how Ronnie panics when she loses control of her object of desire - shouting after Roxy that Aleks was "using" her. That should raise alarm bells in Roxy's head, and I hope Aleks tells her what Ronnie's been up to. To Roxy, hearing that would only mean that Ronnie was, once again, trying to interfere. Instead, with Roxy dashing off with Aleks "to finish what she started," means Ronnie now uses - Ronnie uses Charlie Cotton in order to release the enormous amount of sexual energy repressed and pent up because she can't really release it on Roxy.

And notice how Roxy's priorities don't lie with Amy. Amy is God-knows-where with Sharon, but instead of retrieving her child, Roxy rushes off to finish fucking Aleks.

Psychopaths have high libidos and use sex as a means of control. Yes, Ronnie, Charlie - if, indeed that is his name - is Old Bill, and he's been plopped into your storyline for a reason. 


The Wanderer.



The episode's saving graces were Mick, Lee, the brilliant Stan and the long-awaited appearance of Dean with the duff-duff - far, far better for me than the useless Stacey. Here is a character who started his journey on the show a boy without a care in the world, slightly annoying, but who left a broken and bitter character, having served time in prison and even intimated that he was beaten and raped. Now he comes back a man -and Matt di Angelo, written off all those years ago, has matured into a good young actor. I'm looking forward to his tenure this time around, and I hope he drags his scrote of a mother through the mire.

The only worrying aspects of his return for me is the inevitability of the show becoming Shirley-centric, and I think that could lose the show a fair amount of viewers. I mean, where is this fabled bar of Sharon's and her returning to her glory days? Sacrificed at the altar of Saint Shirley. I'm all for exploring the reasons behind Shirley abandoning her children, but not with her part and parcel of the centrepiece of the show. Shirley doesn't deserve the Vic. She's done nothing positive since her arrival, and she's an appallingly divisive character. My second worry is entertwined with the third. 

I've already noticed how significantly sidelined Linda is becoming as a character, above all how she's being presented as a negative parenting force to Mick's positive one. Linda holds her children on idealised pedestals, and when they fall from her self-imposed esteem, she blanks them mercilessly. She's already the object of ridicule by her daughter, and Mick listens more to his feckless alcoholic sister than to his wife. How long before Linda seeks comfort and solace elsewhere and is exiled from the Carter fold by Queen Shirley? And thus will begin the exodus of Carters, because Danny Dyer is only good until a coveted film role comes along. This tenure was done for one purpose only in Dyer's mind - expanding his repertoire. He's playing against type and showing other producers etc that he can play the nice guy. The remark about Downton Abbey wasn't made in jest, and this brings about my second fear - that the Carters (Mick, Linda and the kids) are a smokescreen for a couple of years down the road with Shirley and Dean, another tiger mum and her dysfunctional son tied to the apronstrings of the Vic as landlords.

The third fear is that Stacey will be married to Dean.
Throughout that final conversation between Mick and Shirley, it was so over-laden with foreshadowing - He's your boy ... you miss him ... he's your son - that you knew, you felt that Dean would make an appearance in the final duff-duff. People say EastEnders doesn't do subtlety. Correction: EastEnders 2.0 doesn't do subtlety, but EastEnders of old did it and did it brilliantly - but there's such a thing as not doing subtlety and being as subtle as the proverbial brick, which was that last scene was all about.

Welcome home, Dean. I hope you give your scrotey mother hell! She deserves it.



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