Sunday, November 16, 2014

There's a Killer Amongst Them - Review: - 10.11.2014

Daran Little is about the best writer the show has, but why do they waste him writing 30 minutes of nothing, except a duff-duff everyone's guessed? This was a bland-to-middling episode. Almost Newmanesque in nothing happening at all.

Apart from Pam's disclosure, which most people have guessed is that the person she's killed is her son, and for probably the same reason Dot helped Ethel along, it set about the beginning of what's bound to be a plethora of mini-storylines, which will distinctly be C-list to the Lucy reveal, except for the Carters.

Observations? Well, there's a killer amongst them, and it's Pam.

The Croakers. I like this couple. Yes, Les is hammy, but no more hammier than June Brown when she's in head-bobbing mode. It's good to see new characters, who've fitted in seamlessly, finally moving to the front in a storyline, however mini, of their own.

Of course, the Cokers have a secret, a massive one. There isn't anyone who arrives on the Square who doesn't have a secret, and their secret fits in nicely with Les's career of death, but tragically. We've been fed their backstory in dribs and drabs since they arrived - that they have a grandson, Paul, who's doing a gap year and who'll probably show up sometime next year on the Square. We know that their only child, Lawrie, died. Within the past week, we know that death occurred sometime around this time of year - today was the anniversary of the death. And now the duff-duff left us with something we've already sussed: Pam killed her son. My guess is that she euthanised him, that he was probably terminally ill.

Pam is such a likeable, sympathetic character, it's difficult to fathom Dot's continuing assessment of Pam as a gossip, when Dot's one, herself.

It's good to see them involved with Billy and his little family, as well, although knowing Billy's record, I'm wondering how long it will before Billy's pilfering off Les and Pam.

I'm wondering why Dummerhayes is insistent upon seeing Pam, although I can understand Pam's fear of police involvement, considering her secret. Neither Max nor Dummerhayes did themselves any favours, least of all Max, doing his bully impression.

Vanishing Cotton. Even the most interesting storyline by far - the Resurrection of Nick Cotton - is in filler mode, with Fatboy's suspicions aroused when he tries to visit "Mrs B," whom he misses. Fatboy always amazes me, the way he prefers the company of elderly people (Dot/Patrick) to the company of people his own age. But when Fatboy goes in search of Dot, she's nowhere to be found.

He seeks her here, he seeks here there ...

This is now becoming a black comic red herring, with the inept Cotton extensions forcing a barrier between Dot and the rest of the community for obvious reasons. Dot's holed up in her house with Nick, until such a time as the money is raised to afford Nick a getaway.

If this is made to look as if Dot's being held against her will, and if Charlie were meant to be intimidating to Fatboy when he asked for his keys, after offering a facile lie about why Dot's latch was on the door, he wasn't. Somehow going from doing service washes to minding the car lot doesn't square up with sinister. Nor does Nick peering around the corner of one of Dot's rooms.

I suppose Dot's vanishing act is going to become a mystery in itself, when she's staked out in her own home, enjoying the company of her son (irony intended). Of course, it's a given that Carol will get stuck in as well, discovering Nick has returned, when she knew all along that Nick was alive (and chose not to tell Dot). The cack will hit the fan, and I'm still convinced that this is linked somehow to Lucy's death, and I don't mean that means Nick killed her (although it will be a massive cop-out if it is).

Drone-yah. More drudgery and misery from the woman who's nursing's answer to Ava. Not only does she never appear to go to work, she never appears to go home. She's around Carol's (with Carol nowhere to be seen) whilst Fatboy is finishing his breakfast, and yet she moans about Martin's attitude to her. 

This is obviously a storyline dealing with body image, and featuring Sonia, for whom we're supposed to feel sorry. I feel nothing for Sonia. She lost me when she popped up, trash-mouthing Martin, and I can't wait until he appears and we hear his side of the story. If there were any sympathy left in me for her, it vanished when she treated her daughter abysmally, passive-aggressively bullying her and manipulating her away from her ambition to serve her own agenda.

The Branning Soupcon. More circular activity between Max and Dummerhayes. Since Jake Wood has let slip that he's going to be involved in the live broadcast for the 30th anniversary, I'm guessing that this has everything to do with Dummerhayes, who's worried about being suspended from her job, which Max assures her she's awfully good at (not). I'm guessing that Dummerhayes stumbles upon (literally) the real murderer of Lucy, and that she and Max are involved in the reveal in this nature. 

Otherwise, nothing happening here. Move on.

Moonlighting. Kat's home, she's fragile about being seen, but she has her children to care for and seems to be deriving pleasure from that, with Mo and Alfie looking after the stall. Happy? No. She needs Stacey. She wants Stacey. She keeps calling Stacey, who doesn't reply.

I like Stacey this time around, but I find it hard to believe that, after everything in which she's been involved, she can't trust herself to look at Kat without blurting what Alfie did. She cites everything Kat's done for her? Kat opened the can of worms which forced her to acknowledge a crime she committed. That's good, but had Kat not spotted Stacey, who returned to live around the corner from where the crime was committed, Stacey would quite happily have gone on living with Luke and probably would have been happy. Yes, Kat is family, but Stacey's priority is Lily, and she's found accommodation for the two of them.

What Alfie's done is between him and Kat, and it's for him to tell her or decide when to tell her. In actual fact, the Moon storyline is just about one of the weakest going at this time, and I don't think DTC would dare split up the Moons or axe either one of them, most notably Shane Richie as some haters are hoping. Actors willing to stay with the show long-term are a rarity, and Alfie and Kat, one time and maybe again, were an iconic couple. The problem is that writers haven't grasped the Alfie Moon of 2003, in much the same way until recently, they hadn't grasped Sharon's character. And why should they have understood Alfie, when Alfie 2003 is still propping up the bar of the pub as landlord.

Bring in Tony Jordan, please, for Alfie and for a gaggle of other male characters.

There Can Never Be Enough Carters (So Stan Says). Oh, please. Hints being dropped right, left and centre amongst the Current Importan Family about various storylines designed to feather them and only them during the Christmas and New Year's episodes.

It's a veritable mess of secrets and lies.

There's Linda, secretly pregnant, and Mick, who - months ago - pointedly told a broody Linda that he didn't want another child. Now he wants a baby, and she's pregnant with a baby of whose paternity she's dubious. Mick, apologising to Linda, points out how long it's been since they've had sex - and even though Mick whines that their marriage isn't about sex ... well, it is, because within minutes of him saying this, they've stripped off and gone to bed. To have sex. And, funny that, because I remember Linda and Mick going at it like rabbits only a couple of weeks before Sharon's wedding.

So the baby's paternity is dubious, right?

Obviously, the sex now would cover for Linda in the event that she does decide to keep the baby. (Don't worry, she will). But her reaction when Mick wanted a boy who's "a chip off the old block" was classic.

Then there was Stan, and Mick confiding in him about the problems he and Linda had been having. Another "funny that" on my part, because earlier in the year, when Stan told Mick about him saving his life when "someone" was drowning him in the bath, and when Mick asked who was drowning him, Stan looked pointedly at Shirley and said, It was your mother (pause)... It was Sylvie..

I understood that to mean that Stan knew that Shirley was Mick's mother, but now we find out that Stan hasn't got a clue about Sylvie not being Mick's mother. After waxing lyrical about the beauty of a pregnant woman, he goes into a harangue about how Sylvie left him and returned having "given birth" to Mick in a caravan with Babe down in Ramsgate. (Wanna bet Shirley's there now?) In the Carter scenes alone, there are two hints to two very big reveals bound to come out of the woodwork at Christmas - well, as far as Linda is concerned, it will be the rape. We won't know who this baby's father is until the child is born.

Very average episode. 

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