This had to be the "vogue" episode. So much posing, preening, gurning and tossing of hair by the two resident ingenues who are all too keen to cosy up to the camera.
A Family Full of Clichés. The Beales are one truly awful family, watchable because you love to hate them. Seriously, from the portly weasel with an Oedipus complex to The Stepford Frump to Peter the Petulant Posh to Leave It to Beaver Bobby right down to the snotty, little pouter who can't resist tossing her hair for the camera, the only likeable being in that house is baby Beth, and that's debatable because she bears the dreaded Cindy gene.
Cindy is one of the most annoying characters ever to appear on the programme, and one of the most pointless. I've no aversion to her existence as she's Cindy Beale's daughter; I just feel that there is no place for yet another adolescent girl with a terminal case of headuparseitis and one who is all too aware of the camera's presence. Moreover, I hate the way she lolls about the Beale home, forever lying on her arse on the Beale sofa with her pouting, sullen face stuck to the screen on her phone. I hate the way she orders the Beales about as if they were servants catering to her needs. She's off to the shops, so she plops the baby monitor down on the sideboard, ordering Ian and Jane to look after Beth. Most of all, I hate the way she speaks to Ian. When he had a question to ask her, she barks back a WHAT.
Someone needs to hand this little chit her almighty self-loving arse, and I deplore the fact that she's made an even more lumbering lug of Liam, but I'm glad that the intelligent Rebecca, worth fifteen of that spoiled, entitled little beeyatch, has seen through her. She knows that Cindy treats Ian like a piece of shit, much as she treats everyone else. It would be nice if someone summoned up enough courage to dropkick her back to Devon. This is one of the few moments I'd love to see Kathy on the Square. Knowing her opinion of Cindy and the fact that Cindy Jnr is cut from a more rotten piece of wood, I'd take great pleasure in watching Kathy smack her arse around the Square to the point where she runs babbling to Walford East, never to be seen again.
And, please ... let's stop with the "I-don't-want-to-go-to-school" refrain as a staple of kids, especially the latest stage school munchkin to play Bobby ...
Sorry, kid. You wanted to come back to live with your dear, old dad. You're eleven. That means you gotta go to school, so shut up, grow a pair and go to school; and once again, The Stepford Frump allows a child to control her behaviour. Leave-It-to-Beaver-Bobby asks Jane not to tell Ian that he doesn't have a temperature, so she obliges. Bad move, Jane. Keeping secrets from Ian, yet again? But then, mother knows best, and I'm surprised The Stepford Frump hasn't published a Guide to Successful Parenting.
Bring back Alex Francis.
On the Beast That's Steven. Warning ... this is a Retcon Alert.
I know some won't like it, but it is the most obvious retcon of recent times.
Steven Beale. Remember him?
Last seen departing Walford at St Pancras train station with a flea firmly planted in his ear, telling him he simply wasn't welcome at chez Beale anymore. He shot The Stepford Frump, rendering her infertile, he stalked Lucy and had her believing her mother was still alive. He stalked Ian with gory packages arriving, sneakily breaking into his home and kidnapping him. He tried to kill Pat, his own grandmother. He was tricked out of the closet by Christian, and by the time he was kicked out of the Beale dynamic, neither of the twins wanted anything to do with him.
Here's a much skinnier Ian finally twigging what a nasty little piece of work Steven really was back in 2008 ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1yq8KvGK84
Time might heal all wounds, but there is no way in hell Ian would ever forgive Steven some of the shit he's dished him, above all, some of the mess in which he involved Lucy. I believe Ian's last words to Steven were "Don't come near my family again" or something to that affect.
With all that in mind, I was mildly amazed that Peter would even want to go to New Zealand, specifically, to visit Steven, and that Ian would even approve, although I realise Peter is an adult and can do as he pleases.
What I do not buy is that bullshit retcon soliloquy Steven gave Max tonight about visiting Steven and how they sat for a long time and talked of nothing but Lucy, with poor pitiful Steven being so far away. I wonder ... did Steven reminisce about the time he e-mailed Lucy under the guise of Cindy to the point that Lucy, at fourteen, was actually insisting that Cindy was alive and even Peter was almost believing it? Did they discuss Jane and the injury he inflicted on her or Christmas 2007 when Jane dictated that he only be allowed to stay for an hour? Did he confide to Peter that he tore Jane's image from the Beale family picture, which would look so very different today? Did he talk about how he helped Lucy run away, how he kidnapped Ian and held him captive for weeks on a diet of cream crackers? Did he talk about shooting Jane and how Lucy lied for him and helped Ian get rid of the gun?
And what I most definitely do not buy is that pithy little message from Steven to Ian via Peter ...
Steven sends his love. He misses you.
Before anyone waxes lyrical about mending fences and such, Steven Beale is a certified nutter who endangered the lives of Ian's family. He's on par with Ben as a manipulator. Even at fourteen, Peter knew exactly what Steven was all about by the time he was told to sling his hook. Peter was a pretty prescient kid at the time and infinitely more mature than Lucy. He would have realised exactly how hurt Ian was by Steven, and that conciliatory message would have meant jack shit to Peter, who would have known better than to have relayed this to Ian.
Since she's also his relative, maybe it's time the odious Cindy went to visit the brother she's never met. They deserve each other.
Yet another backstory sanitised and re-written to serve a plotline - and to give Peter the Posh Petulant Prick a place to go when he leaves Walford in the near future.
I wonder ... has Ian forgotten that he also has an uncle and a cousin about his own age in New Zealand?
Peter the Posh Petulant Prick. What a flaming incognito! That was almost as hilarious as Stacey's red coat and Hamas scarf. I would have loved to have seen someone pass him on the street - Lee Carter, maybe - and just mumble ...
'Ello, Pe'urgh. Been away?
... and then just keep walking. Instead, we get this Man from U.N.C.L.E. ducking and diving all to liaise with putrid Cindy to buy an engagement ring for Lauren.
I'll actually be glad to see Ben Hardy go. It dawned on me tonight that he knows he's going and now he's phoning in the lines. It didn't help, having to utter dialogue written by Jesse O'Mahoney, arguably one of the two worst writers on the programme. That soliloquy for Max's benefit was pretty drippy and dire. Max was right to interject that Lucy came onto him. He should have told Peter that she slept with him for money - the tidy sum of £1000 to be exact, enough to start her short-lived and unbelievable business venture.
Peter was accusing Max of being a sleaze when Peter's father slept with one young woman whom he'd watch grow up from a small child and was prepared to do the same with another. Peter's father is a kerb-crawler, and Peter thought nothing of treating a loyal and loving young girl whom he pursued like a piece of shit to chase after Lauren - the demure young damsel whom Peter thinks Max wants to save herself for a doctor type. Believe me, the only need Lauren would have for a doctor is for pills for the clap. Pure as muddy water, she, and if Max is a sleaze, what do you call a girl who wrecked a marriage involving a small child before she was twenty.
Lauren bagging a doctor or a solicitor? Lauren can't even do a day's work, bar the odd shift at Ian's restaurant, which got a mention tonight, and that for minimum wage.
It doesn't surprise me that Peter bought drugs for Lucy, which doesn't mean that he's her dealer, just that he bought them for her, and this is interesting. One of the hallowed and oft-mentioned quotes from DTC reference the fact that someone may not even be aware that he or she has killed Lucy. In that respect, maybe Peter bought the drugs for her, never imagining that they might be behind the reason she was killed. Silly boy. Silly, unlikeable boy.
Mad Max and the Vixens from Hell. Things have to be pretty dire when Dummerhayes is the most sympathetic member of a trio consisting of her, Lauren and Abi. Abi is another one who could benefit from being bounced around the Square. At least Lauren has accepted her father's relationship with Dummerhayes, probably because when she asked Dummerhayes to go shopping (on the market), Dummerhayes probably offered to stump for her dress, but there really is no excuse for Abi's rudeness.
The driving lessons she's demanding is yet another piece of poor continuity. Abi was prepared to get into Max's motor - yes, a Merc can cost $30K, but Max's car is ten years old - and drive all the way to Bolton. Instead, she hit and killed her poor dog, which is a traffic crime, to say the least. It was understood that she had a driving licence, hence the remark "I'll go by myself". Who are these people, and didn't DTC also say that parents were going to cease to be seen through the eyes of their children? The Branning girls have always been spoiled, thanks to Tanya's undermining of Max's attempts to discipline. Abi may be eighteen, but there was no call for her to speak to Dummerhayes like that, nor was there any need for Dummerhayes to attempt to buy her loyalty by using Max's car to give her a driving lesson, resulting in Abi causing her damage.
The thing with Ben is all going to end in tears. Abi isn't his girlfriend. She's the means by which he hopes to be accepted by Phil. Did I hear him say he was going to get her a car?
The only other thing worth noticing about Abi is how her eyebrows are virulently at odds with her hair colouring. Ben remarked upon how "cute" she was when she frowned. That's a matter of opinion, but he couldn't help but notice those eyebrows.
As for Lauren, nothing's changed there. The screechy funny voice, the flailing windmill arms and the gurns have returned. She's the only damsel I've seen on a soap who gurned for the camera when she got an engagement ring. Not even Fiz from Corrie or Laurel on Emmerdale did that.
Lauren is a recovering alcoholic, an addictive personality, and she wants to marry someone who bought coke for his sister's habit?
The Sweethearts of Men Who Lie.
Wow, Roxy takes a break from men to walk her daughter to school and observe that this will be the first Christmas in years (possibly decades) that both Blisters have men in their lives - a bog cleaner and an adulterer. That means lots of presents for them.
So now Charlie knows Aleks's lie - that he's married, that he hasn't even broached the subject of divorce with Marta. Aleks, playing both sides of the fence isn't attractive, and in the past two episodes, I've noticed make-up giving him a slightly more oleagenous appearance. He drips smarm and charm. To Marta, Roxy is some drunken woman; to Charlie, his explanation is that Marta is like his sister, yet the mother of his child, whilst Roxy is wild, passionate sex.
Where I come from, Aleks would be a good, old boy, and they aren't cute. Their motto is to find a nice girl to marry and a bad girl to have fun with, and from Aleks's last scene, it's patently obvious that Roxy is the latter. He can never divorce Marta. He'd love it if she weren't there, because he can then compartmentalise his life - living the high life with Roxy and seeking out Marta and their daughter for quiet times.
It's not nice, but he did tell Roxy that he would never divorce the mother of his child. Still ... Champagne Charlie has no right to dictate that Aleks get a divorce. Charlie has big enough fish to fry in a vat of lies - faking the death of his father and keeping that a secret, hustling Phil for ten grand, lying to Dot -the absolute worst kind of lie, and Ronnie is now part and parcel of that, if not more.
Who the feck is he to come the moral high ground with Aleks? By the way, I like Marta, but I hate the way she and Aleks natter on in Latvian, especially the way she says something in Latvian and he answers in English in a way that tells the viewer what's being said. Unnatural and annoying. As for his teaching her to speak English, she speaks better English than some of the local yokels.
Liar Liar Pants on Fire. So Sonia's been gone for a weekend, Rebecca's around at Carol's and Sonia still hasn't returned to Martin. She still hasn't returned the charity money to the bank either. Carol sussed her game, and the shelved BRCA storyline has now become one of body dysmorphia which will undoubtedly lead to vile Sonia shacking up with even viler Tina. Martin's about next week, but I don't anticipate him making a permanent return until Peter the Posh Petulant Prick gets exiled from Walford.
What were the points of Tamwar and Fatboy and the twirling belt buckle?
Meh episode.
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