I actually watched this twice, that's how much I was invested in this week. I was hard put to rate it, but I finally decided on a nine out of ten, and I'll tell you why anon ... But suffice it to say that the duff duff was the first of many red herrings this week, and I would imagine that we're looking down the barrel of a gun that's similar to Murder on the Orient Express.
But first, but first ... That Scene. I'm talking about Peggy's visit to the Vic. I thought that was superfluous, contrived and the heart of artificiality. In short, it was staged. Before anyone starts to make a comment, you need only to read what I've said recently about Mick Carter. I like the character and the actor who plays him. I get it that this scene may have been intended to be a symbolic passing of the torch from one long-serving Vic landlady to the current landlord, but it didn't work; and however much various people may get their shits and giggles from this, it simply was unnecessary.
Peggy should simply have entered, introduced herself to Mick and wished him well. Something as minimalist and as subtle as this would have been enormously effective. Instead, the EP decided to play to the penny seats for entertainment value.
To begin with, no one, ever in their right minds would ever speak like this in real life. Why wouldn't Peggy introduce herself? She certainly knew who Mick was, and he didn't deny it. Why the mystery? Even before that, there was the situation where she walked into the Vic, and the place lit up, before Mick emerged from the back. Symbolism: the place lights up when Peggy appears, as if by will. Then there was the immediate criticisms Peggy made - the bar needed a dusting, the ashtrays needed cleaning - all done for an obvious purpose: the opportunity for Danny Dyer to utter Barbara Windsor's singular catchphrase from PeggyDays: Get outa mah pub.
Mick didn't get the last word, however. Peggy uttered the exact same sentence that Elaine Peacock had said when she left the pub at the end of her first visit:-
You wanna watch that pump on the right. It sticks a bit. (The idea being, that after that remark, a musing Mick would realise the identity of his mystery guest.
But from the pub comment onward, you knew this was a contrived piece played to the peanut gallery, because neither Windsor nor Dyer could keep a straight face.
I realise this is the anniversary week and a week of tributes, but this was one tribute, I feel was not needed and was not done very well.
Mr Mystery. Richard Blackwood has arrived, and I'm intrigued. Phil knows who he is, even if Billy doesn't, and Phil describes him as trouble.
He was looking for Ronnie and thought she lived in Phil's house until Billy put him straight. Silly Billy.
He had a big bouquet of white roses and left one by Ronnie's bedside.
White roses ... white as in Carl White?
I know Blackwood is supposed to be a villain, and he said on Graham Norton's programme that he was a wealthy man. I'm reading "drugs baron", and as he says he has connections with various people on the Square, we can count, possibly ... Ronnie (the Carl White connection: Is he part of the Whites' connection or was he Carl's supplier? Or was Ronnie, herself, involved in drug dealing as a front for that ragpit of a boxing club?); Nick (did Dot buy Nick's bad gear from Blackwood?); Peter and Lucy (was he the dealer?). Phil certainly knows him and knows who he is.
I just hope he's not Mr Fox-Hubbard or that he becomes yet another abusive man who gets involved with poor Denise.
The Bride of Frankenstein and the Two Stupids. I'm not a medical professional, but I thought people were brought out of comas and taken off ventilators gradually. Not Ronnie. She sputters, she heaves, and in less time than it takes to say I slept with your husband she's back in the Land of the Living ...
Of course, even though Roxy wept tears of joy when her sisTAH started breathing on her own again, and CharlieBoy wondered if Ronnie would tell him where she hid his balls when she came around - who's watching the baby, by the way? - in Stacey parlance, they were so "up themselves" in assuring each other that Ronnie should never ever ever ever ever ever know what happened between them, that they didn't notive the Bride of Frankenstein's eyes flicker and briefly open.
Of course, she heard. The monster's alive again, and were I Roxy, I'd be very afraid, because she's about to be terrorised beyond her wildest nightmare. And were I Charlie, I'd simply forget about the balls you lost, because you're about to be stripped of the rest of your jewels.
Strangers in the Night. Martin and Stacey. Did you catch the frisson? Martin is interested, and were it not for a drunken, obnoxious Kat, Stacey would have been also. At first, I was baffled at Stacey not recognising Martin, but then I remembered that their paths only crossed for about a year before Martin left the programme.
Martin brought a tip to the past tonight when he presented Ian with Pauline's old fruit bowl, and he got a dig at Sonia as well, when he reminded the assembled gaggle that Sonia had smashed it - symbolically shaming her for smashing their marriage. Nice of Sonia to remember their daughter, thinking to score points in her own favour at Martin's not bringing her, only to be reminded by Martin that Rebecca had a science project.
One niggle: When Cindy asked the significance of the fruit bowl, Ian informed her that ~ this was your Auntie Pauline.~
Wrong, Ian. Pauline was nothing to Cindy Williams Jnr - no kin, no blood relationship, not even a relationship by marriage. Cindy is the by-blow of one of Ian's ex-wives. Why she's even in the Beale household is beyond me, and her behaviour and rudeness about not wanting to get a hair-styling at what isn't a blue rinse salon deserved some sort of upbraiding. She's allowed to say what she wants in a household and family dynamic where she isn't even a viable member. What she said wasn't cute or precocious, it was bloody rude. I have seen the future of Tiffany Butcher, and it is Cindy. Yuck.
I have also seen another future ... Martin and Stacey. Watch this space.
Dot's Dilemma. The scene with Nick's corpse bothered me - not in a critical way - but in Dot's behaviour. How long after the night Nick died was this supposed to be? Was the pre-wedding dinner held the day before the wedding? I'm not sure now, because Dot's last words to Nick were that she'd see him in the morning, and here it was the night of Ian's wedding - and Ian obviously expected Dot to appear, even though she made no mention of getting ready nor of wanting to attend - and Dot, in a very simple-minded way, seemed shocked and perplexed that Nick was still "there."
Nick, according to Dot, should be being rocked in the arms of Jesus, as if his bodily corpse would have been elevated, intact, up to heaven. Had Dot understood her Bible better, she'd have understood that it's Nick's soul that would have been transported to heaven and not his earthly remains. Still, the scene between Peggy and Dot was damned site better than her contrived scene with Danny Dyer.
It was typical, loveable Peggy - in like a lion to hand Dot her arse, then finding Dot in a curiously emotional state. Peggy, rightly, blames Dot's emotional state and everything that had happened to Phil, on Nick; and what Dot tells Peggy, in euphemistic language is true - that she's lost Nick, that she's lost him to drugs and he isn't coming back. We also know that Dot blames herself, not just for giving bad heroin to Nick, but to giving him life and inflicting him on the world.
Peggy, in true Peggy form, shows her compassion and suggests she comes to Portugal to stay with her and Grant (and Courtney and Sam and Richard). Phil was right - the Square misses Peggy, and I'm glad that Peggy misses the Square.
Dirty Little Secrets and Dirty Little Lies
Looks like a lot of people think certain other people killed Lucy.
1. Lauren. Lauren has made the discovery,and delivered the fateful card, addressed to Jane. Interesting that in the last episode before this one, we were witness to Lauren writing I know what happened to Lucy inside the wedding card, addressed, not to Ian and Jane, but to Jane only. Now, in the first big twist of the night, we were witness to the completion of Lauren's message ... and she was killed at home.
(Poor Jane, all dolled up in her wedding outfit and messing her knickers when she read that.) Jane certainly spooked Lauren, who was spooked enough tonight to make a getaway all together in a minicab, with her bags packed. She certainly wanted to put as much distance between herself and the Beales as possible.
But whom does she suspect? Jane? Peter? If she suspects Jane, why not clue Peter in and tell him why? If she even suspects Ian, why not do the same? From where I was sitting, it seems as if she suspected Peter. All she wanted to do was get away from the Beale dynamic altogether, and she certainly didn't want any association with Peter, which tells me that she, herself, thinks Peter did it.
But then, Peter doesn't seem worried that Lauren may have clued into his own little secret - and I don't see how Peter could not have known he killed Lucy, or maybe he didn't - and more of that theory at the end; he's just worried about Lauren dumping him.
But Lauren isn't in this alone. Stacey witnessed her dumping of Peter, and Stacey takes it upon herself to warn Max to talk to Lauren. Max thinks this concern is about Lauren and Peter breaking up, but (again, another nice tip to the past) Stacey reminds Max that this time of year is hard enough for her to bear as it is (oblique Bradley reference), but Lauren thinks she knows who killed Lucy.
And now it's Max's turn to shit himself.
2. Max and Abi. Yes, Abi's been a bitch for the better part of the year, and she was almost gleeful that Lauren had broken up with Peter, but the reason for Max's frantic concern was revealed at the end of the episode - he fears Lauren has discovered that Abi killed Lauren.
Now I know a lot of people have thought that all year long, but Abi didn't kill Lauren. Max, however, thinks she did, and this is where the Murder on the Orient Express theory comes in. What if Abi did meet with Lucy that evening? What if they fought and Abi hit Lucy and Max witnessed it? Later, they hear that Lucy had died, found dead on Walford Common? We know that Abi had reason to provoke a confrontation with Lucy - she'd witnessed Lucy and Max kissing, after all - but I'm wondering if Lucy didn't have a series of confrontations over the course of the evening, getting smacked about and handed her arse until, cowed and defeated, she returned home to meet the person who actually did deal the fatal blow? A variation on Agatha Christie's most famous mystery, n'est-ce pas?
Anyway, Max believes that Abi killed Lucy. Lauren thinks Peter killed Lucy.
And the Beales?
3. The Awful Beales. Throughout all of those scenes at the Beale home tonight, there was Cindy in the background, tinkering about with Lucy's old jewelry box - you know, the one, according to the cryptic clue at the NTA awards, whose melody was the last thing Lucy heard? It was a mysterious gift to Beth at Christmas, yet during this entire sequence tonight your eye was drawn to that battered jewelry case and its melody tinkling along. Was that a clue? Cindy and the jewelry box meaning that Cindy was the killer? Please, no, I couldn't stand the underwhelming.
But there they all were, happy and laughing, until Jane returned to find that message from Lauren in her wedding card.
Jane even made her peace tonight with Denise, and she seemed genuinely sincere, as opposed to high-handed, snooty and condescending previously. Was Jane realising something she had discovered ages ago, something that Denise had discovered - just how hard-going living with Ian Beale really was?
As for Ian, even he was overwhelmed with emotion in the Vic, watching Mick joke and banter and be affectionate with Nancy, his daughter, a girl about the same age as Lucy. Ian had to leave the Vic then, and when Sharon found him, he wailed that Lucy's death was his fault. Was that a rhetorically dramatic confession, or was he telling the truth to his oldest friend?
Whatever it was, it prompted another tribute to the past in a poignant scene between Sharon and Phil, remembering the way they were some thirty years ago - Ian's crush on Sharon, mentioning Roly, The Banned and both with ambitions to leave Walford. The poignancy of the moment came when Ian mused that there was no one left who could be proud of him - an oblique reference to his parents and his grandmother, but Sharon was there to gently remind him that there were people who were proud of him, and she was one of them.
So whatever Jane was thinking, Ian was certainly blaming himself.
And there was Phil careening around Walford like a bull in a china shop.
4. Phil. I admit I was flummoxed by Phil in this episode. He returns with Peggy, who has a score to settle with Dot and has a gander at the Vic. She's leaving now, with nary a scene with Sharon? Come on. Yes, I know Phil made the remark about it being a good thing Sharon wasn't at home, or else he'd have to prise her and Peggy apart.
The feud ended when Dennis died! (Where was Denny? I can only imagine Aleks is babysitting him, along with Ineta and Amy the Brat).
Anyway, Phil was looking for something - something that led Billy to Ben's and Jay's room, all the while muttering about having to talk to Ian.
I was even more puzzled when he emerged from the house to a waiting Peggy and a passport in his hand. At first, the way Peggy was talking - wondering if Phil had thought of what Sharon would make of all this, because this didn't just affect him - that Phil as looking for his own passport and was thinking of doing a runner to Portugal with Peggy, but I was baffled about Peggy's remark about leaving what was in the past in the past.
Then, thinking about it, Phil's scene with Ian in the kitchen of the restaurant made it dawn on me.
Phil thinks Ben killed Lucy and was arranging for him to be spirited out of the country with Peggy.
And maybe Ben did whack Lucy that night. Maybe he mugged her for her purse and her phone.
So Lauren thinks Peter's done it, Max thinks Abi's done it, Phil thinks Ben's done it, Ian blames himself metaphorically, and Jane's shitting herself.
Oh, and Christian came back.
At the moment, I'm still sticking with Peter, but maybe Ronnie, Charlie and Dr Death AKA Richard Blackwood really were responsible. Who knows?
But it's a cracking yarn!
But first, but first ... That Scene. I'm talking about Peggy's visit to the Vic. I thought that was superfluous, contrived and the heart of artificiality. In short, it was staged. Before anyone starts to make a comment, you need only to read what I've said recently about Mick Carter. I like the character and the actor who plays him. I get it that this scene may have been intended to be a symbolic passing of the torch from one long-serving Vic landlady to the current landlord, but it didn't work; and however much various people may get their shits and giggles from this, it simply was unnecessary.
Peggy should simply have entered, introduced herself to Mick and wished him well. Something as minimalist and as subtle as this would have been enormously effective. Instead, the EP decided to play to the penny seats for entertainment value.
To begin with, no one, ever in their right minds would ever speak like this in real life. Why wouldn't Peggy introduce herself? She certainly knew who Mick was, and he didn't deny it. Why the mystery? Even before that, there was the situation where she walked into the Vic, and the place lit up, before Mick emerged from the back. Symbolism: the place lights up when Peggy appears, as if by will. Then there was the immediate criticisms Peggy made - the bar needed a dusting, the ashtrays needed cleaning - all done for an obvious purpose: the opportunity for Danny Dyer to utter Barbara Windsor's singular catchphrase from PeggyDays: Get outa mah pub.
Mick didn't get the last word, however. Peggy uttered the exact same sentence that Elaine Peacock had said when she left the pub at the end of her first visit:-
You wanna watch that pump on the right. It sticks a bit. (The idea being, that after that remark, a musing Mick would realise the identity of his mystery guest.
But from the pub comment onward, you knew this was a contrived piece played to the peanut gallery, because neither Windsor nor Dyer could keep a straight face.
I realise this is the anniversary week and a week of tributes, but this was one tribute, I feel was not needed and was not done very well.
Mr Mystery. Richard Blackwood has arrived, and I'm intrigued. Phil knows who he is, even if Billy doesn't, and Phil describes him as trouble.
He was looking for Ronnie and thought she lived in Phil's house until Billy put him straight. Silly Billy.
He had a big bouquet of white roses and left one by Ronnie's bedside.
White roses ... white as in Carl White?
I know Blackwood is supposed to be a villain, and he said on Graham Norton's programme that he was a wealthy man. I'm reading "drugs baron", and as he says he has connections with various people on the Square, we can count, possibly ... Ronnie (the Carl White connection: Is he part of the Whites' connection or was he Carl's supplier? Or was Ronnie, herself, involved in drug dealing as a front for that ragpit of a boxing club?); Nick (did Dot buy Nick's bad gear from Blackwood?); Peter and Lucy (was he the dealer?). Phil certainly knows him and knows who he is.
I just hope he's not Mr Fox-Hubbard or that he becomes yet another abusive man who gets involved with poor Denise.
The Bride of Frankenstein and the Two Stupids. I'm not a medical professional, but I thought people were brought out of comas and taken off ventilators gradually. Not Ronnie. She sputters, she heaves, and in less time than it takes to say I slept with your husband she's back in the Land of the Living ...
Of course, even though Roxy wept tears of joy when her sisTAH started breathing on her own again, and CharlieBoy wondered if Ronnie would tell him where she hid his balls when she came around - who's watching the baby, by the way? - in Stacey parlance, they were so "up themselves" in assuring each other that Ronnie should never ever ever ever ever ever know what happened between them, that they didn't notive the Bride of Frankenstein's eyes flicker and briefly open.
Of course, she heard. The monster's alive again, and were I Roxy, I'd be very afraid, because she's about to be terrorised beyond her wildest nightmare. And were I Charlie, I'd simply forget about the balls you lost, because you're about to be stripped of the rest of your jewels.
Strangers in the Night. Martin and Stacey. Did you catch the frisson? Martin is interested, and were it not for a drunken, obnoxious Kat, Stacey would have been also. At first, I was baffled at Stacey not recognising Martin, but then I remembered that their paths only crossed for about a year before Martin left the programme.
Martin brought a tip to the past tonight when he presented Ian with Pauline's old fruit bowl, and he got a dig at Sonia as well, when he reminded the assembled gaggle that Sonia had smashed it - symbolically shaming her for smashing their marriage. Nice of Sonia to remember their daughter, thinking to score points in her own favour at Martin's not bringing her, only to be reminded by Martin that Rebecca had a science project.
One niggle: When Cindy asked the significance of the fruit bowl, Ian informed her that ~ this was your Auntie Pauline.~
Wrong, Ian. Pauline was nothing to Cindy Williams Jnr - no kin, no blood relationship, not even a relationship by marriage. Cindy is the by-blow of one of Ian's ex-wives. Why she's even in the Beale household is beyond me, and her behaviour and rudeness about not wanting to get a hair-styling at what isn't a blue rinse salon deserved some sort of upbraiding. She's allowed to say what she wants in a household and family dynamic where she isn't even a viable member. What she said wasn't cute or precocious, it was bloody rude. I have seen the future of Tiffany Butcher, and it is Cindy. Yuck.
I have also seen another future ... Martin and Stacey. Watch this space.
Dot's Dilemma. The scene with Nick's corpse bothered me - not in a critical way - but in Dot's behaviour. How long after the night Nick died was this supposed to be? Was the pre-wedding dinner held the day before the wedding? I'm not sure now, because Dot's last words to Nick were that she'd see him in the morning, and here it was the night of Ian's wedding - and Ian obviously expected Dot to appear, even though she made no mention of getting ready nor of wanting to attend - and Dot, in a very simple-minded way, seemed shocked and perplexed that Nick was still "there."
Nick, according to Dot, should be being rocked in the arms of Jesus, as if his bodily corpse would have been elevated, intact, up to heaven. Had Dot understood her Bible better, she'd have understood that it's Nick's soul that would have been transported to heaven and not his earthly remains. Still, the scene between Peggy and Dot was damned site better than her contrived scene with Danny Dyer.
It was typical, loveable Peggy - in like a lion to hand Dot her arse, then finding Dot in a curiously emotional state. Peggy, rightly, blames Dot's emotional state and everything that had happened to Phil, on Nick; and what Dot tells Peggy, in euphemistic language is true - that she's lost Nick, that she's lost him to drugs and he isn't coming back. We also know that Dot blames herself, not just for giving bad heroin to Nick, but to giving him life and inflicting him on the world.
Peggy, in true Peggy form, shows her compassion and suggests she comes to Portugal to stay with her and Grant (and Courtney and Sam and Richard). Phil was right - the Square misses Peggy, and I'm glad that Peggy misses the Square.
Dirty Little Secrets and Dirty Little Lies
Looks like a lot of people think certain other people killed Lucy.
1. Lauren. Lauren has made the discovery,and delivered the fateful card, addressed to Jane. Interesting that in the last episode before this one, we were witness to Lauren writing I know what happened to Lucy inside the wedding card, addressed, not to Ian and Jane, but to Jane only. Now, in the first big twist of the night, we were witness to the completion of Lauren's message ... and she was killed at home.
(Poor Jane, all dolled up in her wedding outfit and messing her knickers when she read that.) Jane certainly spooked Lauren, who was spooked enough tonight to make a getaway all together in a minicab, with her bags packed. She certainly wanted to put as much distance between herself and the Beales as possible.
But whom does she suspect? Jane? Peter? If she suspects Jane, why not clue Peter in and tell him why? If she even suspects Ian, why not do the same? From where I was sitting, it seems as if she suspected Peter. All she wanted to do was get away from the Beale dynamic altogether, and she certainly didn't want any association with Peter, which tells me that she, herself, thinks Peter did it.
But then, Peter doesn't seem worried that Lauren may have clued into his own little secret - and I don't see how Peter could not have known he killed Lucy, or maybe he didn't - and more of that theory at the end; he's just worried about Lauren dumping him.
But Lauren isn't in this alone. Stacey witnessed her dumping of Peter, and Stacey takes it upon herself to warn Max to talk to Lauren. Max thinks this concern is about Lauren and Peter breaking up, but (again, another nice tip to the past) Stacey reminds Max that this time of year is hard enough for her to bear as it is (oblique Bradley reference), but Lauren thinks she knows who killed Lucy.
And now it's Max's turn to shit himself.
2. Max and Abi. Yes, Abi's been a bitch for the better part of the year, and she was almost gleeful that Lauren had broken up with Peter, but the reason for Max's frantic concern was revealed at the end of the episode - he fears Lauren has discovered that Abi killed Lauren.
Now I know a lot of people have thought that all year long, but Abi didn't kill Lauren. Max, however, thinks she did, and this is where the Murder on the Orient Express theory comes in. What if Abi did meet with Lucy that evening? What if they fought and Abi hit Lucy and Max witnessed it? Later, they hear that Lucy had died, found dead on Walford Common? We know that Abi had reason to provoke a confrontation with Lucy - she'd witnessed Lucy and Max kissing, after all - but I'm wondering if Lucy didn't have a series of confrontations over the course of the evening, getting smacked about and handed her arse until, cowed and defeated, she returned home to meet the person who actually did deal the fatal blow? A variation on Agatha Christie's most famous mystery, n'est-ce pas?
Anyway, Max believes that Abi killed Lucy. Lauren thinks Peter killed Lucy.
And the Beales?
3. The Awful Beales. Throughout all of those scenes at the Beale home tonight, there was Cindy in the background, tinkering about with Lucy's old jewelry box - you know, the one, according to the cryptic clue at the NTA awards, whose melody was the last thing Lucy heard? It was a mysterious gift to Beth at Christmas, yet during this entire sequence tonight your eye was drawn to that battered jewelry case and its melody tinkling along. Was that a clue? Cindy and the jewelry box meaning that Cindy was the killer? Please, no, I couldn't stand the underwhelming.
But there they all were, happy and laughing, until Jane returned to find that message from Lauren in her wedding card.
Jane even made her peace tonight with Denise, and she seemed genuinely sincere, as opposed to high-handed, snooty and condescending previously. Was Jane realising something she had discovered ages ago, something that Denise had discovered - just how hard-going living with Ian Beale really was?
As for Ian, even he was overwhelmed with emotion in the Vic, watching Mick joke and banter and be affectionate with Nancy, his daughter, a girl about the same age as Lucy. Ian had to leave the Vic then, and when Sharon found him, he wailed that Lucy's death was his fault. Was that a rhetorically dramatic confession, or was he telling the truth to his oldest friend?
Whatever it was, it prompted another tribute to the past in a poignant scene between Sharon and Phil, remembering the way they were some thirty years ago - Ian's crush on Sharon, mentioning Roly, The Banned and both with ambitions to leave Walford. The poignancy of the moment came when Ian mused that there was no one left who could be proud of him - an oblique reference to his parents and his grandmother, but Sharon was there to gently remind him that there were people who were proud of him, and she was one of them.
So whatever Jane was thinking, Ian was certainly blaming himself.
And there was Phil careening around Walford like a bull in a china shop.
4. Phil. I admit I was flummoxed by Phil in this episode. He returns with Peggy, who has a score to settle with Dot and has a gander at the Vic. She's leaving now, with nary a scene with Sharon? Come on. Yes, I know Phil made the remark about it being a good thing Sharon wasn't at home, or else he'd have to prise her and Peggy apart.
The feud ended when Dennis died! (Where was Denny? I can only imagine Aleks is babysitting him, along with Ineta and Amy the Brat).
Anyway, Phil was looking for something - something that led Billy to Ben's and Jay's room, all the while muttering about having to talk to Ian.
I was even more puzzled when he emerged from the house to a waiting Peggy and a passport in his hand. At first, the way Peggy was talking - wondering if Phil had thought of what Sharon would make of all this, because this didn't just affect him - that Phil as looking for his own passport and was thinking of doing a runner to Portugal with Peggy, but I was baffled about Peggy's remark about leaving what was in the past in the past.
Then, thinking about it, Phil's scene with Ian in the kitchen of the restaurant made it dawn on me.
Phil thinks Ben killed Lucy and was arranging for him to be spirited out of the country with Peggy.
And maybe Ben did whack Lucy that night. Maybe he mugged her for her purse and her phone.
So Lauren thinks Peter's done it, Max thinks Abi's done it, Phil thinks Ben's done it, Ian blames himself metaphorically, and Jane's shitting herself.
Oh, and Christian came back.
At the moment, I'm still sticking with Peter, but maybe Ronnie, Charlie and Dr Death AKA Richard Blackwood really were responsible. Who knows?
But it's a cracking yarn!
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