REMEMBER YOURE A MITCHELL

Confession time: I had something vaguely resembling a social life last week, so I only caught about half an hour of actual Easties action, so here it is, folks.

There's more coming and going at the Vic than at our local crackwhorehouse. First Denman leaves, then he comes back. Then Ladyden dithers about leaving while Lee runs around a lot. Tony Bennett looks eeevil and there's a gun involved with some Mitchells. And Davetta's there too. Tony waves the gun and I'm hoping for some Tarantino-style repartee mixed with a dead Mitchell or two, but it all fizzles out and Tony gives Grunt and Fill the tape of LadyDen's confession. Maybe Grunt plays it on the pub video projection screen or something because the next thing we know, everyone's looking for Ladyden. DI Cheferton and Angie alert the ports and airports but Ladyden is really hiding under Ethel 2.0's antimacassars at Casa Moon. Fool tells Grunt and Fill that he doesn't have a cousin and Ethel does her sweet unhittable old lady act. It works (hurrah for Ethel), and the boys run around lookinq hard some more. Denman and Grunt act like they don't know whether to punch or kiss the other, but while they're squaring up at Loser's bench, the Bealemeister is planning to buy the Vic for two pints of lager and a packet of crisps. Ladyden and Lee walk slowly through the market, muttering "act natural " and smiling vaguely at suspicious locals. Ian has shut up the caff for the day 'cos he calls the shots, and smuggles Ladyden in under a pile of tablecloths or something. Ladyden grudgingly accepts the offer but-tells Ian that it's got to be Kettle chips or the deal's off. The Taxi of Doom arrives for Ladyden and Lee, and she cunningly books two Eurostar tickets and a flight off to foreign parts because DI Cheferton and Bowie couldn't possibly think of checking both Waterloo and Stanstead, could they? There’s all kinds of ‘tension’ building shenanigans. Does Kat delay them and alert assorted questing Mitchells? Will she take the train or the plane? Well, anyway, we next see LadyDen at Stanstead airport (that’s one hell of a cab fare), about to join the Ryanair check-in queue for some cheap Euro destination with no extradition treaty. Lee spots a copper, but the copper wanders past Ladyden, humming quietly to himself and Lee sighs the sigh of the DOOMED. Up pops DI Cheferton and… Shazza?! What did they bring her along for? It’s not like there’s a million poodle-headed murderesses flying off every day from Stanstead that they need Shazz to come along and point her out. LadyDen’s collar is well and truly felt. Shazza crows some more. Ladyden tells her ODen was a bastard (again) or something like that. Shazza punches Ladyden. The Ryanair stewards laugh heartily.

Meanwhile, Fool books two tickets for Normandy so that Ethel can visit William’s war grave. Friday is given over to a remembrance day episode, most of which I miss but I can say it featured a whole decade’s worth of Fool crying calendar faces, and he got a lecture on being nice to little old ladies from Trevor Peacock. There were also ‘flashback’ bits that you knew were flashbacks because they were shot in pastelly sepia colours, and the men wore braces and string vests. The women seemed to keep their foundation garments on at all time, and were prone to saying: “Lor luvaduck me old china”, and breaking into cheery song over a powdered egg sandwich or two down in the bomb shelter. Ethel tells Fool what she wants for her funeral. Fool cries some more. Then they go and look at William’s grave. Ethel is worried that William won’t recognise her on the other side. Well, since she seemed to be a foot taller and have a completely different-shaped face in 1944, I can understand her fears.

Back to the pub tedium. Ladyden tries to tell Shazza that she did it all for Shazz. Shazz nearly punches her again, but then Ladyden admits that she forged ODen’s signature for the pub, so it’s hers anyway. In the real world this would amount to a Bleak House style lawsuit dragging on for aeons, but in EE World it means that the pub is really Shazza’s, not the Bealemeister’s, and Ladyden gets to keep the crisps. Shazza offers it to the Mitchells, who have a word with their Magic Money Pixie that magics their entire Mitchell fortune out of thin air, and SHAZAM, the pub is theirs. Ian: sad. Fill: glad. PantoJane: "this is another fine mess...etc"

Home comes Sham to a slightly indifferent welcome – lots of crying and duck faces. Grunt sees his work here is done, and disappears off to Brazil just before the cold snap makes him really homesick.