SYSTEM OF A DOWNS

I don't know, you wait ages for an update and then two come along at the same time etc etc

GA Dawn gets a lunch date with Mr Smarmy Metrosexual and worries about what to wear – I’d be worried too if the costume dept hated me as much as they seem to hate GADawn - the final outfit turns out to include a bizarre and hideous silver bolero jacket with little puffy sleeves. WTF?? At the date, it is all going well until GADawn asks Smarmy about his ex wife or whatever and he goes all “la la la, is that the time? Look over there!!” and then runs out of the room when her head is turned. GADawn is suspicious! Perhaps he has his missus locked up in the attic a la Jane Eyre!

JoJo is still depressed after babygate and is moping around and snapping at people. Oh where is yr moxie JoJo, pls to get back to yr old self soon! Bradley says he has something v important to ask her and I get pre-emptively angry about a teen wedding plot, but it turns out that he wants to ask her to live with him in a swanky flat belonging to a work colleague who is going to live in HK for a while. JoJo accepts while everyone else mutters that she is no better than she ought to be (or something) but then when they go to meet the prospective landlord, he says no as Jojo is too rough and common for his beautiful loft style apartemente. Not shown – JoJo slashing landlord’s face with sharpened Claire’s Accessories nail file.

Trinidad has an old friend come to visit, who turns out to be that bloke out of Desmonds. He thinks they are going to P.A.R.T.Y. but it turns that out old friend has cancer and hasn’t long to live. Trinidad has an existential crisis and sits on the sofa saying “what’s the point?” but then Yolande cheers him up by playing a record or something. Whatever.

BroJo continues to flirt with Davetta while JoJo makes disapproving faces. I miss bits of the week but at one point Davetta reads him some Keats poetry and BroJo says it is rubbish as Keats obviously never manned a checkpoint in Basra or saw attack ships burning off the shoulder of Orion. Davetta giggles girlishly as philistinism = HOTT!!

Billy goes to the orspital and asks if Phoney has been to see the baby recently. Phoney is all “What baby? Oh right, that one… no, not yet, I‘ve been too busy staring vacantly into space” Billy is sad. A nice male nurse says comforting things. Phoney phreaks out when he calls the baby “Janet” and starts going on about they aren’t going to name her defective child after her sainted mother blah blah blah. Nice Male Nurse suggests they call it “Petal” as that is what people have been calling the kid. I’m sorry but Petal is only a suitable name to give your prize heifer or something. They get to take the baby home – Phoney is pleased to be coming home but then freaks out (again) when she sees that their room has been all babified and again when she worries that people have found out her secret baby shame etc etc.

Babs has been planning a baby party but Fill doesn’t think it is such a good idea and eventually Pat has to tell her that “Petal” has teh DS. Babs is all “oh noo!”, has the party instantly cancelled and has sack cloth and ashes hung around the Vic instead. Good old bigot Babs!! Of course, no one bothers to tell Phoney and Billy that the party is cancelled so they show up to be confronted by bells tolling and moaning and wailing etc. They turn around and run away again and Pat and David Wessex tell Babs off for being insensitive. David Wessex cheers up Phoney a bit and they open the presents – Phoney starts moaning that all the toys are a waste of time as “Petal” won’t be able to play with them and Nice Male Nurse pops up out of nowhere to give a PSA about how actually DS babies love to play. Phoney says unconvincingly that one day she will feel motherly feelings towards little Petal and stares blankly into space (has there been a scene where Phoney hugs someone and gazes coldly over their shoulder yet? What are they waiting for???)

Spandau’s spanner faced mum begs for Mrs Goggins to say nice things at Spandau’s trial so that the judge will be nice to him or something. Mrs Goggins: “Um, I think not!!” @@@ also begs Mrs G to speak at the trial and it all comes out that @@@ visited Spandau at HMP Lakeland Plastics. There is shouting etc but in the end Mrs Goggins succumbs to emotional blackmail, goes to the trial and says “He totally beat the shit out of me and knocked out one of my teeth, but my colossally insensitive and spoilt daughter still likes him so I suppose he can’t be a bad sort really.” The judge says “fair enough” and gives Spandau a suspended sentence – he is free to leave the court! Ruh roh. He tells everyone he is going to move to Cardiff (he avoided prison for that!!) but then runs and hides under a hedge or something so that everyone panics and thinks he has kidnapped @@@ (If I was Mrs Goggins I would let him kidnap the ungrateful little brat). @@@ turns up unharmed and everyone gives a sigh of relief. Mrs G won’t let them says goodbye properly and so Spandau and Mrs S set off in a cab to the coach station, but then Spandau makes a mean face and says stop the cab! he is getting out to launch a reign of terror for a drink. Dun Dun Dunhh!!

PS Off topic I know, but me and my boyfriend have started a new blogging project where we walk all the way round london and blog as we go - pls check it out here and do leave a comment, esp if you live any where along the route and have suggestions of things to See and Do. Thanks M x

DAMMIT JANET
Apologies to all again. Work is going a bit crazy and then my computer started doing flashing pink and green Bridget Riley patterns all over the screen, so it's a mostly shoddy crib-type affair this week.

Monday
Honey keeps looking at baby Janet and going "ew", and then pretending that she's in for an ingrowing toenail. The nurse says she's worried about Phoney's mental state. Don't you have to have more than two functioning brain cells to have a mental state? Davetta confesses that she might fancy BroJo a bit and Stacey is all: "You fancy my almost-ginger Psycho Two Zero brother? Are you mad?". BroJo goes around upsetting people - especially Billy, who turns into a ranting Tube maniac and tries to pick a fight with a bloke in the suit because he's...umm...wearing a suit. Billy obviously doesn't travel on the tube much. Anyway, Suit Man reminds Billy that it's the anniversary of the World Trade Centre bombings (I refuse to call it 9/11 because that's my mum's birthday), and Billy should be thinking peaceful thoughts. "Billy realises that he's been too quick to judge people. He feels ashamed of the way he's been behaving" - it says here.

Tuesday
Oooh, I saw a bit of this one. BroJo goes around being generally irritating and bad to the bone. I'm sure we're going to discover that being this annoying is a genuine symptom of Post Traumatic Disorder, but until we do I'm going to ask the Iraqi insurgents why the hell they let this one go. Maybe he's Osama's latest secret weapon: the Annoying Ginger of the Apocalypse, sent by God to wind us up with his loathsome Lothario ways and petty thievery.

Mrs Goggins has a visitor. It's Spandau's Mum! Mrs Spandau says there's been a terrible mistake, and Spandau's in jail for a crime he didn't commit. Mrs G, Chelski and @@@ all chorus: "Oh yes he did". Mrs Spandau: sad.

Stiffen your sinews, everyone. Babs has been making the beast with two backs with NotDavid Essex, though he's still sleeping on the sofa in case Fill finds out and gets Oedipal on NotDavid's ass. As it happens, Not David confesses to Fill. Fill grunts that he's over that Freudian shit now, and besides, he's been worrying too much about MiniFill to notice. Maybe he's discovered that Squeaky is working as a club singer in Marbella and calls up Grunt for an amusing caper in Spain that involves Fill going a gentle shade of scarlet and Grunt beating up someone called Manuel while Squeaky breaks the sound barrier...

Phoney: "Baby? What baby?". Billy is worried. Enter NotDavid, who wants to know where his grandaughter is. Phoney says it's all gone horribly wrong. NotDavid takes over...

Thursday
Phoney and Billy discover that the baby has a heart condition and needs an operation. A nation gasps. Phoney does her nails. NotDavid repels all visitors and tells Babs that the baby isn't too well. Nobody mentions the D word. Cut to Phoney, surrounded by pictures of grinning Downs children and wanting to know how soon the baby will die. Billy: very sad. So am I, actually. Poor little mite (the baby, not Billy)

Meanwhile BroJo starts putting the moves on Davetta. Davetta wants to know why he's suddenly being so nice and BroJo says that war does funny things to your manners. Oh dear, any minute now he's going to dig himself a trench in McArfur and start quoting Wilfred Owen. Davetta, the poor desperate little scrap, takes him under her wing and gives him a bar job in her club. Lee objects, but Davetta stamps her tiny foot and says: "It's MY club, and if I want a hunky psycho behind the bar, I'll have one, thankyouverymuch!"

Mrs Spandau goes to see Spandau in jail and calls him a no good low down loser bastard for beating up Mrs Goggins. Spandau says: "Yes, yes you're right, but have you seen her in action?" But you can see where @@@'s latent feminism comes from with Mrs S tells Spandau that he's not the victim here, and that he deserves to rot for what he did to the Gogginses. Spandau learns that @@@ doesn't want to see him ever again and is sad.

Fill asks Ben if he'd like a surprise little sister. Ben storms off in an only child huff.

Friday
Fill finds Billy swigging whiskey in Scarlet's - what kind of nightclub opens during the day? I know I ask this all the time, but you know...Anyway, Billy tells Fill that the baby has Down's syndrome. Fill insists on visiting the maternity ward, and introduces himself as "Uncle Fill" to Baby Janet and...gasp...talks to her. Billy has a major revelation and spends the rest of the day chattering away to his little girl. Phoney appears to have locked herself in the bathroom.

@@@ goes with Mrs Spandau to visit Spandau in prison. Spandau says that she did the right thing to shop him to the fuzz, and not to worry about him. He'll make sure he always knows where the soap is in the showers. @@@: sad. Apparently only Mrs Goggins can save him now.

Lee tries to make BroJo into a proper barman but BroJo's all: "Yeah, whatever, Grandad. The chicks dig me because I'm cute and troubled and bad to the bone. You're just a has-been with a nice profile.

Bradley gets Nurse Tanyah to help him pick out some earrings for JoJo. Nurse Tanyah warns him that they might not be common enough for JoJo, but JoJo apparently keeps them for best.

TELL THEM ABOUT THE HONEY-MUMMY
This is very much a week of peaks and troughs and all the troughs come in the first two - three episodes. Oh lordy – first of all it is the surprise wedding that Babs has planned for Billy and Phoney. I have never heard such a ridiculous idea as planning a wedding without either of the participants knowing. Either all those bizarre wigs have caused Bab’s Brain to overheat or else the writers have been borrowing them while they come up with their so-called plots and THEIR brains have overheated. Anyway, Billy finds out, um somehow, so it is all down to Babs to get Phoney to the church without realising there is a wedding on – I suggest waving something shiny in her face to keep her distracted. Fill wants Ben to wear a kilt but the only way he will do it is if Fill wears one too. Ha ha, my sides! Also thanks a lot for making us have to look at Fill’s knees, you bastards.

Everyone else knows and is at church and while they are waiting for the wedding to start, Aussie strumpet SJ and Minty run off to a park to drink extra strong cider like tramps. Minty fantasises about having a big house full of kids and SJ fantasises about having a big fridge full of over-oaked Australian Chardonnay. Hmm, perhaps they are not compatible but it is v hard to say. More clues please writers! When they get back to the wedding they are pissed and AGarry and Naomi (now promoted to “Agarry’s sidekick”) glare at them disapprovingly.

When Phoney gets to the church she first is all delighted but then doesn’t want get married as (a) she is all superstitious and shit and (b) is hella annoying. Babs is cross but eventually Billy gets Phoney to change her mind and the wedding it is on!!

Oh god. Please do not try and comedy EE, unless you are trying to give me an aneurysm on purpose. The wedding is full of lame comedy schtick, with Phoney bossing the vicar around and Ben making humorous “whatever next eh?” type faces. Phoney starts having contractions and then her waters break right after they are married. What are the chances? While they rush off to hospital there is various other plottery going on. Drunken hussy SJ tries to look up Fill’s skirt, as presumably she wants a quick and effective emetic. Agarry tells SJ that she is a no-good madame who is ripping Minty off and never gets a round in. She runs off crying so Minty makes Agarry apologise, only he won’t so Minty says he is moving out. Gasp – the longest standing couple on the soap split up at last! Minty wants to move in with SJ but she says there is no room both for him and the hunky shirtless “brother”. Oh Minty, you are such a sucker.

Phoney’s aunty Una Stubbs is also at the wedding and is having man trouble – the man apparently isn’t very communicative – well what do you expect if you keep expecting to communicate via the medium of charades? Eh? Eh? Babs learns an important lesson from this bollocks and goes and tells David Wessex about her breast cancer and bionic tits etc. Then they totally do it, but hide it from Fill as he is such a Freudian headcase and will probably get jealous or something.

At the hospital there is more comedy as Phoney doesn’t want to give birth (as her mother died in childbirth) and keeps being mean to the long suffering midwife. She locks herself in a room and the midwife does not take the opportunity to have the doorway quickly bricked up like I would have done. Billy talks her down and then there is a long sequence of birthgiving comedy clichés – probably all ripped off from Friends repeats on C4 – Phoney doesn’t want drugs but then she does! Someone sees the umbilical cord and thinks it is a giant cock, Billy sees the um, business end of Phoney during the birth and faints, Phoney keeps saying “epidoodle” instead of epidural and whoever came up with the joke is so pleased with it that is repeated about 300 times. In the end, the baby she is born and Billy and Phoney coo over her and say things like “She’s perfect! she’s the best baby ever! Nothing wrong with this baby, nosiree!” while the midwife runs outside, flattens herself against the wall and makes a hilariously OTT agonised face. So so subtle.

Next day, Phoney and Billy get the sad news that the baby has Downs Syndrome – and now the program actually starts getting good. The medical staff offer them counselling and leaflets etc while Billy and Phoney start with the stages of anger and denial. They blame each other for having malfunctioning reproductive parts and then blame the medical staff. Billy goes to get a coffee and spends too long outside so Phoney has a go at him for that. She has trouble breast feeding and refuses to go to a new mum’s coffee morning as she is too ashamed. She says that she doesn’t want to keep the baby and won’t be able to cope etc etc

Babs shows up with David Wessex, Dot and Pat. They are all cooing over the baby when Goddess Pat makes an “ohs noes” face. She has guessed, it seems. The others take photos and prattle on until the baby is taken away for tests and they all bugger off too. Pat corners Billy by the nursery/cot farm thing and says that she knows the truth – she tells a sad story about a family she knew who had a Downs child and put her into a home as they couldn’t cope and that Billy and Phoney need to love their baby and look after her. (It will probably turn out that this was Pat’s daughter or sister or something for added drama) Excellent work from Pat and Billy in this scene, and Phoney (who normally irritates the hell out of me) is pretty good too now all the non-comedy has finished. They also do a really good job of capturing the weird awkward atmosphere between Billy and Phoney. Anyway, Billy goes back and repeats what Pat said. Phoney is all “yeah whatever… we’ll see” and the week ends with them sitting in silence.

DADLEY DO-RIGHT
I really really don't want to blog this week, and you all know why.

Soap women are either barren or so ridiculously fertile that all they have to do is stand in the same room as a Mitchell and paf! the bun is in the oven. Baking this week is JoJo, who's snapping everybody's head off, scowling and shouting NOOOOO! every time somebody mentions babies. I think it's the NOOOO! thing that arouses Davetta's suspicion. BroJo (hmmm...not bad. Bit Hollyoaks for my taste) finds out and gets curiously Victorian with Bradley, wanting to know his prospects and intentions towards his sister. I suppose this is completely in keeping with somebody who buggered off to Bosnia nine years ago, leaving his little sister to cope with her mad mother on her tod. Yep, I can believe that one, scriptwriters.

Bradley says he doesn't want to be a Dadley just yet, so could JoJo please do the sensible thing and get rid of it, please? Dadley suddenly turns from errant father into the Holy Pontiff (actually, I've seen it happen the other way...) and tells Bradley that he wanted Mumley to have an abortion at first, but then he saw Bradley's little ginger head and instantly fell in love with him. Bradley points out that he was so in love that he buggered off when Bradley was six, so way to go with the parental example, eh? Dadley says that the foetus is a human being, with blood and veins and little fingers and toes. Bradley, has enough of a grasp of elementary biology to ignore that argument and usher JoJo into the cab. I'm not quite sure how they manage to book a private abortion in under 24 hours without seeing a doctor (is Doktor Boden-Shirt back now that NotThatCute Doctor has run off?), having counselling or doing a proper pregnancy test, but JoJo is booked into the clinic and in that operation gown before you can say "morning sickness". The actors do the best they can with very dodgy material and the upshot is that JoJo tells everyone that she had a miscarriage, therefore still can't cope with baby stuff, and runs away every time she sees Phoney advancing on her, brandishing a newborn sleepsuit. And she can't stand the sight of Bradley. Bradley: sad.

Elsewhere Babs takes it upon herself to organise a 'surprise' wedding for Billy and Phoney because the other two attempts were so damn successful. But it does give the superfluous members of the cast something to do, I suppose. NotDavid Essex turns up and seems more interested in getting Babs alone among the optics than celebrating his daughter's wedding. There are non-comedy shenans when Phoney sells her wedding dress to Mo in order to buy an overpriced moses basket. Honestly love, John Lewis do them cheaper, and you can always put the kid in a drawer instead.

Kissing Syd the NotBrother takes SJ's special wedding outfit money off her to put on the 3.30 at Wincanton, which romps home. Meanwhile SJ wheedles more outfit money out of Minty. AGarry finds out about Syd's betting shop-related deception and scowls self-righteously.

Web of Deceit no. MCXXIV, Ian lies to PantoJane about going to the pub to meet Beardy on WWTF business. PantoJane's worried because he's supposed to be taking the kids swimming, and they're starting to do that staring thing and her head feels strangely hot. Beardy tells Ian that the post of Treasurer of the WTF Trust is up for grabs, and it will mean that Ian gets first pick at the annual wife-swapping party, and a key to the executive toilets. Ian passes up the job and runs home to the kids before PJane's head explodes.

Apparently BroJo tries it on with Nurse Tanyah at Bradley's disastrous birthday party. Nurse Tanyah tells Dadley and says that nothing happened. But BroJo decides that he's going to wreck Dadley's life because...umm...well... he's Bradley's Dadley and Bradley has upset JoJo...grrr. BroJo taunts Dadley about kissing Nurse Tanyah and Dadley gets all grr smash. Nurse Tanyah: cross. Dadley: sad. BroJo: smirky.