SEVEN DADLEY SINS
The theme of this week’s episodes is “All middle class ladies be crazy!!” First of all we have Dr Fox, who is cackling with glee at the news that GADawn is past the legal limit for abortions and also referring to herself in the third person alot. (“What Dr Fox wants! Dr Fox gets! Bwa ha ha!!” etc). Calm down love, you’re not a character from Flash Gordon. GADawn meanwhile moves into the flat above Minty/Garry (who are disappointed, as they were hoping for a new cast member) and gets Stella to check over her Surrogacy Agreement. Stella says it is a load of tosh, legal-wise so GADawn tells Smarmy that they can live together and keep the baby and skip through tulip fields forevah! Smarmy dumps her. Ha!

GADawn is snivelling around so Dr Fox tells her that Smarmy never fancied her in the first place but just pretended to, so that GADawn would keep the baby, which is now more fought over than the Alcase-Lorraine region of France/Germany. GADawn drinks a bottle of vodka, has a hot bath and sticks “Vera Drake” in the DVD player. Everyone thinks she is trying to commit suicide and calls an ambulance. Dawn and the baybay both turn out to be alright. Smarmy sits on Losers Bench for a spot of manly crying and then tells Dawn that he does love her really after all, but Dawn tells him to “Git Ahhht!!!”

JoJo/Dadley drags on and on. This week JoJo wears a horrendous “sexy outfit” that makes her like a Victorian killer doll and Dadley sexes her up in his own living room while he is supposed to be researching guinea pigs on the internet. Don’t ask. Can something please happen with this plot now? Is that too much to ask? In other Slater news, BroJo weirdly flirts with Babs for a bit (mate, it’s called “masturbation”, look into it) and JoJo Ma reappears, saying that she wants to go on a holiday with her kids. The hateful brats all run a mile but then something happens so that Dadley ends up paying for a holiday for JoJo and Ma anyway.

Billy wants to turn the defunct DVD shop into an internet caff – how very 1998. He bickers with Fill and Beale about them investing or not. Meanwhile news spreads about Phoney’s pregnancy. Billy and Phoney think their little flat won’t be big enough and talk about renting Poline’s Palace of Burnt Memories instead. Beale says no, of course, because he is horrid and then suggests to Panto Jane that he moves them and the devil brood into Poline’s Palace of etc and so on instead. Jane: “Erm, I don’t think so!!”

The other middle class crazy lady storyline is that of Cruestella D’Evil, who is on fine form this week. Ben hides his hearing aid so he doesn’t have to go to school but then Cruestella makes him go anyway. All the kids tease him for being deaf and Ben wets himself. Cruestella mutters that he is a “wee stained little freak”(double ha!) and offers to help him hide his shame from Fill. Then she mocks him for being a wuss and says that he has to be HARD if he wants to be a proper Mitchell and worthy of his daddy’s love. Next day, Ben tries to smack one of the boys (when instead he should have teased him for being a rubbish actor and having hair like a girl) who made him wet himself and ends up being thrown roughly to the ground and given a good shoeing. Cruestella watches with a faint smile on her face for a few minutes before breaking it up.

Ben goes crying to Ian, shows him his bruises and tells him that Stella is beating him (Ian comes up with the “Cruella” nickname). Ian goes round to see Fill and be all Bealemeisterfull and outraged and then they quickly discover that he was actually beaten up by the kids from school. They tell Ben off and Cruestella slips into his room, tells him that he will be taken into care if he carries on lying and then gives him a hug and says that she’ll protect him. Brrr, creepy. This storyline with all the headfuckery and emotional blackmail etc is so much better than a clichéd child beating plot. Well done the BBC!