LITTLE MISS SUNSHITE

The Queen Vic is having one of those frequent non-comedy competitions they make up whenever they can’t think of enough plot for a week. This time it is a beauty contest. JoJo, Chelski, Syed’s Unwitting Beard and a few extras are taking part. Jojo does a strip tease and uses the opportunity to shower the Vic with tat from her stall, which she then sells. She also makes a stupid and out-of-character speech about how she is the queen of hearts. More like the Queen of WHATEVER. Juhneen’s Paddy Considine looking bloke goes over and says, “ I liked your speech.” Jojo: “Thanks!” Paddy: “Wanna shag?” Jojo “OK!” Juhneen pulls a hacky face.

Syed’s Unwitting Beard sings a Whitney lurve song to Syed, while everyone else is sick in their mouths a little bit. Xtian has a new slightly dozy-looking boyfriend whom he is using to torment Syed with thoughts of forbidden man-lurve. Syed (who has no neck, btw) is pretending he doesn’t care. SUB and Chelski have a tedious row.

Bradley has persuaded his glum faced girlfriend and her cute little deaf son not to move to Canadia so they can stay in Walford and watch him mope after JoJo. Good plan, glum faced girlfriend. Bradley plays scalectrix with the cute son then (SYMBOLISM ALERT) the car goes off the tracks. Bradley (SYMBOLISM ALERT – Gah!! Two lots of symbolism in five minutes!!!) then stands on it and crushes it. Cute son says “You’re not my dad! I hate you!” in sign language and runs off. Bradley proposes to Sid (aka glum faced girlfriend) in a really half arsed way so she laughs in his face and says that marriage is a patriarchal construct that’s not for her. Bradley sulks on Losers’ Bench a bit then reappears with a new Scalectrix car (SYMBOLISM ALERT) and says he wants them all to be together whatever.

Tanyah, Jane, Dadley and Bealemeister are doing a week of wife swap. WTF??? This mainly seems to involve Ian crawling round in a drunken stupor while Jane tells stories to Tanyah’s cute baby about people called Ian meeting horrible deaths. There is some controversy about whether Devil Child Peter (who has grown up into an illustration from a 1970’s girls comic) has shagged/is shagging Tanyah’s Eva Green lookin’ daughter. Drunk Ian tries to slip a Kaff’s Kaff battered saveloy to Tanyah in the middle of the night and she wakes up and screams “Eww, get off, you creep!” Devil Child Lucy runs in and sees the whole thing and laughs a satanic laugh.

Babs has whored herself out to Evil Archie to get the money to pay for Sam’s bail. No–one else would stump up, which isn’t surprising considering she scarpered to Brazil and changed heads last time she was on bail. Everyone else is like ”Muuuum, what did you do that for??” HMP Lakeland Plastics (where, yes, Sam did wear a rounders bib whenever it was visiting time! Nostalgia!) has not been kind to Sam’s gigantic hair. Bab’s shoe-horns her into a tight dress and enters her into the “Queen Vic Made Up Beauty Contest”. She then uses her Stalinist powers to make Trinidad rig the vote and announce her the winner. Well done Babs, that’ll really cheer Sam up when Archie turns you into a replicant like in that BBC promo slot of yesteryear.

Bianca and Rickay are still having problems. Whatever.

Wheelchair Lad declares himself a rival to Dasbo for Libbie’s affections. Also Whatever.

Babs goes to Archie’s Den of Evil (aka the car lot) to submit herself to his evil whims but the entire Mitchell Jr Brigade (well, Roxie, Fill, Ronnie and Billy) show up and give him a big pile of cash that Ronnie was saving up to buy another disastrous nightclub. “Keep your stinking bail money,” they say and march out triumphantly. (Babs says something boring about not being able to buy love, and family, probably, as well, before they go). Archie sits there making evil faces until Juhneen (who can smell a used £20 note from 500 yds) conveniently wanders in. Archie says “The Mitchells, we hates them forever” and offers Juhneen a big pile of money to help him make them pay, make them all pay! Juhneen fondles the money lasciviously and tries out a few evil faces of her own.

SOMETHING KINDA "OW"!

Smarmy and Dawn have one day to get out of their love shack – Smarmy goes to draw out some money to get a deposit on a new place but Dr (Crazy like a) Fox has already emptied their joint account. She says she did it to help Smarmy so he would realise that GADawn is just a gold digging vixen. Meanwhile Dole Scum Keef has some money of Dawn’s (benefits or something, I dunno) but he has spent it all on cans of Special Brew. The love birds have to move in Chez Dole Scum. Later on GADawn has a dramatic confrontation with Dr Fox and the Dr pushes her down a flight of stairs. Heh.

The baby is OK and Dr Fox is all contrite and tearful, not wanting to be grassed up to the fuzz. She pops some pills (yes, Dr Fox, that’s all you need with your robust mental state – more drugs!!) and asks Smarmy round to patch things up. She gives him a list of their assets so they can share them out but then starts putting sexy moves on him. Smarmy notices that the nursery is still set up and there is a big circle on the calendar marked “the day my baby is born, bwa ha ha.” He realises that Dr Fox is still loony tunes and has to fight his way out of the apartment.

Dasbo and @@ fall out over Gus (??? Does Dasbo fancy him too, I don’t know…) and then @@ starts chatting online to a mystery boy. This will be Important For Later.

There is flu going round and Bradley, a Tanyette and Tanyah all succumb to it. JoJo looks after Bradley but is then annoyed when Duckface barges in with a klingon wordsearch book or something for Bradders to do. JoJo hassles Dadley to divorce Nurse Tanyah and move in with her. He arranges a rental of a showflat with horrid tan coloured fur wallpaper (that’s what it looked like to me) and gives her a vomtastic yellow nightie thing to wear. It is Dadley’s birthday and Jojo demands that she spends the evening with Dadley in the Fur Flat. Hateful Dadley engineers a row so he can ditch Tanyah and re-explore joJo’s ladygarden, even though Tanyah has cooked a nice meal and bought him a watch and made a cake etc. Tanyah is understandably annoyed and goes on a rampage of suspicion – finding evidence that Dadley is playing away. She marches down the street (past JoJo, who makes an excellent “gulp!” face) and starts laying into Carly, even though Dadley was just trying to sell her insurance. Of course, if I found my partner was cheating on me, I’d be more interested in talking to my partner than the bit on the side, but what would I know? I’m not a badly written soap opera character. In the aftermath, Tanyah announces that she’s pregnant. Gasp!

They have a discussion and Tanyah wants to get an abortion as she doesn’t trust Dadley. Dadley tells a story about how when he was a kid, Jim beat up a black mate of his and then locked him up in a coffin! Don’t ask me. Tanyah accepts this bizarre anecdote as an excuse for his shiftiness and they agree to keep the baby. Meanwhile, Bradley finds the telltale yellow nightie and JoJo says she is seeing some other married bloke who in no way resembles Dadley, oh no.

Ian complains to some Polish (though the accent is more like French/Boratistani) builders that they are too noisy. They tell him to sling his hook so he goes into dickhead overdrive and starts filming them for his dossier to the council and refusing to serve them at the caff. They mock him by taking photos of him with their phones and later have a five way gang bang with Parkwife.
The tiresome feud between Ian and Fill continues re the late license application. Fill gets the Polish Builders to brick up Ian’s gate so Ian pours cement down the Vic toilets so they have to shut the pub and get plumbers in. When Ian refuses to pay for the damage, Fill goes round and tries to drown him in a bowl of washing up (“Fairy liquid may be kind to your hands, but has does it feel on your FACE, Beale!!”). Fill is rescued by Pjane, or possible baby bobby, all of whom are harder than Ian. The womenfolk get involved too when Cruestella sees DC Lucy drinking alcopops in the park with a bunch of hoodies and grasses her up to PJane, who tells her to mind her own business. They spend a lot of time telling each other that this isn’t finished yet – no, it’s finished next week with a shocking Death Crash Tragedy tm every soap mag ever.

OEDIPUS VEX

Imagine yourself at a EE script conference. I imagine these take place in the cellar of some private drinking club. As dwarves in tutus rollerskate between the participants, bearing the drug of choice, plus a stiff chaser, the producers lounge on giant chaise lounges, occasionally yelling with glee as the next shivering scriptwriter is dragged from a softly moaning heap of rags in the corner. The head producer wipes her hands on a runner's Prada scarf and eyes the pitiful figure before her.

HEAD PRODUCER: Which one are you again? Ah yes. We've had to ditch the exchange arrangement with Bad Girls. Jim Fenner made outrageous demands for a believable character that wouldn't immediately sink his career after three shows, so the deal's off. We're keeping Atkins for a bit, but they want the Tall Julie one back. What's she doing right now? Oh well, get her to kiss Minty, throw in a bit of mother/son bonding, and send her back to Brighton. Are we putting the plot cupboard in Brighton these days? How charming. NEXT!

Grateful that she has escaped another ritual humiliation at the hands of Sid Owen, the writer scuttles back into her corner.

HEAD PRODUCER: Who's next then? Chop chop! Time is licence payers' money! Hmmm...this Ben/Cruestella plot. Not quite sure what's going on here, but those On High say that we've got to do some bullying thing. So keep up the good work. What's that? You want to raise the stakes? Fill is going to notice that something's wrong, but he'll get the wrong idea? Speak up!

SCRIPTWRITER: Errr...well, I thought Fill could notice that something is wrong, but being such a dreadful father, would think that Cruestella has it covered.

HEAD PRODUCER: SILENCE! I HAVE AN IDEA. Even better than that, we have a chance for one of those two handers that we usually reserve for Dot and a lucky stooge. Who can we have...think think...

SCRIPTWRITER: How about Dadley? The symmetry between the -

HEAD PRODUCERS: Bald Heads! Yes I know! It'll be like living Gilbert & George, only without the poo. Well, they'll have to talk shit, but you know what I mean. I like the cut of your jib, young...I'm sorry are you male or female? It's hard to tell with those EE-issue uniforms and haircuts. Anyway, not that it matters. Write some stuff about fatherly bonding and up the ante with Stella's torment. How is she abusing him, by the way? Chinese burns on arms? Oh, and throw in an awkward conversation about birds and bees. That'll sort the kid out for another week.

Hang on...I haven't finished with you yet. Since you're such an ideas...whatever...you can also handle the Goggins/Parklife wedding. I want them married by May.

SCRIPTWRITER: I thought doctors couldn't perform weddings...

HEAD PRODUCER: No, not Dr Foxxy, fool! May the month. We haven't had an unfeasibly quick wedding for a while. Make Mrs Goggins decide on 27 April, which is also the anniversary of The Death of St Jimbo. See? I know my Easties lore... That'll give Deano a chance to earn some acting spurs.

SCRIPTWRITER: But...Deano?

HEAD PRODUCER: Nothing too hard, just let him pout a bit over at Atkins's place and do his hilarious drunk acting thing. Carly can do that screwy up face and scream a bit, and the teens'll love it. Make sure he takes his shirt off too. Oh, and give her a cough. I like coughs...

Alright then, who have we got left? Hmmm.... Dadley and JoJo...running out of ideas with those two. Just get her to send him saucy text messages and maybe one of the kids will find it or something. Do 40-year-olds know how to do photo messaging? Must ask my mum.

What else? Oh, Dot and Jim and that baby. Oh I don't know. Can't she come up with some story about it being Nick's? Oh he's had cancer and been in prison forever, hasn't he? How about a ghost baby? We'll rope in the blonde Tanyette and freak out the Beale Devil Children some more.

Oh, there's a point. Prison Bitch Bert. Has he gone blind yet? No? well, get that zombie-faced kid to save him, and get him to the hospital. There's potential in that relationship. We could have another set of Cottons if Dot decides to take her walking frame and go.

sycophantic laughter from the writers' corner...

DID I SAY YOU COULD SPEAK? That's better. Now...time for pudding...

THE TRUE MEANING OF EASTER = STEALING BABIES FROM ROMANIAN CRACK WHORES, APPARENTLY
Every so often, EE comes up with a plot that is so utterly crazy/mad/nutcase that all you can do is stare at the screen open mouthed and wonder what on earth they were thinking of. I am recalling such classics as “Babs goes to Spain for Fur-wank’s funeral only to discover that he has faked his own death and is in cahoots with Rula Lenska”, or “The Teen Muppets crash their minibus in the icy wastes of Scotland and Teen and that other girl lez up for 5 minutes.” You can normally tell when something mental is going to happen because location shooting is involved and this week is no exception.

Whenever they don’t know what to do with Dot, they reel out their copy of “Ingmar Bergman for Dummies” and have her having a crisis of faith or whinging on about the Silence of God or something (they haven’t yet had Dot being raped by God in the form of a giant spider, but I’m sure it won’t be long). This week, Jim notes that Dot is sad and takes her on a day trip to where they used to go hop picking in Kent in their youth. Nothing says “holiday” like back-breaking agricultural labour, that’s for sure. Dot goes to pester her old vicar, only he isn’t there any more and there is a nice lady vicar instead. Nice Lady Vicar gives her directions to see Old Dead Vicar’s son, who turns out to be television’s Dennis Pennis.

Dennis and Dot have a fascinating theological conversation where Dennis tries to lay all this newfangled relativistic hoo ha on Dot and she is all “la la la, I’m not listening”. Something happens to make her think her about Nick, so she goes back to church and whines prays about being a bad mother and asks for a sign to prove that she isn’t. As it happens a hard faced girl is dumping her little baby on the doorstep of the church at that very second, so Dot decides to take it home with her. Right.

In other news, Agarry discovers that Sullen has got engaged and acts a bit mardy. He is supposed to sign the mortgage papers with Minty and Naomi but instead makes some mysterious phonecalls and then buggers off to a Registry Office, leaving a handy clue for the others (like a big poster stuck to the wall saying “Don’t forget to go the Registry Office” or something). Minty is cross that his non gay non lover is getting married to someone else. When Agarry gets to the office, he meets a middle aged blonde lady wearing a cowboy hat who gives him a big kiss and tells him she thought he wasn’t going to come. WTF???

Jim (and every sane person in the audience) wants to know what the hell is going on, but Dot insists that they’re keeping the baby (while overacting like crazy to register her much publicised disapproval of such a crappy storyline). They have to babysit Abi, so they rope her into their web of lies and deceit and she helps them hide the truth from Mo, who hears the baby crying and acts all nosy. Abi says that it is a ghost baby and Mo believes her – “It beats signing on, I suppose.” thinks Laila Morse.

Back at the Registry Office, the annoying lady turns out to be Annoying Garry’s annoying mother, whom we shall call Annoying Hazel. She is actually marrying some other bloke, a smarmy colonel type in a blazer with brass buttons, and wanted Agarry to come along. There is a non comedy misunderstanding and Colonel Blazer thinks that Agarry is Ahazel’s bit on the side. He punches Agarry and dumps Ahazel. Ahazel now has nowhere to go, so Agarry tells her to book into a hotel and is all set to drive off back to Walford on his scooter.

Dot finds a Clue in baby Tomas’ nappy and sends Jim to a strip club in Dartmouth to investigate. There are non comedy shenanigans with Jim trying to interrogate a bunch of Albanian strippers and then being marched off to the cash machine by the bouncer to pay £120 for two glasses of baby cham. Meanwhile, the mother, who has a severe fringe and whose name is Anna Kalashnikova or something, tracks Dot down to Walford and says “you crazy lady, in my country when we leave baby in church it is so that baby is raised by wolves and becomes mighty warrior”. Dot asks Anna to move in with them so Anna says “Oh, OK”.

Agarry drives around a bit and then says “Oh bloody hell” and goes back to collect Ahazel. My boyfriend says “Oh f***ing hell, does that mean she’s in it all the time now?” Agarry takes AHazel back to stay temporarily with him, Minty and Naomi, and she immediately sets about embarrassing him with cute baby garry photos. Minty takes one look at Ahazel and is all, “hello, foxy lady” and Ahazel takes one look at Minty and is all, “You’re a groovy boy, I’d like to strap you on sometime!” Agarry is sick in his mouth a little bit and Naomi points out that the childhood photos might be slightly less embarrassing than watching Minty and Hazel rutting on the floor.

Jim remembers that he used to be a racist and has a quick rant about them asylum seekers coming over here and stealing all our jobs. Oh Jim, I don’t think you could get a job as a stripper even if all the legal immigrants were sent back home. He tries to talk sense into Dot and says that Anna is a dirty ho. Dot explains that Mary Magdelene was also a dirty ho so he can shut his cake hole. Jim goes down the street and phones up the Immigration Service, who apparently have a rapid response unit in the area (I don’t know if this is very realistic but it seems to me to be be NOT). Dot et al run and hide in a church and claim asylum but the kindly immigration bloke points out that they aren’t actually living in the 14th century and drags Anna away to be put on the first plane to Boratstan, leaving Jim and Dot holding the baby, both figuratively and literally. It’s an Easter Miracle!