MOTHRATKINS VS GOGGINZILLA

I'm off on holiday tomorrow and an't think of anything to top Sarah's ace post - so here's a quick rundown of last week's so-called action...

1. News starts to spread about Dot and Jim’s stupid plot baby, who spends all Monday’s episode crying non stop, the poor little thing. They have the family round for dinner and Jim quickly explains that it is Nick’s son that he sired by knocking up a nurse whilst in cancer prison hospital. That makes about as much sense as the real plot. Abi notices that baby “George” looks a lot like baby Tomasz so Dot tells her to shut up. Everyone is a bit non plussed/sceptical. Dadley mocks Jim fro being paternal finally. Jim says “Shut up, haven’t you got a barely legal trollop to be messing round with?” not really.
2. But it’s still true! Jojo comes back from her holiday and starts canoodling with Dadley. He tells her that his marriage is in trouble but JoJo later discovers that this is a lie.
3. DVDLi chucks all of Gus’ stuff out of his cupboard and put a padlock on the door. Gus is all “Hey! That’s my plot cupboard where I live for most of the year!” Mickney discovers that she has set up the world’s smallest weed farm in the cupboard and has a dramatic confrontation. DVDLi whines that she has to do anything – ANYTHING – for money now that she has to support herself, her old ma and Mickney. Mickney says he will get a job and is interviewed by Bradley’s firm. I’m not sure what job he is going for – do banks actually need Jesters/Motley fools?
4. Cruestella tells Ben that “address” only has one “d” so he fails a test. Bwa ha ha. Fill buys him a lap top and Cruestella is cross because she wants Fill to buy her shiny presents instead!! Ben tries to talk to Fil about Cruestela’s reign of terror but Fill has a hilarious EE type misunderstanding and thinks he is talking about puberty instead. Fill is all “It’s art of growing up and becoming a man!”
5. Fill says he will propose to Cruestella properly and gives her a wad of dirty bloodstained £20 notes to buy herself an engagement ring. Classy! Why didn’t he just drop an Elizabeth Duke catalogue in her lap and be done with it! He wants them all to go away together but Stella tells Ben to make sure he is left behind, so he smashes up the bogs at school so he has to be punished by Fill. Fill and Stella go away and Fill proposes by hiding the ring in a bacon bap from a white van in a lay by. Ha ha ha, oh Stella can’t you find a nice middle class man to terrorise! They end up going back for Ben anyway as Fill misses him.
6. Annoying Deano moves in with Atkins but says he will go to Parklife’s stag do and wedding anyway. Mrs G says she doesn’t want a hen do but all her family/friends (they don’t actually need to rope in a bunch of extras as Mrs G actually has friends OMG!!) chuck a few triple vodkas down her neck and she is all systems go (her drunk acting is not bad actually!). Goddess Pat sees that Atkins is at the bar making hacky faces and goes and tells her to git out of Walford and no one wants her and Parklife has moved on and wants to be happy with Mrs G etc and so on. Atkins says that Pat is a dried up old slapper and will have no family once Parklife and Mrs G get married and move out. They carry on arguing and eventually go outside and have an awesome catfight with slapping, throwing onto car bonnets and kung fu kicks (from Atkins, though I would love to see Pat lay down a hefty axe kick). A handily passing police van breaks them up and while they are on the way to the cells Atkins mentions that she shagged Parklife recently, so there.
7. I miss the actual unfeasibly quick wedding but there is the usual will they/won’t they bollocks without which no soap wedding is complete. Pat warns Parklife that Atkins is in marriage wrecking mode so in the end he tells Goggins himself, adding that he was “depressed” when the act of joyless carnal hoo-ha took place – excellent excuse there, Parklife. Mrs Goggins says (a) Ew! And (b) She’ll have to think about it. While she’s wandering round in her non traditional maroon outfit, Atkins comes over to spill the beans and is such a cow that this somehow makes Mrs G decide to go through with the wedding. Don’t ask me… Atkins is all ”Bah, you might have foiled me this time.. but I’ll be back!”.

WAITING FOR PARKOT
A pale male arm emerges from under a modish duvet cover. It’s Smarmy and he’s about to wake the sleeping figure beside him. It’s Dr SheWolf! Oh no, what will GADawn say? GADawn is busy twitching curtains chez Dolescum and her finger is hovering over the abortion clinic number, which she must have on speed dial. Dr SheWolf twitches every time the phone rings, expecting it to be GADawn’s abortion. Smarmy tells her that everything’s fine and maybe they don’t need a baby to keep their marriage going anyway. SheWolf orders him to keep GADawn happy with fine wines, cheap lingerie from the market, and a good seeing-to if that’s what it takes.

Smarmy finally persuades GADawn to stay over. Dr SheWolf goes and sits in the café with her slightly mad smile on all night by the look of it. Next morning, Smarmy, who realises he is but a sperm donor in Dr SheWolf’s Baby Hunt, tells her that GAD has ordered him to leave her.

Dr SheWolf visits GAD at home to offer more advice on womb control. GAD finds out he hasn’t left her yet, so decides to tell the Dr herself. Oooh…cat fight. Dr tempts her back to the flat and calls her a “cheap little tanorexic” who doesn’t know the difference between true love and a cheap shag. Dr gets a few more good insults in before she gets bored with GAD and her ‘bovvered?’ face, and starts chewing the scenery in order to stay alive.

Mr P offers the following: “Oh for god’s sake, why don’t they just get together and kill the bastard?” But he doesn’t know that it’s all part of Dr SheWolf’s Cunning Plan. Not quite sure what the point of this Cunning Plan is, but apparently SheWolf is pretending to be a bit mad in order to keep GADawn onside. Smarmy finds this very arousing. Dr SheWolf does the over the shoulder face and looks bored.

DVDLi finds out about Dasbo’s Russian bride scam. As an internet professional, I’m not quite sure about the economics of this little venture, but somehow Dasbo guarantees her #500 per month if she writes a few ‘sexy emails’ to her interweb saddoes clients.

Chelski loses her job, and doesn’t mind because she can spend more time annoying BroJo. BroJo smarms to Nurse Tanyah and gets Chelski her job back. Chelski puts Rainman off his breakfast.

Battle of the battleaxes update. Atkins gets drunk. Pat looks disapproving and offers tea, sympathy and Goddess wisdom. Deano starts a fight with some bloke who has been chatting up Atkins and a newly-returned Babs chucks them both out of the pub. Atkins gets locked out and spends the night on Pat’s sofa. Deano: so, so confused.

Carly finds Atkins on the sofa and starts shouting again. Pat tells Atkins to leave town. Atkins refuses.

NurseTanyah works out that Mo has been corrupting her family’s morals with her filthy knockoff fags. Mo gets caught by Customs, who search the Slater Tardis and fail to find the entire gross tobacco output of the state of Virginia in the living room, but they do her for tax evasion anyway. Mo decides that NurseTanyah is responsible and vows terrible revenge. Oh well, that’s Dadley and JoJo DOOMED then. Thank Christ for that.

Smarmy tells GAD that he’s been taking money out of the joint account, and one day they will run away together. It’s like they were reading last week’s blog, isn’t it? Smarmy tells Dr SheWolf to tell her friends to stop bitching about GADawn. He’s just no fun any more…

Mrs Goggins finds out about BroJo, and tells him to leave Chelski alone. BroJo turns on the charm and tells Mrs G that just jealous because Chelski’s getting some, and Parklife ran off. Chelski finds out, but still doesn’t dump him.

Carly tidies up the car lot office. Pat tells Carly she has to let go and offers the example of Furwank’s nervy b as an example of what to do when a close relative runs off with all your joint earnings. Carly untidies the office and invites Atkins out for a bite to eat and a drink.

Mrs Goggins packs up Parklife’s collection of foreign films and stripey shirts. Carly puts them out for the dustmen.

Cut to umm…Dungeness. A lighthouse. Ooh, are we having one of those Easties Away segments? Parklife, clad in existentialist black and dark brown, tears up his world trip tickets (except for the one to France) and throws them off a lighthouse. He walks along the beach and finds Mr Guppy from Bleak House/doctor bloke off Dorkwood in a beach hut. They fight, and Guppy does his ankle in. It gets a bit Godot while they act their socks off on material that is thinner than a Brazilian model’s little finger. Guppy nicks a bit of Derek Jarman’s garden to kill Parklife with, but Parklife makes him put it back. Eventually they go to a pub and play pool with London Calling playing in the background. That's...like...significant, isn't it? Parklife offers fatherly advice. Guppy nicks his bag with his tickets to France in. Parklife nicks a local’s bike and chases the bus to Folkestone.

Mo and Rainman play darts and Carly gets very very drunk. There is mother/daughter shouting. And mother/daughter bonding. Then more mother/daughter shouting. A dart ends up in Mo’s arse. Fill removes the dart from Mo’s arse, and then has to lie down in a darkened room to expunge the image from his head (and ours). I quite like Fill the grumpy landlord: it’s better than Fill the spudhead gangsta.

Non-comedy sub-plot. Pat and Deano play Trivial Pursuit. A nation discovers that Pat is a Trivial Pursuit demon, and possibly even more competitive than my mum.

OK, this is where it goes from Godot to Lost Highway. Parklife finds the burning wreck of the bus on a cliff path somewhere between Folkestone and Dungeness. Blimey, all we need is Sherilyn Fenn screaming her head off... Not quite sure what has happened. Maybe it’s a lorry crash; maybe it was Al Quaeda. Anyway, everybody’s dead, except Guppy, who dies quite hilariously in Parklife’s arms; jerking and everything.

Minutes later, Parklife gets out of a cab in Walford. (Maybe this is the Robin Hood Prince of Thieves moment, when Kevin Costner tells Morgan Freeman that Nottingham is only 15 minutes’ walk from Dover.) Anyway, he ends up at Atkins’s flat. In Atkins’s bed! This can only end in tears. Of boredom!

GOGGINS A GO-GO OR NO-GO?
Late and short. A bit like Slimy Metrosexual's excuses. But I promise you, as soon as the baybay's born, we'll run away to the Bahamas and get married. I swear.

Just when you think that your internal bullshit detector has reached 11 and won't go any further, the Eastenders scriptwriters send it up a notch. This week, Fill raises his spuddy little head and starts demanding rent off the remaining Parklifes (and Pat), except that Parklife has cleared the business account of all funds. Not even Pat's goddess powers, or Dasbo's Bransonesque entrepeneurial skillz can save them from Fill's hungry bank balance. Instead Carly goes over to Fill's and fixes a car or two so that he can spend some time with Psycho Ben. Well, that was the original idea, but somehow Ben gets farmed out to whoever will have him - even Atkins gets asked, while Fill searches in the plot cupboard for Minty and Agarry. No wonder Ben's evil. Carly shouts at Fill, and the mere threat of her doing more shouting 'acting' is enough for Fill to stomp over to Pat's and let them off half the rent or something. Pat gives a little speech about how Parklife would have been proud of them all standing together in the face of imminent bankruptcy that he was mainly responsible for. Mrs G decides she's had enough and starts packing the Goggins bags for pastures new. Chelski and @@ object, so they end up staying after lots of shouting and pouting.

BS detector reading: 11.7

Psycho Ben tries to get his dad to spend time with him, but Fill keeps wandering off to do something more interesting. Sdulla sits on some Airfix glue, and Ben gets into trouble again, and she flounces off stage right. Then she comes back again the following day and takes him on a trip to the London Dungeon (his choice - told you he was psycho). There is a weird creepy moment when Ben runs into a hall of mirrors shouting for Sdulla and crying about losing her while Sdulla hides behind a corpse and looks strangely evil. It's almost like The Lady from Shanghai - only without Orson Welles...or Rita Hayworth...or decent production values. Somehow this is supposed to mean that they have bonded.

BS detector reading: 12

Nurse Tanyah finds a receipt for some jewellery in Dadley's pocket and is sad because Dadley is obviously cheating on him again. She brings it up at the counsellor's, and Dadley tells her that it was supposed to be a surprise secret necklace but no she's spoiled everything. The next day is Nurse Tanyah's birthday, so Dadley goes to lunch with JoJo in a posh restaurant. The maître d is snooty and asks JoJo if she's old enough to eat posh food. JoJo pretends that Dadley is her dad, and this is her 18th birthday present, and this somehow makes her more attractive or something. Meanwhile NT and the girls make pancakes and bury a dead hamster (with Returned BroJo's help) in the front garden. You start to see Dadley's point.

Anyway, NurseTanyah and Dadley end up in the Vic. NT gets very very drunk, and Dadley takes advantage of her drunkeness to slip one to JoJo in the toilets again. Soon Nurse Tanyah will be wondering why he keeps buying her bottles of Eau du Parazone and asking her to flush when she's ready. NT staggers into the toilets and thinks JoJo is alone. Then in comes BroJo , who starts pestering Nurse Tanyah. Dadley hides in the cubicle with JoJo going, "grrrr...my wife..." very very quietly. JoJo: sad. Because she has fallen in love with Dadley. A nation is mystified. Abi gets a new guinea pig to replace the dead hamster. Let's hope they get hungry Peruvian neighbours, for the guinea pig's sake.

BS detector: 13.987

PB Bert is starting to develop a kind of relationship with Zombie-faced Jay, who is possibly the coolest kid on TV apart from Tracy Beaker. Pat activates her Goddess powers and forces Ian to rent the cute little flat behind the chippy to them. Bert goes to an optician and discovers that he's going blind.

BS detector: off the scale

THEIR BLOODY VALENTINE
Dr Fox is all, “I was disgusted that you shagged that hussy in my house!” Smarmy is all, “I’m doing it for you! So you can have a baybay! It’s no fun for me either, ahem ahem.” Later on Dr Fox apologises and arranges for a night of hot loving with Smarmy (cue shirtlessness to keep Patrick happy). GADawn phones about 15 times while they are Doing It and then leaves a message to say she has gone to stay with her mum. Dr Fox is worried that Rosie Klebb will talk sense into GADawn. I assume she never actually met Rosie Klebb.

Bradley spends the evening in the pub with JoJo and decides that he lurves her again (I can’t really take Bradders seriously any more after Harry Hill pointed out that he is always making faces as though he just farted…) Next day it is Valentines Day and PR Fluffy Lydia sends round a huge stalkeriffic basket and balloon arrangement thing. Bradley gets her a shitty cheapo card and then buys her a manky rose off a bloke in the restaurant when they have a romantic lunch. (Why name a restaurant Fargos?? It just reminds me of Steve Buscemi being put in a wood chipper. Mmm, seconds please!!). Then he dumps her and says, “It’s not you, it’s me!” Yes Bradley – it is you, acting like a real tool. Couldn’t you have waited another few days to dump her? Lydia stomps off to delete all the files off Bradley’s computer at work. Bradley runs around to declare his lurve for JoJo but she is too busy shagging Dadley and tells him to get lost. Ha ha.

Dadley is v unromantic to nurse Tanyah so she arranges a nice meal for them herself and asks Dot to watch the kids (non comedy Vday subplot – Jim pretends to have forgotten and then cooks a nice meal behind Dot’s back, but then Dot shows up with the girls. Jim pulls his patented “dohhhhh!” face). Dadley texts to say he is stuck at work (ie shagging JoJo). What a tool – couldn’t he have waited til the day after? I’m sure JoJo and her lady parts would still be there on 15 Feb. Nurse Tanyah says they have to go to marriage counselling. Then there is some business where Dadley is nearly caught out buying gifts for both his birds and getting the receipts mixed up or something. I think this plot would be a lot better if Text Pest BroJo was still around to glower sexily at Nurse Tanyah.

The Fill/Sdulla/Ben subplot is now in a weird temporal loop like on Star Trek where the same thing keeps happening over and over again. Ben is mean to Sdulla, Sdulla runs away, Fill gets her back. Rinse repeat. This week Babs also goes on holiday.

I quite like dead eyed urchin Jay too. For some reason he reminds of one of the zombie kids from Day/Dawn of the Dead and I certainly hope he ends up killing Prison Bitch Bert and cannibalising his corpse. Anyway, PBBert is all neglectful etc and Jay runs around stealing stuff and bunking off school. Yolande sucks her cheeks in and tries to be a bit parently and tells PBBert when is being a fule (well, more than usual anyway) ie like when he ignores a truant letter, even though it could mean PBBert being back sent to prison and being a burly convict’s wife again. Yolande and Trinidad bribe the miscreants to get out of the house for Valentine’s Day so Trinidad can leer at Yolande’s rack and say “yeah, mon” a few times. Jay gets sick of roaming the streets and goes back anyway and ruins their romantic shenanigans. Later on he finds out he has to go to school and has a bratty fit and breaks something. Yolande says “that’s it!” and says they have to move out.

It turns out that Dasbo is running a Russian mail order bride website. Ok, that’s believable.

Deano is sick of being teased re missing Parklife and makes up a lie – perhaps that he is staying in a house, in a very big house in the country. Mrs Goggins is chatted up by a handsome man in the Vic but says “No thanks, I have a man actually and he certainly hasn’t left me, nosiree bob.” The police come round and say that they have found Parklife’s car at Beachy Head. Everyone is worried that he has killed himself dead (except for me, who is HOPING that he has killed himself dead). Carly meanwhile has pulled herself together and starts running the car lot. Maybe Carly is actually short for Carlotta??? What are the chances etc. Pat is pleased but then it turns out that they owe Fill rent for the car lot and also Carly has to pay for the car she smashed up pointlessly last week. Pat goes to sort out the money but discovers that Parklife has emptied out all the business bank accounts. Everyone is pleased at this sign that he is alive, except for Mrs Goggins who feels more and more like an inhabitant of Dumpedville.

YES SIR, THAT'S MY BAYBAY
My notes for this week have gone astray (probably still sitting on my iPaq somewhere in the Baron's lair), so it's a mixture of shoddy crib and fading memory this week.

You know it's bad week on EE when I start feeling ever so slightly sympathetic for GADawn. Well, now that everybody knows about GADawn and Slimy, it's scarlet letter time. Only GADawn doesn't have that much in the way of embroidery skillz, so she has to endure the pointy fingers of women who should know better. Babs and Mo point to Pat and tell her that GADawn will end up like her if she's not careful. So, let's look at those options for EE women in more detail shall we?

GAD --> Pat: own, mortgage-free house, own business, biggest collection of lairy earrings and giant leopard-print tops this side of Peckham. Houseful of vaguely-related Bennetton brats and Prison Bitch Bert buying you gin.

GAD --> Babs: battered woman, psychotic, spud-faced, prison-dodging offspring with severe committment problems. Assortment of ghastly grandchildren, one of which is a Beale Devil Child. Owns more wigs than Danny La Rue.

GAD --> Mo: living on sufferance in son-in-law's house with assorted grandchildren, friends of grandchildren, great-grandchildren posing as grandchildren. Deals in knock-off turkeys from Suffolk. Has slept with Prison Bitch Bert.

GAD --> Poline: ahhh...the life of a respectable East End matron. Spouse no. 1 dies in prison. Daughter knocked up by two (count 'em) pub landlords and living in Florida. Son dead - and hardly anybody noticed that he was alive anyway. Younger son knocks up a Dirty Jackson, kills Dirty Jackson's fiance, marries Dirty Jackson, divorces Dirty Jackson, gets back together with Dirty Jackson. Ends up dead in MacArfur Park, killed by Spouse no.2 because she never put out.

You decide!

Anyway, in the meantime, Dr SheWolf goes on her own charm offensive and gathers the youngish women on her side, starting off with Phoney. Yep. Phoney's out of the plot cupboard because it's time for the CUTEST BABY IN THE WORLD's jabs, and Dr SheWolf needs someone to go down the pub with. In the pub, Dr SheWolf tells GADawn to pack in her job because she doesn't want beer fumes affecting the Dawnlet's IQ or something. Dawn glowers at the nice ladies drinking wine in the corner while Babs tells her (again) that she's no better than she should be, and she's getting fat. Slimy arrives just as Dr SheWolf simpers something about adopting a baybay, and everybody applauds as she tries hard not to polish her halo in public.

GADawn has enough and announces her resignation to Babs. On Elf grounds.

Babs: Elf Grounds? Elf grounds? Strumpets don't have Elf grounds...

GAD: Well I do. ' Cos I'm pregnant.

pub gasps. I mean, who gets pregnant in this day and age?

GAD: (points to Slimy). With HIS BAYBAY!

Dr SheWolf looks busted.

Anyway, it doesn't help GADawn's standing in the community one bit. Nurse Tanyah shuns GAD's custom at the beauty shop, and Yolande gives her that cheek-sucking stare. GADawn gets Slimy to take her off to a hotel for the night, only Dr SheWolf sees them and realises the price she is really paying for motherhood, etc etc. Anyway, Friday's ep ends with her listening to them dry humping in the room next door, and Slimy promising to leave his ghastly, controlling wife etc etc.

Incidentally, has anybody else noticed how unconcerned Prison Bitch Bert seems to be at the death of Straight Pike? He's got troubles (ie, a plotline) of his own, anyway. Because somebody vaguely connected with him dumps his feral-faced hoody grandson on TriniDad and Yolande's doorstep. PB Bert tries to get rid of the brat, who has a great line in hollow-eyed stares and likes nothing better than to stare hollowly at the TV all day. Anyway, I suppose the plot line is all about how PB Bert learns about responsibility and that a life of petty crime and shagging Mo is a Bad Thing. Well, if it lands you with a friend like Straight Pike, you have to wonder. PB Bert also appears to be sniffing around Pat, much to Mo's displeasure. What happened there again?

Parklife's disappearance
Looks like Phil's done a runner - well you always could tell when he was just going through the motions. Carly does a lot of shouty "acting" and loses her job at the Arches. Ends up working on the stall. Atkins gets GADawn's job and is brassy. Deano: sad.

Fill and Sophie Thompson get back together again after Babs encourages him to stalk her. After all, he hasn't had a drippy co-dependent in his life for a while, and he's been getting a bit lonely. Ben starts collecting locks of Sophie's hair and bits of candle wax for the making of effigies.

Dasbo is wandering around with a big fat wallet full of cash, and lots of jiffy bags. I thought he might have secret camera in GADawn's bedroom, and has been selling Dawnporn, but @@ - who I suppose we should now call Libby, but I like @@ even though the key is in the wrong place on my laptop keyboard - finds out that he's been selling stuff on eBay and probably has a purple shooting feedback star by now. He appears to have got around the whole 'over 18' thing by using his dad's bank account. Hang on, Keef has a bank account?

EIGHT GO MAD IN DORSET
After all the excitement last week it is the LAW OF SOAP that this week has to be really shit. First of all, Parklife, Mrs Goggins, their assorted kids, Trinidad and Yolande all use Parklife's prize money to go to Dorset. In December. Right. I think a easyjet tip to malaga or something would have been more convincing but never mind.

@@@ has taken to calling Trinidad “grampa” and has started buying him horrible novelty records saying that there is no one quite like him etc etc. Trinidad pulls gurny faces and eventually confesses that it is all a tissue of lies! All the Gogginses are shocked and appalled but Trinidad says it wasn’t a scam and that he just wanted a proper family after his two idiot sons were written out of the show and everyone miraculously forgot about the whole foster parent malarkey.

Carly and Beano mooch around the village and meet a pub landlord who used to be mates with Parklife and who is something of a silver fox. Carly flirts with him but Deano keeps sabotaging it, possibly because he fancies the landlord too. Anyway, it turns out that Silver Fox is in cahoots with Parklife’s ex-wife/Carly & Deano’s mum, who is played by that hard faced one off Bad Girls who everyone thought escaped but ended up dying a horrible death in a sealed up room or something. Anyway, she contrives to meet the kids without telling them who she is. She later confronts Parklife and he goes “You’re dead to me! Our other son died and you didn’t even come to the funeral! Bitch!” He says they all have to leave Dorset and race back to London, but Mrs Ex Parklife says it isn’t over yet, oh no.

On the way back @@@ finds a pregnancy testing thing – who could it be, gosh gasp???

Meanwhile back in Walford, Prison Bitch Bert has a plot all of his own. Don’t encourage him pls thanks. He goes to visit his dying ex wife in the hospice and takes Pat instead of Mo as presumably he doesn’t want Mo stealing all the morphine and then selling it on at Chloe Becca’s nativity play. Mo is jealous and Charlie tries to be the voice of reason as usual, but as usual turns out to be the rather too high pitched voice of ineffectuality.

They bring Mrs Ex Burt back so she can die on Pat’s sofa. Umm OK – I hope those sofa cushion covers can be dry cleaned. They talk about the past and it turns out that Bert’s daughter also died of cancer without ever knowing about Bert, but that he has a long lost grandson who will no doubt be shoe horned uncomfortably into Walford in the next few weeks. Mrs Ex Bert says she wants to kiss Bert, even though he has an ugly beard (that’s no way to talk about Mo!!) and then karks it. Back to Poline’s reign of terror now please!!!