Maria! I just met a girl called Maria! It's a bank holiday nightmare for Mrs Connor née Sutherland as Eva's idea of looking out for her is to get the crimper do to her highlights ("I've got more roots than Kunta Kinte!") and tries to bully her into going out with her and Aidan, as well as enduring Audrey's hypocritical remarks ("A sensible girl with her feet on the ground, but when it comes to men!"), then finds out her flat has been broken into, is attacked by a burglar, hits her head, and ends up with Caz living with her all over again. On the face of it, this is the karma that Eva believes in, as, earlier, Maria spotted Caz sleeping rough on the Red Rec and didn't help her beyond giving her some small change. But Caz makes her own luck and, having already made friends in the homeless community, has persuaded a man to break in to scare Maria, so she'll want someone (Caz) around for protection. "You'll be safe with me," she tells Maria as the latter asks her to stay the night. But will she, Caz? Will she?
Sleeping arrangements are tonight's theme. Leanne is moving into Nick's, helped by Gail, with a peace offering of a peace lily, Liz, shooting daggers at Gail every time she talks about "her" incipient grandchild, and Steve, compaining about a pouffe hurting his fingers. Liz, not bothered about one day being in her sixties - "Why worry about the distant future" *cough* - is very worried about Gail already talking about Harry and unborn baby Battersby having sleepovers when she, Liz, won't be able to have anything to do with her grandchild. Steve can't see the problem; Liz will already be living with a newborn, his and Michelle's baby, but Liz thinks you can't share out kids "like slices of cake."
Leanne moves out, Aidan moves in, apart from he's not packed yet. He spends much of tonight's ep persuading Eva to have nothing more to do with Maria, something Eva is quite keen on after Maria's satisfying salon rant. Aidan thinks that if Eva finds out about the sofa shenanigans with Maria, Eva'll dump him, not seeing that if he doesn't put his Debenhams suits and his bottles of Dior Homme into a suitcase soon, she will break up with him.
Another one enjoying the Victoria Court lufestlye is Jenny, who spends the night with Johnny, although she eschews his cafetiere for "tea and toast amongst Rita's nicknacks". He must have done something right though, because when the factory girls down tools in order to guzzle popcorn, set up a makeshift cinema with Sean's projector and a sheet, and talk all the way through (the seventeenth viewing of) Titanic, she dobs them in to Johnny and he docks their pay.
The sleeping arrangements of the entire community are Evil Phelan and Villainous Vinnie's (fake) concern as they press forward with the flats development, bribing Cllr Metcalfe with compliments and dinner time drinks. Sally, to her credit, is unsure about the plan once she's discovered that it would lead to the demolition of the Calcutta Street community hall, which houses disabled adults film club, Oakhill Fencing, Under 11s Dodgeball abd Feral Folk Choir (all sixty of them). Instead of doing the easy thing, given that this development is never going to happen, and including a new community centre in the plans, Phelan gets Alex on his side and incorporates independent living flats into the bogus scheme. "I've been in this game a long time," quoth Phelan. He certainly has.
Gary, although staying out of Pat's way, knows what he's like: "Once Phelan gets his claws into something, he won't let go." Seeing Craig overdoing it in the gym, he persuades him to try lighter weights and also to keep an eye on Bethany. On hearing this, Bethany gets the wrong end of the stick and infers a romantic interest on Gary's part. I think we know who Gary's next girlfriend is going to be, don't we? Clue: it's not a 16 year old.
Rachel Stevenson - personal blog
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Quite happy that Jenny grassed the others up. Serves them right. Can't believe Johnny's own daughter was OK with it.
ReplyDeleteThis Kunta Kinte comment was way way way inappropriate and very very offensive to black viewers. It was uneccessary and not relevant to the storyline what so ever so many other things could have been written instead such as I have more roots then a tree or something related to having roots rather then a slave "joke" mocking the horrific history of black people and the brutality and injustice that still happens today
ReplyDeleteAgree
DeleteAlso glad Jenny told on the factory workers. Johnny should fire the lot of them!
ReplyDeleteI must admit Unknown, my eyebrows raised a little when Eva said that.
ReplyDeletewhy wasn't Eva at work with the rest of the gang?
ReplyDeleteif Liz, Steve + Michelle were helping Leanne move, who was tending bar at the Rover's? Sean was working at the factory also.
So these questions together with the "roots" insensitive referral makes we think that the writers are really getting sloppy.
Unknown at 11.35, I didn't see the episode with the mention of 'roots', but I suggest that you complain to ITV. Some years back, there was some dialogue about Eileen's messy loft and she said something like Anne Frank might still be hiding up there. Apart from being impossible as the girl died long ago, it was deeply unfunny and offensive. I complained (others did, too, I believe) and ITV 'explained' to me that it was a reference to Eileen's mess rather than the Holocaust. Well, I think I got that!
ReplyDeleteSoon afterwards, a character made a joke about Nazi Germany and one of the Polish factory workers snapped back that it wasn't a laughing matter as she had lost family in the camps. It was obvious the writers had slipped in that exchange because of the complaints.
Thank you! I sent a copy of my complaint to their email address.
DeleteI can't believe that there are two people who are getting up to the same dastardly things on the street at the same time. Phelan had the Community Center broken into and then came off as a hero. Now Caz is doing the same with the Maria burgle.
ReplyDeleteThen we have Maria sleeping with Aiden, and at the same time we find out that Shariff is having a long standing affair!
As for the MacDonald's helping Leanne move in the middle of a work day.....how contrived!
I didn't think I'd hate the Maria and Aidan story line as much as I do. We're just viewing it in Canada and Jesus Mary and Joseph Maria is already insufferable as she buttons up her shirt. I can only imagine it gets worse from here. Luke should probably feel lucky to have escaped.
ReplyDelete@Unknown 11:35 - yes, of course, inappropriate. But also highly unlikely to come out of Eva's mouth. I would be astonished if she knew who Kunta Kinte is.
ReplyDeletePlus she even said I don't know who he is but something my mom used to say...the writer of that line should be on a disciplinary..that took great thought to come up with that, and when they sat around the table going through lines your telling me NO ONE raised any concerns and the same when the actress was learning her lines and rehearsals! Shame on all of the. I heard it straight away was stunned and turned to my black parents who I don't think we're paying attention and said bet there's complaints about that.
DeletePlus she even said I don't know who he is but something my mom used to say...the writer of that line should be on a disciplinary..that took great thought to come up with that, and when they sat around the table going through lines your telling me NO ONE raised any concerns and the same when the actress was learning her lines and rehearsals! Shame on all of the. I heard it straight away was stunned and turned to my black parents who I don't think we're paying attention and said bet there's complaints about that.
Deletedidn't Рhelan trah the community centre himself, then become the hero after reрairing his own 'work' (and getting рaid for it!) - fiendish doesn't begin to describe him!
ReplyDeleteUnknown 19.33. Eva did say ' I've no idea what it means, me mum used to say that '
ReplyDeleteWell people used to say words such as wog especially youngsters not really knowing what it means simply because their parents said it..does that make it ok then!
DeleteWell people used to say words such as wog especially youngsters not really knowing what it means simply because their parents said it..does that make it ok then!
Delete