EastEnders - Busman's (Permanent) Holiday

So, who’s under the bus in EastEnders? 

Is it Whitney, as Mick suspects, or is it Lee who, for some not yet explained reason, had Whitney’s phone on him?

   

It was the last of many questions I had in two episodes that have seen tragedy befall the Square (yet again). Here are a few more. How come that everyone had to wait until Denise, inside the bus, pulled the EMERGENCY PULL TO OPEN when, outside, it was very clear that there was a sign saying EMERGENCY PUSH TO OPEN that any of the locals could have read and acted upon.

   

How come Stacey didn’t hear the crash? I know she had the radio on indoors, but nothing short of a Rolling Stones concert at the O2 could have blocked the sound of a whacking great, out of control double-decker bus careering through your neighbourhood.

   

Why did the fire brigade take so long to arrive? Well, actually, they haven’t yet; we have to wait until Thursday for that. The reason, of course, is that the locals had to pull togevver to lift the bus off Martin.

   

It’s not as daft as it sounds. In 2015 in Walthamstow, around 40 or 50 people did just that when a circus-performing unicyclist went into a bus (you really couldn’t make it up). They managed to lift the 12 tonne bus six inches off the ground and the man was saved. Let’s hope they later clubbed together to buy him a car.

   

It was Max who encouraged everyone to gather round for the big heave-ho (Mick was trying to look concerned but bore his usual expression of the first throes of rigor mortis). Quite why people were standing three deep is anyone’s guess because those in the back two rows really weren’t helping. One extra was smiling so much, I thought she was high on laughing gas. In all, there were probably only about ten people with any pulling power, which made the scene a little ludicrous.

   

Meanwhile, on the Tube, Sylvia had wet herself before singing Run Rabbit Run. Shirley joined in, much to the amusement of fellow passengers. Cue more extras.

   

Speaking of which, did you notice how many extras there were running around in the market? On any one day, somebody might purchase an apple and another person a hideous frock (that’s a veritable Black Friday by Walford Standards), and stall-holders outnumber customers by two to one. Yet come Deckergate, there were dozens of people running frantically around, looking for loved ones. 

The main cast had the good sense to stay in the Vic, from where Kaffy informed the emergency services on her mobile that they had to “stop the trains” on the Tube track. Call me psychic, but I reckon they’d already got wind of that.

   

I’m hoping that Martin survives, as I’ve grown rather fond of him, especially since he led his one-man strike in protest against the market possibly being moved. Alas, it’s a bit late for that now, as half the market has already moved to the Tube tracks. Still, it saves the Council the hassle of shifting it to a new venue. God moves in mysterious ways.

   

Another thing that’s worrying me is why no one has tended to the poor driver of the bus. Somebody mentioned that they thought he fell asleep at the wheel, although it’s clear he had a heart attack. Why, anyway, had he chosen to take the “long route” instead of the usual one? Does heart disease make you immune to understanding sat nav?

   

The poor man is still hunched over the wheel (until Thursday, alas), and the ambulance, which has inexplicably parked on the other side of the Square, won’t be able to do a thing when they eventually reach him, as it’s clear he’s a gonner. Still, you’d think that someone would have expressed concern. But oh, no; I forgot. He’s an extra. Superfluous to requirements.

   

And so, we wait with bated breath, to see who’s dead. It’s never who you want though, is it - yes, I’m talking to you, Donna and Kim. Among the current characters, I could list dozens more – not least, most of those kids who have miraculously appeared in a school that has also emanated from nowhere.

   

At least more deaths will give Billy and Jay something to do over the next few days and, hopefully, Honey will continue to provide Billy with his corned beef and pickle sandwiches he consumes in the front seat of his vehicle when picking up bodies. 

If he offers you one, Jay, don’t touch it; you know where his hands have been.

   

  

   

Don't Drink and Dive - EastEnders' Christmas Message

Ongar. EastEnders have put it on the map, only, cruelly, to take it away again with the deaths of Ronnie and Roxy Mitchell.

   

Having had a festive break, I’m just catching up with the TV I’ve missed, and the spooky, watery death of R & R puts paid to any thoughts the pair had about the new life they were planning in the civil parish in the Epping Forest District in Essex.

   

There, you see? I Googled it. Twenty miles north east of London, there is a railway station and, um . . . well, to be honest I can’t see much else. Ongar. The name makes me giggle. I have no idea why. It means “grass land”, and quite why Ronnie had chosen to start her married life there is anybody’s guess (did she know how many Albert Square residents have been buried in that forest?). Every time the word came out of her mouth, it sounded as if she didn’t really understand it, either. 

   

EastEnders can’t resist a bit of festive rigor mortis; it’s sort of their trademark. The sisters’ death – the worst kept secret in the soap’s history – was particularly dramatic. First, they were drinking too much while sitting on a ledge in the building where Ronnie had just tied the knot with the divine Jack. Alas, instead of hopping into bed with his beloved, Jack was forced to read a bedtime story to . . . I don’t know . . . some sleepy kids (to be honest, I lost count of whose kids are whose in the show years ago). 

The week had already seen Lee contemplating suicide by jumping from a ledge, too, which makes me think there might have been a writer of the Christmas shows just trying to conquer his/her acrophobia.

   

Anyway, Lee didn’t jump and decided, instead, to confess all to Mick about his part in the robbery of the Vic. Mick was not happy. In fact, if there had been a ledge, Mick would have pushed Lee off it. 

   

But back to the sisters. So, having survived the car journey in which viewers thought their fate was sealed; having survived the slip on the ledge with bottle in hand . . . what do they do but nip off to the pool for reasons that were even less comprehensible than Ronnie’s sudden love for Ongar.

   

One minute, Roxy was laughing; the next, there was silence. So, what did Ronnie do but dive into the pool to save her sister – the sister who had already ruined the wedding day and was set to ruin Ongar, too, with Ronnie insisting that she move with them.

   

To be honest, that dress was always going to be the pair’s downfall. Not since the Andrex puppy went berserk in the bathroom have I seen so much flotsam and jetsam just crying out for a disaster. Jumping into the pool to save her sibling, Ronnie couldn’t cope with the frock six feet under, and, if you were looking for a murder weapon, it was the dress wot dunnit. Oh, Ronnie, Ronnie. Don’t drink and dive.

   

Had the pair gone in a car crash, there would have been two livers that would undoubtedly have been ripe for Phil, who had been languishing in hospital waiting for a transplant. But another donor had already turned up for him and, post-operation, the job lot of yellow make-up the show had been reliant upon to display Phil’s jaundice was suddenly surplus to requirements (does the yellow colour really fade within minutes of the anaesthetic wearing off? Just a medical query. I worry about these things).

   

I was always a tad concerned about the way that car crash story might have gone, though. Livers are like buses. You wait for ages for one to come along, then three come along together. Luckily for Phil, in the end he didn’t have to choose. He wouldn’t have wanted Roxy’s, anyway – a liver I suspect was in an even worse way than the one that had already given up on him.

   

And so, the double whammy brings to an end the age of Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber, the sisters who never realised there was anywhere else to go on holiday other than Ibiza and for whom Ongar was the Downton Abbey of their whole miserable existence.

   

At least it leaves Jack a single man again – and for that, I suspect, he will be eternally grateful. No more Ronnie. No More Roxy. 

More to the point: no more Ongar. 

Praise the Lord!