Joey is lurking - like the big glass of water he is - in the Square, watching Lauren, Tanya and Max return home. Tanya catches his eye as she closes the door - DUN DUN DUN! In the Branning house, Abi has teleported back in from wherever it she has been hiding for the past few months and Max immediately instructs her to put Joey's stuff in a bag... because spite is more important than caring for your injured daughter! Then Tanya decides to lay into Lauren about her incestuous relationship... what about FAMMMMLLLEEEEE?
But then - apparently because all knowledge of mobile phones has been erased from her brain - Lauren asks her mother to go and find Joey... but Tanya insists he'll be "miles away", even though she just saw him in the Square... bit of a porkie pie there! Joey then goes to see his dear old dad, Derek - perhaps to worship the ground he walks on? Half-Day Alice is threatening to leave but Derek castigates his two children at sufficient length for misery guts Carol and the ginger whinger Bianca (complete with Bianca's brood) to enter. Abandon hope...
The issue of accommodation comes up, as for one the TARDIS like space-folding abilities of the house to accommodate a transfinite amount of people are apparently on the fritz but Half-Day Alice mentions she's leaving (again) but as we all know, she's said that she's leaving for REALSIES this time and so can conclude she'll be out of Walford before her half-day off work is over... so, around the entropic heat death of the universe.
Of course, Half-Day Alice has to look as if she's going to leave (because she is leaving, FOR REALSIES!) and hands over her key to her father before leaving with Joey in tow. Derek looks a bit sad but clearly bucks himself up because not much later and he's gone to see Tanya to discuss the situation. Tanya wants Joey out of Walford but Derek is still keen on reconciliation (because that's about all he seems to do, offend his offspring and then reconcile) and predictably blackmails Tanya with the prospect of changing his statement.
Tanya even points out the obvious problem with this - Derek is an ex-con... but fails to remark that he wasn't even AT the accident and there's absolutely no way that there'd be sufficient evidence for a conviction... although, this is Walford PD, where a witness statement from an estranged son against his father to an event he didn't witness that there is VIDEO EVIDENCE OF... perhaps it's not worth the risk but the fact Derek is potentially opening himself up to charges of perverting the course of justice or interfering with a police investigation never gets a mention.
Joey and Alice - both leaving the Square FOREVER (for REALSIES) are still hanging around the Square in the cafffffffff. Max, everyone's favourite Scotch Egg, comes to give Joey a hard time about almost killing Lauren and saying he doesn't care about her. DOHOHO! THE IRONING IS DELICIOUS! Then Tanya comes in to break it up and asks if his statement will hold without Derek's, which prompts him to get up and leave.
Alice tries to persuade him no to leave because of FAMMMMLEEEEE and Joey looks in serious danger of trying to act. So does Alice, actually but don't bite down on your suicide capsules! They don't. Half-Day then reveals that even though she was leaving (FOR REALSIES!) that she isn't leaving. What a surprise.
Joey being the Romeo of this tale, sneaks into the Branning house to see Lauren. She's downstairs because the last place you'd go when you've been seriously injured would be your ACTUAL bed, no - you want to lay on a big sofa that isn't designed for people to sleep on it! Tanya sees this and doesn't say anything until Joey is about to leave, remarking that he really loves Lauren and that he should stay to say goodbye.
For no discernible reason, she's then in the salon and Derek enters and what else can happen but she tells him that she tried to get Joey to stay, with the Hogfather then offering somewhat sinister assurances that if she scratches his back, he'll scratch hers. Naturally, Tanya asks that they keep this between themselves because telling Max about this would be FAARRR too sensible and there is absolutely no way that this could POSSIBLY come back to haunt her!
Bianca is looking for a job and as an unqualified, forty-something single mother of a baker's dozen with experience almost exclusively in getting fired, there's one thing we can be almost certain of in these tough economic times - that she'll get a job before the end of the week, if no before the end of the day and sets her sights on Booty's, just a week or two after we had Tanya saying she couldn't afford to take anyone else on. So, clearly - there's absolutely NO chance of Bianca getting the job there.
She begs for a job from Tanya (complete with a plea to FAMMMMLLLLLEEEEE) but when that fails, Tanya makes some small talk about prison! Always a good topic! Tanya's rejection of Bianca is clearly a huge blow for her though, having been back in Walford for at best a few hours and having asked for a whole ONE job - it's understandable how this would really knock the wind out of her sails.
Things get worse though, she receives a second rejection! Making her look utterly dejected but who is that? Goodness, it's Tanya and she says that Bianca can try working for her tomorrow. What a terrible state the economy is in, Bianca must have been out of work for what... almost three hours! No wonder the country is in such a state!
Having received this good news, she tells Carol that she's going for a lie down but actually, she is up in her room CRYING! DUN DUN DUN! What terrible things have happened to the ginger whinger in prison? As with the vast majority of storylines - the real question is "does anyone care?".
Arfuuuuuur is practising a rap to amaze Pointless Poppy (he needn't have bothered, a laser pointer of something shiny would have kept her entertained for hours) when Moe comes in to be creepy and inappropriate in a way that - were the sexes of the characters swapped, would be judged outright rapey and completely unacceptable but this is Eastenders! GENDER DOUBLE STANDARDS? WHAT ARE THOSE?! So, it's fine!
As we've established that Arfuuuuuur has had all his knowledge of women removed the clearly infatuated Poppy looks like a puppy that has been hit with rolled up newspaper when he ignores her and then seems proud that he "played it cool", a point so painfully at odds with reality even the clueless asexual Tamwar has to come over to explain - with the laboured expression of a character who suffers from terminal constipation - that he's an idiot.
Arfuuuur returns home, bemoaning his newly discovered idiocy only to find that Moe has rented the house to Derek and she throws in another rapey comment too, which has Tamwar's terminal constipation briefly intensify.
And in a storyline that no one ever cared about - the PHANTOM SHAGGER RETURNS! Having somehow infiltrated the Vic and left Kat a watch with the suggestion they should see each other again... granted, everyone in Walford is stupid and no one locks their door but this whole situation where Kat and the Phantom Shagger communicate exclusive through lipstick on mirrors and expensive gifts makes an already idiotic storyline that much more stupid... but the Crayon Crew are to be commended for finding entirely new ways to scrape the barrel.
Alfie is apparently shocked that Walford council aren't putting lights on the Christmas tree. So much so that he pretends to be sipping from an empty mug - oh, wait. He always does that for some reason but he has now resolved to get Christmas tree lights... because it's not as if it has been repeatedly stated that the Vic is teetering on the brink of major money troubles! Oh! Silly me, they haven't paid any attention to that for a while, so that's all solved itself!
The gibbering fool returns later with a bucket and making the fateful proclaimation that this will be... THE BEST CHRISTMAS WALFORD EVER HAD! Something likely to merely stoke the baseless hysteria about the 21st of December, 2012... for no properly defined reason, Alfie's plan is to exploit sibling rivalry between the Branning brothers (one of whom is the Phantom Shagger) to get Christmas tree lights, a revelation that causes Kat to look as she just stood in something unpleasant.
The Phantom Shagger storyline - aside from being ridiculous even by the standards of Eastenders, tedious and unbelievably stop start - has a very serious problem that the Crayon Crew don't seem to have considered. None of the suspect MAKE ANY SENSE. Now, we know that Kat is a slag of vast, nigh unimaginable proportions so we'll take it as read that looks aren't a factor (they never are in Walford), if that's the case - Derek is the only Branning it can be.
The Scotch Egg is so short of money, he has to go cap in hand to Derek to sort out his mystery problem... and if he's in love with Kat (and all the indications are that there's more than just the physical to the relationship the Phantom Shagger and Kat have), why bother going through with the wedding to Tanya? That seems like a big waste of time and money that's just going to lead to another messy divorce.
Jacknocchio doesn't exactly seem like he's flush with cash at the moment either given that he presumably has to pay maintenance on his dozens of illegitimate offspring and his main source of income is a big empty barn... perhaps more importantly, after calling Sharon a prostitute, he's pretty much gone out of his way to woo her... and why engage in that kind of undertaking if he's in love with Kat?
Derek doesn't really present any problems. We know he's running Walford's criminal underworld at the moment and he has access to counterfeit cash, so he could afford to lavish Kat with gifts and rent a flat for the affair and so on. He also isn't in a relationship, so there's no problem in that regard... It still doesn't make a lick of sense and it seems reasonable to say that the inherent logic of this choice means that it almost certainly WON'T be Derek...
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