Saint Alfie is morosely talking to his baffled child du jour. He's just glooming around the Vic, despite the fact it's his ninth anniversary with Kat and then he tells Poxy and Jean... HE'S GOING AWAY! DUN DUN DUN! So, he tells Kat he has to go and get some cheap plonk but it looks as if it might be a porkie pie. They try and make the farewell poignant but self-service checkouts are more emotionally involving as Kalfie continue to suck the life out of all scenes they're in.
With the BRANNING BEAST in the Vic and Kat all on her lonesome, what else should happen but... THE PHANTOM SHAGGER CALLS! So Kat tries to do the impossible and tart up further before saying she's "going to the hen" - prompting Jean to say that Kalfie as a couple are "unbreakable" and we even get a lingering shot of their old wedding photo before we see Kat standing by the merry-go-round (which is not only on but has small children on it... what time is it supposed to be exactly?) BUT WHAT'S THAT?! ALFIE IS THERE! Who could have seen that coming?! Oh, right - ANYONE.
Tanya has apparently decorated her own wedding cake while Max seems singularly unconcerned about the recent developments as regards THE SECRET SECRET! Oh but what's that, they're paying the travel agent with a big envelope stuffed full of notes? JUST LIKE REAL PEOPLE! This is a wodge of cash as thick as a brick, Gok Ben could have bashed 'Ev's brains in with it, it's so big and yet we're supposed to believe that this is just how things operate... Yes, traditionally less affluent areas have had hang-ups as regards the use of things that aren't hard currency but come on!
As the Brannings are inescapable at the moment, we go to see Derek who has managed to get that jam off his face (mostly). He's telling Kat he is arranging the best stag do Walford ever 'ad! Then in one of her rare lines of dialogue, Trace comments that it looks nasty but Derek says it was an amusing incident with a revolving door... the sad thing is, that sounds like an upcoming storyline with the Square's village idiot Kim.
Half-Day Alice materialises behind him and points out that he said he did it at the boxing club - ah, what a fantastic criminal mind Derek is... he can't even keep his own story straight enough to fool his idiot daughter. She then goes on about FAAAAMMMMLEEEEE and begs Derek to make it up with Joey THE HUMAN GLASS OF WATER... which involves him sticking a fistful of notes in his son's face... this goes about as well as you'd think, with Joey hurling the money to the ground, leaving Derek fuming.
The females of Walford all gather in the salon to prepare for the hen night and exchange the kind of dialogue that you only ever see in badly written TV and film (funny that!), thankfully Derek wanders in to make some more summary demands of Tanya... when she doesn't immediately comply, what happens? Derek says he's going to shop Lauren... isn't that threat wearing a little thin by now? Anyway, having previously asked for Tanya to (somehow) magically make Joey stay, he is asking for her to (somehow) magically make Joey go! Cue generic threat! He also takes a pop at Sharon's drug use on her way out.
Then he goes to see his bruv who is suddenly worried about THE SECRET SECRET - took him long enough. So he's not in the best of moods for a stag party with the threat of hired goons hanging over him. Derek decides that the best man duties extent to being a messenger boy... but really, we've supposedly had Derek paying those involved in THE SECRET SECRET several times... why would they be satisfied now?
Turning the lights on in the club is apparently what Sharon means when she says she's done something special. They also have a projector, making the club feel even more as if it's just the school assembly hall that is used for the occasional end of term disco. Not helped by the cringeworthy "quiz" hosted by Kim that probably has the Samaritan hotlines burning up.
To break up the agony, Cora comes in to announce "'E's not good enough to be my son-in-law!" Apparently it isn't all doom and gloom though and when her mother hands her a bride and groom for the cake, they're pretty much all made up because y'know - these deep seated issues of trust can pretty much just be resolved with a few trite lines of dialogue and a plastic figure.
Preventing the evening from becoming mired in schmaltz though, Sharon uses a magical remote control to activate THE STRIPPERS! Which is so exciting it sends Kim utterly nanners but fortunately, the madness allows Tanya to slip away to enact her plan to get Joey to leave the Square - which is... asking him to leave. GENIUS!
Lauren chases after Joey as he leaves the club but he does the whole "forget about me!" type thing... just as well he's about as memorable as variations on beige but this prompts Lauren to remember that she is a problem drinker
The stag do isn't much better - goodness, the Vic? What an original choice! Derek walks in and tells Max the debt has been paid and as the Branning beast has reformed, it's time for all of them to give suspicious looks and Kat to disappear and given the expression on her face, it's probably to the toilet.
At least Ray shows some sign of being sane when he says that he can barely stand fifty minutes of Kim... try fifty seconds... and there is further friction between Derek and Jacknocchio... they really aren't getting on too well, are they? And as the ladies had strippers, so do the gents... yawn.
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