Friday 4th January 2013

Tanya is offering a justification of why the death of Derek has caused upset rather than merriment... it's flimsy to say the least.

Jacknocchio and Max have decided the best way to honour Derek is to go round and coerce Joey into going to the funeral. Not content with the standard Walford brand intimidating language (they ain't asking!), they actually manhandle him off the sofa for his Walford brand intimidating language. Ironically, that probably is just what Derek and 'is 'eart as black as pitch would have wanted.

Secret Wife clearly feeling that she needs to throw herself in at the deep end, takes some sandwiches to Misery Guts Carol... and receives a tirade from Walford's most cheerful resident, which culminates in Misery Guts Carol telling Secret Wife that she has to deliver an ultimatum.

Lucy and Lauren meet in the almost abandoned laundry... rather awkwardly because Lucy saw Joey and Lauren kissing. Lucy jumps to the rather strange conclusion that Lauren had to have Joey because she was copying her, before making a snide remark about the fact Joey is family - what, no "keeping it in the family" joke?!

Lauren then makes the schoolboy error of confessing she was driving Derek's car (drunk, no less) when it crashed to her mortal frenemy. Guess how that turns out? With Lucy marching to the police station to tell them... with her long track record of being manipulative, spiteful and vindictive AND the fact she had feelings for Joey who could possibly have seen that coming? Anyone. Even Kim and Poxy would have put that down as a bad idea... but nope, Lauren had the idiot ball... seriously, wouldn't this scene have made more sense if she was at least drunk?

Jacknocchio is clearly in a mood to work with his hands because after having pushed Joey around, he's handling the incredibly gauche funeral wreathes that spell out "BROTHER" and "DEREK"... He clearly realises that he made a massive error in judgement paying to have such a horribly tacky display for the brother he was pretty much willing to murder a week ago because it moves him to tears. Showing the wide diversity of coping methods and proving Eastenders is nothing if not a bastion of good role models, Max is hitting the scotch on his own before noon.

Pointless Poppy turns up at Half-Day Alice's house, telling Alice and Kat (who has gone from basted turkey to overly dry turkey) that cornflakes relieve stress. Yes - it's all the prozac they put in them, Poppy. Half-Day Alice can barely finish sentences fortunately, she never says anything of consequence - white noise is more memorable. Oh and Pointless Poppy tries to talk her through the stages of grief... which fills Kat with enough hatred of humanity, that she walks out and immediately insults Joey.

Joey then lists off the reasons for hating his father which include his emotional and physical abuse of both  his mother and him (sufficiently serious to hospitalise his mother), him being a career criminal and of course, the absence that led to... and then Kat delivers a bizarre rant about how Joey needs to grow up, which seems to imply that he can't care for his sister AND hate his father. She's probably suffering make-up withdrawal. Poppy imbues Alice with some more pearls of wisdom and Joey is coming to the funeral now!

Max and Secret Wife meet out in the open so there's nothing suspicious or untoward going on. No, wait - sorry. They meet in the back alley on the Square where people only meet when they're doing something suspicious or untoward and someone needs to seem them and Secret Wife says she hates Max. That's not very nice, he just offered to pay your train fare - he'll probably have to remortgage the house for that!

Carol and Jack talk about their childhood. Apparently it was miserable. Quelle surprise and then the seemingly endless stream of cars pull in... With Cora offering  her opinion on the funeral, it feels as if she's trying out to be some kind of BBC funeral commentator... Unfortunately she relates this to Sharon, who looks like she's realising today was a bad day to stop taking opiates.

In the laundrette, as one generally leaves washing of clothes to the last second, Lauren's impromptu disappearance has caused havoc. Tanya then holds her phone skyward and declares "I can't get a signal". Oh no, if only the cars were WITHIN SHOUTING DISTANCE. As it turns out, this is merely dramatic contrivance for her to go outside and say "where are you Max?!" only for us to hear a phone ringing in the distance... and then after Abi telling us that Lauren is at the police station, we cut to Max and his wife, kissing in the alley... so, the secret to a woman's heart is with an on-peak rail ticket! THAT'S HIS SECRET!