#soapblog

Jacqui McQueen’s vital organs had a wild time this week as she married boyfriend of the last few months Rhys Ashworth.  The week began with her lungs being able to breathe a sigh of relief following the news that she would not have to supply a kidney to half sister and offspring of John Locke lookalike Billy; Emily.  After enthusing to a freakish level to the eldest McQueen daughter that she had always wanted a sister so that she had someone that could ‘do her hair’ or something, the seriously ill Emily dismissed Jacqui and disclosed the fact that her dad had promised her that they would be rid of the former dry cleaner in no time following the successful transplant.

If this was the plan I’m not really sure why Emily was so keen to invite Jacqui to come and live with them in Spain.  Maybe she was simply talking directly to her sister’s half kidney?  Who can tell?  The severely dejected Jacqui had been staying at old Flame Tony’s place since her arrival back in the village.  Her former boyfriend received some apparently shocking news when he discovered via the post (very 2011) that Gaby had had enough of their weird long distance relationship and had decided to call it quits.  Upon hearing the news Tony agonised that he thought that the divorcee mother of two was ‘the one’.  What would have made him think that?  Surely that family only bought him trouble and hard times?  First there were the troubles with Gabi’s ex husband – whatever his name was?  Closely followed by his assumptions that his pyromaniac brother Dom was a paedo, after finding a picture of 14 year old Amber on his phone.  The pregnancy of the aforementioned teen seemed to be the final straw.

I guess this means that they will be completely ignoring the fact that Finn got Amber pregnant?  Will no one ever find out about this?  Maybe the actress playing Amber just didn’t fancy wearing one of those bumps under her clothes so they just wrote her family out of the soap to avoid her temper tantrums.  This is one way for the writers to go about things.  Perhaps Alex Carter recently requested some more serious storylines recently and rather than grant his wish the producers decided that his time was up hence his recent announcement of his imminent departure. 

If there is one person I really feel for following the confirmation that the Sharpe family wouldn’t be returning it’s Taylor. The kid had the world at his feet – a member of an up and coming boyband (ahem) umm starring role in the football team, weird half brother who seemed to be a clone of Josh Ashworth.... Oh wait; that’s not so great is it?  I expect he would have been killed off pretty quick anyway.  Maybe protecting his sister by pushing her out of the way of a car only to take the blow himself?  Maybe.

Anyway back to what has actually been happening in the oaks and Tony’s news made him decide that the best thing for a thirty something  man who only months ago was ruined before a convenient fire ripped through his business would be to go travelling for a few months.  Seriously?  How does he have the money for this?  Cindy’s grand plan to buy the gym so that she could boss Tony around worked really well didn’t it?  He was there for about a week.    Tony did however pop into Cinergy before whizzing off on his travels to attempt a heartfelt moment with Mandy another old flame who had returned only months ago hell bent on wrecking his life.  Forgetting about his luxurious flat, Tony asked the veteran blonde if there would be anything for him to come back to should he return.  Mandy greeted his questions with a pensive response that made me think that snake had escaped again before Tony escaped on the back of a moped with Myra.

Back to Jacqui’s body parts and while she didn’t lose a kidney she agreed to share her heart with Rhys by marrying him in a speedy ceremony.  Why would they get married?  Oh, well they have been going out for about three months – of course this is long enough to get marrried!  Not everything went as smoothly as planned as you might imagine.  Jacqui decided to have second thoughts whilst getting dressed and had to be talked into sealing the deal by her soon to be husband with promises that they would work things out as difficult as they might be.  The wedding night was filled with an awkward air as they returned to the scene of the alleged rape which led to Jacqui thwarting Rhys’ advances and storming out.  Personally I was hoping at this point for a return of a suntanned Gilly holding the freshly dug up corpse of Steph with a manic grin on his face but this was not to be.

Elsewhere we were treated to a trip out of the village via reluctant Tinchy Stryder fan Will’s getaway with cop loving murderer Theresa.  Both seemed to have been fooled by dead eyed liberty who seems freakishly keen to get one of (read only) her best mates to go out with her brother.  It’s like she wants to hear about his moves and then discuss them with him around the dinner table.  Anyway, both Theresa and Will weren’t too pleased with the situation due to Theresa’s clear affection for Ethan and it meant a few awkward moments for the two including Theresa bounding around the room without a top on clearly asking to be caught by the young geek who acted as if this was the worst thing to ever happen to a man.

Soon enough a spanner was thrown into the works when teenage policeman Ethan turned up apparently looking for fiancé Liberty.    Will had previously impressed me with his knowledge of the fact that it’s not very cool to wear the t-shirt of the band that you are going to see but let the side down when he took a bit of a pasting from his future brother in law (ahem) who was affronted by the poetry fan’s accusations of adultery and subsequent punch. 

Love was in the air this week as Warren took his girlfriend Mitzeee out to the romantic setting of the woods for a picnic....Oh hang on!  The woods?  Nothing good ever happens there!  And indeed this rang true when it was revealed to the viewer that Warren had in fact taken Mitzeee to Silas’ special place to let her know a few home truths about his murky past.  Why he couldn’t explain in the flat that they share I do not know. Surely it would have been a little more comfortable and Warren wouldn’t have been so worried about a rambler catching him crying.  Reports that Warren’s tears were simply down to hay fever remain unconfirmed at this stage.

The trip to the woods had come about following inaccurate Mitzeee’s revelation to Ethan that her beau had robbed the Dog a few days before.  Police swarmed around the club seemingly moving to arrest Warren,  whose annoyed look made him look like he’d had some sort of messy pant based accident,  before Mitzeee jumped in to inform the teenage police man it was all a wind up and simply a way to teach her boyfriend a lesson.  This irked Ethan who decided to play the hard game by taking Mitzeee’s mother who was working as some kind of extreme low end prostitute.  He informed the wannabe glamour girl that unless she recorded evidence of Warren admitting his culpability in Louise Summer’s murder her mother would be set for a two year stretch.

Ethan’s plan was however rumbled by ever wise Warren who noticing Mitzeee’s nerves which may have been triggered by the scary soundtrack that had been put on the clubs p.a system,  clocked that he was being taped and went one better by recording Mitzeee’s admission that she had been sent on something of a fact finding mission by the policeman.  Noting a way to get into Mitzeee’s good books Warren took the recording to the police station to let Ethan know that if the elderly prostitute wasn’t released his supervisor might be interested in Mitzeee’s words.

This led to the trip to the woods which produced emotional reactions for both characters.  Warren recounted the feelings of betrayal he felt when he inadvertently discovered that Louise had plans to kill him while Mitzeee balanced the feelings towards the man she loves against the fact that he had struck the deadliest blow against his former love when it was needed.  It was at this stage that Mitzeee decided to create an insurance policy and gave Nancy an envelope with the instructions to only open it if something happened to her.

Now would probably be the best time to speculate what was in the envelope so I am going to assume that there was a picture of Warren in drag or maybe an action shot of Warren touching Brendan’s arse during their fight a few weeks ago?  Maybe it was the lyrics to a song that Warren had written for Lady Gaga but never had the balls to send to her?  I mean why wouldn’t she want to sing about the trouble that revolves around being a village gangster while also coping with a disabled brother?

We can only speculate about what info the envelope actually contained however we can question what Ethan is doing investigating a murder that happened quite a while back when he has the much more recent murders of India and Jenny to look into.  Surely he realises that messing with Warren rarely turns out well for anyone, I mean come on – this guy cheated death!  Even the writers of Hollyoaks knew they couldn’t mess with his legacy!

After much consideration Mitzeee decided she wanted to be with Warren despite all of his faults – murder, drug dealing, duvet hogging and various other crimes and revealed the more natural side to herself by symbolically appearing without her makeup telling Warren that she never wanted to go back to being Anne – the young lady she was before Mitzeee arrived.  Possibly baffled by the revelation and not sure what to call her anymore Warren whisked his girlfriend away on a five star holiday after her only slightly veiled comments that it is only then that you find out how well two people get on.  Probably could have found that out in three star accommodation really.

Ruby was this week revealed to have had a less than five star education when the news that she can’t read or write became clear.  How this has escaped the various teachers she has encountered I don’t understand.  Ears began to prick that this could be possible when she forced Sinead to write the letter they used to embarrass school bore Esther by claiming that she was in love with classroom assistant and hardly the best example of staying out of trouble Amy Barnes.

Sinead’s realisation led to one of the dullest cat fights ever before Ruby revealed her various ways of working around her problems to the downtrodden Steph lookalike.  This made Esther feel sorry for the sister of chubster Duncan and appeal to Frankie’s better nature by requesting that her friend stay.  I’m not really sure why Frankie is allowing Duncan and Ruby to stay in her house anyway.  Duncan must eat more biscuits than the rest of the village and his sister has a face that most would never tire of punching.