Eastenders: Lauren is the new Jane

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Eastenders: Lauren is the new Jane

November 26, 2017 - 19:38
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Max and Lauren

By Anna May @AnnaMayMight

Jane’s only been gone a couple of weeks and Lauren’s already right in there, taking over her duties as Chief Overhearer, Head Finder-outer and (soon to be) Executive Hospital Side-room Malingerer.

She really is doing Jane proud, too. I mean, she’s just found a bunch of locked files, relating to Kathy, on Luke’s laptop and even found a detailed model of Walford town, complete with all the changes Willmott-Brown’s ‘Project Dagmar’ will turn into a reality.

She’s certainly set her sights on a little bounce on that hospital bed, too…so, after trying to hold back her feelings for at least two minutes, Lauren’s now dating Josh. Of course she is, because that means she’s even more likely to be caught up in horrific, life-threatening events when daddy, Willmott-Brown, finds out she knows all about Project Dagmar.

What’s really silly, though, is the fact Lauren has even been allowed to work anywhere near Willmott-Brown, the Brownings and half-brother, Josh Hemmings…my goodness, this IS complicated. Of course she would be able to put two and two together at some point. Duh!

Trust her to have a mug with her name on it, though. Let's hope she doesn't leave it anywhere incriminating, eh?

Also, I’m sure I must have missed something, because it’s still not obvious to many people that Fi Browning and Luke Browning might be related...or that Fi and Max are at it. Seriously?

The most annoying thing about Eastenders right now is Willmott-Brown’s voice. I was happy to see him again, at first. Now I’m dreading each slow, draining lecture before he even opens his smug mouth to deliver it. Ugh!

Ben was frantic enough to smash his brains in when he found out he’d raped his mum, but…nope…let’s wait for the talking to end. What gets me is, there’s no way someone about to maniacally stove someone's head in with a hammer is just going to stop, mid-stove, and listen…for half an hour. Even Phil sat down and listened attentively a couple of weeks ago. PHIL! Geez! It’s not real life, I know, but…come on.

One two-year speech later and Ben starts to believe Willmott-Brown might have been wrongly accused of his mum’s rape. WTF? Kathy nearly leaves Walford again, but then doesn’t. So…yeah…that nearly happened.

Suddenly Ben believes his mum again and Kathy graciously encourages Ben to continue seeing Luke, which Ben is really pleased about. Why, Ben, why? For the extra laughs at family birthdays and Christmases? The hilarious banter across the Square between, your dad, your mum…and...you know...her rapist?

In any case, Luke has begun to show his true colours. So, even if we were in any doubt at all as to whether he really cared about Ben or not…he’s a bastard in our eyes now. We hate him. Done. In just a couple of days, he grabs Kathy’s arm, grabs Ben’s arm, throttles Ben and then throttles his own half-brother, Josh, whilst also threatening to hurt Lauren if he doesn’t shut her up.

It’s clear there’s a lot of tension between Luke and Josh…and he doesn’t hold back in telling Josh how little he thinks of him and his half-siblingness. Is that a word? Well…screw you, spellcheck, I’m having it.

Fi comes in to break her brothers apart and doesn’t seem happy they’re not getting on. Do we like Fi yet? She seems to have a little more empathy than her brothers…and, as far as we know, she hasn't throttled anyone. She can throttle Max if she likes. He’s still messing Carmel about. Plus, he’s just nasty to people and tries to kill them, which is probably worse.

Although, Carmel’s happy enough that Stacey’s coming round to the idea of forgiving her…a bit…for reporting her to Social Services.

Carmel’s also one of the growing number of people who know Gethin Pryce, Bex’s teacher, snogged her. He thought he’d be let off if he just told Sonia about it, but she chucked him out of her house. Then...her Uncle Jack, being Gethin’s landlord, turfed him out of his rented accommodation. The very next day, he’s disappeared from the school he teaches at. So that’s that. It took about ten minutes, all told.

Maybe he’s gone to drown his sorrows with Michelle’s stalker, Tom, who could actually make a very good case against Michelle for assault. Not only has she grabbed him round the neck outside the café, she’s also invited him round for dinner, where she happily let one of her mates bash him over the head and knock him out! He seems like a nutter. Nutters don’t just disappear.

Karen Taylor, though. How awful that she has those nasty loan shark men in and out of her house, threatening her kids, taking her stuff and, worst of all, nicking her dog! Is it any wonder she has no option but to run desperately into The Vic carrying an old DVD player, or whatever it is, and try to sell it!

YES…yes, it is…because, there she is trying to flog it for thirty quid to anyone who’ll have it, when she knows bloody well she can take her cash card to the bank and draw out two hundred and fifty quid immediately! This we know, because the nasty men make her do exactly that when they find out she still has no money to pay them. They even mess her electrics up before they leave!

Luckily, Shirley gets her Polish mate to help out with Karen’s electricity and everyone in The Vic donates towards all the interest she has to pay the next time the baddie men come round. Even better…Bronson, the dog, is found wandering about outside and comes bounding in! Yay!

Not quite sure what's going on with Whitney and Woody. It's all a bit of a mess, isn’t it. When Lee’s old army mate, Moose, turns up, he’s all over Whitney and Woody goes all fisticuffs on him, which doesn’t go down too well with Whitney. So they nearly split up, then they don’t, then they kind of might still split up, then they sort of don’t, but it’s still all weird, so I don’t know. I think it’s a bit of a back-burner situation. I’m already fed up with it, though.

On a lighter note, Kim thinks she has a bout of food poisoning from Honey’s charity meal safari type thing, but is actually pregnant. However, Vincent doesn’t seem too impressed, but comes round to the idea in the end. Denise, on the other hand, is over the moon for her sister.

The best part about it, though, is the pregnancy test! See…now THAT’s an authentic test, right there…and Abi’s reluctance to tell her mum she’s pregnant has me wondering again. Although, she did gush about it to Ian a few weeks back. Is she really that gone in the head? Hmmm. Nah...can't be.

Finally, Shirley always makes me smile with her bitter take on anything remotely uplifting, so when the subject of musicals crops up, she's straight in with, “Why do they keep singing all the time?” Because it’s a musical, she’s told. “Yeah, but it’s crap, innit? Keep suddenly bursting into song.” Classic Shirley.

Oh...yes! After months of worrying they may end up in prison,Ted and Joyce have their day in court…and I’m sorry to have to break the news to everyone, but…

You know what I’m saying. You do.