EastEnders: As psycho boy Bobby gets three years is it really over?

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EastEnders: As psycho boy Bobby gets three years is it really over?

June 19, 2016 - 09:52
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Two years and two months after Lucy Beale’s body was found on never-before-mentioned Walford Common the longest running storyline in TV history finally reached its eagerly awaited conclusion.

Max Branning and Ian Beale

Two years and two months after Lucy Beale’s body was found on never-before-mentioned Walford Common the longest running storyline in TV history finally reached its eagerly awaited conclusion.

Obviously, millions of fed-up viewers lost interest ages ago. Not so the weird space aliens on Planet EastEnders, whose continued excitement over this ludicrously drawn out saga was comparable to a daft dog obsessively playing with a tedious toy for hours on end. Monotonous, baffling but quite funny.

Every tiny development took weeks to unfold. We staggered up so many blind alleys the BBC should have offered a prize to anyone who still cared… a free white stick.

We lurched from Who-killed-Lucy? to Who-didn’t-kill-Lucy? to Jane-killed-Lucy to Bobby-killed-Lucy-but-don’t-tell-anyone to Max-killed-Lucy to Oh-my-God, Bobby-killed-Lucy!

Naturally, until Albert Square’s resident psycho-kid suddenly confessed, the world’s worst detective DI Clouseau Keeble had no idea. First rule of Soapland… all coppers are useless.

But after Bobby admitted that he slaughtered his sister, the plot that time forgot had nowhere else to go. They had to wrap it up.

And what was Bobby’s draconian sentence for offing Lucy and smashing Jane’s head in with a hockey stick? Three whole years. In the real world the terrible teen would have got considerably longer. But as we know, EastEnders and reality are parallel universes. Never the twain shall meet.

The horrible little sod should have been locked up for at least half a century to compensate for all the pain and suffering he’s caused the audience.

Back in the Queen Vic landlord Mick Carter reacted like a true no-nonsense Londoner. “A three year stretch?” he gasped. “At that age?” Yes, Mick, he might be 13 but he’s also a homicidal maniac with a dangerous penchant for extreme violence.

But as Bobby was marched out of the courtroom it was feeble Keeble who uncharacteristically stole the show with an epoch making announcement.

Declining to prosecute epic-fail father Ian Beale for keeping the secret of his son’s siblicide, she sighed: “Everyone’s made mistakes in this. The bottom line is his daughter’s dead and his son’s life will never be the same. We couldn’t make him suffer any more if we wanted to. It’s over.”

I’ll just repeat that: “It’s over.” Inevitably, the notoriously laborious writers will cling on to the dregs for dear life. Mad Max wants to exact revenge on Ian for letting him take the blame. No doubt, there’ll be problems with Bobby while he’s inside. But they’ve pretty much bled this one dry. I never thought we’d see the day.

A rare example of Ian talking sense as he told his incarcerated boy to face up to his dastardly deeds and accept his punishment like man. “I need you to be brave,” said Super-dad. “You’ve done these things. You need to learn they’re wrong. Because you did do this, you did kill your sister.”  A stern statement that amounted to bringing the curtain down on the last act.

Dunno about you but I almost feel a sense of bereavement. I thought that, like the poor, this stupefying storyline would always be with us. What will the Cockney rabble do without the spectre of Lucy hovering over them?

The early signs aren’t encouraging. Dementia sufferer Sylvie is making sexual advances to her son Mick. How uplifting. And, unaware that on the NHS these things take several decades, cancer risk Sonia is determined to undergo a double mastectomy and to have her ovaries removed. All very important, I’m sure. But so life-sappingly depressing.

Shocked when an unidentified frightening figure shuffled into view, terrified Sylvie cried: “What on Earth is that?” Good question. It was Sonia.

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