Hell hath no fury like a Silas scorned

Posted on October 27, 2011 by Miriam 6 Comments

Last week we saw the SHOCKING revelation of Mercy’s sexy time affair with her hubby-to-be’s Pa, Carl! Riley, confused and betrayed as he was, ran off on a presumably murderous rampage. Old Man Silas, Hollyoak’s personal ladykiller, on the other hand, sticks around to cast an eeevil look at… someone. Us! There is indeed something sinister brewing for the Old Man – he’s out for cold, hard revenge (on behalf of his grandson) and he’s going to do something terrible to Mercy (on behalf of his grandson – why does he even take it upon himself to carry out these deeds without even asking those directly involved? I know he’s trying to be helpful by ridding the world of slutty scum women but…over-efficient much?).

After Riley has a bit of a vent in the Dog (broadcasting his current situation to, well, no one in particular, it’s not like there’s anyone else in the shot? Saving on extras again I expect), Silas steps in, like a Real Man, which Riley is not! As Riley storms off, Silas takes the quivering Seth and Jason into his arms – ‘We’re going to pull through this together, I’m here for you, OK?’. By ‘pull through this together’ Silas actually means ‘kidnap the bride and do terrible things to her because that’ll make me feel better about the world in general because I hate women’, and by ‘I’m here for you’ he actually means ‘I’m not really here for you at all, I’m just going to do terrible things to a pregnant woman because I have personal issues’. Reading between the lines! If only the Costellos used their brains for thinking a bit more. Silas puts on a brave face but that raging hatred towards women who sleep around resurfaces easily. He can’t help it, really. Years of, you know, murder and stuff have been a fairly inadequate method of coping with such disturbing psychological problems.

Silas makes his move on Mercy after she takes a stern talking to from Carmel and Jacqui. Midway through undressing, there’s a knock on the door and Mercy is faced with the cold, eeevil face of Old Man Silas, a copy of Mitzeee’s book in hand. He utters the velvety tones of an insane killer: ‘Oh I do love a happy ending,’ (witty!) then he leers at Mercy, practically drooling at the possibilities.

The next morning Silas watches various youths from the bridge in the village. He observes Lee groping Amy’s rump – slutty Amy’s doing, of course; she obviously seduced him! Maddie and Tilly talking – well, one of them’s a lesbian and the other one keeps throwing herself at the McQueen lad, so clearly their conversation revolves around scenes of a sexual, and thus slutty, nature. Disgusting. Also, Dodger wolf whistles at the two – which is all their fault. Obviously. It’s got nothing to do with the fact that Dodger’s a womanising man-whore. Dodger then runs after Ash and Annalise, trying to obtain their attention – again, it’s the ladies’ fault that the man is barely able to control his urges and is compelled to chase them. Duh. Honestly, these incredibly promiscuous slags are just ASKING to be killed! If it were up to Silas they’d probably be locked up in a tower somewhere. That way they wouldn’t be able to seduce multiple men and have sex with them a lot.

Silas writes a text on Mercy’s phone to Myra – ‘Hi mum, sunning myself in Dubai. Too much drama. Need to clear my head. Love Mercy.’ Very good. Very convincing. Very SANE to be narrating his text messages out loud. It’s a disgrace that he failed to adequately capture the grating tone of Mercy’s accent. Also the syntax is just all wrong: Mercy would never use full worlds, it should be ‘2 much drama,’ 2! Riley approaches from behind but he’s too dense to make sense of what Silas was doing, despite Silas’ text narration being very loud indeed. ‘She’ll get her comeuppance,’ he tells him, though not with a wink and a nudge because that would be a bit of a giveaway. He then encourages Riley to get drunk with Ethan, which is irresponsible to say the least, especially when he knows heart problems run in the family (hey, remember when Ethan had three women on the go simultaneously? How come he’s not the one being murdered?). Oh and it’s a good job that Myra doesn’t seem to know her own daughter at all. As I’ve discussed, I know for a FACT that Mercy would never have such good grammar in a text message, and yet Myra takes the bait no problem. I must admit, that WAS a gambit – imagine if Myra hadn’t believed the text and perhaps suspicion was aroused?? The whole plan would have failed!

Silas seems to be in the belief that he’s the only one who’s got his head on straight. He comforts Riley, there there my boy, it’ll all be fine, I’ll kill that heartless bint for you. His plan is coming to fruition – Riley thinks Mercy has gone on the honeymoon alone, thus abandoning him and giving up on the relationship.

Meanwhile, Mercy, feminist icon of our generation, is being held, bound and gagged, in some sort of crypt (?) underneath the village pond. Seriously, would it kill these bimbos to get some self-defence lessons? Still in her wedding dress, she weeps. I kind of want to say serves her right, but violence against women is an icky subject and it’s kind of unpleasant in a really awkward way to see said violence against lady people. I certainly hope you’ll redeem yourself, Hollyoaks, by showing a beautiful male character in a vulnerable position to balance it out at the very least! Not that two wrongs make a right! Is there a correct answer to this? What was the question again!?

He goes down to her in the morning, and feeds her water he picked up from Lidl on the way there. Mercy begs for her life. ‘Don’t beg,’ he says, ‘begging is for dogs! Oh… wait!’ – Silas: witty AND a murderer! That’s my favourite kind. Mercy wants to make it up to the family, by, I guess apologising to them and stuff, but Silas won’t let her go, no duh, he’s only just getting started. ‘We can pretend this never happened,’ she continues to beg. He answers ‘Do you really think that’s going to happen? If I had £1 for every time I heard that tired old plea!’ dun dun DUN! Mercy realises that Lynsey, old town Cassandra, was telling the truth! Then Silas starts mumbling something about baked beans containing a lot of protein. Lo and behold, he reveals a can of baked beans and proceeds to feed them to her, cold. ‘WOT’RE YOU GUNNA DO ‘A MEH!???’ cries Mercy. Presumably torture via cold baked beans, which is an odd way to torture someone! (Not that I’d know in terms of real life, but I think they did it differently in Texas Chainsaw and Hostel?). Perhaps it’s supposed to be irony – death by pulse (zing!) – or maybe he thinks that if he feeds her enough of them then maybe she’ll explode (beans, beans, the musical fruit, and all that), but I must say, this is new to me. He could’ve settled for a simple banana, or maybe some bread and butter, but beans it is, I guess? He even brought a can opener – this man is prepared!

Riley calls Mercy on her phone, but gets no answer, so Mercy calls his name because he is her man and men must come and rescue their pregnant adulterous wives when they’re in a tight spot, such as being tortured with cold fast food by an old man with a heart condition. Silas listens to the message: ‘He wants to talk to you! He says he’s worried, about you and the baby. Ahh, he wants to see you!’ Mercy says Silas doesn’t care about Riley but then he has a go at her because he’s apparently doing the right thing by holding a highly pregnant woman captive in what looks like a sewer. Different strokes? Still, this is coming from a man who’s taken it upon himself to rid the world of slags, even though they largely have nothing to do with him and his life, so who am I to judge?

‘Once you’ve had that baby, I am going to kill you,’ he says in true supervillain fashion. Very ominous, very dark. Just to make sure, he’s going to hold Mercy down there, be an impromptu midwife when she gives birth, kill her, then take the baby… where? And explain all this how? Perhaps he’ll give the baby to a home, but that could open a whole new can of worms and give rise to Vile Niall 2.0. On the other hand, Silas and Riley Jr. could become a dynamic duo of murder! I think this might be thinking too much about it prematurely, but it’s always a good idea to plan ahead (I hope you’re taking notes, Hollyoaks writers!).

Later on Silas spies on Lynsey from his new watchtower (the local bridge). He catches up with her outside the Dog. ‘GOOD MORNING, LYNSEY, ISN’T IT A LOVELY DAY, THE AIR SO CRISP MAKES YOU GLAD TO BE ALIVE.’ Umm, you guys, I’m thinking Silas is starting to lose it? First the baked beans and now this entirely unsubtle entry that pretty much screams ‘hello I am a psychopath, may I please kill you?’ I think he’s starting to crack under the pressure. He talks about going to a fancy dress shop because it’s Halloween and Halloween is his favourite time of year.

He tells Lynsey ‘In some cultures, Halloween is known as the Festival of the Dead, and they celebrate the lives of those who have passed in their community. By my calculation, this community could have one hell of a party.’ So much wit, so much killing. Too little time! For now. Because then Silas goes off to talk to Riley about a woman who betrayed him in the past – he wanted to marry her but then she buggered off with some dude (character development!). ‘Courting was about respect and honour, or so I thought.’ Poor old Silas. I feel kind of bad for him. On the other hand, he’s a murderer, soooo… ‘Son, you’ve had a lucky escape,’ he assures Riley, and tells him that things will get better for him, although he does not mention that he is about to kill Riley’s would-be wife, because that would ruin the surprise.

I know that all of this is a lot to take in, and if anything it has all been TOO exciting, but the most important question of all remains: considering that Halloween is Silas’ favourite time of year, who will he dress up as during this year’s spooky festivities? He’ll definitely go for something less obvious – so probably not Leatherface, Michael Myers or Freddy Krueger. I’m thinking maybe this:

(Did you know that there is an entire website on the internet devoted ONLY to Lord Voldemort costumes? Also, the hands are sold separately.) Or, he could just dress up as Mark Lewis, the protagonist of Peeping Tom. He wasn’t all that keen on women either. Well, not living ones anyway. Suggestions welcome!