Start spreadin’ the news…

Posted on October 23, 2011 by Myras_Kitchen 2 Comments

It’s a small place, Hollyoaks.  I know, I’ve been, and Brendan could spit his gum from the Chez Chez balcony into the fountain.  But hey, lives get lived in small places.  Bugger Downton Abbey; this week, drama was unfolding down at Hollyoaks’s own Slum Towers, Chester’s least appealing rental property.  The slum is home to the village’s former-abusive-boyfriend-but-now-reformed-gay-dad Ste Hay and family; it reeks of his knock-off trainers, his Lynx, and his troubled personal history.  Ste living in companionable laddy filth with Justin.  Ste doing terrible things to Amy.  Ste left alone to bring up his kids by their post-natally depressed Mum, and rebuild his life.  Ames moving back in, as his fellow survivor of teen trauma and now best mate.  And in more recent times, Brendan regularly battering his way through the door, sweet talking Ste’s knickers off and ravishing him on the slum bed.  Good times.  But, sadly, Brendan is now languishing mentally on remand, the lifeless body of Ste’s ex rather unfortunately found in the boot of his car after everyone heard him threaten to KILL HER.  Which from Ste’s point of view, dunt look too good.

But this summer, the slum gained a new, less dangerous, prospective member of the Hay-Barnes family. Lee Hunter, having established that his intentions towards Amy were honourable, and having offered to walk over hot coals for her, but then not, because she knew he’d be scared so she did it for him instead, finally moved in his 300 boxes of novelty crap.  Now, we like Lee a lot.  Love, even, might not be too strong a word.  He is a completely hopeless div, but as Amy once said, he’s our completely hopeless div.  It’s just we’ve got the niggling feeling that setting up in domestic bliss with Amy, her two kids, and their resident ratboy-made-good Dad, wasn’t exactly his idea of hitting the big time.  For Lee has Big Dreams.   A head full of ‘em.  And this week, it looked like they might be coming true.

We know Alex Carter’s dream exit for Lee was dressing up in a wig, being mistaken for a floozy, and getting raped by Silas.  And it could still happen.  But right now it seems the Gods of Hollyoaks have other plans for Lee.  And they involve Noo Yawk.

Yeah, you heard it brothers and sisters.  Just as Lee was reconciling himself to a bargain bin wedding with pigeons  to pramface Amy, while being on the receiving end of newly-returned Michaela’s acid-tipped barbs (she thinks he’s a stingy loser; he thinks she’s a loony tune), he managed to wangle himself a job.   A long way away.  He sold himself, apparently, though hopefully not in the way we’re thinking.  It’s in PR, and that’s mostly hot air, in’t it, so it seems like a good move for him.

Amy wasn’t sure.  It was his dream, not hers.  And anyway, Michs was back and they were having a laugh (did we say how happy we are that Michs is back?  We want to throw our arms around her neck and squeal).  Plus, you know, THE KIDS.  Lee contemplated his dilemma over a whole packet of bourbons.  He would be rich and successful, he mused; he would go to places he thought he’d only go to on Google Earth; he’d be King of the Hill, Top of the List, Head of the Heap.  “But I could go all the way to New York, and I’d never find another you.”  Oh Lee, you old smoothie.  Amy melted faster than a globally-warmed ice cap and it was out with the Banana Bongo Flakes from Price Slice and in with Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

This presented Amy with what Lee calls A Tricky Situation.  Could she take those twin bundles of joy Leah and Lucas, who she often doesn’t mention for weeks at a time, the small matter of 3000 miles away from their doting Pa?  “I grew up without my Dad, and I turned out all right,” Michaela told her, philosophically.  Hmm.  Oh God, you just know this is going to be difficult, right?  It’s Kramer v Kramer.  Get out the tissues.

For extra dramatic irony, cue family scenes of maximum adorability.  Ste, remarkably well-recovered from the tragic loss of Rae, scooping up Lucas for stories of Sir Stephen the Great versus the Snotmonsters.  Seriously, Ste, you should get that published, might be the next Harry Potter.  Ste proposing a trip to Lapland for the kids, “cos they never get to go anywhere nice, do they?”  (Errr … DisneyWorld?  Like 6 weeks ago?  On Brendo’s poorly-explained hush money?  Jeez, Hollyoaks.  CONTINUITY).

So, she tells him.  But he gets the wrong end.  He thinks she’s leaving the kids with him.  Wouldn’t be the first time.  “I’m appy for yer,” he says, beaming.  “You don’t wanna get stuck here like me.”  For Ste has Little Town Blues of his own.  He tried to get Brendan to run away to Brighton with him, and that didn’t end well.  And he was on his way to Newcastle with his very own personal trainer, until Brendan called Dial-a-Scots-Ho’ in order to a) make Ste raging jealous, and b) prove that Noah was a lech.  Not difficult, as it turned out, in either case.  Now, those kids are all ‘e’s got.

Finally, they got down to it.  Amy hid behind Lee like a total coward and told Ste the kids would soon be riding the rollercoasters on Coney Island.  Ste sent adorable Lucas out of the room.  Oh, this weren’t good.  Stern patriarchal Ste was back.  “They’re going nowhere without me,” he said, (Ste, you are so foxy when you’re like this), “End of.” And stormed out.

Lee didn’t exactly cover himself with glory.  Had she considered leaving them behind, he asked Amy, and got the death stare.  Then pondered that as Ste wasn’t Leah’s real Dad, maybe they could just do a Sophie’s Choice and take one.  Unfortunately for Lee, Ste walked in and heard that, and nearly lamped him.  “I’ll go to the police,” he yelled, “I’ll go to court!  Whatever it takes, don’t think I won’t!”  OK.  Well, you said the same to Brendan, duck, and we know what happened there.

In the end, Ste went round to cry on Cheryl’sfriendly shoulder.  “The kids mean the world to me,” he wept, “I wouldn’t cope if she took them away.”  Sad face.  We don’t think we’d realised til now just how empty our poor Ste is inside, after the year/life he’s had.  It took Cheryl to point out that there was a solution staring them in the face:  they just needed to pop Ste into the excess luggage.  He’d fit right in with the Chelsea Boys down in Hell’s Kitchen.

“Your job prospects aren’t great, you’re not in a relationship, you’ve hardly got any mates, and your flat’s got rising damp” she told him, with more honesty than Gary Barlow. “What’s keeping you here?”  What, apart from the intense sexual magnetism emanating from the nearest prison?  “I don’t know,” he sniffed.  And went home to pack a bag, fill out his VISA application, and head for the land of waffles and maple syrup with a new spring in his step.  We can’t say how great this image was, the non-nuclear family in the city that never sleeps.  We wanted it, for a fleeting moment, so bad.  But oh, this wasn’t heading for a happy ending.  Ste couldn’t go.  Don’t take too kindly to a criminal record, the New York authorities, apparently.  He sank into despair, and Amy did something unexpected.  She erupted like a dormant volcano with an extra dose of PMT and dug up the domestic abuse.  “It’s about time you paid me back!” she shouted, like a harpy, as he broke down.  Oh Amy.  Harsh, sister.  You could hear the sound of friendships shattering.

Someone had to sort it.  And that someone, in the end, was Lee.  He saw Ste dragging through the village,

crushed and lifeless like crisps under bison, to steal a Dixon Bainbridgeism.  “Why did you have to choose her?” Ste wailed, knowing he was losing the only thing that was good in his life right now.  So Lee went home and did a Good Thing.  A selfless thing.  He told Amy a white lie.  The internship had been revoked, he said.  It was all off.  Yep, this is Lee we’re talking about, in case you’re wondering.  Lee Hunter, self-seeking, cowardly, venal.   Letting go of his dreams, for the sake of someone else’s family.  Finally, Lee Hunter got to play The Hero.  It’s just he did it with the tragic sigh of a deflating balloon escaping his lips, to match the downward gravitational direction of his face.

Will Lee’s spirit of noble self-sacrifice last?  We’re hedging our bets on that one.  Will Amy and Ste ever speak again?  Oh, probably.  What do Leah and Lucas think of missing out on Twinkie bars, Sesame Street and the highest rates of kiddie obesity in the world?  They didn’t say.  But one thing was certain.  No one’s vagabond shoes were going anywhere.  They were all right back in Smallville, where they started.  And it was back to looking for jobs in the Chester Herald for Lee.  I’m sure there’s plenty of openings for a former Gareth Gates impersonator in the middle of a recession. Yay.

Cos, y’know, it’s Hollyoaks.  And if you can make it there, you can make it … yeah.

We Love Hollyoaks.  But it’s not New York, is it?  Lee, love, we don’t wanna lose you, but we’d go.  If nothing else, there’s way less chance of getting murdered in New York.