Say hello, wave goodbye

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Myras_Kitchen 2 Comments

No, we’re not standing in the door of the Pink Flamingo crying in the rain, we sometimes wish we were, it would be fabulous.  No, is it just us, or is the Oaks going through one of its revolving door/one-in-one-out phases at the moment?  It’s like being on one of Dennis’s beloved roundabouts, and every time we come back around, everything’s changed.  It’s exciting but mildly unsettling.  So two weeks ago it was goodbye to lovely Duncan (waaaaahhh!  No, we’re still not over it) and vile Gaz (we don’t care, we just wonder if he’s ended up aimlessly wandering the streets of London), and hello to Dennis, the cute little minibot with a dab hand for shaking a cocktail who is now top of our Christmas list (I want one).  This week, Michaela suddenly appeared in the credits, winking at us, but we can’t work out why.  And then Gilly hadn’t even had a chance to exit sadly under the arch with all his nasty tracksuits in two bags (we never liked Gilly much in the show, but heart-wrenching way to go), before this happened.

Yep, it’s the arrival of Joe.  Or rather, Joel.  But pronounced Joe’.  He’s Scottish, see, and that makes him well hard, so he doesn’t even bother with most consonants.  The only things that were immediately obvious about Joel, apart from the fact that his quiff was as clipped as his accent, were a) that he had an immediate and instinctive contempt for the Work Experience Detective, b) he was a fan of double denim, making him look like a refugee from Bronski Beat circa 1984, c) he carried a military bag.  We got very excited about this.  Because Joel was mysterious.  All newcomers in the Oaks are mysterious, it’s the rules.  We amused ourselves by pondering if this meant he might be something to do with that poor squaddie that Warren shoved into the flaming club basement.  This is called “over-reading the situation” and usually ends in disappointment, but that rarely stops us.

Joel did very little really, to start off.  He accosted Cheryl and said something along the lines of “Sco’ish sco’ish sco’ish sco’ish sco’ish sco’ish sco’ish sco’ish Mcdubstep.”  Apparently this translated as “I’m a dead cool DJ, gissa a job.”  We know cos we looked up dubstep on the trusty urban dictionary, which tells us that it’s some kind of sexy techno music with a lot of bass that should UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES be confused with grime.  All clear?  Good.  Anyway, it was handy, Joel being a cool DJ, what with the last one having been murdered and all, so he slotted right in.  This gave him an excellent excuse to hang around the club, being slightly mysterious, and glaring a lot.  Strangely, a lot of this glaring seemed to involve Warren.  As well it might, if he was poor dead soldier’s younger brother, out for revenge.  Excellent.  We’re really good at this.

So what was Joel like behind the razor sharp cheekbones, slightly squinty eyes that would give Carl a run for his money, and the rows of neat but strangely shark-like teeth?  Hard to tell.  He was obliged contractually by his second episode to participate in a buttock-clenching slo-mo bump-and-grind session with Maddie, followed by a snog and a grope.  Then she binned him off and he turned nasty, told her to grow up, and made her cry.  He also did some mysterious phone talking, to the BBC Radiophonic Workshop soundtrack they usually use when Brendan’s hiding round the corner.  So, bad boy then.  Possibly in league with the devil.  And straight apparently, which’ll be a disappointment to Ste, who was admiring his equipment in the blink of an eye, but then he is in the middle of a shocking Brendan drought, as are we all, and one tends to lower one’s standards.  But then Joel saw Mitzeee fishing her wardrobe out of the river, and decided to lend a hand, thus blowing the bad boy theory out of the water, along with Mitzeee’s smalls.

Mitzeee, by the way, was revealing her inner awesomeness this week, as well as her Afghan coat – just two of the many reasons why we worship her as the Goddess of Hollyoaks.  However, she was also adding to our confusion by moving house repeatedly, dragging the reddest luggage in the West round after her.   She’d been doing her best to keep the shattered family Costello going on wildly over-elaborate cooked breakfasts, while juggling barmaid duties and blanking Warren’s calls.  But then angry shouty bereaved Seth was angry shouty and bereaved at her, and she packed her bags and went back to Warren.  She didn’t look too happy about it, to be honest.  She looked even less happy the next morning, when Warren flashed his meaty chest at her and patted the space alongside.  “You, er, fancy joinin’ me?” he asked her, with a Foxy leer.  The answer was, unfortunately, no.  Suddenly, the prospect of a murderer sharing her bed didn’t seem half so appealing, specially one who later took out his sexual frustration on the lining of her best tarty blue frock.  She didn’t bother to unpack in the end, but walked back out into the night with her bright red bags with her, where she was picked up and taken back to Casa Costello by the increasingly rather lovely Riley (is it just our hormones?  we totally would), who had himself only just ejected Mercy and bastard child Bobby onto the street.  Keeping up?

Warren thus found himself where all villains find themselves in the end.  Alone.  He took Mitzeee’s abandonment rather badly, all things considered.  “I wanna marry … take care of yer!” he said, tears rolling down his puffy villainous face.  Mitzeee didn’t much like the sound of it, but then she knew how he took care of his last fiancée.  In self defence though, naturally.  He still hasn’t told her he took the bullets out of Louise’s gun first, then.

“Someone’s being a bigger arse than usual,” Cheryl bitched, as Warren subsequently took to mooning over a picture of him and Mitz together, ripping up the bedroom, and giving her remaining wardrobe a pondweed makeover.   From there, he took a classic Oaks accelerated descent into paranoia, with only one thing on his mind.  The thing that he was convinced was ruining his life.  The deux ex machina.  The same thing, in fact, which has been on all of our minds these last two months or so.  WHERE THE HELL WAS BRENDAN BRADY?  Yeah, Warren, well, we all want to know that.

Having bullied Ethan, roughed up Ste, and sacked Chez, his Manc getting more impenetrable every time, his increasingly bonkers bulging eyes fell on Joel.  Who was still glaring in a mysterious and surly manner.  “How much did Brady pay yer?”  Warren yelled, laying hands on the denim one.  “You ‘is little lover boy?”  “Ah dorn’ no’ Brendan,” Joel protested, Scottishly.   “So why are yer here?” Warren frothed.  “An don’t even think about lyin ter meh!”  It was like a regional accent face off between Noel Gallagher and one of The Proclaimers.  There was a dramatic pause.

“I’m yerr SON!”  Joel shouted, shoutily, doing his best Drake Ramore before the cliffhanger.  Spittle may have been exchanged, and not in a Brendan/Ste sense.

Oh bollocks.  We are rubbish at this.  The long and short of it is, we were wrong.  Again.  No to soldiery revenge.  Yes to Warren Fox having fathered a child with a passing Scotswoman when he was, apparently, about 12.  The sly devil.  Or did he?

Like Warren, we’re confused.  Is Joel really the fruit of the Fox loins, the result of too much cider and not enough contraception at an age that would make Finn blush?  Cos with those eyes, Joel looks more likely to be a Costello really, and let’s face it, most are.  Or was he hired from the same bank of enslaved creatures that Brendan used to recruit Veronica, Bex, and fellow Scottish twink Sean?  Does he even know what dubstep is, and is it compatible with distressed denim and rockabilly hair?  What is the state of his equipment, and which way does he wire it up?

Tune in again next week for the answers to these, and a whole range of other mysterious questions.    By which time, I’m predicting at least one more departure and a couple of new faces.  But then, don’t listen to me.  I get every bloody thing wrong.