Something weird is afoot on WLH where your comments are disappearing into the spam or trash folder. Maybe someone fed it over midnight.

Anyhoo, until the problem is fixed we’ll be publishing your comments manually, so if they don’t appear on the site straight away please don’t think they’ve been lost or deleted or something, we might just be away from the internet or asleep or sommat.

Basically, keep your comments coming cos we love ‘em.

BRIGHTLIGHT!

Speaking of which, Brendan’s battered cod has been looking a bit lonely recently, without Ste’s chips and Warren’s pukka pie nestled up alongside to keep him warm.  Joel’s haggis has turned out to be no substitute, due largely to the fact that:

a)      He is an even worse gangsta than Daddy Fox, and that’s saying something, considering Wazza filled the club with hookers.

b)      The fact that he is unbelievably shit with girls has proven conclusively that he is stubbornly and boringly heterosexual (until touched by the Hollyoaks Wand of Convenient Gayness, estimated 2014, as plots require).

Brendan being stuck with Joel these last few months has therefore put us into a Hollyoaksitis-induced coma which has lasted rather longer than the little nap Ash took with the old meningitis.  And even then, she was just faking it to avoid Will.

But while we’ve been taking a snooze, Myra has been thinking.  And what we’ve been thinking, right, is that both we, and Brendan, need a new challenge.  Something big, and meaty, and chewy.  Something that can stand up to the taste of the Brady.  Something with a lipsmacking flavor all of its own, E numbers aplenty.  Something that explodes on the tongue, gets our juices flowing.  And what we all need, we decided, is a nice long pink saveloy.  Somehow, we don’t think Brendan would disagree.

Which is where Walker comes in.  Needless to say, the moment he made his entry into the village (oo-er), two of the resident females were inevitably humiliating themselves by fighting for his attentions, but then available straight male totty is thin on the ground at the moment, they must all be gagging.  Even worse now Doug’s been touched by the Hollyoaks W of CG.  No wonder even Riley’s got three lasses on the go, and Cheryl’s dreaming about Jack (she should be so lucky).  But anyway, being an obliging sort, Walker indulged Chez and Cindy with a flash of his rear end (clothed) and some sexually-loaded banter.

“Short and sharp normally does it for me,” he told a kittenish Cindy, who had apparently forgotten the more domestic delights of The Hutch (we’ll draw a veil over them having sex in a bush).  But it was Cheryl who got to give him her number, his ears apparently pricked by the Brady surname.

Only The BradyMan Himself didn’t seem quite as happy to see him.  Observing Walker draped languidly over a Chez Chez sofa, looking as if Cheryl might already have killed him stone dead with sexual favours, the tache twitched.

“Remember me?” Walker asked him, lifting his head, in a voice like neat gin laced with strychnine.

Oh baby.  Yeah, we bet he does.  People, Walker and Brendan have HISTORY.

It's the bars they miss most

What happened next seems to be a bit of a whiskey-induced blur, ie, it happened off screen like all the interesting stuff, but if we’re going to take Walker’s word for it, Brendan got him drunk, locked him in the Sex Office, and didn’t let him out til next morning.  Anything else is purely in your imagination, but Joel said he never heard Brendan come home.

“Gotta say, Brendan, I feel used here, mate,” Walker simpered, ruffling his bed hair coquettishly, when he was finally liberated next day.

“It was special for me, too,” Brendan murmured.

Oh hello homoerotic Bralker banter.  We won’t have seen the last of you, I’m sure.  Strangely, Brendan seemed quite eager for Walker to sling his hook now they’d had time to get re-acquainted.  But Walker had a trump card hidden up his sleeve.

“After what happened in … prison … [significant look] … you owe me.”  [sinister smile]

H’OHBOY.  So, what did happen in prison, exactly?  Well, we don’t know yet.  The teases.  All we do know is now, they’re both out.  Brendan in every sense of the word.  Brendan’s former tormentor is currently occupying his old cell, Silas is in the one next door, and Walker’s case apparently got dropped when the witness “withdrew their statement.”

“Divine intervention too, perhaps,” Walker breathed, sounding like the intervention might have come from somewhere a lot less heavenly.

“Perhaps,” Brendan replied, while they eye sexed each other for what felt like an hour.

Anyway, Walker gave Brendan back his chess set from their days and long nights in the clink, got into a taxi, and Brendan took the longest and most determined walk away from evil sexy Walker since … well, he’s always legging it away from his problems, isn’t he, Brendo?  With the best will in the world.  “Only the weak run,” he told Walker, obviously forgetting that the sight of Ste, Leah and Lucas looking adorable at the bus stop, and the imminent prospect of a proper Gay Dads holiday in DisneyWorld, had him heading for the hills so fast his wheels were spinning.  *SOBS*

Walker is devastated to hear about Wazza

Just have sex already

Damn lucky for all of us, Brendan was persuaded to change his mind about Walker by, of all people, Michaela, who regaled him with the following McQueen wisdom, delivered direct to his right eardrum:

“Do you ever feel like you’re going nowhere in life, and then a blast from the past comes and smacks you in the face?  Oi, Tashhead, I’m talkin to you.  It’s just … my, ex, reaching out for help.  It’s what you do though, innit, when you’re a normal person and someone asks you for help, you just give it em.  Do ya know what I mean?”

Brendan, meanwhile, downed what looked like a quadruple whiskey in one and shuddered.  But he did put in a call to Walker and tell him to turn the taxi round.  YAY!  Anyway, Brendan gave Walker somewhere to crash, “just until he was back on his feet.”

Walker wasn’t there to cause him any trouble, he announced (shame), as he arrived at Casa Brady with all his belongings in a dodgy hold-all.  What he did cause, however, was a whole bunch of sexual tension in the BB bedroom where Brendan had made him comfortable (black walls and sheets, in case you’re as interested as we are).  Myra’s heart beat pitter patter as Brendan stalked towards the bed, settled himself down beside Walker, and contemplated his … chess pieces.

Yes, people, we feel a need to warn you.  We have the return of the only very recently departed OVEREXTENDED CHESS METAPHOR.   Never so abused since Silas, it is BACK.  Walker never did manage to beat him, apparently.  But we discovered that Brendan’s favourite piece, held lovingly between his fingers, was the white castle.  Because a king is nothing without his castle.  Damn, we were so hoping he would say queen.  *SOBS*

“A castle has walls, right?” Walker probed, his lizardy hooded eyes intimate, “so no one can get in?”

Brendan gave him a long twitchy look, and a joyless smile.  “Sleep toight, won’t yer,” he said, and left, dramatically.

Not the kind of bedroom games we had in mind

So, no sexytimes then.  Yet.  But plenty of what you might call foreplay.  Let’s call it the King’s Gambit, followed by a classic French Defence.  Yeah, we got a Chess for Dummies book, wot of it?  Anyway, forget the chess for a bit.  Because oh lookie, what have we here?  Finally, sexy enigmatic Walker reveals his credentials as a successor to Warren Fox, and it ain’t Winning Moves, by Bobby Fisher.  For inside his dodgy hold-all is not three pairs of prison issue boxers, but a non-branded plastic bag full of ready CASH.  Which is strange, because he said he couldn’t afford an ‘otel.

Anyway, the official Myra’s Kitchen verdict: we like Walker already.  The fact that he looks like a cross between Nosferatu, a Pepperami, and early Stewart Copeland is a help.  He is long and thin and looks like he might like to drain your blood as an appetizer.  He has a hoop in his left ear and he drinks double espresso, both of which bode well for future excitement.  Plus, like Brendan, his teeth are too big for his mouth, and if anything, his incisors are a little sharper.  We anticipate much sharky bitey tooth clashing in the months to come.

Course we all know what Brendan really needs.  He needs his chips back off Doug, every last rough-cut Hay-flavoured vinegary mouthful of them.  But for now, if it keeps him busy, and gets him away from bothering Joel and bloody Bart, yeah, a bit of Walker’s sausage will do nicely.

Quotes:

Brendan, to Joel: “Better off alone, kid. Passengers only slow ye down.” [heartbreaking sad look; *SOBS*]

Walker [coyly]: “You’re forgetting something.”
Brendan [leaning forward]: “Did oi promise you a continental breakfast? Oi do dat sometoimes when oi’m drunk.” [gives the death smile].

Brendan, on Michaela: “Oi hate dat girl.”

Not only has she received a pen, she’s also had some phonecalls with no talking but with some breathing. BREATHING. Scary. Having deduced that the stalker breathes and that it might not have been Neil this time Mitzeee started to panic. A week filled with creepy Barbie doll effigies and other such delightful treats did little to help her mental state. Clearly when you’re having psychological problems and have a potentially insane stalker following you, the obvious thing to do is thrust yourself into the limelight by appearing on some cable show. Although surely very few people actually watch the makeover show thing. Anyway, desperate for any opportunity to splash herself over the media, Mitzeee accepted the job, and was forced by Nancy to drag Esther along in order to help with her fashion design career aspirations. Where exactly Esther is hiding this fashion talent remains to be seen, in Ruby’s hair perhaps? Even Esther’s annoyingness couldn’t distract Mitzeee from feeling worried and from looking very scared when she received some incredibly clever “ICU” cupcakes.

Mitzeee’s trauma continued backstage where she was sent a basket of plums, which are apparently her favourite. For someone who is meant to be “in the industry” she practically had a heart-attack at the “break a leg” comment even though we all know that’s just shobiz speak. Duh. Besides, creepy as it might be, it is only fruit. Silas sent Lynsey actual pre-murder outfits, which in retrospect was a bit of an error from him. The plums were enough to leave Mitzeee rattled  though and her day went from bad to worse when she screamed at one deranged fan who isn’t even the stalker after all. She then screamed at Esther who didn’t really do anything wrong apart from fail to keep her mouth shut about some sort of pretentious aloe vera juice that is apparently the source of Mitzeee’s brilliance.

Post-TV appearance mental breakdown Mitzeee’s career and life basically fell apart. A few more creepy phonecalls later and she was really struggling to cope but trying to put on a brave face from Riley so that he doesn’t move out because she’s in love with him even though he loves Lynsey. While Mitzeee panicked, Mercy and Myra enjoyed her spectacular TV disaster, with Mercedes especially taking great joy from her downfall, a downfall it turns out she engineered. Mitzeee was so scared that she was convinced by Nancy to go to the police where a detective who seems to be about as good at detective work as Ethan ever was pretty much just laughed at her. And to be honest, he had a point. For someone who constantly parades herself to the paparazzi it was all a little ridiculous and pens and plums don’t really scream danger.

The day went from bad to worse for Mitzeee who struggled to convince Riley that her on-screen  breakdown was part of a cleverly-planned publicity stunt. Mitzeee’s next move involved standing around in the village attempting to attract a potentially-dangerous stalker which wasn’t one of her best ideas. Mercedes arrived with a “who’s got you spooked?”, a question that it transpired she knew the answer to. To keep her identity as part-time stalker hidden, Mercedes attempted to be “civil” which involved her wearing a classically slutty outfit and glaring menacingly. She then went upstairs to admire her creepy Mitzeee shrine, cleverly hidden behind New Look’s finest tat at the back of her wardrobe. Turns out the “ruin Mitzeee’s life” plan is based upon the fact that she still loves Riley and thinks that this is the way to get him back. Although it’s probably not the best plan she’s ever had, definitely up there with trying to kiss Rhys. The book club, which definitely is not Mercedes’ type of thing, was the perfect setting to continue her plan of destruction with Mitzeee starting to think that the pizza delivery boy was her stalker and further spooked when Mercy gave her a letter that certainly was not “left under the door” for her. With Nancy too drunk/having had too many of Bart’s “special brownies” to help Mitzeee get home Mercedes not so kindly offered and so Mitzeee fell right into her trap. Mercedes had to leave Mitzeee alone after a phonecall, that was quite clearly fake, from Bart, who quite clearly didn’t call. Alone, in the village, terrified of her stalker Mitzeee panicked and ran all the way back to the flat where she was forced to tell Riley the whole story. Mercedes, in “worst acting ever” shocker pretended she had no idea what was going on and furiously scowled in the corner when she realised Riley wasn’t going to abandon Mitzeee.

Unsurprisingly, Mercedes had a few more tricks up her PVC jacket sleeve and managed to suitably rile Riley (get it?!) when she tricked a poor young man into turning up at the flat in the middle of the night. To be honest, part of this was Mitzeee’s fault as her extreme stalker-caused panic didn’t last long and she was making a personal appearance at a cheap Chester nightclub before you can say “Ruby Glitter”.

After a week full of glitz, glamour, personal appearances, television appearances, plums, aloe vera juice and strange phonecalls, Mercedes had things just how she had planned. Mitzeee was suitably terrified and Riley was not at all happy. The culmination of the plan is presumably Mitzeee’s checking into a mental institution and Riley begging Mercedes to take him back. While no one is quite sure how she plans to succeed with that, the one thing we can be sure of is that she will because she’s Mercedes McQueen. And Mercedes McQueen always gets what she wants.

With Bart now being an artiste (having painted a gloriously ugly mural on the interiors of Chez Chez to much applause), he wants to step up his game and make a name for himself in the underground art world. And apparently, the one thing that would add crazy amounts of prestige to his already-household name (you know, to the initiated connoisseurs of independent art movements. You probably haven’t heard of them, what with being mainstream folk and all. Don’t worry darling, your moment will come.) is this thing that all the kids are doing right now, it’s called “V-J-ing”, I believe? Being an elderly woman, I had no idea what this rad new craze entailed. Despite Bart making numerous efforts to explain the thing to everyone in the village for some reason, I was still sort of in the dark about it? ‘VJing, yeah? It’s like live art, you know?’ Umm, no I don’t, not really? Surely most art you see in real life is ‘live’? Like you go to an exhibition and the art is right there in front of you in real time, i.e. live? So I headed off to Wikipedia in my own time, that is how good Bart is at explaining things, and apparently VJing ‘is a broad designation for realtime visual performance’, which is basically what Bart said, oddly (I know a Hollyoaks writer who’s been using a thesaurus!). A quick trip to YouTube informed me that VJing is basically the same as DJing, except the music is accompanied by some sort of visual stimulus on a screen, usually in the form of lasers or flashing animations or something. Although in some of them there were, like, mimes, and people in costumes? I gather the desired effect is to make people feel like they dropped acid, or that they dropped more acid if they have already dropped acid, which they very well might have. Good. Well it’s nice to see that Hollyoaks cares about viewers’ general comprehension of basic plot points. Good job.

So Bart, who now modestly introduces himself with ‘I’m a VJ’, approaches Joel with his swell idea that will send his art career sky rocketing. As Brendan is going away to Barcelona (!) for a few days (technically leaving Rhys in charge, but Joel DOES own nearly half the club so he makes the rules, people), Joel jumps at the opportunity to organise a VJ-based rave with some slammin’ dubstep tunes (so basically Top 40 music) and Theresa and Jodie gyrating sensuously on a table. Don’t you just wish you could be there, right now?? So now Joel and Bart are bestest pals!

Two peas in a pod of idiocy

Of course, Bart’s limited videography skills mean that the totally boss visual display will largely consist of images of ripples in the Dog’s pond and Tilly smiling. Probably edited in Windows Movie Maker. With some sort of antique film stock filter over it. You know, to make it “art”. Then again, those dubstep tunes are going to be so dope, the haters won’t even know what hit them.

Art frogs!

When the big night finally arrives, it goes down a smash! Everybody is definitely paying a lot of attention to Bart’s video montage of ripples and frogs, which matches the dubstep perfectly. Theresa and Jodie gyrate until they cannot gyrate any longer, and the sixth formers are loving the easy access to alcohol that they apparently have. Yes, everything is going swimmingly until: DRUGS ARE INVOLVED. As we know, nobody should ever take any drugs, ever (except Ricky’s dad because of his health problems but other than that drugs are the worst!). So needless to say, everything goes horribly wrong when eevil Maddie forces Ruby to smoke all the marijuana and then proceeds to meddle in the affairs of Joel and Theresa and Callum. Which makes Joel so angry that he goes and punches Callum in the jaw. So the result of Joel’s amazing attempt at demonstrating what a Grown Up he is is that the club is smashed to pieces, Ruby’s going to be grounded forever, Bart’s NEVER going to make it, and Joel’s a moron. Oh and Brendan’s going to be fuming, but turns out he’s not because he doesn’t actually care that much about the club and he’s more interested in other pastimes, such as moustache grooming. And meeting “friends” in Barcelona. And his mind is on other, probably criminal, things right now. On the other hand, it also resulted in this little gem:

Rhys and Joel look on with jealous gazes

So that makes up for all the underage drinking/drug use/Bart’s “art”.

After Abersoch/worst week in history, the classic Bart-Sinead-Maddie triangle ensued as she tried in vain to keep them apart so she could have Bart all to herself. Because he’s evidently such a catch. Once she got bored of that plan, she realised that she actually quite liked Callum, even though he was clearly far too deep for shallow Mads. Somehow, after hair swishing and the like she tricked him into an ill-advised relationship which was as much of a success as we had all expected (ie. not very successful) After “that night” where we  can only assume all sorts of romantic and lovely things happened (yuck) it all went rapidly downhill. Callum dashed off to punch Joel, kissed the first available McQueen, was caught by Maddie and the whole thing was over.

The ensuing episodes involved bad drawings, excessive apologies, lingering glances and the removal of a necklace to symbolise the end of their love. Or something like that. To be honest, their tedious relationship had become rather, well, tedious. Callum spent all his time helping George/his mum/his sister and Maddie spends so much time thinking about herself that I’m surprised she even knows anyone else on the planet exists. So, that was it. All over. And after the whole apology/I’m still annoyed with you thing, it looked like we’d seen the end of Caddie. And now they could both move on.

Of course, that wasn’t going to be enough for Maddie who sees a week where she hasn’t caused vast destruction as one which is completely wasted. Her opportunity to enact her cleverly-planned plan came at the Chez Chez DJ night which was inevitably going to be so dreadful that Maddie’s scheming wouldn’t be necessary. First of all, Brendan left Joel in charge while he went off some Birthday celebrations in Barcelona (WTF?!) Anyway, Joel was now in charge and so put on a DJ night without checking how old the support act, or any of his friends were. Chez Chez was therefore full of terrible music, sadly lacking in BB and over-run by schoolchildren who surely  shouldn’t even be out that late? Perfect setting for a Maddie plan.

After getting tarted up (some more than others - Ruby) and putting the necklace back on after she and Callum had a “thing” she headed off to Chez Chez to wreak havoc. First of all she cornered Ruby in the toilets and tricked her into smoking drugs which, as a result of Ruby being the stupidest person in history, wasn’t very hard. This part of the plan seemed to be some sort of punishment for Ruby saying that she and Jono “were better than ever” which seems strange considering they never speak. Aware that Mini-Foxy is just like his dad, she set to work winding Joel up by over-exaggerating Theresa and Callum’s kiss then standing back and waiting for the chaos to begin.  And begin it did. Joel punched Callum, glasses got broken and everyone got chucked out. Rhys had to break the whole thing up while Maddie had the audacity to look concerned about what she’d just witnessed.

The morning after what was termed “the worst night ever” by Sinead, which is saying something considering she went to Abersoch, ran away with Bart and has been present at a lot of underage Chez Chez nights which have all looked to be lacking in excitement, everyone was very subdued the next day. However, Maddie clearly wasn’t too concerned as she managed to spend the entire day prancing about with her big spoon doing an awful lot of stirring, in between checking that Ruby wasn’t going to tell Jack anything about her drug-pushing adventures. Fortunately, Ruby thinks Maddie is one “of her best mates” HA so looks like she’s safe on that one. Feeling smug in the knowledge that Ruby is full of misplaced loyalty and generally just an idiot, she spent the rest of the day being cunning and manipulative, telling everyone that it was Ruby’s fault and that everyone should hate her, blah blah blah. Maddie may have been very pleased with herself but Callum wasn’t very pleased at all, and Maddie’s excitement over the “I need to see you” text was short-lived. Almost as short as the excitement over Sinead’s makeover after which she looked NO DIFFERENT. Anyway, Maddie and Callum met at the folly (where else) and Maddie received some home truths. Some well-deserved home truths. Things that couldn’t possibly have shocked her considering she must be aware of what a massive two-faced bitch she is. Fortunately Callum, like most of us, can see right through her. And so after what should have been the master-plan, Maddie was left in the folly, crying and alone. Which I think is commonly known as comeuppance.

Doug’s secret crush on Ste has been obvious since they started the deli decorating and he got all woozy and had to run off. Although that could have just been the paint fumes. Some awkwardness, the hug that lasts just a little too long, the casual glance when you think he’s not looking – yes, Doug is well and truly smitten. And who wouldn’t be? Well, not Brendan. Actually, sort of Brendan but not really because he has an “oi’m not gay” image to maintain and Ste is “over him” now anyway (LOL). And not Ally, because he likes Amy, and women in general. Of course Ste used to be a car-jacking ratboy who knocked up Amy, beat up Amy and then promptly lost Amy. He turned it all round though and now he’s rather endearing, minus bad haircut and strange dress-sense. Now that Lee is gone and Amy couldn’t possibly be alone in case she accidentally didn’t get pregnant soon, her and Ally’s romance is blossoming. Well, it would be if they had anything in common and if Ste would get out of the way. Encouraged by Amy to stop warfare-romance metaphors, he decided to turn his hand to internet dating.

Hollyoaks has given us some fairly mixed messages regarding online dating. India tried it and promptly ended up murdered and Jacqui tried it and ended up with Rhys. Who the winner is there is actually hard to determine. But basically – online dating sites are fine if you’re careful and the local serial-killer grandads are locked up. To save Ste the boredom of selling himself to strangers (not literally, it’s only dating) Doug fortunately turned up because “bills needed paid”. We’ve all heard that one. Actually, bills did need paid and so Ste, with all his accounting experience, looked at invoices while Doug tarted up his profile.

His change from “skinny” to “lean” will surely make all the difference and in terms of clichés “Rihanna and Lady Gaga” seems a poor choice. The truth, which is “Britney, old and new material”, is hardly much better. It turns out that Ste loved his trip to Disneyland so much that he’s now basically a seasoned traveller and that he thinks panto counts as “theatre”. After Ste’s profile was suitable, it was Doug’s turn because the obvious thing to do if you like someone is to pretend you don’t by setting up a dating profile. I don’t know much about dating but I’m not sure mutual online-dating page creation is the top choice. Doug’s “interesting” shirts were finally mentioned, and we discovered that he doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with them but that he is fussy about which photos he’ll use to advertise himself online.

After spending so much time looking for boyfriends/girlfriends, they finally went to the deli to do some work where Dennis made everything awkward (surprise surprise) by mentioning the threat of murder. To be honest, it’s quite a real threat given the Oaks’ history of online-caused killings. Apparently internet dating is pretty depressing so Leanne initiated some sort of “learn how to date” workshop in the deli. The whole role-play thing was a bit too real for Doug who is still harboring his secret/not-so-secret feelings for Ste.  Awkward.

After not doing very much at the deli because it looks like they don’t want to open before Christmas, they went to The Dog for a pint because Doug clearly enjoys the awkward sexual tension so much that he wants even more of it. Well Doug, we don’t. We want you to stop being so silly, forget about mixing business with pleasure and all that, forget about the fact that you didn’t like men ’til last week and just get on with it!! Stug is the new Stendan. With less fighting and more interesting knitwear.

Well, maybe not so perfect, because, as it turns out, Mystery Lady Jen is actually a teacher at the college. Oh no! The timeless theme of star-crossed lovers that is never exhausted. If you’ve been watching Hollyoaks for long enough, teacher dating storylines will automatically cause you to draw parallels to the infamous Justin Burton/Becca Dean romance that ended in tragedy and Charlie. And that is how we know that no one should ever date their teachers! Chances are one of (both?) the parties will wind up dead at the hand of a scummy person in a prison. Also, ill-conceived tattoos will be involved. So what on earth was dear responsible Tilly thinking?? Seems she has a thing for sensitive art types who enjoy waking up at the crack of dawn to see the sun rise, psssh. Perhaps she is also addicted to the feeling of DANGER? Of course everything is made even more awkward by the fact that Jen is Diane (who apparently still exists, who knew?) and Sinead’s new lodger (Finn? Where are you Finn?!).

George, having now decided that he wants to stay in college, has his own problems in the form of having to do a bunch of work that he wasn’t able to do because of being homeless and having a whooping cough – in a day! He confides in Tilly but she has to run away when she catches sight of Miss Jen, leaving a nice spot for Maddie. Urgh.

'I swear you were Tilly just now... FOR THE LOVE OF GOD CHANGE BACK TO TILLY!!'

Tilly does her best to hide from Miss Jen. Apparently Miss Jen isn’t the sharpest pencil in the box – I’m pretty sure you’d notice if you were having a phone conversation with a person who was basically standing behind you on account of YOU’D HEAR THEM but whatever, please continue doing teacher things, like telling student to tuck in their shirts and get a move on. Later on, George struggles with his presentation about the differences between nylon and polyester for the headmaster because the projector is making him blind and stuff. Phoebe, Satan’s child, lends a helping hand (definitely not helping) with her superplan of setting the school on fire. An excellent plan, for sure, nothing could ever go wrong! Of course, you could just set off the fire alarm but why stop there, why not go all the way and commit arson to “help” your friend? George inexplicably falls over just as the fire alarm goes off and thanks God (though, as we know, he should be thanking Satan, if anyone) for the lucky escape. Little does he know the peril that is to unfold.

Meanwhile Tilly, catching sight of Miss Jen in the corridor, seeks refuge in a store cupboard. That is not correct fire alarm protocol Silly Tilly! The caretaker who is conveniently there locks the store cupboard. You know, just in case the fire is in the store cupboard. Phew! Give this guy a medal, somebody, because he just saved everyone from the store cupboard fire! Except Tilly. She’s still in the store cupboard. Where there is not actually a fire. But a very dangerous situation nonetheless! So when Tilly can’t get out of the cupboard again she finds herself in a bit of a pickle but it’s OK because it’s just a drill, right? Right, guys?!! Although that billowing smoke doesn’t look too encouraging? Are they, like, simulating a fire to make the drills more realistic now or what? And where is the actual fire, it seems to have become very large, very quickly? Now everybody is assembling outside and the headmaster is telling people not to loiter (so much loitering! Kids love to loiter!) and then KA-BLAM-MO there’s an explosion and now everyone knows it wasn’t a drill. Everyone is like “where is Tilly?” but no one suspects that she’d be stuck in a fume cupboard, oh no.

Of course, when you find yourself in a locked room and there’s fire smoke coming through the door, what do you do? True, you might go straight for the window that’s about ten feet from the ground, as Tilly does. But think about it – gap above floor + fumes = put something in front of gap to reduce the fumes. You’re wearing a coat, Tilly. Use the coat! Then go for the window. But don’t fall down and pass out whilst trying to climb a shelf. Oh I see, you’ve already done that. You’re doing it wrong.

Whoopsee-doodles!

Luckily Maddie receives the SOS voicemail Tilly left her. So you’d think she’d go and notify the head or someone, right? Wrong – Maddie takes it upon herself to do the RESPONSIBLE thing and… run into a burning building? What is going on with people’s common sense today?! She manages to locate Tilly and kindly drags her out of the building where it’s then revealed to Miss Jen that Tilly is a student. Tilly, having some seriously neglecting parents who can’t be bothered to visit her in hospital, finds herself spending some Awkward Moments at the hospital with Miss Jen. And of course nobody scolds Maddie for doing something incredibly stupid but I guess that’s just a perk of being Maddie. And Tilly thanks her for it. ‘Do you know how long it would take me to find another ginger lesbian?’ Maddie replies. It’s nice that Maddie regards Tilly as 1) the bearer of a sexual orientation, and 2) the bearer of a hair colour; no more, no less. I guess Tilly really is just the sum of her parts? Tilly manages to explain the situation to Miss Jen. Miss Jen clearly still harbours feelings for Tilly, something that is made clear by Jen gingerly fingering Tilly’s gangrenous wound and proceeding to then touch her own face, gross, and also again with the common sense. Also, that must hurt.

Hygiene! Who needs it!

Also, it’s kind of weird that Tilly fell on her back and yet the wound is on the front of her head? Like, how does that work?

Thus commences Hollyoaks’ latest will-they-won’t-they storyline. The secret meetings. The arguments in classrooms. The awkward General Studies lessons. The drawing pictures of each other because they’re both so deep. There’s  an awful lot of people drawing pictures of each other as some sort of visual metaphor for knowing someone’s soul going on at the moment. Because you know that when you draw someone, you actually will know their soul? So, like, caricature artists know a lot of people’s souls, including famous people’s souls. And Miss Jen likes to draw hands because they are even more a window to your soul. But you already knew that. Also “hands” means “lips” to this woman.

Yeah I like drawing hands.'

Tilly wants to embark on a relationship with Miss Jen but Miss Jen cares more about her job (which is fair enough, and since when is Tilly stupid? It’s not TRUE love, you know.). And she makes this clear to Tilly by shouting at her in class, what a meany. It’s not so bad. Tilly still has Maddie. Wait, that actually makes it worse. ‘Why is it that the one person you’re trying to avoid turns up everywhere you go?’ asks Maddie (rhetorically). ‘I think they call it sod’s law,’ answers Tilly (not understanding the rhetorical part). No, my dear, they call it “narrative storytelling” or even better, “contrived plot points” but nice effort! So then Tilly crosses her name off the General Studies debate list! No Tilly! You can’t fail General Studies! It’s the only subject you take! HOW WILL YOU GET INTO CAMBRIDGE WITH NO STUDIES!

'I want YOU to take better subjects than General Studies!'

And then the back-and-forthing starts. So infuriating. Of course, Miss Jen doesn’t really need Tilly because she has her own boob-show in the form of Sinead prancing around in a bra all the time in the house (um, really?). But she swears she still wants to be friends! Which, isn’t that kind of weird? Like, who wants to be friends with a teacher, really? There was a girl who was like best friends with pretty much the most hated teacher at my school, but that was only because they lived next door to each other. But it was still kind of weird, just a personal anecdote there. Besides, you could cut that sexual tension with a butter knife! This cannot be!

The back-and-forthing continues. It would be nice, for once, to have a completely normal gay couple on this show. But I guess there’s no drama in that, so inappropriate-student-teacher-will-they-won’t-they will have to do.

It’s about time Hollyoaks got some awards.

Here’s 108 reasons why it should:

1. 16 years of ‘Oaksy goodness

2. Wondering if it’s acceptable to fancy 16 year olds

3. Wondering if it’s acceptable to fancy 60 year olds

4. Silver Foxes

5. Scottish Foxes

6. The never ending foxhunting debate

7. Fur coats

8. “100% virgin wool”

9. Born this way

10. Born in a dank cellar surrounded by empty baked bean tins and dirty taffeta

11. R Bobbeh

12. RIPs

13. All the Ds

14. The Double B

15. The BTM

16. *rolls eyes*

17. Flinty eyes

18. MYEYES

19. I, Robot

20. Forever boyfriends

21. For the love of God, Sinead/Dodger/Frankie, put them away!

22. Hot tubs

23. There aint no party like a Savagebot hot tub party

24. Inappropriate workplace behaviour

25. Who’s been hired/sacked/rehired at Chez Chez this week?

26. 2%

27. Three Es

28. 4 killers at large

29. Little Tom

30. Food in small spoons – dead classy

31. Dead dogs

32. Sex rings

33. Girls’ rings

34. OMG necklaces

35. OMG moments

36. Moments that make us laugh

37. Moments that make us cry

38. Moments so random you wonder if you’re dreaming them after eating too much cheese

39. That awkward moment you discover you’ve killed your own daughter because she dressed as a cat

40. Cat tongues

41. “Seff…Seff…SEEEEFF!”

42. Teenage dirtbags we grew to love

43. Teenage dirtbags we’re growing to love

44. Unsung heroes

45. Singing along to the Nikon sponsor song EACH AND EVERY time (“Uh ha ha ha ha ha….ha haaaa”)

46. LIBERTYBOT ACTIVATED

47. Savage Garden gangster boys

48. The number of people who know who killed Calvin (dead and alive): 9

49. The number of people who can be housed at the Hunters’/Ashworth’s/Osborne’s/Kane’s: infinite

50. THIS PERSON

51. Riley crying – do a shot #HollyoaksDrinkingGame

52. RILEH IS A FOOTBALLER

53. BB: 1 v Sixth formers: Nil

54. JAMIL!

55. Eyebrows

56. Moustaches

57. Must Dash

58. Beards

59. Beards

60. OI’M NOT GAY

61. Am I gay?

62. AH’VE BIN AVIN AN AFFEHHH…WITH YER DAD

63. DILFs

64. MILFS

65. Grandads who fall off alps

66. Grandads we should hate BUT DON’T and found ourselves hoping they’d get away with it

67. SLUTDAR ACTIVATED

68. Slurrisome tarts

69. Broken hearts

70. Cindy realises she’s lost her prince

71. Little Grape : (

72. Kathleen Angel

73. Angel Steph

74. Ghost Honey

75. The overly elaborate schemes of slightly rubbish crims

76. Knowing about the icing sugar

77. Where’s Pete?

78. Where’s Finn?

79. WHERE IS SHE??! *ineffectively brandishes a photo of Mercedes*

80. Shit detectives

81. Running over students with your car

82. Wearing your pain as a hat

83. Hats of inner torment

84. Hats we don’t understand

85. Knitware

86. Buttons

87. Pizzaz

88. Porkpies

89. Oirish stew

90. Finding yourself writing in an Irish accent

91. Finding yerself tawken laaahke Merceh in a meeting

92. The many many sexual conundrums of Mercedes McQueen/Owen/Fisher/almost Costello

93. Love triangles

94. Love quadrangles

95. Love with so many angles it’s difficult to keep up

96. “Luv”/“Sweetheart”

97. Broken Jacqui…

98. …and the unlikeliest person in the world to fix her

99. Terreh the dog

100. Barry the dog

101. Under the Dog

102. THE UNDER DOGS

103. The soap that never gets the recognition it deserves

104. The soap that gets us up on a Sunday morning

105. Making Sodom and Gomorah look like a Sunday school picnic

106. Making ALL OTHER SOAPS look like a Sunday school picnic

107. A list of amazingness that could go on and on but we haven’t got all day

108. The relentless pursuit of excellence

So do it.  VOTE HOLLYOAKS

Now now now!

*UPDATE: In a baffling display of nation-wide insanity the British public and the BSAs failed to reward Hollyoaks with the awards it so deserves,  instead giving them to the usual suspects from Wetherfield, Walford and, er, wherever the other one is set. Some knicker factory owner winning Best Villain? May Silas wreak driving gloved vengeance on them all.

Next year, BSAs, NEXT YEAR.

As you know, because you’ve been crossing off the days on your Hollyoaks Hunks: Swimwear Edition calendar, Maddie’s self-imposed-for-reasons-beyond-anyone three month “no sex” period with Callum is drawing to a close. You, of course, are looking forward to watching two cardboard boxes mate, you pervert. Perhaps you should go and see someone about that. Anyway, Callum seems oblivious to this on account of his sister nearly died and his mother is a raging alcoholic, but Maddie (being Maddie) continues living in the belief that everything revolves around her and her stupid self-imposed celibacy, thus thinking that Callum is a horny sex machine rearing to go, drooling at the very thought of doing the dirty with Maddie. The result is something akin to that excruciating time in Dawson’s Creek where ex-slut Jen was desperately trying to change her wicked ways by not having sex with Michael Pitt all the time, thereby always inadvertently drawing the subject to sex, forever, when Michael Pitt was like “Chill, lady! We don’t have to have sex!” but then Jen goes all paranoid, like “Sex!? Who said anything about sex?! I CERTAINLY DIDN’T!!!! HAHAHA,” which everybody definitely remembers.

So despite all the TERRIBLE sexual tension that is present, Callum desperately attempts to show Maddie how much she means to him (probably about as much as his moustache waxing kit because where would he be without that? Not dating hot chicks, that’s for sure!) by drawing a pretty picture of her from memory! And it’s actually a pretty good drawing. You know, ignoring the fact that he didn’t actually draw it and it’s clearly a TV prop just like everything else on TV ever (including Callum, zing!), but there’s considerable likeness in the features. So that’s nice.

Gooood art skills, Callum.

And then he tries to explain his love for Maddie to Ash, who’s just like “why would you even like someone like Maddie, she doesn’t even seem to have conscious control over her vocal chords?” and then he makes up some deep stuff about how everything Maddie says is written on the inside of his eyelids. So I’m guessing it’s like those people who get words tattooed on the inside of their lower lips? But on his eyelids. Which is gross. That’s a horribly flawed analogy, Callum.

Under the wise guidance of wise old George (whose life is just peachy now that he’s not homeless any more, just check out his new cravat collection as proof!), who is some sort of guru of romance, or maybe just a guru of Callum because he loves him, Maddie makes up with Callum, and Callum says that it could be a six month rule for all he cares (HA!), and wise old George looks upon his creation with pride and happiness, and it was good.

Later at Callum’s, Maddie’s practically begging to ‘go upstairs’, the slag! Callum has to ‘clean’ his room, which is obviously some sort of code for sweeping those skin mags that he didn’t have time to put away because he was late for the bus that morning under his bed. Oh and also fetch the Romance Lights from Lacey’s room because she has the Romance Lights for some reason. Maddie follows after a while, because Callum rudely didn’t let her know he was ready for the sex, and then they do the sex, I guess? Of course, the sex in Hollyoaks is all shots of the door closing with the implication that what the two of them are doing involves being fully clothed, in the dark, as quickly as possible. Oh and neither of them enjoy themselves, just like respectable English sex should be, in duty to the country and all. Good job they had those Romance Lights to set the mood!

This is just a very hot sex scene.

Afterwards, Callum runs down to fetch the pretty picture he drew for Maddie but, oh no! Something terrible has happened to Lacey, in that eevil Lacey threw herself at Joel (of all people?) and after being rejected made up a story that he in some way sexually harassed her! ‘I’ll kill him,’ says Callum in what I guess was rage, but it sort of sounded like everything else he always says. He may as well have been talking about eyelid tattoos again from the sounds of it. And then he storms out, by which I mean “walked out of the door calmly and solemly whilst a nude young woman awaits him in bed.” Classic Callum!

This confuses Maddie, and reinforces her prior sentiments that Callum is a horny sex machine. Yeah, Maddie, he’s finished with you now, go find someone else to screech at incessantly! Eevil Lacey doesn’t care to explain to Maddie that Callum is currently avenging her spirit or whatever, and Maddie can only shake her head when she discovers the discarded garbage portrait on the floor. Meanwhile, Callum takes a swing at Joel, because it’s Take A Swing At Joel Week this week, apparently. Maddie finds Callum and Callum tells her to stop being insecure. ‘This is me,’ replies Maddie, ‘and my insecurities. Walking out of your life.’ Harsh, cruel words from the girl who only just bared her soul to Callum.

So Callum and Maddie are broken up now, right? So it’s perfectly fine for Callum to then get it on with Theresa in his kitchen later on, right? And then it makes total sense for Maddie to show up just as it happens? Oh Callum! Silly boy, that wasn’t wise. What would George think, Callum?? Did you even consider that? And just when Maddie had decided to apologise to Callum (under George’s guidance). So I guess all that stuff about them being a match made in heaven was kind of a lie after all? Frankly, I hope Callum and Maddie stay separated. Specifically, I hope that Maddie gets put on a bus, and Callum gets a personality transplant. But one can only hope.

Who would have thought, when they started the week with little more than some bad knitwear and ambitious dreams between them that they’d have the keys to a shiny new, horrendously messy once-clothes shop? Well, we did. Because we believe in Stug. And because Brendan was involved and if there’s one thing we’ve learnt it’s that Brendan always gets what he wants. Apart from Ste now that he’s all “over him.”

Business wasn’t look good at the start of the week when Brendan laughed at their lack of jobs/ideas/general ability to do anything worthwhile. What made this exchange better was the fact that it took place outside Hollyoaks’ new florist (where did that come from?!) while Ste and Doug struggled to carry countless bags of flowers and tins of tomatoes. They might have their ingredients but their catering business is hardly off to flying start as all their cooking is done in Tony’s kitchen to the annoyance of Cindy and the amusement of Brendan. Unfortunately, the only thing that was flying was tomatoes. Out of the blender. Onto Tony’ wall. We know Ste was hardly head chef when he worked at Il Gnosh but we thought he would have learnt how to work a food processor.

Annoyed by his own lack of ability and by Tony’s justified anger at seeing the tomato-ey mess all over his shiny white walls, Ste ran off. And guess where to? Where could someone in Hollyoaks possibly go if they wanted to do some deep-thinking while also being pretty annoyed with life in general? Of course, the standing-moodily spot at the pond. Ste’s pondering involved looking at a picture Leah had drawn and crying about the mess he made in Tony’s kitchen. “Everyone thinks I’m a joke” said Ste, “Do you think Lucas and Leah think you’re a joke?” said Darren. Well, Lucas is about, one? Ish. And doesn’t think about much except biscuits. And all Leah thinks about is dancing badly and probably also world domination. She clearly doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about her art skills because she’s certainly no Da Vinci.

Inspired by Darren’s wisdom (aren’t we all) Ste set up some fairy lights in Cincerity to show Doug how great it could be standing behind the counter of their New York deli in Hollyoaks village. The New York deli that there doesn’t appear to be any gap in the market for. Lack of money and actual plan aside, Ste and Doug were so excited that Ste went all the way to Price Slice for some three pound wine which Joel promptly smashed in some sort of attempt to impress Brendan/show just how brave he is. Ste might not have got his celebratory Chardonnay but he has his dreams and, apart from a lot of money, that’s all he and Doug need.

Ste was clearly too busy putting up fairly lights to paint Doug a proverbial picture to think about how they might get the money,  but fortunately they came up with the ingenious plan of going to the bank for a loan. Clever. The bank loan plan seemed pretty simple – go to bank, get loan. Because this was a BIG DEAL however, the pre-meeting prep lasted about a week and involved Ste ironing the same piece of terrible trouser about three hundred times. At which point Brendan appeared to give Ste some ironing advice, wish them luck at their meeting and generally just bring some amazing-ness to a morning full of tension. The meeting didn’t quite go to plan though as Ste reverted between imagining the bank manger was naked, imagining he was naked and accidentally revealing the details of his criminal past.

And so it was all back off. Until it was almost back on again when Brendan offered to lend them the money. And then it was firmly back off when Ste revealed he “didn’t want anything from Brendan”. We have a feeling this is a lie as there’s probably a lot of things he would like from Brendan (wink, wink) but apparently his money isn’t one of them. Since Doug and Brendan don’t have a past full of sexual tension and black eyes, Doug was more than happy to take his money to keep the Stug dream alive. It seems Doug might be falling in love with Ste a bit, and who wouldn’t if rat boys were their type?

Riley was almost an investor but since he hasn’t played football in what seems to be a month (even though he’s a FOOTBALLER) he realised he might not be the most in-demand player and probably shouldn”t throw all his wages into an ill-advised deli when he has a child to support. Something he realised after Brendan dropped some not-so-subtle hints as part of his clever plan to rule the world/get Ste all for himself. So instead of letting Ste down, Doug borrowed the money from Brendan, decided he didn’t want it and deliberately didn’t bid enough. The lending itself was very “Brendan” and certainly more dangerous than borrowing from the bank would have been.  Because of course, this is Brendan, and he couldn’t just give Doug the money, there had to be an elaborate test which unsurprisingly ended with a punch in the stomach.

After all the hoops Doug jumped through, he had the money but decided he didn’t really want the money afterall even though he’d somehow manged to instantly convince Ste that he had some aunt in America who was stupid enough to throw her money at two under-qualified idiots. Because Ste clearly believes anything anyone tells him Doug had to get the money somehow. “Am I wearing a party hat?” asked Brendan. Apparently not, which means he was serious and Doug had to eat some paper and go on a special delivery. Even with the money there was still the Tony problem, but of course, Brendan had that covered. He followed Ste to Tony’s where Ste had snuck in to find out how much the bid was and not just to “give Tony his keys back”. “I think it’s the lies that hurt the most, Steven” Swoon. Ste stayed strong though, storming off and leaving Brendan to peek into Tony’s folder where he’d written his proposed bid in conveniently large letters.

So Doug had the money, he had a text from Brendan telling him how much to bid and he was at the estate agent’s. The obvious thing to do surely was…. bid. But no, because he decided he didn’t want Brendan’s money after all he deliberately bid far too little then attempted to look disappointed when they discovered they hadn’t won. Because Brendan knew he’d told Doug how much to bid, and because he knew Doug didn’t really want his money it didn’t take him long to figure out what had happened and make a visit to Paul the Estate Agent. Outwith his natural habitat of Chez Chez and the surrounding areas Brendan, resplendent in his leather, fur-trimmed cloak, looked even more menacing than usual and picking up family photograph was all it took to get Paul the Estate Agent to change his mind and call Tony with the bad news. To be honest, the fact that Tony has a brother in prison for burning down his old business as part of an insurance scam doesn’t really make him proprietor of the year. Paul the Estate Agent then called Ste, told him the good news and gave him the keys even though by this point it was about midnight and he clearly would have left work by 5pm. Ste was unsurprisingly thrilled, got the fairy lights out again and cracked open the champagne that had obviously been left outside Doug’s flat by Paul the Estate Agent as a congratulations gift. Doug knew that the pink champagne (or rosé as Brendan would say because he’s far more sophisticated than Doug) was a message. A “don’t mess with me again” message from Brendan and that even though Ste was thrilled that it was full steam ahead for their business venture, Brendan would always be there, watching him, following his every move and making him eat paper at any opportunity.

And so this week Hollyoaks has given us a glimpse into the exciting world of business and showed us that it’s not how it looks on The Apprentice. If it had been The Apprentice, Ste would have been fired for being too quick to talk about his time in the juvenile detention centre, Doug would have been fired for being too keen, too eager to impress Ste, too quick to get involved in dodgy deals and too rubbish at bidding. And Brendan would have intimidated Lord Sugar into handing over his empire before you can say “boardroom”.