Chocolate Forum
Chat => General => Topic started by: smurfboy on January 12, 2011, 01:37:05 pm
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So it's been all over the news - what do you think of the plot? Is it groundbreaking, boundary-pushing drama or sick sensationalism? (Or indeed somewhere in between?)
For those of you who don't watch, two women, Kat and Ronnie, both gave birth to boys on New Year's Eve. For Ronnie it's the end of a long wait - she was forced to give up her firstborn for adoption at the age of 14, was later reunited with her daughter only for her to die in her arms moments later, and then suffered a miscarriage.
Soon after going home Kat was rushed to hospital after bleeding heavily; meanwhile Ronnie is horrified to discover her baby is dead. Unable to accept what she already knows, she takes the baby out into the square telling him she'll fetch help. Ronnie then hears Kat's baby crying through the pub window. In her grief she instinctively follows the cry, finds Kat's baby alone and picks him up to comfort him. Ronnie then finds herself unable to put the live baby down and pick up her dead one. Convincing herself for a moment that Kat's baby is hers, she returns home.
After Ronnie's sister visits and, seeing the state she's in, thinks the baby has died, Ronnie realises what she's done and rushes to take the baby back. However, her husband, who was stuck abroad during the birth, arrives home at that moment, sees Ronnie with the baby and naturally assumes it's his son. Ronnie struggles to tell him and then hears a scream from the pub - Kat has found 'her' baby dead.
Of course the press are all over it and ignoring the context of the plot completely, going for a 'deranged woman steals baby in sickest soap twist ever' angle. The usual green ink brigade are up in arms, but it's gone much wider this time. While I understand the objections, what gets on my nerves is the number of people I've seen complaining about the timing of the plot - mostly along the lines of 'I don't want to watch something as upsetting as cot death at Christmas'. These same people then go to claim the plot trivialises cot death - so suggesting it should only be discussed at certain times of year doesn't?
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Sticking my neck out here against the masses but I've actually found this plot quite gripping. As Smurfy says, most people (especially the press) have taken it totally out of context. It shows how a spur of the moment mistake in a moment of total shock and grief led to a situation that Ronnie found she couldn't get out of. I can't wait to see how it pans out - I gather it will be quite a long time before she gets found out.
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Did Ronnie swap clothes as well or did she just do a straight swap? It just seems a bit strange that:
a) A new born baby was left alone long enough for someone else to swap his clothes with another baby's and then run off with him.
b) If she didn't swap clothes as well as babies - there must be a lot of very unobservant people in Albert Square!
c) Were the babies similar sizes? Did they have the same colour eyes and hair?
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I'm with Charlie Brooker on the matter http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/10/charlie-brooker-eastenders-row (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/10/charlie-brooker-eastenders-row)
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lol @ the charlie brooker link. that says it all for me!
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Alfie (Kat's husband) bought a new babygro for his son on the market stall earlier that day and, as Ronnie was with him at the time, he bought one for her baby too as a gift, so they were wearing the same outfit. When Kat was taken to the hospital to see 'her' dead son she said several times 'that's not him, that's not my baby' but was eventually convinced by Alfie that it was part of her grief.
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EastEnders isn't set in London, or even Britain, or even the world – it's situated in an absurd alternate universe overseen by a malicious, tinkering God with an hilarious sense of timing.
I think this can be said of just about any soap. It's why I don't watch them.
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i actually watched the last hour of the omnibus today for the first time in years... i really don't see what all the fuss is about. they had storylines just as edgy as this when i used to watch it religiously over a decade ago.