Emmerdale

[Red Ranger 1]

Are we meant to feel sorry for Rachel?Because I don't, at all.She's brought everything on herself and I refuse to see Jai as the moustache-twirling villain he's often painted as: So he locked Charity in a box, who hasn't dreamt of doing that?I was cheering when he did the same to Rachel.I'm glad Sam's finally seeing the light and realising what a nasty piece of work she is and hope he doesn't backtrack.

Similarly, Laurel's self-destructive behaviour mostly just has me going "Serves you right for cheating on Ashley." I'm wondering if the show is finally willing to give up on presenting Marlon and Laurel as a fairy tale couple, admit that the majority of the audience hate the fact Ashley and Laurel broke up and slowly move them towards a reunion.If so, I've mixed feelings, mainly because I really don't think Harriet deserves to be the loser in it all.

Ross continues to get kicked in the teeth literally and metaphorically.Admittedly he dragged Debbie into the scam but he seems to be going through an awful lot to protect her and her family without a word of thanks.Cain seemed unnecessarily callous and now Pete is showing his inner psycho again.

I was hoping Lachlan had turned a corner when he admitted what he did to Alicia but he was soon back manipulating events with Robert to gain an advantage.I don't particularly want David and Alicia to go but I don't know what purpose Brenda served in sabotaging Carly and Chrissie's attempt to buy the shop: It would have given Carly an independent income away from Bob, now instead he's bankrolling her.

Really didn't like how Bernice and Gabby lied to get Tracy sacked and seemingly got away with it.

[Homeandawayfan.]

Ross acts hard but comes across as a wimp when challenged, begging for mercy off Charlie, and doing the same with Pete.

[Red Ranger 1]

I continue to be torn between feeling nostalgic about Laurel and Ashley and thinking he deserves a lot better than the person she's become.I really wasn't moved at all by her speech to him and her blabbing to everyone that he was dead without checking her facts was the latest in a long line of screw-ups.(I'm assuming he doesn't die...)Adam has caused a heap of trouble for Victoria but I think he means well and definitely didn't deserve the increasingly psychotic Robert trying to send him back to jail.Neither does he deserve Rakesh saddling him with a child that isn't his.Even though I like Kirin, Rakesh's actions are so loathsome that I'm hoping this backfires big time and Kirin ends up on a downward spiral far bigger than if he knew he was going to be a father and mucking his exams up.

Still just about liking Jai on the grounds that I dislike Rachel more.David and Alicia's apparent exit felt weird and not all that final.Finn covering for Emma was very strange.

[Homeandawayfan.]

Emmerdale has so many one dimensional characters in it who are totally unlikeable. Some think they are multi layered and just misunderstood. Nothing to misunderstand about a violet thug like Ross Barton. And Cain Dingle is a highly one dimensional charmless man. Jai, Rachel, Laurel, Moira, Debbie and Charity, there is no character to them, they are just plain one dimensional characters who think of No 1.

Yet Val Pollard and Diane Sugden and even Chas have more layers to them.

[Slade]

I really, really enjoyed Jai locking Rachel in the freezer.  My only regret was that he let her out so soon.  In saying that I'm now getting fed up with this power struggle with Archie.  I was glad Rishi went to the police and told them the truth i.e. he fell over and Rachel didn't actually assault him contrary to what Jai told them.  I don't like Rachel at all but Jai is starting to get out of control, drugging her and threatening to kill her before that.  He's also treating Megan pretty badly too cheating on her with Leyla and using her only to secure custody of Archie, quite prepared to ditch her once that is achieved.  Leyla was pretty dumb herself.  She saw and heard how Jai was to Rachel, was quite shocked, called him out on it, he spins her some story about wanting to marry her after he's got rid of Megan and she just accepts it.

Really, really not happy about this whole Laurel/Ashley thing.  I think it's inevitable they are going to get back together but I would rather Laurel give things a go with Marlon.  Also I quite like Ashley and Harriet together so splitting them up IMO would be a shame.

I'm still finding Tracy really funny.  I think she's a lot smarter than she makes out, figuring out that Bernice was lying about having a boyfriend to Andy.  She's actually not bad looking as well.

I have just about had it with Robert.  I know Victoria is his sister but just the level of hypocrisy about Adam cheating on her had me shaking my head.  And he continues to be generally unpleasant.

Really didn't like Rakesh making Vanessa believe her baby is Adam's.  That was really, really low.  I can understand him not wanting his son to throw his life away but this is not the way to do it.

Ross continues to demonstrate what an utterly repugnant and reprehensible individual he is, constantly trying to hit on his brother's fiancee and using Carly just to make Debbie jealous.  So I was glad Pete set him up.  Just a shame he fessed up.  But at least Pete did actually tell the truth.  The thing that annoys me is that Ross is always so smug about everything.  A person who doesn't seem to have any remorse for his actions.  I'm assuming from their conversation in the first episode on Thursday that they didn't sleep together and that was only because Debbie ran off.  Ross would have been more than happy to do it otherwise.  Once again although I don't like her I did actually enjoy seeing Emma try to cause more trouble when she sabotaged James's attempts to rent out a flat.  I was very surprised Finn covered for her.

Is Emma Atkins's maternity leave finished already?  This storyline with Charity having a baby doesn't make any sense.  Surely this would mean she was pregnant just before Declan went psycho despite risking everything to abort his baby before.  Charity's reaction to Debbie's confession made me initially think the father was Ross but that was way back when they slept together.  It will be interesting to find out who the dad actually is.  Part of me is hoping it is Declan as it would have a certain amount of poetic justice.

[Red Ranger 1]

Well, you can’t say that Charity giving birth wasn’t a shock. Despite the rather weird mystery, on the face of it Declan seems the only obvious candidate, despite Chas and Moira obsessing about Cain. Inside Soap tried to print a list of suspects and ended up throwing random Bartons in there. I don’t know if she’s meant to have not found out she was pregnant until after she got sent to jail; it did cross my mind she might have got a guard to knock her up deliberately but I haven’t checked the dates. Anyway, it doesn’t say much for her criminal mastermind status that her big plan to get out of jail was something Belle rejected as being too stupid. I’ve heard Emma Atkins filmed all that stuff before maternity leave. Guess they had to do something with her looking pregnant.

 

While Jai is a bit hard to approve of, I dislike Rachel enough not to care: I’m pretty tired of her playing the victim and coming out on top.

 

Robert does seem to be a complete sociopath now, with his attempts to send Adam to jail just for cheating on his sister. I really hope Adam and Victoria do come back married just to teach him a lesson, even though I agree Adam screwed up by crushing Victoria’s car. His berating Chrissie for her own “cheating” after months of sleeping with Aaron was such blatant hypocrisy I wonder if he’s lost all touch with reality.

 

I don’t want Ashley and Laurel back together but I want her and Marlon to be happy even less so it may be the lesser of two evils. My biggest worry is that they’ll sacrifice Harriet to make it happen: The episode where she nearly kicked Laurel out out of jealousy felt like they were trying to make us dislike her.

 

Are we really meant to see Pete as the nice brother, as the dialogue and publicity suggests? Because personally I find him a pretty reprehensible individual, just without Ross’ charm that makes me like him anyway: Framing Ross was treated as an out of character moment but in fact it seems pretty typical. (Are we all forgetting he tortured a man to get Debbie off assault charges?)

 

I’m very disappointed that they’ve brought Joanie back. After everything she got put through by Amy, Val and Kerry last time she was on the show, she deserved to be able to bring Kyle up in peace, but now she’s had more misery heaped on her to justify bringing him back onto the show. And I’ve got a horrible feeling that, having failed to get all the audience against her last time round, the show is now going to reveal she faked the mugging and vandalism to get the Dingles’ sympathy. Val refusing to let her stay at the B&B was a disgrace.

[Slade]

There's an argument Robert deserved it after everything he's done especially after almost killing Paddy but it still felt slightly uncomfortable watching Cain knock the stuffing out of him.  He was extremely lucky Aaron still had a thing for him or Cain could have really done some serious damage.  He deserved to be 15 grand down but I didn't like the fact that it was Cain who extorted the money out of him.  But I guess that's what Robert gets for trying to mess with him.  The thing about Paddy is that he can't actually prove that Robert was responsible for his accident.  I did actually wonder if he was going to tell Chas but I guess he's keeping quiet for now.

Whilst Rachel has annoyed me intensely and I still don't like her I don't like the way Jai is planning on screwing Megan over so I'm glad Rachel showed her the footage with Jai and Leyla doing the dirty.  I'm glad Megan is planning a way out of the marriage with something and I hope she succeeds.

Good to see Marlon at least trying to give Laurel another chance.  Sadly I don't really have much hope for them especially given the fact that Laurel slept with someone else but well done to the writers for making the storyline so realistic.  Really enjoyed a couple of the scenes with April and Laurel especially after Laurel found out her mother died and April related it to Donna's death.

Just about had it with Carly.  Don't find anything likeable or redeeming about the character whatsoever.  She's selfish  and rude for the most part.  They way she stole the money to pay for the repairs to her shop and tried to blackmail Val (even though there's an argument Val deserves it) just about sums her up.  The only positive thing I can say is that she felt bad about the robbery.  I'm glad she's gone and hopefully she won't be coming back.

Ross continues to demonstrate what an utterly repugnant, loathsome and vile human being he is, sleeping with his brother's fiancee and committing a robbery.  This thug beats a second person senseless and leaves them for dead, without one ounce of remorse (Why couldn't he have just threatened the illegal driver instead? Probably because he wouldn't have enjoyed it as much).  He's effectively put Jimmy in serious financial trouble because Jimmy wasn't ensured for the theft.  Then he had to audacity to gloat to Carly about the money they made afterwards.  Moira was right to give Debbie an ultimatum and whilst I initially didn't like the idea of Ross and Debbie and what it was doing to Pete I now think they both deserve each other.  Debbie is so dumb anyway.  She quite understandably got annoyed when she initially suspected it was Ross who ripped off her mother's business.  She confronted him about it and he spun her some story which she fell for.  When Pete confirms her initial thoughts were correct and Ross did in fact commit the theft she confronts him once more and he talks her around again.  This was very reminiscent of when Cameron fessed up to murdering Carl and Debbie responded by telling him she loved him.  Ross is an extremely dangerous individual and is this the sort of person she wants in her kids lives?  I really want this to come out but I don't want Debbie finishing with Pete.  I don't want her having that luxury.  I want both of them to be exposed.  Best case scenario for me would be for Emma to find out and drop the ball at the wedding but I can't see her doing that to Ross.  I absolutely love the fact that he is Mosses's father.  He deserves to have that heaped on him and I like that fact that it potentially threatens his plans with Debbie.  What would be good is if Emma found out about it.  The backlash from an outting on that would be great.  I am interested in finding out what Charity wants him to do for her to keep stum.

Still very hot and cold with Emma.  Don't like her as a person.  They way she trashed the doctor's office just because he didn't want to date her was ridiculous.  James actually annoyed me when he told her btw and I felt he should have just kept his mouth shut and maybe said something afterwards if the doctor didn't actually tell Emma but I still think she's a very entertaining character and one of the few people who can sufficiently annoy some of the Dingles.

[Homeandawayfan.]

I hate Ross, he is a complete psychopath like his deranged mother Emma, who is supposed to have a caring occupation.

Edited July 21, 2015 by Homeandawayfan.

[Red Ranger 1]

I've given up trying to excuse both Ross and Carly, they've crossed too many lines.It's a shame because there are actually times when I like them:Neither of them's a good person, but they're not all bad either.But I don't like how Carly's skipped out and left Bob to carry the can, to the point that her self-pitying farewell note just felt like manipulation.(Still, nice to see Val getting her just desserts.)And Ross isn't doing himself any favours by working for Charity.Even his little bit with Noah, when children tend to bring out the best in him, turned out to be him furthering his agenda.Still, I remember many moons ago a policeman suggesting the Kings were worse than Cain because he doesn't try to pretend he's perfect while they act respectable while being just as big crooks.And I'd take Ross any day over Robert, who's as close to pure evil as the show's got at the moment.The only reason he didn't kill Aaron and Paddy is because he's a coward and because he's deranged enough to think he's the hero of the story and everyone he kills deserves it.Cain would have done a lot of people a favour by getting rid of him, and it's frustrating that Paddy's acting like he's got the moral high ground when in fact he's rolling over and letting Robert get away with everything because he's scared.Having his wife find out he was having an affair doesn't seem punishment enough for murder, especially since with him being made a director there's no way Robert's going to walk away from the marriage and business without a penny.

I love that Adam and Victoria got married, not least because it stopped Robert getting what he wanted.Good luck to them and I hope he finds out he's not the baby's father soon.

Marlon and Laurel trying to make their car crash of a marriage work was painful, and even now they've given up they're still living together.Can we please have a clean break?

Jai is another one that's become impossible to defend but that doesn't mean I want Rachel to win either so it's hard not to enjoy her getting knocked down time and time again. Maybe Megan can get Archie and disappear off into the sunset?

Pleasingly, it seems I was wrong about what they had in store for Joanie.She's actually settled in well with the Dingles (as a temporary replacement for Lisa, it seems) and I've quite enjoyed her stuff with Belle.And she hasn't instantly been convinced Kerry's a lovely person either.

[Slade]

Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant.

It's amazing how my stance over certain characters can change so quickly.  I remember last week thoroughly disliking Ross.  I loved how Cain exposed that he was Moses's dad and how it ruined his plans to elope with Debbie (As an aside it was completely ridiculous that Cain could possibly have worked everything out like that just from the fact that Ross mugged Robert and gave Moira the photos of Cain and Chrissie kissing).  And I would have been quite happy if Ross had disappeared never to be seen again.  But then I sat down and thought about it.  This is an entertainment show and as much as I loathe Ross as a character he has been very entertaining.  And surely that's the whole point of these programs is to entertain the viewers.  And Ross made a very valid point to Finn although he was sleeping with his brother's fiancée Pete deserved to know the truth if anything to save him from a life with Debbie.  So I really, really wanted Ross to ruin or should I say stop the wedding.  I really enjoyed the scene in the pub where Ross started getting really jealous of Pete got into a strop and started launching verbal tirades against anyone who was near him although I didn't like what he said to Belle.  One thing I do actually like about Ross is his blatant smugness.  I actually find myself smiling whenever he smirks to himself.

When I saw on the front of several magazines that someone was going to die in the aftermath of the wedding I was certain it would be Ross especially after Cain locked him in the back of a van right on the edge of a cliff.  Also before that when Ross played the recording of his conversation with Debbie on the computer.  The fact that they revealed it so early made me think his plan was thwarted.

I have to admit Ross has got some serious bottle jumping into the water like that from the back of the van but when I saw that scene I actually thought it was the end for him.  Like I said above a week ago I would have been happy if he'd died but I was almost praying that he didn't.  And temporarily at least I'm firmly on his side.  I'm so sick of Cain getting away with committing various acts with impunity (and there was his attitude towards Joanie and Kyle at the wedding, fair enough if he doesn't want anything to do with them but why stop them from coming so I was glad Zak intervened).  So I'm really looking forward to seeing their reaction (in particular Cain's) when Ross returns.  I'm really hoping that he makes Cain and Debbie pay.  This is very hypocritical of me given what I've said about Ross before but with a show like Emmerdale where's there's so many people I actively dislike it very often comes down to the lesser of the evils or for certain characters you dislike to get their comeuppance the only real course of action is another character you don't like being the one to dish out the revenge so to speak. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend"

Although I wanted Pete to find out before marrying Debbie I still really enjoyed the scene when Aaron without realising played the recording in front of everyone of Debbie confessing her love to Ross and they admitted sleeping with each other.  It was hardly surprising Moira did nothing as she is firmly a Dingle now but I was a bit disappointed with Finn for not stopping the wedding.  He's always been a person who's had principles so I expected better from him.

I actually really enjoyed the scene in the Woolpack last week where Chrissie confronted Robert and Aaron about their affair.  And I actually quite like the friendship that was initially developing between Chas and Chrissie even though the bonding didn't ring true for me simple because Chas kept quiet about Aaron.  What was Lachlan thinking trying to frame Robert like that?  Although it was not his intention Lawrence could have had another heart attack and died.  In saying that you could argue that it's indirectly caused the accident at the Wedding.  As that made Chrissie try and pay Robert off and when he blackmailed her.  Then when she didn't get what she wanted, she set fire to his car that caused the propane explosion which caused debris to fly into the helicopter and the helicopter to crash into the reception venue.  That whole scene for me was really exciting.  It was very reminiscent of the tram crashing into the shop on the 50th anniversary of Coronation Street.

This is me hoping more than anything but this could actually open possibilities to get rid of some annoying characters.  So wouldn't it be great if they killed some of them off.  If I had to choose this is difficult because there are so many that are unlikeable but unfortunately a lot of them have to stay purely for entertainment or payback reasons:

Dingles - I actually quite like Zac, Belle, Chas, Aaron, Sarah and Jack so don't want anything to happen to any of them.  Not sure where Sam and Lisa are but don't think either of them deserve to die.  Cain and Debbie have to stay to get theirs.

Bartons - James and Pete I also quite like.  Emma not so much but she has to stay if anything to perhaps try and get Debbie back for cheating on Pete (Emma will blame Debbie for all of this, she won't blame Ross).  And if not to get revenge then to wind some of the Dingles up.  At the very least she's entitled to give Debbie a serve about Debbie's attitude towards her when she slept with James behind Chas's back.

There's an argument Val deserves it especially after how she's treated Joanie and Eric previously but I do find her really funny sometimes so for that reason she can stay.  Eric I like so don't want anything to happen to him.

That leaves Finn, Diane and even though Keri wasn't at the wedding we might as well throw her into the mix.  I've never really thought Finn was a good character.  Don't think he's particularly interesting and seems dull and mundane so his death could spark off a Barton/Dingle war.  I've never liked Diane.  I find her incredibly sanctimonious at times.  And whilst she was right to give Val a serve about helping Bob and Carly commit fraud, I don't see why Val should have to apologise to her, especially given that Diane slept with her husband a while back.  I've said this before but Keri really is a loathsome creature and I would be over the moon if she went.  Don't think it will happen though.