I normally list the writer of the Brookside episode at the end of the summary, but I’m doing it arse-backwards tonight. Carmel Morgan wrote this episode, and she should hang her head in shame. Was she on something? Did she have a bad day? Was she hung over? Or is she becoming more and more like the increasing majority of intelligent Brookside viewers and just patently not giving a damn?
Last night’s episode had all the hallmarks of a classic Brookside no-hoper. No less than 26 scenes, wherein nothing happened in about 24 of them, a fast pace that wasn’t, Emily screeching unintelligible and boring lines, Jimmy expounding on his philosophy to Dr Nikki one moment and playing the stereotypical madman the next, lots of Dumb and Dumber following someone around. If this is the direction in which Brookside intends to go, well, Uncle Phil better get his road map out, because he’s clearly taken a wrong turn.
Leanne and Bev aside, and one good disclosure of the night (you’ll see), the episode was PANTS ... CA-CA ... DETRITUS ... SHIT.
Robert Hampton, one of the more intelligent regular viewers of the programme, threw in the towel last week. He’d be glad to know he didn’t miss anything so far this week.
(By the way, Eastenders is gripping at the moment!)
The programme opens with a shot of a workman fixing a ‘For Sale’ sign to the bar, as Bev looks, despairingly, on from the pavement.
Across the street, Leanne, wearing a surgical collar and her face bruised and scratched, surveys the scene.
‘How the high and mighty have fallen!’ She coos, softly.
Back at the Close, Rachel the Dim is wittering across the way from Number 8 to the pathway. She’s dressed sombrely in a tailored, navy blue business suit. Dr Nikki hails her from the doorway of Hotel Corkhill, running across the Close. Rachel’s all done up in a suit, she observes, and then she makes a tactless joke about Rachel looking as though she were due in court or something.
The brainless beauty, Rachel, that is, does her party piece of moving her head up and down, batting her eyelashes rapidly and moving her lips back and forth away from her teeth before she managed to speak. (It’s like a ritiual to get the brain in gear).
Ooooh, says Rachel, booh, tha’s whur she IS goin’. Corrrt. Ter sor’owt debt thing.
Well, witters the tactless Nikki, whose bedside manner would calm the fears of any mental patient (not), if it’s any consolation to Rachel, Nikki was also up to her eyeballs in debt, so much so that she’s nearly about to be booted out of uni.
Booh, says Rachel, labouriously, Jes-seh’n in-shooo-runce’ll see yer r-eye-ght.
Nikki shakes her head. Her nan’s told her that the insurance reckons their claim was too high. They won’t be paying out the full amount.
Oooh, says Rachel, in wonder, in-shooo-runce’ll be quick ter teeehk premi-ooms.
It’s a rip-off, all right, Nikki agrees. It’s as if they didn’t realise that people’s possessions got burned to cinders there.
Rachel is in a hurry. Oooh, she soothes Nikki, Jes-seh’ll see Nic-keh r-eye-ght. Jes-seh woan short-change Nik-keh.
Nikki isn’t so sure. As Rachel walks away, Nikki calls after her, asking what sort of mood Jessie appears to be in that morning.
Oooh, calls Rachel over her shoulder. You knoa ... Joost Jes-seh.
The workman has finished putting up the ‘For Sale’ sign and leaves. Bev sighs sadly, looking up at the symbol of her defeat.
Inside the garage, Leanne is barking orders to Adele as though she were in charge. She’s demanding tea, as Adele sarcastically asks if Leanne plans on doing any work that day.
Leanne succinctly reminds Adele that Leanne’s the ‘walking wounded’, as she continues to peer relentlessly at the sign over Bev’s Bar. That place ought to fetch a good price, she reckons. And if her claim for compensation is successful, all the money Bev receives for that bar will go straight into Leanne’s account.
Back at Hotel Corkhill, Dimily are preparing for the day ahead. This is a particularly awful scene, by virtue of the fact that Ellison’s diction rendered any comprehension of the proceedings damned near impossible. She’s screeching at the top of her voice about exfoliation and then goes on garbling something about zits, pus etc. Maybe she’s looked in the mirror lately, because underneath all those layers of slap, she’s got a bad case of acne, herself. Instead of investing thousands into getting bigger tits, she should do some serious work on her face (and that doesn’t mean putting collagen into it).
She preens something stupid about herself being on the cutting edge of beauty, whilst Nikki was still into curly perms.
Tim picks up Emily’s new jacket from the back of the chair where it’s resting. Ah, but Emily’s got a lovely new leather jacket.
Emily screeches something I can’t understand, something to do with Margi and Greg in matching leather jackets in a picture taken in front of the Eiffel Tower years ago. Somehow it’s connected to a reference to Kevin Keegan and curly perms. Then she waxes sad about the memory of that picture and Kevin Keegan going up in smoke.
Tim’s anxious for some info, so he brushes the sad memory aside, by telling Emily that it sounds like that sort of picture was ready to be burnt. Anyway, did Emily have all the same classes as her newly-mentioned mate, Natalie, at the Slap School.
All the same classes, confirms Emily, in the first understandable line she’s uttered all night.
Well, Tim suggests, he and Plank would drop her off at the school. Tim wanted to meet Natalie’s boyfriend, Dougie; Tim fancied a leather jacket, himself.
Tim fancies himself.
Adele is working outside the garage, arranging the floral bouquets. Leanne stomps outside to badger the girl. Is Adele on a ‘go slow’ or something? She snarls.
Adele isn’t taking any shit off Leanne and tells her, shortly, to stop acting like Leanne’s boss, when she clearly wasn’t.
‘Hey,’ Leanne reminds her, ‘I ran a bar.’
‘Into the ground,’ quips Adele.
Leanne preens some more, reminding Adele that she was one of two witnesses to her decisive encounter with Bev. Adele is sceptical of Leanne’s injuries - and what a coincidence that her Uncle Christy seemed to be injured too. In fact, he was in hospital. Adele is curious. What exactly happened, she asks Leanne, to result in his being hospitalised?
‘I told yer!’ Leanne snaps. ‘He tripped over a ham shank!’
Once again, she starts ordering Adele about, reminding her that she’s Leanne’s witness. Before she disappears, Leanne leans down and swoops up one of the floral bouquets that Adele’s about to place in the display, taking it away.
Adele gazes after her in disgust, sorry, disgoost.
Mike is preparing to leave for court, as Ray is sitting in the Dixon lounge. Ray remarks that poor Mike must be shattered, but Mike reminds him that he has to show up in court.
Well, Ray muses, the judge is sure to see that Mike and Rachel are decent folk. He’s sure to decide in their favour.
Yes, says Mike, but what they were proposing to pay was actually a drop in the ocean of their actual debt. But they couldn’t afford anything other than low payments.
Ray offers to baby-sit Beth whilst Mike and Rachel are out.
Mike thanks him and asks how the insurance claim is coming along.
Ray’s hopeful. The builders had actually been around to take a look at the bungalow, he says. In fact, they might be able to begin to rebuild it soon.
Mike asks Ray how long that will take.
Oh, a couple of months easily, says Ray. And while they were touching on that subject, Ray wanted to ask Mike if it were O K for him and Jessie to remain at the Dixons’ until the work on the bungalow was finished.
Mike is at a loss for words. A couple of months? He repeats, mentally doing his arithmetic and realising that Ron would be home in six weeks’ time.
Only until the bungalow was finished, Ray reiterates.
Mike opens his mouth to speak, when the phone rings suddenly. Ray answers it. It’s Ron, ringing from prison. Ray identifies himself, to Ron’s obvious surprise.
Mike quickly motions for him to hand the phone over and then indicates to Ray that he’d like a private word with his dad.
Ray understands and leaves the room. Ron asks the reason for Ray answering the phone, and it’s obvious that Mike hasn’t told Ron that he invited the Hiltons to stay. Mike lies saying that Ray had just brought something over.
Dimily sit on the Hotel Corkhill sofa, playing aimlessly with a mobile phone. (Well, it’s better than playing with themselves or each other. Far too much of that shit on Brookside). Suddenly the door to the lounge bursts open and we’re treated to a close-up mug shot of Jimmy’s big face with its idiotic grin. ‘Hello, Pop-Pickers!’ He shouts, followed by the de rigeur maniacal laugh.
Emily is startled as Jimmy enters, mincing and miming in a Geordie accent. ‘Wey-hey, mon!’ And all that. He waxes lyrical about Newcastle and Geordieland, shouting at the top of his voice in a particularly frightening way.
As Bev walks despondently along The Parade, Leanne, her arm laden with a bouquet of flowers, calls out to her. As she approaches Bev, with a smug smile on her countenance, she cattily offers Bev some flowers in a gesture of sympathy about the fate of the bar.
Bev grabs the flowers and whacks Leanne with them, telling her to ‘do one’.
Bev would do very well to think about settling out of court, Leanne growls, reverting to form. Because by the time Leanne finished dragging Bev through the courts, there’d be nothing left of her.
Bev curls her lip in a classic sneer, gazing down her nose at Leanne with disdain. Is that a DIY collar Leanne had on her neck? She asks, condescendingly. Didn’t Leanne know that everyone was laughing at her now?
Leanne replies that her brief isn’t laughing at her. She informs Bev that she’s got the statements of two witnesses, a doctor’s report and CCTV evidence to sustain her claim of multiple injuries.
Glancing at the bar, she admits to a ravenous thirst and suggests that Bev open up in order to provide her with a drink.
Bev refers to Leanne as Bernard Manning (the funniest line of the night), and Leanne, for all her injuries, makes a lunge at Bev. The two begin to tussle in the middle of The Parade, until Jessie Hilton sees them and runs toward them.
Jessie manages to pull Leanne away from Bev and shoos her off with a flea in her ear. Leanne exits, making a disparaging remark about Bev needing wrinklies for bouncers.
Back at Hotel Corkhill, Jimmy crouches on the kitchen floor, absently sorting his laundry and reading the temperatures selected for washing various articles of clothing. All this just to wash a pair of kex, he muses, inanely, before putting ALL his pairs of trousers into the washer on one setting. But his mood changes abruptly. Hey, he calls out to the disinterested Dimily, RKylie’s really shot up.
A beanpole like her mum? Sneers a bored Emily.
Tim frowns in brief disapproval at Emily. Still, he ventures, humouring Jimmy, he bets Jim had some good gabs with Linds.
Oh, yeah, Jimmy agrees, contentedly, before he peers closely at Emily. Most men don’t like too much, you know, he advises, cryptically.
Emily is puzzled.
‘Too much slap!’ Shouts Jimmy, triumphantly. ‘It’s like a mask, isn’t it!’ (So he’s noticed Dire Murray, then). Less is more, he philosophises and bounces off.
Dimily exchange worried looks. Tim asks Jimmy if he doesn’t think he’s a bit too hyper.
Jimmy waves his arms about maniacally, protesting that he’s exactly as his self-management chart says he should be; and he pulls out a folded piece of paper to show Tim that this is so.
Tim’s worried. Maybe this is Jimmy’s reaction to missing his family, he suggests, but Jimmy shoves the chart under the lad’s nose and forces him to look at it, ‘proving’ that Jimmy’s behaviour is to be expected.
Inside the bar that was, Jessie has taken charge and is plying an upset Bev with some tea.
Bev dabs her eyes. It’s bad enough that she has to sell up, she moans, but that Leanne has ruined her bar AND her life. And what about Josh’s life? Why, he idolised Leanne!
Jessie asks, solicitously, if there’s anything she can do to help.
Bev shakes her head, continuing to cry softly. She admits that she was wrong to lash out at Leanne last week; but when she went into the garage and saw Leanne there, in a new job, and happy as a pig in mud, she snapped.
Now look at her. That single action alone was about to ruin Bev’s good name. AND that Dr Parr would further denigrate her in that letter he’d been asked to write about Leanne’s injuries. Why, Dr Parr was new around here. He didn’t even know Bev - what he MUST think of her"! And then, of course, Max and Adele had been summoned as witnesses. She’d formerly been well thought of around this area. (Not entirely true. Bev should ask her own sister to be a character witness if she wants to be assassinated).
It’s funny, she muses, there Leanne was in a collar and all black and blue. She didn’t recall any marks on her face after the incident.
Jessie reckons it’s a fraud. A body could do a lot with make-up these days. People have got the measure of Leanne.
But what about Josh? Bev wails. If this continues, everyone will know Josh by his mother’s action. He’ll be the son of that woman who goes around attacking people.
Jessie rises, saying she has to get over to the McCrackens’ and fly the flag for Ron. As she prepares to leave, Bev stops her. She apologises to Jessie for not being able to pay Nikki.
Money’s a dirty word in their house at the moment, sighs Jessie, or rather, in Ron’s house.
Nikki enters Hotel Corkhill to be greeted exhuberantly by a manic Jimmy, who picks her up and squeezes her in his arms, telling her how much he missed her.
Leanne stands behind the counter, having a private telephone conversation while a punter waits to be served. Leanne pointedly ignores him, much to Adele’s chagrin. She’s talking to an estate agent, trying to get the price on offer for the bar. The estate agent says that the owner is looking for offers over a certain amount and asks if Leanne would like a viewing.
Leanne demurs and pays half-hearted attention to the waiting punter, whilst informing Adele that Bev’s asking for a wodge and a half of money for that bar. She intimates that maybe she’ll be able to buy it off her.
On what? Adele asks, sceptically. Leanne wouldn’t get much on loss of earnings.
‘That’s loss of earnings past, present and future,’ informs Leanne. ‘I’m a grafter, me!’
And she reckons to reel in a hefty amount off Bev. After all, there was the CCTV evidence, Max and Adele as witnesses and Dr Parr’s verification - not to mention her trump card.
Trump card? Queries Adele.
Leanne disappears into the storeroom and returns with a pile of Polaroid snaps of Leanne’s ‘injuries’, including one of her enormous backside. Adele is disgoosted, and asks who in their right mind would take pictures like that.
‘Me sick ooncle,’ says Leanne, happily. This is her key to success, these pictures. And Bev deserved everything she had coming her way. After all, Leanne tried to extend the olive branch to Bev this very morning and all she received was abuse.
Why, before Bev swanned off to Brazil, Leanne’s very presence enriched Bev’s sterile, emotionally-crippled life. She even shared her brother with Bev, and this is the thanks she got. No, Bev deserved all manner of bad luck!
Dimily and Plank arrive at the Beauty College, or Slap School (as Plank creatively deems it) in Plank’s rattletrap old van. Emily teases Plank about taking a tour of the slap school, as there are plenty of sights that would interest him. (Hang on ... This is a COLLEGE for potential hairdressers and beauticians. There’s no set rule that says all hairdressers or girls who study this art are beauties, themselves. They are skilled in the art of maquillage. In fact, why insinuate that all the students are girls? My hairdresser is a man, but that’s not because I live in the soft South and NO, he isn’t gay. I believe Ms Alex Fletcher’s hairdresser, her uncle, is also a man - and a Scouser. The actor who played Rod Corkhill is also a hairdresser by profession, and one Richard Starkey, AKA Ringo Starr trained in the profession as well - both SCOUSERS!)
Plank remains in the van and Tim, proprietarily, walks his plastic, all-screeching, all-bouncing personal, pornographic sex toy towards the college. Parked coincidentally in front of the van, is a big, silver-grey Volvo estate, driven by a bullet-head older thug named Dougie, who happens to be the villain who’s girlfriend, Natalie, is a mate of Emily’s. Go figure.
Tim stops and introduces himself as Emily’s husband, complimenting Dougie on the coat Emily bought. In fact, Tim is so impressed by the quality of the jacket, he wishes to buy one from Dougie, himself.
Dougie, wearing a tan tailored, leather jacket indicates his own and asks Tim if he wants something along this line.
A bit darker, says Tim, and he wants to pay top dollar for it. (Funny, I thought the currency here was pounds). Oh, and just to sweeten the thug, Tim offers to pay up front for the coat.
Dougie listens, nods his bullet-head and advises Tim to meet him back at the college at 4PM, in order that he can show Tim his ware.
Tim tries to joke about Dougie giving him a personal fashion show, but Dougie appears to have no sense of humour - or at least he doesn’t have a sense of humour as puerile and asinine as Tim’s.
Confident in the scam, Tim returns to the van, bragging to Plank about how painless this procedure was going to be. Now the plan was that they follow Dougie’s Volvo, but at a distance, all day. With any luck, he’d have to lead them to the warehouse where he stored his gear. As Dumb and Dumber take off after the departing Volvo, we see that the Beauty College is situated on Penny Lane.
On Penny Lane, the Scally scams anoother coostumer
We see the plastic dolly pumping oop her tits
And then the maniac rooshes in ...
From the pouring rain ...
Very strange
Brookside Close, your storylines
Are just the pits
And your actors are such shits
They’re hopeless, meanwhile back ...
On Brookside Close our Buckwheat moans
About his poverty,
While Dr Nikki helps poor Rachel find her brain
The little bigot then rooshes in
With stigmata stains ... Very strange ...
Sorry. Couldn’t help bursting into song.
Now I can’t understand this. Early on in the programme, we see Rachel in a hurry to scurry off the Close, dressed in a suit, on her way to court. The later on, much later, we see Mike about to depart. Oh, yes, I get it. Rachel has no brain - therefore, she couldn’t tell the time of day if she wanted to. Never mind. This is Brookside. It has a lot of grey areas, but no grey matter.
Mike and Rachel have been to court and now are walking hand-in-hand, along The Parade. The judge has given them a settlement order of £20 pounds weekly to pay toward the eradication of their debt. Rachel, however, is still worried.
Oooh, she begins, booh wi’ twen-teh pound week, we’ll be repayin’ till year dot!
Mike tries to explain to her, in words of less than one syllable, that they will be able to manage those light repayments.
Oooh, replies Rachel, booh have ter mek’em at Po-ast Office. Ever’body’ll kno-ah what they’re fer.
Mike tells her that she doesn’t have to make the repayments at the local Post Office. No, Rachel, there are hundreds, millions of post offices throughout the land. Several are even found in Liverpool, so you can get your arse on a Mersey Mover and move into town to pay the debt, in blissful anonymity.
Mike is optimistic about repaying the debt. In fact, for some arrogant reason, he reckons that once Bev’s Bar is up and running again, he and Rachel will be the recipients of that highly-lucrative profession of bar work. Once the bar is up and running, he promises, he and Rachel will be laughing.
Then, looking up, Mr and Mrs Whinge see the ‘For Sale’ sign hanging over the premises.
Dumb and Dumber follow the Volvo until it comes to a stop across from a small group of shops. Dougie gets out and goes into one of the shops. The ignorant scallies remain in the rattletrap and watch the hardman disappear. Tim banters about Emily reckoning that her mate Natalie ‘goes like a train’. The idiots share a silly joke that’s too puerile even to remember.
Plank asks after Jimmy, saying that Emily had told him that Jimmy was ‘on one’ again. Tim brushes the comment aside, but points out that he feels peckish and that there was a chippy across the road. As they were going to be sitting tight until Dougie appeared again, Tim orders Plank to get them both a portion of chips from the chop.
Plank asks Tim why he doesn’t go, but Tim points out that Dougie might see him and recognise him from this morning. Anyway, he continues, this is what cops do all the time when they’re on surveillance - send one of them for food.
The downtrodden Plank gets out of the van.
Mike and Rachel sit at one of the tables in the bar, sadly talking to a dejected Bev. Bev’s just told them about Max’s words of wisdom. Mike is put out with Max’s reaction to Bev’s plight. He can’t believe his brother-in-law wouldn’t turn a hand to help Bev.
Bev is philosophical. It isn’t as if Max is a mate. (Ah, but he’s now Josh’s uncle, and - by queer extension - family).
But he actually told Bev to get lost, objects Mike.
It was really a nice sort of ‘get lost’, sighs Bev. And she can’t deny that he didn’t give her a very good piece of advice.
Oooh, whispers Rachel, wha’ were adv-eye-ce?
To cut her losses and go, explains Bev, resigned to her fate.
Mike tries to talk her out of the idea. He stresses the fact that the Dixons would help Bev all they could; anyway, Mike reminds her of his promise to help out with Josh.
Oooh, asks Rachel, whur would Bev go-ah?
Bev says she has no idea where she will go, but it would be away from Liverpool.
Mike objects again. Bev can’t do that. If she scarpers, then Powell wins, he says, aggressively.
Bev explains to Mike that it’s Josh she’s thinking of and the shame he’ll endure if this thing with Leanne is dragged through the courts and Bev becomes known as a woman who goes around attacking people.
Oooh, says Rachel, nodding, blinking, and trying to sound as though she can think. Kids are re-zill-yent.
Anyway, Bev’s not keen on staying with this behind her. Leanne won the game the day she brought the bar down.
But all is not well with La Powell. Across the way, in the garage, Adele stands glumly behind the counter. From the back room, we hear Leanne in a telephone conversation, ranting at someone at the top of her voice. Eventually, she enters the main shop area, giving full vent to her anger. That snotty doctor, she spits, venomously. #
What doctor? Asks Adele, innocently.
That one at the Walk-In Centre, Leanne gestures, futilely. That ... That Captain Cool! He’s only refused to give her solicitor a letter detailing Leanne’s grievous injuries.
Oh? Smirks Adele. What about Leanne’s photos?
They’re no good on their own! Shrieks Leanne. SHE NEEDS A DOCTOR’S LETTER!!!!! And that nasty snott Parr wouldn’t give her one!
Adele hides an unsympathetic smile.
Dr Nikki sits opposite her only patient, or the Sage sits opposite his chief disciple, depending on how you view things. Nikki asks Jimmy how he liked Newcastle. GREAT! He booms.
But Dr Nikki, who, like God, is omniscient, smells a porky pie.
Hand on heart? She asks Jimmy, truthfully.
Jimmy’s face drops its manic stare. Well, he admits, if he had an hourglass ... Turn back time and all that (another song by Cher?).
He and Nikki enjoy another heart-to-heart about Jimmy missing his family, and Jimmy decides that maybe it’s best he go back to Newcastle so he has his family around him.
Bev’s wiping the front windows of the bar, when Adele approaches her. Adele gazes surreptitiously at the garage, when Bev notices her and greets Bev by nodding toward the garage and telling Bev that Leanne thinks herself witty.
Bev warns Adele about fraternising with the enemy.
Adele asks Bev if she’s really going to sell the bar. Bev replies that she has no choice. What could she do? Leanne had already ruined her life.
By way of an awkward apology, Adele blurts out that she had no idea what Leanne was really like. She just thought the woman eccentric. Why, she’d even shared a table with Leanne and her Uncle Christy. But she knows what Leanne’s like now, she tells an astonished Bev, and she’s pure evil.
Bev’s glancing apprehensively at the girl’s witterings.
But things are going pear-shaped for Leanne now, confides Adele.
Now Bev stops wiping the windows and listens intently. What’s happening? She wants to know.
Well, to begin with, confesses Adele, there’s no film in the CCTV camera. Hasn’t been for the longest time.
Bev’s still glum. That doesn’t mean a thing. Leanne still has two witnesses and a doctor’s letter.
But that’s just it, says Adele. The doctor’s refused to give her a letter. Dr Parr knocked her back.
Bev brightens a bit.
And as for witnesses, concludes Adele, why, she’s prepared to say that she honestly didn’t see WHO started the altercation.
So Maxie’s the only fly in the ointment, reckons Bev.
Adele says she has to get back to the garage. Leanne might look out the window and spy her gabbing with Bev.
Spit some yukka in Leanne’s coffee, Bev calls after the girl.
Rachel and Mike are sitting on the sofa at Number 8, Rachel having just taken a telephone call. That were Kit-teh’s nursin’ ho-ame fer Ray, she informs Mike. Sounds serious.
Everything’s serious with Jessie and Ray, scoffs Mike. Mike suddenly confesses that he hopes that Bev doesn’t decide to move away. He wouldn’t want to lose ties with Josh.
Oooh, says Rachel, Josh’ll alway be M-eye-ke’s soon. ‘E’ll be paaaht o’M-eye-ke’s l-eye-fe, she promises.
Just like the Hiltons, jokes Mike.
Oooh, witters Rachel, reckon M-eye-ke oughter ‘fess oop ter Ron ‘bowt ‘Iltoons bein’ in ‘owse!
Nikki and Jimmy are doing the dishes in Hotel Corkhill, Nikki apprising Jimmy of all that’s happened with Bev since he’s been in Newcastle. That Leanne Powell has really been lapping this whole thing up, she says, just like a cat with cream.
Springtime for Hitler, quips Jimmy. Has Bev managed to open the bar?
Nikki shakes her head. The only thing she’s got to serve is detergent, she says.
That place used to be a gold mine, reminisces Jimmy. Never mind. He’s sure things will settle down with Bev and she’ll come good. This is just a blip.
But it’s more than a blip, warns Nikki. Bev can’t even afford to pay Nikki’s backpay. Nor Jimmy’s for that matter.
Bev will see him right, Jimmy says, quietly confident. She knows Jimmy needs the money. Bev needs punters, he continues. And what to punters make? He shouts a riddle to Nikki, who can’t answer.
Punters make WAGES! Jimmy booms. He’ll get his backpay, and then, maybe this whole thing is just a sign that it’s time for Jimmy to slip up to Newcastle, start a new life ... With Wills.
Nikki looks a bit uneasy, and tentatively suggests to Jimmy that Jackie might not want Wills to settle with Jimmy in Newcastle.
There’s nothing left in Liverpool for Jimmy, he admits.
Oh, both Jim and Nikki will find something, Dr Nikki encourages him. Why, there are bars opening all over town. Liverpool isn’t short of bar work.
No, Jimmy concludes, his mind is made up. Time to head for Geordieland.
Leanne returns to the garage after what appears to have been an extended lunch break, upon which Adele comments. (Er, when, exactly, does Adele attend school?)
Leanne looks happy. She’s been to see her own GP, who’s come up trumps for her compensation claim.
What did he do? Adele asks.
SHE, corrects Leanne, smugly, firmly believes in post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s all adding up, she adds (pun intended).
Ray and Jessie have returned to the Dixons’ with Beth, and Jessie sits with the child on the sofa, removing the baby’s coat and shushing her, as Mike is upstairs asleep. In the background, we hear Ray, having a serious telephone conversation, which soon ends.
Putting the phone down and with an ashen face, Ray announces that Kitty’s dead.
Jessie is shocked.
‘Oh, I should have gone last week to see her,’ groans Ray.
Jessie immediately apologises, as Ray continues to bewail the fact that he was too busy to go see his own mother. What had he done? He moans. A bloke only had one mother in his lifetime! Now Kitty will have died, thinking Ray didn’t care!
Dumb and Dumber have finally followed Dougie to the fabled warehouse. >From a reasonable distance, they make stupid jokes in silly voices and watch as Dougie and his henchman load gear into various vans and cars. Having seen what he came to see, Tim orders his ‘driver’ to hurry back to the beauty college. It was almost 4PM and he had to see a man about a coat. Offering a special deal, he was - buy one, get five hundred free.
I’d love to see Tim strangle on his testicles.
This episode was about twenty minutes too long. Anyone else care to discuss,
sorry, diskoos it?
Summary © 2002 Marion Watts
Brookside and all related materials are © Mersey Television 1982-2002