Should have been two years ago. If ever there was an overused character in a soap, it HAS to be Jimmy Corkhill. Even Phil Mitchell doesn’t get this much airplay or major storylines. But at least, at this point in time, Steve McFadden, the actor, is STILL watchable as Phil Mitchell. McFadden is consummately professional, and Eastenders, as they do with all their other actors, realise that there exists the possibility that at some point in time, McFadden will want to call it a day. And if that happens, John Yorke/Mal Young will say ... ‘Cheerio, and thanks for your work.’
Consider this soap, which is blatantly the flagship programme of BBC1 and which regularly scoops all the gongs at all the soap awards annually. In 1999, it lost THREE big-name characters, because the actors who played them wanted out ... Martine McCutcheon, Patsy Palmer and Ross Kemp. They don’t come much bigger than the last one either.
Mike Reid bowed out in a major way in 2000, although he’s prone to popping up now and then for the odd week.
This year was another watershed year. The show lost not only Martin Kemp and Tamsin Outhwaite (the glamour couple of the show) in the past fortnight, it’s been announced that the Eastenders’ production team feel that there is no need to continue with Michael Greco’s very popular character of Beppe DiMarco - and this is the man voted the sexiest man in soap!
What does this say about Brookside?
It says, quite blatantly, that Brookside, like any other soap, sometimes needs to effect a character cull. IN the past two years, a record number of long-serving Brookside actors left for one reason or another. They were the ones who chose to leave, and a lot of them are missed sorely - and in the end, their long stints of service were treated abysmally. Sinbad and Jackie Corkhill could be useful in dealing with Jimmy at the present. Instead, he’s left to the pathetic ministrations of four latent adolescents, two of whom are opportunists without any sort of moral code, whatsoever; one is sly and selfish, and the fourth so unbelieveably altruistic that she risks becoming too pathetic to bear.
Basically speaking, the wrong people left Brookside, when Karen Drury, Sue Jenkins and Mickey Starke called it a day. Uncle Phil needs to look at this current crop of no-hopers and wield an axe ...
Starting with Jimmy.
Dean Sullivan, you are the weakest link ... Good-bye.
The doorbell rings at Hotel Corkhill on the morning after the heist. Tim answers it, only to find a beetle-browed Plank staring sullenly at him. Tim looks suitably abashed, himself, almost embarrassed to face Plank. Plank remarks upon the shambles that occurred the night before with the attempted heist of the warehouse.
Tim sullenly agrees that the whole operation was, indeed, a shambles.
Plank, keeping his head hunkered down like a turtle, comments to Tim about getting what gear they did manage to lift out of his van as soon as possible.
Tim nods, trying to soothe Plank by saying that this one they’d merely chalk down to experience.
Plank snorts derisively. That was an experience, all right! Right out of Blackpool, for entertainment value. And what DOES the Creme de la Crime have to say for himself this morning? Plank asks, referring to Jimmy.
Tim looks even more abashed and opens the door wide, inviting Plank in to ‘see for himself’.
Entering the living area of Hotel Corkhill, we see Jimmy seated at the table, gobbling a half-eaten Easter Egg, his mouth smeared with chocolate residue like an overgrown child. Emily stands in front of him, watching him gobble messily, with ill-disguised horror. On Jimmy’s face, is a smile that would rival that of Dostoevsky’s The Idiot. He continues to bob his head and smile in mute greeting at the two lads.
He stops gobbling long enough to toss a gold-wrapped chocolate Easter Bunny in Plank’s direction, as he begins to witter about the exploits of the previous evening. He had, he says, voice booming, THE TIME OF HIS LIFE!!! The three had an adventure.
Emily was unaware of this, as her face reveals a curious look. Well, Jimmy clarifies things, he actually let Tim and Plank tag along.
Tim, aware that Jimmy’s about to spill the beans about the heist to Emily, nervously intervenes to say that the three of them went out on the town on a spur of the moment. Nothing was planned.
Oh, it pays to plan, avows Jimmy, eyes widening, and to take your lucky chance, which is what they did last night. ‘I WAS THERE!’ He exclaims, trying to do a bad impersonation of Sir Nigel Hawthorne in The Madness of King George.
Emily glances briefly from Tim to Plank and back, clocking how increasingly nervous they appear. She demands to know what Jimmy’s talking about.
They took their chances, Jimmy labours to explain, nodding toward the two lads. That’s how they heisted the chocolate, from this warehouse that was a real Aladdin’s Cave!
What warehouse was this? Asks Emily, suddenly becoming suspicious.
‘Your mate’s fella’s!’ Says Jimmy. ‘Only they were after leather gear!’
Plank interrupts to try to convince Emily that Jimmy doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Jimmy proceeds to reveal how the lads had followed Dougie around in order to discover the whereabouts of the lucrative warehouse, much to Emily’s chagrin.
But it all went wrong, admits Tim, at last.
Immediately, Emily demands to know if Dougie got a good sight of Tim and Plank.
Glaring at Jimmy pointedly, as Jimmy continues to gobble chocolate, Tim assures Emily that he and Plank are in the clear, although, he says, he can’t be too sure about Bob the Builder, sitting there, as he indicates Jimmy. He then explains to Emily how Jimmy hijacked a digger and went for a joyride.
‘Shoulda sold the digger,’ quips Jimmy, through a mouthful of chocolate.
Rachel and Ray are in the back garden of the Dixon house. Ray is bemoaning his grief at Kitty’s passing to a sympathetic Rachel. He had a lifetime to talk to Kitty, he muses, sadly, but he never had time to tell her the things that were really important.
Oooh, says Rachel, did sha no’ kno-ah she’ad gran-daw-teh then?
Ray shakes his head, slowly. He had planned on telling Kitty last week, but he never got the chance to visit her.
Oooh, sympathises Rachel, best Ray mek mosta wha’ ‘e’s goh! She advises, for lack of anything better to say.
Jimmy is now alone in the house with Tim. He’s on his beloved computer, and we see that he’s working on a document entitled ‘Night Vision’, which he’s just finished. He annouces as such to Tim, with open pride. There you go, kidder! He exclaims to Tim. All the gear taken from last night’s abortive heist has been meticulously listed by Jimmy in a document. 924 words exactly! Jimmy brags.
Tim’s not pleased in the least. Surely, Jimmy couldn’t have been so stupid as to list the stolen gear in an article he’d written.
Jimmy’s genuinely puzzled by Tim’s reaction, as the lad gets angry. What was Jimmy thinking about? Tim begs Jimmy to tell him that Jim’s not about to put this on his webpage.
That’s a good idea! Remarks Jimmy.
Tim looks ill at the thought.
Bev stands on the pavement outside the bar, with several cardboard boxes of goods before her. Nikki Shadwick passes by, her qualms of guilt at landing Jessie in deep shit, obviously forgotten. She greets Bev and asks if she’s having a clear-out.
Bev shrugs laconically, saying only that she wants the place to look decent in the event of any prospective buyers coming around, so she had this clearout.
Anything worth having? Nikki asks, identifying herself as a student on the scrounge.
Nothing worth anything, quips Bev. She’s truly lost everything, she says, including her feelings.
Nikki picks up a tee-shirt, the former uniform of Bev’s Bar, and remarks on its nostalgia value. She actually has a suggestion for Bev and hands her a folded piece of paper. She got this from the student notice board at uni, she explains, and she was on her way there now to check it out.
Bev looks at the paper, screwing her mouth up, noncommittally. A waitressing job at the uni, she remarks.
Why not go for it together? Suggests Dr Nikki. It would be a laugh, she says. Seeing Bev’s face fall, she tells Bev that she’ll leave the notice with her in case Bev changes her mind.
The camera flashes onto a computer screen, with a command asking the user if he wants to delete. The mouse points to ‘Yes’ and clicks. Next we see Jimmy’s eyes, narrowed and suspicious. The camera pans back and we see that Jimmy wasn’t on the computer at all. Instead, he stealthily creeps toward the extension, the door of which is open, and rounds the corner, only to find Tim sitting before the screen.
Jimmy snappishly asks Tim what he’s doing on the computer. Before the lad can reply, Jimmy pushes him aside and sits down. He suspects that Tim has deleted his document, Night Vision, and frantically searches for the document.
Tim plays dumb, denying all knowledge, whilst trying to calm Jimmy down by rubbing his shoulders.
Where is it? Jimmy demands, increasingly frantic. He wrote it. It’s here someplace.
Tim maintains that he didn’t touch anything.
One thousand words, Jimmy witters, all about last night. Suddenly, he stops, unsure of himself or his surroundings. He was there last night, wasn’t he? It wasn’t made up. The feelings were too real.
Tim ventures that maybe it was all in Jim’s mind.
No, it wasn’t, Jimmy protests. He lived the experience. No one can beat that!
Tim then attempts to ask Jimmy where Jimmy thinks he is on his behavioural scale at the moment.
Jimmy thinks a bit and then shouts, ‘FOUR!’ Then ‘FOUR OR FIVE!’
Mike Dixon returns from work, to be greeted by Ray and Jessie. Jessie announces to Mike that she’s got one piece of good news for him. The insurance company has agreed to sort out the rent for the Dixons.
Mike, not wanting to appear callous, brushes this remark aside, saying he didn’t mean to pry into this with Kitty’s death so fresh.
Anyway, Jessie continues, the rent’s been back-dated and gone into Ron’s account. But just to make sure, Mike should check with Max.
Ron’s account? Repeats Mike, disbelievingly, and what’s Max got to do with anthing?
Max has been looking after Ray and Jessie, Jessie explains to him. He got the insurance company to agree to pay the back-rent into Ron’s account. (Funny, how Max was after sacking Jessie a couple of weeks ago).
Mike’s face drops a mile.
Emily has returned home for her lunch break to find Tim in the kitchen and very worried about Jimmy. As soon as he sees her, he tells her that the couple have a big problem. Emily hasn’t been in the house that morning.
The big problem, mouths Madam (who actually isn’t that bad in this episode) is nothing a divorce wouldn’t rectify. She has trouble getting her head around the fact that Tim had used her to obtain information through her mate Natalie about Dougie’s warehouse. What if that Dougie one finds out it was Tim who masterminded this caper? Why, Emily might have to leave beauty college!
Glancing apprehensively around the room, Tim shushes Emily, telling her that Jimmy’s in the throes of a manic fit. When he went off his meds, he reminds Emily, Jimmy had given them a piece of paper, telling them what to do if he got that way. Where is it? He demands.
Emily doesn’t know where it is, she says. Anyway, didn’t Tim read up on Jimmy’s condition?
In a wonderfully apt line, that reveals the true nature of Tim’s intellectual ability, Tim admits that he read up on Jim’s condition, all right, but ‘that was just reading’. He didn’t understand.
Jimmy actually put him and Plank in danger last night. If he remembers correctly, Tim says that Jimmy told them to lock him up if he started acting too maniacally.
At that very moment, Jimmy sneaks into the lounge behind Emily, his eyes narrowed and oozing evil.
‘You still here?’ He snarls at Emily.
Emily clocks the look on his face and is immediately uneasy. She’s just come home for her dinner, she stammers.
Emily’s only been gone a few hours, Jimmy observes. ‘You’ll meet yourself coming back here one of these days,’ he says. Anyway, what sort of good can a duff job like Emily’s accomplish? A few curlers in somebody’s hair, paint a few nails. What does that accomplish? He sneers, putting his face close to Em’s.
Emily looks truly frightened, as she whispers that her job makes people feel good about themselves.
‘IT HAS NO PURPOSE!’ Jimmy shouts at her. Now Jimmy, he continues, Jimmy had been a teacher. A TEACHER! THAT was a job that had a purpose. Not making people FEEL GOOD, he spits.
Emily timidly suggests that maybe Jimmy should call Dr Parr, whereupon Jimmy demands to know it Tim and Emily had been talking about him, laughing at him.
When the young couple assure him that they haven’t, he turns on Emily again. So, he surmises, sarcastically, in Emily’s professional opinion as a HAIRDRESSER, Jimmy needs the services of a doctor.
Tim suddenly notices that Jimmy’s wearing Kylie’s key around his neck. He confronts Jimmy. Emily didn’t mean that at all, he says, thinking swiftly. But maybe Jimmy would feel better after having a bath, he suggests, and he tells Emily to go upstairs and run a bath for Jimmy. In the meantime, he says, placing two guiding hands on Jimmy’s shoulders and propelling him toward the extension, Jimmy needs to get some fresh clothes to put on after his bath.
He eases Jimmy into the extension, then quickly shuts and bolts the door.
Jimmy susses the ruse and immediately starts to bang and kick loudly on the door, whilst shouting, ‘It’s my house!’
In order to drown out the noise, Tim turns up the volume on the radio, playing in the background. Jimmy continues to bang and shout, until he collapses in tears, sobbing loudly.
Bev walks through the passageway and makes a beeline for Number 8, pausing briefly to glance around the Close. At the same moment, Christy Murray, his face scratched and bruised, pops his head above a parapet of foliage and quickly ducks when he spies Bev.
She rings the doorbell and Rachel the Dim answers. Bev enters, joking with Rachel about her and Mike still having their lodgers, as Bev gets her first glimpse of the burnt-out bungalow.
Back at Hotel Corkhill, Jimmy is still clamouring to be released. It’s so noisy, I’m surprised none of the neighbours have heard the rucus. Tim listens to his rantings with unease. He feels terribly guilty about locking Jimmy in, he tells Emily. In fact, he feels just like a screw (that’s a prison term; it doesn’t mean he wants to shag Emily there and then, adolescents).
Emily looks frightened, as Jimmy is reduced to making animal noises on the other side of the door. Suddenly there’s an almighty noise of objects falling and Jimmy screams in pain. Tim asks about him. On the other side of the door, we see the mirror’s image of Jimmy, standing by the door and looking evilly sly, but whimpering to Tim that he’d hurt himself... Badly.
Emily wonders if they shouldn’t open the door and see about him, but Tim stops her. He’s lying, he warns. Anyway, on Jimmy’s sheet of instructions, he said that the couple were to ignore him, no matter what. Emily wonders how long they should leave Jimmy in the extension; he couldn’t come out in his present dangerous state.
Well, reasons Tim, he had to eat. Tim volunteers to make Jimmy some food and tells Emily to get Jim a glass of water, as he begins to make a sandwich for Jimmy.
Emily chooses this moment to bring up the subject of the heist again. She reminds Tim that he needn’t think he’d gotten off discussing the heist with her, especially the fact that he’d lied to her about it. Didn’t he realise that his caper could get her into all sorts of bother with Natalie at college? Why, she might even have to leave her course because of Tim’s stupidity.
Nikki enters the house and sees Tim making a sandwich, remarking that she fancied a sarnie as well.
Hearing Nikki’s voice, Jimmy begins to bang and beat on the door and wall again. Nikki is startled by him and looks curiously at Tim and Emily for an explanation. Jimmy’s yelling that he’s not going to give in.
Nikki makes a move toward the door, but Emily stops her, by pulling her back, telling her to leave Jimmy, that it’s what Jimmy wanted and had told them to do if he got into this state.
Jimmy starts to throw objects around in the room, shouting to Nikki to help him and telling her that Tim and Emily had tricked him.
Nikki accuses Tim and Emily of treating Jimmy like an animal, but Tim insists that this is how Jimmy told them to react to this sequence. Anyway, Tim reiterates, Jimmy is becoming dangerous. He needs professional help. (And Nikki reckons SHE’S a professional, right? Well, she is ... A professional scrounger, whinger, moaner ...)
Bev’s seated with Rachel in the Dixon lounge. Mike has just woken up and drowsily bungles about the kitchen. Bev has a favour to ask of Mike. She has a prospective buyer coming to view the bar around 3PM and wonders if Mike would pick Josh up from school. At that moment, Mike picks up a plate of food that Rachel has prepared for him and drops it clumsily on the floor. He immediately starts to moan about not being able to afford to waste food, before he remembers Bev’s request.
He then starts to moan about not getting enough sleep for one reason or another, until Rachel, embarrassed volunteers to go, herself, and collect Josh at 3PM.
Bev thanks Rachel and leaves.
After she’s gone, Rachel royally begins to tick Mike off about his churlish behaviour. Last week, Mike was all for doing his bit in looking after Josh and getting to know his son. This week, just because he’s been inconvenienced, he doesn’t want to know.
Mike apologises and tells Rachel that he’s pissed off because he’s found that Max Farnham has hijacked the rent Ray and Jessie were meant to be paying.
Rachel doesn’t understand, and Mike explains to her that Max has liaised with the Hiltons’ insurance company and ensured that the rent, including the arrears is paid weekly directly into Ron’s bank account. Mike had been counting on that extra £100 per week for him and Rachel.
To Mike’s utter surprise, Rachel seems to have miraculously developed a brain and common sense. She tartly replies to Mike that she thinks that the insurance company’s rent SHOULD go into Ron’s account. After all, it was his house, and by rights, Jessie and Ray should, therefore, pay rent to Ron. It was nothing to do with them.
Oh, well, sulks Mike, then it would be Rachel who would suffer. Without that extra money, she shouldn’t expect a birthday present, because the extra dosh would have furnished her with a nice one.
Rachel pooh-poohs Mike’s whingeing. In fact, she tells him a few home truths - like, it’s time he stopped griping about money that he didn’t have. If he wanted more money, he should look for a better job and stop depending on Jacqui, Max or Ron to provide what he thought was ‘rightfully’ his. And it was time he took more notice of and appreciated what really mattered in his life - such as the fact that he had a wife and a child - no, she corrects herself, TWO children.
Rachel asks Mike if he wants to end up like Ray, with Josh suddenly appearing on his doorstep in 40 years’ time, asking, ‘Remember me?’
Mike, she admonishes, needs to stop whingeing and effect some serious changes in his life.
Jessie has found Ray in the back garden. Abjectly, she apologises for witholding the fact that she had shares from Ray, and - as a way of apology- offers to help with Kitty’s funeral expenses, but Ray refuses.
Back at Hotel Corkhill, Jimmy is still banging about the extension, whilst Dimily and Nikki stand outside the door arguing about what to do next. Tim says that he was about to make Jimmy some food and take it into him. Inside, we get to see the full extent of Jimmy’s lair and what he must have been up to for the past few weeks of mania. There are printed pieces of paper stuck at various random points around the wall, all either his written rantings or stuff cribbed from his Internet friend. Then he’s been writing on the wall, as he’s doing now: ‘I AM A TEACHER’ and various references to his abortive and fraudulent teaching career.
The camera then shows a convex view of the room, as though Jimmy’s viewing his surroundings through the wrong end of a pair of specs (more new camera techniques). We see that Jimmy has actually injured his hand, as the knuckles are all skinned. Jimmy’s shouting that he can’t lead his live within four walls, that Jimmy Corkhill lives and breathes. He’s had all sorts of first-hand life experiences, he cries.
Outside, Nikki confesses to Dimily that she thought Jimmy wasn’t right before he went to Newcastle. She admits that she did a useless (and totally out-of-depth, I might add) exercise with Jimmy that might have just exacerbated the problem. Then, she wails rhetorically, about who takes responsibility for the mentally ill? (Well, actually, Nikki, you should be on the phone to Dr Parr and then to Lindsey to get her siliconed arse back to Liverpool).
The Mekon (and for once I’m on her side) counters that Jimmy is NOT her problem. (He isn’t).
Tim’s ubiquitous mobile alerts him to a text message from Plank, reminding him about clearing the van of contraband. Mysteriously, Tim announces that he has to go out. Plank needs him, he says, to help clear the van of ‘stuff’. Nikki understands exactly what kind of ‘stuff’ Tim means. He leaves the two girls on their own.
Jimmy’s back to making strange noises again, and Nikki accuses Dimily of treating Jimmy like an animal. Listen to him torturing himself, she whines.
Emily, again showing a modicum of good sense (like Rachel - what’s in the drinking water today?) rounds on her wet and silly sister. What is this thing with Nikki and Jimmy? Emily asks, speaking distinctly for once. It isn’t as though Jim’s Nikki’s dad! Nikki wants to remember that Jimmy’s just some old fella who doesn’t have the full shilling. Nikki wants to be careful, Emily warns, that someone doesn’t get the wrong idea about her and Jimmy!
Dr Nikki, who reckons herself an expert in the field of mental illness, ignores her sister and starts to speak encouragingly to Jimmy. She reminds him of the essay she wrote, with which he helped her. Although she neglects to tell us how badly it was probably graded, she assures Jimmy that she never got so much insight into anything as she had with Jimmy’s help.
She takes the plate of sarnies from a bewildered Emily and approaches the door. She tells Jimmy that she wants to bring some food in for him, and they could share it together. Everyone out here was worried about Jimmy, she says. She admits that she doesn’t really know much (GUFFAW!) ... But she knows enough not to let a friend go through a crisis like this alone.
Inside, we see Jimmy glaring and writing furiously on the wall.
Again, Nikki reiterates how grateful she is for the help Jimmy gave her for her essay.
Nikki tries to open the door, but Emily screams, begging her not to. Nikki ignores her, lifts the bolt and goes inside. Jimmy awaits her ominously. As soon as she enters, he slams the door and bolts it from his side.
Nikki is shocked at the state of the room, which is funny. Jimmy’s computer is now located in his extension. Two weeks ago, Nikki met Ray at the door one early morning dressed in Jimmy’s dressing gown, saying that she had put it on at 5AM because she’d been cold, having worked on the computer. So ... Was Nikki working in Jimmy’s room where the computer and the dressing gown were found, whilst Jimmy slept? Food for thought.
Through clenched teeth, Jimmy snarls that Nikki is a brave girl to come in like that. Jimmy wasn’t SAFE, he warns her.
Nikki tells Jimmy that she’s not frightened of him. It’s no shame, she says piously, to ask for support.
Jimmy eyes her suspiciously. Is she suggesting that he call for a doctor?
Not now, she hastily amends. But better sooner than later, Jimmy has to get control of himself somehow.
Jimmy glares at her maliciously. Look at her, he sneers, one pathetic essay and she reckons she knows it all. He approaches her slowly, and as he does so, Nikki paces backward until she’s pinned against the wall. Jimmy gazes at her through narrowed eyes. Tricky, isn’t it, he observes, the relationship between a man and a woman. Opposite sexes are meant to ‘fit’ ... But they don’t fit, do they?
Nikki is beginning to look frightened and tries to turn her head away from Jimmy, glancing nervously at the locked door.
The chemistry’s all wrong, says Jimmy, speaking of the sexes. Take sex, for example, he says, watching Nikki squirm uneasily. That’s a relationship that doesn’t fit. A lot of people, he says, mistake sex for affection, and really, that’s all Jimmy wants, he continues, a little affection.
Suddenly he asks Nikki if she’d give him a cuddle. He misses that, he pleads.
Reluctantly, Nikki agrees and puts her arms around Jimmy. Jimmy’s face, unseen by Nikki, assumes a look of ecstasy, while Nikki’s is a picture of disgust at finding herself in Jimmy Corkhill’s arms.
This makes all the difference in the world, he sublimes. This is nice. Reminds him of Lindsey. RLinds was always good for a cuddle. (Is this the true, subliminal picture of Jimmy’s and Lindsey’s relationship? How interesting!)
As Jimmy continues to hold Nikki, however, his hand slowly moves down her back, until he’s caressing and groping her jeans-clad arse. Nikki looks increasingly desperate, but she’s afraid to move. Jimmy then moves his hand and shoves it down the back of her jeans.
Is this how it is, he asks Nikki, with Jerome? All tender cuddles and caresses? Or is it hot, sweaty and hard sex?
Nikki begins to struggle.
Jimmy laughs maliciously and makes a crude comment about the right person on a pool table.
Nikki begins to cry.
Plank and Tim emerge from Sitcom House, Tim in the middle of telling Plank about Jimmy’s state, when they are met by Christy. Neither of the lads are glad to see him, but they are curious about the bruises on his face.
Ah well, quips Christy, you play with fire and you get burned.
Plank returns the quip with one about him reckoning Christy’s face meant that Leanne wasn’t glad to see him return either.
Christy blushes and remarks that he’s only come round to visit his family. No harm in that, is there, wanting to see his brother?
Nikki, trying desperately to leave the room, tells Jimmy that he needs to see a doctor. Jimmy agrees, to her surprise. But before she has time to react, Jimmy maintains that they could just remain here in his room. What sort of friends would the Close reckon they were then?
Nikki recognises that this is a subtle piece of blackmail and lifts the inside bolt on the door. Jimmy strides out of the room, before turning briefly to glare malevolently at Nikki.
‘See ya,’ he says, shortly and disappears.
Emily enters, stares briefly and Nikki; then Nikki collapses, crying in her arms.
Outside, Christy and the lads stand in conversation, Christy telling them that Leanne was off to see the soft tissue specialist today as part of her compensation claim.
As they talk, distracted, Jimmy, carrying his bag and a bin bag, strides away from the Close. We hear Tim, Plank and Christy talking in the background as their voices become echoes. There’s a flash of Jimmy’s face, looking normal and beckoning someone into his house, as he walks on, looking maniacally around. Then there’s a shot of his feet and that dissolves into a shot of his feet, wearing the mismatched shoes he wore the day he ended up on the school roof.
He strides on, passing the street sign for Brookside Close.
What a pity this isn’t the end of an overused character who’s
become a stinky joke!
Summary © 2002 Marion Watts
Brookside and all related materials are © Mersey Television 1982-2002