On Wednesday, Brookside hit the heights again, showing an episode where nothing REALLY happened at all, but everything happened, if you get my drift.
This was one of those episodes, which I deem a 'setting the scene' episode - a sort of laying the groundwork for big things to come, a calm before the storm, an Annunciation if you will. A plethora of characters were used - practically EVERY regular character, save Jessie, Adele, Rachel, Nisha and the Rogers ... Oh, and Lance, who’s yet to return properly.
This was Brookside using the soap genre to the best of its ability. The scene is now set for Ant to commit the ultimate crime in ridding his life of Imelda, the scene is set for Jacqui to get pregnant and buy the Bar, the scene is now set for Jimmy’s return to be cared for exclusively by Nikki (always one fly in the ointment) and the scene is finally set for Tim and Mike to get a life.
Giving credit where credit is due, full marks to Jennifer Eliison’s performance last night. I know I haven’t stinted in giving her deserved stick for her antics on-screen, but last night - hey! - she ACTED! There were no ubiquitous bum shots, no cleavage, no near nudity, no bee-stung pouts, no sexy innuendo, no grating scream. And she came across as eminently watchable and interesting. When Brookside uses her talents correctly, she can rival the best actresses on the programme. If she continues in this mould, I’d be happy to see her stay.
The programme opens with a ground view-upward shot of a tower block of flats. It looks amazingly like the block where Jimmy and Co rescued Harry. The camera pans back to show Tim, standing and staring upward at the building.
A car pulls up in back of him. It’s Plank’s old blue Escort. Plank rolls down the window and asks Tim if he’s had ‘any luck’. The two have been scouring the area in search of Jimmy. Maybe they thought he’d returned to his last scene of heroic triumph.
Interlude: The front door opens at Chateau Farnham, and Max enters to find his wife returned from visiting her parents and sitting in wait for him on the stairs. The two enjoy a touching reunion. (We also note that the house appears to be quiet and devoid of children).
Over the Close, at Hotel Corkhill, Dr Nikki is attempting to make a phone call. Emily approaches from the foyer and immediately asks her sister whom she’s phoning. Nikki explains that she’s phoning Lindsey, in order to see if Jimmy’s shown up in Newcastle.
Emily doesn’t think it’s a good idea. If he’s NOT there, Nikki would only worry more about where he actually was, and anyway, if it’s hinted to Lindsey that he’s gone missing, that would only worry her too. (But Lindsey SHOULD be the one who’s being worried. After all, she IS Jimmy’s daughter. In his present state, he IS her responsibilty).
Anyway, Emily suggests, perhaps he’s gone to Jackie’s.
That’s the LAST place he’d go, replies Nikki, scathingly, her infinite knowledge of the nature of Jackie Corkhill having been gleaned from her omniscient Sage.
Tim enters the house, having returned from his unsuccessful search.
Tim and Emily exchange views about the state of Jimmy’s health, Tim making an observation that they had an inkling he’d get like this if he didn’t take his tablets. Which he chose not to do, grumbles Emily.
Nikki rounds on her sister and Tim furiously. Well, she remarks, piously self-righteous, did they ever stop to think that THEY could actually be the cause of Jimmy’s breakdown?
The couple stare at her, aghast at her stupidity. (I mean, she IS the eminent psychologist/psychiatrist. She would rival Frasier Crane!)
Well, it could be true! Nikki continues. Jimmy was fine until Tim and Emily started acting like a bunch of scallies, involving him in all Tim’s scams and even taking him on the rob! It was simply proving too much for Jimmy.
‘What are you like?’ Sneers Emily, justifiably. ‘ You’re up to your eyes in debt and all you’re thinking about is Jimmy! He’s not your concern!’ (This is true). Anyway, Emily continues, if Nikki blames Em and Tim for Jimmy’s dilemma, who was responsible for burning their Nan’s house down?
‘Don’t come the moral high ground with me!’ Nikki retorts. Anyway, she was trying to HELP Jimmy, something that Emily and Tim didn’t seem to want to do.
Oh, replies Emily, with heavy sarcasm, Nikki helped Jimmy, all right. It was Nikki who was naive enough to let Jimmy out of the extension and he escaped. So, again, it’s Nikki’s fault that Jimmy’s in the fix he’s in now. (Again, this is true).
Nikki remarks that Tim and Emily make her sick, the way they were content to get fat off other people’s misery through their various scams, caring only for their own selfish selves.
Oh, who’s taking the moral high ground now? Says Emily. She and Tim care a lot about other people, she reiterates. The proof was in the chocolate tin over there in the room, she points. One thousand pounds for Nikki. They could prove their concern for her if Nikki would take that money.
Nikki prudishly puckers her lips with distaste. Emily knew full well, she accuses, that Nikki couldn’t and wouldn’t take that money. It would mean she condoned everything Dimily did. It would mean she was in collusion with their evil.
Take it, urges Emily.
Nikki refuses.
Take it, repeats Emily. It would make a sizeable dent in Nikki’s overdraft. And Nikki knew it would.
Again, St Nikki refuses.
Jerome would take it, Emily says, quite truthfully. (Yes, Jerome would take it and not think twice).
Well, she wouldn’t, swears Nikki and storms off, piously.
Tim is visibly relieved that she refused the offer of money. That means he and Emily are £1k better off, he says, when Nikki’s gone.
Emily, however, is adamant. That money stays right where it is. Nikki may not want it now, but there’ll surely come a time in the near future where she’ll have to take it, says Emily. And when she does, she won’t be asking Dimily for the money, she’ll be begging for it. (And Emily should refuse to give it to her, with glee).
The ubiquitous bed scene follows, this time with the Farnhams, the camera starting with their naked feet dangling over the edge of the marital bed. Jacqui remarks that the 12 minutes of bliss was an all-time record for Max. (Yuck! Was there any need for this? We KNOW that they’ve had sex. Along with Jacqui’s menstrual cycle, we don’t want to know the length of time Max Farnham is able to sustain a penile erection).
Jacqui demands to know ALL the news and Max obliges. Jessie’s and Ray’s insurance had coughed up the rent for Number 8 finally. They’d paid it in back-dated installments, Max explains, and he’s happy to report it’s been paid directly into Ron’s bank account.
Jacqui is pleased.
Sammy Rogers has been behaving herself at the Health Club, Max reports, but Sol asked Max to remind Jacqui that his contract was up for renewal (a six-monthly one?). Anyway, that was Jacqui’s sphere, Max says. Oh, yes, and he had to have a few words with Jessie, when she let another client down.
Jacqui IS dismayed to hear that. What did Jessie say? She wants to know.
Well, Max confesses, Jessie wasted NO time in reminding him that she works for MRS Farnham and not MR Farnham.
Jacqui muses that she thought Max would be in his element cracking the whip over staff, but Max says that he felt sorry doing that to Jessie, after she and Ray had been through the fire.
In an amazing volte face, Jacqui reminds Max that Great Grannnies was a business, not a charity. But Jacqui doesn’t want to know anymore about that. Instead, she wants to know all about the goss between Bev and Leanne.
Ray is standing outside Helen’s house. In fact, he’s in the driveway. The door opens and Stephanie, her daughter, emerges with her bike. The girl is supposed to be twelve and looks sixteen, but at least she isn’t blonde. Immediately she sees Ray, she calls her mother.
Helen appears and calms the girl down, saying Ray is an old friend of ‘Auntie Sylvia’s’.
The girl departs and for a moment, Ray and Helen just stare at each other, before Helen invites him inside. Once inside, Ray confesses that he needs to talk and there’s no one else to whom he can turn. He certainly couldn’t talk to Jessie and Jimmy was off someplace. (That’s an understatement!).
Jimmy seems like a nice man, remarks Helen, politely. Full of life.
He is, that, Ray agrees. His eyes are drawn to pictures nearby of Helen’s adoptive parents. He immediately recognises both of them. Sylvia’s sister (Helen’s adoptive mum) was still a looker, he remarks. Helen shows him a picture of her adoptive father, whom Ray remembers as a nice bloke.
Suddenly, Ray asks Helen why she passed him off to Stephanie as a friend of Auntie Sylvia’s. Helen explains it would have been too much for the girl to have taken in. She knew Helen’s adoptive father as ‘Granddad’. And anyway, who’s to say that Ray won’t let them down and walk away again?
Max and Jacqui are now in the kitchen, although the children are NOWHERE to be seen or heard. Jacqui admits to Max that she’s done a lot of thinking since she’s been at DD’s with the kids. Hastily and with some guilt, she assures him that she loves the kids and loves being with them; but she needs something more - more than just sex or motherhood can offer.
She tells Max that she wants to return to work. In fact, she adds, as a way of convincing him, she’s sure she will be an even BETTER mother if she returned to work.
Max hugs her supportively, admitting he wondered how long she’d last as a full-time mum. In fact, he’s surprised that she stuck with it this long. (He shouldn’t be surprised. Both his previous wives had it all - careers, children, nannies, cleaners).
Max is OK with Jacqui returning to work. Jacqui hugs him back and asks if they can employ a nanny or a child-minder ‘or somethink.’
Been there, done that, says Max, confidently. (Deja-vu?) The important thing, Max reiterates, is that whatever they do, they allow enough time for each other - especially now, he adds, that he’s taken on this added responsibility as a school governor.
Jacqui asks how Max’s first meeting went. What sort of people sat on the board, she wants to know. She reckons they’re a dead posh lot - solicitors and doctors and the like.
Nice people, Max informs her. In fact, he met someone with whom he had a lot in common - an ex-surveyor, like himself. Woman by the name of Gaby Thaxter. She was a big help and really nice, says Max enthusiastically. Funny, he muses, you know how it is when you meet a person and they remind you so much of someone that you think that you’ve met them before?
Jacqui asks if he HAD met her before.
That’s just it, he laughs. He hadn’t. But she reminded him of Patricia to the T. Same sense of humor, same smile. (Wake up and smell the coffee, Max! She is NOT like your EX-WIFE, Patricia, and you are talking to your CURRENT wife, Jacqui! You deserve to be smacked and threatened with a Bobbit!)
Max walks away with a reflective smile on his face at the memory of his evening with Gaby the Grin, while poor Jacqui’s face assumes a rightly worried look.
It’s near the end of the school day, and Antichrist Ant trudges down the empty corridor at Brookie Comp. Suddenly a door bangs at the end of the hall, and he’s confronted by his nemeses, Imelda and Paige, who stand, wickedly smiling at him. Why they’ve suddenly decided to torment him during school hours and on school property, is beyond me.
Antony stands, frozen with fright. The girls, giggling, approach him, slowly, before Imelda suddenly realises that the CCTV camera installed will catch their every movement. She jumps up quickly to cover the apparatus with her coat, before the two chase Antony frantically down the hall.
Antony seeks refuge in the boys’ loo. He dashes into a cubicle and climbs atop the toilet in order that his feet might not be seen. He sits tensely, wondering if the girls have dared to follow him in. After a few moments, he hears water from the basin taps running. He listens intently for a few seconds, then relaxes, thinking someone, ostensibly a boy, must have entered the loo and was washing their hands.
Tentatively, he starts to climb down from the toilet seat, when suddenly a basin of water is dumped over him from above. He’s drenched. As he had the cubicle door half open in anticipation of leaving, the girls barge in, giggling evilly, and dousing him with a second pan of wather is doused over him from the front.
The two bullies roughly pull Antony from the cubicle, calling him ‘Choirboy’ and ‘Queer Boy’, and proceed to rip his clothing off him.
Bev is walking along The Parade when she comes face to face, literally, with Leanne, who’s walking in the opposite direction and wearing her ubiquitous surgical collar. They stop, facing each other, from a distance of about a metre. Leanne is the first to speak, and - suffice it to say - that she doesn’t utter a friendly hello.
Leanne snarls that she hopes that Bev’s seen a solicitor. Bev, sussing Leanne’s scam and noticing that the girl’s carrying her pack of Polaroid photos detailing her ‘injuries’, cattily remarks on Leanne’s photies.
Bev would need a solicitor, Leanne replies. Leanne’s just come from seeing the doctor, who reckons she could be scarred for life.
Bev shrugs indifferently, telling Leanne that if she continues to plague Bev, Bev would ensure that she WAS scarred for life.
‘Oh!’ Exclaims Leanne, indignantly. ‘Me brief will want to know that - ferrst, she beats me senseless, then she threatens me in the street!’
‘Do us a favour, Leanne,’ replies Bev, in a bored tone of voice, ‘and do one. Everyone knows what a scam you’re pulling. You’ve done time, and you’ve got no friends. In fact, I don’t know of one person round here, who wouldn’t be glad to see the back of you going off on a long break.’
Leanne responds that she’s going on a long break, all right, to a tropical beach, paid for courtesy of her compensation money won off Bev. She takes pleasure in reminding Bev that she has EVERYTHING in her favour in this case. The injuries are obvious, she declares with glee, holding up the pictures. Then there’s the witnesses AND the CCTV evidence. The camera, sneers Leanne, never lies.
Bev issues a short, snorty laugh. Didn’t Leanne know that CCTV film was wiped after 24 hours? And anyway, says Bev, there WAS no film in that camera.
But Leanne still has her winning ace up her sleeve, she crows to Bev. Her star witness. Maxie Farnham. Successful businessman. Respected citizen. Devoted father. Loving husband. Pillar of the community. Just the sort of witness a jury would take to. Oh, and a bit of a looker, as well. That ought to go down well.
As Leanne skips off happily, Bev is left looking deflated and despondent.
Meanwhile, the ‘star witness’ and his wife are doing the dishes in the Farnham kitchen. Still no sign or sound from the kids. Max has obviously been telling Jacqui about the goings-on at the bar, specifically the break-in.
Jacqui is strangely unsympathetic toward Bev. Serves Bev right, she mutters, as she dries up. After all, Bev WOULD go and leave that Leanne Powell in charge. What did she expect?
Well, Max continues, Leanne certainly did a good job of cleaning Bev out and ruining her credibility. Did Jacqui know that Bev can’t even afford to buy stock for the bar? Why, Bev even approached Max, trying to get Max to buy stock for the bar on his account.
Jacqui eyes Max, warily. She certainly hopes Max had the good sense to steer well clear of that one, she says.
Max concedes that he DID offer to give Bev some advice - and that was that it was best that she cut her losses, sell up and go.
Hmmm, Jacqui mutters in the background. Still, it’s best that Max not get involved at all with this caper.
Max immediately reverts to the old Max form of opening and shutting his mouth like a fish, as if ‘fishing’ for words. Then he begins to stutter. Actually, he begins, he IS involved to a degree. He tells Jacqui about the run-in Bev and Leanne had at the garage, of which he was a witness. In fact, he’s been called as a witness to the attack, as Leanne is suing Bev for compesation for the injuries she received.
Jacqui is appalled. Does Max mean that he’s actually going to give evidence in FAVOUR of Leanne? Didn’t he realise what a liar she was? Didn’t he remember what Leanne had done to his own wife? Max wasn’t even to think about doing something like that! And Jacqui issues a half-serious and veiled threat.
Antony Murray crouches, naked, wet and shivering in the loo.
The phone rings at Sitcom House. Marty Murray answers it. For some reason, he’s home before the students. As a caretaker, he should still be at school. The phone call is from Mrs Plummer, telling him about Antony. As he’s talking to the head, Plank, showing the regulation bare chest that’s become an unnecessary part of Brookside lately, enters the lounge. (Cue for all the adolescent girls to twitter).
Plank hears Marty repeat that Antony’s been involved in an ‘incident’ at school. Marty asks if Ant is hurt, before he assures the head that he’s on his way, putting the phone down and dashing out with Plank.
Dimily are sitting on a bench at The Parade, gazing in the direction of what used to be Trina’s Tots. Emily tells Tim that she’s been remembering when he was missing at Christmas, how worried she was. Any moment she thought someone would be at the door with bad news about Tim. She’s not sure now that she wants Tim to continue with his life of crime. She couldn’t stand the anxiety of waiting and not knowing his fate when he was on a job.
But he’s doing this all for her, Tim argues, gently. He’s doing it to give her the best things in life. He wants nothing more than to see Emily in charge of her own salon business, her own place. Ideally, he’d like to be able to buy Trina’s Tots’s premises, he says, indicating the building. He asks Emily to just imagine how successful their life would be - no bills, Emily with her own business. She would be proud of herself, he says, and of Tim.
She was already proud of Tim, Emily replies. He didn’t have to prove himself to her.
But Emily deserves better, insists Tim, and he’s determined that she gets it.
At what cost? Asks Emily, rhetorically (and softly, I might add).
Jacqui’s called round at Number 8. She’s brought some more of the kids’ outgrown clothing around for Beth and found Mike in a surly mood, still smarting over the fact that he wasn’t about to get his grubby, greedy, wastrel paws on Jessie and Ray’s rent money.
Mike is openly ungrateful for the clothing, tossing them aside, dismissively. That’s him all over, he remarks, he and his family were only fit for someone else’s cast-offs.
Jacqui is affronted. She only meant well, she assures him. She didn’t mean this as an insult. What IS the matter with Mike? She demands. He’s been off with her ever since she called round.
Mike flops onto the sofa in a heap of self-pity and recrimination. He begins to whinge about being left out of everything around here. He doesn’t even merit a look-in, he moans. Whenever something needs doing and somebody needs help, they always ask Jacqui to sort it out. And if Jacqui’s not available, there’s always good old Maxie!
What IS Mike on about? Wonders Jacqui. What has Max done?
Mike tells Jacqui that there was nothing more embarrassing to him than having Maxie Farnham come into HIS house and start telling him what to do. (Mike’s house? Mike doesn’t own a house). And then, when Jacqui goes away, instead of asking Mike to look after what is a FAMILY business, she asks Max Farnham.
Jacqui has had enough of this arsehole and she’s succinct and to the point in her reply. She tells Mike that she asked Max to look after Great Grannies in her absence, because - frankly - Mike simply wasn’t capable of doing it.
Now it’s Mike’s turn to be affronted, although his sister has spoken the truth. He starts to utter a protest, before Jacqui reminds him that he hasn’t been too good to rob off Ron in the past. In fact, he was caught on video pilfering from Ron’s account.
That was years ago, scoffs Mike.
It makes no difference, says Jacqui, and points out the fact that Mike was hoping to get the rent money from Jessie and Ray for himself.
‘Hang on a minute!’ Shouts Mike. ‘It’s ME who looks after this house!’
Jacqui shakes her head. Mike wants to get a grip. He’s content to sit around whingeing about what other people have and what they do, and he bemoans his own inability to do so due to his own financial status. Mike’s got no money, Mike’s skint. Well, Jacqui continues, only Mike can do something about that. In fact, Mike wants to take a good long look at himself. He’s got a good degree, but he’s never had anything but dead-end jobs, and all he can do is sit around and moan and expect her and their dad to subsidise him. Why, Mike was nearly 30 years old, married, with a wife and two kids and STILL living at home with his dad!
Well, pouts Mike, Jacqui was hardly any better. Look where she ended up - next door and married to a man old enough to be her dad. And as for her business empire, Mike continues bitchily, he’d like to know exactly what she gave Barry Grant to entice him to give her a foot up on the ladder of success. (He deserved a smack across the face for that one).
Jacqui informs Mike that it’s Rachel and Beth for whom she feels sympathy, wondering where they’ll find themselves with Mike in ten years’ time. (So Mike’s had some home truths in two straight episodes. Time he did something useful).
Marty, Plank and Anthony have collected Antony at school. The lad is now wearing some gym clothing. Antony seems pretty philosophical about his attack. He’s becoming conditioned to expecting this. He simply says he wants to go home, in a toneless voice.
Marty gently asks the boy what the bullies did to him.
Antony refuses to say. Marty couldn’t help him anyway, he mutters, walking away from his father and brother.
Ray sits helplessly on the sofa with Helen at her house. He’s musing desperately that it seems as though now he is living someone else’s life. It’s like a bad dream. A few months ago, he had a wife, a home and a family.
Until Helen appeared, she interrupts.
Back then, Ray continues, he had a future. Now, he reflects, as far as Jessie’s concerned, all he had was a past. He’s learned a great deal more about Jessie in the past week than he’d known in their two years of marriage, he confesses. Did Helen know that poor Ray had to house Kitty in a second-rate nursing home, while Jessie was sitting on £20k worth of shares. She was earning interest by the hour and still chose not to tell him anything.
Helen comments that maybe Jessie had her reasons for not doing so. She then asks Ray when he last saw Sylvia, her mother.
Ray remembers that he last saw Sylvia in the little park that stood at the end of their road. It was a boiling hot summer’s day, he recalls. But Sylvia, for some reason, had just been to the cinema. She was having ice cream with a little girl, he says, looking pointedly at Sylvia.
Helen suddenly remembers. She dropped the ice cream and a man bought her another. Was that Ray?
Ray nods. He’d actually asked Sylvia to come away with him that very day. He’d made his mind up. He wanted to start again, with her. He remembered Sylvia’s reply. How could she leave? He recalls her saying. Then he recalls her looking at Helen and asking Ray how she could take Helen away from her parents. (So Ray did want his lover and their child).
If Sylvia showed up now, Helen asks, would Ray go off with her?
Ray muses about Kitty’s death, Helen’s grandmother. He’d have loved Kitty to have known about Helen, would have liked to see how she got on with her granddaughter. He thought Helen should know about Kitty’s death.
Helen asks Ray to tell her about Kitty.
Dimily are now back at Hotel Corkhill. Tim lies on the sofa, his head resting in Emily’s lap. Emily solemnly tells Tim that this is the first time in their marriage that he’s lied to her. She wants him to know that she doesn’t tolerate lies (even though she tells a few herself).
But, Tim protests, sitting up, he only lied because he knew Emily would be worried sick if she’d known the truth about the robbery.
This has got to stop, Emily insists, sooner or later Tim was bound to get caught. It was the law of averages. He’ll only be able to get away with this for so long. It would all come down on top of him one day.
Tim reiterates that he’s doing this sort of thing to provide for their future.
Their future? Emily repeats. What if they had kids?
Tim doesn’t want to think about children. That was years off, he says.
But what if they DO have them? Asks Emily. What kind of future could Emily offer their children if Tim were off in prison, or - worse - dead?
That won’t happen, Tim assures her cockily.
But it happened with her dad and brother, Emily reminds him. One minute they were there and happy, the next they were dead under rubble.
What did Emily want Tim to do? He demands.
Get a proper job and a safe one, Emily says, simply. The crime has to stop.
A proper job? Wails Tim. Has Emily forgotten? Tim’s got no qualifications. What had he to hope for except long hours in a call center or some other crap job cooking burgers for no pay? What would they have then? No money. No future.
They’d still have each other, murmurs Emily. (Livin’ on Luurve).
Then they’d never get a good mortgage or a good home, continues Tim. He has NO qualifications. The rob’s all he knows.
Then he should try to get some, Emily says, desperately. Because if he doesn’t, she warns, he’ll end up just like Jimmy, a sad old scally who might have been. And she’ll end up another Jackie Corkhill, until she walked out.
At that remark, Tim storms off, as Emily shouts after him to ‘sod off’!
(Good scene. Full marks to Ms Ellison).
Ray is still at Helen’s, and he’s beginning to speak about Kitty. There were lots of things he never said to his mum, he tells Helen, lots of things he meant to say to her, but never got the chance. Now that she’s gone, it made him think about all his wasted opportunities with her. He confides to Helen that he realised he’d done a pretty poor show by her, in not being a real father to her during her lifetime; and now, if it wasn’t possible to be her father, he’d like nothing more than just to be her friend.
For a moment, Helen’s pensive; then she tells Ray that she wants to ask a favour of him. He doesn’t have to oblige, if he doesnt want to. She then asks if she might be allowed to attend Kitty’s funeral.
Ray is touched to the core, and he tells her that he’d like that very much.
Antichrist Ant is safe within the confines of Sitcom House, where Dire is excessively mothering him to the extreme. He sits, alone, at the sitcom table (which seems to be in a different place every time it’s shown), playing with his Gameboy. Dire lovingly places a mug of tomato soup in front of him. Antony protests that she only gives him tomato soup when he’s ill. He maintains that he’s all right.
Dire encounters Marty just outside the door from the sitcom kitchen/diner into the sitcom lounge. She’s baffled, she confesses. Antony’s simply carrying on as though nothing had happened. She asks Marty what the Head had to say about the situation.
Poor Marty shrugs his shoulders. The usual, he says, hopelessly. That there wasn’t conclusive proof, they only had Antony’s word for it ... Yadda yadda.
Plank enters briefly then, on his way out, and asks if Ant is OK. We still see Antony seated at the table in the background, furiously playing with the Gameboy. Plank calls out to him as he leaves the house. Antony briefly looks up to say good-bye.
When Plank leaves, Dire ostentatiously shuts the door between the kitchen and the lounge, which Antony, a seasoned eavesdropper, notices.
She could kill those two girls! She hisses viciously through her hard, clenched, iron jaw. They were no better than ANIMALS! MONSTERS! Why, they stripped Ant naked and left him saturated with water. (As Annabelle pointed out on her website, why isn’t this being treated as sexual harassment? If the situation had involved two boys doing this to Louise Ratchild, all hell would have broken loose!)
Those kids had no sense of guilt at all, Dire continues, furiously. And that school’s done nothing but sit by and watch as they’ve repeatedly hurt her son. Well, she vows, the bullies won’t be doing this again to Antony! She’ll make sure of that.
Emily is alone in Hotel Corkhill, worrying about Tim, who had left in a huff after being told a few home truths. Nikki and Plank enter the house. Emily is surprised that Tim’s not with Plank, as the two seem to be joined at the hip here lately.
Nikki remarks that it’s no wonder Tim’s got off, the way he and Emily had been carrying on of late. Anyway, she and Plank were off on Jimmy Patrol, to try to find the Sage.
As they leave, a repentant Tim enters. The first thing that he does is apologise sincerely to Emily. She was right to make the shit hit the fan, he says.
Emily tells Tim that she wants their marriage to last, but she doesn’t want a marriage based on lies.
Tim confesses that he’s been thinking. Maybe he’d do well to go legit. He could always be a van driver, he says, but he’d need to buy a new van for that.
Well, Emily concedes, that’s a start ... But Tim wasn’t to touch the £1000 that she’d put aside for Nikki.
The two enjoy a subtle cuddle. Emily wants to know if Tim’s going back out to search for Jimmy.
Tim decides to let Nikki and Plank shoulder that responsibility until the morning. He had other plans, and we have the de rigeur serious snog, which isn’t as repulsive as some of their other efforts.
And the Sage?
Well, we see him trudging along the pavement, carrying his bag and his binbag. He just happens to be at the entrance of the Mersey Tunnel, walking against the flow of the traffic. Jimmy stops and gazes at the busy traffic scene in front of him. He lets his bag and binbag drop by his side. A close-up shows his face unshaven and his eyes narrowing suspiciously as he surveys his surroundings. We see the scene as though through Jimmy’s perspective. The cars become whizzing burrs.
Staring straight ahead at nothing, Jimmy steps into the flow of traffic, to a caophony of car horns.
Tom Higgins wrote this. An EXCELLENT stage-setting piece. He should write more.
Summary © 2002 Marion Watts
Brookside and all related materials are © Mersey Television 1982-2002