plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

February 6, 2010 by welovehollyoaks

Hello. There was a creeping sense of sameyness in this week’s omnibus.

here we go again

Hannahrexic lurched into her next life crisis thanks to the arrival in the village of her spotty drugdealing icecream man Hollyoaks Later boyf Jamie. This being a Hannah life crisis this meant hours of Hannah BTMing, shrieking and flouncing off and Rhys shouting, looking constipated and unleashing his fists of fury to zero effect. Yawn.

Jamie himself loitered round the village all week like a particularly annoying tramp. We don’t like him and we think he is up to no good. A suspect for Sasha’s mugging last week? You know it.

Another vaguely familiar aspect to this storyline was Rhys’ predictably inept attempts to rid the village of it’s Jamie-shaped presence. When fisticuffs didn’t work, he inexplicably recruited Darren (swoon) for a spot of failed drug entrapment and kidnapping/assault. High marks for effort, D- for execution.

deja voodoo

Other happenings where we’ve been there, done that was Sheila’s comedic attempts to provide Elliot with cheese on toast/study support (not to mention Elliot once again turning down the opportunity for sex with a hot woman) and Malachy’s ongoing passive aggressive (read: pussy whipped) schemes to unplug Mercedes and Calvin, these including hopping aboard the property ladder and reuniting Calvin with his ex-missus Carmel. He is either a total wuss or a machiavellian genius. We cannot decide which.

in other news

Ravi opens a boxing club for chavs. Given that his last venture into the boxing world resulted in a craniotomy we think this is a perfectly sensible course of action; Carmel is given a random perm by Frankie; for the ten minutes he is on screen, Duncan spent 9.5 of them talking about or eating food; Cindy and Steph get all competitive mum/stepmum by entering Holly and Tom into Chester’s Got Talent; Holly is neglected and sad. Boo : (

film student moment

Various characters in noir-ish card games; Elliot gets Star Trekked; Rocky montage

MYEARS

Tony speaks street

Carmel refs colonically irrigating Frankie and Leo. Eww.

goodbyes and stuff

January 31, 2010 by welovehollyoaks

Telly fixed and tuned into E4 we finally caught up with the Hollyoaks omnibus woo hoo!

bye bye Doey

The biggest news was that after what can only be described as an eventful tenure in the village, recently kebabbed Zoe decided to up sticks and headed off to find a hopefully less violent existence in the Interrailing network of europe. Being Zoe, complicated sexual condundrums could never be far away and thus she left accompanied by not one but two men in tow (the two men being Gilly and Barnsey). We cannot think of a more fitting exit.

strawberry fields for never

See what we did there? Yeah, so coinciding with Zoe’s decision to leave was Steph’s realisation that she actually loved Gilly (history’s least interesting love triangle had become a biangle (?)having ended when she kicked luckless Fernando to the kerb in the episodes we missed – bet that was exciting). Sadly/happily the Hollyverse is somewhat ‘whatevs’ in the face of romantic volte-faces and so Steph was reduced to running after Gilly before he jetted off, dressed as a strawberry. And missed. We felt sorry for her for approximately 3 minutes.

nuffink

Much of the rest episode was taken up by somewhat non events, where something caused much screeching, soul searching etc only to fizzle away into nothing. Par example:

Rhys thought he might be the father of Hayley’s bun. Then it turned out he wasn’t. Nor did we find out who is.

At one point or another Kris, Hannah, Michaela and Zack all decided to go travelling with Zoe. Then decided not to.

Hayley declared that she would be raising her child in the student slum. Then headed back to Liverpool.

quotes

“He’s a bloke and she’s a blonde lesbian” Michaela on why Zack going travelling with Zoe might have sexytimes repercussions. She gotta point.

“You’ve got prada tastes and primark pockets” Kris dishes out some home truths to Mercy.

MYEYES

Sasha does a sexydance for Dave and Josh in a disturbing film student moment.

MYEYESANDEARS

Nev and Rhys discuss contraception. Please. Never again.

random brand watch

Rhys researches baby daddyness on random brand search engine Swoosh

in other news

Amy moves in to the council estate slum with Ste; a momentary OMG moment when Kris catches Mercy and Calvin at it in an alleyway, undermined somewhat when he fesses up to Malachy who continues to take his slutbag wife’s infidelity like a big pussy; some spooky wind haunts the village; Sasha is mugged by a mysterious hooded figure

that’s all for now TA RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

thoughts from the offline

January 23, 2010 by welovehollyoaks

Thanks to work, weddings (not ours) and Virgin Media apparently not loving the idea of allowing us access to television or broadband, our viewage of Hollyoaks has been sketchy of late. We have, however, done our best to learn what important life lessons we could:*

  • the best way to deal with an anorexic with a serious case of the denials is to lock her in a room whilst others queue up to shout at her. Clearly one from the Airplane school of eating disorder treatment.
  • bed bound anorexics vaguely resemble Regan in the Exorcist.
  • it doesn’t matter how hot your vag is, illicit sex seshes will be rendered undesirable to your hot bald headed lover after a night of passive aggressive poker bonding with your cuckolded hubby.
  • returning home from Canadia to find both of your surviving friends in hospital will leave you, understandably, looking a bit perturbed.
  • Skins-style houseparties only exist in Skins. (take note, Anita)
  • All Cindy and Tony have done for the first two months of their marriage is argue. Fact.
  • Lollypop men are a fountain of advice about eating disorders and friends who may (or as it turns out, actually may not) be trying it on with your girlfriend
  • Newt’s pretentious/apt ring tone is ’supermassiveblackhole’
  • A goth and a chav combine malevolent forces and the best they can come up with is locking someone in a cupboard.
  • Chav princesses do not respond well to being locked in cupboards (see above) and, apparently, have an expiry date.
  • invisible bees exist. and they can sting you.
  • amount of time it takes for 2×2 pramface to lose interest in caring for her abandoned offspring in favour of a job at the local beauty emporium: approx. 36 hours.
  • it is more desirable to falsely confess to being a cross dressing homosexual than it is to admit you use your aunt’s dirty knickers as wank enablers.
  • the only career option for a ditzy artist type is to run of to paris to be the assistant/whore of a pretentious bearded artist man in a dodge Casablanca homage/rip off
  • Elliot does not like French people. “They’re rude”.
  • there is an apparent outbreak of superfertility in the village, with both Hayley and Cheryl’s eggos preggo. god help us all.
  • ‘bubblegum’: Sasha and Lauren’s verdict on Cheryl’s look. (ours: pre-op) (joking, we love you Cheryl)
  • epically dull love triangles involving Steph and Gilly/Max/Fernando/Niall/whoever will continue for what seems like eternity until, presumably, blood vessels are busting in our brains, spinal fluid is leaking from our eyes and we are screaming out for mercy.
  • despite being the most interesting character, bonkers Myra Hindley lookalikes are strangely/criminally absent.

*note, much of this has probably changed/been resolved in the episodes we have missed. Or then again, maybe not.

stabby new year fun (minus cake)

January 4, 2010 by welovehollyoaks

Well, where do we start with the first Hollyoaks omnibus of the tenties?

blonde v blonde

We expected the Zoe/Lydia she knows that she knows that she knows plot to rumble on for ages, but instead we were treated to a new year’s eve showdown. This was of course after a toe curling scene where Zoe used her womanly wiles to try and honey trap Lydia. Yep. That’s right. There is officially now no situation when Zoe will not use her womanly wiles.

Anyhoo, with Zoe dressed a la Madonna/Material Girl and Lydia, well, being her usual spooky self, things got a little bit stabby down at Sarah’s grave, Zoe getting a punctured stomach and bowel for her troubles. Ouch!

And now, sadly, Lydia is all banged up (though somehow had time to doll herself up a la Daryl Hannah in Blade Runner) – boo hoo. Watching her all caged and mental is fun though, we are hoping she denies her suicidal urges and becomes a Hannibal Lecter-style uber villain, causing all sorts of mayhem from behind bars. In the mean time – her mum and interestingly named sister Persephone are nearby. Will we get to meet them? We hope so!

more familiar grimness

The Hannah-rexia storyline (thanks to @Sugafairey for that one!) continued down the usual “I don’t need to be in hospital” “Yes you do”, “I’m not anorexic” “Yes you are” conversations for what felt like hours, though at least this time our beloved Darren was involved and there was narky anorexia doctor Diane to shout at everyone. Hannah, just have some cake. Go on. Just a little bit.

2010 resolutions

Cheryl: treat body like temple, no carbs after 9pm, win X Factor

Lydia: be dead by 2011

in other news

more steph-gilly-fernando-cheryl yawnsomeness (ignore what we said about Newt and Rae – THIS is the world’s least interesting love story. BORED NOW); The Dog runs out of booze on NYE so gives away free biergrad; Amy takes back her kids (about bloody time); Cheryl is attacked by some hair straighteners; eat sushi off Michael Flatley, get it on with Simon Cowell – Cheryl’s to do list before she settles down; we learn Myra was preggo with her third kid when she was 18; Cath, Theresa’s skank jailbird mum is in town to ponce a grand of her unsuspecting daughter’s trust fund – we know we shouldn’t, but we kinda like her. She’s fun.

quotes

“That’s really…weird” Charlotte on the Lydia and Zoe living together situ. You’re not wrong pet.

these are a few of our favourite things

December 31, 2009 by welovehollyoaks

Since everyone else is doing end of year lists, we thought we’d go off piste and reflect on the non-Hollyoaks things that rocked our world in 2009.

The Wire

Believe the hype, everything that’s been said about it is true. We think everyone who watches it should then, on fear of death, show it to someone else – kind of like The Ring but less scary long haired children and more scary yet hot drug dealers. One of the best things you will ever watch. Ever. Shiiiiiiiiiiit.

Children of Earth

Intergalactic paedos. Kids heads exploding. Peter Capaldi not swearing. This Torchwood five parter was shit scary as hell. More like this please.

Corrie

Every scene starring Blanche. RIP. Props also to Tony Gordon for being our fave mental/hot psycho since Vile Niall.

Red Riding

Where we do what we want. Proving that the North is terrifying, this adapt of David Peace’s books was both beautiful and brutal – and we will never ever look at Sean Bean in the same way again.

Kudos to the books themselves, which managed to be even more disturbing than the progamme (good thing they didn’t adapt 1977 eh?) and totally desensitized us to anal rape. (literary not actual)

The Take

A holiday in sunny Barcelona gave us the chance to experince the greatest holiday read ever: Martina Cole’s The Take. Featuring  a plot that is part Shakespearian tragedy part drunken ramblings, it has memorable characters (including white wine and vodka quaffing ledge Jackie Jackson), endlessly quotable lines (Better pour yourself a large one, Jack, you’re going to need it) and more OMG moments than you could shake a stick at,  We’ve since read loads of Martina Cole novels, but none of them quite reach The Take’s majestic levels of genius. Better than the Bible – fact.

We were then naturally OMFG excited about Sky1’s adaptation of said work of genius. Whilst it wasn’t as amazing as the book (and to be fair, what could be?) it had an awesome soundtrack and advertising campaign, looked fucking cool and firmly cast Tom Hardy as our fave dirty crush (replacing Danny Dyer and Mark Gasgoyne)

2012

For making us care more about the fate of a small dog than that of the entire population of India.

Twilight: New moon

Teenage angst, vampires, werewolves, angry red heads, Michael Sheen, unintentionally LOL moments (the flashforward anyone? Edward’s last line?), #broken ness… what more do you need from a film? It also features the greatest film-within-a-film ever: Facepunch. Somebody make this, please!

Twitter

Cannot live without it. Did you know that WLH has a twitter feed? It’s really rather good! Our fave follows: @Eamonn_Forde, @GraceDent, @JerMcEldree (narrowly beating @CherylKerl), @sexyexecutive and @realnickgriffin.

Sci fi channel

We discovered this late in the day but it has already overtaken Five US as our fave random TV channel – double bills of Angel and Buffy, amazing film seasons (Shark Week, the frightmare before Xmas) and the remake of V in the new year…yay!

Xmas perfume adverts

This crimbo no commercial break was complete without a genius/rubbish perfume advert. Here are our faves:

James Franco demonstrating smell the fart acting in what surely must be a Zoolander homage.

Beyonce’s speech impediment: “diamonds are a girls best fwend”

Jailbait anorexic roasting fantasy (okay, that’s for D&G watches, but we still had to mention it)

Kate Moss shagging some bloke/masterbating (depending on which version you see). Plus trying to convince us she is some posh French bird.

The jailbait Rici Ricci cat girl.

Jean Paul Gaultier gay sailor/ prossie sex fantasy.

We couldn’t decide who was the biggest tosser: man on a bike Ewan Macgregor or 007 Puff Daddy

Sadly missed: the Nicole Kidman/”I love to dance!”/no one can steal our dream Chanel advert, but the gorgeous ad with Audrey Tatou filled the void a little bit.

Special mentions

True Blood – very good, but we just can’t seem to love it as much as Buffy; Misfits – grew on us; CSI (all flavours); the mighty Jedward.

So those were our best bits of 2009 – what were yours?

Happy new year from WLH xxx

it was the nightmare before xmas

December 30, 2009 by welovehollyoaks

Catching up on last week’s action and it was dark times indeed in present day/non-flash Hollyoaks, not so much ho ho ho as ho ho holy crap that’s depressing as Theresa was yet again abandoned by her crack whore jailbird mum and Tony lamented his unhappy family past.

There was worse to come though. Darren, who tried to keep his spirits up with mince pies and an apparent obsession with Norway, still had to contend with his housemate going bonkers (more on that in a sec) and his family abandoning him to a lonely microwave xmas dinner and some cheap white wine. SOB!! Luckily (kind of), Steph, Jake, Fernando and Tom came to the rescue with a bit of xmas carol fun.  Note to Hollyoaks: if Darren cries we cry. So stop it.

A happy-ish ending then. Not something that happened for poor Hannah though, who topped off a week of drinking neat vodka, vomming and general mental disintegration with the most depressing xmas dinner ever – gagging over the carrots as her mum wept and Rhys did that constipated look he does when he is worried about something. Anorexia back in town but apparently not able to admit it, Hannah was carted off to hospital as she sobbed. As did we.

So, thanks for that, Hollyoaks!

in other news

Mercy spends an ENTIRE EPISODE stressing over whether to give a pair of silken leopard print underpants to Malachy or loverboy Calvin; Newt and Rae (the world’s least interesting love story) continued to bicker – turns out Rae has a dead sister….a dead twin sister, who might actually be alive mebbees?; pikey xmas at the McQueens – a deck the halls tuned door bell and only four roasties for Des; Tom has an encounter with Santa aka Gilly in an Ann Summers santa costume

Btw, there was no Lydia, bar a text to Josh…we kind of miss her spooky face?

and the award for the most bizarro moment in Hollyoaks in a long time goes to….

Obviously, this being Hollyoaks there are a million contenders but we have to give extra special props to the Osborne-Dean’s demented xmas morning nativity reenactment…Jack as Joseph, Frankie as a knocked up Mary…. Utter genius

more thoughts on the FF

December 29, 2009 by welovehollyoaks

We rewatched the flashforward episode today on sky+ and, lo and behold, there was a treasure trove of stuff we hadn’t noticed when we first saw it. That’s how complex and Da Vinci-esque Hollyoaks is.

baby it’s ewwwwwww

Anyhoo, the biggest revelation was Lauren apparently being knocked up by SPENCER. How we missed this first time around we do not know (nausea induced amnesia?), but thanks to friends of WLH we were alerted to this baffling turn of events so this time we were eagle eyed….WTF!??!??! x a million! How on earth could Spencer impregnate anyone, let alone the local angry goth? Did he still wear his checked jacket as he did so? To be fair, Spencer seemed as surprised about it as we were…could it be a nasty trick of Lauren’s? Wouldn’t put it past her.

armed chav

Revelation x 2: Jacqui has a gun!!! Again, another corker we missed. Ignoring the obvious question of where she got it from, and where she got a clutch bag with a compartment for weaponry, we think this cancels her out as a suspect. Too obvious. Unless Hollyoaks knows we know that. And so is going to get double bluffy on our ass? We shall see

scouse rage

We finally had a relisten to the exchange that resulted in Calvin decking Zack – by the sounds of it something unhappy will happen to Zack’s squaddie bro Caleb, which would explain why Zack has a face like a wasp chewing on a wasp? We didn’t like how Zack seemed to be getting a bit racialist though and thought he deserved a good punching really.

did he or didn’t he?

Though we previously dismissed him as a wet blanket incapable of moider, we are starting to like the idea of Malachy being the gun-wielder. He conveniently made sure that Mercedes arrived at the wedding in time for the shooting, and he was saying an awful lot of ominous things throughout the day….oooh!

other stuff we noticed

Jacqui’s scally hair curl – loved it; Carmel and Calvin’s Sonny and Cher wedding vows – marginally better than the Spice Girls/rollerboot debacle of their first wedding; the full on evils Calvin received from just about everyone at the wedding; Mercy’s white wine-quaffing Jackie Jackson style belligerence when confronted by Mal – what a ledge.

flash ah ahhh

December 23, 2009 by welovehollyoaks

Hollyoaks is nothing if ambitious and so after skydiving deaths, alter ego stand-offs and numerous film student moments, the ‘Oaks has given us the special flashforward episode set in May 2010, where stacked hottie and rightful Strictly champion Calvin was gunned down in his prime.

OMG!

It was something of a head scratcher, raising a whole heap of questions that we can now spend the next five months trying to answer, the main one being, of course, whodunnit?

We can’t wait to see what Calvin has done to fuck off so many people, as the menu of suspects ranged from the expected to the rather random (many of whom were helpfully summarised in the end bit). In no specific order:

Mercedes
Our verdict: whilst hell hath no fury like a vag scorned we cannot believe that she would rid the world of a functioning man truncheon. No chance.

Malachy
Our verdict:
he wasted the opportunity for Jackie Jackson-style bestman speech, so we’re not convinced he has that killer instinct. Unless he was planning to drown Calvin in a pool of his anguished tears. Wuss.

Sasha
Our verdict: maybe. If she found out that Calvin abandoned her beloved Warren to his fiery/mirror fate she would get the right hump. Sulky mare.

Spencer
Our verdict: please. If Spencer got a gun he’d end up shooting himself in the face.

Lauren
Our verdict: Lauren can be one vindictive goth when she wants to be. Can’t believe she’d whack her own brother though.

Jacqui
Our verdict: Meh. She may have been full of righteous fury at Mercy and Calvin’s affair, but if she moidered every person Mercedes shagged who she shouldn’t then there would be barely a person left alive.

Zack
Our verdict: despite the face punchy aggro (which seemed to involve Des somehow too), we think Zack is a bit too mild mannered to indulge in gun crime.

Leo
Our verdict:
get all Darth Vader on his son’s ass? Mebbees. He’s always been a bit shifty.

Michaela and Theresa
Our verdict:
a random factor, but we could roll with it.

Jake
Our verdict:
got form as a psycho. Is a disgruntled ex-employee. Why not.

Kris and Cheryl
Our verdict: Nah. A simple bullet in the heart wouldn’t be a flamboyant enough MO for these two. Any murderous scheme of theirs would involve swans, dry ice and Kate Bush.

Rhys
Our verdict: our wild card. Rhys hasn’t done anything interesting for years, so it would be about time. He and Calvin shared an odd exchange about a secret and, knowing Rhys, the mind can only boggle at the sexual deviancy he could be involved in now.

Or, it could be someone completely off piste: Claire (why not? it’s usually her); Baby Leah; crazy alchie Louise returns; Holly with a champagne cork (this one is courtesy of a Twitter friend of WLH), Mark Gasgoyne; Bonnie Tyler in another cameo…. or Carmel, vengeful after discovering her man’s cheating ways?

Other questions:
What has happened to Holly? Is she dead? Did Cindy swap her for a Gucci bag?

Do they really expect us to believe the Loft will still be standing in 5 months time? Really? Under  the increasingly inept management of Calvin, Mercy, Mal, Sasha and Spencer we are surprised it hasn’t burnt to the ground already. Again.

Why is the future all smokey? We imagine that’s how the world looks during the early stages of cataracts.

Where were Hannah, Newt, the Roys, Steph, Frankie, Jack, Zoe, Lydia etc? (perhaps the latter two have death matched each other by then)

Why was Suzanne there and no Nev?

Where exactly would ANYONE in the village get their hands on a gun? Eastenders they aint.

Now, Carmel and Calvin’s Dirty Dancing tribute/debacle was hardly a sell out, so unless the killer was hidden half a mile away, sniper style, then surely someone would have seen said killer?

We think this is a case for CSI: Chester.

So many questions *head explodes*. Loved it. Roll on May 2010, when, we were assured, the truth will out. Yay.

pre-flashness

December 21, 2009 by welovehollyoaks

So, the episode preceding the ‘Oaks muchly anticipated ‘flashforward’ wasn’t much of a muchness:

  • Hannah’s anorexia has blates returned. This is obvious because her one symptom is back: the anorexia forehead spot. Uh oh.
  • Ricky and the other one were involved in yet another money making scam. Like Josh and Fletch before them, Bombhead and Lee before them and Max and OB before them. Get the feeling we’ve been here before? Yawn.
  • The sexy santa competition at The Dog was noteable for: Darren looking fetching in a uber camp santa costume (courtesy of Nev the racist/in the closet dad); Cheryl’s ever present santa camel toe; Calvin and Mercy’s very public snog
  • Malachy continued to take his wife’s infidelity like a big jessie, necking white wine and being a litter nuisance
  • Blissfully unaware of her hubbie’s heartbreak, Mercy was at her brazen, slagbagiest best – all ass, skimpy santa costume and gagging for itness.
  • Needless to say, she and Calvin were at it again before the episode was over. Can’t say we blame them

long time no see

December 21, 2009 by welovehollyoaks

Been off the grid for a while now (resolution for 2010: need a better work/Hollyoaks balance) but now we’re back for what is shaping up to be a tasty festive season for the ‘Oaks. So without much further ado: yesterday’s omnibus….

will they or wont they? Er, yes, they will

After weeks and weeks of fairly unsubtle flirting, Calvin and vacuum vag Mercy finally succumbed to their lustful urges, getting hot and at it in the Loft as a horrified Malachy looked on. Oops. Always lock the door people. ALWAYS LOCK THE DOOR. How will Mal react to such cuckoldry? Burst in there and tear the cheating pair new ones? Or scamper off to weep in an alleyway? Oh.

anita’s WEB OF LIEEEEES continues

Yep, the mini Roy’s career as tall tale teller continued this week, her porkie about being on the receiving end of some unwelcome MDMA courtesy of bug eyed student twat Dave resulting in his social pariahdom.

Now, as we’re sure you know, we have never been the biggest fans of Dave (if ever someone was need in a good kicking it was him) but even he didn’t deserve to be run out of Mobs by some judgemental proles.

So, false accusations of drug enabling and faked anorexia, failure to lose her V-plates with Dave and Ricky (you may remember her icky attempt to seduce him, dressed as Sandy when she turned into  slut in Grease)…just what is the point of Anita? To be the most annoying Hollyoaks character EVER?

Anyhoo, she may have met her match in the BTM stakes, having been targeted for counselling by uber drama queen Kris. Yikes.

the messers become the messees
Over at the Barnes household, things are getting a little bit odd and complicated. Zoe knows that Lydia is madder than a box of hammers and killed Sarah. Lydia knows she knows. And Zoe knows Lydia knows she knows. We think. Actually we’re not that sure what’s going on. Charlotte is clearly bewildered by it all, spending most episodes looking like a stunned panda. We feel your pain, Charlotte.

Btw, such skulduggery seems to suit Lydia. She is looking kinda…dare we say it…hot?

MYEYES!!!!
Frankie parties like its 1999 in a figure hugging, strapless blue sequinned dress. Ew. Frankie’s breasts have been causing much mental pain of late – PLEASE, FRANKIE, KEEP THEM TETHERED AND WRAPPED. For the sake of humanity.

in other news:
‘l heart gypsy jazz’ – niche music love on the sixth form whiteboard; Jake has the handwriting of a psychopath. Obvs; Cheryl sports an awesome santa camel toe.

So, on with this week’s flashforward fun. WE CANNOT WAIT!!!!