EE: Pauline dead

[Skylace]

Well, she did. Popped her clogs right near Authur's bench. I am a bit sorry to see her go since she has been on the show so long. But they really did show the mean side of her before she left. However, I do believe Pauline was capable of doing all of those things. She has been pretty nasty for as long as I remember. And it looks like she had changed her mind and they were going to have her become "normal" again. At least as normal as Pauline could be.

However, I still wish they would have had her go to Florida all the way and been there with Michelle.

[faceless]

ENDER PAULINE'S THE PERFECT GIFT
26 December 2006

IN the end, the demise of Appalling Pauline Fowler was something of an anti-climax. As her taxi waited to take her to the airport, Pauline clutched her head, wandered out to the Square and - spurning the more obvious choice of Arthur's sacred bench - died under the Christmas tree. There she lay like a rather macabre Christmas present. ("It's just what I've always wanted! The still-warm corpse of Pauline Fowler!")

Personally, if I'd been killing off Auntie Pauline, I'd have gone for something more dramatic, with Betty - her Spit The Dog-lookalike - tearing her throat out for example. Martin could have finally snapped and pelted her to death with potatoes from the stall. Or Dot could have wedged her into a machine for an extra-hot boil wash. Still, we mustn't complain. The main thing is, we will never have to see her mean, walnutcoloured, walnutwrinkled face on our screens again, or hear the sour old crow droning on about Arthur's bench or Lou's chair.

Amen, hallelujah and roll out the barrel! Michelle and Florida were thus spared. Mind you, it's not as if she could have got any browner. Surprisingly, for a Suspicious Death in a soap, there are really only two suspects - me and Sonia... and I was at home watching EastEnders at the time. Sonia, on the other hand, had just sent Pauline crashing into a fruit bowl with a right hand that Audley Harrison could only dream of. Pauline had just called Sonia a tart, a liar and a lousy trumpet player, and branded her "a scrubber, lesbian, under-age muvver who gave her own baby away". But apart from that she's OK?

Worst of all, she said, she had "high-falutin' ideas", such as wanting a career and going out. The shame! Sonia smacked her and who wouldn't? (It reminded me of that scene in Airplane - form an orderly queue.) Sonia had treated Pauline to what she called "a few 'ome trooffs". "Why d' you think Arthur flipped?!" she railed. "Why did Mark go off the rails? Why'd you think Michelle got pregnant at 16? Why? 'Cos they were all living in this arse under your fumm." She begged Pauline to make it up with Martin, imploring: "Go over there, give 'im an 'ug." This missed the obvious point that, even in the old days, before she turned into one of witches from Macbeth, Pauline never did 'ug anyone.

When Dot asked Ian if Pauline was in a good mood, you realised she hasn't been in a good mood for 20 years. As usual, the Christmas special had started with a bombardment of "ironic" good wishes. "Here's to Christmas. Let's hope it's a blinder," cheered Mo. Wings were singing Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time. For once, with Pauline's demise, we were. In other news, Phil played Farver Christmas, seemingly regarding him as a distant relation of David Bellamy. Bradley (Earl Spencer) humiliated Stacey Slater (Ray Quinn in drag), thus forcing her to sleep with her dad, Max, who, without his clothes, looked even more like a baby orang-utan than usual.

Stacey made the traditional "you're all losers" speech, bequeathed to her by Kat Slater, observing (correctly): "Come on! I'm the fittest bird in this dump, someone must be interested!" God knows why Martin chooses to go out with Sonia. Still, like the rest of us, he was celebrating the demise of his muvver. "You're right," he told Sonia. "We don't need her." And they don't.

--------------

I thought it was pretty crap myself - what's the point of a soap death if nobody really cares!?

[Skylace]

I was really surprised how little I did care. They handled this poorly all in all. I think lots of egos were at work here for this exit.

[tec]

[misslisalynn]

What a disappointing murder! She looked like a punter that had 1 too many in the Vic. A very anticlimatic end to a character they have spent weeks building up to a new level of bitchdom, to just drop under a tree. Sonia must have gotten some slapping lessons from Peggy. I'll miss Pauline just because she always has been on the Square and now Dot has lost her best friend.

[eefanincan]

I thought it wasn't even well acted on Pauline's part. She didn't even fall as if she lost consciousness, more like she sat down then fell over. Still, I really didn't shed any tears. And overall, I don't think it was up to the usual Eastenders Christmas standard.

[cori]

I feel sorry for Betty

[Twirley]

[faceless]

ANOTHER DEADENDER
Paul English, The Daily Record

IT was popular with kids who are now in their thirties, it's regularly filled with hot air and is useless when it's flat. Isn't it funny how easily wee Albert Square bad boy Ben Mitchell's whoopee cushion becomes a metaphor for the driechest show in the festive line-up? Not even the death of The Queen of Dour could lift the Christmas day Walford double-whammy out of the realms of the mundane. It was as unremarkable as a smirry September Sunday afternoon.

The two part post-dinner drag saw Pauline Fowler die alone in the snow after a bitch-slap from squintyfaced Sonia via a wee dunt on the noggin from old Lou Beale's family heirloom fruit bowl. No explosions. No tragic suicides. No awful car accidents. Auntie Beeb has been punting Pauline's passing as the Square's biggest storyline since Dirty Den rose again - and for what? Initial reactions suggest more viewers were upset by the damage to Lou's bowl/ Stacy and Max playing hunt the chipolata and Phil Mitchell as Santa. EastEnders knows how to leave our emotions jangling. Remember old Nana Moon's tinsel-trussed tear-jerker last year?

And auld Ethel losing her will(y) to live - it might have been seven years ago, but her final days were the stuff of East End excellence. But not on Monday. The ghosts of Christmas past was anice touch, with the voices of Michelle, Arfur and Mark coming back to remind Pauline - and us - of better days. And old Dot was suitably sentimental in their final scene down the laundrette, too. But after 22 years, Wendy Richards might have been entitled to expect something a bit more memorable than a bump on the bonce and a wee lie down in the snow.

---------------------

*driechest means like a really cloudy wet day.

[eefanincan]