(Monday 2nd – Friday 13th March 2020)
Joel saves Liam’s bacon at the last minute, although Warren can’t resist humiliating Liam one last time before he leaves. Liam swears revenge on Warren. He sets poor Maxine the task of spiking Warren’s drink and is furious when she stands up to him and refuses, having finally worked out that he is not on her side. Warren sets upon Liam a second time when he realises that he has been harassing Maxine and promises to always look out for her. After refusing to attend the scattering for Jesse’s ashes, Liam gets drunk and literally ends up in the gutter, pleading with Maxine for help.
She takes pity on him and appeals to James to support Liam, which he reluctantly agrees to, escorting him to be with his family to say goodbye to Jesse. But when Liam makes a move on James and is turned down, the mood changes and Liam is set back on revenge against Warren, Mercedes, James, Sylver and Maxine who are all pinned up on his weird little dartboard. He deliberately lets Grace see the board, enjoying watching them know they are in danger and his first port of call is to get Warren arrested for attacking him, leaving Mercedes vulnerable.
It’s an emotional moment as Tony and Diane finally confront the fact that she had a relationship in his absence, although she lies to him about the details, you know about the fact that she was sleeping with his Dad. She claims she was seeing a businessman called Barnaby (Barnaby?!?!) that she met on a dating app, he never met the kids and she didn’t love him. That’s a hell of a lot of thinking on the spot, Diane! Despite his heartbreak, accidentally hitting on his sister and constant interference from Edward, the couple talk things through and finally get back to the place we all hoped they would while Tony was being held captive. I am sure it won’t last long, unfortunately.
When Yasmine is told once and for all that her only option is to wear hearing aids, sweetheart Tom helps her bling them up to make them feel more like hers. They arrive home to find Sami and Verity at it on the couch. Delightful. Yas is accepted onto a journalism course.
Nancy reads Darren the riot act when he forgets to pick Oscar up from school, too busy practising for an upcoming stand up night (with some very not funny jokes). He lets his son down again by not making him a costume for World Book Day and loses his temper with Jack when he asks after his well-being. Home alone, Darren ignores calls and texts from Luke. While Mandy becomes increasingly impatient with Darren, nobody seems to notice the state of utter despair he has fallen into.
Celeste and Toby continue to plot and eagerly get the gossip from Mercedes about how Breda murdered Lisa’s father. Also, just as an aside, does nobody know that Breda killed Glenn Donovan? The two weirdos continue to plot to get more information from Lisa about Martine by Toby hitting on her, which quite frankly, is just a bit unsettling, as he is supposed to be her cousin. He later loses his temper when he finds out that Celeste has been having it away with Romeo, not wanting to put their plan in jeopardy.
Mitchell, Scott and Martine return from their holiday, just in time for Mitchell (and Toby’s birthday). Scott throws Mitchell a very rainbow party and hosts it as Anita, although he does tone it down at Mitchell’s request. He also has a quiet word with Walter, imploring him to made amends with his grandson; it’s all he wants for his birthday. Against the odds, Walter does show up to the party and even brings a gift, just as Mitchell tells everyone how deeply he loves Scott (which suddenly doesn’t repel him).
Toby and Celeste watch the happy family reunion in horror and unable to take it anymore, Toby bursts out with the truth: he is Martine’s son and Mitchell’s twin brother. Walter shuts Scott out as the family hurry home with Toby and Martine attempts to explain. She was in an abusive relationship and already five months gone when she realised she was pregnant. Her partner all but forced her to give the babies up for adoption, having found a Doctor he was sure would be a much better parent than they could ever be. But Mitchell was poorly and the Doctor didn’t want him so Martine kept him. Toby clarifies that he did not have a better life. Mitchell is destroyed by the revelations, including that Walter knew all along and was partly responsible for Martine’s decision making.
Toby returns home and rages at Celeste over Martine’s explanation. Celeste is furious that Martine didn’t even mention her, lending to the long held fan theory that she and Toby are not husband and wife but brother and sister. They are interrupted by Lisa, who wants answers and manages to reach Toby (but not Celeste) through telling her own story. Martine comes completely clean to Mitchell – he isn’t a twin; he is a triplet and also has a sister. In their flat, Toby and Celeste blow out candles on a shared birthday cake.
Toby agrees to speak to Martine; she wants to hear his story. Through all of this, we see flashbacks to Toby’s childhood, locked up behind a red door, provided for practically but not loved. He communicates with a girl (Celeste) through the wall and it soon transpires that the triplets have been separated and studied – same genes, different experience, how do they grow and turn out? Nature vs Nurture. Well, it’s an interesting idea except that the book, The Red Door, wouldn’t pass an ethics test. You can’t base a book on child abuse and just get away with it. Also, I have read that they wouldn’t have been eligible for that kind of study as they’re not identical twins. Well, they’re not even twins, there’s a triplet missing. So the testing doesn’t even make sense even if it would pass the ethics. So, all in all, nice idea, Hollyoaks but it doesn’t work. Fail. Oh, and they escaped their prison by burning the place down and running away!
So, after keeping their secret for this long, Celeste slips up with Scott and despite Toby telling her that her daughter is dead, Martine soon realises the truth: Celeste is not his wife, she is her child. But Celeste doesn’t want a mother. She slaps her instead. She and Toby then manipulate Mitchell into helping them track down their father, Felix. They have more revenge in mind.
Jordan returns to the Village and immediately sets Juliet the task of selling drugs outside a local school. She takes the job against Sid’s advice, eager to make some quick cash. However, she gets cocky and gets herself arrested by PC Kiss. James gets her out of trouble but it shakes Juliet up and she refuses to sell anything more. Unfortunately, she has already got herself in too deep with Jordan who warns her that she must keep working for him or he will expose her previous misdemeanours to her family.
Ollie is tempted to seek drugs from Jordan when he feels low over the loss of his baby and that Brooke doesn’t care. However, he changes his mind when he and Brooke finally reconnect. Brody and Liberty continue to bond over the baby and confess to Damon that it was conceived ‘the old fashioned way’.
Channel 4 at 6:30pm or a sneak peek 7pm on E4
These reviews are based on the E4 episodes
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