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Rasputin is alive and well on Eastenders

December 8th, 2007

Rasputin is alive and well and currently on Eastenders, the BBC soap. What else could explain the Svengali-like influence Steven Beale appears to exert on the other characters? First of all, he kidnaps Ian Beale and holds him hostage for two weeks in a dingy flat with a few biscuits to keep him going, having ghosted into Ian’s life for several weeks previously without ever being seen and getting up to all sorts of trickery.

But wait, there’s more! Steven Beale, while holding Ian hostage, waltzes into the lives of his half-siblings and creates all sorts of merry mayhem, the culmination of which is Jane Beale, Ian’s latest wife, getting shot at the prison-flat. She lives but is unable to ever have children. What do the characters do? Tell the police? Beat Steven to within an inch of his life? Shoot him? No. They lie to police and spirit him (Steven) away to a ’sanctuary’ so he can recover his faculties.

Move forward several weeks during which we have seen Steven come out of the sanctuary, break and enter the Beale’s house once or twice and set up a stall on the market right outside the home of the Beale’s. The script has Ian get into a tizzy about the market stall, seeking out CCTV footage and becoming Miss Marple to ascertain that it was in fact, him (Steven) wot trashed ‘is own stall. Aha, but Rasputin Steven uses his magical powers and makes it all go away by stamping the CCTV tape into the ground in front of Ian.

But wait, there’s more! Rasputin Steven tries to put Stacy Branning out of business by selling ladies clothing at cost on his stall, which happens to be right next to hers on the market. He evens goes so far as to trash some of her stock by tipping it onto the street. Later that day Stacy spots Steven break into Phil Mitchell’s ‘The Arches’ while staggering around drunk. Does she run over to ‘The Vic’ to tell Phil so she can watch Steven get his head kicked in by Phil ‘The Bulldog’ Mitchell? No. She goes over to the Arches to see what he’s doing, which happens to be dousing the entire place with petrol from two 5-gallon jerry-cans.

Now a sane and rational person, hell, even an insane and irrational person, would know that it was a bad idea to enter the petrol-soaked garage but not Stacy. She has obviously fallen under the spell of Rasputin Steven since she enters the building and after various I’m-going-to-light-this-match phases eventually persuades him to relinquish control of said matches and accompany her from the building, having spent upwards of an hour casually chatting and expressing “we’re mates” platitudes in the fuel-drenched surroundings.

Therefore, there can be no explanation other than Rasputin has returned to the world and is currently a character on Eastenders. Either that or the script is utter tosh and whoever came up with those ridiculous storylines, whoever directed and approved of all that garbage should be summarily dismissed.

Entry Filed under: Television