Tuesday 18 January 2011

The River City Blog #3

Today, I am watching River City as it goes out, on my parents' fancy HD TV. Usually I iPlayer it on my computer several days later. Will this make the experience more exciting? Probably not.

Dr Brodie can't sleep. He is wandering round in his dressing gown, sighing a lot and drinking milk straight from the bottle. What a sad parody of manhood. He needs to take some tips from the Old Spice guy. Meanwhile the reason for his stress, missing brother Leo, is suffering night terrors on hairdresser Hayley's living room floor just a few doors away. F'only they could be reunited. Or something.

On an unrelated note, Crazy Ruth is also up and about, scrubbing like a motherbitch to hide the fact she is pure raging about partner Andy's interview for a job in Dubai. Seems a bit premature - he might not even get it. But then she is called Crazy Ruth.

Over at Casa Del Mullen, Scarlett is dispensing wisdom re Big Boab's court summons, sporting grey leopard print jim jams with unmatching pink leopard print dressing goon. Does Montego Street have a secret Primark I don't know about? And in The Ship, the pointless subplot about Rrrraymond being annoyed with Eileen for sending him on errands all the time continues apace. Is there to be no comic relief tonight?!

Apparently not. Whilst Leo pops pain killers like a toddler with a tube of smarties, the Military Police roam the street(s?) searching for him, and his brothers bicker loudly about his welfare. Scarlett forces Boab to go outside, whilst Jimmy helpfully points out, "lawyers and doctors pick up prozzies all the time." Wee Boab and Theresa take him under their wings with similar insights - "I dinnae care aboot your urges, at least you didnae hurt anyone" - none of which seem to cheer him up. Mainly because he did hurt someone - poor fragrant Iona, the love of his life. Oh, for a family as sensitive as the Mullen-O'Hara brood.

Anyway, onwards and upwards. Her from Take the High Road points out that by keeping wee Eilidh prisoner in the flat instead of letting her go back to nursery, Crazy Ruth is behaving like a crazy person. But apparently everyone else ('everyone else' in this instance being Ruth's grandad and her pal Scott) thinks she should be given the benefit of the doubt. They're wrong, of course, but because HfTtHR - Liz, if you want to be pedantic - is such an interfering busybody 99% of the time, they ignore her. The consequences are due next week.

Over by the Delhi, Leo has somehow fallen down the stairs from Hayley's flat to exhort nephews Connor and Adeeb to help him steal sister-in-law Leila's car so he can go back to Afghanistan. Are you keeping up with this? Connor is well up for it, but the more observant Adeeb notices that if they allow him to do a runner he'll almost certainly die of septicemia. He therefore informs the nearest responsible adult. Good to know that not all kids are idiots.

By the way, can anyone tell me whether Leyla has had an affair with Leo at some point? Because she really hates him, and calls the military police on him whilst Dr B is off at the surgery locating drugs. This backfires slightly, however, when Leo gets off on the condition that he moves in with them till he gets better. What a plot device.

Somewhat dully, there's the little matter of why he went AWOL in the first place. Dr Brodie knows his little brother is hiding something, explaining,

"Ma IQ's above 150. I've had it checked."

Strong words, that cut right to the heart of the matter. It turns out Leo shot a ten year old civilian in Afghanistan thinking it was a sniper, and he can't live with the guilt. He ran away from military hospital so he can go back in a non-soldier capacity to atone by laying his own neck on the line. Cue some fairly unconvincing crying and a visit to the pub, during which he threatens Leyla with his eyes. They may be planning to draw this out for some time.

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