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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 404731" data-attributes="member: 23">Episodes 376 - 390 3 June - 22 July 1986 My early brushes with Brookside are a bit baffling… even to me. I’m fairly concrete that the 1985 siege was my induction and that it was then some time before I became a regular viewer, but as I watch on I’m realising that the gap between those two is longer than I’d remembered. Nick Black and Madge’s arcs were happening as I joined up, so most if not all of the pieces are in place. All the same, I’m certain I couldn’t have watched this particular run of episodes the first time round because… it’s not the kind of television that’s easily forgotten once seen.Most of these episodes I’ll have just seen the once, around three decades ago when early Brookie was re-run on UK Living. Still, with much written and said about it, along with writing and performances this is a very familiar era.It’s interesting (to me at least) to consider the degree to which awareness of what’s to come influences how an ongoing storyline is viewed, especially in terms of “pipe laying” ahead of time.A year before this it felt the air was filled with portent that foreshadowed the siege This summer, too, the air has been thick for some weeks with an atmosphere suggesting that something is around the corner.In less nebulous terms, it’s a well-crafted skein made up of numerous series-wide threads. Some of these have been fantastic one their own merits. Some haven’t. Together they prove the adage about the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.James’s observation about the similarities with Knots Landing’s Fourth Season have stayed in my mind whilst watching and now that it’s out there I see it everywhere. And the reason it shouldn’t work is the exact reason it does: the characters are so fleshed out and established that we take the journey with them.More than most, Brookie up to this point is a character-driven series. There doesn’t even need to be a plot for the characters to function and remain interesting. Looking at things with even a small degree of detachment, it’s hard to deny that characters aren’t being moved around like chess pieces to serve the plot. Since the beginning of the series there’s been a great deal of passion from the characters, but not quite in this way. The focus has shifted and that passion for independence*, or human rights or equality in the household is suddenly channelled into far soapier realms, soaring unrestrained to new heights.Matty is willing to throw Teresa and his children, driven by his passion (or lust) for Mo, and is driven to repeated aggression towards Sheila for her interference. This has been quite a stretch for me given the Matty we know. But the series uses this to compound Sheila’s horror at his personality switch (and Bobby’s earlier disbelief when initially told of the affair with Mo). It may be out of character, but as a recurring character Matty is also peripheral enough for us to buy there could be more to him than we realise. His recurring status paired with the surprise of seeing him harassing Sheila also adds to the possibility - even to viewers who know the “rules” of whodunnits in serialised television - that Matty could very well be the guilty party. He’s already been a very credible suspect in the poison pen letter and the nuisance phone calls. Now he’s a desperate, furiously angry man. It’s difficult for him not to be at least a key suspect in the rape.Something I appreciate is this storyline giving Tony Scoggo a little more screen time. The conflict coming from his affair with Mo. The confession to Bobby. The strained relationship between Matty and Sheila. And being a suspected attacker. All have given him the chance to flex his acting muscles more than we usually see. It’s gratifying to see him having a chance to shine, and I'm sure it helps that in the long term the series didn’t take the Jimmy Corkhill route of forcing the character more and more into the centre of things to the detriment of both character and series. This may well be the most we see of Matty, and I'll happily take it.Pat, like Matty, is suddenly filled with testosterone, possessiveness and righteousness: a combination which follows the same pattern of increasingly violent outbursts coming to a head on the same July evening as Matty. The escalation of tension in the household has been given a little room to breathe, with it stemming from Sandra spending time with dishy doctor Tony in order to investigate a knife-happy surgeon, performing what they believe are unnecessary-but-profitable life-altering surgeries on privately-funded patients. It hasn’t been Brookie’s most compelling storyline, but I do like that it leans into the political aspect which has long given the series its USP.Pat’s deteriorating relationship with Sandra leading to violence and the subsequent rape accusation come with the expected baggage associated with any increased airtime at Number Seven. Due to its abundance, for instance, I can no longer tune out a Pat-ism that I realise has actually been there for a while: the tendency to start most lines by sharply turning his head away from the person to whom he’s speaking, instead looking at the floor for half a line before looking back (the camera placement seems to inform this as the turn is usually in the direction of the camera). Pat’s drunk acting as he’s questioned in the police cell** has also harked back to the siege, with him dusting off that same petulant child tone as he becomes more self-pitiful.With the anniversary of the siege, Kate’s death has been referenced more than once, albeit with Sandra commenting on it in the context of her current storyline in which Pat has become physically abusive and is one of a number of suspects in Sheila Grant’s rape. "it started in violence and it’s ending in violence” she grimly reflects about their relationship.Despite playing out for a while, Pat’s switch to the dark side has still felt as convenient as his sudden friendship with Sheila. I willingly believe it because the overarching story is golden but the plot-driven angle feels more glaring at times here, probably because of its focus on characters with shallower roots.Meanwhile, characters behave in ways that serve the plot. Alun Jones’s public “confession” to Matty about his and Sheila’s romantic intentions couldn’t have come at a less convenient time. It’s notable that Alun hasn’t been seen on-screen since the night of Sheila’s rape. It’s a nice double or triple bluff, because convention suggests that keeping a character out of sights could mean that they want us to forget about them while we’re assessing suspects. But we’re too clever for that so that makes him suspect #1. Unless that’s what the writers want us to think. And we’re too clever for that… And so the circle goes round.By necessity, most of the suspects aren’t core characters. Again, this concession to the “rules” means that any one of them could be credible. But some of these characters feel purely functional. Sally Dinsdale is a cypher, and we know even less about her husband. I also have the disadvantage of knowing whodunit. But that matters not. It’s not about Sally or Alun or even Matty. It’s about how story informs character. And then it gets very real. By Brookie standards, the strokes are a little broader at times, but we’re on board with it. We’re still in an era when going bigger actually meant something.* It’s just occurred to me that Sheila’s drive for independence through education coincides with Heather - Brookie’s poster child for that very thing - finally tying the knot onscreen.** One of the police officers in these episodes, incidentally, is played by an actor named Sebastian Aberini. Out of curiosity I did a little search which confirmed my suspicion that he's the brother of Daniel, who could be concurrently seen in Return To Eden, the latter episodes of which were first transmitted in the summer of 1986. </blockquote>

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