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| The Death of Lucy Beale; A Masterpiece or a Mistake? | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: 17 Aug 2015, 22:53 (4,741 Views) | |
| Dan | 24 Aug 2015, 21:40 Post #41 |
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This is an interesting question and it's hard to say really. Against the grain here, I preferred Hetti Bywater's Lucy. Melissa Suffield was truly one of the worst actors in the programme's history, she had an absolutely expressionless face and a monotone delivery that was painful to listen to, it was like watching a block of wood on screen. I know she was sacked for misdemeanours behind the scenes but they were attempting to bring Lucy forward as a character before she left as for the first time, we saw Lucy deeply struggle with her conscience when lying to Jane about the baby or, more to the point, we would have seen it had Melissa been able to express it. Hetti started quite well and immediately brought a warmer, slightly softer centre to the character that they were already going to do under Melissa. I never thought it was in the plan, even under Melissa, to make her a more extreme Janine, I thought she would have gone the Martin route, rebellious and off-the-rails in her teens but finally learning to grow up without losing the bitchy side. Hetti had this but the trouble is that she is an inexperienced actress and EastEnders does not do well with inexperienced actresses, it expects them all to become the next Lacey Turner who is an anomaly in the level of talent she has/had for someone her age and with her lack of experience. Hetti seemed to lose confidence in the character and what she was trying to play, however, I will see that I could at least see effort with her unlike with Jacqueline Jossa and Shona McGarty at the time who seemed quite intent to just coast and turn up for the "big" episodes. If the show are going to bring actors in who are a work-in-progress, they need to actually work with them rather than plonk them on our screens and expect us to be so overcome with fancying them (Lucy, Lauren, Joey, Tyler) that were forget that they are either shit (Tyler) or need a lot of work at their craft (Lucy, Lauren, Joey). I thought Hetti showed promise in a few episode but she needs to go away and learn her craft if she wants to improve for future opportunities and good luck to her if she does so. She may well be another Matt Di Angelo who was pretty diabolical when he first joined but is now a very strong actor regardless of how played out and down right enraging (in a bad way) his character is at the moment. As for Lucy herself, we will never know what they would have done were she alive. I had no interest in watching Relationship Wars with her, Whitney and Lauren but I would say that if Melissa's Lucy was truly Cindy's daughter than Hetti's Lucy was truly Ian's daughter. She was so, so like Ian. She had a heart and could have moments of genuine niceness to people but was overcome by pettiness, bullying behaviour and rampant snobbery. Whereas Ian hid his inner insecurity in his Oedepal relationship with Jane, Lucy hid hers in cocaine. I would have liked to have seen her become friends with Afia and perhaps go into business with her. I thought they were suited and enjoyed their bonding scene over losing a parent. This could have matured Lucy more and Meryl Fernandes is a better actress than the other three put together and giving Lucy a genuine adult friendship (rather than being frienemies with Whitney and a friendship with Lauren that never progressed past their childhood levels of maturity) could well have helped character and actress who seemed to be randomly thrown with the latest hunk to try and manufacture a decent relationship before the beginning of her death storyline. As for the storyline itself, I will give it credit in the sense that it has had everyone talking about it and given us some genuinely shocking twists (both DTC's strong points) as well as working fairly well in its various phases (death, grief, mystery and an aftermath that could potentially continue for years) and also presenting the Beale family as truly what they are which is some very unpleasant people. This was a true test of character for Jane, Ian and Peter and they have all failed it in various ways and we've seen the people they really are behind the masks they present to the rest of the Square. This has been excellent in an uncomfortable way. DTC and his team's big problem is detail. DTC strikes me as a man who, when he has an idea, works at 100 miles a minute and with such an enthusiasm, that he forgets the smaller parts of the bigger picture. Being enthusiastic and seeing the bigger picture is not a negative of course, all creative people who are telling a story need this but you also need the smaller details to make sense and this story...hasn't. Lucy did not have the demeanour of someone who was addicted to cocaine. I'm not sure this is the fault of the actress (who, despite her faults as an actress, I don't think effort was one of them) but more that they wanted to hold it back as a twist and although it made sense in terms of a story (DTC is good at characterisation and I thought Lucy being an addict was believable), it made no sense to what we saw on screen as Lucy's behaviour was lackadaisical, relaxed and fairly detached. Cocaine makes a person wired, paranoid, upbeat and their brain is moving at a hundred miles an hour leaving visible physical signs. The investigation has been poor. Max's arrest seems not to make sense. Max has already admitted that he went into Jake's flat with Jake and Lucy and while, granted, Jake genuinely can't remember, the cab driver can and has also reported it. The police know that Lucy did not die in Jake's flat despite her blood being found there, in fact, this is why they released Jake so unless they have evidence that Max took her somewhere else and killed her, what have they got on him. Lucy's actual injury has not been described either. Initially, the police stated that there was some trauma to Lucy's head and this was just after she'd been found so it would have to have been outward trauma, namely a physical, visible wound that would have bled otherwise the police would not have known until the autopsy report had come through. If Lucy had bled, Jane would not have had time to clean it up. Emma ascertained that it would only have taken a few minutes for Lucy to be moved and noted that Jane's car was gone during the party footage (hence Jane's alibi to Lauren must have been a lie) and I'm sure she assumed, as did Lauren, that Jane physically killed Lucy until told otherwise. If Lucy had bled, Jane would not have had time to clear the blood before getting Lucy out. She would have had to quietly ushered Bobby up to bed before quickly moving Lucy's body in case Denise, Cindy or Ian (Ian may have been in the house or in the restaurant but Jane was not to know that he wasn't in the house) woke up and interrupted her. I don't think the revellers from Roxy's party started moving outside long after Jane left and Jane managing to quietly get back into the Beale house and quietly clean everything up without attracting any attention from outside or in is too unbelievable for me. If Lucy had bled in the Beale house, the police would have known about it and found out as they found the traces of blood at Jake's flat. She must have been killed with a closed head injury or it makes no sense unless the wound they were talking about was Jake's accidental punch (which I thought might have broken her nose at first but seems not to) which makes even less sense. The first thing the police would have done is to check Lucy's body for any signs of other injury. They would have wanted to know whether this was a sustained attack so would have checked for other injuries upon her body and they would have also checked her hands and her arms for any signs as to whether Lucy attempted to defend herself against her killer. This would have helped to determine whether Lucy was taken by surprise by her attacker, whether she was attacked and trying to defend herself or even whether she was attacking someone else, they brained her in self defence and moved her body in panic. The police also would have had to have done quite an invasive examination on Lucy's body to determine whether vaginal or anal rape had taken place in order to establish whether the motive was sexual or not and they would not simply have gone "oh, she died of a head wound" and that's it. I don't think the show thought about this at all hence the confusion as to what was the actual physical cause of death. "Head trauma" is not enough to go on. The police also know that Ian had an argument with Lucy on the night she died and Peter effectively disappeared without trace within the period that Lucy died which would rouse suspicion as they usually start with the family and work out and I think the show ducked around this to make the Bobby reveal more pointed. They also know that she was a cocaine addict and made no attempt to track down her dealer - it was not an unreasonable suspicion to think that this was a drug deal gone wrong. Half of these police officers have preconceived ideas and biases (Bryant and Marsden have something personal against Max and Phil respectively and should be immediately off the case, Marsden before it started and Bryant after Max and Emma became apparent) and although the overall idea is good, the details of the storyline are just very, very hard to believe. |
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| Slater11 | 24 Aug 2015, 21:43 Post #42 |
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Whilst the story itself has been interesting at times despite a long pause in between and a great range of characters.. I do actually miss the character of Lucy Beale because I liked her! |
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7:47 PM Jul 11