ways of death in Walford

You have to really know your stuff. Only then can you play with it.

The storyline people over at EastEnders* are letting us down badly again - yet again - as Sean Slater, who has been perfectly normal (for him) up to now suddenly, in the course of a day, goes loopy remembering his troubled past in the Army. And now the rest of it!

My great chum That's So Pants hits the nail on the coffin this week, in a post that is completely sublime. (The title alone is completely sublime: "Sean of the (soon to be) Dead.") The picture alone is worth the long lonely walk along the pier to her place - she is, I always say, a picture editor of genius - but really, her whole analysis of the state of affairs is to die for:

"Traditionally in EastEnders there are only four ways of dying. You can either be run down by one of the many cars constantly circling the square specifically for that purpose; you can fall, usually from a height but Pauline Fowler managed to achieve death by merely toppling from her orthopaedic shoes; you can be hit over the head with something quite heavy or you can be shot. In some cases (notably that of Den Watts), you can have more than one of these, together or separately.

Whatever the method, it is ordained somewhere in scriptland that an EastEnder may only die by the hand of another character. The Mitchells are obviously the front runners virtually taking on the sole responsibility of retiring characters that everyone’s tired of, although there is hardly a Slater who hasn’t caused someone’s demise either deliberately or accidentally.

There have been some rather cosy husband and wife homicide teams. Frank and Pat Butcher both ran over people and killed them and, in a touching twist, Martin and Sonia Fowler managed to despatch each other’s nearest and dearests to the hereafter - in Eastenders terms, Openauditionland. In the long term it strengthened their bond."

There's more. Check it out.

I for one wasn't tired of Sean Slater (you can sort of see why in the picture, even if he is making that face - it just makes me laugh every time). If it's Robert Kazinsky wanting to leave, I can hardly blame him, because he's not exactly been given the scope for more longevity, has he? And they haven't exactly made him a household name, either. I'm hoping he won't die. I'm hoping someone will find the missing CCTV tape about that obnoxious Chelsea's person, & she'll have to go to that other place characters retire to: inside... (spin-off, Porridge-style series featuring her and Chrissie Watts? Please, nooooo!)