Chester, Mon Amour

‘For the first time in ages, everything seems to be going my way.’ Why, Mercedes? Why? Why would you ever say that? It is the first and most indubitable law of Soapland that you should never ever comment on how well things are going. Hollyoaks’s writers work in much the same fashion as Fate, spinning the narrative threads of the characters they created and control. If you tempt them, Mercedes, they will destroy you.

Not that a second attempt marriage between Mercedes and Riley was ever going to go well. Mercy infamously got hot and heavy with Riley’s Dad – ‘an old muscley beast is tupping your white ewe!’ – and Riley, for his sins, has been doing the nasty with his cousin, Mitzeee. The sheer complexity of the sexual and familial relationships at play here lead me to surmise that the conjugal waters seem altogether too muddied to allow for marital happiness. As always, Carl Costello and I are in moral agreement, and he comes storming back into town to put an end to this ill-fated union. After a quick and perfunctory exchange of unpleasanteries, Riley and Carl – rather implausibly – end up having a heart-to-heart about how sensible it really is to marry noted lunatic Mercedes McQueen. Both Costellos are rocking serious deep-V shirts in this scene, it’s like a father-son heavage competition. The pair are so entranced by one another’s pectorals that they don’t realize the door is open, and eavesdropper Mercedes finds out both that Riley no longer loves her, but also that he’s still been shagging Mitzeee, who – as we have touched upon – is both a criminal, and perhaps more importantly in the eyes of God, a close blood relative. Awkward.

Meanwhile, Brendan is really proving that he deserved that Best Actor gong at the Inside Soap Awards. Confined to his wheelchair, but more meaningfully trapped by his inability to express his love for Ste, the splendidly moustachioed one is being tormented by evil Walker. There’s something unconvincing about Walker. Perhaps because if you really wanted to get evil done in an efficient and diabolical manner, you’d have a sensible haircut that didn’t fall into your eyes and require constant brushing back. What’s more, he can’t really deliver a good villain line without making it a bit…well, silly. Take the moment when he brandishes a photo of his late brother, Cameron, who died after overdosing on some drugs Brendan supplied. ‘He doesn’t look like that now,’ Walker hisses. ‘He looks…’ there is a pause, and he seems to panic, ‘well…dead.’ Not quite the rhetorical brilliance we have come to expect from an ’Oaks bad boy. Walker needs to up his game.

1. Why is Mitzeee still hanging around? Surely being ‘on the run’ necessitates actually leaving the town where you lived? How bad are Hollyoaks police, really? The only thing Mitzeee’s doing differently is wearing a cap and a hood. If this is all it takes to fool the Chester Met, then I’m surprised they ever put Silas behind bars. He should have just put on some of those joke glasses with a big nose and ‘tache, and he’d still be with us. If only.
2. How has no one commented on the fact that Bart’s illicit French lover was Lola Créton, the actress from the acclaimed Goodbye First Love, a film which The Guardian’s Philip French described as ‘splendid’ and ‘understated’? Forgive me, but what was she doing in Hollyoaks Later? Surely there was something lost in translation when her agent arranged this gig, or a few white lies on behalf of the Hollyoaks production team. ‘It’s exactly Lola’s style – a searing comment on youth and transience…set in Chester’.
3. Who has taken Bobby?

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