Nastiness Of Irene.

[Frankie]

I think the point that someone else made about them not being able to explore all the character relationships in such a short space of time is pretty accurate. They probably overlooked the Irene/Josie thing after Josie saved the bay because it wasn't absolutely necessary to the story and they already had enough to fit in.

I also think (and hope!) we'll start to see the old Irene again after Chloe dies and she fights for custody of Olivia.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think so...dont' read if you dont want to know....

You certainly see more of the old Irene than you have done in recent weeks , there ae some great battles with Diana, but she deserves it. She totally humiliates Irene which is really hard on her, and it all ends in the (sort of amicable but sad) break up with Barry. When Diana takes Olivia, Olivia is heartbroken and Irene is just devastated. It does turn out OK in the end BTW, Someone saves the day for Olivia, and Irene is happy with the outcome.

[zx50]

Even though i'm so tempted to read this..I won't

[Ashirr-Leigh]

I read because I already sort of knew.

To me, the basis of Irene's character is still there - she's fiercely protective of those who she considers to be 'family' and will do anything for them. However, like alot of other people have said, she seems unable to admit when she's wrong nowadays and that's the one major flaw that's bothering me. She has this attitude of.. well, it was for my family, so it's ok. It's not ok, especially when she's wrong.

[buffygirl]

The basis of Irene is still there in retrespect of her protectivness of the family she has.

Irene was natrually wary of Josie at first due to her looklikey of our Angie and the fact she worked in a brothel, naturally was protective of her relationship with Tasha , but any one could see that eventually Josie does generrally care about her esp- after she met her dad and Irene did let Josie come to her aid and comfort her.

Josie has proven time and time again that she's capabal of love and cares about people,yes she's made mistakes who the hell as'nt, Irene sure has.

Since when did Irene become so judgmental, yes i understand thats she's upset over Hayley, but no way in any means did Josie desrve to cop all that flak, i did think at one point she was gonna punch her one before Barry pulled her back, Scotty is as much to blame as i said earlier i can't understand why he did'nt get a ear bashing too.

The Irene we know would have appoliged to her after the brett deal, and would have seen it takes two to kiss.

sorry guys if ive rambled it's late.

[Frankie]

I think this is all part of the make the character fit the story approach, which seems to have been the approach for most of the year. They decided to write out Josie...the idiots...don't get me started on that moronic decsison.... they needed Josie to feel she was not wanted so she would decide to go quietly...they had Irene let rip, and lets face it no one, and no one, lets rip like Irene at full throttle. LOL...even alf was having a dig I recall, saying everything that was going wrong was because of "Josie flamin Russell".....not like Alf at all. So I am still blaming the writers, and not Irene as such, cos I don't think the "real" Irene would behave like that at all. She would dive in and have a go for sure, but she would also have a go at Scott, and she would say sorry if she got things wrong.

This whole kiss thing was lame anyway, I mean they all went off on one because Josie and Scott were feeling very low and snogged. Hayley and Kim were feeling low, they did a darn sight more than snog, but that is supposed to be OK, ans everyone else is supposed to understand because its poor likkle Hayley...I mean come on...talk about double standards.

I do wish they would stop screwing up the characters and would stick to the characters "truth" ..whatever that might be.

[claire_louise]

Don't get me started on Hayley. Her character has been totally ruined IMO. She is supposed to be in mourning for the love of her life, yet she decides to start seeing someone who is just out of school and obviously not suited to her at all. Then when that goes wrong she falls head over heels in love with her now-forgotten dead husband's best friend. Then she's sooo upset after arguing with Scott that she gets drunk and sleeps with the aforementioned schoolboy, gets pregnant and dumps Scott because he so unreasonably doesn't like the idea of bringing up another man's child. And she has the cheek to go ballistic when he kisses Josie in a moment of madness? If we're talking about characters who are portrayed as 'goodies' and who we are therefore meant to immediately forgive their sins, I'd say Hayley beats Irene hands down.

[Heaven]

I loved hayley when she was with noah but after noah died and she was dating kim I begin to hate her

[ste]

A few pages back someone said they like Irene because she acts first and thinks later. Then someone else (possibly the same person) said that they are over-simplifying the character. I think this is the problem. Irene does act first (slagging off Josie), BUT if she does think later, it's happening off screen, and we're not seeing it. A LOT of character and relationship type stuff is being left out in place of drama and moving the storylines along at a certain pace, and I can understand how this is probably just as annoying for the Irene fans as the Josie ones. The Irene I knew in the mid nineties would probably still have yelled at Josie, but she would have apologised later. And it wouldn't have happened off screen because there's no time to fit it in either.

This is why I also had trouble accepting that the rift between Irene and Beth was such a big deal. We'd never seen them being more than passing acquaintences but now that the storyline called for it we're supposed to believe they were best friends?

We are being expected to fill in too many blanks for ourselves, just so they can write drama after drama and no character-led scenes. I'm sure I've read post from the Robbie and Kim fans too saying they are puzzled how these so called best friends have about one scene together per month if they're lucky.

[stra gilr]

Dont get me started on how they are ruining characters for the sake of a bit of drama. when we had a discussion about character versus drama some months ago I was shot down in flames and told the drama was more important. I actually think the characters are the most important thing and without them there is no real drama. It feels like they have changed a lot of characters over the last year, almost to the point where they are unrecogniseable, and to my way of thinking this shows a marked lack of understanding of "character." The decline of Tasha and Robbie began before this year, and I hated what they did to Jesse. He got his life back and then they made him go off the rails again and back to prison. The Jesse I know would not have behaved like that. I totally agree with what you have said about Irene, they are making her behave in a very non-Irene way. And as for Hayley, well that was just so stupid, and the whole paternity thing where Scott was just supposed to lie down and accept it all, while Hayley could get upset over one kiss, it just beggers belief. Paternitygate and everything associated with it was the worst story of the year for me. I know others loved it, but I could not.

The rift between Beth and Irene was so contrived, as has been so much this year. Ther is no real and everyday interation between characters like they used to be and I miss that.

I think Ste is right they are sacrificing character for the sake of the story. In the end I think they might regret it.

[Ashirr-Leigh]

I hope they do regret it because then they might go back to their old ways again. So many characters have been ruined - temporarily, at least - and it's getting really frustrating.

I used to really like Tasha, counted her as one of my favourite characters but now, some of her scenes are unbearable. She's not the same Tasha anymore and that's annoying.

I 100% agree that we need to see Irene doing her 'thinking later' thing. If we could see her go back and apologise to people, it would make me love her even more because she can admit when she's wrong. The fact is that, just now, she can't. That's my problem. I have no problem with her actions - ie. shouting at Josie - because it's typical Irene.. but typical Irene would also hold her hand up to her own mistakes.