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Photo Credit: © Lime Pictures
Tainted Love
Don’t let the subtitle fool you, Alfie Nightingale and Jade Albright have one of the purest loves in the village of Hollyoaks. On top of that, they’re probably the most realistically portrayed teens in any soap that I’ve ever seen. They banter over Game of Thrones, they actually do their homework and hang with friends. The only thing that is tainted about Alfie and Jade’s love is that both teens are living with cancer. Alfie’s disease has recently gone into remission but this last week, Jade is hit with a shocking new discovery.
It all began leading up to Mac and Neeta’s wedding. Alfie was so excited to escort his girlfriend to the affair that he bought her a dress he thought she’d look perfect in. While getting ready, Jade was startled to find what felt like a lump and Frankie Osborne, her foster mother, immediately took her to the hospital for a biopsy. Fretting over how to tell Alfie and fearing of ruining this important day for him, Jade kept quiet all throughout the wedding ceremony that quickly went awry. When the dust cleared out, Alfie found his girlfriend teary eyed over “everything going wrong” which eventually lead to her opening up about the new lump. Instead of breaking down with her or blindly encouraging Jade to cheer up, Alfie took the unexpected route and asked Jade to marry him – at least “kind of, sort of unofficially”. That way the wedding decorations wouldn’t be wasted!
The two teens exchanged tearful vows laced with Iron Man and other geeky references, while trying to encourage one another in the face of yet another scary unknown battle with cancer. I found myself on the edge of tears too, finding it impossible to understand how kids so young could have already dealt with so much. Jade has expressed that she’s tired of fighting the cancer, when the diagnosis comes back positive, she really just wants to give up instead of staying sick. But again, in that uniquely geeky charming way of his, Alfie turned Jade’s frown back upside down. Instead of fearing for the future that might end in death, why not celebrate their life together right now? Alfie proposed to fit 50 years of married life into the next few days before Jade goes back into chemotherapy. That meant planning out their future kids’ futures, arguing over trivial things and when James helped Alfie rent a shack in the woods (probably to get on his good side while investigating if Alfie’s been abused by Mac), they move in together to start their married life in a place of their own.
Every scene with these two was so bittersweet this week. The emotion was laid on heavy even when it was supposed to be lighthearted, saccharine even – yet you just felt a sense of dread watching them. Could we be losing one half of this whole? Jade has so much love and support behind her now from Alfie to Frankie to her sister Sonia Albright; she no longer has to fight alone. Though from the Hollyoaks Autumn Trailer, Jade’s condition does seem to worsen in later weeks, even prompting Alfie to suffer a sort of survivor’s guilt: “It’s not fair that I’m better and she’s…” But we can’t lose her right? The writers wouldn’t do that to us, right? Just kidding, this is Hollyoaks where death really does not play favorites. I just cannot imagine one without the other and I’m going to do my best not to. Positive vibes produce positive results, and that’s a fact!
Trust me on this, you do not want to be missing this show right now as it’s easily the most entertaining soap on the air! Please comment below with any questions about the show or tweet me, let’s get you addicted to this show!
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