By 
Phoenix Rising
Maybe some people are just not allowed to have a happy ending. Mercedes McQueen thought that she could finally be one of those lucky few who were, but it all came down in flames this last week. She and Joe Roscoe was an odd couple from the beginning, but they slowly found where and how they best worked together and fell in love. They were supposed to be starting on their new journey together but a mix up sent everything crashing down.
A McQueen party isn’t a McQueen party until someone is arrested. Mercedes and Celine’s bachelorette party was off to such a drab start, no one could have expected it to end the way it did. Maid of honor Cindy Cunningham arrived astounded to find everyone in t-shirts and leggings, playing games instead of getting drunk at a club like she’d planned to. Cindy eventually convinced everyone to move the party to the local pub where madness quickly ensued. Tegan Lomax had been at Cindy’s throat all night, hurling out snide little comments that Cindy had no problem answering. Having been away from the show for a good two years, I’m not exactly sure what the sore point between the two was but the second Cindy called Tegan a “sallow-faced baby stealer”, it was on. The entire party seemed to jump into the fight and the ladies were all carted down to the local police station. Little did Mercedes know, Joe’s former fling Joanne Cardsley had her eye on the entire situation. Being the obsessive creep she is, Joanne followed the women down to the station and when Mercedes was preoccupied in booking, slipped a small baggy of cocaine into her purse. How the lawyer managed to get her hands on illegal drugs so quickly, who knows? Maybe it was from her personal stash and could describe her often erratic behavior, but either way she set Mercedes up the night before her wedding to get to Joe.
Joanne’s plan worked! Mercedes’ charges were bumped up to possession and after being released on bail, she did her best to ignore the set up and just get the wedding over with. Joe’s brother Freddie Roscoe was the one who picked Mercy up from the hospital, promising to keep the arrest a secret from Joe until after the wedding was over. But that was not meant to be! Waiting at the Roscoe house for Joe was Joanne, itching to tell the news she knew. Freddie was the one who found her first and did his best to shut down the obsessed former brother lover but she was adamant. She had to tell Joe what a bad person Mercedes was and then he’d finally choose her – as if! In a panic, Freddie handcuffed Joanne to staircase so she wouldn’t be able to find Joe, unaware that Joe had forgotten his written vows at home and was already on his way back. Joanne wasted no time to lay in on Mercedes as soon as Joe stepped in the door. It’s extremely unsettling to hear this deluded woman rattle on about a woman she only knows from stalking Joe and Mercedes.
Joe doesn’t want to believe Joanne but when she mentioned Mercedes’ constant hunger for drama, a chord was struck. With the news heavy on his shoulders, Joe chose not to go through with the wedding and left Mercedes broken at the altar. When she confronted him later at their home, listing off all of the ways she’d changed herself to better suit him like helping Joe learn to walk again, watching his kids that weren’t hers and being a dutiful wife, it really began to sink in how far Mercedes had come. Tears aside, the emotion in these scenes were incredibly palpable from Jennifer Metcalfe’s Mercedes. Joe was as dense as ever but in context it made sense, he is pretty much just a big simple oaf and that’s how he wanted to continue living. He rationalized that Mercedes would never be happy with him in the long run and that she’d never have the stability he needed in life to which she disagreed with, of course. It wasn’t until Joe admitted his affair with Joanne that Mercedes really began to give up. After pleading on her knees for a second chance, trying to explain she’d been set up with the drugs, brother John Paul McQueen came to collect her.
Numb to the world, Mercedes went home and got wasted then went for a walk to clear her head. On that very walk she spotted Joe chatting with Joanne, being comforted by her not long after ending their relationship. Joanne and Joe were going to have to learn that no one plays Mercedes for a fool. When her ex was looking away, Mercedes hopped into his parked car and for a tense moment, everyone thinks Mercedes is set to mow the cheating duo down with the car. Instead, she backs up to completely destroy the store front of the Nightingale’s restaurant. She left Joe’s car parked on top of a few tables and exited with a warning that the old Mercedes was back and to watch out.
Payback from a McQueen is definitely going to sting! I almost feel bad for Joe but almost doesn’t count. While Joe and Mercedes were undoubtedly cute, I do believe she would have eventually gotten bored with him and viewers bored with her. Mercedes is at her best when she’s feisty and free. Now’s the time for her to rise again!
Heart of Glass
Jesse Donovan is probably the sweetest boy in the village of Hollyoaks. I would not call him pure, nor say that he’s too good for this world as he can get a little perverted from time to time but he’s really just a sweetheart. Unfortunately with that sweetness tends to come a lot of heartache, but he never expected it from Celine McQueen who easily matched his levels of sweetness. Out of the entire McQueen clan, Celine and her little sister Cleo are probably two of the more well adjusted members of the dysfunctional bunch. But even for them the promise of riches beyond compare proved too much and Celine had to break Jesse’s heart to get it. In order to receive his inheritance, Diego would fake a marriage to Celine (his mother hated his real girlfriend, Myra McQueen) for a year and they’d all be set for life. Jesse had no clue that his heart was just collateral damage – until he did.
Wedding preparations were underway this week for the combined wedding of Celine and Mercedes McQueen and it all seemed to be going smoothly. For once. That alone should have been a warning sign for everyone involved but the party forged ahead anyway. Liam Donovan, Jesse’s older brother, was the hired beautician for the event and was thrust headfirst into the drama. See, while Jesse had given up on getting Celine back, Liam remained vocal about him going after the girl he loved. A grand gesture was his recommendation to win her back but Jesse remained unsure. Not until Liam was in the thick of the wedding party and noticed something peculiar. Everyone seemed a little too chipper for a family torn apart by a niece stealing an aunt’s boyfriend and when questioned about it, Celine gave extremely robotic answers to questions about her love for Diego. Being the good big brother he was, Liam did a bit of snooping once the room had cleared and discovered study note cards in Celine’s makeup bag, full of generic info on Diego – the same info she’d just spit out to him! Liam raced to give Jesse the good news.
After everyone had arrived at the church in a rinky dink camper, the wedding hit a little snag when Joe Roscoe was running late. This unknowingly gave Jesse more time for his grand gesture that included riding to the church on a little girl’s bicycle he’d stolen and plucking a flower from the church garden for Celine. When he found her on the grounds, he expressed that he loved her. Yes, the big L word and though Celine was visibly happy to hear it, there wasn’t much she could do now. They were literally at the point of no return. Watching her have to shut poor Jesse down for what should have been the final time was painful. She would be losing so much by marrying Diego but the money loomed high over her head.
The double wedding proved to be a double disaster. After Mercedes’ mishap, Celine’s plan was busted up by Aunt Myra crashing the wedding that truthfully should have been her own. The bust up was easily the funniest moment of the week, kicking off with a pregnant middle aged woman waddling out of breath down the church aisle to profess her love for a man already getting married. She threw little jabs at the fact it was protestant church and even came for my darling Cindy Cunningham and her past gold-digging ways when confronted by Diego’s mother. The money Diego was set to inherit was apparently from a marriage to a man whose bank account she loved more than him. While Consuela continued to try and belittle Myra, it only strengthened her and soon enough Diego too who disowned his mother for mistreating his baby’s mother. If only they’d gotten a little bit of the money to flee the country for a bit, for as soon as Myra and Diego were home again, another problem arose. A team of older women filed in demanding their money back from Diego, the love swindler!
With the wedding successfully broken up, Celine was free to go back to that sweet boy with a fragile heart. There was no time to change and through the village she ran in her wedding dress, searching everywhere until she came upon Jesse and Liam partying at The Loft with a gaggle of girls. I’d almost feared she wouldn’t be able to get him away from them and maybe he’d given up for good this time, but Jesse was open to hearing what she had to say. Celine explained her actions to her boyfriend who momentarily was happy to hear she wanted him back, but at the mention of scamming Diego’s mom, Jesse had to pull away. Much like Jesse, Celine was a big sweetie so to hear she’d been scamming was a shock to his system. Unable to process it, he pushed her way to continue his night out as a single man. Celine fled the scene in tears and her wedding dress.
I was positively crushed over these two! I hope this does not signal an actual end to the couple who are an actual perfect fit for one another. If Jesse even looks Tegan Lomax’s way, the bitter nurse who gladly entertained the thought of getting with her best friend’s ex, then I might just rage! For now I’m holding out hope for reconciliation, just don’t make us wait too long for it!
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 Hollyoaks too!
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