Hollyoaks Week in Review: Revenge Isn’t Always Sweet

Eye for an Eye

Soap operas rarely shock me anymore and there are very few things in this world that disturb me as well. This last week, I must say that Anna Passey’s Sienna Blake gave me a chill down my spine like nothing I’d felt in a very long time. I was creeped out but enthralled with her this week – which honestly happens often with this actress and character. There’s just something about her that you can’t help but to hang onto which is probably why she’s been involved in big stories since her inception four years back. Instead of love and attention, Sienna was out for revenge this time and oddly enough, her tactics are just as dirty and calculated.

Back in October, we saw the extravagant death of teen serial killer Nico Blake in a blazing carnival maze inferno. Warren Fox, Sienna’s then boyfriend, had the chance to save only one of them and while Sienna pleaded for him to save her daughter and leave her – of course he went with his heart. There was no way for Warren to know the maze would explode soon after with Nico still inside, nor was there any way for him to know Sienna would actually hold a grudge against him for saving her life. But Sienna’s never been normal; at least a part of him should have seen this coming. By this, I mean Sienna plotting an elaborate revenge scheme over the course of the last few months. Behind Warren’s back, she’d been meeting with his estranged son Joel Dexter as a sort of spiritual counsel. Joel had become a priest in Warren’s time locked up, wanting to completely distance himself from his father’s dangerous lifestyle so Sienna filled his ear with a bunch of fake problems to gain his sympathy. It worked and they became close.

Over the weeks, Sienna left herself fake notes and texts and even crafted a fake grave marker for herself all as a warning from her supposed stalker. Initially, I didn’t understand her endgame but during the climax this week it all became clear. She wanted Warren to feel the exact same pain she’d felt losing her daughter only amplified. Recalling his sister’s overdose death, Warren opened up to Sienna about how she made him feel at peace, like he no longer wanted to hurt the world for what happened to Katie. Sienna used that vulnerability to keep Warren in her corner, worrying for her against a potential attacker that didn’t exist. At least not yet.

This last week, Sienna set the scene so Joel would come to visit her while Warren was in attack mode, ready to take down the stalker who had threatened Sienna. There was this awesome tense moment where Warren stood by the apartment door with a baseball bat in hand, ready to swing at whoever walked through the door next, not knowing that his son was the one on the other side about to enter. The only thing that stopped Joel was hearing Sienna’s voice which he recognized as “Anna”, the woman he’d been meeting with for weeks. Confused, he left and Sienna’s plan fell apart – which in Sienna’s world means time to kick into desperate high gear.

Joel quickly put together that his dad’s girlfriend had been playing him and called to meet with her. After accusing her of lying, Sienna knocked Joel unconscious and dragged him into Warren’s car garage. Obviously she had no plan and was just acting on desperate instinct because she sparked a flame with her clumsiness and left Joel to burn inside the garage. Warren was able to rescue his son in the end but when he learned of what Sienna’s scheme was, there soon was another (metaphorical) fire blazing in the village. That switch from love to hate flipped so quickly for Warren. An injured Joel came to Sienna’s rescue before Warren could hurt her but boy, was it a close call. I found myself actually chilled as Sienna welcomed Warren to kill her, explaining that without her family, her life was meaningless. The way she even still tried to convince Warren she loved him after plotting Joel’s death was awful, almost terrifying. Sienna’s always been broken but this felt like some next level damage.

Eventually Sienna is taken in by Myra McQueen, adding yet another body to the somehow tiny but always packed McQueen home. This move will be interesting not only because it was orchestrated by Joel but because we might be able to see more of Mercedes McQueen with Sienna. The two of them suffered huge tragedies at the Halloween festival and came together in the aftermath, offering real advice and a shoulder to cry on. I’d love to see Mercedes be the one to help Sienna get through this because she’ll really need it.

What I’ll miss the most is the relationship between Warren and Sienna. I don’t think there’s any coming back from this for Warren, he’s very much an all or nothing kind of man and Sienna betrayed him in such an unimaginable way. But as a man of God, Joel is very forgiving… will that lead to love for Sienna? She looks great with both men, the chemistry is there too but maybe the writers will give Sienna a bit of a break. Usually when she hits these peak levels of craziness, she’s put on the back burner for a while. It couldn’t hurt this time too.

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