In time-honoured tradition for soap baddies, when they are bad they are very, very bad. In a world full of black and white, soap villains can be very villainous altogether, and there's nothing more delicious than an out-and-out rotter. Of course, in some cases the black and white issues and personalities can fade to grey - in both the worst (blandness) and best (mellowing of baddies with familiarity) ways.
The Battersbys are an example of the latter: the family from hell joined Coronation Street, the soap-around-the-corner, but they developed into rounded and often sympathetic characters (even dinosaur Les has his moments); so much so that Jackie Dobbs, played by Margi Clarke, was dragged in at one stage to take over the role from the newly cuddly Battersbys as most-hated street character. Signs on she's left, and her once-annoying son Tyrone is fast becoming one of the most fun characters in Weatherfield.
But the latest baddie in Corrie is the vixen Julia (Julia! What kind of name is that for a temptress blackmailer?) who is clearly not happy with just wheedling 10 grand out of Mike Baldwin (whose CV credits include lecher, selfish git, capitalist pig and tyrant boss - but with some redeeming traits due to longevity on the Street). And - we'd guessed - the wicked Julia has in fact been in league with the wicked Greg all along. We haven't seen Greg (CV credits: unlikely longlost son of Les, crooked chancer, woman-beater, weakling and unredeemable villain) since he vanished in a puff of smoke some time ago, leaving Sally and her girls in a state of shock and hock. Speaking of which - it looks like he's responsible for the arson attack on Sally's van of smalls. Gives a whole new meaning to setting someone's knickers on fire.
In Fair City the mad doctor has finally become the dead doctor. Now, there's a case of black and white - girlish, vulnerable, foolish Lorraine and boy-next-door Jimmy versus Doctor Jack, the mad-eyed rapist with a past, a self-deluding persona and a mammy (alternately swelling with class pride and sadly longsuffering) to foot the bill. Following several episodes taken from A Few Good Men (or was it more The People's Court?) which wrung ever last drop of drama (and more) out of the rape and court case, Lorraine won her civil action, and Jack was found guilty of rape.
True to form, we saw him speeding off (in a Beetle. Scary.) with a bottle of brandy in one hand and a scalpel in the other (well, not quite, but you know). Jack was clearly about to get his comeuppance in the very moral world of soaps. Hell, he was a drink driver to boot, so the writing was clearly on the wall, and before long so was he.
The off-screen crash was rather a let-down given that we were expecting A Violent End, as flagged by the publicity (and the use of a very cheap car for the scene). We hadhoped it would involve Lorraine shooting him at close range after a painful, drawn-out siege, perhaps; but that sort of behaviour seems to fall to the gutsier - in a preposterous, cartoon sense - Lindsay Corkhill in Brookside. Boy, has that woman moved on during her period on the Close: from the butter-wouldn't-melt fool who languished in a Thai jail, to the gangster's moll who served up chips, to becoming a foolhardy gangster herself. "Take my word for it. They're gone. End of." That's her comment about the racketeer Finnegans. Naturally, they're far from gone. These days Our Linds (as was) seems to spend her time caressing her gun in a suburban bedroom, spitting out threats about "sorting" various people and planning to do the dirty on her business partners ("I'm not working with that scheming cow!" says Jackie Dixon, in a case of the pot calling the kettle black). Lindsay is her father's daughter so she's a bit of a scally, but she's set on being an upwardly mobile one.
Your man from Spandau Ballet makes a marginally more credible gangster in East- Enders. Is Martin Kemp, alias wideboy Steve, about to get his comeuppance for the murder of ex-girlfriend Saskia? He's willing to brazen out an identification of a missing woman when Saskia's sister asks him to help her. Matthew, on the other hand, who unwittingly became involved in the cover-up, gibbers so much that it's a wonder he hasn't been locked up or taken into the half-way house already. You need to have been a New Romantic to have real cool and nerve (rather than nerves). "What if it's her?" wobbles Matthew. "She's dead. We buried her," snarls Mister Cool, never one to mince words.
Ray, the fratricidal baddie in Glenroe, still hasn't had to face the music, but his mother, the dual-personalitied Lizzie, is reaping her rewards for covering up for her favoured son. Nessa, the farm manager and lover of the murdered Ollie, has finally taken matters into her own hands and is hell bent on wreaking revenge on Lizzie, by injecting her cattle with some potion to contaminate the milk. If the style wasn't so naturalistic you'd think it was a rural sci-fi drama and that Nessa was some evil doctor (sorry, that's Fair City).
Though hardly in the murderous stakes, Dick Moran has always been a bit of a baddie too - but more in the Mike Baldwin mode: charming rogue, a bit of a chancer, and a charmer of women. A great scene, so, to see his business plans toppled by his wronged and newly strong-minded, estranged wife, Mary. She tells him how she plans to take over the restaurant he has worked to build up. "I'd call that sharp practice," he says. "Well, I had a very good teacher," she remarks drily.
