Guest Article: EastEnders’ Most Unbelievable Storyline To Date

EastEnders, BBC One

It's that time of the week where we open up our website to the fans of EastEnders, giving you the opportunity to have your own work read by fans alike.

This week, Stephen Patterson takes a look back at that love triangle!

Affairs are commonplace in soap operas, and the residents of Albert Square have found themselves embroiled in quite a few over the years.

From the legendary Sharongate to the Pat, Peggy and Frank love triangle, EastEnders has been home to some of the most chaotic, devastating and bloody entertaining showdowns in television history.

But in and among the 33 years of heart-racing drama, there is one love triangle that just didn’t work at all.

EastEnders, BBC One

In 2017, Queen Vic landlord Mick Carter started to show an interest in Whitney Dean while his beloved wife Linda was away, and the viewers at home weren’t happy. Unlike Frank during the Peggy and Pat feud, this wasn’t a case of which woman Mick belonged with – because we already knew the answer to that — it was a case of an unconvincing narrative.

Viewers took to Twitter in their droves to show solidarity for Linda Carter, and to voice their opinions on the twisted affair that just didn’t make any sense.

And they did so with good reason because — soap opera or not — it was one of the most unbelievable storylines in EastEnders history – and yes, I’m fully aware that I say that about a show in which residents regularly return from the dead.

EastEnders, BBC One

But what exactly is it that made the Mick and Whitney affair one of EastEnders’ darkest hours? And why isn’t it remembered fondly like Sharongate was? Let’s take a look.

First things first: storylines like this have to be believable to work, and this one simply wasn’t. Why? Because when Danny Dyer joined the cast of EastEnders as the hard man with a heart Mick Carter back in 2013, the show’s then executive producer Dominic Treadwell-Collins promised that Mick and Linda would be the first ever couple in soap history to have an unbreakable marriage where neither party would cheat.

It was a bold prediction but, before long, viewers fell in love with the pairing, and Treadwell-Collins’ comments were backed up with strong writing, which often highlighted that neither Mick nor Linda would so much as look at another person.

They’d been together since they were teenagers, and neither of them had ever been in a relationship with anyone else.

EastEnders, BBC One

Their shared history was rich with story possibilities, and was often used to kick start some great storylines during their first few years on the Square. Never before had the soap — or any soap for that matter —seen a couple with so much affection for one another.

Moreover, their relationship was further intensified by Dyer and Kellie Bright’s remarkable on-screen chemistry.

The Carters were everything a proper couple should be. Their relationship wasn’t glamourised, nor was it depicted as a perfect Hollywood romance – they were as normal as could be and, like any normal couple, they had their ups and downs, but stayed together through thick and thin, cementing themselves as the strongest pairing to ever set foot on Albert Square.

EastEnders, BBC One

Treadwell-Collins left the show in 2016, but we weren’t worried because Mick and Linda’s relationship had been firmly established at this point, and nobody would dare mess with it, right?

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case. Sean O’Connor took over for Treadwell-Collins around the same time that Bright had to temporarily leave the soap due to her real-life pregnancy.

While Linda was away, O’Connor began to hint at a relationship between Mick and his own daughter-in-law Whitney.

The first problem with this is that Whitney had been trying to get her claws into Mick for months prior to this – during Treadwell-Collins’ tenure as producer – and there was no hint of him reciprocating the young girl’s feelings.

EastEnders, BBC One

Surely the fact that Mick didn’t have any romantic feelings for Whitney is proof that an affair between these two was never on the cards? In fact, Mick told Linda about Whitney kissing him straight away (which was such a Mick thing to do) because Treadwell-Collins knew what kind of man Mick was.

He was a loyal one. Mick had been established as a family man who would've never looked twice at another woman because he was head over heels about Linda, so O’Connor’s storyline didn’t gel with the character.

EastEnders, BBC One

In fact, when O’Connor took over, it was as if the Mick character had had a personality transplant. We were forced to suspend belief because, again, Mick would never cheat on Linda with anyone, but least of all with Whitney.

Let’s not forget she married one of his sons, and consistently pursued the other — even after she’d learned he was gay. The storyline was forced, and went against everything we’d previously learned about Mick.

All great dramas require conflict, sure, but conflict is supposed to arise naturally. Mick’s internal conflict over his ‘feelings’ for Whitney was contrived because the character that Treadwell-Collins had created wouldn’t have had his head turned by another woman.

EastEnders, BBC One

No matter what the show did to try and convince us otherwise, the storyline was seedy, — as was the kiss that Mick and Whitney shared. Interestingly, Dyer’s characterisation of Mick differed in these scenes, and rumour has it that the actor was unhappy with the storyline as, in the past, both him and Bright were adamant that their characters should remain together forever.

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Mick was also written out of the show for a couple of weeks during the heart of this story, but it’s unknown if Dyer’s absence had anything to do with how he felt about this arc.

Perhaps the most obscene thing about this storyline was that, in order for Mick to go to Whitney for comfort, the writers were forced to paint Linda as a villain, which they did so by giving her a secret (she’d been given a cancer diagnosis) and by having her sell the freehold on the Queen Vic behind Mick’s back.

EastEnders, BBC One

The storyline was contrived from the off, because on top of the fact that Mick would’ve never looked twice at Whitney, Linda would’ve never sold the freehold, as the idea of being landlady of her own pub was her dream to begin with.

In other words, it wasn’t just Mick acting out of character for the purpose of this storyline, it was Linda too.

These story beats were created to cause a rift between the loving couple, but since their actions were completely out of character, the conflict once again felt forced.

And just when we thought Mick couldn’t get any further from his original character, he decides to run off on an upset Linda after learning of her cancer, instead of staying to support her like Treadwell-Collins’ iteration of the character would have.

EastEnders, BBC One

Let’s not forget that Linda's rape several years earlier had strengthened her relationship with her husband so, in addition to this affair storyline being offensive to the Mick character, it was incredibly offensive to the viewers' intelligence.

Following her ordeal, Linda struggled with confidence issues regarding her body. She later revealed all of this to Mick, who was as supportive as he’d always been — much like he should’ve been during the cancer storyline.

With this in mind, there’s no way he would’ve cheated on his beloved wife with a younger woman, as he would’ve known that Linda would take this to heart.

Whitney’s involvement is also one worst things about this storyline. For years, the young woman commended Linda on her life achievements, and commented how, like Linda, she wanted to get married young and start a family.

EastEnders, BBC One

When Whitney’s hopes of replicating Linda’s happiness failed with her marriage to Lee, she decided that instead of recreating what Linda had, she would steal the Carter matriarch’s life, which was further reinforced when she wore Linda’s jacket for a meeting, and when she redecorated the pub’s living room — which had been previously designed by Linda.

The landlady of the Queen Vic later accused Whitney of trying to fill her place in her absence, and called the whole thing “sick”, and she was absolutely right.

There was a sick and almost disturbing element to this storyline as Whitney wanted to take Linda’s place in the Carter household, and yet Mick failed to see this. In reality, Whitney became a pale imitation of Linda, which is why the scene of Linda grilling the young girl about the kiss was pretty rewarding for us — even if the storyline was poor.

EastEnders, BBC One

Again, unlike some of television’s greatest love triangles, viewers weren't asking who Mick should be with, because there was only one answer to this question: Linda. As he said during his first few months on the Square, he will always choose his beloved ‘L’ over everyone else.

What we were asking, however, is why this awful and unconvincing storyline happened in the first place. O’Connor had already angered viewers when he axed popular characters Ronnie and Roxy Mitchell, and many of his other narratives had failed to take off, so the Mick and Whitney storyline proved to be the final straw.

Sean O'Connor, BBC

Viewers complained in their droves and the EastEnders ratings plummeted. Interestingly, O’Connor left the show after less than a year, and was replaced by veteran EastEnders producer John Yorke, who more or less retconned the whole storyline, which goes to show just how terrible it truly was. Moreover, Yorke saw to it that Mick and Linda were reunited and made unbreakable once more — just the way it should be.

While the average viewer may think that affairs are integral to a soap opera’s continued success, this one is proof that it not always that black and white. In order for affairs to work, it has to be believable that the person in question would stray.

Max Branning and Ian Beale, for example, would both be likely candidates for an affair storyline, because it’s well within their nature to allow themselves to be seduced by another. But Mick Carter doesn’t meet the criteria required for a storyline of this nature, which is why his brief infatuation with Whitney ranks as not only one of EastEnders worst ever storylines, but also as the soap’s most unbelievable — hence why it was wrapped up quickly and subsequently forgotten about.

When Linda threw Whitney out of the Vic, she told the young woman that she was “putting the rubbish out”, and the landlady of the Queen Vic certainly accomplished her goal, because her return to the Square brought with it the culmination of this ridiculous storyline — a storyline that undoubtedly belongs in those bins that featured heavily during Sean O’Connor’s tenure.

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