³ÉÈËÂÛ̳

...Or so Raymond thought. But the lovable landlord of our favourite local found himself properly in the mud this week. Enemies were kept close while friends were stabbed in the back and now we've got Shady Sean and his equally shady cronies hanging around the Ship all day and all night! Poor Raymond. By the end of the day, even Jimmy was done with his bezzie mate when Raymond broke the cardinal rule of Bro-Code - never ban your mate from your bar!

Mind you, he probably didn't really help matters by going all Raging-Bull-De-Niro on us! He stormed round to Lenny's, thumping his chest with passion and pride (proving too much for his 40s-style detective Dictaphone) and then chucked out poor contrite Jimmy with all the pomp and bombast of Paul Vitti in Analyze This!

He even had a handle on the labyrinthine mind games of the Shieldinch Don. The Ship's been ransacked but he's not going to report it to the Police, cause that's what Lenny wants him to do, so Lenny must have a plan that he'll cleverly outwit by not doing the thing that Lenny seems to want him to do. Aha!........eh?

Best be leaving it to the real gangsters, Raymondo. And unfortunately, that's exactly what happened! We thought it was too good to be true when we saw Sean actually being....pleasant? Nice? Polite? And we were right! It was all a ploy to get Raymond in Sean's manky pocket. But Gabes?! What on earth were you doing?! Hands up if you were yelling at your TV in horror when Gabes lied through his teeth and stuck up for Sean? Immediately delivered, discounted booze with no money upfront, Raymond? You don't have to have a good nose to smell that this was a dodgy prawn in your curry. Even Stevie could see this was not shaping up to be a great situation and got the penny to finally drop.

Gabes himself did not look happy about it but did he really need to take it out on poor Leyla? We had high hopes for a rekindled romance for The Geyla when she invited Gabes round for dinner. But after being rejected so coldly, Leyla's seems like she's fallen off of the wagon big time and the only dinners she'll be having in a while are going to be liquid. How long before the kids realise that her early nights are actually binges in disguise?

Elsewhere, friendships were being tested over at No. 18 when Robbie took advantage of his Special Robbie Discount to buy the salon on the cheap. But he can't do it alone, and you can always rely on Good Old Deek to save the day. But he hadn't reckoned on the business acumen and controlling powers of Will. Poor Deek didn't see it coming at all. And though we love Will and Robbie together, we have to say that Deek was speaking some pretty uncomfortable home truths. Hmm, Robbie, you might want to watch that one and his patronising couch-pats.

Next Week: Raymond fights back! But will the exterminators clear the rat in his roost? And it looks like Leyla's drinking is catching up with her.

Quote of the week:
Robbie: You like me, don't you?
Will: Robbie, everybody likes you. I love you.
Robbie: Well, that's good.
Will: Isn't it.