EastEnders spoilers follow.
Penny Branning has called out her father Jack for his insensitive comments in EastEnders.
Tuesday’s episode centered around Jack feeling overwhelmed about being daughter Amy’s primary caregiver due to her injuries.
Amy is still recovering from going into cardiac arrest and suffering a broken pelvis when she was caught up in the recent crowd crush at Peggy’s nightclub.
Jack has held his daughter Penny responsible for the crowd crush since she was managing Peggy’s on the night of the disaster. Neither knows that Chelsea Fox meddled with the booking system at the club as revenge for losing her job.
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Jack went to pick up a takeaway for Amy at McKlunky’s after forgetting to make her supper. Penny happened to be there for dinner with Lauren Branning, leading to an uncomfortable conversation.
“He’ll come around once the investigation clears me,” Penny told Lauren. “Then, he’ll have to do some serious heavy-duty grovelling.”
Penny asked Jack if she could visit Amy, and he reluctantly agreed. The soap later showed Amy in better spirits after having a chat with Penny about how to navigate life in a wheelchair.
“You ain’t gonna be in that forever, are you?” Jack insensitively told Amy, adding that she’d soon be back to “normal”. He then said: “Before you know it, you’re going to be out of that thing and running around.”
Amy couldn’t believe her dad’s cruel comments, but Jack just shrugged and said: “Penny knows what I’m talking about.”
Later, Penny confronted Jack about his heartless words. She reiterated to him that he’d been insensitive, then explained that his comments made it all “that little bit harder”.
“I’m sure you’d want to be any other normal 26-year-old girl,” Jack snapped back.
“This is my normal,” Penny corrected him. “And it has been since I got caught in the middle of one of your private wars.”
As viewers may remember, Penny became paralysed from the waist down as a young girl when she was struck by a car driven by a drug dealer out for revenge against Jack.
“Let’s have a pity party for Penny, poor old Penny,” Jack angrily shot back. “You want to talk about mistakes? Amy wouldn’t be in that wheelchair if it wasn’t for you!”
He then demanded: “People make mistakes. Bad things happen. Just get over it!”
Penny was horrified by her father’s comments and promptly left, leaving Jack thinking twice about his harsh words. Can Jack make things right with Penny?
EastEnders airs on Mondays-Thursdays at 7.30pm on BBC One. The show also streams on BBC iPlayer, where most episodes drop early at 6am ahead of their TV broadcast.
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