EASTENDERS fans are furious at the soap for trying to redeem Ravi Gulati with a new storyline.
The villain – who is played by actor Aaron Thiara in the BBC soap – is suffering from mental health issues in the soap and tonight had a panic attack after taking the pharmacy hostage when they couldn’t supply his son Nugget’s medication.
Furious Ravi locked the door and kept everyone else waiting while he demanded the medication before trying to find it himself and then breaking down.
However the storyline has found its critics with fans hitting out at what they see as something to redeem the irredeemable.
Ravi murdered his own dad before framing Suki Panesar, tried to kill Eve, then more recently tortured Harry Mitchell and took advantage of vulnerable Kojo by forcing him to deal drugs and cuckooing in his flat.
He has since turned into a police informant on the gang he works with but it’s not enough for fans.
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“Sorry but the writing for Ravi feels so transparent and manipulative,” one wrote.
“It’s not natural at all. There may as well be a neon sign hanging above him that says ‘YOU MUST FEEL SORRY FOR THIS CHARACTER. YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED ANY OTHER OPINION.’
“Wadey has decided to copy Clenshaw by using a mental health storyline to redeem a character. But completely forgetting that Phil’s storyline had 2 years of buildup, development and character work.
“Meanwhile this storyline has been thrust upon us immediately because the team realized they had taken s*** too far with Ravi.”
A second said: “The problem is they’re trying to justify the bad things he did by saying ‘they were just for his family’. It’s making the writing feel disingenuous.
“Plus it’s not like he’s not doing bad things anymore, look at this episode. They’re treating Ravi like they did Ben – ‘He does bad things but he feels sad afterwards so we should feel sorry for him.’
“With Phil, they stopped him from doing bad things, didn’t justify the bad things he did with the ‘he just did it for his family’ nonsense, and most importantly, we weren’t meant to feel sorry for him until about a year after they softened his character.
“They’re not the same.”
Another added: “It just strikes me as odd that we’re getting all this focus on Ravi’s trauma after everything that happened while the actual victim of the cuckooing has barely been seen since the start of the year.”
