Edwina Monsoon

Jesus Christ it’s EDINA!!!!

Borderline Personality Disorder, complicated by drug & alcohol addiction (as a result of self-medication).

And she really is a selfish fucking asshole. The character is exhausting. Hilarious, but exhausting.

You can’t diagnose a using addict with personality disorder

Is this a stealth thread?

If that's the case, how can one identify the impulses that lead to addiction, R3?

Whenever we are shown Eddie as a child/younger woman she seems passive to the point of muteness.

Actually R1, OP is right. Eddie was christened a, but changed her name.

Sorry - “christened a”

Ok whatever

I seem to remember she thought her mother was the root of all her problems. She seemed forever stuck in a rebellious child/overly-critical mother dynamic. Both she and Patsy seemed like incorrigible teen girls.

You only work in a shop, you know. You can drop the attitude.

R1

No, it's not!

a Rose Margaret Monsoon was what judge in court called Eddie. We must presume that was her full legal name since under such situations that is what happens.

Sorry, first bit of name was cut off...

" a Margaret Rose Monsoon"...

Corrected and carry on...

WTF?

* a Margaret Rose Monsoon".......

I give up, you all catch the drift. This site really sucks sometimes.

Notice how fast that LPSG thread was removed....

Answer to OP's query is pick one..

Histrionic Hypochondriac Self loathing yet also self obsessed, with a heavy dose of insecurity.

Seemingly totally devoid of natural maternal feelings, Eddie is horribly aggressive and angry towards her daughter Saffron.

British

She was who Saunders envied/hated/wanted to be

R5 That is the case. Can’t believe you decided to question me on this. Someone’s diagnosed when they’re clean and you can get a baseline.

The real Eddie!

Because Muriel prohibits posting the five-letter name of a notorious poster fond of fire emojis and links to TikTok posts you cannot type the first five letters of Edina Monsoon's actual given name, which is the same name as "Edina" except with a 'w" between the "d" and the "i."

As she got older, the character removed the "w" as the third letter in her name, becoming instead "Ed ina," which Patsy shortens to "Eddie."

That's what you wished to say, no?

[quote]She seemed forever stuck in a rebellious child/overly-critical mother dynamic. Both she and Patsy seemed like incorrigible teen girls.

I know someone just like this in real life. She's 43 years old, a lot of fun in small bursts, and really tiring and frustrating for much longer than that.

Those 2 were always exhausting. Much preferred Kath&Kim. Saunders seemed like she wanted to live out a fantasy with AbFab while making fun of that fantasy. All too self-indulgent and exhausting. K&K was much more absurd and funnier.

Certainly not borderline. Did she ever have a stable relationship with any men (and she was straight) over the course of the show?

This is called Arrested Development with Alimony.

I know several women who have this, and they act like teenagers, too. (But not funny.)

Definitely schizotypal. It's the odd and eccentric one. Phoebe from Friends is often thought of as schizotypal too.

Symptoms Schizotypal personality disorder typically includes five or more of these signs and symptoms:

Being a loner and lacking close friends outside of the immediate family

Flat emotions or limited or inappropriate emotional responses

Persistent and excessive social anxiety

Incorrect interpretation of events, such as a feeling that something that is actually harmless or inoffensive has a direct personal meaning

Peculiar, eccentric or unusual thinking, beliefs or mannerisms

Suspicious or paranoid thoughts and constant doubts about the loyalty of others

Belief in special powers, such as mental telepathy or superstitions

Unusual perceptions, such as sensing an absent person's presence or having illusions

Dressing in peculiar ways, such as appearing unkempt or wearing oddly matched clothes

Peculiar style of speech, such as vague or unusual patterns of speaking, or rambling oddly during conversations

The Jan 6 shaman was schizotypal. He seemed friendly with podiums at least

She was a Boomer.

[quote] Did she ever have a stable relationship with any men

Patsy.

OMG, you idiots, Everywhere you look online, including IMDB, it's EDINA, not A.

Jesus fucking Christ, you can't even type E D W I N A on this stupid site.

R20, I seem to remember that Franks is the daughter of a shochet (kosher butcher). Always thought that was interesting.

That cunt whose name is leading to these weird orphaned letter "a"s all over this thread must have really got to Muriel.

Lord love a duck!

Eds name is exactly as stated by judge in clip R12 before pronouncing sentence upon her and Patsy.

E*D*W*I*N*A Margaret Rose Monsoon is Eds legal Christian name. It is what her mother, Justin, Oliver, Penny Casper Morse, Marshall and anyone else who knew Eds from her younger days uses.

At some point in her life Eddie began calling herself "Edina" dropping the "W", likely as part of her counter culture rebellious 1960's nature, who knows... But her mother, and others refuse to do so, this is all spelled out on "Edina's" Wiki page.

Since this alteration of her name occurred before we meet Eds, everyone goes with Edina (including internet pages covering Ab Fab). It is never explained why Mrs. M and others use name with a "W", while others do not.

While we're at it, Edina's maiden name along with married name of her mother are never revealed. Called "Mrs. M" by Patsy everyone assumes that stands for "Monsoon" , but that cannot be true. Eds was married twice and her last name is same as Justin, her ex-husband. Moreover Saffy who is devoted to her father also has his last name.

[quote] Did she have a personality disorder?

She wasn't a real person. She was a character in a sitcom. i

If she had a personality disorder, Jennifer Saunders would have had to have written it into her character; but I've never heard her say she did.

Eddie's self absorption, pursuit of wealth and status and so forth were well represented in real life of 1990's. That decade had a bit of continuation of the "go-go" 1980's were it seemed everything was about wealth, status, and me, me, me..

There's also a bit of fact by 1990's many Boomers were getting on, but some refused to go quietly into middle age.

Many of us who were say between late teens to twenties recall seeing some 40 or 50 something man or woman out at clubs or parties desperately trying to act as if they were still young. Of course today 40 isn't old at all, but to someone in their 20's.....

"Did she ever have a stable relationship with any men (and she was straight) over the course of the show?

There was that French businessman who returned for a bit; he and Eddie rekindled their romance/sex relationship and the guy was apparently still smitten. Pat's put an end to that, just as she apparently did to nearly all Eddie's relationships with men.

Other than that it was Eddie's eccentric behaviour that seemingly sent men running away in droves. Justin came out as gay and hooked up with Oliver. Serge couldn't take living with his mother that he not only legged it out of London, but UK and Europe all together, choosing to put as much distance between himself and Eds as possible.

Why do so many American gay males identify with this English failure of a woman?

Somebody once described "Ab Fab" to me this way which made perfect sense:

Saffy: superego

Edina: ego

Patsy: Id

R37

I have to tell you?

[quote] While we're at it, Edina's maiden name along with married name of her mother are never revealed. Called "Mrs. M" by Patsy everyone assumes that stands for "Monsoon" , but that cannot be true.

I don't mean to pooh-pooh your rational analysis, but Saunders has said that she wrote many episodes the night before they shot. We should expect a few logical inconsistencies here and there.

Saunders was probably the girl in school frantically finishing her homework on the bus in the morning.

Lynne Franks Son Josh said it was a pretty accurate portrayal of his Mother and Grandmother, only difference was he was Saffy.

I'm not sure she and Jennifer are speaking now

R33, excellent post. I'd also add that at a certain time "Edina" would've seemed an artsy, trendy name, the kind of name that she would think she'd need to fit in with the crowd she wanted to. " a" by contrast would've been seen as a much more old-fashioned, démodé name.

R40 and R41, one of Saunders' daughters has told the story about how as kids Jennifer would be driving them in the car on the way to rehearsals, and would be getting them to write the scripts down while she recited the lines to them. Many of the actors in the show say they rarely got scripts in time for rehearsals, and Ruby Wax has spoken about how as script editor she would get a mess jotted down that she would have to organise into something coherent. Jennifer has been pretty open that some of the famous lines in the show were actually written by Wax who put them in as she was organising the script, one famously being: "She was so anally retentive she couldn't sit down for fear of sucking up the furniture."

R43, good post!

That "sucking up the furniture" lines was one of my favorites.

R33 - that doesn’t change the fact that it’s spelled Edina. Pronounce it however you want. Spelling and pronunciation are two different things.

a and Edina are two different names you mook.

" a Margaret Rose Monsoon (portrayed by Jennifer Saunders), an only child, was born on 6 August 1951 in London, although she turns 40 on screen in December 1992 (when Saunders herself was 34). She later changed her name to Edina and is nearly always called Eddie; only her mother and ex-husband Justin call her a. "

For the love of god, someone please shit in my mouth!!

a

“I’m chanting as we speak!”

R10 Oppositional Defiance? Or is it only kids who can have that?

People like Eddie are desperate for approval and validation. That's why she was so eager to embrace every fad out there. Remember iso tank and, by the end, she had to get rid of it, because it was no longer considered cool?

She needs others, like Patsy, to get her out of her shell. Patsy knows which buttons to push to get that version of Eddie who pleases her.

Eds got rid of that isolation tank after Pats told her she heard Fergie (as in Sarah, Duchess of York) had one.

Isolation Tank episode is famous for introducing us to Saffy's study group mate Daniel, played by young James Lance.

We also get to meet Eds and Pats headmistress from their school days.

"You dirty, dirty, disgusting, revolting, devil children."

Eds was not a "failure". She had that somewhat successful PR company, a small shop, buckets of money, that house in Holland Park, and so on. Saffy tells her father that Eds has more money in investments and cash than "it's safe for her to know about..."

Of course for many years Eds was bleeding Marshall and Justin dry via alimony payments. But even after those were stopped, Eddie still was doing rather well financially.

Will give you that as a mother, daughter, and social wise Eddie could have used some work.

Both Patsy and Eddie were quite successful for doing nothing. At least Eddie had employees (other than Bubbles) who could make her some money. Patsy on the other hand never even mentioned an assistant or someone who'd do her work as an editor (even when it was just a title given to her by the publisher she shagged). I think it was the final season which had an episode where Patsy found out that she would be eligible for financial benefits she never knew about.

The trip to the "social security" office for Patsy is where she herself learns that she too is apparently loaded. It's a funny moment in the show when the two of them realize that even Patsy is rich.

They're mysterious characters, totally selfish and mean, and yet we take their side, and root for them all the way. I've wondered about that for a long time. In Eddie's tirade in Court, linked up above, she seems demented and irritating, yet I personally agree with every word that comes out of her mouth about the "stupid tax," etc. She's right AND she's an asshole. And, unintentionally, very funny because she's so unashamedly full of herself.

[quote] Both Patsy and Eddie were quite successful for doing nothing.

I think this described a lot of people in fashion/entertainment at the time.

[quote] Eds was not a "failure". She had that somewhat successful PR company, a small shop

This is the thing about what is called "privilege." She had the money to start these companies and hire people, even though she herself didn't really know what she was doing. It applies to many people with inherited wealth (like Donald Trump, for instance) who are clearly insane, but their wealth allows them to hire people who really do the actual work of keeping the company running and "advising" the owner as to the best choices.

R57

Give it a rest with your anti-white/own your privilege nonsense. You've been trolling nearly every thread promoting that odd theory and how poor unfortunate others have been harmed.

Eddie came from a decidedly middle to working class background, no one gave her anything.

Minorities always have to blame someone or something because others have more than themselves. Well answer to that problem is reflected in mirror.

If Edina was born in early 50's, Saunders was really pushing it with the whole 1960's thing and it never made any sense that Patsy was so much older given that she and Edina went to school together.

R59

Show explained why Pats was in same grade or close to Eds.. Patsy's mother was a bit off..

From Ab Fab Wiki page..

"Her unnamed mother, a cold-hearted, absinthe-swilling, bohemian nymphomaniac (portrayed by Eleanor Bron), is seen in flashback in three episodes, and was said by Jackie to have given birth to numerous illegitimate children, with Jackie and Patsy being the last of them. "

Patsy's mother saw her young daughter as competition and kept her mostly locked in her room or otherwise mistreated and or made to keep clear.

In episode where Jackie Stone visits she tells Pats that their mother loved her the most. Proof of this Jackie says was that Pats was the only one of their mother's bastard children she kept and raised. This included sending Pats to school, to which Pats responded "yeah, but by time I got there I was taller than the teacher....". This likely means Pats started school far later than she should, thus could or would have been in same class with younger Edina.

Pats is wealthy!

Patsy was largely wealthy because of wages she was paid for working but never withdrew. So for decades all that money sat in her post office bank account earning compounded interest.

Pats of course was a major mooch who never paid for anything, that's why she didn't spend any of her wages. What wasn't mooched from Eds or someone else Pats got by sleeping around.

It boggles mind that Pats had the brains and follow through to open a post office bank account all those years ago. But to say for two or three decades Pats didn't withdraw a penny of that money, much less was aware it existed is a bit of a stretch. I mean she had the bloody account book for goodness sake.

I thought it was implied in the show that Eddie's parents were quite well-to-do. She had money enough for a pretty debauched scene-queen lifestyle as a teenager. And I doubt a snob like Bettina would have associated with anyone below her in social class.

That said, I don't know enough about London accents to place Mrs. M. or Eddie.

I honestly don't think - and this is just my opinion, but I don't see any facts being mentioned that would contradict it - that Jennifer Saunders was thinking too carefully about issues of continuity and logic when she was writing the show. And I say that as someone who thinks it's perfect.

[quote] I thought it was implied in the show that Eddie's parents were quite well-to-do.

No way!

Do you remember when Eddie's father died, she looked in the coffin and said something like, "I didn't recognize him because I'd never seen him in a suit before."

Can you imagination that generation who didn't have at least one suit to go to church in? Eddie's parents were on the same social strata as Hyacinth Bucket's family.

^^stratum

^^Eddie's family were regular middle-class. Remember Eddie dreaming(or day-dreaming) about returning home from a concert wasted? And her mum seems worlds away from Onslow.

Yeah, but her mom seems like Hyacinth (without the comedy). Trying her best to look a little better. But married to a guy who didn't own a suit.

I doubt Eddie's parents went to church other than for weddings and funerals,.

Religion has been on a downward spiral in the UK for generations, even amongst the middle classes. ,

^^I really didn't get that impression. I wish I could find the aforementioned clip.

a

Since you bitches never read upthread.....

If you are confused as to why "a" is showing instead of a name you typed, or a name you expected to see, please read R21's post.

[quote] Did she have a personality disorder?

I’m sorry are you an idiot?

Which clip? I'll try to find it, too.

It's too much to expect that this show was internally consistent all the time.

Dataloungers always expect this of their sitcoms because they want them so much to be true; but they're ultimately just TV shows.

Strangely, Saunders herself is a churchgoer and wrote an entire sitcom about church life.

Jennifer Saunders is pretty much agnostic/atheist. Jam and Jerusalem was about The Women's Institute.

Her comedy partner Dawn French did 'The Vicar of Dibley' and she's quite evangelical about her atheism.

But didn't she say in an interview that she made Jam and Jerusalem because she "didn't want people to think church life was sinister."

Why would she care about church life is perceived, you know, unless she cares about how church life is perceived?

I'm not saying Saunders is religious (which is a different thing from being in the habit of going to church), I'm saying that people of Mrs. M's generation who dressed liked that and looked like that (I recall them from my childhood) went to church, even if not particularly religious themselves.

Actually, the point I am trying to make precedes that: a man who hasn't worn a suit in 40 years is not a part of the upper middle class. This is a blue collar person.

R78 Maybe she cares about The Women's Institute, which is a fine but declining organization.?

Unfortunately you'd really need to be heading towards the upper classes (inherited wealth) to be able to devote your time to charitable ventures in the UK now.

A decent home outside of London costs $500,000 (in London many times that). Nobody trying to keep their head above water has time for Jam & Jerusalem.

[quote]I don't mean to pooh-pooh your rational analysis, but Saunders has said that she wrote many episodes the night before they shot. We should expect a few logical inconsistencies here and there.

R33, R40: Can't a married woman and her mother both have last names with the same first letter? Bloody hell!

AbFab obviously existed long before the extensively detailed backstories of characters on TV shows were created and there was a series Bible that tracked all of it.

R83 I don't think it has anything to do with timing, more that bibles aren't really a thing with British shows as they tend to have the same writer. And in this case, by her own admission, Saunders is a lazy writer.

I'd rather watch a show that's genuinely funny like AbFab than care if all the backstories add up.

Edina is from a stolidly conformist middle-class background, and has been spending her entire life trying to be something other than middle class! She's spent her life pretending to be an upper-crust socialite or a lower-class Punk or a no-class Hippie, she can't stand to be what she really is because she thinks her real self and her real background are too uncool to be borne. She's unstable because she's constantly trying to re-invent herself and failing to live up to her own expectations and trying another reinvention, she can't appreciate anything in her life because it's never good enough for her, not even the fact that she's made herself wealthy.

Which might be tragic, if she had enough self-awareness to be understand anything at all about herself. But she doesn't, she never really thinks about who she is or what she really want, every molecule of every brain cell is devoted to the eternal quest to impress others. She has no sense of self and doesn't know what she really wants, because she doesn't want to *be* herself.

I have no idea how Saunders managed to take that kind of psychological mess and turns it into comedy, but there we are. Greatest dark comedy TV show of all time!

Katy Wix was hilarious as "Anabelle" (clerk in pension office).

You can see clearly by time Ab Fab did "Identity" and several other later episodes both Eds and Pats have calmed down. Both were actually civil and behaved themselves rather well when claiming Pats pension. This in contrast to their behaviour in court years before.

It was a also nice that Anabelle complimented Eds in her "Prairie Look" outfit. For once it was refreshing for someone to give Eds props on her fashion choices. This as opposed to that girl in art gallery who looked at Eddie as if she crawled out from under a rock. Then of course there was that nurse in hospital who fell out laughing at seeing Eds outfit.

By this time it is well established that Eddie is loaded. Her car was a Maybach 62 long wheelbase sedan. In 2011 that car cost serious coin. Though how she got about London in that behemoth is beyond one to comprehend. Finding parking for such large vehicles isn't easy anymore in London, and God forbid you need petrol.

[quote]But she doesn't, she never really thinks about who she is or what she really want, every molecule of every brain cell is devoted to the eternal quest to impress others.

You mean, like Hyacinth Bucket?

You bitch!

What about Bubble?!

[quote]But didn't she say in an interview that she made Jam and Jerusalem because she "didn't want people to think church life was sinister."

No, she said she said "country life was sinister". She was talking about how most shows at the time set in small country towns like that were shown to have something sinister going on, which she thought was far from the truth.

I think it is in Bonkers she says she's not religious, and her father wasn't either.

R91, thank you for the correction: I had mis-remembered that interview.