Do you think that deep down Edina did really love Saffy?

Also, what was with Edina's mom? June Whitfield played her so well and with so many dimensions that I could never figure out what her relationship with Eddie was really like.

Edina is not an evil character, everyone isn't cut out to be a parent, she's too childish & more interested in following the latest trends. Patsy's & Edina's, over the top, petty behavior is what makes the show such fun.

Even though she was posh, Edina reminded me of the William H. Macy character Shameless: someone who wants to do the right thing, but is generally too self-involved & damaged to do it.

Nice post, OP.

Edina is someone who wants to be cool like Patsy, be slim like Patsy, bag as many men as Patsy. She is a deeply insecure, flawed human being who looks up to the absolute train wreck that is Patsy Stone.

She knows she’s an awful mother and that she comes up short as a daughter — but when you realise that Mother, played by the brilliant, late June Whitfield, is a stiff middle-class (from humble beginnings) tart who probably suffocated her as a child/teen, it’s easy to understand why Edina turned out the way she did.

Notice how she’s constantly looking for Patsy’s approval, a woman who only leeches off others and would simply find her “next Edina” were the original Edina Monsoon to drop dead.

Thanks to her ex-husband’s alimony, she’s living large and tries to somehow make it in the superficial world of fashion, glamour, and PR. “Names, names, names, darling!”. But not-so-deep inside, she knows she will never be one of them.

It’s really a well-developed character, whereas Patsy is almost entirely one-dimensional (and so very funny) comic relief.

She resented that her body changed after birth. And forever associated Saffy with that. I dont think she was good at dealing with things and brushed them under the carpet instead of sorting them out. She was always shoo shooing things away that would make her have to get serious.

Edina felt guilty but way after she and Patsy had severely screwed Saffy as in Morocco.

“ Is It A Dwarf “

I always thought the bit with Edina agreeing to sell Saffy in Morocco was ridiculous. It just wasn't in keeping with the dynamic between them for the rest of the show.

Jennifer Saunders always said the key to their relationship was that Saffy had to be the parent to Edina: because of this, Edina relied greatly on Saffy. Edina would get very exasperated with her, and even held her Victorian attitudes in contempt, but she very much wanted Saffy's approval and her help.

The only moment that caught me off guard was when Saffy announced it was her birthday and Edina had totally forgotten it. Eddie looked distraught and then immediately went into some kind of shopping mode.

Mrs. Monsoon was more of a mother to Patsy than she ever was to Edina. Which is why they get along better. Patsy and Jackie were the way they were because their promiscuous hippie mother was an abusive narcissistic sociopath.

Some of her worst qualities ending up rubbing off on the two girls. Patsy is several years older than Edina and didn't start going to school until "she was taller than the teacher." She was locked into a room by her mother from birth until she was a preteen. Her mother was jealous of her and hated Christmas.

At one point Patsy breaks down and screams at Saffron for being ungrateful because she wished she could've gone to university and had the type of opportunities Saffron had when she was her age.

Jackie even tells Patsy that their mother's funeral (which Jackie didn't attend) was a good thing. If we were to rank each female character who happens to be a mother from worst to best, it would look something like this:

1. Patsy and Jackie's mother - WORST 2. Edina 3. Katy Grin (Bubble's snobby cousin) 4. Mrs. Monsoon 5. Saffron - BEST

Awful people? Patsy and a were examples of who I wanted to be. Is that a bad thing?

Mrs. Monsoon pretended to be daffier than she really was, mostly for protective reasons. She wanted to spend time with Saffy and knew to do so she'd have to spend time with Edina, who deeply resented her for her conventional background and for neglecting her glamorous side. Mrs. Monsoon would endure some snipes from Edina (who always called her "old woman"), but she knew Edina would lose interest in being angry with her if she just feigned to be more out of it than she really was.

All the same, Mrs. Monsoon would seize upon occasions to passive-aggressively undermine her daughter when she felt she deserved it, such as when she sold some of Edina's Christian Lacroix clothes to the jumble shop.

One thing that united Edina and Mrs. Monsoon was that neither of them really cared that much for Mr. Monsoon. Saffy seemed to be the only one who genuinely mourned him when he died.

I’m having false repressed memory therapy. A wood, hood, it’s all coming back…..

No..

I frequently quote Edina to my dog, "I do quite love you, you know."

Yes, deep down she loved her but she would never admit that in front of Patsy.

Let’s be the time Eddie and Patsy take Saffy to the park bouncing on LSD.

"As your mother I cannot be held responsible for your well being."

“By the way, sweetie, people have it off.”

— Drunk Edina, explaining the birds and the bees to Saffy in the middle of the night

Here I am, your mother, poised for your first sexual experience and night after night, dry bloody sheets! I'm sorry, darling, but I don't want a little moustached virgin for a daughter, so do something about it!

Julia Sawalha has said she's surprised when Saffy is described as a victim, because she thought of the character as just as manipulative as Edina but in a passive-aggressive, smarter way.

“He’s not from Gabon, so shut up!”