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Saturday 6 February 2016

Coronation Street double episode review, Friday 5 February 2016

Hell hath no fury like a Sally scorned, especially if it’s on behalf of someone else, and Jenny bears the full brunt at the factory where she continues to be suspected of stealing.

Things go from bad to worse when Jack escapes she with the cape and clipboard and makes a run for Underworld where Jenny is working alone after hours. Meanwhile Kevin, Sophie and Tyrone scour the street to no avail. Despite the police usually being called at the mere sound of a glass breaking in the Rovers, they go untroubled on this occasion. As the search party reconvene at the garage, they’re shocked to see Jack emerge from Underworld with Jenny, and a verbal bun fight ensues with Sally arriving on cue.

After sniffling from Sophie, arched eyebrows from Anna, and reticence from Rita, Jack finally tells Kevin the truth, and he’s wracked with guilt for accusing Jenny of kidnap. He says sorry and begs her to stay as Rita arrives with another apology for doubting her. As Kevin removes her bags from the back of her getaway vehicle, we have one of those 'oh how we laughed' moments that seem to appear more frequently in Corrie of late, and herald an instance of 'moving on'. I think we can expect all to be forgiven as far as Kevin is concerned from here-on-in.

It’s clear that Jenny won’t forget Sally’s treatment of her that easily, however, as she delivers an icy threat in the Rovers that the Councillor-in-training had better back off, or else. The question is, do we have a reformed Jenny in our midst who is simply sick and tired of Sally’s swipes, or does she harbour a dark side? The fact that an earlier conversation, in which perky Kirk lightly espoused the merits of dogs, was punctuated by Jenny coldly remarking “You know what happens to flies, don’t you? They get swatted” might indicate the latter. Whatever the reality, I’m loving Jenny’s return.

As Sinéad drops a sugary tea into Johnny, he keeps her back to show her a picture of a leggy model, and asks what she thinks of the image before suggesting he’d essentially like to see ‘real’ women in her place. It was a rather odd turn of events to say the least, and it got stranger after Sinéad passed the idea on to Aidan, and he later confirmed, in the Rovers, that O’Driscoll loved it and would be using it as the basis for their new ad campaign. Not only that, father and son ask Sinéad if she’d like to be the underwear model, and, despite pulling her cardigan tightly around herself, she agrees. All rather bizarre.

Meanwhile, there’s a thaw on between Aidan and Johnny after Kate threatens to cancel her wedding if they don’t sort their differences out.

With accusations of corruption in the Council reducing the election lead-in time to a mere 4 weeks, it’s all systems go for Sally’s campaign; well, at least where she’s concerned.

Like two rival candidates, Sally’s lack of class and upwardly mobile aspirations ran side by side throughout both episodes, finally colliding at the polls in a conversation with Audrey in which she oscillated between attempting to inspire the some time Councillor and widow of same to pass her the baton of electoral knowledge, and bellowing at a passing Jenny Bradley. Having essentially stolen Audrey’s book of contacts out of her hand, Sally hightails it over to Ken’s with the owner in pursuit so he can separate the “somebodies from the nobodies”. As they chat slogans and manifestos, Tim is as useful as the uneaten apple he carries throughout, and Ken is deliciously irritable. In any event, it’s clear that Ken feels they have their work cut out for them, and is none too pleased about it.

Leanne might be afraid to celebrate Simon’s positive progress at counselling, but she happily quaffed something fizzy with Eva in the Bistro as they talked chat up lines with an unusually extroverted Andy. ”Our Andy’s quite the mystery man” Leanne remarked as he revealed his technique. He sure is; he once pretended to be the son of his boss’s father-in-law, and continued to do so even after he’d died.
In any event, the sisters’ planned night of clubbing goes awry when Eva disappears. The blow is softened for Leanne when she’s chatted up at the bar, but she’s not the only one to encounter a stranger, as Eva discovers sixteen year old Marta hiding in Underworld. She’s appalled to learn the she has been working for people who have her passport and she’s afraid to tell the truth for fear her family in Poland will be harmed.

It’s wonderful to be the invisible guest at the Rovers bar in the company of Liz, Eileen, Erica and Mary. A highlight was surely their faces after Mary declared, “Amongst you all, the corpses of dead relationships must lie ten deep” before rushing to the bathroom. There has been a clear, if rather speedy, recovery for Mary over the last few episodes, perhaps inspired by Erica encouraging her to think of herself as a woman of the world. Tonight, as Sean put ‘I Will Survive’ on the jukebox for her, we had a visual of her resolve in motion as she listened and nodded profusely. 

It appears almost every writer at the moment is dusting off their quill to pen her lyrical effusions of love, loss, and the merits, or otherwise, of keeping one’s hand on one’s ha’penny. Mary may not dare to admit it herself, but it is as if she has now transitioned into enjoying the drama of it all as she declares herself more fit for the Victorian age and announces “Brendan’s gone back to wifey, and I’ve been used, abused and cast aside” before popping a digestive into her mouth. As with Kevin’s attitude towards Jenny, from tonight, I feel we will see less of heartbroken Mary, and the emergence of a new dawn.

Gloria Gaynor wouldn't have it any other way.

By Emma Hynes
Twitter: @ELHynes

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10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was thrilled with tonight's episode - even had me laughing a couple of times - it was one of the episodes where the wrong people finally got their comeuppance and the right ones could be smug. Oh to savour the glory of it all. I just may go back and watch it again as it was that enjoyable. Yeah - our Corrie is back doing what they do best. Thank you.

Dime said...

In the scene where Eva talks to the hungry Polish girl, did anyone else notice the rather loud squishy noise of the fork poking around the food?

Anonymous said...

I saw the lesser-sрotted Alya last night! What is her role in the factory now? She seemed to be sitting and 'working' with the machinists - it's time for her and the Nazirs to go methinks!

Louby said...

Remember Maria's transformation years ago when she swapped from kennel maid to hairdresser and became much more glamorous? The strange scenes as described above make me think that the same is about to happen to Sinead.

I would guess that the arrival of Marta in the factory will cause difficulties with business with O'Driscoll. Would the girl's disappearance not have put her family in danger though?

Humpty Dumpty said...

Obviously we have to understand what Marta is saying, but struggling with her English would have given the scene with Eva more tension. She's 16 and, although she may have been here some time, I'm guessing that she doesn't go to school.

Anonymous said...

Love the line "she of the cape & clipboard" - I can't figure out why she makes so much noise when walking on the cobbles - doesn't make sense unless those boots of hers weigh a ton. I was surprised to see Alya also - I guess they let her out of the cupboard for one evening. The strange part was no mention of where she had been hiding. I guess they don't like her very much as they don't seem to be bothered whether she is there or not. I presume the same will happen with the rest of the Nazirs, except for Zeedan. I wonder if they brought Alya back to segue into her introducing Zeedan to her old uni mate?

MartesBC said...

Thank you for your great blog, Emma! This was a wonderful episode with some terrific set ups for stories to come. Dime, you are right the audio was quite irritating in Martha's scene. Wrong prop for a quiet speaking actor. They may need to mic the boots separately for Sophie too, :)

Emma Hynes said...

Thank you, Anon @ 14.08, glad you liked it.

Emma Hynes said...

Cheers, MartesBC! It's always nice to hear when readers have enjoyed our blogs.

Anonymous said...

I wondered why was Jack with Sally in the first place[no wonder he wanted to run off.]?It seemed a contrived ploy for Jenny to be set up and falsely accused again particurely since Jack has been all but ignored by his father who seemed more interested in his love life of late.

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