Always Voggle. Eileen - the woman who was, until recently, married to a serial killer - discovered that Jan was a drug dealer once Liz did a few choice internet searches. After a bit of soul searching, she decided to look past this and continue with their relationship. And I'm afraid that's the point where I started victim blaming and decided that Eileen was frankly asking to be throttled in her bed. Fool her once, shame on you. Fool her twice, she deserves everything she gets. Also, shouldn't you have done this kind of research before you invited him to live with you? It's all going to end horribly and I bet she still won't learn a thing. Once Jan has run off back to Warsaw with all her savings, Eileen will sigh, pick herself up, and start a new relationship with a Romanian man called Drac Ula who works nights and hisses every time Billy walks past and who definitely isn't hiding anything in that coffin he keeps in the cellar.
Dr Freud is needed in Weatherfield. Maria had a pretty disastrous week, love life wise, as she hopped from one terrible interaction with a man to another. There was the man who she more or less sexually harassed in the barber, there was the man with the overbearing mother, and there was the man who was a pup on the weekends. (Incidentally, as further proof that Michelle is awful, while Maria rightly said live and let live - "he's not hurting anyone" - the Exalted Queen of the Universe sniggered behind her hand at Rex's perfectly harmless fetish. Which makes me think she's really vanilla). She concluded that Liam was the only man who ever loved her (and those of us who can remember all that heavy breathing he did over Carla behind her back bit our lip) and decided to embrace celibacy. This being Maria, that decision lasted all of fourteen minutes, and soon she was snogging Ali. On the face of it this seems like an ideal match - they're both insanely good looking, perfectly charming people - until you remember Maria used to be married to his uncle Liam. And that his last girlfriend was Carla, who used to be married to his uncle Paul. Add in the fact that both women bear a striking resemblance to the mother he only discovered when he was a teenager and suddenly it's all getting disturbingly Oedipal. Might be time to get back on Tinder, Maria. That bloke's showtune singing mother might be a bit much, but at least you're not trapping yourself in a Greek tragedy.
Weatherfield Police remain the worst. Oh my God, are we still talking about the Underworld disaster? Notre Dame's roof collapse got less airtime. In perhaps the most contrived alibi yet seen on the show, Beth just happened to have one of her photography mates' photos, and she just happened to drop it in front of Nicky, and he just happened to spot that he just happened to be in it and it just happened to be a photo taken on the morning of the roof collapse when he just happened to be jogging miles away and he just happened to remember all that. (Also he referred to that as a canal when it is clearly a boating lake). This was all well and good but there was no exact time to have an alibi for. Yes, Beth heard a noise, but she also thought it might be cats, and could only pinpoint the time through reference to Lady Gaga and cheesy puffs, so it didn't neccesarily mean it was the saboteur she heard. After Gary did whatever he did to the roof, it didn't fall down immediately, but instead stayed up for hours more, and only collapsed when Sally and Gina had a scrap on top of it. In other words, it could've been sabotaged any time. Nicky could've done it before he went for his run. Or when he got back. Or three weeks earlier. Unless THE REPORT somehow managed to forensically pinpoint the exact moment someone loosened a few bolts, in which case Wayne is an absolute genius.
Actually, speaking of Wayne, did the police ever find out who broke into his car? Because that was an actual honest-to-God crime, committed by someone with a strong motive to get hold of THE REPORT, where there would be forensic evidence and a tight timescale of opportunity. And since THE REPORT turned up under Nicky's bed, I think we have a really obvious candidate for who should be arrested for theft and criminal damage. But as we all know, Weatherfield Police only arrest people when there is no evidence against them whatsoever, so I look forward to, I don't know, Ruby being locked up for it in the near future.
Underworld is in even worse shape than we thought. Beth's decision to sell her share of the factory - or possibly shares, because even when they were actually making a plot point of it, they couldn't decide if it was one or several - gave us a little bit of info on how much the factory is worth. She accepted an offer of two grand for her portion of Underworld, having offered it to Sean (who was homeless last year and is now sleeping on Billy's sofa, so is obviously loaded) and Paul (who only recently came out of prison and is living - actually, where is Paul living? Because Rita chucked him out, and then he said he was going to move into that bail hostel that everyone got steamed up over for two episodes and promptly forgot about). Anyway, if we say there were - let's be generous - fifteen people given a portion of the factory by Carla, if we include Dirk and all those people who stand at the back and nod, and those shares are worth about two grand each (which they're not, because Beth had to settle for "face value", which was less), then that means their fifty percent is worth £30,000. You could get the whole of Underworld for sixty thousand pounds. I bet the Baileys paid more than that for number 3. Why are people always so desperate to own this business again? Beth's sales pitch to the others that they could have twice the vote also fatally underestimated the fact that Nicky owns half the business anyway so absolutely nothing could get done without his say so. I'm starting to think the only reason this plotline was introduced was so that ITV could get about fourteen mentions of "Love Island" in Britain's favourite soap opera. Corporate synergy!
Imran will believe anything. I get that he's blinded by vengeance and everything, but can Imran use a bit of his analytical solicitor brain at some point to try and think about who might be responsible for Rana's death? At the moment he just believes it's the last name he heard. First he blamed Carla, then he blamed Nicky, and Gary only got the slightest bit of collar fondling before Imran was running around the Street telling everyone he was murdering scum and deserved to be locked up forever. Gary couldn't let him do that, so he came up with an utterly ridiculous story about Rick being responsible, and Imran believed that. It's like he has the memory of a goldfish. Next week he'll be stood in the queue at the coffee shop, they'll call out a latte for Claudia, and Imran will convince himself she's responsible for the roof collapse and pin her to the ground in a citizen's arrest outside the tram stop.
The author was disturbed to note that even though the Baileys had bricked up the hole in the wall at number one, Ken still hadn't replaced that awful wallpaper. He is therefore organising a whip-round to get him a B&Q Gift Card so he can redecorate the parlour in a style that's a bit less 10 Rillington Place. If you want to make a donation, contact me via Twitter @merseytart.
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