As we all know, Stella Price now lies in critical condition in hospital after being mown down in Coronation Street by drunk driver Carla while standing outside the bookies screaming "Leanne!" up at the window in a scene reminiscent of Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire.If she recovers (and odds are she will) I wonder what the future holds for her relationship with Leanne.
My own view? Leanne is presently wracked with guilt about how she treated Stella and that's not fair. Stella didn't deserve to get run over but she certainly deserved a tongue lashing. If I were Leanne I'd have told her to "butt out and stay out" long ago. Stella turned up on Coronation Street in order to "get her daughter back" whether Leanne liked it or not. Totally unreasonable.
You can't foist relationships on people like that. If she wanted to re-establish a proper relationship with her daughter she should have at least phoned first, or sent a tentative letter.
And I can't blame Eva for getting upset about it all, either.
Anyone else have any thoughts?
10 comments:
I can't blame Eva got being upset but she's acting as childish about it all as Faye. She doesn't have to like it but she should support her mother a bit more about it like grown up Karl has. yes i do agree, if Stella wanted to get back in touch there were better, less in-your-face ways of doing it. Leanne is giving her mother mixed signals, though. She's friendly one minute and telling her off the next.
IMO, the whole Stella and family story has been played wrong. Stella and Karl should be married and the parents of a 20 year old Eva (played like a Rosie character), who has been spoilt rotten. Her childish behaviour would be much better understood and obviously she would greatly resent a half-sister, 10 years older than her, getting a load of attention. As it is, it seems like Stella left Leanne and went off to have another child with person unknown 2(?)years later.
With all this blowing up in Stella's face, Karl should be saying 'I told you to Facebook her etc'. As far as Leanne's attitude towards her mother, I guess it's believable she would blow hot and cold. Strange that she hasn't asked who Eva's dad is. (Or is it Karl?) All very messy.
I really like it!
Eva is only meant to be about 22/23, isn't she, although the actress is a bit older.
I don't blame Leanne for blowing hot and cold. For one thing, that's in character for her - she's always been moody. For another...trying to forge a relationship with a long-estranged parent is hard. She isn't even really sure she wants to do it - Stella backed her into a corner by turning up unannounced like that, and although Stella has since admitted that she handled the reunion very badly and apologised for it, the end result is the same: Leanne is forced into a relationship she wasn't prepared for. She has been trying to get along with Stella and get to know her, but she was absolutely right the other day when she said that they are always on best behaviour around each other. At this stage, in order to have a relationship they have to be because the issues and damage that hang between them are too great. I think it is realistic that Leanne is able to make that effort some days (although has clearly found it hard going all along) but other days is just too tired or fed up or just plain angry to be able to play happy families.
So, yeah. Stella's handling of the situation in general has been pretty lousy and set everyone off on the wrong foot. But on the other hand, she's held her hands up to that and it is too late to change it now. And I like that she is an imperfect character who makes mistakes - I also like that it is possible to see a lot of Leanne in her actions and reactions at times.
Not the mum from hell - just from hell
IMO the character of Stella was shoved in our faces and now that she's at death's door it's supposed to be all warm/fuzzy feelings all over. I'm not getting that at all. I don't find her character likeable nor Leanne's reaction to her believable due to the rotten continuity of the storylines. One minute Leanne is sobbing in her Mum's arms after losing her baby, the next she's telling her to sodoff...it's just not on...sorry. They should have waited a few months so the could really bond before the Stella run-down scenario but there you have it.
This is a perfect excuse to exercise the soap classic - coma! Then, she can wake with, you guessed it - amnesia! As a result, Leanne could feel compelled to get closer to Stella but Stella could then turn the tables and send mixed signals to Leanne. It could also provide an opportunity for a personality transplant and accent change [apparently possible with head trauma]. Problem solved. :)
One minute Leanne is sobbing in her Mum's arms after losing her baby, the next she's telling her to sodoff...it's just not on...sorry.
You don't think that's believable? I find Leanne's mixed emotions perfectly believable. People are not consistent. Emotions, especially heightened emotions, can swing all over the place. Leanne allowed Stella to comfort her when she was in terrible pain over the loss of her baby - just as Eva allowed Leanne to comfort her in her distress on Monday - because in that moment her distress was greater than her anger and resentment. But once that moment was over, it seems to me to be a perfectly normal human reaction to go back to being stiff and uncomfortable with this mother she barely knows and has 30 years worth of resentment toward. Leanne has days where she is prepared to make an effort with Stella, give her the benefit of the doubt and try to forge a relationship with her, because Peter has encouraged her to at least try and because deep down inside there is part of her that has always longed to have a mother of her own. But she also has days where she is too fed up and resentful to make that effort - and let's face it, Leanne has always been prone to taking her bad moods out on the people she is closest to, whether they deserve it or not. Her attitude toward Stella is inconsistent, sure, but that doesn't make it implausible or poor writing - it actually makes it more believable, a very natural human reaction. What would be unbelievable would have been if after the miscarriage she was completely fine with Stella, as if the 30 years of abandonment had never happened. Because they did happen, and although both have now expressed a willingness to at least try to build some kind of relationship, those 30 years of abandonment are always going to hang between them, huge and irrevocable. Just like Ken's abandonment of Peter still comes between them at times, because it is too big to ever get over completely, however strong of a relationship they have built since.
I think Leanne finding out Stella was her real mother was done far too quickly, within days I think of the family "moving in" on Steve. And Karl didnt even know? Plus the fact that I think Stella comes across as a pretty insipid character that we (or I) dont really engage with or care too much about. As we all know Michelle Collins wont be written out all this da da da - will she live or die claptrap in the papers - is just rather daft. And I would like to see rid of Eva as I still find her pointless and unpleasant and like Stella miscast with other soap actors when unknowns could have made the roles their own and more credible.
I agree with Llewela, Leanne's mood swings are psychologically more plausable than a happy-ever-after acceptance. I actually groaned when she and Stella hugged after the miscarriage - afraid that they were going to tie everything up nice and neatly. Okay, I could buy thier needing comfort in the moment, but emotional incidents like that can be prone to a reset button the next day - which was in fact reflected in the way things played out; the slightly awkward, walking on eggshells politeness on both sides that followed. Frosty is quite right that the whole story strand has been played out much too quickly. I can;t help wondering if they might have played a longer game had not the details of the storyline leaked after Michelle's casting, although I doubt it as wham-bamb, Desperate Housewives-paced plot threadsw seem to be the norm these days. How much better, surely, to have give Stella three months running the Rovers, (with Carl in tow) with just subtle mysterious little hints at another agenda. During that time you establish Eve with a couple of visits; let us see their regular mother/daughter relationship before all the strain of (a) Eve's bust up with her fellah & (b) the Leanne revelation places such a strain on it.
Let's not forget, Daran Little spent a full three years developing the character of Todd Grimshaw, with the intention of him coming out as Corrie's first gay character. We grew to like Todd and care about what he was going through: contrast that with Xin, who breezed in from Shang-hai (or wherever) with an English RP accent, cried a lot into the egg foo-yong and who no-one gave a toss about. The root of the problem, of course, is five episodes a week. With all that air-time to fill, it's INEVITABLE that storylines become accelerated.
If they're going to keep the 5 eps, then they must realise that the way to augment the big stories is with much more of the wonderful random whimsy scenes that the show was built on. Emily, Rita, Norris, Eileen (in old Cab Office mode), Roy, Silvie and Dennis are all at their disposal. I loved the 'inquest' on the Marcia business in which Gail & Sally were added to Rita & Mary. This scene was a direct decendant of the old Snug scenes with Ena, Minnie & Martha. (I also really liked the fact that Stella was the only one not to bat an eyelid at Marcia - her wider horizons could be developed).
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