We have Rogues, Heroes, Angels and Fools – But what about villains?
A good Corrie villain is hard to come by – At the moment we’ve got the sinister Pat Phelan terrorising the cobbles, and has been excellent in doing so. But in more recent years, the villains have been a little lacklustre. Karl Munro, for example, was no James Moriarty. Caz Hammond hardly had us shaking in our armchairs. And while I could harp on about the writing or the acting and this, that or the other, it really only comes down to one thing. The storyline.
No motivation and a rubbish hero, a good storyline doth not make. Phelan was (and still is) so good because his character has genuine motives for what he does. It was the same with John Stape. Our characters were in real-life (ish) situations which made what they did more realistic and they were, thus, better villains. Add an almost farcical level of ‘cripes how am I going to get out of this one’ and bam! John Stape. Add a Jekyll and Hyde personality in which the watching base can’t decide if they’re a goodie or baddie and bam! Pat Phelan.
Look at a villainous motivation – Pat Phelan wants as much money as possible and then he can jet off to sunny Cancun and will never hear the words ‘Coronation Street’ again in his life. His partner betrays him, and Phelan loses it. Michael tries to find out and oh dear, calamity, he ends up dead. Phelan has to get out of it with his charm and beguiling scouse accent and he does… but not after having to take Andy hostage and… you know the rest from there.
I’m going to have to digress here, but is Andy really a hostage? What is Phelan going to get out of keeping Andy in his pit other that just tormenting him? Andy is not a hostage, at least at this stage. At this point he is just another worry for Phelan to have. Surely Phelan would be better off killing him?
Now look at Karl Munro. What goes through his mind? “Oh, I’m going to have to burn down the Rovers because…” why exactly? He was jealous of Jason? Kills a fire fighter, oh whoops, kills Sunita, oh well. He just did what he liked and it was terrible because he had no reason to do it. Then again, his being terrible may have had something to do with being plot-shackled to Stella Price.
Caz is the same. “Oh I failed to seduce Maria, guess I’m going to have to accuse her of my murder because” Why!? Why does Corrie spit out terrible villains that are just expendable to do things that will be forever enshrined in the corrie history books as a bobbins storyline.
Just do what they’ve been doing for the past decade or two, with a bit of a twist.
I’d recommend this: Have a really great villain every five or so years (as they’re already doing like Don Brennan, Richard Hillman, John Stape, Pat Phelan) but in the intermittent years have two or three alright villains that do something fairly well known. They did it brilliantly in 2014-15 where Tracy and Rob took over for a little bit. And when Phelan was absent, Callum terrorised the Platts.
Keep doing that, Corrie! That was really good!
Thank you for listening to my rantings. On Twitter, I am @OldAuntieMorgan and I post general little thoughts on there a few times a week.
Thanks for reading!
Morgan Bush
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6 comments:
Has Caz had her trial yet? Did we ever find out how long a sentence she got? I really don't want her to return
Tony Gordon is still my favorite villain!
I think my favourite will always be Richard Hillman. I mean who tries to kill someone as sweet as Emily?
Tony Gordon was my absolute favourite villain!
For me it's a toss up between Richard Hillman and Tony Gordon.
Great soap villains have to have a redeeming feature. The writers have only just caught up with that concept and given Phelan a daughter. He might have a sense of humour but it doesn't appeal to me like Tony Gordon's. With male villains, they have to be either sexy or cuddly to offset their evil deeds. Tony Gordon is my all-time favourite, followed by John Stape and Richard Hillman. Phelan is played as a creepy monster, even when he's romancing Eileen! I wish we'd had some understanding of his behaviour before now. Right at the end of his story, the actor says in an interview Phelan has narcissistic personality disorder. Good of them to get the actor to explain.
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