Coronation Street Friday 27th October double episode review

Hiya! It’s just Jordan taking time out from the most hectic week I’ve had in a while to give you my thoughts on Friday’s trip to Weatherfield. I know my reviews have been a little sporadic lately, but I couldn’t not review the drama that unfolded and exploded the other night. I give you fair warning, though, that this is not going to be a happy review. It is going to be a bloody whingey review all the way through. Oh yes. The keyboard is being punched at mercilessly as I type this, trying to figure out a way to summarise just how Corrie concluded what could be called the most notoriously twisted storyline ever.  You probably already know what I’m going to rant about though. Grandmothers were raging and Twitter was ablaze by 9pm Friday night.

Although it is impossible to tell, morning has broken at the Hotel Phelan. A second guest has checked with reservations under the names of Mr Vinny Ashford/Harvey McArdle and he is just waking up to his new surroundings.  Andy is less than pleased with his new roommate, however, as he is under the impression that he was the cause of Michael’s death. As the whole country knows, it was of course Phelan who was responsible for the demise of Gail’s fifth husband. Despite Harvey’s protests, Andy refuses to believe that his psycho kidnapper could possibly kill someone.  Pat and Andy explain to him that he will be a stalemate; the plan – as far as Andy is aware – is that he will see to HarveyVinny in the basement and Phelan will clear off. All sounds very logical. That is until Phelan drops a bombshell. That is not the plan at all. In order for Andy to regain his freedom, he must do one last thing. He must kill HarveyVinny.

But before we get into that, we’d better talk about Nicola – Phelan’s long lost daughter who did more than her usual share of dramatic stomping round the cobbles. Anna had finally told Nicola that her long lost dad had once blackmailed her into having sex with him. She thankfully decides to believe Anna and soon rushes round to see Lydia again, the friend of her late mother who got very cagey when she heard the name Pat Phelan. After coaxing Lydia for a while, more revelations surface. Nicola learns that she was not conceived during an extramarital affair. She was conceived during a rape. She calls Phelan and demands to meet him by the bench that is dedicated to her parents. The perfect place to accuse your long-lost dad of being a rapist. Phelan is told that if he doesn’t take time out from his busy schedule to go meet Nicola by this sodding bench, he will never see her again -  at which point she tells him to stay away. Would she make up her bloody mind? Of course, Phelan denies everything, putting on yet another Oscar-winning performance. Nicola concludes that he is either telling the truth – or lying extremely well. She does seem to get upset about the wrong thing though. Oddly, she seems to care more that even if the sex that led to her conception was consensual, it was just sex, not love. Need I even explain how Nicola ends this murky confrontation? Oh, okay then. I’ll just copy and paste from one of my previous reviews. She storms off. She then swings by number 11 to bray the door down, determined to tell Eileen the truth. Unfortunately, Mrs Phelan is in the shower; this allows for a few words of discouragement from Anna, leading Nicola to climb into the back of a conveniently arriving black cab.

Back to the other half of the Phelan Phiasco, the guests of the hotel are now, after several gloomy choked-up exchanges, preparing for a production of Andy Get Your Gun. And get it he does, albeit with some stagefright. Confused, shaking and really believing he is about to buy his freedom, Andy shoots Phelan’s ex- dodgy-business partner dead. He then points the gun at Phelan, but is talked out of shooting him. In an overly-dramatic twist, Phelan manages to obtain the gun from Andy. We see the exterior of the warehouse thing, and hear a gunshot. After months of this bizarre storyline, it ended with just killing the victim off anyway. What was all that about, Corrie? So, anyway, Phelan closes his victims’ eyes, who are lying neatly beside each other, and bu**ers off to the pub, where he gives a few threats to the foolishly courageous Anna and opens a bottle of Prosecco.

Is it even worth having an “Elsewhere…” section of the review? Almost every scene was dominated by the Phelan saga. A few other scenes, were squeezed in, though. Alya is now trying hard to be a good girlfriend after working overtime and missing an expensive date with Luke. She’s cooking a delicacy: chicken goujons. Then she has a snog with Aidan, and as we all know, kissing someone other isn’t your designated partner in Soapland is the worst thing a person can ever possibly do.

A strange couple of episodes. Too much happened in what was played as one day. Oh – and I would like to ask where Steph is in all of this Andy/Phelan drama? Yes, we know she left for Portugal to live with Katy at the start of this year. But the only reason she went out alone was because she had received a text from Andy’s phone ending their two-year relationship. Why would she accept that he’d end their long term relationship via text? And where was she when Katy died in that car crash the other week? There’s no way she would have – or could have – cut every single tie with Weatherfield. But, despite the ridiculous drama – which at times has been rather nauseating – the acting of Connor McIntyre as Phelan and Oliver Farmworth as Andy must be praised to the highest degree.

As always,

Thanks for reading!

Jordan

Twitter @JordanLloyd39

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