Coronation Street Friday 5th January episode review

 Hiya! It’s just Jordan with my review of Friday’s explosive trip to…somewhere in Weatherfield.  Lots of drama intertwined together to culminate in one fiery exit. Where to start? Well, Luke is still trying to get to the bottom of just what happened to Andy. He’s taken his time, mind – almost a year – but he has decided suddenly now that this is the time to search for him. Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen Phelan cleverly skirt around the situation with lie after lie. Up until now, Luke believed that Andy had gone to Bristol when he jilted Steph at the airport. Of course, we know now that at this point, Andy had in fact been kidnapped by Phelan. He has arranged to meet Matt, an old friend of Andy’s in a pub in town. Always two steps ahead, though, Phelan has already gone to the pub and coaxed Matt into lying to Luke about Andy’s whereabouts, using Luke's New Years' Day brawl with the racist brothers as ammunition. Unfortunately, however, Luke arrives to the pub at the wrong time (or the right time) and overhears it all.  After Phelan has left, Matt attempts to lie but Luke already knows this is all an act.  Growing ever more suspicious, Luke finds out from Seb that Phelan has gone to the old mill which is his new property development site and races there to find him. Oh no. 

 Determined to find out exactly what happened to the man who broke his sister’s heart, Luke begins to fearlessly quiz Phelan. With the mechanic now able to see through Phelan, his lies cannot cover it. Luke is left with no option than to say he will report Andy missing and this results in a violent scuffle between the pair, a with a rock over Luke’s head and seemingly ending with Phelan being knocked unconscious with a well-deserved punch. Knowing he needs to get away fast, Luke jumps into his car. Typically, Phelan regains consciousness just in the nick of time for a good old soapy car chase.  Luke slips on the soap and crashes as Phelan stops in front of him. He pulls on his gloves and takes a gun from the back of his van. He shoots through the window, thinking he has killed Luke. And then comes that shock thing that Corrie does very well. Luke isn’t dead. Not just yet anyway. Before leaving the scene to wash his van and remove all evidence from Andy’s phone, Phelan mercilessly triggers an explosion by shooting at the petrol tank of Luke’s car. Now he’s definitely dead. All this time, Alya is at the solicitor’s fighting Luke’s case after he beat up those two businessmen for their racist remarks earlier in the week. The evidence is looking like it might work in his favour, not that he’ll need it now.

"Well, you came looking for Andy. Looks like you found him.
Say hello from me"

It’s a bad day for Sean too. He’s started some sort of raw food diet, but it isn’t going well. Over breakfast with Jude and Andy, he complains that it’s boring. No wonder! Why doesn’t he just do Slimming World? Anyway, without thinking, he pushes his fruit towards baby George, who as we know, is allergic to bananas. This sets Angie off on her overprotective rant about how he could possibly be allergic to all fruit. Sean later rants about them – and all their child’s medical issues - to Eileen in the café, just as they walk in. Later on, when he’s at work at the Medical Centre, Dr Gaddas calls him into her office. It transpires that there has been a complaint regarding him breaking confidentiality rules and discussing medical issues in public. Before she can dismiss him, he storms out like the pathetic diva he is. When he’s at work at the pub later on, he angrily confronts Jude and Angie, presuming they put the complaint in. As it turns out, they didn’t. But Peter is so sick of Sean’s attitude as of late, he sacks him immediately. 

 Elsewhere, there’s for drama for #Kana as Rana promises Kate that she will end things with Zeedan today and explain all to their families. She says she is ready, but of course, to prolong this contrived storyline even further, she isn’t. When she doesn’t go through with the revelations and confessions, Kate does a bit of whinging (as always) and seems to break their affair off for good. But the real drama in this episode came from the fabulously written comedy storyline:

So, in order to patch things up with the factory girls after her elaborate affair revenge plot closed the factory down, Eva offers to throw a nail-painting party. They reluctantly accept. Eva is thrilled as she is desperate for friends again, but Toyah throws a massive tofu spanner in the works. She’s holding her meeting with the Weatherfield Vegan Association at the pub and will not change her plans for the sake of a nail party. There are so many things wrong here. I think the main issue is that – now that Toyah seems to have upgraded her vegetarianism to veganism – a vegan is running the Rovers! You can’t have a vegan landlady running a pub where the only thing on the menu is flaming hotpot! Poor Betty would be spinning in her grave! Anyway, after some brilliant eyerolls and snipes about vegans from the ever-wonderful Eva, Leanne diffuses the situation between her sisters by getting them to compromise. It’s now a Vegan Association nail party. It all seems to be going swimmingly well and the two sides seem to appreciate each other. Even Beth enjoys the vegan ice cream and is amazed she can still have alcohol. But later on, after the apparent success, it transpires that the nail varnish wasn’t vegan! Oh no. What an absolute tragedy. Ha!

"I've got some mates from Weatherfield Vegan Assoication
coming round for a talk!"
"Well, I'm sorry but you'll have to talk about avocados somewhere else"

"

 Overall, a couple of really good episodes. High drama perfectly balanced with the best comedy story I’ve seen on Corrie in a very long time. This is what we need. Although, maybe not a murder every five minutes.

As always,

Thanks for reading!

Jordan

Twitter @JordanLloyd39

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