Coronation Street Episode Review Monday 7th May

I suppose that it's good that Corrie continues to confound. When I read that both Shayne Ward and Cath Tyldesley were leaving, I assumed it'd be with the baby, reconciled. I did not expect the end of Aidan's tenure to be this way. These two episodes features three stories of male mental health:-

It takes the first episode for Aidan to put two and two together. The baby is passed around the pub, until she gets to Aidan and then Toyah whisks her away, although he later picks her up in the back room of the pub. "We're more alike than you think," says Johnny, who also didn't know about a baby girl that he fathered. Toyah is foolishly still carrying the paperwork for the cottage in her handbag and Aidan manages to track Eva down. Leanne skypes Eva in a huff and Aidan witnesses her joy when baby Susie comes onto screen and also Leanne saying that Eva hates her ex-fiancé. Leanne notices Aidan's jacket in the background and Toyah spills her wine over the laptop. Aidan drops a few soft hints and Eva demands to know why he's really there. He asks her to dance with him and she tells him she loves him, he tells her that she's the best person he knows and that she's better off without him. Eva reports back to Toyah who tackles Aidan, who says her secret is safe with him. He gives his expensive watch to Liam and tries to engage with his family on their last night together. Eva finds the engagement ring and sees it as a new beginning, rather than an ending. She phones him but he ignores it, goes back to his flat in tears, and it fades to black.

David is convinced that he's going down, but hasn't talked about this with the children, to Gail's chagrin. "I can't pretend there's any happiness or any hope," he says, in a small scene that broke my little heart. Ken sums up things in his precis of a Mozart opera - if a character had known of the pure love another character had for him, he would never have committed suicide (sorry, my knowledge of opera is second to, erm, everyone's). If David, or indeed, Aidan had known that they are loved then what has happened might not have happened. "Don't do what you always do and bottle things up," says Maria, wisely. He tries to break up with Emma, but she doesn't take the hint. Max overhears them and is upset when David says he might be going away.

Bethany is thinking about taking things to the next level with our Craigy, (I thought they were already boy and girlfriend? No?). She asks Craig to talk to her about his OCD and his anxiety and it's going well until Kayla, the new, sassy Speed Daal waitress calls him OCD boy, but it turns out that her mum also has OCD and she is flirty with him (she could give Moira some lessons), much to Bethany's displeasure, and then leaves Craig her phone number.

Daniel has been visiting Flora (off-screen), who is refusing to eat because she is miserable in the new care home. Daniel "abhors the culture of nepotism and favouritism in the council", but he's willing to overlook it, and tries to get Sally to pull a string or two. But Mayor Metcalfe has bad news: unless specific abuse has been recorded, Flora can't be moved.

And in the comedy storyline, the Titian tormentor (Moira) is flirting with Dr Ali, inviting him along to Johnny and Jenny's leaving party so she can get to know him properly (entirely in the Biblical sense).

Rachel Stevenson - on twitter

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