Five Things We Learned In Corrie This Week

Treat Yo Self.  Finally, finally, Gail snapped this week, and it was glorious.  No more being insulted by her rotten children.  No more being harangued into making monk outfits for her irritating grandchildren.  No more getting the cold shoulder from her habitually irresponsible mother.  She told the lot of them to get stuffed and nipped off to Manchester Airport for complimentary champers and a flight to the Far East.  About time Gail thought about herself instead of being a doormat for the denizens of number 8.  I hope this break gives everyone pause about Gail, and they come to appreciate her - especially the writers.  Maybe a few months without Helen Worth on screen will remind them that Gail is a funny, clever woman and not the village idiot.  I can't wait to see her when she returns; hopefully she'll have an amazing time in Bangkok and she'll return a changed woman.  Perhaps she'll fall for the spirituality of Thailand and come back as a serene calm Buddhist.  Perhaps she'll be excited and re-energised from months of hiking and adventuring.  Perhaps she'll have the dewy skin and smug glow of a woman who's spent the summer using dozens of athletic gap year Aussies as her own personal sex toys.  Whatever it is I'm sure it's better than August with the Platts.

If in doubt, lie.  Speaking of the Platt/Tilsley children, this week we got a constant stream of double crosses, back chat and betrayal as David and Nicky tried to outfox one another.  It was all very confusing - by the end of Wednesday's episode I'd completely lost track of what anyone was going to say in court - and not at all interesting.  I'm sure the producers thought it was full of intrigue and tension, a noirish Double Indemnity world where you didn't know who to trust, but it was actually more like a straight to video Tawny Kitaen prison thriller where everyone nonsensically betrays everyone else every five minutes.  Perhaps one of the ones that thinks it's classier than it is, because the closest thing we got to a raunchy soft focus shower scene was Nicky's cellmate's attempt to paint him like one of his French girls.  Unfortunately they were so busy concentrating on Tilsley changing his story again they lost track of which prison it was meant to be.  On the inside we got signs for men's prison HMP Highfield:

 
...but in the break bumper, they used the sign for HMP Norcross:

...which as we know from the last time a resident of the Street was unfairly imprisoned, is the women's prison.  No wonder Nicky kept insisting he didn't belong there.  At least it meant they could get their money's worth out of that set.

Emma has a complicated system for remembering the value of pound notes.  Blue is for fivers, because they're the lowest value, so you're sad.  Brown tenners are a frown, because they're almost as low as a blue one.  And twenties are purple, like a purple patch, because they're the best ones.  Which is all very good and all but couldn't you just look at the big number on the front?  This seems much harder to remember than hunting for the picture of Jane Austen.  Still, it's hard to disagree with her point that fifties are only used by druggies and prostitutes.  I bet Leanne's got a wodge of them in her purse.

Vicky needs rescuing.  At the moment we're in the middle of a complex story where Geoff is slowly taking over Yasmeen's life, destroying her self-worth and making her a prisoner in her own home.  My question is, does he know Vicky?  Because the poor cow doesn't seem to have moved out of her through lounge for weeks.  She even has to phone Robert when she runs out of fruit - he didn't deliver her bananas on Monday, and she was still without them on Wednesday, implying she hadn't been able to just nip to the Happy Shopper in the meantime.  Has someone stolen her door key?  Is she under house arrest?  Admittedly she went to the hospital a while back, but she was accompanied at all times by Robert, so maybe he's in on it.  If you need help Vicky, give us a sign: look at the camera and blink twice and we'll alert the authorities.

Out of sight, out of mind.  Alina's back!  You remember Alina, yeah?  Actually I wouldn't blame you if you'd forgotten about her because according to Corriepedia she hasn't appeared in the show since mid-May.  (I also learned from that page that her full name is "Alina Pop", which sounds like a late 90s girl singer who should've been part of the iconic Thank Abba for the Music medley at the Brits).  Seb mate, if you haven't heard from a girl for two months, she'd probably ghosted you and you should just get over it, not turn up at her place of work and demand a lunch date.  Funnily enough, Jan made his first appearance for two months this week as well.  What are the chances of that happening eh?  I hope he's not involved in this dodgy human trafficking ring - firstly because having two Eastern European characters introduced for no reason other than this storyline leaves a nasty taste in the mouth, and secondly because if Eileen has hooked up with another dodgy duplicitous criminal I think she'll just give up on men altogether and head for the convent. 

The author was extremely pleased to see Alya get a snog off Ryan this week because it's about time she got a nice storyline where she didn't just cry or act like an idiot.  Now she needs to stop sleeping on Craig's floor and get a proper job.  In fact just contact me on Twitter @merseytart, Alya, and I'll be happy to help you get your life together.

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