Sometimes bad people are just bad. Evelyn delivered a lovely speech to her out of The Two Of Us, all about how Hope was a bit of a nightmare but she was still a wonderful child. It was touching and taught us all how you shouldn't rush to judge. (I also enjoyed the latest installment of Evelyn using Ruby as child labour, as she set her to work colouring in placards). Until the end of the episode, when this happened:
It couldn't have been clearer that Hope is still EEEEEVIL if they'd CGI'd horns and a spiked tail on her. Nine months in Birmingham has been a complete waste of time; Hope continues to be possessed by Satan and the best thing Fiz and Tyrone could do is buy a cage and a crucifix.
Reality raises questions. The houses on Coronation Street are made out of rubber, we all know that. They have enough bedrooms for however many people need to live there. There are approximately four hundred people currently living in the Platt household, while Maria is somehow managing to squeeze herself, her son, and two lodgers into that poky flat over the hairdressers. We accept this, and just go with it. So it was something of a jolt for us to get a storyline this week about there not being enough room in Dev's house for all four members of the family. Firstly, this means Mary is being turfed out on the streets, which is heartbreaking; if she ends up under a viaduct like Sean I will personally head over to ITV Studios and tie myself to the gates until she is rehoused. Nobody should upset Mary. Secondly, we realised that Asha and Aadi have been sharing a room all this time. A teenage brother and sister sleeping in the same room is horrifying. All those embarrassing puberty-related problems with someone of the opposite sex two feet away. No wonder Aadi stayed in India for another couple of weeks. A teenage boy getting a room of his own for the first time in years? I'm surprised his right arm hasn't fallen off.
A moment of applause, by the way, for Mary's cake-based tribute to the Indian Subcontinent. Get that woman on Bake Off immediately!
The lies keep coming. This week, Robert... oh I can't be bothered. You know the drill by now. Robert told a lie. He got caught out. He told another lie to cover up the first lie. He hung around Vicky's front room furrowing his brow (even though Vicky wasn't even in Friday's episode, giving the impression she operated a kind of open house policy for any man who knocked her up). He got caught lying by Michelle, so he did another petty crime, and she believed him again. In fairness it all seems to be working for Robert, because he's still stringing both women along quite happily, so he may as well carry on doing it forever. It'll be 2040 and Robert will be telling Michelle he has to nip to Asda for the afternoon so he can attend his secret daughter's graduation from university.
There was a moment where it looked like Michelle was going to finally drag Robert over the coals for his behaviour. Michelle was horrified to learn two grand had gone from the safe, money that had been handed over to Jed, and Robert managed to cover his tracks by telling her he'd used the money to buy her a new ring. Michelle was unhappy - but it turned out she was unhappy because he'd used the restaurant's money to buy the ring, whining "I feel like I've paid for half of it". It's 2019, most couples pay for the rings together anyway, unless the bride is a totally self-centred - oh right. Never mind. Still, with Craig telling her all about the ring's provenance, maybe everything will come crashing down. Or maybe it won't, and this storyline will continue until the Sun goes supernova and consumes the Earth.
Never follow a man to a truckstop. Has anything good ever happened in a truckstop? It's basically a centre for food poisoning frequented by perverts and men who want to abandon the carpet-wrapped corpse of their latest victim. Eileen learned this lesson when she went to say goodbye to the love of her life, Jan (she's known him about four months, by the way) and he promptly got shot by Rachel, who has a gun, somehow, and isn't in prison. I'm not sure why she wants to kill Jan - he's a witness to the people trafficking ring, yes, but so are all the girls who were trapped there, and Seb, and a dozen other people. Maybe she's just bitter. The attempted murder got a sudden moment of flourish with a fish-eye lens and everything.
That could've come out of a movie - one that starred Vinnie Jones and went straight to video, but still, it's a bit more dramatic looking than the usual series of close-ups we get in the show. Eileen reckons she's going to run off with Jan now, but as we learned the last time someone close to her was shot and she decided to leave the Street to run off to the provinces with them, the pull of Weatherfield is too much. She'll be back in a couple of months, probably with a very nice tan.
Cut it! CUT IT! "Shall I get my hair cut?" asked Seb as he finished boarding up Eileen's window (he thought it was totally reasonable that she'd smashed it while trying to kill a wasp; did he think it was that giant one that tried to kill Agatha Christie in Doctor Who?). "YES!" screamed everyone watching and thrillingly, it looked like he'd listened, as the next thing we knew he was actually in the barber's.
Except, apparently, this was the after. Maria had already worked her magic on him. What did she do, stand behind him making clipper noises then asked for twenty quid? I know we all try new things as teenagers - I tried growing my hair long once as well, and I ended up looking like Cousin Itt, only oilier - but enough is enough.
Yes, yes, it's very lustrous and shiny, but Britain has agreed you'd look a lot better with a nice short back and sides, so pop along to Audrey's and get it sheared will you? There's a good boy.
Craig informed Sean this week that sarcasm was the lowest form of wit. The author has now realised he is the lowest of the low. Send your commiserations via Twitter @merseytart.
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