Five Things We Learned In Corrie This Week

It's the beginning of the end.  I know Daniel dismissed the idea last week, but has anyone actually checked if Sinead is allergic to weddings?  The odds may be slim but that's two-for-two in her getting absolutely horrible cancer news on her wedding day.  Are they making the cake out of radon?  Is Tracy shipping in the flowers from Fukushima?  Is her "something borrowed" a rod of uranium tucked in her garter?  It's bad news all round, and deeply sad that poor Bertie is going to lose his mum at such an early age.  This is the earliest Barlow loss yet; Adam was a teen when his mum died, Peter & Susan were in primary school, and Simon was five when his mum succumbed to cancer.  Actually this is all starting to look suspicious - should we get DS MacKinnon in to investigate why all these children are losing their mums?  Daniel now faces a future of being a single father - unless he follows his dad's example and sends Bertie off up to Scotland to come back after twenty years without so much as a Scottish accent - and Sinead tried to prepare him for the prospect.  She asked him to remember her to Bertie, with photos and videos, as she was worried he wouldn't know her voice growing up.

You've no need to worry on that score Sinead.  Daniel can get Auntie Tracy in to read Bertie his stories and it'll be like you never went away.

Being caught in the middle is no fun.  Robert continues to juggle two girlfriends, seemingly deciding on an hour by hour basis which one is his current favourite.  I bet he's got a spreadsheet on his computer and everything.  Monday, 14:28: Michelle brings me a cup of tea.  +5 points.  Thursday, 17:00: Vicky lets me watch The Chase when Michelle insisted we watch Pointless.  +10 points.  Michelle got a big minus in her column this week, as she accepted Ray's offer of his hotel for Daniel and Sinead's wedding behind his back.  On the one hand, this is appalling, as Robert had devoted a morning to arranging the reception and cooking food for his good friend's happy day and Michelle threw that all in the bin without a moment's thought because she's very selfish.  On the plus side, it meant we got to see Doreen Corkhill getting lashed on a free bar, so it's very much swings and roundabouts.

Robert went off in a huff to Vicky's with a plate of unwanted vol-au-vents and ending up spending the night.  It looked like she'd won this round of the battle, until next morning, when she presented him with this absolutely horrific lump of tin:

Wednesday, 9am: Vicky gives me a dog tag that would be rejected by an actual dog.  Minus 8000 points; I'm changing my name and moving to Canada.

Gossip is a lost art.  Sinead tasked Beth with spreading the word about her terminal diagnosis, and she did so delicately, one person at a time.  I realised that Weatherfield has really changed, because in the old days, you could've just told a Percy Sugden or a Hilda Ogden and it would've been around the Street faster than an e-mail.  Even Jenny promising to tell people in the Rovers didn't have the satisfying smack of Norris pretending to sweep his front step so that he could accost passers by and share the misery.  I'd love a return to the days of people standing in the Corner Shop gleefully sharing bad news about the neighbours but that's me harking back to the good old days; if it were up to me Corrie wouldn't have any disasters or murders or drama at all and would just be old ladies sitting around insulting each other's haircuts over a port and lemon and it would get about four viewers.

It's the CIIIIIIIIRCLE of life.  Cast your mind back a year, and you'll remember that an off his face bloke collapsed on the floor of Robert's flat after ingesting illegal substances.  That lead to a criminal nutjob pursuing the Connor family, which lead to him crashing his car, which lead to Ali killing him, which lead to Ali starting to take drugs to overcome the guilt and shame, which lead to him collapsing on the floor of Robert's flat after ingesting illegal substances.  Now that's playing the long game, story wise.  Fortunately this time Ryan did the sensible thing and actually phoned 999 instead of running around like an idiot.  Ali's now going to go cold turkey to get over the drugs; hopefully this won't be as grim as when Nick Cotton went cold turkey in EastEnders and Pete Beale used to deliver a slop bucket to him in a locked back bedroom covered in bodily fluids.

Ryan's going to make things much better by playing DVDs at Ali, with a collection of films so riddled with testosterone it was practically hairy chested.  Taken, Layer Cake, Saving Private Ryan; are these really the films you want to see when you're coming down from a drug addiction?  People getting their faces blown off, nail biting car chases, cocaine in abundance?  I can't help thinking something soothing and gentle would be better for Ali - perhaps a nice Jane Austen, or one of the Toy Storys.  He's going to have enough of a bad time without you pushing Angelina Jolie on an adrenaline-packed gun frenzy in Wanted into his bloodshot eyeballs.

There's a thin line between fact and fiction.  Corrie naturally looks to the headlines when it's trying to come up with storylines, taking current events and issues and putting them onscreen.  Usually they try and cover it up a bit, but on Wednesday they simply whacked the Harvey Weinstein case in the programme and changed the names.  I'm surprised they called him "Ray" and not, say, "Marvey Meinstein", as Michelle's boss invited her up to his hotel room to discuss business, answered the door in his bathrobe, then rubbed up against her on the bed while breathing through his mouth.  Ashley Judd Michelle has now lost the chance of spreading the Viaduct Bistro's unique selling points across the country, meaning people in Hull will never get the chance to sit in a restaurant that looks like the inside of a packing crate and eat food that's already cold because all the waiting staff have been stood behind the bar discussing their personal life rather than serving customers.  Hopefully we'll get more thinly-veiled recreations of real scandals on the show - perhaps Gary's killing spree will come to an end when he's pursued down the M56 in a white Bronco, or the Weatherfield Gazette could start hacking people's phones and printing the messages, or Bethany could have an affair with Prince Charles and get him to abdicate for her. 

I would've written something about Kate finally leaving the show, but it was so dull, and she was such a nothing character, I really couldn't be bothered.  Send your complaints to me via Twitter @merseytart.

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