It’s the day of Dr Ali’s disciplinary meeting (that got set up quickly), but he's far more concerned with getting Maria back. When Gary ambushes him in the café and warns him, off Ali is unconcerned but later Ryan tells him not to mess with the dodgy builder and admits it was Gary who beat him up. This only makes Ali more determined to get him away from Maria. I feel like he’s going to do something stupid…but you know if you hang around with Maria for any length of time some of the stupid is surely going to rub off.
Elsewhere Michelle turns up for work at her other job and gets in a huff when Ray Weinstein tries to get her to stack chairs for him. Yeah the bloke is a sleazebag, but Michelle has only done about 45 minutes of actual work since he employed her, so the chair stacking doesn’t really seem that onerous to me. Nevertheless the Queen of the Universe tells him to stick his job. When he retorts that her contract states she must give him a month’s notice she threatens to tell all her business contacts about his wandering hands. Not totally sure what business contacts these are, maybe the bloke who delivers the Bistro olives will be interested? But Ray looks rattled anyway. Later he turns up at Chez Michelle with a proposal, if she signs a non-disclosure agreement he’ll release her from her contract and give her £20 grand. Seems a rather high figure to me. I’d have started on £5 grand and negotiated from there, but maybe £20k is the going rate for covering up sexual harassment?
Meanwhile the hideous waste of organs that is Geoff is continuing his gaslighting of Yasmeen. He pretends that he’s been on a dating site, and then when she asks him why he claims that he had already told her it was for a radio feature and that she never listens to him. Then he accuses her of always questioning him like his ex used to. Finally, as the coup de grâce he pretends that he was planning a surprise holiday but that he’s cancelling it because she doesn’t trust him. All of this undermines an already anxious and fragile Yasmeen. I know this is all part of a coercive control storyline and set to run for a while, but I’m really not sure I can stand this for much longer. Can we please just cut this short and let the revolting man choke on a chicken dhansak or be savaged to death by Eccles?
Over in the pub Roy, Brian, Mary and Evelyn are having a slightly fraught game of Scrabble, but when Roy discovers it was Carla’s idea as a means to distract him from his online Scrabble obsession, he takes offence and storms back to the café to continue his word games in peace!
Back on the Street a determined Ali fobs off Faye who is supposed to be looking after Gary’s furniture emporium and manages to find Gary’s loans and leg-breaking ledger. Convinced this is the evidence he needs to get Maria back, he gets buzzed into her flat only to find Gary waiting there for him. Gary seems strangely nonplussed about Ali’s threats to tell Maria about his loan-sharking, and it soon becomes clear why as, like a Scooby-Doo villain, he decides to explain his entire evil plan. First he found Ali’s drug dealer and got the full story from him, then he stole Ali’s phone, (somehow) hacked his voicemail and found a message from Toyah about his diazepam addiction and now he’s going to pretend to be a ghost to scare people away from an old funfair, err sorry, now he's going to blackmail Ali to keep away from Maria.
In other news Robert spots Tyler hanging around the Street. The reformed toe rag tells him that he and Amy have become mates and that he feels he owes her. Because he has no moral compass Robert tries to warn him off by claiming that it would all be too stressful for Vicky and might cause her to have a miscarriage. When this doesn’t work, he calls Steve. Later at No.1 Carla is taking a break when Amy stomps in furious that Robert has grassed her up. Her curiosity pricked, Carla tells Michelle. The Queen of the Universe had been momentarily distracted by the moral dilemma of Randy Ray offering an unsuspecting Alya her old job, but of course the sisterhood means nothing when your fiancée may be up to no good. Time for Detectives Carla and Chelle to get on the case…and please hurry up girls this is another storyline that really needs to be put to bed.
And that's it for this week. See you here same time same place next Friday or catch my pointless mutterings on twitter @mskelstar.
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