Five Things We Learned In Corrie This Week

Share the joy.  Awwww, Paul and Billy are back together!  Bill invited Paul to move into his flat with him, because that boy doesn't hang about.  He knows love can run off into the Delamere Forest and never return - snatch it where you can.  Apparently Sean and Summer were ok with this move and sorry, this is the point where if I were Paul I'd say "that's nice and all, but can we can the ex-boyfriend sleeping on the sofa?".  Rita was delighted for the boys because naturally, as a showbiz Grand Dame of long standing, she is a Friend Of The Gays, and she revealed she had some bubbly chilling to celebrate.

Unfortunately they were then really ungrateful, because the next thing we saw was the two of them knocking the champers back in their flat and there was no sign of Reet.  Did they just grab the bottle out of her hand with a "cheers, love!" and leg it, leaving her stood amongst the sherbert dibdabs with an empty glass?  Bad form, lads.  You should have gone back up to Rita's flat and helped her drink it there, watching her sink into a champagne coma in amongst her fake fur cushions, until her wig slipped down over her eyes and you could sneak out quietly.

Actually all the gays were on bad behaviour this week, with Sean being his usual obnoxious self in the background of every scene, and James failing to recognise a man he'd slept with literally twelve hours before.  I guess now we know James doesn't look at the mantlepiece when he's poking the fireplace.

Vicky is a dog lover.  Last week, Michelle floated into Vicky's front room and immediately insulted her taste in home decor, because she's awful.  "It's alright if you like pink," she spat; the Exalted Queen of the Universe would never branch out of only the most neutral of shades, because she is really boring.  She should've concentrated her ire on Vicky's taste in ornaments, because up on a shelf Vicky has four pictures of the exact same dog.  We've never seen her with a dog; we've never heard of a dog; yet apparently it was so important to her she has more photos of it in her through lounge than Tyler.  She should probably get herself another dog actually because dogs don't let you down, unlike six-foot chefs with grey hair and wayward moral compasses.

Of course one of the best bits of this week's episodes was Tyler smacking Robert; he seems to spend an awful lot of his time on the show getting belted, and I for one am very much here for it.  As he cowered, muttering something about access, Vicky rightly pointed out that "you've ruined my life and you don't even care."   It was heartbreaking, especially when we cut to the Bistro and discovered Michelle demanding Robert kept the mother of his child well away from her or she'd leave him, because, as I said, she's awful.  She dragged Adam away from the funeral of his close relative so that she could find some way to screw Robert out of everything he had; what happens in Connorworld is the only important event, and the rest of Weatherfield can do as they're told.  If she really wanted to punish Robert she should just marry him - spending eternity with that unpleasant shrew would be the true hell. 

The Baileys are BACK!  Again!  Yes, the Street's newest residents have been pulled out of the plot cupboard because the producers have another dose of character development for them.  With the exception of Mrs Tembe Aggie, who pops up in the background of cafe scenes clearing plates, the rest of the family only seem to be allowed on the show when the writers decide to get another page of the character bible onscreen.  Last time they were around we learned that Edison had a gambling addiction and James was gay, and then they vanished for weeks, now reappearing so we can be told that Michael has a long-lost daughter we'd never heard of before.  Baby Tiana was only a few months old but in all the time he's been on the show Michael hasn't shown even the slightest hint of secret heartache, hasn't hunted for his missing girlfriend, hasn't searched for his only child.  If he hadn't spotted her in Freshco's car park would he have even bothered looking for her?  The family's still a bit too new to care, to be honest; secret babies are something you do when they've properly got their feet on the cobbles.  Still, at least we got to see Aggie being fearsome again, consulting with Adam on her legal rights because apparently he does all forms of law - family, criminal, conveyancing, contract.  You name it, he'll have a bash.  I don't know why everyone in the Street trusts him, because Adam can't even control his hair; after months of that greasy slick he finally got a new 'do, shaping it into a kind of inflated updo that put me in mind of Grace Jones circa Pull Up To The Bumper.  It does give me hope that if Adam's cut his hair, long locks are out, and maybe when Seb is allowed back onscreen he might've got a short back and sides.

You can just be sad, that's ok.  It was Sinead's funeral this week, finally, after all the shenanigans.  It's funny; the Barlows and the Tinkers had been arguing for ages about "what Sinead would want" when her own very specific list was confused.  Otherwise why would you specify a humanist funeral then hand over the organisation to a Church of England vicar?  Naturally Billy wedged a load of religion in there, causing Daniel to storm up front and go off on one about how he doesn't believe in God.  As usual, Billy was perfectly fine with someone coming into his church and telling him his faith was nonsense, but I suppose once you've injected heroin in the pews you can't really complain that someone's violating the sacred ground. 

Of course, Coronation Street in 2019 can't allow a perfectly normal story to play out with dignity and emotion, so they wedged in a burglary plot as well so that Daniel could go off the rails and smash up a pawn shop.  It was a pretty unpleasant twist, a dose of horseradish in an emotional cream cake, and it undermined the actually very good emotional scenes with Beth and Kirk and the Barlow family.

Daniel's now facing up to a life without Sinead, which he seems to be coping with by getting hammered on a regular basis.  That doesn't seem like a sustainable plan, but fortunately he has his family gathered around him giving him all the support he needs.  Poor Ken was rushed into hospital with pneumonia and nobody seemed that bothered, but never mind the 80-year-old with a severe infection, let's all get Daniel a nice black coffee as he recovers from another hangover.

The most important question in all this is: now that Sinead is finally buried, is that the last we'll see of Doreen Corkhill as her nan?  Say it ain't so, Do!

Underworld needs lessons in democracy.  Ed consulted with the shareholders about some of the changes needed in the redeveloped factory; they immediately responded with a load of daft ideas about chill-out zones and a bar for the staff.  You're a backstreet knicker factory, not Google - you don't need breakout spaces to stimulate innovation, you just need to keep your head down and stitch a lot of bras.  Fortunately Nicky turned up and put a stop to all this nonsense, much to Izzy's horror, as she tried to organise a vote on them building a luxury kitten enclosure out the back for de-stressing purposes.  She seems to have forgotten that when one person owns 50% of the company he gets the final word on everything that happens, and let's be honest, Nicky hasn't approved of anything fun or interesting since about 2003.  Honestly, how did we sit through all those endless stories about Underworld being in financial peril when there was just one business genius like Mike or Carla in charge, yet now it's being run by a load of people with the financial nous of a spider crab it's doing absolutely fine?  The way they run the place I'm surprised they even have electric.

This week, the author's observation that Raquel's ex-boyfriend Gordon had turned up in the pawn shop got his Twitter account (@merseytart) in the Sun.  He'd therefore like to use this space to remind you to never, ever buy the Sun.

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