By Stephen Leach, who is in Twitter @SirTerenceBoot - read all of Stephen Leach's guest blogs here.
Still, at least some people had fun after the traditional Christmas tragedy. Namely Tracy; who’d have thought she had it in her? I wish they’d drag these things out just a little more, though: her one-night stand was on New Year’s Eve and here we are a mere ten days later with Steve having found out about it. I’ve kept five-pound notes in my wallet for longer than that. With secret-keeping skills so shoddy, how on earth did she ever think she’d get away with murdering a man? (Oh wait, she didn’t.)
I can hardly blame Tracy for wanting to jump into bed with Paula, though. Sorry, I meant devious predatory bisexual Paula. Freed from Sophie’s banal influence, she’s spread her wings and blossomed into someone not only interesting, but quite compelling. I hope she sticks around forever. And I hope Amy ends up working for her: it’s so nice to have characters who aspire to a specific career rather than just “whatever’s going on t’Street”.
I’m also quite fond of the Bailey family so far, but at the same time I can’t help but wonder what the point of them is. They’re still pretty insular, and I think that’s what tends to sink a lot of new characters who don’t mesh properly with the established cast. I think we need some more group bonding scenes, but the problem is at the moment that there aren’t a lot of coherent friendship groups, and characters get shoved together – Steve and Kevin drinking in the Rovers together, for example: when have they ever hung out? (It’s particularly evident with the kids: whenever there’s a child’s birthday party all the children of the street turn up, despite their wide variance in ages.) There aren’t a whole lot of lads of a similar age on the Street at the minute who Michael and James can hang out with without it seeming a tad forced, so they just end up talking to each other and their mum all the time. Realistic, perhaps, but not hugely interesting from a dramatic point of view.
But let’s hope the Baileys do last a while, and don’t go the way of so many other families who were brought in en masse, like the Mortons (remember them?) or the Nazirs. The latter managed not to go completely extinct: Alya’s still around (though what she’s doing is anyone’s guess) and Yasmeen too. It’s a sign of how aptly written the Geoff/Yasmeen story is that numerous people on Twitter are grumbling “god, that Yasmeen used to have a bit of a spark about her, didn’t she? She’s become a right old drip.” You almost feel rude for wanting to explain to them that they’ve missed the point by miles. But someone’s got to.
So it turns out that everyone and their aunt was right: just like Steve being Emma’s father, Jade really is John Stape’s long-lost daughter. More and more the writers seem to be getting their ideas from the realms of fan fiction. Tracy exploring her sapphic side in prison was not something I expected to be made canon, though. I look forward to more of these sorts of stories in 2020 and beyond, like Tina returning from the dead to menace Carla, Asha and Aadi discovering that they’ve got a secret triplet locked in the attic, and the reveal that Deirdre Barlow has been alive all this time, having faked her death as part of an elaborate retirement plot with Bev.
Much as I couldn’t give a flying stuff who raises Hope and Ruby, though, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed Jade’s aesthetic transformation – when she was pretending to be good, it was all dungarees and pastel colours; now that she’s evil, she’s coated herself in makeup and donned a rather sleek suit. Lovely stuff. It reminds me of that bit in the third Spider-Man film where Toby Maguire adopted an emo fringe to signify to everyone that he was a tough guy now. Who knows, maybe Kirsty will come back and they’ll forge an alliance of well-dressed femme fatales to retrieve their irritating offspring. Though of course the greatest villainy of all would be leaving them in Fiz and Ty’s incompetent hands. Either way, Herp and Roobeh are doomed.
By Stephen Leach, who is in Twitter @SirTerenceBoot - read all of Stephen Leach's guest blogs here.
Follow us on Twitter and Like us on Facebook
All original work on Coronation Street Blog is covered by a Creative Commons License
1 comment:
What an enjoyable read. Well done! :-)
Post a Comment