Over at the Rovers Rita gets a mysterious package. It’s Dennis Tanner’s ashes with a note requesting Reet scatter them in Blackpool. Jenny suggests they flush him down the toilet but in the end they wisely decide that it’s best not to block the u-bend with human remains!
So off to Blackpool it is. Feeling down and lonely Rita asks the last of the old crew, Ken, to go with her to keep her company. But unbeknownst to both of them, Jenny has gone one better and booked a party bus to take half of the Street for a jolly old scattering (which is a good deal more than Robert got).
Gail, Audrey, Sally, Mary, Eileen and Sean all pack on to the bus, no doubt thinking about the two cases of Prosecco that Jenny’s brought. They’re soon joined by Carla, a reluctant Nina, and Tracy, Amy and Emma. It’s Amy’s 16th birthday but it seems like the only person who’s at all bothered is Roy, who hands her a present and card from Hayley. Hmm gifts from beyond the grave, I can definitely see how he and Nina might hit it off.
Evelyn also invites herself on. Last but not least, Yasmeen receives an invite, she looks worriedly at Geoff, but scared that people will see him for the hideous git he really is, he benevolently tells her to go and gives her a fiver to treat herself!
With everyone aboard and the cheesy hits playing, the residents of the Street start to bicker, bond and reminisce. There’s some generation gap banter about which era had it best; Evelyn drunkenly reciting rude limericks; and a heartfelt video call from Tim to Sally. In the oldies corner Audrey, Ken and Rita look back over their lives and loves, and Ken admits that he’s never been happy with how his life turned out. “All I wanted to do was travel”, he says “and I only got next door”. He tells them that he and Claudia are considering a ‘gated community for third agers’, which is a retirement home to the rest of us mortals.
With the driver having to take comfort breaks seemingly every 10 minutes it looks like they won’t get to Blackpool before it gets dark. Frustrated with being sat next to her cremated husband mile after mile at the mercy of an incontinent driver, Rita decides she’ll get the bus. Off-screen the driver has a heart-attack and an ambulance is called. As Jenny goes after Rita, Dennis’ urn gets left in the road and is run over by the ambulance. Rita shrugs, “oh well, he always wanted to be king of the road!”
As the episode closes nobody has made it to Blackpool but Sean is back living with Eileen, Tim and Sally are reconciled, and Nina has made friends. Unfortunately, Yasmeen also goes back to Geoff and greets him with a hug rather than a punch in the throat, but you can’t have everything.
For reasons I couldn’t quite fathom Rita passed on Elsie Tanner’s ring of power to Amy, a teenager who I don’t remember her ever having a conversation with, but then had a lovely wistful moment in the Rovers remembering the ghosts of Corrie icons past: Annie; Elsie; Bet; Jack and Vera and Betty. “They’re all gone”, she says to Jenny. “But they all left a little something. It’s in these walls, the fabric of this place’.” I must admit at this point I was really hoping Bet would saunter back in cigarette holder in hand and shout “I’m not gone cocker, I’ve just been on an extended holiday to Ten-er-reefee!"
Finally, we see Ken walking the cobbles alone. Standing outside No. 1 he bids goodbye to his home with the words “80 years too late but it’s finally time to go.”
Surely Ken can’t be leaving the Street? Can he?
And that was the 10,000th episode. A gentler one then we’ve been used to in recent months. Did you find it a welcome nod to the past or a bit slow? Let me know in the comments. Personally as soon as the coach turned up I was convinced the episode was going to end with it hanging off a cliff and Mary going “Hang on lads, I’ve got an idea”. But then that’s probably why they don’t employ me as a scriptwriter!
Until next week, catch me on twitter @mskelstar
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