Five Things We Learned In Corrie This Week

Don't judge people on first impressions.  Obviously, like all right-thinking humans, I love Roy.  He's a saint.  But let's be honest, he's a bit of an acquired taste.  If you didn't know there was a heart of gold beating beneath that cardigan you might think he was a bit... odd.  Perhaps not fully scary, but definitely not the kind of bloke you'd fancy being locked up with on a dark night.  So I think it says quite a lot about David's general air of demonic possession that Shona would still rather spend her days with this weirdo than him.  She had a poke round the flat under the watchful eye of her social worker (presumably after Shona legged it last week Alice isn't letting her out of her sight) and we got a further insight into her brain damage.  You know how they're always boasting about the research they do for ISSUES, how Jane Danson is dragged onto the morning shows to talk about all the hours of reading she's done regarding Oliver's illness, how there's a special helpline for people who may have been gaslit?  Have they just not bothered for Shona?  Because so far her symptoms seem to be:

1. forgetting the last ten years of her life
2. finding cancer hilarious
3. not knowing that things in an oven get hot

Is this a real neurological disease, or is this like how Sophia in The Golden Girls had a stroke and it made her brilliant at insulting people?  Perhaps it has a complicated Latin name we don't know about like Convenientus Plotdevicus or Maternitius Coverupus.  Still, I can't wait for her to recover her memory once she's moved into Roy's.  I hope the first thing she remembers is it used to be a two-bedroom flat.

Bad news travels fast.  Dev attempted to damp down the damage from Asha's leaked video by transferring the twins to Oakhill.  He was surprised to learn that the kids there already knew about her before she'd even arrived.  I don't know why he was shocked; that sort of scandal used to spread like wildfire through the education system long before there was WhatsApp and Snapchat.  Everyone at my school knew about the girl at the Catholic school on the other side of town who got caught in the paint cupboard with the art teacher and I'm ancient.  We used to have to share gossip by standing on hilltops and waving semaphore flags; if there had been Facebook as well, nobody would've been safe.  You can see why Oakhill rushed through the Alahan's admission though - their most famous alumni are Rosie "are my nipples showing through this blouse?" Webster and Mike Baldwin's son who had an affair with his stepmother.  Next to those two Asha is basically Mother Teresa so they'll happily welcome her in to raise the tone.  

Details matter.  Now I'll admit it: I'm a nerd about the Coronation Street set.  I love the details.  I like the tiny bits here and there that make it a realistic place - the bus timetables, the cards in the window of the Kabin, the family photos on the mantlepiece, definitely not the ticket office at the tram stop because that is absolutely wrong aaaaargh.  Anyway.  It means that I'll sometimes pause it while I'm getting screengrabs for this blog, because I enjoy finding out how the set decorators have filled the world.  For example, Dev has a railway timetable and something called "Cheshire News" on his fridge; I'm not sure what this is, but if you zoom in, you can see a tiny picture of Dev on the cover, which is a character detail that is absolutely correct.  Dev would definitely put that up for everyone to see.

There was also a brief moment where we got to see NuAadi next to a picture of OldAadi, which I enjoyed tremendously.  Is it just me, or does that little boy look more like NuAadi than what he actually grew up to look like?

And when Geoff went in to retrieve his camera I slammed on that pause button so hard my keyboard cracked.  Of course I wanted an insight into the musical tastes of the characters!  My eye was particularly taken by the fact that there was a copy of Saint Etienne's Too Young To Die on there; that compilation of superlative pop perfection can only belong to Yasmeen because she's a very smart woman.  Unfortunately the rest of the rack seemed to be taken up by CD-Rs.  I bet those all belong to Geoff.  I bet he downloads dodgy MP3s off pirate websites for his radio show because he's too cheap to pay for anything.  There is one at the bottom labelled Fashion World, which turns out to be a CD of sassy library music.  I can totally imagine Geoff putting that on when everyone's out so he can strut up and down the living room pretending he's Naomi Campbell.  You'll note I'm choosing not to comment on the camera, and how it's about two inches in diameter, and on plain view next to the telly, and apparently doesn't have a power source even though it's running 24 hours a day and beaming the signal up to the cloud, because I think we all collectively agreed a long time ago that it made no sense whatsoever.  You can have a storyline where Geoff sticks a camera in the living room to spy on Yasmeen, or you can have a storyline where Yasmeen obsessively cleans every square centimetre of the house, but you can't really have both because they cancel each other out.  Anyway, Geoff's now deleted the footage from just the week of the assault, which won't look suspicious at all, and he's dropped the camera in the bin.

Another weird detail; does Sally strike you as the kind of woman who'd put vinyl on her wheely bin to try and hide it?  That seems a bit déclassé for her.

Keep your enemies close, and the daughters of your enemies closer.  Gary continued to act like the most suspicious person on planet earth this week as he shoved his nose in Kelly's affairs yet again.  Cast your mind back a year and Gary was suspect number 1 for sabotaging the roof, a charge he only escaped when he revealed Rick the Loan Shark was the actual culprit because he wanted to frame Gary.  We all know that's not true, but the Street's residents don't; they believe Rick tried to get Gary put away for something he didn't do.  So how realistic is it that he would show enormous levels of compassion and care for Rick's daughter, to the extent that he runs around the place arguing with Dev and butting into Billy's quiet pint?  Surely he'd want her out of Weatherfield as quick as possible?  Add to that Kelly pointing out this week that Gary was literally the only person who knew where Rick was and you don't really have to be Poirot to put together there's something dodgy going on.  Fortunately Adam Barlow: Boy Detective is on the case, so he'll hopefully work everything out before I slip into a coma.  It's not that I particularly care, I just want it to be over.

The future is plastic.  In another of those bits of dialogue that took on a whole different meaning now there's a global pandemic, Carla and Billy had a little chat about how contactless is taking over the world.  Apparently even Ken is tapping to pay for his half a pint.  This was clearly from an era before handling coins and notes became one step below rubbing your tongue on a railway station handrail as an easy way to catch the Coronavirus.  When the Rovers reopens after lockdown it'll probably be plastered with NO CASH signs and Jenny will be pulling pints in rubber gloves and full face mask.  I'm quite looking forward to seeing how Weatherfield copes when they start filming again; I can't wait for scenes where loving couples like Toyah and Imran have a snuggly night on the sofa with a clear two metres between them, or Eileen and Liz gossip by shouting at one another from opposite sides of the Street, or David is forced to cut hair in the barbershop wearing a diving suit and helmet.  The lack of older members of the cast will be weird, but I'm hoping they do a few episodes entirely filmed on Zoom where the elderly residents catch up.  Ken, Audrey, Rita, Evelyn, Norris - heck, throw in characters who've left the show now the actors can just film it in their front room without even needing to put pants on.  Get Bet back!  And Emily!  And Mavis!  Have Linda Cheveski and Irma Ogden dial in!  A big old gabfest where they all natter with one another online.  In fact stuff the real show, make that an ITV3 spin-off.

Unfortunately there's no space left for me to discuss the real burning issue of the week i.e. Kirk's sock drawer.  Blue or black?  Days of the week?  Stripes?  There's so much to talk about.  This is clearly a highly contentious matter so let's chat about it on Twitter @merseytart.

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