Budget cuts are hitting hard. Now I understand that times are tough and they have to make savings at ITV where they can, but the lengths they went to to avoid paying Bev Callard to appear in Monday's episode were hilarious. It was one of those times where if they'd not drawn attention to the fact that Liz wasn't in the show we wouldn't have noticed, but talking around her actually made it worse. There's Emma up there, getting a call on the intercom from her nan and letting her in...
...and when we cut back to the hairdresser flat she'd already been and gone. I'm imagining Liz popped in, shouted "your brother's dying!", then legged it because she had a hair appointment with Audrey and didn't want to miss it. Still, at least Alina Pop! was there to pick up the slack, forgoing her date with Seb to console her. This was shortly after she'd smeared olive oil all over Emma's arm to extract it from a family heirloom. I'm not putting a screengrab of that here because I'm pretty sure there are perverts all over the internet who'd add it to their special folder.
Kill your darlings. So yes, we finally got the news this week that Oliver was not much longer for this world. All the adults took it in different ways. Steve was resigned, Leanne was angry, Tracy was nice, which is just weird, and Nicky Tilsley got it into his head that he could beat up Peter Barlow. Can you imagine? Nicky would be raining down blows and Peter wouldn't notice, then he'd send Tilsley sprawling to the floor with a single punch while not even spilling his orange juice. Leanne was obviously deeply upset and demanded a second opinion. Unfortunately the only other doctor they could get had a pot full of frog-shaped pen toppers on her desk so frankly I'd have demanded a third opinion because I couldn't respect a medical professional with such terrible stationery preferences.
I did think, at first, that this was extremely brave of the show. Killing a child is obviously a very emotional and controversial issue - nobody really wants to see a dying toddler while they're eating their chips in front of the telly - so I admired the producers for having the guts to go through with it. But then we cut to Jenny Bradley, telling Emma about her dead son Tom. And Sarah-Lou telling Nicky how awful it is to lose a child, probably thinking about her dead son Billy. And Steve telling Leanne about how awful it was when his baby Ruairi died. And then I remembered Kev has lost a child, and so has Maria, and this is without going into the various miscarriages suffered by the likes of Tracy and Carla, and frankly I started wondering if they should perhaps hold off killing a little kid for a while, because they seem to have an unhealthy fondness for it.
Share the joy. Apparently everyone was having a date night this week. Tyrone and Fiz started it off, with their evening of ironed shirts and prawn cocktail and steak and crème brûlée. Normally this is where you'd expect a cynic like to me to laugh at their unsophisticated palates but nope, I bloody love a prawn cocktail, and I'd quite happily take that over some fancy expensive starter any day. Fiz shared the idea for some one-on-one time with Chesney (and it was quite lovely to see the Brown children having a little chat together - more of that please) so he went to Paul to see if he could babysit.
At first Paul turned him down because it seemed he had a date night of his own planned with Billy. Unlike the stick-in-the-mud heterosexual couples, however, Billy and Paul were spending their evening in town. I like the idea of Summer being left with a packet of crisps and a bottle of Coke so they could head to the Gay Village to pound the dance floor shirtless while snorting poppers. Chesney's desperation got to Paul though and he cancelled their night to babysit the quads (and Joseph; even if everyone else has forgotten Joseph, I haven't. At least he's had dialogue and plotlines, unlike certain other children in the show).
Unfortunately Ches and Gem promptly invited themselves round to number 9. Tyrone agreed to split the dinner in the end - which is really easy when it's two steaks - and date night became a foursome. Not that kind, you dirty-minded article, they're brother and sister, though let's not forget Ty has history with both the ladies. This still means none of them have got a night to themselves so maybe they'll have another go next week, if they can persuade Billy and Paul to drag themselves away from Leather Night at the Eagle.
You reap what you sow. For quite a long period of time Simon Barlow was the most appallingly adorable child in the history of the Street. He had big brown eyes and a cheeky smile and he cuddled his little rabbit and I don't own a pair of ovaries, but if I did, I'm sure they'd have been aching every time he appeared onscreen. I mean, look at him:
It was no wonder Leanne and Peter spent most of his childhood arguing over custody of this cute little muffin. At one point they stood at opposite ends of Victoria station and made him pick between them like he was a labrador or something. However, like all Corrie children, the minute he hit puberty he turned into an absolute nightmare and now he's feeling the ramifications. Perhaps Leanne would think a little more of you Si if you hadn't smacked her round the head when you were a teen, or if you hadn't mugged Audrey, or if you hadn't spent the last four years sinking down into a sofa and scowling. If you make it hard to love you, maybe people will find it hard to love you.
Simon has now decided to move out of that nice flat in Victoria Court and in with his dad, which raises all sorts of questions, because where the hell is he going to live? Peter and Carla were staying at the Rovers temporarily while Jenny was away, and obviously she's back now. Number 1 has been taken over by Tracy, Steve and Amy, with Ken returning there from Stillwaters, and now Roy has given Carla's room to Shona. Can they just build a new block of flats somewhere so we don't have to have all these ridiculous overcrowded sharing situations? Turn the old gym into a load of bedsits or something. Convert the snooker club or that shop unit Daniel and Sinead were going to rent. Spread everyone out a bit more. I'm tempted to call Weatherfield Environmental Health and get them to nip round because all these people bunked up on top of one another must violate some sort of health and safety legislation.
Don't share your passions. There was good news for Roy as he discovered that Arthur was a fellow trainspotter and they went into rapturous discussions about the last ever steam train in Britain. Now in another world I'm a big old train fan myself; not the actual engines, but the stations and the lines, though obviously since Covid I've had to put it all on hold. So I totally empathise with the excitement you feel when you find another person who is willing to talk to you about the new station they've just opened in County Durham. It's a bit like finding a diamond in your packet of cheese and onion, such a rare and unique event that it should be treasured and enjoyed. However, it's not a big turn-on, and Arthur should be very careful discussing locomotive numbers around Evelyn. Partners have a tendency to switch off as you go into detail about the track arrangements at Hull Paragon, and their eye can wander. Far better to go to a separate, romance-free event where you can freely chat about those new Merseyrail trains without having to endure eye-rolling and sighing. Perhaps Roy and Arthur could take a thermos of weak lemon drink down to Piccadilly and install themselves at the end of a platform for an afternoon of bonding over that great noise the Class 323 makes as it leaves the station. (Also, hate to break it to you fellas, but steam trains are rubbish; they're noisy and dirty and slow and inefficient and there's a very good reason we got rid of them more than fifty years ago, and I will not be persuaded otherwise. Whizzy fast electric trains are infinitely preferable. Yeah, that's right, I'm dropping railway truth bombs and I don't care what you think, I'm such an iconoclast).
Scott and his rubbish name continues to skulk around the Street, but now he's looking all sinister whenever Johnny's name is mentioned, I've lost all interest. Tell me I'm wrong on Twitter @merseytart.
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