TWIST! The death of Princess Diana. JFK being shot. September the 11th. All moments in time, significant events in history, that dumbfounded and astonished people, to the extent that even today we can remember exactly where we were when we heard the news. To that list we can now add "Michael finds out Tiana isn't really his child", because let's be honest, I don't think anyone saw that coming. It's been four days and I still can't decide if it's brilliant storytelling or lockdown insanity infecting the writer's room. So all that angst, all that drama, was because Grace wanted to get revenge on Michael? That's dark. That's really cruel. We've had this storyline running for months, which makes me wonder what her end game was - was she going to simply vanish? Tell him Tiana was dead? Marry him, because that would be pretty cruel too, what with her being super-boring? The surprise of it all hid the fact that we were getting "woman loses her child, goes mad, abducts someone else's baby" again, but played out slightly different (incidentally, shout out to Grace's friend Lisa, who decided the best way for her friend to get over her miscarriage would be to take care of her own newborn. Sensitive). The main takeaway from this, for me, was that parents who don't live with their child should get solicitors and the Family Court involved right from the start. If Michael had tried to formalise their arrangements, as Aggie had suggested, with properly defined visiting times and parental responsibilities, Grace's scheme would've quickly been exposed and it would've saved everyone a lot of heartache. (I missed Aggie so much this week, by the way; she's reportedly come out of isolation and gone to look after an Aunt, so at least we can be relieved the Covid hasn't got her). Grace is apparently now pregnant by Michael, but hopefully she'll disappear before she has the baby and never be seen again and Michael can go back to being mildly amusing. No more inventions though, please.
Fashion (turn to the left)! Fashion (turn to the right)! Ooooh, fashion! Sarah-Lou's continuing project to drive Underworld into the ground took a step closer this week as she had another one of those incredibly important meetings with a client that they absolutely had to win or the entire business would collapse. Again. Nina provided the illustrations for Sarah-Lou's rather basic designs:
To my untrained eye they seem to be exactly the same but with squiggles on them, but the client was impressed, so Nina grabbed herself a job at Underworld. Presumably in the hitherto unseen Design department; the chances of us ever seeing an actual sewing machine get smaller and smaller. I think we all saw this coming when Roy presented Nina with Hayley's sewing machine so she could stitch together a lacy corset but I'm glad they finally followed through on it. Personally I'd have preferred Nina to team up with Alya - another fashion graduate, though they seem to have forgotten that - and they'd set up their own range of stylish outfits (probably in black). They could've used that shop that Sinead was going to use. It could've been the new Miami Modes.
Carla Connor is BACK. Finally the writers seem to have remembered who Carla Connor is and she spent the week rattling round the Street putting wayward men in their place and being smart and clever and not banging on about her recorder or something. She battled with Peter over their deteriorating relationship and the fact that he seems to consider her being sexually exploited while mentally incapacitated as some kind of fling. They had a heart to heart in the back room of the Rovers, though I had trouble concentrating because Jenny's dining set is so awful.
Carla's now on a streak; hopefully Monday's episode will start with her giving Daniel the talking to he needs, then she'll smack Geoff about the head for a bit and uncover Gary's schemes before lunch. In fact, never mind that, make Carla Connor: Agent of Female Vengeance an ITV2 spin-off.
Sally might get a yucca. Good news everyone! The Metcalfes are back on track! Only the good ones, obviously; Geoff is still awful. Sally realised she couldn't be without Tim once she'd seen his usefulness as a houseplant stand-in and agreed to marry him in two days time. I'm thrilled. Hopefully this will mean nobody ever mentions that whole bigamy storyline ever again and Tim and Sally can do what they do best; getting mucky with one another in ever more inappropriate fashion. This week we learned that Sally always knows when she's going to get lucky because she hears him giving his mouth a good going over with an electric toothbrush; the scene ended with her telling Tim to put it on charge, then they exchanged these looks:
Absolute filth.
Apparently Rita is currently staying with Mavis in Cartmel. Greater Manchester's in lockdown, Reet, you shouldn't be spreading your potential infection to the Lake District! I mainly wondered if Mave is still running her B&B or if she's retired. If she is still open for business, can someone forward me her booking details via Twitter @merseytart? I fancy a little break once all this unpleasantness is over. Ta.
