Coronation Street Blog: Five Things We Learned In Corrie This Week

Saturday, 24 October 2020

Five Things We Learned In Corrie This Week

You too can change the world. Fellow Corrie fans, I never want you to think you are powerless. We are the viewers of the show and our voices can be heard if we shout loud enough. There was evidence of that this week as, after spending the best part of the year saying "who is Oliver and why should we care about him?", the producers listened to our bleating and gave us a lot of back story. And I mean a lot; Leanne did nothing except deliver impassioned monologues about what a funny kid Oliver was, how lively he was, how he'd crawl into bed with them, how he looked after insects - all sorts of fascinating tales describing absolutely nothing we'd ever seen on screen. Then Nicky looked right down the camera and said:

Are you upset he's dying now? the writers are asking. Are you going to stop whining now? Well no, I still don't care, and that might have something to do with the fact that - according to Corriepedia - Oliver made seven appearances in the entirety of 2019. As the great philosopher Dr Hannibal Lecter once said, "we covet what we see every day", and it's hard to care about a character everyone forgot existed for a year. On the plus side, we seem to be entering the final days, with Steve failing to persuade Dr Schmitt to change his mind, and Nicky stopping Natasha from donating her £20,000 because it would just be throwing good money after bad, so with any luck we won't have to see that hospital corridor for much longer.

Paul is a precious unicorn. The most important thing that happened this week was Paul wore a rainbow onesie to just chill round the house. Every other storyline paled into insignificance beside this magnificent outfit. In fact, let's take a look at its full majesty, shall we?

Astonishing. That's why Billy wasn't even tempted by Todd's declaration of love; could Mr Grimshaw pull that look off? No he could not. Todd still bounced round the Street trying to split up Billy and Paul but so far they've held firm. Of course, they won't for long, because this is a soap opera and nobody is ever truly happy. Todd will probably go to Midnight Mass and eye him up from the pews and they'll break all sorts of commandments in the vestry - merry Christmas one and all! I'd be very disappointed if that happened, because Billy's already been with Todd; it feels regressive for him to go back there when there's still one gay man on the Street he hasn't slept with. Look out James, you're all he needs to complete the set.

Incidentally, if you're thinking "but how can Todd be running about the Street when he has a price on his head?", don't worry, that's all sorted now. Even though last week Mick was literally pointing a gun at him and threatening to kill him, all Eileen had to do was have a stern word and he rolled over and let Todd off. Which raises the question, why did they bother with all that gangster nonsense in the first place? Urgh. Let's have another look at Paul's onesie to clear the palate, shall we?

Adorable.

All change at number 8. This week we actually got an update on the sinkhole: apparently it's getting bigger. Geoff at number 6 remains entirely unbothered. To avoid the financial pressures of filling it in, David flogged it to Roxy, in a process that seemed to take about fourteen minutes - I've had transactions on Amazon Prime that took longer to go through. So for the first time ever, ownership of number 8 has moved out of the hands of the Platt family, a fact that apparently I'm a lot more sentimental about than David, who's lived there since he was a baby. Gary insisted to Ray that the Platts be allowed to rent the house, because they've been through so much, apparently forgetting that it's going to be demolished. Still, he got the contract to build the groundworks for Ray's skyscraper, which is absolutely feasible and realistic for a man who doesn't actually have a building company. Do you think Ray has run his proposal by the council at any point, by the way? "Out of curiosity, if I wanted to wipe an entire street off the map, would that be ok with you guys?" It would be funny if he went through all this rigmarole to buy the Street and then he couldn't get planning permission.

Jenny is wielding Chekhov's gun. If you want something to become important in the third act, you need to introduce it in the first. As such, I think we'll be meeting Jenny's previously unmentioned stepdaughter Daisy in the flesh in about, oooh, a month? There's surely no other reason for her casually chucking her name into conversation. Daisy's in Thailand at the moment, a surprisingly popular destination for the residents of Weatherfield. Maybe the writers are hoping if they mention it often enough the Thai Tourist Board will chuck them a freebie. They've done spin-offs in Romania and South Africa - why not a Far Eastern adventure where Sophie joins Jason in Bangkok and they have all sorts of hilarious adventures? (Please don't bring back Kate though).

Jenny will probably need all the family support she can get seeing as Johnny looks like he's headed for prison or hospital. In my rundown of last week's terrible episodes I didn't have space to mention Scott, his awful name, and Johnny, because there were much worse storylines around, but it took centre stage this week as a giant pile of manure stinking up the screen. I just want Johnny to take Jenny aside, say "look, I couldn't stand Scott really, which is why I spent forty years ignoring him. How about we stop inviting him round?", and then we can all move on with our lives. Instead we've got another gun story coming up with an MS-sufferer in his sixties acting as the getaway driver and it's rubbish.

Not all children are equal. For months now, children have been neither seen nor heard, with the producers telling us that coronavirus restrictions mean they can't allow kids on set. How then do they explain both Sam and Dylan turning up this week while, say, Jack and Ruby remain AWOL? Is there a hierarchy of children? Are the regulars too important to risk, but hey, these kids are only guest stars so they can be sacrificed? That seems harsh. Still, it was nice to see Dylan, and also nice to see that spending his entire life in London hasn't stopped him developing a thick northern accent. Funny that.

Apparently that awful hipster man has 2.8 million followers. I've only got fifteen hundred, but on the other hand, I'm not ghastly. Or am I? Have a look on Twitter @merseytart.