Evening Corrie fans, it’s Kelly here with your Friday night review.
It’s the day of the court decision over Oliver, and Leanne and Steve are keeping a vigil at their son’s bedside while the rest of his extended family wait nervously for news.
Back on the Street, Nick gets a lovely Get Well Soon card from Sam, (who believes in the power of positivity), and decides to go to the courtroom to support Leanne, despite her not wanting him there. Meanwhile Aggie is forced to deliver some terrible forced polemic about healthcare workers being seen as the enemy when they’re trying to do their best. Not sure we really needed that.
In the courtroom, with Steve, Leanne, Nick and Imran watching on, the judge delivers her verdict. She acknowledges the deep love and care of Oliver’s family but says that his brain is dying and there is no prospect of recovery or a cure. If they continue to keep him alive it could cause him considerable suffering, so it’s in his best interests that life support be withdrawn. Leanne breaks down in tears.
As everyone struggles to cope with the terrible reality, Leanne decides she wants to launch an appeal. Their barrister tells her that it would be unlikely to succeed but she refuses to listen and browbeats a traumatised Steve into agreeing with her.
Steve rings No.1 to tell Tracy and the family the verdict and their plans for an appeal, but when Amy innocently asks if they have new evidence, Steve realises that it’s fruitless and there is nothing more they can do for Oliver.
Back at the bedside Leanne is planning her next line of attack when Steve tells her to stop. With a heavy heart he says that he can’t support the appeal and that it’s time to let Oliver go. Predictably Leanne lobbies some terrible accusations and abuse at him, telling him that he doesn’t love Oliver as much as she does. But Steve bravely sticks to his guns.
Leanne pleads with him not to give up on their son but when he remains adamant she screams at him to get out, as she has with just about everyone else at the hospital. In the final scene a kind nurse finds her sobbing uncontrollably over Oliver and we see her telling her colleague to look out for Leanne as she is completely alone.
Well that was a hard slog wasn’t it. The only relief came from the wonderful Jenny offering to console Gail by getting thoroughly sozzled with her. I’d like to say that next week will be a bit more upbeat, but since Weatherfield is apparently built on top of a Hellmouth I reckon we’re most likely in line for a couple of deaths, some widespread injuries, a fire and a freak shark attack.
If you'd like to join me in lobbying for a whole episode of Jenny getting various residents drunk for increasingly trivial reasons: “Stubbed your toe, Roy? I’m opening the Chardonnay!”, then please let me know in the comments or on twitter @mskelstar
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8 comments:
This week's Friday episode would be the last of the hour-long episodes until the 60th anniversary week, as with next Friday now awaits the return of the two 'Friday' episodes from 7.30 and 8.30 to be back at their old time due to the anticipated arrival of another reality show I'm a Celebrity (this time in Blightly Wales), having seen the return of the 7.30 & 8.30 episodes in previous weeks such as The Million Pound Cube and Don't Rock the Boat have anticipated to return the double Friday episode the favour, cos both of those reality and entertainment shows were both stripped for five consecutive nights.
As with looking at next Friday's schedule, it is official Corrie would be marked as the last of the soaps to be broadcast in the United Kingdom rather than EastEnders and it may stay that way in coming weeks as it's been only due to the anticipated arrival return of an reality show being stripped across five nights. This week's Fridays' episode was a really special Oliver Battersby-themed episode, we'd really had some distressing and depressing scenes over, i'd especially liked the mention of Roger Hardgreaves and his Mr. Men books by where Oliver's dad was telling him about.
As for ITV3, they really screwed up again due to a hour-long Emmerdale episode, two of the episodes were shown at Christmas 1997 similar to Corrie's half-hour episodes, we now get the actual Mon-Wed & Fri-Sun sequence of episodes from 1997 up until the actual Xmas Day 1997 offering which would be still to come in the New Year, especially it wasn't nothing to do with horse racing this time round, however it is now at its other home ITV4 this week and then following on the main ITV channel for one weekend only, as ITV3 did have disruption with its other classic soap repeat run Emmerdale in which only had two Christmas '97 episodes as it's great to have them back-to-back, we're still in the same sequence 1997 Corrie episode order as weeks before when we did have the first Sunday episode in late Nov'96.
I disagree with you about Aggie’s speech. I think we definitely needed it to counterbalance all the hateful, negative speeches that Leanne has given about the hospital staff.
I've been critical of the Oliver story for dragging on too long, and I've been pretty critical of Corrie as a whole of late for being in a post-lockdown doldrum, but last night really proved that Corrie has still got it, and can knock it out of the park when it wants to.
I'm not afraid to admit I was crying like a baby all the way through that, a heartbreaking performance from Jane Danson and all the main cast, and a powerful masterclass in script witting. More of this sort of stuff, please!
And Aggie's speech was absolutely necessary, even if a bit clumsily shoehorned in.
This episode deserves way more credit that a snarky review.
A very emotional episode with brilliant acting. Jane Danson and Simon Gregson were of course the stand outs of the episode as they both portrayed being Oliver’s parents beautifully.
Simon’s acting was wonderful as Steve came to accept Oliver’s fate.
Jane was incredible and gave an award worthy performance. While Leanne has been hard to watch at times, I felt her pain throughout the entire episode.
Other actors who were great were Ben Price, Helen Worth, Sally Ann Matthews and Alex Bain.
I totally agree with your comments. Excellent acting throughout. I even felt for the random guy who was on the phone outside the hospital. Life goes on.
All credit must go to everyone involved in this episode, and I'm so glad it was an hour episode to keep the flow going. Well done everyone
Aggie's speech had to be said to show the other side of the story
I think this was an extremely powerful episode, with some fine writing and excellent acting. I admit I have not always been invested in Oliver's story, which has dragged on for so long, but this episode had me in tears. It more than made up for the inane, lame and cringeworthy plots we've had to suffer of late. Corrie can still deliver when it needs to.
I’m done with this storyline...and so are the set designers. Oliver’s bed was empty, the blanket was concave; there was no dummy body, just a lion! More seriously, if the mother was anyone but Leanne Battersby I’d have some sympathy. And, by the way we’re all suffering from COVID and we need cheering up......please !!!!
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