Five Things We Learned In Corrie This Week

Keep them locked in.  You can imagine the scene at ITV HQ.  

ITV Execs: "We're going to have a lot of new viewers tuning in for the Sixtieth anniversary.  We need you to keep them watching with a big drama."

Corrie Producers: "Actually, after the Oliver and Yasmeen storylines reaching their climax, and with a pause in the Skyscraper plot, we thought it'd be good if there was a quiet period.  Some reflection and a peaceful Christmas and New Year before we start 2021."

ITV Execs: "No!  Something huge!  We won't get an Inside Soap cover with quiet periods!"

Corrie Producers (shrugging): "Ok... erm... how about a whodunnit?"

ITV Execs: "Brilliant!  Do that!"

And so, Adam was cracked on the back of the head in an empty bistro, while suspects skulked around suspiciously and made possibly incriminating comments while their eyes went wild.  People do seem to get smacked on the head a lot lately.  In fact, it was hard to be too worried for Adam, because literally one episode before Alya got a metal cash box to the noggin that knocked her unconscious on a restaurant floor.

Moments later she leapt to her feet, ran to number six, kicked down the door, put out the fire with an extinguisher, clambered onto the roof and clouted Geoff, talked soothingly to her nan, then went home and made some sandwiches.  Frankly if that's what getting whacked on the skull does for you it should be on the NHS.  

It says a lot about how we've become jaded about this kind of storyline that I haven't seen anyone seriously believe it's one of the mooted suspects. I'm hoping it was Gail.  She's had enough of her kids bringing unnecessary drama into her house and now if anyone annoys them she puts them out of her misery.  Next she'll shove Leanne off a balcony then she'll sit Shona down and give her a good talking to and tell her to buck her ideas up.

Family means nothing.  Jenny Bradley was first fostered by Rita when her mother died, and she stayed with her for years.  Rita cared for her, fed her, slept with her murdery father, all the things you'd expect from a maternal type.  Yes, they had a falling out, but they've now reconciled, and are basically family now.  So you'd think Jenny could spring to a vodka and tonic on the house for Reet, but no; the minute the power went and the tills stopped working Jenny packed her and Audrey out the door onto the darkened streets.  Never mind that sending two elderly ladies out onto cobbles in a blackout seems like a surefire recipe for cracked hips.  Now admittedly, I could understand why you wouldn't want to give freebies to Audrey; she's a hardened drinker and probably would've simply moved her chair under the optic of Gordon's and poured it straight into her mouth.  But Rita?  Lock the doors and give her a drink, Jen; she's in her nineties and she doesn't have much else going on.

Also, judging by the state of her barnet, she's really missing having access to a professional hair stylist.  Cheer her up with a V&T.

He'll get you, and your little dog too.  Ray went full panto villain this week as his building scheme collapsed around his ears.  He stood in the street screeching insults, his hair wild, his eyes bulging; if there had been an orphan passing he'd have happily kicked their crutch out from underneath them.  It was all for nothing of course as the power of Dev's drum, Cathy's pepperoni and Kevin suddenly remembering he did the spark plugs for a bloke at the Council meant a temporary block on development was placed on Nuttall's Brewery, despite, according to Ray, it having been derelict for "decades".  Someone should tell Harvey Nuttall, who made a few appearances at the turn of the millennium.  

Incidentally it gives me no pleasure to report on a behind the scenes beef between the episode writers being played out onscreen.  Last Friday, Roy's hope of getting the brewery listed hinged on suffragettes holding meetings there; on Monday, he dismissed it as a silly idea and was instead going for the rare copper still and pipework.  At the same time, the judge in Yasmeen's trial rejected CCTV evidence because it'd take too long to get - but by Monday he was happily locked up in his chambers with a load of videotapes catching up on security footage.  I'm hoping that the writers will continue to contradict one another going forward, and that next Wednesday Emma will begin a torrid affair with Kirk, then on Friday we're told it was all a dream.

Ray overcame his disappointment at not being able to demolish the brewery by sexually assaulting Faye.  Things probably would've got very nasty if Gary hadn't turned up and interrupted him; he was so disgusted at what Ray was doing to his little sister that he ripped up the contract.  That's the contract that would've contributed to Faye losing her family home but there you go.  Gary will presumably spend the next few weeks trying to think of ways to kill Ray; it's a shame that Covid has put paid to the Winter Wonderland making a return, he could've shoved him off the helter skelter and made it two Christmas deaths in a row. 

It's the end - but the moment has been prepared for.  What better way to celebrate sixty years of our nation's favourite soap than dropping a spousal abuser off the roof?  I believe that's the traditional way of commemorating the event - it's ruby for 40, gold for 50, dead magicians for 60.  Everybody remembers Dynamo being dropped off Tower Bridge for the Queen's Jubilee in 2012.  The show went for maximum melodrama, throwing in fire, ventriloquist puppets, and hitherto unmentioned loft conversions to really ramp up the tension.  It worked for a while, but then it went on just that little bit too long, with Yasmeen clinging to the tiles for much of Friday's episode as well.  As a result it started to reach farcical proportions, with other characters suddenly appearing and popping their head out of the hatch, like they were on Rowan and Martin's Laugh In.  

Cooeee! shouts Ryan.

Hiya! calls Sally.

A couple more hours and there'd have been a queue up the stairs like when Claudia Winkleman tries to interview the contestants on Strictly.  Yasmeen finally came down and explained to the police that it was just a coincidence that twenty-four hours after being acquitted of trying to murder her husband, he ended up dead anyway.  That policewoman with the severe bob said it was fine, she totally believed Yasmeen, after all she'd been covering this case for months; yes, and then you arrested Yasmeen and tried to get her locked up for life.  How quickly she changed her tune once the verdict came in.

Geoff's death means we have yet another owner of number 6 meeting an untimely end, following in the footsteps of Des Barnes, Tommy Harris (and his daughter Katie) and Charlie Stubbs.  Maybe they could do a special deal with Ray and knock down just this one house for the good of the neighbourhood.   

Abi's a gamer.  Of all the shocking moments in this week's Corrie, none could compete with Abi reclining on the sofa having a peruse of Classic Gaming magazine.  Would you have put her down as the kind of girl who kicks off her shoes to read about Dizzy the Egg and Commodore 64s?  I'd have thought she was more of an OK! person but that's me being judgemental, clearly, and she probably spends her evenings programming a Raspberry Pi to create a Speccy emulator so she can play Jet Set Willy. It perhaps shows her new, mature side, as a woman who acts as a community leader and who definitely doesn't shoot up smack in the car after the school run.  Debbie's attempt to frame her was, admittedly, a little basic, smearing an Oxo cube on a bit of tinfoil and practically shouting "please sir, Abi's a junkie" to Kevin.  

Debbie has now been turfed out of number 13 and has gone full Maleficent, striding round in black leather and swearing vengeance.  Was her time on the cobbles back in the 80s really that miserable?  All she did was work in the cafe for a few months then move to Southampton - I'm not sure why she's so hellbent on razing it to the ground.  Maybe she's resentful that it took Kevin nearly forty years to invite her round for a cuppa.  It certainly doesn't look like the skyscraper plot is finished yet, anyway.  Sigh.

The author is sending ITV a bill for new glasses as he's pretty sure trying to work out what was going on in the near constant darkness of this week's episodes has wrecked his eyesight.  If you want to join my legal case and make it a class action suit contact me on Twitter @merseytart.

---

---

All original work on Coronation Street Blog is covered by a Creative Commons License