Five Things We Learned In Corrie This Week

Equilibrium is restored.  Let's be honest, David Platt owning number 8 never felt right.  That house belongs to Gail Platt, and it was delightful to see her back where she belonged.  (Yes, I know her name is technically Gail LesDennis these days, but she'll always be Gail Platt to me). (Mrs Tilsley if you're nasty).  Her unveiling as the new owner was the least surprising reveal since Robert Maxwell turned out to be a bit dodgy but it was still punch the air glorious.  Even better was she immediately demanded David apologise for being an unpleasant little scrote and, when he refused, she slammed the door in his face and told him to come back when he'd dropped the attitude.  You go Gail.  It's telling that literally the very first thing she did when David did finally move in was demand he filled in that sinkhole.  I bet that's been nagging at her for months but she's held her tongue because it's not her house and she didn't want to be pushy.  Now her name's on the deed she'll be getting Ed round with a big shovel and presenting David with the bill.

Go back to the classics.  There was a moment in Monday's Corrie when the camera lingered on Ryan's backside as he bent over, and for that I am truly thankful.  When he stood up, Daisy mithered on, being alternately bitchy, obnoxious and rude, and a realisation hit me: she's Tanya Pooley.  Someone has decided to recreate the glorious early Nineties era of the Rovers where a wise, seen-it-all landlady (Bet/Jenny) presides over a pub with a sweet naive barmaid (Raquel/Emma) and a rampaging she-beast from the seventh ring of Hell (Tanya/Daisy).  Suddenly it all makes sense, and I'm a bit more okay with Daisy's presence.  She's been wandering around the Street being a vindictive harlot and deeply unpleasant for no apparent reason, but if this is an attempt to go back to the good old days when the Rovers was a battleground between the forces of good and evil I am all for it.  Tanya was absolutely toxic and had not one redeeming feature and she was, of course, incredible, and if Daisy can channel one tenth of that level of ice queen we're in for a good time.  Clearly someone's been going back through the 60 Years of Coronation Street book for inspiration, because on Friday we also got an homage to the iconic death of Anne Malone in the freezer from 1998; it looks like Kev and Debbie will pull through though, proving that nothing is as fun the second time around.

By the way does anyone believe that Daisy would clean the pub?  Perhaps wiping down the bar with a squirt of antibac, fine, but can you picture her squatting over a toilet in the gents trying to get stains off the u-bend?  Exactly.

Tyrone is a creature of habit.  Perhaps I'm alone in this but I thought it was sweet that Fiz could predict her partner's every movement over the course of the day.  Reliable is good; reliable is to be valued.  Given the often feckless state of fathers on this Street (I'll just say "Ken Barlow" and leave it there) she should be happy that there is a man who is willing to stick around and provide for her and her kids.  He may not be exciting and dangerous, but you know who is exciting and dangerous?  Peter Barlow, and he's spent the past month vomiting into the gutter.  Perhaps they'll introduce a bit of spice into their life by inviting Alina Pop! into their bed; both of them seem to find her adorable and very attractive so why not pep things up with a little threesome.  I'd rather that than Ty wanders off to have an affair.  Alina seems to have made a big impression on the whole family, even though she was only there for about a week, with Hope saying that nobody else could brush her hair.  Further evidence that Hope is absolutely horrible and would rather spend her time with literally anyone else on planet Earth rather than her real mother; next week, Fiz will come downstairs crying because Hope wanted to be tucked in by a mop with googly eyes.

Don't ask, don't tell.  The new, wacky cracky Shona took one look at this poor man from BT and hit on a plan.  If she stopped him from fixing the phone lines, the Street's internet would go down, and then nobody could bid on the house.  (Shona's amnesia means she still thinks it's 1998 and everyone's on dial up and there's no such thing as "5G" or "tethering").  She saw the engineer blithely working away, and pulled this face:

Next thing you knew, the wifi went down across Coronation Street, and Shona was seen walking away from the viaduct like this:

So my question is - what did she do?  Somehow she got at the green telecommunications box, and there was a shovel involved along the way as well.  What did she do to that poor engineer?  Was he left unconscious in the ginnel while she slashed at the wires?  Is he floating in the Manchester Ship Canal with a giant spade wound in the side of his skull?  Did she push him into the electrics and fried the system with his screaming body?  Don't leave this kind of thing to our imaginations, Corrie, because they can run wild.  

See you on the other side.  The dead returned to haunt the living this week, but not in a cool, Ghostbusters way, more in a drab Ghost way.  Leanne found a feather in her hallway and managed to extrapolate from it that Oliver was contacting her from the great beyond.  He passed on a message that he was safe and happy and in heaven, which is quite a lot to get across with a single feather; maybe it was written really really small on the side.  Leanne immediately handed her credit card details over to a psychic charlatan on the telly for further details, though I'm not sure why, because this feather-based communication system with the afterlife seems to be working fine for her.  She could've probably torn her pillow open and got the entire text of War and Peace out of it.

Meanwhile Johnny was being visited by the ghost of Aidan.  As with Carla a couple of years ago, Aidan manifested as a figure that only he could see, who never turned around and showed his face, which will be handy if they ever decide to put him onscreen and can't afford to pay Shayne Ward to come back for a guest appearance.  Perhaps if things get worse he'll start hallucinating someone cheaper, like Kate when she's finished on Dancing on Ice.  Johnny spent all week alternately complaining that he couldn't see his hand in front of his face and also saying that he could spot a cockroach from forty metres; he didn't seem to be able to connect the dots that these were two entirely contradictory positions.  I like that they've finally remembered Johnny has a debilitating degenerative disease, because he's been larking about doing pub quizzes and having affairs like there's nothing wrong with him for years, but having it all play out in the same single room at Weatherfield nick is starting to get me down.  I've seen more of that pool table in lockdown than I have of my best friends. 

This week's Five Things is quick and dirty because I've had a few glasses of wine.  Complaints to my Twitter account @merseytart where they will be ignored.

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