BANISTER! Ignore everything else that happened in this week's show. Put all the drama to one side. The most significant event was Ed finally,
finally, finishing the banister at number 3, bringing to an end a long-running joke that wasn't that funny in the first place. The idea that Ed might be a bit slapdash and not finish his jobs might've been a good one if we hadn't seen what he'd done with the rest of the house. It's hard to make a character point of "see how easily distracted Ed is?" when he's already gutted number 3, knocked two rooms into one, put in patio doors, new double glazing, redecorated, built a weird porch... That's a heck of a lot of work and so not finishing the handrail on the stairs seemed out of character. Having closed off one mystery at the Baileys' house, however, the writers immediately opened up another.
Everybody knows the layout of the Rovers makes no sense, but one of the most egregious errors was the toilets on the back wall. They basically open out into the living room of number one. For the first couple of decades this was joked about -
"it's the reason Albert Tatlock is so grumpy" - but when they opened the new set at Granada in the early 80s they stuck an alleyway between the pub and number 1 as a fudge to try and explain where those doors went. Everything was fine for forty years until this week, when they decided to tell us there was a whole load of new people peeing in Ken Barlow's living room. According to Ed, that door up there leads to a "downstairs toilet". No it doesn't. That's not right. That's not possible. They had a whole storyline where Ed accidentally smashed down the wall there and peered through at the neighbours. Now we learn there's a bog in there? No wonder the Barlows don't talk to the Baileys. They're trying to watch
Countdown and Ed comes wandering in with a newspaper ready to drop the kids off at the pool.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Todd and Billy continue to be a thing, even though they have no chemistry at all. Billy and Paul seemed to be permanently horny; when we saw them in the show I could 100% believe those were the only times they weren't wearing leather harnesses and gimp masks. Todd and Billy don't seem to even want to share a dry handshake and I don't think it's just Covid protocols that are responsible. Without one of Daniel Brocklebank's customary filthy snogs they feel about as sexual as Ena Sharple rinsing her nets. It doesn't help that Todd shows absolutely zero respect for his partner's faith. There must be relationships across the country where one partner is more religious than the other, but how many of those relationships include one partner who is literally an Archdeacon in the Church of England? Billy's faith is the centre of his soul and Todd is sat to one side smirking, asking if he speaks in tongues and treating praying like it's demeaning. It must be hard for Billy to talk about his sermons or upcoming saints days while Todd's being a low rent Ricky Gervais. I'm not saying Billy should try and convert his boyfriend or anything. I just think that a mutually satisfying relationship should include respect for your partner's beliefs. Mind you, Todd is committed to being as unpleasant as possible at all times, so maybe Billy finds that hot and is willing to put up with the odd bit of blasphemy as a trade off.
It's the little things. Restaurants reopen on Monday and honestly it's not a moment too soon. I know we've all been pretending we like al-fresco dining for the past month but we're all kidding ourselves. You get a nice steak, but then the wind whips up and blows your wine glass over, or there's a wasp, or the grey sky makes you constantly check for rain, or the people at the next table have a dog who's too friendly, or the awning is constantly rattling and cracking. People think it's sophisticated and fun because the French are always sat on a Rue eating a
croque monsieur and smoking a Gitanes but it's rubbish. Eating outdoors is terrible.
You're now sitting there asking why I'm writing about this in a blog about Coronation Street, but here's the point: eating outdoors takes something which is lovely and great (a restaurant meal) and ruins it with a thousand tiny irritations that make it hard to concentrate on the lovely bit. And that's how I felt with the Sam and Daniel scenes in Friday's episodes [finally - Ed]. I am aware that I like Sam a lot more than everyone else; I don't know what it is about this overconfident space-obsessed smartarse child that appeals to me, a former overconfident space-obsessed smartarse child, but I am very happy to see him being superior. And if he's being superior to Daniel, even better, because Daniel could do with being taken down a peg or two.
Unfortunately I couldn't concentrate during their scenes because a thousand other questions were running through my head. Like: why is David giving Sam his breakfast in the cafe? Where is Natasha? Where are Max and Lily, David's own children? Where is Bertie for that matter? Why isn't Daniel in college? Why does David arrange for Daniel to talk to Sam at lunchtime, rather than after school, as would be normal? Why is Daniel so loathe to take any kind of job? What is he living on? Why are all the lamps on in Gail's house in the middle of the day?
And of course, the one question that goes through my head whenever anything happens at number eight: is there still a damn sinkhole in the garden? I can't properly relax during scenes in that house wondering about what's going on out there. Is that where Gail is? Is she out back with a shovel, filling it in very, very slowly? I need to be told.
Return of the Queen. Evelyn's back, and she's talking to Roy! No further description is necessary. Wind up two superb actors, stick them in a room, and have them ruminate on the downward slope from banter to hate crime. Wonderful. Although I sincerely hope this doesn't mean I can't call Kirk thick any more because let's face it, if you're not being rude about Kirk's intelligence, there's not much more you can say about him. My only complaint is that Evelyn is back on the show and her first scene wasn't her hammering down the door of the hairdresser flat and dragging Tyrone into the street by his earlobe so she could publicly dress him down for being a stupid old man who lets his privates do the talking. I assume that's coming next week and if it isn't, I will be writing a sternly worded letter to the head of ITV.
Calling Kelly's Heroes. Kelly, in the middle of packing a bag that may as well have been labelled "definitely guilty escape kit", asked Toyah if she would lie for her. Toyah didn't get a chance to answer because another of Weatherfield's top drawer policemen turned up to interrogate her (they really are keeping Craig as far away from this one as possible). We'll never know what her answer would have been, and we can't really guess, because we don't know anything about the relationship between Kelly and her foster parents. A few weeks ago they all went to Speed Daal to celebrate her moving in and since then... nothing. Are they getting along? Are they a family? How are Imran and Toyah coping with a teenage girl instead of a baby? Is she always in the bathroom? Are they being forced to watch far more CBBC than is necessary?
It all lead to a crisis of conscience for Toyah and Imran as they tried to decide whether to continue fostering Kelly. First of all, the fact that she's in borstal right now kind of takes that decision out of your hands. Secondly, prior to her moving to the builders' flat she was trotting along nicely as a slightly obnoxious sixteen year old girl. One month with Toyah and Imran and she's up in court on a murder charge. That's the kind of thing that Social Services tend to frown on; frankly, after this, they'd be lucky if the Dogs Trust let them foster a three legged pit bull. Still, it was nice to see Toyah - the woman who cannot have children - immediately throw her foster daughter under the bus while Imran fought her corner. Totally feasible, that.
Gemma described her quads as gremlins this week because they multiplied when they got wet. It's a very apt description given that nobody has actually seen them for nearly two years now so they probably don't exist. Join with the author on Twitter @merseytart to make Gemma bring them out into daylight to see if they burn.
5 comments:
I can remember thinking that there'll be no 5 Things this week as there's no way Scott will be able to find anything funny in that lot, but Bravo, you did it! Week after week this is the funniest thing on the Web, and the reason why I'm more addicted to this blog than the show itself.
On the subject of the Bailey's downstairs loo, has anyone noticed the layout of the roads that lead off the set? Whenever we get a shot down them, they're dead ends with just a wall across them, yet a few scenes later cars seem to be able to go down them unhindered. The road by the barbers is a good example of this.
Fab post Scott. Yes it was good to see Evelyn back and I was surprised she didn't have anything to say about Tylina.
I loved the humour with Sam, Daniel and David - we needed it with the Seb plotline. I too, don't know how Natasha can afford to pay Daniel £30 an hour!
The new Bailey bathroom cutting into the Barlow living room is a confusion that will never be cleared up properly - like the sinkhole.
Can I just say that Nina had me in tears this week. Fabulous acting to those who play Nina, Roy, Kev, Abi, Corey and Kelly.
I hear that the Johnny/ Jenny marriage will dissolve and the rovers will be up for sale. I bet Daisy wants it and that's been her plan all along.
I did think it odd that after years of trying ( but failing for me) to extract humour from Kirk’s lack of intelligence that it was now considered by one of the writers that Roy should argue against it.
Please don't let Daisy find a reason for sticking around. Can't stand her! Kudos to those mentioned by Sharon for their great acting. And thank you again, Scott, for producing the funniest Corrie material of the week. You should be writing for ITV.
As I said on a recent blog about Todd, I'm really not liking this new interpretation of the character. Like you've said here, all he ever is now is unpleasant and it's impossible to tell when he's being genuine. He constantly smirks, even when the situation is serious, it's as if he's always holding in a joke. We've taken what was once one of the most multi layered, interesting characters and turned him into such an unlikeable twerp. I wish the show had left him be if we were unable to have Bruno reprise the role. I found the whole "pray with me please" scene massively contrived anyway, regardless of Todd's reaction, it seemed unlikely to me that Billy would have asked him to and he was praying more for Summer than for poor Seb, Nina and Abi, which seemed insensitive.
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