Five Things We Learned In Corrie This Week

Complaining WORKS.  This blog has many continuing whinges that it pile drives into the ground.  I call them "running jokes"; readers call them "tedious moans".  But in your face, @KanaFan236 on Twitter!  Turns out if you complain long enough sometimes ITV listens.  As it was this week, as not one but two of my bugbears received some kind of closure.  Firstly, after querying it only last week, we got confirmation that there is still a massive hole in Gail Platt's back yard, and finally someone's going to pay for it.  Somewhat surprisingly, it's Natasha, with more of her millions from owning - let me check - two hairdressing salons.  Who are her clients, Beyoncé and the Duchess of Cambridge?  I'm still not counting that storyline as finished though, not until we get actual workmen with actual diggers actually out there.

Secondly, we got the return of Carol!  To recap, when Sean was homeless, Carol helped him out, showed him how to fend for himself, looked after him when he was beaten up and generally acted like a mate.  In return, Sean sneered at her when she turned to prostitution to fund her drug habit, and dropped her like a stone when he got offered a roof over his head, never mentioning her again.  She returned this week after spotting him on the tram, drug free and living her best life, and she chased him onto Victoria Street.  If that had been me I'd have clouted him over the head for being a terrible human being but Carol is a much kinder soul and treated Sean like a pal.  Don't get too attached though; now she's signed up for the pyramid scheme, she'll probably be broke and homeless again within the month, at which point Sean will lose her phone number and cross the street to avoid her.

Free Jane Danson!  Acting is a precarious business, particularly in a pandemic, so I understand why performers would relish the regular paying gig of a soap opera.  It's no doubt why a few well-known names are currently guest starring in thankless roles.  But even so, they must want a bit of time to themselves - a bit of a holiday, perhaps, or some time with the kids.  Every time Leanne turns up I wonder if everything's ok at home for Jane Danson because the poor woman has been permanently on set for the past year.  First it was the eight hundred months of Oliver's death, then it was Simon's drug trading; now she's in actual hiding and they're still making her schlepp to MediaCity to appear in thankless scenes.  Do you need our help, Jane?  Should we alert Amnesty International?  Blink twice if you want us to call the police.  Peter out of Brookside will forget what you look like if you're not careful.

Fill your glasses.  Audrey's back, and she's hammered!  Well, you knew that last part already, because our Aud is permanently three sheets to the wind on discount Sauvignon Blanc, but this time she reached new levels of awesomeness by doing it while babysitting.  You might find it poor behaviour to get ratted while taking care of a small child, but it meant that she got to roll out stories of bashing around Soho in the Sixties so I'd say it counts as an educational experience for Ben Sam.  Besides, much as I love the boy, if I had to spend an entire afternoon with Sam talking about conductivity I'd turn to the bottle too.

The reason Audrey was taking care of Sam was Gail had to go and clean Natasha's house for money.  Am I the only one who thinks that's weird?  Asking your sort-of mother in law to scrub your u-bend?  She did a marvellous job, though, leading to Natasha suggesting she start a cleaning business.  Gail is sixty-two years old, Tash, let that woman retire.  After the life she's had she's more than earned the right to put her feet up and spend her afternoons watching Father Brown.  She doesn't want to be mopping floors with Shona, not least because Shona's New Brain means she'd probably get it all wrong, and Gail would spend half the day cleaning up after her.

Log out of your consoles.  I regret to inform you that after a couple of weeks off Sharon is back to her old tricks i.e. inviting herself round someone's house for a drink then sneakily accessing their contacts while they're out of the room.  This time Dev was the victim, with Shaz constantly packing him off to the shop for more booze while she hammered at Aadi's controller with all the skill of a horse knitting.  This storyline wore thin about twelve minutes in and it's now entering it's second month.  It's a waste of time for everyone involved but especially for Dame Tracie Bennett and Will Mellor.  He doesn't even get to leave his little prison cell set.  

Sharon's machinations lead to Sam being kidnapped and left on an industrial estate for reasons I don't fully understand.  The kidnapping was hilarious, as Covid protocols meant they couldn't actually film Sam being physically manhandled, so instead we got an elaborate subterfuge involving a telescope in the back of a van.  It was a bit like The Silence of the Lambs only unintentionally funny.  The part I'm mostly obsessed by is where they got the telescope from.  Was the thug dispatched to a specialist shop?  Did he have to feign interest to make sure he got the right one?  Did they happen to have a telescope lying around the gangsters' hideout?

Then there was the added complication of Gary turning up and asking them to get rid of a wardrobe for him.  This is what happens when you park a massive van in a street where, as Sharon herself said, "everybody knows everybody's business".  You'd think they'd be more discreet - perhaps park the van on Sam's walk back from school, where nobody knew him - but no, they slapped it in front of Underworld and Sharon ran out and made it clear that she knew the driver.  Absolute genius.  What's more, apparently they did take the wardrobe to the tip after all, because later on the van was facing the other way:

...so he must've driven off the garage forecourt, gone away, then come back again.  All without stirring up any suspicions whatsoever.  Hopefully Sam will be found in Monday's episode, because if this is the start of a long running disappearance, I may have to stop watching.

Keep it in your pants.  Remember a few months ago, when Johnny tried to drive Jenny away, demanding a divorce and attempting to alienate her?  And she loved him so much that she battled for him, refused to let him go, and pledged she'd wait for him while he was in prison?  Congratulations, you have a better memory than the writers, who this week span the Improbable Coupling Wheel in the office and got Jenny to jump into bed with Ronnie.  She immediately regretted it, and by immediately, I mean "about four seconds after he'd finished", as she legged it out of the bedroom to hang around the hallway in her scanties.

Of course this aroused Daisy's suspicions; somewhat surprisingly, Jenny immediately confessed all to her.  Daisy then spent the week dropping the least subtle hints to Johnny And His New Hair and smirking.  Can someone please push Daisy down the cellar steps or something?  She has literally zero redeeming features - when she wasn't trying to break up Jenny's marriage, she was taking Carol's money to get her trapped in the Double Glammy business, an act so horrible even Sean wasn't self-centred enough to do it.  She's absolutely vile and I'm not sure why anybody keeps her around.  

If the producers want to hear my other complaints and story ideas I can be contacted on Twitter @merseytart.  I've got a particularly good proposal involving Imran and Ryan that might need to air after the watershed.

---

---

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