Five Things We Learned In Corrie This Week

Celebrate good times, come on!  After last week's nine o'clock shenanigans there was a danger this week's episodes could seem tame by comparison.  No guns, no gangsters, no teenage boys plunging down staircases.  Instead it turned out to be rather marvellous as we got a lot of funny, warm, character-filled scenes that were well-written and interesting.  Major applause should go to Berri George, whose first ever episodes for the show on Wednesday were witty and clever and lovely to watch.  But we also need to thank the Alahans, again, as Dev's sexcapades with Bernie - and Aadi's horrified reaction - provided us with innumerable scenes of proper laughs.  My favourite line of many was when Bernie discovered Dev was ashamed of their tryst and told him he wasn't her only option:

"I've got blokes banging on my door!"
"Bailiffs?"

Marvellous.  Of course Dev couldn't resist Bernie for much longer after that, because he is, fundamentally, a walking penis, and he's not had a girlfriend since Gina.  The mix of "George Clooney and Omar Sharif" - Bernie's words, not mine, believe me - seems to have captured her heart, which is an unlikely but fun pairing.  I've a lot more time for Bernie now she's just a bit rough round the edges and isn't, for example, selling her daughter's urine on the internet.  

Unfortunately Deveroo went straight back to denying any interest in her, and delightfully, this is now getting Mary riled up.  No storyline has ever been made worse by involving Mary.

Special mention for Steve's face when he heard about Bernie and Dev.  Pure Kenneth Williams.

Check your spelling.  Daniel's been a bit of a pain lately - actually not lately; he's been really quite annoying since at least he was paying sex workers to wear cardigans, and possibly longer than that.  His job seems to be loitering at the edge of scenes being vaguely disapproving and/or hectoring; I suppose somebody in the Barlow family has to do it while Ken's busy in, ahem, Southampton.  (I wish they'd simply pretend Ken was there for Peter the whole time but wasn't onscreen.  "It's time to go into theatre.  How annoying it's happening just as your dad tops up the meter outside."  "Have you got news of the operation, Daniel?  Ken's just gone to the loo but you can tell us anyway.")  Anyway, Daniel won back a lot of my affection when he couldn't stand an errant "your" any longer and took the law into his own hands.

Yes!  Good man.  This is a streak of vandalism I can get behind.  Apostrophe pedantry is a dying art and of course Daniel will be at the forefront.  Now let's see more of his Odd Couple flat share with Paul, which hasn't been featured at all since he moved in.  I'd love to see how the slobby Paul and the uptight Daniel are getting along.  I imagine all sorts of hilarious shenanigans, plus a healthy streak of homoeroticism.

Hope is high maintenance.  For years I've been calling Hope a demon child, and suggesting that she be locked in some kind of cage for the good of humanity.  However, I've reassessed this position in light of recent events.  She's not evil per se, she just lives for the drama.  How else do you explain the sheer camp excess of her reacting to a very mild scolding from Alina by throwing herself in front of a car?  That's astonishingly over the top and I have to admire it.  I can imagine her doing this all over the place, responding to being told to eat her greens by putting her head in the oven, or furiously cleaning up her room while wearing a full-length ball gown and wailing, tears streaming down her face from her extended eyelashes.  The consequence was Tyrone immediately started talking about his daughter Ruby; he wasn't willing to take on that nightmare, and since Ruby only exists offscreen, she's a lot less work.

Or perhaps he's realised that he can only handle two little girls at one time so if he keeps Alina he'll have to get rid of one of his daughters.  Alina Pop! is still floating around on a cloud of perfection, making egg mayonnaise and crisp butties for Ty and getting her nemesis Fiz a job at the factory, but she's got a strange childish side to her.  How else do you explain her glee at that awful picture?  She couldn't have been any more pleased with it if she'd drawn it in crayon at nursery.  In the meantime, I would very much like to see the production of Grease that this is advertising, because it looks atrocious.  Having said all that, when Hope told Alina "you've got lots more make up than my mummy" I shouted "that's because she's a WHORE" at the TV so I may be slightly biased in this matter.

Save Emma!  Tyrone and Alina's non-stop sex-fest is now starting to intrude on Emma's life and this must be stopped.  The poor girl needs her sleep, and she really shouldn't have to be jamming up her ears with cotton wool so she can avoid the Danny and Sandy themed roleplay going on in the next bedroom.  ("Ah wella-wella-wella-UH.") On top of that, she got the bad news this week that the Rovers is up for sale, placing her last remaining job in jeopardy.  It's been totally glossed over but Emma was first and foremost a hairdresser, coming into the show as a trainee at the salon, and the closure of Audrey's has ruined her career.  I will never stop being annoyed by how blithely the salon has been excised from the show; it's been an integral part of the set for nigh on thirty years and they simply handwaved it away as "yeah, Maria and Claudia don't want to reopen it, whatever."  There was that period where Alina Pop! had her Pop Up Shop but even then she didn't invite her friend and housemate to join in the business, instead keeping all the clients to herself.  Emma's now on a fragile wage from bar work, the pub is on the market (and we all know how great that well-known estate agent who've paid a lot of money to be in all the shots is, wow I bet they'll sell in no time, it's so easy) and she must be supported.  I hope Curtis the doctor reappears and sweeps her off her feet or at the very least buys her a nice cocktail or five.

Put your hands together and pray.  Summer is a mess; she is wracked with guilt, she feels she should've done more over Seb's death, she can see how people around her are affected.  She turned to her stepdad, a man who has cared for her for years and who offers spiritual guidance.  And Billy went, "I dunno."  How is this man an archdeacon?  Literally everything in his life is utterly subservient to where he's going to put his genitals.  His one job is to provide guidance and care to those who are suffering and when his own daughter asks for help he runs to Roy and says "any ideas?"  I dread to think what he's like in the cancer hospices; there are people begging for hope as they get ready to pass over to the other side and he chucks a pamphlet at them and suggests that he's heard praying helps but he's not really sure.  Perhaps if you spent less time obsessing over which homosexual to sleep with you'd be a better vicar, Billy; it's hard to tend to your flock when you're snorting poppers on the dance floor at the Eagle, Canal Street.  Even when Summer is wrapped up in a combination of survivor's guilt and exam stress Billy went out on the lark with Todd and basically shouted "fix your own tea, we're going to the sauna" over his shoulder.  If this is the standard we're working with I'm not surprised the Church of England is losing numbers - give me Ivy Tilsley bellowing about the sacrament any day.

This update was written under the influence of chianti.  Now that Peter's got his new liver, that's freed up a slot, so if you want to donate an organ to a drunken fool, contact me on Twitter @merseytart.

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