Five Things We Learned In Corrie This Week

Get your thrills where you can.  On the surface, Billy seems concerned about his daughter's illness, and is fretting about two men who hate each other who might start a fight in a hospital waiting room.  Deep down, though, he's thrilled and a little bit turned on.  I've realised that Billy's number one concern, above all else, is DRAMA; he loves to be at the centre of difficult, hyper situations, and if there can be a couple of good looking blokes fighting over him in the middle of it, so much the better.  I'm starting to wonder if he's swapped Summer's insulin for Evian so she has seizures all over the place, meaning he gets to go to hospital over and over again; Munchausens' via proxy with a dog collar.  Todd being exposed as a filthy liar will be just a slight hiccup in Billy's love life, and next week he'll be welcoming him back, asking for a promise that Todd won't do anything naughty while secretly hoping he murders someone and tells Billy and then it's their dangerous secret that binds them together.  Meanwhile, the poor and penitent of Weatherfield are sitting around waiting for some Christian benediction but the Archdeacon's far too busy trying to decide what to do with his penis to bother.

RACISM IS BAD.  The Baileys are back for another issue-based storyline, because heaven forbid they should be actual human beings at any point.  Having solved homophobia in football, because he's just that charismatic apparently, James decided to splash the thirty grand he got from a gay magazine on a sports car.  I do wonder about the economics of this given that the print media is in dire straits; is anyone south of, say, Billie Eilish getting thirty thousand pounds for an interview?  Although since it's a gay magazine, he deserves every penny he gets, because they'll make him strip down to his undies and get smothered in baby oil for the accompanying photos.  James drove the car like a little old lady which attracted the attention of PC Racist, because again, only extras and guest stars are permitted to be prejudiced; the residents of Coronation Street fully embrace the rainbow of diversity and it's nasty outsiders who are the wrong 'uns.  The net result was that Michael gave a lot of long, boring speeches about how racism is bad and it was very Public Information Film.  Everyone knows that the police have a racial bias; everyone knows that there is a severe problem of trust between the authorities and the black community as they are disproportionately targeted.  The key is to dramatise this, rather than having Michael do everything short of pulling up a chair and talking down the camera for five minutes.

The most compelling part of the storyline was buried in one of his monologues, where he said he'd told Sarah-Lou the story of Grace being locked up for shoplifting and she'd got "a look in her eye" when he said that there was a racist motivation.  That would've been a great, interesting scene, as Sarah-Lou wandered in with her white privilege and tried to tell Michael that they were just doing their job and hey maybe Grace was a bit dodgy and you could always try not looking suspicious.  That would've been some actual conflict and some characterisation, especially if Michael pointed it out and Sarah-Lou went off in a huff.  But no, instead we've got PC Racist doing everything short of slipping on a white hood and setting up a burning cross in the ginnel.  James was initially against making a complaint because he thought it would be bad publicity for him; of course, a recently outed hero of the local football team suffering an injury at the hands of Her Majesty's Constabulary that could wreck his burgeoning career is such a non-story, no newspaper would be interested in covering it, and definitely wouldn't splash it all over the front pages.  On the plus side, World's Worst Policeman Craig "Clogs" Tinker has now been dragged into this, so with any luck he'll be exposed as a massive liar and lose his job and he can take on a role more suited to his talents, like a bollard, or a garden gnome.  Perhaps someone could lay him at the bottom of the door and use him as a draught excluder.  Remember when he was going to join the CID?  Weirdly that storyline has vanished completely, probably because someone at ITV realised it was utterly ridiculous.

Let's lose Hope. Look, I know they must love her and everything, but would anybody really object if Tyrone and Fiz put Hope up for adoption?  Actually, not even that: stick her on a raft and send her floating down the Irwell.  She's pure, unadulterated evil, a self-centred vortex of bile and anger, and frankly we'd be better off as a society if she was put in some kind of electrified cage and left there.  Ripping heads off teddy bears, saying she hates the adorable Ruby, putting Alina Pop! next to a dog turd on her family portrait - although actually that last one was quite funny, she can have that.  

Her unpleasantness has indirectly brought an end to Fiz's burgeoning relationship with Lee Mack Phill.  This is sad of course, because he seemed lovely, but on the other hand he spells "Phil" with two Ls so he's quite clearly demented.  When do we reckon Fiz and Tyrone are going to get back together?  They're both glowering on the sidelines at each other's new partners, inflamed with jealousy, and they still have so much in common.  Heartwarming Christmas Day reunion?

Get your bits out for the lads.  I've been enjoying the naked calendar storyline, because it was fun and nonsensical and featured a load of subplots and character interactions that made it enjoyable.  I do query Emma's selection criteria for the models, however; if you look at the men of Coronation Street and pass up the opportunity to get Curtis and Imran and Adam nude then you're doing your job badly.  I know it's meant to be a bit of fun but Dev with a carefully placed aubergine won't sell half as many calendars as one that features Ryan in the nud doing that saucy pose with his bum stuck out.

Oh my, how did that get in there, etc etc.

The launch in the community gardens was something of a misfire, sadly.  For a start you're launching a 2022 calendar in July; nobody is planning that far ahead, and given the last couple of years, nobody really wants to think about the future too much either.  At this point in time we're not even sure there will still be a functioning human society on New Year's Day.  There were only about four guests in attendance, all of whom were involved with Todd in some way, which is an amazing coincidence.  The models chickened out of attending, but on top of that there was no Leanne or Nicky or Toyah or Tracy, even though it was raising money for Oliver's fund, and no Brian, who took the pictures.  Even Curtis didn't turn up, presumably in case the excitement of the launch caused his fragile heart to overload.  They're always going on about how much research they do for medical storylines on the show, but they seem to be incredibly vague about what exactly is wrong with Curtis and why the doctors can't fix it.  It's a bit like one of those mysterious illnesses that overwrought ladies die of in Victorian novels and the author simply concludes that she was overwhelmed by sadness.

The "making of" movie was unfortunately derailed by Todd's confession video, which caused the whole thing to full apart and meant they had to cancel a screening of The Full Monty.  That was quite lucky actually, as I'd have hated for Gary to come out of the tram stop, take a cursory glance at the telly, and see his dad writhing around in a red leather posing pouch.  That could scar you for life.

Mommie's Dearest.  Laura may be one of the more despicable characters in the show in recent years, and I'm not just talking about her fondness for that horrible brown jumpsuit.  She spent the week floating around trying to sell Kelly's story to the newspapers, not really understanding that as her case is still ongoing everything is sub judice and can't be printed anywhere in case it prejudices the trial.  You'd have thought one of the journalists she'd accosted might've mentioned this to her.  She was finally arrested for child cruelty, following a tip off from Kelly, and my question is, what took them so long?  Kelly's been in foster care for the best part of a year - she didn't turn up on the doorstep of Weatherfield Social Services asking for a roof over her head for no reason, she was placed in care due to neglect, and so the authorities have been aware that Laura is awful for a long time.  However, there's a part of me that hopes she'll get away with it, because while Laura is self-centred, egotistical, and trollopy, she's also quite a lot of fun.  Now that Tracy Barlow's gone all nice we could do with an absolute monster on the Street, clattering around destroying relationships and winding people up for no reason other than it amuses her.  Make her a waitress in the Bistro so she can pal up with Debbie and they can pass judgement on all the clientele over G&Ts that are more G than T.  I'd watch that.  

I took a couple of weeks off because I was away on holiday (cottage in Anglesey, lovely thank you) so you missed out on all my thoughts about heat pumps, Sam going missing AGAIN, and Kevin in a cavalier hat.  Contact me on Twitter @merseytart if you're really desperate to find out.

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