Five Things We Learned In Corrie This Week

The usual verdict is in.  Thanks to twelve good men and true, Kelly is about to be locked up for a very long time.  But you knew that, didn't you?  Because locking up innocent women who've been framed for a crime by shifty men is Corrie's thing, like EastEnders and family, or Hollyoaks and saucy girls in crop tops.  Deirdre Barlow getting a mention in the Houses of Parliament went to ITV's head and now they want an annual miscarriage of justice to grab the headlines again.  There was Deirdre, of course, and there was Gail.  And Anna.  And Sally.  And Yasmeen was just last year.  Plus Fiz and Eileen were locked up for a while as the police assumed they were in on their husbands' murderous antics.  It's getting old, Corrie, not least because we know the route going forward - there'll be a few months of Kelly failing to cope in prison (she's already tried to kill herself) and then some bit of evidence will come out that will mean a retrial and a furious Corey will finally get locked away.  Mind you, the show also has a habit of murdering pretty young female characters, so I guess Kelly should be glad she got the prison option.

On the plus side, we've learned that Millie Gibson is a great little actress, so I'm looking forward to her coming back to the cobbles in a couple of months time.  Maybe she can finally get a storyline where she's not 80% awful.  And maybe they can find her a skirt that fits - seriously, Kelly, you think that's a suitable outfit for court?

Get Charlie Dimmock in.  We got a glimpse of Dev's back yard this week and what a desolate wasteland that is.  Mismatched silver chairs round a café table, a bunch of weeds in a planter and a plastic water butt.  Get some flowers in there Dev, a few bushes, maybe a trellis up the side.  Even a gnome or a tin sign saying Tick Tock, It's Gin O'Clock! would add a bit of colour.  We did however meet Corrie's newest character, Bunty the Bright Red Bunting, who laughed and frolicked over Asha's shoulder during the entire scene.

That puppet cost £50,000 from the Jim Henson Workshop and will have its own series on CITV in the New Year.

Curtis has a massive... cactus.  Emma excitedly prepared to welcome Curtis to her flambéed flat, but more importantly, she prepared to welcome his enormous cactus.  It's huge, she purred, bigger than her, weighty, impressive.  In fact she was so excited I started to wonder if she was actually talking about his cactus at all.  Maybe he has another girthy delight she couldn't wait to get in her bedroom, if you know what I mean.  Unfortunately Curtis decided to get unconvincingly drunk in the Rovers because he was so depressed about his Mysterious Death Syndrome and in the process he was quite rude to Emma.  This will not stand, Curtis; Emma is a treasure and you should only be kind to her.  Sean was right there, abuse him instead.  He deserves it.

Oh-oh-oh, I gotta go, back to school... again!  With it being the first day back at Bessie Street the kids all walked out in their new uniforms to head to school and act as superspreaders for the coronavirus.  Chesney cheered Joseph up by buying him some chocolate for the walk.  "Why can't I have some chocolate?" asked Hope.  Sadly, Fiz and Tyrone mumbled some sort of vague excuses, rather than saying, as I would've done, "because you tried to burn Alina to death and so you're not eating anything nice until 2074."  Ruby, incidentally, was entirely mute throughout the conversation.  If Ruby simply moved out, do you think they'd notice?  Go and ask Toyah if she'll adopt you, Rubes, she's got a spare room now Kelly's in prison.

Of course, Hope couldn't stop herself, and after attacking the Harvest Festival display with some slime she was promptly sent home to play Happy Families with Tyrone in a piece of particularly unsubtle symbolism.  Once again, they tried to gently persuade her to maybe go to school again in the morning, rather than dragging her through the school gates by her ear and plonking her down in the front row of class with hissed threats of violence if she so much as thought about causing trouble again.  Hope's reign of terror really needs to come to an end soon and the gentle understanding method doesn't seem to be working; maybe putting the fear of God into her would work instead.

Fight or flight.  Above we see the rare Toyus Battersbus in her natural habit.  As you can see, when Toyah is distressed, she activates her camouflage mode and disappears into the wall behind her.  It's a clever defence mechanism that enables her to avoid attack or upset.

As she relaxes, the Toyah is able to move away from the background but retains her distinctive patterning in case she needs to hide again.  In this case, the circumstances upsetting Toyah were the scriptwriters deciding that she needed to have an argument with Imran to send him to the Bistro to get drunk.  Toyah came out with some caring psychobabble and he accused her of bringing her work home with her, forgetting that she's not actually a counsellor any more and instead flogs knickers for a living.  If she'd brought that work home with her she'd be thrusting 30 denier tights and cheap bras at him, which he'd probably enjoy a lot more.

It was all an excuse really to drive Imran into the arms of Sabeen.  Apparently all it takes to seduce him is to park a taxi in his field of vision and open the back door; in unrelated news, I have purchased a black cab, and will be driving it up and down the road outside ITV Studios in Salford.  You never know your luck.

A missing day of episodes means this week's blog is a bit thin, sorry.  Hopefully a bumper crop next week will perk me up again.  In the meantime send comments, suggestions and Imran's nudes to me on Twitter @merseytart.

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