Five Things We Learned In Corrie This Week

All change!  This week, a familiar son returned to the show with a completely new look.  No, I'm not talking about Max, who's got a head that actually looks fifteen at last.  He was presumably replaced because Old Max was starting to tower over Jack P Shepherd.  Can we take a moment to question Gail's child rearing skills, by the way?  Because both Sarah-Lou and David are tiny.  Were Gail and Martin underfeeding them?  Did they have a vitamin deficiency?  

The return I'm talking about is Zeedan And His New Hair.  Now Corrie has a few dodgy haircuts - Gary's pompadour on top of a shave, Simon's constant battle with an Afro comb, whatever is nesting on top of Adam's head at any given moment.  But Zeedan's is a whole new level of awfulness.  He left with a lovely curly mop and he's returned with a strange, square slick.

Alya can't even bring herself to look at it.  Why is it so straight?  Why is it so big?  Why is the front a perfect square, so that it looks like his barber put a bit of A4 in front of his face and cut round it?  Perhaps it was all a distraction technique so that we wouldn't question how Zeedan can have fifty grand sloshing around in his accounts that he can hand over to his sister.  It's nice to see Zee back; he was a charming, nice young man, devoted to his family, and a keen chef.  I'm sure he's returned unchanged.

Oh no, it's a side glance of deception, he's going to be caught up with gangsters isn't he?  Sigh.

Don't look back.  It was la revedere to Alina Pop! as she realised that everyone in the Dobbs-Stape household was a big old liar who probably hated her guts.  Ruxandra Porojnicu took the opportunity to turn in a series of strong performances on her way out the door, being in turn, maternal, betrayed, sorrowful, angry, vengeful and finally duplicitous as she headed off to Bucharest with Tyrone's unborn baby inside her.  Or has she?  She only lost her last baby at the start of August, when her home was burnt to the ground.  Are we to believe that she returned to the wreck of the flat with Tyrone, traumatised from her miscarriage, then took one look at the smoky remains and said "hey hon, let's get it on"?  She can only be, at most, five weeks pregnant, and that's assuming she had sex literally the day she lost her first child.  Yet there she was in the first class lounge, taking soft drinks off hot waiters and stroking her belly in a motherly fashion.  

I hope we never find out, by the way.  Alina Pop! used to be a sort of interesting character, but this whole affair knocked any spark out of her - she became a giggly ball of perfection to turn Tyrone's head, not through sexiness or being provocative, but through being generally lovely.  As a result she lost what personality she had in the name of becoming a plot device.  Scrawling LIAR on that awful photo was the best thing she's done in months.  I hope she goes off to Romania and sets up a successful Alina Pop! Pop Up Beauty Shop in Brașov town centre and lives a thoroughly good life with no demon spawn trying to set her ablaze.

Teachers rule, OK?  Daniel became a fully-qualified teacher at Wethy High this week which is quite good for someone who never seemed to do any college work.  (What happened to his MA, incidentally?)  Although he does seem a bit wet in the role, so maybe he skipped the lessons on how to control a class and stop kids from giving you backchat.  If Max, of all people, can outwit you, you might want to review your teaching style.  Ken was overjoyed to see his son carrying on the family business, ignoring the fact that he spent forty years absolutely hating being a teacher and was always giving it up to do something more interesting - running a community centre, running a newspaper, running the trolleys at Freshco.  Still, if Max carries on being a mouthy little brat, Daniel might continue a different family tradition and belt the little toe-rag, like Ken did with Aiden Critchley.  Although I'm not sure even a fifteen year old has much to fear from a punch from Daniel Osbourne.

Organise your own lesbian film night.  Aadi and Summer decided to take their relationship to the next level, the next level being "cringing out your insides as you watch your dads get absolutely lathered on merlot".  As usual, everything that happened in number 7 was amazing, from the game of dinner party guests, to Dev's apron, to him speculating Summer's surname was "of 69".  I really wish we'd heard Dev's entire sex speech; I bet it was absolutely pornographic and totally inappropriate.  This is exactly why Asha doesn't tell her dad anything about her personal life.

Summer and Aadi then went off and decided that they really didn't want to have sex at all, thank you very much, and I was delighted.  I love a sensible, level headed soap child; not all of them need to be raging hellbeasts to be interesting.  These two should join up with Amy to form a teenage mentoring scheme, taking Max and Asha under their wing to put them on the straight and narrow.  If Kelly had hung out with these two instead of Corey she wouldn't be in the mess she currently is.

Farewell to the King.  So goodbye Norris Cole: busybody, gossip, legend.  An untimely stroke under Claudia Colby's window saw our favourite newsagent finally move on, off to join Dirk to discuss stationery in the heavens.  As you'd expect from any storyline involving Norris, it was full of great lines and sly gags - the revelation that Jenny Bradley's nickname in the Guides was "Finger Buffet Jen" may be one of the filthiest jokes in 60 years of the Street - all mixed in with glorious returns from both Freda and Claudia.  The whole Stillwaters subplot was barely eighteen months ago but given everything that's happened in the world in the meantime, it feels like an entirely different era.  Freda and Mary's sparring over Norris's funeral was delightful, though nothing Freda did could compete with Mary's widow's outfit.

Incredible.  The true sadness of Norris's death was the knowledge that there will be more to come.  Rita and Ken reappeared for the plot, both of them looking frailer than ever, and it reminded us that these legends of the cobbles are pushing 90.  There will be a time when the programme will show us their funerals, and Audrey's, and Gail's, and it will be heartbreaking.  Not Emily though.  Emily will outlive us all.  Emily will be sending video messages to Bertie's grandkids from her Edinburgh penthouse in 2077.  

@merseytart refuses to give that tarantula storyline the oxygen of publicity.

---

---

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