Five Things We Learned In Corrie This Week

Up the women!  Amy continued her campaign to be The Best by staging a protest at Wethy High against the persistent trend of upskirting.  First she spray painted the wall, resulting in a suspension, and then when the headmistress's action plan consisted of saying "hey girls, maybe if you didn't wear such nice knickers, boys wouldn't want to look at them," she lead a silent demonstration.  This was extremely significant, as it was the first time ever someone in the Barlow family was able to shut their yap when it came to an injustice.  It's notable she had to slap some gaffer tape on her mouth to stop herself from slipping.

Daniel helped, calling up his mates at the Gazette to get them to cover the event, leading to a grovelling apology from Carla Mendonça in the world's coldest playground.  (When did it snow in Manchester?  I missed that entirely).  I was distracted from her action plan by the giant apartment blocks that seem to have sprung up in inner city Weatherfield.  It's definitely not Salford Quays, you see.

Pay your dues.  When the coffee shop on Victoria Street stopped paying the sponsorship money vacated for a mobile phone company, we all wondered how ITV would get the maximum amount of product placement out of it.  After all, it wasn't as though the characters could wander down the road with the latest mobile phone every week; the show takes some liberties with their finances but having Fiz stump up for an iPhone 32 the day it was released would be pushing it.  The solution is two-fold.  First, they stuck their ad on the side of the bus stop; Argos had that spot before Christmas, so clearly it's on rotation, and we can expect the Co-op to start plugging its Easter eggs there before long.

The other addition was to give all the characters a really massive router in their house with the corporate logo on it, as can be seen above in Billy's flat.  Who wouldn't put their router right in front of a lamp, on a sideboard where everyone can see it, and where the glowing light definitely wouldn't distract you from the telly?

Worse, they've stuck one on the shelf in Sally's home office nook.  Do we believe the fragrant Mrs Metcalfe would have this hideous piece of plastic ostentatiously positioned so everyone could see it?  Absolutely not.  She'd be willing to put up with substandard broadband if it meant she could tuck the router in a drawer where none of the neighbours could see it.  Still, I suppose these are the sacrifices the show has to make to keep costs down.  And we know it's only temporary - in a few months time that store will have been ripped out and replaced by a e-cig shop and suddenly every character will have taken up vaping overnight.

Money is the root of all evil.  Does anyone else find the whole Joseph's reward storyline incredibly depressing?  I'm not saying it's bad, not at all; in fact it's been very well done, with the storyline slowly unravelling over a few weeks.  What is getting me down is seeing just how badly this is all going to end up for everyone and there's nothing they can do to stop it.  The family's genuine fear about Joseph's disappearance, his sadness at being overlooked, the aching pain of being constantly poor - that's all going to come back to destroy them when a series of small decisions are going to make them look guilty of terrible fraud.  Chesney's going to be accused of being a criminal, Bernie will lose Dev, nobody will punish Hope again - it's all going to descend into disaster.  (And presumably, Gemma will be locked up for a crime she didn't commit, because it's been a few months since they imprisoned an innocent woman).

Still, it did mean we got a glimpse of an actual, live quad this week!  Apparently this one is Bryn, but be honest, we've only got Gemma's word for that.  She could take him out of one door and Chesney could bring the same baby through the other one and say it was Aled and we'd be none the wiser, like when they used to rotate the same three Dalek props on Doctor Who.  I look forward to seeing more of the quads, one at a time, for the next few years, until they're old enough to get lines.

Bring on the drama!  Friday's episode was comprehensively ruined by a big ticking clock counting down to ITV's new big budget police drama, which definitely isn't them trying to do Line of Duty, honest guv, it just has the same people behind it and the same actress leading it.  This is a valuable lesson in why you should buy brand name and not shop's own.  They'd save themselves a lot of cash if, instead of throwing money at Jed Mercurio, they simply did a spin-off for Weatherfield's own police force.  It could be like The Bill, but with hotpots.  The cast already has built in recognition factor - this week we got return appearances from a pair of familiar dibbles. First, the policewoman with the lovely mascara who is called in whenever they need someone to be caring and sensitive.    

Second, we had the return of that copper who kept catching Roy and Evelyn in compromising positions and assumed they were doggers.  This time he was there to stop Mary from being attacked by a driving instructor with a balsa wood sword, and he did it with his customary world-weariness and disdain.  They've got the set for the police station after all - may as well make some use for it.  

One person who definitely won't be invited to the spin-off is Craig, who continues to be the absolute worst policeman on planet Earth.  His obsessive pursuit of the crutch's owner has now reached the stage where he's calling in forensics to dust it for fingerprints; I hope Greater Manchester's Council Tax payers were pleased to see what their police precept was being spent on.  I'm still not sure why his ultimate aim is - if he believes Emma's story that she got it in a charity shop, then the crutch was clearly not wanted any more, so there's no point trying to reunite it with its owner.  Not to mention that elderly people tend to stop using mobility aids because they've, well, dropped dead.  In any case, his forensic analysis and theorising was comprehensively shown up by Roy who heard the initials "THS" and immediately suggested it stood for "Trafford Health Services".  Wow, a medical aid supplied by a medical organisation - who could've thought of that?  Not Craig, apparently.  With any luck Craig's superiors will discover he's using police resources for an absolutely pointless investigation and fire him so he can go into a career more suited to his talents.  Shop window mannequin, for example.

Get it, girl.  I'm sure I speak for everyone here at the Coronation Street Blog when I say "well done" to Jenny Bradley for pulling a six foot rugby player half her age and spending her afternoon bouncing around on her bed with him.  She is truly living the dream and we commend her for it.  Ok, it's not all good; she also had to go with Leo to see someone called "Tom Rosenthal" in concert.  I have no idea who this person is because I am ancient - I thought they were talking about that boy from Friday Night Dinner - but his Wikipedia page lists his instruments as "vocal, piano, ukulele" so no thank you.  I played a bit of it on Spotify as research and he seems to make music for people who think Ed Sheeran is a bit too rock and roll.

Hanging out with Leo also meant Jenny had to hang out with his awful housemates, a pair of revoltingly smug try-hards who were loudly having their first child and laughed way too much.  They referred to something called Mac and Cheese Married At First Sight Mondays, which sounds worse than Covid and should probably be banned at The Hague.  Now Leo wants to introduce Jenny to his parents - I hope he asks to meet hers too and she takes him to Blackpool prom and points at a square of tram track.  Honestly, is all this hassle worth it simply so you can have endless sex with a tall muscular hunk?

Yes.  Yes it is.

The author managed to write two whole paragraphs about Leo without asking if he's filled in that damn sinkhole yet or what.  Congratulate him for his restraint over on Twitter @merseytart.

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