Believing his relationship with Toyah is back on track, Imran Habeeb is about to get the shock of his life. We chatted with Charlie De Melo about Imran’s conscience and a big decision he must make.
“Theirs is the picture of domestic bliss,” Charlie told us of Imran and Toyah. “Everything seems to be going well for them and they’ve been able to move beyond the craziness of 2021; the revelation that not only was [Imran] unfaithful, but also the emotional difficulty they had with Kelly. That put a real strain on their relationship.”
Last year, Imran confessed to Toyah he had a one night stand with an unnamed woman, who the viewers know to be Abi. Months later, Imran believes it is completely in the past with Toyah never needing to know who the mystery woman was.
“At this stage, he thinks he’s gotten away with it. He told [Toyah] enough of the truth to alleviate his own guilt and satisfy his own conscience. He’s been able to tell her enough to take the baggage off his shoulders.
“I don’t think it’s irrelevant, because otherwise he would’ve mentioned it. It was a conscious decision to not say who it was because it does seem like it would be more hurtful being someone you know, within the same community. He feels like he’s said enough.”
Shortly after we, the audience, discovered Abi and Imran’s night together, Abi briefly believed she was pregnant, which panicked Imran. “There were a few scenes when they were trying to come up with a game plan as to what she should do,” Charlie said.
“He was quite clumsily trying to dance around the whole idea of it being her body and her choice, but while also desperately trying to encourage her to make this ‘problem’ go away. He was handling it in a clumsy and inelegant way, and then sort of all of a sudden, that worry does just go.
“There was a scene where [Abi] was kind of speaking in code to Toyah and Imran under the guise of it being related to Kelly, you know: ‘It’s all sorted, we don’t need to worry anymore.’”
After recently getting engaged to Toyah and fostering Elsie, Imran has found himself in a loving and comfortable existence- but in soap land, when the stakes are high, the chances of a secret coming out are even higher.
Charlie said: “The stakes are higher, but at this stage in the proceedings, I don’t think he’s worried about it too much. He’s like: ‘I have my foster daughter who is objectively adorable, I have my partner.’ In his mind, why would he be concerned about a thing when he’s got something so wonderful in front of him?
“Particularly, as far as he’s aware, there are no repercussions, it isn’t a spectre hanging behind him, waiting to strike. It’s gone. He’s already been allowed to forget about it in a way because of his own inability to deal with responsibility when it comes to this sort of stuff, but also because he’s basically been given the all-clear by Abi.
“I think he’s far more selfish than he would let on. I think he presents himself as heroic, and he wants to be seen as heroic, but I don’t think anything he does is selfless, in regards to his white knight syndrome of wanting to protect the innocent and be the one that supplies justice to the street.
“He’s shown that when he has done wrong to the people he professes to love, he does everything he can to avoid responsibility. He will duck away, he’ll hide, he’ll lie. Even with the legendary Rita, he tried to slip one past her. It’s the markings of someone who is self-serving.”
Last week, Abi suddenly went into labour and gave birth, with Toyah becoming her confidant. As Toyah vaguely describes to Imran a client she is helping and explains how she relapsed into drugs and gave birth at 28 weeks, Imran is horrified as the realisation dawns.
“That is the moment where the walls start to close in,” Charlie said. “All of the white noise in his head trying to work this out falls away. That’s the consequences of his actions coming to greet him, finally.
“That’s not something he can hide from or put onto somebody else. This is now his responsibility, and this is something he is going to have to step up and take control of. He can’t lie his way out of it.”
Soon after discovering the birth of the baby, Imran resolves to use his legal position to help Abi fight for custody, but his emotional attachment to his son grows stronger. “In those initial few scenes in the neonatal care unit when he sees his son for the first time and he’s premature, he’s tiny. He’s hooked up to wires, he’s got machines which are helping him breathe and feeding him.
“He sees this little guy that is so helpless and needs help from not just the medical staff, but his family unit. He makes an instinctive, snap decision that this is where I need to be; this is the only thing that matters.
“I think that’s actually a line said out loud where the sacrifices he is now willing to make in terms of the setup he has at home; his career; the love of his life in Toyah; the situation with fostering Elsie which is looking to progress into her being a more permanent fixture in the household.
“All of that, he is willing to risk in order to be present and be there for his son and by extension, Abi, in order to make sure that her previous mistakes aren’t used as a way to keep her away from him as well.”
With Abi delighted that Imran is fighting her corner, Charlie explains how Imran could begin to question Abi’s ability to take care of their son. “There’s every reason to suspect Abi of being problematic as a parent. When she was introduced as a character onto the street, I think her first scene was her being kicked awake by Seb. I think there were used needles all over the place. Both Sally Carmen and the writing team have done an incredible job of giving her an arc that has taken her away from that, but it is still there.
"I think any person that has suffered an addiction would tell you that you never beat it, it's a fight every day, and [Abi]'s had a lot of bad news of late so all it would take is something to make that fight all the harder and as the father in this situation, that would be a huge concern."
Imran’s life is about to be turned upside down, and with Imran’s departure from the street being recently reported, could this be too much for him to recover from?
Find me on Twitter @sophie_writer1
All original work on Coronation Street Blog is covered by a Creative Commons License
All original work on Coronation Street Blog is covered by a Creative Commons License
No comments:
Post a Comment