Coronation Street Blog: Five Things We Learned In Corrie Last Week

Monday, 2 May 2022

Five Things We Learned In Corrie Last Week

Women: know your place. It was something of a surprise to everyone that Amy had a breakdown in school and chucked a cup of tea over the back of some boy's neck. She'd seemed so calm, so together, so rational about that time where somebody drugged her into unconsciousness for reasons unknown. It turned out she's been suffering for weeks but has kept it quiet for plot reasons. This is annoying enough, because - and I don't think I'm alone in this - I thought the whole point of a continuing drama was that we could see how events affected characters in real time and shape their lives. Having them pop up and say "by the way, I'm horribly traumatised" doesn't really hit the spot.

All that would be annoying enough but it quickly became clear that Amy's psychological torment was entirely in service to the pain of the men around her. Amy's sudden outburst of fear and self-loathing on Wednesday's episode was purely designed to give Max a moment of humanity. She got her little speech about how she felt so that we could see Max in torment because, let's be honest, when a woman is hurt it's far more important to learn how men feel about it. This was exacerbated as the Barlow-McDonald clan debated what to do about the situation, with Amy entirely offscreen.

Then on Friday Jacob (Amy's boyfriend) saved the life of Max (Amy's attacker) so that Simon (Amy's cousin) would realise he was a nice guy really and they could end up in the pub having a few pints and burying the hatchet. By this point Amy was so unimportant to the plot she appeared in only two scenes in the entire episode, turning up towards the end with a sitcom wife "oh, you men" eyeroll, her worries and fears apparently entirely overcome. Having Max say "don't worry, I was actually planning to use the date rape drug on your uncle" isn't a cause for massive relief. Amy ended up in hospital. She's not known why for weeks. But this was nowhere near as prominent as how much Jacob's makeshift tourniquet cost, and this is to the detriment of both the characters and the programme as a whole. I don't like Amy being treated as a plot device, because she's easily one of the most interesting teens on the show, and her experiences shouldn't be used as learning points for the less prominent boys.

We're also reaching a point where the Jacob pudding is getting distinctly over-egged. He's changed, we get it. You don't need to give him endless speeches to earn the respect of those around him. He doesn't need to be the most perfect human alive. This reached its peak when he revealed on Friday that he'd done a first aid course at some point in his past. As if! Jacob is so saintly now, and so utterly different to the rancid little scrote we met last year, that they may as well go the whole hog and simply say that was his evil twin.

Find your limits. If I was in charge of this programme - and thank goodness I'm not, because I've been the length and breadth of Coronation Street and I've yet to spot a decent wool shop - I would put up a big whiteboard in the writer's room and I would establish, once and for all, how many bedrooms everybody's houses and flats have, and how many people were living there. Because it does matter. I know it might seem silly but when you're watching a soap opera you need to know where people are based and who's sleeping where because this is a community and you need to know where people fit into it.

It means that while I have the utmost sympathy for Nicky - who has apparently been kicked out on the streets by her uncaring mum, even though her mum used to literally babysit Maisie while she was out doing sex work - I spent the whole time thinking yes, but where will you sleep? Is it a two bedroom or three bedroom flat? Is Bertie in with Daniel or is he sharing a room with Maisie now? Poor Paul is up there paying his fifty quid a week for a room above the shop and finding an ever increasing queue of waifs and strays ahead of him for the shower in the morning.

I also thought this as Alya and Zeedan were allowed out of the plot cupboard again. Last time we saw them they were in a horrible argument with their gran that left them with nowhere to live. So... where are they now? What does Zeedan do for a living, other than wander round the street with his hands in his pockets? Are they coping? Are they living together? It's strange that the priority, plot-wise, seems to be "charity homeless giveaway" rather than "Yasmeen turns her back on her grandchildren" but such is the way of the storylines these days. After a while it's simply not your turn for a plot so you all disappear for a while and reappear when there's nothing else happening. And it will involve Stu being unfeasibly cheery, whether you like it or not.

Breathe easy. I love George. I love that he's simultaneously a big ball of comedy, fun and lively and charming, and also extremely sincere and caring when there's a funeral. It must be hard to know you're following in the footsteps of a national treasure like Roy Hudd but Tony Maudsley has carried it off with aplomb. It's also nice to get a character whose dark secret is something as ordinary as snoring; I was fully expecting there to be a trussed up kidnap victim in George's house, or maybe a sex dungeon.

The most ridiculous part of the storyline came when Eileen and Sean broke into his surprisingly lovely garden. Are you seriously asking us to believe that Sean Tully can climb a six foot fence, Corrie? The man has never done anything more physical than the Tragedy dance routine. There is no way he could clamber up and over a vertical fence without a ladder, crampons and a safety harness.

Party down. Toyah's hen do was astonishingly tragic, consisting of her, Sarah-Lou, Sean and Faye. When you're inviting Faye to a party you know you're scraping the bottom of the barrel. Leanne refused to attend because she still hasn't forgiven Imran for having a drunken one night stand and getting a woman pregnant behind his partner's back. How exactly was Oliver conceived again, Lee? She finally made things up with Toyah, which is good, because we've had no mention at all of Janice or Les so it looks like Leanne is going to be the only family at the wedding. I did enjoy Toyah's decision to dress as a go-go dancer for the event, but my favourite part was when she suggested she could "bob a cardi over the top". "Bob a cardi" is a brilliant phrase.

Mind you, Toyah's bash was the last days of Sodom compared with Imran's stag party. Adam was a guest, which is fair enough, but Craig? Has Imran ever actually talked to Craig? And who has a stag do in a place that serves only soft drinks? What sort of raucous bawdy fun can you have on a mango lassi? It all petered out in an extremely dignified fashion, denying us the sight of Imran stripped naked and tied to a lamppost.

Abi soon showed up for her takeaway, because even though she lives in a flat in the precinct and is a social pariah on Coronation Street, she still comes all the way over to Speed Daal for her curry. She revealed that she can no longer afford to pay the barrister in her case and it doesn't matter because she would absolutely get legal aid but I guess we're on this train now and we'll have to ride it to the end of the line. She watched Toyah and Imran from the shadows in a melodramatic fashion, while presumably her lamb karahi congealed and cooled in her bag at her feet. Can they all sit down and agree to shared custody and we can move on with our lives?

Talk behind people's backs, it's more fun. This week we learned that Maria is running around introducing herself to people as "Councillor Connor" and I'm sorry it's going to take me a while to adjust to Maria the Politician. It's like seeing an overenthusiastic labradoodle rise up on its hind legs and start doing trigonometry. I do like the idea that she's getting ideas above her station. Perhaps her new high office will turn her into a roaring social climber like Sally and the two of them can indulge in competitive snobbery and delight me utterly.

She's not so high-class that she's above indulging in a bit of gossip with Fiz in the Rovers. The two of them snarked about Nicky and Daniel, boggling that he had two women fighting over him, and it was lovely. We got a few scenes of women gossiping this week and they were all great. It turns out Sally and Aggie are still mates, for example, and they sat in the arbour and laid into Gail for some reason. It was mean spirited and totally undeserved but it was enormous fun.

And then Rita showed up to insult Daniel. (He got insulted by a lot of ladies this week but honestly, fair). It seems that she's getting on like a house on fire with Daisy, doling out advice, and this makes perfect sense; Reet loves a bolshy young girl. We should treasure any appearance from the fragrant Mrs Fairclough, and if they're unnecessarily bitchy, all the better.

The week ended with Max clinging to life in hospital but since my notes for that episode mainly say "let the little brat die" I decided not to mention it. Tell me I'm beastly over on Twitter @merseytart.