Rufus, the world's worst mockney is back. He looks a little like Elvis Costello, don't you think? Anyway, Carla, who is in the odd position of being the reasonable one, surrounded, as she is, by shysters trying to take advantage of her, kindly says she will take Michael and Sarah back if they apologise, which Michael agrees to and Sarah doesn't (until the end of the episode). Stephen is sent off to persuade Rufus to seal the deal, but Rufus/Elvis is less interested in matching dad 'n' lad pyjama sets and more into drugs and sex workers. He tells Stephen about the wonders of micro-dosing but then starts macro-dosing on cocaine, has a heart attack and Stephen, not wanting a third corpse on his hands, has to call an ambulance, all the while trying to get Rufus to sign on the dotted line like a crazed Alan Partridge dealing with Chris Feather. Rufus is taken to Kate Oates Memorial and still refuses to agree to anything until Stephen moves from murder down the sliding scale of evil to blackmail and threatens to tell Mrs Rufus about the coke 'n' hookers binge. Rufus is not impressed by this - "My wife's very broad minded, she's from Purley" (mate, I've been to Purley, it's hardly Chorlton-cum-Hardy) - but in the end, he signs.
Stephen has also stolen some LSD, which I think is now Chekov's hallucinogen. Oh, and Adam's solution to Sarah's unemployment is to get her barefoot and pregnant, something Ms Platt-Barlow is not too keen on and you can hardly blame her, considering she had her first baby aged 13 and the second one's father is a dead gangster, whose corpse was hidden under her mother's manhole for a while, and that's before you even get to the post-natal psychosis. Finally, Sarah, if you don't want Carla to get you to make the tea, just make really, really bad brews. It's been my technique for the last twenty years of working life.
I'm not really digging this trading up storyline. Not because I don't like the minutiae stories (I'm still enjoying the ongoing saga of Steve's scaffolding) but because it's a bit dull and I've never really bought into Peter's transformation into anti-capitalist man of the people. Anyway, he manages to swap the smashed screen tablet for a motorbike, but only because it's stolen and the stealer has spotted the po-po, namely Craig's partner Jess who takes Peter in for questioning. He's released though and meets the owner of said motorbike, who ends up giving him the bike for free as revenge on her husband who has cheated on her. So...Peter wins the bet? I'm not sure what the point of all that was.
Brian's electrics are up the spout and he has to move out. Mary says he can stay at number 11 (really? Where? There are 4 adults, 1 teenager and 1 adult's fancy man (part time) living in what appears to be a three bedroom house) but reneges when she finds out that he was Quentin de Santos, i.e reviewer of Roxanna in the Gazette. Poor Brian, but this can only be an obstacle on the way to his eventual middle aged romance with Mary, non? Love's labours are never lost, Brian! Anyway, he moves in with Amy and Aaron, which should hopefully bring some Gen X/Gen Z comedy gold.
Finally, Zeedan finally comes back from London (maybe he's been waiting this long for an Avanti train?) to look after his sis. Alya has super Weatherfield healing powers though and has already recovered enough to get back to work - although mainly to escape Yas and Zee.
Rachel Stevenson - on twitter
All original work on Coronation Street Blog is covered by a Creative Commons License
