Having a quiet chat in the Rovers, Jenny and Sarah soon realise they’re not alone, and Stephen certainly makes his present felt as he turns on those he loves the most. Hitting Sarah over the head, desperate Stephen is on the edge as Jenny is on a mission to finally learn the truth.
At a press event for these spectacular episodes recently, we caught up with Tina O’Brien and Sally Ann Matthews to talk about their encounter with a desperate and dangerous Stephen.
Stephen has had a long run. The net is finally closing in. As Jenny starts to listen to Carla and put the pieces together, what emotions is she going through?
Sally: She doesn’t listen to Carla! She just thinks, “Carla, you’re a bit of a psycho, you’re having a moment,” because Stephen hasn’t done anything wrong in Jenny’s eyes. She’s never seen him be violent, he’s only ever been supportive and kind to her, and that’s because he loves her, and he’s not had an ulterior motive with Jenny at all.
It’s only when the net is closing in on Stephen, and he says about moving to Thailand tomorrow that she suddenly starts to go, “Oh,” and maybe Carla was right, so she tests the water, some kind of self-preservation kicks in and wants to delay going to Thailand. Then he says he found the bank account, and she starts to go, “He does want my money,” and I think she has flashbacks of what her dad did to Rita.
And she has that moment where she realises this isn’t love. But actually, it is! But he wants her money, and Jenny has that moment of loss. And then the same for [Stephen] when Jenny says, “Let’s delay it,” and he goes to the kitchen, and you see his heart break, and I think it’s really important because ultimately, it is a love story as well. If he’d not been such a murderous bastard, they’d have had a really good time together! She’s heartbroken that he’s done this, but as far as she’s concerned, he’s a conman and a fraudster, and he’s after money. She doesn’t realise that he’s murdered anybody. She’s not privy to any of that information, which is when Sarah says that to her in the pub, unawares that Jenny doesn’t know any of it. It’s a HUGE shock.
As his behaviour starts to confirm her suspicions, how scared does she become?
Sally: She’s terrified and suddenly realises that… Very quickly, it all starts to gather that if he did this with Leo, how long has this con of his been going on for? Leo’s been dead a year – was this his intention all the time? But then he was comforting her, so a betrayal on every level.
This is Sarah’s uncle. Can she really believe he’s capable of all of this when the Platts start to put it together?
Tina: I think she’s in denial. I think it’s David that’s really kind of going, “Hang on a minute.” She doesn’t want to believe it. I think she wants to believe the uncle she went to Milan with, the man who supported her and helped her in her career, that isn’t what he is. So I think it’s a shock when that starts to realise.
Does she realise that the family could be in danger, or is it too much to process?
Tina: I don’t think she would think for a second that he would ever hurt any of the Platts. You know, that’s family. And I don’t think she would ever think that she or anyone else in her family would be in danger.
Sarah’s stood up to Stephen before. When they come up against him in the pub, does she think she can get through to him?
Tina: I think if she thought he was dangerous, she never would’ve tried to, you know, have a word with him. I think she still believes at the end of the day that it’s her uncle, and maybe there’s been miscommunication. So I think she believes that they, as a family, could get through to him.
We end up in this situation where he has both of them in the Rovers. Do they realise at this point that this is going to be a fight for their lives?
Sally: When he clonks her on the head, yeah! Before then, I think it’s really cleverly done that Dylan and his dodgy friend have been in the pub, so she feels confident to go in there. It’s only when Sarah says she saw her upstairs, it’s like, “Whoa, hang on.” I love that moment. It is, “Get out of dodge,” and they go to get out of dodge, and he whallops her one, which breaks Stephen’s heart to do that to her. And I think that sends Stephen into a spin because he loves Sarah, he loves his family, he loves Jenny. He doesn’t want to do these things.
Tina: He’s a desperate man.
You can see how upset Stephen is when he hits Sarah. Is it a bit of a wake-up call that no-one is off limits?
Sally: Jenny’s definitely terrified. She does believe what she’s been told that he killed Teddy, and therefore it makes sense that he killed Leo. I think at that point as well, she’s angry, and she wants to get the truth out of him. I think she doesn’t think she’s going to get out, she thinks Sarah’s dead, and then she wants to find out exactly what Stephen did, and I think she’s disregarded her own safety to just get to the truth.
Do you like seeing Sarah and Jenny working together?
Sally: We only had that little bit, but it’s nice to kind of be initially in the Rovers in our joint, “What a bloody day!” He duped us both, and we share that moment of drinking the dodgy sherry.
Tina: Obviously, they both kind of cross paths because Sarah doesn’t know that Jenny doesn’t know Stephen’s maybe a murderer. That moment of going, “Yeah, this is what we’ve heard,” and then again, the fact that Sarah assumes that it was Jenny upstairs. I quite like how that all then comes together for a little moment, to kind of go, “Oh, gosh, this is time to go.”
Stephen drags Jenny outside with a bottle to her throat. Does she really believe her could kill her?
Sally: She thinks she’s a goner, but I think she’s also thinking… I don’t think she thinks about her own safety. She wants the truth. She wants to know why he did it, what he’s done, and in that moment, she sees that is far more important than her own safety.
With time quickly running out for Stephen, just how far will his desperation take him? Will he kill again?
Tune in to Coronation Street tonight to find out!
Sophie Williams
Find me on Twitter @sophie_writer1
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