Cosy crimes and gritty sagas by Corrie Blog editor Glenda, published by Headline. Click pic below!

Tuesday 8 September 2015

Coronation street Double Episode Review 7 September 2015


Finally, the confession we have all been waiting for. Difficult though it is to ignore the stretching of credibility in these episodes, I’ll do my best.

Robert urges Tracy to tell the truth - to confess to Carla that it was her who started the fire. ‘It’s not easy watching her torture herself over something you did.’  This of course begs the question, why is he so bothered? Is it because he is just on the side of justice or is it because he thinks Tracy will feel better for confessing? He tells Tracy that she should confess sooner rather than later, or else he might have to.

Roy spots Carla drinking and looking at Maddie’s memorial. Roy asks, ‘Do you think drinking is a good idea?’ Her reply – ‘Always.’

Carla is drinking, again, this time in her car, and Tracy gets in and sits beside her.  ‘All this moping about, this weird crawling around like some messenger of doom. It’s borderline self indulgent, it’s not a good look.’ Tracy pleads with Carla, telling her to stop blaming herself for the deaths of Kal and Maddie. She tells her the fire was an accident.  With no warning, Carla heads off in her car with Tracy as her passenger. ‘Buckle up Barlow, we’re in for a good ride.’ Goodness only knows what the alcohol level in Carl’s blood must be by now. It seems she has been drinking non-stop for weeks.

Tracy is concerned that Carla’s driving heavily under the influence, but Carla yells at her, ‘Chill out Tracy, we’re not going to crash. I’ve killed enough people for one lifetime.’

The 2 women arrive at a quarry and clamber up to the edge.  This is the place, she reveals where she used to play with her brother Rob and their mates. Suicidal thoughts and intentions are clearly at the forefront of Carla’s mind. Tracy tells her it won’t change anything if she jumps. ‘It’s just fate,’ she says. Carla carries the fate idea on. ‘Fate, yes, red or black, heads or tails, its just the way things fall. Heads I stand, tails I fall,’ says Carla. It seems as if Carla is just about to go over the edge when all of a sudden, there is a scream of ‘Carla! Wait! I did it!’

Carla asks Tracy why she bothered to save her life when the bus crashed. She adds that if Tracy hadn’t saved her, Kal and Maddie would still be alive.

Tracy reveals all. Understandably Carla is very shocked. The 2 women engage in a tussle. Eventually they arrive back on the cobbles and Tracy has told everything. How she stole Michelle’s keys to get into Carla’s flat and how she wanted Carla’s life to end, seeing her as the cause of all her misery, including Rob’s going to prison and Carla buying the share of the pub that she, Tracy, had wanted with Tony. Tracy confesses that she wanted to make Carla pay. It seemed that Carla had everything and that she, Tracy had nothing left.

An extremely (understandably) unforgiving Carla tells Tracy, ‘My staff despise me, my friends feel sorry for me, my business is on its knees. I’ve thrown it all away -all for taking the rap for you!’


Zeedan is playing a blinder! What a responsible, thoughtful and concerned young man he has become. The relationship that has developed between Leanne and Zeedan is thoroughly plausible and a joy to see. Still grieving for his dad of course, he does what his dad would have wanted him to do and that is to look out for Leanne. Praise too to the Sharif family, as a whole, for welcoming Leanne into their family.

Leanne has already confessed that she is frightened of Simon and that her stay in hospital is due to Simon’s violence towards her. Leanne, still not fully recovered, asks Zeedan to help her find Simon. This plays well. It is fully credible that you can love someone deeply while simultaneously being afraid of them and also being anxious as to what has happened to the aggressor.

An extremely upset and worried Leanne is on the point of reporting Simon’s disappearance to the police, on Ken’s advice when, Amy tells them that he’s upstairs in her bedroom. Leanne rushes upstairs to discover that he has been hiding in Amy’s wardrobe, but when Amy was asked if she had seen him or knew where he was, she lied. We need to keep an eye on young Amy …

Simon is distraught that Leanne has told Zeedan, who Simon looks up to, the truth about what he’s done.  But Zeedan covers for Leanne and tells Simon that he guessed what had happened and that he is gutted. ‘You’re not the lad I thought you were.’ Maybe that will open Simon’s eyes and he will realise how lucky he is to have Leanne as his mum.

Zeedan tells Simon that he has lost his mum and his dad and that some days he wants to punch brick walls, others, he struggles to get out of bed. He says he would never lift a hand to his family. ‘You’re a good kid Si, deep down, I know you are.’

Zeedan’s concern for his father’s intended, even expands to his turning up with
his sleeping bag and insisting he is staying the night and will continue to do so until it becomes evident that Simon is no longer a danger to Leanne. Simon tells him, ‘She doesn’t need a body guard.’ Zeedan replies, ‘And you’re going to prove that in the next few days.’ Admirable.

Unadmirable is the way in which David and Kylie are plotting to get shut of Gail. They reason that if Lily could have her own room then their nights might be better. Gail tells Sally that they want her out. On Sally’s advice Gail decides to consult Tony to see if it might be possible to convert the garage into a granny flat for her to live in.  Sally, au fait in all matters modern, or at least she thinks she is, says ‘It’s not French doors, it’s bi-folds’  and also that they are the new black. She adds that an ‘en suite is non-negotiable.’ Gail speaks of Assisted Living as the Death of Hope.


Anna and Tim do seem to be getting on very well. They are both delighted that they’ll see Miley soon and look at photographs of her. Faye is asked to look at the photographs but just says cute. She is singing the Lonely goat herd song, from The Sound of Music in which she will play Maria and in which she is much more interested.
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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is anyone more self-deluding than Tracy Barlow? Trying to justify her hatred for Carla, she says "I lost Rob because of you." No, she lost Rob because he murdered Tina. Carla reporting him to the police is irrelevant. Anyway, didn't Tracy let the police follow her and catch him? Then suddenly Tony is her soul mate and they are destined to buy the Rovers, something she's never been interested in before. She envies Carla ' s success in business, but Carla has worked hard to achieve it. Tracy is lazy and tries to improve her status by conning people or latching onto a well - off bloke, then when it doesn't work out she gets rid of them or, in the case of Charlie Stubbs, bumps them off! God knows how Robert can close his eyes to all this!

Anonymous said...

"Anna and Tim do seem to be getting on very well"

Yes unfortunately they do. Predictably the powers that be are pushing them ever closer together. BORING!

John McE said...

With yet another Cancer sufferer on the Street, in the shape of young Hope, how come we've never had a case of cirrhosis of the liver? The alcoholics in the programme don't just get drunk, they are shown to consume so much alcohol that in real live they'd be dead.

You can't help but think the drinks industry is giving backhanders so that they can present the drinking of ludicrous quantities of alcohol as simply normal.

Rossie said...

Sally is the modern embodiment of Hyacinth Bouquet - true comedy gold both ladies. The actress who plays Anna has successfully created a thoroughly miserable, self-pitying and self-obsessed character. I still don't know if we are supposed to like her or not. Certainly she has had a bellyful of tragedy to endure, but somehow it doesn't make me like her much. Still, all soaps are a mixture of light and dark. If Anna and Tim end up together, will Sally go back to Kevin? I reaaly hope neither of these things happen.

AlbertT said...

Thought these two episodes were awful.
Carla's guilt has been dragging on for months, yet the scene at the quarry and Tracy's big reveal seriously lacked any real tension or drama. To top it off that unless they pull something unexpected out the bag, and the Corrie of 2015 is far too predictable for that, we all know that they'll contrive something to get Tracy off the very serious charges and long prison sentence she'd receive in real life. Something which, allied to the murder she got away with, I find morally repugnant.
As for the rest, I'm starting to find Robert, the carpet-fitter cum chef with the crime deduction skills of the finest detective in the kingdom (why he's being shown as so fab at crime solving when the actual police are always portrayed as such useless buffoons I don't know), slightly creepy and odd.
And I can't fathom as to why they've suddenly started showing Gail as a simpering moron or Leanne, a true street scrapper, as so weak. Zeedan has been a real bright spot lately but I fear they're going to throw all that away by having him do something inappropriate with Leanne.
And as for the scenes with Tim and Anna, well let's just say whatever skills the actors possess neither of them can do subtle, they were terrible together and like everything else on the programme these days it was so contrived.
I don't like being so negative about a programme that I've watched religiously for almost all my life but I thought these two episodes were right down there and truly terrible and yet another example for me as how lost this once great programme has gotten itself over the last few years and how far it still seems from ever finding it's way again.

Anonymous said...

@AlbertT quite disagree. Thought the dialogue was great (Zombie Apocaclippers et al). Sally and Gail are a great pair. But mostly I was impressed by how compelling Alison King and Kate Ford were together. Watching them trade guilt trips back and forth was way better drama than inter-generational fighting or another scandalous affair. Both actresses are really good at conveying inner conflict, so I was glad Tracy got a chance for a change to have a conscience. If this means more scenes with both women, then I look forward to that. Kate Ford has been stuck playing a one-dimensional seductress for too long.

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