Slide Down My Rain Barrel Into My Cellar Door
Morning. Steve sneaks through the pub with a bacon butty for his hostage. He reckons they’re even-steven; that the kidnapping is payment enough for the cab scratch. He opens the cellar door. There are no lights on and no response.
Michelle comes down and confronts Steve about his shiner. He lies and says he acquired it from some rowdy last-call punters. Further questioned, he explains he’s taking the sandwich into the cellar. He says he didn’t want to worry Michelle but apparently there’s a rat on the premises and he’s trying to flush him out with whiffs of bacon butty. Michelle is having none of it and she’s calling pest control. She locks the rat downstairs (because rats use doors, don’cha know) and runs off with the key.
Dan, pasty and immobile, lies unconscious on the cellar floor.
Leanne is out in the street, on the phone to Janice and upset that Dan never came home the night before. Harry hollers to her, wanting to know who’s opening the Bookies’. Leanne tells Harry she’s pissed at Dan for disappearing all night. Carla happens along; Leanne shares her concerns and Carla is quite nice about it. Harry walks away and gets on the phone to Dan – advising chocolates, flowers and chain mail. I would appreciate Harry in chocolates, flowers and chain mail. Too bad I don’t own any Eau de Cougress.
Michelle is standing in the back pub hallway when Leanne rings. She hangs up and informs Steve that Dan stopped out all night. She accuses Steve of making matters worse by keeping Dan’s phone. Steve admits he gave the phone back the previous night. Michelle knows he’s well up to something and promises to tear him a new one when she finds out what it is. She sets off to buy rat poison.
Steve, having acquired the cellar keys again, opens the door. He tosses down a jar of vaseline and instructs Dan to rub it all over himself while his poodle watches says he’s not coming downstairs, and it becomes clear that Steve is afwaid of the dark. He chats with Dan, but no answer obviously. Ryan appears behind him and wants to know why Dan is in the cellar. Steve thinks Dan has taken the light out on purpose. Ryan wants to know if Steve is scared he will trip into a noose and wind up dangling from the ceiling. Fortunately, Ryan has the genius to suggest a flashlight.
Steve descends into the cellar with his torch. He finds Dan prone on the floor and at first thinks he’s playing possum. In bending down, he puts his hand on the broken lightbulb, cutting it badly He discovers the state Dan is in and hollers to Ryan to call an ambulance.
Liz & Vern are returning home from Derby. Liz insists on cooking Vern brekky and wants to stop in the shop for fry-up ingredients. Vern would settle for the Caf. Vern finds her over-the-top-fakey-bakey-love highly suspicious. He almost asks her something, but holds himself back. (ed: Mr. Kunzie thinks Vern met a new squeeze on the boat and is trying to tell Liz).
Steve goes to find a new lightbulb, his alarm rising. Someone has informed Harry, who sprints in a mad panic to the Rovers, doing a Starsky & Hutch over the hood of Jerry’s returning car and nearly giving him a heart-attack.
Norris, seeing the ambulance coming for Dan, dashes out of the cabin to gawp.
In the cellar, Harry berates Steve. “Didn’t I tell you,” he asks “to calm things down?” Yes my bechocolated knight, you did. The paramedics arrive. Steve insists several times and to several people that Dan was perfectly fine the night before when taken captive. Once Dan is hurried away on a stretcher, Steve comes up, looking hangdog. Michelle tears him a new one, as promised. Liz tries to reassure Harry – but he’s not interested. His only request is that Steve be kept out of his sight.
Vern and Steve remain at the Rovers, where Vern notices the vat of “Rodent-i-cide” that Michelle has purchased.
Carla finds Leanne in the Caf and delivers the news. Leanne and Janice rush off to the hospital. Becky wants payment for Leanne’s coffees, which apparently cost 40 quid.
Norris continues to gawp.
Tina stands with Darryl, watching as the ambulance loads up and pulls away. She muses that she’d like driving the ambulance, but isn’t into icky stiff. Darryl says icky stuff is no problem for him; he has a passion for his work as purveyor of donairs. Tina comments that it would be an ace horror film to have some poor bloke rotating on Jerry’s kebab spit. She also thinks slicing kebab is dead easy. Darryl objects, and they wager a fiver on Tina’s slicing skills. Methinks a new job in the works.
In the ambulance, Dan’s heart flatlines and he is saved by huge doses of saline and CPR as Harry watches helplessly.
A heated arguement has taken shape back at the Rovers’, with Steve AGAIN whinging, “If he hadn’t scratched me cab in the first place….”
Norris is fascinated by the discourse. Spineless, gutless little jerk. Michelle opines that the cab scratch looked like someone trying to pass. Steve repeats how healthy Dan was when he bounded into the cellar, and demonstrates for Michelle. Who promptly locks him in. Norris is finally looking slightly concerned that someone might die over this silliness.
Dan is rushed into emergency. The skinny is that broken ribs have ruptured his spleen and probably other things, judging by the amount of “cc’s” of stuff that have been administered.
Steve languishes on the cellar stairs, feeling like a schmo. Liz joins him, to offer some comfort. Liz reminds him that he and Andy used to one-up one another all the time. Liz sees that Steve’s hand is still full of glass, and will probably need a stitch. She marshals him up of the stairs.
When Leanne arrives at the hospital, Harry tells her that Dan is in the operating theatre, and he doesn’t know status. Lloyd and Steve show up at the hospital so Steve can get stitches. Lloyd spots the Masons and Steve goes over to apologize.
Harry is furious with Steve. He explains that Dan is having an operation, that his heart stopped and he had to watch the paramedics keep him alive. Harry further tells Steve that he better pray that no one walks through the door and tells him his son hasn’t made it – or Steve will pay.
In Other News…
Before Jerry’s return, we see Teresa lounging on the couch while the kids are cleaning up for their father’s arrival. Mel wants Teresa out, and is not shy about letting her know it. Teresa can’t believe she spawned such an ungrateful cow.
Jerry comes home and makes his way toward his house, surrounded by family. He wants to know who’s looking after the shop. Teresa greets them at the door. Darryl has warmed up to his mother, sharing a joke, but he’s alone in this sentiment.
Audrey is in Dev’s when Gail walks in. She accuses Audrey again of “rejecting” David. Ted is apparently coming that day, and Audrey is slated to join them in Rovers for a drink.
Later, Gail pops into the sal-oh and asks Audrey to cancel the drink with Ted. She apparently wants to go for a “nice walk in the country” with him, without her mother present. Audrey finds this laughable and out-of-character. “Who are you kidding?” Audrey asks. Gail continues to be a snotty brat because Audrey won’t employ the family teenagers when she really needs two full-time licensed stylists.
