Update for the week ending May 31

Well, it’s been a packed week on the cobbles.  Let’s get right to it, shall we? 

So, Gary’s gone and tried to make a move on Tina.  Smooth, Gary.  Her response?  Allow me to answer in meme form:

Tina shoots him down brutally, but thank you writers for acknowledging in that brutality that there was never any intent for this to go anywhere.  For one, she’s not onto him.  For two, he’s not her type.  For three, never never never ew gross no.  He stands there in her living room blathering on about his feelings for the baby and what she’s doing, and the emotional transference – and while I do feel badly for him, come on man give your head a shake.  Tina was very brutal though.  Dad felt she was really over the top.  I think she was just being blunt Tina.  What are your feelings on this, folks?

After this, Tina begins to doubt whether or not she is carrying a baby for a stable couple like she had been led to believe.  She goes to find Rita but ends up confiding in Tommy.  Poor Tommy.  All he wants is to get back with Tina, and all she brings is drama.  You’d be better off clear of that mess, Tommy, really.

Katy and Ryan and Chesney and Owen, yawn.  I don’t know about you all but I’m kind of done with this storyline.  Chesney is moping and yelling all the time.  And really, Ches, Joseph is a toddler.  How thick are you not to check the brakes on your stroller?  Certainly you’ve used it before.  And Katy wants to go out and party and get it on with Ryan, Owen or Chesney yells at her, she runs to Ryan, rinse and repeat.  This week had Katy being attacked for her behaviour by Chesney in the street and Owen at home.  I was sympathetic for this story at first – there’s a lot of drama with teenage mums, trying to live their life with their friends, resenting the baby while simultaneously loving it more than anything, often there’s tension with the baby’s dad… wouldn’t any of this be more fruitful for the writers to exploit than Katy rebelling against her dad and running to a boy he doesn’t approve of?  If she was old enough to make the choice to have a child, she needs to live with the consequences.  Many characters are telling her this, but yet Owen’s behaviour continues to infantilize Katy and undermine any maturity or growth in the character.  As it is, Chesney hit the nail on the head: Joseph is becoming a burden to her.  And while this is a phase many teen mums face, I really hope the writers either turn this story around so there’s some point to the storyline or leave off entirely. 

David pesters Marcus for medical advice.  Poor fellow.  I know how he feels: you’re never off duty, are you.  He’s told there’s no in-utero tests for epilepsy, they’ll just have to wait.  It’s sweet, actually, how nervous he is at being a dad.  He just wants to get everything right, and he’s so worried that with his epilepsy he will screw things up, or that something will happen to him with that disease.  In an incredibly awkward and vulnerable moment (depending on the side), he asks Nick and Leanne to be guardians of the baby if anything should happen to he and Kylie.  Might’ve been politic to ask Kylie first, David.  The expressions on Kylie and Nick’s faces would have given the entire thing away had David been looking closely.  Between Kylie and Nick’s Worst Poker Faces Of All Time and Sally Webster knowing… I give this secret three more episodes.  Four, tops.

Faye’s got a school trip and Tim can’t afford the money for her to go.  Faye asks Anna for the money, but she really can’t help… so she says.  Anna has a word with Owen, who advises playing hardball.  That’s who she chose, says Owen.  Time to deal with the consequences. (Dear Owen: apply that logic to Katy, will you?)  Anyway, of course Anna can’t do that.  She finds the money and goes to visit Tim privately to help him save face.  At this point I was pretty much convinced Tim was going to run off and squander the cash – he’s been pretty negligent in his parenting  – but no, later Faye and Tim come to the house to fetch an umbrella and waterproof kit so that Faye can go on her trip after all.  Owen is livid.  “We decided”, he says.  Well, no, Owen, you dictated and Anna disagreed that was the appropriate course of action.  Since she’s the legal guardian, your decision means bupkus.

That’s right, bupkus.  

In Rovers news, Gloria got 80 000 pounds from Eric?  Did they not make a big deal with his lawyer and his ex-wife about how she wasn’t going to get a single penny?  I believe they did, and it was very dramatic.  So out of this miraculous plot hole comes the money to save the Rovers.  Owen is ready to sue Stella for the funds to finish the job, which of course she can’t pay.  There’s very real potential for them all to wind up destitute.  As Glo says, Owen doesn’t want to be the man who shuts down the Rovers.  The money is found, Kreepy Karl is going to work for free to help with the rebuild (which is perfect, because what damage can he do, burn down the place?  Oh wait.) so he doesn’t spend all day every day mooning sickeningly after Stella, and even Leanne is going to loan her mum the money for the fixtures and furnishings.  We’re en route to the grand re-opening!  But does this mean Gloria Price is going to get her name over the door as co-landlady?  She’s a fool if she doesn’t insist on co-ownership.

Ok, the Croppers.  I cannot say enough about this storyline.  Incredible acting from Sylvia, Hayley and Roy this week, supported with some fantastic writing.  When Corrie gets its ducks in a row, it’s some amazing television.  Roy had received a letter from his father, and at Hayley’s urging he makes up his mind to go and track him down.  Sylvia is not well pleased and tries to distract him with a tour through the family history photo album, but he is insistent on contacting his father.  He is driven by Hayley to a suburban home, where he finds Mrs Margaret Cropper.  He says he is there because of a letter he has just received.  But that letter was sent two years ago, she says.  She invites them in, and shows Roy and Hayley a photo of the family – Roy has two half brothers and a sister.  St John always put family first, she says. “Really,” answers Roy drily.  He soon figures out that his dad has passed.  St John was always haunted, she says, worried that maybe Roy wouldn’t remember him at all.  The letter was his attempt to put right what he’d done wrong, and he’d written it knowing well that Roy mightn’t want to hear from him.  So St John went to his grave believing Roy couldn’t forgive him – but made Margaret promise that if Roy were every to come that she would give him a model train set.  Roy leaves as Margaret tells him he has family there now.  He has brothers and a sister!  But I think everyone knows that is a club to which Roy could never belong.  

When Roy and Hayley return home to tell Sylvia that St John is dead, her first reaction is to celebrate.  Break out the pie.  Roy chastises her for celebrating the death of a man – and since he was left the train set, perhaps they were more alike than not.  He’s got a lot weighing on his mind as he sits on the sofa, and Hayley encourages him not to bottle things up.  Roy wonders why he must lay bare the minutiae of every emotion: “when one is abandoned, there is a void as a child and as a teenager for the relationship that no longer exists.”  But as an adult, one is eventually content – as Roy was, until he allowed himself to become intrigued by what St John had to say.  Now he’ll never know, and now he’s no longer content.  And Hayley is to blame.

“I did warn you”, says Sylvia unhelpfully.

But it’s actually Sylvia who brings Roy around to closure on St John’s death, I think.  She wants to go to the cemetery.  There is no doubt that Roy has a closure on abandonment that Sylvia does not – I think that’s down to Hayley’s influence.  Sylvia’s memories of how she and St John met and her earlier nostalgic trip  through the family photo album gave us a glimpse of a softer Sylvia this week, contrasted of course with the harshness of her anger as she emphasized how different Roy was from the man who left her and her young son high and dry.  The mixed emotions!  So many feelings!  These scene had all the feels, as the darned kids today say.

Did I miss anything?  Add it in the comments!