State of the Street - April 2014

Peter's stuck between a rock and a hard place. Oh boy, is he ever. Carla's up the duff and Tina thought she was too but she wasn't. Tina's getting pushier with Peter and the bottle is beckoning. And now Steve knows the secret and that really puts him in the middle. Steve doesn't do well in the middle and he's horrible with secrets. He's also Tina's boss and he sure had attitude towards her, didn't he? He was able to cover, but for how long? He won't tell, he says, because Michelle would kill him. What does he think she's going to do when she finds out? She will, you know. I would love to see her dump him but now both of their names are on the business as licensees and it's going to be more difficult to split up.

Steve also found himself in the middle of Kal and Nick's issues even though he had no idea. Kal and Leanne fancy each other rotten but Nick wants Leanne back. Problem is, she didn't get the chance to tell Nick before he really started putting on the campaign to woo her and Kal took it out on Nick by pushing him hard at the gym, leading Nick to blow up and wallop poor Stevie Mack! All Steve wanted to do was get a little fitter to beat Lloyd in the upcoming fun run! I don't know. I kind of like Kal and Leanne but it's really not a good situation since Kal and Nick got to be good mates. Too close to home. I guess I just never liked Nick and Leanne together and always felt she only went to Nick because she couldn't have Peter.

Back to Peter, for a minute, I do like how Leanne is really sympathising with Carla over Peter's drinking. Enemies they might have been, and they'll never be friends but Leanne knows what Carla's up against more than anyone else. Simon's really paying the price. Again. And maybe one small good thing might come out of this, maybe Simon may end up not being so against Carla. There were some good scenes between the two of them, Simon so angry and wanting to blame everyone but his dad so he laid into Carla. It did seem that he realized that Carla wasn't to blame, not really, and he let her comfort him a couple of times. There's hope for the two of them yet.

I don't know about this baby, though. Carla seems insistent on getting rid if Peter can't stop drinking and he's really not having it easy.  He might be in rehab at the end of April but rehab and Peter have never really seen eye to eye in the past. It's only ever been really shocking things that have pulled him up, like nearly causing Simon's death in the fire in the flat or having Si run away from Grandad George in Blackpool. Carla really thinks that her getting pregnant was what pushed Peter over the edge. We know different. It was the pressure of the possibility of his wife *and* his mistress being pregnant! If Carla has an abortion or a miscarraige, that might be the tragedy that sobers him up again. Awful that it would have to come to that, though. I might have enjoyed seeing Carla struggle with motherhood. But  there's no way of knowing yet and not even any spoilers out about the future of any baby Barlow so we'll have to wait and see.

Meanwhile, Tina is waffling between trying to get Peter back and intent on keeping away. But Carla seems to be bonding with Tina as a new bestie mate. Funny that Tina doesn't look the least bit uncomfortable while Carla's pouring her heart out. And I notice that Carla hasn't confided that she's pregnant to Tina and when Tina finds that out, after Peter gave her the song and dance about not wanting more kids, Tina's going to hit the roof. Tina does seem to be taken aback at Peter's slip into drinking again and she blames herself. She's more to blame than Carla is, that's for sure. If she had stayed backed off after Peter dumped her, he probably could have stayed sober but she pushed and pushed again and helped open that door for him to stagger through.

Sophie and Maddie end the month living at Kevin's who reckons they're better off there than under Sally's upturned nose. I do like the actor playing Maddie, but I really don't like the storyline and can't figure out what on earth Sophie sees in Maddie. They have almost nothing in common except a gobby personality. I would rather have seen Sophie bend over backwards to help Maddie than fall in love with her. It would have made more sense. Then maybe once Maddie cleaned up, got a bit more confidence and blossomed, it could have happened then. It was just to out of the blue. It feels like Maddie's using Sophie and Sophie's looking for a cause.

Maria is spinning out of control and you can hardly blame her. She has gone through the wringer and has made yet another bad choice in a man. Well at least Marcus wasn't a murderer. That's something. Now she's rebounding hard and wishing she'd never let Tyrone go and she's taking advantage of Tyrone's good nature and his fear of Kirsty. She's already driving Tyrone and Fiz apart but I really hope they don't split up over Maria's machinations. Maria needs help, not a man. And isn't it ironic that David is the one that knows her secret and actually thinks she should tell the truth? David? He's not spilling any beans, mind you, but he could at any moment if Maria crosses the line. That's not the David we've grown to know and love is it? But maybe he's actually maturing a tad.

Phelan is just about the creepiest villain that Coronation Street's ever had, I think. I think he even surpasses Alan Bradley. I enjoyed Tony Gordon as a real baddie but he had charm on top of his controlling personality. Pat Phelan is slimy, creepy, manipulative and he makes your skin crawl. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the mark of a top actor. He's one of the most watchable characters on Corrie these days because of it.

Now by the end of the month, after he's wrung Owen financially dry, reduced Gary to a gibbering wreck and made Anna give up her virtue, he's seemingly out of the picture but I don't think we've seen the last of him. We might be focusing on the Windasses trying to get back on their feet, with Anna's secret hovering over them like a Harry Potter Deatheater ready to suck the soul out of them all, but Phelan probably hasn't done his worst yet. And because he's such a baddie, I think he's going to end up dead. Likely Owen or Gary will be the accused or even Anna when it comes out. The real killer? Probably his wife. Unless Faye's cold, calculating, death stare means there's more than meets the eye with that troubled child.

Speaking of financially dry, Owen does have a few assets to sell if he has to, the house, the builder's yard and the flat. Now, luckily, there's another builder in the offing. Maybe Jason could buy the business back? There's a turn about. He could be Owen's boss! Jason's dodgey father might be a candidate, as well, though I'm not so sure the business would do any better with Tony running it. He'd probably be cutting so many corners he'd have to be building round houses. He's already doing dirty deals with Rob and Tracy and that's sure to bite Barlow's Buys on the bum before too long! 

Now that there's a gym open on the Street, everyone seems to be crowding into the impossibly small workout space to have a go. It really does feel like there's a room the size of the corner shop, two treadmills that then get substituted for two cross trainers that get pulled out of the way for the athletics and boxing and benches and whatever else someone might use to work out with. They all seem to be in more or less the same place on the set when we see each of the punters. It's kind of funny really.

And they're busy! Always a few extras floating back and forth in the camera view. Amazing for such a small place on a back street! And why is Sharif always there? He's a business man, investing his cash. Surely he has other businesses to take care of and clients to see? Maybe he's just a busybody intent on meddling in his son's life, like Sunita's aunties! He seems to have made a friend in Eva so far. And where's Dev? After his big push to get fit, we haven't seen him in the gym once after the opening day and he owns half of it!