The face of an assailant

When the "Who Attacked Ken" storyline spoilers first hit t'interweb, ITV's publicity machine offered a photo of all the potential suspects including a non-family member, Pat Phelan. They do this. Then, quite often, they throw a twist in the works and the culprit ends up being someone entirely different and "expendable", a secondary character. I really thought that's where this was going and I suspected either young Seb, perhaps caught in the act of robbing Number 1 or Chloe, hoping to set Peter up for it.

In an unusual twist, the identity of the attacker is indeed in the above photo. As the inept DS McKinnon arrested or seriously questioned one after another until she'd hit on every one unsuccessfully, the airwaves were full of red herrings, clues and hints. Amy? No, Amy wouldn't have hurt her grandfather even if she was angry with him. She couldn't have done it and gone on as if nothing had happened after. Pat Phelan certainly had form for it but it wasn't him, either. Amy directed the police to Adam whose fingerprints were on a kitchen worktop while he was supposed to be out of town. Daniel has often shown a sudden and violent temper. Tracy was upset because she felt Ken showed preferred treatment to her blood relatives, which she is not. Everyone had a motive. Everyone had opportunity, or so it seemed.

Little by little, alibis were given and some were proven, some were not. By the end, Daniel's alibi, proven with a tram ticket, was in tatters and the identification of a pair of red trainers as his seemed to have sealed his fate in Ken's memory. But Ken still only remembers the shoes, not the face.

Then Adam decided that he'd leave town after a dressing down by Peter and Tracy. Adam previously pretended to leave town when Ken ordered him out. He'd hit rock bottom and had no other option but he didn't actually leave. I didn't believe he'd have upped sticks and gone so quietly after Peter and Tracy's suggestion. I had been coming to the conclusion over recent weeks that he was the attacker all along, because Adam has been far too focussed on trying to move the attention away from himself, trying to find reasons to pin the blame on anyone else. When one person was cleared by the police, he'd move on to the next and so on. There wasn't any more evidence against him than there was with anyone else, just enough to be circumstantial but nothing really definitive while Ken still had no memory but Adam was determined he wasn't going to go down for it. Why? Because he's guilty, that's why. Or so I thought.

Ah. But Ken's starting to have memory flashes. Was Adam so quick to leave town to escape the inevitable? That's what I thought. Tonight, it seemed Adam signed his own arrest warrant inadvertently. Ken had recognized those shoes and Sinead identified them as Daniel's but she thought he meant the heap of clothes next to the shoes. Ken only said "who owns that stuff?", not "who owns those trainers?". Adam came to say good bye and right on top of his things in an open duffel bag were the shoes in question.  Oh heck. It was Adam! Ken even called the police on him though Adam is insisting it wasn't him though admits he was there but was too angry at his grandfather to call for help when he found him at the bottom of the stairs.

But Daniel was planning to go off as well. In a very contrived situation, his ex-landlord has waited almost 6 months to insist on a paint job at his old flat which you would think he would have rented out to someone else rather than lose that money for that long. But no. Swallow that one and move on. Daniel is persuaded to bring Ken with him which he did try to avoid but couldn't and Ken offered to help him revise for a poetry exam, using that big book he gave him awhile back, the one he wrote a message in.  You remember, the message had a phrase that Ken used to Sinead who repeated it to Daniel. He realized it was Ken that was the reason why Sinead felt she had to go through with the abortion and he was livid. Remember that sudden, violent temper he's got?

This, then, is the face of Ken's attacker.

And this, then, as we later discovered, is the blunt object used to thump Ken on the back of the head, still bloody. Daniel had to buy another copy and forge the note and now the two of them are in an empty flat alone together. Ken still hasn't remembered the actual incident but as Brian found out, sometimes memories can flash back to you when you least expect them. It's very likely going to happen next week. 

And once Ken remembers, since it isn't a murder charge, Daniel's fate isn't a done deal. I think that since it isn't that sort of crime, Ken can refuse to press charges if he wants and it's possible he might do that. He's been aware that his own interference has caused his son's anger towards him, and he's long felt guilty about abandoning Daniel who probably holds old resentment. But I expect, since Ken was willing to call the police on Adam, he'll do it on Daniel as well. Will Ken withdraw the charges in the long run? Wait and we'll see, I guess.


I enjoyed this storyline. It kept me guessing and I'm glad ITV didn't take the usual safe route of landing us with a secondary character that we don't care for as the villain of the piece though if it had been a murder case, I have no doubt that's what would have happened.

I wonder where they'll take Daniel now. Will he be humbled by his father's (anticipated) forgiveness? Will he become the family pariah? Will Tracy be insufferably smug because there's someone else to take the heat off her criminal past? Will we ever find out what happened to Daniel's mother?  What do you think?



Tvor (Twitter @tvordlj)

Let's Play Detective - Who tried to kill Ken Barlow?

Ken nearly came a cropper again but it wasn't a stroke this time. Surprisingly, really, considering the stress and shouting going on there over the past month. I really did expect another stroke. He's been losing his temper left, right and centre. Adam and the drug dealer, Daniel chucking Oxford away, Tracy giving him grief, Peter maybe drinking and cheating (he wasn't but Ken thinks he was). It hasn't let up.

But no, all these people are building up grudges against him and he's landed at the bottom of the stairs in a right old mess.The police have been called to the hospital. They say he's got bruises on his wrists consistent with a struggle and a bash on the back of the head that looks very much like someone hit him. He bruises easily due to medication but I think someone still has to have grabbed his wrists tightly and I think that leaves off Amy at least.

But who could it be? The publicity photo above shows all the suspects that ITV is suggesting. I don't think it's any of them. The most likely suspects would probably be Peter, Phelan, and maybe Daniel. They were harbouring the most anger.

Sinead was drunk but she was on her way to see Ken to give him a piece of her mind. No, it wasn't her. Tracy was angry that Ken wouldn't back her and help her buy the flower shop from Peter but though she might have struggled with him, I don't think she'd have bashed him over the head no matter what she's done to Charlie Stubbs in the past. She was out looking for Amy and didn't have an alibi but I think she's off the list, too.

Phelan says he came in the back door to shout at Ken and found him at the bottom of the stairs just as Daniel arrived. I know he's got history, having left Michael to die and having presumably killed Andy but I think he's too obvious.

That leaves Daniel, Peter and Adam. If any of those actors were known to be leaving the show, I'd have said that would be the person. But as far as we know, that's not happening. Adam has a grudge and Amy was going to slip him some cash. Adam knows where the spare key is and was going to go in and get the money. Did he? Did Ken find him at the top of the stairs? Adam pretended to get a flight back to Manchester the instant Tracy texted him and timed his arrival at the hospital to make it seem like he did just that but we know he was skulking around the night before. I don't know if he'd have shown up at the hospital if he thought Ken might remember it was him, though.

That could be said for Daniel or Peter, too. Daniel has a temper, we've all seen it. But Daniel was on his way to Number 1 after seeing an inscription from Ken on a book. That doesn't seem like a guilty man. Peter was pretty close to the edge over the Chloe stuff. He nearly drank and it looked like he was about to do a runner when he saw the ambulance. He didn't look guilty to me though in the hospital the next day when the police got involved, he did look worried. He does blame his father for ruining his life yet again. He does have the best motive of all of them.

But that's the thing. In soaps, the most obvious or likely usually isn't the perpetrator of a crime though they're usually the one arrested. Therefore, Soap Law says it can't have been Peter.

So who was it?

I have two suspects with a third runner up in a pinch. The guilty party is almost always a secondary character, an expendable  crewmember that we can lose easily unless we know an actor is leaving the show. Barring that, and we haven't heard anything to that effect, there are two.

Chloe. She is obsessed with Peter. She could have done it to set Peter up in revenge. Another one it might have been is that young whippernsipper, Seb. He might have got into the house to try to steal something. He's tried that before. Ken might have caught him. Either of those chartacters are unnecessary to the plot. Chloe's involvement would stitch up Peter so that might be the more likely. The outsider is Adam, in spite of what I said. Or maybe it's wishful thinking because he's not a character I enjoy at all.

The next few weeks or months will tell. I don't know how long it will take. The new producer has been quite good and springing surprises on the viewers and that's a good thing.


Tvor (Twitter @tvordlj)

What's going on with Adam?

I don't like Adam Barlow. Never did. He was whiny and petulant in his first stint on the street and he's arrogant and sneaky now. I applaud that they've brought him back to flesh out the Barlow clan. It's clear that Adam has some sort of agenda or secret and I look forward to finding out what it is even if Adam will never be a favourite character of mind.

Adam is the son of classic character, Mike Baldwin. Mike was arrogant and a business force to be reckoned with. When he got knocked down, he always managed to come back. He was a womanizer, and he had a cheeky grin, especially when he was winding up a rival, knowing he would have the upper hand. He usually did! Adam is trying to be like his father, I think, but he's a pale imitation. Mike always had the edge of a survivor, having brought himself out of a less than priviledged childhood. Adam is missing that, he's never really wanted for anything and he certainly has an air of entitlement that a lot of spoiled children grow up to have, especially on soaps.

When Mike died, his illegitimate son Danny got his hands on the factory but there was a newer will which divided the factory between Danny, Adam and (I think) Mike's other son, Mark Redman. Not sure about that third heir because he had fallen out with Mark over Mark's affair with Mike's wife, Linda. Leanne was the one that handed Adam the current will in the end and Adam then owned half of Underworld.

However, he and Danny didn't get on and Adam really didn't want to be bothered with the factory. In a fit of pique against Danny, he decided to sell his share but not to Danny. He was approached by Liam Connor who was in the rag trade with his brother Paul who would provide the financial backing. The Connor brothers conspired to undercut Adam's asking price with a bit of deft handling. They managed to get the factory for just over half what Adam wanted but after another row with Danny, Adam (who was legally an adult, not a minor) signed and walked away.

Here he is back on the street. He lived in Canada where he apparently became a lawyer. He was quite ill a few years back and Grandad Ken went to take care of him for nearly a year. Now he's back, recalled to the family compound after Ken's stroke. But there's something off about him. He seems to be broke. Strange state of affairs for someone that was a lawyer, you no doubt think. I know I did. He started off straight away scamming a rental car company when he arranged for his car to be stolen and sold. He conveniently avoids buying Christmas and birthday gifts. And in the past few weeks, he's been intent on claiming his birthright to the factory.

You may be as surprised as I was to hear that. Adam never showed any interest at all in all these years. Ah, but there's the rub. He's after a settlement, not after his share of the factory, claiming he was young and foolish and deliberately ripped off. All of that is true but he was an adult and he made his own mistakes. Did the Connors take advantage of him? Yes but he was stupid, too. He was too anxious to get one over on Danny. Now he blames the current Connors but they had nothing to do with it.

There have been several owners and partners of Underworld in the past 10 years of so, including the ferocious Carla. I can pretty much guarantee that Adam wouldn't be left standing had he been trying to get a settlement out of her! She'd have had him for breakfast. Johnny and Aidan are just as savvy, and with Alya's help, set up Adam for a confrontation and a convenient blackmail scheme. His attempt to steal documents from the company's computer blew up in his face and his bid for cash was shut down triumphantly.

Just as an aside, however, regarding Adam's assumption that he could get his hands on pertinent documents, either via the computer or even the filing system.  Remember, Adam signed off on the factory 10 years ago or more. Would the exact same computer still be running? I think not. Very likely they're on the 3rd or 4th computer since then, what with software upgrades etc. Don't forget, the factory has also had numerous fires which would cause possible meltdowns or at the very least smoke and water damage.  If the paper contracts were stored on site, it's likely they would be ashes if not in a fireproof safe with the digital backups if that was something they had a chance to do before any damage was done.

Whoever the original solicitor was probably has a copy, that's where Adam should have gone. And having said that, why wouldn't they have given Adam a copy of the document he signed back then? Legally there would have been two documents, one for each party to sign.

Ken was right. It was all about money, not his birthright. He sternly disapproved and Uncle Daniel was amused that Adam, the cocky and irritating relative, has got his comeuppance. Adam really hasn't got any smarter has he? Now Adam seems to be honing in on Ken and his will as the next possible avenue to money.

I don't know where this is going and I do wonder why he's so skint.


Tvor (Twitter @tvordlj)