Goodbye Mr. Chips

I can just see the writers in the back room of a pub somewhere in deep Salford, a bottle of the hard stuff on the table, a laptop open, and pissing themselves laughing at all the twists, turns and bizarre little details they've come up with while writing the saga of Stape. This was their final shot, the worm at the bottom of the bottle of tequila.

For those that don't know, there were two classic movies (based on a book) about a much beloved teacher called Mr. Chips, the name John used to book the flat viewing. The most famous of the two was called Goodbye Mr. Chips. Brilliant!

We've seen the end of John Stape. For real this time. I always knew he'd be back after that swan dive off the hospital roof, but I actually thought he'd do the right thing and turn himself in. Or, if he was that concerned about going back to prison, (or the psychiatric ward) why didn't he write a letter? He certainly spent enough time documenting all the timelines on charts! But noooo. John had to commit one last crime and kidnap Rosie, who of course would go along with any scheme he would dream up. Wouldn't you?

Ludicrous of course. And contrived. But oh, so appropriate for the ending of a story with more twists than the F1 track in Monaco. "Pour another round, lads, what else can we dream up to do with John Stape?"

I have to say it irked me to no end seeing John hiding behind a tree when Fiz arrived at the courthouse. I called him more names than can be uttered in polite society. He skulked and lurked and you could see the madness in his eyes but that's not why he couldn't persuade himself to do the right thing because when has he ever?

Everything he's ever done was self serving. I won't go into the history because I've done that many times. You can tell he'd gone completely bonkers.  After all, he'd been hiding out in Anglesey. Case proven, M'Lud! Actually, I jest. It's quite pretty there and in fact, the actor himself spent some time there over the summer so sightings of John Stape near the battlements of Beaumaris Castle could be true!

With his deathbed confession (to the lovely DC Redfearn, no less!)  leaving things up in the air while the solicitors and police mull things over, are we to be biting our nails worrying whether there will be a miscarraige of justice? Oh, of course not! It's a soap. Fiz is innocent and justice will prove her so. Besides, even though John is dead, I refer you back to the aforementioned charts and lists and the quizzes he was making Rosie write up in the flat. Surely that backs it all up so it's not just Fiz's word even if Rosie's word is considered hearsay?

Maybe now that John is gone,  Fiz can find some sort of life for herself. I'm sure it will be a long time before she can trust anyone. Chesney and Katy have been living at her house, maybe they should all bunk in together with both babies and be one big happy family for awhile. It will keep her mind off things.

I've enjoyed the Stape saga, though I know some have not. I loved the farce, the black comedy, the ludicrous twists and turns and I've enjoyed hating John Stapewick. Kudos, Graeme Hawley, you were brilliant!

John Stape: It wasn't the end

It ain't over til it's over and the saga of John Stape ain't over yet. Why? Because John Stape miraculously survived a fall six storeys from the roof of the hospital and was last seen staggering towards the ferry to Ireland. I wanted him to die, but that wasn't in the cards.

The saga continues back in Weatherfield, because his long suffering wife, Fiz, is suspected of being an accessory in the deaths of three people for which John is responsible. All she's really guilty of is fraud, no matter what her excuses were for claiming Joy Fishwick's money. That probably wouldn't send her to prison on it's own but murder? Off with her head!

Well, no, not really. But she is going to have a difficult time proving her innocence because there are no witnesses. We know that John accidentally killed Joy Fishwick, trying to keep her from calling out to a neighbour at the door. The police will be thinking that Fiz encouraged John to kill her so they could get their hands on the money.


We know that Colin Fishwick died of a heart attack at John's feet. He hid the body but didn't kill the man. You could make a case for it though. If John hadn't stolen Colin's identity, Colin wouldn't have been there and been upset and furious. The police reckon Fiz helped John hide the body in the first place. I'm not sure a post mortem at this late date would show that Colin had a heart attack but it might.

I'm not quite sure how they reckon she was an accessory to Charlotte's death, though. Admittedly, Charlotte was hammered by Stape before the tram crash but Fiz was attending a hen do at the time in front of many witnesses. After the crash, she went looking for John and then went into labour.

Because John didn't die, I'm going to speculate that he's going to find out about Fiz's trial and come forward and turn himself in. I'm sure John, no matter how far into insanity he's twirled, would not let Fiz go to jail for crimes he committed.

We all rue the day poor Fiz re-involved herself with that man. She gave him chance after chance and nobody could understand why. Love Schmove! He continually lied to her and badgered her into letting him do whatever he decided he wanted to do, illegal or not. I won't go into all that again. I've been pretty up front about that.

But I've enjoyed the ride. I don't know how it will all come out but it's soap standard issue stuff that Fiz won't be convicted for a crime she didn't commit. Somehow she'll get off, whether they capture John, whether he turns himself in or there just won't be enough evidence. It'll be a bumpy right in the meantime until we get final closure on Stapegate.

Edited to add.... DAMN I'm good! Seriously, I did NOT have any advance notice, I'm just a really good guesser!

Corrie's "big" week - Yay or Nay?

There's been a lot of negative comments about the Street lately but for the most part, I don't agree with them. This week has seen the culmination of two major storylines with the inevitable slide down the slope to the end of another one. In all cases, the acting has been excellent and I have nothing but praise for the performers. In most cases, the writing has been good, too, even with a few plot holes but nothing really that I can't overlook.

Let's get the one negative out of the way first. Graeme and Xin have been limping along this week. They've been filler in between the other two major storylines and it's been dull, dull, dull. Torn between two lovers has been Graeme's theme this week and I just don't care. No criticisms to the actors but they're so much better than this drivel but the whole storyline has been an epic fail all along, all in the name of an exit storyine for the wonderful Craig Gazey who was wonderful as the quirky Graeme, double act to first, David and then, Ashley.

There. That's that done and dusted.

On to Fiz and John. I've enjoyed this storyline and all it's twists and turns from the start even if I've loathed and detested the character of John and hated what he's done to Fiz. All the emotional blackmail, the manipulating, the selfish obsessive single mindedness he laid on her infuriated me, as it was supposed to. The story and the actors kept me rivetted to the screen. This week has been a fantastic denouement. The digging up of the body was horrific. The van accident looked a bit lame but didn't you think John reading Paradise Lost in the loft was a touch of genius?

Stape babbling on about them being able to run away, insisting he had a plan but never really explaining it because, of course, he didn't really have one. He was just in the throes of madness and desperation, completely out of control. Oh, Sally Webster is never going to let anyone forget she was right about him all along! I hope she's a bit more sensitive to Fiz, though.

The kidnapping of the Hoyles and Chesney might have seemed hokey and people have pointed out that though he did seem to manage to visit once a day to feed them and let them have "comfort breaks" that wouldn't be nearly enough. Point taken but I'm willing to overlook that. You would have thought that Chesney would have been able to break through the door eventually or, even though the room was soundproofed, one of the neighbours would have heard the banging on the basement door at least. Surely it wouldn't have been a steel door?

That aside, of course we knew Chesney would get out in time to stop Katy from terminating the pregnancy, that's just a soap standard plot. Having that bubbling in the background the first few days added to the urgency. I can understand Owen's horror finding out his 16 year old daughter was pregnant and, Owen being Owen, isn't going to be the most sensitive Dad about it all. Emotional and sick, Katy would be likely to lose a bit of faith in Chesney with her father insisting that Ches ran off on her. Young love won out in the end. Is that a good thing? Time will tell.

Then we come to the final confrontation at the hospital. I wondered why Fiz took so long to ring the nurse's buzzer! But then Fiz wouldn't have heard the full confession. She did ring it, finally, but it took her long enough! The stupid thing was there should have been police all over that hospital and some stationed out front of her door. John never should have got in the room much less get out of it!

That aside, didn't Graeme Hawley play a blinder! That last scene on the roof was spellbinding! It was already obvious that he wouldn't die. There was a point to mentioning earlier in the week that he had his passport with him but the thing is, there would be no use. If he tried to run and leave the country, the minute he tried to use it, he'd be caught. I still wish John had died. It feels like unfinished business that he is out there somewhere. Fiz can never really move on with her life and she'll be looking over her shoulder always.

Lastly, we've got the crisis in McDonald Mansions. The truth burst out of the closet about Kylie selling Max to Steve and Becky and the Social Services investigation was put into motion by Steve himself, not the usual suspects, David or Tracy though Becky doesn't know that. Steve had had enough of it all, he'd reached the end of his rope, financially and emotionally and called up the Social after night of drinking. David has been obsessed with getting Max back for Kylie for weeks and she's been trying to cover the fact that A. she isn't being bullied by Steve and Becky B. she blackmailed them for the money and C. She doesn't really want Max back. She says he's better where he is and though she says she wants him back, it feels more like she's saying it because that's what David wants to hear. It doesn't seem to me that her heart's really in it.

I don't think Kylie ever really bonded with Max. The circumstances of her childhood, with abuse and neglect, didn't really give her any idea of what a parent should be like and though it didn't sound like she was pregnant from her abuser, she certainly was a wild child and probably got pregnant after a drunken night out with someone she probably barely knew. It doesn't seem to make a lot of sense why David is suddenly all fired up about being a step-dad but you may remember how gutted he was when Tina aborted his baby. Maybe it goes back to that, and maybe David really does want to be a dad.

He didn't even blink, hardly, when he found out Kylie got money for Max but he still doesn't *really* know the truth about his grasping wife. Will he? Will it bother him? Maybe not, considering what he's been like in the past. He would probably understand where she was coming from and she could probably convince him well enough that she was in no fit state to be logical anyway.

Now Max has been taken away while they investigate the problem. That's another apparent plot hole. It doesn't seem like they would do that normally if Max is in no danger but Becky trying to take Max back from the foster family certainly didn't help matters. Katherine Kelly has been playing a blinder this week. Up to tonight, she's been quiet, tense, anxious but has held it in. Finding out someone turned them in, with all the jealousy she's had over Tracy, flipped the switch. And let's face it, Tracy could easily have been the one that anonymously tipped off the Social even if, this time, she didn't do it. Becky thought she did, though, and that was all it took.

When Karen snapped over Tracy, she burned a car and Tracy thought she'd killed Amy. Becky took a sledgehammer to the Barlow house though not to Tracy herself. Are we spotting a pattern? Tracy likes to wind up her so-called rivals for Steve and it always lands her with a backlash far worse than she expected. Tracy didn't cause this outburst, mind you, but because she'd spent so much time blackmailing and emotionally throwing the red rag in front of the Becky Bull, it was Becky's natural conclusion and after a slow burn and a confrontation with Kylie, who rightly pointed out she would never have deliberately caused Max to go into care, she was off with a sledgehammer.

Ken should have called the police the minute that glass broke. David had a great time recording it for evidence. oh heck, Becky, don't break the Barlow table! That's original props, that is! But Steve was too late confessing to save the table.

I can understand Becky leaving him no matter what Steve tried to say to justify it.  I can  understand why he got to the end of his rope and really, it's better that it's all out in the open. Tracy can't hold it over their heads anymore which can't be a bad thing. But why did the Barlows NOT have Becky charged for the damage? (or maybe they will next week and if not, they better take it out of Steve's hide!)

Aside from the Graeme and Xin filler, and a few plot holes, It's a big Yay from me. I'm used to soaps and plot holes and you need to suspend disbelief to some extent for storylines like this. They kept me interested, they kept me coming back every night to see how it would all come out. I was most interested in the Stapegate story, with the McDonald's coming in as runner up.

Judging from a lot of comments this week that I've read on t'other blog, there will be a lot of negativity but surely there are a lot of kudos out there too?

Die, John, Die

I want John Stape to die.

That sounds harsh, I know. But he has crimes to atone for. He has to pay one way or another. He didn't kill Colin Fishwick but he did steal his identity and hide the body when Colin dropped dead. He did kill Charlotte and he most certainly killed Joy even if that was an accident. She was having a heart attack or something similar and he held his hand over her mouth so she wouldn't call out to the neighbour at the door. I don't think he intended to kill her but it happened.

Now he's kidnapped the Hoyles and Chesney and has them tied in the cellar and the circle is complete. It started with a kidnapping and has ended with one. The body is going to be dug up from under the floor at the factory and John's going to lose the plot completely. All his misdeeds will come out because he won't be able to keep his mouth shut. And the rug that Colin is wrapped will probably be full of John's DNA as well so he'd get found out anyway.

The spoilers tell us he's going to take off with baby Hope. Fiz, chasing him will get hit by a car and end up in hospital where John and Fiz and the baby will be on the roof. Apparently he is going over the edge but some spoilers say he will survive and escape and go on the run.

NO! I really hope this isn't going to happen. He won't have paid for his crimes and that's just wrong in the world of soaps and is too much like a plot from the American soaps. Fiz will never be able to move on with her life if she knows he's out there somewhere. If he does survive, he has to be taken into custody and either jailed or locked in a hospital for the criminally insane. Unfortunately, with the kinds of things Phil Collinson is throwing at us these days, we could be in for just what I fear.

We're going to find out next week as the storyline plays out. The spoilers I've read are still circumspect, not letting out the secret which is a good thing. I like to be surprised now and then!

Stapegate - The Final Countdown?

On t'other blog, Chewy thinks John Stape is a serial idiot. That's probably an appropriate term for it. Is he a serial killer? Not really, not in my opinion but death does seem to follow him around. He doesn't set out to kill anyone but there have been at least two deaths that could be termed manslaughter at his hands and he's covered up a third, quite literally.

He'll say, "all I wanted to do was teach"! He made a bad decision. He allowed a nubile student to seduce him and it went pear shaped from there. That weakness for younger women was just the tip of the iceberg. (After all, we've known Fiz since she was 16 and right out of school yet we never knew she dated Stape. She must have been very young and he in his early 20s at the time.)

His affair with Rosie landed her father in jail and lost him his career and the woman he thought he loved. On impulse, he kidnapped Rosie whom he blamed and then Fiz came back to him. Now what do you do with a teenager in your granny's attic? Why, leave her there for your girlfriend to find. That sent him to jail but for some reason, Fiz still forgave him and married him.

But he wanted to teach and passive-agressive narcissistic psychopath that he is, decided there was a way to do it and it didn't matter how upset it made his darling wife because that's what narcissists do. He stole the identity of a former coworker, Colin, who was moving to another continent to escape a pissed off husband of a woman he was shagging.


Here's where it starts getting even more twisted. Lying to his neighbours who think he sells furniture and having to pretend when one of them wants a sofa. Attending a seminar for teachers and being discovered by another former coworker, the loopy Charlotte who was very clearly getting off on knowing his secret. The blackmail, having to fight off her advances, things were getting sticky. But Colin returned and wanted his identity back, as you do. You can't get a job without one!


May the Farce be with you

Things took a turn for the worse.Colin dies and in order that the authorities not find out why he and John were arguing, John and Charlotte bury the body in the pit in Underworld which had been destroyed when Tony Gordon set it on fire. John seemed to be handling the guilt ok but Charlotte went round the bend. Perhaps she had been there all along? Turns out she was obsessed and fiercely in love with John because he saw her journals detailing her fantasies and obsessions about him when they worked together (but it turns out she had had an affair with Colin previously, as well. Love the one you're with?). And if you think things couldn't get worse, stick around.

Convoluted much?

On the night of the tram crash, Charlotte went completely stark raving bonkers and went after him with a hammer, which had been used to put a wreath on the door. He grabbed it from her and chased her and bashed her on the head with it. That *could* be deemed self defence but she *was* running away from him at the time. I think a good lawyer could argue that he didn't have to hit her, she'd have gone right out the door safely, skull intact. An even better lawyer could argue that since she was going to expose his misdeeds, he was going to kill her anyway. Planned it! But alas...manslaughter, it is, then, because though Charlotte didn't die straight away like he thought, she was all but gone and he encouraged her parents to pull the plug.

At the same time, Fiz gave birth prematurely and his beloved baby daughter's life hangs in the balance. It's been over a month and it could still go either way. The guilt is wearing John down. John had to spend time with Charlotte's parents, who were introduced to him previously as Charlotte's fiance, Colin, at Christmas. Then Colin's poorly mother starting haunting him. She's dying and is frantic to get hold of her son. Have you tried a seance? No? Tough luck.

John's nerves are worn to a thread by now and he's helping out Mrs. Fishwick to try to soothe his guilt over knowing her son is really dead. When she found out, he confessed. It came gushing out like a tsunami, he finally was able to unburden his soul but it sent her into a final heart attack. He wouldn't give her a possibly life saving inhaler and when a neighbour knocked on the door, he put his hand over her mouth so she couldn't cry out. She died in his arms under his hand. Did he cut off her air supply? It didn't look like it but she was in the throes of heart failure at the time, angry at him and accusing him of killing Colin.

That's another death at his hands. He's already been to the doctor, wailing about guilt and unable to sleep. The doctor isn't really doing much more than giving him sleeping pills which is pretty dangerous when someone is as depressed and on edge as he is.

Surely Joy's death is going to be the death of John, or at least the death of the storyline. His blood pressure must be through the roof, he's not sleeping, he's worried about the baby and holding a lion's share of guilt. He's going to crack and he's going to crack wide open and it won't be long now, i'm guessing. We still don't know if the baby will survive and if wee Hope dies, with John in a straight jacket, how will Fiz go on?

I've always said that John was dragging Fiz down and this is the end result. Corrie women are strong so Fiz will find a way to manage but will she finally give John the boot or will she stand by her man, the man that's let her down over and over and over again.

John Stape is crumbling. He's not a bad man, not really, just self centred and single minded. He lies like it's second nature. He does things that he knows are wrong but he just can't seem to stop himself because it's either to get what he wants or cover up what he's done. One lie begets another and another. He doesn't set out to hurt anyone, but between his lies and the deaths, he's a walking destruction zone!

Looks like he's about to self destruct and it won't be pretty. It's inevitable, it's going to be sad, really, mainly because Fiz is going to be shouldering it all. Most of us would prefer John get what's coming to him but not like this. We want him behind bars, not in a padded cell but if he can claim temporary insanity, and clearly everything he's done makes him look a right nutjob, he can be redeemed and stay in the show.

Charlotte "Busy on Sunday" ... How close to the edge is she really?

The last new character that came on board the Coronation Street Bonkers train was loopy Mary Taylor who is eccentric and completely off the wall (and getting even more so!). The latest one is Charlotte "Church" Hoyle played by Becky Hindley. She made a brief appearance all decked out in a sari of multiple colours at a going away party, the one where John decided to steal his former co-worker Colin Fishwick's identity papers. She was a bit off the wall then but she's back, bigger, bolder and just as colourful!

She calls herself a Free Spirit as far as her dress sense goes. I guess you could call it that. I bet they have fun dressing her in Wardrobe. You'd just have to hit the cheesiest market stalls or charity shops you could find, pick clothes and random and put them all on her! Some of them actually don't look too bad but she's definitely not a trend follower!

However, the fun in this character is her personality. She's as loopy as a macrame plant hanger!!! Clearly man-mad, she's honed in on John Stape and discovered his secret. And she's using it, boy, is she using it! She's going to be the instrument of his downfall, i'm guessing. She's thrilled with the idea that he's done something so sly and sneaky and now she thinks Colin might be returning from Canada, only because she's been following his Facebook status! Sounds like a stalker in the making, there!

She certainly has latched on to John, much to Fiz's dismay. It was bad enough that he did the whole identity theft thing in the first place but for someone else to know the secret, Fiz is going to lose her mind with worry! The longer it goes on, the more chance someone will find out. In the meantime, i don't think it's out of the question that Charlotte is going to try to blackmail Stape into the sack. She just seems that type. If you can't attract them with your natural beauty and sparkling wit, blackmail will do just as well! She's really enjoying winding up John and i'm really enjoying watching her do it! He deserves a little torture! Every time he tries to justify his actions, trying to manipulate Fiz into "trusting" him, i cringe and holler at the screen. There's something seriously wrong with that man.

Now, something just occurred to me. Spoilers say there is a body that turns up and rumours say it will be Colin Fishwick, the one whose identity Stape has stolen. You can pretty much predict that Stape will be found out and arrested for it. I've just had a Road to Damascus moment and I think the real culprit is going to be loopy Charlotte! I'm not wrong, am I?

Watch this space!

One idiot after another

I'm at a loss, I really am. This week on Corrie, it's been idiot after prize idiot. Some were fairly harmless and some were almost fatally dangerous. Watching this week was an exercise in frustration for me. I'm not even sure where to start, there are so many in all directions!

Ok, the minor idiots:

There was Graeme chasing after Rosie and Natasha, using the same lines on each of them. Did he think they wouldn't find out? They might not have been mates before now but they do occupy near distances on the same street. He got a beer shampoo for free for it. I guess that means he won't be dating either one any time soon. It *was* funny though.

That brings me to Natasha. Desperation isn't pretty, honey. Salivating over Nick, babbling in the street, throwing yourself at him... it might all get you a date or a shag but it's not going to get you any respect or a relationship. Especially not with Nick Tilsley who is also an idiot. So much of one that his mother has been in prison for weeks and he's *still* not actually gone to see her.

Rosie is an idiot too but that's just par for the course. Believing that her new fella is a footballer? WAGs actually do go to a match now and then to admire the prowess of their beloved on the field. The fact that he's been putting her off from attending would be a red flag for most women but obviously not for Rosie who probably hates football anyway. I'd say it turned out he couldn't cut the mustard but in this case, that's exactly what he can do. And the ketchup and the brown sauce! :)

Let's look around and see who's next.

Audrey's an idiot for falling for the charms of a slimy escort who's blatantly ripping her off (making her pay for theatre tickets he gets for free) and who has come between her and her oldest friend, Rita, and because she's making a fool of herself falling for his charms.

Kirk, of course, is a bit of an idiot on a good day but posting a photo of Jason instead of himself was bound to get him an ear bashing from Izzy who now seems to fancy Gary.

Let's move up the idiot scale a few steps to Kevin Webster. Tyrone posted the baby scan on the internet and then told everyone when he wasn't supposed to but Molly should know better than to even suggest he keep the pregnancy to himself when she's popped out like a balloon and he's so excited. Enter Kevin who could be the baby daddy. He's all choked up but then has the utter temerity to suggest she abort the baby. Where does he get off? At 20 weeks into a pregnancy, I doubt there's a clinic that would do it.  He was out of order suggesting it just because he is having a hard time living with the possibility that it's his kid and it would be evidence of his infidelity.

Kevin would lose everything, his family, his friends, his reputation. He's betrayed his best friend and business partner.  He tried to force her to get rid of the baby. I don't think he could show his face in Weatherfield again if all that came out and I wouldn't feel the least bit sympathetic for him. I'm not any happier with Molly rubbing her bump in his face daily either. It's an all around bad situation which is bound to come out sooner or later because in soaps, it always does. Kevin should have had his ass kicked last year when he got that middle aged crush on her in the first place.


Prize idiot of the week, though, as you might expect, is John "Stapid" Stape. Stapid is a term a fellow blogger coined this week and it fits, oh it fits! Stupid + Vapid +Stape and you've got that in a handbag. Another fellow blogger has diagnosed him as a classic Aggressive Narcissistic and I fully agree with that too. Sociopath also comes to mind. Clear sense of right and wrong but not when it comes to himself. What could go wrong? How about your new boss visiting to return your mobile and you sharing 2 bottles of wine with him. He's clearly drunk and you usher him out the door and let him drive home. Idiot! And I think you can be prosecuted just for that these days. I know bar and pub owners have been.

Then there is the whole identity theft issue which is obviously not as well thought out as Stapid thinks. There are more holes in his scheme than swiss cheese. Did his new boss even match the signatures between the forms he signed and the driver's license? Did John spend hours practicing his forgery skills when we weren't looking? And from the look of it, the real Colin must be at least 15 years older than Stape. Did they not check his birth date and his CV dates against his face? Come to that, where did John get hold of Colin's CV? He only had his certificates and ID, did he make it all up from stuff Colin had told him in the past? Surely he wouldn't know all the hire/leave dates exactly and the new school should be checking that, shouldn't they? If the real Colin hasn't stepped on a plane to emmigrate yet, won't he miss his driving license? Emmigrating doesn't happen overnight and there's a lot of checks and balances. Surely the tax people would wonder why he's getting a paycheque from a school while he's trying to leave the country?

On top of all those plot holes, he's coercing Fiz into the plot. Fiz, dear, you already know he's a good liar and now he's at it again. Doesn't this tell you something? It tells me you're an idiot, too. I really, really hope when he gets caught, and he will, that he goes down for it. I really, really can't stand the character and how he's totally ruined Fiz. If he goes down, I want Fiz to get really, really angry, not spend weeks and months moaning and whinging and whining and feeling sorry for herself. I don't want him trying and trying to get her back because he's not really a bad man, is he? He just had a bit of bad luck. And if she won't take him back, he'll just get all depressed, get himself beaten up in prison and pretend to be suicidal and give away another load of money to a bimbo. Sheesh!

Done like Dinner, the figurative death of a once-great character

That's it. Fiz is done like dinner. They've completed the decimation of this once spunky and funky girl, the girl that would strip her top off on the factory roof to stand up for herself. The girl who would, though she was a bit tubby, had wild red hair and gap teeth, cheerfully run after blokes, knowing she was the sexiest thing on two legs. The girl would wouldn't take crap from anyone because she'd had to take so much from her mother all her life.

Now she's hooked up with her first love, a man that cheated on her with one of his students, because he was flattered and couldn't say no when she jumped into his trousers. This man then kidnapped that young girl and held her captive for 5 weeks but "did it all for her". A man that wheedled, is oily and smarmy and manipulative and has her in puddles of nerves. Against all odds she's marrying him, even though her beloved brother is dead set against her and all the neighbours think she's out of her mind. She's lying and hiding everything. If you can't be honest about your relationship, how can it be a good thing?

Jennie McAlpine reckons John is the love of Fiz's life and it's a more mature relationship than Fiz and Kirk were. She also says that John may be in part, a father figure and if that's the case, it's definitely doomed. Fiz may see John as a decent person deep down but I see him as weak. He's cheated on her once with hardly any thought and he'll do it again. He even admits he couldn't resist at the time. Leopards don't change their spots. Not that much.

Fiz is right, your wedding should be the happiest day of your life and she was miserable, secretive and to me, she comes across desperate, not aching to be with the man she loves. It's not as if he was wrongly accused and she's tying a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree.

I've said it before, i think John is manipulative and he proved it again on the wedding day. Even after Fiz admitted she lied about Chesney and all their friends being against them, he says something smarmy like he feels loved (because she cared enough to lie)! I really thought she'd back out when she finally have realized where her priorities should have been all along. He accused her, saying she can't hurt Chesney but she can hurt Stape. There's a difference. Chesney is a child. John is supposed to be a grown up but that's debateable, too. But damnation didn't Ches show up to do the right thing and she was backed into a corner. Stape was practically punching the air in triumph.

How much do I hate this storyline? It's one of the worst I've ever seen though the Kevin and Molly stuff is the absolute worst! I dread the day Prisoner 666 comes out of jail and lands back on the cobbles. It'll be all the neighbours tossing insults and Fiz weeping and Chesney telling her so and what did she expect? Maybe he's going to try to get her away from her friends and family again when he can't stand the heat.

I can't say it'll all end in tears. It's been nothing but tears all along! Not to fault Jennie, though, she's great and she always is. She doesn't get rated as highly as she should do!

Who are you and what have you done with Fiz Brown?

Passive Aggressive vs Total Manipulation

According to the definition, "Passive Agressive" is a personality trait said to be marked by a pervasive pattern of negative attitudes and passive, usually disavowed resistance in interpersonal or occupational situations. That sounds a bit complex. What it means is when someone seems to be on your side or seems to go along with things, but they're putting obstacles in the way either consciously or unconsciously. For instance, someone asks their partner to take on a household job such as the laundry or the grocery shopping. That person doesn't particularly want to but agrees anyway and then does it wrong all the time. Therefore, the original requestor ends up redoing it or taking the task back. Result! thinks the requestee, because they didn't want to seem to be negative or unhelpful and can now say, "well, I did try my best" when really, they didn't.

It can also be seen as a bit controlling, especially if they are doing it and they know they are doing it. They're making the other person do what they want without having to directly persuade them. They can use the behaviour to cause trouble, to control, and to manipulate and some people are very, very good at it.

There are two characters on Corrie that deserve the Olympic gold standard in passive aggressive behaviour, and both have crossed the line. One is more classic than the other, more weak and more likely to show P.A. only somewhat consciously where the other is very much in control and uses P.A. to maneouver people like pieces on a chess board.

The latter, of course, is Tony Gordon. He's a master manipulator and control freak. He doesn't appear to have a conscience, not often at least. He is arrogant and selfish, cold and sarcastic. Did he truly love Carla or was it an obsession? Was she a possession that slipped through his fingers due to his own manipulations? Carla was probably the only woman that was close to Tony's equal, both in intelligence and in ruthlessness though she did show a softer side now and then.

Tony lost Carla to Liam and he had Liam killed in revenge. He then actually got his hands dirty and nearly strangled Jed Stone, one of the flies in the ointment but Jed was instrumental in Carla finding out the truth about Liam in the end. Maria discovered evidence of Carla and Liam's affair and leaped to the conclusion that Tony had Liam killed. She nearly got herself locked in the mental ward after weeks of hysterical campaigning trying to get everyone to believe her. Now, it looks like she's falling in love with Tony and he with her. Or is he? My feeling is that he started wooing her to put her off the scent. He also has shown a guilty conscience for killing Liam but only because Maria was pregnant. If she hadn't been, she might be as dead as Liam now for all the bad PR she was hurling Tony's way.

I think Tony may see his helping Maria as a way to atonement. He may actually be developing feelings for her and he has surely been touched by the birth of the baby, the baby that he brought into the world on a remote beach. Don't get too comfortable, Tony is already showing those signs of possessing the woman he "loves" by subtly pushing visitors away and making sure Maria's in-laws know he's been staying nights by retrieving his razor while they were there. That was calculated and it pushed the right buttons. The end result? He's hoping they'll get so upset that they'll leave and never return, thus cutting Maria and the baby off from Liam's family. Classic P.A. move.

Granted, Tony does not really have a classic P.A. personality, he just uses it for his own ends. The character that really is classic, is John Stape, aka Prisoner 666. (I love that moniker, the one Sally hurled at Fiz in the factory one day!) He knows exactly how to keep Fiz where he wants her and get her to do what he wants without seeming to be a controlling bastard like Tony. But he's equally destructive, maybe moreso. He puts on the hurt, puppy dog eyes, he uses flattery and poetry. He puts subtle ideas into Fiz's head and lets her run with it in exactly the right direction he wants. He lies with ease. He's weak and has no self control.

Recently, during a prison visit with Fiz, he talked about his anti-depression pills and being well enough now to be off them because of her, talking about weddings before giving her the idea of getting married while he's still in prison then pretending it's a mad idea, pretending it's not what he wants. Fiz has grabbed onto the idea, however, and is now determined to make it happen. When she left the visitation room, he had that tiny little smirk on his face, the smirk in this photo. Result! See, the sooner she marries him, the sooner he has her trapped. Then when he gets out of prison, he can put her firmly into an invisible walled prison. He's not as obvious about it as Charlie Stubbs was when he was manipulating Shelley but the end result will be the same.

He's already chipping Fiz's self esteem away. He's ruined her sparky fire and turned her into a needy puddle of tears. She's turning into the kind of woman that thinks that she is nothing and has no self worth if she doesn't have the man she loves. Last year, before he kidnapped Rosie, he thought it would be a good idea to move Fiz out into the country to his gran's house, away from all her friends and family. He didn't think about bringing Chesney along, only as an afterthought. He didn't think about her job, her friends or her responsibilities. He just wanted to get her away because her friends didn't like him or what he'd done, cheating on her with Rosie. But that went a bit too far, and Fiz, still with a modicum of backbone, balked.

What does John do? In a fit of temper, blaming Rosie for his downfall, kidnaps Rosie and keeps her in his gran's locked attic for 5 weeks until Fiz discovered her. Fiz thought she'd never set eyes on him again but she still couldn't help seeing him sent down and when she couldn't deal with Ches, she gravitated to him again and he's ramped up the PA behaviour even more. She is completely under his spell, even though Chesney is rebelling hard against it, she continues to blindly slip further and further into Stape's web.

How will it all end? Will she see what he's doing to her when Chesney goes right off the rails? Or will Prisoner 666 ensnare her and leave her a shell of her former self? Will Fiz come to her senses eventually? I hope so. I hope the writers have a purpose behind all this and we get a sadder, wiser Fiz back after it's all over.

Welcome and let's start off with a rant, shall we?

Welcome to yet another Coronation Street blog. This one, as opposed to my other blog, is not restricted to Canadian timelines. That blog will still exist for my Sunday comments on the Canadian shows, plus other news and opinions on what's going on for that timeline. I watch the UK shows shortly after they air and write an episode update for a UK mailing list. I also wrote for Corrieblog.tv for a couple of years so you have to be up on the spoilers for that. I'll post the weekly previews for the coming week but won't be doing episode summaries. Just be aware, on this blog,

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS.

The inaugural post is going to be a rant. About Fiz Brown.
Now i like Fiz, i always have. She's a great character. She's always had her head on straight and has been fun but sensible.

Let's recap, first:

She was wonderful with Kirk but her character felt there was more to life than where she was heading so they split up and she re-met her first love, older teacher John Stape. That's where it all falls down. It was ok at first, exploring a renewed love. It all went pear shaped quickly when Stape proved that he was a tosser of the first order when he had his rubber arm bent by sexy Rosie Webster. Don't forget, Fiz had to have been only about 15 or just 16 when Stape and she were first involved. She came to Coronation Street just after she finished school at 16 and started working in the factory. She's been there ever since with no sign of a relationship before she started to persue Tyrone. Stape was a teacher then so had to be in his mid to late 20s. Obviously has a taste for young stuff and his subsequent affair with Rosie was more of the same.

He says he's weak. I'll agree there. He says he loves Fiz, he may do but he has no sense of committment. She found out in the worst (and most cliche) way (he gave Rosie sexy undies and Fiz some flannel jammies and the two pressies got mixed up!) Fiz chucked him, Kevin decked him but it didn't keep Stape away. He came crawling back to Fiz, full of regrets and over time, managed to almost convince her to have him back. Only Rosie got in the way again. He impulsively kidnapped her and held her locked in the attic at his nan's house for weeks. He got put in prison for that. And so he should!

That brings us up to where we are now. Fiz turned to John for help home schooling a bullied Chesney because she couldn't afford a proper tutor. Now Fiz, when she arrived on the show, said she'd had 10 GCSEs, which means she's a pretty bright chick. Why she is now struggling with Chesney's schoolwork? Obviously retro fitting the plot. I hate that. I really really hate that she's still "in love" with Stape, too. It seems so dead end! He's in prison, he's a self destructive, boring, bland tosser. He's only going to drag her down again and she will never be able to trust him. Ever. He's the worst thing for her. I can't see it going anywhere, i can't see it ending in Happily Ever After, and i can't see them ever being happy together. He is not going to change. Chesney is never going to accept him and Fiz has responsibilities that are far more important at the moment. He's found out about it all and he thinks she's lied to him (she has) and used him (well, sort of, yes) and he's her main responsibility.

What is she thinking?
She's lonely, i guess. But couldn't they think of something better for Fiz? If she had to be involved with the wrong man, couldn't he be more exiting, drive a motorbike, be unpredictable? Anything? Why Stape, Fiz, Why? I suppose when you think of it, she's always had a soft spot for puppy dog eyes. Tyrone and Kirk both were gormless but loveable. Stape looks at her with those big browns and she melts. He's not gormless, though, he's manipulative and he's passive aggressive. Both set off big danger alarms.

Is this the best the writers could come up with for Fiz? She's always been so sparky in the past, red headed temper and passion but with a strong sensible streak as well. She's another woman (like Gail) that had to pretty much raise herself, having a feckless mother like Cilla gadding about. She's been mothering Chesney all her life. It;'s made her strong and level headed. So what happened? Why did she lose her backbone? Why do writers make some women suckers for men, losing their self esteem, taking on the worst losers in order to have a fella. I don't know. I would love for Fiz to kick this jerk to the curb once and for all and take her life back! Do it, Fiz! You'll be glad you did!