Speculation gone wrong

I was wrong. I freely admit it. On the whole, I'm pretty good at predicting how soap stories will unwind. But of course, I don't always get it right and I didn't this time.

While I did know that Tyrone would not be convicted, (soap law and all that) I had thought that Kirsty's mother would be instrumental in her being found out. I had seen papparazzi pics of them outside the courtroom and later, we saw Kirsty admit the truth to her mother. AHA! But no. It didn't unfold quite that way.


While Alison did show up at the trial and her appearance did throw Kirsty off, she didn't turn Kirsty in and Kirsty kept up the pretense and committed perjury. That alone will get her banged up even without wrongful charges against Tyrone. Kirsty herself was the one that hoisted herself by her own petard when she lost her temper at Julie and Julie realized that Tyrone's defenders were right. It was a brilliant twist and it was the best way to show that everyone was backing the wrong horse. What I was further surprised at is that Julie's testimony was not considered admissable.

Luckily, Kirsty showed up and dramatically confessed. I thought that might happen but I thought Julie's testimony would be the turning point with that as a wrap up, on the stand perhaps. It was a great twist. Even though I persue spoilers rabidly, this was not leaked and I still appreciate surprises like this. I'm kind of glad I didn't know! Chaos ensues and everyone is screaming and hurling accusations.

I hope the apologies that come to Tyrone and Fiz for this are profuse and unending. Tyrone probably won't have to buy a pint for himself for a year at least. I was going to say "in the pub" but obviously, it'll have to be the Flying Horse of the Weathy Arms for the time being, the Bistro notwithstanding.

My next prediction? Well, we all know Karl started the fire in the pub and really, he's not evil, just obsessed with Stella and getting his old life back. All this guilt is going to eat at him and he'll break down eventually. There will be an act of desperation and he'll either get caught at it or he'll confess. Right now he's covering his tracks and everyone now believes Sunita started the fire. Even Dev is having doubts. I'm not surprised. We've already seen everyone on the Street believe the worst of Tyrone and pretty much anyone else that's ever been arrested. I'll give the Price clan a break because they haven't known Sunita for years.

He'll have to go to jail, of course, because I don't think he'll die and it'll leave the door open for his return. I do like actor John Michie. He was wasted in the Sunita affair storyline mainly because it totally trashed Sunita's character. No fault to either of the actors however. They do what they've been scripted to do. Now he's really playing it well. You can see all the emotions Karl is feeling all the while trying to desperately hang on to Stella's growing regard.

My last prediction is how the truth about Kylie's affair with Nick will come out. Sally knows the truth. I have a feeling that Sophie could overhear she and Gail discussing it and decides it's her Christian duty to tell David. Maybe she might not know about Nick specifically. Sally is often one to let her tongue get away with her too, though, in moments of stress.

I've been watching various soaps for so long that you can spot the signs and you know the drill. Bad guys pay. Happy couples aren't usually allowed to stay happy for long. Most weddings and funerals don't go smoothly. The wrong person is always arrested and jailed. The guilty or the ultimate victim is either an actor that's leaving or someone unimportant to the show. Or both. A one night stand with the wrong person will end in pregnancy. Most babies are born in unusual circumstances (storm, remote location, at home, in a taxi!). The list goes on. It's fun to predict, and speculate, isn't it?

Anyway, that aside, now Tyrone has to rebuild his life and it will be interesting to see where it goes from here. He'll have to go back to work at the garage now because Kevin will be off our screen for the foreseeable future. He and Tommy will be running things while Fiz and Tyrone settle into a new life together with the babies. Hope is in a day care/creche so probably Ruby will go there as well. Maybe they'll even get married. Fans have been clamouring for these two to get back together for years and it's finally happened!

Will it be happy ever after for them? Is it ever, on a soap?

How will Kirsty get her comeuppance?

It's a given that Kirsty will be punished for all her misdeeds. The problem is, currently, Tyrone has no real proof of her abuse. Everything else is circumstantial. But we do know that Tyrone has already been arrested for allegedly pushing Kirsty down the steps and we know there will be a court hearing.

Apparently there has been two endings filmed to court case. The only "two endings" filmed are one or two scenes outside the location shoot to try to throw off the papparazzi. The ending would never have been in any doubt realistically because they wouldn't waste days and days filming further scenes that would come afterwards back on the Street.  The question is, how will it happen? How will Kirsty get her comeuppance?

The current lot of Papprazzi photos shows Kirsty's mother Alison outside the court with her daughter and I think her mother is going to be her downfall. Her mother knows what she went through growing up, both witnessing her mother being abused and being abused herself. If you look at those photos, her mother seems to be watching Fiz and Kirsty arguing and it's very possible that Kirsty loses her rag and lets something slip in front of her mother.  If not at that point, then I think she may have said or did something prior to the hearing that made her mother realize that Kirsty is lying and has been the abuser. I think her mother will testify in court against her daughter, hoping that her daughter will get help and the cycle will stop. I do hope that her mother will also find the courage to leave her husband and, in fact, possibly that's what brings her to Kirsty's side in the first place.

I hate that we'll lose Natalie Gumede but if Kirsty goes to jail for abusing Tyrone and/or for contempt of court, lying under oath and all that, then there's a chance she'll come back in future, especially since Tyrone will have Ruby. The last of this storyline, with Tyrone going on the run with the baby is a bit tiresome, only because it's a soap cliche but we have had the main event and now we have to work towards the ending of the story that's kept me watching for over a year. Superb performances and writing, painful to watch at times but in an admiring way, and now we will see the end of it.

Tyrone is the good guy, he must come out on top. If this was a murder, then possibly we would go down the  "Deirdre Barlow 'I didn't do it'" extremely tired route of the wrongfully imprisoned. It isn't, and I think the court hearing will be the finale. I may be wrong, of course, but I don't think they'll drag this out much further as it's been going on for this long already.

Mad Kirsty - What's up with her?

At first, I wasn't too sure about Kirsty Soames. I thought maybe I liked her. She did seem sparky and fun and lifted Tyrone's spirits. She had an awful lot of hair, though, even more than dull Cheryl so I worried...

Needlessly, as it turns out. Tina and Kirsty started off on the wrong foot and at first it seemed as though it was merely that. But you know, with soaps, there's always more to it than what's on the surface. Sure enough, Tina's claims that Kirsty was causing her grief began to sound more and more like a petty grudge with Kirsty coming off as the innocent party, victim of Tina's accusations for no apparent reason. That means, in soap terms, that she's the "little girl who cried wolf", aka, Tina's not just whistling Dixie.

It's becoming clear that Kirsty is actually doing things to sabotage Tina, and she's isolating Tyrone from his friends, especially female ones. She's showing signs of possessiveness and jealousy, beyond the norm. She's taking Tina's accusations and then throwing smug looks and icy stares back at her. Nobody believes Tina yet, Kirsty is that good at covering her tracks and making herself sound like just a bit on the jealous side.

The fact that Kristy is a police officer ups the game. This has happened before on a lesser scale when a cop boyfriend of Janice Battersby set up Les. He used his power to make it seem like Les instigated an assault on him when Les was just defending himself. But he forced Emma Watts to back him up, cops' honour and all that, and Les spent time in jail for it. Kirsty is using her position, too, to have Tina's car clamped, or having her harassed as a shoplifter. That puts a different spin on the pseudo-stalker storyline, I think. 

She could very well turn out to be a nutter like some of the classic Corrie nutters of the past. There was nurse Carmel Finnan who became obsessed with Martin Platt. There was whack-job Maya Sharma who blew up Dev's shops, one with Dev and Sunita in it! There was Casey, Claire's friend who aimed at taking over Claire's life. Will Kirsty end up being another wild eyed bunny boiler? Actually, I hope not.

I hope they take this in a bit of a different direction. Kirsty obviously has control issues and she is most definitely possessive and jealous beyond the point of just being a bit protective of the one she loves. I don't want this to be an obsession. I don't want her to break Tyrone's heart though I fear she probably will.

Kirsty is turning into a character I love to hate and that's down to the actor, Natalie Gumede who plays DC Kirsty Soames. She's great at those smug looks, when Kirsty manages to keep Tyrone on side and get one up on Tina. She does that icy look so well that the hackles on the back of  *my* neck twitch when she gives Tina one of those looks-that-could-kill behind her back. "I'll get you and your little dog, (Tommy) too!!!" you can almost hear her cackle. Any time now, I expect to see one of her eyes twitch with a full on psychotic wide-eyed stare.

It's getting to where I feel like everything Kirsty does and says is all an act to keep Tyrone under her thumb but once in awhile you see a crack of vulnerability like when Kirsty brought home an artificial Christmas tree but the rest had already bought a real tree and decorated it. She felt hurt and left out and it showed. But then the tree lost it's needles and she got to use hers after all. It was back to feeling smug that she got her own way again!

I think we've got a lot more story to tell when it comes to Kirsty Soames. I hope they make it interesting with layers, not just a plain bog-standard psycho yet again. Kirsty and Tina will probably never be mates but I hope they soften her a bit as she becomes more confident of Tyrone's love and she can make peace with some of his friends, maybe even make one or two of her own. If they don't, we won't see her for long. She'll burn out and become a villain instead of a complex character and that would be a shame.