Karl's Nicked!

It was six months ago that Karl Munro burned down the Rovers Return, killing fire fighter Tony. A few days later, he killed Sunita in hospital and the game was on. When Dev was becoming obsessed, inching closer and closer to the truth, Karl pedalled furiously to try to keep calm and carry on. It seemed to work at the time when Dev had to back down for his own and his children's sakes though we, the viewers, knew he was only inches away from that last clue that would reveal Karl's dirty deeds.

That gives Karl breathing room but it wasn't to last. Enter a 14 year old lad with a guilty conscience. The house of cards slowly came down as Karl tried to keep Craig on an even keel. The poor kid! That was a lot for a child to carry, thinking he caused two people's deaths and it was enforced by Karl who was desperate for Craig to keep his mouth shut. He knew that Craig could place him at the scene of the crime, with keys he wasn't supposed to have as he used them to lock the back door of the pub behind him.

Jason never trusted Karl and after Karl admitted to torching the van and threatened Jason's life (with Dev overhearing from the other room), he put the pieces together and knew Karl had caused the fire but there was still no proof. Inch by agonizing inch, though, it all came together. Missing from photos from the Full Monty night, and then the realization that Craig had something to do with it. But then we had a few episodes where there were near misses, trying to talk to Craig and Craig avoiding it, even running away and who is the one that finds him? Karl!

Finally, Craig confessed and was whisked off to the police station while Dev headed to the chapel. The race is on, can Dev stop the wedding? Jason's on the way to the police with Craig, Dev is zooming to the registry office. It obviously isn't very far away because Dev got there in record time. The registrar declared them husband and wife and presumably, they signed the papers. It's a done deal.  So why didn't Dev say anything?! Was that a Judas "kiss" when he hugged Karl? Mice touch!

It took far too long at the police station to get someone to take statements, typical police procedure snarling things up. Why didn't Jason text Dev to get the name of the detective right from the start? Come to that, Dev should have told them when they left the shop. I do think that was dragged out too far but it's typical. Dev stalked around the edges of the party observing and waiting.  I didn't think Dev should have warned Karl at the Bistro, but he did.   Loved Dev creeping up silently behind Karl and cornering him in the pub.

Jimmi Harkishin played it spot on, not too over the top as he usually does. That quiet rage held him back. He laid it all out, Karl knew he couldn't hide and he confessed. There were no excuses that made any difference. Trash talking about Sunita was a big mistake even if it was true. Why did he think Dev would take that lying down?  Dev was going to out Karl to Stella so he can feel what it's like to lose what he loves but Dev ended up bleeding on the pub floor instead.

Oh I loved it that Stella caught Karl trying to leg it with the cash. He lost his rag when she tried to help Dev while we waited on tenterhooks for the police to untangle all the infernal red tape. She threw his ring away, annullment in the offing while he fought with her. Couldn't you tell how creeped out she was when she tried to placate him, stalling, and keeping him calm while he was holding her and stroking her, her making him think she was on his side, biding time until help comes.

She went a bit too far and he could see through her. Dev came to and dialed his phone... to Jason, who saved the day, just before Karl had a chance to flame up the pub again. That was a bit stupid, really, surely they could have put out a fire quickly enough but I suppose Stella was worried that Dev would come to further harm with the flames. I read somewhere else that Stella only had to blow out the flame of the lighter, it was right in front of her face, after all! But Karl dragged Stella back into the cellar, back to the scene of the crime, which was also odd. If I was her, I'd be down there chucking bottles at him like a mad thing.

Let's just pause a moment to add up Karl's charges. Arson, manslaughter, murder, assault (Grievous Bodily Harm judging from Dev's injury), and surely there must be something they can charge him with for terrorizing a child? He better not get one of those shifty solicitors that manage to charge Dev for assault and use Karl's attack on Dev as "self defence"!!

Come out! you're surrounded! For heaven's sake, he's not armed! Just go get him! Exciting stuff!

John Michie was so good. He really was the star in all of this through the whole storyline. It's too bad his talen makes Michelle Collins look even more stiff. It was painful watching her try to force that cardboard face into something resembling emotion and straining to push her whispery voice to a normal talking level when really, she should have been shouting and screaming at him!

Jason was a bit annoying, with all his shouting and angst but you could see where he was coming from. I really thought Beth was good, as well, heartsick, worried and guilty for her boy. She might be a gobby mare but she *is* a good mother.

Stella did persuade Karl to give himself up.  There wasn't much more he could do. Can you imagine the chaos of the police trying to storm the barricades, having to file down the cellar steps one at a time and crowd around between the crates and bottles, trying to apprehend Karl? I always wonder why they make the person they're cuffing lie down on the ground. There doesn't seem to be a point to it in most cases. Handcuffs can go on just as easily if  you're standing up if you aren't struggling which he wasn't. I guess in this case it was so that we could have he and Dev face down, face to face, Karl defeated and Dev quietly and justifiably triumphant.

Pure speculation - What to do with Stella?

Heart lifting news this week comes with the announcement that not only is Liz McDonald returning to Weatherfield, but Steve is going to buy back the pub and install her as landlady! Can I  just have an undignified W00T from the gallery? Thank you.

Apparently, when Karl's misdeeds have been splashed all over the Weathefield Gazette and he's languising in Strangeways, Stella is going to put the pub up for sale, unable to live with the memories. I can understand that. Presuming, then, that Gloria will take her share of the sale equal to what she put into it and go bye-bye as we've also heard, what will Stella do?

Will she leave? Maybe not just yet. I hear her contract is not up until next spring. That doesn't mean she won't leave early and it doesn't mean they won't make her leave early, but all things considered and she stays until they push her out the door at the end of her contract, here's where I think her storyline will go.

First off, where does she live? If Kevin hasn't returned, she can probably stay there. If Steve and Michelle move into the pub with Liz, she can stay in the kebab flat. Sorted.

But without the pub and all the punters into whose lives she could normally meddle and without a back room in which  to hold court, what kind of storyline could she possibly have?

I have an idea and it's one I've seen coming for months.

Dev. Alahan. Yes, that's right. Stella has already been all over Dev like a rash, being all concerned he's doing ok and trying to cheer him up. I think they will have a relationship as he tries to console her and be as good a friend to her as she was to him. It won't happen straight away, she'll need a few weeks to brew that fondness into a full on boiling heat. Before long she'll be up that ginnel and sneaking in to the back door of Number 7.

Poor Aadi and Asha will have yet another adjustment. Maybe Mary will meet Stella at the door with a rolling pin, intent on defending her twin charges who are still recovering from the loss of their dear mother. I don't fancy Stella's chances.

In the end, it will all go pear shaped and, if we're lucky, Stella will be off in a black taxi, a tearful Leanne waving her goodbye.

I've never been fond of Stella though not held her in as much contempt as some fans have. She stuck her nose into business where she "didn't ought to", the worst travesty being her inclusion into the aftermath of the death of Betty Williams. Her whispery voice grated on my nerves. Her frozen face did her no favours either.  "Facial expressions? I don't need no steenking facial expressions!" And there's all that beige. I don't even think she uses lippy with much colour to break up that monotony of neutral. I suppose it's meant to be her "signature" like Hayley's red anorak or Deirdre's specs but beige doesn't make you stand out in a crowd, it makes you melt into it.

Stella put up with so much crap from Karl over the years, even before we met them. We've been told he'd cheated on her before and he gambles. He continued to do both. She turfed him for gambling but took him back. Again. And then let the door hit him on the backside for his affair with Sunita. But she took him back after the fire out of gratitude because he saved her life.

Can I just repeat here, once again, he did NOT save her life, he was ready to die on the bedroom floor with her because they were trapped. Toni (RIP) and Paul got them out the window.

Stella continued to be sucked in by Karl over and over. She kind of deserves what she gets, heartbreak and shame and at least one smug daughter who Told Her So.

So, besides Michelle Collins being a friend of former producer Phil Collinson, why were we saddled with her? Well, because Beverly Callard was unable to continue as Liz at the time. She's been struggling with depression on and off for a few years and needed more recovery time. The Rovers has to have a landlady and Steve can't have his name over the door because he's got a criminal record. Someone had to be brought in as manager. I wish Steve hadn't had to sell the pub but we can blame Tracy for sucking him in and turning him away from Becky. If he hadn't wanted to buy her Number 13. Since they had to have someone, MC got the nod.

Soon, we will be back where we started and I for one can't be happier. I do hope Bev Callard will be able to keep up the pace this time around and stay. I can handle Stella in smaller doses.

Now the big question is...Will Liz take Owen away from Anna? Or will she take Tim away from Sally? Personally, since Lloyd is now single, I want Liz and Lloyd to get back together.

Sorted.

An Affair to Remember

Pretty much all the feedback on the Karlita (Karl and Sunita) affair is negative. 'Out of character', and 'sleazy' are the kindest things we've heard. It's certainly not been played like a coy 'nudge, nugdge, wink, wink' type affair we've seen in the past or even a fairly straightforward one but with a lower mark on the sleaze scale. Perhaps that's because many of the past affairs involved characters that we liked, characters that had a certain charm and chemistry. This one has none of that. And according to the poll in this post, it's even out-sleazed the Molvin  (Molly and Kevin) affair which, in my books, had reached a new low at that point.

Sunita was always loyal and kind and honest. If she felt hard done by or taken for granted, she'd have confronted Dev, not thrown up her hands and chased after the first man that gave her a cheeky grin. Karl is a newish character and we haven't really seen him in a sympathetic light since he's been here. He's a gambler, he's a bit of a schemer and most definitely feckless. We did hear that he'd cheated on Stella in the past so this is, at least, not a personality transplant for him.

For the past couple of months we've been peering at the screen through our fingers whenever Sunita and Karl have played tonsil hockey with their tongues or plugging our ears and singing "la la la I can't hear you" when one makes blatantly sexual comments to the other like when Sunita suggested she wouldn't wear underwear beneath her Jubilee cossie. How many of you out there were as creeped out about that one as I was? I might have expected that out of Beth or Tracy but not Sunita.

Now we're at the point of the affair where Dev is suspicious. He found the wad of cash that Sunita is keeping for Karl, the gambling win that Karl is hiding from Stella and though he leaped to the wrong conclusion about that, he's putting a lot of other pieces of the puzzle in the right places. All this time she wants to herself, all these friends coming out of the woodwork needing to talk to her including an overnight with one of them. He's sure she's having an affair.

Anyone that's had a cheating spouse has seen all of this before. Once you're suspicious, you watch, listen and try to catch them in a lie. The cheater's reactions are varied but they all try to do a merry dance to try to keep you from finding out the truth. Smoke and mirrors. Fancy footwork. Or, as we in Canada might say with reference to (ice) hockey, stick handling. But those of us watching who've been there recognize the bluff for what it is and it's not pretty. As awful as this storyline is, I have to say from the point of view of a once wronged spouse, it's painfully realistic.

Dev confronted Sunita with his suspicions and she started down that cliched route. First, she pretended not to know what he was talking about. She denied. She put it all down to his overactive imagination. Then, she broke her own phone so as not to have to call or take a call from Karl, pretending it was "Laura". She accused Dev of bullying her. You could tell she was backed into a corner but there was still a way out. Right out the door and into Stella's back room which was obviously the worst place she could be, considering she's doing Stella's fella but she grabbed the first hand hold she could, like someone dangling off a cliff. Doesn't matter that the roots are shallow and she could very easily plummet down onto the rocky shores below.

Even if Dev backs down and Sunita goes home, even if the affair ends with a whimper and they think they're in the clear, it's going to come out. These things always do. Will Sunita go quietly? Will either Dev or Sunita end up in the corner shop flat? Will Stella weld shut the lock on her handbag, the one in which she's already got Karl's 'family jewels' firmly situated. Will there be blood and carnage on the street or forgiveness?

Stella, we hardly know you!

Like Flaming Nora over at Coronation Street Blog, I've been willing to give new Rovers licensee Stella a chance. I've not got prior "history" with Michelle Collins since EE was never a regular show for me and I can barely remember her on it as Cindy Beale. (It's only been shown in Canada sporadically over the years).

At first, I found her a bit stiff and awkward. I didn't find her put-on accent that bad though again, it felt a bit stiff but I thought she'd relax into it as she got more experience and I do think that's happened a little. I can't say I'm overwhelmed by her acting skills and her obviously unwrinkled and frozen features hamper her emotional scenes. (yes, I know that's a bit catty but it's sad that female actors feel the pressure to have plastic surgery or freeze their features with Botox in order to look younger)

But have I grown to like Stella Price? I can't really say. She's not really been on the screen all that much since all the fanfare of her arrival back in early summer.

Stella had a few weeks of storyline where Leanne discovered that Stella was her mother. Angst, tears, anger, longing looks. Then Stella and her fella Karl went on holiday. Gee, how many jobs do you get where you can take off weeks after you start?

Stella came back and there was a bit more angst between she and Leanne and then she got knocked over by a drunken Carla. She lie in hospital a week, woke up, sat on the sidelines of the pub or lounged in the back room where we hardly saw her. Things seem to be better between she and Leanne but, Oh Wait! She and Karl are off on holiday again so she can recover. She's been employed as bar manager for about 4 months and between hospital and holidays, she's actually done her job for about half that time.

So what was the point of her big arrival? But how can we warm up to her if we aren't given the chance? You can hardly make fans and influence people if you're never there. Is Ms. Collins finding this acting gig more difficult than she expected? The Powers That Be were fully supportive of her when the media and fans showered criticism on her for her acting and accent but how are they feeling about her performance now?

Stella needs more storyline than reciting her past history and being a stereotypical advise-giving Landlady. She is the Landlady of the Rovers Return, the heart of the show. She needs to be front and centre and involved in storylines, not just on the peripheral. She needs to make friends. Stella has made a connection with Carla, maybe the two of them can be mates. Carla certainly needs one and Stella really hasn't made any close friends yet.  She needs to let her hair down with a bottle of wine and a few of the other ladies on the Street. I think Gail could use a gal pal. She's got Sally but you never see them hanging out much anymore. Maybe Stella could give Gail a few hints on how to handle a stroppy daughter/daughter-in-law!

I do like Karl, he really seems like a natural and he's obviously devoted to Stella but we need to know a bit more about him, too. Stroppy daughter Eva is just annoying at the moment though I did like her new friendship with Kylie. They seem suited as mates. Let's see them hang out more.