What's next for Fiz and Tyrone?

I'm chuffed to little mint balls that Fiz and Tyrone have made their way back together. There have been times in the past that I didn't think they would be suited back together but as time went on and both struggled through terrible and hurtful relationships, they grew up Their friendship never suffered though was sometimes forgotten by the writers.

While Tyrone has lots of mates on the Street, none of them were willing to stick their oars in the muck that was the disaster of Kirsty Soames. Fiz was more than willing to help her old friend at the expense of her own safety! Inevitably, they fell back in love and once Kirsty was packed off to prison, they reunited properly and I couldn't be happier.

What's next for the new family? Will there be another baby in the future? With Hayley's imminent demise, the only stable couple on the Street will be no more. I think that Tyrone and Fiz will be the up and coming replacement and I think they're well suited. They'll probably row, they'll have their ups and downs but ultimately, their love will keep them together long term.

I thought this morning about whether they will continue to live in the Duckworth house because for all of us longtime watchers, it will ever remain thus named. On one hand, it would be a nice continuation with tradition, where Tyrone was so close to Jack and Vera. But on the other hand, they have two little children with the possibility of a third down the road. Things will get crowded even though we viewers realize that most of the houses have elastic walls.

That brings me across the road to Number 6 where the Windass Armstrong lot live. Number 6 has long been a transient house. The owners or renters have never stayed there very long so maybe it's fair to assume that at some point Owen will sell up and they'll all move away. Some of you out there may plead for this outcome. They aren't my favourite family by any means but aside from a low level constant annoyance (with spikes for that dreadful Katy) they mostly fly under my radar. I can see Fiz and Tyrone buying Number 6 to have a bit more room and a proper garden for the little ones. I'd only worry that this could spell the beginning of the end for them considering the history of the house's occupants. Yes, maybe they should stay where they are, under the angel wings of Jack and Vera.

There has to be a wedding in their future though I don't picture Fiz in a white frothy dress coming down the aisle in a church on Chesney's arm. Fizz Dobbs has a strangely cute ring to it! It almost sounds a bit like Sean's nickname for her, "Fizz Bomb" doesn't it? Anyway, I predict the wedding will be a low key registry office do, and we may not even get to see the actual ceremony. Perhaps they'll elope while on holiday. It would be a bit of an anticlimax really, after all they've been through.

Whatever happens, I really, really hope the powers that be don't break up this lovely little family. I hope they do let them take the Cropper mantle and carry on the tradition of having that one stable couple that everyone can point to as a good example of how to do it right.

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.

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!

State of the Street - January

Kevin might be staying with Sally now that he knows where his priorities lie, but Molly got fed up with Tyrone and left him after she found out he wasn't going to take a job and move away. Only Tyrone figured she must be having an affair and jumped to the wrong conclusion and thought it was Dev. How on earth he would think that, I don't know but after all, this *is* Tyrone, not the sharpest tool in the box. Didn't you feel sorry for him though? He loves the bones of Molly but his loyalty to Kevin kept him from taking that job offer once he found out that Sally was ill. Really, though, Molly probably made the right choice. There's no point staying in a marraige when she couldn't have been happy or she wouldn't have had an affair only 6 months into it.

And Sally's prognosis is good and she's only got to have radio therapy. I guess it would have been too long and drawn out of they'd had to show her go through Chemotherapy. I gotta say I am as impressed as I knew I would be about how Corrie has been handling this storyline. They've really shown how it affects everyone around the person who's got cancer. Sally was one of the lucky ones. And it also seemed to take Rosie down a peg too, and she backed out of a boob job that would have been far superfluous to requirements anyway.

I felt so sorry for Tyrone. Does Molly really not love him? She thinks so. She's desperate to get Kevin back but he has seen the light and realized he really does want his wife and family. She begs, she manipulates, but he still rejects her and she might start to realize that Kevin probably was just using her, a crush, an infatuation. But it did my heart good to see that Kevin was forced to support Tyrone, listen to him cry on his shoulder, even return his wife's wedding ring and that is karma coming round to bite him on the arse well and proper. And I relish every uncomfortable moment he's going through after what he did to his best friend and business partner. Pam and Bill both know and now they know each other knows. If Molly and Tyrone are going to get back together eventually, they'll be the ones that engineer it.

More Grandad wars... Ken went off the deep end when he found out that George wanted to pay for private education for Simon. Ken figures it's bad for Simon, who won't have a happy life if he's brought up in a posh school. Deirdre was just more concerned about the smart uniform. Peter was very forthright at the planning meeting which George probably already had sewn up anyway, much to Ken's chagrin. I loved Deirdre's rant at Ken after the hearing. She knows darn well it's got more to do with the rivalry between Ken and George and he should have been supporting Peter rather than pushing him right at George. Maybe Ken's give up the battle because as much as he disapproves of the bar and the private school, he seems to be backing down a bit.

Then there's Gail and Joe, the newly minted McIntyres. El Desperado is in debt up to his eyeballs and illegally so. Surely he could go to the police once he'd paid off the loan shark who keeps coming back and threatening his family? He's scammed money out of Ted. He tried to get money out of Peter and an advance out of Bill. He gleefully accepted Gail's decision to sell the house (and yes, David, she *can* just sell the house you grew up in. Except, he hasn't really grown up has he? Most lads his age would be pleased to be able to move out on their own.) He even eyed up the charity collection jar in the pub! I really thought she was finally standing up to him when she told him she wasn't going to sell the house and Joe gave her insult after insult. I always knew he had a temper and and this just proved it. But no. One apology and one sob story and she took him back. No wonder she's a jinx with men, she has Doormat stamped on her arse! Next up, a life insurance scam by forging Gail's name on a crumpled up form. And obviously making one payment and then pretending to drown immediately after will not make the life insurance company suspicious. Or not.

Yay! Mary's back to be a carbuncle on Norris's backside. She seems a bit more obsessed than she was before she left. I feel a bunny boiler coming on, don't you? It's nice to see Mary back anyway. And it's nice to see Sunita back and with the fiance out of the picture, can a reunion between Dev and Sunita be far behind? Dev is all worked up and Sunita just thinks they'll mess it up again. But really, it wasn't all messed up until she found out he kept the fact of his other children from her.

And there's Becky and Steve's upset. Becky doesn't want kids because she's had a horrible childhood and doesn't want to feel tied down. She's also scared of pregnancy as well. There was a scene with her taking a test on New Year's we found out at the end of the month it's positive. She's been smoking and drinking all month. For as much as she didn't want a baby though, she didn't go get a terminatin behind Steve's back. He'd have never known. So somewhere, she did want a baby and probably not just because she knew he did, too. Probably the fear is stronger and so she pushed Steve away. And because she says she won't have kids just when Steve thinks he might like to have more, Steve goes off the deep end in a major sulk. That makes her dig her heels in and one's almost as bad as the other though i think he's pushing harder than she is. He keeps upping the stakes, with expensive gold clubs and a motorbike (don't you need a bike license for those?) and pushing Kelly in Becky's face.

But Becky's mom died and though there wasn't much of a relationship, it still gets you right in the heart when you lose a parent. I think what really bothered Becky is how little her mother had to her name and how she ended up, and it seems to make her think how she could very well have ended up the same way if she hadn't fought to get a life. It hurts that Steve just doesn't take any notice that something is wrong. He really thought that winding her up would make her come running back instead of pushing her away. Finding out about her mother's death was nearly the death of the marraige but you knew that wasn't going to happen, didn't you?