Coronation Street Friday 29th December episode review ~ CookingFood.Org

Hiya! It’s just Jordan with this week’s Friday review. This was originally intended to be my last post of 2017, but thanks to a spontaneous laptop update which took forever, it has turned out to be my first of 2018. Friday’s episode was played as New Year’s Eve, so was set a couple of days further ahead than real time, something I always find a little awkward in soap. There was also just the one episode on Friday, which was a – I hate to say it – lovely surprise. There’s been far too much Corrie recently. So, where to start?

Most of Friday’s episode was unfortunately set in the Bistro. We got two small scenes in the Rovers, in which Geraldine Spellman landed and demanded to know the whereabouts of her granddaughter before theatrically storming out yelling “and your little dog too!”. After that single trip to the Rovers (a crime on New Year’s Eve), we got on with what made up the bulk of the episode. As we know, Carla’s back. And as we also know, you cannot under any circumstances return to Weatherfield without a secret. What’s Carla’s secret? Well, Michelle and Maria have been wondering this for days, ever since they noticed that their sister-in-law had given up the booze. Their guess is that she’s pregnant, but Carla’s emotional chat to Roy in the closed café confirmed that this is not the case. It would appear that she has been in constant contact with Roy since leaving (but she hasn’t bothered speaking to Michelle, who was once her best friend as well as sister-in-law). She coaxes Roy into joining her and the rest of the Connor at a New Year’s gathering at the Bistro, but when he arrives, Roy is horrified to find Carla drinking a mojito. It later transpires that this was just lemonade, dressed up as cocktail. Nevertheless, Roy cannot believe that Carla is going to that much effort to hide her problems. She chases him back to the café where they have a row. It is then that we learn that Carla is suffering from kidney failure.

Carla has managed to get Roy to return to the Bistro with her and just as the countdown to New Year is starting, she storms out and crumbles into a crying heap outside the Bistro. Reversing the roles in the game of cat and mouse, Roy chases her outside and Carla cries in his arms, lamenting about how she could die. Carla remarked earlier to Michelle that she had not had a personality transplant. Oh the irony. Anyway, Roy returns to his flat alone and quickly logs onto Voggle - or whatever the definitely-not-Google search engine is this week - and starts to research kidney donation. Personally, I think I’d rather the old Carla comes back, has a catfight with Tracy, gauges out her donor kidney and walks off with it in her handbag.

There is very little “Elsewhere…” to report, but it mostly involved Billy lying in a hospital bed citing God’s almighty plan for his clifftop fall. Adam goes to see him – obviously with an ulterior motive – and catches that witch Geraldine while he is there. He tells her that Summer would be better off with her and he gives her his solicitor’s card. Obviously, this is some sort of daft revenge drawn from that daft storyline where it turned out Billy was driving the car that crashed into Adam’s mother all those years ago. It appears that the Barlows are all feeling particularly petty at the moment and cannot just let things drop. Desperate to stop Sinead from marrying Chesney, Daniel hatches some sort of daft plan to carry out at her hen party. Apparently, this will make her see that he is the love of her life, not Chesney. Right. We shall see. Oh, and some other daft attempt at comic relief occurred – also in that bloody Bistro – where Cathy thought Brian was going to propose to her. She got herself all psyched up to decline, when in fact he was only asking her to move in with him.

I said on Twitter that this was a “good-ish” episode. Upon a second viewing, I’ve changed my mind. Friday’s episode was…clunky. And I fear things are going to get clunkier as the year goes on.

As always,

Thanks for reading! Happy New Year! Do a shot every time you read the word “daft” in this review!

Jordan