Shoot

Thursday Phelan, Andy and Vinny in an abandoned paper mill somewhere. Phelan’s handgun. Time to shoot or be shot. Tense, dramatic. And so long overdue that I just didn’t care. Just please shoot somebody, anybody, so this can finally end!

Phelan forces Andy to shoot Vinny. Andy turns the gun on Pat, but crumbles and hands it back. Phelan then shoots Andy. We don’t see that, just hear the shot while seeing the outside of the mill. We see Phelan dump the bodies in a pond, then walk through the rain to his van. Back behind the wheel, he watches his hands tremble.

Of course, the shootings won’t end the storyline. The whole thing will have to come out, and Phelan be caught. I am not looking forward to it. I’m even thinking about how much time Coronation Street consumes in my life. And wondering if that time could be better spent.

A better play?

The scenes with Andy and Vinny in the cellar and the van were great. It crossed my mind that add a bit to them and you would have a great short play. But a good Corrie? Not for me. The basement business went on too long. I’d come to dread seeing those stairs or that lightbulb. Please, no, I don’t wanna go down there again!

Pat Phelan is a wonderful character and Connor McIntyre is brilliant at portraying his many sides. So I can sympathize with the writers’ problem. They have created a great character and fan favourite. But he is a villain. He cannot switch to being Nice Pat and just go on living on the street. He must have his comeuppance. I don’t know how long that’s going to take. Or how much more convoluted it’s going to get. Too long, too much, I suspect.

It would be ok with me if they just did a “Dallas“ on Phelan and have it all be a dream. He or Eileen would wake up and say “what a horrible dream I had. I was (you were) a really clever conman who ripped off a whole lot of people and held nice Andy prisoner for a year then killed him and my (your) evil partner Vinny. Wow, won’t they get a good laugh when I tell them!” There, problem solved.