Stephen Reid is revisiting the scene of his latest crime at Underworld when Carla Barlow startles him with a cry of ‘Oi, Joni Mitchell!’ Given his evil deeds, Carla’s choice of a fellow Canadian to address Stephen by is way too flattering. ‘Oi, Bryan Adams!’ would be far more appropriate. Carla sarcastically calls Sean Tully ‘Sherlock’ when he states the obvious, which is actually an apt soubriquet since Sean is a genius-level gossip detector. Carla continues to fire off nicknames quicker than Underworld makes knickers, branding Sarah Barlow and Michael Bailey ‘The Borrowers’ because of the way they’ve been creeping around the factory after hours.
Carla isn’t done with naming Stephen after Canadian music legends. The latest is Leonard Cohen. Stephen is unhappy with this steady stream of Canuck-related monickers, complaining that Carla called him Alanis Morissette earlier. Stephen, you oughta know it was Joni Mitchell. He claims at other times she also called him Seth Rogen and Keanu Reeves. Carla tells him to take it up with HR if he doesn’t like it. Does she mean Human Resources or Henry Ruttan, the Canadian businessman who invented the air-conditioned railway carriage? It’s surprising that someone as resourceful as Stephen hasn’t unloaded a retaliatory volley of famous Mancunians at Carla. Oi, LS Lowry! Oi, Frank Sidebottom!
Evelyn Plummer (Oi, Mrs Merton!) tells Fiz (Oi, Mick Hucknall!) and Tyrone Dobbs (Oi, Les Dawson!) about her trip to the charity shop. She enjoyed winding up the cashier Joy, pretending a battered copy of Homer’s The Iliad was a first edition. Tyrone wants to know if it really was a first edition, which causes Evelyn to look to the heavens like Hector in the epic poem. She tries to explain, but gives up when she realises the only Homer Tyrone is aware of has three children called Bart, Lisa and Maggie.
Carla confronts Sarah and Michael about their Borrower activities, saying she knows all about Stephen’s involvement. And she calls Stephen Bryan Adams. Finally. A drunken Stephen plots his next move and worries every time he hears a passing siren – not unlike Odysseus in Homer’s other epic The Odyssey. But unlike Bryan Adams, everything he does, he does it for himself. Meanwhile, Gemma Winter has had a really busy day with her new childcare business and is grateful to Joseph Brown for keeping her own kids entertained. In an episode riddled with so many lies, it’s fitting that it should end with Joseph reading Pinocchio.
Coronation Street episode 10858/59. Originally aired 23rd Jan 2023.
