Coronation Street boss reveals 15 huge spoilers from Geoff’s comeuppance to trouble in Sally’s marriage
CORONATION Street boss Iain MacLeod has revealed 15 huge upcoming spoilers for the soap – from evil Geoff’s comeuppance to trouble in Sally’s marriage.
The showrunner spoke about the upcoming storylines during a virtual press conference this week.
While filming on Corrie has been suspended, there are more than a few exciting storylines for fans to look forward to.
1 Geoff will get his comeuppance… eventually
Viewers of the ITV soap have watched in horror as Geoff uses coercive control to destroy Yasmeen’s life.
Then they watched in even greater horror as he attacked her with a knife – causing her to hit him with a bottle in self-defence.
With Yasmeen now facing attempted murder charges, will Geoff get away from this without consequence?
And fortunately, the answer is no – but it won’t be until the end of the year.
MacLeod said: “The timelines have obviously been shunted around slightly due to the lockdown, but I think it’s fair to imagine that it will certainly be this year.
“What form that comeuppance takes is still in discussion. We wanted a redemptive ending ultimately for Yasmeen.
“She’s in the thick of it at the moment and the toughest it’s going to get for her is around now.
“The ending is towards the end of the year but the key thing is to impart the right message at the end of this story.”
2. Geoff’s past will come back to haunt him
While Yasmeen will be redeemed, Geoff will not get the same treatment. Iain hinted his history of abusing partners will come back to haunt him – particularly from his son Tim’s mother.
He continued: “It felt right that we would look at Geoff’s past relationships in some detail and discover that he’s done this before, as that tends to be the case in real life.
“There’ll be a lot of interesting exploration into Geoff’s backstory, which will obviously lead to a lot of interesting exploration of Tim’s backstory too.
“Tim is very well-loved by the audience, so it’s a good opportunity for us to find out more about him and why he’s become the man that he is. We’ll discover a bit more about his family background.
“There’s a lot of family saga stuff to come, as a result of the things that Alya, the police and everybody else starts to discover about Geoff’s past.”
3. It will take a while for Yasmeen to realise she’s being abused
Yasmeen will come out the other side but not without a struggle. It will take her family and friends to help her see that the abuse is Geoff’s fault, not hers.
Iain said: “Even if you finally have snapped, it doesn’t mean you don’t still have this insidious controlling character under your skin.
“It’s not that Yasmeen suddenly wakes up the next day and realises that he has been abusing her. It’s a slow road for her to accept what she’s been through and see it was abuse.
“We’ll see a lot of her wrestling with what she has done, and her friends and family try to lead her out of the darkness and into the light.
“They try to convince her that she’s actually the person who has been wronged in all of this – that Geoff is not the victim, he is the perpetrator.
“It’s a really interesting psychological story. It sucks in loads of characters – Alya and Sally are very pivotal.”
4. Trouble in the air for Sally and Tim
Sally and Tim will be divided by the upcoming events – with Tim sticking by his dad and Sally offering her support for Yasmeen.
MacLeod said: “Sally has never been Geoff’s biggest fan and she was among the first to have seen what was going on behind closed doors next door.
“This provides huge material for her and Tim. Obviously Tim, in his own way, has been brainwashed and gaslighted by Geoff since birth, more or less. So he’s very much Team Geoff, while Sally very quickly becomes Team Yasmeen.
“There’s a lot of story in the coming weeks coming out of the tensions that creates in that relationship – and the difficulties that poses for them as a married couple, with polar opposite views over what was going on next door.”
5. Coronavirus will be worked into the stories
While the real-world events won’t affect the storylines too much, bosses have decided they need to reflect reality by incorporating COVID-19 into the day-to-day of the soap.
MacLeod said: “People wouldn’t want to tune into Coronation Street and see people talking about coronavirus in every scene. It will be there, you’ll be able to see evidence of it in the way that people behave.
“We will see it reflected in how businesses are run, they’ll be tweaked to do more takeaways and the like, as food outlets are doing in the real world.
“But we’ll still continue telling the same brilliant, dramatic stories and include the healthy dollop of comedy that we always do, as we don’t want to turn the show into something that the viewers don’t recognise.
“It will be there, handled with a light touch. Other than that, our storytelling will be business as usual.”
6. Carla’s life will be turned upside down by a blast from the past
Earlier this year, Iain said a secret from Carla’s past will reveal itself when someone reappears.
Some fans believed it would be Ray Crosby or Scott Emberton, but he shot down that idea.
He said: “I can tell you for sure that it’s not Ray or Scott – it’s somebody we have yet to meet.
“It felt like an interesting opportunity to delve into Carla’s recent story and generate something in the present, which will also reveal something we hadn’t known previously about somebody else in the show.
“We meet two people we’ve not seen before, who emerge from Carla’s mental healthy story. In the present, somebody that’s currently in the show elsewhere reveals their true colours. That’s a bit cryptic, but I don’t want to give too much away.”
7. The bombshell won’t rock Carla and Peter
While Carla’s life is about to be hit with some big revelations, it won’t ruin her relationship with Peter when the story airs in June.
MacLeod said: “Certainly this will be a tricky time for Peter and Carla.
“What he discovers about her lost weekend will be a hard thing for him to swallow, but ultimately he will come to love her all the more for it and be all the more proud of her for overcoming it.”
8. David won’t give up on Shona
David Platt is currently on the warpath after Shona woke up from her gunshot-induced coma with no memory of their relationship.
So while he antagonises gangs on the streets of Weatherfield, he will eventually try to win her back when Shona returns to the show later this month.
Iain said: “What Shona finds when she first comes back is that it’s not love at first sight. She has to essentially fall back in love with David. For David’s part, that’s the challenge – he has to make Shona fall back in love with him.
“As the story unfolds, David discovers that he actually needs to fall back in love with her, because she’s a slightly different proposition now. It’s a really interesting, complicated and emotional story.
“It has the Platts’ usual fun and games and it’s a long-runner for us, but ultimately it will have a happy ending.
“Nobody’s got any desire long-term to split up David and Shona. They’re quite cheese and crackers – one is nothing without the other.”
9. Shona and David could even get married again
Not only could they get back together, but writers could give them an actual happiest day of their lives – one Shona can remember.
MacLeod said: “It’s certainly been discussed. That’s the most poignant thing about it – when David was showing Shona pictures of their wedding and to her it was just two strangers dancing in the Bistro. So a wedding is very, very possible.
“What we want to do is make sure this feels like a love story ultimately, so it needs a happy ending. Whether it be a wedding or something else, we want the audience to have that confetti moment where they punch the air with joy.”
10. Gary will stay on the cobbles – even if he’s exposed
Gary’s dark side is under threat as Adam Barlow grows suspicious of him – particularly as he continues to help Rick’s daughter Kelly.
Whether he’s exposed or not, they have no plans to get rid of Gary or actor Mikey North.
MacLeod said: “I don’t want to give too much away, but the end is not nigh for Gary. I think Mikey’s fabulous and [I’ve enjoyed] Gary’s complicated, messed-up evolution from back in the day when he was a scally and a thug.
“When Gary lost Sarah, he turned back to the dark side that he’d emerged from when he was a teenager. Gary going back to his scally, criminal roots has been really interesting. So I’m in no hurry to press the ejector seat on that story, I think it’s really fascinating and interesting.”
11. Gary and Maria will not have a happy wedding
Gary’s life will continue to catch up with him as he prepares to tie the knot with his beloved Maria. Fans will see this unfold sometime in the summer.
MacLeod said: “[Gary’s] selfless gene kicks in again and he tries to help Kelly out in any way he can, but unfortunately that arouses a certain degree of suspicion in some of his rivals on the street, who start to think: ‘What on earth has he got to do with this kid?’
“When they find out that Kelly is Rick’s kid, suspicions start to go into overdrive in a way that precipitates a massive explosion in Sarah, Adam and Gary’s lives – in the run-up to Gary and Maria’s wedding. That will be going out sometime later in the summer.”
12. Callum Logan will be dragged up again
Callum was killed by Kylie and his body hidden underneath Gail’s flat all the way back in 2015. When the body was discovered, it was blamed on Tony Stewart – who is also dead.
However, as Adam starts to provoke Gary, it could only be a matter of time before the gangster reveals what he knows.
When asked about this possibility, MacLeod said: “Interesting! I think the short answer is yes, in a way. That’s certainly part of what we’re writing in scripts.
“Gary is not the only person to have nefariously disposed of a body. That does become significant. I won’t say any more about it than that.”
13. Gary and Sarah’s relationship gets even more complicated
While both of them are with new people – Sarah having married Adam and Gary about to tie the knot – their old relationship is still going to be dragged up.
This will all come to a head with the bubbling secret of Gary killing gangster Rick.
Iain said: “I’m just reading scripts where their complicated feelings for each other are still causing them headaches and dilemmas. There are complicated decisions that have to be made.
“Sarah has no idea of the lengths he went to, and I think that’s coloured some of Gary’s less-than-gallant behaviour towards her. What Gary did to Rick is a massive secret and it’s going to be a large component of what plays out over the rest of the year.”
14. Gemma will start to find herself as a mother
Viewers watched as Gemma struggled with parenting her quadruplets. After seeking help, she’s been diagnosed with post-natal depression.
Upcoming episodes will see her attend a support group and learning from other mothers in similar experiences.
MacLeod said: “We wanted to tell a story with some positivity.”
“Ultimately Gemma will come out the other side of this somewhat changed with what she’s been through emotionally. She’ll have a new level of appreciation and love for her mum, and obviously will go on to become a fantastic mum to those quads in her own inimitable way.
“I’m not saying she won’t occasionally feed them turkey twizzlers and Wotsits, and let them watch Nightmare on Elm Street at the age of 11, and all those other things you might expect Gemma to do with her kids!
“But ultimately she’s a fantastic mum and it throws off the spectre of her own upbringing. I think Gemma thought she’d be a terrible mother because her own mother was a terrible one. But this will ultimately give her the confidence to believe in herself a bit.”
15. Nina will help Asha by confronting Dev
Nina continues to fight Asha’s corner after a private video was shared among her friends and published online.
She even confronts Asha’s dad Dev for his poor handling of the situation.
MacLeod said: “It certainly has a way to go. It’s part of a long-term direction for Asha, as a struggle with her self esteem.
“Nina’s role in that is to be a brilliant friend and supporter. Nina is used to having people look askance at her and talk about her behind her back. She has learned to be out and proud, own her life and own her life story. So she is instrumental in helping Asha put herself together emotionally.
“Dev’s struggle with it is completely understandable, really. He wants to wade in and fix it all – this is his little girl. He can still remember chasing her around in the back garden when she was in her nappy, but now she’s in this hellish adult world as a really young woman.
“It’s a nightmare for him. He tries his best – with some input from Nina, who gives him a stern talking-to. This shifts his attitude to what Asha has done.”