Coronation Street Review: "Unwelcome Returns & Match-Making"

The first proper week of September brings with it many joys including sending your kids back off to school. It also brings up Toyah being locked out and forced to wear some of Tracey's old clothes on her first day at the Medical Centre, and Peter proudly sending Simon off to school. David also went rogue from Gail by inviting grandma Audrey round for tea.

Thanks to working at the medical centre we were treated to some Toyah/Moira action. I completely and utterly adore Moira. She is exactly what we deserve. Soon as she sees the opportunity to go probing, she's in there and of course that means bringing up Peter/Toyah. Of course she makes Toyah slightly uncomfortable in the process and of course this is another man on the street Moira finds quite tasty.

Tyrone continued to deal with the devastating revelation of discovering his whole life is a lie, with Fiz providing support and deciding that they need to find his real family. Their go-to for said help was all knowing Roy and Brian after he ears-dropped onto the conversation, and exclaimed with such delight over the possibility of Tyrone being abducted by aliens. Because jumping to conclusions is a Platt family trait, Bethany and Emma witnessed Billy carrying out his civil duties by helping a homeless man in need, and somehow deduced from this that he could possibly be doing drugs again. Detective Bethany was soon on the case, barking up the wrong tree because apparently helping the homeless truly is an alien concept in Weatherfield. Of course all of this led up to Bethany following Billy to the hospital and discovering he's seeing Josh. He is still blind which Bethany soon finds out along with hearing Billy's reasoning for visiting him. He believes he's duty bound to help Josh see the error of his sins and repent. This may be the first time I've ever agreed with Bethany.

Our dearly beloved cougar Paula also made another appearance, turning up at Sally's to carry out work duties and asking after Sophie in the process. Whilst Sally continued to gush as best Sally could, Sophie was indeed soon turning up because as soon as an attractive woman hollers her name she's there like magic! Sally was soon making herself unintentionally scarce, and Paula was soon asking Sophie on a lunch date she had to decline because someone remembers Speed-Daal exists. Not deterred though, Paula decided to pop in and make that a working lunch and at this point I'm pretty sure Sophie's gonna follow in her mother's footsteps and start looking up wedding venues. Girl deserves a bit of love and happiness from a woman that is 100% interested in her.

Because Sophie's a smart girl, she's brave enough to admit her last relationship put her off relationships. I still can't work out how exactly what Kate/Sophie had a few months ago can be classed as a relationship. Sophie falling hard for her, yes, because she has been into Kate for a number of years now and sometimes the writers have toyed with the idea of them before realizing it just doesn't quite work. But it was blatantly obvious Kate's heart wasn't at all into whatever she and Sophie did have, and given Zeedan informed her Kate/Rana had been a thing for a while? How are you gonna say that your ex-girlfriend fell in love with someone else.More correct terminology would be her most recent acquaintance turned her off dating, because being with someone who was never really into you is extremely offputting and can make you wary of putting yourself out there again. Popping into Speed-Daal Sally was curious to find Sophie and Paula together, and it's a real good job Sophie's with such a smooth operator because being incapable of lying seems to be a Weatherfield lesbian trope.

We were also treated to Kate/Sophie interactions. Kate/Sophie interactions where Sophie asked about Rana and Kate gave an update on Rana, all whilst Sally side-eyed. I can never quite tell whether Sally is upset on behalf of Sophie being messed around, or because she missed out on a chance to join the Connor family through Kate/Sophie's wedding that you know she'd been planning since they first met. Weatherfield's match-maker never gets time off and broached the topic of Paula going for a date with Kevin. Obviously Sophie wasn't very happy with this since she doesn't fancy another love triangle with her dad, but to her surprise, Paula agreed and Sally's work for the day was done. Sally may be what we all deserve, but asking Paula to keep an eye on Sophie and more importantly make sure Kate stays away from her, because Sally seriously thinks her eye is gonna go wandering whilst Rana is stuck on a cruise with her mum? I'm sorry Sally, but go home! Soaps might eventually soap and bring drama to Kana's door once more, but that drama is not gonna be Kate propositioning Sophie. Because Paula's a smart lawyer, she pointed out to Sophie that going on a date with Kevin is the perfect alibi; it keeps Sally off her back and Sally from wondering why she's spending time with Sophie. Can't exactly fault Sophie for not liking the idea given her romantic history though.

Returning home Sally told Tim all about her successful match-making and was soon getting down to some making of her own. I'm choosing to disregard Tim's comment on paying more attention to her own love life, and choosing to think he said that in a humorous manner and not because something dreadful is on the horizon.

Also tonight Jim McDonald made another appearance. Steve got roped into a secret stag do courtesy of Tim, Peter and the rest of the gang, Moira offered to do a bit of body inspecting and the festivities were grounded to a halt by Jim's appearance. He was soon revealing the dogs are indeed not after him, he has just been released from prison and returned to the worst reception. No-one at all is happy by his presence, a fight nearly breaks out with Peter who is still really annoyed with him and Johnny had to quieten things down. Jim did eventually make a bit of progress even if Peter was still threatening him. The dinner party from hell went extremely well as Gail stormed out the house and Bethany's outburst at the sight of Lewis/Audrey caused them both to leave the house (so just a typical day that ends in Y at the Platt's).

Rana may be away but we still get Kata scenes and more specifically? CONNOR WOMEN SCENES. Granted this wasn't the full wolf-pack and just made up of Kate questioning whether Carla is still interested in Peter and judging her over said interest like a lovely sister does, Carla admitted to Michelle she hopes she can get Peter/Toyah back together so then she won't be tempted to get back with him. Honestly none of this makes that much sense, but I'm here for Kate/Michelle and their judgemental looks that Carla totally deserves.