Coronation Street viewers were left feeling ‘uncomfortable’ following Friday night’s episode after an already-controversial plot on the ITV soap took a worrying turn
Coronation Street viewers were left feeling ‘uncomfortable’ following Friday night’s episode. The world’s longest-running TV soap just welcomed back fan favourite Eva Price (Catherine Tydlesley) last month, and she came with her new family in tow, but it wasn’t long before the drama kicked off.
Eva now runs the Rovers with her partner Ben Driscoll and his mother Maggie, and they live there with Ben’s sons Will and Ollie, as well as Eva’s little girl Susie. But it was soon revealed that that 15-year-old Will has been having an affair with his athletics coach Megan, whom he had been seeing when he initially refused to move from Hull. The family are yet to discover this, but are well aware of Will’s fondness for his teacher and things took a turn for the worse after he exhibited some worrying behaviour.
In the latest instalment of the ITV soap, Megan and Will arrived back from a trip that they had claimed was for a sports competition and she tried to end things with him but he was having none of it and stormed off out of the car. Later on, Ben caught her on the street and insisted on giving her some petrol money before inviting her in for dinner. Megan reluctantly went and officially rescinded her duties as Will’s coach in front of the family.
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Over their meal, Will pretended that a girlfriend from Hull had dumped him that morning, to which his grandmother said: “The surest way for a lad to get over a girl is to get over the next one, she must have been doolally to split up with you!” Will insisted that it wasn’t anyone’s fault, and Megan, unable to take it anymore, made her excuses and left.
Will became insistent that he would never get another coach like Megan, and needed to be in Hull for his athletics. While Ben was coming round to the idea of Will moving back to Hull alone, Eva and Maggie were dead against the idea. Ben tried to put his foot down, but Eva and his mother went behind his back and made other arrangements. Pretty soon, Megan joined the family in the back room of the pub again, where Maggie explained: “You might’ve been happy to abandon Will, but we weren’t. I called Megan, we had a few drinks, and we found a solution.”
Megan said: “Your gran’s paying me to come over here two days a week for some one-on-one training sessions!” Maggie then insisted that money was no object and she was just pleased to see Will happy again. But viewers were outraged at the twist, as this means that Megan will be sticking around to continue her illicit relationship with the teenager.
Flocking to social media, one wrote: “#Corrie how old is that trainer, he’s only 15, find it an uncomfortable storyline,” whilst another said: “Ben to Megan: “Will trusts you.” Oh, Ben, you have no idea [sad emoji].”
A third raged: “Ben wants to thanks Megan for everything she has done. He wouldn’t want to be thanking her for everything she has done if he knew that she is doing his son [vomit emoji]” and a fourth added: “It’s really worrying how Eva & Ben trust Megan. Just like how in real life parents trust adults around their kids, not knowing that they could be predators!”
Actress Beth Nixon, who is making her television debut with the role, recently teased that her alter-ego is set to get a job at the local secondary school, and will strike up some sort of relationship with fellow teacher Daniel Osbourne (Rob Mallard), who is the son of Ken Barlow, all in attempt to cover her tracks and make her young lover jealous.
She said: “She’s a maths teacher and PE coach, she coaches Will and does athletics on the side. She meets Daniel when she’s in Weatherfield training Will, and then he gets her the job at Weatherfield High. So she eventually moves to be closer to Will and becomes a PE teacher.
“I think she’s calculated with it because, one, it’s a good cover story. But two, she’s also able to make Will jealous and further manipulate him, further deepening his obsession. But I think that over time, she does develop some kind of feelings for Daniel and she does get emotionally involved with him, and it’s not just a cover like she’s telling Will.”
“But obviously, she’s just getting herself into more and more of a mess because if she does eventually develop feelings for Daniel, she can’t then leave Will because it’s all going to come out, and she needs to silence him, keep him quiet.
“So she’s kind of spinning all these plates and having to juggle all these different things, which adds to her stress. She’s like a duck, calm, cool, collected on the surface, but underneath she is going crazy.”
Coronation Street is on ITV and STV at 8pm Monday, Wednesday, Friday and ITVX and STV Player at 7am