The penny has dropped. The scales have fallen. The rose-tinted glasses are well and truly off. Coronation Street’s Abi Webster (Sally Carman-Duttine) is now fully aware of what kind of man she’s upended her entire life for is, and she’s sickened.
I’d suggest you fetch a brew and a few cussy-creams, because we’re about to head back to the start of the Webster saga that’s all-but annihilated one of Weatherfield’s favourite clans.
Carl Webster’s (Jonathan Howard) arrival coincided with an immediate cross with Abi in the Freshco carpark. The sexual tension crackled immediately, and even after discovering that Carl was the brother of her husband, Kevin (Michael Le Vell), Abi was fighting an internal battle between her desire to remain loyal to Kev and her desire to absolutely devour Carl.
Despite building a solid career working with them, our Kev is no dipstick! Clocking on to the fact that his wife and his brother had raging chemistry, he told Abi he was still suffering from cancer, after actually being told it was in remission.
Of course, this is Soapland, and it had the exact opposite of the desired intention. When Abi found out about Kevin’s lies, she headed straight over to the waiting lips of Carl.
Carl, meanwhile, had an entire aquariums worth of fish to fry, besides seducing his brothers wife. He was in deep debt and had allied with Fiona Morley (Sarah Poyzer), a dodgy car dealer who also dabbled in a spot of grand theft auto.
With Kevin now in the know that Carl had used his garage as a base for stolen cars and a dodgy MOT racket, he disowned his brother. Though Carl was ready to leave, his sister, Debbie Webster (Sue Devaney), who’d recently been diagnosed with early-onset dementia, convinced him to stay.
And stay he did, though it appeared that sleeping with Abi alone wasn’t enough to satisfy his appetite. No, loyalty doesn’t appear anywhere on our Carl’s list of qualities, as he proved when he began bedding James Bailey (Jason Callender).
In perhaps his most vile move yet, Carl, having stolen a car, mowed down poor Tyrone Dobbs (Alan Halsall) and left him in the road with life-altering injuries, before torching the evidence and keeping quiet about his involvement.
The fun of his fling with Abi came to an abrupt halt when Kevin discovered the truth. With Abi now his actual girlfriend, Carl discovered that all of the fun lay in the whole ‘forbidden fruit’ thing. Now it was just plain old ‘bidden’, he was bored and, besides, he had a new objective: use Debbie’s dementia to fleece his sister of every penny she has.
Carl must’ve felt on top of the world, besides having to deal with child care for Abi’s young son, Alfie. James remained at his beck and call, he was successfully syphoning cash from Debbie and with Abi by his side, he held a definitive victory over brother-turned-nemesis, Kevin.
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Then the tide started to turn. Carl discovered that his mum, Elaine, had passed away after a battle with cancer. Carl was uncharacteristically devastated that she hadn’t reached out. Unbeknownst to him, though, she had, with Debbie forgetting to tell him.
Next, a Christmas fumble with James ended up creating evidence that finally saw Abi realise who she’d destroyed her family for, while Ryan Connor (Ryan Prescott) finally discovered evidence that Carl’d been messing with the hotel accounts and Kevin discovered drone footage on son Jack’s (Kyran Bowes) laptop of Carl driving the car that smashed into Tyrone.
Heading into Debbie’s wedding to Ronnie Bailey (Vinta Morgan), all three hold secrets that could destroy Carl’s life forever, but who would utilise their weapon first?
On the day of the wedding, Abi found a hold-all in Carl’s boot, stuffed with stolen cash and quickly worked out his plan when she saw him booking a one-way flight back to Germany, while Kevin re-watched the drone footage of Carl and, despite his promise of a days peace to Debbie, the sight of Carl fussing around Tyrone enraged him.
Meanwhile, Carl himself snatched a post-it note of Debbie’s with ‘Elaine’ and a tick scrawled on it from her flat.
Though the ceremony goes off without a hitch, the tension was simmering and when Carl suggested to James they make use of an empty room, James, incandescent at the level of Carl’s duplicity, shut him down. Guilt-ridden James later attempted to confess the affair to Abi, who told him that she already knew, but needed Carl not to know she knows. She then apologised to Kevin for all she’s done, while telling him that Carl is about to run, prompting Kevin to vow revenge.
Attempting to show the drone footage on a projector screen, Kevin was utterly humiliated when it only played a TikTok video of he and Jack dancing to a classic Kylie bop and he launched a physical attack when Carl comes back. As the two tore verbal strips off of one another, Kevin announced that Carl ran Tyrone over to the belief of…nobody. As he was thrown out, Carl looked on, victorious.
The toilet scene
The toilet scene with Debbie, Glenda Shuttleworth (Jodie Prenger), Bernie Winter (Jane Hazlegrove) and Christina Boyd (Amy Robbins) was, in the opinion of this humble writer, pure, wonderful Corrie.
A gaggle of slightly-tipsy Northern Queens; Bernie weeing with the cubicle door open so as not to ‘miss the goss’, Christina irritating the hand dryer while Glenda lamented always being a bridesmaid (‘open brackets – never the flaming bride – close brackets’, to which Bernie slurred ‘I love punctuation, you don’t hear it enough!’) was a hilarious and nostalgic moment, that, in the midst of the family drama, showed the sheer power of female friendship.
We all know that the deepest and most vulnerable conversations come in the bathrooms after a few scoops and both the writing and the performances were flawless.
This emerging girl group, alongside Sally Metcalfe (Sally Dynevor), have brought untold joy. Long may it continue!
Finding Kevin tearing apart Carl’s room searching for Jack’s laptop, Tyrone was furious that what happened to him is being used in the brotherly war and, fundamentally, doesn’t believe Kevin. As he left, Abi entered and lambasted Kevin for handing Carl a huge victory. Booting him out, she looked in the hold all again, revealing a few tenners spread over a bunch of newspapers.
Drunken Carl arrived next and faced off with a solemn Abi who revealed she knew about Germany, James and she believes he hurt Tyrone. Inebriated and frustrated, Carl’s mask slipped big time and he spat pure venom her way, revealing that he got to the laptop and destroyed the files, while basically admitting that he did run Tyrone down.
Proclaiming that Kevin is a better man than Carl will ever be, Carl spat back that maybe she should beg him for another chance before confessing that being with her was only fun when it was an affair, and that he’d grown bored. Shaken, Abi lamented that she’d hurt almost everyone she loves to be with him.
‘Do you want me to feel bad?’ Carl mocked. ‘Because I was young, free and single and you forgot that you weren’t?’
Unable to take anymore, Abi questioned how Carl could’ve hurt Tyrone so badly without remorse before fleeing, with a flash of emotion colouring Carl’s face for the first time.
Visited later by Debbie, a still drunk Carl pulled out the post-it note and tore into Debbie for taking the chance to say goodbye to his mum from him. Though she told him she’d forgotten, he didn’t buy it.
Debbie reasoned that she’d not told him because he’d always said she’d treated him badly. Anger rising, Carl bit back that she robbed him of the chance to hear his mum potentially apologise and tell him that she loved him.
Storming out as Debbie stood, tears flowing, begging him to sort things out, the destruction of the Websters seemed to be complete. With the historic and deadly Corriedale fast approaching, will they even have the chance to reconcile?
