The Joel twists have saved Coronation Street’s Lauren storyline – I finally care again

‘Where is Lauren!?’ ‘Free Roy Cropper!’ cried Coronation Street, keen to get the momentum going on what the show’s boss declared was their biggest story of the year – but I just couldn’t get on board.

Back in February, Lauren Bolton, played effectively by rising star Cait Fitton, went missing, leaving behind only a few blood traces and a trashed flat.

In the months that followed, we would have the usual formula of misdirection, implications of death, wrongful arrests, wild coincidences and incompetent police work.

Lauren was a very new character to the show, having been introduced as an accessory to far-right terrorism, luring Max Turner (Paddy Bever) into the group that went on to commit racist attacks and bombings.

As with every damaged waif and stray, she was taken under the wing of our beloved, patient café king Roy Cropper (David Neilson), following in the footsteps of show legends like Katherine Kelly’s Becky.

It became clear that Lauren had huge potential as a character – Cait showed off what she could do in the far-right grooming story and it made absolute sense that Corrie would have her back.

But, Lauren’s past still hung over her and her redemption arc was far from complete by the time she disappeared, later presumed to be murdered.

When show producer Iain MacLeod first teased the year’s huge story to Metro.co.uk in January, I was enthused, with the promise that it would draw in various members of the cast being the main selling point for me.

But these mystery whodunnits – or where-are-theys – are very difficult to get right, and the saga got underway in a very formulaic fashion.

It wasn’t as bad as I might be making it sound. It weaved in factors such as Daniel’s past allegations of misbehaviour with younger girls and women, and it revisited aspects such as Roy and Hayley’s snatching of Wayne decades ago – I am a sucker for continuity, and hate when huge life events for characters are never mentioned again, so this was very welcome.

The acting was strong – the plot involved talent such as David Neilson, Alison King, Channique Sterling-Brown and Rob Mallard, how could it not be?

But the moment it lost its way entirely for me was the arrest and charging of Roy with murder.

I understand that Corrie wanted to recreate the Free the Weatherfield One mania that captured even parliament back in 1997 when Deirdre Rachid was jailed.

But this has been done to death – over the years we have seen Tyrone Dobbs, Sally Metcalfe, Yasmeen Nazir, Fiz Stape and Gail Platt in similar situations, standing in a courtroom accused of a crime we all know they didn’t commit, with the neighbours who have known them for years suspecting them.

Justice is always done in soap, so there was never any doubt that Roy would get out, which made the whole thing seem like unnecessary misery with an already spoiled outcome.

Towards the end of it, Roy was then approached by a knife-wielding Griff, Lauren’s terrorist pa.

The race against time was on! With new evidence now coming to light, can Roy be released before he is killed?

Well, yes of course. There’s no way that Coronation Street were ever going to kill off Roy in a prison stabbing. There was no jeopardy for the viewer, we all knew where it would go.

With it being hard to invest in a missing character I barely knew, impossible not to feel disbelief that the police would jail a man for a murder both without a body and almost zero evidence linking him to her, and the most tense moments lacking that punch of any true danger, I had zoned out of the story.

It took up so much airtime, cushioned only by other darker storylines, something which I did bemoan at the time. I seem like I am very hard to please, don’t I?

Well, in the last week, Corrie have achieved the unthinkable and got me right back onto the edge of my seat and completely invested.

With an hour long two-hander – something pretty unheard of – Lauren came face to face with her attacker Joel Deering (Calum Lill).

Joel is a fascinating character of very dark depths while displaying an outward charm and Calum absolutely shone in these episodes, utterly terrifying and unhinged in the role.

He is not a moustache-twirling baddie but a very dangerous villain that is frighteningly familiar in the real world.

The writing and direction were on point for a really gripping and uncomfortable atmosphere and Cait and Calum are electrifying together. It was even more impressive that these were pretty much their first scenes together.

Flashbacks showed the true events as they unfolded over the past months and shone a light on exactly what Joel is capable of, but also his own twisted self-belief that he hasn’t done anything wrong.

It’s this complexity that the storyline needed and I am fascinated by what will come next.

Calum told me recently that he is keen for the storyline to continue for a good while, and this time I am in agreement because I am keen to witness how this character navigates his future now we know all about him.

The storyline didn’t need such a long ‘where is she?’ narrative, nor did it need the dragged out false accusations – finding out about Joel sooner would have been the ticket to me getting on board much, much earlier.

Many have declared the episode as the best of the year and what it goes to show is that any soap has the capability of rescuing a storyline, even if, for viewers like me, it felt lost.

While pain-stakingly overdue, this is a definite win for Corrie – and for me.