Coronation Street’s Eileen gets the shock of her life that changes everything after Julie’s death
Eileen Grimshaw’s (Sue Cleaver) entire world collapsed this week when she found sister Julie Carp (Katy Cavanagh) dead in Coronation Street.
Julie returned to the cobbles earlier this year and revealed that she had been diagnosed with stage four sarcoma, and that her cancer was terminal.
In recent weeks, her condition deteriorated, with the pain becoming hard to manage.
However, Julie didn’t want this to stop her from living her final days to the full, and planned a trip to her favourite lakeside spot with Eileen.
Having already decided to take her own life, Julie recorded a video saying goodbye to her loved ones before heading off to the lake.
When Eileen returned with the cups of tea Julie had requested she fetch, she was devastated to find that Julie had died while she was gone.
Having watched the video and recalled how tightly Julie had hugged him, Todd Grimshaw (Gareth Pierce) wondered if Julie had taken her own life.
In tonight’s episode, that possibility became more likely when Brian Packham (Peter Gunn) found that both Julie and Eileen’s medication boxes were empty.
Devastated by the loss of the love of his life, and certain that Eileen had had something to do with her death, Brian reported his findings to the police, and grieving Eileen was taken in for questioning.
As Eileen protested her innocence, she was left gobsmacked when DS Lisa Swain (Vicky Myers) revealed that she could be facing a prison sentence of 14 years for murder should she be found guilty of helping Julie to end her life.
After being released pending further enquiries, Eileen headed home, where George Shuttleworth (Tony Maudsley) pointed out that if the post-mortem showed that Julie had died of an overdose, Eileen could be in serious trouble.
Eileen couldn’t help but be angry at Julie for unintentionally getting her in trouble, and wondered aloud why she couldn’t have made another video explaining the truth.
With actress Sue Cleaver set to leave the show, will Eileen end up wrongly accused of murder and face years behind bars?
