Leanne Battersby (Jane Danson) is taken aback by a new proposition from cult leader Rowan Cunliffe (Emrhys Cooper) in Coronation Street next week.
As viewers of the ITV soap know, Leanne has been well and truly trapped under his spell for months.
Even the revelation that he is lying about his true identity – a former convict – wasn’t enough to convince her that he is deeply sinister.
Rowan has continued to plague her life, spreading harmful ideologies and even convincing Leanne to cut off emotionally from her sister Toyah (Georgia Taylor), who is battling ovarian cancer.
He’s also employed his cronies to stalk Toyah and Leanne’s fiancé Nick Tilsley (Ben Price), who have been having an affair. After catching them both kissing, he’s used photos of them as blackmail.
More recently, Rowan asked Leanne to invest £40,000 in a dodgy resource centre for his ‘Institute’, and when she doubted whether it was a good move, he said he would discuss it with Nick.
Since then he’s encouraged her to enlist Amy Barlow (Elle Mulvaney) as his next victim, and we’ve seen her go off on one of his dodgy retreats.
Just exactly what these trips away involve, we’re not quite sure.
In the latest spoiler video, Amy returns from the retreat and tells Leanne it wasn’t what she was expecting – it was better.
Shortly afterwards, Rowan arrives and Leanne asks him what his ‘big news’ is.
He explains that Willow, the leader of the cult, wants her to run the new resource centre, and she’s left speechless.
In a further unexpected twist, he tells Leanne that she’s expected to meet a potential investor later in the day.
Will she back out before it’s too late?
