Sunday Canadian Corrie Comments, December 25

It's Christmas Day, all the best to you, wherever you are!

But on Canadian Screens it's still June...

Steve didn't expect that Max would be taken from them so it backfired big time. David is going to use the "Steve and Becky bullied you" to try to get Max for Kylie. Did they bully? Sort of but only because Becky was terrified that Kylie would change her mind and take Max back. And Steve roughing up David isn't helping Steve's case any. Becky promised the social workers she'd wait patiently but she also figured out that they put Max back with the family that had him before and tried to take him back. Wrong move, Becks and finding out it was an anonymous call sent her over the edge. No suprise there and she naturally leaped to the conclusion that it was Kylie but then, she knew Kylie wasn't lying so Tracy was the next logical suspect. Under other circumstances, you might think that as well after Steve stymied her London getaway and Tracy certainly encouraged it by her constant digs when Becky accused her.That's it, Becky trashed the Barlow house and when Steve finally confessed, I thought she'd take the sledgehammer to his head. It was pretty stupid that the cops weren't called to Number 1 at the first smash of the window. And Steve waited an awful long time to confess too. It was Ken that tried to stop her, not Steve.

I don't blame her for walking out on him and as much as he's begged and pleaded, she won't come back and takes up residence in the cafe for now. Steve called Social Services not expecting how it came out but was at the end of his rope. The truth is out as far as it goes so Tracy can't hold it over his head anymore but he's lost both Max and his wife. Becky feels betrayed in the worst way but she was to blame too. As much as she thought she was doing it for the right reasons, paying Kylie for Max twice, stealing the money from the Alahans on the second go round was the wrong thing to do and the financial pressure put her marraige in as much danger as anything Steve has done. Maybe they'll find their way back together and maybe they won't. But as much as i love them together and think they're suited, she's just as damaging to Steve as Karen was in the long run. Tracy isn't much better, either. 

Steve really really wants Tracy to sign that access/visitation agreement so he's dangling a full time bar position under her nose, letting her even assume that he wants her to be bar manager when really, he's hired a new manager to get a new name over the door seeing as how Becky's disappeared to lick her wounds. It was a dirty trick he played on Tracy, really. Not that i'm sympathetic, she's had that coming and more but the problem is, she always gets her own back and it's never pretty. 

Kylie still thinks she's not going to get Max back, she still doesn't have any confidence in her abilities and i'm sure she's scare she'll screw it up again but she does have a support system now that she never had before, not in her life, really. David is certainly there for her and Gail could be if she wanted to. Too late. Max is in care, and Becky has left Steve and really, though it was all such a mess, I can see why she feels so betrayed. Steve was in a very hard place and she's thinking he's putting Amy before her and Max and he probably did. It really is a tough one to call but in the end, he  did the right thing, bring the truth out even if it has cost him Max and his wife.

Graham is really having a hard time with Xin leaving. He's had sex with both her and Tina and felt hugely guilty. What he's feeling guilty about is his  feelings for his wife which have grown into love. Tina can't get rid of Xin fast enough because even she can see it though she wouldn't admit it. It took him a long time but he finally admitted how he felt and spent the rest of the day hiding from Tina, avoiding the inevitable. By the time he went to look for her, she knew, she'd figured it out. It was bound to happen, though. It's kind of a soap law really. Standard plot device. Graeme believed Tina might really turn them in for the immigration fraud and it ended up being Gail that talked her out of it. We see Graeme and Xin leave the street for good, with one last goodbye between the former lovers on the cobbles. After that, Tina looks to be using Tommy to get over Graeme. Not a great idea. 

Fiz has a ghost in the attic, well, John, who's lurking around the house undetected. Never mind those 100 year old houses should be creaking under his weight overhead, both in the attic and in Hope's bedroom. I also want to know if Fiz bought that bed from the same place they all buy those teeny tiny couches. It didn't look much bigger than a single! But I digress...Fiz is really getting herself in deep by lying to the police (the lovely D.C. Redfearn, by the way). If she hates John so much, she should have told the truth, confessed to the fraud and she might get off a bit easier. By lying, it's not going to help her any. It's lovely that her friends are all rallying round her, though the usual suspects are slagging her off left right and centre (Sally Webster). I love that Fiz at least stands up to Sally most of the time.

John is clearly doolally. He's completely round the twist isn't he? You can see the madness in his eyes. He ran with the baby and Fiz got knocked down in the fakest set up accident i've seen in ages. Nobody would think he'd hurt the baby but he's a loose cannon. His justifying all his crimes was just mad rambling. He brought the baby to her in the hospital, pretending to be a doctor but it all ended badly. Why on earth were there no police right outside Fiz's room? Why on earth when she pressed the help buzzer didn't the nurses and cops come running. They all knew he was on the run with the baby and that he was probably dangerously psychotic. And how did they all end up on the roof of the hospital? There's no frigging way John could survive a six story fall and disappear in the time it took the cops to get to where he landed. That's the one part of this storyline that really is ridiculous (I know, not a lot of the rest of the storyline was all that logical but it was farce, black humour and twists and turns but this was just beyond that)

Now they've arrested her for fraud which, at least, she *is* guilty of by her own admission. Of course the neighbours are rife with gossip, Norris being at the forefront of it all. I really detest him and even more when i see him eagerly sitting in court with Mary lapping up all the gory details and pretending it's for support when it's really just wanting a front row seat to watch someone else's suffering. Now Fiz has to find a way to keep going with the heavy shadow of a trial and other charges looming. Luckily Carla wasn't going to take no for an answer and sorted her out.

John's coworker Brian is back! I loved him! He was a great character. He wasn't in the house 5 minutes when he wasn't hinting for a cuppa! Brilliant! And Julie has already clapped eyes on him. They MUST keep him in the show and get them together! Owen doesn't have much choice but to accept Katy's pregnancy now that Chesney is back. It's got to be difficult for him and I can understand where he's coming from but he does tend to go about it the wrong way, doesn't he? Looks like Sean is going to be looking after Dylan for awhile. Being a full time daddy is going to be a steep learining curve even with Marcus to help! Cheryl has Lloyd busy painting. And he said there's a package for her in the cab office and she says it's a 42 inch plasma tv. Could he not tell that? And the cab office is so small it must have taken up the whole office! Gary's got the green eyed monster on his back, narrowing suspicious eyes at Izzy's friend Will.

Sunita's aunties are back and nagging for India. I don't understand why everyone has to drive their kids to school. Bessie Street school is only a couple of blocks away and yet Sunita was griping about roadworks. She could have walked them there! The  aunties despair of Sunita. Unmarried, Divorced which is worse (why? don't they have divorce in India?) with a man who's in dire financial circumstances and they  now have decided Devendra is no longer a suitable husband for her and they're out to find her a new one! I also think Sunita has selective memory, saying how good a dad Dev was even when they were apart. She sure didn't have good words for Dev when we first got Sunita back on screens again. In order to head off the Aunties, Dev decided to propose very publically but Sunita said no!!!

Sophie and Sian are doing lots of volunteer work but they were left in charge and the soup kitchen was burgled. James took their advance pay packet though Kevin thought he asked for it, when it was volunteered. But it seems like they are getting more and more involved with it. Is that a good thing, do you think? They were a bit young to be left in charge though. Kevin and Sally are putting their foot down now, no more charity but James is tempting them with even more responsibility, making them feel important. As usual, Sophie does what she wants and jacks in her job to work full time with the charity.

Nice to see Sylvia making friends. She clearly doesn't know about Hayley's past but it's going to come out soon.