Director: Merlyn Rice
Writers: Ella Greenhill & David Isaac
Watch Now: ITVX or STV
Carla and Lisa have been off screen for a while, and the end of what has come to be known as the ‘Swarla drought’ came to an end today.
The episode opened with Lisa clearly nervous about her upcoming therapy session, so much so she wasn’t eating breakfast.
Carla encouraged her to eat something, and they ended up talking about the session, which Lisa was due to attend later that day. Lisa admitted she wasn’t the type of person to talk about her feelings, and her girlfriend gave her a gentle nudge, saying that counselling really can help.
We next saw Lisa at the station, when Maria went to report Gary missing. The therapy session clearly still weighing on her mind, she was very dismissive of Maria’s claim, suggested Gary just didn’t want to speak to his wife, and begrudgingly filled out a missing persons report.
There was a hilarious moment in the office at the station, too, where Lisa couldn’t get her swivel chair to swivel. Kit told her there was an unidentified coma patient in hospital, and that he planned to go and find out if it was Gary, Lisa offered to go, but Kit reminded her (in a very insubordinate way, actually), that she had her therapy session to attend.
Lisa arrived at her session, clearly awkward and absolutely not wanting to be there. Encouraged to sit down by counsellor Floyd, she asked him to just sign a piece of paper to say she’d attended, as she was confident she wasn’t going to get anything from talking, and if she needed to talk, she had a supportive partner at home.
Later, she broke her silence by talking about house plants, which led them onto the topic of Betsy and then her late wife, Becky. When Floyd mentioned her name, Lisa was shocked to find out he had background information on her, and went into defence mode. Just before the session ended, though, she did make progress. She told him she was unsure if she really knew her wife at the time she died.
Carla and Lisa then met up at The Rovers, with Lisa wanting double vodka lemonade’s at 2pm in the afternoon. Lisa opened up about her session, and the fact she was still unsure if Becky was a bent copper, before Carla encouraged her to park it for the time being and focus on getting back out from behind her desk to the job she loves.
Debbie then interrupted them, and invited them to retract their offer on No.6 Coronation Street, citing the fact she needed to live near her sick brother as the reason for needing the house. That, and the fact she has dementia, was clearly not going to put Carla off, and they declared a bidding war. It was lovely to see Lisa laughing at the end of this scene, no matter what else is going on in her life, her partner will never fail to make her smile.
Finally, we saw Lisa back at the flat trying to access certain files on her laptop. Carla appeared, asking her girlfriend if she was coming for a bath, complete with cheese and nibbles. Lisa assured her she would be there once she’d finished looking through her finances ahead of the house move, but when Carla disappeared again, she went straight back to trying to access Becky’s police file. Access denied.
Lesson: find someone who runs you a bath with cheese and nibbles, even if you do get relegated to the tap end of the tub!
Watch the full episode courtesy of ITV’s YouTube channel below:
Swarla HQ xo
Images copyright of ITV