In this incredibly light-hearted, and hilarious (if we do say so ourselves) piece, Avery ranks every time Carla Connor has been proposed to, or proposed to someone else.
‘Marry me?’ It’s now been four times that Carla Connor has heard those words said to her and three times on screen. She’s said them herself three times as well. However, these were mostly said by terrible men which I hate. I have to be somewhat objective and concise in my summaries of Carla’s life that I am writing for this site, so welcome to my unfiltered opinions on the men in her life and their proposals. I will be rating them all out of 10 on an arbitrary scale, that I will invent as I go along, which makes far too much use of negative numbers. The points they receive will also be larger as I go along because as I start recapping each proposal the annoyance baseline from which I begin is higher and higher. Is this fair? No. However, I like to think of this as an aggressive opinion piece because Carla has been treated terribly by the men in her life. This is not because I am a man hating lesbian, I am not, I do think some men are adequate, unfortunately, this doesn’t include anyone Carla has gotten engaged to.
These men that don’t even manage to achieve mediocrity will be ranked in three categories. First, the actual proposal (whether it is how they proposed to Carla or how they responded to her proposal) they will receive a score out of 10. Second, whether I like who they were as a person. As a rule, I normally don’t like them and points will be decided completely illogically purely based on vibes in this category and I reserve the right to automatically deduct 100 points from Nick Tilsley because I prefer the original casting of Nick to the Nick we have today. I will also then put points in place for the ring. Please be warned, I invented this category entirely to rant about Peter Barlow for as long as possible because he was a completely impertinent, self-centred, conceited maggot about it during their first proposal.
Authors note: I have challenged myself to use no swear words to refer to the men in this article, so if you see me using unusual insults please replace them with your choice of swear word.
Paul Connor
Actual Proposal:
This happened off screen and we know absolutely no information about it and the timeline is incredibly inconsistent. 0 points directed at the writers because of the inconsistencies in Carla’s timeline, especially her relationship with Paul, Liam Connor and Michelle Connor, before the show. I want to know everything about her.
0/10
The Person She Was Engaged To:
Paul gets one point because she got a lot out of the relationship (a factory and a lot of money) but he was not a great human being and spent his entire time cheating on her. However, a point to him because he never tried to kill her or assault her.
2/10
The Ring:
Never knowingly seen on screen.
0/10
Overall: 0.66 (recurring)/10
Tony Gordon
Actual Proposal:
They were engaged on the 17th March 2008 but had only began really dating in December and had broken up temporarily in January (when Carla has left Tony to chase Liam, the man who she truly loved, but who ended up marrying his pregnant fianceé Maria), and gotten back together in late February. He and Carla had fought the night before after Carla had admitted that she and Liam and previously had a closeness that ignited Tony’s jealousy. They made up that night but he’d acted jealous when Liam called her about the factory.
To propose he called a surprise family dinner party, inviting Michelle and her boyfriend, Steve McDonald, and Liam and his wife, Maria. He told Carla it was just going to be the two of them and surprised her with her family. She wasn’t happy with the dinner party and was clearly uncomfortable, including challenging him at the table when he suggested he had some ownership over her flat. They were discussing the sensitive side of the men at the table and when asked about his, he turned to Carla and just said ‘Marry me?’. The whole table was shocked including Carla who accused him of being drunk and then when he doubled down, and warned him that it was a good joke. She clearly wanted him to drop the subject but he didn’t, asking her ‘Don’t you want to marry me?’ and she was very, very clear and said that she was asking him to stop it. Tony refused to let it go, reminding her everyone at the table was waiting for an answer and she changed the subject again. He didn’t let it go and everyone at the table started to chip in, pointing out he could cook, he was loaded and good looking. The only person that said nothing was Liam. It was awkward and Carla was clearly uncomfortable, but Tony still didn’t let it go and pulled out a ring box and asked her to marry him again. She said nothing and he told her to pretend they were alone, but she kept talking for a long time. She finally agreed. He asked again the next day and she said yes but she went fishing for Liam and Michelle to disapprove, and told Michelle she only thought he’d make a ‘decent’ husband.
I am going to remove 10 points for each time that he continued proposing after Carla wanted him to stop starting at 1. He gets 1 point up from 0 for cooking, I am then multiplying the final number of -59 by 100 for doing a public proposal because those are a crime, and that scene is so awkward for me to watch and I hate it. He also never got down on one knee and that’s just pathetic, so I will be removing an extra 5 points for that.
–5,900/10
The Person She Was Engaged To:
1 point for being absolutely loaded out of complete fairness because I gave points to Paul for being rich. However, he loses a point for every person he attempted to kill. This was Roy Cropper, Jed Stone and Hayley Cropper. He then also tried to kill Carla twice, minus 4 points for that, taking him to -6. He also burnt down her factory and caused her to be investigated for murder on two occasions for which I will remove another 4 points taking him to -10. I will then remove another 1000 points because he proposed to another woman, Maria Connor, while still technically married to Carla at the grave of Liam Connor on the anniversary of his death, with Liam’s son sitting there, and I have never forgiven him for that and I do want to slap him every time I see his face. I will then also remove another 500 points because he caused Carla to lose her friendship with Michelle for six months, and he caused us to endure six months without Carla on our screens. That was technically for Alison King’s pregnancy but I don’t care. Removal of the greatest friendship in Coronation Street needs to be adequately punished.
-1510/10
The Ring:
It was a massive rock. A huge sparkling diamond and he did go all out and didn’t complain about buying it. He also didn’t need her help to pick a good ring.
10/10 (unfortunately)
Overall: -2,466.66 (recurring)/10
Frank Foster
The Actual Proposal:
Carla and Frank began dating in July 2011, officially. He proposed on the 15th August 2011 after just over a month of dating. He technically broke Tony’s previous record of quick proposals but no points for speed especially when both of those men were using the proposals to control her. Like Tony he also did it out of jealousy after Carla confessed how she felt about Peter Barlow. My question is: what makes these absolute bungalows of men (because they have nothing going on upstairs) think it’s a good idea to propose to a woman after she confesses she has feelings for someone else. I will also be multiplying his inevitably negative score by 200 along the same vein as Tony’s for proposing publicly. It is being multiplied by a larger number because he did it in a packed Rover’s and despite the bar being in hell, that’s somehow worse than Tony’s venue.
When he found Carla in the pub, he also began by making a snide comment about her relationship with Peter who was also in the pub at the time, which is just not a great way to start a proposal. Carla, unable to let anything go, turned it into a bit of a fight because she was annoyed that Frank hadn’t shown up at work all morning. He’d been out buying a ring and he was trying to get her to leave for a proper lunch but instead Carla decided to take the afternoon off work to go shopping, while leaving Frank in charge. The sensible decision here would be to wait, propose another time as he’d planned it, it can be re-planned. Carla was also wine drunk at the time. He should’ve waited. Spoiler alert: he didn’t wait. Minus 10 points for all that. He got down on one knee which I do unfortunately have to give a point for. She told him to get up though and he ignored her which means the point is instantly removed. He opened the ring box, took the ring out and then chucked the box at poor nonathletic Sean Tully. It was an accurate throw but it just felt weird and I didn’t like it and this is my opinion piece so minus 10 points for that. I also think the ring should stay in the box while proposing in a traditional proposal. You are taking so many risks with a ring removal, the box is a security. Carla asked if he was serious when he asked her to marry him. I am unfortunately forced to give him a point here because he did tell her he loved her and she was a dream before saying ‘Marry me?’ and that’s more than Tony did. He then asked her if she wanted him to say it again but she told him to get up. He didn’t, minus 10 points for not listening, and she had to repeat herself and I will deduct another 10 points for that even though the way she said it was very hot, and I do appreciate his role in giving us that line. She told him off and stormed out of the pub and then when he found her, he claimed that she left him with no choice but to propose.
At this point, I want the reader who has never watched this scene to know there was no person pointing a gun at Frank’s head forcing him to propose, the way he talks about it, you’d think there was, but there wasn’t. Minus 10 points for that but I will then add 1 point for admitting the timing was wrong later on. Carla then told him that she didn’t want to get married to anyone and he took it very personally despite her mentioning before the proposal that she didn’t want to get married again because of what happened with Tony. Minus 10 points, Frank has massive ears but is consistently incapable of using them. I am also removing a further 50 points for putting her in an awkward position with all her employees at the factory and forcing her to unsolicited advice from most of the street including Dev Alahan. He then leveraged their shared business in the factory over her when he knew she was reliant on him, and tried to make her feel guilty about having conversations with Peter, and essentially challenged her to marry him to admit she didn’t have feelings for Peter. Another 50 point loss for that. She agreed to marry him in the end though. I am also going to deduct a further 10 points because I decided to award points along the way and I now have to do maths and I hate maths.
-33,600/10
The Person She Was Engaged To:
This is a fun little article slandering men so I will not go into exactly what Frank did but he is getting minus 1,000 points for that. Negative 100 points for being a controlling [redacted]. Negative 100 points for his mother and now I’m thinking that I didn’t dock enough points. Negative 50,000 points.
-51,200/10
The Ring:
He purchased it unprompted, made the choice by himself and the stone was big again. Not quite as large as Tony’s.
9/10
Overall: -28,263.66 (recurring)/10
Peter Barlow
The Actual Proposal:
He did not propose. He instantly loses 1,000 points. Nor was he ever planning to propose, hence such a heavy penalty. He then didn’t instantly say yes. He had Carla Connor asking him to marry her and he didn’t say yes. He said that he thought they had said they didn’t need to get married. That is not the correct response, Peter. The only correct response is yes. Not to essentially make Carla beg. Also for anyone who hasn’t watched that particular moment of Peter being an ignoramus, there are many you are forgiven if you get confused, she’d also offered him half of the factory after he’d been grumpy with her all day. He loses a further 3,000 points for all that. She had to persuade Peter to marry her and compliment him endlessly before he realised she was serious and I was forced to hear the phrase ‘how his skin feels against mine’ and images jumped to mind that I have never ever needed to imagine, and as such he loses another 5,000 points, extra points removed to compensate for my trauma. (I do want it to be stated that the images were unwilling. I have an overactive imagination.) He finally agreed. That is not a phrase I should have to use. Minus 1,000 points.
-9,100/10
The Person She Was Engaged To:
‘Skint, bigamous, alcoholic bookie’. Peter said it himself during the proposal. For some reason to do with a stupid leather jacket, Carla didn’t instantly retract her proposal. +1 for self awareness but -10 for existing. I am also going to give him a lot of points for often being a good partner to Carla, supporting her through everything with Frank, through her struggles with alcohol and because Carla was genuinely deeply in love with him. Unlike her relationships with Paul, Tony and Frank. 20 points for all that. Unfortunately, that didn’t last. -1,000 for his egotistical self-interested insecurities and not appreciating what he had in Carla, -1,500 for not taking an ounce of interest in their wedding, -2,000 for kissing Tina on their wedding day, -3,000 for sleeping with Tina in their bed while Carla comforted a dying Hayley Cropper, -4,000 for his alcoholic benders when he learnt she was pregnant, -5,000 for the stress of the trial and causing her to miscarry, and -6,000 for having the audacity to return to Weatherfield with the belief that they would get back together when he got let out of prison. And he better consider himself lucky for that score because I am not considering everything that he did before and after their relationship, marrying two women, abandoning his son, getting so drunk he set fire to his own flat, and I don’t have time to fit all his transgressions in here.
-22,489/10
The Ring:
The actual ring will not be marked here because the insecure skint little man couldn’t pay for it and Carla did. I won’t remove points for that, he was broke, however he was broke because he was a failed bookie who couldn’t stand to be challenged, and for that I will remove 10 points. Then he was unable to pick out the ring alone and needed his hand held, in fact, he had to be dragged out to buy Carla a ring. For that I will take another 20 points. He then failed to die after being an annoying man-baby all episode and that annoyed me to no end because I was unable to reach through the screen and hit him, so I will be removing 1,000 points for that.
-1,030/10
Overall: -10,873/10
With a bonus point to me, Avery Luca, for randomly creating a number that divides neatly by 3 to create a round number, I love it. +1.
Nick Tilsley
The Actual Proposal:
He didn’t propose, Carla did, so to keep it even I have to remove 1,000 points. Carla was working a shift at the Bistro at the time to help Nick out, he didn’t make her do it and she put her hair up in a ponytail in a very hot way when agreeing to help him out. The episode also produced the iconic wine scene with Sally. Plus 20 points for contributing to the Sally scene and plus 100 points for the hair scene. Unfortunately, Nick didn’t immediately say ‘yes’, Carla told him to say anything but he could have very much gotten in there and said ‘yes’ but Sarah, his sister, was in an accident so he had to run off. Minus 25 points. When he came back to the Bistro, he waited until it was just the two of them before answering Carla’s question, he complimented her and everything beforehand. Carla was all cute and smiley and it’s so rare to see her like that while making this list. Plus 400 points. The next day, he made her an engagement breakfast and in the evening, he also invited both their families, got a ring, made a speech and got down on one knee with music playing and everything. He did it all traditionally with her dad’s approval and with the intention of just making her smile. I can’t find a fault with it. Plus 100 points.
-405/10
The Person She Was Engaged To:
Not my favourite Nick, and he squints too much. Automatic loss of 100 points. However, I think we might end up in the positive here. It’s not that I like Nick Tilsley, I don’t, I hate how he’s treated Leanne through their many relationships, even back in 1998, and I hate how he’s the golden child of the Platts and I really really hate how much of a know it all he is and how he treated Carla in 2010, and how much he squints. I am going to judge him how I judged Peter and Tony and Frank and Paul, only by their actions while they were connected to Carla. Before anyone is like, you’re judging him on his squinting, I am. He squinted while in a relationship with Carla and I will not apologise for it. It annoys me. He needs to squint less. Anyway, +40 points for helping Carla with her gambling addiction and +20 for forgiving Carla when she used his card to bet and lost a lot of his money, +30 for bringing Aidan and the Connors to the street, +10 for looking after her when she was ill and respecting her space consistently including refusing to takes things further when she was drunk and +10 for always looking at her like she hung the stars in the sky. It is the only acceptable way to look at her. +20 for consistently communicating well with her, +10 for standing up to Tracy for her and +30 for agreeing to move to Devon and selling his business with little explanation for her. -10 for that time he avoided her and hid the fact he was having his traumatic brain injury reexamined but let’s face it, Carla did worse to him.
60/10
The Ring:
He bought it alone and with his own money and it was huge with multiple diamonds and Carla clearly loved it.
10/10
Overall: -111.66 (recurring)/10
Peter Barlow Part 2: Electric Bugaloo
The Actual Proposal:
He didn’t have a ring but he got down on one knee and had successfully planned both the wedding and a honeymoon and gave a speech about how much he loved her. Minus 100 points for no ring but I am going to balance it out by giving him 100 points for organising the event.
0/10
The Person She Was Engaged To:
This time he was a dying alcoholic. He was in quite a good place, as was Carla, and their relationship was no longer as toxic. However, Carla had recently cheated with Adam Barlow while Peter was having a borderline emotional affair with Abi. However, Carla forgave Peter and Peter forgave Carla about a month and a half after he found out about her affair. Their engagement was called off for that month and a half, but I have to give him points for forgiving that. Plus 5 points. He was still an alcoholic.
5/10
The Ring:
Please correct me if I’m wrong here but I don’t know if we ever saw one.
0/10
Overall: 1.66 (recurring)/10
Lisa Swain
The Actual Proposal:
Well… she didn’t get a yes. I wrote all of this over the weekend while waiting for an answer and it’s a little awkward now because I am forced to remove some points for that. She didn’t pick the right time and while it’s clear there was so much love there, I think Carla has reached the point of no longer trusting spontaneous proposals. We can see her history with them and the murderous, abusive and cheating men behind them. Carla and Lisa have two contrasting perspectives on marriage. Lisa has clearly only been married once, and from what we know, it was a good marriage with a woman that loved her and a love that she will always carry with her. Meanwhile, Carla has had five marriages and six engagements with five different men, the first cheated on her with a series of prostitutes, the second was controlling and murdered the love of her life, the third (the engagement) assaulted her, the fourth cheated on her with their babysitter, the fifth was actually not too bad and the sixth decided to walk out on her to go live on a boat. It’s understandable that she’s more cautious when it comes to marriage because in the past it’s trapped her and tied her to terrible and controlling men who leave her and fail to love her. I think it’s telling that when she got in the car with Lisa and spoke to her about the love of her life she brought up Liam.
I’ve almost rewatched all of Coronation Street now from the beginning of 2006 (see my other articles about Carla) and it’s given me an insane amount of perspective on Carla watching it all in one go. She loves deeply and fully, and she gives out her love to a lot of people, but she rarely finds it reciprocated with the same level of love, devotion and care, even with Liam it took a long time for him to choose her (it’s also a pattern in her family with Rob, Johnny and her mother but I do not have time to get into all that this article is already almost 4,000 words long). It’s very telling that Carla has very little belief that Lisa meant her proposal, and I think when she said that it was a bad time to Lisa, I think a part of her believed that Lisa wouldn’t want to marry her when she woke up in the morning. A lot of people were unsatisfied with the Monday 26th May episode and honestly I get it, I was really deflated too but after some time (and a nap because when I first watched it I was very very overtired), I have come to love it. Carla has been in so many toxic relationships with men who have pressured her into marriages and proposals when she wasn’t ready and had very little respect for her boundaries when she said no. Here Lisa respected her no, no one slept on the sofa (that we can tell), they talked it out, no one ran away, no one gave each other the silent treatment and Carla didn’t have to employ her usual tactic of getting back on the good side of her partner using sex. It is healthy and I enjoy that for Carla as a character. She needs it.
Regardless, it was poorly timed, there was no ring, no speech and Lisa didn’t get down on one knee. I will be removing a single point for each of those infractions. However, she did look at Carla the only way it is appropriate to look at her: like she hung the stars and the moon, I’ll give her 2 points for that.
-2/10
The Person She Was(n’t) Engaged To:
A woman. Plus a million points. I’m not biased. No. Not at all.
1,000,000/10
The Ring:
No ring.
0/10
Overall: 999,998/10
Come back for an updated version when Connor-Swain proposal 2.0 eventually happens.
Images copyright of ITV