Carl’s redemption out of the window as he returns to the dark side in Coronation Street
What’s that, Coronation Street? Carl Webster (Jonathan Howard) hasn’t actually turned over a new leaf and is up to his old selfish tricks? What a surprise – said nobody ever.
Carl Webster is bad. Like, ‘have an affair with your brother’s wife’ bad.
Worse than that actually. More like ‘do a hit and run on Tyrone Dobbs’ (Alan Halsall) bad.
Let’s not beat around the bush here. The man is full-on, one hundred percent, ‘drunkenly cause a multi-car pile-up that kills the local vicar then gaslight your dementia-suffering mother into taking the blame’ bad.
The Worst Webster is so objectively awful that he included in the lineup of five nefarious villains who could have been killed in Coronation Street’s big murder mystery, sharing top billing with the likes of domestic abuser Theo Silverton’s (James Cartwright) and manipulative paedophile Megan Walsh (Beth Nixon).
Even his long suffering mum Debbie Webster (Sue Devaney) couldn’t put up with his deplorable behaviour any longer. That’s why she paid him two grand in an envelope to sling his hook and leave the Cobbles for good.
Determined to get the last laugh, Kevin made sure to steal that two grand back so he could return it to Debbie. Not willing to take the L and move on, a furious Carl snuck into his uncle’s carriage and tampered with one of the cars. This was basically the attempted murder of Kevin Webster, which out of all the evil things Carl has ever done, ranks somewhere in the middle.
Fortunately, he didn’t have time to finish his sabotage, because someone interrupted Carl and knocked the car jack, sending the vehicle crashing down on the Worst Webster.
That someone is Tyrone Dobbs (Alan Halsall), although he’s not about to tell Carl that. It might look too much like revenge.
If you thought being almost flattened by a falling old banger was enough to make Carl Webster turn over a new leaf, clearly you’ve not seen enough Coronation Street. While he pretended to have no memory of the accident, the sleaziest member of Clan Webster already knows Tyrone is guilty about something and is determined to find out what.
One could argue that Carl’s got every right to know who tried to smush him with a car. Still, lying about your memory loss and threatening the friendliest mechanic in Weatherfield isn’t exactly an encouraging sign of a reformed character.
It’s about to get so much worse. Because of course it is.
Carl’s got a bad track record with cars. Aside from the aforementioned hit and run and multi-car pileup, he used to deal in dodgy motor with career criminal Fiona Morley (Sara Poyzer), who supplied him with faulty vehicles.
Fortunately, Weatherfield’s answer to Grand Theft Auto fell apart when Kevin and Ronnie (Vinta Morgan) planned to frame Carl as the brains behind the operation with Fiona’s help. But when Ronnie got cold feet, a scorned Fiona blew their entire plan to a furious Carl.
Upcoming scenes of Coronation Street will see Carl be tempted back into his old ways in the name of cash.
A bitter Kevin tells Carl he’s received a letter from another garage requesting a reference for him. Quite understandably, Kev tells Carl that he can whistle for it.
Just then, Carl takes a call from Fiona offering him some more dodgy work.
Will Carl resist temptation? Or will he embrace his dark side once more? Come on. You already know the answer…
