KEY POINTS:
Tracy Barlow, uber-slapper and devil in tart's clothing, left the Street carrying on as she has been carrying on for years - professing her innocence. It wasn't her fault. It was self-defence. "It's not fair," she wailed, as the prison van doors slammed behind her.
There wasn't a
wet eye in our house.
There wasn't, either, as much as a gasp from the couch as the jury came back and announced that Tracy Lynette Barlow was guilty of the murder of Charlie Stubbs.
I was fooled, but only briefly - you can't fool a Corrie watcher so easily - by the attempt to trick us. Tracy announced that even if found not guilty she was leaving the Street, and taking Amy with her. Most of us already knew that Kate Ford who plays Tracy had already left the Street.
Even if you didn't know this, the threat to leave if she got off was a pretty lame attempt to fool us into thinking she might get off. The plot smelled as something manky you might have found in Cilla's fridge.
Still, it was good spectator sport. But not in Gail's house, where Sarah and David were fighting over David's obvious enjoyment of what he obviously thought was his starring role as star witness. "I think what Sarah's trying to say," said Gail, "is this is not an occasion to get excited about."
What Sarah was really saying was that David was behaving "like some little old woman sat there doing her knitting while they chop people's heads off".
The prosecution described him as "an attention-seeking fantasist", which wiped the smug look off his lying little face, for a minute at least. (And why, as an aside, did dear little David have to turn out silly and nasty? Oh, I know. He's got Gail for a mother. If he ends up murdering her, not a court in the land would convict him.)
That prosecutor is good. She described Tracy as "an accomplished actor", which some people may feel is overstating the case, but I've always rather enjoyed her.
I wished there had been a scene at the Rovers where the punters exchanged stories of Tracy's past exploits. Drugging Roy then tricking him into thinking he'd slept with her and fathered Amy. Trying to sell Amy to Roy and his transsexual wife, Hayley. Sleeping with her gran's admirer in an attempt to get a sugar daddy. Pretending she needed an abortion and spending the money she got from Charlie Stubbs on a pair of shoes.
The trouble with the storyline - she gave the performance of her life pretending Charlie was abusing her - was that we didn't really care about either of them. I'd been longing for Charlie Stubbs to be murdered years before Tracy did it. And if he wasn't abusing her, we all knew he'd be abusing some other woman. They were a match made in Hell and should have run away together, off the Street forever. At least Charlie can't come back.
Last night was worth watching for the sight of Deirdre, collapsed against the window, inside the car, her mouth opening and closing like a dying fish. Later, at home, she got out the fags, and gasped away like a dying fish. Ken complains: "Oh, not in the house ... I'm just as upset as you."
Deirdre: "Well, why don't you show it? Why don't you let that mask crack just a minute and show us you're a human being?"
That was the scene of the night. That was what we've been wanting to hear Deirdre say to Ken for years. It's what we've all been saying from the couch for years. To the divorce courts next? Now that might get really interesting. And be truly tragic.