For Carla and Lisa to move forward, Coronation Street must address Becky’s abuse

I have always been an advocate for same sex – particularly sapphic – relationships in soap, so it should come as no surprise that I am rooting for Carla Connor (Alison King) and Lisa Swain (Vicky Myers) to reunite in Coronation Street.

However, it’s not just because I’m a fan of the couple that I want them to overcome their differences. Yes, Carla and Lisa are a popular couple that have garnered a cult following, but their reunion goes beyond fan service.

Things have remained tense between them ever since Lisa confirmed Carla’s suspicions that she had slept with Becky Swain (Amy Cudden). It is completely understandable that Carla is upset with Lisa for sleeping with the woman who had been holding her hostage, but I have found her continued anger and refusal to hear Lisa’s side of the story uncomfortable to watch, especially given the nature of Lisa and Becky’s relationship. There was far more nuance to Becky and Lisa sleeping together than Carla has allowed Lisa to explain.

While there were red flags in Lisa and Becky’s relationship throughout the whole storyline, it really hit home for me just over a week ago, when Lisa went to visit Becky in prison. As Becky warned Lisa that she would paint her as an accessory to her crimes and bring her down with her, sparing no thought to how this would affect their daughter, Betsy Swain (Sydney Martin), it became abundantly clear that their relationship was never about love. It was about control.

For that reason, I believe that it is essential for Coronation Street to allow Lisa to be ‘heard, believed and validated’ by Carla. These are things that expert in coercive and controlling behaviour Dr Sarah Tatton told me a victim of coercive control needs from a new partner after experiencing such abuse. It is my opinion that it would be irresponsible for Coronation Street not to allow this to happen, for several reasons.

Signs of coercive control in Becky and Lisa’s relationship

After the penny dropped for me during that final scene between Lisa and Becky, I decided to further research the topic of coercive control, speaking to experts in the field as well as doing some reading of my own. It was through this process that I really came to understand what actress Vicky Myers meant when she spoke to Metro at the Corriedale premiere, where she described Lisa’s experience with Becky as ‘coercive control’ and ‘manipulation’ and explained that it was behaviour the character had been ‘so used to for twenty years’.

Lisa was able to move on from Becky’s death, and things were finally on the up when she and Carla got engaged. Of course, this was exactly when Becky chose to come crawling out of the woodwork to ‘reclaim’ her wife and daughter.

In hindsight, the timing of Becky’s return was pretty damning: She found out that Lisa was going to move on and chose to turn her life upside down in a bid to get her back rather than let her just be happy.

Dr Sarah Tatton, who is an associate lecturer in criminology and policing at Sheffield Hallam University, explained to me that the first sign of coercive control comes at the very beginning of a relationship, with ‘love-bombing’ and ‘grooming’.

In Lisa and Becky’s case, we never got to see how things started between them or what their relationship was like before Becky’s fake death. We only know what they have each described on screen. In a candid chat with Roy Cropper (David Neilson), Lisa explained that Becky was her first proper girlfriend, and they ‘meshed really well’ at work.

‘It almost always starts out with a grooming process, like love-bombing, where the target will be reeled into the relationship thinking it’s the romance of their life, because the perpetrator will know exactly which buttons to press, and will be paying attention to the victim’s passions and will try to really closely align with them,’ Sarah pointed out.

When Becky returned to Lisa’s life last year, it took no time at all for us to see that the image Lisa had painted of her in her grief did not fit the woman who arrived on the cobbles. While she did mention arguments between them, Lisa almost always put Becky on a pedestal and painted her as a loving wife and mother, as she recalled the best moments in their relationship. She always described Becky as the better parent, and when speaking about their disagreements, Lisa almost always made herself out to have been the one in the wrong.

‘Through coercive control, the victim’s understanding of reality and their experiences is disrupted and questioned, through gaslighting and the perpetrator having ways to make the target completely doubt themselves. It is such a destructive experience, and we’re still calling for people to understand that the psychological harm is as harmful, if not more so, than physical violence,’ Sarah explained. ‘The psychological manipulation causes these really deep scars.’

While trying to win Lisa back, love-bombing was something that Becky used a lot. She was constantly showering Lisa with compliments and affection, while at the same time ignoring almost all of her boundaries.

Having told Lisa that she’d been living under a new identity in a bid to escape a dangerous gang, Becky consistently referred to the danger she, and by association Lisa and Betsy, were in to get Lisa to comply with her requests, convincing her to do anything from allowing her to stay the night at No.6 to moving to Spain and cutting off contact with everyone but her and Betsy. In coercive and controlling relationships, the target is made to feel like there will be ‘repercussions if they don’t comply’.

Becky also rationalised questionable behaviours like taking away Lisa’s phone by insisting that it could be traced and put them in more danger – another sign of coercive control.

Isolation from Carla

Unfortunately, coercive control is something that can go unnoticed by people outside of the relationship, as Sarah explained.

‘Individual incidents may not seem like much on their own, but coercive control can be dripped into the relationship over time. It creates an effect of torture with little things that people don’t necessarily recognise from the outside. And that is part of the torture as well, because people on the outside don’t think anything of it or will try to pass it off as something else.’

This has been very clear in the storyline depicting Theo Silverton’s (James Cartwright) abuse of Todd Grimshaw (Gareth Pierce). We have seen Theo keeping track of Todd’s whereabouts through a fitness tracker. While this is certainly not an uncommon thing for couples to do, in Todd and Theo’s case, it has been just one of many ways he has exerted control.

In Becky and Lisa’s case, Carla saw Becky’s love-bombing and affectionate gestures as nothing more than her love rival trying to win back her ex. At one point, she even asked outright why Lisa was unable to see that Becky was trying to come between them.

Unfortunately, Carla also fell victim to Becky’s manipulation when she was left believing that Lisa had chosen Becky over her, which Sarah revealed is not unusual.

‘From my experience and my research, and the research that’s out there, the people that perpetrate coercive and controlling behaviour, that’s not just something they do with that intimate partner, it’s how they move through the world. So, they tend to be exploitative, manipulative and dishonest in their relationships in general.’

Ultimately, Becky’s behaviour split Carla and Lisa up, leaving Lisa more vulnerable than ever. Isolating the target from their friends, family and other support networks is another key feature of coercive and controlling behaviour.

Becky and Lisa’s story seemed to parallel Theo and Todd’s

As Becky’s love-bombing continued, she was able to convince Lisa to sleep with her. This came during an episode that particularly stood out for me, due to the parallels between Lisa and Becky’s scenes and Todd and Theo’s.

In the episode, which aired on Christmas Eve 2025, both Becky and Theo gave their partners a shoulder massage, but that wasn’t the only similarity in the uncomfortable scenes. From the reluctance shown by both Lisa and Todd to the way both Becky and Theo ended up suggesting sex, it gave the impression that we were watching two very similar stories play out – the major difference being that viewers had been informed ahead of time that Theo and Todd’s storyline was one depicting intimate partner violence.

Although Becky and Lisa’s relationship wasn’t advertised that way by the soap, it is impossible not to pick up on the signs and similarities – whether they were intentional or not.

In the same episode, both perpetrators worked to isolate their partners from their loved ones, with Theo insisting that Todd was looking back on his time with Eileen Grimshaw living close by through rose-tinted glasses, while Becky made arguments that Carla had been using Lisa as an experiment for her sexuality.

While Todd is currently still trapped in his relationship with Theo, Lisa has managed to escape Becky, who was recently sentenced to twelve years in prison. However, this shouldn’t be where that story ends.

Coronation Street must address the past to enable Lisa and Carla to move forward

We know that Carla and Lisa are set to reunite, with producer Kate Brooks promising a wedding for the couple as early as the spring. But with the way things have been left between them, I think it would be a disservice to their relationship for them not to have a proper discussion about what Becky did to them both.

As I mentioned earlier, Carla is obviously angry at what she sees as a betrayal by Lisa. From Carla’s perspective, Lisa slept with Becky in their bed just days after their breakup.

However, the situation was far more complicated than that. Becky had spent months love-bombing and manipulating Lisa, making her think her family was in danger and later isolating her from her friends and gaslighting her into believing that Carla had abandoned her. Only then did Becky manage to coerce her into bed.

Now, I’m not saying that Carla is in the wrong, or even that she is being unreasonable. What I do believe is that, should Carla be given the full picture of events leading up to Lisa and Becky sleeping together, she would have a change of heart. That’s just the type of character she is.

My fear is that, if Carla and Lisa reunite without properly discussing Becky’s coercive control, then Lisa and Becky’s physical intimacy will fester between them, leading to resentment down the line. How many times have we seen soap characters ‘forgive’ infidelities only to throw them back at their partner in arguments down the road? The difference here is that Lisa wasn’t unfaithful, and it would be unfair for Coronation Street to go on allowing Carla to believe that she was. While Carla will obviously need support to overcome her ordeal with Becky, so will Lisa.

‘If I were Carla getting into a relationship with Lisa, what I know Lisa would need is that sense of validation, belief and understanding and gentle care while she builds herself back up again. She has to build up her self-belief, self-esteem and self-confidence again, having had it dismantled,’ Dr Tatton explained.

She also revealed that victims who are in non-heteronormative relationships are less likely to come forward and report abuse to criminal justice mechanisms than those in heteronormative relationships.

Recalling a story she had read during her research, she explained that one survivor of intimate partner violence ‘found she wasn’t heard as a victim, because people didn’t believe that in a relationship with two females, one of the females could be abusive’.

It feels wrong for Coronation Street to allow Carla to continue to see Lisa as the villain in this situation, or for her to judge her on what she did while under coercion and control from Becky, especially given the real-life statistics when it comes to reporting intimate partner violence within same sex relationships.

There is nothing I want more than for Carla and Lisa to be able to put Becky behind them and become Coronation Street’s first female same sex couple to tie the knot and live happily ever after. But to do that, communication is key. Like Dr Tatton said, survivors of coercive control need to be ‘heard and believed and validated’ in order to move forward. I just hope we will get to see this in upcoming scenes.

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