Bound and gagged in the back of a van, driven by a supposedly-dead baddie from another soap, before escaping, stalking and then reuniting with her long lost sister. Yup, Coronation Street’s Jodie Ramsay (Olivia Frances-Brown) certainly debuted with a big ol’ bang!
Though Graham Foster (Andrew Scarborough) pursued Jodie to the hospital after she fled his van, a discovery of his own meant he terminated the deal he had in place – transporting her to God knows where.
When she came across her sister, Shona Platt (Julia Goulding) and her husband, David (Jack P Shepherd), she followed them home to Weatherfield, where we learned that Jodie is Shona’s sister. Initially, it seemed that Jodie was overjoyed at the reunion.
‘I can’t help thinking there’s a reason I found you again,’ she said. ‘Like the universe bringing us together or something.’ As upcoming scenes will show, though, Jodie’s clearly not ready to forgive and forget Shona leaving her behind all those years ago.
‘She’s a complicated character and she comes with a lot of baggage,’ Corrie boss Kate Brooks explained to us.
‘Their relationship as sisters is quite fraught and there’s a lot of history between them. There’s some kind of deep-seated resentment there as well. They love each other, they do have that bond and even though they’ve been estranged for a number of years that bond is still very strong.’
‘Jodie is a really interesting character. She’s a bit of a troublemaker, she’s got a bit of mischief in her eyes. All is not what it seems with Jodie and there’s a lot of layers to her.
‘I think the audience are going to have a lot of fun unravelling who this person is, who Jodie is as a character and what she wants as well. Keep an eye on her because there’s lots of secrets to explode and she’s going to bring an awful lot of drama to the Platt household.’
Fans have certainly clocked Jodie’s tea already, and the common consensus is that there’s much, much more to her than meets the eye, with viewers flocking to social media to compare theories regarding her true intentions when it comes to Shona.
‘She will make a play for David – Shona gonna find out about what she’s up too and why she’s suddenly there’, posited Annie Fielding, suspecting that Jodie could potentially look to snare Shona’s husband as revenge.
Doris Yanki agreed: ‘I think she fancy’s David and wants Shona’s life,’ while Elizabeth Allan further commented: ‘she seems very jealous of Shona’.
In a call back to one of the best 90’s thrillers, Alex Cyrson mused: ‘Jodie wants David and maybe Shona’s life in a Single White Female kind of way.’
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As dark as those suggestions are, Farryn Callaway went even darker: ‘Seems overly interested in the baby. As trafficking is big storyline over both soaps, Corrie and Emmerdale, she could be after selling baby to clear debts,’ with Vixster Dabinette replying: ‘that would explain a lot. She bargained to go free? I don’t watch Emmerdale, so I’m just going on why she was tied up. Did she get free, run, see Shona, get caught again and think fast?’
Micky Morton came out of left field with his guess: ‘It’s not her sister. Jodie will be her daughter’, backed up by Leigh Smith: ‘It’s her daughter!’
In fairness, that would be textbook soap!
Speaking on the reveal of her sister, Shona actress Julia said: ‘We know nothing of Shona’s family at all. I mentioned that I had a sister in one of my first weeks when Shona and Gail were chatting and we’ve never heard anything since.
‘But I think the reason we’ve not heard much is she carries a lot of guilt for leaving because Jodie was six I think when she left, and they were really tight and she cared a lot about her, but I think she had to choose her own peace first to survive the world that she was living in with a really controlling father, and I don’t think she had any intention of never going back for her, I think as time went on it just got harder and harder. So yeah, she carries a lot of guilt.’
Jodie’s arrival coinciding with the birth of Shona’s unwell daughter, Harper, and tying in to the traumatic Corriedale crash has left her with her plate piled high, according to Julia.
‘She is exhausted, she’s just been in a crash, she’s just given birth, she is emotionally exhausted, she nearly lost her husband and her child. And then this blast from the past comes in and she genuinely just says, ‘I can’t deal with this right now. It’s not a rejection, but just give me space for a minute.’
‘And I loved that because I thought ‘Yeah, actually, there’s not much room in her head at the moment for Jodie to be there.’ Not that Jodie listens, she just carries on, pushes through. So Shona is kind of forced in a way to make way for Jodie in her life again – silly thing, that doesn’t go well.’
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Can Shona handle the pressure? According to Julia, yes:
‘She has to be strong enough, because what’s the alternative? She takes far too much on her plate but it’s going to be interesting to see if it unravels her a little bit and what it does to her relationship and the rest of the Platts I suppose.
‘But yeah, I think she’s taking on way too much but she doesn’t see it as having a choice. Harper is her main priority but also I think in a way, she isn’t looking at Jodie now as a grown woman, she’s looking straight back at that six year old girl that she left, and she just cannot abandon her again. So we’ll see how it goes for her.’
While Jodie wins brownie points with David by falsley claiming a veggie lasagne and taking care of the couples kids, Shona won’t be taken in so easily:
‘Shona’s not blinded by (Jodie), she doesn’t let her get away with anything, she still pulls her up and stuff which is again, what we were saying about the writing, it’s been so true because they are still sisters at the end of the day and she will still say ‘Oi you, what are you doing?’
‘So she’s not going to be a wet blanket and be completely blinkered to Jodie’s behaviour but also I think her love for her and the guilt she carries is going to take them down a certain path.’
Julia concluded with perhaps the juiciest teaser of all: ‘It’s going to be chaos.’
