It looked like Audrey (Sue Nicholls)’s days might be numbered in tonight’s Coronation Street, as her scheming son Stephen Reid (Todd Boyce) slipped some crushed antidepressants into her G&T.

The move came after a humiliating episode for Stephen, when his first day as a fast food delivery driver ended in disaster. By unlucky coincidence one of his first jobs was to deliver food to Drake, the man with whom he’d had a disastrous job interview the previous day.

When Drake teased Stephen for having to take such a lowly job, Stephen reacted by telling him, ‘I made my first million while you were still in nappies.’ This misplaced arrogance only made Drake double down on his teasing and in a rage Stephen rang the fast food company and told them to stick their job.

Meanwhile, knowing he was now unemployed again, he had Audrey still expecting him to pay for a cruise for her and Sam (Jude Riordan) to see the Northern Lights.

He had a word with Nick (Ben Price), telling him that looking after Sam might be a bit much for Audrey, particularly because she’s drinking again – ‘Hitting the bottle – hard’ in Stephen’s words.

Nick wasn’t convinced by this (because it isn’t true), so Stephen set out to prove that Audrey couldn’t be trusted by stealing her antidepressants, crushing them into a powder and adding them to her drink at the Rovers. His plan seemed to be for Audrey to get into an intoxicated state, and possibly overdose, which would prove she couldn’t be trusted. Of course he isn’t a pharmacist, so had no idea what the effect of the drugs he’d slipped her could be.

As Sarah (Tina O’Brien) arrived to ask Stephen for a lift, guilt seemed to get the better of him and he pretended he’d lost his wallet, ‘accidentally’ swiping Audrey’s glass off the table as he looked for it and saving her.

‘This is the new norm for him, anything to protect himself,’ Todd Boyce told us recently. He also indicated that Audrey is probably safe from Stephen – for now, at least. ‘I think [Elaine and Audrey] are probably safe, certainly whilst they are of use to him,’ he revealed. ‘The people who should worry is anyone who tries to humiliate him or starts to ask too many questions and discover the truth about him.’

There was a lot of humiliation for Stephen in this episode, from the way Drake treated him to Gabrielle (Helene Maksoud) ringing him to say she’d cancelled his car contract, which resulted in his car being taken away.

He was down to the last £3,500 in his bank account and ended up spending most of that on the cruise after he could see no way of avoiding booking it.

So with Stephen absolutely at the end of his tether, could he be about to kill again? Todd Boyce said he’s more than capable.

‘He’s just driven. He’s a kind of type A personality and he’s just desperate, and desperate people do desperate things. Now he has done it once it won’t even feel as bad for him the next time. The end justifies the means.’

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