Dermot O’Leary would have been proud of Yasmeen Medcalfe at her plea hearing last night.
Having left us all dangling at the end of Monday’s episode, Yasmeen (Shelley King) carried on with one of Dermot’s trademark dramatic pauses for the first thirty seconds of last night's instalment.
Everyone was on tenterhooks. The judge, the clerks, her legal team, her family, her friends, that extra who looks a bit like Kenny Rogers…
The judge even had to ask Yasmeen the “How do you plead?” question again.
When her “not guilty” answer finally came any Corrie viewer who had been following this storyline from the start would have been forgiven for letting out a little cheer.
As Yasmeen’s granddaughter Alya (Sair Khan) pointed out, it means everyone is now going to hear the truth about Geoff Medcalfe.
Just in case anyone was starting to feel sorry for Geoff, the writers followed it up with a short but neat scene between him and his daughter-in-law Sally in which the seeds of doubt in Sal’s mind were clearly beginning to sprout.
As far as 2020’s Quotes of the Year go, Geoff telling Sal “I’m sure it’ll all be fine” will surely be right up there with Boris Johnson’s thumbs-aloft tweet from January 2 nd in which the PM proclaimed “This is going to be a fantastic year for Britain.”
However, it could still be a while yet before the manipulative, sexually-deviant, self-centred weasel of a husband is finally found out.
When Yasmeen announced the not guilty plea – a change of heart partly inspired by that heart-breaking scene on Monday in which Yasmeen asked Alya “Why are you crying?” and Alya replied “Because you’re not” – it may have seemed like a sign that the penny had finally dropped for Yasmeen.
Unfortunately, her equally heart-breaking phone call from prison at the end of last night’s episode suggested otherwise.
“Why did I do it? Will you tell Geoff I’m sorry? Please, Arya!”
Surely Geoff isn’t going to wriggle out of it?
