Emma Brooker will leave Coronation Street tonight as Alexandra Mardell quits the ITV soap.
Actress Alexandra is departing the show tonight after four years playing Emma, and whilst the door has been left open for her return, the storyline in which she exits is being kept a closely guarded secret from viewers until it airs tonight.
Emma has been growing closer to Ted's grandson Jon, and on Wednesday's episode, he finally found out about Faye and Emma's involvement in his grandfather's death. Whilst she made her vow to head to Australia with him, and insisted to a worried Faye and Craig that he wouldn't tell the police about it, there could still be a twist up ahead - including a possible custodial sentence.
Alexandra has teased that Emma would struggle in prison, if that's where she ends up.
"It would not be good," she told The Mirror, "I feel like she would be targeted straight away. What would be interesting is to see if she went to prison and came back in the future, how she would have changed, how prison life has changed her."
Whilst she is keeping the storyline under wraps, Alexandra has confirmed she won't be killed off in her exit storyline.
"I’m so pleased, I’m really, really pleased. Even saying goodbye was hard enough but that little kind of hope of one day, maybe it’s a possibility I could go back, that keeps you going," she said.
"It’s not goodbye forever, you never know but I’m really glad she wasn't killed off.
"I’m definitely not drawing a line under it. As I say I can see how people stay there for so long, I don't know what the future holds but I'm just so glad Emma is alive and hopefully she remains alive."
Alexandra said it was a "really difficult" decision to leave the ITV soap, but she's ready for a new challenge.
"It was really, really difficult. Even now I'm like what have I done! I know it was right for me but I can see so easily why people stay there for 20, 60 years, because it is such an amazing place to work," she explained.
"But I just wanted to play another character. As much as I’ve got to explore Emma in so many different ways there's so many other people I would like to give a go as well."
