Coronation Street star Todd Boyce has spoken about Stephen Reid’s sinister plan for Carla Barlow, which will see his twisted alter-ego drug the Underworld boss with LSD.
Fortunately for fans of Mrs B, it looks like Carla will not become killer Stephen’s third scalp, as the actor insists that Stephen doesn’t have murder in mind.
Instead, he plans to oust Carla from the factory by making her appear mentally ill and incompetent, leaving him to step in and become king of the knicker-stitching empire.
Says Todd, "This is not a premeditated plan to kill someone, this is to get her out of the way of the business.
"He knows there are some machinists with shares in the company, and he just needs to mobilise them and make them think she is not capable of doing the job.
“"t’s pretty ingenious, and Carla has annoyed him so much that he doesn’t care what it is going to do to her.
"It is a relatively short term plan to start with, just to sow the seed of doubt with everyone. He plans to do it over a period of time so it looks like she is having real problems."
Stephen comes up with the idea when Carla tasks him with resurrecting the now defunct deal that he, Sarah and Michael bagged with businessman Rufus for their ‘Nippersnapper’ line. She promises that if he can secure it for Underworld, she’ll give him a permanent job and 15% commission in return.
Stephen pulls off the deal, but he feels humiliated when Carla ‘awards’ him the somewhat junior position of Office Manager.
Adds Todd, "She has done the worst thing that anyone could really do to Stephen - she has made him look and feel small in front of other people."
Viewers will see Stephen slip LSD — taken from drug user Rufus — into Carla’s coffee at work, and then into her glass of wine at The Rover’s. He will then mess with her mind by muddling up her paperwork and deleting a meeting she has booked in her diary with bigwig Dick Havisham.
In her disoriented state, Carla accidentally crashes the Underworld van into Paul Foreman, who is taking her husband Peter’s new motorbike for a spin.
Corrie boss Iain MacLeod has previously revealed that Stephen’s behaviour will cause friction in Carla and Peter’s marriage, with Peter believing that his wife’s woozy state is a sign that the psychosis she suffered from in 2019 has returned.
Says MacLeod: "Peter is deeply concerned about his wife’s history of mental health problems.
"He’ll put her offside by trying to be overprotective and fight her battles. He’ll intervene in an unhelpful way by suggesting her priorities are all wrong."
