Coronation Street star bows out in sad scenes as fans call for U-turn
Lou Michaelis bowed out of Coronation Street on Wednesday as she tearfully said goodbye to her children from behind bars - amid calls from fans to bring her back.
The character, played by Farrel Hegarty, has only been on the ITV soap for a matter of months but has had an explosive time of it, with many viewers not wanting her to go. She arrived alongside her husband Mick Michaelis (Joe Layton), who made an enemy of various Weatherfield residents, and in May, he was jailed for the murder of PC Craig Tinker ( Colson Smith).
Prior to that, a f lashback episode confirmed that after Mick had gone to prison for a crime Kit Green committed, and had become an enemy of the policeman in the process. But things were made worse when Mick discovered that Kit and Lou had conceived a baby when he was behind bars, meaning that teenager Brody (Ryan Mulvey) was not his son as he had initially thought.
Shortly after the couple's debut, viewers were introduced to their daughters Joanie (Savanna Pennigton) and Shanice (Molly Kilduff), and things reached a climax when Mick broke out of prison in an attempt to take back his eldest. A rooftop tussle with Kit ended in a near-fatal stabbing for the police officer whilst Sally Metcalfe (Sally Dynevor) tried to shield Joanie from danger before Mick went back to jail.
What's more, another flashback episode had revealed that Lou had put Gary Windass (Mikey North) in a coma when she hit him over the head amid a failed blackmail attempt, and she too was put behind bars. Mick's final scenes aired last week, and on Wednesday's edition of soap, Lou had accepted the fact that she was also going to be inside for a long time after Sally refused to loan her the money she would need for top lawyers.
She told the Underworld machinist: "I've come to terms with the fact that I'm gonna do a decent stretch and I don't want you bringing the kids to see me anymore. Not regularly, any road. I don't want them to get used to seeing me in here. In this place." Through tears, she insisted to Sally: "I just think it's best I say goodbye to them for now. For all our sakes."
"It's gonna be all right though, in a long time. You will get through this,", Sally tried to reassure her as the pair of them shared a heartfelt parting themselves. Sally vowed to take care of the girls while Lou is behind bars, and the schoolchildren enjoyed one last hug with their mum before they said goodbye. Just after the emotional farewell, Brody also promised his mum that he would be there for his half-sisters.
This is not the first time Sally has been responsible for two girls, as she and ex-husband Kevin Webster (Michael Le Vell) have Rosie (Helen Flanagan) and Sophie (Brooke Vincent) together. Whilst her own daughters are no longer residing in Weatherfield, some of the storylines included Sally trying to push Rosie into stage school in the years before she started up an affair with her teacher John Stape (Graeme Hawley), and learning to accept her youngest as a lesbian.
Meanwhile, Sally's second husband Tim Metcalfe (Joe Duttine) is also the father of former regular Faye Windass (Ellie Leach), and even though she was adopted by Anna Windass (Debbie Rush) as a child, he became a constant presence for her throughout her tumultuous teenage years, which saw her at the centre of a violet bullying storyline as well as a secret pregnancy.
At the time of Lou's debut on Coronation Street, she and her on-screen husband were dubbed as the new versions of Les and Janice Battersby, but only a short while after playing the hairdresser, Farrel vaguely discussed the exit for the first time to The Mirror and other press. She teased what was ahead, while also confirming the fact that she did know from the start she would be leaving after a matter of months, with an exit always on the cards despite some reports.
She explained of why she took on the short-term role, knowing she would only be there for a specific amount of time: "I just think she really appealed to me because she's the sort of person who's never had it easy.
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"She's built up a lot of coping mechanisms, where she's presenting a hard and feisty character with her walls up, and all she's ever known is these fiery relationships. And probably fiery relationships with a lot of people in her life, which is what makes a character like that so interesting.
"Because she's a force and irrational. I read scripts and I go, 'Oh God! What's she doing now? What's she saying now?' Because it's not a way that I would behave, and because of that, it's so much fun to play. It's that desperation to protect that inner circle and because of that, she makes a mess of things. But a character like that is so fun to play, because there's never a dull moment."
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