Coronation Street boss teases "shocking" Spider twist in Toyah story

Coronation Street spoilers follow.

Coronation Street's producer Iain MacLeod has hinted at a huge mistake for Toyah Habeeb as she chooses Spider Nugent as a confidant.

Toyah has spent the past few months protesting her innocence over the car crash that killed her husband Imran, although some in Weatherfield have questioned whether she caused the incident deliberately.

An on-screen flashback has also shown that Toyah and Imran were arguing just before the crash, although the crucial moment just before the collision was left out.

In upcoming episodes, Toyah tells the full story for the first time in a heart-to-heart with Spider ahead of her trial. She's completely unaware that Spider is the last person she should be confiding in.

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Speaking to Digital Spy and other media, MacLeod explained: "The impending prospect of a life sentence for Toyah ramps up all of her emotions around what's happened - specifically what she did to Imran and her guilt over all that.

"Toyah reaches this huge emotional crisis point, where she's got this burning desire to repent or just find some kind of catharsis.

"Toyah ends up unburdening herself entirely to Spider, talking in detail for the first time about what went on behind the wheel of that car, to what extent or not she feels culpable for what happened to Imran, how much of it was an accident and how much was it deliberate.

"Toyah believes that Spider is the best person she could tell, the person she can trust the most. In fact, at that time he's the worst conceivable option in terms of who she should be confessing to.

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"I can't say a great deal more than that at this point, but the idea is that she's head over heels in love with this guy again and has reconnected with him instantly on his return to the street. She feels like he's her one true friend in the world.

"She might not be wrong, but she's certainly making a huge mistake in confiding all of this to him, for reasons that will become apparent."

MacLeod added that there's much more to come from Spider, who returned to the cobbles in July after 19 years away from the show.

He said: "We had a lengthy and heated debate about what Spider's life looks like now. Is he the eternal teenager that's still chaining himself to trees, or has he had to grow up as the character's got older?

toyah batterbsy, spider, coronation street

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"What does the 21st century version of Spider look like? How has he gone about trying to change the world for the better since we last saw him? I think the answers we've come up with are surprising, shocking, interesting, and I think will make the audience gasp slightly when we discover exactly what's going on with his life at present.

"Spider is a fabulous character with all this heritage behind him. He just felt like exactly the right person to reintroduce to Toyah's life, just at the point where she hit rock bottom.

"We brought in this incredibly warm, nurturing blast from the past and just reset Toyah to a happier time. Giving her that little interlude of optimism and happiness felt really important in the run-up to the trial, just because there's a limit to how much self-flagellation you can enjoy as an audience.

"It was just a brilliant little psychological boost for Toyah. But then of course, with this being a soap, we whip the rug out from under her in fairly spectacular fashion across September and beyond."

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Toyah and Spider's heart-to-heart comes on the eve of the trial, which plays out in next week's episodes.

Sharing further details of what's in store, MacLeod explained: "Toyah is on self-destruct by the time she gets up in the witness box. Toyah, whatever you may come to think about what happened in that car on the day where Imran died, fundamentally she's a good person. She certainly considers herself to have a good heart and has strong morals.

"When Toyah gets up in that courtroom, there's every possibility that she might just hit self-destruct in some kind of desire to atone for her sins. So there's quite a lot of danger in there.

"The performances, by the way, are fantastically good and have been across the story as a whole anyway.

"Georgia's so good across this story and across these court scenes, she really is. Often she's playing unfashionable stories in a way, as she's not always playing the hero of the piece or the tragic heroine. She's playing very murky and tricky-to-portray emotions across this story and she's doing it with absolute class.

"The trial's dangerous and oddly enough, the two most dangerous things in it are Toyah's desire to set fire to her own life, and Spider's surprising level of threat when he discovers what Toyah claims she's done in that car."

Check out Digital Spy's new collection of Coronation Street spoilers from show producer Iain MacLeod:

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Coronation Street airs on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 8pm on ITV and streams on the ITV Hub.