Coronation Street viewers have declared they “have had enough” as they struggled to watch an intense abuse storyline involving fan favourite Todd Grimshaw and boyfriend Theo
21:00, 05 Dec 2025Updated 21:01, 05 Dec 2025
Coronation Street viewers ‘have had enough’ as abuse plot takes ‘awful’ turn(Image: ITV)
Coronation Street viewers have declared they “have had enough” as they struggled to watch an intense abuse storyline. Fans of the world’s longest running TV soap will know that Todd Grimshaw has become the victim of coercive control at the hands of boyfriend Theo Silverton, and things are progressively getting worse.
Most of the time, the abuse has been psychological, with Theo cutting Todd off from his friends and making off-hand comments about his body, but then things turned physical as viewers recently watched in horror as Theo smashed Todd’s face into a mirror. He then covered his tracks by making Todd stay in the house and then pretend he’d sustained the injury whilst on a trip to London, before forcing him to eat his dinner cold.
It is soon to become the focus of a special episode, but on Friday’s instalment of the Manchester-based serial, things seemed to have got off to a good start as Theo took Todd into town for lunch, but when they returned, Theo had bought them an exercise bike so he could specifically track Todd’s progress, telling him he wanted to see his heart rate reach 160BPM.
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Danielle made an appearance on Friday’s Coronation Street and ended up in an argument with Todd about her ex-husband (Image: ITV)
Theo left Todd to it and while he was trying to achieve this, Theo’s ex-wife Danielle (Natalie Anderson) called round to the flat with the news that she would be taking the children to Tenerife for Christmas to round off a traumatic year for the whole family, after noting that Theo had also once bought her a similar exercise bike in the past.
Todd raged: “You can’t do that, it’s not fair. This is revenge! Theo’s got a right to see his kids at Christmas!” but she shot back: “Theo lost his right when he shacked up with you!” Just then, Theo came through the door and wondered what was going on. After she’d fled the scene, Theo: “You two fighting only makes things worse. It’s gonna be lonely this Christmas.”
When Todd reminded him that he would still be here, Theo fumed that he should have let him have the chance to speak to his ex-wife first, and spun the blame round on him. Todd begged: “Why do you do this? Make me out to be the villain. It was Danielle who is taking your kids away, I stuck up for you.”
Theo started slapping himself in front of Todd and he started to comfort him(Image: ITV)
Theo shot back: “Why are you always sticking your nose in? Stirring the pot?” and when Todd threatened to walk out, Theo began slapping himself in the face and suddenly flipped. Continuing to hit himself, he said: “It’s my fault, I’m stupid, I’m stupid,” as Todd begged him to calm down.
He said: “Whatever it is, we need to talk about it. But you need to stop.” Todd’s best friend Billy, whom Theo has previously banned him from speaking to, spotted him in the pub and made it clear that he’s been worried something hasn’t been right for ages.
In a surprise twist, Todd set up a digital photo frame with a camera installed
He said: “I don’t want to keep going on about it, but I wouldn’t be a good friend if I didn’t ask. Is everything okay between you and Theo?” But Todd played the whole situation down and headed back to Theo, having been into town to get some nice photos of them printed off and framed. Theo popped out to get them a bottle of wine, and, seemingly taking control of the situation, Todd picked up the photo frame, which turned out to be digital, and hit record.
Viewers were quickly reacted to the episode, with one writing: “Had enough of this evil theo,” as another said: “I feel like ive gonne back in time, what with Theo blaming Todd for the state of his relationship with his kids and ex wife.”
A third said: “Theo manipulating everything to make Todd feel guilty, this is awful to watch. Poor Todd,” but a fourth, clearly impressed with the ending twist, wrote: “Tonight’s ending was brilliant, wow. Todd is smart!”
Coronation Street runs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 8pm on ITV1. Episodes can also be viewed on ITVX.
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