Daniel Osbourne (Rob Mallard) had an absolutely hellish day in Coronation Street. The character has been struggling following the reveal that Megan Walsh (Beth Nixon) had been sexually abusing teenager Will Driscoll (Lucas Hodgson-Wale). Daniel was in a relationship with Megan, and was totally oblivious that she was only with him because she wanted to hide her true self from everyone.
The Weatherfield community has spent a lot of time discussing how Megan’s abuse has impacted Will, the Driscoll family, even Sam Blakeman (Jude Riordan), but there hasn’t been a great deal of focus on supporting Daniel. This has left him trying to process the betrayal on his own. A few weeks ago, he told Ken and Adam Barlow (William Roache and Sam Robertson) that he’d be off to the Lakes to try and get his head together. The duo agreed to look after Bertie but once the young lad was dropped off, Daniel headed back to his flat and sat alone in the dark with some alcohol.
In a surprising turn of events, Daniel then gained a new roommate in the form of Jodie Ramsey (Olivia Frances-Brown). She needed a new place to stay after getting kicked out of the Platt household, and used her typical Jodie tactics to convince Daniel to let her move in. When Daniel decided it was time for Bertie to move back to the flat, he told Jodie that she needed to find somewhere else to live. In an attempt to remain under Daniel’s roof, Jodie started posting messages online from an account called ‘Truthteller’, and they’ve been implying that Daniel knew about Megan’s abuse the whole time.
In this evening’s episode, we saw Daniel awake in the middle of the night looking at the messages online, and seeing how quickly things had spiralled. The lack of sleep and constant anxiety towards the online troll meant Daniel had a very short fuse as morning broke. Outside Number 1, Daniel was approached by two masked thugs who proceeded to throw ketchup all over him and film the incident. Daniel tried to keep his cool, but his anger bubbled over that afternoon as he joined Adam, Alya Nazir (Sair Khan) and newcomer Idris (Junade Khan) in Speed Daal. Idris started laughing at the video of Daniel, which triggered him enough to throw a number of items from the table and onto the floor.
Back at the flat, Daniel concluded in a chat with Jodie and Ken that he isn’t setting a good example to Bertie by behaving like this. He called himself weak and said that once he finds Truthteller, he will kill them…and it appears he’s going to succeed in his mission to identify who is behind the account. In scenes that will air soon, Jodie chooses to delete all of Truthteller’s posts. Daniel then has another terrible day as he spots Megan in the precinct and confronts her. When he gets home, Daniel checks his computer for more vile posts and just as Jodie makes a throwaway comment, Daniel realises that she is the troll.
In a recent chat, actor Rob Mallard, who plays Daniel, teased the consequences of Jodie’s betrayal. ‘He feels it’s another moment of complete betrayal. He should never have trusted her to begin with, and he knew he shouldn’t have trusted her. But I think there was that kind of vague hope where you think, well, what are the chances that she’s another wrong ‘un, of all the bad things that have just happened to me, what are the chances that she’s also going to be bad?’ ‘I think this will be the endpoint of his trust in women. He’s been betrayed so many times now, ever since his mum left him. Bar Sinead (Katie McGlynn) he’s not made the best choices. So Jodie should watch out.’
