Coronation Street's Stephen Reid will soon be exposed as a baddie, as his scams and lies catch up with him.
Soap producer Iain MacLeod has revealed fans were right to keep an eye on the son of Audrey Roberts, and it's thought he could go to "desperate and dark" lengths to keep up his games.
Stephen has been acting oddly since he returned earlier this year, and fans were immediately convinced he was hiding something.
With him appearing to be after Audrey's money, and him even seeming to target other residents, viewers are starting to learn more about Stephen and his past.
That said, boss Iain has now revealed the schemer will become as "dangerous" as viewers predicted in his early scenes following his comeback to the show.
Teasing what was planned for the character, Iain also hinted that other characters could become involved with the character as his schemes continue. Speaking to The Mirror and other press, he said: "He will continue to get more and more desperate and more and more dark as the story unfolds.
"The beauty of his character really is that he's got this huge longevity in terms of his connection to the show and to a heritage family, but actually he is a bit of a blank canvas. If you think back through his archive scenes, we don't really know a lot about him. So we thought well, actually, if we're gonna fill in those blanks and we're gonna learn more about him shouldn't we make him dark, dangerous, interesting and scheming?"
"I think he's just brought such an injection of otherness into the show. Not least his accent. I know on Twitter, people are going bananas because they can't get past the fact that he's got North American accent, but it just makes him feel like this kind of exotic creature that's landed in Weatherfield and you know, he's kind of a fish out of water and doesn't quite belong there, which I think will contribute to some of the behaviours we'll see from him in the coming months and possibly years.
"So all in all, I'm really excited to have him back and viewers are so canny as well, as soon as he arrived everyone was like I've got him him marked. He's going to be a wrong'un, and they will be proved to be right in no small measure. So yeah, I'm excited to see the audience's reaction to the unfolding story when they realise that yes, he's every bit as desperate and dangerous as they predicted when he first returned."
On the impact the plot will have on Audrey, he went on: "Audrey obviously will be a large part of the story. She won't come to be in any physical Jeopardy, I should say. But emotionally, the stakes are incredibly high, because she's put all of her sort of maternal eggs in Stephens basket.
"She and Gail have always had a very fraught relationship, very complicated relationship. And whereas Stephen, possibly by dint of not having been around has been put on this pedestal. So yeah, actually, she definitely stands to have her heartbroken in a fairly sizeable way across the course of this story."
Iain added: "I'm excited to see where it goes, Todd is such a brilliant cast member. I love his performance. He's so completely over the moon to be back in this role and back in the show, and is really embracing some of the more dark and dangerous elements of what we're asking him to do. It promises to be a really brilliant story for us."
Iain also revealed Stephen's kiss with Jenny Connor would see her and partner Leo caught up in Stephen's games, just as she was hoping to have her happy ending. He said: "Secrets never stay buried in soaps for very long, do they. Sometimes they do stay buried for quite a while but they always come out at the end.
"So inevitably, the secret will come out too. Jenny thinks she's found her happily ever after with Leo. Obviously, in the wake of Johnny's death, she did probably rush into this relationship quickly and then spent a lot of time torturing yourself over the idea that he's too young for me, I'm too old for him, is he dating me because he's got some fetish for slightly older women?
"And eventually, you know, none of that proved to be the case. You know, he's entirely genuine and she could have her happy ever after with him. Unfortunately, she's made this mistake again.
"In terms of the person she chose to make the mistake with, namely Stephen, she couldn't really have picked a worse person.
"So yes, it will all go off in fairly spectacular fashion across the month of September, with long-lasting consequences for the whole show really."
Coronation Street airs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 8pm on ITV and ITV Hub.
