Coronation Street boss on Daisy and Ryan affair, 'dark' Daniel and Bethany return

While Justin was locked up behind bars, Ryan and Daisy have each had to grapple with the trauma since - something that Daisy's loving fiancé Daniel Osbourne (Rob Mallard) will never fully understand.

Daisy finds her feelings for Ryan impossible to resist and so an affair begins, but will Daniel discover the truth? And does this mean that Daisy belongs with Ryan instead of Daniel?

Executive producer Iain MacLeod has given his verdict on the Daniel/Daisy/Ryan love triangle and whether he is Team Daniel or Team Daisy.

MacLeod revealed: "I'll start by saying I love this love triangle, and I think I veer week to week from being Team Daniel and Daisy to being Team Ryan and Daisy, and I think that's really unusual.

"Normally in shows like ours, when you have an affair, you end up having to make one person behave very badly in order to motivate their partner cheating, but I just think this has been so organic from the start, and I entirely understand Daisy's feelings for Daniel and where they come from and the depth of those, but I also understand the depth of feelings she's got for Ryan having survived this terrible ordeal.

"I honestly don't know who I'm rooting for, in a really good way, I think. I've got very divided loyalties."

Teasing what comes next for the triangle, MacLeod noted that Daisy and Ryan's affair will eventually be exposed to Daniel, and his response may harken back to some of his darker times on the cobbles.

The exec added: "Suffice to say, obviously it ends up in a right pickle, and Daisy's feelings for Ryan can't go undiscovered by Daniel forever.

"So he does indeed start to cotton on to what's going on between these two, and the intensity of feelings they have for each other, and the betrayals they've committed behind his back, and there's lots of really tense sequences where Daniel's starting to put the pieces together.

"We see a slight revisiting of some of Daniel's darkness - not quite to the extent of him pushing anyone down the stairs this time.

"But actually, Daniel, what we do know about him is that when pushed into an emotional corner, there's a switch that goes. He is capable of doing some fairly underhand and fairly classically dark things. So we'll see flashes of that as the story unfolds, and some excellent soapy manipulations on his part to try and distance Ryan from Daisy as quickly and as far apart as possible.

"But in the end, it all comes crashing down."

The twists and turns in the story will impact all involved as Daisy deliberates between the two troubled men - only made more complicated by a blast from Daniel's past: Bethany Platt (Lucy Fallon).

The soap's boss continued: "There are some fantastic scenes concerning the end of that relationship; some big dilemmas for Daisy in terms [of], 'If not Daniel, then is Ryan the right choice? If I were to choose him, would that be purely because he's now the default setting or is that really what I want?'

"And obviously Ryan in the middle of that, [who] is quite a vulnerable guy at this time, stands to get his heart trampled on if he's not careful.

"And in the middle of this really volatile cocktail arrives Bethany, who's obviously got lots of history with Daniel, and that very much sharpens Daisy's focus in terms of how she feels about Daniel.

"Suddenly this guy that she may have been starting to move away from - possibly by default - well, suddenly there's a romantic threat on the cards."

Speaking further about Bethany's return to the cobbles after over three years away, MacLeod revealed more about how much Bethany has changed and where she will go next in her new stint in Weatherfield.

"Bethany's back, and we're all fantastically excited to have her back," confirmed MacLeod. "She's incredibly well-liked around the building, the viewers love her.

"She's a slightly different proposition now from when we last saw her, which is to say there's been a number of years that have elapsed, she's grown up quite a lot, she's had the beginnings of a successful journalism career in London, and she turns back up and [is] instantly very much a foe for Daisy, but they're very evenly matched now.

"Bethany might once have seemed slightly like a younger woman or a girl. She's very much more a woman now, more on Daisy's level. So it's a really heavyweight kind of tussle between these two women, which I'm really looking forward to seeing more of."

The exec went on to reveal that her future on the soap in 2024 will be linked to a new character and an epic storyline on the horizon.

"Actually, much like Bobby, Jack Carroll's character, she will also find herself in the centre of this huge story that we've got next year. So she's coming back with this clear, romantic purpose in the Daniel story, but then will fairly quickly find herself in the midst of this massive story that's going to span most of next year."

Regardless of what comes next, MacLeod is full of praise for the cast members involved in this complex romantic web.

"It's really exciting stuff and the performances in this character group are just off the charts," claimed the producer.

"I think Charlie [Jordan] has been exceptional across this story from the beginnings of the stalking right up to now.

"I think Ryan Prescott has been absolutely fantastic, and at times it's been so hard to watch because it doesn't feel like you're watching a performance. It feels like you're watching a young man really going through this.

"And then you've got the often-overlooked Rob Mallard, who's just pitch perfect as Daniel, and I'm so excited to see him stray slightly to the dark side across the next chapter of this story.

"I think that the performances and the writing of the story are all going to go over very well with the viewers."

Read more:

• Coronation Street cast: who is leaving, returning to and joining the soap?
• Coronation Street's Alison King opens up on Chris Gascoyne exit
• Coronation Street casts 90s sitcom star as Ed and Ronnie Bailey's dad
• Coronation Street’s Stephen haunts victims as Tim suffers flashbacks and Michael’s sacked
• Corrie’s Channique Sterling-Brown: “Dee-Dee is unapologetically Black”
• Coronation Street almost stuck the Stephen Reid landing
  

Coronation Street airs weeknights on ITV. Check out more of our Soaps coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on.

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