Coronation Street’s Sam fears the end after devastating psychosis breakdown
The following article contains spoilers from the episode of Coronation Street dated June 12. It hasn’t aired on ITV1 yet, but can be viewed on ITVX and YouTube.
Sam Blakeman (Jude Riordan) has been admitted to hospital after suffering a psychosis breakdown in Coronation Street.
The youngster has been experiencing visual and auditory hallucinations over the past few weeks, which have primarily featured Will Driscoll (Lucas Hodgson-Wale) and Roy Cropper (David Neilson).
Sam’s visions of Roy have been issuing him dangerous advice and have also left him convinced that Will is out to get him. The version of Roy that has been living in Sam’s head convinced him in today’s episode of the ITV soap that Will would eventually kill him.
The teen locked himself in the cafe, and his loved ones only discovered what was going on because Will followed Sam to the establishment, and found Leanne Battersby (Jane Danson) approaching.
As Leanne, Nick Tilsley (Ben Price) and Toyah Battersby (Georgia Taylor) tried to get Sam to open the door, he was inside, utterly terrified at the fact that he was looking at two versions of Roy. One of them was sat on a chair and telling Sam that those around him were playing a cruel trick, while the real one was gently trying to help.
Sam legged it from the cafe and was eventually spotted by Carla Connor-Swain (Alison King) at the precinct. Carla has previously suffered a psychosis breakdown, and began to recognise that the same thing was happening to Sam.
Carla supported Sam and called Nick at the same time. She chatted to him to prevent Sam from running away, and waited for Nick and David Platt (Jack P Shepherd) to arrive.
Sam did try and leave, but Nick caught him. It was at this point that Sam broke down in his dad’s arms, petrified about what was going on in his mind.
Nick attempted to explain to Sam that his brain was playing tricks on him, but the reality of just how unwell his lad is began to hit as Sam tipped his drink on the floor, believing it had been poisoned, and also said that Nick had been tricked as well.
Nick promised Sam that he wasn’t going to get him ‘locked up’ and gently took his son out of the precinct, telling him that they’d be going home. A while later though, we saw Sam waking up from a nap in the car, and he discovered that Nick hadn’t been entirely honest.
Nick had driven Sam to the hospital. The last thing Nick wanted to do was lie to him, but he recognised that Sam didn’t understand that he needed some help.
Waiting for him were Leanne and Toyah, and Leanne managed to coax Sam into the hospital. As he walked to the entrance, he still remained certain that he was about to get locked up.
A devastated Nick watched on, broken to see his boy in such a dark place.
