Debbie Webster broke down in tears at the end of Friday night's episode of Coronation Street as dementia took hold. The hotelier, played by Sue Devaney, was diagnosed with the condition last year, and it was confirmed that the character would be killed off as part of a long-running storyline.
In the last year, Debbie took the blame for a car crash caused by Carl Webster (Jonathan Howard) after revealing she was his mother, not his sister, and spent time in prison. Now, with her son and brother Kevin dealing with a missing gun, Debbie woke up in a state after a nightmare that they would use it to kill her.
During her day, Debbie had a confrontation with Tracy Barlow, who had prepared lilies for an event at the hotel, despite Debbie insisting she ordered roses. Then, Debbie forgot she was meant to keep a gender reveal secret and blurted it out.
Tracy marched into the hotel demanding payment for the flowers, but Debbie heard a balloon pop and yelled: "I don't have your gun! And I don't know where it is!"
Back home, Debbie confronted her husband Ronnie: "I think I must be getting worse. Cos my head, it's like mud sometimes. I don't want to be walking around out there not knowing who I am, where I am." When Ronnie tried to reassure her, Debbie said desperately: "How long? Three months? Six months? A year? It's coming... It's coming. I can feel it," as she burst into tears. She gave Ronnie permission to leave, but he refused.
Fully breaking down, Debbie said: "I'm gonna really miss me. I'll miss who I am, myself. But I'll still be here, and that terrifies me," and she wept into Ronnie's arms.
Viewers reacted emotionally on social media. One wrote: "Its hard watching Debbie one minute we laugh with her the next we feel sorry for her." Another said: "Poor Debbie," and a third wrote: "I've been laughing at Debbie but on a serious note, it must be so frightening."
Earlier this year, Sue Devaney told The Mirror: "I find it really interesting to play and going into that deeper, next journey of the illness. It's that thing of who's gonna look after her around that time? Some days she'll be lucid and normal and then other days she will have a bad day." She added: "I speak to my friend who is a dementia specialist and she tells me the journey I'm going on and if I am doing it correctly. You wanna do it right and I don't want to not tell the full impact that dementia has on somebody."
Coronation Street airs Monday to Friday at 8:30pm on ITV1 and is available to stream from 7am on ITVX.
