Devastating ordeal in Coronation Street as Sam suffers terrifying hallucination

The following article contains spoilers from the episode of Coronation Street dated May 13. It hasn’t aired on ITV1 yet, but can be viewed on ITVX and YouTube.

Sam Blakeman (Jude Riordan) is seriously struggling with his mental health in Coronation Street, and has suffered another terrifying hallucination of another Weatherfield resident.

The youngster is one of the many characters who have been impacted by Megan Walsh’s (Beth Nixon) manipulation. Sam became the first person to discover Megan had been sexually abusing Will Driscoll (Lucas Hodgson-Wale) and was threatened by the school teacher into keeping quiet.

Sam’s confidence took such a knock, he became withdrawn and left his loved ones worried about his sudden change in behaviour. He ended up revealing Megan’s secret to Leanne Battersby (Jane Danson), but it happened after Sam collapsed and was rushed to hospital.

Even though Megan has been exposed, the nightmare for Sam hasn’t ended. In the initial aftermath, he dealt with hurtful comments from Will, and also grew paranoid about just who he could trust.

Sam’s state of mind spiralled further a few weeks ago, when it became apparent that he was beginning to struggle to tell the difference between what is real and what is not.

Believing that he was being chased through the street by Will, Sam ran for his life and tripped over. When he was scooped up by Nick Tilsley (Ben Price), Sam glanced behind him and was troubled to realise no-one was there.

In today’s episode, Sam remained distant from those around him. He wanted to be left alone at school, and snapped at Hope Stape (Isabella Flanagan) when he felt as though she wasn’t getting the message.

At the Bistro, Toyah Battersby (Georgia Taylor) approached Sam but she ended up making him jump as he had headphones on. Sam was sharp in his words while speaking to Toyah, and reiterated that he wanted to be on his own.

While walking through a ginnel, Sam’s fear increased as he spotted Will chasing after him. He ran, but ended up at a dead end beside some bins. Sam attempted to protect himself by pushing a bin over, and then started fighting Will.

Sadly, moments later we discovered that Sam wasn’t actually hitting Will at all, but instead was experience a visual hallucination.

‘Getting him across the Megan story and having him be another victim of her manipulation felt like a really interesting way of telling the story’, she explained.

‘But as a result of that, his mental health has been really, really damaged by everything that’s happened – by the manipulation, by the fact that he wasn’t believed, by the fear that he felt every time he was with Megan.’

Kate added: ‘We’re going to tell a big mental health story with Sam, and he’s going to really, really struggle over the course of spring and early summer. It’s about his family realising, hopefully before it’s too late, that he’s in desperate need of help – and he’s really vulnerable.

‘It’s showcasing that Megan’s actions have not just directly impacted Will and the Driscolls, Sam’s also collateral damage.