Coronation Street fans, brace yourselves — because one of Weatherfield’s most chilling villains almost got a very different ending! Todd Boyce, who brought the scheming and sinister Stephen Reid to life, has finally revealed that the murderous storyline we saw on screen was not the original plan. In fact, the writers initially considered giving Stephen something fans could never have imagined — a peaceful redemption arc, filled with romance and quiet domestic bliss with Jenny Connor. But as Todd now admits, the audience had other plans… and their hunger for justice changed everything.

When Stephen first returned to Coronation Street in 2022, fans were thrilled to see Audrey Roberts’ long-lost son back in Weatherfield. But that excitement quickly turned to horror when it became clear that his intentions were far from pure. Behind his polished exterior and suave charm was a man driven by desperation and greed — someone who was plotting to steal from his own mother. As his lies unraveled, Stephen’s dark side began to emerge, and what started as financial deceit spiraled into something much more deadly.

Over the next year, Stephen’s story took one shocking turn after another. Viewers watched in disbelief as he tried to cover his tracks through manipulation, deceit, and ultimately murder. By the time his reign of terror reached its conclusion, he had killed three people — each crime more desperate than the last. Yet even as his crimes caught up with him, Stephen continued to hide behind his mask of charm, fooling some of Weatherfield’s closest residents, including Jenny Connor, the woman he would soon fall for.

Their relationship was a shocking twist in itself. Jenny, still mourning her ex Leo — who, unbeknownst to her, had been one of Stephen’s victims — found comfort in the arms of the very man responsible for her heartbreak. It was dark, twisted, and tragically poetic — the kind of soap opera twist that Coronation Street is famous for. But as Todd Boyce has now confessed, this doomed love story was never supposed to end so soon.

Speaking on Inside Soap’s weekly Soap Scoop podcast, Todd opened up about how close Stephen came to surviving. “I know Ian McLeod [the show’s former executive producer] toyed for a little while with me being with Jenny and everything calming down,” he revealed. “I was contracted at a year and a half. That was how long we thought it would take.”

The actor went on to share that producers even discussed extending his contract by another six months — long enough to let Stephen settle into Weatherfield life again, and to give his romance with Jenny time to blossom. “They toyed with another six months, with the idea that I would move in with Jenny, hang around the Rovers, work at the factory, come back at night. We would have this proper love story where everything’s forgotten for a while,” he said. “And then it would be even more tragic when I went.”

Imagine that — Stephen Reid, the calculating killer, finding redemption through love and forgiveness. For a brief moment, the Coronation Street team considered letting him blend back into the fabric of the show — a reformed man with secrets buried deep beneath his charming smile. But there was one problem: the fans weren’t having it.

According to Todd, the audience’s reaction was so intense that it completely shifted the direction of the story. “I think the audience was just baying for blood at that point!” he laughed. “I didn’t even dare look at social media — it was all ‘get this man off my screen’ or ‘someone find him out!’ I think they’d had enough, so we said let’s call it at a year and a half, which was good.”

The fans’ demand for justice became impossible to ignore. After months of manipulation, deceit, and bloodshed, viewers wanted a proper ending — one that made Stephen pay for his crimes. And that’s exactly what they got in October 2023, when Peter Barlow finally put an end to Stephen’s reign of terror by running him down with his car. It was a dramatic, fitting, and unforgettable end to one of Coronation Street’s darkest chapters.

Still, it’s fascinating to think about what might have been. In another version of the story, Stephen could have been living happily with Jenny, working quietly at the factory, sipping pints in the Rovers, and keeping his murderous past buried under the surface — at least for a while. That would have made his eventual downfall even more tragic, as Todd himself pointed out. But the producers decided that fans’ need for closure and justice outweighed the slow-burn redemption story.

Interestingly, Todd also revealed which other character he might have wanted Stephen to target — if the story had gone even further down its dark path. “If I had to kill someone, it might’ve been Beth Tinker,” he admitted with a mischievous grin. “Just because I love Lisa George’s acting. I loved her character — she’s quite comedic — and killing her would’ve been sadly funny, which is a terrible thing to say! Because I know how she would’ve acted frightened. It would’ve been so brutal to kill her character in the factory.”

This insight gives fans a rare look behind the curtain of Coronation Street’s creative process — where storylines can pivot at any moment based on audience reaction, actor input, and producer instincts. Stephen Reid may have been one of the show’s most unlikely killers, but his arc will be remembered as one of the most gripping, divisive, and talked-about in recent memory.

Since leaving the cobbles, Todd Boyce has shifted gears to something entirely different. He’s currently starring in the world premiere of Possum Trot, a stage play set in rural Nebraska. The play explores the struggles of small-town America — from the impact of climate change on farming, to big corporations buying up local land, to younger generations abandoning their hometowns for better opportunities elsewhere. “It deals with the effects of climate change on farming, large corporations buying up farmland, and a lot of young people leaving farm communities,” Todd explained. “I’m playing this chap who’s had a successful business and is ready to embrace the rest of his life before it’s too late.”

It’s a far cry from Stephen Reid’s world of deceit and murder — but Todd admits that his time on Coronation Street has left a lasting impression. Fans continue to message him about Stephen’s crimes, his shocking death, and, of course, the romance that never was.

And perhaps that’s what makes this “alternate ending” revelation so fascinating. For a brief moment, the show toyed with the idea of redemption, only to have its own audience steer the story back toward retribution. In a way, Coronation Street’s viewers became a part of Stephen’s downfall — demanding justice, and ultimately, getting it.

So while Stephen’s story ended in blood, chaos, and tragedy, it also became a reminder of just how powerful fan passion can be. Coronation Street has always thrived on the push and pull between its writers’ imagination and its audience’s expectations. And as Todd Boyce himself said, wrapping the story at a year and a half “was good.” It gave fans what they wanted — closure, catharsis, and one final shocking moment of justice served on the cobbles.

Still, somewhere out there, in an alternate Corrie universe, Stephen Reid might be living quietly with Jenny, pretending to be the man he never truly was.