The following article contains spoilers from the episode of Coronation Street dated April 8. It hasn’t aired on ITV1 yet, but can be viewed on ITVX. Is Sam Blakeman (Jude Riordan)

being gaslit? Or is the poor lad so traumatised by his ordeal with abuser Megan Walsh (Beth Nixon) that his mind is playing tricks on him? Coronation Street fans think they’ve got the answer…

Sam is a legend. When everyone else on the Cobbles saw Megan as a respectable, friendly athletics coach, he suspected there was something weird about her dynamic with

his classmate Will Driscoll (Lucas Hodgson-Wale) after discovering a sports top belonging to the underage boy in her flat.

Poor Sam doesn’t know what’s real and what isn’t.

Realising that Megan was grooming his friend into a twisted ‘relationship’ the pint-sized Poirot was determined to expose the predator, even hiding a secret camera in the flat to catch her out.

But Megan was always one step ahead, playing up Will’s ‘schoolboy crush’ for the cameras and acting the innocent to make Sam look creepy.

Worse still, she sabotaged the thing that matters to the poor boy the most – his grades.

With his academic performance slipping, a devastated Sam resorted to unprescribed Ritalin to improve his focus, leading to a troubling decline in his mental health.

Even loved ones like mum Leanne Battersby (Jane Danson), dad Nick Tilsley (Ben Price) and aunt Toyah Battersby (Georgia Taylor) didn’t realise what was wrong until Sam suffered a shock collapse on the Cobbles. After being rushed to hospital, he finally confessed that Megan had been abusing Will.

Both Sam’s family and the Driscolls believed him. Unfortunately, Megan had been careful not to leave a shred of evidence – other than the baby she was pregnant with, of course.

After Leanne kicked her out, Megan moved into a new flat away from Coronation Street where Will secretly visits her – despite the Driscolls banning him from seeing her again. With no way to prove that Megan had been grooming Will, Sam was dismayed to think that the enormous risk he took by coming forward had all been for nothing…

However, that might be the least of Sam’s problems. Will blames him for coming between him and Megan by telling his family about their ‘relationship’. Now he’s out for revenge.

While Sam has been the target of an intimidation campaign, Will denied all knowledge and insisted to his step-mum Eva Price (Catherine Tyldesley) and grandmother Maggie Driscoll (Pauline McLynn) the Sam was making it all up.Leanne, Nick and Toyah all believed Sam and closed ranks, suggesting to Eva that they keep the boys away from each other for the foreseeable future.

However, outside, Sam saw Will, who proceeded to chase him through the street… but as soon as Nick showed up, nobody was there. Had Sam imagined the whole thing?

The whole Megan nightmare has taken a massive toll on the troubled teen’s mental health, which reaches a devastating new low in tonight’s episode of Coronation Street, when Sam suffers another ‘vision’… or does he?

Sam’s day gets off to a bad start when he sees Will laughing and smiling with Megan in the precinct. Horrified, he tells Toyah and Nick, who waste no time in charging over to the Rovers, demanding answers.

To Sam’s dismay, Will insists he’s been at home all morning, and Eva and Ollie (Raphael Akuwudike) confirm his story. The two families call crisis meeting to discuss things which ends up going badly – nobody can defend Sam or Will without calling the other boy a liar. When Toyah gently wonders if Sam could have been mistaken, he feels pressured into conceding that he might have got it wrong…

Bu later, alone in the flat, Sam sits curled into a ball, growing increasingly paranoid and starting to doubt his own sanity. Did he see really see Will and Megan or not? Or is he actually having delusions?

As usual, Corrie fans think they’ve got the answer. Actor Jude Riordan shared a behind the scenes pic of his character face down on the Cobbles with his chippy tea spilled out on to the street, after seemingly being ‘chased’ by Will.

Below the photo, Jude posted ‘Sam spends half his time falling on the cobbles than he does walking on them! Really tried to save those chips! Just wanted a chippy tea in peace. Enjoying doing my own stunts!’

Amongst the messages of support, some fans put their detective hats on and shared their own theories that might explain what’s going on with Sam.

One user, stephgunther1 ‘Is Sam having some kind of hallucinations? Great job portraying his terror, Jude’