luke arrives in weatherfield on 20 february 2009 replacing carla connor (alison king) as the manager of "underworld". he initially infuriates tony gordon (gray o'brien) after refusing to say where carla was claiming that all he had told her was that the business needed running. he makes friends with tom kerrigan (philip mcginley) and maria connor (samia smith) after hearing the story about liam connor's (rob james-collier) death. after hearing about their business 'ladrags' he expresses an interest in buying it from them for £50,000 each. tom and maria, however, state that they need more time to consider the matter.