'Call the Midwife' Series 4 : Episode 8 Recap
This week’s episode, which also happens to be the season finale, features closure, hope, tragedy and an imperiled happy ending. Plus the return of our beloved Chummy (Miranda Hart) back from her temporary assignment as head of the mothers’ and babies’ home! Just your typical Call the Midwife, right?
The obligatory patient stories are virtually overshadowed by the goings-on with our Nonnatus family, so let’s touch on them lightly and get on with the meat of the episode.
Expectant mother, Maureen Gadsby (Lucy Phelps) is experiencing severe morning sickness all day long. The nurses put it down to the baby being a girl or nerves and try to soothe her concerns with sage advice and Polo mints. Nurse Gilbert suspects it’s something more since Maureen can’t even cook for her son Neil because it makes her ill. Barbara makes arrangements for Neil to get a place in the council nursery to help ease the load on Maureen.
Alas, Mrs. Gadsby’s condition is more than overwork and nerves. Nurse Gilbert finds her patient collapsed on the floor and nearly unconscious from dehydration. Dr. Turner is called in and suspects Maureen has a rare, but debilitating condition called hyperemesis gravidarum (you may recall, the Duchess of Cambridge suffered from this same problem with her first pregnancy). While Mrs. Gadsby recovers in hospital, Neil must be put in foster care since his father is away in prison.
Encouraged by Shelagh, Dr. Turner researches new drugs available to help with morning sickness and prescribes Thalidomide. For the time being Maureen goes home her condition much improved. Of course, it turns out this drug caused serious birth defects in infants including shortened limbs among other things.
Our second Poplar family tale introduces us to first-time parents, the Dillens. June (Genevieve Barr), in 1960’s terms, is a deaf-mute and Kevin (Thomas Christian) is her devoted and auditorily able husband. Trixie and Sister Mary Cynthia, who knows a bit of sign language, work as a team to care for June during her pregnancy. However, they come to the conclusion that Kevin must be present at the birth to help with more complex translation. Though Sister Evangelina adamantly disagrees with having men involved, Sister Julienne agrees it is their best option.
After a false alarm caused by anxiety about bring able to communicate with her child, June gives birth to a baby boy. Holding him in her arms calms her fears that her son, hearing or not, will know that his is loved.
Now, let’s do the tragically sad story first so we can work towards a happier ending. When Nurse Mount’s companion, Delia, volunteers to move out of her nurses’ quarters at the London, she and Patsy decide to take the leap and move in together. Girls share flats all the time and neither of them have rules at work against it. Patsy breaks the news to Sister Julienne using the excuse that she has never lived independently and would like to give it a try. Julienne expresses her regret at Patsy’s departure and requests that she join them at lunch each day, a condition to which Patsy happily agrees.
The two young lovers find an acceptable flat though it is sorely in need of sprucing up. Delia is clearly the romantic of the pair, in love with the idea of her and Patsy having a place where they can be themselves. But in true dramatic TV style, when characters finally get their heart’s desire, something must surely go wrong to shatter that happiness.
One morning, Delia sets out quite late for work so Patsy lends her bicycle and scarf and sends her on her way. We’ve already seen that Delia is not an accomplished cyclist so the fact that she gets hit by a car has been obviously foreshadowed. When Patsy learns about Delia from Sister Monica Joan, who came upon the scene of the accident, she phones the hospital but they won’t give non-relatives any patient information.
Patsy makes a trip to the hospital the next day and meets Delia’s mother, Mrs. Busby (Maxine Evans) sitting at her daughter’s bedside. She learns that Delia is experiencing seizures caused by a resulting head injury. When Patsy can finally see Delia, she’s saddened to find that Delia doesn’t recognize her nor does she remember her own mother. Patsy asks Mrs. Busby if Delia will regain her memory, but the doctors aren’t sure. Delia’s parents are taking her home to Wales since she needs constant care. Patsy asks if she can visit or call. Mrs. Busby says they don’t have a phone and they’ll have to see how things go, but she can write.
Patsy returns to the couple’s shared flat. She gives it a good Nurse Mount cleaning, arranges the flowers she bought for Delia in a left behind water jug and leaves the keys and the flat for good. Poor Patsy, her dreams have been dashed, but I think she had little faith in them in the first place.
Next let’s tackle closure. While viewers are no doubt ecstatic with Chummy’s return, her story is somewhat subdued. When she shows up on the Nonnatus doorstep with her mother’s ashes secreted in a cake tin, much to Sister Monica Joan’s disappointment, it is clear Nurse Noakes has not gotten over Mater’s death. She wants to spread her mother’s ashes on the first anniversary of her passing, but Chummy’s dilemma is where to leave her essence behind. After all, Lady Browne floated through life, never really belonging anywhere.
On to our story of hope. Trixie’s depression and related drinking continue. Even Chummy, who has been away for some time, asks if she’s hung over when she sees Nurse Franklin mixing up raw eggs in her bedroom. FYI- it was a protein mask for some worrying wrinkles. (I agree with Chummy, a fried egg sandwich or some custard is preferable.)
After the Dillen family delivery, Trixie encounters Tom on the street. It’s just a brief hello, but when she returns to the confines of her room, Trixie’s bar is open for business. Later that evening, Trixie makes a call to the Samaritans (similar to our suicide hotline) and says she still wants to live, but she wants to stop drinking. Sister Mary Cynthia overhears her and intercepts the phone call. She promises Trixie that there are people who care and people who can help her.
At the end of the show, we see Trixie sitting in a hall with a circle of chairs around her. She is telling the others about her father, his drinking and how she was the only one who could make him happy. She explains that she became a midwife so that she could be around happy families, if only for a while. But when she returns home alone, the only thing that makes her happy is a glass of scotch. Finally (and this is the hopeful part) she makes the requisite introduction “My name is Trixie and I’m an alcoholic.”
And finally, the culmination of the courtship story between Mr. Buckle and Mrs. Gee – an eventual happy ending though not without a few hiccups of course.
Though Fred is like family to them, the Nonnatus residents are just about fed up with their handyman’s inattention to his job- the blocked chimney he should have had swept being a prime example. Nevertheless, the gracious Sisters welcome his fiancé with a lovely luncheon and cake.
We learn that Violet’s son who is the Navy should be able to get leave to come to the wedding. On the other hand, Fred’s daughter Dolly in Australia won’t be making the trip and Marlene, who lives closer in Birmingham, hasn’t responded to his letter yet.
We soon find that Marlene (Rosie Sansom) has no intention of keeping quiet. She shows up at Fred’s door and is obviously displeased about the news of her father’s impending nuptials. She’s even more distraught about his plans to leave his flat and move in to Violet’s place above the haberdasher’s shop.
Marlene wastes no time in letting her future step-mother know her feelings either. She pays a visit to Violet’s shop and spells out, in rather blunt terms, that her father has no savings for his old age and is marrying Mrs. Gee for the security of her money and her shop. It only fans the flames of doubt when Fred stops in later with a gift of two-for-one meringues (due to their slightly squashed state) and a flip comment about the amount of money in Violet’s cash register.
Violet later confronts Fred about his financial situation to which he has to admit to being retirement plan-free. Then and there she calls off the engagement, feeling that their plans to marry were for the wrong reasons. Fred is crushed by her change of heart and stops showing up at work all together, much to the Nonnatus residents’ chagrin since the boiler has stopped working now as well as the chimney.
Chummy greets Fred in the street, but he walks right by her without speaking so she pays him a visit at his flat. He tells her he never understood the meaning of a bad-tempered woman (a comparison the former caretaker of the current Nonnatus House used to describe the boiler) until now and he’s dealing with two at the moment. Chummy inquires after Marlene. Fred says she’s staying with a friend, but comes around often. It’s as though she’s fixated with the place.
Ever the peacemaker, Chummy brings Marlene around to talk to Fred. Marlene explains that she thinks of this flat as her childhood home. Even though her mother never lived there, it’s the place where they came together after the Blitz so she felt her presence there anyway.
After this father-daughter heart to heart, Marlene goes to Violet’s shop to apologize and asks her to speak with her father. Fred tells Violet they could live anywhere and he’d be happy as long as they are together. The couple makes up and the wedding is back on.
Before the ceremony, Marlene, Violet and Chummy go shopping for wedding hats. As an olive branch of sorts, Violet gives Marlene a sky blue ribbon for her hat, as blue as her mother’s eyes. A modest ceremony follows and the wedding party ends up at the convent. Those nuns know how to celebrate life, after all.
There you have it! Another Call the Midwife series has come and gone. How did you like the finale? Do you think series four lived up to previous ones? There was a lot of coming and going with many of the main characters. How did that affect your opinion? This is your last chance to talk Midwife for some time so comments are strongly encouraged!
