"A Little Resurrection" Finds a Little Justice in 'The Woman in the Wall' Finale

In all the twists and turns of The Woman in the Wall, there were two that surprised me the most. The first came at the end of the first episode when Lorna actually took the body of the dead woman in her house and straight up put her in the wall. A shockingly literal translation of the show's title, it was something of a relief when she reopened the wall a couple of episodes later only for there to be no corpse inside, suggesting that scene had been a dream that happened while sleepwalking or a sleep-deprived hallucination. The second came at the top of the finale, when the series revealed, in actuality, that Lorna did put a woman in the wall; she just wasn't dead. Aoife Cassidy suffers from stress-induced catalepsy, which makes her appear to be dead at very inconvenient times, only to resurrect when those around her have given up hope — or stuck her in the wall of their flat.

Lorna: I can sleep now.

The finale opens with a flashback to Cassidy's visit to Father Percy and this explanation, which also is why she never took her final vows as a nun, as she saw the experience as a sign of God's wrath for what they were doing: Stealing and selling children. Percy shows her the box of cards, thanking him for creating their families to convince her they were on the side of right. This is how she got the photo of Breda to give to Constance; she grabbed everything from the box, wrestling it from Percy when he fought her for it; in the fight, he went headfirst down the stairs. Aoife left him there to die, stealing his keys and running for it. However, the letters and cards that rained down on the stairs she left where they fell, letters and cards that were gone by the time the police arrived.

Lorna was very drunk by the time Aoife got up the nerve to talk to her in the bar -- she'd been there since Michael's first attempt to chat Lorna up. She took her home and put her to bed, promising to talk in the morning. However, the sight of the box of Lorna's hunt for her child, mixed with Lorna's sleepwalking, frightened her so badly that she had an episode and collapsed, leading to where Lorna found her the next day.

What happened to Aoife after she woke up and found herself stuck in the wall will have to wait, as there's an actual bad guy to catch first. Colman calls Lorna down to the station to show her James Coyle, the man trying to get them to sign their right to sue anyone involved with the laundries, and the man who was trafficking children is one and the same. The Eardrom Group has been laundering the old laundry buildings, too, and the orphanages, and among the charity "refurbishments" Coyle boasts about, Lorna spots St. Alma's Primary School. The "before" image of it as a hospital shows a Sisters of the Seven Joys sign on the interior wall, and Lorna is practically halfway to the car before Colman accepts he's not going to be able to stop her and hands over the address. 

Colman doesn't go with her, though. He and Massey have a bad guy to catch. Coyle is prepping some sort of presentation when they mosey in, and while he admits to being Ignatius McCullen, he has an airtight alibi: He was on stage giving a presentation just like this from 6:30-9 pm in front of a sold-out crowd. Back at the station, Massey is in a talking mood now that the dam has broken about the convent. He starts confessing to Colman that everyone in town knew about what happened at the Sisters of the Seven Joys, how he returned runaways, how he let drivers disappear girls, how he let the Cruelty Man go up there and tell him everything was fine without question. 

Colman's head snaps up in shock; Massey looks perplexed. The "Cruelty Man" is the nickname for ISPCC inspectors (Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children). As Colman digests that the monster he imagined for years he was running from was really him being told to hide from the one person who might have rescued him, it's all too much. He walks out and heads back to the Eadrom groups' talk. When Coyle finishes, he walks up to him, congratulates him, and then leans in and asks, "How much did I cost," as he pickpockets the man's phone. There is indeed an extra phone call made that night right after Percy's call, and when Colman dials it, Coyle's assistant, Leslie (Alexandra Moloney), picks up. As she walks over and asks why he called her, Coyle realizes what just happened, pulls her aside, and tells her she's about to be arrested and to keep her mouth shut for the good of all those who need her silence. Colman walks over, flashing his badge as she runs for it.

Lorna's initial contact at the school doesn't go that badly; the principal, Marie (Gene Rooney), is deeply sympathetic when she explains why she's there and volunteers to call the Board of Governors, "some of which have been on the board since the school first opened" who might be able to help her track down her child. (If you're not hearing the alarm bells, you should be.) Dr. Gabriel (Barry McGovern) turns up, making the exact same noises as Coyle about what Lorna's been through before immediately going for the undermine on her child not wanting to meet her and when that doesn't work, citing her stats, which he knows far too much about for someone who was just called five minutes ago. By the time he's done, she's a collapsed hysterical puddle.

Lorna drives home, defeated, staring at the murder of crows sitting on the top of her building. Michael stops by as she stands there; he's come to say goodbye. He's leaving for Dublin and wants her to go with him. He practically begs her to let him take her away from. She tells him she must be alone right now and heads back inside. She calls Colman and asks if he loves his mother, who raised him, or his birth mother. He promises he loves both because he knows they both love him. It's enough for now. But as the crows keep cawing, Lorna realizes something is drawing them to her building. She steps inside the wall, where she sees a shoe at the bottom, and realizes Aoife must've climbed up. Thankfully, she takes the stairs to the attic, where it lets out, but it's too late. Aoife never made it out. But in her pocket, one last gift: a photo of Agnes. 

Colman arrives at Lorna's, defeated, as Leslie, clearly a true believer, is going to jail in silence. Lorna is waiting for him at the kitchen table with the photo. Colman asks how the body got up there; Lorna says she must have still been alive when she put her in the wall. In the end, Lorna did kill her, an accident, to be sure, but still. Colman tries to develop a story to help Lorna, but she refuses. She knows what she did and is okay with serving time for it. Agnes is alive, somewhere in the world, and that matters. She can rest now.

In Lorna's list of babies without graves, there's a name Massey recognizes: Amy's child, Emily Kane, supposedly stillborn. He calls Amy down to the station and shows her. This time, the trip to see Sister Eileen, is very different. It's broad daylight; Peggy And Deidre are there, following Amy, with Massey bringing up the rear. No one is acceding to the Sister's demands. Massey pulls out Lorna's book of names and informs her point blank that they know 208 of those children were trafficked and sold. Three have graves. So, where are the other 87? They are pretty sure Emily was stillborn, which suggests those 87 are dead, lying in a mass grave somewhere on the property. Sister Eileen refuses to budge, and Massey shrugs. Fine, they'll do this the hard way then. But either way, they're doing this.

A coda, as Lorna rests in jail, able to sleep soundly for the first time in years. Colman is still working on getting someone in Coyle's circle to come forward while Massey gets warrants to search the property for the unmarked graves of the buried babies born at the Seven Joys. But there is one happy ending. Agnes has been found. The odd donation amount was due to currency exchange; the family that adopted her was in Boston. (St. Almas was a processing center for overseas adoptions.) Agnes still lives there, having spent her life trying to find the mother who gave birth to her. As the series ends, Lorna presses call on Zoom and, for the first time, sees her daughter's face, reunited after 30 years.

To learn more about the Magdalene Laundries, read our piece on the history of the practice here and visit the official website.