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The programme started with nasty gases being expelled while the men were sleeping. (Can't see what was unusual there.) Meanwhile we saw Meg on her rounds, interrupting Lexie in the middle of a quick shuffle on her bed while the others are asleep. This didn't seem to bother Meg, whose chocolate-stain bruises looked like a perfect match for Myra's. But she did spring into action when she caught a whiff of the fumes in the men's dorm, and in her super-human-strength-in-a-crisis mode, actually managed to make the brick wall sway as she wrestled with the cell door lock.
Bobbie's new boss turned out to be another Scotsman (they seem to be popular in Prisoner for some reason), and with a name like "McDonald", he just had to get in on the act when Bobbie and Pete went for hamburgers.
So Bobbie had her first day at work, and how fortunate that there was an industrial crane on site that needed to be fixed. Lucky for them that Bobbie had that lesson on wiring a plug, so she was able to tackle the complex wiring that the other electrician had called "a bugger of a job", and get the powerful equipment up and running before tea break.
Not sure what she was doing in such big dangly earrings. Nothing to do with them not being allowed in prison, but surely for (several) health and safety reasons, dangly jewellery wouldn't be allowed in an industrial situation.
Poor old Meg. I wonder if the writers used to have a laugh at her expense, trying to think up the most outrageous tragic/horrific plotlines, and see how many of them they could fit into a season. Fresh from her violent rape, being locked in a booby-trapped building, blown up, attacked, and becoming pregnant, they'd now given her a cancerous tumour. Oh dear. I fear more looking at the floor and mumbling to come.
How touching to see her pick up a photo of her first husband (Bob Morris I presume has been flushed from her thoughts like an unwanted floater) and what looked like yet another Marty. Interesting dilemma for the continuity people (if there were some) - now that Marty had been played by completely different actors, with different hair colours, etc., should the picture show the more recent one, for the benefit of newer viewers, or the old one for those who remember him at the time with Meg and Bill? Hmm.. I guess it serves them right for choosing such amusingly different actors each time.
The pink garment thing in the laundry was very prominent this episode, with Myra putting it onto a coat hanger before our very eyes, and hanging it - you guessed it - between the driers. Ready for Pixie to sew it again later, I expect.
More "unusual" camera angles this episode, with the camera appearing to be left on the staff room sink drainer, looking sideways-on at Joycie. Then an instant change, to the completely opposite side of her. How bizarre.
Dennis Cruickshank coming back? Oh joy.. Yemil, Marlene, Sam.. And now the Yorkshire Pud back to join the ranks. I thought he'd gone back to England with his multi-accented wife. And just after we've got rid of one little insect.
Best line of the episode was from Myra to Frank, and was something like this:
Frank: "I wouldn't touch you with somebody else's."
Myra: "You lay a hand on her, and you'll have to use somebody else's."
I was worried that Lou had returned to mumbling in the background in the first half of this episode, but thankfully she was brought back later, and seemed to have inherited the fabulous Marie Winter "Look, Sweetie.." line. "The screws patrol every 20 minutes - more with you blokes around" she told Frank. Of course, 20 minutes would never be enough to kill, mutilate or rape someone, let alone deal in drugs or contraband, now would it..? As I’ve said before, is there any point having the officers there..?
Finally, we saw the tragic last scenes for Pixie, which were remarkably well done I thought. I loved the sad piano music playing in the background, while the women argued and got upset and angry, and Pixie just stared into space. Very effective and quite powerful. And I was very impressed with the emotional dilemma the writers gave Myra, of using Pixie's raped body as a way to frame Len Murphy, which really made me think afterwards ("what would I do?"). I thought the acting that went into this scene was excellent. One of the saddest, yet most impressive scenes in the whole series I felt.
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