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First of all, I have to say.. that mugshot! I couldn’t stop myself from gasping at the frightening photo of Marlene that flashed up during the opening sequence. Not at all a good picture of the poor dear.
A fairly shocking episode in fact, with Myra punching Janice in the head, knocking her out cold (not quite the kind of "punch" Janice would have preferred), Frank Burke climbing on top of Janice and trying to have sex with her, and Ettie hitting Frank over the head with something and rendering him instantly unconscious (naturally). And then all the spitting into the sinks - with Janice being sick, then Lexie cleaning her teeth. I was waiting for a close up of Ettie coughing up phlegm just to complete the picture.
Janice's drunkenness seemed to take up quite a part of the episode, and I was interested to see Lexie and Marlene try to sober her up by washing her hair. Pity she wasn't even more smashed, she might have got a blow dry out of it too.
As for Myra and Geoff and their scene tucked up in bed, it appeared that someone was trying to be creative with the filming, with the camera slowly closing in on the two faces throughout the scene. Unfortunately this was spoiled by the camera operator having very shaky hands, which just ended up distracting me from the action. Or maybe it was the thought of Myra and Geoff's bedroom gymnastics making his hands tremble. They mentioned the first time they met, "at the dump master" - which was a surprise, as I hadn't seen them in the toilet block at the same time before.
For the first half of the episode, it seemed Officer Radcliffe was the only officer on duty in the whole prison. Just as well there were only about ten inmates in the prison anyway. Locking Lexie in for the night, taking Matt to solitary, checking on screaming Janice, looking for Myra/Geoff, etc. Phew, bet she was glad when Joan, Dennis and the non-speaking beanpole in make-up, all arrived for the second half.
I was interested to notice the fabulous Joan Crawford "Pepsi" poster had been shifted to a different wall. Bugger, I wanted that.
Background music seemed to be coming out of every scene lately. I noticed particularly the Starsky-&-Hutch-esque twangy-twangy music while Frank looked through his zip gun pipe, and there was some wonderfully dreadful supermarket muzak playing during the two different restaurant scenes (Joan and Jason-Donovan's-Dad in the Chinese restaurant with the obviously false windows, and later with Ann and Coleby). Other noticeable music was played in the scene with Frank trying to persuade Janice to have sex with him, and when Ettie walked in on Frank and Janice.
Actually, in Ann's restaurant scene, it appeared another experiment was being done with the camera angle, this time with two characters talking over dinner, filmed from behind.. er, it was certainly a concept I don't remember seeing before in television drama. Can't imagine why it never seemed to take off elsewhere.
Sam Greenway still hadn't gone away, or been written out, mores the pity. And that robot thing sat there grinning and proving to have a similar irritation level as Sam herself. Basically a hollow box about the same size as a person, so it would surprise me if nobody suspected someone might try to escape from the prison in it. (Apart from Myra of course, but she’d got a lot on.) Mind you, with Wentworth, it'd surprise me even more if anyone bothered to check it as it left the premises.
Quite an interesting ending, with Lou threatening Joan with the zip gun, then shortly afterwards a bang being heard. What intrigued me more was how not frightened Joan appeared, while Lou Kelly was pointing that highly dangerous piece of chair leg at her head. Would have me poo myself.
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