Episode 521

Starting with Sam Greenway playing King of the Swingers, suspended from a light fitting like a oversized children's mobile. Actually, I was impressed to see they appear to have used the actress herself for this scene, when I would have expected a shop dummy (as in Joan hanging from the solitary floor balcony by one hand). I suppose they would have fitted her with some kind of neck support, then left her hanging. Quite impressively done.

Ann's clothing was causing me a bit of confusion. At the party thing, she was wearing her pink tablecloth-and-teatowel ensemble, then was called into the prison by Meg ("We've got problems"), where she didn't bother to change, just turned up in her party frock. Not even spending 5 minutes to put on a suit or at least some governor-like clothes - after all, Sam Greenway wouldn't be any more dead in five minutes than she was already, and any murder suspects wouldn't be going anywhere. Then despite all that, a few minutes later she seemed to find time to do a complete change into her blue quilt cover. Maybe she kept spare frocks in that wardrobe in her office, just in case of such emergencies.

Words of wisdom from Ann, to a drunken Janice. "Why, with your background, did you do this?" Her background of being an alcoholic and her imprisonment for drunken driving? Quite surprising and out of character, then.

"I'm thinking of leaving the unit," (“unit”=“flat”?) Meg revealed to her suddenly-best-friend Dennis. Apparently she decided it was about time she got rid of her bad memories there, which no doubt included things like violent attacks, rape, frilly night dresses, etc. If it were me, I'd have wanted to be out of that place the very next day, rather than carry on being reminded about the ordeals every day.

And best-friend Dennis was there to pop out to the police station with her, then do a bit of flat-hunting. "Can I have the rest of the afternoon off?" he asked the harassed governor of the notoriously short-staffed prison currently undergoing a murder investigation, prisoner unrest, alcohol abuse with staff, dangerous male inmates wandering around the prison freely, and her deputy out all afternoon too. “Yes,” she said, naturally.

One of the first flats the "not married" couple viewed, seemed very plain but in pretty good condition, apart from what looked like some sweet wrappers in the window sill, and a settee propped against a wall. I guess this was supposed to suggest squalor, judging by the comments Meg and "Den" made ("Yeuch", "This is a dump", etc.) And after dragging Meg around all those flats, Dennis waited till she was absolutely fed up and knackered before suddenly remembering there was an empty flat next to his on the market. I loved the way they parked - abandoning the car right in the entrance to the flats driveway - blocking off the entrance and exit to the complex, but also the making the pavement impassable. It seemed Dennis himself had the keys to the empty flat, and when Meg showed interest in the flat, he said "right then, neighbour", implying the final decision was his. Did he forget that he was the landlord too, earlier?

After Sam's postmortem, "the coroner found burn marks on her hands". I guess there would have been burn marks on her feet too, as electricity needs a point of entry (hand) and a point of exit (on it's way to earth, probably her feet, unless she was sat on her bum when she opened the door). Surprising how Lou and Alice thought they'd get away with setting it up as a suicide, as the symptoms of asphyxiation/broken neck would surely be noticeably different to those of electrocution. Still, makes for a more exciting storyline I guess.

Actually, that whole storyline seems to have been dealt with in a peculiar (almost rushed) way. First of all, Lou planted the seeds very cleverly, to make Myra think Frank was the killer, and just after the writers spent all that time setting that up (with us waiting to find out what would happen when they get Frank and find out he's innocent) - Myra overhears it all, and that's that.

The other odd thing was the police interview with Frank. Now, all the evidence pointed to Frank, but in the interview he gave his "it wasn't me it was Geoff" line, and Inspector Grace believed him without a second thought. Wow. I wonder if they teach them at police training college, that criminals might tell lies to get themselves out of trouble.

It was decided that Sam's murderer had to be "someone with considerable strength", which seemed to make the weasly, puny Frank even more the number one suspect, over the more beefy Alice. Er..

As for Ray Proctor (or "your poofy friend", sneered Joan, perhaps forgetting she's a lesbian) - he was last heard of drinking vast amounts of illegally-brought-into-the-prison brandy, while being responsible for criminals in a prison kitchen - quite a dangerous situation, both for security and for personal safety reasons, I'd guess. So when Myra asked if he'd been sacked, I thought it seemed a bit of a daft question. But then I remembered Mrs O'Regan had an alcohol problem that seemed to be well known (among the inmates), but wasn't sacked immediately.

I see the pink thing in the laundry was back in its usual prominence, after a break from the series - perhaps for a short panto season. Hung between the driers (comme toujours), and later suspended from the ceiling, presumably trying to upstage Sam Greenway. Other old props that have come back to haunt us.. I saw Phil (Dreary) Cleary's grinning face peering down from the rec room wall. Yes, Sam Greenway's drawings seem to be all over the place now she's been frazzled.

Surprising how there was an appearance and listing in the star-studded credits, for "Waiter". Not only did he get a whole line to himself, which seemed totally indulgent for a 3-second appearance, but he didn't actually come into contact with any of the characters - only a non-speaking background person who he took to a table. Bet Lorna and gang were really p*ssed off.

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