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Starting again with bizarre music over the opening recap sequence, with Ettie's "comedy" sequence of her in Lone Ranger gear, dubbed over with strangely inappropriate 'sad' music. The incidental music has really gone very strange, as I have mentioned before, and will comment on later.
Joan still seems to be enjoying a 'nasty' phase, which has given her a few good lines. Like when she said to Myra;
"You're finished here. We're just speeding up the inevitable."
And when she responded to Dennis' revoltingly nice comments about her being set-up;
"Yes, bad business all round. So you can shove the white flag in mothballs."
More sickening scenes with Dennis and Meg, the goody-goody twins. I loved his description of Joan and Myra - "They stood in that corner like Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee" - to Meg, both standing there like Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee. I also loved the scene where Dennis was lounged on the armchair, with his bare feet up in full view of the camera, and Meg walked in saying "What's that awful smell..?"
For a moment, I thought Joycie had been stealing Meg's lines, when Joan looked at her and said, "You look as though you've had a hard night". "A long one," replied Joycie. Joyce seems at last to be getting a noticeable storyline, a pity it isn't remotely interesting. Odd how a scene of her picking up a dirty sock was given the pathos treatment. So she had decided to leave her Norm - a fat, middle-aged, greying, irritating man - for Mervin, who was so completely different.
In addition to the deliciously interesting and wicked Ruth Ballinger (loved the way she calmly offered Joan some "pate de fois..?", before later telling her "now run along"), Julie had started to become a little more interesting. Not only did her character seem to be developing nicely, but we've also seen a couple of very nice bits of acting. Unfortunately (as so often happens recently) these subtle and moving scenes were completely spoiled by heavy-handed incidental music. First of all, in her scene after the phone call to her mother - as if someone suddenly switched on a tape of whiney sad music half way through her most touching bit; and later, in what would have been a lovely scene between her and Lexie, the unsubtle pathos music completely distracted me from what was happening in the scene.
Lexie was just one of a few characters who seemed to have got a new look. Hot on the tail of Joan's new shorter, brylcreemed hairdo, we got Lexie with high, spiky hair and sub-Duran Duran make-up. We also got Lionel Fellowes complete with new beard, and almost impossible to tell from his lookalike henchman.
Loved how Ettie turned up on the doorstep of this major villain ("I need a good criminal and I heard you're the best"). She told him she'd heard about him from the girls in both Barnhurst and Wentworth. It would seem that they'd also written down his full address as well, so that she could find it so easily. Unless she got it from Yellow Pages, of course. Nice reference to "Brenda" doing his forgeries, I noticed. (Brenda Hewitt, from the time Sonia Stevens appeared in Wentworth).
Nice to see Lorna getting a big moment this episode, trying to dress the statue in a pink cardie. Who needs scenes of violence and corruption when you can get stuff like this?
"I meant what I said, no drugs!" No, not Myra whingeing and moaning, but Nora, talking about her pregnancy to Meg. Interestingly, at the same time as she was unscrewing the lid of what looked like a bottle of pills, sitting next to her bedside cabinet on which I counted six medicine/tablet bottles.
On to the inevitable.. Jenny Hartley (yawn) and her "Nana", reminding me a bit too much of Barbara Cartland without the make-up. What a peculiar door into Nana's bedroom - when the door was open, the gap between the door jamb and the door (where the hinges go) was about 3 or 4 inches wide (when it's normally about half an inch at most), allowing us to clearly see the actress waiting to come into the scene. They must have enormous hinges, or perhaps the door was only there for show? And poor Jenny. "She might as well be locked up in Wentworth for all the freedom she gets!" declared Ann's daughter, Pippa Bonham-Carter. Hmm.. Jenny did seem to be getting rather a lot of dialogue for a non-prisoner, I noticed. Didn't stop her being any less irritating though, and when the two girls were in the garden taking Pippa's hairdo for an airing, the only thing that kept me interested was the possibility that if Pippa stood still long enough, the gardener might try to prune her. Interesting how Ann disapproved so much of her daughter's taste in lovers, after she slept with a scruffy old hermit called Wally so many times.
And finally, how about that final scene with Joycie spread out on Meg's carpet like a big pink hearth rug? Loved the fabulously over-theatrical music as Meg found her, reminding me of how much I missed the Benny Hill show.
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