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I still found myself puzzling over the scene where May and Willie were arguing about Willie's collection of junk yesterday, and the items included a deflated inner tube. What on earth was one of those doing inside a prison, for her to get hold of it? Was there a black market in rubber inflatables?
Anyway, back to this episode, which started as seems the norm these days, with a recap sequence dubbed over with amusingly inappropriate music. Last episode, Meg found the unconscious Joycie while theatrical tense music played.. this episode, the music had changed to hilarious sci-fi space music. Hmm.. we never did find out what it was that Joyce had taken.
Of course, Meg's Siamese twin Dennis just happened to be on hand, so after I assume Joyce had thrown up the worst of the overdose, the goody-goody twins started walking her around the room, presumably to increase her heart rate, increase her breathing, pump the remaining poison around her system quicker and possibly kill her off in the process. "Meg! If you hadn't found me..!" cried Joyce, obviously realising the humiliation of being seen dead in that awful frilly pink dressing gown.
Finally Joyce seemed to have been given something to show her acting talents with, with the emotional post-overdose scenes, and then the interestingly out-of-character 'tough' scene telling off Lexie. While she shows she's not a bad actress in the more serious scenes, I still think her real forte is with comedy, and her performance adds a welcome touch of light relief sometimes, which I hope the writers keep in mind, rather than sacrificing it for more 'serious' stuff.
In any case, she decided to leave Norm for good, and she commented on how he kept saying "Whatever you think's best" as she was trying to talk seriously to him about divorce. Interesting to see that shortly after all this, Mervin responded to something she said with "whatever you think's best, Joyce." All change for her, then.
Ruth Ballinger continued to be interesting and creepy, suggesting "death by heroine overdose" for Myra. Wonderfully sinister.
Poor Ettie, desperately trying to milk the laughs out of a tired old gag for all it's worth. So busy plotting an elaborate hold-up or something, with the help of Australia's biggest crooks. Surely all she needed to do was go and pinch a bottle of booze from the off license to get thrown back into the high security Wentworth. Seemed to work alright for Doreen or Lizzie if I remember right.
Interesting to notice at the old folks home, the crisp-munching dotty old lady was none other than Rita's Aunty Ida, who seems to pop up every so often.. as a different dotty old lady.
Andrea Radcliffe crawled out of the background shadows for a few lines all to herself. I've often wondered why she'd been kept out of the main action and deprived of lines. Today I think I figured out why. How about that search she carried out on Joan? Did she check all her pockets? Empty her bag on the counter? Frisk her? Make her walk through the metal detector that all prisons except Wentworth have? Er.. no. She peeped into Joan's handbag as Joan held it open, allowing her to wander into the prison with a stash of marijuana, heroine, acid and assorted other nasties. Thank god security had been tightened up so much.
I was a little worried at Willie's bundle of reclaimed items from the kitchen - or "Objets d'art" as she chose to call them. They included a wooden spoon that had been snapped in half. Was this caused by stirring the breakfast porridge, I wondered? And more disturbingly, what had happened to the missing half of the handle?
Nice touch with Julie again - this time when she was stoned, and coming out with all the highly intelligent facts and figures, but even then dismissing it as something she 'must have read in the paper or seen on TV'.
Interesting to see the anti-drugs-Top-Dog-gets-slipped-acid storyline recycled again with Myra this time, reminding me of when Bea Smith was slipped magic mushrooms by Marie Winter. Nice to have something more interesting for Myra to do other than come into the laundry, moan a bit and look miserable. So within minutes, it all went very woop-woop-wooooooop again (nice to see the symptoms of taking acid are identical to having a brain tumour, if the sound effects are anything to go by). Cue another fabulous Prisoner dream-like sequence, which are always good for a belly-laugh. Distorted faces, laughing, blurry images.. I kept looking out for the gold-painted Meg in judges outfit again.
This was followed up by Joan finding drugs hidden under Myra's sink. And of course the possibility that it could all be a set-up doesn't seem to have even crossed the prison staff's minds. I mean, that would never happen in a prison, surely..?
Not sure what happened with the new 'tough' Ann. The other episode, she told Ruth that if her private phone line (yes try not to laugh) was used by the other inmates, Ruth would be "sent to solitary". And this episode, she told her that she knew she'd been making calls on other prisoners' behalves, which was as good as.. and if she did it again (i.e. giving her another chance) she'd be sent to solitary. Er, not very scary really.
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