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The return of Ettie to Wentworth. For someone who's generally thought of as a dotty old bird, she impressed me quite a bit this episode. First of all, not only did she know exactly where to find the boss of a notorious crime gang and turn up on his doorstep the other day, but today it appears she also knew his phone number. (Assuming she didn't look him up in the phone book, which is even less probable.) And despite Ann's "get tough" approach on security (which seems to have been forgotten as suddenly as it was started), she was able to telephone this infamous villain from the comfort of her own high security prison, and even arrange a visit from him. Well, from one of his henchmen as it turned out. "You must tell me how you met him," asked Ruth, perhaps realising the improbability of Ettie walking into Fellowes' office just like that. And hopefully when she finds out, she'll tell the rest of us too.
Ruth in the meantime, had a couple of nice little scenes of her own. Standing in the cell doorway, I loved the sarcastic sneer on her face when Ettie told her about Meg and Dennis' engagement. "Splendid," she said. "What a lovely couple." I also loved the little scene when she realised that Ettie had got her message completely wrong, and we saw the first suggestion of Ruth Ballinger feeling not in control. Quite subtle, and well done.
Odd however, when she realised her secret stash of drugs was missing, she immediately started throwing open cupboard doors and feeling inside pillow cases. Not sure if this was because she thought she might have got the package confused with her nightie and put it under her pillow, or because she seriously thought whoever had taken the drugs might have hidden them in her room for a bit of a laugh.
Poor Myra, desperately needing something interesting to do in the plot. She ordered Lexie not to go near Ruth, deliberately not giving her a reason why. No doubt she'd be surprised if Lexie took no notice. And from nowhere, dressmaking classes seemed to have popped up, and there was even one of those wooden dummies they use. A little confusing when Meg stood a bit too close to it, but thankfully someone bumped into it and it moved, so that solved that. (Ok I wasn’t being entirely serious - I shouldn't be nasty about Meg when the poor thing's had relatively little to do this episode apart from eating cake - hardly an opportunity to show us what she's capable of.)
Pippa was still being an annoying brat, saying she needed "a couple of hours to shift a headache." Presumably the headache she wanted to shift was called Simon. I guess her appearance in the series at the same time as Jenny Hartley was to emphasize the difference between their personalities. I find it just makes both characters more than usually unlikeable, making Pippa seem all the more arrogant and brattish, and Jenny all the more weedy and mouselike. I was a bit puzzled about her "Nana", because she'd been referred to as Mrs Hartley, yet I got the impression her daughter was Jenny's mother, which would suggest a different surname for Jenny. But maybe I just assumed wrongly.
Nice to see Nana had employed the services of Mrs Overall. When she teetered in with her floral pinny and tea tray, I was eagerly waiting for her to offer them a macaroon. Very strange camera shot and composition in this scene, I noticed, with Mrs Goddard, Pippa and Jenny all standing at equal distance from each other, in a perfect diagonal line, all looking up in the same direction. Not sure what this was meant to achieve, but it was noticeable anyway. "The only thing wrong with her," snapped a bitter and angry Jenny, "is pure spite!" Thus exposing us to the most unintentionally amusing piece of acting all episode.
"Why can't she just die and let me be free?" said Jenny to Ann. And shortly after, we saw the strange was-it-a-dream-or-was-it-real sequence, where a mystery intruder sneaked into Nana's bedroom and tried to suffocate her. Naturally whoever it was had black leather gloves on, as is usually the case in Prisoner when we aren't supposed to know who it is, and presumably so we can mistakenly think Joan Ferguson has gone on a blood rampage in middle-class suburbia. But with the accompanying "woop-woop-woooooop" music, I wondered if the old woman hadn't been taking LSD, or needed a brain operation.
Speaking of LSD, Meg said to Dennis, "It's almost impossible to stamp out drugs." I couldn't help but laugh at this line, when security checks seem to involve little more than signing a book, and giving someone a flash of the inside of your handbag. And poor old Joyce, after her disastrous evening with Merv, where she singed her caramel pudding and cleaned up Mervin's broom-cupboard flat a bit too well. ("My clippings!") She was so annoyed that shortly after walking in on Meg getting her mouth round a big portion of Dennis' pudding, she walked out and slammed the door so hard the picture to the right of it almost fell off the wall hideously injuring Meg.
"I am what I am, Terri," said Joan in the bar, and I thought she was about to burst into a cliched gay anthem. "Sometimes people get the wrong idea about lesbians." Wow! I must admit it felt a bit odd hearing her actually say the word. I don’t remember the word actually coming up in the series before.
Finally, after recently witnessing that nice teacher (Mrs Kennedy?) from Neighbours stoned on marijuana, we now got good old Pippa from Home & Away snorting cocaine, in between talking to her tropical plants. ("If you're expecting an answer, you got a long wait," said Lou.) Where else on TV do you get stuff as good as this?
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