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An episode featuring no less than 4 'set-ups'.
Set-up (1) - To try to remove Rita's influence over the women (with the boycott of the shop). Rodney's overtly racist comments got a reaction from Rita, which gave him an excuse to put her on a charge and send her to solitary. Loved the way she decided to get her money's worth out of the charge, and whacked him on the hose. Joan relayed the news of Rita's punishment to Ann, by bursting into her office during a private meeting, blabbing out the presumably confidential details in front of a visitor. Strangely, Ann didn't seem to be bothered by (or even notice) Joan's unprofessional behaviour.
Later the women had a vote to decide whether to relax the boycott on 'legit' (only) goods in the shop, and the vote was "five to two". Blimey, 7 prisoners are enough to make decisions binding on the whole prison? Or perhaps this was an unusually quiet time of year and that's all there were inside?
Sarah wanted to talk to Rita, so along came the next Set-up (2), with Sarah deliberately setting herself up to be thrown into solitary, after squirting (the already fairly wet) Delia with a handy hose-pipe that she happened to know would be lying around. This also marked a nice turning point in Sarah's relationship with Rita, finally looking to her as a friend, rather than battling against her.
Sarah's scheme had involved a "bull-roarer" - a highly dangerous piece of apparatus (and therefore barely given a second glance by the officers), that is swung above the head, to make a loud noise, and possibly kill anyone who comes within a 5 feet radius. Sarah had made this in the workshop, apparently unsupervised, while everyone was elsewhere (possibly in the library looking up the word 'security'). This also led to some nice scenes between Sarah and Merle and their developing friendship, which I thought was nicely done.
Meanwhile, it was revealed that Rodney really had made the racist remarks, and Rita was released from solitary after a talk from Ann. Interesting parallels were drawn between the two powerful women, suggesting that they might seem at opposite poles, but weren't all that different underneath. Ann made a comment about Rita making a "good welfare officer", and Rita said she always thought Ann would be a "good Top Dog". Interesting.
There still remained the problem of the women not buying illegal goods, so along came the third Set-up (3). Quite a clever number, used to discredit Alice and remove her hold over the women, starting with her being hit over the head from behind (rendering her instantly unconscious, of course). Then as she came round, alcohol was forced into her mouth. Within seconds of finding her, the fickle women were off on a booze-buying spree, and so here endeth the boycott.
I've had plenty of 'full English breakfasts', and 'continental breakfasts' in my time, but I'm not sure if I'm ready for the Australian equivalent. According to Merle's scene, it seems to feature "hot salami", lashings of "chilli sauce", and pizza. Er, yum..
Back at the shed/shop, the more I look at the internal and external scenes, the more it seems like two completely different buildings. There appear to be more windows in the external version, and the door seems in the wrong place. In the internal scenes, the end window faces full on to brick wall a foot or so away from it, yet outside there is no sign of a brick wall. Maybe it's like some kind of Tardis and teleports itself around.
The shop was the scene of the final Set-up (4), with Joan interrupting Rita's fight with Kath, before demolishing several shelves (thankfully not denting any of the tinned peaches), and claiming it was Rita performing an act of vandalism. "In my capacity as Acting Governor," barked Joan in dictatorial manner, not wasting a minute of her temporary power, "I am transferring Rita Connors to Blackmoor immediately!"
Oo-er..
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