Call the Midwife 4.06

[selenak]

This season really has a theme of changes, methinks.



Sure, some things stay the same. Sister Evangelina returns; Cynthia has her first case as a midwife since becoming Sister Mary Cynthia, and she's just as competent and compassionate as she ever was. But with Sister Monica Joan being ever more fragile, Sister Evangelina just leaves it as at a half hearted remark, they don't spar anymore; instead, the new sparring partners seem to be Evangelina and Nurse (Phyllis) Crane who gets fleshed out here beyond grumpy and competent. It occured me during watching that Phyllis Crane is the first middleaged-to-old woman with a recurring role here we see who's single but not a nun, covering yet another way of female life. She's obviously not poor (having a car, the first of the midwives to do so), was, as we find out here, born out of wedlock at a time when that was even more of a stigma than it's in 1960, and while she can be high handed with the other nurses, her rapport with the patients (and their significant others) so far seems to be excellent. Then there's that moment of vulnerability when after having announced her intention to go to the dance she hears the younger nurses giggle and laugh after having closed the door. It's a neat pov reversal, because usually the audience is with the younger nurses, but here the camera moves outside with Phyllis Crane, and suddenly that cheer feels thoughtlessly cruel.

Patsy's girlfriend is in this episode again (I nearly wrote "is back" but that would be wrongly phrased, as the character didn't go anywhere, we just haven't seen her in an episode for a while), which brings to mind another change: an ongoing same sex relationship involving one of the main characters of the show. I love the way they've been handling this so far; you can see it's a good relationship and they're happy with each other, but at the same time, there's the ever present social pressure (Patsy and her girlfriend can dance together as part of a group dance, but they can't waltz without giving themselves away - and this immediately makes me wish they would - maybe in the season finale?) And the fear to be completely honest with Patsy's other friends. At least legal change will happen in this decade (though unless I misremember, wasn't the British law against homosexuals so weirdly phrased that it covered only the men, not the women?), and social change will start, but as we saw in the episode earlier this season with Tony, even some of our heroines are bound to have a less than admirable reaction if/when Patsy comes out.

In season 3 or 2, I forget which one, there was an episode where a woman needed to have an abortion (she already had more children than she could support, she was worn out, lived in a tiny tiny room etc.) but couldn't get a legal one, which meant she went to a back alley abortionist which put her life at risk This episode, otoh, has a young woman/girl who can get a legal abortion and needs one for medical reasons (due to her diabetes) but doesn't want one; this show being this show, this doesn't mean she magically has the kid anyway without problems but that when she and her boyfriend realise this really is a serious health risk, their naive plan to run away crumbles, and the boyfriend brings her back to the clinic.

And then there's Fred, single for three seasons, acquiring a ladyfriend. I suspected something like this might be in the cards when they introduced her last episode. So far they're very endearing together, and it's nice to see Fred have a life outside working for the midwives.

Lastly: Timothy's actor has grown up immensely, no wonder the show had no choice but to have the characters acknowledge it in dialogue! The bit with the short trousers versus long trousers reminds me that my Aged Parent waged just this battle with the grandparents, and I was amused and went "aw" when Patrick Turner solved the problem by buying the trousers but bringing them up to Shelagh at a point where she was bound to agree due to sheer adorableness of the moment.

Lovely background detail: Shelagh singing with the nuns. Last season there was the episode where Sister Julienne and she talked about her love of music and missing the singing. And there is no reason why she shouldn't sing with them again. Plus it made for an effective shot of her with Cynthia and reminder of their reverse ways, both validated by the show.

Comments

[jesuswasbatman]

Yes, there was no actual law in the UK against lesbianism. The usual urban legend is that Queen Victoria refused to believe that it existed, or was so confused when it was brought up that her ministers were too shy to explain (both of which are pretty ridiculous when you know about Victoria definitely not being in real-life a blushing ignorant asexual virgin). The more likely explanation is that it was down to "only acts involving a penis count as sex" thinking.

[selenak]

I had heard the Victoria anecdote, but had dismissed it for the same reason. Hm, so, old English lawgivers resemble slash fanfiction writers in that there must be penetration, or a pairing doesn't count. :)

Law and slash

[legionseagle]

There absolutely had to be a penis in a vagina for there to be rape (up to about 2003 iirc) or adultery (current, I think, though the significance is less since any other shenanigans since 1973 if not earlier could be brought in as unreasonable behaviour and anyway, as the Brighton hotel and professional co- respondent stuff showed, it usually was presumed to have occurred unless the issue was contested) In fact as recently as two years ago, when the same sex marriage bill was going through parliament the Church of England as part of its opposition put in a paper (which is linked on my dw somewhere tagged CoE ) which basically restated the need for PIV sex for marriage, even though they'd been happily marrying people with paraplegia or on their death beds or otherwise unlikely to manage PIV sex for centuries.