![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Call the Midwife 5.04
In which it turns out that what I thought was a once off subplot in 5.01. will be an arc plot!
Which, the more I think about it, is a great storytelling decision, because Contergan (or Distaval, or Thalidomide, as I've learned it was called in other countries) affected so many that dealing with it in a single episode which has a happy ending for the child and family in question would probably be too facile. What Sister Julienne observes here is the grim counterpoint to the Susan story: the handicapped child not only dies but its death is deliberately hastened by the hospital , and it would have died alone if she hadn't found it. She also finds out that there have been several children born with similar deformations, shares that information with Shelagh and Dr. Turner, who get on the case but of course have no way of coming up with the correct answer (yet). Dr. Turner's first theory being nuclear fallout because one of the fathers has been stationed in New Zealand and near an atom bomb test site is a very 1960s touch. The subplot also illustrates the dangers of withheld or buried information: because such births are covered up and not reported, the Turners have no way to know this isn't just a local phenomenon. Google tells me that the Contergan/Thalidomide/Distaval scandal was uncovered in the years 1961 and 1962, so in the showverse, the Turners don't need to be on a quixotic quest - maybe they'll contribute to the discovery.
(Mind you, I did wonder at first what the point of the "Sister Julienne takes a stint in the hospital" plot would be, because we've already done the "hospitals are more impersonal and hectic" thing with Jenny back in season 2 or 3. And then the second birth happened...)
Speaking of ongoing subplots, here the Trixie-Barbara-Tom one comes to a head and end, and I'm glad. The other ongoing personal relationships subplot, Delia and Patsy having to keep their relationship secret, otoh, has me worried a bit what will happen when/if someone inevitably walks in on them one day. Because on the one hand, this is a show with female friendship and solidarity as primary values, but on the other, it did take the trouble to point out last season that period homophobia is present in many of our regulars, and while I can see one or two getting over it via realisation triggered by friendship and be happy for Patsy and Delia, I can't see the entire cast doing so, even on this show.
Non-Contergan-case of the week: set up an unsolvable dilemma and solved it via a deus ex machina ploy (i.e. the stillbirth), but I was shamelessly relieved regardless, because it was really one of these situations where you sympathize with everyone, and there was no fair way out for any of them: Linda having to cope as a single mother with the social stigma, no job and little support would have been terrible for her, while her boyfriend having to abandon his future at the university in father of a factory life he hated would have been terrible for him. In conclusion, the pill can't arrive soon enough.
Random thoughts:
- Sister Julienne being shaken by what she witnesses leads to some touching demonstrations of sisterly help from Sisters Monica Joan and Mary Cynthia, and love the use of the HIldegard of Bingen quote at the end.
- hello, Timothy! Long time, no see. My, how you've grown.
- Delia and Patsy as Anita Ekberg fans make me wonder whether someone is going to cosplay her most famous scene at a London fountain...
Which, the more I think about it, is a great storytelling decision, because Contergan (or Distaval, or Thalidomide, as I've learned it was called in other countries) affected so many that dealing with it in a single episode which has a happy ending for the child and family in question would probably be too facile. What Sister Julienne observes here is the grim counterpoint to the Susan story: the handicapped child not only dies but its death is deliberately hastened by the hospital , and it would have died alone if she hadn't found it. She also finds out that there have been several children born with similar deformations, shares that information with Shelagh and Dr. Turner, who get on the case but of course have no way of coming up with the correct answer (yet). Dr. Turner's first theory being nuclear fallout because one of the fathers has been stationed in New Zealand and near an atom bomb test site is a very 1960s touch. The subplot also illustrates the dangers of withheld or buried information: because such births are covered up and not reported, the Turners have no way to know this isn't just a local phenomenon. Google tells me that the Contergan/Thalidomide/Distaval scandal was uncovered in the years 1961 and 1962, so in the showverse, the Turners don't need to be on a quixotic quest - maybe they'll contribute to the discovery.
(Mind you, I did wonder at first what the point of the "Sister Julienne takes a stint in the hospital" plot would be, because we've already done the "hospitals are more impersonal and hectic" thing with Jenny back in season 2 or 3. And then the second birth happened...)
Speaking of ongoing subplots, here the Trixie-Barbara-Tom one comes to a head and end, and I'm glad. The other ongoing personal relationships subplot, Delia and Patsy having to keep their relationship secret, otoh, has me worried a bit what will happen when/if someone inevitably walks in on them one day. Because on the one hand, this is a show with female friendship and solidarity as primary values, but on the other, it did take the trouble to point out last season that period homophobia is present in many of our regulars, and while I can see one or two getting over it via realisation triggered by friendship and be happy for Patsy and Delia, I can't see the entire cast doing so, even on this show.
Non-Contergan-case of the week: set up an unsolvable dilemma and solved it via a deus ex machina ploy (i.e. the stillbirth), but I was shamelessly relieved regardless, because it was really one of these situations where you sympathize with everyone, and there was no fair way out for any of them: Linda having to cope as a single mother with the social stigma, no job and little support would have been terrible for her, while her boyfriend having to abandon his future at the university in father of a factory life he hated would have been terrible for him. In conclusion, the pill can't arrive soon enough.
Random thoughts:
- Sister Julienne being shaken by what she witnesses leads to some touching demonstrations of sisterly help from Sisters Monica Joan and Mary Cynthia, and love the use of the HIldegard of Bingen quote at the end.
- hello, Timothy! Long time, no see. My, how you've grown.
- Delia and Patsy as Anita Ekberg fans make me wonder whether someone is going to cosplay her most famous scene at a London fountain...
no subject
no subject