selenak

In which Jenny returns and everyone's subplots thicken.

Also, the main case of the week showcases the social stigma attached to mental problems at that point (and not only then), which offers a good counterpart to the ongoing plot with the Turners. Pamela being treated for post natal depression and *insert proper medical name for illness which I don't know by heart* translates for her husband as "being in the nuthouse", a source of shame, and he imagines the neighbours looking at him with ridicule; Patrick Turner might know better (and knows that Shelagh does), but he still isn't able to speak about those post war months in a psychiatric institution. (Which were the secret he tried to keep last week.) Pamela gets better - and incidentally, since there are so many horror stories about electric shock treatment (Sylvia Plath famously hated it and described it in a ghastly way in The Bell Jar) in the 50s, this is the first time I see it shown as actually helpful to the patient as intended - and her husband comes through; the adoption agency, otoh, is less than thrilled. I repeat my prediction that we'll get a big conversation/confession about the secret, i.e. those moths, between the turners, but probably no adopted child.

Meanwhile, Jenny is back, and the show critiques the impersonalized care at hospitals through her perspective. It's a still unresolved point, I guess; on the one hand, the increase of patients at a hospital being solved by an increase of shifts and personnel makes sense, otoh, it means some unnecessary oversights that can be very hurtful (nobody bothering to tell Jenny's patient that her child is fine, for example).

Trixie and Tom the Curate: have another foiled date as Tom can't dance and fakes needy parishioners, but then it's Fred and Patsy to the rescue with emergency dance lessons. I confess I am ridiculously charmed by the whole affair. And by Fred, who continues to be fabulous. (As I said in a comment: I want a Fred of my own! Everyone should have one.) No wonder Chummy named her son after him.

Chummy and her mother: are as dysfunctional as ever, but the series also shows that while the woman is a dreadful snob, her inability to show approval or warmth comes with a great loneliness of her own and a loveless husband, not to mention the proverbial stiff upper lip surpressing the pain her tumors cause her. I'm not clear how the whole financial cutting off by Chummy's father is supposed to work, though; wouldn't he be obliged by law to support her as long as they're legally married? BTW, Miranda Hart was at her most expressive; just the look on Chummy's face during that dinner was devastating.