Season Three has arrived and I couldn’t have predicted what
would happen, not in my wildest dreams!
The Christmas Special starts off the season with a strong
note and a sort of theme that carries throughout the season. Underground, near Nonnatus House, an
unexploded bomb has been discovered, meaning the entire area (several square
blocks) must be evacuated. Everyone, including the midwives, nuns and Chummy (Miranda
Hart) and baby Freddie, along with countless others are put in a shelter until
the bomb is dealt with. This move stirs up old war wounds for the husband of an
overdue patient of Jenny’s (Jessica Raine’s). And it reveals some of Trixie’s
(Helen George’s) past. The husband did his service in Korea and it haunts him
to this day, though his pregnant wife normally can handle him, but simple
sounds, including boys playing hockey in the streets can set him off and he
smells blood on a daily basis. This inspires Trixie and Jenny to ask Sisters
Julienne (Jenny Agutter) and Evangelina (Pam Ferris) to allow the husband in
the delivery room, believing that it will do both husband and wife some good. Though
both nuns, especially Sister Evangelina, are against this, it happens anyway,
leading to one of the sweetest deliveries on the series, with the husband able
to both support and be in awe of his wife, relishing in what they created
together. Trixie mentions that this blood is good. It doesn’t even matter if
the baby is a boy or girl, they already love it and the gender is never
mentioned.
It is also revealed that Trixie’s past isn’t as happy as her
personality would lead you to believe. Her father also suffered from severe
shell shock and it would be her job to entertain him during the day. This is
George’s best scene, showing very emotion etched on her face. This leads Jenny
to understand why she is so adamant about the whole thing.
Now, to my favorite couple. Shelagh (Laura Main) is isolated
from the others, feeling guilty as hell for betraying the nuns. Sister Monica Joan (Judy Parfitt) has some especially
great lines, calming mentioning that Shelagh picked the sin of flesh over the
religious life. She and Dr. Turner (Stephen McGann) are opting for a small
wedding on Christmas Eve, but fate has other plans. Timothy (Max Macmillan) is becoming sick,
sneaking pills from his father’s medicine bag to stave off his illness so the
wedding isn’t ruined. But nothing could have prepared Shelagh for what she
finds when she arrives at the Turner home (hers has been executed because of
the bomb), Timothy is so sick he can’t even sit up. The diagnosis: Polio. This
disease is an epidemic and another boy, in the same Troop as Timothy, also just
become ill, but Timothy is much worse. Shelagh reacts just as a mother would
once he is treated at the hospital. She apologizes to Dr. Turner, but he
doesn’t blame her. Instead, they both comfort Timothy together. He is so sick
that he needs an iron lung to help him breathe, but fortunately, he soon
recovers.
His illness also inspires Shelagh to reconcile fully with
Sister Julienne and gets the needed help with her wedding and fortunately buys
a nicer dress (one that is actually white and lacy as opposed to that dull,
grey suit). She even has her nails painted for the first time and opts to wear
her glasses because she wants to see the groom. And the wedding is gorgeous,
Shelagh says that it should be Sister Julienne giving her away (we learned
earlier that her mother died when she was only a girl), but Sister Julienne
says that isn’t necessary. Dr. Turner is practically beaming when she walks
down the aisle and so the show ends. For the record, Trixie, Jenny and Cynthia
(Bryony Hannah) are the bridesmaids.
As for the rest of the season, a lot of ground was covered,
from the first episode which deals with the virtually unknown disease cystic
fibrosis and Chummy struggling with her new life as stay-at-home mom to the
final tearful episode, it is packed.
Chummy does great work in the first episode, which also
involves the midwives moving to a new location, by using her royal connections
to help open the new clinic, bringing attention to its location and then
delivers a baby in an emergency and it is a difficult delivery. Sister Julienne decides that she could return
to work part-time, and Chummy is thrilled with that.
The season continues with Jenny getting a promotion over
Trixie, nearly causing them to have a fall-out, dealing with yet another mother
who had an affair with a black man and getting pregnant because of it. Trixie
is less than pleased when Jenny doesn’t even tell her about the whole thing and
this time, things don’t have a happy ending, with the mother putting the baby
up for adoption and lying to neighbors, saying the baby died, all because her
husband is a nasty, jealous man. The whole time I was thinking about the same
plot line done in season one and luckily, Trixie mentioned just that, saying
that she could help Jenny deal with the whole thing.
Trixie and Sister Julienne also help out the pregnant women
in a prison and despite one of the girls blatantly lying to them, Sister
Julienne still decides to throw her a bone and help her out. The girl can keep
her baby. And there’s the young woman who hates having to ask her husband for
help even though she just had an extremely difficult delivery, though her
husband says that now it is his turn to take care of her, showing that men
should have a bigger part in the whole childbirth thing.
Then Cynthia helps deal with a patient whose mother suffers
from severe agoraphobia and possibly a serious illness before helping a
pregnant woman with Down’s Syndrome. The latter was more interesting as the
pregnancy was from consensual sex, not rape as everyone believed at first. But
what killed me is that the woman’s parents were relieved when the baby came early
and was stillborn. It was super upsetting. And this is before Cynthia deals
with yet another upsetting case, one involving a new mother who goes absolutely
paranoid, worried about the germs affecting the baby and wanting to clean her all
the time and finally, nearly jumps into the Thames (at I think it’s the Thames,
it is certainly a river), causing her husband lots of distress. The mother is
taken to a mental institution where she eventually recovers and her husband
comes to terms with her being in a place like that.
The girls’ personal lives are just as exciting as the cases
they handle.
At the end of season two, Jenny met an architect friend of
Jimmy’s (George Rainsford), Alec (Leo Starr) and their relationship begins,
though Alec is more into Jenny than she is to him, though she does think that
something may actually happen between the two, something she never thought
would happen with her and Jimmy. But then, tragedy strikes when Alec falls and
suffers a broken leg which eventually kills him in a shocking turn of events, leading
Jenny to leave the house for a brief period before working at a hospital in
London though she hates impersonal everything is there.
Trixie likes the new pastor in town, Tom (Jack Ashton), but
their relationship starts off rough, when a polo date goes horribly wrong as
the Cub Scout troop Tom is in charge of joins them and the bus breaks down and
he cancels on a dancing date because he’s too nervous to tell her he can’t
dance. But by the end of the season, things seem to be turning around as she
kisses him. Whatever happens, it promises to be exciting.
Sister Evangelina also has a party thrown in her honor, and
we learn about her past. Her real name is Enid, which is just awful and her
younger brother has a horrible drinking problem.
There are also new characters. Sister Winifred (Victoria
Yeates) is the newest young nun who doesn’t relate well to the cases she deals
with. She is timid and nervous about the whole thing, but finally puts her
fears aside to begin enjoying her job. Patsy (Emerald Fennel) is the newest
nurse who has a troubled past, so much so that she isn’t sympathetic at all to
the patients she deals with because she doesn’t believe in coddling them. Her
past? She was in a prison camp in Singapore during the war and lost her whole
family during that time. Though these new characters have their moments, they
are not as interesting as the old ones, but again, there’s nothing wrong with
them and hopefully they’ll be given more interesting arks in future seasons.
As for my favorite couple, things start out with such
promise but quickly get shot to hell when Shelagh learns that she has scar
tissue from her tuberculosis in her uterus, meaning that she is incapable of
having children. (Also, it is super awkward when you’re married to someone who
treated you at a personal level, for the record.) Naturally, she takes the news
hard, especially when she had already made a beautiful outfit for the thought
about child. She donates the outfit to the church (Sister Julienne
specifically) and devotes herself to new hobbies, including reviving the local
community choir. Then, she learns of adoption and persuades Dr. Turner about
that option though she barely had to twist his arm at all. And just when you
thought things were going too smoothly, you thought wrong. Turns out that Dr.
Turner has his own dark secret, he suffered a mental breakdown after World War
II and the adoption agency is concerned about that. Shelagh is not pleased that
he is busy helping others when he can’t even help himself, leading them to
become short with each other as the finale looms.
The finale is upsetting, as Chummy’s mother (Cheryl
Campbell) is dying from the ‘Big C’, as the doctors refuse to even say the
word, cancer. Lady Browne is staying with her daughter while she dies, which
triggers some sad memories for Sister Monica Joan who never had a close relationship
with her mother. Chummy doesn’t even touch her mother unless it’s on a
professional level until she gives her a manicure. Jenny also wants to care for
Lady Browne, feeling called to do so, but Sister Julienne refuses that demand.
Lady Browne dies, though on somewhat better terms with the daughter that was
sent away to boarding school and Peter (Ben Caplan) is there to support his
wife. This also inspires Jenny to permanently leave Nonnatus house to help
those dying from all sorts of illnesses. I understand that Jessica Raine wanted
to leave the show, and at least they didn't kill her off, but of course, they couldn't
have done that as she would write about her life in a memoir, but it closes off
her story line perfectly. She even met her future husband (the cousin of her
patient) in this episode and she spoils her whole story line at the end, as she
would marry him and have two daughters with him.
Dr. Turner and Shelagh are approved for adoption, and they
decide to mend the fences. Shelagh also busily prepares her choir for a concert
but she will never go as a baby immediately becomes available, leading to
another sweet moment. Dr. Turner offers to let Shelagh go into the nursery
first, but she says that this is the closest she will ever get to giving birth
and she wants, no needs him to be with her.
And the moment is truly touching as he places the tiny baby in her arms
and says “Here’s your mummy,” which unfortunately doesn't sound as sweet and
tender as it should.
The season ends with Jenny’s going away party and Fred
(Cliff Parisi) presenting her with her own bicycle. Everyone is there and
Sister Julienne even saved the homemade baby outfit so Shelagh’s baby girl can
wear the outfit her mother made for her with love, yet another touching moment
in a show full of them.
Sure, I wasn’t pleased about Jenny leaving the show for
good, especially since her move seemed like a sudden transition, without any
hint of that in the previous episodes, but I realized that slowly, throughout
the seasons, the show started to focus less on her and became more of an ensemble
piece. Despite everything, I think will be fine without her, but, no it won’t
be the same. At least they did her character justice, letting her leave because
she wanted to, not because of anything wrong. And she’s happy. I want the characters
to be happy especially when I like all the characters in this show, though I’m
basically indifferent to the new ones of Sister Winifred and Patsy. Yes, I
genuinely like all the characters, something which is super rare for me.
As for my predictions for next season (or possibly future
seasons), call my an optimist or whatever, but I think that Shelagh will defy
the odds and get pregnant anyway and will insist that Dr. Turner be there with
her. Okay, fine that might be the series finale, but I wanted to put it in
writing.
Again, the show is brilliant, with all the actors being
pitch perfect, playing complex and layered characters flawlessly, without a
false note ever. In fact, it barely seems like they’re acting, that’s how real
the characters are. You want to root for all of them and the love stories are
breathtakingly touching. And the writing is brilliant, bringing in a number of
issues and plot lines seamlessly, everything flowing together like butter.
Great cinematography, art and set decoration, editing, costumes and score. This
is a hidden gem of a TV series and more people (especially in America)should give
it a shot. This is everything a good show should be. Long gone are the days
when Jenny moped over her lost love, she get back to work wholeheartedly after
Alec’s death and never mentioned him again, proving that character growth
happens. I can’t wait for season four and I have to wait for nearly a year, but
you can look forward to posts by the episode, not the season. Grade: A-
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