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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 443458" data-attributes="member: 23">SecretscontinuedThe most haunting variation on the theme comes with Jan Hardy, the wife of a prominent town councillor, played by Maggie Dence (best known to me as Dorothy Burke from Neighbours). Hers is a car involved in the same accident as Maurie’s bus and she is admitted to hospital after a clear breathalyser test to treat her injuries. She insists upon leaving too soon, but soon reappears, visibly drunk and upset. Then she begins coughing up blood.Since Terence’s alcohol dependence still seems to be up in the air, there’s a low key air of hypocrisy to him being the one to challenge both Jan and her husband her over the fact that they won’t face up to her problem. It’s a nice little touch that Terence can be seen pouring himself a glass of whisky here and there in ostensibly unrelated scenes - something he has been doing consistently but subtly through the entire season. We’re not even told anything about Terence here. We’re simply shown, and if it registers, it registers.There’s a scene late in Part II which is touching in itself, but even more poignant in hindsight. Jan’s husband visits her hospital bedside, clearly disinterested in being there and seems set to leave after around twenty seconds. She reaches for his hand, evidently frightened, telling him he doesn’t have to go, and he says he can stay a few minutes more. That’s when someone comes into the room, and John takes the opportunity to extricate himself, pointedly removing her hand from his in the process. Minutes later, Jan haemorrhages and is unable to be saved.The visual of the staff working on her, face, clothes and bedding covered in blood is the grimmest, most visceral medical scene yet. It’s certainly the bloodiest. Paired with the two seizures we see Maurie have, it’s a grim episode all round.And it doesn’t end there. There’s also the spate of animal poisonings, with strychnine being used to kill seven local dogs. And it’s not just dogs affected. Molly finds a dead Joey.I must say, I do wonder about the very still animals used in this series. We’ve already seen it whenever Vicky does surgery. The animals are clearly real and also evidently not conscious. Are they subjecting animals to risky anaesthesia for realism in our entertainment? Are they sourcing dead dogs and kangaroos? Or, god forbid, are they killing animals to use? Am I watching the world’s longest-running snuff series? Considering the series’ focus on animal lovers, I like to hope it’s just very effective techniques fooling me.As to the identity of the poisoner. I’m pleased to say I called it in their one and only scene ahead of the reveal, which had a major red flag. When Vicky is warning locals of the poisoner, she speaks to [ISPOILER]a woman with a cat who says she always keeps her cat indoors since her other cat died. The line could have been a nice little detail that meant nothing, but I saw Chekhov’s Gun at work, and since the poisoner was targeting dogs…[/ISPOILER]Still, the reveal is nicely done, with [ISPOILER]the woman taking her poisoned cat to Vicky distraught because she thought she’d thrown all the poison away. There’s also a little irony to the fact that the cat is saved while none of the dogs could be. I’m not sure quite how to feel as it leans a little into the mad cat lady trope, but there is at least some sympathy to be garnered from understanding that she’d seen her cat torn apart by dogs.[/ISPOILER]Vicky’s revenge is interesting. She simply adds the cost of replacement dogs for those killed onto the bill to save the cat. It’s pay up or get turned in, and Vicky is paid.I’ve grown a little weary of the way Shirley treats Frank. Their sparring feels very one-sided. He’s straight down the line with her, and she’s quite consistently being a bit of a bitch to him. I can see it may be the “treat ‘em mean, keep ‘em keen” thing which is as truthful as it is ugly. One sees this behaviour and it’s never attractive (Vicky seems to have inherited this trait), or perhaps they’re going for a Hepburn/Tracy-type tension. It’s just beginning to feel tedious.In these episodes it was taken to the Nth degree, with Shirley refusing a breathalyser or produce her driving licence in the wake of the car accident (yes, she’s involved, too). Her pointless bloody-mindedness is amped way up to the point of seeming almost out of character. At one point, almost the entire main cast (I think Molly is the only absentee) is at the hospital trying to convince her to see reason while there are patients going unseen. The whole thing got dragged out for two episodes, and ends with her being even more self-righteous when Maurie is proved to be the cause. Not that she was being accused in the first place.</blockquote>

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