“The name’s… Dolly”: Re-watching Widows

[Mel O'Drama]

Who also played the man on the boat in THE BROTHERS.
Could it be a "boat comes with an actor" deal?

Could be. I wonder if he considered going the whole hog and changing his name to Stephen Boatyardley.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Series Two
Episode Six​

Naturally, I was very curious to see how the Widows saga would end, and Dolly’s assassination of Harry is pretty much what I expected. But in the best possible way.

Of course, the third series being called She’s Out was a huge clue to the fact that Dolly would get done for something. Once Harry killed Linda, it was almost inevitable that Harry would die at Dolly’s hands. And when Shirley was killed in the jewel heist it was all but a done deal.

Even though I spoilt myself by stupidly clicking on Willie’s inline spoiler about Shirley being shot, I’d successfully either forgotten all about it or tuned it out of my head once I was invested in the story. So not only was her being shot still a surprise to me, but it hadn’t even occurred to me that another widow would be killed off, even with this being the grand finale. And so this managed to pull the rug out from under me a couple more times before Dolly’s fateful liaison with Harry.

Kate Williams has been a hidden gem as Audrey, and she almost broke my heart in these last episodes, from her joy at seeing her baby’s heartbeat on the scan to the almost hollow shock on learning that not only is her daughter dead but also that both her partner and son were involved. I think hers is the story I’m most curious about seeing more of, and I understand she does appear in She’s Out, so that’s something to look forward to.

The staging of the final confrontation scene: at night with the dramatic-yet-romantic and very English setting of the stunning Sham Bridge over Thousand Pound Pond at Kenwood House was everything I could have wanted. I have been to Kenwood House in daylight and it looked very different by night - appropriate eerie, but still absolutely stunning, especially in HD. It was perfect.

Overall, I still preferred the first series, with its uneasy relationships between the women, and their motivation coming from righting what they see as a wrong and finishing what was started in memories of their husbands. The motive in the second series has felt a little less interesting, and while it’s been good to see different facets to their characters, the widows themselves have been presented as less morally ambiguous. I also found their return to England a little underwhelming after the tension surrounding the flight to Rio. With all the trouble to escape the country, once the story took the turn of “let’s get Harry”, it was never strongly felt that they were worried about being caught for the heist as they went about their business.

But these are fairly minor quibbles. I suppose it suffers from sequilitis, with the original setting the bar so high it’s impossible to recapture that lightning in a bottle again. It could be argued that a follow-up wasn’t even necessary as the first six episodes stand on their own as a complete story. But since it was made, it’s enjoyable enough, and certainly ended up better than I feared after the first couple of 1985 episodes.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

She’s Out
Episode One

​

Well, there’s certainly a build-up to the on-screen return of Dolly, with just tantalising glimpses and whispered legends for the first fifteen-to-twenty minutes. We begin with a series of post-Prisoner/pre-Wentworth women’s prison banter about Dolly being Top Dog and doing time for murder (is this gossipy exaggeration, I wonder. The end of Widows II told us Dolly’s sentence was lowered to manslaughter).

We spent much time meeting other prison departees as they arrive at a foreboding run-down mossy old country pile - a former health club - on the orders of the calculating Ester Freeman, herself a former prisoner. There’s the usual ragtag assortment, in many ways reflecting the original.

Evoking the spirit of Linda is the loud, brassy one whose line upon arrival made me laugh as it’s the one repeatedly used by French & Saunders as every character entered the room in their Lynda La Plante satire:

What a bleedin’ dump.

There’s the Shirley-esque blonde wannabe model, this time a Scouse former sex worker who models herself upon Marilyn Monroe (at one point she even caterwauls a line or two from Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend as she poses in the mirror). She presents her manicure to the assembled company telling them she does hands, naturally setting herself up for numerous “hand job” gags at her expense.

Who else? Well, there’s Ester’s second-in-command, Julia, the former doctor struck off and imprisoned for selling her drugs who seems possibly the most interesting of all (admittedly not a high bar based on this first episode). She’s Gloria’s former cellmate and they loathe one another which is creating the most interest besides Dolly herself. There’s the larger-than-life smiley-but-cheeky Irish one (“Got a tenner for the cab?”). And there’s the trod-upon housekeeper type who I thought at first was Corrie’s Angela Griffin but isn’t as it turns out. She’s not one of the ex-prisoners as far as I can make out, but Ester seems to have a hold over her which piques my curiosity.

Each of the women is brought by taxi, while a chauffeur-driven Rolls is sent to collect Dolly from Holloway to take her wherever she wants to go. Esther clearly has money or feels Dolly important enough to play “million dollar spit in the ocean”. And, as she tells all the women who’ve arrived, the plan is to gain Dolly’s trust, work out where she’s hidden the jewels from the heist and then screw her over.

continued...​

 

[Mel O'Drama]

She’s Out
Episode One
continued​

Cut to Audrey Withey (yay), furiously reading newspaper reports of Dolly’s release and fuming to her son that Dolly has to pay for Shirley’s death. Audrey’s personality feels darker and more bitter here, but that feels exactly right for someone who suffered what she did in the latter part of Widows II. Audrey also has the jewels in her possession. I didn't quite make out the name Dolly put on the envelopes at the end of Widows II, so now I've caught up. I think.

While I wasn’t too shaken by his apparent recasting, I was a little confused that Audrey’s son is a police officer since he was involved in the heist and shooting and was last seen accompanied by officers. And it clearly wasn’t the son she was expecting at the end of Widows II, since we’re told Dolly’s been inside for eight years (eight?! The text at the end of Widows II informed us her sentence was five years. Since she was said to be a model prisoner, she would probably have got an early release if anything. Unless there’s clarity still to come it seems there’s either poor continuity or some revisionism going on here).

Anyway, looking at IMDb, it seems this son of Audrey’s is called “Mike”, while the previous son was Greg. So it appears he’s a different, previously unseen son. Now I’m wondering if he was mentioned at all in Widows. Incidentally, there’s no sign of the seven-to-eight year old that Audrey was expecting.

Back at Holloway, after a rousing cups-on-the-railings orchestra exit from her cell and lots of other prison thanking her for giving them her support or perfume or whatever, Bea Smith Dolly is taken to the office of Erica Davidson Governor Ennis, who reels off a huge list of Dolly’s achievements as a model prisoner who has thrown herself into every aspect of prison life. The Governor offers any help Dolly may need, and Dolly, who has listened in quiet stillness speaks gently, almost meekly:

There is something, Mrs Ennis. But I just wanna make sure that nothing I say now, whilst I’m here, can interfere with my release.

Assured it won’t, Dolly turns her head to Prison Officer Joan Ferguson Barbara Hunter, standing guard at the wall and listening intently:

That woman is a heavy-duty dyke. She mixes with the young offenders that are so screwed-up she gets them where she wants them. And if they don’t do what she wants she can get them on punishments. [She stands up and speaks more forcefully] You’ve got women ‘avin’ to let their babies go. If that’s not bad enough, that bitch starts in on them. She’s taking bribes. She’s screwing in the cells…

I think I get the message, Dorothy.

No you don’t. You don’t get it one little bit. [She turns to Hunter] Anytime you wanna meet me outside I’ll show you what kind of message I’d like to give you. I know where you live, Mrs Hunter.

Are you making threats?

No. I’m plannin’ to send ‘er a get well card. Now, if my documents are ready, why don’t you just stop this crap and let me out. Out!

And with that turn, Dolly’s not only well and truly back, She’s Out. Incidentally, for those inclined towards drinking games and suchlike, I’d suggest a sip anytime someone utters the series’ title in this first episode.

Incidentally, there’s an accidentally topical-in-August-2022 comment when Julia gives background on her companion:

Compared with Esther, Salman Rushdie has no problems.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

She’s Out
Episodes Two and Three​

There’s a peculiar, almost contradictory, duality to this series.

On the one hand, it feels often slow and laborious - like watching a three episode story stretched into six and diluted. How else could one explain most of the women leaving the manor house one by one only to return a short time later. It feels like this cycle has happened at least twice now and it hasn’t added anything. At the series’ halfway point, Dolly has only just struck upon the idea for a new robbery upon which the latter part of the series will hopefully focus. While it’s necessary to show the motivation behind it, it seems this point could easily have been reached by the end of Episode One by being economical with the writing, using the “Kick, Bollock and Scramble” ethos so perfectly applied in the first Widows series and ideally giving the film a leaner main cast (the Marilyn Monroe wannabe would be the first thing I’d get rid of).

On the other hand, it’s fast moving in all the wrong ways. I’m not sure how much time is meant to have passed since Dolly’s release, but it seems like days rather than weeks. Yet already she’s not only put in an application to foster children but appeared before the board. This aspect of the series feels so bonkers as to operate outside of reality. Notwithstanding the fact that Dolly has just got out of prison for killing someone violently, she hasn’t been seen to meet any of the criteria that her probationary license would require. She has no job; a home she’s bought overnight with money that seemed to come from fresh air and which she shares with half a dozen other ex-prisoners (the foster board, to their credit, did visit the house - quickly ruling her out - but there’s no sign of her probation worker having any concerns about her living conditions). It’s telling of this world’s reality that the fostering board actually considered Dolly a good prospect - criminal record and all - until they stumbled upon the women frolicking and swearing half naked in the sauna (naturally, a lesbian kiss was the clincher that decided them against).

I don’t know. There’s just too much that stretches credulity enough that it's not quite believable as heightened reality.

There have been some moments that have made this series pretty much worth it so far. The contact between Dolly and Audrey is top of that list, with Dolly turning the screws to get her money back from Audrey. With Episode Three, Dolly has kind of let Audrey off the hook, telling her to leave the country, and so it seems we’ve seen the last of yet another link to Widows, with Dolly now the last one standing. Kate Williams was great in her final scene, snarlingly reciprocating Dolly’s wish never to see her again, and finally telling us that she lost the baby she was carrying when she learned of Shirley’s death, which goes some way further to making her revenge-fuelled anger even more justified.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

She’s Out
Episode Four​

The series is finding its feet with me now that there’s a plan for the robbery.

I am finding some elements repetitive. In every episode one of the women walks out of or is told to get out of The Grange. Invariably, by episode’s end something has happened which means they either return or don’t leave. It’s quite possibly an accurate portrayal of the type of dysfunctional woman who is attracted to drama, manufacturing it when there is none but never actually willing to follow through on melodramatic threats, but my God it’s tedious to watch because it feels there are never any true repercussions or consequences. In turn, this makes the stakes feel low. Watching all the sauntering about with attitude makes it easy to see why French & Saunders really honed in on this aspect of the series for their spoof.

Julia feels comfortably familiar to me. She feels like composite of several different people I’ve either watched on screen or met in real life. Although they look nothing alike, something about her voice and her demeanour reminds me very much of Rosalyn Landor from C.A.T.S. Eyes.

The series is good fun. Getting rid of nasty boyfriend’s body under the watchful eye of the police presented its challenges and reminded me in some ways of Hitchcock’s The Trouble With Harry. Julia’s now dating a horseback police officer who looks like Fergie and whose frequent visits to The Grange are perturbing Dolly who seems to frequently smile at lady cop across the courtyard while seething “get her out of ‘ere” through gritted teeth to Julia.

Kathleen’s now been picked up by the police for an outstanding conviction and there’s talk of rescuing her. Dolly has discovered Mike is Shirley’s brother and (if I’m following) he’s the one who has impregnated Angela. The baby survived the beating Angela took from Ester for informing on them, but Angela then chose to drink bleach to try to get rid of it (naturally, this was after Angela had been ordered to leave, which means she will continue to hang round).

 

[Mel O'Drama]

She’s Out
Episodes Five and Six
​

From the vantage point of 2022, knowing this is the end of The Dolly Rawlins Saga, there weren’t any real surprises in these final episodes. The remaining questions really are if the final act of the trilogy was compelling, entertaining and satisfying.

I feel She’s Out got off to a decent start but then immediately faltered. There were enough flaws in the first half of the series for it to feel as though it lacked credence and direction. Compared with the original Widows, this series doesn’t do too well. That initial run of episodes started strong, set out its stall regarding its overall objective (the big crime) in its first episode and had thrilling dynamics. She’s Out took over half its length for the big heist to even form and much outside of that felt like filler, with a load of women snarling at one another, or stomping out of the house forever but immediately returning. I know I keep coming back to it, but this is French & Saunders’ “What a bleedin’ dump” territory. There’s a lot of mouthing off and apparent threat, but much of it is ultimately just a lot of meaningless noise.

One angle that added interest for me in the women’s dynamics was how their mercenary attitudes towards even one another felt like a habit that had come from being hardened and somewhat desensitised in prison.

Take Shirley’s memory. At different points, both Audrey and Mike evoke Shirley’s memory when trying to reason with Dolly. In both cases, Dolly effectively tells them to shut up and acts as though she doesn’t care. She even reminds Mike that Shirley knew the risks. Even though she then goes on to apologise and say that she shouldn’t have spoken this way, she doesn’t say why not, so even this sounds a little perfunctory.

There’s an equally self-protective response to Kathleen’s imprisonment on an old charge. There are a couple of times when someone mentions the news and other women act as though they haven’t even heard. Dolly even ignores such a comment and carries on discussing her plan. It could be read that she’s so preoccupied with the scheme that she hasn’t even noticed. But it could also be viewed that she’s simply boxed it away and Kathleen is no longer part of her world.

Usually, in a female-led series, a miscarriage might mean a lot of bonding and walls coming down. In this world, however, Angela has betrayed them by informing and so there are very few glimmers of gushing gynocentric warmth. On learning that Angela has lost the baby, Ester immediately snarls “Serves her right”. Dolly visits Angela in hospital to make sure she’s OK and Angela thinks her act has successfully changed Dolly’s mind about her leaving, but Dolly remains detached and tells her no. She may only return to The Grange to collect her things.

With the writing round Angela I felt like cheering at this, because she’s written as a whiny brat who takes no responsibility and falls back on emotional blackmail to get her way. Something that kind of works when she returns to The Grange yet again with a trembling lip to plead to stay. However, even here Dolly makes it clear to the others that Angela’s there only to serve them by looking after Kathleen’s kids. And it appears Angela would get no cut from the tens of millions they plan to rob in the heist.

The scheme itself is clearly very heavily based on the Great Train Robbery, which feels appropriate in a way since I watched Buster for the first time just before starting Widows. The real-life crime is even referenced in dialogue, but the fact that so many elements of that heist are echoed here does make this series feel lacking in originality. And on top of this, the series feels partly designed to hit similar notes to the original Widows.

continued...
​

 

[Mel O'Drama]

She’s Out
Episodes Five and Six
continued
​

It’s been a nice touch that there are ties to the earlier series. Familial ties to Shirley, for example, have brought a welcome sense of history to the series. However, what She’s Out has lacked is a sense of being a truly multi-layered story seen from numerous perspectives. Mike being Shirley’s brother is really the only interesting thing about him, and so the police procedural element is lacking. Despite seeing more of his home life than we ever did George Resnick, Mike doesn’t gain the viewer’s interest and empathy in the way Resnick did. In the first two series, Resnick’s obsessive hunt proved as interesting as the women’s stories and could easily have stood on its own as a series that would interest. The same cannot be said for Mike. Adrian Rawlins seems a decent enough actor, and he’s certainly not been short of work since 1995 (he went on to play Harry Potter’s dad among numerous other screen appearances, and has an impressive theatre CV as long as your arm) but it’s a fairly thankless role that feels rather by-numbers compared with previous cops we’ve seen.

There were some very effective moments in the preparation for the heist, and the story was decent enough. Because it had all happened in the last couple of episodes, though, it all kind of flew by to the point that the heist itself almost felt like a rehearsal and I didn’t feel invested enough. To be fair, this was written into the dialogue, with the date needing to be brought forward due to an upcoming change in train schedules forcing them to go in sooner than planned and with less preparation.

As said, I didn’t feel overly invested in the heist, and I disliked some of the dialogue that felt as though it was telling us what we could see “Oh no. Whatserface the Marilyn wannabe is trapped in a sinking carriage”. “Oh look. Dolly’s going in to help her”. It felt a bit Widows For Dummies. Still, despite its flaws, it worked well enough as a last hoorah, and the women all getting home, dissolving the mailbags, vacuuming up the money with a garden leaf-sucker thingy and hastily donning nightwear for the police’s imminent arrival was low key thrilling.

Unfortunately, two further external factors affected my investment in the final scenes: the landline rang loudly with just three or four minutes remaining. Since it was after 9pm (emergency calling hours only in the O’Drama home) it was answered and turned out to be just a social call. While the call was taken, tiredness hit me after a long day and between the two factors I never really got back into the episode on the same level and so after eighteen hours’ investment, the finale didn’t quite have the impact it should have.

I genuinely had no idea how Dolly’s story would turn out this time round, but her demise was certainly on the table as a possibility. What I didn’t count on, however, was the way Dolly’s fate actually turned out to be the result of a sitcom style misunderstanding where someone overhears only part of a conversation and gets the wrong end of the stick. I really liked that it could be viewed that there’s a degree of ambiguity around whether Ester deliberately misunderstood and grabbed this chance to punish Dolly for usurping Ester’s position as the alpha. Whatever the case, I’m certain she would have responded differently had she overheard the same conversation with a different woman from Dolly.

I suspect I would have found the final scenes quite moving had the interruption not happened and had I been less tired. But even in the circumstances it was satisfying enough.

One final word about the closing song, Widow’s Tears, written by one Richard La Plante(!) and powerfully sung by Lorraine Crosby (I didn't recognise the name, but a search of the interwebs tells me she's best-known for singing with Meatloaf on I'd Do Anything For Love). It's a great song, and a perfect fit for this series lyrically: certainly a huge step up from the Eighties synth number at the end of the 1985 series which felt most malapropos. Why can't I find it anywhere online?!

Anyway I’ll still take Stanley Myers’s haunting instrumental them from the original over them both. And what better way to end my Widows journey than to drop it here:

 

[Alexis Colby Carrington]

I loved Widows, Widows 2 and She's Out.

 

[Willie Oleson]

To be fair, this was written into the dialogue, with the date needing to be brought forward due to an upcoming change in train schedules forcing them to go in sooner than planned and with less preparation.

Surely that was supposed to make it look more interesting? Or was it an apology in advance, like, sorry viewers but you better lower your expectations. ?

and I disliked some of the dialogue that felt as though it was telling us what we could see “Oh no. Whatserface the Marilyn wannabe is trapped in a sinking carriage”. “Oh look. Dolly’s going in to help her”. It felt a bit Widows For Dummies

Oh that reminds me of that stupid, stupid movie with Tom Hanks, the sequel to that movie about a French church and some mystery. Could it be Angels And Demons ?

Why can't I find it anywhere online?!

Ha, the series is online so I watched the end for the end credits. It sounds very Bonnie Tyler.

But since I didn't precisely get what you were saying here

I genuinely had no idea how Dolly’s story would turn out this time round, but her demise was certainly on the table as a possibility. What I didn’t count on, however, was the way Dolly’s fate actually turned out to be the result of a sitcom style misunderstanding where someone overhears only part of a conversation and gets the wrong end of the stick. I really liked that it could be viewed that there’s a degree of ambiguity around whether Ester deliberately misunderstood and grabbed this chance to punish Dolly for usurping Ester’s position as the alpha. Whatever the case, I’m certain she would have responded differently had she overheard the same conversation with a different woman from Dolly.

I suspect I would have found the final scenes quite moving had the interruption not happened and had I been less tired

Maybe I'm tired too because I thought you were referring to that phone call.
And so I stumbled on a big fat spoiler (I'm not sure if I was going to watch it but now it can't be a surprise anymore).

Stanley Myers’s haunting instrumental theme

It's so gorgeous.

When are you going to watch the Adam Dalgliesh stories? It's one of my all-time favourite British tv series, delightfully slow-paced with lots of outstanding performances, and always eerily sinister when it matters.
I think it's all on U-know-where but I can't vouch for the picture quality. Still, it's a good way to sample it.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Surely that was supposed to make it look more interesting? Or was it an apology in advance, like, sorry viewers but you better lower your expectations. ?

Oh yes. It was one of those ramp up the drama/spanner in the works things where they suddenly had to adapt and move really quickly. But because it took half of the six episodes for a heist plot to even emerge it felt rather like "Oh crap. I'm still developing my characters but now there's only an hour and a bit left to wrap things up".

Oh that reminds me of that stupid, stupid movie with Tom Hanks, the sequel to that movie about a French church and some mystery. Could it be Angels And Demons ?

Could be. I watched both The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons last year. I enjoyed the first but cannot remember a thing about the second one which suggests it was... underwhelming.

Ha, the series is online so I watched the end for the end credits. It sounds very Bonnie Tyler.

I thought it would be right up your street, Willie. Perhaps you can track down an NRG cover?

Maybe I'm tired too because I thought you were referring to that phone call.
And so I stumbled on a big fat spoiler (I'm not sure if I was going to watch it but now it can't be a surprise anymore).

Damn. I tried not to be too specific and explicit in what I said so it minimised any spoilers about the ending, but it seems that completely backfired.

When are you going to watch the Adam Dalgliesh stories? It's one of my all-time favourite British tv series, delightfully slow-paced with lots of outstanding performances, and always eerily sinister when it matters.

Do you know, I've never seen it and it hadn't crossed my mind to watch. In fact, I don't think I even knew of the earlier series with Roy Marsden, which I assume is the one you mean ( I have heard of more recent adaptions with Martin Shaw, but know nothing else about it). Perhaps I'll aim to bag one when Network feature it in one of their sales.