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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 409063" data-attributes="member: 23">Episodes 416 - 430 21 October - 9 December 1986 The end of Brookie’s fourth year of production and the beginning of its fifth has struck a balance by giving us the definite end of an era while longer threads of continuity run alongside it to keep a good degree of familiarity. The clearest line in the sand has been Heather calling it a day right at the end of this run, one month into Year Five. In many ways it feels it’s been a long time coming - Heather did almost sell up a couple of years before this, and has been slowly heading towards a new rock bottom/epiphany since Nick’s drug addiction was exposed. When it came, though, Heather’s exit felt surprisingly - almost indecently abrupt. And a little hollow. Deliberately so, but still hollow. One thing that can be said for Amanda Burton’s final arc is that she was given great material. There’s a part of me that wants to say it was her best work on the series, while another feels to say this would diminish the other great stuff. It’s quite obviously dramatic material, where she can take off the makeup and smart suits and show us Heather more dishevelled and slowly falling apart because she’s completely out of control of a situation. But her work here is a standout not because of the melodrama but because throughout her entire run she’s so consistently been able to communicate what Heather thinks and feels without having to say the words. That remains true here, and it’s what gives this story its real punch. Of all the residents, Heather appears the least likely to get involved in such a storyline (with the possible exception of Harry and Ralph). Even the Collinses would seem a more obvious choice given their two rebellious offspring. But this is exactly why the story works so well. Professionals who use drugs recreationally or become addicts while still continuing to function aren’t unheard of, so I applaud the choice to go this route. Examining the devastating effect of such addiction on a household is fascinating, and this has shown very effectively how Heather’s path now parallels Nick’s and she herself is drawn down into a similar rabbit hole from which it’s almost impossible to extricate herself. Scenes between them at Number Nine have been simultaneously claustrophobic and compelling, and even a little icky as the audience is party to the cycle of dysfunction: lies leading to ultimatums leading to heartfelt promises leading to lies… The duality of Nick’s personality is shown and makes sense of why Heather would choose to believe him. When he’s not on the smack, he’s kind and thoughtful and vulnerable, which makes the blasé, reckless Nick he becomes all the more disappointing and frustrating. Nick’s inevitable departure and park bench offscreen death still hits hard thanks in large part to Amanda Burton’s knockout performance. There’s a terrific scene where she’s just been told by a police officer and is clearly confused and not taking in the news. She’s been told he was found dead but didn’t hear the word “dead” and was surprised when asked to attend the mortuary to identify him. There’s a really interesting choice not to show the beginning of the scene (I assume this is by design rather than editing) so we, too, have Nick’s death confirmed with the line about the body in the morgue. It’s a little disorientating and leaves us to process things and make sense of it over the commercial break, just as Heather will attempt to do on the unseen journey to the mortuary, which is where we next see her. There are two aspects of Heather’s exit I find bewildering. One is the speed with which her departure happens. There’s barely any sign of it until her last couple of scenes when she tells Barry she’s going, hops in her Scirocco under cover of night and speeds away (while the lingering angst of her husband’s betrayal and the high emotion of the moment evoke Valene’s departure at the end of Knots Landing’s third season, the staging of this has always reminded me more of Richard’s similarly covert-and-bittersweet departure the following year). The other surprising thing is that, once Nick has left, the interpersonal drama that’s mined from Heather’s exit is almost exclusively with Barry. There are a couple of nice scenes with Annabel while Nick is missing - and it’s a nice touch that the historically-guarded Heather withheld the truth of the cause of the marital rift from Anna - and a couple of looks or nods across the the cul-de-sac whenever she’s had to go outside. But the only person she’s truly spoken to has been Barry. There is sound reasoning behind this, since Barry has personal experience of being in deep with someone who is addicted to heroin (a number of times when watching scenes relating to Nick’s addiction I’ve found myself reflecting that this story is so much more satisfying and substantial than the brief business with Barry and Jane last Christmas… because we’ve been able to see it progress and evolve, and we got to know Nick rather than the character being defined by his drug addiction in the way Jane was. It makes me so much more appreciative of the Heather/Nick arc). So it’s natural that Heather would approach Barry once Sheila had told her. There’s been good stuff to seeing Barry in this position. In one scene of him comforting the distraught Heather on her sofa, I kind of flashed back to the scene on the very same spot where he’d comforted Petra after Gavin’s death. Then I remembered them discussing how Heather was “not like us”, and that backstory added layers to the story (I also felt relieved that Heather still had sense enough not to fall into Barry’s arms, even as a baser part of me craved Paul Collins to walk by the window and misconstrue the situation when he already thought Barry was cheating on Lucy with Vicki Cleary). Still, it did feel there was a degree of soapy contrivance. After Nick’s death Barry seemed to be conveniently around whenever he was needed, and Heather leaning on him so heavily seemed a little out of character, even given the circumstances (but then I can also rationalise it that the situation with Nick had changed her to a degree). The lack of interaction is hugely disappointing in one sense. I missed the closure with Annabel or Sheila or even Harry. I also feel we’ve been deprived of seeing the fallout with Nick’s children. But it’s a reminder that this isn’t about them. It’s Heather’s journey. At this point Heather has ostensibly simply gone to visit her parents while she recovers, so perhaps hindsight influences how I view it and the low key exit is fine. Besides, it’s all perfectly true to her fierce independence. This angle of her character means Heather is one of the characters who has stayed truest to the original vision of the series in which each home is an island. I’ll miss her a great deal. continued...</blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?