@2VU0609 - I was watching tonight, and H said to me “Trixie is pregnant” - to be honest, I hadn’t noticed it before he mentioned it. I also googled it and saw that she had the baby in September:
That’s funny, we were watching tonight and my husband walked in and said “I didn’t know she was pregnant”. Up until then the clever scarves and coats masked it. I hadn’t noticed. So her character has to suffer an alchololic relapse while the actress gives birth on “Call the Midwifes”?
Can anyone help wife and I understand tonight’s plot line involving the Pakistani family? How is bigamy legal in 1960’s England? We’re assuming that the two weddings took place in Pakistan, where that was somehow allowed because wife #1 could not become pregnant?
And the subplot with the woman who ate coal as a craving, I expected there to be more problems but no, that story seemed to end abruptly.
The coal thing seemed to mostly exist for the conversation with Trixie about craving and giving in to temptation and how it didn’t stop the craving IMO.
Also curious about acceptance of the bigamy situation. Made me wonder if the nuns of the time (that had feet on the ground rather than in a more secluded convent) were this nonjudgmental about things that were not socially accepted at the time (this and abortion and homosexuality etc) or if this a tv thing.
@MADad - I lived in Pakistan in the mid-60s through early 70s, and many of my teachers at the international school were British or American women married to Pakistanis. My mother told me that many of them had met their husbands while the husband was receiving an education in their country, where they fell in love and were married. When they moved to Pakistan with their spouse, they discovered they weren’t the first wife.
I believe the UK permits polygamous marriages if they were legal in the country where the marriages took place. I think the laws have changed from time to time so I’m not sure what they were in the 1960s.
I was sorry the Pakistani woman didn’t have spine enough to kick the husband out.
And Trixie was rather obviously pregnant. She was wearing loose tops, shawls, etc to try and conceal it. I think her boyfriend is the guy who plays the Reverend who married Barbara on the show.
Oh, thank GOD Trixie will be “away” for the time being. I noticed the actress was pregnant some time ago, and it was so ironic (and slightly disturbing) to have it ignored in a series dedicated to all things maternity, especially when she started drinking again!
I would love to see Jenny again. And Patsy. Those are the two I miss the most. Loved Chummy, but I feel like they’d wrung about as much as they could out of her storyline.
And isn’t Judy Parfitt an absolute gift? Her scenes with Cliff Parisi are always so beautiful.
I like Judy Parfitt too. Check out “The Jewel in the Crown” from back in the 80’s. Parfitt played the high strung, cheating wife of an officer. A completely different type of character. She has range.
I often listen to Masterpiece Studio while I’m grading papers and I believe that was where I heard one of the cast members or writers praise Judy Parfitt as one of the best actresses in the UK. I agree she is superb.
I’d kind of like them to revist the theladamine (sp?) episode. It really was a big deal, my middle school science teacher was a theladamine baby adopted from the UK and I’d like to see them acknowledge them growing up and not just stop at babies.
I want them to find a way to bring Christopher and Trixie together next season.
I love the way they brought Reggie back and the interactions he has with Fred and Violet. Violet is quite the little general as she organizes beauty pageants, picnics, and other events!
Thalidomide.
@JHS Thank you! spell checker was no good to me and I know I had it wrong!
Whatever you do, DO NOT LOOK AT HELEN GEORGE’S (Trixie’s) INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT. She did say “spoiler alert” but I couldn’t help but see something I didn’t want to see…
Oh!!! As someone who reads the end of the book when I’m about 25-30% of the way, telling me not to look was like offering an addict a free dose of drugs. Not complaining because I was forewarned, but for those who don’t want to know anything before it happens, heed @MaryBarbara58’s advice.
Ditto! I googled a few days ago and wished I hadn’t!
What a temptation, but I’m trying not to spoil the end of the season for myself. I’m just glad Barbara is back! Even D watched this episode, although she was pretty horrified by the woman’s gruesome forceps story.
Can someone explain to me why Trixie and the dentist (Christopher?) split up? Something about the daughter being sad, but the daughter seems to really like Trixie. The dentist is not still married to his wife, is he? He so obviously still cares about Trixie, it’s confusing why they felt they couldn’t work things out. He didn’t object much or put up any fight for her when he had the chance. I think I may have missed one or two episodes over the past two seasons so perhaps things were explained. I didn’t notice she was pregnant, just thought she looked really tired with too much makeup in the last few episodes.
The daughter was upset about the parents being split and acting out, and I think the mother was objecting to the father exposing the daughter to his new girlfriend and was trying, or threatening to try, to terminate his visitation rights. They hadn’t divorced yet. Trixie decided unilaterally that he owed it to his daughter to try to make his marriage work, for her.
No, it didn’t make actual sense. Yes, it produced drama with Trixie starting to drink again, and that got her out of Poplar and thus the show for at least the duration of her pregnancy…
^ Thank you, I had missed the fact that he wasn’t divorced yet. That explains Trixie’s reluctance to ‘escape for a weekend’. I guess as a contrived plot it works to some degree.