S09.E08: Episode 8

[nokat]

13 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

Anyway, still a good episode, eight hankies out of ten!

I love this, it is how episodes should be rated. Well, I went through this many hankies.
 

[captain1]

I never would have guessed watching the first episode all those years ago that Trixie would turn out to be a total badass but she sure is!

[jschoolgirl]

21 hours ago, nokat said:

It's why I was trying to remember where I knew him from. Of course I've also become chubby since then too.

Oh, me too! His hair is also darker than William's was, and of course William slicked his back

[MJS]

On 2/24/2020 at 4:23 PM, bybrandy said:

I feel like the last few seasons have been overdone on the tragedy espeically the finals.  This show just isn't must see tv for me anymore.  It is more like, "oh, midwife was on.  I should check it out.  Do I want to see death and suffering?  Eh...   um... no... maybe I'll fastforward through some bits.   

I don't mind the more serious stories.  Every bit of Val's grandmother has been tremendously well done.   But I just don't feel like we're getting the character moments that we used to that provided the light to contrast the dark.   

 

If you think the show has gone dark, don’t read the books. I sobbed through each one of her memoirs. The show sugar coated a lot of the reality of those books!

[kirklandia]

I was so sure the sisters were going to pull a Miracle on 34th Street with those letters and dump them on the table at that hearing.  
When Nurse Crane handed a letter to each man, I wondered if those letters had some tie to each of the individuals. Maybe written by their own mothers, or their wives, or sisters.
I didn't see them use the petitions either.  But now they have a year, and 600 people to organize for the next battle...

[Suzn]

On 5/17/2020 at 8:31 PM, Badger said:

 

I don't remember that at all.  There is a scene they cut where some of the midwives were trying to teach Kevin to dance so they could send him to the discotheque for junior doctors.  You see a record player playing a 45 of Petula Clark's "I Know a Place" while Sr. Hilda dances with Kevin urging him to swing his arms but he's not sure in what direction.  Sr. Monica Joan is standing holding a diagram of dance steps.  Nurse Crane looks up from her knitting and asks if maybe his oxfords are too stiff and maybe plimsolls might be better.  Sr. Hilda thinks that they'd give him more bounce on the ball of his foot.  Trixie points out that they don't wear plimsolls at a discotheque.  Meanwhile Kevin has started really getting into the dancing and he's bopping away happy as a pig in slop when Lucille comes in and tells Kevin that the men's shelter called that someone has died and he will have to certify the death.  

Some of the other scenes they cut:

There's a bit of cut dialogue in the scene with Violet and the mother and her daughter.  When the daughter goes outside, the mother says she is nervous and Violet assures her that she won't be the first and she certainly won't be the last which is no doubt a reference to her daughter's pregnancy.

There's a bit of an extension to the scene where Val's Gran comes back to her flat.  Auntie Flo drops by and says all their relatives want to see her, but Elsie says the only person she wants in her flat is Val.

There's a scene with Sisters Frances and Hilda along with Lucille on their bikes ready to get signatures from their home visit patients.  When that's done, Sister Hilda says they'll knock on doors.

There's a montage of scenes of Val with Elsie, Eddie with Bonnie and then Eddie with Petra. Then there's a scene of a woman signing the midwives' petition.  This is all done while Andy Williams' "More" plays.
 

 

 

 

I have the BBC DVD that says "The Complete Original UK Series" and binge watched all the episodes.  I just re-watched episode 8 and none of the scenes described above are in it!  I feel certain that the previous DVDs I have did include scenes edited out by PBS.  I am very disappointed and frustrated by this.  I would like to see the complete show and don't understand why we are cheated out of this.

[Badger]

18 minutes ago, Suzn said:

I have the BBC DVD that says "The Complete Original UK Series" and binge watched all the episodes.  I just re-watched episode 8 and none of the scenes described above are in it!  I feel certain that the previous DVDs I have did include scenes edited out by PBS.  I am very disappointed and frustrated by this.  I would like to see the complete show and don't understand why we are cheated out of this.

I posted on the why does PBS cut scenes topic that someone on tumblr had posted that the USA DVDs only have complete episodes of the Christmas special and episodes 1-2 of Season 9.  Everything else is the PBS edit.  I also checked the Amazon customer reviews section and there were people complaining about it too.

[dcalley]

On 2/23/2020 at 4:43 PM, MissLucas said:

Sister Monica Joan on Gran's bedside gently alluding to the reason Gran was so overjoyed with Val's birth was sublime.

Can you expand on this? I had a feeling while watching that I was missing something here.

[doodlebug]

9 minutes ago, dcalley said:

Can you expand on this? I had a feeling while watching that I was missing something here.

I believe the original poster thought that Sister Monica Joan was alluding to Val's grandmother providing abortions in the community.  That, having seen so many women unhappy at the prospect of having a child, it was particularly gratifying to her grandmother to have Val's arrival be such a joyous occasion.

[MissLucas]

14 minutes ago, doodlebug said:

I believe the original poster thought that Sister Monica Joan was alluding to Val's grandmother providing abortions in the community.  That, having seen so many women unhappy at the prospect of having a child, it was particularly gratifying to her grandmother to have Val's arrival be such a joyous occasion.

Yes, that's what I meant. Valerie's grandmother's story ended there with the women at her dead bed acknowledging her inner conflict.

[dcalley]

Thank you both. Turns out I wasn't missing anything!

[bunnyblue]

On 5/25/2020 at 12:25 PM, doodlebug said:

I believe the original poster thought that Sister Monica Joan was alluding to Val's grandmother providing abortions in the community.  That, having seen so many women unhappy at the prospect of having a child, it was particularly gratifying to her grandmother to have Val's arrival be such a joyous occasion.

I agree that was what Sister Monica Joan was referring to, but that would mean that Val's grandmother had been performing abortions for 25+ years since Val is certainly over the age of 25. That was a very long time to be performing back alley abortions and never getting caught. I was under the impression that Val's gran had only been performing abortions for a few years, but maybe the show never really said how long she'd been doing them?

[OnceSane]

6 hours ago, bunnyblue said:

I agree that was what Sister Monica Joan was referring to, but that would mean that Val's grandmother had been performing abortions for 25+ years since Val is certainly over the age of 25. That was a very long time to be performing back alley abortions and never getting caught. I was under the impression that Val's gran had only been performing abortions for a few years, but maybe the show never really said how long she'd been doing them?

I assumed Gran had been doing abortions for at least Val's lifetime.

[craziness]

On 5/26/2020 at 10:33 PM, OnceSane said:

I assumed Gran had been doing abortions for at least Val's lifetime.

I agree, since gran always had money so Val could buy ice creams, I assumed the money came from doing abortions.

[debraran]

I agree, I don't think she started late in life. It did make me full of mixed emotions to remember the dirty room and her anguish and also her wanting the pain because "they suffered too".

[LadyChaos]

I noticed they are dying Dr. Turner's hair again. It's kind of weird. some episodes his hair is grey, others black. Also Sister Monica Joan was considerably lucid this year.

Edited October 12, 2020 by LadyChaos

[VartanFan]

On 5/19/2020 at 3:12 PM, proserpina65 said:

While this show often makes me tear up, that storyline really hit home for me.  My father died of esophageal cancer eight years ago, and like Gran, we discovered it way too late to do anything.  So I was outright bawling Sunday night.

Sorry for your loss.  They caught my father-in-law's at stage three and he got the esophagectomy a couple years ago.  We're fortunate that he's been doing great since the surgery.

As someone who had that special kind of relationship with my grandmother, I feel like I bawled through this entire episode.  Big, ugly cry.  

I'm among those who will be annoyed if they only had McNulty on for a few episodes.  They should have had him get hurt delivering the baby and then see the impact over TIME.  

[Badger]

I think a lot of McNulty's pain was emotional rather than physical.  He started out using because of his shoulder and then started using to escape the pain he was feeling over the cases where he really couldn't help like Baby Warren and guy in the doss house.

[RedbirdNelly]

It was striking to see Trixie and the women supporters having to petition that all male board. Go Trixie!