We’re back with Doctor Foster, starring Suranne Jones and Bertie Carvel (that.name) in our drama re: infidelity plus or minus a giant conspiracy. It was created and written by Mike Bartlett, who I failed to give proper credit to last recap. Rolling after the break!

We’re still at Simon’s birthday party, Gemma walking around staring at all the people who have been lying to her and / or screwing her husband. She’s almost to Kate (the other woman) when Simon pops in front: time for cake! She begs off, barely managing to let him kiss her cheek, before grabbing Tom and hightailing it home.

While a really cheesy song plays, (I’m not looking it up, it’s obnoxious and too loud), she speeds out, knocking the side mirror off the car and drawing Ros’s attention. Ros, who texted Simon the other day to let him know Gemma would be following him, so don’t go to your hewer! It’s great to have wingwomen, not so great for Gemma, who thought Ros was one of her best friends.

Gemma’s at home with Tom. He brings up Becky’s daughter Isobel, who’s parents got divorced and now Becky cries all the time, why is he bringing up divorce, snaps Gemma? He’s off upstairs and she starts purging. First it’s just the pictures on the fridge, then Simon’s clothes and she tears some of them and cries. She gets it all together at the bottom of the stairs, opposite the front door, one large pile of You Fcuked Up.

She brings Tom up a drink, he’s got more stories about Isobel’s parents’ divorce! Isobel thought she was going to have to live in boring old Reading with her dad (is it boring?) and the whole divorce was horrible. She asks why he’s talking about it again, has dad said anything? No why, ARE YOU GETTING DIVORCED? If they are, he wants to stay in this house. Course he will, as long as he likes. I don’t know very much about divorce, but I imagine the less concrete promises made the better.

The doorbell rings, who could that be at this hour? It’s Ros, with Gemma’s broken-off side mirror. Can she come in? And is that’s Simon’s stuff there at the foot of the stairs in one giant You Fcuked Up Pile? Gemma doesn’t even answer, just gives her a long measured look. “How long have you known?” she asks.

“Oh God, Gemma” and then it comes out, kind of. Simon thought he had something that could have been an STI, oh MAN, come ON! and when Ros asked about sexual partners, he paused and she guessed. She swears she was texting him all the time to tell Gemma, which I think I saw, but that doesn’t explain the heads-up re: Gemma following him that one day he conveniently went to see his mama at the rest home. Ros comes around to ask for a hug, Gemma isn’t having it: she doesn’t know who Ros is.

Gemma asks who else knows, Ros defaults to whoever was in the phone? Which is, coincidentally, the same answer addicts give. I didn’t watch Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew except for a very small part with Heidi Fleiss, who had slipped away from treatment and was being drug tested at the sober living facility. The house head kept asking her what took, Heidi kept saying “what does the test say?” because if they can’t prove it, it doesn’t count. She wasn’t gonna volunteer anything.

Gemma asked how long it’s been going on and Ros answers “3 months?” which is not an answer, but a question. Gemma then braces her about warning Simon about Gemma’s plan to follow Simon, what about that, hey? I’d have thrown her out by then. Gemma waves her back to the party, but don’t warn Simon this time, please. She wants him to walk in and in those seconds, realise what he’s lost.

Ros thinks it was just sex, right? And wants to stay with her, Gemma suggests if she wants to stay friends, she’d better do as told and we all know there is no Gemma and Ros friendship at this point.

Gemma’s on the internet looking up Kate and drinking rum, that is a dangerous combination. She’s mixing another drink when Simon arrives home, drunk enough to drop his keys and completely miss all his luggage in the hallway.

And then we get to hear him pee.

He trips over his own suitcases, still too drunk to figure out what’s going on, asking her to bring some water up, please. I mean. She does, though, and by that time he’s already passed out. She stares at Tom in bed and then heads downstairs to drink some more. Wait! There’s more of his stuff to go through. His schedule, including his football trip scheduled for this weekend.

Did she lose her nerve? Was that drunken courage all she had the energy for? And when he staggered through it, did she give it up for the status quo?

Simon’s phone wakes him up the morning, wait, are all his things up in the closet again? What?

Simon stumbles downstairs, forcing Gemma to give him a kiss on the cheek to maintain the facade, but maybe he’s not completely unaware, asking if he said anything to upset her? Nah, she was just sick and she makes her escape.

Neil is not just their friend, he’s also their neighbour, yay. He jokes about her drinking too much, but since he’s also a lying bastage what enabled her husband in this affair, she blows him off too.

At work, Ros still wants to talk about it, but Gemma doesn’t have time. The  computing system is down, drunk Jack is suing and this whole place is a joke, she snaps. Sorry, sorry.

Time for appointments, what the Sam Hill is Kate doing there, the nerve of her! But she’s there to see Ros, not Gemma. Not for long, though, Gemma’s getting to the bottom of this. She ignores Mr. Shamsky, the first client waiting for her, and takes Kate into her office. Kate’s been tired lately, had a cold for a couple of weeks and it’s not going away. All right then, take all your clothes off, there’s a girl. Um, whut? says Kate, but Doctor Foster is going to do an examination. Er.

Gemma. This is a bad idea. The curtain is pulled back and there Kate stands in her gym clothes. “You’re in good shape” observes Gemma, and that snide little fecker says she goes to the gym every day and has a trainer: Gemma should try it.

Dr. Foster has her lay down again, feeling around Kate’s belly. Hmm, if she’s pregnant, that just became a much bigger problem. The good doctor will take some blood samples while asking some routine questions: “how much do you drink, on average? Do you use legal or illegal drugs? ARE YOU SCREWING MY HUSBAND, YOU HEWER??” Or, as Gemma puts it “do you have any sexual partners?” and Kate just throws it out there, sure, just one. But she’s not having enough sex, he’s married, see, and his wife doesn’t suspect a thing. Questions done! Gemma sends her next door to do a urine test and makes a run at Kate’s purse, but is thwarted. Run that urine test!!!

Oh jeebus, she is pregnant. And it’s Simon’s baby. And Gemma’s trying to counsel her. Kate wants to see Ros now, please.

Well, that’s upped the stakes considerably, although it’s not like abortion is impossible to get in the UK as it can be in the US.

Gemma’s just missed her first appointment, Anwar Shamsky’s walked out but she catches him in the parking lot. She’s not letting him leave without her looking at him, men his age don’t usually come in unless it’s something very important. She does a quick check standing there, he thinks his being sick in the morning means he has a brain tumour, but she doesn’t see any signs of that. Is he leaving anything out? He says no and rabbits, but I don’t know. Also: Anwar Shamsky is a stone cold FOX, yo. And the way they linger on his gorgeous mug tells me that Gemma will be getting her own back, perhaps.

Kate’s leaving as Gemma walks back in, Ros pulls her in. Kate’s not planning to keep the baby, or telling anyone, but Gemma thinks she has to tell Simon. Ros strongly advises against Gemma doing just that but we’ll see.

She dines with her boys later, she still hasn’t talked to Simon, but she can’t sleep either. She texts…who to meet up? Ah it’s Carly, and they sit in a club as Carly holds forth on what all men want: 22 year olds. Fertile 22 year olds.

They’re going outside for a smoke, but Gemma’s spotted stone cold FOX Anwar at the bar, bellying up and buying him a Becks. When he said he’s been drinking at night, we all assumed he meant home alone in a recliner with sports on the telly. Not this guy. She tells him she couldn’t sleep either, but doesn’t elaborate past trouble at home. She asks about what he’s REALLY got going on. He’s married (damnit!), his wife is 6 months pregnant but 5 years ago he had a scan that showed that he actually DOES have a tumah, benign but growing. He didn’t tell his wife, Alicia, and she’s not going to understand. Gemma tells him to tell his wife, or she will find out in the post-mortem and it will be a lot better coming from him.

He presses on HER wound now, what did she mean, trouble at home? Something with her husband, that’s what usually sends women her age out to the bar in the middle of the night, innit? And he knows, he does a lot of divorces, women always get the short end of the stick, they never win. The men just start over with someone younger with no responsibilities. She tightly tells him to tell his wife, he says he “caaan’t” and goes to the loo. Leaving his phone behind, which no person ever would do. She messes with it and then heads out to grab Carly from the smoke pit. Anwar comes back from the bathroom to find his phone ringing. Does nobody lock their phones?? Well, I have to, I have small children and several Lego games installed, they’d be junkies if they could get it whenever they wanted to.

She sends Carly off with women for the cigs and find Jack drunk and passed out on a bench. She takes him back to his place, which is a complete shithole. His boyfriend of 30 years left him, though, which explains the mess and the fact that Gemma decides to spill everything to him. She explains that she hasn’t told Simon she knows because she isn’t going to be that woman, who gets cheated on and has screaming rows and divorce and all of that: she’s clever. Jack says sure, and he’s not a pissed widower who hasn’t showered in three weeks, he’s clever too. Ah, so David didn’t LEAVE him, he LEFT him, in the earthly realm sense, got it.

Now she’s spilling it ALL to Jack, about testing Kate and stealing her from Ros, well, it turns out Jack knew Simon from before, and Simon was a skank, previously, putting it about wherever he could. He came back from London with Gemma and everyone thought he was a changed man. But Simon’s dad cheated on his mom, see, and left them, that’s the kind of thing that passes on, like Jack’s affinity for Scotch. I don’t know if I agree with that, but I will certainly say that children live the world they see.

He advises her to tell Simon that she knows, that Kate’s pregnant, and then take Tom and go. Sometimes it’s the place that’s the problem. He takes his gouty arse to bed while Gemma cleans up his flat and reads prescription bottles.

The next morning (in the same shirt), Gemma gets a text from Ros, Kate’s got an abortion scheduled for 1 pm. Down comes Simon, and she finally tells him she knows. She thinks she could handle him being in a relationship, if it ended, but the lie would be the big thing. I think the bigger thing is the BABY, but honestly, I wouldn’t tell him, not for anything. I don’t know if that makes me a plonker or not. She gives him the adult version of “I won’t be mad if you just fess up, honest!” which he should recognise as the trap it is. She’s giving him a chance, though, which is maybe what the marriage deserves. She gives him that last opportunity; they can work through things together as a couple and solve this horribly torn life. And he lies. He’s not having an affair. I mean. WHAT DOES SHE HAVE TO DO??

He even goes on the offensive, what’s she doing, following him, etc? Could Kate actually be sleeping with Neil or someone else? But no. Those pictures.

Gemma drives to the train station, where a dapper looking somewhat sober Jack is waiting. I have to share something now, and I don’t want you to think the less of me for it, but it keeps coming up in my brain so I must. I once had a torrid crush on a man just like Jack, maybe slightly younger, but a brilliant alcoholic of advanced age with an enormous head. We hissed poetry at each other in pubs for several months over far too much whiskey and parted on poor terms. I have a great amount of fondness for my long-ago crush and find myself wanting to pat Jack on the top of his head and maybe cuddle a bit.

She’s sending him on holiday, having got Carly to bring him there, but he doesn’t want to go away. The pills she was looking at were for him to kill himself, though, which turns that tiny bit of a screw further: sometimes the place IS the problem, Jack.

Gemma’s visting Simon’s mom at the home, she’s noticed Gemma’s distance from Simon, asking “you know, don’t you?” Whuuuut?? And yes, about this other woman. Simon swore her to secrecy, but he told her about Kate. Gemma throws in her trump card; Kate’s pregnant and having an abortion shortly, Simon doesn’t know. I wonder if that was said in anger, to be deceived by so many people must be hard to swallow. Especially to be pitied. Simon’s mom tells Gemma she MUST tell Simon, it’s his right, and I still call bollocks. What does she owe this wanker?

Gemma texts Ros, asking her to call Simon right now and tell him Kate’s pregnant. She does and Simon leaves the room when she calls, his mom’s hand reaching for Gemma’s, who pulls away.

Simon freaks, driving off immediately, leaving Gemma to ask his mother if she thinks this relationship is serious? She says when they make a decision on this child, they’ll know, but they’ve been together for two years, after all. Oh but not the three months Ros said, and I knew she was lying. 2 years is a long time for an affair. No wonder everyone knows about it. No wonder he wanted to see about the baby. I mean. That’s a RELATIONSHIP, not a fling. He’s dating Kate, and quite seriously. And now they’re having a baby.

At the office, Gemma talks to Ros. Kate’s keeping the baby and of course she is.

In storms Anwar, Gemma did call his wife last night and tell on him, he’s not quite furious though. After she worked out he wasn’t up to anything shady, she’s agreed to come to the scan with him. There’s a strong chemistry there between these two. She books him for an appointment, him doing divorce work and all. You’ve got to protect yourself, good job, Gemma. And we’re out.

So. I hope Gemma has a solid plan to get out of this mess. Amy Poehler once said that divorce is like putting everything you love most in the world on a big blanket and then throwing everything up in the air and that sounds about right. I can’t believe she let him find out about the pregnancy, I don’t agree whatsoever. She crossed so many lines, ethically and morally, I can’t even stand it. I mean, they did much worse, and I guess it’s true what they say: nobody stays clean in love or war. Until next time, LOCK YOUR PHONES! Cheers!