Hi guys! I do not have the shows I am SUPPOSED to be working on, so I will do a Wentworth while I wait. Okay, I just wanted to see how things were shaping up. Rolling S3:E11 The Living and the Dead after the break

Bea (Danielle Cormack) is working on Matthew Fletcher (Aaron Jeffrey); he knows now that Governor Ferguson (Pamela Rabe) was responsible for his being run over, for having Bea drugged and oh yes, for Simmo’s death! I almost forgot about her. Bea hasn’t, and she’s using this history to propel Fletcher into action. Bea knows Ferguson’s weak spot: Jianna

Fletcher has an ally, too, board member Derek Channing who’s had his own (dirty and creepy) wings clipped by Ferguson in the past. He’s provided Fletcher with his password for looking up Jianna in the system, Bea doesn’t want to expose Ferguson for screwing a prisoner.

And when he finds Jianna in the system?

I’ve never seen Ferguson lose it like that: a hair came out of her bun! I couldn’t stop staring at it

She calms herself to ask who the senior officers were on duty, this face is terrifying

Lucy Gambaro (Sally-Ann Upton) and Jodie Spiteri (Pia Miranda) are back from hospitals in town, Deputy Governor Vera Bennett (Kate Atkinson) greets them without a hint of malice or compassion. Linda Miles (Jacqueline Brennan) asks why she’s still there? Didn’t she work graveyard shift?

Oh shite, that means the Governor won’t know if it was her or Fletcher who did that. She will probably suspect Vera, given that she’ll rightly assume that Fletcher doesn’t have the gumption to do that on his own.

Vera doesn’t mind working a double, though, “this one’s come at a good time” *hard eyeball at Lucy*.

Lucy has to be stripsearched in her wheelchair, allll the herx. I didn’t understand what Bea was doing when they showed that shot of her stepping on Lucy’s foot after the beating by Maxine: she broke Lucy’s ankle, quite firmly too.

Vera’s enjoying being cruel to Lucy and I quite understand that, what with Lucy having infected her with Hep-C during a prison riot because the Governor wouldn’t save her Deputy Governor. I still feel squicky watching someone intentionally put in pain, it’s a character flaw.

Once Lucy’s got her pants off, Vera sends Miles out of the room to question Lucy more thoroughly about the riot. She gets nowhere, so it looks like they’ll be doing this the old-fashioned way. *puts on rubber gloves* What??

Ferguson has Fletcher in her office, she can’t barely keep it together for 60 seconds.

To be fair, he did provoke her by giving his thanks for her support during his trying time (I snickered out loud). She holds up the picture of Jianna (that she kept) and attacks him for his “Neanderthal gait” and “inarticulation” and ermagahd it was everything I hoped it would be when he keeps a straight face and she realises she may be in-advisably talking to a staff member who could use it against her. She’s gone off half-cocked (you know, but RIGHT), which is throwing her off balance. Her fencing teacher (father?) would be very disappointed in her.

Bea finds the Governor tossing her cell; there’s a tense moment over the sketch Bea has done of the Governor and you can see how on edge she is.

Part of the reason for the edginess is that Joshua hasn’t stopped crying, and now we know why. Dory (Shareena Clanton) hands over the baby to Jess (Georgia Chara) so she can throw up: feck. Jess must have used that leftover drug balloon from Franky’s framing last episode to implicate Dory. I TOLD YOU JESS WAS EVIL FOR CHILDREN!!

Maxine (Socratis Otto) and Bea’s turn to welcome Lucy back! Now we get the second part of the play; Bea wants Lucy to identify the Governor as to who f*cked her up, but Lucy’s not crazy. I don’t even understand that particular move, nobody’s going to believe Lucy anyway. The first part of their plan to convince Lucy starts with isolating her from her crew.

Jess IS putting drugs in Dory’s food, I mean. Can you think of anything more ridiculous than trying to take a child because you love children by DRUGGING THE BREASTFEEDING MOTHER? I know I’m trying to apply logic here where it doesn’t fit, but still: JESS.

This is where they completely lose me re: that storyline. If Jess was so enamoured of children that she was trying to wrest Joshua from Dory, she wouldn’t be risking Josh’s life by feeding his breastfeeding mother anything to make her sick. Full stop.

Dory can’t settle Joshua and isn’t eating (GOOD), so Liz (Celia Ireland) steps in, to be brushed aside by Jess, who grabs Joshie.

I swear, I’m going to pop a blood vessel if people don’t realise soon how dangerous Jess is.

Sophie (Edwina Samuels) wants Franky (Nicole da Silva) to come with her to meet the wife of the cyclist she killed while drunk, Franky and I look at Liz, Sophie’s mother. Franky says she can’t and we ALL stare at Liz now: go to yer mama!

Ferguson has done some investigating, it’s Vera she calls into her office after finding out who accessed her office. I wonder how Fletcher got her card? Ferguson goes immediately scorched earth; she’s built a case against Vera for concealing her Hep-C status (on the Governor’s recommendation, but still, she did) and various other offenses which SOUNDS like an offensive, but the Governor is all over the place.

They get into a shouting match and then time slows and comes to a halt as the Governor HITS Vera, slapping her across the face as the words “you are not fit to be Governor” hang in the air.

That was not a good move, Governor. Vera knows where all your skeletons are buried because she dug the holes.

Jess is hitting on another guard, seriously, do these guys not get any training at all as to how to deal with seemingly-amorous prisoners? It’s practically textbook!

Franky’s letter has come from the Parole Board…CONGRATULATIONS!!!! Woo hoo!!!! Go Franky! Oh but Boomer (Katrina Milosevic) sees and she won’t be getting out for another 7 years, thanks to hiding Franky’s drugs in her cell. Oh man.

I need to remember these women like this for a moment:

Sophie is freaking out in her cell, she doesn’t know how to face this woman who’s husband she killed. She’s scared. Yay and she asks Liz to come with her!!

Franky finds Bea working out in the yard, she wants in, she wants to take down the Governor like they planned. Bea doesn’t want her help, she thinks Franky ought to be worried about her parole and what she’ll do after she gets out. Franky says her parole is fucked and

Wait. I thought she got parole? I can’t see Vera being so cruel as to congratulate them on NOT getting something they really wanted, but maybe Franky just sees that she needs to put things right before she leaves.

Emergency staff meeting in the lounge! Oh Ferguson it almost hurts to see you crumble like this under the weight of your own paranoia. ALMOST as much as jabbing a pencil into the corner of your eye. ALMOST.

There’s a staff member who has been working to actively undermine the Governor: it’s Vera. Fletcher looks surprised. Ferguson outs Vera’s medical status and will be removing her from duty as soon as: the police barge in to take Will Jackson (Robbie Magasiva) into custody, Miles and I are wondering how everything went so very wrong.

Fletcher goes right to Bea: why did she implicate Vera in the Jianna wallpapering? It was just part of the offensive, she wanted to divert suspicion from Fletcher AND isolate Ferguson from any allies.

That’s what happens when you miss the previous episode where Vera was working with Bridget Westfall against the Governor.

Bea calls Vera “collateral damage” and COME ON! You can’t work like that! It’s what makes Ferguson so bad! White Hats and Black Hats are very clear on TV, I only wish they were so clear in real life. In the past I’ve been conflicted about tactics used by Bea like: psychologically torturing Jodie so she’d spill on the Governor’s torture and the like.

What say you? Is it okay to manipulate and lie and inflict collateral damage as long as you believe you’re on the side of angels? Is that the only way to win? Or does that mean you’ve already lost?

Maxine pays Miles off for the computer switcheroo in a completely unnecessary scene, there was a mirror above, so maybe someone else saw and that was the point. We already knew it had to be Miles.

Lucy is being dragged all over the basketball court in her wheelchair while Bea confronts Franky about her lying about her parole. Franky thinks Ferguson will never let her go and I think she might right now: Ferguson’s a little distracted. Franky brings up the recording of her confession re: killing Meg Jackson, but Bea STILL doesn’t want any of her help. Bea’s trying to do the right thing as far as Franky goes. I think

Boomer’s still mad at Maxine for not giving her a baby (it’s complicated, if that doesn’t make sense to you  just read back a couple of recaps), Maxine asks if it’s really about missing Frankie? Booms thinks she had nuffing, but she’s got Maxine! Time for a hug and it’s all sweet and lovely until Boomer moves to plant a horrific looking kiss on Maxine. She might have the wrong end of the stick there. Maxine loves you like a sister! Apropos of nothing

Liz pulls Franky aside: why is she not over the moon? Franky has a premonition: she doesn’t think she’s getting out alive.

Every ounce of me is trying to resist the urge to point out how unnecessary it is to show Dory pretend-breastfeeding. For those of us with experience, it looks like the grossest kind of exploitation and those of you without: please don’t ever try to breastfeed like that. Especially you menz, you’ll get about as much result.

Jess is watching, time to suggest the bottle! So she can help, of course and the only help Dory wants from Jess is for her to find Liz. Please.

Fletcher remembers!!! He remembers everything JesusKelly told him back in season 2, but MOAR. Jianna didn’t kill herself, the inmates killed her because of her affair with Ferguson. What.the.hell? The whole reason Ferguson was against Will was that Will took away Jianna’s baby and she killed herself. If that’s not the case…what?

The police have Will on camera throwing the head of the woodsplitter into the water, why didn’t he just come clean and have them come investigate his place? This is mental. No, they just have someone riding his bike throwing something in a lake, they haven’t found anything yet. He demands to know if they’re arresting him, and if not: he’s gone. He gets home and not long after hears a knock. He squares his shoulders, believing this to be the end, but really it’s the beginning of his awareness. Fletcher remembers everything. Welcome to the Anti Ferguson Army!

Dory sends a sleeping Joshua back to the unit with Jess while she continues cleaning herself up and tries to get her nausea under control: I can’t tell if this happened or the drugs in her system are making her hallucinate

Dory passes out and is brought to Medical. Jess makes a complaint against Dory screaming at Joshua and the baby is sent back to the unit with Jess.

I’m just going to push through and record everything without commentary, this storyline is far too angering for me to share anything rational. Sputtering gets repetitive after awhile.

Liz finds Jess and Joshua in Dory’s room, she finally figures out that it was Jess who set her up with all the magically appearing booze under her pillow to push her off the wagon. At least someone sees how dangerous Jess is.

Will’s back at work, and for ONCE he’s using his melon and not going straight for the jugular. Ferguson asks if everything is okay, Will says “it will be, Governor” and oooooooooohhh!! A showdown with Vera is next and she’s still reaction and not planning, so she’s not aware that Fletcher is following her.

Will goes straight to Bea and tells her everything about Jianna, but I think he has the wrong end of the stick. Did Ferguson kill Harry? I thought that was the Red Right Hand? Was Kaz Proctor just saying that so she could seem more important to Bea? Bea digs out the Thug’s DNA, which she scraped out from underneath her own fingernails, maybe they can match it to Harry’s crime scene?

Vera finds Lucy needing help in the classroom, she wheels Lucy to the stairwell to ask her again: who grabbed her in the riot? Whose blood was in the syringe? She admits it, sort of and Vera wrestles with herself as to whether she’ll be the type to enact bloody vengeance on those who’ve wronged her and in the end: she isn’t. Lucy doesn’t plead for herself in the usual way, but tells us that she contracted Hep-C from a blood transfusion during her hysterectomy. It’s as though Lucy WANTS to die, she shouts at Vera as Vinegar Tits to do it, do it! Make something of herself for one moment! Vera can’t, pulling her back at the last moment, but Lucy falls anyway, the momentum from elbowing Vera propelling her forward and down the concrete stairs in a wheelchair with a broken ankle.

I didn’t watch.

Lucy is in terrible shape, but she can talk! Bea comes in to find out what happened, Vera screams and sends her out, but Lucy has made her choice: she tells Rose (Maggie Naouri) that it was Ferguson who pushed her down the stairs. Rose saw Ferguson leave an hour earlier, though, Lucy says the Governor left her for dead.

Ferguson is screaming at her fencing master (father), he tells her this is just her sadistic nature coming home to roost. She shouts and argues and playacts and oh. She’s alone and Fletcher is watching.

I THOUGHT HER DAD WAS A MANIFEST!!

She’s mad. Fully mad

Fletcher calls her insane: and he knows what she’s done. It’s over.

The divers have found the head of the woodsplitter in the water, I sure hope there’s something of the Thug or Kaz Proctor left on there or my favourite guard is going to be visiting Nash Taylor in jail right skippy.

Dory’s locked up and Jess has Joshua.

Ferguson meets with her Thug; it’s time to take care of Fletcher for good. Fletcher’s ready, though, he’s got a gun and a cup of coffee. We’re out.went