Just to kick off this episode, I thought that this episode pulls a surprisingly large number of threads together and prepares for the shoot out at the OK Corral between Helen and Fenner and a whole host of past themes are revisited
· Nikki’s OU exam actually taking place.
· Helen reverting to unofficial tactics as she did in Series 1
· Babs diary and Nikki’s wish that ‘there is nothing in there about me.’
· The letter from the LCD about Babs’ bigamous marriage to Peter where criminal charges are dropped.
· Bodybag’s clock turning up from the charity shop which Crystal stole
· Payback for Fenner helping Di deal with the aftermath of the physical abuse that she gave to her disabled mother
· Helen using ‘her duty’ as a way of avoiding dealing with a would be partner and, once again, Helen asks someone to ‘trust her’ and this time, it isn’t Nikki- this in response to Thomas’ suppressed resentment of Helen staking out Virginia’s knocking shops.
· Nikki’s nurses coat, bus ticket and 2nd copy of Sophie’s world which Helen gave, complete with inscription
· Helen confronting Fenner in a dangerous situation (outside the massage parlour) leaving her open to assault as she did before only this time she turns the tables and threatening him with photographic evidence as Yvonne had done before to Fenner.
· Not wanting Babs to cover up for Helen in her ‘harbouring an escaped criminal’ which is what Crystal got 9 months for. Once after the event was more than enough to say nothing- twice was too much to actively lie for her.
· Helen’s final showdown with Fenner, Thomas being relegated to the sidelines and Nikki finally facing her appeal started in Mid Series 2.

You see the tail end of a Mark Di row and being slagged off by one and all (Josh, Gina and Mark) and perhaps making her not well disposed towards humanity as a whole.
You see the kiss between Thomas and a very hung over looking Helen who ‘couldn’t sleep’ and was obsessive in coming to work which Fenner noted to weave intrigues between Nikki, Helen and Thomas.
Karen carries on blindly as before, agreeing to Fenner’s suspicious readiness to escort Nikki to her OU exam and to the lifer’s meeting and Fenner’s dropping Helen in it causes Helen’s fierce original loyalty to Nikki to resurface and behind it, all Helen’s suppressed feelings start to come out.
There is a curious feeling that because Nikki wasn’t fighting the supposed situation between Helen and Thomas and displaying a very touching generosity to the ‘one decent guy’ (‘the dashing Doctor’ to Babs) with no sarcastic edge, it was gradually dissolving Helen’s surface resolutions so that she was curiously reluctant to acknowledge her feelings for Thomas to Nikki and likewise later to Thomas. There's a very strange paradox that when Nikki went into a jealous strop at Helen, it drove Helen away. It's kind of, the more she pushed for what she wanted, it drove that away and here is the converse starting to operate.

In turn, Thomas’s classic reserved middle class Brit male ‘putting his feelings on his sleeve’ must have resonated such a contrast to Helen with Nikki's passion. She plays it cool and kisses him so she doesn’t have to say anything. The tape of Denny playing to Josh revealing her undercover feelings for Shaz while being with Shell has that ghost resemblance of Helen with Thomas part revealing her feelings for Nikki.

The pursual of Fenner takes place with Helen using none of her Governing Governor powers, or using the police but she sensibly relies on herself and rightly dismisses Thomas’s well meaning but badly thought out alternative plan. What sent shivers down my spine was Helen confronting Fenner with nothing more than her ability to bluff Fenner into thinking he was being photographed. Having done a daytime job visiting peoples’ houses and been in a couple of dodgy situations, my heart went out to Helen and admired her holding her nerve.

In confronting a cornered Fenner, Helen’s virtues are exploited so that shge fatally holds back from the final blow- giving Fenner a chance to ‘talk to Karen’ who ‘he loves.’ In the meantime, Fenner’s use of unofficial cell spins, snooping round Helen’s office and tracking down the diary questions the formal virtue of ‘being at the top of the shit heap.’

What is starting to change is Nikki on her way out, dropping her prisoner’s spokeswoman role and touchingly wanting to see films and hear music and not being a freak, and reuniting with Trisha again. Yet another is Shaz’s kickboxing display on a plastic tray which faces out the PBG better than actual fighting

I haven't watched this ep yet (am hoping to tonight), but I had a few thoughts in response to Richard's post.

I like this, because it continues the motif which started in the second half of S3, with Shaz as the external projection of Helen's inner life, but sort of flips it around a bit. Although, arguably, perhaps it doesn't flip around--maybe Denny is Nikki, still in love with Shaz/Helen, but moving on withs someone else because she got the opportunity outside and isn't going to give that up. But regardless, it's still Shaz and Denny saying all the things that Helen and Nikki seem to want to say, but can't.

I've got to disagree on this "sensibly" business. Sensibly? Going out on her own with no back up and no camera was about the stupidest thing Helen ever did! Not only did it put her in danger, but it left her with no actual evidence, other than her own testimony, about Fenner's activities. Did she really think she was going to be able to turn Virginia to testify against Fenner? If so, that's even more naive! Seriously, this is one of those times I just want to shake Helen.

I also still have to watch this episode again, but I want to agree with abzug on this one.

Helen was anything but sensible in her handling of the latest Fenner situation. What I found even stranger is the fact that, just earlier on in this very same episode, she told Thomas there's no use in scaring Virginia into confessing Fenner's involvement without evidence! I thought the whole purpose of the exercise was to gather this evidence that would force Fenner's hand. Helen really should've know better, especially in view of the fact that she knew Fenner's tactics so well, together with the fact that she knew that he always weaseled his way out of everything. And to add insult to injury, she gives him time on a silver platter to find the loop hole...!!!

Tsk-tsk Helen, what were you thinking?!

I get the point about Helen's incredibly risky behaviour but it needs thinking through very carefully.

The only problem is, who would be the back up (i.e. for taking photos)? She needed someone she could trust who wasn't in prison or working for the prison service and that whittles down the numbers. The only conceivable help would be Lauren and possibly Yvonne's mob and associating with them for direct help might be distinctly dodgy.

The question of 'enough evidence' is another matter. What Helen needed was Fenner's bank accounts showing his slice of the money going into his account and Virginia's bank accounts showing the rest and possibly witness evidence to tie in the two. Anyone working for Virginia's brothels / massage parlours is working in an illegal form of employment and are hardly like to turn up witnesses and that was the problem.

There is another question, to make the matter official in terms of Area investigators and / or criminal in terms of the police. Once Helen does that, she loses control of what's going on. There has been a pretty consistent theme of 'control' in Helen's psychological make up but on this occasion, Helen has tangible justification for being afraid of loss of control. This quest is one where all Helen's experience and intelligence is focussed as this is a 'winner takes all' fight to the death and a psychological approach would miss the point entirely.

Her expressed fear to Thomas was that acting otherwise would give Fenner and O'Kane to cover their tracks. Her alternative was to spring enough information on Fenner so that he simply resigns, no investigation, no follow up. As it is, with recruiting Yvonne (and by extension Lauren) and Mark guarding the door to Virginia's cell, she keeps control. What is extraordinary is how, having got to be Governing Governor, she uses completely unnofficial tactics to try and nail Fenner. This is totally paradoxical and astute of Shed.

When it came to seeing Fenner at the parlour, you could see the sense of fear on her face and think,'shit, now what do I do?' Having had uncomfortable experiences of visiting potentially violent people in run down council housing gave me a primal fear for what Helen was doing. Put this way, her strategy had a sense of logic and the bluff she pulled on Fenner about the cameraman was pulled off extraordinarily skilfully.

If Helen has insisted to Fenner that he wrote out the letter of resignation on the spot, she would have pulled off her plan. Her very slight chink in her armour was to 'give Fenner time to explain things to Karen.' She did this out of her sense of humanity and empathy for Karen though Karen hadn't done anything to deserve it. A minor mistake was to reveal her hand to Virginia who just blandly denied everything.

Yeh, I do agree, if she's sitting out there for weeks, where's the camera, where's the film, where's the damn evidence? what's she going to use, her good word & and time-sheet of comings & goings? Definitely frustrating.

But curiously not unlike a certain Ms Wade: when anger pushes Helen past rationality she charges ahead. Here she's got this half-assed plan & she's just stuck in: Fenner's Gotta Go. But she made a more serious miscalculation than just threatening him or even his livelihood; she threatened his relationship with Karen. It's not that he gives a jack about Karen, but she's his means to an end. To Helen, it means: I'm serious, dammit. To Fenner, this reads: gloves off. They're totally on different planets. She can't even imagine he'd come back with a threat to Nikki, it's inconceivable to her. Which is incredibly interesting, as a blind-spot.

Anyway. Helen's on his turf, not hers. She's not mindful of that, she doesn't really understand that's the error she's made. She seems even less aware she's still using her own morality as a yardstick. Now on the one hand, that's exactly what people do. But this is like... man, I don't know, serving haute cuisine to your dog. Fenner just don't know from haute. (Rather like feeding this week's body to Mr Wu's pigs.)

It's clear she thinks she's giving herself leverage: by threatening Karen she's ensuring he'll give in--because she's still assuming he's using some sort of similar yardstick, in that he wouldn't want to endanger Karen... rather than him being that nasty goo at the bottom of your fridge that you really don't want to look at too closely. It spreads. Plus he just enjoys this kind of thing, it gives him pleasure. The uglier it gets, the more he likes it. So although we all probably want to rattle Helen's stubborn little Scottish baby teeth back into position at points, it's also that she cannae understand how aberrant Fenner really is. She doesn't know a lot of what we've spent 3 seasons watching. She senses it like a bad smell, but she really doesn't know how far he'll go.

To me it was bizarre to watch Helen trying to get O'Kane to rat on Fenner...
because for 3 seasons I've had to listen to prison offical Stewart say over and over in most cases that it's a con's word against a screw's. She even pulls this on Nikki as recently as the book burning in Nikki's cell. So it doesn't make sense for her to use a con as a witness now. Helen is being set up by the writers to mess up.

After having a quick look at this sequence again, this whole scenario is now even more bizarre. Helen's whole tactic is not to use the information of Fenner's involvement in the massage parlours per se, but rather she's attempting to blackmail him! She is not saying to him that she is going to take her (pseudo) evidence to Area, but to Karen. She wants to use Fenner's relationship with Karen as leverage, and not the fact that Fenner as a prison officer is involved in illegal activities. Where is her strategy? After sitting outside these massage parlours night after night, surely she had enough time to come up with a more concrete plan other than some half-arsed blackmailing scheme? Also, thinking back on her whole report on the sexual assault, Helen's stance on the matter was "don't reveal your hand" until you have concrete evidence. In response to richard's earlier question, I would say a smarter plan would have been if Helen stayed put in her car and took the photos herself, instead of confronting Fenner on instinct.

Oh, and given the location of these parlours, where is Dr "Sitting on the sidelines is not really my thing"? Uhm, he seems to be sitting on a sideline somewhere as far away as possible from these dodgy areas... What a way to protect and help your girlfriend - phone her up in the middle of the night to tell her it's the middle of the night. Great going there, Dr Waugh!

That's sort of the unspoken thing going on here, isn't it? I mean, we're sitting here discussing S3E14 and S3E15 at the same time, and it's hard to get around the fact that the answer to most of our questions is that they were writing the character off the show. The seams really start to show in some of these later episodes, which is frustrating. I don't mind most of the Thomas stuff, actually, because that seems basically organic to the character and her journey about her sexuality. But this Fenner stuff, it's just really hard to stomach. I mean, I've found Richard and ekny's posts persuasive, certainly, but we're having to work a bit hard to explain Helen's behavior in this particular episode.

It's similar to the fact that we never found an answer to why Fenner approached Virginia about the brothels in the first place. In the end, the Fenner-brothel-Helen plotline does veer towards the contrived. <sigh>

On the other hand, what were the writers supposed to do? Helen was careerist since day 1. She had gotten the position she had always wanted. She was incredibly motivated to get rid of Fenner. And she's about the most determined person you'd ever meet. So, how do you get a determined person to give up the two things they claim to want the most (the Number 1 job, and Fenner's resignation) without compromising the character? It's a really tough challenge.

They could have done it another way, and had Helen choose to give up Larkhall just to be with Nikki, but it would have been hard to build up the case that Helen couldn't remain at Larkhall and get back together with Nikki, because then why would she have been saying all of S3 that they had a future when Nikki got out. So they had to figure out a way where Helen clearly had to choose between Larkhall and Nikki (quitting in order to protect Nikki's appeal), and where she finally chose Nikki. Again, a really tough writing challenge.

My fantasy ending, of course, is that Nikki is freed, comes back to Larkhall working for a prisoner rights organization, teams with Helen to get Fenner fired, and they fall back in love and their relationship is exposed, and Helen has to quit. But then the actors would have had to stay on for another season, OR, they would have had to be in every episode in S3 (wouldn't THAT have been nice?).

Ah, but technically there would've been no reason why Nikki and Helen could not be together after Nikki's release - even if Helen was still employed by the Home Office. Their relationship was never illegal, just against the rules and regulations of the prison service. If Nikki was no longer a prisoner, she and Helen were free to be together no matter where Helen chose to work. I don't think resigning from the prison service was ever part of Helen's plan for them to be together - the plan was only to get Nikki released.

That's exactly the point. So, given that Helen can be in a relationship with Nikki when she's released, and she loves her job and is incredibly professionally ambitious, how do you get rid of her character without killing her? You write an incredibly convoluted storyline where she makes some really uncharacteristically dumb mistakes and is forced to quit her job to protect her ex-lover's appeal. :)

You transfer her! She was only acting Nr 1 afterall...

Not a bad idea, esp. if you bring in a man to replace her, because then you can further drive home the message of how patriarchal the prison service (and society in general) both are. :guns

But still, far less dramatic. I mean, Mark got transferred at the end of S4, and if it weren't for Fenner's machinations, there would have been no drama in it.

These last posts certainly give food for thought. I've opted for seeing Helen as simply blackmailing Fenner out of the job. Since the whole Fenner operation was sleasy and illegal, she would have been hard put to use anything official. For Helen to use Karen as leverage outside the massage parlour, is as ekny says, 'this is the gloves off and the rules are, there are no rules'(I've cribbed this line from the car race in Grease and the metaphor isn't too far out). I agree Helen could have taken the photos herself but she would have had the choice to either follow up and confront him there and then or do it the next day. Curiously enough, Fenner might have been more vulnerable outside the massage parlour than in his uniform the next day.

Having got nearly there, Helen switches tactics to the rules of cricket in believing that when Fenner said he'd talk to Karen and resign at the end of the day, that's what he'd do. It was only the sole advantage of time that gave Fenner's desperate cunning the scope to work against Nikki. If she'd got his resignation on the spot and done something like a Lorna Rose on him, she'd have pulled it off.

It's worth while reversing the logic, work out what Shed were after and how they figured out the storyline to get to what they wanted. This was for both Helen and Nikki to be both out of Larkhall to totally remove the prison which was what had impeded their relationship. For Helen to be 'reverse blackmailed', they created the 'evidence' of the Nurses coat, bus ticket, book and Babs diary about which much has been said about it being artificial but you can see the mechanics. It's also notworthy that Helen had built up a pretty well impervious 'suit of armour' against Fenner only that he found that tiny chink, her humanity which failing says a lot about Helen.

Hi All...once again..brilliant amazing board. I have been reading it for months now and perhaps have a bit or two to add.

I agree with Richard that old threads have been brought together and we are seeing the beginnings of some new ones...

The title "Cat and Mouse" is interesting since Helen does seem to be playing that game with Fenner. Her bluff at the massage parlor works beautifully on Fenner. When Fenner calls her bluff after finding the diary and bus ticket and knows about the nurses uniform..her bluff does not work.

It bothered me that Helen kept that bloody uniform even after moving up to governing governor. Come on!!! what were you thinking!!! Nikki too for keeping the keepsake bus ticket stub. All this of course is contrived for the eventual wrap up next episode. Abzug is right that the writers must have been in a pickle to come up with something knowing that H/N would not be back. That to me was the disappointment since some of it seemed a bit out of character for them.

Did you notice the expression on Helen's face when Nikki let her know Fenner was the one who told her about shagging Thomas? IMO that she had that much more reason to nail him. It seemed to take her hate up a notch. Nikki also echoed beautifully the way she handled the news when Trish dumped her in her handling of Helen when Helen came to her cell to talk. Could not Helen know how magnanimous Nikki was being?

Intersting shifts in alliances...Tina dumping her sister and PBG for Virginia
Helen working with Yvonne. Speaking of Yvonne, she gets the big thumbs up from Helen and with that cannot help but wind up Fenner. THIS will come back to haunt her.

I guess there was a lot of cat and mouse antics in this episode.

Disclaimer: haven't watched/youtubed the whole episode, just in peices over the past months. BlueDogBlues got me thinking about the title and more of what it's significance to the structure and dynamic of the episode might be....I found this:

"This (cat and mouse) ...mutual learning process is also a double feedback loop: Processing input from the mouse, the cat continually adjusts its capturing behavior, adaptively increasing efficiency and reducing noise in the message (that is, limiting extraneous actions). Conversely, the mouse changes its output based on the cat’s input. As a result, the entire system evolves over time."

Helen's been playing catch and mouse with Fenner for 3 seasons. Does he win? I don't think so. Any feedback loop is delicately sensitive to changes. But I'm jumping ahead to the final episode of N&H. Must go back and do my homework first...ie review #15. Who else is caught up in a game of cat and mouse?

I got a chance to rewatch this episode tonight, and I found it really hard to watch, and now really hard to write about. No matter how many times I see it, I truly hope it will turn out differently. It's so frustrating! But I can't decide if that's the sign of a well-written episode (b/c I'm so emotionally invested in the plot) or a badly-written one (b/c I find the plot so frustrating).

Marginal Options

I'm starting with the smaller of the two themes I noticed, which is this idea that a number of characters had very limited options open to them. They were sort of the opposite of free, being forced to do certain things or behave certain ways that weren't necessarily characteristic. And the reason I call these options "marginal" is that they seem to play around the liminal space between legality and illegality, on the margins of things.

The most obvious character with marginal options open to her is Helen. We've already talked about how little leverage she truly had over Fenner, and wondered exactly what she was thinking she would do if/when she found him at one of Virginia's knock shops. Towards the beginning of the episode she tells Thomas (with more than a hint of anger and frustration) that this is "the only way I've got" to get Fenner. She's not happy about it, but she doesn't see an alternative. She reaches out to Yvonne again for further assistance, in what is the first scene in AGES where Helen has entered the cell of a prisoner during lockup. And when she's there, she asks Yvonne to "scare something out of" Virginia. If that's not the request of a desperate woman with terrifyingly few options, then I don't know what is. Later she even baldly lies to Fenner about all the evidence she has over him from Virginia, when in fact she's got nada. Similarly, Crystal is finally going to trial for harboring Shell and Denny, a crime for which she was similarly trapped into taking a marginal action. Bodybag reminds Crystal, as she's departing for court "If you weren't in league with those two monsters, why didn't you phone the police yourself?" It's a question for which Crystal has no answer. How could she turn her friend in? Just like Helen, who can't go to the police either. The official call-the-police option won't work for either one of them, it won't meet their needs.

Alliances
(I notice BlueDogBlues pointed out the theme of alliances as well--I had already finished writing this up before that, so it's not exactly in response to that post. Sorry 'bout that!)

This idea seems very closely related to last week's idea of characters getting others to fight their battles for them, although in this episode the emphasis is much more on the loyalty of the relationship itself, who's on your side and who isn't. The episode opens with a scene where Di is trying to win Mark back to being her friend, and he's having none of it. She's lost him for good. But the relationships between other characters is far less clear.

Helen and Nikki: From Nikki's scene with Barbara, where Barbara encourages her about getting out and getting to be with Helen, it would seem that in the post-Caroline era, Nikki still had hopes that she and Helen would ultimately be together. But Fenner dashes those hopes with news of Helen's relationship with Thomas. Nikki thinks Helen is no longer her ally, and behaves very confrontationally in the Lifer's meeting, attacking prison policy on education. Helen agrees with her, but then quickly discovers that's not why Nikki is picking the fight. Later, when Helen arrives in Nikki's cell to apologize, Nikki seems surprised that Helen is so adamant about Fenner never harming Nikki again--it seems Helen really is her loyal ally, is still on her side, at least when it comes to Fenner. It's only at this point that Nikki actually absolves Helen of any obligation, hinting that she's got options when she's released (which we know isn't actually true--she doesn't put the call into Trish until after this conversation with Helen).

(Can I just say, the 3:4 ratio on the dvds in this scene is so annoying, because it it were widescreen, we'd see the George Eliot postcard at the edge of the frame every time the camera is on Nikki.)

Helen and Thomas: When they meet in the hallway at the start of the episode, Helen is carrying too much, drops her files, and struggles to lock the door. Meanwhile Thomas is calling out to her. Yes, she looks glad to see him, but the actions of her body suggest otherwise (like when she knocked over the bottle of wine in his livingroom at the end of the previous episode). A bit later in her office, she's stubbornly refusing to give in to his entreaties to let the thing go with Fenner and spend more time with him, making Thomas seem even more like an extra burden Helen is carrying. And then on the day when Helen expects Fenner to resign, the teasing about her lack of interest in Thomas continues. But no matter how flirtatious she acts, she can't respond to his "I love you." She wants him as an ally she can control, can keep at a distance. Not one for whom she'll give up any part of herself.

Maxi and Tina: More than any other relationship, this relationship seems to be the doppleganger for Helen and Nikki. Maxi is losing control of Tina as Tina's fascination with Virgina grows. She appeals to Tina's sense of family loyalty (which Tina dismisses) and then she resorts to violence, attacking Tina with a lipstick and threatening to do so with a razor blade. When none of this has any effect, Maxi turns her attention to Virginia, pulling the stunt with the bucket, whose results were far better than Maxi could ever have hoped. It's striking to contrast Maxi's reaction to Tina with Nikki's reaction to seeing Helen's alliance shift away from her. Nikki, in her way, sets Helen free, while Helen is trying to assert her continuing loyalty. Maxi will do anything to stop Tina from straying.

Crystal and Josh: This is one of their more crushing episodes, because at first their alliance, the fact that Crystal has someone on the right side of the bars, actually seems like it will help her achieve freedom, with Denny's videotape. But instead, Josh turns on Crystal for stealing the clock, just as Karen, who was going to be a character witness, turns on Crystal as well. Josh cruelly calls Crystal crazy, or a thief and a liar. He has no other way of understanding her behavior with the clock, and in a way, neither does she.

Di and Fenner: Not all the allies have loving relationships, of course, and the most significant of the opportunistic allies are Di and Fenner. He gets her to break the rules, to do an unofficial cell search of Barbara's cell. When she balks about sneaking into Helen's office, he reminds her of what he holds over her, her abuse of her mother, and draws her back onside. Without Di, Fenner never would have been able to pull together the evidence against Helen and Nikki in time.

Di and Fenner have the one alliance in this episode which bears fruit. All of the other alliances formed, or alliances attempted, result in failure (other than Yvonne's little breakfast tray kick-boxing stunt with Shaz). Helen's confident thumbs up to Yvonne is way too confident, too early. Yvonne attempts to switch Virginia's loyalties to herself and Lauren, away from Fenner, but does so only to assist Helen's cause further. Helen later makes a similar attempt on Virginia's loyalty, and fails. Shaz laments that Denny's message of love isn't worth anything since she can't be with Denny, responding to Crystal's encouragement with a sarcastic "Yeah, wherever she is." And virginia loses everyone's loyalty, when her lie about her illness is exposed. These loyalty schisms or failures occur when there are lies, or when actions don't back up the words. Nikki felt betrayed because Helen had hidden her relationship with Thomas. But it's the Helen-Thomas relationship which is doomed to fall apart, with Helen providing neither the words nor the actions to cement the loyalty between them. In a way, in this closed, pressurized world of Larkhall, Fenner and Di have the perfect combination for a successful alliance: a complete lack of emotion, and a fear of exposure.

I want to plug an amazing essay that ekny wrote on this very topic. Because you're right, it's super-annoying/bizarre. But e had some great insights about it:
http://www.badgirlsannex.com/nursescoat.htm

[QUOTE]I want to plug an amazing essay that ekny wrote on this very topic. Because you're right, it's super-annoying/bizarre. But e had some great insights about it:[/QUOTE]

Great essay. I somehow missed that one. BTW...thank you all involved in the Annex. What a great site with amazing info! I caught the BG bug around February and this site and the annex is must read. To be honest, the in depth analysis is most impressive. I find not much to add to it except to cheer you on for great insight.

With that said, the essay comes up with plausible reasons that she kept the uniform..."no wonder she's not dealing" How true that rings. It seems to be the ongoing Helen saga.

A. - your analysis of alliances was great. I was giving a quickie statement on it. You came in spot on.

[QUOTE] (abzug)
[QUOTE]But no matter how flirtatious she acts, she can't respond to his "I love you." She wants him as an ally she can control, can keep at a distance. Not one for whom she'll give up any part of herself.[/QUOTE]

I see some hesitation with Helen, but that is our Helen. She just does not verbalize her feelings. But when she was talking to Thomas about getting Fenner by the balls...and Thomas tells her "i'm totally in love with you" (gee..i sooo much liked that line better when Nikki was telling it to Helen)
IMO thought Helen was pretty flirty and happy. No, she did not give her heart hook/line/sinker to Thomas, but it seems she was willing/interested in exploring that relationship more and not just as an ally.

Sorry...double post..
I dunno what the frak I did to mess up my reply...
Consider that I'm in first grade and you folks are in...college!
Frankly your posts are so amazing, in depth and concise...I find it hard to add anything to them...just know I enjoy reading all you say

This is all great stuff and Abzug's thesis shapes up nicely. Most certainly, Helen's hatred for Fenner went up a notch when Nikki relayed to Helen what Fenner had said and I suspect, this started to bring up to the surface
what she felt for Nikki. You also got the feeling that Nikki's magnanimity (nice one, the parallel of when Trisah dumped her) is also getting Helen to question what she feels for Thomas.

What is remarkable are the resources Helen had in dealing with the riot. She had a hot line to Area to back her up in how to contain the riot. She was visibly the commander of a riot squad, complete with visors, etc and as she says to Nikki 'I am the system' By this episode, there is an extraordinary turnaround- she keeps Area out of the picture, does not involve any prison officer (except Mark, on guard over Virginia) and uses Yvonne. The sight of Helen going into Yvonne's cell, as Abzug noted, is very telling. What help she has is entirely irregular. I agree with the earlier point that Thomas is not much help here.

It's like the difference in skills in fighting a conventional war between two armies in the desert and a guerilla war where you can't tell friend from foe.

Did anyone else notice the similarities between this scene and the "Shit Happens" one? Fenner was at the root of both incidences and in both cases he provoked Nikki, who then lashed out at Helen after which Helen came to Nikki's cell to apologise... ("You told me you were provoked by Fenner, I have reason to believe you now" and "I don't want him scoring anything over you, ever").

Also in both cases, we find Nikki in the exact same physical and emotional state when Helen leaves her room. She leans with her back up against the wall, her hands folded to her side, and she cries. In the "shit happens" incident she still had a glimmer of hope, whereas in this second incident, she has no hope - Helen has found someone else, Nikki has been "replaced". I think shit only really happened for Nikki now - or are these similarities just a mere coincidence?

Now that I think about it, we also see Helen in a similar position with Fenner where she has her back up against the wall (literally) after she confronted him outside the knocking shop. He is in her face, physically she's got nowhere to turn – reminiscent of the time he had her up against the filing cabinet when he assaulted her.

Great parallels! I noticed the similarity in the Helen-Fenner scenes, but hadn't made the connection between the Helen-Nikki scenes. There's one other big difference, which is in S2E2, Nikki begs Helen to give her more: "say you'll visit me" while in this case she makes Helen feel like she (Nikki) doesn't need anything from her anymore. Which is probably what makes the S3 version so damn depressing.

I don't find the S3 'version' depressing, piped a small voice from the gallery.

(I mean yes, doh, the whole scene is agonizing, sure--) ...but not exactly depressing. To me. I honestly feel this is Nikki at her best, being amazingly gallant and adult about something we know is devastating to her. She says not a word of blame, attack, there's no rage, no grasping, no pushing Helen's buttons or trying to pull Helen towards her, the time for all of that has past: there's only Nikki, playing the necessary role with a partial stranger to endure these few moments. She's letting Helen go--we know it and Helen knows it (or is figuring it out; it's also one of the few places in the show that happens with this character, where Helen's awareness as a fictional character & ours as viewers are experienced in tandem). And in fact it's Nikki's graciousness, her terrible kindness, that lets Helen know just how serious an error she's making.

So anyway, to me, the dignity of Nikki's behavior here is the compensation, the balm for how painful the scene is.

<shuffling back to gloomy confines of grotto>

I love the parallel that you drew, microsofty which is very apt. Likewise, ekny portrays Nikki's manner very well in the scene between Helen and Nikki and, I am sure is also pointed out, this moves things up a notch in terms of Helen's feelings for Nikki. There is an irresistable comparison of a Series 1 scene where Nikki is telling Helen that she has apparently changed Monica's mind about not going through with the appeal and adds that Helen 'has a wedding to look forward to.' Helen's very pallid response to the prospect in tone and facial expression.

There's a definite theme that comes out of things coming round full circle in the antagonism between Fenner and Helen. It was there right at the start of Series 1. At the start, Nikki wasn't into supporting Helen except in a very limited way and now she has her hands full with her appeal and life on the outside. Likewise, Thomas is sidelined to the margins.

I reread ekny's article just now and it does a really fine job of working past one of the trickier looking details of this episode and it is definitely worth a careful read.

I totally agree with you. It's just I still find the scene so sad to watch, for the error Helen is making, her growing awareness of that error, and Nikki's willingness to allow her to make it. I'm only sad because I'm so invested in the relationship between these two, in the same way that it's painful to watch your friend walk away from a relationship which you thought was really great for them.

If there is one thing that bothers me about Nikki, the one piece of the Nikki puzzle that doesn't seem to fit, it would be her co-dependency streak when it comes to relationships. Overall she is a very independent woman who not only makes up her own mind, but also speaks her mind. But when it comes to relationships, she seems to have this rebound thing going time and time again.

1. When Trish dumped her, she made passes at Helen (right move, and OK, more than a rebound, but we only found that out later).
2. When Helen dumped her, she made passes at Caroline.
3. When Helen dumped her (seemingly for good), she phoned Trish up again.

This co-dependent Nikki (in the form of her rebound flaw) is totally incongruent with the rest of her personality. Strong willed people are just that - strong willed, even when it comes to relationships.

I also don't quite get why Virginia needed Fenner to run things for her. If she was able to reshuffle her whole line of business (relocating premises, renaming places) before she went to prison, surely she would also have appointed someone trustworthy on the outside to manage things for her?

Hey guys,

I know I haven't been involved in this discussion either (dunno what's been wrong with me in recent weeks!). Just wanted to ask a question I've always had about this episode.

Did Helen honestly believe that Fenner wanted time to "explain things to Karen" and that he "loved" her? Why did she give him until the end of the day? Especially when she knows he's had suspicions about her and Nikki in the past: have we not come to think that Helen's a bit smarter than that? Surely she would have realised he's gonna be using the time to worm his way out of it. Only last episode did she say to Karen, "time to lie his way out of it, you mean?", which shows that she knows exactly what he does with his time.

Oh, and I have been reading this discussion, just not got round to making any replies. Everyone's made great comments :)

It's an interesting question. I only see #2 as a rebound scenario. The other two, in my mind, just reflect Nikki's general desire to be paired up rather than single.

1. It's not totally clear how long a period of time there is between Nikki getting dumped and her flirting with Helen, but it's probably at least a month, possibly two (I just checked the timeline to be sure). She had many emotional reactions to the breakup (sadness, rage etc) before she went ahead and started flirting with Helen. To me, she was just moving on from a relationship which had been estranged and distant for going on two years (the length of time she had been in prison).

2. Yeah, this was a total rebound. Happens to everyone, eh?

3. I don't know about this--Helen dumped her right after the riot. She rebounded with Caroline, then found out Helen still cared (when Helen ships Caroline out). After this, we don't have a lot to go on. It seems Nikki was hoping, with perhaps no confirmation from Helen, that they might get back together. But they certainly weren't "together" in any sense of the word, so it seems natural, to me, that when Nikki discovers Helen is no longer available, she reaches out to her ex, especially now that her appeal is imminent. So, again, moving on, perhaps quicker than some of the rest of us might, but not necessarily a categorical rebound.

She just kind of seems like a pair-bonder to me, and I don't see that as conflicting with her independence. She's formed strong friendships with the Julies and others, so she's not a total loner.

Thanks abzug, your third point opened up a fresh new idea in my head. I don't think Nikki phoned Trish up to get back with her per se. I think she phoned her up to start re-connecting with the outside world, to find her normality again. Coupled with this is the fact that, for the better part of her time in prison, Nikki had a mental picture of how it would be to be on the outside again. The first half of that picture involved Trish and the second half involved Helen. Now all of a sudden (with Helen running off with Thomas), Nikki's mental picture had been shattered somewhat. Without neither Trish nor Helen, she was facing a fairly lonely life on the outside - not only in terms of an intimate relationship, but also in terms of friendship. After being in Larkhall for 3 odd years, where you had people around you constantly, this prospect would have seen very gloomy to Nikki. And I think that was her main motivation for phoning Trish (whom she didn't know was single again until after they had spoken on the phone). Nikki just needed an ally on the outside, someone to help her adjust to a normal life.

I therefore respectfully withdraw my rebound statement regarding Trish. :)

I like the idea of Nikki reaching out to Trish in a more general, friendship way. I think that's exactly right.

Interesting point this, microsofty. You get the feeling that the cash flow to Virginia and back again was broken when she was imprisoned. Fenner wasn't involved with starting the brothels from new premises and setting up the organisation. He was there purely to handle the money transactions as before with him taking a 50% cut. The occasions he was actively overseeing the running of the brothels was limited by the time he could get out while living with Karen.

I've read the debate about Nikki and everything posted makes perfect sense.

At the risk of flogging to death the wisdom / folly of Helen's one woman bust Fenner operation, there's a quote of ekny that has suddenly rung a loud bell

"........But curiously not unlike a certain Ms Wade: when anger pushes Helen past rationality she charges ahead........"

There's another slight spin on this and that is, whatever happened to the rule obsessed Helen? This is genuine Nikki style freewheeling, 'make up your rules as you go along' with a vengeance going way beyond Helen's only other major instance of photocopying Nikki's prison file for the solicitor- even down to telling Yvonne to 'scare the truth out of O'Kane.' This is another instance of the subterranean flow of the emotions of Helen for Nikki as shown by the influence over the months. The way Helen is dressed in fairly anonymous shirt and trousers, of being a touch 'dressed down' shows Helen visually crossing the line a touch. One question is whether she's right to react that way, another is that she's doing it at all.

As we're talking about Helen charging ahead with a vengeance, I'm wondering what actually triggered this in her. Of course the origin is the sexual assault. But that's not what triggered this behavior, because it's come quite a bit later, hasn't it? So what has changed for Helen that would lead her to carry on this crusade?
1. She got the promotion, thought she'd be able to get rid of Fenner easily, and it turned out (I'm assuming) to not be so easy
2. She found herself back in heterosexuality, and while that was a relief in some ways, in others it made her feel like she was a cop out, and made it more important that she fight this other battle against Fenner to protect herself and all the women at Larkhall
3. She saw Fenner touching Maxi, and while part of her thinks she overreacted, another part of her realizes, vividly, how many women might be being abused right under her nose, and she can't stand being powerless to stop it
4. She no longer has Nikki on whom to project her passionate, act-first-think-later side, and so she must embody it herself

Could be a combination of all four, I guess, which kind of converge and drive Helen speeding down the warpath. It's like, when Yvonne sent her that note, a small door was cracked open, and her emotional tsunami, of sorts, which prevents any sort of careful consideration or strategic planning, flooded right through it. She wants him OUT.

Great posts from everyone as usual.

This episode gave me a real sense of deja vu. As Richard pointed out at the start of this thread, it was a tying up of all loose ends before the grand finale. And it also seemed to be a quick recap of the whole Helen-Nikki relationship. Some of the scenes were familiar (e.g. Fenner assaulting Helen scene, their first kiss & 'Shit Happens' scenes in Nikki's cell)... and yet somehow completely different . There also seemed to a lot of dialogue which we'd heard before in other scenes .... but again used in the completely opposite sense ....

1. Fenner calling Nikki a 'no hoper' after her exam but meaning it .... not teasing like Helen. (Library when Helen surprises Nikki)

2. Thomas talking about getting back to 'normal' and (I think) Helen said something like 'as opposed to abnormal'. Judging Helen .... unlike Nikki's 'You're not normal, you're not abnormal' speech. (Art Room speech)

3. And of course Thomas and his "I'm totally in love with you!". Getting a completely different reaction from Helen this time .... but her heart didn't seem in it. Last time you got the impression she almost reacted to Nikki before she walked away. (After rooftop rescue)

The George Eliot postcards and 'Sophies World' book make an appearance. And even the nurse's coat was there (Nikki's escape)!

Have I missed anything?

Oooooooo abzug! If we were to continue down the path of paralleling external happenings as a manifestation of internal battles, Helen's vengeance fits right in! Her whole crusade to get Fenner OUT (as you so eloquently put it) is a manifestation of her own need to be OUT. Helen has reverted back to heterosexuality at this point in time as she thought that would make her internal battle stop. And with that seemingly (misguidedly) out of the way, Helen can focus all her attention on getting rid of Fenner, however noble her intentions were. Everything Helen does in her attempts to get rid of Fenner seems to be out of her box, bending the rules somewhat - just as her feelings is/was for Nikki. Everything she does seem to reek of desperation, which just might reflect the desperation she feels within herself?

Again reflects Helen's perception of herself in relation to Nikki. Despite all her best attempts, she still viewed herself as "abnormal" and being with Thomas would be "getting back to normal". (Although I have to admit that I don't recall the exact context of this conversation).

Brilliant posts from Abzug and Cassandra in every detail- of course, one abuse that happened which she witnessed the aftermath but was strangely powerless to correct was when Femi was beaten up by the prison officers. Putting everything together, being Governing Governor wasn't all she cracked it up to be which loops back to the 'watch this space' aside to Sean of her original ambition.

Yeah, this is excellent. I hadn't quite gotten there in my post, so thanks for taking it a few steps further. Helen again externalizing her inner conflict by creating an outer conflict, because the inner stuff just isn't sitting right--she's constantly reminded of her capacity to be abnormal, to cross the line, and these flare ups have to be channeled somewhere if she's going to be able to continue with Thomas. You can't close Pandora's box once it's open, right?

I had a thought about the Helen-Thomas "I'm totally in love with you" normal/abnormal scene. It takes place on Thomas's turf, on the medical wing, not in Helen's office. Which made me realize that every time these two have a significant moment of intimacy, it's in Thomas's space, not Helen's. The dog races, his apartment, the medical wing. Their little hallway kiss takes place on neutral ground. But we never see him at Helen's apartment, and every scene where he's in her office, she's basically telling him to back off (it's my battle, blah blah blah) even when he's asking to be more involved. It's quite fascinating, really, because it's a huge contrast with Sean (who had invaded her domain) and Nikki, where things were a bit more mutual with the back-and-forths (the early moments happening on Nikki's turf in the potting shed and then Nikki's cell, but the multiple phone calls which we see from Helen's point of view, and then Nikki escaping to create a space for the two of them in Helen's space). It's yet another way they are showing us that Helen is a visitor, a tourist, in this heterosexual relationship, not fully committed.

Yes, thats a good point abzug. Most of their time together is in Thomas's domain, including their trip to the conference. We don't see Helen letting him into her life at all. And the few times he is in 'her life' (e.g. her office) she seems almost uncomfortable and reluctant to interact with him.

This issue of Helen's committment in her relationship with Thomas harks back to her history of relationships where the BG book says that 'she has had many boyfriends but is ambivalent about full scale committment and marriage.' In other words, relationships broke up without Helen knowing why it was not in herself to commit herself. This time, it's different.

Just as an aside,these series of discussions have been incredibly valuable in tackling the late Series 3 episodes which have been both dispiriting and tough to penetrate and it is fascinating how much sense has been gleaned out of it. Not much attention has been paid to this area of BG (as opposed to the 'arts room scene') except for a few posts on themes on this board and, of course, ekny's study of the nurse's coat on the 'BadGirl Annex' site and I've been really glad that everyone else has been around to plug ahead on these discussions.

Earlier in the thread there was a lot of discussion that Helen should have taken someone with her to take photos of Fenner or taken some herself. I'm not sure what the photos themselves would have proved other than Fenner visited the massage parlour. Surely she would have needed photos of the actual money being handed over and maybe account transactions to provide proof of any wrong-doings. Yes, it was blackmail material which she could threaten to show Karen. However, knowing what a slippery customer Fenner is, he might have easily called Helen's bluff and spun Karen a story. I just don't see what Helen hoped to achieve here.

Loved your essay on the annex, ekny. Most of the 'nurse's coat' storyline I'm prepared to accept as bad writing and an attempt to tie up lots of loose ends. However there are still some minor things about the whole thing that bug me. In this episode we see that the coat actually has the name 'Nurse Mary Ford' on it. I had previously thought that Nikki had made up the name and that the coat belonged to the nurse that helped her, Janine. So why didn't Mary Ford report her coat as being stolen? If she had then the gate log would have shown up some discrepancies (either a double clocking out if MF was working that day or no clock in). I suspect that we are supposed to assume that because of the Shell-Fenner incident that it was forgotten about. However I would have thought that it would have been more likely to be exposed when procedures for that night were put under scrutiny. Sorry mentioning this subject again when I'm sure it's been flogged to death already but I just had to get it out of my system.