Call the Midwife: Episode 3
June 6, 2014 5:40 PM - Season 1, Episode 3 - Subscribe

Our heroine is assigned to provide home health nursing for a single veteran and gets a surprise visit. Meanwhile, Trixie and Cynthia attend to an emotionally complicated case, and Chummy gets a proposal.
posted by latkes (9 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
AV Club nails the Jenny as a class tourist part of this episode.

Against that you had Chummy and Noake's romance start, and the show missed an opportunity to contrast the way they navigate class differences here.

I forgot all that in bursting into tears when Ted pronounced his son the most beautiful baby in the world though!
posted by viggorlijah at 6:43 PM on June 6, 2014 [2 favorites]


I still think a lot about whether that resolution was the right choice for the "cheated on my husband and got pregnant and it's going to be OBVIOUS" subplot. But I'm way too cynical.

Also, I have always felt that the show contrasted Jenny's reaction to the people of the East End to Chummy's. Chummy is from an obviously more privileged background, but generally she just plunges right in and makes everyone feel comfortable, even in situations that are NOT comfortable. I don't think this episode needed to be all that explicit about it, because it happens in just about every Chummy storyline. And the show is twee enough without the cleverly bookended moral-of-the-story style of A and B plots that some shows are fond of.

Meanwhile, Jenny can't even handle a few bugs in an apartment.
posted by Sara C. at 6:57 PM on June 6, 2014 [1 favorite]


FYI, all of season 3 (except the Christmas episode) is up on PBS.com.
posted by amtho at 9:21 PM on June 6, 2014 [1 favorite]


Thinking back on these episodes is having a negative impact on my impression. Just reading the show descriptions online, well, they remind me of the emotionally manipulative aspects. However, I also cried more than once watching this episode.
posted by latkes at 11:16 PM on June 6, 2014


Yeah, that's one of the things I find really compelling about the show. On first watch, I'm completely swept up in what the show is doing emotionally. But when I rewatch there are all these interesting social and cultural things to think about.

I do wish I hated Jenny less, though.
posted by Sara C. at 11:23 PM on June 6, 2014


Meanwhile, Jenny can't even handle a few bugs in an apartment.

Nor I! It's a truism that you *never* look in the kitchen when travelling around SE Asia. It's better just not to know. But nonetheless, you are always hyper-alert.

I liked Jenny's relationship with the old soldier and that she went on her own time to visit him. The head nun was pretty blase about him being evicted so for a minute there, I hoped they'd write a few scenes where Jenny found him better accommodation. But the terrible housing shortage after WWII was still going on, right?

So far, except for Chummy, the other two are pretty nondescript. The second plot, the woman pregnant with a black baby because she cheated on her husband and he has noooo problem with it, okay, that was a fairy tale. Maybe in the next series, they will revisit it and learn that the husband has taken to drink after being teased unmercifully day in and day out by his mates.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 6:41 PM on June 7, 2014


Poor Jenny, getting a pounding here. Playing the ingénue is a thankless task. Heroines and villains get all the best lines.
posted by valetta at 10:20 PM on June 8, 2014 [5 favorites]


Maybe in the next series, they will revisit it and learn that the husband has taken to drink after being teased unmercifully day in and day out by his mates.

I'll avoid spoilers, but I will say that the topic in general comes up again in a later season.

Not with this same family, though.

Actually, I'd love to see the return of a family. That would be fun. Someone's second baby, or maybe one of the teenagers/elder daughters having her first? Especially since so much cultural time has passed since Season 1. Poplar is pretty unrecognizable by Season 3, and my understanding is that Season 4 is going to take place firmly in the 60s.
posted by Sara C. at 10:26 PM on June 8, 2014


Actually, I'd love to see the return of a family.

Yes, I've often thought the same. Credit to the show for this I guess, on getting us so engaged with secondary characters.
posted by valetta at 6:18 AM on June 18, 2014 [2 favorites]


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