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EPISODE 629

The prisoners decide it is time to make Joan pay for reading Nancy's private diary.

First broadcast ... 1986 (Melbourne)
Broadcast on Channel 5 Saturday 08 July 2000 04:40
DVD release: volume 38 disc 2 (AUS)
Duration: 0:46:04



Joan ~ Maggie Kirkpatrick
Meg ~ Elspeth Ballantyne
Ann ~ Gerda Nicolson
Rita ~ Glenda Linscott
Lexie ~ Pepe Trevor
Alice ~ Lois Collinder
Nancy ~ Julia Blake
Kath ~ Kate Hood
Lorelei ~ Paula Duncan
Janet ~ Christine Earle
Roach Waters ~ Linda Hartley
Merle ~ Rosanne Hull-Brown
Vicki ~ Rebecca Dines
Officer Bailey ~ Maureen Edwards
Andrew Hinton ~ Fredric Abbott
Marty Jackson ~ Michael Winchester
Lorna Young ~ Barbara Jungwirth
Supervisor ~ Peter Heath
Waiter ~ Don White

  • Written by Sean Nash
  • Directed by Tony Osicka
  • Lorelei comforts Lexie, who is trying to put a brave face on Julie leaving. Roach escapes from a moralising lecture from Lexie about drugs. She runs into Vicki and buys drugs from her, understandably not believing Vicki's warning about Rita's changed attitude to drugs. After talking to Meg about Marty's job hunting apparently failing to get a result, Ann is surprised to read the list of new trainee officers to be posted to Wentworth. Lexie finds Merle hiding under a bed when she's supposed to be on cleaning duties. After Merle leaves, Lexie takes the coke out of the robot. Meg lets the four prisoners out of solitary and warns them all of the consequences if they continue with their feud. Lexie tries to dispose of the coke by throwing it through a locked security gate so it will be found where no one can be blamed for it. Lorelei tells Rita and Alice about the wedding they missed, and about Roach buying cocaine and Lexie disposing of it. Vicki assures Kath she has bought Roach's support as she's bought coke from her twice. Rita recovers the coke with the aid of a mop and her long arms and flushes it. Ann drops in to see Marty at the training college to find out why he is keeping it a secret from his mother. After telling Roach to keep clear of Kath, Rita warns Kath to stop selling drugs. Kath refuses and warns Rita she's likely to be transferred if she beats her up. Roach claims the robot back from Merle. Marty is dismayed to find he will be posted to Wentworth: Ann says he should tell his mother before they meet face to face in the corridors. When Roach smashes the robot and calls Merle "Loony", Merle attacks her. Kath breaks up the fight, telling Merle not attack someone who's a "friend of ours". Nancy tells the others the plan she worked out with Julie using her diary (*). Ann squashes Joan's plan to cut stealing from the kitchen by computerising the kitchen supplies (no doubt using one of the many PCs dotted around the building). She also makes it clear to Joan she disapproves of her passing on the task of doing the staff rotas to Meg, implying that Joan has malicious intent in doing so. The women set up Joan to overhear a plan for a mass escape , then Alice follows Joan on her beeline straight to Nancy's cell to consult the diary, where she reads of a plan to explode a bomb against the fence as part of a mass escape attempt. The women fail to keep the plot against Joan secret from Lorelei, who doesn't like the idea, but agrees not to lag. Joan sets Kath to work to find out more details: Kath is surprised and says she hasn't heard a word about it and frankly doesn't believe it. Marty finally tells Meg about his job at Wentworth, and assures her he isn't trying to "avenge" his father's death. Lorna hands Lexie a handful of springs, adding mysteriously that she'll "never dance again". Kath writes to Bob Moran. Janet becomes suspicious and gets Merle to investigate the "secret weapon". Kath follows her and sees the springs. Rita realises that Kath is genuinely concerned in case Merle gets into trouble. Kath warns Janet not to try setting up Merle to bash Rita. The only information Kath can give Joan is that she has seen the women trying to hide some springs. When Meg and Marty go out to a restaurant to celebrate, he reacts oddly when a pan of crepes is set alight. The women plot how to get the booby-trapped suitcase outside.

    Nice to see the improved formula "Fab 2" washing powder in use in the laundry.

    And surprising to hear Rita refer to "the Sisters Grim(m)", so it was not made up by Jennifer Saunders for AbFab.

    Why all the harping on about Mervin being ill? It's not as though anyone notices when he isn't in the cast.

    The training college's board has a different Department name to the Wentworth sign.

    ***


    Thanks to Chris Wathen in Digest 1250 for noticing an abrupt scene transition in the Channel 5 broadcast at the point marked (*). Presumably in the original there was a commercial break between Nancy's line "You girls may not know it, but you just lit the fuse to a very explosive time bomb." and Lexie's belated response in the second half of the scene "Well, she's a bloody fool. If you'd have stuffed up my parole, I'd bloody well throttle you, not forgive you." In the Channel 5 version the following scene had been moved up to disguise the obvious gap in a version that had no commercial break at this point, but this wasn't necessarily Channel 5's doing.


    Story Editor: Bevan Lee
    Script Editor: Alister Webb
    Storyliners: Tony McDonald


    ITV regional broadcast dates:-
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