Wentworth explores interesting social dynamics in a prison setting. Its success is largely due to the relatability of the prisoner and prison guard characters, who deal with real-life issues in a more controlled setting. Like Kate Atkinson, who plays Vera Bennett, said: “[Wentworth’s] just really good entertainment. But I also think maybe people find themselves in the characters and they like characters who fight or fail time and time again, and keep trying.”
The episode Requiem, aired on the 31st of August, interrogated Wentworth’s fleshed-out characters’ individual, diverse responses to extraordinarily emotional situations. In particular, it dealt with Lou Kelly’s (Kate Box) and Joan Ferguson’s (Pamela Rabe’s) performance self versus real self. Other storylines will be elaborated on in the next recap.
Lou and Reb
Lou Kelly entered the prison with her partner, Reb (Zoe Terakes), after the pair committed a botched armed robbery. They got sent to Wentworth in the beginning of season 8. As we got to know them, we found out that they were both forced into a religious cult: Lou is a lesbian and Reb is a trans man. A bunch of people from the cult “commit a mass-suicide” but it’s implied Reb and Lou were the ones to poison them in a conversation between Reb and Marie Winter (Susie Porter).
Lou tries to be Reb’s protector, she tries to intimidate the prisoners in order to gather power, but it backfires when, in episode 10, she’s blamed for ex-top dog Allie’s (Kate Jenkinson) shower-bashing, which left her with a permanent physical disability. Sheila (Marta Dusseldorp), an “ex-lesbian” who was “saved” by the cult leader Mandel, enters the prison. She continues to worship him and is angered by her lesbianism “coming back” after his death. Marie tells Sheila it was Lou who poisoned the cult, leading to the cult leader’s death. Marie hoped Sheila would kill Lou, who she believes bashed Allie. Marie got Allie into prostitution when she was living on the streets and “loves” her.
In the premier of part two, the final 10 episodes, Sheila strangles Reb with a rope and spoon after sedating the lovers. Lou wakes up to find Reb dead and has a breakdown, threatening to shiv the guards who want to take Reb’s body away. Marie is hysterical over the death too because she had been close with Reb. She believed Lou was a bad influence for Reb. Marie fails to recognise the ways she has taken advantage of young girls in poverty on the outside and projects her own sinister, opportunistic motives onto Lou.
In episode 12, most recently aired, Lou is questioned over Reb’s death. She is ruled out when a blood test shows the pair had sedatives in their system. Marie confronts Sheila over the death, asking why she killed Reb and not Lou. Sheila responds that she “had a revelation”: Lou had killed the most important person in her life so she would do the same in return. Sheila reminds Marie that she is now complicit in the murder, considering she provided the sedatives.
Joan and Vera
Due to Joan Ferguson’s history of violent, unnecessary murder, Vera believes she murdered Reb. However, Joan is undergoing psychiatric treatment and is finally opening up about her childhood. As opposed to past seasons, she’s agreed to start taking medication, making her more empathetic to other people. Now this is one for the Vera/Joan shippers (I personally believe that ship has well and truly sailed for Vera, if it was ever in the bay): the psychologist asked Joan “has there ever been someone you wanted to connect with on a human level?” While Joan thought of someone, it cut to Vera. Of course!
We know there were tender moments between Joan and Vera in the past, despite Joan’s aversion to humanity. In episode 11, when Joan was imagining sweet revenge on the guards who tried to murder her, as she saw them patrol the prison, she couldn’t imagine killing Vera. Does she know Vera was also behind the attempted murder? We know Joan has a soft spot for babies because of their innocence – she’s saved a couple – so does Vera having a baby now make Joan even more compassionate towards her? Compassion would have come in handy when Joan let Vera get nicked with an infected syringe instead of sending in guards to protect her during a riot. Or when she used Jake (Bernard Curry) to hurt Vera’s feelings. But she could never kill her. Interesting.
Joan leads Vera to the showers, through a note, to tell her Sheila killed Reb. Joan, now more of a “whole human,” as the psych puts it, is dumbfounded when Vera doesn’t believe her (lol). However, the police investigation increasingly points towards Sheila being the culprit (due to her whereabouts). As it’s unravelled to the cops, it’s also unravelled to Lou, who bashes the drug dealer who supplied the sedatives for information, finding out Marie bought them. When she confronts Marie, she discovers that Marie gave the sedatives to Sheila. Through raiding her room, Lou finds it was Marie’s bed sheets that were used to make the noose. She tries to strangle Marie, she has her on the edge of death, but can’t find it in herself to kill. Lou acts tougher than what she’s emotionally capable of: #relatable.
A new top dog is in town (by town I mean Wentworth prison)
After discovering Sheila did it, Lou finds Sheila and offers her two choices: death by poison or death by shiv to the neck. We know she would have trouble cutting Sheila, so it’s lucky – for Lou – that Sheila picks poison, to die like her beloved cult leader, saying “I suppose it’s too late to say I’m sorry… because I’m not,” before swigging the poison. Lou watches Sheila start to die a painful death, violently hitting her head up against the basin to die quicker. Sheila crawls, like a demon, up to Lou and begs her to stab her.
Lou pushes her away as Marie walks in, unable to watch the torturous pain Sheila’s going through. Lou agrees to help Marie squish Sheila’s throat with the broom. Lou didn’t commit the murder on her own but, while Marie are in the cafeteria after the murder, a “code black” is called. Lou stands up and admits to killing Sheila, she condemns Allie’s crew for doing nothing about Reb’s murder and, while being dragged out by guards, announces she’s now top dog. The inmates cheer.
What will Lou be like as top dog? She doesn’t have calculated cruelty that Jacs Holt (Kris McQuade) and Joan Ferguson did. She doesn’t stand by any obvious values that would rationalise law and order like Bea Smith (Danielle Cormack) did by being anti-drugs, or Kaz Procter (Tammy Macintosh) did by being a radical feminist. She’s also not sweet, like Allie naturally is, either: her aggressiveness is an armour to stop others from attacking her. The top dog she’ll be most like is Frankie Doyle (Nicole da Silva), who also is not naturally violent but was out of self-protection. However, Frankie had a need to be admired that Lou doesn’t, especially not now the love of her life is dead.
If she doesn’t want die, which claiming to be top dog implies, Lou will come out of the slot with the two choices Bea Smith had after her daughter’s death: drugs or revenge. Now Reb’s killer’s dead, who’s she going to come after if she chooses to live? Will grief rob her of empathy, like it’s done to Joan, and she’ll be the most violent top dog we’ve seen yet? My prediction is she will be violent towards others in order to self harm. She’ll have nothing to lose. She will take her anger out on anyone that looks at her sideways and, if the psych or a good pal doesn’t convince her otherwise, she’ll die like most top dogs have.
In the next recap I’ll discuss Ruby’s (Rarriwuy Hick) father passing and Boomer’s (Katrina Milosevic) creepy, lesbian fetishist “partner.”
