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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 227693" data-attributes="member: 23">Series ThreeParts Nine and TenAnd so it’s over. At least my journey through the series proper. But I still have the Reunion to watch. Domenica’s story in the last two episodes was quite touching. She swung wonderfully between comedy and pathos. There was a great line about her husband (“If he can’t be alive he could at least be properly dead”). Then it’s revealed that he’s alive. And then comes the further twist that she’s unhappy about him being alive. Relief over death has been quite a theme in this series. Just an episode or two before, Kate expressed similar relief that Tom had died. Van Meyer asking Christina to come and visit her was a nice touch, especially that little moment when she followed up Christina’s polite refusal with a meek little “Please”.Marion and Clifford’s reconciliation filled me with a warm fuzzy feeling. It’s been unexpected, but then Tenko has a way of appearing to be heading in one direction and then turning expectations on their head. They’ve been through a very believable difficult adjustment period, and I’m not convinced that their best efforts will be rewarded, but I do applaud them for giving it their very best. Marion forgetting about the picnic while spending time with Clifford is perhaps symbolic that she is finally beginning to accept the new status quo and is hopeful that she can find a new purpose that isn’t about her being a leader or a bored housewife. Just as Clifford offering to wait while Marion speaks to the downhearted Van Meyer is symbolic of his new willingness to try and value what’s important to Marion, rather than fight it.It was a nice touch to give Alice her happy ever after a little ahead of the others, giving more space to focus on more familiar faces. The ideal would have been for Maggie to leave with Alice too. It was appreciated that a little effort was (finally) made to give Maggie her own backstory in the last episode or so with the rather dark reveal that her father had impregnated her and hanged himself in prison causing her to lose the baby. It did feel belated, but this perhaps gives an idea of the point at which the writers knew they were writing for Lizzie Mickery rather than Susan Jameson. Joss and Stephen were great fun together, sparring away. And it’s good to see Beatrice get some of her fire back and she, too, has had some great head butting with Stephen. I’d say that Joss’s death has been foreshadowed enough through Series Three that it wasn’t a huge surprise. Even though the scene was subtle I actually felt as Beatrice walked away at the hospital that it would be their final scene together. And when she returned and the nurse said asked Beatrice to wake the sleeping Joss, I knew that she was dead. And because the writing led the audience in the right direction, I appreciated how we could tastefully cut away to Beatrice coming to break the news to her friends. And even that went for the less is more approach, with us not needing to hear Bea say the words. Joss has been a favourite character of mine, and I’m very glad she was given a nice, peaceful send off, remaining fiery and a little mischievous until the very end of the series. The sight of her stone and then her old hat being thrown onto her coffin was very moving. One could almost imagine Beatrice and Stephen’s squabbling and affectionate banter over The Monica Radcliffe Foundation leading to a spin-off. Earlier in Series Three, I had a feeling that later episodes would focus on the trial of Yamauchi, perhaps with a time lapse here and there to move things forward. It could have been interesting, but I liked what we got. Yamauchi featured a lot less than I expected (even though we saw a lot more of him than ever before thanks to his wardrobe. Now I know what you meant, BF!!!). But it’s right that the focus should be on the women who have left the camp. As always, Yamauchi's scenes in Series Three showed a quiet dignity that brought a humanity and suggested that there is more than one side to the story. I especially loved that he knew about Marion's diary, and that was foreshadowed by Christina's less-than-subtle paper stealing when she worked in his office (he even comically expressed surprise in an earlier episode when Christina left the office without taking paper). So again, it's all part of a carefully woven skein. The beach picnic was wonderful. It’s so good to see everyone together and dressed up in their best Forties clothes. It’s perhaps a hint of things to come in the Reunion, and Kate’s suggestion of the women reuniting in Singapore in 1950 will come to fruition, I’m sure. But how different will everyone’s lives be by then? It was inevitable that Marion would have the last word of Series Three, as she did with the first two (and no doubt will again at the end of the Reunion). But the way it was done was unexpected. Her almost looking into the camera as she said “Well, that’s over” could have been jarring, but by this point my connection to the characters was so strong it was like looking into the eyes of an old friend.</blockquote>

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