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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 348735" data-attributes="member: 23">Series Four Peace Out Of PainPoor Virginia Hamilton does seem to make a habit of getting off to a bad start with the Bellamy men. Her first encounter with Richard wasn’t so much a meet cute as a meet rude, with Richard at his most delightfully brusque and Hazel mildly disgusted at his lack of courtesy. In this, Virginia’s third episode, she is now engaged to Richard (did I mention how fast-moving events in this series are?) and Virginia now has to win over sullen, depressed James. It’s just as well she’s so charming, since both men are won over with ease.The rest of the household - even downstairs - seems to like Virginia on sight. Perhaps most crucially upstairs, Hazel makes an instant connection with Virginia to the point that, when Hazel is unwell with a fever, Virginia sits at her bedside and reads from Thomas Hardy’s The Wessex Tales. While at this point it’s expected by all that Hazel will remain mistress of the house, since Richard plans to set up home with Virginia and her young children near Hyde Park, Virginia is still to become Mrs Richard Bellamy and so there are echoes of the passing of the flame that occurred when Hazel’s arrival overlapped with Marjorie’s death. I don’t recall Marjorie and Hazel having any scenes together, but I do recall that Marjorie didn’t approve of Hazel accepting James’s offer of a formal luncheon in the house. The warm relationship between Hazel and Virginia is quite a contrast to this and a reflection of changing times and eras as well as the less aristocratic background of the two women here.Even during James’s initial sulk over his father’s engagement, it’s Hazel who gets it in the neck from him, with them ending up having a row, James effectively telling her to go away if she’s going to turn on the waterworks, and this is their last conversation before Hazel becomes ill and feverish.Hazel having Spanish Flu drew my attention to a pandemic I’d heard of in passing and probably studied at some point in my schooling, but which naturally feels more relatable in 2022 with COVID-19’s similarly devastating consequences still very much in the public consciousness (with COVID’s currency, one can be forgiven for feeling it’s the most deadly pandemic or epidemic in history when the numbers killed by “Spanish” influenza in the space of just two years was significantly higher at a time when the world’s population was only around 25% of today’s).UpDown delivered perhaps its biggest shock so far at the end of the second act, when Rose popped up from the servants’ hall to ask after Hazel’s wellbeing, only to be told that Hazel had died in her sleep ten minutes earlier.Despite the potentially deadly effects of the virus and the fact that UpDown hasn’t shied away from suddenly disposing of its characters, the timing of this coming with the end of the war lulled me into a false sense of security. Even as I watched her sweating with delirium on-screen, it simply hadn’t occurred to me that Hazel could die. I felt quite sure I’d read that she remained on-screen until the final episode, and this is an occasion where I feel glad to be quite mistaken. It’s always pleasing to get a physical reaction to something onscreen, even though these moments are so rare as to be unicorns. But that’s exactly what happened here. My stomach physically lurched in much the same way it would when hearing some shocking news in real life, creating the kind of connection to events onscreen that can’t be defined or explained. And I applaud it.Just as Edward VII’s death followed in close succession by Marjorie’s death signalled that nothing could ever be the same again, so does the Armistice followed in close succession by Hazel’s death suggest that Series Five will be a clearly defined new era. If - as I suspect - Richard remains at Eaton Place with Virginia, then perhaps UpDown as a whole can be clearly sliced into three definite “acts” defined by the mistress of the house. I know of at least two additions to the cast for the fifth series (one of whom we’ve already met in passing), both of which I’m looking forward to seeing.All that’s left now is for me to anticipate my viewing being rewarded with a satisfying - and perhaps surprising - final outing.</blockquote>

Verification: Who played Sue Ellen in Dallas?