Panic Button

'Just so you know, things are not always as they seem.'

Season 4 has arrived with the end of Episode 3, the power base settling in a messy tangle of manipulation, obsession and desire.

It’s taking me a while longer to write about Season 4 because I’m not loving it. The performances are excellent across the board and there are some delicious set pieces but it’s so plot driven at the moment and the writing is pretty clunky in places. It feels like characters we know so well will be bent in whatever way needed to further the essential suspension of disbelief that The Freak is in Wentworth as an inmate, that the women are totally sold on the new programmes Governor Vera has instigated. It’s a cruel season from the outset.

Bea and the women are travelling back to Wentworth from Walford as Season 4 opens, the imagery borrowing directly from the Season 1 opener, only this time Bea is surrounded by people - she’s part of the fabric of Wentworth now, and on the outside the the gravestones that she takes in are the only touchstones she has across the three seasons we’ve journeyed with her. Debbie, Jacs, Braden, Harry. That track played for Debbie in Season 1 - ‘...stone is where you go to rest your bones’ couldn’t be more appropriate. Bea is tired. She’s got rid of The Freak for the women, for herself, but every day of her 40 years to serve the Holts are with her...

It’s all about the ‘versions of stories’ so far. This is the cruel part. I feel like any of the characters are going to be screwed over to fit in with where the plot is taking us. I’ve no doubt at all that Bea is gone this season. The Bea, Ferguson and Kaz mix is toxic. Sonia Stevens is coming in mid-way Season 4.  I don’t feel like Bea has a chance. I feel like someone is dispatached mid-season (Episode 40) and it’s likely Bea.

Kaz is a fantastic addition to the mix. Now that she’s landed, Tammy Macintosh has a lot to work with and she plays a compelling dance of charismatic leader and nurturing ‘Mamma’. Kaz isn’t fucked being a victim - she emerges as a ‘protector’ with all the crap that entails, but at the same time there’s a blindness to her that enables her to cradle The Freak and offer protection without question.

Tammy plays it hard so that it works, but as a viewer the wheels turn, noisily. The basis of this forward momentum being the bastardised ‘versions of stories’ that people hear in prison: what we saw in Season 3 and before compared to what the Red Right Hand with their perspective know. It just doesn’t work for me, even as I suspend disbelief. By the end of Ep 3, Kaz is cradling the former Governor of the prison that crushed Bea. Bea specifically mentioned Ferguson in her condemnation of the prison to the press as Kaz cheered her into the prison van. Kaz suspected the system to be forcing Bea into submission. Now that Kaz loathes Bea, now that she’s inside, the righteousness is twisted, Kaz questions all, everything deleted except her fierce protection of vulnerable women: Ferguson has been viciously brutalised, Bea is Top Dog - Bea is responsible. As the twists and turns go, no doubt a forced and convincing argument directly or indirectly on the part of the writers that for me won’t ring true. Kaz isn’t stupid, but in vowing to be Ferguson’s protector it reduces her character to a pawn in the long game that Ferguson is playing and she’s a lot more shrewd than this. Any determined and unquestioning vendetta against Bea will ring hollow...

Meanwhile, all sorts of nuanced exchanges are happening between Bea and Allie. Kate Jenkinson’s a fab addition to the cast as Allie and the awakening in Bea - potential power play that Bea starts with Maxine’s encouragement and doesn’t fully achieve in manipulating effectively to date - feels like the biggest challenge to her status as ‘Queen’ Bea to date - vulnerability and revelation. The dining room scene between her and Allie in Ep 3 reveals a longing for connection, for intimacy, in Bea that we haven’t seen since Season 1. Danielle Cormack’s eyes are mesmeric. There’s no doubt this will go somewhere and that it'll have a massive impact on Season 4 storylines. It’s sexy and sad and totally convincing. I suspect a little betrayal and obsession as part of it.

‘You can’t be trusted with pencils.‘

Vera as Governor is delightful in her exchanges with Ferguson. The Protection Unit scenes too short as Ferguson swiftly moves into general, I wanted lots more of those Hannibal Lecter-style moments, tapping on the glass, speaking through the protective intercom - it felt right for this woman, this psychotic Freak who really is a cunt that neither Bridget or Vera can get around or trap in digital... ‘It’s fucking Governor’ a classic attempt at actualisation from Vera who’s still juggling self belief and crippling self doubt. Kate Atkinson is wonderful in her scenes with Rabe, but Vera doesn’t yet sit easily in the Governor’s chair - I feel like that’s to come as a satisfying end to the season. I want to see it. Currently, there’s something about the suggested pace of change at Wentworth together with Vera’s delivery on the ground that’s difficult to reconcile. Vera’s forced to let Ferguson into general, but she’s dead set against it. She’s witnessed Ferguson’s brutality and intimidation since the former Governor’s arrival, she’s learned from it, but in the predictable spirit of denying Ferguson’s influence, she’s apparently neglected the woman’s insidious nature and let’s her into general. Bridget questions her as to what Ferguson’s long game is - Top Dog? Will? - but she fails to name herself in the mix. Does Bridget see it?

The ex-Governor of the prison is now in general just because Channing let’s her, just because we can’t let Rabe go. I delight in Pamela Rabe but I do believe Season 3 should have been her end for the sake of not turning Wentworth into the farce of the disposable UK prison series Bad Girls. There’s a level of authority above Channing - this is ridiculous. Fun, but ridiculous. Vera isn’t out of reach of a board who’ve just witnessed a fire, destruction of a block that took months to rebuild and a death at Wentworth. Channing has never seemed so insignificant - yet his word is final. We’re high on the Wentworth brand at the expense of moving forward.

As an aside - one of the key moments where I felt we were lurching into ridiculousness were the scenes with the prison officer, played by the same actress who featured prominently in Season 3 as the nurse in the Psych Ward when Jodie and Bea were there courtesy of Ferguson. The actress was fine, compelling even, but thinking Wentworth was smarter than this rapid recasting of a strong look, I was assuming were witnessing a hallucination of sorts from Ferguson. It doesn’t seem we were - they seem to be two different characters according to the credits. The scene with her and Vera in the car park was cringeworthy. It fed on the flimsy stalker storyline of Fridget and led nowhere but a scary indication of the low-rent shock value Season 4 could head towards with some heavy handed characterisation thrown in for effect.

Joan, however, is fascinating. The woman who has stared at computer screens for the last two seasons in order to cement her power base is now staring at walls. What’s going through her mind in her enforced stillness? Music and memory. Rape and revenge. Her long game is Vera and that ‘shiny little crown’ which she’ll never get her hands on again, but she’s going to take Bea down as she works towards working Vera out of that chair. By the end of Ep 3, I have no doubt this will happen, but at the same time I’m aware I’m watching a series I don’t care about as much - I’ve reached a point where I’m watching a spectacle rather than characters I’m invested in. Doreen’s turn in the yard in Ep 3 so easily manipulated by the mere mention of Joshua, Liz’ complete blindness to the starry attraction to Kaz even as a long-termer who’s seen it all and should see manipulation a mile off, and now I anticipate Maxine’s distrust of bloody Bea at breakfast because of a little silence that’s par for the course in prison --- No, no, no. Smells of isolation and wheels in motion in a most obvious way. This was underlined by Bea supporting a ganged inmate to safety, with the implication that she’d be involved in the incident itself - totally abhorrent to her, but easily attributable.

Bea is screwed. Ferguson’s trauma and silence will buy Miles, Proctor and even Maxine because of Bea’s understandable reticence to share. It’s a cruel come-down for Bea who by Ep 3 comes closest to the woman she was in Season 1. For me the ganging was the most obvious way to abuse Ferguson  without killing her based on Bea’s revulsion to it in Season 1, when Jacs planned to gang Franky. We ‘need’ a reference point to Bea’s limit to brutality given that Fergsuon was now inside.  I knew this would happen - it had to be shocking enough to near kill Ferguson yet to provoke Bea to react in a way we have already witnessed and understood --- the perfect way to bring full circle, redeeming her as the Bea of old whilst condemning her via Kaz’ ‘misunderstanding’ of her role in this brutality. Wonderfully realised, but an expected twist - wow to Juice and the boys though... that’s just brought a whole new level to their gang.  Juice and Stella are so good, I‘m glad they’re back. Performances all round were wonderful and that Miles... finally her corruption catches up with her --- so nice to see her freak out at the limits of her money-grabbing gambling addiction.  I would’ve thought she’d be inside long before now... tonight was a good measure of what could come for her - I think Miles finally had a fright that’ll support her to rein herself in a little. Jacqui Brennan was excellent.

Kim and the razor ice frenzy was an unexpected twist that not only highlighted the journey Franky and Kim have been on but captured the similarities of ‘young girls on drugs’ that’ll touch a raw nerve with Bea, as highlighted non-too-subtly by Vera: Kim = Debbie.  I was really happy to see Tina back this season: like Juice and the boys, I think these peripheral gangs are so important in establishing a complex prison environment and Tina has that slippery vibe about her that makes her a dangerous enemy as part of a pack. I hope Kim/Ferguson doesn’t progress as a way of getting at Franky - it’s too obvious given they were both in protection, next door to each other when the other prisoners *and staff* were to be kept away from her - but I have a feeling this will conveniently come up again. The implication already has been that Miles told Ferguson about Kaz’ drone protest in the yard - and yet no repurcussions. Meanwhile, Franky’s character development through the discovery of a younger sister was beautiful - let’s forget about the ham-fisted soap opera-like stalker storyline or the over-written Franky-led intro to Episode 1. It was a joy to witness the learning that brought for Franky and Bridget, I’m so into them as a couple and Franky’s scene with her little sister was joyous.

What about Sigrid Thornton – who starred in the original Prisoner – and her new character?

"Sigrid comes in half way through this series as Sonia Stevens. She's a very accomplished business woman, very wealthy and high-profile, so she's like a cat amongst the pigeons. She tries to accommodate and control everything like she would at a board meeting!

Read more:

Kate Jenkinson interview http://www.couriermail.com.au/entertainment/television/wentworth-has-a-new-inmate-in-season-four-actress-kate-jenkinson/news-story/fc919c5669cb2d86d24f4fb708056ddf