#wentworthrecaps

Big bloody blood splotches splotch out over a sink. It’s not a murder scene. Or Bea brutally beaten. She wipes a dribbly goop from her hairline and flicks sticky reddened gloves away. Bea’s no victim today. She’s suiting up for war with a new dye job, because Big Red? She’s back, y’all.

  And with hair on fire and eyes ablaze, vengeance is number one on Bea’s to do list. So she stares and stares into her cell mirror, whispering for Bloody Mary to show up and magically murderize Brayden Holt. When Boomer appears on her cell door step, Bea looks half worried she’s gonna get beat up and half amazed her mirror-chanting could have worked.

  But nay. Boomer is just there to drop off her Brayden Holt news clippings and say sorry for semi drowning Bea in a blocked prison sink. Bea graciously accepts the apology and laments how Booms’ ex-boyfriend is a man slut before heading out for visitation with Harry.

  Ugh. This guy. Harry and his giant little boy frown have shown up wanting a divorce. When Bea asks about Debbie’s ashes or memorial plaque, Harry just whines that Bea will get half his cash and assets when he finally crowbars himself out of her life like the barnacle he is.

  So Bea one-two punches him: one, she’ll divorce him, and two, he can keep his money. She just wants one little thing from him. TO KILL BRAYDEN HOLT. 

Over in the cellblock, new H-Blocker Skye is getting twitchy for some hard drugs. Liz’s woolly knitting diversion therapy is just not cutting the cold turkey sandwich, and Skye is getting a severe case of the crazy eyes. Which is making Franky super nervous. Particularly when Franky’s number one drug rival winds up in Medical, drinking her dinner through a straw, all because she couldn’t supply. Not a positive trend for old Frank.  

  Meanwhile in garden-for-your-soul paradise, Doreen is feeling the warm glow of Purpose and the heady buzz of a Governor providing her every veggie growing need. It’s all a bit good to be true. Literally. Fergusson don’t do nothing for free. Suddenly Doreen finds herself anointed the inside man on Bea Smith. The moment Doreen realises this, you can literally see her doing the appropriate mental math for this situation.  

Back in Cell Block H, things are getting active. A very innocent looking Asian girl is moving into one the cells. Meanwhile, Skye is screaming her head off that someone better get her some hard drugs or she’ll slash her wrists. The new girl, not being able to speak a word of English, seems completely freaked about the whole thing. That, or she just really wants to know where the fresh towels are. Hard to tell.

  Mr Jackson and Fletch show up with very different game plans. Will begins to calmly negotiate with Skye to drop the blade. Fletch calmly walks in and negotiates some pepper spray into Skye’s eyeballs – but not before she manages to open her veins over the walls. Bea, now more attuned to the coopery smell of blood than a vampire, is there in an instant. She wraps Skye’s wounds and helps hustle her to Medical, leaving herself once again splattered in red.

  Fergusson takes the opportunity to walk Bea back to her cellblock, and advise her that she has to attend a few psych sessions if she wants to stay out of the slot. Bea mutters that she’s already asked for the help she needs, and scurries off to think deadly thoughts whilst watching blood wash down the sink. 

  And ask for help she has. Harry rocks up at to a panel beaters thinking he’s been asked to sell his mechanic style wares, only to realise that Bea has pulled a crafty one on him.  His gob drops open as much as his tiny mouth will physically allow when he comes face to face with Brayden Holt. He knows exactly why he’s been brought here. And when Brayden turns his back to him, and a hammer is suddenly gripped in his hand, and he’s biting his tiny lips into his tiny, bitter mouth… he knows he’s going to actually, 100%... scamper off down the road like a wimpy weasel. 

Out in the yard, ovaries are exploding all over the place. Because would you know it, the writers smuggled more men into the show. Not just any men. Prison tradies. And Fergusson has them all there on a platter for Doreen.    

Back inside, tired of trying to mime ‘everything is okay’ to the new girl, Liz has Kim translate some Korean. Which, wouldn’t that be your first stop? Anyway, Kim’s eyes pop out of her head when the girl tells her that a few balloons of heroin are hanging out somewhere in her digestive system.  

  Franky. Is. Stoked. She can use this surprise stash to convince the prison’s desperate drug addicts not to flay her alive. Boomer looks at the girl like she’s a heroin piñata she can’t wait to rip open. Liz wants to take her to Medical; her life could be in danger. But all Franky sees is a vending machine with excellent timing. She declares they will wait until the girl drops her proverbial load.

  Keen to lubricate the girls gullet and get the job done, Franky performs some prison style sleight of hand, and gets the lunch girl to pash her while hiding a bottle of vegetable oil in her lady parts. Which, after seeing Boomer hiding a mobile phone in there last week, I now realise what the phrase ‘empty your pockets’ must have a totally different meaning in lady prison.

  Bea reluctant attends her mandatory psych appointment, all under the nosy Big Brother surveillance of Guvnor Fergs. Bea hates the whole thing, until the psych unwittingly illuminates the top five ways Bea can trigger Harry’s explosive temper. 

She immediately calls harry up and presses all his most sensitive, insecure buttons, until he’s a blind ball of rage driving right on over and burning down Brayden’s shop.

  Of course it doesn’t work the way Harry planned, since he didn’t plan it at all, and Brayden shows up to rescue his buddy trapped inside. Bea is busily staring down the next morning’s news, daring it to change its story, when Boomer shows up wanting to cash in a favour. Booms wants a little man-tention, and boy does Bea deliver. 

The guys respond in typical prison tradie fashion. 

Fergusson calls Bea in for a debrief. While they talk about Purpose and Power, across town Brayden and his buddies beat the shit out of Harry. Literally. They’re so disgusted at his gutless pants pooing that they decide there’s no way he could have torched the shop, and don’t blow his brains out. Bea, as if sensing the whole thing, grins and reassures Fergusson that she’s done being helpless and is determined to make her time count.

  Later, Vera shows up for the post work drinks Fergusson invited her to. She’s a little confused as to why Fergusson wants to drink in her office, but heck! Friends don’t question their potential BFFs and mentors! She settles in and Fergusson literally LETS DOWN HER HAIR and announces that they’re going to be pounding the vodka.

  They drink and drink and tell each other stories. Except Fergusson isn’t even drinking alcohol at all. That creepy creep is just drinking soda water while making Vera crush a bottle of vodka on her own. Fergusson manipulates and guilts a floppy, drunk Vera into telling her all about Fletch and their terrible sex and all his secrets about him and Governor Meg.

  It’s so awful. Particularly because Vera is so desperate for friendship and care in her life, that really Fergusson didn’t need to give her a single drop to get her secrets. All she needed to do was to sit Vera on her matronly lap and say: 

… and Vera would have told her every secret her soul had.

  Back in Cell Block H things are getting tense. The girl still has her drugs hidden in her bowels, and people are starting to freak out. Liz begs and begs Franky to get medical help, but Franky can’t bare the thought of letting the drugs slip through her fingers.  This decision is going to be her undoing, because all at once the girl starts to convulse and froth at the mouth and as quickly as it started, she’s dead.

  Later, Liz confronts Franky in her cell. She lets Franky know that she’s lost her way – fighting Jacs, she was smart. Now she’s out of her depth, making stupid decisions that are going to get her in the biggest kind of trouble. Typically, Franky fires up and threatens Liz as best she can. But as soon as she’s alone, Franky melts down. Liz is right; fear of being overthrown is pushing her into dangerous waters, and now all she can see is the Sword of Damocles hanging over her head, ready to fall at any moment.

The laundry. Team Franky fold pillowcases while Bea recounts the inconceivable details which amount to sweet Young Debbie being full of heroin. They sigh and frown in all the right places until Bea lets it slip that Debbie’s secret boyfriend was a young lad named Braydon. They all freeze and slide their eyes to each other, silently bracing themselves for the truth bomb that’s about to explode in Bea’s mind. 

Eyes blazing with the fury of a thousand suns, Bea spins around to rip Jacs’ face off. But before she can take two steps, Liz does the most insanely nice yet totally insane thing a friend can do: she grabs a fist full of Bea’s lion mane and scrag fights her to the ground.  Bennett drags them outside by the earlobes and tells them if they muck up one more time, it’s the slot for the both of them.

 As soon as they have a moment alone, Liz talks Bea down from murder mountain, convincing her to try more tried and true channels, you know, like the police and that whole law-thing that got her prison in the first place. And of course, Bea is so full of hate and so full of hurt that she storms off to Erica’s office to give her 5 minutes to call the cops and have Jacs charged with (more) murder. She doesn’t even give two hoots that she’s breaking the number one prison rule: no dibber dobbers.

Out in the yard, Bea rolls up to the women to announce that she’s a rule breaker and an attempted life taker and don’t care what anyone says about it. Franky rolls her eyes and tries once again to educate the muggle how things roll prison-side. Bringing in the cops just threatens the cellblock H safety bubble Franky’s built around them. If Bea wants justice, she better forget outside-world rules and get ready to dirty her hands with the rusty can opener of prison justice. Bea stamps her feet and gets in Franky’s face, while Liz, looking ever more the Brutus to Franky’s Caesar quietly grins at the scene she sneakily set up.

Meanwhile, Jacs is in Erica’s office sighing and frowning and wringing her hands at what a parent’s horror Bea is facing. Erica rolls her eyes and tries to get Jacs to retire to the slot for the rest of her sentence, but no dice. Instead, Jacs strolls right on over to the lunchroom to frown in Bea’s face and pass on her son’s condolences before heading over to the bain-marie to check out today’s meatballs. Bea’s eye twitches so hard it almost falls out of her head.

Franky raises her eyebrows at Bea and asks her whether she’s going to swallow that crap sandwich. She is not. Bea jumps up and snatches up Jacs’ lunch tray, ladling up the most excellent dogs breakfast of pasta and salad and cereal with a couple of dim sims for good measure. Jacs tries so hard to look like this is exactly what she eats everyday.

No one helps her. Not one of Jacs’ cronies flips a table or bares a tooth or even throws one of those meatballs. They all just sit quietly and wait for Bea’s fury to volcano out and melt Jacs into a puddle.

It’s at this point the gears in Jacs’ head start grinding hard. Project Destroy Debbie was supposed to turn Bea into a useless wet noodle.Instead Bea is a boiler about to explode into a white-hot murder mania.So Jacs does what Jacs does best. She cracks her knuckles, dons a top hat, and puts on the best damned performance you ever did see, flourishing and bowing and interpretive dancing out how great Debbie was and how much Braydon loved her and would never, eeeeeeeeeeever stab her arm full of super hard drugs.  

Bea is momentarily befuddled, but not enough to stop her telling Jacs to get the hell out. Liz, on the other hand, looks completely gape mouthed by the entire performance. 

Guards-prisoner-spying room. Vera and Fletch have a strange conversation in which Fletch announces that his clumsy/rough/gross behaviour was not Vera’s fault. To which everyone ever was like… 

They flirt over the fact that pens keep getting stolen and it’s quickly decided that Vera will come over to his for more terrible cooking. 

Which obviously has become Vera’s kryptonite, because her shirt buttons start just falling undone.  That coupled with his low voiced blushing at how adorable the spinach in her teeth is, and his chivalrous offer to give her his bed while he bunks down on the couch…. it’s all too much. Vera wants a grown up no clothes sleep over and Vera wants it now.

The next day at Wentworth, Erica breaks the hard news that the police thoroughly considered investigating Jacs’ role in Debbie’s murder but decided going for tacos would be way more fun. Bea reckons that if she could just go serve them lunch, they might change their minds. Erica takes a deep breath before breaking the hard facts to Bea. The police found a mountain of evidence indicating Debbie had been trumpeting how much drug-fun she’d been having, and her last try at heroin was definitely not her first. But Bea’s mummy spidey senses are still crackling. She knows Jacs’ fingerprints are all over this even if the cops can’t see it. Erica sighs and tells it how it looks. Two kids who met visiting their mums in prison, and a sixteen year old whose experimentation with drugs went very wrong. 

Bea stalks back to the cells, her face getting harder and harder as she tries to believe that maybe it really was all an accident. Franky steps along side her to confirm that the cops did diddlysquat, just like she foresaw. Liz secretly watches as Bea gets up in Franky’s face and tells her to back the hell off with all her ‘truth’ and ‘what really happened’. It’s all a load of wing-wang, and listening to what Franky’s got to say has just made crazier and crazier ever since she got to prison.

And with that, Bea spins on her heel and slow mo’s away.

Back at the Fletcher homestead of deflowerment and dead taste buds, Vera emerges from the bedroom full of post sex freedom feels. She swishes her sex tussled hair and announces to Fletch that today she’s pulling her first ever sickie so ‘they can hang around here’… over and over …  all day long. Fletch is so excited that he rushes out to the shop to buy eggs for some high-energy omelettes.

Left alone in a boy’s house, probably for the first time ever, Vera can’t help but let her curiosity overcome her. As images from her first sexually satisfying experience float around her, Vera swishes her hair and grins adoringly at the way Fletch’s books are perfectly aligned on the bookshelves, how his fishing lures are so cutely categorised and packed away, how the handwriting in his hidden diary so neatly spells out his desires to shoot Murdered Meg Jackson in the face. 

Fletch appears at the door and Vera literally flings the book across the room. Seeing the hurt, confusion and murder eyes on his face, Vera stammers how she won’t tell anyone what she read and really needs to not be here anymore. Realising that she’s pinning him as Meg’s killer, Fletch gets so, so mad. He only wrote the diary cos a stupid therapist made him, and he only had to cos war made him broken, and stupid Meg Jackson was playing with his traumatised forest giant heart. He tells her to get the hell out and leave him alone so he can smash the dozen eggs he bought and scream about how crap girls are.

Governor’s office of chessboard strategy. Erica brings Jacs in to tell how she totally lied to Bea about there being no police investigation. It’s all been a ruse to keep the prison from exploding into an all out blood bath, in which Jacs is at the centre with her head on a stick. She tells Jacs that the police are onto her and until the investigation is over, no visits, no phone calls and no more ‘male privileges’, so she might as well cancel all those private strip shows she has booked with the prison janitor. 

Jacs leaves the office to make way for a staff meeting. In which Erica tells the staff that she actually just totally lied to Jacs as well. The guards all gawp at her like she’s balancing two lions on her fingertips while tightrope walking across a canyon. Erica insists that she can completely keep the balancing act up, but only for so long. She needs the guards to snoop like they’ve never snooped before, and get her something solid to take to the police, stat.

Cage firmly rattled, Jacs wastes not time in playing her ace card when Mr Jackson shows up to spot check her cell.If Mr Jackson plays on her team in the investigation, Jacs will finally reveal Who Killed Governor Meg. Will is rightly dubious, but the chance that she might actually know the answer to the riddle that tears him up every minute of the day is too tempting. He digs through the recordings of Jacs’ visits with Braydon until he finds what he needs – Jacs plainly instructing Braydon on what to do with Debbie. He storms back to Jacs’ cell and demands she tells him who killed his wife. But Jacs ain’t no fool. He has to delete the evidence first.

With no leads appearing, Erica gets Franky into her office. Franky lounges back and wonders why Erica is pretending to care so much about Bea and Jacs. Erica points out that it’s kind of her job to keep the women safe, but Franky reckons that’s not it at all. She reckons Erica uses Wentworth to hide from the world, that she gets off on being locked away with the prisoners. Nerve struck or just plain insulted, Erica tells Franky to get out. But as she moves to the door Franky cuts her off and pulls her into the corner.

Franky: And the thing that scares you the most? Is that when you’re fucking him you’re thinking of me.

And then a season’s worth of verbal wrestling crystallises and suddenly Franky is literally wrestling a kiss out of Erica. It’s intense and dangerous and not very nice but if everyone is all very honest, the whole audience’s face was all:

As Erica finally kisses back she finally submits to Franky. And Franky knows it. Finally feeling like she’s won their cat and mouse game of dominance, she struts out leaving Erica a rumpled pile of nerves. 

One lady done with submitting is Bea. Harry is in for a visit to discuss what will be done with Debbie’s ashes. And now that Debbie is gone, Harry has nothing more to hold over Bea. So she tells him its time to do what’s right. She’s finally going to plead guilty and get honest with what happened between her and Harry. His abuse, her desperation, and her failed attempt to kill him. No more lies. For Debbie.

Back in Cellblock H,Franky struts in with the more swagger than one pair of hips should be able to handle. Liz asks whether Erica is still quizzing about Bea and Franky turns around like she’s honestly forgotten anything else in the universe exists outside that kiss. Which kind of irritates Liz, who finally calls Franky on what she’s been doing all season – pushing Bea and Jacs at each other like a pair of fighting dogs, just waiting for the day they’ll eat each other. Which Liz doesn’t like one bit. Bea is a good person and should be left alone. But Franky is on top of every heap in the prison right now and doesn’t like being told what to do. So she tells Liz to keep out of it or get hurt. Her choice.

Later that night Fletch pops in on Bennett to make her promise that Mr Jackson wont ever be hearing that his bestie was banging Mrs Jackson. Vera stutters and promises and asks if maybe they can talk about them, to which Fletch replies by verbally flipping her the bird and stalking off into the night.

Next day at Wentworth, the wheels of action get to spinning. Liz feeds some information to Erica, prompting a full strip down search of Jacs’ cell. Mr Jackson and Fletch pull apart everything – books, chip packets, they even squeeze out the toothpaste. But it’s in a pot of moisturiser that Will finds the now soft and supple missing bracelet of Murdered Governor Meg. His eyes bulge and his jaw clenches and he flings himself at Jacs so that he might rip of her arms and beat her to death with them. (Un)luckily Fletch tackles him to the ground and holds him through his murder rage. 

Quick sticks the cops roll Jacs up and take her to the police station to be charged with Meg’s murder. Erica quickly celebrates by announcing to the media that she’s awesome and so are her staff (so don’t fire me please) and Franky quickly celebrates by rounding up all Jacs’ cronies and making sure they now count themselves as part of Team Franky. By the time Jacs arrives back to the prison, everyone’s convinced that she had Debbie murdered and they don’t like it one bit. They’re all screaming for her blood and her hair and even one of her best cronies spits right in her face.

She’s completely stripped of power. She can’t even threaten Bennett anymore, who just sighs in her face and says how she’s not going to be bothered stopping any craziness the officers might be visiting on her now she’s been named as Meg’s killer. Jacs is all alone and doesn’t seem to have any more moves left to play.

Franky on the other hand is completely relaxed. She’s laid up on bed, having a good read when Liz stops in to say how interesting it was how darty Franky’s eyes got when Jacs was charged with Meg’s murder. Especially seeing as – PLOT TWIST – LIZ SAW FRANKY STAB MEG TO DEATH WITH A CAN OPENER. A can opener, people. Still the best detail ever. Turns out that after Franky ran off, Liz stole the bracelet and waited for the perfect moment to bring it back into play, like say planting it in Jacs’ cell. Like the rest of us, Franky is stunned. She mumbles her thanks, but Liz shuts that shit down. She didn’t do it for Franky. She did it for Bea. Franky told Liz to make a choice and she did – she is now officially head cheerleader on Team Bea.

Over in her cell, Jacs is slowly rocking back and forth, most likely gathering dark energy from all those slow-mo moving, trauma flashbacking ghosts that seem to constantly haunt Wentworth. Bea appears to the door and demands the truth. What did Jacs do to Debbie? Jacs slowly begins to wind Bea as tight as she can, wondering aloud how Debbie would have turned out with such abusive and abused parents - how it had only taken the smallest amount of attention for Debbie to hand herself over to sex and drugs and anything else Braydon wanted – how really, with a mum like Bea, Debbie had nothing but misery to look forward to and is way better off dead anyway. When Bea snaps it’s hard and fast. She flicks up a pen and buries it in Jacs’ neck.

Immediately she panics and tries to undo it by pulling the pen out. Blood pulses out in long sprays like a sprinkler on a hot day. Bea panics more and jams her hands over the wound, but Jacs jerks away. She grins her darkest, most evil grin, because death could never stop the darkness of her soul and now Bea’s fate in prison is sealed. 

Streaked in Jacs’ blood, Bea staggers out of the cell and after a whole season someone finally hits the PANIC BUTTON.  The women all gather and stare gape mouthed as Bea is lead away. Franky can barely believe it. Her plan worked; the dog’s ate each other up. But will Bea be after her next? Dear lord people, we shall have to wait until season 2 to find out. 

**

Thanks so much all you guys for reading and messaging and sharing these recaps. I really didn’t think anyone would take any notice, so it’s been really cool that you guys have been so supportive. I definitely will be back next season, but if you guys have anything you’d like me to write about in the mean time, inbox me and if it strikes my fancy I’ll give it a crack.

Franky’s cell is lit in a state of perpetual sunset. Some funky sex bass is playing. And I do believe some fanfiction went and got a spell cast on it, because I swear to godzilla, it came to life on my TV screen. Franky has Erica in her underwear and pulled up flush against her. Franky is kissing everywhere she ever dreamed of kissing, and they’re grasping and gasping and touching all the skin that ever lived. It’s all intercut with some saucy sex club scene, where people dress in leather and chains, and hop in cages to pash and spank at each other. Erica’s bra goes missing and it’s all enough to make me blush forever and ever, until –

- Erica wakes up. Her eyes flicker open and her heart is beating six million miles a second. The world groans with disappointment and frustration when Mr Boring Fiancé 2013 snuggles up to her and asks whether that steamy super sexy dream was about him. He grins the self-satisfied grin of someone who did ZERO to get his lady all hot and bothered, and does ZERO about it. Erica grips onto him in a feeble attempt to stop herself from hurtling back into the red velvet curtains of her subconscious, but the sparkle of her engagement seems way too blinding in the early morning light. So, Erica and the entire Wentworth fandom get up for a long, ice cold shower, before heading dazed into the episode. 

Erica gets to the prison all twitchy and out of sorts. She slips off her engagement ring, tucks it away, and it’s one less confusing thought to deal with for the day. She runs the media gauntlet (AKA that one lady paid to stand outside Wentworth and scream at you that you’re going to lose your job) and gets into work right on time for d-bag o’clock with P.J. Channing. As she tries to out-powerwalk him down the corridor, Channing hands Erica a newspaper article featuring Franky raving about Erica’s reform programs. He reckons they should make Franky the face of Wentworth reform and Erica can be the one to guide her through it all. One on one style. And since Erica’s arrived at her office and has nowhere else to make a powerwalking escape to, she reluctantly agrees.

Out in the yard, Liz has been demoted from peer worker to cleaner. Which means she swigs at metho and covers the vomit in the garden with flowers. Bea reckons it’s really sad, but Doreen, probably seeing the destructive addict side of herself looking back at her, has no sympathy. 

Erica strides out, instantly drawing Franky to the fence. She grins and grins and begs to know if Erica thought she was a linguistic wizard. Erica avoids eye contact and shuffles her feet and mumbles about how ‘The Department’ thought she was excellent and ‘The Department’ want her mentored and ‘The Department’ wonder how she’d handle a riding crop whether she can pop by for a visit this arvo. As Franky grins some more and kicks up her heels with glee, Erica eyes the growing fracture between Liz and Doreen, while Jacs eyes the sparks between Erica and Franky. No one looks at Jacs; they just assume she’s asleep behind those sunnies. 

Governor’s Office of Barely Repressed Feelings and Quiet Revenge. Erica has Doreen in for a quick sit down. Since Liz went and got herself lost in a jungle of trauma and booze, and let EVERYONE down, and ruined EVERYONE’S event,  and made EVERYONE look like a bad Governor … well someone else needs to do the job Liz built and loves with all her prison heart. And Erica reckons it should probably be Doreen.

 People say revenge is a dish best served cold. Governor Erica says NUH UH. Get that dish served by your enemy’s best friend, and make sure they twist that knife extra hard. Unfortunately for Erica but fortunately for Liz, Doreen can’t help but feel that backstabbing a friend – even a momentarily shitty one – just for a job is really not cool.

Loyalties divided, Doreen heads into the laundry where Liz is talking to sock puppets and Franky is dancing around in a bra. Jacs happens across a planted article of her husband with his new underage girlfriend and all she can do is swallow her rage and give a really lame burn about how Erica must totally be Franky’s girlfriend or something.  

Franky waits in Erica’s office. As soon as Erica comes in it’s obvious that she’s just been in the bathroom, carefully checking that all her emotions are zipped up and tucked away, and plotting out exactly how the meeting will go: excellently professional, and NOT ONE image of Franky asking what she wants creeping in. It’ll just be get in, tell her to study something, get out. Simples.

And it lasts a good ten seconds. Franky just cocks her eyebrow and delivers her killer mix of sincere emotion and manipulative intent –  dropping her bravado to acknowledge how amazing an opportunity university learning would be for her… but she’ll only take it up if Erica tutors her. Erica seems to panic at how easily she’s thrown off centre, and literally has to put more and more space between them, protesting more and more that she can’t do it, until Frnaky catches the glint of panic in her eyes and sees exactly why she can’t do it. Franky licks her lips, gets up and before she’s out the door, tells Erica what we all know – she can, and will, do it.

 Over in the infirmary, Bea is waiting for a random pee test when she spies Mr Jackson across the way – all shirtless and sexified and injured after another dead-wife-rage hulk out. And you know, it’s been a long time since she’s eyeballed some good man flesh, so when Mr Jackson catches her peeping at him, it’s more than a little obvious that she’d been having eyesex with his abs. 

As she skitters back into Cellblock H, all the women can smell the horn bag on her. They pass around the image of Mr Jackson’s abs and squawk about what excellent lady-fiddle fodder it’ll make. Bea’s eyes get real shifty which tells Liz that Bea has never had a go at double clicking her mouse. Liz laughs in her face and offers her a bit of a dummy’s guide: 

Bea storms off and the others let Liz know that her drunk-talk is getting real old.

  Over in the Governor’s office, P.J. Channing is thumping his fist on the desk and demanding that Erica do whatever she needs to do to get Franky in line. Erica gulps and stammers and grips the edge of her skirt and tries to stop thinking about how she kinda wants Franky to keep her in line.

  Back in Cellblock H, Liz is looking kind of shattered. Franky gives her a tough love talking to before being called away for some Higher Education. Slightly buoyed by Franky’s show of support, Liz pokes her head into Doreen’s room. She gathers her frayed wits and gives a sincere apology for wrecking the Event for Doreen. But Doreen feels way too let down my Liz’s alcoholism to let her off the hook that easy. She rails against her drinking and letting herself down by loosing parole. That’s way too raw for Liz, who rolls back into her mean shell of booze-soaked reality rejecting. Doreen hits back and spills about being offered the peer worker role. Liz let’s fly, lashing out as hard as she can to get that pain inside of her out, saying Doreen’ll never be able any good at the job - she’s too dumb and black for the women to trust her like they trusted Liz. It’s hideous and awful and plain out gross. Doreen’s face crumples with betrayal, the words tearing at a deep, sacred part of her soul. So she gives Liz the biggest ‘up yours’ she can – she takes the peer worker role.

  The Education Centre. Franky and Erica sit down over some uni pamphlets and talk career. Erica tries to redirect the conversation toward what Franky would like to study, while Franky tries to redirect the conversation toward Erica’s personal reasoning for becoming a lawyer. The question dodging quickly slips into their signature powerplay banter, and neither of them can keep from grinning.

  Out in the corridors, Jacs happens across Liz guzzling down her cleaning fluids. Unable to pass up a chance to whisper dark spells into someone’s vulnerable ear, Jacs lets Liz know that she’s not protected as peer worker anymore, so she better getting thinking about coming down on Jacs’ side of the fence. 

Back in the education centre, Franky doesn’t want to commit to anything until she’s felt out all the options. Like sex. She spent years having sex with men because she thought it was what she was supposed to do, how she was supposed to work. But then she slept with a woman and her body lit up with all the missing parts of herself she didn’t even know existed. Everything before that had been a colossal waste of time.  Franky leans in to Erica and tells her that exploration shouldn’t be rushed. It’s the best bit, after all - new, scary, a little bit dangerous. Without exploration we can miss the most important parts of ourselves and get lost mediocrity.

  Erica grips her hands together and tries to not let how affected she is show. Feeling provoked, she tells Franky that she’s trying to get a rise out of her on purpose.  But it didn’t work. It did absolutely nothing for her. 

To prove how little it did for her, she speeds home, rips off her clothes and has her way with Mr Boring Fiancé 2013. Except he won’t have his way with her. Erica wants to be dominated, to be rough, outrageous - to let her kink flag fly high and proud with its boobs out for all to see. But her poor sweet fiancé only wants to make the tenderest of love to her. Her frustration grows and she tries to lead him to kinky town with her, but he just doesn’t get it, and finally she explodes and the words rips from her throat that she can’t stand to have boring old married couple sex. 

  Mr Boring looks at her like he’s been slapped with a fish. Erica goes limp, deadening the hidden part of her that slipped out. Mr Boring tries to ask her what that ball of kinkdom was all about, and Erica triiiiies to say that she wanted to try something new. But Mr Boring just takes that as her saying they have a problem. Which you know what, Mr Boring? Yeah. You totally have a problem. You’ve been stifling her for way too long and now she’s going crazy. He asks her if she’s bored of him and her response is excellent. Her mouth is simultaneously saying yes and no at once. 

At this point, Erica is desperate. So she tries to talk about it as clearly as she can without actually talking about it. She tells Mr Boring that they can do anything he can think of that he wants to do, she’s game. You wanna play prisoner? Done. Wanna hang upside down and see how long you can make out before someone passes out? Done. Wanna pretend no one has arms or legs anymore and figure out how sex would work? 1000% done. But the problem is obvious. They were just doing the one thing he wants to do. And he’s not interested in trying anything that would really rev her engines.

  Erica’s frustration boils over as she screams about how sex should be allowed to be dirty sometimes, and as Mr Boring storms out the door, Erica FLASHBACKS to that time she was sitting on the loo and made the biggest mistake of her life by asking Mr Boring to marry her.  The image is ultimate couple comfort: being able to take a massive poop whilst chatting to your partner about their day. But if you can’t talk to your partner openly and honestly about what your ideal sexy time looks like, maybe that’s not the relationship to be locking down for eternity.

  Back at the prison, things get real as Liz passes out and the women get sent to their cellblocks for lockdown. As Booms retires to her cell for some self sexy times, the other women filter out leaving Doreen and Franky. Guilt crushing her from the inside out, Doreen confesses that she spiked Liz’s cleaning product hooch with bleach. Understandably, Franky is unimpressed. She hard shifts into cellblock mother mode and makes Doreen promise to never tell a living soul about what she did before literally sending Doreen to her room.

  Erica’s in at work and Mr Boring is ignoring all her calls and texts and it’s filling her with so much tension that her hands are pinching her arms and waving through the air and plain out desperate to have something to do. So she sits at her computer to do some governoring… of the CCTV… of the yard… where Franky and Kim are going at it like they’re fifteen and in the back row at the movies.  

Her wandering hands slide down her thigh... under her skirt... up… and she’s starting to think that this is the best thing she’s ever watched since – FLASHBACK – she did some lawyering at the sexiest sex club that ever did sex. This place is literally called the Velvet Curtain, and from the way Lawyer Erica eye sexes a woman on the way in, that is exactly what she wouldn’t mind, thankyou very much. Lawyer Erica meets with the owner of Fetish Disneyland about the lawyering she’ll be doing for him, the whole time her eyeballs devouring up every leather spanking, leash leading, wax dripping moment. She manages to get through the meeting with enough professionalism and charm to get the signature she came for, before slooooowly making her way out.

But clearly she can’t leave this place so quickly. Not when these men and women look at her with such open, shameless desire. Not when every kink under the sun is welcome, including this guy, who clearly has a thing for David Bowie’s balls a la The Labyrinth: 

So before she goes, she takes a quick squiz behind one of those red velvet curtains, where she finds the sexy deleted scenes from Twin Peaks. People are spanking and moaning and that woman Erica made eyesex at is reaching her hand out and beckoning her in to let loose that part of her that’s been straitjacketed for so long now. The world strobes and pulses and Erica’s body starts to lead her in… until that DAMNED CLIENT OF HERS peeps on her so hard she loses her nerve and scampers out. 

Back in the present, with the sexiness of the flashback still pumping in her veins and the sexiness of the Frankycam she’s ogling, Erica is having a really good walk downtown… until that DAMNED BOSS OF HERS interrupts and asks if she’s BIZ-AY. I mean busy. Which could given the episode thus far could sound like the start of a porn, but no he’s just there to make it official that he is 100% Erica’s buzzkill in every way, shape and form.

  Over in cellblock H, Liz is back. Doreen is still furious about her racism and refuses to be around her. So Liz goes and has a one on one chat with Bea, apologising for making her uncomfortable with all the masturbation talk.  Bea reveals that she was eighteen when she fell pregnant with Debbie and married Harry. Having a rough pregnancy, she didn’t much feel like sex. But that made Harry angry, and his abuse made sex a punishment for Bea, never anything to enjoy or celebrate. Liz puts a hand on Bea’s arm and suggests that now is the time for Bea to take back her body, strip off the shame Harry laid on her, and let herself feel some enjoyment. 

  That night Erica comes home to find Mr Boring waiting for her. Her tells her that they’ve been engaged for five years now and she shows no interest in upgrading that to a marriage. He makes it clear that this is him and he ain’t gonna change, so if she needs something more than what he can give, she needs to be honest and walk away. Erica’s face twists up as every one of her wants and needs do battle. The finality and immediacy and hugeness of walking away is such an overwhelming and terrifying thing. And to stand on that ledge while looking in the face of someone who represents your steadiness and safety and love, is basically impossible. So she walks to him and repeats the things she’s held as facts for years: she loves him. She wants to marry him.

  As the night closes in things heat up. Mr Jackson does the final headcount, the image of his abs giving the women something to take to bed with them. 

Bea takes herself to bed and for the first time ever gets what Boomer means when she says “make ya self roar like a walrus.” Erica relaxes into some gentle lovemaking with Mr Boring, even rejecting his offer to try whatever she wants in favour of making him happy. Kim surprises Franky with a sexy dance before jumping into some uninhibited door open, world be damned sexy times. It’s open and free and a complete counter to Erica’s experience at that moment, but you can’t help but wonder whether their heads might actually be in the same place.

The gym. Some high tops pump the treadmill. Some boobs bounce out the sweat.  Franky sprints out her angst and remembers the last few hours where she was Reality TV starring on a prison cooking show I shall henceforth name Murder Chef. 

I can see where Franky thought this would be a great idea. If there’s one thing Franky’s learnt from Prison, it’s this: she is excellent at wearing a uniform and being Number One. But what Franky didn’t count on was the fact that Reality TV is all about a universal nightmare: publicly putting yourself on the line for something you secretly want to be really good at, only to be hideously ridiculed.

The smarmy host squints his eyes and purses his lips around Franky’s tempura veggies fresh from the boiling, boiling oil. He gets up in her grill, mocking her intelligence and inability to cook Japanese and pronounce Japanese until the director calls cut. Franky walks away, most likely counting down from ten to keep her from ripping the guy’s face from his skull. But, very sadly and stupidly for him, he follows after her, high fiving himself and telling Franky what an awesome show he gave her, you know, by being nothing but a stupid, worthless woman. Franky responds by politely cracking the guy in the nose a few times before upending a wok of boiling oil right over his face – never to be smug again.

The laundry. Jacs steam presses while overseeing the other women doing the jobs she’s assigned them. Bea shows up, her naivety letting her muss up the order of things by trying to switch up jobs with Doreen. Jacs grits her teeth and ‘invites’ Bea to come try out the steam press instead. The machine hisses and steams and looks ready to chomp Bea up, but Franky intercepts and sends Jacs on her way. Franky gives Bea a grin – now she’s in the game too. 

 Meanwhile, Mr Jackson is rifling through Franky’s cell. His darty eyeballs suggest he might be on the sneaky look out for some knickers, but really is there to do some good old-fashioned rummaging. He squirrels about her things, until he finds some photos and letters from her dad and shuffles on out of there.

Governor’s Office. Franky is shown into Erica’s fancy new office. The most fantastic thing about this scene is not really what’s discussed, but the fact that the first thing Erica did when she moved into her dead bosses office was bring in an orchid plant – THE INTERNATIONAL PLANT FOR VAGINAS.  

Franky grins and tells Erica how foxy her orchids are (!!!), to which of course, Erica giggles and squirms in her chair. Like any self-respecting woman with a vagina plant on her desk would. 

Erica informs Franky that she’s received another letter from her dad. Seeing as he’s someone Franky never discusses nor replies to, Erica wonders whether she needs to call the cops on this guy. I’m just gonna take a stab in the dark and suppose that someone probably should have called the cops on Papa Doyle 20 years ago and probably saved Franky some prison time. But Franky just shakes her head, so Erica moves to the next order of business.

Franky tries to play it off as rough sexy times, but Erica is Governor now and she didn’t get this office and its vagina plant for nothing. She’s itching to lay some of her new Governor-ship smack down, and she implores Franky to name Jacs so she can do the most important part of her job: keeping the boobs of Wentworth safe.

After finding her cell all rummaged at, Franky hits the yard to blow off some steam with some good old inter prisoner basketball with a couple of Jacs’ cronies. Choosing this exact sweaty moment for a stroll is Governor Erica. She’s quizzing Liz about the magic answer to the Jacs and Franky riddle. Liz tells her that there’s only three ways it can end: someone is released, someone backs down, or someone dies. It’s pretty obvious which one you’d lay your bets on.

Doreen comes up and asks Erica about Toni. Apparently Toni’s been locked up in the wet cells for two weeks to ween her off the smack and no one’s giving the women any updates. Erica dodges the questioning and let’s her guilt lead her right on over to check on Toni.

The wet cells are a pretty rubbish deal. I’m not sure what the difference is between it and The Slot, but basically the wet cells leave you in isolation with no showers and a big tin toilet. Erica peeps in to see Toni cradling a big cheese sub sandwich like it’s her lost child. Toni holds Erica’s stare with big dead eyes and stuffs that sandwich baby right down her throat until she starts to choke. Erica flips right on out and screeches until Fletch slooooowly… decides… to… show… up. He takes one glance through the window at Toni, rolls his eyes, and announces that she’s doing a shit job at suicide. Erica rips out her hair and stamps her feet until he opens the door, then she thumps the hell out of Toni’s back until lo and behold, Toni pukes her cheese sub baby right on over Erica’s fitted, fitted blazer.

With the smell of bile stinking her nostrils, Erica calls a high priority meeting with Bennett to declare the wet cells a crime against blazers. And also humanity. Bennett’s advice seems to be centered around doing nothing, so Erica calls a bigger meeting so she can let everyone know that they’ll be doing double time to curb wet cell suicide attempts and random blazer attacks.

Prison gates. Debbie shows up for her very first day of prison visiting. As she waits and considers whether she should invest in a few sleeves of tattoos to fit in, a dashing young fellow approaches to smile sweetly and announce himself as Braydon Holt. Who also has a mum in prison. Oh my. 

Erica’s had at least two non Franky related meetings in a row now, so decides to call in Franky for an overdue catch up. Apparently Papa Doyle has taken to binging on Franky clips on YouTube. We don’t see anything about his Franky Tumblr, but I hear it’s pretty epic. Either way, Franky only wants to talk about how lame it is that she and Erica don’t get to hang out anymore now that Erica got a promotion, and also, why doesn’t Erica order coffee at their coffee dates? 

 Erica tells Franky that the guy claiming to be her dad is in fact her dad, and he is super keen to visit her. Franky scowls and crosses her arms and is completely not listening, until pow! Some guy brings them a pair of coffees. Through the haze of coffee dateness, Franky vaguely hears Erica suggesting that her dad might help her deal with all that residual anger that seems to get her flinging boiling oil on jerky TV hosts. But it’s completely Franky’s choice.  

Befuddled by the double whammy of caring and caffeine, Franky finds herself waiting to be strip searched so she can see her dad. Not a sentence you’d ever want applied to yourself. Bea is there too, waiting to see Debbie, and she’s babbling about prison politics, completely not noticing Franky is freaking out so hard that she has spiralled off into a FLASHBACK.

As she walks to the visitation room, Franky flickers in and out of being a vulnerable little girl. Standing by her bedroom window every night, waiting for her dad to come and rescue her away from her drug addled, abusive mother.

Papa Doyle seems confused about having glass separate them until Franky calmly explains that it’s there to stop her from murdering at him. Papa Doyle gives a heart felt but ultimately lame apology for abandoning her, coupled with a too-little-too-late speech about how he hadn’t been ready for fatherhood. Franky fires up and asks how she was expected at ten years old to cope with a psychotic junkie mum who burnt her with cigarettes. She rails against this guy who has shown up, this pathetic guy, who doesn’t even live up to the father she had spent years destroying in her fantasies.

Meanwhile, a sniffer dog sniffed some drugs on Debbie. She has to be strip-searched by Bennett or she can never visit Bea in prison again. WHAT AN ULTIMATUM. This show! Where you have to be strip-searched before seeing your parents!  That sure as hell is one way to test the bonds of family. Bennett purses her lips and Debbie cries and Bea is ready to hulk out, but Debbie goes on ahead and strips off for her mum. 

Back in the wet cells, Toni is showered and clean and a lot saner. Erica comes by for a friendly visit. She does not wear a blazer. She smiles super nice and asks Toni how much she might like a visit from her daughter. It flickers a nice warm flame of hope in Toni, and Erica grabs that hope right up in her hands and squeezes it. She tells Toni that she has to be sure she won’t slip back into the drugs before she lets Kaiya visit; Toni needs to tell her where she got the drugs. Quick sticks Toni names the guy who Erica hired for the program that got Erica the governorship. Erica stares Toni right in the eye as she morphs into Delores Umbridge to tell Toni that she must not tell lies. Toni swallows her disgust and dutifully changes her story – she never traded BJs for crack. She just found it.

As Bea is skipping down the halls high on life after her visit from Debbie, Jacs cuts in to let Bea know that where Debbie lives is no longer a secret. And hey, how awful is it when teenage girls get randomly run over? 

The next day in the laundry, Jacs is press steaming while Bea is nervously folding things, eyes darting everywhere. Things quickly heat up as Franky comes in and the guards disappear. Jacs’ goons grab up Franky and hold her hand under the steam press. Jacs calls over Bea to do the honors. It’s a tense moment as everybody stares at each other and Bea’s hand hovers closer and closer to the handle. Finally Jacs’ bloodlust overcomes her and she slams that press right on down on Franky’s hand. She swallows her screams as her hand blisters and burns.

In the infirmary, the voice of her hideous mother haunts Franky as her hand is dressed. Erica shows up demanding to know who hurt her and to be allowed to help. But all Franky wants is her dad.

Across the prison, Bea is feeling some backlash for her actions. 

Papa Doyle sits by Franky’s bed and tells her how glad he is that she called for him. She lets him hold her good hand as he says how happy he is to be there. How he’s going to help her. How’s she doesn’t have to be alone anymore. But the last one is much too raw for Franky to hear. It just highlights how alone he’s left her, and how it led her right here to this moment. In prison. With a bag of blisters for a hand. She pulls away and asks him to never contact her again. After waiting a lifetime for him to show up, she sends him away. It’s too late for him to rescue her.

The moment Franky is released back to cell block H, Bea is grovelling and begging and telling Franky how she never wanted to do it, she had to because Jacs was threatening Debbie.

In no uncertain terms, Franky tells Bea that she just needs to cross her one more time to find herself murdered.

Alone in her room and unable to sleep, Franky pulls out the one photo she owns of her and her dad. She tears it into tiny shreds and flushes it away.