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 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.
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.
Season 8 pt 1
In episode nine Sheila enters the compound on remand charged with the mass murder and arson of the True Path Conversion Therapy Cult. Shelia sees Rebecca Reb Keane alive and is happy that he made it out alive, Reb later tells Sheila hell tell the police that it was all Mendels doing. Sheila later reveals that Lou Kelly watched over some of Rebs treatment.
In episode ten Sheila reveals to Marie that she only knew about the mass suicide being Mendels doing, and said that she stole the money from the retreat.
As Box tells us, there really was no other option for her character after losing Reb: “Lou’s grief is just so deep and so unendurable, and Lou either falls apart or fights like f*** to take everyone down, and that is Lou’s way; to seek vengeance on people who have done her or the people she loves wrong. That’s just her moral code.”
However, we were pretty sure Lou wouldn’t let Reb’s death go unpunished. After discovering that Marie (Susie Porter) sourced the sleeping powder, it didn’t take long for Marie to then ’fess up who she supplied it to (conveniently forgetting to add that she only did so as she thought that Sheila was going to kill Lou!). Thus, Sheila’s fate was sealed.
Perhaps the toughest thing to watch was Lou sitting back as the strychnine took hold. “Lou would’ve watched that all day, you know,” Box says. “It was just such a sense of, ‘This is less than what you deserve. You deserve much more than this.’ [There’s a] slight dissociation with Lou at that point, where she can watch something so horrendous happen and just have no desire to ease Sheila’s suffering in any way. No guilt, no remorse.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
FAQ
Does Lou find out who killed Reb?
Did Allie find out who stabbed her?
What secret is Lou keeping from Reb?
Who kills Marie on Wentworth?