Doctor Foster (Series 2, Episode 4 Review)

In Doctor Foster, even when expecting the unexpected you can still be confounded to a point where dizziness takes over. That applies more than ever in a penultimate episode crammed with paranoia. In a change of tact to its standard structure we see the same morning from two different perspectives and at last Jodie Comer is given the chance to shine as Kate. She rightfully gets a chance to be the headline act.

Kate opens a hand delivered letter containing the tie Simon left after the  and it injects more doubts on top of the ones that were clearly already there. It’s a game changer to be allowed a look into the window of a relationship we’ve only ever seen glimpses of through Gemma’s eyes. Kate is led on a which hunt through the plants of Carly, Sian and Anna, the latter leaving loads of notes around the Doctor’s property with the address of her hotel on them. It’s a convoluted plot to ambush Kate that backfires on the surface but the seeds have still been sown.

In a scene that brilliantly echoes Gemma’s first confrontation with Simon about the affair back in series one, Kate challenges him with fire in her heart: “Work out the consequence of lying and the consequences of telling the truth”. Simon’s silence is longer and more painful than before and the tension palpable as another lie is expected to froth from his lips. Instead he tells the truth and his pathetic squirming sets toes curling “Seconds into it I started thinking of you, your body’s better, the things you can do with it.. you smell better, you’re kinder. I get much more pleasure from you in every way. Starting sex with her was driven by lust, yes but finishing it was politeness”. It brings a weird moment of hilarity but still can’t cut the tension. Once a pathological liar always a pathological liar.

Kate returns to the hotel and is lectured on her husband’s obsession with the ex-wife. From dress sense, wedding vows and.. er.. food” Gemma wins her over by saying “His taste is me”. It may be tenuous to some but it’s perfectly understandable that she is won over by this. It serves to amplify Kates’s earlier “I’m here!” as her husband looked through her and talked only of his former lover. Never could it have been predicted that the women in Simon’s life would end up as an uneasy alliance. While all these new revelations are true let’s not forget that Gemma is also obsessed. People in glass houses and all that.

What of poor Tom? The story that grounds everything in reality. Captive in a hotel room and sobbing in a touching moment as mum washes his hair. He is still a kid and the most damaged out of everyone. What Simon said about his mother is still a mystery and is one of two key points the whole series is hanging on. The second is Simon’s grand declaration that he’ll only leave in a coffin. Someone might leave in a wooden box but it could be anyone.

Simon’s life, like the man himself is an entire lie. He has no money in the house, the business isn’t his, even his satchel isn’t his own. The clothes he stood in would have been stripped off were it not for public decency.  Chris Parks is literally every viewer as he rages “It was made very clear to you from the beginning that all this, this whole life is my daughters and you get to live in it while she’s happy. The moment she’s not it snaps back” then happily exclaiming “and here it is FUCKING SNAPPING! HAPPY DAY!” It’s punch the air satisfying. Mr nasty has lost his house, business, wife and child and only two of those were his anyway. As Gemma rolls up to survey the wreckage there’s an incredibly powerful contrast. Simon kicks and punches her car but she sits there stony faced. Almost numb. Her victory tasting somewhat bitter. For a moment there it almost looked like she was softening. That is until she speeds the car at him. Normal service resumed. Kind of.

As drama goes it can’t get more riveting than this. Doctor Foster is a kitchen sink drama with cinematic ambition. It’s a pulse quickening, mouth opening extravaganza of madness. So mouth opening you too could inelegantly shove pasta in your gob IF you could take your eyes off the screen that is. Like last week this felt like a series finale so it’s a guarantee the stakes will be raised even further than all that’s gone before. Murder? Suicide? A happy ending? Nah, Just joking about the last one. 10/10

Doctor’s notes

• it was obvious Kate wanted out the moment see stared with contempt at Simon wolfing down pasta.
• A vibrator in someone’s drawer isn’t a sign of a bad sex life. Just saying
• Even Simon looked embarrassed as he said “love you” down the phone. And he was alone.
• Whatever the removal company is called we need to know because those guys are damn good at their jobs.
• Did Simon put the GPS on Gemma’s phone?
• Why would Gemma run over the man she has just claimed “victory” over? All that she’s worked for would be over in an instant.

Doctor Foster (Series 2, Episode 3 Review)

The best dramas will always engross and surprise in equal measure and writer Mike Bartlett does both with aplomb in an episode where everything feels more grounded and realism is to the fore. There are no character decisions that grate, no motivations that make little sense. After last week’s strange happenings this is the biggest compliment going.

Every minute is gripping as the toxicity of Gemma and Simon’s relationship finally meets head on. After suspension from school , Tom heads back to mum’s house with both guardians at his side. Gemma offers her estranged man to stay for dinner but he should have known an offer of any meal with broccoli in is hardly putting forward the hand of friendship. Things get hot in the kitchen like in R Kelly’s ignition and after placing her mobile phone against a bread bin (that rhymes too) the doc strips to her frillies. Even though the filming is spotted they soon take matters to the living room in a session that can be more easily described as hate-fucking rather than love making.

Thank God for Anna who translates what the viewers have been saying for a while now. In a passionate take down of Gemma’s behaviour she says in no uncertain terms that her actions are ruining Tom’s happiness and that there is life away from Simon and more specifically there is life away from Parminster.

At last, the consequences are coming to fruition (bounce bounce bounce). We learn just what effect his parent’s mind games are having. From the anxiety we already knew about, Tom has aggressively forced himself onto his friend Isobel and shown himself up in a public fit of rage. It’s a clarion wake up call and one that not just Gemma needed, but the show needed too. We get an admittance of sorts, where she talks of a love still present. “You miss him as a father, I miss him as a husband. You knew what he was like but you went back anyway. I did the same. It was wrong”.

The layers of Simon’s duplicity are shown in full technicolour. He agrees to work together over Tom but emails the school over a transfer behind Gemma’s back. He conceals the information regarding Isobel from his mother too. He turns his back on a heartbroken Tom once Kate decides she doesn’t want him at their house. Unsurprisingly given his past, he feigns ignorance about the previous nights steamy affair. If only Tom had revealed the truth on that driveway rather than exclaiming “WHAT?!” to his dad’s “We’re married mate, we don’t hide things from each other”.

The proverbial rug is pulled from under our feet. The closing five minutes not only feel like a series finale but finishing touches to the entire show. The truth is there are still one hundred and twenty minutes to go so quite where things go from here is anybody’s guess. The same rules don’t apply anymore. Doctor Foster has gone off the map. We can be fairly sure that though Gemma has left Parminster, Parminster probably hasn’t left Gemma. 10/10

Doctors notes:

• It’s still unclear what Simon told Tom to make him turn on his mum.
• Will Kate find out about the affair and will it be the downfall of Simon?
• It’s still a mystery where Simon and Kate got their wealth from
• James probably wasn’t a plant in the end but his bad taste in jumpers means forgiveness is long off.
• When Gemma was escaping the wedding it just looked like she was scuttling away to go for a pee behind the hedge. It’s exactly this kind of insight you read this blog for isn’t it?
• While leaving a wedding without saying goodbye is rude, it’s not the worst offence committed in the show.

Doctor Foster (Series 2, Episode 1 Review)

Suranne Jones won a BAFTA, Bertie Carvel won the hate of the British public and Doctor Foster proved to be a surprising hit for the BBC. Series two starts where things left off but the tension is raised from the off and writer Mike Bartlett looks set to be revelling more than ever in the his creation’s bonkers nature . The first run always had an air of heightened reality and surreal edge. The decisions Gemma Foster (Jones) made felt not only questionable but just plain bizarre. That mixed with a distant feel in the direction made it an uneasy but essential watch and the pay off in the final two episodes made it all worthwhile. The truth came out, Simon (Carvel) had been cheating all along, rendered his wife unconscious in an attack and fled with a tail between his scurrying legs.

There’s no such build up this time and to a beautiful collection of sweeping shots we see letters being dispatched to the people of Parminster we’ve become accustomed to. Turns out Tom and mistress Kate are now married and returning to the area.  The atmosphere is palpable as Gemma goes snooting around his empty new property (which was conveniently unlocked) and let’s just say he’s done rather well for himself. The house is a large cavern of minimal blandness and a swimming pool. That’s probably how the estate agent sold it. Cue the build up to their reunion as Tom footsteps it up the drive and they intently stare each other out through a window. At times the show looks like a horror movie without the relentless screams (yet). The camera gives the constant impression something unsettling is about to happen. Simon insists he’s paid for his mistakes, served time and is now clearly minted somehow despite all his previous money problems. In a subtle form of bullying that he’s is prone to, he points out that she still wears the same clothes, has the same car and hasn’t moved on.

There are many moments when you could scream at the telly “why are you doing that?!” but by definition drama is full of wrong and strange choices or there wouldn’t be any drama at all. In this enhanced world that Parminster spins in it’s easier to overlook them as now everything feels more safe in Bartlett’s hands. The means will be justified in the end. One such moment is when our favourite sinister Doc goes on a date with a patient (none of that try not to shag the people you’re treating business here) but decides to show up with said date to Simon and Kate’s welcome home party. She not welcome and the party looks set to kick off in a way nobody wants.

In a borderline creepy scene Gemma stalks around the bedroom sniffing lubricant and getting jealous of Kate’s expensive vibrator. We’ve all been there. Gemma and Simon square up and proving that men can multitask he declares his plan while having an erection. He wants her to flee from Parminster and wants his old life back with his old friends. It’s very oddly unsettling but tense as hell.  It could be argued the pair could easily leave each other alone and get on with their own lives but they remain a toxic relationship even after the split. There’s love and hate in equal measure but more dangerously there’s raging jealousy and bitterness. Nobody will back down as he later states “There’s only one way I’m leaving now and that’s in a coffin”. It’s a declaration full of foreboding.

Are any of these characters actually likeable? The truth is no one carries themselves with much dignity,  there’s no attempt to endear the Parminster residents to anyone within a mile radius of this mystical village of pent up emotions. They live in a self imposed (upper?) middle class selfish bubble and while most shows with characters so reactionary would suffer, Bartlett pulls of the miracle of making us care.

The sub horror feel returns as Gemma tries to track down her son Tom at the party and the quickened heartbeats turn out to be for nothing at she finds him safe. That’s until they get back home and in a drunken haze he shows anger and resentment towards his mother. Bartlett builds the expectations and delivers the hammer blow somewhere else. He goes for the head and kicks you in the balls. As such, at the close we get a reversal. Simon is now in his old house and leaves with Tom and a distressed mum flailing at the car. In a symbolic act of resurrection Gemma changes clothes, melts her wedding ring and the look of vengeance in her eyes is palpable. Hell hath no fury like a Doctor scorned.. 9/10

Doctor’s notes

• Ros wins award for worst friend of the year. After going behind Gemma’s back before she turns up at the party despite saying she wouldn’t. Boo to you. You are proper sketchy Ros.
• What power does Simon have over Tom? Is there blackmail going on?
• Will Kate come out the worse of the three for being in the middle of the mind games?
• Is there more to Simon’s plans that merely evicting his ex from town?
• With no husband and increasingly less friends (who all have connections to Simon) why does Gemma want to stay put? Principle? Pride?
• Do the swimming pool and drowning wedding ring hint at a potential death and cause of death?