From Hong Kong to a 90s hospital
Apr. 11th, 2024 07:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessExpats 1.6 Home
I found the framing device where the three main female characters seemed to address each other weird. It turned out to be Margaret meeting Mercy and Mercy meeting Hilary and maybe even Margaret meeting Hilary (possibly on the same day and in the same place if in separate meetings.) At its best it worked, but it wasn’t always at its best.
There were flashes of drama, and perhaps the most satisfying for me was Charlie calling Mercy out on her privilege of having choices (yes, even as the youngest and poorest expat who carried her curse and troubled relationship with her mother around with her.)
We followed Hilary to LA to find out that both her parents’ expectations were, frankly, flabbergasting. David later asking if she’d find it weird to meet Mercy was nothing on that. I didn’t mind the reveal that Hilary had been petty enough to lose Mercy her job; it balanced out the Hilary who seemed to be giving Mercy life advice.
Surprisingly, there wasn’t all that much Margaret screen time. I most felt the lack of Margaret-Hilary interaction. Striking that Daisy was the least okay with Margaret choosing to stay in Hong Kong for Gus. I’m not sure whether Essie did go to the US as ‘helper’ or to her blood relatives. But as we returned to a Mercy voiceover, the three main expat ladies had found a home for now, and at least Mercy seemed to have reached a place where she wanted the daughter she was going to have. But we never found out what happened to Gus.
So, that won’t go down as the best thing I watched in 2024.
Cardiac Arrest - 2.5 Factor 8
They weren’t kidding with the guidance warning for disturbing scenes. One came towards the end, with the episode title hinting at why. (The seven factors that the manager was reeling off as to why there’d been a patient death was a bit too much.)
Mainly it followed on from the previous episode – the party and the deaths. The broadest brush was reserved for Raj’s business, as he was treated for his clumsiness last night (although he looked rather good in slightly crumpled clothes, a handcuff still on his wrist and loved up around PC Girlfriend.) But the father of the woman his mother had arranged for him to marry (without his consent) was sniffing around, along with another male relative, wanting to force Raj to stick to the agreement, even though he’d just found someone else. He got James and the Male Nurse to cover for him, as he clambered up to cower where nobody would look. Part 2 of all this was when another Indian came up to him threateningly, claiming to be a business associate of the angry dad, but it turned out he wasn’t, he was someone who worked elsewhere in the hospital, and Raj had been set up by his colleagues and girlfriend. Har-har. (What did the actor make of all this? Grateful to get a job, but Raj is such a caricature.) Raj did blurt out that he thought he was in love with his girlfriend. Steady on, son!
Not that he’s the only caricature, oily Mr Turner says one thing to your face, but the opposite to someone else; the consultant with the car and a high opinion of himself has a high opinion of his car; Docherty, who regaled his juniors with tales of the 1950s and 1960s, forgot he’d been taken off a list and was about to scrub up when Scissors reminded him (I think the stutter may just be the actor’s); the hospital manager is evil.
We had a new patient who was a caricature: Brigadier Entitlement, who banged on about the kind of care he'd get going private. The thing about going private in the UK, then as now, mate, is that you have to keep paying your premiums. Which you didn’t, apparently. I was with the completely unimpressed Claire. Well, until she rather cruelly listed the potential complications for someone who’d had a heart attack, however much he didn’t want to face it, if they discharged themselves in the middle of treatment, with the heart monitor’s beeps registering his distress.
Yates and Andrew were on the case about the deaths. The hospital manager wanted to pin it on the nurse with the psychiatric history (who I don’t think I’ve noticed before) even though Yates specifically said that he didn’t want to see a witch-hunt. She stood up to his bullying at an informal meeting, and we later learned from the suspended Geordie nurse that she’d had counselling after the death of her sister. Proving that the man who pretends to care about disabled people was prejudiced and ignorant about people with mental ill health. The autopsy of the ‘fit and healthy’ young man revealed that he’d actually had a dodgy heart condition that nobody had known about. But what about the old lady and her oxygen? The nurses pointed out that they were understaffed.
But because he’s the doctor who talks the most with patients, Andrew learned that the dead patient’s niece was a nurse from another ward and had been popping in to silently ‘help’ her aunt in a way that hadn’t helped at all. Phew? Andrew had reminded his boss that he had a half day at the start of the episode, but it was night by the time he was off. Grumbling that his missus had let her ‘mentally handicapped’ sister move in, so he didn’t want to go home, he ended up going for a drink with his ex, who voiced her own disgruntlement with her boyfriend. Oh dear, you two!
Andrew had been getting ever bolshier with Turner and the hospital manager, though not as bad as fierce Claire, who admitted to Scissors she really would like to know what it was not to be knackered all the time. She was scolded about drinking Diet Coke in front of her patients (it was fairly shocking product placement for a BBC drama!) As she said, she wasn’t allowed time for a teabreak and nobody cared. (I don’t think Red Bull was yet a thing or she might well have been on that.) Then it was about her not paying for her milk that time she was bleeped. As Andrew said, the hospital had way bigger financial issues.
But by the end of the episode, the scrimping on staff (which had been rumbling all episode) came to an ugly head. Andrew had had to deal with one patient as the ENT person, despite not being trained. It was a kid with something in her ear who would just be late for school, waiting for the real ENT person.
Now it was Claire’s turn, except the nosebleed she was dismissive of when seemingly more serious patients needed her turned out to be a haemophiliac. She wasn’t trained to treat him, the ENT person was nowhere to be found and they had none of the clotting agent needed. The patient deteriorated, blood spurted and gushed and it was indeed distressing, because Claire, the sister and nurse were trying to react to a rapidly deteriorating situation but always a beat too slowly. That scene was beautifully done, especially after the frenzy when Claire realised the patient had died and wordlessly communicated this to the sister, before having to respond to another beep with blood spatter all over her. The final note, after she’d had to tell the patient’s wife and child, now dressed in scrubs, was seeing Turner, who’d just said all the right things to her, laughing at drinks with the hospital manager and all the other ‘bigwigs’. Freeze frame of her face, radiating righteous fury.
I found the framing device where the three main female characters seemed to address each other weird. It turned out to be Margaret meeting Mercy and Mercy meeting Hilary and maybe even Margaret meeting Hilary (possibly on the same day and in the same place if in separate meetings.) At its best it worked, but it wasn’t always at its best.
There were flashes of drama, and perhaps the most satisfying for me was Charlie calling Mercy out on her privilege of having choices (yes, even as the youngest and poorest expat who carried her curse and troubled relationship with her mother around with her.)
We followed Hilary to LA to find out that both her parents’ expectations were, frankly, flabbergasting. David later asking if she’d find it weird to meet Mercy was nothing on that. I didn’t mind the reveal that Hilary had been petty enough to lose Mercy her job; it balanced out the Hilary who seemed to be giving Mercy life advice.
Surprisingly, there wasn’t all that much Margaret screen time. I most felt the lack of Margaret-Hilary interaction. Striking that Daisy was the least okay with Margaret choosing to stay in Hong Kong for Gus. I’m not sure whether Essie did go to the US as ‘helper’ or to her blood relatives. But as we returned to a Mercy voiceover, the three main expat ladies had found a home for now, and at least Mercy seemed to have reached a place where she wanted the daughter she was going to have. But we never found out what happened to Gus.
So, that won’t go down as the best thing I watched in 2024.
Cardiac Arrest - 2.5 Factor 8
They weren’t kidding with the guidance warning for disturbing scenes. One came towards the end, with the episode title hinting at why. (The seven factors that the manager was reeling off as to why there’d been a patient death was a bit too much.)
Mainly it followed on from the previous episode – the party and the deaths. The broadest brush was reserved for Raj’s business, as he was treated for his clumsiness last night (although he looked rather good in slightly crumpled clothes, a handcuff still on his wrist and loved up around PC Girlfriend.) But the father of the woman his mother had arranged for him to marry (without his consent) was sniffing around, along with another male relative, wanting to force Raj to stick to the agreement, even though he’d just found someone else. He got James and the Male Nurse to cover for him, as he clambered up to cower where nobody would look. Part 2 of all this was when another Indian came up to him threateningly, claiming to be a business associate of the angry dad, but it turned out he wasn’t, he was someone who worked elsewhere in the hospital, and Raj had been set up by his colleagues and girlfriend. Har-har. (What did the actor make of all this? Grateful to get a job, but Raj is such a caricature.) Raj did blurt out that he thought he was in love with his girlfriend. Steady on, son!
Not that he’s the only caricature, oily Mr Turner says one thing to your face, but the opposite to someone else; the consultant with the car and a high opinion of himself has a high opinion of his car; Docherty, who regaled his juniors with tales of the 1950s and 1960s, forgot he’d been taken off a list and was about to scrub up when Scissors reminded him (I think the stutter may just be the actor’s); the hospital manager is evil.
We had a new patient who was a caricature: Brigadier Entitlement, who banged on about the kind of care he'd get going private. The thing about going private in the UK, then as now, mate, is that you have to keep paying your premiums. Which you didn’t, apparently. I was with the completely unimpressed Claire. Well, until she rather cruelly listed the potential complications for someone who’d had a heart attack, however much he didn’t want to face it, if they discharged themselves in the middle of treatment, with the heart monitor’s beeps registering his distress.
Yates and Andrew were on the case about the deaths. The hospital manager wanted to pin it on the nurse with the psychiatric history (who I don’t think I’ve noticed before) even though Yates specifically said that he didn’t want to see a witch-hunt. She stood up to his bullying at an informal meeting, and we later learned from the suspended Geordie nurse that she’d had counselling after the death of her sister. Proving that the man who pretends to care about disabled people was prejudiced and ignorant about people with mental ill health. The autopsy of the ‘fit and healthy’ young man revealed that he’d actually had a dodgy heart condition that nobody had known about. But what about the old lady and her oxygen? The nurses pointed out that they were understaffed.
But because he’s the doctor who talks the most with patients, Andrew learned that the dead patient’s niece was a nurse from another ward and had been popping in to silently ‘help’ her aunt in a way that hadn’t helped at all. Phew? Andrew had reminded his boss that he had a half day at the start of the episode, but it was night by the time he was off. Grumbling that his missus had let her ‘mentally handicapped’ sister move in, so he didn’t want to go home, he ended up going for a drink with his ex, who voiced her own disgruntlement with her boyfriend. Oh dear, you two!
Andrew had been getting ever bolshier with Turner and the hospital manager, though not as bad as fierce Claire, who admitted to Scissors she really would like to know what it was not to be knackered all the time. She was scolded about drinking Diet Coke in front of her patients (it was fairly shocking product placement for a BBC drama!) As she said, she wasn’t allowed time for a teabreak and nobody cared. (I don’t think Red Bull was yet a thing or she might well have been on that.) Then it was about her not paying for her milk that time she was bleeped. As Andrew said, the hospital had way bigger financial issues.
But by the end of the episode, the scrimping on staff (which had been rumbling all episode) came to an ugly head. Andrew had had to deal with one patient as the ENT person, despite not being trained. It was a kid with something in her ear who would just be late for school, waiting for the real ENT person.
Now it was Claire’s turn, except the nosebleed she was dismissive of when seemingly more serious patients needed her turned out to be a haemophiliac. She wasn’t trained to treat him, the ENT person was nowhere to be found and they had none of the clotting agent needed. The patient deteriorated, blood spurted and gushed and it was indeed distressing, because Claire, the sister and nurse were trying to react to a rapidly deteriorating situation but always a beat too slowly. That scene was beautifully done, especially after the frenzy when Claire realised the patient had died and wordlessly communicated this to the sister, before having to respond to another beep with blood spatter all over her. The final note, after she’d had to tell the patient’s wife and child, now dressed in scrubs, was seeing Turner, who’d just said all the right things to her, laughing at drinks with the hospital manager and all the other ‘bigwigs’. Freeze frame of her face, radiating righteous fury.
