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“Call the Midwife” recap (5.1): Lesbians and Leotards

Welcome to season five of Call the Midwife, or as I like to call it, The Reason I’m Not Having Children. Honestly, I know we’ve made great strides in obstetrics in the last 50 years, but this show is probably the best form of birth control known to man.

We pick up in the spring of 1961, after the events of the Christmas special. For those of you who missed it, Delia regained her memory after her devastating bike accident and told Patsy that she wanted to pick up right where they left off (which was renting an apartment together to live happily ever after). But I’m getting ahead of myself.

#BikeHelmetsforFictionalLesbians

Trixie has become involved in Keep Fit, a nationwide program promoting health and exercise with what is basically old school aerobics. She’s so into KF, in fact, that she’s completed her teacher training and will now be a KF instructor. She tells the crowd of women that KF brought her out of a dark time and that she’s now a stronger, happier woman.

Advanced Kegel training is not for the faint of heart

We zoom around the clinic watching nuns and nurses tend to babies and mums. Shelagh sends a neighborhood boy home with some medicine for his mum, Rhoda, who is nine months along. The midwives come home to find their latest uniforms in the mail, and there is much rejoicing. Y’all know those things are gonna get soaked in baby goo, right?

This placenta will make quite the fetching clutch!

The midwives race upstairs to try on their new dresses while the nuns laugh at them. Even Phyllis is getting in on the fun. They find the uniforms more fitted, and while some are excited, others are concerned about their body image. Barbara mentions the midwives in Scandinavia who get to wear slacks, which must make the constant bike riding so much easier.

Righty ho, we’re going streaking!

The nuns of Nonnatus House compliment the nurses on their new uniforms, except for Sister Monica Joan, who is suffering through a sweets-free Lent. She mentions how other religions make exceptions for the elderly, but no one will give this woman a cookie.

Rhoda starts feeling labor pains and is taken to the clinic, where she asks Shelagh is she can have a cigarette. That’s some good 1960s parenting! Everything is going just fine and dandy, which means that something awful is about to happen.

We’ve got cigarettes, cigars, brandy, and port, everything babies enjoy!

Speaking of awful, Tom and his dumb face are back, planning an Easter bonnet parade for the local children. He’s also flirting it up with Barbara, which is NOT cool because uteruses before duderuses. Trixie notices this but blows it off when a photographer named Denny asks to join them on their rounds.

Meanwhile, Patsy and Shelagh help Rhoda through the birth of her little girl. It’s a tough birth, requiring Rhoda to be on all fours, which I legit had no idea was a birthing position. Patsy delivers the baby and is shocked to find that her arms and legs are severely deformed. As you may recall from last season, Dr. Turner (like many doctors at the time) started prescribing thalidomide for morning sickness, unaware of its devastating effects on fetal development. Thousands of babies were born with Phocomelia, and roughly half didn’t survive past childhood.

The drug was never made legal in the United States, thanks to the efforts of Canadian heroine/all around badass Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey. Google her; she’s amazing.

Man, am I glad I stole these pregnancy cigarettes from the pharmacy!

Patsy and Shelagh quickly remove the baby before Rhoda can see it, telling her that the baby needs to spend some time under a heat lamp. Dr. Turner examines her and says that she won’t live through the night. Patsy is shaken from the experience, and comforted by Sister Cynthia. In an effort to distract herself, Patsy agrees to go to Trixie’s first Keep Fit class.

Turner calls the city hospital and is told that if the baby survives the night, she’ll have a bed there. He spends the night up with the infant, feeding her bottles and reading to her from the medical journal. Shelagh finds them together in the morning, where Dr. Turner concludes that the baby wants to live.

I don’t have a joke here, but how fucking cute is this baby?

Shelagh shares a cigarette with Rhoda and gently breaks the news about the baby. While she’s explaining, Rhoda’s husband shows up with flowers and is told to wait. He hears the baby’s cries and follows the noise to find his baby. When he sees her, he recoils in disgust and tells Rhoda that he won’t have “that thing” in his house and storms out. Yet another in a long line of shitty CTM husbands and fathers. Rhoda cries and holds her baby close. She names her Susan, and I start bawling.

How gorgeous does Patsy look here, btw?

Meanwhile, Patsy is all dolled up for a lunch date with Delia, who just received a spotless bill of health and a job at the hospital. Hooray for surviving lesbians on television! Delia is ready to get her life with Patsy back on track when her mum crashes their date and spoils everything. Apparently mum is still so traumatized from the accident that she wants Delia back in Wales and living at home. Delia tries to protest, but mum puts her foot down, claiming Delia can’t fend for herself.

Whelp, so much for finger-banging each other under the table

Back at Nonnatus House, tensions between the nuns and the midwives come to a head when the newspaper publishes photos of the nurses at Keep Fit in their (gasp!) leotards. Sister Julienne is horrified, and Barbara is upset that her bod is on display for all of Poplar to see.

I am literally wearing this exact outfit at work right now

Later on, the nurses sew diapers and baby clothes for Susan, who still can’t come home because her shitty dad won’t have her in the house. Someone brings a box of éclairs, and Sister MJ perks up at the sight of sweets. The nurses tell her that, in Eastern Orthodox traditions, Lent has already ended, so MJ grabs an éclair joyfully.

The ultimate OTP: Sister MJ and a pastry

Trixie teaches another Keep Fit class, where an older woman named Olive is cracking jokes and having a good time…until she suddenly leaves class. Trixie follows her to the bathroom, and Olive tells her that she’s had an accident and “feels something slipping” below. Olive assumes it’s just a by-product of seven children and age, but Trixie takes her to see Dr. Turner.

The nurses come home (with cones of fries, aka the best after-workout snack), and Sister Julienne is upset that they ditched tea time. The nurses are upset that they have to work extra hours during Easter while the nuns pray, and Sister Julienne dislikes losing her staff to Keep Fit. As society allows the women of Poplar more freedom, they will continue to chafe against the restrictions of Nonnatus House. Just wait until the birth control pill gets invented, ladies!

But Jesus would have wanted us to carbo-load after working out!

Patsy gets a phone call from Delia, who tells her that she and her mum are leaving for Wales. Patsy argues that a 24-year-old woman should be able to make her own choices, but Delia tells her she can’t say no to her mum. They’ll come to Nonnatus House for a goodbye lunch, but then they’re leaving.

So, what are you wearing?

Wellll….

Olive gets examined by Dr. Turner, who tells her that she has a prolapsed womb, which can be surgically corrected. He also uses the word “vagina” which Olive had never known before. She always called it “down there,” because society discouraged women from even naming their genitals, let alone talk about them. As someone who says the word “vagina” probably 20-30 times a day, it is mind-boggling to me that a grown woman wouldn’t be afforded the vocabulary to describe her own body, and it’s an incredible indicator of how far society has come (while reminding us that, in many parts of the world, we still have a ways to go).

Olive tells the doctor that she knew of women who were solving their own “downstairs” problems by jamming cardboard or a potato up their vagina, which is horrific. Stories like these are one of the best things about Call the Midwife, as it is the only show on television that addresses women’s bodies and health in such a frank and unflinching manner. These are stories that need to be told, and I am thrilled that they are being told with such care and compassion.

So, “vagina” was the best we could do, then? We peaked with that?

Sister Julienne and Trixie sit down for their big talk. Julienne wants Trixie to respect the rules of the house while Trixie counters that she and the other midwives are not nuns, so they ought to be held to different standards. When Julienne brings up Trixie’s AA meetings, Trixie gets very defensive: AA saved her life and Keep Fit makes her happy, so why shouldn’t she pursue both? Trixie tells Julienne that Keep Fit has helped her find joy in her body, as opposed to the previous generation of women who were so shamed by their bodies that they didn’t even have words for their parts. Sister Julienne is moved by Trixie’s passion, but I doubt this argument is over yet.

Rhoda’s husband brings her children to the clinic to see Rhoda and meet baby Susan. Rhoda tells her kids that they have to defend and care for Susan, and be grateful for her. Shitty Husband finally holds the baby and realizes it’s his own fucking kid and bursts into tears. They agree to bring her home and figure everything out.

And one day, if she’s really lucky, Ryan Murphy will put her in a shitty TV anthology!

It’s Easter Sunday, Delia and her mum are visiting Nonnatus House for lunch. When Delia explains that she’s moving back to Wales, Sister Julienne offers her a room at the house. Mum tries to protest, but Julienne assures her that they take care of their ladies and depend on them to keep the nuns on their toes. Yay, Delia gets to stay! Maybe she can room with Patsy.

We’re breaking out the strap-on tonight!

The episode ends with the Easter bonnet parade, and we see Rhoda and her family watch as their older girl wins a ribbon.

What did you think of the season premiere? Will Patsy and Delia be able to pick up where they left off, or will living in a house of nuns and Nosey Parkers expose their relationship? Tweet me your feels @ChelseaProcrast.

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