'Call the Midwife' Recap: Season 9 Episode 2

This week’s episode of Call the Midwife is framed around the periods of Lent and Mothering Sunday, and its story conveniently focuses on both sacrifice and motherhood.

As people all across Poplar are denying themselves the simple pleasures of sugar and cigarettes, Sister Julienne tries to prepare a young woman for motherhood, a family falters when their strongest member suffers a health emergency and a blossoming romance falters in the midst of illness.

Tina Atkins

A milk thief is on the loose in Poplar, but the responsible party is easily apprehended with coordinated surveillance by the team of Fred Buckle and Sister Monica Joan. The culprit, a sassy young mod wannabe named Tina Atkins (Georgia Henshaw) resentfully apologizes with the excuse that she needs the milk to nourish her unborn baby. Sister Julienne invites her inside where she’s given breakfast and information on the weekly antenatal clinic where she can register with Dr. Turner.

Tina follows up with Dr Turner, whose eyes she compares to Paul McCartney’s. But when Sister Julienne goes looking for her new patient, she finds Tina living in sketchy “boarding house” by the docks. Yes, it’s a brothel… The nun confirms that Tina is pregnant and advises her to attend the weekly clinic. Tina agrees and seems excited at the prospect of starting anew with a baby and a better job.

It turns out however, that this is not Miss Atkins’s first experience with motherhood. During an appointment to investigate some troubling symptoms, Shelagh notices Tina has an episiotomy scar. Tina admits to having a baby as a teenager, but her parents didn’t approve. She claims her son lives in America with his father, just one of many stories Tina tells to excuse herself from responsibility.

Meanwhile Sister Hilda has been on nit patrol at the local school and a pair of siblings, Marnie and Lennie Atkins, have contracted the dreaded lice. The teacher fills the nun in on their circumstances. Presently in the foster system, their mother Tina, a prostitute, has tried to take them back numerous times but they always end up returning to care. No matter how poorly she treats them, Marnie still cries for her mother.

Not surprisingly, Tina has been diagnosed with gonorrhea and needs a course of antibiotics. Sister Julienne strongly recommends she be booked into the maternity home where she can be monitored and prevented from picking up another venereal disease in the meantime. The other mothers are unsettled by Tina who has little modesty and is rather light-fingered and quarrelsome.

Despite the deception about her past in what is most likely an attempt to improve her chances of keeping this new baby, Julienne sees something hopeful in Tina and wants to help her. But when she approaches the young woman with a suitable job opportunity, Tina immediately nixes the idea. The sister stresses that being employed will show social services that she can care for her child and may also enable her to have contact with her other children in the future. Tina insists they’re better off without her but seems to be distracted by a pain in her shoulder.

Later when Lucille offers to get Tina some pain medication, she refuses. As soon as the nurse leaves the room, the scared young woman packs up to do the only thing she knows - run away. She doesn’t get far and is found by Sister Julienne, crumpled up on the ground outside the maternity home. The nun and Dr. Turner transport her to the hospital with a suspected ruptured ectopic pregnancy.

When Tina comes to in the hospital, Sister Julienne informs her that she lost the baby, but she could have another in the future. Tina says they shouldn’t have bothered. Julienne breaks the news about the pending adoption of Lennie and Marnie and that she can still intervene. Tina acknowledges she got the letter about the adoption and is willing to let her children go permanently.

Back at Nonnatus House, a troubled Julienne confides in Sister Monica Joan. She feels she failed Tina who is unsuited to motherhood but will surely become pregnant again. Monica Joan suggests she accept the world the way it is rather than she would wish it to be. So despite her opposition to birth control for single women, the sister asks Trixie to counsel Tina and get her a prescription for the contraceptive pill.

Florrie Watkins

We first meet Florrie Watkins (Amanda Root) as she painfully makes her way home to her pregnant daughter Laverne Bulmer (Carly Bawden) and granddaughter Gillian. Laverne is on her way to work and leaves her mother a shopping list. Florrie checks in on Gillian and then, clearly exhausted, she settles into a chair nearby to nod off. When she wakes, the woman is a bit confused. She grabs Laverne’s shopping list and leaves the house without little Gillian who is playing on the floor.

Later Nurse Dyer passes the Bulmers's place to find Sgt. Woolf and a small crowd around the door. He informs Valerie that little Gillian has been left alone and locked in the house. Her grandmother was seen leaving the scene over an hour ago. For the safety of the child, Woolf makes the decision to break in the door just as Laverne is turning the corner. To add to the chaos, the sergeant is having some difficulty which Valerie quickly diagnoses as a heart attack and calls for an ambulance. More on poor Sgt. Woolf to come.