Casualty: Well look who it is

(Series 29, ep.8)  Zoe’s back, and her task is apparently to heal the post-Jeff grief with her soothing presence. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. Connie doesn’t want to share her office because she needs somewhere to offend bereaved relatives in private. Ash doesn’t really want to share his office – he needs somewhere to hide from Dixie, who is still blaming him for Jeff’s death (out loud – she was yelling “It should have been you!” at him at one point). Max has no office, though he’s happy to share a ciggie, but Zoe is trying to give up nicotine and she’s already given up Max. And Honey keeps calling her Hanna. “I’ve heard all about you, Hanna.”

But Zoe does help, you know, because she’s a fantastic doctor and it hasn’t been the same without her. She and Dixie had a lovely bonding moment towards the end of the episode.  

After her shift she went home to dinner and a nice glass of wine prepared by… well, it was a bit of a surprise and if you’d bobbed off to put the kettle on just before the end credits rolled you’d have missed it. It was only grumpy Dr Dylan Keogh!

The running themes of the episode were “blame” and “family,” which both reflected on the current post-Jeff situation for the staff.

A woman was brought in following a savage attack on the notorious Farmead estate (it’s kind of comforting to know the Farmead still exists and is still rough). She later died despite Ash’s desperate attempts to keep her alive. Ash also blames himself for Jeff’s death, though he knows rationally he shouldn’t, so having someone die on his watch is even worse than it normally would be. A police officer, determined to catch whoever was responsible, caught the wrong person, a boy who ended up having a stroke due to a sickle cell crisis possibly brought on by being falsely accused and forcefully detained by the aforementioned officer, who blamed herself and questioned her whole approach.

A little boy got knocked off his bike when attempting to visit his real mother, who didn’t want anything to do with him. There was no rosy reconciliation scene between these two, but it was left to the lovely Robyn to point out that the boy’s adoptive mother was all he really needed, because families are just the people who love you.

Exactly like that lovely community of A&E staff, which does of course contain some actual family members – Cal and Ethan. They’re still sharing a flat, despite Ethan’s attempts to gently push his older brother out of the nest to a flat of his own. Cal is enjoying Ethan’s domestic skills too much – and Ethan’s recent accident has proved that Cal needs Ethan more than Ethan needs him.

And Honey continued to be adorable. When not calling Zoe “Hanna” and messing up her macchiato, Honey was handing out tarot cards to Ethan and looking after an old lady, Gwen, who thought she was seeing angels. This is very much the kind of thing Honey can relate to. It’s going to be massively entertaining to see what Honey and Dylan make of each other.

Sue H