White Heat

[noddyholder]

Does anyone watch this? I am loving it it is such a great representation of the decades it covers with the politics music etc. Loving all the characters esp jack who is amazing actor and so brilliantly cast

WHAAAAT!
Is it just me or were they all the way through saying 'they didn't find him for two weeks'?
Who is 'HE'?
Have I totally missed something? Am I going mad? It's quite likely I wasn't paying attention
If Orla's ashes were already in the room - who died in the room? Help!

I think that they must have said that they didn´t find "them" for two weeks.

Orla died, but I´m thinking that there was no funeral-just a cremation that Orla had requested in her will as well as leaving everything to the flatmates.

I think they were quite careful to use gender neutral terms like 'the body wasn't discovered for 2 weeks' etc.

I think the ashes were put in the room after she'd been cremated, but the room she died in was still sealed off and untouched because it was Charlie's responsibility as the executor to clear-up the mess afterwards

I thought that was a bit strange, as had never had any sense that the two women were very close, whereas Orla and Lily seemed to have more of a bond especially after the abortion. Maybe we are meant to deduce that after Jay pissed off to Edinburgh and Lily dropped the bombshell, Charlie seemed the best of a bad bunch to be the next of kin?

Maybe Orla thought that Charlie was the least emotional/most responsible/reliable & that´s why she was executor.

Hattytown I've only just watched last episode.
When Michael Kitchen came in Juliet Stevenson said to him, 'They didn't find him for 2 weeks.'
Maybe it was her cat...

Ok just rewatched that moment. She in fact said 'It was two weeks before they found her'.
Oh god - I'm going to have to rewatch the whole thing - aren't I?

(Actually I think there's some spooky hi-tech thing going on that knows you're watching it for the second time and replaces 'he' with 'her' throughout.)

Muriel.

That makes sense Diddl.

H and I are had a competition this week. Guess who got fired in the Apprentice and guess who'd died In White Heat.

He's 2-0 down

i enjoyed it, just finished watching it last night. feeling bereft.
but the final orla was not fat enough.
the final jack was wrong. and would she have retired? and victor was far better looking when younger, with a different nose.
but enough pickiness.
it was enjoyable.

i loved our friends in the north as well.

oh and i thought alan was lovely. and lily was lucky to have him indeed.

its funny how alan absolutely loved lily and victor felt the same about charlotte.
a hot bed

I'd like to have seen them scatter Orla's ashes in Japan's 'Sea of Trees'.

I thought they said "her" in the first episode, actually, so was assuming it would be Orla all the way through.

I really think Pam Ferris would have been a better casting for Orla (2012)
I loved this show though, well written well acted,, I felt sad at the end though that Orla had done so much for everyone else and then was forgotten and dies alone.

I chucking her ashes off the roof was a bit also I would have loved Charlie to tell Alan that the reason he had no children was because his wife aborted Jacks baby

I enjoyed it but thought their ages by the end were too young. If they met in 1965 when they were students, they'd have been about 20. That would make them all around 67-68 in the present day. There's no way Juliet Stephenson looks that old, or Hugh Quarshie. The one who played Orla did, and perhaps the one who played Alan. But not the others. Apart from that, I really enjoyed it.

i dont think jack told orla her brother had to go, it was the afghani who was living on the street he told her had to go.

I think that HQ & JS are both mid 50s, aren´t they?

And the guy who played the older Jay only in his 40s!

I really enjoyed it, a brilliant last episode, v sad for Orla. I think charlie wanted to tell Alan about Lily's abortion, but didn't for Alan's sake.

I think the older Lily came across as a nicer person than the younger one - I wonder if she ever told Alan the truth?

I'll take your word for it Slarty. The episode about the murdered brother was a while ago and it's funny that I'd confused Jack giving his marching orders to the homeless boy with his actions over Orla's brother. As the older Jack, he was also the only one who remembered the brother visiting, so I thought that was relevant too.

I wonder what the relevance was of that incident with the young lad? Was it to demonstrate Jack's heartlessness or Orla's naivety and attempts to rewrite the story of her brother's plight, this time with a happy ending? I felt so sorry for her when he absconded and stole from her, but she seemed to pass no judgement about that and understood why he'd done it.

I confused the Afghani/brother thing too. My DD said Jack said "whatever" when Orla asked about her brother staying but wanted the refugee to go in case it impacted on his MP candidacy.
They all looked way too young in 1990 - Charlie hadn't aged a day. Also Orla and jay had good jobs so why would they keep renting off Jack?
Desperately sad about Orla's life - I'm sure she could have got a boyfriend rather than a dildo - which Victor held for too long. OH was watching Edge of Darkness the evening before and a weird scene in it where father kisses his dead daughter's dildo - ugh!!

Would Orla really have left the flat to her rich friends - more like her family (even though they had disowned her or a charity) I do understand though that it was aplot device to bring them all together again.

Will really miss this? What can I replace it with - there is nothing worth watching atm

orla bought the house off jack and jay thinks it was to give him a roof, but he left.
sad

I watched it on iplayer over the weekend so probably know too much

Do you think the Afghan boy was worried Orla was going to sexually abuse him when she got into the bed with him and that was why he did a runner?

yes that was funny thing for her to do wasnt it. i think she liked hm because she liked jay and he turned out to be gay.

Yes - you could be right. I thought he was a substitute brother to get affection from/save but that makes sense.

I liked the sea of trees speech Orla gave at her retirement do. Have just read Murakami's Kafka on the Shore and there is a kind of sea of trees in that too.

If White Heat was supposed to portray living in a shared flat in the 60s & 70s, then I'm glad I never had that "opportunity". Apart from Orla, they are a bunch of self obsessed, self seeking, bitchy individuals whose only common ground appeared to be their underlying dislike of each other.

If that's what friends were/are like, who needs enemies?

Interesting drama but seriously depressing if it's representative of real life.

hattytown you could be me - i too sobbed like a loon at the end and might watch it again on iplayer in case i missed anything. i am also a big massive fan of Our Friends in the North and This Life, and i guess this series tapped into both which will appeal to both sets of fans.

I was so very sad about Orla's life too, she was obviously desperately clinging onto the larks they all had together otherwise why else would she live in the same flat for the rest of her life, also it was a huge flat so she would have got empty nest syndrome. I agree that the Afghani character was introduced to show her vulnerable naive side as well as her caring side, and of course guilt that she didnt help her brother.

I didnt find Charlie, Lily or Jack likeable at all, however i liked them in present day, i love all three actors anyway, i really felt the chemistry between Juliet Stevenson and Hugh Quarshie but not their younger characters. It was odd.

But hell i loved it!