THE WOMAN IN THE WALL. BBC 1 sun 9pm - TV PACE. NO SPOILERS

[Blondeshavemorefun]

this is a 6 part drama

1 is shown sun and then 2 on the monday

3456 the following 4 Sundays

it’s will no doubt be on iPlayer but try and not binge lovely people in my phone 😂😂😂

this will be tv paced

Ruth Wilson and Daryl McCormack are teaming up for a gripping new BBC drama, which is inspired by the horrifying revelations around Ireland's Magdalene Laundries.

The Woman In The Wall follows the horrors experienced by Lorna Brady (Ruth Wilson) is a woman from the small, fictional Irish town of Kilkinure, who wakes one morning to find a corpse in her house.

Lorna is chilled to the core as she has no idea who the dead woman is or if she could even be responsible for the apparent murder herself. This is a deadly possibility because Lorna suffers from extreme bouts of sleepwalking, which started around the time she was ripped from her life at the age of 15 and incarcerated in the Kilkinure Convent.

The Woman in the Wall follows Lorna Brady (Wilson), a woman who was incarcerated in a convent from a young age, where she traumatically gave birth – only to have the baby taken away from her to whereabouts unknown.

The awful treatment she endured continues to impact her life, causing extreme bouts of sleepwalking that end with her waking up in strange places with no memory of how she got there.

While her specific story is a work of fiction, the Magdalene Laundries were very real and are thought to have blighted the lives of tens of thousands of women.

Although their history dates back further, more is known about the practices of these institutions in the 20th century, where inmates entered via the criminal justice system, reformatory schools and the Health and Social Services sector.

Once inside, they would have to carry out unpaid labour, while many former inmates have reported being abused.

Magdalene Laundries became the subject of a media scandal in the 1990s, when a mass grave holding 155 bodies was discovered on the former grounds of one such institution in Drumcondra, Dublin.

I think Aoife climbing up inside the walls and dying in the loft (handily taking Agnes' papers with her) and the school governor turning out to be a pantomime villain who randomly had access to Lorna's medical and police records turned it a bit farcical for me at the end. Loved Amy putting her fag out in Bitch Nun's tea though

Well, yes. Surely a couple of eps ago, we'd all convinced ourselves that Lorna didn't really put Aoife in the wall (all that building work and expert brazing (?)), otherwise why didn't Colman say anything about the state of the wall when he first saw it (The Tell-Tale Heart scene)? And the simple fact that putting her in the wall didn't make any sense at all. I think there was the kernel of a much better story here, with out the Grand Guignol stuff and misplaced jokes.

@Laundrynotatrainingschool So sorry for your experience and those of your mother. It's very hard when you know your mum had some horrific experiences, but you feel so conflicted, because of the injustice as she behaves in ways that mean she takes it out on her children, and effectively punishes you for her grief and loss. Meanwhile, the real criminals never see justice meted out to them. You are amazing to be strong enough to break the cycle 💐

@Ridemeginger thank you. i suspect there are a lot of us out there with a similar experience. My mother would not have recognised my description of my childhood and her lack of parenting skills. She considered herself a superior mother ironically. She could not take any form of criticism or well-meaning advice - I suspect there was an underlying fear of children being taken away. I thank my lucky stars that I had such lovely teachers who could see the neglect and emotional abuse at home and really looked after me. I loved school as a consequence and in the end, education was my way out of it all. I think the storyline was right in the fact that not all reunions went well.

Also agree the school governor storyline was a bit of a stretch.

I think the governor guy (a doctor) probably took an educated guess about how to combat Lorna, and really didn't know anything about her. All these girls/women were probably told the same thing - that they were mad, bad, sad, could be locked away on the say so of a "good" person in the community. And why wouldn't they believe it, when that is exactly what has happened to them? And they were never believed and never treated as victims of an injustice, they were treated as the aggressors against. the community's goodness; and their madness and sadness and badness - all a direct result of being enslaved and having their children forcibly removed - was a self fulfilling prophecy "proving"that those good citizens were right all along about the intelligence, sanity and morality of these "bad girls". Lorna's "shut down with fear" reaction to the doctor/governor were just like her reaction to the horrible Mother Superior when she broke into the convent - as soon as they turned on her, she has a Pavlovian response of shrinking and turning into a very frightened and powerless child again. That is how those people wield power and continue to do so over all the women. They all react like Lorna, so it doesn't matter who is standing in front of them, these "good citizens" know what buttons to press to get the same reaction out of each damaged woman, and put them back in their place.

@Ridemeginger totally agree. Which was why it was satisfying when watching the scene with the older policeman and the women. Horrible nun was much less powerful when being confronted by more than one person. The nun could try and gaslight the women with the 'who'd believe you crazies' line but she couldn't do that to the policeman. It's a shame that none of the women (aside from Amy punching the man in the pub) got their moment of power. It was the policemen who got to say 'I'm coming for you and all your kind/I'll be seeing you soon'.
Maybe this is realistic in that the women were just so badly damaged.

The way Lorna says 'Boston', like its a holy golden shining city. Loved that.
And for her just to know that her daughter is in the world - somewhere. Not to mention that she has been looking for her birth mum.

Why did Aiofe not just punch through the plaster? you could see daylight through the laths??

@Alltheyearround YY to the nun only backing down when confronted by a male authority figure. The women need to men to ally with them to be believed, it's a very sad fact.

Whilst Boston makes perfect sense - huge Catholic Irish community there, so an obvious trafficking line between there and Ireland, I did wince. Having seen the film, Spotlight (about Catholic establishment cover ups of priests abusing children) and the Netflix documentary, The Keepers (another horrific Catholic community cover up in Baltimore), I just wonder how much of a "promised land" these close knit communities actually were/are for these kids. They just seem to have taken all the power-play, lies, abuses and secrecy with them across the pond.

Having said that, Ruth Wilson really is an outstanding actor, and really made Lorna - a complex and in many ways dislikable and dangerous character - so very sympathetic.

Very emotional episode last night. What a fantastic series.

Sinead O'Connor sang the last song, gifted to the series.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/sep/24/unreleased-sinead-oconnor-song-to-play-at-finale-of-church-cruelty-drama

I agree the story could have been better, perhaps with more focus on Lorna's time at the laundry. I'd like to have seen how long she spent there, how she got out, did her parents come for her, did she go back home to live with them and what was their relationship like afterwards? Why was Lorna in particular so affected by sleepwalking and hallucinations when the other survivors weren't (not saying they weren't also affected)?

And yes, why put her in the wall when you live alone in a big empty house and could just drag the "body" into an empty room while you figure out what to do? And as for the dumbass husband who doesn't think to mention his missing wife's serious medical condition which might make her look dead when she isn't ...

Hat's off to the posters who knew what catalepsy was and who correctly identified the meaning of "the cruelty man". I thought the woman in the wall and what happened to Aoife was in fact a metaphor for the entire scandal. It's inexplicable that Aoife could have regained consciousness and somehow managed to climb to the top of the house yet still somehow remain concealed and no-one noticed until she died, yet no more unbelievable than the fact that the scandal of the Magdalen Laundries and what happened in the mother and baby homes failed to bring down the church in Ireland. That Lorna has ended up in prison while the nuns and priests walk free. You looked at the hole in the wall - after it had been patched up and after it had been bashed through again - and thought how can nobody see that something has gone on there? Even a cursory search of the rest of the house would have uncovered the truth. Really powerful stuff - and Lorna's encounter with the school governor really helped crystallise the situation the victims find themselves, the huge power imbalance that exists even today.

So sad that Colman was terrified of 'The Cruelty Man' , and was always haunted by memories of hiding from him and only finally found out that he was a good man who would have rescued him as a child .

I'm not too sure about the ending but it was a sunshine ray in the huge black clouds which enveloped the series .

One thing that seems to have been overlooked is that Lorna had Aoife’s phone - it’s how she contacted the husband. Didn’t anyone question that? It implied Lorna was the last person to see Aoife. Why on Earth a thorough police search of her house wasn’t carried out is a total mystery.

Also, what was the point of the bearded ex school friend, the one she met in the pub the night she was supposed to meet Aoife? Why give him the fairly substantial plot role of going through all the death certificates with her, only to sort of ignore him for the rest of the series. I thought he might end up being the father of Lorna’s child or something that gave him more of a reason to be in the story.

Well that episode went back to being a bit of a dog's dinner again I thought.

Just plonking the women who had pretended to be Aoife's daughter back in after what, 4, 5 episodes with hardly a mention and not a sight of her, that was just annoying. What was her motivation then? Was she in love with Coyle? Who even was she?

And after all the malarky with hours and hours of sleepwalking / dream / flashbacks, Aoife's story was covered in 10 minutes in a really linear way. Odd.

Anyway, the ending gave me a big lump in my throat and the Sinead O'Connor track was very beautiful and poignant.

Agree Michael was more plot device than proper character.

@Ridemeginger what an insightful post - thank you. As a person who has had a difficult formative experience used against them by someone in authority I was cringing when Lorna was initially grateful for his apparent kindness. I had a feeling he would 'turn' on her & I think it was very realistic & believable.
In general I thought it was well acted but the the 'nun in the wall' storyline detracted from an important subject, rather then enhanced it

Thank you for those who gave explanations. I was also left confused. I really enjoyed the series overall and thought Ruth Wilson was phenomenal.

I would have preferred if Aofie turned up alive, if she had run away after her fit and was hiding out for fear of being arrested.

Although actually I felt the woman in the wall plot line was completely unnecessary. It detracted from the true horror story of those poor women, girls and babies suffering. I would have preferred the take down of those in power.

Yes he was gaslighting and absolutely horrible

It seemed to good to be true at first

Agree that the 'woman in the wall' aspect was a bolt-on, not really hepful to the exposition of the main themes, and not really gripping eough to feature as a standalone theme.

I did feel, though, that it helped the programme to assert that, yes, Lorna really did do some questionable things, but that these didn't at all detract from the power of her holding to account the perpetrators of the child trafficking.
When Lorna said 'I'm not mad' I think she was saying 'I am fully responsible for my actions, including those that contributed to Aoife's death. Asserting her (limited) culpability was a way of asserting her humanity, her agency, preventing us from regarding her as just the passive object of pity, just a powerless victim.

I also worried that some of the partially unresolved aspects of the story were hooks for a possible seond series, which would be annoying. I want a story to carry us through to its own resolution, not to leave some unfinished possibilities of future action

I thought Ruth Wilson was brilliant

Just finished it. Was really fast paced and managed to tie up almost all of the loose ends - which also made me also think there might be a second series for Colman if not Lorna. Bringing justice and finding his birth mother.

Lots of tears here at the end. Ruth Wilson was amazing. I didn't realise the unhinged young woman was the fake Aoife daughter at first.

One thing though - the policeman had that red book listing the dead babies in his pudgy fingers for ages. How so? Doesn't that make him culpable?

I also thought that Aoife could have made a bit more noise since Lorna never slept. Though she did hear banging when Colman was round. But she was high on no sleep.

Was anyone else expecting some words on the atrocity of the laundries at the end there?

It was very good.

@LittleMonks11 The red book with the dead baby names was given to him by Lorna - it was compiled from the death certificates she got that Aoife had stashed in the spooky house - he can’t have had it more than a couple of days, could he?.

Was anyone else expecting some words on the atrocity of the laundries at the end there?

Yes. I was surprised that there wasn’t something along the line of ‘the laundries operated from 19xx to 19yy. Xxx number of women are known to have been sent there. Yyy number of babies are believed to have died’.

I liked it and thought that Ruth Wilson was excellent. I didn’t see the point of Aoife being in the wall. As I’ve said before, perhaps houses of that age and in that part of the world are different, but I’ve never known a house with a wall cavity like that. And as for being trapped in the attic, bang on the walls or even push tiles off the roof.

Yes a few words about what happened and the lost/dead babies would have been nice

Ah yes. I couldn't remember.

Also if I found my birth parent and she was in prison for murder I'm not sure I'd be that keen to start a relationship with her.

I wonder if there are many nuns and priests still alive who were perpetrators of this brutal regime. I wonder how they see their part in it now? If you genuinely believe in heaven and hell, the devil and judgement - you would surely be scared stiff at the part you played in what we now know to have been a genocide through neglect (Tuam) and the creation of almost infinite misery through the theft and sale of women’s precious babies.

Or maybe they still think they were doing God’s work.