'The Final Straw'

Cherry Malone arrives at the Mill and checks her appearance before getting out of the car. In the staff room Jimmi is asking Daniel if he’s met the new nurse when Julia walks in with Cherry and introduces her. As she takes off her coat Daniel’s jaw drops at the sight of her tight uniform, and Julia informs her that trousers and a tunic are considered more practical.

Jimmi asks Daniel his opinion of Cherry, to which Daniel is outraged, saying he’s not interested because he has had his fill of meaningless relationships. Jimmi, not surprisingly, is surprised.Later Daniel is very keen to help Cherry pick up a file and Jimmi bets Daniel that if Cherry asked him out he wouldn’t be able to say no.

It’s Michelle’s first day back at work and she’s exasperated when she finds chaos in the nurses’ room. Julia enters and introduces Cherry and asks Michelle to get her set up with work. Lily asks Julia how Ruth was when she went to see her. Julia initially lies and says Ruth was resting when she got there but then confesses that she ran away. Julia tells her she plans to go again tomorrow and won’t bottle out again.

While Michelle shows Cherry around the nurses’ room Cherry seems not to be listening. Cherry asks her about the uniform, making Michelle even more exasperated. Throughout the day Michelle has little patience with anyone on the team. Archie asks her about Ruth and Michelle angrily claims not to care. In the toilet Cherry is preening herself when she notices Karen inspecting her foot. After looking at Karen’s foot Cherry gets Jimmi to give a second opinion – it’s a verruca.

At the end of the day Michelle is gobsmacked by how Cherry has organised everything in the nurses’ room. Cherry turns out to have an amazing photographic memory. Finally Michelle smiles when Cherry asks her out for a bottle of wine and a gossip. They invite Jimmi and Daniel to join them and Daniel declines because of the bet. Jimmi doesn’t mind losing but, despite winning fifty pounds, Daniel feels like the loser.

Meanwhile, Emma Wells (33), a housewife on the edge, wakes up to the sound of an alarm, the dog barking, a baby crying, and two children calling for her. Later, she is juggling breakfast for the three children and numerous pets when the phone rings. It’s her nightmare mother-in-law, Stella Wells (63), ringing to check she will be picking her up to take her to the doctors.

Emma is horrified to notice that the goldfish is dead and plans to replace it, and then her sister rings to say she can’t baby sit. Later Emma rushes back to her car with a new goldfish to find a traffic warden giving her a parking ticket. Stella phones her again to ask her to send someone round to fix her boiler. Emma spots a sign for a Happy Shoppers Crèche and debates signing the children in.


At Stella’s house the plumber is looking at the boiler when Emma arrives. Terrified by the prospect of having Stella to stay if it is broken she begs Derek Merriweather (55), the plumber, and he promises to have it fixed as soon as he has collected a part.

At the surgery Lily recognises Emma and publicly humiliates her because she missed an appointment earlier in the week. When they arrive back at Stella’s house the goldfish bag breaks, soaking Stella’s feet, leaving yet another goldfish dead. Inside Derek tells Emma that it is going to take a few more days to fix the boiler.

Emma flips and taking his mobile locks him in the room saying she won’t let him out until he has made the boiler work even though it would not legally be safe. In the sitting room Stella is having chest pain and so calls the surgery for a house call. Lily arrives and Emma is surprised to see her, not knowing she had been called. Hearing voices, Derek starts to call from the kitchen.

Lily and Stella open the kitchen door and enter, only to be locked in as well. Emma is adamant that no one can leave until the boiler is fixed. Lily asks if there is any history of mental illness. Derek dispels this by saying Emma is just having a bad day. Lily finds a solution – the necessary part will be collected from Birmingham by another plumber. The part arrives and Emma negotiates the drop off.

When the boiler is fixed Emma enters the kitchen and when pressed explains the disaster that has been her day. Hearing all this Lily recommends she has a holiday. Lily and Derek say goodbye with mutual respect, both grateful for the others help in dealing with the situation.