S04E15: 'Marriage Of Inconvenience'

Ritchie waits at the prison gates with a single red rose to welcome Karen back off her holiday. Although she agrees to meet up with him later that night, she is uncomfortable with the idea of someone seeing them together and tells him that he shouldn’t have come to see her at work. Fearing a conflict of interest, Karen goes straight to Neil and informs him about her relationship with Ritchie. Neil is blasé, he doesn’t see that the relationship is anything for him to worry about but warns Karen to make sure she keeps her personal life completely separate from work. Karen also decides to come clean to Yvonne who reacts angrily – not only is Karen a screw, she’s also a lot older than Ritchie. Yvonne tears a strip off Ritchie when he next visits. Although he can’t see what Yvonne’s problem is, he promises to stop seeing Karen. A relieved Yvonne then agrees for his request for a large amount of money to help him set up a mini-cab firm.

Hollamby disposes of yet another one of Shaz’s letters to Denny in the bin. This time, she observed by a curious Barbara who waits until the coasts is clear before retrieving the torn letter and passing it on to Denny. When she finally manages to piece the letter together, Denny realises that not only has Hollamby been confiscating Shaz’s letters, she has also been intercepting the letters that she has been sending out. Denny is furious but cheers up when she reads that Shaz’s new governor has given his permission for an inter-prison visit…all they need is Neil’s permission and they can see each other again. Despite Hollamby’s best efforts to put a spanner in the works, both Neil and Karen agree to Shaz’s visit.

Neil receives a tip-off from a friend at Area and wastes no time in passing it on to G-Wing’s officers – Larkhall has 6 months to get its act together otherwise it will be privatised. The POs are understandably worried; especially Hollamby who realises tht this could be the end of the Union and probably, the end of her career within the Prison Service. Neil urges the POs to do everything they can to ensure that the upcoming open day is a success.

Now that she’s facing the prospect of another 8 years inside, Julie S has decides that she doesn’t want to waste a second of it. She persuades the other Julies that they should resign from their jobs in the servery and sign up for education classes. Julie J and Julie O’K are reluctant but agree to go along with the plan for Julie S’s sake. To the surprise and delight of their teacher, Julie S seems to show a real talent for creative writing, so much so that she is asked to write a poem to wow the visitors at the open day. After struggling for a while, Julie S is hit by inspiration and decides to write a rap song instead. Meanwhile, Julie J and Julie O’K decide that they’re not cut out for education and return to their jobs in the servery.

Karen visits Roisin on the muppet wing. Roisin pleads to be allowed back onto G-Wing and promises that she will never touch drugs again. Meanwhile, Cassie has been doing a lot of hard thinking and has realised that concern for her own feelings caused her to underestimate how devastated Roisin was to be separated from her children. Determined to make amends, Cassie plans to make a protest at the open day about the poor treatment of mothers in prison. She also speaks to Buki and offers to trace Lennox through the Internet.

Now that Ritchie has Karen twisted around his little finger, Snowball decides that it is safe to proceed with their plan for her to escape. She asks a besotted Al to steal Yvonne’s digital radio and then uses it as the timer for a bomb she is building inside a hollowed out book. She also comes up with a cracking idea for her escape outfit too – after hearing that an order of nuns are due to attend the open day, she persuades Henry to give her an old cassock that belonged to one of his predecessors, telling him that she plans on using the material for a backdrop for one of the open day displays. Poor Henry has no idea that Snowball plans to leg it dressed as Julie Andrews! Having already convince Fenner that Yvonne is planning to escape, Snowball also manages to distract Fenner with the news that Karen may be helping her.

While Di drags G-Wing’s female officers along to a line-dancing club for her hen night, Neil decides on something a bit more sedate for his stag night and rents out a private room in a restaurant so that he and Fenner can have a cosy meal for two. Fenner is suspicious at first but loosens up after several rounds of drinks and a visit from a lap dancer. Distracted by the ample charms of the dancer, Fenner doesn’t notice when Neil leans across the table and pours a healthy dollop of GHB into his drink. It isn’t long before Fenner doesn’t know where (or who) he is and is even totally unconcerned by the fact that Neil has finally gotten into his underpants!

After an emotional reunion with Cassie, Roisin offers to help her in her quest to find Lennox. They soon manage to track him down to an adoption agency’s website and are appalled when they discover that he was born with a congenital condition called CMT and is now confined to a wheelchair. Buki is devastated when Cassie and Roisin tell her the bad news and becomes convinced that Lennox’s condition is all her fault – he must have caught the disease from the dirty toilet she left him in. Luckily, ex-nurse Karen is on hand to convince Buki that Lennox’s condition is something he was born with and has absolutely nothing to do with her. Later, with Cassie and Roisin’s help, Buki composes a letter to social services, applying to be able to meet with Lennox.

In the library, Snowball gathers together the bags of ingredients that Ritchie has smuggled in to her. She mixes a little of the contents of each of the packages and then uses an eyedropper to squeeze a small amount of liquid on top. Snowball stands back and smiles as the mixture produces a small explosion and flames.