The cold blood of a she-devil! One of the final lines of the first episode lead to an act of violence that gives just one indication of what Julie T. Wallace was capable, smiling maniacally into the camera for the explosive finale of part one. Poor special effects aside, this really was the glue to make the audience want to see what happened next. Wallace, in her debut, is delightfully cold, yet audience sympathy is with her from the start.
For the second part, two new additions to the drama make major impacts: Liz Smith as Mary's neglected mother, away in a nursing home, and Miriam Margolyes as Nurse Hopkins, adding a twist to the friendship that wasn't in the film with Roseanne Barr and Linda Hunt. The delightful Smith is as far from Sylvia Miles as one can be, but the effect is the same. But there's plenty of drama before they come in with Wallace dressed up ridiculously for the next part of her plan, seducing a drunken older businessman for temporary support while knowing that her children's presence with Bobbo and Mary will not keep their home fires burning.
A fascinating scene has Margolyes showing Wallace around the nursing home, introducing her to a variety of patients including Smith, and explaining that their medication has nothing to do with helping the patients for keeping them out of the staff's hair. It will be only a matter of time before Smith is out of the staff's hair and back under her daughter's foot, and that will lead Wallace and Margolyes into their own little romance and further conspiracy. The episode just gets better through all of these little twists, and the subtlety of the first episode is replaced by something much more devious. And that's just halfway through.
For the second part, two new additions to the drama make major impacts: Liz Smith as Mary's neglected mother, away in a nursing home, and Miriam Margolyes as Nurse Hopkins, adding a twist to the friendship that wasn't in the film with Roseanne Barr and Linda Hunt. The delightful Smith is as far from Sylvia Miles as one can be, but the effect is the same. But there's plenty of drama before they come in with Wallace dressed up ridiculously for the next part of her plan, seducing a drunken older businessman for temporary support while knowing that her children's presence with Bobbo and Mary will not keep their home fires burning.
A fascinating scene has Margolyes showing Wallace around the nursing home, introducing her to a variety of patients including Smith, and explaining that their medication has nothing to do with helping the patients for keeping them out of the staff's hair. It will be only a matter of time before Smith is out of the staff's hair and back under her daughter's foot, and that will lead Wallace and Margolyes into their own little romance and further conspiracy. The episode just gets better through all of these little twists, and the subtlety of the first episode is replaced by something much more devious. And that's just halfway through.
