Holby City isnt afraid of taking risks and pushing the boundaries of what a weekly continuing drama can be. This episode at times broke with the usual realistic style with sequences that were hallucinatory and disturbing, with several of the regular characters placed in situations of horrific peril. Above all it was intensely dramatic, as a situation thats been carefully built up for almost a year came to a climax.
John Gaskell came to Holby with a massive reputation – he was the genius who could make paralysed people walk. As time went on, we started to see that his quest to achieve the next medical breakthrough came at a huge price. Gaskell wouldnt let anything – not the deaths of patients, not his colleagues – stand in his way. This culminated in his terrible actions in first ensuring Roxanna Macmillan was in a locked-in state so she couldnt tell anyone that she was worried about what he was up to, and then killing her when she started to be able to communicate anyway.
This episode was the one in which all the pieces of the jigsaw came together for various people, notably Jac Naylor who knew what the Professor was capable of but had to place her trust in him as a surgeon so he could remove the implant hed put in her. Faced with the prospect that she might not make it through surgery, she heartbreakingly enlisted Sacha and Fletch to look after her daughter if she didnt survive.
Advertisement Advertisement
Meanwhile, Essie had let the Professor know that she had a few concerns of her own. When someone asked where Essie was a while later, Gaskell said, Shes lying down in a cold, dark room. Hanssen added that she had a bad headache, but we knew that Gaskell had drugged her and left her on the floor in his basement lab.
The most horrific scene was when Lana, the patient from Lisbon whod been in a coma for months, disappeared from ITU. She was found in the Professors lab, with open surgical wounds where hed tried to operate on her himself. It wasnt until this point that Hanssen really believed what his old friend might be capable of.
Hanssen put his hand in some nasty neurotoxin chemical in the lab, but wiped himself off and set out in pursuit of the Professor, whod vanished. Remember the flashback episode, when we found out that Gaskell had once saved Hanssen from drowning himself in a lake? Hanssen went to the nearest lake and found Gaskell thighs-deep in the water. By now the effects of the neurotoxin were kicking in, so this scene was a mixture of reality and a strange delirium where at times Hanssen thought Gaskell was standing beside him. And Hanssen finally heard the shattering truth – that Gaskell killed Roxanna.
Back at the hospital, Jac wasnt doing well. Sacha realised that the Professor must have done something to her, and they realised that hed put some of the neurotoxin in her drip. There was a race against time to try to flush the chemical out of her.
Advertisement Advertisement
At the lake Gaskell was taunting Hanssen about his son Fredrik, and trying to get him to come with him into the water. Hanssen collapsed on the shore. At the moment when Gaskell drowned himself we saw Lana gasp, and then die. And we saw Jac, unconscious. Then slowly she opened her eyes. And back at the lake Gaskell had disappeared under the water.
It was an edge-of-the-seat episode with some standout performances, including from Rosie Marcel who balances Jacs toughness perfectly with her vulnerability, especially where her daughter is concerned. Guy Henry and Paul McGann were brilliant as the two old friends facing off against each other, with Hanssen hardly able to comprehend the full horror of what Gaskell had been capable of, and perhaps thinking that hed played a part in enabling it. McGann has been perfect in this role, with his outward stillness and calm giving him an intensity that has made this storyline subtle but very scary. Weve had plenty of villains at Holby before, but none like this.
Sue Haasler is the author of the official Holby City book, which you can read about here. She also writes novels and theres information about all her books here
Advertisement Advertisement
[contf] [contfnew] 
METRO
[contfnewc] [contfnewc]
