'Call the Midwife' Recap: Season 12 Episode 3

Call the Midwife is available to stream for a limited time. Recap the previous and following episodes and other seasons.
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In preparing to become a housewife (or as much of one as a working midwife will ever be), Trixie is taking cookery classes. Nancy and Crane serve as test subjects for her first dessert and agree to attend a dinner party at Matthew’s flat despite the… unexpected taste of a splattery mille-feuille.

Cyril is well-supplied with food in the absence of Lucille: his fridge is full of casseroles left on his doorstep by friends and neighbors. He eats with a photo of Lucille facing him on the table.

Nancy is less well-off. She’s racked up a large tab at the Buckle general store under Fred’s forgiving eye and is receiving URGENT mail about outstanding debts. But she loves spoiling her daughter Colette—and herself—with new things, and doesn’t tell anyone about her money problems. Instead, she gathers some outfits to sell, but balks at the low cost offered by a pawnbroker. 

Another gambit is foiled by Nurse Crane, whom Nancy asks for more work shifts. Crane refuses, telling Nancy that the time she spends with her daughter during those shifts is more valuable than any money she could make. 

Lorna Pryce and her mother understand the value of time spent together. Lorna adores her mother and wants her with her every step of the way through her second pregnancy—her husband is away at sea. Her mother is also invaluable in watching Karen, Lorna’s daughter, while Lorna is in labor. The delivery requires forceps, leading to a bruise on the boy’s head, but Dr. Turner assures Lorna it will go down.

Lorna becomes obsessed with the bruise, however, so Shelagh takes a blood test. The infant Ian won’t stop bleeding after it, and Shelagh and Dr. Turner notice other small bruises on his body. Lorna rests uneasily at the clinic while Ian is sent to the hospital for further tests.

He is a hemophiliac: his blood won’t clot. After an odd conversation with Lorna’s mother, Miss Higgins looks back through records and finds that Lorna’s father was also a hemophiliac, and died because of it after falling in his late twenties. It’s a disorder passed down among males; this must be why Lorna’s choice of Ian, her father’s name, for her son so shocked her mother. 

Lorna had been told her father died of cancer, however. She’s furious at her mother for keeping the condition a secret, but her mother explains that she didn’t want Lorna to avoid having children out of fear that a son might be a hemophiliac, depriving herself of the joy of a child. 

But Lorna won’t accept the explanation. She tells her mother she doesn’t want anything to do with her. She’s probably looking for someone to blame.

There’s a clear villain in the life of Sandy Talbot, née Mackay. A single mother with two children, she has just married Joe Talbot to help support her kids. Sister Veronica unwittingly visits during a celebration of their marriage, and comes away with a slice of wedding cake, promising to come back another time. 

When she returns the next day, she finds Sandy hungover and depressed in a messy house, and extracts a promise to deliver her son to the clinic so that he can have his vaccinations updated. When Joe arrives home that evening, he chides Sandy for the mess—he works to support her and her family, he shouldn’t have to work when he comes home.

Sandy visits the clinic and admits to Sister Veronica that she’s not happy in her week-old marriage. Joe forces her to have sex with him. Veronica insists on helping her, but Sandy, who has raised two children on her own, wants the nun to forget she said anything—especially when Veronica suggests that what Joe is doing is rape. 

Sister Monica Joan advises Veronica to show Sandy she has worth, in order to gain her trust and confidence—but it could require time. 

Sandy is ready to go, however. After a particularly rough night where she realizes that her daughter has heard everything, she sneaks out with her children and sleeps in the alley next to the Buckle general store. Fred finds her and brings her to Nonnatus, noting sadly that his mother had to do the same thing. Sandy tells Veronica that she was ready to stay until she saw that her daughter had heard; that could never happen again. 

The midwives arrange food and a hostel for Sandy and her children. Joe appears at the door of Nonnatus and threatens Sister Monica Joan, but she manages to get him to leave. He goes home and changes the locks—unfortunate for Sandy, because her son has left his beloved stuffed animal at the home.

Sister Veronica brings Sandy to the police station and only gets help after agnrily berating an uncomprehending officer and spelling out that it’s a case of rape. Sandy agrees to try to press charges, but a detective explains that Joe hasn’t done anything illegal: under the law at the time, it’s impossible for a husband’s acts to be defined as rape against his wife. 

Sandy turns on Veronica for making her talk about it. She didn’t have to be ashamed when it was a secret.

But she comes back around and starts to consider divorce. Joe wouldn’t let her come back anyway; he dumps her belongings, including her son’s toy, on the stairs of Nonnatus. Divorce is difficult under the legal system, however, especially for a new bride, Matthew explains to Sandy. Joe might be able to question her himself in court—but she still wants to go through with it. Matthew promises to help her find a lawyer, and she’s entitled to legal aid.

Veronica writes a social worker report in support of Sandy, who thanks her: your anger allowed me to be angry, she explains. 

Shelagh helps Lorna see that her anger is misplaced. Lorna is lost without her mother; her mother had washed and put away everything in her home in preparation for the baby, and Lorna doesn’t know where things are. Shelagh helps Lorna to forgiveness, and she eventually goes to her mother’s home with her children. Their life as a family continues in bliss, despite the difficulties of Ian’s hemophilia.

If only Nancy could find forgiveness—of her debts. When her TV is repossessed, Nurse Crane demands an explanation. Nancy owes almost a hundred pounds, weeks of her salary. Crane helps draw up a budget, and assures Nancy that she never felt deprived even though she grew up in a thrifty household; Colette will still know her mother’s love. Indeed, the girl is excited to follow along with Nancy’s accounting as she begins to pay off her debts and save up for a place of their own.

Trixie is no longer wanting for money, given Matthew’s wealth, but she could use some help in the culinary arena. Sister Monica Joan invites herself to the dinner party, eager to offer encouragement—but all the guests know how to do that, very tactfully. However, the entrees are burnt to inedibility and there’s salt instead of sugar in the dessert. Luckily, Cyril whips up eggs benedict with the random ingredients Trixie has left in the flat. Turns out he doesn’t need all that food from his neighbors after all.