'Call the Midwife' Recap: Season 14 Episode 6

Call the Midwife is available to stream for a limited time. Recap the previous and following episodes and other seasons.
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Nurse Crane is on a little holiday – and she picked the perfect time to get away. A strike by garbage workers is leading to refuse piling up in the streets at collection points such as one outside Nonnatus House. Dr. Turner is back on the board of health just in time to worry about the trash making people sick. There’s pressure on Violet as mayor to resolve the strike, but she doesn’t have the power and the garbage workers are driving a hard bargain. Rats have begun appearing, including in the saddlebags of the midwives’ bikes. Cyril’s cat Nigel is killing some of the vermin but can only do so much.

Reggie soon falls sick. While his illness is not serious, that of an old man is. Sister Veronica visited the man so that he could fill out Meals on Wheels forms and found him ailing, unable to send for help. Dr. Turner sends him to the hospital, where he dies of Weil’s disease, which is transmitted by rats. That sorry consequence of the strike emboldens Violet to try to act faster.

Then Nigel the cat becomes sick. Rosalind tries to feed him and Fred lets her into Cyril’s apartment to sit with him until Cyril comes home. Cyril implores the cat to survive the night so that he can bring him, his only companion, to the veterinarian in the morning. But that’s too late.

As Fred digs a grave in the garden by Nonnatus House for Nigel, Cyril tells him that Nigel’s death has helped him decide to go through with a divorce from Lucille, who does not want to return to London after moving back to Jamaica. The two men see an ambulance pull up to Nonnatus and worry that the elderly Sister Monica Joan has fallen ill.

But the ambulance is for one of the younger residents. Rosalind has come down with a fever, and tests soon confirm that she, too, has Weil’s disease. The doctors need to get the infection under control in the next 24 hours, or she may not survive.

Fred wonders if Rosalind got sick from Nigel, so when Cyril visits Nonnatus House to ask about Rosalind, Trixie sends him to Dr. Turner for tests. Cyril is healthy, but worries about Rosalind.

Meanwhile, life goes on. Bernadette “Bernie” Midgely and her husband run a bakery and already have two kids. She gives birth to a baby girl in the maternity home but resists new medical guidance recommending movement instead of constant bed rest in the days after birth – especially when it comes from Joyce. Bernie is friendly with the other midwives but antagonistic to Joyce, so much so that she leaves the maternity clinic early despite the midwives’ objections.

When Joyce and Sister Catherine visit Bernie at home, she eventually kicks them out at another suggestion that she walk around a bit, even though she previously liked Sister Catherine. She tells her husband that she doesn’t like Joyce because she’s West Indian.

Trash continues to pile up, bringing a radio journalist to Poplar. Miss Higgins complains to him, while Sister Monica Joan tells him the population has lost their backbone. The situation is trying, but it will end. What happened to the people who survived the Blitz?

This interview gives Sister Veronica an idea. She is helping Miss Higgins with the Cub Scouts while Nurse Crane is away, and they need to learn about the history of the area but can’t be outside because of the festering trash. So Sister Veronica brings in Sister Monica Joan to tell them exciting stories about the Blitz and other historical events, to the boys’ delight.

Bernie Midgely finds herself in pain and calls the midwives. Joyce is sent alone because everyone else is busy. Bernie refuses to let her examine her – I don’t want a Black person touching me, she says. Joyce sees red on Bernie’s leg and suspects a blood clot, so she rushes to call Dr. Turner. Bernie is taken to the hospital.

When she has recovered, she tells Dr. Turner that Joyce was negligent and could have killed her. She will be filing a formal complaint.

Rosalind also starts to recover and calls Sister Julienne to apologize for missing work; Julienne tells her to rest. Cyril brings flowers to Rosalind in the hospital and holds her hand as he tells her that Nigel’s death hit him hard because Nigel had become his everything, and he is not meant to be alone. He’s getting divorced, and would like to date Rosalind.

Violet has escalated her complaints about the piles of trash in the street to people more powerful than her, enlisting Dr. Turner to describe the dangers to public health. The army is sent in to clear the trash just in time for Rosalind to return home to Nonnatus House. She happily tells Joyce about Cyril, but Joyce warns her not to date him: they are from different worlds, and will both experience racism. It will be hard, and Joyce doesn’t want that for Rosalind.

The other midwives are beginning to wake up to the racism Joyce experiences constantly. Sister Julienne was unaware and is shocked, while Sister Catherine witnessed Bernie’s prejudice but didn’t know what to do about it. Joyce is reluctant to even mention it to Sister Julienne, but will have to defend herself in a formal complaint against her – and it’s her word against Bernie’s.

Sister Julienne visits Bernie in the hospital to ask what happened, but the patient is recalcitrant and continues to wholly blame Joyce even after Sister Julienne dispels her idea that Joyce is unqualified and not licensed. Sister Julienne promises to support Joyce through the ordeal.