'Call the Midwife' Recap: Season 15 Episode 5

Call the Midwife premieres Sundays at 7:00 pm on WTTW and is available to stream for a limited time. Recap the previous and following episodes and other seasons.
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The board of health suddenly moves the clinic to St. Cuthbert’s, to the frustration of Dr. Turner and the midwives. When a representative of the National Health Service tries to view some records during the clinic and is rebuffed by Miss Higgins, everyone wonders if the move is a ploy to gain access to patient records – another step towards the potential closure of the clinic and incorporation of its patients into the larger NHS. The deadline is approaching for Sister Julienne to decide whether to accede to the board of health’s demand that the sisters stop wearing religious garb if they want to continue to work in Poplar.

Timothy has passed his exams, although he still has to formally qualify to be a doctor, so he is around to help out. He joins his father on a house call to the Barrowmans, who have just moved back to Poplar into a newly renovated home. Ivan, Madge, and Paul have all fallen ill after Ivan’s mother Hilda cooked them a meal to welcome them home. Suzanne didn’t eat the tinned meat Hilda purchased at Violet’s store, and she doesn’t get sick. 

Dr. Turner recommends that they rest and that Paul use his inhaler for his asthma. They’ll be better in the morning.

The two Turner men return the next day because Dr. Turner is worried about Paul’s asthma. When no one answers the door, they use the key hidden on a string through the mail slot and enter to find Paul just rousing on the couch downstairs. Ivan, Madge, and Suzanne are all dead in a bedroom upstairs. When Timothy starts to feel faint, Dr. Turner rushes to open a window in the bedroom, suspecting carbon monoxide poisoning from the new boiler. 

Hilda tells Timothy that his father is to blame for leaving the Barrowmans overnight instead of sending them to a hospital. When Paul insists on knowing what happened, Dr. Turner reluctantly explains it was likely carbon monoxide from the boiler – which Paul helped his father install. Now Paul blames himself, as Hilda angrily tells Dr. Turner. 

Violet worries she and Fred are to blame, having learned that their shop is now under inspection for selling contaminated meats. 

Nurse Crane shows up at the clinic early to find “Murderer” painted on the door in red. Dr. Turner doesn’t want to involve the police; the Barrowmans have already suffered so much, if they’re the ones responsible. And a reporter has asked Miss Higgins, in front of patients, about potential malpractice. Dr. Turner decides not to see any more patients until the coroner’s report comes out – he has to have people’s trust. 

Cyril has lost some of Mrs. Wallace’s trust. When he arrives home from a weekend away with Rosalind, Mrs. Wallace is in his flat along with Fred and Paul and Ivan Barrowman, before the latter died – he’s a plumber fixing a leak in the pipes, and Mrs. Wallace is there because her church worships in the flat. While she knows that Cyril is a good man and the world is changing, he is the church’s pastor. He cannot compromise his position by spending nights with Rosalind before marriage.

When Cyril tells Rosalind this, he explains that he disagrees – but that it might be better to wait to do anything more until they are married. Rosalind is furious: she has already lost her virginity, and this is a poor marriage proposal if it is one. She storms off.

After cooling off, she apologizes to Cyril. He says he is indeed interested in marriage, and asks for a chance at a better proposal. She eagerly tells him to take her away again for the weekend and propose then. 

Ruth Khan eventually finds herself apologizing to her mother-in-law, Aisha, who has been trying to take care of Ruth in every way while she’s pregnant. Ruth wants to have a home birth and have her attentive husband, Dilwar, with her during the birth – not Aisha, as their culture’s tradition holds. When Aisha tries to come in during the birth, Dilwar sends her away, to her disappointment. 

Aisha also objects when Dilwar returns to work at the factory before the parents have decided on a name for their son. She worries that Ruth looks sick, but Ruth insists she just needs air and sets off on a walk with her son. Aisha surreptitiously follows. So she’s there when Ruth nearly collapses. She rushes to her daughter-in-law and helps her and her grandson to the clinic, where Dr. Turner manages to forestall any seizures from eclampsia. 

While recovering in the hospital, Ruth apologizes to Aisha for pushing her away. Ruth’s own mother left when she was eight, so she didn’t understand a mother’s love – but now she does. 

Nurse Crane encourages the two remaining Barrowmans, Hilda and Paul, to rely on each other’s love in their tragedy instead of lashing out, as Paul does when Hilda tries to wash the pillowcase Ivan died on – Paul can still smell his dad on it. 

The coroner’s report helps: it shows that the carbon monoxide was the result of a defective valve on the boiler, not anything to do with its installation. The deaths were the manufacturer’s fault. Even the food poisoning is traced elsewhere: the supplier that sold the tinned meat to Fred and Violet will be prosecuted. 

A woman appears at Nonnatus House to tell Sister Julienne that a neighbor in her building is having a baby. The pregnant woman, Lana, yells at them both to go away. Her flat is squalid; she spits at her kindly neighbor. Nevertheless, Sister Julienne delivers her baby; it’s too late for an ambulance. When Lana insists on holding her infant despite her cigarette, Sister Julienne moves the baby further away from the smoke and Lana attacks her, ripping off her collar and scratching her neck. 

As Trixie bandages the wound, Sister Julienne explains that she was able to stay calm throughout the situation because of her religious purpose. She has decided that the nuns will leave Poplar if the board of health won’t allow them to continue to work in a missionary capacity. 

The end of an era may be approaching. In an apparent sign of it, Sister Monica Joan’s kidneys may be failing. And Sister Veronica is considering leaving the order, as her desire to have her own child grows. Having returned from Hong Kong, she tells Sister Julienne that she received permission from Mother Mildred to go away for six weeks and consider her life.