Call the Midwife season 7: Is Emerald Fennell returning as Patsy?

Tonight, the Call the Midwife finale aired on BBC One, and in the process set the stage in rather fantastic fashion for a lovely season 7. This batch of episodes will air at some point in 2018, but there are many questions that remain beyond the upcoming Christmas Special.

One of these said questions is the status of one Emerald Fennell, who returned in the closing seconds as midwife and Delia’s great love Patsy Mount. The character spent some time away caring for her ailing father leading to his death, but it seems as though she’s back at Nonnatus House once more.

Is she staying? That is a great question, given that you could read her dialogue to Delia about the two of them going together on any future travels as a sign that she could be leaving once more in the future. However, there are no reports out there saying that this could be the case, or that Fennell is planning to altogether leave the series. As a matter of fact, more news is coming out regarding why she wasn’t a part of much of this series, and it seemed to be very much circumstantial. Here is what show writer Heidi Thomas had to say on the subject to the Radio Times:

“I’ve loved Patsy Mount since the day I created her and Emerald Fennell’s performance is so wonderful it just made me and 10 million more love her … Patsy and Delia’s love story is not over but Emerald needed to take some time away to deal with some writing projects. She’s a very, very talented writer so she just took a little bit of time away during this series.”

Given that it only makes sense for characters to travel here and there, even if they have stable jobs, it wouldn’t be too upsetting to us if we did end up seeing the show take on a structure in which many of its characters appeared in fix or six episodes rather than the full eight to give everyone time to work on other projects. That is more than Fennell appeared in this season, but it could be a feasible way to give everyone what they want without also harming the quality of the series.

More coverage of all things Call the Midwife

You can read more about the return of Patsy Mount by heading over to the link here.

Meanwhile, be sure to also check out the story here all about the show’s future and when you could see it return to the BBC with more new episodes. (Photo: BBC.)