‘Call the Midwife’ season 3, episode 4 review: Jenny, Alec’s crisis; who died?

“Call the Midwife” has seen Jenny go through all sorts of various struggles over the course of the series’ run, but on Sunday night’s new episode, we saw some of the biggest problems to date when it comes to the character of Jenny.

Let us start with what were the obvious circumstances that put her relationship with Alec in a quagmire: His accident, right before the two were set to embark on a trip. Even though there was a break here, there was never any indication that things were going to be so bad that his life was in serious jeopardy.

Then, the stunning news: Alec had died due to complications while Jenny was away, and this was the most spontaneous punch to the gut in the history of “Call the Midwife.” Who saw this coming? It was almost strange in the way that it was handled almost entirely offscreen, and we never really got a feeling that there was such risk until after it was already too late. Without Alec around, the game for the series is completely changed. Even though she wasn’t ready for marriage, he was set to make that commitment to her.

We anticipate that the next few episodes will be about her mourning process, and how difficult this is going to be for Jenny to deal with. Also, she has to wrestle with the fact that nobody else is going to be there for her during this tough time. Even Alec’s family is away, and may not be present for the funeral.

The rest of the episode was solid, emotional at times, and stuffed full of the same sort of storytelling that you would expect in between the various births. But we’re still trying to get our head around the death. It wasn’t handled sensitively enough for us to have a deep reaction to it, but the acting around it was so strong that we almost don’t care. Grade: B.

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