As the second episode of Maternal begins, Catherine MacDiarmid (Lara Pulver) receives a call from Lars saying he has arrived at the airport. Guy (Oliver Chris) asks Helen Cavendish (Lisa McGrillis) if she’d like to drive in together. Lars gets in the backseat with Elis so his wife Brigitta can sit up front with Catherine. Guy and Helen struggle to get the kids in the vehicle before leaving. Maryam Afridi (Parminder Nagra) complains to Raz about the noise. She ends up snapping at her son while trying to find her phone. Once she finds it, she tells Raz it was the adoption support team. Raz answers before telling Maryam that Sami’s biological mother is pregnant again.

They want to know if they’d like to adopt another baby. While Lars gets the parking ticket, Brigitta asks Catherine what she was thinking. She thinks Catherine should’ve known better. They get out and Catherine gives them the schedule and supplies. Catherine complains about Lars bringing his wife without telling her. Inside, Tessa and Helen are told about 17-year-old Callum Ware who was brought in by police after a drunk and disorderly arrest. He had a fit in the back of the van and has a history of epilepsy. Although he hit his head, there is no sign of a concussion.

Callum claims he is taking his medication as prescribed although Guy suspects he missed a dose because he was out drinking. When Tessa asks if he uses anything else to treat it, Callum says his mom used to treat his seizures with buccals. Guy urges him to lay off the booze. Catherine learns how they’re down workers. Jack (Raza Jaffrey) tells Catherine that they’re not going to do any surgery today. Becky asks Jack if he can do a day on Surgical Assessment. She asks Catherine to let everyone down gently since she wants her job. Catherine approaches Callum to tell him she is his mom’s sister. She agrees to call his mother for him.

Maryam sees Simon (Dean Ridge) leave on her way to Susan’s office. Susan (Julie Graham) knows that she asked Simon to contact microbiology roughly two hours before Edward crashed. Simon is adamant that he was not instructed to contact microbiology. He raised a Datix because he is concerned about the impact this is going to have on his record and that he is being scapegoated for Maryam’s failings. Susan points out that she didn’t document the instruction to contact microbiology. She asks if she might be misremembering, but Maryam insists she said it. Edward’s death has been raised to a serious incident.

They won’t know about criminal proceedings until the coroner’s report comes back. The parents have filed a complaint though. Maryam might want to mention that to the GMC. She begins worrying she is going to get struck off. She is encouraged to speak to her union. Susan asks her to handle CAU this morning and to take Simon with her. Maryam meets with Catherine and Helen to tell them about what has happened. Helen doesn’t think it’ll ever go to the GMC since it is an internal SI investigation. Catherine says they’ve all killed someone even if it wasn’t deliberate. Maryam is worried the little boy died because of her.

Helen instructs her to cooperate fully with the investigation. Catherine offers to volunteer for the investigation panel. She tells them about Lars’s wife who she describes as hot and judgy. Maryam has to leave when she gets a page. Catherine and Helen talk about whether she has slept. Catherine believes Simon is just a posh prick who is afraid of taking responsibility for something. She wants Helen to check her vagina since it hurt so bad when she tried to have sex with Jack. Helen tells her to get someone who spends time down there. She doesn’t want to do it and she doesn’t think Catherine should try to get on the investigation team.

Maryam checks on Peggy who hurt her arm. She thinks it is broken although they’re going to need an x-ray to confirm it. The stepfather doesn’t think she fell at all. Maryam says she’ll get something for the pain. As they leave, she tells Simon she thinks it is a broken elbow. He questions whether there is something weird about it. Simon would like to order a full skeletal survey. He explains that the stepfather keeps saying the concrete thing like he has read it and Peggy is silent. They argue about it before Maryam says she needs to stop paging him for cases that don’t need her attention. She reminds him that she has experience and he has been out of medical school for three weeks.

As the conversation continues, Simon insists she never asked him to contact microbiology. Maryam believes he just doesn’t want to take the blame. Simon is asked to go upstairs and move things around in ultrasound. Once he leaves, Maryam talks to another woman about it and asks her to order a full skeletal scan from radiology and a social services referral. Maryam asks her to call social services now. Catherine tells a patient that her surgery is being canceled again. She offers to give her a form so she can make an official complaint. Raz calls Maryam to talk about how she is feeling. Helen talks to Callum and his mother about his fit.

She discusses getting him a new management plan since he is going through his medication so quickly. Helen is accused of just trying to show how clever she is. Helen tells her about her three babies, Maggie, Archie, and Cleo. Callum’s mom learns what happened and how he was drinking while underage. His mom thinks he just needs more of the buccal things. Helen must speak to neurology before they can get out of there. Catherine visits Mrs. Thomason who is there for a GI obstruction and end-stage colorectal cancer. Mrs. Thomason and Jen are surprised that they have a female surgeon. They plead with her not to cancel the surgery because Mrs. Thomason wants to spend a week in her favorite place before she is too sick to go.

Catherine changes her mind and says they’re just running behind. Mrs. Thomason is relieved since she thought it was going to be canceled. Catherine tries to get time in the surgery for Mrs. Thomason with Laura’s help. Laura (Yazzmin Newell) tells her she can have the theatre, but she can’t have nursing staff, ODPs, a SHO, or an anesthetist. Helen approaches Guy to tell him that Debbie is there. He offers to get Louise to take it. Guy doesn’t think Helen should’ve dealt with her when they’ve been free of her for years. He approaches Callum to ask if he is sharing his medication with anyone. Debbie calls him controlling. Guy says she is an addict and drunk. Callum admits he didn’t have a fit and just faked it so he wouldn’t get charged.

Debbie never understood Helen’s relationship with Guy because she is so strong and he is so weak. Maryam has trouble when working with a young patient so she lets Simon take over instead. When she goes for a sticker, Simon thanks her for letting him do that. He explains that the Datix is nothing personal. Helen tells Callum there isn’t much she can do to help if he is going to lie about his condition. He asks if it is hard being a doctor because he might be interested. Helen reminds him that he’ll need A levels. They talk about family briefly before Callum asks about the Lamotrigine. She asks Tessa to make him an outpatient appointment to discuss a review of his medication.

Catherine tells Jack she needs to get one of the patients on the canceled list in today. Jack thinks she bottled it so he offers to tell the patient that the surgery is canceled. She tells him that it is Sally Thomason. Maryam learns that social services have arrived. She sees Edward’s parents in the distance. The stepfather gets mad after learning about her calling social services and again claims Peggy fell on the trampoline. Maryam runs away without saying anything so Catherine chases her. She notices that Maryam is having a panic attack so he tries to calm her. Once she relaxes, Catherine suggests taking time off before apologizing for trying to be Helen.

Maryam admits she hasn’t told Raz just yet. He didn’t think she was ready to come back at all and she thinks he might’ve been right. Her mom will be heartbroken and she doesn’t think anyone will hire her as a consultant while she is under investigation. Catherine urges her to tell Raz. She had to tell a dying woman and her daughter that they can’t spend their last days together on the beach. Catherine knows that they all make mistakes. Maryam is told she can’t feel like it is was hers every time. Helen approaches Debbie outside to say she just let her son lie about a fit so she could keep stealing his benzos. They agree that Debbie needs help, but Helen refuses to get her the pills.

She tells Debbie to call her from an AA meeting and she’ll be there. Catherine approaches Dr. Matt Malyon (Joe Thomas) to see what he is doing for the next hour and a half. He says he has to pick his dog up from the vet. She offers to find someone to do that for him because she needs him for a GI obstruction. Once he agrees, she runs to tell Sally only to find her bed empty. She suspects Jack told her. Catherine manages to catch up with her outside. She approaches Jack and tells him to stay away from her lists and patients. Maryam learns about a 3-year-old male who is lethargic.

She checks on him and learns he was feeding well until he started vomiting everything back up. Maryam is asked if they should get a line in and do a blood gas, but she doesn’t say anything. Simon mentions antibiotics and Maryam agrees saying they should treat neonatal sepsis. She steps out of the room to calm herself while saying it isn’t sepsis. Maryam figures it out. She returns to the baby and takes control of the situation. She tells Simon it likely isn’t sepsis, but they’re going to cover all bases. Maryam quickly realizes they’re going to have to put a tube in the baby’s mouth to help him breathe. When Susan arrives, she is told he needs to go to Alder Hay. Susan eventually agrees to let her put a tube in.

It is yes to ketonuria. The baby is prepared for transfer. Before Callum leaves, Helen gives him the information for his upcoming outpatient appointment. They also exchange numbers. Catherine tells Becky that she wants to be on the investigation panel. After she admits she wants the job, Becky says it is a hard road. Becky agrees to look into it and says it’d look good on her application. She says she is helping Catherine because she’d rather believe she failed than it is impossible. Maryam’s coworker tells her that she got an email about a witness statement about Edward. She is told it was a good catch on the maple syrup urine.

Helen has to clean up a mess when she gets home. Maryam calls Clare to talk to her about Sami’s birth mother being pregnant. After the call, she tells Raz that it is a girl. He says it is what she always wanted. Catherine apologizes to Lars’s wife. She saw Catherine’s rota on the fridge so she knows she works a lot of nights and weekends. Catherine believes she can handle it once she becomes a consultant. Brigitta thinks she’ll need their help until then. When Lars returns, he asks if they talked about paternity. They want it to be officially recognized there and in Sweden. Then, Elis can get a Swedish passport so she can come stay with them.

Catherine says it sounds like a great plan. She checks on the baby later.

 

Maternal Review

The second episode of Maternal was far better than the first which might’ve been enough to convince some viewers to stop watching. The second episode showed that Maternal has the potential to get much better in future episodes even if some of the stories are overdone at this point. The performances are good, especially from the leads.

In some cases, it feels like the personal dramas are hogging the spotlight so it’d help if more emphasis was placed on the medical issues. Maryam’s struggle to overcome a potential mistake at work is far more compelling than her decision to adopt another child. Her story is the most interesting at the moment while Catherine and Helen’s issues could be showcased in any other show.

Maternal doesn’t always use the intense medical setting as effectively as it could and oftentimes dumbs it down with silly stories and dialogue. Nevertheless, there is light in the darkness considering how much of an improvement the second episode was compared to the first. It scores a 6 out of 10. Recaps of Maternal are available on Reel Mockery here.

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