A Little Resurrection – As the finale of The Woman In The Wall begins, Father Percy (Stephen Brennan) receives a visit from Aoife (Fiona Bell). He questions what she is doing there after 30 years. She reminds him she is not a Sister because she never completed her final vows. Father Percy remembers that something happened that day. They called it Catalepsy. Aoife says it was apparently a rare side effect of untreated epilepsy. In a flashback, people think Aoife is dead. However, she comes back to life after being covered by a sheet.

The condition causes the appearance of death and is often triggered by extreme emotional stress. Father Percy believes it was caused by the moment of prostration, but Aoife says it was the sound of dozens of children. She recognized the children because they were the ones they stole from their mothers and sold to complete strangers. Aoife goes on to say they lied by pretending the children were dead in case their mothers went looking for them. Father Percy shows her the letters of thanks he received from the parents and Christmas cards from their children. He is adamant that they saved these children. Aoife argues they could use this stuff to reunite mothers with their babies, but Father Percy says they’re not mothers.

Aoife attempts to run away with some of the letters. When Father Percy comes after her, he ends up falling down the stairs. Aoife grabs more letters before carrying them past Father Percy’s body. Aoife begins tracking down the mothers and telling them about their children. Eventually, Lorna Brady (Ruth Wilson) gets a note saying they know what happened to her child. Aoife walks into the bar just in time to hear Michael Kearney (Mark Huberman) telling Lorna he thought she’d been stood up. While looking through letters, Aoife panics. After the intro, Aoife wakes up in the wall and immediately begins panicking.

Lorna looks at the hole in the wall where Aoife was before. Colman Akande (Daryl McCormack) calls her asking her to come to the station because they’ve found something. At the station, Lorna watches a video of James Coyle (Dermot Crowley) before Colman explains he is Ignatius McCullen. Coyle worked for the House of the Sacred Shepherd alongside Father Percy. He is destroying the evidence of everything they did while calling it charity. Lorna realizes that’s why he wanted them to sign the contract. Colman says Coyle has a lot to lose and could’ve been involved in Father Percy’s murder. Lorna points out St. Alma’s primary school in the video and says it is the place Breda was talking about.

Most of the kids from the Kilkinure mother and baby home were sent there. Eadrom refurbished it in ’91. As they research St. Alma’s more, they find a picture of the Sisters of the Seven Joys who also ran a mother and baby home. Lorna is convinced they sent Agnes there. She is adamant that she wants to go there. When Aidan Massey (Simon Delaney) returns, Colman tells him it is time they spoke to Coyle. Lorna goes to the school and pretends she is going to enroll her daughter there. She tries to get information from the woman in charge. The woman offers to speak to the Board of Governors. Aidan and Colman confront Coyle who wants to speak somewhere private.

He admits to taking a call from Percy at the Imperial Hotel on the evening of October 30 which is the night of his murder. Coyle claims they didn’t talk about much, but he did congratulate Percy on his recent award. Colman finds that hard to believe considering Percy had just been attacked and robbed. Colman asks if he saw Percy as a liability after that because he knew all about him and his friends at the Sacred Shepherd. When Colman calls him Ignatius McCullen, Coyle questions whether it is a crime for someone to use a different name. Colman goes through the crimes he possibly committed, including child trafficking and falsifying death certificates.

Coyle claims he was giving a talk for the rest of the night after Percy called him. It was a sold-out event so people can back up his claim. In the car, Colman argues that Coyle must’ve sent someone else to the house. Aidan worries they’ll never be able to approve that. They argue briefly. Lorna learns that the Board of Governors said yes straight away. Lorna thanks Marie who leaves seconds later. Then, she speaks to Dr. Gabriel who is with the Health Service and had a lot of dealings with St. Alma’s back in the day. Dr. Gabriel asks Lorna what she needs. After Lorna says she believes her daughter is still alive, Dr. Gabriel agrees to do everything he can to help her.

He admits he has worked on cases like this before and these kids sometimes don’t want to be found. Lorna insists she is ready. Dr. Gabriel knows she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital once and counseling didn’t end well afterwards. He asks her about police talking to her in connection with an arson attack. Gabriel goes on to say it’s not the first time she has been in trouble with the guards. He confronts her about all her lies. Lorna yells that he is not listening to her before she throws stuff at him. Gabriel warns her she could be hospitalized indefinitely without her consent. Gabriel says they don’t want that for her before leaving.

Aidan admits to Colman that he should’ve done something years ago because they all knew what was going on. Aidan reveals “the cruelty men” is what they called the inspectors from the ISPCC. Colman tells him that the nuns would lock him in the tunnel and warn him the cruelty man was coming. He believes the nuns were protecting themselves and the cruelty man was one of the few people who could’ve helped him. Colman says he is going to put an end to all of this. As Lorna returns home, she is confronted by Michael. He reveals he is leaving and probably won’t be coming back. Michael wants to take her, but Lorna says she can’t go.

Aidan calls Colman who doesn’t answer. Amy Kane (Hilda Fay) comes to the station after getting Aidan’s message. He shows her the red notebook and asks if Emily Kane is her daughter. Colman attends Coyle’s speech. He approaches Coyle after the speech to talk in private. Colman questions how much his mother paid for him. As he tells Coyle he is coming for him and his friends, he steals a phone from his pocket. Colman sits down and begins looking through the phone. He calls the number from the 30th and a woman nearby answers. She approaches Coyle to see if he rang her, but he says he didn’t. Coyle checks his pocket and notices that his phone is missing. He asks Leslie to come with him.

In private, Coyle tells Leslie that Colman has likely worked out that she went to Percy’s house. He suspects she’ll be arrested so he warns her that there are a lot of good people with a lot to lose. When Colman approaches them, Leslie flees. Colman manages to catch her before she can escape. Colman tries to get information from her. She calls them the godless ones and says they’re not willing to make sacrifices. Colman asks if she is going to sacrifice herself for Coyle. Lorna calls Colman to ask if he loves the woman who adopted him. Once he says yes, Lorna asks about his birth mother. Colman says he thinks about her every day. He says it is okay if he never finds her because they loved each other anyway.

Lorna thanks him before hanging up. She hears the birds outside. Lorna climbs through the hole in the wall and looks around. She walks through the walls and finds a shoe on the ground. Lorna walks up some stairs until she sees a door in the ceiling above her. She climbs into the attic and begins looking around until she finds Aoife’s body. Lorna says she is sorry. Lorna picks up some papers and a picture of Agnes. Aidan, Amy, and others go to the convent the following day. Aidan says they know 208 of the children were trafficked and sold. 87 children are still unaccounted for. One of them is Emily Kane who is Amy’s daughter. They suspect the bodies were buried at the convent somewhere.

Sister Eileen tells them they can’t come there making new allegations because they all signed the agreement. Amy says they can’t but Aidan can. Eileen argues that no one will believe a word these women are saying. Aidan gives her one more chance before he comes after her with everything he has. When Eileen refuses to speak, Aidan tells her he’ll be seeing her again soon. Colman visits Lorna who says Aoife must’ve been alive when she put her in the wall. Although she didn’t mean to kill her, Lorna admits she did. She shows Colman the picture of her daughter. Colman tells her they should get their story straight because this wasn’t her fault. Lorna claims she has never been mad.

Her daughter is so happy and that’s all she needed to know. Lorna is taken away by Aidan. Lorna cites Clare Harner’s Immortality poem. Later, Colman visits her at the jail and she says she is sleeping. Colman complains they have nothing on Coyle or anyone else involved yet. There has to be someone out there willing to talk. He mentions the payments in the church accounts books. They were using St. Alma’s as a sort of processing center to conduct currency exchanges. She asks if they were sent abroad. Colman says he found her daughter even though it took a while. She’s been looking for her mother too. Colman reveals she is in Boston. Lorna can talk to her because there is a room she can use.

Colman takes her to a computer so she can speak to Agnes. He tells her to press call. When she does, she says hello to her daughter.

 

The Woman In The Wall Review

The final episode of The Woman in the Wall tried to wrap things up while leaving the door open for a possible renewal even if it isn’t justified. Lorna found out that Aoife was alive when she was put in the wall. Eventually, she found Aoife’s body in the attic along with a picture of Agnes who is still alive. Although Colman offered to help her, Lorna decided to go down for Aoife’s death.

Sister Eileen, James Coyle, and others were never brought to justice for their crimes although Colman is still looking for someone to speak. Instead, Leslie is the only one who was possibly brought to justice. In the end, the series feels a little like a big nothing burger considering the things that really happened in convent laundries back then. The Woman In The Wall missed the target by trying to sprinkle in some supernatural elements in the beginning and fleshing things out in the end.

By being so far out there and farfetched, the series lacked any real emotions and failed to do the victims justice. The 2013 drama Philomena starring Steve Coogan and Judi Dench was a much better exploration of the same scandal, but it’ll save viewers nearly five hours that they’ll never get back otherwise. Despite some good performances, it is hard not to be disappointed by the finale or the series as a whole.

As for the finale in particular, it was especially disappointing with an insignificant character, Leslie, being the only one punished for anything. On top of that, it is a little silly to think Aoife’s body could stay in the attic for so long despite numerous police visits throughout the series. With a lot of mumbling throughout, I would recommend using subtitles.

With the cast, the story, and the history, The Woman In The Wall should’ve been unforgettable instead of a mediocre series filled with eye-rolling moments. The finale scores a 4.5 out of 10. Recaps of The Woman In The Wall can be found on Reel Mockery here. Find out how to support our independent site at this link. Learn more about advertising with us here.