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Nico’s Story
Photo Credit: © Lime Pictures
Just a quick search on Twitter would reveal how the majority felt about Nico Blake. While she’s certainly a polarizing character, many viewers of Hollyoaks cannot stand her and actually for valid reasons. Nico has committed three murders at a very young age and has yet to be punished for any of it. Every crime she’s committed, someone else has gone down in her place thanks to her cunning but the walls had finally begun to close in on her this last week. Gone was that headstrong maturity she had while covering her tracks and the frail little girl she really was shone brightly through each of these POV episodes. Her episode was particularly unsettling, though just a taste test of what was to come next.
Terrified that the police really suspected her and her mother, Nico made a dash from the station back to her home. She tearfully began to pack up her belongings while her mother fretted from outside the door, still blissfully unaware that her daughter was the monster who started this whole mess. Sienna decided to leave Nico be which gave the teen the chance to slip away only to run into her best friend Peri. Wanting to cheer up her friend, Peri dragged Nico back to school in the hopes that some normalcy would turn things around for her even though she’s expelled. That normalcy was quickly shattered when DS Armstrong found her and sat her down for an interview; Louis Loveday oversaw as her present adult. It’s there that Nico’s world is further shaken up, presented with video proof of her agreeing to help her grandfather set up Maxine for his death. DS Armstrong believed that Nico aided Patrick in his death in order to get back at Maxine but Nico disagreed, breaking into tears as she’s accused of the crime she really did commit albeit for different reasons. She truly killed Patrick after he learned she’d accidentally killed her future step-sister, a secret that Nico was not going to let anyone have hanging over her. Louis advised the detective to bring Nico down to the station if she was truly a suspect before he ended the interview that was quickly turning into an interrogation.
Nico and Peri later ditch school after facing opposition for the expelled student’s attendance. Nico is so grateful to have Peri that she crafts up a creepy ritual, taking ribbon and tying their wrists together to spiritually bond their hearts as one. Since they were born on the same day, Nico now referred to them as twins who’d die should anything happen to the ribbon they wore. This was Nico’s creepy way of trying to entrap Peri into sticking by her side should she discover Nico was a murderer. Peri was clearly terrified but found herself going along with it anyway but slowly, she began to put the story together piece by piece. When Nico begged her to run away with her, even stealing money from Price Slice for bus fare, Peri began to suspect there was more to Nico claiming she only knew something about Patrick’s murder. The girls pay a final visit to a sick Tom Cunningham to play with Peri’s daughter, Steph. In a casual conversation, Peri and Tom realize this lingering sickness might stem from an allergy to something which brings Tom to jokingly mention the “cheap” after shave Peri had gifted him. Nico quickly shot down that idea and the girls leave to finalize their escape plan.
The intuitive Peri confronted her best friend at her home, wielding the after shave she swiped back and asking Nico what she did to it. At first Nico played innocent but when Peri threatened to spray herself with it, Nico slapped it away and is forced to admit to poisoning the liquid in order to keep Tom and ultimately Steph in Hollyoaks. Peri could not believe her friend could be so twisted and promptly ripped off their creepy friendship bracelet, cutting physical and emotional ties with Nico. In one of my favorite scenes of the week, Nico pleaded with Peri to not leave her as they’re spiritually connected. Claiming to be nothing like her with no desire to hurt people, Peri disagreed but Nico blames her circumstances on her behavior. Had Peri been discarded from birth like she had then maybe she’d do bad things too. While Peri always had family who wanted her, Nico was her family’s dark secret and anything she ever did wrong, she claimed she’d done for the right reasons. And if anyone thought Nico couldn’t get more disturbing, they were proven wrong then.
Warren’s Story
Warren Fox’s story was probably the weakest of the week, mainly because he had no real direct involvement with Patrick’s murder but there were still some great reveals. And wow, did it end on a great emotional note.
Probably the only featured character this week to be used to getting booked at the station, Warren’s questioning wasn’t even shown, telling viewers he skated by cleanly. Instead his week began by him advising Sienna to not trust the police, they’d want to confuse her and entrap her by asking question after question. Sienna claimed to not mind considering she was innocent of all charges only to have Warren work it out of her that she’d agreed to help Patrick die if need be – but he changed his mind! She did not kill her father and would tell the cops that should it come out. Career criminal Warren shot down that idea; knowing just how easy it’d be to pin the crime on her should she expose that piece of information. The next time we see the couple is during the lead in scene to Warren’s confrontation with Maxine and Adam, showing Sienna tearing into him for getting Maxine pregnant. She saw Warren’s ex-fling buying a pregnancy test at her job and wanted to know the truth, thus prompting a shocked Warren to get answers from Maxine. When he returned back to work, Detective Ryan Knight presented him with an offer: give up info on Patrick’s killer and he’ll give him info on his estranged son, Joel. Sticking to his code, Warren made no move to give the cop his trust and dismissed him.
Later, Grace Black and Darren defend Maxine to Warren knowing full well that she’d never be capable of murder, no matter how the evidence looks. Now that she’s pregnant, they implore Warren to step up to help protect her from going down unless he wanted his baby to be born in jail. They tail him, airing out all of the dirty laundry Sienna never shared with Warren from her incest to attempted murder of children in order to plant some seeds of doubt. The tides swiftly began to change from Maxine to Nico and now onto Sienna, the only innocent party in this whole mess. Shaken, Warren begged Sienna to let him know the truth, if she had done anything to hurt the emotionally abusive father she knew then he had to know to keep her safe but she stood by her story. Warren figured it was time for them all to hit the road then for he too saw the tides turning on her, everyone involved was moving to set her up and she’d go down for the murder if they didn’t act. Passports were gathered in record time only for the plan to be shot down before takeoff thanks to visit from his son Joel. The two men have a heart to heart where Joel pleaded for his dad to stick around for this new baby’s sake, to make up for not having been in Joel’s life as a child.
Hollyoaks’ resident emotional bad boy caves and cancelled his escape with Sienna soon after, tearfully citing the need to be there for his new child. My heart broke with that last scene when Warren choked up on the phone. Sienna had his heart but this new baby deserved it as well, the confliction he was feeling was so palpable and that emotion isn’t something you get to see from a lot of “bad” characters. Warren is so much more than his rap sheet.
Sienna’s Story
Then finally we come down to Sienna. She’s by no means innocent overall after having faked a pregnancy, kidnapped a pre-teen and held him hostage and drugged Nancy to have her committed but did she play a role in killing her father? Not at all! He was just as hard on her as he was anyone else but Sienna idolized him, for years he was all she had so it was impossible not to. But almost as quickly as the entire investigation had developed, the suspicion had turned to her. Sienna was going to get banged up (British slang for getting set up to go to prison) in place of all the true culprits!
Photo Credit: © Lime Pictures
Warren deciding to not go through with running away with her was enough to crack Sienna. She’s always been someone living dangerously close to the edge of sane and insane, so any sudden change especially from the man in her life and she’s set off. She found herself in the woods outside of Hollyoaks, bawling over the site where he father’s body had been found when longtime friend Leela Lomax came upon her. Always a guiding force for her unstable friend, Leela talked Sienna out of her daze and got her to open up. Sienna relayed a formative story about her and her father, bringing up a time where she nervously wet herself on stage at a ballet recital and could only focus on the disappointment she saw in her father’s face in the audience. The tone for the episode was being set very quickly, giving chills when Sienna admitted to wanting to be as perfect as her father had always wanted her to be, excusing him for being terribly harsh on her. But she came to an understanding that no one else would see it this way, that she’d always be seen as unstable because of how she grew up and decided that it’d be best for her to make a run for it. Leela stopped her though, promising to stand by her side and believing in her innocence.
Viewers are given this hopeful feeling after these scenes that maybe the culpable parties would go down for this crime, that maybe for once Sienna can live easily but as soon as she arrived to the station, things go sour. DS Armstrong questioned her love for father even when confronted with all of the awful things he subjected her to. James Nightingale thankfully stepped in as her lawyer when Sienna began to crumble beneath the pressure as evidence began to be hurtled her way; first, the brooch that was truly Nancy’s was reported to be hers in a phone call by Darren, even testing positive for fibers from Sienna’s clothing, then Maxine’s planted hair was pinned on Sienna and finally a video confession from her own daughter, Nico after Nancy forced it out of her. A broken Sienna finally begged to see her daughter, no longer seeming strong enough to fight all of these charges. Mother and daughter connect later that day, a frenzied Sienna wanting to know what “they” did to Nico to get her to say those lies on camera. Eventually Sienna worked out that Nico did this by her own free will, setting up her mother for the crime because it was her who committed it in the first place.
These are two women, two generations of three in one family with severe emotional wounds whose bond only seems to strengthen because of murder. It’s sick, it’s twisted but it pulls at your heart strings as Sienna tries to reconcile all of these feelings. The daughter she always wanted killed the father she thought she’d always need and now she had to take the blame, as any mother should. The thrilling POV week ends with Sienna in her cell, talking pleasantly to herself about taking the blame for her child. “When your children make mistakes, you protect them. It’s just what good people do,” she said as she bought into her own delusion that this was the best decision for anyone involved. Then in the creepiest, most unsettling transition, the ghost of Patrick Blake gives her further reassurance when she slipped into a vision of him and her at Christmas time, decked out in festive wear. He finally deemed her perfect for stepping up to defend her child and they clink champagne glasses before Sienna expresses her love for Christmas… in September. I think it’s safe to say we may have lost Sienna in more ways than one.
This last week of Hollyoaks was nothing short of stellar! Trust me, you do not want to be missing this show right now as it’s easily the most entertaining soap on the air! Please comment below with any questions about the show or tweet me, let’s get you addicted to this show!
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