Oh, I really need to know what’s in that box.
A syringe loaded with Arsenic?
A pregnancy test?
An incriminating USB stick?
A supersized bar of chocolate to give Kate spots?
Yes, the doctor will see you now took on a whole new meaning as Suranne Jones returned as the titular Doctor Foster (BBC One, 9pm Tuesday), and everywhere Simon, her philandering ex and Kate the one he left her for went, there she was.
Watching. Always watching.
It’s now two years on in leafy Parminster and the mood has darkened. A lot.
Gemma (Doctor Foster) is now the head of the surgery, but spends much of her time trying to force a stray lank of hair off her face, while fending off snide remarks from a new member of staff, who, intriguingly, appears to know a lot more about her than she should.
Her so-called friends are acting shifty and cheating Simon and Kate have swaggered back to town and bought a stupidly-posh house just down the road from her; worse, they sent out party invitations to everyone in the vicinity with a nauseatingly-cheerful photo of themselves with a baby on the front. The doc is livid.
Jones is a class act, I could watch her in just about anything, but this role was made for her. In the addictive first series, she was brilliant as the wronged wife, totally humiliated by her husband’s affair with a much younger, local woman and traumatised by the lies and deceit of those close to her.
Her carefully-planned revenge – the awkward-dinner-party-from-hell – was excruciating, yet thrilling to watch. But even so, she remained the victim, the one we were all rooting for, even though she went a tad, well okay, a bit more than a tad, off the rails towards the end.
But this time, she’s having none of it. This time it’s personal and she is strutting about the place looking as menacing as a scorpion with a flick knife. In fact, there were many moments when it definitely felt like she was now the villain of the piece.
Like when she broke into Simon’s new house and confronted him in the kitchen, or when she gate-crashed their packed party, a little the worse for a prosecco or ten, or when she got a rise (literally) out of sleazy Simon before being slung out on her ear, but not before she handed a confused Kate a mysterious, gift-wrapped package and told her – joy, of joys – not to tell Simon anything about it.
Retribution, I fear, will be her’s and if the look on her face while she performed the symbolic destruction of her wedding ring in a dirty-big jar of acid while lighting a fag is was anything to go by, an appointment with the doctor next week is essential.
Gibson on the box 