The episode was called Gas but I think it involved a chemical spill and toxic fumes.

I agree with you, but in fairness that is the worst that we have ever seen of Rita. We saw flashes of that before, but never consistently. I feel like they have been getting more frequent of late though, so this is clearly building up to something. I like Rita as I appreciate that she is really well-intentioned, but tonight her behaviour was appalling.

Does anyone else feel that Rita is a complete re-hash of Eddi from Holby City? I'll give the producers the benefit of the doubt, as it must be hard to come up with characters who are totally original and not like anyone we've seen in the past, but they seem very similar to me - very capable, well-intentioned and even compassionate, but have dark secrets that eventually catch up with them, and ultimately make them considerably poor nurses than they should be (despite having the potential to do really well). They even look somewhat alike, with the very short hair and the attitude.

What - i missed that.. Rita didn't do a rape kit?

She tried, but she had jumped to the conclusion that the woman had actually been raped, when in fact she hadn't been, she was having an affair consensually. The patient was trying to dissuade her, but Rita wasn't listening, and by the time she actually admitted what had happened, Rita screamed at her for wasting time.

Didn't Connie 'order' them to persuade Charlie to go ?

Ahh, poor Rita !

What an idiot Ash - Rita was clearly desperately in need of talking to someone for support & Ash just scorns her & orders her home while she was clearly distressed.

How comes Cal & Ethan are a class apart ? They're meant to be brothers but Cal talks without the 'Plum' in his gob like Ethan.

I'm not liking the 'let's get rid of Charlie' campaign - again totally bang out of order just to save a few quid. Get rid of a vastly experienced nurse that is the equivalent of a human BMA [British Medical Association] catalogue & replace with a younger & much cheaper fresh face with no idea of how a hospital runs.

Go Geoffrey ! The Dixie/Geoff marriage is nothing but a sham - like they would even still be living together as a real 'couple' never mind adopting kids - ridonkulas storyline.

Overall I liked this episode.

The conversation between Ash and Rita reminded me a lot of a scene in early series 1 between Megan and a male nurse called Clive - he was only in the first series and he was a pretty decent, likeable character, but he did have alcohol issues. Megan caught him drinking and told him gently but firmly that she wouldn't report him this time because she believed he could sort it out, but she'd be watching him and if it happened again she would do. It's a really nice scene - I think it's in Episode 2.

I'm slowly falling in love with Max.
Rita's downward spiral has great potential...if only she would stop the auto-pilot of shouting at anyone and everyone.
I already miss Zoe.

Ditto I think that in the intervening interval providing Max isn't leaving that they show him moving out of the porters role and doing something more patient based? Even looking at nurse training? He seems to have great empathy just lacks the training I loved the whole chess brain non reveal

Ditto

I still cannot warm to Rita, I agree with the other poster, why has she not been sacked yet? I still find her high and mighty attitude thinking she is better than everyone and thinks she is right all time time puts me off her

I really like Max most of the time, but he annoyed me last night. He seemed very interfering when Lily was trying to treat a patient, wanting to get photos and things. He was very unprofessional, and I think was probably second worst after Rita. Which is a shame, because usually he's one of the ones I like.

I get it's probably what's intended but I just have a hard time seeing Rita as compassionate: She says and even does all the right things, sometimes, but she's just too hard for me to see any real feeling behind it, like she knows on an intellectual level what the right thing to do is but that's as far as it goes. A lot of the time she seems to be motivated by anger more than anything else: Here, she was more interested in seeing the supposed attacker punished than actually comforting the alleged victim, to the point that when Ash tries to pull her up on it she says she's not going to treat her with kid gloves. Even when she arranged for that elderly lady to get a last phone call from her partner, it seemed to be at least partly because she was angry with the care home manager and wanted to show him what he should be doing.

Yeah, I felt somewhat the same. As soapyjoe's has said, I think Max, if he's staying any length of time, needs to become at the very least a HCA so he can have more interaction with patients without simply disappearing off with them. Porter is a dodgy role in Casualty as it can be tough to have much to actually do in the line of actual duty.

And he needs to stay cause I love him

Rita can go though, absolutely shocking behaviour this week.

Casualty doesn't appear to be on next Saturday due to the Proms

I love Max so much! I think it's quite difficult to get the role of porter right - Big Mac was always good, but sometimes he didn't feature much and that's why I'm glad he's now with the paramedics. Every time Max is on screen I care about what he's doing - even if he's only got one line! I think some of that is due to Jamie as the way he delivers the script is brilliant.

Wasn't Big Mac a porter before he became an ambulance man (paramedic ?).

I think he was, yes. Like Sez_babe says, it's better he's now a paramedic as it gives him more to do. Porters always feel a little surplus to requirements. Max basically does no actual work as far as I can see! I imagine much of a porter's job involves moving around the hospital so he'd never be in the department very much (this is pure conjecture - someone with some knowledge of hospitals should step in at this stage...)

^^This! And especially BIB

I'd guess that we're supposed to see her as damaged by mistakenly defending her husband when she thought he was innocent. So she feels guilty about the damage he did that she appeared to condone and she overcompensates by wanting harsh punishments for everyone she thinks is guilty of some kind of abuse. But it's coming across as if she's hard and vindictive, and that the only exercise she gets is jumping to conclusions.. I'm just hoping they'll calm it down once they think we've got the point.

Exactly this - generally porters work hospital wide, and go where they are needed. They pick a patient up here, drop them there, collect specimens here, drop them there etc. Some departments have their own porters, but they are usually places like operating theatres, where the porters have to wear scrubs follow stricter infection control. It's unlikely A&E would have their own dedicated porters.

Incidentally, I don't think Big Mac is a Paramedic - I think he's an ECA (Emergency Care Assistant) - basically a health care assistant but in an ambulance rather than on a ward. Ambulance crews these days are starting to consist of a Paramedic and an ECA rather than two Paramedics. ECAs are less qualified than Paramedics and work under their supervision - Paramedics must still perform certain procedures and administer controlled drugs etc.

I think Max could easily be a nurse or at least an HCA. As it's been said, he definitely has empathy with people.

Absolutely - and if Holby's anything like our local A&E, they are desperate for HCAs.

Actually, thinking about it, where are all the HCAs in Holby A&E?

No idea... at least as an HCA Max would be spending more time with patients - which he seems to like. Whatever happens, I hope he stays for a long, long time.



..........and still I will ask - when can Lee Mead have more than 3 lines an episode? Lofty has had one episode so far where he is the lead.

You sometimes see them flitting around in the background as non-speaking roles. I can't remember a HCA since Alice in series 22 (but I could be wrong!), and before that, Tony moved from being a security guard to a HCA.

Yes, it is really strange. He needs something to get his teeth into. Stop giving Rita loads of screen time as she needs suspending for her attitude recently, and give Lofty something to do!