*Warning: Emotional and packed with spoilers from the last Holby City episode!*
The last ever Holby City episode opened with characteristic gallows humour from Jac Naylor and ended with her narrating the closing scenes. As the credits rolled a poignant rendition of the well-known theme tune was played, while photographs of the cast throughout the show’s twenty-three-year history were displayed.
Jam-packed with emotion, hope, loss, fondness and, as ever, sharp, funny and punchy dialogue, What to Watch has gathered the best quotes from Jac Naylor’s opening quips to her emotional end narration…
Holby City favourites Jac Naylor and Reverend Lexy, side-by-side in hospital beds
Reverend Lexy: “Life’s full of little surprises.”
Jac Naylor: “Thank you, Forrest Gump!”
Nicky McKendrick asks Jac for advice before performing her first surgery on a beating heart
Nicky McKendrick: “I’ve never done one of these before…”
Jac Naylor: “Just get your ass in there and do the job. Screw it up and you’ll have me to answer to.”
Nicky McKendrick: “Don’t I always.”
Words to live by...
Fletch and Jac, when asks him to get her a pen and paper
Fletch: “I’ve got to warn you, I was the king of noughts and crosses at my school.”
We don't doubt it!
Jac then asks him to write her an advance directive refusing any more treatment
Fletch: “Why now?”
Jac Naylor: “Because it’s time. Because I'm tired, Fletch... Write the letter.”
Fletch: “I just hate the thought of you giving up.”
Jac Naylor: “Giving up… Let me tell you about giving up. Letting this thing take control, wipe out my mind, leaving me delirious and doubly incontinent. That is giving up… I have never been clearer about anything in my life. Please Fletch, do this one thing for me.”
We've got something in our eye...
Jac to Elliot Hope when he wants to try another treatment…
Jac Naylor: “You're already done everything you could.”
Elliot Hope: “I just want to give you another chance.”
Jac Naylor: “It’s impossible.”
Elliot Hope: “I thought you didn’t believe in impossible.”
Jac Naylor: “I don’t want you taking me back into theatre and then blaming yourself when things don’t work out again… What I need is some peace and quiet.”
Something it both eyes, actually...
Jac Naylor’s last words…
Sacha Levy: “Elliot has booked you in for a scan. I've drawn the short straw and I’m riding shotgun.”
Jac Naylor: “You two really are a pair of old women.”
Sacha Levy: “Well, humour a sad, old woman… You love me really.”
Jac Naylor: “You know I do.”
At this point, Jac suffers a stroke and falls unconscious. Fletch is forced to tell her friends that she’s got an ADRT (Advanced decision to refuse treatment) as they prepare to save her... Let's be honest, we're crying.
Tributes to Jac after news spread about her death
Hospital CEO Henrik Hanssen: “Her absence will be felt for years to come."
Transplant surgeon Mo Effanga (Chizzy Akudolu) on learning of Jac’s death: “Calling the shots till the last.. I thought she’d find a way to beat it.”
And later: “She’s making a difference to a lot of lives.”
Holby City friends fondly remembering Jac at her bedside
Nicky McKendrick: “I remember the first time she called me foetus. No one had ever spoken to me like that.”
Sacha Levy: “She once said I looked like a bin bag full of yoghurt.”
Elliot Hope: “Paddington Bear with a stethoscope.”
Fletch: “Poundshop Pearly King.”
Nicky McKendrick: “And then one day, she called me Nicky.”
During the transplant surgery
Elliot Hope: “She’ll be with us all the way.”
After Jac’s transplant
Fletch: “Gotta go. Love you Jac.”
Jac Naylor narrating over the final scenes
Jac Naylor: “It took me a long time to find a place I belonged. Somewhere to call home.
“It wasn’t with my mother or the carers she dumped me on when she walked out of my life. It certainly wasn’t with any man.
“It was when I first walked into a theatre, and breathed in that rarified air, realising my hands could save lives. I knew then, on day one, I'd found my place in the world. Somewhere I belonged.
“This is what the NHS means to us. Not a badge on a cabinet minister’s lapel. Not a number down the side of a bus.
“It’s a nurse missing her break to sit with a lonely patient. A surgeon grinding out a 15-hour op. The sound of sirens coming to the rescue. Thursday night applause floating across the rooftops.
“It’s all of us doing the best we can in impossible circumstances. It’s something to believe in. It’s home.”
Something tells us, this is going to be a re-watch episode...
Jac Naylor - Rosie Marcel
Henrik Hanssen - Guy Henry
Lexy Dunblane - Jenny Howe
Fletch - Alex Walkinshaw
Nicky McKendrick - Belinda Owusu
Sacha Levy - Bob Barrett
Elliot Hope - Paul Bradley
Mo Effanga - Chizzy Akudolu
