Toxic Town episode 1 recap: what happens to Tracey's baby?

Toxic Town is a four-part limited Netflix series depicting the real-life story of one of the UK’s biggest environmental scandals.

In the Northamptonshire town of Corby, a cluster of birth defects affected the lives of many mothers and children born in the mid 1980s to 1990s. Dubbed as the “British Erin Brokovich,” it follows the mothers’ fight for justice against the council who spilled toxic waste across the town while trying to reclaim the area left behind by closed-down steelworks. The cast includes Jodie Whittaker, Aimee Lou Wood, Rory Kinnear, Robert Carlyle, Claudia Jessie, Joe Dempsie and many more.

Here's a recap of everything that happened in Toxic Town episode 1.

The episode opens with the words, “Based on a true story of the Corby mothers’ fight for justice. Some events and characters have been changed or created for dramatic purposes.” Archive footage of the Corby plant shows some of the thousands of Scottish people who moved to the town to work there. In 1979, it shut as British Steel announced the loss of over 10,000 jobs. More archive footage shows protests and the description that Corby Council launched a massive reclamation project across the steelworks land to stop the town from dying. Final archive footage shows the collapse of the steelworks and huge demolitions.

It cuts to Susan (Jodie Whittaker) singing karaoke at a bar in Corby, 1995. Her partner Peter brings her a drink and sings with her on stage. Afterwards, they return home to the babysitter, drunk and happy. Elsewhere, a young woman called Tracey leaves work. She sprays her car down, which is covered in dust, so she can drive it home. She crawls into bed with her husband and tells him she’s ovulating and they make love. Back at Susan's, they’re also getting intimate.

Another day, Tracey is sitting on the toilet smiling with a positive pregnancy test. And it cuts to Susan who also has a positive pregnancy test - though she doesn’t look as happy. As their little boy runs around the house, she tells Peter and they cuddle.

It cuts to Corby Borough Council where Councillor Sam Hagen (Robert Carlyle) is trying to speak to Roy, the deputy leader, to ask him if he can chair the railway committee. He says Corby needs a railway station and he is the man to do it. Roy is a little dismissive to this request. Roy then speaks to a group of councillors about how Corby was built for steel and now, they’re trying to build a new Corby. He unveils a prototype model of the plan for Corby, as well as artist’s interpretations of how they'll boost tourism and growth. He wants to clean up the steelworks once and for all.

It cuts to the old steelworks land and a construction company, Rhodes and Miller, are busy digging it out. A young inspector from the council, Ted, is asking questions about why the workers aren’t wearing masks or using wheel washers. He calls the land poisoned and explains that the reports for the soil in the area show iron, arsenic, chromium, cadmium and calcium. His boss, Bill Martin, and the man running the site, Pat, don’t seem bothered at all. Trucks full of wet soil waste move through the streets of Corby at high speed, and one driver, Derek (Joe Dempsie), starts racing another driver in the mountainside before dumping the soil into huge pits.

Meanwhile, Susan is now heavily pregnant. Peter tells her the doctor said she could take her ‘happy pills’ if she needs to, but she says she doesn’t need her Valium, especially not when she's pregnant. Derek arrives home, but before he goes indoors, he strips all his dirtied clothes off into a basket outside. He explains to his wife, Maggie, that because he's done his work so quickly, he’ll get a bonus. She asks him if he’s spoken to Pat about getting more responsibility and being in the office more. She hangs up his clothes and beats them with a racket to get the dust and dirt off.

At Tracey’s scan, the doctor finds a heartbeat but asks to keep her in overnight. She’s concerned the baby isn’t moving enough. On the ward, Tracey meets Susan. Susan strikes up a conversation and tells Tracey she’s got diabetes, so they've got her in too for observation. Peter brings Susan in some flowers and chocolates and recognises Tracey. He explains they work together and she pays his wages.

The young council worker, Ted, arrives home. His dad is unwell and tells him the town is on a death slide and he needs to leave. The next day, Ted arrives at Corby Borough Council. He goes to see Roy, the deputy leader. He tells him his dad says hi and that he used to work up at the plant. He raises his concerns about the Rhodes and Miller plant. He says he wrote a report on it, but Bill Martin took it off him and wrote a report that has omitted the concerns he had about the plant. Roy says Ted is making trouble and that he should be helping the local men.

At home, Susan’s waters break. At the same time, Tracey also goes into the hospital to have her baby. When Susan’s baby is born, the nurses are concerned and they bring the doctor in. While they check him over, Peter goes over to see and tells Susan there’s something wrong with his hand. Meanwhile, Tracey gives birth and while the baby seems fine, the nurses are concerned about Tracey bleeding. As they take her baby away, she notices something wrong with her ear, but they say she needs to focus on birthing the placenta and tensions are raised. Tracey passes out from blood loss.

Later on, Tracey wakes up in the hospital. Her husband is waiting for her and says he thought she was going to die. She asks to hold her baby who she calls Shelby. With Susan, the doctor is looking at his hand deformity and says they’ll be taking Connor home now. The doctor suggests they'll take a couple of toes and graft them to his hand over time. Peter is withdrawn and Susan seems worried. She voices her concerns, blaming herself, that it was her fault for taking Valium before she was pregnant.

At Derek’s home, him and Maggie are pregnant again. He says he wanted to save money and do the extension before they had another kid, but they're excited. At the Rhodes and Miller plant, Pat reveals they got another contract in Middlehampton and Derek asks if he can work in the office. He says he’ll set him right, but doesn’t know what he’d do without his best driver.

Susan returns home to her eldest son, Daniel, and the babysitter. Immediately, Peter leaves to go and drink at the pub, leaving her with two kids. In the hospital, Tracey is worried Shelby doesn’t want to feed but the nurse reassures her.

Meanwhile, down at the pub, Ted sits alone at the bar while Roy and the rest of the Labour councillors drink and celebrate Roy’s birthday. Pat finds Ted at the bar. Ted explains how unwell his dad is and Pat tries to defend what the council are doing in trying to fix Corby and Ted says he agrees, but it should be done the right way. Pat pokes a £20 note in his pocket and Ted rejects it. At the same pub, Peter turns up for a pint. He starts hitting on the bar woman and she reveals she just had a baby. As Ted gets up to leave, he catches Sam’s eye who is sitting at the table of councillors.

Ted goes back to the council that night and goes into Bill Martin’s office. In Bill's filing cabinet, he looks at the health and safety budget report for the Rhodes and Miller plant - worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. Meanwhile, at the hospital, Tracey calls desperately for a nurse’s help, while at home, Susan stares at Connor crying and can't bring herself to pick him up. Back at the office, Ted looks through the tender documents and sees that Bill, Roy and Pat have signed off that the soil report has passed for toxic chemicals - the ones he found present in the soil. Ted photocopies the files.

At the same time, Tracey continues calling for a nurse to come. As she tries to get out of bed herself, she collapses to the floor and crawls out yelling for help. A nurse finally comes to help. Back at the offices, Sam finds Ted making photocopies, but leaves him to it.

Peter arrives home to Susan who is still staring at Connor. It’s late and he’s drunk. He won’t pick up his son and he goes to bed. Ted goes home and hides the photocopied reports under his dad’s mattress. At the hospital, Tracey sits with her husband in the corridor and tells him the doctors said there are things wrong everywhere with Shelby. The doctor tells them Shelby’s heart only has two chambers, as well as developmental defects to her lungs and other challenges. For this, they must discuss options.

Susan arrives home with the kids and her eldest son, Daniel, is coughing. She goes upstairs and finds Peter packing a bag to leave. He said it’s not what he wanted and that Susan can’t stand to touch their son either. He gets in his car and drives off. As she stands outside, another truck full of soil from the plant drives by.

At Ted’s house, two men are smashing up his car. As he chases them off, his car sets ablaze and he watches it burn. At home, Susan picks up Connor who is crying and settles him down. Out in the town the next day, she runs into the barmaid, Pattie, from the pub that Peter tried to hit on. She’s walking with her newborn son and Susan notices he also has a hand deformity, just like Connor. Pattie catches her staring and is offended, until Susan reveals her son also has the same problem. They stare at each other.

It cuts to cemetery where Tracey arrives with flowers to a grave. On the cross, the name of her daughter, Shelby. She takes out a duster to wipe off the dirt from the plaque. At Maggie's home, she stops cleaning down the dust off her windows for a moment to feel her baby kick. Meanwhile at the park, Susan sits with Connor and tells him that she’ll set it right for him. The shot pans over the streets of Corby with the steelworks looming over the town in the background.

All episodes of Toxic Town are available to stream on Netflix now.