Donna Jackson causes a catastrophic collision in Casualty episode Hooke’s Law (BBC One, 8.25 pm, Saturday, July 22, 2023 — see our TV Guide for listings) when she falls asleep at the wheel.
Faith Cadogan becomes increasingly devious as her addiction takes over… which means trouble for Iain Dean.
Sah Brockner desperately wants to come clean to Teddy Gowan about kissing Paige Allcott.
Elsewhere, Jan Jenning faces Ffion Morgan in an emotional showdown. And Rida Amaan appears to be struggling… What’s going on with the trainee nurse?
Full Casualty spoilers below…
Donna Jackson in horror crash
Donna Jackson is looking forward to a much-needed day off, but when she’s forced to work back-to-back shifts, disaster strikes…
Since taking on the role of nurse manager, single mum Donna (Jaye Jacobs) has faced the daunting task of turning the ED around, while also taking care of her daughters, Mia and Amber.
This week’s Casualty opens with Donna standing in shock at the scene of a deadly looking car crash, before jumping back in time to 16 hours earlier and revealing what has led to this horrific accident.
How it begins
We go back in time to see Donna at work on a relentless night shift, tired but relieved that she has the following day off. So when a call comes in cancelling her leave, Donna is deeply disappointed as she hasn’t seen her family all week. She vents to a sympathetic Charlie Fairhead (Derek Thompson) but realises there’s not much she can do about it...
Torn between home and work
The next day Donna wakes up bone-weary, and leaves instructions with her adopted daughter Mia Barron (Briana Shann, I, Daniel Blake, Doctor Who, Holby City) to pick Amber up from school and make her dinner.
Donna then rushes out the door and arrives at work utterly exhausted, but determined to push through. Unfortunately, she pushes herself too far during a shocker of a shift!
Life and death in Holby ED
At work Donna hits the ground running when distraught Malik Abdallah (The Swimmers’ Aso Sherabayani) frantically bursts into the ED with his wife Sufia. Malik doesn’t speak English so Donna relies on nurse Rida Amaan to communicate with him with her limited Arabic.
Rida (Sarah Seggari) manages to decipher that Sufia collapsed and Malik broke down a door in their home to bring her to the ED. At this point Rida begins to suspect that Sufia may have had a stroke and that, unknown to Malik, she is also pregnant.
Armed with Rida’s information, the team led by Dylan and Donna, spring into action to save mother and baby. Sadly, there’s a tragic death, and with no interpreter available it’s up to an overwhelmed Rida to break the awful news to Malik. Rida’s imperfect translation, however, results in panic from Malik and soon security arrives on the scene.
Rida and Donna manage to calm the situation down, and Malik leaves the ED promising to return with a translator, unaware of the full details of what’s just happened with his wife and baby…
Driven to exhaustion
In the meantime Donna’s shift remains hectic. In the midst of the chaos the frazzled nurse gets a call from Amber that her older sister has left her home alone. Panicked, Donna drops everything!
She races home to stop her hungry, unsupervised youngster from using the oven. But, on the drive, utterly exhausted Donna tragically falls asleep at the wheel veering into the path of an oncoming car, causing a catastrophic crash.
Has the dead tired nurse killed someone?
Rida’s secret struggles
The day gets off to a bad start for trainee nurse Rida Amaan. First she’s given a dressing down from Donna for being late for the third time in a week. Then she’s propelled into urgently helping Malik and Sufia.
It’s a race against time to save the mother and baby, and sadly not both of them make it. Rida does her utmost to tell Malik what’s happened, but he doesn’t completely understand the situation and lashes out — accidentally assaulting Rida!
There’s more heartache later when Malik returns with his neighbour Omar Aziz (Making Tracks’ Ramzi Dehani), and Rida must break the news all over again.
The whole situation hits close to home for the young nurse and leaves the normally stoic Rida reduced to tears and feeling vulnerable and disillusioned with the job. You can’t help but think there's something going on in her private life, which is causing her anguish…
Jan and Ffion face-off!
Jan Jenning’s path crosses with Ffion Morgan’s for the first time since their bitter breakup.
Ffion has called the paramedics as her working partner Siobhan Callaghan has impaled her foot while in pursuit of a suspect.
While poor Siobhan (The Peripheral’s Roisin Browne) is in a lot of pain, it's clear that both Jan (Di Botcher) and Ffion (Stirling Gallacher) are also suffering.
That evening Ffion pays Jan a visit to the ambulance station, where they have a charged heart-to-heart about Jan’s secret decision to help her ex-husband Gethin West (Bob Pugh) end his life.
Emotions are raw and running high, but has trust been broken beyond repair?
Faith’s two faces
Speaking of trust, Faith Cadogan and Iain Dean’s rocky relationship is tested to its limits this week.
Following the explosive events in Burning Bridges, Iain (Michael Stevenson) and Faith (Kirsty Mitchell) have agreed to stay together and the madly-in-love paramedic is desperate to keep his partner clean and off drugs.
The problem is, Faith isn’t remotely clean and is becoming increasingly devious as her addiction takes complete control…
This week, duped Iain asks Faith to take regular drug tests to ensure she’s on the straight and narrow. Shocked, Faith agrees, but it isn’t long before she’s using a vulnerable patient, Chelsea Boardman, to obtain a pee sample and keep up her facade of being drug free.
Yet there are still glimpses of who Faith truly is…
As she treats teenager Chelsea (Alice Darling), Faith’s compassion and caring nature shines through. When it becomes obvious that the 16-year-old is hiding something, Faith carefully gets to the bottom of the issue in what turns out to be a shocking storyline.
With the help of Ryan Firth (Eddie-Joe Robinson), who’s really beginning to show his worth as a nurse, Faith helps Chelsea with a dark and disturbing secret and goes the extra mile to ensure the youngster knows there’s light at the end of the tunnel.
That said, by the end of the shift, Iain’s doubts about Faith’s trustworthiness come spilling out. As he opens up about being deeply committed to her and how far he’s willing to go to help, Faith realises she won’t be able to keep the truth about her drug addiction from him for much longer.
In a heated moment, she makes a cutting decision about their future, and Iain is left reeling…
Is this the end of the line?
Also in Casualty this week
Clinical lead, Max Cristie (Nigel Harman) remains off work following the pub explosion that nearly killed him. Which means consultant Dylan Keogh (William Beck) is holding the fort. Why is Max taking so much time off? Could it be related to Nigel Harman’s revelations in this exclusive interview? And does Dylan know more than he’s letting on?
Elsewhere, Sah Brockner is consumed by guilt since sharing a passionate kiss with Paige Allcott!
This week Paige (Shalisha James-Davis) shuts down Sah (Arin Smethurst) when they explain why they want to come clean. Paige, however, is adamant that the kiss meant nothing and no one needs to know. Does Paige protest too much?
Meanwhile, Teddy Gowan (Milo Clarke) can tell something is up, as both his girlfriend and best mate are being suspiciously distant with him.
Will a guilt ridden Sah confess everything?
And finally, despite their heart-to-heart about broken trust, Ffion sets the wheels in motion for a shocking twist, which she hopes to take with her to the grave!
Casualty episode Hooke’s Law airs on Saturday, July 22, 2023, at 8.25 pm on BBC One. It will be available on BBC iPlayer after transmission.
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