Last time I made a few predictions as to what I thought might happen in part two. Let’s see how well I did.

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Christmas lights SOS

Episode two starts right where we left off last time, with the girls huddled together in the dining room.

Mary-Lou thinks the noises are a ghost while Gwen, somehow practical for now, thinks it’s an intruder.

Darrell doesn’t pick a side, but wants to tell the grown-ups. But how, without a phone?

Smarty pants Ellen drifts over to the Christmas tree and looks at the lights…

One point to me as Ellen rigs up a way to make the lights flash in morse code (without her having to turn them on/off either, all automatic. Very impressive). I liked the girls’ different reactions to this. Mary-Lou just thought it was pretty, Gwen, derisive as ever, asked what good it was, while sensible Sally identified not only morse code but the letters it was spelling too.

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The ghost/intruder and a fight

I was glad to have watched this in the early evening while Ewan was in the kitchen cooking. I’m also glad that a few others have said they found it very spooky watching and it isn’t just me. Anyway, the girls and the viewer see a figure crossing the hall. Looks like a little old lady to me, am I heading for a second point?

Having barricaded themselves in the dining room, their attention turns back to food, but Gwen doesn’t want them to touch anything in her hamper.

I’m not entirely sure about her motivation here. Is she just being sentimental, not wanting anyone to share the last gift she gets from her parents when they were together, practical, and not wanting to share what might be the last generous gift she gets if her parents are to split (does she think her father won’t provide for them any more?) or is she thinking that she will need to keep the food for running away?

Darrell and Gwen have a row over it – and I think Darrell’s behaviour is some of the closest to the book we’ve seen from her. She’s angry and impulsive, and although she doesn’t slap anyone, she really lets rip.

No wonder your parents don’t want you for Christmas with your mean spirit. If that’s how you’re going to be then we don’t want you either.

It’s just a shame that instead of doling out a sharp shock to Gwen when she really deserves it, she’s just sounding mean as she doesn’t have the full picture.

In her favour, she retains book-Darrell’s sense of right and wrong and (somewhat pigheadedly) insists that she is the only person who can put things right. This means going off alone to search for Gwen later, when they can’t find her in the school.

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Christmas stockings, missing school girls and lassie the horse

In a sweet moment we see Mary-Lou hanging some brown school socks by the fire – it is Christmas eve, after all. Darrell says Mary-Lou, never change! and I have to agree with that sentiment.

Sadly come morning the socks are still empty, and Gwen is gone. Given that the girls are sleeping uncomfortably on the floor with just a few cushions and blankets, and there was a big heavy table in front of the door I wonder just how Gwen got out without waking anyone. But perhaps we are supposed to assume it is a ghostly kidnapping.

In our second scene at Bill’s we see Thunder whinnying and rearing, almost breaking his rope, seemingly in response to the SOS coming from Malory Towers. The lights are phenomenally and unrealistically bright, seeing as it’s now daylight.

The girls conversation sort of mimics the one that took place in the dining room, with Bill noting that the lights are flashing, Irene pointing out that they are making a tune (or a pattern), and Jean recognising the SOS code.

Two points to me as Bill and Thunder find Matron and Miss Grayling still asleep in the car – must be very comfortable for them! However I did not predict that Miss Grayling would commandeer Thunder and ride off to Malory Towers.

Bill rode ahead for speed while supposedly Irene and Jean are coming behind on other horses, but we don’t get to see that. Either they can’t ride or the budget didn’t stretch to three horses. We don’t actually see Bill riding either, actually, but we do see her on Thunder’s back and then dismounting – I assume we see her (or her double?) riding him in series 3. So not quite the dramatic ride to the rescue I was picturing, but it did happen, just off screen.

We also see Miss Grayling ride off – though only from the back so I assume a double was used here. We do see her sitting on Thunder after she arrives at the school, at least.

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Tying up loose ends

In a true horror-movie moment the girls find Mary-Lou’s socks have been filled with toys, most noticeably a creepy doll. I am convinced by this point that it’s great granny Mary, particularly as the girls notice the names on the stockings are those of Miss Grayling’s family.

Continuing the horror theme with a moment that reminded me of The Others, the girls turn to see a figure standing by the window shrouded in a tartan blanket, just like Gwen earlier. They think it’s Gwen. I’m shouting IT’S NOT HER at the screen.

Spoilers!!

It’s great granny Mary! Perhaps even scarier than the supposed haunting is that Mary clearly has some form of dementia and thinks she is back working at the big house. She has followed her old routine, opening windows in the nursery and school room, putting presents in the empty stockings, and so on.

Everyone reunites after this. Ron and his brother turn up looking for their great granny. Matron, Bill, Jean and Irene arrive – with the food of course.

Darrell brings back Gwen, having found her waiting for a bus that was never going to arrive seeing as it’s Christmas day.

And lastly, poor Mary-Lou who, bless her, has been locked out since Darrell left earlier, manages to climb in a window and join them too.

The girls, kind as ever, try to make Gwen feel better by pointing out that they don’t all come from conventional families either. Ellen doesn’t see her parents and lives with her aunt, Irene only has her Papa, Sally’s mother has remarried.

And to bookmark these specials, we end on a song – We Wish You A Merry Christmas.

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Other thoughts

Mary-Lou getting locked out was quite funny and rather on-character. Nobody noticed she was missing. I knew she had been locked out but as the scenes changed between Darrell and Gwen/Sally, Ellen and Mary/Miss Grayling arriving and so on, even I didn’t notice she wasn’t amongst them later. Her understated “Oh bother” when she realises the door was locked was very funny, as was her climbing in the window later.

We see a new bit of Malory Towers (though it may well have been in series 3 of course) a sort courtyard area where Mary-Lou gets locked out and Miss Grayling arrives on Thunder.

Mr Lacey comes off even worse by the end of this episode, despite not appearing again. Miss Grayling reveals that he’d implied that he’d already told Gwen about the divorce, when he’d done no such thing and was planning to let her find out from her mother’s letter.

One nitpick – great granny Mary is in the dining room (I picture it as being on the ground floor, first left as you come in) with Sally and Ellen, but when Miss Grayling arrives she is sitting on the ledge of an open window on the first floor (the one in the screencap above). It’s obviously not the same room, as the dining room window is a very large bay window covered in lights, the other is a smaller arched window with snowflakes on it. In the next scene at the school they are all in the dining room again, but the establishing shot beforehand is of the outside of what could be the dining room window, only without any lights on it.

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Final thoughts

I enjoyed these Christmas specials more than I thought I might. As I said in my review of part one, the fact that there is no canon to deviate from helps. I couldn’t even find much in the way of nitpicks. There are a few contrivances and conveniences to ensure the girls are left alone (the car breaking down, the phone lines going down, the wind stopping the grown-ups making their way back on foot etc), but these are necessary for the story, and not too unbelievable.

I noticed that they are not the most Christmassy episodes, as the main plot is the ‘ghost’ and Gwen’s turmoil, but there are festive touches here and there. This probably makes them more watchable at other times of year.

The acting, as always, was superb, and the sets, props and costumes looked great.

I did find them very spooky, even going back to grab screencaps and only skimming through to find the moments I wanted to share.

I’m pleased that I predicted so much right as I’m normally not good at that (I know it’s a children’s programme, but still.) I’m not sure how many children would have worked out who the ghost was, so they might have had more of a shock when it wasn’t Gwen under the blanket.