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Clip description
The villainous Liz (Margaret Laurence) visits the incarcerated Gary (Mike Ferguson) to taunt him about the murder for which she has set him up to take the blame.
Curator’s notes
The second last segment of the 1975 finale sees the series’ current villainess in her element as she schemes to kill off her husband and destroy another enemy in the process.
After becoming Arnold Feather’s (Jeff Kevin) second wife, Liz slowly reveals herself to be a poisonous psycho out to murder her husband and seize control of (the apparently rather profitable) delicatessen. In hothead Gary Whittaker, she finds herself a perfect fall man – he has been blamed for attempting to poison Arnold. Lawyer Don Finlayson (Joe Hasham) is the only person to believe Gary might be innocent but even he can’t believe that sweet Liz would be implicated. He arranges for Liz to visit Gary in jail in the hope that she can persuade him to ‘tell the truth’.
Although Gary is handcuffed for the interview, it is ludicrous that police would leave Liz alone in a room with him. And given Gary’s claim that Liz is the guilty party, surely the room would be bugged with police wanting to listen to every word of their conversation? Police procedurals in Number 96 were never the show’s specialty, but why quibble when Liz is in full flight wishing for Gary to be hanged? His future looks very bleak by this scene’s end.
Liz’s true nature is finally revealed the following year and she is sent to jail, leaving Arnold free to take a third wife in the show’s final episode in 1977. Gary continues to be a quick-tempered Aussie bloke who tries to shoot mad bomber Maggie Cameron (Bettina Welch) when she is put on trial for murdering his father Les.
