'Call The Midwife's Penultimate Episode of Season 12 Celebrates Family

You don’t expect to see a caravan (a tiny trailer) parked between looming brick buildings in London, but that’s what Call the Midwife’s penultimate episode opens on, as that’s where the O’Connor family lives, construction worker Maurice (Niall McNamee), his pregnant wife Imelda (Gráinne Good), and their toddler son Paul, with another baby due very soon. Nurse Nancy is concerned that Imelda is evasive about where she’ll give birth — clearly not here, with no running water — but the young woman doesn’t want another hospital birth.

Nancy suggests the maternity home, which will provide her with the warmth and support her first birth lacked, but both Imelda and Maurice hope they’ll get permanent housing any day. Poplar can’t build new homes as fast as it demolishes the old, and the many displaced families make do as best they can, their names placed on a local council Housing List.

The next step is to apply in person at the Council Offices and wait to be assigned housing. It’s more than likely, given the demand, that they’ll return day after day. The O’Connors know their time in the caravan is limited, but to come home and find an empty space littered with their belongings is their worst nightmare, raising an even greater fear that the family, now officially homeless, will be separated. Maurice breaks into an abandoned building so they have shelter for the night. They can’t afford anything else.