The Replacement Finale Review and why Paula is NOT a psychopath!

The finale of The Replacement aired last night on BBC One and I thought it was brilliant, perfectly understandable and incredibly smart. However, according to social media, a vast majority of viewers disagreed with my opinion. Most thought the finale was confusing, left a load of unanswered questions and was just plain unrealistic. To be honest, these comments left me somewhat 'gobsmacked,' and I was highly surprised that most viewers complained about the storyline and failed to praise the writer for addressing mental health in women and also failed to praised the fantastic acting of both Morven Christie and Vicky McClure! This drama did not get the recognition and applause that it deserved and I'm prepared to give it!

Considering that I watched the drama live on BBC iplayer last night and through my headphones (I prefer to give great BBC dramas my full attention) I heard the dialogue word for word. Upon doing this, I fear I am the only viewer who actually understood the drama and the intentions behind Paula's behaviour.

Paula's intention was never to kidnap baby Lia and to treat her as her own flesh and blood. In the car she told Ellen; "The sooner you sleep, the sooner I'll be there with the police" and "I'll write to her (Lia) as soon as she can read" - this tells us that Paula's intention was to always go to the police and hand herself in, and she obviously knew that she was going to prison.
Personally, I think the whole thing was to encourage Ellen to fight for her daughter in a way that Paula never fought for hers. She even gave Ellen clues on Lia's location at the library by mentioning reading and writing and announcing; "Maybe one day I'll bring her back there" - 'there' can only be the library, right?

During the whole episode, Paula was projecting her experiences of motherhood on to Ellen. Paula assumed that Ellen didn't care about her daughter, she didn't fight for her and that she neglected her...maybe this is how Paula feels about herself and the relationship that she had with her own daughter (Caris).
Perhaps in punishing Ellen, she was punishing herself and when Ellen saved Lia, maybe in a way Paula felt like she had saved Caris.
Maybe, Paula was experiencing 'catharsis' (the release of tension and anxiety from bringing repressed emotions and memories into the consciousness), and this was triggered when Paula met Ellen for the first time while Ellen was pregnant - bringing Paula's own feelings towards her own daughter back to the surface.

I must admit, during the first two episodes, I found Paula to be a psychopath but upon discovering about the death of her daughter and realising the reason for her behaviour; I see Paula to be less of a psychopath and more as a grieving mother, who, somehow, wanted to fight for her child again in a way that she felt she never did. When Ellen and Lia came along, they simply acted as 'stand-ins' for Paula and Caris and with them, Paula managed to play out an alternative fantasy ending in which she got to rescue her daughter.

If Paula's little experiment/fantasy was to encourage Ellen to fight for her daughter and to see how far she was willing to go (I believe it was because Paula was neither surprised or distraught to see Ellen reunited with her baby in the library, or to see she had survived the overdose), it makes me question the extent of Paula's method. Could it be that the pills that Paula goaded Ellen to take were really harmless? Could it be that Paula just wanted to see the extreme lengths that Ellen was willing to go to save her baby? - even if it meant to sacrifice her own life? I feel that Paula just wanted to know if Ellen was a deserving Mother, and in the end, Ellen really came through and became the deserving Mother that she always wanted to be - and maybe Paula even approved..

Apart from the amazing acting, and storyline, the dialogue in the finale was an essential key to understanding the plot. The dialogue between Ellen and Paula in the garage was specially important (If you missed a single word, it would have been confusing to know how Ellen knew where Lia was and how Paula ended up with the police).

Alternatively, I liked how the series focuses on these two strong female characters and how it highlights grief and the issues of mental health within females (Both Ellen had suffered from mental health after the passing of her Mother, and Paula was currently experiencing the issue after the death of her daughter). The fact that Ellen's husband, Ian (a therapist), failed to notice that Paula potentially has mental health issues, really highlights the fact that mental health isn't immediately recognisable. (I took to Twitter and noticed most people labelling Paula as a psychopath - including me). People forget that Paula wasn't exactly well and that she's a grieving Mother who just wants her daughter back - that doesn't particularly make her psycopathic, and therefore points out that anyone behaving negatively could have a bloody good reason too and judging someone on their behaviour is never okay!

All in all, I really loved this series and I especially loved the finale - a psychological thriller that wraps everything up neatly is always a winner, and I applaud everyone involved. I'll definitely be rewatching all three episodes as soon as I find the time and Morven Christie and Vicky McClure are real gems to the industry.