The Woman in the Wall has been a big hit for the BBC, delivering at once both a scathing indictment of religious corruption and abuses and a gripping, masterfully acted whodunit. Several key mysteries have developed throughout the season, leaving episode 6 with a lot to do in terms of tying up loose ends and delivering a satisfying resolution.
The Woman in the Wall Season 1 Episode 6 Recap
In Episode 5, Lorna and Colman unearthed a conspiracy. The House of the Sacred Shepherd, headed by James Coyle (formerly Ignatius J. McCullen) and the late Father Percy Sheehan, was taking children from the mother and baby homes attached to the Magdalene laundries and selling them to well-to-do religious families in exchange for sometimes sizeable “donations” to the church.
Detective Colman Akande himself was one of these adopted children, and Lorna’s daughter, Agnes, was too.
Coyle’s lobbying had been a well-orchestrated attempt to cover up the crimes and to ensure that their many victims would never be able to take action against the church in the future.
Who killed Father Percy?
One of the show’s most longstanding mysteries was finally unraveled in the finale when it was revealed that Lesley, the woman who had previously pretended to be Aoife Cassidy’s daughter, had killed Father Percy after being ordered to silence him by Coyle.
This came after Percy had been confronted by Aoife about “disappearing” the many children who passed through the House of the Sacred Shepherd. Aoife took the evidence – including the faked death certificates – from Father Percy’s house, and during the chase, he fell down the stairs. However, the fall didn’t kill him, so Aoife Cassidy did not kill Father Percy as we had previously suspected.
After the incident, Percy called Coyle to warn him about their enterprise potentially being exposed, and it was then, after thinking Percy might have become a liability, that Coyle despatched Lesley, engaging himself with a public matter to build a sufficient alibi.
The Woman in the Wall Season 1 (Credit – BBC)
Was James Coyle arrested?
As is usually the way of these things, James Coyle was not arrested or charged with anything by the end of The Woman in the Wall. This is despite assurances from Massey that those responsible for what happened to the children of the laundries would be held accountable. It’s much more difficult to bring someone like Coyle to justice, especially after he has spent so long covering his tracks and has the backing of an institution like the church.
Even after being apprehended by Colman, Lesley’s devotion to Coyle shows the extent of his influence.
The Woman in the Wall Ending Explained
Did Lorna kill Aoife Cassidy?
The titular woman in the wall was Aoife Cassidy, whom Lorna had convinced herself she had murdered and bricked up behind her living room wall. Of course, in Episode 4, we learned that Aoife was not there, and in Episode 5, she suffered from catalepsy, a rare side effect of untreated epilepsy that could create the appearance of death.
So, Lorna did indeed hide Aoife in the wall, believing she was dead. However, Aoife woke up and managed to climb into the loft, where she later died. So, in a roundabout way, Lorna did kill Aoife, though not in the way she initially suspected.
A guilt-ridden Lorna, sick of being considered “mad” for her various bouts of sleepwalking, refused to claim mental instability as a defense and was subsequently arrested and incarcerated for the crime.
Does Lorna get to meet her daughter?
Despite this seemingly like quite the morbid ending for The Woman in the Wall, there is a silver lining – Lorna gets to meet her daughter, Agnes, who was adopted for the tidy sum of £10,887.09 and raised in Boston, Massachusetts.
Agnes had been looking for her birth mother ever since she found out she was adopted, and Colman is able to facilitate a call between the two.
Do you have any thoughts on the ending of The Woman in the Wall? Let us know in the comments.
