Ruby can’t stand the heat

Ruby can’t stand the heat
Ruby can’t stand the heat (Image credit: Shed Productions)

Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, do ya do ya do ya know what you’re doing? It doesn’t look like it in this dramatic penultimate episode of the high school drama. The Waterloo Road cookery teacher’s day starts badly because she’s served with a demand for a divorce from her husband, John, when all she really wanted was a nice cup of coffee. Perhaps she’ll get that at school. Or perhaps not. Already feeling frazzled, Ruby is put under more pressure by Head Teacher Rachel, who tells her she has to come up with a recipe for a successful school prom. Rachel doesn’t know that Ruby isn’t firing on all cylinders, but she’s about to find out. Rachel announces that she is engaged to tasty school chef Adam – the guy Ruby secretly adores. Unaware of Ruby’s feelings for him, Adam proudly shows her the wedding cake he’s baked for Rachel. Hope he’s got enough ingredients for another one because, once she’s alone, jealous Ruby smashes the cake to crumbs. Then she turns to the drugs she’s been using to get her through the scrambled mess of her life. Trouble is, she’s run out of pills and goes into meltdown. Steph’s another problem staff member. She’s created a calendar to raise money for the prom. That’s fine – but the pictures are of naked teachers!

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.