Hoppy (early) Easter from the midwives of Nonnatus House! We’re celebrating the beginning of spring by kicking off Season 11 of our favorite show and engorging on chocolate. (It might only be March IRL but it’s never too early for egg and animal-shaped sweets.) Nonnatus House has lived to see another day thanks to our new hero Matthew Aylward, his generosity, and deep pockets, and all of our favorite guys and gals are back together again.

Cyril and Lucille are newly married, and after England’s World Cup win last season, everyone in Poplar is preparing for the next big event: Eurovision. Not to mention, the Buckles are celebrating Reggie’s birthday, which happens to fall on the same day. What more could we ask for? (Bonus points for Matthew’s return as a series regular, but maybe that’s just me.)

Trixie’s New Roommate

With a new season comes a new-ish addition to our ever growing Midwife family as Nancy’s daughter Colette is welcomed into the house activities and community events. When we last caught up with Nancy, she had gone MIA with Colette after learning about the methods that Fatima Lodge Orphanage used to reprimand the children in their care i.e. corporal punishment, but with no one else to turn to, she eventually called on the midwives for their support. Now, as Nancy continues with her midwifery training, Colette remains with a nearby foster family. Though the new setup allows the two more flexibility in their visits, Colette still thinks that Nancy is her older sister. NBD.

The crew is excited for Nancy’s return, but her move back into the house gets off to a rocky start. As in… actual rubble. The ceiling in her room partially collapses over her bed (not while she’s sleeping, phew) and Cyril informs the women that dry rot is to blame. Until the room is safe again, Nancy has to bunk with Trixie who had been enjoying the luxury of solo living ever since Valerie’s departure. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Nothing like an unexpected roomie to keep things interesting!

The Flemings’ Return

New growth and fresh starts brought on by springtime don’t stop with Nancy. After the devastating loss of their first child during a traumatic start to Season 10, Audrey and Derek Fleming have returned to see Dr. Turner. When they last met, they learned that the death of their newborn, along with Derek’s persistent health issues, had been caused by radiation Derek was exposed to during a nuclear bomb test at sea.

Now, as the couple prepares for the birth of their second child, they’re understandably nervous about the outcome. As if that isn’t stressful enough, Audrey calls attention to Derek’s cigarette use, which has only heightened since baby Christopher’s death. Noting Derek’s history with ulcers and a recent partial gastrectomy, both putting him at risk for gastric cancer, Audrey and Dr. Turner urge him to quit smoking. Though he’s reluctant, he agrees to give it a shot.

The Nyall Family

While Dr. Turner attends to the Flemings, Phyllis stops by the Nyall household to check in on the elderly Mrs. Nyall who is suffering both from senile dementia and recent issues with incontinence. There she also meets her daughter and day-to-day caretaker, Marigold. It’s clear that both women take pride in their independence, but with Mrs. Nyall’s symptoms worsening Marigold opens their home to Phyllis for assistance.

A Grisly Discovery in the Floorboards

While Phyllis works to alleviate the pressure put on Marigold, Trixie makes her way to Madeira Street to return baby Jonathan’s toy to Matthew. Though we would never turn down more Matthew screen time, the happy reunion between the two friends is unfortunately short-lived.

When Trixie arrives at the demolition site of one of his properties, the building foreman alerts them both to a gruesome discovery beneath the ground floor. There they find the skeletal remains of a newborn baby, which appears to have been dressed and placed there deliberately many years prior. They call the police to bring the remains to a pathologist but the mystery surrounding the child’s death weighs heavy on both of them.

Findings from Operation Grapple

After the Flemings’ visit to Dr. Turner, Sister Julienne stops by their home. While she’s there, she provides Audrey with details about a session Sister Hilda is presenting at the institute to help Derek on his quest to quit smoking. During their teatime catch up, Audrey confesses her fears about her second delivery and Sister Julienne assures her that she’ll be in good hands with Dr. Turner at the maternity hospital. She even offers to find Audrey a new midwife from the team to help her go into this delivery with a clean slate.

While they discuss birth plans and reflect on baby Christopher’s passing, Audrey reveals a collection of documents that she and Derek have collected on Operation Grapple. The records include information about other men who were involved in the nuclear tests that caused Derek’s illness and details about issues they had with their own children. Sister Julienne takes the documents to the Turners where their three youngest are down with chickenpox. Home for the week as she watches over them, Shelagh offers to organize the paperwork so it’s presentable when the couple eventually challenges the Ministry of Defense.

A Police Investigation

Following the incident at Madeira Street, Detective Sergeant Barrow arrives at the maternity hospital to speak with Dr. Turner and Miss Higgins. She explains that the home housed multiple residents across the decades and was never formally divided into flats, which has made it more difficult to identify which tenants lived in different parts of the building.

However, she reveals that 15 unmarried women, who were nurses at St. Cuthbert’s, lived in the building at the time and that it’s possible they could have been patients with him or his predecessor. Wanting to help provide closure for the abandoned baby, Dr. Turner gives her access to his patient records in hopes that they’ll find who placed it there.

Delivery Across the Hall

As the chickenpox makes its way around the neighborhood, Sister Frances falls ill and looks to Lucille to take her rounds. On her way to a delivery, Lucille also makes a quick pit stop at the Nyall home to bring them supplies. Just across the hall she finds a distressed Nimali Patel experiencing intense labor pains. The Patels are far from home and have no relatives in the area to comfort Nimali. Yet Lucille steps in to be her support system and even practices her Punjabi with the laboring mother to let her know she’s not alone. She helps deliver a healthy baby and the Patels’ first.

Kicking the Habit

Over at the Iris Knight Institute, Sister Hilda’s informational session about cigarette use and its repercussions has begun. As a former smoker before taking the veil, she admits that she can relate to the satisfaction of a cigarette like everyone else in attendance, including Derek Fleming. Even so, she shows the class a slideshow of tar-covered smokers’ lungs and confirms that cigarettes can also cause cancer of the esophagus, tongue and stomach.

Despite the graphic photos and stories, Derek seems unbothered by Sister Hilda’s warnings. As soon as he and Audrey leave the institute, he’s quick to pull out a pack of cigarettes. Unsurprisingly, this doesn’t sit well with Audrey. She pleads with him to quit, knowing that while they can’t control the damage already done to his body by the radiation, they can control his cigarette use and how that will impact a future with his family.

A Dark Family Secret

Later, Sergeant Barrow returns to Dr. Turner’s office with puzzling news. Her team discovers that the flooring put in place over the baby’s remains dates back to 1936 or 1937, ruling out any connection to unmarried women from the Nursing home that occupied the building in 1939. After also ruling out most of Dr. Turner’s patients from their original list, they’re down to three individuals who lived in the building during the timeframe the child was left there. Major plot twist: Dr. Turner recognizes the Nyall family from his former patients, but he notes that Marigold has a history with mental instability and requests that one of his midwives accompany Sergeant Barrow to their home.

Phyllis joins the sergeant for questioning, but when they arrive, Marigold attempts to shield her mother from the conversation. The discussion quickly goes downhill as soon as it begins. When Marigold points to the women from the Nurse’s Home, Sergeant Barrow tells her the child was placed beneath the floorboards and lino before they ever moved in. At this, Marigold quickly succumbs to the pressure and drops a major truth bomb that neither Sergeant Barrow nor Phyllis expected. She confesses that her mother actually had not one but two babies - the second hidden behind the flue - and that as a widow, Mrs. Nyall had no one else to help her.

Following this conversation, they urge Marigold to let them speak to her mother. During questioning, Mrs. Nyall is only able to recall Marigold’s birth, and when it’s clear that they won’t get much information from her, Phyllis pulls Sergeant Barrow aside. She informs her that while she was helping Mrs. Nyall provide a urine sample for her incontinence issues, she noticed a large abdominal scar that was likely caused by a C-section. They bring this to Dr. Turner, and after looking further into her records, he returns to their home to confront Marigold. He lets her know that Marigold’s birth required a C-section and that Mrs. Nyall had a hysterectomy to save her life after she was born. Because of this, she wasn’t able to have any other children. When she realizes what he’s implying, Marigold confesses that the two babies were hers.

Clearing the Family Name

At the police station Phyllis joins Marigold for questioning. Dr. Turner advises Sergeant Barrow to proceed with caution, informing her that Marigold had been an inpatient at the Linchmere for seven months in the 1950s and that she was diagnosed with severe depression, which manifested in catatonia and elective mutism.

During her statements, Marigold reveals that she had an arrangement with a married man who took advantage of her for years. When questioned if either child breathed or cried at the time of their birth, Marigold recalls that they were both silent after the cords were cut. After recounting the harrowing experience of both births, it’s clear to all parties that Marigold is so traumatized by her past that Sergeant Barrow asks that she’s seen by a psychiatrist. After learning that she wouldn’t be fit to stand trial and realizing they’re still lacking crucial evidence, Marigold is cleared of all charges.

Later, once the coroner’s office releases the babies to the local churchyard, Matthew and Trixie visit their grave sites to pay their respects. Though it’s an emotional moment for both of them, they’re both glad that the children received the closure they needed.

A New Chapter for the Flemings

Derek’s smoking kicked to the curb, the Flemings take on their next task. At the maternity home, Audrey goes into labor with Derek by her side and Sister Julienne and Dr. Turner there to deliver. The fear of the unknown is overwhelming for both of them, but the delivery goes smoothly and Audrey gives birth to a baby girl, Elizabeth, who’s healthy and showing no signs of complications caused by the radiation.

The celebrations continue as Sister Hilda and Sister Julienne arrive at the Buckles’ for Reggie’s birthday. Upon their arrival however, they’re greeted by an unhappy birthday boy and news that the Buckle’s Eurovision watch party has been canceled due to a broken television. Dejected, Reggie expresses his unhappiness over missing England’s Sandie Shaw performing “Puppet on a String,” but Sister Julienne isn’t about to let that happen. Despite having deemed Eurovision too frivolous of an event for the Nonnatans to participate in, she invites the Buckles to their home to use their television. This is welcomed news not only from Reggie but from a few other music-loving women at Nonnatus House as well (ahem, Sister Monica Joan).

Mother Daughter Bonding

As truths are revealed across Poplar this episode, Nancy is quick to follow suit. Though visits with Colette are more frequent now that she’s no longer at the orphanage, she still feels the strain knowing that she continues to miss pieces of her life. This is exacerbated when she discovers that only now as chickenpox has spread across the city that Colette also had them when she was five years old.

Despite promising the midwives that she would keep her relationship with Colette a secret until she had finished with her training, Nancy explains to Colette that she had a baby when she was 16. Over ice cream (truly the best way to tell someone big news, good or bad), Nancy finally tells her that she’s always been her mother. Colette seems to take their sister-turned-mother relationship in stride and Nancy promises that once she’s saved up enough money they can finally be together for good.

Forgot how we got here? Catch up on “Call the Midwife” with the Season 11 Holiday Special GIF Recap.