In the closing moments of last week’s sensational series return of Wentworth, we saw Rita shattered after learning that her fiancé Ray had been gunned down.
This week, her life is turned on its head once more as she discovers who might have been behind the fatal attack on bikie Ray (Shane Connor): fellow inmate Marie (Susie Porter).
Bent on revenge, Rita (Leah Purcell) decides to pair up with Top Dog Kaz Proctor (Tammy MacIntosh) to put an end to Marie’s rain of terror, permanently.
“That relationship between Kaz and Rita falls into place,” Tammy tells TV WEEK while on the set of the acclaimed prison drama. “There’s a kinship there – a sisterly thing. They’ve decided they’re going to be there for each other.”
Rita is devastated over the loss of her fiancé.
Beside herself with grief, Rita realises she needs to seek out the one other woman in Wentworth who also has a reason to want Marie gone.
She knows she has an ally in Kaz, who recently learnt Marie was behind the attack on her in the bathrooms that put Vera’s (Kate Atkinson) child at risk. Kaz also knows Marie is leading her friend and protégée Ali (Kate Jenkinson) down a potentially self-destructive path.
“Kaz believes Marie is never going to change,” Tammy says. “No-one else can see Marie theway Kaz does, because she’s known her from the outside.
“Even Ali, at this point, is still blindsided by the same routine Marie is pulling on her that she pulls on the outside.”
Marie and Kaz come to blows.
For her part, Susie says her character, Marie, is a “complex” woman who is battling her own demons while at the same time doing whatever it takes to survive in the prison’s cut-throat world.
“With her, I think a number of things happen at the same time,” she explains. “She can be really upset for her son, and she has care and love for people, but she’s also a businesswoman and survivor.
“She grew up on the streets, was a prostitute herself – that’s her backstory – so she’s just trying to survive, and will do anything, at any cost, to do that.”
But with Kaz and Rita both making her a target, survival just may not be an option for Marie. One thing’s for certain: she’s going to have to watch her back very closely from now on.
Rita gets in Marie’s face.
Wentworth airs Tuesday, 8.30pm, on FOX Showcase.
