WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS

Wow, what a journey it’s been for the character who came back from the dead! After we were teased with a glimpse of Joan ‘The Freak’ Ferguson, played by Pamela Rabe, in last season’s finale of Wentworth, this year she returned to our screens, although much different to what we’d seen before.

After being mugged in episode two, she claimed to have no memory of who she was or what she’d done – something plenty of people (including fans!) doubted. However, in the final moments of the gripping finale to season eight’s Part 1, it appeared that Joan was speaking the truth as we witnessed her horrified realisation of her past evil deeds. In a twist, however, this has occurred after her committal hearing, where it’s already been decided that she’s in a fugue state. It’s a situation ripe for the character to use to her advantage.

Pamela Rabe talks to us about her character’s return to the show, her journey in the first part of season eight and what it bodes for her in the second and final instalment!

Foxtel Insider: What appealed to you about returning to play Joan, who we all thought was dead?

Pamela Rabe: The first thing that appealed to me was just the opportunity to work with who I consider the most wonderful work family I’ve ever had the pleasure and privilege to collaborate with. I just wanted to make sure that the reasons for her return were grounded in something that could be credible for an audience and that’s tricky when she’s required to handle some of the more gothic, melodramatic aspects of the storylines.

Having said that, it was just then a really great challenge to be able to tackle: who is she if she’s not the person that she and the audience remembers? It ended up becoming very rewarding, learning about the aspects of this character that we’d all created, how they would manifest, you know, without some of the obvious things like the black gloves and the glint in her eye.

Insider: For pretty much the entire season of Part 1, no-one – neither the characters in the show nor the fans! – knew whether she really did have amnesia. How did you approach playing that?

Pamela: I think probably the same way that Joan would if she was trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes! But that’s actually the dilemma for her, really, isn’t it? The little girl who cried wolf. If you’ve been a master at playing people and playing games, how do you convince people that you’re not? [However] even with memory loss, she’s still the same person and she has the same intelligence and knowledge of the world in a way – she just doesn’t remember aspects of her own behaviour. She understands that she is not to be believed in a dangerous place where the alliances that you make and the things that you do really affect your survival rate. It’s a real dilemma but, as I say, a delicious one to tackle.

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