Following the season 5 finale, Wentworth left fans with one giant question: will Joan "The Freak" Ferguson rise again, after being broken out of prison and buried alive? The clips we saw of her as Will Jackson buried her did reveal a significant crack in the lid of the makeshift coffin, enough to leave the audience spinning out even more. Why would there be a crack if The Freak wasn't going to break through it?
And it's the big question on everyone's fingertips: is The Freak dead, or will she escape with her life and return to wreak revenge?
Wentworth has form with leaving characters on the precipice of death at the end of seasons: Aaron Fletcher at the end of season 2, Bea Smith at the end of season 4, and now both Sonia and the Freak at the end of season 5. Fletcher returned because he was key to bringing down the Freak in season 3, but Bea was left dead as a way to move on to other storylines. I've already predicted Sonia will survive into season 6, but will the Freak?
The logical answer is no. And here's why.
It would be too predictable
If there's one thing Wentworth isn't, it's predictable. It's up there with Person of Interest, The Walking Dead (probably Game of Thrones too, although having not seen it I can't speak to it for sure), and other such like-minded shows where the relationships of characters spin uncontrollably all over the place at every whim.
But bringing the Freak back would be too predictable. She's a fan favourite character, and has risen from the ashes of other seemingly impossible catastrophes to continue manipulating everyone for no other reason than she's a psycho. Everything suggests she could come back, but what else is there left to do with the character?
Wentworth should send her out on a high and leave her buried, much like they've done with Bea Smith.
There's only so many times The Freak can come back
Since season 2 we've watched The Freak rise and fall in her governorship, then rise and fall within the inmate hierarchy, each rise and each fall more spectacular than the last, with as many mini-rises and falls in between as crimes she committed. Wentworth loves a good rise and fall. We've seen it so many times with top dogs: Franky in seasons 1, 2, 4 and 5, Bea in seasons 3 and 4, Kaz and Correctional Officer Jake Stewart in seasons 4 and 5 - and then The Freak's power cycles from seasons 2-5.
The point here is that generally, these peaks and troughs last about two seasons, although that is a very basic description. Franky is an extreme exception: after rising to power at the end of season 1, she makes way for Bea in season 2's denouement, only to figure a happy life for herself in season 4 before winding up back behind bars in season 5. Meanwhile, Jake has managed to lose control of himself inside a season and a half.
But The Freak is way ahead of any of these, with a central rise-and-fall plotline in four consecutive seasons. However, when broken down - she spent two seasons as governor, two as an inmate - we see that the pattern still holds. She's achieved basically everything any character could outside and inside the bars of Wentworth Correctional Facility; bearing that in mind - and the fact that if The Freak returns to Wentworth she'll die immediately anyway - what then could spur another one-season storyline, let alone two?
Joan Ferguson had her time - twice over - but it's time to let her rest.
And how could they write a more perfect ending for the character?
This point is crucial for me. Wentworth is not only good at knowing when to close their storylines (and this will get mentioned in-depth a bit later), but generally very good at writing endings for characters. Bea's death was timely - she'd done everything the character needed to do - as was Jess Warner's in the season 3 finale after she kidnapped Doreen's baby, while exposing The Freak as a criminal at the end of season 3 was the final thing left for the character of CO Fletcher to do. Brayden Holt's death, as revenge for killing Bea's daughter, was exactly the thing needed to write off that storyline and drive Bea into top dog position for season 3.
Of course, other character endings haven't been so perfect character- and story-wise (look at Governor Erica Davidson and Inmate Sky Pierson's unexplained disappearances for two such examples), but for the most part the central storylines have always been concluded well.
And season 5 doesn't have a bigger story arc than The Freak winning the mantle of top dog and then losing it.
Not only that, but there's surely little need for The Freak's manipulations of Jake to carry into season 6 when he had broken free of her and then ended up under the thumb of corrupt brothel-owning Regional Manager Channing. The Freak destroyed Vera's governorship, alienated all the inmates and, for the final nail in her coffin (pardon the pun), was buried alive by the one character she spent four seasons trying to destroy - CO Will Jackson - with Bea's self-portrait buried with her to symbolise revenge has been served. (Perhaps also to symbolise the closure of Bea's storyline, too?)
Honestly, what could be the more perfect ending for The Freak?
She'd be killed if she returned to Wentworth
I've already mentioned this in passing, but if The Freak survives her burial, she can't exactly return to Wentworth. In episode 5x11, she alienates all the prisoners and nearly dies in a lynch mob, saved only by Vera. In episode 5x12, The Freak has abandoned all of her previous plans to bring down Vera and Will, prove herself innocent and return to her Governorship. She just wants to get out with her life.
So not only does The Freak want to escape Wentworth, but she has no imaginable reason to go back. She'd be slaughtered. It only makes sense therefore that, if she were to escape, she would go into hiding - but what would be the point of that from a story sense? Just keep her dead.
Wentworth scriptwriters are very good at knowing the length of their storylines and when to close them
I've mentioned this before: Wentworth scriptwriters are very good at knowing the length of their storylines and when to close them. Not only do the big storylines work in a two-season cycle, but the smaller ones are generally closed well, too. I can also recycle some examples to make the point.
Jacs Holt's death at the end of season 1, which allowed Franky to become top dog and Bea to continue her revenge on the Holt family. Then the entire Holt family storyline was complete in time (and as impetus) for Bea to ascend to top dog for the start of season 3, while her husband Harry's death in season 3 not only closed that chapter of her life but allowed a plausible way for Kaz to enter the show. Jess Warner - killed by The Freak after kidnapping and attempting to murder Doreen's baby; Nils Jesper - The Freak's hitman killed to stop him from testifying and sending her to prison (which led to Bea's sacrifice to ensure The Freak was imprisoned); even Doreen - who got finally paroled to live with her new family. (Not to mention Bea's death and all the various rise and falls of other major characters).
Wentworth always has a larger goal in mind when planning its characters and their stories, and it always knows when the time has come to close one chapter and open another. They're also not afraid to take huge risks, like killing Bea.
The Freak's death would represent another huge risk for the show, but the characters and storylines of Bea and The Freak became so irrevocably intertwined that it's just right for The Freak to die in revenge for Bea's death. It will free Wentworth from Bea's lingering memory, while allowing The Freak's spirit to live on within its walls for a while - which we'll certainly see with Will, Jake, Vera and Allie in season 6, regardless of whether she does or doesn't come back.
Final thoughts
Season 6 is already filming, and yet we still don't know if The Freak will return. Given the spoiler-bound social media world we live in, that a show can successfully keep its biggest plot points secret is equal parts impressive, respectable and frustrating. We have become so desensitised by the ability to easily search out spoilers that actual radio silence on something as huge as this is grating. And yet, in the interim, while we don't know one way or another, the whispers of whether The Freak shall return are as compelling as any canonical story.
And is that not just the perfect legacy for The Freak?
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