I'D have to say if the police are on the lookout for a new crime deterrent they could do a lot worse than making people watch this soapy drama.

Following the fortunes — or rather misfortunes — of those left behind picking up the pieces after their men get banged up, we are now just one episode away from the conclusion and it remains as gripping as ever.

Part of that is down to the deft movement between the women's stories.

Of course, taking the central thread is poor pregnant Gemma (Emma Rigby), a girl with a face so perfectly shaped it almost distracts you from what she is saying.

She also has a very promiment pregnancy bump and the desperation of her situation, her loneliness, fear and suppressed rage at husband Steve (Jonas Armstrong) for getting her in to this whole mess are easy to see.

And it looks like her efforts to try to help police could have landed her in far more trouble than she could ever have thought, not least as it means she is having to call on more favours from her wonderfully creepy boss (Jason Watkins). But playing alongside this is the touching relationship that has begun to grow between drug-dealing mum Lou (Natalie Gavin), who has seen her beloved son taken into care, and scatty Harriet (Pippa Haywood). The chav with the electronic tag and the nervous housewife who minces her own meat to make a shepherd's pie would never be your obvious housemates but in a world where prison has robbed them of their loved ones, the bond between them is growing.

But can the whiff of Harriet's respectability linger on Lou long enough to help her get her child back?

All the while, forming the backdrop to the whole tense episode, the prison's family day looms over the women, like a giant Countdown clock.

Certainly for the wonderfully sassy Franny (Polly Walker), the event looks likely to be particularly interesting after her husband Paul (Iain Glen) sends her a card containing an illicit map. Will she be tempted to go along with his plan?