Jenny
Luther
Aimee-Ffion Edwards
Jenny started out as someone that Luther had to rescue in series two, as she had become a star of some very dodgy films. Her mother Caroline came to see Luther, to ask for his help, and told him of some of the things that Jenny had been doing since he had arrested her father for killing a prostitute.
Jenny clearly hadn’t handled the events at all well, turning to self harm, drugs and performing in adult films. She was about to perform in one when Luther came to talk to her, the film involved some of the darker elements, and Luther attempted to talk her out of it to no avail. Once Luther had rescued her, Uploaded by Timothy J Swann, and taken her to Mark North’s, it was the first time that I saw something vulnerable and fragile in Jenny. She clearly had been through the mill, more than any teenager should be, but still possessed enough empathy to express sorrow for Mark’s loss of Zoe.
When Luther got her to his home, the two broken people started to repair each other. Jenny took care of Luther’s injured hand the next morning, and clearly was receptive to his attempts to get her out of the dangerous world that she had found herself in. Despite not being that bothered in getting a job in fast food ‘Who am I Spongebob?’, she trusted him instinctively, and in a nice moment, looks to him for reassurance that she’s not been found by Toby Kent who had got her into the films in the first place, when Ripley rings the doorbell.
The scene when Toby finds her at Luther’s, and the events that follow, might have been a little predictable, but it’s the look on Edwards’ face in that scene, and the one when Luther comes back, that completely broke my heart. Edwards played it brilliantly in my opinion.
It was Edwards’ performance that made her so engaging, I think, in other hands she might have been less likable, but I found myself being quite disappointed that she didn’t return for series three.
Musings of a thirtysomething woman 