
Here she is, Shell Dockley bit gagged in episode 5.1 of "Bad Girls" which aired just this Thursday (August 21, 2008, here in the US. I think they did a great job visually on the gag, but in other respects ... well, let's just say that I was driven to using lots of colorful metaphors in this article. For the full context in which this article occurs, see my review of the Brit version of Bad Girls.
Copyright 2008 by Pat Powers
My DVD disk had a malfunction or something and I didn't get the first 40 minutes or so of Bad Girls 5.1, the episode that features Shell Dockley wearing a bitgag as she's returned to Larkhall after a successful escape. Fortunately, at the 40 minute mark and put in a fresh DVD, hoping that the scene was still to come ... and it was. So I did get the scene though I missed most of the episode.
In the capture sequence, we see Dockley betrayed into the hands of the police and hustled into a helicopter, not bound in any way, but surrounded. The next time we see her, she's in a prison van (actually, a huge hulking thing that looks more like an armored car than a van or a bus) and she's wearing the bit gag and her hands are apparently cuffed behind her back (we never see the cuffs).

The bit gag in profile. Looks nice and tight. At least they didn't screw THAT up..
To give the scene its due, Debra Stephenson, the actress who portrays Dockley, totally works the gag. She mmphs angrily and shakes her head from side to side, glaring in animalistic anger as she rides in the prison van. The scene is very well lit and there are some nice closeups. They did NOT fuck up the scene visually (as so many others have done) but there was much else that they missed, and missed completely.
I was REALLY disappointed in the lack of context re: the gag. The thing is, prisoners are ordinarily never cuffed or shackled, much less gagged, when they arrive at Larkhall Prison. So here's Dockley cuffed hands behind and wearing a bitgag when she steps out of the prison van.
Why? There is absolutely NO explanation. You have to figure Dockley did some spitting and biting when they arrested her, but you never SAW any of it. But that's all you CAN do, figure, because there's no explanation offered that I could see.
I guess it would have been too DRAMATIC to show Dockley fighting like an animal to avoid imprisonment. Far too INTERESTING to show viewers. WHO would possibly want to see a scene like that? Other than, say, EVERYONE?
This is, sadly, typical ball-droppery by the Bad Girls program.
But wait, it gets worse. Because not only did they totally miff the set-up, they also totally fucked up the rest of it.
Next we see her escorted into a prison office by a generic matron, still bound and gagged. A male guard receives her there. He says, "Well, well, it's naughty Nicky. Strip search. I wish I could watch."
Wish YOU could watch? WISH YOU COULD WATCH? Jeebus forking cripes, don't ya think EVERY LAST FUCKING VIEWER OF THE SHOW wishes they could have watched Dockley's character getting strip searched, if only for the humiliation aspects of the scene? Good, God, you've already had Dockley naked for the freaking shower assault scene, how about a shot of her naked, cuffed and gagged, bending over for a little cavity checking. Would that be too much to ask? We don't have to see her naughty bits as they are being violated, but it sure would be nice to watch the psycho bitch grimacing and moaning into her gag as she's probed, doncha think? (Think Caged Fury.)
But of course, we didn't get to watch, the strip search occurs offscreen. Good gravy, these idiots are stupid.
Instead, what we get is a brief shot of Dockley's gagged and dismayed face staring back at the male guard. But Jeebus, what they missed. And that's the end of the bondage. Next time we see Dockley, she's ungagged and uncuffed, and wearing a bathrobe.

"Um, is a strip search really NECESSARY?".
That's IT for dialogue relating to bound and gagged Dockley, and that's just WRONG. Shell Dockley is hated and/or feared by almost every guard and inmate at Larkhall. For example, Dockley stabbed one guard (not that Fenner didn't deserve it), and when she escaped, she made another guard put on a "French maid" costume and then made her husband get into a coffin, which she then set on fire while the guard helplessly watched. She bullied a prisoner into committing suicide, she stole another prisoner's diary and used it to get her in trouble with the other inmates, and well, did about half a billion things to other inmates and guards that were rotten -- conservatively speaking.
Plus, by successfully escaping from Larkhall Prison for Women, Dockley has professionally humiliated all the guards and the entire staff.
Practically every character on the show has good reason to hate Dockley's guts. And if the writers of "Bad Girls" had ANY sense whatsoever (which they clearly didn't) they would have had Dockley forced to run a veritable gauntlet of jeering, gibing guards and inmates before the bitgag came off, giving them plenty of opportunity to heap humiliation and scorn on Dockley while she is a bound and gagged prisoner among prisoners who are never gagged and almost never bound.
Now, THAT would have been dramatic, and it's JUST the sort of drama soap opera fans love. They fucking THRIVE on seeing bad girls get their comeuppance, and Dockley is WAAAY past due for some vigorous comeuppance. (True, generally soap opera villains get to commit a LOT of evil deeds before they catch hell, but when they catch hell, it's generally gloated on but good.)
But the Brit Bad Girl writers didn't do that, no, they were so fucking eager to get the gag and cuffs off Dockley that they missed a major opportunity for drama.
(Don't tell me that they couldn't REALISTICALLY have these things occur in a prison, the writers who make Bad Girls clearly have no interest in realistically portraying prison life, why should they have started NOW?)
I hope the American version of Bad Girls is a LOT better in this respect, and I think it will be. But the American Bad Girls could totally suck bondage-wise, and still be a lot better than the Brit Bad Girls. Because the Brit Bad Girls isn't just a soap opera ... it's a BADLY DONE soap opera.
Bent over, nude, gagged and ready for violation, yet no naughty bits are visible anywhere. It can be done. Image courtesy of our advertiser Sex and Submission..
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