Nightmare Fuel / Wentworth

They call her... "The Freak".

As a show centred on women battling for survival in prison, there’s no surprise that Wentworth gets away with some ghoulish and menacing things. With its complex spectrum of characters and storylines, at least something may be sure to keep you up at night.

Note: Many of these examples may double as Paranoia Fuel.

As this is a Moments subpage, per policy all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

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• Anyone who is afraid of blood, vomit, or any other bodily fluids, may find this show creepily disturbing. Of course, being primarily set in a women’s prison, viewers should expect to see bashings, killings, abuse and/or drug overdoses in almost every episode.
• Everything about Joan "The Freak" Ferguson, since her introduction in the second season, is menacing. She may appear to some as your typical TV Villain with a thirst for power, however further into the series you can see that she’s not your regular anti-hero. She’s an established psychopath, who tends to go as far as killing and/or harming inmates to get what she wants. And of course, being television, most of these instances are shown in painfully excruciating detail.
  • Joan has been responsible for the deaths of many people, whether it be on her own or by her hitman, Niels Jesper. Some victims include, but are not limited to:
    • Simone Slater – through a hot shot in the arm
    • Jess Warner – through strangulation, shown in explicit detail. She also attempts to burn her alive (with succession), which ends up spiralling out of control and spreads rapidly to H block. Herself and Franky almost end up dying from the fire as well, before being rescued. This leads to her eventual arrest, turning her from governor to inmate.
    • Bea Smith – by stabbing her several times in the stomach with bloody detail (Bea was the one to initiate it, but still).
    • Iman Farah – by breaking her neck. Truly terrifying.
  • As opposed to her killings (and attempted killings), Joan was also responsible for bodily harm to several inmates. Her most notable instances include:
    • Stabbing a pencil into two victims’ eyes. The first one being an inmate from her previous prison (causing blindness in one eye), and the second one being Jodie Spetori, where her bloody eye is shown to viewers.
    • Cutting out Juicy Lucy’s tongue in season 5!
    • She also managed to snap an inmate’s arm during her crazy rampage in the season 5 opener. With sound and all.
  • The other inmates attempting to neck her in the exercise yard in season 5’s “Coup De Grace” looks completely terrifying, where her face actually turns purple before Vera helps her down.
    • The end of the episode has Vera giving Joan CPR. At this point it is believed that she is dead, before she opens her eyes the split second before the closing credits come up.
  • At this point, her fate in currently unknown, following the season 5 finale. She inevitably gets buried alive by Will, which is equally terrifying and relieving. Revenge has been officially served.
• Any death in the show can be horrifying, especially when the special affects artists aren’t shy in showing gory, bloody detail.
  • Debbie’s death at the end of “Mind Games”, where Brayden Holt injects her with heroine, causing her to die. The camera work in this scene adds to the suspense, as the episode concludes with a shot of her lifeless body, slowly moving away in the distance.
    • Her death could also be quite confronting for any mothers watching the show with teenage children.
  • When Bea stabs Jacs in the neck with a pen in "Checkmate"– everything about this death is unsettling. Especially since the blood keeps coming and coming.
    • In early season two Bea looks into Jacs’ old cell to see Jacs sitting on her bed, blood spilling out from her neck, with a sly look on her face. This is shown for around four seconds.
  • Brayden Holt, being shot and killed by Bea in the season two finale "Fear Her". The slow motion of the bullet going through Brayden’s forehead, adds to the fear.
  • Jianna, an Indigenous inmate and Joan’s previous lover at a previous prison, is lynched by her inmates (Joan initially thought that she committed suicide). All we see is her lifeless body hanging.
  • Any death caused by Joan Ferguson (see bullet point above).
  • Any deaths shown during flashbacks (including Bea’s attempted murder of her husband, is shocking).
  • The shocking twist of the season 5 finale as Joan gets her comeuppance at last and is buried alive by Will Jackson. The camera focuses on her face and terror as the earth is shoveled onto the box she is attempting to escape in, giving the viewer a taste of the creeping, terrifying claustrophobia her eventual death will entail.]]
    • Made worse yet at the end of season 6 as her body is unearthed, first by Will, Jake and Vera, showing her face contorted in fear and panic, and later by police, who reveal bloody scratch marks on the roof of her coffin, slowly elaborating on the horror of Joan's murder.
• Everything about Sonia Stevens, right when she was introduced in season 4.
  • In the episode "Loose Ends", it is revealed that Sonia murdered her friend, as well as her husband (which she was previously innocent of)! She even drives Don up to the place she murdered her husband in an attempt to kill him. Luckily, he latches onto the trick, drugs her and leaves her stranded before she can lay a hand on him.
  • Sonia’s speeches to Liz, especially when she "finds out" that she was the mystery Witness X who tried to mess with her sentence, is chilling. Even Liz feels threatened that she was going to kill her just like her friend, and ends up having a mental break-down because of it.
• Mike Pennisi, the original host of the reality show that Franky threw hot oil on, is re-introduced at the beginning of season 5 hoping to reconnect with her. Later, it is revealed that he has become a Stalker with a Crush, who even kept a photo shrine of Franky for years.
  • At the end of the season 5 premier "Scars", Franky is then arrested for his murder.
• The chilling echoing footsteps at the end of the season one opening credits is sure to send chills up your spine.