Is that a ferret in your (Gr)undies or are you just pleased to see me? Discuss The Archers vermin (so many possibilities!) here.

[PseudoBadger]

I'm not sure that ferrets cannot through a thumb sized hole - rats can, and mice can fit through a pen sized hole. But I know the SWs will have researched such a statement carefully

Yes, Dr Locke did the test 'on air'. Just as well its a mouth swab, even though there's no watershed some things would be a bit much for teatime.

I seem to be a lone voice but I really enjoyed last night's episode. I felt the twist of having Rob not being the father actually made more sense after that conversation. We now know for sure that Rob did sleep with Jess around the right time. I can't remember if we did before - Jess said it had happened, but has Rob ever admitted it on air before? Obviously he never admitted it to Helen.

He said that Jess was a heavy drinker. Echoes there of the time when they had Ian and Adam round to supper and he said to Helen in front of them that he thought she'd had enough to drink. I bet that's how it started with Jess.

Rob surrely wouldn't suggest a baby to H if he knows he's infertile.

Ifti!!! That's the mame I was trying to remember. Thought he might be Ethan's father. Seem to remember him getting on with Jess. Although her having a fling with someone unmarried might not be EE enough.

I think H and R will get married then he will properly turn on the nasty.

Yes, gaspode, I thought it all made (horrible) sense.

It was interesting the way he misrepresented his conversation with Jess as being civil - presumably he's anticipating Jess trying to tell Helen how vile Rob is and so getting some gaslighting in ahead of time?

I didn't hate last night!

Thought it deserved a BOOP for weirdness is all. So much was excruciating and Helen and Rob's relationship is so horribly fascinating. I'm not sure I've seen a better example of car-crash TV domestic drama. The conversation with Jess was worryingly revealing of the past and the future - I just pray for strong enough SWs to make it satisfying listening.

I agree that the negative test result makes a bit more sense if we are now to see him driving Jess to despair while gloating about his blissful life in Ambridge, which was what she wanted for them both.

Regarding the Fairbrethren, they look so young in the photo that I wonder if Lily or Phoebe might be smitten eventually.

I don't see why we should assume Jess is mother Teresa here. Perhaps they had a mutually toxic relationship and she's just as bad as him. I've never heard her sound 'normal' - she has always sounded fake nice or vindictive. Maybe bad acting or maybe not?

Just because he is a knob doesn't mean Jess wasn't one!!

Hate the hole 'drawn here' nonsense - why do we have to have characters with a 'link'?

So Adam and Ian dinner with Knob and Hellin. That could end badly

awwwwww (Eddie being best man)

(When is the big wedding day so I can have a bucket to hand?)

Nice touch about Rob is that he's a deluded bastard; genuinely doesn't know that he himself is a Knob.

I'd just to thank Bore for Fairbrethren, which makes me .

That was an all male episode, wasn't it? Ed, Eddie, Adam, Brian, David, Rex. Do we ever have all-female episodes?

The WI episode?

Yes - "Fairbrethren" seems so natural it's as if they have always been.

Did I miss something? Are Adam and Ian having Helen and the knob round for dinner?

Is Jess there to show what lies in store for Hellin then? He will literally drive her mad. When Jess was living in Ambridge and was friends with various people she seemed quite normal - it is only since we've heard her on the end of the phone that she has started to sound insane.

We hardly heard her though. She sounded fake to me! Sucking up to Jennifer etc

I thought that the paternity dispute was a problem in the divorce ici. The Courts wouldn't grant a divorce until the money side of maintenance was resolved.

Any family lawyers around? Is this correct? I'm sure I've heard of people arguing about maintenance for months after the divorce has gone through.

Re Jess, she wasn't always fake nice or vindictive. I felt quite sorry for her round the whole car crash party saga.

I think an incomer keen to be accepted into the village would be quite likely to sound a bit fake around JD.

We never heard enough of her to make a judgement though. We learnt very little about her and a lot of assumptions have been made about her based on robs behaviour.

It is quite irritating that Jess was depicted as being so absolutely certain that the baby was Rob's, when she has to have known that it was at best a 50/50 chance. Basic rule of scriptwriting: you are allowed to point listeners in the wrong direction, but you don't outright conceal highly relevant facts, or invent new ones when you fancy turning the storyline into a new direction.

It would be so nice to have some more women characters that aren't mad, bad or caricatures.

There really is only Pat, Usha and Hayley. Oh, and possibly Shula, if we forgive the wildly out of character lying to the police.

No Hak, Shula's a man-stealing, sanctimonious baggage.

There's Alice - although she seems to have vanished, and Phoebe is promisingly normal thus far.

I reckon if I were Debbie and my family (and business) had been involved in a terrible flooding, I just might have thought it worthwhile to visit. They'll have to change the actress, whatsername has more exciting work is too high profile now.

I agree with icimoi. We need a few hints along the way. The great thing about the Knob/Hellin story so far has been its slow build up and subtlety - the whole is he/isn't he a bad 'un - seeing both sides to him so we can understand how Hellin might have fallen for him and how he keeps reeling her back in. The portrayal of Jess is much more of a sledgehammer job - she sounds unhinged. When she was living in Ambridge she seemed happy making a new home, making friends and inviting the neighbours round. No hint of her throwing herself at any of the Ambridge men or having flings. Is the paternity test storyline supposed to show that he and Jess are as bad as each other? He didn't want to take the test because he knew he had slept with her, but knew she would have been sleeping with other people? She just wanted to call his bluff on the off-chance and to wind him up. As icimoi said we needed to have at least a hint that this might be the case. I think Let's have Jess turn out to be as bad as Knob might have worked if we had never met her, but this wasn't the case.

"No Hak, Shula's a man-stealing, sanctimonious baggage"

But reasonably well rounded and believable. Unlike practically all the other women!

I reckoned that Jess sounded weird when she lived in Amb. Either it was the acting or it was deliberate to give her a false high pitched, neurotic tone to her voice. If Rob had been that bad for so long she would left him wouldn't she? She has\had problems too IMO.