Helen is drowning in the Cow Pat of Destiny. Please SWs - when will it be curtains for Rob?

[PseudoBadger]

Come on Kirsty!

no soap writer wants a permanent exit for a character like this. they want to leave the door open for him to keep popping up every few years

I suppose he could somehow gain full custody of baby knob, bugger off and return every now and then rub Helen's face in it.

But how would he do that? There are no grounds for Helen to lose custody of the spawn of satan based on what we know at the moment.

Losing the baby would be a potentially terrifying storyline. Helen loses the baby she never wanted in the first place, which is only there because her husband raped her, Knob loses his son - the only reason he appears to interested in Helen. She would feel guilty anyway for never really wanting the baby so he would easily pile more guilt on her and then what would happen?
I think much of Helen's situation now stems from the more recent past. After Greg killed himself, she struggled to recover and her eating disorder set in. After a series ofdisasterous relationships she started panicking about leaving it too late to have a baby and had Henry - to Tony's initial horror. He soon came round once Henwee was born, but for all Helen was adamant that she could do it on her own, she wanted to meet someone. Having drummed it in to Helen that Henwee needed a father, when she finally met Knob Tony and Pat were less than delighted. She eventually stormed off telling P and T that if they didn't accept Knob they'd never see Henwee again - which is why Pat has been trying so hard to like him. Ironically Peggy's bequest - promising to leave her the house and then giving her money has made things worse giving Helen a false sense of security that makes her think she needs her family even less. Pat fears she can't do right for doing wrong - she tiptoes round Helen. She doesn't want Helen's eating disorder to return (which it has) and she doesn't want to lose touch with Henry - ironically she can't see that the person most likely to rob her of Henwee is Knob. The plot has very cleverly built to this point - Helen was the obvious victim, far too stubborn and pigheaded to admit when she's got something wrong and with an immediate family who are too scared to disagree with her for fear of upsetting her.

I think custody of both children what he has been trying to set in train ever since he hit on the parental responsibility angle - or, rather, what the SWs would like us to think might happen.

Excellent Summary Lillian, particularly with regards to Pat and Tony. Also complicated by Kirsty & Tom's past, meaning there are fewer conversations / opportunities for Kirsty and Pat to compare notes.

I will be really cross if the SL allows for Helen to be discharged without any 1:1 conversation with a professional.

Just a peripheral thought. Didn't someone say that when Rob first arrived, before the SW spotted the potential of the Rob/Hel relationship, Rob was meant to be some sort of - charming but a bit caddish - replacement for Brian?

So, given he's gone down another path, do you think they now have Toby lined up to be Brian jnr.? Symbolic start, shagging Brian's dd and annoying him immensely with his juvenile sheep-raddle in the pool behaviour. But, enterprising, confident, womanising. Immature certainly but could mature into something more suave?

Though, I see him and Rex more as flighty Kenton, sensible Dave jnrs, with ages reversed, at the moment.

I think Rob is the kind of man who will fight for custody, not because he wants it, but just to hurt and control Helen

He would certainly use it as a threat to keep her in line.

\link{http://ambridgeobserver.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/kate-on-edge-eggs-on-menu-and-lent.html?m=1\the Ambridge Observer has a very neat link to the Helen Titchener appeal}

\link{http://haharchers.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/kirsty-is-concerned.html?m=1\Ha Archers has one too though without the neatness}

LilianGish Of course she never got over Comet being put down.

Rob does speak to his family - he emails his mother about the baby. When Ursula appeared recently she was gushing about his 'little prince'. She'd be delighted to help look after him (though Rob wouldn't want to cede control in her direction).

It was so telling that, when Rob got together with Helen he didn't tell his mother - H was just a woman after all, an instrument, nothing important. No celebration, no recognition for, their marriage. But once he impregnated her with a boy he was emailing his DM all about that.

It is very significant to Rob that SOK will be his parents' first grandchild - and a boy, a little prince! Finally he gets one over on his brother.

But, I can imagine his parents diverting all affection towards SOK, bypassing knob himself entirely (as even normal GPs are a bit prone to do IME), rather than focusing their admiration upon him as the proud bearer of the heir. That way lies... A bad outcome for SOK if knob and parents spend too much time together.

Interesting how his Mum seems to have dropped Ethan since discovering he wasn't knob's. 'First gc' was uttered with great import and certainty by Ursula.

De lurking to express my utter frustration that we listeners aren't getting anything from Hellin about what's happening to her. There's nothing telling us what she's thinking or how she's really feeling. We only see her react to knob and who knows how genuinely she is feeling what she's expressing. The closest we get is when other people interact with her, which knob obv is trying to keep to a minimum. But we need something from her, some sort of insight. Else I for one will just continue to lose interest in this SL as it's just, as people say, about the panto villain and a distressing story (sensationalism, really, and horribly so because of how distressing and real these issues are) with no real insight into or understanding of the victim's perspective or analysis of how/why she can behave like this. Listeners will just continue to think "well why the fuck doesn't she just speak up??".

I can't see the SWs killing off Spawn of Knob, there's far too much potential there for lots of lovely conflict storylines stretching over several decades should they so wish.

I can see them killing off Helen, perhaps in childbirth, and then Rob becoming even more the centre of everyone's sympathy because he now has two children to bring up alone. He will find himself another GF who he will control but perhaps not in the same way (he didn't control Jess the same after all), and will just become the generally bad guy of ambridge.

And the abuse storyline will just fade into memory. Let's not forget that the main producer used to be involved with eastenders, and they hardly had a good track record of covering abuse storylines.

Rob will be jailed and then come back in a few years wanting to see his son

This will rumble on and then he will end up in jail again/go to Canada after being hounded out. And then he will come back in a few years...

This will involve him having a relationship with someone else in the village in ten years or so who will get out quicker than Helen because she will help her

What reward does Rob get from all this, especially as he has to calculate and plan constantly? I am wondering about the joint account he has with Helen, containing the money from Peggy. I am guessing he will run off with it at some point.

I think he will have spent it all pretty soon! It was only 10 grand!

I'm not sure that it's necessarily a reward that he gets; rather that, if he can't control people, especially women and/or people he feels are his social or intellectual inferiors, and especially his wife/girlfriend, he feels awful and simply can't cope with that feeling - therefore he'll do anything to stop it happening. Hence the fact that, for instance, he didn't like his job at Berrow and the ignominy of having to account for himself to a dreadful gayer, let alone having said gayer catching him out when he fouled up.

Not sure it was a good move, following the scriptwriter on Twitter. He's tweeting a lot of clarifications!

10 grand now. A bit more further down the line if he gets Helen to ask Peggy for some and Helen stands to inherit a fair bit, already has a share of Bridge Farm.
Half a farm is better than no farm at all.
We've discussed before where his 20 odd years of earnings have gone.

I hoped that Usha might witness the collapse and be as sharp about that situation as she was about Josh's business venture with the brethren. She owns the house they live in so he can't strong-arm her away from Helen's hospital bed if she chooses to visit.