The Archers - It's so much more than just a soap. It's a bloody drama!

[PseudoBadger]

Will it still be Sunday tonight?

This might be clutching at straws but I wonder if the press coverage of Rob as flood hero which Susan has blabbed will be the thing that brings Stefan out of hiding.
I appreciate that it won't get Helen off but it might expose Rob as a fraud which is A Good Thing.

I've been thinking about Rob's background (yes, I know!)

Anyway, I wonder whether he persuaded Helen to go for the IoW wedding because he didn't want her to be centre of attention and allow others (Pat, Fallon, Emma) an input into their wedding day. The IoW wedding gave him total control.

Similarly his decision to go for PR over adoption. Adoption requires interviews with social workers, and submitting yourself to officialdom etc. As we know from his employment at Berrow and his relationship with Tom in the BF shop, Rob hated being accountable. His word was King. PR meant he wasn't subject to that.

So there might not be anything suspicious in his past to be revealed. My money is on him losing his rag in court, especially if he is challenged over his version of events by Helen's female barrister. It doesn't mitigate Helen's actions but it may influence a jury or help with sentencing.

Back to lurking.

"AWFUL AWFUL Bruce. What a frightening hateful man"

I wonder if we'd be thinking this if we didn't know the background? Wouldn't we be thinking "Shocked, terrified Bruce- how awful this is for him"

Anyway, posh Englishmen of his generation aren't called Bruce..........

I don't understand why people keep saying rob's past isn't relevant. Surely Helen's entire case is based on proving that, although he was unarmed and doesn't appear to most people to be a dangerous person, he actually did present a real threat to her and/or Henry at the time. If they can point to occasions in the past where he has lost it majorly and maybe severely beaten someone, then that is fairly plausible. In the absence of such evidence, it's a bit of a stretch. So the defence will be trying to dig up what they can on rob to prove that he really could be a threat to the extent that stabbing was necessary self-defence.

So are we going to have Henwee being questioned at the police station tonight? I wonder how that will go. Poor little boy, I really feel for him

Betrand, I think I'd consider anyone who told the mother of someone on the verge of death to dry her tears because they're not helpful, in a very short-tempered, unsympathetic way, to be a fairly unpleasant person.

I agree iisme (my auto correct insists you are called Kismet!), the second word would have been off.

I might consider that he is the fqther of someone at the point of death and cut him some slack.

Anyway, posh Englishmen of his generation are just not called Bruce. So there is something odd going on there!

Well. I went away for a few days and when I got back you'd filled a thread and got halfway through another - I knew something drastic had happened understatement. Have finally caught up with all episodes and am actually at the slapdash, hasty and shoddy way they've brought this to a 'conclusion'. After the tortuous past couple of years of mind games and general bastardishness (ykwim) this is how it stops?! So beyond disappointed.

Wonder when Rob will wakeup and make an appearance?

And I agree about Bruce being an odd name for the character.

My db's godfather was a posh Englishman called Bruce (of a slightly older generation I suppose).

In fact, come to think of it, I think he might have been a farmer....

I would try to cut him some slack I guess, but I reckon that people who are utterly unsympathetic of other people's suffering are not usually nice people. He was very u kind to her.

I don't really agree about Bruce, by the way. I know several public school boys, my age and older, who are called Bruce.

I don't think I have enough years left to catch up with this thread - got to page 14 and about to give up and go lead my normal life!

I did feel slightly uplifted last night that - apart from the best efforts of Bastardly Bruce, Semi-cowed Arsula and of course Radio Sue (I'll bet she HATES being called Sue) - Helen might get a few points in mitigation.

But reading this thread confirms for me we need to form a MN swat team to go to Felpersham General - it has to be tonight before thy take him out of his coma. Someone needs to raid the cleaners' cupboard (it's bound to have been left unlocked), dress as a cleaner and pull out that ventilator plug. And if Ursula is dosing gently in the chair beside the bed, please drop a very thick pillow over her face. Ditto for Brucie.

But It''s worrying to recall that Helen did tell Knob about the driving incident when she hit Moik, then tom took the blame. If that gets out, any testimony from Tom will be mince. Indeed since PatnTone were in cahoots over that, it's hopeless for all of them.

Another thought, is it only in soap/film land that ,immediately after the defendant is sent down, in this case Helen, the police will arrive with charges to slap on the 'victim' aka Knob. If he gets sent down for all sorts of crimes that will emerge in Heel's hearing/trial, he can then be tried for HIS crimes. That way, with both doing stir, Henry will get to stay in Ambridge. He'd be as safe being brought up by PatnTone as Helen was!! (It did occur to me the other night, Sharon who I never liked, was right all along - Pat IS a bampot)

Spell check's only suggestion for 'bampot' is tampon. I find that very funny and had to share.. Soweee

I think the exchanges between Bruce and Ursula contained multiple red flags. He was really horrible to her and not because he was in a stressful situation but because he is unpleasant like Rob is.

I am a bit disappointed at how formulaic it all is.

I wonder if we'd be thinking this if we didn't know the background? Wouldn't we be thinking "Shocked, terrified Bruce- how awful this is for him"

Not really, because he was very deliberately depicted as not shocked and terrified, but angry and aggressive. Anger is of course extremely understandable, but I'm not so sure about the aggression and rudeness towards his wife. And I think that most people in that position would want to stay by their son's bedside rather than careering round the country to shout at people whose only crime is being related to the person actually responsible; especially when that means more shouting and aggression in the vicinity of an already traumatised small child for whom your son has parental responsibility.

Simply can't keep up with Usain Bolt-esque pace of these threads, but checking in breathlessly to say what a HORROR and bully Bruce is. Delighted to see that he seems to be the root of the troubles rather than mother so BOOP point on that score.

Helen is toast though, isn't she?

Waves to Notdead, as gallops through thread picking out things here and there.

Yes Bruce is vile, and I think we' re intended to think he goes beyond the unpleasantness induced by extreme stress.

And yes. Helen is toast.

I thought even without backstory, we would have clocked Bruce as a vile individual - there were enough red flags to make bunting and it was clear that Ursula is abused by him as well as acting as his enabler and then inflicting emotional abuse on her children.

Bruce kicked off by complaining the nurses had the temerity to be looking after patients other than his son - he's on ITU, every patient there is as sick as Rob and they all have 1 to 1 nursing. His tone was aggressive and he was moaning about his other son and complaining Ursula was emabarrassing.

I deal with very distressed relatives every day and 99% of them manage to do it without behaving like Bruce. On that ITU everyone would have clocked Bruce as a twat.

He then had his extreme reaction to the stoma which was more about the perfection of his son being destroyed than the more usual 'having to have a bag', even though it was v clear the bag is almost certainly temporary. He didn't seem to see Rob as a person in his own right, more as an extension of himself.

And then he went off to pick a fight with Pat and Tony. There he was dragging Ursula around and telling her what to do and she was transformed into someone very meek except for her big showoff moment when she got to enable him and also grab some of the limelight back for herself for 2 minutes.

They were an awful pair and almost (only almost) made you feel sorry for Rob. I got the feeling Bruce was less mindgames like Rob and more physical violence, probably against both Ursula and his children, and they had all developed the mindgames to survive.

Presumably, another dramatic purpose served by the encounter of Count Ursula and Bruce with Pat and Tony was for them to reveal the extent of Rob's injuries, because no-one would have told P&T at that stage. So, it adds to their horror of "do I not even know my own daughter - how could she have done this?"

I would happily not have to listen to Bruce and ursula any more.

Is this socs new dv sl and we will hear ursula getting out via WA?

I would have liked to see the abuser turned into the accused, the victim turned into a survivor instead we have the victim turned into accused and abuser turned into victim.

Anyway, you're right about the galloping pace: over 3400 posts in 1 week! A year ago, that would have taken 2 months.

Me too smallLegs, me too. I thought Bruce and Ursula were well written but I would have gladly gone without for a much much better storyline than this