The Archers - We Listen So You Don't Have To

[PseudoBadger]

Happy(?!) Sunday everyone

What will this week have in store for us I wonder?

Fink the pregnant girl WAS Greg's daughter!

Did anyone notice that amongst all the nonsense Jazzer did say (paraphrasing) "any normal woman would just have walked out instead of sticking a knife in him" He's not wrong. Isn't that what most listeners wish would have happened?

I was disappointed in him though. I was hoping he'd be more of the "I always kent that Rob was a Bad Yin" approach.

I do feel sorry for her bit I think Tom should have atuck more to the a) where is Jazzer's common decency b) loyalty.

Don't think Jazzer and Helen were ever very friendly. But Jazzer is meant to be Tom's friend. And Tony's.

Neil is lovely though.

If I recall when George and Hen were little it was mostly Enmur being kind to Helen.
In the shop Helen was pretty off once Rob turned up. She used K as a sounding board. K backed H all the way when Rob turned on H. Then H dropped K bigtime once Rob started being nice to her again.

The pg sl - there was a teenager (was that Greg's daughter?) Annette?? Who got pg (by some barman at Jax?) And Helen wanted her to keep the baby and give it to her. She was really pressuring her and totally not thinking about the effect on the girl. Girl had abortion and then Helen decided to go down the donor route.

So Tom didn't notice his DSis becoming more and more withdrawn (literally and metaphorically) and now thinks that she is kind. He really doesn't know her.

And as for Tom and how can he say that when he knows how kind Helen is. Kind? In what way?

And how Tom, Pat and Tony always bang on about how independent Helen is. Helen who has lived her entire life in the same village and before shacking up with Rob lived with her parents well into her thirties, leaned on them heavily for childcare and spent her entire career working in their shop.
Self absorbed and stubborn yes - independent? I'm not sure.

anyone notice that amongst all the nonsense Jazzer did say (paraphrasing) "any normal woman would just have walked out instead of sticking a knife in him

I thought he just said "any normal woman would just walk out......"
Which is a bit victim blaming. I do wish she had escaped. But am well aware its not that simple.

However the options are usually
Stay
Try to eacape but fail
Escape but Return
Escape

Not stab him.

I also do not really like he must have done something to provoke her reasoning. That is the same reason people give for DV. She must have driven him to it. He must have had a reason....blah blah...

Which is why I hate this sl.

I would much rather they were saying "she must have had a reason to leave him"

Yes. Yes she did. He's a cunt.
Really?
Yes. Who'd have thought it. He seems caring.
Well he isn't. He's a grade a controlling, cockwomble, wankbadger, cocklodging fuckwit.

Is he now? (Cockwomble you say...are you on MN?)

That is the way it should have gone.

Including the scene in court when he is being prosecuted for CC, rape and assault and the prosecuting barrister says
"I put it to you Mr Titchener that you are a wankbadger."

Has Johnny emigrated ? He's had nothing to say on the matter.

He was mentioned.
Wonder if he will realise Rob was sabotaging his orders.

Well I guess Helen has always been kind to Tom. She was kind to Greg's girls when they were young and to Annette when she returned, before the baby weirdness. Also, she was nice to Nic and helped her and DCs integrate a bit I think. She had always been fair with her staff, at the shop and in the dairy - what was her take on Clarrie's return post-food-poisoning? Then Johnny; H and T found it hard to accept their parents' obsession but were nice to Johnny once he appeared. She's nice to animals and didn't like hunting.

So, not a person going out of their way to be kind but generally nice to people within her limited orbit.

Waiting for Johny to recall his secret conversation with Helen last August, a week after the wedding, when she opened up and admitted she was not happy.

Helen was nice to Annette - and they were quite mutually supportive.
The problem when Annette got pregnant was that the father was Helen's ex-boyfriend (who she'd only just broken up with) and so Annette couldn't quite be honest with Helen.
Once there were secrets in the relationship it really didn't work. Yes, Helen got overly fixated on the baby, but if Annette had been able to explain/talk a bit more I think she would have stopped that. But the circumstances were that Annette couldn't tell Helen everything, and was scared to say much incase she said too much.

I think Helen always got on well with her shop staff.

The thing I thought again from last night was not Tom and Kirsty back again, but how well Tom and Pip got on. Yes it's a 12 year age gap, but they aren't first cousins.
But then it could be that Daisy Badger always sounds as though she is flirting with any male pretty much she interacts with.

I too didn't recognise Pip at first and then thought she was coming on to Tom. Please God let that be the dire acting rather a planned storyline!

not rtft, yet

the phone tracking would explain why she left it home instead of taking it to see kirsty while Henry was at a party.

she was spied on anyway.

Much as I dislike Pip, I thought on the whole she came over as concerned cousin rather than someone coming on to Tom. He did help her save the milking parlour during the flood, so they're moderately close

But Pip only spoke to Tom because she wanted something (cows), it was only when she say what state he was in that she started being supportive. In fact Pip and Helen seem quite alike selfish

I did find it odd that she thought it'd be ok to ask Tom but not his dad Tony. though Tbh lately I've been blaming the SWs rather than the characters for a lot of things!

glowfrog

Not v kind to be the OW in Rob and Jess' marriage.

Pip - why didn't David say, 'But what happens if the cows on the special grass do worse than the control group? Will you be compensating me for the decrease in their value?'

Thyme because Pip is another special snowflake.

Jazzer is the voice of the common man. To be honest he was only saying what many people on here have said in the past - wind back these threads to before the Knob Hellin storyline and H was top of the list of characters contributors would have liked to get rid of (be careful what you wish for). The comment about why didn't she just leave why did she have to stab him is what many on here were saying at the time (actually I still don't understand - obviously it was to create a more dramatic storyline, but that is not a suitable explanation to Jazzer who doesn't realise he is part of a story ). Jazzer was the mouthpiece for what the SW's want us to think people in general are saying. Personally I think it would have been a better storyline if he had been the one to listen to Henry when he took him off to play yesterday - but they had to put those words into the mouth of someone who Tom could reasonably overhear and so provoke an extreme reaction (and send him into the arms of Kirsty). I no longer feel The is any point in analysing TA in terms of what might actually happen, but only in terms of what might happen in terms of an EE style storyline

redshoe I know it sounds daft but when characters start acting not oddly or doing nonsensical things, who else can we blame??

I absolutely don't understand the stupidity of not discussing Pip's request with Ruth first.

Is this an accidental omission by the SW or the beginning of another unbelievably tedious Brookfield feud?

That little plot device has been resolved so no need to worry about it. Ruth is all zen now

Regarding Jazzer - it will be interesting to see how the world develops once he and Jim become cohabitees again next week.

Bridge Farm didn't seem to have been much affected by Jazzer's long residence (they didn't even alter their meals) but I imagine Jim's presence at the Stables kept a lid on all sorts of simmering trouble - which should boil over nicely as soon as he leaves.

Actually thinking of plot devices, we need Jazzer and Jim to move back in together so They can have a discussion in which Jim remembers what a Jekyll and Hyde character Knob can be and how threatening he can be when crossed so perhaps that is another reason for Jazzer being banished from Bridge Farm.

We've done it again Gruach