The Archers: Discussion #84. New Year and some of us are still listening even if we don't know why.

[DadDadDad]

New posters welcome - with your fresh views and burning questions.

Old posters welcome - with your jaded views and knowledgeable answers.

But new posters feel free to be jaded, and old posters feel free to ask questions!

How is the Pip storyline going to play out and do you care?

As usual, if you want to mention the advertised storylines for future episodes, there's a separate thread for that - no spoilers here, please.

Just imagine we're all sitting round a table at The Bull -->

Eeek. I think that Freddie is going to do some fast growing up.

I heart Peggy.

I’d have lost my stake there then

I feel quite upset. Good episode

Sounds like I missed a good one! What happened!!

Lowfield hasn't updated so I came on here to see what had happened and noone's said! Please help me out here (guests are arriving any second so no time to LA). Thanks!

Peggy tells Kate a few home truths about her parenting style.
Lexi and Roy have a tedious conversation over dinner.
Nolly takes an entire tablet of ecstasy, we assume.....ambulance on the way.
Hope that doesn't spoil it for anyone.

Lexi and Roy’s tedious conversation was about him coming round to the idea of the surrogacy.

It was Noluthando's party, and she was furious with Kate for turning up uninvited, so she took one of the pills Freddie was planning to sell. Kate went to find her and make amends. She found her by an open window, but Kate talked her down and then it sounded like Noluthando had a seizure or similar. I was doing toddler bedtime at the same time, so didn't hear all of it, but I think that was the gist.

Is anyone else in possession of a three-year-old now gleefully shouting "SHUT UP! SHUT UP!" or is it just me? If I'm taken aside by a concerned nursery worker tomorrow afternoon, I'm not sure they'll buy me blaming Radio 4.

Annoying episode. How on earth is Lexi going to offer again to Adam and Ian? How much more to-ing and fro-ing? She's showing herself to be unreliable, so why would she be trusted to hand over the baby?

And as for Kate, asking a teenager how to make her daughter love her. The "make" is telling. Also not buying the medical emergency tiger mum bit; it will not overturn Kate's fundamental immaturity but will stoke her erroneous sense of being good mum. Loved Jill's telling it like it is.

Roy is entirely predictably going to come round to the idea. I don’t think it would have been realistic in the least if he had warmed to the idea straight away. He needs to to get used to the idea and what it means for him and Lexi. I don’t imagine finding a surrogate is ever easy, but I don’t see why Ian and Adam would be less likely to trust Lexi than a stranger they found on the internet or whatever. I think they would appreciate the fact that she had really thought it through before coming to her decision.

I'm not quite sure of the point of the Roy & Lexi conversation. Was she saying that it's not so much that she wants to be a surrogate for I&A but that she's plain and simple broody, so we end up with a R&L baby?

Why doesn't Roy just ask Lexi to marry him ?

I thought she was saying she was wants to do it to help Ian and Adam and also because as a spin off she gets to to stay in Ambridge and have her girls to visit and all the time stay near Roy.

I think that Roy would reasonably have difficulty with the idea of being intimate with Lexi while she was carrying a baby for someone else. It’s not really what you imagine for the first heady honeymoon period of a new relationship, is it?
also, I would not be surprised if guidance in surrogates advised against someone who lives near you and might end up bumping into the baby every day.

Thanks everyone for the updates!
The whole Lexi surrogacy thing is

I thought she was saying she was wants to do it to help Ian and Adam and also because as a spin off she gets to to stay in Ambridge and have her girls to visit and all the time stay near Roy.

Yes I thought that's what she meant. Not really a solution is it though? Once the baby's born they'll be back to square one!

Oh and I loved Peggy and Kate. Peggy said exactly what Kate needed to hear without being cruel. I have to confess I was a bit emotional listening to Kate sorting Noli out. I hope she's OK (of course she will be!)

Esmebees Noli was sitting ,or standing? on the window ledge on the 2nd floor of LL. Hence the mention of Nigel falling off the roof onto the ground beneath it.

She had taken a whole E (rather than the 1\4 that Freddie told her to).

I've dipped out of TA for the last couple of months as I hate the build up to the panto and I found the whole Justin/Lilian wedding annoying. Now I'm working from home for a few weeks and can catch up at lunchtimes. What was the big bust up between Kate and Noli about which led to Peggy intervening?

Noli told Kate how abandoned she had felt as a 13 year old in SA. How she wasn't a good mum. That was a week before, they hadn't talked for that time.

Let's hope Freddie now grows up and stops selling drugs.

It seems too easy to bring about a resolution of the Kate/Noluthano thing by going down the medical emergency route. It would have been better if Kate had demonstrated that she had been paying attention with Peggy by keeping away from the party, but sitting down with Noluthando to have a conversation demonstrating that she (Kate) realised her mistakes and was learning from them.