Brian is over a barrel, Alice has drained the barrel and Shula has given it to Alistair with both barrels - The Archers is not exactly a barrel of laughs at the moment.

[PseudoBadger]

Thanks to @LillianGish for the thread title.

WELL.

That was pretty horrid.

Will has been brainwashed. By Smugula.

Really though, this is so clumsy - talk about retrofitting a storyline.

OK, that's Matt's accident explained, I suppose. I'm not happy with it, though. They obviously did all that with the idea of having Nic conveniently die months later and tying that knot afterwards. All very contrived, and right out of character for Nic.

Very pleased to see the worm turn at Home Farm, though! Not that Jennifer is very worm-like but she has mostly done what Brian wants over the years, even if she's moaned about it/him a bit.

It's going to get out isn't it? Ed will tell Emma and either she or Joe will confide in someone else. Will will then accuse Ed of blabbing and on and on and on - more misery for the Grundys.

Yup. Robert Snell will work it out from what Kate let slip and Lushlice will tell Chris, who will, despite being loyal, let something slip to Radio. Ruth may tell David, too.

Adam may feel he has to tell Ian, too.

Must be about ten years since Ruairi spoke, in what I believe was a strong Dublin accent, although he'd been living at Home Farm for a year or two by then, and before that he was mostly in Germany. Next time we hear him speak I expect him to have a cut glass English accent.

I'm so disappointed we didn't hear Debbie. I know Tamsin Grieg is busy but I had hopes.

Sorry, Lushlice should have read lush Alice...

No Abra, Lushlice is perfect

I know there is a tradition of not swearing on this thread but surely I am allowed a free pass in the circumstances. That episode was the best and worst of TA. The explanation of Matt's accident was just utter wank. Absolute bollocks.
Jenny on the other hand was fantastic. How many years has she been waiting for this I wonder. I was cheering her on.

Haven't been around for a while but had to come on to cheer for Jenny. Yes the Ed/Will conversation was thoroughly unconvincing, but I have been waiting for Jenny to do that to Brian for YEARS.

Well the lingering aspect of Ed and Will is that Will didn't realise he'd done wrong. In fact he sounded a bit like a psychopath.
I'm not sure if that was the SWs intention, but ...

If Will hadn't hidden Nic's involvement AND Nic had gone to prison (although I don't think that would have haplened) then she wouldn't have cut her finger on Joe's nick-nacks and she'd still be alive - will that thought occur to Will?

Will finds thinking a challenge, MsBeauvoir.

It'll be 18 months before that one comes to him.

I agree the tidying up of the Matt hit and run was too pat by a long chalk, and smacks of karma, i.e. the bad deed is punished.

Rather enjoyed Brine's shock horror.

After Shula's "be careful what you wish for", I now give you Adam's. He has wanted to take over the running of the farm for years but has done it just when they have the Environmentals crawling all over them, they are likely to lose the Estate contract, have lost half the strawberry contract and he has a baby planned.
Not good timing!

If Brian's ego will allow him to go gracefully (which from the sound of it) it won't, he wants to die in harness.

I'm not so sure that Nic would've allowed herself to have been manipulated by Will. The SW's possibly changed her character there.

Woken up this morning still replaying in my head that moment of frisson: (just went on iPlayer to transcribe it exactly)

Brian: But I naturally, assumed...
Jennifer: - you assumed wrongly

Actually, JD's laugh is hard to transcribe but was perfect.

The Silmarillion: there is an interesting thread on twitter about the parallels https://twitter.com/felpershamaccs/status/980020777511682048?s=21

Just catching up...
How dare Philip tell Shula Alastair has confided in him? What sort of problems could that have cause Alastair? Keeping a person's confidence doesn't mean "X confided in me but I can't tell you what he said", it means keeping quiet about the fact of the confidence as well.

If I may quote Matt, that explanation of the hit and run was briefcasing unbelievable

Very very late to the party - I did like Lynda's bit and also the slight suggestion that Robert really wanted to hear her slagging off a literary author after all these years of smugly reading Moby Dick and suchlike - he sounded like he got exactly what he wanted as well ;)

BUT I found it hard to get to that bit because of the repulsive, disgusting, unbearable sounds of Roy eating and talking with his mouth full and chewing with his mouth open. I know I'm unusually sensitive to these noises but it really made my skin crawl.

I haven't even heard the episode you are all writing about but it looks like a cracker...

Hmm - where does that leave Will, then? He has committed a crime and now Ed knows about it as well.

Obviously there is a parallel with Brian's cover-up causing his downfall.

Mrs Landingham I think that the actual accident was believable, I've had screaming ill children in the car and got totally hysterical myself. It's the aftermath and Nic allowing Will to dominate her to the extent he did I found hard to believe.