The Archers No. 94: Freddie’s doing porridge, Tom gets his oats, but will Home Farm be toast? We’ll have to wheat and see ... Serial production is in full swing in Ambridge

[witchmountain]

Thanks to LilG for the title, and DDD for starting the last thread and the tradition of the thread starter nominating the next thread starter

Lurkers are always welcome to unlurk and join in, including asking questions of the many very knowledgeable posters with a long Archers-listening history.

Don't post spoilers based on forthcoming plot synopses that you've read, there's another thread for that (and we'd love to see you over there). Once an episode has aired then it's fair game.

As Freddie's an adult, I'm pretty sure any appeal is going to need his authorisation. I'm not too clear how Lizzie is even going to be able to contact him to get that before Friday.

I reckon Johnny will tell her Freddie doesn't consent to the appeal and she'll go ape.

Can the appeal process even proceed if Freddie is unwilling to participate? Isn’t Lizzie just going to widen the rift between them by pursuing an appeal?

No- absolutely not. Solicitors and barristers take instructions from their client, not their client's mum. Even if he weren't an adult that would still be the case. (Obviously there are situations where a parent as guardian instructs for child's benefit but this isn't one of them)

This plot-line is ludicrous. It should have been put to sleep at the meeting with Anna Tregorran (and why Anna Tregorran or similar was not brought in from the beginning is still a mystery)

Honestly I don't get why the middle class scriptwriters of the most middle class soap opera ever targeted at a largely middle class audience - ie all people for whom the law, access to the law and actually knowing a solicitor or a barrister is hardly a big mystery, consistently get it so wrong.

I don't think they have got it wrong this time, have they? They've said that every single lawyer Elizabeth or her relatives have spoken to have advised that the appeal hasn't got a hope in hell, and that seems to be absolutely correct. It's also correct that it's possible she could find a firm that is more than willing to take her money to pursue a hopeless appeal.

What is frustrating is that, as a supposedly intelligent woman, Elizabeth is so firmly resisting all the advice she is getting. I know that she's desperately worried for Freddie, but I would have thought it might have occurred to her that those lawyers can't all be wrong, and that it isn't doing Freddie any favours to raise his hopes for nothing. I found it seriously irritating that she was using Nigel's death to excuse him and suggesting he didn't really know what he was doing: I wanted Anna to point out that prison is full of fatherless inmates, if they can serve their time, why can't Freddie?

Elizabeth may be smart enough in business but, as far as I recall, she's not particularly highly educated. And she's under so much stress. Maybe it's not surprising she can't see the situation from the outside.

Must say, I would have liked to hear from all the LL trustees regarding Freddie's misadventures.

And I bet Nigel is spinning. And exclaiming that it would never have happened if Frilly had gone to boarding school like proper Pargetters.

Elizabeth blaming the death of Nigel is an expression of her own loss and sense of helplessness, and her need to be absolved of guilt that things have gone so dreadfully wrong for Freddie. She’s using it to manipulate people into feeling sorry for HER and hoping they’ll bend the rules - never mind the massive stately home, vineyards, horses etc, I’m really a poor widow woman!

I think Jill is right that she needs support but I’m in the ‘tough love’ camp. She needs to be told, kindly but firmly.

What is absolutely spot on in all of this is Elizabeth absolutely refusing to accept that she’s not going to get her own way.

Am I missing something? Why is Fallon whinging about Jazzer telling Emma about the Board Games evening, when she's just told Lynda?

Presumably because Jazzer might conceivably have mentioned it to Jolene but she doesn't think there's any chance Lynda would. I think it was more just a ploy to shoehorn in the ultra-competitive, to the point of cheating, nature of Jolene, again. They're kind of labouring the point with that, I don't know if it's supposed to be going somewhere.

It's not beyond the SW to allow Freddie (especially after another beating) to be persuaded by Elizabeth to appeal (though difficult his current rejection of her). I don't want to listen to years of estrangement as result of Mum's advice doubling time served.

Nor do I want her to run out of time and spend the next 6 months handwringing, and berating her MP about how unfair the appeal time limits are. So, yeah, it would have been good if Anna had left lest wiggle-room.

As someone who has insisted on her own way in the teeth of insurance companies, banks, and employers in recent years, and won through, I can see where Lizzie's faith in grim, dog-with-a-bone indefatigability comes from. However, she ought to understand its limits - sentencing policy, and the wishes of old-enough-to-know-better-but-nevertheless-horribly-mistaken children being two areas.

Exactly it’s one thing to tenaciously fight on because the party with an opposing interest has suppressed facts or skewed due process so that justice has not been served. But if the people who are advising you on your best interests can see all the facts and can tell you that it’s fruitless, then you have left rationality behind.

Of course, the SW have shown why she has left rationality behind - it’s a desperate emotional response to Freddie’s suffering.

But if the people who are advising you on your best interests can see all the facts and can tell you that it’s fruitless

Those people and every single other lawyer she's been able to find whilst neglecting her business and employees dad3

She needs to understand that not only is it fruitless, if she gets her way, it's endangering Freddie.

We need bigger prizes than BOOPS ...

Oh, Pat, that was so many shades of wrong.
She should have told Johnny to keep his promise, to give Lizzie sweet words and dump all his worries on Pat's shoulders instead, to keep talking to Freddie to get him to soften his attitude to his mum. No way should she be telling Johnny to break promises.

I do feel rather deprived of the most important conversation in tonight's episode ... Why couldn't we have had that instead of Pip discussing the Rickyard hokey-cokey with Rex?

“Mummy is dopey!” 👀 Was that for us in the Pip/Rex scene?

Really felt for Johnny tonight, I thought that Pat would have comforted him more, especially after he started to talk about his Dad. Elizabeth was (understandably to a point) really OTT with him too. Poor lad.

I felt it really underlined how Johnny also lost his Da but didn't go off the rails and wasn't dealing drugs and such even though he didn't have Freddie's privileges. Stately home not really saving Freddie from making his OWN mistakes. Elizabeth claiming he "didn't understand what he was doing " is painful. Freddie might not be terribly academic but he's not a total idiot. He kent fine it was illegal. How can she possibly think he didn't understand? I know he's her boy and she wants to spare him but I think her defence is baffling.

Yes, I can just see Elizabeth's attitude seriously annoying any judge who gets to hear an appeal. They regularly see the victims of abuse, and kids from horrendous backgrounds - I doubt they'd be terribly impressed by an appeal based on "Poor Freddie, he didn't know what he was doing and he's suffering in custody more than all those other oiks".

I felt it really underlined how Johnny also lost his Da but didn't go off the rails and wasn't dealing drugs and such even though he didn't have Freddie's privileges. This.

Johnny is lovely. I really hope in years to come they find him a lovely girl who appreciates him and he gets his own farm or a share in one.

... and he gets his own farm or a share in one.

He's John's son - I'm not sure he can avoid his father's rightful inheritance!

Well it will be interesting to see how the bridge farm inheritance works out. Jonny doesn’t have entitled bone in his body and I can see Helen and Tom taking advantage of that.

Überboop for that episode!
Incredibly well acted by Johnny. Painful listening to Elizabeth trying to get some info from him.