Thread 99 (yes, 99!): Join us for spirited discussions of The Archers and its Top Blokes, whether you're Team Elizabeth (low spirits), Team Kate (Spiritual Home) or Team Toby (spirits =gin)

[Bittermints]

Thanks due to @PseudoBadger for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads and to @DadDadDad for being our resident statistician and keeping the ball rolling when Pseudo stepped back a bit. Thanks also to all those who contributed to the thread title.

All views on The Archers welcome here! New blood welcomed. We don't all agree on all points and most of us are posting tongue in cheek a lot of the time, so don't worry about revealing that you'd like to be Susan's best friend or other odd unusual views.

Spoilers: not on this thread, please. We don't wait for the omnibus to discuss the weeknight episodes, but we do try our best to avoid cross-contamination from www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3439443-keep-it-to-yourself-the-archers-spoilers-thread-4, where spoilers are positively welcomed!

So, to business. What a fantastic two-hander. Massive BOOP points to Alison Dowling, the scriptwriter and director (and the therapist). I had more than a small tear in my eye listening to that.

I'm another one with a vote of thanks to chemenger for all that information on the last thread about distilling. I should know some of that because I went on a tour of the whisky distillery near where my parents live but I've forgotten most of it except how delicious the end product is.

Of course it appealed to Lily s vanity, good looking older man in position of power. That's why the rules about pupil teacher relationships are there. And people like Russ spot the vulnerable a mile off. There is not a chance that I wouldn't have had my head turned by a Russ when I was that age. The teacher in my school spotted someone else. A very capable girl who propped up the family following a divorce. I think the scriptwriters have got lilys vulnerabilities spot on.

Marguerita I suspect a part of Lily agrees with you which is another reason it's so hard for her to back down.

Kill Jill is simply the first ...

Once Upon a Time in The Bull

Pip Fiction

Untrue Romance (you're so very wrong about Lily, all you Lily haters!)

and of course The Hateful Kate.

I see a therapist and spend most of my time immersed in all the wrongs done to me growing up so I can make an educated guess how my kids would spend time in counselling of their own ... and it would not be pretty.

I am SOOO glad I was wrong about Mia. Is a BOOP allowed for her scenes with Will?

Definitely a BOOP for Mia at the end there.

Will is vile. Boop Mia.

Wow Will, he was really horrible tonight. I'm glad Mia told him! He needs therapy. He never even considered the children's feelings, it was all about him.

Loved Jenny putting a stop on Susan having a snoop around upstairs! However, good on Susan showing Jenny that you don't need a man to unblock a sink.

Another BOOP for Mia.

I liked Susan showing Jenny too, although I was a bit alarmed about the wrench. You can normally unscrew the joints on ubends very easily by hand. I thought she was going to end up pulling off something that was meant to remain fixed!

If I was Andrew I would be encouraging mia to spend as much time at home as possible, Will is foul.

I think Will would have them all wearing black for two years, followed by a move to grey and purple if he could. It's not that long ago he was taking them to the grave every five minutes.

I'm quite surprised they haven't had any involvement from a bereavement charity. We have a lovely one near us, who help the children to do memory boxes and help them talk things through.

I know Will would turn that down flat, but I would have thought Jake and Mia's dad might have organised something.

I don't understand his thought processes at all. Surely as a parent you do your best to encourage them to remember the nice things. He seems to want them to be constantly miserable.

Will is miserable but I’d imagine he is also depressed. I find the working-class version of depression plays very nicely against the Elizabeth’s middle-class version.

Elizabeth has knowledgable people on her side and money to spend on her illness. Will on the other hand has had practical help but no one to help him emotionally. I can see him being depressed for years if he doesn’t get help.

a bit like the entail in P&P which Mr Bennett was going to break in a way I never understood when his son was born. I thought in P&P it was just that, if Mr Bennet had a son, he'd be unlikely to kick out his mother and sisters. Unlike that other JA which opens with a deathbed promise to "look after" wife and daughter which is slowly whittled down from a share of the capital and a generous allowance, to bunging them a chicken every now and again (or something similar).

To those with depressed children - with different parents and upbringing, I'd not have depression, but it's not their fault. As long as you did what you thought was best at the time, you have nothing to blame yourself for. If you were a different person and had acted in a different way, your children would have lost out on the positive things that you gave them, and would have had a whole set of different problems. "They fuck you up, your mum and dad"

They are looking for a new Assistant Producer

Shall we apply? We’d be allowed into the archives!

Exactly MDOP.

I see Will as a younger self pitying version of his grand father, but with even fewer redeeming features.
Actually I can’t see any redeeming features in Joe Grundy when I come to think of it. Supremely entitled, grabby CF as he’d be described on the AIBU board.

'but would someone as otherwise switched on as Lily have fallen for such an obvious twat with his food intolerances and three-speed kettles?' Ahh but Lil'G the world is full of a variety of 'obvious twats' and teenage girls and young ladies are very prone to falling for them regardless of how 'switched on' they are in other areas. I'd go so far as to say I think his penchant for organic food, fad diets and fancy kettles were all part of his exotic allure until she was bankrolling them.

He never even considered the children's feelings, it was all about him.

Whereas Mia seemed to be thinking mostly about what 'Pops' would like, and whether a Nic would have liked it. Definite BOOP for her.

Hopefully Will will back down over both the Sound of Music and the charity - he has shown the ability not to be totally intransigent in the past.

You are probably right Inky - I just don’t think CallMeRuss has ever been portrayed in an attractive way which makes it hard for me to get my head around Lily’s infatuation. In my imagination he has always been excruciating - Lily has always felt older than him - I needed him to be a bit more suave to begin with.

Loved Jenny and Susan unblocking the sink. Classic Archers

I wonder if Alan has ever talked to Will about his own experience of being widowed with a young daughter? I don’t think Will is religious and not sure if he was going to church with Nic every Sunday, but Alan is involved enough for it not to be totally random. Would have been better before Will shouted at him though. Also a chat between Elizabeth and Will would be interesting.

Separately, I laughed a lot when Susan said “I’m not surprised you couldn’t fit in that big settee of yours” and Jenny sounded momentarily confused then said “ah yes, the sofa”. Nice bit of acting from Angela Piper.

I was disappointed though that Susan didn’t mention at any point what the cottage was like when Mike and Vicky lived there, Susan must have been round all the time then.

Also, was anyone else a bit confused about what Jenny had “done to the kitchen”? How much can you do with a kitchen in a rented property?

Going back to P&P briefly, MereDint, this is the bit I was thinking of:

When first Mr. Bennet had married, economy was held to be perfectly useless, for, of course, they were to have a son. The son was to join in cutting off the entail, as soon as he should be of age, and the widow and younger children would by that means be provided for. I think this means that Mr Bennet and his heir could jointly agree that the entail should be abandoned and then the Bennet son could inherit absolutely and do what he liked with the property. Mr Bennet couldn't do that so had no way of leaving Longbourn and all the rented farmland to his wife and daughters.

If this is anything like Nigel's situation, I suppose we are meant to assume it never occurred to Gerald to do anything about the entail. Unsatisfactory as Nigel often was in his younger days, he was destined to inherit LL and that was that. Nigel might well have tried to do something to even things up for Lily but perhaps it would have had to wait till Freddie was of age.

buckingfrolics, inspired!

^Kill Jill is simply the first ...

Once Upon a Time in The Bull

Pip Fiction

Untrue Romance (you're so very wrong about Lily, all you Lily haters!)

and of course The Hateful Kate.^

And given the pig venture at Bridge Farm, and the presence there of the eco ponds or whatever it is, we could also have Reservoir Hogs!

I was happily disappointed with the sink unblocking. I was steeling myself for a comedy things-gone-wrong, similar to Em's recent encounter with the portaloo, and it didn't happen. Hurrah!

JMJ: yes, I was confused, too, about what you can 'do' to a kitchen in a rental.

My offering for film titles: the rather obvious The Bridge on the River Am

Separately, I laughed a lot when Susan said “I’m not surprised you couldn’t fit in that big settee of yours” and Jenny sounded momentarily confused then said “ah yes, the sofa”. Nice bit of acting from Angela Piper.

Obviously, this whole scene was set up as a bit of comedy around snobbery and nosiness, but it didn't feel quite plausible to me that Jenny would have to think about what the word "settee" means even if she is a "sofa"-user. Or was she subtly just sneering at Susan?

The nice thing about this scene is that although at the start, Susan just came across as an irritating busybody and you could tell Jenny's reluctance to let her in, in the end they seemed to be bonding nicely over a cup of tea (several brownies consumed, second pot of tea), and Susan proved to be a genuinely helpful neighbour (but still a snob).

What had Jenny done to the kitchen? Arranged the tagine in an attractive way?

oops. We are supposed to be doing Tarantino films, aren't we. In which case I give you David starring in Natural Born Killers (no re-write of the title needed!)