The Archers #109: Pulp Fiction! Hammer Horror (Tracy), Carry On (Brian & Neil), Call the Midwife (Adam, Ian, Lexi) - but no political thrillers, Ambridge remains Brexit-free. Nitpick here!

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Thank you, @PseudoBadger, for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads.

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 unusual views. grin

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!

For newer listeners, lurkers or those who just have no idea what we're talking about, @DadDadDad has created this useful thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3557323-For-Archers-fans-a-guide-to-acronyms-on-the-long-running-discussion-threads-and-any-other-meta-thread-questions-you-may-have BOOP point for him! (See thread for explanation.)

Thanks to Bucking Frolics and LillianGish for the title ideas, which I had to edit down a bit to get under the character limit.

I wonder if Lily will have gone back to Manchester by the time we've filled this thread.

AskingQuestionsAllTheTime, the last entry I can find on Lowfield, even using your link above, is from August 2018. There's nothing new on there since then, unfortunately. Unless I'm doing something wrong, which is always a possibility

Will did not "try to kill someone with a gun", far less commit a murder. He actively did not try to kill anyone, even when he was attacked by his idiot brother.

If he had aimed it at Ed and pulled the trigger it is unlikely he could have missed at the close range one would necessarily have in a bedroom.

Curses, you're right, Jaichangecentfoisdenom. I thought there were also some new ones. My apologies.

In that case, sorry, I have the more recent summaries but I can't easily put them anywhere for anyone, because I definitely don't have permission to do that, and I expect they vanish from Peet's after a few weeks because that is what happens to posts there.

But he did pull the trigger didn't he?

MollyButton
"Eddie seems not to be in the least worried that Will might use his gun on someone else; his fear is quite clearly that Will might kill himself with it."
Eddie might not - but Emma quite obviously was worried he might use the gun on someone else (especially Poppy until she knew she wasn't at the cottage).

Emma was afraid he might be planning to kill himself and Poppy, something which he clearly was not planning. That she was afraid of it says more about her than about him, in the circumstances: she's a great one for Der-ama.

Personally, if I thought that was something that might happen I don't think I would do what Emma did, go away and ring the person most likely to cause him to got ballistic, as opposed to a) staying with him and going on trying to talk him down or b) if I had to leave, ringing his father not the man who had smashed up his life last time round whom he would absolutely not want to see.

It was a very poor episode all round, full of a lot of shouty-shouty. I am rarely impressed by any of Stimpson's melodramas.

Will pulled the trigger in the same way that Tom Forrest did when he was struggling with Bob Larkin: with no intent to kill anyone.

Asking - if somehow the gun had shot and killed Ed, maybe by some mistaken heroics or a ricochet. It would at best have been manslaughter, possibly murder. And none of us saw exactly what was going on, where people were, where the gun pointed etc. we are surmising from what we heard.

In life people sometimes do have to change career, even when it is the only thing they can do or something they have worked years for. I know of one chef who had to stop because a motorbike accident virtually destroyed their sense of smell, another chef and a few hairdressers who developed skin allergies that meant they couldn't carry out their career.
I don't get why you are so adamant that Will should keep his job. There are lots of mental health conditions which shouldn't affect his suitability to handle a shotgun BUT in this case it has been clearly shown that Will's isn't one of them, his behaviour with Guns has been unsafe.
(And the Shoot has a range of guns for all of the hospitality that it offers - this has been pretty clear in the past when they have spoken of some "City" types who were idiots with the guns.)

Where did you get me being adamant that Will should keep his job from? I sure's little apples haven't said that. I am simply arguing against the hyperbole.

There is no way those were the cries of a newborn. And I felt for Lexi, she sounded broken.

So where are Will and Poppy going to live when they chuck him out or the tied cottage?

But he would have been responsible for eds death in the same way someone would be responsible for a death if they got in a car over the limit and killed someone.

I'd totally forgotten about umra!

What Will probably has is a shotgun certificate rather than a firearms certificate;

Will is the head keeper. There is no way he would not hold a firearms certificate.

I really hope the story leads to Lexi taking the baby back. The sound of Adam looking after it makes me feel violent and nauseous.

Nauseous at the sound of a father looking after his son? Really?

wow. Care to expand @Abillity2019?

Well done, Will, I must say, I didn't expect him to act so sensibly. I'm glad the combination of his parents' concern and Ian's musing on parenting sorted him out. I presume he and Poppy will move in to Grange Farm and poor Oliver will never be able to repossess it, even when he and Tracey get hitched?

Don’t think I’ve properly taken it in yet - Will as Not-Gamekeeper. Whole new world of incredible.

Maybe he'll actually go and get bereavement counselling now, too, QuaterMiss - or would that be a realistic step too far?

Caught up last night. Adam and Ian showing little understanding of why Lexi might be ‘down’.
Depressing frankly.

Well, to be fair to them when you have a newborn to look after, you don't really have time to think much about your own feelings, let alone anyone else's.

I liked Roy and Lexi as a couple, I hope there is a way they can be together now.

shearwater I do agree and I kept thinking that trying to find it all less depressing.
Agree re Lexi and Roy - they seemed good together.

I'm pregnant and hormonal so perhaps feeling overinvested but all the wondering about what the crying baby wanted made me feel sick - he wants to be lying on his mother's chest. Poor Lexi and baby.

I think this storyline is not having the planned effect, it’s making me anti-surrogacy. I have a friend who has a child by a surrogate and I was happy with their choices but this makes me feel very uneasy. I’m trying to workout why.

Like Quater I am bit stunned at the idea of Will no longer being a gamekeeper. Fortunately the Ambridge money fairy is on hand to ensure he has some (unspecified amount of) savings put by. I think he will move out of the tied cottage and into his own house with Clarrie and Eddie (Joe will have conveniently died by this point - I can't believe I am writing this so flippantly, but let's face it we all know it's on the cards). Not sure what will happen to Ed - maybe the bedroom fairy will be on hand to make sure there is room for all of them. The dramatic possibilities of them all living under the same roof could be interesting.
I think Lexi and Roy are definitely heading for reconciliation now the baby is born (Brexit considerations don't seem to impact on anyone in Ambridge). I liked hearing Ian and Adam with the baby - it's Jenny I can't stand at the moment.