Archers thread #116: Pandemic fears, markets crash but it's BOOM 💥 time for Ambridge. Discuss The Archers 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 employ Philip Moss & Son to fix your soil pipe, or other 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! (New thread likely to be replacing that one very soon, in the current circumstances.)

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 @SurpriseSparDay for the thread title idea, which I tweaked, and @springydaff for the 💥 emoticon, which I hope is in the title! (Can't preview the title). Welcome, lurkers and lapsed listeners, drawn out of the shadows by the current crisis in Ambridge. In the OP of the last thread I said I didn't think we'd get to Easter on that thread. We certainly didn't!

I am very worried indeed about Lynda and concerned about Oliver too. Don't care about Gavin unless it means Kirsty is cheated out of yet another wedding. Freddie's redemption is now assured, though, surely? Roll on the return of the Lower Loxley crew.

This was an episode about relationships between older and younger generations: Joy and Josh and Lynda and Freddie.

Interesting.

Listened to the minibus and Blake was convincing.
I

@Asking, Lynda’s distress didn’t seem to me to be intended as cruelty to Freddie. She’s clearly very upset about the situation she finds herself in. Totally understandable and realistic IMO - someone gets through the first 2 weeks or so after a traumatic injury, in terrible pain, horrific injuries and facial disfigurement. I think most of us in that situation would stop and wonder whether we wantEd to go on. Great acting from the 2 actors and Robert too. I also liked the scenes with Josh, Joy and Brian.

I also think Freddie will have understood what Lynda was saying and be sympathetic and supportive. He’s had some really dark times himself. He was clearly shocked by what Lynda was saying but I’m sure he’s not taking it personally.

unless she was still punishing him for some reason, why would she set out to destroy him like that?

It does seem very deliberate, in that she had asked for him to visit (oh, we only had that from Robert, so it might not be true, any more than the medal being shoved at the back of a drawer somewhere was). It's possible he arrived at the worst possible moment: I doubt any of us would be thinking particularly empathetically when in the kind of pain she is. [ That's another thing - she simply would not be allowed all and sundry dropping in if she had had the injuries and procedures stated ]

But at least tonight's episode has done something TA has never achieved before and that is to put me in a state of complete agreement with the Snell woman: she wishes Freddie hadn't rescued her and I wish he hadn't either.

Actually, my hopes of her dying are increasing somewhat (the actor is playing a blinder, with the changes in her voice). And the guilt will become Freddie's albatross to provide some complexity to his character in future. That's my prediction.

Poor old production team - they really have had the worst timing possible for this story through no fault of their own. But they are getting the medical stuff SO WRONG. Which is annoying.

But they are getting the medical stuff SO WRONG. Which is annoying.

Yes, but they usually do.

Agree Lynda actress played her socks off tonight.

Much as everyone missed Roy's concussion, they seem to be missing Freddie's mental anguish. I hope someone (?Shugs?) helps him process all this.

I don't think Freddie was suffering anything like as much mental anguish before Lynda told him he might as well not have bothered and in fact she wished he hadn't. That really was a horrible thing for her to say, and I don't think she would have done whatever pain she was in.

So just put her down as yet another personality transplant, I suppose.

I didn't read that as cruelty to Freddie. I think it was simply that Lynda couldn't help herself. At some point it all had to come out, and she's been trying not to make it Robert who was on the receiving end; and unfortunately the trigger was the fact that the person visiting was the person who prevented her from dying.

I do worry about 'the medical stuff'.

How is Lynda able to talk enough to conduct a quarrel? Even the most superficial battling-with-a-recalcitrant-oven burn on the back of a hand is excruciating. And she said her skin was burning. Don't think I'd be attempting speech in those circumstances.

Very good acting all round this evening. Even Joy was tolerable.

New thread needed by midweek, I estimate. Any title ideas?

How about "The village that time forgot" or "Will it be Love in the Time of the Corona for Ben and Chloe?"

Nice!

I actually found Lynda’s reaction very believable. Robert is so grateful she is alive and just wants to go back to their old life so he has downplayed the injuries. My image of Lynda is of someone who is proud of her appearance. She knows that she will not look like a well preserved older woman any more. That line about having lots of lovely scarves at home but wearing one put on by someone else was spot on. Similarly, she is not used to having to ask someone to help her use the lavatory. Now she is being forced to accept that her physical body is letting her down and it is a huge shift for her. Her whole life is based on her being active and having a physical presence - eg holding the speed gun or doing the Christmas shows. Now that incredibly busy day with Robert and Mungo seems very poignant. It is unlikely she will be able to repeat it in the near future.

Great performance, even if someone with such recent injuries could not do it in real life.

(Genius BoreofWhabylon - Thanks for solution!)

I don't think Freddie was suffering anything like as much mental anguish before Lynda told him he might as well not have bothered and in fact she wished he hadn't.
Maybe not as much, but he is suffering. He was drinking-to-forget at Ben's do. He gets twitchy every time someone calls him a hero. He had a flash-back when Lynda was talking about the fire.
He's not in a good place.

I wouldn't be surprised if he suffers from ptsd. Has anyone even mentioned to him about getting counselling? You'd have thought Elizabeth would have.

Finally catching up with the thread to say I didn’t like tonight’s episode, and I don’t like the Mr Moss story.

S’there.

totally understandable and realistic IMO - someone gets through the first 2 weeks or so after a traumatic injury, in terrible pain, horrific injuries and facial disfigurement

And still in severe shock.

I agree I found her reaction realistic. Freddie is the first person she has spoken to for whom she hasn't "maintained face" and it was bound to happen sooner or later.

I don't believe Lynda did ask to see Freddie in the hospital but didn't she ask for him as she went into the ambulance?

I found Lynda's reaction very realistic. An aunt of mine repeatedly says that she wishes no-one had found her after she had a stroke and that she wants to be dead, and she's just so angry that it's difficult to deal with -it's just not the sort of thing you can soothe away. Compound that with being in extreme pain and being very disfigured, and having people like Peggy coming and whittering at her, it would almost be more surprising if Lynda had any different response.

I thought it was excellent, the most realistic scene since the storyline began.

I had tears in my eyes listening to that. I don't think Lynda was being deliberately cruel, although it was hurtful for Freddie to hear, just talking about how she feels without putting on a brave face like she does with Robert.

My daughter was diagnosed with a condition last year which, while not actually life threatening, is something she has to live with and means she is very high risk in the current situation. All the family were relieved to find out she didn't have cancer, which was a possibility at the time, but she was distraught at the changes to her life which the condition would entail and the fact that it is likely to go on forever. I think she felt something like Lynda is feeling.

Although, obviously, my daughter doesn't wish she was dead. I had to add that.

And of course Linda may not wish she was dead, given time. But it's a very understandable first reaction.

I definitely don't agree that Lynda was being cruel. That's not how I heard it at all.

Freddie is the first person she has seen who actually shared the experience with her. It's entirely understandable (to me) that her real feelings would rush to the surface in his presence.

She's been bottling everything up, and hiding how she really feels from everyone else - even Robert, to a degree.

Getting that lot off her chest will probably have done her more good, psychologically at least, than any of the treatment she's had so far.

How about, to borrow from “The Smiths”
The Archers - heaven knows it’s miserable now.