Archers thread #142: Kill Jill? Is Ambridge heading for a Tarantino-style bloodbath on Stir Up Sunday? 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, although we do mostly try to be civil about it. Most of us are posting tongue in cheek a lot of the time, so don't worry about revealing that , 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/4636789-the-archers-spoilers-thread-7-cant-wait-for-702pm-join-us-here, 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.)

Well, things have taken a turn for the better in the last few days! The SWs have re-discovered their form and the actors and directors have risen to the challenge. I won't say much more than that for fear of jinxing things. Over to you!

(Thanks to @JanglyBeads for the thread title idea!)

I wonder what proportion of women who find themselves pregnant after a ONS don’t tell the father if they plan to have a termination. I know at least one person for whom this was the case - she didn’t see the point in telling him as she just wanted to get it over and done with and forget about it. It wasn’t to spare his feelings it was to spare hers. Obviously it’s a personal choice.

I didn't. It was over 35 years ago. And then he unexpectedly came back into my life peripherally through a mutual connection about 10 years ago. Still didn't tell him, what would be the point?

I wish I had done that many years ago. Life would have been simpler.

For him, certainly, and for her if she wants to avoid complications caused by him. If she genuinely does not intend to allow him any input, why allow him any input?

Obviously this would depend on whether they have an existing relationship, but if he was a one-off whom she doesn't really know or give a damn about one way or the other, seeking him out just to make his life difficult would seem a bit mean.

Poor David. I found that simultaneously heartbreaking and retraumatising.
Some really good writing going on.

I don't think Chelsea told Ben with the intention of making his life difficult. She seemed to have the idea in her head that he had some sort of right to know, which I think was frankly silly but then I'm not a teenager. The consequences for her weren't great, either, in terms of privacy.

How many cakes will it take for Ruth to beg Jill to return to the fold?

The reason Chelsea got the idea was that first Alistair and then Tracy told her that she must tell the father.

It wasn't said explicitly in the show, but I think Chelsea told Ben because she didn't know whether to keep the baby or not and she perhaps thought that his reaction would help her to decide - she possibly thought if he'd been absolutely horrified, said that she was on her own, and she'd have to fight him if she wanted any child support ... then that would be a sign that a termination might be better. I don't think she thought that he would pressure her (hence checking with Alistair what his rights were before telling him), but she was (mostly subconsciously) looking for some guidance.

She was in a very different situation from a hypothetical woman who gets pregnant from a ONS and knows she's going to terminate. In that case, telling the father is probably pretty pointless and just adding stuff on his plate that he doesn't need. But in Chelsea's case, she didn't know what to do, she wanted advice (but not to be told what to do). She knew that Ben's reaction might help her decision making. I'm not sure she would have considered what long-term effects knowing about the pregnancy and termination might have on him, I don't think she was looking that far ahead.

Anyone else finding tonight’s episode not yet available on BBC sounds?

The reason Chelsea got the idea was that first Alistair and then Tracy told her that she must tell the father.

Wow, did they? I must have missed (or more likely forgotten) that. Remind me, who am I? But whatever were they thinking, bearing in mind that they didn't know who the father was?

Yep 🫤

On 20th September Alistair gave her a lift somewhere:
"he is rather embarrassed by her apparently having chosen him as a confidant. He suggests that perhaps he is not the best person for her to talk to: how about the father? She says that she can't tell the father about the baby, in the process letting slip that he is from the village and then being horrified at her stupidity and swearing Alistair to silence about it. He points out that it isn't entirely and solely her own responsibility, because she didn't get into this on her own"

And I can't find it but Tracy asked at some point early on whether Chelsea knew who the father was, which badly offended Chelsea, and also suggested she ought to talk to him. I think that may have been the first time Chelsea flung out of the house growling.

So I may have got them in the wrong order!

I got out of church at 7.17 ready to tune in. Still waiting 2 hours later. However, the rest of the household assures me it was a filler episode with more chat about Ben and I didn't miss anything major. I'll still keep refreshing the page anyway!

So it never crossed either of their supposedly adult minds to consider that this might have been a random one-off mistake, rather than a potential co-parenting "opportunity", as some would have it, and that Chelsea was free to make her own decision? As Chelsea would say ... Grrrrr!

It's especially silly because what Chelsea actually wanted from Alistair was reassurance that the father would not be able to make her have the baby. So she knew when she was talking to him that she didn't want to have it, just as she knew when she took the MAP back in the first week of July that she didn't want to have it, but we all had to wait another six weeks or so for this to be acknowledged.

Me too. I rely on BBC Sounds for my Archers dose. Quite spoiled my morning cuppa not having it there, and took over three hours to be uploaded, or whatever they do.

Anyway, I thought this a very good episode, David's anguish so well-expressed. Another good part was Roooth's denial of Elizabeth's MH issues as depression, and therefore by implication not an MH issue. OTOH, while it's good to have such misconceptions aired, it beggars belief that Roooth would think in this way.

It would be good to know whether, whilst giving David advice about Ben, it crossed Elizabeth's mind that her boyfriend had some responsibility for Ben's situation?

I too was surprised that no mention of Mince’s involvement was made. Or Jill’s for that matter.

I think that Joy is going to get a bit jealous of Kirsty and Micks friendship.
I think Ruth should have sent the wonderful chocolate cake back.
I was hoping that David would have mention to Elizabeth that some of Bens MH issues are down to Vince. Also Elizabeth's non advice about they should look after thier own MH is a bit stupid as (talking from experience) if your Child is ill no matter what age mental or physical the last thing you think about is yourself!!

I don't think telling them to look after themselves was stupid. They probably won't follow it for the reasons you said, but it was still good advice. We were 6 months in to DD's crisis and I was in bits before I got help for myself. It was about 5.5 months after I should have got it.

I thought Ruth's comment re depression was more that it was different from Ben's illness, not that it was lesser (though I guess it depends whether she said 'only depression' or not.)

It's on there now :)

Can’t comment on last night as haven’t heard yet.

However, I find myself wondering why Kate is still in Ambridge. Her grown up daughter is now settled in a different country. She has two - two! - younger children in South Africa who must surely feel her absence every single day. Why isn’t she with them? SA is a big place, she wouldn’t need to be tied to her ex. And there’s no reason whatsoever why she couldn’t employ a manager for the original Spiritual Home and set up a second branch there. It would surely do very well.

She never even visits them.

Struggling to understand why the SW feel her SA children to be so … disposable.

(And yes, Meriel. I know.)

She never even visits them - she never even mentions them anymore. They have quite literally been erased. I'm still hopeful Meriel will get a mention in connection with the cancelled New Zealand holiday (otherwise why make it New Zealand in the first place - it always seemed like quite a random place to choose for a man who I imagined would hate his daughter to get a taste of life so far away and be tempted to move there).

I’m afraid I wasn’t. Rex is not a very nice person underneath. I will never forget the poison pen letters. He is the sort of person who would quietly be in love with a girl, declare his feelings and then turn on her when she says she just sees him as a friend.
I totally agree @Roysnewshirt
Rex is not a nice person.

I think Rochelle died because of her mental health problems or did something very bad and is in a secure unit near Ambridge.😢

I haven't listened to TA in months, I keep up to date via this thread. Hate what they've done to Chelsea, IE getting her pregnant and putting her through a late termination. And then making the trauma all about the nice middle-class father, because Chelsea is Horobin scum and getting pregnant is exactly what happens to their sort.
Also wonder if Ben's psychosis is drug induced and whether that will come out in the story.