Archers thread #144: Window pains again! Light relief or dark times ahead for Ambridge in 2023? 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 you’d love to volunteer in the shop with Susan, 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.)

New year, new thread. Many thanks to @LillianGish for the window pains pun! Hoping to hear a lot less from the Caseys this year and a good deal more about farming and how Ambridge is coping with Brexit, cost of living crisis, ageing population and all sorts of credible character-based storylines. Yes, I know, but one can only hope.

Over to you!

He didn't come home for that big, lovely family Christmas when JD gave everyone wonderful presents.....

What do we think J said to R when she called him back?

I do find it odd no mention is made of him needing to see Brian/asking how his dad is?

I like Kate and Jacob, but noticed how Kate said she took after Jenny in being a supportive mother to her daughters...

Also puzzled by Alice claiming R has been “ghosting the entire family”. He was home a few weeks ago when he went to the Hunt Ball with Paul and he told Ben how nice it was to be back in Ambridge. He was still very close to Jenny.

Alice is the only family member he refuses to speak to so I’m not sure she took it upon herself to keep calling him. She must have known there was a good chance he would ignore her calls so why not just ask someone else? He surely would have responded if Adam called or sent a “please call home” message.

I know lol

I think Alice felt compelled to tell him partly because of her guilt at what she said to him that awful day.

Listening again, I wondered if the point of Juliane's questions about siblings was simply to emphasise how little she knew/ had bothered to ask about R's life. Or perhaps how little he had told her.

In counterpoint to Brian's affairs:

After re-reading some of JennyDahling's backstory, I'm intrigued to learn that Roger Travers-Macy reappeared, 15 years into her marriage to Brian, and apparently rekindled their romance (I'd lapsed into a sporadic listening phase in the early 1990s, so details had completely passed me by).

How serious did it all get? How was it eventually discovered?
If anyone could please elaborate.

I seem to think Roger turned up at least twice. The first time it was defo a full affair. Brian was also shagging around at that time. Possibly that was when he had the affair with Caroline. Think there was some sort of mutual we've both done wrong let's carry on kind of agreement. Then he appeared another time when Debbie was around too and got short shift I think.
But I could be wrong. Only caught up with this tonight and am in a bit of shock tbh. Only The Archers can do that to you. I adored Jenny. How can she possibly be dead? Bloody hell how old am I when Jennifer Archer can die!

There is a load of commentary on Facebook with people praising Julianne for calmly taking control, being polite by asking Alice about the family and encouraging R to go home…that’s not how I heard it at all! I heard her be superficial and insincere and desperate to get rid of him once his complicated home life interfered with her social life, with a side order of nasty controlling asides.

Brine is a bit of an Angel of death isn’t he? Siobhan, Caroline, Betty Tucker*, now Jenny- all dead! Mandy Beesborough has probably died alone and lain undiscovered for several weeks….

*Betty did not, I believe, reciprocate his advances.

Ah no the R T-M affair was after the Caroline entanglement

www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/archers/brian_jenny.shtml

Alice's lines closing the episode tonight:

"Now come on, we've got a long way to go. We've got to get you home."

👆🏼

I thought several people had tried to phone him and he ignored them all, hence the necessity for someone to go and see him in person?

So adolescent of him to ask how he was supposed to realise the messages and the missed calls were important. When your phone suddenly blows up with hour entire family trying to contact you, surely that's a bit of a clue that they haven't all coincidentally decided they fancy a bit of a chat?

Given Jenny survived over 45 years of marriage to him, I don't think she really figures in the Angel of Death line-up.

Such a good episode. I think a major factor is that most of the heavy lifting was being done by two of their best actors, i.e. Alice and Kate. I particularly liked Kate recognising Jenny's inner rebel and respecting her for what she had achieved.

There is a load of commentary on Facebook with people praising Julianne for calmly taking control, being polite by asking Alice about the family and encouraging R to go home…

Not sure people on Facebook should be allowed TA …

Poor Mandy Beeseborough!

I agree FB people must have heard it at a very superficial level. They told us an awful lot about Julianne in a couple of short scenes - that she wasn't interested enough to find out about Ruairi's family, that she's got an understudy for him on the side, that she didn't want him around being miserable if he's not up to escorting or shagging her ...

With the caveat that I haven't yet heard Tuesday's episodes, is Julianne going to pop back up and try to blackmail Ruairi somehow?

Uninformed theories aside, I'm so sad about Jennifer - I grew up listening to The Archers (much against my will - although thankfully they got me in the end), and I'm so sorry I won't get to hear her castigating Brian, fussing over the tagine, or managing the clan any more.

Also, that she’s entirely shameless.

Yes, the hunt ball visit seemed to have family relations being pretty normal - at the least if there was ghosting and big issues happening it would seem strange to make no mention at all then. It makes no sense. It’s as though today’s scene was written in advance when planning Jenny’s departure and another scriptwriter cluelessly added in the earlier hunt ball scenes.

But wasn't the Hunt Ball where Ruairi started questioning the whole Julieanne thing, and then she told him to get his priorities straight? Maybe she's been keeping him on a tighter leash since then?
If he really was non contact for the whole of Christmas that would be highly unusual.

I dont think Chris and Alice will get back together. I also think he was part of her drinking problem, how could he have not noticed she was 3 sheets to the wind most of the time.
Ruairi was a horror so nasty. Julienne is a nasty piece of work but I dont think she can blackmaìl Ruairi she would look really bad if it came out in the circles she moves in as a high flying Women her reputation will be in tatters.

I suspect they might be building up to a coercive control story but more subtle than the Rob and Helen story.

I should think eve

The whole thing is odd anyway. How would a glamorous, successful, wealtht woman like Juliette want for dates? And if she did why would she alight on a sulky, unsophisiticated 20 year old farm boy?

Young men are not really seen as a dating prize for older women.

I am in my early forties and can't imagine anything worse than dragging a sulky 20 year old man child around a load of corpor----ate events.