Archers thread #157: How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless clan! Discuss The Grundys here. Bicker about The Archers as well if you like.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

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

All views on The Archers welcome here! New blood welcomed, and of course we are always delighted to welcome back former or occasional listeners/posters. 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.)

Thanks to @OverArmour for the idea of making it clear in the title many of us are inveterate bickerers!

Now over to you, as we are about to eat and I won't hear tonight's offering till later ....

Ha! Perhaps Miles will turn up and do it shortly after Helen has left. Then he’ll be wracked with remorse and inclined to rush off and confess - but will spot Jack’s card and realise there’s someone else who could be blamed …

(My first thought was that he’d do it and then deny having visited that day - but that probably wouldn’t work with the ubiquitous surveillance we live under.)

(I don’t actually think any of this will happen!)

I'm not a doctor, but it sounds impossible: once you'd lost conciousness you would no longer be able to hold the pillow down. Plus, Rob doesn't sound well enough to even hold a pillow in the first place, he wasn't able to hold Helen's phone (or maybe she just didn't give it to him).

What I would like to happen is Helen to prove she really has shaken the old bastard off for good by running out of there leaving him to his fate.

What the SW would do if they were really smart and really love the drama is cut to the next day - someone tells Helen that Rob has died. We're all left wondering indefinitely whether she deaded him or not.

This is why a hospital chaplain should have been asked to baptise rob, so that they (with plenty of experience of death and the dying) could be the one to talk him down now. As it is, Helen should remind him of that recent commitment and phone the Rev whatever she's called and ask her (also with some experience of death and the dying) to call by ASAP to administer spiritual counsel.

That's a good idea - surely it's slap bang in Alan's wheelhouse too. Maybe Alan would like to do the job with a kneeler?

I cannot imagine giving one iota of compassion to anyone who subjected me to abuse over a long period. Or a short period to be honest.

I can. My experiences weren’t as bad as Helen’s but I’d still sit with my ex if he was dying.

LillianG I agree with yr analysis re Helen. Often one feels the need to check what an ex/abuser's up to. Or one goes seeking some kind of admission. It's very complex.

Oh …

For goodness sake, Helen!

Pat is not coming across very well. Kind of seeing where Helen gets it from. Do you think Pats going to do it?

bit odd the way he is asking her to kill him when surely leaving him to die slowly is a more attractive option for her?

the provoking her is surely much more effective

Don’t fall for it Helen. He’s goading you into killing him!

Meh, happy to move on from it all tbh

Me too, @Bruisername.

Think the pre-broadcast CA might have been a bit over-invested.

Oof, that was a challenging listen. But Helen let him show his colours and spew his bile and then walked away, leaving him alone. In the words of Rachel Green: "And that is what they call closure".

Rob doesn’t know he deeply wronged her. In his mind, he was being protective, guiding a younger and neurotic woman, and he asserted his “conjugal rights”. But he was the victim, he was the one who was stabbed and suffered life changing injuries. So there were reasons for not involving her, but “having already deeply wronged her” was not one.

A normal person would have said “I will not allow someone I love to break the law for me “.

I presume they were low waged care workers who if they did any much thinking at all Neither being low waged nor being a care worker is an indication of inability to think.

I hope Helen's moment of realisation that Lee is a very different sore of human being than either Rob or herself might mean that they get back together - it would be good for her as well as for the boys.

I disagree Mere although understand what you're saying. He knows somewhere, deep down.

Has she committed any kind of offence by leaving him to die alone and not getting medical assistance??

I certainly wasn’t talking about forgiveness alongside the hand-holding service but showing some compassion could actually help in the future. It would take more strength than just walking away An abusive ex partner of mine was dying and asking for me. I didn’t go. What would have been the point? I couldn’t give him what he wanted, a declaration of love. I don’t think it would have taken any more strength to see him rather than to “walk away”.

have we lost the edit feature? I was going to change Lee from a sore to a sort.

Why oh why do they waffle on about 'challenging listening' when it's just dreary old Rob being a self pitying bully again, and a couple of weeks ago we had a horse with catastrophic injuries and no warning at all. That was genuinely upsetting. I've known horrible people who died, I've known lovely people who died and who I miss and grieve for, I've been at death beds. I didn't find any of that episode challenging, just a bit heavy handed. But the horse . . .

Well, that melodrama left me totally unmoved. Although Ron did at least deliver some home truths about how Helen has always been cushioned by her family.

That was not a good representation of the final stages of brain tumour, at least not in my experience, so I hope it won't have caused distress to anyone facing this in real life.

Of course, only Helen (and us) knows what really happened. Others may wonder.

Nicely done Helen, especially the part confirming Lee's virtues as a father, and the horrible Rob emerging at the end. I was on tenterhooks thinking he'd maintain the "nice".

The best bit of course was the fish finger butty, and I'll bet Joy does it properly, the bread folded over, none of your poncy southern sandwiches.

I wouldn’t have thought so. His condition hasn’t declined since the nurse thought he was fit to be left.

I had a moment of panic when Pat asked “which flat?” There’s that shotgun hasn’t been used yet.

Yes that was an odd moment, also the "yr daughter's a lucky woman" to Joy. Didn't quite flow.