Archers thread #161: Kenton seems to be getting better, but the storylines aren’t. Discuss The Archers here.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

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Well, here we are. I was strongly tempted to go for the dog's dinner, dog/human bullies etc suggestions for the title, but Mere asked if we could not have anything graphic in the thread title, so I've held back. In a couple of weeks when this thead is nearing its end the attack may all be a distant memory, anyway.

Goodness knows what's in store for us now. Kenton seems likely to have PTSD, not surprisingly. Surely we must soon find out why HARRY talks so. Unconvincingly. Alice! Hello. CHRIS. CHRIS. etc, and also whether he is (as many of us suspect) addicted to opiates and/or up to no good. Too much to hope why nobody in Ambridge horsey circles had ever heard of him until recent weeks.

Over to you!

Juliet Aubrey is Harry's mother @BeatriceBatchelor according to the spoiler thread.

Just to say that apart from the screws in my foot Ive had both knees replaced,not at the same time. Knees and hip replacements You are encouraged to walk about so the stairs were hard but manageable. The screws in my foot was no weight bearing for a couple of months and the stairs were a nightmare to be honest give me a knee replacment any time. I suffer from Rheumatoid Arthritis and because of The N H S I can walk normally after years of limping. I can see how Kenton would have trouble with the stairs because he must be very sore. He does need physio though to help him manage stairs and stuff.
Harry is a drug user he mum seemed very concerned about him. He has a habit and violent I think, which will be triggering for Alice and might send her back to the bottle or hopefully Chris.

Sorry I didnt mean violent to Alice, we have had that story line done to death, but cruel to the horses, maybe, over use of the whip and the horse threw him and thats how he did his hip in. Perhaps Shula might have heard gossip about him. She dosnt know about Alices friendship with him yet. Or he could be a jolly nice chap all round and ive got the wrong end of the stick but Im sticking to the opioid addiction.

Thank you @Wilma55

The only thing I can remember seeing Juliet Aubrey in is the BBC adaptation of Middlemarch many years ago with the impossibly beautiful Rufus Sewell. She has a lovely voice. I wonder whether she wants to meet Alice without Harry to warn her about something.

I wondered that.

she either

a) is very controlling if her son and doesn’t like him having girlfriends so will try and put her off
b) sees he’s happy and maybe this will help his recovery so won’t put her off
c) wants to find out if Alice can help his recovery (which, given her own addiction issues, she will probably struggle with)

is this a SL so Alice can see what she put everyone through? I thought she’d already had that epiphany. Long term she is surely going to end up with Chris?

the scene in he restaurant was very creepy
are they a cult and trying to recruit her?
maybe they want her to gestate the new messiah?
Alice did sound a bit taken aback, hope she listens to her 'uh-oh' feelings !!

Wrote a load of rubbish and couldn't see how to delete post so edited it instead.

Apologies.

@SaffyRosie , . Juliet Mills wasn't in Emma. She was in Wild at Heart on Sunday evenings.

To delete a post, you need to report it. Then we all wonder what it was you said.

What an excruciating episode, seemingly written by someone who hates cats, and knows nothing about them. And the hilarious japes of Susan, Adam, and the reluctant Clarrie.

Ok, from now on I will read the thread before listening to the episode.

The photo upthread isn't the Hilda actor. The column's writer definitely doesn't have the wit and warmth of Nancy Banks-Smith.

whatever happened to Nancy Banks-Smith? I always loved reading her stuff

You'd have saved yourself twelve minutes that way, this evening.

The really sad thing is that Keri Davies used to be looked upon as one of the better scriptwriters in TA, and tonight we got this.

She's 95 this year, so probably retired now. I hope she's OK.

I think she retired in 2017. She was born in 1929, after all, so she'd earned a rest.

I was going to post Nancy Banks-Smith was born in 1929 and has probably retired but others beat me to it.

I liked this gentle episode and we heard Susan’s shrewd assessment of Harry too.

Blimey, I still have him pegged as the ne’er so well who not long ago returned from Australia and has a young daughter! Is he a grandfather do we know? Or has she been consigned to oblivion. Merriel was it?

We haven't been told about it if Meriel has spawned. She was born on 12th May, 2001, so she is now 22; she has plenty of time yet.

I've just done a big catch-up, having holidayed where There Is No Internet. I agree the SLs are very silly indeed, though Lynda was very nice with Kenton.

Harry's mum. What's all that about? Who on earth goes on a shopping outing with a GF she's met once? Obviously to further some aspect of the SL at the expense of realism, and accounts for the creepy assessment of Alice's looks and clothes on first sight. So intrusive. Ugh.

With any luck she'll tell Alice he was breastfed until he was ten. I realise by saying this I'll have probably nettled someone who actually did this. With their own child, not Harry.

Poor Hilda. Someone should call the RSPCA.

glad Susan has Harry’s number!

pranks were a bit 🙄

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime, sadly, I wouldn't save any time, because I am pretty sure I can't not listen.

But hopefully forewarned would be forearmed.

(Oops typing the word "forearmed" lit up a pic of Chris's forearms in my mind. I don't even like muscley men)

Do you have a picture if the Hilda actor?

The one in the pic would be quite a good fit for the part. Those eyes!

What an excruciating episode, seemingly written by someone who hates cats, and knows nothing about them. The disappear then turn up in the house is pretty standard for cats. On the other hand our bad tempered cat would have protested far more loudly. We get the complete yowling and hissing performance if we simply suggest we'd like to move when she’s on our lap. Did you hear that piteous mew from the other side of the door after Tony threw her out?

I'm with you on that. Having read the thread first, I was braced for an absolute stinker, but I thought it was OK. If Adam had actually fallen for Susan's nonsense I'd have been irked, but he didn't. It probably helps that I have no time for cats at all and have never had one. <prepares to be shunned>