I listened to the podcast earlier tonight - two episodes, which I think were the most recent two but could have been old ones.
I was struck by how much support George had from the real life people on the podcast! Lots of "Oh, he's a product of his childhood, he's just lost his way a little bit yada yada..." - and dare I say it, I thought it was blooming obvious that the men in the room had mentally downplayed and forgotten George's incel behaviour and past. The women barely gave it a passing mention. As far as I'm concerned, George is a nasty piece of work, prison hasn't reformed him (just shaken him up a bit) and if he stays with Amber there's a good chance of a domestic abuse storyline in the future.
Speaking of domestic abusers, I would like to throw in Rob's brother Miles as a candidate for buying Mulligan's farm. Either he sells up the field and the magic money fairy makes it enough, or it's handily next door to Mulligans, and Miles is magically rich from inheritance from Rob, and there's some BS clause in Rob's will that means he's obliged to buy a farm and oblige Henry to run it or something.
Back to the podcast - another thing I found odd, was that Angus (the actor who voices George) hasn't really kept up to date with any storyline that has been going on that he wasn't involved in. Is that usual, do you think? There was lots of updating him on what's happened since George has been in prison, yet as far as I'm concerned the actor has been on fairly often during the last year, so why wouldn't he as a person take at least a passing interest in the storylines of the program?! I can't imagine being on it and not tuning in, or glancing over the scripts, at least occasionally. Still, it was interesting to hear how they recorded him being on the phone, and there was a bit about sound effects including lambs being born, and I'd recommend a listen all in all.
I feel deflated that so far George has had a very soft landing out of prison. It's like everybody (except for Lillian and co and the Bull) has forgotten that there was a damn good reason for him being banged up and they're putting all their focus on poor old George, what a rough time he's had of it, poor little baby. I could do with some villagers shouting and people telling him what for. As far as I'm concerned the only logical position for anybody to take is that he still DID do a terrible thing, it was right that he served time for it but that now the real job of trying to heal the harm he has done in the village can be started by him, not written off. That grassing on Markie most certainly does NOT wipe his slate clean, let alone mean anybody owes him a favour, that it is OBVIOUSLY inappropriate beyond belief that he asked for a job where Fallon works, and that he should damn well go cap in hand to his grandparents not be shunning them, because it was HIS responsibility to own up to his own actions, and if they hadn't have acted on their conscience then somebody else and their family would be going through everything that he and his family have done, without having actually have been guilty.
Yes I am still annoyed with George.
Oh, and I 100% believe Alice wasn't going to drive. She'd gone and parked up and drunk in the car before and not driven it. A drunk's sense of ethics is often off, but she was sure of hers on this one and I do believe her. Not that it really matters in the eyes of the law in this case - she physically didn't drive, and George did.