Apple Tree Yard starts on Sunday! [MNHQ message: No spoilers please, including what happens in the book!]

[Destinysdaughter]

I really enjoyed the book so looking forward to this. It's in 4 parts with Emily Watson playing the main character and Ben Chaplin as her lover. BBC1 9pm

Good article about it here.

www.theguardian.com/film/2017/jan/14/emily-watson-apple-tree-yard-middle-aged-women-infidelity-sexuality#comments

To me having her say that she wanted him dead/to have his face smashed in really jarred with how her character had been portrayed. I hadn't got a single hint of her having that kind of violence in her, even in jest.

I know what you mean, but I think that in bed with Mark was the one and only place where her deepest, darkest, most fantasist self could come out (ties in with her thinking/wanting to think that he was a glamorous MI5 spy).

I believe that his wife left the courtroom in disgust after the 'fingering' revelation. That being the case, with one affair revealed and the wife gone, no need to hold back about the other given that it might make some sort of difference to his fate. Although I guess the first revelation must have come from him also... so maybe my theory is flawed..

I can't believe they'd have allowed Mark's wife back into the gallery after her initial outburst at the start of the trial, actually.

"I gather from the last scene she set up Ben Chaplin to kill the rapist because he was so loyal and thick?
She knew she would smash his face in, even though she said it in jest in bed?"

No, no, no. She said it without meaning it literally. He took her literally, indicating that there's something wrong with him.

"thought it pretty unfair that the dd knew about her mothers affair but not her fathers. It makes you think about the whole family and what Yvonne struggled with while having a career and children compared to her husband"

YES. He is a selfish bastard for this. He wants to keep his relationship with his daughter intact.

The daughter Carrie strikes me as immature and there is some underlying internalised misogyny there too.

Shes a Daddys Girl and i reckon Gary wants it to stay that way.

Because it would suit him just fine whether he decided to stay with Yvonne or leave.

I still can't believe the police didn't take her computer and CPS ( or whoever) would not have known about the affair.
How did the police know that she would be in that restaurant to arrest her?
Quite a bit of suspension of disbelief needed to watch ATY.
Having said that my heart was hammering watching it - it was really tense.

Gwen, it seemed deliberately ambiguous to me.

She was joking but he took her literally because he's not quite right.

Or she meant she did want George dead, but believing Mark to be a 'spook' perhaps thought he would be able to do it in a neat and undetected manner and wouldn't get found out.

She may have even said it jokingly and told herself that she didn't really mean it, while simultaneously thinking/hoping he would do it.

What I found really sad and thought provoking were Yvonne's words to Gary at the end ' I will say sorry every single day'.
Why should she have to apologise ? They were both 'guilty' of affairs. It was convenient for Gary to admit his nice clean affair with the young Rosa- she was The needy younger woman, he took care of her , they went away for work - it was presented as an acceptable distraction to a stagnant marriage. Yvonne on the other hand had her affair cut short by brutal, harrowing rape and a murder that culminated in a public trial . At what point , when she was too broken to 'put one foot in front of the other ' was she supposed to have a meaningful talk with the apathetic Gary? She had already been through enough with the rape and trial. Gary had been shagging someone else whilst he saw her being physically and mentally devastated although he didn't know why . Yvonne paid a hefty price yet she feels she will be held in purgatory eternally in her marriage .

Gwen in the book it definitely implies she hopes he will kill or hurt him badly.

Gosh, whilst there was no huge twist in the end, the last episode was utterly nerve shredding. I'm an absolute cold fish so my DH was very bemused to hear me whimpering here and there and even shedding a tear at Adam's card.
This series was great for dealing with issues surrounding rape, and also for giving some rounded characters. Gary in particular was on the one hand loving, supporting loyal husband, sensitive to rape issues, but philandering, and selfish on the other, making Yvonne do bulk of early years parenting, and insisting on keeping his affair secret.

I think the reason she said this was that Gary so disliked humiliation and she could see the way her affair came out- in court with Gary looking on would have caused him humiliation.

Am I the only one who thought that even in the 'safe-house bed' scene we initially saw in ep 3, Yvonne seemed to want Mark to do something violent to George (though not necessarily kill him)? She said something along the lines of 'I'd love to see him terrified'. Which I interpreted as more than a verbal warning.

So even without the last minute revelation, I already thought that she had incited Mark to violence, and that she was now deluding herself when she thought/said that she had had no idea that Mark was going to hurt George.

We were pontificating after episode 3 that there wasn't much evidence that George was stalking her and that it could really have been Game On man. Do we presume that it was genuinely George?

I thought that they would have made more of the the lack of evidence of all the stuff to do with George -her destroying the label of the flowers, getting rid of the party clothes, blocking his email etc

"Or she meant she did want George dead, but believing Mark to be a 'spook' perhaps thought he would be able to do it in a neat and undetected manner and wouldn't get found out. "

When Mark said he never told them what she'd said in the flat, she clearly didn't know what he was talking about and had to think back to remember it. If she'd meant it literally that moment would have been replayed in her mind over and over.

I think it's credible that being viciously raped could bring about that change in a person, though.

I agree and let's not forget this dialogue from episode 2:

Yvonne - ‘Can’t you warn him off for me?’
Costley - ‘Nothing would give me greater pleasure. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t like to put the wind up that pathetic piece of s**t.’
Yvonne - ‘I would. I want him to crap himself with fear. I want to feel half as terrified as he made me feel'.

In the book she says: 'I want you to smash his face'. But in the programme she says 'I want you to smash his fucking face in'. I think the swearing that was added in this scene by the screenwriter is a pretty clear indication that she understood from reading the book that Yvonne knew exactly what she was doing.

Or she pretended she had to think back to remember! Having been found not guilty, she has to keep that completely to herself, hence telling Mark he can't tell the difference between a joke and a serious request. She couldn't at that stage admit to Mark that yes, she had asked him to kill George.

rollon We had similar speculation in this house about whether the texts and flowers really came from George.

I think they did come from George, he also sent that email about the trip to Swansea and staying over in a hotel almost the day after. Possibly trying to normalise what happened to her.

What I found really sad and thought provoking were Yvonne's words to Gary at the end ' I will say sorry every single day'.
Why should she have to apologise?

Maybe she's saying sorry for texting mark while on bail and throwing £100,000 down the drain.

Would they have lost the £100,000?! I hadn't thought of that .

"Maybe she's saying sorry for texting mark while on bail and throwing £100,000 down the drain. shock"

Oh, yes, that was really stupid.

she had just admitted that she had lied to him about her being a brilliant scientist.

I think that's imposter syndrome talking.

Any man who was asked to be on a HoC select committee would not speak about himself like that. He'd say "yeah I''m like totally eminent".

Helena - in the book the daughter knows her dad had an affair.

Just me who thought this was the slowest series ever?! I quite liked it but dear lord it dragged on!

Dame I HATE when they change things like that. Although if they ever do make a TV drama of The Book Of You they will have to water it down because the stalking and sexual violence in that were horrific.

But watering something down is different to changing a vital plot line.

Maybe the screenwriter wanted to portray the daughter in a certain way.

It would annoy me even more if i had read Apple Tree Yard.