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Original poster

Apple Tree Yard WITH spoilers (I hope!)

103 replies

MoreThanUs · 30/01/2017 14:45

Hello, I'm quite enjoying the programme but would enjoy it even more if I knew what was happening and how it is going to end!

I thought it might be worth seeing if there are other people like me, or who have read the book, and would like a thread were nothing is out of bounds.

If it's not for you, please don't read on!

I have trawled the internet to find out the ending / twist and can't seem to find it.

Is anyone willing to start us off by telling me the ending?

Does anyone else prefer something when they know the outcome? I HATE surprises!

OP posts:

Ladybirdbookworm · 31/01/2017 01:06

Thank God I've found you all

Now I can relax ......

icelollycraving · 31/01/2017 07:56

Thanks for this thread! I'd been looking for spoilers
I was sure he was a security guard not a spy.

Medeci · 31/01/2017 09:22

The one thing I remember clearly about the book (and I wish I didn't) is when Mark tells Yvonne about an experiment with a mother and baby chimp.
Mother and baby chimp in a room with unclimbable walls, floor is gradually heated up, mother chimp holds baby until she can't stand the pain of the burning hot floor. Then she puts the baby on the floor and stands on it

absolutelynotfabulous · 31/01/2017 10:36

Ah yes, the chimp story. That stood out for me, too.

Yes, X was some sort of security person, not a spook. Apparently he was in the habit of seeking out likely "hits" for casual sex using his access ymto security cameras. Yvonne was one of many.

I thought that was quite poignant-X wasn't the man Yvonne thought he was. He was just some random opportunist shagabout.

Wondermoomin · 31/01/2017 10:44

What puzzles me is that she still seemed to love him after he was exposed for what he is (predatory serial affair-seeker and fantasist!) and throughout her narration in the book she says "my love"

user1475253854 · 31/01/2017 11:25

Yes I was thinking that wondermoomin. I know he did that kind of thing a lot, but I thought they had good chemistry and a connection - I wonder whether he just pretended to be really into every woman or whether it was genuine. And he was genuinely supportive of her after the rape. But he was previously a police officer (before he was a security guard) so maybe he just knew from that how to be sensitive / how women feel afterwards. It's hard to know.

Also she must have known when he agrees to scare/kill George that no spook would get involved with that!

Medeci · 31/01/2017 11:55

In the book he took a holdall with him when he went to see the rapist and she didn't ask him what was in it. Perhaps she really knew what he was going to do but wouldn't admit it to herself.

Original poster

MoreThanUs · 31/01/2017 16:17

I'm looking forward to seeing how they all relate to each other at the end of the trial.

OP posts:

auldfuckingspinster · 31/01/2017 17:14

I used to read recaps on television without pity back in the days when there was a time lag between the showing of US shows over here, actually enhanced my viewing so I'm glad I read this, had a feeling he'd be an usher or security guard.

SymphonyofShadows · 31/01/2017 17:29

In the book it explains that Mark worked for Crown Estates overseeing the security rather than being an actual guard. IIRC the police guard the Palace of Westminster but at the direction of Crown Estates. Mark is an ex-policeman who is described in the book as the person who would write the report if an incident happened, so he has some seniority.

PRECIOUSJEWELL · 02/02/2017 12:52

Please would someone let me know where I can watch the other 2 Episodes please only seen 1 and 2,! I want to know too I much have prefer a series you can watch all at once like on Netflix or sky go lol. Xo

PRECIOUSJEWELL · 02/02/2017 13:06

Hi Medici. If you watch though he never took the Holdall in the house he had nothing in his hands! The occupants let Him straight in like they knew him too so they definitely knew each other.

YakiUdonYumYum · 02/02/2017 13:06

Thank God you started this thread MoreThan, is exactly what I've been not daring wanting to ask.

Now I can may relax and enjoy the rest of it.

Precious you'll be able to binge watch it all on the BBC iPlayer probably, once they've shown the remaining episodes. 2 more to go.

BringMeTea · 02/02/2017 13:36

I thought a, if not the, twist was when she realizes during the trial that he has told all to his lawyer about them shagging (specifically Apple Tree Yard) in a bid to help himself after she has been keeping up the 'we were just friends' line throughout.

I am enjoying the telly better than the Audible.

tobee · 02/02/2017 13:49

Can anyone one remember if her husband was called Gary in the book? I was listening on audible so tricky to check, but thought he had another name?

Btw, isn't she as much of a fantasist as him really in not being so concerned about him trying to save himself? She chooses to believe his a spy and interprets evidence for herself. The sex, the atttention and affair are what she is not getting from her husband. It reminds me of the real life case of Thompson & Bywaters.

Ulysses · 02/02/2017 13:59

I'm sure he was called Guy tobee.

tobee · 02/02/2017 14:16

Oh yes, Guy! Thanks, Ulysses. Different kind of name. Maybe there's a real life Guy Carmichael who might have sued!?!?

Wondermoomin · 02/02/2017 14:37

Precious there's no evidence to say X and George definitely knew each other. It's flats, not a house. He got buzzed in by someone - you could hear the buzz in the programme. In the book they don't know each other at all.

Re names: George has a different surname in book vs programme; we don't know yet if X's real name will match. Not that it matters, but it does make you wonder why they change these details!

Ulysses · 02/02/2017 14:47

Mark was in the police force before so would have been used to having to knock on doors to unknown persons and gaining entry.

I hadn't realised George's surname had been changed. Other differences are that the daughter's pregnancy is only on the TV show. I wonder if it's to address outwardly Yvonne's middle-agedness and why she is caught up in this totally other world. The books often refers to how young she was when she had her own children and the frustration it caused her, especially since Guy/Gary was able to accelerate his own academic studies and career.

tobee · 02/02/2017 17:32

I remember wondering if he was called Guy in the book because of its other meaning - guy, as in a male. And presumably Mark because it's quite a macho kind of ordinary name and Costley because, well her relationship is costly to Yvonne. A bit like characters in Restoration drama. Probably pretty obvious first year English literature analysis by me there. 😬

TigerSinging · 04/02/2017 22:22

Glad I found this too ... saves me watching it all. As finding it rather disturbing and depressing. Great acting though. Apart from sex scenes going on and on .

I thought the opening scenes of first episode was interesting. I think she was shown as a very safe, assured, even smug person. For example, she was so sure that genetics would never be used for bad purposes, which to me showed a kind of overconfidence or naievity. I think her meeting with the man Mark started to reveal her flaws. In a sense her carefully constructed life was all ready to "fall apart". As things continue, it becomes clearer that her fear(s) of mental illness - when we meet her son and her mother's suicide is mentioned - may be a large part of the trajectory of the story. She looks increasingly fragile. And a bit like Polanski's film about the girl in the flat (anyone remember name?), she looks increasingly terrified.

I can't analyse the ending, though it doesn't sound that great to me. She is angry. This time she gets a chance to act it out - or gets someone else to.

Or it could just be a simple rape-revenge story, a bit like an old Western?

It is Mark that is more the enigma? Maybe a shagaholic, or else Clint Eastwood in disguise. Why go to the trouble of getting himself imprisoned for the sake of a shag? I'd have to read the book I guess, but thats never gonna happen. Ackshually by end of episode 2, despte great acting by female lead, I felt a bit manipulated and wish I hadn't started watching.

TigerSinging · 04/02/2017 22:24

I think Polanski's film was Replusion btw

blankpieceofpaper · 04/02/2017 22:29

Posters further up this thread are so right! I read this book last year and I was really struggling to remember key plot details. I could recall they met, the chapel scene, the Apple Tree Yard moment and bits of the court... etc.

Why is it so hard to recall?! Does that mean it was forgettable? Or (more likely) my brain is going!

I read Girl On The Train earlier that year and can remember more of that at least.

TigerSinging · 04/02/2017 22:33

Or else, thinking of meaning - as soon as she stepped out of her designated roles of professional, mother, wife - to something illicit - she was going to pay (unlike her husband who also had an affair and some kind of accusation at work, which just got swept under the carpet). Not a particularly 'feminist' message ...

Trills · 04/02/2017 22:56

I read it when it was newish and I didn't hold onto the details either - I think it just didn't impress itself into my brain.

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