The secrets she keeps : SPOILER thread

[The80sweregreat]

As above, I've decided to start a spoiler thread as I binged watched it last night. For anyone who has already watched it !

Do not read if you are watching in real time !
.....

Spoilers ..

I thought it was a bit silly and I'm confused as to the graves for the other babies; did she kill those children? How did she get away with that? Was Nicky ( her ex) from the church?
The final episode was laughable : Meghan took about a minute to get to the museum to see Aggie , but the police seemed to take forever to get to them.

Where did she get her money from and you never saw them change a nappy either.
The acting wasn't too bad although how Aggie managed to talk her way out of things was ridiculous.
The places they went to also seemed curiously empty of other people as well!

I was a bit disappointed by it all but it did while away a rainy day. Maybe the book was better?
What do others think?

I'm part way through the 4th episode.

I admit I felt that the abuse scenes where Aggie was raped by the church elder, or what ever he was, were horrific - my heart ached for her. And then no-one believed her, and she was vilified and shunned and scorned as a slut - awful. Then she was pregnant and had her baby taken from her (presumably put up for adoption) and then was there another baby (Chloe?) who was premature and died (and it's her shrine in the woods). I have to confess that I am finding some bits confusing.

I thought that Nicky was her ex and the father of Chloe, but then I wondered. I thought her earlier problems had left her infertile, but DH thought her parents had forced her to have a hysterectomy/be sterilised.

Just watched the fourth and fifth episodes.

How many of those little graves are there?

How many babies has she stolen?

This series definitely got better over the episodes. I loved that both female leads were flawed characters rather than the straightforward good person/bad person dynamic. It left me feeling like there were no winners because even though Meghan has Ben back she will now forever live under the stress of the affair with Simon coming out. I couldn't decide if Meghan felt she had been punished enough for her affair by Ben being snatched or whether she is ultimately a self-serving selfish woman who just wants it all and isn't prepared to admit she has been wrong.

My heart really ached for Aggie. I know her actions were unforgivable but she had been through so much and clearly had never felt the security of a loving family. The rape scene was particularly grim but imaginably realistic. My thoughts are that Nicky cottoned on to what she was doing because he knows she has done it before. Possibly even with Chloe (who I think was their child)? Perhaps she faked her pregnancy with him too? And Chloe was one of the snatched children? He appeared to be well dressed and employed so it wouldn't have been in his interests to tell anyone about Aggie because it would have implications for him.

The scene where the camera panned out to show 3 graves made me gasp with horror. Any sympathy for Aggie was lost at that point. The police officer said that she had been questioned over the disappearance of 3 infants. My understanding was that each baby had died because they had got sick and she couldn't risk taking them to the doctor because she would be found out. She only took Rory/Ben because Hayden insisted.

I think it would be a great series to revisit as a sequel. I want to know what happens to Aggie.

I read the book a couple of years back and literally could not put it down - every page I was thinking it can't get any worse.

She 'had' three babies Chloe, Lizzie and Emily - in the book she refers to them as the dead, the unborn and the one she gave away - (in that order)

Lizzie was Agathas second baby, she took her from outside a betting shop when she was 18, she had trouble giving her formula and the baby then had a fever and died in the night

The church man (can't remember his name) was married with a family and she 'liked' his attention as he promised her all sorts of a future, saying she was his favourite and the like. But when he was found out, he denied it all and blamed the whole thing on her in the church court leaving her to fend for herself alone and she was ostracised from the church.

I'll scout through again about Nicky, as he was her ex husband but can't remember the detail.

Also in the book I think she goes over the railway line more and spies on Meghan more and takes drinks and snacks with her.

Obviously I use the word Like (as in the attention) in the most abhorrent way. But he told her he loved her and she wished he was her father as she never got on with her step father. her step father always blamed her for the death of Elijah (her brother) as she wasn't holding his hand

She met Nicky when she was 30 and doing some temp work. they tried IVF 4 times with the last being a success and chose Chloe for a girl and Jacob for a boy, but it died at 32 weeks. Within a year her and Nicky had separated.

Thanks for the explanation Furball.

Meghan wasn't as perfect as Aggie had thought and I agree with a pp that she was self serving.

I felt sad for Aggie because of her traumatic past and no doubt things would have been different if she had a supportive network of friends. Hayden really wasn't the brightest tool in the box was he?

Sharpest even!

My heart really ached for Aggie. I know her actions were unforgivable but she had been through so much and clearly had never felt the security of a loving family. The rape scene was particularly grim but imaginably realistic.

Same here. That poor little girl - my heart ached for her. And then, of course, no one believed her when she told them what happened - she was just a lying little tart as far as everyone was concerned,

My thoughts are that Nicky cottoned on to what she was doing because he knows she has done it before. Possibly even with Chloe (who I think was their child)? Perhaps she faked her pregnancy with him too? And Chloe was one of the snatched children?

That's an interesting thought. It hadn't occurred to me - but I did wonder why he was so keen to tell Aggie's mother - hems have known there was bad feeling between them.

The scene where the camera panned out to show 3 graves made me gasp with horror.

It really was a shocker, wasn't it?

For someone in the Navy , Nathan was a bit dim.
I thought his brother might twig about her , but he didn't!

Hayden not Nathan! 😀

*he seems, not hems

It was a strangely unsatisfying ending.

I don't know how Aggie managed not to kill herself - even I couldn't miss as that range and she didn't even have a few power burns.

I don't think Meghan was self-serving - I think she was determined to keep her family together so that her children had a stable upbringing. She made a mistake having a one-nighter with Simon - he was an egotistical twat. "Oh I really love you Meghan" - but he wouldn't back off fromhis baby even when he could see she was on the poi too collapse wit worry over Ben.

I liked her switcher with the DNA samples. She was taking no risks.

Hayden turned out to be an OK bloke after all, which I thought was more than a little bit unbelievable. His brother was a nasty, spiteful little sh1t, though - even when Aggie was plausibly a genuine person, he just hated her. Do you think he didn't want the attention taking from himself. He was deaf, and I think his parents must have protected him a lot.

For all its flaws, I really enjoyed this series, and I agree - a second one with a follow-up of Aggie would be great.

Apologies for all the typos above - life is too short to go back and alter them.

The book is so much better. I didn't rate Laura Carmichael at all as the lead actress. Thought she was fairly wooden. I liked her in Downton Abbey though.

Who wrote the book Furball?

I can't find it on Amazon (there are three with the title "The Lies she Told" but none of them fit this story.

I felt it didn't properly "end" at all, Butterer.

It ws almost like a children's composition ending "But it was all a dream".

Really odd.

Written by Michael Robotham. One of my favourite authors. I don't think this work translated well to the screen at all, but that's only in my opinion.

Meant to say the book is called 'The Secrets She Keeps'.

The book was written by Michael Robotham. It's partly based on the true story of the abduction of Abbie Humphries from the QMC hospital in Nottingham in the 90's. In that case, the police actually visited 3 times to the house where she was being kept before she was actually found.

And I agree the ending wasn't great. Think I will try and read the book now!

The ending was rushed and not explained very well!

@SchadenfreudePersonified

Who wrote the book Furball?

I can't find it on Amazon (there are three with the title "The Lies she Told" but none of them fit this story.

Michael Robotham

I think there were a lot of things not explained well, but I think that happens alot when books are then put to screen.

The ending in the book - Agatha is in the same situation but says she is waiting for her daughter to visit emoji

I don't know why emoji is like that - it is supposed to say Heart emoji as there isn't one in the list down there