THE GIRL BEFORE - BBC sun to wed - NO SPOILERS - TV PACE

[Blondeshavemorefun]

New 4 part drama starting tomorrow night

Jane and Emma move into a rental that is an opportunity of a lifetime

It’s is a luxury Ultra minimalist pad

As long as they answer ledwards - the landlords strange questions and follows the rules that he sets ……….

Remember - if it is too good to be true then it probably is

What was the point of the fox?

I think the fox was sniffing around the graves.

Yes, I thought that's what the fox was doing.

I was vaguely dis with the ending. I guessed that Simon was a bad one - Edward was far too obvious. I can't decide whether it was good or bad that we don't know what sort of people are being interviewed for the house.

Disappointed. Not just dis 😂

I spent last night's episode saying past or present to my dh every time there was a change of actress .
I didn't guess the boss was the rapist , but once Simon started suggesting he slept on the sofa , and definitely when he turned up at Jane's with flowers and food my thoughts about him changed . We enjoyed it.

It was different.

My 'verdict' is it was OK but not great. The 'nice guy' who turns out to be a control freak is a bit of a drama cliche. And there was no real tension. Think it might have worked better as a 3 parter.

The two actresses were dissimilar in manner and expression, but I assumed it was the same actress with different moods/expressions at first. I thought one was the less mature, people pleasing, character of the same actress.
There was a scene with the therapist quite late on, when I'd got good at recognising who was who and thought I'd sussed it, when Jane's upset face momentarily confused me and I thought it was Emma.

So it was Simon sleeping in the service room…. Jane found blankets and Emma’s pink stone heart…. But weren’t the words Help Me written on the wall?

@youngestisapsycho

So it was Simon sleeping in the service room…. Jane found blankets and Emma’s pink stone heart…. But weren’t the words Help Me written on the wall?

I don't understand that part either

What about the bulglar breaking into Emma’s new house? Did he do it out of revenge? Or did Simon pay him to do it so he can look like a hero?

Also, a house with massive servers would surely have an alarm if someone broke in!

I think there were a lot of plot holes. Maybe they were explained in the book, and I guess it's not the type of thing you're meant to think about too closely. But quite a few bits that didn't really add up.

@shreddednips

I've just watched the last episode. I enjoyed bits of it BUT I just couldn't get over the main premise. If you went to look at that terrifying house and then received a mad questionnaire ('would you sacrifice yourself to save 10 innocent strangers????') and then got told you weren't allowed any belongings AND then went and had that meeting with scary architect where you were told the house would 'gather data' on you...you wouldn't move in. No one would.

And if you then found out that there were two people buried in the garden after your landlord backed some sort of bulldozer into a wall and squashed them and a woman who lived there before you was also shagging the landlord and died in mysterious circumstances you would move out! And the fox sniffing around the graves was off putting too 🤦🏼‍♀️

Rents in London are such that I can believe Emma would jump at the chance to live in that fancy place at an affordable price. She was young and I don’t think earning that much. And Jane wanted a fresh start after losing her baby; she said she liked the idea of being given the chance to live in a different way.

Also in London foxes are everywhere and you wouldn’t think anything much of one wandering around your garden.

I didn’t get the ‘help me’ thing either. Felt like a plot strand from the book excised from the tv version but not completely weeded out.

And no therapist would take on clients so closely connected with each other, or have given Jane so much information about Emma.

It didn’t seem in character for Jane to skip out of the back door of the clinic and leave Edward a note, rather than just talk to him.

Most annoyingly, I can’t believe that the police would have failed to find that the video of the rape wasn’t filmed on Emma’s phone but forwarded to it.

And they would certainly know that the video was filmed weeks earlier than Emma claimed it was.

5 days earlier. And they did find out, just not soon enough.

@picklemewalnuts

5 days earlier. And they did find out, just not soon enough.

But why would they need to 'find out'? Surely their forensics people would have that information straight away? Doesn't sound that complex to know the exact time when a video was sent or recorded.

I felt Simon was miscast. He seemed too young / fresh faced. He didn't "match" with Emma. He reminded me of Leonardo di Caprio in Titanic with Kate Winslet. They didn't "match" either.
I presume Simon paid the burglar. He appeared to have a key. There was a look between Simon and the burglar just before the burglar escaped.
The Help Me note - what was that about?
I found Edward too sinister to be attractive.
And his creepy wardrobe inspecting technical advisor- what was that about ?
Was the ex partner in the architectural practice, whom Jane met having an affair with Edward's wife or helping her escape an abusive, coercive controlled relationship ?
All that lying awake at night, scared. You'd be totally on edge.
How did the fox get in and out ?
It appeared to be a courtyard with very high walls.

5 days earlier. And they did find out, just not soon enough.
But why would they need to 'find out'? Surely their forensics people would have that information straight away? Doesn't sound that complex to know the exact time when a video was sent or recorded.

The DCI made a comment about the other cops not ‘prioritising’ investigating the video and its timing. But it does stretch credulity that they wouldn’t have immediately noticed that. Along with the fact that they didn’t notice it had been sent to her phone, not recorded on it.

I assumed simon left door open for bulgur to gain entry

The house was like a fortress. If forced alarms would blare

Programme makers always do the same thing.......someone [Simon in this case] who just seems incidental to the plot, suddenly starts to appear unnecessarily in quite a few scenes , so you know there's more to them than meets the eye

The house had high garden walls but the side gate would presumable be 6ft high (if it was a real house that is). A fox can easily jump across a 6ft fence for instance. Or crawl under if there’s a little gap.
When we lived in London, our has backed onto a little woodland. We had a resident fox who often used our garden as his short cut to the woodland by jumping over the garden gate and then running through the garden and up the 6ft tall back fence.

*our house

Thank you for the fox explanation @UglyModernWindows.
I've seen a fox jump our front side wall which is about 4ft.

The therapist played a psycho doctor in EastEnders years ago.

Emma and Jane did not look alike at all.
Jane looked at least 10 years older than Emma.
It's just the hair and at a push skin tone that was similar.

It was OK - the Jane actress seems to be a really good actress, I'd like to see more of her work.

It's a shame Emma actress / EastEnder's Chantelle seems to have been type cast.
Maybe she'll do a non victim role in future.

She plays victim well

But yes be nice to see her on other roles