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Wow, could there possibly have been a more facile plot twist at the end of Friday’s episode? Are we supposed to go ‘boo… hiss’ at this as well?
First the Dark Lord, now his mother. Apparently, they’re both in cahoots.
Please, credit the audience with some intelligence. It’s cartoonish, cliched and tropey. Honestly, the sooner this godforsaken storyline ends, the better. Talk about descending into farce…
I hear you, Blithe Spirit, and I agree.
What utter rot! I know the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and all that, but really?! Why couldn’t Ursula have been a “normal” person? Why another villain? We’ve already got Rob and “Witch” Hazel. That’s enough. And just what is it about Kirsty that’s so objectionable?
It’s all too often the case that the script writers just seem to make no sense. There’s an art to storytelling which is more than just making stuff up: it’s about telling a story well. They’re definitely just making this stuff up as they go along but they’re getting me in a right old state of confusion. I’m reminded of “Chekhov’s gun” …
When we were first introduced to Rob I bet they didn’t have any of this nonsense planned. My earlier impression was that Rob had a difficult relationship with his parents and brother – hence their total absence thus far and the “romantic” elopement which avoided a big family wedding. Now it turns out he actually has enough of a relationship with his mother (who’s taken her cue from Mrs Danvers in “Rebecca” (big fan of the first wife, not so keen on the second wife and probably homicidal)) to have her come and stay at his home. I don’t get it.
I’ve found the Rob:Helen story toecurlingly nauseating. Thankfully I haven’t had any first hand experience of the slow manipulative descent into domestic violence (if that’s the term for this sort of mental violence that thankfully hasn’t turned physical yet). Despite that I can tell that It’s well very done and believable – terrifying really.
I like my Archers a bit lighter and happier and consequently haven’t relished this storyline, but I’ve appreciated it in its way and realise its importance both within the Archers and in the wider world drawing attention to people stuck in these abusive situations.
Until now – this pantomime evil step mother routine makes a mockery of this slow burning but important storyline.
Far better and more complex to have Ursula recognise what’s going on and to try to help Helen whilst being conflicted with Rob. But no. I now fully expect Helen to end up poisoned in a ditch by Ursula, perhaps framing Kirsty in the process, freeing Rob to get his hands on Henry and torment him for life. Ugh.
Yes, too complicated. Rob didn’t get on with his parents before. He “invited” them for dinner and they never arrived. I suspected as I think most people did that he never actually invited them but that little story line was never resolved. Either way it shows a poor relationship with his parents. Hard to believe Ursula would conspire with him to control Helen. Someone suggested that this was just an actor placed by Rob pretending to be Ursula. I however, spent hours doing research over previous episodes because I need to get a life and have established that the Ursula who called Helen that day and mistook her for the cleaner is the same person who is now micromanaging her life along with Rob.
As well as this what about the missing money at barrow, what about Stephan and the colvert? Listening to old episodes I was reminded just how much Pat and Tony and even Tom distrusted Rob. And to be honest, he was much nicer most of the time, then. With the problems Tom is having with ordering and Rob, you would think he would have a little grumble to his parents at some point, especially as he has no partner to discuss the days woes to.
I have been hanging on for this story to progress. It hasn’t and I can’t see anything really happening for a while yet. I don’t know what to do.
After listening to Wednesday’s episode and Ursula banging on about home births, how dreadful her time was in hospital. I’m going to have to stop listening until this storyline has finished. What’s the woman’s point with this. Surely she know about Helen’s past, why would you be forcing (letting them make their own mind up) to have a home birth…Is she going to run off with it?
I can’t bare to listen anymore, obviously I’ll be listening to DTD but I don’t think I can tune in anymore.
End this soon for gods sake. I listen to the Archers to get away from it all. I’d rather have talk of herbal leys and cow shit.
Been thinking about this for a while. Well, since Friday anyway. Trying to work out what the editor’s trying to say. Best I can come up with is that he’s trying to say that Rob’s actions are justifiable because he has a controlling mother. I may well be wrong, but why else bring Ursula into it?
Now Rob is calling her an “expert”. She gave birth to two children and then did some reading. That makes all mothers of 2 or more experts on child birth. If you’ve had 4 kids you are, no doubt, an authority on the issue!
I regularly attend my dentist and have done so for most of my life. I have had specialist dentists do things to my teeth on more than one occasion. I now plan to set up a dental practice, given my vast experience in the area of dental practice and the research I have done at Google University.
Can I correct a misconception:
No money went missing at Berrow Farm. Poor writing implies this – but Charlie understands numbers because he likes spreadsheets. The problem was that the figures relating to the cows performance were in some way double counted – one of the staff had entered the figures during the week and then Rob had entered then again at the weekend not realising that they had already been entered. He then entered manual corrections later to remove the double counting rather than correcting the individual entries (probably quicker).
So it presumably looked like milk was being produced which was not then sold. As I said at the time there would be a trained clerk entering the data (not Rob or one of the dairy workers) and ROb would be looking at the output information.
Indeed in the hi-tech of the dairy I was surprised that Charlie could refer to the “data input sheets” as it would probably all be entered on line on an ipad app these days. Witness how this week Johnny was wittering on about the gizmos on Adam’s tractor – last year Adam was amazed at Charlie’s gizmos!
Correction to my last comment. It was not the milk production figures, it was the fertility data.
Which for it to be regularly captured and to be the subject of a witch hunt is probably as strange as sacking Tony Blackburn from the BBC.
Here’s why the Evil Ursula thing doesn’t make sense to me — or at least the way it was introduced — is: one of the most interesting/realistic things about Rob is that is doesn’t believe he is abusing her. He believes he loves her and is doing what’s best for her. For that phone conversation with him and his mother to have taken place, a previous conversation would have had to take place where he said, “And another obstacle to my master plan is this Kirsty person. Mother, if she shows up, here’s what you do.” It implies a level of awareness of his controlling behavior that just doesn’t seem realistic to me. Plus, his mother would have to agree that his methodology is reasonable. It just feels terribly unrealistic to me.
(Also, hello. I’m new to the forum.)
I, too, find it very odd that Rob has asked Ursula to stay, given that he has never appeared to be close to his mother and couldn’t wait to get her out of the house the first time she appeared at BHC. However, I don’t believe he’s inducted her into any ‘master plan’, or even that he has one; he’s simply trying to ‘protect’ (in his terms, not ours) Helen by controlling her every move and, more important, to him now, ensure nothing goes wrong with the birth of ‘his’ son. So he will have told Ursula that Kirsty is a bad influence on the fragile, vulnerable Helen, having encouraged her to take Henry out of school for a frivolous trip etc. The implausibility (for me) is that when Ursula met Kirsty, she didn’t see through Rob’s lies and notice how much more relaxed and happy Helen was when Kirsty was there. Previously, Ursula had been very quick to puncture Rob’s deceits (‘A likely story; he’s checking up on us’ etc.) and behaviour; it would have been better if the sws had stuck with that.
As I’ve said in my call in this week, the whole plotline is ridiculous.
What are the Dark Lord and Evil Mater trying to do by getting Helen to have a home birth – kill her through pre-eclampsia, but save his child? If Rob wants the farm, he’s playing an extremely long game – he’d have to get rid of Henry as well so that his own child would inherit. And that’s not even banking on Tom having kids at some point either…
Plus there is no logic as to why he’s trying to drive the shop into the ground (which he is clearly doing, just like Berrow) – it makes absolutely no sense to willingly ruin a thriving business, even if someone is rabidly narcissistic.
The whole thing is so full of holes you could strain spaghetti with it. And the cahoots thing would imply that Rob is nothing but a sociopathic gold digger who set his sights on Helen’s family inheritance right from the off. (Toby is an arrogant sh!t, but at least he’s transparent about getting his hands on Brookfield.)
PS: someone has suggested to me that Rob also sent the Valentine to Adam. That does make sense!
The plot-line is only ridiculous if all the lurid speculations of listeners concerning Rob’s motives and machinations/long-term plans turn out to be true. If, on the other hand, he hasn’t got any plans at all, but is just a control-freak/sociopath who believes he’s right about everything and wants to control Helen’s life down to the last detail because he ‘loves’ her (in his terms), then it’s psychologically accurate, as the many women who’ve been married to such men will testify.
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