Death becomes her

Ambridge on the Couch - this week on The Archers

The hosts provide a detailed recap of recent dramatic events in Ambridge, focusing heavily on the aftermath of Carol's death and the tension

Key takeaways

• Alan accidentally transferred a massive sum of money to his personal account while using Carol's phone.
• The death of Carol has polarized listeners, with some finding the storyline unpleasant and others relieved.

Main topics

• Character deaths and legacies
• Romantic entanglements in Ambridge

Notable quotes

Just shush, and I'm going to speak to someone slightly less barking.

Conclusion

The episode offers a humorous yet critical analysis of recent soap ope

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Love this podcast? Support this show through the supporter feature from Acast. It's up to you how much you give and there's no regular commitment. Just hit the link in the show description to support now. Speaker 1 (0:19) Welcome to Ambridge on the Couch, an in-depth look at the artists with me, Geoff Thomas, Lucy Freeman, James Everett and Matt Rodriguez-Payne. Now, before we make a start on your emails, let's have a recap of what happened this week in Ambridge. We Speaker 3 (0:35) began the week with Tony and Leonard doing their repair workshop. They'd been asked to look at Gene Harvey's alarm clock umbrella and athlete's foot. What I don't understand is that they keep saying, so-and-so has been dropped off. Dropped off where? Who is taking these things in? Are they insured? Where are things being stored if they're taking in people's heirloom jewellery? Should it not be slightly more official? By the end of the week, they'd also caught on to this, and Natasha had set some space aside in the tea room, apparently, which seems slightly odd to go from some beautiful curated space hung with cowhide and local artwork to people's broken lawnmowers in a heap. Speaker 2 (1:11) Anyway. Speaker 3 (1:12) As his par for the course, Tony threw a hissy fit that it was all going too well and too many people were getting involved, which prevented him pottering about and chuntering to Leonard, which as far as he was concerned was the entire point of the exercise. He then confessed that he'd been a bit of a dick, which came as a shock to no one, and blamed it on John's toy tractor. Lily is understandably less than delighted that Harrisman told Fallon about their burgeoning, whatever it is. She is behaving in a much more mature fashion than Harrisman, despite being 83 years younger. He is rebounding like a squash ball, the silly sod. He broke it to Jolene, with Fallon like a chippy Greek chorus in the background, and Jolene went full Peggy Mitchell, but with rounder vowels. Jolene seemed to be more annoyed that Fallon hadn't told her than the fact that her son-in-law was shagging her step-niece. She then, having promised she wouldn't, told Kenton. And then he, despite being pleaded with not to, went to see Lily, who entirely reasonably pointed out that Kenton's own romantic record was nothing to write home about, which seemed to come as something of a surprise to him. As he was so busy cantering on his high horse along the moral high ground, he was practically bumping into light aircraft. Fun facts from this week. Tom has an unfeasibly large greenhouse. Joy has a doorbell conundrum. Leonard loves a muffin. And Mags' poultry is moist. Speaker 2 (2:28) More news as Speaker 3 (2:30) we have it. Speaker 2 (2:31) Anna was moaning Speaker 3 (2:32) that her mother was not being looked after and that she kept moaning. Then she was moaning that her mother was being looked after and that she wasn't moaning. Then Carol returned to moaning and Anna complained about it. She even had a pop at Leonard for fixing her dead son's watch and said give it back to Anna so she can beat herself over the head with it. If I was Leonard, I'd have stuck the bloody thing on eBay. Everyone that comes into contact with Carol seems to have their IQ sucked out of them. Perfectly intelligent people just believe the absolute nonsense she spouts without question. Too old to have rehab? Yep, sounds entirely reasonable. Coincidentally on the same day, completely missed off a ward round? Yep. She was holding Tony and Anna spellbound, just talking rubbish about not being able to go home, going home anyway, carers coming four times a day, no carers coming, hating the laurels, loving the laurels. At what point is anyone going to say, do you know what? Just shush, and I'm going to speak to someone slightly less barking, who actually knows what's going on. Yes. Alan was the latest one to become hypnotised and prove this by putting his bank details into Carol's phone and then leaving her to transfer money to him while just having said that he didn't have enough money to pay for the flipping bell. He left her to it and went to buy two hot chocolates, which was accompanied by much ha-ha-harring, as it was all hysterical. Somebody will be in hysterics when they realise Carol's accidentally transferred £72 million to Alan's personal account. But no one will be ha-ha-haring except us. Ha-ha-ha. We're about to embark upon the next round of Housey Housey with Ambridge Hall going on the market. Linda and Robert can move into Woodbine, Fallon can move into Glebe and Lily and Harriswood can move into the boat before they take over Ambridge Hall. Talking of houses, Harriswood suddenly woke up and realised that half the house he'd moved out of was his and probably moved back in again. He said he wouldn't invite Lily round if Fallon didn't want him to. I'd imagine she doesn't harassment on the whole. Just a hunchet there. Amber's water appeared to have broken and Linda drove them to the birthing centre. George took a while to grasp that they should be going to the birthing centre. Not sure where he thought they should be going. Aldi? They then had to ring Linda and sheepishly admit that they'd doused her car in piss, as Amber had just lost bladder control momentarily. That must have added a certain something to her Instagram birth story. Hi guys! Pissed myself! Mick and Joy, who now appear to be best friends forever with Linda, gave her the idea of setting up a dog field. This idea seemed to strike everybody with utter astonishment, so much so that they had to keep explaining what it was. A field? For dogs. A dog field. A field for dogs. Linda was overcome with enthusiasm, but it went down like a cup of cold sick with Esme, who appears to be too busy trying to make money to actually make any. And the week ended with the death of Carol. Before she was even cold, Anna was arguing with her, accusing her of seemingly dying on purpose while Anna was enjoying a latte and having a go on the stairlift at the Laurels. Alan kept chuntering on until Usha hauled him outside so that Anna and Carol could continue their row from beyond the grave in peace. I say peace. It won't be peace when Anna checks Carol's bank account. And then boy, will Alan wish he'd left undone those things he ought not to have done. Oh, my good God. The end. I'm calling it, Jeffy. It's what's going to happen. Yeah, Speaker 1 (5:49) no, it's... He's Speaker 3 (5:50) going to be busted because she's going to have... Because she was so pro-Alan at the end. She was all kind of, oh, you're the only one that makes me feel happy and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So while he was getting that hot chocolate, she was busily transferring five grand for his bail. Speaker 1 (6:07) Possibly all her money. Speaker 3 (6:09) Yeah, Anna, by accident. Anna is then going to find out about it and she's already saying things like, but she was perfectly all right earlier. How come she died when you were there? And she's a solicitor. Barrister, whatever it is. Speaker 1 (6:25) I don't think I have the energy for that storyline, Lucy. I may have to retire. Speaker 3 (6:31) Just take your feet off the bottom and float along. It's fine. Speaker 1 (6:35) Except I'm not floating, I'm drowning. Seriously, Speaker 2 (6:40) I Speaker 1 (6:40) don't... Alan is not my favourite person by any means. He's a bit of a pillock on a fairly regular basis. But he doesn't deserve that. He's done... absolutely nothing wrong there except except Speaker 3 (6:53) be Speaker 1 (6:54) a bit of a pillock well Speaker 3 (6:57) not following any of the church of england's guidelines about financial probity when you're dealing with an elderly person's money well Speaker 1 (7:03) yeah exactly being a bit of a pillock but there's absolutely no malice no forethought no no he's certainly i mean we didn't actually listen to carol die per se Speaker 3 (7:17) No. Speaker 1 (7:18) We weren't in the room when Alan was rearranging her pillows. Yeah. But I don't for a moment think that Alan actually bumped Carol off in order to get five grand for the church bell. Speaker 3 (7:33) He was too busy trying to remember the words for all those prayers. Do you reckon he was making it up? Speaker 1 (7:37) Honestly, he was really struggling there. He's like, right, a prayer. Okay. Speaker 3 (7:42) Right then. Come on, Al. You can do this. What would one of those sound like, do you think? Speaker 1 (7:48) Do you have any, get his phone out, do you have any favourite prayers, Carol? Chat cheap. Give me a Speaker 2 (7:53) prayer. Speaker 1 (7:53) That Speaker 2 (7:53) you can Speaker 1 (7:53) give me the name of? Speaker 3 (7:57) Hey, Claude, give me the name of a prayer. Speaker 1 (8:00) Give me the name of a prayer for somebody who's about to cark it. Speaker 3 (8:03) Yeah. Speaker 1 (8:04) If it's Speaker 3 (8:05) a Speaker 1 (8:05) prayer that involves charity, as indeed the left undone, those things which we ought not to have done. That's Corinthians, isn't it? That was our school lesson. We had the King James Bible, which if you enjoy reading a Bible, or even if you don't, and you haven't come across the King James Bible, it is, if I can coin a phrase, revelation. The language is... Gorgeous. And our school lesson was St Paul's letter to the Corinthians, chapter 13, making it up a little bit here, about charity. So Speaker 3 (8:37) was Alan, don't worry about it. Speaker 1 (8:37) Charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemingly, and so on and so forth. I Speaker 3 (8:43) think Alan's probably behaved himself unseemingly, according to Anna. Speaker 1 (8:46) So maybe he was reading her that. Yeah. Well, it's not a prayer, is it? But I don't, for a moment, believe that he's actually done anything. wrong or anything deliberately wrong. He's just been a bit of a pillock. But Anna is definitely, definitely not going to see it like that. And this, I'm quite sure you're right, which means you're definitely wrong, by the way. I'm quite sure you're right because they've set this up weeks in advance, haven't they? Speaker 3 (9:14) Yeah, yes, exactly. I have to say, when she died, I cheered because I just couldn't stand her. I mean, I could... Speaker 1 (9:21) I punched the air. Speaker 3 (9:23) I liked her when she was as she was. Speaker 1 (9:26) Yeah, I don't. I never met her that Speaker 3 (9:29) way. But she was Eleanor Bronn and presumably, I don't remember her before that. But this current iteration of her was just awful. Speaker 1 (9:36) Unbearable. Speaker 3 (9:37) And I punched the air and then Harriet messaged me and said, I found that really moving. And then I felt like the world's worst person. So I said, oh, I cheered. Speaker 1 (9:47) My hands moved, if that's any good. Up Speaker 2 (9:50) and down, yes. Speaker 3 (9:52) I just didn't want to hear any more of that endless bickering. Speaker 1 (9:56) No, exactly. I think as a storyline it has value and it probably rang a lot of bells with a lot of people, either people who are elderly or people who have elderly parents. I think it was probably quite well written, even if a little overdone. I think Carol was right at the ragged edge of what was believable. I'm sure there are people like that, but I'm also sure that they are very... Very few and far between. And it's just, when you bear in mind that, okay, I know the artist has an educational background and it is not an entertainment show per se. It is a drama. I just don't want to listen to that. I don't. It's not fun. Speaker 3 (10:43) No. Speaker 1 (10:44) It's not enjoyable. It's hard, hard work. Speaker 3 (10:48) If you are in that situation, it's the last thing you're going to want to hear because you're already dealing with it. And if you're not in that situation, no, you can't relate because it just sounds so pantomimically awful. Speaker 1 (10:59) Yeah. So, in summary, see ya, Carol. Speaker 3 (11:04) Yeah. We've had a billion emails this Speaker 1 (11:07) week. Speaker 3 (11:07) Have we? Speaker 1 (11:08) And Speaker 3 (11:08) a lot of people have been bitching about Carol. And obviously I wrote half the monologue bitching about Carol before she died. Don't worry. No one's going to think you're terrible if I read out your email saying what a cow she was and then she died because we appreciate that you wrote it before she died. So don't worry about it. Speaker 1 (11:25) Well, I think if you're going to be morally consistent, the fact that she's died should be neither here nor there. Speaker 3 (11:30) And further disclaimers, we are in Greece at the moment on a Greek island. Speaker 1 (11:35) We are, yes. Speaker 3 (11:36) And it turns out... Speaker 1 (11:38) Thoughts and prayers, et cetera. We're in Speaker 3 (11:40) rural West Coast. And when we say rural... We've had to shut all the doors, windows, everything because the noise of donkeys and chickens and all-terrain vehicles going on. Speaker 1 (11:53) Dogs. God, dogs. Dogs, yeah, dogs. All night last night. Speaker 3 (11:58) Farm dogs because they sleep in the day and then they're alert to every sound in the night time. We're sleeping fine, actually, but... Speaker 1 (12:05) Yeah, no, absolutely. And the sparrows washing themselves in the deep end of the pool. Speaker 3 (12:10) Yeah, and a... Scops owl as well. So yes, we've had to shut everything. And there's also the pool makes it look like somebody's stomach about Speaker 1 (12:18) to explode. Speaker 3 (12:18) It's not my digestion, ladies and gentlemen. Speaker 1 (12:20) I'm just sitting near the pool thing. So Speaker 3 (12:22) we've done our best to hermetically seal ourselves off. But if it doesn't work, Speaker 1 (12:27) please forgive. Sorry about the noises. So good riddance to Carol, in summary. Yep, and Speaker 3 (12:33) Kenton got his arse served to him, didn't he, by Lily? Speaker 1 (12:37) That's all a far, far more interesting... Yeah. For me. Harrison and Lily and Harrison and Fallon and Lily and Fallon and Kenton and Jolene with Harrison and with Fallon and with Lily. A little menage a cinq. Speaker 3 (12:56) Yeah. Speaker 1 (12:57) It's far, far more interesting. And again, really, really well written and really well acted. Fallon was brilliant again this week. Speaker 2 (13:05) Yeah, yeah. Speaker 1 (13:06) They all are. Despite the fact that Harrison appears to be, well, he doesn't know if he's coming or going, does he? Speaker 3 (13:13) I actually felt sorry for him this week, largely because if you marry somebody and you move to where they live, she is absolutely surrounded by family. Speaker 1 (13:26) Yeah. Speaker 3 (13:27) She's living next door to her mum and her stepdad, both of whom adore her. She's got extended family. She's lived there all her life. Harrison is still an incomer. Maybe she hasn't lived there all her life, but she's lived nearby all her life. And he's got nobody. He's Mr. Baddy. You know, even his girlfriend is part of his wife's family, for crying out loud. I'm not trying to say Speaker 1 (13:49) he's got nobody. I mean, he's got Chris. Speaker 3 (13:52) No, but no family. No, yeah. Nobody that's just automatically going to take your side, whether you're behaving like a git or not. Speaker 1 (14:02) You haven't met my family, Bruce. Speaker 3 (14:06) What Speaker 1 (14:06) is this unconditional of which you speak? Speaker 3 (14:11) Yeah, just nobody who's got his back. He's just defending himself the entire time. And I did feel, you know, he's got nowhere to go to escape them. Nowhere. Yeah, Speaker 1 (14:22) this is the biggest problem. He cannot stay at the ball anymore. Speaker 3 (14:26) No. Speaker 1 (14:26) That's just too awkward. He can't because Speaker 3 (14:29) she's thrown him out. Yeah, but Speaker 1 (14:31) even if they hadn't, that wouldn't be tenable. Speaker 3 (14:34) No. Speaker 1 (14:34) He's, I mean, vacillating barely covers it. He's... swinging wildly from declaring eternal love to Lily one moment to the point where she couldn't normally in those situations you just kind of go hmm hmm but non-committally non-committal as you can possibly be but even Lily had to sort of say hey just just pump the brakes there harrow old son And that was all of about 12 hours after he suggested to Fallon that they might be in a position to reconcile. He's lived in about four different places in the last five days. Speaker 1 (15:16) He's all over the shop. As I was Speaker 3 (15:18) blowing up my bed for the third time that night. Speaker 1 (15:21) I thought, Speaker 3 (15:22) I've got a house. What am I doing this for? Exactly. Speaker 1 (15:25) It is largely his house. Speaker 3 (15:28) Yes. If Speaker 1 (15:29) he wants to share it with Fallon, that's great. But equally, I would say what it boils down to is who can afford it? Speaker 3 (15:37) Yeah. Well, he can, she can't. Speaker 1 (15:39) He can and she can't. Speaker 3 (15:41) Did you hear that? That is the Speaker 1 (15:42) bottom line, basically. Did Speaker 3 (15:43) you hear the sort of passing? mention of elizabeth having fallon on some sort of contract that means she's not being properly paid no Speaker 1 (15:52) when Speaker 3 (15:54) she was talking to jolene she said money's a bit tight at the moment because i'm being paid on results basically i'm being paid by how many people come to these events oh Speaker 1 (16:03) really She's on a zero-hour contract with incentives. Speaker 3 (16:07) Yeah, kind of, I think. And I just thought that's so Elizabeth. It is. So you don't mind that, do you, Fallon? I mean, it's just, I just thought it'd be better for all of us anyway. Bye! And then Fallon's going through a divorce and everything else. Yeah. With no money coming in. Speaker 1 (16:22) She's trying hard too. And I thought the conversation with Lily was beautifully written and really well acted. Yeah, let's not Speaker 3 (16:31) pretend everything's okay. Exactly, very believable. I Speaker 1 (16:35) think they're both still somewhere deep down predisposed to like each other and things will probably be fine, but they just need some time, as you say, to not have to pretend that everything is hunky-dory. Speaker 2 (16:52) And Speaker 1 (16:53) I think that... I mean, it all depends on the house now, doesn't it? Because I think Fallon was genuinely shocked Speaker 3 (16:58) that Speaker 1 (16:58) Harrison turned back up again. Speaker 3 (17:00) Yeah. Speaker 1 (17:00) Yeah, maybe she shouldn't have been. She should maybe have been able to see that coming because what the hell else was he going to do? Yeah, yeah. Nonetheless, it was shocking for her. And this is what I was talking about a few weeks ago. This is where the rubber meets the road. This is where people have things to lose. And life is getting uncomfortable and difficult. And that is when the temptation is greatest to start, instead of being cooperative and collaborative, to being combative. Exactly. Yeah. To start, right, exactly. Start trying to make them pay Speaker 3 (17:37) for the Speaker 1 (17:38) discomfort and the pain that they're causing you. Speaker 3 (17:41) And the removal of a future that you thought you had. Even if it wasn't great, it was still an option. And then all of a sudden, if someone takes the option away, you're like... You can't do that. That hurts. Speaker 1 (17:51) So it'll be interesting to see in the next couple of weeks which path they, I say they, I think it'll be Fallon who ultimately decides how the rest of this plays out. Because I think it's easy for Harrison to be magnanimous. It's his house. He's in a relationship again. It's easy for him to be magnanimous. It's a lot more challenging for Fallon to do the same thing. So it'll be down to her now how the rest of this goes. Speaker 3 (18:16) Especially when she's got her mother rabble-rousing in the background. Burn his clothes! Speaker 1 (18:21) And the brass neck of Kenton. Good Lord! Speaker 3 (18:27) What an idiot. I mean, I Speaker 1 (18:28) could just about see you. I mean, you wouldn't have that conversation with somebody you didn't know very well. But imagine a circumstance under which you needed to have that conversation with somebody who didn't know you very well. You might just be able to style it out. Speaker 2 (18:44) But Speaker 1 (18:45) Lily knows Kenton as well as anybody. Yeah. Speaker 2 (18:48) And Speaker 1 (18:49) for him to pretend that he's been St Francis of bloody Assisi. Yeah. Speaker 3 (18:55) Throughout Speaker 1 (18:56) his entire life, it's a staggering piece of cheek. And she got exactly the response. In fact, probably a relatively kind and polite response, honestly. I'd have been smashing his head into the dashboard of the car. Speaker 3 (19:10) Absolutely the reverse effect, because if he was hoping that he was going to make her see things clearly, it actually cemented in her mind that... there might be a future with harassment that nothing had happened before she wasn't doing anything wrong and this was all absolutely marvelous and nothing to do with him so she went away from that conversation feeling much more aligned to harassment than she had before so well done kenton yeah reverse of what you went there to do yeah Speaker 2 (19:34) there Speaker 3 (19:34) were so many more subtle ways of doing that that would have had the outcome that he wanted but he just didn't Because he's too busy. He's all puffed up. Speaker 1 (19:45) Yeah. The subtlest way of all, of course, would have been to mind his own sodding business. Speaker 3 (19:50) Yes, also that. Speaker 1 (19:51) Because it's got absolutely nothing to do with him. Speaker 3 (19:54) No. I Speaker 1 (19:55) don't care how much he wants it to be his business. It's just not. Sod off Kenton and Jolene and, in fact, everybody else. This has got nothing to do with anybody except Fallon, Harrison and Lily. The end. Well, that's the Speaker 3 (20:09) trouble with... family in small villages isn't it everything is Speaker 1 (20:12) everything Speaker 3 (20:13) is your business oh Speaker 1 (20:15) god yeah uh Speaker 3 (20:16) should we do some emails because there's 80 billion can Speaker 1 (20:19) we just have a quick chat about tony oh Speaker 3 (20:21) yeah Speaker 1 (20:21) tony toning up all down himself this week he ended up in the right place at least yeah Speaker 3 (20:28) but Speaker 1 (20:29) i've Speaker 3 (20:29) been a bit of an idiot you Speaker 1 (20:30) can i've had a muffin and i think yeah Speaker 3 (20:34) and Speaker 1 (20:35) now i feel all right about all these people wanting to help yeah Speaker 3 (20:39) Well, it was just pressure, wasn't it? It's just panic and pressure. Speaker 1 (20:43) It's not, though. It really isn't. Speaker 3 (20:45) Well, that's what he'd think it was. Speaker 1 (20:47) Where is the pressure there? Speaker 3 (20:49) No, the pressure of people giving so many things, them being overwhelmed with all the different things. Overwhelmed Speaker 1 (20:56) by Speaker 3 (20:56) what? Speaker 1 (20:57) By half a dozen repairs. He Speaker 3 (21:00) was hoping to fix one alarm clock a week, and all of a sudden he's got people dropping off jewellery. Speaker 1 (21:05) And that's exactly what I'm getting at. Anybody else in the world would think, oh, this is going well. Blimey, look at all this interest. We're doing something really valuable and important here. All these people out there who've got little bits and bobs that don't quite work properly, and, you know, we get a chance to help them. And if we can't help them, or if it's too