#about how he treated the whites maybe being the reason for lachlan being terrible

[bartsugsy]

I loved that hug so much!

SAMEEEE i was gonna make a post calling him a rude dumbass and everything

but then he literally just THREW HIMSELF at aaron bc he’s had…. a lot happen to him this past week

I MEAN, WHEN HITTING A TEENAGER WITH YOUR CAR IS LITERALLY THE BEST PART OF YOUR WEEK aksjsjsks

on the other hand, then we found out that robert hadn’t actually told aaron everything that was going on, or spoken about his ✨ feelings ✨ about everything, so i did get an opportunity to call him a dumbass anyway

poor aaron just literally coming home thinking everything is kind of ok and finding robert in literal pieces just sort of barely clinging on bc his ex step son murdered his ex wife, ex father in law, the kid he used to live with and a rando, tried to murder him and his sister in law and then kidnapped his son’s mother, t h e n kidnapped him and a teenage girl and held them at gun point, threatened to murder him, he shot said murderous ex step son, hit a teenager with his car and finally found out about the whole ‘his son’s mother has been kidnapped and might be dead’ thing

oh and he blames himself for all of it bc he thinks he could have stopped it or that he made lachlan that way by being legitimately terrible to the whites

lmao aaron had no fuckin clue what he was coming home to i’m dying

god no wonder rob has a fuckin seizure

[noramachwitz]

In the new IS interview with Thomas Atkinson there are quite a few interesting bits but what caught my attention more than anything was the fact that he said they were originally supposed to film the Whites car crash back in August 2017 which would have put the Whites exit in October 2017.

The Whites exit had implications for a few other characters (mainly on robron but on Joe/Graham/Debbie/Dingles in a secondary sense as well) and when you think about it then A Lot of things about how this story was told start to make sense. Obviously this is based on 50% speculation and 50% on quotes from actors and IM so it might not be completely right but it made a lot of sense to me so I thought I’d share it.

There’s a lot to this so this is under a read more if you wanna:

First off, here are some things that we basically know for sure (I’m establishing facts because for some reason this turned into an honest to god essay wtf). I’m going to try and do this chronologically but don’t hold me to it:

According to the IS interview, Thomas knew back in 2016 that he would exit as a killer which means that must have been one of the first things IM decided to do when he came in which also means he came in and knew he’d ax the Whites. All this has been a long time coming.

The show generally storylines about 5 months ahead which is why in April 2017 John Bowe went on his famous tirade on twitter and basically announced he’d been fired. Five months of storylining would have once again put the Whites exit in September/October which fits.

What also says this was the original plan is the simple fact that literally every one of the actors’ contracts would have been up in October since that’s when they all came to the show (the OG Whites in October 2014 and EH in October 2016). And btw that would explain why they treated Rebecca’s character the way they did because she was never supposed to stay around longer than a year originally.

Now what was affected by them pushing the exits back?? A List:

Joe & Graham: Obviously the Whites leaving later meant that Joe and Graham had to move into Home Farm later. That would explain that kinda strange way they were introduced. Joe and Graham had a handful of appearances in September, were introduced and relationships with Debbie/Charity introduced for the most part and then suddenly went off screen for more than 5 weeks. That definitely not the most ideal way to introduce your new characters to a soap format is it? Pretty sure they had to stall and put that sl on hold because of the Whites exit.

Lachlan: Obviously the Whites leaving earlier would have meant that that Lachlan’s descent into Our Favourite Serial Killer would have started earlier and ended earlier. I’d say Gerry dying would have probably happened in January since that would have been a year after his first appearance (since we know IM loved his anniversaries) and the conclusion that is happening now would maybe have happened back in May/June.

Robert & Aaron: Now ... I would almost bet actual money (only like 5 quid tho I’m not mad) that the original timeline for Robron was to break up in July just like they did, then the crash in October and the robron reunion on Christmas (Since Christmas plans must have already been in motion when they decided to change stuff). Remember how IM kept saying we were going to get a summer robron wedding?? I’m willing to bet that originally, their anniversary in February would have sparked the second engagement which would have naturally lead to a summer wedding. (I mean IM is still terrible at timing/pacing but you know this would explain why to a degree).

Steven Flynn (who played Alex #rip) actually said in his last interview that he was originally only planned for 10 episodes on September but his stint got extended to 29 which would fit with them pushing the reunion further back then first intended, so that’s further proof.

Now the most interesting question is of course WHY their exit got pushed back this far. I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure but I think there are some obvious candidates:

Short answer: Mike Parr (and also some Lucy Pargeter)

I think Lucy going on maternity leave was the first thing that threw the timing and the scheduling of the robron sl and in consequence the Whites SL and exit off (it actually must have influenced Debbie/Sarah even more but that’s a whole other post).

Mike Parr said at the BSAs that he always wanted to do 4 years and his contract would have run out in April 2017 (since his first appearance was in July) but they convinced him to stay one more year by giving him the accid attack sl. April 2017 aka the same month where they originally must have told JB and co that they were fired. And then the BSAs 2017 happened where everything hinted that something massive must have been shifting because 1) John Bowe said that the production team keeps changing their minds about the Whites exit 2) Danny said that infamous line that he doesn’t think they know what they’re doing. Now if they had long term plans for Ross that included him playing a role in both the Whites exit and the robron sl then wouldn’t that have been the time where they had to scramble everything around? Makes u think. If suddenly they found out Mike was leaving in a year and a bit and they had to setup and come up with a whole “brand new” exit sl for him it would explain a lot (since they love involving Ross in everything)

Lucy’s maternity leave in early 2017 must have thrown the schedule off a lot since at this point it seems kinda obvious that Sarah is going to get Grace’s heart. Remember how Chas slept with Paddy right before the robron wedding and IM said that Debbie has a 18 month long SL coming up when she came back?? Now those stories are running parallel to each other and I think they were always meant to. That’s why when Lucy came back they immediately sarted with Chas/Paddy. I’d also say the Joe/Debbie stuff was supposed to happen once Sarah was better again and had had the heart transplant but you know Ned and Andrew were already casted and they couldn’t wait a year for them to arrive. That’s why they had to drop villain Joe as quickly as they did and how Joe/Debbie getting back together was rushed because they couldn’t have Debbie involved in both Joe drama and Sarah drama. I’m lowkey hoping that they’re going to continue with their original plans for how they wanted Joe/Debbie to go after Sarah is okay again ngl I miss villain!Joe.

Now if you combine both of those aspects then is it any wonder that 2017 Emmerdale was as messy pacing wise as it was? So many Big Stories were affected by this that must have had a ripple effect on the whole show, right? That’s the feeling I have anyway.

Now even more speculation that’s honestly just Speculation™ because we’ll never know but speculation is fun so here we go:

The crash being in October means it would have happened about a month before Rebecca was due to give birth so that leads me to believe that either Seb wasn’t supposed to be born originally OR it finally explains why they casted a premature baby without it ever being mentioned in on screen. The crash being later meant that Rebecca could carry the kid to term after all but they’d possibly already casted a premie so that never went anywhere.

I have some more speculation tbh but since we have no idea how either Ross or Rebecca or Lachlan are going to exit that’s kinda futile so I’m going to leave it at this since this post is already long enough lmao. If u made it this far than honestly kudos, I had a lot of fun typing it.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk while I remembered how to write essays (it’s been a while lmao).

[secondsofhappiness]

Haha I love baby's so it did make me swoon a tiny bit 😉 But I was also swooning at Aaron's face too he looks really emotional & I'm pleased it looks like he's gonna be in Robs corner he really does love him 😊 I've just got such mixed feelings, I Just want her gone Megan, so much, I guess she's not a threat but I want her gone so much - I want the reunion to be magic, I hope it will be 🤞Megan how do you feel about it? 🙏

Awww love ❤️

I mean, I have never been quiet in saying that baby storylines bore me to tears. I am not really interested in babies or stories about them and that tends to be my number 1 switch off factor. I’ve done it before because the introduction of babies to a favourite character wasn’t interesting, there was no other element to it and I got bored and lost interest so that’s my main concern.

Aaron and Rob (and Liv) are characters so inherently interesting that even the thought of a baby should be far from their minds in soap world. In Soap, babies usually come at a time to inject drama. You have no need with these characters. They are so interesting and dramatic on their own and my main and singular concern has always been that the introduction of a baby would 1) make me bored and switch off (THERE ARE SO MANY BABY STORYLINES RIGHT NOW) and 2) cause the characters to lose what made them interesting to begin with.

That’s still a concern to me.

BUT there’s so damn much to come. I know it’s soon going to be all about Rob and how he feels about this kid. It seems he’s shocked by it, uncomfortable but realised that it’s real and he needs to do something about it. He seems to decide he needs to step up which is a good thing for his character but is that it?

Surely that can’t be the one thing to change everything, to make Robert want to be atone and do better? Maybe it is? If that’s the case then that’s so boring to me.

As an audience, we should want Rob far far away from this kid hahaha. I mean, look at how he’s treating the kid’s mother and immediate family. The general audience really aren’t in Rob’s corner right now and I doubt a tiny innocent baby is going to change their minds as they won’t want Rob near it. According to Iain (and his words I take with a gallon of salt), were supposed to get Rob’s redemption.

If this is it, as in “babies make you better” then I’d be terribly terribly disappointed and bored because no they don’t! Babies don’t suddenly change you. Yes, they change a lot but if you have faults and issues then babies don’t cure them. The change needs to be linked to those faults in the first place aka if someone is a manipulator, then they need to be shown how their manipulation can bite them or be faced with a wake up call in light of it.

Kids aren’t cure alls. If they make it that way then UGH I’d be so disappointed.

That said, according to the limited spoilers I know, Rob’s going to be banned from seeing the kid and then Lachlan’s going to be in the attic (Jesus this family hahaha) for whatever reason and that only leads us to late November. Unless Lachlan is recording shit in his weirdo attic home so can expose Larry and Rob then there must be a bigger reason. Tbh I’m entirely rooting for Lachlan after this week. He’s mega interesting to me. Thomas is killer and such a great foil for Rob. Plus, he hates Larry so he has my backing Hahahaha. Do your worst, kid.

As for Aaron. That’s a tricky one for me. He’s been so very strong and he removed himself from a painful situation to care for himself and that’s the best thing. It’s what should have always happened and so any change to that HAS to make sense for his character.

Do I think it’d be a satisfactory outcome for Aaron to just be smitten seeing Rob holding a baby? Not at all. That’s also boring to me. That doesn’t resolve anything. That shit wears off! Especially as the root of this entirely nightmare is the creation of this child and the circumstances surrounding it.

Again, kids aren’t cure alls. They aren’t a magic medicine. They can mask things momentarily but they aren’t going to suddenly make it all good.

So anything from Aaron, to me, has to be earned and seem logical for his character where he is now. Yeah, I think he’s always been a moralistic character (in a v weird way whilst battering people at times…!) and he’s got a lot of love and compassion which means he will no doubt be supportive of Rob and be hoping Rob can sort his shit out. Aaron would be Aaron if he didn’t do that. Will it hurt him? UNDOUBTEDLY. I don’t think that’s enough to have him suddenly wanting Rob in his life as a partner and to be welcoming a baby into his life. Aaron’s a young guy and I don’t think a baby is exactly in his plans and this is a baby who signifies how everything went wrong. It’s not the baby’s fault nor should any of this ever be held against the kid (he didn’t ask to have a nightmare existence!) but spoilers suggest he really still isn’t ok with all of this baby stuff even when the baby is here so I have trouble accepting that Aaron would welcome this child into his home to help raise it etc lightly. It’s the sole problem he has and any action to accept all of this should be about Aaron and nothing else. I’d struggle to accept him suddenly being a co-parent without any significant development.

So I think there’s more to come. I don’t believe it’s as simple as Rob becomes a dad and suddenly he’s a changed man. No way. Rob’s ways are so ingrained and part of him as a person that no kid is going to solve that and change him. A taste of his own medicine? That’d do it. He needs it and I’d love to see him get it as I am always fascinated by Rob’s character. If all it turns out to be is a baby as the reason for a character’s entire persona to change then JESUS. Awful.

So I am just taking stuff as it happens. I don’t know a lot of the spoilers so it’s likely I’m missing out on stuff so these are just my current feelings. All I know is that for Rob to want to change who he is, for him to have this Xmas storyline, for Aaron to actively want to be part of this whole thing, for The Whites to leave (in whatever way), for this all to make sense, something else has to happen and I definitely think there is more to come and December will be full of drama.

Tbh The Whites leaving is the goal. Just to get to that point for me is a big deal. Celebrations shall ensue! 🎈Also, Liv. She is who I cherish here in a big way so I need to see her being looked after and being ok. I hope we get that. People just need to cuddle Liv in all scenes!

I hope that answers everything!! ❤️❤️

[bartsugsy]

Have you recovered from Thursday's episodes yet? I have mentally binned the one from Friday from my memory as best I can. I wish Sharon hadn't included the scene where Robert pulled Rebecca up off her chair, what the hell was that. Surely there was another way for her to trigger a reaction so that Chrissie could blurt out Rebecca was still pregnant ugh. Maxine is subtle in her script writing and then it feels like these other writers come along and bulldozer over everything

Hey anon!

I honestly didn’t mind Friday’s episode. Ok…

this became…. obscenely long…….

The pub reveal felt sort of clunky in a ‘suddenly everyone relevant is here at the pub to learn of this news!’ sort of way, but it’s a soap, so…. you know. It was like… CAR CRASH HORRIFYING AND AWKWARD TO WATCH AND I GET LIKE… SECOND HAND HORROR IS THAT A THING i just fuckdigndnf scream like it hits A LOT OF MY WEIRD SECOND HAND EMBARRASSMENT BUTTONS AND I CANT i’m literally rewatching now and cringing at robert and aaron having to both suddenly deal with this realisation in full view of a packed pub i’m !!!!!!!!!!

It feels like the point was to sort of… make Robert extra terrible to Rebecca (not hard, he’s usually pretty terrible to her these days lmao) and have Aaron find out about the baby all at once, so that it hits him like a slap in the face, that this isn’t going to be as easy as he thought it was when it was just him and Robert alone in a room together. It’s so often been so much easier for the two of them, when it’s just them in a room. 

The one thing that I wasn’t a fan of was Victoria’s non-reaction. Because. Really? idk why are these reveals never as juicy as I want them to be smh. Also I still don’t get Chrissie being so gung ho about the baby given it’s Robert’s and given her relationship with Rebecca and so I’m assuming it must be for a specific plotty reason (bc the state of the white sisters’ relationship is always reliant on what the plot needs) and I’m really wondering what that is??? i’m 100% suspicious. 

lawrence on the other hand was 110% #relateable

ALSO aaron’s reaction to finding out about the baby was as relateable as chas’ reaction to finding out about the Incident - i.e. i felt my soul laid bare on screen that day

Ryan and Danny were both amazing and that bathroom scene was a work of art and I will cherish it til I die like THEIR PERFORMANCES IN THAT SCENE??????? LITERALLY STUNNING?????????????????? OH MY GOD?????????????? WHEN YOU THINK RYAN AND DANNY CAN’T DO ANY BETTER THAN THURSDAY AND THEN THEY DO THAT??????? bye. also i’m literally both of them. it’s like me talking to myself about this storyline. we are all one.

anyway that scene was perfect and NEEDED for this episode and so i really can’t trash it all that much because damn

The Aaron and Rebecca scene is…. the funniest most absurd thing I’ve ever laid my own two eyes upon………. she just…. how…. does anyone think she has a leg to stand on?????

Ok. Here’s my thing. It is 1000% Rebecca’s right to have this baby if she wants. That’s fine. She’s gotta do what’s right for her. However, awful as Robert treats her and much as she now rightfully seems to hate him, she has to understand that this decision to have this baby affects Aaron’s life as well. She shouldn’t let her choice be influenced by that at all but, given that this is someone she professes to “like”, she… she slept with his husband and she’s having his baby. She took an active part in helping to destroy his marraige. Unintended consequence or not, that’s still the absolute reality of what happened and as much as, again, I don’t think she should change her mind or her stance on anything Robert related, I still think she should at least be able to recognise her part in Aaron’s pain? I just…. you would think she would be even slightly sympathetic to that? But that last scene sort of came off as her trying to make him see the light - “look how similar we are, we’re in the same boat, it’s us against him”. The show literally couldn’t make it clearer that Aaron and Rebecca don’t have the same relationships with Robert if they had Rob make a flipping shrine to Aaron in his basement next to a burning effegy of Rebecca at this point (….just look at this entire episode), but Rebecca thinks it’s the same thing. And yes, she seems to think she’s doing right by Aaron but.. idk, how fucking patronising can you be? How unsympathetic can you be? 

Again - I really do think the point was to really have Aaron question whether he can really forgive Robert and put that seed of doubt in his mind but

sigh

Rebecca.

Also idk if it’s because we know what Aaron’s agression looks like and it wasn’t that heartbroken yell at Rebecca, and Rebecca does not know what it looks like, but her cowering and making him feel bad about yelling at her…. like….

she slept with his husband??????????????????????????????????????

I STILL DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO TREAT THIS AS A SHITTY THING TO DO BC IF MY MATE DID THAT TO ME I WOULD SURE AS HELL SHOUT AT THEM, PREGNANT OR NOT WHAT THE FUCK but as im a lesbian i doubt they’d be pregnant tbh but still WHY CAN’T HE YELL AT HER? SHE STILL ULTIMATELY CHOSE HER FEELINGS FOR ROBERT OVER WHATEVER VERY MINIMAL REGARD SHE MIGHT HAVE HAD FOR AARON’S (AARON HER FRIEND AARON WHO SHE LIKES) MARRIAGE and it’s….. it’s really annoying 

and rebecca acting like that shout is…. robert’s fault….. when….. even if aaron was acting agressive…. aaron’s agression issues go back far far before robert even came into the picture….. and robert isn’t responsible for the way aaron reacts to things much in the way aaron isn’t responsible for robert’s reactions we literally just had a massive double bill discussing these exact faults. like, it just hammers home how much she really doesn’t know him. 

and like. robert and rebecca were both there. they were both responsible and they both had relationships with aaron. robert has more to apologise for but that doesn’t mean rebecca should be treated like an innocent god damn petal (regardless of whether she genuinely belived rob and aaron had broken up four hours before they did it or whatever… i mean…….. honestly…………)

and potentially all just a way to make sure aaron doesn’t shout at her again? or just to foreshadow whatever the fuck is happening next week. who knows. 

Anyway.

What I’m saying is, I think the whole point of this episode was to show that Aaron and Robert’s problems aren’t magically fixed because they spent a day finally talking about their problems. Growing and changing has never been that easy - they’ve taken the first step and admitted to it, recognised their issues but… I think this is just a signal that they still have a lot of work to do and they aren’t going to be in a good place for a while. They’re both going to be trying to work through it for some time. Which is good. 

Like. That whole first scene, with them being cheerful but kind of awkward and stilted was just them trying to move past things a little - but this episode was a big neon sign that it’s never gonna be that easy. Long standing problems like theirs don’t just disappear.

ALSO ALSO final note on Maxine (and Sharon I guess, who wrote this ep - and I really wasn’t a massive fan of the writing because it did feel like a mess and it took me a few watches to sort of understand what was happening, but whatever) - because I just… I don’t think every episode that Maxine doesn’t write is doomed to be bad lmao. And I don’t think Friday trampled over them either. 

Personally, the reason I love Maxine like she was my own daughter is because she is the exact opposite of subtle. She doesn’t do subtle at all, she spells out everything in black and white and you don’t have to work for it - which I appreciate a lot, to be honest, because who wants to work this hard for a soap???? LOOK AT HOW LONG THIS POST IS???? WHY??? lmaoooo, maybe that’s just me. idk, i just appreciate her blunt approach to writing dialogue and her big love of parallels and callbacks bc it satisfies my inner theorist. plenty of other writers have their strengths when they write robron and plenty of other writers have written beautiful stuff for them, but i like that they give maxine the big stuff if only because i know that she’s gonna try and cram as much shit into there as possible lmaooooo. she makes the most of it.

and by that i mean…. i’m never really left thinking “am i reading too much into this or is this just an accident of the writing that i’m picking up on?” with maxine, like i do for a lot of other writers. like friday’s episode - am i meant to see the rebecca/aaron conversation as firm proof that rebecca doesn’t know aaron but has made a lot of judgements on him and assumes he has as little agency as she does when it comes to robert, based on her terrible terrible relationship with and treatment by robert? or is that just something that i can see from the episode, knowing the characters like i do, that was never intended to be there and won’t be a plot point. with rebecca, especially, it’s hard to know what we should be purposefully pick up on and what is just bad and sloppy writing by literally every single person involved. 

I just never feel like I have to write mountains of essays about character motivation and storytelling when Maxine is at the helm of an episode. 

i do think she’s one of the most consistent at writing them (though idk whether that’s because she gets the good episodes or it’s just her clear love for them as a couple that leads her to being extra careful with them, it might be very chicken and egg haha) and she handles episodes that could fall apart in some writers hands very very well (my main example for that is always the lachlan trial episode, which i just think should have been an utter trainwreck but ended up being one of my favourites. it’s just incredible to me that she made it work that well, during a time when robert is actively lying and the show itself was SO BAD ON ALL COUNTS???? her ep was like the turning point into ‘not horribleness’ again and i don’t know how she did it. the entire plot was ABSURD. she just made it work.)

(plus it seems like she writes loads of casual affection into episodes and that makes me happy)

idk. I guess I’m saying that there’s a reason I genuinely look forward to Maxine’s episodes, but also… all is not lost and i don’t think she’s the only one who is gonna save us here. we’ve got other people who will help us along the way lmao. 

(i’m getting serious de ja vu with this whole sentiment did i write this back in november as well or is that my brain playing tricks on me?)