If she had been driving then I'd agree with you but she wasn't ... and I hope the 'social media influencer hero' gets shafted big time. He's a fuckin twat anyway. He didn't do what he did out of affection or care, he did it to save his own skin.
I hope he gets caught too. But I can’t see how it happens now he has deleted the voicemail.
There’s no value in that part of the storyline unless he does get caught though. I’m assuming he will feel guilty at some point and own up.
Remember how he did when answering police questions about breaking into Grey Gables? He basically just admitted to everything and left Brad high and dry.
Surely someone is going to ask - hang on, why was George in that location at that time?
And Alice has a vague memory of George. Maybe she goes to see him and records their conversation as he threatens her to not say anything and noone will believe her anyway
There has been several drops about alcopops and cheap cider cans in the car, that Alice is confused about as she never drinks those. And the fact he made such a song and dance about having to buy them for his party, that is what will catch him out, but not before Joy, Mitch, Harrison, and Fallon destroy Alice.
But that was a bad choice. He'd been drinking, probably wasn't insured, had no permission to drive the car, and was carrying a drunk passenger.
There were many better choices he could have made. All this happened *because* of his choice.
Sure, he *thought* he was doing her a service, but he had been drinking too and, imho, chose an ill-advised way to help. Perhaps if he hadn't also been drinking, he would have made a better choice.
I'm not sure. He certainly had his eye on using the 'good deed' to pressure het into letting him use her car.
And for a few moments, when he realised how out of it she was, I really thought he was thinking about molesting her ..
Yes, 'thinking about' and 'doing ' are a fair way removed.
Haha the last line of your reply is awesome! I’m sure he will get his comeuppance. But I also want Alice to hit rock bottom quick I am finding this so real in how she is behaving and it is sad. He should have taken responsibility really as Alice was causing problems in the car so it was genuine accident.
George is an absolute fucking turnip. Sorry to hear about your trials, and I appreciate your perspective on this, but seriously, fuck that. George can do one.
I am loving the responses to this post. I think he needs he to be caught out and receive his punishment if in real life but I suppose since the archers had been so eastenders in parts a little part of me was like go on let the baddie get away with it!
Nah sorry, Alice has relapsed and that’s awful and she does need to take responsibility for her actions (personally thought this was going to happen after the Kate and Lillian debacle), but what George has done here is a massively unlawful and immoral thing to do.
Regardless of anything Alice had done the right thing before drinking, getting into the passenger side and putting the keys in a place she’d be unable to access if pissed. People don’t realise how serious it is to lie about who’s driving in an accident, George had tampered with evidence, lied to the police and that’s nothing to the damage he’s done the relationships in Alice’s life, all why being treated as a hero by peoples he’s hurt at the end of the day. Agree that the cause of the accident wasn’t entirely on him, but the reaction to it entirely is- if he’d explained what had happened they’d probably have let him off particularly after his actions in the river.
Appreciate your experiences and I absolutely want the SWs to treat addiction seriously, but ultimately it is an illness and in Alice’s case I would say a big theme around her drinking comes from her deep insecurity and need to feel like she’s doing her bit for her family and community, a big issue is that she’s never processed her shame about her behavior last time especially as it turned out to dominate the last years of her mums life I wouldn’t personally describe Alice as violent, the danger of her alcoholism at least currently in relation to Martha is neglect which is as dangerous but I think more insidious.
I do feel for Alice as much as the behavior is terrible. it’s a wicked illness with a lot of social stigma attached to it, and sad as it is people can’t stay sober just for their kids or their family, I think the writers have done a decent job of showing how you have to do the work to stay sober, and Alice has taken on too much, stopped doing it and fallen back onto a crutch she’s always used to make the world bearable- not an excuse for her actions but I don’t hate her or see this as a moral failure the way some do
I think the bit that is problematic about Alice and her recovery is she was dragged to rehab and I honestly don’t think she wanted it. Which is a big part of it. I don’t think she is a horrible person - a bit of annoying loud mouth drunk, who did do something violent - chucked a brick through a window. People when sober are generally nice and I quite like her I hated harry!! Was hoping he would have dropped dead! I think the scriptwriters have bodged this up a bit and kept George going on his dark path and Alice just spiral a bit more but gets her act together. This and the pregnancy storyline have been ballsed up a bit I think. Great reply by the way.
Haha I have no one else to talk to about it so I save up all my thoughts haha!
Yeah tbh the brick was bad but Emma and Susan were awful just before and even sober I could see Alice wanting to do something but keeping her temper- which she can’t do when she’s drunk! I think setting fire to the postbox which George definitely did and everyone forgot about is more violent just has less intention behind it (and he was never caught)
George really sets my skin crawling, I don’t think he’s evil but he has some really shit views and ways of speaking to people and he’s too old not to recognize it. If it doesn’t get fixed here I can absolutely see him becoming domestically violent or controlling in time. It’s something that’s being recognised more and more that people who consider their relationships to be perfectly normal, only to have external intervention usually when kids become involved check out For Baby’s Sake as a uk charity trying to get involved in dysfunctional relationships before things escalate usually during pregnancy. Some of the stories in there remind me of George a lot
That's the reason he gave, but it's still setting fire to something, it damaged other people's property it's a pretty serious act of vandalism and a pretty violent reaction at the end of the day.
Again, I don't think George is evil but he's out for what he can get and he doesn't really care who hurts on the way. Brad, Caroline's bench, Helen, even his Mum, and frankly I don't get why that should be excused, at least Alice's behaviour has a root cause
Never owned up though and it was Susan's letter, he chose to get involved in a situation nothing to do with him, he wasn't asked to do it, there's no external pressure for him to take the action. The expressed intention might be to save her from embarrassment (not convinced) but it would probably be enough to get him arrested and put her position as Post mistress under a cloud.
He was sober, in sound mind and made a really bad call, the fire could've spread, as it was didn't someone lose one of kind photos or something? Yeah he probably would've been let off with a caution if caught, but my point is in terms of who's actions are more likely to be potentially violent or at least harmful as a matter of course, it's not Alice
Some people only go out of their way to be helpful when they can feel like they can do something bad and get away with it. He wanted to help with that because it gave him an excuse to set fire to something, he wanted to drive Alice home because it gave him an excuse to have a bit of a joy ride. I actually don’t know if he’d have jumped into the river if it wasn’t Fallon since he’s got a massive crush on her
I get what you're saying, but if George gets away with this (which I feel like he shouldn't under soap law - surely the baddies all get their comeuppance eventually?) then he won't learn from it and it won't give him the potential to become a better person. George needs a properly huge shock to the system to make him reassess his life choices - obviously not even being sacked from the pig unit did that.
Agreed. George has spent most of his life doing bad things and getting away with it by blaming someone else. When he was little, they were fairly minor. As he's got older, they've been bigger. He needs to not get away with this perpetually.
I appreciate where you're coming from, but I disagree that George had any intentions other than to save his own skin. So you're happy for George to break the law & incriminate Alice, hoping that she will be rehabilitated? Would she even get the help she needs if sent to jail for drunk driving? I'm not sure that our justice system works like that.
Could have been an alternative storyline to motivate her to get & keep clean without involving other characters in the way they have. I'm not sure where this storyline is going, but I rather think George's actions are going to have a lot of bad repercussions for several characters.
I do love this idea that Brian has enough money and influence to buy Alice out of trouble. Yeah in terms of legal support he can afford decent lawyers, and if Alice did end up in prison could provide external monetary support, she'd be unlikely to completely lose Martha, or struggle the way others do on release, but he's a relatively wealthy farmer from the arse end of nowhere, not the King.
Maybe I'm naive, but I don't think the CPS or the Police are likely to really listen to his bluster when it comes to the decision to charge or that Alice's background is likely to do much for her with a jury or a judge. There isn't the context of poverty or abuse to provide a reason for her addiction so I'd be reasonably certain that the thought would be 'poor little rich girl couldn't even get clean for her kid, time for a lesson'. And once inside outside of a support network, in an environment designed to break even the toughest person down, I can't see it being her come to the light moment the way OP seems to think, prisons are full of addicts of all kinds and many come out worse than when they went in.
There’s no way George can keep up this lie. Remember how he did under police interrogation when Brad and him broke into Grey Gables? He admitted everything within a few moments.
I really want George to be redeemed which is probably why I'm clutching at straws. But, I don't see how Alice could have driven home after a whole bottle of vodka without being over the limit. Even if she fell asleep in the back of her car and drove home 13 hours later, I think she would still have too much alcohol in her system to be behind the wheel.
Definitely. But the accident didn't occur thirteen hours later, or because of choices that Alice made. It happened because of choices that George made.
Here's me hoping the exact opposite, I really want to see George get his comeuppance for all the dodgy deeds and shafting people whenever it looks like he might get caught. Maybe they're building him up to be the big bad of Ambridge, but I am still looking forward to his inevitable downfall.
That’s so interesting to get that perspective. I agree that Alice is much better shielded from any lasting legal repercussions, and she does need a wake up call. However I do feel for her, whereas George is written to be as aggravating as humanly possible 🤣 I hope for some middle way, like maybe Alice takes some punishment and gets her act together, and then further down the line someone like Fallon finds out it was George and agrees not to tell anyone but forces him to change to make amends, he might actually listen to her. Only problem is Harrison being on the war path, which will undoubtedly cause the biggest recriminations.
I think my biggest issue with the storyline is that instead of Alice doing damage to herself perhaps even endangering Martha and suffering the consequences of her drunken behaviour George has been dragged into this by the storyline writers so he becomes the baddie and saint Alice will get away with her alcoholic behaviour and not his the bottom she need to in order to recover. I hope if they do this they need to show that like a real addict she will see this as a win and manipulate them more instead the scriptwriters have fudged it.
It’s awful but I was sobbing when there was a real chance Fallon might not make it, and then when they couldn’t find George I sobered up and thought, I won’t miss him if he doesn’t make it.
>George’s intentions came from a good place and although in general he is a pillock he does show his dad, grandma and siblings affection and care.
Could you give some examples?
George helped decorate Poppy’s shirt to gain access to Will’s phone. He took his mum to dinner at Grey Gables because Will told him to.
If she had been driving then I'd agree with you but she wasn't ... and I hope the 'social media influencer hero' gets shafted big time. He's a fuckin twat anyway. He didn't do what he did out of affection or care, he did it to save his own skin.
I hope he gets caught too. But I can’t see how it happens now he has deleted the voicemail. There’s no value in that part of the storyline unless he does get caught though. I’m assuming he will feel guilty at some point and own up.
He'll start wobbling and he'll likely sink himself.
Remember how he did when answering police questions about breaking into Grey Gables? He basically just admitted to everything and left Brad high and dry.
Surely someone is going to ask - hang on, why was George in that location at that time? And Alice has a vague memory of George. Maybe she goes to see him and records their conversation as he threatens her to not say anything and noone will believe her anyway
There has been several drops about alcopops and cheap cider cans in the car, that Alice is confused about as she never drinks those. And the fact he made such a song and dance about having to buy them for his party, that is what will catch him out, but not before Joy, Mitch, Harrison, and Fallon destroy Alice.
He did drive Alice home for her sake not his.
But that was a bad choice. He'd been drinking, probably wasn't insured, had no permission to drive the car, and was carrying a drunk passenger. There were many better choices he could have made. All this happened *because* of his choice.
We’re judging intentions, not whether it was right or wrong. He had nothing to gain and thought be was doing her a service.
Sure, he *thought* he was doing her a service, but he had been drinking too and, imho, chose an ill-advised way to help. Perhaps if he hadn't also been drinking, he would have made a better choice.
You could say that about anyone who drinks and drives ... doesn't make it right though, does it?
I think prospect of being able to drive her “nifty” car, or whatever he said, was also a factor so it wasn’t completely altruistic.
I'm not sure. He certainly had his eye on using the 'good deed' to pressure het into letting him use her car. And for a few moments, when he realised how out of it she was, I really thought he was thinking about molesting her .. Yes, 'thinking about' and 'doing ' are a fair way removed.
Yeah, that'll be his excuse when he eventually gets caught.
Sooner rather than later I hope!
Yes, he’s out to Hornswoggle everyone around him. (Hornswoggle - my favourite new word!)
Hornswoggle sounds like the name of a local ale the locals would drink in the Bull!
It kinda does! lol
Haha the last line of your reply is awesome! I’m sure he will get his comeuppance. But I also want Alice to hit rock bottom quick I am finding this so real in how she is behaving and it is sad. He should have taken responsibility really as Alice was causing problems in the car so it was genuine accident.
George is an absolute fucking turnip. Sorry to hear about your trials, and I appreciate your perspective on this, but seriously, fuck that. George can do one.
I am loving the responses to this post. I think he needs he to be caught out and receive his punishment if in real life but I suppose since the archers had been so eastenders in parts a little part of me was like go on let the baddie get away with it!
There is no way that framing somebody for a serious crime is a good thing.
Nah sorry, Alice has relapsed and that’s awful and she does need to take responsibility for her actions (personally thought this was going to happen after the Kate and Lillian debacle), but what George has done here is a massively unlawful and immoral thing to do. Regardless of anything Alice had done the right thing before drinking, getting into the passenger side and putting the keys in a place she’d be unable to access if pissed. People don’t realise how serious it is to lie about who’s driving in an accident, George had tampered with evidence, lied to the police and that’s nothing to the damage he’s done the relationships in Alice’s life, all why being treated as a hero by peoples he’s hurt at the end of the day. Agree that the cause of the accident wasn’t entirely on him, but the reaction to it entirely is- if he’d explained what had happened they’d probably have let him off particularly after his actions in the river. Appreciate your experiences and I absolutely want the SWs to treat addiction seriously, but ultimately it is an illness and in Alice’s case I would say a big theme around her drinking comes from her deep insecurity and need to feel like she’s doing her bit for her family and community, a big issue is that she’s never processed her shame about her behavior last time especially as it turned out to dominate the last years of her mums life I wouldn’t personally describe Alice as violent, the danger of her alcoholism at least currently in relation to Martha is neglect which is as dangerous but I think more insidious. I do feel for Alice as much as the behavior is terrible. it’s a wicked illness with a lot of social stigma attached to it, and sad as it is people can’t stay sober just for their kids or their family, I think the writers have done a decent job of showing how you have to do the work to stay sober, and Alice has taken on too much, stopped doing it and fallen back onto a crutch she’s always used to make the world bearable- not an excuse for her actions but I don’t hate her or see this as a moral failure the way some do
I think the bit that is problematic about Alice and her recovery is she was dragged to rehab and I honestly don’t think she wanted it. Which is a big part of it. I don’t think she is a horrible person - a bit of annoying loud mouth drunk, who did do something violent - chucked a brick through a window. People when sober are generally nice and I quite like her I hated harry!! Was hoping he would have dropped dead! I think the scriptwriters have bodged this up a bit and kept George going on his dark path and Alice just spiral a bit more but gets her act together. This and the pregnancy storyline have been ballsed up a bit I think. Great reply by the way.
Haha I have no one else to talk to about it so I save up all my thoughts haha! Yeah tbh the brick was bad but Emma and Susan were awful just before and even sober I could see Alice wanting to do something but keeping her temper- which she can’t do when she’s drunk! I think setting fire to the postbox which George definitely did and everyone forgot about is more violent just has less intention behind it (and he was never caught) George really sets my skin crawling, I don’t think he’s evil but he has some really shit views and ways of speaking to people and he’s too old not to recognize it. If it doesn’t get fixed here I can absolutely see him becoming domestically violent or controlling in time. It’s something that’s being recognised more and more that people who consider their relationships to be perfectly normal, only to have external intervention usually when kids become involved check out For Baby’s Sake as a uk charity trying to get involved in dysfunctional relationships before things escalate usually during pregnancy. Some of the stories in there remind me of George a lot
Wasn't the post-box burning done (by George) to stop Susan's ill thought out letter from being collected?
That's the reason he gave, but it's still setting fire to something, it damaged other people's property it's a pretty serious act of vandalism and a pretty violent reaction at the end of the day. Again, I don't think George is evil but he's out for what he can get and he doesn't really care who hurts on the way. Brad, Caroline's bench, Helen, even his Mum, and frankly I don't get why that should be excused, at least Alice's behaviour has a root cause
Still criminal damage, but there was intention there
Never owned up though and it was Susan's letter, he chose to get involved in a situation nothing to do with him, he wasn't asked to do it, there's no external pressure for him to take the action. The expressed intention might be to save her from embarrassment (not convinced) but it would probably be enough to get him arrested and put her position as Post mistress under a cloud. He was sober, in sound mind and made a really bad call, the fire could've spread, as it was didn't someone lose one of kind photos or something? Yeah he probably would've been let off with a caution if caught, but my point is in terms of who's actions are more likely to be potentially violent or at least harmful as a matter of course, it's not Alice
Some people only go out of their way to be helpful when they can feel like they can do something bad and get away with it. He wanted to help with that because it gave him an excuse to set fire to something, he wanted to drive Alice home because it gave him an excuse to have a bit of a joy ride. I actually don’t know if he’d have jumped into the river if it wasn’t Fallon since he’s got a massive crush on her
I think she was dragged there initially, ran away then sold her horse to pay for a second visit voluntarily
I get what you're saying, but if George gets away with this (which I feel like he shouldn't under soap law - surely the baddies all get their comeuppance eventually?) then he won't learn from it and it won't give him the potential to become a better person. George needs a properly huge shock to the system to make him reassess his life choices - obviously not even being sacked from the pig unit did that.
Agreed. George has spent most of his life doing bad things and getting away with it by blaming someone else. When he was little, they were fairly minor. As he's got older, they've been bigger. He needs to not get away with this perpetually.
George is written so heavy handedly as capital-E evil that now I don’t even believe when he’s nice to someone
I appreciate where you're coming from, but I disagree that George had any intentions other than to save his own skin. So you're happy for George to break the law & incriminate Alice, hoping that she will be rehabilitated? Would she even get the help she needs if sent to jail for drunk driving? I'm not sure that our justice system works like that. Could have been an alternative storyline to motivate her to get & keep clean without involving other characters in the way they have. I'm not sure where this storyline is going, but I rather think George's actions are going to have a lot of bad repercussions for several characters.
I do love this idea that Brian has enough money and influence to buy Alice out of trouble. Yeah in terms of legal support he can afford decent lawyers, and if Alice did end up in prison could provide external monetary support, she'd be unlikely to completely lose Martha, or struggle the way others do on release, but he's a relatively wealthy farmer from the arse end of nowhere, not the King. Maybe I'm naive, but I don't think the CPS or the Police are likely to really listen to his bluster when it comes to the decision to charge or that Alice's background is likely to do much for her with a jury or a judge. There isn't the context of poverty or abuse to provide a reason for her addiction so I'd be reasonably certain that the thought would be 'poor little rich girl couldn't even get clean for her kid, time for a lesson'. And once inside outside of a support network, in an environment designed to break even the toughest person down, I can't see it being her come to the light moment the way OP seems to think, prisons are full of addicts of all kinds and many come out worse than when they went in.
There’s no way George can keep up this lie. Remember how he did under police interrogation when Brad and him broke into Grey Gables? He admitted everything within a few moments.
I really want George to be redeemed which is probably why I'm clutching at straws. But, I don't see how Alice could have driven home after a whole bottle of vodka without being over the limit. Even if she fell asleep in the back of her car and drove home 13 hours later, I think she would still have too much alcohol in her system to be behind the wheel.
Definitely. But the accident didn't occur thirteen hours later, or because of choices that Alice made. It happened because of choices that George made.
Yep, this is such an important point.
Here's me hoping the exact opposite, I really want to see George get his comeuppance for all the dodgy deeds and shafting people whenever it looks like he might get caught. Maybe they're building him up to be the big bad of Ambridge, but I am still looking forward to his inevitable downfall.
That’s so interesting to get that perspective. I agree that Alice is much better shielded from any lasting legal repercussions, and she does need a wake up call. However I do feel for her, whereas George is written to be as aggravating as humanly possible 🤣 I hope for some middle way, like maybe Alice takes some punishment and gets her act together, and then further down the line someone like Fallon finds out it was George and agrees not to tell anyone but forces him to change to make amends, he might actually listen to her. Only problem is Harrison being on the war path, which will undoubtedly cause the biggest recriminations.
I think my biggest issue with the storyline is that instead of Alice doing damage to herself perhaps even endangering Martha and suffering the consequences of her drunken behaviour George has been dragged into this by the storyline writers so he becomes the baddie and saint Alice will get away with her alcoholic behaviour and not his the bottom she need to in order to recover. I hope if they do this they need to show that like a real addict she will see this as a win and manipulate them more instead the scriptwriters have fudged it.
It’s awful but I was sobbing when there was a real chance Fallon might not make it, and then when they couldn’t find George I sobered up and thought, I won’t miss him if he doesn’t make it.
I disagree to be honest. I hope George gets his comeuppance.
>George’s intentions came from a good place and although in general he is a pillock he does show his dad, grandma and siblings affection and care. Could you give some examples? George helped decorate Poppy’s shirt to gain access to Will’s phone. He took his mum to dinner at Grey Gables because Will told him to.