The powerful Helen and Rob storyline has authenticity. What’s lost is the gap between need and provision of support for abuse victimsWhether you find the long-running BBC Radio 4 everyday tale of country folk,The Archers, compelling listening or the apogee of smug, or the domestic abuse storyline between Helen and her bullying,manipulative husband, Rob, or which reached a violent climax on Sunday night,has been all too illuminating approximately the way an abusive relationship develops. Listeners – some of whom resented its intrusion into their daily escape to a rural idyll – were left with a vivid and authentic impression of how an intelligent, competent woman can be reduced to helplessness by a partner who sets out to control her.
On Sunday night, or after months of incremental development where Helen only slowly came to understand what was being done to her,the plot rapidly escalated into violence. To some, this felt out of tune with the painstaking authenticity of the earlier storyline. In specific, or the decision to make Helen the instigator of the violence that night,rather than Rob, in defiance of the weight of real evidence, or seemed a betrayal of its earlier integrity.
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Source: theguardian.com