In this video review of Apple Tree Yard,
Yvonne ruins a perfectly good dinner
party
Gary has sex with his stalker and
Rapey George says it with flowers. The IT in
question being "I really am a sick fuck"
That's coming right up! Hey, it's your boy
Aerial Telly, your filthy TV friend
who tells you exactly how it is
TV reviews you can trust. Here today to
talk about Apple Tree Yard Episode 2. In the
post assault haze Yvonne is in total shock
She shares a taxi home with her
rapist and then gets home and has a tearful
shower. She then drives to the police
station with the full intention of
you are the crime but once she gets
there she just can't do it and she ends
up binning her clothes along with it
vital forensic evidence. She clearly sees
it as some kind of wake-up call
a punishment for her infidelity and the
weird thing is that the narrative kind of
agrees with her.
OK, so here's my problem: this is a story
whose implicit intention is to sshow how
passion can ruin your life. So if she wasn't
seeing Mark she wouldn't have been raped?
Dance the message i get - if she wasn't
fucking some marriage stranger in Apple Tree Yard
right beforehand if she hadn't
got drunk, if she wasn't wearing stockings
then she wouldn't have been vulnerable to
this sexual predator. Now I haven't read
the novel so i don't know if that's a
fault in the source material or the
adaptation but either way it's a messy
signal to send. Like if he'd fucked her
so hard he broke her pelvis I'd totally
believe that - you know, at that age
osteoporosis is a given so that'd be
fine. But rape as a consequence of
illicit passion? Nah, not on board with that
Getting back to Yvonne, she's totally coming
apart at the seams , she's blocking
Mark's calls but eventually she rrelents and
they meet up, she tells all about the
attack and she gives him the name George
Selway. Mark is great about it, he encourages
her to give a statement
but she says to him if they take of a vaginal swab
which they will then you're gonna
be on it and if that comes out both
their marriages are fucked. Their
marriages will be as fucked as Yvonne
was that first night in the h
House of Commons crypt. We know that it's hard
enough for women already to get taken
seriously in rape trials but if you add
into that the adulterous sex in the street
right beforehand then we know perfectly
well its gonna be Yvonne who is going to be on
trial
She resolves not to tell Gary anything
at all about the rape
She tells him that she's feeling ill and
would like to spend some time in Adam's
room and he's very understanding
despite having literally no understanding
of anything. Her son Adam shows up
unexpectedly trying to get into his room
and he scares her half to death but it's nice
to have what passes for a man about the house.
Adam wants to stay just for a few days to
sort some stuff out. He has important things to
ponder like why he's an even bigger
dickless piece of shit than his father.
Yvonne is grateful for the distraction of
her son but then everything comes
flooding back when she receives a casual
work email from George reminding her
about the conference they've got coming up
and how they might like to share a
hotel room together.
"Twisted little fuck" says Mark when he hears
Hard to argue with that.
Throughout all this we're obviously
wondering when Mark the superspy is
gonna man up and do what you're supposed
to do: track down George and put his 9 inch
dong in his mouth, waterboard him with
pis.s kneecap hhim with a tin opener, smash
each individual bone in his leg with a
lump hammer, much a battalion of army ants
his chaps eye and then seal it with
blu-tack, sew his arsehole shut and then
force-feeding 30 pounds of raw pork. But this
is ultimately the real world
gnarly, ugly and unjust. The bad guys
sometimes flourish, the good guys
sometimes perish. All Mark can offer her is a
shitty lawyer who tells her a bunch of
stuff that she probably already knows
that being drunk will count against her
that she didn't tell her husband will count
against her and that a history of
depression in the family will count
against her and he says to her
"you've really got to report you gonna this, if you're going to do it at
all you've got to report it today and she
doesn't,
so it's pretty much all over as far as
a prosecution goes. And she tells Mark that
she can't imagine ever having sex again
and given that they were essentially
fuck buddies, and he's got his wife and
she's got Gary it's basically all over
between them. The great affair ends not
with a bang but a whimper. In time she goes back to
work and a semblance of normality
returns you know routine's a powerful
thing. They do a bit of socializing, she and
Gary go to a dinner party where the host
starts chatting shit about a celebrity
rape case
victim-blaming and the like. Now usually Yvonne
would smile keep mount sure but
now she tears a strip off this broad.
It's hella awkward. And she announces that she's
leaving the
the Beaufort Institute - Gary's totally baffled
it's a great gig, but she is adamant. But
on the day she gets a lovely special
delivery of flower...s they're from
Rapey George!! Fucking Rapey George man he's so
rapey. Now although the affair is over
Yvonne is very much not over the affair
She still writes regularly missives to
Mark letters she'll never sent that he'll
never read. But in time the physical
bruises heal and she gets more confident
and she goes to get her hair done and as she
returns she gets a text "nice hairdo – is it
for me?" Signed George. Fucking Rapey George
man, everytime. The time comes
for Gary to go to Estonia for a conference
Coincidentally, Adam leaves the home the
same day so she's in that big old
house all alone.. To get up some Dutch courage
she goes to the off-license to load up on
plonk and wouldn't you know it browsing
the bacardi and rohypnol mixer aisle is
Rapey George. She runs home terrified and
frantically founds Mark to tell him that
George is stalking her. And they meet up the
following day in a secret service
safehouse - they kiss tenderly and it leads
to sex indoors for the first time. Kinky!
And then they finally, finally
have the conversation that we have been
waiting for. Up the arse? No! Not up the arse.
They've already done that
No no the conversation where she says to
him "Can't you warn him off for me?" and he
says "Nothing would give me greater
pleasure" ("Apart from doing you up the arse")
So great after all that we finally realize
that we know are in a rape revenge drama
well that's good to know. anyway Gary
comes back from Estonia– he's got some
great stories – you'll love this one
You remember Rosa that loopy broad the
student who thought there was something
between her and Gary but it was all in
her head? Funny one this, actually it turns out they
went together and they did the sex to
each other a number of times in
Estonia. So, the only thing that was "all
in her head" was his three-inch schlong!!!
oh god!!! Yvonne is pretty gutted at the news
but he just says "we never have sex" and
that's not unreasonable from his point
of view, bearing mind he still knows nothing
about the rape. but still it's all very
upsetting for her but you know what would cheer
Yvonne right up?
Some Deathwish rape revenge. She goes to
meet up with Mark so she can drive him round
to George Selway's place and Mark walks
right in to Selway's house and he's in
there for some time and she's waiting
just working what the hell is going to
happen, it seems like an eternity then
out of the blue ahand slams down on her
motor. Mark's? George's? And like THAT
we're back in the old bailey and as Yvonne is
led in a woman in the public gallery
screams abuse her saying she's a fucking
bitch and she deserves everything she's
gonna get for ruining their lives.
Everyone's a critic. I still like this
I'm finding it compelling i'm just not a
hundred percent convinced it knows where
it's going
Well maybe that's not actually true, it knows
where it's going it's going into the Old
Bailey but just not sure it knows how
it's going to get there. There is so much
sexual violence on TV these days
people more willing, more inclined to ask
questions about it, to interrogate the
reasons for it. apart from that side of
things every individual scene and
performance I think is great.
I'm finding it very watchable so i can't
really complain on that score at all.
do let me know please what you think in
the comments below: what do you think
about Yvonne's rape and how
specifically it changed the story line
do you agree with me that it almost
seems to make her complicit in the rape
or do you think that it was handled fine
you have no problem whatsoever. whatever
you think please leave a comment below. if
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