Wordsworth

It's not about not supporting a church, it's about not being held accountable by a church. A church congregation would consist of different types of people, some of whom probably don't think it's wrong for girls to wear skirts or for kids to go to college or for adult children to move out, date and marry someone not hand-picked by dad. By having the church in the home or, in this case, a satellite of home essentially, the Duggar kids are surrounded by like-minded families that do things the exact same way Mom & Dad do them. It's a principle of IBLP. It isolates children from families that don't do things the way they do them so they are not exposed to other influences, even other Christian influences.

I was really hoping that Joe would be found guilty or that he would have a crisis of conscience and confess. But, barring that, I suppose they did what they could with a not guilty verdict. Sharon and her team created enough reasonable doubt (or the British equivalent of it) to make the jury believe that Joe may not have done it. That was their job. But Sharon should find another profession if she has such a negative view of the justice system. Just because her son was convicted doesn't mean the whole thing is bad. I mean, after all, she just got a tawdry child killer off by tossing his wife and the victim's parents under the bus. Joe was a bit naive to think he could just resume his life. I'm guessing he doesn't have any parents or other close relatives left? No one appeared to be in court for his sake and he clearly had no place to go after he was released. Finally, that whole Sandbrook thing was so unsatisfying. All of the suspects did it. Except Cate, of course. Depending on how much legal maneuvering Lee does, it would appear that Ricky will find out that his daughter didn't die of a reaction to the laced whiskey, but was smothered instead. All a bunch of stupid evil liars. Ricky killed his niece and was going to put the blame on Lee, then gave Claire doctored booze to sedate his own daughter, Claire deliberately gives her the stuff to knock her out, Lee murders the girl to keep her from being a witness against him (She knew Lee & Lisa were having sex, but she didn't hear her own father yelling from that same room?), Claire tells Ricky that his daughter was accidentally killed so that she's got some leverage against him if he decides to falsely accuse Lee of killing Lisa.

I'm about Jodi Arias'd out myself. But they'll probably get to her eventually.

proserpina65, I missed that episode of "Million Dollar Critic", ended up finding it on-demand and am watching it right now. Wow, you were right! Mr. Wordsworth thinks it's hilarious. Thanks for the info!

On the other hand, the Law & Order shows and other programs with lawyers in them here in the U.S. aren't really that much more accurate. Police and lawyers in those shows are shown doing things they cannot do at all legally. So I don't really expect "Broadchurch" to accurately reflect the UK system either.

Second-generation IBLP are somewhat lost. Their parents joined Gothard's organization when the children were young (or sometimes not even born yet). The parents had spiritual education outside of IBLP/ATI. They may have had public school educations. The parents either jumped fully into the Gothard philosophy or they just picked the ideas out of it that they felt were good and ignored the rest. The problem being that many of the parents never told the children what to ignore. They just assumed the children knew, too. But the children didn't. And when off at ATI seminars and camps and training centers, the kids were given a far more stringent and narrow education than they got at home. Many parents today are just now finding out what their children were taught at those far off training centers that was much different than what the adults were being told. Many had no idea that their kids were taking seriously ideas that the parents themselves thought weren't necessary. Whether JIm-Bob and Michelle have truly bought into the Gothard philosophy hook-line-and sinker, I can't say. But I will tell you that they had an education outside of the home. They had spiritual training that didn't involve IBLP. Their kids, every one of them, from Joshua on down, didn't have that. Everything they've been taught from birth to adulthood is based on these teachings. Much of their socializing has been with like-minded individuals. Should we be surprised that they don't question it? What do they have to compare it to?

I will be very disappointed myself. The whole theme of "Broadchurch" series 1 was how Ellie thought she knew the people being investigated. Throughout the investigation, she found things out about Mark, Jack Marshall, Nigel, Paul and others. To go home at night to her husband and children, where people were exactly who they were supposed to be, was probably a relief. The ultimate betrayal of that belief was finding out she didn't know Joe at all, either. Which is why Joe must be the killer. Changing it to Tom is unnecessary.

If the Duggars are still following the Gothard method then reading the Bible and memorizing large passages of scripture are going to be something all the kids are encouraged to do. However, the problem then becomes that they are reading the Bible filtered through Gothard's interpretation. The passages that mean one thing to Christianity sometimes mean something else entirely to those who follow Gothard's teachings on the subject. That's one of the reasons, I suspect, that Gothard discourages college for both boys & girls, especially Bible college. Quite a few IBLP students go off to Bible college anyway and find out that what they were taught about the Bible isn't true. Then they come home and show their parents

IIRC, there was a fight between Tom & Danny via email in which Danny told Tom that he found someone better and that Tom was just a kid interested in stupid things. It sounds like Danny's meetings with Joe were having an impact on the way he saw other kids his age and, specifically, his friendship with Tom. So Tom was angry at Danny for dumping their friendship. But there's really nothing in series 1 to indicate that Tom knew the better friend Danny found was his father.

Even when the episode first aired, she seemed over-the-top. She came back for a redemption episode in which she'd grown hair back and broadened her scope to include all cancer and not just breast cancer.

I think that Beth was able to bond a bit with Ellie last week when Ellie came to her after Mark's courtroom revelation that he'd planned to end their marriage. * Abby: Clear conflict of interest in her bedding Ollie just to get some dirt. She certainly found it, but why there were bank statements on the counter of Lucy's place that showed Ellie had written her a check is beyond me. Lucy's smart enough to know where the defense probably got that information. Maybe she's not smart enough to realize the impropriety of what Abby did to Ollie. Ellie could have talked all she wanted on the stand about how the pattern of her life is to put off Lucy until she's tired of being nagged, but that doesn't change the fact that she paid Lucy specifically that time in order to get the information Lucy said she had. It turns out all Lucy had was that she saw a guy dumping clothes in the dumpster. Now as to the idea that Jocelyn could probably point out that Ellie's loan really wasn't a bribe because Lucy's police statement wasn't all that helpful to the investigation, there's a serious problem with her doing that: it feeds right into the defense's theory of a set-up. Lucy was put on the stand because the prosecution lost the confession argument and needed as much evidence as it could to prove that Joe is the killer. Otherwise, they probably wouldn't have risked someone with her history. She didn't do a great job as a witness anyway. Sharon pointed out the inconsistency between her original vague police statement and her testimony that she specifically saw Joe dumping the clothes. If Jocelyn goes back to that statement and says, "See? The information she gave DS Miller was minimal, hardly worthy being taken down as a statement, much less being paid for." just to prove Ellie didn't bribe her, it will remind the jury that Lucy probably perjured herself on the stand. And that will like cause them to take more seriously Sharon's theory that Ellie was trying to set her husband up. There's really nothing Ellie could have said to cause that problem with the check to go away. Sharon: Until we know more about Jonah's arrest and conviction, it's hard to be sympathetic about her son's plight. If she doesn't believe in the justice system, she needs to find another line of work. She comes off exactly as Joceyln decribed her: angry, bitter and constantly playing the Single Mother Card. Lee & Claire: Clearly, Lee saw something in the incinerator, but what? Claire was pregnant, but was it Lee's baby? Who's protecting who here? I was really disappointed we didn't get a verdict here. Maybe Joe will just experience a crisis of conscience, confess and we can move on to sort out all of the Sandbrook issues.

That shellfish episode was awful, especially in comparison to the vegan guy episode. In one you have a contestant that is given something he's allergic to (and doesn't the application ask if you have allergies?) in not one, but two rounds. He cooks both times. The vegan guy gives a big speech about how he doesn't know if he will cook with meat if he's given some and ends up with two baskets tailor-made for him. Huh. What do you think of that? And then he angsts over whether or not to work with honey? Be glad you didn't get a big slab of pork roast! And, of course, his principles go right out the window so that the greater good - his restaurant - benefits from a win. When I see contestants work with ingredients that are hazardous to their health or poisonous even, these folks that don't want to work with processed food or animal products don't faze me at all. Watch the show enough and you know you're going to end up with that stuff.

Yup, Claire doesn't seem to be the most stable person anyway. I can see her not giving it a second thought until Ellie saw the photo and Claire realizes, "Oh, yeah, she's a cop working on the case!".

Yeah, we felt the same way. * Marilyn trying to cook rice in 10 minutes. Anyone who's watched the show knows that rice never gets done. * The hair on the plate: Yeah, of course, Chris Santos got it. * Oh, yeah, I'm supposed to have four plates, not three, let me just shove food over! * Chris remarking on Drew's hair comment. Fun stuff.

LOL. I noticed that Ellie's hairstyle didn't seem to change all that much, too. Ellie: Count me in with those who were glad to see her finally put her foot down with Tom. Her whole family is messed up and she's finally not gonna take it anymore. I didn't think she felt put out when Tess showed up. I also noticed her failure to control her expression when she recognized the pendant on Claire's portfolio photo. And she's such a good friend to Beth. Tom: Sorry, still a kid. Life's in shambles. His testimony about how Danny was his friend, not his father's was an attempt to dismiss any notion that Joe would have any reason to meet privately with Danny. It was a good attempt, too. Jocelyn did a bang-up job talking him through it. Ollie: Her nephew is an idiot, though. He reported on the Broadchurch case when it was going on and caused no end of trouble by hooking up with that big-league reporter from the Big Bad City. His trusting what's-her-face led to Jack Marshall's history being exposed. Now he trusts the defense counsel's assistant? Just because he wants a sexual encounter? Really? Didn't he consider that she might want to find out what he knows about the case? And, judging from Abby telling Sharon she's got something juicy, her rifling through the paperwork on the kitchen counter was clearly not in vain. The BBC America preview pretty much tells us what she found, too. Claire: The more I think about this, the more I wonder if Claire's the killer. We now know that she stole the pendant and she was giving Cate death glares. I wonder if she decided to hurt Cate for flirting with Lee? Or did she find out that they were having an affair? She has said over and over that Lee's like drugs to her. I wonder if she is psychotic enough to be deadly possessive of him? She's clearly ok with sleeping with other men, but would she react badly if she learned he'd been with someone else? Would she have killed Pippa to get even with Cate? Lee's clearly into some kinky things, but I don't know that he's really the killer. Could he suspect that Claire's the killer and has been trying to protect them both? Did Claire send the bluebells to herself or did someone else (like Ricky Gillespie) do it? Mark & Beth: As unlikable as they are, they are victims here, too. Their behavior the last few episodes fits people who have little experience with the legal system. An example is Mark having to be reminded by Jocelyn that stupid stuff he thinks has nothing to do with the trail really can be an issue. I'm sure he began meeting with Tom long before Joe decided to plead not guilty and the trial started, so he didn't realize that contact with the defendant's son would be construed as dicey. Of course, I would have hoped by now that he would understand that any of his movements the night of Danny's death is relevant. Their marriage clearly had rocky parts to it before Danny's death. If Mark had been contemplating ending it, he obviously decided against it after his son died. I'd expected his testimony to include how bad he felt knowing his son was being murdered less than 100 feet away that night, but it didn't and it gave Sharon an opening to twist that fact into a plausible motive. Sharon & Jocelyn: I think that Sharon resents Jocelyn for not representing her son. Maybe she felt that her son had a better chance of getting off if Jocelyn took the case. She may have grudgingly accepted that her mentor had retired, but to find out that she came out of retirement for this case and not her son's grates her. She's a disagreeable person but she's doing her job as defense counsel. If she's going to defend Joe, part of the job is to make the jury see that there could be other people with motives to kill Danny. If Joe is not the only possible killer presented, the jury may decide for him. The collateral damage is that it casts suspicion on Mark. Paul: And I think that's why Paul has finally dropped Joe. He wanted to guide Joe through accepting and repenting of his actions. Joe decided to risk a trial if it meant he wouldn't have to spend years in prison as a child murderer. Not only is Joe will to throw his wife and his friend under the bus to get out of it, but this denial of responsibility now has caused his son to be corrupted. The member earlier in the thread that mentioned how Broadchurch really is about the town and about the secrets people keep was right. In and of themselves, most secrets probably wouldn't mean anything to anyone else, but, in the context of a murder trial, they can destroy lives.

In Becca's case, I think it's apropo, though. She is the one who was having an affair with Mark Latimer, after all. She's a kinder, gentler version of Claire.

Lee told Hardy that Ricky was coming to get him, Hardy take a cab and gets there to find Ricky pummeling him on the ground. Yeah, I'm thinking that fight would be over in the time it took Hardy to hail the cab much less have it drive there.

I also really enjoyed seeing Hardy & Miller call Claire on her nonsense and walk out. They're trying to protect her from a dangerous man, but she lets him in the house anyway for a sexual encounter? Clearly she doesn't feel as threatened by him as she's led on. Susan & Nigel: Has Susan changed her opinion of Nigel? Did she really actually see him on the beach that night or was it her mistaking Joe for him because of her preconceived notions of Nige's personality? Or is it now just getting back at him for rejecting her? Beth & the "Charity": There are people out there who are sexually attracted to children that go to great lengths to avoid acting on that attraction. Getting counseling for the attraction is difficult as many therapists don't understand it and report a would-be patient to the police instead, even if they have no evidence that an actual child has been victimized. My guess is that this charity is intended to help provide resources for men who are trying to control their urges...similar to the way alcoholics are taught to avoid situations where they will be tempted to drink, this group might teach the men to never be alone with kids for any reasons, avoid kid-friendly places, etc.

I agree with everyone else that Paul is a minister and his visits to talk to Joe about repenting are not a betrayal of the Latimers or anyone else. I'm sitting through that whole scene with Becca muttering, "He's a minister, for Pete's sake". I predict that Tom will try to give his father a fake alibi for the night of Danny's murder. He's a kid. His life has been turned upside down and his family is on parade during this public spectacle (and not in a good way). I don't agree with his position, but I understand his anger/fear/grief. I got the same vibe from Jocelyn when Hardy asked about "him". I'm pretty sure Jocelyn's gay and that Maggie was the S.O., not Sharon. They act like an old married couple sometimes. And Hardy & Miller are starting to get that same feel. They are becoming more comfortable with each other. I loved the scene where Miller said she would solve the case. Good for her! And I'm flummoxed about the case anyway, so they're going to have to reconcile it for me. Lee & Claire are married, but she carries on with anyone (including Ricky) and he was into Cate, as well. Not the most likable people in the world, but which one of them is a murderer?

Problem is that she may or may not have seen Joe that night. The defense may be able to prove that she had no way of knowing who she saw. Sharon certainly intimated that in this episode. And she's easily discredited as a witness anyway.

I know. I thought all that business last season about Lucy having evidence for Ellie was just a ploy to get some money from her anyway. All I can think of is that they're desperate to provide witnesses to Joe being the killer. I wouldn't have put her on the stand lightly.

Wow, this episode went everywhere. * Claire: Yes, she's definitely hiding something. I strongly suspect she's in cahoots with Ricky Gillespie. I wonder if Lee is protecting her involvement in the murder? He seems far more into her than she is into him. She says she's addicted to him and maybe she is, but she's pretty flighty, especially with other guys. She clearly lied to him when said she hadn't been with anyone else. She picked up a guy with Ellie last week. Also, the way the scene played out in the hotel room. Ellie asked if Hardy slept with her, Hardy blew her off, turned over to his side and there is a quick shot of Claire on her side looking at someone. Now, at the time, she and Lee were together, but the juxtaposition of the scene could be interpreted to mean that Hardy is remembering Claire looking like that. We could infer that he and she did indeed have an encounter. * Tom: He's a child. His best friend has been murdered, his father has been arrested, his mother lives & works in another county, he's living with his loopy aunt and idiot cousin and now Mark Latimer is ditching him for a new baby. I don't care if he hit puberty with a vengeance, his heart and his mind are still that of a wounded and grieving boy. * Speaking of the loopy aunt...I don't know what they gained by putting Lucy on the stand. Her testimony was always going to be suspicious. Does the defense not know about her previous troubles? I expected Sharon to jump on Lucy's credibility right off the bat. * Susan Wright: Another one of Broadchurch's wounded souls. She truly believes Nigel killed Danny because she can't believe he didn't inherit his father's violent tendencies. And Nigel doesn't do much to assuage those fears. I know he's upset because his biological mother showed up out of nowhere and wanted a relationship, but he looks like a maniac when he talks to her and threatening her isn't going to make her see him in any other way.

It's Ellie position as a police detective that is causing those accusations. She was about to become a DI, so it wasn't like she was a traffic cop during her time in Broadchurch. She should have removed herself from any contact with the suspect that might have compromised the investigation. She chose to confront him, perfectly understandable under the circumstances, and also to attack him. Hardy told her not to touch Joe. We are seeing the reason why now. We know she was a distraught and angry wife, but a defense attorney must defend her client and the avenue of police brutality is not a forbidden line of questioning.

Not specifically, but implied. In the first episode, Jocelyn agreed to prosecute and Sharon started to get upset because, "You are representing them, but you wouldn't..." She trailed off. There was clearly something there about Jocelyn's agreement to come out of retirement for the Latimers when she wouldn't for someone else. This episode, we find out Sharon's son is in prison. It would seem that Sharon would certainly be upset if Jocelyn wouldn't come out of retirement to represent her son. If she'd come to accept that because Joceyn was adamant about being retired, then her deciding to represent the Latimers would have opened up that wound. And SierraMist, you are absolutely right. Joe has had six months to contemplate what being a child murderer in prison will be like for him, so he's going to do whatever he can to avoid it. That means putting his friends through a grueling trial, throwing his wife under the bus and doing anything else he can get away with. And his defense attorney, at least in the US, would be obligated to defend him to the best of her ability. (In the US, anything less could result in him getting his conviction thrown out and given a new trial for lack of adequate representation). This is why Sharon has to cast doubt on the character and testimony of everyone else. She must convince the jury that Joe was not the only person who could have committed this crime and, if she can convince them of that, they may acquit him.

Since Joe is trying wiggle out of a murder conviction for a crime he committed and confessed to, I doubt he will do anything, under oath or not, to dissuade the jury from any reasonable doubt his lawyer is causing, even if it means his wife's faithfulness is thrown under the bus. As for the mention on page 1 about Paul possibly being Lizzie's father...I admit, for a moment, I had the same thought. Also, while it was a bit insensitive of Mark to gush over Lizzie while Chloe was right there, I just chalk it up to Mark feeling guilty about Danny. He was the one who hit Danny after all and that's what led his son to Joe. Mark must be going over and over in his head about what he should have done differently as Danny's father that would have resulted in a different outcome.