Line #7 Series/WhiteHouseFarm


1	%%In line with the usual RealLife troping rules, we are troping White House Farm as a dramatisation of real events, not troping the real people and events it's based on.
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3	%% This also means that real events documented as part of the case don't get spoiler tagging, and that audience tropes like WhamLine don't apply.
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5	!!''White House Farm'' is a dramatisation of real events, so things that might otherwise be treated as spoilers are [[Administrivia/SpoilersOff unmarked]] on this page.
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7	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/whitehousefarm.jpg]]
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9	A 2020 mini-series about the conviction of Jeremy Bamber for the 1985 murder of his family. It stars Freddie Fox as Jeremy, Alexa Davies as his girlfriend, Julie Mugford, Creator/AlfieAllen as Bamber's Australian friend Brett, Creator/GemmaWhelan as his cousin Ann Eaton, who comes to suspect his guilt, and Creator/MarkAddy as the only policeman willing to listen to Ann's concerns.
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12	!!Tropes:
13	* AbortedArc: In the first episode, Colin discovers a disturbing drawing one of the boys has done of his grandmother, leading the audience to expect possible cruelty by the Grandmother, but other than a minor dispute about prayers, this doesn't really go anywhere.
14	* AdoptionAngst: Jeremy lashes out at Ann over this, claiming she feels entitled to what the family left behind because she is blood related while he was adopted. Notably Sheila was ''also'' adopted but didn't appear to feel the same way.
15	* BigScrewedUpFamily: The Bambers. Jeremy is callous and narcissistic at best, and a drug dealer and remorseless murderer at worst; Sheila is schizophrenic; their mother, June, is a religious fanatic, while their father Neville tries to hold it all together.
16	* BlueOrangeContrast: Prominently used in the first episode contrasting the warm tones of the house with the night outside.
17	* CensoredChildDeath: The audience is spared the sight of the twins' dead bodies, instead seeing only the reaction of the police to finding them.
18	* ClashingCousins: Jeremy and Ann clash constantly, first for relatively petty reasons (she dislikes that he's adopted and that he runs the caravan site; he's jealous of her relationship with his mother), and that gets a ''lot'' more serious after the shooting.
19	* CluelessDetective: Taff Jones is more interested in getting the investigation off his books rather than finding out the truth. Because of this, he dismisses and ignores evidence that goes against the narrative he's settled on and heaps abuse on Stan Jones for daring to do detective work.
20	* ControlFreak: Among other things, Jeremy insists on having the family cremated despite knowing his mother wished otherwise.
21	* DeathOfAChild: It’s clear that the deaths of the twin boys are particularly hard for the investigating officers to process.
22	* DepravedBisexual: Jeremy is heavily implied to be one. He has a girlfriend, but that doesn't intervene with his extremely strange homoerotic relationship with Brett.
23	* EeriePaleSkinnedBrunette: Both Jeremy and his sister, Sheila, qualify.
24	* HesitationEqualsDishonesty: What helps convince Stan that Julie knows more than she's letting on is her hesitation when asked to confirm Jeremy's timeline of events the night of the murders.
25	* ItsAllAboutMe: One of the major red flags in Jeremy's behavior is how he focuses only on himself in the wake of the murders.
26	* KickTheDog:
27	** Jeremy has his mother's dog put down.
28	** He callously refers to what's left in the house as "goodies" and only seems interested in getting rid of or selling it despite knowing what they mean to the remaining family.
29	** He also sells graphic naked pictures of his sister, Sheila, even after her ex-husband tells him that she deeply regretted it.
30	* LockedRoomMystery: Made into one of these by [[spoiler:the dodgy lock, which can be closed from the outside.]]
31	* MadonnaWhoreComplex: The way the media treats Sheila reeks of this. The fact that she was mentally ill, had a history of drug abuse, was a divorced woman and once posed for some nude photos are all used as proof that she was capable of murder. And her own mother shamed her this way after once finding her sunbathing naked in a field with Colin.
32	* TheMasochismTango: Jeremy cheats on Julie constantly, while she spirals further into jealousy. He's extremely manipulative and everybody can see that he treats her terribly. Her response to him suggesting SexWithTheEx is to try and smother him (only partly seriously) with a pillow.
33	* OneSteveLimit: Averted. Both of the main police characters are called Jones, but they're unrelated.
34	* OnlySaneMan: Stan Jones insists on following the clues and doing proper investigative work while the rest of the team is eager to close the case based on a superficial examination of the crime scene.
35	* RippedFromTheHeadlines: From the real 1985 Bamber family murders and Jeremy Bamber's trial.
36	* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: When it becomes clear how badly DCI Taff Jones screwed up the White House Farm investigation[[note]]among other things, he allowed the bodies to be cremated before proper exams could be conducted[[/note]], the new lead detective makes a speech proclaiming how the team will ''properly'' follow the evidence while staring straight at Jones.
37	* RuleOfSymbolism: In the first episode as they are being dropped off and the farm the van is placed in the center of the frame with Sheila alone on one side and the rest of the family together on the other, representing her isolation due to her mental illness.
38	* ThousandYardStare: Sheila shows one in the first episode to demonstrate her schizophrenia, and TruthInTelevision as it's known for causing a flat affect.
39	* TreatedWorseThanThePet: Jeremy angrily claims that his late mother June loved her dog more than him; it's unclear how true this is as while his mother is clearly fond of the dog we don't see enough of Jeremy and June's interactions prior to her murder, though it is indicated their relationship was strained. Jeremy is bitter enough over it that when the dog comes into his care, he has him put to sleep rather than giving it away, appalling his cousin.
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Context Series / WhiteHouseFarm