Mystery Maniacs

🎙️ Episode: https://share.transistor.fm/s/0aa54f45
📓 Show Notes: https://midsomermaniacs.transistor.fm/260

Mystery Maniacs Episode! In Podcast 260, Guchi Skelli creates the world’s heaviest piñata while we discuss Kristin’s tattoo. Awesome!

Show Notes
Crispy Breakfast Tacos

The Dude In The Dairy

Mark's Mystery Novels: I'm launching two cozy mystery series this spring! Subscribe to my author newsletter at https://markbellauthor.substack.com/ to get free preview chapters in March before anyone else. Mystery Maniacs listeners get first access.

Thanks again for listening!
 
Mark & Sarah

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Upcoming Tentative  Schedule
  • March 4 - March Newsletter
  • March  9 - Brokenwood S10E03 - “Publish or Be Damned”

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Creators and Guests

Host
Mark Bell
Co-host of Mystery Maniacs
Host
Sarah Smith-Robbins
Co-host of Mystery Maniacs

What is Mystery Maniacs?

Mystery Maniacs Podcast is a comedy recap podcast dedicated to British Mystery Television. Formerly, Midsomer Maniacs podcast.

Mark:

The odes versus Chalmers.

Sarah:

Yes. It would take all of

Sarah:

the odes to take Chalmers to the cap.

Sarah:

Hey, maniacs.

Mark:

Hey, mystery maniacs. Mystery maniacs is a comedy recap podcast dedicated to mystery TV. Each week, we dig into an episode of the show including the murders, the mayhem, the loonies, and everything else we love. This week

Sarah:

Season 10 episode two of Broken Wood.

Mark:

Day of the Dead.

Sarah:

Dios. Dios. Muertos.

Mark:

Yes. I'm

Sarah:

Mark. I'm Sarah. Welcome back. Sorry for the couple of weeks off. Thank you all for being so understanding.

Sarah:

You are really great. You sent lots of nice messages, and we really appreciate that. My dad is on the mend. He's still in the rehabilitation center getting some care, but he's definitely on the upswing. If you want to know more details about all the craziness that has been going on, Mark will include some of that in our newsletter.

Sarah:

But if you don't particularly care, then just thank you. Yes. That was really nice of everybody.

Mark:

In the last month I checked, we've gone from 16 inches of snow to a tornado.

Sarah:

Yeah. That's true.

Mark:

And the tornado, like, people are like, oh, well, it is a tornado. It hit Indiana. No. It was two miles from our house.

Sarah:

If if that. If that. It was really weird. It was they they were February, which is not typical.

Mark:

Very concerned that it was going to hit campus.

Sarah:

Yeah. It would have crazy.

Mark:

Was it was cray cray already.

Sarah:

Speaking of crazy, just today, crazy news. Fiona Dolman posts that season twenty six of Midsummer will begin filming imminently.

Mark:

Yeah. If it starts on the day that you're listening to this, they will have filmed episodes already. Well, not episodes.

Sarah:

They will have begun to set up to film a scene of an episode. Yes. More than likely. So that's confirmation, which I think we already kind of had that season twenty five wasn't gonna be the last season of Midsommar. Nope.

Sarah:

But it's nice to know there will be another one. And on that schedule, we can probably anticipate that it will come out about the time when it usually does, Christmas time.

Mark:

She said the names of the episode include Betty Gets a Job, Betty Learns to Drive, and Betty Has a Career.

Sarah:

I think she's kidding around.

Mark:

Oh, no. She didn't say that. She said, for all you enjoy who enjoy Midsummer Murders and need something to cheer you up, we start the new series 26 on Monday. Excellent. Yes.

Mark:

Are you And we already know that the new Brokenwood is already filmed and it is definitely going to be dropping on Acorn at the April.

Sarah:

Yeah. So

Mark:

the first episode will be the April and then through May.

Sarah:

That's fun stuff to look forward to.

Mark:

May is a crazy month.

Sarah:

It's not as crazy as this episode of Broken Wood. Okay. Let's do it.

Mark:

So this is episode two of season ten directed by Jeff Clawthorne and written by Tina Cloudens. She was the woman who played the spider expert in the spider episode, but also has been writer and director throughout.

Sarah:

Remember, this is a spoiler podcast. We are going to ruin it. We are eminently going to tell you who the killer is. If you don't know and you haven't watched it, stop right now Yes. Because we're gonna ruin it.

Sarah:

We're gonna ruin You have been warned. Yes. Okay. Sorry.

Mark:

She also she wrote it with some guy named Tim Baum who's her boyfriend too who kinda runs the show.

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah.

Mark:

You know, that's the thing. Wow. Did they have a meeting and said, how do we walk the tightrope of cultural appropriation here?

Sarah:

Yes. Like the writers. Yes. How do we talk about cultural appropriation while showing it, but make fun of it and prove that we're aware of it. With a murder.

Sarah:

And have a murder too. Right? Yep. The small stallholders association.

Mark:

Yes. Which includes missus Murphy and Frodo and the lady who runs the dairy and the chocolate shop.

Sarah:

Are they called dairies in Canada too?

Mark:

They are. Absolutely.

Sarah:

Okay. Because in The US, a dairy is like a place where you milk cows.

Mark:

No. No. It's where it's where you it's a convenience store.

Sarah:

It's a convenience store. Why? Why is it called a dairy?

Mark:

I don't know. But there were, like I remember going to dairies as kids.

Sarah:

Okay.

Mark:

It's not so much anymore, but Definitely.

Sarah:

It makes sense that as a as a group of business people, they have an event where they support each other and, you know Yeah. Because they all have this event together, they all end up doing more business together. They have a theme, right? And they decide the day of the dead is the theme that they're gonna go with.

Mark:

Which is an interesting theme and different.

Sarah:

It's visually amazing.

Mark:

Yes. Right? Absolutely.

Sarah:

So I can see why people who are not of that culture would be attracted to it. But I also understand why Miguel, the one Mexican immigrant in Brokenwood

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Is like, wait, wait, wait. That's my culture. Thank you very much.

Mark:

But I also like that they that he's like, I miss it. Like, he has a a good acting moment.

Sarah:

Yeah. Well, they they don't they don't cross the line between cultural appreciate appreciation to a cultural appropriation, I think. I I agree. Nobody's putting on a Mexican accent or anything like that. You know what I mean?

Mark:

But I do think if you're going to appropriate a culture for your sort of small business association party, finding one that's thousands of miles away is a good idea.

Sarah:

Yeah. Except that you need costumes and stuff. Yeah. It it It's a little tough to get a hold of those things.

Mark:

I do know, because I know, there are two mariachi bands in New Zealand.

Sarah:

Yeah. I found out that there are just over 2,000 Mexican immigrants to New Zealand.

Mark:

Well, it is it is one of the most beautiful places on earth.

Sarah:

I know. But as of right now, just over 2,000 people have thought, I know I live in Mexico, but I wanna move all the way to New Zealand.

Mark:

How far can

Sarah:

I move? Not so many that there you would think like, oh, like, there's gonna be a specialty store in town No. Where those people go to get ingredients from home for food that they like or something like that. That that no. No.

Sarah:

You know who made out well at this festival? Who? Whoever sold all of this stuff to everybody else.

Mark:

I I would agree.

Sarah:

Whoever sold the sombreros and the and the costumes and the pinatas.

Mark:

Never mind.

Sarah:

That person, that wholesaler.

Mark:

Never mind the creepy person who sold Frodo the blood red liquid that's in that bottle.

Sarah:

Whatever that booze says. We're gonna say right off the bat that I don't think we can really unpack this episode without just talking about who the killer is from the beginning. Yes. Because it's a lot more interesting when you know who did it and you see the whole episode through that knowledge. It becomes way wackier.

Mark:

I have questions.

Sarah:

Yeah. There are lots of questions. Before we get there, though Yep. Speaking of this event Yes. So there's this discussion about the theme.

Sarah:

Right? Yes. So they decide on Day of the Dead over overvoting the mud wrestling theme that Miguel has suggested.

Mark:

Yeah. The mud wrestling doesn't help Miguel's credibility. Mm-mm. Now I don't know. Maybe mud wrestling is a different thing in New Zealand, but it is an exploitive thing in North America surrounding women.

Mark:

Oh, you're talking

Sarah:

about ladies mud wrestling. Yes. They didn't say ladies mud wrestling.

Mark:

I think it was kinda implied.

Sarah:

That puts a different light on Miguel in

Mark:

my Exactly.

Sarah:

I thought it was like intramural mud wrestling. Like Mrs. Baker and the mayor are gonna wrestle. So I would watch that. I would absolutely watch that.

Sarah:

Chalmers takes on anybody.

Mark:

The battle royale with Chalmers, Frodo And Todd. Todd. All the bachelors.

Sarah:

No. It would be like the odes versus everybody else.

Mark:

The odes versus Chalmers.

Sarah:

Yes. It would take all

Sarah:

of the odes to take Chalmers down. Yeah.

Sarah:

And he'd be muddy. And like the Terminator, he smears the mud to hide his body temperature and all you can see is his eyes. Yeah. It would just be Chalmers. Chalmers in his eyes, bring it, odes.

Sarah:

But they're kind of known for having weird things apparently.

Mark:

Yes. What the theme before is baby jumping? What the hell is baby jumping?

Sarah:

Frodo says, well, last year's was theme was baby jumping.

Mark:

Okay. So do do they mean that they jumped over babies, which is questionable? Or like it was like they had a bunch of bouncy castles and they had babies. Like Oh, wait. What?

Mark:

What?

Sarah:

You think they made this up, don't you?

Mark:

They obviously made that.

Sarah:

No. They didn't. What? I just googled it. How did we not search?

Sarah:

I just assumed it was made up. It was not made up. The baby jumping festival, also known as El Colacho, is a four hundred

Mark:

year El loco Colacho?

Sarah:

You don't know what it is yet. Wait. It's crazier than you think. It's a 400 year old tradition from Spain Okay. Where men dressed as devils What?

Sarah:

Jump over babies lying on mattresses. Yeah. So everybody, who's had a baby in the last year brings their baby to the festival, and they put the babies on a big mattress, and a man dressed as the devil, jumps over them, and it's supposed to protect them from evil and ensure good health.

Mark:

And this is why Spain can't win a Winter Olympic medal. Who do

Sarah:

you think dressed as the devil last year in Brokenwood?

Mark:

Frodo. It

Sarah:

has to be Frodo.

Mark:

It's gotta be Frodo.

Sarah:

Wait a minute. Would you trust Frodo to jump on

Mark:

your baby? Would not trust Frodo.

Sarah:

I wouldn't trust him to clear the babies. No. Yeah. So it's a real thing. People actually do it.

Sarah:

Costume devils run through the streets, sometimes wielding switches before leaping over rows of babies.

Mark:

Frodo, the Mexican jumping baby.

Sarah:

Following the jumps, the babies are typically sprinkled with rose petals or blessed by priests.

Mark:

Wow. That went in a direction I did not predict.

Sarah:

While it may seem dangerous, the event is cherished, albeit unique, and attracts tourists, though it has faced scrutiny.

Mark:

So let's talk about last year

Sarah:

and this year is the day of the dead.

Mark:

So the person who did this killing is Hope.

Sarah:

And this is, I think, the first time in Brokenwood no. It's wait. I take it back. I was about to say this is the first time in Brokenwood when a corpse becomes a decoration, but that would forget the Christmas And

Mark:

the scarecrow.

Sarah:

The scarecrow episode, there's probably more. Wait a minute. Maybe Brokenwood is the most likely to use a corpse as a decoration at a party event.

Mark:

Okay. We also have to deal with this. Okay. We know Hope's the killer. Okay.

Mark:

We have all sorts of problems that we'll get to with Hope, but we must address right away that he is in a mariachi outfit hanging by his neck during the day of the dead celebration.

Sarah:

Let's just refresh people's memories in case they haven't watched the episode Yeah. In recent memory. Okay. So the victim is TJ French. He's the co owner of a bakery with his wife, Amelia.

Sarah:

Yes. They have a stand at the event Yes. Where they're selling churros and bread. Yes. And he is

Mark:

they had special boxes. Yeah.

Sarah:

Get there. He's supposed to be helping her set up, but he's mysteriously not there. They've had a fight in the morning, then they go their separate ways, and he never shows up to help her. And so she runs the stand all by herself. And the next morning, they find him dead hanging from a tree right next to her stall at the festival in a mariachi costume where Todd has strung him up thinking he was the world's heaviest pinata.

Mark:

There's a lot of la la use in that one.

Sarah:

Yeah. How stupid is Todd? How stinky would that be? We know what happens when somebody dies.

Mark:

We we can't deal with that.

Sarah:

It would be extremely gross. Yeah. We just have to suspend that fact.

Mark:

Just suspending that.

Sarah:

And there are other human sized and shaped hanging decorations. Nobody bashes any of them with a stick. No. That would have gotten really weird if at the end of the night they started hitting TJ's corpse with a stick trying to get candy out of it. That would have been strange.

Mark:

That would have been bad.

Sarah:

Even weirder. Okay. So that's the setup. Yes. Now new to town is Richard, who used to live there but moved away after high school.

Mark:

He went to the city.

Sarah:

He went to the big city where he found a turtleneck.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

And And a mustache. Mustache. He and Amelia Yes. The widow, dated in high school, split up.

Mark:

He left town. She married TJ. Who is a jerk. He's a jerk. Definitely a jerk.

Sarah:

Other vendors, missus Baker Yes. Who does the weddings? Yes. Johnson, who makes the chocolates?

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

I'm sorry. I can't I'm struggling with her first name because it's difficult to pronounce. I think it's Hawaiian. Then there is Karishma Patel

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Who runs the dairy. Yes. Nuhula. Nuhula. Nuhula.

Sarah:

There's no l in it, is there? And there's Morgana, the palm reader Yes. Who we will see again in next season. Yes. So they've all got their little stalls and stains.

Sarah:

And Frodo's got his coffee cart.

Mark:

Now did you catch Frodo has quite a tough time at this party. Mhmm. Did you catch his outfit? Yeah. So what is it?

Sarah:

He's got on a black tank top and black pants that have bones like pinned onto them and a tux jacket that has a skeleton on it and a top hat.

Mark:

And a top hat. That is exactly the same outfit that Daniel Craig has at the start of Spectre.

Sarah:

Oh. Which came out before this. Yes. So Frodo's copying him?

Mark:

Yep. Frodo's copying him. And then poor Frodo takes a tumble and whams his head. Well, he

Sarah:

is super drunk dancing on a table.

Mark:

Okay. Is. But, okay, Frodo has a concussion.

Sarah:

Yeah. So Richard has come back to town because his grandfather has died and he has inherited his house, and he's brought his fiancee from the big city Yes. Hope. Yes. Hope is the killer.

Mark:

Yes. She's also an egotistical little weird woman.

Sarah:

We'll talk about why she's so broken.

Mark:

Yes. She's very broken.

Sarah:

And then there's Miguel, who is the owner of the taco truck, who, as we've mentioned, objects to the theme and doesn't participate.

Mark:

Though he comes to watch

Sarah:

Because it makes

Mark:

set up because he has his own. But he's not there that night. No. He's at home making taco recipes. Taco.

Sarah:

It's really bad taco breakfast.

Mark:

We'll get to the bread breakfast taco.

Sarah:

So hope is the killer. Let's just talk about what that means.

Mark:

So homestay begins with her and Richard. Richard working in the yard.

Sarah:

Because the whole idea is they're gonna fix up grandpa's house, sell it, and go back to the city. They're only supposed to be there for a short period of time. And they got there, what, the day, two days before, something like that? They've been in town a very short period of time and already hope is homicidal. Yes.

Sarah:

And ready to kill Amelia who Richard dated in high school twenty years ago. Yeah. Hair trigger anybody?

Mark:

Now later on Richard says he's been back a few times and saw hope.

Sarah:

Saw Amelia.

Mark:

Yeah. Saw Amelia. Even if he didn't tell hope, it's not a reason to kill somebody.

Sarah:

It's a reason to break up with him if you think he's still in love with somebody else.

Mark:

Totally agree.

Sarah:

But not to kill her No. And end up accidentally killing her husband.

Mark:

No. She actually makes it easier for

Sarah:

them to have a relationship. To get together.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

So the the morning of the murder is the morning of the festival. Yes. Right? Yes. Because TJ dies before the festival even starts.

Sarah:

Yes. Amelia and TJ part ways at home. She goes to the bakery. Yep. And then

Mark:

TJ changes to his mariachi outfit.

Sarah:

Meanwhile, Hope leaves poisoned chocolates on the steps. He eats them.

Mark:

This is all while Richard her and Richard had a fight, and Richard leaves.

Sarah:

Right. Hope and Richard have an argument. Richard leaves. Hope thinks. Well, now that he's gone, I'll go kill

Mark:

I'll kill her now.

Sarah:

I'll go kill his high school girlfriend with some poisoned chocolates using strychnine from the garden shed, but TJ eats them, dies. He's already in his mariachi costume. She magically finds a full body costume complete with over the head mask. Yes. Puts his body in a wheelbarrow, takes it to the Where

Mark:

does she get the wheelbarrow?

Sarah:

It's Emilia's wheelbarrow. I don't know. Maybe? It's in the side yard of her house.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

That's where TJ died. So The real question is, where does her costume come from?

Mark:

Where does her costume come from? Does he fit in the back of her little car?

Sarah:

Apparently, he does. Then She

Mark:

No one sees this, by the way.

Sarah:

Oh, no. No. She does this in his car because she puts the bread on top of

Mark:

them and

Sarah:

the wheelbarrow takes the body, the bread, the wheelbarrow to the festival site, drops it off, and Todd strings TJ up in a tree thinking he's a pinata.

Mark:

How did she know what like, she didn't had no idea this festival was probably happening. Why she is a she is a costume that's appropriate to the festival that goes from head to toe. Mhmm.

Sarah:

Just, you know, handy.

Mark:

Handy. She's also, if you haven't noticed, a slight woman. Yeah. And TJ is a rather large man. Yeah.

Mark:

How did she get a rather large man who has strychnine poisoning? Now, if you haven't learned anything about strychnine poisoning, it basically takes away your muscle inhibitors. So, your whole body goes rigid and fails to Spasms. Spasms.

Sarah:

And you can't breathe.

Mark:

So I gotta think that that may affect rigor mortis also.

Sarah:

Maybe it makes it easier. You just like, stiff as a board.

Mark:

She just steps on his foot and he Mario? Willing

Sarah:

Like a rake. I I think I

Mark:

in the car. Okay. So okay. I'm Hope. I killed the wrong guy.

Sarah:

Crap. Yeah. Okay. So let's focus on that for a second. I I

Mark:

killed the wrong guy.

Sarah:

Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

So her plan is to poison the chocolates, leave them on the steps, and for Amelia to find them, eat them, and die. Yes. Because she wants to get rid of Amelia because she thinks she's a rival. Yes. But TJ eats them instead.

Mark:

No. I do not see TJ for eating the chocolates. He looked at the chocolates. He knows his wife is incredibly allergic just to Strawberries. Strawberries.

Mark:

He goes, these are obviously mine. And he

Sarah:

eats the strychnine list chocolates. He eats them because he thinks they've been left by somebody she's having an affair with. And he's like, I'll eat you chocolates.

Mark:

He is horrific.

Sarah:

Because they basically agreed to divorce that morning. I think I know where Hope gets the costume. Okay. Where what It's very clear the whole time.

Mark:

Grey Jenkins costume shop?

Sarah:

No. Okay. That Hope is supposed to be a sophisticated city lady

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Who does not fit in in broken words

Mark:

and does not wanna be She's definitely sophisticated city.

Sarah:

You can tell this because she wears a lot of jewelry.

Mark:

And sunglasses when she's walking around.

Sarah:

Like three necklaces and a ring on every finger. So clearly, city sophisticated. Okay. Everybody knows, who knows anything, Mark, that city girls all have skeleton costumes.

Mark:

Grim Reaper costumes? Absolutely. Oh. It's probably Oh, that's right. I had one when I lived in Toronto.

Sarah:

Oh, were you a big city lady there?

Mark:

I was.

Sarah:

It's probably Dior or something.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

It's her Gucci Skelly. Or maybe it came from grandpa's workshop, like the strickening did. Maybe grandpa had a secret life where he dressed up as a skeleton for fun.

Mark:

Maybe. Because the other part is they're not dressed up when they go to the the festival.

Sarah:

No.

Mark:

No. So it's not like they got a

Sarah:

because she ditches the costume back in the in the gardening shed. Yeah. How do you think she reacts when she realize well, because she's she's basically hiding in the bushes in her car.

Mark:

So she hides in the

Sarah:

bushes. TJ eat them, and then he comes out and dies in the bushes.

Mark:

And then she must have

Sarah:

been like Crap.

Mark:

When you But instead of just leaving him there.

Sarah:

Just leave. Just leave.

Mark:

Just leaving.

Sarah:

This is how crazy Hope is. She thinks, no. No. I'll take him to the festival. In his car.

Sarah:

Yes. Well, the bread needs to get there, Mark. He has the bread.

Mark:

He has the bread.

Sarah:

The festival can't go on unless Emilia has her baking. Obviously, Hope knows that.

Mark:

So the boxes of bread have on them

Sarah:

Health warning. Health warning. This box to be used for bread only.

Mark:

This box to

Sarah:

be used Bread transportation only.

Mark:

Sarah and I had a forty minute discussion about what we thought that meant.

Sarah:

Why does the box say health warning? This box to be used to transport bread only. Yeah.

Mark:

It's some weird health and safety thing.

Sarah:

I understand that if you have specific receptacles to to transport food from your food making facility, that you would mark them as bread only use. Yes. So people didn't like, I don't know, fill them with dirty shoes and then take the dirty shoes out and then you put the bread in and the bread gets contaminated. I get that, but that is not a health warning.

Mark:

I will tell you without a doubt, this may be the greatest episode of people not doing their freaking job. The mayor does not do his job, the baker does not do her job, the chocolate maker we never see her making chocolates. No. The other baker does not do their job, Frodo does not do his job. Todd does not do his job.

Mark:

Missus Baker is too busy drinking in the pub to do her job.

Sarah:

One person does their job.

Mark:

Who does? Miguel. Miguel does his job.

Sarah:

He is working the tacos.

Mark:

He is the only one who does his job.

Sarah:

He's not good at his job. No. He makes horrific inedible tacos, but he's working it. Okay. So now we have established how the murder happened.

Mark:

Okay. No. No. Wait a minute. Okay.

Mark:

So she goes over to him and sees he's dead from her car and says, wait a minute. I want to make this really hurt. So, I'm gonna string him up at the festival. She had no idea that that what was at the festival, what was not at the festival, never been to the festival.

Sarah:

She doesn't know there's a tree to put him, hanging from, nothing.

Mark:

She has to put her costume on and drive over there in costume or else somebody's going to see her

Sarah:

Right.

Mark:

In another person's car who's a well known individual in town. Right. Then

Sarah:

And it's not safe to drive in that mask. I'm sorry. She has no peripheral vision.

Mark:

No. She puts the rope around his neck and then trusts Todd. Okay?

Sarah:

To string him up and not notice that it's a human being. And she doesn't even know how dumb Todd is. She's banking on Todd being dumb. She got lucky, idiot.

Mark:

And then she goes home and tries to plot another murder. Has the big city driven her crazy?

Sarah:

She goes home and and tries to be satisfied with, well, maybe I didn't kill Amelia, but I killed her husband and that'll hurt her feelings.

Mark:

Big city cray cray.

Sarah:

And his rotting body will be hanging next to her stall all evening. Gardening time. Hi mayor. Once you know that you know all of that, then if you actually start where the episode starts.

Mark:

Which is the day of the dead party.

Sarah:

Which is the festival. Yes. And you see Richard and Hope come up to Amelia's stall. Yes. And Amelia, who we think is meeting her for the first time

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Immediately hates her and is like at her face, like making the face. What Hope is actually thinking is, I killed your husband this morning. He's hanging right there. I don't like churros. Bye.

Sarah:

She's even crazier than you thought

Mark:

she was. Crazy.

Sarah:

Like, she's holding her boyfriend's hand, looking at this woman going, I tried to kill you this morning, but I killed your husband by accident, but that's okay. I hung him right there.

Mark:

And what? Who does that? And also, she knows Richard's been talking to him to her. Yeah. And Richard acts like he hasn't seen her in fifty years.

Sarah:

Because he's obviously hiding that.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

I do think Richard has feelings for Emilia. I think Hope has legitimate reasons for going, hey. This is not working out.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

I think we should split up. I'm not gonna help you rehab your grandpa's house and dig out his garden if you're just gonna go around with somebody else behind my back. Yes. More power to her. Get out of town.

Mark:

Yes. All the way, like, almost an hour to town.

Sarah:

That's not what she does.

Mark:

No. No. No. Rampage.

Sarah:

She decides to string corpses up in trees. We find out that Kristen has been to Mexico.

Mark:

Yes. And while she was an adventure.

Sarah:

Had too many margaritas and got a tattoo. What is her tattoo?

Mark:

You're We It's somewhere

Sarah:

on her body that her clothes cover because she's not gonna show it to anybody.

Mark:

Now, I realize we're getting close to the last year's episodes. Some people might have not seen them. I do not think it's a spoiler for us to say that Kristen has a sister.

Sarah:

And her sister's Nutsy Bobo.

Mark:

That's a bit of a spoiler.

Sarah:

They're not alike.

Mark:

No. But if she went with her sister, it would be like one of those matching blue bell tattoos or something.

Sarah:

Like on her hip or something?

Mark:

Something. On her

Sarah:

butt cheek? Yeah. I have a theory.

Mark:

What's your theory?

Sarah:

She was younger.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

She was from New Zealand. She's in Mexico. She's really drunk. She goes to the tattoo parlor. I think she's got a kiwi.

Sarah:

Oh. I think she tried to get a kiwi bird

Mark:

But what

Sarah:

does her butt cheek.

Mark:

What does it look like?

Sarah:

But she was too drunk, and the guy didn't understand, and instead, she has a fruit on her butt cheek.

Mark:

She has a kiwi on her butt cheek.

Sarah:

I think she's got a kiwi fruit on her butt cheek. Now we Which would look like a brown fuzzy blob. It would be a bad tattoo.

Mark:

We have covered this before, that kiwi fruit are called kiwi fruit because they look like the bird.

Sarah:

Right.

Mark:

Okay?

Sarah:

But more people in South America, Central America, North America are familiar with the kiwi fruit than they are the bird.

Mark:

And they were originally called Chinese chestnuts or

Sarah:

something in The US. If you were drunk in a tattoo parlor and said, I want a kiwi on my butt cheek. As a New Zealander, you would be talking about the bird and the tattooist would say, okay. If you want a brown fuzzy blob on your butt, then that's what I'm gonna give Easy job.

Mark:

I think she is a cup of coffee and the words Chava Queen around.

Sarah:

Coffee maestro. We're never gonna see it. No. No. TJ is an excellent corpse.

Mark:

Okay. TJ is an excellent corpse, but before that, this is the next day. It's the morning. First of all, people clean up your stuff.

Sarah:

Yeah. The people who had stalls just got up and left. Left.

Mark:

Poor Todd has to clean it up and Todd not the sharpest stick in the bunch.

Sarah:

He's gonna pick it up by picking up one piece of trash at a time.

Mark:

He need

Sarah:

a rake too. With some picker uppers.

Mark:

It's like watching your children work.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

They're like, no. Don't do that.

Sarah:

That's not how you do it.

Mark:

That's not how you do it. Why does missus Breaker get super upset with Todd?

Sarah:

Because everybody gets super upset with

Mark:

Todd. Okay. Okay.

Sarah:

Plus, she runs events for a living. This is not how it's supposed

Mark:

to go. True. That's true.

Sarah:

So to her, this is unacceptable that this isn't cleaned up already. She would not hire him to work a wedding with her, I'm sure.

Mark:

Todd finds sort of dead Frodo. Now this is the second episode in which Todd and Frodo of this season, and we're only in two Yeah. Find the body.

Sarah:

Yeah. Poor Frodo. Thought he was the best mariachi dancer ever. Yep. Falls hits his head on a trash can.

Mark:

Wham o.

Sarah:

Gets back up. I initially, I thought that's not blood on his head. That's that liqueur that he was pouring everywhere on his head, and it just looks like he's injured himself, but he hasn't. But no, no. He's passed out drunk with a head injury in his coffee cart.

Sarah:

Yep. And then goes to the station to lay on their couch and tell him everything he knows, including that Richard and Hope showed up. Yeah. And that they were probably illegally serving booze and coffee that night. Surely you need a different license to put alcohol in your coffee then.

Mark:

Never mind.

Sarah:

You would in The US.

Mark:

Todd's like, I think I might have put the body.

Sarah:

Yeah. And Todd's like, wait a minute. Am I in trouble? Because I actually hung that thing.

Mark:

So it's Kristen who goes to tell Amelia. Right? Yeah. Did you notice what was on Amelia's table? No.

Mark:

She has a container that must have at least two dozen oranges in it. Just sitting on the counter.

Sarah:

And they don't have any kids or anything? No. They must really like oranges.

Mark:

They must really like oranges. Let's talk about Miguel and his truck. The lucky taco truck. All that I completely understand and support. Mhmm.

Mark:

What I do not support is his breakfast menu.

Sarah:

I support him thinking, hey. Untapped market. Let me try to serve breakfast. I do not support the ideas he has for what a good breakfast taco is.

Mark:

And everybody thinks breakfast burritos, that's a good idea.

Sarah:

I even think breakfast tacos could be good, but not is.

Mark:

No. So there are three on the flyer. Okay? The crunchita, do you remember what's in that?

Sarah:

Freeze dried strawberries, dark chocolate, and Vegemite on a crunchy taco shell.

Mark:

That's almost. I'd give that a four out of 10. It's trying. The vegemite the Vegemite ruins it.

Sarah:

Okay. But without it, it's not I mean, it's not breakfast anyway. No. That's chocolate covered taco shells. Then there's the kiwi, which is Weetabix and banana Yes.

Sarah:

In a taco shell.

Mark:

Did you know that Weetabix is is I think it's misspelled on the flyer because it's Wetbix, w e e t b I x.

Sarah:

Well, was kind of my problem with it was that Weetabix are really dry, but if they're wet, maybe it's okay.

Mark:

For our American listers, Weetabix is

Sarah:

I would say if you've ever had the big shredded wheat, it comes in like not many wheats, but the old school big shredded wheat that came in a big biscuit that you put in a bowl and pour milk on and you have to kind of break it up. Weetabix is kind of like that, but it's a plank.

Mark:

But more like a hockey puck.

Sarah:

Yeah, but it's more of a plank. I don't think you could eat it dry if you wanted to. The fact that he puts that in a crunchy shell with a banana, if you don't have something to dip that in, that is not edible. Is is not You would choke.

Mark:

You have to have milk with it.

Sarah:

The last one is the desperado. Desperado. Which is Vegemite and bacon. That kind of sounds edible, maybe.

Mark:

Sorta. That's the one that Todd's eating, the desperado.

Sarah:

Maybe. But, like five minutes of thought and he would have come up with a better better talk

Mark:

Well, I think they win for humor here.

Sarah:

Well, and that Miguel is not from New Zealand and is trying to understand what New Zealanders will like. Yes. Like So what They love Vegemite. I'll put Vegemite on it.

Mark:

You're Miguel has come to the Kelley School of Business and asked you for advice for products for kiwi based crispy breakfast tacos. What are you gonna put on the crispy breakfast tacos?

Sarah:

If I actually want them to sell, I'm going to put scrambled egg, cheese, and bacon in a taco shell.

Mark:

That is like the no Straightforward,

Sarah:

no brainer. Right. If I want to do a healthy option, I would put like fajita vegetables

Mark:

Egg whites.

Sarah:

With a scrambled egg white in there. Yeah.

Mark:

That that would be good too. Yeah. With fresh kiwi slices on the top.

Sarah:

Not on fajita vegetables. Veg might take it or leave it. I don't know. It's an acquired taste

Mark:

if you

Sarah:

like it to do.

Mark:

You wanna have a dessert taco?

Sarah:

You know? Put some fruit and yogurt in

Mark:

there. Fruit and yogurt and

Sarah:

But he's charging $8 for Weetabix and banana.

Mark:

Yeah. That's that's a bit much. It's hard to read the bottom as to what you can add cheese, avocado, or jalapenos.

Sarah:

All of those desperately need all of those things.

Mark:

Yes. They do. I think Todd asked for

Sarah:

the works, though. Can we talk about Morgana? Yes. Because I don't understand her character.

Mark:

Oh, I don't understand her shop. I don't understand why she's the only psychic in the world that actually works. Every prediction that she has in this episode comes true.

Sarah:

Yes. She's accurate except for herself.

Mark:

Psychics are not real things.

Sarah:

Believe it or not, that's neither here nor there. That doesn't What matters is that if she is so accurate, why is she so paranoid?

Mark:

Well, she can't predict it's like the superpower you can't use on yourself.

Sarah:

Oh, I can see your future, but not mine.

Mark:

It has some limiting.

Sarah:

So when Chalmers shows up, she's like, oh, no. Am I the murderer? I don't think I am. Am I? What what what if I say that I am, do you think I am?

Sarah:

Oh, did I have

Mark:

said too much? I also believe that psychics don't believe their own crap that they sell, so she feels kinda guilty for doing it.

Sarah:

But she also has crystals and pretty things and fairies and she's making money.

Mark:

She is.

Sarah:

And she seems sincere.

Mark:

I forget which. Either her or the bakery is near the barbershop too.

Sarah:

Whether she believes that she can actually tell somebody's future from reading their poem or not, she seems sincere in her interest to help people. But the reading that she's giving at the festival itself is hilarious. She tells somebody, oh, travel is going to be dangerous for you. I think I would avoid Wheels? Planes,

Mark:

boats, Yeah. Cars. Anything with wheels.

Sarah:

Anything with wheels probably is a good idea. But she she tells Richard and Amelia that they are soulmates Yes. Because their auras are the same color.

Mark:

So this is what we go through for you, dear listener.

Sarah:

We are skeptics, obviously.

Mark:

We are skeptics, obviously.

Sarah:

However But Sarah. I found a quiz online that helps you divine what color your aura is. So we took this quiz last Mark has an indigo aura.

Mark:

I am indigo.

Sarah:

Yes. Because you are grounded and practical and organized or something like that.

Mark:

I'm like the least practical person in the universe.

Sarah:

I am lime green. It was a mix of gold and green.

Mark:

So together, the indigo and the green We

Sarah:

are turquoise.

Mark:

Were the joker. Or the riddler that has the same color.

Sarah:

I would rather have taken the quiz to figure out what our aura colors were than the other things that I found online that were suggested as ways to tell what color your aura was.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Because they were mostly like stare at the wall until your eyes close and you start to see colors. Yeah. I didn't really wanna try that, so I thought maybe the quiz was a better option.

Mark:

No. The

Sarah:

mayor, Neil Yeah. Who is also the pharmacist Yes. Is on his own because his partner Gray is away.

Mark:

And when your partner's away, you don't have to do your job. Jobs. Should be the most busy person in town.

Sarah:

He's the mayor and the pharmacist.

Mark:

He's the mayor and

Sarah:

the pharmacist. But he spends the whole episode putting together a jigsaw puzzle that he is desperate to show Chalmers.

Mark:

Do you think do you think now, I don't wanna cast dispersions. Do you think he's trying to get Chalmers in the house?

Sarah:

No. Okay. I think it was a really hard puzzle, and he's actually proud of himself for finishing it. He just wants somebody to see it.

Mark:

Really hard puzzles are difficult.

Sarah:

What do you think is the picture on the puzzle? Now, we know his partner Gray gave it to him. And Gray is the one who owns the costume shop and ran the Shakespeare Festival. Yes. So what puzzle would he give him?

Sarah:

All we know is that there's sky in it.

Mark:

I think it's a picture of Ayers Rock in Australia with a beautiful blue sky. That would be really That's a tough puzzle.

Sarah:

I have a couple of options. Okay. It could be a giant Where's Waldo puzzle

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

That's got a blue sky. That would be really hard to do. It could be a custom puzzle made from a photo from the mayor's inauguration. Yes. So it's a photo of him outside

Mark:

with his

Sarah:

chain and his fluffy hat on. But what I think is most likely is that it's a photo from an outdoor boudoir photoshoot that Gray has done of him dressed as a Shakespearean character.

Mark:

Oh, that would work. I could see that.

Sarah:

Holding the skull in a specific place.

Mark:

With a blue sky background.

Sarah:

Exactly.

Mark:

Chalmers' scene, that's gonna be like

Sarah:

And he's given it to his partner and said, here's a here's a puzzle for you to do while I'm away.

Mark:

Chalmers is like, no.

Sarah:

Think of me and each individual body hair I have and where it goes in this giant puzzle that takes up the entire coffee table. Yep. I know what you're getting for Christmas. I just got an idea. So first, everybody thinks that TJ is, well, he's just gross.

Sarah:

He goes around threatening to blackmail people and hitting on people and

Mark:

He's gross.

Sarah:

Being me he's just nasty and mean. He's hitting on Nehulia, who is a lesbian and in love with the lady from the bakery and like

Mark:

No, the dairy.

Sarah:

The dairy. Sorry, I get those confused. And like, the the dairy is stocking the chocolates and and he's there going, well, you wouldn't want me to tell your families about you. Like, just punch him in the face.

Mark:

Now I have a question.

Sarah:

When he gets strung up from a tree, everybody must be like, yay.

Mark:

Yes. So I have a question about the dairy. The dairy is a family business. Yes. Okay.

Mark:

I completely understand that.

Sarah:

Run by Pashka Patel and I think owned by her family. Like they run it.

Mark:

I also understand that, and this is a bit Greenland, that no shot in a show is by mistake. No. Right? They do everything in their power to make it not a mistake.

Sarah:

To control everything that is within the camera's lens.

Mark:

Right? Absolutely what they

Sarah:

try to To frame it up exactly the way they want it.

Mark:

Did you see in the dairy in the background the dude?

Sarah:

There is a aisle that goes along the back end of the store where the cold cases are that ends in a door.

Mark:

So so being part of a dairy. Right? A dairy is a deli plus it serves ice cream. Right. So there's like an ice cream counter thing

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Then the cash register.

Sarah:

And but it's also a convenience store. So there's like drinks There's

Mark:

chips and stuff like that.

Sarah:

At the end of that aisle is a door.

Mark:

And in

Sarah:

one scene, the door is open, and there is a dude back there

Mark:

Who just walks through.

Sarah:

Walks back and forth.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

He I think he looks like he's dressed like a biker.

Mark:

He's in the back of the store.

Sarah:

Do you think that's like her brother that they don't let out or something? No.

Mark:

I think it might

Sarah:

He has to stay in the storeroom.

Mark:

It might be a family member and maybe they had a scene where she talks to the family member about her gay relationship.

Sarah:

So you're saying it can't be accidental that maybe it's a crew member who just accidentally walked by on a good take and they left it.

Mark:

If it's a crew member, that crew member had to buy everybody around. So that We're

Sarah:

gonna have to post a picture of this so people can decide on their own.

Mark:

He kind of looks like Sasquatch, by the way.

Sarah:

I'm going

Mark:

with So I'm

Sarah:

going with crew member because I think they would not have had a character that was cut from the episode who looked like that.

Mark:

Yep. So so the

Sarah:

But it is kind of a bad view of him and kind of a silhouette. I'm not sure.

Mark:

If you watched Mythbusters, any bloopers, there is a thing on that show that is on a lot of television shows, which is if your cell phone goes off when they're filming, you have to buy everybody a drink

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Who's there. Because you have wasted their time.

Sarah:

Right.

Mark:

So this guy, if he's a crew member, has wasted everyone's time.

Sarah:

I don't know. He didn't because they they kept the scene. They didn't cut it. They didn't film it again if that's what happened.

Mark:

I have a picture of it. I'll put it on the show notes, but wow. That dude does not look like he should be there. Does not look thankfully, he doesn't look at the camera. No.

Mark:

Because if he looked at the camera, it would be done.

Sarah:

We would never have seen it.

Mark:

We wouldn't

Sarah:

because they definitely wouldn't have used it.

Mark:

Not used it.

Sarah:

Meanwhile, Gina's being Gina.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Right? So she's figured out that TJ was poisoned, not strangled or hung, and that he's died of strychnine. And she explains that strychnine is a excruciatingly bad way to die but fast. My favorite Gina quote from the episode that dying from strychnine is worse than a Belarusian brass band playing happy birthday in a marble bathroom.

Mark:

Okay. Gina's land hints through this whole episode about her birthday. Nobody cares. Yep.

Sarah:

Until they do. Yep. She's got her birthday earrings on. Duh.

Mark:

Duh.

Sarah:

You know, that year that I forgot that it was your birthday, if you just worn your birthday earrings, I wouldn't have forgotten. Seth

Mark:

wore my birthday earrings.

Sarah:

You should have had your birthday

Mark:

earrings on. Story before. Sarah was incredibly busy. My birthday was in the middle of the week in bed that evening. I mentioned her mom called, my mom called.

Sarah:

And I was like, oh, that's nice. What a coincidence that everybody called. Oh, Now I just realized why everybody called you today. Can we try again tomorrow? Can tomorrow be your birthday this year?

Sarah:

I'm so sorry.

Mark:

So tomorrow was my birthday. We were extremely busy.

Sarah:

Yeah. You forgave me. Yeah. I've made up for it. But if you'd had your birthday earrings on Yes.

Sarah:

I would've known. So this the whole like, does she think that they're just supposed to know? Does she know when their birthdays are?

Mark:

I don't know. But the episode that was her birthday in the previous season was the first episode.

Sarah:

Well, then there's the one where it's Mike's birthday where the people parachute down and die.

Mark:

No. That's Herbert. Oh, no. That's right.

Sarah:

That's Mike's birthday. She clearly values people's birthdays. Yeah. So maybe she does know when everybody's Maybe. Birthday But they don't care about her birthday, and she's rather pouty about it.

Sarah:

But I just love that brass band in a marble bathroom. Yeah. You know exactly how awful that would be.

Mark:

There is a quote in the cop shop written on the whiteboard.

Sarah:

Is it a new whiteboard? It's in a spot I don't remember there

Mark:

being There's a there's not been a whiteboard before there. And if there was, it said something else.

Sarah:

It's not the big one that they take notes on. No. It's just a square one that's like on a wall next to a door.

Mark:

It's not the one in Mike's room that has all the business stuff in it.

Sarah:

No. And what does it say?

Mark:

It is a quote from Winston Churchill that says Something about courage. It says this, it says, courage is what it takes to stand up and speak, semicolon. Not many quotes with semicolons. Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. Now, it's not attributed to anybody

Sarah:

On the dry erase board.

Mark:

On the dry erase board.

Sarah:

But that's who said it? Yes. Why is that there?

Mark:

I think Nigel put it there.

Sarah:

You blame everything on Nigel. I do.

Mark:

There is a individual that's sitting in the foreground in that scene, a uniform. He's got the full uniform on like, sometimes when they have PCs in other shows, you can you can tell that they might have like running shoes or something on.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

But this guy's in his full vest and long sleeve shirt and everything. He's got the hat.

Sarah:

Okay.

Mark:

He's an older guy with a goatee. I think it's Nigel.

Sarah:

You think that's Nigel?

Mark:

I think that's Nigel.

Sarah:

I don't think they let Nigel come downstairs.

Mark:

Maybe. I don't know.

Sarah:

They bring, I mean, they bring Emilia into the station, and they question her. And then they bring in Richard and Hope and question them, because their timelines don't quite add up and stuff. And they don't quite have all the pieces to the puzzle at that point Yeah. Because they're you know, the puzzle's over at Neil's house, and it's got naked gray on it. But so they're still trying to figure it out, and so they let them go.

Sarah:

But then they figure it out, and they decide to go and talk to them. And Gray has the weirdest attitude about it. Not Richard. Sorry, Richard. Richard has the weirdest attitude about it.

Sarah:

He's like, we're over this. We're tired of you talking to us. Go away. Yeah. Like, they're gonna go, oh, well, somebody died, but we wouldn't want to annoy you, so we'll just let it go.

Mark:

You're a big city man, and I know in big city man, you can tell the cops what to do. But this is little town

Sarah:

big city, man. Investigation is getting on your nerves, well, stop. Fine. That's okay. Just stay.

Mark:

That's why that's why community policing doesn't work.

Sarah:

When they show up at their house, he's like, hey, I thought I told you to go away. And they're like, but we're the police. Dude, you can't just tell us to go away.

Mark:

We have a dinner date in which my crazy fiance is gonna try to kill my girlfriend.

Sarah:

And me at her house. Yep. Amelia has has invited them over to have tea and cake because she's legitimately sorry for all this weirdness. And Okay. Amelia has good intent.

Mark:

A bad relationship with TJ. Okay? We know this.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

She has a weird relationship with Richard. She must feel conflicted. I don't know what to do. I don't know what not to do.

Sarah:

Plus, she has the world's best tree house for no reason.

Mark:

They have an amazing tree house and no children.

Sarah:

That's gotta be

Mark:

Did TJ go up there all the time by himself?

Sarah:

They might have gotten along better if he did.

Mark:

Maybe. So poor Amelia. Plus, now she has a business to run by herself. And I don't know about you and I realize that in shows you don't have to do anything but a bakery is a really hard business. Yeah.

Mark:

You have to get up early in the morning. Yeah. It's a very hard business. Exactly. Watch a bunch of shows about Swedish bakers online.

Sarah:

On YouTube. There's a lot of amazing it's 2AM, the bakers arrive videos.

Mark:

She doesn't know how she's gonna eat all these oranges by herself.

Sarah:

And she's got a whole cake now.

Mark:

And now

Sarah:

Hope is like, I got another shot. Yeah. What? What? I just have this syringe in my bag.

Mark:

Meanwhile, Richard's like, stop bothering us.

Sarah:

Hope, stop trying to kill people. And then Hope does the, I'm a savvy, fancy, big city lady, and I am gonna completely throw this woman under the bus, and everybody will believe me because I have a lot of necklaces on and I'm sophisticated. Totally blames Emilia. And looks totally guilty with every sentence that she says. Yes.

Sarah:

Like, get her. Look. Look at her. She's obviously guilty. You should arrest her right now.

Sarah:

Not me. Her. Her.

Mark:

Her. Like, Richard must be thinking to himself, I chose poorly.

Sarah:

Yes. Yes. Even if even before he realizes that she's the killer, he must be thinking, she's horrible. Yeah. This lady is no good.

Sarah:

The plan that she has to kill Amelia at the tea party is stupid. Yeah. The cups look exactly the same. Yep. It would be very easy to mix them up.

Sarah:

Then she has the audacity in front of the cops while she's trying to throw Amelia under the bus to say, well, if you're not the killer, drink this tea. Drink it, knowing that it's poison, knowing that if Emilia drinks it, she's going to die. Yeah. So what does she think is going to happen? Emilia is going to drink it, and then Hope is going to go, see?

Sarah:

She's the killer. That's why she's dead. Oh, you're right, Hope. We're sorry we bothered you.

Mark:

What is her exit plan?

Sarah:

What's her exit plan when she gets up about to be arrested and picks up the knife and goes after her one more time, screaming, I'm not crazy, while her face is in a cake. Oh, you're not cra let let her go.

Mark:

Oh, let obviously. We're sorry to bother

Sarah:

you right our mistake. I know you've just tried to stab her and poison her in front of us, but you've said you're not crazy, so I guess it's alright.

Mark:

As police people, we believe everything you say.

Sarah:

It's opposite day. Yes. The more you scream I'm not crazy, the crazier you seem.

Mark:

Now I would have, I would have, as the director of this episode, had when Kristen tackles her, I would have had Kristen's tattoo been revealed.

Sarah:

Like her pants just fly off No, or

Mark:

because I don't think I think I think maybe it's on her side or high up on her arm.

Sarah:

She gets a big rip in the butt of her jeans and her kiwi showing? No, but Here's what I would have done. I would have had Hope try to make a run for it with the knife. And she runs up into the tree house. And she stands in the tree house with the knife to her own throat going, I'll do it.

Sarah:

I'll kill her. Don't come up here. What are you gonna do, Hope? You're gonna live in the tree house now? Yes.

Sarah:

Forever. That's this is where I live here.

Mark:

Richard will be like, Richard stops kissing Emilia for a second and goes, can you guys go?

Sarah:

Yeah. This is really annoying. Emilia's like, great. I had to work a whole night with my dead husband hanging next to my stall, and now I have to live in this house with a psycho killer in a tree house.

Mark:

Like, if Hope had any any intelligence at all, she would wake up the next morning and go, we're going back to the city. Mhmm. And if Richard said, no. I would like to stay so I could talk to my girlfriend some more.

Sarah:

She would say, well, I'm going back

Mark:

to back to the city.

Sarah:

Knowing that she had killed someone and he was going to be found very soon, she could have been goners. Really, I would have said that afternoon, I've got pressing stuff. So I I know that festival's tonight and you wanted to go, but I need to get back to town. I'll be back in a couple of days. Or And left Richard there.

Mark:

Or okay. Let's do this. She poisons the the poison.

Sarah:

The chocolate.

Mark:

The chocolate. TJ eats it. She sees him die. She stops. She turns around, gets in her car, and drives away.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

Okay? Then she says, I got stuff to do in the city tonight. She leaves. Okay? Now, I'm Mike investigating the crime.

Mark:

Dead husband in the

Sarah:

In the bushes.

Mark:

In the bushes. First person I'm gonna look for is the wife. Right. Wife can't even touch those chocolates, let alone breathe them.

Sarah:

So now Richard is the key suspect?

Mark:

Who knows that? Richard.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

She could've like, no one would have expected Hope. Nope. Not at all. No. Richard has every reason to kill him.

Mark:

Yeah. Well, okay. Reason he has a motive and opportunity to kill him.

Sarah:

Right. Right. And hope would be gone and completely uninvolved.

Mark:

And she doesn't have to do a thing.

Sarah:

Nope. But that's but she's crazy. Yeah. She's cake face crazy. So

Mark:

That's such a nice treehouse. I'm gonna kill you. Yeah.

Sarah:

Now it's on.

Mark:

And you know, okay. So Tim Baum's the showrunner and he's talking to his girlfriend who's writing the show and they're like doing going over the the locations. And they're like, that house has a tree house. You think anybody's gonna notice? And she goes, no.

Mark:

No one will notice that. The maniacs notice.

Sarah:

Of course, we notice. Especially since they say that they've been married for like fifteen years.

Mark:

And they have no children.

Sarah:

So it's not like they've just moved into the house and it already had a tree house.

Mark:

Meanwhile, Emilia is like juggling the oranges. Maybe that's why she

Sarah:

has so many. Maybe she uses them in her baking.

Mark:

Then there's a weird uncomfortable scene with cake and naughty girl.

Sarah:

Mhmm. Yeah. Jaina. Jaina. And that is Day of the Dead.

Mark:

Hope goes up the river. TJ has a career in dead body acting. Yeah.

Sarah:

It's very good. Yep. Do Emilia and Richard end up together? I don't think so.

Mark:

I don't think so, but even if they did, it wouldn't be bad. Neither of them they tried to understand how they felt about each other.

Sarah:

Yeah. I think they were very, like, days away from telling their partners, look, we found each other again. You know?

Mark:

You mean, like, the human real way to do it?

Sarah:

Yeah. But that would be so boring.

Mark:

Okay. Okay. Okay.

Sarah:

Then missus Baker could plan their wedding. Yep. And Morgana could say, I told you so. Yep. But hope's crazy.

Mark:

I think the the chocolate lady and the the dairy lady have a wonderful happy life together.

Sarah:

I do too.

Mark:

Because her family completely accepted her.

Sarah:

They're totally supportive.

Mark:

That was the I am a big fan of the story is not the story. Right? And what I mean by that is the stuff I create, it lives in a world in which everyone is accepted for being who they are. Mhmm. And the story is not, I'm not accepted for who I am.

Mark:

Because I feel somewhat not qualified to write that story.

Sarah:

Yeah. The story is about the things that happen to those people who live in a world where those things aren't the issue. Yes. Yeah. And Brokenwood does a good job with that.

Mark:

Brokenwood does a good job with that. And then their her parents, including the dude in the back of the store, are like, oh, we love you.

Sarah:

Well, and there's no prejudice against, you know, Todd and Frodo for being so dumb. They let them live among normal people.

Mark:

And what we learned

Sarah:

They even let them have jobs and stuff.

Mark:

We learned next season that Frodo is by far

Sarah:

He's the genius of

Mark:

his family. Genius of

Sarah:

his family. Because remember him and Todd are cousins.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

So they get it natural from each other. From the same source of stupid. Right. Stepmother, sister. Yeah.

Mark:

Oh, Frodo.

Sarah:

It's coming. It's coming. That is Day of the Dead. What a fun episode.

Mark:

It is a completely fun, bonkers episode. Like, I don't I know we're making fun of Hope and the costume and Todd lifting her up and stuff, but it is the the zaniness that I think some of the newer Midsommers miss.

Sarah:

Yeah. It doesn't have the zany.

Mark:

It doesn't have the cookie.

Sarah:

It needs the the that little pinch of what? If there Especially the little pinch of zany that you uncover if you actually think about it for just a little bit. Like, you can just watch it to watch it and see the plot and the story makes sense and da da da da da. No, didn't expect that. That's surprising.

Sarah:

How smart. It can be if they can be very, very clever, but that little, wait a minute.

Mark:

You see, I think that Murdoch's kind of pushed past that.

Sarah:

They had that. Yep. Then they jumped

Mark:

Pushed the past it.

Sarah:

Yeah. We have recommendations to end with. Yes. What is your recommendation for the week?

Mark:

So my recommendation for the week is a show that we've just started to watch. It's called Union, and it has David Olusaga on it.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

David Olusaga is an incredibly interesting presenter, historian Journalist. Podcaster, journalist who was also on Celebrity Traders.

Sarah:

I think it's Ola Saga.

Mark:

Ola Saga. In the first twenty minutes of that show, I was presented with new information about historical things that happened in England that I didn't understand.

Sarah:

It's about The United Kingdom becoming The United Kingdom and the ramifications of that. Yeah. And, yeah, it's fascinating from the very beginning.

Mark:

And he goes and looks at primary sources I didn't know existed.

Sarah:

Plus David Olasaga has an incredible voice.

Mark:

He

Sarah:

does. I can just listen to him talk. Yes. It's he has a great voice. And he's very smart.

Mark:

I would also recommend Grace. The new season of Grace, is season four

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

Has actually been pretty good. Yeah. I think it's been pretty good.

Sarah:

That show's really good. It's one of those, if they don't wrap this plot up, I am going to hurt somebody. This is really, it's really unfair what is They've going

Mark:

been rapping and rapping.

Sarah:

But they always do. Justice comes.

Mark:

The guy who plays the lead, he's been in a bunch of stuff, including Life on Mars.

Sarah:

Life on Mars.

Mark:

Yeah. Is one of those guys that you don't mind when he plays overwrought, but he's less overwrought in this series.

Sarah:

Yeah. Wasn't he the big bad guy in Doctor Who

Mark:

and He was a master.

Sarah:

The master. That was his call. Yeah. My recommendation. So you you're recommending Union?

Sarah:

Where can people find that?

Mark:

You can find it on your BBC player if you live in England and other places if you don't.

Sarah:

That rhyme with snoo tube? Snoo tube. Yes. My recommendation for this week is a show on Netflix called How to Get to Heaven from Belfast.

Mark:

Okay. First recommendation with this show is you must watch this show with the subtitles on.

Sarah:

If you watched any of Derry Girls, you will understand

Mark:

They are speaking Irish incredibly fast.

Sarah:

They have Irish accents. Yep. There the show isn't English.

Mark:

Well, are parts in Irish

Sarah:

Well, and those are subtitled. Yeah. But their accents are really strong. And they're women in stressful situations, making jokes, talking very fast, screaming at each other. And the accents kind of take over.

Sarah:

And if you're not used to it, it can kind of make it hard to understand. Put the subtitles on, and you will laugh your asses off. It's really, really funny. Plus, it has a really good mystery. It's a eight eight episode Yep.

Sarah:

Season. I think there's gonna be another season.

Mark:

The three leads are really strong. Yes. It's of like like it has a bit of like Fargo to it.

Sarah:

That kind of surrealness

Mark:

Small to town crime surrealness.

Sarah:

Yeah. So just to give you a little bit of teaser, it's about three women who were three of four who were really good friends in school, in high school, but now they are in their 40s. One of them has died, and so the other three decide to go back to their hometown for her funeral. And they develop suspicions that all is not what it seems. And then they are involved, whether they like it or not.

Sarah:

It's very, very clever and

Mark:

really The lady who wrote and directed

Sarah:

Dairy Girls. Dairy Girls

Mark:

Yeah. Does it. And one of the characters is a lee is a woman who writes a detective show that is very popular. There's a BAFTA scene.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Right? It's

Sarah:

it's it's really good. It's called How to Get to Heaven from Belfast, and it's on Netflix. And I highly recommend it. Once you start watching it, you will want to finish it.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Alright. That is it for this week. What's our next episode? Season ten episode three?

Mark:

Our next episode is a total mystery to me. It's called Publish or Be Damned. It's about a writing retreat and there's a waterfall. I don't remember anything about this episode.

Sarah:

So he's clearly seen it at least twice.

Mark:

Clearly seen it at least twice.

Sarah:

Well, we get to rewatch it again for next week.

Mark:

So we will be having an episode next week. That's the plan. And then the week after, we're gonna take off to go see Sarah's dad. So episode this week, episode next week, and then a week off.

Sarah:

And then we'll be back.

Mark:

Yes. The newsletter comes out this Wednesday. So if you're not subscribed, go to any of our links for subscription. And if you are, you guys are all awesome. You made the transition to Substack just easy peasy and Even

Sarah:

if you aren't subscribed you're awesome.

Mark:

I've noticed, I have to say, it's easier on my life for me to use Substack than it was for Mailchimp. Great. So

Sarah:

All the

Mark:

better. All the better.

Sarah:

Hopefully there's some sunshine wherever you are even if it's limited. And spring is coming. It is coming. Bye, maniacs.

Mark:

Bye, maniacs. Thanks for joining us on the mystery maniacs podcast. If you enjoyed our crazy podcast today, don't miss out on future episodes. Follow us on social media for updates, beyond the scenes content, and exclusive sneak peeks. Subscribe, like, and share to spread the word.

Mark:

Bye, maniacs. Desperado. Vegemite and bacon in a taco.