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🎙️ Episode: https://share.transistor.fm/s/14f0112c
📓 Show Notes: https://midsomermaniacs.transistor.fm/265
Mystery Maniacs Episode! In Podcast 265, the killer gets a gut punch and reacts badly but hey nice vomit!
Show Notes
Widows Bay
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt33332385/
Weird In the Wade
Duckie Trying A Little Tenderness
Crevice Tool by BAMFF
The Sad Story of Garry Hoy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Garry_Hoy
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Thanks again for listening!
Mark & Sarah
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- May 1 - Brokenwood S11E02 - “Sudden Death Round ”
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Creators and Guests
What is Mystery Maniacs?
Mystery Maniacs Podcast is a comedy recap podcast dedicated to British Mystery Television. Formerly, Midsomer Maniacs podcast.
Meze Boogie.
Sarah:Meze Boogie. Meze Boogie.
Mark:Hey, maniacs. Hey, Mystery Maniacs. This is our brand new pod oh my god. How long has it been since we've done a podcast?
Sarah:A full one.
Mark:It's been a little bit.
Sarah:It's been a little doing minis.
Mark:We've been doing minis.
Sarah:We had some insanity. Yep. The insanity is over.
Mark: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. Oh, boy. It has lots in this episode, which is the ghost in you season eleven episode one of Brokenwood.
Sarah:Yep.
Mark:We have 12 Brokenwoods left.
Sarah:Yep. That's it. And they're not gonna catch up with us. No. They just released a season.
Sarah:So
Mark:Though though I did account. I did account. Because, you know, I'm goofy like this. I did account. If we were I'll try to say it and not laugh.
Mark:If we recorded once a week for the next twelve weeks, which will not happen, we wouldn't be done until September. Oh, that's good. So, really, we have till Christmas. No. We have till new Midsummer's probably.
Mark:No.
Sarah:I'm glad to be back recording a full episode. I missed you guys.
Mark:I do. I missed you guys so much.
Sarah:And I missed sitting across from you and recording for an hour.
Mark:And I think season eleven and twelve of Brokenwood may be their best seasons.
Sarah:We say that about every season.
Mark:We say that,
Sarah:but It's a show that gets better as it goes.
Mark:It is on all cylinders right now.
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:There's another show that's running on all cylinders that we might have mentioned. I think we did, but we need to really tell you is you need to be watching Widow's Bay.
Sarah:It's on Apple. Right?
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:Which a lot of people don't have. But if there's one of those, like, free for a month daily bops going on, set a reminder for when to cancel it so you don't get charged It is. To watch Widow's Bay.
Mark:It is at least three or four great gagamuggas every episode.
Sarah:It is scary at moments, but it's like Stephen King meets Lake Wobbagon.
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:Or if you never listen to Lake Wobbagon, Northern Exposure.
Mark:With even more heart than all of those. Yeah. Yeah. Strangely.
Sarah:But so much humor, and then a little scare, a little freak out. Woah. That was weird. And then, boy, this this place is full of freaky people. They're all funny.
Mark:Episode three was the cocktail party episode.
Sarah:I
Mark:think it was Wow. Whoo. That was a great Guggamuga five episode.
Sarah:Yeah. Yeah. But it's really fun. If so if you have Apple TV, check it out, Widow's Bay. I have one other recommendation that I wanted to give folks.
Mark:Excellent.
Sarah:If you like podcasts, which obviously you do, or maybe you only like ours. Maybe ours is only when you
Mark:listen to our podcast.
Sarah:Well, I have a recommendation for another one that you should check out. And I've been I've been keeping my eye out on this one for quite a while because I saw it on BBC Sounds. Yes. But I couldn't listen to it on BBC Sounds because I'm outside The UK. Mhmm.
Sarah:Anyway, now it's everywhere, and it's called Weird in the Wade.
Mark:This podcast, I am eagerly waiting to listen to all of it too.
Sarah:It's a podcast that has three years of back episodes, but it only comes out once a month. So there's about 40 some episodes. They're about anywhere from a half an hour to an hour long. But the lady who hosts it, her name is Nat Doig, and she is an, I think, amateur historian of Bedfordshire, one county in The UK. This entire podcast is set in Bedfordshire, mostly in one town in Bedfordshire called Biggleswade.
Mark:Which is a real place
Sarah:a real place.
Mark:In a real county.
Sarah:Though if you're not from The UK and you start listening to this, you're gonna doubt whether it's a real place because she tells every month, every episode, she tells a story of some historical weirdness that happened there and then, like, looks into it, like, goes to the place and talks to people who live there or people who saw the weirdness. Like, you saw the UFO. You were in the haunted, you know, dollar store. Like, But it's really fun. She's great.
Sarah:She's a really good host. She's really good at telling the story. She's totally grounded in history. She looks at all the sources and the records and all that stuff. Highly recommended.
Sarah:It's very fun.
Mark:How many episodes or how long into the first episode before you looked up this place to make sure it existed?
Sarah:I listened to the first one assuming it wasn't a real place
Mark:Okay.
Sarah:And just went with it. And then I think during the second episode, I looked it up. And I've now, maybe in two weeks, listened to 30 some episodes. I'm almost completely caught up because it's just that good. It's called Weird in the Wade, W A D E.
Sarah:So if you need something to listen to in the car or whatever, you're tired of listening to reruns of us, check out Weird in the Wade.
Mark:Yes. I did also wanna mention that r Brokenwood, the Brokenwood subreddit has been taken over by a human who is not a German casino bot, who's an app who is a Colorado Avalanche fan, which I was like, you're a good dude.
Sarah:Yeah. Because for a while there, you couldn't even get a response from a moderator. Nobody was allowed to
Mark:It was weird. That subreddit will be coming back and I'll be posting on it on Monday.
Sarah:Alright. Are you ready to talk about the ghost in you?
Mark:Oh my gosh. We have so much to talk about in this episode including my brush with the break of reality that was a trip to Canada's Wonderland.
Sarah:I'm eager to hear how that is remotely related to this. Yep.
Mark:It it was totally spawned by this. Okay. This episode was directed by Mike Smith and written by Timothy Baum. It's got music in it. Tim Baum's a musing music guy.
Mark:He's definitely
Sarah:He's good at it.
Mark:Yep. The 04/21/2025, which is like a year ago almost to the day.
Sarah:Now we did do a mini about this. Yes. So we had the how to watch like a maniac questions and we'll be answering those as we go through.
Mark:And we start right away in the eighties Yeah. With the music that I immediately before I'd even seen the name of the episode was like, wow, they're goofing on psychedelic there.
Sarah:Tim Baum did a great job writing a song that sounds like Love My Way by the psychedelic furs but isn't.
Mark:Oh, it it is so good, the music in this episode.
Sarah:The only difference is that the lead singer of the psychedelic furs actually looks great for his age. Yes. And he's like a painter now and very happy. And this guy, not so much.
Mark:Well, the guy we're talking about is
Sarah:James, the lead singer of the band who is absolutely stuck in the past and unable to realize that he's quite a bit older now and probably should accept that.
Mark:He's played by Michael Galvin.
Sarah:Who's a big soap star.
Mark:Right? Huge soap star.
Sarah:So it must have been fun for people to see him play this role if you had seen him play that role for
Mark:a while. And that picture on the front of the book is totally his headshot from that age.
Sarah:Oh, yeah. Yeah. And the other photos, like the ones that James has up in his own motel room
Mark:of The first thing I do, you know, I do a lot of stuff. So the first thing I do when I get to a motel room is set up as many pictures of me as possible around the room so I am surrounded by my visage.
Sarah:Make sure there are 40 year old pictures of when you were a heartthrob.
Mark:Yep, Absolutely. Nothing makes a hotel room better than that. Whoo.
Sarah:I did you like the psychedelic furs when you were a kid?
Mark:I did. So, okay.
Sarah:I mean, kid. Yeah.
Mark:We know this is psychedelic furs because of the title of the episode, is The Ghost in You, is another psychedelic furs song. And the existential voyage I went on was I as a small child, I didn't realize that I wasn't as small as I thought I was, was put on a bus by my parents and sent to Canada's Wonderland. At Canada's Wonderland,
Sarah:Okay. Is an amazing
Mark:It's it's about four hours away from where I grew up and they put me on the bus to go to Canada's by myself.
Sarah:Okay.
Mark:And that day at the park, the psychedelic furs were playing at the park, so I heard them rehearsing all day. Wow. So and they were playing a song called Here Comes Cowboys, which was their latest single. So they were obviously practicing and playing it. Right?
Mark:You could hear this all over the park because the the concert venue is basically in the middle of the park. What I didn't realize is I thought I was a lot younger than I I was. I was probably almost 14 at the time.
Sarah:Okay. But still.
Mark:Which is still a bit much. But it's my parents. Yeah. We know. I thought I was 12, which would have been like, I was like, did my parents abandon me at 12 to
Sarah:go to an amusement park? Were they hoping that you wouldn't come back?
Mark:I knew no one on the bus.
Sarah:Yeah. You think We that
Mark:think that I thought that then, but I'm sure that my parents introduced me to people. It was all local people on the bus. It was like a charter thing. But that was the closest I ever came to seeing psychedelic furs in concert. And it ended up that they were much old I was much older than I realized.
Mark:And 14 or 13 or 14 walking around a park all day by yourself isn't as strange as 11 and 12.
Sarah:No. I I think my first introduction to the psychedelic first was Pretty in Pink. Mhmm. Because they I didn't know it at the time, but Pretty in Pink was a song that they produced first, and then the movie was inspired by the song, not the other way around.
Mark:Yes. And the the original's a lot more punkier.
Sarah:Yeah. But I like that song so much. And I like the movie a lot.
Mark:Yes. That movie.
Sarah:I think I may have got a sewing machine for the first time because of that movie.
Mark:That movie has some amazing scenes in it.
Sarah:Ducky.
Mark:John Cryer as Ducky is fantastic. He does a a lip sync in a Records Records store with Minnie Potts in it.
Sarah:Not Minnie.
Mark:Not Minnie Potts. Annie. Annie Potts in it that is just fantastic. The whole movie is fantastic. And it has Harry Dean Stanton in it too which later on you're like, oh my gosh.
Mark:It's Harry Dean Stanton is in that movie.
Sarah:The guy from alien. Yep. So we're at the Croc and Panther. Trudy and Ray are front and center in this episode. They're cleaning up after the big concert.
Mark:Than front and center. They almost get killed by the body.
Sarah:Needless to say, it was not a sellout. What did they say?
Mark:19 people including the sound wave.
Sarah:Yeah. And they're cleaning up and leaving, and a body falls from the bell tower.
Mark:The bell The pub.
Sarah:I don't know why the Bell Tower. I
Mark:don't know.
Sarah:I remember them saying that what it used to be. I don't recall at the moment.
Mark:It is so fantastic how Ray and Trudy, especially in Mike's office, are like, oh, we're in trouble here. We're in the cop shop. Do I need a lawyer? We're gonna leave right now.
Sarah:They really do look like brother and sister kids, like in the principal's office. Yes. Do. They stick together, and they always have kind of feelings.
Mark:I'm no narc.
Sarah:She almost says it too much.
Mark:She almost says it too much but like
Sarah:Everything's aspirational and I'm no narc between the two of them. Yep. But it's funny.
Mark:We hear a little bit about Ray's teen years because Trudy says she was a little too young to remember the eighties, but Ray remembers riding around on a motorbike in the Himalayas listening to Iron Maiden.
Sarah:That's quite the story.
Mark:It it I I'm I'm eager for the There's
Sarah:depth to Ray that we don't
Mark:know about. The young Ray flashbacks.
Sarah:More than his entrepreneurship.
Mark:Maybe maybe we'll find out how he met his wife, who is a woman forgotten.
Sarah:She just died and
Mark:that was it. Yep. Yeah. No one ever makes mention of her ever
Sarah:again. Wife The victim's name is Peggy, though with the New Zealand accent, it sounds like Piggy.
Mark:No. Well, you see my sister in law's Peggy. So
Sarah:I know. But the way they say it, it sounds like piggy It's a little because of the accent.
Mark:It's a little piggy. Piggy. Mike listens to his country tape on the way. It's called Mike's Country.
Sarah:That's the name of the cassette. Yes. That was one of our watch like a maniac questions.
Mark:Yes. And there's a trivia thing on IMDb about the line here that Sims makes about staying home and dying her eyebrows.
Sarah:That she was just about to start dying her eyebrows when she got the call out.
Mark:Yes. And there's a note on IMDb that her eyebrows are distinctly a different color from the last episode of season ten to the new episode of season eleven. That is false, ladies and gentlemen.
Sarah:Are they a different color at the end of the episode?
Mark:I looked
Sarah:I don't think so.
Mark:No. It's just wishful thinking.
Sarah:Yeah. It would be fun if they were but
Mark:But she does have a fantastic scarf on. Did you notice that scarf?
Sarah:Yeah. It's nice.
Mark:It's meant to be winter. They're they're definitely
Sarah:Which means it's July.
Mark:They make reference to it being cold and wintery and stuff like that.
Sarah:So the band Stolen Arrow
Mark:Stolen Arrow.
Sarah:Is Anton on keyboards, Nick on guitar, who is the son of the original guitarist
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:Elaine on bass, Paul, who is an original member on drums, and James, who is the original singer. Yes. And then Xanthi the Rhodi. Yes. Xanthi in Greek means blonde.
Sarah:Oh. It's a Greek name.
Mark:Okay.
Sarah:That's what it means. I was like, Xanthi is a cool name. It starts with an x. That's cool. Yeah.
Sarah:I wonder what it means. That's what it means.
Mark:So the original bass player was a dude, but now they got a girl bass player.
Sarah:Mhmm. Which Frodo's very happy about.
Mark:Frodo is
Sarah:thinks bass female base players are hot. I wonder if I could just reserve a room and she'd just play for me. Chalmers is like, that's a little creepy.
Mark:That's a little creepy.
Sarah:You might wanna think through that again.
Mark:So they immediately wonder how she got up there, so they have to go find a ladder.
Sarah:Ray's ladder?
Mark:Ray's like, I don't got no ladder. Chalmers is like, here's a ladder that says Ray's ladder on it. He's like, oh, that ladder?
Sarah:To be fair, there's no apostrophe on it. No. So it could be rays of light ladder. Could be. But he doesn't have a shed.
Sarah:No. So he just leaves it out back.
Mark:He just leaves it out back.
Sarah:Todd just leaves it out back where it's secured. Todd is everywhere.
Mark:Todd? Todd?
Sarah:What doesn't he do?
Mark:Okay. There's a point where Frodo says something about money or something. And I'm like, Frodo, your store is always busy. Mhmm. So Frodo's making bank.
Mark:Plus your best buddy is so busy. He does every job.
Sarah:To be fair, he's busy, but some of his jobs get paid in coffee. So he he may not financially be making out all that well. He drinks, what, eight cups of coffee?
Mark:Think he does such a good job in the acting where he's like, so I drank them
Sarah:all? Yeah. And then they bring four more and he's like, oh no. Oh boy.
Mark:Speaking of coffee, there's a point at the cop shop where Chalmers starts to dig and he almost gets himself in trouble because he says there's something wrong with Sims' coffee. And she's like, What do you mean? And he makes a health and safety joke.
Sarah:Yeah. And Mike's eyebrows go over his head. Yeah, like, Oh, no. What have you done?
Mark:But then Mike kind of leans back going, Oh, you're in a hole now. I'm not Doll you. There's no
Sarah:You're on your own.
Mark:Not gonna help you here.
Sarah:Don't look at me.
Mark:Even even the druggy hippie keyboard player goes, that's not coffee. Yeah.
Sarah:Peggy has fallen from the bell tower. Yes. However, she's got strangulation marks around her neck, and she had a high alcohol level, and she had antipsychotics in her system. Yes. This is what we find out from Gina.
Sarah:Right? Now we find out later that she doesn't drink because she's on antipsychotics, and she knows that she shouldn't drink. But remember, this is a spoiler podcast. We're about to talk about who did it.
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:But when Xanthi plans on murdering her, she swaps out her water with a glass of vodka. You would know. And Peggy doesn't notice?
Mark:You would notice.
Sarah:Water and vodka taste very different.
Mark:Like,
Sarah:It'd be like apple juice and gasoline. She is on psychotics. Antipsychotics. Antipsychotics. She's not on psychotic.
Mark:This is a moment that she's been waiting forty years for. I So she's hyper stimulated. She would know right away that her water had changed.
Sarah:Yeah. Well, before it even got to her mouth. Yeah. Anyway, Ray says something about the people at the concert being kamikaze mosh pit lunatics. That's not the concert we see in the episode.
Sarah:The
Mark:18 people in
Sarah:There are 18 middle aged women swaying back and forth, not kamikaze mosh pit lunatics.
Mark:No. No. No. No. And Mike makes a David Bowie reference here because he calls Peggy the woman who fell to earth.
Sarah:So David Bowie was a giant psychedelic Furs fan.
Mark:Oh, really?
Sarah:Like, he liked them so much. He invited them to open for him on part of a tour. He promoted them. What He really helped them get, like, their first album deals and stuff because he thought they were so good.
Mark:The lead singer's last name is Butler. He really took a lot from David Bowie.
Sarah:Richard Butler.
Mark:Richard Butler.
Sarah:Yeah, I can imagine maybe David Bowie liked them because he kind of saw himself in the lead singer like, well, he thinks I'm great, so I guess I'll think he's great.
Mark:He has that eighties singer, I'm gonna do hand gestures and crouch down and stand up like the guy from Simple Minds does.
Sarah:Yeah. But be kinda skinny and androgynous sort of.
Mark:Yep.
Sarah:Though they were produced by Todd Lundgren
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:Who's the I don't wanna work, I just wanna play on my drum all day guy. He he He's like the least sort of neuromantic punk I can imagine.
Mark:Todd Rundgren has produced some amazing records including XTC and
Sarah:I don't doubt that, but, like, just stylistically, he's could not be more different from them.
Mark:And I don't know if you know this, professor at IU. For a number of years, he was a music visiting music professor here.
Sarah:I did not know that. Yes. In addition, they also find that Peggy has a tattoo on her finger
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:That we later find out is her daughter's birth date.
Mark:Yes. And a lobotomy scar?
Sarah:No. Do you
Mark:do you get scars from lobotomies?
Sarah:Not like I
Mark:thought it was only the ice pick in the eye.
Sarah:So the way they used to do lobotomies, this, you know, this got me thinking. And I think about this for a lot of things.
Mark:Like Okay.
Sarah:Who had that idea first? Yeah. How do you test it? You don't. Yeah.
Sarah:Like, I know we know a lot a lot about a lot of brain functions from injuries. Like, when somebody accidentally injures part of their brain and they observe how that impacts them, then they kind of hypothesize, well, that that must mean that that part of the brain does that thing.
Mark:Before they had an understanding of neuroplasticity.
Sarah:But, yes, they used to the whole ice pick thing. It wasn't actually an ice pick, but they put it into your under your eyelid, pop a hole in your eye socket, and then put it into your frontal cortex and just stir it around. Stir it around. Nowadays, when they're done, which is very rare, lobotomies are done with electricity probes.
Mark:Okay.
Sarah:And they drill two dime sized holes on your head, but they're in your hairline. Like, if you drew a line from your eye up, straight up, and went into your hairline and made a hole and then did it for the other eye and made a hole, they would be right there.
Mark:But poor Peggy's are like, she's got like she whacked herself on the
Sarah:She's got a scar on the side of her forehead. But we later find out that's from a car accident, not from a lobotomy.
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:If she had a lobotomy, she wouldn't be wandering around. No. What she is. No. But the the tattoo on her finger, it's like, that's she did it herself.
Mark:Yeah. The
Sarah:So why is it backwards?
Mark:The the view, the flashback to her doing it, there are some problems. Right. Because it looks like she has a fork with the pines bent down on it. Yeah. And is, like, writing on it in ink.
Mark:And that's not how you do a
Sarah:But she also doesn't do it in front of a mirror. Like why is Maybe it just because Like dyslexia or something? Maybe. All I know is it's a good thing she only had one kid.
Mark:Yeah. Well, got 10 fingers.
Sarah:That's your limit. You can put one on either side I guess. You could have 20 no, thumb's kinda hard. Yeah. You could have 16 kids.
Mark:But then you have you and you have one and it's three kids.
Sarah:Yeah.
Mark:So Sarah does not have a tattoo of her child's birth date backwards or forwards on her fingertips.
Sarah:Nope. Not that they'll ever know.
Mark:So tell me what you think about James. Like, so we've talked about James that he has pictures of himself. The thing about James that I love is he is not guilty of anything. No. Did nothing wrong.
Sarah:The only thing he did was make a mistake way back when.
Mark:He fires somebody from his band who's doing drugs because of people dying doing drugs in his band. Mhmm. That is a valid thing.
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:He also does the thing that if you were like, if somebody came to you and said, I wanna become a musician, I wanna write songs. You would say, look for the songs around you every day. Mhmm. Write them down. Listen to them.
Mark:Like, be a music person all your life. That's what he is.
Sarah:What I wanna know is what he's been doing for the last, like, thirty five years between when the band was last big until now when they decide to do a reunion tour. Yeah. Because that would have been more than enough time for him to wake up to reality and have to get a different job and, you know, do something with his life. But it seems like he's completely living in the past, I don't know how he could have done that for so long.
Mark:I also always wonder about those people about long periods of not making any money.
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:Like
Sarah:You only make royalties for so long off your songs. Like, you're not living forever.
Mark:And this is the start of the tour. It's really the prep for the tour. They're moving on to the big time of Riverside.
Sarah:Really? It's a tour in support of a book launch. Yeah. That book. The book is not gonna make a lot of money either.
Mark:Okay. Did you look on the book?
Sarah:It's so it's called, like, still gifted or something like that. It is. The man, the myth, the legend. One of the quotes is from a dark time in New Zealand music. He's completely not self aware.
Mark:Oh, he is very not self aware.
Sarah:And all these people just let him do that.
Mark:But that's not a crime to be not self aware.
Sarah:No, no, no, no. But I think after this episode in his life, he's gonna go, I probably need to think about some stuff.
Mark:He's also it's also implied that they didn't have a lot of hits.
Sarah:Yeah. Like, were sort of a one hit wonder band. Yes. Two hits, something like that. Staying at the Brokenwood Hotel.
Mark:He says something to Sims about forty years ago. She's like,
Sarah:I wasn't alive. He makes a face like, she stabbed him like, oh. It's true. Yeah. But painful to remember.
Mark:Yeah. Let's talk about missus Baker because she is fantastic in this episode.
Sarah:She is one of the better supporting characters in this show. Yes. She's got new depths all the time.
Mark:First of all, she has one particular shirt on that is just a work of art.
Sarah:I will forever think of her at the end of the episode in season twelve where they've had the party. And she's been in fancy dress. And then they see her in the morning, and she's all bogey and fur Like, stick that's her in the '80s too, think, because she says she was quite the rocker back then. Like, she probably looked like that all So the
Mark:her and her friends wore t shirts that said James, J A M E S. Right?
Sarah:Yeah. But the girl who wore the j t shirt was out barfing in a bush, so they were just as me or something.
Mark:Do you remember people doing this at shows? Oh, yeah. I definitely saw it.
Sarah:Oh, yeah.
Mark:I definitely saw people doing this at I saw people did this at a Soundgarden show I saw.
Sarah:I went to That's
Mark:a long word to find people.
Sarah:I went to a Van Halen concert with David Lee Roth, the California no. It wouldn't have been California girls. It was because that's just him.
Mark:Yes. It would have been 1984.
Sarah:Yes. Thank you. And not only did people have stuff written on shirts, but there was a row of women who had David written on their chest, d a v I d, and it was on their chests. Oh. And they lifted their shirts up to show him their boobs and the letters because it was David Lee Roth.
Sarah:Come on.
Mark:When I was at the Van Halen
Sarah:show I know this
Mark:because they
Sarah:got on brought stage. Oh, wow. Because he was very impressed.
Mark:He was very impressed. Yeah. All I ever saw at the Van Halen show was Eddie Van Halen. So because
Sarah:you just wanted to hear the guitar. Yeah. So So Paul, who is the drummer
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:And one of the original members of the band is very close to James.
Mark:We're very close.
Sarah:I love this whole, like, well, we think that maybe he's held a flame for James this whole time. He hugs him to comfort him and grabs his ass. I mean, like, it's not
Mark:It's pretty out in the open. He drives him everywhere. I don't drive.
Sarah:When I remember when I first watched this, I thought, oh, they're in a relationship, but they don't want anybody to know because it would ruin James' heartthrob status or whatever. But then come to find out, no. No. He's with Xanthi.
Mark:That It's worse.
Sarah:Like, James, that whole time never moved on. Never like, these people are stuck in amber.
Mark:Yeah. It is it is a personification of the notion that nostalgia is heroin for old people because they are on the nostalgia.
Sarah:So missus Baker is really good.
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:But the scene where Plummer picks Peggy up and gives her a ride, you really see him be a psychiatrist.
Mark:He he is a warm human being. Well, and
Sarah:he assesses her real fast. He does? And then
Mark:knows that she is a person in trouble and that he is able to help her.
Sarah:And that she's not drunk or high or anything like that. She's a person who has been hospitalized for psychiatric care. He picks up on that super fast. Yep. And then without judgment, does things that he knows will make her more comfortable and appeal to her.
Mark:Like giving a
Sarah:And makes her feel safe and gives her a ride.
Mark:He he shows him a personal trait of his that might be embarrassing to other people so that she knows that he is completely comfortable around her.
Sarah:I think that Doctor. Plummer has never made a car sound in his car ever before ever.
Mark:He makes it before he picks her up. I double checked.
Sarah:What? Yes. I missed that.
Mark:He's going down the road going
Sarah:I just assumed that he said that for her.
Mark:No. I noticed it today on the rewatch that he's making the sound
Sarah:even better.
Mark:Before he picks her
Sarah:up. I like his little car.
Mark:I love his little car.
Sarah:It's better than Mike's car. I don't like Mike's car.
Mark:It's got a tape deck.
Sarah:I just think Mike's car is ugly. Yeah. But I like his car.
Mark:Another thing that
Sarah:But given given that he assesses her so quickly and knows that she's a vulnerable person, why does he just drop her off?
Mark:I don't know, but I love how reverend Green is like, oh, I guess we're picking up strange women on the street now.
Sarah:Just tell me now. Just get it out in the open. If you're with some other woman, I just wanna know. Poor reverend Green. In front of everybody, he doesn't even get there.
Sarah:They're just at the coffee stand. Just tell me now.
Mark:Ugh. They're so wonderful. Another thing makes missus Baker mentions is that gig that she saw them was at the Colonel Greer, which is the answer to one of our questions. Mhmm. Which is the worst name of a pub ever.
Sarah:The person who would be the worst to name a pub after. And why is Colonel Greer
Mark:Totally person who's name
Sarah:a pub after.
Mark:So Colonel Greer was a nineteenth century British army leader who led the British and colonial troops in a surprise attack against Mowry warriors in a battle called Te Reyga in 1864. So there's an area in Wellington named after him, which there's an a movement afoot to get that renamed. Mhmm.
Sarah:Because So it'd be like somebody here naming something after a civil war Yes. Sold general or something.
Mark:And that's bad enough. Yeah. And he's a horrible person. Right? But then you read the last sentence of what he did which was, some historians view the attack as a harsh retaliation that followed the famous Maori victory at Gate Pa where Maori shiverlessly spared and tended to wounded British soldiers.
Sarah:And that's what they got in return? Yes. What an ass. Yeah. Let's name a pub after him.
Mark:Sarah, I have a question for you. How well do you know eighties bands?
Sarah:Well, pretty well.
Mark:You you were you were you were let's see. You were.
Sarah:I wasn't very old. Five to
Mark:10 five to 15 in
Sarah:the movies. Right? Yeah. Give away. How old I am.
Sarah:Thank you. I'm an old lady. What can I say? I like eighties music a lot. So
Mark:Okay. Well, I have for you a quiz.
Sarah:Does this does this quiz include the the two new romantic bands from New Zealand that I found?
Mark:No. No. No. It does not include the fantastic Meesex and Split End.
Sarah:Meesex is the worst name.
Mark:Sarah is like, oh my god. Look at this stupid video by this band called Me Sex called Computer Games. And I'm like, computer Like, yeah. I know me sex. Who doesn't know
Sarah:me sex? Afraid to Google it. It's m I, by the way Yeah. If you wanna look them up.
Mark:Okay, Sarah. The quiz is actual eighties band or not.
Sarah:Okay.
Mark:Okay.
Sarah:So are, like, released albums. I should have heard of them.
Mark:All of these bands that are real bands have video. So they they got that far.
Sarah:Okay.
Mark:Okay. Alright. Okay.
Sarah:So I'm just saying real or fake?
Mark:That's all you're saying.
Sarah:Okay. How many do you have?
Mark:I have 10.
Sarah:Woah. Okay.
Mark:Okay. We'll go through these pretty quickly.
Sarah:Lamb on me.
Mark:Okay. Number one, The Static Wives. Fake. That's a fake band. Number two.
Mark:Okay. Are you ready? Mhmm. Alien Sex Fiend. Real.
Mark:That's a real band.
Sarah:Not that I've ever heard of them. Was total guess.
Mark:Okay. Number three, The Diagram Girls.
Sarah:Fake.
Mark:That is a fake band.
Sarah:Whoo. Three for three.
Mark:Three for three. You're doing pretty good. Number four. Number four is a difficult one. You ready?
Mark:Mhmm. Suburban Lawns.
Sarah:I'm gonna go real.
Mark:That's a real band. They had a single called Janitor, which is an experience to listen to.
Sarah:They can't be very good. They chose Suburban Lawns as the name of their band.
Mark:They were ahead of their their female lead singer and, oh, she is Something. She's a person. Okay. Number five, gay bikers on acid. Real.
Mark:That's a real band. Man. You're doing great.
Sarah:I'm five for five and I'm guessing every time.
Mark:You're doing real.
Sarah:I'm flipping the coin.
Mark:Okay. Number six, The Rewired Saints. Real. That's a fake band. Number seven's a give me, but it's just fun to say.
Mark:Orchestral maneuvers in the dark.
Sarah:That's true. That's a real band.
Mark:OMD. Fit big band. Mhmm. Also on the Pretty in Pink soundtrack.
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:Number eight, Glass Agenda. Fake. That is a fake band. You're you're pretty good, these fake bands.
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:I I needed to make better fake bands.
Sarah:Number nine out of eight so far.
Mark:Number nine, BAMFF, b a m f f.
Sarah:That's a place in Canada.
Mark:No, that's Banff. Oh. B A N F F. This is Banff, b
Sarah:a m as in mama in I'm the gonna say that's real.
Mark:That is a real band. They had a they had a single entitled Crevice Tool.
Sarah:Oh, yeah. I remember that song. You played that for me. Yes. I didn't hear it
Mark:at Which is
Sarah:a song
Mark:that I shit you not is an ode to a vacuum cleaner attachment. I will put the video for Crevice Tool.
Sarah:It's kinda like fish heads. It gets in your head. Yep. Fish heads. Fish heads.
Sarah:Roly poly fish heads.
Mark:Number 10. Pale cartography.
Sarah:Fake. Fake. I only got one wrong.
Mark:You only got one more. I got a bonus for you though.
Sarah:Okay.
Mark:This may be the hardest one.
Sarah:Okay.
Mark:The mediocre. Real. Kinda.
Sarah:That is not a bonus.
Mark:I wondered if you would know this right away because this is the band that Davin, Vince, and I made when we created our single Perfect Image. Oh. We called ourselves the mediocre.
Sarah:I'm glad you had, you know, optimism about where
Mark:we were mediocre.
Sarah:Oh. Yeah. Okay. Excellent.
Mark:I hope you all played along
Sarah:on Like a like a yellow vinyl album?
Mark:I guess.
Sarah:Would be media ochre? Media ochre. Oh, you guys really thought you were clever.
Mark:Thought we were super clever. Perfect image.
Sarah:If you listen to any of those bands, let us know. Yeah. Oh, boy. James and Xanthi broke up the night of the concert. Yes.
Sarah:Right? They're trying to figure out who could have been in the Bell Tower with Peggy. With Peggy. Peggy.
Mark:Peggy.
Sarah:Peggy. To have strangled her and pushed her. I love Gina's whole explanation of if you jump and you're quiet, you did it of your own volition. But if you scream, you were pushed. That was the policy.
Mark:Yeah. And that reminded me. So I was in Toronto when the crazy guy was testing the glass on the skyscraper and smashed through the window in front of people. He was like, he's he was like a young guy. He said, I these windows are so tough you can run up against them and hit them.
Sarah:And he went right through? He went right through. Oh my gosh.
Mark:And that that building was on my walk
Sarah:Oh, that makes me feel sick.
Mark:To and from the office and I remember seeing the board where the window The used to
Sarah:people who were in that room.
Mark:Oh, it is a famous '19 early nineties event in Toronto.
Sarah:Yeah. Oh, that's awful. Yeah. Don't do that. Yeah.
Sarah:Oh, I don't like heights. I don't like tall buildings that you can see out of all the way to the floor. Yeah. And that's why, stuff like that. Anyway, they broke up.
Sarah:She says that she saw him in the graveyard where he'd been walking, and she broke up with him there, but she lied. They should have like a Scooby van, but instead they have
Mark:It is kind of a Scooby van, and it does not have the equipment that I was on stage or in the van.
Sarah:Yeah. Who's Xanthi should be driving a roadie van.
Mark:Never mind the fact that they have a Mesa Boogie speaker on with a Marshall head on it. A what speaker? Mesa Boogie.
Sarah:That's a brand? Yes. Mesa Boogie?
Mark:Yes. It's an amplifier brand.
Sarah:I've never heard of that before. You made that up.
Mark:I know you have seen Mesa Boogie amps because Van Halen in the eighties used the Mesa Boogie amp.
Sarah:It is kind of a fun brand name.
Mark:It is indeed.
Sarah:But instead of breaking up with James, she headed back to kill Biggie.
Mark:Yeah. So before we get to the sadness that is that, I have two things I wanna talk about. First of all, how long does it take to rent a house?
Sarah:Nowadays? Short term?
Mark:Short term?
Sarah:Thirty seconds. Maybe. Airbnb.
Mark:I guess. They suddenly have a house and they are like making coffee in
Sarah:it and everything. It seems weird. That's because Xanthi has dumped James and wants desperately to get away from the hotel. Knowing why she has broken up with James, I would also wanna get as far away from him as possible.
Mark:I don't have a
Sarah:And she's not allowed to leave town.
Mark:I So don't have any problem with that, but they totally dropped the line because when the bass player opens the door, she goes, I just had to get out of there. I'm like, oh, okay. This isn't a new location.
Sarah:Yeah. At first, you're like, does Elaine live in town? Does she has a house? Yeah. No.
Sarah:They rented it.
Mark:Because everybody lives in town.
Sarah:No. Some people live in Riverstone. Way out in Riverstone.
Mark:Where where the doctor has a practice.
Sarah:That's why he's driving back and picks Piggy. Up
Mark:How does Piggy get around?
Sarah:I think she took a bus
Mark:Maybe?
Sarah:And got off in Riverstone.
Mark:So one of the things they say at the concert is they have a new song and it's they're gonna sing it for Peggy. Do you remember what the song is called?
Sarah:Something about an angel falling.
Mark:No. That's the video that they watch Oh. That has
Sarah:The one that sounds so much like psychedelic furs.
Mark:Yeah. Do you think that guy, the young guy looks like him?
Sarah:No. No. He doesn't look like Richard Butler in the lead.
Mark:No. Look like
Sarah:James? Yeah. Oh, yeah. A little. Kinda.
Mark:They did a good job. Yeah. That guy hasn't done much. So the song that they have that they save for Peggy is the song. It's the animal song.
Mark:Now this is where the keyboardist who is in love with magic mushrooms Mhmm. Screws up.
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:And they do a really good job of that keyboardist is like totally out of it, but then when he talks to Peggy he sees her as a real person.
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:And I I like that scene where he's helping Peggy get up the tower. Yeah. Now as a drug addict he probably is like oh my gosh what did I do? Later on. But he screws up on a song.
Mark:Mhmm. And they're playing the song Animal. So the first line in the animal song, did you hear what that was?
Sarah:I wasn't paying him really attention to it.
Mark:The first line is we make maneuvers in the dark, which is kind of a
Sarah:on the maneuvers in the dark.
Mark:On the nose. You buy me. I want to be your animal. Now when you hear the word animal, what do you think of?
Sarah:Like a cat.
Mark:You think of it like a cat?
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:What about if I said animal in question?
Sarah:I don't know. What do you mean?
Mark:So he says, I wanna be your animal, You buy me because there's a two by two reference at the start
Sarah:of the song. Like Noah's Ark? Yeah. Okay.
Mark:You buy me. And then he says,
Sarah:and
Mark:it's low but it's in there. He goes, never your mineral.
Sarah:I wanna be your animal, never your mineral?
Mark:Never your mineral. You buy me and then he brings it home, I won't be your vegetable.
Sarah:Animal vegetable or mineral.
Mark:That is the lyrics of that's that's the chorus of animal.
Sarah:Wow. It's the beginning of a charades game. Yeah. It's
Mark:Or 20 questions or
Sarah:Animal vegetable or mineral has always struck me as stupid anyway because it leaves so many things out.
Mark:So it starts with Noah. The song is horrible. It starts with Noah's Ark and two by two and gets to To heights. With the animal mineral and vegetable.
Sarah:Nobody has said James is a good songwriter. He might write a lot of songs, but they're not good songs. He wrote one good song. Kristen makes a reference to the Dressler Clinic when they're talking about the scar and the possible lobotomy, which is a reference to season five episode four. Yes.
Sarah:The dark angel episode.
Mark:But she says even the Dressler clinic wouldn't do that.
Sarah:Yeah. But that is But they were doing cruel experimentation on people. So
Mark:That is not the reference that we refer to in the watch like a maniac question. The question we have is the episode two callbacks, which are the Dreschler Dreschler
Sarah:There are two callbacks. Two callbacks.
Mark:Dreschler Clinic and Brokenwood Motel, two locations. But one is impossible and I totally gaslit Sarah on this because She
Sarah:didn't mean to.
Mark:She was like, it's this. And I'm like, no. It's the Dreschler Clinic.
Sarah:No. It's the motel because it's a different motel.
Mark:It's a different motel that doesn't have a second Floor like the motel usually does. Right. Like in other motel scenes, it has a second floor.
Sarah:In the episode where the band comes to town and the lead singer dies with her guitar in the bathtub Yes. That's the Brokenwood Mystery And that's a building that has two floors at least, and this is a different one. Though this motel is in a lot of episodes.
Mark:Yes. And then the other question we asked about locales was what location has the most Broken Arrow posters, and how many are there in total? And that is Croc and Panther.
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:And I think we counted 17.
Sarah:Because the dressing room has a bunch too.
Mark:Yes. There's also a number of other posters in the bathroom. Did you pick up on any of these?
Sarah:I just noticed that they were there because I was so impressed with the fake vomit for Xanthe. She
Mark:fake vomits really well. That is some, like, class a chef's kiss fake vomit.
Sarah:Yeah. It's even, like, bile colored.
Mark:Yep.
Sarah:You shouldn't even know what color it is. Yeah. So
Mark:there's the Barnes brass band poster, but the one that I'm most interested in and what I would I have another question for you is, there's a poster for an open mic night.
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:Of all the people that we know who live in Brokenwood, who is performing on open mic night and what are they performing?
Sarah:I don't know.
Mark:Now we know, we know.
Sarah:There's the guy who does the Shakespeare stuff.
Mark:Yep. And we
Sarah:know And there's Gina. She likes karaoke.
Mark:We know Frodo can read music.
Sarah:Beep beep boop boop. I don't know.
Mark:My first thought is Todd playing some spoons.
Sarah:There's the ukulele band. We know about that now.
Mark:Yeah. Maybe the ukulele band can play.
Sarah:Mhmm. All I know is it's not gonna be good.
Mark:It's not.
Sarah:The open mic night.
Mark:Those open mic nights in small towns are
Sarah:At first I thought you were asking me because they were actually listed on the poster. Oh,
Mark:I wish.
Sarah:Oh, I don't know.
Mark:I wish. That would've been fantastic if they had listed them on the poster but no. I was just wondering who else we would see on open mic night. Maybe Reverend Green doing something?
Sarah:Maybe. Maybe he and Plummer do a duet.
Mark:They could play recorder, like a recorder duet.
Sarah:They could sing Islands in the Stream together.
Mark:Oh, they could.
Sarah:Or Ebony and I were here or something.
Mark:Now doesn't doesn't Todd sing with the guy when his wife is dead and they're doing like the memorial service? Doesn't Todd sing with him?
Sarah:I don't know. I I remember Todd singing.
Mark:At some point in time. So I thought Todd could play the spoons and sing.
Sarah:It'd be hard to sing and play the spoons at the
Mark:same time. Missus Baker would do like some karaoke. What would missus Baker Madonna.
Sarah:She'd she'd do like a virgin.
Mark:She'd do like a virgin. Yes, she would.
Sarah:With Gina as a backup singer. Like a virgin.
Mark:Touched for the very first time.
Sarah:What was that? I don't know. So we find out that Steve, who was the original guitarist
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:So the night that James and Peggy slept together way back when
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:James is like, get her out of here or whatever, and tells Steve to take her away. Yes. So Steve, who is a nice person apparently, puts her in the van and drives her off, and they dodge an an animal, not a vegetable
Mark:Not a vegetable or a mineral.
Sarah:In the in the street and have an accident where Steve dies. And that's where Peggy gets the head injury.
Mark:Yep.
Sarah:Now, the current guitarist, Nick, is Steve's son.
Mark:And I'm I'm gonna challenge you on something here, Sarah.
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:You said that Steve was a nice person or a good person.
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:No one teaches their child how to string a guitar like that who's a good person.
Sarah:Well, Nick would have been a baby.
Mark:I don't care.
Sarah:You think Steve should have started teaching him sooner?
Mark:Him, stringing that guitar is a crime against humanity.
Sarah:Clearly, the actor does not play guitar. No. No. Now you know how I feel whenever I see somebody knitting in a movie
Mark:or a TV If you know a guitar player and you wish to torture them, play them that scene with no music, no sound on, and they will end up screaming at the television
Sarah:show. That's not how you do it.
Mark:That's not how you do it.
Sarah:What was the name of that speaker company?
Mark:Mazabougie. Mazabougie. Mazabougie.
Sarah:That's not how you Mazabougie it. But that's where Peggy got her head injury, and I think we're supposed to believe that's why she is the way that she is.
Mark:I think
Sarah:Like, her mental issues started as result.
Mark:She was kind of crazy.
Sarah:I think she was just a groupie, though. Yeah. I think she was just infatuated.
Mark:I want I don't wanna say I don't wanna say crazy. I think that Peggy probably had issues before even being in love with James and the band that she struggled with. That is in no means reason to do anything that happened to her, And I don't think she's crazy. I think she has mental illness.
Sarah:Mhmm. But the head injury
Mark:Made it worse.
Sarah:Exacerbated things and resulted in her being hospitalized for forty years. Yes. She's been in an institution since.
Mark:Yes. So after that string moment we have the two hardest parts of the episode. Yeah. The first one is when Sims goes to talk to Xanthe because, wow, that is a difficult conversation and Sims screws it up.
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:Missus Baker's a mess.
Sarah:Because missus Baker sees Xanthe rush into the bathroom and throw up, and missus Baker just goes, morning sickness. Like, because that's the only reason why women ever throw up.
Mark:And poor Xanthi. I know she's the killer. Okay? But poor Xanthi now has to think in her head, oh my gosh. What if I actually was pregnant
Sarah:as well? I'm surprised she didn't run off and throw up again. I Just at the suggestion of it.
Mark:She certainly implies that she is not okay with that idea.
Sarah:But then Sims has the moment where all the pieces click.
Mark:Yes. And she says, he's old enough to be her father.
Sarah:And then everybody freezes. And looks at the floor. And their faces go,
Mark:oh, no. They realize what
Sarah:has happened. What has happened. Yep. Because that night when James had sex with Peggy way back when Peggy got pregnant and Xanthi is her daughter.
Mark:And James is her father.
Sarah:Now what are the chances? Xanthi gets put up for adoption that she meets James and, like, they've gotta be slim chances.
Mark:This is the piece that's missing. And I think it's probably missing because it's really hard to write in the sense that there is no reliable way in which they could have become working together and then lovers or in a relationship without it being for the story. Like, those things happen in stories and on television shows, but they don't happen in reality.
Sarah:In reality, New Zealand is small, but not that small.
Mark:It's not that small.
Sarah:And it's not like, well, somewhere in her psyche, she knew that that was her dad's
Mark:No. I'm very glad that they didn't that at all.
Sarah:Yeah. It's just sheer chance. Sheer horrible chance. So that's one problem with the plot. The other problem with the plot is this.
Sarah:So Xanthe lures Peggy to the Bell Tower with the promise that James is going to meet them there, and Peggy is gonna be able to tell James that Xanthi is his daughter and they can be a happy family together because Peggy's delusional. Right?
Mark:She can work front of the house.
Sarah:And so Xanthi has lured her up there to kill her. Right? The ladder is Ray's ladder. Yep. She puts it there, and Peggy's already up there with her book waiting for Xanthi and James to show up to have their wonderful family moment.
Sarah:Xanthi strangles Peggy and shoves her off the bell tower.
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:And as she falls, Ray and Trudy come out. So Xanthi is still up in the bell tower. Yes. Right? But Xanthi's gotta get down.
Sarah:Yes. And Ray and Trudy are right there.
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:And they don't hear the ladder.
Mark:They don't hear the ladder. They don't hear it climbing down.
Sarah:They would have. Like Ladders are notoriously loud, even rays.
Mark:Yep. And if like okay. So Ray calls he has a phone in his hand. He's calling the ambulance. Yep.
Mark:Okay? So we know let's let's be kind. Twenty minutes to get there. Let's say twenty minutes. Ray and Trudy aren't gonna go inside.
Mark:No. Trudy's gonna
Sarah:At least one of them is gonna be right there the whole time.
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:Now I know I believe that had she gotten down silently, Xanthi could have snuck back around You the cannot get out of bus. Come down that ladder silently. No way. And they would have been listening for what the hell happened. I think they would have seen her up there.
Mark:I think they would have
Sarah:seen her turned around and looked up to see where she came from.
Mark:And no one goes, where did you go after getting out of the van? She says
Sarah:She says she went to the graveyard.
Mark:To talk to
Sarah:To talk to James.
Mark:James. James would have challenged her alibi right away.
Sarah:She never says that in front of him, and they have to then tease that apart.
Mark:But then where did she go?
Sarah:After she kills Peggy, then she goes and confronts James, and they see them argue Paul sees them arguing. Yeah. And until then, she's just said she caught up with James and broke up with him. She doesn't say where, and James says, yeah, she talked to me and broke up with me. But neither of them says That's so
Mark:bad police work. They don't know where she is for a while.
Sarah:Yeah. That's so then they realize they don't know where she was because they assume that what she said was true.
Mark:How do you start that breakup conversation? James, we're done. No. No. Baby, I love you.
Mark:No. We're done.
Sarah:Because she does not tell
Mark:him She doesn't right tell him.
Sarah:No. Because if she had, he would have been like, oh, yeah, we are done. You're right. Get away from me.
Mark:I think she just says
Sarah:I've had enough of you. Like,
Mark:okay. So then they they confront her and she confesses. And then they go talk to James.
Sarah:Oh.
Mark:And that whole scene at the end is created so that actor can have that moment because he's a very good
Sarah:actor. Mhmm.
Mark:I think he does a super good job here.
Sarah:And Mike is right. This is gonna come out in court. And Mike had know this.
Mark:And Mike shows leadership that he had to But he does it.
Sarah:He doesn't send anybody else in. Yep. But they stand there outside that window that is not a one way mirror. I don't even know why they pretend that
Mark:it is.
Sarah:Nope. And they're standing there watching, and they can't hear, but they're watching.
Mark:And they see the moment where he has the realization. Like, he goes, well, first of all, he's like, why are you keeping me here? And Mike's like, we don't think you did the murder. He's like, oh, good.
Sarah:Didn't let me out. Xanthi did it. No, she didn't. Let us go.
Mark:Yeah. And she confessed, and then it comes out.
Sarah:This this show is really good at showing that Mike understands that you just ripped the Band Aid off.
Mark:You have to in that case.
Sarah:That in every case, when he tells somebody, I'm sorry, but they're dead. Like, just tells people Yeah. Because there's no good way to do it. No. So you just do it.
Sarah:Get it over with. Yeah. And I think Xanthi's reaction, when she tells Sims what happened and she says, you just you just don't get beyond this.
Mark:No. You can't come back from this.
Sarah:You can't come back from this.
Mark:Can't I will never come back from this.
Sarah:I can't imagine. Like, she's gonna go to prison and that's probably the best place for her because she'll probably get some therapy. She's gonna need a lot.
Mark:So let's go into what happens after the show because this is some good stuff and some bad stuff.
Sarah:James is finally gonna have to get a different job because once this comes out, he's not gonna be in public ever again, ever. And it's gonna come out.
Mark:And it's it's the most ironic because it's not his fault. No. Like, okay, she is younger than him, but men who are older date younger women.
Sarah:Especially rock stars and
Mark:millionaires and whatever. And there's nothing she's not 15.
Sarah:No. She's 40, almost 40. It's going to come out that that he has been sleeping with his daughter even though he didn't know that she was. It's not his fault that that happened, but it happened. And everybody's gonna know.
Sarah:And his daughter is a killer.
Mark:Who is the child of a woman who was in an institution for forty years that he completely forgot about.
Sarah:Yeah.
Mark:Yeah. Like, ugh.
Sarah:Some of that is his fault, some of it's not. He's done.
Mark:Again, he commits no crimes, and I would say he doesn't even come close to a moral challenge. Right? No.
Sarah:He did sleep with her and then go, god, get rid of her. You know?
Mark:Okay. Which he did forty years ago.
Sarah:Right.
Mark:Okay. Again, he finds out somebody's doing drugs in his band, he gets them out of the band.
Sarah:That's true.
Mark:Like like, I think I think that he is delusional, but well aware of his own personal delusions.
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:Like his biggest crime is he puts pictures of himself all over
Sarah:his hotel room. His biggest crime is the shirt that he's wearing under the black jacket that's like black lace.
Mark:Why do you have gloves and lacy shirts?
Sarah:It's just Dude, you've aged a bit since you were that person. But Yeah, he's never performing. The book is not gonna, well maybe it'll be a best seller. Because he's gonna be a tabloid sensation, that's for sure.
Mark:He may need to write a
Sarah:new foreword to that book though. His lawyer might need to Xanthi's write going to prison.
Mark:Which, you're right, is kind of the best place for her and she'll get some help there
Sarah:because She's gonna need a lot.
Mark:She needs a lot.
Sarah:Paul needs some help. He needs a job and a family and because he's been in love with the same person
Mark:Yep.
Sarah:Who is unattainable for forty years. He calls he calls Who he cannot help.
Mark:Yeah. Either he or James call Peggy a groupie, and I'm like, dude, you're a groupie in the band.
Sarah:Yeah. And, like, I hope the keyboardist gets some help, but, like, Nick, it's like, my dad died in a car accident.
Mark:He'll go and play in another band probably with the bass player. They should go form another band.
Sarah:I hope so. And just pretend they were never part of that revival band. Just we no. We played We played like two gigs. I don't know anything about that.
Sarah:Yeah, was there when it happened.
Mark:Bob Dylan's son has a very successful career that is not related to Bob Dylan in any way at all.
Sarah:Without being like a really gory murder Yeah. It is shocking. It is a gut punch. Yeah. Yeah.
Sarah:Yeah. It leaves you thinking devastating
Mark:Like, they don't even make a joke about it.
Sarah:It's not Xanthi's fault. It's not James' fault. It's not Peggy's fault. And the way that Xanthi reacts, the the like, she she kills Peggy. Peggy doesn't deserve that.
Sarah:No. But I don't know how you react to that. Yeah. Except just sit and stare at a wall with your jaw dropped. And throw
Mark:up with the bile. Yeah. I have in my notes, nice vomit.
Sarah:That's not a frequent note that you make. No. Nice vomit. Yep. Good job.
Sarah:Thank you for that. We needed it. Wow. So that is the ghost in so you. There's a scene The ghost in you is your father that you don't know I is your
Mark:did think about that. There's a scene
Sarah:It's kind of Oedipal. Sort of.
Mark:Yeah. There's a scene early on where she's driving, they're all in the van, and she has her head on James's shoulder. And I'm just like
Sarah:You don't know yet. If you can't tell Mark's making a nice vomit face. Yes. That's a Mesa Boogie face.
Mark:This will all come out in court. By the way, there's a long woman busking so that Frodo can leer
Sarah:at her.
Mark:The end scene.
Sarah:They really tried to, like, light note at the end maybe. Yep. Credits. Yep. Because what do you do after that?
Sarah:There's not a lot you can do. Yeah. Like, wow. Think about that. Anyhow, next week on Brokenwood.
Sarah:Yeah. Woah. Go to commercial. So there's this thing called Misex.
Mark:This is the difficult part of this whole season. It's it's not a low point because I think it's also brilliant. Mhmm. Right? That I I I think it hit It's a gut punch
Sarah:Yeah.
Mark:To you. But the rest of the episodes in this season are a little bit lighter, including number two, sudden death round, which takes trivia and high school and puts them together.
Sarah:With a little bit of Frodo dancing on tables. Yep. It's really fun.
Mark:It is it is such a blast.
Sarah:Some of the teams are better than others. Let's
Mark:just say that. And they we we wanna know your we'll we'll ask, but we wanna know what your trivia team is.
Sarah:Your name would be. Mesa Boogie. Oh, so that is The Ghost in You season 11 episode one of Brokenwood next week. Season eleven episode two, sudden death rounds.
Mark:Sarah, I'm doing a million things, including chapter nine of my novels comes out this week, and we're doing a question and answer after week 10. So there's all sorts of things coming up. If you sign up for more than six months at any level on my Patreon, you will now get a book. You will
Sarah:Like a physical book.
Mark:Get a physical book. I'm gonna take the money from the Patreon and and actually print books. I'll be at a two calf which is the Ann Arbor Comic Arts Festival, June thirteenth or fourteenth. They asked me back this year which was very nice of them and I'm gonna do a couple of things for them there. But I will be selling my comics and doing other things and getting ready for a kickstarter which I have a huge announcement for.
Mark:Like this is probably the biggest announcement in the history of my comic book company when I announce it.
Sarah:Wow.
Mark:It'll be fantastic. And the ladies hockey playoffs were all done. The PWHL playoffs, it was fantastic. And the other hockey playoffs are going on. So there's so much going on.
Mark:It's Q2. That's how we are.
Sarah:Check out Widows Bay and Weird in the Wade
Mark:Yes. Definitely.
Sarah:For some fun, and we will see you next week. 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.
Sarah:What's the psychedelic furs song about? Something falls like rain. Anyway, it sounds like that song.