Mystery Maniacs

🎙️ Episode: https://share.transistor.fm/s/7f43c590
📓 Show Notes: https://midsomermaniacs.transistor.fm/episodes/mystery-maniacs-cold-cases-midsomer-season-03-binge

Show Notes
This cold case covers our podcast for Season 4 of Midsomer Murders. 

Cold Cases
00:00 Intro
3:35 Episode 14 - "Garden of Death" - Neon Green Pasta, Badgers and  Rumpy Pumpy but not Scrumpy
1:19:47 Episode 15 - "Destroying Angel" - Punch in the Forest Denuding a Poisonous Mushroom
2:39:26 Episode 16 - "The Electric Vendetta" - Naked in a Crop Circle, a Bit of a Goer And Bin Man!
3:56:54 Episode 17 - "Who Killed Cock Robin?" A Tweed Geezer, A Useless Vicar and a New Zealand 
Teleporter
5:10:17 Episode 18 - "Dark Autumn" - The Upbeat Jazz Music Killer, Randy Postman and Leg of Lamb
6:32:37 Episode 19 - "Tainted Fruit" - A Memorial Drinks Party, Joan's Hole and the WI Mafia

Read Along With Us


If you've been listening to the show and want to dive into some actual fiction, this is your week.


Free preview chapters for both of Mark's serial novels are available right now. No credit card, no commitment. Just chapters. Go read them and tell us what you think.


And if you want to keep reading past the previews, the Patreon is open. Five dollars a month gets you one series. Eight gets you both. New chapters every week.


Free chapters - https://markbellauthor.substack.com/


Patreon link  - https://patreon.com/markbellauthor

Thanks again for listening!
 
Mark & Sarah

-----------------------------------
Upcoming Tentative  Schedule

  • August 31:     Mystery Maniacs - Clues and Reviews 8/31/26
  • September 2: Mystery Maniacs - Cold Cases - Midsomer Season 05 BINGE
  • September 2 - September Newsletter


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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.

Sarah:

Hey, Maniacs.

Mark:

Hey, Mystery Maniacs. It's Cold Case time again. Time to binge. Season four of Midsomer.

Sarah:

We have Garden of Death, Destroying Angel, The Electric Vendetta, Who Killed Cockrobin, Darth Vaunum, and Tidfruits.

Mark:

They're ripened by their own corruption.

Sarah:

I knew you would say that. It's the line of that episode.

Mark:

Banger. Banger. Banger. Banger. Banger.

Mark:

Banger. It's I think these are early two thousand two thousand one episodes. I think that because the other episodes were so popular, they have a six episode season.

Sarah:

We've got got Neil Dudgeon playing a character that isn't Barnaby.

Mark:

He's grumpy pumpy with the scrumpy. He's the lecherous gardener.

Sarah:

Yep. We've got a dude

Mark:

But but that storyline, the storyline with him being the gardener, part of our show of what happens after the show Yes. Because he inherits everything.

Sarah:

Yes. We've got, people being killed by wild boars Yes. After being tied to trees. Yep. We've got dueling.

Sarah:

Ben. Ben Man.

Mark:

And Dark Autumn, I've said several times, my favorite Midsomer episode.

Sarah:

It's so weird that that's your favorite. The music that he plays on his little boombox

Mark:

drives me freaking nuts.

Sarah:

I brain

Mark:

And he's like totally a psychopathic serial killer.

Sarah:

Absolutely. In my brain, though, that song morphs into the Mary Tyler Moore theme. Or is no. It's Dick Dike.

Mark:

Yes. It's Dick Van Dyke.

Sarah:

Yeah. Exactly. We didn't even practice that.

Mark:

Very good. Completely different songs.

Sarah:

But in my brain

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

They become one.

Mark:

So what is your

Sarah:

My Face Heart episode of this season is Electric Vendetta because not only does it have the best corpse, which just so happens to be naked, but it has Bin Man, the song the Bin Man song in it.

Mark:

It has the Bin Man song. My face hurts

Sarah:

thinking about it.

Mark:

The best corpse. We also make a sound at the beginning of the episode, which is the old guy getting electrocuted Oh, yeah. On the

Sarah:

wire. So it's I'm glad we amuse

Mark:

our people. Of strange sound. Outtakes. Yeah. Outtakes.

Mark:

Mhmm. I love Dardom because there is so much bonkers about that episode. We just point out all the bonkers parts of it.

Sarah:

That mailman in the dark just gets fucked. He's

Mark:

after being grabby McGrabberson.

Sarah:

Yeah. He's making his rounds. And it ends with rotten flukes. So The season ends with rotten flukes.

Mark:

It's funny. I've been listening to these episodes. I just finished one of them where we are ecstatic that we have 4,000 downloads.

Sarah:

Now we have almost a million.

Mark:

And now we have almost a million.

Sarah:

Well, it's been a while.

Mark:

But still.

Sarah:

Have fun listening to the Maniacs. Enjoy. Enjoy. We got like a reactor somewhere in here. What?

Sarah:

Which just made me think of like a nuclear reactor size still. Like Chernobyl would be very different if they were making Pumpy Yes. Instead of nuclear energy. Certainly knock

Mark:

out a few 15 year old girls.

Sarah:

Welcome to Midsomer Maniacs episode 14. Hey, Maniacs. And it's Halloween week. My favorite week of the year.

Mark:

The best holiday ever.

Sarah:

Ever. And we have a good episode.

Mark:

Oh, boy, do we.

Sarah:

Garden of Death, which is season four episode one of Midsomer Murders.

Mark:

Neil Dungeon.

Sarah:

Yeah. Neil.

Mark:

Creepers gotta creep, man.

Sarah:

That's Neil Dungeon's character in this episode and his becoming John Barnaby later causes such a conflict in my brain that it's hard to hold both of them at the same time.

Mark:

Yes. It is is because he's so skeezy. He's so very skeezy in this episode. This, before we begin, as always, if you let your kids watch the show, they should be fine to listen to this podcast. But if the show is too much for their kids and they're scrumpy, it's too much for them to listen to this podcast.

Sarah:

I don't know.

Mark:

This was, filmed in June, July 2000 and broadcast the 09/10/2000 with 7,650,000 viewers.

Sarah:

It's a good episode. We're we're well into that comfort zone of Midsomer craziness that we expect.

Mark:

Yeah. So this is the first episode of season four, and season four is just rich with craziness.

Sarah:

Full of insanity. Just the way we maniacs like it.

Mark:

And it has two brand new people at the helm. Peter Smith directs this, and Christopher Russell writes it. It's the first time for both of them and they do a great job.

Sarah:

So walk us through the cold opening.

Mark:

So the cold opening has the following in it. A wheelbarrow, which either sounds like it's farting or squeaking.

Sarah:

It sounds a bit like our dog, really.

Mark:

It does. It does.

Sarah:

Our dog kind of She's a bulldog. That's what they sound like.

Mark:

Yep. And there's body in the wheelbarrow, and it gets dumped in the hole. And we know that it's a woman who gets dumped in the hole.

Sarah:

In a bad pantsuit. In a bad well,

Mark:

we'll get to the clothing worn in that particular scene later on.

Sarah:

And, of course, we're gonna spoil everything. We've expected that you have watched this episode before and maybe even rewatched it recently. So it's not a big secret that that's a flashback. Right?

Mark:

That's a flashback. I think this might be our first episode with multiple killers. Yeah. Because there's two killers that both kill two people.

Sarah:

Yeah. At least current day killers in the day of the episode. They're both killers. Definitely. Yeah.

Sarah:

We're in Midsomer Devril named after one of the leading families in Midsomer Devril, the Devril's. Big, big surprise. Right? So we have Augustus Devril and his son, Richard. And then the other big family in Midsomer Devril are the ink pens.

Mark:

I think the LinkedIns, the Stink Pens. I think of all these funny names for them because it's kind of a silly made up name to me, but I don't know if it's a British name, but I don't know if graphite pencil's another person. We

Sarah:

are the esteemed graphite pencil family. I just wanna call them Bic.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Like, they're

Mark:

the ink pen.

Sarah:

They're the Bics, the roller balls. I don't know. So we've got Naomi Ink Pen, who's the matriarch, the grandmother, her daughter, Elspeth Ink Pen, and her daughter, Fliss Ink Pen. So we have three generations.

Mark:

By the way, if you're working on this at home, we really do need a family tree for this episode because the intricacies of what goes on are pretty complicated.

Sarah:

Mhmm. So we've got Naomi, Elspeth, and Fliss. Yes. And then Hillary Inkpin, who's the sidekick Cinderella character, who was put up for adoption by Elspeth when she was born, but is now back.

Mark:

So I have a question, English major, PhD type person. That's me. She would be a bastard if she was a man. What is she if she's a woman?

Sarah:

She's still a bastard.

Mark:

She's just a bastard too? Yep. Okay. Yeah. It drives her insane.

Sarah:

In the British royal family, they refer to female children not of the marriage as bastard.

Mark:

So she's a bastard. And at the beginning, we don't know who her her parentage is other than Elsipeth.

Sarah:

Elsipeth. Elsipeth.

Mark:

Not Beth.

Sarah:

Beth. You have a problem with that p, don't you? I do. And Fliss is actually Felicity, But that's not an uppity enough name. So she's gotta be Fliss.

Sarah:

Fliss. Said like a snake.

Mark:

Well, she goes down like

Sarah:

a sack of potatoes. So What I love is that later they call Hillary half an ink pen. She's as much half an ink pen as Fliss is. Yes. Mean, they all only have one ink pen parent unless there's some weirdness, Badger's Drip stuff going on.

Sarah:

They've only got one ink pen parent, all of them.

Mark:

You never know what Augustus was doing in Badger's Drip.

Sarah:

Well, yeah, I've got some ideas about that. So we have this conflict. We know we're gonna get into that, but that's how we start, right? As we know we've got this ink pen family, they've got the ink pen gardens at the manor, the manor gardens, that they're selling admission to. And apparently, it attracts parents of the most unruly, messy, screaming children ever.

Mark:

Oh my god. Those kids just drop a whole bunch of trash. I I I almost got my gun after polishing my golf clubs. I don't have a gun, but I do have golf clubs.

Sarah:

Because that's what you do when you need an an outing with your unruly misbehaving kids. You take them to a boring garden.

Mark:

And it charges a lot of money for them. £5.40 for an adult. And then it it like, all those kids probably were £1.50. It's just a lot of money.

Sarah:

That's almost like £15 for a family.

Mark:

Oh, well, a family is 12 a family of at least four is only £12. I read all the signs that

Sarah:

You did.

Mark:

Prebook party rate is for 15 or more, but you have to prebook is £3.95.

Sarah:

Wow. You looked really closely, didn't you, at Elspeth in her little booth?

Mark:

The best part of all the signs was it's in very small type on the first sign, which is outside, which says no public access at other times except for by appointment because it's closed Eastern and Christmas.

Sarah:

Because that's where you wanna go in the winter,

Mark:

isn't Well, the winter, it's only open on the weekends.

Sarah:

They have no parking lot. No. No. They're on a little tiny lane which makes the neighbors angry.

Mark:

And Tom, Tom makes a mention of no decent parking.

Sarah:

So of course, Joyce wants to go there. Right? Because it's a boiling pot of tension. So Joyce has to be in the middle of it in her lime green outfit.

Mark:

Oh boy, let's go get hit on by the gardener.

Sarah:

We've got all these cars in the street. We've got screaming kids. And of course this makes the neighbor across the street super pissed off. His name is Rodney Widger and he is a Widger that suits him very well.

Mark:

He he is.

Sarah:

And he comes, he comes out with his shotgun, shoots the tires out on one of cars and says next time it'll be one of those bitches.

Mark:

Hold yeah. Wow. He takes it to eleven, but it kind of implies before that, that the shooting is happening and we don't know if he's shooting people. Right?

Sarah:

Right. Because all the old age pensioners are running for their lives.

Mark:

Like it looks like a mass shooting at first. And of course, Barnaby, who is courageous, runs towards the problem, not away from the problem. Even though he isn't armed. He is not armed.

Sarah:

He leaves Joyce by the sundial.

Mark:

Yes. He does.

Sarah:

Makes a run for it to go

Mark:

see if got good. Someone can talk to Joyce about bedding plans. Yes. The white bedder. And then Joyce just gives up their address

Sarah:

like, oh, yeah. She's like, hey, stranger. Here's where I live. Come and see me sometime. Bring some plants.

Sarah:

Hey. Hey. Hey. You know, Tom's away a lot.

Mark:

This is tiny. But Elizabeth in the booth has a box of book of of, guides behind her. A full unopened box.

Sarah:

Yeah. But then Hillary has a box and she's like, we're almost out out in the booth. Take them

Mark:

out there, slave. They're not almost out. They clearly have a whole box.

Sarah:

She just wants to boss around Hillary.

Mark:

Yes. So the shooting starts.

Sarah:

The shooting starts, and Tom finds Rodney and rustles the gun away from him and arrests him.

Mark:

He

Sarah:

He's not shot the tires out of the ink pen's car. He shot the tires out of some poor punter's car.

Mark:

And when he says the bitch thing, like, immediately, you look at Tom's face and you're like, Oh, Rodney, you just said the wrong thing. His

Sarah:

collar may be unbuttoned, but Tom is never off work. Yes. That's not gonna be good for him. We also find out that Joyce is getting organic meat from Desmond Cox, the super gossipy grocer.

Mark:

That Tom doesn't even notice they're on organic.

Sarah:

No. But Desmond has filled Joyce in on the whole background of Ink Pen Manor that they lost it. The ink pens fell on hard times and had to sell.

Mark:

Yeah. Like, Joyce knows everything.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah. Because Desmond's filled her in because he's a super gossip grocer that they had to sell it to the Bennett's. And they've just recently, like, the last few years, bought it back, and they've opened it to the public for the gardens.

Mark:

You know what should be on the signs for the gardens? Inkpin Manor or the house where everybody hates everybody else in the house. Because they all hate each other.

Sarah:

They do. They

Mark:

do. Especially when they're fornicating pole cats. They're all as bad as one another too. I can't believe the mother, Elsipeth, and Fliss are both doing the gardener.

Sarah:

Yeah. I don't know what Fliss has to do with the gardener. Daniel Bolt is his name. Daniel Creeper McReeperson. Played by Neil Dudgeon, of course.

Mark:

The hand that enters the frame. That is not okay. Just a hint. If you're trying to entice a young lady

Sarah:

Don't reach for her throat. Don't reach for her throat. When she doesn't know you're there.

Mark:

Especially when she's a homicidal maniac.

Sarah:

Well, he doesn't know that yet. Desmond Cox, the super gossip grocer, has a weird nose.

Mark:

It's like he has plasticine stuck on the end of his nose.

Sarah:

Yeah. Our our kids thought it might have been a fake nose, like a prosthetic nose, but it's not.

Mark:

I think his nose might be a little red from a little tipsy.

Sarah:

I don't know. His name the actor's name is Raymond Bowers. He was in lots and lots of things. He longtime actor.

Mark:

But his the makeup on his nose is wrong. Every single scene, it looks wrong. So we're also introduced to another family here. Mhmm. Right?

Mark:

So Hillard, sorry, Gerald and Jane

Sarah:

Bennett. Bennett. Who owned the house for a short period of time. Bennett is a botanist and gardener, and he revamped the gardens for the whole manor, including building a memorial garden that he then granted access and perpetuity to the village. Then they sold the manor back to the ink pens.

Mark:

Yes. Luckily, he has a big red book that explains all this.

Sarah:

Yes. The big red book of explaining. Gerald's got that.

Mark:

Jane is his daughter, and Jane spends the entirety of this episode on edge mostly because her murder

Sarah:

Is about to be dug up.

Mark:

The the murder that she did is about to be dug up. This is an excellent inciting incident. Yeah. Like like, this is I got away with murder of my mother for reasons we'll get into for years. And now that I've finally calmed down, they're digging up the damn memorial for a tea shop.

Sarah:

It's just

Mark:

vandalism. Tom would like the tea shop though because he wants some tea.

Sarah:

Yeah. He's thirst well, you know, you get thirsty when you're wrestling Rodney Widgered to the ground. I guess so. Taking away his gun. So Daniel Bolt is the gardener for the ink pens.

Sarah:

He maintains the gardens and he has a greenhouse with a secret.

Mark:

He's mixing up some medicine.

Sarah:

Yeah. He's making hooch and

Mark:

selling He's done with bits in it. It looks like, okay, it looks bad.

Sarah:

It looks very bad. It it's not something I would drink.

Mark:

And Michael and Dean, played by Dean and Michael

Sarah:

Yeah. So

Mark:

the actors who play the two kids are the characters' names are Michael and Dean, and the actors' names are Dean and Michael.

Sarah:

Yes. Dean plays Michael, and Michael plays Dean.

Mark:

They're clearly having some fun here.

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah. And I gotta tell you, Dean Bachelor, who plays Michael, this was his last acting gig because he decided to go to college.

Mark:

You know what I was thinking? That those guys are, like, 18. So now they're essentially 37. Ugh. Those guys are going into their forties.

Sarah:

Ugh. Ugh. I'm so old. Thanks for that.

Mark:

Another skeezy thing we find out about the gardener is he tried to give someone that he well, he succeeded in giving some of this to their sister who's 15.

Sarah:

Yeah. So he not only is he the letch, but he may be a pedo too.

Mark:

Don't ride your bikes afterwards. Yeah. I'm like, don't go blind afterwards. Really?

Sarah:

And he comes out of the greenhouse to say no, he won't sell it to them, but he brings a bottle with him.

Mark:

Yeah, he doesn't get any money for it.

Sarah:

No, he gives it to them.

Mark:

He just gives it to them.

Sarah:

I don't know, does he get a secret thrill out of seeing kids drunk?

Mark:

I I do not know.

Sarah:

I don't understand his motivations at all ever until we get to the will anyway. So Jane sees that the memorial garden is closed and there's some stuff in there that suggests that maybe some work is gonna be done.

Mark:

Uh-oh, maybe, you know what we need to have? A shovel. No, need A to have a village

Sarah:

tiny cement mixer?

Mark:

No, a village meeting. A wheelbarrow? No. A dead mother?

Sarah:

No. I love it. So when Desmond Cox and the rest of the townies come to Inkpin Manor to remind Elspeth about the meeting, she's like, oh, no. Rustic's approaching.

Mark:

She should say And they all walk up just like the scene in

Sarah:

Hot Fuzz.

Mark:

Hot Fuzz where they all walk up to the door too.

Sarah:

She should say, oh, no. Here comes the super gossip grocer with the fake nose with a flyer.

Mark:

So the meeting is at 07:30. Now the posters for the meeting that are in mister Cox's shop don't have a day on them, So they must have just put them up and decided on the meeting today.

Sarah:

That's why they've gotta remind Elspeth when it is.

Mark:

The rustic's approach.

Sarah:

Because the flyers don't tell you.

Mark:

The peasants are revolting, and that's just from a distance.

Sarah:

That's just the way they smell. Yeah. Hillary has been there at Inkpin Manor for about two years.

Mark:

And as far as we can tell, Phyllis has done nothing but annoy the crap out of her.

Sarah:

Beyond annoying. She's a bully. She she's She is mean.

Mark:

She's a mean drunk. Wait a minute. Her mother's a mean drunk. Wait a minute. Her grandmother's a mean drunk.

Mark:

They're all mean drunks.

Sarah:

Let's talk about Hillary for a second, though. Yep. Because she's played by Victoria Hamilton.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Who is an actress onto her own. She's in this great show called In the Game. If you haven't seen it, it's got Brian Cox in it. It's about MI5 during the It's super good. But she is married to and has been married to for a long time, Mark Baisley, who you know better as Gray Patterson.

Sarah:

Gray Patterson is her husband? Faithful unto death.

Mark:

Well, he's bonking everybody in sight,

Sarah:

so

Mark:

Gray Patterson.

Sarah:

She she's she just plays this kind of mousy, quiet now not all of her roles are like that, but I would say about half of her roles

Mark:

are like

Sarah:

that. And the one role we know of him is just as a I mean, he's a gigolo,

Mark:

She plays that whole mousy thing up so well She does really So that when in the climax of the show, she gets angry, it really comes across.

Sarah:

It's believable. Yeah. Yeah. So Joyce, of course, wants to go to the public meeting because she's got to put her head into everything that's not her business.

Mark:

Why does Joyce want to go to this public meeting?

Sarah:

She can vote.

Mark:

It's just

Sarah:

They don't live there.

Mark:

Why does she live there. And Joyce is like, let's sit front and center almost.

Sarah:

For Tom, Harley gets a day off. And when he does, he has to go to a boring garden with no tea shop, arrest a guy, and then go to a public meeting. That's not a good day off.

Mark:

It's it's not. And but Troy shows up.

Sarah:

Because he drew the short straw and has the public service job.

Mark:

Has to deal with. Yeah.

Sarah:

He has to be there to make sure that it doesn't get out of control. Don't we don't know at this point whether Augustus is a jerk or not. Augustus Deverall.

Mark:

We know he's not all that nice to his son, but we don't know if he's a jerk or not.

Sarah:

Because he might have a reason at this point. He might have a reason to be jerky to Richard. We don't does. Man, does he lay the smack down on Naomi at

Mark:

the meeting. Naomi is like, if you were a gentleman, you would move so I could sit with my daughter. And he's like, if you were a lady, I'd move. Oh. And then he goes, you could sit further back.

Mark:

And she's like, I've never sat further back.

Sarah:

He should just mic drop. She's mad, mad, mad, mad. Naomi Inkpin is played by Margaret Tizak. Tizak? Yep.

Sarah:

I wanna say her name is Tizak.

Mark:

She is, I think, she might be the best actress in this episode. Great. She's fantastic.

Sarah:

She's also in Small Mercies in 2,009, another Midsomer.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

But this is here's what I didn't know. She's in A Clockwork Orange. Woah. She's in 2001.

Mark:

What part is she in 2001?

Sarah:

Elena. She's on the space station and everything.

Mark:

She's on the space station. That oh my gosh. Yeah. I so wanna hear stories from this woman.

Sarah:

Yeah. And she's in this awesome movie from 1978 called The Legacy.

Mark:

Well, of course, I know everything about The Legacy.

Sarah:

Of course, you do. God.

Mark:

Because as a child in the in the seventies, I remember seeing Legacy commercials and being like, I need to see this movie right away.

Sarah:

It is not appropriate for children. But she's great. You're right. I mean, she right off the bat, you know, she is a bitch on wheels. She's having none of it.

Sarah:

No. And you do not you do not talk to her like that.

Mark:

So Jane talks and then Elsa Peth talks, and she calls it a NAF garden. Yeah. So NAF, I had to look that up.

Sarah:

Oh, you've never heard naff before?

Mark:

No. No good or tacky, especially from an upper level person saying it about a lower level person.

Sarah:

Like, more most of Joyce's home decorating is pretty naff.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

Her hair is kinda naff too.

Mark:

And everyone freaks But wait. Everyone freaks out a little bit more, and and the who's the lady who's running the thing? Susan. Susan. That's right.

Mark:

She oh, duh. She's she's got a little speaker of the house going

Sarah:

on there. She needs that stick.

Mark:

Troy shows up. The drunken kids knock over the table that is about to fall over already. Like, they barely touch that table, and it collapses.

Sarah:

It is not a good table. Yeah. So Susan Millard is running the meeting. Yeah. Right?

Sarah:

And she's the vicar's wife. So I guess she got picked to run the meeting because she can keep peace, I suppose. Cause they know it's gonna be a pretty contentious meeting. Elspeth's whole opinion is just that it's our land. We can do whatever we want.

Mark:

So up.

Sarah:

She's right, but that's not the way to say it.

Mark:

No. Well, she certainly pisses off. What's her name? Susan. Right?

Mark:

Because when goes outside and is talking to the gardener, Susan's in the background giving her the look of death.

Sarah:

Well, she's listening. She's like her head is shaking. You can't see the face that Mark is making behind his mic, but he's trying to bug his eyes out. But her head

Mark:

is actually Maybe

Sarah:

we'll make a little GIF of you doing that. This is my Susan face. Susan Millard's played by Anna Calder Marshall, who is married to David Burke, who plays Watson in the Jeremy Brett, Sherlock Holmes

Mark:

episodes.

Sarah:

He also Is

Mark:

he the first Watson or the second Watson?

Sarah:

The first one. He also plays John Farrow in Midsomer Rhapsody.

Mark:

Yes. That's right.

Sarah:

Who's the dad that comes back?

Mark:

That's right. And he's in Poirot

Sarah:

with the the pool. Yes. But her son, speaking of Poirot, is Tom Burke, who plays Cormoran Strike, and he's lieutenant race in the Poirot episode, the clock. But when you get, I love the holes I fall into, right? So I look up these actors and I'm like, yeah, they were all in the bill.

Sarah:

Yeah, Coronation Street. Yeah, EastEnders. Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever, whatever, whatever. Because there's so many parts that people like this play. Yeah, absolutely.

Sarah:

They're like short bit parts on lots and lots of shows. But Anna Calder Marshall was in a fantastic movie that I bet you've never seen. Okay, I'm gonna bet you.

Mark:

We'll see.

Sarah:

Because I can't believe you've seen the legacy. Have you seen Pussycat Pussycat I Love You from 1970?

Mark:

So Pussycat Pussycat I Love You from 1970 was where the song come from. Right? It's a song it's a soundtrack movie, from Tom Jones did the soundtrack. Yeah. And it was a huge hit that song.

Mark:

Yeah. I saw that movie when I was maybe eleven or twelve in the afternoon movie on a Saturday or Sunday. I remember it was English. I don't know anything else.

Sarah:

It stars Ian McShane.

Mark:

Oh my gosh.

Sarah:

It's love joy.

Mark:

Oh, wow.

Sarah:

And she plays his wife.

Mark:

Oh, well.

Sarah:

And then there are all these other half naked ladies.

Mark:

That's why I remember it.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah. I bet. All of the movie posters are of a big bed covered in half naked women and Ian McShane in a suit.

Mark:

I I definitely know why

Sarah:

I love a gorilla

Mark:

in a mark like this movie.

Sarah:

There's also a gorilla in a bikini. That's right. Anna Carter Marshall is like, you know, Ian McShane is the star and she's second.

Mark:

Okay. Wow.

Sarah:

In that movie. So there's all these pictures of her with, oh my gosh, what's her name? Joanne Lumley

Mark:

Is from Ab she in that movie?

Sarah:

Yes.

Mark:

Wow, dude.

Sarah:

All of these older women British actresses that you think, oh, they're older now, but I know they were really beautiful when they were young. They're all in that movie and they're all undressed in bathtubs and all kinds of weird stuff. Of course

Mark:

you like it. We need to watch that

Sarah:

movie again. Not with the kids around, I'm telling you. And look serious.

Mark:

So who doesn't go to the meeting? Fliss and Hillary.

Sarah:

Right. Because they stay behind so Fliss can bully Hillary and make her miserable.

Mark:

And the killer can arrive with shoulder shovel cam. The shovel that's used to kill Fliss is approaching her at an angle that it would be like if you were holding a rifle. Like, it's way high in the air.

Sarah:

More like if you were shooting pool but standing straight up Yes. Instead of bending over the table.

Mark:

And black gloves. Because someone one of our one of the people online who who follow us said that it's if they stop selling black gloves in mid summer, there would be no more killings. I'm like, right there.

Sarah:

So Yeah. It is shovel cam, definitely. And it even kind of wavers like it's coming in. Oh, it's coming in for a red and the bonk. Yep.

Sarah:

And then Fliss goes over.

Mark:

Fliss is dead into the into the dirt.

Sarah:

And Sarah Alexander, plays Fliss, she has such beautiful, fantastic eyes. Her eyes are like half of her face. Yeah. So she goes down in that sand with her eyes open and it's dramatic. Yeah.

Sarah:

They could have done with like a little trickle of blood across her face or something. Something. She looks a little too whole. Yeah. But the sand landing, think is good.

Sarah:

Yeah. I give it a thumbs up.

Mark:

So what happens next really confused me.

Sarah:

Okay.

Mark:

Because the next morning, but I didn't realize it was the next morning. I thought it was just after the meeting.

Sarah:

No. It's the next morning because Susan's out with her dog for their morning walk.

Mark:

Because Susan had changed clothes. I double checked this. Yeah. And I was like, wait a minute. Like, is Susan go home and change clothes?

Mark:

No. No. Then Crispin is a bad dog, much like every other dog on this show that never comes when they're called. Well, Crispin has a superpower. Oh, he does?

Sarah:

He can sense dead bodies from a quarter He's mile very good at it. Yeah. He's like over the river and through the woods and peels off to run away from Susan because he's like, hark. In the distance, I smell a dead body. I must go find it.

Sarah:

And he's gone.

Mark:

So let's get this timeline straight. Elsa Beth goes to the meeting with her mother. Yes. They come home. Yes.

Mark:

Have something to drink. Yes. Yell at Hillary.

Sarah:

Yes. Go to bed. Right. And they don't know where Fliss is.

Mark:

Tired night goes on. Right. They have no idea where Fliss is.

Sarah:

Well, they don't look for her.

Mark:

They wake up in the morning. Fliss, Fliss, whatever.

Sarah:

They're probably glad that she's not around

Mark:

that evening.

Sarah:

They not

Mark:

notice that she was gone? No. Plus, how far away is this memorial garden from the house?

Sarah:

Far enough away that you wouldn't see it from a window. Have no problem with them not noticing she's gone that evening. Were probably grateful that she was out of their hair. And the way she drinks, she probably crashes out early quite often.

Mark:

I was kind of weirded out by it.

Sarah:

So she's dead in the memorial garden overnight, hence the snails.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

I love that.

Mark:

Tom and Troy show up or does Tom because somebody does a hand close-up here.

Sarah:

So This was so much controversy in our house.

Mark:

What? We have not discussed this issue yet. It is thought that Tom that that John Nettles has long fingernails on his right hand and short fingernails on his left hand because he plays guitar. I've run into lots of people who finger pick guitar. This is what they have.

Mark:

They have long, strong fingernails on their right hand and short fingernails on their left hand. It's common. We know that Tom plays guitar because in the axe man cometh, he plays guitar with the axe man.

Sarah:

So we know John Nettles actually knows how to play guitar.

Mark:

He actually knows how to play guitar and Tom the character knows how to play guitar. Mhmm. Okay. It's quite a controversy online, but there is one giant dirty fingernail right there

Sarah:

Yeah. On the thumb. The hand comes down with no gloves on. Yep. To pick up the one piece of forensic evidence And with no gloves it's minuscule, it's the corner of a page and we see it's his left hand, his ring is on it and his thumb has a long dirty thumbnail on it.

Mark:

And this caused so much constitution in our house last night.

Sarah:

One of our kids is absolutely sure that that's a stunt hand. It's a hand double.

Mark:

So we well, we just need to get Barnaby on the show so we can ask him if he has a stunt double for his hands.

Sarah:

Yeah. And we just need to say, John Nettles, sir, can we see your thumbs?

Mark:

Well, we wished him happy birthday last week. So

Sarah:

The least he could do is come on the show. Yeah. Before he gets to the crime scene though, Joyce is obsessed. She he gets a phone call and she doesn't even stop talking. She's like gardening, gardening, plant, plant, garden, garden, plant, plant.

Sarah:

He's on the phone. Oh, there's a dead body. I should come to the scene. And she's like gardening, gardening, plant, plant, plant.

Mark:

My new boyfriend's gonna bring over some bedders.

Sarah:

I've never seen her so obsessive.

Mark:

She's like totally into it.

Sarah:

And they're gonna get some forensics off that piece of paper, even though Tom just picks it up with his hand. We we have this whole suspicion. Right? Because at the end of the village meeting, Daniel Bolt leaves.

Mark:

I'm a gardener, and I'm going back to the garden.

Sarah:

And Elspeth says, there must be someone in the village you haven't slept with yet. While Susan stares eyes. So now there's a body in the garden who must have done it, but the gardener.

Mark:

But Elsabeth didn't follow him because she doesn't follow men. She just bonks everybody of age.

Sarah:

Oh, really just him because he speaks a Latin No. Plant names to her.

Mark:

He also bonks, she also bonks the, Augustus' son.

Sarah:

Richard. But that was when they were little. When they were young young.

Mark:

I hope not little.

Sarah:

Well, when they were young. Twenty five years ago. Twenty eight years ago. Still. Yes.

Sarah:

She has had sex with more than one person.

Mark:

She's a goer.

Sarah:

You're right.

Mark:

Not as much as Jane's mom, but Right. We'll get to that.

Sarah:

So we we wanna make Neil Dudgen, Daniel Bolt, look as revolting as possible. How can we do that? We've already hinted that maybe he likes 15 year old girls. We've already seen that maybe he slept with Elspeth and Fliss. He makes hooch.

Sarah:

I know. Let's make it look like he's peeing.

Mark:

Yeah. Why did they do that?

Sarah:

I don't know.

Mark:

And one thing I noticed right away is in this scene, because it's a close-up, Troy looks a little older here. He's grown a little.

Sarah:

He's smart in this episode too. Yeah. He is. They let him be smart.

Mark:

Troy is obviously, you know, they're they're saying he can't be just a complete babe in the woods anymore. No. He has some good ideas here.

Sarah:

He's putting some things together. But Daniel says it's not hooch, it's insecticide.

Mark:

Do you get them drunk with it?

Sarah:

I'm just a gardener, I'm not a ladies' man.

Mark:

Oh, how I loved her.

Sarah:

We just make him look so nasty.

Mark:

Elspeth is going nuts.

Sarah:

Yeah. All legitimately the the sad.

Mark:

Nuts. She's sad. Yeah.

Sarah:

But meanwhile, her mother has no truck with it. Like No. Oh, please stop your crying.

Mark:

Just has no truck with it at all.

Sarah:

Are am I allowed to cry? My daughter just got murdered in our yard. No. Inkpins don't weep like that.

Mark:

Barnaby talks to Hillary in the garden, in the garden near the bridge with the long spitting face.

Sarah:

It's a green man.

Mark:

It's a green man.

Sarah:

Fountain. Yep. Into an ornamental pond.

Mark:

It's it's well done, but I could not cake my eyes off of this.

Sarah:

It's gorgeous. It's all mossy and perfect.

Mark:

And you know who else is out there in the water? Shovel. The friends of the White Stick Brigade. The frogmen. It is the frogmen with their blue overalls.

Sarah:

And they found

Mark:

a shovel. A shovel.

Sarah:

Can you imagine a manor this old with an ornamental pond there for that long, the crap that must be in the bottom of

Mark:

that You might find Roman crap in the bottom

Sarah:

of I mean, that you might find an ink pen in that bog. Exactly. Did they find a shovel, which I can only assume they knew they were sort of looking for because they knew it was a blunt instrument. She was killed in the garden. And as we know, there were some construction equipment in that garden to suggest that maybe something was gonna be done there.

Mark:

Who knows how Elsipith's husband died?

Sarah:

He ran off.

Mark:

Oh, that's right. He left. Well, so did Jane's mother.

Sarah:

That's true.

Mark:

So now there there's this great scene where Naomi's looking out the window here and Barnaby is talking to her and she just ignores him.

Sarah:

She's certainly not gonna turn her head and look at him.

Mark:

And then is completely rude to him and Barnaby takes a moment because at first, he's ready to rail into her. He takes a moment and talks to her. And then she goes, we do not reduce our numbers from within.

Sarah:

Because we're an endangered species for a reason. Pastel will take you down. You're all nasty. So Tom goes to see Jane and he's got a really good point, right? The fact that Fliss was killed in the memorial Garden is bound to slow the construction project down.

Mark:

Of course it

Sarah:

And who wants it slowed down?

Mark:

Jane. Jane does. She really wants it slowed down.

Sarah:

She doesn't want her murder uncovered. So if anybody was gonna kill Phyllis in the garden for that reason, it would be Jane, right?

Mark:

Yep. And we find out that Jane's dad, Gerald, his wife has been missing. She's a missing person.

Sarah:

Right. She took all of her clothes and everything.

Mark:

She's in the memorial garden. Just saying.

Sarah:

He thinks she ran off. We know she's in the ground. That was her body at the beginning of the episode in the cold opening.

Mark:

He loves her. You can tell he loves her still.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

And he feels that she was fed up for being second fiddle to snapdragons.

Sarah:

He seems like a genuinely kind man.

Mark:

He does. He's actually one of the only kind people in this episode. Yes. Yes. And he likes football, which Troy likes.

Sarah:

He's surrounded by jerks. Speaking of jerks,

Mark:

I have to go pee.

Sarah:

Well, you'll have to run all the way home because we don't unlock the bathrooms here at the village hall.

Mark:

For men.

Sarah:

Do you have a prostate?

Mark:

No. I have cystitis. Rodney Widger is such a And we noticed, Sarah noticed this, and then we couldn't stop noticing it. There are pictures of naked ladies all over that house.

Sarah:

All over in his kitchen, right next to his breakfast table. He's got a naked lady.

Mark:

Maybe he's in. And What's new pussy cat?

Sarah:

Pussy cat. Pussy cat. I love you. In the hallway, there's a naked lady. In study, there's a naked lady.

Mark:

Actually, I think that may be a sequel to what's new pussycat. Nakedly? No. Pussycat, pussycat, where are you?

Sarah:

I love you.

Mark:

Yeah. I think it might be a sequel.

Sarah:

Think they're a late. Yeah. They both have pussycats.

Mark:

And and songs by Tom Jones.

Sarah:

Rodney Woodruff's wife should just hit him with that vacuum until he's unconscious.

Mark:

Like, wow.

Sarah:

Not only does he wear plaid pants and a silk jacket that don't match. He's got this like two inch wide, epically fake gold watch, a weird perm hairpiece, something, naked ladies all over his house.

Mark:

And he really needs to go to the bathroom.

Sarah:

But he doesn't have a prostate.

Mark:

No. I beg to differ Jeremy. Rodney, you do in fact

Sarah:

have a prostate. Yes. It's well established that he's a jerk that he left the meeting in the middle because he had to pee and he had to go all the way home to do it because Susan doesn't unlock the bathrooms. He wasn't at the meeting so he doesn't have an album.

Mark:

But it's clear that he was he was left the meeting because he was pissed, not because he needed to be pissed.

Sarah:

He was mad for sure.

Mark:

So back to the Inkpan Manor where Hillary, not Hillary, where Naomi. Naomi is explaining how everything is their fault.

Sarah:

Because if Elspeth goes around raising two fingers to the village, she does so when she's not raising her skirts.

Mark:

Yes. And she has the Noblesse Oblige

Sarah:

of a fish wife in a brothel. So Elspeth's just gonna leave and go to the vicarage. Who cares?

Mark:

For those of us who don't know what Noblesse Oblige is, what is it?

Sarah:

It's the permission or the rights of nobles.

Mark:

It is the act of generosity towards the less privileged.

Sarah:

Right. That's their responsibility. Yes. They don't show it. We're rich,

Mark:

so we have to help the poor. So

Sarah:

let me get this straight. This is the second time that Naomi has insinuated that her daughter and maybe her granddaughter are loose women. Yes. And yet, we're gonna find out really soon that Naomi is the one who has been blackmailing the Deverals because her daughter has an illegitimate child with Richard Devril. Just because She's willing to take in money because her daughter's loose.

Sarah:

But now it's a bad thing.

Mark:

Just because my daughter and my granddaughter are sluts doesn't mean I can't profit from this.

Sarah:

That's true. But only when they one of them is slutty with somebody of equal value.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Right?

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

She can't blackmail anybody for Bolt.

Mark:

He sleeps everybody. That. Everybody knows he sleeps with everybody.

Sarah:

Only slut around with with people who are of our class and who have money that we can blackmail them with.

Mark:

Richard arrives at this point in time, and Richard sleepwalks around in this entire episode. He arrives and people leave. He he gets there and they don't know why he's there. He just wanders around in this whole episode.

Sarah:

Yeah. Every time he walks into a room with his dad, his dad just like, well, are you the pope yet? And and like, okay. Why aren't you wearing your bishop bishop regalia in the house?

Mark:

I realize that I'm not Catholic. Okay? So I may not understand because he's certainly Catholic. But if I was a Catholic priest and I had fathered an illegitimate child, even before I was a priest, I would think about not being a priest. I would not think, let's go to Rome and up my job.

Sarah:

But I don't think he knows anything about that. I don't think he knows there was even a child until the end

Mark:

of the episode. The end. That's right.

Sarah:

That's right. Know. He So he just comes home to visit his dad, All his dad is doing is pestering him about why aren't you a cardinal yet? Yes. And why don't you wear your regalia in the house?

Mark:

You should look like the pope.

Sarah:

Like, is Richard supposed to sleep in his bishop guard?

Mark:

Yes, he is. Really.

Sarah:

You can't go down to the chippy in your Bishop guard.

Mark:

Should have the little hat like the Pope.

Sarah:

All the time.

Mark:

All the time.

Sarah:

Meanwhile, Joyce is gonna do some gardening. She's gonna dig up part of the lawn. Yes. Which I immediately thought, who is she burying? When we put together all of these murders and gardens and stuff, it's like, and Joyce.

Mark:

Troy goes to talk to the gardener about the pompy. It's not scrumpy. It's pompy. Made from apples, potatoes, and a tincture of garlic. Which just sounds disgusting.

Mark:

I had to get rid of my still. Stay off the pompy.

Sarah:

I've had scrumpey before. Yeah. Scrumpey is good. It's like extra hard cider.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

It's good. It tastes like cider. If you add garlic to it, that is not gonna improve it.

Mark:

No, it's not. And then, and this is again, the discussion that ran on in our family last night, dirt under fingernails is mentioned at this point. So it became this conspiracy theory that our children were watching this episode waiting for fingernail or dirt references.

Sarah:

That maybe, you know, maybe Neil Dudgeon's hand was the stunt hand for Barnaby's hand. Maybe he was a Barnaby even this early. We just didn't know it. There's so I went looking around for Pompey. You know, in my long series of dangerous Googling for this show.

Sarah:

There is a brand of cider called God's Hill Rumpy, Pumpy, Scrumpy Cider. Wow. Which is fantastic. Troy's confronting Daniel in the greenhouse.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

And he says, he wants to ask him where his still is, but he says, well you got like a reactor somewhere in here? What? Which just made me think of like a nuclear reactor size still like Chernobyl would be very different if they were making pumpy. Yes. Instead of nuclear energy.

Mark:

Certainly knock out a few 15 year old girls.

Sarah:

But then, but then Tom has what used to be a Troy line, that last leaving line and stay off the pumpy.

Mark:

And stay off the pumpy.

Sarah:

Like Troy used to go and don't go anywhere. Don't do it again. You know,

Mark:

Tom gets says don't. Yeah.

Sarah:

Rodney Widger is using his friend Charles King as his alibi.

Mark:

Okay. Do we have enough assholes in this episode?

Sarah:

No. Not yet. We've already seen Charles in his convertible almost run Naomi over with her basket.

Mark:

Barnaby talks to him. He says he's relentlessly married, which is just horrible. And then I thought he implied that he was gay by saying you're looking up the wrong Crowser leg.

Sarah:

Oh, no. I think he's talking like a dog. Think I'm thinking so somebody's leg. Yes. So the first time we see Charles King is in his convertible and I kind of want to hit him.

Sarah:

And then we see him here again talking to Tom and he says, Fliss had a reputation, but not a track record, if you know what I mean. She wasn't a goer. And I kind of want to hit him again. Yes. But then I really, really want to hit him when he's talking about Cynthia.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Like this whole episode is hold me back. Yeah. I'm gonna hit Charles.

Mark:

Charles and Rodney are the worst of the worst.

Sarah:

They just yeah. Two peas in a pod. Absolutely.

Mark:

Desmond shows up at the vicarage, and at this point, I remembered because I've seen this episode before, but I forgot that this was part of it. The pesto.

Sarah:

Yes. Because Desmond delivers. The super gossipy grocer delivers. Yep. A box of tomato juice, toilet paper, cleaner and orange soda.

Sarah:

So pesto. And apparently he's got extra pesto in the car. I guess. Because

Mark:

along with the loaf.

Sarah:

But Mark, Elspeth won't eat. She's

Mark:

so too upset. Sad. She's

Sarah:

so Elspeth is played Elspeth is played by Belinda Lang.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

She was Agatha Troy in Inspector Allen. Yes. Inspector Allen. She plays his girlfriend and she's an artist. Really cool.

Sarah:

She's not so bitchy and uppity in that show.

Mark:

She's much better in that show.

Sarah:

She's really good at playing these high brow characters. And in that in in inspector Allen, she's she is still a high brow character, but she's very down to earth.

Mark:

She

Sarah:

is. She's married to Hugh Fraser. Oh, from Downton Abbey? No. No.

Sarah:

She's married to Hugh Fraser who plays Hastings in the Poirot episode

Mark:

Oh my gosh.

Sarah:

By David Suchet.

Mark:

That's fantastic.

Sarah:

She's married to Hastings.

Mark:

We love him. We love Hastings.

Sarah:

I just wanna hug him every time I see him on screen. So Susan is hoping that she'll be able to get Elspeth to eat if she tempts her with pesto and pasta because it's her favorite thing. Meanwhile, they've been working hard at the lab on the scrap of paper. At night. And they know that the letter was torn from Fliss' hand because there was a scrap of ink under her fingernails.

Sarah:

This episode is all about lime green and dirty fingernails and assholes.

Mark:

So then we have a a quick shot of Daniel seeing Rodney sneak out. Now Rodney's gonna go see Charles King. But where's Daniel often?

Sarah:

He's going to watch badgers.

Mark:

What is going on with that's the worst excuse ever.

Sarah:

But he does have night vision binoculars on.

Mark:

But why is he going to look at the badge?

Sarah:

Because they're cool. I guess. And because Rodney's probably gonna kill them

Mark:

all. It's like, I'm so horny all the time. I have to touch everybody. Wait a minute. Badgers.

Sarah:

Hey. It's a wholesome hobby for him. It is. Okay. Compared to everything else he does.

Mark:

That's true.

Sarah:

And badgers are interesting. He says it's a set of badgers. Do you know what a set

Mark:

of badgers No, I don't know

Sarah:

what it is. A badger's set? No. Badgers dig these really intricate tunnel systems. Okay.

Sarah:

Way fancier than didn't like know what a you prairie

Mark:

were gonna talk about badgers in this episode. No, I'm

Sarah:

just telling you. They're really cool. Okay. So, you know, if you're a gardener, you don't want them in your garden, but if they're somewhere else, yeah, they would be interesting to watch. I guess.

Sarah:

I can imagine him climbing a tree to watch them. Keeps him out of trouble.

Mark:

Hillary is making like hot chocolate or something and Naomi comes in and yells at her.

Sarah:

Yes. By the way, for a big manor, they have a really crappy kitchen.

Mark:

They do. In that scene, Hillary is in a bathrobe with nothing on underneath. It looks like maybe a nightgown or something, but not much. If we're to get this story straight, she goes back upstairs and gets into her killing clothes, including her black gloves, and then goes kills Alcipath. Yeah.

Mark:

I much rather like the idea that she just puts black gloves on and keeps the robot.

Sarah:

But you see a dark sleeve

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

When we have killer vision.

Mark:

We do see a dark sleeve, so that that's what breaks it.

Sarah:

Even better, she must wrap up making the cocoa as soon as Naomi leaves and quickly start making pasta.

Mark:

Well, what am I gonna put the pasta in?

Sarah:

I've got this Tupperware, but I can never find a lid

Mark:

that Where is the lid for the Tupperware?

Sarah:

It's nice to know that even the upper crust can't find the lid to their Tupperware.

Mark:

Remember, when you come to your own killing, bring your own Tupperware. And a lid.

Sarah:

Yes. Or you'll have to fiddle with plastic wrap while wearing gloves, and that's just a pain.

Mark:

Susan asked this weird out of the blue question about slabs, which is a joke that fills in at the very end. Yeah. But Elizabeth has a bath and

Sarah:

Susan is walking her up the stairs and she goes, okay, up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire.

Mark:

Yeah. Like she's a child.

Sarah:

But that's a phrase that goes way

Mark:

back. Oh really?

Sarah:

Oh yeah, there's all these kids nursery rhymes in The UK that refer to stairs as wooden hills and the Bedfordshire joke about being, it's a long version of bed. Yeah. There's even a song by Vera Lynn recorded in 1936. Oh. That's all about going up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire.

Mark:

Is it like raunchy thirties song or

Sarah:

is it No. It's a legitimate lullaby.

Mark:

It's a lullaby.

Sarah:

Yeah. Okay. While Elspeth soaks in the bathtub though, Susan goes off to church and never locks the door out of Christian principle.

Mark:

What Christian principle says don't lock the doors?

Sarah:

It says, I trust people not break into my house.

Mark:

Thou shall not lock your doors so the Tupperware killer can get in.

Sarah:

Well, the geezer is heated up. So Elspeth can take a bath.

Mark:

And she comes back to her room to find somebody has hand delivered pesto to me.

Sarah:

But no fork. No pesto.

Mark:

Is ground up parsley No. And oil.

Sarah:

It's basil. Basil. Olive oil.

Mark:

Olive oil.

Sarah:

Parmesan and pine nuts.

Mark:

Parmesan and pine nuts.

Sarah:

Sometimes with a little lemon juice.

Mark:

It's all ground up. Right? Yeah. It kinda looks like

Sarah:

It's an emulsified sauce.

Mark:

It's kinda it's it's speckly green.

Sarah:

Mhmm. It is not uniform technicolor green.

Mark:

It that green that that pasta is could be used for a green screen.

Sarah:

It it could be. Yeah. It's Chroma Key green pasta.

Mark:

It's super green.

Sarah:

And Hillary has so little class. She doesn't even give her a fork. She has to eat it

Mark:

with a spoon. And and immediately, Elizabeth hates it. Right?

Sarah:

You're gonna say it that way every

Mark:

She hates it. So what does she do? This tastes like crap. Here, Crispin. Why don't you eat it?

Mark:

Yeah. And Crispin's like, I'm smart enough to realize that the killer did that.

Sarah:

Well, saw the killer come up the stairs and put that pasta in there, so I don't think I'm gonna eat it.

Mark:

So again okay. This is what happens. There's a weird timeline here. Hillary makes her hot chocolate. Mhmm.

Mark:

Goes upstairs, gets dressed. Mhmm. Comes back downstairs. Mhmm. Makes the evil demon pasta.

Mark:

Right. Puts it in the Tupperware. Right. Covers in cleanware.

Sarah:

Yes. Goes to the vicarage.

Mark:

Yes. Which must be like across the road Right. Goes upstairs

Sarah:

Yes.

Mark:

Oh, sorry. Puts it in a bowl. Yeah.

Sarah:

Because Susan had set out bowls because she offered to make pasta for Elspeth. But But Elspeth didn't want any. So she went off to church.

Mark:

With a spoon, not a fork. Every only savages know that don't know that you eat pasta with a spoon and a fork. Take it upstairs. Yeah. Put it in Elspeth's room.

Sarah:

Yes.

Mark:

Okay. So

Sarah:

she's in

Mark:

the bath. In in the bath. And then creep out of the room again. Right. Okay.

Mark:

Now where does she go at this point? The hallway. But Elizabeth goes from the hallway from the bathroom to the hallway to her room.

Sarah:

No. It's an attached bath.

Mark:

I think she goes in the hallway because she goes through the door.

Sarah:

No, think she comes out of the bathroom that's in the corner of the room, past the bed and sees it sitting on the table next to the bed. And the door is even further

Mark:

on. So then the door gets shut.

Sarah:

The door that matches the pasta by the way.

Mark:

Yes. And she uses her anger strength to keep it closed while Elizabeth is dying. Yeah. Well, almost.

Sarah:

She has to come in and force feed her somewhere to make sure she dies.

Mark:

Okay. So what I have in my notes is Elizabeth dies. Well, well, really over a long time she dies. Because and I'm not making fun of the actress or the scene or anything. It has to be a horrible death.

Mark:

Yeah. And it it far too often in a lot of these shows, it's like death happens instantaneously.

Sarah:

Oh, no. She's moaning and screaming and struggling and wants to get out of the room and can't get out of the room.

Mark:

Well, and she gets force fed the pesto by Hillary and then we have pesto hand cam.

Sarah:

Yeah. Cause we've got to force some more in and then that gets it on the black gloves. So then when the killer's hand goes and locks the door, the green door that matches the pasta.

Mark:

Along with the vanity in the other side of the room.

Sarah:

That sink and the matching towel. Yeah. She gets the pasta on the key. Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah:

So there's little dots of it. So that death is is pretty hideous, right?

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

So we find out later that what she was poisoned with was aconite. Yes. Which is buttercups.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Buttercups are in, they have, it's a big plant family. There's two main branches. The ones that bloom in summer, jam packed full of poison, top to bottom. The ones that bloom in spring, less poison y. Not poison free, but less poison y.

Sarah:

Less poison y. But if you wonder, when you plant this flower, do you know that it's poisonous? Because they've got a lot of it in the garden, we find out, right? Yeah. It's also called wolf's bane because they used to extract poison from the roots to put on spears and kill wolves.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Leopard's bane, because you never know when you're gonna run into a leopard. Mouse bane, it kills animals of all sizes.

Mark:

Mouse, leopard. Including Elspeth. Saints.

Sarah:

Woman's bane. Woah. That's one of the names for it.

Mark:

Well, clearly Elspeth is a woman.

Sarah:

It may as well be called Elspeth's bane, but it's also In campaign. Bane. It's also called devil's helmet and queen of poisons.

Mark:

What are we gonna plant in the garden down by the guy, the green man spitting?

Sarah:

I know. How about queen of poisons? I like the purple color the best. So symptoms, two milligrams Which is ton. Of aconite, right?

Sarah:

Yeah. It's very small. You're dead in four hours. Yeah. Tingling, numbness, nausea, vomiting, labored breathing, arrhythmia, clammy skin, confusion, paralysis, then death.

Mark:

I would say she goes through

Sarah:

all those. And there's no antidote? Nope. None.

Mark:

None at all.

Sarah:

They say the only care is support. That's what it actually says in which the medical means like a cold cloth and sorry, you're gonna die. How about I give you some more noodles?

Mark:

That might help. You'll die even quicker.

Sarah:

Yeah. Eat some more noodles.

Mark:

So Tom's looking for Elizabeth and busts through the door and finds she's dead. And Susan does a good scream here.

Sarah:

Man, does she do a good scream? With her hands on the side of her head.

Mark:

There's two ink pens in twenty four hours that are dead. And I don't know why they have the whole, maybe Elizabeth committed suicide. That's an elaborate suicide.

Sarah:

Yeah. Death by pesto. I love when they confront Naomi with it. She that's just not possible to her. It's completely possible to her that Elspeth killed Fliss, but not that she would commit suicide because an ink pen just wouldn't do that.

Sarah:

Nope. And she We might be murderers, but we don't commit suicide.

Mark:

She throws Daniel right under the bus.

Sarah:

Oh, man. Good bunk, good bunk.

Mark:

And then she admits that Elizabeth owns the house.

Sarah:

Yeah. Which means she would have left it to Fliss in her will. Fliss is dead. So who gets it now?

Mark:

Hillary and the gardener.

Sarah:

Yeah. So Hillary and Daniel share ownership of the manor now?

Mark:

And then we get that weird phrase of one and a

Sarah:

half ink pen. She's not a half ink pen. She's just as much as anybody else.

Mark:

Troy has figured something out here. He's figured out that Gerald's wife, when she took off, only had a shoulder bag. Right. That's what the

Sarah:

The people at the hotel said in the statement that they made at the time.

Mark:

And the next day, all her clothes are gone. So there's an inconsistency there. Something happened. He's being real smart. He is.

Mark:

And he realizes this and goes to talk to Rodney, whose wife completely blows his alibi. He goes, can we discuss this elsewhere?

Sarah:

I have every bit of sympathy for her. Absolutely. Maybe she wants him to go to jail just so she could get rid of him.

Mark:

And Barnaby is like, you should follow this lead. I don't know where it's gonna go, but that's a good idea.

Sarah:

Yeah. And then we go to see the Devils again. Yes. And Augustus is sitting in that fantastic chair.

Mark:

It is fantastic, and you must rule out suicide.

Sarah:

It's got wings and a crown. It it has everything. And apparently, he sits in it until 01:00 in the morning unless he's off at Badger's Drift seeing his friends.

Mark:

And his son makes an apesite entrance. Who's still alive in Badger's Drift?

Sarah:

I I don't know. Like, who is he visiting there?

Mark:

So this is the point where we see Daniel trying to now make it with Hillary by reaching across the frame with his hand to her throat.

Sarah:

When she doesn't know he's there.

Mark:

This is not how you pick up women.

Sarah:

She should have grabbed him over her shoulder, karate chopped him and flung him into that lake.

Mark:

She should have. She certainly is the rage, man.

Sarah:

Then Widger

Mark:

Tells the story.

Sarah:

Tells all. And the episode gets skisier.

Mark:

So we take a turn here. What happened is that Widger and Charles King on the night that Cynthia Bennett went missing, met her at the Devril Arms in Costin. Okay. She was a very friendly lady.

Sarah:

She was friendly. You understand? She knew her way around chaps. She was friendly.

Mark:

But before that, you other detective, get away from him. That poor guy.

Sarah:

Troy's sitting jauntily on his desk talking to Skeasy Widger, and that other detective is like, what's on that desk over there? Maybe I'll go look at it. Troy's like, get out of here. It gives him the head nod.

Mark:

So Cynthia meets Charles and Widger at the hotel, and I have the following note. It's nice that they wore suits to the orgy.

Sarah:

See, all this time, I was thinking that Cynthia went missing like a long time ago because Widger's suit is like polyester. He's got these super wide lapels, his collar's super wide, his tie's super wide. So I'm thinking like, does she disappear like in the early eighties? No, no, it was like five years ago.

Mark:

And she also like, there is there is a distinct lack of sexiness in any part of this scene. It is just ugh. Yeah. Because then your mind, and I'm sorry. I have to do this, goes to what happened in that room.

Mark:

Yeah. And I had to stop myself.

Sarah:

It involves Rodney without clothes on. That's all you need to say.

Mark:

I spent thirty seconds of my life thinking about it and I said, stop. We don't need to go into that.

Sarah:

Let me give you a little bone what do they call those little snacks that change your not a.

Mark:

Amous bouche.

Sarah:

Yeah. Let me give you an Amous bouche to distract you from the idea of Rodney's naked Please.

Mark:

Please. Oh.

Sarah:

Charles King. Rumpy, pumpy. Charles King, the other naked white butt in that scenario is played by Tom, Chadman.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

He was in many episodes of wire in the blood

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Which is a really good show. If you've never seen it, you should go see it. But in 1974, he was in this movie called the beast must die.

Mark:

Okay. I've never seen that movie.

Sarah:

Woah, I found one. I found a bad movie you haven't seen. But now

Mark:

I have to see it.

Sarah:

Okay. So The Beast Must Die is about this island where this millionaire invites seven people to the island because he knows one of them is a werewolf.

Mark:

Okay. Definitely need to see this movie.

Sarah:

The best part of this movie is that it has audience participation.

Mark:

Audience participate. Go on,

Sarah:

please. I know. This is interesting, isn't it? So this is a 1974 movie. Okay?

Sarah:

Yes. There's no Twitter or anything like that. Can't do that. So what do they do? Near the end of the movie, before they reveal who the werewolf was, there is a 30 werewolf break in the movie

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Where you are invited to turn to the people around you to discuss who is the werewolf

Mark:

Good lord.

Sarah:

And come to a conclusion before you see the end of the movie.

Mark:

You have to see this movie within this week.

Sarah:

The Beast Must Die, 1974. Speaking of Charles, this is where I really wanna hit him. Oh my god. Charles is so horrible. His wife is in the kitchen, ironing, I think.

Sarah:

Something. And he's like, wives have ears even if there's nothing between them.

Mark:

Was Who do wanna hit pure sport.

Sarah:

Missing Cynthia is like missing your favorite golf club. Can I punch him now, please? She's so horrible. I wanna hit him. Hit him.

Sarah:

Hit him. Hit him. Even though he's not one of the many people in this episode who have homes covered in beautiful blooming wisteria.

Mark:

Yes. There's

Sarah:

many say anything more about that. Just know that there is a bubbling fuming rage inside of me over all the wisteria in this episode.

Mark:

Georgie Bullard shows up and gives some information.

Sarah:

Yeah. He says it was aconite. We know that it was devil's helmet.

Mark:

Susan Kitchen is not full of poison.

Sarah:

No. Because she never cooked anything.

Mark:

But, man, does she hate Jezebels.

Sarah:

She's got some strong feelings about it. And meanwhile, I just kept going, where's the vicar? If she's not the vicar, where's the vicar? Yeah. Well, he's away for a few days or something.

Sarah:

He'll be back.

Mark:

Or something.

Sarah:

Yeah. Or is he? And then we find out that the memorial garden, which is about to be dug up, was created within a week of Cynthia's disappearance.

Mark:

What's in the garden? A dead slut.

Sarah:

You shouldn't call her that.

Mark:

She was friendly There's with

Sarah:

a dead friendly lady in there. She's a dead friendly lady. The body's got a necklace on it.

Mark:

Yep. Which is clearly shown in the flashback.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's clearly the necklace that Cynthia had on. Yep. So now we know that Jane killed Cynthia. Right?

Mark:

No. We don't know that yet.

Sarah:

We're gonna find out very soon.

Mark:

We're gonna find out very soon.

Sarah:

But they suspect that there's something going on there. So because who doesn't want the memorial garden dug up? The Bennetts don't. So let's go to the Bennetts house. And Jane is doing ugly crying next to the aga.

Sarah:

And when Troy and Tom come in, the doors open and there's blood dripping from the ceiling.

Mark:

But is it blood or is it tea? You know, because they look alike. Yeah. So they go upstairs and there's a teacup overturned in Gerald's bed and Tom pulls away the sheets with fingernails visible.

Sarah:

Gerald is dead in his bed.

Mark:

And she gave him some medicine and put a pillow over his head.

Sarah:

Maybe it was rosehip tea. I've had rosehip tea that was really red. Still But it's definitely supposed to be blood running out of the out of the fixture in the ceiling. And even if it was only this bugs me. It would take a lot of liquid to permeate the floor, the wood floor, go through the space in between and come out that and a mug is not enough.

Mark:

Yep. And Jane would have cleaned it up. Where is Jane anyway? Jane's here.

Sarah:

Yeah. Right here. Meanwhile, Bold's being creepy with plants. He's even creepy with plants.

Mark:

He's just from now on to the end of the episode, he's only there to make you creepy.

Sarah:

You have bloomed too much. You you have bloomed yourself to death. Just deadhead the flowers. Don't be creepy about it.

Mark:

One thing I like is Jane just gives it up at this point. Yeah. Right? She gives up that her mother was drunk, fooling around, so she killed her with a pair of nylons. That was it.

Mark:

Yeah. And then placed her in the smallest hole ever. It's the shallowest grave in existence. And starts throwing dirt on her.

Sarah:

And her mom is there in her bad suit in the moonlight and we get the close-up of her face and her tongue's moving.

Mark:

Oh, it's

Sarah:

just I don't think it's supposed to move. I think she's bad corpse acting.

Mark:

She's bad. Mom is

Sarah:

I don't think she buried her alive.

Mark:

Cynthia is not the best corpse actor.

Sarah:

But then Jane proves that she's the best gardener ever. Yes. Because overnight

Mark:

She builds the memorial.

Sarah:

She builds the entire memorial.

Mark:

So okay. So let's get this straight. Dad's building the memorial. He has all these plans, and he goes to bed after his wife goes for a little bit of rumpy pumpy with Rodney and Charles. Yeah.

Mark:

And she wakes up the next morning, and what do you know? It's all done. Yeah. Maybe I'll put a plaque here.

Sarah:

All those big flagstones have been laid down evenly on a bed of sand that's all level and tamped down. The sundial has been placed in the center.

Mark:

Well, was such an innocent. So he was stupid. I don't know.

Sarah:

And she's also emptied out her mom's closet. Yes. And her mom did have a separate bedroom. Yeah. So that makes that a little easier.

Sarah:

And she puts all of her clothes in her car.

Mark:

It would have broken his heart.

Sarah:

So the police didn't notice all these clothes in her car?

Mark:

She just took them to the dump. But I'm not a homicidal maniac.

Sarah:

She can come garden for us anytime Nope. Because she's fast.

Mark:

Let's just review. She's killed her mother.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

She's killed her father. Yes. But she's not a homicidal maniac.

Sarah:

Did you see the look on her face when she dumped her mom's body? She's a That was a maniac face.

Mark:

She absolute well, when she was killing her mother.

Sarah:

Her eyes were bugger than Susan's.

Mark:

Absolutely. We find out that the house gets left to Fliss, Hillary, the gardener. Mhmm. And Daniel is on the making game.

Sarah:

Because we get Elspeth's will. Yeah. Which is on lime colored paper.

Mark:

Everything's on lime. Stop

Sarah:

with that color in this episode.

Mark:

Yeah. It's the green episode of Greentown.

Sarah:

Then Richard Devril now knows that he's Hillary's father.

Mark:

Yes. And Troy and Barnaby confront him about this because

Sarah:

He's but he's literally just found out.

Mark:

He's just found out.

Sarah:

His dad has just filled him in because Augustus is a jerk face.

Mark:

A gun is being loaded because we're heading for the climax.

Sarah:

Augustus takes off to the ink pens for the battle of the old age pensioners. The OAPs are gonna fight it out.

Mark:

Another another slowest battle of all time.

Sarah:

Because he's going to see Naomi who is apparently in the attic or something.

Mark:

Why is she in the attic? Can't she meet him in the parking lot to do the blackmail thing? No.

Sarah:

She has to sit up at her little table.

Mark:

I guess so. But you know who else is there? Wait a minute. Rodney's there with a piece of good information. My gun's missing.

Mark:

Oh, well.

Sarah:

No. He's like, there's been a burglary at my house. And Tom's like, I don't care right now. He goes, oh, you're going to.

Mark:

That's the only redeeming part of Rodney in the whole episode. So we find out that Hillary has killed her mother and her sister.

Sarah:

Best line ever. She tell she tells everybody that Fliss showed her the paper. Yes. Showed her a copy because, you know, you keep duplicates of your blackmail letters.

Mark:

It's important to keep lots of copies of blackmail letters.

Sarah:

You type them in triplicate on the carbon paper. Yes. And rubs it in her face that basically the only reason that they took her in Yes. Was so they could blackmail the Devils. Yes.

Sarah:

Right? Hillary says about Fliss, she opened my eyes, so I opened her head.

Mark:

Yeah. That's such a great line. Boom. And then then Naomi's like, Fliss was a stupid little bitch. And Hillary goes, well, now she's a dead little bitch.

Sarah:

Yeah. Like, oh, who's mousy now?

Mark:

Yep. And I'm gonna make a mess with you.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

And then she shoots Augustus.

Sarah:

No. In the gut? No. Looks kinda like it's maybe a

Mark:

In his arm. He's in pain.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah.

Mark:

He's crying. He does some good acting there. He does. He's not a dead body. No.

Mark:

Though we never happen to know what happens to him.

Sarah:

I'm assuming he survives.

Mark:

One would hope.

Sarah:

Hillary goes to jail. Yep. Sits in her cell in her bunny suit. Richard comes in, holds her hand. That poor man.

Sarah:

Richard and Gerald have done nothing wrong. No. Nothing.

Mark:

And yet they're hurt by everything in the episode. So then there's a weird little scene where Susan's reading her bible and Troy shows up and implies that she's a murderer.

Sarah:

The scene kind of implies it. Right?

Mark:

The way it's shot and everything.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because now everybody's wondering where's the vicar. Yes. And she's got the new slates. Yeah.

Sarah:

And then she's that she's clearly just put down.

Mark:

Jezebels. My husband likes them. He says that she says that her husband is far too kind to Jezebels.

Sarah:

Boy, I hope he was away at a conference like he said. Because if not, he's going under the under the

Mark:

slabs. Absolutely. And then Crispin

Sarah:

Oh, she has wisteria too.

Mark:

Who doesn't bark at the killer, barks at Troy.

Sarah:

Of course, he does.

Mark:

So what does this episode need to finish it off? A more gross sexual innuendo

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

That is vigorous and erect. Bulk can do

Sarah:

his propagating elsewhere. Is is Joyce that naive? Or does she

Mark:

She was want like, I was gonna offer him a drink. Is she just playing Barnaby? Or I would think Joyce is smarter than that.

Sarah:

See, to me, she doesn't seem threatened by Daniel at all, but she also isn't, like, welcoming of his approach. No. But she's not dumb. So she probably knows that he's on the make, but she's not gonna accept any of his advances. So she's just gonna get a ton of free plants.

Mark:

I'm gonna give Joyce the better part of doubt, right? She's just Plus using it time. For free

Sarah:

It's a little fun that it annoys Tom. Yes. But that's not the point. Nope. The point is that she gets the free plants.

Mark:

Do they have any lawn that's still left to sit on?

Sarah:

I don't know. She's buried some bodies under there.

Mark:

Excellent first episode of season four.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah. Two killers. Two killers, which I

Mark:

think Four murders. The first time we've had two killers. Yeah. Four bodies, best corpse.

Sarah:

So we've got Cynthia on her tongue. Yep. Fliss and her snails. Yep. Elspeth and the technicolor pasta.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

And Gerald Bennett and his duvet of death. Yes. Which is the best?

Mark:

I'm gonna go Elspeth. Why? Because, well, the lead up was fantastic. And then she just dies.

Sarah:

I'm gonna go with Fliss because I think it would be really hard to be that still with snails crawling on you.

Mark:

Yeah. She does a great job. They both do a great job. Absolutely.

Sarah:

And now I'm gonna suggest that we have a second little question here.

Mark:

And what would that category be?

Sarah:

Who is the biggest jerk? Let me list off Naomi the Ink Pen. Yes. Elspeth Ink Pen. Yes.

Sarah:

Fliss Ink Pen. Yes. Augustus Devril.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Charles King.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Jane Bennett. Yes. Cynthia Bennett. Yes. Or Rodney Widger.

Mark:

I'm gonna add Hillary ink pen to that.

Sarah:

Nah. See, I don't think she's a jerk. I think she just snaps. Knows what her life was like? If you wanna add Hillary, you can add Hillary.

Mark:

I'm gonna say the biggest jerk to me in the episode is Charles King. Because I don't think anything redeemable comes out of his mouth in the entirety of the episode while Rodney at least warns him that his gun has been stolen.

Sarah:

So there's nothing redeeming about Charles. So he's the biggest jerk? He wives have ears. Even though there's nothing between them.

Mark:

Just like, oh my gosh. I don't wanna deal with you at all.

Sarah:

You wanna hit him. Yeah. You wanna hit him, hit him. Done. Hit

Mark:

him. What about for you?

Sarah:

I think Naomi Inkpen is the biggest jerk. She's the mother of all jerks.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Right? Literally. So she's raised Elspeth to be the way she is. She's allowed Fliss to be raised the way she is. She allows them to treat Hillary the way they do, and she's a gigantic hypocrite.

Mark:

Yep. I do have another question.

Sarah:

Mean to Tom.

Mark:

She's mean to Tom. So I have a question. Augustus is the patriarch. Mhmm. And Hillary and Naomi is the matriarch Mhmm.

Mark:

Of two separate families. Mhmm. I would have dropped a line about him chasing her when they were young or her spurning his advances when they were young just to turn that knife a little bit more.

Sarah:

See, that never would have happened though because they're Catholics. The Devils are Catholics. That is And the Inkbins are Protestants. Yeah. It's there it's it would have been a Romeo and Juliet deal.

Mark:

But but Richard and Elsa are

Sarah:

Not married. Didn't get married. They fooled around

Mark:

when I they were didn't say married. I just said some

Sarah:

Yeah. But that's different. Yeah. Right? That wasn't approved.

Sarah:

Yes. Hanky Panky. Yep. Right? And there was a love child who came out of it.

Sarah:

So Hillary must be the Devil or something.

Mark:

So this episode of the podcast drops on the October 28, Halloween week. Hi, We have a for you about Halloween week. What Midsomer character are you gonna dress up for us on Halloween?

Sarah:

Oh, it's hard. And we hope you guys will tell us what you would be, who you would be, which character you would wanna dress up as.

Mark:

I'm so posting that on Halloween day. Absolutely.

Sarah:

If I had to choose one character from all of Midsomer to dress up as for Halloween, it's gotta be Iris Rainbird. Iced sombreros. I would have an iced sombrero. Yep. I would have the glasses with the chain.

Mark:

Yeah. All of it. Well, you're far prettier than her.

Sarah:

Oh, thank you.

Mark:

I would be Jack Axeman McKinley.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah.

Mark:

He's got a big old beard. I don't have long hair, but he's got a big beard and plays guitar. That's who I would go with.

Sarah:

You could pull off the long

Mark:

I've done the dude before, so I And you

Sarah:

can play guitar. So and he he's the ax man and the name of the episode is the ax man cometh. So, you know, he's part of the name that makes him big.

Mark:

Yes. Definitely.

Sarah:

Plus he's a tough dude. He is a He is So tough who would you be for Halloween if you had to dress up as a Midsomer character? Assuming that there would be enough people around you who are savvy enough about Midsomer who would understand.

Mark:

To the Midsomer Murders Halloween fancy dress.

Sarah:

Yeah. You're going to the Midsomer Maniacs party. Yes. We'll we'll recognize you. We'll So love who you on Twitter because we're that kind of nerds.

Mark:

And Instagram, we are at Midsomer Maniac. We're on Facebook on The Acorn Group and The Midsomer Group. We are, again, just stupidly overwhelmed by all the positives that you guys have done. Is really keeps us going.

Sarah:

It's awesome.

Mark:

It is fantastic. And we thank you for all your comments. They just tickle us pink.

Sarah:

Speaking of comments, drop us a comment this week on who you think the biggest jerk of the episode was, who the best corpse was, and what's your mid summer Halloween costume going to be?

Mark:

Next week, episode two of season four. Oh, baby. Destroying angel. Yeah. Oh.

Sarah:

Evil mushrooms.

Mark:

This evil mushrooms and punching Judy and naked guys running in the forest.

Sarah:

And, oh, it's all awesome. Midsomer at its best.

Mark:

Absolutely.

Sarah:

So tune in for that next week, Maniacs. Until then, bye, Maniacs.

Mark:

Bye, Maniacs. We we haven't talked about this before, but I saw a number of movies in theater before I should have seen it. And the legacy was one of those movies.

Sarah:

Well, she plays nurse Adams. Yeah. Yeah. I'm Who looks more like a nun than a nurse.

Mark:

Yeah. Well, that that movie has some that's like kind

Sarah:

of a an omen offshoot. Well, isn't somebody a werewolf? Like a millionaire brings these seven people to an island because he knows one of them is a werewolf. Yeah. Because she's the nurse on

Mark:

the island. Think so.

Sarah:

It's just weird, but she

Mark:

It's a werewolf.

Sarah:

She's in that movie.

Mark:

Yeah. It looks like the Yeah.

Sarah:

She was in two Kubrick movies.

Mark:

What other oh, and clockwork orange.

Sarah:

Yeah. If only she'd been in the shining.

Mark:

Or eyes wide shot. No. No. No. No.

Mark:

No. No.

Sarah:

Welcome to Midsomer Maniacs. I'm Sarah.

Mark:

Hey, Maniacs. I'm Mark, and this is Midsomer Maniacs, a podcast dedicated to the ITV series Midsomer Murders. Each week, we dig into a particular episode of the show, including the murders, the mayhem, the loonies, and everything else that we love.

Sarah:

Because we love all of that stuff. Absolutely. We're maniacs about all that stuff.

Mark:

Just before we begin with season four episode two, the our little disclaimer is that if you let your kids watch the show, they'll be able to listen to podcast. But if the show is too much for your kids, the podcast certainly will be too.

Sarah:

Yeah. We're gonna be talking about season four episode two, destroying angel. But before we dive into that

Mark:

I got a little story. So as I'm working on all these episodes and editing and all this, I was working on last week's episode, Garden of Death, season four episode one. And I realized that at the end of the episode, after all the murder and the mayhem happens, the Inkpen Manor and Inkpen Gardens now belongs to the gardener Daniel. And Naomi Inkpen, the old lady, has nowhere to live and no money.

Sarah:

Right. I mean, maybe she stays in the in the estate, but only if he lets her.

Mark:

I'm I'm willing to watch a sitcom of that.

Sarah:

Daniel and Naomi.

Mark:

Like that's not Is he going to set up a still in the kitchen?

Sarah:

She couldn't hate him more than Is she

Mark:

he going to try to get it on with her? Oh.

Sarah:

Okay. To get that image out of my head. So once we started talking about that, about what happens after Tom and Troy leave, the bad guys are locked up, the bodies have been taken away, kind of after the credits, what happens? And yeah, certainly in Garden of Death, there's a very interesting situation that's kind of left over after everything.

Mark:

The gardener would have to hire a gardener.

Sarah:

Yeah. So that got me thinking, are there other episodes that we've already talked about where after the credits, is a weird situation left behind.

Mark:

There's gotta be.

Sarah:

And there's always going to be some kind of mayhem left behind. I mean, it's seldom led at the end of the Midsomer. It's like, and the bad guys are now locked up and the people who died were bad anyway. And so really the world's a better place and on we go. It's not that kind of situation.

Sarah:

So there's a couple that kind of stand out to me. In season two, we have death's shadow, right? This is the episode where, Tom and Joyce are going to renew their vows at St. Michael's church back in Badger's Drift. And the vicar is a killer and then commits suicide at the end in front of his wife.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Now the estate issue that the initial victim of that episode, right? He's the realtor and he owns the estate and whatever, and he's selling it off from Badger's Drift.

Mark:

All that goes to a relative in Australia.

Sarah:

Yeah, that's kind of wrapped up. But what's not wrapped up is the situation at St. Michael's because I pity the vicar who comes in to replace that vicar.

Mark:

Oh, so you want me to be the new vicar in Badger's Drift? Okay. What happened to the old vicar? Oh, oh, oh.

Sarah:

What's this spot here in the grass? Oh, that's the last vicar. Don't worry about it.

Mark:

Oh, and wait a minute. The steeple is still crap and the roof is still off.

Sarah:

And there's there's a grumpy widow just lurking around, ready to criticize the new one.

Mark:

All she's gonna do now is criticize Steven for killing himself in front of her.

Sarah:

Yeah, basically.

Mark:

Oh, so what else?

Sarah:

So Deadman's 11, which is the cricket episode. Yeah. We've got Robert Cavendish at the very end sitting at the dining room table. He's been drugged. He's been stabbed.

Sarah:

But I think we can safely assume that he does survive because Barnaby's on his way. He knows what's going to happen. But his wife is dead. Yes. Right?

Sarah:

And so the folks who are left, the Cavendish who are left are Robert, his son, Steven, and his wife, Jane.

Mark:

Jane, who they, their marriage is in tatters.

Sarah:

They're in tatters and Robert was going to sell the estate anyway and kick them out. Yeah. So what happens after that?

Mark:

And they have no help either.

Sarah:

No, no staff. Robert's going to be stuck eating puddings. I guess. Because that's all Jane likes. Puddings for everybody.

Sarah:

And then one more, which I think is probably the most fun other than Daniel and Naomi living in the mansion together is beyond the grave where we have, so Sandra was married to David and his brother, Charlie, David and They Charlie owned the software company together, right? David's dead, Charlie's going to jail. So Sandra is left being the sole owner of the software company. She is the least likely owner of a software company.

Mark:

What are they gonna

Sarah:

do now? They're just gonna make Scream, Scream, Run, Run software.

Mark:

I guess

Sarah:

so. Or maybe they'll hook up with Mrs. Bunsell they'll Ms. Bunsell, sorry. And they'll start making like ghost detective software or seance software where you you can wave maybe it's haptic.

Sarah:

Maybe you wave your hands really weirdly at your computer and stuff happens.

Mark:

I had a really good discussion online about Mrs. Bunsell this week with the folks on Facebook. Yeah? Because everybody seemed to love her and I posted about unwords.

Sarah:

What was your favorite?

Mark:

My favorite unword was Brexit. To which I responded, If you guys hate that word, we hate Brexit already.

Sarah:

I'll trade you Brexit for Trump.

Mark:

I don't know. No deal there. So this episode, Season four, Episode two, is Destroying Angel. I have to say, this may be one of my favorite episodes. I love this episode.

Mark:

It has all sorts of weirdness in it.

Sarah:

It's hard to have a favorite episode. Like, I have less favorite episodes. Yeah. But it's hard to have the favorite episode.

Mark:

Oh, it's it's definitely hard to

Sarah:

have the favorite. But it's up there. You're right.

Mark:

Yep. It was filmed in July August of two thousand and broadcast the 08/26/2001 with 9,990,000 viewers once again. Directed by David Tucker, who is kind of a journeyman television director guy. He does a lot of EastEnders now, but he's done everything. And David Hoskins, who basically writes Midsommar's and the Bill.

Mark:

Really, he has my dream job.

Sarah:

Maybe that's why they have all the same actors. Possibly. He he keeps them, you know, in a in a hotel somewhere locked up and lets them out to be in one of his shows, and that's it.

Mark:

Exactly. The village is Midsomer Magna. Now I looked up Magna to see what it meant. It just means mighty or big. Right?

Mark:

So this is a big village. This is a big village.

Sarah:

Or at least they wanna be a big village.

Mark:

And we start with with Gregory Chambers, a man a complicated man Mhmm. Walking in the woods.

Sarah:

So you don't like mushrooms? Nope. I do like mushrooms. But after hearing Gregory Chambers talk about them, I don't know that I like them anymore.

Mark:

It's not good.

Sarah:

My notes well, the biggest part of my notes just says, ew. Because the way he describes them just

Mark:

It's not academic. It's

Sarah:

something He talks about nodules and ripeness, right? Because he's talking into his recorder, his cassette recorder, and that there's a clear liquid from the incision.

Mark:

Okay. It's gross.

Sarah:

It's a mushroom dude. They're good in scrambled eggs. They're good on steaks. Leave it alone. Just nasty.

Mark:

And he knows all the Latin names.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

They're perfect freshness.

Sarah:

Oh. But

Mark:

we see killer cam, and we know when we see killer cam, there's a killing about

Sarah:

to happen. Well, yeah. He's out there alone in the woods. He's not gonna make it.

Mark:

And he does this weird fall where he kinda takes a couple of steps backwards and then falls. Yeah. And we find out why this is later.

Sarah:

Right.

Mark:

But

Sarah:

I imagine the cameraman though, basically on the ground with his camera and the actor falling backwards at him.

Mark:

That's exactly what they would have done.

Sarah:

Like an ST plunge that we used to do into the pool. That's what you called it. And it wouldn't have been pleasant.

Mark:

We're sent to the Easterly Grange Hotel, which is never mentioned. They never say the name of the hotel. It's just a sign. Yeah. But I'd like you to know that it gets four stars from two organizations, one being AA, and I don't know the other one.

Mark:

I tried to look it up.

Sarah:

You think AA is supposed to be kind of like the AAA

Mark:

sign? Yeah, something. But it got four stars. It's four stars twice on the sign.

Sarah:

Obviously, it's a very fancy hotel. They have a chef. But today, it's the site of a funeral, right?

Mark:

There's a church right next to it Yeah. Where there's a funeral.

Sarah:

That's the convenience of having murders in villages is everything is located really close together. Right? Yep. Today, the hotel is a dark, sad place because Carl Wainwright, the owner of the hotel, has died.

Mark:

And the help can go see him if the lid's not been screwed down yet. This according to Susanna.

Sarah:

That's not the issue with screwing in the coffin. Cause two seconds later, Susanna and Tristan are making out on top of the dead body basically.

Mark:

Okay. It's beyond making out. Teenagers make out. They're trying to eat each other's face. And she has a thing for his stomach.

Sarah:

With a corpse in the room. Yeah. That's not okay. A corpse that she killed. Yeah.

Sarah:

That's true. When he was there to see it. Right from the beginning, even before you know about the conspiracy and what actually killed Carl Wainwright, right off the bat, you know that Susanna is reprehensible. She's bad news. That Tristan isn't any better.

Sarah:

Nope. And and they're just two of a whole cast of people who really are not good people at all.

Mark:

I have a note that says, we get right to the rumpy puppy.

Sarah:

It's just distasteful all over the place.

Mark:

You know who else is at this funeral?

Sarah:

The Barnabas. Why?

Mark:

Why are the Barnabas at this funeral?

Sarah:

I don't know. I guess because Carl Wainwright was a prominent person.

Mark:

Now Evelyn and her husband, no choice, but how is this in any way related to the Barnabas?

Sarah:

Certainly, the Barnabas wouldn't go to the funeral because they wanted to support their friends who were going to the funeral. They're grown ass adults. They don't need people to come with them, but maybe because they host the fate there.

Mark:

Maybe. Maybe

Sarah:

Joyce's many volunteer activities have involved that fate.

Mark:

But Joyce has taken over Woody's croquet stand at the Fete. And as soon as it's a fate in my notes, someone's gonna die.

Sarah:

Yeah, there's a fate. We've already got one dead body right off the bat. We've got one in a casket. So now we're already at two dead bodies in this episode.

Mark:

Not good.

Sarah:

And now they say there's gonna be a fate. There's gonna be more,

Mark:

There's you be lots. Evelyn used to do the Punch and Judy show. Right. Now okay. Two minute primer for our American listeners.

Mark:

Punch and Judy show is a far bigger thing than you realize in England.

Sarah:

It it is a British tradition that goes way way back.

Mark:

Some of the original comic books in the nineteenth century were in a magazine called Punch, which had Punch on the cover. He's comical.

Sarah:

And that magazine is called Punch because he was already that recognizable. I I mean, think Punch and Shakespeare are contemporaries.

Mark:

I I would agree, but Punch is not a nice fellow. No. No. No. No.

Sarah:

It's a controversial plot. Right? So when you see Punch and Judy performed, the puppeteer who performs it is called a professor. That's what they call the puppeteer. And there is a standard traditional storyline about Punch and his wife Judy and how she's an idiot and he is chaos incarnate.

Mark:

He throws the baby out the window.

Sarah:

He throws their baby out the window and then a policeman and then he kills Judy. Then a policeman comes to arrest him and to hang him and Punch plays dumb and says, I don't know what to do with the news. How do you do that?

Mark:

The hangman sticks his head in.

Sarah:

The policeman or the hangman stick their head in and then Punch hangs them instead. And everybody cheers for Punch, even though he's a murderer, he's chaotic, he's evil.

Mark:

He's a child killer and an abuser. Yeah. He's a bully too.

Sarah:

And yeah, he's this I don't think anybody in The UK says, oh, Punch is a good guy.

Mark:

He's an antihero.

Sarah:

He's an antihero, but he his character is a loved character because it's a tradition that goes way, way back.

Mark:

And he always turns the audience and goes, that's the way you do it. Right. Like, you're with Swazil voice. So a swazil oh gosh. We went down rabbit hole trying to get a swazil.

Sarah:

It's if if you know what a a kazoo sounds like. Yes. If you can imagine a very small kazoo like thing that you put in your mouth between your tongue, the back of your tongue and the roof of your mouth, and you hold it there while you talk, it makes this kind of vibratory high pitched voice come along with your voice.

Mark:

They're illegal here, right? In The US, you can't get them.

Sarah:

You can't. I tried. I wanted to get one.

Mark:

Because I was going to use it.

Sarah:

I even thought about making one because there are some instructions online. If anybody's crazy enough to do it, but the tradition is that you can't really be considered a professor until you've accidentally swallowed at least two swazzles.

Mark:

Then have I tell I have to tell thought about passing a swazzle It was upsetting.

Sarah:

And decided not to try to make one? Yes.

Mark:

So she does the Punch and Judy show, or did the Punch and Judy show, but she's moving. What

Sarah:

Evelyn she also did is sick. Yeah. Right? We don't know exactly what's wrong with her, but she's definitely weaker. She uses a cane.

Sarah:

Everybody's concerned about her. She's on the decline and so she's no longer going to be the professor.

Mark:

And she's famous for using the Punch and Judy show for social commentary.

Sarah:

Right. Which again is a tradition.

Mark:

Which is another tradition.

Sarah:

There's that age old plot that is the Punch and Judy plot, but then it it's common for professors to play around with that a little bit and make commentary about current

Mark:

events. So she's gonna pass it on to Gregory, though she doesn't know Gregory's dead.

Sarah:

Right.

Mark:

Julia Gooders arrives at the funeral with her husband, Kenneth. Now these are two people also involved with the hotel, but Kenneth is only interested in the sports on the radio.

Sarah:

It's a cricket game. Yes. That apparently is incredibly important because Troy's listening to it too at the station.

Mark:

It actually leads to a special credit at the end of the episode because in a kind of tongue in cheek way, now so this is an ITV show. The the crazy credit at the end is test match commentary by kind permission of BBC Radio five Live. I doubt they actually asked for permission. I'm sure they did.

Sarah:

Why would they say no?

Mark:

I think they kind of did that tongue in cheek because BBC is a competitor.

Sarah:

Well, it's clear that Kenneth is more interested in the cricket match than the funeral, which upsets Julia. But what doesn't upset Julia?

Mark:

Really? She's on edge already.

Sarah:

She's almost screamy, screamy, runny, runny. She's just kind of runny, runny. Maybe hand flap runny, runny.

Mark:

She's screamy, screamy too. Later. Yeah. Wayne Rank's nurse tries to get in, and Susannah's having none of it.

Sarah:

Because we already know she's a horrible human being, so why not do something else horrible? She says, you can't come. If you were a good nurse, if you were doing your job, Carl wouldn't be dead.

Mark:

That's not true, pillow face over person. Murderer.

Sarah:

Like the audacity to tell someone who actually cared about him. She You have to leave knowing that you're the one who killed him.

Mark:

Susannah is almost killed by her own cognitive dissonance.

Sarah:

She she may be one of the worst human beings in a Midsomer to this point.

Mark:

So far, certainly. She has absolutely no moral compass.

Sarah:

And her motive is just greed.

Mark:

And she's upset that she couldn't change the hotel?

Sarah:

Yeah. She's not writing it wrong. She's not revenging something even that didn't happen, but she thinks it did. She's just greedy.

Mark:

It's power and money. Yep. He died on the 07/14/2000 at the age of 81. But enough about the hotel. Yeah.

Mark:

She says that in her eulogy. She gives the eulogy of the man like she has no moral compass No. At all.

Sarah:

She even complains about how he kept it too cold. See something nice.

Mark:

Yeah, exactly.

Sarah:

After the funeral, the popes, Woody and Evelyn invite Tom and Joyce back to their place. I love Woody. Yes. He's almost as good as Marcus.

Mark:

He's he's the Marcus of this episode.

Sarah:

I just wanna hug him.

Mark:

Marcus knew what was going on. Yeah. Woody's a little out there.

Sarah:

But only because he's a kind guy, not looking too closely at stuff.

Mark:

I don't know. Speaking of closely, you sure put us joyous off of clothes.

Sarah:

I think it's fun that he flirts with her.

Mark:

Yeah. I think so too. And they have someone visiting them, Clarisse or Claris. Yeah. Here we would say Clarisse.

Mark:

Clarisse.

Sarah:

Yeah. It always makes me think of Silence of the Lambs because it's the only other character that I know who named named Clarisse, but they pronounce it Clarisse, So we should say Clarice as weird as it

Mark:

creepy from the very beginning. She's got the puppets on her hand already. And

Sarah:

She weirds me out even when she doesn't have the puppets. She's Evelyn's niece, and her parents live in Africa somewhere.

Mark:

Kenya.

Sarah:

Kenya. So she's she's come to stay with them. I don't know how old she's supposed to be. Actress is in her twenties.

Mark:

We think that she's supposed to be mid to late teenage eras.

Sarah:

I I think that's what they want us to believe. Yes. Maybe late teens and maybe raised by parents who were missionaries or something else, some kind of sheltered life because Well, Evelyn makes a comment that Clarice, sorry, Clarice doesn't know the impact she has on the opposite sex. Yeah. And she's certainly old enough to know about boys.

Mark:

And she certainly knows what she's doing to Troy other than weirding him out.

Sarah:

Yeah. At first, I thought, oh, they're making eye contact. And then his face changes and he's like, yeah, you're pretty, but scary and and weird and maybe crazy.

Mark:

Barnaby helps them load the the traditional puppet show theater into the van, the Scooby van, as we'll discuss later.

Sarah:

The fate and the funeral are not on the same day. No. The the fate is the next day.

Mark:

Right? This is This is not the fate.

Sarah:

Oh, it's a birthday party.

Mark:

It's a birthday party.

Sarah:

That's right. So while they're doing that, they're having the will reading.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Right? And the result of the will, Kenneth reads.

Mark:

Because he's the lawyer of the hotel.

Sarah:

Right. Is that Susanna, Gregory, Julia, and Tristan will each have a quarter share in the hotel.

Mark:

Now there's a guy that there's a bunch of workers in the background. Mhmm. Including and I immediately, I'm like, it's that guy. Mhmm. Who is Tyson in this show, who is in King's Crystal also, another episode.

Mark:

And he plays basically the same guy.

Sarah:

Yeah. He's he's kind of that tough ticked off worker guy.

Mark:

Yes. That's what he is.

Sarah:

But the whole cast is there. I mean, everybody's everybody's there. There's a little bit of time difference. And I guess I don't think it really impacts too much except that we know while this is happening, Gregory is dead in the woods, right?

Mark:

Well, no, he's dead in the drink.

Sarah:

Well, yes. Yes. He's been killed. Yes. He is dead.

Sarah:

So Annie is at the reading. Yes. She's at the funeral. She's at the will reading. But then when Evelyn and Claris and Tom are in the van taking the Punch and Judy show to the birthday party, she's at the end of the lane having caught pheasants in the woods.

Mark:

Now I have a question. I have never been pregnant in my life. My entire life, I've never had this experience. And Annie is four months pregnant at this point.

Sarah:

Four months?

Mark:

Four months. We know it's Gregory's child, we find out. Yeah. Were you really wanting to go, now I realize you had triplets, did you want to go pheasant hunting at four months pregnant?

Sarah:

I wouldn't have gone pheasant hunting if I had been one hundred months pregnant or negative a hundred months pregnant. There's no situation in which I would have said, I'm going to go pheasant hunting. Okay. So I don't know. Later on.

Sarah:

But she's definitely stressed out. Yes. The father of her child, the man she loves, is missing.

Mark:

And she was going to go meet him.

Sarah:

She was supposed to go to the funeral with him. They were going to go together. And that was going to be a big statement about the future that they were going to have together despite Susannah, who he's married to. Right? And so I can only imagine that after the confusion and upset of that morning, she just wanted to do something that made her feel purposeful.

Mark:

But she's a busy form of pregnant lady.

Sarah:

She is. But she's also kind of a woodsy outdoorsy gamekeeper's daughter. So who knows, maybe pheasant hunting is relaxing to her. Yes. And Tyson's her dad.

Sarah:

Those two are Yeah.

Mark:

So Troy starts working the missing person and he's calling around the hospitals and stuff like that. And what happens is Barnaby and Claris and a few other people go to the pub, and they go to the Red Lion, which is the actual name of that pub.

Sarah:

And this is after the show. Right? At the birthday party? Yeah. So I have a question about that show.

Sarah:

Sorry. Before before we go too far on, because we've talked about the swazzle and all that stuff. So Gregory was supposed to do this Punch and Judy show.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Right? But he's missing. Yes. So Claris does it instead. Yes.

Sarah:

Evelyn encourages her, says, You can do it. And she does a pretty good job.

Mark:

She drops a puppet, but she's a natural mimic.

Sarah:

Yeah. Knowing what we know about how this swazzle works and how all the research I've done, I couldn't find a single instance of a professor who didn't use a swazzle to punch his voice. Claris is alone in the puppet show. She's got a puppet on each hand and yet is able to do a normal voice and then a swazzle voice and then a normal voice without dropping without lowering a puppet to have her hand free to take it out of her mouth or put it back in her mouth?

Mark:

The answer, strangely enough, is Greenland. And by that, I mean, they recorded the audio later.

Sarah:

I know, but how is she supposed to be doing?

Mark:

Oh, I have no idea. Like you put it in your teeth or something? Or maybe

Sarah:

in your cheek?

Mark:

In your cheek. I'd really like to meet a traditional professor and ask these questions.

Sarah:

All I know is every time I and this is not the first time that I've thought about Punch and Judy because Punch and Judy is mentioned in so many different things. It is an incredibly difficult thing to do. I can only imagine using two different puppets that are both above your head and doing the swazzle, not the swazzle, even if you're just putting it in the side of your mouth and back.

Mark:

It's gotta be tiring and physical.

Sarah:

Without swallowing it, while doing the motions, with a bunch of grumpy kids sitting outside.

Mark:

Yeah, definitely.

Sarah:

Because she's accomplished this achievement, Evelyn is so proud of her, she takes a Polaroid of her performing the Punch and Judy show where you can't even see Clarice because she's behind the curtain. Like, here's you doing your first performance. I'm so proud of you. I know you're not in this picture, and it could be anybody in this picture, but I'm so proud.

Mark:

So that Polaroid camera is a Polaroid six three six blue. Blue? Yes. Because the camera itself is blue and only available in The UK. Oh.

Mark:

That blue model. You couldn't buy that model here in The United States. And it was actually still in use at this point in time. You still could buy film and stuff for it, even into 2000.

Sarah:

It's hard not to see that Polaroid and think, wow, that's a really antiquated camera. So you're saying, but at the time it really wasn't?

Mark:

At the time it wasn't as antiquated.

Sarah:

I just thought it was great that Evelyn takes the photo of Claris. It's like going on vacation and never taking a picture of you or your family anywhere you go, just taking pictures of stuff. You know? Like Were

Mark:

you on the vacation?

Sarah:

It could be anybody.

Mark:

So they go down the pub, and the landlady does it like a good thing. She calls out and says, has anybody seen Gregory?

Sarah:

Because Evelyn and Claris actually want to know where Gregory is. Meanwhile, Julia's like, who cares? I'm late for the decorators.

Mark:

Let me touch your stomach.

Sarah:

Not only is she horrible, bad, immoral, greedy, but she doesn't even pretend not to be.

Mark:

No. None of those things.

Sarah:

She doesn't even fake like, oh, I wonder where my husband is. She's like, who cares? Whatever.

Mark:

And Peter's playing dominoes and he kind of yells out that Gregory's found another woman. And I think they imply here that Clarice or somebody close to Claire Clarice is that other woman.

Sarah:

I kind of got that impression too. But then when I think about how young I think she's supposed to be, that that's kinda gross. And everybody is immediately She definitely looks up to him.

Mark:

Everyone's immediately serious when they find out Gregory didn't do the Punch and Judy show. Yeah. Like he wasn't at the funeral. Oh, well, he's off, you know? Yeah.

Mark:

He didn't do Punch and Judy? Oh, that's serious. We better go look for him.

Sarah:

Because he's dedicated to it. Right? I mean, just shows that it's meaningful to him. So they go looking in the woods, they get the party out, everybody in the pub pours out to go help. And the dog finds a hand.

Sarah:

Yes. Just a hand.

Mark:

And the theremin wails. That's

Sarah:

That's what the subtitle says.

Mark:

So you watch all these shows with the closed captioning on because first of all, my hearing isn't as good as it used to be. And second of all, these these people speak English,

Sarah:

but sometimes Every once in while, you get an accent that's kind of

Mark:

And they say stuff really fast Yeah. Sometimes. I did some research on the theremin player for Midsomer. Her name is Celia Sheen.

Sarah:

We should have talked about her way back when.

Mark:

We should have.

Sarah:

Because hasn't she always played the theremin for the theme song?

Mark:

And she died in 2011. Oh. She was 71. But Jim Parker said this. Jim Parker does the music for the episodes.

Mark:

That she played this instrument that was made in the nineteen twenties and played in the series for fifteen years. She also played all the violin parts. So if you hear a violin, that's her also performing that. She was also in a number of soundtracks for Hollywood films, including Spellbound and The Day the Earth Stood Still. Wow.

Mark:

These are really kinda cool films and worked in concerts and recordings with Frank Sinatra, Placido Domingo, Cliff Richard, and many other known performers. She's super cool.

Sarah:

And if you've never seen a theremin played, I highly encourage you to go to YouTube and watch somebody play the theremin. It's amazing. They don't touch it.

Mark:

The theremin that Chiyo has shown at, I've watched a couple of videos, is a theremin that's like $9. Super duper. The guy who created the theremin, tiny little aside, is this Russian scientist who almost created it on accident. His last name was Theremin. And he came to The United States to show that technology to RCA and stole a bunch of their technology for the KGB and took it back to Russia.

Sarah:

So did he trade us a theremin for?

Mark:

A bunch of RCA secrets.

Sarah:

Basically. He's like this point

Mark:

in time.

Sarah:

At this weird instrument. Meanwhile, he's, like, grabbing blueprints. That's basically what happened.

Mark:

And RCA was, like, a leader at the time. And then another tiny little aside, the whole there, theremin kinda disappeared until Moog brought it back, who the guy who created synthesizers, because he he brought it back into Hollywood. And that's how we get all the Hollywood,

Sarah:

woo hoo,

Mark:

really in the movie stuff. So

Sarah:

It's it's an amazing instrument, and it Midsomer wouldn't be Midsomer without it.

Mark:

Yes. Absolutely. It's it it is the main theme is a waltz with a weird kind of voice y theremin noise over it, and it perfectly sums up the show.

Sarah:

And in situations like this, when they find the hand and you hear that theremin sound, it it sets the mood perfectly. It sets the mood in a way that a violin just it would just wouldn't. Yeah. So Especially in this series. Yeah.

Mark:

Theremin comes in perfectly here, and then there's a crappy sound at it. And, like, it doesn't dissipate naturally. It cuts off. It just cuts off. It's just bad.

Mark:

George says the hand is Gregory's and has been cut off with a hacksaw.

Sarah:

Who does that?

Mark:

Well, apparently Tristan.

Sarah:

Susanna is the manager of the hotel. Tristan is the head chef. Julia is the accountant. Kenneth is The lawyer. The lawyer.

Sarah:

And Gregory was general help.

Mark:

Yeah. He just hopped around the place.

Sarah:

Did you think he'd he got paid?

Mark:

I don't know, but the old man liked him the most. Yeah.

Sarah:

So now that Claris is gonna be the official Mr. Punch professor, Evelyn gives her a new Mr. Punch puppet.

Mark:

Trust Mr. Punch. Why would you ever trust Mr. Punch? I wouldn't

Sarah:

trust Mr. Punch with a glass of water. He'd splash it in your face and then stab you with the glass. Puppets are creepy anyway. Okay?

Sarah:

Let's just put that out there. They can be very creepy. They're not always creepy, but they can be. These are purposefully monstrous puppets. Their features are extreme.

Sarah:

So the last thing we need is Claris, a girl who's slightly creepy all by herself to now have a puppet that is super creepy that she insists on wearing all the time. Yes. Just And she doesn't blink and nor does mister punch.

Mark:

You know what's weird also is Colin rushes home when they find out about the hand to talk to Florence, his housekeeper. That's a nice name for what she is. I wonder if he pays her.

Sarah:

He's a naughty boy. He's they'll find

Mark:

out how naughty you've been.

Sarah:

Mhmm. Susanna doesn't hide the fact that she's greedy or immoral or adulterous. She's like, yeah. I've been sleeping with Tristan for eight months.

Mark:

Before that, Troy makes maybe his most truce tasteless joke in the entire series so far.

Sarah:

That he would have had to do the Judy show instead of the punching Judy

Mark:

show because he lost a hand.

Sarah:

Because they don't know if he's He's dead or not,

Mark:

a little hand motion, it's fantastic.

Sarah:

He pulls his sleeve over his hand. It's tasteless, but it's funny. So she admits that they were having an affair. She also says that she was in the woods that morning, the morning that Gregory died. Apparently the woods were crowded that

Mark:

She says that Gregory had no enthusiasm for, I guess,

Sarah:

for

Mark:

For This is the second episode of this show in which a woman who is married to a man has said, well, he's not enthusiastic enough to have enough sex for me, so I'm just going crazy. Because the vet's wife was like that.

Sarah:

It makes me nuts.

Mark:

I don't know what they're trying to say with that.

Sarah:

Susanna was in the forest. Kenneth was in the forest. Tristan was in the forest. Everybody's in the forest the morning that Gregory dies. And when Tom and Troy go into the forest, they pass a sign on the side of the road, put there by the police that says there was an incident here.

Sarah:

If you have information, call this number.

Mark:

On 23072000. And it has a number.

Sarah:

So they'd have the date of the incident.

Mark:

So you're driving by on British roads going Mach 10 because it takes forever to get half an hour someplace. And you're supposed to be like, Oh, what was that phone number?

Sarah:

When I saw that sign, I just thought, wow, if they put those up everywhere there was an incident, Midsomer would be covered with them. But I guess they take them away once they solve the crime. Absolutely. Otherwise, you couldn't drive for hitting one of those signs.

Mark:

They also talked to the Gooders before this.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

And Troy notices that Kenneth Gooder has an MCC tie on. So that is the Marley Bone Cricket Club. The cricket club founded in 1787, and it's kinda London's cricket team. Oh, very popular. It's that yellow and red stripey

Sarah:

I figured that was an old school tie. No. It's a cricket club tie.

Mark:

Marley Bone, which is just a great name of an area in London, Marley Bone. And he tells his wife to take a pill.

Sarah:

Wow. There's not enough pills for Julia.

Mark:

Yeah. By the way, what's the score? Yeah. It's cricket. So it's a 115 to 44, and they're on a tea break.

Sarah:

And we still don't know who's winning. Tom and Troy suspect that maybe the body's in the pond, so they're out there looking around.

Mark:

And Annie goes home to her father. And wow.

Sarah:

He is Talk about punching Judy.

Mark:

Punching Judy right here.

Sarah:

Here you go.

Mark:

Yeah. He says all this sort of under his breath stuff, and she just freaks out and starts to beat him up.

Sarah:

Well, it's not just stuff under his breath. I think he's insinuating that Gregory sort of deserved it.

Mark:

Yes. He's his seed and he ignored it. Yeah. Well, we know that Gregory didn't, but he could say that.

Sarah:

And and he's definitely stirring up trouble.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Annie's dad. And Barnaby She smashes an antique chair against him and breaks it.

Mark:

Barnaby and Troy show up and he's like, my damn daughter.

Sarah:

So we have this image of Annie as like a wild animal.

Mark:

And he lets it out that Gregory got Annie pregnant.

Sarah:

Mhmm. Which gives her a motive.

Mark:

And he goes, I should have killed him. And I was in the woods, but it wasn't me.

Sarah:

But I didn't see any of those other people who were all in the woods at the same time.

Mark:

You know who you should talk to is Colin Slater. He's always talking about denuden the woods.

Sarah:

I get it. Get it. Uh-huh.

Mark:

Get it. Get it. Denuden.

Sarah:

One of my favorite scenes when they go to Colin's door to talk to him, and he answers the door wearing nothing but an apron, socks, and sandals.

Mark:

Okay. So this is a well known Midsomer scene.

Sarah:

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Mark:

Right? It is weird, grumpy, pumpy. It's fetishistic. It's strange, and it's comical. Mhmm.

Mark:

K? I became obsessed with the poster beside the door. You're such a weirdo.

Sarah:

The okay. Okay. So Roger Frost, the actor who plays Colin

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

We have full on it's not frontal nudity. It's it's it's the opposite.

Mark:

You've seen more of his butt cheeks than anybody else naked in this show

Sarah:

so far. His ass is half of the screen, and you're looking at a poster next to him. Absolutely. Good for you. Okay.

Sarah:

Into the poster. What about that poster?

Mark:

So the poster is for Symposium two thousand of Tropical Mycology, which is the study of mushrooms at Liverpool John Moore University, the twenty fifth to the 05/29/2000. This was a real conference.

Sarah:

Woah.

Mark:

I saw the real posters and read the real notes of this conference. Okay.

Sarah:

This I'm saying woah for two reasons. One, amazing that the set dressers actually got a real poster from a real event. Absolutely. And two, woah, I can't believe you spent so much time looking into that poster. Did you learn anything?

Mark:

It was like a two day conference. No. A four day conference on mushrooms in tropical areas.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah.

Mark:

And then Liverpool is this huge microbiology center.

Sarah:

Be because Colin is a mushroom expert.

Mark:

Yes. Right?

Sarah:

He's a botanist or something like that.

Mark:

I think he's an academic at

Sarah:

this And point as a fellow academic, that is not the weirdest focus of a conference I've ever heard.

Mark:

But I've never put a poster. No, it's a nice poster. It looks nice.

Sarah:

I've been to a lot of conferences. I've keynoted large conferences and I've never brought a poster home and No, framed

Mark:

absolutely not. But anyway, you should phone and make an appointment. Goodbye.

Sarah:

Isn't that what you would say? Exactly. Or would you walk backwards in your apron and nothing else so that you didn't expose yourself and let them into the house and then sit on the furniture bare ass naked? No.

Mark:

Don't worry. We get a lot more bare ass naked with Cullen.

Sarah:

So Roger Frost is a brave actor. Actor. He runs naked in this episode.

Mark:

Yep. And there is a close-up of his ass and bouncing bits. That's all I'm gonna say.

Sarah:

Roger Frost has been married to the same person for a very long time. He's married to Pam Ferris, who plays Laura Time in Rosemary and Time.

Mark:

Yep, yep,

Sarah:

I He was also in the TV miniseries for Terry Pratchett's Hogfather. He played the Bersar in that. He's really good. Yeah. And he's in Time Bandits where he gets killed twice.

Mark:

He's in Time Bandits where he plays Cartwright, who is the one minion for evil who's like, wait a minute. God made you, so it then evil kills him. Boom. Lasers. Like, he's the one who makes sense Yeah.

Mark:

While the other ones are just sick

Sarah:

of So he certainly can't survive. Yes. Brave actor.

Mark:

So they go tell Susannah about the baby. She's nauseated by that, but not even Colin could kill over mushrooms, she says. No. He wanted the woods to himself. He likes it out in the open.

Sarah:

Meanwhile, Annie's burning stuff. They go to see her and she's got a fire going and they say, well, what are you burning? And she says some of Gregory's clothes. Nevermind the fact that she didn't start the fire or put the clothes on the fire. She doesn't say that.

Mark:

No, No. Oh, and what she drop? A bunch of blood. So she

Sarah:

gets arrested because it she looks super guilty.

Mark:

And then she's just so upset.

Sarah:

She's too sad and angry and

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

Yeah. There's a lot of blood in the back of her truck.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

But apparently it's not pheasant blood or fox blood or any other things that she probably puts dead things in the back of her truck.

Mark:

So they go off to see the professors.

Sarah:

I Because we haven't been creeped out enough.

Mark:

I have the following line in my note. Claris entices Troy in a sexual way with the punch puppet. Well,

Sarah:

if there's this inner cut, right, her eyes, his eyes, her eyes, his eyes. And you're like, wow. Maybe there's a love connection. And then the camera pans from her eyes to punch his eyes.

Mark:

And then she's

Sarah:

And then back to Troy

Mark:

and he's like to punch like he's a vitreliquis dummy. Forget about what happens in this scene. She is just so incredibly weird.

Sarah:

And I guess Evelyn just thinks, well, she's gotta practice. I guess. She's not weird. It's she's just practicing.

Mark:

And Evelyn's sickly. Like, that's the entirety of this scene. Weird Clarice, a Polaroid, and Evelyn's sickly.

Sarah:

What I wrote down is Troy either likes Clarice or fears the puppet. And then I underlined fears the puppet and put a star like, yep, that's the winner. This is also the scene where the Polaroid of the mushroom chicken of the wood. Falls out of her book and they ask her why she has it. And she says, I'm trying to learn about fungi, which is a weird way to say that.

Sarah:

I've been trying to learn more about mushrooms.

Mark:

Or Why?

Sarah:

Why? Gregory's teaching me more was teaching me more about mushrooms, but I'm trying to learn more. Like, are you failing to learn more?

Mark:

I don't know. She's a weird woman. So It's just a strange way to say it. Killer cam arrives again, but it's really killer post cam because it delivers a bunch of notes that are handwritten.

Sarah:

It's galosh cam.

Mark:

Yes. It's galoshes. Also, leave some mushrooms.

Sarah:

But completely innocently, remember? You know, it's not really the killer. Yep. It's somebody who just innocently is replacing some mushrooms.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

No big deal.

Mark:

And next thing you know, Tristan is spewing his guts. That is some extended vomit noise.

Sarah:

Colin is so fantastic in every scene, whether it's him being sure that he absolutely secures his piece of crap car.

Mark:

The first low

Sarah:

test naked or this scene where he is the least sympathetic human being I've ever seen.

Mark:

He's yep. So the first scene with his low jack, he puts it in the car, and you could see it in the background falling off the wheel. Yeah. But he just walks it, man.

Sarah:

He's He goes.

Mark:

Owns it. This scene, he does the same thing. He owns it. He's so good. And then he's just so incredibly unsympathetic.

Sarah:

Like, Tristan is dying, and he's securing

Mark:

Oh, he knows Tristan is not only dying, he's gonna die a horrible death. And he's like, how did they taste?

Sarah:

Because he knows he's never gonna taste

Mark:

one. Yes. He knows he's never gonna.

Sarah:

They're the forbidden mushroom.

Mark:

On the third day, there will be a remission, Yeah. But it's a false

Sarah:

Susanna and Tristan are like, Oh, thank heavens. Yeah. But it's a false one.

Mark:

Then you die. It's basically already too late.

Sarah:

And it's not a pleasant death. Everything I read about that mushroom, it basically causes all of your organs to just fail one

Mark:

at Your entire system fails. Yeah. And the fake remission, that's like nature going.

Sarah:

Yeah. Fooled you.

Mark:

Julia got some mushrooms too. Yeah. Though the next time we see her, she's clearly high. Yeah. Like, she's on something.

Sarah:

She's taken the advice to take the pills.

Mark:

I'm not really fond of puppets.

Sarah:

So let's get this straight. There have been there's at least one murder that's already happened in the woods that included having hands cut off. Mushrooms have been slipped into somebody's breakfast and now they're dying. Everybody's had a death threat through the mail. And yet Kenneth says, Oh, no one is trying to kill anybody.

Mark:

You're it's all in your head.

Sarah:

You're overreacting. Absolutely. It's just like Kenneth could make himself look a little bit more guilty.

Mark:

Kenneth is horrible too because he is the guy at the back that goes, yeah. Kill him. He doesn't do anything. Kenneth does nothing in this episode except for watch murders and get crushed by a drinks cabinet.

Sarah:

Well, when Julia comes back from the funeral or from the Will reading, he seems excited about the fact that she's inherited a quarter of the hotel because that means he can buy more whiskey. Yes. Right? For his collection of whiskey. And so I So when it falls on him, it is justice.

Mark:

So I think this murder is a first though in Midsomer because when he goes to the drinks cabinet in the room are him, his wife, Julia, and Troy and Tom. Yeah. This is the first murder I think Troy and Tom actually witnessed.

Sarah:

Yeah. They're not just nearby, but they see it happen.

Mark:

See the drinks cabinet go over slowly Yeah. So that Kenneth can't get out of the way. K? They also okay. There are a lot of bottles on there.

Mark:

Mhmm. And they all have labels that are real. Mhmm. So I'm assuming that that's not actual alcohol.

Sarah:

Right.

Mark:

Okay. It's colored water in there. Yeah. Somebody had to drink all that alcohol. Was this a party set or something?

Mark:

Because there's a lot of alcohol.

Sarah:

Maybe they collected them all from pubs.

Mark:

So the drinks cabinet goes down, and Troy tries to lift it. And Barnaby's like, no. No. No. His hand.

Mark:

Takes his pulse. Clearly dead.

Sarah:

He's instantly dead.

Mark:

I don't know if he would instantly die.

Sarah:

I don't think so.

Mark:

I don't think so either. But Julia does, what does she do again? Screamy, screamy. Yeah.

Sarah:

And those must have been the two most powerful screws in the universe.

Mark:

They held up really that entire wall. Apparently. And who goes who calls the handyman? I know you're Richie Rich, but who calls the handyman to take two screws out?

Sarah:

Don't know how he did it anyway. It's well established that this cabinet weighs a gazillion pounds. Right? It's enough to instantly crush someone to death.

Mark:

Oh, they're paying me. I'm just gonna make their house a pick up.

Sarah:

No, Julia. He thinks that Julia called him and said that they were going to sell it at auction. And so they wanted it removed from the wall. But it was full. Yes.

Sarah:

So how does he, the handyman of magical abilities, move this cabinet far enough away from the wall to take those screws out and then put it back without it falling on him? Magic. If it's so teeter tottery that just opening the door makes it fall and crush you to death. Magic. He's skilled.

Mark:

I guess so. Yep. We have no timeline on that either.

Sarah:

No. Because he is in

Mark:

that drinks cabinet at other points. I'm like, does it fall on him now? Oh no. Okay. So that timeline is weird.

Sarah:

So now Kenneth's been crushed. Julia is even more freaked out. They send her to bed, give her pills or whatever and send her to bed. But then when everybody's outside, she comes out to talk to Susanna and she says, I just don't think I can face the tombola.

Mark:

Yes. And Julie and Susanna says, look it, we have two dead husbands and a poison lover between us.

Sarah:

I think it's okay if we don't run the tombola.

Mark:

You weren't even supposed to run the tombola anyway.

Sarah:

All I could think is roll up, roll up, you know? Because Tom runs the tombola, you know, in another episode. Like, I can't face the tombola. Really, no one can, Julia. It's the tombola.

Sarah:

It's not exciting.

Mark:

So they figure out that Annie couldn't have left the mushrooms because she was in the pokey. Mhmm. And they go and see this is just like a ping pong between suspects. That's all they do.

Sarah:

They just keep Tom and Troy are just like, let's talk to this person. Let's go to that person. Oh, they're dead. So now we don't have to go talk to them anymore. You see?

Mark:

We have the the punch hangman scene. Don't tease. And Gregory's script is mentioned that they found Gregory's script.

Sarah:

Because he was gonna follow the tradition of making some kind of social commentary with his script for the show. So At the fate. They Not the show at the birthday party.

Mark:

As mentioned, they ping pong around all these different things. Right? You know what Troy's doing in the car? He's calling the cop shop to tell them where they are every single time they go.

Sarah:

So they can find them.

Mark:

Because they phone on a landline and know where he is.

Sarah:

That was kind of how you had to do it.

Mark:

Oh, gosh. It must have been a pain in the butt.

Sarah:

I don't know why they're doing it in this episode specifically when we already know that cell phones exist from prior episodes. Yeah. But detective inspectors, especially before cell phones, did call in quite often and tell the desk sergeant where they were.

Mark:

It's time for the fate. Yep. Luckily, I have fate. Someone's gonna die. Actually, no one dies at the fate.

Mark:

No. But there is a who'd have thought it truck.

Sarah:

What the heck is that? W It's a food truck.

Mark:

Apostrophe D Slash A Comma T H O Apostrophe TDashIT. Who'd have thought it?

Sarah:

And they have everything.

Mark:

Chips, burgers, candy floss, toffee apples. Wait a minute. Toffee apples? Is that like butter toffee on an apple? Because we're getting on a plane and going to The UK so I can have one of these.

Sarah:

All I know is that we don't have any food trucks in Bloomington that are nearly as good as the who'd have thought it truck. Because who'd have thought they'd have all that stuff.

Mark:

They also have another interesting thing there that I really wanna know more about. Ferret racing? Ferret racing. Place your bets.

Sarah:

They've got Splat the Rat too, but we know what that is. We know what Splat the Rat is, but The ferret racing. Ferret

Mark:

racing was a new one.

Sarah:

Hang now. I'm like,

Mark:

I want to place my bet on the ferret racing.

Sarah:

Meanwhile, Suzanne is like, all the builders in the county must come to the hotel right now. Start work. Yes. It's the most efficient project. Cause two days ago she was meeting with decorators and now Yep.

Sarah:

Work is Goodbye. She's on it. And this is the last time that the fate's going to happen at the hotel anyway. So, cause she's already told those people that not gonna be doing it again.

Mark:

They find out about, like, that Tristan's a really good archer. They find a piece of paper. No. In the woods, they find the mushroom and some blood, which has been there for a couple of days, but it's still wet. And there's a Punch and Judy show.

Sarah:

Heads will roll if the truth ain't told.

Mark:

So then they get in the Scooby van.

Sarah:

The Punch and Judy van is the Scooby van?

Mark:

It kinda looks

Sarah:

like it. Especially when all three of them are in the front seat. Yes. I like that. I like Tom riding Runch Judy?

Sarah:

When Tom's riding in the middle.

Mark:

Runch and Judy?

Sarah:

No Scoob Scooby Snacks. No Barnaby. Have a Scooby Snack. No. Where's Shaggy?

Sarah:

It's Troy. Troy is Scooby. So

Mark:

while running the hotel. Mhmm. While doing all these renovations

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

While touching Tristan's stomach, did you notice that as soon as Tristan goes to the hotel goes to the hospital, she cares

Sarah:

nothing about him? She's over him.

Mark:

Like, I can't touch his stomach because he's puking.

Sarah:

He's not sexy anymore.

Mark:

He's not sexy anymore.

Sarah:

I mean, if a person you loved had days to live, you knew they were going to die, would you wanna be anywhere else but by their side?

Mark:

No. You're in the workshop late at night making a spike strip with hinges on it.

Sarah:

You make clear

Mark:

meditation involved in this. Because it's Susanna who puts the spike the spike strip down. I'm not very ashamed to be sure why she wants to kill them, but she doesn't.

Sarah:

Because she thinks they know about the will. They because they've mentioned the piece of paper.

Mark:

So she has to leave early from the punch show, get ahead of the Scooby van. Mhmm. Put down the the spike Strip in broad daylight Yep. In a spot where she thinks they'll kill themselves.

Sarah:

Because there's a wall they can run into.

Mark:

Because in no point in time does she think, oh, well, the air will go into their tires and they'll slow down and stop.

Sarah:

Well, Clarice is driving, and she's crazy. That's true. She should have the punch button on

Mark:

as she's driving. So it's Evelyn Barnaby, the punch puppet, and Clarice.

Sarah:

No. Tom's not in the van this time, but if we could

Mark:

just But Scooby in the back. Arch.

Sarah:

There's great footage of Clarice and Evelyn kinda getting thrown left and right in the front of the van as they lose control up

Mark:

in But the now I can see Punch come.

Sarah:

But if if only it zoomed in and and Punch was there in the middle, you know, smiling, waving back and forth too, that would have been awesome.

Mark:

So they go off into a field.

Sarah:

Oh, she should have driven with Punch on her hand. I can't get that out of my head now. That would have been so epic. She's screaming, Evelyn's screaming, Punch is screaming.

Mark:

So after that, Suzanne calls Julia and says, calm down.

Sarah:

Julia is definitely the weakest link in this conspiracy.

Mark:

Oh, who is the weakest link? Julia. And then who calls next? Punch calls next. Man.

Sarah:

Is there anything creeper creepier than Punch calling you on the phone? Julia needs caller ID. That's what my note says.

Mark:

Would it say Punch? I think

Sarah:

it would say Punch. It would say killer Punch. Evelyn, you're next. I'm coming to get you. Would drive anybody crazy.

Mark:

Crazy out. Husband's dead. She's out of her medicine. Home alone. Her on the phone.

Sarah:

Home alone after having a death threat too. Yes. And the and the the scene of her husband's death is like, down downstairs.

Mark:

And we find out later that Tristan had called Suzanne to go, go kill her. Yeah.

Sarah:

Like, what does he care?

Mark:

He he does the least characterized thing of him.

Sarah:

When she calls him at the hospital for advice

Mark:

then we have to roll the the telephone over to him.

Sarah:

I'm coming. It needs some w d 40 back.

Mark:

I'm almost there.

Sarah:

The excited nurse who gets to sit behind the window and watch Tristan die.

Mark:

And then I'm like, do they plug it into the wall? If they plug it into the wall, why don't they have a phone there already?

Sarah:

But she calls him because she's freaked out and she wants his advice. And if I was Tristan, I'm laying there in agony. I know I'm dying. She calls me going, Julia is, like, so unstable, and I think she's gonna, like, tell people that

Mark:

we kill her.

Sarah:

Wouldn't you just say, screw you, Susanna, and hang up?

Mark:

Yeah. I would. Or it's time that you were over here because I'm dying.

Sarah:

Maybe she'll kill you instead. Oh, wait. That's what happens.

Mark:

That's what happens. So Julia, the least stable person in this entire episode gets a gun, always a bad thing, and knows that Susanna is gonna kill her. Let's just go over

Sarah:

Wait a minute. Does she know Susanna is coming to kill her?

Mark:

No. She did.

Sarah:

She knows someone's coming to get her.

Mark:

Let's just go over Susanna kills Cartwright. Mhmm. Wainwright. Wainwright. Sleeping around on her husband.

Mark:

Mhmm. Ditches her lover the soon the moment he gets sick. Mhmm.

Sarah:

Drives the nurse away and breaks her heart.

Mark:

Puts down the strip and goes over to kill Julia. She may be the the most maniacal person we've seen so far.

Sarah:

And all because she's greedy.

Mark:

It's all greed. So anyway, right?

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

Susanna goes down like a sack of potatoes.

Sarah:

I can I can imagine though that there was another phone call that we didn't see?

Mark:

Okay. What's the what's the name?

Sarah:

Where Tristan called Julia again.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

And said, Susanna is coming to kill her. Kill you, shoot her first. Susanna would deserve it.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

And if I was Tristan, yeah, what all you got to lose?

Mark:

Tristan has nothing to lose right now, which is why when the the cops go see him, when Troy and Barnaby go to see him, he gives it all up.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because he has nothing to lose. He's like, here's the will.

Mark:

I was out with safety arrows. I'm sorry to go on and on about this, but you could not shoot a safety arrow into a person, let alone a tree far across the water.

Sarah:

No. Just not possible. Yeah. You think as much as they clearly know about weaponry and stuff for the show, that when they show the tip of an arrow, they would have shown a real arrow and then let him shoot a safety arrow because Tristan certainly would not have used the wrong arrows because he's Rambo. He says, I'll kill Gregory.

Sarah:

I'll take that job. Right? He volunteers. He's ready.

Mark:

He's ready. If only he had camo face paint and fireballs.

Sarah:

Yeah. The arm bands. I understand. Those are archery gear.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

Right? They stabilize your bicep to keep your arm from trembling when you're holding an arrow taught for a long period of time. The camo pants, I kind of understand because they're cargo pants and they let him hold a bunch of stuff. Maybe he needed bits and pieces. Okay.

Sarah:

Maybe. They don't have to be camo.

Mark:

In the same way we have punch in the van now in our brains, all the outdoor scenes, I see Tristan leaping like it's a gazelle in the background.

Sarah:

Yeah. Saying, if it bleeds, we can kill it. Not only does he have all that gear on, he puts the black paint on his cheeks. He puts a feather in the headband. Yep.

Sarah:

Now he's real.

Mark:

He's ready.

Sarah:

And he brings a raft. Does he inflate the raft?

Mark:

There there's a missing scene where he's on the beach with the dead body.

Sarah:

Yeah. No pump because he would have to carry it. Right? No. He's blowing into it with his mouth.

Mark:

I should've brought a poop. Yeah.

Sarah:

Like that would have taken him half a day.

Mark:

But he was interrupted.

Sarah:

Well, has those awesome abs. He does. So maybe that lets him inflate a full size raft with just his mouth.

Mark:

He's interrupted by Colin and His sandals. Sandals. And the housekeeper doesn't appear here.

Sarah:

No. You know she's there, but you don't see her.

Mark:

So Colin is nakedy naked. He has sandals on.

Sarah:

No apron. Daddy's No nothing.

Mark:

All he is on. And we get the moonshot. Right? It takes up the whole screen, his ass.

Sarah:

Yeah. Never mind the branch that slaps him on the ass first while he's running.

Mark:

And the subtitles here are happy cries of pain.

Sarah:

Yeah. Whoever wrote the captions was having a lot of fun there. Absolutely. Like, what do you say about that scene?

Mark:

And what what the thing is that Colin does nothing wrong in this episode.

Sarah:

No. I mean, he's kind of insensitive and overly protective of his car.

Mark:

He has this He has a interesting relationship Yeah. With

Sarah:

his But he's not hurting anybody. He's not hurting

Mark:

anybody. No. He's he is a nice man.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

And if he could have helped Tristan, I think he would have.

Sarah:

I think he would have too.

Mark:

I think he absolutely

Sarah:

If there was If there was an antidote, I think he would have gladly said so.

Mark:

Geez, he gets a bad rap on the butt.

Sarah:

But he likes it, so it's okay. If only when the branch came out because we don't see who's holding it, we just assume that it's Florence. But if only he'd just seen a little flash of punch

Mark:

holding the holding the branch. Just whacking it like it sticks.

Sarah:

That's the way to do it. That's the

Mark:

way to do it.

Sarah:

I want to talk about blood.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Okay. So we all know there was blood in the back of Annie's truck.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

And Tristan says that he put it there. And it came from? The head and hands

Mark:

of Gregory. From? The woods. What's his name's car?

Sarah:

Right. So Tristan kills Gregory in the woods, cuts his head and hands off in order to, cause he's carrying a hacksaw in his combat trousers apparently.

Mark:

He is.

Sarah:

Along with the inflatable boat. He's got big pockets. Right? Man, his face must've been so sore. You know, when you blow up a pool floaty, you get that kind of lightheaded feeling if you blow it up too fast.

Sarah:

He must've really been lightheaded anyway. So he cuts the head and hands off, puts them in a plastic trash bag, sinks the body.

Mark:

Drops a hand.

Sarah:

Well, the bag rips apparently. So a hand falls out and he doesn't notice, but the bag is still whole enough to contain all of the blood that's oozing out of the head and the remaining hand.

Mark:

Into Ken's car.

Sarah:

So he puts it in Ken's trunk and it leaks blood in there. And then they think, Oh, we should put blood in the back of Annie's truck so that it looks like she transported the body. And when they show Annie's truck, it's not like a little spatter or a couple of drops. It's like a puddle.

Mark:

There's a puddle of blood.

Sarah:

So how do you get from a blood pool in Kenneth's car to a blood pool in the truck? Like, did he sop it up with a dish cloth and then wring it out in the back of Annie's I

Mark:

guess maybe he had those also, or maybe he could have filled a floaty with it.

Sarah:

Or maybe he brought Gregory's head to the truck and squeezed it.

Mark:

Maybe.

Sarah:

Like a lemon?

Mark:

No, they did that afterwards. Because remember he puts that stuff in the incinerator. That's right. Which would have left all sorts of evidence.

Sarah:

Yeah, but they don't look real thoroughly in there. As far as we know, Barnaby just kind of

Mark:

screwed No, stuff we referenced that to it later that the lab boys went through it.

Sarah:

Ah yes. Behind the scenes, the

Mark:

grunts did that work. With their white sticks.

Sarah:

So did they use like a wet, wet vac to vacuum the blood out of Kenneth's carpet and then pour that out? It just doesn't make any sense to me. And it seems like an awfully big messy kind of thing. And wouldn't Annie have noticed that Tristan's out there like squeezing blood into the back of her truck?

Mark:

Like, and when did they do it? Oh, it's just the timeline here is screwy.

Sarah:

Just the reality of it is really gross. Yeah. You know, it makes me think of like stranglers would when we know that little boy went out there with his dad's shirt and smeared it over a corpse's lips to get lipstick on it. You know, it's like, that's a nice clue. But if you think about the logistics of it, it's rather disturbing.

Sarah:

Tristan's got a pastry bag, you know, full of blood. He's like,

Mark:

he's a chef. Right? Another helpful guy that shows up is the builder.

Sarah:

Yeah. And he says that he got the call to come and remove the screws and he assumed it was Julia. Right? Yep. A mimic.

Sarah:

Knew where the key was. We know it was Evelyn calling. Yes. And Evelyn can sound just like Julia. You know how she does that?

Sarah:

Take those screws out of the Look at your cabinet,

Mark:

I can't handle it anymore.

Sarah:

Click. That's how you know it was her.

Mark:

Exactly. Because that's

Sarah:

what she always sounds like.

Mark:

So now we're headed to the climax of the episode, which involves Evelyn taking some pills and getting ready to talk to Barnaby.

Sarah:

Because Julia is in the asylum now. Shoot. She's off with the I love myself jacket in the padded room out of the picture, which means everybody that was involved in the conspiracy is taken care of. Right?

Mark:

Yes. Because So there's a multiple of conspiracies here. Because there is the conspiracy to kill Wainwright. Yes. Then there is the conspiracy to kill Gregory.

Mark:

Yes. And then there is the conspiracy to frame Annie.

Sarah:

Yes. K. And under all of that is the conspiracy to suppress the fact that there is a second will.

Mark:

And there were a number of people involved with all of those. Really, Wainwright and his inability to shut up caused all of his problems. Right? Because if he had they had to go, is there a second will? And went, mm-mm, Which was more convincing right there than what he did.

Sarah:

Now he goes, you know, like a Scooby villain.

Mark:

Of that would have happened. But then there's a conspiracy. Right? So Evelyn gets Evelyn gets boy. That's what he's called in the in the show notes.

Sarah:

Right? Yeah.

Mark:

Boy. Boy on motorcycle. Gets him to deliver the mushroom. Mhmm. K?

Sarah:

And she gets Claris to drop off the death threats.

Mark:

So there is an unwitting conspiracy here, but there's a conspiracy.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

There there's everybody's conspiring against everybody else.

Sarah:

Evelyn manages to kill Tristan, Kenneth and Susanna without ever touching them.

Mark:

Without ever touching them.

Sarah:

Without being near them when it happened. Right? She gets Boy to add the mushrooms to Gregory's basket, which she claims if they hadn't been so callous as to eat the mushrooms that Gregory picked the morning that he died. Oh, she has? Does that does that mean that Tristan kills Gregory, takes his little basket and takes the basket home?

Sarah:

Yes. Or are these mushrooms?

Mark:

He does.

Sarah:

That's even worse. They're they're horrible people. So he's carrying

Mark:

a trash bag

Sarah:

of body parts and a little wee basket of mushrooms.

Mark:

Okay. This is what must be in Tristan's inventory. They bow. Safety arrows, an inflatable raft, a bag with hands and head in it.

Sarah:

A rope. A rope. A Basket of mushrooms.

Mark:

Basket of mushrooms, and the body because he has to carry the body too.

Sarah:

That's true. Because the pond is not right next to where he was shot.

Mark:

Yeah. Like that's a lot for Christian to carry, even with those fancy stomach muscles of his.

Sarah:

Maybe the feather made him super strong.

Mark:

Super strong.

Sarah:

It's like his power up or something. Because he is like a video game character whose inventory is far larger than it could actually carry. Completely.

Mark:

So Evelyn lays it all out. Woody comes in and she says, Woody, can you join us later? Poor Woody.

Sarah:

I know. He's like, something's going on.

Mark:

Carl Raymond is Annie's father. I wrote the script. I figured it all out. It's it's she just lays it all out.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

And we find out that the will is giving everything to Annie.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

The second will. And we find that out at Tristan's bedside because he keeps it. The smartest thing that Tristan ever did was say, well, she killed one husband and she killed her boss. She might kill me.

Sarah:

But I would still go out with her if I wasn't dying. I would just want this insurance policy of this second will just in case.

Mark:

I kept it here hidden in my-

Sarah:

Hotel bed, my hospital Yeah.

Mark:

Not sure

Sarah:

how that works. It's convenient because if it was hidden somewhere else, he would have had to go, okay, Tom, see, here's what you do. You walked into the woods, you go to the third tree on the left, you look over, you kinda, you know, like

Mark:

You find my ginormous pack.

Sarah:

Yeah. I just happened to have put it right here under the mattress.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

And nurse Ratchet hasn't found it yet with her secret phone.

Mark:

Yes. Evelyn dies and it's sad.

Sarah:

And our understanding is that her motive for all of this is because she thinks Annie's been done hard by. Yes. And she cared for Gregory. So Annie is not crazy Tyson's daughter. No.

Sarah:

So he's out of the picture, right? All of the conspirators are out of the picture. So

Mark:

hold on. So let's finish off the episode before we get to after the episode.

Sarah:

No, I know, but it's, so what Evelyn has done is freed Annie up from all of the people who had either done wrong by her or she's revenged Gregory, which I guess she's trying to do both.

Mark:

And she does both.

Sarah:

But I don't know why she cares about Annie so much. I mean, feel bad for Annie, but it's not like Annie is Evelyn's daughter.

Mark:

I think she's sad that Annie was never legitimately talked about as Wainwright's daughter.

Sarah:

Oh, so you think Evelyn has always known that Annie was Wainwright's daughter?

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

I don't think I knew how long Evelyn had known that.

Mark:

I'm not sure, but that's all

Sarah:

I I think we can assume that she's known for a while. She's older. She's been in the village longer.

Mark:

She has a cane.

Sarah:

Yeah. Canes are super.

Mark:

Exactly. So she dies and then they put her in an ambulance and then Claris's outfit goes from bad divorce.

Sarah:

Yeah. She's gone from frump to here's my belly button.

Mark:

And it's like two shots, but obviously the actress is not happy about that. I don't know. It's just not right.

Sarah:

She's an inconsistent character.

Mark:

She left a note for Woody and Woody reads it, which is the saddest thing ever.

Sarah:

Claris reads it to him because he doesn't have his glasses.

Mark:

How am I supposed to be happy now? It's just so terribly and upsettingly sad.

Sarah:

I like your idea that Woody and Marcus from a previous episode should get together and start

Mark:

A tractor business.

Sarah:

A riding lawnmower tractor business, or at least like maybe they could have races.

Mark:

Maybe. I think they'd be best buddies.

Sarah:

I think they would too.

Mark:

They have a lot in common. Yeah.

Sarah:

Our wives are a little crazy and now they're both dead. So let's be friends.

Mark:

And weird younger people who live in the house. Really?

Sarah:

There is, yeah. They actually have a lot

Mark:

in common. They're playing croquet in the backyard.

Sarah:

Yeah. So Tom and Joyce are in the back backyard playing some croquet because now she's the master of croquet because she ran a stall for an hour. Right? So she knows all about it.

Mark:

Tom didn't bring the new sign.

Sarah:

And she says that Evelyn is a mass murderer. What do you think about that?

Mark:

Okay. Mass murderer is usually characterized by killing over three people at one time. That's what from what I understand mass murderer, you kill everybody at the same time.

Sarah:

So if Susanna had made the van explode with Claris and Evelyn and punch, let's give him credit. He's a person. If that exploded and all three of them died, then she would be a mass murderer just for killing those three people.

Mark:

It's gotta be three or more.

Sarah:

I would say it's gotta be more than three. I mean, I think I'm like 10.

Mark:

Okay. Let's say five. Five. You killed five people at one time.

Sarah:

And at once, right? If you do them one at a time, you're a serial killer.

Mark:

Yeah. Right? If there's time between it, that's the whole point of serial is that there's a up the event and then a ramp down and then a ramp up. She Mass murderers don't do that.

Sarah:

She enjoys poisoning Tristan and then that wears off. So she's got to do something to Kenneth and then that wears off. Right? So like, she's

Mark:

not a serial killer.

Sarah:

She's not a No, serial she's neither.

Mark:

She's a revenge killer.

Sarah:

And I mean, okay. Let's say Evelyn doesn't die. If she had to go to court, do you think she'd even be convicted since she didn't actually do it?

Mark:

It would be really difficult.

Sarah:

I mean, Julia killed Susanna?

Mark:

Well, I think she doesn't want to go to court because it would mean Claris and Boy would be charged with murder.

Sarah:

Yeah. At least conspiracy.

Mark:

Yeah. So that's why I think she kills herself. She takes all the blame.

Sarah:

And she's ailing and she's not happy. The fact that she's not as capable as she used to be, she can't do things anymore. She's clearly frustrated with that. But I just think you certainly can't call her a mass murderer. So I don't think Joyce is right there.

Mark:

No, Joyce has it wrong, but she's really mean to Tom when he's trying to hit the ball.

Sarah:

She is. It's rude. So Evelyn might be gone. Maybe Woody will have a new friend. I don't know.

Sarah:

Maybe, maybe I don't know. He's stuck with Claris. And those puppets. I can only imagine those puppets would be really upsetting to him after Evelyn's death. I would assume so.

Sarah:

And and Claris even more so because she's creepy. So best corpse

Mark:

of the episode.

Sarah:

Tough one.

Mark:

We have the following deaths to consider. Right? We see Carl, Wainwright. We see Gregory's dead body.

Sarah:

Well, no. We see him fall. Yeah. Fall. We don't

Mark:

see a dead body.

Sarah:

We see his hand. I guess you could count the hat.

Mark:

We don't see Tristan dying. No. Ken Gooder's Hands.

Sarah:

His

Mark:

hand. Susannah, she's up against the wall dead.

Sarah:

Yep. Spatter and everything.

Mark:

So of dead bodies, we really have Carl in the coffin.

Sarah:

Susanna against the wall. Yep. And that's it. We see Evelyn sort of look like she falls asleep. Yeah.

Sarah:

So I got to go with Suzanne.

Mark:

I think Suzanne's probably the best corpse also.

Sarah:

Yeah. Though Carl does a good job of laying perfectly still in that coffin.

Mark:

It's kind of easy. You kind of press against the sides. You don't have to move or anything.

Sarah:

Yeah. But he's got Susanna and Tristan making out like crazy people over him.

Mark:

But it doesn't matter because, and we'll talk about this in just a second, next week's episode. Dude, it is Oscar level dead body acting next week.

Sarah:

Yeah. I think Susanna wins the the best body of the episode. So And maybe the most deserved body of the episode too.

Mark:

So we wanna add a segment here of what happens after the episode.

Sarah:

We'll call it after the credits.

Mark:

After the credits, what happens in this story? Because Annie has now inherited the estate.

Sarah:

Yes. The hotel and everything.

Mark:

So she doesn't have to worry about a job, but she has no idea.

Sarah:

No. How

Mark:

to run an estate.

Sarah:

No. The She might know how to run the grounds, but she, yeah, she has no business acumen as far as we know.

Mark:

No, Julia is off in La La Land somewhere. She's committed.

Sarah:

Yeah. Woody And if she wasn't, she'd be on trial.

Mark:

Woody has lost his wife and lives in the house with creepy Claris. Mhmm. And like, that's it. Like, oh, Annie's father, Tyson, it's revealed that he's not her father. So that's a complex relationship already that just got another wrapper of complexity around it.

Sarah:

Yeah. So let's put this all together. What does Annie have to live with after all this is said and done? She's inherited a hotel. She has no idea how to run.

Mark:

In the state.

Sarah:

Yeah. She's pregnant. The father of that baby was murdered and his head and hands were cut off.

Mark:

That's interesting story to tell the child.

Sarah:

Her dad isn't her dad and her real dad was murdered. And then a friend of her family, a friend of hers, Evelyn has killed four other people on her On

Mark:

her behalf. Yeah. That's an interesting story to tell a 19 year old.

Sarah:

There's therapy in her future. Yeah. I hope. Shooting some pheasants is not gonna help her get through all that.

Mark:

Mind the pheasants.

Sarah:

I think it's not a happy ending.

Mark:

But I think maybe, maybe it is a happy ending because I think, I bet you, the fate was held there next year.

Sarah:

Yeah, that little couple who come up to Susanna after the funeral, she says, But you better find someplace else to have the fate next year because it's not gonna be here. And they're like, Huzzah! Think that Two Yeah. People are happy at the end of the episode.

Mark:

At least for our ferret races. Okay. Next episode is gonna be season four, episode three, The Electric Vendetta. We have UFOs and the greatest dead body acting of all time.

Sarah:

Yes. It's Oscar level,

Mark:

Chris. Really? Between these two episodes, there is more naked old at Man Ass than ever before.

Sarah:

They sat down and they went, what are we gonna do this season that's gonna really make it different from last season?

Mark:

Middle aged naked man ass.

Sarah:

More naked hairy butts. That's gonna do it. That's gonna bring in the viewers.

Mark:

There is hair to be talked about. Let me tell you.

Sarah:

It gets our vote, right? Yep. Yeah. Absolutely. So

Mark:

on social media, we are MidsommarManiacs on Twitter and Instagram, and we're found on Facebook, on the Facebook group and the Acorn TV group who have been all absolutely awesome for us, as well as the Reddit Midsomer Murders subreddit.

Sarah:

Mhmm. We're easy to find.

Mark:

If you're trying to get ahold of us, also send email to midsummermaniacsgmail dot com.

Sarah:

Thank you so much for listening.

Mark:

Thank you so much. We just passed another milestone of craziness that I cannot even believe. I would have even imagined us getting that far in a year of podcasts that we're already there. 4,000. 4,000 listens.

Sarah:

Yeah. I'm still thinking that's wrong because I can't believe how many it is.

Mark:

It's insane.

Sarah:

4,000 listens and 14 episodes.

Mark:

Thank you all so much.

Sarah:

It's so much fun.

Mark:

Crazy, amazing. Tell all your friends.

Sarah:

Tell all the Maniacs you know.

Mark:

Tell everybody.

Sarah:

Oh, next week's gonna be a doozy.

Mark:

Hold on

Sarah:

to your croquet, man. Certainly is. So until then

Mark:

It's time for Uphology, man. Uphology. Uphology.

Sarah:

Alright. Have a good week, Maniacs.

Mark:

Bye, Maniacs.

Sarah:

It's gonna sound like something really bad happened because we were like I didn't silence.

Mark:

We do that all the time. I hate to break it to you, but there's a lot of time where we're like, total strange offshoot. Serious thing. And I'm like, I gotta mix these two together. Are we recording?

Mark:

Mhmm.

Sarah:

Oh. No. No. Grit your teeth more. More.

Sarah:

Shake. Shake. Faster. Faster. Welcome to Midsomer Maniacs.

Mark:

Hey, Maniacs.

Sarah:

I'm Sarah.

Mark:

And I'm Mark, and this is Midsomer Maniacs, a podcast dedicated to the ITV series, Midsomer Murders. Each week, we dig into an episode of the show, including the murders, the mayhem, and the loonies, and everything else that we love.

Sarah:

We love the loonies.

Mark:

And just a warning at the top of the show, if you let your kids watch Midsomer Murders, the podcast is okay for them. But if, Midsomer Murders is too much for your kids, that podcast is probably too much for them too.

Sarah:

If minute long shots of grown men's bare asses is too much for them or for you.

Mark:

I thought last episode we had a lot of men bare ass, but this episode has Upped

Sarah:

the ante.

Mark:

Significantly more man bare ass.

Sarah:

So we're talking about electric vendetta Yes.

Mark:

This week. Season four episode three.

Sarah:

And I I have to say, when we started this podcast, this is one of the episodes that came in to my mind when we thought, is this something we wanna do? Will we have enough to talk about? And I thought, Oh, that episode with that guy in the crop circle, we could talk about that for sure. No problem.

Mark:

What's funny to me is I remember we talked about this episode like way back in one of the other episodes. Mhmm. And it felt like it was a million years to get to here.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because this has always been the creme de la creme of corpse acting.

Mark:

Well, it is. I I like, this there's just not even a discussion to

Sarah:

be had. No. No. If there was an Oscar or a BAFTA or whatever for corpse acting, this episode's got it.

Mark:

Hello. I'm Mark, and the BAFTA award for best naked ass acting goes

Sarah:

to Uncredited guy.

Mark:

That and that's the thing that bothers me the most is he is completely uncredited.

Sarah:

Both of them.

Mark:

Like, they deserve to have their names in the credits.

Sarah:

Something.

Mark:

There are several people that are uncredited in this also.

Sarah:

So Mhmm.

Mark:

I don't know who was doing the credits, but it was the same person who was trying to figure out who had who killed Eddie Field because that's kinda that balls got dropped too. Quickly, just a couple of things at the beginning. Filmed, July, August 2000. Broadcast date the 09/02/2001, which becomes interesting here because we're coming up on 09:11 in the broadcast history and how that affects things. 9,900,000 viewers directed by Peter Smith, who really has done 22 separate Midsomer episodes.

Mark:

Wow. He's kinda made a living living of it and written by Terry Hodgkins.

Sarah:

It's a good one.

Mark:

Yep. Absolutely.

Sarah:

So our cold opening is a flashback.

Mark:

To a duel. Yes. It's like twenties or thirties. Oh.

Sarah:

They make it seem like it's like medieval times. They park a car in the background to give us some time reference because a giant tree and a manse is not enough to give us time reference in Britain.

Mark:

Now where I come from in Canada is near a town where the last fatal duel in Canada took place. And this was like in the eighteen hundreds.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

Right? A nineteenth century thing. Were people fighting duels in Britain into the nineteenth century with swords?

Sarah:

I think that kind of stuff might it might be more realistic to think about it happening at a private school where fencing was one of the courses that they would have taken.

Mark:

I think this is at Oxford because they mentioned the Oxford.

Sarah:

Yeah. And they were kind of taught the older ways of doing things, and so it was a tradition there. It might've died out every place else.

Mark:

I don't know. Really, this is crappy resolution to romantic relationships is what it is.

Sarah:

Yeah. I'm just gonna say right now, I stake the claim. This episode doesn't happen if Isabelle isn't an indecisive jerk when she's young.

Mark:

Make a choice.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

But no, I'll kiss you on the cheek, and I'll kiss you on the cheek.

Sarah:

You can't have both of your beefcakes and eat it too. Well Make a decision.

Mark:

They are going right at it.

Sarah:

And having them fight over her. As a woman, I'm sorry. That's not how I make my decisions.

Mark:

And also, I would wanna be there. I would go there and stand between them and go, dude, Stop.

Sarah:

I don't want either of you if this is how you solve things.

Mark:

No. Yeah. Once I've been defeated, I will speak French to you about never being defeated. So

Sarah:

Peter loses. Christian cuts his cheek. It's first blood. Their seconds are there and they walk off. So the guy who plays young Christian in that flashback, he's a very well known actor now.

Sarah:

He he looked familiar. He's so young and fresh faced.

Mark:

Punchy cheeks.

Sarah:

Yeah. But, he's like a major character in Westworld now. He's all over Westworld. So people might recognize him from there.

Mark:

Yes. Then we're brought to the present day, and I have to say, this episode has a lot of naked man ass, but it's got a lot of bonking too.

Sarah:

Or near bonking.

Mark:

Or after apres bonking.

Sarah:

Yeah. We've got Steve and Sally in the field.

Mark:

Just a running bucket at Randy Young Doan.

Sarah:

Do they not have any place else they could go? They've got to make out in Harry's field, his his father in law's field.

Mark:

You see, they can't afford a hotel. No. That's wrong. Well, they don't have, like, an estate of different houses.

Sarah:

No. That's wrong.

Mark:

No. That's

Sarah:

wrong. She doesn't have her own apartment they could go to. No. That's wrong.

Mark:

That's wrong. That he owns a car. Well, a truck. A ute. A ute.

Mark:

Maybe they like it there. There are people who like it there as we'll see later on.

Sarah:

Yeah. The teenagers like it there. Yes. It just seems like they would get caught all over the place. I can't believe that Harry doesn't I think he knows full well they're in there.

Mark:

Well, and then they run off and clearly Harry would be able to see them. I wanted to see the detectorists in the background.

Sarah:

And this is the first time we get to see one of Sally's horrible necklaces.

Mark:

Sally, her clothes and her necklaces are just horrific.

Sarah:

They're perfect for the character. Yes. The wardrobe person did a great job.

Mark:

And she's a great actress. I think she does a great job with this part. Yeah. But it's a weird part.

Sarah:

Just a reprehensible person that she's playing with bad fashion taste.

Mark:

Yes. Well, she has poor

Sarah:

taste in men also. How can she choose? She goes from one bad choice to another.

Mark:

So Harry, sir Harry, walks off and sees crop circles and a naked dude named the crop circle.

Sarah:

I can only imagine the location scout must have looked high and far for this spot because they found a field with a hill next to it that gives you a perfect vantage point to see a crop circle from ground level.

Mark:

Yes. It's perfect. It is perfect.

Sarah:

The first time I saw the angle where the police kind of set up their cordon and you could see the crop circle in the background. The first time I saw that scene, I thought it was faked.

Mark:

But then they walked right into it.

Sarah:

It's not. It's just the perfect perspective on a field.

Mark:

And that dude, whoever he is, is out there by himself nakedy naked. Ronald Stokes. Ronald Stokes. That's that's the character's name, but we have no idea who

Sarah:

the actor have to call him Ronald Stokes.

Mark:

So Ronnie's out there nakedy naked. He walked out in his robe, puts the robe down, hides it somewhere.

Sarah:

And now it's because the UFO dropped him off there. You don't think that really happened?

Mark:

Oh, that's right.

Sarah:

But as an actor, yeah, there's no, like, skin colored clothing that he's wearing. Is absolutely naked. No. And not just that, but with his mouth wide open.

Mark:

Yeah. And this is just the scenes where Barnaby and Troy are talking to him. Yeah. The scene in the morgue is is BAFTA level acting.

Sarah:

And the actor must have agreed to allow part of his head to be shaved. And it's just amazing. It's commitment to a role.

Mark:

Meanwhile, back in town, Lady Beatrice is going to pick up Lloyd.

Sarah:

Yes. So Lady Beatrice is married to sir Harry. Yep. But she's far closer to Lloyd. They've been friends since they were little, and she knows how much this will matter to him.

Sarah:

So she picks him up to take him out to the field. But of course, Harry says that he's gonna give him twenty minutes lead, but he you know, he's not going to because he thinks Lloyd's a jerk and he's jealous of him. So by the time they get there, the police are already there.

Mark:

In Lloyd Kirby's shop, the UFO Uphology Center, c.e.n.t.r.e.

Sarah:

It's an acronym, but we don't know what it's for.

Mark:

Have no idea what it's for. Maybe that'll be one of the questions. What is the acronym for Ufology Center?

Sarah:

Yeah. If you know what the the center should spell out.

Mark:

So there are a number of books in there that he's selling to people. There that room is fantastically staged.

Sarah:

Yeah. It has all sorts of dresser did a really good

Mark:

interesting things to look at it. There's communion by Whitney Stryber, who, is sort of the main I'm gonna go out on a limb here, fiction deduction person.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

He also wrote did you know that he wrote Wolfen and The Hunger?

Sarah:

No. I didn't know that.

Mark:

Yeah. He's had three books made into movies.

Sarah:

But there are

Mark:

Two of them are okay.

Sarah:

There are also some supposedly non fiction accounts of abductions, though, that are there in the shop.

Mark:

So a book called UFO, Sightings UFO, and Saucer Wisdom, which if you buy two books, you get a third for half price.

Sarah:

I would so shop at his store.

Mark:

Absolutely. But one thing I saw, and I'm a nerd. I'm a maniac. Here's a piece of paper taped over his computer screen, like it's instructions or something. It's never referenced.

Mark:

It's never seen again. I'm like, would that not be the most annoying thing in the entire world to have a piece of paper over your computer like that?

Sarah:

If it was a more modern day computer, a more current computer, I would think, oh, he's a conspiracy nut. He's paranoid. So he's like blocking his camera and his monitor.

Mark:

No, this is like a 1990s

Sarah:

But it's a screen big CRT monitor. It's not like it's got a webcam built into it.

Mark:

No.

Sarah:

But I still think that's kind of what the impression that we're supposed to get.

Mark:

But that whole center, even his little bed with his little saucers over his bed.

Sarah:

And his grass green nubby bed cover. Just chenille bedspread.

Mark:

It's just an absolute piece of work.

Sarah:

It's very well done.

Mark:

Such a great job. And they race out to the scene of the crime.

Sarah:

His UFO center is behind the Midsomer Parva post office run by Alice and Marion sisters, who, as soon as I saw them again, I thought, oh, they're gonna stand up from behind the counter later with googly eyes because there's a UFO going on.

Mark:

And I was like,

Sarah:

no.

Mark:

Maybe what are you talking about?

Sarah:

It's because that post office and those two women remind me so much of the sisters who run the post office grocery store and the movie Saving Grace.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

With Brenda Blevlin. She plays Vera.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

But in Saving Grace, she's growing marijuana. Yes. And so the sisters in the post office are high as kites eating frosted flakes. They've got those glasses that have like slinky eyes on them.

Mark:

Slinky eyes

Sarah:

on them. But in my head, it was the same thing. I was like, those two are gonna put on slinky eyes a little bit later? No, no. They are broach wearing, multilayered, clothed wearing uptight sisters.

Sarah:

Yes. Who support Floyd. They do. Support Lloyd a lot.

Mark:

So so speaking of Lloyd, as soon as I saw him, the first time I saw this episode, I was like, star wars. Yes. Like, immediately, I was like Imperial officer. He is the imperial officer who let the the transport in even though it had an old code. I knew exactly.

Mark:

And what

Sarah:

was that transport? That was

Mark:

the one that had everybody in it.

Sarah:

Yeah. He so he let the good guys into the death star. Yes. Like, no small mistake. That's a major mistake that he's done.

Sarah:

So Lloyd Kirby is played by Kenneth Cooley. Yeah. And he was not only in one Star Wars, he was in two Star Wars. And according to IMDb, I couldn't verify this absolutely, but according to IMDb, he's the only actor to play two imperial officers, to play an imperial officer in two movies.

Mark:

Oh, I'm going to have to look that up. I'll have to watch them again.

Sarah:

But it was tough to verify because I would have had to compare the complete cast of both of all the movies. It and that's a long list

Mark:

That is.

Sarah:

Of people.

Mark:

That is.

Sarah:

But other than extras in the background, he's in, yeah. He plays the same character.

Mark:

Oh, that's cool. Anybody else he plays that's interesting that you know about?

Sarah:

Not on my list.

Mark:

Oh, well, you missed something. Because I I caught it when I looked him up. He's in Life of Brian.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah.

Mark:

Do you remember who he plays in Life of Brian? He plays Jesus Christ. He does?

Sarah:

Yes. Oh, that's awesome.

Mark:

So he is also the only person, as far as I know, who played Jesus Christ and an imperial general.

Sarah:

Yeah. There can't be a lot of crossovers there. Nope. So Lloyd goes out to the field with Beatrice. He's eager to get some photographs of the crop circles, but he's gonna be stopped.

Mark:

And he gets stopped. And sir Harry, first of all, is horrible to his wife.

Sarah:

Sir Harry's horrible to everybody.

Mark:

And then Lloyd just wants to take some pictures. And there's this I love this part where Burnaby looks at Troy and just tuk tuk like Like, no. Go stop him. Go stop him. And Troy's off to stop him.

Mark:

And but luckily, there's a reading club because he gives him a book.

Sarah:

Lloyd is fantastically confident in his beliefs, and he bears criticism like water off a duck. Yeah. Does not let it bother him. And even though Barnaby is not buying the line about the UFO, clearly he's not a believer. Lloyd still hands him his book, Close Encounters of the Midsomer Kind.

Mark:

I want one of these. Desperately. Do I. Desperately want this book.

Sarah:

And it must be good reading because within an hour, Barnaby has it all read, marked up, posted note, highlighted, everything.

Mark:

Absolutely. And there are many pages in this book that are real pages.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's it's awesome. They print

Mark:

it like it's not like sometimes they do books, and they just put, like, a cover over it.

Sarah:

Right? Makes sense. Yeah.

Mark:

No. No. This is a book that got printed.

Sarah:

Somehow, somebody.

Mark:

Somewhere, this book exists. Exists. Desperately want this book.

Sarah:

Then we go from there to our first awesome morgue scene. Yes. We don't wanna go on too much about the fact that these actors are such great corpse actors, but it really is above and beyond any expectation of an actor. So two things.

Mark:

Two things here. One, he is dead still.

Sarah:

Yes.

Mark:

Full body naked for thirty nine seconds.

Sarah:

Mouth open, no breathing, no twitching, eye crinkling, nothing.

Mark:

Second of all, they clearly lit his body so that his ass hair

Sarah:

would be visible. Not just his ass hair, but the fine scratches from the wheat on his skin. I feel kind of bad for him. He's got abrasions.

Mark:

It's like this halo of fine downy ass

Sarah:

hair across his ass. His hands are all scorched. His head's been shaved and he's got puncture wounds on I his lower

Mark:

don't know if I could even open my mouth for thirty nine seconds.

Sarah:

Especially kind of face down.

Mark:

It just would be so difficult.

Sarah:

He does a great job.

Mark:

We meet Michael Raycroft,

Sarah:

who is Super coroner.

Mark:

Super coroner.

Sarah:

He's not just a coroner. He's also an engineer. An engineer. I mean, we don't need George. No.

Sarah:

Not when we got this guy.

Mark:

And we also see the return of stupid Troy.

Sarah:

Yeah. Maybe

Mark:

he was out making the crop circle and struck by lightning. Really, Troy?

Sarah:

Barnaby doesn't even bother to say naked?

Mark:

Did it blow his clothes?

Sarah:

Did he shave his own head beforehand? What about the marks on his back? Just like, no, that's not how it happened.

Mark:

Meanwhile, Beatrice is pissed. Jeez.

Sarah:

She has every right to be.

Mark:

I agree.

Sarah:

We find out later that her family is not gentry. It's almost an arranged marriage between her and Harry.

Mark:

They have money, but not title.

Sarah:

Once they have the kid, once they have Lucy, their marriage kind of just falls apart. They go their separate ways, but can stay married and living together. But she clearly is eager to defend Lloyd against Harry because she cares about Lloyd. She says Lloyd has more humanity in his little finger than Harry does in his entire body.

Mark:

And they have some moments later on that are really nice.

Sarah:

Yeah. I think they do a very good job of showing Beatrice and Lloyd as being the kind of people who have been friends since they were little and have been through a lot together. Yeah. There may have been a little bit of romance between them, but they've kind of matured past that. And they just genuinely care about one another.

Mark:

But I think near the end, that flame gets rekindled.

Sarah:

At least on Lloyd's part.

Mark:

Certainly. Cause he's in the halcyon days of the house again. After the kerfuffle at the manor, Barnaby and Troy go to talk to Lloyd. And as they go in, Troy says something interesting. He says he's worried that they've been shunted off onto a siding by this UFO stuff.

Sarah:

Like it's a red herring?

Mark:

Yeah. It's a it's a railway term. Of course she picked that up. Which means that when you have two on a major track, if you have two trains that are coming together, there's only one track. So what they have what is called a siding, which one train can go off onto that siding and then come back onto the main track.

Sarah:

That's kind of a sophisticated comment for Troy.

Mark:

It is. And it's called shunting when you go onto the siding. So I thought I would fill people in as to what that is.

Sarah:

This is also where we see the encounters of the Midsomer Kind book whipped out again, and Barnaby's got it all flagged up and highlighted and pages folded

Mark:

and Yes.

Sarah:

He's done his homework.

Mark:

They they take, Lloyd down to the cop shop, and they basically interrogate him over moving the body because they're pretty convinced that he's moved the body. And they have a look in this book because there's a very similar case of Elmore Brooks with a picture of Elmore Brooks. I don't know who that picture is, but we see more of Elmore Brooks on page 56. We see his big old naked butt.

Sarah:

And this is supposed to be an American case. Right?

Mark:

Yes. It is supposed to be an American case. He is there's quite a bit of stuff in the pages. It's super interesting. It's hard to read.

Mark:

It's hard to see exactly what's there and they never show full pages or anything like that. But they do show, his big old butt, which is figure number 56.

Sarah:

And Lloyd has an explanation for everything that is going on right now because it's all references to the book, right? So the body in the book also had puncture marks, had its head shaved. And was also, well, that's to take spinal fluid and that's to do DNA analysis, even though you can't do DNA analysis on hair that doesn't have a root.

Mark:

Exactly.

Sarah:

So that's not gonna work.

Mark:

But he couldn't move the body because he was at the Roxy, with Lady Chapman watching War of the Worlds, which is kinda cool.

Sarah:

So he's got an alibi.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

But he has a conveniently dated flyer that he can give Barnaby because it happens that just that same evening, he's having a meeting. He is. What do you know? What a coincidence. And

Mark:

he's gonna have a talk at the village hall tonight, and he'd love Barnaby to come. But they have a visitor who has come to see Lloyd, but none other than sir Christian Aubrey.

Sarah:

Right. Who we haven't seen since he was dueling. Yes.

Mark:

And we

Sarah:

didn't even know it was

Mark:

him at at this point in time.

Sarah:

Sir Christian Aubrey is played by Alec MacCowen, who's a well seasoned actor by this time. He's done a lot of, he had done a lot of theater, a lot of stage work, but he was in Frenzy in 1972, which is an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

Mark:

He plays the, detective sergeant no. The detective inspector in Frenzy who eventually comes around at the end of the movie to that the innocent man is innocent.

Sarah:

Yeah. He's also Q in Never Say Never Again.

Mark:

Oh, I didn't know that.

Sarah:

Yeah. So

Mark:

that's excellent. And he has bailed Lloyd out before when he used to be basically the like an ambassador in Burma. Yeah. They

Sarah:

met in Rangoon twenty years ago. And

Mark:

Lloyd was an easy target for heroin heroin smugglers. And he was actually sentenced to death, but Christian Aubrey got him off.

Sarah:

Yeah. We get this view of of Lloyd as this happy go lucky victim, you know, that he's an easy target, an easy mark to make fun of. And Christian's a good guy.

Mark:

And we don't really see anything different about that.

Sarah:

No. He's still that guy.

Mark:

And we're introduced to Christian as a good guys.

Sarah:

And then we've got Harry going to the health center.

Mark:

The Newton Lane Health Center. Now I watched all three health center interludes to see who was in the waiting room.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because not only do they have Sally as a receptionist.

Mark:

Which she is not appropriate for a receptionist. No. And is this a doctor's office or is this like an old age home? Because there's a lot of older people in there.

Sarah:

Well, old people go to the doctor more than younger people.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

Right? But Harry's there

Mark:

And he wants a

Sarah:

home visit. To set up a rendezvous

Mark:

A home visit

Sarah:

With Sally.

Mark:

For the sex.

Sarah:

This scene reminded me of something I've always wondered about these village doctor's offices and British shows. They often show their medical records being in these kind of little slipped in file folders that they almost look like a larger version of the envelope that used to be in the back of a library card. They've got like slots on the outside to write on or like an interoffice envelope.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

But they're like maybe four by six.

Mark:

Yeah, they're weird.

Sarah:

Like whose medical records fit in a four by six

Mark:

Drank too much tea and had appendicitis.

Sarah:

Are they all on micro fish or something? Yes. I still don't understand why he goes in person to arrange a home visit. It doesn't make any sense. I know the home visit isn't really a home visit, but he's saying that so the people in the lobby don't know what just he's actually a few

Mark:

students when he could just call her.

Sarah:

He could just call and say, hey. Can you come by at 04:00? Yeah. You know? Let's meet up.

Sarah:

I don't know why he does that in person, but oh, Tom's gonna drag Joyce to the lecture. She's so disappointed. She's like, guess we're not going out for anniversary. He's like, that's not until later this week. Uh-huh.

Mark:

So you know about my anniversary. And then Mark goes on a twenty minute binge about trying to figure out what day their anniversary is, and I could not figure it out.

Sarah:

You're such a nerd. All we know

Mark:

is their anniversary is Friday. Happy anniversary, Tom and Joyce.

Sarah:

Well, you couldn't look closely at the flyer to see if there was a date on it?

Mark:

No. There was no date on anything. I looked everywhere. Problem was I actually know what day it is today, but I don't know how many days it is between now and Friday because they never say, oh, now it's our anniversary.

Sarah:

Yeah. So today is Tuesday and our anniversary is Friday or anything Yeah. Like

Mark:

have a range of seven days it could be.

Sarah:

Well, so we know when their anniversary week is.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

That's okay. I think their anniversary is mentioned in a different episode. Nerd. We can come back to it.

Mark:

Meanwhile, Steve and Lucy are rowing over pants. Whatever. He's such a jerk.

Sarah:

Steve is a dick about ironing. I'm sorry. He is. She didn't do my ironing perfect. Steve Ramsey is played by Patrick Bellotti.

Sarah:

He was in the Shakespeare and Hathaway episode that we watched last night, which is also a good show on Acorn if you like light mysteries. BritBox. BritBox. Sorry. Not Acorn.

Sarah:

He's in that movie, The Windmill. Do you remember watching that movie? It's a horror

Mark:

movie. Oh, Jesus. Yes. Woah. Yeah.

Mark:

That was woo.

Sarah:

That's quite the movie. Yeah. But the most interesting fact I could find about about Patrick Bellotti is that his dad was Colonel Gaddafi's wife's gynecologist. What? Yes.

Sarah:

He grew up in The Middle East.

Mark:

So he grew up in Libya?

Sarah:

Yeah, Patrick Bellotti did, and his dad was a gynecologist. Okay. And one of his patients was Colonel Gaddafi's wife.

Mark:

Wow, that's like six degrees of separation I never thought I'd go to. I told you

Sarah:

I had a crazy fact.

Mark:

Absolutely. That's amazing. I had

Sarah:

to confirm it in a couple of places. So I'm like, I'm not buying. I don't know. That's really weird. But but his dad was a very well known man all by himself.

Sarah:

So Oh. It's true. Yeah.

Mark:

So the next heading in my notes is probably one of my favorite ones. Certainly my favorite one for this entire episode. One of my favorite ones for our entire podcast, which is teenage crop circle sex party.

Sarah:

You're so strange. And this is a whole series of scenes too that are clearly shot at day, but have been altered to look like they're at night.

Mark:

Yes. So it's weird. Teenager A, the what's teenager M, the male, and teenager F, the female, are never named. No. They're not in the credits.

Sarah:

No. Even though they speak.

Mark:

They have lots of speaking parts, and he gets topless.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

It's just an episode in which whoever was taking notes for the credits dropped the ball.

Sarah:

And she touches a dead hand. She does. And screams.

Mark:

She screams and screams and screams, and this is Eddie Field. Get it? He's in a field.

Sarah:

I get it.

Mark:

And his name is Eddie Field. But then we go back to the meeting.

Sarah:

And this is Lloyd preaching to the choir.

Mark:

Absolutely. Especially the two old ladies from the the The post office. They're like,

Sarah:

yeah. Go

Mark:

get them, Lloyd.

Sarah:

We love you, Lloyd. Oh, Lloyd.

Mark:

And sir Harry only goes to these things to be upset.

Sarah:

To call him a nutter. Yep. It's and Lloyd's got his necklace on and his shirt's kind of unbuttoned. He is like is there. He is in his groove.

Sarah:

These are his people. And

Mark:

He has slides.

Sarah:

Yeah. Which she has to control for him. Speaking of sir Harry, just a quick note. He's played by John Woodvine, who's also in the oblong murders Yep. Later on.

Sarah:

Okay. He was in two very important movies as a younger man.

Mark:

What was he

Sarah:

in? He was in the devils.

Mark:

Oh, I didn't know he was in the Devils.

Sarah:

In 1971, starring Oliver Reed. If you've never seen the Devils, brace yourself. Is. Oliver Reed is a as a priest sent to control everything and he joins in instead. It's very weird.

Mark:

So this movie is directed by Ken Russell. Yeah. Who is one of my favorite directors.

Sarah:

It is.

Mark:

So Ken Russell directed this movie, which made me fall in love with Oliver Reed.

Sarah:

I remember what that means about you.

Mark:

I remember we watched it as teenagers and were like, Oliver Reed is the greatest human being who ever lived. He's also drunk Oh, he's so drunk. Movie.

Sarah:

Entire movie. As the the actor is drunk.

Mark:

Absolutely. He also directed Tommy. He directed Lair of the White Worm. He is

Sarah:

What are movies that Sarah won't watch for 500?

Mark:

He's just the strangest dude, and I love him.

Sarah:

He also plays doctor Hirsch in American Werewolf in London. He is the doctor.

Mark:

Right. He's the doctor in American Werewolf in London.

Sarah:

Yeah. John Woodvine is.

Mark:

Absolutely.

Sarah:

And he's awesome in that movie.

Mark:

Oh, yeah. He is.

Sarah:

But he even in the Devils, he plays a jerk. Well, of course he does. He's an aristocratic. Guy in the American Werewolves in London. He's okay.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

Yeah. And he he's just so good at being an asshole. He this in this role in Midsomer is a perfect example. And he asked Tom to go for a Scotch but he can't. No.

Sarah:

I don't think he wants to.

Mark:

No. I don't think he wants to.

Sarah:

He's like, no. No. I just wanna interview you for five minutes.

Mark:

Because they have to go find this other body.

Sarah:

Yeah. And Troy's driving. So of course, Joyce gets ditched, you know, and then they end up in a ditch.

Mark:

I think that every time that Troy drives, especially at night, it should play yakity sex. Well, first

Sarah:

of all, he thinks that a combine harvester is a UFO.

Mark:

And he freaks out. He the actor looks scared.

Sarah:

He looks panicked. Yeah.

Mark:

He does. He does.

Sarah:

Tom gets out and he walks towards the lights and it's like Close Encounters of

Mark:

the Third Kind. And he's like, you know, what am I gonna tell your wife? Yeah.

Sarah:

Everything. That I talked to a farmer?

Mark:

Yeah. Oh, okay. And then once they realize it's Combine Harvester, Troy wrecks the car.

Sarah:

Well, he tries to back up to get out of the way and goes into a ditch, of course.

Mark:

Right after that is my favorite shot of the whole episode, which is a steady cam shot of the police, including Troy and Barnaby and a couple of uniformed officers walking through the wheat towards the Croft Circle.

Sarah:

It's a very cinematic.

Mark:

It's extremely cinematic. Which is strange for Midsomer. It is. It's it is jarring and yet beautiful.

Sarah:

It's it's almost as if the camera guy said, I could do something really beautiful here, so I'm just gonna do it.

Mark:

Yes. And the lighting guy said, well, it's daytime, and it's supposed to be night, so I don't have to do So

Sarah:

they find Eddie Field in the field, in the crop circle. He's nakedy naked. With the puncture marks and the burnt ends and the shaved head.

Mark:

Flip him over and look at his junk and basically point.

Sarah:

And so this is the murder that is unsolved. It is. I mean, we kinda know how he died, but it's never officially pointed out.

Mark:

No. He's kind of forgotten. And I was going to cover this at the end of the episode that what like, have a theory about what happened based on two pieces of evidence, but it's never confirmed. No. What happens then?

Sarah:

Well, I'm going to ruin it, right? So we're fairly sure that he's electrocuted in Dave Rippert's foundry. Yes. Isn't it convenient that two men get electrocuted in two different ways in the same place and both have black hands? Yes.

Sarah:

What I don't understand is he has the same haircutting mark and the same marks on his back, but

Mark:

I don't think that was ever released to anybody, that information. So if it was Dave Ripper who did this, he had Lloyd's book and did the same thing that Lloyd did?

Sarah:

Or inside information from the cop shop, or it had made the newspaper and leaked or something.

Mark:

I gotta think Sally may have a few friends in the cop shop.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Troy would tell her anything She's she got wanted to friends everywhere. Yeah.

Mark:

Then we have Sir Harry and His Lovenest. Now we later learned that this is Lloyd's boyhood bedroom, which is strange enough.

Sarah:

It's weird that it's even Lloyd's childhood home. It's weirder that it's his bedroom. It's even weirder that it's still decorated like it's his bedroom.

Mark:

Like, I have a sort of list of the stuff in here, hand drawn things, spit flying saucers, and a collection of fantastic fifties lunch boxes to which I'm like, where are they?

Sarah:

And why wouldn't Lloyd have taken those when they moved out of the house?

Mark:

I would have thought.

Sarah:

Like, who who leaves the childhood bedroom pristinely in the same exact situation when they move out of the house? I don't I don't get it. Well And this is the scene where Harry says that really yucky thing. Oh. He wants to get it on with Sally and she's not in the mood.

Sarah:

And he says, Oh, come on. Just a little touch for your uncle Harry. Like Yeah.

Mark:

So he shows up late and Sally's having none of it. No sexy sex for you. And they talk about Steven, and sir Harry's like, I don't want you to see Steven anymore, which is like,

Sarah:

you Ring. Ring. It's pot calling kettle.

Mark:

Like, Sally has problems. Okay? She's a thief and a liar. But who or when she has activity with is all up to her.

Sarah:

Two of them are married, though.

Mark:

Well, that is true.

Sarah:

Though of the Midsomer episodes, she may be the character who acknowledged who's acknowledged to sleep with more people in the same episode than any other character.

Mark:

She sleeps with three people at the very least in

Sarah:

the Yeah. Sometimes in the same day.

Mark:

Yeah. Well, you know. She's a goer. Yes. Absolutely.

Mark:

She's imagine if we had Orlando Bloom and her

Sarah:

in the same episode.

Mark:

They would get along like a house on fire.

Sarah:

They'd hate each other. We find out that Fields had engineering mineral oil and silver oxide on him in addition to his head being shaved, the puncture wounds, the burnt hands, the nakedness, the crop circle.

Mark:

And they figure out who he is.

Sarah:

He's been out of prison for like a month.

Mark:

Yep. And that he's like a burglary guy.

Sarah:

Yeah. And there was a burglary in Badger's Drift the night before.

Mark:

By the beaches.

Sarah:

Who who is there to burgle from in Badger's Drift

Mark:

I don't know if there's anybody left alive in Badger's Drift.

Sarah:

Every time there's an episode there, more people get killed, killed, killed, killed. Okay. So But whoever it was, they had a very nice painting of a pig.

Mark:

They did. I'm Steven. And I don't like my wife. I don't like her parents. I sure like their money.

Mark:

They give me this crappy truck to drive around in with tape in the back of me. So where am I gonna go to party?

Sarah:

Costin.

Mark:

Costin.

Sarah:

The night lights of Costin.

Mark:

There's nightclubs in Costin. It's like Vegas. Did he take the truck there? Yeah. Because he's gonna smell like hay at the nightclub.

Sarah:

He drove his jalopy to the nightclubs. Hey, ladies.

Mark:

So then to kinda up the ante of creepy men in this episode, she's, like, in the middle of an argument with him.

Sarah:

Lucy is. Yeah.

Mark:

Lucy. And she and he's like, you love what Stevie does to you. If you have to refer to yourself in the third person,

Sarah:

that's y on the end.

Mark:

But then to sort of infantile your name into, like, Marky. Oh, no. No. No. No.

Mark:

No. No. Troy and Barnaby check out the foundry and find just bunches of evidence all over the place.

Sarah:

Yeah. I mean, I I think we're supposed to just guess that Dave found Eddie Fields dead there, kinda missed the fact that there was still some silver that hadn't been melted down yet, was more worried about getting the body out of there and putting it somewhere. So are we supposed to believe that Dave Ripper made the crop circle that Eddie's found in?

Mark:

Yeah. I don't know who made that crop circle either.

Sarah:

Cause it's a separate crop circle. It's a completely different pattern.

Mark:

But who made that?

Sarah:

So in a night, Dave found Eddie, moved him to the field, had the insider information about the body and what it stated should be in made a crop circle that is really cool looking. Yes. And then put a body in it.

Mark:

And I'm going to add on to that, had sex with Sally. Yeah. That he's busy.

Sarah:

And probably during the day.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

Because when the teen sex party is happening, Eddie's already there. And that's during the meeting at the town hall, which happens in the evening.

Mark:

The day

Sarah:

after. Eddie's already there.

Mark:

It's all screwed up.

Sarah:

So Dave was super busy that night, I guess.

Mark:

Eddie, the whole Eddie thing is just a big screw up.

Sarah:

Which I think is kind of why the writers went, let's just not deal with that. Well, it's There's a second body, anyway.

Mark:

What has been said by Brian Truemay is that it was left out in editing, which I understand that.

Sarah:

Well, yeah, because there must have been a scene when they went, did you know that Dave Rippard is a time traveler now? And a mathematical genius who can one handedly create a giant crop circle and put a dead body in it Yeah. All in an afternoon with nobody noticing?

Mark:

All before a teen crop circle sex party.

Sarah:

Yeah. I would edit that scene out too.

Mark:

I would agree. Troy goes off to Dave's house and Dave knows nothing. He was at Oxford and he has a big old hangover. Don't leave me leave me alone and you can't come in.

Sarah:

Yeah. Initially, was sort of confused by what even led them to Dave Ripper, but it's because Eddie Fields was known to work for Dave and Dave had the Foundry. So even though he lost the Foundry, he doesn't own it anymore. They think, well, he's probably involved because he was a thief too, right? Yeah.

Sarah:

Yeah. And he does not know how to not seem suspicious.

Mark:

He doesn't, but he's not a very good criminal. And I'm going to

Sarah:

tell you gosh, no.

Mark:

I'm going to tell you why they're not very good criminals. So Troy leaves, Right?

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

Presumably to go get a warrant or to talk to Barnaby.

Sarah:

Right.

Mark:

Right? And then the here's what happens. And this is behind the scenes. Dave and Sally get dressed because Sally's not dressed, and then they take all the boxes that are overflowing with silver treasure.

Sarah:

Yeah. Not closed, hiding it

Mark:

No. At all. Put them in Sally's car in the daylight. Yeah. And drive to Sally's flat, which is above The doctor's office.

Mark:

Doctor's office. They do pull into an alley beside the doctor's office.

Sarah:

Which just makes it easier for the two ladies who own the post office to see them doing it.

Mark:

That in the daylight, they didn't take all the stuff upstairs.

Sarah:

Including putting the pig picture on top of the car. Yeah. In full view.

Mark:

They just are the worst criminals of all time.

Sarah:

Really dumb. Really dumb.

Mark:

Tom talks to Beatrice in a nice little scene where she gives a bunch of exposition.

Sarah:

Yeah. About their childhood, the fact that they were born on the same day and they fell in love and then her dad kind of forced her to marry Harry and sent Lloyd away. And it's a tragic situation and it's, but it's nice that they've come back together as friends now later in life. Unfortunately, he's going to die in about five minutes.

Mark:

Lloyd is well traveled. Yeah. He's been around.

Sarah:

Yep. He's a worldly dude.

Mark:

So after moving their ill gotten booty, right? Into Sally's apartment. Sally's apartment, Dave goes, Oh, I don't know what I'm gonna do now. What are you gonna do, Sally? And she goes, Oh, I'm gonna go have sex with Steven again.

Sarah:

In the field. Bye.

Mark:

Okay, bye.

Sarah:

And we get killer cam in the wheat.

Mark:

So somebody's watching them, which is creepy. It's Harry. Harry's creepy. And Steven, after having sex with Sally, says goodbye. She gets in her little Volkswagen.

Mark:

Steven gets in his little blue truck

Sarah:

and zap. This is pretty good special effects. They got some smoke going on. They got some post production sparks going on, but poor Patrick Bell had to sit gripping a steering wheel made of rubber that wouldn't have electrocuted him, at least coated in rubber and go, Oh, his teeth must have been so sore. The sound he makes

Mark:

the sound he makes

Sarah:

Yeah. Is awesome. There's even sparks coming off the rubber tires.

Mark:

Yes. There's lots of sparks. And who finds the body but more?

Sarah:

Yeah. But he did die because Harry basically hooks him up to the mains, right? There's a power line right there. It's not as if you plugged him into the wall. No.

Sarah:

It's like full voltage. So maybe that would go through vinyl coating on a steering wheel. A cheap truck. Who knows?

Mark:

Kept thinking, boy, Steven stinks already, but now he really smells.

Sarah:

Yeah. He's just blackened. Because they would

Mark:

smell that before they even got anywhere near the car.

Sarah:

They would at least smell the burning.

Mark:

But Lloyd has his head on his shoulders here and recognizes that this is not alien intervention.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

This is human beings doing this.

Sarah:

He's got a walking tour with him and he tells them to stay back and he sees the body

Mark:

I and the like Lloyd Lloyd's

Sarah:

not bad person. He's not a bad person. He He makes one mistake because he's excited and he wants people to believe, Now other than

Mark:

I'm going to say he makes two mistakes because he clearly sees a dead body in this car. It is smoking basically, Right? And then he touches the car. Now I realized the car is unconnected to the mains at this point and dragged off into another area. But he

Sarah:

doesn't know that. But he

Mark:

doesn't know that.

Sarah:

Yeah. He he could have easily gotten fried there. Right?

Mark:

Meanwhile, the doctor's office, the guy in the yellow shirt and the dark coat in the wheelchair is still there.

Sarah:

In the saddest waiting room ever.

Mark:

In the midst back looking for sexy sex again.

Sarah:

Yeah. But when Lloyd talks to Barnaby, they talk about crop circles being a modern thing. And Lloyd says, no, actually crop circles can be traced back all the way to 1670.

Mark:

Which we didn't believe.

Sarah:

I wrote a note. I'm like, oh, really? Come on. But then Google came to our rescue. And we found

Mark:

out that the earliest crop circle is linked to this pamphlet.

Sarah:

In Hertfordshire in 1678.

Mark:

And we found out that it was from this pamphlet called The Mowing Devil or the Strange News out of Hertfordshire published in 1678. And I'll put the picture of this pamphlet in the This show looks like a guy doing a crop circle.

Sarah:

Now crop circle experts say that this isn't actually the first crop circle because the wheat was cut instead of bent as in modern crop circles.

Mark:

We we

Sarah:

I know The devil is impatient. He just cuts the shit. He doesn't bend it.

Mark:

I know that we're Midsomer nerds, but we're not crop circle nerds.

Sarah:

All I know is that mowing devil seems to be doing a good job, and he can come by our house anytime.

Mark:

He does. He's very circular. He's a very good job. Yeah. Absolutely.

Sarah:

It's it's quite the woodcut. I'm alright with that.

Mark:

Back at the crime scene, we Lloyd says it has nothing to do with aliens, and there's report from the ladies at the post office about Sally and Dave Rupert.

Sarah:

They're really dumb criminals who move stuff in the middle of the day, and I have five shirts on and a brooch. And Troy

Mark:

is like, I hear she's a bit of a goer. A bit of a goer?

Sarah:

That won't stop him from, like, uh-huh, uh-huh, wiggling his eyebrows and everything else at her later.

Mark:

This woman is on the World Cup team for The UK of goers. So Rebord's place is clean, and Troy is gonna have a word with Sally.

Sarah:

And then they they're looking the the crime scene team is looking at the truck to kinda figure out how it happened. And what do you know? Michael Rycroft, the world's handiest coroner is also an engineer and can completely explain how he was electrocuted in his own truck. Not only am

Mark:

I a doctor, I'm an engineer.

Sarah:

Yes. He's so handy.

Mark:

And they find a magazine from Lloyd Kirby's place that has a truck with an ex electrocution story just like this. So, again, Lloyd is connected to this.

Sarah:

So does that mean that Harry has been reading Lloyd's book? Well, okay.

Mark:

There is a giant poster of this truck in Lloyd's shop. So it's not exactly like he was reading the book.

Sarah:

He wouldn't, well, Harry's not going to hang out in Lloyd's shop.

Mark:

I don't know.

Sarah:

But you know, he's probably been to enough of the town meetings and seen enough of the slides before he screams nutter and walks out then maybe he's seen that picture before.

Mark:

Me.

Sarah:

And he does move the truck to be closer to the field where the crop circles are to make it look like it's associated.

Mark:

So Barnaby goes down to the post office, not the toast office, the post office to see the old Deers and find out what's going on.

Sarah:

They have a magical door lock.

Mark:

It is a magical door lock. She says, I'm going to lock the door. And she walks across the room and switches the sign from open to close. And suddenly the door is locked.

Sarah:

Apparently, that's the equivalent of locking the door.

Mark:

I guess. Another local man electrocuted, Steven Ramsey is in in the paper, and it's just kind of Nazi Bobo at this point that we have three dead bodies already in this episode, all dealing with electrocution.

Sarah:

Yeah. And we still don't know why, like, but why do we have this dueling scene at the beginning? And why is Sir Christian Aubrey important when he comes to not bail out Lloyd? And finally we start to see those two stories come together. It takes a little while.

Mark:

Because Christian goes to see his wife, Isabelle. Yeah. And she is in the world's cheapest wheelchair.

Sarah:

But she's at a very nice home.

Mark:

She is, but they need to spend a little bit more money on their wheelchairs.

Sarah:

But she wants to go home for a little while. So he takes her home and my gosh, their house is so beautiful.

Mark:

So that actress's name is what?

Sarah:

Her name is Ursula Howells.

Mark:

And she looks like an Ursula.

Sarah:

Oh, I don't think so.

Mark:

I do. Which is a good thing.

Sarah:

Ursula Howells was in an absolutely fantastic movie.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Just assume that she was in the bill Coronation Street Doctors, whatever, all of those shows. Yada yada. I don't even talk about that. I look for what is interesting. Yes.

Sarah:

And the interesting thing is that she was in a movie around the same time, it was in 1970, called Girly.

Mark:

Girly.

Sarah:

Okay. The extended title is Mumsy, Nanny, Sunny and Girly. Okay. She plays Mumsy.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

This is a mother and her daughter and her son and their nanny who kill people. Yeah. Girley is this little hot to trap teenager. She lures men into their house and they kill them in torturous, crazy ways. And she's the matriarch of the family, Mumsy.

Mark:

Yeah. I've seen this.

Sarah:

It is weird. It's like a a non Hammer horror film made in the same time as the Hammer horror film. Wow. But it's just funny to see this little refined woman, Lady Isabelle, she's so beautiful. She is beautiful.

Sarah:

And then to see her in this younger role where she's dressed in red from head to toe and has this evil diabolical look on her face. Kill him, kill him. It's really strange.

Mark:

I'll put information about that particular film and hopefully a picture of her in the show notes.

Sarah:

Oh, I found a great picture. Okay, good. Yeah, yeah. But Christian and Isabelle are in their house, a lifetime of love. It's wonderful.

Sarah:

See, it's all tainted for me. It's all tainted because the only reason they're sitting there together is because he cut Peter on the face.

Mark:

Yep. And she couldn't make a decision.

Sarah:

Not because she always loved him and no one else, but because he won.

Mark:

I'll tell you who can make a decision, though. The parish council. Yo. Yeah. Because the parish council at some point in time said, hey.

Mark:

We need a bench out in the middle of nowhere.

Sarah:

They said it should Next to that be transformer box. It should be

Mark:

near that transformer box so that when there's a crime scene in ten years and Barnaby, if he needs a place to sit down, it's there. Yeah. What is that bench doing

Sarah:

out there? Oh, no. It's really weird.

Mark:

Barnaby figures out that the truck was pulled away from transformer, figures the whole thing out.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because the transformer has a padlock that's broken. And meanwhile, Troy is gonna go interview Sally.

Mark:

In the worst dress ever. It looks like a yarn dress, but is it it's printed? And then the boob part is printed another way, which accentuates and worsens the boob part.

Sarah:

And don't forget the collar necklace thing with the bead bits hanging down. Horn. Well, hey. It's what Troy likes, though.

Mark:

Yes. He does indeed.

Sarah:

He's Boy, he's into it.

Mark:

He's absolutely all over her visually.

Sarah:

And even though the vicar and the lady from the council are trying to run an organized meeting, Lloyd takes it over.

Mark:

Of course he does. But in that meeting is a young Trent Reznor too. Yes. This kid looks like Trent Reznor.

Sarah:

Who, if you don't know, is the lead singer of a band called Nine Inch Nails.

Mark:

And he looks completely out of place.

Sarah:

Yeah. He does. He's like, hey. I'm the emo punk guy

Mark:

of this little village,

Sarah:

and I'm gonna come to this town meeting. Like, what teenager goes to the town meeting? May maybe he's into UFOs, so he's gonna go.

Mark:

I don't know. The priest is on about, the the vicar is on about prince of darkness. So. Yeah. He might be kind of good.

Sarah:

That's true. And this scene marks a point after which every time we see Lloyd, he will have fewer buttons of his shirt buttoned.

Mark:

It's just going down.

Sarah:

Don't It's know

Mark:

going down, man.

Sarah:

But he's got more buttons unbuttoned now. And the next time we see him, it will be one one fewer button buttoned, and then and then he dies.

Mark:

So And guess what? It's a it's a village meeting in the village hall, and sir Harry's there. So stompy, stompy, stompy.

Sarah:

Yeah. And the post office sisters are there with all of their shirts. Yeah.

Mark:

So I'm not exactly sure why a 100%, but they go out to see Christian.

Sarah:

Yeah, I'm not really sure either. I don't really know what the connection is.

Mark:

And when they get there, they find all these cool electric gadgets because his dad was a science teacher.

Sarah:

Okay,

Mark:

if his dad was a science teacher, how did he afford to go to Oxford?

Sarah:

Well remember university at that point could have been publicly funded.

Mark:

But still how did he get all this money for the house that he lives in now? He's sir. So I must have done something. Have.

Sarah:

He must have done something.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

I think they mentioned what he's known for. Like what how he made his money. I can't remember right now.

Mark:

Troy says he's a local bigwig. That's

Sarah:

Yeah. He's just a bigwig.

Mark:

Peter's heart was poisoned. Luckily, has a distillery in Scotland to make him feel better.

Sarah:

He's doing just fine. Tom gets to play with the whimshurst machine. It makes little sparks.

Mark:

Do you think he'd come and see me?

Sarah:

Isabelle wants Peter to come and see her. One last time. Never mind that he's been trying to kill her husband for years.

Mark:

So now back into another sex scene in Lloyd's bedroom. Well, not really. This one is worse because Sally is not in the mood again. I don't think she's ever in the mood with well, and sir Harry is like, maybe I killed him and maybe I didn't. And then suddenly she gets all turned on by it.

Sarah:

Because he says she can leave some stuff in the house. Like because she's got some stuff from her gran.

Mark:

Like You know what it is?

Sarah:

You know what? I know what it is. Okay. She they don't say it, but she's thinking, can I leave my booty in your house? And he says, yes.

Sarah:

Speaking of booty.

Mark:

Oh, okay.

Sarah:

There you go. There.

Mark:

The double entendre was there.

Sarah:

It's a subliminal double entendre. And you you just missed it. I'm sorry. You missed it. That's why.

Mark:

And then he says again, come here to uncle Harry. It's just

Sarah:

it wasn't gross the first time they gotta do it again.

Mark:

On the way out of sir Christian's house, they see a butane gas burner.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because Lloyd's left his duffel bag of tools right inside the door, and he kick it. So what was Lloyd fixing there?

Mark:

Well, obviously he was making the crop circle.

Sarah:

With his torch? That's what Making the burn marks?

Mark:

Making the burn mark.

Sarah:

And then he said, well, let me leave this bag at Christian's house.

Mark:

I guess Lloyd's kind of forgetful.

Sarah:

So so Lloyd so we know that the first body died at Christian's house. So Lloyd comes over and takes the body, goes out, makes the crop circle, burns the marks, put the body in it, and then goes back to back to Christian's house with his bag

Mark:

and I leaves it guess that's what he does.

Sarah:

Oh, that's very complex.

Mark:

Well, it's not Krypton guy, gas from Zog.

Sarah:

No. Tom and Troy get to break into Aubrey's house. This is one of the best scenes of Midsomer.

Mark:

So there's a funeral in the meantime for Steven, which means nothing at all.

Sarah:

Right. Unimportant. Nobody liked him. Anyway.

Mark:

So Bartonby and Troy go back into the house when sir Aubrey isn't there.

Sarah:

Right.

Mark:

And wow. It gets fun. Troy, first of all

Sarah:

We got special effects.

Mark:

It's the next day, and Troy's changed his tie, but not his shirt.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

And he breaks in with a card and the door slams and then everything is electric.

Sarah:

Right. There's a light that goes beep, beep, beep, beep, and you like, you know, the room's powered up.

Mark:

Yes. The whole the whole thing

Sarah:

is wired. Even the plastic telephone is electrified.

Mark:

Okay. So the doors, I'll give you. The windows, I'll give you. Okay? But the telephone with that much juice going through it, the wire would go on fire and the phone would melt.

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah. It just would. I just don't get it as an alarm system. I just don't understand.

Sarah:

It drags

Mark:

people in the house.

Sarah:

But it's not going to deter anybody from breaking into the house. It just means that once they break in, you get to keep them. Awesome. Why not stop them from getting in in the first place? It's just it's so much effort for an alarm system that is absolutely ineffective.

Mark:

Sarah is at the hospital with his wife. And so they basically are there overnight until the next morning.

Sarah:

Yeah. So they both fall asleep in their chairs. Right?

Mark:

When our favorite dude shows up.

Sarah:

BINGE MAN.

Mark:

BINGE MAN. So they try to get the BINGE MAN's attention.

Sarah:

But he's bopping with his headphones on.

Mark:

He's bopping with and Troy is like, BINGE MAN, BINGE MAN.

Sarah:

There's a song there.

Mark:

There is a song there.

Sarah:

Sally's moving the stuff. She's so stupid.

Mark:

And so Aubrey comes home and holy gadgets Batman because he opens up the thing like Batman does and his super secret alarm code to turn the alarm off is three a. Mhmm. He gets a sword from the hallway because everybody keeps a sword in their umbrella stand in the hallway.

Sarah:

Now let's put this in some context. Christian has had assassins come after him for the last twenty years or something, forty years. Right? So yeah, he keeps his sword in the umbrella stand just in case. But why he would electrify the inside of his house to keep people in, I don't know.

Sarah:

I

Mark:

don't know. So he goes in and he finds them and he turns the system off and he says that he's never killed it's never killed anybody but one, basically.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

And Troy and Tom says he needs to come down to station, and he says, do you wanna come down to the station to to talk about this? And Sarah has a great line here, well delivered, where he goes, I don't really, but I better say yes.

Sarah:

Well, he wants to go be with his wife.

Mark:

Yes. Right? So he rearms the system with twelve a.

Sarah:

Even though they tell him not to.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

I don't know. I'm just trying to make sense of it. Maybe it's alarmed the way it is because he knows Peter's gonna send assassins after him, and he wants to catch them.

Mark:

Maybe.

Sarah:

Those are not the only doors in the house.

Mark:

No. It's a fun idea, poorly executed.

Sarah:

Yeah. But it's it's still fun. It's still fun.

Mark:

It's fun to see them.

Sarah:

It's still totally fine. I'm okay with it. Even though it doesn't make sense, I'm totally okay with it.

Mark:

Back at the ufology center, lady Beatrice. Lady Beatrice and Lloyd have a nice little moment Yeah. Where they talk about how her husband probably married Steve. Murdered Steve.

Sarah:

And he admits to making the crop circle and putting the body in it, and he feels really bad.

Mark:

The guy had broken into Christian's, and he owed Christian, so he did the things.

Sarah:

And she says, we gotta straighten this out. Wait for me at the cottage. I'll meet you there in an hour.

Mark:

The cottage where we used to have sex?

Sarah:

I don't think they ever did.

Mark:

Oh, I think they did.

Sarah:

I think they loved each other, but I don't think they did. But he certainly kind of struts towards the cottage with his shirt even more unbuttoned as if he's expecting to.

Mark:

And he comes up and finds Sally in bed.

Sarah:

Lounging with her stolen booty.

Mark:

Yes. And a very interesting double cola poster.

Sarah:

In the hallway? Yes. Yeah.

Mark:

I found it. I found the exact poster that's in the hallway. It's very interesting. That cola is an American cola. I don't know why that poster is there.

Mark:

It was never sold in Britain.

Sarah:

Interesting. Well, then Dave throws them downstairs.

Mark:

While her tits are hanging out.

Sarah:

Yeah, pretty much. What's new though?

Mark:

Exactly.

Sarah:

And then we have Christian back at the cop shop and we finally find out that he and Peter had this duel and he won Isabelle in the duel. And since then, Peter's not forgiven him, has been sending assassins after him since, and that Stokes was one of those assassins. Yes. Right? A very bad one.

Mark:

Yes, exactly.

Sarah:

Who somehow got way more shocked by the doorknobs than Tom

Mark:

I can only think or he grabbed onto the doorknob and couldn't let go.

Sarah:

Maybe. But both of his hands were black.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

So would he grab it with both hands? I guess. And we get a flashback to the grumpiest picnic ever. I'll kiss you on the cheek.

Mark:

I'll kiss you on the cheek. Wouldn't it be nice if you fought over me to the death?

Sarah:

And this is gonna taint the rest of our lives. Yay. Sorry, guys. We're grumpy about Isabelle.

Mark:

So they find out that Lloyd's dead.

Sarah:

Yep. He's in a crop circle. And then Troy points at his butt.

Mark:

He's naked and Troy points at his butt. And Lloyd if Lloyd was the only naked old guy in this episode, he would be

Sarah:

winning dead body. Best corpse. Yeah. But he's got nothing on the other two.

Mark:

And he's great on the slab too. He's absolutely gone.

Sarah:

Right? Yeah, he's got nothing on the other two. And then Peter pulls up in this old car having driven all the way from Scotland.

Mark:

And the ufology sign says, gone to Mars, be back soon. Who wrote that? Because it's in extremely poor taste. Like, I don't think the ladies in the post office wrote that.

Sarah:

No, maybe Lloyd did it before he went out to the cottage.

Mark:

Maybe, but it's

Sarah:

because he's gonna close the center.

Mark:

But now that he's dead, it's really bad taste.

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah. That's true. And then

Mark:

He's looking for Christian, driving in his little fancy car all the way from Scotland without goggles.

Sarah:

In a car without a windshield. Yep. But he's very fancy.

Mark:

He is indeed.

Sarah:

And then Harry is not only a big jerk, but he's so

Mark:

stupid. Because he admits to killing Steven when they think that they are asking about killing Lloyd.

Sarah:

Yeah. And the but the actor, John Woodvine, does such a good job because he's like, well, I had to. He was sleeping around on my daughter. And then they're like, but we're asking about Lloyd. He's like, oh.

Sarah:

Like he gets that look on his face like, wow, I'm really dumb. Do you

Mark:

think he means his daughter or Sally there?

Sarah:

I think he means his daughter.

Mark:

I think so.

Sarah:

Like, I love my daughter and I couldn't stand what he was doing to her.

Mark:

Now hang on. Woah. I didn't admit. Oh, yeah. I did.

Sarah:

I did. Oops. Oops. And then Peter breaks into Christian's house and he gets the little shock. They must've had like a little, like when they were rehearsing and doing their like, just like table readings for this episode, maybe they brought in like a special coach to coach the actors who were going to have to be electrocuted.

Sarah:

So Tom and Troy and Peter and Steve, and they were like, okay, so how do you respond when you're being electrocuted? Do you know how to do the, oh, no, no, Grit your teeth more, more shake, shake faster, faster.

Mark:

There's a funeral in one of the DVDs, an extra work, where John Mel talks about this and he says Troy does a much better job than he does.

Sarah:

Yeah. But like poor Peter, you think he's gonna die because He's he's much

Mark:

he's a lot older.

Sarah:

He's having like palpitations.

Mark:

I think he his the actor who plays him, the younger version, kinda looks like him.

Sarah:

Yeah. I think they did a pretty good job with both of them.

Mark:

The other the young Christian Aubrey looks nothing like he.

Sarah:

Oh, I think they're alright. Meanwhile, Dave and Sally are gonna go to Holland.

Mark:

He's got two tickets for Paradise. I mean, the ferry to Holland. Pick me up at 9PM. 9PM. This will be important later on because we're gonna show you clearly how it's not 9PM.

Sarah:

And how they're so stupid. Yes. They're just stupid.

Mark:

It's all the same people, but

Sarah:

in different seats from the last time. My notes says, sure is sunny at 9PM at night. So

Mark:

they take the old dudes to the hospice so that they can see Is die even though the machine that goes ping is still clearly going ping.

Sarah:

I don't think she's dead.

Mark:

I don't she can't be dead. The machine's going ping.

Sarah:

No. I don't think she's actually dead yet, but she's definitely on her way out.

Mark:

Oh, she's on her way out even though she has that strong regular heartbeat.

Sarah:

It's it's pretty fast on an EKG, isn't it? Oh, well.

Mark:

But Aubrey did not kill Lloyd. I've never killed anyone in my life. Well, except for the house I built that killed this.

Sarah:

But that was an accident.

Mark:

It was it was an accident. No. It wasn't. What were you thinking was gonna Meanwhile, it's awfully bright for 09:00,

Sarah:

as you said. Sally and Dave prove themselves to be even dumber criminals. The worst criminals ever.

Mark:

Okay. You have your ill gotten booty in a house in which you've killed somebody.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

Okay? He must have transported him to the crop circle, his car, so there's probably blood and stuff like that on it.

Sarah:

Is Lloyd found in the same crop circle that Fields was, or is it another one? I don't know. Did Dave time travel again and make another No. No. Harry's entire field is just a crop circle now.

Mark:

Crop circle is as far as the eye can see. They get their booty at 9PM in broad daylight because they have they have tickets. Sorry. The she says, I'll pick you up at nine Mhmm. Because the two tickets to Paradise or Holland

Sarah:

are two

Mark:

or something like that.

Sarah:

So they pull up to the cottage after 09:00 and it's still bright daylight.

Mark:

Yes. You can't see the sun in the horizon. That's for sure.

Sarah:

But by the time they're being super stupid, it is dark.

Mark:

Okay. Because if you're doing this illegal act thing where you're gonna take a bunch of silver, do they know us have cops on on ferries who would go, wait a minute. You have a car full of silver. Silver.

Sarah:

We're sophisticated antique dealers.

Mark:

It's my grands.

Sarah:

Sally would just flash your boobs.

Mark:

I I guess. What you need is some tunes.

Sarah:

Turn it

Mark:

up, baby. Turn it up, baby. I love this song.

Sarah:

We're on we're home free.

Mark:

Yep. They're jamming.

Sarah:

And then I love the car chase.

Mark:

So the car chase happens because Tom and Troy interrupt him. Troy goes after Sally. Never see Sally again, and we never see Troy with Sally again.

Sarah:

Dave completely ditches her.

Mark:

Gets in the car and drives away. And Dave is worried. Right? He's worried. Barnaby's on his tail.

Mark:

This needs some yackety sax too.

Sarah:

Yackety sax is the song from Benny Hill, by the way.

Mark:

If you don't know. Yeah.

Sarah:

It's very narrow country roads, winding roads. Barnaby is on his tail.

Mark:

And he makes a sudden turn. Dave turns. And bar loses Barnaby momentarily. But to Dave, I'm jamming to the music.

Sarah:

Yeah. I'm free now. I can adjust the tunes.

Mark:

I can adjust the tunes. Oh, wait a minute. They're staticky. Oh, wait. There's a UFO.

Mark:

Oh, I'm dead in the combine.

Sarah:

So here's a tip to criminals. If you are in a car chase, just turn, you'll be fine.

Mark:

That's all you

Sarah:

need to do. All you gotta do is just turn. One road, the cops, they won't figure it out. They'll never find you.

Mark:

He's pretty good dead body too.

Sarah:

He's spattered on his own hood, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. He's just lucky that combine wasn't running.

Mark:

So if you're a criminal and you're killed in a jurisdiction, right? They got to put you in the ground when they know who you are.

Sarah:

Right.

Mark:

They probably don't need like a big marker or anything for you.

Sarah:

Right.

Mark:

Okay. Then why would you have the same pitiful marker for a criminal as you do Steven?

Sarah:

Let's just describe this for people who don't remember. The the church graveyard, not only is it very overgrown, it's like nobody mows it. No. Right? But when we see Stephen's grave, this is during Lloyd's funeral, we pan across Stephen's grave and Stokes' grave.

Mark:

And they're like post it notes on crosses.

Sarah:

Not only are they two pieces of wood barely tacked together to make a cross with some like flowers that somebody just kinda like dumped on top, but their names, they didn't even bother like with a Sharpie on the wood. It's like somebody wrote it on a post it and Badly. And like just stuck it on there.

Mark:

I had to go back and read it because it says Edward Field.

Sarah:

When we first started talking about that, I said, well, you know, they put temporary markers on a grave until the gravestone is ready. But even those would have had, like, a laminated name

Mark:

Yeah. At least. Something.

Sarah:

It's like a pet cemetery.

Mark:

So it's Lloyd's funeral.

Sarah:

Steve and Eddie are buried in a pet cemetery.

Mark:

Yes. I would agree.

Sarah:

The grave next to them should say like Lucky or Spot. Yes. Then we see Lloyd's grave, which is dug much better. Yes. It actually looks

Mark:

Nice casket.

Sarah:

He's got a casket they've got the soil buildup on one side and they've got the turf over it to make it look nice. And they've got lots and lots of flowers.

Mark:

And they have this giant UFO that they kind of drop on the head

Sarah:

of the caskets. It barely fits. Yep. Never mind that the grave is only about two feet deep.

Mark:

It's and then there's this high crane shot.

Sarah:

That UFO is gonna poke up out of the dirt. It is. It's so shallow.

Mark:

It should be his grave marker. I guess. I guess. So Barnaby's

Sarah:

Maybe it says maybe those symbols around the outside edge say Lloyd.

Mark:

Barnaby in the back of the house is reading some comics that he found upstairs that he was gonna get, that he read as a kid, that he was gonna give to a boy if they had a boy, but they had Cully. And of course, girls don't like comics.

Sarah:

No. Girls like comics Okay.

Mark:

But then I'm like, oh my gosh. Dandare comics. And

Sarah:

then you went all nerd.

Mark:

Which are real comics, Dandare, pilot of the future from the fifties and in Eagle Magazine. Like, they, those look like reprints. I don't think those are originals.

Sarah:

Wow. That's a new level of nerd for you. They're not originals. They're not first edition comics. They're reprints.

Mark:

Because the colors are so good. Oh, god. And of course, Joyce is

Sarah:

like Put your glasses up

Mark:

on your nose. Joyce is like, let's

Sarah:

throw them out. Actually, those are reprints. But what Tom's really into is a comic about Mekon Yes. The alien Yes. The gigantic head.

Mark:

And he says, come over here, and in a few moments, you will see a site in which you never forget. It says uncle Harry.

Sarah:

Yeah. That's what Mekon says. And Tom says, when I was a kid, I was always worried he was hiding under my bed. Tom's bed must have been like five feet off the ground because Mekon's head is really effing How did

Mark:

get that giant noggin under my bed?

Sarah:

And just imagine baby Tom, little Tom laying in his bed. He hears a noise under the bed. He's like, oh no, it's Mekon. Is it you Mekon? And Mekon says, yes, it's me.

Sarah:

I'm under your bed. My head is stuck. Please help me. My huge noggin is stuck under your bed. Come, you will see something you will never forget.

Mark:

My head stuck under your box screen. Okay. Best corpse of the episode? We already know who this is.

Sarah:

Well, we've got I

Mark:

don't know.

Sarah:

There's kind of a tie between Ronald Stokes and Eddie Field.

Mark:

Who are both unnamed. These actors deserve a slow clap.

Sarah:

Yeah. We've got Ronald Stokes, Eddie Field, Steven Ramsey, who is a good corpse. I don't even know how Harry identifies him. He's charcoal. Puts his hand over his mouth.

Sarah:

Lloyd, Dave Rippert. Yeah. And you would, you might argue Lady Aubrey, Isabelle.

Mark:

No, I think she dies. I don't think she dies on camera.

Sarah:

Okay. But Ronald Nettie certainly win best corpses. Way

Mark:

ahead of everything.

Sarah:

So let's talk about after the credits.

Mark:

Okay. So after the credits, want to, the ladies in the post office now have a vacancy in the back of the post office.

Sarah:

Right. Cause the Uphology Center no longer has anybody to run

Mark:

it. Beatrice might run the Uphology Center. It'd be awfully sad. I bet she funds it already.

Sarah:

Harry's going to jail. Sally's going to jail. Christian's going to jail. And Peter's going to jail.

Mark:

Jail y jail jail for everybody.

Sarah:

I don't think Harry's gonna get cell visits

Mark:

No. In prison. And what is sad is Beatrice and Lucy are left husbandless. Fatherless. Loveless.

Sarah:

Yeah. But they're better off.

Mark:

They are in the end better off.

Sarah:

Because Harry

Mark:

and It would be nice if Lloyd sort of came out from a bush and said, Oh, I faked my death.

Sarah:

I was just abducted by aliens. I wasn't killed.

Mark:

It wasn't And then they can all live in the house together, but Lloyd is dead.

Sarah:

Yeah. Well, that's life, right? So Beatrice is going to have to pull it together on her own. But yeah, like the cells and the cost to Nick are full. Yes.

Sarah:

Harry, Sally, Christian, Peter, they're all

Mark:

They're all the pokey. Peter hadn't come from Scotland, he might have got away with it.

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah.

Mark:

He can't It's really Isabelle causing crap yet again.

Sarah:

Yet again. Yeah. Because if Isabelle had chosen between them instead of having them fight, Peter would have never sent assassins after Christian. Never. So Ronald Stokes would not have died in their house.

Sarah:

So Lloyd would have not to have to create the crop circle and put the body in it, which means that when Eddie Field died, Dave Ripper wouldn't have had a crop circle to put a dead body in. And it means that Steven Ramsey, he would still be dead.

Mark:

Well, sir Harry wouldn't have any excuse to electrocute him. He'd kill him some other way.

Sarah:

Yeah. He probably would have killed him some other way. And Lloyd wouldn't be dead because they wouldn't be on the run because they wouldn't, the cops wouldn't even be in town. Yeah. It's just, it's- It's all Isabelle's fault.

Mark:

All Isabelle's fault.

Sarah:

For a dying lady, she makes problems.

Mark:

She's very selfish.

Sarah:

At least she was when she was younger. Agreed. At her grim picnic.

Mark:

Well, she's selfish too. Come see me, Peter, so you could get arrested. Well, that's not

Sarah:

too bad though. You've been trying to kill my husband for years.

Mark:

I guess. Not well. So Midsomer Maniacs on Twitter is at Midsomer Maniacs and then Instagram is at Midsomer Maniacs.

Sarah:

Now wait a minute. What? That's not how we that that oh, well. Isabelle is a jerk. That's how we end the episode?

Sarah:

That's how we How

Mark:

are we gonna end the episode?

Sarah:

So ends the most epic dead body acting episode of Midsomer.

Mark:

Absolutely. There's dead body acting in the rest of

Sarah:

the series that never surpasses this. Never. Never. And just bravo. Yes.

Sarah:

Sheer bravery for

Mark:

an actor. Slow clap. Bravo. Thirty nine seconds of nakedy nakedness, butt hair, and not a breath.

Sarah:

So ends the electric vendetta.

Mark:

If you have a disagreement as to who the best corpse was, which I'm sorry, I'm gonna go to the mat on this.

Sarah:

Or some other explanation of how Dave managed to create crop circles in an afternoon to put a body in.

Mark:

Or something about after the episode that we missed.

Sarah:

Let us know.

Mark:

Absolutely. We are Midsommar Maniacs on Instagram and Twitter.

Sarah:

And

Mark:

we're on the Facebook groups, Midsomer Murderers Official and Acorn TV Fans.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

You can get ahold of us on email at MidsommarManiacs@Gmail.com. And we are on all the podcast sites that you ever wanna listen to. Please rate and review us if you can.

Sarah:

It helps. It helps other people find us.

Mark:

Absolutely.

Sarah:

So what's our next episode?

Mark:

The next episode is season four, episode four, Who Killed Cockrobin? And, boy, let me tell you, episode of coinkydinks. So if you just happened to be going along here.

Sarah:

Everybody, I know. So if you wanna hear about the crazy coinkydinks, coincidences in the next episode, we hope you'll tune in. So until then, see you later, Maniacs.

Mark:

Bye, Maniacs.

Sarah:

Should I make a bad noise for the audio so you can find it? You'll see that in the signature. Right?

Mark:

No. I'm just gonna BINGE MAN. BINGE MAN. BINGE MAN. Just gonna have separate audio files.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

You'd be like, oh my god. I love your show. So I'm naked. Sorry. But I love your show so much.

Sarah:

Why why are you here? Welcome to Midsomer Maniacs.

Mark:

Hey, Maniacs.

Sarah:

Today, this is episode 17 for us.

Mark:

17? I can't believe we're at 17 already.

Sarah:

And it's season four episode four of Midsomer Murder, better known as Who Killed Cockrobin?

Mark:

Just off the top, Midsomer Maniacs is a podcast dedicated to the ITV series Midsomer Murders. Each week, we dig through an episode of the show, including the murders, the mayhem, and the loonies, and everything else that we love.

Sarah:

You sound like such a DJ when you read that.

Mark:

I got the DJ voice out there. Hey. And, just wanted to give you a warning that if you if the, show is too much for your kids, the podcast probably is too. But if you're let your kids watch the show, they'll probably enjoy the podcast.

Sarah:

I don't know if they'll enjoy it, but they can handle it. Yeah. I don't think there are many 12 year olds who are like, oh, can we listen to Midsomer Maniacs?

Mark:

I'm still kind of stunned that anyone is. We can listen to Midsomer Maniacs.

Sarah:

But we're really glad that you do.

Mark:

But we have said such amazing comments lately of just people saying the most absolute nicest things, and it definitely warms our hearts and makes it all worthwhile.

Sarah:

Absolutely. Absolutely. So much more fun knowing that somebody's listening other than us.

Mark:

So this episode is filmed September, October 2000 and broadcast the 09/09/2001 with 9,130,000 viewers. Dropped by David Tucker, and Jeremy Paul is the writer.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

So we start with the cold open.

Sarah:

Oh, boy.

Mark:

So first of all, I think we have to address this, this idea of who killed cockrobin. So this is a reference to a a poem. Right, called Cockrobin, with a kind of lilting sing songiness to it. Right. And there are all these different versions of

Sarah:

it. Of course, yeah.

Mark:

And the one that they make reference to in here, I couldn't even really find a good reference for that, but it's obviously like a British nursery rhyme.

Sarah:

Yeah, like Ring Around the Rosie. Exactly. Yeah. But it's a pretty cocky title. Yes.

Sarah:

It's very tongue in cheek, right?

Mark:

Especially when we find out what Robin was doing with his cock Robin.

Sarah:

He's certainly getting it around. Yeah. So we start with a cold opening. We have got Doctor. Burgess, Francesca, who's head of riding school.

Mark:

Yeah. So this is a trope that we've found and it is unattractive women who in British television shows are seen as completely attractive. And I'm not saying that Francesca is ugly. Okay? No.

Mark:

I'm not saying that. But she is not fawn over the way that they all fawn over.

Sarah:

She's not making an idiot of yourself beautiful.

Mark:

No. And it it's just we see this time and time again. Another great example of this was the Brazilian woman from the Strangler's Woods episode. Like, everybody thought, oh, well, she's the most beautiful woman in the world.

Sarah:

And she wasn't She wasn't ugly. But But she wasn't notably beautiful. Over the top. Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah:

But it adds some interest. Right?

Mark:

And the doctor's quite in love with her. Doctor who shows up in a million things.

Sarah:

He's in so many things.

Mark:

Most recently in Doc Martin.

Sarah:

So Doctor. Burgess is played by Ian McNeese, who yes, you will know from Doctor. Martin. He's a long running character in Doctor. Martin and he's a really awesome character in Doctor.

Sarah:

Martin. He's really fun. He was also in The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain. He's a major character there. He plays Churchill in Doctor Who.

Sarah:

Yeah. He is Baron Harkonnas in Children of Dune.

Mark:

Yes. Yes

Sarah:

he is. In 2005. But the two roles that you might have forgotten are never known about. He was in Pet Detective.

Mark:

I have seen a lot of bad movies and that is not one

Sarah:

of them. He plays a major role in Ace Ventura.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

He was also in a movie called White Noise with Michael Keaton, where Michael Keaton plays a widower who thinks that he can hear he thinks he can contact his dead wife through like static transmissions, but then accidentally finds aliens. Yeah. He plays an American in that one, I think. Movie.

Mark:

Yeah. Okay.

Sarah:

I remember thinking it was kinda weird and fun. But, yeah, that's Ian McNeese. He's been in so many things.

Mark:

So Oliver, the doctor, is kind of tipsy and he says goodnight to Melvin, who we don't know who he is at this point in time. All we know that Francesca gets on top of him, yeah. Okay. About that.

Sarah:

Yeah. And Doctor. Burgess is a little tipsy to say the least. So he's driving home. Goes careening around in his car.

Mark:

And what does he see? But a goat.

Sarah:

That poor goat lives by that bridge. I think it's a stereotype. I think it's rather rude of them to leave Billy the goat tied up at the bridge.

Mark:

But he also runs over the Irishman. Yes. Yes. Sean O'Connell, who we don't know is Sean O'Connell.

Sarah:

Right. So we'll talk about him later. Because at first,

Mark:

they immediately see him. I go, oh, yeah.

Sarah:

And why do you say that?

Mark:

So he's on a Canadian show called the Republic of Doyle in which the theme song ends with, oh, yeah. So wherever he shows up, including just recently, what did we see him in? We saw him in

Sarah:

His name's Sean McGinley. He was also in Braveheart. Had a pretty big role in Braveheart.

Mark:

He was in Shetland recently.

Sarah:

Yeah, he was in Shetland. And most notably other than, oh yeah, his head is shaped like a light bulb.

Mark:

Yeah, his head, I remember you were rocking on his head. He's a

Sarah:

great actor. His head is shaped like a light bulb. Not a compact fluorescent. It's not squirrely like that.

Mark:

So this is ten years before Republic of Doyle, but of course we didn't really know or recognize him when we watched Republic of Doyle. And then we saw this episode again, we're like,

Sarah:

Oh yeah! It's like, Hi, it's light bulb head guy.

Mark:

And I remember you talking about his giant light bulb head in Republic Of Doyle.

Sarah:

So he disappears out of view of the headlights. We assume that Doctor. Burgess has hit him and knocked him into the ditch or something. But then, the car's conveniently towed away and everything's kind of swept under the carpet for the night, right?

Mark:

Before that, the doctor is drooling McDroolerson in the car. Well, he's really drunk. He's, like, as copious amounts of drool. Like, I kept wanting to wipe the screen.

Sarah:

Maybe it's because he sat there looking at Francesca for hours, and it was just built up. Francesca.

Mark:

And Mary Moen, who's the sort of nosy neighbor here, turns her light on and looks and then turns it off and then looks again and then lights on and off. She obviously knows what's going on.

Sarah:

And doesn't want them to know that she knows, which was a smart thing for her.

Mark:

The doctor goes to the pub and he talks to this guy named Bill.

Sarah:

Bill the barkeep at the White Swan.

Mark:

The goat's name is also Bill.

Sarah:

He's Billy the goat. Yes.

Mark:

And Frank Lightbourne comes to take the car away.

Sarah:

Right.

Mark:

Yeah. And the the doctor at this point is reasonable and says several times, we have to call the police.

Sarah:

I think I hit somebody.

Mark:

They're like, no. No.

Sarah:

No. You

Mark:

didn't We know take care of our own here. No. No. Well, we know how Frank takes care of his own. Yeah.

Mark:

So it's all swept under the carpet except for Bill in the pub can't stop talking because he picked up a phone and called Barnaby.

Sarah:

Well, yeah. I mean, Burgess is conscious of the fact that he may have hurt somebody. By the light of day, I think Bill says, you know what? Yeah, we got to look into this. And he calls Tom.

Sarah:

He wants him to do it kind of under the radar, but he does call him.

Mark:

Well, no, Tom and Joyce are just going to a pub to have lunch.

Sarah:

She's like, Oh, is it that nice one with the good food? And he's like, No, it's the one with the chips, crisps.

Mark:

So I guess this is the work and lunch.

Sarah:

Poor Joyce.

Mark:

Poor Joyce. And then

Sarah:

she just sits at a table out by the pond for an hour by herself eating chips.

Mark:

So we find out the Irishman's a horse whisperer that Bill has rented him the cottage, but really doesn't know all that much about him. Like, maybe you should know a little more about somebody before you rent a place to them.

Sarah:

Well, it's hard to decide how long the Irishman has been staying in that cottage too. You get the sense that he's new to town. And yet when they go in the cottage, the desk is just full of his correspondence as if he's lived there for years.

Mark:

Literally, he's quite at home. Yeah. So that's what happened. Tom goes around. He sees that he's been reading Black Beauty because he's a horse guy.

Mark:

Get it? It's a

Sarah:

horse book. Get it? It's a horse book. That's what horse guys read.

Mark:

And he finds a Irish passport that says it's Sean O'Connell born the January 9 1968. Okay.

Sarah:

You nerded out about a document again, didn't you?

Mark:

That human being was not born in 1968.

Sarah:

You're only saying that because that would make him only a year older than you.

Mark:

Was born, the actor was born in '56. So he's a little older than

Sarah:

that. To be fair, I think he's had gray hair since he was like 40.

Mark:

The more interesting part is he comes from a place called Skibbereen, S K I B B E R E E N. Is that a real place? It's a real place in County Cork, Ireland.

Sarah:

Skibbereen. Skibbereen. Yeah. So Mary Moen, who over, she sees all this with the car happened from her window. Yeah.

Sarah:

She's played by Jane LaPatoire. I'm going to show Mark my notes now because he's a French speaker. What you said?

Mark:

Yeah, that's what I'm going. I'm French Canadian, you know it?

Sarah:

No, you're not. But I know you took a lot of French when you were little. She's been in lots of things. The thing that I found most entertaining was a movie she was in in 1972 called The Asphyx. Have you seen this film?

Sarah:

This is the Has Mark Seen That Bad Movie? Let's wait. I believe so. It's A S P H Yes. Y Yes.

Sarah:

Didn't even practice that. It's a movie about a man who invents a machine that looks a lot like a coffin with some suckers attached to it that can suck the life force and soul out of people thereby making him immortal. And she plays his wife.

Mark:

Yeah, I saw that movie.

Sarah:

Sometimes I worry about you, you know?

Mark:

Well, we'll get to hammer movies later on. Right? Barnaby's going through the stuff in the house and he hears somebody coming in, and it's Melvin Stockard.

Sarah:

Yeah, Melvin, who we find out pretty quickly did eighteen months of an eight year sentence. They he and Tom go go way back.

Mark:

He's kind of a diamond geezer.

Sarah:

No. He's a tweed geezer.

Mark:

He's a tweed geezer. He's out riding with his horse. How exactly like, he's like, I thought I saw you go in. It's total coincidence that they're right.

Sarah:

I just happened to be riding by with my daughter on our very expensive horses now that I'm lord of the manor. And he I am a full blown tweed geezer.

Mark:

I still don't really understand why he went in. There's there's some problematic situations.

Sarah:

He has this thing about, like, being responsible for the entire village.

Mark:

He's showing up where he needs to be sort of.

Sarah:

And taking care of things that are none of his business, but he feels responsible for. So maybe he sees a stranger going into the house and he knows it's not the Irishman. And so he's like, who's going in that house?

Mark:

He put the roof on the church. He's on the parish council. He saved the mobile library and the bus service. About that roof, okay, there are a lot of dumb, useless characters in this show. Mhmm.

Mark:

But that vicar is dumb, and he does not need to be in this episode at all. He shows up in two scenes, one of which he runs away. Yes. He's not part of the criminal conspiracy.

Sarah:

He doesn't contribute

Mark:

anything All he to does the is say hi to Melvin here and then go for drinks and run away like a little boy.

Sarah:

I think his job here is to give Melvin some respectability. Like, yes, he has helped with the church, and now we all think he's a good person and not a tweed geezer.

Mark:

I absolutely agree. They don't need the vicar for that. No. That guy needed a job and somebody found it for him.

Sarah:

Well, he plays a vicar in another episode of Midsomer too.

Mark:

Oh, does?

Sarah:

But a different vicar. A different vicar. Yeah, he's a different vicar.

Mark:

He has a vicar y look to him.

Sarah:

He does. He has a vicar face. He's also in the other episode as the straw woman. His name is Jonathan Hackett, by the way. Let me tell you about Melvin.

Mark:

Melvin, okay. So tell us about Melvin.

Sarah:

I'm sorry, I'm laughing because I know what's in my notes. His name's Larry Lamb. He's been in a lot of things, all the typical character actor things.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

I got, I fell into this black hole of the things that he's credited as self. Okay. Okay. So not,

Mark:

not So this is when you do a documentary.

Sarah:

You do a narrator, you're a host for show or something like that.

Mark:

Like I bet you, almost all of Jimmy Carr's IMDB pages Are

Sarah:

as self, right.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

He he did a Hear Jimmy Carter? Sorry. He did a series with his son where they went on bike rides. Oh. So kinda like Tony Robinson's walks across Britain, but this was riding bikes with his son.

Mark:

Oh, that's nice.

Sarah:

It's kind of fit for his age. But in 2016, he was on I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here.

Mark:

Okay. So this is a British reality show in which they place celebrities in usually it's all tropical, right?

Sarah:

It's like Survivor, but with celebrities.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

And a bit more awkward.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

He made it eighteen weeks.

Mark:

Wow, he's a tough bugger.

Sarah:

And when he got voted off the island or whatever the mechanism is, everybody said that he was almost too nice. He was really nice to everybody, Lamb was, but he snored really loud. And so they had to get rid of somebody, and they were like, sorry, Larry. None of us can sleep. You have to go.

Mark:

That's embarrassing. Wow.

Sarah:

Poor Larry.

Mark:

Probably snores like our dog.

Sarah:

He seems like an all around kinda nice guy. Yeah. Plays a a right kinda jerk in this, a reformed jerk. I'm not sure, but he's certainly power hungry and lording it over everybody because he's got money.

Mark:

So the last place they go by is the well, and they're pulling these bikes out of well. Okay, British people.

Sarah:

Yeah. Okay. Explain this.

Mark:

Explain this. I have a bike. Maybe the tire's flat. Maybe the chain broke.

Sarah:

Down the well

Mark:

it goes.

Sarah:

So you two have seen other references to bikes and Wells. Absolutely. It wasn't just me.

Mark:

No, it's

Sarah:

because I Googled all over the place trying to an explanation

Mark:

for Well, why there are bikes and

Sarah:

I've got a theory.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Stunt riding. Stunt. That's quite the stunt ride. Really bad stunt riding. I'll go round

Mark:

and around and around. And then

Sarah:

I'll jump the well. Oh, my bike fell in the well.

Mark:

My bike fell in the well.

Sarah:

Well, know, you got something kind of big like a bike and it's broken and you can't fix it. Yeah. What are you gonna do with it?

Mark:

Throw it down the well.

Sarah:

Throw it in a hole.

Mark:

Okay. I have a question. Again, this is spoilers. Right?

Sarah:

I have a question is becoming your so, by the way. Just throwing you off completely.

Mark:

Frank and his sister killed Robin Mhmm. And put him in the well. Mhmm.

Sarah:

And then threw bikes on top of him.

Mark:

And they know that people are going through the well. Why is Frank not going, let's go to Spain?

Sarah:

Because that would be obvious. But still, like My bigger question. Why doesn't

Mark:

he go to the well and put him somewhere else?

Sarah:

No. No. No. No. That's not the bigger question.

Sarah:

The the biggest question is they pull bikes out first. So in the six weeks since they put him in

Mark:

Well, there was a rush of bad bikes.

Sarah:

Other people have thrown bikes in on top of him.

Mark:

Our bikes. Bikes.

Sarah:

Bikes. Bikes. Or Frank and Bridget thought, if we throw bikes in, nobody will know he's Frank down

Mark:

and Bridget get the bikes.

Sarah:

Who knows? They're bad people. Maybe they steal them off little kids and throw them in the well.

Mark:

I got it.

Sarah:

It's stunt riding, I'm telling you.

Mark:

So they get to the big pile where Melvin lives now and they meet up with Jackie Marsh, who is like a Toady? Yeah, like a toady. A lackey? Yeah. Who obviously was part of Melvin's

Sarah:

game. His muscle? Yeah. His creepy butler?

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

His wife Lily is no better.

Mark:

Yeah. And Barnaby knows these people. Right? And Barnaby asked about Stockard's wife. Bubbles.

Mark:

Bubbles. Is this a common name in Britain? It's not a common name here.

Sarah:

I I think it's a nickname for Barbara.

Mark:

Maybe. Yes. But she runs a jewelry shop in Oxford called Bits and Bubbles. More on that later.

Sarah:

Bubbles, not bubbles. Right?

Mark:

Yes. Bits and Bubbles.

Sarah:

Jackie March is played by George Ennis. Yes. Who has a fantastically out of date personal website. If you've got an hour.

Mark:

Go to his website.

Sarah:

Including a day by day blog for like two years. Fantastic. Notable in his history is he was in a fantastic movie in 1985, fantastic being ironic here, called Morons From Outer Space.

Mark:

Wow. He was in Morons From Outer Space?

Sarah:

Have you seen that? Of course I've seen

Mark:

It was a bad movie in the 1980s. We rented

Sarah:

it on VHS, baby. He does a lot of theater now, a lot. And he does a lot of nice things for a lot, a lot.

Mark:

He's a good actor.

Sarah:

Yeah. And he seems like a genuinely good person, but man, can he play a baddie? Oh, he

Mark:

had the scowl going on. He says like three things in the entire movie.

Sarah:

So mustache and that It's His hair is

Mark:

very dark. Fantastic. Yeah. Francesco shows up, and then Joyce shows up. Yeah.

Mark:

Out of nowhere. How does Joyce know where he is?

Sarah:

Maybe she's got a tag on

Mark:

him. Maybe.

Sarah:

She's got a GPS tag on

Mark:

bring the village.

Sarah:

Wouldn't wouldn't you?

Mark:

I would.

Sarah:

I would tag him if he was my husband.

Mark:

So Melvin invites them for lunch and Barnaby says no. And then Francesca speaks in Spanish to Tom. Like he understands what she says. I I just think it's incredibly rude to do that.

Sarah:

I think she's saying, I am exotic and you can't understand me. I am so fancy and beautiful.

Mark:

Yeah. Well, luckily, he already has lunch.

Sarah:

Joyce has got a pickled egg in a bag.

Mark:

Yep. Egg in a bag.

Sarah:

And that'll that'll teach him.

Mark:

I have in my notes, everyone thinks she's so beautiful.

Sarah:

Well, Tom clearly does.

Mark:

Exactly. So Troy's gonna show up and they're gonna look at this crime scene. Joyce goes off home by herself.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

And Tom goes to see what the car looks like and sees the doctor and Frank. And the doctor's like, will I be charged? And Tom's like, possibly.

Sarah:

I don't know yet. Right. Because they don't know what's happened to the Irishman. He goes to see Mary because he realizes that she must have seen what happened.

Mark:

And she has a Nureyev picture.

Sarah:

Yeah. So he is And she can still put her palms on the floor.

Mark:

A famous ballet dancer.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Like, he's Russian. He kinda put in the eighties. He kinda put the Bolshoi ballet on the map. Mhmm. Right?

Mark:

And, yes, she can still touch the ground with her palms, and Tom claps like an old person. Like kind of curvy hands. It's weird.

Sarah:

She's so edgy and nervous and tense and kind of scatterbrained. And I don't know if she's scatterbrained because she's so scared or if she's scared because she's scatterbrained.

Mark:

I'm always getting her and the woman from who's in the train car in the episode all mixed up because they're kind of the same person, Right?

Sarah:

They're That very edgy Weird. Nervous. Nervous. Yeah. Meanwhile, Troy's digging around over next to Billy the goat and finds a bloody rag.

Sarah:

So now they know somebody was hurt.

Mark:

Well, he's also talks to Francesca for absolutely no reason at all. Oh, look how beautiful she is. Whatever. It's not that she's not beautiful. It's the reaction of everybody and the show that puts her in this situation constantly.

Mark:

She's just so gorgeous. Oh, whatever.

Sarah:

No. No. They go to the writing school and speaking, I feel so mean in this episode. I've already said one guy's head looks like a light bulb. My note says she works with horses because they have the same teeth.

Mark:

So maybe Francesca's not the most beautiful.

Sarah:

We find out that Melvin is an investor in Francesca's fancy riding school. He's got his hand in every pie.

Mark:

And she said that he spent the night.

Sarah:

Well, he's separated from bubbles.

Mark:

It's raining. Suddenly, it just starts to rain in the next scene.

Sarah:

You are so obsessed with this rain.

Mark:

Like pouring rain. There's no shot of, like, thundery skies or nothing.

Sarah:

Does there have to be? Why can't it just rain? It's just burning. It rains.

Mark:

Yeah. But every other scene before this, it's just normal and then sudden downpour.

Sarah:

It it makes the scene in the pub feel more insular and kind of crowded and closed in.

Mark:

I guess. Then they go outside and it's bone dry. You say it's not bone dry, but it's bone dry.

Sarah:

The cars are wet. They at

Mark:

least sprayed a hose They on put a hose on them.

Sarah:

Alright. Well, then they did that. We find out in the pub that Julie and Chris are engaged. Julie is Melvin's daughter, and Chris is the son of a local farmer.

Mark:

And the lead singer of Dream Academy.

Sarah:

You think he looks like him.

Mark:

He looks a

Sarah:

bit like him. They're getting married in a couple of weeks.

Mark:

And dad is upset. Yeah. Because I don't think dad is anything but upset this entire show.

Sarah:

Joe Megson is just grumpy personified. And he's a jerk. Like he is just It's no wonder his wife wants to leave him and his son wants to get married and get out. He's not Absolutely.

Mark:

And he drives that tractor around like he's king of the farm.

Sarah:

Like he's gonna run people down. Noel Wallace Croft is- Is

Mark:

she gonna learn to cook?

Sarah:

Not for you old man. Whatever. Noel Wallace Croft is his best man. He's Chris's friend.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

He's played by a guy named Noah Huntley, who's also in The Sleeper Under the Hill in 2011. And again, I fell down the hole of the self credits. Noah Huntley narrated this awesome show called Date My Porn Star. What? Date My Porn Star.

Sarah:

It features two British porn stars who travel to America to find out how American porn stars live.

Mark:

What?

Sarah:

I'm not making it up.

Mark:

What network? This is not a BBC show. I'm not making it up. Okay. But what network in The UK?

Sarah:

I don't know what network it was on.

Mark:

I hope it was on an ITV show.

Sarah:

It's kind of like Come Dine With Me, but with porn stars.

Mark:

Come porn with me. And

Sarah:

over and, you know, overseas. Yes.

Mark:

Yeah. Okay.

Sarah:

But Noah just he just narrates it.

Mark:

I'll put a link to that show notes, whatever. That's just bizarre.

Sarah:

Date my porn star, please.

Mark:

Everybody's happy about this marriage except for the old guy. Yeah. And they

Sarah:

go outside and Bernie Well, Melvin's not either. Right? Neither of their parents are very happy with them getting married. But Joe's reason is stupid. He just is like, Nope, he doesn't want Chris to get married to anybody.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because he just doesn't like anybody.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Melvin thinks Chris isn't good enough. He at least has a reason, is wrong, but he has a reason.

Mark:

So Barnaby talks about Melvin and his history and stuff like that. And then you have the weirdest little scene ever. And I don't even know why it's in here. It's a nighttime scene where someone breaks into a cottage, not sure which cottage it is, uses a key to open a medical cabinet and steal medical supplies. I'm assuming this is either a vet's cabinet or some sort of surgery cabinet.

Mark:

We're never told who it is. It's never referenced again. And I want those ninety seconds back.

Sarah:

Well, it's right around the same time that we find out that Sean, the Irishman was a vet and he lost his license for fixing show horses illegally. Yes. So I think that's why we see that break in then because we've just learned that. And so we're associating those two things.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

That's the message I got.

Mark:

Hey Troy, let's drive around the village until we find a dead body.

Sarah:

Oops, there's one in the well.

Mark:

Wrapped in plastic.

Sarah:

We finally get the body from the well. Melvin comes

Mark:

up. Suddenly everyone is there.

Sarah:

Well, Everyone is there. And it's the Village Green, right? That's the whole point of the Village Green is it's the center of the village and everybody can see what's going on.

Mark:

Noel's dad is there.

Sarah:

Everybody's there.

Mark:

Little Johnny Flynn. Oh, wait. He's not there.

Sarah:

So let Let's talk about Ding Dong Bell. Okay. I got some stuff.

Mark:

Okay. Lay it on me.

Sarah:

So Melvin comes up behind Tom and does his ominous thing. His, I didn't commit this murder, but since I'm a tweed geezer, let me insinuate that maybe I would've. Yes. Right? Ding Dong Bell, pussy's in the well.

Sarah:

Yes.

Mark:

I thought Cock Robin was in the well. Okay. Nevermind.

Sarah:

No, no. He's a pussy now.

Mark:

How about pussy Rob? No, no, I'm all confused.

Sarah:

Okay. Now you're talking about that show that Noah Huntley was the host for. Stop, stop, stop. Okay. So the original rhyme, okay, is ding dong bell, pussy's in the well.

Sarah:

Who put her in? Little Johnny thin. Who pulled her out? Little Tommy stout. What a naughty boy was that to try to drown the poor pussy cat who never did him any harm, but chased up all the mice in the farmer's barn.

Sarah:

Okay. Okay. It's a nursery rhyme. That's the original.

Mark:

It's a nice little story.

Sarah:

In this story, one kid tries to drown the cat and another kid saves the cat. Yeah, good to the same. Who never did anything bad to anybody. Nope. Right?

Sarah:

In the forties, people decided that this sing song needed to be reformed a bit. Okay. That it was a bit outdated and they wanted to update it. Okay. This song about a boy trying to drown a cat and another kid saving it.

Sarah:

This is the reformed version. Okay. Published by Jeffrey Hall. It's the accepted reformed version from the 1940s.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

See if you can spot the difference.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Ding dong bell, kitty's dead in the well.

Mark:

Woah, wait. Woah, okay.

Sarah:

Oh, it doesn't say pussy anymore. Now it says kitty. It's Who let her die? Little Johnny Finn. Who got her alive?

Sarah:

Little Tommy Finn, what a bad boy was that to kill a kitty cat who never did any harm, but played with mice in his father's barn. It's reformed because they say kitty. Oh. But that cat is definitely dead. Yeah.

Sarah:

But it's better, see? It's better for kids to call it a kitty.

Mark:

And not a pussy.

Sarah:

Doesn't matter that a kid killed it. Yes. And no kid saved it.

Mark:

War is a strange thing to British people.

Sarah:

Was like, saw it. Was like, Oh, there's a reform version of that rhyme. I wonder what they changed. Kitty is what they changed. It's okay that kids are exposed to, you know, homicidal children who will probably be serial killers later, but it's better because it's this kitty.

Mark:

Never mind. So the body of the well is Robin Woolsongraft.

Sarah:

Woolsongraft. Woolsongraft. Woolsongraft. There's no N. Woolishcroft.

Sarah:

Woolishcroft. There you go.

Mark:

And he was involved with Valerie Mixon. Wait a minute. Somebody married that horrible man?

Sarah:

Yeah. Valerie, who's also Noel's dad. Right? Robin is Noel's dad.

Mark:

And they were heading off to New Zealand, which is the other placeholder for very far away, but still speaks English. Right. And the husband found out. Next day, nothing. Now the light goes off in her head that Sean O'Connell was also in New Zealand.

Sarah:

Right.

Mark:

And we know that there's six people in New Zealand, so they must all know each other.

Sarah:

Maybe there's a connection. Noel goes and IDs the body. He IDs his dad's body after being six weeks in the well. Luckily, the picture that he had of Valerie in his pocket wasn't damaged by the water.

Mark:

Nope. But it was ripped up.

Sarah:

Right.

Mark:

And Frank goes to see Mary and Mary goes, you killed that person. And Frank goes, no, I didn't. Here's a new TV. Guess what?

Sarah:

He did. But here's a new TV. And it's not really a new TV. Here's a replacement TV. Yes.

Sarah:

Why he feels responsible for her TV, I have no idea.

Mark:

He's very, it's an excuse to come over.

Sarah:

He's helpful.

Mark:

So George finds a bunch of stuff in his pockets, including his passport, his airline ticket for the July 12 at Heathrow, but there's no watch.

Sarah:

And they kind of research a little bit and find out this was the flight that they were both supposed to be on. Neither of them got on it. They know where he is now, but they don't know what happened to her. Yes. Right?

Sarah:

Because they were gonna meet at the airport. They were gonna leave separately.

Mark:

So now we have to find her.

Sarah:

And neither Joe or Chris has heard from her. She left a note for her son, but her jerk husband, Joe, Joe the jerk, tore it up before he could read it.

Mark:

So they Barnaby and Troy go off and interview Joe. Idle bloody Tiddletown. Wow.

Sarah:

How can I be unpleasant while I make tea?

Mark:

Can do you sing in church with that mouth, man?

Sarah:

Joe Mixon is played by Malcolm Story. Yep. Who you might recognize from The Princess Bride. He was yelling in The Princess Bride. He was the evil henchman.

Sarah:

Yep. To the prince. He was also in a really good show called The Living and the Dead. Do you remember that? It's about a young doctor who moves to a little village with his wife and he can see dead people.

Sarah:

No, no. It's set in like Victorian era. No. It was really good. It was like a one or two season show, but it was great.

Mark:

Oh, get out of my sight. I don't want to talk to you at all.

Sarah:

All he does is slam and yell and storm and

Mark:

So Julie gets in the car with Barnaby and Troy. Again, the coincidence car. Because they're driving around, they talk about putting that Chris's mom, that Chris is really worried about his mom too. Mary Mullen may have known her. And then they go by the well again, because everybody has to go by the well.

Mark:

And Bridget is so upset after killing her husband that she's bringing flowers. And we find out that Bridget and Frank are brother and sister.

Sarah:

Bridget's all drama, big drama.

Mark:

She gets in the car and after putting down the flowers at the well and just bangs on the window.

Sarah:

Yeah. Like, let's get out of here. Well, she sees the cops coming.

Mark:

Mary has a visitor, it's Melvin.

Sarah:

He's come to take an envelope that's been pushed through her mailbox that has her name on it.

Mark:

Which we never get referenced again.

Sarah:

Yeah, we do. We find out what it was.

Mark:

What was it?

Sarah:

It's the watch. Frank put the watch in the envelope and addressed it to her because she would know that it was Robin's watch and it's a threat. It's look what happened to I

Mark:

did not put that together, but now it makes complete That

Sarah:

watch is quite the hot potato. It

Mark:

is hot potato.

Sarah:

It's gonna get passed around

Mark:

a lot. And this is our little secret, just like the goat.

Sarah:

She, Mary The

Mark:

goat has some good agent. It gets a lot of scrutiny.

Sarah:

It does. It does more than Jackie does.

Mark:

More than Jackie and certainly more than the vicar.

Sarah:

Mary and Valerie were friends, but she hasn't heard from her. She she acts really panicky when they ask her about Valerie. And that's why, because she's received this basically death threat in the form of a watch.

Mark:

Yeah. So they want to go talk to Francesca again.

Sarah:

I don't understand, Troy.

Mark:

I hate this part so much. Okay. So Barbuda says, Go round back. Now, I know I'm a dude, okay? But when I shower, I shut the bedroom door and the bathroom door, okay?

Mark:

Even when you're in the bathroom.

Sarah:

You put two doors between you and anybody who shouldn't see you naked.

Mark:

Yes. First of all, the back door is open. Troy goes waltzing through the back door. Now we could tell there was a shower noise. Like she might as well be in the shower singing, slam it in the bathtub.

Mark:

Rubberdocky. Or something like like, clearly she's in the shower. But but Troy goes, I need to investigate this further. So he goes into the bathroom and we get gratuitous Francesca butt shot.

Sarah:

What is he thinking? That woman has every right to take a shower in her own home with whatever doors open she wants to and not expect a cop to not just appear. Absolutely.

Mark:

And then he's like shocked.

Sarah:

He's like, well, me kind

Mark:

of face. I have a note that says she freaks out as she should. I would freak out if Troy was suddenly in my bathroom.

Sarah:

He'd be like, oh my god. I love your show. So I'm naked, sorry, but I love your show so much. Why are you here?

Mark:

It's so weird.

Sarah:

I don't know what they were trying to do there. I don't think it was supposed to be, Well, Troy thinks she's so beautiful, he wants to see her naked. I don't think that's it. He's not a puriant. He's not that kind of guy.

Mark:

But the whole scene is completely useless.

Sarah:

It's completely unnecessary. Whatever. And then she's uppity in her robe.

Mark:

Yes. Mary Moen gets some interesting mail.

Sarah:

Her dog's name is Scuff and he's so cute. Scuff. He's a dory. You can't touch me, you beast. Then they go to see Bridget.

Sarah:

She's so high strung and crazy.

Mark:

She's very worried about her fish. Yeah. She- And sudden alcohol.

Sarah:

She blatantly lies about everything. Her son's like, That's not true. That's not true. She's like, Why do you contradict me? Cause you're lying mom.

Sarah:

I'm gonna drink now. Like, what do you know? There's this bottle right behind my pillow that I happened to be sitting on.

Mark:

The next I was at my yoga class. The next day it was empty. Straight to the booze.

Sarah:

Bridget's played by Linda Marlowe. She was in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. She's really good in that. And she was also in a show that we really loved called Jekyll with James Nesbitt back in 2007. A show that ended abruptly and too soon.

Mark:

Yes, I would agree.

Sarah:

I would say you should watch it. It's a great show. It really is a great show, but they clearly thought they were going to have another season.

Mark:

Because the last ninety seconds.

Sarah:

Is such a cliffhanger. The last ninety seconds of I think the second season.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

You're like, what? What? You're so into it.

Mark:

Then it's

Sarah:

just, what? But James Nesbitt is incredible in

Mark:

that show. James Nesbitt,

Sarah:

So good. Anyway, that's Bridget.

Mark:

Noel asked the cops. He asked, did Joe Midsomer kill my dad?

Sarah:

Yeah. But he also tells them that he gave him some money that Noel says Robin gave Frank money. What he actually gave him was a car that he sold for money.

Mark:

That helped Frank out.

Sarah:

And so now we know that Frank is deep in debt. Yep. And that Robin gave him a car because he was going to New Zealand and he wouldn't need it. Exactly. So Robin was actually nice to Frank.

Mark:

And then Frank repaid him.

Sarah:

By killing him.

Mark:

Two bonks on the head.

Sarah:

With a giant wrench.

Mark:

Then we find out that Julie maybe knows where the Irishman is

Sarah:

because

Mark:

they kind of picked him up and put him in a

Sarah:

In the barn to take care of him. With some whiskey. And some hay.

Mark:

Did you tell your father? Oh, no. No.

Sarah:

Yeah, they did.

Mark:

Yeah, they did.

Sarah:

Meanwhile, Jackie's behind him. Half the scenes, he's just in the background lurking.

Mark:

And then halfway through the episode, Joyce does a recap of the body count.

Sarah:

Yeah. She wants to buy Cully some jewelry for her birthday. Let's go to bits and bobbles.

Mark:

Cully is regulated, like relegated to being not even a character who shows up, but just one talked about.

Sarah:

Yeah. One who has a birthday coming up.

Mark:

And Tom knows the place in Oxford to get some jewelry and it's Bits and Bobbles.

Sarah:

Owned by Melvin's wife, Bubbles. Now. Who's trying to divorce him.

Mark:

Boy, did I go down a hole here.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

So I was like, okay, well obviously they put that bits and bobbles sign clearly on that building, right? Which would be 20 Broad Street, Oxford, right? So I looked it up.

Sarah:

So what's there? What's actually there?

Mark:

What I actually so so I didn't know what street it was on, but the two stores next to it, which, were Stamp of Oxford and Flags and Old College store.

Sarah:

So are those real stores?

Mark:

Those oh, well, Stamp of Oxford is not there anymore. Okay. I'll talk to him. But flags of, of flags, the old college store is there. And I found that address, and I did a Google Map search and found out that where Stamps of Oxford was is now the Crafait Creme.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

And where Bits and Bobbles was, is in the story is now a place called Broad Canvas Arts and Craft Supplies. And they're a pretty cool store. They got a great little website. They do a Christmas card competition for kids.

Sarah:

So you went on street view and just crawled down the street until you found a storefront that looked right? Exactly.

Mark:

And they have like some cool artwork in different, different shots in the shop. If you live in England or anywhere near Oxford, go to Broad Campus and help these people out.

Sarah:

Are they a sponsor now or something?

Mark:

I don't know. They seem really cool. I just thought they were a cool place to shop.

Sarah:

I can't believe that there was a stamp store. Yes. And a flag store.

Mark:

Stamp? No. No. It's stamp of Oxford and flags, f l g g s.

Sarah:

Oh, okay.

Mark:

Flags is the family name, but I don't know what an old college store is. They might sell robes or uniforms or something.

Sarah:

Like at Hogwarts? Maybe. Okay. Wands. Something like that.

Mark:

Okay. So Bubbles is coming to the wedding, and she loves her new son-in-law. They go out dancing.

Sarah:

She seems really nice.

Mark:

But she's gonna divorce Melvin because he can't do the sexy sex.

Sarah:

That's not her reason. No. She wants to divorce him because he's horrible. Yes. And sleeping around with horse face, wouldn't you?

Sarah:

Get

Mark:

out of my shower.

Sarah:

That was supposed to be a horse, Winnie, right?

Mark:

There was something. So Mary had phoned Melvin to say that somebody's putting poop down my door. And then there's this kind of really ominous Melvin Jackie scene where they're

Sarah:

like Mary needs a holiday. She needs a holiday.

Mark:

So what do they do?

Sarah:

Well, you don't know. You don't know at that point if it's like, she's gonna go sleep with the fishes.

Mark:

Yeah. You know? No. Or she needs

Sarah:

to go to Bermuda for a little relax. Turns out she's going to Canada.

Mark:

Why not? Melvin turns out to be a fairly nice guy. He does.

Sarah:

Well, he's got his own motives, right?

Mark:

Oh, he does.

Sarah:

Sending her away.

Mark:

He does.

Sarah:

And you know, we don't know what time of year it is, but he's sending her to Canada.

Mark:

So Bartonby goes to talk to Melvin and he says, I've spoken with Bubbles, which may be the best line

Sarah:

of yours.

Mark:

And Melvin's like, Oh, well, I guess you know that I can't have the sexy sex, but he goes, there's many ways of pleasing a woman. Didn't you know?

Sarah:

That was really uncomfortable for That

Mark:

was extremely uncomfortable.

Sarah:

And I think Tom was uncomfortable too.

Mark:

By the way, why don't you come to my party? Which isn't actually a party. It's more a convince Tom to do this thing thing.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's it's it's more like a whodunit party, like a murder mystery party, but it's real.

Mark:

So then they get in the car and they talk about the car Robin's car.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

Now this probably went by so fast that most of you didn't even pay attention to this. But we are who we are. And I watched this scene like five times trying to figure out who they were talking about, who owned the car, who sold the car, how much the money was in debt. It really doesn't matter. Robin gave Frank the car and then somebody gave him some more money.

Sarah:

And then Frank sold it.

Mark:

That's it.

Sarah:

Right. Yeah. We also find out though that Joe's been giving Frank money and I never understood that.

Mark:

And where is Joe getting the money?

Sarah:

He's got a big farm.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

And it might not have been a lot of money.

Mark:

Who knows? Probably not for being loyal because Frank immediately throws Joe under the bus in And the moment he

Sarah:

but Frank couldn't have been blackmailing him either because everybody knew that Valerie was running away with Robin. It's not as if he had something on him.

Mark:

Yeah. It's just weird.

Sarah:

Yeah. I don't understand that one.

Mark:

So Tom and Joyce show up at the party. And Joyce is like, Oh, you could afford this and a lovely senorita. And Tom goes, Now behave.

Sarah:

I felt bad for Joyce because I think this is genuinely the kind of event that she's excited to go to. Like, it's like a party at a pretty house and she gets to wear a nice outfit and meet nice people. Then it turns out it's just an interrogation

Mark:

luckily Troy in a uniform are hiding in the bushes.

Sarah:

Really badly. It's like when a little kid covers their eyes and thinks you can't see them. That's what Troy is doing in the bushes.

Mark:

It's totally like that. So they go inside and the first thought I have is, Oh yeah, the doctor's in this.

Sarah:

Yeah. We haven't seen Burgess for forever. Oh wait, there's the Vicar.

Mark:

Yeah. And they cheered, they toast to happy days and then it becomes, let's help Tom frame this guy.

Sarah:

And it's so uncomfortable right away. It's like, wait a minute, this is not why we have a party.

Mark:

And the doctor goes, excuse me, I have to go.

Sarah:

And Joyce rolls her eyes so hard that gravity must shift in the room. Like she's like, Oh, great. I thought this was going to be a nice party.

Mark:

And then the vicar takes his cue, throws Joe on the bus and says, oh, I have to go now too.

Sarah:

Joe did it. Better go. And I gotta say, doctor Burgess bustling away is much funnier than Vicar bustling away because Burgess has got more wobble to him.

Mark:

And then we never see the vicar again. Most useless character

Sarah:

ever. Oh, darn. We never see him again.

Mark:

In a weird scene, the uniform and Troy storm into Jackie and Lily's cottage. And find nothing.

Sarah:

Maybe Troy's trying to find somebody else in the shower. Maybe. I don't think he wants to see Lily in the shower. She's an old axe faced lady.

Mark:

Oh, no. So now comes the important part of the episode. We both watched these on Amazon, which has this X-ray feature, which gives you all the actors names and things like

Sarah:

that. And

Mark:

down at the bottom of the list is Christopher Lee as Dracula. And I'm like, I've seen this episode before.

Sarah:

And I don't remember Christopher Lee.

Mark:

Remember Christopher Lee as Dracula.

Sarah:

Coming back from the dead to be in this Midsomer episode.

Mark:

That was like, wait a minute.

Sarah:

And it shows you those those names a tiny bit before they're actually on screen. Yes. You know? So you're like, wait a minute.

Mark:

So then the scene starts and immediately I stop and go, it all makes sense now because

Sarah:

Mystery's got a TV.

Mark:

And she's watching Scars of Dracula.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Right? Which is a 1970 Hammer film with Christopher Lee. I knew exactly what it was right away. But more importantly is the other guy who talked. The other guy who talks, the character's name is Trove, and he is played by Patrick Trouton.

Mark:

You remember who Patrick Trouton is? No. He's a doctor.

Sarah:

Okay.

Mark:

He's one of the doctors. I think he's the third or fourth doctor. He's the one with the bangs and the dark hair that kind of looks like Moe, but isn't Moe?

Sarah:

Oh, Doctor Who? Yes. Okay. Yeah. He's in that movie?

Sarah:

Yes. My question is why is Mary watching Dracula? I don't know. With her back to it, with candles lit.

Mark:

I don't know. Because that's how you watch.

Sarah:

Because her TV's fixed, so she just turns it on and then ignores it. Is that it?

Mark:

She gets killed by black gloves because black gloves kills everything. And then there's a close-up of Christopher Lee with red eyes. And I was like, right on baby.

Sarah:

But I don't know why. It's not like somebody sucked her blood out or anything. She overdosed on pills.

Mark:

It was like, somebody was like, I love this movie. Let's put it in.

Sarah:

And I think somebody as scaredy cat as Mary is wouldn't be watching scary Dracula movies either.

Mark:

No. Not that that's movie like is really scary, but

Sarah:

It would have been to her. She thought her own feet were scary for God's sakes. Who knows? She's scared of everything.

Mark:

Once again, everybody is on the scene of the crime immediately, including the doctor. Well, I guess she committed suicide. No. George is like, no.

Sarah:

No. No. No. No. No.

Mark:

Somebody had a key and Barnaby is like, where were you, you stupid dog? Poor scuff. Poor scuff.

Sarah:

It's not his job.

Mark:

He has a she has an Air Canada ticket and a letter from her sister in Toronto.

Sarah:

That makes sense. That's why she's gonna

Mark:

go to

Sarah:

Canada then.

Mark:

And the person who found her is in the bathroom. Thanks for that information.

Sarah:

Well, he's the gardener.

Mark:

Who doesn't say any like, who is as useless as the priest.

Sarah:

His name's Cullen. Yeah. And he's very upset.

Mark:

He's very upset.

Sarah:

And he's hiding in the bathroom now because he's upset. Later we see him in the street with his wife. Yes. Well, he did find a body. Yeah.

Sarah:

It's kind of sad.

Mark:

Barnaby goes off to the manor house to confront Melvin with the ticket. Now this ticket is an Air Canada ticket and there are Air Canada tags that are contemporary with that time and that logo.

Sarah:

Okay. I'm shocked that you've looked really closely at this airline ticket

Mark:

Mark. I'm with these tickets. Okay. Cause I saw them a lot.

Sarah:

This is back when, when you were going to fly, you had to buy your ticket in advance because you had to get it in the mail. Yes. And if you lost it, you were just out of luck.

Mark:

But this ticket is not to Canada. No. No. No. No.

Mark:

First of all, it says across the top, specimen ticket not valid for transportation.

Sarah:

Well, that's better than that credit card a few episodes ago.

Mark:

It also says on it, test ticket. And it is for a trip from Brussels to Amsterdam.

Sarah:

Oh, does Air Canada go between those two places?

Mark:

I don't believe so.

Sarah:

I don't think so. Well, I don't think you were supposed to look that closely at that ticket. I guess. They didn't know about you. So

Mark:

we find out that Sean was actually acting for Valerie Makes It.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because they met in New Zealand. Yeah. Which kind of takes some weight off Barnaby. He seems a little bit relieved when he learns that because she must be alive.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Right? So she did make it out of the village unlike Robin who just made it into the well.

Mark:

And Julie says that actually I did have my dad meet with Sean.

Sarah:

Yeah. And he said he would take care of it. Right? He would help, he would help Sean out.

Mark:

And now Sean makes a reappearance.

Sarah:

Yep. Here comes light bulb.

Mark:

And the weirdest horse cam ever.

Sarah:

It's really strange. We get the view of Vince from the horse. Sean is really beat up, right? Because he got hit by the car. So he's in a wheelchair in this hideous green coat.

Mark:

Oh, my boy. Don't go crazy, my boy. Oh yeah, my boy, don't go crazy. I really want some weed and whiskey.

Sarah:

Do want to know what my notes say?

Mark:

I have magic powers, my boy. What's done is done.

Sarah:

Let me let me read you my notes.

Mark:

Okay. I

Sarah:

will continue. I'm laughing because I know my note is so funny. Sean is a horse whisperer. This is what he

Mark:

says. Okay. Okay.

Sarah:

My I'm sorry.

Mark:

You say it and I will repeat it. Okay. Sean.

Sarah:

Okay. I know my head looks like a lip balm.

Mark:

Yogi horse. I know my noggin looks like a like a giant light bulb. But listen. But listen.

Sarah:

You better jump. You better jump. You better jump real high. Real high. Or they'll put you in the Tesco's lasagna.

Sarah:

Orange in the Tesco. For those of you who don't follow British news, a few years ago, there was this big thing about finding a horse in lasagna. Well, it works. That horse jumps.

Mark:

We're off to the glue factory with you. We

Sarah:

amuse ourselves so much. Oh, I hope it's half as funny as

Mark:

everybody else. Oh wait, it's time for another extreme close-up.

Sarah:

Listen to the light bulb, jump high

Mark:

for the Arab guy. Speak from the wheelchair.

Sarah:

Yes. He makes a whole $1,000 for that gig.

Mark:

Don't go nuts yet. Don't go nuts yet, wee horsey. You'll be bound for Tesco.

Sarah:

I thought this whole time until they get into the arena, I thought Melvin was raising race horses. Yeah. And race horses are super valuable if They're they're wee jumpers. He's like a dressage horse, like a jumping horse. You can do it.

Sarah:

And not like running and jump. I mean, I guess he could compete in speed jumping. Right? I know they have those kind of events.

Mark:

It's Olympic sport what they do.

Sarah:

I know, but those are not the horses that millions and millions of dollars are paid for they can The win all these

Mark:

horse is only 300 ks. It's hardly worth.

Sarah:

Yeah. You know, the Arabian prince coming over and flying that horse back to wherever he's from.

Mark:

I gotta say in a show that is pretty good about not being racist, that was really racist.

Sarah:

With the sheik? Yeah. And if that horse is that ticked off in the wagon, how are they gonna get him on a plane?

Mark:

Well, assume you'll get on the plane or it's the test

Sarah:

going. You liked my joke.

Mark:

I did it all for the horses.

Sarah:

And then Tom wants to take Sean out of there because he thinks Melvin's kind of using him. And Melvin practically threatens his life in front of Tom. Well, I'd hate for you to leave. Something, you know, bad might happen to you. He goes into a tweed geezer thing, right?

Mark:

Unless I got a big bag of pots for you.

Sarah:

Yeah. And he's like, oh, okay. I'll stay. It's all right. It's cool.

Mark:

So they follow the doctor into the middle of a field to do an interrogation.

Sarah:

Yeah, talk about gangsters.

Mark:

This scene- It was very Peaky Blinders.

Sarah:

It was kind of Peaky Blinders, kind of Seven, you know, like what's in the box? Widows and orphans. And I think it's because Burgess is so dramatic. Yeah. He's so weak and drooly that he drops to his knees.

Sarah:

They don't shove him to his knees or anything. He just like collapses.

Mark:

And we find that Joe has the watch. It's been planted in his house. Watch is magical. And then the weird scene. Okay.

Sarah:

I know you first thought that this episode was full of strange coincidences that were kind of convenient. Yes. Right? But I also think it's full of unnecessary scenes. And this is one of them.

Mark:

The breaking in to the vet place is unnecessary. Every single moment that the vicar is on set on scene is unnecessary. This scene with Frank and Bridget, it's borderline incestuous, which brings up a question that doesn't need to be done.

Sarah:

It's all Badger's Drift, right? So Frank is like polishing up the doctor's car. He's made the repairs. Bridget shows up in this big fur coat kind of insinuating there's not much underneath it with a bottle of booze. And she says, I've come to play.

Mark:

And she goes, no one can see us.

Sarah:

I was like, ew.

Mark:

Like I was really worried when they recreated the climb later on that they were going to do a big old lip smack there. And I was going to be Woah, this is not Badger's Drift.

Sarah:

The only purpose for this scene is to show that they are actually close and they could have done it in a thousand different ways that aren't this.

Mark:

That does not imply incestuous bonking.

Sarah:

Yeah. That he's actually not even up for. Yeah. He doesn't even, he doesn't want to do it.

Mark:

I don't even know what she wants to do. It's just so weird.

Sarah:

I don't want to think about it. Let's move on.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Doctor. Burgess is at the cop shop.

Mark:

And he has an address? Right. In New Zealand. Yeah. Now, you know, I'm this kind of guy.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

So it's 09:00 in midsummer, which means

Sarah:

9AM on Monday morning.

Mark:

10PM on that night

Sarah:

In New Zealand.

Mark:

In New Zealand. I really didn't realize, and this is something I found out this week, how close New Zealand is to the date month. Yeah. Like, it's really close. Yeah.

Mark:

I thought it was much further away.

Sarah:

Well, it doesn't matter because Valerie can teleport.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

So because they call her and then she appears.

Mark:

I also looked out how long it takes to fly from Auckland to either Gatwick or Heathrow. I looked at them both and it's a thirty five hour flight.

Sarah:

Man. Five

Mark:

hours. Okay. So this It's gotta be at

Sarah:

least two days later.

Mark:

It has to be two days later.

Sarah:

And that's assuming she got on the next flight. Yeah. With no layovers.

Mark:

That one layover. There's no nonstop flight.

Sarah:

Yeah. Like the shortest layover possible is what I'm saying.

Mark:

And you know where they layover? No. Los Angeles. What? That is the quickest way for them to go.

Mark:

Oh. They got fly

Sarah:

a globe. It's like they go three quarters the way around the world.

Mark:

They fly from Auckland to Los Angeles, Los Angeles to London.

Sarah:

I'm never going to New Zealand.

Mark:

You are never going to New Zealand.

Sarah:

I hate flights.

Mark:

We we won't go in a boat. We won't go on a plane, and we can't drive there.

Sarah:

If we could just use Valerie's teleporter, we'd be there real fast.

Mark:

Mom, is that you? Dude, it's your mother who you thought was dead.

Sarah:

Yeah. It is a nice scene though. They stretch it out a bit.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

So we know once they start talking to Valerie, we know that she and Robin had arranged to go to the airport separately. Yes. Right. So they could get away. They were going to meet there and fly to New Zealand together.

Sarah:

She goes to the airport and he's not there. So then she gets a message, she gets paged and gets a message that's supposed to be from Robin saying that he's gonna He's miss miss that flight. He's gonna take the next one because you know, they have one every

Mark:

No, six hours or

Sarah:

it's the next day. She goes to stay in a hotel because she doesn't want to fly without him. If it's a thirty five hour flight, it cannot be cheap. No. Okay.

Sarah:

But this is in the old days when airlines were realistic.

Mark:

It was $18.35 dollars when I looked at it.

Sarah:

They're reasonable back then though. If you said, I don't want to take this flight, I want to take tomorrow's, they would go, okay, we'll just transfer your tickets. That's fine. We're not overbooked by 20 people. No.

Sarah:

Anyway, I'm not bitter about flying. Doctor Range. She stays overnight in the hotel because she'd prefer to fly with him, but he still doesn't show up. Yeah. Who sends the message from Robin to the airport?

Sarah:

Frank. You think it's Frank? Yeah. Because Robin's dead. Yeah.

Sarah:

It's Frank. He died the night before. Pray for Bridget. Yeah. Bridget.

Sarah:

This is Robin. I'm a dude. I know I got a woman's name, but I'm a guy. I'm leaving a message for a girl, a lady.

Mark:

But how does Joe know about them?

Sarah:

I think everybody sort of knows.

Mark:

Well, there's this flashback scene where they're apprehtrist

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

In Joe's house

Sarah:

La Grande De Licto. And he's, like, coming at the house in his tractor like he's gonna ram it.

Mark:

And then they crouch down. Like, I guess he didn't see us.

Sarah:

No, I think it's kind of a known thing.

Mark:

It's just horrible. Jim would clearly see them.

Sarah:

Well, when Valerie's in the car, Mary's going to take her to the airport. He tries to run over them. Yeah. Mary has to off road it just to get away from him on his giant tractor. Yeah.

Sarah:

Do tractors really go that fast?

Mark:

Yeah. They that that tractor probably can go 60 miles an hour.

Sarah:

Oh, well, okay then. But he's definitely coming right at him. He had every intention of running over him.

Mark:

Yeah. Sean goes back home with a gun. Where does he get that gun?

Sarah:

I don't know.

Mark:

It's a handgun, which is first of all rare in England. He got

Sarah:

Melbourne. It

Mark:

Must've got it from Melbourne.

Sarah:

But he realizes that the watch is the thing. Where is

Mark:

that watch? And he goes to call Barnaby. Is that who he's calling? Who is he calling?

Sarah:

I don't have a note about that. I don't know that we know who he's calling,

Mark:

but we know He's he's the phone that's clearly shown in his house.

Sarah:

Maybe it's turned off. I don't know. He, but he's definitely calling somebody to tell them about the watch. And I think, I think it's supposed to be Tom.

Mark:

Yeah. And Smashes the window.

Sarah:

And then smashes the light bulb.

Mark:

And then we hear Jackie with one of his lines.

Sarah:

Oh, you. I'm confused about this scene. Yeah. Because, so Sean's in the phone booth. Yeah.

Sarah:

Somebody smacks him on the head. Yes. And then supposedly Jackie chases them away. Yes. And Jackie tells Melvin later that the person he saw running away was Joe.

Sarah:

No. And that's why No, no, no.

Mark:

Yeah. He tells Barnaby that.

Sarah:

Jack, no. Jackie saw Joe run away from the phone box, which is why Melvin planted the watch in Joe's house because they thought if Joe was trying to kill Sean, that he definitely killed.

Mark:

No, but the watch is in the house before this. This is all screwed up.

Sarah:

That's what Melvin tells Tom at the wedding.

Mark:

It's so weird.

Sarah:

And the watch broke on July 11. Yeah. At eleven Yeah. O

Mark:

And it's planted by Stalker. So let's have a wedding.

Sarah:

Yeah. With a gavel. Have you ever seen a gavel at a wedding? Don't you usually just tap a glass?

Mark:

So no, there's a British thing. Oh, Bang the gavel. Yep. And there's a reception. The band is warming up.

Mark:

Joe is sad. Mhmm. And they bang the gavel, and the best man starts to give a speech. And my next line is, that's right. I remember it now.

Mark:

Noel's the killer.

Sarah:

No. You were wrong.

Mark:

I was wrong.

Sarah:

Melvin gives the worst toast. It's all about him.

Mark:

He says he's had some luck with the GGs.

Sarah:

Do you know what that is?

Mark:

Yes. I do. And you have no idea why I have an idea of what

Sarah:

it is. I know what it is because I looked it up.

Mark:

I know what it is because the Ottawa U football team is the GGs.

Sarah:

Oh, that's a completely different reason than I have.

Mark:

What is your reason?

Sarah:

So he says I had luck on the GGs, which is a reference to horses. GGs are horses, right? So either it's a reference to everybody saying gee up at a race. Gee up, gee up, gee up, right? So they're GGs, which the internet does not like.

Sarah:

Yes. And the Oxford English dictionary does not like because it's G and not G. So the other reference is to the 1530s.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

When a football game became bloody and violent and a mayor named Henry G decided football was too violent and replaced that football field with a horse track. And banned football on Shrove Tuesday at fifteen thirty three.

Mark:

Isn't that interesting that both of our stories revolve around football? Yeah. Yeah. That's what the Ottawa U Like team mascot, it's a horse.

Sarah:

Mhmm. And they're called the GGs. Yep. His name was Henry G. That football game is quite the story.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah. Should look it up. Wow. Is it violent?

Mark:

I've heard reference to that football game before.

Sarah:

Then we have this scene where Barnaby gathers all the suspects He sure

Mark:

will ruin a wedding, can he?

Sarah:

Yeah. But you know, every wedding you go to nowadays, if there's a professional photographer, there's this big window of time between the ceremony and the reception because they have to take all the official photos of the bride and groom and all that stuff. And the attendees are all like sitting around Twitter learning the thumbs. But this is the window between dinner and dancing. Yes.

Sarah:

Because they do it in a separate tent, I've never seen either. That weird band is in the other tent.

Mark:

So a tiny little part here is Bubbles tells Melvin to shut up and Francesca kinda goes I mean, Francesca's kinda like,

Sarah:

yeah, he

Mark:

should shut up.

Sarah:

I don't get the sense that Francesca's an idiot. I think she's a smart woman.

Mark:

Yeah, I think so too.

Sarah:

They bring O'Connell in like bringing in Hannibal Lecter on a dolly with the watch. He's got the watch. The hot potato watch is what I call it. It was Robin's watch. Yeah.

Sarah:

Then Frank and Bridget kill Robin.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

And they smash the watch. Yes. So Frank picks it up, puts in an envelope, addresses it to Mary.

Mark:

Yes. Hot potato.

Sarah:

Puts it through Mary's mail slot.

Mark:

Pick it up.

Sarah:

Mary freaks out.

Mark:

Pick it up.

Sarah:

Calls Melvin.

Mark:

Pick it

Sarah:

up. Melvin comes and takes the envelope with the watch. Now Melvin's got it. And according to Melvin, Jackie saw Joe run away from the phone box after trying to kill Sean. So that meant that Melvin thought that Joe was the killer.

Sarah:

And so he thought I'll plan it at Joe's house because that will seal the deal. He won't be able to get away with it.

Mark:

It's just, it's weird.

Sarah:

Bottom line is Frank killed Robin. And then killed Mary. For Bridget. Yes. As a favor to Bridget.

Mark:

Because she gave him some money.

Sarah:

Because he was leaving her and running away and she wouldn't have it. So they knew that he was going to bring the car by. So they're waiting for him. Here's Robin doing this nice thing, giving Frank this car to help him get out of debt. And Frank repays him by bashing him on the head and killing him.

Mark:

There's this weird thing at the end where they're like, we're all family now. And there's this reference to, I only have two or who am I sorry for?

Sarah:

Joyce says, Melvin has three women. He loves them in his own way. And Tom goes, well, lucky me, I only have two. Yeah. Because it's Bubbles and Francesca and Julie.

Mark:

Okay. And he has Cully and Joyce. Joyce. And then the episode ends.

Sarah:

Yeah. So we've got two corpses, Robin and Mary. Who's better?

Mark:

I got to say Robin is probably better.

Sarah:

Yeah. He's got the fake skin on him and everything.

Mark:

And there's like a little, and those it's implied they're maggots.

Sarah:

I don't know if they were maggots. Thought it was like Flaky skin. Yeah. When you're when you've been underwater, your skin starts to fluff off. Yeah.

Sarah:

Bikin prints on his face. He's got

Mark:

Really, he deserves all the attention because he was under the bikes for six weeks.

Sarah:

Yeah. And in that tarp. Yeah. If Bridget is wealthy enough to help Frank, why didn't she help him out before?

Mark:

If Frank is the actual killer, why does he act like the killer right away from and like Mary's like, you're the killer.

Sarah:

No, here's the TV.

Mark:

I did want to watch Scars of Dracula. After this episode, what happens?

Sarah:

So we have to assume that Frank and Bridget are both going to go to jail. So that leaves Noel on his own. But he's a grown man. He'll be okay.

Mark:

He seems to be He seems nice. For someone who is falsely accused by me as the killer.

Sarah:

He Whose mom is clearly a nutcase and his dad was leaving.

Mark:

And he was the first one to say, you're a nutcase mom.

Sarah:

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So he's going to be on his own. Melvin's going to go to jail for a short sentence for Yeah.

Mark:

Trying to frame

Sarah:

Perverting the course of justice. Yeah. Right. If he's going to go to jail, I don't know what's going to happen with his estate. And I don't know what's going to happen with his investment in the writing

Mark:

school. I don't think he's going to go to jail. I think he'll get time served. Like he'll get probation or something. Yeah.

Mark:

It's a pretty weak.

Sarah:

I think Bubbles is going to get her divorce though.

Mark:

I think Bubbles get the divorce and Julie gets her nice husband.

Sarah:

And I think Burgess gets away with drunk driving and hitting Sean. I don't think they're going to press charges on him.

Mark:

And the goat's still tied to the bridge.

Sarah:

Chris and Julie are happy.

Mark:

Maybe they could live in Mary Moan's country.

Sarah:

Maybe Billy the goat could go live with Joe. Maybe. They could hang out together because Poor he's all

Mark:

Joe. Let me get my tractor and drive angry.

Sarah:

No, not poor Joe. He's made his bedding and lie in it. So

Mark:

who did you think was the best corpse of that episode? What did you think was the most interesting coinky dink? And anything else that we've talked about in this episode?

Sarah:

What do you think, Sean?

Mark:

Have you been to

Sarah:

that spring.

Mark:

Have you been to that shop in Oxford? If we get somebody taking a picture of them in front of that shop in Oxford, I will be pleased as punch.

Sarah:

It's a fun episode. Yep. It's got a lot of little crazy references. It's got a lot of twisty turnies.

Mark:

For all his just silliness, I love the doctor. I love his I love the character. I love that actor. Yeah. I hate the vicar.

Mark:

Doesn't need

Sarah:

to be We know we know you hate the vicar.

Mark:

Doesn't need to be there

Sarah:

at all. Melvin is a complex character. Is he reformed? Is he not reformed?

Mark:

Like, when he says, I think Mary needs to go on a vacation. He gets her a vacation.

Sarah:

Yeah. He's actually gonna send her a nice somewhere nice.

Mark:

And Jackie's like, Yeah, I got her a first class ticket.

Sarah:

Yeah. Think we should book her a facial when she gets there

Mark:

or something. In Brussels. Yeah.

Sarah:

It's hard for me to believe that somebody who's a simple village mechanic as Frankie is could pull one over on Melvin because he really does.

Mark:

He does.

Sarah:

And he and Bridget completely fool this tweed geezer who's been like a kingpin. And I would think Jackie would see right through Frankie.

Mark:

And Frank is the worst kind of person. Everyone he talks to, he throws up people under the bus constantly.

Sarah:

I would like to see Jackie and Frank fight.

Mark:

Yeah. Think Jackie would win. Yeah. Frank Frank would get his butt kicked.

Sarah:

I think Lily would show up and and beat him up for Jack. Jackie. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's a fun episode.

Sarah:

So Who killed Cock Robin? Frank did.

Mark:

Yep. We are Midsommar Maniacs at Midsommar Maniacs on Twitter and at Midsommar Maniacs on Instagram, as well as being on the Facebook group for Midsomer official Facebook group and as well as at today. And now this will be weird and out of time, but Patty Smythe, the famous punk musician from New York City, sent the official new official Midsomer group a whole bunch of pictures of her watching Midsomer. Apparently, she's a huge fan. You know what, Patty?

Mark:

I got a podcast for you. That's fun. And we're also on the Acorn TV fan group, which is also a fantastically run group and the subreddit on Reddit for Midsomer Murders.

Sarah:

And what's our next episode gonna be?

Mark:

Our next episode is season four episode five, which is Dark Autumn, which has probably the second best cold opening.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's a good one. It's a good one. All right. Until then.

Sarah:

Bye, Maniacs.

Mark:

Bye, Maniacs. So Francesca shows up shows up and oh, actually, before Francesca no. Okay. Oh, wait a minute. I heard music on a boot box.

Sarah:

It's Midsomer Maniacs. Hey, Maniacs.

Mark:

Hey, Maniacs.

Sarah:

I'm Sarah.

Mark:

And I'm Mark. And this is Midsomer Maniacs, a podcast dedicated to the ITV series Midsomer Murders. Each week, we dig into an episode of the show, including the murders, the mayhem, the loonies, and everything else we love.

Sarah:

This week, we're talking about dark autumn, which is season four, episode five.

Mark:

And this is episode 18 of our podcast. Just a little disclaimer off the top. If you let your kids watch the show, they should be able to handle the podcast. But if the show is too much for your kids, the podcast probably is too.

Sarah:

But it could be too much in so many different ways, you know?

Mark:

Indeed, it could be. This

Sarah:

one may be too much just because it's difficult to keep track

Mark:

of everybody. And their goings on.

Sarah:

Yeah. Luckily, a lot of them die, so that kind of simplifies it as we go on.

Mark:

It does indeed. This episode was filmed October and November in the year 2000. Broadcast date was the 09/16/2001 with 9,770,000 viewers.

Sarah:

Go Midsomer.

Mark:

Absolutely. Directed by our favorite Jeremy Silberston and written by Peter Hammond. I got an interesting little fact about Peter Hammond.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah?

Mark:

In the early seventies, he directed a show called Ace of Wands. He wrote a show called Ace of Wrong. Ace of Wands. Mhmm. And this show that he wrote, I I just wanna read the IMDb synopsis for you.

Sarah:

Some of the actors in Midsomer have been in that were in that show, by Yes. The

Mark:

The telepathic stage magician named Taro and his two assistants solve mysteries and crimes of a bizarre or magical nature and battle against villains with various powers.

Sarah:

It's like Jonathan Creek if magic was real. Mhmm. And way over the top.

Mark:

Oh, it's very hippie. I watched about twenty minutes of an episode and wow.

Sarah:

It's all you could handle.

Mark:

Yep. Well, moved on freaky man.

Sarah:

Freaky the things. Absolutely. He writes good episodes of Midsomer.

Mark:

He does indeed. Just to do another IMDb synopsis, I usually don't put these in because they're usually horrible, but this one is a gold star.

Sarah:

It's horrible in an awesome way. Is that it?

Mark:

So the synopsis for this episode is the following. The near decapitation of a local postman whose hyperactive libido also makes him the village Lothario leads to a series of grisly murders involving other promiscuous villagers.

Sarah:

Wow. Okay.

Mark:

That does sum it up.

Sarah:

It does.

Mark:

But it also makes it sound like he didn't die. That he survived his near decapitation.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because it, you know, it was only a near decapitation, Not like the guy whose head rolls into the living room. It's close, but not complete.

Mark:

Well, it's just a bell hook. It's not a scimitar.

Sarah:

This has got one of the best cold openings and there are many good cold openings in Midsomer, but this is one of my favorites. It's the one I remember really well because the music is an absolute evil earworm.

Mark:

It is indeed. The music is The Creep by Ted Heath and his orchestra. And wow, if you know Midsomer people, you go into a room of them and you go, they all know exactly the music.

Sarah:

They all whip out their bell hooks and wave them to the music. That's what we do.

Mark:

So Dave Cutler, our postman, is delivering the mail. Mhmm. But he's doing a bit more than delivering the mail.

Sarah:

He's delivering some gropes and

Mark:

Dave, don't be so stupid. Don't just grab my boob.

Sarah:

Right here on the doorstep. It's really dark. I wondered, like, why he's delivering mail so early. We expect to have the newspaper delivered, you know, maybe before the sun comes up. It this is October.

Mark:

And yet this is Holly Reed delivering the newspapers at the same time.

Sarah:

Yeah. So she's delivering the newspapers, and it's it's really dark outside. And I I was curious. So I looked it up, and this is supposedly near Oxford. Right?

Sarah:

Yes. So in October in Oxford, the sun comes up at about 06:50 in the morning. So it's not really that early. It could be like 06:00. But it seems like middle of the night, I'm like, our mailman doesn't come that early.

Mark:

Now that being said, we have to tell people that we're early risers. 06:00 doesn't seem too early in the morning for us.

Sarah:

No. But it

Mark:

may for other

Sarah:

people. But you get the impression it's like 3AM. It's so dark.

Mark:

Yeah. It's very, very dark. Well, the the only place that it's more dark is when they go to the village hall that used to be the dance hall, and it is pitch black when they get there.

Sarah:

The Roxy. That's because there's plywood over all the windows.

Mark:

No. But, like, outside the the shot of it outside is, the darkest dark of dark town.

Sarah:

We've got two characters already. Holly Reid is played by Kate Maberle. And there's two interesting things you need to know

Mark:

about Holly. Okay. Tell me about Kate.

Sarah:

One is that after she made this episode, she's 18 or 19. Yeah. She looks younger than that, but she's 18 or 19. She went on to the London Conservatory of Music and got double first in piano and cello.

Mark:

Wow. She is Miss fancy pants.

Sarah:

And she now writes a lot of music scores.

Mark:

Oh, cool.

Sarah:

She does that more than acting.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

But even more interesting to us anyway Okay. Is that her sister is Polly Mabryley, who was Julie in Who Killed Cockrobin.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Who's The girl who's getting married.

Mark:

Oh, really?

Sarah:

That's her sister.

Mark:

So, like, two sisters in a row

Sarah:

Back to back.

Mark:

Back to back episodes. Yeah. Well, that's interesting.

Sarah:

And Dave Cutler is played by Rupert Walls. Oh.

Mark:

Sorry, Rupert. That's unfortunate.

Sarah:

That's an unfortunate name. He's only in the episode for what? Thirty seconds or something like that?

Mark:

His picture is in the episode. His apartment is in the episode longer than him.

Sarah:

Yeah. But he had another role to play in Midsomer. He was a third assistant director for five different episodes, including this one.

Mark:

So they were like, oh, the guy who was supposed to play Dave didn't show up.

Sarah:

Hey. You're handsome. Get in

Mark:

there. Get in there.

Sarah:

Does this uniform fit you? Can you carry this bag?

Mark:

Yep. Can we get it sliced off? Your head sliced off with a bill hook? Nearly. Nearly.

Sarah:

Yeah. He doesn't have a lot of acting credits. I think he's primarily a director, but what would a third assistant director do?

Mark:

So that person does either two jobs, right? They either help the second AD with setting up the camera and stuff like that. Or when the second AD does b roll or shoots off-site without the actors, they're the backup for that person.

Sarah:

Okay. Because it sort of sounded like the assistant to the assistant to the assistant to the assistant.

Mark:

It kind of is, but it's still got director in the name. So in a film crew, that holds a lot of weight.

Sarah:

Yeah. When I was in publishing, everybody was an editor. Yes. So there was, like, environmental editors. I was a janitor, you know.

Sarah:

So I wasn't sure how deep, directors really go.

Mark:

So this cold open is kind of, again, like a horror. It's like a slasher movie. Yeah. Right? Because it has the whole bladed weapon.

Mark:

Like, the reveal of the weapon is is kind of it glints in the moonlight.

Sarah:

Is there some foley there? Like

Mark:

think so. When you

Sarah:

get out of sword the first time. Yeah. There's no sheath for a bill hook.

Mark:

No. There

Sarah:

is. But it does glint in the moonlight.

Mark:

It does. And we know that it's gonna be bad for somebody. And we're the first time you see this, you're worried about the little girl.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Right? But it's it's Dave, and Dave Dave takes it. Right? And he just the guy just the killer just walks up to him and kills him.

Sarah:

And we've already mentioned the song, the creep. Yes. It's the signature of the killer because he doesn't always use the bell hook.

Mark:

So so John is the killer. Okay?

Sarah:

Oh, you ruined it for everybody.

Mark:

But we always tell him. So he's dressed in his big leather coat Right. Which must have gigantic pockets for his tape player

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

And his bell hook.

Sarah:

Yeah. This music, he because it reminds of him of his mom, and so he's always got it playing when he kills And he's being a creep, listening to the creep. But it's so inconsistent in that, you know, if he's walking around with this cassette player, you'd think more people would hear it. And that, like, Holly is within, like, 15 feet of him at some at one point when she's leaving one of the doors, and he's standing there supposedly playing this tape, and she doesn't stop and look to see where the sound is coming from.

Mark:

And it has great fidelity, you know, like nowadays, John would just be throwing it up on Spotify on his phone. Right?

Sarah:

Yeah. You'd have to have a Bluetooth on

Mark:

his leather jacket. Horrible tinny speaker on your phone.

Sarah:

Yep. And everybody reports later having heard some kind of old timey music.

Mark:

Dave gets it. I like my Midsommers where they get to the killing right away.

Sarah:

I can't say that their special effects on his neck are all that impressive. We don't see any meat or anything.

Mark:

No, but John would be covered in blood.

Sarah:

Yeah, because he's in front of him for that kill. He doesn't like hook him from behind.

Mark:

You're talking arterial spray at

Sarah:

this point. I he would have something on him, but you know, maybe that's why the leather coat's handy because he can just hose it down.

Mark:

Holly finds the body and freaks out. As she should. Poor Holly. Yeah. Absolutely.

Sarah:

Then we get to creepy in another way, Owen August and his hiking.

Mark:

Yes. He's out for a walk. In his sock hat. Yes. And Simon Reason who sells desks and desks and desks

Sarah:

Desks for us. And desks. Oh, and angle lamps.

Mark:

Yes. And angle lamps.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

And file cabinets where you can put your underwear. Yeah. He's opening his shop

Sarah:

and Robin's at the pub and Debbie's getting her mail. It's just a typical morning. Right? Everybody's doing what they're doing.

Mark:

But we hear the the sirens because the cops have found Dave also.

Sarah:

Yeah. And so we get to meet WPC Jay Nash. She's the local community support police person.

Mark:

And she tells Mike Yateman that the road is closed, which is like, I can't get back to the dairy. Blah blah blah blah. Oh, he's so annoying.

Sarah:

And like with who cooked cockrobin, we've got a death basically in the village roundabout.

Mark:

Yes. You

Sarah:

know, that's right in the middle of the village.

Mark:

So at this point, I said to myself, I need to create a guide to help Sarah remember all these people and their relationship fits. Because I keep going, who's this person and who are they related to?

Sarah:

Who are they married to? But who are they sleeping with instead?

Mark:

There's the Yatemans, which is mousy woman and dairy farmer angry.

Sarah:

Right. Mary and Mike.

Mark:

And then

Sarah:

there's the Shortlands, Debbie, the accountant who's gonna die, and Keith, her very sad but works in the city husband.

Mark:

Yes. Then there's the reasons that are separated. Simon sells oh, where are the things he sells again? Desks.

Sarah:

And his wife is Janet.

Mark:

Is a antiques dealer.

Sarah:

She sells real antiques.

Mark:

Real antiques.

Sarah:

And then there are the Augusts.

Mark:

Yes. Which is Owen and old duck face.

Sarah:

Louise.

Mark:

We have this thing where there are a number of British women that we call duckface. And then we have sort of nomenclature around that. There is duckface prime. And where all this comes from is Four Weddings and a Funeral because she's called Duckface. I forget the actress's name from Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Mark:

But there are another other couple of actresses who have that kind of

Sarah:

Longer top lip that they tend to like kind of stick out a So little

Mark:

there's the the poor unfortunate duck face lady from Luther.

Sarah:

Right. She's young duck face.

Mark:

She's young duck face. And this is old duck face.

Sarah:

Yeah. Celia Emery

Mark:

is old. It's fantastic. I love her.

Sarah:

Oh, she's a great actress. But she definitely has that lip. Yes. And she works it. So Troy makes this, he's trying to guess like, why did somebody kill the postman?

Sarah:

Yes. And he says this thing that I still, I know what he means, but I haven't been able to figure out why he says it the way he says it. He's like, why would somebody kill a village postman? The most you would get is a couple of Giro's that you could take in, but you'd have to cash them. So he's talking about like what we would call social security checks.

Sarah:

I'm assuming. I don't know why he calls them Jiro's.

Mark:

I don't know because I have a note here that says, look up what Jiro's are and I didn't do it.

Sarah:

I did. Okay. And had no luck. Okay. So maybe it's like It's a Troy

Mark:

thing.

Sarah:

Maybe it's like geriatric checks because you're old people.

Mark:

Don't Maybe. I don't know. If you're in Britain and you know what a gyro is.

Sarah:

Or why it's called a gyro.

Mark:

In a mailbag, not like a gyro sandwich, whatever they're called. Which is a gyro. Yes.

Sarah:

Maybe they're gyroscopic chicks. He's just pronouncing it wrong.

Mark:

I don't know.

Sarah:

I don't know. You can't see me doing like a hula hoop motion in my chair acting like a gyroscope.

Mark:

What do you guys do around here for fun? We have two pubs and a chip van.

Sarah:

That only shows up once every other week or

Mark:

Once something like every other week.

Sarah:

Oh, I wish we had a fish and chip van that showed up.

Mark:

But Troy and Jay, they have a lot of smiles between each other. There's a love connection.

Sarah:

There's like this little moment where there may as well be like hearts and stars coming out from their heads and oh, music.

Mark:

So one of the pubs is called The Plow. It has to be. It has good food, a beer garden, real ales, and it's a pub with a difference. What difference does it have?

Sarah:

It's different in that they play Aunt Sally there.

Mark:

No. Lots of places play Aunt Sally.

Sarah:

It's different that they have an old curmudgeony barman?

Mark:

No. No.

Sarah:

No. Then I have no idea. Really, it's

Mark:

the pub with a difference.

Sarah:

It's got it's something that makes it different from the other pub in the village.

Mark:

And the other pub in the village is the sword and scepter.

Sarah:

That's pretty different than the plow.

Mark:

Yes. I am aware those two things are different.

Sarah:

That's the difference.

Mark:

I wonder if they call it the plow and the other one, the sword for plows into short soul.

Sarah:

Swords into plowshares.

Mark:

Swords into plowshares. I wonder if it's that that that's a joke that the writer and the two of us and now all of you got.

Sarah:

Yeah. Wink. Wink. Uh-huh. Get it?

Sarah:

Get it? It's so clever.

Mark:

Simon needs the mail right away.

Sarah:

He's desperate for a check because the text man's after him. Because apparently he's not paying VAT on his disks.

Mark:

Yes. But but John Field and Barbara Judd have no idea what he's talking about. Now John Field Killer. I wonder if he's related to, the field from the last episode. Two episodes from the UFO episode.

Sarah:

No. Okay. But the actor, Robert Glinister, is related to somebody important.

Mark:

And who is that?

Sarah:

Philip Glenister, who is DCI Gene Hunt in Life on Mars.

Mark:

Gene Genie.

Sarah:

Gene Genie. He is Gene Genie's brother.

Mark:

Okay. That that makes sense because he he has a Gene Genie vibe to him. Yeah. If you haven't watched Life on Mars, you have no idea what we were talking about. But Life on Mars is a it runs two,

Sarah:

three seasons. Yeah. It's set in the sixties. This guy goes back in time and is a cop, but none of that matters. The Gene Genie is like the coolest cop who ever existed.

Sarah:

He is. He's like White Shaft. He's awesome.

Mark:

White Shaft with T.

Sarah:

Yeah. And they even call him Gene Genie. And there's that awesome sketch comedy that makes fun of Midsomer where Gene Genie comes in and solves the crime on YouTube.

Mark:

And It's Jean Genie in Midsomer.

Sarah:

Yeah. It made me think of that. Plus, he was formerly married to Amanda Redman who plays Diaz Pullman on New Tricks.

Mark:

Oh, okay.

Sarah:

She's the blonde who's, like the one person who's always in New Tricks.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Yeah. And they're married? Oh, okay. They used to be. They're no longer married.

Mark:

Oh, that's a shame.

Sarah:

Yeah. He's Jean Jean's brother.

Mark:

That must be an interesting gathering. Yeah. You know? Christmas.

Sarah:

No, I'm the brother with the bad teeth. He's the cool one. Like, that would be the conversation.

Mark:

My note here is should John's face not be covered in blood?

Sarah:

He's fast to wash it off, I guess.

Mark:

Then we have Aid. Mhmm. Who is okay. The last episode, I talked about the useless vicar. Aid is the useless farmer angry guy.

Sarah:

Is he a farmer?

Mark:

I don't know what he actually does. He's like a games keeper.

Sarah:

Yeah. But not for anybody.

Mark:

He makes that damn fence

Sarah:

in the

Mark:

whole episode.

Sarah:

But on the side of a hill and he's not fencing in anything.

Mark:

So those fences, there's a whole kind of thing around these fences. I forget the exact name of them. I'll have to look it up.

Sarah:

They're like split reed fences.

Mark:

Split reed fences. And they're usually created when you're really poor and you want to put your animals in a spot.

Sarah:

Right.

Mark:

And keep them there. Yeah. But Aiden has no animals. No, a dog. He has a dog and he doesn't appear to have a home because he only goes to the pub, but he's got a big old bill hook.

Sarah:

And if he's Owen's gamekeeper, if he actually works for Owen, he doesn't want to keep his job. No, he doesn't. Because he curses him out, disrespects him, treats him pretty crappy. Not like it, not like Owen is his boss.

Mark:

Yeah, absolutely.

Sarah:

But he does have several bill hooks, One of which goes missing.

Mark:

Mary is really upset. Yeah. Because her husband tells her Dave is dead.

Sarah:

He knows that she's had an affair with him. But he told her to stop so she did. That it was done.

Mark:

She's been behaving. Yeah. Since. Whatever.

Sarah:

And then Simon's got like, you know, eight hours before he goes to tax prison and Debbie's his only hope.

Mark:

Debbie, you got to save me.

Sarah:

Owen is, I find his character complex and troubling.

Mark:

Owen? Yeah. See, okay. Owen's a creep. Okay.

Mark:

He does creepy things, but I kinda like him.

Sarah:

I can't decide.

Mark:

I kinda do. But he should have been told what was going on in the village. Wow. He's not walking around on his property. He's getting on his high horse on his property.

Sarah:

Yeah. He comes home and it's like, what's going on in the village? And Luis tells him and he's like, well, should have been told. How does that make me look? And then she says, oh, poor David.

Sarah:

And he goes, well, as you remember, you know, it was Dave except on special occasions. Like being murdered isn't a special occasion.

Mark:

Well, apparently having sex with Louise is.

Sarah:

I think if you can call somebody by their full name on any day, the day they're murdered is one of them.

Mark:

I would think so, but the police are not really impressed by Owen's OBE.

Sarah:

No. They don't care about that.

Mark:

No.

Sarah:

He wants everybody to care about it. And then all these old dudes are are at the bar. Right? It seems too early in the morning for them to all be at the bar.

Mark:

They're all at the bar. There's a lot of bar work done early in the morning here. And he wasn't a very honorable man. He liked other men's women too much.

Sarah:

Well, Ben, the guy behind the bar is ticked. Yes. Because now they don't have a full Aunt Sally team.

Mark:

So Aunt Sally.

Sarah:

Aunt Sally. What did I say?

Mark:

No. You said it right. You said Aunt Sally. Aunt Sally is a game that these pubs play. I didn't go into a deep hole for Aunt Sally.

Mark:

I went into a deep hole about finding out how much it would take for us to set up an Aunt Sally thing in the backyard.

Sarah:

A bitch.

Mark:

Because it looked kind of fun.

Sarah:

It does look kind of fun. It looks kind of easy.

Mark:

Yeah. I I would think so. So a little tiny aside, I'll be real quick about this. I went to England in '93 for the first time and I went to Hastings and spent the night because I wanted to see what the ocean looked like there. And as I was eating in a pub, just normal everyday pub, I went by myself on this trip.

Mark:

The barman was like, You're visiting town. Do you have anything to do tonight? And I was like, No, I have no idea what to do tonight. And he goes, Well, come on. And he takes me through the back of the bar and down these stairs.

Mark:

I'm I'm at this point. I'm like, okay. Where are we going? And through all these tunnels that they had built during the war for bombing. Right?

Mark:

Way down. I am completely lost. And now at this point in time, I'm like, I'm in a British horror movie.

Sarah:

Nobody's ever gonna see me again.

Mark:

And he takes me down, and there's a sub bar below the bar, way below the bar, and they have this game that's like lawn bowling. They have, like, a whole area set up for it down there.

Sarah:

Like bulls?

Mark:

Like bulls. But the best part is is they had taps running from the kegs up in the main bar down to to pumps to to taps down in this bar. And downstairs, the bar the beer was free. Crazy. You just took your and I sat there and played games with these people all night and they asked me all these questions.

Sarah:

Was But they have any aunt Sally pitch down

Mark:

there? No. But they were the most wonderful, loving people I've met on my whole trip.

Sarah:

That is not the situation with the aunt Sally No. At the plow.

Mark:

It is a cutthroat game

Sarah:

at And the Owen runs it with an iron fist.

Mark:

And unfortunately, David Cutler was our best player. Oh, no. Drats. My marriage has always been safe. Weird, but safe.

Sarah:

Yeah. Whatever you wanna call safe.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

Tom goes to see Holly to get her version of what she saw that morning, and she is the snottiest child in existence. I just wanna give her a Kleenex and say, blow your nose.

Mark:

Who has more goop coming out of their face? The doctor in the car after the car crash or this child? Holly. I think so. Oh, wait a minute.

Mark:

I heard music on her boot box. Yeah.

Sarah:

My note just says she's so snotty. They want to move a mobile incident room in. And Jay advises Tom and Troy that the people around won't take to it, right? So I think on one hand, I think people who have something to say won't in a small village, they won't want other people to see that they're going to talk to the police.

Mark:

I guess that's one argument.

Sarah:

And the other one is this kind of backwoods, small village, banjo. Well, they won't take kindly to strangers and mobile incident rooms around Mobile libraries apparently. Yeah, they don't even like mobile.

Mark:

They've got those fancy books.

Sarah:

Yeah, I wouldn't want anybody to see me going into the mobile library, the shame. Oh my gosh. Find us a building. Yeah, So they go to the Roxy.

Mark:

Meanwhile, Owen's listening to his version of music. Oh. Which is his wife having sex with Dave.

Sarah:

Now It's so weird. Louise is

Mark:

a trooper here because she had to record that stuff on her own in a studio somewhere. Yeah. And she's a trooper.

Sarah:

She's an actor. That's what they do.

Mark:

She's absolute I I hope the guy recording that audio and her had a giant laugh the whole day.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

I hope they had a great time.

Sarah:

Or maybe she just already had some recordings and she just handed them over.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Oh, here. We don't need to record that. I got some.

Mark:

Bob Cutler, your name is now Dave.

Sarah:

Yeah. And then it's suddenly dark.

Mark:

Like Does it get so dark so fast?

Sarah:

We go from a murder that happens before sunrise, and now it's dark.

Mark:

Okay. I'm gonna go over this a couple times in this episode. Okay. But Dave Cutler got killed, let's say, AM this morning

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

In a small village. Yes. Now I've had an affair

Sarah:

with Dave. Called Goodman's Land, by the way. That's the village that we're in.

Mark:

I've had an affair with Dave.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

And I know Simon wants to get his freaking papers.

Sarah:

Right.

Mark:

But I just got a phone call that was funny old music. Mhmm. And I've locked the door. Because I'm scared. So now I'm gonna go outside.

Sarah:

Yeah. And I'm not gonna walk along the road because that's blocked off because of Dave's murder. So I'll just take a shortcut through the woods.

Mark:

Like, why does she leave the house? Why couldn't she call Simon and go get over here and get your

Sarah:

own damn stuff? What I would have been doing.

Mark:

And Simon would have been like, okay, and driven over.

Sarah:

He would have been right there. And then why does her coat look like a bathrobe?

Mark:

I do not know. But luckily, banana.

Sarah:

Here comes the creep. That almost sound when you sing it, it sounds like the, Dick Van Dyke show theme song.

Mark:

So in the meantime, Barnaby has left the the darkness that is the the Roxy Mhmm. And it's disco ball. Why is the disco ball still there? I don't know. And he's upstairs going through records, including nineteen fifty five's When You Lose The One You Love by Dave Whitfield with Montevani's Orchestra.

Mark:

Orchestra.

Sarah:

Did you listen to this music? I may have. Just a little bit? Just a little. What I love most about the hall is that instead of an exit sign it says way out.

Sarah:

Way out. Above the door. Way out. It could just say out. Yep.

Sarah:

That says way out. Speaking of hippie movies.

Mark:

Meanwhile, Debbie gets killed. It's far out, dude. It's way out. And Debbie gets killed pretty violently. Yeah.

Mark:

Though, I don't know why she, like, at the sound of that music, she just drops all her papers.

Sarah:

No. But she I think she trips because it's muddy and she's wearing a robe.

Mark:

Okay. I have a new name for our killer, though. Mhmm. The upbeat jazz music killer. Uh-huh.

Mark:

Because that's what the the, titles called it.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah. Jazz music plays.

Mark:

Yes. The upbeat jazz music killer, the killer with the soundtrack.

Sarah:

But it's not a good one. Simon's looking for Debbie, right? He's desperate for paperwork. Maybe I should have said this earlier. So there's a weird relationship between Barbara Judd, or the actress who plays Barbara Judd in Who's fantastic.

Mark:

She's

Sarah:

Marion McLaughlin

Mark:

is her that we like.

Sarah:

And Simon, who's played by Nikki Henson. They are both in another episode of Midsomer, the same episode. They seek him here in o seven Okay. Playing different people.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

So they come back.

Mark:

They and that's the French Revolution filming episode.

Sarah:

Yes. They're and they're both in that one again. So they have a little reunion. No. That's nice.

Mark:

I mean, they know each other professionally.

Sarah:

It adds to the confusion of this episode, though, to know that not only are some of these people in other Midsommers, but they're in them together.

Mark:

I have to assume in those situations, they hire one of them and they're like, do you know somebody who could do this? And they're like, oh yeah, I know this guy who can do that.

Sarah:

Yeah. Or it's been five years since he was on an episode, now we can hire him again. Exactly. Because it's been long enough.

Mark:

I wonder, and I'm gonna have to do this now. Oh, I've cursed myself.

Sarah:

You just created a database.

Mark:

What is the in which two people one person has played two different characters?

Sarah:

I may have that answer. Oh. Today.

Mark:

You may have that answer.

Sarah:

But not yeah.

Mark:

Missus what's her name?

Sarah:

No. Not not her. And in way more episodes too.

Mark:

Oh, okay. Well, I I'm eager to find out about that. Yeah. So in the incident hall, we see that Jay is really looking at Dave's picture, mostly because she's like kissing it. I don't

Sarah:

know that he's all that good looking. Mean, he's not hideous, but he's not like, Hey, Unca hunka.

Mark:

We talked about this last week that, you know, our standards of beauty are not what British television shows.

Sarah:

Well, and in a little village. Right? You've only got so many people to choose from. Exactly. And he's the best looking single guy.

Sarah:

I can see that. So okay.

Mark:

So try and Barnaby wanna talk to miss missus Yateman. And so they go to talk to her, but Mr. Yateman's there. He's on his breakfast break.

Sarah:

Because he manages the dairy. So he must go to work at like two in the morning.

Mark:

And this is where he goes, I didn't kill him. I forgave Mary and she's behaved herself since.

Sarah:

Just want to punch him. And she's so sad.

Mark:

She she is just wrecked.

Sarah:

And not only does he not care about that, but when he tells her that Dave is dead, he does it in a very callous way.

Mark:

I think he's joyful that Dave is dead.

Sarah:

And doesn't care that it's gonna upset her. No. Or maybe he enjoys that it's gonna upset her because that serves her right. You know? Yeah.

Mark:

By the way, have you seen my papers?

Sarah:

Yeah. They're bloody in this in this evidence envelope. Well, give it to me. I need it.

Mark:

Well, aid found them. So aid brings the bloody papers to the incident hall. Now okay. This is the warmed view I have. I got completely obsessed with this tiny thing that Aide says

Sarah:

here. No.

Mark:

So Aide says it's 12 miles from Badger's Drift.

Sarah:

Right. Because he grew up in Badger's Drift, and he used to bike over to the is it the Rex or the Roxy? The Roxy, I think. The Roxy to dance when he was a kid. But that's 12 miles away.

Mark:

Which I have a note that says 12 miles, you would have had to take three buses and a train to get there.

Sarah:

We we have had many of these conversations between the two of us that British people just don't realize how small their country is, and they act like every distance is a million times bigger than it is because they've never lived in a country as big as The US. Like, we we think nothing of taking a day trip that that's like four hours there and four hours back. And to them, that's like we're gonna have to stay over at two places. Yes. Exactly.

Sarah:

It's four hours away. That's a three day trip.

Mark:

The magic of computers allows me to go back in my notes after I hear something further on in the episode. So which I've added a note that says maybe Owen should just walk there because he walks eight miles. That's true.

Sarah:

So Owen can walk eight miles, but it's crazy that Aid would have biked 12 miles to go to a dance.

Mark:

Yeah. And he says he came in, like, Jack the lad. You know, Aid has all sorts of problems, but this is his best speech. Yeah. He he really comes alive here.

Mark:

He comes in like Jack the lad, which is a brash, cocky young man in Britain.

Sarah:

I bet you he would have been wearing some winkle pickers.

Mark:

I have no idea what those are. So

Sarah:

You don't know what winkle pickers are?

Mark:

I'm not interested in my winkle being picked.

Sarah:

A winkle is a snail. Winkle pickers are men's shoes from the sixties that have very long pointy toes.

Mark:

Oh, those are.

Sarah:

The beagles used to wear them a lot. Yeah, those are winkle pickers. Okay. It would be hard to ride a bike in in Winkle Pickers, I think. It would be.

Sarah:

It'd be tough.

Mark:

You know, he just put his, little cuff his things for his pants

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

And his coat, and he was in like Jack the lad. Troy's helping Jay with her pylons, and that's not a euphemism. He's helping her with her pylons.

Sarah:

This whole relationship just bothers me.

Mark:

Would you like some coffee? Yes. Would you like to talk about Dave? No.

Sarah:

They have dinner and, you know, like, he buys her a present and they seem to really like each other. And then she does that stupid thing that people do in movies and TV shows and goes, I really like you and I think we could have a future together, but

Mark:

no, I can't. Okay. Because Troy is a catch at this point in time. Absolutely. Dresses nice.

Mark:

He's intelligent. He has a good solid job with a nice boss.

Sarah:

And he's a policeman, so he would understand her job.

Mark:

And no one in England has handguns, so he's not in danger.

Sarah:

No. But she's not gonna have it. Whatever. No. Stupid Jay.

Sarah:

Though, I gotta tell you, I don't think I'd like it if he had a long term girlfriend. I don't think it would've worked.

Mark:

Well, remember, he had a wife.

Sarah:

Married in the books. Yeah.

Mark:

They go back to the plow and they talk about

Sarah:

No. Wait a minute. Which pub is which? No. They sorry.

Sarah:

John and John and Barbara work at the sword.

Mark:

At the sword. They go back to the sword and he Bartomy talks to John like he's an informant or something. They really don't know how to write John when he isn't killing people.

Sarah:

Yeah. He's just weird. Yeah. Well, but that kind of lines up.

Mark:

He used to work in the city. He's been here three years. Then what exactly is the inciting incident of this killing?

Sarah:

Oh, I have so many notes about why, why, why, why, why, why, why. But he tells Tom that he saw Mike and Dave have a fight. Yes. Right? So Dave was upset that, no, I'm sorry.

Sarah:

Mike was upset that Dave was sleeping with Mary. And so they had a fight. After that, he, you know, Mike laid it down to Mary too. And she's been behaving since, right? So now, you know, Mike's got a motive to kill Dave.

Sarah:

And then Keith comes home from wherever he's been doing his job and goes to Jay and says that Debbie's missing. Because though Aid found the bloody paperwork, it must have blown pretty far away from where her body is. But I think his dog would have smelled her and found her. He's a bad gamekeeper, groundskeeper, fence maker guy.

Mark:

But luckily they have the dog handler. That's his name in the credits.

Sarah:

Yep. And they find the dog. They find the body, Debbie's body. And George appears.

Mark:

Out of nowhere. George. George. You know who hasn't appeared yet? Collie.

Mark:

Joyce. The forgotten fourth episode, fourth season? Neither of them are in the fourth season all that much.

Sarah:

Yeah, hardly at all. And in my memory, I felt like if you'd asked me, I would have said that Collie was in the majority of episodes, and she's not.

Mark:

And she has been to this point. Yeah. But fourth season, Collie, Collie who?

Sarah:

Yeah. They talk about her, but she's not there.

Mark:

She's just somebody they talk about.

Sarah:

Near Debbie's body, they find a bloody kitchen knife from the Festival of Britain in 1951.

Mark:

Yes. So did you look up the Festival of Britain?

Sarah:

I knew what it was.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

It's not the murder weapon.

Mark:

National exhibition and fair that reached millions of visitors through The UK in the summer of eighteen of nineteen fifty one. Now the thing that's interesting to me about the Festival of Britain is they had this thing called the Skylon. Okay. It was a futuristic looking slender, vertical cigar shaped steel structure located by the Thames in London that gives the illusion of floating above the ground. It was weird looking.

Mark:

It's like a big cigar shaped UFO.

Sarah:

And how do you spell it?

Mark:

S K Y L O N.

Sarah:

Oh, like a sky lawn. I thought you meant sky lawn, l a w n.

Mark:

No. No. Not lawn. Oh, it's

Sarah:

oh, it's like grass in

Mark:

the sky. No. No wonder you were looking at me like

Sarah:

Like, had floating turf, and you're impressed. I don't know what that means.

Mark:

No. And this thing was huge, and you could see it from all over the city. I I

Sarah:

would It wasn't a building. It was like a sculpture.

Mark:

I would have loved to see it. Put Skylon in your search, and you will see some interesting pictures.

Sarah:

So this is the festival of Britain was kind of Like, ration. The country after the end of World War two Yeah. Right, to kinda lift the spirits and

Mark:

Mention that they were probably off rations by that point.

Sarah:

Yeah. And celebrate their country.

Mark:

But that knife wasn't sharp enough and clearly placed there. Why?

Sarah:

I guess we'll find out.

Mark:

I guess we'll find out. So they go talk to Keith who is

Sarah:

So sad.

Mark:

He is. He's very sad. He asked if she had been molested and anything. He he plays the I'm a husband who didn't kill my wife thing perfectly.

Sarah:

Yeah. And Keith Shortlands is played by Adam Blackwood.

Mark:

Mhmm.

Sarah:

He's a good actor. He has a kind of a peculiar face.

Mark:

Though Adam Blackwood is quite the name.

Sarah:

Oh, it's a great name.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Two things about him that I found interesting. One is that he's in Jeeves Jeeves and Wooster a lot. He plays like one of their bestest friends.

Mark:

I can see that.

Sarah:

And I knew as soon as I saw this episode for the first time way back when I recognized him like those ears. I recognize those ears.

Mark:

Was he the new guy?

Sarah:

No. He's no, he's not the new guy. Jeeves and Worcester. But speaking of his awesome Adam Blackwood name Yes. He is the voice of James Bond in all of the video games.

Mark:

Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, that's interesting.

Sarah:

Which doesn't when you think of this

Mark:

Including Golden Eye, the famous Yeah. James Bond game of all time. Yeah. That's cool.

Sarah:

Yeah. But you to look at him, you wouldn't think super secret agent.

Mark:

No. You wouldn't. With giant ears. But he can do the Hugh, can you change these ears into a weapon?

Sarah:

But he can do voices. Adam. Adam Blackwood.

Mark:

So then they have a part which is clearly we're going to explain Aunt Sally to the people who watch this show, not from Britain.

Sarah:

No, I don't know because I didn't, and I didn't do a ton of research into Aunt Sally, but the little that I did gave me the impression that it is kind of a regional game.

Mark:

It is certainly an Oxfordshire game.

Sarah:

It would be as if we went to Oregon and said, Hey, do you play cornhole? They would go, What? But if you're in the Midwest, everybody knows exactly what that is.

Mark:

It's this weird thing. It's with bean bags. Sometimes I wake up and I go, I live in Indiana. So there's a doll on the stick, and that is aunt Sally. So you are going to hit aunt Sally.

Sarah:

Oh, that's mean. We're back in punch and Judy hands.

Mark:

I so wanna pick one of these things up.

Sarah:

You wanna know if they're heavy. They're wood. Right?

Mark:

Yeah. I I would like to play this game to try it out. Now I did see if there was an aunt Sally game anywhere near us, and, of course, there isn't. No. So I wish there was.

Mark:

Like, I wish there were curling, but unfortunately no.

Sarah:

The doll must be made of like a really dense wood.

Mark:

Yeah. It's like a really dense wood. Like oak or something. And you have to throw the sticks on your home.

Sarah:

The batons. What do they call them?

Mark:

I don't know what they call them. Sticks. Sticks. So Ben Barrow runs the other pub and aid is just cranky McCrinkerson at this point. The Randy bastard.

Sarah:

He got what he deserved. Never mind that dying means that they're short a guy on their team.

Mark:

Yes. Because Owen was, is the leader and the publisher that we'll find out is incredibly important later.

Sarah:

I understand now why Ben was so upset about having an incomplete Aunt Sally team, because really that game between the two pubs is probably the most interesting thing that happens in this village ever.

Mark:

I would have to think so. They go to Simon's shop.

Sarah:

Did did you find out what Klicks is?

Mark:

Yes. Good. Klicks is the vending company. Oh, I'm disappointed. It's not a particular song.

Sarah:

Vending machine Simon's shop that that says Klicks, k l I x. Which is a cool name. And it looks like a soda machine. I was like, who? I've never heard of that soda.

Sarah:

It's called Klicks. It sounds

Mark:

so Klicks soda.

Sarah:

It sounds so modern.

Mark:

Yeah. Well, no, it's they're just a beverage company. Like a

Sarah:

vending machine company. That's disappointing. Well, he's living in the store, so he's probably drinking a lot of clicks.

Mark:

So they're going through his underwear. Not on purpose. Accidentally.

Sarah:

If you wanna buy that filing cabinet, I have to empty it out first.

Mark:

But he sure has a lot of records.

Sarah:

Brits say bloody a lot, right? It's hard for people outside of The UK to know how bad of a word is bloody because it seems to get thrown around a lot. But when Simon sees his paperwork in the evidence bag, I don't know. Somebody didn't read the script here. They didn't

Mark:

Because he says bloody like four times.

Sarah:

He's like, bloody state of it. It's bloody. Look at that. It's so bloody. Bloody paperwork, bloody woman, and the bloody paperwork.

Sarah:

It's like how you can make a whole sentence out of the f word and it makes sense. Yes. He's using bloody in every way that you can use bloody.

Mark:

Including covered in blood.

Sarah:

Covered in blood, you know, but also as an adjective for something that's frustrating or whatever. And yeah.

Mark:

Well, it's just a way for him to gain his independence.

Sarah:

That's why he loved his wife. Yes.

Mark:

Yeah. No. She threw him out.

Sarah:

Janet. I would've got away from her.

Mark:

She's misery. Well, Simon's also getting it on with Louise because anybody with a sexless husband can sleep with anybody else immediately.

Sarah:

Did you find it strange that Louise and Owen live in this giant, like, country estate and have no help? No help at all. It's just the two of them.

Mark:

Well, they get very bored. I think because she's doing all the work.

Sarah:

But I don't see her doing any work. She sits and does her embroidery.

Mark:

Yes. Exactly. And she looks at his maps.

Sarah:

She's not very good at the embroidery.

Mark:

Listens to his wife having sex with people.

Sarah:

And thinks about publishing. Yes. And why people don't tell him that.

Mark:

Owen is seen sneaking into the house. Owen is weird, but harmless.

Sarah:

I don't know that he's harmless. I mean, that marriage is not healthy. No. Louise is miserable. She may be getting it on with half the village, but she's not happy.

Sarah:

She's not happy. And when she says I'm bored and suggests kind of implies that maybe they should split up, he says, but that's not going to change things, right? And as soon as she says no, he's like, oh, good. He doesn't say, but how, you know, good, but how can I make you happy? No.

Sarah:

Only concerned about his

Mark:

own interest.

Sarah:

Can't care

Mark:

about her happiness?

Sarah:

No. So Or assumes that she's happy. Dave's apartment is weird.

Mark:

Okay. First of all, he has a BT bill, which is okay, but it led me to the question, can the police open your mail if you're dead?

Sarah:

Yes. No. It's evidence.

Mark:

No. It's not.

Sarah:

Why not?

Mark:

The royal mail and The US mail forbids anyone from opening letters of a dead person but the person who receives their estate in the will. It specifically

Sarah:

Even if it's already been delivered and it's in their house?

Mark:

Yes. Oh. It specifically said the police are not allowed to open mail of a dead person.

Sarah:

Wow. Well, Barnaby breaks the law all the time. Right? But Dave's apartment looks like the apartment of, like, a 15 year old boy.

Mark:

Wait a minute. It's not full of girly pictures, dirty books, and a crate of condoms? No. Condoms. Condoms.

Sarah:

It's full of toys. Police toys. Maybe there was a scene that they cut where it was like, well, yeah, and Dave's dad was a policeman.

Mark:

Or her him and you know.

Sarah:

Is this supposed to imply that he and Jay are closer?

Mark:

And he's like dressing up like a cop and being with Jay, which I would hope Jay would be like, I would like to separate work and fun.

Sarah:

Or she implies that he kind of broke her heart. So maybe he was still kind of, you know, stuck on her and by having police stuff in his apartment, it made him think of her.

Mark:

It's just so weird that there's all that police stuff

Sarah:

in his apartment. Because she doesn't have mailman stuff in her place. And there is no

Mark:

why do you have this mailbag here?

Sarah:

Oh, it's just my lunch bag. Never mind.

Mark:

Never mind. Here's a book on Byron.

Sarah:

Yeah. Why do you have all this unopened mail? It's illegal to open it. What am I gonna do with it?

Mark:

But he does have picture.

Sarah:

Yes he does up on the wall.

Mark:

So Louise Brooks is a famous movie star from the twenties.

Sarah:

Yeah, with the classic Bob profile.

Mark:

Who just got run over by censorship laws, right? She was kind of the first sex symbol in movies and was unafraid to do, naked scenes and things like that. She had no problem with any of that and played sort of salacious female characters, strong women and interesting women, but was linked to sex and film and then censorship came along and Dave got her

Sarah:

also has a hand embroidered handkerchief with his name on it.

Mark:

I don't know if it's his name because it's so damn hard to read because she's crap at the needle point.

Sarah:

Then we've got Dave's funeral. Now there's a very important person at this funeral.

Mark:

Well I went off on a tangent with the funeral so go ahead and tell me about the important person at the funeral.

Sarah:

The priest.

Mark:

Okay. Who's only in this scene.

Sarah:

Yep. You think he's a waste of space.

Mark:

No. Not as much as the last vicar, but

Sarah:

He's played by Neville Phillips.

Mark:

Oh, that's a name.

Sarah:

He's in six Midsommers. Wow. Two times he's named. Yeah. This is not the first episode he's been in that we've talked about already.

Mark:

Oh my gosh.

Sarah:

But amongst his other credits, he gets to be a priest once. He's a priest here. Yeah. A vicar twice. Okay.

Sarah:

And admirer once. Admirer? Mhmm. Wow. He's the admirer.

Sarah:

Oh.

Mark:

And this is the guy who's been in the Midsommar's closest together? Yeah. What what

Sarah:

He was in two in that they were in the same season.

Mark:

Wow. That's different people.

Sarah:

Yes. No. I take that back. He may be the vicar twice in the same season.

Mark:

Oh.

Sarah:

But now he's a priest.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

And later he'll be an admirer. Admirer. He kind of goes downhill. His first his first appearance, he has a name. His second appearance, he has a first name.

Sarah:

And then he's vicar, vicar, priest admirer.

Mark:

And you know, when you're writing stuff and you're just putting a character in, that's just going to be in the scene.

Sarah:

Sometimes you just

Mark:

throw in a

Sarah:

name. But he must have like the face of a clergyman.

Mark:

He must.

Sarah:

Right? Or the demeanor of a clergyman. But when I was taking notes, I thought, okay, so we've actually talked about him before because he's been in an earlier episode. And then I got to thinking about the fact that Barbara and John, Barbara and Simon are in another episode.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

And I had this sudden fear that at some point, as we're going through these episodes, we're going to get to the point where there are no new actors to talk about because they've all been in Midsommars before.

Mark:

Later episodes, there's certainly, well.

Sarah:

There might be one or two new actors, but everybody else has already been in one. We've talked about them already I

Mark:

don't think we'll ever get there.

Sarah:

We're out of new new people to talk about.

Mark:

So you were fixated on the priest at the funeral, and I was fixated on the plate. The plate that is on the front of Dave Cutler's casket. The plate that clearly says that he was born 04/11/1968, and that he died on the 10/28/2000, because

Sarah:

record scratch. It's the October 28 when he dies.

Mark:

Wait a minute. So that means that the day bef day after is the twenty ninth, and this day that they're having the funeral is now the thirtieth. Where the hell is the Halloween in this episode? Because it's a Halloween episode.

Sarah:

We don't like Halloween around here or mobile libraries.

Mark:

Nope. There's no Halloween mentioned. It's not talked about. Nothing. And okay.

Mark:

I may be a little Halloween obsessed. I love Halloween, but I'm like

Sarah:

There's not even

Mark:

not be a pumpkin. Or or just do this. Okay. Just do this. Instead of the October 28, make it the fifteenth.

Mark:

Yeah. And you skip everything, or make it the October 2.

Sarah:

Well, to them, I guess Halloween's not a big deal. Okay. It wasn't even a notable thing to avoid or include or

Mark:

I do realize that it's not as big in Britain as it is in Canada and The UK and and The US, but it's still a thing because there's other episodes that reference it.

Sarah:

Yeah. And it's still, like, fall and harvest. You would still see, like, corn husks and pumpkins and gourds and that kind of thing.

Mark:

So this is will be forever the unhalloween episode.

Sarah:

It it is. It culminates

Mark:

on Halloween. Yes. It does. So I have in my notes, why are these people not getting ready for Halloween? Wait.

Mark:

This is actually the thirtieth.

Sarah:

I'm telling you, it's that small village thing.

Mark:

So we'll go no more roaming. Roving. Roving. Roving. Roving.

Sarah:

Then we get to meet Janet. She's bitchy.

Mark:

She is. Do you know where we know her from?

Sarah:

Mm-mm.

Mark:

Do you remember the firefly cage episode of Lovejoy? Yes. And the crazy American woman, I think it was? Yes. That's her.

Sarah:

Oh, well, she also her name's Kim Thompson, the actress. She almost ruined my day. How? Kim Thompson ruined my day. Well, researching Kim Thompson ruined my day, almost ruined my day.

Mark:

Please go on.

Sarah:

She was in a short lived mystery show called Virtual Murder. Okay. Yeah. In the late eighties where she and, a guy who was a, I think he's a lawyer, he's a barrister or something like that. They investigate crimes that have kind of a supernatural kind of twist to them sort of ex file y sort of.

Sarah:

And so I thought, I'm gonna see a clip of this show. I wanna know, like, how paranormal did it get and did they debunk that stuff or was that the point of

Mark:

the show? So what year is this?

Sarah:

In the late eighties.

Mark:

Late eighties. It's called Virtual Murder?

Sarah:

Yeah. There's only six episodes of it.

Mark:

That's impressive that it had that name in

Sarah:

the eighties. So I did some googling to find a clip of this show and found something completely different.

Mark:

Yes. So this is the text that you sent me this morning that freaked me out. I said Because I thought you were making it up.

Sarah:

I was not making it up because as I was looking for a clip of Virtual Murder, the show with Kim Thompson in it, I discovered that there is a Murder, She Wrote episode called Virtual Murder in which Jessica, the old lady from Nantucket, goes into virtual reality to solve a mystery.

Mark:

I seriously worried about my wife Sandy at this point in time. I was like, baby, that didn't happen. It just didn't happen.

Sarah:

You you said it was a Berenstain Bears thing.

Mark:

Yes. It

Sarah:

clearly Like, that happened in an alternate universe.

Mark:

Universe we exist in. No point did Jessica Fletcher put on a VR headset.

Sarah:

I said OMG, did you know there's an episode of Murder She Wrote where Jessica Fletcher goes into a virtual reality to solve a mystery for a friend who makes video games? You said, no there isn't. And I said, nineteen ninety three episode called a Virtual Murder. You said, that's a Berenstain bear fake level thing. I said, I just watched a clip and then you said OMG.

Sarah:

Headset and everything. ZOMG. And then I sent you the clip and you just said the f word.

Mark:

So, of course, we'll put the clip.

Sarah:

Needless to say, I couldn't help but watch twenty five minutes of, like, a fifty minute show.

Mark:

Did Tom Bosley put on the set too?

Sarah:

No. Oh, damn. But I do have to say, I know it's a completely different show, but I do have to say that the VR headset that Jessica Fletcher wears way back in the early nineties is way better looking than anything we have now. It's like mirror sunglasses and black gloves, and she's in VR.

Mark:

Yeah. It looks it looks like an Oculus Rift. It looks like one of the

Sarah:

latest Twenty five years too early. No.

Mark:

No, baby. That's like thirty years too early.

Sarah:

Okay. Even more. And Jessica is good at

Mark:

it immediately. Of course she is.

Sarah:

You know, Barnaby should go into VR at some point. That would be awesome.

Mark:

There there is a there is a mention later about email. And then there's a point where they talk about Twitter on Midsomer. I'm sure of it.

Sarah:

Yeah. With John Barnaby.

Mark:

Yeah, I think so.

Sarah:

All I know is that that darn show that Kim Thompson is in, It was a Google trap. It's like I woke up forty minutes later and was like, wait a minute. What was I doing? Oh, yeah. I'm supposed to be researching stuff.

Sarah:

Troy wins a leg of lamb. He does indeed. In the big meat drawing. So the sign best poster ever.

Mark:

The sign in the plow says, it's the plow weekly meat drawing. So this

Sarah:

is weekly. Every week, they

Mark:

give away meat. One pound per strip, which I'm assuming is a ticket. Yeah. Top prize, large leg of lamb. Second prize, free range chuck.

Mark:

Third prize, this is the one that I'm a little leery on. Ox tongue and or heart. Ew. Yeah. And then fourth prize, homemade sausages.

Sarah:

I don't know.

Mark:

If I won third, I'd be like, I trade?

Sarah:

Can we trade? I got a tongue.

Mark:

And Troy won first place.

Sarah:

Leg of lamb.

Mark:

Leg of lamb. Which is like in the pressure wrap thing, like.

Sarah:

It's vacuum sealed.

Mark:

Yeah. But I would thought that this was like a farmer who had brought this stuff in.

Sarah:

Yeah. But even local meat processors can do vacuum seal. Oh, know.

Mark:

Would have liked to see it wrapped in the kind of butcher paper.

Sarah:

But then we wouldn't have been able to see what it was. And then

Mark:

you open it up and go, a leg of Why is this in here? I don't know. It has nothing to do with the story. Like, if Troy used the leg of lamb to beat up John at

Sarah:

the end,

Mark:

that I I can see that.

Sarah:

There's this whole kind of weird village integration thing.

Mark:

Check off leg of leg

Sarah:

In this whole episode, you you get the sense of, like, Tom and Troy kind of integrating into the village so they can suss out what's going on because it's a very closed space, right?

Mark:

I guess so.

Sarah:

So Troy has kind of fallen in love with Jay and they're at the pub and they go to play the aunt Sally. I even wondered at one point whether they were staying there instead of going home because Troy changes clothes between But day and then Joyce shows up, so it can't be very far away. Right? Nothing's far away.

Mark:

It's only 12 miles from

Sarah:

Backstreet Stress. They probably just run home at

Mark:

the Maybe they send Owen home to get their stuff

Sarah:

to And he just walks it? Yeah. Yeah. And gets their stuff. Maybe.

Mark:

The next morning, Bartaby watches as Yateman drives away and sneaks in talks to the wife. He was his usual boob grabbing self.

Sarah:

That the the scene in the in the pub is the first time I realized that John and Barbara both live there. They live at the Sword. They both live above the pub.

Mark:

Yes. And they're they're like roomies, but they're not romantically connected. Though she

Sarah:

would like that. I think there are two living spaces. They don't live together. Yeah. But they share the kitchen and yeah, think she's got a soft spot for him.

Mark:

And he's on the phone talking to his girlfriend, which is like, he's not actually talking to a real person.

Sarah:

No, He's talking to dead air.

Mark:

It's weird. And then Barnaby has a dancing scene.

Sarah:

Yeah. Did they need to fill space?

Mark:

I guess so, because it's like purely a visual joke. Because Troy and Jay catch him, and they're like, we gotcha. Off to the nippy chip.

Sarah:

Hey. It's only there every two weeks.

Mark:

It sells cod, placey, place. Place. I don't know what that is.

Sarah:

Fish? Fish.

Mark:

Monkfish, chicken, pies, burgers, rolls, cold drinks, selection.

Sarah:

I don't think I could tell the difference between those three fish, breaded and fried.

Mark:

They also do events, but that was all I could read on the other side.

Sarah:

Oh, so you can hire the the fish and chip fan to come to, like, do your wedding? The nippy chip. Yep.

Mark:

But Troy bought her flowers.

Sarah:

He did. So they could get fish and chips. They take it home and eat it on plates.

Mark:

Yeah. They do, which is fine. They live right there. Troy finds the Byron book.

Sarah:

And so we know that she's the one who left the flowers at the funeral about Mubil go no more roving.

Mark:

Then we got She doesn't want a relationship, so let's go play aunt Sally.

Sarah:

And this is, like, the big event in the village. Joyce shows up and there's a lot of tension. All of the potential suspects are there. Louise wants to get

Mark:

as drunk as possible as quickly as possible.

Sarah:

I can see why Tom wanted to be there though. Because now you're seeing all these potential suspects in their relationships and them talking to each other. I think it would be helpful.

Mark:

Yep. Exactly.

Sarah:

But Tom is the man.

Mark:

Well, Troy is not the man because he goes zero for six.

Sarah:

Yeah. He misses it completely. I worry for those two guys who retrieve the Aunt Sally when they're standing there so close to it that he's gonna hit one of them. But he has a good spirit about it. He laughs about it.

Mark:

But Tom, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. He he knew how to do this game.

Sarah:

Yeah. He's not just a natural. Nope. He's a good player because he's played many times before.

Mark:

So Owen goes to pick up the sticks and almost gets hit by one. Everybody there would have seen exactly who did this.

Sarah:

Yeah. I don't know how they I don't know if they thought it's the audience will understand that everybody would have seen it. And so nobody's gonna say anything because they all would have thrown it or we're actually supposed to believe that nobody saw who threw it.

Mark:

Well, clearly it's aid who threw it and he completely throws Owen under the bus.

Sarah:

Yeah. He says that you stole a bill hook.

Mark:

And you hated him so you killed Dave Cutler. Yeah. Because he doesn't know what's really going on.

Sarah:

And Louise is just drunker and drunker and drunker.

Mark:

Well she takes Simon outside to let him down easy.

Sarah:

On a bench.

Mark:

So it's 01:30 in the morning. My next note is all in capital letters, which is it's Halloween.

Sarah:

You said the f word out loud. You're gonna beep yourself. Yes.

Mark:

And she goes, why? It's 01:30 in the morning. Why would you go to the back to the store to see the police?

Sarah:

The police wanna see me at my store.

Mark:

What? They wanna buy a desk. I need a desk. Stat. So he goes, and now the the record player he's got, that's a better sound system than what

Sarah:

Than John's Boombox And cassette

Mark:

I have to say, you know, thumbs up to the sound guys because the sound is better when it comes off the record player.

Sarah:

They can it when it's from the cassette player. Yeah. So it sounds better.

Mark:

So it sound it does sound better.

Sarah:

But Simon doesn't know how to dodge.

Mark:

No. No. He failed his dexterity check also.

Sarah:

That that desk is, you know, 15 feet in the air and he can see it coming and has time to say, oh no. Yeah. In that time, take a step back. Yep. And is John up there on that shelf?

Sarah:

Yes. Way up there on that shelf?

Mark:

Waiting in his coat. But I

Sarah:

just wonder, like, how do you get leverage on a shelf that high to push without like rocking? I mean, I'm sure they're very stable. You don't put big stuff on big shelves like that if they're gonna wobble around, but I I

Mark:

I don't know how he does exist without a forklift. Like, how do you get that down? Like, normal every day. How do get it up there

Sarah:

in the first place?

Mark:

I want that desk up there three levels up. Yeah. How does he get it down?

Sarah:

He must have one.

Mark:

He must have a forklift.

Sarah:

Because he got it up there in the first place.

Mark:

My comment is I guess I guess Simon got rolled over by a rolled up desk.

Sarah:

You know, he could have even taken a step forward.

Mark:

He could have. That would have dodged it equally.

Sarah:

And the leg area would have made it clear him.

Mark:

Yep. Mhmm. The morning of Halloween. Sometimes I walk eight miles. Well, then you could go between Badger's Drift and the damn Roxy.

Sarah:

I just keep noting, what does Aide do? What is Aide's job? Why is Aide there?

Mark:

At the scene of the crime, where they find Simon, they found a scarf with perfume in it. It's tacky. And then we see that it's the creep by Ted Heath. Yeah.

Sarah:

That's where we first see And, the

Mark:

some old tat, which is makeup, which is a frosted lipstick. Pink. Frosted pink lipstick.

Sarah:

Louise admits to Tom that she's had all these affairs. She's very straightforward to it and to him and frank about it.

Mark:

Well, think of poor Louise at this point in time. The last two men she's had sex with are dead. Right. She's got to be a little on edge.

Sarah:

I would be. Tom says, Why does everyone in this village seem to be at it? Because they are. Or at least this little circle of people.

Mark:

He only comes home early when his wife is entertaining.

Sarah:

Yeah. See, okay. Here's Owen being creepy again.

Mark:

It's just,

Sarah:

So he records it. She doesn't. He does.

Mark:

But she knows. He's the one.

Sarah:

She knows.

Mark:

But he records it.

Sarah:

So he has to be there. It's not as if she's got a tape recorder in the bedside table and just presses record. Yep. He stands outside and records it.

Mark:

It's, it's very strange.

Sarah:

I mean, whatever you're into, if you're not hurting anybody, fine. But don't tell me that's not creepy. Now Why does that recording, when he plays it for Tom and Troy, suddenly go to birds? Don't

Mark:

Dude, dog, no. It's like sudden. It is. Louise says that the goes through the evidence, touching it with her hands, that the scarf and the lipstick and this is probably the best line of the episode for me is it's something a man would buy for a woman because he thought that's what a woman would want.

Sarah:

Mhmm. But in the fifties.

Mark:

Yeah. Troy and Jay, though not going to have a long term romantic relationship or short form bonking, didn't dance.

Sarah:

To Dean Martin.

Mark:

Yes. Who's singing Tangerine, which was written by Johnny Mercer and Victor Schweitzinger, which has the great line about across the Argentine. Because how on earth do you rhyme tangerine with any other word? Orange.

Sarah:

There's a gap in this story that I don't understand. See if maybe if you can explain it. Yeah. So to this point, Tom has not actually heard the music that the killer plays. Yeah.

Sarah:

Nobody has sung it for him. Nope. We have no reason to think that he knows anything more than it seems like old style band, big band music. Exactly. It made him look around in the attic, probably just reminiscing about music, though he's not old enough to have been involved in World War II and big band music.

Sarah:

But then he and Joyce are in Oxford and they're in the music shop.

Mark:

Okay. I have lots of music.

Sarah:

Okay. But my bigger question is why are they there? What is he looking for?

Mark:

He's looking for more big man music because he wants to hear more. He wants all the records.

Sarah:

So you didn't you didn't have the impression that he was looking for the song? No. Because It just made him think, oh, I like that kind of music. Should have more of it.

Mark:

If he looks on the record player and sees the creep, that's why we know it's the creep. Mhmm.

Sarah:

So he now knows what song it is. That's right. Yeah. So we don't know why he's looking other than just that he thinks I'm gonna listen to some more of that kind of

Mark:

So they go to Astley's in Oxford. It's Astley, not Astley's, which was actually an actual store that was run by a family of Edwin Astley, who was a well known composer of music for film and TV in the 50s and 60s. Now when this store closed down

Sarah:

Is it a one off or is it a chain?

Mark:

A one off. It's in Wallingford, which is like a suburb of Oxford. When this store closed, it made national paper in England because it was such a beloved place.

Sarah:

Oh, well, it's nice that they included it.

Mark:

Yep. It's three marketplace in Wallingford. Unfortunately, now it's Acosta.

Sarah:

That's quite the change.

Mark:

Well, know, they're recruiting. So if you need a job

Sarah:

Costa will hire you?

Mark:

Costa Costa will hire you.

Sarah:

Blame it on Amazon. Little music shop going

Mark:

out. And then talk about this person what's her name again? Cully. Who the hell is that?

Sarah:

Well, we don't have to think about Cully too long because Owen's about to get killed. I do not understand this death.

Mark:

Yeah. There are several problems. First of all, it's way out in the open. Right? It's remote, though.

Mark:

It is remote. Luckily,

Sarah:

John ate has to drive there.

Mark:

Aid and his cigarette are there. The same cigarette he's had in every single scene.

Sarah:

But they're kind of across the valley a little bit. So John drives his car up there in the mud.

Mark:

Knowing Owen will be exactly there.

Sarah:

Though Owen walks a different path every day. Guess. Plays the music in his car, but Owen doesn't see him coming.

Mark:

No. Gets out and beats Doesn't hear the car door.

Sarah:

Beats Owen with his own stick.

Mark:

And then takes a pen and puts it in a tree.

Sarah:

Yeah. Why? And then when

Mark:

the cops get there, they said, oh, this happened, like, half an hour ago. Well, then you should have passed John on the way down.

Sarah:

If not, they just drove over his tracks. Yeah. So there's no identifying the car from the tires. Would you have even noticed that pin?

Mark:

No, I wouldn't have noticed.

Sarah:

It's dark against the dark What I don't get though, and maybe John had the bell hook in his coat and just decided that it was poetic justice to beat him with his own stick.

Mark:

I guess. What does that have to do with the pen?

Sarah:

Well, Owen wouldn't publish his book. And if you remember, when you see the manuscript of the book, it's written in calligraphy. I think Worst direction. I think John wrote with a fountain pen.

Mark:

Far as we can get to get this pen into the store.

Sarah:

I think he wrote it with a fountain pen.

Mark:

Oh, I agree with you, but it's still weird that the pen is in the tree.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's not a clear piece of like, oh, nobody will miss this evidence. No. But luckily since Aid is just over there across the way-

Mark:

Collecting dead stuff.

Sarah:

He saw the whole thing. Sorta. But without noticing any of the details, like the color of the car.

Mark:

Or the fact that he killed Owen. He's like, I I didn't really see what happened.

Sarah:

I was too busy making my useless fence. Me and my dog.

Mark:

So Owen, Simon, and David, all important men in Louise's life are all dead now. Louise is having a

Sarah:

bad week. Debbie just got caught in the middle. Yeah. Poor Debbie. She and Louise did not have a relationship.

Mark:

Debbie's husband's moving to Dorset though. Wouldn't you? Yep. He wanted somebody wanted her to work on a typewriter and wear an old dress, but we're not sure who.

Sarah:

Well, and don't forget. Now that John's come off the mountain after killing Owen with his own stick

Mark:

Being covered in blood. Sorry.

Sarah:

His imaginary girlfriend has broke up with him.

Mark:

Oh, my imaginary girlfriend

Sarah:

Wait a minute. His imaginary mom girlfriend broke up with him. Exactly. Because his girlfriend's name is Tammy, which was his mom's name.

Mark:

Okay. I realized that I'm in a unique situation, that my mother's name is Madonna.

Sarah:

Which I never get over. Because she's the least Madonna like Madonna ever.

Mark:

But I'm not gonna date anybody named Madonna.

Sarah:

And certainly if you're gonna imagine a girlfriend to impress your friends, you're not gonna name her Madonna.

Mark:

No, I'm dating Madonna.

Sarah:

That's a different kind of text.

Mark:

Oh, really? You're dating Madonna? Sure. Well, you know who's not dating? Gavin and Jay.

Mark:

No. She gives him the old heave ho here.

Sarah:

And this is yet another scene. Okay. John drives. Yes. But he doesn't teleport.

Sarah:

How does he get around so fast?

Mark:

What? With his precious bill hook that he touches and pets?

Sarah:

Oh, no. It's a cassette recorder sitting next to him in the car that apparently he pets.

Mark:

Oh, it's just so weird.

Sarah:

Because he goes from being on the mountain or on the hill killing Owen to being down to observe Jay and Troy. He's suddenly the pub.

Mark:

At the pub With no blood on him.

Sarah:

And Tom's there. Well, I I don't think he'd have as much blood on him this time after beating Owen with a stick. But still. It's not a bill hook.

Mark:

He'd be at least disheveled. Yeah. I don't know. But he's going to a jazz club, isn't it? Summer worth it.

Sarah:

Yeah. He just whips out an excuse to be out there in his car with his cassette playing.

Mark:

Don't tape it. It's naughty. As opposed to killing all the people that you've killed already.

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, if you really wanna break the law, don't don't record a concert.

Mark:

I have another little note here that says these people have missed Halloween completely.

Sarah:

You just couldn't let it go, could you? No. You were obsessing about that.

Mark:

Barbara says John needs cheering up. The whole thing about Tammy comes out that that she's never called there. And then Dave is suddenly a suspect out of nowhere.

Sarah:

Not Dave. John.

Mark:

John. Sorry. John is suddenly a suspect out of nowhere. I realize they're running late in the episode, but all of a sudden it's John, John, John.

Sarah:

So you don't think that Tom has a good reason to suddenly be suspicious of John?

Mark:

No, not as a killer.

Sarah:

Well, we know one of his alibis doesn't really hold. Yeah. When he took Barbara into town.

Mark:

Well, that's before that, he's a suspect, though. Like

Sarah:

Everybody is.

Mark:

I'm talking before that. And I realize everybody is, but I just feel it kind of centers on him a little too quickly here.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's it's kind of a sudden click without an explanation. Yeah. Right? Now, certainly, after Tom sees John's room, done deal.

Mark:

It's one and one equals he's the killer right there.

Sarah:

Yeah. He's Norman Bates.

Mark:

He's got a typewriter. He's got a book entitled, Dark Autumn by John Field, which is handwritten with calligraphy.

Sarah:

And bound with ribbon.

Mark:

He is not how you deliver a manuscript. Mother? Yes.

Sarah:

Not just one, but Tammy

Mark:

is written on pictures of Jay and Debbie and crossed out under the picture of Debbie. Like, this is not a healthy person. And Burnaby's like, this may put John in the frame.

Sarah:

Meanwhile, Jay's got some kind of mysterious phone call saying, I have evidence, meet me at the Rock City.

Mark:

Come dance with my Bill Hook.

Sarah:

She's like, Oh, okay. I'll be there. Yeah. So his mom I mean, let's just cut to the chase here. Okay?

Sarah:

His mom's name was Tammy. She was a single mother. She had to support him. We get the impression that not only was she like a hostess at a dance hall, but she was probably a prostitute.

Mark:

Bartleby says she's prostitute.

Sarah:

She died. She lost her looks and she died. John blames himself because she did what she had to do to raise him. And it cost her her looks. So we assume that she had like syphilis or something like that that caused her to get ugly before she died.

Mark:

Something.

Sarah:

And so he blames himself. So he's taking it out on the world. Yes. Okay. So that's his condition.

Mark:

So how old do you think John is? 40. Okay. So it's been thirty two years since his mother died.

Sarah:

Right. So we don't know why suddenly he moves to this little village

Mark:

Three years ago.

Sarah:

And then snaps. Don't know.

Mark:

Slowly over time.

Sarah:

Right. But the that he expresses this obsession with his mom is to make shrines to her.

Mark:

Right? He has all

Sarah:

of her, like her things. Yes. Okay. Mom's things. That's not too strange.

Sarah:

Nope. Now the level of stuff that he has is weird, but he loved his mom.

Mark:

You might have a picture of a dead relative in your house.

Sarah:

And maybe you've got something of hers. That's nice to have something that was hers. Yeah. He's got a lot more than that, but okay. Then he decides that he's going to turn other women into his mother and he tries, right?

Sarah:

So he tries with Debbie. He wants her to type on his type writer and he wants her to wear a dress that was probably his mom's. Yeah. Well, she wouldn't do it. How did he

Mark:

get that dress by the way?

Sarah:

He kept it since he was eight?

Mark:

When you're an eight year old and your mother commits suicide and there's no father in the system. You grab a dress. You grab a dress.

Sarah:

Or maybe he found a dress that was from that year that looks like one that she's wearing in a picture.

Mark:

Right? I But can

Sarah:

why does he wanna turn these other women into his mother?

Mark:

And then be with them like

Sarah:

a girlfriend. Yeah. That's the part I don't understand. Yeah. So he punishes these people who are sleeping around because his mom was a prostitute.

Sarah:

None of them is seeing a prostitute.

Mark:

No.

Sarah:

None of them is demanding money for sex. No. So he's just now the morality enforcer?

Mark:

The best I can think of is that this thing with Debbie and Dave is new, and that Dave dumped Jay because of this.

Sarah:

So John's upset because he liked Debbie and she was seeing Dave.

Mark:

Yes. So that's a reason to kill Dave. Okay?

Sarah:

For stealing his Tammy. It's a reason to kill Debbie

Mark:

because she cheated on him. Right? It's not a reason to call son kill Simon. Simon has no reason to die in this episode.

Sarah:

No. He dies because he wouldn't sell John the desk. Okay. The author's desk that he thought he needed to have.

Mark:

That happened a while ago because Owen has a lot of shit on that desk. So Oh, yeah. This happened a while ago. So why didn't he kill him then?

Sarah:

John says he killed David for preying on women. He kills Debbie for not wearing the dress. He kills Simon for being an adulterer and not selling him the desk, and Owen for rejecting his manuscript.

Mark:

But why did he not kill Simon and Owen earlier?

Sarah:

I don't know.

Mark:

Why That's what I did can't he kill Dave earlier? There's no inciting incident in this that makes any sense. We are going extra far to try to figure this out.

Sarah:

Right. If we could add to this story and we could say, John recently found his mother's diary. Where she said, This is my life and these are the

Mark:

Then my kid ruined my life or something.

Sarah:

Or no, these men that I pinned my hopes on were cheating on their wives and and dumped me and and abused me and

Mark:

Something like that.

Sarah:

Then maybe a brain that's not right might say, oh, well, then all these other people are like the men who hurt my mother.

Mark:

Or even just be crazy and give him a real girlfriend, not named Tammy, and have her dump him.

Sarah:

Right. Even that, the heartbreak of another woman leaving him.

Mark:

Right? Because that's the plot of a future Midsomer.

Sarah:

But no. I don't want

Mark:

to give it away because there's spoilers here. But there there is at least one other Midsomer in which a killer goes on a killing spree because he got dumped by a woman who said she was going to marry him.

Sarah:

But so he manufactures that? His fake imaginary girlfriend

Mark:

dumps Why is he pain for himself?

Sarah:

Maybe he needs a reason. But he's already killed people before that happens.

Mark:

But still three years. There's no slow decline into madness or anything.

Sarah:

No. He's like normal killer. Normal killer. Normal killer. Yeah.

Sarah:

In the same like hour.

Mark:

He tries to kill Jay and and Troy gives him a good thumping.

Sarah:

Jay is pretty good too.

Mark:

Yep. And then they interview him there and he spills the beans about everything. So then they go outside and Troy says, I bought her a book of Byron poems. So now we know who is a Rovan.

Sarah:

We already knew that because the book was in her place.

Mark:

And then

Sarah:

the episode ends. The end.

Mark:

Did you have to end it real quick? Meanwhile, Cully's in the background going, I came all the way from France to be in my scene.

Sarah:

And everybody else is checking out Wardrobe for the next Midsomer that they're in.

Mark:

It just it ends way too quickly, and the killer has no actual motivation other than being crazy.

Sarah:

Maybe that song made him crazy. I he's the creeper. The creep. He is the creep. So best carps, we've got Dave, Debbie, Owen, and Simon.

Mark:

I'm gonna go I like Debbie. She's got her mouth open. She's got some blood on her. She's not bad. Do we actually see Simon or we just see part of Simon?

Mark:

Part of him.

Sarah:

Yeah. He's under the desk.

Mark:

Owen's not very good. I'm gonna have to go Debbie. I'm gonna

Sarah:

go Dave. Dave? He's the original. And he's got a postman's uniform on. Yeah.

Sarah:

And he's nearly decapitated. You don't see any

Mark:

meat, but of course meat would

Sarah:

Take it beyond the rating.

Mark:

So it's either Debbie or Dave for sure.

Sarah:

After the credits.

Mark:

So this is where it gets really interesting. Right? Because now Louise has a bunch of money and no connections to this town.

Sarah:

No. She's out of there.

Mark:

She is like there is a Louise shaped hole in that house.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because she doesn't have any connection to the estate and all that stuff. She doesn't care about that. Barbara is The men she liked are dead, right? Barbara is now in

Mark:

her home. And she needs a lodger.

Sarah:

And Keith is sad.

Mark:

Keith is

Sarah:

He's already moving on, but he's sad.

Mark:

What where I thought about after the episode and I thought a lot about the eight months because Mary is still stuck being married to that idiot. Mike. It's just Her

Sarah:

life doesn't change.

Mark:

There's no justice for Mary. No. All she wanted was some fun in her life after being married to the asshole. Now I'm not condoning infidelity in any stretch of the imagination, but if there was a woman who needed some fun in her life, it was her.

Sarah:

Yeah. But there's a bigger question.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

What's gonna happen to all those desks?

Mark:

Wow. Couldn't need a forklift.

Sarah:

I kind of enjoyed thinking that Julie was gonna be stuck with figuring out how to get rid of all the junk that Dave has in his store.

Mark:

That's true. She would be because she didn't inherit all of it.

Sarah:

Because they're not divorced yet. No. And she thinks it's all crap and that he was crap and gets what owns all of it. Now she's stuck with it. All the angle lamps and ugly desks and file cabinets and dirty underwear.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

She's got to get rid of all that stuff and she deserves that.

Mark:

Yeah, she does.

Sarah:

And Jay is, you know, left lonely and alone in a little village full of weird people. So I have

Mark:

a question about Jay's house. Is that a station

Sarah:

or a house? I think it's combination.

Mark:

She's the only one there.

Sarah:

She because it

Mark:

says police outside the house.

Sarah:

Yeah. She's a community support officer. So I think she's got like a little office built onto the side of her semi detached. That's the police station.

Mark:

Is that where she keeps surviving?

Sarah:

Yes. And her her pylons. Yes. Right there.

Mark:

Yes. Exactly. So that was

Sarah:

Dark Autumn. And now we've got a big question we need to ask the audience.

Mark:

Yes. So we are mere days away from new episodes of Midsomer. They come out on the December 1. So when you're listening to this episode, if you're listening to it on the day it drops, it will be the November 18. So we're just a little less than two weeks away from new episodes.

Sarah:

And we're thinking that we ought to do something special for the new episodes, but we can't decide what to do.

Mark:

So I don't want to spoil new episodes for anybody. Right? But I also want to kind of make it an event, like a live tweeting event or the other thing is, I was thinking is, we probably won't get these till the December 2 on Acorn

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

And Britpop. So, and we'll probably only get one episode a week. So this is kind of a four week situation here.

Sarah:

Right. So we could do a little mini episode just

Mark:

said this is full of spoilers.

Sarah:

That isn't, that just points out like, oh, here's a few fun things in the new episode without talking about who the killer is. We could livestream watching it for the first time. We could

Mark:

Which is kind of crazy because we'd have to clean up the living room.

Sarah:

We could do a live tweet event where a bunch of us watch it at the same time, and tweet our responses as we go together. And a lot of you are on Twitter and thanks for all the great messages that you already post.

Mark:

Yeah, or Instagram, we do the same thing.

Sarah:

Yeah, you know, we're all in different time zones, that might be difficult. So what we want, our goal is to make it a little bit special without ruining it for folks who don't get a chance to watch it at the time, but we don't want to just let it pass.

Mark:

Know? Also don't I like, I don't wanna step on Acorn or Midsomer's toes. No. If they have something planned, we're gonna go with whatever they have planned.

Sarah:

We'll join in. Yeah. Absolutely. It's rough. But you, listener, awesome people, if you have an idea Yes.

Sarah:

I'm thinking of Sue's. Yes. Sue's on Twitter. Sue's on Twitter. Amongst lots of other people.

Sarah:

If you have an idea of something fun, that would be awesome. Share it with us, leave it in the comments, send us a little message, share your ideas, and we'll see what we can put together. And we'd like to do something fun. I agree.

Mark:

Next week is episode five, season five, episode one, and I've I've made a decision that it is season five episode one.

Sarah:

Even though there's controversy

Mark:

around Yeah. And we'll cover the controversy and we'll cover why I came down on this.

Sarah:

And it's called? Tainted Fruit. They ripen by their own corruption. Meddlers. Poor

Mark:

district nurse.

Sarah:

It's a fun episode and it's always fun to share them with you. So leave us a comment, follow us on the Twitter, the Facebook, the Reddit, all those different places. You know where we are. Absolutely. Until next time.

Sarah:

Bye. Bye,

Mark:

Bye, Maniacs. A telepathic stage musician named Taro.

Sarah:

Start again. He's not a musician. Okay. A telegraphic snake. He's not telegraphic either.

Sarah:

Okay. Third time's the charm. And Georgina's like, okay. That's my lip pouty sound. Hey, Maniacs.

Mark:

Hey, Maniacs.

Sarah:

Welcome to Midsomer Maniacs. I'm Sarah.

Mark:

And I'm Mark. And this is episode 19, Tainted Fruit. Fruit.

Sarah:

This is also the time when you would say, season five episode one, but we'll get to that in a second.

Mark:

Yeah. We will. It is season five episode one, but we'll get to the the con the controversy. Controversy. Just to begin with, Midsomer Maniacs is a podcast dedicated to ITV series, Midsomer Murders.

Mark:

Each week, we dig into an episode of the show, including the murders, the mayhem, and the loonies, and everything else we love.

Sarah:

We love the loonies.

Mark:

Just a warning at the beginning, if you let your kids watch the show, they should be fine to listen to the podcast. But if the show is too much for them, the podcast probably is also. This episode was filmed in October and November 2000 and broadcast April May two thousand one with 9,800,000 viewers. So I

Sarah:

said it's season five episode one. Tell us about the controversy.

Mark:

What happened is I trusted Wikipedia, and I realized this was a mistake. Mhmm. But on Wikipedia, this is actually season four episode six, which is not the case. And the reason why I say it's not the case and that Wikipedia is wrong, because I asked people on, the Facebook and, the Twitter and the Instagrams, and I got lots of responses. Mhmm.

Mark:

But the best response I got was the ITV website lists this as season five episode one. They make the show.

Sarah:

Yeah. So they get to decide.

Mark:

They get to decide. So this is season five episode one.

Sarah:

I checked our box set. Yeah. So before the, you know, advent of Netflix and stuff, we had these on DVD and our box set does include this episode, but it doesn't even break them down into seasons. Oh, okay. It just numbers them from the beginning.

Sarah:

So this is episode 19 Our or 20 or

Mark:

first box set has a whole bunch of seasons.

Sarah:

It has like the first six seasons in one box set. So it doesn't even tell us that because I thought that would be definitive too.

Mark:

So this is what we're going with. If you want to argue anymore with us, feel free. We're not going to change our mind.

Sarah:

It's ITV. It doesn't matter. It's the next one. Yep. Right?

Sarah:

Did it air real close to season four?

Mark:

The air date is in question. So I couldn't find an exact air date. Okay.

Sarah:

Well, all right. It's a good one. Yep. They're all good.

Mark:

Tainted fruit.

Sarah:

This is one that, like several other episodes, has inspired lingo around our house. Yes. It's frequent that we say something like, they ripen by their own corruption.

Mark:

Whenever ripening or corruption is mentioned, it's usually followed by they ripen by their own corruption.

Sarah:

Which in my mind, Barnaby said in an ominous way. But in reality, he goes, they ripened by their own corruption. Interesting. So what he's referring to, the tainted fruit in question Yes. Are meddlers.

Sarah:

Meddlers. M E D L A R S. Different from every episode prior to this.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

I would like to propose that this is a very literate episode.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Because there is an overriding metaphor. You have to Okay. Here's an aside. I have a PhD in English. PhD.

Sarah:

Two master's degrees in literature.

Mark:

One, two.

Sarah:

I'm sorry, my brain is infected by this stuff, right? But in this episode, it really jumps out. So if don't know anything about meddlers, which even people in The UK might not be familiar with meddlers, they are a fruit that grows on a tree. They were brought to Britain by the Romans. They were big in Rome and even in Greece and they grow on trees and they look a bit like, a really dark brown apricot.

Mark:

Yeah, that's what I thought they were when I first saw them in the episode, like apricots.

Sarah:

But there's a difference.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

On one end, there is a series of, because fruits grow from flowers, right?

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

From the interior of a flower after it's pollinated. So on one end of the fruit, there are five or six kind of petally shapes that kind of flare out from the fruit, which led the medieval writers to call them open arses. Oh. So when Chaucer mentions meddlers, he doesn't even say meddler. He just says it's an open arse and the audience would have known what

Mark:

he He's was talking not talking about open arses.

Sarah:

There's also

Mark:

reference

Sarah:

to them being ripe and rotten. So it's open for, I guess you could argue it.

Mark:

We should talk to our medievalist friend about open arses.

Sarah:

Well, as somebody who can still recite the opening prologue to the Canterbury Tales when I've had a few drinks, I think I qualify to say that he's talking about the fruit. Okay. Shakespeare referenced it many times. He talks about meddlers. Excellent.

Sarah:

Because they are this awesome metaphor, right? And they're a metaphor for a couple of things that are completely relevant to this episode.

Mark:

Okay, lay the metaphors on me.

Sarah:

Though I will say before I lay the metaphors on you that they're said to taste like apple butter when they're actually ready to eat. Okay.

Mark:

With a

Sarah:

little bit of cinnamon and vanilla and they grow in US zones five to seven. So we could grow meddlers here in Indiana if we could keep any plant alive in our yard.

Mark:

Baby, we can't grow wisteria.

Sarah:

I know. Maybe we could grow meddlers though.

Mark:

What we need to do is grow a meddler near the wisteria and they can fight.

Sarah:

Yes. See who could win, which is more British and who could win. The metaphor thing. So there is this corruption making them sweet, right? And when it comes to fruit that need frost to ripen, because that's what meddlers do, they stay unripe until they freeze first.

Sarah:

And then when the frost hits them, that kind of starts to degrade the interior because it crystallizes and then it thaws.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

And it's called bledding.

Mark:

Oh. B L E. So you're bledding out your open r's.

Sarah:

T T E D. They're bledded, corrupt. Okay?

Mark:

I don't know. I think you might need to go to the doctor if you're blooded out your corrupt open arse.

Sarah:

Yeah. Know. I know. But it tastes like apple butter. It's so wrong.

Sarah:

Anyway, the metaphor thing, let's get back to that. All right. Because we're gonna see this over and over in this episode, and I find it really interesting because I think the writer was doing something really smart.

Mark:

Okay, cool.

Sarah:

So there's a few different ways that meddlers are referenced. So yes, they are rotten and yet sweet, right? So there's this kind of like, something that is bad is tempting you. Yes. Okay, so there's that kind of metaphor.

Sarah:

Then there's an idea that it's the fleetingness of the prime of life. Okay. So you have to get old to get wise and actually be at your best.

Mark:

Oh, I can see that.

Sarah:

But then you die. Yeah. Right? So it's There's

Mark:

Just when you get it all going.

Sarah:

Yeah. There's this fleeting period of your life where you are at peak. Yeah. And then you're done. So we've got characters who certainly rot.

Sarah:

We've got characters who are tempted by things that are rotten, but seemingly sweet. And we've got characters who are older and in their prime, be it ever so brief. The writers here were very smart. They use this one metaphor in several different ways.

Mark:

This is David Hoskins who wrote this. He's wrote written a bunch of these episodes. He's at home sipping his tea going, finally, somebody noticed. Thanks for listening, Dave. Yeah.

Sarah:

But it's clear throughout the whole story, even though meddlers are only mentioned a couple of times, either the ER meddler or the AR meddler, like you're being a meddler or here's a fruit called a meddler. Either way, that metaphor was in his mind the whole time he was writing this.

Mark:

Well, that's fantastic.

Sarah:

So we'll see it pop up. So I kind of wanted

Mark:

to

Sarah:

prime

Mark:

that That's great art. I like that.

Sarah:

Okay. So let's talk cold opening.

Mark:

Okay. It's a dark and rainy night.

Sarah:

I know. Neil's got a graveyard right outside his front door.

Mark:

He does. Why? That's

Sarah:

kind of dark and stormy.

Mark:

Especially when you're old and sick. I would be like, I need to move somewhere else.

Sarah:

Right across the right across the street into the graveyard, it turns out.

Mark:

Right? It doesn't have holes in the roof. Now the nurse Sally Rickworth is there to help him Mhmm. Which is which is nice. And Sherry and Hugo Bell come.

Mark:

Mhmm. Okay? The car drives up and it's Joan Farley. Like this is a, we'll see this again and again, person on deathbed, a bunch of people show up.

Sarah:

Right. Right. So either talk to them about wills before they die or to say goodbye before they die.

Mark:

Yep. Now, I want to talk about with this cold open is up to a certain point in this cold opening, it's sad.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

And then the music changes, and we get a turn. Mhmm. And I love how the writing, the acting, and the music all work together here.

Sarah:

Because Joan is looking at Neil, and we're looking at the back of her head, and she's sad. And But then she turns to the camera.

Mark:

So there's a physical turn.

Sarah:

And she says, but I know who killed him.

Mark:

But the music changes right there and it makes it it's it's chilling. I love how they do that.

Sarah:

It's not quite a dun dun dun, but it's that kind of They hit the commercial. Oh, boy. Something's gone down here that we don't know anything about.

Mark:

Come back and Troy and Barnaby are off.

Sarah:

One more note. Yep. I was particularly impressed with the set dressers in Neil's bedroom, and I'm stumped as to how they would have created drips from the ceiling into those bowls during the whole scene. Because you see it dripping and you hear it dripping. So they definitely had some kind of rig that they must have lined up perfectly, moved bowls and buckets directly under wherever they had a leak going to catch it.

Sarah:

It's really well done.

Mark:

So I bet you that rig is a PVC pipe with a little bit of water

Sarah:

And a hole through in it?

Mark:

It and a hole in

Sarah:

it. Yeah. It probably is something top

Mark:

along where the lights are. Yeah.

Sarah:

But to have that near the lights?

Mark:

Well, in the old days, these are stupid hot lights too.

Sarah:

Yeah. Right? But it's raining outside, which they probably just waited for a night when it was raining to do the outside scenes. Big deal. Right?

Mark:

But Yes and no.

Sarah:

There's a lot of rain. It's not a rain rig over Rain a few

Mark:

is really tough because you want rain, you want real rain, but then you have to wait for real rain. Yeah. And waiting is terribly expensive.

Sarah:

Right. But if it was just an exterior shot that they could get any time.

Mark:

Right? It could be. But definitely the the drips, I'm sure they used a rake to do.

Sarah:

Yeah. But then once you get inside having the drips, it was it makes it makes it consistent.

Mark:

No. They actually built a house including and put holes in

Sarah:

the roof.

Mark:

Put holes in the roof.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Troy Barnaby, you're off. Yes. Just like the wrapper on the hard candy. I'm annoyed by the hard candy. Not because it's there.

Mark:

It's because they do it twice and they don't do it more.

Sarah:

The first time Troy's driving

Mark:

Troy wants a red one.

Sarah:

And Barnaby offers him one. He's already unwrapped it. And Troy says, well, can I have a red one instead? And he does ask nicely. And Barnaby's like, I've already unwrapped this one.

Sarah:

Take it.

Mark:

So later on, we see Troy give him a green one.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because he And Barnaby is driving.

Mark:

And he kinda looks at the camera and goes, but that's it. Yeah. I wanted more hard candy jokes.

Sarah:

No. It was nice and subtle.

Mark:

And they're off to see Melissa Townsend, who's who is apparently 22. That actress is not 22.

Sarah:

Well, don't forget though. First, we see Hugo on his bike. Yes. Hugo, the botanist, and his wife Sherry watering her plants because they have to be in nearly every scene because they are the village bill busybodies.

Mark:

They are.

Sarah:

They're involved in everything.

Mark:

They are, but they're nice people. They

Sarah:

are, but they're everywhere.

Mark:

Do do you think that actress is 22?

Sarah:

I I I think she pulls it off.

Mark:

Oh, I don't know. She seems 23 to

Sarah:

me. 23.25. I think she's fine.

Mark:

So she owns the property where the old man died.

Sarah:

Because her dad has given it to her to teach her responsibility. And so Melissa Townsend.

Mark:

But before we get to the house, Troy almost kills Freddie.

Sarah:

Yes. Freddie.

Mark:

Troy runs Benteen Brown. Frederick Benteen Brown off the road or Freddie.

Sarah:

He's got a compound name, so you know he's important.

Mark:

He has an ascot and a fast car, so you know he's important. He's got a Porsche. He's got an attitude, so you know he's important. He's at least self important. And he gets out of that car, he is gonna rip them a new one.

Sarah:

Until Barnaby does one of his things.

Mark:

And he's like, oh, you're a police.

Sarah:

Well, who can I complain to? How about you just drive more carefully?

Mark:

And what I love, you know, in the bizarre world that is my brain, I sometimes do things like I'm going to write a book about leadership based on Barnaby.

Sarah:

He's a great boss,

Mark:

He is a great boss.

Sarah:

He doesn't threaten him.

Mark:

No. And he sticks up for Troy until Freddie leaves.

Sarah:

That's right.

Mark:

And then he gives Troy the business.

Sarah:

Right. He's not rude to Freddie? Nope. He's a matter of fact. So Frederick Benteen Brown is played by Miles Richardson.

Mark:

Mhmm.

Sarah:

And I thought, I've never seen him anywhere. Nope. He's like, this is like a one part bit. Maybe he's a stage actor or whatever. He's tall.

Sarah:

His dad is Ian Richardson.

Mark:

That name's familiar.

Sarah:

He is the lead in the British version of House of Cards. Yeah. As soon as you see him, you go, that's where he gets his nose. Oh, okay. Right?

Sarah:

He looks a lot like his dad. His dad was also in Dark City. Oh, okay. He's one of the guys in the black leather that controls how the world works. If you've ever seen Dark City.

Sarah:

Almost looks like a Hellraiser character almost. But the interesting thing about Miles is that he has a friend, David Seckham, who's a director. And they must be really close friends because David Seckham is known for making shorts, short films. And Miles is in every single one of them. They're buddies.

Sarah:

A long series of them.

Mark:

Yeah, they're buddies.

Sarah:

With very interesting subjects. Okay. Would you like to know?

Mark:

Lay it on me.

Sarah:

Just the titles.

Mark:

Okay. Proctologist. Proctologist. Proctologist two. The Bitter End.

Mark:

A Visit to the Chaplain. The Chaplain two.

Sarah:

And more. It was the proctologist and well, at first I saw proctologist two and I was like, okay, is this artsy and there's no one? Oh no, there's a one. He's in two movies called proctologist that have something to do with balloon animals. I'm not gonna go into the details.

Sarah:

Excellent. But he's done some really funny work. Like, he's very funny. He's not funny in this.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

But he's definitely comedic.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

That's Miles Richards. Okay. Freddie Banteen Brown.

Mark:

So they get to the house and Melissa has received some notes.

Sarah:

Blackmail or no. They're they're threatening letters, right, with the old cutting the letters out of the newspaper and then gluing them to the page composition.

Mark:

Mhmm.

Sarah:

Telling her that she's responsible for Neil's death and that she'll be put down just like an animal.

Mark:

Yep. And if Neil dies before the roof is fixed, you'll follow him close behind.

Sarah:

But somebody's watching from the bushes.

Mark:

We're never this annoys me.

Sarah:

It's gotta be the killer because the black gloves are there.

Mark:

Which killer? Georgina. Georgina has no reason to be attacking her at this point in time.

Sarah:

I know, but who is it then?

Mark:

I think it's Joan, but it's stupid that it's Joan, so they dropped it.

Sarah:

Okay. Somebody has killer cam there, but isn't a killer?

Mark:

The entire thing is absurd. Absurd.

Sarah:

You know who's absurd? Melissa. Do you want to slap her or do you want to punch her? There's no other response.

Mark:

Okay. I knew she was annoying in this episode, but having to watch it slowly and take notes, I was like, Oh.

Sarah:

As a parent, as a parent who has never struck a child, I want to hit her for how she treats her dad.

Mark:

That's just bullshit ease for I'm a tightwad.

Sarah:

Who gives her an allowance and, you know

Mark:

I would gladly take her allowance.

Sarah:

Estates to manage and Yeah. She doesn't have a job.

Mark:

She doesn't take anything seriously. And then just totally rips on her father in front of people.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's just right out. Right out.

Mark:

If his father, if her father, has an Italian girlfriend, there's no problem with that.

Sarah:

Let him.

Mark:

Maybe he enjoys spending time with her.

Sarah:

She's so snooty. Archie Townsend, her dad, is played by Terrence Harvey, who you might have recognized because he is the lead protagonist in From Hell. He's Benjamin Kidney. From Hell is the 2,001 movie that has Johnny Depp in it. It's about Jack the Ripper and Benjamin Kidney, the character that he plays, is the lead of like the police secret agent Oh, special that's right.

Sarah:

Office who's like hiding who's actually doing the killings.

Mark:

That's a character known in the comic.

Sarah:

He's a very bad dude in that movie. Yeah. In this, he's a kind of dad who sees exactly who his daughter is.

Mark:

He's a little unobservant and we'll go into that, but.

Sarah:

Yes. But he's under no illusion who his daughter is.

Mark:

No. He's not. Right. And he comes when the telephone rings all the way Into his the backyard.

Sarah:

Yeah. We know now where Freddie was going in such a hurry. Right? He was off to Sally's to propose to her. Yes.

Sarah:

Sally, the council nurse, the visiting home health nurse who is not a killer.

Mark:

No, she's not.

Sarah:

But she gets framed 10 times from Tuesday.

Mark:

She does by everybody.

Sarah:

Everybody wants to frame her.

Mark:

And that so that's that's one of the turns of the episode is supposedly this event, this series of events, has turned Sally into a conniving person.

Sarah:

A series of events, including Melissa having an affair with her husband. Yep. Divorcing her husband.

Mark:

Mark, who we never see.

Sarah:

No. We don't need to. He's long gone. Right? Freddie proposing to her multiple times.

Sarah:

All this stuff is, and then of course all the framing is slowly breaking her down, right? From this upright person into this not so upright person.

Mark:

But I'm a Midsomer Maniac. So this entire scene is about one line to me.

Sarah:

And that is?

Mark:

I have to be in Geneva for supper.

Sarah:

So. Why? Because it gets under your skin that Europeans can go from one country to another in an afternoon, and we can't?

Mark:

Yes. But I'm wondering what time it is. Okay. Okay. Because they go over to see what's her name in the morning, I'm assuming?

Mark:

Melissa. So they met up in the nick.

Sarah:

Though she's got a glass of wine.

Mark:

They met up at the nick Mhmm. And then went over to to Melissa's. Now she has a glass of wine at her house.

Sarah:

So I would assume it's afternoon.

Mark:

So it's afternoon. Okay. So then some time has passed. They have a tea. They have, they go Hugo goes by the house and sees the tarp.

Mark:

Things happen.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

Okay? So let's say 03:00. Okay. If I'm in England, in Oxfordshire at 03:00, it's probably five or six in Geneva.

Sarah:

Okay.

Mark:

Now Freddie has to get to the airport.

Sarah:

If he doesn't have a helicopter.

Mark:

Even if he has a helicopter to get to Gatwick or to get to Heathrow, it's probably gonna take him an hour. So it's 04:00 now.

Sarah:

Unless he has a private airplane somewhere, a private jet. Even then. He's very rich.

Mark:

So then you okay. Let's say he drives forty minutes to his private airfield. Okay? It's not in town. Mallon, by the way, is the name of the town said once in the episode.

Mark:

Yeah. So now it's getting seven or eight ish in Switzerland. He is not going to make supper.

Sarah:

I don't know. Rich people eat supper really late. They eat supper at, like, 09:00.

Mark:

I don't care. He's not going to make

Sarah:

it that frit ever. I think it's just something he says to appear important in, a jetsetter.

Mark:

I think so. And then he touches Melissa's bottom.

Sarah:

He slaps Melissa on the ass.

Mark:

Which, you know, she didn't ask for that.

Sarah:

In front of the woman that you just proposed to.

Mark:

I don't like Melissa, but she didn't ask for that.

Sarah:

I'm sorry. I support anybody hitting her. If that makes me a meddler, okay. I'm rotten. That's fine.

Sarah:

Melissa tells her not to go to the tennis club, dude, which means she's definitely going.

Mark:

No. No. Sally tells Melissa not

Sarah:

to go. Sorry. Sally tells Melissa not to go, which just guarantees that she's gonna go.

Mark:

And they have a fight about it. Fine. Fine. Whatever. Then she acts 18.

Mark:

Well, she acts 12.

Sarah:

Yeah. And then Jones breaking into the vet to steal the medicine.

Mark:

I remembered at this point that Georgina is the killer. Mhmm. Which I was confused at this point because Georgina would have a key to the vet's office. But she's married to clearly, obviously does because later on, she steals the stuff from the vet's office. She gets this.

Sarah:

She steals the same medications and syringes. Right?

Mark:

So I have this note of, why is Georgina breaking into her place in which she probably has a key? Because, Mark, it's not Georgina. It's Joan. You're wrong again.

Sarah:

Again. You just remembered it wrong. That's okay. Speaking of snobby people that you wanna hit, Georgina and Rafe. Yeah.

Sarah:

He's so nice. He's the village vet. He's very kind. He doesn't even take payment from that one man.

Mark:

He shows kindness in that scene.

Sarah:

He's genuinely nice.

Mark:

The dog that hates Troy likes Rafe.

Sarah:

Yeah. But his wife?

Mark:

How could he marry her? I don't understand how he married her.

Sarah:

She is so awful.

Mark:

And the only thing that she good good that she does in the entire episode is she helps a little girl learn how to ride a horse.

Sarah:

But she gets paid to, and she's only doing it to impress Lord and Lady Hislop. Now I actually think

Mark:

this is our first aptly named pub.

Sarah:

What's it called?

Mark:

The Horseshoe. Oh, that's relevant. They make a reference to it and she does horse stuff. That's as close as we get. We never see the pub.

Sarah:

But that's what it's called.

Mark:

But I think it may be our first aptly named pub. Now later on, there's a total trope of how the pub is part of the episode, the name. Mhmm. But now I think that's, I think maybe they did it the first time here and then they went, hey, let's do that again.

Sarah:

Maybe we could connect the name of the pub to the plot. That would be kind of clever.

Mark:

Give that man a meddler.

Sarah:

Yep. Georgina Canning, is played by Eleanor David. The interesting thing that she's done in her past is she played the wife in Pink Floyd's The Wall. She played Bob Geldof's wife. He played Pink.

Mark:

Yes. The rock musician.

Sarah:

Yeah. And Rafe Canning is played by John McGlynn, who is the second vet's assistant in All Creatures Great and Small. So he's like the second biggest character in three seasons of All Creatures Great and Small. I knew I recognized him from somewhere, That's where you know him from.

Mark:

So what's a tennis do?

Sarah:

Social clubs are a bad idea in Midsomer.

Mark:

They are very bad. And especially when you can't afford a parking lot.

Sarah:

Yeah. What is up with that? These people are so uppity and fancy and self important and they park in the grass. Yeah. Not even in gravel, like a pebble gravel, like a like a proper house would have.

Mark:

Nope. It's just barking the

Sarah:

grass. Wherever.

Mark:

This dude has a character in it that I totally don't know why he's there. Derek the pig farmer? Derek the pig farmer.

Sarah:

He's there to be Adam's pawn.

Mark:

He is. And it shows characterization of Adam, and it shows characterization of Georgina, but- That's his purpose. I almost would have rather had a scene where Joan was saying, well, I was up at Melissa's house today in the bushes creeping around with black gloves on rather than Derek.

Sarah:

But I think it shows that Adam will pretty much get up to anything if it causes trouble because he enjoys it. Even something as crazy as convincing Derek that Georgina is interested in him.

Mark:

He totally gets off on manipulating people.

Sarah:

Absolutely. He's played by Adrian Rollins who is Derek is? Sorry. Adam is.

Mark:

Adam is. Okay.

Sarah:

Who's also in Echoes of the Dead in 2011. He's in another Midsomer. He's probably best known because he plays James Potter in the Harry Potter movies. Yes. He's Harry's dad.

Mark:

He's Harry's dad. Yeah. And his picture in IMDb is quite rugged and good looking.

Sarah:

Yes. And Liz, his wife, who's also there at the party

Mark:

Who at first I was like, is this his wife or his girlfriend or his sister? I couldn't remember their relationship. And for a while you don't know, and then it's like, oh yeah, it's his wife.

Sarah:

Especially because when he sees Melissa, he kisses her on the lips.

Mark:

Yeah. Which

Sarah:

makes you think, wait a minute. I thought that he was married to that lady. But then you come to understand that these people are creeps to each other,

Mark:

right? Yes.

Sarah:

So Liz Keene is played by Sarah Mare Thomas, and she's been in lots of stuff. But the one that really got me is she was in this show from '83 to '85 called Behind the Bike Sheds.

Mark:

Behind the Bike Sheds? Yes. This is the beginning of a joke.

Sarah:

Oh boy, it gets interesting. It's this kind of slapstick teenage kids show about a bunch of misfit kids at a private school that are always acting goofy. It's kind of like Saved by the Bell. Okay. Okay.

Sarah:

But UK. Yes. But the character she plays is called Trolley Molly.

Mark:

Trolley Molly.

Sarah:

She's a lunch lady. Okay. Okay. Who always pushes a cart around.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

But the weirdest thing about the show that relates to her character is that in the boiler room of this school, there is a former student named Fanshaw.

Mark:

Okay. Who

Sarah:

was damaged by radioactivity. Okay. From the food.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

He's played by a puppet that is hideous. Okay?

Mark:

There there will be pictures

Sarah:

of the show. No. Wait a minute. It it gets better. Okay.

Sarah:

He lives in the boiler room because he's so hideous now, and he doesn't age because he's so radioactively damaged, and he spends his time worshiping a school lunch. I cannot make this stuff up.

Mark:

So Melissa shows up and everything stops.

Sarah:

Oh, because it's a show as soon as she walks in, right? Which is exactly what she wants.

Mark:

Yes. So she orders red wine, which first of all, the red wine in those glasses.

Sarah:

No, it's a little too transparent. It's way too transparent. It's maybe a Rose at most.

Mark:

Yep. And just throws it on her dress. Now I don't like Melissa. No. I'm not ready to get to the point of hitting her, but I don't like Melissa.

Mark:

But I think she handles this well.

Sarah:

She does the best thing she could do. Yeah. She takes it off, which shocks everybody.

Mark:

Demands Throws it. Jones

Sarah:

and says, have it wandered. Yes. And then walks out. And takes Adam's jacket.

Mark:

Adam's magical jacket. Hey. It hides her slip. Did you know Adam had a magical jacket? No.

Sarah:

It's magical. It

Mark:

only covers her butt here, but by the time she gets to Sally's house when she's drunk with Georgina

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

It it's down to the ground. Woah.

Sarah:

It becomes a trench coat? Yes. Impressive. It is impressive. I didn't notice that.

Mark:

And that's the other thing that I like about Melissa is she does go to Sally's house to probably apologize.

Sarah:

And tries to save her from being framed by Georgina.

Mark:

Now then she uses it as blackmail. True.

Sarah:

So she she's almost there, but She's she's rotten. She's rotten. She's not rotten. She's rotten.

Mark:

Yeah. She's fully blooded. Sherry and Hugo are in their chairs, and they hear the accident.

Sarah:

Is it wrong that I saw them and I thought, that's us sitting in their chairs?

Mark:

Oh my god. I'm not Hugo. I can't be Hugo. I'm not ready to be Hugo yet. We get killer cam with a syringe.

Mark:

Syringe killer cam.

Sarah:

And Sally is passed out in her car.

Mark:

Now hold on. Okay? Mhmm. Let's go through this. Who is holding that syringe?

Sarah:

The killer.

Mark:

Who is? Georgina. Okay. Yeah. But she's, again, not being blackmailed yet.

Sarah:

This is then this is Joan filling the syringe and then changing her mind.

Mark:

So Joan broke in, filled the syringe, cased the house, and then stopped.

Sarah:

Yeah. Then changes her mind and then buries everything in the yard. Yeah.

Mark:

See, I have a problem with that.

Sarah:

I don't. She's very upset. It's a red it's a

Mark:

red herring. I don't have a problem with her character being stopping and doing that. I have a problem with us not knowing who this is here and the the writers and the creators of the show trying to make us think it's somebody else.

Sarah:

Because it's a trope in Midsomer that the killer cam is the killer. Yeah. It's always the killer. It's never a trick.

Mark:

Yeah. Here it is.

Sarah:

We've got two times we've got killer cam when it's not actually the killer. I love Sally's car.

Mark:

Sally's hanging out of that car.

Sarah:

It's so cute. It's a Citroen CV. Yep. And they're adorable.

Mark:

Two little thing, Chevron's on the front.

Sarah:

Yep. It's an adorable little car. You can't get them here, though.

Mark:

Hugo says you're in an accident, and the postman just gives up Sally Rickworth. I'm the postman. By the way, Sally's like radars down there.

Sarah:

Yeah. If your car's been damaged, you should probably talk to Sally. That's, that's the postman rage played by Richard Clothier. He's also in Vixen's Run-in o six where he actually has a name.

Mark:

Yes. He's he's more much more important

Sarah:

than He becomes an actual character and not just a pointer.

Mark:

I think it's one of these things where they try him out and he shows up and he's good.

Sarah:

He does a good job ratting out Sally, so they think they can put him in another episode. But

Mark:

the constable who puts the breathalyzer in Sally's mouth and actually talks to her, no credit. I am the patron saint of the people who don't get credited in this show.

Sarah:

It's just not fair. It isn't. Of course, Adam, being the nosy Parker that he is, is driving by sees Sally being breathalyzed and arrested. And what does he do? Immediately jets off to Georgina and Rafe's writing school.

Sarah:

So just so he can just tell people.

Mark:

But who gives him all the information? Gwen, who's in two scenes, and all she does is gossip.

Sarah:

She fills in the blanks. That's That's what she does.

Mark:

Her name should be exposition Jen. Gwen. Exposition Gwen.

Sarah:

Well, does a good job.

Mark:

She does, but it's that kind of character who leans in and goes, and she's the killer.

Sarah:

Oh, and here's a random piece of information. Well, see, Culley's not in these episodes. That's true. So we need somebody to just happen to know something useful.

Mark:

Culley Barnaby? That person doesn't exist anymore.

Sarah:

Georgina is talking to Lord and Lady Hislop and teaching their daughter to ride. I got curious about Lord Hislop.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Because it sounded like a familiar name. So I looked up to see if there was really a Lord Hislop. Yes. There there was.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

But the lad Was he a puppet

Mark:

in the basement too?

Sarah:

No. He was not a radioactive puppet. But the last Lord Hislop did die in 1843 under

Mark:

a bit of scandal. Scandal?

Sarah:

Yeah. There's a reason why that title kind of stopped.

Mark:

What happened?

Sarah:

Some bezzling and the murder of 300 people who were kind of prisoners. Oops. Yeah. Oh, well. No.

Mark:

British aristocracy in the nineteenth century. Yeah. If they weren't causing problems at home, they were causing problems in the colony.

Sarah:

Right. But it was nice that the the writers could grab ahold of a name that would sound realistic, but not offend anybody.

Mark:

So Georgina has no moral compass here. She's like, oh, poor Sally. And then lady Hislop's like, I hate drunk drivers. And Georgina's like, I hate drunk drivers too.

Sarah:

That's that's what I meant. I meant that yeah. That's bad. Let me purse my lips. I wish you could see hear the puckering.

Sarah:

Please ensure

Mark:

this cabinet is locked. Well, the door's off, so that might be a problem.

Sarah:

In the vet's office? Yes. Yeah. Well, never mind. Cujo's in the waiting room.

Mark:

Dogs hate Troy. It's got

Sarah:

a taste for coppers. There's a side door.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

They go in and out at looking at the boot print, and yet they make Troy come through the front door.

Mark:

Just to go by the dog.

Sarah:

Just so Cujo can try to attack him, and we can see that Rafe can calm any animal.

Mark:

Now they do some editing here that I don't like because it's it's obvious. The dog's sound comes when the dog is off screen.

Sarah:

Yeah. Right? Well, that's what you gotta do. Don't They're have a to work with. They don't have a big animal handler budget.

Sarah:

Yep. They get to check out the boot print. Oh, boot print. Call the crime scene guys and get a cast.

Mark:

If only we had a fax machine.

Sarah:

They have a special fax just for boot prints.

Mark:

Boot facts. Boot facts. Archie is learning Italian while his daughter is killed.

Sarah:

Yeah. And he's saying La Bella Regaza, which means the beautiful girl.

Mark:

Oh, okay. I didn't know what he said in Italian here. This is she doesn't die here. This is where the phone rings. Now his phone is interesting.

Mark:

Couple of things. First, everybody in this episode has landlines in the first half and cell phones in the second half.

Sarah:

Yes. Except Adam. Yes. He has a cell phone in the first half.

Mark:

Also, he has his phone hooked up that it rings a bell outside.

Sarah:

Mhmm. That's weird. I think it's smart. He could just get a cordless phone. They

Mark:

do does have a cordless phone. It is a cordless phone.

Sarah:

I think it's clever. But of

Mark:

course days when we had cordless phones.

Sarah:

He cares enough to make sure that he's got an extra ringer for his phone. Yeah. But not enough to make sure that he can hear his daughter dying on the other side of a wall.

Mark:

No. So Joan admits to throwing the wine. She's taking care of her invalid husband.

Sarah:

Clive.

Mark:

Now this is obviously to make Joan sympathetic.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

But me, Clive has the easiest acting job ever.

Sarah:

See, I think his job's really difficult.

Mark:

No, I don't think so at all.

Sarah:

He has to sit kind of still, not completely still. He's not corpse acting. Right?

Mark:

Nope.

Sarah:

He has to make his mouth droop on one side, he's had a stroke, but he can't overdo it and make it funny. Okay. It's subtle and it's consistent. Every time you see him, he looks exactly the same.

Mark:

Midsomer people, I'm talking to you. If you need somebody to do this, I'll do this. If you're paying?

Sarah:

Yep. If it's a paying gig, you'll pretend to have had a stroke?

Mark:

No. If they put me on the show, I'll get over there.

Sarah:

I couldn't find a credit for Clive either, could you?

Mark:

No. Clive has no credit either.

Sarah:

Maybe he's consistent because they just went to a nursing home and grabbed somebody. No. That one of those comments you're

Mark:

gonna edit out? Clive is fine. No.

Sarah:

No. He's convincing and consistent. Okay? That's all I'm saying. And Joan is a saint.

Mark:

Absolutely.

Sarah:

She can't leave him alone. She's taking care of him. She clearly still loves him. And she loves other people. She's not related to Neil.

Sarah:

Nope. And yet her heart

Mark:

is She says later on, He's my family. He's my family.

Sarah:

Because that's how she thinks of all the people that she cares about.

Mark:

Okay. Right? We're still unsure why these people care about Neil. He might be a nice guy.

Sarah:

No, he was an old bastard. He wouldn't let anybody in the house, remember?

Mark:

Oh, that's

Sarah:

right. Not even repairmen. Whatever. Maybe he was nice to her. Maybe Melissa's right.

Sarah:

Maybe Melissa purposely left.

Mark:

She's got a vacancy.

Sarah:

Now you you have this picture of Melissa, you know, spelunking down the side of the house, drilling holes in the roof. Getting pneumonia, Neil. I hate you. Hate you.

Mark:

So syringe cam is back.

Sarah:

Yes. Now this is genuine killer cam. Not fakity fake killer cam.

Mark:

So we see syringe. We see it back up from the gate. Even though her father is learning Italian, he's got his headphones on, he would clearly orient to the movement.

Sarah:

He's looking at his book too, Annie walks around, turns his back.

Mark:

I'm sorry, he would see her.

Sarah:

What I don't understand is why Georgina dresses in all black to kill somebody during the day. Yes.

Mark:

That's interesting.

Sarah:

Stealthy ninja outfit that would call her out anywhere. Like if somebody was looking like heavy coat, when Melissa is there in a bikini, it's clearly warm.

Mark:

Okay. So Georgina also has a magic ability, which is creep because anyone would hear you creeping up on them.

Sarah:

She has super stealth? Yeah. I think Melissa is supposed to be dozing.

Mark:

Even if she is dozing, she still has a whole bottle, a whole jug of orange juice to drink.

Sarah:

I think she would sense a shadow over her. I'm a Midsomer Maniac. This is

Mark:

a theme running in the show.

Sarah:

You don't have to justify your craziness. It's okay with us. The orange juice. Which is on a tray at her feet in the grass. If you're normal and you didn't notice it.

Mark:

No. No. No. It's past her feet. There is no way that she could sit up in that chaise lounge and reach the orange juice.

Mark:

She would have to get up. Now it's on the ground. So she purposely because there is no help in this house. No. She purposely put it on the ground out of reach.

Sarah:

That's why she hasn't drank any of it.

Mark:

Then why does she bring it out?

Sarah:

She's too lazy to reach for it. So, you know.

Mark:

Second of all, I'm gonna say this. Her bikini top looks like a bra and not a bikini top.

Sarah:

I think it does.

Mark:

No. It's got like cup things.

Sarah:

Yeah. That's because she's kind of flat chested and it's supposed to make her look like she has boobs. Okay. That's what they do.

Mark:

Anyway, she's got a liver liver full of phenobarbital or whatever it is now.

Sarah:

Full syringe. She does a good job falling over her Shay's lap.

Mark:

She does

Sarah:

an awesome fall. Her legs go all akimbo.

Mark:

Her legs go all akimbo. And later on, she does a great dead body with those legs akimbo. And I was like dead body acting right there. And then Adam comes along. Yeah.

Sarah:

Yep. That's that's unfair. Right? Because, Lucy Punch who plays Melissa really deserves great dead body acting here. Unfortunately, she's in an episode where Adam dies.

Sarah:

Yep. It's just, it's just, it's not fair to her, but that's the way

Mark:

it is. She does a great job. And we've seen that actress in lots of other things. Yeah. She's in Hexed and Vexed.

Mark:

Vexed.

Sarah:

Yeah. She's also in a lot of Doc Martens too.

Mark:

Yeah. And she's she's a great actress.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

But and she does a great fall there, and it's clearly her. And she doesn't break her own neck.

Sarah:

She's falling on soft grass and orange juice.

Mark:

Yep. The w I does flower arranging, and it doesn't matter. Onto the next scene.

Sarah:

Yep. So she's dead. Anyway

Mark:

The tennis players arrive.

Sarah:

Well, we do get Gwen wheeling in from the side. By the way, I know some stuff. And then wheeling back out again.

Mark:

Right? And Adam. Adam is just so horrible. By the way, I'm gonna mention swinger parties.

Sarah:

Yeah. Like And let me see if I can get Georgina and Derek together. Wouldn't that be funny to watch?

Mark:

In front of Rafe,

Sarah:

who was Georgina's husband. It's just And they're at Melissa's house to play tennis with her, and they just start playing without her. Like, oh, she'll come along, whatever. Yeah. Which kinda shows you what kinda person she is and what kinda friends they are.

Mark:

So now the father is asleep.

Sarah:

Yes.

Mark:

But his headphones are off. Okay? How big is this estate? Because the sirens would have woken me up. Yeah.

Mark:

And wouldn't a constable have ended have searched for him. The place. Right?

Sarah:

No. I mean, like, George is already there. They've secured the scene and are doing tests and stuff before

Mark:

he wakes not have gone and woken him up.

Sarah:

Where's her dad? We gotta go tell him. Yeah. Well, they're self centered gits. Maybe Rafe would have, but the rest of them, I'm not surprised.

Mark:

Sally arrives in pure Midsomer lady freak out.

Sarah:

And we're supposed to believe she's upset because she and Melissa have slept together, and I just don't buy it.

Mark:

I can go this far. I believe the actress playing Melissa and the actress playing Sally were in robes on a bed together and had a picture taken of them. Yeah. That is as far as I can believe that. Yeah.

Mark:

And in fact, you can see the camera in the picture. So they may have done this on their own.

Sarah:

Are these people arranging flowers for their own homes? Are they doing church arrangements?

Mark:

No, they're just throwing flowers on the floor because they got to sweep them up.

Sarah:

That's true. Yeah.

Mark:

I hate you flowers.

Sarah:

Poor Gwen. She just has to push a broom and gossip. Right? But this is where we find out from Sherry that Melissa had an affair with Sally's husband and Sally's husband and they got a divorce.

Mark:

Yep. Melissa breaks up marriages.

Sarah:

Yeah. She's trouble. She was trouble.

Mark:

Meanwhile, Rafe is cooking. He's a pretty good cook.

Sarah:

He's serious.

Mark:

He knows how to cut vegetables properly. Yeah. And knows how to tell off his wife.

Sarah:

Because he's taken Sally home with him because Sally is upset and he doesn't want her to be alone. She's, you know, inconsolable. But then Georgina comes home and she's like, what's the commoner doing in our house? Let me pout my lips. And

Mark:

Sally's like, well, if you don't want me here, I'm out of here.

Sarah:

And Georgina's like, okay. That's my lip pouty sound.

Mark:

Meanwhile, Adam has some visitors.

Sarah:

I don't know where Adam spent all of his money.

Mark:

It's not on hair club for men.

Sarah:

Oh, you're cold because you've got a big old head of hair that has to be cut every couple of weeks.

Mark:

Just saying.

Sarah:

Just saying. And Liz is clearly informed about the debt. This is not a surprise to her. Maybe the depth of the debt is kind of a surprise. She didn't know how far in they were, but the fact that collection agents or bailiffs are coming to the door is not a surprise to her.

Sarah:

Right? What should be, it shouldn't be a surprise to her because the car that he has seen driving throughout the whole episode, that beautiful silver convertible Yeah. Is an Aston Martin Volante.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

It is a $150,000 car. Well, he runs a

Mark:

car dealership, so we learned from Fargo that all those people are crooked.

Sarah:

But I would think selling that car would get them out of quite a bit of debt.

Mark:

I don't think he owns that car.

Sarah:

But he says it's already sold.

Mark:

Yeah. I think he was borrowing it from the dealership.

Sarah:

That would explain it. Yeah. Because otherwise, just sell that damn car. How much debt can you have?

Mark:

Apparently it's quite a bit of debt.

Sarah:

But now Joyce has meddlers. Now we get the fruit for the first time. Joyce!

Mark:

Has a home life. Apparently.

Sarah:

For the first time in the episode. It's in the book. I checked. Joyce is going to

Mark:

make Barnaby some checks the book.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because it's like he doesn't believe her. No. He's like, Oh, these are kind of off, aren't they? She's like, oh, no.

Sarah:

They have to be overly ripe to be edible. It's in the book.

Mark:

And then he goes he's it's weird here. And this is why I think the writer absolutely was doing what you said he did. Because he goes, I wonder if they mean someone who meddles or the fruit. Oh, you banana. I'm sorry.

Mark:

I've never called anybody a fruit. Oh, you kumquat.

Sarah:

I just wonder why Joyce asked Tom to get Sherry's apple jelly recipe and then made meddler jelly instead.

Mark:

I got to think that that's a the technical term for that is a mistake. You think so?

Sarah:

Yes. You think he was supposed to ask for a meddler jelly recipe? Yes. I could agree with that, but I could also see that Joyce would suddenly decide, you know, if I make apple jelly, it might end up good. So I'll make meddler jelly instead.

Mark:

And every time you see Sherry in the house, she's doing stuff with jam.

Sarah:

Oh, there's a big push to fill all these jars with jelly. Jam, jam, jam. Jam, jam, jam, everywhere jam. I don't think I would trust anything that Joyce canned considering all the botulism and everything else that you can get from things that are improperly canned. If she can't, like, make a shank of lamb without making it gross, I don't trust her with jam.

Mark:

Yeah. So we find out Adam has even more bills and he spent all of Liz's money, including her granny's money.

Sarah:

It's just rude.

Mark:

At that point in time, I may suggest that Adam needs to see the door.

Sarah:

That's not gonna solve her problem. She's still broke too.

Mark:

I realized

Sarah:

that. But he's got a solution that's going to get him out of all this.

Mark:

Now, I think this whole lesbian subplot was added in the last minute. Right? So the picture of she finds is of them. Right? But the whole idea is we're supposed to mistaken it for Sally that Sally is is, black being blackmailed by Adam.

Mark:

Mhmm. It's another frame up job by the writers Yeah. On Sally.

Sarah:

Right.

Mark:

And the whole discussion with Troy and Barnaby about maybe she likes the bread buttered on both sides. The only reason you butter your bread on both sides is if you're making like French toast. French toast or toads in the hole or something. The implication of bisexuality, I don't like. And then Troy Barnaby is, like, is so 2,000.

Mark:

He's like, but he has a boy she has a boyfriend. So clearly

Sarah:

Freddie is not her boyfriend.

Mark:

Clearly, she can't be gay.

Sarah:

Problem with that subplot

Mark:

I think the whole subplot is tacked on.

Sarah:

Is that there's absolutely no indication in Melissa and Sally's interactions with one another at all.

Mark:

Except for Sally's distraught that her friend is dead.

Sarah:

Her friend's Which

Mark:

she would be.

Sarah:

Yeah. They don't have to have slept together for her to be upset.

Mark:

And as we see with the potted plants, Sally has a tendency to overreact to things.

Sarah:

Well, it's not fair. Yeah. It's not nice. She's upset. The only reason why I accept that subplot, that black male subplot or red herring of a black male subplot is that it just shows that Sally has been manipulated and used beyond even any level that she knew.

Sarah:

From the very beginning. Because Sally was never her friend.

Mark:

We're supposed to imply that Melissa told Georgina that she was scheming and did this.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

And I I just don't like that at all.

Sarah:

You think Georgina made it up?

Mark:

No. No. Think that it's it just doesn't need to be there.

Sarah:

Oh, I think I think it's just the final stab in Sally that fully blitz her. So she's a lot.

Mark:

I guess. Oh, killer cam. Saw killer cam. I have a problem.

Sarah:

This shed is more organized than my garage, by Right? The We go over the first saw. The first saw is broken.

Mark:

We go over a workbench.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

We see a chainsaw. We see some gloves, and then we see the hand saw. Mhmm. Then we learn later the next scene, the cut after this is the saw being used in the old barn. Right.

Mark:

These are two separate locations. Right. And we are given no indication of change of location here.

Sarah:

I'm okay with that.

Mark:

I thought it was the same place.

Sarah:

What I'm not okay with is the assumption that Georgina's uppity butt would know that a branch saw wouldn't work to cut a floorboard.

Mark:

Yeah. She had no one. She would have no.

Sarah:

She wouldn't know. Freaking clue. In reality, she would grab a saw, secret it away in the car, drive out to the barn, go, shit. It won't cut the board. Put it back in the car, drive back home, put that saw away, grab a different saw, put it in the car, drive out to the barn.

Sarah:

Crap. Wrong saw again. Go back.

Mark:

The whole idea is that she kills Rafe because he sees her taking the saw. So she's crappy at it too. Mhmm.

Sarah:

Well, it's kind of hard to hide a saw.

Mark:

This is a great dead body acting that Adam does in this

Sarah:

Oh, eventually dies. Dies is

Mark:

so there bad. Is another problem with this, and we'll get to it. There's a problem with that death. So Sally's house, they come and talk to her again. She doesn't want to cramp Georgina's style.

Mark:

They go over everything. She can't find her boots.

Sarah:

Oh, Troy. Oh, he does something so bad at Sally's house. She makes tea. Yep. She brings the sugar bowl in.

Sarah:

It has a spoon in it for the sugar. Troy spoons sugar into his cup, stirs his tea with the sugar spoon, and then puts it back in the bowl.

Mark:

The only thing

Sarah:

I would just kick him out of my house.

Mark:

Just get out.

Sarah:

Get out.

Mark:

The only thing worse is if he stirred his tea with it Put it in his mouth. And then put it back in the sugar.

Sarah:

He's an uncouth beast. A he's

Mark:

a wee uncouth beastie. Jeez.

Sarah:

Just breaking the rules all over the place.

Mark:

We get shoe facts. Yeah. It's a Wellington boot, 259 millimeters in length, size thirty seven.

Sarah:

Okay. In UK sizes, I wear a forty two. Okay. Which is a ten. So they say it's a small.

Sarah:

In The UK. So that is a tiny wee foot. It's an eight and a half by 11 piece of paper and it doesn't even go, you know, two thirds of the way up the paper. So it is a tiny foot.

Mark:

They must have tiny feet in England because written clearly in the margin is female average.

Sarah:

Well, this now becomes a Cinderella game. Yes. Who in the village has the tiny feet?

Mark:

Yes. And then we're going to take the glass Wellington around and put in.

Sarah:

Why they even look at a man's boot? I don't know.

Mark:

Because it's gigantic like Rafe. I'm thinking Rafe is going to have giant man boots.

Sarah:

Even Adam is petite and the boots at their house

Mark:

Giant.

Sarah:

Are giant. They're Wellingtons. They're big. Who has this wee foot?

Mark:

Sally and Georgina, who strangely have exactly the same size feet. Tiny. And they're very different women.

Sarah:

Mysteriously tiny feet. Maybe they had their feet bound as children.

Mark:

Adam arrives in his fancy car at the barn. Now he calls somebody at first to make sure they're home. The idea

Sarah:

Meaning that they're not at the barn Yes. To attack him. So he can go and get the blackmail money without being attacked.

Mark:

Adam has a mobile phone.

Sarah:

He has one the whole time.

Mark:

And Liz gets into his roll top desk and finds the picture of Melissa and Sally.

Sarah:

She has to break into his desk with a letter opener. Now, okay. That's not okay. Not not it's not that it's not okay that she broke into it. It's not okay that your spouse has a desk that's locked from you.

Mark:

And it has pictures of two of your friends supposedly

Sarah:

Cuddling up.

Mark:

Yes. There's a lot wrong with that desk.

Sarah:

Liz is a very tolerant woman. She takes a lot. Sally's boots are gone. They were supposed to be in the trunk of her car, which makes complete sense for a regional nurse that she would need some Wellington's in case she's at a farm or something like that, but they're not there. And then Tom and Troy are in Sally's house and Liz comes and bangs on the door.

Sarah:

Bang, bang, bang, bang. Because she's looking for Adam. She sees Tom and Troy are there. She's like, never mind.

Mark:

So la la la. In my mind, this is now the episode of the village of bad door behavior.

Sarah:

That's consistent in almost every Midsomer. The bailiffs are bad leave the front door open. The bailiffs are bad at the door.

Mark:

The bailiffs are bad at the door. Sally throws the plants at the door, and Liz knocks on the door as if she's trying to knock through it.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because she's desperately looking for her husband. She probably assumes that he's got debt collectors who would hurt him.

Mark:

So Freddie and Georgina have a stupid little scene, and I am obsessed with Freddie's canine teeth because they are not where they should be.

Sarah:

His bottom canines are way out in front of his other teeth. He's got like bottom fangs, right?

Mark:

I'm like, dude, you should get that fixed.

Sarah:

If you're like some richy fancy guy, but you know what, they just don't do that in The UK.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

You would never in The US and maybe it's just because we're so vain. It's just difference values. In The US, if you were as wealthy as he is supposed to be, your teeth would be not only be straight, they would be veneered. They would be so pearly white that they would blind people when you smiled.

Mark:

So along with the barn being confusing as to what barn we're in Mhmm. The saw barn and the not saw barn, there's a couple if if you're not watching closely here, it looks like Troy and Barnaby kinda go to a round of houses over and over and over again

Sarah:

on It's like the longest day, and it's not

Mark:

the same day. They do change clothes, but there's no sense of the next day.

Sarah:

Yeah. There's no later that night, the next morning.

Mark:

And to me, that's a problem with editing. They don't really show passage of time except for the wine glasses at the dentist too.

Sarah:

You know what else is a problem with editing? That Georgina supposedly trains horses but owns no Wellington boots.

Mark:

None at all.

Sarah:

She is so snobby that she doesn't even have to rake out horse stalls. Yep. She's that fancy.

Mark:

She is indeed that fancy. So Rave's driving along and he sees that, no, Hugo's driving along. He sees Jones burying something in the backyard. Joan, why did you not do this at night?

Sarah:

Or at least in the backyard, not on the side yard.

Mark:

Yeah. Where everybody can see. And Hugo uses a word here. Memsahib. Yes.

Sarah:

Which means a married white or upper class woman.

Mark:

Who is often used as a respectful form of address by non whites.

Sarah:

Well, they were in India. They've been all over the world because he's a botanist.

Mark:

So it's it's a nice

Sarah:

little word that he uses there. So it's a very colonial term of endearment.

Mark:

Yep. He goes home and tells Sherry everything. And though you characterized me as Hugo before, I may have said bizarre match machinations of this village in my real life.

Sarah:

You've used that in conversations?

Mark:

Maybe. Liz wanted children. They couldn't have any. Right?

Sarah:

Well, she knows Adam is dead because she can feel it.

Mark:

Hugo is out looking at orchids.

Sarah:

Well, he's already delivered his jam jars Yes. And sussed out Jones lying. So why not?

Mark:

And he goes inside and he's upset right away.

Sarah:

Okay. This barn where Adam gets killed is the most isolated, easy to see, Hey, something's going on down there barn ever.

Mark:

So this is a farming thing. Okay.

Sarah:

There's nothing around it. So if you wanted a secret drop off place, it's just too obvious. Wouldn't you pick someplace else?

Mark:

It's a good place for a barn. Yeah. A bad place for

Sarah:

A secret A secret drop off.

Mark:

Yeah. See, they have barns like that out in the middle of nowhere because you put all the hay in it to feed the animals that are out there.

Sarah:

It makes sense that the barn is there. It doesn't make sense as a choice for some clandestine behavior.

Mark:

No. Everybody can see it.

Sarah:

But it makes it easy for Hugo to see Adam's very fancy car down there where it doesn't belong. And we initially don't even see Adam. We just hear flies really loud. And you know, it's bad.

Mark:

Oh, it is bad.

Sarah:

He's been dead there overnight.

Mark:

Yep. So oof. So Adam is upside down dead. Mhmm. There is no way the actor could have held himself in place here.

Sarah:

No. They had to have had him like Rigged. Hung up somehow. Yeah.

Mark:

And he is a goddamn trooper. Adam does the best dead body situation.

Sarah:

Not only is he upside down, feet in the air, over a plow, but he's got a prosthetic on his forehead that makes it look like the plow blade has come clear through his head. Yep. Out the front, almost slicing his head in half. He is a trooper. And it's well done.

Sarah:

It's really the blood super, super dark, which it would be if he was there overnight.

Mark:

The only way he could be a better dead body actor is if he was naked.

Sarah:

That would make that scene so much worse. But what I love Especially when he's hanging by one hand, if he was naked.

Mark:

Oh, no. No. No. No. No.

Mark:

The thing that I love about his dead body acting is his foot. His foot is in the scene for quite a while.

Sarah:

And it's perfectly still.

Mark:

Perfectly still.

Sarah:

And it's a pan shot, so you know it's not like a prop foot. It's his foot.

Mark:

It is his foot. He does such a good job.

Sarah:

And George, I love George. He's not in the episodes for very long, but when he's there, he just, he's this little ray of sunshine because he can't help but be delighted by the strangeness, Like, you he's like, what do we have this time? Oh, a plow. Wow. Death must have been instantaneous because he's nearly cut in half, you know, like, this is much more interesting than those bodies in those, you know, crop circles, though they were interesting too.

Sarah:

Fascinating.

Mark:

And they talked to Hugo outside and then they have this weird conversation because they suggest that maybe they were meeting there for a tryst. Clearly those floorboards were cut.

Sarah:

Yes, but that doesn't mean that they weren't meeting there for a tryst, but being set up to die.

Mark:

And then Troy goes, straw is overrated. It's prickly. Yeah. What barns have you been in, Troy?

Sarah:

Barnaby is like, I don't want to know. Okay? Don't wanna know.

Mark:

So Liz might have killed him. So they go back and talk to Liz. And she gives one of the great lines of the episode, and she must have had to practice this. The legions of debtors, cut cuckolded husbands, and cheated lovers.

Sarah:

Yeah. That's a

Mark:

great line.

Sarah:

That's the situation that she's in.

Mark:

Yep. I've been a fool. She gives up the picture, and now Tom has his cell phone.

Sarah:

He didn't want to use it before.

Mark:

I guess not.

Sarah:

You're so critical.

Mark:

I guess. Let's go see Rafe behind the slowest moving vehicle ever.

Sarah:

Well, Tom calls Rafe, who answers, and he says, You're at home. Stay there. I'm on my way. I'm coming over He's worried right

Mark:

because Rafe had talked to Hugo and took off.

Sarah:

Right. So clearly something that Hugo said set Rafe off. So Rafe runs home, Rafe run. Rafe Rafe run, Rafe run. Say that too many times, it gets kind of weird.

Sarah:

Rafe runs home and answers the phone when Tom calls. But then in between hanging up and Tom getting there, he's like

Mark:

Sudden tennis.

Sarah:

I think I'll go out and play some tennis. Yeah. Because I'm kind of worried that I sort of know who the killer is and it might be my wife.

Mark:

No, he knows who the killer is.

Sarah:

And the cops are coming over to talk to me. Tennis. So I'll go play tennis. Yep.

Mark:

Regina goes out and cuts him open with the syringe?

Sarah:

Well, she slashes at him.

Mark:

Yeah. It's weird. That's not how you deal with the syringe.

Sarah:

No. But he's a big guy and he's in fairly good shape.

Mark:

Maybe.

Sarah:

And, know, if she couldn't sneak up on him and just stab him with it and inject him, she might have had to do.

Mark:

But you could see her. She injects him. He's dead. She rushes back to the house and lies in the most uncomfortable sleeping position you could ever find. Meanwhile, Troy Barnaby's like, Georgina.

Mark:

Georgina. Georgina!

Sarah:

She's she's laying in such a weird way in her blue silk pajamas that go all the way up to her ears That's just wrong. That we think she might be dead because who would lay that way, but she's just sleeping. When they wake her up, she's like, oh, I'm sorry. I was pretend sleeping.

Mark:

Why are

Sarah:

you here? I didn't just kill my husband.

Mark:

I didn't pretend to hear you.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's it's so fakety fake.

Mark:

The cops find all the stuff in Joan's hole.

Sarah:

That's quite the way to put it.

Mark:

That's what they do. Poor Joan. You find boots and a cardboard box with drugs and syringes in it.

Sarah:

Yep.

Mark:

And there's an interrogation. She says, I was gonna kill her. And I said the notes and I creeped by her house. And I did. Syringe cam one, but I didn't go.

Sarah:

I changed my mind. I couldn't do it because Joan fundamentally is a good person. That's why she's upset at Melissa. So why would she stoop to that level?

Mark:

You don't really look innocent Joan. No, she doesn't.

Sarah:

No, she doesn't, but she is. And she has an alibi anyway, because Sherry says that Joan was at Neal's when Rafe was killed. She saw her through the kitchen window.

Mark:

But we know now that Sherry is a member secretly.

Sarah:

As a Women's Institute Mafia.

Mark:

I I'm ready for a show that's just Women's Institute Mafia.

Sarah:

It'd be like that calendar, the Women's Institute calendar, but different with guns.

Mark:

Want something to happen to your jam now, would we?

Sarah:

You're crazy.

Mark:

And they're back over to Liz's house, but the bailiffs are different now. They're now the most Canadian bailiffs in the world because Barnaby goes, excuse me, lads. Can you come back later? And they're like, of course.

Sarah:

Well, they probably deal with the police quite a bit. So when they're asked by the police to go, they go.

Mark:

They leave a little too early,

Sarah:

and they're also uncredited. Well, they take his car. Yep. I don't know. So I understand why Sally would go home with Rafe after Melissa died.

Sarah:

Yes. I don't understand why Sally turns to Georgina for anything.

Mark:

Because she's coming to the party. Because it's the memorial drinks party.

Sarah:

Now we know that not only is Georgina a pucker faced bitch, she's crazy. Insane. The fact that she didn't cancel this party when her husband has just died.

Mark:

And calls it the memorial drinks party.

Sarah:

But doesn't tell anybody else that.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Right? So people show up thinking that they're going to have a party. The help have

Mark:

to tell for.

Sarah:

Until a waiter tells somebody. But these people are all as bad as she is because they're like, Oh, we should go. We shouldn't intrude on her. Except, Oh, there's Pippa. I need to talk to her.

Sarah:

Anyway, la la la. They're just rotten people.

Mark:

But wait, I have to frame Sally a bit more before I'm done my memorial drinks party.

Sarah:

Oh, she's so horrible.

Mark:

So in the most clumsy way ever, she sneaks the syringe into Sally's I'm surprised Barnaby didn't just go, dude. Like, where was

Sarah:

she keeping it? Up her sleeve? I guess. The whole time? Just in case?

Mark:

Memorial drinks party.

Sarah:

Is that what you do at memorial drinks parties? You keep syringes up your sleeves just in case you can kill somebody else while you're there?

Mark:

Yep. So Barnaby figures it all out, and we find out that Georgina was driving home. Now this is a little weak. Georgina's driving home because she liked to drive her two CV in university, and she wants to drive it again because she's a little tipsy.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

When she's driving the car, she looks like she's in pain.

Sarah:

I didn't notice that. Yeah. But okay.

Mark:

Like, she should at least be like, woo.

Sarah:

Enjoying it. Just like the old days.

Mark:

Her husband's brown bread. Brown bread.

Sarah:

She's so bad. Okay, Melissa's really bad. Georgina's even worse.

Mark:

Georgina's the worst.

Sarah:

And then when everything is revealed, she can't argue against it. She looks at Sally and says, nothing personal.

Mark:

It just sort of snowballed. Oh. So evil.

Sarah:

I killed one person, and then I just had to kill another one, and then I just had to kill my husband. Sorry.

Mark:

So the idea is Barnaby knows that Georgina has put something in the bag. Right? So Barnaby comes up with this idea that says, we've already searched her bag, to which Troy and Sally do a good job of not going, uh-huh.

Sarah:

You did? No. You didn't.

Mark:

And he goes over to the bag and opens the bag and

Sarah:

touches the evidence. It doesn't matter at this point, they've got her. Though I think if Georgina is so bad that when she gives her explanation, just snowballed. If they had said, Oh, well that's okay then. If you didn't want to do it and it just kind of happened, we'll leave you alone now.

Sarah:

She would have been like, Ew, that's perfect. Thank you.

Mark:

Thank you. Pucker face. Please take me out the back. No.

Sarah:

I would have marched her in cuffs right through her own party. Excuse me, killer, coming through, arrested, shamed person, coming through.

Mark:

Drunk driver.

Sarah:

Drunk driver, coming through. Husband killer, coming through.

Mark:

So then we see at this point in time Sally's change of demeanor.

Sarah:

She is fully corrupt.

Mark:

Yep. She gives Freddie a big old kiss on his Brent canines and she's gonna take him down to size.

Sarah:

Because rather than learning a lesson from the things that she's experienced, from the traitorous friends that she had, she's taking inspiration.

Mark:

You know what I took from that whole Freddie scene? Freddie has a phone.

Sarah:

You get obsessed with something. Every episode, there's something that bothers you.

Mark:

The costume echo has the following headlines at the Barnabas. Hands off. I don't know what that's supposed to be.

Sarah:

Maybe it's a description of a murder scene where somebody's hands have been cut off because that's the Some cousin

Mark:

talk's called for. That's another headline. On the back is sports, which includes boost for blues. And then I think a subtle cry for help from the set dressers, a headline which reads, I've had enough.

Sarah:

You know who else has had enough? Tom with that jelly, but there's lots more.

Mark:

We should use it for special occasions.

Sarah:

We don't have to. I have two dozen jars. Isn't she supposed to be giving that to the WI or something for like a fundraiser She's

Mark:

supposed to have a daughter? That's my question. Where is Cully?

Sarah:

She needs a job or something. For season three, she was all

Mark:

over the place. She'd show up at a drop of a hat.

Sarah:

She was in clubs and organizations, and now she's just a homebody making jelly.

Mark:

Best corpse of the episode.

Sarah:

Oh, it's gotta be Adam.

Mark:

Adam and his rig.

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah. It's gotta be him.

Mark:

He does a fantastic job. It is a physical thing he does.

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's impressive. And he

Mark:

like, okay. So let's just think about this. When you're doing a shot like that, you're probably in that position at least ninety minutes at the very least.

Sarah:

And it might be broken up over time, but that doesn't make it better because you have to get in and out, in and out of that position.

Mark:

Yep. He probably had a situation where they set his head up, so he could sit up and maybe drink something, but then they let him down again. Yeah. Please, if there's a picture

Sarah:

of this. If you were involved, dear listener, in that scene in any way behind the scenes.

Mark:

First of all, you wanna be on the podcast? We'll put you on the podcast. We are desperate for behind the scenes stories of this show.

Sarah:

So let's talk about after the credits. Okay. Georgina's in jail.

Mark:

In jaily jail.

Sarah:

Hugo and Sherry are left to their jelly making and meddling. Yes. Joan and Clive are fine. Yep. Right?

Sarah:

Now she might do some time for breaking into the vet's office, but I don't think Rafe would press charges. I don't think so. Well, he's dead, so it doesn't matter. Yep. I think they let her off with a warning.

Mark:

I think so.

Sarah:

Sally's gonna marry Freddie.

Mark:

Yep. And divorce him.

Sarah:

Supposedly divorce him and

Mark:

take all

Sarah:

of his money. Gwen gets to be super nosy.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

And his flops get to be super snobs.

Mark:

And the drinks party continues.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because Sally and Freddie are gonna go in and announce their engagement.

Mark:

What an uncomfortable situation of the cops have left and we're all in these people's house. Like who's the first person to go, Yeah, I'm going to leave now. And Freddie and Sally show up, We're engaged.

Sarah:

There's a weird tension there, right? So on one hand, you would expect very well-to-do people to have the finest of manners, which means they would leave.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Right? But on the other hand, part of having impeccable manners is never making other people uncomfortable. Yes. Whatever you do and rolling with any situation, no matter how ludicrous, not making a big deal out of it, you just adapt and you deal.

Mark:

I want to know how long the memorial drunk drink party went on.

Sarah:

I think until they were all thoroughly sauced and having a great time because they would have been laughing all night at Georgina. Yep. Because that's the kind of nasty people there.

Mark:

Is now vet free? Yeah. There's no vet?

Sarah:

No horse school? Nope. No vet?

Mark:

Nope. No. And they don't look like they have children. There's no mention of any children.

Sarah:

No. Gosh.

Mark:

No children in any of this part of this episode.

Sarah:

Georgina would never have children. They would affect her figure, I'm sure.

Mark:

So Liz is left with all of her husband's debts.

Sarah:

Yeah. The only person who wants children is Freddie because he says Sally's hips are good for it.

Mark:

No. Liz wants children too.

Sarah:

Yeah. But she's not gonna have any.

Mark:

Yeah. Poor Liz, she comes out the worst in the episode. Because I think she loved Adam. I do too. In a strange, weird, bizarre, broken way.

Sarah:

Yeah, I do too.

Mark:

But I think she loved Adam.

Sarah:

I think she would have been glad to leave the village, change their names, start over, and be broke together. I think she would have been okay with that.

Mark:

Yep. Midsommar Maniacs is on Instagram at Midsommar Maniacs and is at Twitter at Midsommar Maniacs, and we're on the Facebook group and the Acorn group and on the, the Reddit group as well. So if you're looking for us, please try to find us.

Sarah:

You could look in Jones Hole. Maybe you'll find us there. Everything else is there.

Mark:

So next week's episode is o five, season o five, episode two, Market for Murder.

Sarah:

Is there any rotten fruit in it?

Mark:

No. This is the, investing club episode.

Sarah:

Are there any open arses in it?

Mark:

Well, that old lady falls down the stairs, and that stockbroker's a bit of an arse.

Sarah:

So She kinda goes ass over tea kettle.

Mark:

She

Sarah:

does. That maybe counts.

Mark:

Yep. So

Sarah:

So until then, see you later, Maniacs.

Mark:

Bye, Maniacs. What was that writer's meeting?

Sarah:

I know. Okay. He's radioactive and he's immortal and

Mark:

he worships a lunch. Oh, and a puppet.

Sarah:

Because then we don't have to do any kind of special makeup on a kid.

Mark:

Okay, Adam. I don't think this is a good job for you anymore.

Sarah:

She spent three years playing trolley molly in that

Mark:

Years playing trolley molly.

Sarah:

Yep. And Fanshaw worships the food that she makes. Wow. Even though he's radioactive. Wait till you see the puppet.

Sarah:

You don't even know. Wow. It's terrifyingly hideous.

Mark:

I can't wait. I'll be in the show notes.

Sarah:

But it still has its little private school uniform with stripy tie and everything.

Mark:

Of course, it does. 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.