🎙️ Episode: https://share.transistor.fm/s/987af66a
📓 Show Notes: https://midsomermaniacs.transistor.fm/229
Mystery Maniacs Episode! In Podcast 229, under an inflatable lizard witch, a killer causes a heart attack and Cotton Candy Gingerbeard and NOT Frodo’s girlfriend come running.
Show Notes
Misspelling on Ghost Train
Our Favorite Background Actor
James NcNicholas
https://www.instagram.com/jmcnik/?hl=en
Thanks again for listening!
Mark & Sarah
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Upcoming Schedule
- February 17 - The Brokenwood Mysteries S05E02 - "Bride Not to Be"
- February 24 - The Brokenwood Mysteries S05E03 - ""Tontine"
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Creators & Guests
What is Mystery Maniacs?
Mystery Maniacs Podcast is a comedy recap podcast dedicated to British Mystery Television. Formerly, Midsomer Maniacs podcast.
He's got the big lever.
Sarah:Hey, Maniacs. Hey,
Mark:Mystery Maniacs. Mystery Maniacs is a comedy recap podcast dedicated to TV mysteries. Each week, we dig into an episode of the show including murders, mayhem, and loonies, and everything else that we love about the show. This week, broken one mysteries season five episode one
Sarah:Scared to death. And why
Mark:I will postulate this is a Halloween episode because it was released on the 10/28/2020, 02/2018.
Sarah:And it's called scared to death and it happens.
Mark:It's called scared to death.
Sarah:On a Ghost Train.
Mark:Yep. I'm Sarah. I'm Mark.
Sarah:We're gonna spoil it. We're gonna tell you who did it. So if you haven't watched it, go away and watch it. And if your kids can ride the Ghost Train, they can listen to this episode. Absolutely.
Sarah:Even though you're you are gonna talk about dongs again.
Mark:I will. Last week, I mentioned Golden Dawn as a terrorist group. That was incorrect. Golden Dawn is the Aleister Crowley thing.
Sarah:The spiritualist
Mark:Yep. Group. Society. I got it mixed up with Shining Path, which is syllables match, but
Sarah:that's about it.
Mark:Shining and dong.
Sarah:It has some light evoked in it.
Mark:I guess.
Sarah:Neither of them make for a good name for a retirement home No. Which is what you were trying to say. I I don't wanna retire with either of those groups
Mark:in any way. Definitely not.
Sarah:We, we rewatched case histories this week on Acorn. We'd seen it before. I forgot so much about it. I really it's I like it. Now it is one of those where the detective's life is completely a shambles and not not even because of his own bad choices, really.
Sarah:It's just Oh. Crap happens to him
Mark:a lot. His savior complex Yeah. Causes him
Sarah:But he's not self destructive is what I'm saying. No. But he does have I mean, I couldn't survive one day of his life. But if you haven't watched case histories, give it a shot. I think if you if you like the kind of shows that we typically talk about, I think you'll like it.
Mark:It's both serious and funny. There are a couple episodes that end quite sadly. But
Sarah:But that's the case with
Mark:lots of
Sarah:really good everything but Midsummer, really.
Mark:There's lots of really good things in it. At one point in time, without giving you spoilers, while saving an old lady at a car, he's run over by a train.
Sarah:Yeah. Takes a lot of beating.
Mark:And after four days of being away from the office, he stumbles into the office after checking himself out of the, the,
Sarah:hospital
Mark:early because that's what he does. And his secretary was like, you were in an accident? And he said train accident. And she goes, a train? He said something like, you should have seen the train.
Sarah:Yeah. If you think I look bad, you should see the train. It's got good characters. Anyway
Mark:it has good characters and really tight writing, especially if you like when all when everything comes together.
Sarah:Yeah. When it's like, oh, everything's connected? Yeah. Oh my gosh. It all is.
Sarah:Yes. I'd never know that. So that's
Mark:It's Jason Isaacs Yeah. Who plays one of the major villains in Harry Potter movies, but
Sarah:he's been in He's easy to look at. He's got pretty eyes. Yeah. Not as pretty as yours. Oh,
Mark:it's set in Edinburgh.
Sarah:Yeah. So check it out.
Mark:Yep. It's on Acorn TV.
Sarah:Yep. Another thing that came up this week in some emails Yes. To us is I thought that I had mentioned my killer my killer granny before.
Mark:I'm sure you have. If 229 episodes. We must have covered it at
Sarah:some point. I would think it would have come up, but
Mark:I would think in Blue Herons.
Sarah:A few people emailed to say, if Sarah explained how her grandmother killed people, I don't remember that. Can she recap it? And if if I'm anything, I am here to please the fans. You know? My my grandmother was never charged or convicted with a crime Yes.
Sarah:That I know of.
Mark:This is all supposition.
Sarah:Well, no. She was just never caught.
Mark:Yes. Okay. And her
Sarah:first murder was put down to self defense.
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:So people are like, okay. Enough playing around. Lay it out. Okay. So my grandmother lived to be 92.
Sarah:I think she was 92, and died when I was in high school. And she but she was awesome. She got married for the first time when she was 15 and had a baby at 16 and lived on a farm. So her first, like Unplanned death. Documented kill was a guy, apparently, who was going around farmhouses where the wives were home alone during the day while their husbands were out in the field.
Sarah:And he would lure them out of the house by putting money on the front porch. And when they came out the front door, he would attack them and rape them, and and he'd hurt some people. Mhmm. And my grandmother knew that that was going on. And though she was home alone with a baby, when somebody knocked on the door and she saw a $10 bill during the depression
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:Wedged between the the boards of the front porch, she went out the back porch with the shotgun and went around the house and shot the guy dead hiding in the bushes. That was self defense, they said. A lot of people, like, applauded that.
Mark:I'm gonna kinda agree with that.
Sarah:Yeah. Yeah. So that was one. And then, you know, you can't call her a serial killer because she went a long time before she did anything again that we
Mark:know of. She's not a spree killer.
Sarah:No. If if so, it was so spaced out.
Mark:I think we're just gonna just just gonna put her in the multiple murderer category.
Sarah:Okay. Okay. Maybe manslaughter. Okay. Because when she was in her nineties, in her late eighties, early nineties
Mark:You can't manslaughter somebody with a shotgun.
Sarah:Unless it's an accident. You you were just negligent or whatever. When she was in an actual nursing home, not assisted living, but a nursing home, she requested a room by herself. She liked her own company, and they didn't have a one person room. They had a two person room available, but there was nobody in the second bed.
Sarah:And they said, we don't anticipate putting anybody in the second bed. And she was quite fine with that. For about two years, she had her own room. And she was set in her ways and watching her shows and her stories and game shows and everything else and eating her own candy and whatever. Nobody bothered her.
Sarah:And then they gave her a roommate.
Mark:This woman also disliked Sarah's first husband immensely.
Sarah:Immensely. She said she could smell him coming down the hall before he had announced himself. She would
Mark:have loved me.
Sarah:Yeah. She would have loved you a lot. So but they gave her a roommate. And she complained, and they were like, look. We're out of room.
Sarah:You gotta have a roommate. And the roommate thought that she could have control of the TV, which was my grandmother's TV.
Mark:That's not the case.
Sarah:No. It was her TV. She wasn't sharing it with anybody, and she wasn't having anybody changing the channel on her. Her roommate had had a stroke and wasn't very sound on her feet, but also wore, apparently, a quite obnoxious wig. Oh.
Sarah:And when we went to see her and her roommate wasn't there, we said, what happened to your roommate? And she said she fell out of bed and hit her head. And we said, oh, well, that's sad. And she said, no. I didn't put her wig on the floor.
Sarah:And we're like, okay. And I didn't put the the guardrail down on the side of her bed either. No. So what the nurses told us was that, yes, this woman had fallen out of her bed and smacked her head on the table next to the bed trying to reach her wig, which was on the floor.
Mark:How did that get there?
Sarah:And she volunteered this information, my grandmother. And then, about six months later, they gave her another roommate who had had a stroke and moaned a lot apparently and wailed a lot and interfered with my grandmother's TV shows. And when she disappeared, grandma said, I didn't put a pillow on her face.
Mark:Okay. We we see where this is going.
Sarah:They did not give her another roommate.
Mark:No. What we've learned from this is don't screw around with granny's TV.
Sarah:No. Or her candy?
Mark:No. Gosh. No.
Sarah:Or make noise so that she can't hear Price is Right. I mean, there's just some things, you know, you just don't screw around with with my grandma.
Mark:You gotta spin that big wheel.
Sarah:So I after that, it was not a joke, but it was kind of a threat in the nursing home. Like, if you act up, we're gonna put you in with Jeanette. Oh. And nobody wanted to be her roommate anymore. She got her way.
Sarah:She got her own room until she passed away. She had her own room. So that's the story of my grandmother. I come from a long line of feisty women. Yes.
Mark:This episode directed by Murray Keane who's directed a bunch of them and written by Tim Baum. This is the Wilburys Brothers Amusements, and they have everything that you would note like the scary mouth clowns that you shoot at and, fortune teller and a strong man and tractors and sheep shearing.
Sarah:All the typical traveling carnival stuff.
Mark:Alpacas and giant pumpkins and then an inflatable witch lizard thing.
Sarah:What? Everybody needs an inflatable witch lizard? We've got one in the basement.
Mark:What is that thing down the top of the ghost train?
Sarah:I I don't know what it is.
Mark:And that is the dime story as Dracula that ever dime stored a Dracula.
Sarah:Have you ever seen that the actual inside of a ghost train ride?
Mark:Oh, they're
Sarah:Like, in with the lights on?
Mark:Oh, it's sad. When I was
Sarah:in high school, one of the things we did to fundraise for show choir was we sold elephant ears at the fall festival, and they had traveling amusements that would come. And one of our friends got a job running the ghost train and let us in there before they opened, and we got to look around. And it it was like a room the size of smaller than our living room that had a track that, like, doubled back on itself, like, four times. Yep. And every time it turned, there was a switch that triggered a light on Yeah.
Sarah:Something I wouldn't even put in our yard for Halloween decoration with with some black light stuff, and then you were out.
Mark:I, once again, recall the Calgary Stampede I went to when I was at the World Scouting Jamboree. This is a monumental moment in my life. I was 14.
Sarah:The World Scouting Jamboree would be a monumental.
Mark:This is where I saw the the one and only freak show that I ever saw. The fact that I was alive when they had freak shows is Yeah. Very strange. The haunted house at that particular Calgary Stampede, which is like one of these shows.
Sarah:Yeah. It's like a state fair. Yeah. It's
Mark:it's a provincial fair, basically. You walk through. Oh. So things would jump out. It was more like a haunted house.
Mark:Yeah. But at the very end, there was a guy dressed up like a serial killer like he had some sort of mask on or something.
Sarah:Bloody apron chainsaw or
Mark:something. And had a chainsaw that had no chain on it.
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:So he would jump out, start it, and chase you out the door. Something that would never be allowed because when you walked up to this haunted house thing, you saw these people screaming and running out of the door. That's perfect.
Sarah:That's what you were doing.
Mark:I was like, and I remember going through it going, this is not screw.
Sarah:I remember the one time you and I went to a haunted house. A guy tried to do that to us just after we got out of
Mark:it. Yes.
Sarah:And I just turned around and went, nope. And he was like, sorry, ma'am. And went to chase somebody else with a chainsaw. Like, I'm not having it. Don't do it.
Sarah:I'm not running.
Mark:Well, who's running the ghost train? Our buddy, Frodo.
Sarah:How many times have we seen somebody die on a ghost train? At least once before in a midsummer
Mark:There's a midsummer.
Sarah:Or somebody gets beheaded. Yes. I feel like there's others too. But it doesn't it doesn't matter. Yeah.
Sarah:Frodo's running it. Of course, he is.
Mark:He's got the big lever.
Sarah:Harold comes up with his Frodo dog in his hand. Okay. It's hard to be threatening while you're waving around a Frodo dog.
Mark:We need to talk about the Frodo dog because I don't know what it is.
Sarah:I think it's supposed to be a special corn dog.
Mark:So it's a hot dog.
Sarah:With 11 secret herbs and spices.
Mark:We agree with that. With some sort of coating. And then is there ketchup on it?
Sarah:It's, like, dipped in ketchup. Would that,
Mark:like, attracts flies?
Sarah:It would sog it. It's gross.
Mark:It's very gross.
Sarah:Especially when you're waggling it around. Yeah. And I don't know when Johnny buys it. I don't understand when he buys it.
Mark:Okay.
Sarah:We'll get there. But I'm just putting that question out there.
Mark:Okay.
Sarah:He buys it for Harold.
Mark:Or buys it, not dies. No. I was like, he dies, like, right after this.
Sarah:No. Johnny purchases the Frodo dog.
Mark:Okay. I didn't know And
Sarah:gives it to Harold, and I don't know when he does it.
Mark:From the woman who is not Frodo's girlfriend. No. She's not.
Sarah:She says she's not. He says she is. She's not. Like, I get the sense that Harold had this Frodo dog in his hand in his trailer for, like, an hour, just waggling it around for emphasis.
Mark:It's just gross.
Sarah:And then goes running off with it instead of just, like, throwing it away and going. He's like, I'm taking this with me so I can waggle it around.
Mark:That those things. Because they're obviously props. Yeah. Right? So it's not a real hot dog.
Sarah:If it is, it doesn't matter. It's still I mean
Mark:It's some weird thing that the prop department
Sarah:has Yeah.
Mark:Has put together. They must have, like, fought each other with them
Sarah:and Jousting with Frodo dogs.
Mark:Sorts of weirdness that happened.
Sarah:I'm not trusting any sausage that Frodo has anything to do with.
Mark:Well, you know, this is the beginning of, like, Frodo is, like, I'm trying new things. I'm believing in myself. I'm marketing myself.
Sarah:No. No. No. No. No.
Sarah:No. No. That's one way to see it. The other way to see it is he bought an ice cream truck and the freezer broke, so he decided to start selling sausages instead.
Mark:I and it's like he's almost surprised that the ice cream melted when the freezer stopped.
Sarah:It turns out nobody wants melted ice cream. I don't braking system, and he's gotta go get the fuse. So he gets Frodo to stay there and not not man the ride. He's not supposed to run it.
Mark:No. He's not licensed.
Sarah:He's supposed to, like, prevent people from getting on it while Johnny goes and comes back. And while Johnny's gone, Harold shows up, says, bullarkey. It's fine. Run me through it. Gets on the ride, comes out, has a heart attack.
Mark:Are you surprised that this ride has an emergency braking
Sarah:system? Like, it doesn't go so fast that you can't just jump out. No. I mean, health and safety is important, I guess.
Mark:I guess. So he comes out. He's having a heart attack, and he says, ghost.
Sarah:He knows they call everything in their ghost something. Ghost snake, ghost bride, ghost vampire, ghost ghost.
Mark:Which which is totally a goof.
Sarah:If he really wants to to point the finger at who did this, he would have said bride. Yes. Not ghost. It's not much of last words either.
Mark:No. No. So what do you want
Sarah:your last words to be?
Mark:I love you.
Sarah:Okay. What do you want funny last words to be?
Mark:Well, again Golden Dawn. To to bring the nostalgia and death portion of the show back into focus, The last thing my dad said to my mom was thank you and then he was wheeled off to get x rays and he kind of flirted with the x-ray technician because that was my dad. Mhmm.
Sarah:And like Working hard or hardly working.
Mark:Yeah. Yeah. It was kinda something like that. And, like, thank you was a fantastic last word.
Sarah:Yeah. I think so. Well, maybe not followed up by flirting with a young man.
Mark:The lottery and the money is in the
Sarah:So because they make such a
Mark:Tell Janet. I love her. Who's Janet? Who's Janet?
Sarah:Because they make such a big deal out of Harold's last word, I went looking up other people's last words.
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:And, of course, a lot of them are Jesus, and I see the light and, you know
Mark:Oh my god. You're on the wrong side of the road.
Sarah:Bless me or whatever. But I found a couple that were pretty good. Okay. You know who Pythagoras is. Right?
Sarah:He of the Pythagorean theorem. He was he was Greek, and the city that he was in was being attacked by the crow Crotonians.
Mark:Crotonians?
Sarah:Okay. It's not Croatoans. It's Crotonians.
Mark:Okay.
Sarah:And they were burning the city and stuff, and so he needed to flee. But the only way he could flee was through a field of fava beans.
Mark:Oh, okay. F fava beans?
Sarah:And his last words were, it's better to perish here than to kill all those poor beans. And then he got cut down.
Mark:He's a real human being.
Sarah:Yeah. I don't wanna kill the beans.
Mark:If it comes down between me and beans, beans are going.
Sarah:Beans are going. Richard Loeb. I don't even know who he is. Nineteen thirty six. After being slashed 56 times with a razor in prison, his last words were, I think I'm gonna make it.
Sarah:56 times.
Mark:That's that's not gonna happen, dude.
Sarah:Is that oh, is that the Loeb as such and such and Loeb? The the two guys who killed somebody? Do you remember? Do you
Mark:know what I'm talking about? In Loeb. Yes. It is. They killed the child.
Sarah:That's right. Then I'm
Mark:kinda glad he didn't pull through.
Sarah:Yeah. I think I'm gonna make it. Pope Alexander the sixth in fifteen o three. His he's a pope. Okay?
Sarah:Yeah. His final last words. Alright. Alright. I'm coming.
Sarah:Wait a minute. And the last one I'll give you, Lope de Vega, a Spanish playwright, sixteen thirty five.
Mark:Okay.
Sarah:His last words were, alright then. I'll say it. Dante makes me sick. And then he died. It's like your last words being, and I never liked you.
Sarah:I lied.
Mark:The only secret I ever kept was
Sarah:Alright. I'll say it. Dante makes me sick. Well, Harold says
Mark:Ghost. Yes. Men of a certain age have heart attacks. It's expected.
Sarah:Especially if they go on a ghost train that has grammatical errors on it. Yes. Too late to get out now, t o l a t e.
Mark:It's a ghost ride that needs an editor. Jackie Lee is a sub character that should be in more episodes, but never appears again.
Sarah:No. I like her kids. Yeah. That they get those super punk goths skull face painting. She's like, what did you do?
Sarah:And they're like, she did it. Yep. That's good kids. That's what they should do.
Mark:Now several people have asked online what a and p show means. And this is an agricultural and pastoral show.
Sarah:It means, like, state fair. Yeah. Right? Town. Because they've got animals and, like, a tractor show off place and because you see people loading their cows up to go home.
Mark:Though the words agricultural and pastoral to me are way too close.
Sarah:They're kinda redundant. Yeah. It's like agricultural and farming. Yeah. Like, it's kinda the same.
Mark:So did did you ever enter anything into these things?
Sarah:No. I I grew up in the city. What are you talking about? Never did four h. You never touched an animal.
Mark:I did in a sly way.
Sarah:You snuck a you snuck a thing into the No. The county fair.
Mark:Madonna would make stuff and put it in with my name.
Sarah:Oh, so she so she could enter more times? Or what? So did you make a quilt or something?
Mark:Oh, no. It was all knitting stuff. But yeah.
Sarah:You're a good knitter then.
Mark:I I guess I was.
Sarah:Did you win? No. I know. Well, that's good. So she entered her the good stuff under her name
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:And the second good stuff under your name?
Mark:I think they were looking for entries. And so
Sarah:Oh, they just needed some Yeah. That Mark Bell, he's quite the knitter. Yes. It would have been awful if you'd won, and then she would had to stand there while you got the ribbon knowing that she had knit it.
Mark:Babe. And this shine blue ribbon on my chest.
Sarah:And they're asking you questions.
Mark:One old lady knitter.
Sarah:They're asking you questions like, what kind of what weight of yarn do you prefer to work with? And you're like, two ten, two twenty, whatever works. I don't know. What size needles do you like? Large.
Mark:What I can't believe is I went on amusement park rides at those things. I can't imagine going on those now.
Sarah:Oh, the last time we were at a festival like that, the kids were, like, six. One of them wanted desperately to go on one of the rides. We knew that it was an absolute meth run death trap. Yep. And she would not let it go.
Sarah:We had to leave.
Mark:What did she say to you? She yelled something.
Sarah:Oh, she said, like, she hated me or something. Something. Like, I don't love you. I Because I wouldn't let her go on the the spinny death trap ride.
Mark:I was just like, oh, okay, kids. Let's get in the car.
Sarah:It was being run by a guy who had, like, tattoos on his face and one eye and Yeah. Had, like, a meth pipe in his pocket that we could see. I was not no. No. So Harold's got fang marks on his neck Yes.
Sarah:That are actually slap marks. Who slaps somebody on the neck?
Mark:Apparently, fairies. Daisy Rose. Daisy Rose.
Sarah:Did he dodge? She meant to slap his face and it hit his neck?
Mark:Maybe, I guess. It's it's pretty difficult for that.
Sarah:Which do you think would hurt more? Slap on the face or slap on the neck?
Mark:On your face. There's more nerves on your face. Yeah. More muscles on your face. So the man who is killed is part of the family that runs He's the oldest brother.
Mark:Yes. And he has one brother who is Simon, who is the strong leader.
Sarah:I'm strong. I'm really strong.
Mark:So what do you think of their portrayal of mentally different individuals here?
Sarah:They're very kind to him. Yes. He enjoys his life. Yes. He's happy.
Sarah:Yes. I don't know how realistic is it he pumps iron every every day.
Mark:To get to where he's at body wise, I gotta think he's gotta be working out.
Sarah:He's gotta be training Yeah. Pretty seriously.
Mark:So that was the big problem I had with him.
Sarah:And then the middle brother is a pharmacist who lost his license and now sells snake oil Yes. That apparently cleans up acne. Yes. But really just wipes it off. Yes.
Sarah:Because it's not real. No. And then there's His wife. Harold's ex wife, Sandra.
Mark:Who's still works with them, still kinda lives with that. Well, they have separate caravans. Yeah. But,
Sarah:You call it a caravan or a trailer?
Mark:They call it a caravan.
Sarah:What do you call it?
Mark:It's a trailer. Yeah. But the biggest issue I have with the next scene is when Gina says that her mother and father would talk to her on Facebook. Because the last episode, she said she deleted her Facebook. There's no continuity in this show.
Mark:Does Gina have a Facebook?
Sarah:Can you really delete your Facebook account? I don't know.
Mark:I don't think so.
Sarah:Once she knew that there wasn't, you know, KGB officials in Brokenwood, she probably just reactivated it. But before she dies, she's gonna send a message to her parents on Facebook.
Mark:Micah is his hunch on. He doesn't think this is, an accident or natural causes here. The biggest actually, let me restate that. The biggest real problem I have with this episode is that everyone, everyone is in Kristen's business and needs not be.
Sarah:Yeah. You got a date. Who's that guy?
Mark:Everyone is asking her inappropriate questions.
Sarah:Yeah. She just needs to say.
Mark:I I couldn't believe how much of it. Now do you think that's a product of the time, or are they trying to say something with that in this show? Because she reacts in a pleasant but firm way about it.
Sarah:I think it's living in a small town. I I You just learn to accept it.
Mark:Just was like, wow. They are asking her inappropriate things.
Sarah:Well, you know, if she doesn't want that, when she and Kahu go out on a date, they should get out of town.
Mark:Well, I do say that Kristen's evasive, but they're a bit much in my notes.
Sarah:I don't know what that means.
Mark:Well, she's evasive as to whether or not they're dating.
Sarah:She doesn't have to be.
Mark:But that's the thing. That's the thing. They're a bit much. They shouldn't be asking her.
Sarah:No. And, you know, I don't know if they're actually dating.
Mark:I don't know either.
Sarah:It's funny when Kahu says, do you wanna come in for a quickie? Yes. He's talking about chess.
Mark:Frodo is selling real kiwi hot dogs. Are those hot dogs made out of kiwis? Or Fruit? I don't know.
Sarah:That wouldn't explain what it looks like.
Mark:Who was the young lady? Not my oh, she was my girlfriend.
Sarah:I'm not your girlfriend. Kimberly from wherever she is screams, I'm not his girlfriend. You let him park the truck in your driveway? Yep. But I'm not his girlfriend.
Sarah:I'm not kissing Frodo.
Mark:And then Kristen kind of in a weird way is like, do you think it's botulism from the Frodo dog?
Sarah:I was like, no. That would be fast acting botulism.
Mark:Some bad dog.
Sarah:Bad dog. And this is the first time we see Johnny. We will see Johnny again.
Mark:Yes. Gina has found an injection point.
Sarah:And it's not on Harold's neck. No. It's not the fangs. No. Which is a fairy slap.
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:Johnny has a tattoo on his chest that says Born to Ride. Yes. But you never see the Born. You just see. To ride.
Sarah:To ride. And I just spent, like, half the episode, the scenes that he's in going, what could it say other than born to ride? Because it's Johnny.
Mark:He's just oh, I hate him so much.
Sarah:I know.
Mark:He's constantly on the make.
Sarah:He's so dumb. Yep. And he's on the make, and he's crude. And plus, he's so dumb. Yes.
Sarah:He's so dumb. The dumb meter goes all the way around and back to the beginning again to super dumb.
Mark:It's really weird what I'm about to say, but he's too stupid to be a drug dealer.
Sarah:Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well and they don't suggest that he's a drug dealer, just that he runs errands and picks stuff up. You know? He's a dog's body.
Sarah:He's not savvy enough to actually be
Mark:providing the heroin. How are they getting the money? Why is Magdalena the main draw? There are so many questions.
Sarah:Well, you know, there's a big drug kingpin in Brokenwood, and it's missus Marlowe, and we just don't know that yet. So so Johnny goes
Mark:to catch on Harold. She was an old lady selling drugs.
Sarah:Yeah. Of course. She puts them in the cheese rolls. There's a syringe inside the cheese rolls.
Mark:Do you think a lot of, older people sell drugs?
Sarah:Yes. I do. Oh, okay. Because they're short on cash, and they have a lot of drugs.
Mark:Okay.
Sarah:Don't you think?
Mark:Well, it's something for me to look forward to.
Sarah:I know that their kids and grandkids steal them from them a lot.
Mark:Yeah.
Sarah:I've read a lot of stories about that. So if you're gonna steal it, give me some money.
Mark:Yeah. Marty's selling miracle cures to somebody we know.
Sarah:Who didn't inherit a golf course, apparently.
Mark:Okay. So I went back and listened. The person he he's using as a plant in the audience is Nikki. Now, Nikki was in the golfing episode. She was the daughter of the woman who was killed.
Mark:Mhmm. Who inherited everything. Mhmm. Including a house. And we discussed based on the rules that were provided in the episode, the golf course.
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:Plus, it is stated in that episode that the Stone family, because Nikki Stone, this is her last name, owns half the town. Yeah. So why is Nikki Stone selling herself for $50 at
Sarah:the She's not selling herself.
Mark:Sorry. What why is she selling anything for $50?
Sarah:Why is she being Marty's plant
Mark:Yeah.
Sarah:Just to earn $50? And why is she working at the toad and tadpole frog cheetah lion place?
Mark:Yeah. It makes no sense at all.
Sarah:How I don't know. How much time has passed? Maybe it's still tied up in probate, and she doesn't have it yet.
Mark:Maybe. But next step is Or maybe
Sarah:she blew it all Maybe. On I don't know what. That would be a lot of money.
Mark:I could think that maybe she was involved in some druggy stuff.
Sarah:What? Why you say that?
Mark:She works at a bar and and is willing to pretend to have acne.
Sarah:Oh, you're so judgy. She's broke. She's an orphan, and she's broke.
Mark:Well, she's also in the next episode, bride not to be, so we might find more information.
Sarah:Were you surprised that Magdalena was a drug addict?
Mark:No. No. I'm The
Sarah:way she acts, like, there's no other explanation than she's high as a kite.
Mark:And we've we always are very good at pointing out people who are really good actors. Magdalena isn't the best.
Sarah:Well, to give her credit, she has to act as if she's a normal mom who's also a psychic pretending to be a psychic, but not a psychic and a drug addict.
Mark:Yes. That's true.
Sarah:All in one. Yeah. That's tough.
Mark:It is tough.
Sarah:That's like being an actor playing a character who's a bad actor.
Mark:That's hard to do. In a tent.
Sarah:But she I mean, from the very first time we see her, she looks smacked out.
Mark:Yeah. Oh,
Sarah:you know, reading poems really takes it out of me. Okay. But you said you'd it's fake.
Mark:So how
Sarah:so is it or not?
Mark:I have to lie down now. Luckily, I have a lounger right here.
Sarah:That couch looks comfortable. I can lay down on it too. And what's she hiding under that headband?
Mark:Oh.
Sarah:Her daughter, Henny, runs the shooting range
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:Which apparently are like BB guns?
Mark:Like Yes. It's a pellet gun.
Sarah:Okay. I feel bad for her from the very beginning.
Mark:I also feel bad for her because it finds that we find out that Harold, he's a toucher.
Sarah:He's a bad To the extreme. To the
Mark:like, I'm gonna get undressed and get into bed with you with you you even knowing. And it's implied that he's drugged her.
Sarah:And that she's a minor.
Mark:Yeah. Like, he's a bad dude.
Sarah:So I need your insight on one scene that I wasn't sure how to read. So the Sims is talking to Henny.
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:It's dark. Henny is sitting on the steps of her trailer. Remember that scene? And Kristen's talking to her. And Henny asks her something about a boyfriend.
Sarah:And she says, all all I ask the questions. Thank you. But the way Henny asks the first time I saw it, I thought Henny was gay and and sussing Kristen out. Oh. But this time, I because I know because I knew what happened, it was almost like you mean you don't have to have a man in your life?
Sarah:Yeah. You're you're independent?
Mark:I think it's more like that. And I know that the actress talks a lot about that in interviews about how she really values Sims as an independent person.
Sarah:Mhmm. That makes sense. The whole why they didn't report it. Yeah. Man, they do such a good job in this episode of of portraying that hesitancy to report.
Sarah:Yeah. Because you're gonna be victimized if this person goes to court.
Mark:You know?
Sarah:They absolutely That's what happens.
Mark:They absolutely And
Sarah:a lot of women don't report because they don't wanna go through that. Yeah. I it's sad. It's true. They do a good job portraying that reaction.
Mark:If you're hit by a car driven by a man, you're a victim. But if he touches you in the wrong way,
Sarah:you're not. You're a skank. So you were asking for it.
Mark:Oh, it's horrific.
Sarah:Why does Simon like octopi so much and squid?
Mark:But boy, does he like the marine animals?
Sarah:I thought rewatching it that because they say Harold is like an octopus because his hands are everywhere. And I thought, are they trying to say, like, Simon has heard people call Harold the octopus?
Mark:I think I think that's what's gonna apply.
Sarah:Attached there to that. Yeah. Maybe.
Mark:And that's why he hits him. Yeah. I I also think I remembered wrongly that I thought Simon was faking it. Mhmm. And that when he was sitting with Mike talking about the phone, that he had let on that he was faking it.
Sarah:Yeah. I think you're thinking of another
Mark:another show. Else.
Sarah:So there's this whole timeline. It's it's another closed world. Right? Yep. All the suspects are the people who work for the the fair.
Mark:And they got the map of the fair.
Sarah:Right? And we know that the potassium chloride that killed Harold would have taken less than a minute to kill him. Right? So the person who killed him absolutely got him while he was on the ghost train.
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:So the whole question is, who could've who could've been there? Who has an actual alibi and who doesn't?
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:Let's talk about Johnny.
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:K. Johnny's working the ghost train.
Mark:But he needs to replace a fuse.
Sarah:Realizes the fuse is gone, gets Frodo to take leaves to get Frodo.
Mark:At least tells Frodo don't not to run the ride.
Sarah:Fro so Frodo goes back to the ghost train. Johnny goes to the office trailer to get a fuse.
Mark:Starts going through the box. Yeah. And at the trailer is the wife and Harold.
Sarah:Yeah. That's when Harold learns that nobody's at the ghost train except Frodo and goes stomping off.
Mark:Yeah.
Sarah:Right? To see Frodo and to to ride the ride.
Mark:Well, first, he gets a Frodo dog.
Sarah:But he has a Frodo dog in his hand. So Johnny has left the ride before
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:To go get a Frodo dog for Harold for no reason whatsoever.
Mark:I guess.
Sarah:But when he did it, Kimberly says that Johnny bought the Frodo dog when Frodo wasn't there. So how did he So so does Johnny leave the train to go get a fuse, buy a Frodo dog from like, send Frodo over to the ride, walk around, come back, buy a Frodo dog, then go to the office trailer, find the fuse, and give the Frodo dog to Harold
Mark:I guess.
Sarah:To soften him up for no I don't know why. And then Harold's like, I'm gonna take my Frodo dog to the ghost train. And he is wagging his Frodo dog around. I don't know when Johnny gets the Frodo dog. He's not supposed to leave the ghost train.
Sarah:He's supposed to be running it. That's why he goes to get Frodo to stand there for him. And yet, he leaves at least twice. One to get Frodo and one to get a Frodo dog.
Mark:Well, I know he did. I know how he did it.
Sarah:Okay.
Mark:If you notice, there are at least a dozen other rides.
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:Let's be conservative and say two people per ride.
Sarah:Well, Johnny Johnny runs the ghost train by himself.
Mark:There let's say there's 24 other employees at this at this fair. Now we never see any of these.
Sarah:No. They don't count.
Mark:And it's never explained why they kinda live in Brokenwood too. Neither of those two things are explained. But one of those people answered the call when Johnny said, yo. Go get me a Frodo dog.
Sarah:You think that's what happened? Yes. But then why does Kimberly say Johnny came to buy it? Because Mike asks her, did did did your old buy it? And she says, no.
Sarah:Johnny did.
Mark:The answer is he's not my boyfriend.
Sarah:Oh. Bing. Bing. Bing. That's it?
Sarah:Goes. Johnny gets word that Harold is down. Yep. And he comes running. And my favorite background actor in the episode, We get to see this scene several times because they replay everybody's alibi and how they got there over and over again.
Mark:There is a direct through line between Ginger Juggalo from the the Midsummer episode to this kid.
Sarah:Yes. There's an an actor who is apparently racing Johnny to the ghost train.
Mark:I guess.
Sarah:It looks like they're running together. We've got a screenshot of it, and we'll give you the time stamp. It's forty nine minutes and forty one seconds there about. Johnny comes busting through the crowd to get to the ghost train, and this guy is right with him. He's a larger guy with a red beard and red mustache, really thick glasses, and a hat, and he's carrying a soda and a bag of candy floss.
Mark:A cowboy hat, and he's got a duster on.
Sarah:Yeah. And he is, like, keeping up with Johnny just so he can get shoved. He's, like, the nosiest, fastest fat kid ever. But because they play that clip to explain, like,
Mark:how everybody came together over.
Sarah:Every time they show it, you get to see Johnny shove ginger beard over Yep. To get through the crowd. He's like prime time background actor.
Mark:Cotton candy ginger beer.
Sarah:Because he gets to get put in that scene that gets played over and over again. There's this constant fight between Daisy Rose and Johnny.
Mark:Yes. I don't know why there's a fight. I knew for in five minutes that Johnny was bad news. Why the heck didn't she?
Sarah:Like, she basically let Harold have his way with her in exchange for a job because she wanted to be with Johnny.
Mark:Well and Nikki, let's be honest. Nikki, we thought was a child in the previous episode is still kinda a child.
Sarah:I think she's old enough to work in a pub, so she's at least 21 probably.
Mark:19 and probably
Sarah:Yeah. Daisy is probably in her early twenties, mid twenties. She's older than that now. But Johnny is scum of the earth. I don't know why anybody would ever be fooled that he's not.
Sarah:Right? So the fact that he's making out next to the port a loos, such a romantic
Mark:Excuse me while I go to the port a little with you.
Sarah:Yeah. But then we've got the but Johnny flirted with Kimberly. So Frodo's mad at Johnny, and they're gonna fight in the frog tadpole cheetah lion. Yeah. You know?
Sarah:And Frodo says, a cousin doesn't mow another cousin's lawn.
Mark:That was the last episode.
Sarah:And Kimberly's like, I'm not your lawn, which is I'm not your girlfriend.
Mark:And also, I'm not your girlfriend.
Sarah:Cousin doesn't butter another cousin's crumpet.
Mark:Never rub another man's rhubarb.
Sarah:Especially if he's your cousin. I'm not surprised that Frodo and Johnny come from the same family.
Mark:No.
Sarah:They they roll real low on intellect.
Mark:None of the whole family. None of the posters in the pub are brand new. We've seen them all.
Sarah:Or in the police shop.
Mark:Yep. No. It's all new. They still don't know what that pinball machine is in the office of that place, though.
Sarah:Daisy needs to stop hitting people because she's got bad aim. She slapped Harold on the neck, and then she punches Frodo meaning to punch Johnny.
Mark:Poor Frodo gets the punch right to the face.
Sarah:I mean, Frodo is, like, six inches shorter than Johnny. Yeah. And she misses and hits Frodo in the face. Whammo. Poor Frodo.
Mark:How many times has Frodo been punched in the face this season?
Sarah:Well, I got the black eye boxing.
Mark:That's different. That's different.
Sarah:Simon has Harold's phone.
Mark:Yes. Because he played games on it.
Sarah:Yeah. I love that he keeps telling Breen that he's stupid. It's okay. You're not very smart. You're stupid.
Sarah:Breen Breen gets the most difficult interviews. Yeah. You know, he always has to deal with people he doesn't wanna deal with. I don't know how they got through the whole episode, never letting Simon pick Breen up over his head just once. Just once.
Mark:They should have. And we find out that Roxy is also a kickboxer.
Sarah:Yeah. Because, you know, she's always up to something.
Mark:We see that the brother was struck off for malpractice because apparently he's selling red herrings.
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:He's he's selling stuff he shouldn't have.
Sarah:Well, he says he swiped drugs for his mom when she while she was dying.
Mark:Wouldn't everybody do that?
Sarah:No. No. You know, they're just around and your mom's in pain, so you just, you know, grab some stuff. It's fine.
Mark:Like, would I call a doctor and make a special request to a doctor that my mom's in pain? Yes.
Sarah:And maybe they might react a bit quicker because they know you because you're a pharmacist. Possibly. I think Magdalena should be dead too.
Mark:Yeah.
Sarah:Why do you think?
Mark:Well, she's ingested a large amount of cocaine. Or whatever she's injecting. And sorry. Heroin. But also, I don't think that Sandra, who was our killer, would have cleaned that needle.
Sarah:Yeah. That's what I was thinking. These kinds of shows often have unrealistic murders. Right?
Mark:And unrealistic portrayals of actual hard crime.
Sarah:Yeah. Like, that wouldn't kill them or you couldn't do it that way. You know?
Mark:Or, like, this body's been here a week, and it looks like they just died.
Sarah:We have to suspend disbelief a lot. But Sandra is in the dark. Harold is moving. Potassium has to be injected intravenously. Yes.
Sarah:And she empties an entire syringe while hitting a vein while he's moving and doesn't leave the syringe in his arm.
Mark:No. And then escapes back out, undresses because she's dressed as the bride.
Sarah:Well, she just puts the dress and mask back on the stand that it was on already. Yeah. Goes back to Magdalena's and puts that dull ass syringe back in her case.
Mark:No. No. She she cleans it first.
Sarah:Which is why I think next time Magdalena shoots up, she's gonna get a whole bunch of potassium.
Mark:See, that would be a that would have been a good way to have a second murder and make it interesting. It would
Sarah:have been easy to dismiss because they would have said, well, Magdalena had a drug habit, obviously, but she had a heart attack. Well, heroin addicts have heart attacks. Yeah. But her potassium level was high. Dun dun dun dun dun.
Sarah:Then we could have talked about who did that body best body is. We never get to do that because they only ever have one. So let's re recap.
Mark:Harold is providing drugs to Magdalena.
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:He is molesting her daughter.
Sarah:Mhmm. He
Mark:is probably short shifting everybody, in terms of this carnival in terms of pay. Mhmm. He gives Johnny a triumph motorcycle, but keeps it in his name.
Sarah:So that he can run drugs. Abuses Daisy in exchange for a job.
Mark:Yep. And
Sarah:All while he's married to Sandra, which is why she left him.
Mark:Yeah. And she left him, but he's still so she's still so angry that she kills him, which is weird. Like, why not just leave? What's the inciting factor?
Sarah:What pushes her over the edge now?
Mark:Because it's it come Magdalena says he's still doing it.
Sarah:Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. And and Sanders just had enough. I think Sandra feels responsible for him.
Mark:I think so.
Sarah:You know, she doesn't leave because she can't stand the idea of leaving all these vulnerable people with him. Yeah. So she's not gonna go anywhere. But then she's like, he's gotta go. I Yeah.
Sarah:I can't allow this to happen anymore. Yeah. And to be fair, the way she does it shouldn't have implicated anybody else. It's not like she framed somebody and somebody else was gonna go down for it. It should have looked like natural causes.
Sarah:Yeah. Which it could have easily been. And then
Mark:Mike didn't have a nose.
Sarah:It would be fine. Well, if the fairy hadn't slapped him in the neck Yes. I don't think anybody would've would've done it would've caught it.
Mark:It's it was the snake toy. With the rubber fangs.
Sarah:Nobody's thinking that snake bit him. It's it is I know it's true, but there are no snakes in New Zealand, and that's weird to me. Yeah. Like, you can't even have a pet snake in New Zealand.
Mark:So Mike figures things out, brings everybody together, explains what happened, and they arrest the killer.
Sarah:Meanwhile, well, back twenty minutes or so, Gina, bring bring, Mike, what is your favorite song? Thank you. Bye.
Mark:Thank you. Bye.
Sarah:Then, Then apparently, she spends the rest of the episode practicing so that she can sing at the karaoke. Because this episode needs some karaoke. Please help me. I'm falling.
Mark:What is your go to karaoke song?
Sarah:I don't have one.
Mark:You don't have a go to karaoke?
Sarah:I've never sang karaoke.
Mark:You never sang oh my gosh. I don't know what we're doing tonight.
Sarah:No. We're not. We're not. What's yours?
Mark:Wanted Dead or Alive or Tainted Love.
Sarah:Those are your two choices.
Mark:I've done both. Tainted love, my friend, Clint, and I were well known for doing tainted love as a duet.
Sarah:I I think if you and I were gonna do karaoke together, we would have to do she blinded me with science.
Mark:Oh.
Sarah:And I would sing the regular things, and you could do the she blinded me
Mark:with science. The interjections. Spike interjections. Yes. There's a deep cut.
Sarah:And we would get super applause. Yes. I think so. Your poetry in motion. Oh.
Sarah:Oh.
Mark:Is there a song you would never do on karaoke? Like, that you
Sarah:The rose or wind beneath my wings.
Mark:Yeah. Those are bad.
Sarah:Stab Me in the Eyeballs. Yeah. I'm not against Bette Midler. That's not it. No.
Sarah:Those two songs make me wanna hurl.
Mark:White Snake.
Sarah:Which White Snake?
Mark:Here I Go Again.
Sarah:See, I think you could sing that sardonically if you wanted to and have fun with it.
Mark:But haven't found the guy on Instagram, the Scottish guy who does dramatic song readings Oh, he's hilarious. To find him, I'll put him in the show notes.
Sarah:He's so funny. Fantastic. He's so he's so serious.
Mark:He does live in on a prayer that it's it's like it it's like worked on the docks. It's like
Sarah:James Joyce. Down on his luck. It's tough. It's really tough. We're halfway there.
Mark:He takes a drink. Oh, he's fantastic.
Sarah:Gina worked the diner all day. You you all don't know this, but in our family, Mark is famous. Famous is and among a very small group for doing dramatic readings of song lyrics that all started with Beyonce. Yes. I slay.
Sarah:I slay all day. I slay.
Mark:It comes out.
Sarah:He read it like doctor Seuss. It was hilarious.
Mark:Doctor Seuss.
Sarah:And now he has to do dramatic readings on a regular basis to entertain us all. So that is scared to death. Next week. When do you think Johnny bought the Frodo dog? Tell us.
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:It's still a mystery to me, and I wanna know.
Mark:What is in a Frodo dog?
Sarah:Have you ever had one? Make a Frodo dog. No. What are
Mark:I don't wanna have people have poisoned themselves.
Sarah:What are your 11 herbs and spices?
Mark:Which is a total goof on fried chicken.
Sarah:Now they do have those. I think they're Japanese or Korean, like the bonito flake Yes. Corn dogs and stuff. There's some gourmet corn dogs out there, and I like a corn dog. I think they're good.
Mark:I don't like hot dogs.
Sarah:I don't care what's in it. I don't think about that. But I would not eat a Frodo dog.
Mark:Too many as a kid. Yes. Madonna could cook a mean hot dog.
Sarah:Boiled hot dog.
Mark:Boiled hot dog.
Sarah:Dog. Next next week, we get to do bride not to be.
Mark:Bride not to be. There's a a, b and b and a lot of brides and ladies in the water and bridal gowns and all sorts of things.
Sarah:You gotta love a wedding murder.
Mark:And Nikki. We gotta hopefully, we'll find out more about Nikki's backstory.
Sarah:We gotta hunt Nikki down. What happened to the money, Nikki?
Mark:Where the fuck? Show us the money, Nikki.
Sarah:Where did you put that money? Why does her shirt just say thank you thank you thank you thank you all over it with flowers?
Mark:I don't know.
Sarah:The one that she's got on in the bar just says thank you thank you thank
Mark:you thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Sarah:You're welcome. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. I got there before you.
Sarah:Well, until next week. Remember, it's better to perish here than kill all those poor beans. Yes. Bye, maniacs.
Mark:Bye, maniacs. Thanks for joining us on the Mystery Maniacs podcast. If you enjoyed our crazy podcast today, don't miss out on future episodes. Follow us on social media for updates, beyond the scenes content, and exclusive sneak peeks. Subscribe, like, and share to spread the word.
Mark:Bye, maniacs. Sarah's grandmother has not been has not been