Mystery Maniacs

🎙️ Episode: https://share.transistor.fm/s/e49e002a
📓 Show Notes: https://midsomermaniacs.transistor.fm/episodes/mystery-maniacs-cold-cases-midsomer-season-01-binge

Show Notes
This cold case covers our podcast for Season 1 of Midsomer Murders. 

Cold Cases
00:00 - Intro
03:54 - Episode 01 - "The Killing at Badger's Drift" - Giant Baskets and Bonking 
01:40:25 - Episode 02 - "Written In Blood" - Brian Clapper Sweat Soup
03:04:34 - Episode 03 - "Death of a Hollow Man" - Flushing Tape and Crowbar Bonking 
04:18:26 - Episode 04 - "Faithful Unto Death" - Rat-Arsed, Bunny's Monocle and the Shepherd's Pie
05:29:16 - Episode 05 - "Death in Disguise" - Jesus in a Puffer Coat and a Goat Tsunami

Kickstarter info
S.P.I.R.I.T. Issue 4 Kickstarter is almost live. If you've been following Mary, Ada, Jane, and Ash, this is where it all comes together. Preorder the issue, grab the trade paperback, or just peek at what we're working on. Head to kickstarter.com/projects/1214207061/spirit-1-4-mothman-needs-us to check it out. 

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.


Kickstarter - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1214207061/spirit-1-4-mothman-needs-us


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
  • July 27: A Community Note
  • July 29: Mystery Maniacs - Cold Cases - Midsomer Season 01 BINGE
  • August 3: Mystery Maniacs - Clues and Reviews 8/3/26
  • August 5: Mystery Maniacs - Cold Cases - Midsomer Season 02 BINGEer

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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, Midsomer and Mystery Maniacs.

Sarah:

It's both. Welcome to number one, Cold Case Binge. I want one of those like horns that they those air horns. This episode covers all of our podcasts that cover Midsomer Murders season one.

Mark:

This is not the episodes of the television show.

Sarah:

No. No. No. No. No.

Mark:

No. No. This is our episodes.

Sarah:

This is all the podcast episodes.

Mark:

If you're here for all the episodes, stay because you'll enjoy this.

Sarah:

From Badger's Drift all the way to Death in Disguise Yes. It's all here for you in one binge, smash cut, Uber listen.

Mark:

And we started in 2019, so the first episodes released at the July 2019. I'm always amazed listening to these old episodes. How much was there from the very beginning?

Sarah:

We were having fun from the first minute.

Mark:

Yep. Favorite Corpse and all that stuff was right there right away.

Sarah:

All that good stuff. Well, and you can't go wrong with Midsomer Season one. Yes. Because it's like, these are the episodes I have seen the most times.

Mark:

It's like banger banger banger banger banger banger. The

Sarah:

show was crazy from the get go.

Mark:

From the very beginning.

Sarah:

So it's no surprise that we were crazy from the

Mark:

get go. Absolutely.

Sarah:

I remember recording these episodes, and after we were done, my face hurt because I laughed so hard with you. Yeah. I hope that listeners laugh that hard. Yes. If you haven't listened to these podcast episodes since they released, there's gonna be some stuff you don't remember.

Sarah:

I don't even I look at the titles of our episodes, and I don't even know what we're talking about half

Mark:

the time. That that is that is my favorite part.

Sarah:

What the heck is a goat tsunami? I don't even know what we're

Mark:

talking about. Tsunami.

Sarah:

But it must have been funny at the time. So the most face hurting moment I remember from this series is episode two written in blood, Brian Clapper sweat soup. Enough said.

Mark:

Brian Mic drop. Makes reference to going to the bath in the episode.

Sarah:

But he is so gross sweaty the whole time.

Mark:

And then we took easily twenty minutes to go over British people and baths and sweat.

Sarah:

And what

Mark:

is wrong with this show?

Sarah:

Humans. So much so that I wound up making a T shirt that looks like a Campbell Soup Cam, but it says Brian Clapper Sweat Soup on It's on the merch store still.

Mark:

I know if we do a live episode, someone will bring Brian Clapper Sweat Soup. Brian Clapper Sweat Soup.

Sarah:

What is your face hurting moment from this series?

Mark:

My face hurting moment is Jesus in a puffer coat and go tsunami because I remember yelling that and you just laughing and laughing and laughing.

Sarah:

I don't even remember what Jesus in a puffer coat is a reference to. It's from death in disguise, which is the fifth episode.

Mark:

Yeah. One of the guys who looks like Jesus has a puffer coat on at one time. Oh, some background actor?

Sarah:

I think so. And and, oh, boy. Okay.

Mark:

And we even even talked about Barnaby getting high or

Sarah:

Oh, and the bunny cakes.

Mark:

The bunny cakes or the rainbirds. There's just so much here. Oh, enjoy it all.

Sarah:

What is it? Must mutton dressed as lamb? Yes. That's what they say about Alfreda? Yes.

Sarah:

Oh, there's so much, maniacs. Enjoy. Well, you have to tell the bees when somebody dies. Otherwise, they clear off. I see you've got a right constable there.

Sarah:

Just like poor Annabella. Welcome to Midsomer Maniacs, the podcast for people who are maniacs for midsummer murders. I'm Sarah. And I'm Mark. And we're maniacs for midsummer murders.

Sarah:

Well British murder in general. It's not that we don't like British people, but we like to watch them die on TV.

Mark:

Fictional murders.

Sarah:

Right. Fictional murders.

Mark:

Not actual murders.

Sarah:

That's a different show.

Mark:

That's a completely different show. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a lot of people who do that podcast, but we're not one of them.

Sarah:

And we

Mark:

like those too. Exactly. And there are great people who do great work.

Sarah:

But on TV, we like to watch fictional British people get murdered in interesting ways, and Midsomer is our favorite.

Mark:

Absolutely. Yep.

Sarah:

And has been for a long time. So our goal with this podcast is to, one episode at a time, elucidate the craziness, the awesomeness that is Midsomer Murders.

Mark:

And we will go through each episode in order all the way from the very beginning to the very present.

Sarah:

And what's it been on TV, like, thirty million years?

Mark:

It was first on television on the 03/23/1997.

Sarah:

1997. Where were you in 1997?

Mark:

In 1997, I was still living in Canada, and working for a company in Canada as a trainer.

Sarah:

I was in college. He's a little older than me.

Mark:

I'm much older than her.

Sarah:

But it's okay.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

But we simultaneously somehow found Midsomer here in The US. I think I I first found Midsomer on our local PBS station.

Mark:

And I remember the first time I see it saw it was on A and E in the afternoons on Sundays. It was like the perfect Sunday afternoon television show. Yep.

Sarah:

It's like all pretty cottages and flowers, and then somebody gets their head almost cut off, you know, like you do.

Mark:

Yes. So as mentioned, it was originally the first episode, which is The Killings and Badgers Drift Dun dun dun. Was originally broadcast the 03/23/1997 and filmed in September and October '96.

Sarah:

Now, we should probably say before we get too deep, this is full of spoilers. If you haven't seen episode one of season one of Midsomer Murders, first of all, if you haven't seen the killings at Badger's Drift, you're missing out on something really good anyway.

Mark:

And you should go watch it right now.

Sarah:

You should go watch it right now. Stop. And then And come

Mark:

then go watch it. Yes. And then come back. And then

Sarah:

come back. Because we are going to spoil the episode for you if you haven't

Mark:

seen The killer is. Yeah.

Sarah:

That's not gonna be a mystery for very long. And one of the things that makes us really excited to do this podcast is that for a long time, here in Indiana where we live, we have felt like we are the only two people in the universe who understand all the little in jokes that that we have, having watched these episodes many many times. So if you are like us, and you secretly love Midsomer Murders, we are your people.

Mark:

And I got I got to tell you, I've told a couple of people about this, and they're all like, oh, love that show. See, everybody they're listening.

Sarah:

Everybody I mentioned it to looks at me like, what? What are you talking about?

Mark:

It's a long running ITV series in England that's translated into a billion different languages including Swedish, where apparently Midsomer is huge all over the world. Hello, Swedes. Hello, Swedes.

Sarah:

So without much further ado

Mark:

Let's get into Badger's Drift. Badger's Drift, which is our shorthand for it. We don't really go into the whole thing. Though Badger's Drift does appear several times later in the series. It does.

Mark:

It is a reoccurring village. Midsomer Murders is a cozy whodunit murder show in which a detective superintendent Is that what he is?

Sarah:

No. He's a DCI.

Mark:

DCI. He's a what what is that? DCI. Chief inspector. Detective chief inspector.

Mark:

Yes. So he's and his name is Tom Barnaby.

Sarah:

Okay. These people have watched it. They

Mark:

know that. Okay.

Sarah:

Right? He Everybody loves Barnaby. He is This is Tom.

Mark:

Yes. Tom. And he has a d s, a detective sergeant named Troy.

Sarah:

Yeah. This is Troy, the original.

Mark:

And he's married, and he has a wife, and a daughter, and there's a pathologist, and that's kind of the reoccurring characters Right. In the first season. Now this was actually a pilot. It wasn't an actual first episode of a series.

Sarah:

And it's a so it's this is a pilot. Right? Yes. So on the back of Badger's Drift, twenty seasons of this show was were made. Like, this is the original that started everything else, and boy, does it set the tone.

Mark:

Absolutely. This may be the penultimate episode of

Sarah:

Penultimate means next to last. Okay. This is the quintessential. Quintessential. Yes.

Mark:

I'm sorry. It is the quintessential. Quintessential. Midsomer. Midsomer episode.

Mark:

What before we get into the exact episode, I wanna ask you what you love about Midsomer. The whole thing.

Sarah:

In general, like all of it?

Mark:

The whole thing. And we've seen everything multiple times.

Sarah:

Yeah, we've seen it. Think what's always made me love Midsomer is how Barnaby, whether it's Tom or later John, is kind of like in contrast to the craziness that is happening around him. Like he he does not become sort of broken or nut sy when all around him these cricket players, know, cookery class people, watercolor painters, whatever, are doing all kinds of horrible things to each other. He just kind of rolls his eyes and goes on. He's like a little island of sanity.

Sarah:

And he's not drunk. No.

Mark:

He's not cheating on his wife. No. He doesn't have fights with superiors.

Sarah:

No. He doesn't have any superiors as far as we know. We see, like, one time we see a superior officer.

Mark:

It's nothing like that at all. So what I love is that the show takes all these life affirming positive values. It's funny, and at the same time, it has one of the highest body counts ever.

Sarah:

Yeah. And it's sort of a parody of the British cozy, which has been a tradition for a long time. It goes all the way back to Mark Bell and Ellery Queen and all kinds of folks, know, way way way back. You know, Agatha Christie laying out what that cozy British murder looks like where it's not a serial killer. It's not some guy in a hockey mask.

Sarah:

It's like a normal person who if you saw them on the village green, you would never think had just axed somebody, you know, in their cottage.

Mark:

Plus the deaths are fantastic. But we will get

Sarah:

to that. Yeah. Yeah. Badger's Drift is such a good episode to start with because it really sets the tone. And actually, I feel sorry for anybody who watches Midsomer and didn't start with Badger's Drift.

Sarah:

You have to see it. If you see it first, it's a different experience of the whole series because it it is like a primer to everything else that's gonna happen in all the episodes.

Mark:

And I totally saw them out of order

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

The first time I saw them. So I'm not even sure when I saw this episode. But I remember thinking, that was a really good episode.

Sarah:

You got a right constable there.

Mark:

Yes. So speaking of, a little disclaimer off the top. One of the things I wanna say is that if you're listening to this podcast and you let your kids watch Midsomer Murders, they can listen to this podcast. We're not gonna go into any territory that isn't in the show. If you don't let your kids watch Midsomer Murders, then they're probably not gonna watch listen to the podcast anyway.

Mark:

They're probably gonna be watching some video of somebody playing video games. But if they are interested in the podcast If

Sarah:

they're grown enough watch the show, they're grown up enough to listen to the podcast.

Mark:

We're not

Sarah:

going to get blue or anything

Mark:

like that. Absolutely. Let's start off with this episode.

Sarah:

Badger's Drift is the best kept village for how many years? The first thing we see with the name of the village is that sign that has all the years that it's been the best kept village in Britain.

Mark:

So now, I'm totally interested in all the minutiae of this show because we've watched it all. The sign that says Midsomer's best kept village, the years are '90, '91, '93, '94, '95, and '96.

Sarah:

They're not gonna win it for '97.

Mark:

What happened in 1992? That's what I wanna know. Wanna I wanna know what happened in 1992 that they didn't win, and they're certainly not gonna win it for 1997.

Sarah:

Well, we kinda know what happened five years ago, don't we?

Mark:

Kinda. Exactly. Maybe maybe that's why they didn't win Best Kept Village. And what like, best is it like best kept secret? Best Kept Village?

Sarah:

It's neat and tidy.

Mark:

It's well, except for all the blind, apparently. That's linger. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

Mark:

We're introduced to our our first character, Emily Simpson, played by Renee Asherson. And she is awesome right away. Yeah. This is an old lady on a trike. I'm like, I'm in She's right

Sarah:

a basket, she's on a tricycle.

Mark:

It's fantastic. The doctor says hello to her, everything's going right, which he later lies about.

Sarah:

Yeah. And

Mark:

then we

Sarah:

see And she's also the first victim. Yes. So the first person we see is gonna be the first person to die.

Mark:

And all that we don't get anything before the show except for a Midsomer Murderer's plate with the words on it, and that's it. We're we don't even have credits yet.

Sarah:

No. And let me say so we do we get the show title with the black screen with the white letters that then become drenched in like watercolor blood. Right? Yes. But then, when they do the credits, they show those little quaint village watercolors that don't match that bloody title scene.

Mark:

Get to the credits. We got the whole cold open to do so.

Sarah:

Alright. So we don't have to go through every second of the show.

Mark:

No. No. No. No. No.

Mark:

No. She runs across the charlady. She meets up with Lucy who is her friend. Lucy. Lucy bell ringer.

Mark:

Bell ringer. Bell ringer. Bells. The bells. The bringing of the bells is a whole thing.

Sarah:

Bell ringers will die later.

Mark:

And they have like this nice little interaction where they're teasing each other about finding this flower.

Sarah:

It's not a flower. It's an orchid.

Mark:

She sees this old lady, who is like goddily dressed with all these bobbles on. We're not sure who this is. We find out. She takes her bike, she goes into the forest, and she finds the orchid, not a flower. The spurred coral root.

Mark:

Spurred coral root. So the idea is that she has this bat with her friend, and she has to take a picture of it with one of her pointers.

Sarah:

And they haven't found it in seven years.

Mark:

And so

Sarah:

They've been looking for this thing every year, and they've only found it once in seven years.

Mark:

If I found something that I've been looking for for seven years, I might have done a little more of a dance than she did.

Sarah:

Yeah. She's pleased. So they have these little markers. Right? They're like sharpened popsicle sticks with a colored ribbon tied around them.

Sarah:

And that's how Emily is supposed to mark the location and take a photograph. Right?

Mark:

With the oldest camera known to me.

Sarah:

It is a very old camera, but she's an old lady. Right? Okay. Okay. So because we would find out later she's what?

Sarah:

86 something

Mark:

like 86 something like that.

Sarah:

But she carries her markers in a fishing krill. Is that what they call it? I guess so. A fishing krill? It's like the basket that we fly fishing.

Sarah:

It's as big as the basket on her bike to hold three of these little markers. One, which she sticks in the ground, and two, which easily fall out when she's startled by what she sees.

Mark:

Now what does she see? Well, first of

Sarah:

all, she hears she hears the bonking. Yes. Right. As Troy would put it, the bonking. Obviously But it's not ass bandits.

Mark:

No. We'll get to ass bandits. Obviously, it's it's a male person. We don't know if it's more than one person.

Sarah:

He doesn't have any shoes on. We know that. We

Mark:

He has no shoes and we know that he is in the throes of pleasure.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

So she sneaks up and sees it and just

Sarah:

freaks out. Well, she screams, she drops her basket, she runs away. Birds are startled. No. She doesn't drop her basket.

Sarah:

She dumps the basket out accidentally, but carries the basket.

Mark:

Yes. Back to her trident. The naked feet find the pointers. Mhmm. She goes home.

Mark:

And when when she's biking home, there's some really good acting there. Yeah. Like her face is all crunched up with all sorts of things going on at once. And she's there is some really good acting there. She gets home, she doesn't lock her bike, she goes into lock her tricycle.

Mark:

She goes into Beehive Cottage, and she makes two calls. Now, you might not have noticed this, but there is a very important book right on the table, right in front of her, but we'll get to that later. Then there's a knock on the door. Right? Knock on the door.

Mark:

She's dead. We get the first killing. Right? We don't actually see anything, but we know she's dead. Right?

Mark:

And we know that there's foul play because there was a knock on the door. Yeah. Okay. So now we get the old credits. What I call the old credits Yeah.

Mark:

Which are the first season credits, and I think that's it. I think it's just the first season credits, which are these

Sarah:

light black colored They're quaint watercolor portraits of a of a nice little English village.

Mark:

Now there is a black cat in every single one

Sarah:

of them. Every single one. And I wonder if those harken back to the original book covers.

Mark:

So this series is based on a bunch of books by a woman named Caroline Graham.

Sarah:

And this one actually follows somewhat closely, not exactly, one of the books. Later, we're out of books and they start writing their own stories.

Mark:

All sorts of different stories.

Sarah:

Now while we're on the topic though of the writers, this episode was co authored by Carolyn Graham who wrote the books and Anthony Horowitz. And Anthony Horowitz is important because he wrote the whole Alex Ryder series, which is like over a dozen books. But lately, he's been writing these new Sherlock Holmes books, like the House of Silk. Mhmm. Oh, they're awesome.

Sarah:

If you like if you like mysteries, you shall

Mark:

Mystery read novels. But he also

Sarah:

writes the new James Bond books. Oh. So he's he's kind of broad in what

Mark:

he writes.

Sarah:

Absolutely. And and no like small writer to have been brought on to write this first episode.

Mark:

No. I it's I think the writing matches the story, matches the quality of the acting and the whole production really well.

Sarah:

And and I don't know if I assume it was his influence because he didn't write the original, but he sort of tamed the story down. Yeah. We've no. I haven't read the whole book. I have the book.

Sarah:

I've skimmed the book.

Mark:

Sarah brought a passage to me, and I wanna wash my eyes out after reading it. We'll get to where that is exactly.

Sarah:

If you think Badger's Drift is shocking with all of the the incest and the almost beheading and the slitting of throats and all that stuff. It's got nothing on the book. The book

Mark:

is But I will tell you, like, the first chapter of the book is almost beat for beat the exact same thing

Sarah:

It is.

Mark:

That the cold open is. Yeah. Okay. So they arrive at the scene of the crime, which we don't know is crime yet, with a bunch of cops and constables putting up tape and everything. And Troy, sergeant obvious.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah. With his mid part and his hair. And could his ties and shirts match worse?

Mark:

I I don't know who picked his pink

Sarah:

shirts and, like, pink and purple ties, and it's just bad.

Mark:

It's crazy. And he goes, this is the place, and Barnaby's first line is really I'd never have guessed.

Sarah:

Yeah. Like

Mark:

he's snarking right out of the book.

Sarah:

But Troy is being stupid. So, you know, that's the response he should get.

Mark:

So they go inside and we meet with another principal character, which is doctor Bullard. Now he's only referred to as doctor Bullard in this episode, but his first name's George. He's a reoccurring character. He was on the show for ten seasons, think. It could even be more.

Mark:

He is the quintessential Midsomer doctor until

Sarah:

Played played by Barry Jackson

Mark:

Mhmm.

Sarah:

Who, if you didn't know, played a time lord on Doctor Who.

Mark:

Oh, that's fantastic. He

Sarah:

he was Drax, a a rebel time lord for oh, he was he was on Doctor Who from '65 to '79 Oh.

Mark:

For a long time. I didn't know he was I thought he was a guest star, but he was he was a

Sarah:

He was a recurring character on Doctor Who. Wow. And not a small one. No. So here he is in his blue bunny suit.

Sarah:

Right? Checking out the body.

Mark:

I don't think he has the bunny suit at the beginning.

Sarah:

How I can't imagine him without the bunny suit.

Mark:

He's always got a shirt tie.

Sarah:

Think it's just a shirt

Mark:

and tie. The the Rainberg's killing

Sarah:

That's different.

Mark:

In the bunny suit.

Sarah:

Yeah. Okay. But he says when he sees Barnaby, and I I love this, and again, we've seen this episode so many times, but when you watch it for a purpose, when you watch it to make notes, you pick up these little things. When he sees Tom for the first time, he says, it's been a long time since I've seen you. I only ever see you when there's a corpse.

Sarah:

So we we have to assume that there hasn't been a murder in a while.

Mark:

Well, there's gonna be. There's gonna be a

Sarah:

lot for the next twenty years. There's gonna be death of plenty in in this little county.

Mark:

Right? Then and this is something if we continue this podcast like we want to, this is going to be a reoccurring theme. She does a good dead body acting right there.

Sarah:

She does.

Mark:

She does.

Sarah:

She does. And later when they show the murder, the flashback reenactment of what actually happened, has a dead body. She gets flown around a little bit too.

Mark:

She she takes it and she's she's no naked guy in a prop circle. No. We'll get to that. No. But she does a pretty good job.

Mark:

One of the best lines I like is who would like to bump an off an 80 year old spinster. I'm just like, are they in a gangster movie? All of a sudden They're bumping people. They're bumping people off. Tom, of course, thinks it's murder.

Mark:

He gets kind of giddy when he thinks there's a possibility of murder there. And they they find out that the person who found her was Lucy Bellringer, played by Rosalie Crutchley.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

And she's across the way, and they go see her. And Troy is so nasty to her.

Sarah:

He is. He's a jerk. He's he's complete jerk. She says I have to tell the bees and his eyes roll so hard you can like hear it off set.

Mark:

So the idea is that you have to tell the bees. And we love this line. I still have to tell it. I still haven't told the bees.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

That that that is a quintessential Midsomer line. Yeah. Right? That quirky village ness.

Sarah:

That kind of folksy, fairy kind of thing. You know, there are all these little traditions Yeah. That are important in these little villages.

Mark:

So then they go outside and brilliance happens.

Sarah:

Oh, boy.

Mark:

Dennis Rainbird comes up to them.

Sarah:

Right. Because he's the Undertaker, and he wants to know if he can have her body.

Mark:

So he's a young guy who's an Undertaker. First of all, he takes his card out of his pocket, and the foley on that card is like

Sarah:

Yeah. And

Mark:

he says that she's signed up for the satin service, and that he's here to

Sarah:

take the body. It's one of their premier funeral packages.

Mark:

And Barnaby says he can't take the body yet, and he says, oh, I guess you suspect some nachiness. It was her neck. He's so creepy and fun and wild and crazy, and then Troy crosses the line.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Troy insults him, basically implying that he's feminine by calling it and saying, sir. Yeah. And then he delivers the greatest line of this episode, which is?

Sarah:

You've got to write constable there, don't That

Mark:

is so brilliant. And I cannot believe they got away with that on ITV. I can't believe they get away with it still on it. And you have

Sarah:

to know, so when I first saw this episode, I didn't I didn't know who he was. You know, he wasn't as an actor, he wasn't anybody to me. And then later, my favorite doctor

Mark:

who episode He's

Sarah:

He's in blink.

Mark:

He's in blink. He comes to the door at blink. He's the solicitor Yeah. Who takes brings the character something, and he's a great part in that.

Sarah:

Yeah. So if you don't remember, Blink is the doctor who with the weeping angels you can't First move away episode. First weeping angels episode. Yeah. But he's he he like steals the scenery in this Midsomer right off the bat.

Sarah:

He's got the black bow in his hair that's like longer than his ponytail, his little collarless Nero jacket that was so cool in the late nineties. He's got a personalized Porsche.

Mark:

Yeah. It says ripped one on the back of it. Yeah. So the Porsche. The interesting thing about the Porsche is the actor had no idea how to drive the

Sarah:

Porsche. So

Mark:

he gets in the Porsche and you don't see it. They do a very good job of it. There are stage hands that push the car out as it goes.

Sarah:

Oh, that's great.

Mark:

And then you see him driving away and it shows the license plate. That is not him in the car at all. So that actor was worried, terrified of driving that car. And it ended up that they had to push it with him in it.

Sarah:

He he he just bursts on. He's great. And then, so the next folks we go to are the doctor. Right? We go to the Lessarder family.

Mark:

Quickly, Just before that, Troy again says something stupid about, well, I guess you think it's Murrah. I guess we're going to investigate this. And Barnaby again is like, no, I'm just filling time to tea.

Sarah:

Yeah. He's more sarcastic with Troy than he is with his other sergeants.

Mark:

He is. Barnaby because Troy deserves it. Barnaby goes off to see the old lady's doctor to see if she had fainting spells or Hookey. Something like that. And this is a trope in Midsomer Murders, which is the weak husband and the horrible wife.

Sarah:

The nasty, nasty wife.

Mark:

Going to see this over and over and over again. I wonder about Katherine Graham's feelings about marriage.

Sarah:

Graham. Caroline Graham. Because so it it makes sense to go to doctor Lessarder to find out if there were any kind of natural causes that might explain Emily maybe falling down the stairs and hitting her head, if that's what happened. So Barnaby's covering the bases, but this is no typical family. So doctor Lessiter, Trevor Lessiter, he's a little kind of mole man.

Sarah:

He's got real thick glasses. He's kind of nerdy. But his wife Judith, which Judith, she just likes to go shopping. And she's so nasty to him. Right off the bat.

Sarah:

In front of company, everything.

Mark:

And then the daughter just blows up everybody's alibis, and that's Jessica Hines who was in

Sarah:

Spaced and Oh, I'm sorry. I got these mixed up. His wife's name is Barbara. The daughter's name is Judith.

Mark:

Yep. Daughter's name is Judith. Yeah. That's right. Barbara.

Mark:

Not bouncing Barbara.

Sarah:

No.

Mark:

We'll get to that.

Sarah:

But Jessica yeah. Jessica Hine was in space. She's in Shaun of the Dead. She was also in two episodes of Doctor Who. Yes.

Sarah:

Like, it's amazing. Well, we often joke that there are only like 12 actors in in England anyway.

Mark:

Well, and this show proves it because we see the same actors playing different roles later on in the show.

Sarah:

Yeah. They play different parts when they come back. But like, the two main old ladies here, Emily and Lucy, they were both in Lovejoy in '93, in the same season of Lovejoy. Different episodes.

Mark:

They they are they all if if you're an actor who gets work in England Yep. Especially in eighties and nineties television, you're gonna get on Midsomer.

Sarah:

Yeah. You're gonna end up on Midsomer and probably killed on Midsomer.

Mark:

More than likely killed. So the daughter breaks up all the alibis and then stomps off. And then they go, well, it's because of the boy she's dating. I don't really understand that. Like, because you're a you have a boy that you're dating, it makes you just stomp off

Sarah:

from people's Michael Lacey could corrupt anybody.

Mark:

The killer. Well, one of the killers. We'll get there. Yes. Michael Lacey, the artist, Who who has his only scene with her necks.

Sarah:

Yeah. When he's drawing her. And he wants her eyes a little afraid.

Mark:

Yes. So sad, soft eyes with a tiny bit of fear. Okay, creep master da Vinci. I'm out of here.

Sarah:

But you know, she's living with her dad, who looks like mister Toad, and her stepmother, who's just awful incarnate in fancy clothes. Why wouldn't she want to go and hang out with the bad boy of

Mark:

the I'm thinking there might be a lot arguing in that house because the next scene is the doctor and his wife arguing, and then suddenly a blackmailer calls. Yeah. That's another thing about this episode and this show. It really hums along. Mhmm.

Mark:

You don't have a lot of waiting around. Missus Rainberg calls. That's Denny's mom that we now know, Iris Rainberg, and says she's not gonna stay quiet unless she gets five hundred pounds. And essentially, the wife gets upset and says, go away, boogie.

Sarah:

Yeah. Now if I got a phone call and reacted that way, and when you said who was it, I was like, nobody. Just go away.

Mark:

She said no one, and they

Sarah:

had a conversation. Would you just walk away? No. You'd stay there and go, wait a minute. No.

Sarah:

Who was it? But not in midsummer.

Mark:

In midsummer one, just walks away.

Sarah:

That's right. In midsummer, we just walk away. Then we get to the first Barnaby home domestic scene. Joyce. Joyce.

Sarah:

Who I actually think is the killer in every episode. I think she's making things up

Mark:

for Barnaby. A theory.

Sarah:

That's one of my theories.

Mark:

And there is a podcast about that theory. I'll put it in the show notes. But I don't think Joyce does it. But it is. But she sees so much carnage.

Sarah:

Oh, poor woman. She's she should be so traumatized by the time he retires. But this is the first reference to her horrible cooking.

Mark:

Which I did read in the book. There's a whole two page part about the beginning, in the beginning of the book about Joyce's cooking, which is horrible.

Sarah:

The woman doesn't have a job. It's one thing she could learn how to do. I mean, I know she's off joining like every club and activity in an entire county and putting her nose into any situation where somebody might want to kill somebody else right in front of her. But you'd think in all that time she would have learned how to make some food. Well, she does take cooking lessons.

Sarah:

It doesn't help her.

Mark:

She takes cooking lessons from the prostitute who becomes the actresses

Sarah:

the But that's in a later

Mark:

episode. In a later episode.

Sarah:

She becomes a coroner later.

Mark:

She becomes a coroner in Lewis. So But right

Sarah:

now, while Tom is talking about Emily's neck being broken, she's serving him neck of lamb.

Mark:

Neck of lamb with mushroom dumplings. I'm sorry. It sounds and looks disgusting.

Sarah:

And then the frozen vegetables in the covered dish.

Mark:

Yes. And so she's talking about this famous chef. I forget the name of the famous chef. And says that this famous chef has done no wrong. And part of me under his breath goes.

Mark:

That's what I always thought too. Yeah.

Sarah:

Poor Joyce. She tries.

Mark:

So then he goes she asks if it's murder, and he says, I think it is. I can feel it. And he kinda gets that giddiness again.

Sarah:

But again, if George is to be believed, there hasn't been a murder in a while. I mean, what's he doing if he doesn't have a murder?

Mark:

Exactly.

Sarah:

So it's probably a pretty boring place.

Mark:

So then he has to go out because he's Barnaby, and he can never be anywhere where he needs to be on time.

Sarah:

Not if it has to do with his family. No.

Mark:

And he has to go out to the helpline, which is one of the people that the old lady at the beginning called. So move now to the helpline, which is or should be the helpline that is clearly not about stopping smoking. No. Because everybody there. Everyone there is smoking cigarettes.

Sarah:

I love that it's just kind of a generic helpline. It's not a suicide helpline or a, you know, domestic abuse helpline. It's just the helpline.

Mark:

And everybody in the episode knows what it is.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah. Because if you live in Midsomer.

Mark:

You called the Midsomer helper.

Sarah:

This is who you call. Right? And you talk to only people who use their Christian names.

Mark:

Yes. Terry. Talks to Terry who has the worst sweater in all

Sarah:

of That's a bad sweater.

Mark:

Yeah. She says that the old lady called up and basically said these cryptic messages and that they only use Christian names here. Terry's nice, but she gets creepy later on

Sarah:

as well. Well, the whole point with her is just to know that Emily is so shocked by what she saw that she wants to talk to somebody, but she can't figure out who to talk to, so she calls the helpline and then basically talks to herself while on the phone. And then knows who to And then figures out who to call. Then she calls directory.

Mark:

Assistance to get the number of somebody in Brighton. Now, and we'll get to this at the end, but if I'm Bartleby, I'm calling that number in Brighton. Well, we

Sarah:

don't know because she didn't get the number because she got killed before she could get the number.

Mark:

Whatever. They should have called way earlier to Brighton.

Sarah:

She says I need a number in Brighton, and then there's a knock on the door.

Mark:

Then the next thing we see is Barnaby eating real food at the police canteen. He's getting bacon. He's getting sausages. He's getting beans. It's real food.

Mark:

And Troy goes, don't you get breakfast at home? And deadpan Barnaby again says, no Troy, I do not.

Sarah:

A cooked breakfast. And then

Mark:

Troy talks about the phone calls and talks about the the photographs that they got from the camera, shows it to him, and they both get up and leave.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because it's more important than his cooked breakfast.

Mark:

And he hasn't eaten a stitch of his cooked breakfast.

Sarah:

No. And this is when they go and they pick up Lucy Bellringer, and they take her into the woods to have her help them identify where the photograph was taken. Right? So where is the coral

Mark:

spur root, whatever Troy it's again is a bastard here. He's like, all these people are out looking for a flower. It's an orchid. An orchid. She is so nasty back to him.

Mark:

But then so they discover the spot of bonking. Right. And I noticed And

Sarah:

Barnaby demonstrates his very good eyesight by identifying a fragment of a blanket that is maybe a centimeter by a centimeter. It's black, and it's stuck in a weed.

Mark:

But but before that, Troy and this old lady who seconds before were fighting, Troy helps her down the

Sarah:

hill. Oh, he

Mark:

He's so nice.

Sarah:

His mother would be proud.

Mark:

He would.

Sarah:

He doesn't let her roll down that cliff on her own. No. He helps her down.

Mark:

So then Barnaby goes, I want this whole area gone over. Troy just stands up and goes, I

Sarah:

want this whole area

Mark:

Whole gone area gone over.

Sarah:

Yeah. It just reiterates the same command. But then, you know, we get one of the the moments of Troy. Right? Because they're walking back to the car after finding this clearing where clearly something went on.

Mark:

No. No. They're walking they're walking to the rainbirds.

Sarah:

That's right. They're walking to the rainbirds because they see her eerie from there. Right? And they think, oh, they may may have been able to see this. Right?

Sarah:

They might know what's going on. And Troy, in just a few lines of dialogue, manages to be so offensive. He says they she saw somebody bonking, they were at it.

Mark:

It was adultery or maybe ass bandits.

Sarah:

Yeah. And says something about maybe it was the gay undertaker.

Mark:

Right away. And then Barnaby calls him a Nazi.

Sarah:

Well, he's he says he's less politically correct than a Nuremberg rally.

Mark:

Which is a Nazi thing.

Sarah:

Did you see Troy's face when he Troy says looks confused like a puppy tip in his head like, what's that? I've been to a rally before. What are you

Mark:

talking about? So they go into the Rain Birds House and again, we are blessed with fantasticness.

Sarah:

They are so over the top. So over the top. And we've only seen a little bit of Iris at this point, but we've seen Dennis, and we know what he's like. So you can only imagine he must have one heck of a mother.

Mark:

Oh, and

Sarah:

she is a mother. And they are prepared.

Mark:

Did they know they were coming over? I did. Because they made a lot

Sarah:

of sandwiches. Well, know, Dennis, she says put put the kettle to the hob or whatever. And thirty seconds later, he rolls in with a trolley, not only with tea, but with all kinds of little finger sandwiches.

Mark:

Yeah. Finger sandwiches in the shapes

Sarah:

of Playing card.

Mark:

Playing cards. Suits. Yeah. Right? And this is like As a child, my mother did food for card parties for the Anglican church where we lived in Canada, and made these sandwiches.

Mark:

I remember these cutouts being at home, that she would make sandwiches that were different types based on The suits. The suits. So this seemed absolutely normal to me, other than the fact that they just had this whipped up.

Sarah:

But did she ever make ice sombreros? So

Mark:

you see them sitting there

Sarah:

and you're like a tier cart. Right?

Mark:

It's a two tier cart.

Sarah:

You've got a teapot, we've got cups, sugar, cream. On the top there are like three plates of sandwiches, and the playing card ones are only one plate. There are other plates. And then the And and then the lower tier is where we have the sweets. Right?

Mark:

Which which they have iced sombreros.

Sarah:

They're yellow looking cakey things that have a dome on top like a peak, and they've got like red icing on them.

Mark:

They're both confusing and racist

Sarah:

at the same time. And she offers them one. And I every time I see it No.

Mark:

Dennis offers the Yeah. The ice

Sarah:

Every time I see it, I think, why don't they take one? Because I wanna know what they are. It's like, please eat an ice sombrero.

Mark:

And they're talking about stuff. Catherine Lacey, who is Michael Lacey's sister, the killers.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

And they say that they saw her in town going to the post office, and Dennis just looks at them like he could not believe this at all, ever. And he calls Troy a constable again. Yeah. He doesn't call him a constable, a constable. And Troy is I'm a sergeant.

Mark:

And then she says, well, Barnaby's like, this was like 08:00 at night. What kind of birds were you looking out your hide to see? And she goes, owls.

Sarah:

Owls? And she's got those giant glasses.

Mark:

It's just fantastic. And she must wear,

Sarah:

I don't know, 40 pounds of jewelry all the time. She's got these like long beads on, and she's got the chain on her glasses, and rings, and a printed top, and purple opalescent eye shadow like up to her eyebrows.

Mark:

This woman is a standard character in women's institute fiction, if there

Sarah:

is such a thing. Right? So the actress's name is Elizabeth Spriggs. She died in 2008. Yes.

Sarah:

So we don't have her anymore.

Mark:

But she was fantastic.

Sarah:

But I can tell you, I know where this character really came from, if you want a little bit of trivia.

Mark:

Where did this character really come from?

Sarah:

In '87, she was in a Doctor Who that was a multi part Doctor Who. Okay? And she played one of these three women who were called ressies, and they kind of lived in this big it was like an apartment block, right, like a council block, but it was in space. They What they are. And they had been well, yeah, council blocks are always in space.

Sarah:

And they had been cut off from supplies, so they were cannibals. Okay? But these three ladies are still sitting around this table with their marigold gloves and their aprons, and they're like eating little finger sandwiches that don't really do anything for them because they're not real food because other people are the real food. But Elizabeth Spriggs in this character, she's called Tabby. She has purple eyeshadow, a printed top, her pinion on it, all these jewels and rings, necklaces, But the coup de grace is a lavender, snakeskin, iridescent headband that's got giant rhinestones all over it.

Mark:

We must see pictures of that.

Sarah:

That she wears. And she's got the same makeup and the same face.

Mark:

Do you think Graham saw that episode and created the character based or she based this characterization on this? No. I think maybe Elizabeth Spriggs brought

Sarah:

her own wardrobe. Like, maybe that's just how she dressed up. No.

Mark:

I think you probably could not tell that lady what to do.

Sarah:

Well, even when she when she comes back, right, in in o '6, in a later mid summer season as somebody else, she's not as all over the top. So maybe, you know. Maybe. She also played Bertie Wooster's aunt Agatha. Yes.

Sarah:

In Gives and Wooster. And she was fantastically overbearing Yes. In that role too. She's just super super good at being that mischievous old lady who's kind of bossy. But this is the fur but this scene, we see her and Dennis together, and we we get that first glimpse of the creepiness of their relationship.

Sarah:

Right?

Mark:

Speaking of not creepy, then we meet up with Collie.

Sarah:

Yeah. Collie, the non creepy daughter, who's at

Mark:

Oxford? Oxford. No Cambridge. Cambridge. Oh, sorry.

Mark:

Dark dark. Cambridge. Which I was like, Cully went to Oxford? Can I go into Cambridge? Yeah.

Sarah:

Because when you see her later, you're like, did she even finish college? I don't know if she can focus on one thing five minutes. Part of

Mark:

me immediately is like, where's the green hair in the tattoo? Meaning, like, he can't see them. So did she have a face tattoo or a neck tattoo or something?

Sarah:

I know. She's typical college student. She's in her first year. She's thinking about changing majors, but he's most happy to see her. Well, probably because he loves her and she's a good daughter, but she always brings some food.

Mark:

Yes. And this again, like this hammer Troy is an ass and Joyce can't cook. That's the two things that we're supposed to get from those characters.

Sarah:

Yeah. Those are consistent.

Mark:

Because Barnaby's eating dinner with Cully and Joyce with candles Yep. And the lights on. Quail. Not much meat chicken. And

Sarah:

on

Mark:

Joyce goes, well, it's quail.

Sarah:

And when and when he gets called away, Collie rolls her eyes knowing this this is what happens, and he looks relieved. And Joyce looks sad. Yep. He's like, oh, I don't have to eat this.

Mark:

And who's on the phone but Terry, again?

Sarah:

Terry.

Mark:

And Terry From the helpline. Terry is she does a great job as an actress. I I don't know the actress's name off the top of my head, but she has a thing on her face, and they they do a good job of hiding it here. And she says that remember the old lady she said, just like poor Annabella.

Sarah:

Yeah. Her name's Corey Pullman, and she was also in a doctor who. She was in four episodes in 1980 I

Mark:

didn't know we were going to talk about Doctor Who so much on our Midsomer Murders It's

Sarah:

hard not to, you know, and I could almost say that half of these actors that we've mentioned so far have either been in a Marple, a Poirot, or a Lovejoy as well. Absolutely. Which are all three awesome series too.

Mark:

Yes. Mhmm. So then we get the best Rain Bird scene ever. Ugh. It's so cringey.

Mark:

Dennis has recovered the rug or

Sarah:

whatever blanket this people call a blanket.

Mark:

That Barnaby found the piece of at the bonking site. They were trying to get rid of it. They. He says they. So we know it's more than one person.

Sarah:

And how are they getting rid of it? They had it, what, wrapped in plastic, plastic, tied around a rock, and they were gonna throw it in the pond? Apparently. What did did he go scuba diving to get it? How did he get it?

Mark:

Denny gets it out. He's a doer. Because he's a boy. He's a good boy. Oh,

Sarah:

That shit's so yucky.

Mark:

In an episode with cringe worthy relationships all over the place. We have the doctors, cringe worthy relationship. We have the cringe worthy relationship between the artist and the daughter. All sorts of other cringe worthy relationships. We have Dennis and his mother kissing on the mouth and Who's a good boy?

Mark:

Oh, it's so creepy and they do so well.

Sarah:

So so in the episode, you get this impression that he's mama's little boy, maybe to the extreme. In the book, it is not hinted at. It is clear that there is some wrong behavior between them.

Mark:

There is ear nibbling.

Sarah:

Ear licking. And baby talk. And hands under clothes.

Mark:

So

Sarah:

again, when I say I think Anthony Horowitz kind of pulled pulled the story back a little bit to make it a little more palatable, I think that's one of the things that they took out. Because, yeah, they are really cringey, but they're not as cringey as they could be.

Mark:

So then we move on to Troy's secondary trait. Troy's secondary trait is that he is the worst driver in all of England.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah. And he's been on the course

Mark:

four times? Several times. He almost kills a guy on a bike. They go out to Tie House, and the reason why they're going out to Tie House is because this woman named Bella, Annabella, see Bella, Annabella

Sarah:

But just Bella.

Mark:

Was killed five years ago, perhaps losing them the best kept village title.

Sarah:

But we also know because the rainbirds give them that clue. Right? They say you should go to Ty House because of Bella, but also because Catherine Lacey is marrying Henry. Who is? The lord of Tie House.

Mark:

The lord of Tie House. Now this is another theme in this entire episode in which Catherine Lacey and Michael Lacey are fingered as the killers constantly.

Sarah:

Guess what? They're the killers. Yeah. Everybody's like, oh, he's he's a bad seed. He's a poor influence.

Sarah:

She's money hungry money digger or whatever. And Barnaby just doesn't get it yet.

Mark:

He he doesn't get it. So we're introduced to David Whiteley in the parking lot of Tie House. David Whiteley, a reoccurring character.

Sarah:

Yeah. He'll be back. He's the caretaker. He's the caretaker

Mark:

of Tie House. And then Barbie has a suitcase, like a briefcase.

Sarah:

Yep.

Mark:

Thank God he got rid of this. They go in and they meet up with Henry Trace played by Julian Glover, who is a fantastic actor. Yes. He's been in a number of things including Empire Strikes Back and Last Crusade. He's the guy who drinks from the bad Chalice.

Mark:

Chalice in Last Crusade.

Sarah:

He's also also Maester Pycelle in Game of Thrones.

Mark:

He's also Maester Pycelle in Game of Thrones.

Sarah:

And the voice of Aragog in the Harry Potter movie. The giant spider.

Mark:

Oh, he is? Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, that's fantastic. Yeah.

Mark:

So they meet up with them

Sarah:

and And a Bond villain.

Mark:

And a Bond villain. Julian

Sarah:

Glover has so much cred. If you know all these other things that he's been in, when they first show him sitting in his giant drawing room in his wheelchair, he's you're like, oh, shit just got serious.

Mark:

It just got serious. And so another thing I noticed here, and it you go back and look at all the scenes. Troy is in the background, and they told Troy as an actor that if you're not talking, write notes in your notebook.

Sarah:

Yeah. In your tiny notebook.

Mark:

Or in your tiny notebook, and make sure you show your pinky ring. Why Troy has a pinky ring, I don't know. Well, and when

Sarah:

he's not taking notes, he's looking dismissively, rolling his eyes and signing. I mean, really nobody can say anything that he believes.

Mark:

He's not happy. So they go over Bella's death, and this woman named Phyllis Caddell is Bella's sister, and she goes shooting with the with the doctor and everybody else, and then essentially what happens is she hurts her leg, she hurts her ankle, and Michael Lacey Michael Lacey is taking her back to Ty House, and she gets shot. Now that shot where she actually where it shows her getting shot and blood erupting from her body would have been Michael Lacey would have been dead too.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because those shots, those there are lots of little pellets. Right? I mean, you see she gets like six or eight pellets in her vest.

Mark:

But Michael Lacey, who is apparently indestructible man

Sarah:

She's right next to her.

Mark:

She's right next to her and doesn't get shot at all. Yeah. So he runs back

Sarah:

But those were pretty good effects. Those were like explosive blood packs in her vest.

Mark:

Yep. There were some good effects.

Sarah:

She is wearing a big hunting vest that's fully well rigged to explode like that. But it's yeah. It's a pretty it's a pretty good pretty good shot there.

Mark:

So he he runs back. This is all told in flashback to the house. Right?

Sarah:

And calls an ambulance.

Mark:

And calls an ambulance. And then first appearance of Catherine Lacey who comes in and says that she lives at Holly Cottage now, but she'll move to the big house when she marries Lord Vader or whatever he was in in Empire. And Benjie the dog hates Troy.

Sarah:

All dogs hate Troy.

Mark:

But not cats

Sarah:

as we'll soon find Cats like him. But when so so Henry has to go see to a generator that's going to disrupt their wedding if it's placed in the wrong place. Right? So Catherine says, I'll take you up to meet Phyllis, who is Bella's sister. So so Bella is dead, but Phyllis is living in the attic apparently of her brother in law's home, And Cylis Caddell is played by Selena Caddell.

Sarah:

Right? So it's like they keep her last name. Who knows why? And she's fantastic. She is one of the best character actors in England.

Mark:

If the rainbirds were not in this episode, she would be the stand out.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Yeah. So she's eating bonbons, sitting in her apartment

Sarah:

Watching a game show.

Mark:

Watching a game show. And Catherine Lacey comes in and says, the police are here to see you.

Sarah:

And she freaks out. How much that freaked

Mark:

the f out? She drops her candy and she's like, uh-uh. She's just no idea why. She looks so guilty. Guilty

Sarah:

for who knows what, but she claims it's because she was worried that they had come about her car tax.

Mark:

What can somebody in England explain car tax to us? We understand TV tax.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah.

Mark:

TV license. We understand that. Mhmm. But car tax? Like, is that your licensing fee or something?

Mark:

I don't know.

Sarah:

And we never see her drive. Does she even have a car? I don't know. Who knows?

Mark:

Well, we'll get to the driving situation with that family even at some point.

Sarah:

But she's this super mousy, but absolutely on edge woman. And she's good at being super nervous.

Mark:

And sure her eyes, she does such good acting with her eyes.

Sarah:

Yes. Super flat hair, big long knitted vest thing. Don't know what she Over a denim shirt, over a long skirt, box of bonbons.

Mark:

I guess. It's very weird. If anyone can identify those bonbons, I'd like to know too.

Sarah:

But what we learned though is that so and and again, so I was trying to do some math here. Right? So she says that she came to the house to help Bella, her sister.

Mark:

So this is yes.

Sarah:

Seven years ago. Okay. Right?

Mark:

And then Bella died five years ago.

Sarah:

Yeah. And Bella's been dead for five years. So she was in the house for two years when Bella and Henry were were together. Right? Were alive.

Sarah:

Yeah. I think we can assume that Henry and Bella had been married prior to that. They didn't just get married. And that so the sister, so Phyllis came to help because that's when Henry had to be in the wheelchair. Yes.

Sarah:

Officially he was in the wheelchair. And I don't do they actually say that he had polio?

Mark:

Yes. Yes. He caught polio that he caught polio in, like, the eighties.

Sarah:

1989, catches polio in his wheelchair.

Mark:

No one else in England has polio.

Sarah:

Yeah. Everybody else has been vaccinated but Henry Trace who winds up in a in a wheelchair. So yeah.

Mark:

So Does she she tell the story of Bella's death here?

Sarah:

No. She doesn't. Because they've already got it from Henry downstairs. So she doesn't reiterate it there.

Mark:

So then they're leaving and snarky mixed snarkers in Troy says that she was scared shitless. Which again, I'm like, woah. Yeah.

Sarah:

This quaint little show, he's like talking about ass bandits and being scared shitless.

Mark:

And Barnaby's like, you've got away with words. Don't you reply. And Troy again looks completely perplexed. Yeah.

Sarah:

So but let's go back. Okay? When Henry is recounting how Bella died, there are some real problems Oh. With how she died that are beyond who shot her. The reason why Michael is walking with her is that she's tripped in this route.

Sarah:

Right? She's twisted her ankle.

Mark:

They're on the far side of the village. Right. So we Away from Ty House.

Sarah:

Right. So we assume that if Ty House is at midnight, the village is at the center of the clock, and they're at 06:00 in the woods. Right?

Mark:

Fair guess.

Sarah:

So she's got to like go through the village to get to get home, but she's going to walk with Michael back somewhere because she's twisted her ankle. Okay. Though. But then the camera pans. And not only is Henry on an ATV, he could easily say hop on the back and I will take you home.

Sarah:

Yeah. Maybe he can't use his legs. How does he drive the ATV

Mark:

with polio?

Sarah:

Well, all he's got to do is hold on to it with his legs.

Mark:

Right?

Sarah:

Okay. If he's in the seat, you drive with your hands.

Mark:

Well, I'm I'm glad he doesn't drive a car later.

Sarah:

Yeah. So he could take her, but also the path that Michael is walking her on has a vehicle at the end of it like a Land Rover, right there. He could easily have walked her to to the car.

Mark:

There are some problems with that, and we'll get into it when we get into Phyllis' party.

Sarah:

I just think she's surrounded by people who, you know, aren't willing to take her home. This poor woman has twisted her ankle so bad, and they're like, well, but you can walk to the village. I know that there are all these vehicles, but we couldn't possibly interrupt our shooting party to take you home. And the place, it must have smelled like cordite big time. They're like on top of each other shooting.

Sarah:

Yes. There's just gun smoke everywhere. It looks so unpleasant.

Mark:

They go to Holly Cottage to see Michael Lacey.

Sarah:

It's a mess.

Mark:

No. No. Troy walks up to the building and goes, creepy. Yeah. What is creepy about it?

Mark:

There are beautiful flowers outside.

Sarah:

Well, does have that kind of weird twisted wood thing over the door. That looks kind of strange.

Mark:

I was kind of like, why

Sarah:

is it As soon as they get inside, you think, God, what a pit. There's dirty dishes everywhere. There's like some kind of still or something sitting on the counter behind where Michael sits with his one Coke.

Mark:

His one Coke. And he gets out of the fridge. He doesn't offer anybody. I bet you Troy would want a Coke.

Sarah:

But you know, Michael's not the kind of guy who would offer somebody a dress. He's not gonna bring out ice sombreros for the cocktails.

Mark:

No. There were no ice sombreros here. And this is the first appearance of war too. That's true. They don't call them war cards, cards but they show their badges.

Mark:

Show their badges. Yeah.

Sarah:

So this cottage that they live in is on the grounds of Tye House. Right? It's just on the edge of the grounds of Tye House. And they live there because they were wards of Henry Trace. Their parents died in a car crash when they were young, and their parents worked for him, and so he put them in the cottage with a nanny, and Catherine tells us all this while she's walking up the stairs to Phyllis' apartment.

Mark:

Which is creepy that he's now marrying her.

Sarah:

Yeah. Considering we know that she was what, eight or nine when her parents died? So he's basically been her father, uncle, something or Ward is mentioned. They were wards of of him. Yeah.

Sarah:

And they were given this cottage, and it's it's it's a pit. They're not taking good care of

Mark:

it. They're not taking good care of it.

Sarah:

But that

Mark:

doesn't matter. It's because it's because for Michael Lacey, his work is his life. His art. His art. Life.

Mark:

Is his life. So then he recounts the story of Bella being shot, and this is where we get into the really bizarre situation. So he would call warp what happens, and he says that everybody was there. She tripped. She busted her ankle.

Mark:

He was taking her back to Ty House. Okay. Or the village. So going from twelve down to six. Remember her clock metaphor.

Mark:

And then she gets shot. Okay. Now Michael has says, I'm going to go get an ambulance. He's gonna run. So he runs from 12:00.

Mark:

We can only guess through the village, which apparently has no phones or ambulance service, to Thai house, which is, they say many times, the other side of the village, to get to a phone, and he picks up the phone, dials 3, which is 911 in England, and tells Catherine that Bella's been shot. What the hell is Catherine doing there, first of all? Second of

Sarah:

all But He's not he's not the fastest runner.

Mark:

He's not the fastest runner as we'll see because the world record holder for running from the top of the clock to the bottom is Bella. No. It's not Bella. Phyllis because she made it like Phyllis should be on the Olympic team. Yeah.

Mark:

She should be on the Olympic team. She's faster than Usain Bolt.

Sarah:

Because she's already she's already been up to her apartment and locked herself in to cool down.

Mark:

But we don't know this yet, but

Sarah:

the day it comes out. Right. And then lurked around when she heard Michael come in and overheard him telling Catherine, okay. So we know Phyllis is faster than she can So you could But so do they.

Mark:

So so you could say. So you could say. Well, Phyllis just left beforehand. But later on, we'll see that Phyllis did not leave beforehand. Well, but wait a minute.

Mark:

So

Sarah:

we're kinda jumping all over the place now, but they've seen the episode. They know what we're talking about. We say Phyllis is so fast. Right? Because she can run all the way from where they're shooting all the way to Ty House and beat Michael there.

Sarah:

But we see her run later when we see what Iris saw, and she's not a good She she's got the shotgun broken over her arm, and she's running like like

Mark:

a drunk kid, like a hug. And that that actress, she's wonderful, but she is not built for speed. No. She's not built for But apparently she is.

Sarah:

But if that's her fastest crazy panic run, it's not very fast.

Mark:

It's faster than Michael Lacey. That's true. That's true.

Sarah:

But not as fast as Iris Rain Bird's binoculars.

Mark:

They leave the house, they leave Holly Cottage, and Michael goes and paints angry and red, and we don't see what the picture is. No. Oh, we will. The creepiest painting of all time.

Sarah:

But we have another dinner scene first, the Barnaby household.

Mark:

The Barnaby household.

Sarah:

Cully wants to take him out to dinner.

Mark:

Cully, know, there's a trick that if your family member doesn't know how to cook, they say, well, we we should do dinner. And you always say, well, maybe we should go out.

Sarah:

Mark says this is a trick because this is his tactic whenever he comes home to Canada because his mother can't cook.

Mark:

My mother has she's cooking challenged. I love her. She's amazing.

Sarah:

But we always offer to take her out.

Mark:

Not the best cook. Always offer to take her out. And she goes, no. I have pot au

Sarah:

fue. Frozen.

Mark:

Frozen. Which We had to

Sarah:

look it up, but it's French beef stew, and it's like a joint. It's not like like a a pot roast cut up in a beef stew. No. It's like a like a joint of like oxtail or some with weird vegetables, and I cannot imagine that it's good thawed out. And it probably wasn't good when she put it in the freezer.

Sarah:

No. She made

Mark:

it. No. Then then just on to the next thing. Yeah. Right?

Mark:

Yeah. Which is Dennis going lilies and white satin white lilies and satin service. Yeah. He's he's fastidious for being a creepy ice sombrero server.

Sarah:

He's serious about the funeral business. But then we see the crew at Ty House getting in Land Rover to go to Emily's funeral. And who's driving?

Mark:

Henry. How can Henry drive? Because he has polio.

Sarah:

Yeah. His legs don't work, but he can drive. Right? But Phyllis knows her place and shoot. She'll sit in the back seat.

Mark:

Then we have the longest voice over, I bet, of the entire show. Yeah. In which Barnaby, in a conversation with Troy in the car, goes over all the suspects. And it just fills up time.

Sarah:

He recounts the play. Like we have this person and this person and this person and this person. He goes through the whole cast. Right? And they have the montage of them all standing around the grave for him to do it over.

Mark:

Including Michael Lacey flirting with his girlfriend.

Sarah:

Well, and Catherine Lacey whispering something in Henry's ear that makes them both giggle Yeah. Which is creepy and inappropriate. It's so

Mark:

weird. And then on top of all the weirdness, because Barbie and Troy are there, Bell Ringer is like, let's go get drunk.

Sarah:

But don't forget, we also have the two gravediggers.

Mark:

The worst gravediggers ever. They just throw the flowers on top of the grave.

Sarah:

If you haven't seen this episode in a while, if you've only seen it once, you probably didn't pay very close attention to these two guys that dig the grave. They're fantastic. Go and just watch that scene again because when they put her in the ground

Mark:

That this is the scene when he goes drink sherry with missus Bellringer. She says that Henry has polio. Right. And that Mary Sharp was

Sarah:

The nanny. The nanny. Who took care of the Lacey's.

Mark:

Who took care of the Lacey's. And Troy is in the background like a Bond villain.

Sarah:

Petting a cat.

Mark:

Petting a cat. At first I didn't know what he was doing with his hands.

Sarah:

Because you can't see the cat. You can just see his hand.

Mark:

And it's the cat Wellington. And

Sarah:

No. But but before we go too far into that scene, just really quick. At the cemetery, when they put the casket in the ground, you can see that Emily was born in 1913 and died in 1996. Now what we know about Emily in her younger years was that she was a teacher. Right?

Sarah:

Famously, she was Iris Rainbird's teacher. Iris Rainbird, is herself an old lady. Right? So so I did the math. So if she was born in '13, she's 83 when she died.

Sarah:

Let's assume she was 20 years old when she was teaching school. That means that Iris Rainbird can't be any older than 63.

Mark:

And does not look 63.

Sarah:

I think she looks at least 60.

Mark:

At least 60.

Sarah:

But a little bit older. Right? So I don't know. Maybe she was the youngest school teacher ever.

Mark:

Well, she taught everybody. That's the whole thing. Everybody's like, oh, she taught me in school.

Sarah:

Yeah. She How was

Mark:

long did this poor woman teach?

Sarah:

And did they have like a one room schoolhouse where she taught everybody? I guess so. Yeah.

Mark:

I guess so. Poor Emily. So now we come to the Rain Birds coup de grace. The the death of the rainbirds. They're sitting talking about how much money they're gonna get.

Sarah:

Yep. With the tea tray.

Mark:

And Dennis says he wants another marrow mayonnaise, which is

Sarah:

Because this is the tray that doesn't have ice sombreros. It has a little sailboat. Yes. Right? And Iris is eating one of the sailboat cookies.

Mark:

And it's a confection from South Of France consisting of chest nuts candied like sugar. Yeah. And Lyon, I did not know this, is famous for its chestnuts. So that is what what a marron mayonnaise is.

Sarah:

That's better than what I thought he said originally. Because I thought he said marrow lioness. And in England, a marrow is a big zucchini. Yep. And to lioness, it's like a typical it's like done with potatoes and they're kind of fried and layered.

Sarah:

So I was thinking this was like fried Savory. Fried zucchini in layers like No. No. No.

Mark:

It's it's chestnuts in in sugar.

Sarah:

Soon after that, we get the knock on the door.

Mark:

Knock on the door. And the The killer knocks. The killer is very polite. He's very polite. The number of times Yeah.

Mark:

The killers kill people, they knock on them.

Sarah:

But Iris is so interested in gloating and all the money that they're going to get from their blackmail and the yumminess of the cookie sales from her sailboat. No. No. No. No.

Sarah:

That she hardly even like notices that Dennis is walking in with his throat

Mark:

But so again, Foley, you hear

Sarah:

the knife go in. And you hear it.

Mark:

Daddy comes in, covered up his neck.

Sarah:

And she's like, what is it?

Mark:

And then he falls on the floor. Blood spurts out his collar. Yeah. I don't really understand how Catherine Lacey did surgical strikes like

Sarah:

that. Well, somebody behind him was clearly like squeezing one of those balls, right, to make it pump out. Yes. So not only did they have to push him in a car, but they had to squeeze a little bulb to make blood squirt out of his collar.

Mark:

Then we see the bloody knife, we get a little bit of killer cam.

Sarah:

We get knife cam.

Mark:

A knife cam, and then Iris Rainberg bites them bites it.

Sarah:

We see Iris getting stabbed. Right? And we see her get stabbed several times. Yes. In in silhouette.

Sarah:

Right. But like in the torso. Yes. But when her body is discovered, George

Mark:

Her

Sarah:

hands clean right off. Says that her head is barely attached. Right? So we've got this image of Catherine Lacey not only like slitting Dennis' throat and letting him fall down, but then walking over to Iris, stabbing her, and then like sawing at her neck just for fun.

Mark:

And again, in the book, this is much more disturbed.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah. In the book, Dennis isn't dead. They think he's dead because he's covered in blood laying over his mother's body. But what he's actually doing is holding her head on, and he's like catatonic.

Mark:

Not good.

Sarah:

No. No. Not good. They bring in the police. Mobile police unit.

Sarah:

Yeah. They hired a Yeah.

Mark:

They bring it in and then never mention it again or never go in it.

Sarah:

No. But that the the mobile incident unit unit signifies this is serious now. We have to be on -site to do this investigation. Right?

Mark:

This is murder. This is not some old lady who maybe fell down the stairs. This is some murder. It's full on now. They the charlady found her.

Mark:

They go inside and find all these notebooks. Years and years of notebooks Right. Where the Rain Birds are taking notes on everybody and blackmailing them. Everybody. Right.

Mark:

And they have these amazing maps on the wall, including one that is a Badger's Drift map, which I really want to see. Like, I really want that image.

Sarah:

But it's clear that Iris has been doing this for a long time. Right? And they've they've got a family business. Right? They've got the funeral home.

Sarah:

They own that funeral home. So you gotta assume Dennis runs that, and all she does is sit up there and watch people and blackmail people all day long.

Mark:

So in the end, the charlady fingers again, Catherine Lacey. Like again, it's them. Oh, I don't know

Sarah:

who it is. Because she finds their bodies. Yep. Miss Quinn is her name, I Yes. I think so.

Sarah:

Finds them. And and she's fantastic too. Like Yeah. She's got the big glasses, she's got the obnoxious clothes, she's got this headband on, she smokes like a chimney And drinks. And drinks and says of miss Rainbird like, she was odd but she was always kind to me in her way and always nice to me and Yeah.

Mark:

So back we go to Holly Cottage.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because we've now we've got

Mark:

More people saying Catherine Lee.

Sarah:

Testimony that, yeah, that somebody was there. And this is the first time we really get to see not only the cottage, but the studio and the kind of space in between. And one of the things I noticed that I can't, I don't know why. So in the kitchen, there's this big hanging string of onions. Right?

Sarah:

Like a dozen onions all hung together like you do garlic. But when they go to the studio, there's like four more of them hanging out there.

Mark:

But in the space really like onions.

Sarah:

They must really like onions.

Mark:

They they are full of incestuous onions.

Sarah:

Or they're afraid of vampires and don't understand.

Mark:

Possibly. So they're fighting. Michael and Catherine Lacey are fighting. Yeah. And they show up.

Mark:

Yeah. They're having their fake fight. I'm not Michael runs out the house and all I can think is, Dexi's Midnight Michael. Oh, yeah. Pussy's got overalls on.

Mark:

He looks like he should be in the Dexi's Midnight Runner video.

Sarah:

Yeah. And he's not gonna get her a wedding present.

Mark:

So then they take off and Troy and Barney house. And Troy and Barney are like, they love the house. Let's go in. No more. No need.

Mark:

Whatever. If it's if somebody has a problem with it, it's your problem.

Sarah:

Right. Blame Troy. Yeah.

Mark:

And they find a messy room and clean room in the nanny's room.

Sarah:

Right. And so it's clear there's three beds, but only one is

Mark:

being slept in. So then Barnaby goes back to the crime scene and picks up all the journals and then takes them home.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because that's what you do. You take the evidence home. Okay. But you put it in plastic bags.

Mark:

You do. And you read it late into the night. And

Sarah:

then Collie comes in. It's in the middle of the night. We know mom's already in bed. Joyce has long been in bed.

Mark:

Not cooking.

Sarah:

And now Collie, who's been home for several days, suddenly whips out a sandwich from Marks and Spencer.

Mark:

Yes. To give to him.

Sarah:

How long has she been holding on to that sandwich?

Mark:

I don't I don't know.

Sarah:

Like, since she got home? I don't know. Like, three days she's been holding on to that sandwich?

Mark:

I don't know.

Sarah:

It doesn't matter because it's still better than Joyce's cooking. It

Mark:

is.

Sarah:

It's Barnaby still is willing to

Mark:

eat it. And Barnaby goes, she asks him how he felt and Barnaby is like, I didn't feel anything.

Sarah:

When he so he sees all these bodies and this really bloody crime scene for the rainbirds and he Yeah.

Mark:

He says he didn't feel anything. Yeah. And then they move on to Cully's play.

Sarah:

Well, no. He it's interesting because what he says is he didn't he didn't feel anything. But then he also says when the rainbirds were killed, when he found out they'd been murdered, it's like, oh good, there were more murders, so now I have more clues. Yeah. And I can get further along in the case.

Mark:

Well he

Sarah:

loves the chase, it's clear. But it's also clear that he's kind of torn, like he doesn't want more people to die, but he also wants to solve the crime and maybe more murders will give him more clues and make him more capable of solving it.

Mark:

I can see it.

Sarah:

He's he's kind of torn by it, you know. But what I love is that neither Joyce nor Cully are at all fazed by the fact that he comes home talking about people being beheaded and bludgeoned and in puddles of their own blood and They're like, oh, want some dinner?

Mark:

Not fazed at all. On to Cully, on to her acting, and the clanger that is, I guess the last act is what really matters.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

So now we move into the last act.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's pretty telegraphed there, isn't it?

Mark:

So they find Catherine Lacey at Ty House the next day. She says, I was at the Rain Birds to drop off mushrooms because Irish Rain Bird wanted some mushrooms. So she has another gigantic bag. It's a second gigantic bag. Maybe an inch of mushrooms in it.

Sarah:

In Ty House, which is this huge estate, she and Henry are both in the kitchen, and it is the crappiest kitchen I've ever seen. There's like two cabinets, they're like one foot by two foot, they're full of mugs, the table is all chipped and gross. It is not the kitchen of an estate.

Mark:

And so they have like a three or four minute scene in there and they go, well actually we're here to arrest somebody. Yeah. And you're like, I would have led with the arrests.

Sarah:

Well, but if they had led with that, then they couldn't have had that conversation. So they go up to arrest Phyllis because Barnaby has figured out that Phyllis shot Bella.

Mark:

And she goes, I get it. I'll get my coat. Yeah.

Sarah:

She's much less nervous when they actually confront her because now she's not worried anymore. She's been caught out. Because all these years, for five years, she's been waiting for the cops to come around the corner. Right? Yeah.

Sarah:

Any minute, they're gonna come and get her. And now they finally got her, so now she's kind of resigned to it.

Mark:

They come back, they talk to Bella, and they they interrogate her. She goes, I wanna get rid of Bella. It was a crazy day. I decided to shoot Bella. Got some courage by drinking some vodka.

Mark:

She was walking along, I shot her, and then at the speed of light,

Sarah:

I ran back to the house. Yeah. In her crazy head back arms flailing run that Iris saw.

Mark:

Saw Michael Lacey call for the ambulance and then thinks she got away with it. Until Iris Rainbird calls her up like a week later and says, this is it.

Sarah:

No. They they invited her over.

Mark:

That's right.

Sarah:

She doesn't know why they've invited her They

Mark:

don't know why.

Sarah:

And then Denny rolls out the infamous tea tray and whips off a cloth and there's a shotgun laying in the middle of the top of the tray.

Mark:

And the sandwiches are different suits?

Sarah:

Yes. They are. But but it's like this is the definitive evidence that they know that she did it. A shotgun from a shooting party where everybody They should

Mark:

have had a running shotgun.

Sarah:

It's like it's no evidence at all. Everybody was probably using the same shells with similar guns. They're not personal guns. Like it really isn't evidence at all. But again, the look on the rainbird's face And their evil laugh.

Sarah:

When they they they peel back that cloth, and then they look at each other, and

Mark:

they're like, Mobbins a good boy. Know, like, you

Sarah:

could just they're just relishing it.

Mark:

They take her for 50 k.

Sarah:

Yeah. They take everything that she inherited.

Mark:

So then they interview David Whiteley, who is in the journals also with a little red star beside his name, and we find out that David Whiteley is bonking Barbara. Bonking Barbara. Right? So now we know the doctor's wife and Michael Lacey are bonking. And he also saw the old lady at the beginning and totally lies about her.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

So and he says, you know, you should look at Michael Lacey. Yeah. Again, these people are like, it's Michael and Catherine Lacey. And Barbie and Troy are like, wonder who it could be.

Sarah:

And so is this so it's it's not this scene. It's an earlier scene when they go back to the doctor and they say there was no test match. So the doctor's alibi is broken, right, for the day of the murders. Judith has already made the joke about Mrs. Whiplash, this woman that she's saying that her dad is having an affair with.

Sarah:

So he goes outside with Barnaby and Troy to talk privately with them. Like men do. About where he really was. Like men do. But then to provide his alibi, he says he was with somebody else and whips out her business card.

Mark:

With the same foley, the same sound effect as when Denny pulled out his business card.

Sarah:

I thought you were gonna say, like men do. Like men Because you know, all men have a pro stitute's business card in their wallet.

Mark:

Apparently, get the business card.

Sarah:

Yeah. Well, you know

Mark:

It'll get you out of trouble.

Sarah:

You might forget her number. Exactly. Yeah. Because Barbara's not gonna look for it. She doesn't care.

Sarah:

Right?

Mark:

Again, in the book, it is a clearly different relationship.

Sarah:

Yeah. In the book, they go to the strip club. Barnaby and Troy I would've loved that scene to be included in this episode. Can you imagine the two of them in a nasty old strip club talking to this How

Mark:

incredibly uncomfortable they were. This old dancer.

Sarah:

And in the book, I mean, she's pretty crusty.

Mark:

Hot on the Michael Lacey tip, they go back to Holly Cottage, and they find Michael Lacey who doesn't want the house to be searched.

Sarah:

His studio is very private.

Mark:

It's very private. And Troy, who Clueless up until this point goes, looks around and goes, oh, there's

Sarah:

a knife up there. No. Wait a There were flies buzzing around.

Mark:

Were flies buzzing around, so they fly into bloody knife.

Sarah:

Which apparently Michael Lacey hadn't noticed. But there's something about his studio that I'm curious about. This scene is in the middle of the day, as all the scenes at Holly Cottage are. He's in his studio, he's been working. There are candles everywhere.

Sarah:

Like in wine bottles and stuff.

Mark:

And he's in his sexy midnight runner outfit again.

Sarah:

He is. And like how does that place not burn down?

Mark:

I do not know. Because he immediately takes off.

Sarah:

Oh, yes. Runs like crazy.

Mark:

Runs he he's it's it's a show of horrible runners except for Troy. Troy catches him. No problem. Yeah. Tackles him to the ground.

Mark:

They put him in the back of the car. Barnaby gets in the back of the car with I

Sarah:

think Michael wanted to be caught. I don't think he was

Mark:

it's implied later on. Because he wanted them away from the cottage. And so he does his famous thing here of I've been framed. He draws a frame when his sister goes by the car.

Sarah:

You have to know that Mark is making the hand gesture in front of his mic as if that's gonna help. He's making the frame shape.

Mark:

So we all know what that frame looks like.

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah. With his fingers.

Mark:

Next wedding. Or is it? Or is it? So we

Sarah:

This is the only kind of weird like psychedelic scene I can remember from fever dream. Yeah. He's having a dream. But this is how the great detective's mind works. Right?

Sarah:

He has to go to sleep and then all the clues start to sift and sort and he comes up with the solution.

Mark:

So he's in a dream. We don't know. Okay? But we have a bouquet with the pointers and the orchid in it.

Sarah:

Yeah. The popsicle sticks with the ribbons around them. And it's kind of like red flowers that are kind of like spilling out too. It looks kind of bloody.

Mark:

Then we have Terry saying, oh, poor Annabella.

Sarah:

Yeah. She's whispering to Barnaby from behind him.

Mark:

Joyce has the basket, the giant basket with the mushrooms. Priest is reading Gotta

Sarah:

help us if she tries

Mark:

to cook. The priest is reading 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, which is The play.

Sarah:

The play that is in.

Mark:

Kelly's doing Yeah. Which is the book that was at the old lady's house when she makes the call in the beginning and is coincidentally about an incestuous relationship that ends in murder. With a character named Annabella. With a character named Annabella, Michael Lacey's doing his frame thing. So wait

Sarah:

a minute. Let's just make sure that people get this. So in the very beginning of the episode, Emily is on the phone, frantic, trying to figure out who to call, and on the table next to her is a paperback book that is 'Tis Pity She's a Whore. She has the play sitting there, which is why she's thinking about Annabella. But I don't know.

Sarah:

She's a school teacher. Yeah. She's very literate, of course. But what

Mark:

is the coinkydink of Cully also being in this play?

Sarah:

And she's reading a Jacobean incest tragedy?

Mark:

Apparently. For fun? That's what she does for fun.

Sarah:

Maybe she heard about the production of the play, so she wanted to read it because she was gonna go see it.

Mark:

So Michael Lacey's doing his frame thing. Yeah. I can hit my microphone while I'm doing it. Yeah. And then we have Rain Bird Zombies.

Sarah:

Yep.

Mark:

Which are fantastic.

Sarah:

They're sitting there in the crowd at the wedding and they and so her head is not cut off. That would have been awesome if she looked like her head had been cut off. She could have been carrying it under her arm. That would have

Mark:

been awesome. And daddy would be

Sarah:

Yeah. I mean, like, maybe he could carry her head around. Yeah.

Mark:

And she could go, who's a good boy?

Sarah:

But they do have, like, dark cheeks and, like, sallow eyes, and they're they're just looking forward. You know, they could have done better with that scene. If they had let me direct that scene, totally would have been carrying her head under her arm.

Mark:

So it's a dream. The phone's ringing and Joyce is waking up Tom in bed.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because it's the call.

Mark:

The call that Phyllis has committed suicide. This is this is the most troubling part of the episode for me. It's really sad, and Barnaby legitimately freaks out.

Sarah:

Yeah. He's We've been checking on her once an hour. Well, it wasn't enough.

Mark:

It wasn't So she And he goes, what a mess. And I simply said, your hair? Because part of his hair is wild.

Sarah:

He's got a bed head. But what did she hang herself with? I think she cuts

Mark:

her wrists.

Sarah:

No. Because it looks like there's something white tied around her throat.

Mark:

Bed sheet something. Her granny panties? Maybe. Her sneakers. Oh.

Mark:

Could be.

Sarah:

Never know. The laces from her. It wasn't that giant vest though because it was white. Wasn't green.

Mark:

So then Michael Lacey who's in prisons in the county clink still in his lovely white jumpsuit

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Goes, oh, I forgot to tell you my whole alibi.

Sarah:

Yeah. You didn't give me a chance, dude.

Mark:

And they were like, you should have told us yesterday. He say he says you should have asked me yesterday. Rewind. They did ask him yesterday. Because he said he was working on paintings all He

Sarah:

was so concerned with getting them out of the studio so they didn't see the canvas.

Mark:

I

Sarah:

guess. That that's all he had on his mind was getting them out of that studio.

Mark:

Dan, he says the thing that drives me insane about Michael Lacey. He says he calls Troy caped crusader.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Okay. Troy is not Batman. No. He's Robin at best. At best.

Mark:

At best. Barnaby is Batman. Why does he even say Caped Crusader? And then Troy comes back and goes, better be true.

Sarah:

Yeah. Like, yeah. I told you.

Mark:

So they go see the doctor's daughter, she confirms the alibi, and this is where the Ms. Whiplash thing happens.

Sarah:

That's right. This is where Doctor. Lessiter whips out the business card for his prostitute.

Mark:

Our list of suspects is getting shorter. It's gone from Michael Lacey and Catherine Lacey and a few other people to just Michael Lacey and Catherine Lacey at this point.

Sarah:

But they both have alibis, right? We think they do.

Mark:

Suddenly, somebody gets a brain fart and says, maybe we should go to Brighton and see this old lady that the original lady was giving a call to.

Sarah:

So they suddenly take a road trip to Brighton.

Mark:

Which again, Troy hey, Troy's a bad driver. So they meet up with Mary Sharp and she tells the story about the kids fighting. And one night she couldn't get sleep and she wakes up and she finds incestuous bonking.

Sarah:

Wow. Yeah. Well, she says they were

Mark:

And there's

Sarah:

nakedness. She says they were troubled. You know, they were troublesome and they but they faked these arguments. Like she felt that they trying to convince her that they didn't get along to cover up the fact that they got along.

Mark:

Yeah. Boy, did they get along.

Sarah:

But speaking of which, okay?

Mark:

Cowboy, cowgirl got along with little doggy.

Sarah:

At this point, I thought, for the first time I thought, okay, so they've got this cottage. They've had this cottage since they were kids, right, and moved in with the nanny and became Henry's wards. They've had this cottage the whole time. And for years and years they've lived there without their nanny, of course, as adults. And yet, they go into the woods to have sex.

Mark:

They're playing the long game, Certainly. Okay? Because they're driven insane by the incestuous bonking. That is the only explanation I have for the bonking outside and the bonking the and the driven insane. The incestuous bonking must drive them insane, must make them go, we must bonk outside.

Mark:

Or the grass.

Sarah:

Not that we could easily do it hidden in this little cottage surrounded by weeds and nowhere nobody goes but us.

Mark:

Crazy incestuous bonking. And then they have this whole plan to get money from

Sarah:

From Henry.

Mark:

From Henry.

Sarah:

So Catherine's gonna make Henry fall in love with her even though he's been her guardian for years since she was a child.

Mark:

Five years they waited. They played the long incestuous bonking game.

Sarah:

Oh, maybe they were running out of money because Michael's paintings weren't selling.

Mark:

You know? Maybe.

Sarah:

Because it's all

Mark:

he did was really good.

Sarah:

All he did was paint weird paintings of his sister naked, but

Mark:

So they take a she says, it's important that Mary Sharp says, I didn't tell anyone because I love them. And so in her out her last act of love, Mary Sharp calls Michael. And warns him. And they warns him. She calls Michael.

Mark:

Michael freaks out.

Sarah:

But it's the wedding is happening. Well, first day of the wedding.

Mark:

He gets out of his overalls and gets his mom jeans

Sarah:

on. On

Mark:

and his sneakers and he runs over to Ty House. Why was he not at Ty House already for their wedding?

Sarah:

Maybe he didn't want anything to do with the wedding. Remember, he said he wasn't gonna get her a present. Maybe. So he leaves the police station when he's released. They gotta let him go.

Sarah:

So he changes out of his white bunny suit

Mark:

Into his mom jeans.

Sarah:

And puts on his mom jeans. But he can run. He's running. Not as fast as Phyllis. But he runs all the way from Holly Cottage to the house, into the house, up to see Catherine where she's putting on her wedding dress.

Mark:

This is the first real wedding day. They figured out that he was a beater and that was why it was weird that he was walking with Belle.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because his job would have been to be a 100 yards ahead of the shooting party with a stick stirring up the quail so they would pheasant, so they would fly out of the trees. So he really shouldn't have been back with the shooting party. Not if he was doing his job.

Mark:

Meanwhile Phyllis is like the Flash.

Sarah:

Yeah. But before they can

Mark:

arrest Michael No. No. The sheep first.

Sarah:

Yeah. Well, yeah. Because the sheep slow them down.

Mark:

Why are they not taking the a one or whatever highway?

Sarah:

Because they're just in a little village.

Mark:

And they pass a rock that says Badger Strip seven miles.

Sarah:

Well, were they in Clostin before?

Mark:

And Troy says, shooting, budgeting, stabbing, and pointing and poisoning, anything goes for those two. I'm like, yeah, you forgot about the incestuous bomb king.

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah. There is that too. So they they rush back to Ty house. The wedding is about to start.

Sarah:

McCatheryn's still upstairs. Michael runs into the house. And then by the time Barnaby and Troy get there, David Whiteley is there to say he doesn't know where she is.

Mark:

And they maybe they're at Holly Cottage and Barnaby

Sarah:

says No. It's too late.

Mark:

I think we're too late. Yeah. And again, a fit of insanity brought on by the bonking apparently.

Sarah:

They go back to the very same

Mark:

spot. Go back to the bonking ground and shoot themselves. Yeah. Okay. I guess?

Mark:

So then, what does Barnaby do? Barnaby doesn't like investigate the scene or?

Sarah:

No. They're dead now. Whatever.

Mark:

Or or talk to Edward.

Sarah:

Yeah. Nothing like that. Or Henry?

Mark:

He goes Henry. He goes and finds the bell ringer lady and takes her to Holy Cottage to look at the horrible painting.

Sarah:

Yeah. I don't understand. Like, so so we know when Michael says I've been framed that he's he's sending Catherine a message to say you've got to take that canvas I'm that. That you've got to take the canvas out of the frame because if they see it, they'll know. Right?

Sarah:

Because they don't want anybody to know.

Mark:

So they find the canvas and it's Catherine Lacey naked as the day is long.

Sarah:

But kind of in a weird twisty perspective Yeah. Weirdness. I don't know. Very strange. It's very weird.

Sarah:

Then of Repeated course painting ever. Yeah. And then of course we find out that, you know, Annabella is the character in Cully's play.

Mark:

So because they go to Cully's play

Sarah:

Yeah. That ties everything up. And

Mark:

they find out that Annabella is the character in the play, not Bella. He's just quinky dink.

Sarah:

Because Colly's on stage playing Annabella Yes. Kissing her brother in the play. Right?

Mark:

And then Barney has Barney has this creepy smile.

Sarah:

Because he's put it all together.

Mark:

He's put it all together.

Sarah:

It's the satisfaction of all the ends being tied up.

Mark:

And then the episode ends.

Sarah:

Right.

Mark:

That's it. Credits, we're done.

Sarah:

So can we talk about the Lacey's motive?

Mark:

Okay. So talk about Lacey's sum up. Lacey's motive.

Sarah:

Okay. So we know that they've been having this forbidden relationship. Ancestor is bonking. The nanny has gone away. And we that they've been living in the cottage for five years.

Sarah:

Right? At some point, they must have got the idea that Catherine could seduce Henry.

Mark:

Well, no. They had that before because they killed Bella.

Sarah:

Well, yeah. So So they've had this plan again, long game. You're right. So they've had this plan for a long time. So without knowing that Phyllis was planning on killing her, which would have made their plan even better.

Sarah:

Right? Without knowing that, they so Catherine shot Bella in the woods knowing that in five years, she would try to marry him.

Mark:

Yes. Right? Five years. That's a long time.

Sarah:

Yeah. But that has nothing to do with hiding their relationship. That's just about them getting their hands on some money because Henry has polio and so he's bound to die at some point. Right?

Mark:

And they they killed the old lady at the beginning because they're seen bonking in the forest.

Sarah:

Because she's seen them, right? So if she exposes them, Catherine won't marry Henry.

Mark:

Meanwhile, the woman is in Brighton who's like, oh, I love them too much to talk about their bonking.

Sarah:

Well, think they trust her, right? Don't know because she's not said anything for all these years and she loved them and they know that, right?

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

They've already killed Bella, then they waited some time

Mark:

Five years.

Sarah:

To get Henry hooked up Yeah. With Right? Emily sees them. They can't have that happen because she might tell somebody and that would endanger their plan of getting their hands on Henry's money. Right?

Sarah:

Then the rainbirds Tried to blackmail them. Tried to blackmail them, but what did the rainbirds actually see? They saw

Mark:

They they got they saw them planting, trying to get rid of the blanket. Now I don't know why the rainbirds knew that that was the bonking blanket.

Sarah:

Or what they thought was going on with the blanket. No. Because what they really saw was somebody at Emily's door. They know that Catherine had her dog and her dog would bark, so it couldn't have been really her. It had to be somebody else.

Sarah:

So they've they've got suspicions and they know they're trying to hide evidence, but they didn't know anything definitively. But the Lacey's kill them anyway. But the late yeah. The Lacey's kill them anyway.

Mark:

Well Catherine Driven in same by the bonking. Incestuous bonking.

Sarah:

So the whole the whole idea is that they can't have anybody endangering the plan. The big plan. Which is them, I guess, living in Ty House together?

Mark:

No. So let's consider this. Say they don't kill the old lady at the beginning. The old lady at the beginning is fraught and upset.

Sarah:

Emily. Yeah.

Mark:

Now everybody believes her because they all taught she taught them all in school. Right. Right? But they could easily say, you know, she's an old lady. She doesn't know what she's talking about.

Mark:

I was doing this and he was doing this. It wasn't

Sarah:

They didn't have to.

Mark:

The first thought is kill the old lady.

Sarah:

Yeah. Well, and what would Mary Sharp have told Emily if she'd gotten through to her? Emily Mary would have said, I know it's wrong and what?

Mark:

I guess they shouldn't be doing it, but I guess she still loves.

Sarah:

Yeah. But how's Emily gonna take that story? She's gonna go, oh, well if you love them and don't think it's a problem that you can face, then I'll just forget about it. I think she would have told Bellringer. I think she would

Mark:

have Well Bellringer would have caused She

Sarah:

would have confided in Bellringer, and I think that if all if they hadn't killed the rainbirds and got caught for that, she would have been next. Yeah. They would have had to kill Lucy Bellringer.

Mark:

Well, and Bellringer says she thinks it's Catherine Lacey, and then she talks herself out of it. Yeah. Like everybody else in this episode.

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah. That is the killings of Badger's Drift. The beginning of what will become one of the longest running best British cozy murder mystery shows out there.

Mark:

Absolutely fantastic episode. We we picked it apart down to what Troy is wearing in the background. But it is still an absolutely fantastic episode.

Sarah:

And all these years later, was it thirty two years, is that right? It was ninety seven? Thirty two years later, it is still so watchable, so great, and around our house we still say things like, that's a you gotta write constable and I have to tell the bees.

Mark:

I hope you've enjoyed this. Absolutely, this was a blast for us to do. I I've had so much fun getting ready for this and really enjoyed this. The plan is to do one of these every week and the next week will be Written in Blood, which is the real first episode from the first season and has Scumbag scum. Scumbag scum.

Mark:

And if you've seen it, you know what we're talking about. Know exactly in that damn dragon book. Oh. If you like this, let us know. We have a Twitter feed at Midsomer Maniacs.

Mark:

If you

Sarah:

If you've ever tried to make iced sombreros and you have a picture, we'd love to see them.

Mark:

Ice sombrero recipes. Please send us your iced sombrero recipes.

Sarah:

And if there's a favorite moment in the killings at Badger's Drift that we didn't point out

Mark:

that Yes. Please let us know.

Sarah:

Absolutely. Favorite.

Mark:

And with that, we will see you for Written in Blood in a week's time.

Sarah:

Bye, Maniacs.

Mark:

Bye, Maniacs. I love how they managed to make it full of humor and joy and life affirming values while at the same time

Sarah:

Our dog who's normally absolutely silent is in the next room going crazy.

Mark:

Hey, Maniacs. Before we get to episode two, written in blood, Brian Clapper's sweat soup, We just wanted to say thank you for all the kind words and posts people have made, especially on the Midsomer groups on Facebook and the subreddit. You have all had some very kind words for us, and we just wanted to say thank you right off the top. Also, we are very pleased to see that we're getting listeners not only from The UK and The US, but Canada, Germany, Norway, and Australia. We are touched and blown away by your insightful comments and love.

Mark:

It's nice to know that we're not the only Maniacs out there. And now on to episode two. Enjoy.

Sarah:

Scum. Scum. Scum. Scumbags. Scumbags.

Sarah:

Scumbags. Scumbags. Scumbags. Welcome to Scum. Midsomer Maniacs.

Mark:

Hey, Maniacs.

Sarah:

The podcast for people who are maniacs about midsummer murders. I'm Sarah.

Mark:

And I'm Mark.

Sarah:

Caught in the middle of a drink.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

We're here for week two.

Mark:

Week two

Sarah:

written in blood. The the first season of Midsomer has probably some of the best characters in the in the whole series. Like how I qualified that? Probably some of maybe. When I think about all of the funny quotes that we have around our house, all of the little things from Midsomer that have stuck in our minds, it's amazing how many of them are from this first season.

Mark:

And so many things, you you look back and you're like, oh, I wonder what episode this and this and this is in, and it's all the

Sarah:

same same episode. They crammed so much in.

Mark:

So just before we begin, just a reminder that if you let your kids watch the show, they can listen to the podcast. But if they're too young for the show, they're probably too young for the podcast.

Sarah:

Pretty good rule of thumb.

Mark:

Written in Blood was filmed in July and August '97. This is almost a whole year after the pilot, which is why Troy's hair is so different.

Sarah:

It's not any better though. No. It's like it's still split down the middle, but now it curls more. Yep. Like, they told him not to get a haircut.

Mark:

And he didn't.

Sarah:

And he didn't. Then

Mark:

it was broadcast on the 03/22/1998, so basically a year after the first episode.

Sarah:

And that gets us started on what is truly a Midsomer based on a book by Carolyn Graham, of course.

Mark:

But this book in 1994. So this is not the second book in the series.

Sarah:

Oh, so they skipped over some?

Mark:

Mhmm.

Sarah:

I wonder why.

Mark:

No idea. Once again, directed by Jeremy Silberson.

Sarah:

And coauthored by Anthony Horowitz again, like the first episode, like the pilot.

Mark:

All the players are back that we know, Barnaby, Troy, Joyce, Cully, and doctor Bullard. Doctor Bullard. But we have some amazing guest stars in this episode.

Sarah:

They stand out. Right? So rather than going through the plot completely, we're gonna say, if you haven't seen this episode, as usual, pause right now, go watch it, then come back. You will be able to follow this a lot better if you've seen the episode and if you saw it when it aired originally. You're really old.

Sarah:

No. I was not I was in college at least when it aired the first time, but you should have watched it recently or if you got a good memory, you'll be fine.

Mark:

Before we get into the stars or the plot or anything, I think the stars that we need to talk about with each episode are two things. One relates to this episode, and the other doesn't relate to this episode, but will eventually. The first one is this is a different village. Right? Yes.

Mark:

So this is Midsomer worthy.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

Usually, when we cover these episodes, there will be a pub that is somehow related to the story of the episode. But first two episodes, no pubs.

Sarah:

Yeah. Later on, they fall in love with pubs. There's always some kind of aptly named pub.

Mark:

But not this time.

Sarah:

Not in Midsomer worthy. It's a place for writers circles and bingo games and fets.

Mark:

Yes. We start off with the title card like we did the last time with the sort of watery blood, and we are presented with bucolic fields of Southern Ireland in 1955 near Doro.

Sarah:

And a little boy picks up a shotgun, walks up to his dad's room. Oh, his dad is so gross. You don't even have to find out that he was sexually abusing that little boy later. You just know it because he's just so nasty.

Mark:

We also named his child Liam, which I gotta say, it's not the best name.

Sarah:

We might have listeners named Liam.

Mark:

I'm sure they we do, but it doesn't fit this character.

Sarah:

Well, he changes it.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

So it's okay. Liam shoots his dad with a shotgun and then runs away.

Mark:

Ka blamo. Like, right away. Cold opening, what cold opening? No. It's a hot opening.

Sarah:

But we don't get to see his dad dead. No. We just know that he's like, Liam, Liam. We there's no doubt about what the little boy's name is. Nope.

Sarah:

Because his dad shots it at least six times.

Mark:

And this little boy has blonde hair and Blue eyes. Blue eyes, and we'll see later on why that's important.

Sarah:

So then we cut to the village.

Mark:

Yes. Right? And there's no titles again. There's none there's none of these cute little village illustrations.

Sarah:

No. They moved away from those, which I think is good because they certainly didn't match that title card.

Mark:

I thought they were the whole first season.

Sarah:

Now they're just in the pilot.

Mark:

I thought it was the whole first season. I may be wrong. I looked on four different streaming services to see if there were those credits, and they weren't there on anything. So there. We enter the village of Midsomer Worthy, and we see a sign with the village information on it, which includes the writer circle, which we'll come back to, and their first meeting well, not their first meeting.

Mark:

Their next meeting. Meeting on the 06/14/1997. Also on this board is a sign for keep fit for the over fifties.

Sarah:

And the Gilbert and Sullivan Society.

Mark:

They're perform they are performing pirates of Penzance. There's BINGO at the Village Hall on the July 11. But so they made these four great signs, and

Sarah:

then they kinda got lazy because the last sign says jumbo sale here. No date. No nothing. Now I have to tell you guys, so we of course, we've seen the episode many times, but when we're prepping for an episode of the podcast, we we each watch it and we watch it together. And this is the kind of Midsomer Nerd that Mark is.

Sarah:

He pauses the show so he can read the flyers on the village side.

Mark:

Somebody worked very hard for those flyers.

Sarah:

Not on the last one.

Mark:

Not on the last one. But the Pirates of Penzance one in particular is

Sarah:

very well done. It has a pirate flag on it with Jolly Roger and everything.

Mark:

It's very well done. Yeah. And then And the people who created the material props for this episode worked very hard.

Sarah:

They did. So And then we get this kind of montage of the main characters. They introduce all of the writers to us.

Mark:

As they're writing. We get

Sarah:

to see them in situ as they write.

Mark:

So Gerald Hadley's cleaning lady leaves the house, and he's typing away on his old computer with the giant monitor, and he's writing a spy novel. So it's got gunplay, and there's all sorts of interesting things.

Sarah:

Okay. So speaking of gunplay, in my little research to find out interesting things, one of the things that I found out was the caliber of bullet that he claims this guy shot, the bad guy shoots at the good guy and he misses his shoulder by like two inches. I think he says it's a point three five millimeter, which is like elephant shot. Oh. Like it's so big.

Sarah:

It couldn't miss you by two inches. I think the the the bullet is like two inches across.

Mark:

That because like a police gun's a 38.

Sarah:

Yeah. But that doesn't I don't know a lot about guns, but

Mark:

And a 22 is a small shell.

Sarah:

Right. But I looked it up and it said that whatever caliber he said, it was big. I should've made a better note of it. Okay.

Mark:

So then we're introduced to our next character, which is Laura Hutton, and she's writing her romance novel.

Sarah:

She's walking down the street imagining the silk night shirts and stuff.

Mark:

And the the excitement of the kiss and all sorts of things like that. And then we are given another gift. Brian and Sue Clapper.

Sarah:

If I mean, Anoria, Lidyard is incredible. Second only to Anoria Yes. Is Brian.

Mark:

Yes. So Brian begins with his dramatic reading as he's typing. Now I've written some things. I've even taught creative writing classes. And at no point have I said, as you type, write say it, but he's writing a play, so maybe.

Mark:

Yeah. So he says the following. Scum, scum, scumbag, scumbag, Scum. The repetitive beat of the inner city drum.

Sarah:

As he drums on the table.

Mark:

As he drums on the table. And then he he finishes off with scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag, scum. And he He may as

Sarah:

well be describing himself.

Mark:

Very pleased with himself though.

Sarah:

But then Sue, Sue his wife, who's wonderful. Sue? She's writing a children's novel about a dragon named Hector. She's just so happy, and she has gigantic glasses.

Mark:

And she's made Hector like a

Sarah:

Paper mache.

Mark:

Paper mache version, and she's doing the art of the book. She is by far the greatest creator we've seen so far.

Sarah:

And she leans over his shoulder to read what's on his screen, and she's so delightful because she's like, scum. Scumbag. Scumbag scum. It's a little repetitive, isn't it?

Mark:

Which is the most critical thing she says to him the entire time.

Sarah:

He's so mean to her all the time. Now before we go on though, we should say Brian is played by David Troughton. Is that what how you would

Mark:

say his name? Yes. David Troughton, who is the son of the second Doctor. Doctor. Yeah.

Mark:

More doctor who. And he was on doctor who a whole bunch.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Probably some nepotism there. I understand. But and his sons are he has two sons that are actors and one son that's a cricket player. His son that's the actor, I think his name is Sam, that you probably know him the best for Chernobyl and the forest, and he's been in a couple of things.

Sarah:

But so so David Trouton is playing this despicable, sweaty, greasy, pedophile teacher. I mean, he's just so thoroughly gross and played by an actor who is so talented. Like, he is one of the preeminent Shakespearean actors in The UK. Absolutely.

Mark:

He's a very good actor, and I watched an interview with him about a play he's doing about home children that he saves as an as a widower in the North Of England, and he's just the most wonderful warm man you could ever imagine.

Sarah:

Which means he's just a really good actor because he grosses you out.

Mark:

He's like, I'm surrounded by such talent. They all pull me along. And, like, he's it's it's not fake sincerity. It's real sincerity. He just seems to be a very nice man who in this particular version of Midsomer, he's in others.

Mark:

He plays quite the scumbag.

Sarah:

Scum. He's he's one of, several bit parts in this episode who then return in other episodes playing different characters.

Mark:

Yes. Definitely.

Sarah:

And very different, you know, very different characters.

Mark:

So the next person we're introduced to you is Anoria.

Sarah:

Oh, Anna Massey.

Mark:

Anoria Lidyard. Lidyard. So Anna Massie is just fantastic. Every show that you could ever imagine she's been in, especially ITV shows. She

Sarah:

She's St. Louis and Morse and I mean yeah.

Mark:

She may has she been in Endeavor yet?

Sarah:

Not that I can remember. I think because she died in 2011.

Mark:

She's very few people I think only Thursday is the only one who's been in Morse, Endeavor, and Lewis.

Sarah:

Yeah. So But she's, oh, she's so great, and she's so thoroughly nasty again, but she's a different flavor of nasty.

Mark:

She is. First of all, she has a giant typewriter. Now You're a typewriter. Learn. I'm a typewriter nerd.

Mark:

My Twitter handle is typewriter. I like the typewriters. I have too many typewriters, and I was desperate for her to like, I was like, push the camera in so I could see that type no. They don't. So I don't understand something about their house.

Mark:

Okay? Later on, she says she's working in the study.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

But this is clearly a dining room. Yes. And she's at the dining room table. So does she have multiple rooms that she writes in?

Sarah:

Well, their study may have a big table in it. A lot of old houses like what is it called? Gresham Hall? Where they're at?

Mark:

Yes. They're at Gresham Hall.

Sarah:

Yeah. A lot of old houses like that had big studies that were libraries, and they had big tables in them like you would in a library.

Mark:

But this like, there's a like a place to put dining stuff in the back.

Sarah:

Like a buffet or

Mark:

something? Like a buffet. So I think I I don't know. But to say that the house is disarrayed or in disarray, you know, never mind the fact that there's a body upstairs. Oh.

Mark:

But Nora is typing one.

Sarah:

Anna Massey. Another interesting thing about her that I can I can't ever get over is that she was married to Jeremy Brett, who in my head is Sherlock Holmes? When I think of Sherlock Holmes, it's Jeremy Brett's face I see.

Mark:

He's in the long running Sherlock Holmes series that is very true to the books.

Sarah:

He's he's quintessential and, yeah, they were married for four years. Yeah. That must have been fun.

Mark:

That must have been quite a ride.

Sarah:

So we meet Anuria and then we meet

Mark:

her And she's writing a family history. Of the Lydiards. Of the Lydiards, and she lists off a bunch

Sarah:

of Lydiards.

Mark:

Reproach. A bunch of Lydiards, and including her favorite, her brother Ralph. And we meet her sister-in-law. Amy. And this is where when I was watching this the first time, and we'll get into Anoria's insanity later on.

Mark:

But this is where I noticed Ralph died. They have no children. Mhmm. Anoria isn't gonna marry anybody. No.

Mark:

And Amy is not gonna marry anybody again. No. So the Lydia name is dying with these two ladies. Yeah. It it's it's over.

Sarah:

There are no other siblings. Anoria and Ralph were it. Right? As far as we know.

Mark:

That's as far as we know. And I think that plays into her insanity later on.

Sarah:

She's playing crazy, and you can give it whatever reason you want. I don't think anything explains it, but I'm sure it contributed to it.

Mark:

So now we're moved to the writers group, which is really an amazing and beautiful inciting incident that is the biggest red herring ever. The whole writers group thing is it's not not needed, and I think it's great how they make us concentrate on the writers group.

Sarah:

Yeah. But in

Mark:

the end, it's of little value to the to the main crime. There's lots of crimes going on here.

Sarah:

But it's it's a weird mix of people. You've got somebody writing a romance, somebody writing a family history. Amy's not writing anything as far as we know except maybe some poetry that

Mark:

she She just goes.

Sarah:

Bit probably because Anoria makes her. Are you gonna tell Anoria no?

Mark:

Yep. No. No. I'm not.

Sarah:

And then you've got Brian and Sue. They're just this weird mix of people and Gerald who in a small village, I'm sure, yeah, I guess you don't have as many people to choose from about who you're gonna hang out with. And it's clearly an open writers group. Anybody's welcome to come. They've got the flyer on the sign and everything.

Sarah:

But wow. Could you get a more unlikely mix of people?

Mark:

So now I wanna get to something that really upsets me.

Sarah:

Oh. Okay? Okay.

Mark:

Brian is horrible. He's horrible to his students. He's a latch

Sarah:

He's horrible to his wife.

Mark:

Lies to his wife. He tries to get it on with teenage girls. He is problematic. K? I'm not saying he's not.

Mark:

But I have to tell you, the biggest problem I have with him is how he sits

Sarah:

Oh. In this seat.

Mark:

Yes. I just wanna scream at the television for him to sit up.

Sarah:

Well, couch is eating him.

Mark:

I just sit up.

Sarah:

Sit up. He can barely drink out of his glass of wine because he's so slunged over in that chair.

Mark:

Noria needs to get the finger out and be like,

Sarah:

sit up. Proper posture, Brian. So they're looking for a guest writer to bring.

Mark:

So and they throw out all these crazy names like Frank Max Ford Yeah. Foresight and a whole bunch of other people, and they settle on Max Jennings, and Gerald freaks out.

Sarah:

Yes. He does. He's like, no. I won't have him in my house. I mean, there's no subtlety here at all.

Sarah:

And everybody else is so dense and self self involved that they're like, well, let's just vote. I vote for him. Obviously, Gerald traumatized.

Mark:

Who's completely in love with Gerald, who's like, anything Gerald says coach. Yes. So they vote to contact him because Brian has to get home to do his marking. What exactly does he mark in his little class?

Sarah:

I don't know. All they do is shake it out and improvise.

Mark:

Sticky tape. We'll get to that.

Sarah:

One must assume that he teaches classes other than the one that we see.

Mark:

I I would assume so. We are transported.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because they write the letter

Mark:

to Max Jennings house instantaneously.

Sarah:

He's married to missus Hudson.

Mark:

And she is phenomenal.

Sarah:

Of course, she is.

Mark:

First of all, I have a question. Carolyn Graham wrote this with what's his name? What's the other guy's name?

Sarah:

Anthony Horowitz.

Mark:

Anthony Horowitz. These are known writers. Okay? Mhmm. They understand the publishing game.

Mark:

Okay? Yep. How many books has Max Jennings sold? Because he lives in, like, a 5,000,000 house.

Sarah:

Well, I think we're supposed to think that he's a best selling author, Like a a Grisham kind of author.

Mark:

But still, he only talks about one book.

Sarah:

Well, because that's his most recent. Was it Faraway Hills?

Mark:

I guess so. Yes. Faraway Hills.

Sarah:

He's married to Selena, who's played by Yuna Euna Stubbs, who is yeah. She's missus Hudson in in Sherlock. And she's an absolutely over the top, insane, jewelry wearing, swimsuit wielding, alcoholic. He says he says, isn't it a little early to be having a drink? She goes, well, I'm awake.

Sarah:

She goes,

Mark:

absolutely fantastic. He gets the invite on the Midsomer worthy writer's circle.

Sarah:

Stationary. Stationary. Written by Brian because Gerald refused.

Mark:

Which is the following says the following.

Sarah:

Oh my gosh. You looked at

Mark:

Midsomer worthy writer's circle. The bungalow. Midsomer Worthy, near Costin, Midsomer, and Gerald's name is listed as chairperson. Yep. And so now he's like, hey.

Mark:

I'm on this because I wanna talk to Gerald, and we don't know why. And Selena's guzzling tomato juice and vodka. This scene, there's a comic by x k c d. I'll put a link in it in the in the show notes, but it's created a shorthand among us that when you talk about technical details of filming like I do sometimes, because I teach some of this stuff, it's called Greenland.

Sarah:

Okay?

Mark:

The I'm so I'm gonna go Greenland here

Sarah:

will ruin an episode or a movie by talking about some tiny little filming technique that nobody else notices. That's Greenland.

Mark:

Okay. So we're in Greenland right now. Okay. This scene is so dark. The entire thing is just Well, the

Sarah:

whole episode is kinda dark.

Mark:

The whole episode is kinda dark. Then he goes, she she goes, why would you even wanna go there? And he goes, as a matter of fact, I do. And then he goes into his study.

Sarah:

And speaks to himself. Speaks to himself. As a matter of fact. I do. So

Mark:

now we're whisked away to the Barnaby's home, which looks nothing Wait. What?

Sarah:

Okay. Because we we just talked about Max Jennings, and I can't not tell you. So you look on IMDB and you look up these people's names, right? The actor's name is John Shrapnel Yep. Which is an action name if there ever was one.

Sarah:

John Shrapnel. Okay. So I thought, that can't be his real name. Who's got a cool last name like that? Lo and behold, it is his name.

Sarah:

His parents were named Shrapnel as well. The Yorkshire Shrapnels. Yeah. Yeah. But it does have an origin.

Sarah:

Okay. The reason why his family name is Shrapnel is that he has an ancestor who invented the exploding cannonball. Wow. And changed his own name to Shrapnel.

Mark:

That's fantastic.

Sarah:

Like, you invent something and then you say, you know what, I'm gonna change my name.

Mark:

He has told that story to young women at parties.

Sarah:

And they have swooned. Swooned. It just made me think like, what could I invent that I would change my last name to?

Mark:

You know, would be

Sarah:

something so lame like app. And then forever, our children and our grandchildren or great great grandchildren would be app or something. Yeah.

Mark:

Well, it kinda happened with my family sort of because I'm only tangentially related to Alexander Graham Bell. But

Sarah:

Yeah. But he his name was Bell before he invented things that included Bell's.

Mark:

But but then the company became Bell.

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah. But shrapnel. That's fantastic, isn't it?

Mark:

And that that that's guts too. That's like, I'm going to change my name.

Sarah:

Mhmm. It's like colonel Sanders becoming colonel chicken wing.

Mark:

Captain chicken wing. Yeah. Next, we're on to the Barnaby house that looks nothing like the Barnaby house did before.

Sarah:

No. And Collie shows up unexpectedly with a mute.

Mark:

No. No. Hold on. Joyce says, somebody doesn't get murdered soon, you're gonna get tetchy.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

You Get her new hair.

Sarah:

Contributes to the theory that she's the one who arranges all these killings just to keep Tom busy but and engaged.

Mark:

So Cully and Brad show up. And okay.

Sarah:

Brad's a director but doesn't speak. Okay. I think they just didn't wanna pay him.

Mark:

Clearly, Brian is a lynch and a horrible person, but Brad barges into the house before Culley, and it drives me insane.

Sarah:

So one guy has bad posture and the other one cuts in front of people.

Mark:

I cannot imagine doing that. It's just so horrible.

Sarah:

So Canadian. And they bring Kilmowski, the kitten

Mark:

Yes. Who bragged his shorts.

Sarah:

Did you notice him before? About to travel. So Joyce and Tom are gonna take care of of Kilmowski.

Mark:

Yes. The idea is that Cully will bring him some vodka.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because he's such a drinker.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

You never see that, but

Mark:

Anoria heads off to the antique shop.

Sarah:

The very dark antique shop

Mark:

thing is dark

Sarah:

Owned by Laura. It's just full of, you know, pie crust tables and

Mark:

Laura Hutton crying her eyes out.

Sarah:

Crying her

Mark:

eyes out. It's just allergies. No. Tom is allergies. Your unrequited love.

Mark:

Yeah. Get it straight.

Sarah:

Well, because, you know, she's seen the prostitute going to Gerald's house the night before. She's still upset.

Mark:

But she doesn't say that to Anoria. No. So she says she has some new newspapers from the seventies for Anoria, including the Navy News. Now the Navy News

Sarah:

Does it exist?

Mark:

It does exist. It was founded in nineteen forty four fifty four and is still going today. It's a very well respected navy newspaper. I didn't know. It's the official newspaper of the Royal Navy.

Sarah:

Well, Anuria likes it so much, she steals one.

Mark:

She just takes it.

Sarah:

And goes straight to Gerald's.

Mark:

Knock knock knock knock.

Sarah:

He's not home.

Mark:

Now Gerald's house is Pulver's Rest. And a Pulver That was Plover. Plover. Plover's Rest. A plover is a plump breasted bird of the shoreline bird finally.

Sarah:

I'm glad they're plump breasted.

Mark:

So it's like a it's like Robin's nest or something. Yeah.

Sarah:

Right? Plump breasted, kinda like Gerald Later.

Mark:

Yes. So Anuria goes over, knocks on the door, and Brian, who's getting back from annoying his students, is like, the meeting doesn't start till 07:30.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because all of a sudden, we are on the night of the writer's circle that Max Jennings is coming to. We have jumped time somehow.

Mark:

So then we switch to Brian who goes in the house and does nothing but criticize his wife.

Sarah:

Yeah. He

Mark:

wants to

Sarah:

go take a bath.

Mark:

He tries to take a bath. The dragon. He he criticize her for reading while he's out, and you should bring me some tea in my bath. Who okay. I don't know.

Sarah:

It's a Brian thing.

Mark:

We're not UK people. No. We're not. But do you rush home after a day of leching at school

Sarah:

to have a bath? You're talking to a pretty narrow audience there. Attention all lechers. Do you enjoy a bath right after work? It's just so You know, this is one of the things I've never understood about UK homes, and folks can tell us in the comments, tweet us, whatever.

Sarah:

But what is your problem with showers? Why is it always a bath?

Mark:

Well, it's because there's no water pressure in the entire country.

Sarah:

Who has time to fill a bathtub every time you need to get clean?

Mark:

Brian, apparently.

Sarah:

Maybe that's why he's so filthy and gross all the time. Brian soup. Oh. Oh. That's that may be the grossest thing you've ever said, Brian clapper

Mark:

soup. Clapper soup.

Sarah:

That's a thing now. So it's the night of the writer's circle. Max Jennings comes and

Mark:

Hold on. Gerald meets with Amy

Sarah:

and says, don't leave me alone with Max. Right. Then Max maybe delivers the and we only get the tail end, but it may be the most boring talk we've ever experienced. Like, this is an exciting writer. He writes, like, thrillers and these big sweeping novels that are so moving, and yet his advice to them about writing is that writers need stamina and luck.

Sarah:

Like

Mark:

snore And it's very practiced. It's like, Well,

Sarah:

I'm sure a writer like like he is probably gives a lot of talks like that at signings and whatever. But it's not engaging. I can't imagine sitting around, you know, surrounded by people on sofas

Mark:

and Well, certainly didn't get Brian to sit up.

Sarah:

No. No. He's still slouching.

Mark:

And then he takes out a cigarette and starts to smoke. Which

Sarah:

Anoria is gonna hate.

Mark:

Yep. So there's so much going on under the scenes in this scene.

Sarah:

It's not really under anything.

Mark:

No. It's

Sarah:

super overt and awkward. There's, like, any questions? And there's crickets and staring and shifty eyes and then oh, I have a question. No. You don't get to ask the question because Anoria is gonna say, I'm writing a history of my family, the Liturge.

Mark:

Like she totally interrupts. So there's a point later on, and we'll talk about it, where she says that person is so rude. She's rude.

Sarah:

Oh, she's rude rude. She and Brian can have a a rude rudeathon. A rude out or something. I can see

Mark:

who's rude. She's like Amy home.

Sarah:

Yeah. Well, and the the whole, like, leaving. Right? So Amy has promised that she won't leave Gerald alone with Max, and she practically shoves Max out of the house.

Mark:

She does the right thing. If Amy had succeeded, if Max had not forgotten his gloves

Sarah:

People would still die.

Mark:

People would still die, but

Sarah:

Maybe not Max.

Mark:

It would be Gerald who would be in. No. Gerald would survive. So

Sarah:

Gerald would live.

Mark:

Max would live. Yeah. Everybody would live.

Sarah:

No. Not everybody.

Mark:

Who wouldn't live?

Sarah:

Well, Gerald would still be dead because Anoria kills Gerald not because of Max, but because of the So

Mark:

Max would be alive, but not Gerald. Right. And then she would try to kill Amy like she does at the end. But that would be, like,

Sarah:

yeah. That takes away from

Mark:

Max would be saved.

Sarah:

Yeah. Well, don't forget though that we get another Brian rant at the writer's circle where he says that writing is elitist, and he's always like rapping and improvising and snapping his fingers and clapper soup.

Mark:

Like, Gerald wants everybody gone. Minori is so mean. Gerald and Max get left alone together because he comes back for his gloves.

Sarah:

His gloves in July? First. July. July 1. Yes.

Sarah:

He needs gloves.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

That is so awkward and intentional.

Mark:

And then so he comes back in, and he for a chance of a night cup cap a nightcap. And it actually turns to be that it's like they're almost tender to each other here.

Sarah:

Well, I think Max wants to apologize for what he's done.

Mark:

And I And Gerald wants kill him.

Sarah:

Gerald wants to kill him. He's like, well, if you're here, I guess I have my opportunity. Yeah. Because he really did wanna kill Max.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

And he wanted Amy to prevent that from happening. They give you this feeling that Gerald's afraid of Max, but what Gerald's actually afraid of is what he'll do to Max.

Mark:

Later, he leaves drunk. Looks drunk. Around.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Gets in his car. And how we know this is because Laura the creeper She's skulking around. I I happen to be outside of Gerald's house every night.

Sarah:

She's out. Brian's out. Like, really, everybody who lives on the square is out skulking around hiding from each other in the middle of the night.

Mark:

And Brian comes home, it's really late, and he's trying to be quiet. And then somebody goes by the car Yeah. On the other side.

Sarah:

And we don't know who it who it is that goes by. We assume it's probably Laura since she's out skulking, but we find out later it's not Laura. And then we cut to the next morning with poor missus Bundy.

Mark:

And the housekeeper arrives, and this is the first of many housekeeper findings of bodies.

Sarah:

Do you notice she didn't change clothes between the first time she cleaned his house and the second time? Nope. Which is like a month apart?

Mark:

She has one costume and that's what she has.

Sarah:

It's that green polka dotty leafy top, whatever it is.

Mark:

She notices a couple of weird

Sarah:

things. The wedding photos down.

Mark:

The light is on. She walks by the portrait on the wall, this is the first time we see the portrait, which if anybody's paying attention goes, oh, it's Liam.

Sarah:

Yeah. And then she sees his naked feet.

Mark:

And then the candlestick, and then the empty wardrobe, and then she loses it. Troy asks her,

Sarah:

well, did you go in the bedroom? Wait. Wait. Where's I going? I'm sorry.

Sarah:

I love that she screams at The

Mark:

interview itself has to be dissected. But before we get there, so the midst of Midsomer Constabulary arrive Yeah. Now they have a logo on You're such a nerd. Right? They have a logo on their car, and what animal is in the middle of that logo?

Sarah:

A badger?

Mark:

It is a badger. That is a Midsomer trivia question.

Sarah:

There you go. You you could win a prize with that one day.

Mark:

And I thought, oh, Barnaby's gonna be less snarky in in this park. No. No. As soon as they get inside, Troy's like, it's just in here. And Barnaby's like, oh, with the blood and the police photographer.

Sarah:

I wouldn't have noticed. Yeah. Yeah. And then missus Bundy freaks out.

Mark:

No. They're in his white suit and then there's people in green suits. I don't understand the white suits and the green suits. They go over the details in the movie, then they interview the cleaning lady.

Sarah:

Yeah. And she But Gerald is naked. Naked. Naked. Starkers.

Sarah:

Now, one of our favorite things to talk about, because we watch a lot of murder shows, is corpse acting. And he certainly got a break. Cause all he had to do was keep his feet still.

Mark:

His feet and his sort of one butt cheek.

Sarah:

No. It didn't even go up that high. I think it's like calf, maybe. Maybe. And they might not even be his.

Sarah:

They could be somebody else.

Mark:

They could be.

Sarah:

He might have had a foot double.

Mark:

It could possibly not even be Gerald.

Sarah:

And you can hardly see that there's blood on the carpet because the rug is so busy. Yes. I was like, is that blood or is that the pattern? It's obnoxious.

Mark:

Burnaby and Troy asked the gleaning lady what happened, and then she says that she found him. And Troy says, did she go into the bedroom? And she goes, of course, I didn't go in. But she clearly goes in.

Sarah:

Well, like a step. Just far enough to see his feet and then I think to follow the line of his feet up because she sees his head is obliterated. Yes. They can't even initially But she had to wait minute.

Mark:

You have to admit she's in the room. She crosses the threshold. Okay. I double check.

Sarah:

She's in the room, but if she didn't, she couldn't do that line.

Mark:

Yes. And it's Of course, I didn't bloody go in. She overacts all over the place here. It's all fantastic.

Sarah:

Just one of those infamous lines though. It's a Midsomer thing.

Mark:

Yep. So they establish it's not robbery and that there's no car.

Sarah:

Even though all the clothes are gone from that wardrobe that's standing empty that Troy points out to Tom in case he missed it. Of course, he didn't.

Mark:

Of course, he didn't. Yeah. Okay. It's more to make sure that the viewer didn't miss it. Next, they interview missus Clapper.

Mark:

Sue. Sue is fantastic.

Sarah:

She gives them coffee.

Mark:

First of all, she has coffee.

Sarah:

And giant glasses.

Mark:

And she gives them a whole bunch of exposition. Yeah. She included foreshadowing exposition. She says, we don't go to the really the lilyards since Ralph died because the place is like a morgue,

Sarah:

which it is. Hint. Hint.

Mark:

Hint. She gives them a ton of info, and then she totally lies for Brian and lies very badly.

Sarah:

Yeah. She says he he went to bed, he didn't get back up again, which we know he did.

Mark:

But she does solve what happened to Gerald's car.

Sarah:

Yeah. It was stolen in Costin. Like, what, a week before? Yes. Right?

Sarah:

On the infamous big breasted night.

Mark:

The big the infamous big breasted night. So off we go to Costin Comprehensive. Comprehensive, which I I tried to find a link or a description of the school somewhere, but if you know where that school is, I'd love

Sarah:

What school?

Mark:

Yeah. What it is. Schools it actually is. Troy says he went there from '83 to '90, making him a child. And then, yeah, this is another Troy bad driving incident, but this is not bad driving.

Mark:

Bad driving is being slightly upset or tense or full of anxiety while you're driving. He drives on the wrong side of the road.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's a little over the top.

Mark:

And they go and talk to the janitor for, two minutes, and then we never see the janitor again.

Sarah:

No. I don't

Mark:

know why the janitor scene is there.

Sarah:

It was just to establish that Troy went there to school and that he's remembered there.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

And then we see Brian in in his class. Is it in a gym? It's like a gym with a stage.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

Like multi year risers. He's got the risers out, and he's doing, like, shakeout exercises and voice exercises with his students. Typical drama teacher.

Mark:

Yep. Shaking it out. Yep. Pretend you have sticky tape on your fingers.

Sarah:

Yep.

Mark:

He's sweating profusely.

Sarah:

We have to talk about the laugh.

Mark:

Well, we'll get to the laugh.

Sarah:

Because he's already done it, but it's when he uses it in combination of reference to Edie that it gets really creepy. Before that, he's sweating,

Mark:

and then he says, you have to reach out and reveal.

Sarah:

And then he says, get in a and get into a dramatic pose. And Edie, who The young blonde student, short skirt, midriff, all that good stuff.

Mark:

I have to say the kids in this scene and all the kids scenes, they act very much like actual teenagers in class.

Sarah:

You'd know because you teach high school.

Mark:

I teach high school, not like Brian. And they the way they talk, their cadence, their

Sarah:

The way they taunt him.

Mark:

Taunt him and stuff is very much like actual high school students. They did a very good job there. He, oh, he also has his t shirt tucked into his sweatpants.

Sarah:

Yeah. Why is he wearing sweatpants?

Mark:

I But

Sarah:

he he already has a sweat stain when they start the scene. Right? Like mid boob sweat stain.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

But when he tells them to get into a pose, Edie throws her leg up around the waist of one of the male students and he kinda swoons, and Brian turns around and he's like Yep. Brian claps Nice soup. Nice pose, Edie.

Mark:

It is so creepy. But then then, I gotta tell you, he does a little bit of decent teaching.

Sarah:

Yeah. He does. He does. With a coup de tietra. Coup de tietra.

Sarah:

He clearly knows what he's talking about. It's his execution that's so gross. Right?

Mark:

And they all get into character, and Edie kinda taunts him again, and he loses his guard, and then it's just chaos. Yeah. And then that's the moment when the the woman from the office

Sarah:

The principal secretary, whatever.

Mark:

Yeah. Shows up and say that the cops are here. And he does some good acting there.

Sarah:

Yeah. Right? And He tries to kinda play it off like he would in front of your students. You don't want them to be alarmed.

Mark:

When they tell him Gerald's dead, he actually reacts like a person who did not kill Gerald.

Sarah:

Yeah. I think so too.

Mark:

But then he says the weirdest thing. He says well, Troy asks him something. I forget exactly what. And he goes, my yay is my yay, and my nay is my nay.

Sarah:

Because he's answered the question already, and they're asking him again.

Mark:

And he turns to say inspector to Barnaby, like, I'm done talking to you.

Sarah:

And my yay is my yay, and my neigh is my neigh is a reference to Matthew five thirty seven.

Mark:

Oh, it's a biblical reference.

Sarah:

Yeah. From the King James version. He's well read. He is. He knows French theater terms like.

Sarah:

He knows his bible.

Mark:

But he seemingly doesn't care about his wife or anything but his own sort of

Sarah:

Gross lutchiness. Yes. And his rapping and improvising.

Mark:

Yes. So his wife sends a message, but it's too late that the cops are coming.

Sarah:

Yeah. She doesn't she he doesn't know whether she's lied for him or not and given him an alibi, but then we go to Gresham House and we get to see Anuria in her home environment. And she is a little bit prickly. She is they walk up and she thinks they're soliciting something or other and she's like, can't you read my sign? No hawkers, no circulars.

Sarah:

Now the sign is maybe what five inches by five inches. It's like a gray with gray lettering on it and her giant bob haircut is is blocking it anyway. I don't know how they could have ever seen this tiny sign on this big house.

Mark:

She says, go away or I'll call the police. Barnaby's like, we are the police, and they go inside and talk. She says, I didn't know Gerald. No one knows Gerald.

Sarah:

Amy says, we I made us cocoa. We had cocoa and went to bed.

Mark:

She is nasty to Amy immediately. Like, she treats Amy like a servant even though it's her sister-in-law. And I have a question. It it later comes out that Amy has no money. Mhmm.

Mark:

I don't understand why Amy has no money. So she married Ralph, who was the older brother of Anoria. Mhmm. So he would have the bulk of the estate.

Sarah:

Do you think he would have inherited everything and she'd have the money and Honoria would be mooched off of her?

Mark:

And they have a place in Spain Mhmm. Which is where he dies.

Sarah:

Well, they were trying to make a life in Spain, she says.

Mark:

Houses in Spain don't come cheap.

Sarah:

Well, you don't know. They could have been in a shock in Spain. Do you know for sure that Anuria is younger than Ralph?

Mark:

It wouldn't have mattered. It's the male heir.

Sarah:

Well, that's not always true in every family.

Mark:

I would think I would think that even if he did die, he would have left some money to aim to Amy. He's pretty young. He's both.

Sarah:

He died. She's been living there for a while.

Mark:

I guess. So then she says to Troy that oh, she just gets up.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah. She's just done.

Mark:

I'm done. Burnaby's like, you gotta stay around and answer some more questions. And she says this is her pitch. Yeah. So she says the Litiards are part of the very warp and woof of England.

Mark:

They are beyond reproach. And leaves. And leaves. And Troy goes the warp and what? And she goes, woof.

Mark:

And leaves. How they film that without laughing? I do not know because Anna Massey chews up that whole scene.

Sarah:

She does. She's so good.

Mark:

She just must have been crazy. Amy says it's all her fault. She was supposed to keep them apart from each other.

Sarah:

She promised.

Mark:

She promised. The the the main suspect now is Max, and Max is nowhere to be seen. Anoria watches Barnaby and Troy leave from the window of a of a locked room Mhmm. That we will investigate later. Next comes the last, and I think the better scene with Selena Jennings.

Mark:

They go to see Max's wife, and they do the best interview of a drunk housewife ever because

Sarah:

She has an entire bar sitting next to her

Mark:

on that cart. Booze cart. It's on wheels. Yep. Right?

Mark:

She says Max is big in Denmark. Mhmm. K? She slurs her words so well. Like, knows what drunk people sound like and introduces.

Mark:

Bouncing Barbara. Bouncing Barbara kneel. And when she says kneel, she kinda looks on the ground like, oh, she

Sarah:

kneels. But then Troy does the handling melons every time he says bouncing Barbara, he's his hands out in front of him.

Mark:

Right in the middle of the interview, she basically says, I don't know what this has to do with me. She gets up, takes off her wrap, and dives in the pool. Yeah.

Sarah:

In her jewels. In her jewels.

Mark:

Barnaby and Troy head back to town. They need to stop and buy a book. Barnaby says stop here, and Troy doesn't pull into a parking spot or up on the curb.

Sarah:

No. Or even slow down and put on his blinkers. He just slams to a halt.

Mark:

Slams to a halt. Guy goes around him, you idiot. And they go they will go buy the book that Max Jennings wrote at the bookstore.

Sarah:

So Joyce can read it?

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Because Barnaby's not gonna read it.

Mark:

No. Barnaby's not there. Not going to read it. Read it, and we go back to a candlelit dinner at the Barnaby's. They eat on with candlelight a lot.

Sarah:

Where Tom comes down with cooties.

Mark:

Is this a normal thing in England? I don't

Sarah:

know. Eating? Well, Culley's there. No. Culley's not Culley's in Poland.

Sarah:

Maybe they're for the cat. Maybe. But this is the first time that Barnaby's got the crazy cootie itch thing going on.

Mark:

But so there's a great Barnaby characters thing here where he says there was no photos of the woman, Gerald's wife, anywhere in the house. Just the one photo. And Joyce is like, well, how many photos do you have of me? And he goes, I have two in my wallet. And you just

Sarah:

Aw. He's

Mark:

just the nicest man in the world. Where's the cat? They go off to bed. I'm not ever gonna let the cat sleep in the bed. And then there we go.

Mark:

Joyce is reading the book and the cat's in the bed.

Sarah:

You know what's funny about the cat is that Kali says it's part Russian blue. We also have a cat who's part Russian blue. Her name's Telly. But Russian Blues are known for being kind of hypoallergenic in terms of cats. Yes.

Sarah:

Like if you have some allergies to cats, that's what they suggest you get if you don't get one of those crazy ugly hairless cats, those Sphinx cats. Russian Blues are second best. So it's funny that Kilmowski gives him a rash.

Mark:

He's allergic. So we return to Sandalwood Cottage, which is the clappers.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

And we see a lot of Brian skin.

Sarah:

It's just I don't wanna see Brian skin. I don't wanna think about Brian soup. I'm gonna give you

Mark:

some marriage advice to all the people listening. If the person you're married to is going out after you're in bed and not telling you where, this is a bad thing.

Sarah:

Yeah. Maybe she's just happy to see him go.

Mark:

She's like, where were you? And he was like, I was out. And so he he mentions he asks about Barnaby here, and he calls him Dixon of Doc Green.

Sarah:

Yeah. So what's that a reference

Mark:

to? It's a reference to a a television show in England in the fifties to the seventies. It lasted a long time about a constable in London who was named Dixon. He's a constable who kind of solves all the crimes and Mhmm. You know, his superiors aren't exactly sure what's going on.

Mark:

This is what I got from reading.

Sarah:

Because doesn't he say Dixon adopt Green and his fascist sidekick or something like Yeah.

Mark:

So that's what happens and that's what Dixon and Doc Green is. Brian goes out again. We never actually find out where Brian is going.

Sarah:

Not those two times. Not the night of the murder or that night. He's going out for a walk. Walk. Walk.

Sarah:

Walk. It sounds like a wank,

Mark:

but No. He actually says wank later on. Yeah. Next day, police canteen. Gerald's missing car has been found.

Mark:

Max Jennings is

Sarah:

Missing.

Mark:

Missing still. Let's go talk to bouncing Barbara. Right?

Sarah:

So you have do the hand gesture.

Mark:

The hand gesture. And they go to talk to Barbara Neal

Sarah:

who Is young and beautiful and clearly sort of terrified and bad at lying.

Mark:

But I'm glad they didn't do, like, she's got a low cut top on.

Sarah:

She's not a vivacious person.

Mark:

Yeah. She says Max was afraid of Gerald. So now we're like, wait a minute.

Sarah:

Gerald's afraid of Max. He doesn't wanna be left alone with Max. No. Wait a minute. Max is afraid of Gerald.

Sarah:

And then Troy says, maybe they were afraid of each other. Yep. In his wisdom.

Mark:

Troy asked if Laura and Gerald were banging each other, to which Barnaby's like, you have such a picturesque turn of phrase.

Sarah:

Well, this is the second episode in her own. He said banging.

Mark:

Yes. No. He's bonking. Sorry. This is banging.

Sarah:

I'm sorry.

Mark:

They moved on to the more nineties term of banging or bonking. And then part of me says, I'll drive. Yeah. Next, we're talking to Laura Hutton, who gives up Anoria right away.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah. Right? That she stole the newspaper from June seventy eight.

Mark:

And says she wasn't banging Gerald. She passes the house in the middle of the night.

Sarah:

Because she couldn't sleep.

Mark:

She's a bad sleeper.

Sarah:

It's what you do.

Mark:

She's a creeper. She's not a bad sleeper. She's a stalker. Okay.

Sarah:

I mean, who if I can't sleep, the last thing I'm gonna do is get dressed and go outside and walk around.

Mark:

To my boyfriend's house.

Sarah:

To look in his window.

Mark:

Multiple nights. She sees a woman get out of a cab, goes up to the door, has a key to the door, goes in.

Sarah:

Clearly a prostitute. You could tell by the way she walked.

Mark:

Clearly a prostitute.

Sarah:

Because they have that walk.

Mark:

They have that walk.

Sarah:

Even though it's a giant prostitute. Like a six two prostitute.

Mark:

It's Gerald in high heels, and he has to bend down to go in the door. And then she goes, and this is a weird bit of writing, she goes, I was aroused. Well, not aroused. I'm like Alert or something

Sarah:

like that. Curious.

Mark:

Why was that even in there?

Sarah:

She didn't wanna sound like she was I don't interested.

Mark:

And then she goes, no. I was not angry.

Sarah:

In the most angry tone that she can, she says she wasn't angry.

Mark:

She goes, a matter of fact, I saw Max Jennings leave drunk. The light went up went out upstairs, and then she saw Brian Clapper. This is the next night. And she goes, I don't wanna be seen outside of Gerald's house in the middle of the night. Then don't go there.

Sarah:

People might misunderstand it. Because you're a creeper.

Mark:

They go to interview Brian Clapper, and he gives up the name of the play. That's the best piece of information he gives up.

Sarah:

This is another, like it's a it's a Brian gem.

Mark:

Slang Wang for five mute voices. It's only a working title. Just a working title.

Sarah:

Slang Wang.

Mark:

I guess. Yeah. No. It's slang Wang.

Sarah:

Slang Wang?

Mark:

That's what I thought

Sarah:

it was. That's what I thought it was too. Okay.

Mark:

What is a slang Wang?

Sarah:

I I looked it up. I couldn't find any references to slang Wang except the guy on Facebook who has a very unfortunate name.

Mark:

So this is where when he says Troy says, where were you? He goes, I went for a wank. I mean, walk.

Sarah:

Yeah. So they guess that he's off looking in Edie's window or something.

Mark:

Brian has another class. Edie talks to him after class and gets all creepy.

Sarah:

Yeah. She wants she needs to talk to him.

Mark:

As she

Sarah:

But then he puts his arm around her and touches her bare skin, and it's just like

Mark:

Not touching students.

Sarah:

Ledge alert. Ledge alert.

Mark:

Back to the Barnaby House. Joyce loves the book. It's about a young Irish boy. He can connects to the beginning of the episode. Right.

Mark:

There's sexual abuse. He runs away, and he's painted in historical dress, which leads us to the painting.

Sarah:

By an artist who's rescued him. But then the phone rings to interrupt Joyce's reading to say that Max Jennings is dead. Yes. And has been for about two days.

Mark:

They go to find Max Jennings in the cottage by the sea and they find Bullard. Barnaby calls him out and says, what are you doing here? And George is like, well, it's my case and I fancy today by the sea. Well, because you

Sarah:

it's it's one of those, you know, kind of tropes of a of a show like this that you just wonder, like, are these the only two detectives in the entire country? I mean, I know that the county is big, but there's gotta be other detectives in the county other than Tom, but apparently not.

Mark:

Some very good dead body acting here.

Sarah:

Very good. Though he breathes. He does. He keeps his eyes super still. He does.

Sarah:

Does. He

Mark:

does some good dead body acting. He's a professional.

Sarah:

Yeah. Shrapnel.

Mark:

They go over the case again Yeah. As as they're driving.

Sarah:

Barnaby does that mid game wrap up like he did in in Badger's Drift.

Mark:

I'm glad they've stopped that.

Sarah:

Yeah. It seems too early too to be like, oh, here are all the players. One of them is the killer. Exactly. But they go back and see Barbara and they confront her.

Sarah:

They take her to the station and confront her and she admits that Max was waiting at the cottage for her.

Mark:

Maxie.

Sarah:

Yeah. Maxie. He wasn't going to Denmark after all. That was just a lie for Selena. And that Barbara was supposed to meet him at the cottage so they could have some time alone together because they've been having an affair, but when she got there, he was dead, and so she left.

Sarah:

She ran away instead of reporting the body.

Mark:

Yes. He threatens her with obstruction, and next, we're moving on to Gerald Hadley, Solicitor, which is the fantastic character, James Joycelyn.

Sarah:

Well, but between those two, So Barnaby's got this rash, right, that's getting worse and worse. And he's always so calm, but when they're leaving, it's just the itch is too much for it. And all of a sudden, he kinda like bends over on the path and yells, goddamn it. What's wrong with me?

Mark:

Wait until he has some of the marijuana. Oh, the brownies. The brownies.

Sarah:

Yeah. In a later episode. That's funny. So Yeah. They go and see Jocelyn, the lawyer.

Sarah:

Now I have to say, okay, he's an awesome actor, and he is the only recurring character who appears in three episodes playing the same character who isn't part of the cast, the main cast.

Mark:

He plays the same character?

Sarah:

He does. He plays the same lawyer in Written in Blood Yeah. Right, which is in '98, and then in Death's Shadow in '99, and in Orcus Fatalis in 2005. Oh. And he's all the same lawyer.

Sarah:

He's the lawyer of cost in so. Yeah. I have to tell you this. I was very excited to find this out. So Timothy Bateson, the guy who plays Jocelyn, the awesome eccentric lawyer, he was the voice of the worm in the labyrinth, the little one with the little blue scarf Okay.

Sarah:

That says, come in, meet the missus.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

Does the voice of that, and he also does the voice of the guards in the labyrinth, where Sarah's in front of the two doors and the the they're kinda like playing cards almost Yeah. With heads top and bottom. Yeah. One of us always tells the truth and one of us always lies, and they give her the riddle. Yep.

Sarah:

He does the voice for them too. Oh. Labyrinth was one of my favorite movies as a kid.

Mark:

As it should be. So we find out that Gerald's stinking rich. Yeah. He's got like £2,500,000 in cash. He's got a bunch of paintings.

Sarah:

He's richer than that. Okay? Jocelyn says that we know he's got an apartment in London, and Joyce has already told us that this apartment looks over at the Albert Hall. Right? We get that reference from the book.

Sarah:

So Jocelyn says that he's got this, like, 2,500,000 that he's getting for scholarships. That's like the bulk of his estate. Right? So I went on the old inner tubes and tried to find an apartment that was as close to Albert Hall as that apartment later is Yes. Revealed to 5,500,000.

Mark:

£5,500,000.

Sarah:

In 1998.

Mark:

In 1998. Yeah. So Gerald had some bling.

Sarah:

He had some money and apparently got undercut for this apartment because it was worth about twice as much as they estimated it to be.

Mark:

I would have thought he would have got some better lady clothes then.

Sarah:

Yeah. You think that butterscotch colored dress and bad wig.

Mark:

He needed better.

Sarah:

There's no accounting for taste.

Mark:

I guess, though.

Sarah:

He might have had a lot of money and no taste.

Mark:

So he leaves the painting for Lauren, and then he leaves Amy a £100,000. Booyah. Booyah.

Sarah:

She can get away from Menorrhoea.

Mark:

So we're off to Gresham Hall to tell Amy she can get away.

Sarah:

Yeah. Oh my gosh. She's so happy.

Mark:

She's gonna be rescued from Inoria even though Inoria nursed Ralph back to health. We don't we don't know what happened to She

Sarah:

didn't successfully nurse him back to health. She took care of him until he died. No.

Mark:

And we learned that Onoria was in the study, not in bed. Right. Like she said

Sarah:

On the night that Gerald died.

Mark:

She says that she hates it here, and then they call Onoria out on stealing the newspaper. Onoria very carefully shows him the paper which has The HMS Lester. The HMS Lester on it Roush boat. Only shows that to him.

Sarah:

And, you know, Tom is good. Tom is smart, and he's observant. And why he doesn't notice that she so carefully and deliberately folds it over and then hands it to him in a way that suggests thou shalt not unfold this paper.

Mark:

Well, does. He gets in his brain. He just, you know

Sarah:

But he doesn't realize until later. Allergies.

Mark:

Yeah. He's not thinking straight.

Sarah:

The coot cat cooties,

Mark:

I guess. He's got the cat cooties. Yeah. So then they leave and Anoria's insanity is really shown here.

Sarah:

She takes over cutting the vegetables for dinner.

Mark:

The the the vegetables.

Sarah:

Whatever that thing is.

Mark:

What what was it? Daikon radish.

Sarah:

That's the closest thing we guessed it is that she's cutting, but she starts talking about blood Blood and bone.

Mark:

Blood and bone.

Sarah:

Okay. Because Amy is cutting vegetables for dinner, lets Anoria take over, and then when crazy Anoria has a gigantic knife in her hand, that's the time Amy decides to tell her, I've just inherited a lot of money and I'm leaving.

Mark:

By the way, I'm out of here.

Sarah:

Yeah. No. Like No.

Mark:

Like, you're not the boss of

Sarah:

me. And and we see the psycho light in her eyes for the first time. Absolutely. Blood and bone. Bone and blood.

Mark:

Barnaby and Troy find the cabbie that drove Gerald home. But we don't

Sarah:

know it's Gerald. She was an ugly woman.

Mark:

But she had awesome legs.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

She had lots of makeup. At this point, the penny drops for Barnaby and he figures it out.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because they know where the car was stolen from and it just happened to be near a certain club.

Mark:

But Troy does not understand what's going on. He's like, so this woman went to his house and stole all his clothes? Why would she do that? So they go Oh,

Sarah:

because they haven't been able to figure out why Gerald didn't report his car missing as soon as it was stolen and why he reported it later. And now we understand why he didn't report it right away because he was in drag and didn't wanna call the police while he was in drag.

Mark:

Exactly. So they go to the gay nightclub. First of all, the moment they step in the gay nightclub, the theme of Midsomer is being played in a sultry saxophone.

Sarah:

Which is awesome.

Mark:

There's HIV and AIDS flyers, clear condom information, and statues of bare chested men. Okay? Then the barman, that's how he's referred to

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

In the credits, shows up and says, we're not open. Clearly, transvestite. We're not open. It should have been,

Sarah:

as you said,

Mark:

it should Eddy's have been Eddy's ert.

Sarah:

Yeah. He would have been great in that little bit parts.

Mark:

We're transported to the Barnaby's bedroom, and Tom thinks that Troy may have had a seizure.

Sarah:

Yeah. Did they ever tell us what the name of the club was?

Mark:

Name of the

Sarah:

club is not given That's an opportunity, miss. Yep. It must have been great.

Mark:

Brian Clapper's boob sweat. I don't know what it's called.

Sarah:

So But we get we go back to Joyce and Tom going to bed, where's the cat? Well, the cat's in his bed. Kilmowski is trying to kill Barnaby Yes. With the the allergy.

Mark:

He's absolutely trying to kill Barnaby. Brian so this is where it gets crazy.

Sarah:

Let's cover it fast because it grosses It's me

Mark:

so gross. Brian goes to the estate to see Edie in her house, which is a total setup.

Sarah:

She's mixing him drinks. She's got a short leather skirt on.

Mark:

It's a total honey trap. They take a bunch of pictures of him.

Sarah:

Who takes the pictures? Who is that man outside the window? It's not one of the students. It's a grown man.

Mark:

And then a package arrives the next morning with the pictures in it, and he realizes he's in trouble here.

Sarah:

And Sue's talking to him about all kinds of other things, and he suddenly says, you shall shut up. He's just so mean to her. Well, he's freaking out.

Mark:

He is. Bullard reports back that Jennings died from the wine.

Sarah:

The wine which had thallium sulfate in it.

Mark:

Yes. Right? So and the wine that he drank at Gerald's house.

Sarah:

Yes. Because okay. So thallium sulfate, if you don't know, it used to be used for rat poisoning, but in The US, we banned it in 1975, and The UK did about the same time because, quote, it's indiscriminate killing.

Mark:

Oh, nerdy.

Sarah:

It's flavorless. It's tasteless. It's colorless. It quickly dissolves, and it has this nice delayed effect.

Mark:

And we see Gerald keeps it in his cupboard with his spices.

Sarah:

Yeah. So it would have been outlawed in The UK twenty years before.

Mark:

Well, you know, as a gender bender, maybe he needed it. Gender bender. Yeah. As Troy says.

Sarah:

As Troy says. The other thing though that so I was kinda nervous even looking up thallium sulfate like

Mark:

And the death of your spouse.

Sarah:

Yeah. Like how many how many mysteries have we watched where somebody's Google history has been used against them?

Mark:

Well she can Not drinking wine. Right? She's conveniently looking things up

Sarah:

the night before. But the the thing about thallium sulfate that's interesting is that so it only takes about an eighth of a teaspoon to make somebody sick and about a quarter of a teaspoon to kill them, so it doesn't take a whole lot. But the way that thallium sulfate, it kind of became sort of the the cyanide of its time in terms of fiction. Mhmm. It became super super popular as a way to kill people because it was colorless, tasteless, odorless, and for a while wasn't really detectable because of the symptoms being so delayed, and then they look like a lot of other things when they start, so it's like stomach upset, neurological problems, headaches, you throw up.

Sarah:

Stumbling. Yeah, stumbling.

Mark:

Bonking, all that Barbara. Kind of

Sarah:

And it actually was used to kill a few people in real life, and a lot of people point their finger and blame Agatha Christie for that. Oh. Because in do you remember The Pale Horse? Yep. Which is the book that Christie wrote in '61

Mark:

The one with the witches.

Sarah:

The witches. Exactly. They're using thallium sulfate to poison people because it looks like witchcraft. Because all of a sudden these people come down with these mysterious ailments and it's delayed.

Mark:

And I bet you they can cure them instantly.

Sarah:

There is, I can't remember what it is now, but there's a chemical that you can give somebody if you know for a fact that they've been poisoned with any kind of thallium salt, there is a, an agent you can give them that kind of nullifies the impact pretty quickly because it takes it up like potassium in your body. That's how thallium tricks your body.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

But after Christy published that book, was of course hugely popular and it was everywhere, there was this big increase in thallium poisoning.

Mark:

Oh.

Sarah:

And everybody said it was her fault. Nio Marsh put it in a book before her, but it wasn't as It wasn't big selling. Yeah. So we can blame Agatha Christie for Gerald. Maybe he was an Agatha Christie fan.

Sarah:

Maybe. Yeah. He was a writer.

Mark:

He was.

Sarah:

Maybe he had the the thallium as a a fan thing. You know, because you do. Agatha Christie official thallium sulfate. Poisoning kit. Yes.

Mark:

Yeah. Brian heads off to school, and it's not good.

Sarah:

No. That that's that whole scene is

Mark:

They demand $5 because he's a middle class dude. I don't I don't

Sarah:

They pretend the honey trap was part of their coup d'etat dress.

Mark:

They have his boxing film. So the pictures only show him topless, but he must have. And so this is where it gets into problematic terms because what did Edie do with him?

Sarah:

Okay? Enough that he was naked.

Mark:

Enough that he was naked, and that's a long way to go for a joke.

Sarah:

Yeah. Or even blackmail that she'll then have to share with everybody else.

Mark:

And he yells at them, calls them scum. He loses it. And they say we're gonna have to go to plan b, and they post the pictures

Sarah:

To the same sign that we see in the opening scene.

Mark:

And Brian does his weird laugh, and that is the last we see of mister Brian Clapper. And, you know, he's horrible. He gets his just desserts. But what happens now? Like, I hope Sue publishes her dragon book and goes on to be a bestseller

Sarah:

And leaves his ass.

Mark:

Leaves his ass and finds a person of indeterminate gender who loves her.

Sarah:

Yeah. And Hector.

Mark:

Yes. So we head off to Albert Hall and park right out front. Yeah.

Sarah:

So again, I did some research here. Where they park their car, yeah, that's not a place where you can drive at all. No. No. You really can't drive up to the Albert Hall at all except on one side where they like load things.

Mark:

But they're driving all over the place.

Sarah:

Oh yeah. They pull right up on that little bridge with the stairs. Because it's an emergency Emergency.

Mark:

To get into this empty apartment. Yeah. So they go in. Barnaby's like, go this way. Go that way.

Mark:

They're trying to figure out what happens. They realize that it's from the book and that Barnaby's putting this all together. And then the the show kinda shows its age in two ways here. The first way, Barnaby says he's a transvestite or a transsexual, whatever the term is. Those are all very different things Mhmm.

Mark:

Than homosexual. Yeah. And and whatever Gerald was, it's Gerald's choice, and we respect that choice. But transsexual and transvestite are not the same thing. No.

Mark:

And they are not the same thing as homosexual.

Sarah:

But they also don't have Gerald to ask.

Mark:

They don't have Gerald to ask. And and I just was like, oh, Tom, you almost did it. Yep. And they figure out that Max Jennings essentially stole his life story.

Sarah:

Because he so Max was a psychiatrist before he became a writer, and it's clear that he based this book that's currently a bestseller on Gerald's life that he only knows about because Gerald saw him as a psychiatrist.

Mark:

So then And it's

Sarah:

just such a breach of confidentiality.

Mark:

Yeah. Troy says I'd kill him if he did it. And then a constable shows up with more drag and they go, what a surprise. Now Troy loosens up a little bit because he tries to drag on.

Sarah:

Well, doesn't try it on. He holds it up to him.

Mark:

He holds it up to him. So at least he's he's he's helping. And they find the navy news. The exact

Sarah:

The same.

Mark:

Navy news.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

And with a badly photoshopped picture, we see Gerald and Ralph. Yeah. Dun dun dun.

Sarah:

Suddenly the connection is made. So one thing that confused me in the apartment, and we're nitpicking, that's what we do, we look we're maniacs, so we watch really really closely. Right? They they say that these these portraits that were done of Gerald by this artist who sort of rescued him are really really valuable. Right?

Sarah:

So Gerald has one, the portrait that we've seen over and over again, it's clearly Liam.

Mark:

And gives to Lauren.

Sarah:

Laura. Yeah. He bequeaths it to her. But there are, like, four more in the apartment. Yep.

Sarah:

So how many did this painter paint if he had enough to sell that were worth so much money and yet still five of these portraits

Mark:

Gerald had the bling. He had a lot of money.

Sarah:

I'm just wondering, like, as an artist, how much of a career can you have if you only ever paint one person in different costumes and you keep five

Mark:

of them? I don't know. And where does the artist go? That is a huge dad. But how does he die?

Mark:

And, like, I I wondered what happened with the artist.

Sarah:

In his Rococo apartment.

Mark:

So one of the things they say as they're going into the apartment is it's storming or there's a storm coming. Yeah. Because we're now back at Castle Frankenstein.

Sarah:

In Gresham Hall. Yeah. We gotta go confront Anoria.

Mark:

First of all, earlier in the episode, Troy asked Barnaby if he's seen Frankenstein. Who has not seen Frankenstein?

Sarah:

Yeah. Barnaby says no. And then

Mark:

later on now is it Tom or the new guy who is the hammer fan?

Sarah:

The new guy.

Mark:

It's the new guy.

Sarah:

It's John Barnaby who's the hammer

Mark:

fan. Okay.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

So it it might be okay, but he's they've not seen Frankenstein. But then okay. Frankenstein, not a lot of it happens in a castle. No. It there there is a castle with the she's he's alive.

Mark:

He's alive. Right? But a majority of it happens in a windmill. And, like, it's not it's not a movie with an eerie castle.

Sarah:

Troy Troy's not real smart.

Mark:

No. It's not

Sarah:

like he's, you

Mark:

know No.

Sarah:

I mean, he could have said it looks like Dracula's castle, but there's lightning.

Mark:

Yes. So So back we go to Castle Frankenstein, Gresham Hall

Sarah:

Amy is making a run for it.

Mark:

And she finds Gerald's stuff.

Sarah:

Right. The suitcase that Anoria has packed the night. She killed Gerald with all of his drag clothes because she doesn't want anybody to discover

Mark:

That Ralph and Gerald Ralph and

Sarah:

Gerald were gay and that they had had a relationship.

Mark:

Doing the gay stuff in Turkey.

Sarah:

What does Gerald say? He had me and I had him. Yeah. Which is like, you go Gerald,

Mark:

you He's tell like standing up for himself.

Sarah:

Then she whacks him with a candlestick.

Mark:

This is where the lighting makes sense with Hinoria

Sarah:

in the so dark. Yeah.

Mark:

And she calls him my darling Ralph. She goes to see Gerald. This is all told in sort of past tense. So disgusting. She goes nuts and kills him.

Sarah:

And And then strips him naked.

Mark:

And then says she that Amy should have died too.

Sarah:

She's she stripped Gerald naked.

Mark:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah:

And After bludgeoning him in the head with a candlestick so much that they hardly recognized him, she took off all his clothes.

Mark:

Which I don't understand. Like, as a person, it's difficult to take off clothes of somebody who's asleep, not that I have any experience doing that. But but I would imagine

Sarah:

It's difficult as a woman to take off an evening dress and tights and everything else when they're on my own body.

Mark:

Had hose on too.

Sarah:

I know he did. They showed that had pantyhose on, so never mind taking them off somebody else. But, you know, if you're gonna go to that extent, you may as well put some shorts on him so that it doesn't look so suspicious.

Mark:

So Gerald had all these woman's clothes. A whole wardrobe full. A whole wardrobe full. And what he had on, and yet she takes the middle suitcase and puts it all

Sarah:

in it. Yeah. Well, she's a good packer. I guess so. The littiards are above reproach.

Sarah:

I guess.

Mark:

What follows is the slowest chase of two old ladies in the house ever.

Sarah:

Because Anoria loses her shit. So Amy takes off,

Mark:

and Anoria follows shuffling along. They're both shuffling. It's not the best filmed chase

Sarah:

scene. Yeah. Because Honoria is doing the slow, steady walk of the killer. Like, doesn't matter. I don't have to hurry because you're never gonna get away from me.

Mark:

And for some reason, Amy goes, no. I'm not gonna go outside.

Sarah:

No. The many doors that must lead out of that house.

Mark:

Instead of going outside, I'm gonna go to the locked room and find the secret of the locked room. I don't I don't When

Sarah:

a killer's chasing you, never go up.

Mark:

Yes. Go out. Go out, out and we weave.

Sarah:

Yeah. Zig zag. Forth. Zig Like a crocodile is chasing you. But it's just anoria.

Mark:

She gets the key. She opens the room. She goes in, shuts the door, and finds the shrine to really

Sarah:

It's Ralph's bed it's Ralph's bedroom.

Mark:

Yes. And we find Ralph. Yeah. Which now, that's a pretty good fake dead body.

Sarah:

It's not bad.

Mark:

It's not bad. We only see him. We see his hands and his skull. The rest is covered in clothes.

Sarah:

It's like it's psycho.

Mark:

Yes. It's very much like that.

Sarah:

It's Bates. It's missus Bates.

Mark:

We can only assume that Honoria brought the body back to England and didn't take it to the undertaker or a doctor or anything, put it in this bed and has been caring for it

Sarah:

ever since.

Mark:

Then Anoria breaks the door right out of The Shining.

Sarah:

Yes. She does. Because, you know, it's this great big manorial house with doors made out of cardboard.

Mark:

And she goes through it like wet paper. Yeah. With what? A knife. I don't know because She's

Sarah:

got a knife.

Mark:

She sets something down. I don't know what it is. It's not an axe. But then she sticks her face in the door, like, clearly.

Sarah:

Here's an Oreo.

Mark:

Here's an Oreo.

Sarah:

And she does look really scary. She does. She's got those eyes.

Mark:

So she reaches in. She opens up the door, and she says to Amy, you're gonna jump out the window. This is what's gonna happen.

Sarah:

Yeah. Amy's like, no.

Mark:

Amy's like, no. I'm gonna fight. There's gonna be scratches. People will know. And Honoria says, I don't care.

Mark:

I'm gonna kill you.

Sarah:

Yeah. So then Like, all bets are off. Honoria has lost her shit.

Mark:

This is it. This is the big fight. Amy makes her dexterity check. Dodges Honoria, who goes straight out the window. Yep.

Sarah:

Onto the ground.

Mark:

Onto the ground. In the rain. In the rain. Amy suddenly teleports downstairs. But wouldn't you?

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

Because now the police are

Mark:

there. Just as Barnaby and Troy show up.

Sarah:

Like like Anoria's head hits concrete, bonk, and Troy pulls up. They just missed it.

Mark:

And we get the final penny, which is Ralph had AIDS.

Sarah:

Yeah. Well, if you read the subtitle, he had eggs.

Mark:

He had eggs. Yes.

Sarah:

Which is all why all this time Anoria keeps saying it's your fault, you should have died to Amy because Amy didn't contract it, obviously, which tells you a lot about their relationship. I don't I don't think it was a true marriage. I think they were partners and So

Mark:

maybe Amy and her $100,000 and Sue, clapper, should just go off and make the book. Yeah. That would be a

Sarah:

fantastic They should just go off and be happy. Exactly. I've got a question for you. Yes. Which corpse is the best corpse in this episode?

Sarah:

Is it Gerald, Max, or Inoria? Well, okay. So Because Ralph is out of the running, have to say, because Ralph would be the best corpse.

Mark:

Yes. And and Liam's father doesn't count because we don't actually

Sarah:

see his corpse. Right. So Gerald, Max, and Inoria, who's the best corpse?

Mark:

I gotta say Max. Why? Because his eyes. He does the eyes.

Sarah:

The bloodshot, nasty

Mark:

He does the eyes so well, and he doesn't move us like a stitch.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

He's not dead guy in a crop circle,

Sarah:

but good.

Mark:

Yeah. He's pretty good.

Sarah:

Yeah. I agree with you. I think I think Max Max is pretty good, though I gotta give the foot double some cred.

Mark:

Yeah. The foot double was pretty good. Anoria just lies there. Like

Sarah:

And breathes. She also breathes.

Mark:

She could be well, you know

Sarah:

She's probably still breathing because she just fell. If they'd gotten there thirty seconds later, maybe she would have fallen on Troy.

Mark:

Could have been.

Sarah:

That would have been interesting. Gender bender. She would have fallen on the the hood of the car.

Mark:

We end up at the Barnaby house with the big reveal that Tom is allergic to cats, which we all knew already. They just leave the back door wide open.

Sarah:

People do that.

Mark:

Okay. Are there no bugs in England?

Sarah:

Apparently not. If you you watch all the home improvement shows in The UK, they're constantly putting those big accordion bifold doors in their back and like, look, this room is half inside and half outside. Like, yeah, and so are all the bugs. They don't seem to mind.

Mark:

Apparently, the cat goes in and out. I did notice that Barnaby has a boots bag. So he's been to the pharmacy.

Sarah:

Yeah. He's He's

Mark:

been to the chemist.

Sarah:

He's got the medicine. Yep. Because he's got cooties from the cat.

Mark:

That's the end of that episode, which I I gotta say is not as strong as the pilot.

Sarah:

But it's got scumbag.

Mark:

It has it has Brian Clapper.

Sarah:

As unnecessary as Brian's whole storyline is, it is iconic.

Mark:

It it is. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth because, yes, he gets his diss desserts, but I wanna know what happens to Sue.

Sarah:

Okay. You're so sentimental. But the reason why I leave a bad taste in your mouth is because Brian is so thoroughly gross, and that's because of a great actor playing a really

Mark:

well written part. Fantastic actor. Yeah.

Sarah:

He is thoroughly scumbag.

Mark:

Yeah. Absolute. In fact, whenever we see him, we yell out scumbag. Like, not on the street or anything.

Sarah:

We don't see him on the street.

Mark:

But when we see him in other shows We go scumbag. Scumbag.

Sarah:

We say it lovingly.

Mark:

Yes. Yes.

Sarah:

And Anna Massey goes on to play another role in Midsommar where she's not a psychopath.

Mark:

Now Anna Massey is in Morse. She's in Lewis. She hasn't been in Endeavor yet.

Sarah:

She's been to Midsommar. She won't be in Endeavor because she's dead.

Mark:

Oh, she's dead? Yes. I didn't know she was.

Sarah:

She died in 2011. She's dead. It would be weird if she was.

Mark:

Oh, that that yeah.

Sarah:

She'd be playing the Ralph role.

Mark:

Yeah. Ew. Ew. Anna Massey's dead? Yeah.

Mark:

Oh, that's It's sad. I thought she was still alive.

Sarah:

No. She had a long long career.

Mark:

But she shows up it's interesting that the the next episode she shows up in, I forget the name of it. Secrets and Spies. Secrets and Spies also has another doctor in it.

Sarah:

Oh. There's a teaser

Mark:

for There's a teaser for you.

Sarah:

So if you disagree with us about who the best corpse was, or if you notice anything else interesting about Written in Blood, feel free to leave us a comment.

Mark:

We will fill out the show notes with all the things that we mentioned, so have a good look in there and

Sarah:

What's our next episode?

Mark:

Our next episode is Death of a Hollow Man, which Joyce is a rough one. Joyce has been pretty good so far. She's made some bad food.

Sarah:

That one's been in the news too.

Mark:

Yes. And that's been in the news. Yes. So Death of a Hollow Man is next week, and I will say goodbye, Maniacs.

Sarah:

Bye, Maniacs.

Mark:

So so so so ugh. I gotta stop saying that. So I gotta stop saying something. So so so so so so so so so so yes. So so so so so they So So So so so when so so so so so and so so so so so so so so she Yeah.

Mark:

So so so So So so Yeah. And Troy, in another moment of good copmanship, good cop person ship, good cop ship.

Sarah:

Good policing. Good policing. Welcome to Midsomer Maniacs. This is episode three, death of a hollow man. Hey, maniacs.

Sarah:

I'm Sarah.

Mark:

And I'm Mark.

Sarah:

So if we count the pilot as episode one, this is the third episode of Midsomer, but really is the official first season episode two.

Mark:

Yes. First season episode two. The razor episode. The death of the Hollow Man episode. So this was filmed in August and September '97, which was right after the the first episode, and then broadcast the 03/29/1998.

Mark:

So a week to the day after the first episode. This is, again, Caroline Graham book, but this is the second Barnaby book.

Sarah:

Ah, okay.

Mark:

While last week's Written in Blood was like the third or fourth one. And the title probably comes from the TS Eliot poem Hollow Men, which is not a happy poem. Well, it's TS Eliot, so it's not gonna be happy anyway. But

Sarah:

Tiger, tiger, burning bright.

Mark:

No. That's not TS Eliot.

Sarah:

It's not? Who's that?

Mark:

That's Blake. Blake.

Sarah:

I'm glad I have a PhD in English. So Eslin is the hollow man. Yeah?

Mark:

Yes. I would say that Eslin's the hollow man. Elliott said that that came from a combination of things. Other people says it's from Julius Caesar, but it's not. Elliot said that it was from Kipling and this other guy.

Mark:

So

Sarah:

So this is a pretty low body count episode. There's only two murders.

Mark:

It's certainly probably our one of our lowest body count episodes. And the next episode's a low body count too.

Sarah:

Yeah. There's kind of the extremes. There's episodes where there's like one or two, and then there's like 12,000,000 people have died. One vicar killed them all, one at a time.

Mark:

The entire village whipped up mad.

Sarah:

And nobody noticed except Barnaby. Got Barnaby and Troy back together again Yes.

Mark:

Of course. So this is directed by Jeremy Silberston, who directed the other ones and written only by Caroline Graham.

Sarah:

Though we've gotta give some credit to the author of Amadeus since so much of that play is included in this episode. Amadeus. Assassin. Assassin. Assassin.

Sarah:

Assassin. Assassin. As always, if you haven't watched the episode recently, we recommend that you go and rewatch it because we'll there'll be references like assassin that you might not remember if you haven't seen it lately. And as usual, if you don't let your kids watch Midsomer, the podcast probably isn't appropriate for them either, but we're not gonna drop f bombs left and right or anything like that. So you're pretty safe.

Sarah:

If your kids can handle a guy taking a razor to his own throat, they can handle being a maniac.

Mark:

On stage, no less.

Sarah:

A maniac on stage? That makes me think of Insane Clown Posse. Yes. A maniac killer. I think I'm the only person on the face of the planet who has a PhD, likes Midsomer Murder, and likes Insane Clown Posse.

Sarah:

Me, I'm unique.

Mark:

If you like Midsomer, have a PhD, and like Insane Clown Posse, we need to hear from you.

Sarah:

Yes. You you are my best friend, and I haven't even met you yet.

Mark:

The episode opens in a very Morse like way.

Sarah:

Yeah. It does. The cold open.

Mark:

The title card happens, and we hear opera music. This is very

Sarah:

common opera. It's it's ecclesiastical music.

Mark:

It's a very common Morse endeavor Lewis trope to start the episode like that.

Sarah:

It's Agnes Day is the song.

Mark:

And we're introduced to Agnes Grey. Oh.

Sarah:

Coincidence. See what we're doing there. Interesting.

Mark:

Who's looking at a holy relic and then gets bonked by a crowbar.

Sarah:

She gets hit by a crowbar. That's true. That's a very different There's no bonking. Crowbar. That was a couple episodes ago and there was no crowbar involved in that.

Sarah:

Somebody hits her from behind while she's kneeling and praying at the the mother and child.

Mark:

And the relic. The death sort of noise is not here, but in the recap later, when she gets hit, she

Sarah:

Boom. There's like splattery.

Mark:

There's like a noise that she cries out.

Sarah:

It's more of a bonking noise. But she's dying. Anyway, Agnes is in a dark place praying to the mother and child and she gets Back

Mark:

of the car into the water.

Sarah:

And then it's like, no. Never mind. Anyway, on with the rest of the episode. Right?

Mark:

So we're introduced to the Costin Theater Company. Now this episode is not a village episode.

Sarah:

No.

Mark:

It all happens in town. Yeah. And there's also no pub.

Sarah:

Still no pub.

Mark:

Still no pub.

Sarah:

You're The app withdrawal.

Mark:

Aptly named pub will arrive soon.

Sarah:

Yeah. It will. So it's at the Corn Exchange Theater that most of the action happens, which is a relatively small theater. I think it probably seats what, 50, a 100 maybe? Something Maybe.

Sarah:

Like Yeah.

Mark:

That's one of many trivia questions is what is the theater in Costin?

Sarah:

It's the Korn Exchange.

Mark:

The Korn Exchange. And we're introduced to a whole bunch of players, including the players on the stage and the players behind the stage. We have Deidre and David who obviously like each other. Like, five minutes in, you're like, oh, well, they should be doing something together.

Sarah:

So Deidra is the stage manager.

Mark:

And David is an actor as well as helping her. Yeah. He's he's very helpful.

Sarah:

He has white jeans.

Mark:

He's very white. He wears white jeans the

Sarah:

whole episode when he's not in costume for the I

Mark:

don't know why his father's not mad at him for wearing white jeans. Yeah. Because his father is also

Sarah:

bummed. Yeah.

Mark:

He's upset later because he's not dating people, but maybe the white jeans have something to do with that.

Sarah:

He also has a brown jean jacket. Hopefully. It's an outfit of its age.

Mark:

Yep. Yep. It is. It is. And then his father Colin and Tom, Tom Barnaby, are working on sets and getting props ready.

Sarah:

Because this is our first episode where Joyce's hobbies cause problems. Right? Later, she water paints and goes to cookery classes and all kinds of other things.

Mark:

One of many hobbies that lead to death.

Sarah:

Because Joyce doesn't have a job. She occupies She's

Mark:

in this production. Joyce is in the production, but she has no lines.

Sarah:

Right. But she's also helping out with costumes.

Mark:

Yes. She's she's helping out with the costumes.

Sarah:

She's ironing them specifically.

Mark:

Then we have Avery and Tim. Avery does the sets and Tim does the lighting. They're a gay couple who run a bookshop in town.

Sarah:

Called the Blackbird.

Mark:

Yes. The Blackbird Bookshop. And then we have a number of actors, which include Kitty, who is Eslin's new wife. And we'll get to who Eslin is. We have Rosa who is Eslin's old wife.

Mark:

Yep. Nico who Nicholas who becomes a major player later on. He marries Cully.

Sarah:

No. He doesn't.

Mark:

Yes. He does.

Sarah:

No. She marries somebody else. She marries a different guy.

Mark:

No. She doesn't.

Sarah:

Yeah. So so this is tapping into one of the things that I discovered because in my head, she also married Nico later.

Mark:

No. She marries Nico.

Sarah:

No. She doesn't. Nico is only in one other episode. And it's the episode where he is studying for a police role in a TV show and follows Barnaby and Troy around for a day. Well, then who the hell

Mark:

does bar does Cully bury?

Sarah:

Somebody who looks a lot like Nico but isn't Nico, and we'll have to talk about it later.

Mark:

Does he play Nico the character? Is it just like is this a new Darren?

Sarah:

No. It's not a new Darren bewitched situation. He's a completely different character. And I pointed out be no. Because I also had that alternate narrative in my head.

Sarah:

I thought, oh, this is exciting. Every time you see Nico and Cully together in a scene, there's like little, you know, tweety birds around their heads and stars and hearts floating around.

Mark:

I love you.

Sarah:

You know? And you think, oh, this is where they meet. But no.

Mark:

Okay. Well, I'm wrong. I can fully admit why I'm wrong, and I guess I'm wrong. So

Sarah:

I was also wrong.

Mark:

Oh, that's So And then we have Esalyn, who is the lead of the Amadeus, who is Salieri, because Nico plays Amadeus. And Esalyn plays Salieri, and he is an accountant who thinks he's the greatest actor in the world. Also, of changed in the old wife for the new wife. Kitty is twenty years younger than Rosa, maybe?

Sarah:

Probably. I would I would guess that Esalen is probably in his early fifties, and Kitty is probably in her mid twenties.

Mark:

So, obviously, midlife crisis. He has a car with no top on it.

Sarah:

He has a wife with barely any top on

Mark:

it. Yes.

Sarah:

And while we're talking about we we missed two very important members of the behind the stage set, which is Harold and Doris.

Mark:

Well yeah. So Harold and Doris are the the Harold is the director, and Doris is his wife, and we had to look because it is unclear what their relationship is.

Sarah:

Yeah. There's no reference to them being married in the episode itself. They do have the same last name, but he talks down to her so much and mistreats her so much that you you might have thought maybe she was his little sister and they've lived together all this time.

Mark:

She is the Amy Lidyard of this episode.

Sarah:

Yes. She is. But I checked the book and everything else, and everything says that she is missus Harold Winstanley. So

Mark:

And Harold is well, he's a fatuous asshole. There's really no way around it.

Sarah:

So we we we learned pretty early on that he's in import export. He's quite wealthy. He drives a very nice old car.

Mark:

Lives in a big house.

Sarah:

Big house. But he also has some kind of history with the theater as well. He he's really good for, like, dropping names of big historical theater people. Like, he mentions

Mark:

Peter Hall.

Sarah:

He mentions Peter Hall who started the National Shakespeare Company.

Mark:

And he kinda looks like Peter Hall.

Sarah:

Sorry. Royal Shakespeare Company. With the

Mark:

the scarf

Sarah:

The scarf

Mark:

and the hat. Could definitely find a picture of Peter Hall without a scarf.

Sarah:

Yeah. And he makes reference to sir John, which I think is probably sir John Gilgood. Right?

Mark:

Probably.

Sarah:

And a couple of things. But so he's wow. He is the most self inflated character I think I've ever seen.

Mark:

Now I have a question for you. It is let's see. What year where year is this? This is 1996, '97, '97. So it's 1998.

Mark:

It's broadcast. How much would you, Sarah, pay for a night of Amadeus? Now it starts at 07:45. It runs Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and there's a show on Saturday.

Sarah:

How much would I pay for a ticket?

Mark:

How much

Sarah:

would Such a nice, historical, intimate theater to see a performance of Amadeus. I would pay

Mark:

It's gotta be two acts. There's an intermission.

Sarah:

Yep. Interval. Interval. I'd pay $20.

Mark:

$20. At this time, the Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday performances are £3.50. What? Which would be $8

Sarah:

That explains why there's no really set. Yeah. There's no like, we see Barnaby early on painting this beautiful backdrop that's supposed to look like Vienna or something, and I don't think we ever actually see it on stage.

Mark:

He's never on stage.

Sarah:

It's always just blackness.

Mark:

But Saturday is five pounds.

Sarah:

They must make all their money at the concession stand like movie theaters do.

Mark:

Now one thing they do do on the poster, do do, is they have a phone number on the poster.

Sarah:

Okay. So you can call the ticket office and reserve your seats? Yes. Oh, I'm glad.

Mark:

I didn't call. I got too nervous. I didn't wanna phone somebody and ruin their day.

Sarah:

Was it a 555 or something?

Mark:

Like No. No. It's a number. I don't think it's a fake number. Ugh.

Mark:

Like in America, in North America, the 555 prefix code signifies to the phone company that it's a fake number.

Sarah:

Right. There are no real 555 numbers. Speaking of phone numbers, like the phone number on the flyer, the Midsomer Maniacs has a phone number and you can find it in the description of the episode below. And if you ever have a comment or you wanna do an impression of your favorite Midsomer character or something like that, we will be more than happy to play that in one of our future episodes. Maybe that will dissuade people from doing it.

Sarah:

I don't know. But we would love to hear from you.

Mark:

The number is +1 (812) 720-4594, and we can take texts and or voicemails.

Sarah:

Fancy and schmancy. Okay. Back to the story.

Mark:

Harold arrives at the theater. Where are my actors? My actors. Eslin and Kitty arrive. The thing I wanted to talk about here is how Eslin is being masked by Nico.

Sarah:

So they're they're going through a walkthrough of a scene. Esselin's in a chair as Salieri and Nico as Amadeus is He's walking in front giving like a soliloquy and he keeps accidentally walking in front of Esselin and blocking the the audience's view of him in the chair.

Mark:

And we learn Esselin is an accountant, and we learn that Nico, who I thought married Cully, but I was wrong, really feeds into the ego of Harold. Harold here. We find out that Kitty is pregnant and Rosa is upset. Is is there a point where Rosa is not upset in the episode?

Sarah:

When she thinks she's given Esselin his comeuppance, she's rather pleased with herself. But For a small amount of time.

Mark:

It's very short

Sarah:

so Rosa is in the audience because she's also she also has a part in the play, but she's doing some embroidery or something like that while she's waiting for her turn for the walk through. And Esalyn and Kitty come in and they're late and they're all like so over the top and everything else.

Mark:

Esalyn hats Kitty's bum right in front of Rosa.

Sarah:

Definitely rubbing it in. Joyce comes out with Kitty's costume wants her to try it on. It includes a pregnancy pillow to make Kitty look a little chubby, and Kitty says, well, soon, I won't even need the pillow.

Mark:

Kitty is

Sarah:

Which again is Strange. Rubbing it in Rose's face. Colleen marries a guy named Simon. I thought his name was Simon, but I wasn't sure. I looked it up.

Mark:

That's right. I was completely wrong.

Sarah:

But he looks a little bit like Nico.

Mark:

He does, but it's Simon. It's a completely different guy.

Sarah:

Yeah. He's a musician and everything.

Mark:

Some kids find a dead body. They find Agnes.

Sarah:

Yeah. So we're in the theater, and then we just cut to two little kids on a little boat, and they're like fishing and splashing and all

Mark:

direction, the intercutting of scenes simultaneously.

Sarah:

Yeah. There's some sun dappling. Yep. And they find a a body floating in the water, and of course, Tom gets called. Now before we jump to that though, we should also note that, of course, Collie has come home yet again.

Sarah:

Well, Collie's come home even more because Now she's she's we find later she's dropped out of school.

Mark:

She's dropped out of Cambridge. Yeah. I don't know. If my child

Sarah:

come down.

Mark:

Yes. Come down from Cambridge. You know, your children are adults. Cully's an adult. Yeah.

Mark:

And she can make her own decisions. But as a father, I I might wanna have a five minute conversation about maybe going back to Cambridge.

Sarah:

I can only assume that with only one working parent and that parent being a civil servant that it wasn't easy for them to send her to Cambridge.

Mark:

Well, you see, in The United Kingdom, everything is free because they pay taxes.

Sarah:

No. It's not just free.

Mark:

No. I imagine Cambridge is quite expensive. Yeah. So there's a crime scene, and Barnaby says this weird line where he doesn't know who she is, but he knows who she is.

Sarah:

Yeah. I don't understand that.

Mark:

Well, recognized her.

Sarah:

Seen her at the theater.

Mark:

Yeah. He's seen her at the theater, but he doesn't know her, like, personally.

Sarah:

Okay. He doesn't know her, but he can identify her.

Mark:

And her cousin, her dear sweet cousin

Sarah:

Her only living relative.

Mark:

Only living relative.

Sarah:

Eslin, the asshole.

Mark:

Eslin. And she does some fantastic dead body acting here. Though, I think, in this instance, they may stop the film.

Sarah:

Well, but you gotta remember, there's also the scene of her underwater, and you clearly see her face, and there are no bubbles. Nope. And the water is flowing, so it's not a still.

Mark:

She does very well with that also.

Sarah:

I think we should call him Esselin the accounting asshole now. Does that break our rule?

Mark:

Yeah. Kinda.

Sarah:

Alright. So I'll stop saying

Mark:

We find out Agnes had cancer. Troy and Barnaby are off to the house. They go the front door, then the back door, and then a monumental thing occurs. Barnaby pulls out his cell phone.

Sarah:

The first cell

Mark:

phone in mid Cell phone in mid summer.

Sarah:

And it's funny because when we were rewatching the episode, I wondered because Tom's at the theater when they find the body, and they somehow reach him at the theater and I and I I asked, I wonder how they got him. I wonder how they knew where he was. Because before cell phones, if you were on duty as inspector, they had to know where you were all the time. You'd have to call in and tell the control room where you were going so they could reach you.

Mark:

Either that or you wore a beeper.

Sarah:

A beeper. A blipper? Blipper. A blipper thing. A pager.

Mark:

A pager.

Sarah:

So they get they get in the car, they go over to Agnes' house for the first time, and it's ransacked.

Mark:

There's a part in that where Troy says the bastard cut her clothes. Okay. Harold is the killer.

Sarah:

Yeah. Spoiler.

Mark:

Why did he cut up her clothes?

Sarah:

I don't know. I can only think he's a maniac and not a good one like we are. He's a crazy person. Maybe he was trying to throw them off and make it look like it was a robbery or something, but she was found in a pond. That's not where she was killed.

Mark:

Like, she's wrapped in something, I think? Like plastic or tied up in a rope or something?

Sarah:

I don't know. But it's it's clearly foul play right away. Made to look like somebody has ransacked her place looking for something, but they can't figure out what that is. The neighbor says, oh, I thought she was off to, Austria or something because Agnes travels a lot. And then, you know, they get back in the car.

Sarah:

Troy comments on how Esselin responded to seeing Agnes in the morgue and how he was a code devil. Yep. Because he just it's not like he's got a lot of affection for Agnes.

Mark:

No. He doesn't. He calls her a loser.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

And a plain little soul.

Sarah:

Yeah. Like, that's a nice thing to say. A loser. She was kind of a loser.

Mark:

So they talked to Esalyn Moore and find out she was into art history. She was retired from the BBC.

Sarah:

It sounds to me like she had a pretty interesting life.

Mark:

But lonely.

Sarah:

Yeah. Maybe she was lonely.

Mark:

They go back to the house and find the weird situation that there's no beautiful things there. She's an art history major.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

And then Troy and I I gotta say what?

Sarah:

No. Go ahead.

Mark:

I gotta say, in this episode, Troy is the best cop that he's ever been.

Sarah:

Yeah. So far. He's got his tough moments in this episode at least.

Mark:

Because he says, maybe she just felt she didn't deserve nice things because she had no confidence.

Sarah:

That's pretty insightful.

Mark:

And I'm like, way to go, Troy, in my notes.

Sarah:

Yeah. So He's pretty smart.

Mark:

So you were gonna say something.

Sarah:

So then they get in the car and Barnaby says, do you wanna have lunch? Which might have been in a pub.

Mark:

They could have been.

Sarah:

But they didn't.

Mark:

Well, slowed down near

Sarah:

a pub. Because Troy needs to buy a book for his mom's birthday.

Mark:

And he goes to the Blackbird. Yeah. And Avery freaks him out.

Sarah:

Well, because Troy is so homophobic. It's like he thinks being gay can be transmitted through breath or something.

Mark:

He scratches his neck like he's about to become gayfected.

Sarah:

Yeah. Like he's gonna get cooties from the gay guy. Gay cooties. Which to give Avery his credit, he seems to enjoy kind of taunting Troy and kind of rubbing it in. So Troy's mom is in into some heritage Edwardian lady stuff.

Mark:

Which I didn't understand either.

Sarah:

I tried looking it up. I couldn't find anything, but apparently, she's already got all the books and the potholders and the wall clock and everything else. So there it must be like collector's items around a series of books. He ends up getting her a car vacuum even though she doesn't have a car.

Mark:

So So I have a question about Avery. Mhmm. And I mean this

Sarah:

He's fantastic. He wears vests and bow ties.

Mark:

I mean this sincerely. So four weddings and a funeral, one of the characters in that movie is gay. Well, two of them are gay.

Sarah:

Okay.

Mark:

And he wears fantastic waistcoats.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

Is fantastic waistcoats and bow ties, because he also wears bow ties, an actor that appears in Midsommars in the future. Mhmm. Is that the gay uniform in the nineties in England?

Sarah:

Or is that like is it like code?

Mark:

I don't wanna say code, but but is it code?

Sarah:

Well, the the costume people are making that decision, so they must think if I put this character in a fancy waistcoat and bow tie, people will know wink wink nudge nudge he's gay.

Mark:

Right away.

Sarah:

Well, Troy doesn't need to see it. No. Troy reacts so extremely, like, I had to rewind one part because I could have swore I saw Troy wipe his hand off after touching something in the bookstore. He he didn't, but I I wouldn't have put it past him.

Mark:

He's clearly uncomfortable.

Sarah:

Yeah. Then we go back to the police office and find out a little bit more about Agnes because she had a key around her neck.

Mark:

A key to something?

Sarah:

A key to something?

Mark:

Big padlock.

Sarah:

Yep. They don't know what though.

Mark:

Don't worry. They'll forget until like almost the end of the episode.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because you know, it's just the first murder. It happens in the cold opening so we don't have to think about it again until, like, later. So you've already talked about Esselin's office and then going and talking to him and her working for the BBC and everything, but there's something about Esselin's office that I need to know. And if any of the listeners have an idea, please share it.

Sarah:

Okay?

Mark:

It's always a good moment in a midsummer in which one of us says, what the hell is that thing?

Sarah:

Rewind. Rewind. Go back. Go back. Back.

Sarah:

Go back. When you're in Esselin's office looking at Barnaby and Troy from Esselin's point of view, his office is in kind of like a Tudor conversion. There's a lot of exposed woodwork on the inside, including including some pretty low rafters. And there's a rafter that is kind of immediately in front of his desk, and it's just above Tom and Troy's heads.

Mark:

And on the rafter

Sarah:

On that rafter is a linear camshaft.

Mark:

Exactly.

Sarah:

So a camshaft is like a it's it's some if you could imagine like a cylinder that has a series of gears or cams on it that are different shapes and sizes and are in different positions. So that as as it turns, if something is riding on it, it would move up and down or back and forth. Right?

Mark:

I guess. So I'm not the most mechanically minded person.

Sarah:

I am. So old looms had camshafts that drove the heddles up and down.

Mark:

But this is clearly from a car.

Sarah:

Yeah. I mean, that's the only explanation I can think of. And camshafts of that kind aren't real popular in cars because they're not as reliable with movement. I don't know. If it's from a car, that's great.

Sarah:

He he does obviously like cars. Maybe somebody can tell us. But it took me quite a while to identify what that thing was.

Mark:

So we have a question.

Sarah:

And why would you put a heavy metal thing right above people's heads? I don't know.

Mark:

That's roundish.

Sarah:

That could easily roll.

Mark:

So we have a question. If you're living in The UK and you have an accountant and you've gone to their office, do they have a camshaft?

Sarah:

And a secretary who they run out of the office on short notice. You can have the rest of the day off. My boss has never busted in my door and said, you can have the rest of the day off.

Mark:

No. No. Never Back in Agnes's house, they start going through her mail. Troy finds gold.

Sarah:

Yeah. The donkey letter.

Mark:

He goes

Sarah:

It's a letter with a donkey on it.

Mark:

He goes, it's a letter with a donkey on it. And part of me is like, I'm working with a child here.

Sarah:

And then Troy reads

Mark:

it. Starts to read the letter, and we find out that Agnes has given a £150,000.

Sarah:

To a donkey sanctuary.

Mark:

To a donkey sanctuary. And the donkey sanctuary on the letter is entitled the donkey sanctuary. Well, what are you what are they gonna call it? I don't know. Or something.

Sarah:

They could.

Mark:

Avery's ass house.

Sarah:

There you go.

Mark:

There you go.

Sarah:

That's do they all wear bow ties and vests? So she's she clearly has way way more money than they had assumed that she has. Because she lives in these really modest rooms and yet has modern $50 to give to donkeys.

Mark:

And the letter actually says thank you for another donation.

Sarah:

Yeah. Like she's given them that much before.

Mark:

The next couple of scenes all meld together in that kind of intercutting thing.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Right? We have Eslin going to the lawyer. He leaves Kitty behind

Sarah:

Kitty to go to the lawyer.

Mark:

Kitty is at the house who has a friend over.

Sarah:

Yeah. So while he's at the lawyer, she has somebody over in bed.

Mark:

And Rosa is outside creeping. Yeah. Her and Laura creeping around the neighborhood. Is is this a middle aged woman thing in England to be creeping?

Sarah:

Because I'm I'm getting close to middle age and I don't feel the need to creep. It's not calling

Mark:

to We've two episodes in which we have creeping middle aged women.

Sarah:

Well, they're nosy.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

And they wanna know something so that's how you do it. So Rosa starts out by just kind of spying, but then when she sees Kitty in the window clearly wrapped in a sheet, because that's what you do. If you're having an affair Okay. Woah. Woah.

Sarah:

Go to the window semi naked.

Mark:

There's a couple of things we gotta go through. Right? So Rosa is creeping, and you're like, that's kinda strange. And then she goes up to Kitty's car and starts keying it. Now when she keys the car, the first time we don't see the key, we see the key, but we don't actually see it on the car.

Mark:

Right. We hear the sound. And I was like, oh, okay. They obviously didn't key the car. They just added the sound effect.

Mark:

The next thing we see with Rosa and the car is her actually keying a letter into the car. I don't it's not the same car.

Sarah:

Well, you don't see the whole car in that scene. It may just be the side of a car.

Mark:

It's the side of some One

Sarah:

panel that's been well painted that she's scratching. But she's clearly scratching some letters into it. You got the sound

Mark:

of it. She looks up and sees Kitty who has come to the window in a sheet.

Sarah:

Yep. A floor to ceiling window on the front of the house, the street facing side of the house.

Mark:

I'm not a woman.

Sarah:

No. You're not.

Mark:

I'm not a woman, but I would never do that. And Rosa notices that she has company.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because some hands reach around her and kinda pull her back into the room. So now Rosa's got the dirt. Meanwhile, Esland

Mark:

is at the lawyer's office Makes being all high and mighty that he's not gonna get anything because he only has two legs and no tail.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because Agnes is is known for caring about animals more than people. So no question that her will leaves all of her money to these animal charities, but she has left a letter behind a package for Eslin that says that it's to be opened after her death.

Mark:

I think the lawyer buries the lead here. Like, should he not be giving that right away?

Sarah:

That's what lawyers do.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

Especially in will readings. You know? They don't have a lot of drama. He probably got

Mark:

Freaks Ezlin out. He runs back to his office.

Sarah:

Kicks his PA out.

Mark:

The PA out and starts looking at the documents which are obviously spreadsheet y.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's like a bank statement.

Mark:

Speaking of banks, Troy and Barnaby learned that over the last couple of years, Agnes has put £86,000 through her bank. Right. This is $2,000,000 in real money.

Sarah:

There's this interesting conversation with Tom and Troy as they're walking away and talking about how Agnes gave all of her money to these animal charities. And Troy is like, why why would you give it all to animals? You know? And Barnaby's like, well, everybody needs something to love.

Mark:

And animals love you back.

Sarah:

Yeah. Troy says, I wouldn't fancy cuddling up at night to a cocker spaniel. And Tom says, don't knock it before you try it, which is weird. And he doesn't like animals in the house. We know from the last He episode

Mark:

of George doesn't like animals. But based on what you researched, who is Troy actually cuddling as

Sarah:

a Oh, yeah. So this is so weird. Book adaptations, they always have to make changes from the book. They can't follow the plot exactly. But in the books, and especially in this book, we see a lot of Troy's wife.

Sarah:

What? Maureen.

Mark:

It's not a good name.

Sarah:

No. Like she goes to the play with him and everything. And she's she's a number. She's interesting. She's just about as crass as he is.

Sarah:

It's like Troy in a dress.

Mark:

And isn't there something like with Cully or something?

Sarah:

Yeah. She thinks that Troy has eyes for Cully, nags at him about it.

Mark:

In the end, Esland calls up the murderer Yeah. And says, I don't wanna say murder, but murder Yeah. And then puts the document on a floppy. So he's it's on a computer disk. Then he gets rid of the other copy, I wish.

Sarah:

Shreds the paper copy. Which I

Mark:

don't really understand why he did that or had to do that.

Sarah:

It's evidence.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

Agnes has left for him these documents only to be opened after she's dead that reveal transactions that she feels guilty about.

Mark:

Now she thought she was gonna die of cancer.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

She didn't think she was in danger of being murdered.

Sarah:

Right. She didn't do it for that reason. It wasn't like, if I'm found dead, open this letter. Right? You get the sense that maybe she left it to him because she felt bad and guilty and he's an accountant.

Sarah:

So he would see those statements and he would understand.

Mark:

Oh, he understands right away.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah. And then uses it to blackmail somebody.

Mark:

I'm not gonna say murder, but murder.

Sarah:

Yeah. He gives them until Monday. This episode, you The day is so

Mark:

Yeah. Screwed

Sarah:

You never know what day it is in this episode. Yeah.

Mark:

The time and the days are all screwed up. Esalyn goes home.

Sarah:

Then Crazy Kitty is in the

Mark:

bathtub, and Rosa calls him and dishes on Kitty.

Sarah:

Yeah. She's singing opera and the actress has a really great voice.

Mark:

I I have a note here that

Sarah:

I wonder if

Mark:

Rosa can sing. Yeah. She sings Labo M.

Sarah:

Yeah. She's a trained singer. So she calls him and it the the whole idea is that she's telling Eslan that Kitty's having an affair in hopes of getting him back. I don't know why she would want him back. He's horrible, but she's kissing his photo and all that stuff.

Sarah:

But then the next time we see Kitty

Mark:

Which is he's kicking her out He's kicking her

Sarah:

and she has a bruise on

Mark:

her face. And she's he's hit her. Yeah. Let's cover this.

Sarah:

I already called him Ezlin the accounting asshole, but now he's abusive too.

Mark:

He's abusive. He dumped one wife for a younger woman. And and really, the crux of what Rosa has a problem with is she always wanted a child, and Esalyn never said he wanted to have a child. Yep. And then Kitty's magically pregnant.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Well, no.

Sarah:

Is she?

Mark:

It's not magically pregnant. We know exactly how she's pregnant.

Sarah:

I don't know that she is. Who who We see her smoking and drinking and everything else. So

Mark:

Indeed does a lot of smoking and drinking.

Sarah:

Then Tom and Troy get a call from a friend of Agnes. Her name's Peggy Marshall, who was kind of her church mentor. So we we learned that Agnes joined the Catholic church fairly recently, which is pretty late in life, which is not uncommon. People find out they're terminally ill, they turn to religion. You know, they make this big scene out of Peggy basically saying she was guilty about something, but I don't know what.

Mark:

That's that's long It doesn't need to be there. Yeah. It also is implied in a couple of scenes through there that Nico is having the affair with Kitty because we don't see who it has. Yeah. We know it's a man and he has a hand.

Mark:

Yeah. That's all we know.

Sarah:

Well, and Tim and Avery joke about how Nico's never around and he's always slipping in and out of the bookshop. So they think maybe he's having an affair with somebody, and so it's natural to assume that maybe it might be Nico. He's young and handsome, so it's I

Mark:

wanna put something else out there. In the shop and in the lighting booth, Tim and Avery are drinking almost constantly.

Sarah:

Yeah. But they also have really good food.

Mark:

They do have very good food, but they're drinking constantly.

Sarah:

Every time Avery opens up a hamper and offers Tim some food, I'm like, oh, that sounds good. I want some of that.

Mark:

Opening night.

Sarah:

Yeah. Okay.

Mark:

So So this is Thursday. This is Thursday. I thought

Sarah:

it was Wednesday. It was opening night.

Mark:

No. It's it's Wednesday. Right. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Wednesday, opening night.

Sarah:

Yeah. So forget Agnes of no importance anymore right now.

Mark:

Harold's in the front being trying to be a host at front of hell.

Sarah:

Darling, how lovely to see you. Sold out as usual.

Mark:

But he it's always all about him.

Sarah:

Oh, gosh. He's so senile. He's crazy.

Mark:

Deirdre's father comes.

Sarah:

Mister Tibbs.

Mark:

Mister Tibbs. And it's mentioned that he was out directing traffic at Badger's Drift.

Sarah:

Yeah. He doesn't even know that area. The great thing about mister Tibbs is that he shows up and he just wants to wish everybody good luck. He's clearly senile.

Mark:

In his pajamas.

Sarah:

Yeah. And he's got his striped pajamas on underneath his jacket and pants. A very positive guy. Yep. He just he wishes everybody good luck.

Mark:

Eslin calls Nicholas, Nicholas. Yeah. Because he thinks Kitty

Sarah:

and having an affair with him.

Mark:

And Kitty and Nicholas are having affair. There's one thing, it bothers me. It's stupid. I don't know why it's even in there. Nicholas is a theater person.

Mark:

He wants to go to drama school. He's beyond high school age. Yes. And he drops a Scottish play reference, which he would have known all that.

Sarah:

He would have known it was bad luck. If he's been in any theater, he would have known it was bad luck to quote Macbeth.

Mark:

I don't even know why it's there.

Sarah:

And saying that Esselin is too full of the milk of human kindness isn't even a good fit. Like, it's not even a good line to quote at that point.

Mark:

But it gives a chance for that guy who's playing King Leopold or whatever.

Sarah:

With the eyebrows drawn on.

Mark:

With the eyebrows drawn on. He has a couple of good lines.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

He's not a bad actor.

Sarah:

Yep.

Mark:

Troy and Cully meet?

Sarah:

Yes. Barnaby introduces them. They've never met before.

Mark:

And Troy tries to sit with Cully and Barnaby, but he can't sit with them.

Sarah:

Well, he's he's got his seat first and he assumes they're gonna sit down next to him. Yes. And then they go a couple rows down and sit in center.

Mark:

He's kinda like, oh, okay.

Sarah:

Okay. Yeah. Well, because he should be sitting up there with his wife.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

So there's the in in all of Harold's, like, meeting and greeting, there's a scene where he's talking to this little old woman who looks so much like the queen. Did you just know

Mark:

Like, she was like,

Sarah:

easily that woman can pretend to be the queen at public events. They wish What is very me Verissimo?

Mark:

Yes. They wish Joyce Break

Sarah:

a leg and a neck.

Mark:

Break a leg and a neck. I didn't know that was a phrase. And once again, Joyce is a crone. How many times is Joyce a crone in this show?

Sarah:

She she does tend to play that part when she's in some kind of theater.

Mark:

Nico and Cully run into each other and stares. Oh, hearts, stars, happiness.

Sarah:

And Kitty tells Rosa how awful, Esselin said it was to be married to her. Just rubbing it in because they're both upset now. Well, Kitty is upset because she's getting dumped and Rosa's happy.

Mark:

So a couple of things. So the play starts,

Sarah:

assassin, assassin, assassin.

Mark:

At the interval, Barnaby looks after Deidre's dad.

Sarah:

Yep. He's so nice. He's good guy. It's clear that though Costin is a bigger city than the villages that are included in the show, but he's well known, especially among the theater people. They all know him as Tom.

Mark:

Yeah. They do. Yeah. And Troy shows he's kind of a country copper here though because he's like, I'm not used to going to theater.

Sarah:

He's never been to the theater before.

Mark:

To the theater before. And Culley's like, this is not theater.

Sarah:

This isn't really theater. Oh, we've got a couple of scenes with Tim and Avery, and they're good sandwiches, and there's a light out. But then

Mark:

Esalyn's so mean to Kitty on stage. He is mean to Nico on stage. This is all setting up red herrings Yeah. Of course.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

They and they have this meeting backstage that Eslin's out of control.

Sarah:

Well, because he clearly is. He's got a a role that is supposed to be powerful and yet ages dramatically throughout the play and then becomes somebody who has no power.

Mark:

Sort of like himself. Exactly. So

Sarah:

I think it's it's coming home to him. So he yeah. He turns his ring around and shakes Nico's hand on stage really deeply. He overacts with Kitty and shoves her to the ground and is really rough with her, which the theater troupe all know isn't part of the play. He's not supposed to do that.

Mark:

Kitty is roughed up, hit, smokes, and drinks. This is gonna be a tough pregnancy if there is a pregnancy.

Sarah:

I don't think she's pregnant. I wanna go back just a

Mark:

second Okay.

Sarah:

To the meet and greet before the play starts.

Mark:

Okay. So there's Harold, the queen.

Sarah:

Yeah. So but in the book, there's this. Well, in the book, Doris is much more put together.

Mark:

Oh, we haven't even started talking about Doris.

Sarah:

I mean, Doris is obviously very mousy and yes. Yeah. Because she's oh oh oh oh oh okay. Harold. You know, like she's clearly browbeaten and I mean really sad.

Sarah:

But in the book, she's she's a little bit more put together. But she does have that horrible cardigan on, but they don't make any reference to that, what is it, a net that's on her head? That awful I kind of don't know. Whatever that head

Mark:

Is she cooking in a fry shop later?

Sarah:

It's like a veil, but only goes down to her eyebrows or something. Anyway, in the book, Doris meets Chloe for the first time, or no, for the second time, and I just thought this was great because we keep joking kind of about how Cully's dropped out of college and all this stuff, but in the books, she is so much more rebellious. We had the line about the green hair and tattoo

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

In the episode before. When Doris meets Cully, she's struck by how different Cully looks because the last time she met, and I quote, she met Barnaby's daughter, the child had sported a green and silver crest of hair, was covered in black leather, and hung with chains.

Mark:

This is a different culley. I kinda am interested in

Sarah:

that other Punk culley?

Mark:

Punk culley.

Sarah:

I guess. But now she's dressed in something much more fashionable and kind of cute and her hair isn't her hair is black, very dark black.

Mark:

And not blonde.

Sarah:

Not blonde at

Mark:

all. Not blonde.

Sarah:

Not blonde at all.

Mark:

Salieri's death scene.

Sarah:

Yeah. If you remember anything about this episode, if it's been a while since you've seen it, this is what you remember.

Mark:

So the idea is that there is a razor, a straight razor, that is covered in tape. Scotch tape.

Sarah:

Transparent

Mark:

Don't say Scotch

Sarah:

tape. Transparent tape.

Mark:

Transparent tape. Because Scotch tape is a slur.

Sarah:

It's not our sponsor.

Mark:

Sticky tape. And the idea is that that will make it safe so he can run-in across his neck And pretend to die. Pretend to die. The razor has been switched. There's no tape on the blade, and Esalyn kills himself.

Sarah:

On stage On stage. In front of a packed audience.

Mark:

In front of Joyce and David.

Sarah:

And the audience. Yeah.

Mark:

And the audience. And Joyce does some great acting here. She freaks out.

Sarah:

You're not supposed to look out at the audience, you know? And she's playing a silent character who's supposed to be standing meekly behind Salieri. She's his cook. And then that happens. And I I remember the first time I saw this episode way way back, I felt that moment of panic.

Sarah:

Yeah. It is one of the worst deaths in Midsomer, And that's saying something.

Mark:

And really affects Joyce.

Sarah:

And it's a suit. I mean, suppose I mean, he kills himself. Right? There's not somebody there stabbing at him, which would be horrible. But the fact that he does it to himself not knowing.

Mark:

And there's that look of realization of in his eyes after he's done it. Yeah. And they do a very good job of not showing anything.

Sarah:

Right. Because There's not a crowd shot with Blood spurting out. Right? With their effects budget, they couldn't have done it realistically. But in the book it's very clear that she knows exactly where Tom is sitting.

Sarah:

She says what seat are you in? And he says I'm in like c one and she's like, good I'll know not to look there. Like because she doesn't wanna get nervous. But at that moment when she realizes what's happened, she turns out to the audience like, mutely at first, and it's clear she's looking for Tom. And Tom And then she screams.

Mark:

Tom jumps into action.

Sarah:

Into action.

Mark:

And Troy does immediately too.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

Troy again, this is Troy's best police performance.

Sarah:

Yep.

Mark:

He is on the case right away, and he gets there and shuts the curtain, which to me, for somebody who's never been to the theater, he sure knows how where the curtain goes.

Sarah:

I I think anybody who knows what a theater is knows where the curtain goes. There are pulleys. I mean, was in school, remember? In the book, the razor is it's described so well. Can I read this a little bit to you?

Sarah:

Esselin lifted the razor and with one dramatic sweep drew it across his throat. It left a bright red line. He stood for a moment, frowning down at the blade, unexpectedly scarlet. So he has this like, It's that moment, right? Because it's so sharp.

Sarah:

You probably wouldn't feel it.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

He swayed forward then jerked himself upright as if with a great effort. The keeper of the cakes, that's Joyce, bustled cheerfully on with the breakfast tray. Salieri took a step to meet her. She stared at him, her mouth shaped in a silent o, then she dropped the tray and caught him as he fell. Then she screamed, shrieks of pure terror over and over again while the bright blood flowed over her snowy fichu and dove gray skirt onto the boards beneath.

Mark:

Joyce, in the book, is covered in blood.

Sarah:

Covered. Because she catches him in her arms. It's an ingenious death. Yep. It's a dramatic death that sticks with you.

Mark:

For all his nutsy boboness, Harold does a good job at killing him.

Sarah:

Yeah. And then blames him for ruining his play. How dare he? While we're on the razor, though, it's funny because I've got a Google alert set up for Midsomer, and we both follow the Midsomer subreddit. Hello, Redditors out there.

Sarah:

We love you. There is a story a few years ago in New Zealand. Some kids were putting on a production of Sweeney Todd, and you think they would have seen the Midsomer something.

Mark:

Razor in that case was supposed to have been taped.

Sarah:

Yeah. They thought some duct tape was gonna do it or something. So yeah, so a couple of the kids were injured, but one of the kids actually had his throat slit five centimeters deep, his trachea was exposed. Can you imagine seeing your kid on stage and that happening to your kid? What happened to Eslin on like, jeez.

Sarah:

Okay. So just a tip, if you're gonna produce Amadeus or Sweeney Todd or any other theater production which happens to involve a razor, like if you're doing West Side Story and the Jets have their razors out, they can be fake. It's okay. We forgive you.

Mark:

I'm okay with that.

Sarah:

I'm gonna suspend my disbelief and not notice that they're plastic. That's alright.

Mark:

I'm completely fine with that. And health and safety is also completely fine with that.

Sarah:

Yep. Don't use real razors on stage kids.

Mark:

Poor mister Tibbs stumbles out of the theater.

Sarah:

Oh, he makes a run for it.

Mark:

Love the lamb.

Sarah:

Love the lamb.

Mark:

He's just a big red herring in his striped pajamas. Yeah. That's what he is.

Sarah:

And everybody's insisting there was tape on the blade, there was tape on the blade, which I'm saying tape was not enough, people. Like, the whole time they're insisting that there was tape. Who took the tape off? I'm thinking, why did you rely on tape to begin with? I digress.

Mark:

Harold is so annoying backstage.

Sarah:

It's the typical everybody here has to stay put until we've talked to all of you seen, right, in the lots of mystery shows. Everybody gets impatient waiting their turn to give a statement, whatever. But Harold is so obnoxious. He can't even stand that Barnaby talks to anyone before him. Including his friend

Mark:

Yeah. Colin Sim. Yeah. And he goes, there's one thing

Sarah:

I can't stand. It's high handedness. Ringing its pot calling Kettle down in the green room when everybody clears out because they've been told they can go home and give a statement tomorrow. Harold's like, I elect to be seen now. And he sits down and he says, well, Tom, it was like this.

Sarah:

And he stands up and Tom is gone. Yes. Tom has no time for his bullshit. None of it.

Mark:

Now Nico goes and helps Joyce home with Cully.

Sarah:

Well, Harold felt a sinister frisson in his production from the beginning. Yeah. Because you it.

Mark:

You are the sinister frisson.

Sarah:

Yeah. Oh, he's more than a frisson. Yeah. So Deidre's run off to go find her dad and some police help her track him down and he climbs the top of the senior center or whatever and gets scared and jumps off. The the stuntman they have that plays him in the jump looks nothing like him.

Sarah:

Completely different person. Like, they didn't even try to find somebody of similar height.

Mark:

Now, the two constables, it's a man and a woman. Mhmm. I noticed that.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

And there's two of them, while later a constable that comes out to bus Troy is just one.

Sarah:

Yeah. He's on his own.

Mark:

He's just on his own.

Sarah:

Yeah. Well, they're looking for somebody at night. Right? So they go in pairs.

Mark:

I guess so.

Sarah:

Doris is is sleeping in the audience waiting for Harold. I love that she she gets startled and she kinda startles awake and goes outside to follow him and he's gone.

Mark:

He just drives away.

Sarah:

Left her.

Mark:

How did she get home? How does Doris get home?

Sarah:

They ask a constable.

Mark:

Oh, that's right. He asked a constable.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Because Tom is a wonderful person.

Sarah:

Yeah. I can't just couldn't believe, like, Harold just leaves her behind. It felt so bad for her. Now, do you remember when you first saw this episode? Like, who you suspected and like, did did you think it was Harold from the beginning or were you fooled by any of the red herrings?

Sarah:

Can you remember?

Mark:

I can't really remember this episode because I think I was doing something else because Esalyn's death is like fifty minutes in.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

And I gotta tell you, I'm I'm getting kinda tired waiting for another death.

Sarah:

Yeah. You're like, murder? Come on. It's called Midsomer Murder.

Mark:

And then all of a sudden that happens. And it's so like

Sarah:

Yeah. It's such a shocking death.

Mark:

And I was like, what did I miss through the whole fifty minutes of boredom before this?

Sarah:

So the first time I saw this episode, it was long after it had aired for the first time and it must have been after 2004 actually because I had this creeping suspicion that it was Doris the whole time. Well, until we kinda get to this point where Harold kinda ditches her, I always thought she's not as kooky as she pretends to be. Like, she's up to something. And we were when we rewatched it, I was trying to figure out why I had thought that. And the reason I know that I must have seen this episode for the first time after 2004 was the same actress who plays Doris, whose name is Angela Pleasance, who's the doctor, the daughter of Donald Pleasance.

Sarah:

Donald Pleasance. From Halloween. Halloween.

Mark:

And every other movie in the eighties.

Sarah:

Yeah. She's in this great Poirot that Tim Curry is in as well. Which one is it? Appointment with Death. And in that Poirot, she plays this nanny who's also very mousy, very quiet, very shy, but then you learn through the episode that she has been at the at the order of her mistress torturing children, like almost drowning them, beating them with sticks.

Sarah:

I mean, doing really And heinous things to I hated that character so much in that Poirot that it stuck with me. So when I saw the same actress kind of playing the same kind of mousy quiet part, I just thought she's a bad guy.

Mark:

It must have been.

Sarah:

But I had to kind of think it through like where did I know her from? And it's from that darn plural.

Mark:

Mhmm.

Sarah:

But I suspected her, that she didn't do it.

Mark:

She didn't do it. Everybody gets interviewed and

Sarah:

Well, and Troy again in one of his smart cop moments in this one when he's discussing the possibilities with Barnaby the next day, he says, well, maybe Kitty did it. And Tom's like, well, why do you think that? And she says, well, if because they know that he was gonna divorce her and she was having an affair.

Mark:

Which is a a valid line

Sarah:

of Absolutely. It it makes her a suspect. Well, she could have killed him at home, but then it would have looked like a domestic and she would have been a suspect right away. So she does it this way. She you she throws shade on everybody else.

Mark:

Again, well thought out.

Sarah:

And Barnaby says good point. And Troy has this look on his face like, I did make a good point. Like, looks surprised that he might have figured something out. Poor Troy.

Mark:

And then he says, it may be Kitty's fancy man.

Sarah:

Fancy man.

Mark:

Which already Barnaby thinks. Is Nico. Is Nico. Yeah. So everybody thinks that Kitty and Nico are doing it.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Everyone gets interviewed including the gay guys at the bookshop with Troy.

Sarah:

Troy gets sent there by himself and practically shoves his badge down their throats.

Mark:

And they just make saucy gay jokes at him.

Sarah:

Yeah. They basically taunt him, which he deserves at that point.

Mark:

It comes to where is Colin's mind? Yes. So they go to Colin's house.

Sarah:

Colin who is the older man who's the father of David who's in the play and Colin is the one that Tom is painting the scenery with early on. He's he's kind of a nonentity if you don't remember that.

Mark:

He he's a nice guy.

Sarah:

Yeah. But he's just not a critical character.

Mark:

And he confesses to the murder.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

And Troy, in another moment of good copmanship, good cop person ship,

Sarah:

good cop ship. Good policing? Good policing.

Mark:

Is like catches him in a lie. Yeah. Because he says he he flushed the tape.

Sarah:

Yeah. And the the tape from the razor and Troy says we tried that. It floats. So now I have this image of Troy in a toilet like tearing off pieces of tape from a roll and dropping them in and flush? No.

Sarah:

Let's try again. No. Because I don't think there was a forensic Saco guy, you know, off to the side trying to flush tape. Meanwhile, poor Joyce is at home just still in shock. Chloe's taking care of her.

Sarah:

She's really, really beside herself over this.

Mark:

Let's finish off Colin. Colin is confesses. Yes. They know it's not true. David comes home.

Sarah:

He's confessing on behalf of somebody else.

Mark:

David's coming home. Barnaby figures out that Colin is protecting David because Colin saw David doing something at the props table. Yeah. And what he did was he put Vim, which is caustic. It's like It's Ajax.

Mark:

It's it's

Sarah:

Which is like Comet. Right? Like an abrasive thing that you scrub the sink with or something.

Mark:

Ajax, Vim, and Comet are relatively the same thing.

Sarah:

Yeah. So he sprinkled that on the cakes that Salieri has to eat on

Mark:

the poison.

Sarah:

Yeah. But it's not very much. It doesn't kill him.

Mark:

So it

Sarah:

comes out they taste

Mark:

has a great exit line again. Yeah.

Sarah:

Because it's clear there's like nothing to do here. These two are not are not guilty.

Mark:

Don't do it again. Alright? Yeah. It's

Sarah:

like, yeah. What my boss said.

Mark:

So then they go and interview Kitty and the interview is completely irrelevant. She says some things, but good lord. What the hell does she have on? It has letters and words that I think are in French, but it's see through. And there's a bra part and then a miniskirt.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's It's clearly like, you know, funeral widow chic.

Mark:

But there's okay. So this is the next day. There's no funeral yet.

Sarah:

No. But she's in

Mark:

the morning.

Sarah:

She's wearing her widow's But she's

Mark:

just sitting around at home. Why is she not in sweats and a t shirt?

Sarah:

Because she's not really sad?

Mark:

Well, I guess so.

Sarah:

She has a black handkerchief.

Mark:

But Oh. But why put on sort of posh sleazy clothes?

Sarah:

Because she's gotta look good. I guess. He's a cheeky bugger.

Mark:

Yes. She calls Troy a cheeky bugger. They feel it's a waste of a day.

Sarah:

Yeah. But it's not a waste of

Mark:

the day because they got rid of a whole bunch of suspects, leaving really only a few, mostly ones named Harold. Yeah.

Sarah:

Then then Tom gets a random phone call.

Mark:

From the chip van man with the awesome bacon sandwiches.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because they found the vehicle. Because remember, there's another body.

Mark:

Yes, Agnes. Oh, that's right. We've arrived at the almost end of the episode.

Sarah:

The return to Agnes.

Mark:

Burnaby gives Troy the key and says, look at all these garages.

Sarah:

The key that was around Agnes' neck that all this time they knew was for some kind of padlock or something, but they had no evidence of where that

Mark:

might be. While you're gonna do that, I'm gonna sit in the car and read the paper and eat my bacon sandwich.

Sarah:

Well, wouldn't you? Yes. Have your lockie go do it.

Mark:

But Troy, in all his excellent policing in this episode, has forgotten how keys and locks work.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's almost like one of those bad TV infomercials where somebody's purposely doing something awful to make a product look good, you know.

Mark:

It's like he takes the key and waves it at the lock and he's like, why is this not working? It won't work. I'm gonna

Sarah:

go to the next one.

Mark:

So then a cop shows up.

Sarah:

Trying a bit of breaking and entering, sir.

Mark:

And this is The UK and this is the nineties because Troy reaches in his coat, which any cop would immediately go, stop.

Sarah:

Well, but remember, that cop doesn't even have a gun. So what's he gonna say? Stop again? If Troy's whipping out a weapon.

Mark:

Or I'll say stop again. So Troy takes out his warrant card and then the constable comes and they find the religious artifact. But they open the garage and on the back of the garage door is? Blood splatter. Blood splatter.

Mark:

And they walk

Sarah:

right past it. I think Barnaby almost puts his hand in it because they kinda push the garage door open. And there's like this big like splatter of blood. They've never known where Agnes was killed. Clearly, she was transported to the water and dumped in the water.

Sarah:

Clearly, she wasn't killed in her apartment. They've checked it. There's no evidence there that she was killed there.

Mark:

I'm surprised they didn't find a monogrammed crowbar with Harold's name

Sarah:

on it. A bonking crowbar? A bonking crowbar. I'm kind of surprised that they didn't open the door, see the blood, and say, stop. We need to call Saco.

Sarah:

We shouldn't go in there. There might be evidence.

Mark:

You think?

Sarah:

But that would have slowed down the episode. Right? So they go in and they find the effigy. They find the mother and child.

Mark:

And they realize that she's dealing in stolen artifacts.

Sarah:

Yeah. Which explains the spreadsheet, which explains the money, which explains the donkey donations.

Mark:

Which is why eventually Barnaby puts it together. Troy says they need heavy freight to move this. And Barnaby's like, import export. Because in the very first scene Yeah. Where Barnaby and Joyce are talking first scene with dialogue.

Mark:

They're talking. They mentioned that Harold's an import exporter, and he's doing well.

Sarah:

In passing. Don't forget though.

Mark:

It's a clue Scoob.

Sarah:

While Barnaby is at the garage finding the effigy, Collie's at home making a grocery list with shocked Joyce and we learn for the first time, though we will hear it again, Barney b likes chunky marmalade.

Mark:

Chunky marmalade. At first, I thought it was peanut butter, but then I remembered the marmalade.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because he likes marmalade. Yeah. And relish. Yes.

Sarah:

We hear about the relish later.

Mark:

Relish later.

Sarah:

Another episode. So she'll be alright. She'll be fine. Kelly goes off, and we go back

Mark:

to the Well,

Sarah:

she she says she's gonna go to the grocery store, but she might stop by the blackbird on her way.

Mark:

To see Nicholas.

Sarah:

So we go to the bookshop. Yep. Where Harold may give his most over the top performance.

Mark:

As Dracula's mother. Avery makes a good joke there.

Sarah:

He says, great. Here comes Dracula's mother.

Mark:

No. It's Tim that says that.

Sarah:

Oh, Tim. Yeah. They wanna lock him out, but they know that he won't go away, so they let him in. We we learned that Nico's got a place in drama school and they're really excited and Harold has just gotten a a lease on a new theater and he thinks that the world's opening up to him again.

Mark:

So if Nico's not having an affair with Kitty, who

Sarah:

is? Tim. Tim. Some call me Tim.

Mark:

Tim plays for both teams.

Sarah:

Well, we knew that already. Because unlike Avery, he wasn't making sequin jockstraps for Paddington when he was a little boy.

Mark:

Yeah. We skipped over the sequin jockstrap for Paddington. If you have a picture of a sequin jockstrap on Paddington, I will gladly repost that picture.

Sarah:

Yes. Because it would be fabulous. The question is, does it go over or under the coat? Sometimes I ask questions that you just don't know

Mark:

how to I just think of Paddington opening up the coat and then.

Sarah:

Then we get that great scene of because Kitty's getting rid of Esselin's clothes. Right? She doesn't miss him. She's not sorry to see him go. And she finds the floppy disc

Mark:

In her couture wear again.

Sarah:

Yeah. She finds the floppy disc in

Mark:

the pants pocket. That floppy

Sarah:

disc know what it is. But it was in the jacket that he had on most recently.

Mark:

No. I don't I don't think she doesn't know what's on it. I don't think she knows what it is.

Sarah:

Yeah. Like, what a disc is? Yes. And, like, what do you think the label says? Like, evidence or Agnes' bad things or blackmail proof.

Mark:

Proof that Harold is guilty.

Sarah:

Yeah. Harold murder proof. Anyway, she clearly realizes that it's Talk exe. Yeah. That it's evidentiary.

Sarah:

And she goes to the police station, but Tom and Barnaby are just leaving. She tries to get their attention, so she

Mark:

waves it. She waves it like, look. Look what I have. But she doesn't say anything.

Sarah:

No. They're long gone. So she slips it through the mail slot. But they do find it,

Mark:

It's so it's weird. She slips it through the mail slot of a busy police station. It's Which

Sarah:

it would probably get stepped on and

Mark:

You you would think.

Sarah:

And then Barnaby has his Barnaby tells all moment where he recounts the entire crime to Troy on the way to the on

Mark:

the This way is where we hear the Agnes' death yell.

Sarah:

Yeah. Her her crowbar bonking.

Mark:

At the same time, poor Doris finds the razor. In the medicine cabinet. While she's cleaning with Ajax. This episode brought to you by Vim and Ajax.

Sarah:

We know that Harold had a second razor and the way he accomplished giving a non taped razor to Esselin, because they always assumed that somebody would have to be backstage with like a Stanley knife or something, scraping off the tape and And not flushing it. Right. Because it would float. It it would be difficult to remove it so it would take a few minutes and somebody would be seen doing that. But but Harold's not done that.

Sarah:

He's got a second razor. So he swaps the razors ahead of the interval, and then he is able to take the tape off at his leisure and then swaps it back. But then he goes home and takes the duplicate razor and puts it in the medicine cabinet.

Mark:

Just because?

Sarah:

Well, if you actually used a straight razor to shave with, would expect it to be in your medicine cabinet. But Doris clearly doesn't expect to see a razor in the medicine cabinet. No. She fumbles it and basically knocks everything out of the medicine cabinet. As he comes home.

Sarah:

Which gets Harold's attention so he knows something's up because he knows it's where he's put it. And he attacks her with a razor and it's scary. It is scary. She's trapped in a bathroom, there's no way out, he's between her and the door. He has a razor, and all she has is her ugly sweater.

Mark:

But this is the second episode in a row where crazy person with edge weapon attacking mousy person upstairs in big house. I'm just saying there's

Sarah:

a pattern. But Harold doesn't go diving out the window.

Mark:

No. No. He does cut her though.

Sarah:

Yeah. She defends herself with her arms, which I can only imagine if that was actually a sharp razor. That would be some real damage.

Mark:

It it would be real damage. Thankfully, she has her sweater and her potholders.

Sarah:

It's a it's a step. Wow. Somebody could do a fashion line of Doris' ugly sweaters, but it would have to come with that thing she wears on her head.

Mark:

With the the hair net. Yeah. So Harold kinda enters a fugue state here where he thinks he's like, oh, Tom, you're here.

Sarah:

Yeah. He snaps in and out of that kind of craziness to his fantasy world where everything's fine.

Mark:

And he needs his hat because the press is down.

Sarah:

He just has to have gotten rid of anybody who was in his way. Were pesky Well, and and Esselin. Right? And now that they're gone, he can go on to his big success.

Mark:

And he goes downstairs and we see Doris, poor Doris, getting in an ambulance. Thankfully, Doris gets some help.

Sarah:

Yeah. He doesn't wanna go downstairs initially and Tom has to kind of convince him that the press are down there and everything's a go and he doesn't really believe him. He kind of doubts Tom until Tom says that Schofield will be there. Yep. And I had to look up Schofield, and it turns out it's Paul Schofield who was a very well known actor, long long time.

Sarah:

He he had a CBE which is kind of like an OBE. Mhmm. It's a very well known.

Mark:

So he gets downstairs, goes in the police car.

Sarah:

Yeah. If you have a chance to watch this episode again, pay close attention to Harold's facial expressions from the door of the house to the door of the car. Because it's I'm okay? Wait a minute.

Mark:

Yes, I'm I am. Oh, yes, I am.

Sarah:

No. I'm not. Maybe I am. Maybe not. It's it's really well done.

Sarah:

Really well done.

Mark:

So we have a dinner scene of the Barnabas, which is always a horror story, but Kelly helped cook. And Nico's there. And Nico's there, and Joyce is alright, and Barnaby explains the disc.

Sarah:

And that Harold's confessed, but it was one of his last lucid moments. He won't be charged. Well, he won't be have his day in court.

Mark:

And Barnaby says, I can't believe this is all over theater.

Sarah:

I can't believe anybody would commit murder for sake of the theater.

Mark:

And Cully and Dad.

Sarah:

We were pissed.

Mark:

And they laugh, and the credits roll.

Sarah:

This episode is with the exception of Esalyn's death, is just not as notable and crazy and exciting as the previous two episodes. It's it's a good episode, but the two deaths are kind of I don't know. They're not very well connected. We don't have a whole lot of corpses to choose from and we've got our best best corpse of the episode. It's gotta be Agnes because we

Mark:

He's don't even only see corpse of the episode.

Sarah:

After he's dead. He does have a fantabulous death, but we don't get to see him.

Mark:

So I have a couple of problems with the episode two.

Sarah:

Okay.

Mark:

The first one being, as we mentioned, if you're doing a performance in which there's a razor that slits somebody's throat, use a plastic razor.

Sarah:

Mhmm. It's inviting trouble.

Mark:

I know I can juggle knives now and practice because I put tape on them.

Sarah:

Nico can juggle scones.

Mark:

Yes. I also think that this motive again is a little difficult because, essentially, it's saying Harold was on edge and he wanted to have money to get a new theater. I understand that. Yeah. And he thought this was his way back to stardom.

Mark:

And when that was put in jeopardy, he didn't get upset. He got a crowbar.

Sarah:

And he must have been pretty coherent up to that point because Agnes was able to do business with him over a pretty long period of

Mark:

time for a pretty large number of pieces of art. So this is the moment like again, like the first episode, oh, you caught us bonking outside. We're gonna go on a murder spree.

Sarah:

So are we to assume then that Agnes must have told Harold that she was done? That she wasn't gonna do it anymore?

Mark:

One would assume that.

Sarah:

And that's what made him snap? Yeah. Yeah.

Mark:

And again, as we mentioned also, there's a low body count in this episode.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's a disappointing body count. The the one death is is great, but

Mark:

I would say Agnes' death was good.

Sarah:

But like It's not as notable as the razor.

Mark:

Like, it could've the razor death could've happened at minute twenty five, and then Kitty could've get knocked off or Rosa could've get knocked off or Tim or Avery, somebody in there. Like, imagine if Tim and Tim and Rosa were found together dead because they found the disc and Tim said, oh, I know what this is. Let's blackmail him.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Like that that would have, you know, been much more You're you're

Sarah:

trying to find ways to kill more people.

Mark:

I I am. I am trying to find ways to kill which leads me back to another point of the episode is there's not a lot of likable people in this.

Sarah:

No. It's it's it's hard to I I think Esselin's death had to be shocking because otherwise, you'd be like, meh. Somebody killed the asshole.

Mark:

Avery I like Avery. Makes good jokes.

Sarah:

He's fun.

Mark:

Tim is He's okay.

Sarah:

Cheap on her as a partner.

Mark:

Yeah. Kitty and Rosa just hate each other.

Sarah:

They're irredeemable.

Mark:

Esalyn's irredeemable. And almost to the point of Doris is so mousy, she's dislikable.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because she's clearly been in that position for a long time.

Mark:

Like, she clearly had Ajax. She could have done the deed herself.

Sarah:

Oh, she cooked all of his meals for him.

Mark:

Including the rhubarb cobbler, which had to be

Sarah:

at least a week old.

Mark:

We had a twenty minute conversation trying to figure out what day it was and what day the rhubarb cobbler was made only to figure out that there was no way for us to figure this out

Sarah:

No.

Mark:

And that she must be serving him weak old cobbler.

Sarah:

Because he's what's for pudding.

Mark:

Maybe. Maybe. He got ergot poisoning from from the weak old cobbler.

Sarah:

No. He leaves before he eats it anyway.

Mark:

Maybe that was why he was insane, but he left before he ate it.

Sarah:

Because he was hungry.

Mark:

So Maniacs, that is death of a hollow man.

Sarah:

If you have any comments or ideas that we didn't think of or

Mark:

Or sequin jockstrap pictures of Pattinson.

Sarah:

That's true. Or if you notice any other kind of interesting little things like camshafts on raptors, drop us a line, send us a voice mail, we would love to hear your thoughts. Our next episode will be season one episode three which is?

Mark:

Faithful unto death. Which is a very

Sarah:

It's a low body count,

Mark:

but it's a good body count, but it's a good one. It's got Roger Allom in it. Yeah. One of our favorite actors. Yeah.

Mark:

And reminder that our Twitter feed is at Midsommar Maniacs, and you could pick up this podcast at all the regular podcasting places and

Sarah:

Give us a like. Give us a comment. Let us know what you think.

Mark:

Like, comment, and rate and review us on any podcast application that you use. Bye, Maniacs. Bye, Maniacs. Not Harold. What's his name?

Mark:

The killer. Harold. Harold. Okay. Harold.

Sarah:

Hey, Maniacs.

Mark:

Hey, Maniacs.

Sarah:

Just a message here before the new episode to say thank you.

Mark:

Our fourth episode, which is faithful unto death.

Sarah:

Before we start this week's episode, we're really excited to share some of the awesome messages that people have left about the podcast. We're glad you enjoy it.

Mark:

Yes. Absolutely. They come from all sorts of social media accounts and we'll start with Facebook. Carrie Mason says, loving it. I have found my people.

Sarah:

So have we. These are our people.

Mark:

These are our people.

Sarah:

Emily Foster also on Facebook says, I'm a part of the Midsomer Murders group on Reddit, and one of the contributors just announced that they're starting an episode by episode podcast, something I never listen to. But I've now created a Spotify account specifically for this.

Mark:

You know, I gotta say, I've I've heard that people are creating Spotify accounts just for this podcast and that's Nutsie Bobo.

Sarah:

Spotify should be paying us.

Mark:

I think Spotify should. Sue's on Twitter who is at beauty addict seventeen says, just finished listening to the podcast. I loved it. On caps. I'm from The UK and a huge fan of Midsommar Murders and I've been waiting so long for someone to do a Midsommar podcast.

Sarah:

So were we, and that's why we decided to just do it.

Mark:

Exactly.

Sarah:

At little sister Lee on Twitter said, it makes me want to comment along as I listen. Living in The UK prove that places like Midsomer totally exist, and some have weird habits and people.

Mark:

Excellent.

Sarah:

Over on Instagram, Balik says, I'm only eleven minutes into this podcast and I love it already. We love you already.

Mark:

Yes, we do. Christina Hanner says, so I'm not even through all the way through episode the episode yet and I've come to tell you how much I'm loving it. I don't know anyone who watches Midsomer Murders much less adores it like I do, lifelong fan of all or any murder shows that are British and Midsomer is my favorite. So your podcast is like listening to friends, I wish I had to discuss the show with me.

Sarah:

That's how we felt for the longest time. That's how we thought we should make the podcast. And you know, I think it's one of those things that's gonna limit how many listeners we have because all of our listeners are people who love Midsomer, but don't know anybody else who loves Midsomer, so they can't recommend it to their friends.

Mark:

On Reddit, Beverly Cleverly has said, really enjoying the first half of the podcast, gonna listen to the rest on the way home into traffic with all the constables on the freeway.

Sarah:

Gang gang on Reddit says, my family give me so much good natured stick for loving Midsomer Murders. I felt like I have found some allies. Love the concept. Looking forward to the next episode.

Mark:

Tiamada says, I'm about twenty minutes in the episode and already love it. I keep yelling yes as I listen during my commute to work in the morning. So good. And Recrohan? Recrohan?

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

Over on Reddit. Says, OMFG, wife and

Mark:

I are stoked. And Sorsha four five six four says, seriously, I just signed up for Spotify specifically so I could listen to this.

Sarah:

That's so awesome.

Mark:

We also got audio from Brandon in Texas who says this.

Sarah:

And I love the episodes. I hope you keep them coming. And again, yeah, Mark, Sarah, hope you have a wonderful week and I look forward to the next episode.

Mark:

So once again, we just wanna say thank you to everybody for listening and commenting. It makes all so awesome to be part of this community and part of a bunch of people who felt like they were alone and had no one to talk to about this show when we're all together now talking about it.

Sarah:

We're excited that you're excited and there's lots to talk about for each and every episode of the show. And so we hope you'll go to Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, see the show notes, leave us a comment, answer some of the questions we pose, like who should play Troy's wife if he was married in the show, and lots of other controversial topics about camshafts versus crankshafts and all kinds of other fun things. We hope to see you there.

Mark:

Thank you so much for listening. And now on to episode four, faithful unto death. Enjoy.

Sarah:

Hey, Midsomer Maniacs.

Mark:

Hey, Maniacs. We are

Sarah:

back with you this week to discuss Faithful Unto Death episode three in season one.

Mark:

Yes. And just as a reminder, our disclaimer at the start of the show, if you let your kids watch the show, they can listen to the podcast, but if the show is too much for your kids, the podcast will be too much for

Sarah:

your You know what's too much for your kids? Simone's horrible clothes in this episode.

Mark:

Simone's horrible clothes and the corner of lesbian love pictures.

Sarah:

They're just they're just bad taste. Lesbian love is all good and fine, but those pictures are in bad taste.

Mark:

It has nothing to do with the fact they're lesbians.

Sarah:

Nope. Everything to do with the bad glamour shot photography. I'm Sarah. And I'm Mark. And we're glad to have you back for this discussion of an episode in which we wait forty four and a half minutes for the first death.

Mark:

And speaking of waiting, the waiting is finally over because this when we're recording this is actually the day the first podcast is released. So we're very excited about that, and we've already got some very excellent, supportive, and very lovely comments. Thank you already, and we will go through them in the next episode for sure.

Sarah:

You know, I thought from the very beginning that we would have peeps out there. The people who have seen these episodes as often as we have, and who also bandy around little inside jokes that only Midsomer fans would get, like, it's not a flower, it's an orchid. And I'm so glad that some folks are recognizing that, and they're also in on the jokes.

Mark:

We definitely have some peeps. So this

Sarah:

It's not just us.

Mark:

This episode was filmed in October ninety seven and broadcast the 04/22/1998, a whole month after the first two episodes. So there's a year there's the pilot, then a year, and then two episodes back to back on weeks, and then they have to wait another month to get the next episode. I don't know about you guys, but when we get new Midsommers, we're like, we should portion these out.

Sarah:

Yeah. So when they come out on Acorn or BritBox, we're like, oh, there's a new season. We're just gonna watch like one a night. Yep. And then seven hours later

Mark:

We've watched them all.

Sarah:

It's one in the morning, and we're like gorged little piggies on the couch having watched all of them. Yes. Because we can't control ourselves.

Mark:

This is also a Carolyn Graham book. It's the fifth book in the Barnaby series.

Sarah:

Actually called Faithful Unto Death, which is a reference to Revelations two ten, which I hadn't read. But once I looked it up, I realized how appropriate it was for the end of the episode. Here's a quote.

Mark:

Does it never end? Because the ending of the episode ends like four times.

Sarah:

I know. Here's the quote, a little bible reading for us. Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer. Behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison that you may be tried, and ye shall have tribulation ten days, which doesn't seem like a very long prison I

Mark:

could probably do ten days in prison, even angry lesbian prison.

Sarah:

Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. So it's that whole idea of, you know, stick it out, and there will be a reward for you.

Mark:

The whole ten days.

Sarah:

Yeah. You got you gotta stick it out the whole ten days.

Mark:

We we need some orange is the new black pleather raincoat references.

Sarah:

So these references, we forgot to mention. Hopefully, you'll get because you've recently watched this episode. If you haven't seen it in a long time, we hope you'll give it a watch before you listen so that you'll be able to follow along with us.

Mark:

It stars a stunningly young Roger Allen.

Sarah:

Mhmm. Which you might recognize from Endeavor.

Mark:

And Morse. And Lewis.

Sarah:

Lewis. And, you know, all of those properties. Plus, he's been in a lot of other things. Was he was in

Mark:

He plays Parrathro in v for Vendetta. I think one of his best roles.

Sarah:

Yeah. I agree.

Mark:

Because he's completely naked in it.

Sarah:

He was not in Game of Thrones. Right?

Mark:

Yes. He was.

Sarah:

He

Mark:

was. He was the guy who took the Targaryen children across the sea.

Sarah:

That's right. He's the one who gives Daenerys the eggs.

Mark:

He is the the guy who has the eggs.

Sarah:

Yes.

Mark:

He could use some eggs here.

Sarah:

He he needs something. Poor guy. Yeah. He's so young in his mom jeans and button up shirts.

Mark:

So this episode was directed by Baz Taylor, which is his first time directing for Midsomer Mhmm. And written by Douglas Watkinson, which is also the first time. I think they realized that a television show is a lot of work. They're really producing four movies.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because they're ninety minute episodes. Right? Or seventy five minute episodes.

Mark:

And so this is the second team. Not to say it's the b team. No. But it is the second team. And one thing before we go on, we will be talking about lesbians in this episode, and we by no means are disparaging lesbianism or lesbians.

Mark:

We absolutely support whatever life choices you make and absolutely think it's fantastic, but these particular lesbians are problematic.

Sarah:

They're they're not the best representation. Though, I will say that in these first few episodes, Troy gets an education in alternative lifestyles.

Mark:

He certainly does. Farnaby. Incestuous bonking to lesbian photography.

Sarah:

Don't forget the the bookstore gays.

Mark:

Yes. Yeah. The bookstore homosexuals.

Sarah:

He he gets all of his homophobia and weirdness exposed.

Mark:

Right? He does. Yeah. Absolutely.

Sarah:

But Barnaby is thoroughly modern.

Mark:

Absolutely. In fact, at one point in this episode, he goes over to one of the character's houses and because he goes alone because Troy

Sarah:

really He's too thoroughly male.

Mark:

He's too thoroughly male. So

Sarah:

Barnaby says you can't choose who you love.

Mark:

No. Not at all. I love you. I love you.

Sarah:

Oh.

Mark:

The village in this episode is Mortenfendel, which is breaking the tradition of Midsomer blank.

Sarah:

Yep.

Mark:

We have our first pub.

Sarah:

And our first bet.

Mark:

Yes. And we actually have information about the location of the filming of this episode. It was filmed in a in a place called Little Marlow's. Oh. Little Marlow, which is Little Marlow lies three miles northeast of its bigger brother, Marlow.

Mark:

And comes complete with a small village green, fourteenth century church, and manor house, and two public houses, the king's head

Sarah:

and The queen's head.

Mark:

Little Marlow became Morton Fendel in faithful unto death with several cottages and sixteenth century queen's head pub exterior as well as interior, and the Village Church of Saint John the Baptist all featuring prominently.

Sarah:

Tell us what book you're reading

Mark:

from. This is from the Midsomer Murders on location book, fully illustrated, indexed, and with location maps by Sabine Schreiner and Joan Street.

Sarah:

And it's a really useful book. If if you're a maniac from Midsomer like we are, it's it's handy. My favorite fat line, I've got a coconut and you have it. Yes.

Mark:

So for our American listeners who don't know what a Fett is, it's the village carnival.

Sarah:

Hey, anybody who watches Midsomer knows exactly what a Fett is. They know it's a place you go if you want to die.

Mark:

Bar Barnaby wins this coconut from George, and then when Joyce comes up in her hair Mhmm.

Sarah:

Fresh sort of like the coconut.

Mark:

Fresh out of a Drandoren video. Joyce totally oggles his coconut.

Sarah:

Oh. He's never won anything before. No. The set though gives us an opportunity to meet most of the main characters. So the Andersons, who are the pubkeepers, offer the Barnabas

Mark:

Only people dressed in Renfaire clothing and speaking in Renfaire speech. No one else is.

Sarah:

Yeah. I'm not really sure why, but Culley's not impressed with their burger of the no. It's a dog of the hot variety.

Mark:

Dog of the hot gazooks, she says.

Sarah:

Yeah. Culley's gazooks. We also get Alfreda Moff Moffrey and her husband Bunny, who's my favorite.

Mark:

Who is a mutton dressed as lamb Yeah. Which is the very first time I heard this phrase. Now this phrase means an older lady who dresses as a younger person, But that does not describe Elphira

Sarah:

most Elphira. No. No. That describes missus Anderson later with her leopard skin miniskirt.

Mark:

And lack of undergarments.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

It must be cold in Grey's house.

Sarah:

Yeah. And in the pub and everywhere else you see missus Anderson.

Mark:

That was weird that it they use that and centered on it, and it's not really a good example.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

But it doesn't matter because Bunny and Elfrida are awesome.

Sarah:

The potheads. The bunny cakes. So we see them, we see George and Kath, his wife.

Mark:

Yes. So we're introduced to Kath who play the same actress plays Kath in a number of episodes Mhmm.

Sarah:

But She's recurring.

Mark:

She's a recurring character.

Sarah:

Yep. And we get Reg and his wife Felicity and their daughter Brenda.

Mark:

Buckleys.

Sarah:

Oh, boy Brenda.

Mark:

Brenda. We'll

Sarah:

come back to Brenda.

Mark:

She has lovely pink eyeglasses that match her lip gloss and not her permanent.

Sarah:

Oh, that perm is so bad. But she gets the bad hair naturally.

Mark:

She does.

Sarah:

Reg might have the worst hair in any Midsommar episode.

Mark:

He's he's fantastically failing and being a comb over.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's like a comb forward.

Mark:

Sort of.

Sarah:

Kind of like tentacles wrapped, greasy tentacles wrapped around his forehead?

Mark:

The the worst hair, maybe. And we'll have to maybe we'll have to like do a a wrap up episode at the year end. The worst hair I think in Midsomer on a man is the episode where Jones goes to the cult pretending to be a tech billionaire, and there's the guy who thinks he's gonna sleep with everybody.

Sarah:

Oh, his hair is bad.

Mark:

That guy's hair is bad.

Sarah:

We'll get to that one.

Mark:

We're also introduced to Gray Patterson.

Sarah:

Slot. Oh, did I say that? Sorry.

Mark:

And Alan Hollingsworth. Idiot.

Sarah:

Yeah. And his wife Simone, who is supposed to be some kind of sex goddess or something. I'm not impressed with her.

Mark:

I don't wanna go through everything, but why does Simone say hello to George in such a come hither provocative way? And Barnaby and George have this weird conversation about it.

Sarah:

Yeah. Hello, George. Who's that? That's Simone Hollingsworth. She's too exotic for this village.

Mark:

I don't know. Exotic, I e lesbian. Kinda? With pleather.

Sarah:

We'll come back to that.

Mark:

Gray Patterson confronts Alan about the mill. The mill project. The mill we never see.

Sarah:

No. No. Morton Mill, which supposedly is a project that is to renovate an old mill in town and turn it into like a craft center. Assuming where people artisans, local artisans like Sarah, the potter

Mark:

And photographer.

Sarah:

And photographer. Oh, the photography. We'll be able to perform their crafts and sell their wares.

Mark:

But the project is off the rails.

Sarah:

Everybody's invested. All of these folks who we've just talked about have all

Mark:

Including the Yeah.

Sarah:

George and Kath have also invested. And the project's down the tank and bankrupt, and it's all Alan's fault.

Mark:

And he blames the following, inefficiency, an unhelpful bank, and a project manager.

Sarah:

And the wrong project manager.

Mark:

You know what they need.

Sarah:

They need George Clark. They need restoration man. If you

Mark:

So everybody in England is now laughing, and everybody in America is like, what is restoration man? Restoration man is literally a guy who parachutes in on restoration projects to get it moving efficiently, to help with the bank, and to be basically a project manager.

Sarah:

Well, he gives advice for people who are restoring usually listed buildings that are not your typical residents. So things like windmills and power plants and water towers in The UK. So most of them are listed by the historic trust. So you can only restore them in certain ways and you have to get counsel and board permission for all the changes you wanna make. And if you wanna do something that they don't approve of, it doesn't really matter what you want.

Sarah:

And but George Clark, he's

Mark:

a

Sarah:

real guy, he's a great architect. He sort of swoops in

Mark:

Restoration man.

Sarah:

Yeah. He doesn't wear a cape, but he understands how those things go. Yeah. And they have restored a few mills on that show.

Mark:

And this mill is in serious need of restoration.

Sarah:

Apparently, though we never we see never see it. Yeah. But it's not uncommon for a project like that to be held up in the planning with a local council or historical society, and they they hold it up and they delay it because they have their own concerns about the plan.

Mark:

So this is a known plot point. They're not stretching it here. No. No. At some point in time later, and we'll go into how this episode again has days that are all screwed up.

Mark:

At some point in time later, the Barnabas are over at the Bullards, and Kath and George tell the Barnabees about the project. Kath says that Grey Patterson attempted to bribe her.

Sarah:

And threatened her. And threatened her. And George, who is a coroner with the police

Mark:

Probably an officer of the court.

Sarah:

Just drops it like, oh, yeah. They threatened Kath.

Mark:

Like, if Barnaby was my friend and I got threatened You'd be I'd be calling Barnaby.

Sarah:

You'd hello? Hey, Barnaby. Hey, Tom.

Mark:

I'm your friend. You believe me.

Sarah:

Yeah. So they they find out that there's some nefarious stuff going on. Now, the the whole plot here, right, nobody's died yet. There's no cold opening with a body. Nope.

Sarah:

Right now, the only crime we have is one that Bartonby sort of sniffs out because he breaks up a fight at the Fet. Had he not been in the tea tent to break up that fight, the rest of this episode doesn't happen.

Mark:

I can see that.

Sarah:

Because the only reason that they even get as deep into the crime as they do is because Barnaby is really freaking nosy.

Mark:

And I think Brenda wouldn't get killed because Troy wouldn't be in her house. Right. So really, because they went to the vet, and this is a common thing in this show, death occurred.

Sarah:

Yeah. I mean, people get shot at vets, they get bow and arrows, they get

Mark:

an arrow shot right with a bow and arrow.

Sarah:

Yeah. He's not the only one who gets shot with an arrow at a No.

Mark:

The drama teacher Yeah. Gets shot

Sarah:

with in a later episode. We've got this crime that maybe or maybe isn't a crime. Alan maybe is embezzling money. Gray definitely made a threat to Kath. Barnaby goes all manly copper on him.

Sarah:

Barnaby and face.

Mark:

Barnaby and Troy head off to Gray Patterson's who okay.

Sarah:

Missus Anderson is there.

Mark:

Missus Anderson and her lack of clothing is there, and the door is wide open.

Sarah:

Yeah. What's up with that? So we're we're to assume that they were upstairs with the hanky panky, and they just left the front door open?

Mark:

Shut the front door.

Sarah:

If you're gonna be sleeping with somebody else's wife Yeah. At least shut the front door.

Mark:

So he threatened they go over the threat with Gray who's like, oh, I didn't threaten her at all. Oh, yeah. I guess I did. That has the great line, the great line that Barnaby delivers, Kath is a friend of mine, you're not, I believe her.

Sarah:

I'd hate for something to happen to your face.

Mark:

And then Barnaby repeats the threat to him.

Sarah:

Yeah. So Grey's been warned off, but who knows? He I don't think he really cares. He doesn't seem to care about anything really. He gets his own way all the time.

Mark:

Gray Patterson cares about two things, and they're women. That's what he cares about.

Sarah:

That's one thing.

Mark:

That's it. Women and women.

Sarah:

Money.

Mark:

Money.

Sarah:

I think he likes money.

Mark:

Wherever he gets his money. Yeah. But we'll cover that. Off they go to Alan's house, and they find him

Sarah:

rad arsed. Rad arsed. And so and so he's drunk. He's passed out on the floor, but he's passed out in such a

Mark:

weird spot. Like in the corner, like he got up to get some more alcohol and then fell in the corner.

Sarah:

His head's kinda behind the chair. Like, what you just lay down on the couch and pass out?

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

Not when you're radarsed. Apparently, when you're radarsed, you wedge your head in the corner.

Mark:

I have a question though. Where is his wife? And the answer is, as mentioned previously, bell ringing.

Sarah:

Yeah. Which is another dangerous thing. Though she's not really there. No. No.

Sarah:

Then we get to we get to go to we get to see Alfreda and Bunny who they are fearless eavesdroppers. I love that about them. So we have to talk about these houses because the way they're situated, they're like on a little close. Like they're on a little kind of a not a roundabout, but a little circular drive.

Mark:

Like a cul de sac.

Sarah:

Like a cul de sac, yeah. They're all freestanding.

Mark:

Giant.

Sarah:

They're not semi detached or anything. They're freestanding brick homes, at least two stories with beautiful old leaded windows. They're like Tudor. Yeah. Into Reg and Felicity definitely live in a Tudor home.

Mark:

I would say into the upper hundreds of thousands.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah. I mean, if if the real estate prices in The UK shows that we've watched are any indication, these are million dollar

Mark:

homes. No. Alfreda and Bunny, I can understand. She was in the movies.

Sarah:

Well, and they're selling drugs every day. They've got a steady income plus their pensions. Right? But Grey's got no job. Sarah is a potter.

Mark:

Yeah. And Reg is unemployed.

Sarah:

Reg is unemployed, and his wife doesn't have a job. The Tesco fired him. Yeah. For embezzling.

Mark:

Brenda's the only one with a job.

Sarah:

Well, no. They're the Andersons.

Mark:

They they

Sarah:

They pub. They work at the pub.

Mark:

Right? Though they're never there. You notice that?

Sarah:

No. Because there's two Running the pub. Busy flying dog? Around.

Mark:

Is

Sarah:

Maybe one of Reg's eyes runs the pub while the other one is out about town.

Mark:

You have to be nice. Sorry. Okay? Because the actor who plays Reg, what is his name?

Sarah:

His name is Paul Brook. Paul Brook is And he's a great actor.

Mark:

He is a

Sarah:

staple Nigel Anderson.

Mark:

Nigel Anderson. He is a staple in British murder shows.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah. He's been in lots of

Mark:

He's a fantastic actor.

Sarah:

But he does have the weird eye.

Mark:

But his eyes are a little unnormal, so we maybe have a nickname for him, which is lazy eye. It's not meant as a derogatory name.

Sarah:

No. No. It's just a way to identify him. It's our shorthand. But you you have to say though, I I really believe that The UK has a broader set of standards of what actors can look like.

Sarah:

They appreciate people who don't look like models, and they have roles for them. In The US, I don't think he would be an actor unfortunately.

Mark:

No. I don't

Sarah:

think But in The UK, because they only have like 20 actors

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Obviously, because they're in everything all the time.

Mark:

Johnny Vegas is not going to be an actor in The United States.

Sarah:

No. So the Andersons do have income.

Mark:

They

Sarah:

do. They run the pub. They don't own the pub, but they run the

Mark:

pub. The brewery owns the pub.

Sarah:

That's how

Mark:

it works. Yes.

Sarah:

Yeah. Allen Radarst and Alfreda popping up from bushes, and then we see the first appearance of the red herring of the episode, which is Valancourt.

Mark:

Who we think at this point in time is a diamond geyser. Right? He seems to be a heavy.

Sarah:

Yeah. Harry Valancourt. And I think largely because of his accent.

Mark:

Yes. He's a good actor.

Sarah:

Oh, he's a great actor. He's good in this role. Yeah. But when he comes back for the second time and Alfreda sees him through the window at the front door of Alan's house

Mark:

And uses her walkie talkie. She gets on

Sarah:

her walkie talkie. I love that. Bunny and and Alfreda have walkie talkies.

Mark:

And Bunny is in his room smoking up.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah. He's off the

Mark:

are out there smoking and token with his monocle in.

Sarah:

Yeah. I honestly don't think I've ever seen anybody rolling a joint while wearing a monocle.

Mark:

And she says, that's not Barnaby. Barnaby's delicious.

Sarah:

No. He he says, oh, is it is it the cops? Is it the fat one again? And she says, no. It's not Barnaby, and he's not fat.

Sarah:

He's delicious. I agree with all, Freda. And then we get this weird scene at the pub just when you think Grey can't be hitting on more middle aged women in town.

Mark:

Before that, really quickly, when the diamond geezer arrives, Brenda Buckley gets out of her car. Now I watched this four or five times.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah. Because she's getting out of her car the same time he's getting out

Mark:

of his. She gets out of her car and touches

Sarah:

Which is what? Like a little Volkswagen Rabbit

Mark:

or something? A tiny car. She touches it and says, hello, princess.

Sarah:

And then just walks around the car.

Mark:

What does that mean?

Sarah:

It means she has a name for her car.

Mark:

Princess.

Sarah:

We have every evidence to see that she's kind of stunted in her development. She's definitely stunted. She still lives in her little girl bedroom. She's still got her pink plastic glasses, her four h ribbons or whatever Yes. UK equivalent Whatever.

Sarah:

And she calls her little jalopy princess.

Mark:

So back at the pub, Gray Patterson's hitting on anything that is a woman Mhmm. And asks if Sarah thinks that maybe Alan did something to Simone.

Sarah:

Yeah. Maybe he hit her too hard. Like, there's a level of hitting your wife that's not hard that's not too hard.

Mark:

So then there is the bizarre situation of Alan Haulingworth's backyard at night. The shepherd's pie incident. So he digs up the money that he's embezzled from the mill. While doing it, Brenda goes past princess and brings him a shepherd's pie.

Sarah:

Because Simone is away.

Mark:

At her mother's.

Sarah:

Here's another example of the weird timing in this episode. As far as we know, she hasn't been gone twenty four hours, and Brenda is already bringing him meals as if he's been alone in the house for eons.

Mark:

Eons. He then doesn't take the shepherd's pie into the house. He sets it on the ground and runs back to the hole he's digging to get the money.

Sarah:

Okay. I got a question about the shepherd's pie. Okay. Later on, when Barnaby and Troy are there, and they dig it up Yes. And reveal that it's not Simone's body folded in quarters and buried.

Sarah:

It is a shepherd's pie. It's a shepherd's pie in a covered dish. They open the dish.

Mark:

Which is nice crockery. Do you think Sarah made that?

Sarah:

I didn't make that. Sarah, the potter on the show, didn't make that. She's making mugs for Joyce, who ordered six. Six. They he takes the cover off the shepherd's pie, and half of it's gone.

Sarah:

Sort of. Like, part of

Mark:

it It's like whipped around.

Sarah:

It's like part somebody dug into it and ate some of it. Right? Yeah. Okay. But then Alan says he doesn't like shepherd's pie.

Mark:

Because potatoes and meat. What's there

Sarah:

not Who to

Mark:

doesn't like potatoes and meat? I don't know. Even if you don't like potatoes, like my mother, you still would eat the meat.

Sarah:

Yeah. I mean, there's something there to like, but so if he doesn't like it, maybe he turned maybe he turned his nose up at it because she brought him a half eaten shepherd's pie.

Mark:

No. I think she made a special shepherd's pie just for him, and I think he ate it and then wanted to appear like he was not involved to Barnaby.

Sarah:

But that means he set it down in the yard.

Mark:

Okay. He sets it down, you know, tug it up with the money, comes back to gets the shepherd pie.

Sarah:

It in the house.

Mark:

Takes it in the house, eats some of it.

Sarah:

Stirs it up, and then takes it back Takes back. Outside. And then buries

Mark:

it in the hole. You know, bunnies in the back going, woah.

Sarah:

Who knows what bunny sees? He's high as a kite. He's not a good witness.

Mark:

His monocle's gonna fall out. So because of all this nighttime shenanigans, Alfreda and Bunny call the cops.

Sarah:

Yes. They call them and ask them to come over, and then act surprised when they show up while they're doing the daily bake.

Mark:

Which is the way they distribute their illegal cannabis sativa.

Sarah:

Bunny has a bike with a basket on the front. They bake those hash brownies every day. And then Bunny delivers them.

Mark:

Everyone in this town is high.

Sarah:

I think all the people involved in this would be a lot better off if they were eating those brownies.

Mark:

Maybe Nigel's eyes would be fully open if he didn't eat so many of the brownies.

Sarah:

No. No. No. I mean, but this is a classic scene with Barnaby. It's We never see him drunk really.

Sarah:

He doesn't really have any vices. Nope. He's he's a friendly guy. He's an easygoing guy, but he's not a silly guy until he eats the bunny cakes.

Mark:

Oh, and boy does he love the bunny cakes.

Sarah:

And they must be growing some high end hash because in ten minutes, he's feeling the effects.

Mark:

Ten minutes.

Sarah:

Before he can finish the second bunny cake. He's like, I just love being around you. You make me so happy. Smiling, giggling.

Mark:

Those are some powerful bunny cakes.

Sarah:

The first time I saw it, it reminded me of the one time I saw my dad drunk. He was like out in his shop in the yard and my mom was like, you guys gotta go outside and talk to your dad. And we're like, why? She's like, just go out and talk to him. And my dad is not a drinker.

Sarah:

Right? No. But he was good, buzzy, happy from some place he'd been with the guys, and they dropped him off. And we went out there, and he was everything was so funny.

Mark:

And Barbie is the same way. He can't even talk to Alan.

Sarah:

Oh my gosh. He's just giggling.

Mark:

And just basically says, Troy

Sarah:

Dig a hole.

Mark:

Dig a hole. Yeah. He goes, do we have your permission to dig a hole? Alan goes, no. And they go, thank you.

Sarah:

Yeah. The first time they kind of disregard the law or the rules in this episode, they'll do it several more times. Then we we find out

Mark:

So the whole Shepherd's Pie thing comes out. Yeah. Troy goes upstairs and actually does some more good policing.

Sarah:

The old, where is your bathroom? I need to wash my hands subterfuge. Yes. Right? He finds that Simone's clothes are are in the closet, but her jewelry is

Mark:

He comes in like a doctor. Yeah.

Sarah:

And wipes his dirty hands on a clean towel instead of actually washing them.

Mark:

I gotta say, I don't think Simone is much of a house person.

Sarah:

Well, Alan's certainly not a housekeeper.

Mark:

No. He's just rad arsed.

Sarah:

Yeah. And later, everybody meets up at the pub.

Mark:

Well, they so the best Burnaby High scene is when he meets with George and Troy. And he's walking along wall. Tells him about the meeting, and he's skipping along the wall. Yeah. And George is just like, what is going on?

Sarah:

But doesn't say anything.

Mark:

Doesn't say.

Sarah:

Because that's apparently what George does. He doesn't say anything.

Mark:

So off to the pub, basically, there's a mob going to happen.

Sarah:

We've got our whole cast of characters there.

Mark:

Bunny is slightly confused mostly because he is high as a kite.

Sarah:

Yes. Barnaby seems to be coming down. And in that conversation, we find out that Alan is bankrupt because Doreen Anderson has called the lawyer who has referred her to the receivers, and somebody mentions $90,000.

Mark:

$90,000. So it is implied that this group of people has invested $90,000.

Sarah:

Or that's the total sum that's been invested that they know of in the mill project.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

So we know Alan has pocketed at least $90,000

Mark:

At least.

Sarah:

Or something close to it. Right? But then Barnaby reveals to them that maybe they shouldn't go lynch Alan because he thinks his wife has been kidnapped.

Mark:

And that they're all suspects.

Sarah:

Yeah. And they all had a motive to do that in order to get ransom money from Allen to recoup their cash.

Mark:

So Reg Buckley's wife says, let's go talk to Reg. Mhmm. Which is really code for, I'm going to tell you everything awful that Reg has done.

Sarah:

Let me throw my husband under the bus. In my living room full of stuffed birds.

Mark:

Yeah. So Reg likes birds. In case you didn't notice the birds in the living room, and the birds upstairs and Troy reading a bird book and there are other bird books on the book. The birds birds birds.

Sarah:

But but Renj and Felicity also have something else interesting.

Mark:

They have a CD player.

Sarah:

A five or is it six?

Mark:

I would say it's probably five.

Sarah:

Five disc CD Who

Mark:

spends £3,000 on that CD player? But it plays five discs. I don't care.

Sarah:

It's Including Oasis Oasis. And Doctor Feel Good.

Mark:

Doctor Feel Good with the album Down at the Doctors, which is, as far as I can tell, like a seventies psychedelic rock band.

Sarah:

Though when Barnaby plays it, it sounds like classical music. But I love that there's Oasis in the CD player.

Mark:

The oh, we tried to see what all the CDs were, but we could not, so.

Sarah:

All I know is that when I saw doctor Feel Good, I immediately thought

Mark:

of Yeah. But I know Is

Sarah:

it Motley Crue or Poison?

Mark:

Motley Crue's doctor Feel Good album has that teal pattern, teal background with the the doctor feel good emblem, which is the medical emblem but with skulls instead of snakes.

Sarah:

This is the kind of nerd Mark is. He didn't have to look that up. And it's not that he's a big Molly Crew fan. If it's musical, he remembers it like some kind of savant.

Mark:

The plan is Hatch that Troy will sit in the Buckley's house.

Sarah:

Yeah. In in Reg's birdwatch nest desk.

Mark:

And observe what's going on.

Sarah:

Okay. So I've got a note about going to Felicity and and Reg's house that just says bundle of fun.

Mark:

I I don't get that.

Sarah:

I think Barnaby says, well, gosh, how could she not love him? He's a bundle of fun.

Mark:

I think so. I think so. And also Barnaby's like, get in the car. We'll we'll take you. Now Barnaby is still high at this point.

Sarah:

You think so?

Mark:

See, he's I

Sarah:

think he's okay.

Mark:

Coming down, but it's and then we forgot. In the pub, he sings the hymn that he later suggests that they use for their renewing of vows.

Sarah:

Yeah. All ships out at sea or

Mark:

something Yeah. Like It's some crazy old Anglican hymn, so

Sarah:

So they put Troy in Reg's bird watching bedroom desk nook thing, but Alan is off to pay the ransom for Simone.

Mark:

Sarah, we're forty minutes into this show. Mhmm.

Sarah:

What is the name of the show? Midsomer Murder.

Mark:

What have we not had in this show yet?

Sarah:

Murder. Okay. But a murder is coming.

Mark:

Yes. Right? So Troy tries to get off after them.

Sarah:

No. But but Brenda writes him a note. Yep. She writes him a little love note. She even kisses the envelope.

Sarah:

Like, she kisses princess. So he can get away.

Mark:

And he blows her a kiss when he's gone.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

He's Thank you. Thank you.

Sarah:

And then he ditches the suitcase of money in a Rug shop. Carpet booth at Findlay Market? I guess. Finschmere Market.

Mark:

Finschmere. Now where this market is, we have no idea.

Sarah:

Finschmere. I guess. It's Where the hell that is? It's near Morton Findle.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

It's the big city.

Mark:

But there's no major roads between them because on the way home

Sarah:

Brenda gets

Mark:

In princess. Murdered. Princess kinda gets murdered too.

Sarah:

Yeah. They both get decapitated by a logging truck.

Mark:

Somebody in a car shunts Brenda's car off the road. I think they were trying to get them to get her to hit a tree.

Sarah:

Yeah. I think so too. But Because she saw who picked up the ransom money. But instead, she hits the most opportunistic placed log truck. That's just abandoned.

Sarah:

There's no semi attached to it. There's no tractor attached to it.

Mark:

And then Vince gets out of the car and looks, and then goes back

Sarah:

to the She's dead.

Mark:

Guess who did it?

Sarah:

Vince. But we don't know that's Vince yet. No. Right? Simone's ex boyfriend.

Sarah:

But we do find out that two things. One, this is the first stunt driving we've seen in Midsomer, because there's definitely a stunt driver in a horrible permed blonde wig Absolutely. Driving princess the glasses. Yeehaw. Over the hill.

Sarah:

Yep. But then we find out that Brenda works at the Midsomer Building Society too. Yeah. So she may have had a hand in the plans for the mill, and she's been sending herself flowers signed

Mark:

from Allen. She tries to make a a phone call to her father, and she the first thing she says is, no. Everything's okay. Everything is not okay.

Sarah:

No. Some jackass is riding my ass honking at me.

Mark:

Is it her mother calls her a very strange girl.

Sarah:

She is.

Mark:

But remember, women don't kill their daughter. They have not seen Midsomer.

Sarah:

She's Reg's daughter, not really Felicity's daughter. That's how she feels

Mark:

about it. Why don't they just make Felicity a stepmom? Like, that single change would make all that understandable.

Sarah:

Maybe. Yeah. But I think the idea is just Brenda's so weird even her own mother's not real crazy about her. Then they go over to see Alan

Mark:

And they find the pictures, the Polaroids.

Sarah:

And Barnaby is rough on him. Actually, like, grabs him, pulls him down into a chair. Forces him to look at these pictures. Because now they've got the search warrant.

Mark:

And they're like, we couldn't send the we couldn't show you these pictures. Her face looks like a butcher's block. Yeah. In the next scene, they show the pictures.

Sarah:

Yeah. But at least they didn't show us Brenda's body.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

So we can't evaluate Brenda's bad corpse acting.

Mark:

Okay. Brenda, the actress is nowhere near that scene. Yeah.

Sarah:

Because we don't get to see her. No. Though, she could pretend to be a dead body without a head, that would be impressive corpse acting. I'd give her points for that.

Mark:

Indeed it would. Certainly better than Alan's dead body acting later.

Sarah:

Yeah. So then we've got the barbecue at Grey's where everybody's sort of conspiring, and Troy takes up the offer of extra meat if there's any gone begging. And while everybody's in Grey's Garden contriving whatever they're contriving, Barnaby and Troy break into Sarah's house.

Mark:

Because you can do that as a cop.

Sarah:

Yeah. Shouldn't we have a warrant? Yes, we should. You go first.

Mark:

In Sarah's so they go into one room in Sarah's house.

Sarah:

The box room over and over again.

Mark:

Over it's it's Keystone Cops. Alright. Now, okay. This is a potter who could not afford to give to the mill project. Nope.

Mark:

She lives in a three story Tudor house in England.

Sarah:

Which she bought because she knew Simone and followed Simone How did she afford this village. What

Mark:

is she selling her pottery for?

Sarah:

I don't know, but it may be it must be some good pottery.

Mark:

So they go upstairs and they find the corner of lesbianism.

Sarah:

Yes.

Mark:

There is a picture that has to be 24 by 36

Sarah:

It's a poster. Inches.

Mark:

Yeah. Where was that printed?

Sarah:

Not a home printer at this age.

Mark:

No. And Simone is in a negligee outfit and Sarah is at her knees.

Sarah:

Yep.

Mark:

And there are other pictures of Simone. Who who took that picture?

Sarah:

Well, you can have a timer on a camera on a tripod.

Mark:

I guess. I guess she has a good camera.

Sarah:

Or Vince might have taken them.

Mark:

Vince may have taken them.

Sarah:

For all we know.

Mark:

He could have.

Sarah:

Vince is Simone's ex boyfriend.

Mark:

But who processed those pictures?

Sarah:

Well, if she's a photographer and a potter, we never saw her kiln or anything. No. So maybe she also has a dark room.

Mark:

Maybe. I doubt it.

Sarah:

I also doubt it. I don't think

Mark:

she went down to the local chemist and got them printed either. Yeah. Troy, once again shows his grasp of the English language.

Sarah:

Yeah. He calls him a couple of

Mark:

old dykes. Which is just mean. He's just so mean. I realize they're murderers. They

Sarah:

don't know that yet.

Mark:

I know, but it's still mean to call them that. But Barnaby knows better. Barnaby knows better.

Sarah:

They go to see Harry Vellicourt, the red herring, he's an old cop, he's also Grey's dad, and he has an outstanding gnome collection.

Mark:

And he is the anti Barnaby. He is. He is. He says, I'm divorced, I drink too much, I'm overweight, I eat too much, I smoke too much, my kids don't talk to me, and

Sarah:

Yes, I'm a copper.

Mark:

Yes, I'm a copper.

Sarah:

Or I was a copper.

Mark:

Barnaby is none of those things.

Sarah:

No.

Mark:

He is the anti Barnaby.

Sarah:

Yeah. They're the yin to each other's yang, but And they also just have a better gnome collection.

Mark:

They also just park in the middle of the street.

Sarah:

They do. But he lives kind of in like a trailer park sort of?

Mark:

The good thing about Velocade is he figures everything out. He's like, I bet you have pictures of Simone in beaten up.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

And you wanna go into my caravan to have a look and see if it was in there.

Sarah:

Go ahead. Of course, you do.

Mark:

He is he is the innocent man.

Sarah:

Yeah. He is. He's he's he's portrayed like this ominous threat, but yeah. He's not. And then Next,

Mark:

from Midsomer, we have Barnaby TV.

Sarah:

Yeah. Barnaby's on TV.

Mark:

And he talks about the Saab 900 Mhmm. Which should be a Saab 9,000. Right. And then they show a picture of the sketch.

Sarah:

It's a photo fit of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Mark:

Yes. I don't know if Vince realizes he could have framed Arnold for this.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because Vince is this tall, scrawny, scarecrow, sunken eyed looking dude.

Mark:

And Arnold is not.

Sarah:

Not. He's the opposite of that. But it's it's kind of fun to see Barnaby talking to a news anchor asking for the public to help them identify this car. And then there's this awesome little moment. Again, if you remember, we talked about this last time where in the books, Troy is married to a woman named Maureen who constantly accuses him of having a thing for Cully.

Sarah:

And in this episode and in the last episode of the show, we definitely get these little hints that Troy does think that Cully's cute.

Mark:

When Cully comes over to Alfreda's and he's like, if you weren't the governor's daughter.

Sarah:

Exactly. He says that when he sees her going in the house. Oh. Oh, I didn't hear it that way. I heard it like, oh, if you weren't the governor's daughter.

Mark:

It's always a romantic. I'm gonna say

Sarah:

it too. Of course, you know, Alfreda thinks they're brother and sister. So

Mark:

Then, oh, that was the first episode. Yeah.

Sarah:

We've already done the incestuous bonking.

Mark:

Alan gets offed. Yeah. It might be lazy eye. It might be somebody else.

Sarah:

Speaking of eyes, he's a good actor, but he's not a good corpse actor.

Mark:

Troy opens up one of Alan's eyes and his other eye opens.

Sarah:

It tries not to, but. Tries really hard not to. It flutters. It flutters.

Mark:

He's not radarsed, he's dead.

Sarah:

Yes. And they find out that he's been drugged with haloperidol, which George, who's a doctor, says is a sleeping pill. But that's not what haloperidol is. It's actually an antipsychotic that's used for schizophrenics and for people with Tourette's syndrome, which is a completely different situation and makes you wonder where the killers got it. A lot people may have some sleeping medication, but if Sarah has secret Tourette's, there's all kinds of things we missed out on.

Mark:

Yes. The dog pulls the Andersons around, they get accused of being the murderers, they're not.

Sarah:

From pompous ass to petty thief.

Mark:

And that's

Sarah:

says, god, Barnaby hates Nigel Anderson so much. You never see him really hate anybody

Mark:

except skimming from the till. You steal him from the burning.

Sarah:

No. It's because he's so pompous. Yes. He hates him before he knows that he's taking money

Mark:

from the birdie. Don't like each other. No. So they find Vince's car, and they find Vince.

Sarah:

And Troy punches him.

Mark:

So Vince is does a runner.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because, you know, that's what you do. When the police come in your house, just run Through the through the your life, apparently.

Mark:

Through the house. Troy gives him a bump.

Sarah:

He punches him in the gut.

Mark:

Punches him in the gut. And Barnaby has no patience for Vince. None. Absolutely none. But it's Joyce's birthday coming up.

Mark:

Yeah. So they're gonna go see Cully with Alfreda and Bunny and Cully Mhmm. To Cully's show. Now Cully is at least smart enough to figure out that they're giant pot smokers.

Sarah:

Yeah. And she lets it go?

Mark:

She lets it go. Clearly, Cully may have imbibed in some substances at Cambridge.

Sarah:

Well, she did get sent down. Yes. Or she stepped down or she walked away or whatever. She quit. When Barnaby goes to Sarah's house alone because Troy is so thoroughly male, he's been sent off to buy, what is it, fairy

Mark:

Joe? Grigio Ferre. Something?

Sarah:

Expensive perfume perfume. Italian perfume. And for Joyce. He goes over to see Sarah, and he goes to get the milk out of the fridge, and he sees a chicken leg.

Mark:

Dun dun dun. The lesbian vegetarian does not eat chicken.

Sarah:

Which we've learned at Grey's Barbecue. So that's our first big clue that things are not what they seem. Then we see this awful play. Now I have to say, both Mark and I both, both each of us

Mark:

Does both anyone know what this play is? Because we have looked.

Sarah:

We did a thorough search of the internet.

Mark:

I shall write a novel named Hollow Moonlight.

Sarah:

How life dashes our hopes and dreams. It's just horrid. Horrid. And Cully's wig looks like a Romulan wig.

Mark:

She's like missus Fisher.

Sarah:

Missus Fisher with Romulan bangs.

Mark:

Well, missus Fisher is a Romulan.

Sarah:

No. Franny Fisher is wonderful.

Mark:

Franny Fisher is

Sarah:

wonderful. If you haven't watched the miss Fisher mysteries

Mark:

You should. You should. They're very good.

Sarah:

But we find out that Simone was good at makeup because Alfreda cries because she's embarrassed. She thought the champagne was for her, but it's Fellini. Oh, thank you. That's the that's Grey's deodorant. Yes.

Sarah:

And Joyce's parfum parfum.

Mark:

Next, Troy naked.

Sarah:

Yeah. Troy nipples.

Mark:

Troy is in bed. So we watch calm

Sarah:

him in the middle of the night.

Mark:

Middle of the night. We watch these episodes and rewatch certain things over again.

Sarah:

Like, pause it, pause it, rewind.

Mark:

We're in the living room with all of the children watching with us. And first of all, I didn't notice that Troy has an x files poster.

Sarah:

Yeah. Right above his bed.

Mark:

Which I am a huge x files fan.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

And I didn't even notice it.

Sarah:

Then You were too busy looking at his nipples,

Mark:

weren't you? Well, no. I was trying to figure out what videotapes he had behind the bed.

Sarah:

He has the bill, for sure. Yes. Then

Mark:

he has show that we that has everybody in it that we never get to see.

Sarah:

Right. And but then he has two VHS tapes that have handwritten labels on them that no matter how much we paused it, zoomed it, turned our heads, got up to the TV, we couldn't read.

Mark:

We looked. We looked.

Sarah:

So if anybody else is able to identify what those two VHS tapes are, one says I l l I t, that's all we could read?

Mark:

It should be, it should be. If they were smart, they should be old episodes of Dixon of the Green. No. Not Dixon of the Green, the show that Barnaby's in first. Oh.

Mark:

Old episodes of what is the name of that show that Barnaby is in? Bergerac.

Sarah:

Bergerac, where he's he's so hunky in that show.

Mark:

He's he's very hunky.

Sarah:

But he has a tiny gun.

Mark:

It is Magnum PI of England. Bergerac.

Sarah:

No. Magnum PI is the American version of Bergerac.

Mark:

I okay. I will find that X Files poster, and I will put it in the show notes.

Sarah:

Yeah. So he's got an X Files poster. He still sleeps in a twin bed with sheets and blankets that look like they came from his mom and dad's

Mark:

It's surprising that Maureen lets him have that X Files poster in the bedroom.

Sarah:

Then they go In the middle of the night I think see Felicity.

Mark:

They go to see Felicity.

Sarah:

And we find out that Nigel or I'm sorry, that Reg is away because he's upset because Brenda's died. Right? So he goes to see his brother. So Felicity's home alone, or is she?

Mark:

No. Grey Patterson's there.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

Greybonking. God.

Sarah:

So not only is his highlighted over gelled hair just he's not that attractive. He's stupid. And can't he find a woman his own age?

Mark:

At Velocort's, we found out that that's his dad. Yeah. So Grey Patterson's not his name. No. And we don't know how he gets his money.

Mark:

No. He certainly didn't get it from dear old dad.

Sarah:

But he's afraid to sleep with women his own age, that's for sure.

Mark:

So just to he sleeps with missus Anderson, he sleeps with Felicity Mhmm. And it's strongly implied that he sleeps with Simone.

Sarah:

Yeah. And he would like to sleep with Sarah, but she's not into dudes.

Mark:

No. This is a moment of great taste from Sarah.

Sarah:

Yeah. So they go to see her in the middle of the night. She's offended or whatever. She went shopping, but she didn't buy anything and blah blah blah blah blah. And then Troy and Barnaby go home now that it's morning.

Sarah:

Morning because And a red van pulls up in front of Barnaby's house and outroves Simone How

Mark:

do they know where Barnaby lives?

Sarah:

That's kinda creepy. But her coat looks like it's made from trash bags. It is pleather. It is such a tacky coat. Joyce makes her a cup of sweet tea with extra sugar in it.

Mark:

And at this point in time, I think Barnaby has figured this out.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think he's figured it all out now.

Mark:

So they say to Simone, we're gonna go to the station, and while we're at the station, we'll go get Sarah. Yeah. And they drive off

Sarah:

and Troy doesn't have anybody else.

Mark:

Troy sneaks in Again.

Sarah:

Again. To Sarah's house.

Mark:

And he goes in the little room again.

Sarah:

For no reason. Walks out of the little room.

Mark:

Goes back upstairs to the lesbian love corner.

Sarah:

Digs through Sarah's under underwear drawer.

Mark:

Yeah. Her underwear is remarkably boring. It was kind of beige ish.

Sarah:

The two pairs we see. Yeah. But then he finds the key

Mark:

Finds the key. To Alan's house. But he he wishes he could find, oh my, where could I find Simone was being kept? Oh, where could I oh, let me lean against the wall. Oh, there it is.

Sarah:

He fell through the wall. There's a secret door.

Mark:

And he finds the deck chair that was in the Polar Oid.

Sarah:

Because that's where you keep a deck chair, is in your attic.

Mark:

They yes. They head back to the station, and Barnaby is listening to the the giant shovelfuls of bull crap that Simone and Sarah are giving him. There was a man and a woman, and they wore ski masks. And

Sarah:

they wore ski masks, and I think his name was Steven or Steph. And when she said it, he hit her, and then he took the rest out on me. That's why my bruises

Mark:

And then why did you again?

Sarah:

For the pictures.

Mark:

I

Sarah:

guess. Barnaby doesn't roll his eyes, but he so wants to. Because he knows everything she's saying is absolute bull. Because she's a chicken eater doomed by chicken. Doomed by chicken lamb.

Mark:

But Sarah is so in love. She has the love for Simone.

Sarah:

Yep.

Mark:

And so she won't give Simone up. And Vince, I gotta say, Vince is a pretty good criminal. Yeah. He doesn't give anything up. Nothing.

Mark:

Nothing at all.

Sarah:

Like, my car was stolen. You can't prove it wasn't. You can't put me there.

Mark:

Yep. You

Sarah:

got nothing on me, copper.

Mark:

Yep. You got nothing on me, copper. So in the first of many endings, we find out that Sarah's gonna go up the river Yep. To Orange is the New Black Prison.

Sarah:

Because her fingerprint is on the whiskey bottle at Allen's. So she killed Allen. Yeah. For sure. And And kind of admits it.

Mark:

Yeah. And Simone is gonna walk free because she says Alan deserved it because he beat Simone. Which was an absolute lie. Alan did nothing wrong in this episode except for embezzling $300,000. And being a loser.

Mark:

Well, he's a big loser.

Sarah:

And rad arsed.

Mark:

Rad arsed. But

Sarah:

But Simone plays Sarah like a fiddle.

Mark:

Absolutely. Thank you.

Sarah:

She does whisper thank you.

Mark:

Thank you.

Sarah:

Thank you for going to prison on my behalf while I move to Greece with my boyfriend to get married. With our other companion. And shack up with another lady.

Mark:

Barnaby goes, well, the first of all, Barnaby's in the office and he is super pissed. He says,

Sarah:

shut up, Troy.

Mark:

Shut up, Troy. He answers the phone, what?

Sarah:

Yeah. I love that. He's Bartaby is super pissed. He's so frustrated because he can't get anybody but Sarah, and he knows Sarah is not the most guilty one of all of them.

Mark:

No. Simone is who he's after.

Sarah:

Yeah. He'd like to get Simone and Vince, but then he goes home.

Mark:

So so so we have the ending in the interrogation room. We have the ending in the office. Now we're on to our third ending in Barnaby's house.

Sarah:

Where he's whinging about how he can't arrest anybody.

Mark:

I can't arrest everybody.

Sarah:

He's like, well, maybe I could arrest Reg. And Cully's like, what? Losing his daughter isn't punishment enough for embezzling from Tesco's?

Mark:

I guess Cath is like, oh, well, whatever.

Sarah:

Cath's fine with it now. She's over it. Yep. So he can't get anybody.

Mark:

And the the pub owners, what does he say about them?

Sarah:

Oh, that being pompous isn't a crime.

Mark:

Yes. Being pompous isn't a It should

Sarah:

be. So

Mark:

end. No. Three months later. Fourth ending now.

Sarah:

Troy's at the big house with the little door.

Mark:

The the big house with the little door and the ladies.

Sarah:

And the big box of candy that barely fits through the little door.

Mark:

That looks like the Millennium Falcon.

Sarah:

That should have a file in it or something. Something. If you're gonna take a box of candy that big a prison.

Mark:

But I I think what they're showing is that Troy has matured enough

Sarah:

To take her candy?

Mark:

To to to go and talk to her.

Sarah:

Yeah. I guess.

Mark:

Because he does it without Barnaby knowing.

Sarah:

He's not afraid of the gay lady anymore?

Mark:

I guess he's not afraid of the gay. Okay. He won't get on him like in the bookshop.

Sarah:

Okay. She she's not gonna give anything up. He says, call us if you change your mind, and he shows her the newspaper clipping of Simone and Vince getting married, and the lady who lives with the the two of them. And clearly, Sarah's gonna think about this. And then Another ending.

Sarah:

Yeah. Where Barnaby Is dictating a letter that a woman is typing for him. The woman with the great big typewriter who has a desk next to theirs Yes. She's taking dictation from him, which I've never seen them do either. We missed an ending.

Sarah:

What ending did we miss?

Mark:

We missed the bunny and Aphria. Aphria epic.

Sarah:

That's right. With the weed killer.

Mark:

Okay. We'll we'll get back to that.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

So the phone rings, and Troy's like, it's Sarah Lawton. And Barnaby's like, who? Whatever. Three months goes by. I have no idea who these people are.

Sarah:

Sarah Lawton. And he's

Mark:

like, who? So the idea is that Sarah gives up gives up Simone.

Sarah:

Yeah. He's gonna get his collars after all.

Mark:

The the ending that we missed was Bunny and Alfreda being caught by Barnaby because back at the Barnaby's house

Sarah:

Culley's admitted that they're pot smokers, which he apparently didn't pick up on. Then he remembers there's this little flashback montage of him eating the bunny brownies and then walking on the walls singing, and he's like, oh, and all the pieces come together. And he says that when he goes to their house, he says, he has been asked to make the rounds of all the homes that have greenhouses. Yes. Which would be a gazillion in midsummer.

Sarah:

Yes. Half of them probably have bodies in them.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Because you know, people grow the marijuana between the tomato plants.

Mark:

Cannabis sativa.

Sarah:

But bunnies bunnies fumigating the greenhouse for green fly.

Mark:

So So he can't go out there.

Sarah:

Yeah. But he he might come back later.

Mark:

And Queen. Alfreda says, if you were 40 years younger. And Barnaby says, if you were forty years younger

Sarah:

I'd arrest you.

Mark:

I'd arrest you for selling cannabis. Yeah. So that's the episode. So they're Faithful unto death.

Sarah:

So we've got a couple of of big questions here.

Mark:

What does Grey Patterson do

Sarah:

k.

Mark:

Other than sleep with older women? We've talked about that.

Sarah:

I've got a different question. Yes. When Barnaby is interrogating Sarah and Simone, it's revealed that they took Alan for £300,000.

Mark:

Okay. £300,000. Okay. Split three ways, that's a 100,000 each.

Sarah:

Right. Yes. Yes. Though, as far as we know, the investment in the mill was only $90.

Mark:

£90,000 is not 300,000.

Sarah:

No. There's a big difference.

Mark:

Where did they get that number?

Sarah:

And where did Alan get the rest of that money? Like, was Simone's jewelry the crown jewels?

Mark:

I I don't know.

Sarah:

That he sold? And remember, he still got a box of money in the toilet cistern.

Mark:

Yeah. It was empty.

Sarah:

But he took the money out of it to give No.

Mark:

I think Simone I think when Sarah killed him, she took the money out of the sister. Because I bet you Shim Shimone Shimone Shimone Shmoggle. I bet you Simone told her where it was.

Sarah:

Okay. But he goes and gets it out of the toilet to give to who? Oh, to give to Nigel.

Mark:

To give to Nigel.

Sarah:

So he has enough in there to give Nigel £1,500 Yes. But that's not all of it, so Simone must have taken the rest of it.

Mark:

By the way, Nigel and his wife come out pretty well here because they get the £1,500 back.

Sarah:

But they invested 2,000.

Mark:

Yeah. But they can

Sarah:

So there's still 500 in the hole.

Mark:

But they That's enough to pay the brewery apparently.

Sarah:

Yeah. Maybe they cover the other 500. So there's that. But my bigger issue, and I think I know the answer, but when there is the neighborhood barbecue at Grey's and Barnaby and Troy show up, there's a lot of wink wink nudge nudge going on among neighbors. Yeah.

Mark:

There's a

Sarah:

lot of hand signs. It's clear that they had planned to get together to talk about what they were gonna do to get their money back. But there's extra chicken. And once you know that Simone

Mark:

Who do we know likes chicken? Guilt chicken.

Sarah:

Once we know that Simone is at Sarah's Sarah?

Mark:

No. Sarah doesn't eat chicken.

Sarah:

It's kind of easy to think that maybe all of those folks know that Simone isn't actually gone.

Mark:

I I think that that is a definite possibility there because

Sarah:

And they've all gotten together.

Mark:

We talked about this, and Gray shows some actual concern that Sarah when Sarah tells him that Alan knocks around Simone.

Sarah:

But that's long before that scene, and it could be that he doesn't know about the plan yet.

Mark:

Then, and Sarah could completely tell him Yeah. That that's the plan.

Sarah:

Yeah. Actually, Simone's hiding in my attic, and we're gonna get ransom money from Allen so everybody can get their money

Mark:

on it together.

Sarah:

Yeah. Now they may not know that they've taken them for $300 instead of just 90 to get their money

Mark:

back. But they're they're gonna try to get their money back.

Sarah:

Yeah. The Andersons, Felicity and Reg, they may all be in on it. The other But then when Alan's when Alan come turns up dead, they don't know anything. They're out of it.

Mark:

The thing that I'm problematic with this again for me is that Simone must be playing the long game because she moves to Morton Fendel five years ago and gets with Alan. Marries him. Yeah. The mill project doesn't seem to be a long term project.

Sarah:

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

Sarah:

Now I'm not sure of the chronology there because Sarah lived above Simone and Vince. Yep. But when Felicity tells Barnaby and Troy who Vince is, that he's Simone's old boyfriend, they say, but wasn't she married to Alan? And Felicity kind of rolls her eyes like, well, that's Simone. She may have been married to Alan all that time.

Mark:

So what made her go bad? Because she's evil. Right?

Sarah:

Well, Alan is kind of a disappointment, I think.

Mark:

She's a manipulator. Yeah. And what like, how long ago did this plan go back? I

Sarah:

mean, she's bisexual, and she and Sarah had a relationship before they moved to Morton Fendel. Yeah. And Sarah followed her there.

Mark:

And I gotta think, you know, I like Sarah.

Sarah:

And conveniently bought a house next door to them.

Mark:

I I like Sarah. She's a very nice person when she's not killing Alan. And she's caring, and she's really played as a a sympathetic character.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

Wouldn't she be like, oh, Simone. I don't think that's a good idea.

Sarah:

I don't know if Simone was in on her killing Alan.

Mark:

Oh, I totally think she would may she wound him up. Well, I

Sarah:

think she wound Sarah up, but I don't think she said, here, use these pills.

Mark:

Oh, I do. You do? Yeah. I I have no love for Simone.

Sarah:

Oh, I don't either, But I also don't don't know how much directive Simone provided to Sarah.

Mark:

I think she's gonna tell Barnaby that Sarah that Simone told her to do it.

Sarah:

She definitely knows that Simone and Vince were in the car that chased Brenda off the road. Yes. She she's a dupe. Simone's taking complete advantage of her.

Mark:

So Simone is and she the the problem I have with her motive is we're not really given a motive other than Simone's greedy.

Sarah:

Well, we also don't even have a motive for why Alan decides to embezzle the money in from the mill project instead of just building the mill.

Mark:

Yeah. We don't we don't bad project manager. We have nothing for that. And then going back to what I said before, the lesbian subplot seems tacked on here.

Sarah:

It's just an excuse for for Sarah to be loyal to Simone.

Mark:

It is.

Sarah:

They could have easily just have been sisters, Secret sisters. Why could they be sisters? Because it wouldn't be Toric.

Mark:

And

Sarah:

Troy couldn't be weirded out by it.

Mark:

And if you have pictures

Sarah:

of that Of you and your sister

Mark:

like that. That's again, the first episode. That's badger's drift territory. Incestuous bonking badger's drift territory.

Sarah:

You know, I have one solution that explains all of this. Yes. I know what drove all these people to be as nasty and wrong as they are.

Mark:

And what is that?

Sarah:

Brenda's hair.

Mark:

Brenda's hair.

Sarah:

Brenda's hair would make anybody crazy.

Mark:

We were all high on bunny cakes, and then we saw Brenda's hair. We all just lost it. Lost it.

Sarah:

It's a fun episode. There's lots of little things including Troy's nipples to enjoy.

Mark:

And Roger Allom, who we love.

Sarah:

Yeah. And since he's the only corpse we see, he's

Mark:

The best corpse acting even though his eyes open.

Sarah:

He's the corpse of the week.

Mark:

Corpse of the week.

Sarah:

Because he's the only corpse. So he gets to win the award this week even though the one I twitches.

Mark:

And we don't have an appily named pub. We have a regularly named

Sarah:

Queen's Head just isn't very interesting.

Mark:

But we know we could actually go there in Marlowe, little Marlowe.

Sarah:

Yeah. But forever in our house, they will be dogs of the hot variety.

Mark:

Dogs of the hot variety.

Sarah:

A veggie burger. It really it's an

Mark:

episode of food. Dogs of the hot variety and and and Shepherd's pie of doom. Pie of doom and the chicken leg.

Sarah:

I've got a coconut and you don't.

Mark:

It's lots of food in this episode. Our next episode will be faithful unto death, which is

Sarah:

No. That's this one.

Mark:

No. Yes. Yes. Our next one is what? What is the name of the next episode?

Sarah:

With the cult.

Mark:

It is the one with the cult. The next episode is named death in disguise.

Sarah:

So between now and the next episode, you have just enough time to craft your very own pyramid hat

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

To wear while you're listening.

Mark:

While you're listening, please craft a pyramid hat.

Sarah:

We'll be wearing them. Absolutely. And matching jumpers.

Mark:

If you like what you hear, please like and review us on any of the podcast things that we're on.

Sarah:

Because we're on all

Mark:

of them. We're on all of them. Hopefully, we're on iTunes soon. I send them a nasty gram today and said, why are we not on iTunes? And they said, it takes five days.

Mark:

And I said, it's been five days and I haven't heard back.

Sarah:

Maybe they count days like they do in midsummer. Maybe. Who knows what day it is?

Mark:

Who knows what day it is.

Sarah:

And leave us a comment. Do you think that the all the neighbors were in on the kidnapping of Simone, or was it just Simone and Sarah who contrived that plan?

Mark:

And and unlike other episodes, do not send us any bunny cake recipes.

Sarah:

Yeah. Did did you have hair like Brenda back in the nineties? If you did, send us a picture.

Mark:

Really sorry.

Sarah:

Maybe maybe you had pink plastic glasses. Maybe you went as Brenda for Halloween.

Mark:

Is Oasis and Doctor. Feelgood in your CD player?

Sarah:

Hey. We'd love to know what you think about the episode of the show and the episode of this show. Our Twitter handle is at Midsommar Maniacs. The website is midsommarmaniacs.com,

Mark:

and we're available on all the podcast platforms that you can give us.

Sarah:

Where you might listen to your podcast?

Mark:

Yes, including YouTube's.

Sarah:

Where you might have found the very podcast you're listening to. Hey. So until next time. Bye, Maniacs.

Mark:

Bye, Maniacs. Coven dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

Sarah:

Okay. It's not a Benedictine coven.

Mark:

Covenant. Convent. Convent. A Benedictine convent.

Sarah:

They're not witches. Let's start.

Mark:

No, man.

Sarah:

It's not tsunami.

Mark:

Tsunami.

Sarah:

She's a goat tsunami. Welcome to Midsomer Maniacs, Maniacs.

Mark:

Hey, Maniacs.

Sarah:

I'm Sarah.

Mark:

And I'm Mark.

Sarah:

And today, we are on episode five, which is the final episode of season one of Midsomer Murder.

Mark:

First season comes to an end with death in disguise.

Sarah:

Dun dun dun. There's no disguise.

Mark:

Yeah. If you change your name, that's not really a disguise.

Sarah:

No. But there is death. There is Right off the bat.

Mark:

Right off the bat.

Sarah:

Two minutes and thirty seconds in, death.

Mark:

Right away. Mhmm. Before we get into this, just reminder, if you let your kids watch the show, they'll be able to listen to the podcast. But if the show is too much for them, the podcast probably is also.

Sarah:

I mess up sometimes and Mark's pretty good at editing me. Just every once in a while it slips.

Mark:

Also, we're recording this on the day that episode two goes public and we just want to thank everybody again for all the nice things you've said. You guys are really phenomenal.

Sarah:

It's super exciting to see that so many people are listening and that's all we really ever wanted. We just felt like we were the only two people in the universe who love this show and it's just so fun to see your comments and your responses, and know that we're not the only maniacs out there.

Mark:

Absolutely. Everybody all across the globe, and especially the people on Facebook, and YouTube, and Instagram and Twitter have been fantastic.

Sarah:

Yep. Keep it coming. We love to see your comments. You guys have such good interpretations and ideas and answers to crazy questions, and it's great. We're doing it all together.

Mark:

Thank you very much. And now on to Death in Disguise, was filmed. Now, I got this from Wikipedia. Okay. We have a problem with this.

Mark:

Okay. It says it was filmed in November and December 1997. It must have been the warmest November and December on record because it does not look like November and December.

Sarah:

I will give production designers all kinds of credit. I know that they make it look like it's snowing when it's not. I know they can do amazing things, but it is so clearly summer at this house. The hollyhocks are in bloom, which, you know, granted they could be silk, they could be in pots, we don't know. But the trees are in full leaf, there's moss everywhere, it's just so not December, even in England.

Mark:

I have to think that Wikipedia is wrong.

Sarah:

I think so too. We may have to look up some other sources on that.

Mark:

And the show was broadcast on the 05/06/1998, which is a further two weeks after the first the second two episodes. So there was two episodes that were week one week after another, and then there was two weeks in the third episode, and then another two weeks in the fourth episode. There must have been soccer or cricket on

Sarah:

or something. Something British that was getting in the way.

Mark:

And this is Carolyn Graham's third book that was released in 1989. Third book in the Barnaby series.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

But the fifth show

Sarah:

If you count the pilot.

Mark:

If you count the pilot, and directed again by Baz Taylor and Douglas Watkinson wrote it. Again, the same team that did the last episode, is Faithful unto Death.

Sarah:

Mhmm. All set in one place, the Lodge of the Golden Wind Horse.

Mark:

Which I have to assume is in Costin.

Sarah:

Near Costin. It has to be. They have the worst logo ever. It's Like half the words are upside down.

Mark:

It's it's not good.

Sarah:

It's not good. And Like you have to turn your head all the way around to read all of the words. And everybody says wind horse different. We have like golden wind horse, or wind horse, or wind horse.

Mark:

I'm surprised somebody didn't say wind horse.

Sarah:

They could have said wind horse.

Mark:

There's no aptly named pub in this episode. In the background of one of the shots, we see a pub called The Crown, which we'll talk about when we get to locations. But that's basically it for the major parts that we usually see. This was filmed all over England, including

Sarah:

Is it one of those where the exteriors and interiors were shot in different places?

Mark:

No. It's it's pretty good. It's filmed in Amersham, and the other place it's filmed in is You can

Sarah:

hear Mark flipping through his midsummer locations.

Mark:

Cuttington. That's where the Crown Public House was. And finally, the major location was in this place that has the best name ever, which is

Sarah:

Nether Wenchendundun. Wenchendundun. Nether Winchenden. Nether Winchenden.

Mark:

And this is a Nether Winchenden house.

Sarah:

Okay. Just makes me think of Nether Regions. Winchenden.

Mark:

What what does nether mean? N e t h e r? It's not upper or lower.

Sarah:

No. It's not big or little.

Mark:

It's nether.

Sarah:

Maybe maybe somebody from the area might fill us in.

Mark:

In the Nether Region house.

Sarah:

Yes. We learned pretty quickly that the Lodge of the Golden Wind Horse has been in place in this house for ten years founded by Bill Carter and Ian Craigie. Two old crooks. Yeah. They're old crooks.

Sarah:

They've gone in on it together. Bill wants out.

Mark:

But there's a change with Ian. Ian is now drained the Kool Aid.

Sarah:

He's the muster. Wait a minute. Okay. First of all, Flavor Aid. Yes.

Sarah:

If you're talking about Jonestown.

Mark:

He he yes.

Sarah:

Get it right. He not only drinks the Flavor Aid, he invented the Flavor Aid. He made it up and then drank it.

Mark:

Yep. He made all this up and now fully believes it.

Sarah:

Absolutely. But Bill wants out. He wants Ian to like buy him out, and they fight about it, and then oops, Bill falls down the stairs, breaks his neck. He's our first death. Right away.

Sarah:

Two minutes and thirty seconds in.

Mark:

So then Arno is at the bottom of the stairs.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

Arno is one of the are we gonna call them it's not really a cult. I'm not gonna say it's a cult.

Sarah:

What do you mean?

Mark:

Well, then they're not super cult y.

Sarah:

They aren't? It's more commun y. But they have like ceremonies and they all wear the clothing, the robe y things, and they do the stuff under the He calls them travelers. Let's call them travelers. That's just what they call members of the cult.

Sarah:

You can call it a commune if you want. I'm gonna call it a cult.

Mark:

So Arno is one of

Sarah:

the cult members. Arno Gibbs.

Mark:

And he finds the body at the bottom of

Sarah:

the stairs.

Mark:

Yes. And then we go to

Sarah:

Can I tell you something about Arno?

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Arno Gibbs, played by Charles K, I have an interesting fact about him. Well, he's in another Midsomer. He's in Vixen's Vixen's Run-in 2006, and he's in a Johnson Creek and a Frost, and he's probably in the Bill too. We don't even mention the Bill, because everybody in England

Mark:

And yet they don't play it here.

Sarah:

Even people who written one of actors have been in the bill. Yeah. But anyway, here's an interesting little fact for you. He was in Amadeus, the movie version of Amadeus. Oh.

Sarah:

And he played Orsini Rosenberg. Okay. Who in Death of a Hollow Man, The Midsomer that references Amadeus. Yeah. You remember the guy in the dressing room who tells Nico that he has to go outside because he's mentioned the Scottish play?

Sarah:

Yes. That's Rosenberg.

Mark:

Ah. Okay. So that's the

Sarah:

character that he played in the movie. Excellent. They played the same character. Excellent. Anyway, there's your little factoid.

Mark:

Okay. So

Sarah:

Arno finds Bill at the bottom of the stairs. And looks like

Mark:

at the top of the stairs

Sarah:

and sees? Ian. Ian. The master. The master standing there.

Sarah:

The master of a cult. Yes.

Mark:

Then we are introduced to May Cuddle, who may be my favorite person in this episode. I didn't like her at first, but now I've learned to love her.

Sarah:

She yeah. If you if you see her through Barnaby's eyes, she's this annoying busybody who makes them crazy. But if you you take her at her face value in the episode, she's great.

Mark:

In this episode, she doesn't gossip, she plays cello, and she helps Barnaby, and she only goes to Barnaby when there's a death.

Sarah:

Actually a death. She's played by Judy Cornwell, which all the Anglophiles out there will recognize as she was a great character in keeping up appearances. She was Hyacinth Bouquet's sister. Uh-huh. And she was

Mark:

awesome. She

Sarah:

was also in a Doctor Who in in '87. Well, she was like in four episodes of Doctor Who

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Back in '87. She's a well established actress. If you see photos of her when she was young, she was gorgeous.

Mark:

I don't doubt it. And actually plays the cello. I'm pretty sure she actually plays

Sarah:

Yeah. The I I think she does too. And she and the actor who played Arno were both in this show called Supernatural. Not that supernatural.

Mark:

Not the North American supernatural.

Sarah:

Another It was back in the seventies. Oh. So they probably met

Mark:

Why have we not watched that show?

Sarah:

I don't know. It's on video and we can't stand

Mark:

Probably.

Sarah:

What video looks like. Anyway.

Mark:

Me jumps in the car and the important thing about the car here is

Sarah:

It's fantastic.

Mark:

It is fantastic. It's a Morris Traveler.

Sarah:

I love that The

Mark:

car is beautiful.

Sarah:

It's got the wood on the back.

Mark:

Yep. And it can take bees in hives. Later. She drives like a maniac through town and goes to Barnaby's house. The important thing about Barnaby's house is he's cutting the skeleton out of a fish, he's deboning a fish.

Sarah:

Do you think he caught that fish?

Mark:

I believe he caught that fish.

Sarah:

I think that's what we're supposed to think, is that he caught that fish.

Mark:

And Joyce is making a sauce, but?

Sarah:

It's lumpy, but okay.

Mark:

She says it sort of tastes okay. Yeah. So he hides from me. He's got

Sarah:

a knife and a fish skeleton.

Mark:

He has the trash open, and he could drop the fish skeleton in there, but it's not gonna be as funny

Sarah:

No.

Mark:

When May finds it. When

Sarah:

he hides.

Mark:

Because Cully and Joyce are like, we'll stop you from May.

Sarah:

Oh, Joyce says, I'll take care of it. Because she's had assertion training. I'll get rid of her. And then her two hundred and forty pound assertion training

Mark:

Plus her.

Sarah:

May just plows right through the bar. Right through them. She has the most fantastic coordinating outfits too. Her hat band, her shirt, and her skirt are all made from the very same

Mark:

fabric. Oh, we are gonna get on to outfits in this episode.

Sarah:

She says somebody's died at

Mark:

at the

Sarah:

lodge, and Barnaby has to go.

Mark:

So She's

Sarah:

gotta go check it out.

Mark:

They're off to the lodge and Barnaby finds the cops already there. Troy is already there. Troy in a white shirt and white pants. I'm not really sure what's up with that. Maybe he was playing cricket.

Mark:

Maybe. I'm I'm not sure. They find the dead body, Bullard makes a couple of jokes, we meet the other people

Sarah:

in the cult, including the Beavers. Well, meet Trixie Channing. Trixie Channing,

Mark:

who is the least culty of the cult members.

Sarah:

She really is. I'm not

Mark:

even sure why she's there.

Sarah:

She likes the master a lot.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

But you never see her wearing the get up.

Mark:

No. She's never in the get up. Or she might be when during the regression.

Sarah:

Just that one time she has

Mark:

the robot. She might have the robot then.

Sarah:

And we meet Suhami.

Mark:

Suhami, who is pretty.

Sarah:

Well, okay. And they even say in the episode that her name means beautiful.

Mark:

Which it doesn't.

Sarah:

I looked this up. If somebody speaks Hindi and knows better, please let us know. But from my googling powers, Suhami with an m as in mama is not a name. It's Suhani and that means beautiful. And actually now in London, it's kind of slang for hot tamale baby cakes.

Mark:

So like boo. She's my Suhani. Suhani. Yeah. Suhani.

Mark:

Oh. Are you my Suhani?

Sarah:

Yeah, baby.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

So we meet Trixie and Suhani and The beepers. The beepers. We gotta talk about next and Tim. Tim. Which I always wanna say.

Sarah:

Like they say it in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Tim? Like Tim always has to be question in my head.

Mark:

So Tim's on the roof. Mhmm. And the beavers are in the foyer. Yes. With necklaces on their heads.

Sarah:

The star and the eye, which Ian wears too, but he wears around his neck like

Mark:

a Like a normal normal person. So But the best part about the Beavers

Sarah:

Is their matching outfits.

Mark:

Every single outfit in the episode they're matching.

Sarah:

So I've got some stuff on the Beavers. Okay. Okay? So Ken Beaver is played by Colin Farrell. Oh.

Sarah:

Not that

Mark:

Colin Not

Sarah:

Colin Farrell. Different Colin Farrell. Which you know you have to feel sorry for the actor because no matter, you know, what kind of career he's had, Google hates him now.

Mark:

Absolutely.

Sarah:

You know, like he can't he can't get hit on the internet for love nor money. And then his wife, Heather Beavers, is played by Diane Bull. This is a sad fact. So this episode aired in May '98. Yep.

Sarah:

She died in December '98. Oh. She was only 46.

Mark:

That's horrible.

Sarah:

So she had cancer while they were filming this episode. Very young.

Mark:

That's sad because she's they're great.

Sarah:

Oh, she's great. But once again, the books have little bits that are even better.

Mark:

How are the beavers in the books?

Sarah:

So we'll talk about the background of the beavers and the the the secrets of the beavers, but they're obviously very into this cult. Right? They are all in. They both live there. They wear their matching outfits.

Sarah:

They've got their necklaces on their heads. They're all in.

Mark:

They're helping build Passover.

Sarah:

In the book, Guy, Suhani's dad Got it. When he comes to the commune cult for the first time and is kind of looking around, he picks up a book written by Kenneth Beavers.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

And if I gave you a million guesses, you would not guess the name of this book.

Mark:

No idea.

Sarah:

Are you ready? It's called The Romance of the Enema.

Mark:

Why did they take that part?

Sarah:

I don't know. Maybe it was on Bill's bookshelf and Barnaby's in there and we just don't notice. The only book I noticed in Bill's in Bill's room is a book about Cleopatra. Yeah. But yeah, Ken

Mark:

The Romance of the Enema.

Sarah:

Well When I saw that, I was like, that's too fantastic. And I can't Well, I don't want to even imagine what it's about. It's just bad. And it makes you think of that acorn tea completely differently.

Mark:

Yes. Yes. Indeed it does. The plant killing acorn tea.

Sarah:

Yes. Anyway.

Mark:

So they're helping Bill pass over, in which Troy gets snarky right away and asks it, has it helped? Yeah. And they answer him like he's completely serious.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because they're completely serious.

Mark:

Bullard says that the guy who fell down the stairs may have been drinking. And May just breaks out.

Sarah:

Yeah. He was never a drinker. He never drank.

Mark:

And we're introduced to to Tim by Craigie.

Sarah:

Mhmm. Tim who's how do you think Tim is? He's got a little bit of a wispy mustache.

Mark:

I'd say 17. Yeah. What is 17 written all

Sarah:

over At the the most. Yeah. Maybe 16. He's certainly not an adult.

Mark:

No. But he is problematic and we'll get there.

Sarah:

And he's mute. He doesn't speak. He hasn't spoken since he got there. Which has been what eighteen months, they say?

Mark:

Like a year. Yeah. They said a year ago. Yeah. So off they go, Troy and Barnaby, and as they're leaving, Troy is driving, takes new heights.

Mark:

Oh my gosh. The straw. The hay. The hay actually comes into the car.

Sarah:

In the moonroof. And out of the back of the truck where the hay was comes Christopher Wainwright.

Mark:

Yes. Who is much better known as Bill from Trueblood.

Sarah:

Yeah. Played by Stephen Moyer. Now there's a a weird line just after that where Troy says, Shirley just calls to Newcastle.

Mark:

No. No. That's not a weird line. The weird line is later. But

Sarah:

what does that mean?

Mark:

It means that you take coals to Newcastle when they already have all the coal.

Sarah:

Coal's to Newcastle. Okay. I wrote down calls to Newcastle. No. No.

Sarah:

No. The subtitling let

Mark:

me The idiom means that why on earth would Joyce need assertion training.

Sarah:

Gotcha.

Mark:

She's already assertive enough. And Barnaby says, if only it had been cooking. Yeah. And he talks about Craigie being a good man. And then the the line that we've gotten wrong, which I'm very hard to figure out with this line.

Mark:

Troy says, praise, love, and grow your own goat. That's what it sounds like. Mhmm. But it's praise, love, and grow your own goods according to the subtitle.

Sarah:

Okay.

Mark:

I remember us saying praise, love, and grow your own goat to each other.

Sarah:

You and me? Yes. Oh. I thought you were gonna say it was some kind of Anglican thing.

Mark:

No. I thought for a long time it was goat birds There are

Sarah:

goats in this episode. Yes. It is a goat filled episode. Including a runaway goat. The runaway goat.

Sarah:

Then we have a time leap.

Mark:

The days in these episodes again are all screwed up.

Sarah:

So we can only assume that Bill's death has been declared an accident, Barnaby and Troy have moved on, because the next time we hear about Bill, it's because the cult members are all out under the tree scattering his ashes, and Barnaby and Troy are there to observe the funeral to be well, Barnaby is being respectful anyway.

Mark:

But Barnaby picks up Cully at the bus, because she's up in Perth, Scotland.

Sarah:

Mhmm. Trying out

Mark:

for role.

Sarah:

Trying out for a Macbeth role. One of the witches.

Mark:

And that's where we see the Crown pub. Yes. And then he invites her to he says, let's go for coffee. And then he goes, well, I'm going to a funeral. You wanna come with me?

Mark:

And then he just stitches her. Well, guess she

Sarah:

said no.

Mark:

I guess she said

Sarah:

no. So I gotta I got something about the funeral though. There's

Mark:

lots about the funeral.

Sarah:

I was trying to figure out how much of what they say at the funeral, because Heather kind of does all the talking at the funeral. How much of it was mumbo jumbo and invented for the Lodge of the Golden Windswords?

Mark:

Scourge of the Negative Order.

Sarah:

Yes. And how much of it was like references to other kind of new agey things? So she says that Bill will be a Chohan of the First Ray. Yeah. Which to me,

Mark:

the first thing that reminded me of was Father Brown and that weird cult that's in father brown that's all around

Sarah:

the sun. With the sun? Yeah. But Chohan of the first ray is a thing. Please do tell.

Sarah:

There's this whole kind of I don't wanna say it's weird because if you believe, then that's fine. But there's this kind of conglomeration of of religions where, like, Jesus and Buddha and Mohammed and all of the, like, major deities are all lifted up to be the seven rays. Oh. But now there are 12. Oh.

Sarah:

Because it has recently been revealed, and by recently I mean within the last five years, that there are five additional rays, but they're secret.

Mark:

It's a shame about Ray.

Sarah:

I fell down a rabbit hole of strangeness looking this up. I can only say I'm glad I work somewhere where they don't watch our search history because between the poisons and the psychotic medications and the Chohannes of the first ray that I've been googling, my coworkers are They're the one are the first not ranked like that. Okay. It's like they're all kind of equal.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Boy, just give it a Google. There's some amazing gifts out there for these websites.

Mark:

Well luckily, May could check-in with Bill because she's been talking to Bill.

Sarah:

That's right. His his spirit has was kinda lingering around. Right?

Mark:

And we get a little more information about Chris Wainwright. He's a BBC cameraman who was in Rwanda. Bad news. He's been traumatized. He's been traumatized.

Sarah:

So he needs some time.

Mark:

Now this is a ITV show, and this is the second BBC reference.

Sarah:

Yeah. And kind of negative, because Agnes in Death of a Hollow Man She worked for the BBC.

Mark:

Worked for the BBC, and now Chris, who is death in disguise. Is not actually BBC cameraman.

Sarah:

Right. Then we get the big storm.

Mark:

Well, Trixie and Ken and Heather are coming back from getting the bees.

Sarah:

We don't know where the bees came from.

Mark:

Well, I know why Trixie went because she got some bonking while she was out away from the cogwheel.

Sarah:

Some blue envelope bonking?

Mark:

Some blue envelope bonking.

Sarah:

So they're moving the bees and being absolutely ridiculous about it.

Mark:

And won't let them go more than 30 miles an hour and then Trixie says that she should sing to the bees.

Sarah:

Yes. Because they get a flat tire and Ken's changing it Trixie does kind of seem to get a laugh. Yep. Then Then there's a big storm.

Mark:

He gets him back to the manor and the master gets out of bed and just freaks out about where Tim is.

Sarah:

Where is Tim?

Mark:

And everybody freaks out where Tim.

Sarah:

Everybody, where is Tim?

Mark:

There's no clear indication that they don't know where Tim is. Like, they don't like, Tim, are you in your room? No. No. They just go right to freak out.

Sarah:

They immediately assume Tim's outside even though Tim is terrified of storms. Later, we we hear that he's terrified of storms. So as soon as there's a storm, he's gonna hide. Right?

Mark:

In the closet, which makes perfect sense.

Sarah:

That's a perfectly good place to be if you're afraid of the storm. But they they trudge outside in the rain. I gotta say, the master looks kind of funny in a raincoat. He does. Like Jesus in a puffer coat.

Sarah:

Yep. A little bit. It just it just doesn't go well together. But when Chris says, you know, why are we looking outside? Why would he be outside?

Sarah:

May says, it's his way to be out in the open, which directly contradicts his fear of storms.

Mark:

Exactly. And then a cannonball falls off the roof.

Sarah:

It's not a cannonball.

Mark:

It's not a cannonball.

Sarah:

It's a stone sphere.

Mark:

At best it's a stone sphere.

Sarah:

When it's sitting on Troy's desk it doesn't look like stone. It looks like Styrofoam to me. Indeed it does. But some prop person worked very hard.

Mark:

Very hard.

Sarah:

And they pretended it was super heavy. It was really heavy.

Mark:

And May feels a regression coming along.

Sarah:

Yeah. So there's this weird scene. Okay. So Suhami is outside milking goats. Yes.

Sarah:

And Chris comes out to talk to her and smooch with her. And he's got the crowbar.

Mark:

He says he finds the crowbar.

Sarah:

And he he says, well, you didn't do it, did you? And then he puts the crowbar in his pocket.

Mark:

Again, is that a crowbar in your pocket or are you happy to see me tsunami? It's not tsunami. Tsunami.

Sarah:

She's a goat tsunami. And I know I have lady jeans and they have notoriously shallow pockets, but could a dude fit a crowbar in his pocket?

Mark:

Not even that little crowbar.

Sarah:

It's over a foot long.

Mark:

Yeah. It's

Sarah:

easily. And it's kind of funny because after he sticks it in his pocket and then he goes to hug her, it's like pronging out of the back of his shorts.

Mark:

I'm glad that's what's pronging out of the back of his shorts. There is some bad acting in this scene.

Sarah:

Yeah. There

Mark:

are two young actors. Yeah. And they're learning their chops. Yeah. But I'm sure that both of them feel maybe that scene could have been better.

Sarah:

And they they run across the beavers who are carrying a whole bunch of twigs and stuff. Thatch. Thatch. Thank you. I was looking for the word.

Sarah:

Because they're gonna go fetch the new bee hives. What are Yes. They're out to meet the reporters from the county press.

Mark:

So the beavers are ready to throw everybody under the bus.

Sarah:

Well, because they suspect something.

Mark:

They suspect that Bill was murdered.

Sarah:

And that the cannonball was meant to kill May.

Mark:

The world's heaviest cannonballs.

Sarah:

Yes. Because now we've had two attempted murders, right? Chris pushes May out of the way when the cannonball falls. I'm just gonna call it a cannonball because that's what they call it, though it's not. We know.

Sarah:

And I I think the beavers are afraid.

Mark:

I think so. So they take the cannonball to the station and Gaius Quintus almost shows up.

Sarah:

Yeah. Not now, Gaius Quintus. So May has I can't even hear guys, Quintus, and not think about May in that stupid Roman get up later. It's just so funny. So let's explain

Mark:

that May

Sarah:

has A spirit guide.

Mark:

A spirit guide.

Sarah:

Who's a food taster.

Mark:

Who's a food taster from seventy five AD Rome. Well, Rome. He's Roman.

Sarah:

Yeah. He's Roman in England.

Mark:

Yes. And he says there are dark forces at work.

Sarah:

Yeah. And she says that she heard somebody whispering in the master's room the night that Bill died talking about, you know

Mark:

Don't do a postmortem.

Sarah:

Yeah. Why did you do that? Now what if they do a postmortem and and Gaius Quintus is is coming?

Mark:

So then Troy does a really good May. He does. He's got little hand gestures and everything. Yeah. That's a pretty good pretty good thing.

Sarah:

He has a pretty good impersonation of May.

Mark:

And then, like a record scratch, we're in another world.

Sarah:

Yeah. We're in the world of felicity.

Mark:

No. The Gamblins Guy first.

Sarah:

Oh, that's right. Guy Gambling. He's getting makeup to go on TV. Who is Tsunami's dad. We're we'll find out.

Sarah:

And I'm just gonna call her Tsunami now.

Mark:

And her mom, who is fantastic.

Sarah:

She is the most epic drunk, and then she snorts coke.

Mark:

Her husband is this developer guy.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

He's like

Sarah:

Extremely wealthy.

Mark:

And he actually does a nice thing. He says, I'll give you a ride to our daughter's birthday.

Sarah:

Yeah. I'll take you out to the lodge.

Mark:

It may be the only thing that Guy Gambling does is nice in the whole episode, but

Sarah:

Because he knows she's an epic alcoholic Yeah. And she probably can't get there

Mark:

on her own. She says, no, I don't want anything from you, and he says, even my money, and she just throws the phone.

Sarah:

She's got a pretty nice cordless phone for the moment. And she just flings it across Not anymore. It's in a bunch of pieces. And then she goes and snorts coke off the tap of his piano.

Mark:

And that actress has never snorted cocaine before.

Sarah:

I wouldn't know. That that

Mark:

was a pile of snow big enough to kill an elephant.

Sarah:

And she she scrapes it together with like a family photo photo frame. Yeah. Which was nice. Guy Gamlin, he's played by an actor named Miles Anderson. Now Miles Anderson is one of those actors.

Sarah:

He always plays the spit part. He's always a little skeezy. He's even in another episode of Midsomer called Last Year's Model, which is a 2006 episode where he's kind of skeezy.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

He's just one of those actors. But when I looked him up to learn more about him, I found out he was born in Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe. And his dad was like a government official in Zimbabwe who was pushing for equality and rights for the people of Zimbabwe and then was ousted by a prime minister Oh. In the sixties. So he Miles Anderson still does fundraising and goes back to Zimbabwe and is very political.

Mark:

That's fantastic.

Sarah:

So he's like he always plays the skeezy asshole character, but he's actually a really good guy.

Mark:

You know, my theory is that the people who we see over and over again are the people who do two things. One, they show up, know their lines, and are on top of it. They're professional. They're professional. And two, they're really easy and nice to work with.

Mark:

Yeah. So no matter what character they play, there's like, oh yeah, we'll get that guy. Yeah. He'll show up, you'll know his lines, and he'll be awesome to work with.

Sarah:

He's also in a Campion.

Mark:

What Campion is he in?

Sarah:

The Kings Road. If you guys haven't watched Campion. Have we mentioned Campion? No. We haven't mentioned It's awesome.

Mark:

Peter Davidson as a

Sarah:

When he's what? 13

Mark:

or something.

Sarah:

Vivaud detective. He's When Guy comes to the house, the first person he meets is Trixie Yep. Who we immediately learn he slept with.

Mark:

Yeah. Like how many guy how many people has he slept with that he just randomly runs across these people?

Sarah:

I don't know, but they can't even agree on how much they've slept together. He says one night stand, she says four nights actually, and later he says a three night zoological fling.

Mark:

As with the episode, their days are all screwed up also.

Sarah:

And she hates him.

Mark:

She does. And him and Craigie meet, and there's, like, totally power struggle there.

Sarah:

Ian stands up to him. Yep. He wants to go chasing after Tsunami, and he says, no, you'll see her at dinner. Yeah. Come on.

Mark:

And Felicity stumbles in from the road.

Sarah:

Like cross country. Like, the cab drops her off where? It looks like relatively near, and then it takes her, like, half an hour and 20 acres of brambles to get to

Mark:

the house. Wasn't raining that night.

Sarah:

Yeah. She just falls in while they're getting ready to cut the nut loaf.

Mark:

And she doesn't even recognize her own daughter. She thinks Trixie's her daughter.

Sarah:

She goes to Trixie. Sylvie, Sylvie, Sylvie.

Mark:

Oh, and Jim falls out of a tree right in front of you.

Sarah:

That's right.

Mark:

His tree. So the idea is that they're here for Tsunami's eighteenth birthday, and she's getting £3,000,000.

Sarah:

She's gonna inherit her money.

Mark:

Clearly, we're part of the wrong family.

Sarah:

Yeah. You can change my name to Tsunami if you

Mark:

I'm just I'm just gonna tell you that our children are not gonna get £3,000,000 when they turn 18.

Sarah:

No. No. So they they try to have this this dinner that is all made from their own goods. Yes. Including nut loaf.

Sarah:

And strangely formulated bread. Bread that looks like a pile of rocks? Sort of. It's weird. Nut doesn't look good.

Mark:

Meatloaf's other brother.

Sarah:

But then

Mark:

Nut loaf.

Sarah:

His loony brother Nut Loaf. That gives Bad Adahel a whole new reason. So so they're getting ready. They're kind of like trying to tame down dinner and then May is like, oh, guys, Quintus is coming. The regression begins.

Sarah:

And the regression begins, so they have to go they all have to go into like the solarium or whatever.

Mark:

Since the pilot, this is the weirdest scene in the show. It is. Since Barney's fever dream.

Sarah:

But I have to say, before before we get to May and Gaius Quintus, we have the matching purses.

Mark:

Yes. All of the women of the cult.

Sarah:

Tsunami, Trixie, May, all have the same person. We don't know if Heather

Mark:

has it. Heather never never has it.

Sarah:

Well, because then Ken would have to carry one too. And Ken with a little carpet bag with golden stars embroidered on it would be too funny.

Mark:

So they all have these bags, You gotta bring May's into the where the regression when

Sarah:

we find out that at least May and Tsunami have the same bag.

Mark:

Yes. And there is the regression. And May goes under and pushes a ball out the balls of her feet. The the best part is how many takes did this take?

Sarah:

How many times did they giggle and have to stop?

Mark:

Because the only thing funnier than the regression happening is the regression fever dream.

Sarah:

Yes.

Mark:

Where May is dressed up like a Roman.

Sarah:

It's not a fever dream. It's her as Gaius Quintus, the food taster. Yes. But it's an an old overweight lady wearing Roman armor. And I can only imagine that the scene setters and the production team must have just thought that was so fun.

Sarah:

They set up like two tents, a campfire, got a fake pig, and put some armor on that looks like a middle school play, and off they went. And she's great.

Mark:

She is

Sarah:

fantastic. She even talks with a man's voice, you know. Mush, mush.

Mark:

But they'll let yeah. Arnold was like, Antarctica?

Sarah:

Arno is so stupid. He loves her so much.

Mark:

No. It's mushrooms and the lights come on and we find

Sarah:

Ian has been stabbed.

Mark:

Ian has been stabbed and he points across the room.

Sarah:

Like he's reaching for somebody.

Mark:

Like he's reaching for somebody.

Sarah:

Tim's at his feet. He's got a big carving knife, the nut loaf carving knife in his chest. Hey. He's a pretty good corpse.

Mark:

Yeah. They do a good job. Well, he dies pretty quickly.

Sarah:

Yeah. But he's he lays relatively still. He's he's not breathing No. Noticeably.

Mark:

And you're not sure who he points to?

Sarah:

No. It could be a number of people. Could be Guy, it could be Chris. Really, those are the two kind of people in that direction.

Mark:

So Barnaby and the cops arrive, and this is this is not messing up here. There's no doubt. He's got a pig sticker inside of him.

Sarah:

Oh, but he wasn't murdered, Mark.

Mark:

No, he wasn't. He was astrally harvested.

Sarah:

Yes. That's what Heather says. What do they call the knife? It's not like a spear of destiny, but something like that. Something like that.

Sarah:

An astral spike or something.

Mark:

Tim has a little bit of blood on him, but not as much.

Sarah:

That's because he's hugging the master because he's We genuinely find

Mark:

out the master has been hiding. So there's the disguise.

Sarah:

Yeah. The wig? The wig. It's a good wig.

Mark:

It is a good wig.

Sarah:

It's a convincing wig. Because Ian Craigie

Mark:

has cancer as we find out.

Sarah:

And he's been going through chemotherapy so he's he's gone bald.

Mark:

Everybody points fingers at everybody else. So Troy has spend the night to make sure that everybody is there.

Sarah:

He has to sleep on the landing on the floor.

Mark:

This is a manor house. Let's give the beavers a room. Okay? Mhmm. We'll give Arlo a room and May a room.

Sarah:

Arno.

Mark:

Arno. So that's three.

Sarah:

Yeah. Tsunami's got a room. Trixie's got a room.

Mark:

That's five.

Sarah:

The master's got a room. Bill

Mark:

has Six. A Seven.

Sarah:

It's not that they don't have a room for Troy. It's that Troy needs to know nobody's leaving. So he has to sleep out by the stairs so they would wake him up if they tried to leave.

Mark:

So the Gamblins go to bed together? Is that what happens in

Sarah:

there? They're married.

Mark:

They're married but they hate each other.

Sarah:

Yeah, but he's

Mark:

Speaking got some of the Gamblins, Felicity asked Guy if he did it.

Sarah:

Everybody asked everybody if they did it. Yeah. Speaking of Troy sleeping on the landing, there's

Mark:

a little flub up.

Sarah:

We we cannot understand this flub. In that scene, Troy has on the pinky ring that he's had on since Badger's Drift. Yep. But he also has on a wedding ring on his left hand, on his third finger. It's clear as day.

Sarah:

It's a band on the right finger.

Mark:

Now On the correct finger. Okay. Maybe the actor's married.

Sarah:

No. He wasn't

Mark:

married. He was not married. It's not

Sarah:

a mistake that he just happened forget to take his wedding ring off before they shot.

Mark:

Know, if we ever got Troy on the show, which would be fantastic, that might be the first question I'm asking.

Sarah:

What's up with the ring, dude? Of all the questions, you wouldn't say, did you want

Mark:

your or goat? Yeah.

Sarah:

Say, rot arst. Say it for us. Ass bandits. Ass bandits. Rot arst.

Sarah:

Barnaby goes home and needs a whiskey.

Mark:

Yeah. Troy thinks I'm a bastard.

Sarah:

And then then they go Barnaby shows up at the at the lodge in the morning, wakes Troy up, and they one of the first people they talk to is Trixie, and Trix he asks Barnaby asks Trixie. Tricksy. Thank you. He questions Trixie. Interrogates her.

Sarah:

What? Interrogates. Okay. He says, why do you wear so much makeup?

Mark:

You've got a cheek.

Sarah:

It is probably the rudest question we've heard him ask of anybody. But he claims to notice that she's wearing makeup to cover up some bruises

Mark:

A scar.

Sarah:

And a scar.

Mark:

And we know he's a makeup expert from the last episode.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because him and Alfreda have been sharing makeup tips. Is that I

Mark:

guess so. Okay.

Sarah:

And that's when they get their first taste of is it acorn a?

Mark:

Yeah. I think that's what they call it. It's coffee made from ground acorns. Yeah. Well, don't actually taste it.

Sarah:

Well, yeah. Barnaby pours it into the

Mark:

fern when nobody's looking. And Trixie sure loves getting the mail, because she gets those blue envelopes.

Sarah:

The blue envelope. They

Mark:

interview Guy, and Tim and Guy are fighting. And then Tim goes up into a tree, because he's upset. And Barnaby interviews Guy, and Tim uses the force

Sarah:

Yeah. On Guy gambling. He's like trying to strangle him from a distance from up in the tree. He's trying so hard

Mark:

that he slaps his hands.

Sarah:

And that's probably the first shot where the poor cameraman has to be higher up in that tree than Tim is.

Mark:

Yep. Indeed. That cameraman must

Sarah:

be like 15 feet

Mark:

I in the gotta think it was on a crane. On a it was on a crane or it was on a scissor lift or something.

Sarah:

That they, like, wedged in the branches. I hope so.

Mark:

Because it's an expensive piece of equipment Mhmm. And you want it steady Mhmm. Unlike the pub shots. So you want it steady, so you're gonna want a solid he's not gonna rush up and be hanging out on that tree with the wind and everything.

Sarah:

On a big camera.

Mark:

Yeah. It's gotta be on a boom. You're right. Or on a scissor lift. Gotcha.

Mark:

But still, interesting day on the camera fan, female.

Sarah:

That's that's the scene where a guy says they that he and Trixie had a zoological fling. Yes. Which I guess means that they did it like animals.

Mark:

I guess so. I'll say it that

Sarah:

way so you don't have to beat me out. And then Felicity announces that she's gonna stay. Yes. For only for two months.

Mark:

Only for two months.

Sarah:

Because she and May are like best friends now. She's gonna take a course.

Mark:

And Troy has found up some information. First of all, they find out that Ian Craigie has no will. Right. That they can find.

Sarah:

Because they they ask May, she says that Arno is the The admin admin guy. They confront Arno in the greenhouse where the sickest tomato plants ever are getting all this TLC and apparently not benefiting from it.

Mark:

Is Arno spraying rat poison on them Or the acorn coffee.

Sarah:

Yeah. But he used to be like a legal clerk, so he was responsible for Ian's will, but he knows that Ian wanted to update it, but he doesn't know what he updated it to.

Mark:

Yep. And they find out a little bit more about Ian's past, and then Troy finds out about the beavers. Up in Hull. Yeah. In the North.

Sarah:

Which is, you know, a shipping lane, right? Yes. Right? It's where the big ships come in and out. Yes.

Sarah:

The beavers ran a brothel.

Mark:

And were fined £87,000.

Sarah:

What do you think the brothel was called?

Mark:

The beaver brothel. If you have names for the beaver's brothel, please tweet or send them to us.

Sarah:

See, I think it should be like beaver and brothel, but with like a sea shanty twist.

Mark:

Don't be so hard on the beavers.

Sarah:

No. But like a Not ye olde beaver brothel.

Mark:

Leave it to the beavers?

Sarah:

No. No. Like a like a fisherman twist. Because you know, it's for the the guys coming off the boats.

Mark:

I don't know.

Sarah:

Maybe it's the beaver brothel boat.

Mark:

Maybe it was on a boat.

Sarah:

All I know is they had profit sharing.

Mark:

They

Sarah:

did. Nobody was pressurized.

Mark:

No one was pressurized. That's

Sarah:

what Ken said.

Mark:

No one was forced to get into a pressurizing chamber.

Sarah:

Yes. Nobody had the bends from the Beaver Brussels boat.

Mark:

Not going to tell anybody else, are you? Oh, I'm not a gossip. No. Back home, at the Barnabas. They

Sarah:

they're having this nice dinner that Collie cooked because it's different, you know. It's good. It's edible. So Joyce didn't cook it.

Mark:

It's in a different style.

Sarah:

They have a tiny TV over in the corner.

Mark:

In black and white.

Sarah:

No. No. No. It's in color. Yeah.

Sarah:

But it's tiny. It's tiny. It's like 12 inches by 12 inches, which I know TVs weren't giant.

Mark:

From 1976.

Sarah:

But were you surprised that the Barnabas have a TV in their dining room?

Mark:

It was weird. It was strange. Because he's gonna wanna watch the cricket on a better TV than that.

Sarah:

Well, no, I just didn't think they were the kind of family who would watch TV in the dining room. Like, if you're gonna watch TV and eat, you take it in the living room.

Mark:

And if you go as far as to light candles and, you know, have Cully cook, that's that's a special dinner.

Sarah:

Have wine and ice glasses. There are no candles, but they have wine glasses. But it's a good thing that the TV's on. Because They find out that Chris Wainwright is getting married in the royal style. I don't know who that lady is that he's marrying, but the real Chris Chris Wainwright, the photographer for the So

Mark:

then who is Chris Wainwright? Dun dun dun.

Sarah:

Besides that guy whose name is hard to say.

Mark:

One of the things Barnaby does at this meal is he sets up the whole death scene.

Sarah:

Right. With the bread and the pepper grinder.

Mark:

Yes. And and Cully's like, well, the pepper stabbed the Parmesan.

Sarah:

No. Which would mean Tim stabbed Ian. But he didn't. Yeah. So they they go to confront Chris.

Mark:

Well, they find the press at the at the house first.

Sarah:

Right. But when they confront Chris about his true identity He he's he's with the goats. He's with tsunami. And the goats. And they're sitting in the grass surrounded by goats.

Mark:

And the escapee goat happens.

Sarah:

Yeah. Before so the goats are all tethered to stakes. Assuming I'm assuming that they're tethered that way because that makes them easier to milk. So tsunami just goes

Mark:

But there's no mention of goat cheese or

Sarah:

goat milk or anything. Maybe they put it in the nut loaf. Maybe. As soon as they sit down, one goat just gets free and just walks off, And nobody nobody notices it. Free is a burden.

Sarah:

Everybody pretends it didn't happen. Yes. But then the whole time they're having this really tense conversation with Chris about who he really is.

Mark:

Who is He's actually Bill's nephew.

Sarah:

He's sitting on the ground, and there are giant goat teats right next to his head, the entire Goat teats. Time. It's hard to pay attention to maybe I'm sick. It's hard to pay attention to what he's saying when right next to his head are these two big swinging goat teats.

Mark:

Okay. So to go into Greenland a little bit, nothing you see on camera is by mistake.

Sarah:

Right. Right? They framed it up. They Are they saying he's a teat?

Mark:

The director said, make sure you get the teats in there. So

Sarah:

you're telling me that they purposely positioned that goat with the big swinging udder to be right next to his head?

Mark:

I guess. And why else would you do it?

Sarah:

I mean, if they weren't paying close enough attention and they were focused on

Mark:

I believe they're professionals.

Sarah:

So they purposefully put the goateats behind his head?

Mark:

There's two scenarios. One, in which the goateets have some special meaning for them. They're calling him a tit. Or two, he did it really well with the goateets behind him.

Sarah:

He didn't wanna shoot it again. He didn't wanna shoot

Mark:

it again.

Sarah:

Well, already had one goat take off, so maybe they were like, let's just get this.

Mark:

I know that director hated those goats.

Sarah:

Before all the goats take off.

Mark:

Yeah. And they throw Tim under the

Sarah:

bus. Yep.

Mark:

And they go to Craigie's room, and they find some documents. They find a new will. Yep. And who is the beneficiary of the new will?

Sarah:

So May and Arno are gonna inherit everything as long as they agree to maintain the work of the lodge.

Mark:

Barnaby goes and finds Tim who's up a tree. Mhmm.

Sarah:

Barnaby at least uses the ladder.

Mark:

Barnaby goes up the tree with the cameraman. Yep. And they have a kind of nice scene here. Barnaby does a good job.

Sarah:

He's very kind to Tim. Tim is mute seemingly because of some kind of trauma. Trauma. Or did you get the impression that like Tim is autistic? From what I read on the Wikipedia page, in

Mark:

the book, Tim, there's some level of mental retardation. Mhmm. I don't I don't know. I didn't read the book. It's just from the Wikipedia entry.

Mark:

That's clearly not the case here. He's just traumatized.

Sarah:

Yeah. I think the impression we're supposed to get from just in the show at least, is that he was traumatized before he arrived at the lodge and that's why he doesn't speak.

Mark:

So he's not a runner.

Sarah:

He can run. He just falls down. Apparently. But he he can he can book it pretty fast. Barnaby, he's he's kind to him.

Sarah:

But Ian says that I'm sorry. Tim says that Ian was killed by magic. And Barnaby's not really sure what that means.

Mark:

The the blade appeared by magic.

Sarah:

But it's something. It's the first word that Tim has spoken since he came to the lodge.

Mark:

And where is Troy?

Sarah:

Troy is off visiting Missus Cook, who was the first landlady that Ian Craigie stayed with. His name is Crawley. Yep. Stayed with when he got out of prison. And she has cows.

Mark:

Attack cows it looks like.

Sarah:

Well they they attack each other.

Mark:

Yeah. They're frisky cows.

Sarah:

They're humping away while Troy's trying to not fall into piles of cow poo.

Mark:

He gets in the house and he is rewarded.

Sarah:

Cook is a cook.

Mark:

She is a cook.

Sarah:

Yeah. She makes prune nibbles and has persuasive cake. Persuasive cake?

Mark:

That Troy is just stuffing his gob hole.

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah. I thought it kind was of cute. I the first I remember the first time I saw that scene, was like, is she trying to put the moves on him via sweets? Like, is she No.

Mark:

I think she's just happy to have a visitor.

Sarah:

Yeah. I think she's just kind of lonely and she's a good cook, but you you gotta assume that he called ahead and she prepared the prune nibbles for him. Absolutely. Because she is looking forward to having company. But her

Mark:

cows are not. Well, they're having their

Sarah:

own company. Yeah. Each other.

Mark:

Arno and May have a nice scene Yeah. Where May

Sarah:

She's playing a cello.

Mark:

If he killed the master. Mhmm. No. It's the whole the whole subtext of them wanting to be more grown up and become closer together.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

And then Arno asked Mae if she did it, and she freaks out. It's a great comedy beat.

Sarah:

Yeah. It is. It is. It's it's not as good as when the beavers are in the garden tending to the bees, and Ken says, oh, Heather, honey. And she goes, yes?

Sarah:

And he goes, Heather, honey. And she goes, oh, I thought you were being affectionate.

Mark:

Yes. And it's just a little tiny scene we told

Sarah:

It's him just like a camera pan, but it's so clever. When Troy gets back to the office, Barnaby kind of ribs him about how long he's been gone, and then they find out that Guy is now dead.

Mark:

Well, they're not charging as much. So Ian Craigie believed what we

Sarah:

was doing. And Joyce's course would have been considerably less expensive. Not £240. According to the price list in the pamphlet.

Mark:

Had a lot of

Sarah:

offerings. That was a full size eight and a half by 11

Mark:

with three columns on

Sarah:

both sides.

Mark:

Love to see what was on that piece of paper because you know it was just gold.

Sarah:

It was just all the way down the line.

Mark:

Yeah. May calls and says there's another dead body at the lodge. Yeah.

Sarah:

Guy's dead. He apparently had a heart attack, but he has a bottle of pills in his hand. It's an empty bottle of heart pills. So our first assumption is that he had a heart attack and didn't have the medication that he needed so he died. And Trixie is gone.

Mark:

Absolutely gone. But May says somebody who was sending the blue letters is probably where Trixie's at.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Yeah. It may relate to her covering up a scar and bruises.

Sarah:

Yep. So This is also when we find out that Ian had cancer, and Guy is on a dolly in the morgue because George and Barnaby have a nice little conversation. And Barnaby says, you know, tell me that it was suicide. And he says, no. You know, and George kinda says he didn't have any, medication in his stomach and he would have had that medication.

Sarah:

But Guy's kind of like, he's on a gurney, but it's like a half height gurney. Yeah. It's lower. Like a dolly? Yeah.

Sarah:

Kind of. He's out in the hallway.

Mark:

Yeah. It's weird.

Sarah:

It's like maybe he just kind of stuck him out there.

Mark:

It was maybe a busy week.

Sarah:

I guess. We've already got two bodies, but one's been cremated already, so and they've still got Ian in the morgue. He's been there for a while. There's some good dead acting there.

Mark:

Yep. There

Sarah:

is Ian's some a better dead body in the morgue than he is in the chair.

Mark:

He is a better dead body in the morgue.

Sarah:

Yep. So they go to check out Tripsie's boyfriend's house. Raymond. Because he's got a return address.

Mark:

So first of all, we're confused by something. If you're in Britain and you're bonking, do you have to leave the door open? Because once again once again the door is open.

Sarah:

Ray and Trixie do. It's not just that it's unlocked, it is open.

Mark:

Troy says they're at it with the hand symbol.

Sarah:

Which, okay, you might think she got there, she leapt into his arms, they rushed upstairs to be together.

Mark:

Now when they rushed upstairs, did they use the rope banister? They must have. Is the whole theme of the house nautical?

Sarah:

But on the way, they stopped to make some chips.

Mark:

They did.

Sarah:

Because the chips are still warm in the And delicious. And delicious. Yeah. Unless so okay. So maybe Ray was making some fries.

Sarah:

Making some fries. Because he sent Trixie a letter. Understand. Who knows when Trixie's gonna show up? You don't You don't know.

Sarah:

Even if they get the post several times a day, you don't know when she's So gonna get he's just making some chips. She comes to the door. He goes, ah, takes the chips out of the fryer at the perfect level of doneness.

Mark:

Crispiness.

Sarah:

And then they swing on up the rope banister to the bedroom and they forget to close the door.

Mark:

I guess. And they they have a lot of giggling going on.

Sarah:

They're having fun. They're happy.

Mark:

They're very happy.

Sarah:

But Troy says, think they're doing it.

Mark:

They're at it.

Sarah:

They're at it.

Mark:

Yeah. With the hand symbol.

Sarah:

The fist.

Mark:

So we find out that Raymond is actually the one being abused and His his now ex

Sarah:

wife. Attacked Trixie. And that's why she had to wear so much makeup. And this is also where we learned that Trixie has a matching purse to May and Tsunami.

Mark:

That has golden thread.

Sarah:

Yes. And Troy and No way.

Mark:

And Barnaby Barnaby are eating chips the whole time.

Sarah:

The whole time.

Mark:

And then Barnaby tells Troy not to eat any more chips.

Sarah:

They must be really good chips. Ray Ray says his ex wife was abusive, and Troy says, well, she must have been big or something like that. And Ray says she was like Arnold Schwarzenegger. So I only can assume that he used to be married to Vince.

Mark:

Not married. Maybe Vince, because remember the last episode, the picture of Vince

Sarah:

The the photo fit of Vince looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Simone's ex boyfriend. So maybe Ray was married to Vince.

Mark:

Maybe.

Sarah:

That would explain the divorce.

Mark:

That's quite a crossover. It's a With Arnold in the background going, I had nothing to do with this.

Sarah:

It's my little conspiracy theory. Okay. Then they're in the pub. Pub? Now, if we point something out that makes you wanna go, I missed that in that scene, I'm gonna go pull up that episode and watch that little bit again.

Sarah:

This is one of those moments. We've got a two camera shot of Troy and Barnaby having a conversation. We only see one of them at a time.

Mark:

The runner of Barnaby is perfect. It's fine.

Sarah:

But when the camera is on Troy

Mark:

It's going up and down.

Sarah:

It's like the cameraman has had a lot of acorn. Yep. It's shaking. Like, to the point where I had to look away because it was almost making me nauseous.

Mark:

Barnaby gets some beer A lager. Lager. Lager.

Sarah:

For the two of them. And he sees

Mark:

the guy playing darts and he figures it out.

Sarah:

Here's his moment. They rush off back to To the lodge. To find Arno and May playing keep away with Tim like he's a dog. Who does that?

Mark:

He's 17. Good boy.

Sarah:

Good boy. Like, he's not a dog.

Mark:

But obviously he loves them. Yeah. Take me through the night of the storm again. He asked the beavers. The beavers say they had to sell everything because of the fine, including their condo in Spain.

Sarah:

Costa Del Sol.

Mark:

And Arnold comes in and we find out the truth about Bill's death.

Sarah:

Yeah. And we get a reenactment of Bill falling down the stairs with an awesome stunt Bill.

Mark:

Yeah. It was an awesome stunt Bill.

Sarah:

Because if you remember Bill has beard and blonde hair, bad blonde hair. Stunt Bill has quite the wig. Yes, he does. It's it's worth like slowing down because he's doing like a backwards somersault down the stairs. The wig is fantastic.

Mark:

So we find out that Tim actually caused Bill's death.

Sarah:

Yeah. He got scared. He's gonna protect the master. Yeah. He was trying to push him away.

Sarah:

He wasn't trying to push him down the stairs. Yep. So everybody was kind of covering for him. Arnaud knew that Tim had done it. I don't know if May knew that, but they've poured whiskey on Bill after he fell to kind of give the impression that maybe he was drunk to to help protect him.

Mark:

Now there's a scene after this, I don't have it written down, but there must be a scene after this because the thing I have next is there's the fight on the roof with Tim and Chris. Where is Barnaby and Troy before that? It must not have been important.

Sarah:

They they pull up Yeah. To see Chris and Tim on the roof fighting.

Mark:

Yes. Chris and Tim are fighting on the roof and it's clear that Chris is trying to kill Tim.

Sarah:

Yeah. He's got the crowbar, though Chris claims that he was protecting himself from Tim. Because like you do. Exactly. You go up on the roof to confront somebody who then tries to kill you.

Mark:

Tim falls through the window, that's a pretty

Sarah:

big effect. And Barnaby to the rescue with the comfy sofa. That's a pretty good

Mark:

stunt effect, you know, that somebody actually went through the window.

Sarah:

Yeah. Though I'm sure it was safety glass. I'm sure it was sugar glass. Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah:

But Barnaby is an action hero right there.

Mark:

Barnaby gets everybody out the way and gets the couch in position.

Sarah:

It's almost like, you know, when the firefighters have the big trampoline and they run around so you can jump off the building. He's got the sofa, he's like woah, he puts it right in the right spot.

Mark:

Chris is very concerned if Tim is okay because we find out Chris is

Sarah:

He's the hoping that Tim's dead.

Mark:

Because Chris threw the knife that killed the mess.

Sarah:

Because he used to work in the circus.

Mark:

And Barnaby practices his Spanish and says that he was really good at throwing knives.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because he's talked to the the manager of the circus.

Mark:

But who killed Guy? Barnaby thinks it's his daughter. No. But no.

Sarah:

It was once again Chris.

Mark:

Because he made the audacity of saying Give me my pills. Yes.

Sarah:

Treated me like a servant. But who are Tim's parents?

Mark:

So Arno comes up to Barnaby at the end and says, you know, I did a lot of lying here, and my and trouble here, and what's my charge? And Barnaby says, in a nice turn of phrase, that all he has to do is raise Tim.

Sarah:

Take care of Tim?

Mark:

So May, Arno, and Tim come out pretty good here. Yeah. But where are Tim's parents? I'm Barnaby would be like, no. We need to take him to see his parents.

Sarah:

All they needed was one line early on that said we know who Tim is. He he's an orphan.

Mark:

He escaped from an orphan.

Sarah:

He was he was in a bad foster situation. He's much better off here. We'll take care of the paperwork. Like, that's all they had to do. Like two lines.

Sarah:

But instead, they leave it as if Tim, this underage kid, appears from nowhere and has no history. And like, whatever the traumatic event was that made him mute, somebody's just gonna get away with it.

Mark:

Well maybe his dad, Darth Vader, had not taught him how to use the force grip yet.

Sarah:

He's still practicing from the trees.

Mark:

Back at the Barnaby's, Culley gets a mail and the mail says She's gonna be

Sarah:

a witch. She's gonna

Mark:

be a witch. She's off to Perth for three weeks.

Sarah:

Three weeks?

Mark:

Three to three months.

Sarah:

Three Three months. Yeah. Good

Mark:

riddance. They go out to celebrate because I'm sure Barnaby is the first to suggest they go out

Sarah:

to Yeah.

Mark:

Because he

Sarah:

has white joists to cook.

Mark:

And the press arrive and Barnaby gives them the beavers on a silver platter.

Sarah:

Yeah. Which any good reporter would have known anyway. It's not like they changed their names.

Mark:

No. Like it's pretty simple.

Sarah:

They were still using their own names.

Mark:

And that is death in disguise which there is no disguise.

Sarah:

There's one bad wig and a couple people going by false names. That's it.

Mark:

It's not really disguise.

Sarah:

I guess you could say that murder is pretending to be suicide or an accident in the case of Guy and Bill, but not really.

Mark:

Not really.

Sarah:

I don't know where the title comes from.

Mark:

It's it's a weird title.

Sarah:

And that wraps up season one of Midsomer.

Mark:

Season one of Midsomer. So we have the pilot and four episodes of season one.

Sarah:

I think we need to do a little recap, don't you?

Mark:

I think we should do a little season review. Let's start with Best corpse. I gotta go for best corpse, I gotta go Agnes in the in the morgue. Why? Because she is rock solid there.

Sarah:

Perfectly still.

Mark:

Perfectly still. It's she's in he opens the drawer and pulls her out, and it's clearly her in the drawer with the door closed.

Sarah:

That I'm gonna go with Max Jennings, written in blood

Mark:

because Oh, yeah.

Sarah:

That's pretty he's got that kind of capillary stuff going on, and yeah, you sort of see his eye twitch a little bit, but I don't think I could keep my eyeballs still when somebody was prying him open. He Who is definitely Sarah

Mark:

Allen Howlingsworth.

Sarah:

Definitely looks dead.

Mark:

Yes, he does.

Sarah:

Alright. How about craziest killer of the season?

Mark:

Craziest killer, I'm gonna have to go with Anoria Linear. Anoria Linear.

Sarah:

Yeah. She

Mark:

is like and she's she I chose her picture for the the title card of the second episode Yeah. Because she is bat crazy insane.

Sarah:

She's like Normina Bates. And for no like And Anna Massey's just she's just great.

Mark:

We're never really like, I had the whole thing about her motive being the last of the Litiards, but that's not even talked about. Like, Death of a Hollow Man, the the crazy guy in that has a better motive than

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah. Because at least he wants his career and his theater back and he's he's crazy. But but she's just psycho killer crazy. She doesn't even care if she gets caught.

Mark:

She's nuts.

Sarah:

How about best Barnaby line?

Mark:

I gotta go with the very first line. Oh really? I wouldn't have guessed when he shows up and it has all the tape and the police car.

Sarah:

Crime scene tape. Yeah. I'm gonna go with you're just jealous because I've got a coconut and you you haven't.

Mark:

Oh, that's a pretty good line.

Sarah:

How about dumbest Troy moment?

Mark:

So Troy has had some spectacular moments, bad driving. When he loses Allen Hollingsworth and runs around like a chicken in the the courtyard. Yeah. It's not really all that good. But for best Troy screw up, I gotta thank him leaning against the wall and finding the hidey hole in In faithful unto death.

Mark:

Faithful unto death.

Sarah:

I'm gonna go with a faithful unto death moment too, and just go with rad arsed.

Mark:

Rad arsed.

Sarah:

How about worst choice cooking?

Mark:

I gotta go back to the pilot once again. Gotta go back to Killings of Badgers Drift with the the neck of lamb with mushroom dumplings. It just sounds disgusting. I'm sorry.

Sarah:

I'm gonna go with the the fish sauce. The lumpy fish sauce. It's lumpy, but it's kind of okay.

Mark:

I get. It's in a different style.

Sarah:

How about best guest star of the season?

Mark:

I I have to think that the best guest stars of the whole first the pilot in the first season have to be the Rain Birds. It has to be Richard Can and Elizabeth Spriggs. They're just fantastic to watch and I never get tired of them on the scene.

Sarah:

They're so fun. They're so devious. Deliciously devious. And they're fun and they're quirky

Mark:

and it's just so weird. We've talked about this, that this is really the first typical Midsomer episode. There's lots of dead bodies, it gets to it right away.

Sarah:

Death in disguise is like the first kind of what will be a typical Midsomer episode.

Mark:

And we certainly see that in episode one of season two, which is Death's Shadow.

Sarah:

You haven't let me say who my best Oh, who are

Mark:

your best guest stars?

Sarah:

I'm gonna go with Anna Massey. She plays on Noria Lydia. Yeah. Again, not only is she the craziest killer, she's just so perfectly rude Yes. The whole episode.

Sarah:

She just leaves the room. Yeah. She just you just wanna hit her all the time. Yep. And if it wasn't her, I would have to go with Death of a Hollow Man, his oh, his wife, who we thought might be his sister, the little old lady.

Mark:

Oh yes. Donald Pleasant's daughter.

Sarah:

Yes. Because she is wonderfully batty.

Mark:

Yeah. She

Sarah:

Yep. She's so great with her stuttering. Yeah. She does such a good job.

Mark:

She does a great job.

Sarah:

But but Anna Massey is my

Mark:

pick. Okay.

Sarah:

Yeah. We would love to know what your favorite corpse was of season one. Craziest killer. Craziest killer.

Mark:

Best Barnaby love.

Sarah:

Dumbest Troy moment.

Mark:

Worst meal by Joyce.

Sarah:

Or your best guest star. Any of those, we would love to hear your thoughts. Leave a comment. Because next time

Mark:

Season two episode one Death's Shadow. One of my favorites.

Sarah:

We're getting into some good ones now. I'm excited. Thanks again for listening. It's so exciting to know. Even if only five people were listening, we would be super stoked.

Sarah:

But as near as we can tell, the first episode was listened 250 or so?

Mark:

Something like that. It's it's It's great. Analytics are hard to tell, but way more people than we ever thought would be listening to this, are listening to this and recommending it to other people already, and we're just super excited, and thank you so much for listening.

Sarah:

It gives us a really good excuse to hole up in our home office away from our teenagers, and have an hour or so of fun together in front of Mike's, and we're glad that you're along for the ride.

Mark:

Bye, Maniacs.

Sarah:

Till next time. Bye, Maniacs. So Arno Gibbs, the same actor who plays Arno Gibbs, who I can't believe I didn't write down his real name. Wow. I failed on that one.

Mark:

I can look it up for you.

Sarah:

Look it up.

Mark:

Arnold Gibbs is played by Charles k.

Sarah:

Okay. So I'm gonna start that again.

Mark:

Yep. 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.