Mystery Maniacs

Mystery Maniacs - Cold Cases - Midsomer Season 05 BINGE 



Episode Show Notes / Description  

🎙️ Episode: https://share.transistor.fm/s/ec588738
📓 Show Notes: https://midsomermaniacs.transistor.fm/episodes/mystery-maniacs-cold-cases-midsomer-season-03-binge

Show Notes
This cold case covers our podcast for Season 3 of Midsomer Murders. 

Cold Cases
00:00 Intro
4:05 Episode 10 - "Death Of A Stranger" - Grahame and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day - Worst Doctor Coward 
1:24:23 Episode 11 - "Blue Herrings" - Fast Cars, Ululation, and a Naughty Doctor
2:37:02 Episode 12 - "Judgement Day" - The Meeting of The "We Want To Kill Peter" Committee
3:55:46 Episode 13 - "Beyond The Grave" - Un-words, Full-face Winks and Illegal Shenanigans 

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

  • August 17:     Mystery Maniacs - Clues and Reviews 8/17/26
  • August 19: Mystery Maniacs - Cold Cases - Midsomer Season 04 BINGE
  • August 31: Mystery Maniacs - Clues and Reviews 8/31/26
  • September 2: Mystery Maniacs - Cold Cases - Midsomer Season 05 BINGE
  • September 2 - August Newsletter


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Bluesky Release

This cold case covers our podcast for Season 3 of Midsomer Murders. 

Episode: https://share.transistor.fm/s/ec588738


#Brokenwood #MysteryManiacs #MurderMystery #PodcastRecap 


Release

This cold case covers our podcast for Season 3 of Midsomer Murders. 

As always, free and ad-free!

Episode and show notes here: https://share.transistor.fm/s/ec588738

------------------------------------
NEWSLETTER: Keep up with all things Mystery Maniac through our newsletter!

Signup here for free: https://midsomermaniacs.transistor.fm/

Thanks again for listening!
 
Mark & Sarah

Release - No Promo

This cold case covers our podcast for Season 3 of Midsomer Murders. 


Episode: https://share.transistor.fm/s/ec588738

------------------------------------
Thanks again for listening!
 
Mark & Sarah



Creators and Guests

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

What is Mystery Maniacs?

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

Sarah:

Hey, Maniacs.

Mark:

Hey, Mystery Maniacs. We're back with another cold case. This

Sarah:

time, Midsomer Murders season three for your binging pleasure.

Mark:

And as mentioned last week, this is banger banger banger banger. It's all good stuff here. We have death of a stranger, blue herrings, perhaps the best acted Midsomer episode of all time.

Sarah:

Judgment Day and Beyond the Grave. Which of these is your most face hurting podcast episode because it cracked you up so much?

Mark:

To me. To me. My most face hurting part of of these episodes of our episodes are episode number 11.

Sarah:

Wait a minute. Can you fit episode in that sentence more, please?

Mark:

Episode 11, blue herrings, fast cars, uulation, and a naughty doctor because I sprung something on you in that episode. And the thing I sprung on you in that episode was the fact that the credit card was from somebody from the production.

Sarah:

Oh, that's right.

Mark:

And Tom signed it. Tom Barnaby.

Sarah:

That's right. I forgot about that.

Mark:

It's a real restaurant.

Mark:

It's a real credit card.

Sarah:

That's because you watch so closely.

Mark:

It it it sparked my my excitement because I had found it and I spent all week

Mark:

not telling you about it.

Mark:

And then when I told you about it

Sarah:

I was like, no way.

Mark:

You were like, oh my gosh. That's so amazing.

Sarah:

This This season, Midsomer really gets into its groove. And I agree, these are all bangers. But the other theme that kind of goes through them is they're all episodes full of unlikable people.

Mark:

Yes, Most definitely.

Sarah:

Like, you just kind of think, maybe they should all get murdered. I don't like any of them.

Mark:

The doctor and the lady who run the old folks home in blue herrings, you dislike them immensely. It ends up that they're found each other through BDSM and that they're helpful at the end.

Sarah:

They're not all bad.

Mark:

And you're like, oh.

Sarah:

My most face

Mark:

hurt Except for Mongo. He's definitely Mongo. Mongo.

Sarah:

My most face herty episode of this season of our podcast is the Beyond the Grave episode, Unwords, Full Face Winx, and Illegal Shenanigans.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

This is the one where the art restorer, her husband has died and there's ghosts and she has this mantra.

Mark:

David departed, delight.

Sarah:

No, David delight departed.

Mark:

David delight departed.

Sarah:

That she has to say over and over again to remind herself that he's dead.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

Because, you know, you forget.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

It is the most gaslighting packed episode.

Mark:

It is.

Mark:

In Midsomer. So gaslighty and it's so maybe there's ghosts. Maybe there isn't. And I hate those episodes.

Sarah:

Maybe they're just torturing this woman for no reason whatsoever. Now Orlando Bloom, aka Peter Drinkwater, aka Legolas, does get sporked in this season.

Mark:

Yes. And it of highly satisfying too.

Mark:

Funny things that you might find in these episodes that we didn't find super funny, but we were completely wrong about the cast knowing about him being cast in Lord of the Rings already. Yeah. It's a complete reference. They totally dropped it in.

Sarah:

But we did speculate.

Mark:

We did speculate.

Sarah:

And then later we found out it

Mark:

was true.

Sarah:

So have fun with, Midsomer Murders season three. Go binge and enjoy.

Mark:

Bye, Maniacs. Enjoy.

Sarah:

Go away. Go away. Go away. Go away. Welcome to Midsomer Maniacs.

Sarah:

I'm Sarah.

Mark:

I'm Mark. Hey, Maniacs.

Sarah:

How are

Mark:

you doing? Episode 10, double

Sarah:

digits. Yes. And we've gotten past the horrible Blood Will Out episodes.

Mark:

My gosh. If you are still listening after that episode, I I would really appreciate it. Just remember off the top that 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 probably is too.

Sarah:

Well, this episode, which is season three, episode one

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Death of a stranger, has a lot of boobies in it. There are boobies. Well, two specific boobies over and over again.

Mark:

There's just boobs.

Sarah:

Just those two Yep. In a Polaroid.

Mark:

Yep. Yeah. This episode was filmed in October ninety nine. The Wikipedia entry says it was broadcast the 12/31/1999, New Year's Eve, before the millennium. Okay.

Mark:

It's the worst night of television ever. That would be

Sarah:

a weird night to air. You think it would just that night would be, like, full of TV specials. Right?

Mark:

You would think, but which is probably why I only got 5,870,000 views. Which is what? Like, half of what the previous episode got? Yeah. I I'm not trusting the Wikipedia these days because it says it's directed by Mora Armstrong and Douglas Watkinson.

Mark:

And then I noticed that wasn't the case on the episode. And in IMDb, it's Peter Cregan who directed it and Douglas Livingston who wrote it.

Sarah:

I think we have to trust the credits.

Mark:

I think so too.

Sarah:

Maybe you should edit the Wikipedia page and correct it.

Mark:

That would be a full time job that I'm not really signing up for. You've already got enough jobs. I have enough jobs already.

Sarah:

I have to say I really like this episode.

Mark:

This is return to form that we needed after the last episode.

Sarah:

There's lots of bodies. There's bodies right away. There's weird people. There's boobies.

Mark:

I'll tell you what there is. And I'm gonna blow this right away. But there is blackmail, murder, and sexual deviancy. It is everything that

Sarah:

Oh, and don't forget handbag Henry and his taxidermy Yes.

Mark:

Like, it's everything that Barnaby says at the pub that one day.

Sarah:

Yeah. That the country country is full of.

Mark:

Yes. And no travelers. Not that we're anti travelers. We're anti traveler episodes.

Sarah:

Yeah. I misspoken the last episode because in my head, Linda's place in the woods was a caravan, was a wagon, and it's actually a train car. Yes. Which is much classier.

Mark:

It's actually a pretty nice place.

Sarah:

I kinda wonder how it got there.

Mark:

Well, you know, Thomas dropped it off.

Sarah:

Trey shows his age when he goes, oh, it's just like Thomas the Dinkin. You're like, yeah. You're a little kid.

Mark:

Cold opening. And I know you disagree with me, but this cold opening to me, first of all, it was a dark and stormy night Yeah. Is very Twin Peaks y. I don't see It's got a train car. It's got a muttering old man.

Mark:

It has a the chord goes from a major to a minor in the same way

Sarah:

Music card.

Mark:

Angelo does his chords in Twin Peaks. I say it's Twin Peaksy.

Sarah:

I will leave that to your judgment because you're a Twin Peaks person, and I'm not.

Mark:

Well, luckily, she has a giant pair of shears.

Sarah:

Man, those are big scissors. Like, what does she use those for? Like, are upholsterers shears. They're a good 10 inches long. Yes.

Sarah:

The blades are a good 10 inches long and about two inches wide, if not wider.

Mark:

They're certainly pokey pokey.

Sarah:

They are serious. And I like Linda. Okay. She's this kooky character. She's got that awesome gap in her teeth.

Sarah:

She makes me think of the wife of Bath who also had a gap in her teeth, right? From the Canterbury Tales. Cause yeah, I'm that kind of nerd. Nerd. But I feel like even though this is a better written episode, for some reason, it's like they were limited to how many lines they could give her, but not how many times she could say them.

Sarah:

Yes. Right? So she just says, go away. Go away. Go away.

Sarah:

Go away. Over and over again. Like, say something different.

Mark:

Because the tramp wants in. Yeah. But she doesn't know the tramp secret. No. And that will learn the tramp secret.

Sarah:

But she doesn't say, like, get out of here. Leave me alone. She says, go away. Go away. No.

Sarah:

And that's not the the only time that she repeats the same line over and over and over and over and over and over again.

Mark:

The hunt is what we're presented with after the credits. Mhmm. Well, as the credits roll.

Sarah:

And we meet James Fitzroy, co master of the hunt.

Mark:

Yes. With his his co master whose name is Marsha. Marsha. Marsha. Marsha.

Mark:

Not Marcia. Marcia.

Sarah:

Marcia. She's just a jerk, jerk, jerk.

Mark:

And she, talks to her daughter-in-law, Kate, and her son, Graham. And really everybody's kind of pissy with each other about everything because the baby's not there.

Sarah:

Harry. Like, what why would you bring a baby to a hunt?

Mark:

All the dogs would wake him up.

Sarah:

Now granted, he's a toddler. Yeah. He's like three. But still But he's got no business being there. He'd just get trampled.

Mark:

The hunt is a is a clearly British thing that seems so strange. It seems so foreign.

Sarah:

Well, and in this episode, especially because so I I always kind of thought as of hunts as like special occasion things.

Mark:

Yeah. These people hunt like every two days.

Sarah:

Yeah. Troy says, don't they have jobs? Like, I want the same thing. Don't they have jobs?

Mark:

Well, no. They're rich British people. They don't have jobs.

Sarah:

Well, but just think of the logistics. Right? So these people don't all live at James Fitzroy's house.

Mark:

No.

Sarah:

So they've got a horse that they've got to bring to every his few days.

Mark:

I guess they're driving around the countryside with their horses.

Sarah:

And though we know the hounds live at his house, we see them unloading them from like a trailer. So they load all the dogs up and drive them across the countryside and then decide where they're going to start and dump them off. I don't know. The logistics of it just blows my mind.

Mark:

It's another weird example too of our dog watched the episode with us. She's not a guest on the podcast. I'm sorry. But still all that dog barking, she didn't react at all.

Sarah:

No. She's like, whatever dogs.

Mark:

But God forbid, mini, a baby hippo or a baby rhinoceros makes a noise. She freaks out.

Sarah:

That's because she's a 75 pound English bulldog. She looks more like a hippo than she does one of those hounds.

Mark:

She does indeed. And maybe we should put her picture

Mark:

in the show notes.

Sarah:

Fanny, she's our baby. We've got the FitzRobbins and Sarah FitzRobbins, Jane's wife is there as well. And we've got the Tranters. These are the two kind of major families the beginning of the show. And then we're introduced to Ron Pringle.

Sarah:

Yes. Who is a former superintendent, well soon to be former superintendent, who's moved into this village, which is Upper Marshwood. Yes. With his wife Betty, and they're gonna spend their retirement in Upper Marshwood.

Mark:

You know, I really like Betty.

Sarah:

I do too.

Mark:

She may be my favorite

Sarah:

a hug.

Mark:

Character in the episode. She she definitely deserves a hug. The tramp is also here. Yeah. The tramp from the the cold open and he's buying some strong boat.

Sarah:

Yeah. In one liter bottle. Two liter bottles. It's cider.

Mark:

Man, four liters of cider, you're gonna be toasty. He's thirsty. And the woman who runs the store is, like, totally mean to him. She is.

Sarah:

The this Sandra.

Mark:

Sandra, she does a lot in the two appearances she's in.

Sarah:

Yeah. Of course, you know, the tramp doesn't do himself any credit there. He's basically jabbering all the time. Roy or sorry. Ron.

Sarah:

I always wanna call him Roy. Ron is wearing five, more than four, five different plaids in his outfit. Oh my gosh. His hat, his shirt, his tie, his jacket, his pants, they're all different, all different tweeds. Like, can you make more of an effort to fit into the countryside?

Mark:

That's like so broken.

Sarah:

It's really broken. And they're not even all the same color scheme or anything. He's just a try hard.

Mark:

Oh. Poor

Sarah:

Betty is there in her apron going, woah.

Mark:

He's he's totally like pretty fly for a hunt guy.

Sarah:

No. He's not fly for a hunt guy. He's lame.

Mark:

Well, that's the whole joke. Right?

Sarah:

Yeah. He's so desperate to fit in with these folks who really have no redeeming qualities.

Mark:

No. None at all.

Sarah:

And even less as we get to know them, but it's pretty clear he's desperate. So Billy Gurdy and Dave, Mystery Dave, are hanging out and they're hassling people at the hunt and he goes and he has a word with them.

Mark:

Now at no point, the first time I watched this on the rewatch did I catch that his name was Dave. Yeah. So there's a a point later on in the episode where they say Dave blank, and I'm like, who? I had to look it up.

Sarah:

Yeah. So Billy Gertie Billy Gertie. Is one guy, and the other guy with the longer greasy hair is Dave. Dave. Who turns out to actually be kind of a nice guy.

Mark:

And they're kind of bothering Sarah, but kinda it's still it's not nice, but it's not, like, abusive.

Sarah:

They're not being vicious. No. Right? They're just being gad abouts, layabouts, whatever.

Mark:

Yeah. Unemployed utes. Utes. Ron gets all up in his face. Yeah.

Mark:

It's it's total bullying behavior.

Sarah:

I may not be a cop soon, but I still have friends and blah blah blah blah. Like, is this how you're gonna ingratiate yourself into the village? Like you think anybody, you know, a cop would know, you don't start by hassling the punks of the village because they're going to hassle you You're

Mark:

to make friends with those people. Yeah. I really don't like Ron Prinkle. You're not supposed to. And then what happens happens.

Mark:

I'm like,

Sarah:

Oh, it's kind of good for Betty actually. Though the first time I saw this episode, I was really torn because I'd already seen a little bit of New Tricks too. And in New Tricks, the same actor, let me get his name right, James Bolam. In Yes. New Tricks, James Bolam is this, he's still kind of blustery, but he's a really He's likable.

Sarah:

He's really likable and his wife is dead and he has a little memorial stone in his backyard and he sits on a little bench in the moonlight and he talks to her cause he misses her. And so I kind of transferred a little bit about my feeling about that character onto this one. Yes. And then he punched me in the face with his idiocy. Yes.

Sarah:

Betrayed me.

Mark:

Betrayed by our own Odysseus? Yes. And

Sarah:

the tramp is in the woods, so they get the like

Mark:

But then there's this, slow motion hunt through the town. Yeah. And was like, the slow mo doesn't make it look majestic or terrifying. It just makes it look long. And slow.

Sarah:

Yes. Meanwhile, though, the tramp is terrified.

Mark:

He's extremely upset. He drops his cider. He drops his cider, an open bottle of cider.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

And he falls into a a ditch.

Sarah:

Which just happens to have a bear trap in it?

Mark:

Yeah. So about that, like Aren't they illegal? Well, I'm sure they're kinda illegal. I think that's a reference to the poacher that Billy Gurdy is. I think that they put them in like, I've never used a trap like that or never been caught by a trap like that.

Mark:

But I would think that you would kind of put it on the ground under some leaves rather than in a hole. Yeah. I would think.

Sarah:

Unless you think the poachers are going to use those kind of ditches as kind of a cover when they're poaching.

Mark:

I guess, but then they wouldn't set their traps where they're looking for cover.

Sarah:

It's just more evident. No, I don't think that's supposed to be Billy's trap. I think it's Graham Tranter's trap and he's trying to catch Billy.

Mark:

Oh, really?

Sarah:

To teach him a lesson for poaching. Remember, he's already been arrested once for poaching.

Mark:

Oh, I hadn't thought of that.

Sarah:

I think it's just more evidence that the Tranters are jerks.

Mark:

Well, and that Graham is loony too. Loony. Loony.

Sarah:

Though maybe it's not all his fault that he's so loony, but Yes.

Mark:

So the tramp falls in and his leg gets stuck in one of those traps. Which which hurts Woah. Much. He does some screaming here.

Sarah:

Yeah. But Then we get killer cam. Killer cam. Branch cam.

Mark:

Branch cam. And glove cam. Yeah. Right? And what happens is he gets beat to death in the hole, which is the worst.

Mark:

Like

Sarah:

It's a nasty way to kill somebody to just sludgeon them to death.

Mark:

Know that they were killed. Like, wouldn't you wanna make it look like an accident or something? Like, obviously, he was murdered. Like, there's no question of it. They could have

Sarah:

just let him bleed to death.

Mark:

Could have.

Sarah:

Which I think probably would have got the hound's attention if they smelled it. Yeah. That's true. But you know, I'm not surprised. So, you know, we're not ruining anything.

Sarah:

Graham is the one who killed him. Right? And I would think that even though the hunt party gets sort of separated because Billy's in the woods playing the horn and kind of misleading half of the No, that's two tonal. That's not squawky enough.

Mark:

One of our children came in and said, what is that horrible noise?

Sarah:

Yeah. But you'd think that people would have noticed that Graham was not with the party and his horse is standing there alone and he's in a ditch beating an old man to death.

Mark:

Oh, and he'd be covered with blood, but you know, I'm the guy who says everybody should be covered with blood

Sarah:

And his coat's not red. Right?

Mark:

It's black.

Sarah:

So maybe it wouldn't show? Maybe. I don't know.

Mark:

But his breeches would be bloody. Branch. Bloody.

Sarah:

That's okay because the branch is bloody. So bloody, it it can take fingerprints.

Mark:

Yeah. That that's a bit of a stretch.

Sarah:

Because you know wood bark and fingerprints, they go together.

Mark:

Yeah. And you can just lift it right off that. Yeah. Really, it was scrawled on it. Billy Grody killed me.

Sarah:

And then Linda finds him and she's like

Mark:

Because that's the great irony of the whole episode is that this is actually the lost love of Linda's life, but she doesn't know.

Sarah:

That's her true love in a ditch dead, and she just seems like annoyed, like, great.

Mark:

So the Barnabas are in France on vacation. And while and by the way, didn't Cully move to London?

Mark:

Nico Nico who?

Sarah:

Yeah. Maybe they're they're not, working out or something.

Mark:

I don't

Sarah:

know. Because she goes on, like, a two day vacation with them before she has to go back for her rehearsals.

Mark:

And this time has passed here. Yes. Because FitzRobbins shows up with Sarah, and he's like, oh, we're right Barney in Upper Wherever. Marshwood. But Ron Pringle figured it all out.

Sarah:

Well, and so we hear that Ron Pringle solved the murder within a week and that Ron is filling in for Tom while he's on vacation.

Mark:

So it's at least a week.

Sarah:

So they've been in France for at least a week.

Mark:

So let's say the trams found the next day and Ron Pringle solves it within a week. So that's a week and a day while the Barnabas are still in France. And even if this is the Barnabas' last day in France.

Sarah:

Well, it's Collie's last day, but it doesn't sound like it's their last day.

Mark:

Their last day. So let's add two more days. So that's a week and three days. Later on in the episode, after three or four more days, so we're into a fortnight here, the tramp's body is still in the morgue.

Sarah:

Well, they don't know who he is. They're gonna keep him around.

Mark:

That's true. That's true.

Sarah:

Identified the bodies. They gotta keep him on ice. Toby's gotta, you know, cuddle up

Mark:

with him for a

Sarah:

little bit.

Mark:

How was the tramp's dead body acting?

Sarah:

It wasn't bad. We'll talk about we'll we'll compare corpses at the end of the episode. Okay.

Mark:

He's there to hunt boar.

Sarah:

FitzRobbins is there to hunt boar and because the is a boar. Oh my God. The way he treats his wife, I just want to hit him so much. And it's not just because her name is Sarah. And every time he talks to her, it's like, he's talking to me and I just want to hit him.

Sarah:

But how does anybody put up with somebody like that?

Mark:

He says, on you go, Sarah.

Sarah:

Go on girl.

Mark:

Like he talks to her like a horse.

Sarah:

Yeah. Now I think he likes his horses better.

Mark:

Oh, clearly he likes his horses.

Sarah:

So they've been, so the Barnabas have been in France for a week, eating French food, the best food in the world supposedly. And yet Tom comes back having not eaten any of Joyce's cooking for over a week. And he's got a jippy tummy.

Mark:

He's got good food it is.

Sarah:

Is that it?

Mark:

Because I for one don't want, Joyce's beef bro

Sarah:

Borgay, no? Borgayon. So, yeah. So you think that, his system has rejected the good food?

Mark:

It's it's just too good.

Sarah:

The menu guest are on

Mark:

the list. If you notice in the canteen, he's eating

Mark:

a piece of dry toast.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because he's Jippy.

Mark:

Yep. Her Majesty's Prison, Crown Hill. This is one of

Sarah:

those scenes where they are renaming an institution, so they just put a big old sign on it.

Mark:

Big old painted sign.

Sarah:

Yeah. We'll just smack it right up there. Yeah. Kath Gurdy, who is Billy's mom, goes to see him in prison. She brings him the wrong smokes.

Mark:

Menthols.

Sarah:

Yeah. He doesn't want menthols. And then we see Tom and Troy in the cafeteria, and Ron's there to fill them all

Mark:

in. Right? I'm having a party tonight for my for my retirement. You better come and get boozed right up.

Sarah:

Is at the in this point, I was trying to decide, and I even watched the scene again because I wanted to see whether Tom looked sick before he saw Ron or only after he saw Ron.

Mark:

Oh.

Sarah:

Because it could be that Tom is suddenly sick. Oh, see because he doesn't want to go to the party. He wants an excuse to get out of the party.

Mark:

He's got Ron Pringleitis.

Sarah:

And I think you could go both ways. Yes, he has a very light breakfast on his tray, so maybe he's already feeling jippy or maybe that's just what he was in the mood for and now he's suddenly much sicker than he was. He does look pretty bedraggled. His eyes are a little bit red.

Mark:

I gotta tell you, Ron Pringle is a cop, he's a bully. He does the things that he does. But it drives me up the wall that Troy says he was away on vacation too. And Pringle asks him where he went, and he goes mountaineering in Norway, which I was impressed with Troy. Yeah.

Mark:

And then Pringle's like, oh, whatever. You asked. At least have the decency to go, that sounds really cool. Even if it doesn't sound cool.

Sarah:

Or, wow, that's a much more active holiday than I would want or something, because I would have thought Troy would have sat watching X Files and scratching his butt for a vacation.

Mark:

But knowing Troy had an active vacation.

Sarah:

Yeah. And so Ron says, oh, yeah. We got Billy Gerdy for it. We found the branch, the murder weapon confirmed. We found fingerprints on it.

Sarah:

There are Billy Gerdies.

Mark:

Well, that

Mark:

should be the subtitle of the episode.

Sarah:

Fingerprints on a tree branch?

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

Like, you know, you can pick up fingerprints off of just about anything like cotton wool, pile of sand, fingerprints everywhere.

Mark:

Really?

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Air. Air. You can get fingerprints And out of

Sarah:

then we see poor Ben and Kath Gertie in their kitchen. They- They're so sad. They light this scene. Ben It's just dark, dark blue everywhere, but like the spotlight that's right over the table. And there's two sad people eating sad food, being sad.

Mark:

And it's just sad.

Sarah:

It is sad. But they live in Sadville of sad town on the Fitzroy Estate Yeah. Which would suck.

Mark:

Meanwhile, at Kate and Graham's house, Marsha's over to help with the baby, which Kate hates. And she met a friend in town, Tilly. Wants to know if she can have it like a girl's night out to see a science fiction movie, Silver Planet.

Sarah:

Wink, wink, and nudge nudge. Unless you have a problem with it,

Mark:

Boyfriend which case I won't bonking.

Sarah:

Yeah. I have never in my life run into an old friend who I haven't seen for a while and made arrangements to go out that evening. Unless they're like in town for one day and I see them and they're leaving, maybe. Otherwise it's, we got to get together soon. Let's make some plans.

Sarah:

Not, we got to get together in a few hours.

Mark:

Mostly I live in another country where I grew up from. So if somebody from when I was a kid showed up, I'd be like, what are you doing here?

Sarah:

How did you get in the country?

Mark:

And that night, Ben Gertie goes out, loads his gun, and there's a shot. Yeah. We're already into death number two, and we're only twenty minutes in.

Sarah:

Huzzah. Huzzah. And the dogs find his body. Yep. Okay, how do you think he is supposed to have died?

Sarah:

When you see his body, he's sort of tummy down, this head turned, shotguns next to him and it's pretty clear, I think that he's been shot from the front and the wound has kind of exploded from his back. Is that what you thought too?

Mark:

Yeah, kind of.

Sarah:

So how could that be a suicide? Yeah. Who shoots themselves in the belly to commit suicide?

Mark:

Well, Toby would know because Toby's back.

Sarah:

Yeah. With better hair.

Mark:

With better hair, and I would say a better agent. An agent said, you need to be in the back of every shot. Yeah. Because Toby, in this scene especially, is just back there waving.

Sarah:

Hi. He's looking perky unlike Henry Carstairs who's just looking creepy.

Mark:

Henry Carstairs shows up out

Mark:

of nowhere, and I stopped, and I made a note. Who the hell is that guy?

Sarah:

Because he's suddenly just standing there with his handbag. Yep. His man bag. Well It's a body bag, really.

Mark:

Luckily, Pringle has it all figured out, but we meet her in the car stairs. There's no suicides in the animal kingdom. Oh, I love this character already.

Sarah:

I love that he wears a tie to go out to look for dead bodies.

Mark:

Yes.

Mark:

And you ask him what he's doing. I'm looking for dead bodies. For corpses. Fantastically creepy.

Sarah:

And if you watch, he never blinks. The only time I caught him blinking was as his face turned away from the camera, he sort of blinks. But when he's eye on to Tom, he does not blink. Which I can only think was purposeful.

Mark:

Henry wide eyed all the time. Super creep. He finds a dead monk the night before, which is unusual. But then he goes into this little soliloquy about that Ben Gertie has met his death in front of the palace of his enemy and the origin of his black despair. It's quite the line.

Mark:

That is that is some serious goth line right there.

Sarah:

He's gonna go and listen to The Cure.

Mark:

I tried to find it. There's no line like it.

Sarah:

It's not a quote.

Mark:

It's not a quote. It's kind of like there's a part in Richard the third that's kinda like it, but the words are all mixed up. But it's clearly meant to sound Greek tragedy or Shakespearean.

Sarah:

Yeah. And and he's set in the scene. Right?

Mark:

But, you know, he's a ladies' man.

Sarah:

And he's allowed to look for corpses here because his cousin has given him permission.

Mark:

Yes. That's Graham. And once you've

Sarah:

seen the episode the first time, you're just like, dude, all of this belongs to you. It's all yours.

Mark:

Yes. That's the that's and we'll get to this at the end. But he is actually the proper owner of the land.

Sarah:

Yeah. And that's why he's wearing the tie.

Mark:

And the palace He's actually lord of the manor. The palace he's talking about is the old guy's hutch. Yeah. The tramp's hutch. Now I had a question.

Mark:

They went and built this hutch because they didn't

Sarah:

Some scene setter had to figure out how

Mark:

to build a tramp hutch. And they never go inside it?

Sarah:

No. No. I don't even know if there's another side to

Mark:

It's a one-sided hutch.

Sarah:

It it may be.

Mark:

Yeah. It may be a hutch. A one-sided tramp hutch.

Sarah:

It's a hutch facade.

Mark:

A hutch facade. But

Sarah:

he's got that tree stump for storage.

Mark:

Yeah. And then then Pringle drops it.

Sarah:

Storage is always an issue

Mark:

in your trampot. Pringle drops another clanger that he's going to see a man about a horse. No. Really, I am. I've joined the hunt.

Mark:

We don't care.

Sarah:

Yeah. I'm very special now.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Thank you. Goodbye. Get out of here. You should probably talk to his wife. Wow, Ron.

Sarah:

What an awesome insight. We never would have thought of that. He's more Mr. Obvious than Troy is. And he's so self important.

Sarah:

So self important.

Mark:

We're back to town and Dave whistles at Linda. It's funny how

Sarah:

they whistle. And I think it tickles her a little And

Mark:

have you heard about Ben? And he was busy get the night before get he got tied up. Hey now. Hey now. And Pringles in there are just causing problems.

Mark:

It's just

Sarah:

That's what he does.

Mark:

It's just whatever. And we're back to Linda's carriage. This is where Troy makes the Thomas the Tank Engine reference.

Sarah:

And drinks the the cordial.

Mark:

Yes. And there's

Sarah:

Must be really bad.

Mark:

I haven't got a TV. Yeah. I haven't got a TV. Another repeated lie. Yeah.

Mark:

For our American viewers who don't realize what's going on, British people have to pay a licensing fee for their televisions. Right. And this is all done as far as I can tell, basically on the honor system.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

And so she thinks that they're there to get her for not having a TV license.

Sarah:

Yeah. But instead she invites them in and gives them Elderberry Cordial. Cordial. Yeah. She's one for like switching moods on a dime.

Sarah:

Yep. And one second she's screaming at them, go away, go away and slamming a door in their face. And the next minute, Cordial. Yes. And she's all smiles.

Mark:

But she's not an old maid.

Sarah:

No. Nope. So she makes money doing needlework.

Mark:

With her giant scissors.

Sarah:

I would be afraid of those scissors. I kind of want those scissors, actually. But I just kept wondering, like, what kind of needlework can you still make money at?

Mark:

£50 of it, apparently.

Sarah:

I know. That's what James pays her later, but like, what is she doing?

Mark:

I don't know. It's all in

Sarah:

a little bag. Maybe she's making antimacassars.

Mark:

I guess. I thought maybe, well, no, I don't know. So Barnaby asks Linda about Billy Gurdy, and she says he's a lovely boy. Yeah. Brings her a pheasant every once in while.

Sarah:

He wouldn't kill anybody. He only kills he only kills for food unlike those hunt people.

Mark:

She likes Billie Gurdy, but I'll tell you somebody she doesn't like. Henry. Henry Carstairs.

Sarah:

She's she's got to go away. Go away. Again. Yep. Poor Henry's out there with his man bag.

Mark:

Dead man bag. Really, a death bag, which is another Twin Peaks reference.

Sarah:

Could just be a corpse bag.

Mark:

I I guess. For wee corpses.

Sarah:

We we mean corpses. That he keeps in his freezer.

Mark:

Yes. Marcia wants FitzRobbins to go to London to do something but we don't know what.

Sarah:

You have to go to London. You have to go to I just went. You have to go again.

Mark:

Barnaby and Troy show up and they're still arguing.

Sarah:

And then they joke about handbag Henry and they think they're so clever. We made a joke about a guy who carries a bag.

Mark:

Well, let us go into some exposition for information later on the episode.

Sarah:

You put James and Marcia in the same scene and the level of ponsiness, it just, it's overwhelming. I just want to punch them both. Yeah. Cause they kind of feed off of each other. And then you find out later that they've like slept together and all this stuff.

Sarah:

And then it just kind

Mark:

of gets gross. Gross. And then she goes, the excitement of the chase and no satisfaction of the kill.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because the dogs are are worked up.

Mark:

You're a creepy lady.

Sarah:

So does that mean that when they have a hunt, do they release a fox to chase?

Mark:

I gotta think it's different in different places. Or do

Sarah:

they just assume that eventually they'll come across one?

Mark:

I don't know. I I would think that there's probably both. There's probably ones where they actually go out and try to find a random animal to kill. And then there's other ones in which a stock animal is released

Sarah:

and they chase it. Which I think is much, much worse.

Mark:

Well, in both circumstances, foxes die.

Sarah:

I think they get shredded to pieces by the dogs who are in a frenzy. Yeah. So the fact that they can have any kind of stuffed foxes is kind of amazing because I would think there'd be nothing to stuff.

Mark:

Is Midsomer the show where the kid gets blooded?

Sarah:

I think so. Later. Some later. Hunt, they smear blood on their cheeks.

Mark:

On a child's face.

Sarah:

Yeah, first time they go on the hunt.

Mark:

And that's gross.

Sarah:

And I just kept thinking every time they talk to Henry and like Henry's taxidermy stuff, I just kept thinking about that crappytaxidermy.com site. Yeah. If you want a little laugh, go to crappytaxidermy.com.

Mark:

What are we getting

Sarah:

all these hits for? Because we have such a massive listener base.

Mark:

Well, we have a listener base at least. We love you all.

Sarah:

We do, but we don't have like a million people who are going to go overwhelmed crappytaxidermy.no. But it is funny.

Mark:

Then we go to the hurdy gurdy's, which I keep calling in my head the hurdy gurdy's.

Sarah:

Yeah, and Kat says that Kate went by their house at 09:00 the night She that Ben

Mark:

was going to see her friend Dave. Tilly slash Dave. How did that even begin? Okay. We'll get there.

Mark:

We'll get there. Troy makes her tea.

Sarah:

Yes.

Mark:

He's so nice.

Sarah:

He can be very good.

Mark:

He's very good, baby.

Sarah:

She's so sad. Her son's in prison.

Mark:

Her

Sarah:

husband is dead. And she probably is going to have to move because they live in that cottage on the Fitzroy Estate because her husband was the gamekeeper. And now he's dead. She's probably homeless soon. Yep.

Sarah:

And knowing Fitzroy, it's not like he's gonna let her hang out for very long before he kicks her out.

Mark:

Well, I have to think that Billy getting out of prison and her probably have a good case against the FitzRoy estate.

Sarah:

That's true. They'll probably be able to stay as long as they want.

Mark:

And the Trainer estate too. Yeah. We go to Graham's house again. Henry's sleeping. Sarah shows up and talks about the final list of guests for the founder's night.

Sarah:

Yeah. She drops off a handwritten list that James has asked her to drop off. And you just did what I've been doing, which is confusing Henry and Harry. Harry is the baby and Henry is the taxidermist.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

It's really weird if you get them mixed up in your brain.

Mark:

Especially with the little fox eyes. Kate's away. She came from the real world.

Sarah:

Yeah. She's not one of them.

Mark:

Yeah. And it's not Sarah that shows up. It's Marsha. Marsha. Marsha.

Sarah:

Marsha. It's pretty clear though that Graham is worried about his marriage. Right? Because Kate is kind of drifting away. She's going out at night.

Sarah:

She's got friends to visit. She goes to costume to go shopping, but doesn't find anything that she wants. She's clearly making excuses to be out of the house. And they have Charlotte, the nanny.

Mark:

Who is sort of Irish. She has a brogue in one line and then never again.

Sarah:

No. But she's a good nanny. Yep. She's there all the time. And it's clear that Kate would rather have the nanny watching Harry than have Marsha.

Mark:

Marsha. Marsha. Her name is Marsha. The only thing I agree with FitzRobbins about. Yeah.

Mark:

Because he calls her Marsha too.

Sarah:

Then we get I wonder if

Mark:

in flagrante that he had trouble what to call her.

Sarah:

Meanwhile, Barnaby's practicing lines from the importance of being earnest with Cully and delivering them super flat. Super super flat. Probably because he's worried about the beef bougainon

Mark:

Let's get dinner

Mark:

all over with.

Mark:

Yeah. Food is not something you get

Mark:

over with.

Sarah:

If it's if it's Joyce's cooking, maybe it is. It's just something you have to live through.

Mark:

And Troy calls and says he has to come down the morgue.

Sarah:

He saves the day.

Mark:

Troy's once again is pissed. She goes in

Sarah:

the kitchen and, like, break something. She's so angry. She's got an attitude problem now.

Mark:

Hey. Okay. I'm a producer on this show or a director or a showrunner. One of those jobs. You know, I haven't been happy with Toby's hair.

Mark:

It's gone through some major changes. What can we do with Toby and his hair? Muffin hat. Muffin hat.

Sarah:

Yeah. This is the most dramatic morgue you see in several seasons of Midsomer too. It's like glass brick wall, dramatic lighting. He's got his muffin hat on. It's like

Mark:

He's also in rubbers. Yeah. He's in wellies.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's like kind of a law and order sort of morgue. Yep. It's serious.

Mark:

They figure out that first of all, Ben was murdered Yeah. Because of a schoolboy howler. So now a schoolboy howler is so a howler is a mistake. Yeah. And a schoolboy howler is a huge stupid mistake.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because it's the left hand, right hand, which hand is the gun in. Yeah. Never mind that he committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest or in the gut, whatever. How do you even reach that?

Sarah:

It's hard enough to commit suicide with a rifle. Yep. Because you can't reach the trigger. It's very difficult, but to put it like against your body and reach it, I think would be pretty, pretty darn difficult.

Mark:

Toby is concerned about Ron Pringle. Because he's boobed. He's boobed.

Sarah:

He is a boob, and we haven't even seen the

Mark:

boobs yet. Barnaby has a little speech here about the killer and that the killer's free, but he kinda likes it, you know, because Ron Pringle didn't solve the case.

Sarah:

Well, yeah, he's not real covert about hiding the thrill of the fact that Ron was wrong. He's got a little schoolboy glee going on.

Mark:

Okay, Sarah. You're a Midsomer detective. Yes. And there's been a murder that looks like a suicide. So obviously, like intended murder.

Mark:

Right? Yes. Not accidental murder. Right. What are you gonna do with the forest?

Mark:

To find the clues? Yes.

Sarah:

Oh, I'm gonna bring in the blind cop squad.

Mark:

The blind cop squad.

Mark:

And and what are they gonna bring with them?

Sarah:

There's sticks. There's sticks and sticks and a dog. And dogs. They've got dogs this time.

Mark:

Pokey sticks and dogs.

Sarah:

This is not a joke.

Mark:

You will find everything.

Sarah:

This is not a joke about blind people. It's a joke about the fact that they, to produce what is perceived as police procedure and being very thorough, they bring in this random group of people, put them in uniforms, line them up like a foot away from each other so they're all still in scene and give them sticks to look really diligent.

Mark:

Now I'm gonna say this, and I know that the people who run the official Facebook group listen to this podcast. If we can be one of those dudes in an

Mark:

episode, I will pay for us to go to England.

Sarah:

You wanna poke around with a stick.

Mark:

I would I would be in heaven.

Sarah:

And poking around with a stick is a legitimate search procedure. It absolutely not. But when you do it, you don't stand six inches away from one another. You stand the length of the stick from one another and you sweep it side to side. Right?

Sarah:

So you've got like a three foot, four foot stick and that's your zone.

Mark:

But they find stuff. Later on

Mark:

They do.

Mark:

They find stuff. Ron Prinkle has a horse now.

Sarah:

Oh my god. He looks like a total tool.

Mark:

And Dave has the world's most unfortunate license plate.

Sarah:

It's his KKK

Mark:

on it. Yes. It does.

Sarah:

My my notes when I saw Pringle on his horse was WTF chin strap.

Mark:

Yeah.

Mark:

And Barnaby shows up, and we find out that Pringle hates Barnaby as much as Barnaby hates Pringle.

Sarah:

I can't get down. I'm mounted. Oh, you're mounted alright.

Mark:

It sure sounds funny.

Sarah:

Whoever sold you that helmet has mounted you.

Mark:

It's okay. Troy will look after the horse.

Mark:

Yeah.

Mark:

The horse the horse will look after Troy.

Sarah:

If you look out the window, it's like the horse is continually trying to eat Troy's hairs.

Mark:

But Betty is so nice. She offers to bring Troy something to drink and

Sarah:

because she's human.

Mark:

Human. And Pringle gets pissed. Yeah. He doesn't wanna be wrong. I have no idea who the tramp was.

Mark:

Don't go pestering the hunt.

Sarah:

Yeah. And so at this point, it's as if he's retired now, so he doesn't want to be dealt with anymore, except he's going to put his nose in all the time and he doesn't want to be wrong. So he can't be corrected on anything he did before he retired. So don't ask me for help except I'm gonna pester you.

Mark:

But his downfall is his tiny bladder.

Sarah:

Yeah. No. Because, you know, he pees at parties.

Mark:

He's a party peer. Yes.

Mark:

I'm glad he's not a party pooper.

Sarah:

Yeah. That's right.

Mark:

Part of me and Troy are off to see the taxidermist.

Sarah:

Who is very precise about the time

Mark:

of his corpses. Very Especially about the lollipop of the taxidermy trade.

Sarah:

Yeah. Okay. But the idea of licking a taxidermy fox had better gross you out. Like, what does that even mean? The lollipop of taxidermy.

Sarah:

I think what he's trying to say is everybody who wants taxidermy wants a fox, you know? But that's not what a lollipop stands for. Yeah. You know, like they're the vanilla ice cream of the taxidermy world, maybe.

Mark:

Or nuts and bolts or something like that. They're paper clips.

Sarah:

Yeah. They're the first item in the collection and like the starter, like the training wheels for taxidermy.

Mark:

And I actually, when I

Sarah:

saw Wow, this he pop.

Mark:

When I saw this scene, I actually wondered if they kept the fox and use it later on with the Fox Tramp episode, where it's clearly a stuffed fox with a PA in the background going.

Sarah:

Well, and is the fox that he's popping the eyes into there's some nice folio there. You know, kind of like they pop in. Is that the same fox that's then at the raffle at the founder's dinner?

Mark:

Oh, I don't know.

Sarah:

Maybe they've just got the one fox and they just keep using it over and over again.

Mark:

But he's got an interesting theory. First of all, he says I should have inherited everything.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because this is where we find out that Simon Tranter, Graham's father and Marcia's husband, didn't really die so much as disappear. Right? And then was declared dead.

Mark:

And his grandfather, his father, sorry, was the one who died without the will. Yeah. Right? So there's all these machinations, but in Henry's eyes, he should be inheriting. Right.

Mark:

And, you know And he's not across as a great character because of that, because he looks like one of those people who are always like, well, you know, through this amazing set of coincidences, I should have inherited all that money. Well, no, dude. Like, clearly you shouldn't have, but it's true here. And he implies that Graham is not Marsha's.

Sarah:

Yeah. Or that he is Marsha's, but he wasn't Simon's.

Mark:

He's not Simon's.

Sarah:

I think Henry knows an awful lot and is in some senses kind of satisfied with his little situation. He's got the little cottage, he can do what he does, he makes money with the taxidermy.

Mark:

He can bring all his lady friends over.

Sarah:

Well, know, he doesn't have enough money to attract the kind of ladies that he wants.

Mark:

He's a ladies' man.

Sarah:

And he is a ladies' man. Yes. Don't think because he has a bag that he's not a ladies' man. Yes. Because that bag is full of corpses.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

And that's manly.

Mark:

I guess. Then we have this weird little scene where Fitzroy leaves the house to go to London, I'm assuming, or somewhere. And Sarah has a drink, and it's weird because we're so sympathetic to her later. It's it doesn't feel right that she takes a drink there.

Sarah:

Well, he sort of storms out and she immediately turns to the drinks and starts pouring. So it's like she's drinking because of him. Yeah. And it's clear that it probably isn't the first time that's happened and that maybe she does it quite often.

Mark:

I guess. Linda flags down Fitzroy, gives him his stuff.

Sarah:

His £50 worth of network.

Mark:

And then she then he says, give it to Sarah Fitzroy. Yeah. Which is weird because, like, why would you say her last name like that?

Sarah:

My sister's give it to Sarah.

Mark:

No. I think he says Sarah Fitzroy.

Sarah:

In that scene, Linda has the most amazing yellow boots. Yes. They look like yellow Doc Martens.

Mark:

They do.

Sarah:

She's got she's got some style. She It's kind of a Stevie Nicks sort of layered style.

Mark:

Stevie

Sarah:

Nicks Those boots with are fun.

Mark:

Elderly hippie thing going on.

Sarah:

Yeah, at this point I kind of suspected that the needlework really wasn't needlework, that she was getting money from him in return for something else, like maybe some blackmail or something or Something good. But then he says, give it to Sarah. So there really must be some needlework that she's actually doing.

Mark:

I guess. Another shot of the white pokey sticks and the dog, and we're off to Graham Tranchor's house to tell him that the tramp was killed. Tramp Ben Gertie was murdered. Graham was supposed to get rid of that tramp. Marsha told him to.

Sarah:

But he wasn't really creating a problem. And he had that nice hut built. I mean, who would tell him he had to go when he's got that nice hut?

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

And this is also I

Mark:

can't say that Linda should go away because she's been there for thirty years.

Sarah:

Yeah. And this is also the scene where he has to give Kate that most awkward alibi that Tom obviously doesn't believe,

Mark:

I but isn't went gonna to a

Mark:

fiction film.

Sarah:

I went to a movie. It was, oh, it was it was sci fi.

Mark:

The Silver Planet.

Sarah:

That's it. That's what it was. Yeah. It was only, like Silver Planet. It was only, like, two days ago, but I've already forgotten the name of the movie.

Sarah:

Yeah. Tom's like, whatever, liar.

Mark:

But they had a picture of Simon in Antwerp.

Sarah:

Yeah. Why did he go to Antwerp?

Mark:

Well, they what they were doing was trying to imply that he had taken off.

Sarah:

Right.

Mark:

It's not actually Simon. It's

Sarah:

the actor. It's Michael Darrow.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

Yeah. But they both had seventies porn stashes, you know, they were basically twins. The lady had

Mark:

seventies porn stash.

Sarah:

They they leave. This has gotta be Troy's shining moment in this episode. They're in the car. They're leaving the tranters. Yep.

Sarah:

They've just in they just confronted Marcia in her lair. And Troy is so, put off by her. He's like, name a woman you wouldn't go to bed with for a million pounds.

Mark:

And then he spends the rest of the episode ogling her boobs. Well, he doesn't know they're her boobs. Yeah. Doesn't know they're her boobs.

Sarah:

So that's it's also when he says, infagrante. What?

Mark:

Yeah. Because Tricia Marsha throws Kate under the bus.

Sarah:

Yeah. Just walk with me and pretend you're looking at the garden.

Mark:

Yeah. And part of me is like, yeah, whatever. And then

Sarah:

she reels out this crazy theory about Kate sleeping with somebody in this really convoluted plot.

Mark:

Yeah. It's just weird. What? Okay. It was just strange.

Sarah:

And then we get to go to the mobile incident room, which we don't get very often. There's few episodes where they roll out the mobile incident room. Yes. The the police trailer.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

And they have the results of the pokey stick search. Bottle tops.

Mark:

And? Bottle caps. And?

Sarah:

Bottle lids.

Mark:

And naked pictures.

Sarah:

And naked pictures. Well, one.

Mark:

The headless woman. She's got boobs and a scarf. That's what she's got. Later But but Barnaby but wants copies.

Sarah:

Tries copies. We're to put them in the glove compartment with the candy bars. So we've got a mobile incident room at this point for the, I guess, the search because later they go into the village hall and they are all set up in the village hall. It's like they forgot they had a mobile incident room.

Mark:

It's number of it's mobile, so it moved.

Sarah:

No. It transformed into a village hall. It's a trailer. No. It's a transformer.

Sarah:

Now it's a village hall.

Mark:

There's been two murders in Midsomer. There's been a hunt, a fake suicide, and lots of ill will, and false accusations. It's Midsomer. So what do you do? You have a big party.

Sarah:

Yeah. Of course. Let's get everybody together.

Mark:

Billy's friends creeping around the house. Dave.

Sarah:

And I I I think it's perfectly fitting that Ron, who wants to impress everybody, suddenly has to pee so badly that he has to end up out in the yard.

Mark:

He's got the wee tiny bladder. The wee tiny old man bladder.

Sarah:

But he's so classy, and then he he pees in

Mark:

the garden. But he he does a great job of looking like a person who needs to pee.

Sarah:

He does look rather desperate. His eyes are kinda yellow.

Mark:

Kate's drinking. She takes off and Graham follows her.

Sarah:

Yeah. And because he's suspicious. Yep. And he sees her in the summer house with Dave. We don't know at that

Mark:

So what order does it go in? No. Like, I think

Sarah:

So Kate goes out.

Mark:

We almost need a diorama here because we we have Dave, Pringle, and Graham wandering around. I would assume that Kate goes to the little summer house right away.

Sarah:

So Dave's creeping around. He goes to the summer house. Kate leaves, goes out to the summer house. Graham shadows her out. Yep.

Sarah:

Lurks in the bushes long enough to see her go in the summer house and then stands outside and sees what's going on. Meanwhile, Ron is peeing in a bush and when he's done, he sees Graham walk away from the summer house. So he goes over there and looks in and then he sees in a flagrante. What?

Mark:

Yes. But we're not shown what it is. Also in there, I don't know if you noticed, but meanwhile, Henry Carstairs

Mark:

just goes and walks through it at some point.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because he's just always around just looking for dead things. Maybe somebody died at the party and I can put them in my bag. Yeah. Maybe he was delivering the fox.

Sarah:

I guess so. For the drawing. Yeah. Because it's a it's an old fox. It's an old fox.

Sarah:

Antique taxidermied fox.

Mark:

So we had a party. So let's have another hunt because it's been two days.

Sarah:

Yeah. You know?

Mark:

Pringle is all smiles, which is weird. And then he sees Dave and he's like, shame on you, fornicator. Yeah. He gives him a scowl.

Sarah:

Because now he's in. Right? He's got the horse. He's got the non lame helmet that doesn't make him look like a tool, and his horse has got the little braids on. It's a hunter.

Sarah:

That's why it's a big horse, by the way. Yes.

Mark:

And now He's not big.

Sarah:

He's a hunter. He's one of the cool kids

Mark:

different things.

Sarah:

No. He's one of the cool kids now. He's he's, you know, he's in. Yep. He's Gentry now.

Mark:

And at the same time, Barnaby and Troy are going to see Linda again. Mhmm. Who's all evasive. But that's really not the whole point.

Sarah:

No. She's listening to Puccini and looking at her photograph and reminiscing.

Mark:

It could be her in the nude, Troy. Troy.

Sarah:

And then Pringle's horse

Mark:

goes berserk. Climbs over a wall and kills him. Yeah. I had forgotten that Pringle died.

Sarah:

Oh, suddenly. Woah. Just boom. He's dead.

Mark:

I was like, okay, I feel a little sad for him now.

Sarah:

And this scene gives you a really good view of how good a horse actor and a trainer can be. Because it must be challenging to train a horse to look berserk but not be berserk. Yeah. Because the guy who's riding that horse, we're just far enough away that we can't see that it's not Ron. It's not Ron.

Mark:

It's not Ron.

Sarah:

But the horse looks like it's going nutsy.

Mark:

Yeah. And then the horse lies there on top of him. Yeah. Really well. Yeah.

Mark:

Maybe the horse is the corpse of the episode, but the horse isn't dead.

Sarah:

Not yet.

Mark:

Yeah. They gotta kill it, think.

Sarah:

They gotta put it down because I think its legs are broken.

Mark:

I think its legs are broken.

Sarah:

Yeah. But we find out later it didn't go berserk all by itself.

Mark:

The twenty four hour vet calls Barnaby at That like 12:30 at

Sarah:

horse was shot with a dart that made it go crazy and then tranquilized it.

Mark:

Yeah. I don't like that that explanation because we never see the black gloves shooting the dart. Right.

Sarah:

Well, and why didn't they find like the little feather dart in the horse's ass?

Mark:

I guess, I don't know.

Sarah:

So we know now that Graham must have been out there skulking like the Terminator among the trees. No.

Mark:

He's on horseback too. I checked.

Sarah:

So so he's got a blow dart gun or a tranquilizer gun in his coat? Pulls it out and shoots Ron's horses

Mark:

and Because a gun is really unnoticeable in England.

Sarah:

He must be a good shot too to shoot a moving horse. It's gotta be. So he must have let Ron pull ahead of him in the hunt.

Mark:

Maybe. Yeah. I was like, I thought maybe they'd walk together or something and then

Sarah:

He'd ride off

Mark:

slap the his rump or something, but no. I don't know.

Sarah:

Are you talking about slapping Ron's rump?

Mark:

No. The horse's rump. Not

Sarah:

Ron's horse. It's a hunter. But I have this image of Graham smacking Ron's, his rump. It's like, well, it's just what the gentry do, you know, it's okay. He smacked my ass, but that's all right.

Sarah:

That's what they do. And when they go and talk to Betty, she's upset, justifiably so. Her husband is dead.

Mark:

But then she turns into Midsomer lady.

Sarah:

But wait a minute. Before we get to that reaction, she says what he was like after the party. And she says it's clear that something happened at the party that upset him. Right? Because he saw Kate and David in the summer house.

Mark:

But what I mean is that this is another one of those, well, nothing was suspicious, but the break in.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Except, Ron said he saw something horrible that he couldn't talk about and he was very, very upset and he didn't

Mark:

really looked in the corner for But an

Sarah:

he wouldn't tell me. And I just, that bothers me. I don't think that that's realistic. Now granted, Betty is kind of a quiet person. I don't think she's one of those people who would confront him and say, No, you tell me what is She's not gonna confront him.

Sarah:

But if we went to a party and came home and you were clearly upset about something that happened at the party and you wouldn't tell me what it is, I don't think I would let it go. Yeah. No. I think I would be okay. You need to tell me what is wrong.

Mark:

I saw something nasty in the woodshed. Yeah.

Sarah:

A little cold comfort farm reference there. Good job. Absolutely. There's a movie if you haven't seen, you ought to see it. It's got Rufus Sewell in it.

Sarah:

He's all hunky.

Mark:

Wow. That movie is fantastic. It has great people in

Sarah:

it,

Mark:

including Ian McKellen, not Ian McShane. Right.

Sarah:

It's got everybody in it. And what's her name? Who's in the werewolf vampire movies? What's her name?

Mark:

Yes. I don't know.

Sarah:

Cold Comfort Farm though.

Mark:

Yeah. To Watch Cold Comfort Farm. You should see it. Yeah. It's good.

Sarah:

If you like Midsomer, you'll like it.

Mark:

I'm going to get a forge van.

Sarah:

I saw something nasty in the woodshed. So we know that Ron Pringle's horse was doped. And then Linda goes on some loopity doo trip. Yeah. So It's like she's suddenly senile.

Mark:

Yeah. Barnaby's case in the scene, he finds the condom wrapper, but all that No. No. No.

Sarah:

It's not a condom wrapper. It's the corner of a contraceptive packet. What he says.

Mark:

Is contraceptive? He says it's a contraceptive packet. I guess.

Sarah:

Who would say that? Who doesn't say it there was a condom wrapper

Mark:

in there? I I guess Tom Barnett.

Sarah:

It just opens it up to other possibilities. It might not have been a condom. It might have been a different contraceptive.

Mark:

And then there's a throwaway line here that's a really funny joke because Troy is like, maybe Pringle saw them at it and they're gonna kill him. Like, they killed Ben who caught them at it Mhmm. And the tramp who caught them at it, which is the whole plot of the first episode of of Midsomer.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

So Troy has some grounding here. Yeah. Tom goes, they would have to

Mark:

be the world's unluckiest couple. So

Mark:

then I had this image in my head of the Troy of the tramp sticking his head up as they were like doing it.

Mark:

Oh, sorry. Sorry. Sorry. And Ben, oh, sorry.

Mark:

Sorry. Sorry. Pringle. Oh, sorry. Sorry.

Mark:

Watched doing a couple ever.

Sarah:

Well, you know, if you're gonna do your rumpy pumpy in the summer house at the big party, you might get caught. That summer house is like 10 feet away from

Mark:

the back door. Go out to the folly. I know that beauty comes in many forms, but when Kate is kissing him in the reenactment, it's it's just gross.

Sarah:

It's very much like, let's just smash our face together. And it'll be convincing that we're making out. Hey. That's better than thinking about Marsha and FitzRobbins.

Mark:

I guess so. Okay. Where

Sarah:

are And then they're in the village hall instead of the mobile incident room, and Tom gets a fax from Holland.

Mark:

A facsimile.

Sarah:

Yes. This fax just came in from Holland. It's like from a whole country. Here you go.

Mark:

The tramp is Simon.

Sarah:

Not from the Antwerp police. It's from the state of Holland. Yes. From the country of Holland. And so Marsha has to go and identify the tramp because they're like, Hey, this is, we think this is your husband.

Sarah:

Yep. And she looks at him and she sits down like she's kind of overwhelmed. And she says, well, are you sure? And Tom says, well, how tall was Simon? And she says five eleven.

Sarah:

He goes, well, that guy's five ten. Match. It's a match.

Mark:

I'm five ten. Am I the tramp?

Sarah:

You're the tramp.

Mark:

Are you Simon?

Sarah:

Wait a minute. Are you Michael?

Mark:

Am I Michael, Simon, or the tramp?

Sarah:

You don't have you don't have a porn stash. You're neither. Or a hutch. Yeah. You need a tramp hutch.

Sarah:

And it's as if the height is all the evidence they need. Well, they're pretty close,

Mark:

so they'll So double it's Simon. Yeah. No. It's not.

Sarah:

Meanwhile, she's going, I don't know. Do they think it's Simon? Do they think it's Michael? If I pretend it's Simon, is

Mark:

that a better DNA test? I don't know. I've slept with so many people. I don't know whose child it is.

Sarah:

Meanwhile, James is like, I thought I

Mark:

was the dad. Yes. We'll get to that.

Sarah:

And they're rehearsing Importance of Being Earnest in the Costin Playhouse.

Mark:

Yes. With Cully. The Korn Exchange.

Sarah:

And and Sarah is in the back.

Mark:

Just laughs.

Sarah:

Just loses it.

Mark:

But I I think that's supposed to be the abused spouse sort of overreaction and not dealing well with social situations because she starts to cry immediately.

Sarah:

But she laughs, then she cries. And then Cully, who's like Tom's little spy. Yeah. Accidental spy, accidental informant in all these episodes, just so happens to talk to Sarah in the dressing room who reveals, you know, I'm not one of them. I didn't fit in.

Sarah:

She's so miserable.

Mark:

I'm frightened to go home. And then Barnaby goes, do you think she was frightened to go home? And Cully's

Sarah:

like, She

Mark:

gave me that impression. I'm sure. She said the words.

Sarah:

Yeah. She actually said I am afraid to go home.

Mark:

The taxidermist opens the door and there's Marsha.

Sarah:

With 50 k. 50 k, baby. He's blackmailing Marsha.

Mark:

He can get lots of ladies with 50 ks. Or dolls eyes. Dolls. Minks. Our business is complete.

Sarah:

Fitzroy's up And I'm kind of like cheering for Henry at this point. Yes. Hey, if you're squeezing those losers for money, go for

Mark:

it, because

Sarah:

they are despicable and you're living in a little cottage.

Mark:

Though they missed an opportunity here. Because Marsha knows that Henry is the rightful heir.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

And he is blackmailing her. Mhmm. That is Midsomer murder train to murder town

Sarah:

right there. She or he is going to die? Yes. One or the other?

Mark:

So the fact that Harry Carstairs not only comes out of this alive, but with all the loot

Sarah:

He's winner winner chicken dinner.

Mark:

And 50 k. Yeah. Of the whole episode. Of the money that he

Sarah:

That is his anyway. Is his anyway. Yeah. And then Barnaby and Troy do their big, covert driving and as they follow FitzRobbins to the Larches. Yes.

Sarah:

The retirement home.

Mark:

Does it larch to one side or

Sarah:

Larches to the London. Right? All the way in London. They follow him all the way to London.

Mark:

On country roads, I guess. Yeah. No one drives on a highway in this show.

Sarah:

It's too far. Everything's too far.

Mark:

Your entire country can be driven in eight hours. Yeah. Nothing is too far. I I just have this image that people in their manor houses, because you all must have a manor houses in England, are sitting there in your manor houses, and you're like, I need some semi skim milk for the hunt tomorrow. And you're like, oh, it's fifteen minutes into town to the post office.

Mark:

No. It's too far. It's just too far. Send the help.

Sarah:

We'll have to take a picnic and make a day of it.

Mark:

A train ride. And

Mark:

I know we live in a continent that is just basically open space. I understand that. But eight hours

Sarah:

It's not that far.

Mark:

It's not You can be

Sarah:

in France in a few hours.

Mark:

We cannot drive across the state in eight hours.

Sarah:

No. They they see FitzRobbins go into the retirement home and Tom is like, okay, stake it out. And when he leaves, go in there, find out what he's doing. And Troy's like, where are you going? He's like, I gotta go see Linda.

Sarah:

I gotta go. Cause he's realized that the scarf in the boob picture was hanging.

Mark:

And now we think Linda is in the boob picture.

Sarah:

Right. We think that that Linda is the boobs. Right? Yep. And Troy's like, wait a minute, how am I going to get home?

Sarah:

And he says, hitch a lift from London to Costin. He's supposed to hitchhike

Mark:

or something. How does Troy get home?

Sarah:

I'm guessing he calls the Metropolitan Police and asks somebody to give him a ride.

Mark:

I'm sure. Oh, you're a country copper? Come get me a like, yeah. Maybe he takes an Uber. Never mind the fact that he's probably standing outside for two hours.

Mark:

Wouldn't somebody call the cops and be like Yeah.

Sarah:

Because he's, like, standing in the bush.

Mark:

I'm hiding. I'm hiding.

Sarah:

And then, so when he goes in, we meet Fred Rodale. Yes. Who is He was the former gamekeeper for the Fitzroy Estate.

Mark:

The day the hounds went mad, they found something, so I had to shoot them. I never said I never said, who are you?

Sarah:

Wouldn't somebody notice

Mark:

if hounds being killed?

Sarah:

Yeah. If an estate like that suddenly had no hounds.

Mark:

Well, and We had to

Sarah:

put them all down. They got distemper. All of them.

Mark:

Wouldn't they notice that Simon was dead? Like like

Sarah:

No. Because he's run off.

Mark:

He's run off with his porn stash to Antwerp.

Sarah:

Yeah. To meet with a lady.

Mark:

A lady.

Sarah:

Okay. Now Linda is still in her crazy phase. Yes. So she's at the costume playhouse knocking on doors and asking for Michael Darrow who doesn't exist anymore.

Mark:

And this is the night that Kate says, really, this is the beginning of Graham's very bad day.

Sarah:

Oh, Graham has such a bad day. Because

Mark:

Graham's supposed to be away, so Kate takes Henry.

Sarah:

Yeah. Harry. Harry. Harry. This is Graham's no good awful bad day.

Mark:

Yes. Graham's no good awful bad day.

Sarah:

Kate is gonna take Harry out. She says to Charlotte, like, hey. Come with mommy. She's like, where are you going? I don't know.

Sarah:

We're just going. We're gonna go pack.

Mark:

We find out that Linda is all upset because the love of her life, Michael Darrow, was in The Importance of Being Earnest, which is why his picture looks oldie timing. Yeah. And Barnaby puts it all together that the man in Antwerp is not Simon

Sarah:

Right. But it's Michael Darrow. Because he sees the pictures of them in the cast because they were both in the play. Yes. And he sees the mustache.

Sarah:

Yes.

Mark:

Yes. And the fact that the dog bones and the collar bones are found by the pointy stick brocade.

Sarah:

Yep. Now we know there was a human body and not just dogs up there. And we put it all together.

Mark:

Kate is leaving Graham at which point he says, why are you basically, what kind of life will you have with Dave Hedges? To which I went, who's?

Sarah:

Maybe his license plate, instead of saying KKK, which I'm sure was purely accidental and not on purpose, should have said, my name is Dave Hedges.

Mark:

Because only one place does the woman in the shop who's in love with Dave

Sarah:

Sandra.

Mark:

As soon as she sees Dave, she brightens up. Right.

Sarah:

But she just calls him Dave. But but she

Mark:

go, Dave. Like, it's the quickest Dave ever. Like, there's no reason. Like Dave. It's not weird that I missed it.

Sarah:

No. No. And she's leaving. And now Graham's very bad day begins because she's left, Kate's left and come back without Harry. So she's left Harry somewhere and she's packing.

Mark:

And Graham threatens to kill her.

Sarah:

Well, he goes through the whole, like, downslide. Right? He starts with, you can stay with Dave as long as you stay with me. I don't care if you sleep with him as long as you don't leave me.

Mark:

Yep. She's like,

Sarah:

what kind of loony are you? That's no you know, that's not how we're gonna do And

Mark:

Meanwhile, Sarah wants a divorce from James.

Sarah:

Yeah. And, you know, Graham is is like, but I just want Harry back. I want you and I want Harry. And and at this point, you don't know just how screwed up Graham is and how screwed up his life has been.

Mark:

Oh, you're gonna find out

Sarah:

really And sort just think, wow, Kate's being kind of a jerk. Like, yeah, she can leave him. And he seems kind of desperate and sad. He's so pathetic. And he threatens

Mark:

she threatens to use

Sarah:

Harry as collateral. Right. And then he says, I'm just gonna kill you. You can't leave. I'm gonna kill Woah.

Mark:

That escalated quickly. He's off

Sarah:

the cliff.

Mark:

He is it's very bad day, Land.

Sarah:

It's officially bad bad day now. And Marsha's not even there to make it worse.

Mark:

So in a age old tradition of ditching your husband, Kate uses the au pair to block him and get around him. It's it's a fantastic move.

Sarah:

Well, you know, when you think your spouse is about to kill you, having a witness can sort of diffuse the situation. Exactly. He's not gonna kill her in front of Charlotte.

Mark:

And I have to say that Kate gets the smart person award here because as soon as she leaves the house, she calls Barnaby and says, Graham threatened to kill me. Yes. Which is the right thing to do.

Sarah:

We don't see her do it, but he says she does. And that's when the light kind of comes on and you go, oh, maybe Kate is the same person in this situation. And not a jerk, not a money grubber, not a slut like Marsha calls her, but maybe she's the same person getting out for a very good reason.

Mark:

But Marsha's gonna make it all better. Yeah. And she called James to come over.

Sarah:

And Sarah's like, I think we need a divorce. And he's like, oh, Boulder Dash, talk to me when I get home. I have to go see this other lady.

Mark:

Bye. Whatever. I won't be here.

Sarah:

Meanwhile, Graham's

Mark:

Marsha's like, she's a slut. Slut.

Sarah:

And he's crying in his mommy's lap. He's like, I just want my wife back and my son back.

Mark:

She's a slut.

Sarah:

At least he knows that Henry is his son.

Mark:

Well, and then he goes, Graham Graham says he saw the pictures.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

No, mommy. You're a slut.

Sarah:

Yeah. Can you imagine?

Mark:

Okay. No. I can't imagine. I don't want to imagine. So when did he see them?

Mark:

When the tramp threatened to blackmail him.

Sarah:

Okay. So the tramp threatens to blackmail Graham.

Mark:

And that's where you see more booby pictures.

Sarah:

And then puts the booby pictures in the trunk to keep them safe. Yes. Then Henry finds all but one of them. And blackmails And blackmails Marsha. And then the pokey stick cops find the last one that must have like

Mark:

slipped down into the trunk. Don't know why Henry Carstairs looked at those pictures and go, Marsha, Marsha, Marsha.

Sarah:

Well, I think there her face was in some of them.

Mark:

Yes. The other ones. That's right.

Sarah:

Her face was in some with Michael Darrow. Yep. So James shows up and he's like, wait a minute. I thought I was your father. And he's like, I thought Simon He's was my completely Yeah.

Sarah:

Like how much has he been helping them out over the years thinking that Graham was his son?

Mark:

And Graham is so upset he's gonna go get sick. And by sick, he means put a gun in his mouth and kill himself.

Sarah:

Like they they say that that Ron boobed, but man FitzRobbins has boobed big time.

Mark:

Oh my gosh. FitzRobbins believed Graham was his son, killed Simon.

Sarah:

Which he just admits to.

Mark:

Yeah. Oh, I killed Simon. Because she made me. She made me do

Sarah:

She told me I had to.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

And then Keep your mouth shut, you moron.

Mark:

There's this really neat way in which this is Barnaby giving explanation and Graham giving explanation. They sort of fill in each other's holes

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

Here. And it's interesting the way it's cut. I like the way it was cut.

Sarah:

Yeah. I think it's a good kind of exposition of the story to kind of clarify the things that we haven't figured out yet while building the tension because once Graham is in the study with the gun and Marsha goes in to stop him and we know that there's a gunshot, we don't know which of them is dead.

Mark:

Yeah. One little thing right before that, they mentioned very quickly that Simon was sterile. Marsha's pregnant and Simon's like, What? What? Really?

Mark:

And so that's why they had to kill him.

Sarah:

But like, how did they find that out? Like, it's just a whole weird situation there. Marsha marries Simon. Simon is the one with the estate. Yep.

Sarah:

He's sterile. Yep. She's sleeping with not only Michael Darrow, but also James FitzRobbins. She gets around. Slaughtered.

Sarah:

And then and then somehow gets pregnant. Oops. How crazy is that? And then Simon disappears.

Mark:

Okay. If your husband is sterile.

Sarah:

If James Fitzroy knows Simon is sterile, wouldn't other people know he was sterile?

Mark:

Exactly. If your husband is sterile

Sarah:

Unless James is, like, your spouse.

Mark:

Around, wear some protection.

Sarah:

Yeah. And don't take pictures. No. That's a bad idea.

Mark:

Look at my boobies.

Sarah:

Even Kate knows. No pictures, please.

Mark:

No pictures.

Sarah:

Because then Graham gives this whole, like, oh, so this happened, and I had to kill that person. And this other thing happened, and I had to kill that person. This thing happened, and I had to go and kill that person.

Mark:

Thank you for explaining everything to us, Graham.

Sarah:

Thank you.

Mark:

It's wonderful. So he goes into the study.

Sarah:

So is Marsha dead?

Mark:

He's gonna kill himself, and Marsha convinces him not to kill himself, so he kills her instead. Yeah. She's dead. She's got an eye open.

Sarah:

Like And you think he shot her and not just they were wrestling over the gun and she got shot?

Mark:

No. I think he shot her.

Sarah:

I wouldn't blame him. Yeah. I mean, he's been a pawn his entire life.

Mark:

Very bad day. Yeah. So then this interesting The

Sarah:

one no. His his life is so worse than that. The one photo he thinks he have has of his father. Yes. The only thing he has is a picture of his father with another woman in another city after he's abandoned his After pregnant he's been

Mark:

told all his life that his father was awful.

Sarah:

And now he realizes the photo he's been looking at his whole life that he thought was his dad is the man his mom was sleeping with.

Mark:

And is actually his dad, but not his dad.

Sarah:

But not his dad.

Mark:

Meanwhile, James Fitzroy is in the background going, I killed Simon. She made me do it.

Sarah:

I did that.

Mark:

So a shot rings out, but FitzRobbins is doing the slow fast walk to leave.

Sarah:

He's like, probably shouldn't have said that. I think Sarah needs me at home.

Mark:

And Barnaby's like, get back in there. Yeah. You're not going anywhere. And meanwhile, Graham just takes off. Oh, yeah.

Mark:

So now we have a car chase.

Sarah:

Because he knows that Kate has gone to David's. Yep. And that Harry's there too.

Mark:

Yes. And he's got a gun. Mhmm. And he's gonna kill them. Mhmm.

Mark:

This Graham has fallen completely apart here. His hair is a mess.

Sarah:

And that's that's a pretty tense situation because he's willing to kill her and their son.

Mark:

Yeah. That's where he crosses that line.

Sarah:

And Dave isn't just a greaser because he is willing to stand between them.

Mark:

He does a heroic thing here.

Sarah:

Yeah. In the rain. Yep. With bad hair.

Mark:

He does. Barnaby shows up, and Graham freaks out. He points the gun at Barnaby, and he points the gun back at them, and he just drops it and runs away.

Sarah:

Yeah. Well, it's hard to shoot a shotgun while running, so

Mark:

he just

Sarah:

drops it.

Mark:

He's just having a bad day.

Sarah:

And then hangs himself outside of Linda's trailer. Does he get the rope? From Linda's trailer. Linda's caboose.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

From the tack room.

Mark:

I didn't I didn't like that.

Sarah:

Maybe it was already there.

Mark:

Yeah. I didn't like it. It it felt rushed.

Sarah:

I don't think that's rushed. I don't think it's hard at all to find a piece of rope on an estate like that. If anybody would know where one is, he would. And I think he's been on the brink. He was getting ready to shoot himself.

Sarah:

So it's not like a big stretch.

Mark:

I admit all that, but did he get on a chair and tie the rope up Or did he climb the tree?

Sarah:

See, you're questioning it too hard. The logistics of that.

Mark:

Okay. Have you listened to this podcast?

Sarah:

But I don't think we can see his feet. So there might be a

Mark:

chair. There might be a chair.

Sarah:

I think when we just kind of see, like, knees to branch. Meanwhile, Linda's like, ugh, another dead body.

Mark:

She finds all the dead

Sarah:

And she's like, oh, great.

Mark:

And then once again, we have this this Midsomer trope of now into happy stuff.

Sarah:

Yeah. Now Sarah's gonna go on a cruise. Marsha would

Mark:

have thought it was vulgar. Well, she was a slut.

Sarah:

So She was vulgar. And but there really should be one more scene. There should be a scene of Henry with his puffer coat and his tie and his man bag standing on the roof of the estate, like a drone shot, just with his arms up in the air, smiling and just spinning around in slow motion. Or ten years later, and we go into the Tranter mansion and it's just full of dead things everywhere. He's like, mine, mine, mine, mine.

Sarah:

I told you.

Mark:

Barnaby's in the background eating steak and chips.

Sarah:

And not having a a jippy tummy. So who's the best corpse? The Tramp, Ben Gertie, Ron Pringle, or Marsha Trancher?

Mark:

I gotta say Ben Gertie. Why? Because he's in a weird position, and he does not move.

Sarah:

He doesn't look comfortable. He's, like, half on a log.

Mark:

Not that any corpse looks comfortable, but he looks really uncomfortable. I That and second place close behind is the horse. The horse isn't dead. I know, but he's he's really still.

Sarah:

So I hurt my lower back really bad about a week ago and I'm still limping. And when I rewatched this episode and I saw the way Ben was laying, that his torso is like up on the log, but his lower body is on the ground.

Mark:

It made my back hurt just looking. Yeah, it's definitely.

Sarah:

But I gotta say, I think Ron Pringle is the winner of corpse of the episode because he's laying face up, eyes

Mark:

wide open. With his neck cocked.

Sarah:

With a horse on him.

Mark:

Yep. He does some good acting. Doesn't blink. Doesn't move. Doesn't in the morgue is pretty

Sarah:

good too. That's a short shot.

Mark:

But still, it's pretty good. But Ron is there Luckily, he's five ten.

Sarah:

Full daylight, face up, facing the camera. We get this kind of crane shot zooming up from his face. Yeah. And he's full on dead.

Mark:

It's pretty good.

Sarah:

Yeah. And doesn't have, like, blood to hide under or anything like that.

Mark:

So I

Sarah:

go for Ron.

Mark:

There's a couple of things at this episode at the end of this episode that need some further non explanation, but we need to think out what happens next.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

Right? The winners here are Henry Carstairs, like you mentioned, and Sarah. Mhmm. Henry Carstairs now goes to the trustees and goes,

Mark:

money Mhmm.

Mark:

House Mine. Land Yeah. Mine. Because he knows for sure now.

Sarah:

There's not gonna be a hunt next year. No. No. In two days or whenever the next one's scheduled.

Mark:

Kate has her boy toy, but no money. She has her child. Mhmm. So that's that's I

Sarah:

think she's gonna be okay with it.

Mark:

I would think Henry would take care of her a little bit.

Sarah:

Maybe. She she wasn't mean

Mark:

to him. Sarah has all of Fitz's money. Mhmm. And Fitz is in jail. Yeah.

Mark:

That's he's the only one who goes to jail.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because he's the only one still alive who was involved. Fitz

Mark:

goes to jail.

Sarah:

He's not gonna do well in jail. Can you imagine James FitzRobbins in an orange jumpsuit?

Mark:

Do you

Mark:

have the hunt here?

Sarah:

Oh, we're

Mark:

gonna show you a hunt. Yep. This is such a great return to form after the last episode. We've murdered black male and sexual deviancy.

Sarah:

And characters that are, like, really fun. They're really weird and crazy and believable at the same time. Way way to start season three. They're interesting.

Mark:

Maybe not showing it on New Year's Eve before the millennium.

Sarah:

Oh, well, we still have it to enjoy, so it's okay. One little weird fact, just this is just a random fact. The actress who played, Kate Trainer, her name is Sarah Winman.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

She's a novelist now. Oh, she is? She's got three books on Amazon. That's good. And they they look like they sell pretty well.

Mark:

That's pretty cool.

Sarah:

So she went on to be a novelist.

Mark:

That's nice.

Sarah:

And, Dominic Marham, sorry, Mathem, he plays Graham. He's a pretty boy in this episode because he's so young. He's got all that hair and everything. But I kept looking at him going, where do I know him from? Where have I seen him?

Sarah:

He's been in something else where he looks different. And then I finally remembered and I had to look it up just to confirm, but he plays Stephen Fry's brother in Kingdom. Yeah. His errand brother, who's Yeah. Kind of But when he gets older, he just gets such a gruffer, rougher look.

Sarah:

He doesn't look like that pretty boy anymore.

Mark:

His face gets sort of long boxy.

Sarah:

Yeah. Thinner and he keeps his hair shorter. Yeah. But he's in a lot of stuff.

Mark:

He's a very busy boy.

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah. Just well, interesting.

Mark:

Actors in England. You can be busy.

Sarah:

And Toby's got his muffin hat.

Mark:

He does.

Sarah:

He's a great muffin hat.

Mark:

This might be the last Toby.

Sarah:

We'll see. Hopefully, we won't get the watercolors back either.

Mark:

No. Hopefully not.

Sarah:

So if you disagree with our picks for best corpse of the week of the episode, let us know.

Mark:

Or you have any other thoughts on this particular episode or what the jokes we made about it, remember that our Instagram is at Midsommer Maniacs, and our Twitter is at Midsommer Maniacs, and we are at typewriter and At Intelligirl. On Twitter, and we're all over the Facebook groups and all those good things, and you guys have been all so fabulous. We had one listener say that the episode that we dropped yesterday on Monday was that it made her Monday. Oh, that's so awesome. And and I said that that made my Monday.

Sarah:

I'm so glad our craziness is actually entertaining to other people.

Mark:

In indeed. We we've passed all sorts of milestones this week. It's been crazy.

Sarah:

It's so fun. It's super fun.

Mark:

Next episode is episode two of season one, which is blue season three. Episode two, season three, Blue Herrings Mhmm. Which I love the title of because

Sarah:

it's It's a

Mark:

good one. Because it's got blue hair and red herrings. It's all sorts of fun. And there's a doctor who drives a fancy car and all sorts retirement home is also It's

Sarah:

great. It's great.

Mark:

And we can't wait to watch that episode and get back to you guys. And I gotta say bye, Maniacs.

Sarah:

Thanks for listening. Bye, Maniacs.

Mark:

Thank you. Bye.

Sarah:

Yeah, because then you have this idea of like a little taxidermied baby.

Mark:

Oh, that's too far.

Sarah:

Or of Henry Carstairs, like cuddling up with Marcia in a little onesie or something. He is kind of wee.

Mark:

Okay, I'll cut the first joke and leave that joke.

Sarah:

A doll's eyes.

Mark:

Dead eyes, like a doll's

Sarah:

So And you wanna cut my jokes and you're talking about what James FitzRobbins says during sex with Marsha? And you wanna cut my jokes? You wanna say my jokes are gross talking about taxidermied babies? Kronkenschwester.

Mark:

Kronkenschwester, woah. Broke sister. Broke sister,

Sarah:

nice. Or sick sister.

Mark:

I went to the sick sister. Hey, Maniacs.

Sarah:

Hey, Maniacs. Welcome to Midsomer Maniacs, the podcast all about Midsomer Murders.

Mark:

And this week's episode is Blue Herrings. It's kinda like a hug from grandma.

Sarah:

It is. It's season three, episode two of Midsomer Murders, and it is episode 11 of this podcast.

Mark:

And if you let your kids watch the episode, how could you not let your kids watch this episode? It's like a hug from granny.

Sarah:

If they're scared of old people, they might not

Mark:

like not. But if they watch the episode, they can listen to the podcast. And if the show is too much for them, maybe it's too much blue light. It keeps them up at night.

Sarah:

Too much blue hair.

Mark:

Blue blue hair and blue light. They can't listen to the they shouldn't listen to the podcast. This was filmed in June and July 1999, which is probably why all the flowers are in bloom and broadcast on the January 22, 2000. We have entered the new millennium. Thoughts.

Mark:

Thoughts. 8,800,000 viewers this week for that episode because it wasn't shown on New Year's Eve.

Sarah:

Yeah. That's a good time. Episode. It's a good time to air it.

Mark:

And directed by Peter Smith and written by Hugh Whitmore. It's

Sarah:

a good episode.

Mark:

It is the gentlest Midsomer episode ever.

Sarah:

And it's see, it feels strange to say that this is a really good episode of Midsomer Murders where there's no murder. Well, there's a murder.

Mark:

There's a murder.

Sarah:

But it's the gentlest best meaning murderer.

Mark:

And it's it's a palate cleanser before before the batshit crazy of the next episode.

Sarah:

That's true. That's true.

Mark:

It starts off with the cold open at Lawn Side Private residential nursing home for the elderly.

Sarah:

Don't you think they should have an asphalt road leading to Lawn side and not a gravel pit?

Mark:

I think so. I think they should make it as safe as possible. But clearly, there are some problems with that in this episode.

Sarah:

Do we ever see do. We see the lawn side sign in the daylight one or two times, but we see it far more in the dark by headlights.

Mark:

Yeah. And if I'm the doctor, you know, and I'm driving my Austin Martin.

Sarah:

I don't want gravel picking I

Mark:

don't up on want to drive it on a gravel road. Like he basically licked the back of it. Yeah. So lots of parking out front.

Sarah:

We start out the evening scene inside Lawnside. Yeah? Yes. The typical evening at Lawnside.

Mark:

And somebody's looking at some books, and they're real books. The first book is Faked Passwords by Dennis Wheatley. Mhmm. And it it's a real book. It's part of the Gregory Selquist series Yep.

Mark:

Book three nineteen sixty six. And the second book is The Beckoning Lady by Marjorie Allingham. And this is awesome because I didn't know it's a Campion book. Yep. And it's a later Campion

Sarah:

great show. If you've never seen Campion, it's got Peter Davidson in it.

Mark:

And Lug who is played by the guy

Sarah:

I always forget his name. Forget his name. But he's the one he's the one who tells the the joke in the pub in Werewolf of London. He's the same actor.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

But it's really fun. If you've never seen Campion, check it out. Where where do we get is that on Netflix?

Mark:

Or

Mark:

No. Campion is on BritBox Yeah. For us, and we actually, I think there's two seasons Yeah. Of it.

Sarah:

It's super good.

Mark:

The only problem, and this is Greenland territory, is whoever did the ADR for that show really messed up. And ADR is? Additional dialogue recording.

Sarah:

Ah, so there's voice over stuff to fill in for bad recordings.

Mark:

Yeah. Like, they walk behind a hedge, and you lose sight of the actors, and they say clearly different things than they were saying on the recording.

Sarah:

But still, it's really fun. Anyway, that's Marjorie Allenham, Campion. The books are good too, but they show their age.

Mark:

Some people are writing letters. Some people are playing Scrabble. It's a common room.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

Imagine playing Scrabble, but she cheats.

Sarah:

Well, she can't spell. Well, yes. She is a cheater.

Mark:

And the woman she's playing with, she says, you're the most unpleasant woman I've ever met. When she calls her out on cheating, and I'm like, if she's the most unpleasant person you've ever met, why are you playing Scrabble with her?

Sarah:

Well, and you've had a pretty good life.

Mark:

Yeah. Exactly.

Sarah:

Because I've met more unpleasant people than her in a day. You know?

Mark:

Somebody drives up, and while everybody sort of drifts off to bed, Arthur tut tuts and cleans up everybody.

Sarah:

Yeah. Poor Arthur has the OCD real bad. Arthur likes to have things straight and tidy. He does. Neat and tidy.

Mark:

Alice is in bed reading her campaign. Now Alice is Alice Bly, who is Tom's aunt. Mhmm. And Tom is her favorite nephew. Now, as far as I can tell, Tom is her only nephew, but there may be other nephews.

Sarah:

Yeah. So we talked about this. So Tom and John Mhmm. Are cousins.

Mark:

On his father's On

Sarah:

their paternal side or they wouldn't have the same last name. Yep. So Alice is Tom's mother's sister.

Mark:

And there's a reference to Tom's mother. There's couple of references. Yeah.

Sarah:

But there could be other siblings. They might have had other siblings. They might there might be other nieces and nephews.

Mark:

It could be, but I don't think they're mentioned in this

Sarah:

They're not mentioned, but I don't think she's saying that facetiously as if he's my favorite because he's my only.

Mark:

No. No. I think she means it.

Sarah:

Yeah. I do too.

Mark:

So Alice has one of those clocks. They the travel clock. That that's a it's like a granny clock. I remember my granny having one.

Sarah:

Yeah. It fold it's it's like a compact almost. It folds out and then props open with the clock face.

Mark:

Yep. Somebody enters a door, and then we see George. Now George is the nickname for a character who is a woman. Mhmm. And George has her bag, but she's in her nightgown.

Mark:

So George is a little not there.

Sarah:

She thinks she's going to church.

Mark:

She does.

Sarah:

She's confused. She's played by Mary Wimbush, who is also aunt Agatha in Jeeves and Wooster.

Mark:

That's right. That's another show. Yeah. Jeeves and is fantastic.

Sarah:

Laurie, Steven Fry, but Anne Agatha. She's a battle axe.

Mark:

Yes. She

Sarah:

is. George plays her very well with that pursed lips and everything. Yeah. Judgey judgey on on Wooster all the time.

Mark:

So George goes to take the elevator down to go to church because she's not she's just not thinking right. That's okay. And she finds Mystery Maniacs in the elevator dead and then proceeds to make the worst noise ever. Oh,

Sarah:

it's a uulation. It's the only way to describe A what? It's almost like a Tarzan thing.

Mark:

Oh. Yeah. It's it's and it's it's haunting. If you if you listen, you can hear it.

Sarah:

Still to To this

Mark:

this day.

Sarah:

Muriel, Muriel Harrop. Yep. Played another Muriel. She was aunt Muriel Weasley in the Deathly Hollows two.

Mark:

Oh, so another

Sarah:

Maybe she can only play Muriel's. Her I would love to say her name. Her last name is Gibbs.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

And her first name is m a t y e l o k. Mattylocke?

Mark:

Mattylocke Gibbs. I've never heard

Sarah:

that name before. She plays two muriels.

Mark:

Everyone wakes up because of this except

Sarah:

Oh, yeah. Because George is, oh.

Mark:

And we see somebody taken off later.

Sarah:

We have the dramatic slow motion image of George's bag falling to the ground. It's

Mark:

it's upsetting. Boom. William or for his intimates, Willie Smithers. Says that George didn't wanna be late for church, wasn't thinking right, and talks to Alice and says, if we survive the night,

Sarah:

he's kind of a joker. Smithers is a good guy.

Mark:

I think he's a good guy.

Sarah:

He's a comforting guy and he doesn't judge George for being confused. She's obviously got a little senility going on, but that's okay. And it's Mungo Mortimer who's running away.

Mark:

Yes. And who we'll see more of. Yes. So the Undertakers arrive in the morning and I have to say like at retirement home like this, this has to be a big event. They're kind of like a people trapped in a house in like a big brother situation.

Sarah:

Yeah. And they get voted off the island every

Mark:

This once in a very exciting to watch. Right?

Sarah:

It's sad, but yeah, it's probably the most exciting thing that happens. And Alice and George are talking and they George says, well, Alice says, they say Muriel died of a heart attack. And George says, I wouldn't be so sure she didn't have any heart conditions.

Mark:

It's rubbish.

Sarah:

Yep. She's very suspicious.

Mark:

We're off to the new house.

Sarah:

The new house. Of Barney house. And it's not above a butcher shop.

Mark:

No. It's not. It's actually quite a nice little house.

Sarah:

But, boy, is it yellow. Wow.

Mark:

Every Yellow and curves. Yellow. Like yellow, McElleyston.

Sarah:

And Tom's gonna have to paint all that yellow.

Mark:

Luckily, Troy brought a cactus. The ugliest cactus in the world.

Sarah:

It's a housewarming gift and Cully and Joyce are very nice about it.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

And it's nice of him to bring it.

Mark:

It is.

Sarah:

So this whole episode, Tom is off work. Again, because the last episode,

Mark:

he was in France off work. At the beginning. Does he work? Yeah. I don't know.

Sarah:

The man deserves a break. I he never gets one.

Mark:

He's European, so he gets eight million days of holidays a year.

Sarah:

So get six weeks a year. I'm not gonna complain. Okay. But in the previous episode, when he's in in France with Joyce and Kelly, we can assume that he actually has the remainder of his holiday and enjoys it and then comes home when he's scheduled to. Yep.

Sarah:

It's not interrupted. He just has a conversation with what's his face, the guy. But this time he's supposed to be off to paint the house and count curtain hooks, and that is completely upturned.

Mark:

But you know who else is here? The woman who moved to London and never goes there.

Sarah:

Collie.

Mark:

She's gonna keep them organized, and Tom's gonna get more paint and go see Auntie Alice.

Sarah:

Yes. Because she's staying there after being ill for a little while. Guess since she was hospitalized and instead of sending her straight home, they thought she should go.

Mark:

Just to convalesce, just for a couple of weeks.

Sarah:

Yeah. She should go to

Mark:

long steps. Well, I don't know. Like, maybe the doctor should talk to her about how fast she reads freaking books because she's onto another book already.

Sarah:

What else does she have to do?

Mark:

I don't

Sarah:

know. There's so many hours in the day that aren't covered. She reads.

Mark:

Doctor. Wanford drives up in his fancy car. It's an Austin Martin. It's a baby blue Austin Martin. They can't may have made many of those.

Mark:

Aston Martin. Aston. Austin. Aston Martin.

Sarah:

Yep. And that's a pretty fancy dancy car.

Mark:

It is indeed. SmithRobbins says he's a creep.

Sarah:

Doctor. Clive Warnford is played by Clive Wood.

Mark:

Oh, okay.

Sarah:

But he's also in two other Midsommers. He's in Secrets and Spies in o nine and Wild Harvest in 2014.

Mark:

That's right. In Secrets and Spies, he plays the guy who shows up and is all like, I'm the new kid in town and you guys should all bow down to me.

Sarah:

Right. And then in Wild Harvest, that's the one with the, two organic restaurants.

Mark:

Oh, yes.

Sarah:

And he yeah. He's in that one too.

Mark:

And, you know, he plays this kind of character. So of course he's probably the nicest human being on the planet.

Sarah:

I'm sure he is, but because he has kind of like, well, he's got gingery hair, so he can look kind of angry when he wants to, because he's got that kind of red complexion and kind of deep, deep grooves in his face. He looks like, you know, maybe he was a boxer or something tough, you know, before. And so he's got that kind of countenance. I think he can pull it off pretty well.

Mark:

Tom stops to buy some flowers. The woman at the flower stand says, wow. There's lots of funerals out there at the home.

Sarah:

And then she's like, don't. Maybe I shouldn't have said that.

Mark:

And then we never see her again.

Sarah:

Except and I maybe it was just kind of a lark on the, I don't know. The florist, who's not named in the episode, she's played by an actress named Carolyn John.

Mark:

Well, she's named Florist.

Sarah:

Florist. Yes. Florist the florist. Yes. She's, played by Carolyn John, who was the companion to the third doctor.

Sarah:

Oh. John Pertwee.

Mark:

So just a little pop in as the doctor's.

Sarah:

Yeah. And Liz Shaw was her character's name in Doctor Who. And not only was she his companion for a year, but then she comes back for like the next twenty five years occasionally because she's like this, kind of like rebellion military front leader.

Mark:

Oh, cool.

Sarah:

So she's a recurring character. She's almost like Sarah Jane. Oh, that's cool. And here she is just playing florist the florist.

Mark:

She had something to do. Yeah. Willie wants some food. He wants a cook. What does he want?

Mark:

He wants some toast and an egg, I think.

Sarah:

Yeah. So let's talk about this. Okay. We we both have surviving parents who are old. Yep.

Sarah:

Over 70.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

My my parents, as they got older, seemed to get up earlier. Yes. Breakfast ends at the retirement home at 09:30. Yes. But Smithers has overslept and missed it.

Mark:

He's up late at night.

Sarah:

I guess so.

Mark:

Well, know, he maybe maybe he's reading or going through other people's things.

Sarah:

Maybe he's looking for for valuables all night with a cat bartler.

Mark:

Maybe. But I'll tell you, Willie doesn't care about the rules. No. And she calls him Bill. Don't call me Bill.

Sarah:

Nobody calls me Bill.

Mark:

I'm Willie to my intimates.

Sarah:

But I prefer Smithers.

Mark:

And he calls her bossy and strumpy. I had to look up strumpy.

Sarah:

You've never heard strumpy before?

Mark:

Never heard it before. It means bad tempered and argumentative. Yeah. So, yes, indeed, you can be bossy and strumpy.

Sarah:

It's kind of redundant.

Mark:

It it is a little redundant, but they're not mutually exclusive.

Sarah:

When I think strumpy, I think of like stompy almost like somebody who's not just bossy, but is, kind of loud about it. Like slam things down or and she's not at all. No,

Mark:

at

Sarah:

very all. Nice. We had breakfast and you weren't here. Yes. And you had ample time.

Mark:

And this is this is one of the things I like about Willie is that he's not just a nice guy and not just a bad guy. Like, he's No. A He's a

Sarah:

he's a complex character. There are a

Mark:

lot of complex characters in characters. They're so much more complex than an episode with travelers, which shall be not mentioned.

Sarah:

And I think that's kind of a combination of two things. One, I think the writer was very thoughtful about the experience of older people what their lives have and been how they're treated when they get to be this age. And I think the other element is that, as you pointed out, it's kind of a big brother kind of situation when you've got people tightly together 20 fourseven, you do learn more than just surface y things. They're not just passing each other in the village green. They all live together.

Sarah:

And and so you we get that kind of view into who they are too.

Mark:

It's like being on a cruise ship until the end of your days.

Sarah:

Yeah. But nobody gets dysentery, hopefully. Hopefully not. Smithers is played by Nigel Davenport.

Mark:

What what a name. Right right there.

Mark:

What a name.

Sarah:

Let me just say, when he was younger, he was quite hunky.

Mark:

I saw a picture of him in the IMDBs, and he he's like a military dude. Yeah. He's looking pretty good.

Sarah:

He's quite hunky. He was in this really cool movie called phase four in 1974.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Now you ruin all of our Netflix recommendations by watching horrible old movies. Have you ever seen phase four?

Mark:

I cannot recall seeing phase four,

Mark:

but if you describe it to me, I might be

Mark:

like, oh, yeah, I've seen that.

Sarah:

This man has watched every hammer horror film ever. Which are really good. And all kinds of crazy wackadoodle foreign movies. Anyway, phase four is about a little there are three people who survive this onslaught of intelligent ants.

Mark:

Ah, yes. I have seen

Sarah:

this movie. Big.

Mark:

Yes. It's British. Right?

Sarah:

Yes.

Mark:

Yeah. I've seen this movie.

Sarah:

Big, but they but they become smart.

Mark:

It is there's a lot of repeat of scenery of close ups of ants. Yes. Yes. I've seen this movie.

Sarah:

Yes. There's a lot of, like, nature documentary kind of footage of ants.

Mark:

Yeah. So I saw this movie on The Late Late Show when I was

Mark:

a kid the first time, and then I probably saw it again as a teenager.

Sarah:

I watched like twenty minutes of it today, and I'm still itchy.

Mark:

Yeah. It's really itchy. Yeah. Lots of close ups of ants.

Sarah:

I mean, Nigel Davenport was in all kinds of things, but I saw that. Was like, okay. I've gotta watch a little bit of that. Okay. Now I need to stop watching a little bit of that.

Sarah:

Now I need to go itch for a while.

Mark:

Alice is outside and we noticed here the apple doesn't fall far from the tree here. She's kind of like, oh, what's going on? And she's kind of inquisitive.

Sarah:

Well, she's the new girl. Right? So she's checking everything out.

Mark:

And George gives up all the dirt that she thinks Hillary and the doctor are going to change people's wills. No. They're not doing that.

Sarah:

No. George has all kinds of conspiracy ideas. And this is what's hard because we know that George is a little bit senile, but she's not dumb and she And is

Mark:

there's a flashback of her getting some shoes. And in this flashback, I have to tell you, George really reminds me of my mom in this flashback.

Sarah:

There She's trying on the shoes?

Mark:

Yep. Just the way she moves and stuff like that and the way she talks. And she sees the doctor and Hillary in the car together. Hillary is the woman who runs the old age home. Mhmm.

Mark:

She says there's nothing wrong with Mystery Maniacs heart. We're we got conspiracy stuff clouding everything.

Sarah:

And you've already you brought up this flashback scene. So miss Richards, Hillary

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

They call her Ms. Richards throughout the episode. Could she look more suspicious on the street? Like she's getting into Doctor. Warrenford's car and she's got like a little briefcase with her and she looks left and she looks right.

Sarah:

And she pats her briefcase and then she looks left and she looks right. Then she gets in the car. Like your colleagues, you can just get in this car.

Mark:

Yes. I have all my accoutrement. Oh, we

Sarah:

know what she's got in there.

Mark:

Oh, yeah. We'll get there.

Sarah:

And next we get to meet Cyril.

Mark:

Yes. Are you alright?

Sarah:

Are you alright?

Mark:

Cyril's fantastic. I think he is the drink of the episode. Every time he says, are you alright? You should drink. Every time he says it, it means something slightly different.

Mark:

The actor is amazing.

Sarah:

He is amazing. And he was an amazing person too. Jeffrey, Baleden, who played him.

Mark:

Mhmm.

Sarah:

I I got into this guy. I could not stop reading about this guy.

Mark:

I can only think that he had an exciting life.

Sarah:

It's it's Oh, I'm sorry. No. No. I'm looking at my wrong note. His name's Sam Beasley.

Sarah:

Sam Beasley. Is amazing. Okay. But it's Sam Beasley. He began his acting career on the stage.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

He starred with John Gilgood.

Mark:

Well, you know.

Sarah:

In like six plays in a row.

Mark:

Well, yeah.

Sarah:

When he was in his teens.

Mark:

Oh, geez.

Sarah:

He got one bad review and it made him give it up. Oh. Then he went into the military for World War II. Yep. And they asked him at the recruiting office, oh, what can you do?

Sarah:

And he said, nothing. I'm an actor. He he wound

Mark:

up Yeah. Right?

Sarah:

He actually wound up being he had a lot of commendations in the military. But when he came back, he started an antique shop and he ran the antique shop until he was in his seventies.

Mark:

Oh, nice.

Sarah:

And then decided to go back to acting.

Mark:

Oh, very When

Sarah:

he was 73.

Mark:

You can start at any time.

Sarah:

Yeah. So he took over fifty years off

Mark:

Of acting.

Sarah:

From acting.

Mark:

There's a little hole in his IMDB there. Yeah.

Sarah:

Yeah. But he was a very successful antique dealer too. He was

Mark:

really well known. He seemed like the most likable, wonderful person in the world.

Sarah:

And while we're talking about characters who we like in this episode, you've already talked about Arthur Pruitt. Yeah. Who's very, kind of organizing and he's on top of it. So his name is Jeffrey Bale then. Okay.

Sarah:

And this guy is an icon who you don't know about.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Not only was he a gay man who was out his whole career.

Mark:

Yeah. I think it's fantastic the way they deal with homosexuality in this issue in this episode.

Sarah:

Because Arthur comes across as being like afraid of the police. Yep. And Troy brings that up. And Tom points out when he was younger, being gay was a crime. So no wonder he's afraid of And

Mark:

I met older gay people who kinda have that thing.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because they for a majority of their lives, it was it was a bad thing to admit. Right?

Mark:

And you're living a life over looking over your shoulder.

Sarah:

I almost wonder if the writers didn't write that little bit in for him because that was Jeffrey Belden's life.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

You know, he wasn't, he never came out. He just was out. He never had to announce it. But he played this incredible character in a show from '70 to '71 called Cat Weasel.

Mark:

Cat Weasel.

Sarah:

Where he was a time traveling Anglo Saxon wizard. Nice. Who looks like he just fell out of a dumpster. Oh, awesome. So you take this Arthur character who's like persnickety and tidy and everything is straight and

Mark:

it's nuts. We will definitely put a cat weasel picture.

Sarah:

Oh, you have to. He was also Q in Casino Royale in '67.

Mark:

That's interesting.

Sarah:

I mean, had a very long career. He was even in, Born to Boogie, the T Rex documentary that, the Beatles drummer Ringo Starr directed. He was in that.

Mark:

No idea what you're talking about.

Sarah:

You've never

Mark:

heard of that?

Sarah:

No. Okay. I'll go back into my weird closet then. Sorry.

Mark:

This is a movie directed by Ringo Starr. Yeah. Is it it's a documentary

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

About T rexes.

Sarah:

No. About T rex.

Mark:

About T rex. Okay. I thought it was a movie about dinosaurs.

Sarah:

It's not about Tyrannosaurus rex dinosaurs. It's about T rex.

Mark:

Now you can understand why I was like, blah blah.

Sarah:

Yeah. And and and what did Jeffrey Bale didn't play?

Mark:

T Rex makes sense. And what does he do in this movie? He's in it. As, like, Mark Boland in it? Or like No.

Sarah:

No. No. No. No. It's a it's a documentary.

Mark:

Oh, so did he know T Rex?

Sarah:

No. Well, yeah. And they liked him. Okay. That's what's important.

Sarah:

Okay. Well, he really liked Cat Weasel.

Mark:

Oh, okay. So Mark Bowlin really liked Cat

Sarah:

And so they were like, oh, we need that guy to be in our documentary. Okay.

Mark:

I now have to watch this documentary.

Sarah:

Of course you do. It's called Born to Boogie. Born to Boogie. You can look up T Rex on Spotify and listen to some music.

Mark:

As you should. T Rex is a great band. Tom arrives and the doctor has no time for Arthur. And kinda just is really mean to him. But Arthur is like, I have a sore shoulder, so you kinda understand where the doctor's coming from.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because this cannot be the first time that Arthur has complained about something little. And it's gotta be a common thing. If you're old and you don't get much attention and the doctor comes, maybe that's the only person who talks to you sometimes. Exactly.

Sarah:

So maybe you do get to be a little bit of a hypochondriac. And to his credit, Tom doesn't like immediately assume, well, that doctor's mean jerk. And he's just like, oh.

Mark:

No, no. Tom forms his opinion of the doctor later on.

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah.

Mark:

And Willie forms a different opinion later on. Are you all right?

Sarah:

Alice and Tom, she's so genuinely happy to see him when They he take a walk and I get angry because they take this nice arm and arm

Mark:

walk- It's beautiful there.

Sarah:

Down this path that has arches over it with climbing roses and all

Mark:

Wonderful these story about his mom.

Sarah:

This anger is a seething anger deep inside my heart.

Mark:

Why do you have this anger?

Sarah:

That I don't talk about very often.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

And I don't think I've mentioned it on the podcast yet.

Mark:

Okay. This is, this is a podcast first.

Sarah:

I need a little therapy moment.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

I have a wisteria.

Mark:

We do.

Sarah:

That will not bloom.

Mark:

It hates us.

Sarah:

It's a giant beast. It's ripped the trellis out of the ground. It's threatened to topple a maple that's near it. And the damn thing has only ever had one flower on it. No matter what I do, what witchy thing I do to it, spin Wittershins under the moon in green underwear and cut off branches at certain times of year and fertilize it in certain ways and call it names or be nice to it.

Sarah:

No matter what I do, it won't flower. And every time I see landscaping like this, just angry.

Mark:

This tree hates us so much that it oozed black stuff out of it this spring. We thought it was going to die.

Sarah:

I kind of hoped it was going to die.

Mark:

Thought it was going to die. But oh no. Oh no. More leaves than ever.

Sarah:

If I trimmed it once a week, it would still try to block our walk. Yep. We can't get to our cars.

Mark:

It hates us.

Sarah:

But it won't grow a flower. Nope. And constantly in midsummer

Mark:

This is exciting podcast by the way.

Sarah:

I'm sorry. I have to vent a little bit. Constantly in midsummer, you see these little cottages or these little old people who can barely lift their arms live, and it's covered in blooming flowering wisteria.

Mark:

The the realtor guy who got his head cut off had wisteria all over the front of his house.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah.

Mark:

And a pear tree.

Sarah:

Yeah. He could even grow pears.

Mark:

We can't grow pears. We can't even grow roosteria.

Sarah:

But, man, we grow weeds. Weeds as in, like, the kind you need weed killer for. Yes. Not weed. Anyway, sorry.

Sarah:

It was the first episode. I just couldn't take it anymore. I was like, okay. Look at all those damn climbing vine flower things.

Mark:

Before they have that walk, Burnaby meets Peru, though. We have a tiny little plot point to hit.

Sarah:

Yeah. Who's waiting there in the lobby to pick up her aunt and take her to the hospital?

Mark:

Take her to the That's all we need to cover because that's the first in incidents of Peru. And it it's sad that Barnaby talks about his mom, and she thought everybody was stealing from her.

Sarah:

It's sad. Well, because she she wasn't quite right before she died. Right? Yep. But Prue Bennett's played by Angela Down, who's also in the creeper episode

Mark:

Oh, nice.

Sarah:

In 2009.

Mark:

Tom's leaving, but you know he looks up and you know he's got the He's absolutely got the bug.

Sarah:

Alice has told him just enough that he's like, oh, you know, that happens in places like this. And then he's like, or maybe he's on vacation. He would rather investigate a crime that didn't happen than go home and paint.

Mark:

Yes. Well, he's not the greatest handyman in the world. Nope. So he goes to the doctor's house, which is a super nice house. He lives in the rectory of a of a church.

Mark:

He's got a wisteria too. Yes. He does. And he basically is like, what do you want? I'm in the middle of my lunch.

Sarah:

He leaves his door hanging open.

Mark:

Well, we know he leaves his door open

Mark:

other times.

Sarah:

He leaves his beer lined up on a table in another room. Mean, I know that British people don't value cold beer as much as Americans do. They don't think it has to be super chilly. But do they really just leave it out on a table like that?

Mark:

It is better, best served room temperature.

Sarah:

Sorry. But he's very into the horse racing.

Mark:

And he talks about maybe hitting some guy. It's just all red herrings all over the place.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah.

Mark:

He says the old lady died of a heart attack, and basically

Sarah:

That's what old ladies die of.

Mark:

That's what old ladies you can see yourself out.

Sarah:

Meanwhile, miss Richards is outside lurking in a bush.

Mark:

Sneaks in.

Sarah:

She's got our briefcase with her. Oh. Which, okay. We're not spoiling anything. Everybody should have seen the episode.

Sarah:

If you didn't prepare before, pause now, go watch it, or we're gonna ruin it for you. Miss Richards is a dominatrix.

Mark:

Right? So I told you this. I forever. I'm like, what episode has the guy lying on the bed, getting whipped by the dominatrix? I know there's an episode that has that.

Mark:

There's more than one. And I thought it was this episode. I didn't think it was this episode. I thought it was, like four different other episodes. I'm like, no.

Mark:

Like, I even the guy who turns out to be with the the teenage boy, I thought he was doing it with some lady, and

Sarah:

no So it

Mark:

snuck up on you. It just it I was like Miss Richard's bustier. I was like, what?

Mark:

Oh, it's this one.

Sarah:

I'm just thinking if you're a dominatrix, are you gonna prowl around sneaky? Are you gonna walk right into the front door?

Mark:

Well, I don't

Mark:

know. I don't know. It's it's you know? Because you come to

Sarah:

she's maybe she's sneaking around because Warnford's married. We have no idea where his wife is ever.

Mark:

You you come to find out in this episode that the doctor and miss Richards are not horrible people. No. They're not out to get anybody. They're desperate to do their BDSM love.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

And, you know, I

Sarah:

kinda But he's cheating

Mark:

on his wife. Yeah. He is cheating on his wife. But I'm I'm kinda like, you know, like, it's whatever they wanna do.

Sarah:

They're not doctoring wills. They're not embezzling money from old people.

Mark:

No. They didn't kill anybody. No. So let them do whatever they wanna do.

Sarah:

So maybe she's creeping around because she wants to make sure his wife isn't there.

Mark:

I think so. So back at the old age home, Mungo's back. The nurses are watching TV.

Sarah:

Every time I hear Mungo, I think Mongo.

Mark:

Yeah. Mongo?

Sarah:

I think Mongo from Blazing Saddles.

Mark:

But, no, he's Mungo. And for some reason, I thought he was hideously deformed. Maybe because of his name.

Sarah:

Maybe because you were thinking of Mungo. Maybe. But he's Mungo only pawn in game of life.

Mark:

Yes. He's not a bad looking dude. The light hit

Mark:

him, and I'm like, oh, no. That's not Mungo. No. He's a decent guy. Deformed.

Mark:

No. No.

Sarah:

So Mungo, they they kind of insinuate that it's a a nickname for his real name, which is Maurice. Yes. Right? But I didn't buy that. Like, those don't have anything in common.

Sarah:

It's like Jack being short for John. It just doesn't make any sense to me. Yeah. So I looked it up and it is common for men with m names if they have a nickname for Mungo to be one of the options.

Mark:

I've I've never been called

Sarah:

Mungo. Okay. Not here. Okay. In Wales.

Mark:

Oh, it's Welsh.

Sarah:

I hadn't got to that point yet. Yeah. It's a reference to St. Kiddegern.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Who is more commonly known as Mungo.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

And it's actually kind of a bastardization of a Gaelic word into Welsh that means my pet.

Mark:

Okay. Did mommy call him Mungo? Mongo.

Sarah:

Mongo. So Mongo is kind of like my pet or little one or my dear.

Mark:

My petite shoo shoo.

Sarah:

My petite shoo. Yeah. So Mongo makes him sound like Mongo, dum dum. Yeah. But really, it's like my petit shoo shoo, my little cabbage.

Mark:

Yep. Okay. Okay. He gets in. The the nurses are watching some television show.

Mark:

Please help us out. There are two television shows in this episode.

Sarah:

Oh, this one's not nearly as puzzling as the one that Cully's watching later.

Mark:

The one that Cully's watching is incredibly puzzling. I spent easily thirty minutes of my life trying to find out what that television show was, and I couldn't. So if you know what television show they're watching, please tweet us or send us a message on Instagram or

Sarah:

like some kind of teeny bopper sitcom. Yeah. Two girls sitting at, like, a lunch table in a cafeteria chit chatting.

Mark:

Mister Corona buzzes and Mungo approaches Bartlett because he's looking for sister Lovelace.

Sarah:

Nurse Bartlett? Yes. This was her last acting job. Before? The before she quit acting.

Sarah:

Oh, okay. And she became a professor.

Mark:

Oh, what is she a of?

Sarah:

Acting. Oh, okay. At Chichester University in Sussex. Oh. She's on LinkedIn.

Mark:

Oh. Maybe we should look up her CV.

Sarah:

Her name is Miranda Kingsley, by the way. Nurse Bartlett. And he he confronts her. Now later on

Mark:

We find out

Sarah:

that Mungo find out that Mungo is desperate to talk to sister Lovelace because he thinks she might have the wrong impression of him that maybe he did something to hurt his mother and to kill his mother. Right? And he's desperate to correct that misunderstanding. And he

Mark:

is dealing with the death of his mother, which he admits he is taking him by surprise.

Sarah:

He's not he's not handling it as well as

Mark:

he thought.

Sarah:

But I'm not buying that for this scene.

Mark:

For this scene, he totally looks like a heavy.

Sarah:

He's definitely being threatening.

Mark:

He grabs her arm.

Sarah:

And tight enough that she seems to be in pain. He startles her, she drops a mug and it shatters.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

If his intentions were what they say, what he says they are later, wouldn't he say, Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to startle you. I just I really need to talk to sister Lovelace.

Mark:

Yeah. I think he's the best communicator. No. And I also, think it it it's what leads to the weird jarring line of tell sister Lovelace where I am. Here's where I am.

Sarah:

Yeah. Like, I'm I'm brooding and threatening and climbing around the dark, but I'm staying at this hotel. You wanted to know why they only call Lovelace sister and everybody else's nurse? Yep. That's because she's the senior nurse.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

And the whole sister thing is a throwback to when hospitals were religious institutions. Yep. And they were run by nuns. Yes. Were the caregivers.

Mark:

So the head nurse in British hospital or home like this is called sister?

Sarah:

Yeah. And they're at everybody else's nurse. So you know the sister is the senior most nurse. And just a little fun fact, in German, do you know what nurse is in German? No.

Sarah:

Kraken schwester.

Mark:

Kraken schwester. Broke sister. Broke sister. Nice. Her sick sister.

Mark:

I went to the sick sister. It sounds much more ominous, doesn't it? Well, thank goodness that Joyce is counting the curtain hooks.

Sarah:

Joyce is practically glamorous in this episode. She is. Her hair is done. Her makeup is done. The one time when she could be bedheaded and gnarly, moving, painting, hanging curtains, all that

Mark:

stuff better than ever.

Sarah:

She looks beautiful.

Mark:

She does. And they send Cully to go see Alice.

Sarah:

It's so sweet. She goes and they sit around George and Smithers and Alice and Cully. She's a hit. She is. Because she's genuinely considerate of them and we find out that Smithers was a chauffeur.

Sarah:

Yep. That he had kind of a glamorous life. He Yep. Drove some actors around and everything.

Mark:

Mhmm. Before that, Alice meets with missus Armstrong who is Pru's niece, aunt. She's

Sarah:

been The one who's been to the hospital.

Mark:

And she basically says, I give out bad news at the hospital. I'm gonna let nature take its course.

Sarah:

She's terminal and she knows it.

Mark:

But let me tell you about Mungo Mortimer.

Sarah:

Yeah. Let's not talk about my death. Yes. Let's gossip about this guy who lurks around being creepy.

Mark:

Yep. And she says he's a dangerous man. Again, we find out that he may be a dangerous man.

Sarah:

He's acting dangerous.

Mark:

He is.

Sarah:

Why he thinks he can only go and approach sister Lovelace at night. Like, he's doing things in a suspicious way.

Mark:

He is. But Troy comes to see Troy, Barnaby at home and says, mister Richard's called.

Sarah:

Tom has on his coveralls.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

He does. Beer. He looks genuinely relaxed and happy.

Mark:

And she doesn't want him to come to the old age home. Let's meet in costume

Sarah:

Yeah. At the tea shop. Because she doesn't wanna be seen.

Mark:

And then there's this this moment with Cully and Billy, Smithers.

Sarah:

Don't call him Billy. Yep. Where She's getting in the car.

Mark:

She really opens up about his life, and she really opens up about I noticed you. Like

Sarah:

His wife is dead. Yep. His daughter is married, and he doesn't get along very well with her and her husband.

Mark:

He's a charming man.

Sarah:

And he's a charming man. But he says, when you're old, you're invisible.

Mark:

No one notices an old fart.

Sarah:

And she says, I noticed you. Yeah. It's And he seems so so genuinely happy. There's some good acting going on Yeah. Because they've got these seasoned actors.

Mark:

That are really good. Yeah. Yeah. At the tea shop, she talks about how a resident died and a watch went missing.

Sarah:

How could you pay any attention to that conversation with those giant meringues that go on behind them? All I could think about was those giant meringues. I've been watching the season seven of the British Bake Off. And, I was thinking about baking when we were, when I was rewatching the episode and then those meringues as big as your head go by behind them on tray, I'm like, grab one, grab one. They look so good.

Mark:

Eat it, Tom. No cabbage soup for you.

Sarah:

That's right. Yeah, so Ms. Richards, she's concerned about the watch, right? Because it went missing.

Mark:

And she doesn't want any hint of stealing, which is absolutely understandable.

Sarah:

Absolutely. You can't I mean, it's tough enough when people are dying in a nursing home. You don't want people to be paranoid about other things like that.

Mark:

And Troy and Barnaby assures her that he will put Troy on it and he will be discreet.

Sarah:

So he walks in and flashes

Mark:

his badge. Flashes his badge.

Sarah:

I have to say Troy's very professional in this episode.

Mark:

Oh, he is?

Sarah:

Even his driving is kind of okay.

Mark:

Yeah, he doesn't run off the road ever. Hardly, yeah.

Sarah:

So we do see the watch.

Mark:

We get kind

Sarah:

of a flashback of the watch on the bedside bedside table, and I tried to get a good look at it there. And then I tried to get a good look at it in the jewelry shop

Mark:

when Smith- It's a car chase watch.

Sarah:

When Smithers sells it.

Mark:

And he sells it to Sebastian Rinwick, our favorite jeweler.

Sarah:

Right. Who looked at the Rolex.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Right? A few episodes ago. I couldn't really tell whether there were jewels around the face of that watch or not.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

And that's a big difference. Yeah. But Smithers would have got at least $2 for that watch.

Mark:

I gotta think that he had quite a bit of money.

Sarah:

It could have been $2 to $20. Wow. So he's got enough for a few plowman's lunches.

Mark:

I gotta think Renwick is pretty tight with the money.

Sarah:

Yeah. But even at like pawnshop prices, he'd have $2.

Mark:

Troy arrives, really doesn't understand the word subtle, but nurse Bartlett basically does the right thing and says, Mungo Mortimer was here and it was weird and you should look into him.

Sarah:

They go into the staff room. So we have to remember, like it's hard to forget because it's so dark that this retirement home is an old country house. It's a beautiful place, but it's very dark.

Mark:

Dark. It's so dark.

Sarah:

The whole episode is dark. Even the sunshine is dark.

Mark:

It's very dark

Sarah:

episode. Bartlett takes Troy into the sitting room, like the nurse's sitting room. And it's one of those, like a library or a lounge in an old house that has kind of contiguous painted wood panels around the walls. So that when it was new, when you were in the room, the door would have practically been hidden. Like it becomes invisible.

Sarah:

Right, because it just blends in and it's so beautiful. I don't know what house this is. It may be a combination of

Mark:

I looked in the locations book and it didn't say which, where that house

Sarah:

was. Yeah, they may have shot in a few, but man, the woodwork in this place is just phenomenal.

Mark:

Just gorgeous. She talks about Mungo, gives up all the information. And then Troy's like, oh, I'll go see Mortimer at the stoner arms. And as he's driving up, the doctor pulls over and says to Mortimer, is everything okay? Are you alright?

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

He's really saying, where's my money?

Mark:

And Marimer's basically, yeah.

Sarah:

I think the money's gonna turn out.

Mark:

Everything's gonna be okay. And they drive off together, and then Troy arrives

Sarah:

Yeah. In the stover. Just missed him. But now we know that Mungo and Warnford are in cahoots with one another.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

Right? So it's not just Mungo being creepy and Warnford being creepy. They're creepy together.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

And he Warnford wears an ascot. Yes. Cyril wears an ascot. And on Cyril, it's cute. It's lovely.

Sarah:

He's adorable. When Warrenford wears an ascot, he's uppity.

Mark:

Yep. It's it's completely different, and that is acting.

Sarah:

And now we get to our fave my favorite scene, which is

Mark:

dance night. Dance night. It is wonderful. The question I had so they're listening to Glenn Miller

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

Which is time appropriate for them.

Sarah:

Right.

Mark:

I'm wondering when we're at the old old old age home, when we're doing our podcast to episode 20, season 26 of Midsomer, whatever that is, what are we gonna be listening to?

Sarah:

T rex. T rex. No. I don't

Mark:

know. There's some good dancers here.

Sarah:

So Cyril is actually a pretty good dancer. I thought maybe that was a foot double. Yeah. Because there's some really live I foot going thought, Oh, they must have got a dancer in to come in and play his feet. I couldn't find any evidence in the credits that that happened.

Sarah:

I couldn't I

Mark:

think it might be him. I think he's a pretty good dancer.

Sarah:

He was he was known to be a good dancer. I don't know if he was still that live.

Mark:

He's certainly having fun.

Sarah:

He's genuinely having a good time.

Mark:

Yep. And then we have gripping ham can.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's like the crawl. The crawl. It's Arthur's hand. Right?

Sarah:

Yep. Because he just can't stand not to clean up Madge's room. Yes. Making him crazy. He's like waiting for her to dance so he can run off to her room and straighten it up.

Mark:

Yes. So this is where Cyril says, are you alright? And it's nice. Yeah. It's not like a greeting.

Sarah:

No. No. He actually means it.

Mark:

But they make the old people climb so many stairs in this ship.

Sarah:

There's an elevator, but everybody seems to climb the stairs.

Mark:

There's so many stairs.

Sarah:

I guess it keeps him fit. Alice wears this lovely yellow satin robe that only somebody with white hair could pull off. Yep. She's an elegant lady.

Mark:

She

Sarah:

is. You get the impression that she's had that kind of life, you know?

Mark:

And she gives her shawl to Madge.

Sarah:

To keep her warm.

Mark:

And then she finds Madge dead.

Sarah:

In her shawl. Bum bum bum.

Mark:

And there's more screaming.

Sarah:

Yeah. But she's more of more of a mouth cover than a u u later like George is.

Mark:

You know what's hard? Getting the coffin out of the building.

Sarah:

These same guys keep coming back to take the bodies out, and every other time they forget there's this there's a ledge.

Mark:

There's a little and missus At the door. What's her name? Missus Randall.

Sarah:

Missus Richards.

Mark:

Richards is, like, putting down the carpet. Like she does a great job.

Sarah:

She's trying to fix the doormat. I think that was actually legitimate. I think she, they improvised a little bit because they really did mess up the doormat. Yep. She's like, well, just get out of here.

Sarah:

The next time they take a body out, when the next person dies after Madge, they know they've learned their lesson. They lift it up over that little ledge and out they go.

Mark:

So Tom rushes off to see Alice because he's concerned for her.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because somebody's died in the middle of the night.

Mark:

And she's found the body, and and she I don't wanna make a nuisance of my smell self. And that that is just good old people writing. Yeah. Because if they all said that, it would be trite.

Sarah:

Right.

Mark:

But the they picked right moment for her to say that.

Sarah:

Yeah. And she legitimately says, what if they were after me? She was wearing my shaw. And then Tom points out logically that they were in Madge's room.

Mark:

So clearly no one looking for

Sarah:

her in Madge's room. She accepts that.

Mark:

And then there's a weird mirror thing because there's always a weird mirror lot

Sarah:

of weird reflection shots in this episode, but but they're okay.

Mark:

Yep. Tom goes off to DIY store with Troy, who apparently doesn't have any job to do.

Sarah:

Well, he's the fetch and carry boy right now. Yep.

Mark:

Pru sees them and freaks.

Sarah:

She owns a gallery. Yeah. Pru's gallery. Yep. And Troy Is not enticing.

Mark:

No. Troy goes out to see everybody. Are you alright? And Arthur's at first very impressed by him. And then the fear comes over him.

Mark:

It's just such good acting.

Sarah:

As soon as Troy says he's a policeman, Arthur looks terrified.

Mark:

It's it's such good acting. Yeah. And at nighttime, Alice hears some muffled whining and some footsteps and finds an earring.

Sarah:

The earring.

Mark:

And we find out that missus Armstrong has died in the night.

Sarah:

But we knew she was terminally ill.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

So what Alice was really hearing was Pru creeping into the house and killing her aunt.

Mark:

Yes. And we'll get to that. We'll But get to

Sarah:

just to kind of connect it, right? Yeah. So that's what she's hearing when she hears somebody creeping around. So it's not a place that you can be stealthy. It is an old house.

Sarah:

Yeah. There are squeaky stairs and squeaky floors.

Mark:

Well, the old people going up the stairs gotta breathe heavy too, I would imagine. Knew oxygen tank. It's gotta be more up and down the stairs. Next morning at breakfast, well, before that, Troy goes over the Barnabas and basically assassinates, what's his name? Arthur.

Mark:

Arthur's character.

Sarah:

And this is when Tom points out he's probably has legitimate reason not to like police. Yep. And he also Tom's painting with lavender paint and doing a really shitty job.

Mark:

He is not a painter.

Sarah:

That whole scene, I'm like, dude, you missed a spot. You missed a spot. Go back, paint it, And he's like stirring with the stir stick and like rolling his roller around in the pan. Like, you missed a spot.

Mark:

Angie Alice calls and says, Mrs. Armstrong's dead and she's no. She's been murdered. And doctor Warren shows it's not trustworthy, and she's frightened to Mortimer. So let's go see Mortimer, and he's playing snooker.

Sarah:

So that is a snooker table? It is. It's bigger than a pool table. Right? It is a

Mark:

snooker table, and he doesn't sink a red, so he can't play again. Though I don't know who he's playing against.

Sarah:

Well, himself. So he just gets it out and hits it again. But he's got fabulous tartan pants on.

Mark:

Fabulous. This

Sarah:

is another one of those super dark episodes. I mean, I know billiard table lights immediately over it, but it's almost Dramatic. Purposefully. Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah:

And Tom's having none of his guff.

Mark:

Nope. None of it at all.

Sarah:

He's supposed to be on vacation, and he's not having it.

Mark:

And Mortimer says, I'm cut up. I didn't think I would be, but the death of my mother has affected me in more ways. And Tom doesn't believe him, but, you know, in the end of it, you realize that he is telling all the truth here.

Sarah:

Yeah. But in the moment, I don't believe him either. Nope. I thought he's a shyster because that's what he's acting like. If he didn't creep around at night, you wouldn't be suspicious of him.

Sarah:

You might buy that.

Mark:

Exactly. Exactly. Mungo's having money problems. He wants to get the money from his mom, but he didn't want her to linger. This is what sister Lovelace tells Barnaby.

Mark:

Right?

Sarah:

Yeah. Because she was

Mark:

She

Sarah:

was terminal, but she could last two days or two years. Right? And And we know Mungo needs money.

Mark:

Yep. And this is when Arthur pulls him aside and says, I've done something dreadful. It's so sad. It's so sad.

Sarah:

And he only wants to confess to Tom, not to Troy.

Mark:

So what has happened? And we'll make a joke about this, but this is really sad. Arthur is so upset by how Match's room is messy. Mhmm. It and it's funny because you said, oh my gosh, her room is so messy.

Mark:

I'm like

Sarah:

The first time you see her dressing table Yeah. With all the old snotty Kleenex on it

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

It's like, what a mess.

Mark:

So he goes while they're dancing to clean up her room. And basically she opens the door and finds him in her room it cleaning startles her. And startles her.

Sarah:

And she dies.

Mark:

And her brain explodes.

Sarah:

She dies. She has

Mark:

an aneurysm or a stroke or something. She's that messy of a person that if somebody's cleaning up her mess, it makes her brain explode.

Sarah:

I don't know. Arthur can come over our house anytime. Yes. He can. Absolutely.

Sarah:

He can straighten up anything he wants. Absolutely. Have at, dude.

Mark:

Alice is on to another book though. I gotta tell you about this book. This is The Widow's Cruise Yeah. By Nicholas Blake.

Sarah:

No. That I'd never heard of that one.

Mark:

Oh, well, you do you know who Nicholas Blake is? No. It's not Nicholas Blake. It's CS Lewis. So this is a book by CS Lewis with the gentleman detective by the name of Nigel Strangeways.

Mark:

Oh. Can I, like, just read every one

Mark:

of those books right now, please? Because that

Mark:

is the best name ever.

Sarah:

It makes you wanna change your name, doesn't it? It does. Strangeways.

Mark:

Strangeways. Nigel Strangeways. Absolutely.

Sarah:

So I didn't so CS Lewis had a nom de plume that he wrote?

Mark:

Number of them, and one of them was Nicholas Blake, and he wrote this detective novel.

Sarah:

I didn't know that. Yes. Are all the books that they read detective novels in the

Mark:

set of And I think that relates to what her and George, the conversation they have at the end because George is like, oh, I'm not into red blue herrings. Yeah. And she corrects that it's a red herring.

Sarah:

Because they're all mystery novels. And I think it also kind of is supposed to contribute to the way Alice sees things going on and kind of tries to put things together, observations, that maybe she sees nefariousness where it doesn't belong because she reads all these detective books.

Mark:

Yeah. So she's making up think crimes that's in her silently implied. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Willie has quite the afternoon.

Mark:

He goes into town. He has a nice lunch with some alcohol. He finds out the doctor lives nearby, he goes and finds the doctor's car. The doctor's car has the keys in it. Mistake number one.

Mark:

Second of all, the doctor's door is open and as we know in Midsomer, if your door is open, boots be knocking.

Sarah:

Yeah. Either you're watching the horses or or having forbidden sex.

Mark:

So Willie sneaks upstairs and sees a little BDSM going on. Yep. The doctor is

Sarah:

You think you know everything,

Mark:

don't you? Getting spanked by Mrs. Richards

Sarah:

in her one And piece Mrs. Richards looks good.

Mark:

She looks great in her one piece boosty.

Sarah:

She's super frumpy the rest

Mark:

of the

Sarah:

episode, You but not in that know, we missed something that bothered me. Okay. We skipped over this little thing. Pru is back in the lobby. Yep.

Sarah:

Right? Her aunt has died and she's there and she's being weird. Yep. Right? Tom sees her and he's like, I'm so sorry for your loss.

Sarah:

And she almost acts angry Yeah. Rather than sad.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Okay. She's got on a sleeveless shirt Yes. With a sweater vest over it.

Mark:

What is she wearing? Are her boobs cold?

Sarah:

I guess so. Because otherwise, I don't understand.

Mark:

It's July. My boobs are cold.

Sarah:

Why do you wear a sweater vest over a sleeveless shirt? It's a weird combo. I don't know. But the shirt weirdness doesn't end there. Okay.

Sarah:

Because then Tom and Troy go and talk to sister Lovelace. Every time they cut away from Tom and cut back to him, another button on his shirt is unbuttoned.

Mark:

What? Is Tom busting out?

Sarah:

It's practically down to his belly button by the end of the scene. I don't know what he's doing between takes. Like, we almost see Tom nipple. His he's got that kind of, like, brushed silk bomber jacket on Yep. Over his denim, you know, working around the house shirt, and it just keeps unbuttoning itself.

Mark:

Willie is on the loose in the car.

Sarah:

Oh, man. Go, Willie. Go. I'm so happy for him. Even when he crashes, I'm like, woo hoo.

Sarah:

Go, squirrel.

Mark:

The one thing I wish they had done when he crashes the car, I wish they had put an audio of him laughing hysterically.

Sarah:

Yeah. That would have made it even better. Because he he's hurt. He breaks his arm. But it's still worth it.

Mark:

But it's still

Sarah:

worth Whiplash, broken arm, black eye. Even in the hospital, he's like, I know I've done wrong things. I'm sure you can charge me for stuff, but it was worth it.

Mark:

He knows he's gonna get in trouble. He flogged the watch. He just gives everything up in the hospital.

Sarah:

Why not? What are they gonna do to him? Yeah. Him driving that Aston Martin because we know he used to drive fancy cars when he was in a chauffeur. Yep.

Sarah:

He he loves cars.

Mark:

He loves cars.

Sarah:

And he just he's living it up.

Mark:

So there's some stuff with the Waterford and Mongo, but it really doesn't make any difference because that night, Alice has figured everything out. Yeah. And she knows who's lost an earring.

Sarah:

And And Pru is creeping Mongo like around in the dark.

Mark:

Yes. Again. So Tom and Joyce are out for dinner.

Sarah:

Because Pru's already confronted Alice about because she's climbing around on the floor in her aunt's room. Yeah. She says, what are you doing? Well and Alice says, I found an earring. And suddenly Pru's like killer mode, you found an earring?

Sarah:

Where is it? She scares Alice to death. She has to go run into the bathroom and close the door. Poor Alice. The dark, dark bathroom.

Sarah:

The dark, dark bathroom. So we're already kind of on guard about Pruh. We think that she's, you know, the killer. Yep. And and then she decides to come back at night.

Sarah:

She she's totally doing a mango.

Mark:

She's doing a mango. So Alice phones Barnaby and gets Cully, who is watching the weirdest show ever.

Sarah:

Yeah. There's like a a big cross dresser and a guy in a mohawk.

Mark:

It's not divine, but it's a divine like character.

Sarah:

Yeah. If anybody knows what it is, Please tell

Mark:

tell us what that

Sarah:

show is huffy about having to get up and answer the

Mark:

She doesn't wanna do that. And she answers the phone by repeating the number. They dialed that number.

Sarah:

Yeah. Don't know why anybody ever does that. Since the days when there was an operator who connected your call

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

You didn't need to

Mark:

do that. So, obviously, we've forgotten cell phones in this in this episode. She knows who killed Celia Armstrong. So Cully calls The restaurant.

Sarah:

The restaurant. Because Alice is legitimately scared. Yep. Pru's in the house. She's coming for her.

Mark:

Yep. And Barnaby is at the restaurant, and he pays.

Sarah:

And he and Joyce are having a nice dinner. And for once she's not saying, you know, oh, you're always working or whatever. She she's they're talking about the case because they both care about Alice. Yep. Then they get the call.

Sarah:

Yep. So they're gonna leave. So they get the check.

Mark:

And boy, I watched this part of the episode for maybe twenty minutes.

Sarah:

What was so interesting about a credit card and a receipt?

Mark:

Okay. First of all, the credit card receipt is for Lloyd's Bank of London payment card Visa. The number on the Visa, I can't tell the first number, but the rest of the number is 921821601938092. They bought £62 even worth of food at the Swan in Tetsworth. Now this is where it gets interesting.

Sarah:

Okay. I'm waiting for it to get interesting. Because the credit card

Mark:

the name on the credit card is Alison McMillan. What? Yes. Not Tony Barnaby. Who's Alison McMillan?

Mark:

Alison McMillan is a property buyer for the episode. That's her credit card?

Mark:

That is her actual credit card.

Sarah:

And only one number is hidden?

Mark:

And only one number is hidden?

Mark:

And the restaurant is real. You can go to the Swan at Tetsworth at 5 Upper Street O X 97 A B in in Oxford, England. The number is 44184428112.

Sarah:

Are you sponsoring this episode? I don't know,

Mark:

but I looked at their menu, and it looks pretty good.

Sarah:

Wow. She must have had to get a new card after that.

Mark:

I can only think, and then Tom signs it at the bottom. Barnaby. Credit card fraud.

Sarah:

No wonder you were so interested. Okay. I take it back. That is interesting.

Mark:

Allison McMillan.

Sarah:

I was like So I'm

Mark:

like my gosh. Who is this Allison McMillan person? And why is this not a credit card? I did a search, and I'm like, she's a property buyer.

Mark:

I I looked really hard to find Alison McMillan because I wanted to email her and go, did you need to get a new credit card?

Sarah:

So she's a member of the crew. Yep. They needed a card.

Mark:

Yep. At this real restaurant.

Sarah:

So they just put a card down.

Mark:

And they charged 62 doll £62 to her card, and Tom signed it. The the actor signed it, Tom Barnaby.

Sarah:

I'd love to have that receipt.

Mark:

It's fantastic.

Sarah:

Alison McMillan, if you're listening, let us know.

Mark:

Please. Please.

Sarah:

If any other freaky dinkies like Mark noticed that your credit card number was right there

Mark:

That I just read out.

Sarah:

It's a rather old credit card.

Mark:

I would assume that it has been replaced.

Sarah:

Yes. But

Mark:

it was past its expiry date.

Sarah:

So Well, I'm gonna I mean, that's fact of the week.

Mark:

It says Alison McMillan on the card. Yeah. Absolutely. Tom, it's okay. Committed a crime.

Mark:

It's okay because the slowest chase ever is happening back at the

Sarah:

They got plenty of time.

Mark:

Prue is going and Alice is going. They hide out in the TV lounge.

Sarah:

There's no alarms on these doors. Nope. Which would be standard in a retirement home.

Mark:

Who just walks in?

Sarah:

We know that this one door is supposedly broken, But it's standard in an old folks home to have good locks and alarms. Well, do when you

Mark:

you see see them. Leaving.

Sarah:

Right, you can wander off. But there's another thing I don't understand about this very slow chase, right? So Alice is at the little round table in the foyer, Making the phone call. She gets panicked and she knocks her reading glasses to the floor.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

And suddenly she's blind. Like blind. She only needs those glasses to read. But But now Well, she's blind. But they do this little clever thing where they make it blurry.

Sarah:

So you almost feel like she does. Yeah. If in fact she was that blind, which we know she's not because she hardly wears the glasses.

Mark:

Of

Sarah:

course. But suddenly she can't see anything without them.

Mark:

Yeah. Barty B arrives, immediately finds how they get in. The doctor who, why is the doctor here, shows up and is helpful. Can I help?

Sarah:

Yeah. And Ms. Richards is helpful too.

Mark:

Yep. Pru is obviously upset because they find them in the TV lounge and she's holding Pru by cuddling her.

Sarah:

There's a good moment of tension where we we don't know where Pru's gone. It's likely that she's found Alice

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

And we don't know what's happened. And all we see is the back of Alice's head above the couch.

Mark:

But this is the gentlest episode ever.

Sarah:

Right. But she could be dead. Yep. Right? I mean, Tom's got to think that, but instead she's holding Prue

Mark:

and Prue's Prue's crying. Prue tells Barnaby a story about Mrs. Armstrong and that she had her cancer, came back.

Sarah:

They were really, really close.

Mark:

Prue couldn't see her suffer.

Sarah:

Yeah. And then Tom tells the story about sitting at his mom's bedside and talking to her even though he didn't know if she could hear him or not.

Mark:

And if you haven't cried anymore, he just says, I don't know what's gonna happen to you. It's just a ball fest.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's really touching. Tom doesn't talk a lot about his family. Nope. He mentions his mom every now and then, and it's it's clear that he has affection for her.

Mark:

And his last episode is really all about his dad.

Sarah:

Yeah. But this is probably the most touching story about his mom that we ever hear. Yep. And it's, again, just really good acting. Yes.

Sarah:

For once the kind of dark setting sort of makes sense.

Mark:

Yep. It's very blue.

Sarah:

They're under a spotlight. A blue spotlight. The only thing I can think. Yeah.

Mark:

Tom cuts into his toast, and him and Joyce have a good conversation here about Joyce here is really upset. Yeah. It's sad. This is kind of season one, Joyce.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's sad. And they're in their new home. Yep. And apparently she can actually make toast.

Mark:

Apparently.

Sarah:

He's got a full piece of toast. And she says, do you want more toast? And he says, yes, probably because he's excited like, hey, toast. It's edible. It's toast.

Sarah:

And then I think we see them kiss each other on the lips for the first time.

Mark:

It's very sweet.

Sarah:

I don't remember them doing that before.

Mark:

These actors have been doing this part for three or four years now and it's really nice. She says we aim to please.

Sarah:

They agree that Alice should come and stay with them for the next couple of weeks because she doesn't really need a lot of medical care. What she needs is TLC and somebody to watch her to make sure she doesn't get sick again. And so she's leaving. She gets to go to Tom's house. Yes.

Sarah:

And Willie comes back.

Mark:

And makes some jokes about, he's going to go see his daughter.

Sarah:

He's going to move to a nursing home near to his daughter

Mark:

and good. And his daughter suggested it. Yeah. Obviously, there's new avenues there.

Sarah:

Alice is in a good spot. Smithers is in a good spot.

Mark:

But George George

Sarah:

is just sad.

Mark:

Yeah. She watches them go.

Sarah:

I hope Alice goes to visit George.

Mark:

I hope so too. George was nice. She was. And she reminded me of my mom.

Sarah:

She's a little kooky. She's nice.

Mark:

Well, she reminded me of my little mom.

Sarah:

They have that, Alice and George have a conversation we've already mentioned about books. Yep. Because Alice is going to leave her a few books. Even though I think those books Alice took off the common table in the living room.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

And this is where George says, I don't like all those blue herrings. So we get the inference from the title.

Mark:

It's playing on words of blue hair and red herrings.

Sarah:

Right. Which I realized I didn't know where red herring came from.

Mark:

Where does it come from?

Sarah:

I mean, I know the idiom, but I didn't know what the reference was.

Mark:

Isn't it I I have this vague recollection that it's Belgian. No. Okay. I'm completely No.

Sarah:

It's a super British saying. It refers to a smoked herring. That's why it's red. Red herring is not like a species of herring or anything. But they open it and smoke it.

Sarah:

And so the inside, kind of like salmon, it's

Mark:

like Like a pinky red.

Sarah:

It's a deep pink red color. But the reason why it has a connotation is kind of a misleading thing is that if you were training foxhounds and you didn't have like a dead cat or a dead fox to leave a scent to train them with, you would do it with a red herring. Oh. So you would like smoosh it on bushes and drag it along the ground.

Mark:

Oh, okay.

Sarah:

And that would you could use it to train your dogs, but you could also use it to test them. Yeah. Because they shouldn't be distracted by that.

Mark:

By the red herring.

Sarah:

Right. They should follow it. And boy, did I find I found a big old fight about the first use of the term. It's either in, the early 1770s or the early 1780s. So it's a really old term.

Sarah:

Yeah. But that's where red herring comes from. Excellent. Now, you know.

Mark:

So this is the gentlest, most wonderful episode of Midsomer.

Sarah:

Are you alright?

Mark:

And, you know, I I keep in my mind, keep comparing it to Blood Will Out, the traveler episode, because I didn't like that episode, but I like this one. And they share a lot of the same similarities. There's lots of soap opera red herring stuff in it. Mhmm. But there's so much more heart in this episode.

Sarah:

The characters are much more interesting in this one.

Mark:

And the acting is so much better. Yeah.

Sarah:

This that's what happens when you pull together a cast of of actors who've been doing the job for fifty, sixty, seventy years Yeah. Except for Cyril who took fifty years off.

Mark:

But does wonders with a single line. Yep. I I can only imagine the jokes he made about that. I can't like, can you imagine him and Willie just laughing it up the whole time?

Sarah:

Yeah. Oh, I completely forgot this. The innkeeper. The landlord? Yes.

Sarah:

So Smithers goes to the pub. Yes. He's talking to the landlord. That guy, his the actor's name is Arthur Cox.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

And he is the inspector in Partners in Crime, the original Tommy and Tuppence series from the eighties.

Mark:

That's right.

Sarah:

He's the the friendly inspector, Marriott.

Mark:

With the bookshelf.

Sarah:

Yeah. He helps me hang a bookshelf.

Mark:

That's right. I totally forgot.

Sarah:

He's in almost every episode of that. That's another one. If you haven't seen it, it's in video.

Mark:

Both the new and the old Tommy and Tuppence is good.

Sarah:

They're they're both good.

Mark:

Absolutely.

Sarah:

Yeah. So So it's a it's a warm cocoa episode.

Mark:

It's Blue herring. It's like a little candy that you find in a dish in where you study.

Sarah:

It's like a buttermint.

Mark:

It's a buttermint. It is.

Sarah:

That doesn't have any pocket length

Mark:

Or a bicky. A bicky with some tea. Mhmm. Absolutely.

Sarah:

And and we need it before we go to our next episode.

Mark:

Yeah. So our next episode is episode season three, episode three. It's called Judgment Day. What it really should be called is batshit crazy day.

Sarah:

Yes.

Mark:

It is, in my opinion, probably the best cold opening of the entire show. I don't go watch the episode. If you haven't seen it, it's so good. If you have seen it, as soon as it starts, you'll be like, oh my god. I love this one.

Mark:

I know it's gonna happen.

Sarah:

So in the the meantime, we love all the comments we get every episode.

Mark:

So much. We keep, like, hitting these milestones of downloads that I'm completely amazed by. The fact that we have hundreds of people listening to us is touching.

Sarah:

What I'm most happy about is how many people tell us that they've never listened to a podcast before. Yep. But hearing about this one made them want to listen to podcasts.

Mark:

There's three big ones for me. One, I've never listened to a podcast before, which is just amazing. Two, I felt like I was the only one who thought this.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

That's the second the

Sarah:

only one who liked Midsomer.

Mark:

And the third one is a new contender because we release on Mondays. We get these, you've just made my Monday so much better.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

I'm like, well, you've just made my entire life so much better. Aren't you the sweetest?

Sarah:

It's great. That makes me curious. I'd love to know what you're doing when you're listening to the podcast.

Mark:

Absolutely. Tell us what you do when you listen to the podcast.

Sarah:

I the last time I fired up Stitcher today, I noticed that my total listening was over two thousand three hundred hours, and I have well over 500 audiobooks in my Audible library. I listen to a lot of stuff, and I can tell you, I listen doing all kinds of things around the house. So I'd love to know what you guys are doing when you're listening. Are you commuting? Are you doing the dishes or folding the laundry?

Sarah:

What do you do?

Mark:

Another thing I'd like to know, and I think we should ask you guys this, is I'm wondering if I should do, like, a little video about how to listen to podcasts. Because our readers like, the people on the Midsomer Murders Facebook group and the Acorn group who have all been awesome, and the moderators of those groups are fantastic people. They've been fantastic for us. Do we need to do a little primer for some people about how to listen to a podcast? Because they might not know and they might not say that that they don't know.

Sarah:

Yeah. You know? I could certainly recommend could things certainly that if you like Midsomer, there are podcasts that you will really, really love.

Mark:

Absolutely. Yeah. So I'm thinking of doing that also because I think, you know, there's a lot of people who don't know. Like, we're we're like, oh, just go to Stitcher or go to iTunes. But for some people who are maybe older, that might be a new and different thing.

Sarah:

Except for that one podcast hosting service that our Echo hates.

Mark:

Yeah. So there's this thing Mhmm. In our house. It's called an Echo. It's Mark's nemesis.

Mark:

I had a twenty minute argument with the Echo the other day because I want the Echo to play her podcast.

Sarah:

He just wants to check to make sure that it's streaming on all the services.

Mark:

So it uses a service called TuneIn.

Sarah:

By default, that's what it uses.

Mark:

So I went to TuneIn. I filled out all the information for our podcast. If you go to TuneIn, the app or the web page

Sarah:

It's there.

Mark:

And put in Midsomer Maniacs, it's there. Okay? So I asked Echo to play Midsomer Maniacs from tune in. No idea what I'm talking about.

Sarah:

She says, what?

Mark:

So I think maybe because of the weird spelling of Midsomer, it's Midsomer. So I I purposely mispronounce it. Still has no idea what I'm

Sarah:

talking about. Rather lovely to hear him fighting with

Mark:

her echo. I did this. I I I took my phone, and I played the podcast from Spotify and cast it onto the

Sarah:

The Echo as a speaker?

Mark:

And I asked the Echo, what are you playing? And the Echo said that I'm playing the Midsomer Maniacs podcast. And I said, play the Midsomer Maniacs podcast from Spotify, and it said, I don't know what you're talking about.

Sarah:

It's just you. It hates you.

Mark:

It hates me.

Sarah:

And then I I was in the other room, and I heard him swearing at the echo.

Mark:

But it was interesting to see the echo because the echo started playing the first episode, so it read out the entire entire entire into the entire title, including bonking.

Sarah:

So

Mark:

I made the echo say bonking.

Sarah:

That's a little bit of revenge anyway. Thank you as always for listening. It's so much fun to know that there are people out there who are listening, who enjoy Midsomer like we do. Absolutely. And who are laughing along.

Sarah:

We love to hear your comments, your thoughts. What do you do while you're listening? Are there segments that you'd like us to focus on? Do you wanna know more about certain actors? Do you wanna know more about sets?

Sarah:

Do you wanna know more about the writers or anything else? All feedback is welcome.

Mark:

I'm glad you think we're funny because our children

Sarah:

certainly don't. We think we're funny. We crack each other up.

Mark:

We we crack each other up. So we are Midsommar Maniacs on Twitter at Midsommar Maniacs and at Midsommar Maniacs on Instagram. We're on the Facebook group for Acorn TV, Midsommar Maniacs official, and now the BritBox official Facebook group. Murders official. Yeah.

Mark:

Midsomer murders official that who have all been so great to us. They've been super nice to us and said super nice things. And we also are on, like, every service including TuneIn.

Sarah:

Even though Echo

Mark:

doesn't play. Echo.

Mark:

Can can you try to get your smart speaker to play our podcast? Let us know if it works for

Mark:

send recordings of of them play of the smart speaker playing

Sarah:

our podcast. Just to rub it in. Just to rub it in. And prepare yourself because next time

Mark:

Oh, judgment day is coming.

Sarah:

Love you guys. Thanks, Maniacs.

Mark:

Thanks, Maniacs. Bye, Maniacs.

Sarah:

Is it aspern tallow or aspen tallow?

Mark:

It is according to how it is spelled. It is aspirin, a s p e r n. But we don't

Sarah:

know if that r is soft or not.

Mark:

No. It's not aspirin tallow. That's a whole different thing with the doctor.

Sarah:

You got a headache? Take some aspirin tallow.

Mark:

Oh, doesn't have a headache. He's got a different kind of ache.

Sarah:

Yeah. You don't know everything, do you?

Mark:

So we need to have another meeting about judgment day. A meeting about judgment day. We should talk about judgment day at the meeting.

Sarah:

It's really It's the meeting about judgment committee.

Mark:

It's the let's kill Peter committee judgment day meeting. Why don't By the way, judgment day.

Sarah:

Troy and Tom just need to go to this meeting and go, which of you did it?

Mark:

For the children, judgment day will go forward.

Mark:

For the

Sarah:

children? It's the apocalypse day. Welcome to Midsomer, Maniacs.

Mark:

Hey, Maniacs.

Sarah:

Episode 12.

Mark:

Which is season three, episode three.

Sarah:

Judgment day.

Mark:

And as a reminder, if your kids watch this show, they can handle the podcast. But if they can't handle the show and all of its pitchforks

Sarah:

They can't handle the podcast.

Mark:

They can't handle the podcast. Before we begin, I wanted to do a shout out to one of our listeners who said they listened to us while they were working out, which I was absolutely bewildered by. Who would want to work out to my voice?

Sarah:

I I don't know, but you go. Yes. Do one more round. Go. Go.

Sarah:

We believe in you. Absolutely. We're sitting here on our butts, so you go. You go.

Mark:

So the episode was filmed in July and August '99, broadcast the 01/29/2000, so a week after the last episode was on, And it has 9,650,000 viewers, so we're back to where we were before in terms of viewership.

Sarah:

And we've got the old crew as far as director and writer. Right?

Mark:

Yes. Jeremy Silverstone and Anthony Horowitz.

Sarah:

Horowitz is back. And so Midsomer is back. Back to form, back to what I think is the quintessential Midsomer with crazy people and nutsy things happening, and the plot moves really fast, and there's all kinds of stuff going on.

Mark:

There is no fat in this episode. It is just bang, bang, bang. And I gotta tell you, this cold opening is like a horror movie. But above and beyond that, this might be the best film cold opening that we have.

Sarah:

It's really, really good. So we have a young couple. We're we're in the fifties.

Mark:

Mommy and daddy.

Sarah:

The Westins, they're going out for dinner to celebrate, and their daughter is bratacular and doesn't want them to go.

Mark:

She is so annoyed. Like, already, I'm like, oh, gosh. Bratty kid.

Sarah:

Like, they should have some luggage in the trunk and go away for a while longer. Because who's there to take care of Annabelle while they're gone?

Mark:

Out of the shadow steps, missus Bundy. No. Wait. It's not missus Bundy. It's missus Foster.

Mark:

But it sure looks like missus Bundy.

Sarah:

Played by missus Bundy. Played by Marlene Sitaway.

Mark:

Is missus Bundy a time traveler?

Sarah:

She is. Because she's older. Yes. This is before.

Mark:

So she's in four episodes. She's in the pilot.

Sarah:

Right. Where she works on the helpline.

Mark:

She's in written in blood. As missus Bundy. She's in the one with the crazy priest, death shadow. Yes.

Sarah:

It's death something. Death something. It's bloody death in disguise shadow playing cricket. Exactly. Because this is judgment day.

Mark:

Judgment day. You're a naughty child.

Sarah:

Oh my gosh. I'm just ugh. She's just bad.

Mark:

She just throws her dinner on the floor. And those plates are expensive, man.

Sarah:

Yeah. They are. So the couple, the Westins, who are Ruth and Michael Weston, this is this is fun. They are the same two actors who also play the couple in the house in the woods Oh.

Mark:

Which is

Sarah:

a 2005 episode.

Mark:

The ones that get killed?

Sarah:

Yeah. That's weird. Yeah. They come back for it's like, they're a doomed couple, those two. And they're not in a relationship.

Sarah:

The two the actors are not as nearly as I could find. They're not like an actual couple. But yeah, they

Mark:

Are they behind the scenes people too?

Sarah:

Like Not that I could tell.

Mark:

That's interesting.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because he he also, Richard Trender is his name and her name is, Carolyn Faber. Richard Trender's other big credit is that he plays a Death Eater in Order of the Phoenix.

Mark:

Oh, okay. So another Harry Potter crossover.

Sarah:

But aren't Death Eaters those big gray cloudy things?

Mark:

They don't really have a face. Well No, those are dementors.

Sarah:

Oh, that's right.

Mark:

The death eaters are bad dudes,

Sarah:

I Yeah, from the

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

From the ministry or something.

Mark:

Who knows? Clearly a bunch of Harry Potter fanatics know, but

Sarah:

Oh yeah. And they're like, what? So first he he plays the father of a homicidal daughter. Then he plays a guy who makes a really bad choice about a house and gets killed. And then he's a death eater.

Mark:

It's quite Really? A He's done now.

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah. This this scene is very much like a slasher film and they set it up so well that the parents go. She sends the girl to bed.

Mark:

Wait till your parents come home.

Sarah:

You wait till your parents come home. And she even has her back to us in the chair, and she's all happy.

Mark:

So I I wanna talk about this. It's weird. I don't know what's going on.

Sarah:

Who missus Foster watching TV?

Mark:

Missus Foster is watching ABC, which is Australian. Right. But this is not in Australia. No. She's also watching a show called Casebook

Sarah:

Right.

Mark:

Which is an Australian show from the sixties. Though later on, it says it's 1955.

Sarah:

So she's a time traveler, and she can time travel with TV too?

Mark:

And now I gotta tell you, Casebook sounds like the worst show on television. Are you

Mark:

ready for this? Is it like Dragnet?

Mark:

No. Dragnet's exciting.

Sarah:

Oh.

Mark:

It was made with the cooperation of the Australian Medical Association. It is an educational documentary series. Each episode usually contains two to three segments relating to medical advice being given by real doctors and patients played by professional actors suffering from a variety of illnesses.

Sarah:

Then why is there a car on fire?

Mark:

I don't know. Assume it was, like, true crime

Sarah:

show.

Mark:

It clearly says casebook, and it clearly says ABC. We may have this show wrong.

Sarah:

Maybe there was another casebook.

Mark:

And please tell us if we have this show wrong, but I could not figure out.

Sarah:

Foster, who is missus Bundy, who is a time traveler, so who knows what she's watching because she's about to get shanked anyway.

Mark:

Yes. So then there's this shot of the camera moving through the house, and it looks like a doll's house. Yeah. They do such a good job.

Sarah:

It's a strange house anyway. The foyer looks like a backdoor. It's Yep. I said foyer. I'm such a Hoosier.

Sarah:

It's foyer. It's foyer. Sorry. We say foyer

Mark:

around When they show the knives in the kitchen, there's a spoon above it that's moving.

Sarah:

Yeah. Why? Like there's a breeze or something?

Mark:

Something. It's it and it happens both times.

Sarah:

Yeah. I don't know. But the knife that she picks is the shiniest, most merest knife ever. Ding. So missus Foster is sitting in her chair, enjoying her anachronistic TV, and we see the knife and her reflection in the knife and the screaming, no.

Mark:

No. We don't know if it's Annabella. We don't know.

Sarah:

Annabella. No. We don't.

Mark:

And the parents come home, and they go check on Mrs. Foster. And I think the mom does some good acting.

Sarah:

She she does. Yeah. Because the babysitter's dead. So you go to the kids' room next.

Mark:

And Mrs. Bundy, who's been around a lot of death, knows how to act like a dead body.

Sarah:

She does a good job. She's got multiple stab wounds.

Mark:

They rush upstairs and Annabella Annabelle Annabelle is in bed sleeping.

Sarah:

And this is in the era where the kids lived in the attic. The bigger the house, the more stories you had, the higher the kids would be placed. Yes.

Mark:

But They

Sarah:

have to go up like 17 flights of stairs.

Mark:

So I have a problem though here. They wake her up and they show her bed clothes and she is not bloody.

Sarah:

Okay. Yeah. But I keep wanting to call her Mrs. Bundy. Mrs.

Sarah:

Foster, her knife wounds are very clean. There's no like arterial stuff going on. They're like chest stabs.

Mark:

But there's a lot of blood on the knife.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because it's been in missus Foster.

Mark:

I still think she would have blood on her, and I think she actually changed because she is Looney McTooney.

Sarah:

There's no blood on the handle of the knife when you see the doll baby holding it.

Mark:

So then you that's right. You see the doll baby holding it, and that's one creepy doll baby.

Sarah:

Yeah. It is.

Mark:

It

Sarah:

is. It's like a blackface Raggedy Ann

Mark:

That cold opening rag doll.

Sarah:

Is terrifying. It's super creepy.

Mark:

Because they do such a good job of implying that she did it without saying, oh my god. She did it.

Sarah:

Well and later on, you know, when we hear more about her, it's it they confirm that she did say she did it.

Mark:

And they say her name super quick so that when we're introduced to Bella later on, oh, it's a completely different person.

Sarah:

Yeah. And now now that you keep saying Annabella, I wanna confirm. It's Annabelle.

Mark:

It's Annabelle.

Sarah:

And because I always make a connection between Annabelle, the evil doll Yes. And this episode with a girl named Annabelle who's got a creepy doll.

Mark:

So a bunch of people are getting together for a meeting.

Sarah:

Yes. This includes Marcus DeVeer and Bella DeVeer. Ray Dorset. Yeah. Who's the butcher.

Mark:

Missus Drinkwater, who is the riding the bike. Yeah. Right? Mhmm. I love Marcus.

Mark:

He has the cutest little hat, and he's driving his tractor. He's fantastic. And we're introduced to the daughter of Caroline. Marcus and Bella. Now if the daughter isn't seeing Peter drink water, does any of this happen?

Sarah:

Let's revisit that.

Mark:

I think she may be the entire source of the problem.

Sarah:

Well, it wouldn't be her. It would be Laura.

Mark:

Yes. I would agree.

Sarah:

If Laura didn't tell Carolyn Yeah. Would any of it happen?

Mark:

I don't know. Laura is Gordon's wife. Right. He's the vet. Yeah.

Mark:

And she's horrible.

Sarah:

She is. Those are the Briarlies. Gordon and Laura Briarley. Yeah. She's one of those snipey, wives who puts her husband down all the time.

Sarah:

No. It's it's kind of a trope in Midsomer. Right?

Mark:

It is a trope in Midsomer, but she gets it. Yeah. They're having a village meeting because the Perfect Village competition has chosen them as a candidate for Perfect Village.

Sarah:

For Country Matters magazine.

Mark:

Four days away on July 10. Why does everything happen in the first weeks of July in midsummer?

Sarah:

It's an exciting time.

Mark:

You get 5,000. We could fix the village.

Sarah:

No. He says we could rebuild the village hall.

Mark:

Well, having been in several village halls, I could see that. You think

Sarah:

you can build one for $5? I think so.

Mark:

They get awful cold in February at Euchar parties. Now somebody got a brand new foreshadowing pencil with this episode. Yeah. Because there is foreshadowing all over the place.

Sarah:

There is. There is.

Mark:

There's mention of the wine. There's mention of blood. And and they keep saying judgment day. You know, when you see a movie like, I don't know. Let's pick a movie out of the blue.

Mark:

Face off. And they say the name of the movie, you go, ah,

Mark:

they said the name of the movie. Clever.

Mark:

Clever. But they say judgment day 18,000 times in this episode.

Sarah:

I don't think that's what you'd call it anyway. You would say the day the judges are coming.

Mark:

Yes. Judgment day has, kind of connotations of either your judgment day is coming or everybody's judgment day.

Sarah:

It's definitely not a positive thing. No. It's the day we will be judged.

Mark:

And speaking of judges, we have we know three judges. Rosemary Thurman from Country Matters, who is like eighties power couple editor lady.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Right? Big shoulder pads and loves the city and hates the country.

Sarah:

Right.

Mark:

Frank Manion, who is a whole wonderful thing

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

On top of it. Great actor. And Annabelle Cross, who is a replacement for somebody.

Sarah:

No. Annabelle Cross can't come.

Mark:

Oh, she she gets Johnson. Samantha Johnson steps in. And who's the fourth judge? Joyce. Joyce Barnaby.

Sarah:

But this whole Annabelle thing, it's like it's it's a like a triple red herring. Yeah. Like, oh, so you think, oh, that little girl, she's gonna come back into this, you know? The little girl from the cold opening, she's a killer, but she's not gone. She's gotta have some connection.

Mark:

So she has to be Annabelle Cross? But no. But no. No. Okay.

Sarah:

Yeah. So we've got this whole committee of folks who are in charge of the perfect village competition for Midsomer Mallow, which is the village we're in this time.

Mark:

I love that Tom asked her what

Mark:

first prize was. Yeah.

Sarah:

She's like, This is first prize. I get to go be a judge.

Mark:

That is a joke that always works and is always great.

Sarah:

Yeah. And I think it was kind of fun that Joyce is telling Tom about her winning this competition to you know, she won the prize. She gets to go be a judge and stay in these fancy hotels and everything. And she seems to be telling him, like, the day before she's leaving. Yeah.

Sarah:

Wouldn't you know, like, way in advance?

Mark:

You know in advance. And I also have a problem with the Barnabas parenting here because okay. Let's cover this. Want Cully to go away. Let's cover this.

Mark:

Cully has been sent down from Oxford. Right? She quit. Mhmm. She moved to the city to leave with her boyfriend and yet never goes away.

Mark:

No. Goes on vacation with them. Okay?

Sarah:

Well, and if Joyce is leaving the house, Cully has to appear to take care of Tom.

Mark:

And he's now writing a book.

Sarah:

The man never gets any time alone.

Mark:

None. He can live by himself. I'm sure he can. I'm sure he can live by himself.

Sarah:

But no. If Joyce is leaving, Cully has to show up.

Mark:

In the Midsomer Village, it's Midsomer Mallow that's made it through, and there's been no grisly murders but a spate of robberies.

Sarah:

Yeah. Just these little robberies committed by Peter Drinkwater and Jack Dorset. Peter Drinkwater is Orlando Bloom.

Mark:

Legolas. Yeah. He's bulking the daughter.

Sarah:

I remember the first time I saw this and I was like, who is that? That guy looks like Orlando Bloom, doesn't he? Wait a minute. That is Orlando Bloom.

Mark:

He is 23

Sarah:

in this. He's so young.

Mark:

Eighteen months later, he's in Blackhawk Down. Yeah. And six months after that, he's in New Zealand starting Lord of the Rings.

Sarah:

Yeah. Really, this role made his career, don't

Mark:

you Really? It did.

Sarah:

So let me tell you a little bit about Orlando Bloom because he's got an interesting childhood that I didn't know about. His mother and his dad, he was raised by his mom and dad. His dad's name was Harry Bloom, but his dad died when he was, he died when he was four. And then few years after that, his mom kind of moves in with this guy named Colin. Why didn't I write down his last name?

Sarah:

Who was a family friend. So, Colin had been a And friend of mom and dad and dad so, they kind of hook up. But then about a year or two after that, his mom admits that Colin is actually his dad. What? And that Harry Bloom, who he thought was his dad, knew that.

Sarah:

Harry Bloom had had a stroke that had caused him to become infertile. And so the three of them had made an arrangement because they really wanted to have kids. So she had two kids, Orlando and his sister, Samantha, with this family friend, and then her husband died. So she and the family friend hooked up and raised Samantha in Orlando.

Mark:

And now they're living in a Lord of the Rings house.

Sarah:

I just thought that was like a crazy story. You know?

Mark:

Wild and crazy.

Sarah:

Yeah. We've talked about Carolyn DeVeer, the daughter. She is played by an actress named Chloe Tucker. Well, say she's an actress. She was an actress at this point.

Sarah:

Yeah. But this is her last acting credit.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Then she went on to be a script editor, and like she worked in production after this. Okay. So she she didn't really act again.

Mark:

But there are people who do that.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah. There's lots of people who do that. But way to go out on a high point. Like, oh, yeah. I was an actor for a few years and the last role I was in, I was naked with Orlando Bloom.

Sarah:

Absolutely. Like, that's a pretty good story. Yeah. You know? But anyway, yeah.

Sarah:

So this is kind of her last big acting gig. Okay. And then she goes on to be a script editor.

Mark:

Okay. Let's take our foreshadowing pen and write some more script.

Sarah:

Okay.

Mark:

Which includes your parents would kill you if they knew you were here. And then she goes, my parents would kill you if they knew I was here.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

And guess what happens?

Sarah:

Well, and that's just the first of many references to killing Peter Drinkwater. I mean, really, the the perfect village committee really should be the we want to kill pillar Peter committee.

Mark:

Yeah. It

Sarah:

Everybody should be at that table has a motive.

Mark:

It's all full of red herrings.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Mark:

So he goes outside and he talks to Jack.

Sarah:

Jack Dorset, the butcher's son who's waiting by the van.

Mark:

Has a side gig as Tom Bailey of the Thompson twins.

Sarah:

He doesn't even look like him. I don't

Mark:

know what hair like Tom Bailey. Right.

Sarah:

He's disaffected disaffected the whole time.

Mark:

He's just king for one day. Okay. Anyway, they stand so close together.

Sarah:

They do.

Mark:

I was like, are you gonna kiss him, dude? Because there's nothing wrong with that, but no people stand there close together in time.

Sarah:

Just got out of bed with that lady, though.

Mark:

Well, we'll talk about that. And we'll talk about Orlando's lack of showering

Mark:

and what that probably means.

Sarah:

Did you notice he's got a little tattoo on his tummy?

Mark:

He has a little tattoo.

Sarah:

A little son.

Mark:

Little white shorts. So they're the robbers. Right? The Thompson twin and and Legolas are Jack. Are the robbers.

Mark:

And they're gonna hit this manor house because the guy's away. He's got a bunch of stuff.

Sarah:

So Jack Dorset, the the butcher's son, you're calling him the Thompson twins. He's played by this guy named Tobias Menzies, who's been in a ton of things.

Mark:

Game of Thrones.

Sarah:

He was in Game of Thrones and it's really it's a small part. He played Ed Mor Tully in Game of Thrones. But he was also in Rome. He was in Rome, which was a really big thing. He's been in Foils War.

Sarah:

Yep. But the most recent thing that he was in that I really liked was The Terror. It was that movie about the ship that got caught in the ice and there's the monster.

Mark:

Oh yeah. He was in that?

Sarah:

Yeah. The terror. If you haven't seen the terror and you like British stuff, it's

Mark:

And that book was good.

Sarah:

You read it. Was excellent. But the the movie's super good. So Peter and Jack are going to go commit another robbery, right? So they go to Greyfriars, which is Edward Alladise's house.

Sarah:

Now I was confused about this. So they show up dark, Right? Yes. They break a window to get in. So they must be fairly sure that he's not home.

Sarah:

Yes. Or they wouldn't be breaking a window to Well, come

Mark:

he told Ray the butcher he was going to London. That's right.

Sarah:

But when they're inside, they're like busting stuff up and then whispering.

Mark:

Yeah. Because okay. So you don't understand. As a criminal, when you're inside a building, you have to whisper.

Sarah:

Oh, so you can make big noise by like shattering a bowl, but then you have to whisper about it?

Mark:

Have to whisper. It's more dramatic.

Sarah:

I didn't know that. Yes. I thought maybe they were whispering so that they could hear the wheezing eyeball.

Mark:

So the wheezing eyeball, which is lit really badly, because if it was shown the way it was lit, you would

Mark:

go, There's someone right there.

Sarah:

Yeah. But we wouldn't be able to see it if it wasn't.

Mark:

Yeah. I actually thought it

Sarah:

was really well done. You got that because the eye is clearly somebody elderly, but you don't know if it's male or female. You don't know if it's threatening.

Mark:

He cuts the painting, and then they take off in Ray's van. Okay.

Sarah:

They steal all the clangy silver. Ka clang. Ka clang. Ka clang. Break the bulk.

Sarah:

Okay, Jack.

Mark:

I'm gonna tell you something. Maybe not use dad's van to steal stuff.

Sarah:

A bright white van. At least it doesn't say, like, Ray's Butcher Shop on

Mark:

the summer. Refrigerated van. There is probably five of these in all of Midsomer.

Sarah:

Yeah. And they're not they're not geniuses, obviously.

Mark:

But luckily, two geniuses, Tom and Burnaby, are on the case.

Sarah:

They're on the case. Right? So this is what the eighth burglary or something like that?

Mark:

This is seven break ins.

Sarah:

Seven break ins. So they come by in the morning to check it out. And it's Edward Alladice's house. He's a retired actor, you know, of the stage. He's very well known.

Sarah:

Why is the creepy doll from Annabelle's bedroom in Edward's study?

Mark:

Because everybody had those dolls. That's all I can think of.

Sarah:

Why does Edward have creepy dolls in his study? Foreshadowing. So so an elderly man has a doll thing because?

Mark:

Well, I think Jane has the doll thing. That's the implication.

Sarah:

Okay. But he wouldn't keep them in his study. Maybe he likes them.

Mark:

I don't know. And there's the dollhouse from Hamlet.

Sarah:

That's different. And that's that's in in the library. That's actually what I think is his study. The library is where the creepy dolls are.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

We don't keep any creepy dolls in our library.

Mark:

Did you notice that Tom is completely weirded out by the dolls? Yep. As you would be. He looks at them and he's

Sarah:

like, love. Do we have creepy stuff in our library?

Mark:

Yeah. We kinda do. We have masks and things like that.

Sarah:

Oh, we have a face hugger in there Yes. For aliens.

Mark:

We have a face hugger.

Sarah:

I guess we do have creepy stuff, but nothing like that doll. Well

Mark:

That's the doll of a killer child. Allodyse is obfuscating. Yeah.

Sarah:

He's like, oh, my wife is dead, by the way. She's dead. Dead, dead, dead, dead. She's not here. She's never here.

Sarah:

She's dead.

Mark:

And I accidentally saw a white van with this particular plate number.

Sarah:

I just happened to kind of notice it.

Mark:

Yes. The bastards.

Sarah:

And I dreamt that there were two of them. I just imagine. Doesn't it take two to rob something? Yes.

Mark:

They always come in pairs.

Sarah:

I didn't see it. What? Robbers? They They.

Mark:

They go to Ray's butcher shop where he knows everything.

Sarah:

Yeah. And so Ray is like, wow, you know who you'd talk to is that Peter Drinkwater because he's a rascal and a hooligan and he's a bad all around person and I'm sure it's him. And meanwhile, Jack's over in the corner slicing meat And I'm just waiting for him to like scream and hold up a bloody stump because he's so focused on that conversation. But Jack's got his back to the conversation and his head's like completely turned around like an owl and he's paying more attention. I mean, really there should be blood splattered on the tile from him chopping off his own hands.

Mark:

There's a good line in here too. First of all, Ray says, no one's moved to the village in five or six years. What kind of place is this? He says, Allody's was the last person to move to the village. And then he goes, but there's someone else.

Sarah:

Except for Peter.

Mark:

And then Troy goes, go on.

Sarah:

What kind of name is Drinkwater anyway?

Mark:

I don't know, but he's out at Windy Whistle Farm, which is a deserted farm. Boy, I have some problems here.

Sarah:

Windy Whistle? Yeah. So it's a whole farm with a completely ketted out kitchen, kitchen, by the way.

Mark:

Oh, absolutely.

Sarah:

Like, yeah, there's some buildings that are falling down. Deserted. That's the word that's used. Deserted. Yeah.

Sarah:

Nobody wants to move into this town. You know, Midsomer Mallow is not welcoming.

Mark:

Okay. I'm gonna get technical here. Alright. Peter has had sex with Caroline.

Sarah:

Yes. Now he's While his friend waited outside.

Mark:

Yeah. Which is He has had no time to shower. Nope. And now he's screwing the vet's wife.

Sarah:

Yep. For money. Ick. It's not like she's super classy anyway.

Mark:

No. It's two people who hate each other and hate themselves.

Sarah:

I think she likes to hate him, but she can't. She doesn't like that he hates her. Because she can give it, but she can't take it.

Mark:

And she's given him £50 for the bonking. Yeah. And then he throws his friend under the bus.

Mark:

Oh, can I kill Peter drinking water?

Sarah:

He's a bad person.

Mark:

Okay. Okay.

Sarah:

He has a tattoo and a necklace.

Mark:

Ah, he has a tattoo Can

Sarah:

you tell he's necklace. Bad? And he drives a Mini Cooper Yes. Which is very bad. So he leaves,

Mark:

and the vet is in the garage, which would be clearly visible. No.

Sarah:

No. He's in the shadow.

Mark:

It's not

Sarah:

shadow enough. He's a creepy vet. Lurking in the shadow.

Mark:

That would totally be seen.

Mark:

No. Like I'm surprised Drinkwater didn't wave to him on the way by. Yeah. Like he used to do. Five feet away from

Sarah:

Just bone in your wife. See you later, dude. Now Gordon is able to lurk in shadows. It's his skill. Like an elf, lurking shadows.

Mark:

Like an elf.

Mark:

Barnaby and Troy are at the farm and Peter shows up.

Sarah:

And doesn't get out of the car. He's like, no. But it's in reverse.

Mark:

It's just basically guilty of guilt town.

Sarah:

You can't catch me, cuppers. It's like, don't mind the clanging in the back of my car. It's just my silver collection.

Mark:

Well, and he's like, I

Mark:

don't care where you look. This is an abandoned, deserted mill. Why do they need

Sarah:

a warrant? Because they wanna do it by the book.

Mark:

By the book. And he says, I don't care where you look. And later on, Troy opens one door and finds everything. Yeah.

Sarah:

Like, he's not, like, hiding it real well. No. He's keeping it all in a cabinet in the kitchen, which is the one furnished room in the place as far as we know.

Mark:

Caroline is very upset with her parents.

Sarah:

Well, she's stiffy, starving.

Mark:

I'm 20 years old.

Sarah:

You can't tell me what to do even though I live under your roof and eat your food and

Mark:

I will go speak to him. Mano and mano. Oh, Marcus, you can do

Mark:

it anytime.

Sarah:

Mano y mano.

Mark:

She's upset, so she goes outside, and Caroline spills the

Sarah:

beans. Care no. Laura.

Mark:

Laura spills the beans.

Sarah:

Sorry. So here we go. Now we're gonna go back to our question. Does any of this happen without this conversation?

Mark:

Who just happens to be walking by. Like twenty seconds later, this whole thing doesn't happen.

Sarah:

What does Laura tell her?

Mark:

He has a tattoo on his stomach.

Sarah:

Okay. But I don't think Laura would be going around admitting that she's having an affair.

Mark:

It's weird that she's admitting. I think she says

Sarah:

think she does.

Mark:

I think she says he's sleeping with other women, not me.

Sarah:

Other other people. I heard that.

Mark:

Yeah. Ray told me. He he he's sleeping with his aunt. No. No.

Mark:

No. Not his aunt. What are the Cully Barnaby. He's sleeping with her.

Sarah:

I don't think Laura would admit that it's her. No. And I don't think but I don't think Carolyn would believe her if she didn't have like definitive proof. Because Carolyn's like, I love him and there's nothing you can do and we're gonna go live together and we're gonna run away and you can't stop us. And then thirty seconds later, Laura's stopping her and telling her something that completely changes her mind.

Sarah:

And Laura is not, Carolyn's not walking around going, I hate Laura. I hate Peter. She doesn't seem to be angry at Laura. So I don't think that's what she admits.

Mark:

I'm telling okay. I'll tell you what happened. There was a room of dudes and they were trying to figure this out.

Sarah:

Uh-huh. Script writers?

Mark:

Yep. And Horowitz goes, why don't we just tell them talking and not actually do the details? It doesn't matter. Silverstein goes, brilliant. Film it.

Sarah:

It doesn't matter what she says.

Mark:

Yep. All we know is we can fill in the details. We will exact closure on the scene.

Sarah:

I think it all still happens because Peter is still Peter. Yeah. He's still committing robberies. He's still sleeping around. He's still having sex for money.

Sarah:

He's still being disrespectful prick.

Mark:

But Bella wouldn't have killed him unless he was doing this because she's gonna live she's gonna run away with him. That's the thing that Bella doesn't like. Right. Not that he's a bastard. Right.

Mark:

That he's going away with Caroline, which Caroline I'm sorry, honey. He's not. It's not gonna happen.

Sarah:

No. So if Caroline wasn't delusional, would anything happen?

Mark:

Well, it runs in the family. Barnaby remembers Peter Drinkwater's record, and he looks it up on the shiny new color

Mark:

monitor computer.

Sarah:

He's got a record.

Mark:

He has a computer. So he has a a bunch of different records. English law in assault cases, you have this great named charge

Sarah:

called GBH.

Mark:

GBH. Grievous bodily harm. Yeah. Like, that's seriously good. That's such a good name.

Mark:

There is a ban named GBH. Okay? But then for car theft, what they call it is taking and driving away. And the van is owned by Ray Dorset. So Peter Which we knew, like, we could put that together.

Sarah:

Big guess. So Peter's bad. He moved to town to live with his aunt Barbara

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

Who's played by Barbara Jefford, who's also in the creeper episode.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

The one with the burglar?

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

Yeah. She's in that one. And but she seems like a real stand up person.

Mark:

Yeah. So It's his great aunt. So I think the parents were bad.

Sarah:

Oh, okay.

Mark:

You know what else is bad? That band.

Sarah:

Wow. Barbara Jefford, who plays Barbara Drinkwater, by the way, his his great aunt, she's in Campion, which we've already talked about. But her husband, the actress's husband in real life, is the guy who plays Spode in Jeeves and Wooster.

Mark:

Oh, okay.

Sarah:

Spode, the guy who's kind of starting the the neo knee brigade that, like, they're kind of like Nazis, they're all about shorts.

Mark:

Oh, so Spode's not the guy with the nudes. That's another guy. No. Spode's the the Nazi guy.

Sarah:

Yeah. With the shorts showing off his knees all the time.

Mark:

That's her husband. Oh, wow.

Sarah:

It's a it's a fun character. He's really funny. He's fun.

Mark:

Anyway So then everybody gets pissed off at Peter. It's pissed off at Peter day.

Sarah:

Everybody hates Peter.

Mark:

Mom hates Peter. Ray hates Peter. Edward hates Peter. The vet hates Peter. Everybody's pissed.

Sarah:

Gordon is so mad at Peter that he ditches a cat in the middle of a surgery.

Mark:

Just ditches it.

Sarah:

He's the worst vet ever. You finish. Poor cat's laying there all laid open. And Laura's like,

Mark:

I don't think Laura has the skills to finish this job.

Sarah:

I don't think so either, poor cat. And then later, he's got chinos covered in cat blood. Maybe it was that cat.

Mark:

Maybe. Pitchfork cam. I don't

Sarah:

This would not work. Okay? It just wouldn't work. Okay. Unless that pitchfork was like razor sharp.

Mark:

But she's strong because she's loony.

Sarah:

He's not up against anything. He's just standing there. He's a third her age. He could easily just take another step back. He could easily swipe it to

Mark:

the side. Also I have in It my notes just doesn't work. I have in my notes, Legolas fails to make his dick stared.

Mark:

Little d and d reference

Sarah:

for you. Dramatic, though. I'll give it to them. It's dramatic. It's it's a great it's a great murder scene.

Sarah:

He's standing there, and he goes, what? And then cock.

Mark:

And they do a really good job of cutting here. Right? Because they show the pitchfork advancing, and then it's cut really well so that you don't realize that Legolas already has the pitchfork in him. Yeah. And then he pulls it a little bit more and then falls down.

Mark:

Right. He does a good fall down.

Sarah:

Yeah. He does. And you see it, you have that nice like pitchforged cam and then you have this side shot because this is a typical British home where they have doors aplenty. Like they have doors to doors, And doors to every room has a door no matter what. There's no open plan anything.

Sarah:

So there's a door that leads to the foyer, which has another door that leads outside. And so we get this great view of him from the side as the pitchfork goes into him. Yep.

Mark:

It's it's very That's

Sarah:

what I'm gonna say when somebody comes to our door and tries to kill me.

Mark:

What? And eight seconds later, the cops show up.

Sarah:

Yep. Oh, for heaven's sakes, Tom says. Oh, for heaven's sakes. He's like, this whole county's full of loonies.

Mark:

And Troy finds the stuff in, like, two seconds.

Mark:

He goes through one door and lifts up a a piece of canvas and is like, oh, here's all the stuff.

Sarah:

Well, to his credit, he goes in the very next room. Yeah. It's right there. You know, that fancy computer in the plastic bag. Yep.

Sarah:

Because that's what they steal stuff in is plastic bags.

Mark:

No. No. That's an evidence bag that they bring it back to all day soon later.

Sarah:

I'm just glad they had that big CRT monitor and thought it was valuable.

Mark:

Our favorite guest star, coroner. Toby. Toby's here. Toby's fancy in this episode. Yeah.

Mark:

He's got a shirt and tie on. His hair is all combed.

Sarah:

He's like, shame you didn't get here sooner. I think he only died five minutes ago.

Mark:

I think he literally flew in to do two scenes and is out.

Sarah:

Peter's heart just stopped beating, and then you showed up, Tom.

Mark:

Like and you see Bella running on

Mark:

Yeah. To the background.

Sarah:

She's still in the back with a pitchfork. I got him.

Mark:

Skewered like a spud on Guy Fawkes night.

Sarah:

They do the right thing. They bag the handle of the pitchfork. Right? So the head and the handle are both bagged. That's good.

Sarah:

Because at first, I thought just the head was bagged. I'm like, okay. That doesn't work. The pointy end

Mark:

and the stick end

Sarah:

are They bagged the whole thing. But then Toby just stands up and goes, Sarah, and walks out. And a woman walks in

Mark:

And it got by to be done. A Right? Just kept thinking like together

Sarah:

they were Sarah. Sarah and Ril? Yeah. Okay. Like the hive mind of ambulance people.

Sarah:

In the green outfit. And he just calls Sarah and they appear.

Mark:

So underneath the body, underneath Legolas, they find a credit card, which I'm now obsessed with credit cards

Mark:

in this television show. Well, and

Sarah:

we find out later that Gordon planted that. How did he get it under his body?

Mark:

No. I don't think Gordon planted it. I think he stole it.

Sarah:

Oh, he stole it when he was Bonkin' Laura?

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Oh, okay.

Mark:

That's what I think happened.

Sarah:

I thought Gordon planted it.

Mark:

It's Gordon's Briley's Lloyd's TSB asset card, 540440012345678, and you cannot tell the last digit. The expiry is 05/2001, by the way. Mister Gordon Briarley Mastercard.

Sarah:

Wouldn't it be doctor? You would think. See, you ruined it for me because I had this awesome scene in my head of Bella stabbing him and falling down, her running off with her bloody pitchfork. Gordon sneaking in, sliding a credit card under the body, then him sneaking away.

Mark:

And then Ray driving by.

Mark:

And then Ray

Sarah:

drives by, and then Toby pulls up. He's just now dead. There was all this like Benny Hill stuff going on in my head. I guess it makes more sense that Peter stole it.

Mark:

That's no fun at all. Sorry. They're off to the butcher shop.

Sarah:

Let's go back to the font of all knowledge.

Mark:

Jack gets accused of what he's been doing.

Sarah:

Yeah. Well, there's only two young people in town besides Carolyn.

Mark:

I hate my life.

Sarah:

And one of them is already bad. So and dead. So who's left? It must be Jack.

Mark:

And Jack's holding the bag here. Now Ray does a good job. He stands up for his son. He says that other kid did it.

Sarah:

But Yeah. He says he didn't know what he was doing. What did he think

Mark:

he How did was accidentally steal something?

Sarah:

When did Peter tell Jack, oh, we're just removals guys now. It was just an accident. These people are moving. We're helping them. Okay.

Sarah:

But we gotta do it real quiet.

Mark:

Okay. And whisper.

Sarah:

And move it all to our place.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Oh, move it all to Windy Whistle Farm. I still can't do it. It's deserted. Because that's where they're moving. Everybody's moving in there.

Sarah:

And Jack's like, okay.

Mark:

And Ray brings up the red Renault, which is missus DeVeers' car. Yeah. But it had tinted windows.

Sarah:

And when they go and confront the DeVeers, Marcus says I was driving it.

Mark:

I have in all capital letters in my notes, the following sentence. Does no one in this county know how to play Scrabble?

Sarah:

It's a contentious game.

Mark:

First of all, her word is screaming. Mhmm. Which is a word in the dictionary, but not in the Scrabble dictionary. Marcus is correct.

Sarah:

You are a super nerd.

Mark:

It is 14 points according to the British Scout Scrabble lettering. Okay. Okay. E is a triple word score on letter position F 14. So if you go down from the top F and 14, sorry, 14 rows down and six letters across.

Mark:

So that's how the scrabble board is listed.

Sarah:

You can't see me right now. My eyes are getting bigger the nerdier he gets. Go on.

Mark:

That is at most 14 plus the two extra for the triple letter score, 16. But Bella, who is nutsy, suddenly says it's 21. Now she is correct that using all of her tiles to spell screamy does give her an extra 50 points. But instead of 71, she should have 66.

Sarah:

Do you feel better now? I do.

Mark:

I watched that scene. I looked at Scrabble Boards.

Mark:

I read the British Scrabble Board rules.

Sarah:

Oh my god. I don't want anybody to think that you have no life. You are one of the busiest people I know. I can't believe you spent that much time on that. It's not even important.

Mark:

It's not even a word. I agree with Marcus. All it

Sarah:

proves is that Marcus loves her a

Mark:

lot.

Mark:

Yes. He loves her.

Sarah:

So And he's willing

Mark:

to let her lets her cheat.

Sarah:

Yes. He loves her. And where do they live?

Mark:

Oh, we'll get there. Llorien. Los Llorien. So Culley shows up and they're talking about Samantha Johnson at this point in time at the Barnaby's house. Right?

Mark:

And she says that Samantha Johnson's been replaced and she writes the Sister Claire Chronicles books, not real books. Okay. They are seen they're a village is seen through the eyes of a retired nun. I maybe wanna read those books.

Sarah:

Oh my god. They sound so boring.

Mark:

Little Night's Bridge is the first thing and then Midsomer Mallow. Right. So then we get back to the Devere's house, is called Lothlorien.

Sarah:

Which is a reference to Lord of the Rings.

Mark:

Which is stunning because at no way possible could anyone on this set know that Legolas was gonna be Legolas.

Sarah:

I can only think that that house actually had that name, but I I couldn't find proof of that.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

Because it's there on the wall. The house is surrounded by a wall.

Mark:

And it's on a wall.

Sarah:

Yeah. And I I could only think that it was there. And the showrunners thought, well, we have to acknowledge that it's there because we can't film this entry into this wall without it showing. Or maybe the people who own the house said, if you're gonna show the house, you gotta show the name.

Mark:

Maybe. And this is all the like, is all in or around Oxfordshire. It's not strange that a buddy of Tolkien

Sarah:

Tolkien reference somewhere. Yeah. So Lothlorien But at some point, Horowitz must have been like, called it. Yeah. So

Mark:

but I'll get to that. So Lothlorien is a realm of wooden wooden valley with the Elven center of resistance against Sorin. So it is an Elven place.

Sarah:

I just thought it was odd that Tom recognizes the name first because I don't think of him as a big Tolkien reader, but maybe he is.

Mark:

He reads the bible. He reads a whole bunch of other stuff.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah. He's he's a well rounded guy. Okay. So let's say he does read Tolkien. But even then, it's odd because the Deveres don't have any tie to it.

Sarah:

There's no other reference to it. There's no reason. If they could have just ignored the name of the house, I think they would.

Mark:

Troy doesn't like dwarves and fairies. He likes books with in them. Yeah. Whatever that means. I

Sarah:

don't know what he's reading.

Mark:

I don't know. Your car was seen and Marcus, I love him, takes the blame. Yeah. Like a good man does.

Sarah:

He's a good guy.

Mark:

Yep. I went to see him. I was gonna

Sarah:

have a mano y mano conversation. Yep. He wasn't there.

Mark:

And I saw Ray.

Sarah:

Well, he says he pulls up and

Mark:

he toot toots. Which I was like, you toot, dude? No wonder he didn't come out.

Sarah:

He pulled

Mark:

up and went.

Sarah:

And Peter didn't run out.

Mark:

Who's that farting in my

Sarah:

courtyard? In my windy whistle. Who's that toot in my windy whistle? But, like, Peter's not the kind of guy who would be like, oh, someone's honking. I'll run outside and see who it is.

Sarah:

He'd be like flipping him the bird from the window.

Mark:

It's just weird.

Sarah:

Come and get me, old man.

Mark:

Then there's a completely useless scene at a nursery.

Sarah:

Oh, it's just more evidence that Carolyn is delusional. She's just Listen little plant, nobody's gonna buy

Mark:

you if you don't cheer up a little bit. My mother's crazy

Mark:

and so am I.

Sarah:

Well, and also, in the same scene where Marcus says that he was the one driving the car and then he went at them windy whistle. Bella picks up this picture of Carolyn where she's just wet. Yeah. It's the worst picture ever. And Barnaby's like, lovely.

Mark:

No. It it looks like a

Sarah:

portrait, like a professionally taken picture. Of her wet. But she's wet. I don't I don't have any portraits of my children looking wet.

Mark:

So we need to have another meeting about judgment day. A meeting about judgment day. We should talk about judgment day at the meeting.

Sarah:

It's really the let's kill committee.

Mark:

It's the let's kill Peter committee judgment day meeting. Why don't By the way, judgment day.

Sarah:

Troy and Tom just need to go to this meeting and go, which of you did it?

Mark:

For the children, judgment day will go forward.

Sarah:

For the children? It's the apocalypse day.

Mark:

And this is the one time where Laura's like,

Sarah:

Maybe not. And they're like overruled judgment. Overruled. There will be judgment.

Mark:

We have more Edward Alledice scenes where he gets haughty and I was in London. My wife died in a car crash.

Sarah:

Yeah. But this is the one where they film him in front of the painting that they've that that Peter slashed. Where now where does he slash the painting? I'm so glad you asked. He slashes it across the cheek, the left cheek.

Mark:

Wow. Edward Alladise has a big scar across his left cheek. Yeah. Amazing. Is he Dorian Gray?

Sarah:

And he stands in front of the painting that looks a lot like him, but younger with the slash and the scar.

Mark:

Jane died in a car accident.

Mark:

Deady dead.

Mark:

She's dead.

Sarah:

We haven't talked about him though. We should talk about him a little bit because, while we're at it, Edward Alladise is played by Moray Watson.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Who wasn't a Campion because everybody was. He was also in Cat Weasel. Oh. But most exciting, he plays colonel Bantry in the body in the library from '84.

Mark:

That's right. The Marple we just watched.

Sarah:

Episode where he's like, I'm not getting out of bed. There's no body in my library. And he's like, oh, but Sarah, there's a body in the library. He's like, no. There's not a body in the library.

Sarah:

But Sarah, there is.

Mark:

But that doesn't really differentiate And then he goes the other body

Sarah:

in the library. Downstairs and he goes, Drex, there's actually a body in the library.

Mark:

Yes. Yeah. He's very good.

Sarah:

Morey Watson was in a a ton ton ton of things. But, yeah, he's, colonel Bantry.

Mark:

Cost an echo come. I'm, like, obsessed with the print materials.

Sarah:

Scrabble, newspapers, and credit cards. Really, that's what this show's gonna become.

Mark:

Police probe for pitchfork killer pitchfork killer, which is right, but a little sensationalized. Underneath that, hundreds of jobs inside. See special pullout. You know where there's a job?

Mark:

Where? In the butcher shop.

Sarah:

Because Jack's going to jail.

Mark:

And there's a picture of the farm, and and Tom doesn't want Joyce to see it, so he puts it behind the radiator, which is a fire hazard.

Sarah:

Big time. But it is July, so it's not like they're gonna be turning the heat on

Mark:

until But still, I was like, okay. And then the Barnaby's house burns down.

Sarah:

I thought it was sweet that he didn't want her to see it I know. Because it would have stressed her out.

Mark:

It is sweet, but there are other places you could put a newspaper.

Sarah:

Surprise. There was a killing. Like, she'd be like, yeah. Big

Mark:

shock. But they do a good job of it later because they ask if the the rest of the judges knew. She was like, yeah. The gardening judge, like, bought the paper in the morning and showed us everybody.

Mark:

He made a joke about Yeah.

Sarah:

So then we get to meet the judges

Mark:

at the calling Ed in the car on the M 40, which is actually on the M 40.

Sarah:

She's very important.

Mark:

She is. She's an important

Sarah:

editor of Country Matters even though she hates the country. Yes. So Rosemary, the big magazine executive is Maggie Stead as the actress. She's also in Schooled for Murder Yep. In 2013 and in Left four Dead in 2008.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

So this is her first of three Midsomer appearances. But I knew her best from Pie in the Sky.

Mark:

Yeah. That's right. She's in Pie in the Sky. She's his wife, isn't she?

Sarah:

Yep. She's an accountant who's married to a former cop who's become a chef, and he solves crimes. She's also in a year in Provence. Did you ever see that?

Mark:

So when did that come out?

Sarah:

It it was, like, '88 or something like that.

Mark:

I think we may have seen that in an arthouse movie theater.

Sarah:

No. Because it was a series.

Mark:

Oh, then I didn't see it.

Sarah:

So You're in Provence is based on a memoir by Peter Male.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

And John Thaw plays Peter Male.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

John Thaw who plays Yeah. She's in that. And it's another show that's kind of like a little warm hug show. It's really good. But she was also in The Young Ones.

Mark:

Well.

Sarah:

That like, you can't get much different than

Mark:

Yeah. The Young Ones is the most whack job show ever. And I love every single part of it.

Sarah:

Every single minute of it. But she's really young. It's very funny. Yeah. So so Rosemary Furman is our first judge.

Sarah:

Our second judge is Frank Manion.

Mark:

Who is very low and talks very quietly to his plants. And then the camera is off and he's special.

Sarah:

I'm off.

Mark:

Bye bye. Bye bye.

Mark:

And that It's interesting.

Sarah:

Because when we meet Frank, he's he's in front of the camera filming his gardening show. Right? And then he's off to be a And

Mark:

the actor says cut the director says cut. Yeah. And he says, that's it, Jeremy. I'm off on the road. Well, the director is played by Jeremy Silverstone.

Sarah:

Oh, that's so meta.

Mark:

And Roger Tooley, is the Steadicam operator for the episode, he plays the camera operator. So it's the crew playing the crew. And they all kinda turn and look at the camera. It it's their, hey, mom. I was on the show moment.

Sarah:

That's so cute. Yeah.

Mark:

I think it's super cool.

Sarah:

Well, Frank Mannan, he's also in the creeper, which is a 2,009 episode.

Mark:

Which has Ray May all from

Sarah:

From The Young Ones.

Mark:

From The Young Ones.

Sarah:

Yeah, there's a little loop. And Barbara Jefford, who plays Barbara Drinkwater is also in The Creeper. Yeah. So they they reunite for an episode a few years later.

Mark:

It been since we did a Midsomer? Let's do another one.

Sarah:

Yeah. He's also in a Bergerac, so he and John Nettles had been in something together before too.

Mark:

Samantha Johnston, he's drinking up a storm, though.

Sarah:

She's played by Josephine Tooson, best known for being Hyacinth Bouquet's next door neighbor Yes. And keeping up appearances. No.

Mark:

I don't like keeping up appearances. I know

Sarah:

She's so funny.

Mark:

I know you all like keeping up appearances, but I I don't like Hyacinth. And people have told me, that's the point. You're not supposed to like her. I don't want to spend any time

Sarah:

with her. I don't think you like her because I think you grew up around women who were a lot like her.

Mark:

I could have. Yes.

Sarah:

I think there were some women in the WI who were a lot that. But Josephine Toussaint is a very funny actress.

Mark:

And she's putting it on here.

Sarah:

She does a great drunk. Yeah. She's how how many bottles has she put into the trash while she's still waiting for the train?

Mark:

So that's like five shots right there.

Sarah:

And she's not even on the train whiskey. She's drinking whiskey. And she doesn't even seem to enjoy it. She's like

Mark:

words. She's just drunken to maintain.

Sarah:

Yep. Just to keep it together.

Mark:

They're staying at a real nice place. Yeah. And there's a judge meeting and we find out the editor hates country hotels and that Rose not Rosemary, Samantha was in a place where you go to when you're depressed. Yeah. The retreat.

Sarah:

One of those places. Yes.

Mark:

And then there's a whole bunch of really mean spirited homosexual jokes.

Sarah:

Yeah. You just wanna pursue your interest in pansies.

Mark:

It's just it's horrible. But Frank, you know It really shows his age. And meanwhile Frank doesn't let it bother him, though. No. He doesn't.

Mark:

But it is, you know, that trope of the actor who is all over young men that, you know, in the last couple of years we've seen is maybe not the best trope to be. Yeah.

Sarah:

Don't they make a joke later about how Frank disappeared with a waiter or something that night?

Mark:

And Samantha's in the background putting more booze away.

Sarah:

That's what she does to hold it together. Frankly, if I had to hang out with Rosemary, I think I might need to drink too.

Mark:

Yes. I'm interested in Scrabble. And yes, I'm interested in credit cards. Yes. I'm always interested in the cost and echo.

Mark:

But we watched the scene in which we find out that Edward Allodice's wife didn't die a bunch of times because you wanted to look at a sign in the background.

Sarah:

We did because it's a poster of two coats hanging on a rack, but one of the coats has a hand coming out of it. And it's in the station, and it says snatch point. Snatch point. I guess it's a warning that when you hang your coat up with other people's coats, if you have valuables in your coat, it's an easy place to get them stolen.

Mark:

It can be snatched.

Sarah:

Whoever did the the posters in the police station are very realistic for the time. It's the exact kind of like public announcement kind of posters.

Mark:

And telephone numbers, if you remember.

Sarah:

Yeah. That that you would get. It's not the best poster in the episode, though. That one's still coming.

Mark:

Okay. So we're off to the vet's house. Yes. To talk to his wife as adults.

Sarah:

Laura, who's the most uncomfortable she could possibly be.

Mark:

Because she has to talk about bonking.

Sarah:

But first she talks about leptospirosis.

Mark:

Yes. Because some cows have it.

Sarah:

Yeah. So what's leptospirosis? Leptospirosis is a bacterial infection that cows can get, that humans can catch from contact with cow urine.

Mark:

I grew up on a farm.

Sarah:

When cows have it, their urine often turns red. So stay away from the red pee and you won't get it. But it's funny that she's talking about leptospirosis and cow disease. Milk? Yes.

Sarah:

Want some milk in your coffee? And Troy's like, No, ew. That's the last thing he wants.

Mark:

It's just about supply and demand.

Sarah:

Yeah. She's paying for sex with Peter because Gordon isn't willing.

Mark:

I guess. He's not very good in the demand department.

Sarah:

He's too busy being creepy.

Mark:

We have a difference of opinion of the vet. To me, the vet is like at the end of his rope, and he appears creepy, but he's just like, I've had enough of your crap, lady, and I'm gonna show you how much crap that you live with, and out the door you go.

Sarah:

But the way he goes about it and how much he enjoys it is creepy.

Mark:

It is a little. I was spaying a cat because he trying to

Sarah:

frame her, you know, like, you're gonna back up my fake alibi. Now you're really in it. Yep. And I never left. My credit card.

Mark:

Yeah. Yeah. So then we're off to Little Kirkbridge. Mhmm. The town crier is actually an alderman, and he speaks in rhyme.

Sarah:

It's so painful. And the Morris dancers come out and, oh, it's so bad.

Mark:

So then we cut to this telephone call in which Joyce is talking about the different dancers they saw.

Sarah:

Yeah. She's, like, summarizing her day to Tom. Right?

Mark:

And she says that she saw Abbott's Bromley horn dancers. Mhmm. Oh, boy. Did I fall down a rabbit's hole?

Sarah:

Did you Google the horn dance?

Mark:

I watched a twenty minute documentary on the Abbott's Bromley horn dance. Did you make your

Sarah:

students watch it too?

Mark:

No. I should have. The video the documentary begins with the fool going to the butcher shop because he needs to fill up a pig's bladder with air to carry it around like a balloon.

Sarah:

Is he gonna toot? I Okay.

Mark:

It's in the first Monday in September. There's a vicar. Like, this documentary is a Midsomer episode waiting

Sarah:

waiting for somebody to get murdered

Mark:

while you're goes, it's pagan with a small p.

Sarah:

Oh. You have to get a link to this video.

Mark:

Oh, yes. I will. Abbe's from oh, and their website because their the dance has its own website.

Sarah:

Okay.

Mark:

They have giant reindeer antlers, which they wear on their heads. They assume these are brought from Vikings roughly around ten fifth. There's a hobby horse, which is a a man dressed as a woman with a big skirt riding a horse that has a snappy mouth.

Sarah:

Right. That snaps at people.

Mark:

Now remember, this is small p pagan. Mhmm. I don't know what big p

Mark:

pagan is.

Sarah:

Big p pagan is burning the wicker man.

Mark:

This is pretty close because all these characters appear in the wicker man too. By the way, watch the wicker man.

Sarah:

Jesus Christ.

Mark:

Not the the new Wicker Man. No. The original. The original Wicker Man. There's a boy with an arrow shooting the hobby horse.

Mark:

Mhmm. There's maid Marion played by a man Mhmm. Which he says everybody makes from of fun of him for being a cock and a frock. Yep. There's the fool with the pig's bladder, and it's all to help crops.

Mark:

Now remember, small pee pigging. Yeah. There is also a triangle player and this is how you get into the dance. You play the triangle.

Sarah:

That's like the the lowest man on the go to ball.

Mark:

The lowest man in an accordion player. There's a website that I will post a video. This video. There's lots of websites of this happening, and I will post it all in the show notes, including a link to their website, which is awesome.

Sarah:

There is an episode of some British show that includes that dance where somebody gets killed during the dance. And the trick, the reason the murderer gets away with it, is that he's in the hobby horse costume and he swaps out with somebody else. And I can't remember what it is.

Mark:

It's not a Midsomer. No. But, yeah, you're right. But this dance is only done in one tiny little town. Yeah.

Mark:

Why would they be doing it at, Little Kirkbridge? I don't understand. Basically, they did a search for dances that they do in small towns and they listed that one. Yeah. And I went down a rabbit hole for twenty minutes.

Sarah:

It's it's pretty fantastic. It's high production value. I know that.

Mark:

It is.

Sarah:

So Then we cut back to Joyce at the hotel and she's run into who at the bar? Samantha, big surprise.

Mark:

Samantha at the bar, what are you gonna have? Yeah.

Sarah:

Two double whiskeys please. What are you gonna have?

Mark:

So Cully here says that there's a homicidal maniac wandering around the town, Midsomer Mallow with a pitchfork. She is correct. But Tom poo poos it.

Sarah:

Well, and it's another case of Cully. She's almost like the deus ex machina. Every once in a while, she's like, I just have a conversation with my father where I reveal something incredibly important that he runs off and implements because I accidentally told him something important. Edward Alladise is a famous actor. He wouldn't murder anybody.

Mark:

Which I thought was interesting because what happens in the episode in which the famous actor who runs the theater Is the murderer. Murderer. He he he kills the local dinghyun.

Sarah:

And then, you know, Laura is digging around in the wardrobe and finds an incredibly bloody pair of chinos.

Mark:

Yes. I killed an animal. It was a nasty little creature. And then

Sarah:

I smeared it all over my trousers.

Mark:

But I know what was on the trousers. I absolutely know. A 100%.

Sarah:

Cat blood.

Mark:

No. No? No. What? Red herring blood.

Sarah:

He squeezed it out onto his genos.

Mark:

Marcus is on his tractor. It's judgment day.

Sarah:

So Gordon is trying to get Laura to get out of the house because it's time to go to the green because the judges are coming.

Mark:

But no, I have to stab the ground.

Sarah:

Yeah. But then he's

Mark:

in the yard digging around. Stabbing the ground with a pitchfork.

Sarah:

So he's trying to convince her that he could be the killer just to freak her out.

Mark:

Dabby. Dabby. So he runs out

Sarah:

to the yard and says, I've got a little pitchfork. I'm gonna dig in the ground where she'll see me just to freak her out.

Mark:

I I I have the following notes. Marcus is not a tractor, smiley face. Sausages, homemade wine. The vet is killing the ground.

Sarah:

It's like he's looking at her going, I'm a killer. See, I have a pitchfork.

Mark:

Cully goes off to the Allodices, and the only really important thing that happens is she forgets her her recorder.

Sarah:

Yeah. Alladice is nice to her.

Mark:

He is.

Sarah:

He says, don't want to do an interview. No interview. Well, I'll tell you anything you want to know.

Mark:

The judges are arriving soon and the vet has a necklace. And he's just really freaked Laura out.

Sarah:

He's just trying to creep her out maximum. So Ray Dorsett, the butcher, he's in charge of food for the get together. It's all meat and he brings chicken wings. Yeah. And I just think that's the worst food to serve at something like this.

Mark:

Yeah. Like sausage rolls make sense.

Sarah:

You can eat those at room temperature, but Yeah. But cold or room temperature chicken wings are not good. No. And it's a big old platter

Mark:

of chicken wings. Deveres are responsible for the wine, and missus Deveres, when she's meeting the judge, makes up a story.

Sarah:

Oh, I see somebody taking something,

Mark:

which is so lame. Meanwhile, the vet, stabby stabby. Yeah. Let me give you a historical tour.

Sarah:

He's all nice. Walking him around.

Mark:

Essentially, what has happened is Bella has recognized Samantha. Samantha. And so she's decided to kill Samantha.

Sarah:

Okay? So she's got to sneak off and poison a bottle of wine.

Mark:

Because Samantha must instantly know that Bella killed Legolas.

Sarah:

That Bella is Annabelle. Yeah. And if people know she's Annabelle, then they'll know she probably killed Peter. Yeah. But this is where we get the dudes.

Mark:

So Bella goes to the wine table, and there are three dudes behind her.

Sarah:

In every shot that's facing the wine table, there are three men standing behind her in the grass

Mark:

Daring at the camera.

Sarah:

Just standing there.

Mark:

And not doing anything else.

Sarah:

They're not acting. They're they look like they've been playing freeze tag, and they're all frozen. And there's a a bow lathe behind them, like a like a medieval bow lathe way back in the back.

Mark:

But they're just standing there.

Sarah:

Yeah. Now, listener, dear listener, now that you know these three gentlemen are standing behind Bella in the grass in this scene, you must go and look at them.

Mark:

You can't unsee them now.

Sarah:

You can't unsee them once you see them. And then in a minute, they have a jaunty fourth friend who shows up with the most egregious mullet ever.

Mark:

It's it's he's he's got gray, but it looks pink in the sunlight.

Sarah:

Mullet. It's like a Sammy Hagar mullet. Yeah. It's just bad. And still, they're like, we're acting, aren't we?

Sarah:

Whenever I see somebody really awkward like that kind of in the background of a show like like Midsomer, I always think they must have won a contest and they got to be an extra. They And know they want to do.

Mark:

Won a standing and staring at the camera contest. They're so ominous and weird. Cully leaves the big house with Ed, and they lock the door. And there's a Dutch angle shot there that I know my favorite cameraman. Dude.

Sarah:

Okay. You just went green land. Dutch angle is from the ground up?

Mark:

No. Dutch angle is off center. It's everywhere. Everything looks tilted? Yes.

Mark:

Okay. Usually to imply mental illness.

Sarah:

But there's also ground up Yeah.

Mark:

It's also kind of ground up.

Sarah:

Fires a lot. Yeah. It's to make the house look big and ominous.

Mark:

Yeah. Yeah. And there's a badly damaged hand and we find out first of all, we find out that Nico suggested that Culley do this. Now let's go back a second. This book that Culley's writing, and I'm gonna put book and writing in quotes here, is about the Costin Playhouse.

Sarah:

Yes.

Mark:

Okay. She has dropped the lead because the book that she should be writing about, the Costin Playhouse, is about how the director went insane and killed

Mark:

a bunch of people.

Sarah:

There is a story there.

Mark:

But no, she's writing a history. What is the market for this book?

Sarah:

The gift shop of the costume playhouse. I guess. And the two people who might buy it there.

Mark:

And Nico suggested this. Did Nico suggest this as he drove by the apartment in London?

Sarah:

As he was like, you ought to go visit your parents and write a book. Bye.

Mark:

My boyfriend my boyfriend Nico suggested this. He's the one I spend no time with.

Sarah:

I think Nico has just perfected how to get rid of cully.

Mark:

At the tent, the vet, and I know we're in a minutiae already in this episode, but the vet mentions pancake races.

Sarah:

Yeah. So what the hell is a pancake race?

Mark:

So first of

Mark:

all, it's on Shrove Tuesday,

Sarah:

which is pancake Tuesday. Okay.

Mark:

And the reason why pancakes are served on pancake Tuesday is you put all the stuff that you can't eat on Lent into one meal, which is pancake. Sugar, water, butter, milk, all that sort of stuff. Okay. Okay. Anyone who's had the pleasure of a pancake race before, here are the basics.

Mark:

Okay. It is a food preparation sporting event performed every February. You run a relay race in which you have to flip the pancake in a pan as you race. So you have to run to a certain point, stop, flip your pancake, and then are allowed to move on by the judges. Okay.

Mark:

Now the pancake is already cooked in most races, but these races happen all over the country of Britain on pancake Tuesday. Okay.

Sarah:

These are not pancakes anybody wants to eat.

Mark:

No. No. No. No.

Sarah:

I just think when it gets when I get stuck in confusion, I just I just think about Marcus tuning at Wendy whistle.

Mark:

Speaking of Marcus, he pulls Barnaby and Troy aside and says, you're you're not gonna sink us. The murderer, are you? Right. I'm like, dude, it's all gonna go south in a second here.

Sarah:

You're doomed. You're not gonna get perfect village.

Mark:

You are not getting perfect village. No. And Joyce has given up all the dirt on the other judges. Barbara's got

Sarah:

the band going as loud as possible.

Mark:

And Ray and the gardener have this weird encode conversation. I wonder if Ray Ray is is gay.

Sarah:

What do you mean?

Mark:

Because he talks about his garden and it's important to have a nice patch and they hit that word patch. And I think there's an implication that we're not getting there.

Sarah:

Oh, that's not how I saw it at all. I saw it as Ray was trying to butter up to the judges and he's like, Oh, I really like your show. And then Frank puts him on the spot and says, Do you have a garden? That's probably it. Ray's like, I got a little

Mark:

patch. Yeah, that's probably it.

Sarah:

Like, he's embarrassed that he doesn't have a real garden.

Mark:

No. I'm sorry. A garden guy who runs a gardening show has got to know that not everybody who watches this sow has a garden.

Sarah:

Right. So Ray should have just said, no, but I wish I did.

Mark:

Exactly.

Sarah:

Bella gets sick.

Mark:

Somebody says, I'm dying here. Yeah. Foreshadowing.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

She drinks from the glass, and Bella drinks from the glass, and Bella's drink gives her slo mo.

Sarah:

And spinny.

Mark:

And yet she's smart enough to hit the wine table. It's Bella's Bella's nutsy bobo.

Sarah:

She's a homicidal maniac, but she's not stupid.

Mark:

But she's smart. Yeah. And then the editor's dead. Rosemary's dead. Toby's on the scene.

Mark:

And he shows up, like, five seconds after somebody dies.

Sarah:

And as soon as he looks at her, he's like, it's cyanide. She's pink. Did you know one in four people can't smell it?

Mark:

And Bella only had one sip.

Sarah:

Like, you put cyanide in that whole bottle. Yeah. And Rosemary only had a sip because she thinks it's gross. Yeah. She takes one swig, puts the glass back on the tray.

Sarah:

Yeah. The kid carrying the tray, by the way, his name's Jack. That's Anthony Horowitz's son.

Mark:

Oh, there we go. Mhmm. He has a line or two.

Sarah:

His first name is Cassian. Yeah. Cassian Horowitz.

Mark:

He's got a line or two.

Sarah:

Yep. So this is one of those one of those episodes with a little nod to the people behind the camera, I think.

Mark:

Yep. So we go to the vet's house. But Oh, it's okay. I was just freaking you out.

Sarah:

Because Laura accuses Gordon in front of Troy. Did you kill her?

Mark:

Yeah. They have

Sarah:

Did you?

Mark:

They have to have a conversation.

Sarah:

Clearly, Laura's on edge.

Mark:

I'm freaking out. You killed him. Get out of my house.

Sarah:

Yeah. You can't blame him for kicking her out, but I think freaking her out in the way he did is a little weird.

Mark:

Now, this episode is tight, right?

Sarah:

It

Mark:

clicks along at a great pace. But sometimes when that happens, people get lost.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Jack gets completely lost. Well, he's in jail now. He's gone. They arrested him. This point, gone.

Sarah:

He kicks her out. She's gone. Laura and Gordon have the busiest kitchen ever. Did you notice that? There's not a square inch on their fridge that isn't covered in stuff.

Mark:

He's got streptomycin stuff on there or something. He

Sarah:

says, oh, it was just cat blood on my pants, and that's a chain that I bought. So I tricked you. You think I'm a killer. I know you're a cheater.

Mark:

Get out of my house.

Sarah:

Yeah. And she's like, oh.

Mark:

But where are Tom and Troy? They're at the print shop. The police print shop. And the police have printed a fantastic judgment day tent Yep.

Sarah:

And not just printed a nice map, but they've placed colored stickers on the layout to indicate where each person was. And at the top, someone has very carefully drawn ruler lines

Mark:

To read.

Sarah:

So they could put Midsomer Mallow in perfect script in just the right side. It looks like something a second grade teacher would make.

Mark:

Yeah. It does. This show has done fantastic materials, but that Judgment Day map is a little bit of a letdown.

Sarah:

Yeah. But

Mark:

But they figured out.

Mark:

It

Mark:

works. It's a tool. They figured out that Samantha Johnson is the target. So what is the theme of this episode? Oh, yeah.

Mark:

The cops arriving just after somebody dies.

Sarah:

Because Samantha, at that moment, is freaking out.

Mark:

She's getting the hell out of town

Mark:

because she knows exactly what's going on.

Sarah:

They're coming for me.

Mark:

And they But wait a minute. Meeting Bella.

Sarah:

I need to make a phone call to Gloucester.

Mark:

Gloucester. God, I had spelled that word twice. There's a knock at the door. Oh, I should get oh, I'm dead.

Sarah:

Wait a minute. Frank is leaving. I'm out of here.

Mark:

No autographs.

Sarah:

No. She's dead up there. Go. And she's stabbed.

Mark:

They're a little late.

Sarah:

She's probably still, like, warm.

Mark:

And she gets stabbed in the kidneys. I think she could probably be still alive.

Sarah:

I don't know. I don't know if she's really using her kidneys anyway. She's awfully drunk all the time.

Mark:

I don't know, but Bella's running around with a knife again.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Where does Bella get that knife?

Sarah:

And I'm not I don't really know how she manages to slip into the hotel.

Mark:

Because the last time we saw her was sick in bed at home.

Sarah:

Yeah. So I guess Marcus leaves her thinking she's asleep. She gets up, creeps over to the hotel, kills Samantha, goes back, gets back in bed to look peaceful again.

Mark:

Yep. Okay. Joyce is interviewed basically by Troy and Barnaby at this point in time. She reveals about Septin Manor. And then we have a touching scene where Marcus is gonna give some pills to his wife.

Mark:

He's very sweet. He is.

Sarah:

And I think she loves him too.

Mark:

And he goes, you gave me a scare. Mhmm. And what he actually means is, are you a homicidal maniac? I think you are.

Sarah:

Again? Yes.

Mark:

Everything will be all right.

Sarah:

Does the screaming kill come back, honey?

Mark:

Yes. Yes. Okay. They go to Septan Manor and meet with Doctor. Mark Sellers.

Sarah:

Who has mild dyslexia. He calls Troy Torrey.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

I don't get that.

Mark:

And basically does nothing but give exposition.

Sarah:

Yeah. And and then Tom is like, for once, Cully was right. Oh, we gotta get all the way back because there was probably more people dying as we speak.

Mark:

And Cully's going to be attacked by a woman with a knife who is in no way related to what's going on.

Sarah:

Well, it's Jane Rochelle.

Mark:

And good makeup here. Her hands and her face. It's good makeup.

Sarah:

The face is pretty good. The hand is pretty bad. She's played by Sheila Fraser, who is aunt Baru. Aunt Baru.

Mark:

Luke's aunt. Oh my gosh. You're right. That's Luke's aunt. She should be Luke Skywalker's aunt.

Mark:

She should be serving green milk.

Sarah:

She should be on tattooing.

Mark:

Yes. Why did you get burned on tattooing?

Sarah:

It was a droid. The droid did it.

Mark:

There's more Star Wars crossovers to come up in later episodes, but that's the first.

Sarah:

Yeah. She's aunt Baru.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

You wouldn't know it with all that makeup. It is it is pretty good makeup for Midsomer.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Troy and Barnaby arrive to talk to Marcus.

Sarah:

Howie just walks into the Allody's home. She just walks into Greyfriars.

Mark:

After he made a big deal about locking the door.

Sarah:

Privacy and all that stuff.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

I know she left her I know she left her tape there, but I think Collie would be a bit more respectful of that, and she would think, I'll come back later.

Mark:

I think so too.

Sarah:

But maybe since the door's open, maybe she thinks something's wrong.

Mark:

I don't know. I don't know. I didn't like it.

Sarah:

Hey, guess what? What? Annabelle's Bella.

Mark:

I had no idea. Did you know that? Marcus tells the truth. Tells how he he answered a lonely heart sad, and he loves her. Yeah.

Mark:

Of course he knew about what had happened, and he forgives her. He's like, you know, he's so accepting and loving.

Sarah:

Well, what she did when she was little has no bearing on their relationship. So he doesn't care about that, But now he knows that she's at it again. And not only is she at it, but so she killed Peter, she killed Samantha, she accidentally killed Rosemary. She was willing to poison herself.

Mark:

Yeah. Like she's got a

Sarah:

taste for it again. It's she's not right.

Mark:

No. And Bella does some great acting here in the reenactment of him of her killing Legolas.

Sarah:

Oh my gosh. She's like She's

Mark:

like and then like two seconds later, her face goes Yeah.

Sarah:

It's good crazy face.

Mark:

It's good crazy face. Samantha had to go. God destroy evidence.

Sarah:

Because Marcus knows that if they found out that Bella did it, with her history, she would go into an asylum.

Mark:

Yeah, he says you'd have put her back in the bin.

Sarah:

And he knows she wouldn't want to live that way.

Mark:

So he decided what he was going to do.

Sarah:

He gave her a bunch of sleeping pills and then he put a pillow on her face.

Mark:

Two shows in a row, pillow face.

Sarah:

Mercy killings with pillow face. Yep. Poor Marcus. So is Marcus gonna go to prison, you think?

Mark:

I think Marcus is gonna probably go to prison, but he might be able to afford a good lawyer.

Sarah:

Maybe he can share a cell with Jack.

Mark:

Maybe. Then there's a weird scene at the end where Culley explains the whole Jane Rochelle thing, and then they make fun of Joyce. And then it's just as well. It's mean. It's mean to Joyce.

Sarah:

What do you mean they make fun of her?

Mark:

She's like, the music was too loud. I didn't know what was going on.

Sarah:

Because she thought that Samantha said the street and what she said was the retreat.

Mark:

And that's cleared up, but I don't like how he talks to her. I like Joyce.

Sarah:

I think he loves her, so it doesn't matter.

Mark:

So everything's all good except for Marcus and Jack and Laura and all the dead people and the fact that you will not be winning the perfect village of the year.

Sarah:

Oh, no. Those people doing the antler dance have a chance now.

Mark:

You killed two of the judges.

Sarah:

One on accident and one on purpose, and it's still not good.

Mark:

It's it's not good at all. No. But this is an episode at eleven. I love this episode. I can watch it again right now.

Sarah:

So I got I gotta tell you one more interesting thing here Yep. That I forgot to tell you. And that Hannah Gordon, who plays Bella Yeah. She was Myralla Carney in the Jonathan Creek episode Black Canary.

Mark:

So, Maniacs, our next episode is episode season three, episode four, Beyond the Grave with the weepy, crazy picture lady and the haunted museum.

Sarah:

Yes. Dearest departed de lovely. I don't remember what she says. She's got that mantra. It is David dearest departed

Mark:

dead or something. I don't know. But, wow, it's another batshit crazy episode.

Sarah:

It's a really good one. Yeah. But so so we've had like, you know, Orlando Bloom getting pitchforked. We've had, you know, knife to alcoholics in hotel rooms and editors drinking bad wine and dropping dead.

Mark:

She the editor has some great face when she dies.

Sarah:

She does.

Mark:

She does. But I gotta give it to my man Legolas.

Sarah:

You think he's the best corpse?

Mark:

I think he does it great. He has that big thing stuck in his chest. Right? Yeah. And it's a pole.

Mark:

Yeah. So if he's breathing, that pole is, like, moving all over the place. It's not moving an inch. Yep. And he's lying on the ground.

Sarah:

I agree. Yeah. Peter, drink water is corpse of the week.

Mark:

Corpse of the week.

Sarah:

I agree with you on that one.

Mark:

So, Maniacs, you can reach us on Twitter at at Midsomer Maniacs and on Instagram at Midsomer Maniacs, or we're all over the Facebooks and all the groups and all over Reddit on the mid on our Midsomer Maniac Midsomer Murders.

Sarah:

Mhmm. So if there was a different corpse that you thought was the best corpse of the week, maybe you thought missus Foster slash Bundy was a better corpse than Peter, let us know. Or if there was anything else we missed. And if you have you know, if you wanna join the three creepy guys in the back fan club, I think I'm gonna start it.

Mark:

You you gotta you gotta look at those guys. I will put a picture in the show notes, but you have to watch the scene.

Sarah:

Yep. Yep. A photo's not gonna do

Mark:

him justice. Not gonna do him justice.

Sarah:

And later on, we'll start rehearsals for the annual horn dance, I think. Yes. We should start doing

Mark:

that today. I think so. Let's go find a pig's bladder. Okay. Sounds good.

Sarah:

Bye, Maniacs. Bye, Maniacs. Before we go forward though, I gotta tell you one more thing.

Mark:

Okay. I'm sorry to interrupt.

Sarah:

That's all right. I tried to figure out whether that was a real tattoo or not, but it's so common for those to be airbrushed out now that I couldn't find a photo that I could say yes, he has it or no he

Mark:

has There's not a website that gives you celebrity tattoos?

Sarah:

Not that I could find, but in my long history of the nefarious googling since we started making this show, I was googling, you know, does Orlando Bloom have tattoos? Well, of course, he does now. Has different ones. Right? Yeah.

Sarah:

But then I you know, pictures of Orlando Bloom's stomach. Yeah. And that's more like his six pack. Right? Yeah.

Sarah:

And then it's like, no. No. Below Orlando Bloom's bellybutton. Because it's really low. I'm like, oh, Mark's gonna see this and wonder what I'm doing.

Sarah:

Anyway Right. La la la.

Mark:

And wait a minute. What's on the ground over there? Some smoked mackerel.

Mark:

Put it in the canteen freezer. Illegal. Not

Sarah:

Market evidence so nobody eats it.

Mark:

Illegal. And then give it to Nico to do that.

Sarah:

Illegal. Illegal.

Mark:

Okay. I'll stop. I'll stop. I'll stop.

Sarah:

Hey, Maniacs. Welcome to Midsomer Maniacs.

Mark:

Hey, Maniacs.

Sarah:

I'm one of your Maniac hosts, Sarah.

Mark:

And I'm your other Maniac host, Mark.

Sarah:

This is episode 13 of Midsomer Maniacs. And today, we're covering season three, episode four of Midsomer Murders.

Mark:

Beyond the grave.

Sarah:

It's a good one.

Mark:

Yes. Absolutely. Just a reminder, if you let your kids watch the show, they should be fine to listen to the podcast. But if the show is too much for them, the podcast certainly is.

Sarah:

Give me your one sentence, gut response, favorite thing, summary of this episode.

Mark:

My one What's

Sarah:

your what's your takeaway as a maniac?

Mark:

My takeaway of as a maniac is this is Barnaby busting the ghosts.

Sarah:

Ghostbusting Barnaby. I thought you were gonna say breaking the law. Breaking the law.

Mark:

Well, so we'll get to that.

Sarah:

Because when we were rewatching this episode to make some notes recently, you kept going on about them breaking the law.

Mark:

Okay. We're just gonna say this right off the top. I'm not expecting Midsomer murders to be a police procedural, but the amount of times that they flagrantly break the law in this episode is nuts.

Sarah:

It is. But it's fun.

Mark:

It

Sarah:

is. But I like your I like your Barnaby busting ghosts.

Mark:

Yeah. Absolutely. I like it when he's very skeptical and and, like, doesn't believe in the supernatural and stuff. I love that stuff.

Sarah:

I like it when he's aggressive and tricksy.

Mark:

Yes. I also do that.

Sarah:

Which he does in this episode too.

Mark:

So this was filmed in September and October ninety eight, which is early, actually. So they filmed this one long before the other ones. And in this series and broadcast date on the February 5 year 2,000 and, 94,000,000 views.

Sarah:

The fact that this was shot out of sequence explains Joyce's bad hair.

Mark:

It also explains another thing, which I'll get to when we talk about location.

Sarah:

Her hair. So in the last episode, in Judgment Day and in Blue Herring Bows, her hair is kind of okay. And then it reverts to this bad helmet hair. I'm like No,

Mark:

Joyce. Just hideous.

Sarah:

But it makes sense if this was shot before the good hair came in.

Mark:

And this is the episode, I think, that was actually directed by Mora Armstrong, who is the Scottish lady who does television and, written by Douglas Watkinson.

Sarah:

It takes place in Aspern Tallow.

Mark:

Another Aspern Tallow episode.

Sarah:

Just like Blue Herrings. Yep. And I'm saying Aspern Tallow because there's controversy.

Mark:

Yes. But before we begin, we are recording this baby on the 10/11/2019, and it is John Nettles' 70 birthday. Happy birthday,

Sarah:

mister Nettles. Happy birthday, John. My favorite detective.

Mark:

Yep. Tom Barnaby is fantastic.

Sarah:

If only he would listen. Maybe he does. Who knows?

Mark:

Who knows?

Sarah:

If you're out there, Tom,

Mark:

we love you. Exactly.

Sarah:

Alright. Let's get going.

Mark:

Okay. Yes. Takes place in Asperntel, and we start with the cold open, which is basically a tour put on by the museum run by Alan Bradford.

Sarah:

And he's like running.

Mark:

He says running, but he never actually runs.

Sarah:

Yeah. But he hustles.

Mark:

He hustles.

Sarah:

And there's six people on the tour who are, for some reason, all weighed down with random baggage and cameras and backpacks and notebooks, and they look more like one person reporter teams than tourists.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

They're they're chuffing along behind him.

Mark:

And he's telling the story of Jonathan Lowry, which is a civil war hero in the battle of aspirin towel.

Sarah:

1591 to 1644.

Mark:

That happened in 1644. I double checked. There was not a battle

Sarah:

of aspirin towel in

Mark:

the in the English civil civil war in 1644.

Sarah:

And in the midst of them getting his dramatic recreation of the battle in the battlefield, here comes miss Bunsell on her trike. Yeah.

Mark:

That trike is awesome. I love miss Bunsell everything about her.

Sarah:

But every time I see her cycling at fast speed, I just I hear the wicked witch of the West music in the background like, you know? And she's like, get out of the way. I'm coming through. Not like, pardon me. Nope.

Sarah:

I guess they're on the road.

Mark:

She's weird in that she's somewhat rude, but then she's really like she cares about people.

Sarah:

She's kind of awesome.

Mark:

She's a bad medium.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

We'll get to that.

Sarah:

She's not a good psychic, but she seems like a good person.

Mark:

Yes. I would agree. So they arrive at the museum in Aspen Hall. Now Aspen Hall is exactly the same set they used in judgment day for gray fire friars. Ah.

Mark:

It's the same building.

Sarah:

Interesting.

Mark:

And the village green they use in this episode, exactly this is really the same location as Judgment Day. Judgment Day.

Sarah:

So it's Aspern. Yes. And the fact that you bring up judgment day reminds me, speaking of Ms. Bunsell and her trike. So she's played by Prunella Scales.

Mark:

Prunella? Oh.

Sarah:

She has a great name.

Mark:

That's a tough name.

Sarah:

She can handle it.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Yeah. She's married and has been for forever to Timothy West who played Marcus DeVeer in Judgment That's right. So in real life, they're married. She also played Mapp in Mapp and Lucia. I don't know if you've ever seen that.

Sarah:

No, never It's seen great. It's a good show. And she was Sybil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers, which is where I recognized her from. The first time I saw this episode, like, I know that lady.

Mark:

Is she the wife in Fawlty Towers or the mother-in-law? Wife. The wife. Yeah.

Sarah:

Okay. I'm like, I know her that face. Where do I know that face from? I watched And that's where.

Mark:

I watched all of Fawlty Towers once when, like, the first moment I could. Yeah. And I haven't seen it since.

Sarah:

Oh. And because Prunnell Scales was on Fawlty Towers, one of her bestest friends is John Cleese.

Mark:

That's good.

Sarah:

Course, unfortunately, as of today anyway, she has very bad Alzheimer's. Oh, that's Shortly after this episode, actually, she kinda got serious with it.

Mark:

John Cleese would be a good guest star on this show. Yeah. He would. He he would be great.

Sarah:

We should start a petition.

Mark:

Excellent idea. You know who else is all over this episode? Our dude, constable angel.

Sarah:

He is. Like, one of the guys.

Mark:

He's one of the guys in the tour group. Yeah. And this is why Alan, when they find the painting's been all cut up, he goes, you're a policeman. Do something.

Sarah:

Because the portrait of Jonathan Lowery has been defaced. Literally.

Mark:

I know I am through the

Sarah:

face.

Mark:

I know I am obsessed with the minutiae of this show.

Sarah:

That's alright. That's why you're a maniac.

Mark:

Particularly, the newspapers in this show.

Mark:

Mhmm. Now the boy who brings the newspaper to the Barnabas brings the daily record. Okay. What the hell newspaper is that? And where is my Costaneco?

Sarah:

Maybe Costaneco went out of business.

Mark:

It shows up in the next episode.

Sarah:

Maybe they take more than one newspaper.

Mark:

Maybe. I don't know. The kid clearly has a bag that says daily record.

Sarah:

Maybe he borrowed the bag. Maybe. But Nico's back. The boyfriend who kinda doesn't exist unless it's convenient.

Mark:

Well, wherever he's been, he's been well fed.

Sarah:

He has. He's got kind of a chubby chipmunk face in this episode. But that's okay. He's still like bright and eager and shiny and happy. And he's gonna stay with them for two whole weeks.

Mark:

Because they have a part of the soap.

Sarah:

Yeah. Which is gonna pay more than Troy makes. But

Mark:

Yeah. That I think that's one of my favorite lines of the episode is when Troy goes, he's getting paid more to pretend me than I get for being me.

Sarah:

Yeah. He's gonna shadow Troy because he's gonna play a sergeant in a soap opera. So he's gonna learn. And then we get we get Sandra McKillop

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Who's gonna come and restore the painting.

Mark:

Before that, we have rule one.

Sarah:

Oh, keep the governor waiting.

Mark:

Keep the so the there's these rules that Tom is gonna give Nico Yeah. To help him with his role. The first one is always keep the governor waiting.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because Troy's always a little bit late. Right?

Mark:

Yep. And Cully's, like, treating him like she's the wife. Right? Of course. Don't forget your lunch.

Mark:

We never see Nico again. After this episode. No. Clearly, rule 28 is don't do this. Yeah.

Sarah:

Rule 29 is get rid of Nico. Yeah. This is his, this is his last appearance.

Mark:

So we meet Sandra and Charles McKillop. Charles runs a software company that makes software, and that's what it does.

Sarah:

He's Sandra's brother-in-law. She was married to his brother David who's dead. Do we ever find

Mark:

delight departed.

Sarah:

Do we ever find out how he actually died?

Mark:

No. And he says, Charles says, it's not like he would ever take his life. It it surprised me. I'm like, why

Mark:

are we not investigating

Sarah:

that If or they like, was it a suicide? Wasn't a suicide? Do they think it was, but it wasn't? It's like, oh, well, he's just dead.

Mark:

Okay. Charles and his heroin chic girlfriend are crazy enough to try to drive Sarah drive Sandra nuts. They're crazy enough to have killed David.

Sarah:

No. Because I think Charlie is actually sorry that David's dead because I think David was a valuable asset to the business. Mhmm.

Mark:

Whatever it does. He

Mark:

It makes

Sarah:

It makes software.

Mark:

It makes software that displays the name MacKillop.

Sarah:

It's that was a big thing back then. That was fancy.

Mark:

It was. People would pay for that. I guess.

Sarah:

Charlie is like painting up a room for Sandra to have a studio because she's an artist. And so she gets called over to Aspern Hall to restore the painting that's been cut up.

Mark:

By Ellen. And there's some nice interplay between Charles and her here Yeah. Which is good because he he's not treating her right in reality.

Sarah:

No. But at this point, it's as if her brother-in-law is being very caring towards her because she's clearly had some kind of nervous breakdown after her husband died. Yes. She's fragile. Right?

Mark:

Rule two, always treat the boss as if he is blind and stupid. Which Troy definitely follows.

Sarah:

Absolutely. Since the very beginning, since the first episode. Here, sir, here's the body.

Mark:

And Angel's all over this again. Angel is like, he earned his pay in this episode.

Sarah:

Well, and you and I talked about this and I'm curious as to what listeners think. He is very present in this episode. He has speaking parts. He comes to the Barnaby's house at the There's

Mark:

a backstory.

Sarah:

Yeah. And I think, you know, you and I both wondered either they were kind of playing around with him being the next sergeant or what I thought was maybe they were toying with having a constable, like a detective constable as like a third person in the team. And somehow they realized they didn't wanna do that. But

Mark:

after this episode, much like Nico, they get the boot.

Sarah:

Maybe they ran off together.

Mark:

Maybe. Maybe. It's a possibility.

Sarah:

Of course, Tom and Troy and Nico show up at the hall at the museum because they've been called because the painting has been defaced. Yep. And so they've come to investigate. And there's this cute little scene where Troy and Nico are sitting on the on Jonathan Lowery's grave on his slab there.

Mark:

Nico's reading the Greek. But you don't know that. Right?

Sarah:

There's this little kind of just flash of the two of them sort of kneeling on it, looking very interested and, like, pointing at it like, oh, here are letters on stone. Look. Yes. I see letters on stone. Very interesting.

Mark:

So then Sandra looks at the painting and says, can I work here? And they have a copy of the painting as a postcard. And then so there is this weird I love extreme close ups part of this episode. Because we go to extreme close ups of Sandra's eyes, extreme close ups of the of the painting's eyes, extreme close ups of Sandra's eyes, like, over and over again. It's it's a little too much.

Mark:

Well, it's supposed

Sarah:

to make us feel like there's some neuroticism going on there. Right? Yeah. They do address this at one point, but just this is like a little passing, but whatever. She's lived in this village for a long time, if not her whole life.

Sarah:

She's very familiar with that painting. Yes. And this is the first time she's like, have you ever noticed this looks exactly like my husband?

Mark:

It's all weird suggestion. And if that's what her husband looked like, know, it's not an attractive man.

Sarah:

It's just the eyes.

Mark:

It's just the

Sarah:

Just the creepy zoomed in eyes.

Mark:

Well, Tom has no patience for any of it and says, basically, they should have had a security system and let's file it under forget.

Sarah:

But but, Troy, did you notice something in there?

Mark:

A smell?

Sarah:

It smelled like fish.

Mark:

And wait a minute. What's on

Mark:

the ground over there? Some smoked mackerel.

Mark:

Put it in the canteen freezer. Illegal. Not

Sarah:

Market evidence so nobody eats it.

Mark:

Illegal. And then give it to Nico to do that.

Sarah:

Illegal.

Mark:

Illegal. Okay. I'll stop. I'll stop. I'll stop.

Sarah:

So we get this this red herring of mackerel. Right?

Mark:

That It's literal

Mark:

fish Fish. Red herring.

Sarah:

Red herring. Yes. So the the museum smells like fish and here's some fish. Isn't that weird? Somebody dropped their shopping.

Sarah:

Oh, well, Troy and Nico are like, no crime. It's just a stupid painting. Whatever. Meanwhile, Tom, there's something going on. There's something going on.

Mark:

Yep. Then we're introduced to Annie and Jim who I actually like Annie a

Sarah:

lot. I don't.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

She and her minxy wink are guilty of something.

Mark:

Oh, I didn't know they were guilty of something.

Sarah:

Well, first, we're gonna see that George Burton, the gangster also known as four inch

Mark:

Yeah. What does that mean?

Sarah:

Has died.

Mark:

Is that a Britishism that we're not getting?

Sarah:

You know, I looked around. I looked at a lot of gangster nicknames, a lot of British gangster nicknames to see if I could find any that were, like, inch related. No.

Mark:

Also, Michelle's having a baby. He doesn't look anything like her husband.

Sarah:

Well, there is that. I did find a British gangster called Taffy. Taffy?

Mark:

Yeah. That's not a bad name.

Sarah:

It's more flattering than four inch

Mark:

Yes. Which I

Sarah:

can only think of as an insult. George four inch burden. Like, sorry, dude. Barnaby sees the newspaper, and also Jim

Mark:

Sees the newspaper.

Sarah:

Is looking at the newspaper.

Mark:

Newspaper that Jim reads has another story in it

Sarah:

Jim Tate.

Mark:

Called taking a shine to cars that stay glossy by Michael Hanlon.

Sarah:

This is another segment of Mark looks at newspapers very closely.

Mark:

And what I I was like, who's Michael Hanlon? And, originally, the characters in written in blood, the father and Liam, their last name's Hanlon, but no one's named Michael.

Sarah:

No. So there's no So

Mark:

it's just a common name.

Sarah:

Somebody just made up a name.

Mark:

Yep. Troy gives Nico some advice about looking after your governor, and we find out Alan Bradford has some form. He's got a record.

Sarah:

He does. He's not just a curator.

Mark:

It's on a facsimile transmission. At least it's not from Denmark. No. They did get a fax. And Jim, who we learn is a trustee of the museum, goes to the museum to find out what's going on, and there's been a donation.

Sarah:

A suit of armor from Champaign, Illinois.

Mark:

All the way

Mark:

from Champaign, Illinois.

Sarah:

So now Sandra's alone in the museum. Right? She's working on the painting. Yeah. Now

Mark:

She appears to know what she's doing, though. Yeah. But gave her some good ideas.

Sarah:

Sort of. But we've watched the art detectives.

Mark:

Yes. We have.

Sarah:

And we know that they use very bright light. And they

Mark:

don't put stuff in their mouths.

Sarah:

Full spectrum light. Yep. And that you wouldn't just be checking it with a great big magnifying glass. But I will. That's what Sandra does.

Sarah:

She seems to do a good job.

Mark:

So there's a wind. Oh. And then more wind. Extreme close ups. It rocks all the banners

Sarah:

in the in the hall.

Mark:

Yes. And then and then the rocking chair is moving on its own. On its own? Sandra goes full freak out for the first time

Sarah:

in this episode. My note says, wow. She sure can scream.

Mark:

And she screams Alan's name like it has 16 syllables. The

Sarah:

chair. So

Mark:

I I thought you said she was better. She's not better.

Sarah:

She's not better. I took a close look at the banners moving in the wind. Okay. There's a couple of ways they could have done this. They could have actually had like some wind blowing up there.

Sarah:

They might've had a fan or something like that. But when I watched the scene again, there's two rows of banners, right? Running down each side of the hall. I noticed they're not moving together. Right?

Sarah:

So I think what they did was they hung them kind of like on a rack. If you can imagine like a rack at the top with a string connecting the racks on one side and a different string connecting the racks on the other side. They were just kind of pulling them or jiggling them or something.

Mark:

Somebody jiggling some wire.

Sarah:

Yeah, some wire, stick, whatever. It works. I'm not knocking it. It works. And the rocking chair, not in this scene, but in the last scene, you can see the line.

Sarah:

Yeah. But still, I don't care. It doesn't damage it for me. It's still good.

Mark:

So Sandra freaks out. And one of the things she does is go to see Charles. And while she goes to see Charles, again, minutia, she goes up the stairs and we're seeing this through windows. And then it pans across a computer screen that says MacKillips.

Sarah:

Oh, that's right. Because she's going into the software company, which is, like, on the 2nd Floor of a building. Right? Or what they would say the 1st Floor in The UK.

Mark:

And it's just weird how it's like

Sarah:

super close to that

Mark:

monitor too. Super close. And it goes over it so fast. I slowed it down to make sure it's Ed McKillop.

Sarah:

It just says, this is a ultra modern business. Look, lots of glass and people looking busy in front of huge monitors. Yep. Sign some stuff.

Mark:

That's what we did all in the nineties anyway.

Sarah:

Is that what it was like? Yes. Wow. You just look busy in front of a monitor. Yes.

Sarah:

Well, she's gotta sign some stuff because she and Charles are the co owners of the business since her husband died.

Mark:

You should go see Linda Marquist.

Sarah:

Speaking of words not pronounced correctly Marquis.

Mark:

Shouldn't she be marquee? She should be marquee.

Sarah:

But she's Marquis. Marquis. Which sounds much nastier.

Mark:

I agree.

Sarah:

Quiz. But she's

Mark:

blech. So then there's more shooting through windows. I think more likes to shoot through windows. That's okay. That's okay.

Sarah:

Linda Marquis has a a mantra for Sandra.

Mark:

Well, I think before we get to the mantra, I think we should reveal the name of her therapy agency, which should be Giant Wicker Chair Therapy.

Sarah:

Yeah. It it should be conservatory therapy.

Mark:

Like,

Sarah:

sit here amongst the jungle plants.

Mark:

It's not like any therapy office I've ever seen No. Or been part of.

Sarah:

She's running out of her house. Right?

Mark:

David, delight, departed. Let's talk about that first.

Mark:

Say it

Mark:

like you mean it. David, delight,

Sarah:

departed. Let's talk about this mantra for a second. I understand the point of the mantra. Right? Yep.

Sarah:

They're saying Sandra has got to face the fact that David is dead. Yes. She's had trouble facing that.

Mark:

While we're poisoning you.

Sarah:

She's had trouble admitting that he's dead. She can't say it. And really It's tough for her.

Mark:

Making you freak out about it.

Sarah:

What's the delight about?

Mark:

I don't know. It's the three d mantra. Do they call it three d? I'm like, it's not three d.

Sarah:

It's audio. Why not? Like, David departed. Dear David departed might be a

Mark:

good one.

Sarah:

The delight. I love you a lot. Yeah. And I've never said Delight. You're my delight.

Mark:

Yeah. But they're gaslighting her. So I'm Yeah.

Sarah:

But you you have to think that she had some part in creating that mantra for herself. That's the whole reason why a mantra works. You can't just give somebody a mantra. They have to develop it themselves. That's why it works.

Sarah:

But while we're talking about Marquis Yep. She's played by, ready for it, Sylvestre Lattusel.

Mark:

Wow. That's quite the name.

Sarah:

It's an awesome name. She's married to Owen Thiel. Now I'm not saying that her entire career is defined by who she's married to. No. Not at all.

Sarah:

But she's married to another actor who's interesting to us, Owen Thiel. And I'll say one word and you'll know exactly who he is. Are you ready? Yep. Chocoblock.

Sarah:

Oh. Owen Thiel is in an episode of Lewis. Yeah. Where he plays He plays this former gangster

Mark:

who Who wrote a book.

Sarah:

Who wrote a book. And like three times in the episode, he's interviewed about the internet being full of thieves. And he says, it's just chockablock of thieves.

Mark:

Chockablock.

Sarah:

But he's also, Alice or Thurn in Game of Thrones. And he plays Mal Kirby in Second Sight, which is a Midsomer from 'five. But the best thing about Sylvestro LaTusel besides her name is that she is super famous for this Heineken ad that she did in 1985.

Mark:

Well, now I'm gonna find that app.

Sarah:

You're gonna have to because she plays this actress who is in the street credibility agency.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Right? Where she's supposed to be learning how to pronounce things as if she's from the streets.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

But she looks like a friend of princess Diana. She's got pearls and a little headband on. And what she's supposed to say is the water in Majorca don't taste like what it ought to. Right? Okay.

Sarah:

That's how she says it. The water in Majorca don't taste like what it ought to. Yes. Then she has to drink Heineken. Okay.

Sarah:

And then she's like, the water in Majorca don't taste like water. And it's like this infamous commercial. It's very funny.

Mark:

I'll find it.

Sarah:

I'm sure you'll find it. That's Sylvestre L'Etusel.

Mark:

Excellent. Jim also has a whole bunch of stories about George. So clearly, Jim and George are somehow connected here.

Sarah:

It it Jim is concerned about four inch. Yes. Because he's got a whole coffee table of newspaper clippings about four inch. He's got more than four inches of four inch stories.

Mark:

And he decides to go see Annie who is making the world's most disgusting food.

Sarah:

Okay. Let's talk about Annie for a second. Okay. She's this tiny little woman. Yep.

Sarah:

And she winks at Troy every time she sees him and she uses her whole face to wink.

Mark:

It's it's it's exaggerated wink one zero one.

Sarah:

She's very sweet. Anne Corich, played by Patricia Blake, who's also in Let Us Pray. It's a twenty fourteen episode with John Barnaby

Mark:

instead So of

Sarah:

Anne Corrich was in this awesome TV show that was only on the air for a year called The Ugliest Girl in Town. Wow. She's not the ugliest girl in town. Anne Corich does not play the ugliest girl in town. The ugliest girl in town is her boyfriend.

Sarah:

Okay. Okay? Who is an American who wants to go to London so he can see her.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

So he cross dresses to be in a commercial for his brother's business, and a London talent agent sees him and thinks she's the most beautiful woman ever and brings her to London on a modeling contract.

Mark:

Wow. That is

Mark:

a stretch. And I will have to find And

Sarah:

she is a hideous woman. Okay?

Mark:

This is

Sarah:

like no effort gone to to make him look attractive. Yeah. But Anne Corich plays his girlfriend Julie in that. And she's so super cute in the whole She's got like a little, like the straw boater and the bow tie and she's But like super wow, when I found that hole, I went all the way down that hole. I'm like, wow.

Sarah:

Because she's beautiful.

Mark:

Yep. So I

Sarah:

thought, is she the that's horrible. They're calling her the ugliest girl in town? No. Oh, no. No.

Sarah:

No. No. No.

Mark:

So Jim comes over to see Annie who is very happy about this.

Sarah:

She loves him.

Mark:

She does. She wants to do kissy kissy with him.

Sarah:

Well, he wants to take her away to his house in France. Yes. Because he just wants to run, get out

Mark:

of town. Because he knows what's coming.

Sarah:

Mhmm. They, he's in her place after she's dumped that can of pilchards into a bowl. I don't know what she's making.

Mark:

This section in my notes is called yuck.

Sarah:

Yuck food?

Mark:

No. Just yuck.

Sarah:

She's definitely into the fish.

Mark:

Yeah. And she covers it.

Sarah:

For a couple

Mark:

of reasons.

Sarah:

We know. She should definitely put a tea towel over that. Yeah. When they're together and they're talking though, they hear the bell ring and the bell in the church going ding dong is a sign that Jonathan Bell Lowry's ghost is about.

Mark:

Yes. And Ellen Bradford goes to the museum.

Sarah:

Well, and Jim runs out into the dark and gets punched.

Mark:

No. Alan gets punched.

Sarah:

Oh, my notes are wrong then.

Mark:

Yeah. Alan gets punched.

Sarah:

Yeah. He gets punched in the dark. You're right.

Mark:

And then Nico is at the breakfast table. Mhmm. He's sitting in Tom's place. That's unacceptable. Nope.

Mark:

Nope. And Alan's alive. Like, at first, you think maybe Alan's dead, but he just got punched.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because you're waiting for somebody to die.

Mark:

Yep. Because it's quite a while in here and still he's not dead.

Sarah:

But we're entertained by all these weird characters. Yes.

Mark:

And he's spicy again once to all of them. Right?

Sarah:

She winks at Troy. You can't wink in audio, but Yeah. Big wink.

Mark:

Alan has this great line because Eleanor goes, what would

Mark:

your mother say? And Alan goes, leave me alone.

Mark:

I haven't been I've been dead for ten years.

Mark:

And then Eleanor says, dead is an unword. Yeah. Her unwords.

Mark:

That's just fantastic.

Sarah:

Don't forget. She rides up on her tricycle at Mach 10 with poor 90 year old Marcus Lowery running behind her with his dog, Spots.

Mark:

I'm sorry. Tricycle is an

Sarah:

unword. Unword is an unword.

Mark:

Well, illegal is an unword

Sarah:

for this episode. Well, he's the great grandson times 10 of Jonathan Lowery, and he wants to know where the family money is.

Mark:

Well, it's hidden in Aspirin Towel hall hall museum Right. Which we see the sign for, and we see that Alan Bradford, which I don't actually think so, has an MA.

Sarah:

Yeah. Buy buy them. He knows what he's talking about.

Mark:

I guess so.

Sarah:

Yeah. But while they're standing around in the museum, the box from Champaign, Illinois

Mark:

Well, before Explodes into play. The box goes on fire. But before that, we have the worst. Eleanor is a medium in the sense that she yells at ghosts.

Sarah:

Well, she also holds her hands out.

Mark:

Yes. She also and it's all theatric. Right? We have a late entrance. It's all performative.

Mark:

But then the box goes on fire. Maybe

Sarah:

she did it.

Mark:

Sandra

Sarah:

She's a witch.

Mark:

Takes off again.

Sarah:

She doesn't just like, oh my. I'm so upset. I have to get out of here. She runs like she's on fire. And her long ankle length sweater blowing behind her.

Sarah:

She should have just jumped on Eleanor's tricycle and pedaled away.

Mark:

Yeah. So Barnaby gives Troy a choice to hear. He says, you can talk to Bunsell or you can talk to Alan Bradford. And Troy says, okay. I'll talk to Alan Bradford.

Mark:

Brad Bradford. And Troy and

Mark:

Barnaby goes, okay. I'll go talk to Alan Bradford. You talk to missus Bunsell.

Sarah:

So Alan has a record, and his record is that he once stole a bust of Oliver Cromwell

Mark:

For the

Sarah:

love of Cromwell. Worth $13,000.

Mark:

Six months in jail, man.

Sarah:

Yeah. And, Barnaby makes a joke that he's no brinks mat type.

Mark:

Yeah. What did that mean?

Sarah:

So Brink's Matt is a warehouse robbery that happened in 1983. Six guys armed, broke into a warehouse, and what they were hoping to get was $3,000,000 What they actually found was $26,000,000 worth of gold bullion.

Mark:

Kazaam.

Sarah:

And got away with it.

Mark:

There were dirty words spoken at that particular moment.

Sarah:

Well, to this day, most of that money, most of the gold has never been recovered. Okay. They kind of understand that it's probably been melted. Yeah. Right?

Sarah:

So not only was it, it's like the great train robbery kind of thing, It's this big heist, but not only is it this big heist, but what it's better known for now is that a huge number of people who were involved, even tangentially, have all died horrible deaths since.

Mark:

Oh, like accidents in quotation marks.

Sarah:

Oh, no, no, no, no. Like they've been gunned down in the street.

Mark:

Oh, okay.

Sarah:

One guy was killed on his yacht. One guy was axed in the head.

Mark:

That's brutal.

Sarah:

So it'd be worth about $500,000,000 in today's money. It's that's that's a they're saying that Alan Bradford's no Yeah. No real thief.

Mark:

Meanwhile, Troy accuses Eleanor of being a pyromaniac.

Mark:

Do I look like a pyromaniac?

Mark:

Maybe. And Nico lets it slip. He understands ancient Greek, and it says, here lies Jonathan Lowry and his worldly goods.

Sarah:

And this is just one example of Nico actually being really smart in this episode. He's helpful.

Mark:

And Troy says, there's just nutters and more nutters.

Sarah:

There are nutters and more nutters.

Mark:

So they go to see Charles, and Tom says probably one of my favorite lines of the entire show. Not this not this episode, but of the entire show. So this is Tom Tom.

Sarah:

Troy Yes. Charlie, and Sandra in the garden having drinks. Right?

Mark:

Yeah. And Tom says, I don't believe in ghosts, just people with dark motives. I wanna put that on a shirt. That's just fantastic. Dark motives.

Sarah:

It's just awesome. Then Sandra goes into her neurotic act.

Mark:

Is that a crime? She stands up. I need some lemonade.

Sarah:

Her ankle length sweater is off one shoulder. I resent that. Disheveled, and then she holds a glass with both hands. Gotta get the lemonade. Chew my lips.

Sarah:

Then she takes off again. Run away. I've known grief stricken people. They didn't do that.

Mark:

Why is she like that? It's because of David's death

Sarah:

and she's lonely. Tom says, why is she like she is? Which say it to yourself and realize what a confusing sentence it is. Why is she like she is?

Mark:

It suggested that David took his own life. He left a gap and that the only person that Leander really connects with is Eleanor, the writer of Broomstick.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because Charlie is supposed to be like her savior taking good care of her. But Eleanor they don't say it, but I always got the impression that Eleanor was a school teacher. That she's a retired school teacher, and anybody who went to school, they either loved her or they hated her, and Sandra's one of

Mark:

the ones who loved her. She makes reference to school teaching at one

Sarah:

point. She just acts like a school teacher.

Mark:

No. I think she makes reference to to pupils and one-sided conversations. That's right. When she talks about how she communicates with the dead, which is nothing like she does in the first half of the story, that that it's like talking to pupils.

Sarah:

Oh, well, that would make sense then.

Mark:

Jim and Annie are sneaking around the museum with a metal detector.

Sarah:

Now I looked this up. A metal detector will detect metal through a slab of stone.

Mark:

Oh, will?

Sarah:

Or concrete.

Mark:

No problem. That's good.

Sarah:

Because at first, I'm like, really?

Mark:

Thing goes off like crazy.

Sarah:

Yep. But we've also now, by this point, seen Ralph in the basement

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Gurrying around like rat man.

Mark:

But we don't know who Ralph is yet. No. We don't. If I'm a policeman and I'm a boss, a governor, say Mhmm. And I have a subordinate.

Mark:

Is it kosher for me to put that subordinate in a way of harm in which he might get burned? Yes. Oh, okay.

Sarah:

Yeah. That ends the

Mark:

rules. Okay.

Sarah:

You can embarrass your subordinate, you can hurt them, but you just can't leave any lasting damage.

Mark:

Okay. Because part of me takes Troy's hand and puts it

Mark:

in the sunlight and burns it.

Sarah:

I don't think he burned. He rubs his hand a little bit later, but he's all right.

Mark:

There's another therapy session in which nothing really happens.

Sarah:

But wow, I really want a therapist who asks me in the middle of a session, do you feel the need to prove that you're not going mad?

Mark:

I have that in my notes. Exactly. Like what kind of therapist says that?

Sarah:

My voice just went so high in shock. It's like your doctor going, You know you're going to die, right? No, wait a minute, maybe not. Like, You have cancer. I mean, a headache.

Mark:

Sorry. Of course, Sandra runs back to the museum at this point

Sarah:

and is left alone again. That's how she gets around so fast. She just runs everywhere in fear.

Mark:

The door gets slammed and the statue of Charles topples over. Guess what she does? More screaming.

Sarah:

Okay. So this is the second time that Sandra's been alone in the museum and creepy shit has happened. Okay? This is the second time. I'm not ruining anything.

Sarah:

Everybody who's listening knows. Yeah. It's Charles and Linda trying to make Sandra go crazy so

Mark:

she can power of attorney.

Sarah:

So they can get power of attorney so he can control the whole business, right? We know that. So every time she's alone in the museum, it's because Alan has walked away for a Yeah. Right? Alan, who cares about her and is not doing anything bad to her.

Mark:

Alan seems complicit in everything, but it's purely accidental.

Sarah:

So are Charles and Linda just hanging around outside the museum constantly waiting for people to step away from Sandra?

Mark:

Well, you really like, when you own a software company, you really don't need to, like, be there

Sarah:

all the time. Even if that's the case. Right? And he never has to be there. He can run it from a distance or whatever.

Sarah:

He can do what he wants. He's the big boss. Wouldn't somebody noticing him just like hanging from the rafters

Mark:

He or was another episode in the in the choir episode. They noticed that somebody's listening at the window like instantaneously.

Sarah:

Well, one of the two of them is just waiting in the museum for any opportunity to have Sandra alone so they can freak her out. They're not luring her there like they do later. It's just weird.

Mark:

Sandra goes off to see Eleanor and that word that the therapist used, madness, that's an too.

Sarah:

Yep. It's an unword.

Mark:

She is the worst psychic giver.

Sarah:

Because she says she doesn't actually talk to the ghosts. She just imagines what they would say.

Mark:

So you guess, sort of. And this is in the graveyard at night. Yeah. She's alright. So the old guy sneaks into the museum to Marcus.

Mark:

Get Marcus to get his money. Bastards. Bastards. You stole it.

Sarah:

Because the grave is open, and there's no goodies in there.

Mark:

And he gets killed. Marcus gets killed by a weapon that seems weird.

Sarah:

It's you think maybe it's like a bust at the time? Something. It's

Mark:

yeah. No. We'll find out later.

Sarah:

It's a slide projector. Slide projector. And we have some kind of retro AV equipment in our house, and I can say, you could kill somebody with one of those cast iron cased pieces of AV equipment.

Mark:

But what I'm gonna tell you is it would not work as well as it did.

Sarah:

Not afterwards? No. Oh gosh. No. The bulb would definitely be broken at least.

Mark:

Eleanor and Sandra arrive and find the dead Marcus, and I have to say maybe Jonathan Lowery is the best dead body in this episode.

Sarah:

He's a pretty good corpse down there. This is the turning point for me where I go from not liking miss Bunsell to liking miss

Mark:

I agree.

Sarah:

Because Sandra's afraid to go in and she says, you know, godwallop, we're modern women. We fear nothing. Let's go.

Mark:

Yep. I do. I like

Sarah:

I like cape and she's gonna go.

Mark:

Yep. George is back for this single scene. Yep. George's wife is more in this episode than George.

Sarah:

They put George in the pit.

Mark:

Yep. He's got found some pennies in the leather bag, and he got hit by the projector six times.

Sarah:

Wow. Marcus's head is really tore up. Yep. That is some serious damage.

Mark:

What are we going to do

Sarah:

with Marcus' dog? Give him to Barnaby to take care of. I guess. I'm confused about something here. Yep.

Sarah:

So Jim uses the metal detector. It goes off like crazy. Yep. But then the grave is open and we're kind of led to believe, Oh, somebody got here first and stole this because Ralph

Mark:

is interrupted before he gets the pennies.

Sarah:

Right. He was just after the pennies?

Mark:

No, he was after the treasure, but that's all the treasure I think that's in there.

Sarah:

But then everybody says, but there never was any treasure. There is no treasure. How do they know?

Mark:

I don't know.

Sarah:

When it's gone? The treasure

Mark:

is forgotten like halfway through.

Sarah:

I just thought maybe I missed something. Just because it's not there now doesn't mean it wasn't.

Mark:

Yeah. It's weird. Okay. Rule seven, never use the indicator. Keeps other drivers on their toes.

Sarah:

This is Troy's bad driving again.

Mark:

Yep. Nico's being nice. He's fixing Eleanor's inner tube.

Sarah:

I don't think he has much of a choice. No. I don't think up doing a bunch of other odd jobs for her too because they totally ditch him.

Mark:

And I love how she totally lies. She's like, I have insomnia, so sometimes I wander around graveyards. She's got is an unword.

Sarah:

She's got a a spray can of CS gas in her bag Yes. Which is tear gas.

Mark:

Yes. She got it at the World Cup. CS gas is an aerosol, a volatile sub solvent, and two chlorobenzylarb, which is a compound at room temperature. It is nonlethal.

Sarah:

It's tear gas.

Mark:

Yes. It's tear gas.

Sarah:

It's the same tear gas I used at Waco.

Mark:

And it is illegal in The UK.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's not illegal here. No. Then the police can use it everywhere.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

But they don't.

Mark:

Yes. They leave searching for his unkiller.

Sarah:

They leave miss joke house there. Yeah. When they leave miss Bunzl's house, we get that awesome lady in the background who almost falls on her face on the stairs.

Mark:

She almost falls on her face, and

Mark:

it's clearly the sound of bottles as she walks.

Sarah:

So do you think that's Foley added afterwards, or do you think that's actually the jangling of bottles in her back?

Mark:

I think they liked the take. They didn't realize that she had tripped. When they were watching it and editing, they added the Foley of the bottles.

Sarah:

What? To explain why she trips? Because she's drunk

Mark:

or something?

Mark:

I guess. But watch it. She trips.

Sarah:

Oh, everybody on the Internet has noticed that one.

Mark:

Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Okay.

Sarah:

It's it's a commonly known goof up in this episode.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

But it's so funny. It's hilarious. Because she recovers very well.

Mark:

And they run into Alan and Charles who are just, like, sitting there.

Sarah:

They're just chatting in the garden. Because, again, we've got one of those episodes where everybody lives remarkably close together. Yes. So they can walk from Ms. Bunsell's garden down those public stairs, and then suddenly they're in Charlie's garden.

Sarah:

Yep. Alan thinks that, Sandra's being set up in So some way, he's kind of onto it. Charlie's like, no. No. No.

Mark:

No. No. But he

Sarah:

does admit that he was in the museum.

Mark:

She's being got at. Yeah. Jim and Annie are off. He doesn't want the police tramping on his old life. They have some kissy kiss.

Mark:

And then Jim comes home and basically finds Ralph.

Sarah:

Before that, we've got a good Troy line. They said he says they clobbered Marcus and they turned him into cat's meat. Yep. Like, they did sort of pulverize his head. Yep.

Sarah:

I'm with Troy on that one.

Mark:

That's a good line.

Sarah:

Like You're the cats meet. Poor Marcus. He just wanted some treasure. Yeah. Jim wants to go to France with Annie before Barnaby's onto him.

Mark:

Because he knows that Ralph knows that he's the banker for George Burton.

Sarah:

Yeah. So who let's talk about Ralph a little bit just for a So Ralph's in the basement of the museum. Yep. Because he wants to get at the treasure. No.

Sarah:

Because he's escaped from prison. Yes. So he's hiding and he's Annie's ex.

Mark:

So he hears about the treasure. So he tries to get it then.

Sarah:

But then later, when they arrest him, he talks about Alan. He talks about Sandra.

Mark:

Well, he's lived in the neighborhood forever.

Sarah:

So he knows everybody. He knows everybody. So he's one of the Aspern Tallo people. Yep. So who did he kill?

Mark:

I don't know.

Sarah:

To go away for manslaughter?

Mark:

I don't know.

Sarah:

Because you think that would have been a previous episode.

Mark:

You would think.

Sarah:

Yeah. Maybe somebody else investigated it.

Mark:

Maybe.

Sarah:

Yeah. So Jim was four inches banker.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

And then There's a fight. Jim and Ralph have a big fight.

Mark:

It's a super fight.

Sarah:

He smacks them on the head with a bottle and they roll around the living room and they break the coffee table and they trash the place. And we never see Jim again. Nope. Tom and Troy and Nico are out for breakfast. And just when you thought the whole people trying to control Tom and treat him like a child is over, Nico says, Well, I can get you breakfast too, sir.

Sarah:

And I won't tell anybody at home. Yeah, like,

Mark:

I didn't like that line

Sarah:

at all. I didn't either. Tom has a coffee, but the sense I get, or at least what I wanna get, is that that's all he wanted. And if he wanted something else, he'd have it.

Mark:

While they're driving around the country, they run into Annie and her purse. Her giant bag. In which we see some herring. Mackerel. Dun

Sarah:

dun dun.

Mark:

Dun dun dun.

Sarah:

Jim's house is wrecked. Who carries around mackerel in their bag? It's not is it me or is it like tissues, a wallet, some keys, some lipstick, and mackerel? Yeah. It's not like milk, oranges, apples, mackerel in that bag.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's like her purse.

Mark:

It's weird.

Sarah:

She's keeping fish in her purse.

Mark:

She's obsessed with fish. Jim, his house is wrecked and they have no idea where he is, and everybody forgets about it for a couple of scenes.

Sarah:

Yeah. Well, Nico finds the four inch clippings. Yep. And they're like, maybe there's a connection. Sandra decides she doesn't wanna work on the painting in the museum anymore.

Sarah:

So they go she and Charlie go to pick it up.

Mark:

Yep. And they realize maybe someone is in the basement. Yeah. Normal police procedure, I realize, would be to call PC Angel.

Mark:

It would be like, Angel, go down in there and get beat up.

Sarah:

Yeah. Your uniform. Go down there.

Mark:

No, nope, they just head

Sarah:

on down. It's just weird. I just keep thinking about Ralph being down in this basement with a view, like he can see everything that's going on from the basement and he's just eaten one fish sandwich after another the whole time.

Mark:

Where does he go to the loo?

Sarah:

I don't know, but he's eaten so much fish that they can smell it upstairs. That's a lot of fish.

Mark:

It's a ghost with a weakness for fish. Yes. We get another rule here. Rule 24, don't expect any sympathy. That's what Troy

Sarah:

said. Because Ralph smacks him on the hand with a shovel Yeah. And he

Mark:

hits Tom too. Tom in the arm, like, really hard.

Sarah:

Yeah. Though George's wife, Kathy, the doctor says it's fun.

Mark:

So I didn't think she was a doctor. I thought in the episode where it's all about her practice that she was the admin. Oh no, she's a No, she's a doctor.

Sarah:

They're both doctors. Yep. Yeah. And she says that, Hey, you know, speaking of Sandra, her therapist, Linda Marquis, you might want to check on her. She might be known to the police.

Mark:

Could you drive someone over the edge? Troy says, I'm living proof.

Sarah:

After he's done like snogging the nurse in the waiting room

Mark:

or something. Yeah. Like Troy's on the make here.

Sarah:

Hey, baby. Yeah. And then we get this epically awesome scene with missus Bunzl talking about Sandra's diet. Just when you think, Mrs. Bunsell is a down to earth person, she doesn't tolerate all this craziness.

Sarah:

She's kind of like a snap out of it, get over it sister, move on, you can do this kind of person. She she goes into this like, you know, it could be your diet. You know, some foods are bad for your moods. For example, spinach is depressing.

Mark:

Tell that to Popeye.

Sarah:

But fennel is uplifting. Uplifting.

Mark:

I I have a note here which says, Jim is still missing.

Sarah:

No one's

Mark:

paying attention to that. You know, and

Sarah:

I looked it up. Oh gosh. In the long history of the weird Google searches I do in research for this show, well, maybe there is a belief that certain foods are, you know, like holistic, like vegan kind of stuff. Maybe certain vegetables are better. Come to find out, spinach is actually something that doctors recommend for people who have depression because it contains a lot of magnesium, which can actually help your body boost serotonin levels.

Sarah:

Which is why Popeye is so chipper. Yep. Right? But it's the opposite of depressing.

Mark:

Nope. It's not depressing at all. Charlie does all the cooking where he puts all the drugs in it.

Sarah:

And then Barnaby sends everybody out to commit some crimes.

Mark:

Well, no. Before that, we got the seller dweller's gear.

Sarah:

Oh, that's right.

Mark:

None of this is legal.

Mark:

So There's no need.

Sarah:

Is house breaking. Right?

Mark:

Check they check none of it is checked in in evidence. There's a donkey jacket. Do you know

Sarah:

what a donkey jacket is? Isn't it like a rainproof jacket?

Mark:

It's a medium length workwear jacket typically made of unlined black or blue thick mountain woolen fabric with shoulders and back and front reinforced to protect you from the rain. Yeah. So it's usually leather or pinkish. Jacket. Yeah.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's what you typically see hunters wearing in The UK.

Mark:

And, of course, I had to look at all the posters, including racism. Don't let it smear you.

Sarah:

You know, I got some racism on me.

Mark:

Y'all got racism on me. And bombs, be aware.

Sarah:

Are you aware of bombs?

Mark:

The hands

Mark:

in the pocket jacket from the last episode is in there too.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's still there.

Mark:

Yeah. It's really just all those sets are exactly the same.

Sarah:

The the the dressing of the set at the station house is always good, though. They do such a good job.

Mark:

You know who cares about where Jim is? Annie. No. Not really. In her a million jobs.

Sarah:

She doesn't really care where

Mark:

Jim is. Jobs does she have?

Sarah:

She's a house cleaner and a barmaid. Okay. That's it. But she's meticulous because she keeps her receipts pinned to a bulletin board in her

Mark:

house. That Troy breaks into.

Sarah:

Yeah, to get it. So here's my problem with Annie, right?

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

We know that in a second, Ralph is gonna be crashing at Jim's house hiding out. Yep. Right? Because he's escaped from prison.

Mark:

They're after Escaped from prison.

Sarah:

And he's attacked two policemen. Yep. So not only has she been bringing them fish in the basement of the museum, but she obviously said, you can stay at Jim's house. She knows he's at

Mark:

Jim's And I think she probably filled it in that Jim had a past.

Sarah:

Well, Ralph and Jim got in a fight. Right? And then we don't see Jim again. So Ralph may have killed Jim, and then he's hiding out in Jim's house and Annie knows it. Yeah.

Sarah:

It's And she could easily do something about it, but she doesn't.

Mark:

He threatened to kill me.

Sarah:

Yeah. I'm not buying that. Yeah. I think she still has a soft spot for fish sandwich. That's what I think.

Mark:

I think that that's definitely a possibility.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because if she- if she doesn't know Jim's dead at that point. So why is it okay for him to hang

Mark:

out at Jim's Jim's house?

Sarah:

Oh, Kelly and Nico.

Mark:

Oh, okay.

Sarah:

They're highly experienced.

Mark:

Nico. Yes. But the cops are coming. They do have a blue light that goes on top of their car.

Sarah:

Yeah. But then Ralph steals it. And when Ralph the car. When Ralph steals the car, the light's gone.

Mark:

Yeah. Well, he pulls it in.

Sarah:

Well, wouldn't you?

Mark:

You think.

Sarah:

I mean, if you're gonna steal a car, you don't wanna have flashing blues on it.

Mark:

Right? But the next morning, no Nico allowed. Nope. You're gonna see Barnaby's dark side.

Sarah:

Yep. Now it's getting serious.

Mark:

It's gonna go talk to Linda Markquis. They see Charles leaving. Yeah.

Sarah:

This was an all night therapy session.

Mark:

I was very upset too. So upset. I did some rumpy pumpy.

Sarah:

Now there's this a scene I had to watch three times on the way to Linda's house. Tom and Troy are in the car speeding away like they usually do.

Mark:

Yes. You told me

Sarah:

this. And there's this little bend in the road.

Mark:

Okay. So I'm Troy. I'm driving.

Sarah:

Right? The roads are already narrow. Not my roads.

Mark:

Not using my indicator.

Sarah:

Don't use your turn signal. Don't use the brake pedal. Go around this bend where two detached houses have their front doors inches from the road.

Mark:

Yeah. Like, maybe a foot stoop.

Sarah:

Maybe. Like, if you stepped out of your house, flat, Troy would run you over. Dead. I've never seen houses that close to the street before. No sidewalks.

Sarah:

Too No nothing. That's a close. I I have to think that the road was put in after the houses were built. Yeah. Because otherwise somebody was really bad at building houses.

Sarah:

Can we move it a little bit further back from the road?

Mark:

No, no, No, You'll be fine. You'll fine.

Sarah:

There's a curb. It'll be fine.

Mark:

It's a full 11 inches. Yeah. That's what the council says.

Sarah:

And then when they get outside Linda's house, there's this weird food conversation again where Troy claimed Tom claims that you can only have four fried eggs a week. Yeah. What? Where does that number come from? Why four?

Mark:

And, like, why doesn't he just say, Troy, can I have a bit of your sandwich? Because, obviously, that's what he wants.

Sarah:

You can only have four fried eggs a week. That should be one of the rules.

Mark:

Should be. Yeah. So they go see Linda, who we find some dark secrets out about Linda. Heroin chic. Other than being in, I think, probably

Mark:

Human League? Human League. Other than being in the Human League.

Sarah:

I guess that. We hadn't talked about that. She definitely looks like that girl from Human League. Absolutely. I was a waitress in a restaurant.

Mark:

And then a therapist.

Sarah:

Yeah, apparently she's got an arrest for some drugs. She's had some issues.

Mark:

Two years ago.

Sarah:

But she gave it up two years ago. And then Barnaby says, more power to your elbow or just above it.

Mark:

Yeah. So what does that mean?

Sarah:

You know I looked it up.

Mark:

Yes, you

Sarah:

did. Now you've heard more power to you. Like, go on sister, more power to you. Yep. Do that thing.

Mark:

Yes. Do it.

Sarah:

More power to your elbow is a bit more specific. I found a reference in a UK newspaper from 1922. Wow. Where someone wrote in to ask about the phrase more power to your elbow. Oh.

Sarah:

And what the origin was. It goes back to the 1760s, in Ireland, where there were two kinds of bagpipes. This

Mark:

is not going where I thought it was going.

Sarah:

And one was called a Uline pipe.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

And relied far more on your elbow to squeeze the bag. And so when somebody played that bag pipe well, people would say, More power to your elbow.

Mark:

It's Scottish, right? Yeah. So maybe it's a Moira thing.

Sarah:

No. It's not yes.

Mark:

Because she's Scottish.

Sarah:

No. It's Irish.

Mark:

Oh, then I have no idea.

Sarah:

More power to your elbow.

Mark:

But she drops a secret too.

Sarah:

Or just above it because that's where you shoot up your heroin.

Mark:

Yes. She drops a secret that Alan and Sandra were an item.

Sarah:

Again, totally red herring. Right? Linda's just like, don't look at me. Look at somebody else. It's not me.

Mark:

They go to Alan Bradford's labyrinth.

Sarah:

He has a fantastic labyrinth. He does. And Alan admits that though he tried to love Sandra and he cares about her a lot.

Mark:

His heart wasn't in

Sarah:

him. He plays for the other team. Yep. Neither do I. He's a cavalier.

Sarah:

Troy's not gay.

Mark:

Not a round I'm not gay.

Sarah:

He's a cavalier.

Mark:

Let's leave.

Sarah:

Not a round head.

Mark:

Let's leave right now.

Sarah:

Do you know why a cavalier was a a euphemism for gay? No. Because in the civil war, the cavaliers who are the royalists were still wearing the long curly wigs Ah. And the flouncy buckled shoes and stuff.

Mark:

I can see that.

Sarah:

And the round heads were the parliamentarians. They had their haircut really short. They wore more workman type uniforms, and they just weren't they weren't as fancy.

Mark:

I never doubted it, Gavin. Yeah. Gavin. Gavin.

Sarah:

I love that Alan calls him Gavin. He says it a couple of times. It's it's almost as good as Annie's wink with half of her face.

Mark:

Sandra is leaving everything to her sister in Canada.

Sarah:

Yeah. All $10,000,000.

Mark:

I just say, Canada is like the easiest thing for British people to use in shows.

Sarah:

It's it's incredibly far away,

Mark:

but not America. It's incredibly far away, but not corrupt like America is. Right. Or crazy like America is. Miss Bunsen The good colonists.

Sarah:

Miss Bunsen should go to every funeral. Yes. Because she adds excitement. Vicar, halt. Bring

Mark:

it up.

Sarah:

Let me point my hands. I'm pointing my fingers. Never mind. No. Get it

Mark:

up. Get it up. Into the hole, Troy.

Sarah:

Poor Troy has to jump down in that grave. Now I know Jim's buried under some dirt in there.

Mark:

But he would have had to land on Jim.

Sarah:

But he landed right on Jim. And Jim plays a good corpse.

Mark:

He does. He's like solid as a rock.

Sarah:

Now I don't know where he's actually lying down when they do the close-up of his face with the dirt, but the dirt is like right up to hit the corner of his eyes. Yeah. It's all over his face. So he and and there's no soil movement from breathing.

Mark:

He does a really good job. Does. It's really good.

Sarah:

Jim Tate is in the hole.

Mark:

And he's so upset. I don't know about that, though. I think you're right. And he's talking out of both sides of

Sarah:

the She's gotta know he's dead. Otherwise, why would she let Ralph hang out at his house?

Mark:

The dog, speaking of houses, is in Tom's chair.

Sarah:

Yeah. But Angel's gonna come get it, so it's okay. And then Nico has another wave of brilliance.

Mark:

Yep. He finds out that James Tate is actually Whistler, who is

Sarah:

Four inch's accountant. Four inch's accountant. How Nico found that out when the actual police people hadn't put it together yet.

Mark:

Nico's amazing. You know who's bad at trying to escape? Ralph. Ralph. He goes to Hull and tries to hop on a ship.

Sarah:

Yeah. I'm getting out of here, coppers. Well, maybe not. But he has a very high opinion of Sandra. It's not him.

Sarah:

He's not doing anything to her. What about the two dead people? Yeah. All they're concerned about is who's bothering Sandra? Yes.

Sarah:

Like, okay. She's unstable and a bit crazy. Two people are dead.

Mark:

Yes. Then we have bodies. But who's bothering Sandra? Speaking of Sandra, she's back at the museum again. Don't leave her alone.

Mark:

Oh, we left her alone. Charles has a meeting. He's got heaps of things for her to sign. Yeah. Like the David Delighted depart departed slide, maybe?

Mark:

No. No. Sandra gets scared.

Sarah:

What does she do?

Mark:

What does she do? Screamy, screamy, runny, runny.

Sarah:

I'm not buying this projector thing. It's very Scooby Doo.

Mark:

Oh, it's super Scooby

Sarah:

would totally see. I mean, I know she's not completely with this,

Mark:

but like a nineteen fifties projector, so the fans on those And are going

Sarah:

it's been whacked against the guy's head a couple times. So

Mark:

Like, it should have little blood driplets. I'm just

Sarah:

wondering how Charlie made that slide. PowerPoint. He he does run a software

Mark:

Software company. Company.

Sarah:

It looks like it's been drawn with a marker on a piece of plastic.

Mark:

Back at the cop shop, Cass shows up and basically spills all the beans.

Sarah:

Sandra's having a breakdown. You should probably go check on her.

Mark:

Yeah. She's losing her shit again. And Barnaby calls her and there's this weird scene by the lake where he basically tells her everything.

Sarah:

He needs to get her alone so they can plot together to set up Linda and Charlie. And for once, Sandra is sensible.

Mark:

Yes. And says, ah. She goes in with the plan, right? And the plan is to go see Linda and to convince them to try to really freak her out.

Sarah:

So they can catch them trying to make Sandra feel crazy, which what do you know? Linda says, Why don't we meet tonight at the museum after dark?

Mark:

Strangely. And I'll

Sarah:

show you that nothing's going on. The lights aren't working. How weird.

Mark:

A figure approaches.

Sarah:

And then Sandra says it's David. Did her husband hang out in a cloak?

Mark:

I guess so. It's like totally over the top gaslighting of her.

Sarah:

It's a male human. It's David. I don't see her. He's in

Mark:

the I don't

Sarah:

see anything. He's in the painting. He's that guy in a cloak. He's Tom. Nico is David.

Sarah:

Everybody's David. Who's not David? Yeah. And

Mark:

then I don't it's like see what? I don't see anything.

Sarah:

Oh, it's such it's it she's good at acting badly.

Mark:

Yeah. So Troy shows up and Barnaby shows up

Mark:

and Barnaby gives him a sword. Go run him through. And Troy's like all all forward. He's like,

Mark:

oh, I get to stab somebody to death.

Sarah:

Governor told me to do it. And then Charlie's like, wait, wait, don't don't kill me.

Mark:

Yeah. So they take them to the cop shop and they put them in an interrogation room together and they leave them alone.

Sarah:

I know. Leaving two suspects together in a room alone is illegal.

Mark:

It's not illegal. It's dumb.

Sarah:

It's just dumb. But, you know, if they start to, you know, conspire together, it's not like they can't hear them

Mark:

or Yeah.

Sarah:

Watch them because there is a a cop in the room.

Mark:

Yeah. So they couldn't kill her because they wanted to get all of the company, and they didn't want to go to the sister in Canada.

Sarah:

Mark, it was just a joke that got out of hand.

Mark:

A joke. Missus needle feature. Miss needle feature.

Sarah:

Yeah, Troy calls Linda Miss Needle Features.

Mark:

That's not the name of the woman in the human league.

Sarah:

No. And I looked it up, and the only thing I could find was that maybe it means that your face is kind of harsh and pointy. Yeah. But I think it's a reference to heroin.

Mark:

I think it's

Sarah:

I think Troy's making stuff up.

Mark:

I think Troy's doing double duty here. He's saying she's ugly and she did the needles.

Sarah:

And she did drugs. Yeah. So the idea is that when Sandra was in rehab two years ago, she held back some medication that was a mind bender, and they've been slipping it to Sandra all this time.

Mark:

And that drug is cilazepam.

Sarah:

Which is an animal anesthetic. Number one, you don't give it to people going through rehab. And number two, if you're giving a patient in rehab drugs that strong and they need to take it, you don't just give them the pill so they can hoard them. You make sure you take them. Yeah.

Sarah:

Right? But did Linda plan this two years in advance?

Mark:

No. I guess she just kept a bunch of cilazepam around just in case.

Sarah:

But it's a veterinary anesthetic.

Mark:

They show no, like Charles and her meeting, and there's no conspiring.

Sarah:

So she was saving them up just to save them up?

Mark:

I guess. Sometimes you feel like an animal tranquilizer. Just just in case? Just pop one with a bunch of wine at night.

Sarah:

Well, apparently, amongst all the other problems that the countryside has, they have a cilazepam problem. People are slipping each other animal tranquilizers because Barnaby slaps that cost in health flyer on the table, and it's right there. Cilazepam. Heroin and Coke and LSD. Yep.

Sarah:

It's right there on the list. Opiates. So maybe it's because farm kids abuse it.

Mark:

I guess. I don't know. So they finally split them up, and they take Linda in the hallway, and she runs into Sandra. Yeah. Which we they never do that.

Mark:

Like It

Sarah:

could happen in a small station like that.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

It It could happen. Sandra should've, like, punched her in the face, though. I think so. That would've been awesome.

Mark:

Because she's like, you had everything thrown your way. Sandra did nothing wrong.

Sarah:

No. But you're pretty and you have money, and I just wanted a little bit of it. Well, then try not to be like a druggings, scheming, lying lady.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

Charlie and Ralph both both point the finger at each other like, you buried him. No. You buried him.

Mark:

No. You buried him. It's totally you did it. No. I did it.

Mark:

No. You did it. Yeah. But they believe Ralph. And what happens is they need to find the projector.

Mark:

Yeah. Because Ralph says that Charles killed Marcus

Sarah:

with the projector. With the projector. But where is it now?

Mark:

So Troy goes to search his house. Everybody goes to the

Sarah:

house. It could be anywhere now. Somebody could have just thrown it away in the trash.

Mark:

The people in the house are Troy Mhmm. Nico Mhmm. Sandra

Mark:

Mhmm.

Sarah:

And Alan Bradford. Mhmm. Looking for evidence.

Mark:

Evidence. Offhand, Nico goes, it could be anywhere, even in that skip over there. They run over and look in the skip, and they find it. And what do

Mark:

they do? They touch it with their hands.

Sarah:

We know police procedure has not been maintained during this episode.

Mark:

Part of me goes, it has

Mark:

bits of Marcus on it, to which I said, I did. And Nico.

Sarah:

Well, I think Nico has bits of Marcus on him now.

Mark:

Yeah. Exactly. And they find the watch in Ralph's clothes. So Ralph killed Jim and And Charles killed Marcus. Marcus.

Mark:

The dog n. The dog is not staying in the house because who's coming to pick up the dog? Kevin. Kevin? What's Kevin?

Mark:

Kevin Angel. Oh, he lives with mom.

Sarah:

Or he's gonna give the dog to his mom.

Mark:

I don't

Sarah:

know if it's clear he lives with her.

Mark:

But he's been off sick. Yeah. Because he ate the mackerel. The evidentiary mackerel. Page three of the Daily Mail, which is a big thing, but wow, I don't think the Daily Mail has proofreaders.

Sarah:

No. Well, and it's funny because I think the rest of the paper is actually real. And there's just this one sheet in the inside where Barnaby opens it just to that fold. Yep. And here's the story about the Aspirin Tallow.

Mark:

Museum killers. Police charge men in killing in Aspen Tallow. They misspelled aspern tallow. Aspern. Not aspirin.

Mark:

Aspern. Aspern. Not aspirin.

Sarah:

A candle made out of tallow would burn your ass.

Mark:

And I did notice that the article has, like, words in it. It's not just like Lorem Ipsum or something. Lorem Ipsum text. It's pretty good. And then they do the thing that I hate.

Mark:

I the episode should end right there.

Sarah:

Yeah. But they've gotta have the or was it?

Mark:

You had the creepy chair, creeping and creeping.

Sarah:

So are we supposed to believe that Jonathan Lowry, the cavalier, sat in a rocking chair all the time?

Mark:

I don't know. It's just dumb.

Sarah:

Did rocking chairs exist then?

Mark:

I don't know. It's just dumb.

Sarah:

I tried to find out when rocking chairs were invented. Oh my gosh. And the history of rocking chairs is a bit unclear. One source I found. I'm sorry, it's just so stupid now that I'm bigger than that.

Sarah:

One source I found hypothesized that the rocking chair originated from chairs with uneven legs. And somebody realized that teetering on a chair was kind of enjoyable, and then built a chair purposely built for that.

Mark:

And ghosts. And ghosts like to rock them. They do.

Sarah:

With fishing lines that you can sort of see in the upper right hand corner in the sunlight. You can sort of see the fishing line Yep. Jiggle on that chair.

Mark:

There's a couple of questions at the end of this episode. Jim is dead. Yeah. And he's not married to him. No.

Mark:

Jim has no children. No. Where does all his money and houses go?

Sarah:

Yeah. Well, and where is his money? Right? Yeah. Because there's the question of where he hid the money and why he thinks people are gonna come and kill him.

Mark:

Like, there's definitely some moolah there that if Annie was as skeezy as we think she is, she should have been married to him like in a second.

Sarah:

Yeah. And some disappointed gangsters who might have tried to hunt him down at some point to get the money and then found out that some software guy killed him. Yes. No. Some basement dwelling fishier had killed him.

Mark:

Then another question I have, of course, is what does that software company do?

Sarah:

We'll never know.

Mark:

Because I have no idea. They know it's just software company.

Sarah:

It's probably some proprietary accounting software.

Mark:

There's an episode coming up in like season ten or 11, I think, or 12 called the glitch

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

Which they go into a software company and it's it's much better.

Sarah:

Yeah. It gets better. It's not perfect,

Mark:

but it's better.

Sarah:

But this episode is it's awesome for miss Bunsell. She's an awesome character. I wish she would come back.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

I wish she was in other episodes. I really liked her. I really like the whole kind of ghost story thing and if that whole Scooby Doo plot.

Mark:

Yeah. And then Troy, Barnaby solves it all. I like that.

Sarah:

Yeah. I did too. And and I think he's he and Troy are great. They're both great in this episode. They're perfect for their, like, little character boxes that they're supposed to play.

Sarah:

And

Mark:

And Nico's great. He is never see him again.

Sarah:

Well, we don't really need to. I mean, I think this is, the best he can be.

Mark:

Yeah. I think so.

Sarah:

You know, it's the most he can contribute.

Mark:

Yep. And we need more rules.

Sarah:

I do wish that we had heard all of the rules. Yeah. But

Mark:

Maybe we'll ask you. Maybe that'll be the question this week I post. What other rules should there be for playing a constable?

Sarah:

Yeah. Because we get

Mark:

Playing a DS. Sorry.

Sarah:

What rules do we get? We get one, two, seven, and twenty four.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

And that's it?

Mark:

Yeah. That's it. We get four rules.

Sarah:

So what are all the other rules? I don't know. What should they be?

Mark:

You tell us Sleep naked. What else does Troy do? Collect comic books, but we don't know that yet.

Sarah:

Flirt with witnesses.

Mark:

Flirt with witnesses.

Sarah:

Yeah. You should always do that. And you should always steal the governor's candy from the glove box.

Mark:

Try to tell the governor what to eat.

Sarah:

But I bet you, the folks listening are gonna come much better rules. Absolutely. The sergeant's rules.

Mark:

So corpse of the episode.

Sarah:

I gotta say it's Jim Tate.

Mark:

Jim Tate, without a doubt. He's covered in dirt, doesn't move a stitch.

Sarah:

Marcus's head wound is epic.

Mark:

It is.

Sarah:

And Jonathan Lowry is a pretty cool corpse. Yep. But I gotta give it to Jim Tate because wow. Yeah. With this loose soil and everything, he doesn't He

Mark:

does a great job.

Sarah:

He was in a movie called The Monster Club in 1981 with Vincent Price.

Mark:

Seen that movie.

Sarah:

Of course, you have. James Lawrence. Yeah. I give, I give James Lawrence and aka James Tate the best corpse of

Mark:

the episode. Nice. So Midsomer Maniacs is on Twitter and Instagram at Midsomer Maniac.

Sarah:

Go to any of these places and tell us what are the other 21 rules.

Mark:

And I'll post it on the Facebook group of both Acorn and Midsomer Murders. Maybe we

Sarah:

can make the complete list.

Mark:

Maybe. Well, if we get more of them, we'll post a list. That would

Sarah:

be awesome.

Mark:

Absolutely. Again, happy birthday to John Nettles. '75, man. And you look you you look great. Yeah.

Mark:

He does. He's awesome. Yep. Next episode is season four episode one. And I gotta tell you, was looking over season four today.

Mark:

Oh, we

Sarah:

got some good ones.

Mark:

Six episodes of bonkers. Yeah. It is six It's

Mark:

coming baby. Episodes.

Sarah:

Crazy. Crazy.

Mark:

And we start with Garden of Death.

Sarah:

Tune in next time for Garden of Death, And

Mark:

and who who is the gardener

Mark:

in Gardener of Death? He looks sort of like

Sarah:

a Barnaby. He must be a distant relation. Yes. Neil Dudgeon. Playing a young sexy gardener.

Mark:

Yes. And selling hooch out of his hut.

Sarah:

Yeah. Well, why not? Yep. So tune in next time for that. Bye, Maniacs.

Sarah:

Bye, Maniacs. So, and they had, I'm saying so like you usually say so. Have you infected me with your

Mark:

stop saying so, so I stopped it.

Sarah:

Oh, well, mine don't because I didn't used to say it. Thanks. I'll say instead.

Mark:

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. Bye, Maniacs.