Mystery Maniacs

🎙️ Episode:  https://share.transistor.fm/s/efd578d4
📓 Show Notes: https://midsomermaniacs.transistor.fm/215

Mystery Maniacs Episode! In Podcast 215, a bandit case is solved, a wife is missing and Mark does an impression. 

Show Notes
Moonflower Murders
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26314987/

Ludwig
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27846061/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Van der Valk
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9128874/

Tree Sweater

 
Thanks again for listening!
 
Mark & Sarah

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Upcoming Schedule
  • October 7 - The Brokenwood Mysteries S01E04 - “Hunting the Stag”
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Creators & 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.

Mark:

That is the only reason why you wear minimal socks. The smallest socks possible He really does.

Sarah:

And you take them off as soon as you

Mark:

Hey, maniacs. Hey. You golfing maniacs. Welcome to Mystery Maniacs.

Sarah:

Mystery Maniacs is a comedy recap podcast dedicated to mystery TV. Each week, we dig into an episode of the show including the murders. Yep. The mayhem? Oh, yeah.

Sarah:

The loonies, we got them, and everything else we love. This week, Broken Wood Mysteries season 1 episode 3, playing the lie.

Mark:

Now how do you spell lie when it comes to golf?

Sarah:

L I e. Okay.

Mark:

So it's spelled the same. I didn't know if it was a pun playing the lie because they're obviously liars in the episode Yes. Or not?

Sarah:

No. No. It it it matched what they were doing.

Mark:

This is a spoiler podcast. If you've not seen playing the lies season 1 episode 3 of broken wood mysteries, stop, go watch it, come back, or we're gonna ruin it for you. We're gonna tell you who did it.

Sarah:

It's broken wood mysteries, but we just call it broken wood.

Mark:

Broken wood for

Sarah:

sure.

Mark:

It's not like there's other broken wood shows.

Sarah:

Nope. And if you let your kids find dead bodies on the golf course, they should be able to,

Mark:

Handle this. Handle this. Oh, Maggie Smith passed away this week. Oh. Was she 89?

Mark:

Is that right?

Sarah:

89. Cross generational talent. Yeah. I feel like looking at her list of movies, I feel like I've been watching her all my life.

Mark:

Yeah. I'd say of her most recent roles, her role in the in Downton Abbey, the early seasons are the ones I watched. She was just you talk about eating scenery. I just basically watched it to see her scenes more or less because she was so good.

Sarah:

I got it.

Mark:

Kids, of course, know her from the Harry Potter movies.

Sarah:

Harry Potter movies. I gotta say Gosford Park too. Oh, yeah. He's a big Roger Robert Altman fan. That's a movie in which I didn't get to see, when it came out because I was raising well, I think probably, my first wife was pregnant at that point in time, so I didn't really it was like

Mark:

You weren't hitting the movie theater?

Sarah:

Wasn't hitting the movie theater, and then I saw it later on. I'm like, I know who all these people are.

Mark:

But it's sad that Maggie Smith is gone. Yes. She was awesome.

Sarah:

She was absolutely

Mark:

All the other dames are mourning her. She was part of that club.

Sarah:

Yes. Absolutely. And there's a video that's been making the rounds of her and Carol Burnett too, and that's that's just a beautiful thing right there.

Mark:

And good news

Sarah:

Yes.

Mark:

We learned that season 5 of Shakespeare and Hathaway will be produced.

Sarah:

Wait a minute. Season 5. I thought Shakespeare and Hathaway was done.

Mark:

I thought it was done too because Jude passed away.

Sarah:

No. It was done before Jude passed away. It's too

Mark:

too much sad death here. Yep. But, no, it's back.

Sarah:

I bet that I know it's gonna start off with dedicated to Jude Tindall Oh,

Mark:

yeah. Front. For sure.

Sarah:

Right on the very front.

Mark:

This week, we watched the first couple of episodes of the Moonflower Mysteries. They're based on the Anthony Horowitz novels. The first season of it was the Magpie Mysteries or Magpie Murders. Really good books. I love the books.

Sarah:

And there there's 3 time periods happening at once that interact with each other, which I love.

Mark:

Mhmm.

Sarah:

I absolutely love that idea. So there's the writing of the book, the reading of the book by the main character 8 years later

Mark:

Mhmm. And then The world of the book, which is set in the twenties.

Sarah:

Which is set in the twenties.

Mark:

They're really good, though. I I can't say that it ends well because we haven't seen the last episode yet, but definitely worth checking out. And if you haven't watched the magpie series, the first series, you should definitely check it out.

Sarah:

And we watched the new first two episodes of van der Fluffen. Van der Valk. Van der Valk.

Mark:

I like van der

Sarah:

VanderVolk's very good.

Mark:

And It's a little darker. It's not cute.

Sarah:

It's set in Denmark and Amsterdam. Mhmm. And it it's very, it's this is a Tarantino version of it. Like, it's gangstery and

Mark:

But it's good.

Sarah:

But the

Mark:

And all the actors are British. It's set in Amsterdam, but they're all British. But really fun and good character development. It's not just a procedural or something

Sarah:

like that. But, Sarah, we need to go to England. We need to have a house in England. A house in which we can go to England and watch TV and then come home. We need a teleportation device.

Mark:

I think they call it a VPN. We can fake being in England, I think, on the Internet.

Sarah:

I'm getting a VPN. We're watching proper hockey and Canadian news.

Mark:

Because David Mitchell, who is one of my all time favorites, is in a new show called Ludwig, which is a mystery. And I love him so much.

Sarah:

We watched the trailer. So he plays a man who has a twin brother

Mark:

Identical twin brother who is a policeman.

Sarah:

Who is a policeman who has disappeared.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

And they released a scene of him and his wife His brother's wife. His brother's wife from it, and it's brilliant. And David Mitchell acts really well.

Mark:

He's a good actor, but he's also really funny. It looks like it's gonna have some some humor in it too. Yeah.

Sarah:

It's kind of a fish out of water plus Sherlock Holmes all at the same time. Yeah. Plus his like, the the wife character was brilliant. I think She's been

Mark:

lots of things.

Sarah:

Yeah. Essentially, she's been left a note that said, just forget about me. Yeah. She's like She's

Mark:

like, I can't believe that my husband would leave me this note. But you should go and check out the trailer. It's called Ludwig. Yeah. It's got David Mitchell in it.

Mark:

It looks like it's gonna be great. If you are in the UK and you get to watch it, let us know how it is, and we'll we'll love Hate You Back Yeah. Because you get to see it.

Sarah:

Yes. It's a BBC show.

Mark:

Yeah. Eventually, we'll get to watch it.

Sarah:

Speaking of shows that we're gonna cover, October 7th, we will release the last, episode of season 1 for the broken wood mysteries, hunting the stag, or as we like to call it, Frodo.

Mark:

Frodo. And then we're just gonna go on to season 2. Yes. Because there's short seasons. There's very few episodes, and everybody seems to like it, and we're having fun.

Sarah:

Now we love you, and we know we've been spotty over the summer, but we knew we were going to be spotty over the summer. Never mind all the stuff that happened. But our plan is 714, 21, and 28 Yep. Of October. But you all know things get a little crazy in October here.

Mark:

Well, we just got one crazy thing at least off my list. So, if I don't know if anybody's ever done this before, but I made a tree sweater for a local charity. It's a women's shelter called the Middleway House, and they have a fundraiser where people crochet or knit tree sweaters, and they put them up on trees around downtown Bloomington and their sponsors that pay for them. And and I hung my first one this year.

Sarah:

And we'll put some pictures of that in the show notes and in all our fan areas.

Mark:

Fun to make. Yeah. It was weird to make. It was kinda like making a big Afghan, but mine has weird faces all over it.

Sarah:

They're not weird. They're ins inspirational faces.

Mark:

Yeah. They're all ladies. They're all women of different ages and

Sarah:

I find women in this broth.

Mark:

Inspirational. So. Unlike some of our politicians. Anyway, let's talk about broken wood. Are you ready?

Sarah:

This episode, the cold open, is really a horror movie.

Mark:

It is. So If only it was dark and foggy It was when she's power walking across the golf course and gets sprayed in the face.

Sarah:

Originally aired on the 12th October 2014, directed by Michael Hirst, and and Tim Baum wrote this. As we mentioned before, Tim Baum basically writes this series. Now Michael Hirst, do you know who that is? No. He is Hercules' sidekick in 79 episodes of Hercules.

Mark:

I can't say that I actually actually have ever seen Hercules.

Sarah:

That's okay. It's Kevin Sorbo, so it's not exactly acting royalty.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

But he plays the sidekick.

Mark:

Okay. Like, he's an actor. And he's also a director.

Sarah:

He's also director. And guess what? He has directed some horror movies, including he's done some episodes. This was after this, but he's done some episodes of Ash versus the Evil Dead. Mhmm.

Sarah:

So he is absolutely familiar with the work of Sam Ramey, and I would say that this is a little nod to that, especially once she gets shot in the face with the stuff.

Mark:

Oh, then she's got the steady cam on, and we and we get blistering face cam.

Sarah:

Yes. So steady cam shots are a prime Sam Rami thing.

Mark:

If you don't know what a steady cam is, imagine wearing a backpack backwards, and there's a camera on the front of it. And it's So then it's face back at you.

Sarah:

Yeah. So you move and the surroundings move.

Mark:

And the camera

Sarah:

stays with you. Like you're not moving. Yeah. And that's how they get those crazy shots. It like, it's almost out of Friday 13th here.

Mark:

Well, I think it's really it's a good way to express the horror of it. Like, she's almost immediately blinded. Her face is bleeding and blistering. Her lungs are burning. Like, the panic of it, I think it's a good way to convey that.

Sarah:

It definitely so last October, I was attacked by

Mark:

a swarm Not pesticides. A swarm hornets.

Sarah:

Of hornets. And

Mark:

If we'd had a Steadicam on you, it would look like that's

Sarah:

look mad. I threw my glasses because

Mark:

It took us 3 days to find your glasses.

Sarah:

Could see hornets inside my glasses, and I thought my eyes were gonna be gone. And it was not a good day.

Mark:

So can you sympathize with Allison?

Sarah:

Yes. I can. Well, sort of. So I did ask

Mark:

some evil woman.

Sarah:

I asked something last week, which was we dislike this woman immediately. Yeah. How is it that we dislike this woman immediately?

Mark:

What is it about her?

Sarah:

Like, we learned that she she is a deplorable human being.

Mark:

Yes. Okay? But we don't know that yet.

Sarah:

We don't know that yet.

Mark:

For me, it's the haughty way she walks.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

She walks like she's in charge, and she does literally own the place. Yes. So I guess she deserves to walk that way if she wants.

Sarah:

I did notice a couple of times that there are several tracks. She had to do that walk a bunch of times. Mhmm. And, because normally, it would just be her one track because there wouldn't be people going back and forth.

Mark:

Right. You wouldn't see more than one set of footprints and No. Dew on the grass.

Sarah:

But but they they do. That that can't be unfaked.

Mark:

So I think it's the way the way she walks that that she looks entitled, chin up Yeah. Power walking with the elbows out. That makes us kind of know that she's not a warm and fuzzy person. I I think anybody who obviously has spent more money on their athleisure clothes than other people spend on their everyday clothes kinda hits you as a ponzi person that maybe is gonna be dislikable. And then the reaction she has when she sees that the padlock is off, she's not like, oh, no.

Mark:

She's like, I'm gonna get them.

Sarah:

You know? Like This is another thing in which is broken that I have to deal with now.

Mark:

Yeah. And how dare somebody do this? I'm so

Sarah:

And the dude in the suit is scary.

Mark:

Yeah. With the gas mask and the paper suit, he's faceless and ready for her.

Sarah:

Yeah. Waiting.

Mark:

I'm glad it was her and not just somebody else wandering around Yes. Who happened to notice a dog walker or something.

Sarah:

Well, everybody knew she walked then.

Mark:

But He did call her. The the method of pre tell her to go there.

Sarah:

The method of pre oh, what's the word?

Mark:

Premeditation.

Sarah:

Premeditation is huge. Yes. And it leads me to another question that we'll get to.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Okay. So then we have the 4 golfers. The town dudes. The dudes. And these are not, like, fancy golfers.

Sarah:

No. They they keep their clubs at the golf course, but they don't they're not the best clubs.

Mark:

And they're not all wearing golf gear either. Some of them are just wearing normal clothes. I also look comfortable enough to play golf in.

Sarah:

I also really liked how they talked to each other. It they did a good job of walking that line of these guys are just joshing each other because they're playing a sport, and maybe they don't actually like each other.

Mark:

But it wouldn't take much for the razzing to turn into an actual argument.

Sarah:

Yes.

Mark:

Well and the one guy, Neil Yep. Is perpetually grumpy. So it's not hard to make him mad.

Sarah:

Yes. And the one guy with decent golf clothing

Mark:

Roger, the killer? Is the killer. Yeah. Ponzi guy.

Sarah:

No business when we're playing. The only reason there's no business when you're playing is because there's been business when you played, and somebody has made that state. Like, you only have that rule because somebody screwed it up.

Mark:

Yeah. And messed your game up. Ass. You couldn't have fun

Sarah:

playing what he says. So they find the body, and I love how they're like, maybe she's okay. And that one guy is like, no. Jeez.

Mark:

It's way past an ambulance.

Sarah:

Yeah. So we have the scene of the crime, and Mike arrives already, and there's a creepy lady there who we don't know about yet who is really creepy for no reason at all.

Mark:

That's Janet Grimm. She's like the the manager. Grimm. Yeah. It's funny.

Mark:

She's played by Donna Rees, and the actress's headshot on IMDB is of her in Power Rangers Oh. In a costume that completely hides her face. And so when I looked at the actor list before I started rewatching the episode, I was like, oh, is there an evil robot in this episode? I don't think so. Oh, no.

Mark:

Power Rangers. You know? Yes. When half the actor headshots are from Power Rangers, Xena, or Hercules, they're all or or Lord of the Rings, they're all weird.

Sarah:

Yes. I would agree. So they they do a really dancing around of, I don't know if she's been murdered. I'm like, this is no accident.

Mark:

I was wrong about who's grumpy. It's not Neil. The person who's who's grumpy is Doug.

Sarah:

Well, Doug and Neil are kind of they're not the same person, but they're both grumpy.

Mark:

Neil's the pharmacist, though. Yes. And Doug is the old retired guy. Yes. There's a big difference between them.

Sarah:

And this is Neil, the pharmacist, is a reoccurring character. We just get a kinda glance of him going on here.

Mark:

And You'll see a lot more of him later.

Sarah:

Yes. So Hamish arrives and is literally like Jeff Spicoli.

Mark:

He's just a mouth breather. Yeah. He's just sitting around with his jaw slide going

Sarah:

I was

Mark:

what?

Sarah:

What?

Mark:

And then we find out okay. Brokenwood is a little place. Yes. This whole thing about Neil staying overnight because the drive is too long makes no sense at

Sarah:

all. No sense at all.

Mark:

He's the pharmacist in town. Now if he said I had a few too many drinks or I knew I was gonna stay and look at the books and it was gonna be really late and we were golfing early so it just didn't seem like it made sense to go home for just a few hours. Fine. But that's not what he says. He says, well, the drive, you know, and the early game and

Sarah:

So I think so later on, we see he is partnered with the Anglican priest in town.

Mark:

Wait a minute. I thought the priest was partnered with no. No. No. The pharmacist becomes the mayor.

Sarah:

Yes.

Mark:

The priest and the psychotherapist are a couple.

Sarah:

Oh, I thought the mayor was involved with him. We'll have to see. Anyway, those 3

Mark:

They're the gay men and a broken one.

Sarah:

Gay men and a broken one. There's only

Mark:

3 of them, so it's an odd match up.

Sarah:

I do like that none of the men he plays golf with make any reference to the fact that he's gay, and I'm sure they all know. Yeah. It's it's just not, like, a thing.

Mark:

Like asshole American men would do?

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah. So the walker whose name is what is her name?

Mark:

The woman who died? Yes. Allison.

Sarah:

So Allison has a daughter named Nikki. And, really, the the the pair doesn't fall far from the tree here.

Mark:

When they go to the cottage where she's living Oh

Sarah:

my gosh.

Mark:

I just wanna burn it down.

Sarah:

So Mike sends Sims to go tell her because Mike is going to do something else. And what we don't know here on first viewing is that Mike hates golf with a with a passion

Mark:

Mhmm.

Sarah:

Because he says it cost him a marriage later on. Now we also find

Mark:

out didn't. He went golfing to get away from the woman he was married to Yes. Which meant that the marriage was already

Sarah:

We also find out that Mike is actually a really good golfer

Mark:

and probably really loves it. Who's better, Poirot or Mike? And what what this because Poirot is is a Savant golfer.

Sarah:

Yes. What that's put this in mind of is when I had to stop running and because my arthritis and my knees started. I literally hated every runner I saw for a year later. I I won.

Mark:

Fantasized about running them down.

Sarah:

I thought about running them down. Yeah. With your car. And they're, like, just loping along, like, brain dead gazelles. And I'm like, ugh.

Sarah:

And, like, I wanna tell you, every minute of running was difficult for me. I hated every second of it. And yet when I couldn't do it, I had that reaction. And I think there's something similar in there. They go to Nikki's Shaq.

Sarah:

Pitt? Now she's Shaq ed up with Roger's son.

Mark:

Mhmm. Kyle.

Sarah:

Kyle. Who is wow. Kyle is easily led around by bits of his body. Mhmm.

Mark:

Well, he's one of those cops make a run for it. Yes. No. Like, he he thinks he has a reason to make a run for it, but not really. No solid reason to make a run for it.

Mark:

But there are just some kinds of people who run from police because they just do.

Sarah:

Well, we we saw that.

Mark:

Shows like this. I'm not talking about real life. And shows like this, they're and they're usually ruffians of a certain age.

Sarah:

My title for this section where they go to the house is called the squalor she lives in. There's dirty dishes and bugs.

Mark:

Mine just says Nikki lives in a pit with golf trophies.

Sarah:

Yeah. So Sims immediately finds out that this character that they all make reference to, who is the clubhouse bandit, is Kyle. Kyle. Now listeners, especially our listeners in New Zealand, I feel we're not getting a joke here because every time they say clubhouse bandit, Mike's like, that's an unfortunate name. Yeah.

Sarah:

It's like

Mark:

Like, there's another bandit? No. Like, in the news?

Sarah:

Clubhouse bandit is, like, a term for, like, dogging

Mark:

or something like a reference that we don't get.

Sarah:

It's a reference we don't get.

Mark:

Because when he says that to Kyle, who is the clubhouse bandit, he's like, I didn't pick it. Yeah. I'm like, he he's got an attitude about it too.

Sarah:

So are we missing something about clubhouse bandit because we don't live in New Zealand?

Mark:

Yeah. The the jacket so Nikki gets dressed to go to the police station. Yes. And the jacket she puts on looks like me after my yarn swift goes awry. Like, it's it's like somebody untangled a big ball of yarn, and she put her arms through it.

Sarah:

Yes. It's horrendous. Every

Mark:

I just I my immediate thought was, how do you wash that? Yeah. You don't wash that, do you? You can't. It's just big loops of yarn attached to something.

Sarah:

This clubhouse band that has hit multiple clubhouses, including places as far away as Pukuru Pukuru Falls.

Mark:

Yes. Hey. We can't make fun of the place names. Okay?

Sarah:

No. We can't. Okay. Sims is like, she solves a major crime in the first five minutes of this episode. Because the band

Mark:

is not just stealing old trophies. He's stealing money

Sarah:

And boos.

Mark:

And boos Like this which is expensive.

Sarah:

Level stuff.

Mark:

And and has been doing it for a while and is breaking and entering to do it.

Sarah:

And they're complete idiots because, like, why are you stealing the trophies? And why are they so display? Like, anybody who would go to that house of squalor would immediately

Mark:

They were here when we moved in.

Sarah:

They were here when we moved in is the worst lie of the episode.

Mark:

Yeah. Is Nikki Allison's dead husband's daughter?

Sarah:

Yes.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

And that will lead me to all sorts of weirdness later on.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

So Mike interrogates the the boys who found the body Mhmm. In a slow manner as possible. Mhmm. But then he goes to Nikki's house, Allison's house. Right.

Sarah:

Did you notice what was in the hall of Allison's house? No. First of all, she is a gorgeous church pew.

Mark:

Yes. I saw that. And a penguin.

Sarah:

Did you notice the penguin? No. Inside the front door, there's a penguin. And then she has, like, a alluring sec sexy naked lady painting. Is it her?

Sarah:

No. It's not her. I think the woman has dark hair.

Mark:

Mhmm.

Sarah:

But it is a woman who would a man would pick that picture.

Mark:

Maybe her husband picked it.

Sarah:

That was 8 years ago.

Mark:

I think I would replaced it by now if she didn't like it?

Sarah:

Like, I know you love me, and you love all the things about me. And if I were to pass on or anything like that, you would wanna keep as many memories of me around as possible. But there are some things you would be like, I'm sorry. This needs to go.

Mark:

This naked hockey player painting is going.

Sarah:

This needs to go right now.

Mark:

We don't have that, by the way. No.

Sarah:

I did notice that Allison has a very neat desk where everything is placed correctly

Mark:

in the neat desk and a messy bedroom.

Sarah:

She must freak out because of Nikki.

Mark:

Nikki's room is quite the pit, but it's nothing compared to the cottage.

Sarah:

So let's go to the bedroom and get to the root of the problem I have with Allison.

Mark:

So Allison's bedroom, the bed is messed up.

Sarah:

There's a

Mark:

box of condoms on the floor. Yes. There's neckties tied to the headboard. Yeah. Now whose necktie is that?

Sarah:

Because it is not Hamish. Shahed Hamish.

Mark:

Maybe they're Curtis'. I think they're Curtis'. They're her dead husband's neckties.

Sarah:

She uses her dead husband's neckties to have sex with

Mark:

her dead husband's son. Yeah. You said she was deplorable. It was an understatement. And she knows it.

Sarah:

And she knows it. Yeah. Do you think she slept with Jared? No. I think Jared comes pretty close to being like, yeah.

Sarah:

I did that too.

Mark:

I think that Jared would probably be willing to have a night of fun with an older single lady in town, but not if she was a bad person. No. I don't think he would find that attractive. Maybe that's wishful thinking on my part because I like him even though his fashion choices are bad, but I don't think he would do that.

Sarah:

Also, Hamish leaves the seat up, which drives me insane.

Mark:

Mhmm. I Well, he's the man slut toy boy, so it is a good piece of evidence, though. It means that he was there that day. Like

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

The last person to use that toilet was a man. Yes. Mike is smart about that.

Sarah:

Sorry. Was a man who doesn't leave the seat up. Who leaves the seat up? Yes. Because there are men who don't leave the seat up.

Mark:

Like mine. My man doesn't do that.

Sarah:

Mike looks at the the ever present listing of winners and losers on former golf tournaments that shows up in every golf episode of every detective show.

Mark:

Grim, Grim, Grim, Grim, Grim, Grim, Grim, Grim, Grim, Grim.

Sarah:

Out what's going on.

Mark:

There are people who win on a regular basis here.

Sarah:

Yes. What I like about this clubhouse and the golf course reminded me so much of the Carlton Place golf course in the clubhouse.

Mark:

Didn't we go there for breakfast once?

Sarah:

We went there

Mark:

for breakfast. Yeah. It looks just like this.

Sarah:

It looks just

Mark:

like Especially when they pan across the dining room that's empty because he's gonna interview the dudes who found the body.

Sarah:

Yes.

Mark:

I looked at that, and I went, have I been there? That room looks familiar.

Sarah:

The golf course where I grew up looks very no. Not the golf course right next door to where I grew up, but the golf course in the town where I went to high school. The clubhouse idiot.

Mark:

So the Grimms used to be very good at golf. Yes. Even Slachild Hamish apparently was very good at golf until he punched somebody, and then he stopped playing golf. Does he look like somebody who would be really good at golf? I don't know.

Mark:

He's let himself go a bit.

Sarah:

He's also one of those people who is naturally good at everything kind of feel.

Mark:

Except breathing with his mouth closed.

Sarah:

We have a friend

Mark:

Keeping his hair out of his face.

Sarah:

We have a friend who lives in, Louisville now that I did my masters with who is kinda like this. Just naturally good at every game.

Mark:

It's unfair.

Sarah:

Yeah. Well, the Twitter has been a a going.

Mark:

It really dates this.

Sarah:

Yes. It does.

Mark:

Because it's 2014. Yes. And Nikki's posting on Twitter about how the police are gonna persecute her boyfriend and, like, oh my god. And They're gonna kill Kyle. And You could stop posting to social media.

Sarah:

Gosh. They killed Kyle.

Mark:

I didn't know there was gonna be a South Park reference.

Sarah:

Oh, I can't see any Kyle in the orange suit with the

Mark:

When he jumps over the fence, he's got his little red hoodie on. Yeah. Dang. Dang. Dang.

Sarah:

So then they go to see the grims again. Every scene the grims are in is incredibly grim.

Mark:

Mhmm. They're not jolly people.

Sarah:

But I am completely obsessed with 2 things. 1st, is like, I didn't tell you we were sleeping because it was meant to be a secret. And then his mother is like, you're a whore. Eat your sandwich. He takes his sandwich and goes off to the corner.

Sarah:

He said,

Mark:

yes, mother.

Sarah:

Again, Mike makes reference to the true meaning of golf here being esoteric so that Sims doesn't understand him.

Mark:

It's honor. Yes. Honor among golfers. I I don't know about that. It's just like any other game.

Sarah:

So they go to see Nikki at the farm. They say stay off social media.

Mark:

It just goes,

Sarah:

he's an outlaw.

Mark:

He's Kyle. Who stole some golf trophies. He's not Clyde. You're not Bonnie.

Sarah:

And then,

Mark:

Mike takes some must be thinking, I am wealthy now. I am going to be rude to you. Yeah. Because all of this is mine. She owes everything.

Mark:

Assume assuming her mother left it to her. She could've left it to her sister who just shows up, you know, rips into people, and then leaves disappears again.

Sarah:

Never seen again.

Mark:

No. The the only thing she does is and then she's gone.

Sarah:

Yes. Mike takes papers out of the house.

Mark:

Mhmm.

Sarah:

Not in an evidence bag.

Mark:

Farm records. Not in the They're in a box.

Sarah:

Not in an evidence box, though. Mm-mm. And then he takes them home.

Mark:

That's what policemen and shows do. Okay. Well, then Sometimes they even have incident boards at home. Sometimes they lay them out on the floor and sit in the middle with a glass of wine. It really just depends on what show you're watching.

Mark:

He takes them home and puts them on the table.

Sarah:

Then, okay, he discusses them with his non

Mark:

Policeman. Policemen, possibly Criminal Jared. Neighbor. Low level sus activity, Jared.

Sarah:

I am completely obsessed by one thing. What am I completely obsessed with in this scene?

Mark:

I don't know.

Sarah:

That Jared takes his boots off.

Mark:

When he comes in the house?

Sarah:

He comes in the house. He takes his boots off. Okay. We have heard all about Jared's clothing and how much you love Jared. Okay?

Sarah:

We've heard all this.

Mark:

And how you defend his short shorts. Everybody likes his legs and okay. Fine.

Sarah:

But his wool socks that go up to his knees drive me insane.

Mark:

Wool is great for warm weather. Now I But it's not even warm in this episode.

Sarah:

A known sock hater. Yeah. I hate socks. Shouldn't be have to wear socks. The only reason you wear socks is to keep your feet clean and to keep your shoulders from not being smelly.

Mark:

That is the only reason Which is why you wear minimal socks. The smallest socks possible. He really does.

Sarah:

And you take them off as soon as you can.

Mark:

He can wear footy socks. They don't have little pom poms on the back, though.

Sarah:

No. That would be too much. But I have gone to sock places and said, do you have them smaller than this? Okay. He comes in, he opens the door, and he takes his boots off.

Sarah:

And I'm like, wait a minute. Is this a New Zealand thing?

Mark:

Or is it a boot thing?

Sarah:

A boot thing or a farm thing? Because in Canada, when you go into anyone's house, you take your shoes off. It's a well known thing in Canada. It's certainly a winter thing. But, like, when I go to visit my brother in the middle of Feb like, in the middle of July, I take my shoes off when I go to his house.

Sarah:

And you're walking around in sock feet. That's what you do in houses. Mhmm. Everyone in in America wears, like

Mark:

Mukluks all over the house. Mud muddy

Sarah:

boots all over. Freaking house. They Puts

Mark:

on the furniture. Boots

Sarah:

on the furniture.

Mark:

There are many cultures around the world where it is common for everyone to take their shoes off, and they're even, like, little slippers there that you can slip on if your company.

Sarah:

So

Mark:

But not here.

Sarah:

I asked our resident Of New Zealand. New Zealand. Her name is Crystal.

Mark:

And she's been nice enough to offer us New Zealander, views.

Sarah:

Views. And and she's Maori. Mhmm. So even more. So she says it's a definitely a Maori thing.

Sarah:

I'm Maori, and we taught we're taught to always take our shoes off before we go into anyone's house. Stems from our protocols going into the Maori, I hope I pronounced that right, which is like the town hall or the meeting house of the Maori tribe. You better take your shoes off or you're gonna get told off. Oh. That's an ante right there.

Sarah:

It's a reasonable standard for most New Zealanders actually too. Although it's been I've been to heat places how people's houses where they're saying, nah. Leave them on. It's okay. I'd say we're closer to Canadian practices than American practices.

Sarah:

She says Jared is her favorite character in the series. He's an excellent representation of being cheeky and caring nature of the Maori people. I thought that was fantastic.

Mark:

He is the Joyce of Brokenwood.

Sarah:

Yes. He is.

Mark:

And that when the detective talks to him about the case, he has local knowledge that he offers up spontaneously that the detective would not have gotten on his own. Yes. Right? Because Jared leads a different life from the life that Mike leads and runs in different circles. Right?

Mark:

And

Sarah:

when certain people

Mark:

And he's a local. He's been there his whole life.

Sarah:

Certainly low level flirt with Joyce on top of

Mark:

it all. So he knows that one of the men who've discovered the body is his uncle.

Sarah:

And his aunties have sent him.

Mark:

Yeah. We never

Sarah:

I don't think we find out Jared's parents.

Mark:

No. But we do see his sisters and his aunties.

Sarah:

His sisters and his aunties. Now Walter seems to have no partner, so I'm assuming this is a large family of aunties Mhmm. And sisters.

Mark:

He's old enough to be retired. Yes. So he's probably the same age as Jared's parents would be, I would guess.

Sarah:

So now Walter used to raise bees, but he couldn't raise bees because

Mark:

The pesticides the pesticides at the stone farm killed them all. Yes. And he went to prison for 2 years for running down a cop in his car. Yeah. 2 years?

Sarah:

That is

Mark:

You would get 15 years here.

Sarah:

That is aggressively skipped over.

Mark:

Unless the cop jumped out of the way and had no injury whatsoever, you then you might get 2 years. But if there's any injury, like, he jumped out of the way, but he skinned his knee, 15 years. It's just you're going to you're going to jail.

Sarah:

And he delivers the line of the episode here.

Mark:

Better than man slut toy boy?

Sarah:

Better than man slut toy boy because I I I guess Mike asked him if he thinks that Stone's cancer is related to the the pesticide. He goes, no. It was more to do with him boy being white and not wearing

Mark:

a hat. That's the Jared says, oh, was it from the side? And he says, no. It's white and not wearing a hat. Apparently, he died of skin cancer, I

Sarah:

would guess then. I would think so. His hands are shaking. He's got Parkinson's.

Mark:

He's got nothing to lose.

Sarah:

He's got nothing to lose, and there is, like Jared does some aggressive hugging.

Mark:

Well, he just found out his uncle has he's got a serious disease. Yeah. That's sad.

Sarah:

And no one else knows it. And now now we've been to play wow the client. And Mike wows the client first with Gina, and then he wows the client with Sims.

Mark:

Oh, because he's been out and about and has learned things that they think he doesn't know yet.

Sarah:

Yes. So Jean is like, I bet you didn't know how he died. And he's like, no. He inhaled that she inhaled this bad stuff, and it's a horrible pesticide. And, you know, I've done some research on it in the car on the way over when he was also looking at Kyle Twitters.

Mark:

And driving and listening to country music. Yes. Gina's pretty fun in this episode.

Sarah:

She is, but, again, only one scene.

Mark:

It's nothing compared to what she's gonna be.

Sarah:

Again, we just get. These are appetizers of Jean.

Mark:

Mhmm.

Sarah:

I think he was trying to figure out how he wanted to write her.

Mark:

Yeah. You know, that Little bits at a time.

Sarah:

And I think he enjoyed writing her, and somebody said, well, you should put her in more of the episode.

Mark:

So what we find out is the committee meeting of the golf committee, the night before Allison died, was about a decision whether or not to sell off half of the golf club land to another group. And that group turns out to be Neil and Allison

Sarah:

Yes.

Mark:

Who are who have formed a company. I don't think everybody else knows that it's them.

Sarah:

No. I don't think so.

Mark:

To buy half of the land and then sell it off to a developer at a profit.

Sarah:

So Neil is a businessman. He's gonna try to do this to get to make money. Right. Because I think Neil is completely pragmatic here because he knows the golf course is gonna go under Mhmm. More than anybody

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

If this doesn't happen.

Mark:

Well, he stayed up all night doing the books.

Sarah:

Yes. So they go to the Stock and Station agent, and you're like, oh, you run the Stock and Station agent.

Mark:

It's you, Roger Harrington. What a coincidence.

Sarah:

The killer.

Mark:

The only place in town that sells the pesticide is you. Shock.

Sarah:

That a winkydick.

Mark:

Now they haven't sold it for years because it's banned, but they're the last place to have sold it in town.

Sarah:

And Kyle, his son, I haven't heard from him. He came and stole food at some point in time.

Mark:

He had on this red parka, and it was all tied around his face. I don't know what that was about. It was just it was really weird.

Sarah:

There were 3 other kids, including this really loud fat woman that were following him around in a toque.

Mark:

Oh my god. They killed Kyle.

Sarah:

Okay. So here, I did some digging. And it's really hard to find this, but I finally found it. So they decide to go to the pharmacy, and I'm like, okay. Before when they get to the pharmacy, I'm like, how many murders happened in 2014 in New Zealand?

Sarah:

You wanna guess how many murders happened in 2014 in New Zealand?

Mark:

In the whole country? The entire country. 25.

Sarah:

No. 42. Okay. Now remember, 3 murders 4

Mark:

murders now have taken place in One little town.

Sarah:

One little town in the space of a couple weeks.

Mark:

So they are 10% of the murder rate already.

Sarah:

Not seen a change in season. Mike is the problem. The 10% of the murders

Mark:

He brought murder to town.

Sarah:

Yes. Now the USA is 10 times the population that that New Zealand has.

Mark:

Oh, and a 1000 times the murders? 340 times the murders. Wow. Way to bring it down, babe. Yep.

Mark:

Not only does Roger sell the pesticide, he's been stupend Alison.

Sarah:

Everybody's been stupend Alison except for Neil because he plays for the other team. I don't really go for

Mark:

Neil uses a term Yes. When he talks about this affair that grosses me out.

Sarah:

What does he use?

Mark:

It's a euphemism for sex, and it's rooting.

Sarah:

Yes.

Mark:

And I hate it. It's If it was rutting that would be like animals. Okay.

Sarah:

Yep. It's I think it's supposed to be rutting.

Mark:

I no. No. Because I've seen other people say it from Australia and New Zealand and it's rooting.

Sarah:

He's the wrong kind of cat.

Mark:

And it's just ew. Gross. I don't know why, but it just it's blech. Anyhow, we learned this week that both male and female cassowaries have penises. And since I've just been grossed out.

Mark:

It was world cassowary day.

Sarah:

Roger is not acting like a man who is innocent of murder. He rushes out to Nikki on the street and is like, well, you can't be tweeting about my son.

Mark:

You corrupted my son, you whore.

Sarah:

Yeah. And, like, he's pushing and shoving them around.

Mark:

Your son was not a winner from the beginning. No. He's the bandit. Yeah. And he stole the trophies just to spite you.

Mark:

Yeah. They're not valuable. He stole them to make you mad. Kyle isn't bad when Mike finds him with well, I can't really say that. I was gonna say he doesn't seem that bad when he's there with the machete and the automatic weapons.

Mark:

But he seems kind of reasonable once he starts talking to him. Like, he's a kid in a bad situation. He's he's got himself into a bad corner and he's made some wrong decisions, but he doesn't seem like a bad person. I don't. Does does Nikki throw him under the bus?

Mark:

Like, does she actually care about him?

Sarah:

I don't think so.

Mark:

Because he seems to really care about her, but I don't think she deserves that.

Sarah:

She seems to be a fair weather girlfriend.

Mark:

But then, really, what she does

Sarah:

He's an outlaw.

Mark:

What she does to make herself seem like a fair weather girlfriend is just tell the truth. Yes. So, you know, I mean, I love you, but I'm gonna tell the police the truth. So maybe that's not bad behavior that

Sarah:

she may be. Shouldn't have been doing some of those things.

Mark:

Yeah. So maybe she's not a bad girlfriend.

Sarah:

So at the cop shop at night, they have a little powwow on what's going on. Did you notice that there's an unknown person in the background of the scene for the entire scene? Mhmm.

Mark:

Kinda hovering like they're trapped.

Sarah:

Kinda hovering like they're trapped.

Mark:

Like, I can't leave the scene.

Sarah:

And Sims says one of another amazing thing.

Mark:

Oh, no. She's got two lines. Golf is about bondage, cougars, and swinging. And Sam says, what's not to like? And she says, maybe the bit where Allison Stone's face blistered off and she suffocated in her own blood.

Mark:

You're a golfer. Is golfing about bondage, cougars, and spanging?

Sarah:

No. It's not. Because if

Mark:

it is, we need to talk.

Sarah:

It's not about any of those things.

Mark:

You're shaking your head really hard. Like, no. No. No. It's not.

Mark:

It's not. And like

Sarah:

where? Like Gina, they're getting a hold of How to Write Sam here.

Mark:

Yeah. He's alright, though.

Sarah:

I think so.

Mark:

He's gonna stick to mini golf.

Sarah:

So Mike figures out that, essentially, she met with someone first or someone was there first

Mark:

because somebody called Somebody calls Yeah. To lure her to the golf course.

Sarah:

Yes.

Mark:

And it's not Neil. He was there, but he was asleep. He was asleep. So somebody else was at the golf course and called her at, like, 6:30 in the morning and told her, we've had another break in in the shed. Come come see.

Mark:

So who was there?

Sarah:

And then Mike starts retracing steps. And checking his watch to

Mark:

see how his watch. Gets to one place to another. Yeah.

Sarah:

And then they find the murder weapon.

Mark:

They find decoy evidence of the murder weapon, not the real one. And they're snobby cyclists who find it.

Sarah:

Did you catch how they figured out what was going on, the cyclists?

Mark:

Mm-mm.

Sarah:

Because some uniform had blabbed all about this Yeah. At a barbecue.

Mark:

Oh, that's right. That's why they knew that this stuff was important that they saw. It's decoy evidence, though.

Sarah:

So they then find Kyle at the house. Now Kyle's just in some guy's house.

Mark:

Yes. He's broken into the house, and now he's barricaded himself in with a machete and guns. Yes. Some poor farmer who's renovating his place.

Sarah:

And then Mike does the Mike thing, which is I don't have a gun or any sense of persuasion or protocol here, so I'm just gonna go in.

Mark:

I'm harmless.

Sarah:

Yes. Don't hurt me. Please don't do it. The paperwork would be horrendous.

Mark:

Well, Kyle is a young guy in a bad jam who is in a corner. Yep. Like, there are 2 ways this is gonna turn out. He's gonna talk to Mike and turn himself in, or he's gonna get killed by the cops. It's a pretty clear choice.

Mark:

Yes. Not hard to decide.

Sarah:

No. And what we find out is he can't give Nikki an alibi, but that's not the important thing. The important thing is he says his father was leaving the house at 6 AM. Mhmm. And what is he leaving the house and not getting the golf course till 8 AM?

Mark:

Mhmm.

Sarah:

What's going on there? Maybe

Mark:

a paper suit and a shed and face blisters.

Sarah:

So then we get the final scene, which has all sorts of wonderful things in it. The first wonderful thing is

Mark:

This is when Mike confronts Roger on the golf

Sarah:

course. As Mike confronts Roger in the golf course, you're like, oh, he did it.

Mark:

Yeah. Because he first of all, he doesn't immediately say, oh my gosh. Have you the whole time he doesn't care what's happened to Kyle. No. His own child is an afterthought.

Mark:

And then when Mike says we haven't done station, Roger says, oh, well, you're gonna charge him with murder. And he says No. No. And Roger goes,

Sarah:

like,

Mark:

hey. That's your kid. Oh, you did it. Like, right then and there. He wanted his own kid to get framed for the murder that he committed.

Mark:

He's awful.

Sarah:

We have not got to the level of awful he is. We'll get there. So he found out because he read the charter that Allison's family gets the land if they vote no to sell any of it.

Mark:

Right. Because the charter says if the golf course is insolvent and is gonna go out of business, it reverts back to the Stone family because they gifted the land.

Sarah:

Getting back to our earlier discussion, they voted no, so it's gonna go under. So now Nikki owns the golf course

Mark:

too. Yeah. They say that the Stone family owns, like, half the county or something. So now Nikki own Nikki and her loopy sweater owns all of that.

Sarah:

Yeah. Nikki owns everything. Mike does the Mike thing here where he goes, are you gonna confess, or do I have to tell everybody, including this camera person here Mhmm. What you did? He's like, I don't

Mark:

You have no idea. Blah blah blah blah blah. And for once, I just want I want a cornered murder to go, uh-uh. Here's the evidence against you. You did it.

Mark:

Uh-uh. Or oh,

Sarah:

yeah. Okay.

Mark:

You're right. I did. Hey. You don't even know about this part. Let me tell you.

Mark:

I thought for sure I was done when I left my fingerprints all over that.

Sarah:

So he explains that he called Allison, drove his car to make sure that she was leaving. He put the stuff in the the building. He sprayed her. He left cover of darkness. His evidence was basically in the back of the car when they were looking, and Mike is legitimately mad there.

Sarah:

Yeah. So then he says that Mike says, if he's gonna shoot the golf ball and get it closer to the hole, he's gonna go in. And at that point, you're like, oh, Mike's a golfer. Just by the way he talks about

Mark:

it. Mhmm.

Sarah:

He talks about how he lost his wife and stuff like that. And then the golfer tries to run away.

Mark:

Well, he hits him with a golf course and then golf club and then tries to run away.

Sarah:

He hits Mike. Yeah. Now, listeners, from experience, being hit on a golf course by a golf club would

Mark:

Hey. I hit you with a golf ball, not a club. I know where you're going. Don't you misrepresent what happened. Completely by accident.

Mark:

The second time I'd ever played golf. I was I was hitting it for the first time off the tee, so I was hitting it as hard as I could. Was standing not too far away from the hole. He didn't know I was gonna be miraculously good. And the ball thonked him in the calf and left

Sarah:

My inner thigh.

Mark:

Pretty me. Oh, that's right. Was your how are you standing that it hit your inner thigh? Were you doing the splits or what?

Sarah:

I don't

Mark:

know. You like sticking your leg out like a lady trying to get a ride?

Sarah:

I don't know.

Mark:

And the ball hit on the inner thigh, and almost immediately, there was a perfectly round purple bruise on the inside

Sarah:

of his leg. Day was the worst. It was nasty. It's nasty.

Mark:

But evidence of my powerful drive So I've not played golf

Sarah:

since then. Hit by that Mike getting hit by that golf club must have really hurt.

Mark:

But it is completely different from being hit by

Sarah:

a ball. Agreed.

Mark:

And I'm sorry I said you were you were well away from any danger, and I I drove it exactly the wrong direction.

Sarah:

Luckily, Ginger Ranger is

Mark:

here. Sam.

Sarah:

Because he gets to tackle this episode. So now we've had 2 episodes in a row of tackling. Mhmm. And we've had 3 episodes in a row of one thing. There is one thing that has appeared in every single episode.

Sarah:

I went back and checked. The bullhorn? The giant bullhorn is in every single episode,

Mark:

so major part of the police station.

Sarah:

I could not not look for it.

Mark:

It's in Mike's

Sarah:

office, and it is a

Mark:

giant bullhorn. But it's always been in Mike's office. It's not Always What was in Gary's office?

Sarah:

In Gary's office?

Mark:

It's not the traveling bullhorn.

Sarah:

Not the traveling

Mark:

It is in front of a window. So you can see it from outside of his office and in his office.

Sarah:

Doesn't use it at the farm with Kyle. Why why is the farm that Kyle breaks into being renovated? Why does that matter?

Mark:

I think it matters because it made it easy to break into. Maybe, I guess. Now my question is, if you're renovating your place enough that you're not there, if it's an extensive enough renovation that you're not living there, why do you leave your guns there? Yes. Anyhow, I can see why it was a target for Kyle to break into.

Mark:

He wanted food and money.

Sarah:

Oh, well. Mike played golf. Isn't this fun? Let's walk off into the sunset talking about golf and stuff. There is a huge question left unanswered by this episode, and it is dark.

Sarah:

Okay?

Mark:

And it's not Allison sleeping with her her stepson?

Sarah:

No. That is the first dark question. Okay. The second dark question, the question I have is where is Roger's wife? She says that she's away.

Sarah:

Okay?

Mark:

Doing something. She's a travel agent, and she goes to the resorts where she sends people to check them out. Okay. Which is a frequent thing she does.

Sarah:

Or does she? If you were away. Okay?

Mark:

And I came back and you've been arrested for murdering No. No. No. No. Mistress?

Sarah:

No. No. No. Back up.

Mark:

Back up. Okay.

Sarah:

You're away, and I call you and say the woman who is on the golf committee is has been killed.

Mark:

Mhmm.

Sarah:

And we don't know where Kyle is. Mhmm. And the police suspect him. Mhmm. So regardless of what you tell him, he flying home.

Sarah:

Allison

Mark:

Her son is missing.

Sarah:

Her son is missing. She would be home instantaneously.

Mark:

Do you think she's dead?

Sarah:

I think that he had a really bad day.

Mark:

And that his wife is in the trunk of his other car?

Sarah:

I think he killed his wife too.

Mark:

I think her name's Laura.

Sarah:

And I think they said this. That, to me, that kind of psychological break leads more to the altercation in the street where he's, like, pretending to

Mark:

Look what you made me do.

Sarah:

Yeah. Like, it's more like that.

Mark:

Mhmm.

Sarah:

He's obviously had a break, and he's obviously planned this out. Like, he had the equipment. He stored it. It's just a golf course. Like, it's just

Mark:

a place to play golf. Yeah. He doesn't know that she's not gonna keep it as a golf course when she owns it.

Sarah:

He doesn't. He's obviously had a break. I think his wife and him had a fight. He killed her, and then he found out about this thing with the golf course.

Mark:

He says, I'm on a roll.

Sarah:

He's like, I'm killing now.

Mark:

I'm killing Allison and framing my kid. I'm going down in a blaze Which leads me to death. My golf course.

Sarah:

That over 10% of the murders that happened in 2014 happened in this little town since Mike got here.

Mark:

I don't think he's killed his wife, but I did I do think he took advantage of her being gone to do this.

Sarah:

I think that the the fact that she is completely ignored in terms of, like, not covered at all.

Mark:

Here's what I wanna know.

Sarah:

So Well, wouldn't you as Mike being like, I need to talk to your wife.

Mark:

I gotta at least call her and make sure she's okay. Yeah. So that was you said there was a big hole or a big unanswered question in the episode. That's not the one I had thought of.

Sarah:

What did you

Mark:

So that's interesting because what I wanted to know was rather Roger secretly knew Kyle was the bandit, so knew that if he knocked the lock off the shed and pretended there'd been a break in by the bandit, that he would be framing his own son or not.

Sarah:

Yeah. I gotta think so.

Mark:

If he knew he was the bandit, then he framed his own kid on purpose. If he didn't know he was the bandit, he's like, well, this guy's a bad guy anyway, so if he gets blamed for it, I don't care

Sarah:

Like whoever he is. They clearly were not hiding it well. And I grew up in a small town, a small town like Brokenwood. And if there was any crime, everybody was like, it was that guy. Like, everybody knew immediately who had done it.

Mark:

But I don't think everybody assumed that it was Kyle.

Sarah:

No. I think he assumed it was Kyle.

Mark:

I think people would have assumed it was Hamish if they had to choose a young guy.

Sarah:

Maybe.

Mark:

But so there's there there's the argument of, well, it's easier to frame somebody you don't know and you don't care about. So if he didn't know, then that's why it was cool to do that in his head. If he did know, then it helps him because he would know Kyle's not actually going to be there breaking into the shed. So if he's there waiting, the bandit's not just gonna stumble upon him Yeah. In his in his suit because he knows Kyle's not Kyle isn't there.

Mark:

And that Kyle has already checked the shed out and didn't find anything worth stealing.

Sarah:

Do you think Nikki knows that Kyle that Hamish is Stone's brother? Her half brother? No. Because I think much like the urine and the alcohol thing, I think if she found that out, she may have thrown up.

Mark:

Well, she wasn't dating him.

Sarah:

No. But she saw her okay. Even though you weren't dating somebody, if if you saw your parent in a sexual it's implied that she's doing something

Mark:

Her mom is sleeping with Hamish. And but Her mom is sleeping with her half brother.

Sarah:

But but Hamish says that he knows that she knows because they saw each other, but Allison didn't because Allison was engaged. So if Wait a minute.

Mark:

That just proves that that Nikki knows that Alison and Hamish were sleeping together, not that Nikki knew Hamish was her half brother.

Sarah:

I don't think she knows. Yeah. But I think if she ever finds out, she's gonna throw up.

Mark:

Yeah. No doubt. You've got to. Yeah. Gang me with a spoon or with my ugly jacket.

Mark:

Yes. Yeah. For sure. For sure. That is playing the lie.

Sarah:

The the after the credits is all Nikki has everything.

Mark:

It's now Nikki Wood. Yes. Like, I'm And we never see her again

Sarah:

even though she always happens now. Don't see Nikki again.

Mark:

Yeah. Did doing developments or something.

Sarah:

So Kyle goes to prison. He's he's gotta do some time.

Mark:

Yeah. He

Sarah:

stole money and booze.

Mark:

Okay. You only get 2 years for running over a policeman, so he's gonna be in jail for a week.

Sarah:

So but he does some time. Yeah. Do you think Nikki does some time too? No. She's an accomplice.

Sarah:

She

Mark:

No. She's got money now.

Sarah:

She's got the lawyers.

Mark:

And I don't really know if Kyle is gonna go to jail either. Unless the other golf courses, you know, really push it, he's a victim.

Sarah:

I think he could easily say, I don't even know where my mom is, and my dad's a murderer.

Mark:

Yeah. Like Can you give me some slack here? Yeah. A good lawyer would get him off, I think. Is the golf course gonna go away, or is Nikki gonna let him keep a golf course?

Sarah:

I think the golf course is gonna go away. Okay. Now Nikki's gonna move back to the house. Right? Mhmm.

Sarah:

How quickly is she gonna have maids in that bedroom to clean up the cougar behavior?

Mark:

Or she just gonna nail the door shut and forget about it?

Sarah:

I think she'd want the bigger room.

Mark:

I don't I don't know. Based on her housekeeping abilities, I don't know what her opinions are of what a nice place is.

Sarah:

And to bring it back, does she keep the naked lady painting?

Mark:

She sells it because it's valuable.

Sarah:

I guess.

Mark:

And her mom probably liked it, so all the reason to get rid of it.

Sarah:

When they have 30 people over to put all their shoes on at the same time in their church pew.

Mark:

Their penguin view. Wow.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's it's quite an episode.

Mark:

It's way darker than it appears.

Sarah:

But I would say it's also almost like murder of the week episode. Like, there's no boss. There's no bigger story. There's no Tanya. There's nothing like that.

Mark:

Right.

Sarah:

It's broken wood, weirdos, death.

Mark:

Yeah. Isolated in town. No larger story arc. Nothing tied to anything outside of town.

Sarah:

And it seems to me that as a writer, he's like, I don't wanna kill off too many people.

Mark:

Mhmm.

Sarah:

He gets over that.

Mark:

Yeah. We'll start with 1, maybe 2 an episode, and that's it.

Sarah:

Or warm it up.

Mark:

Just warming up. You know? And you gotta decide which of these characters is gonna come back. I don't wanna kill one off that I like. I don't wanna kill the pharmacist off because I I'm gonna keep him around, I guess.

Mark:

He might be important.

Sarah:

They definitely are like, I like working with this person. We should have him back.

Mark:

Well, there's only 14 actors in New Zealand, so they gotta be careful with who they kill off.

Sarah:

All were power rangers.

Mark:

Alright. Next week, we start with season 2. No. We have the last episode of season 1.

Sarah:

Episode of season 1, which is hunting the stag

Mark:

Mhmm.

Sarah:

Which is play on words. It's a stag party

Mark:

Mhmm.

Sarah:

And they're hunting.

Mark:

Mhmm.

Sarah:

And there's Frodo.

Mark:

Mhmm. And murder.

Sarah:

And Frodo so goes under the radar here.

Mark:

Yep. You know? Again, it's like a test drive of the character Yeah. And he works, so he comes back.

Sarah:

And the actor who plays Frodo is fantastic. It just gets better.

Mark:

Yeah. He does. Absolutely fantastic.

Sarah:

And that is mystery maniacs for this week. Wow. October already.

Mark:

I'm staying away from golf courses. I don't know about you.

Sarah:

Well, I certainly am, especially if you're on them.

Mark:

I don't golf anymore. I peaked early, and now I'm done with it.

Sarah:

Picked at my inner thigh. Okay.

Mark:

That means something completely different.

Sarah:

You're gonna return on 7th October with Haunting the Stag, and welcome to spooky month.

Mark:

Yes. My favorite month of the year.

Sarah:

It's the best month of the year. It's by holidays for us.

Mark:

Damn straight. Bye, maniacs.

Sarah:

Bye, maniacs. Thanks for joining us on the Mystery Maniacs podcast. If you enjoyed our crazy podcast today, don't miss out on future episodes. Follow us on social media for updates, behind the scenes content, and exclusive sneak peeks. Subscribe, like, and share to spread the word.

Sarah:

Bye, maniacs.

Mark:

The first one was what is another flower. Not Mayflower. That's all I can think of.

Sarah:

It sounds like Mayflower, though. It's something.

Mark:

We should stop and look it up.

Sarah:

Okay.

Mark:

And then you should edit this.