Mystery Maniacs

🎙️ Episode:  https://share.transistor.fm/s/c1b8700e
📓 Show Notes: https://midsomermaniacs.transistor.fm/223

Mystery Maniacs Episode! In Podcast 224, a couple of People in Santa Suits have a bad Christmas, the king of pies makes an appearance and a cheetah cheater! REMIXED!


Show Notes

Thanks again for listening!
 
Mark & Sarah

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Upcoming Schedule
  • January 6 - The Brokenwood Mysteries S04E01 - "Fall From Grace"
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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.

Sarah:

Hey, Maniacs.

Mark:

Hey, Mystery Maniacs.

Sarah:

Welcome to a remix episode. You always do the record scratching.

Mark:

I do because it's a remix. It's on 12 inch, man.

Mark:

Like, 1986. We're doing a remix

Sarah:

of season 3 episode 4 of Broken Wood.

Mark:

Which was our episode 149, Mystery Maniacs, The Broken Wood Mysteries, A Merry Bloody Christmas, Man in a Santa suit aside.

Sarah:

And we thought we'd add in some extra goodies here at the beginning.

Mark:

Yes. So the first question I have for you, Sarah, is when do you think this episode of ours was originally broadcast? Well, a legit originally released.

Sarah:

2 years ago.

Mark:

2 years almost to the day.

Sarah:

Well, that's not surprising since we did a couple of Christmas episodes.

Mark:

Yes. We did it. December 19, 2022 was the release date for this episode.

Sarah:

Back in the old days.

Mark:

Back in the olden times.

Mark:

We But

Mark:

this is a remix episode, so we wanna add a little bit more to this. And plus, you're getting 2 episodes. This is the second of 2 episodes in a week.

Mark:

Happy holidays. Happy holidays.

Sarah:

It's the best present we can give you because it's all we can give you.

Mark:

Tomorrow is Christmas day. That's insane. So, we're gonna do 2

Sarah:

Wait a minute. I have a gift for everyone Oh. During this remix.

Mark:

Oh, that's no. Now I'm excited. It is amazing. Okay. The first thing, which I I think is amazing, but it's probably not the thing that Sarah

Sarah:

No. No. No. This is something that you don't even know about.

Mark:

Oh, okay. Because we discussed best Christmas movies.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

Now there are a lot of Christmas movies. There's a lot of controversy along around Christmas movies, but this is my list of the the the best Christmas movies.

Sarah:

We each have our top 5.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

We're gonna do a countdown?

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

5 to 1?

Mark:

Yes. But 55443322.

Sarah:

Okay. What's your number 5?

Mark:

My number 5, out of left field, the apartment.

Sarah:

Oh, what year did that come out?

Mark:

No idea. Probably 66, 67. Shirley MacLaine. Tim Conway?

Sarah:

No. No.

Mark:

Jack Lemmon. Jack Lemmon. Thank you. And the most horrible human being of Fred, McMurray.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's a good movie, though. It's

Mark:

very funny. Fantastic movie. It it is a movie that I have loved since the first moment I saw it.

Mark:

I forgot it. Billy Wilder movie. Holidays.

Mark:

Yep. Set at the holidays.

Sarah:

My number fell

Mark:

lived in the city and in an apartment in New York, and I was really exciting.

Sarah:

And and Jack Lemmon is loaning his apartment out to his colleagues to have afternoon delights?

Mark:

Yes. That's the plot? Yeah.

Mark:

It's it's

Sarah:

And it's at the holidays.

Mark:

It's a bit misogynist. Yeah. Really?

Sarah:

It doesn't age very well. I'm surprised.

Mark:

Well, actually, he he doesn't like doing it, so he stops. So he falls in love with the woman who is there for Fred McMurray. So who is Shirley MacLaine?

Sarah:

My number 5 is also out of left field. Okay. It is a 1983 movie, Trading Places.

Mark:

Oh, Trading Places is fantastic.

Sarah:

Dan Aykroyd. Yep. Eddie Murphy. Yep. So funny.

Mark:

Yeah. Absolutely an amazing movie and definitely a Christmas movie.

Sarah:

It's how I it's where I first learned what commodity trading was.

Mark:

I was

Sarah:

like, why are they doing all this about orange juice? I don't just go to the store and buy some orange juice. Yep.

Mark:

I I

Sarah:

mean, I was 8. Yes. You know? I doubt I saw it in theater. Yes.

Sarah:

What's your number 4?

Mark:

Number 4 is, a favorite among many people. It's Muppets Christmas Carol. I love the Muppets. I love the Christmas Carol. I love the Muppets Christmas Carol.

Sarah:

I can't say I like it very much, and I really like the Muppets.

Mark:

It's it's okay to be wrong. Sometimes people

Sarah:

are wrong. Not my favorite Muppets movie, I

Mark:

guess. I guess.

Sarah:

My number 4 is a 2010 film, and it is an r rated film.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Rare Exports.

Mark:

Oh, Rare Exports is absolutely I wonder if we're gonna have any crossovers on our list. I doubt it. Santa Claus monsters. Santa Claus monsters.

Sarah:

Big wooden crates.

Mark:

Yep. And jumping crazy feral Santa Claus.

Sarah:

Scandinavian

Mark:

Yep. Dark

Sarah:

Yep. Creepy.

Mark:

Started as a short on YouTube. Which was incredible. That was just amazing.

Sarah:

Yeah. Okay. Number 3?

Mark:

Number 3 for me, Christmas story.

Sarah:

Me too.

Mark:

Oh, there we go.

Sarah:

1983. You can't not I mean, I can't I couldn't watch it because I've seen it way too many times. Yeah. But the fact that we saw a leg lamp in a window today and both said, fragile. Like, you can't get it out of out of your brain.

Mark:

Sean Farkas, filmed in the neighborhood I used to live in in Toronto. You know, there's just so many

Sarah:

amazing know that. Yeah. I didn't know that's where it was filmed.

Mark:

I

Sarah:

because it's set in the town my dad grew up in.

Mark:

Yep. The the the snowsuit being

Sarah:

on. Come on.

Mark:

Lying on the floor to get your snowsuit on. It just wow. Yeah.

Sarah:

You'll shoot your eye out, Ted. Like, that's what I'm saying. I think I know every line of the movie with the tongues on the flagpole and Yep. It's just it's classic.

Mark:

Absolutely. What's your number 2? Number 2, the controversial, but it's a Christmas movie is Die Hard.

Sarah:

It's my number 2 as well. 1988.

Mark:

Yeah. It's it is without a doubt a Christmas movie.

Sarah:

Of course, it is.

Mark:

Alan Rickman alone.

Sarah:

Incredible. And that's when back when I thought Bruce Willis was still fun. Yeah. Like, was that during moonlighting that he made that movie or after?

Mark:

I think it was slightly after because I was in college and moonlighting was I was in high school. So

Sarah:

Yeah. He but he's so good in that movie.

Mark:

He's so good in that everybody

Sarah:

Kanye.

Mark:

Everybody is so good in that movie. If you if you want to take a moment and watch that movie, there's a moment in the elevator where they all the terrorists get in the elevator. I remember the last time I watched the movie with Sarah. I turned to Sarah. I paused the movie.

Mark:

I said, what was the hairspray budget for this movie? And there's There's a phenomenal amount of hair in that one elevator shot alone.

Sarah:

And there's Christmas music playing Yep. And it's a long elevator ride. It's just so everyday Yep. Terrorist,

Mark:

I guess. It is.

Sarah:

I guarantee our number ones are different.

Mark:

I like, and I love in die hard that the the the limo driver and the techie black guy. Yeah. You know, the those elements are

Sarah:

so There's so many characters. If you haven't watched it in a long time, watch it again. It's better than you remember.

Mark:

The very first song we hear is, Christmas in the hood.

Sarah:

Mhmm. So What's your number one?

Mark:

My number one is a movie that came out in the summer, but it's a Christmas movie. Is it gremlins? No. No? No.

Mark:

It's Batman return.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah. Yep. Absolutely set at Christmas. Yep. The big presents, Christopher Walken, being the mayor of the city.

Sarah:

And

Mark:

Yep. Big Christmas celebration. It there's the queen of Christmas who presses the button, and then she blows up.

Sarah:

It was the the reinvention of Batman. Like, Batman hadn't been anywhere in a long time, and then it was Well, they

Mark:

was it's Batman 2. Batman 89 was the first

Sarah:

one. True. Yeah. Yeah.

Mark:

That's true. This is 91,

Sarah:

I think. 91. My favorite, 1977.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Made for TV Yes. For HBO, which was pretty new. Emmett Otter's Jug Band Christmas.

Mark:

I would say that Emmett Otter's would have been on my list if I had seen it as a kid. $40. But I I did not see Emmett Otter until I was much older.

Sarah:

So It's it's the Muppets, but it's not the Muppets from the Muppet Show, but it is Henson.

Mark:

Henson and Frank Oz for sure.

Sarah:

Yep. And it it's the gift of the magi retold

Mark:

with Otters. Yep. I played a clip of,

Sarah:

An outtake from it. Yeah. From

Mark:

it for Sarah the other day, and her face just lit up.

Sarah:

It's got the river bottom nightmare band

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Which has a ferret lead singer and a catfish in a tank that just spits. Yep. River bottom nightmare band. Teddy bear. No.

Sarah:

No. The ferret plays the guitar. The lead singer is a teddy bear.

Mark:

Okay. He's got teeth,

Sarah:

and they do a lot of lip

Mark:

I've but seen it once. It

Sarah:

is awesome.

Mark:

Maybe I should watch that this afternoon.

Mark:

It's awesome.

Sarah:

But you can see the strings. Yes. It doesn't age well.

Mark:

Does not age well.

Sarah:

Technologically, it doesn't age well, but it's awesome. It's so funny. You put a hole in the washtub.

Mark:

So those are our favorite Christmas movies. We've also been watching lots of Christmas stuff, including 2 new Christmas movies out this year.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

That Christmas, which is on Netflix, which I got recommended, and I think it was fantastic.

Sarah:

It's animated. It looks a bit like an Aardman Yeah. DreamWorks kind of thing. Yep. It's set in the UK.

Mark:

It definitely has an Aardman sensibility.

Sarah:

It's very funny.

Mark:

It's extremely funny. There are a lot of characters who are all very cute.

Sarah:

And lots of jokes for grown ups and kids.

Mark:

Yep. And lots of people we know are in it. Yeah. Including Gaz as a reindeer. Yes.

Sarah:

We also watched red one, which is The Rock.

Mark:

The Rock. The Rock is in it.

Sarah:

Which is a surprisingly grown up Christmas movie. Yep. It's an action movie.

Mark:

It it is.

Sarah:

Even Santa Claus is a badass in it.

Mark:

It is. It has JK Simons in it. I remember texting Danish. There's a lot of dirty birds in

Sarah:

this movie. Yeah. For a Christmas movie.

Mark:

For a Christmas movie.

Sarah:

There's some fights and superpowers and

Mark:

But it's still fun for kids and all.

Sarah:

Scary and Yeah. Oh, yeah. But kids could easily watch it. Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah:

Absolutely. But it's super fun. And then, we've also watched some mysteries. Only one of them being well, 2 2 of them being specifically Christmas stuff. The one that wasn't was the newest Dag Leash episodes.

Mark:

Which was Devices and Desires, the book that I first read of PD James. That was really good. I thought they did an excellent job, of it, and it has some very familiar faces in

Sarah:

it. Mhmm. There was a lot of oh, that's so and so from such and such. Yep. And then they do Christmas specials, that we watched.

Sarah:

We watched the Sister Boniface Christmas.

Mark:

Which was, you know, it may not be the best written thing ever. Jude Tindall wrote it, our our friend who passed this year. But I thought they did a a great job of of paying tribute to her at the end. And, you know, Christmas episodes like wedding gigs are hard to write.

Sarah:

A lot of it's about the panto Yeah. Which is hilarious. It is so funny. The old guy who mumbles all the time is in the he's so funny.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

You just have to set aside your disbelief.

Mark:

Much like American football to British people, panto is a weird thing for us North Americans.

Sarah:

I completely understand why they love it. Yeah. It's so funny.

Mark:

Would love if we had one here. I may even dress up like an ugly stepsister. You'd be great

Sarah:

at it. Yep. And then we also watched the recent new episodes of Chelsea detective, which we really like. And it's also set at Christmas. Yes.

Sarah:

He's got a little Christmas tree on his boat that looks like it's made out of tin cans or something. Something. It's pretty sad, which leads me to my present

Mark:

Oh, okay. To everyone.

Sarah:

Because it is related to Chelsea detective.

Mark:

Ring a ding ding.

Sarah:

Brace yourself.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

I have figured out something momentous.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

The Chelsea detective, Max Arnold

Mark:

Max Arnold played by Adrian Scarborough.

Sarah:

Is the cousin of Pearl Whitstable.

Mark:

What? How can that be?

Sarah:

Well, Pearl Nolan in Whitstable Pearl.

Mark:

How is that possible?

Sarah:

Well, think about it. Max's aunt, his aunt Olivia

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Is played by Frances Barber

Mark:

Yes. Who is in everything and is amazing. I've been watching for years.

Sarah:

Who is also Pearl's mom.

Mark:

Wait a minute. She is.

Sarah:

Uh-huh.

Mark:

She has a secret life.

Sarah:

You can get from Whitstable to Chelsea in a 45 minutes on a fast boat.

Mark:

Yeah. Because Whitstable's like On the coast. On the coast and

Sarah:

And he lives on a boat on the river.

Mark:

That weird part of the North Coast and, like, the Thames is right oh.

Sarah:

If you got a fast boat

Mark:

You got it. So the

Sarah:

question is, which life is her secret life? Is her secret life the fact that she is Max's aunt and she's hiding that from Pearl or the other way around?

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Is she presenting herself as an old unmarried aunt to Max while she secretly has an entire family in Whitstable.

Mark:

Now Chelsea detective, she plays his aunt who is his mom,

Sarah:

like His dead dad's sister.

Mark:

Dead dad's sister, and she's never married because she doesn't change her name. Nope. And then in Whitstable Pearl She's

Sarah:

a widow.

Mark:

She's a widow. Mhmm. She had a secret life in the in Whitstable. Mhmm.

Sarah:

And I think Max is older than Pearl.

Mark:

So that would make them cousins. Mhmm.

Sarah:

Now Dun dun dun.

Mark:

Also, both of those shows, if I'm not wrong, are on Acorn and produced by Acorn also. Mhmm. Oh, could we see a Whitstable Pearl Chelsea detective crossover? Wait a minute. You're my aunt.

Mark:

Wait a minute. You're my mom.

Sarah:

You got chocolate in my peanut butter.

Mark:

You got your mom in my aunt.

Sarah:

I just want Pearl to pull up on a boat next

Mark:

to Max's boat and go, get in. We got a mystery

Mark:

to shuffle for.

Sarah:

I was thinking, mom? And she's like, no. I'm not. No. And runs off.

Sarah:

Because both of both of Frances Barber's characters, both aunt Olivia and Dolly, would both go, no and run off because that's what she would do.

Mark:

And Mike and Max could be grumpy together.

Sarah:

Yes.

Mark:

I live on a boat.

Sarah:

That's a good idea.

Mark:

If I lived

Sarah:

on a boat I could be in solitude and not talk to anybody. Think about it people. Wow.

Mark:

I didn't realize that crossover. Yeah. The Chelsea Pearl.

Sarah:

Whitstable detective doesn't work very well. No. But that's It's kind of redundant.

Mark:

I wonder how far they are apart, like, maybe 50 miles or something like that.

Sarah:

And they're set at the same same time?

Mark:

They're set at the same time.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

If she ever goes, I need to take a boat to to Whitstable. We know it's on.

Sarah:

Yeah. I'm gonna be away for a few days. I'm gonna go to the coast.

Mark:

Yeah. Mhmm. Maybe that's how it works.

Sarah:

That conspiracy theory is my gift to you, dear listeners. Well,

Mark:

Merry Christmas. Happy holidays.

Mark:

Whatever you celebrate or don't. Remix episode of a merry bloody Christmas, man in a Santa side suit, the beginning, and the revealing of the king of pies, which is, of course, steak and cheese, which we agree with because this became the beginning of the pie obsession.

Sarah:

The taste testing.

Mark:

Yes. The taste testing of the pies.

Sarah:

We hope you all have a peaceful, happy, last filled holiday, whatever you celebrate.

Mark:

Returning with season 4 of broken wood on January 6th.

Sarah:

See you then.

Mark:

Bye, maniacs.

Sarah:

Bye, maniacs.

Mark:

You're dead before you even finish dialing.

Sarah:

Yeah. You just wait. Off with your head.

Mark:

You're done. One more. Yeah.

Sarah:

Please don't kill me until after this thing goes all the way back around. Hey, maniacs. Hey, maniacs. Broken wood, Christmas.

Mark:

Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. All the holidays.

Sarah:

All the good stuff.

Mark:

All the good stuff. Mystery excuse

Sarah:

to take a break. Wow. Yes. I'm so done.

Mark:

Mystery maniacs is a comedy recap podcast dedicated to British or in this case, New Zealand Mystery TV. Every week, we dig into an episode of the show including the murders, the mayhem, the loonies, and everything else we love. This week, we have the broken wood mystery season 3 episode 4, a merry bloody Christmas.

Sarah:

Which won the listener poll by, like, 15%. Yeah. Like, it was

Mark:

guys really wanted us to do some broken wood, so we did.

Sarah:

So we did. And I think this one's a good choice. If you've never seen broken wood before Yep. You're fine with this. You can watch this.

Mark:

Well, you should watch them all.

Sarah:

Well, yeah. But, I mean, you're not gonna be confused. You're gonna know what's going on. Yep. You can follow it for sure.

Sarah:

I'm Mark. Is that your New Zealand accent?

Mark:

That's as far as I'm going.

Sarah:

Wow. I don't think you should have even gone that far. I'm Sarah.

Mark:

Just as a warning, this is a spoiler podcast. And if your kids still believe in Santa Claus, it's probably not for them.

Sarah:

They can't they can't handle this. It's not gonna be good for them. No. No. No.

Sarah:

Guess what? Santas die. Not just 1.

Mark:

The closets get closed. Yeah. Before we dive in,

Sarah:

if you haven't noticed, if you're not following along, BritBox has a new contest for father Brown where you can enter to go and be a victim

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

On a future father Brown episode.

Mark:

The one way ticket sweepstakes.

Sarah:

That's fun.

Mark:

Yep. It's fun. You get a 7 day round trip for 2 to London. You can visit a BritBox set. It doesn't say which one, but they're pushing Father Brown.

Mark:

And you get to be the understudy to an on screen dead body.

Sarah:

The understudy to a dead body. Now Now wait a minute.

Mark:

We're telling you this. If you make it onscreen and you win this contest, you will be dead body of the week Absolutely. When we come with this episode.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

I don't care what you do. If you move around, I don't care.

Sarah:

If you sit up, you're still best corpse of the week.

Mark:

You're still best corpse

Sarah:

of the week.

Mark:

2nd, we're not getting

Sarah:

of our listeners should win. Yes. You should all enter that contest.

Mark:

You should all enter.

Sarah:

We'll put a link to information about it in the show notes. We we won't enter because if we just happened by a fluke to win, everybody would think it was a setup.

Mark:

Yeah. I I'm not interested in winning that.

Mark:

Plus Oh, no. I would love to win it.

Mark:

Podcasters on the show and get killed.

Sarah:

I would love to to get what the winners get. Don't get me wrong. But, it would be awesome if somebody who listened to Mystery Maniacs

Mark:

won it. My gosh. If we were on a set, we would ask so many questions. We would be annoying. We would be those people.

Mark:

Now now wait a minute. Why are you doing that? Where is that newspaper from? Who made that?

Sarah:

Yeah. Where's Mark? Oh, he's been talking to the set dressers for 7 hours. He's making them crazy. Yes.

Sarah:

Also, another little announcement. The holiday song is coming It is. Later this week.

Mark:

Yes. So we have this episode dropping on Monday 19th. The second mini for Midsummer season 23 will be on 20th.

Sarah:

That's Tuesday.

Mark:

And then sometime next

Sarah:

week, the 4th

Mark:

Christmas holiday song.

Mark:

Song will be there.

Sarah:

It's taking us a little bit longer

Mark:

than we thought it would. A 1000000000 lyrics

Sarah:

that we have. So many people stepped up.

Mark:

So awesome.

Sarah:

Yeah. Not not just lots of lyrics, but lots of really fun ones. So we're weaving them all together to do great big

Mark:

mega song.

Mark:

You so usually, we do, like, a one minute song at most, but there there's gonna be a one minute of people's names on the screen.

Sarah:

Yes. So thank you to everybody who sent us such awesome lyrics. It's clear that you had fun doing it

Mark:

too. Absolutely.

Sarah:

And we're gonna, we're gonna have fun sharing them.

Mark:

But today, episode 149, that means, if you haven't figured this out yet, when we return in January with full episodes

Mark:

It'll be 150. 150.

Sarah:

Shebang.

Mark:

Shebang o. Yeah. This episode was originally aired in November of 2016, which makes it perfect. Directed by Murray Keane and written by Tim Blaine. They're kinda the people behind the show.

Sarah:

And the garometer?

Mark:

Yes. Turn on the garometer.

Sarah:

I'm gonna call it Dagger Plus.

Mark:

Yeah. It's a little bloodier than Poirot's Christmas episode, but the same sort of method.

Sarah:

But it's not quite like machete. No. Nobody's getting dismembered or anything. It's straight razor. Right?

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

So a little bit worse than a dagger, but not quite like machine gun or anything.

Mark:

So before we begin, let's just do a quick 2 minute series overview. The main character of this show Is Mike Shepherd. Mike Shepherd. He's a detective inspector.

Sarah:

He starts the show coming to Broken Wood from a larger place. Right? So he's there to fill in to solve, of course, one case

Mark:

But now

Sarah:

he's and stays. Right? Kristen Sims and Sam Breen are the existing detective detective sergeant, detective constable who are already in Broken Woods. Yes. So they're the locals Yes.

Sarah:

Who Mike works with.

Mark:

His neighbor is Jared. Now you don't see a lot of Jared in this episode, but they seem super concerned with him. It's because he's a bigger player in a lot more other episodes.

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah. He's his neighbor. They make wine together. Jared's kind of his local knowledge guy.

Sarah:

Definitely the Maori culture. Jared is Yes. His insider for that. And then there's missus Marlow, who is the town know it all.

Mark:

And then Gina.

Sarah:

She's all over the place. And Gina, the coroner, who I love, she's fantastic.

Mark:

Now a bunch of other people in this episode show up in other episodes Mhmm. But they're not as regular as those people.

Sarah:

Yeah. I think the only semi regular character who's not in this one is Frodo.

Mark:

Yes. There's no Frodo, but he is

Sarah:

And we're not joking. He he it's not like he's from Lord of the Rings. He's a guy whose nickname is Frodo.

Mark:

They call him

Sarah:

Frodo. Yeah. And he's everywhere.

Mark:

But he's in all the seasons.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

And I actually like Frodo. I think he's a good actor.

Sarah:

I do too. Yeah. I do too. So, you know, it's not it's not a a village per se. It's a it's a town.

Sarah:

It's a smaller town. New Zealand, do we know where in New Zealand it is approximately where we're supposed to think it is?

Mark:

Because I screwed up on the South African geography so much, I'm a little better here on the geography here. But there's a little weirdness that happens. So this is supposed to be on the North Island where Wellington and Auckland is. So Wellington and Auckland are the 2 biggest, cities on the North Island, but this takes place in the outskirts of Auckland.

Mark:

Okay.

Mark:

Like, it's not the back of beyond, but it's like, they can drive to the city pretty quickly.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

But they're also, like, not downtown. Yeah. Yep.

Sarah:

Yeah. And I don't get the sense from the whole series that they're a town that's on the way to anywhere.

Mark:

No. No. No.

Sarah:

So They're

Mark:

not, like, between Wellington and off.

Sarah:

Right. Right. You have to wanna go to Brokenwood to go to Brokenwood.

Mark:

Yes. Yeah.

Sarah:

And it's it's it's set in New Zealand, which I just I mean, I just don't have a whole lot of knowledge about. It's like when we're watching miss Fisher because it's in the southern hemisphere, Christmas episodes are always weird because it's the middle of summer there in December.

Mark:

It's seventies right now in Auckland.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's it's the height of their warmest season. So it's just strange to think of even if you don't live somewhere that gets particularly snowy in the wintertime, in the northern hemisphere, we expect it to be chillier at Christmas.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

But there, it's the opposite.

Mark:

And Chris Kristen does a great job of kind of bringing that in.

Sarah:

Yeah. To kind of remind us that they're in New Zealand, and that's why it's so hot.

Mark:

They're they're well aware that most of their viewership is not in New Zealand.

Sarah:

There's a couple of things I didn't know about New Zealand.

Mark:

First of all, how far is New Zealand from us?

Sarah:

It's on the opposite side of the planet.

Mark:

Yep. So what do you think?

Sarah:

Just to guess. Know.

Mark:

8291 miles from Blue Moon. Wow. Yep.

Sarah:

That's a long flight.

Mark:

That's that's if we flew direct from Blue Moon.

Sarah:

Yeah. Direct flight from our backyard to there. Yep. I knew that New Zealand had a lot of sheep. I didn't know it was a ratio about 5 to 1.

Sarah:

Five sheep for every one human.

Mark:

Lot of sheep there. And it is a beautiful place. It has beaches. It has majestic mountains. Like, they look like the Rockies.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

They have, fjords on the South Island. It's just a beautiful place.

Sarah:

They got a little bit of everything geography wise except they're in the middle of nowhere. Yes. I didn't know that New Zealand was the 1st place to grant women the right to vote.

Mark:

Oh, that's fantastic. They have a few you know, probably in the eastern right now.

Sarah:

Mhmm. So And the other thing that I learned about New Zealand that I found really interesting is that there is only one native land mammal to New Zealand. Everything else was brought to the island in some way by

Mark:

Oh, really?

Sarah:

By either ancient people or more modern people. There's only one native land mammal. Do you wanna guess what it is?

Mark:

Well, it has to be something small because it probably survived the the extinctions that happened with the dinosaurs and stuff like that, maybe. I don't know. Maybe a rat?

Sarah:

It's a bat.

Mark:

A bat. I was close.

Sarah:

There are native bats in New Zealand.

Mark:

I would imagine there's tons of caves in New Zealand. Yeah. So this is a light show like Midsummer.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

It's definitely Midsummer in New Zealand.

Sarah:

Yes. There's a lot of little jokes you can tell. Yep. And so I think you looked into this. So in the beginning of the episode, it starts out with a Christmas parade.

Mark:

Yes. So Santa Claus parade for the people in the UK, this is a thing that we do in the colonies. And it is a really big thing. Like, Bloomington has a Santa Claus parade. My hometown has a Santa Claus parade.

Mark:

Like, it is a thing that little towns do.

Sarah:

You'd think the colder it is, the less likely it would be that they would do it, but they do it.

Mark:

It's a huge thing in Carl Blaise.

Sarah:

There's clearly a real parade going on here, and the production team has joined that real parade.

Mark:

I know exactly where this parade is.

Sarah:

You would. So what is it?

Mark:

This parade is on, it's in It's outside of Auckland on 330 State Highway. So it's a highway that runs Through a little town. Outside it goes northwest out of Auckland.

Sarah:

Okay.

Mark:

And how I know that is because of the pink spot dairy.

Sarah:

Do you know what a dairy is in New Zealand?

Mark:

Oh, it's much more complicated than it is here.

Sarah:

It's a corner shop. Yeah. It's like a corner shop. Corner shop. Yeah.

Sarah:

A dairy.

Mark:

So that pink spot dairy, there's only one in all of New Zealand.

Sarah:

So you found it.

Mark:

And I found it.

Sarah:

Good for you.

Mark:

I absolutely found, like, that whole area where they're taking shots of the police car and Breen, dressed as a

Sarah:

An elf.

Mark:

An elf, and Mike driving the police car. Now that's not a normal police car.

Sarah:

No. That's his personal vehicle.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

But he drives nothing but that.

Mark:

They 1971 Holden Kingswood. I I love old cars, and I don't know why he likes that car so much.

Sarah:

I think it's almost too new, though it's 50 years old. It's almost too new for me to like it.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

My first car was a 1965. Plymouth Fury 2 was beautiful. Yep. I still wish I I wish I had that car, though I couldn't afford to drive it now. Gas was oh, man.

Sarah:

It got, like, 3 miles to the gallon. But that car is kind of part of his that and listening to country music. Yeah.

Mark:

He's kind of nostalgic It's who

Mark:

he is.

Mark:

With his.

Sarah:

And he's been married unknown number of times.

Mark:

He has.

Sarah:

Seems to have pretty good relationships with most of his exes, though at least one of them I think has passed away. Yep. But we don't I mean, he he keeps his personal life very close to the vest. It's like an ongoing joke Yep. That they don't know much about him.

Sarah:

There there's another episode where Kristen is trying really hard to figure out how old he is.

Mark:

Yep. And they're trying to figure out what birthday

Sarah:

he has. Yeah. And he won't tell him anything. Yep. So there's a shot the shot of of Breen of Sam tossing candy to the kids in the parade.

Sarah:

Now all I was like, okay. That's not that's not like a production shot. That's like news footage kind of a shot. You know, the camerawork is really different. I'm like, okay.

Sarah:

That's a real parade.

Mark:

Now that's it's a real parade, but they all the promo shots for this episode that BritBox, that Acorn put out are all of them in the car with the decorations and Mhmm. Breen is an elf. So all I have a bunch of pictures that I'm gonna use that

Sarah:

Cool.

Mark:

Has that. And I got a close-up of the broken wood police crest. Did you see what was on it? No. Okay.

Mark:

So on the door is the broken wood police crest. It has stars

Sarah:

and kiwi birds. That's a requirement, isn't it?

Mark:

I think so.

Sarah:

It has to have a kiwi if it's in New Zealand.

Mark:

I looked. It it was super cool. I thought they were kiwis, but then I confirmed when I saw the higher res pictures.

Sarah:

So which do you think came first? The fruit or the bird?

Mark:

Oh, the bird. No. Oh, really?

Sarah:

And where do you think the fruit is from?

Mark:

Australia.

Sarah:

China. That's weird. So kiwi fruit are from China, and kiwi birds look similar enough to the fruit that people called them kiwis.

Mark:

And they call people in

Sarah:

From New Zealand, kiwis.

Mark:

Which is a Chinese word. For a

Sarah:

fruit, but they have a bird that looks like one.

Mark:

Okay.

Mark:

There you go. Now you know. There's one more thing

Mark:

that's more confusing than

Sarah:

that. What?

Mark:

Why is the red baron in the spirit?

Sarah:

This is, everything goes in plus Santa parade.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

There are cows and elves and Santas and

Mark:

Red barons.

Sarah:

Red barons and a a a girl in a car in a pretty dress. And, like, anybody who wants to be in the parade, let's do it. Yep. Everybody in. They it's it goes so far as to have a float wrangler

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Just so organized.

Mark:

Yep. They do that sort of typical colony thing that happens in different towns I've been to where at the fairgrounds where you have the fall fair

Mark:

Mhmm.

Mark:

You also store your floats for Santa Claus parade.

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah.

Mark:

Or the rink. Some people stay store them at the rink.

Sarah:

Now have you ever been in a parade?

Mark:

I've never actually been in a parade.

Sarah:

Have you ever helped build a float? Nope. I have done both. I know. Many times.

Sarah:

Because I was my class president in high school.

Mark:

Sarah was very popular in school.

Mark:

I don't know why.

Sarah:

I was not. So as class president, it was my job to design the float and organize a crew of people to help build it. And we built a new one every year because we had to make a float to compete in the parade.

Mark:

Absolutely fantastic.

Sarah:

So my my high school mascot was a hornet. And our nemesis school, which we always played against then homecoming Yep. Were the Speedway spark plugs.

Mark:

Oh.

Sarah:

So we had to make a float that showed Hornets fighting spark plugs. Because Speedway is where the Indy 500 is. Right? So, I mean, I guess they could have been, like, the tires

Mark:

or something. It could have been worse. But I have to tell you That's only in America.

Sarah:

Making a fighting spark plug that didn't look like something else that was offensive in some way, and there was a whole range of things that could look like accidentally, was always a challenge. Not too bad. It was a challenge.

Mark:

I can see that.

Sarah:

But we we managed to do it. It was a lot of, chicken wire and tissue paper.

Mark:

Speaking of the most evil person in this episode.

Sarah:

Yeah. You wanna just get it out of the way? Haley's really bad.

Mark:

She is horrific. And she who is she playing for here?

Sarah:

What do you mean?

Mark:

When she comes in the house and pretends to find the dead body

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

She has to be doing not actually doing that.

Sarah:

She's doing it for the voice mail.

Mark:

She's doing it

Sarah:

for the that she is acting that way as well, visually acting that way is for the TV show. Yes.

Mark:

It's for the flashback.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Because she should just be walking around going, dad, oh, no. Are you asleep? Ah.

Mark:

She's a bit better than that.

Sarah:

She did that, it'd give it her away give her away. Right?

Mark:

And we'll get to why she kills everybody. It's Santa's slaughterhouse here.

Sarah:

What does she got against Santa, James?

Mark:

There's a lot of I went back and double checked. There is the body in the chimney when she drives up.

Sarah:

Yes. Yep. I've been checked. Yeah. Yep.

Sarah:

I love how we've seen Gina for the first time when Mike and Kristen come to the crime scene. Yes. And Gina's like, Mike, you looked very handsome in the parade. I can't do a Russian accent, but that's what she said. She said because you have to know if you've never seen Broken Wood, Gina is infatuated with Mike, but in a very funny way.

Mark:

It almost crosses the line, but it doesn't actually Yeah.

Sarah:

It never does. It's always in kind of a funny way. And she's very classy about it.

Mark:

But if Mike was like, okay. Let's go, Gina. She would be like, giddy up. Yeah. Like, no foul.

Sarah:

1st, we drink vodka, then we make the love. Yeah.

Mark:

Me and you and Mike. Yeah.

Sarah:

Like, at the drop of a hat.

Mark:

And she also suggests that he should be Santa in the future.

Sarah:

Yeah. I I I don't know why she wants him to do that, but maybe she's got a thing about Santa costumes.

Mark:

So the person who is dead in the Santa costume, because we don't know about the other dead person yet.

Sarah:

Right. Is the mayor

Mark:

Is the mayor.

Sarah:

Evan Whitestone.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

His throat's been cut in the Santa costume 90 minutes after the parade.

Mark:

And so if he was in the parade, which he wasn't actually, but No. We'll get there. He's only been dead 90 minutes. Wouldn't they know right away that it was longer than that? Like, the blood would be a different color.

Sarah:

Yeah. Even if it's all in his fake beard, I would think rigor and all kinds of stuff. Because he's actually been dead, like, 12 to 18 hours, and that's a big difference. That's a

Mark:

big difference. SSG and ESR are requested.

Sarah:

Yeah. Mike Specialist all serious about the crime scene.

Mark:

Specialist search group and the environmental science and research group.

Sarah:

So that's different than SACCO?

Mark:

It's basically SACCO. It's a Crown Research Institute, the sole provider of forensic science and services for the police. Okay. They have laboratories in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch for these laboratories. They're on call 24 hours a day.

Sarah:

So they need crime scene Yep. Inside and outside

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

Is what he's saying. Yep. Well, that's kind of an obvious thing, isn't it? Yes. I mean, it's not like this could be an accident.

Mark:

No. So then Mike talks to the dead body because that's what he does.

Sarah:

He always does. And it I I just know sympathetic way.

Mark:

That what that part of his character.

Sarah:

And it's not anything supernatural. He's he's in homicide because he has sympathy for victims, and he's really determined to get justice

Mark:

for the plot. Of his process Yes. Is to place himself in the in contact with the victim.

Sarah:

Yes. Initially, in the in the series, they kinda make fun of him for it, and they kinda are weirded out by it. Yep. But by this point in the series, like, Kristen is like, she knows he's gonna do it.

Mark:

So they talked to Hailey, the daughter, who is actually the killer, but we don't know that. And she was at the family batch. Yeah. Do you know what that is?

Sarah:

It's a summer house.

Mark:

It's a summer house. Yeah.

Sarah:

Yeah. Oh, don't forget there's a pie.

Mark:

Did you notice Breen has the soccer booties over his elf booties?

Sarah:

Yes. I love that he shows up in his elf costume.

Mark:

Yes. So there is a pie on the floor. Yeah. And this begins the biggest debate of the episode Yes. Which is

Sarah:

Who what is the king of pies?

Mark:

What is the king of pies and is between?

Sarah:

There's mince and cheese, steak and cheese, steak and onion. I mean, really, all kinds of stuff can go in it in a pie and hand pie, but it's steak and cheese.

Mark:

Now, Sarah, have you had one of these pies?

Sarah:

Not from New Zealand.

Mark:

Not from New Zealand.

Sarah:

I've had, a Michigan hand pie Yes. Which is the same kind of construction sort of pastry with meat and stuff in it.

Mark:

So I called and contacted a number of pie shops in New Zealand. Okay. No one sent pies internationally. This guy named Patrick at Patrick's Pies, the gold star bakery, worked really hard to try to help me find somebody who would sell me.

Sarah:

Send send us, like, frozen New Zealand pies?

Mark:

Yes. He worked very hard.

Sarah:

Man, you've been looking for frozen food shipped all week. Yeah. Because we were trying to send my sister pizza from Indy that she loves, and she's she doesn't live in Indianapolis anymore. Yeah. And I really wanted to get her that pizza that she loves so much, and they wouldn't do it.

Mark:

But I was not deterred.

Sarah:

Oh, no?

Mark:

No. I found trying? In Alexandria, Virginia Yeah. The Kiwi Cuisine Pie Company.

Sarah:

Oh, that's gonna be a lot better than a pie that comes literally from New Zealand. So I ordered us. But not in time for us to try them today.

Mark:

No. Unfortunately, they're a little backed up. I called them to see when our order would be shipped, but it has not shipped yet. So I have ordered us the gift of pies as they call it. I I've ordered a dozen pies Oh my gosh.

Mark:

For us. Okay.

Sarah:

That's a lot of pies.

Mark:

So, I ordered, 4 of 3 types.

Sarah:

Okay.

Mark:

Okay? I was gonna order sausages. By the way, the the people who run this place are from New Zealand.

Sarah:

Of course they are.

Mark:

So they have sausage rolls and everything. But okay. So I ordered a minced beef and cheese. Okay. So I ordered 4 of those.

Mark:

So that is

Sarah:

That's like hamburger and cheddar. Right?

Mark:

It is all natural ground beef, rich gravy seasoned with vegemite. Oh. Creamy white cheddar, all tucked in flaky patriots. I don't

Sarah:

know about vegemite gravy.

Mark:

And I ordered steak and cheese, all natural sirloin beef chunks, slow roasted for 24 hours, surrounded rich gravy with white cheddar and mozzarella.

Sarah:

That sounds really good.

Mark:

Yeah. I'm looking forward to those. And then on the crazy spectrum, I also ordered butter chicken. Oh. Four buttered chicken ones.

Sarah:

That sounds good.

Mark:

Onion, peas, carrots, and spicy creamy tomato chicken.

Sarah:

I like butter chicken.

Mark:

I do too. I think, we are gonna enjoy these pies.

Sarah:

Are you and I gonna eat all of them?

Mark:

Oh, I

Sarah:

hope not. That's so long.

Mark:

They they're kinda gigantic.

Sarah:

Oh, okay. So We may have to do a little video, little Instagram reel of us eating the pies.

Mark:

I think we might. I kept sitting on this all week that I had been looking for pies and wanted to surprise you with pies. I couldn't get them here in time. I look forward to it. But we will be soon doing a pie review.

Mark:

The people on the phone were they were super nice. Everybody was super nice. I wish that the guy in New Zealand was like, I wish we could try to get you some. We love broken wood.

Sarah:

Yeah. Oh, you told them we were doing a podcast. That's why we wanted the pies. Yep. They're like, well, will will you mention the name of our store?

Mark:

So I will put both Patrick's Pies Gold Star Bakery and, Kiwi Cuisine in, in the show notes for you to purchase them if you wish.

Sarah:

Rock and roll. I'm looking forward to this.

Mark:

I know. That's gonna

Sarah:

be fun.

Mark:

That's gonna be super good.

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah. See, I don't know about your enthusiasm because listeners don't know, but you hate pie.

Mark:

I I dislike crust quite a bit.

Sarah:

Like, you won't eat, like, apple pie.

Mark:

No. No. It's a crust.

Sarah:

Go anywhere close to it.

Mark:

No. But I wanted to be a good sport here and and get some pie crust.

Sarah:

Meaty, you might like it

Mark:

better. Maybe. Maybe. Isn't that amazing? I thought you would

Sarah:

be like a lot of super stoked.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

I'm super super stoked.

Mark:

Unlike Roxy. Who's Roxy? Roxy is Breen's girlfriend. Oh. And she's gone veg o.

Sarah:

Do we ever meet her?

Mark:

No.

Sarah:

I didn't think so. No. And he's not always talking bad about her by the way. No. No.

Sarah:

He really really loves her.

Mark:

He does love her. I think

Sarah:

But but she seems to get a lot of crazy ideas sometimes. Like, she decides to redecorate their living room or she decides to be a vegetarian or

Mark:

I think they get married and they move away. And that's how

Sarah:

That's how he leaves the show. Yeah. Yeah. Later in, like, season 4 or something.

Mark:

Yep. And then there's the insanta side show.

Sarah:

Oh my gosh. Now he's not actually Santa. He was just a man in a suit.

Mark:

It's a man in a Santa suit.

Sarah:

So it's man in a Santa suit aside. Man. Not Santa's side.

Mark:

And now we have the name of the other stuff.

Sarah:

They make this big deal out of Mike going, no. It's just a man in a Santa suit. It's not Santa.

Mark:

And that is a really good piece of writing because you're like, does Mike believe in Santa? You're like a little weirded out.

Sarah:

Why is he making such a big deal out of it? And he and he makes a point of it every time.

Mark:

And then he explains that he's doing it for his nephew

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Who is

Sarah:

Who has down

Mark:

syndrome and has trouble with Santa and doesn't wanna know that Santa's ever been killed or anything, and I think that that is shows so much of Mike's character.

Sarah:

It makes his nephew very happy to know that Santa is real, and so there's no reason to say that he's not.

Mark:

Yeah. And even though his nephew isn't part of the episode, we never see his nephew. We never see his sister or anything like that. It shows character that he still does it even when he's not with his nephew.

Sarah:

Well, you wouldn't wanna slip.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

Right? Do you know what the the emergency number is in New Zealand?

Mark:

111. That makes so much sense.

Mark:

Makes so much more sense.

Sarah:

911 in the US. Yep. Man, the in the age of rotary phones.

Mark:

I don't know. I'm I'm sorry, listeners. I'm not up on the phone system of New Zealand.

Sarah:

But but they had to have had rotary phones at one point just like everybody else did.

Mark:

That's why New York's area code is 212 because it's easier to dial.

Sarah:

Yeah. But in the UK, it's 999.

Mark:

Yeah. 999. Well, that came after touchdown.

Sarah:

Oh, okay. That makes sense. Yep. Because in the age of rotary,

Mark:

you're dead before you even finish dialing. Yeah. You just wait off with your head.

Mark:

You're dead. One more. Yeah.

Sarah:

Please don't kill me until after this thing goes all the way back around. It just takes so long. Yeah. It's been 911 in the US for a long time though.

Mark:

Yes. It has. But since since before touch tone, but then I think England's only been

Sarah:

999. After touch tone.

Mark:

The nineties and touch tone.

Sarah:

Because that's cruel. Yeah. If not.

Mark:

Okay. In the cop shop, we are updated on what possibly a motive for all this is, which is there's a new mayoral election.

Sarah:

Yeah. And Elections in Brooklyn would are always interesting. Yes. Whatever they are. So I love that Kristen has, like, the mayoral candidate cheat sheet.

Mark:

She does.

Sarah:

All 4 candidates on one page. Yeah. It's like a mugshots of mayors.

Mark:

Yes. So there's Neil Blum, who is the pharmacist. Chemist.

Sarah:

He Sam says chemist, and Kristen says pharmacist.

Mark:

Yeah. There's no difference.

Sarah:

I know. I think it's a British thing to call them chemists. And in some ways, New Zealand is like, no. No. We're New Zealand.

Sarah:

We're not British.

Mark:

Yeah. Victoria Spiegelman, who is awesome, who just eats up all the scenery.

Sarah:

She is a nut job.

Mark:

She's a nutcase. It's fantastic. I love how crazy.

Sarah:

I'll be right back. The prune juice is kicking in.

Mark:

Okay. She she comes back, and she's doing up her pain.

Sarah:

Oversharing way yeah. She's talking about transparency. It's a little too much.

Mark:

Yep. Held my grandfather's intestines together.

Mark:

Yep. Jed Chalmers, the local hipster.

Sarah:

He's a hipster barber. What do you think about his beard? I like

Mark:

his beard.

Sarah:

It's fake.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

It's not a real beard. Yeah. But it's a really good fake beard.

Mark:

It's a good fake beard.

Sarah:

But he's He has good hair.

Mark:

He does.

Sarah:

And good vest and suspender combo.

Mark:

Yep. Yep. He does. Good gen. And then And glasses.

Mark:

Hey. Crazy yes.

Sarah:

What's his Then there's Pete. Crazy Pete. Crazy Pete. Crazy Pete's mighty meats and land development fracking scheme.

Mark:

I love this is why I say it's midsummer in New Zealand because all these minor characters are completely have unique things that don't make them like caricatures, but kinda caricatures.

Sarah:

They're yeah. Yeah. You would say, oh, they're local characters. Yeah. So Neil, the pharmacist, is the only one who is a semi recurring character.

Sarah:

Yes. He's the the gay pharmacist.

Mark:

Well, he becomes mayor. And he

Sarah:

becomes mayor, and he his partner is the reverend Yep. Of the church. Yep. And so later, we know they're a couple, and and together, they're kind of characters in the village or the town or whatever. I I love that he hands flowers out because his last name is Bloom.

Mark:

Yep. But He says my family has different kinds of parades. Yeah. Meaning pride parade?

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

But there's a pride parade episode later, I think.

Sarah:

Later after he's been mayor

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

The town's ready for it, but now he thinks they're not ready for it. They do such a good job showing you just how crazy Pete is. When we get to see his office with all of the stuff from his past marketing campaigns Including

Mark:

Romans in this field.

Sarah:

Ever. Including, yeah, the full size cardboard cutout of him wearing Roman gear and the the, just just so so many stupid ideas for sales. Well, there's the, the oh, what it the the Santa meat massacre? Yes. Why would that make anybody wanna buy?

Sarah:

I I don't know.

Mark:

He kinda looks at it because, maybe that's not a good one.

Sarah:

Yeah. And, that doesn't have any to do with this. Yeah. Hey. How did the butcher introduce his wife?

Mark:

I don't know how did the butcher introduce his wife. Meet Patty. Wow. Wow. Dad called.

Mark:

He wants his jokes back.

Sarah:

That is a joke my dad told me. And then there's Maureen Moffett who is Evan's campaign manager Yes. And sidekick and, like, city council whatever late lady who helps stuff, and she's and we can't find her. We don't know where it is. Where she is because she's in the chimney.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

I'm I gotta say upside down in a chimney for, like, what? 3 days?

Mark:

Yeah. She's not gonna look good.

Sarah:

It's not good. No. Not good at all. No. It reminds me of Gremlins.

Mark:

Yeah. It does. This is a Christmas episode.

Sarah:

Most people forget that

Mark:

Gremlins is a Christmas movie.

Sarah:

Well, they don't forget that, but they forget the horrible story about the dad who goes down the chimney and dies in the chimney.

Mark:

You want to hear a silent theater, go see gremlins when it comes out in the eighties. Yeah. Because we were expecting puppets and mayhem and chaos. And then

Sarah:

all of a sudden, Phoebe Cates is like, yeah. My dad died trying to surprise us on Christmas.

Mark:

Oh. You're

Sarah:

like, Moo. Slammed into a wall.

Mark:

Yep. Wow. I remember that moment in the theater.

Sarah:

Oh, I bet. I love that missus Marlow says, oh, I heard the mayor was found naked and and bound in his mayoral chains. Yes. Like, no. You just made that up to see if that was true.

Sarah:

Yeah. So that Mike would say, no. No. No. No.

Sarah:

No.

Mark:

So like many colonies, they they wear mayoral chains in in New Zealand. I double checked.

Sarah:

Not here.

Mark:

No. They don't here.

Sarah:

US mayors don't have those big old bling.

Mark:

You were gonna say stupid chinos. They're awesome.

Sarah:

They're big gold bling.

Mark:

They're awesome.

Sarah:

That I know

Mark:

of. Haley says a weird thing here that she was in Smith Bay.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

But the only Smith Bay I could find is south of them, but she says it's north of them.

Sarah:

I'm sure they made that up. It's just a generic thing. She says she was off finishing her first novel.

Mark:

Yeah. So she was supposedly writing book for Mills and Boone. Do you know who Mills and Boone?

Sarah:

Romance publisher.

Mark:

Oh, boy. I went through their entire

Sarah:

website. They're a big romance publisher.

Mark:

They are a big romance publisher, and, they have a number of interesting strange lines of books for a British publisher. Mhmm. They have a whole cowboy one. I wanna read any British written novel.

Sarah:

You have to remember cowboys. My first master's degree. My thesis was about romance novels. I know way too much Yeah. About them.

Mark:

So Sims says you can make a pretty penny doing that. How much can you make?

Sarah:

I don't think individually they make a lot of money. I think they're prolific writers.

Mark:

They are.

Sarah:

So you make more money because my former mother-in-law loves romance novels, and she used to go and buy them by the paper sack at the used bookstore. Like, it's volume, not quality.

Mark:

Yep. So you can any they say on their website, the Mills and Boom website, you can make anywhere from 2 k to 30 k per book. I'm sure there's a tier system and all that stuff.

Sarah:

But it is one of the genres that has survived on paper. Yes. People don't want to read Kindle romance novels. Well Because the book covers are so important.

Mark:

But the the Mills and Boone book covers, I didn't like them at all.

Sarah:

They aren't? No. They're They're not Fabio in the No. With a kilts on? No.

Sarah:

Okay. Breezy pecs.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

It's a whole area of study right there. Yep. So Maureen's in the chimney. Yep. She's got a head injury.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

She was drunk, and she had smoke inhalation.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Why would she have thought that she needed to go on the roof to open the flu?

Mark:

Because he he suggests it. Because he says, although, I forgot the Santa. And

Sarah:

Oh, so it's not the flu that's the problem. It's the fact that there's Santa in the chimney.

Mark:

And he says, I'll go do it.

Mark:

And Hailey goes,

Sarah:

no. You're too drunk.

Mark:

You're too drunk.

Sarah:

And it was her idea to light a fire anyway because she she knew they would have to go because I was like, you open the flu from inside the fireplace. Now granted, when there's a fire burning, that's kinda difficult to do. Yep. But as far as I know, you don't open the flu from the roof. That would be really, really hard to do.

Mark:

No. But she's crazy.

Sarah:

What does she do with the legs? Because if they found the legs in the yard, but there were legs in the chimney, I think somebody would have got suspicious.

Mark:

They threw it in the they throw them in the backyard, and I guess the the uniform guys just were like

Sarah:

Or Hailey hid them.

Mark:

Hailey hid them or something.

Sarah:

We just don't see it.

Mark:

Something. I

Sarah:

love it. Gina's lines are always gems. Yes. It's not unusual for Santa Clauses to die in Russia.

Mark:

In the lead

Mark:

up to flies.

Sarah:

In the lead up to Christmas, they fall like flies usually from accidents involving roofs, ice, and too much vodka.

Mark:

And she's, dressed in fancy underwear.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

There's this Lauren. That she's a stripper gram.

Sarah:

A Santa stripper gram.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

But she's not Santa. She's a woman in a Santa suit Yes. Who is going to strip.

Mark:

Yes. She's missus Claus.

Sarah:

She's woman in a Santa suit stripper gram aside. Get it straight.

Mark:

Oh. So

Sarah:

Victoria's house.

Mark:

Go to Victoria's

Sarah:

house. I love it. It's so great.

Mark:

Bees for life. I love the strings. Yes. It confuses the cats and

Sarah:

the dogs. I hope they fall and break their necks.

Mark:

But she has a sign about cats attacking birds. It's she's just all over the place.

Sarah:

No. She hates cats. Yeah. She hates cats. She hates dogs.

Mark:

Yep. Xmas.

Sarah:

She wants to save snails. She wants to end whaling and and the bull rush, which is a plant. Yep. No more mining. Don't frack up our water.

Sarah:

Bees for life. Ban Christmas. Whitestone's a whitewash.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

Save broken wood from itself.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Man, just imagine how horrible it would be if she actually was elected mayor. She'd be

Mark:

like, in the city council going, hold on. I gotta go poop. I'll be back.

Sarah:

Yep. Thanks, Victoria.

Mark:

Thanks. Great. Thanks, Victor. Though, she's right in a lot of

Sarah:

Yes. Yeah. It's just the way she goes about it.

Mark:

You know?

Sarah:

She had a little tact.

Mark:

So she gives Breen a drink.

Sarah:

The tea? Yeah. The kawakawa ginger lemon bitters and iodine? The arsenic is a joke.

Mark:

Yeah. It it has too strong of a flavor. Yeah.

Mark:

I had brooms for breakfast.

Sarah:

Oh, man.

Mark:

So Neil was working instead of going to the parade because he wanted his employees to go to the parade.

Sarah:

Aw. Yep. Neil's nice.

Mark:

He's super nice.

Sarah:

He's genuinely a good guy.

Mark:

Yes. He is.

Sarah:

He's very helpful in other episodes too.

Mark:

Yeah. He is.

Sarah:

And poor Jared

Mark:

So then we find Jared missing, but he's been gashed in his thigh.

Sarah:

He's been hit on the head. Yeah. Had booze poured over him. Had his leg cut very close to his femoral artery. Yep.

Sarah:

I mean, Hailey thinks he's dead. Yeah. She's hoping he's dead.

Mark:

She tries to kill him.

Sarah:

And completely ruins the nice elf costume that missus Marlow made for him. Exact exactly. Jeez. Come on. Costume that

Mark:

missus Marlow made for him. Exact exactly.

Sarah:

Jeez. Come on. But that's the kind of guy Jared is. He comes to pick up Evan to take him to the parade.

Mark:

Yes. Oi. And this is how they figure out that he was that Santa and missus Claus were dead 12 to 18 hours before.

Sarah:

Well, that and Gina does the postmortem and says, no. No. No. They died a long time ago. I picked up I hadn't seen this one, since it first, was released here, and I picked up on the whole Evan dad thing pretty early on because I was incredibly confused.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

I was like, who's Evan? Yes. Because Hailey talks about Evan and, like, but is that that's her dad.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Like, why isn't she calling him dad?

Mark:

Oh, yeah. Now I remember.

Sarah:

He's not her dad, and she's horrible.

Mark:

So Breen loses the debate here and the pie is steak and cheese.

Sarah:

Yeah. Jed's whole campaign manager in Croatia and all that. That is so unnecessary. Yeah. I don't I don't we don't need it.

Mark:

They just need him to be slightly weird. So then we meet Kia and Tina who are Jared's aunts, who are part of, like, a really evangelical Christian.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

He's a good Christian boy. Santa Claus was never mentioned in the bible. They're

Sarah:

But they love him so much. Yep. They're not I mean, they're they're very religious and conservative, but they care about him. It's it's it's not to a fault or anything like that. It's just who they are.

Mark:

So Victoria shows up here, and this is a a clever piece of writing because she shows up and says she's here to support Fana, but it appears in the credit in the subtitles as w h

Mark:

a n a u. What's that?

Mark:

It is a Maori word for extended family. It's used in everyday New Zealand English as well as official publication. So it's not slang or anything like that. But her using it because she's not related to Jared in any way.

Sarah:

No. Victoria is not.

Mark:

Is that kind of coat hanger, coat tailor mentality that I think, like, I'm gonna be so supportive of indigenous peoples. I'm gonna be like their extended family.

Sarah:

It's too much.

Mark:

It's a bit it's a bit

Sarah:

But Tina seems to like her.

Mark:

Yeah. Tina just seems to like her.

Sarah:

So Crazy Pete's meat massacre. Such a bad idea. What's he thinking? Like, it's so stupid. And he's calling he wants to call the the new housing development Meetville.

Sarah:

Meetville. I mean, it's so bad.

Mark:

You get a 100 meters a 1000 meter square plot for 500 k.

Sarah:

Is it meters, m e a t? Meters?

Mark:

I hadn't thought of that.

Sarah:

I mean, really, anywhere you can put a meat pun in, he's gonna do it.

Mark:

Yes. And we have the leopard and cheetah making its first appearance.

Sarah:

And that was a frog and cheetah.

Mark:

Frog and cheetah. And and it's run by

Sarah:

It's run by Ray Nielsen.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

His sister shows up later, and she's she kills somebody. So I

Mark:

no. I think she's in prison

Sarah:

Now?

Mark:

At this point.

Sarah:

She's already killed somebody.

Mark:

But she's also fantastic. Yeah.

Sarah:

I just remember when the first time they introduced the frog and cheetah, it was like, oh, it's a cheetah? Cheetah. Like, does he break the rules in

Mark:

a game and that makes him

Sarah:

a cheetah? The way they say it.

Mark:

Apparently, Evan was drinking dirty bastards.

Sarah:

What's a dirty bastard? I know it's got rum in it, but other than that

Mark:

no. It has no rum

Sarah:

in it. Oh.

Mark:

And I'm actually thinking maybe I should make some of these.

Sarah:

Okay. Maybe we should have them with our pies.

Mark:

The old dirty bastard is a pies.

Sarah:

What's in a dirty bastard?

Mark:

Lime juice, ginger beer, Irish whiskey, and ginger syrup. All those things sound delicious.

Sarah:

Yeah. It sounds like a a ginger, ginger ale whiskey sour.

Mark:

Yeah. Yeah. So we'll definitely Sounds good. We'll definitely get the fixins for that to make 30 to have

Sarah:

and pie.

Mark:

To have our dirty bastards and pie.

Sarah:

Sounds good. Yeah. Old Pete, the the the meat man was at a strip club.

Mark:

Yeah. Called Stallions.

Sarah:

And then checked into a hotel where he might not have been alone.

Mark:

I think that was probably a gay nightclub.

Sarah:

Oh, you think?

Mark:

Stallions? Oh, I

Sarah:

don't know. I can't judge on that.

Mark:

I don't know. I did not look up,

Sarah:

Either way, I'm not really surprised that he has trouble finding romantic partners in town.

Mark:

Yeah. Knowing Even though his wife is in Sydney. Remember all that yoga routine?

Sarah:

That's right. Yeah. I'm not surprised she's gone, you know, with an excuse either.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

He's not. I don't think he'd be very fun to hang out with. He'd be like, hey. Have you talked about meat today? Let's talk some more about meat.

Sarah:

Meat. Meat. Meat. That's meat.

Mark:

I did not look up gentlemen's clubs in New Zealand.

Sarah:

That's probably a good idea. Wow. Speaking of frog and cheetah. Antipodine.

Mark:

Antipodine.

Sarah:

Did you get my joke? He's a cheetah?

Mark:

Yeah. He's a cheetah.

Sarah:

Antipodeon?

Mark:

Yes. Do you know what that word means?

Sarah:

In the southern hemisphere,

Mark:

does it? It's Australia and New Zealand specifically.

Sarah:

They're the Antipodes.

Mark:

I love how Breen is like, why can't we have Jared as the Santa Claus in my photo shoot? And they're

Sarah:

like,

Mark:

he's

Sarah:

You mean Jed.

Mark:

Yeah. Jed. He's Maori.

Sarah:

Blue contacts? Makeup? No. No, Sam. No.

Sarah:

Super white man. No. Sam is super white.

Mark:

When Sam says a 137 steak and cheese pies were served in broken wood that Saturday morning, I was like, I need a pie.

Sarah:

Yes. And 5 of those

Mark:

should be for me.

Sarah:

I don't think, Haley's romance novels gonna go over well anyway. It's called Bloodletting.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

It's it's like, if you think you're being subtle and nobody knows how homicidal you are, you're just not hiding the clues well enough to keep that if, you know, like Yep. Like, she's over there flicking a straight razor in the corner. Are you are you murderers?

Mark:

No. So Jared wakes up

Mark:

in the

Mark:

hospital, and then Santa tries to kill him.

Sarah:

And runs like a girl.

Mark:

Yeah. I didn't like that.

Sarah:

But she does.

Mark:

But she does.

Sarah:

And and and not, like, in a stupid way. Not, like, flailing her arms around. Oh, and she doesn't, like, have a purse on her arm or anything. No. It's just it's not a masculine gait.

Sarah:

I think it I think that's okay, but they're smart to let Kristen say it.

Mark:

Yeah. And Mike figures all this out. Yeah. And at first, she's like, oh, what are you talking about? I have to get to the funeral.

Mark:

I it starts in 5 minutes. You should be in your father's funeral the 5 minute more than 5 minutes before.

Sarah:

I love when, they show the the reenactment of the crime when Jared shows up and he's like got a face full of pie Yep. And she turns around and she's half in the Santa suit Yeah. So she just looks pregnant

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

In red overalls.

Mark:

And then the poor pie gets flung into the corner.

Mark:

The pie.

Sarah:

Yep. The biggest clue in the whole deal.

Mark:

Yep. You know?

Mark:

He should have bled to death.

Sarah:

Because I slipped a straight razor under his elf tights and cut him somewhere. Yep. Like, if you wanted to make sure he was dead, cut his throat. You know how to do that. So she did she do that because she wanted to make it look like an accident?

Sarah:

Like, he just happened to be running around with a straight razor in his pocket?

Mark:

He's drunk with a straight razor. She didn't really think this out.

Sarah:

But he did was it a pocket?

Mark:

I I

Sarah:

don't think it was a pocket.

Mark:

I think she, like, slipped it into the leg

Sarah:

of his pants. In leg of his little elf shorts.

Mark:

It's weird.

Sarah:

Like, was he was he that reckless with his straight razor? Yeah. He's like, la la la, making toys for Santa. Oops. I caught my leg.

Sarah:

Gonna pass out now. Poor Jared. There's not only is her book called Bloodletting, but her bookshelf is like

Mark:

ways to kill people, other ways to kill people, my story of killing people. Blood. Yeah. Dead blood blood dead murder kill.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

There should have just been one, like, one Fabio romance novel Yeah. In all of that. Like, my Scottish love, you know, just like in the midst.

Mark:

Yes. Of all that stuff.

Sarah:

Yeah. Romance in the outback. That's Australian.

Mark:

So she gets taken away. Awkward funeral.

Sarah:

Yeah. There's gonna be some talking at the mayor's funeral.

Mark:

Who's gonna like, when you have a funeral for a family member, you're kinda in charge of the funeral? Yeah. But who's gonna run that funeral?

Sarah:

Missus Marlow.

Mark:

Yeah. She'll step up.

Sarah:

She'll step up and go. So Hailey was just arrested and kind of admitted that she did it. So anybody else wanna say something?

Mark:

And here's a sausage roll.

Sarah:

Yes. I brought some sausage rolls and some some pies and, yeah. Poor Maureen. Yes. The end.

Sarah:

The end. Yeah. I don't I don't doubt missus Marlowe will step up.

Mark:

So Kristen, how having spent the whole episode wishing for snow, she just is like, I wish 1 1 year we'd have snow on Christmas.

Sarah:

Then you need to move, honey.

Mark:

And her parents are in the UK. And the reason their her parents are in the UK is because they get snowed in.

Sarah:

Yeah. They get stuck. So they end up having a little

Mark:

Christmas at the cop shop.

Sarah:

Yeah. That is one anemic looking chicken.

Mark:

One anemic looking bird.

Sarah:

Whatever that bird is, it needs to go back in the oven for a bit. Yeah. They need some color on it.

Mark:

Yeah. It definitely but but, Mike, the volunteers to work on Christmas, and they all stay with him.

Sarah:

So if you've never watched Broken Wood before, I I really think this episode is a really good example of the tone of the show. Yep. There's every once in a while, they get into some, kind of deeper themes, especially about, native New Zealanders and things like that. But for the most part, it's pretty darn light like this episode is.

Mark:

Well, this is So

Sarah:

if you like this one, I think you'd like the whole show.

Mark:

So this is the season that has the Lord of the Rings episode. Yes. Which is fantastically crazy and insane.

Sarah:

Yes.

Mark:

It has the one with the the the poet who dies, and there's a fight over his body. Mhmm. There's that one.

Sarah:

The guy who falls whose parachute doesn't release

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

At Mike's birthday party?

Mark:

Yeah. That's in another season.

Sarah:

Oh, sorry. I thought that was the next one.

Mark:

No. And then and then the the next one is the classic Cars ones.

Sarah:

Yeah. The Cars show 1. I mean, they're they're all really fun. Yeah. It's, it's definitely worth checking out if you've never seen it before.

Mark:

But it's really well acted, really well written. They're tight. They're certainly like, for an hour and a half, it it moves along. There's no filler. Mhmm.

Mark:

There's no, like, kissy kissy lovey lovey.

Sarah:

And in general, we get all the clues. Yeah. I mean, there's usually something that Mike has figured out that nobody else has where he he kinda goes, you know,

Mark:

he reveals it. Don't see is what's on our bookshelf here.

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah. There's very little that we don't know. I think they make it very fair. In most episodes, it's very fair.

Sarah:

You can you could probably figure it out.

Mark:

Except for the fact that she's Looney Mctooney.

Sarah:

She is far more insane than you could guess that she is.

Mark:

Yeah. She is crazy.

Sarah:

Super crazy.

Mark:

And, like

Sarah:

And her motive is money.

Mark:

Yeah. That's weird.

Sarah:

I mean, I think she kind of wants to punish Evan for not helping her mother.

Mark:

But

Mark:

that was years ago.

Sarah:

Yeah. But that's kind of been festering, I think.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

That maybe he should have done more.

Mark:

It does have an exciting inciting incident. The fact that he calls her and says, I'm gonna ask Maureen to marry me

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Is an inciting incident It yeah. To a crazy person like that.

Sarah:

If she's and they say she's probably been thinking about it for a long time Yep. And that pushes her over the edge. So she's got many, many more reasons to do it than just that one thing. Yep. But that's what makes her do it.

Sarah:

And really, for somebody who decides in kind of the spur of the moment to kill 2 people, she doesn't do a half bad job.

Mark:

No. She almost gets away with it.

Sarah:

Yeah. She very if not for Jared and his dangled pie, I would've got away with it. If it weren't for Jared and his dang old pie.

Mark:

Over, she might've gotten away with it completely.

Sarah:

Him and his stupid tights and pie in a bag.

Mark:

Pie in a bag. Jared. We're not putting them in a bag. We'll put them in the oven, but we're not putting them

Sarah:

a bag. Them in a wax paper bag? No. You'd be like those, the people on miss Scarlet who buy their little meat pies in the street and just put them in their pockets Yep. Without any wrapper or anything.

Sarah:

They just put them in their lengthy pockets.

Mark:

Well, you know, Victorians.

Sarah:

Get them out, eat white, put it back.

Mark:

Wax paper. Right?

Sarah:

Like the gravies all over your pocket. All that vegemite gravy.

Mark:

All that vegemite gravy. Alright.

Sarah:

So that is season 3 episode 4 of Broken Wood Mysteries, a very bloody Christmas.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Next up, we have a spoiler free mini episode for Midsummer Murders season 23 episode 2.

Mark:

Before that, we still have best corpse to do.

Sarah:

Oh, I'm sorry.

Mark:

Nice corpse. Yeah. So let's Edit all that out.

Mark:

Edit all that out. So best corpse. By the way, there's a ton of mom mom I got apart. They all come in the room and say super and hand them a piece of paper.

Sarah:

No. Senior. Senior. Senior. Well, and there's the, woman who is the victim's advocate who follows Haley around.

Mark:

Who doesn't say a word.

Sarah:

Doesn't speak for half the episode. Just wears her little business suit and stands there quietly looking compassionate and supportive.

Mark:

There are a lot of characters in this episode. Yeah.

Mark:

A lot of lot of

Mark:

people. We talked about Mike's boss who appears for one scene, but he's in a lot of other episodes.

Sarah:

Yeah. You see him more if you watch more of the show. So best corpse, Evan or Maureen?

Mark:

I'm gonna go Maureen on the gurney. She's doesn't move a stitch.

Sarah:

I'm gonna go Evan because not only does he have to sit there with the bloody beard smooshed up against his face and everything, but later when he's on the slab, they've got all the prosthetics on his neck to make it look like his neck is all torn

Mark:

up. Yeah.

Sarah:

And he's being pretty still.

Mark:

He's pretty still.

Sarah:

Oh, I completely forgot. My biggest problem with this episode Okay. Okay? And this is a big problem

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Is that the whole way she gets away with this is by convincing everybody that Evan was in the parade. Right? Yes. So Hailey dresses as Santa Claus and goes and is in the parade as Evan. Yes.

Sarah:

She is a good 6 inches shorter than him.

Mark:

She is a good 6 inches shorter than him and has boobs.

Sarah:

Well, that you can hide with a big fat suit. Right? She's got the big Santa suit, the beard. I mean, she's not like super well endowed and hard it would be difficult to hide. She's got a beard and a suit and all that.

Sarah:

I don't have a problem with that. She is way shorter than him.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

And everybody would know immediately. And she can't speak

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

The whole time she's there. And she's the mayor?

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

Nah. I'm not buying. No. I mean, it's a very clever plot. Yeah.

Sarah:

To have her pretend to be him, so it throws everybody off about when he died.

Mark:

But I don't think she could have done it.

Sarah:

I don't think she could have pulled it off. I think people would have said immediately, that's not Evan.

Mark:

Like, there were a bunch of little kids. They would be like,

Sarah:

You're a lady.

Mark:

You're a lady.

Sarah:

I can see that you're a lady.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Because your beard is not that good.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

Santa's got boobs. He's hiding them, but he's got boobs. Don't say that. Santa's older. Don't body shame Santa.

Sarah:

It's not Santa. It's a body shaming person in a Santa suit.

Mark:

Yes. After the credits, Neil wins the election. Yes. And we hear of none of the other candidates again.

Sarah:

No. They're they're one episode characters.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

Which is good because I don't think I could take more of Pete Meade. I can't I can't deal with him.

Mark:

Okay. What do we got coming up?

Sarah:

So coming up next is a spoiler free mini episode covering Midsummer Murders season 23 episode 2. The Debt of Lies. I hope that the debt is clearer than the prophecy Yeah. Of the previous episode.

Mark:

So once again, spoiler free, we'll give you some tips to watch like a maniac.

Sarah:

Yes.

Mark:

We dropped that episode on Tuesday of last week, and at least one of our listeners said, oh, great. I have to watch it again. Yeah. Another person knew exactly what wallpaper we were talking about and said, I saw it in Winston Pearl too.

Sarah:

Yeah. I love it. People more and more people watch like we do now.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

And we've infected them with our maniac list.

Mark:

Infected. And and we got the sweetest note from Jude, who writes for father Brown and sister Boniface because we sent her some merch. And

Sarah:

Including a Boniface conspiracy t shirt.

Mark:

She said was hilarious. Yeah. She says that they are super positive on what we're doing Good. In in, their group. Awesome.

Mark:

That's fantastic.

Sarah:

So we don't have to worry about them coming after us.

Mark:

No. No. They they think they think what we're doing is fantastic.

Sarah:

Well, we're fans.

Mark:

Yes. Absolutely.

Sarah:

We're positives. Yep. Though, I did feel a little bit weird because sometimes we make fun of things, and I was like, I wasn't really doing that knowing that the person who wrote it would be listening. Yeah. You know what?

Mark:

And we kinda make fun of the writing sometimes. Sometimes.

Sarah:

But you know what? If you can't laugh at yourself

Mark:

I think both the ladies

Sarah:

you could survive that business.

Mark:

The ladies that we've interviewed, we both would look at those and go, yeah.

Sarah:

You're right.

Mark:

Or, you know, okay. Or more likely, that got changed for a reason totally unrelated

Sarah:

to That wasn't up to me. That's not what I wrote. Or I thought, you know, I had a better idea, but we couldn't do it that way or whatever. I don't care. But I I think they just have a good sense of humor anyway, and they they just they're able to laugh themselves.

Mark:

Yeah. I find it fascinating that there's these little pockets of BBC around the country.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

And they make different shows, and that's super interesting because of it. Sorry. Not BBC, but but, the people making those items.

Sarah:

Yeah. The production companies. Yeah.

Mark:

Yep. Anyhow

Mark:

Okay. After that, on 27th December, so the day after Boxing Day, we get

Sarah:

We'll do episode 3.

Mark:

The grain of truth. And then the 3rd January, we get dressed to kill, which is another mini episode. So 3 mini episodes after this one. No full episodes till 9th January.

Sarah:

Yes. This is our last full episode of the year.

Mark:

We are taking a break. But you'll you'll get some goodies between

Sarah:

now and then for sure.

Mark:

A break. Watch 3 Pines. Yeah. Watch Whitstable Pearl. Yeah.

Mark:

The the last two episodes of Whitstable Pearl was Super good. Good. And last night's 3 pines were fantastic. Slow horses has been fantastic.

Sarah:

Yep. All all really good stuff.

Mark:

All super good stuff. And there's so much coming in January just to give you some indication of what's coming in January alone. We have so, the the death in paradise Christmas special is gonna be on BritBox on 26th. So if you're in Okay. If you're into Death in Paradise, that comes on the 26th.

Mark:

Then January December. Yep. January, we have pale blue eyes, which is the Christian Bale,

Sarah:

Edgar Allen Poe.

Mark:

Edgar Allen Poe investigate a serial killer at, West Point. West Point. Like, I'm like, yes. There's everything I love all in one place. The rig, which is a straight it's not a mystery show, but

Sarah:

It is. Yeah. It's kinda paranormal super sci fi mystery on an oil rig.

Mark:

Rig with Game of Thrones versus Midsummer characters.

Sarah:

Yeah. You take all the actors from Game of Thrones in Midsummer, throw them together on an oil rig in the middle of nowhere with some kind of unknowable force. That's the rig.

Mark:

Yep. The All Creatures Great and Small Christmas special will be in February here. It's gonna

Sarah:

be a little late.

Mark:

It'll be in Geez. It'll be on, and then, Lockwood and Co, which you've read the books. Yeah.

Sarah:

I can't wait.

Mark:

On, will be on Netflix on the 27th January. There's just

Sarah:

I'm super excited

Mark:

about that one. And we got a bunch of new news about other shows coming. There's there's so much to cover. We the the one of the things we do is our planning for the year during this time period. And so we we're gonna take what we've learned from doing mystery maniac so far and figure out what we're gonna do.

Mark:

I would like us to have a plan for at least 6 months in the future. So midsummer is January, and then we're gonna take some time off in February. But after that, you know, we should figure out what we're gonna do.

Sarah:

So

Mark:

thank you very much for listening. If you liked us on YouTube, please subscribe and, hit the bell. We're also on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and email, all those good things.

Sarah:

In the subreddit? Yes. The midsummer subreddit?

Mark:

Yes. Which

Sarah:

is a fun place

Mark:

to talk. Busy actively, which is very good. It's fantastic. So there's new episodes. So I should put up a new episode thread.

Mark:

So

Sarah:

So stay tuned for, another mini. Yep. For the holiday song.

Mark:

Yes. This week. That'll be all this week. So have a good, happy holidays, maniacs.

Sarah:

Be safe, rest, stay healthy. Yep. Do what you need to do to start the the year off well.

Mark:

Remember, it's not Santa. It's a man in the Santa suit.

Sarah:

That's right.

Mark:

Bye, Maniacs.

Sarah:

Bye, Maniacs. Woman in the same suit.

Mark:

That house is a slaughterhouse. It's Santa's slaughterhouse.

Sarah:

Santa's slaughter. There's blood all over your beard. How weird. There's an outtake for

Mark:

you. It's kinda like

Sarah:

that.