Mystery Maniacs

🎙️ Episode: https://share.transistor.fm/s/fd85080a
📓 Show Notes: https://midsomermaniacs.transistor.fm/episodes/mystery-maniacs-cold-cases-midsomer-season-06-binge

Show Notes
This cold case covers our podcast for Season 6 of Midsomer Murders. 

Cold Cases
00:00 Intro
04:43 Episode 24 - "A Talent for Life" - Bookmobiles, Oysters and Chicken Wings!
1:14:31 Episode 25 - "Death and Dreams" - Majorettes, Dean's cakes, and a serpent horn!
2:20:22 Episode 26 - "Painted in Blood" - Ankles, Fat Suits & Operation Pond Life!
3:30:57 Episode 27 - "A Tale of Two Hamlets" - Satan's Plot Holes, An Armory and Danny's Meatballs
4:45:33 Episode 28 - "Birds of Prey" - Bad Wallpaper, The Wrong Sausages and The Eggman

Read Along With Us


If you've been listening to the show and want to dive into some actual fiction, this is your week.


Free preview chapters for both of Mark's serial novels are available right now. No credit card, no commitment. Just chapters. Go read them and tell us what you think.


And if you want to keep reading past the previews, the Patreon is open. Five dollars a month gets you one series. Eight gets you both. New chapters every week.


Free chapters - https://markbellauthor.substack.com/


Patreon link  - https://patreon.com/markbellauthor

Thanks again for listening!
 
Mark & Sarah

-----------------------------------
Upcoming Tentative  Schedule
  • September 14: Mystery Maniacs - Clues and Reviews 09/14/26 
  • September 16:  Mystery Maniacs - Cold Cases - Midsomer Season 07 BINGE


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Creators and Guests

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

What is Mystery Maniacs?

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

Sarah:

Hey, Maniacs.

Mark:

Hey, Mystery Maniacs. Are you ready to ban this? It's cold case time again. Oh my god. This might go down in history as the greatest idea I ever had.

Mark:

Everybody seems to love this, and we love that you listen to this. And there's definitely like it's okay. There are people who just listen to the beginning part. Yeah. And that's okay.

Mark:

If you've heard all the episodes of that, that's okay. But they're they're like on YouTube. When you release a video, it gives you a placement of that video in your last 10 videos. Mhmm. And the last two of the cold cases have been one of 10.

Sarah:

Wow.

Mark:

You get a little fireworks on

Sarah:

your screen

Mark:

and everything. Yeah. It's cool.

Sarah:

Well, you know, if you're if you're relistening, why not just start it and let go? Yes. Listen to five episodes at once.

Mark:

Again, to for the person who listens while they're working out, go. Go. Go.

Sarah:

You can do it. Yes. Or if you're asleep, sorry. We should be quieter

Mark:

than Yeah. Season six. Oh, it's a doozy. It is a doozy.

Sarah:

It's got a talent for life, death and dreams, painted in blood, a tale of two hamlets, and birds of prey.

Mark:

For me, two things pop out of our coverage of of these episodes. The first one was we we made a mistake. In episode 24, we spoke of Hunter Blackman in the past tense, and she was not past tense.

Sarah:

Well, she does get whacked with

Mark:

a log Yes.

Sarah:

By the river. And so you just assume she's old. She's probably dead.

Mark:

Yeah, but she wasn't dead. And we had to apologize all of episode 25 about it. And then in episode 26, we have the longest oner in Midsomer history right off the bat. After the titles, there's a oner shot that is a crane shot that goes from the full view of the green all the way down to dealing with with Troy and Barnaby. And I remember us talking quite a bit about

Sarah:

wonder, you mean there's no cuts. There's no cuts. Long continuous shot.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

So I'm not gonna say that it's my face hurt favorite necessarily, but episode 25, Death and Dreams, this is the one where Barnaby's friend, who is the psychiatrist, has the rehabilitation center where she helps newly released convicts or something get back into-

Mark:

There's one other thing she has, which is murder children.

Sarah:

But she also has murdered children.

Mark:

And

Sarah:

the majorette costume Yes. And the kind of pedophile guy who has no chin.

Mark:

The kind of pedophile guy who we talk about not having a chin. A chinless pedophile. He's one of those characters that we both love and hate because he is utterly reprehensible

Sarah:

Oh, yeah.

Mark:

And barely looks after his own child and all sorts of problems. And then is overly excited about the majorette costume.

Sarah:

And why do we love him?

Mark:

Because because he's so creepy and

Sarah:

weird. Yeah.

Mark:

Like, it's a bonkers episode. If you remember, there it's so bonkers. Tom goes into the middle of the street and stops the parade with his worn car.

Sarah:

That's right. And it's also the episode where Troy and Cully kiss, isn't it? Yes, is. Out on the exercise.

Mark:

A Troy and Cully kissing episode. Not

Sarah:

a scavenger hunt, a obstacle course.

Mark:

But Troy

Sarah:

Gosh, I have no words today.

Mark:

Yep. In in two episodes later, Troy's off with the egg lady from the the bird egg black male black market

Sarah:

The the nature cops?

Mark:

Yes. The nature cops. He has to have his wellies.

Sarah:

She's cute. So She has that

Mark:

princess dye blonde hair. But we never see her again. And to say that this is the last full season of Troy. I can't believe that Troy's only in six seasons, and he's in one episode of season seven, and that's it. And then we move on to mister Scott.

Sarah:

It also has the exploding summer house. Yes. Boom. Making the movie about Satan. Satan.

Sarah:

It's a fun season. Enjoy.

Mark:

Enjoy. What

Sarah:

kind of license do you need to drive a bookmobile? Do you need, like, an RV license? Or No. It's big.

Mark:

I stopped because I said to myself, I don't need to go down.

Sarah:

Hey, Maniacs.

Mark:

Hey, Maniacs. I

Sarah:

was trying for something kinda dramatic. Hey, Maniacs.

Mark:

In a radio voice. Yeah. Hey, Maniacs. It's Midsomer Maniacs, a podcast dedicated to the ITV series, Midsomer Murders. Each week, we dig into an episode of the show, including the murders, the mayhem, the loonies, and everything else we love.

Sarah:

I'm Sarah.

Mark:

And I'm Mark.

Sarah:

And as usual, if your kids can handle the episodes, then they can handle the podcast.

Mark:

This is a pretty tame one, though. You can't handle the podcast. Yeah. This is a pretty tame one.

Sarah:

I'm confused Okay. By this episode.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Frankly, I'm just gonna say that right up front.

Mark:

I'm calling this season, season six, episode one. I'm calling this right now the bookmobile season. Because the bookmobile makes it a further appearance, and I delve deep into the bookmobile already in the next episode.

Sarah:

Alright. But before we dive into, A Talent for Life, which is season six episode one. Yes. Tonight's topic. I have a little gossip.

Mark:

Oh, give it. Are you Gwen the gossip?

Sarah:

No. Okay. We'll talk about Gwen the gossip. No, I'm Sarah the gossip. Okay.

Sarah:

So I have a Google alert for Midsomer Murders that comes up in my newsfeed. Yep. First of all, it's amazing how many different news outlets from big sources to tiny little village blogs will mention Midsomer Murder in completely unrelated ways just to get the keyword in there, to get the traffic. Absolutely. Boy, there was a shoe sale at Bob's Shoes and it was like a Midsomer murder in there.

Sarah:

You know, like that kind of stuff. It's amazing. But across my newsfeed for no reason whatsoever that I can tell because it's not even a current thing, but it's something I didn't know. Today was a story about Fiona Doleman who plays Sarah Barnaby. Yes.

Sarah:

And the fact that she was actually pregnant when Sarah Barnaby was pregnant. Oh. But she had just left her husband of like fifteen years. Okay. And was pregnant by a younger lover who This she only went out with for a little

Mark:

is a whole episode.

Sarah:

And then broke up. Yeah. But then she was like, Hey, I'm in my forties and I'm pregnant and I never thought I would be able to have a kid. So the article that I read. Yes.

Sarah:

Proposed that actually Betty exists because Fiona Dolman was pregnant.

Mark:

Oh, okay.

Sarah:

So if the actress hadn't been pregnant, we might not have Betty.

Mark:

Who is their daughter? In the show.

Sarah:

Yeah. So the Barnabas had to be pregnant because the actress was pregnant.

Mark:

Oh, okay.

Sarah:

So there you go. A little gossip. I couldn't confirm it for a fact that they didn't have plans on the Barnabas having a child until the actress became pregnant, but that's what the article proposed.

Mark:

Oh, okay.

Sarah:

What's your gossip?

Mark:

It actually wasn't actual gossip, so we're gonna skip it and pretend I didn't say anything. Because there's all these rumors around that there's gonna be a strictly dancing, Midsomer crossover, and because that's what came up in my feed.

Sarah:

Oh, So that could either be a Midsomer episode that includes a strictly reference.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

But we've already had the dancing in the newest season.

Mark:

Yes, we did.

Sarah:

So that would be kind of lame. Yep. Or it could go the other way, and they could have an episode of Strictly that's just actors from Midsomer.

Mark:

I actually think

Sarah:

that That would be funny. I'd love to see John Nettles

Mark:

that he would like to be a contestant Oh. On Strictly Come Dancing and had, the actor admitted he might spoil it for everyone.

Sarah:

Because he's such a good dancer?

Mark:

Yeah. No. You know why it's like that? Because the new episodes are just airing in England right now. And so the new episode with the dancing, I think shows this week.

Sarah:

Wait a minute. We got it before they did?

Mark:

We got it before they did.

Sarah:

That's never happened.

Mark:

That we I'm kind of scared of mentioning it to British people because we got it before they did it. So that's why, like, there's the story Ah. And everything.

Sarah:

That's interesting. So they knew there was a dancing plot, so they said, hey. Would you wanna be on Strictly? And he was like, yeah. I kinda would.

Sarah:

That'd be kinda fun. And that's the end of the story.

Mark:

I think that's

Sarah:

That's all there is to it.

Mark:

End of story.

Sarah:

My gossip was better.

Mark:

Yeah. It was.

Sarah:

Mine has

Mark:

Anyway Mine episode Mine has bastards in it. Italian for life. Season six episode one.

Sarah:

Yes. Set in Mallum Bridge.

Mark:

Yeah. And it has another aptly named pub. So we went from the fish the we were The chalking gown. The chalking gown to the old fisherman.

Sarah:

Yeah. Which as far as I can tell actually exists as a location. Like, that's what the pub is actually

Mark:

There's probably many pubs called

Sarah:

They didn't have to rename it.

Mark:

And And Culley's back. Oh, it's the bookmobile series.

Sarah:

Whenever they show the bookmobile, I think they should play the, the theme from the, Wicked Witch of the West and Wizard of Oz. When it goes Yep. Down the Not that Cully's evil, but it would just make it funnier. Or yeah Benny Hill.

Mark:

Yeah. Could be sacked. And fast forward here. Well, it kinda looks like it's stalking. But, okay, we're getting way ahead of ourselves because there's stuff to cover beforehand.

Mark:

Yes. There's a row.

Sarah:

There's slapping.

Mark:

There's slapping at the old fishermen. I have a note that says, aptly named pubs are on.

Sarah:

And the slapping is done by Honor Blackman. Now you have a theory of how they got Honor Blackman on Midsomer.

Mark:

So Honor Blackman, well known British actress, most well known for being pussy galore in doctor in Goldfinger. Yeah. I almost said doctor Nolan. A billion because a billion people listen to us.

Sarah:

James Bond fans went, no.

Mark:

No. But, no, she's in Goldfinger. Goldfinger. She's Goldfinger's sort of second in command, and she has a squadron of female fighter pilots that help her. Yeah.

Mark:

That's Of course.

Sarah:

The fem box and Austin Powers are based on them. Right?

Mark:

But James Bond with the power of his lips changes her to becoming a good person. It is Sean Connery. Yes. It is Sean Connery.

Sarah:

Kiss is magical.

Mark:

Yes. And I don't know. Like, as a kid, the name Pussy Galore sounded funny to me, but, apparently, it's a double entendre or something.

Sarah:

Yeah. Anyway.

Mark:

Anyway, honor Blackman the theory I have is they went to honor Blackman and said, we'd like you to be in an episode. And honor Blackman, who is this person? Like, she place herself. I've never seen her be anything but this person Yeah. Says to them, okay.

Mark:

As long as I either get killed right away in a spectacular death or I'm the murderer. And they went, done.

Sarah:

Done. Well, I can understand. Mean, she's a big name. She's an important actress. She's got a long history, but she was also, you know, playing kind of bit parts at this point in her career.

Sarah:

Yeah. And just after this, made one of my favorite movies. Yes. Cockneys versus Zombies.

Mark:

Which is fantastic.

Sarah:

But not, you know, a big doorbuster movie.

Mark:

No, it's not a doorbuster movie.

Sarah:

But if you haven't seen it, you should. It's on Amazon, I think. I think it's on Prime. So you can watch it for free if you've got Prime.

Mark:

Yes. And, and it is on Prime, I think.

Sarah:

Mhmm. Yep. So She slaps that leg.

Mark:

She she Margaret and her are having a fight. And Margaret Seagrove, basically is hysterical according to honor. And so honored Blackman slaps her.

Sarah:

Let's be fair. A lot of people probably wanted to slap Margaret. Yes. But Isabelle Hewitt is the first person to do it.

Mark:

So that's honored Blackman's character's name is Isabelle. Yeah. And the doctor offers to drive her home after she gives the slap up. And of course, Margaret Segarrove is completely beside herself that somebody laid a hand on her.

Sarah:

She's flabbergasted.

Mark:

Absolutely flabbergasted. Suddenly giant moon.

Sarah:

The reason they're fighting is that there have been weighted flies found on the river. Right? Yes.

Mark:

So This is a fly fishing episode. I know nothing about fly fishing.

Sarah:

Well, I fell into that black hole.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Cause I wanted to know like, how bad is this thing that they're accusing her of? What's the big deal? Yes. So this stretch of river that the fly fishing club gets to fish is owned by a Lord who we never see.

Mark:

Never see him. Never.

Sarah:

Nope. They missed an opportunity.

Mark:

Maybe he's the real killer. And

Sarah:

they have a lease, right? So they pay the Lord for access to this stream, to this stretch of the stream.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

And Margaret is saying somebody has been fishing with weighted flies. Yes. And that's Chidi McCheeterson.

Mark:

Apparently. And

Sarah:

if the Lord found out, he might revoke their lease. He might not.

Mark:

I revoke your lease.

Sarah:

He might not renew it. Yes. What? So I was like, how bad is that? What is that about?

Sarah:

Right? So I looked into UK fly fishing tournament rules.

Mark:

Yes. Oh wow. This is a deep hole.

Sarah:

Oh yeah. Well, was where I finally found my answer. I watched a lot of intro to fly fishing videos.

Mark:

I'm sorry.

Sarah:

Because I grew up with a fisherman. My dad's a fisherman, but he's a real fisherman.

Mark:

He's a real fisherman.

Sarah:

R E E L.

Mark:

He uses reels. He is not corporal.

Sarah:

Yes. Well, he is corporal. So I didn't know much about fly fishing. So in fly fishing, rather than using very lightweight line and a heavy lure, use heavy line and a light lure.

Mark:

Okay. So it kind of dances in the water.

Sarah:

The idea is that it hits the water with nary a disturbance to the surface of the water and then sinks a certain amount when the feathers get wet and it imitates a nymph.

Mark:

That makes sense.

Sarah:

Right? Which is like, the tadpole version of a fly.

Mark:

Little bug.

Sarah:

Right. Somewhere between a larvae and a full blown, like a dragonfly is a nymph in the middle. Right. So it should just go just below the surface of the water and the fish sees it and nom, nom, nom, nom, nom. Right?

Sarah:

This is the, I swear I have a point here. Speed at

Mark:

which the

Sarah:

nymph sinks below the water is key. Right? So you need it to go a certain depth and kind of quickly before you snag it back out and throw it back in again. Cause it's supposed to be like, here's, here's something you can eat. Oh, it's gone.

Sarah:

Here's something you can eat. Oh, it's gone. Right? So you want it, you want the fish to like jump on it. So you want it to sink fairly quickly, but when it hits the water, it shouldn't make a big splash.

Sarah:

Ah. There's the rub right there. Right?

Mark:

Because if I'm a fishy, am I attracted to the splash?

Sarah:

No. You're scared of it. Because a nymph wouldn't make a big splash. Okay. Right?

Sarah:

But a big weighted fly, it's kablunk into the water. So it should hit the water and then slowly sink as it gets wet and

Mark:

Like a leaf going on the water.

Sarah:

Like a nymph

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

In the water.

Mark:

So This is riveting podcast.

Sarah:

I know, but it makes some of the episode make more sense.

Mark:

I agree. I've already learned something.

Sarah:

Okay. So it's acceptable to put what they call like these mini, mini, they're split beads, right? So if you imagine a little lead sphere with a split in it, slide your line onto it and you kind of clamp it on.

Mark:

Yeah, I remember those as a kid.

Sarah:

Squeeze it on. Yeah. And it adds microns of weight to the end of the line.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Right? And that makes it sink just a little bit faster. Okay. Right? Or a little bit more accurately.

Sarah:

Yeah. But we're talking about like a twentieth of an ounce.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Okay. And you put that like six inches above your fly.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

So it never goes in the water. All it does is help, help your fly get to where you want it to go. And it sort of speeds it up getting in the water.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

That is acceptable. Okay. What's not acceptable is putting a heavier weight or lots of those little beads down near your fly.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Because what it would do is sort of, it wouldn't only like flack the water, but it sort of flacks the fish.

Mark:

Oh, I can see that.

Sarah:

Okay. Because this is a ball of feathers with a great big hook in it.

Mark:

Now now I want to look at back at the scene where Margaret finds the weighted lure and see if it's actual weighted lure.

Sarah:

The one she finds is not even related to fly fishing.

Mark:

Okay, good.

Sarah:

Okay. It is like a treble hook fishing lure that you would use with a reel. Okay. Like that's a, that's a lure you would have to drag through the water by slowly reeling it in to make it even look like something that belonged in the water that a fish would want to eat. It's completely unrelated to fly fishing.

Sarah:

Okay. At least the red one that looks like a big fish that she finds in the bushes. Yeah. Yeah. It's bad.

Sarah:

Okay. So whoever wrote this episode, you know who wrote the episode.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

Knew just enough about fly fishing to be able to pick up on something that would have been slightly unsportsmanlike.

Mark:

David Hoskins wrote this episode.

Sarah:

But then in execution, the props they used kind of showed that somebody didn't know what they were talking about.

Mark:

Well, it's a really complicated thing.

Sarah:

It is. So And it's so I was doing all this Googling like weighted flies, unsportsmanly, weighted nymphs, rule breaking, you know, like I'm trying to figure out like how bad is this thing that Margaret is so worked up about? Like, is she irrational? Is she is she like crazy as a bell ringer? Yeah.

Sarah:

Or is she like legitimately upset? It's like somebody using a sniper scope when they're hunting, you know? Like that's cheating.

Mark:

It's cheating.

Sarah:

You know? It's unfortunate. Cheat. Yeah. And I didn't know whether she was, like, legitimately upset or not.

Sarah:

And it's a matter of degrees

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Is is the bottom line. That's the the boring end of the story. It's a matter of degrees. And certainly, nobody who we see legitimately fly fishing in the episode is doing what she's accusing them of. Okay.

Sarah:

There you go.

Mark:

There we go.

Sarah:

Now you know.

Mark:

Now we know.

Sarah:

It does not make the episode make any more sense to me to have that answer.

Mark:

No. There's lots of problems with the episodes.

Sarah:

Because I still don't know how the killer managed to do what he did.

Mark:

Oh, I there's problems. Yeah. So but a bookmobile.

Sarah:

But lots of fun too. Yeah. A bookmobile.

Mark:

Driving around the countryside, lurking.

Sarah:

How does Cully end up in a bookmobile?

Mark:

Where is Cully's boyfriend? I thought she was living in London. Isn't she an actress? These are the questions. How come she's in love with Troy now?

Mark:

Like, all these questions.

Sarah:

Well, said she got kind of roped into volunteering to put together the the photo show. Yes. And that I buy because she is Joyce's daughter. Yep. Which means she's gonna end up involved in all kinds of committees and and probably people are gonna die because of it.

Sarah:

But yeah. Anyway

Mark:

but the bookmobile, that's a job. Yeah. Like, is Cully living at home now or does she have a place? I don't know.

Sarah:

She's got a car.

Mark:

I don't know. But

Sarah:

I would Well, She's got Sally's car.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Right? The car that she drives is Sally's car from Tainted Fruit. Yeah. It's the same car.

Mark:

And, it's she calls it Birdie, doesn't she?

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah. I like that car, though.

Mark:

It's a cool car. But she also has a bookmobile. I would drive that thing around. Okay. I I had a weird question when I saw the first saw the bookmobile, and I saw Cully was in charge of the bookmobile.

Mark:

I'm like, does she have a license to drive that?

Sarah:

What kind of license do you need to drive a bookmobile? Do you need, like, an RV license? Or Right. And I big.

Mark:

I stopped because I said to myself, I don't need to go down that road.

Sarah:

Though it can't be easy because a lot of the lanes that you see in the episodes are barely wide enough for, like, a car and a half.

Mark:

Well, you need a little red sports car to

Sarah:

drive down the giant.

Mark:

They should have had the bookmobile on the old

Sarah:

Out of the airfield. And going around the corner on two wheels. So we've got, right off the bat, we've got Isabelle Hewitt. We've got Margaret Segrove. We've got Margaret's husband, Derek.

Sarah:

Derek. We've got Andrew, the real estate agent driving around Leo, Bantuck, who's come back to town. Yep. You know, they do a really good job of just kinda laying out all of the main characters right off the bat.

Mark:

And what am I obsessed with? A sign in the cop shop, which reads, we're looking for some extra special constables. And unfortunately, the rest of the sign is unreadable. Believe you me, I tried to read it.

Sarah:

So what's an extra special constable? What are we looking for them for? Are they hiding?

Mark:

Is it special white stick brigade?

Sarah:

They're the Midsomer fly fishers.

Mark:

Yes. So they're off to see the jaguar owning pensioner.

Sarah:

Yes. Because Margaret comes to complain, she struck me. I've been assaulted.

Mark:

She wasn't provoked.

Sarah:

Even if she was, she still hit you, I guess. Would you if somebody slapped you, would you go to the police?

Mark:

I intend to press charges.

Sarah:

Would you do that?

Mark:

What's up? The problem is I hate Margaret the character and like Margaret the actress. Yeah. I wish she was in more stuff in the episode. Yeah.

Mark:

But I don't like her character.

Sarah:

Well, yeah, she's kind of unlikable. Yeah. Which is why I went down the fly fishing hole. Cause I was looking for, I was looking for justification to either dislike her because she's obsessed about something unimportant or like her because she was legitimately upset.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

I needed to know which of that, which path I should take. But in the end, it didn't matter because I don't like Isabelle at all.

Mark:

I don't like Isabelle. I don't like Margaret, but hey, there's Rebecca. True. Rebecca and Melrose are Isabelle's niece and nephew, and they are

Sarah:

They're the plunkets. Yeah. Like They got nowhere to go with the name like plunkett. And Melrose plunkett? It?

Mark:

Melrose is so, like, grow a chin, man. Like and Rebecca is just the most irritating person.

Sarah:

And needs a haircut

Mark:

so bad. So desperately.

Sarah:

She looks like a sheep dog in that hair. She's know what's up with that.

Mark:

She's like, I know. Let's put her in bad Joyce hair.

Sarah:

And give her really bad outfits that are really frumpy and mousy looking.

Mark:

Yeah. Or they can't keep on paying Isabelle's overdraft.

Sarah:

You know, Rebecca may be bitchy, but if I was in Rebecca's position, I think I would be kind of bitchy too.

Mark:

Isabelle's been taking them for a ride for years. And she's a jerk. She is mean to people. She's a bully.

Sarah:

Yeah. But she's pretty, so she's got away with it.

Mark:

Yeah. And that's totally implied, and I don't like that.

Sarah:

No. I don't either. And and I don't like that Isabelle plays stupid either.

Mark:

Well, she'll get Quentin to help. He is one of those calculator things.

Sarah:

Quentin Rocha of Rocha Antiques.

Mark:

Then out of nowhere, Leo shows up and gives her 10, $20.

Sarah:

Yeah. Leo Bantok. Now, let me tell you something here. Yeah. So Leo is played by James Hazeldine Mhmm.

Sarah:

Who's an actor and has acted in some stuff. Yeah. Because that's what actors do.

Mark:

Thanks for making it up for You're me welcome.

Sarah:

The most interesting thing about him though, James Hazeldine, in terms of Midsomer, is that his actual son, Sam Hazeldine

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

His real life son, not his son in the episode.

Mark:

He doesn't have a son in the episode.

Sarah:

No. No. The actor's

Mark:

son and Ruth never got together.

Sarah:

Not yet. Too late now. Yeah. Anyway, James Hazeldyne, the actor who plays Leo Van Toc, his son, Sam Hazeldyne, goes on to play Simon Dixon who marries Cully. Wow.

Sarah:

So Leo is kind of Cully's imaginary father-in-law.

Mark:

Imaginary. Sort of. Sort of. He's the guy who works with the rock and roll band

Sarah:

out there. Yeah. The guy the guy

Mark:

Not the actor guy.

Sarah:

She marries in the wedding episode

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Is James Hazeldine's real son.

Mark:

Well well, that that's nice. The day of that little crossover.

Sarah:

So there you

Mark:

go.

Sarah:

You gotta wait for, five more seasons to see that, but that's what happens.

Mark:

The library truck looms in the background. So Quentin sees everything, and Isabelle comes over and says the thing that made us freak out after the episode. Yeah.

Sarah:

So let's talk about Quentin and Isabelle's relationship. Oh, by the way, Quinn's the killer. He's the killer. Okay. Quentin killer.

Sarah:

But he's also Isabelle's best friend, Supposedly. Supposedly. Or her poodle. It depends. Right?

Sarah:

He sees Rebecca and Melrose leave Isabelle's house in a huff. He knows there's been some drama. He likes the drama. So he hustles over to Isabelle's to find out

Mark:

what's What's going

Sarah:

shop hustles over. To get the scoop.

Mark:

Well, no, she pulls up in the car.

Sarah:

No. When he walks up to the front of her house, she's getting in the car.

Mark:

Oh, that's right.

Sarah:

So he jumps in and they go for the ride. Yes. Down the airfield.

Mark:

And then she says-

Sarah:

She's already got a picnic packed and everything.

Mark:

Then she says the thing.

Sarah:

She says that she just got the evil witch Rebecca off her back. Time to celebrate.

Mark:

If she says that, she must be implying that her getting the money from Leo has made it easier for her to live with Rebecca. Right. This contradicts an important plot point later in the episode.

Sarah:

You mean the entire plot? Yes. Like, Quentin's entire reason for killing her?

Mark:

The whole thing.

Sarah:

Is that he doesn't know that she doesn't own her house and doesn't know that she doesn't have money?

Mark:

Guess what? He does know.

Sarah:

Otherwise, why would Rebecca be on her back?

Mark:

And the scenes with them feel genuine.

Sarah:

They seem to get along, and everybody's

Mark:

She might call him a poodle to one of her friends, but I don't think she meant it.

Sarah:

No. I think think she would generally tell like everything.

Mark:

Yeah. He nursed her back from the dead.

Sarah:

Especially because it means that they could be catty about Rebecca. Exactly. Which seems like something that they would wanna do together. But without him knowing that Melrose and Rebecca are covering some of her debts, they don't have that much reason to be catty about her. So this whole idea that Quentin didn't know about her financial situation, it just doesn't make any sense.

Sarah:

It's debunk. From right off the bat, doesn't make any sense. Never mind his alibi, which is a part that I don't get.

Mark:

Let's get on to the important stuff. The signs on the side of the bookmobile.

Sarah:

Did you see?

Mark:

So signs on the side of the bookmobile include the following. So they're in a little hemmed in kind of bulletin board. There's one on each side of both doors. There's drawers on both sides of the bookmobile. I can only see one of these bulletin boards.

Sarah:

Okay.

Mark:

Okay. So just to be careful.

Sarah:

These are, like, community announcements that are posted on the sign of the bookmobile. The first thing

Mark:

and it has glass over top of it and a little lock.

Sarah:

Well, you wouldn't want anybody to steal one

Mark:

of those flyers. Change one of the flyers or something. So in there, predominantly, right now is your village, which is a celebration of photographs at the village of Mallon Bridge sponsored by Andrew Turner, estate agent. Right.

Sarah:

And that's the thing that

Mark:

That's the doing. Thing that But there's more. So so first of all, this bookmobile has Oxfordshire all over

Sarah:

it. Yeah.

Mark:

I have no doubt they borrowed it from Oxfordshire.

Sarah:

Right. Right?

Mark:

They also have bank live bank holiday library closings.

Sarah:

Okay.

Mark:

For non British people, bank holidays are Monday holidays in the summer so that you have a holiday, long weekend every weekend in the summer. I think they have them in some other times of the year in Britain, but in Canada that's what they are. Yeah. Yeah. So we have long holidays.

Mark:

Then they have a thing that says, why don't you use the library service? Which was weird. But then they have this music making for everyone basically programmed on at the library.

Sarah:

Okay.

Mark:

I have dates. 04/10/2002 is classical guitar. April 27, clarinet, flute, oboe, and jazz saxophone. May 11, the string workshop. May 18, the academy workshop, which I don't know.

Mark:

May 25, jazz. May June 15, folk, and June 22, early music.

Sarah:

I'm impressed that they can teach you how to play an instrument and play one of those kinds of music in just one session.

Mark:

Yes. But wait. There's more. Oh. There's also a sign as best as I can tell for something called a hat trick.

Sarah:

Okay.

Mark:

And hat trick is the library's information system.

Sarah:

Not hat trick.

Mark:

It's all one word. I think it's hat trick.

Sarah:

Two t's?

Mark:

I don't know because I did go down the hole of Oxfordshire library information systems, and I could not find anything related to this.

Sarah:

You are a sick man. You went to see what their card catalog software was called?

Mark:

Yes. Yes.

Sarah:

And it's not called hat trick?

Mark:

No. But it may have at one time. Okay. The old lady who comes in the bookmobile has a book called Red Barbarian. I couldn't find that book.

Mark:

I have no idea what it means. I don't know why it's called Red Barbarian, but I want to know.

Sarah:

I bet you it's one of those Conan novels that the old lady's reading.

Mark:

It had red a woman with red, like, robes on the yep. Back. So Kelly's collecting pictures for this thing, and a couple of them, have VE celebrations and Dixie Goth, the doctor's wife. So ignore the ones of my sculptures.

Sarah:

I like her sculptures. They're fun. I would be happy to have one of those rabbits in house. They're crazy, they got big buggy eyes. But to be fair, so does she.

Sarah:

Yes! She has kind of buggy eyes. If only the rabbits were wearing gigantic earrings like she So

Mark:

out to the airbase, the abandoned airbase, and we have what I think is the first crane shot in Midsomer.

Sarah:

I agree.

Mark:

So the car

Sarah:

No, I take that back. Tainted Fruit. We've got that aerial shot of the roof and the rain and all that stuff. That may be

Mark:

a crane shot. Might be a crane shot too.

Sarah:

Nowadays, it would be a drone shot.

Mark:

I'll tell you what we have. We have two separate people driving this car. Yes. We have we have Quentin and Isabelle in the car on the close ups, having fun. They're enjoying themselves.

Mark:

More than that, though, we have the two incredibly joyful stuntmen driving the car in the long shots. One of them has a scarf wrapped around his head. Yes. And the other one has Quentin's hat, and they are laughing hysterically.

Sarah:

They're joyful and they're burly.

Mark:

Yes. They're much bigger.

Sarah:

It's like in the episode with Punch and Judy when the two ladies are driving the van. Yes. And in reality

Mark:

It may be the same guys.

Sarah:

It's two stunt guys and they're having fun, but they are rather large compared to the actresses they're replacing.

Mark:

So I can imagine a conversation. Are you told, do you wanna be Isabelle or do you wanna be No.

Sarah:

That scarf might mess up my hair.

Mark:

Okay. There we go.

Sarah:

Let's go

Mark:

let's go drive on that airport.

Sarah:

That is a nice car.

Mark:

That is a super nice car.

Sarah:

I would be happy to drive that car. That's a nice Jag.

Mark:

So back in the pub, we have three people who shouldn't be talking to each other, talking to each other.

Sarah:

Leo, Derek, and Keith. Yes. And Leo comes in. Of course, he and Keith are at it hammer and tongues right away because they're both in love with Ruth. Because Ruth Keith is now married to.

Mark:

Yeah. Ruth dated Leo, and then Leo left to do his biz bridge ness, his business in the big city.

Sarah:

And and Leo gets back at Keith by going, well, I heard she had an affair with Duncan. Yeah. Okay. Now he's talking about the woman that he loves too. Right?

Mark:

Like, it's kinda, well, I love her, but she's a flag.

Sarah:

Yeah. That's weird. Yeah. When, when you first see the episode, you don't know that Leo is in love with Ruth. And so it's like, he's just getting back at Keith for whatever it is that they have a beef about.

Sarah:

But once you know that they're actually in love with the same woman, for him to throw it back at Keith that his wife is having an affair, that doesn't make any sense to me. But it makes a little bit more sense to me than the whole deal with Duncan.

Mark:

Well, Duncan's an elderly man, but he's nice.

Sarah:

Okay. Duncan Goff is not only elderly. He's ugly. And nice. He is the ugliest Lothario I've ever seen.

Mark:

But Ruth says he's nice.

Sarah:

He's geriatric. And nice. He's got some kind of mojo going on.

Mark:

That's like the worst reason to have an affair ever. He was nice.

Sarah:

I've met a lot of nice men, and I have not slept with them.

Mark:

Well, thank

Sarah:

you for that. I'm sure you're glad to hear it. There's an 80 year old guy who lives a few doors down. He's really nice too. Okay.

Sarah:

I'm not tempted.

Mark:

And he's a doctor.

Sarah:

Yes. And I'm not tempted. No. Okay. But I'll tell you something about Duncan though.

Sarah:

So Duncan's played by Richard Durden and we've talked about how some actors who are, not extras, but their character actors in Midsomer have been in a lot of other stuff. Yep. Richard Durden is the quintessential murder mystery actor.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Let me read you the list of murder mystery shows he's been. Okay. Are you ready?

Mark:

I'm ready.

Sarah:

Basically, could say you name one. I bet it's on the list. Here we go. Morse. Yep.

Sarah:

Magritte. Yep. Lovejoy. Yep. Foils War.

Sarah:

Yep. Rosemary and Thyme. Yep. Marple. Yep.

Sarah:

Poirot. Yep. Lewis? Yep. The suspicions of mister witcher?

Sarah:

Yep. Agatha Raisin?

Mark:

Why have we not watched the suspicions of

Sarah:

witcher? Have.

Mark:

We have? Yes. Is is mister witcher different than the witcher? Yes. That would be a crossover.

Sarah:

The suspicions of mister witcher is about a policeman.

Mark:

Okay. And the Witcher is a guy who fights monsters?

Sarah:

Yes. Okay. Agatha Raisin

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

And Endeavor.

Mark:

Okay. What about the bill?

Sarah:

Oh, yeah. Oh, okay. Okay. So he's been in Morse, Lewis, and Endeavor.

Mark:

So he's the only other one then?

Sarah:

I think Because

Mark:

Thursday has been in all of them.

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So, you know, he's not super attractive. He's kind of old, but wow.

Sarah:

He's been He's

Mark:

a busy dude.

Sarah:

He's a busy dude. He, in Agatha Raisin, he played Mr. Boggle. Who's the husband of the old lady who's so awesome. Then he dies and then she's even more awesome.

Sarah:

He was also in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell, which if you haven't read or seen, you should. One or the other, Very good. Yeah. But yeah, Richard Durden hats off to him.

Mark:

He's a busy boy.

Sarah:

And I don't think he's ever been a victim until now.

Mark:

Oh, well he gets his head bashed in here because he's an idiot. Yeah.

Sarah:

Here. Let me, lean down in front of the person who still has the bloody weapon in their hand and make myself vulnerable.

Mark:

But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Sarah:

Anyway

Mark:

There's Cully and and Troy love to happen.

Sarah:

I it comes out of nowhere.

Mark:

Just like running across the fields with their arms open. Like, ugh.

Sarah:

He gets out of the car. She sees him from inside the library mobile, and she's like,

Mark:

Gavin. It's Gavin. She's never been like that before.

Sarah:

No. No. And isn't like that later when they're sitting outside the pub talking. It's like, that's just past.

Mark:

Okay. They're having a picnic on the field. Yep. Right? And, they're drinking champagne.

Mark:

These two people who apparently keep important secrets to from each other who are laughing and joyful. Yes. Okay. And she says, it's the Rozars.

Sarah:

Which is kind of fun.

Mark:

So do you know why they're called rosers?

Sarah:

Mm-mm.

Mark:

Okay. The accepted explanation is it's a plenty a plenty play on sir Robert Peel. Oh, yeah. That's why

Sarah:

they called them peelers.

Mark:

And bobbins. Yeah. So bobbins, peelers, razors, all come from the same

Sarah:

name. Where does razors come from

Mark:

It's a mispronunciation of Robert. Oh.

Sarah:

So they could have called them robbins. Robbies.

Mark:

Or bobs. Dobbins.

Sarah:

No. That's the other thing. Popperts.

Mark:

And in fact, here, she says, you can do this in front of Quinn because we have no secrets.

Sarah:

Right. Except for the great big one that's gonna make him wanna kill me.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

No. No. It's like they got honor Blackman to agree to be in an episode, and they wrote it around her, and they didn't think about the plot.

Mark:

Yeah. It feels like that.

Sarah:

And I love Midsomer. I'm a maniac for Midsomer, and I it it doesn't make any sense to me.

Mark:

There's stuff that happened at Jane and Duncan's house and Ruth and Keith's house, and it's also opera. Yes. The the the days of the red herring.

Sarah:

Yes. There are lots of red herrings. Bottom line though is Isabelle and Duncan are dead by the river.

Mark:

But well, hold hold on. What about Leo hanging outside the house?

Sarah:

In his car being all creepy?

Mark:

His car being all creepy with another giant moon.

Sarah:

Yes. It's the big moon that makes people kill. You don't need a reason to kill if there's a big moon.

Mark:

Nope. So Andrew is fishing, and he gets his line caught in a tree. Okay. I may be bad at a lot of practical things. I've been known

Sarah:

He's a real estate agent, not a fisherman apparently because wow, does he really get it caught.

Mark:

And he trips over them.

Sarah:

Yeah. And and I've gotten many a line caught in a tree. Okay. My dad has tried to teach me how to fish many, many, many times. And I have got lines caught in trees that you wouldn't believe.

Sarah:

I hooked my dad in the head once. Yep. It's possible. Yep. Less possible in fly fishing, especially a tree behind you above and behind you.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

More likely to be upstream.

Mark:

It's not very good.

Sarah:

Or across. No. Yeah. He's not very good.

Mark:

But I'll tell you what's more impossible. Dead bodies that breathe. Yeah. Because both of them are breathing.

Sarah:

Honor Blackman's great actress, but she's not a good corpse.

Mark:

Nope. No. So next day, scene in a crime, we found a stick.

Sarah:

Don't forget my Troy. He has fewer favorite lines as he gets more mature and says less offensive things, but he says, you never know with these wrinklies. I love that.

Mark:

Because he thinks they might be

Sarah:

at it. Yeah. They're probably at it, and then somebody bashed him on the head. Yeah. They were at it in their fishing gear.

Mark:

And Derek comes by and finds out what's going on and immediately realizes his wife is going to be a suspect.

Sarah:

Well, yeah. Because Isabelle hit her the night before.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

And then we get these weird scenes with Cully and Joyce at the pub where Cully is like, well, here's some incredibly important information that I learned from Gwen the gossip.

Mark:

There's two scenes where Cully and Joyce are giving information to us Yeah.

Sarah:

And not Barnaby. Yeah. Key pieces of information, important information.

Mark:

Oh, Margaret was just doing the lures. That's all she was doing all that morning.

Sarah:

Well, it does take a while to try tie a fly.

Mark:

And Barney

Sarah:

And I can tell you one thing I know now about fly fishing that I didn't know before.

Mark:

What's

Sarah:

that? It's not for me because, man, that is some tedious shit.

Mark:

That is some tedious.

Sarah:

Flying those flies is insane.

Mark:

Barton Bego's tells the Plunkets and they're like, oh, well, we own everything anyway.

Sarah:

Yeah. Rebecca's immediately like, okay. So we're gonna have to clear the house out and we'll have a very small funeral. We'll give her like two bottles of wine. That's it.

Sarah:

Only four people are gonna show up anyway and dah dah dah dah dah. And Yep. Off they go.

Mark:

So then Andrew tells Quentin. And, again, Quentin acts stunned Mhmm. And incredibly upset. It's great acting.

Sarah:

The actor is acting well

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

As an actor. Yes. He's being an actor.

Mark:

Yes. Because he did it.

Sarah:

He plays Quentin acting surprised. And this is the first scene I think that we noticed that fob in his lapel. Yes. You asked about that. I looked that up.

Sarah:

He, the sports jacket he wears has a lapel buttonhole, which in The UK they call boutonniere. In The U S we call a boutonniere the flower that you put in that hole, but they call that hole the boutonniere.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

And so what he's done is he's taken a fob watch you that would normally wear as a pocket watch on your waistcoat.

Mark:

And put it in there.

Sarah:

And he's put the fob in his lapel buttonhole and put it in his pocket.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Which, is not a thing to do.

Mark:

Oh, okay.

Sarah:

So the few places where I could find references to doing that were on bespoke tailoring sites.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Where they said, don't. Oh. That it's hoity toity. And basically just says, I'm so proud of having my bling that I'm going to put it higher up on my body so that you notice it because I'm so pretentious that I think if I put it in my waistcoat or if I just put it in my pants pocket, maybe you might not see it.

Mark:

So along with being a wonderful friend, a helper, a confidant, he's also poncy.

Sarah:

Yes. Which is weird. Yes.

Mark:

It's, you know, this is my least liked murderer.

Sarah:

He struck me as gay from the beginning on. Yeah. The fact that they then reveal that he's in love with Isabelle, like

Mark:

But he could be in love with her and still be gay, but I don't think he's gay. No. He has the relationship with the other woman who dies of cancer too.

Sarah:

Yeah. No. That was his mom.

Mark:

No. No.

Sarah:

Oh, no. You're right. You're right. It wasn't his mom. It was an another elderly lady.

Sarah:

Yeah. But the the they're saying something about him by putting that pocket watch. It's kind of like I'm I it's sort of fake.

Mark:

The gay antique dealer boy toy as, Troy calls him.

Sarah:

He's a poodle.

Mark:

Yes. So we find out that doctor Goff was locked out.

Sarah:

Do you think that old man could climb a ladder up to his window?

Mark:

No. Don't.

Sarah:

I don't think so either.

Mark:

Plus she says I didn't lock him out. Well, yeah, you did.

Sarah:

Yeah. Well, he just forgot his key at home, and I locked the door knowing his key was inside. Who is he sneaking around with?

Mark:

I don't know. It's

Sarah:

because he's not sleeping around with Ruth anymore.

Mark:

No. He's not. That was years ago.

Sarah:

So who in the village is he sleeping with now?

Mark:

Someone in desperate need of a nice man.

Sarah:

I guess.

Mark:

So at Quentin's house, we have a bunch of red herring stuff that happens. But back at Quentin's job where he runs the antique store, when Bartleby and Troy come to talk to him, at first he's talking to customer. That's his only name.

Sarah:

Yes. The guy who wants a better price and he won't give it to him.

Mark:

So this is where he gives the story of the pneumonia and him driving like an Edwardian governess.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

And then another big problem. So he says he has an alibi, that he was at the shop at 10:00, and I can only guess that this was confirmed by other people.

Sarah:

Yeah, it is confirmed by other people.

Mark:

So how could he be killing them while at the shop?

Sarah:

I don't know.

Mark:

It's, you know, it's like the the episode has Keith as the actual killer, and then at the last minute, they said, what if it's Quentin? Well, shouldn't we go back and fix all that stuff? No.

Sarah:

No. No. No. No. Yeah.

Sarah:

Exactly. Because they narrow down the window when Isabelle and Duncan were killed to like thirty minutes. And Andrew's on one side of them fishing and Derek's on the other side of them fishing. Yeah. I mean, a ways up and down the stream.

Sarah:

Yeah. And so they narrow it way down and Quentin was

Mark:

at Quentin, the the ninja.

Sarah:

Was at the shops at a quarter after ten and Gwen, the village gossip confirms it. Yeah. So how is he the killer?

Mark:

I don't know.

Sarah:

Well, know why he killed him? He saw Isabelle kill a fish. Yes. Oh, you mean you can kill things by hitting him on the head? I'm gonna try it.

Sarah:

There's Oh, it worked. There's I'm gonna do it again. I don't understand it.

Mark:

There's no he has an alibi. I don't understand how they did it. But I do understand that when Keith and Leo are in the fight that they have, there's something very interesting going on. What? And that is the little kids in the background.

Mark:

Oh, yeah. So there's two kids in the background, and there's a whole little story around them.

Sarah:

Yeah. And they they have fishing rods.

Mark:

They're watching. They have fishing rods. They're getting into the fight. Their mother comes along and says, we should go and moves them over by a sign.

Sarah:

That says children's area. Yes. Or something. It's like, it's like they know that fights are going to happen and kids should stay 25 feet away from the fights. Yes.

Sarah:

You know, like this is the safety zone for children. Those two little boys are not happy about getting pulled away from the old man fight though. They were enjoying the old man fight. I'm sorry. It's Keith's mom who died of cancer.

Sarah:

Yes. And he blames Duncan for it.

Mark:

Which there was something I didn't like about that also.

Sarah:

That Duncan is a GP and wouldn't have been treating cancer?

Mark:

Well, there's that.

Sarah:

And it couldn't be his fault? Maybe it was her oncologist they might want to blame?

Mark:

Maybe. Keith is a fraught character.

Sarah:

Yeah, he is. He's married to a woman who is disappointed that she married him and he knows it.

Mark:

So he's a restaurant or he's a cook. He runs a restaurant. It's called, whatever their last name is.

Sarah:

Yeah. He's just Scholey. Scholey.

Mark:

Scholey. He's just disagreeable the whole time.

Sarah:

He's a grump. Yeah. And he's like, how dare you talk to my wife? Don't talk to my wife. He treats her like an object Yeah.

Sarah:

Like a a possession, especially at Isabelle's funeral. He's really, he's a bully and a jerk. Like I don't blame her for not wanting to be with him.

Mark:

So Dixie, who is Doctor. Goff's wife has a great line that comes in here when she, when Troy notices that she's a vegetarian.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

And she goes, well, fish aren't vegetables. That's correct. Mhmm. So I guess you don't eat them.

Sarah:

Yeah. Even though you got a freezer full of them because your husband kept catching them.

Mark:

Oh, those weird the the basement scenes with Dixie are a whole other ten minute conversation because she acts as guilty as possible in those scenes.

Sarah:

Oh, I don't think so. I think she's like sisters are doing it for themselves. She's like, that man's gone. Good riddance.

Mark:

Speaking of good riddance, Isabelle has an obituary.

Sarah:

It's quite the obituary.

Mark:

Oh my gosh.

Sarah:

Let me guess. You read every word of it.

Mark:

Every single word of it.

Sarah:

It must have been weird for Honor Blackman to basically see her own obituary before she died.

Mark:

Yeah. Only a few years later. Yeah. So it says, it's in the register. The pictures are Pussy Galore pictures.

Sarah:

Of course they are.

Mark:

And race driver, aviator, diplomat. 1927 to 2002. It is quite the obituary. Usually in these contexts, right, it has filler text.

Sarah:

Yeah. Lorem ipsum or something.

Mark:

Oh, but not this obituary. They had some fun. Including a paragraph in the last column which reads the following: Wearing her victory garlands with breathtaking style, Isabelle took once more to the air and flew across the Pacific to California, where she's where her star proceeded to shine just as brightly in the Halcyon days of Hollywood. Wow. Somebody liked writing that.

Sarah:

It just makes me think of the, the voice over for the old news reels.

Mark:

Yeah. And he

Sarah:

and here's Isabelle Hewitt.

Mark:

Yeah. It's definitely that sort of thing. Look at her go in her aeroplane. So we haven't covered this one thing, which is the poacher. Couple of things.

Mark:

One, at one point in time, Derek is out at night worried about the poacher, and the poacher could be clearly seen in the background. He must be, like, waving. Right? And then Derek's about to be like, the poacher's coming up, and we don't know if it's a murderer or the poacher, but guess what? It's the poacher.

Sarah:

And Who's the former gamekeeper? James Tapsle.

Mark:

Yeah. And he's gonna come up to Derek. About to come up to Derek. And then a disembodied voice that is never identified says, Derek, aren't you covered in a pub? And then Derek goes to the pub.

Sarah:

That's James Tapsule talking to him, trying to lure him away.

Mark:

Really?

Sarah:

Yes.

Mark:

I don't think

Sarah:

so. He pops his little balaclava head up from the bush and goes, Derek, wanna come to the pub? And then he ducks back down again. Derek looks around. Head comes up again.

Sarah:

Derek, are you coming to the pub or what? And then he ducks back down again, and Derek's like, well, I guess I better go to the pub.

Mark:

So Derek and the estate agent in the next scene at night

Sarah:

are ready. I'll pick you up at nine.

Mark:

They're ready.

Sarah:

Let's go.

Mark:

They're they're they're prepared.

Sarah:

And

Mark:

there's a fight. And this is a really good fight. Like, there's punching.

Sarah:

Yeah. But it's like

Mark:

the slap fight of the old man earlier. Well,

Sarah:

it's two against one. Yes. And he kicks their asses.

Mark:

He does indeed kick their asses.

Sarah:

Though he's a big burly guy and they're two fly fishermen. Yes. But you we've skipped over something really important.

Mark:

What did we skip over?

Sarah:

We've skipped over Isabelle's funeral.

Mark:

Oh oh, sorry. We did both the poacher scenes, but, yeah, I I meant to just do the first poacher scene.

Sarah:

Because we can't not talk about Paragon Slade.

Mark:

The best part of this episode is Isabelle's funeral, Absolutely. Which I had completely forgotten about, and it drops out of nowhere, and it's just awesome.

Sarah:

It's like a little present in the middle of this episode that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Mark:

So Melrose and his evil wife show up at the funeral, and they think it's just gonna be like three people. Yeah. But oh, no.

Sarah:

Oh, no.

Mark:

There's tall African American guys. There are African African guys.

Sarah:

Diplomats from all over the world. Women in saris and

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

Yep. And the man with the oysters.

Mark:

Yes. Disgraced former minister, foreign ministers. Yes. Actresses. Now Margaret does something smart here.

Mark:

She goes fishing.

Sarah:

She stays out of the way.

Mark:

So Peregrine Slade introduces himself to Melrose and his wife.

Sarah:

And this is my manservant Hastings.

Mark:

Hastings.

Sarah:

He's here to help.

Mark:

A couple of bottles of bubbly.

Sarah:

It's her favorite.

Mark:

There are six cases in the back of the car. Verve cluke. Verve Kluuk. It is quite the party.

Sarah:

Peregrine Slade is played by Peter Sellier.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Who I thought this is gonna be one of those actors when you look him up and you find out he's actually like a baron or something.

Mark:

Something like that.

Sarah:

Right?

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

Not quite.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

But he is the great nephew of Arthur Sullivan, as in Gilbert and Sullivan.

Mark:

Oh, wow. He has listened to some Gilbert and Sullivan. Yes. And because he's got a stage presence. This Like a like, he's a stage actor.

Sarah:

This role that he plays in this Yeah. That is the part that he plays and always plays. Rich, happy, funny,

Mark:

boisterous guy.

Sarah:

Very fancy.

Mark:

Fancy, fun, boisterous guy.

Sarah:

Remains of the day. Yep. End. Oh my gosh.

Mark:

That's right. He's in both of those.

Sarah:

Chariots of fire.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

Barry Linden. Yep. I looked at his IMDb listing. He is sir something as the role he's playing 37 times. 37 times.

Sarah:

37 times he's played sir something.

Mark:

Well, we need a rich guy.

Sarah:

We need somebody who is aristocratic.

Mark:

Yep. It's that

Sarah:

He fills the slot. Absolutely. And, like, another dozen where he plays the honorable judge, whatever, magistrate, whatever. He's Like, when he was eight, he was probably Yeah.

Mark:

Lord whatever. But he did so well in this.

Sarah:

Oh, he's so good.

Mark:

The oyster man tells a great story about Isabelle and her husband saving them. And then he Peregrine gives this speech where he says, in breads and hay

Sarah:

seeds Mhmm.

Mark:

And no one is insulted, and yet he is insulting them. He does it so well.

Sarah:

Because it's one of those, like, if you're who I'm talking about, you won't know it. Yes. Because, well, you're what I'm talking about.

Mark:

Well, yeah, he says that. He says, like, lords and ladies and ministers and former ministers. Sorry, John. Like, he is so charming. Yeah.

Mark:

And then he says that the he she had lost touch with the city folk, but we never forgot her, And Izzy had a talent for life. Like, when I die, have this guy come and do the Hewitt.

Sarah:

It almost makes me think that Isabelle Hewitt was a better person when her husband was alive.

Mark:

I think so.

Sarah:

That together, they were awesome, But now that he's gone, she's a brat.

Mark:

Yeah. You know? Yeah.

Sarah:

Because I don't think people would talk about her in that way if she was who she was in the episode her whole life.

Mark:

I can see that.

Sarah:

You know? I don't know.

Mark:

So there's all this red herring stuff that goes on here at the party.

Sarah:

The big fighting. There's fighting

Mark:

and stuff like that. One thing I did like was Melrose and his wife in the background of one of the scenes just screaming at each other.

Sarah:

Yeah. They're out on the lawn. Yeah. And then you get the scene of Ruth and is it Derek she's talking to? She's saying, I don't think Keith's alibi holds up.

Sarah:

Yes. Yeah. So there's a couple of scenes where there are people outside the window having conversations that are kind of important that you don't hear the conversation, but you see them talking. Yeah. But wow.

Sarah:

And and Peregrine Slade is an awesome name.

Mark:

Yes. And this whole thing about Clinton's ex partner and the woman that he used to live with, and it's all just crap and then Barnaby and Troy go to find somewhere where they can gossip without being disturbed and they walk into a room which they could clearly see Dixie and they pretend not to see Dixie.

Sarah:

Yeah. Even though she's over there on the floor.

Mark:

Like you would easily be able to see her.

Sarah:

Tom says that Quentin is straight as a die. Yes. I wasn't sure about that because I've heard straight as an arrow.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

But not straight as a die. So I looked it up and according to the OED, it's a reference to gaming dice. Oh. Being true, being square.

Mark:

And being like not weighted,

Sarah:

Not not loaded. But it fell out of favor because so many people made cheaty dice that weren't true. And so then it became straight as an arrow and other things at the reference. So the fact that he calls him straight as a die and he's the killer is actually kind of accurate twice. He thinks he is straight and honest, but he's not and neither are dice.

Sarah:

You know what I mean? I don't think they meant to do that, but it's clever. And then Quentin tries to like double up his alibi saying, not only was I not at the river when Isabel and Derek were killed, I was at the store, but I also stopped by the restaurant.

Mark:

Yeah. Why does he even say that?

Sarah:

Because he wants to frame Keith so that when he kills Keith, it looks like Keith is the killer.

Mark:

Why is he killing Keith? I like, to Barnaby goes, he kills Keith because Keith could have said that he didn't do it. Keith was guilty on paper already.

Sarah:

Yeah. Like, if they'd gone to court with Quentin and Keith both as suspects, Keith would have gone down. I would have Quentin has an alibi.

Mark:

If I'm a jury member, I'm like, Keith, you're guilty.

Sarah:

Yeah. And then Troy comes out with a better plot than the actual plot.

Mark:

Oh my okay. So first of all, Keith dies. Dies in the freezer. There's all sorts of problems with this. Alright.

Mark:

He oh, it's he's dead in the fridge. First of all, vital important thing.

Sarah:

It's a fridge, not a freezer, so you don't die. No.

Mark:

Why is he eating chicken wings and half eating them? He, like, takes a bite out of it like a three year old and then sets it down.

Sarah:

Maybe it's because it's pitch black in there and he can't find it again.

Mark:

Why does he take his shoes off? Why does he take his shoes

Sarah:

When you get hypothermia, you get this, crazy impulse to disrobe. We're lucky he's not naked.

Mark:

Is that also a thing that you throw the phone into a bottle of bucket of water?

Sarah:

Yeah. Oh, okay. When it doesn't work, that's what you do.

Mark:

It's funny because I used to work in a grocery store with one of these fridges and I paused the show and wrote a whole bunch of notes about fridges have fail saves and this could never happen. And then I started the show and Barnaby said everything that I wrote down.

Sarah:

If it was a freezer, it would be completely different.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Right? We could believe that he actually died. I don't think you would die in a fridge.

Mark:

Nowhere, nowhere in the entire country of England is there a health and safety man who is going to allow a padlock on a fridge like that. No. Health and safety is gonna come on and go.

Sarah:

Nope. And why would you do it anyway?

Mark:

To protect the vegetables.

Sarah:

I got a bucket of celery in there. It's real valuable. I don't want anybody to take it.

Mark:

I will tell you one thing. Troy is right. It's a little expensive for half lobster, but that menu is looks really good.

Sarah:

It does look good. I'd eat there.

Mark:

Yeah. They they did a great job making it look good too.

Sarah:

Yeah. I wouldn't eat there after there's a dead guy in the fridge. No. But this is like Troy's shining moment. There should be like a sunbeam on him and angels should go, oh.

Mark:

Because he comes up with a better reason for Keith to be in the fridge than anyone else, including Quentin, who killed him. Yeah. And how did it go? Okay. So Quentin goes over.

Mark:

Okay. I'm I'm Keith. I'm chopping the vegetables.

Sarah:

Right.

Mark:

Right? And Quentin comes in. Hi. How are you doing? I'm okay.

Mark:

Look at my fob watch. Okay. I have a strap owner. Okay. Let me just go into the fridge here for a second.

Mark:

In that moment, we are expected to believe that bringing a nail

Sarah:

No. No. No. They say that Quentin had rigged the door previously.

Mark:

Oh, so he was, like, standing talking to him, and then how did he get in the restaurant to do that?

Sarah:

I don't know. He snuck in the back door. It's not padlocked.

Mark:

So many problems with this.

Sarah:

Yeah. So he's like, someday I may wanna frame Keith as the killer. So I'll wedge a nail in this door just in case I ever need to trap

Mark:

him to a restaurant, you go in and out of the fridge like crazy. Yeah. So there's just so many problems here.

Sarah:

So are we supposed to think that Keith put the phone in the water? I don't know. Or that

Mark:

Quentin did? I don't know. Like, I can see if Quentin's trying to frame him because Keith is conscious in the fridge

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

When the door is locked. Right. I can see that Quentin threw the phone in to make it look like it was a fake suicide attempt, is the thing that Troy figures out and threw it in the carrot water intentionally so he couldn't use the phone. Right. But there's lead in the door so Superman can't get in and the phone can't get out except for if the phone the door is open with the phone and the carrot vegetable soup.

Sarah:

Well, and Quentin could only trap Keith in the fridge if Keith had gone in voluntarily and Quentin had slammed the door behind him.

Mark:

And he's sitting there like he's like, oh, well, I guess I'm just gonna freeze to death. Wouldn't you be banging on the door? Like Keith is a big guy.

Sarah:

But he's in there all night. You'd get tired of banging on the door.

Mark:

I can understand that, but it's still not gonna kill him to be in there all

Sarah:

night. No. No. Not in the fridge.

Mark:

You could send a little file.

Sarah:

If it was a sub zero, I would believe it.

Mark:

Plus, you

Sarah:

know So he doesn't have time to throw the phone in after him?

Mark:

No, he doesn't.

Sarah:

And really probably doesn't have time to shut off the light. No. I can believe he could shut off the light.

Mark:

This is a scene in need of a reenactment, and I think they probably went, okay, well, we should film a

Sarah:

No way,

Mark:

no. It

Sarah:

won't make sense.

Mark:

Reenactment because it doesn't make any sense.

Sarah:

It would make sense if Keith was actually the killer trying to pretend that he wasn't.

Mark:

Wait a minute. Let's make

Sarah:

it Quentin. But then we were missing like twenty minutes of the episode. So I know we'll have Leo coming onto Ruth in the alley five minutes after they find her husband's body.

Mark:

Okay. Previous episode, the question was, how long after your wife's funeral can you see your mistress? That was the question that what's her name asked the milkman.

Sarah:

The the farmer. The milk farmer. The cow farmer.

Mark:

Yes. Apparently, the answer is not even before it's a scene of a crime.

Sarah:

He's I would say he's still warm, but he's in the fridge. Yeah. They haven't even brought his body

Mark:

out yet. And she's like making googly eyes at Leo in the in the alleyway with the name of the restaurant framed between them.

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah. Because she's always loved Leo. She's not really upset about Keith being dead.

Mark:

She's really not.

Sarah:

No, would you be? He was a jerk. And then Tom meditates in the kitchen. He puts his head on the chopping board and stares ruminatively into the refrigerator.

Mark:

He's thinking. He's got his thinking, Adam.

Sarah:

Normally he would be with Joyce and Cully and have to run out in the middle of a meal. Yes. But instead, he meditates in the kitchen. He puts it all together.

Mark:

Are murderers members of Midsomer?

Sarah:

I'm gonna come up with a story that will make this improbable situation make sense. They're up

Mark:

to they're up to dinner. Troy gives his theory, says case closed. Barnaby goes to get more drinks.

Sarah:

And doesn't come back.

Mark:

And Cully says, oh, Gavin's right.

Sarah:

Because Tom can't solve it unless he can ditch a family social event. Yeah. That's the only time when he can come up with a solution.

Mark:

So then they have a 20 end of the episode. Cause I was like oh he's going to see Quentin now? Well this will be over in five minutes. Oh no! Quentin has to tell him everything but not explain how he did it.

Mark:

No. It is that is what happens.

Sarah:

I saw her kill a fish, so I decided to kill her.

Mark:

And that was your inspiration? But then we have the stupidest doctor in the world. Maybe he did let that woman die of cancer, like she's got big growths on her and he's like, don't know what's wrong with you. Because he's the stupidest nice man ever.

Sarah:

But he's nice. Maybe he tried to cure her with niceness.

Mark:

So you see somebody standing over a person that you know with blood on their head, they have a stick.

Sarah:

And it's bloody.

Mark:

And it's bloody.

Sarah:

What are you gonna do?

Mark:

And you bend down.

Sarah:

In front of them with your back to them.

Mark:

Checking he lifts up her eyes. I was expecting honored black men to go, ow.

Sarah:

And he says, what have you done?

Mark:

Like, this is why this is why cops always deal with the suspect before the victims.

Sarah:

Right. They secure the scene.

Mark:

They the the doctor, he's a nice man.

Sarah:

He's too nice. He's stupid. He's so nice. He gets killed. Yep.

Sarah:

And he knows that Quentin is the one who struck her. It's not like he thinks Quentin walked up and picked up the weapon. Like, Oh no, what's happened to her? Why did you pick that up? That's a murder weapon.

Sarah:

You should have left it alone. He says, What have you done? He knows that Quentin's the one who hit her. Yeah. But maybe maybe doctors just, you know, their Hippocratic oath kicks in and their common sense goes out.

Mark:

It's just it just there's so many things wrong here.

Sarah:

But Tom's nice. Tom's nice. In the end.

Mark:

He tells Troy that he was right both times. Yeah. Basically. You gotta follow your instincts.

Sarah:

You were right twice.

Mark:

End of the episode. See.

Sarah:

I don't I don't know how they think Quentin did it. Understand.

Mark:

This episode had so much potential, and then it crashed and burned.

Sarah:

If you if you just don't worry about the actual plot, and you just enjoy the characters and the scene, the setting,

Mark:

and Like Dixie in the basement is fun and

Sarah:

Yeah. Comfy. And peregrine slide's awesome. The funeral's awesome. Yeah.

Sarah:

If you just don't worry about the, you know, actual Plot. Plot, the murder part of the Midsomer. Yes. If you just enjoy the Midsomer, then it's fine.

Mark:

I would agree.

Sarah:

Who's the best dead body? Isabel, Duncan, or Keith?

Mark:

We're gonna do after the credits?

Sarah:

No. I wanna know the best corpse first.

Mark:

The best corpse is Keith in the fridge by far.

Sarah:

Yeah. I think

Mark:

so. Because the other two are breathing.

Sarah:

Yeah. And they're just kinda laying around

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

With, like, Technicolor blood on there.

Mark:

Keith in the fridge was he, like we've said this before it's not near the level of the guy on the

Sarah:

In the crop circle?

Mark:

No not the guy in the crop circle or the guy on the on the plow. Yeah. But he's in that position a long time

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

With those stinky chicken wings right there, and he's like, that's a fridge. Yeah. It's a real fridge. It's not on.

Sarah:

And they paled them up real well

Mark:

too. They paled them up really well.

Sarah:

Legitimately cold.

Mark:

Yep. Yeah. Gotta be Keith in the fridge.

Sarah:

I agree. So after the credits, Ruth and Leo are in love. Oh.

Mark:

They have no impediments. I have it in my notes.

Sarah:

And tons of money.

Mark:

Yes. Melrose needs to divorce that woman.

Sarah:

The plunkets are out of debt.

Mark:

Derek needs to divorce that woman.

Sarah:

Yeah. I don't know. I think Derek and and Margaret are a good pair. When she comes to the funeral to tell him about the weighted lure, he actually cares about what she's telling him.

Mark:

Yeah. He does.

Sarah:

He's he's in. Yeah. Right?

Mark:

Yep. Quinn goes to jail. And Dixie's very happy.

Sarah:

Dixie's happy. Yeah. Yep. And Cully drives away in the library mobile.

Mark:

Only to be seen again in the next episode, death and Dreams. Episode twenty five zero six zero two. I'll tell you what. Wow. I I I started making my notes on this episode already.

Mark:

The bulletin boards on the side of the bookmobile have been updated. Oh.

Sarah:

I love you.

Mark:

I had them I was it was at lunch today and I was at work and I had both scenes up on my screens on my monitors.

Sarah:

Had You were two comparing two bookmobile billboards?

Mark:

And one of my colleagues came in and looked at me and was like, ugh.

Sarah:

I don't even have to ask what you're doing. I know what you're doing. Yes. What blows me away, what I love you. You know I love you and all of your oddness because I'm odd too.

Sarah:

You look so closely that you read Isabelle's obituary, read the bookmobile notice board.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

But it wasn't until we were watching it together. So like the third time you've seen it that you noticed that this is a dressed set sign. Yes. That's huge compared to anything else you're analyzing. Well, it was too big and obvious for me to notice it.

Mark:

I went so Canadian this week. This week, like last week's episode was Murder on St. Malorie's Day which we may have a story about that sometime soon. We noticed a sign that said the set was all dressed and don't change anything And literally, had about two hours of guilt this week about thinking about pointing that out, making the people who were the set dressers feel bad because we noticed it.

Sarah:

You really are Canadian.

Mark:

And then I was like, I wonder if they listen to the podcast.

Sarah:

I wonder if they'd be willing to be interviewed on the podcast. We can confirm.

Mark:

Okay? We can confirm that a person who has appeared in the show has listened to the podcast.

Sarah:

Yes.

Mark:

One. We we can confirm that one.

Sarah:

Hey. If you're out there and you've had an extra role, if you've been behind the guy who's behind the guy who's behind the guy in an episode of Midsomer Yep. We would be very happy to talk We'd to love to interview some folks

Mark:

related We'd love this talk to anybody related to the show.

Sarah:

Absolutely. Even in the smallest part, it would be really fun. All right.

Mark:

So next episode is 25. I can't believe we have 25 episodes. I can't believe we're almost at 10,000 downloads. This is insane.

Sarah:

Yeah, baby.

Mark:

Just am so pleased that you guys are listening. I hear I heard somebody today on the Twitter said that I skip a bunch of episodes every time I rewatch them. But now that I listen to podcasts, I rewatch those episodes.

Sarah:

Oh, fun question for this week. Yes. We were talking about this other night. Yes. If you could pick any British actor to have a cameo in the Midsomer

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Who would you wanna see? Oh. Not Steven Fry. No. He's the most obvious choice.

Mark:

Steven Fry is the most obvious. We need to have Steven Fry in the show, tootsuite.

Sarah:

My choice is David Mitchell. I wanna see David Mitchell or Sandy Toxvig

Mark:

And I want

Sarah:

in a Midsomer.

Mark:

And I want Greg Davies.

Sarah:

His giant lumberingness. Or Noel Fielding.

Mark:

Noel Fielding. He'd be really fine. He would.

Sarah:

Or Ross Noble. Ross Noble. We'd also like to There's about some choices for you, but I'm sure folks out there listening will have some even better choices.

Mark:

Absolutely.

Sarah:

And you got to tell us, when you tell us who you nominate to have a cameo in a Midsomer, whether they're a victim or a killer.

Mark:

Yep. Give us some story. Have fun with it.

Sarah:

What role do you think they would play?

Mark:

So death and dreams is our next episode and killer children.

Sarah:

Yeah. So we'll see you then.

Mark:

Bye, Maniacs.

Sarah:

Bye, Maniacs.

Mark:

Okay. Be ready.

Sarah:

If you're gonna be that loud, you gotta turn down.

Mark:

Padre.

Sarah:

Wrong Mystery Show.

Mark:

Mary is a strikingly difficult to look at woman. Wow. I on the rewatch last night, I just kept going, oh, woah.

Sarah:

There's no good angle. No. A great actress.

Mark:

She's a great actress, but

Sarah:

She's a handsome woman. 10,000. 10,000.

Mark:

Say that. Just say it. Just roll it around in your mouth. 10,000 downloads.

Sarah:

That's how many downloads we've had. It's amazing.

Mark:

It's more than that now.

Sarah:

Before I even introduced the episode, I'm like, wow, 10,000.

Mark:

10,000 downloads. That's awesome. Thank so much.

Sarah:

Thank you, Maniacs.

Mark:

I I gotta say in my heart of hearts, I was happy with a thousand.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

I was I was ecstatic with a thousand. When we hit 1,000, I'm like, do do do do do do do and now it's like, And it's it's put the accelerator on. I hate to tell you this, but we're going faster now than ever. It's not like, oh, well, 10 like, I thought maybe, you know, Maniacs. I thought there's a finite number of Maniacs out there.

Mark:

But apparently, there's not a finite member of Maniacs and we love all of the Maniacs.

Sarah:

It could be catching.

Mark:

It could well, I got some on me.

Sarah:

Existing Maniacs maybe infecting other people and that would be awesome.

Mark:

I think it would be You know, when I see somebody saying, for instance, today on Facebook, I saw somebody say, you should listen to their show. It's just awesome. I'm like, you're the best people in the entire world.

Sarah:

I'm just full of love. Because this is Midsomer Maniacs.

Mark:

Midsomer Maniacs. Hey, Maniacs. How you doing? Awesome. Midsomer Maniacs is a podcast dedicated to the ITV series, Midsomer Murders.

Mark:

Each week, we dig into the episode of the show, including the murders, the ma'am, the loonies, and everything else.

Sarah:

If you say loony, Dean Honeyset might come get you.

Mark:

Yeah. I'm a little worried about Dean coming to get me.

Sarah:

Because this episode is Death and Dreams season six episode two.

Mark:

And if you let your kids watch the TV show, they can listen to the podcast. But if the TV show is too much for them, too much Cully and Troy kissing, then the podcast is probably too much for them too.

Sarah:

This is our twenty fifth episode.

Mark:

25 episodes. So we've done 25 full length episodes, a trailer, and four mini episodes.

Sarah:

I thought we were counting those in the 25.

Mark:

No. This is Wow. This this is a stunning, crazy, amazing.

Sarah:

We're like those people on the radio at the beginning of this episode doing the you can do it competition. What do you think that is? Do not know. First they announced the best mom in the world, and then the radio announcer says, and coming up next, the you can do it competition.

Mark:

Well, I'm a little worried about baby Mark and everybody calling me baby Mark.

Sarah:

Oh, when did this air?

Mark:

So this episode is episode six, season six episode two, the twenty fifth episode of Midsomer, filmed in June and July 2002 and broadcast the 01/10/2003 to 9,460,000 viewers with Peter Smith directing and Peter Hammond writing, and he's written a couple of

Sarah:

them. Yep. So.

Mark:

And it's in the village of Morton Fendel, though that's said once.

Sarah:

Once. Yeah.

Mark:

So, yeah, it starts off with a radio show, and then when I was obsessed with baby Mark, I suddenly got obsessed with the book that is on the table.

Sarah:

Because so so we're in Martin Roeth's kitchen.

Mark:

No. No. Before we're even shown Martin Roeth, I'm I'm into the book.

Sarah:

They pan around his kitchen first.

Mark:

Where's the book? The Origins of the First World War.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's sitting on the table in the kitchen.

Mark:

Now this is the second edition of this book. Well, that's important. Not the third edition of this book because I found the exact book on Amazon.

Sarah:

So it exists. It's a real book.

Mark:

It's a real book by Gordon Martell and, you know, I hope he sells some books out of it. If you're interested in the origins of World War two for World War one, sorry, pick up this, the second edition or the earlier later or the earlier editions all are available on Amazon.

Sarah:

Maybe you can get a first edition.

Mark:

First edition Martell. Wow. So anyway, gun.

Sarah:

It's a gun wedged in a Welsh dresser, which is not easy to say wedged in a Welsh dresser.

Mark:

It's death by Rube Goldberg machine.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's fishing line. Where is it attached? I mean, it ends in the gun, but it starts with

Mark:

But so it starts with the trigger and it goes to his belt buckle

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

And then to his foot.

Sarah:

That's it?

Mark:

Yeah. It's not much of a Rube Goldberg machine. There's no marbles No. Or dominoes.

Sarah:

I thought it was more

Mark:

complex than that. No. And even that, I agree with you and Barnaby that I don't think it would actually go off.

Sarah:

Okay. Well, think about it, though.

Mark:

Well and then to Barnaby goes up and tugs it. That's what he he

Sarah:

Look out, Troy. It's a double barrel. Wouldn't it have two shots in it?

Mark:

No. Okay. So that double barrel probably sends both those shots at the same time.

Sarah:

Well, that's lucky. Yeah. Because if not, there's a cartridge waiting for Barnaby who goes up there and goes, what's this line? Let So me take your foot, your foot moves, right? That pulls the string that is pivoting from his belt buckle.

Sarah:

Right? So that's the, that's like the pulley. Yes. Right. And then that then tugs on the trigger, pulling it forward, the opposite of the way it has to be fired.

Sarah:

So it must be tied somewhere else behind the trigger for another pivot, pulley point then to the trigger so that it would pull it back.

Mark:

Anyway, Barnaby figures out it couldn't work anyway pretty quickly.

Sarah:

But when we see and again, you know, this is not a spoiler free show. We assume that you've watched it. We assume that you've seen the whole episode.

Mark:

Killer children.

Sarah:

So you've seen Hannah actually pulling the line to make it fire.

Mark:

In the reenactment.

Sarah:

But here we have the actual scene of him dying and it is different than what actually happened.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Which is a strange thing to do.

Mark:

Yeah. It's it's weird. And they do it this way to make it look like he set up this elaborate thing to do suicide.

Sarah:

But it's a it's a lie. It breaks one of the rules of mystery writing.

Mark:

Yes. It does.

Sarah:

You never lie

Mark:

No. To your audience. You can't lie to your audience like that.

Sarah:

And Midsomer doesn't usually do that. Now I know why they did it here. They couldn't show them there in the kitchen tugging their line because then what's episode about?

Mark:

Well, are magic children who disappear very quickly.

Sarah:

That's true. We understand that they can do that. So maybe they did that here. But wow, it's good spatter.

Mark:

Oh, man. The blood in the kitchen is fantastic. And I love how Mary Mae goes on about it in the bookmobile. Can't believe any human just said that sentence.

Sarah:

If you take one lesson away from Midsomer, it's that you should have a house cleaner. Even if she only comes in a couple days a week, you want somebody to find your body.

Mark:

She'll nick your stuff though.

Sarah:

Yeah, but she'll find your body.

Mark:

I guess so.

Sarah:

He would have been there for how long if he hadn't had Mary to come and find him?

Mark:

I don't know.

Sarah:

And this is not the first time a housekeeper has found a dead body in

Mark:

the But Mary Mary is a strikingly difficult to look at woman. Wow. I on the rewatch last night, I just kept going,

Sarah:

oh, woah. There's no good angle. No. A great she's a great actress.

Mark:

She's a great actress, but

Sarah:

She's a handsome woman.

Mark:

What drives me crazy is Barnaby touches some things and doesn't touch other things. Yeah. And then he pulls on the trigger,

Sarah:

which Well, don't forget later, he just sits on the bloody cushion in his suit.

Mark:

Oh, the bloody cushion.

Sarah:

When we were rewatching it, you said, oh, the firearms people would have taken that shotgun away. And I agree with you completely. There's no way in hell they would have left that scene with that shotgun still wedged in that dresser.

Mark:

At the very least, they would have cracked it. So At least. The very least they would have cracked it.

Sarah:

But I think they would have taken it.

Mark:

I I agree. For ballistics

Sarah:

and everything else. They would have collected it.

Mark:

Which the the new episode with the miniatures Mhmm. There's they had people in there dealing with the gun first then they could go in.

Sarah:

Right. So Because it's all rigged up like that. It could go off again.

Mark:

Exactly.

Sarah:

I don't know a lot about shotguns. I'll admit that. Maybe it couldn't go off again. But I still don't think they would have left a a firearm unattended.

Mark:

Well, Troy is absolutely sure it's suicide. 100%. Case closed.

Sarah:

Why did he go to so much trouble? I don't know. It's complicated.

Mark:

And I there's one part here that I really like that they do and they do it subtly, which is there's a thing with suicides that they don't want to create a mess Mhmm. To have somebody else clean it up. And he's Barnaby says, why didn't you just go outside? Which fits in that narrative of the the suicide not wanting to create a mess. But Martin Roth is a jackass anyway.

Sarah:

But that's that's typically what you hear said about women who commit suicide, not men.

Mark:

Well, Martin Roth was just a jackass.

Sarah:

Men will make a great old big mess and not care who has to clean it up. Yep. Sorry.

Mark:

She he he wasn't playing his cleaning lady. She thinks it's suicide too.

Sarah:

Well, he owes her four weeks of wages, and she comes three times a week. Ugh. He's got a nice house.

Mark:

He owed a lot of people. Where what does he do?

Sarah:

I don't know. He's a farmer,

Mark:

I guess. Does Martin Rose do?

Sarah:

He has a nice house, a nice stable, two nice outbuildings. I'll tell

Mark:

you one thing, he's not making siege engines and selling them at the market.

Sarah:

Kelly's back in her bookmobile.

Mark:

Wow. Okay.

Sarah:

It's the gossip mobile.

Mark:

It is the gossip mobile. And we'll get to a part where Cully is supposedly driving the gossip mobile, and it's clearly it looks more like Merry Maid than it does look like Cully. With that Meaning

Sarah:

it looks like a man. Yes. That's what you're saying. So What did you didn't you do some research on what you need to know, like, what kind of license or maybe a listener told us what kind of license you need to drive a bookmobile? I

Mark:

did the research. It's later on when we talk about who's driving the bookmobile. Okay. So Tom goes to Sarah Rose's house, and on rewatching I I rewatch the episodes twice before we record the podcast. And every minute of Sarah Roth, I just started to hate her more and more and more because she is okay.

Mark:

At best, she is the poorest judge of male character ever.

Sarah:

Yeah. Okay. Because she thinks Gordon's awesome. She

Mark:

marries Rose.

Sarah:

Who everybody hates, and he's physically and verbally abusive.

Mark:

And sleeps with the women.

Sarah:

Right.

Mark:

And then she marry she's gonna marry Gordon, who she says is the greatest thing since sliced bread, who only has eyes for teenage girls. Mhmm. Like

Sarah:

And isn't even a very good father.

Mark:

There is one moment where he sort of plays with the baby and plays with the mobile.

Sarah:

But then later says I'm at a party by myself because well Sarah had to stay home with the baby.

Mark:

Yeah and so I don't like Gordon the character not because he's horrible and the busy, like stares at young women that that's a problem. But he doesn't need to. Gordon could be a great dad, a great pharmacist, and they could kill him for him being nice to their mom. Mhmm. And that would be absolutely understandable and believable.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because these kids don't need a good reason to kill somebody.

Mark:

Nope. His

Sarah:

character does not have to be flawed for them to think we should take him out.

Mark:

Kill their father because they asked him to leave the room.

Sarah:

Yeah. Does that make you kind of worried about our kids?

Mark:

I worry about our kids all the time.

Sarah:

You never say, would you guys mind leaving the room? Well If you do, don't go don't go rock climbing with them. That's all I gotta say.

Mark:

No, I'm not going rock climbing with these children.

Sarah:

So Sarah Roth is played by Jan Jan Ravens. Yep. And she's, she's not done a ton of acting. But I did find that back in 1998, she was in a rather interesting show called Duck Patrol.

Mark:

Oh, Duck Patrol.

Sarah:

Where, she was part of a team of police who, were charged with keeping the peace on the canals.

Mark:

Now was this a serious show, a sitcom? Like, was it a detective show?

Sarah:

It's a dramedy.

Mark:

We we need to see this show badly.

Sarah:

The star of this show

Mark:

is David Tennant. David Tennant, the star of Duck Patrol. He looks about 11. Well, he always looks about 11.

Sarah:

A lot of it's on YouTube. You can't find it anywhere else.

Mark:

Oh my gosh. Well, in the show notes, there will be a link to Duck Patrol.

Sarah:

But she plays a young WC on the boat. Duck Patrol. Wow.

Mark:

You know, bookmobiles are for intellectuals. No.

Sarah:

Gosh. Bookmobiles have such a limited inventory. They have to carry what's most popular and commonly borrowed, which means they are full of mystery novels. Nothing wrong with that. Romance.

Sarah:

Romance novels. Nothing wrong with that. And kids books.

Mark:

And how tos.

Sarah:

And how tos. Yep. Common how tos. And maybe some cookbooks. And that's it.

Mark:

Little bit. DIY.

Sarah:

Not intellectual academic research books.

Mark:

Okay. The writing for Troy in this episode is horrific. Yeah. This is not the last episode, Troy said many things that were intelligent. In this episode, he's a farmer with an axe to grind.

Sarah:

There's a lot of problems with the plot in this episode. It's a fun episode, but like the previous one, like the one we covered last week, you don't wanna look too close at the plot.

Mark:

It's not like he plays the spoons

Sarah:

or anything. You know what I did look close at that though? What? Speaking of Sarah Roth. So, know, Gordon is such an accomplished musician that we don't see him touch an instrument in this entire episode.

Sarah:

Not a single instrument. All he can do is wave a baton and march and be a pedophile. But anyway, there's a lot of musical instruments in their home. And there's one that got me curious. It's a big black horn up on the wall and it's sort of s shaped with like a j at the end.

Mark:

Yes. Now I'm the musician in this, group that we have here.

Sarah:

In our family?

Mark:

A bunch of instruments. And Sarah quite rightly said, what is that instrument there? And I said, a horn.

Sarah:

It is a horn. Mhmm. And it's got a an apt name. It's called a serpent. Oh.

Sarah:

It's made out of wood, but it is considered a brass instrument. Oh, okay. Because it's got a brass.

Mark:

Mouthpiece. Mouthpiece. Thank you. That's why reed instruments are called reed instruments. Woodwinds.

Sarah:

Woodwinds. Yeah. This one, it doesn't have a reed. It has holes in it, kind of like a French horn does. Yeah.

Sarah:

It's but it's a bass instrument. It's called a serpent. Oh. Now you know.

Mark:

Now we know.

Sarah:

Gordon Lee Smith has the tiniest pharmacy I've ever seen.

Mark:

And Mary Mae just comes right in and tells him everything.

Sarah:

And then he's like, okay, now we're closed. Yep. And she's like, why? You just opened. He's like, well, now we're closed.

Sarah:

Why he couldn't say Sarah might need me?

Mark:

Yeah. So

Sarah:

He has a completely legitimate reason to close the pharmacy, but instead, you know, he has to just pretend, oh, what do you know? I'm closing.

Mark:

And then we go back to the bookmobile of blood. And I have to tell you, I spent way too much time looking at the signs on the side of the bookmobile. Are

Sarah:

they different this time?

Mark:

They are slightly different in that the sign that was episode specific last time Mhmm. Is now gone. So they updated it.

Sarah:

Well, that's good.

Mark:

I'm I'm pretty pleased.

Sarah:

They removed an episode specific flyer, and you're impressed?

Mark:

I well, they didn't leave a sign on a set. So in fact, the bookmobile, one of our listeners, Oxford Glass, I think that's her name, she says that's the bookmobile she remembers coming to the village as a little kid.

Sarah:

I can believe it.

Mark:

Like, that bookmobile. It might be the same one.

Sarah:

I can believe it. They don't change

Mark:

a lot. No.

Sarah:

They're important, though.

Mark:

So we meet in the bookmobile of blood, Hannah and Eddie. Mhmm. And immediately you go, Hannah looks like somebody.

Sarah:

She looks like honeysuckle weeks.

Mark:

Because she's honeysuckle weeks sister. Perdida. Perdida, which means lose in Latin. Lose? Lose.

Sarah:

Like, I lost something or, you're loose? Not loose. Lose. Oh,

Mark:

so like you Like Purdue in French is lose.

Sarah:

Like the opposite of win?

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

Oh, that's not a very good name for a kid.

Mark:

No. And didn't we look up the rest of her name, which is also Well,

Sarah:

they've she's got quite the name. And they have a brother too. So you may know honeysuckle weeks from foils war. She plays foils driver, and she's definitely a main character. He and, Foyle, the detective, and, her character, like the two main characters.

Sarah:

And she's awesome. She's really good.

Mark:

Her name, full name, she was born in Cardiff, Wales, and her full name is Perdida Rose Anazutida Weeks. That's a mouthful. That is a n n u n z I a

Sarah:

t a. Did you look up where that comes from?

Mark:

No idea.

Sarah:

I thought my Artemisia middle name was a handful.

Mark:

That's quite the middle name.

Sarah:

Anatazita? Yeah. I'll I'll stay with Artemisia. Thanks. She's, Juliet Higgins in the new Magnum PI.

Mark:

Yes. She is. Mhmm. She is. It is an Italian word for annunciation.

Mark:

So it's Catholic. Yeah. It's often referred to the Virgin Mary as receiving the word of Gabriel.

Sarah:

Anantazito. Yeah. She's the token British person in Magnum PI.

Mark:

Yes. But she was in a bunch of stuff.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah. She's been in a lot of things. She was recently in a movie about urban explorers that go underground and it's called As Above So Below.

Mark:

Yes. It's a it's set in Paris.

Sarah:

And it looks terrifying. Yes. But awesome. Yes. We have to see it.

Mark:

You know what killed Martin Roth? Lack of special k. Oh, wait a minute. There's a box in the background.

Sarah:

He's got a lot of cereal and a lot

Mark:

of mugs. He does. Why does he have so many mugs? And he keeps a pretty nice house for a bastardly bachelor.

Sarah:

That's because he seems to live in his kitchen.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

The rest of the house is just looking furniture.

Mark:

Stories about baby Mark.

Sarah:

You focused in on that, didn't you? The silver cup on the table there by his body belongs to Gordon, we find out. It's missing from the mantle.

Mark:

Take it to forensics. I'm going to the cottage hospital. So I looked into cottage hospitals.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

And the Wikipedia article, first of all, starts out with these are semi obsolete in The UK.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah. For sure.

Mark:

So the idea is that it's a small country run hospital run with just a small staff and has very few patients. They can either be hospice, there's hospice ones, there's ones for, sort of palliative care for older people, and then there's ones for people like in this episode who are under caution, things like that.

Sarah:

But back in the day there were cottage hospitals because it would take a long time to get to the nearest big city where there would be a real hospital.

Mark:

It's almost 12 miles away.

Sarah:

Well, if you're by horse and buggy, that's far, right?

Mark:

So do you think the Blue Herring's old age home is a country hospital?

Sarah:

No, I think it's an old country home that's been converted into a nursing home. Yeah. Okay. But a doctor would travel around and go to the cottage hospitals and see patients. But there would be nurses or sisters who would stay at the cottage hospital and take care of the patients on a day to day basis.

Sarah:

So like if you broke your leg really badly in a farm accident, you might stay at the cottage hospital for a few days. Okay. That kind of thing.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

If your kid was sick, you might take him to the cottage hospital because a nurse could say, Oh, it's an earache. They could, you know, do that kind of thing. Yeah. But now, yeah. And now they're being converted to rehab centers and hospice places and care in the community places.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Yeah. This one's run by Jane Moore, who's just one of those old crotchety dried up academics. As an academic, how did you feel about that?

Sarah:

Well, I just thought it was another bad line for Troy, assuming that it was a man.

Mark:

Why does Troy hate academics?

Sarah:

Well, what bothers me more about Doctor. Moore, bothers me more about Moore, is this whole insinuation that Barnaby has a thing for her. I think he respects her, and he cares for her as a person because she's a nice person.

Mark:

At best, it's Troy being jealous. At best. Yeah. I don't think the writers are insinuating there's anything going on. No.

Mark:

But Troy does. And every when he says, your dad's getting a taxi, or so he says, I'm surprised Cully doesn't hit him.

Sarah:

Yeah. But there is a scene where Tom is putting Jane in the car. Yep. And he kisses her on the cheek before she gets in the car that he's about to drive.

Mark:

Yeah. That's a little weird.

Sarah:

And I thought, would I be upset if I saw Mark do that? And the answer is yes. If I saw you greet someone and give them a kiss on that cheek, fine. Yep. If they were leaving and you wouldn't see them for a while and you were close to them and you gave them a kiss on the cheek, fine.

Sarah:

But if you kiss them and then close the door on them in the car and then get in the car, I'm upset.

Mark:

I can see that.

Sarah:

That was one kiss too far, Tom.

Mark:

One kiss too far, Tom.

Sarah:

But she seems like a nice lady.

Mark:

She does. And she she hires Tom Parrish who rudely interrupts them. Wow. I'm like, dude. No excuse me?

Mark:

No nothing? I thought you British people were supposed to be nice. He he oh, it just rattled me that he bothers you

Sarah:

when people are rude like that. Doctor

Mark:

don't think he meant to be rude.

Sarah:

Oh, I do. Oh, you do? I don't think he cared. I think he's one more person who has a claim on Doctor. Moore and doesn't like people to be in the way.

Mark:

That might lead to some sort of discussion of the word motive, but that's as close as we're gonna get to motive in this episode.

Sarah:

Doctor Moore is played by Isla Blair. Isla's been in a ton of things. Yep. Two notable things about Isla. She's married to Julian Glover.

Sarah:

Do you know who he is?

Mark:

Julian Glover. Thinks so.

Sarah:

He was the key bad man in Indiana Jones and the holy grail.

Mark:

Oh, he's the one who chooses.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

Poor Lee.

Sarah:

Poor Lee. He's also in Game of Thrones. Yes. He had a big beard in Game of Thrones.

Mark:

And he's one of the maesters in Game of Thrones.

Sarah:

Yeah. They've been married since, like, the sixties.

Mark:

Okay. By the way, we should stop and apologize to honor Blackman.

Sarah:

Oh, who's not dead. She's not dead.

Mark:

I listened to last week's episode again, and we are clearly talking about her in the past tense.

Sarah:

I'm sorry, honor.

Mark:

Dead, dead, dead. And one of our the people who follow us on Instagram pointed out, and I feel so terrible that we killed off honor black men. She's 94 and still going strong.

Sarah:

I didn't even have it in my notes that she was dead. We I think we just assumed because of the obituary and her age, and we just rolled with it.

Mark:

I absolutely assumed that she was dead.

Sarah:

Yeah. The other thing about Isla Blair is that she was in space 1999.

Mark:

Oh, space 1999.

Sarah:

Back in 1975.

Mark:

First show I ever watched in color on a color television set.

Sarah:

Okay. She was in an episode the year I was born.

Mark:

I was probably watching it on my brand new teller television that sat on the floor, baby.

Sarah:

What's awesome about her in space 1999 though is she plays this alien who is bald. And so they they put this like headband that goes across her forehead on To cover this this scene. And it has like all these jewels and stuff on them. And then the bald cap is above it, but she must have had a lot of hair or something because it's very cone heady looking.

Mark:

Oh, we'll have to put a picture of this in the in the in the notes.

Sarah:

But then

Mark:

Once I see her, I'll be like, oh, her. Yeah. Because I watched all of space 1999.

Sarah:

But then like the the bald woman who was in the Star Trek movie Yes. They made her look very beautiful and glamorous even though she was bald. Yes. That's what they did with Isla Blair in 1999.

Mark:

Okay. Star Trek steals another great idea.

Sarah:

So she has, like, all this purple eye shadow on and ruby lips with glitter and stuff. Oh. And then this cone head.

Mark:

I'll have to put a picture of

Sarah:

the show. She's beautiful woman.

Mark:

I'm sure she is.

Sarah:

So but the the prosthetic is not that great.

Mark:

And we find out that the killers who are playing video games, by the way, which is a better motive than what we get, are Jane's children. Yeah. And we don't know they're the killers yet.

Sarah:

Hannah, Guy, and Eddie. Yeah. Eti.

Mark:

Eti. Because she's not Eddie. At one point here, honey Perdida Week says, get mom a drink. And I'm like, maybe our children should watch this show more often.

Sarah:

I'd be afraid they'd take a sip of it before they gave it to me.

Mark:

Let's go over to a bloody kitchen because that's where I'm going to take you on a friend date.

Sarah:

He wants her insights because she's a profiler. So Doctor. Moore says that Martin was an alcoholic and a gambler, but that he had a lot to live for and he's not, he wasn't a defeatist kind of person. And it, my jaw dropped when I didn't remember this from when I watched it for the first time or the second time, way back when that she goes and visits him quite a bit Yep. As his doctor, kind of hoping that he'll come back to the center to Mercy Park Yes.

Sarah:

And get more treatment.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

And he's an alcoholic. So what does she do when she's visiting?

Mark:

Drinks wine with him.

Sarah:

She has a drink with him because that's what you do with alcoholics.

Mark:

Yeah. It is.

Sarah:

You have a drink.

Mark:

It is. It's what you should be doing.

Sarah:

I thought that was a horrible thing to do.

Mark:

Maybe she also runs up and tells Dean Honey Sadi that he's a freak. Hey. You're a loony.

Sarah:

That's a good way to get yourself killed.

Mark:

So they find out that he has a whole bunch of drugs in his system. He was unconscious, so he couldn't have done it. It's murder.

Sarah:

He has a tricyclic drug called tenzine.

Mark:

Yeah. What is a tricyclic drug?

Sarah:

It is called a tricyclic drug because the molecular structure of it is three. So it's got three hexagons in the molecular drawing of the chemical makeup of it.

Mark:

You dried up academic intellectuals in your book noveels.

Sarah:

Tenzine is a real drug. Though tricyclics aren't very popular anymore as antidepressants, but people still take it. It's just kind of been driven out of the market by newer medications like SSRIs and stuff like that.

Mark:

Next, have a scene that I just kept asking why. Why is there a band? Why are they marching? Why are they in their uniforms? Why are people walking?

Mark:

Why is Gordon leading this band? And more importantly, why does Barnaby stop the band? Because they're looking for Gordon. But they just let him go past the 10 feet extra from where they are, and they go to the the village hall, and

Sarah:

that's it. But it's awesome for Tom to stand up in the middle of the street and hold his warrant card out and say, please stop. And they all run into each other.

Mark:

It's great. It's ten minutes for a joke.

Sarah:

I don't care. Okay. I think it it shows Gordon's character and what the marching band means to him that he walks around town with his chin. Well, he doesn't really have a chin.

Mark:

He has no chin at

Sarah:

His chin part, up in the air.

Mark:

He's chin ish. The

Sarah:

the chin esque location of his head is elevated, toad like in the air.

Mark:

Yeah. And he's not looking to kill her children.

Sarah:

As he waves his baton around, he's proud of it. It's an important part of his identity of who he thinks himself to be.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

And we don't we wouldn't know that if we didn't see him leading them around. But you're right. There's no occasion. No. But how does a marching band practice if they don't march around?

Mark:

I wouldn't say in the middle of the street with everybody looking.

Sarah:

Why not?

Mark:

Jeff Haskins is really pissed off. He throws his rope down. He's upset. He has a lot of rope.

Sarah:

Rope. Rope. Rope. That's what I have in my notes. I looked and looked for people whose jobs are rope.

Sarah:

Yep. I wanted to find that artisanal crazy craft job.

Mark:

Like rope maker, but but with a real like a name that's derived from Latin or something.

Sarah:

Yes. Because, you know, there are Coopers who make barrels. Yep. They're they're still out there.

Mark:

Creatures who make arrows. Right?

Sarah:

But Jeff doesn't make rope.

Mark:

No. Just Bondles it.

Sarah:

He just likes rope.

Mark:

Oh, boy. Does he like rope?

Sarah:

So though he occasionally makes

Mark:

a rope course house. My wife likes a rope. My wife wife You? The wife we never see Thank goodness. Because she's tied up.

Mark:

Somewhere. Enjoying it.

Sarah:

Maybe Dean stole that rope too.

Mark:

Excuse me, missus Haskell. I gotta take this rope.

Sarah:

Look, I'll put I'll give you some duct tape. Bye. Hold on. Goodbye. Okay.

Sarah:

So I could not find a career that was the the rope equivalent of a Cooper or a Fletcher.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

What I did find though is that there is a phobia of rope. Okay. Rope or string. Some people who have this phobia won't even wear shoelaces. I know.

Sarah:

Okay. It's called lanonophobia.

Mark:

Do they worry it's going to get caught? Do they worry it's going to get caught around them?

Sarah:

Remember phobias are irrational fears.

Mark:

Or do they think it's like, snakes on land for me are completely fine, but snakes and water are the evil. I do not like snakes and water. Mhmm. And I know it's irrational. But do they see rope and string and wire probably is like a snake like thing?

Mark:

Or

Sarah:

Well, it could be a couple of things. Some phobias have no cause at all. There's no instigating event that gives you the phobia. You're just born that way.

Mark:

See, that's not for me because snakes and water are horrendous. So

Sarah:

So you feel justified? I do. Okay. Even though we don't live around any water, there's really no snakes around. But okay.

Sarah:

If there were, you you wouldn't like them. So lonanophobia could be triggered by an event like if you were tied up at some point and that was

Mark:

traumatic, could

Sarah:

then attach that to that object and associate the object with the event. And that would give you Lenonophobia.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

But some people I think are just freaked out by string and rope like you're freaked out by snakes and water. It's just, they just are.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

The flip side of that, and what I think Jeff really is, is a Lenonophiliac.

Mark:

I have an absolute idea if I know what exactly that is.

Sarah:

It's the opposite of a phobia.

Mark:

And maybe his wife likes it too.

Sarah:

Well, no. There's a completely different category for people who like to be restrained.

Mark:

And people who like to do the restraining.

Sarah:

But that's not that's not what I'm talking about. I'm just talking about people who have a philia about rope.

Mark:

Well, he does because he's like putting it in his face and smelling it.

Sarah:

Smelling it. Touching it. Yeah. He's he's got a weird attachment to that rope. So there's there's your nerd word of the day, nonophiliac.

Mark:

Gordon has an ambition. Gordon's ambition is to have majorettes. Why?

Sarah:

Because he thinks presentation is the problem of the band.

Mark:

The best line in this episode is when his wife goes, I told him it was the wrong idea because this town is too conservative. What is too conservative for drum majorettes?

Sarah:

Well, it's funny that you ask. Because I looked into this because I thought, you know, our marching band in high school always had majorettes. We had a flag corps. There was a role for people who were not instrumentalists, who were kind of ornamental Did they do the to the marching

Mark:

with the fake big guns and everything?

Sarah:

Yeah. The wooden rifle

Mark:

and batons and

Sarah:

big flags and stuff like that or batons. Yeah. And so I dug around to see if there really was kind of a negative feeling towards majorettes. Like if there were people who disapproved

Mark:

of majorettes

Sarah:

of them, I couldn't find any. I could find that there was there are fewer majorettes now, but that's simply because women and girls prefer to be in the marching band rather than be ornamental to the marching band.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

And so there's just fewer people who wanna do it. Yeah. I did find one interesting band related to majorettes, though it's not related to being conservative.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

In a town in Georgia Georgia. They have banned majorettes

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Who throw flaming batons.

Mark:

Well, that's that's not out of the question.

Sarah:

They did it for a good reason.

Mark:

Oh, okay.

Sarah:

They recently covered their football field with astroturf. Yeah. That is not flammable, by It's the safe. But it's overlaid over this stuff called crumb rubber. Yep.

Sarah:

That is extremely flammable.

Mark:

Uh-oh. Was it, was there a bad time?

Sarah:

No, there wasn't a bad time. She's, she was very good. The girl who's throwing the flaming baton. She didn't drop it.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

But just imagine what would happen if you did.

Mark:

Oh my gosh.

Sarah:

If that fire got got into a seam and the turf and lit that crumb rubber on fire.

Mark:

Okay. The smell alone. It would be horrific.

Sarah:

Yeah. But there would be fire under the grass. Wow.

Mark:

Made drum majorettes running and screaming. Conservative or not, nobody is pro crumb rubber fire. Nope. No one that's that's not a conservative or liberal issue right there.

Sarah:

But seriously, I dug into like UK bans majorettes, disapproval of majorettes or drum corps. And I mean, did every kind of Google news search you could do and I couldn't It's find a

Mark:

weird, line.

Sarah:

People are not too conservative in Morton Finley for majorettes. They just know Gordon's creepy.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

And they don't want him anywhere near young girls in Well,

Mark:

again, it's Sarah with her stunning lack of judgment of men.

Sarah:

Maybe she knows he's bad and just hasn't admitted it.

Mark:

Troy needs a ride out to Mercy Park. So Cully gives it to him.

Sarah:

In Birdie. Right? Drives him

Mark:

in Birdie. Is when she drives

Sarah:

him Oh, that's in right.

Mark:

Drives him

Sarah:

in the bookmobile.

Mark:

When she drives him out in the bookmobile, we actually see the bookmobile move, and we see Troy in the front, and then we see a linebacker from the Chicago Bears pretending to be Culley. This is clearly not Culley.

Sarah:

But if you put a man in the same color t shirt and a baseball hat, it's Culley.

Mark:

Wait a minute. Culley didn't have a baseball hat on.

Sarah:

Not before, but

Mark:

now she does.

Sarah:

She borrows it from the linebacker. Wow.

Mark:

So they talk a little bit about doctor Moore, and we find out that her husband died in a climbing accident.

Sarah:

Just three years ago. Right?

Mark:

Yeah. Like, we know things are not gonna go well.

Sarah:

So here's what I was thinking. When I initially saw this episode, I thought, oh, the kids are weird because their dad has died. So now they're kind of strangely attached to their mom because they lost their dad and they don't want to lose their mom. So they're protective and attached. That would be a motive.

Sarah:

That would make sense.

Mark:

Well, no, it's not really.

Sarah:

I mean, it wouldn't be normal, but it would make sense. It wouldn't excuse it, but it would explain it. Yep. Right?

Mark:

Oh, I got lots of possible motives here, but none of them are what they go with, which is we were crazy before dad even got here.

Sarah:

Yeah. When I see them kind of like taking care of her and like get mom a drink and stuff, I think how sweet that they've become so attached to their mom because their dad has died. They're taking care of her. Yeah. They know she's got this big project with the, you know, the hospital.

Sarah:

She's doing a lot and they're they're good.

Mark:

By it. She said she was wrecked by it. But, no, we don't get that. No. Hey.

Mark:

It's time for a party.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

And I totally forgot about the party. When I watched this episode rewatched this episode, I'm like, there's a party in this? Oh, I guess there is. And then I've I remembered the spoon.

Sarah:

And the spoons. So So there's a fiddler. Yes. And then Troy spontaneously starts to play the spoons with him. Yes.

Sarah:

Now I I have to ask. I've never tried to play spoons. I've played drums, but I've not played spoons.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

You see him in a wide shot playing the spoons in kind of a simple way. And then there's a close shot of his hands doing something more complex. Are those his hands or not?

Mark:

I actually believe they are because later on at the very end of the scene, he does the same move.

Sarah:

Does he have the pinky ring on?

Mark:

I don't know. Because that would be proof. I don't know. But he does basically what's a trill

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

With the with the spoons, and he does that in a wide shot later in the

Sarah:

Oh.

Mark:

At the

Sarah:

very So it is him.

Mark:

I I actually think it is. I'll tell you one thing. If I wanted to attract Cully's attention, I'd be playing the spoons because she is looking at him like he is fresh meat.

Sarah:

He has a hidden talent. Spoons. That's how I felt first time I saw you play guitar.

Mark:

Oh, okay. But I

Sarah:

didn't appreciate the fact that you could do it until I saw you do it.

Mark:

But spoons, I don't know.

Sarah:

I'm not gonna say that spoons are equally as mesmerizing as an electric guitar, but I would not have guessed that Troy could play the spoons.

Mark:

So they take Birdie out to Mercy Park because Troy has something to prove. What does he have to prove?

Sarah:

Well, he's drunk.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

And he wants to I think he wants to try to duplicate what Dean did when he swung down and knocked Parrish over.

Mark:

Why?

Sarah:

Because he's drunk.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

They can't do it anyway. No. But Parrish is dead. Yep. So it doesn't matter.

Mark:

Parrish is up there and Culley finds the body after they make Smoochie Smooch.

Sarah:

They have one kiss and it's their last kiss. Yeah. Their only kiss.

Mark:

This is it. Like, I think she kissed Troy, and in her mind, she thought, this is a little bit like kissing my brother.

Sarah:

I just wish we got to see the scene where Troy and Cully have to explain to Tom what they were doing there.

Mark:

Yeah. So

Sarah:

We don't get to see that.

Mark:

Collie was up and I was helping her rear end. No.

Sarah:

Do you want to know about before or after we were kissing? Oh, wait. Oh, did I say that? Parrish is drowned, drug all the way across the the survival course up onto the platform that Troy can't even climb up on.

Mark:

Guy is crazy, incredibly strong.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because all Eddie can do is giggle. Yeah. So he didn't she didn't help.

Mark:

Kill him.

Sarah:

Kill him now.

Mark:

But, yeah, Guy is, like, superhumanly strong.

Sarah:

Just thinking logistically, let's say they get him they get him to the platform. They hand him up. He's not a great big guy. No. Right?

Sarah:

So between the three of them, if Guy got up on the platform and reached down and got him under the arms, he's deadweight. Yep. If the girls are on the ground and they're kind of lifting him up, maybe they can get him up on the platform. But now they've got to craft a noose, tie that around the branch and lift him up Yep. In the noose in a way that he could have tied himself.

Sarah:

We don't really see that branch, but they're supposed to be faking a suicide here. Yeah. The fact that he's wet, I think kind of messes that up.

Mark:

It's the the whole thing's wrong. And even more wrong is Dean sees the whole thing and doesn't say, should I go to the police?

Sarah:

No. He uses his semi insane logic and says, if I take away all of the ropes All ropes ever. They won't be able to kill anybody else.

Mark:

Secretly, without a truck, I'm going to pick up every rope in town. The truck is not the problem. When he goes to Jess Haskell's place,

Sarah:

it is. Witnesses are the problem that nobody sees

Mark:

him carrying a bunch of rope around. He's got too many pictures of bodybuilders in his room anywhere.

Sarah:

And Bruce Lee?

Mark:

Yes. He's got Bruce Lee? So they go to see Jeff the rope man, finally, and this is where he says all the crazy things, including my wife likes rope.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

But then the scene does this weird change of tone because he says, why would Martin Roth in business with you? And he was like, it's because I made siege engines. And then there's like a promo shot of the siege engines, and Burnaby picks one up like, oh, I do like these siege engines.

Sarah:

These are clever.

Mark:

In the siege engines, there are a bunch of trebuchets

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

And a Roman ballista Mhmm. Which looks like a giant crossbow.

Sarah:

Right. Oh, and then later when the ropes are gone and Jeff is showing Tom that even the ropes on the siege engines are gone, he picks up a, it's not a siege engine, it's a platform that's for a hangman.

Mark:

Yeah. And the rope is gone. So

Sarah:

So they built that too.

Mark:

So Dean takes every bit of rope out

Sarah:

of rope, even clotheslines, which are not even rope. They're plastic covered wire.

Mark:

Yet when he goes to cut the first clothesline from young mother.

Sarah:

He walks right past a rope ladder. Yeah. Maybe he went back and took it. I I guess. Because he took Mary's clothesline too, and she was so eager to show it to the police, she just left her clothes in the mud.

Mark:

Just left them in the mud.

Sarah:

That'll show them.

Mark:

Not only exactly. Not only do we have a party in this episode, but we have a fet kinda A carnival? Let's have a carnival

Sarah:

And remember, it's fate.

Mark:

Fate. Yes. Fate. Let's have a carnival where this dude died yesterday.

Sarah:

The night before?

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

And they're in the same yard garden grassy area where they found the body.

Mark:

Like, Saco's in the background doing Wouldn't they cancel that?

Sarah:

Wouldn't the police cancel

Mark:

it? I would think even though there's band and face painting and there's a bouncy castle There's

Sarah:

a big bouncy castle.

Mark:

Ice cream. It's and and there's a

Sarah:

teapot. Weird teapot.

Mark:

But the best part about the fate are the yobs.

Sarah:

No. You you okay. That's your favorite part. Tell us about the yobs, then I'll tell you my favorite part.

Mark:

In background of one of the talk scenes between Barnaby, Joyce, and Doctor. Whatever her name is.

Sarah:

Moore.

Mark:

Doctor. Moore. Where there's no jealousy shown by Joyce at all. No. I don't know what Troy just annoys me in this episode.

Mark:

In the background there's a set of stocks. Mhmm. And there's a bunch of yobs trying to force one of them into the the stocks.

Sarah:

Well, and they're later on the tug of war team too.

Mark:

Yes. The yobs are on the tug of war team later on.

Sarah:

My favorite part of the carnival is the scenes of Dean eating the little cakes.

Mark:

What is he doing? He doesn't know how to eat. And if he's so into his body and Bruce Lee and bodybuilding, why is he eating cake?

Sarah:

Because he wants to shove it in his mouth while staring. But then he gets mad at one, and he just slams it down the grass. Slams. Damn cake. Like, what did that cake ever do to you?

Sarah:

He gets angry at that cake just like he gets angry at the cricket pads later. Oh. These are stupid.

Mark:

It's like the cake the the scene direction was Dean acts crazy with cake. Okay. I got this.

Sarah:

They just said Dean be creepy. Speaking of which, we haven't said Dean Honeysette's played by Paul Brennan. Yep. He's in the new Dracula.

Mark:

Oh, he is?

Sarah:

Okay. That's not the role I was really excited to find out He, you know me. I'm really the alien movies are my favorite movies of all time. He was in alien three.

Mark:

Yeah. There's a lot of Midsomer people in alien three.

Sarah:

On the prison planet.

Mark:

Bug is in Alien

Sarah:

three. Yeah. On the prison planet, he plays Yoshi Troy, and he gets killed by the alien when they're trying to trap it by running around in the halls and the vents, trying to like lure it this way and that way so they can put it in the big lead vat.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

And he goes around the corner without looking in it.

Mark:

Oh, it ain't.

Sarah:

But he's in most of the movie. Yeah. He's a bit in a lot of stuff.

Mark:

So after the Fete, which included the

Sarah:

The Fete.

Mark:

The Fete. After the Fete, which is has the reveal of the clotheslines being stolen Mhmm. And has Dean going crazy because somebody called him a loony.

Sarah:

Mhmm. He tries to strangle McMay.

Mark:

Gordon goes back to the hall and basically does the whole creepy thing.

Sarah:

That phone call. He calls Hannah to tell her. Yeah. It's like a package has arrived. Package.

Sarah:

You wanna come you wanna come see my package? You wanna come see it?

Mark:

It's just so creepy. And he doesn't need to be creepy.

Sarah:

No. He could just say, hey. The the majorette uniform arrived. Would you wanna come over and try it on? He could still be a pedophile and not be that creepy.

Sarah:

He could. But

Mark:

Sarah doesn't know where he is. Yeah. Are you in there, Gordon?

Sarah:

Because he's missing overnight. I'd be banging on that door long before then.

Mark:

Oh my gosh.

Sarah:

Even with the baby.

Mark:

And they find him hung up moving.

Sarah:

He plays a pretty good dead body.

Mark:

He does a pretty good dead body for the most part, but he's moving at the beginning.

Sarah:

I think Parrish is better. Yeah. But he does pretty well because it's gotta be uncomfortable hanging on that door. It has to be.

Mark:

I mean,

Sarah:

I know they have a harness on him underneath his jacket and everything. He's not really hanging by his neck, but it still can't be comfortable, and he's there for a while.

Mark:

Yeah. Okay. So we've got union jack. Check. We've got bands.

Mark:

Check. We got pedophiles. Check. We got a fate in the manor house. Check.

Mark:

We got a party. This is a Midsomer episode. What else do we need?

Sarah:

Cricket? Yeah. Gotta have

Mark:

a cricket game. What has this had anything to do with cricket before this moment?

Sarah:

It's just that, you know, the more children are very involved in village life. And Guy plays cricket, so his sisters have to go support him. Where are bring a picnic.

Mark:

Where are we gonna play cricket? We'll play cricket on the cricket ground, which is near the bag laundry. What is this?

Sarah:

It's not a bag laundry.

Mark:

What is it?

Sarah:

Those are burlap bags being hung up to dry after being washed because they were filled with some kind of crop, probably hops. I don't buy it. Okay. I did the research.

Mark:

Okay. Also, they only go down halfway.

Sarah:

Yes. They're only three feet, four feet long. Don't go down to the ground. You would see someone standing behind them unless you're Troy. Barnaby finds the majorette uniform.

Sarah:

This is after he's been drugged, asleep in his car for hours. Nobody bothered to wake when him the game was over.

Mark:

No, no. He finds the magerette uniform before.

Sarah:

Oh, that's right. And lays it out on the car seat and then goes and has tea with the girls.

Mark:

You know, how do you know you've been doing the Midsomer Maniacs podcast too long is when, Barnaby picks up the magerette uniform and holds it out in front of him. And Sarah and I both exclaim at the same time, he's gonna put it on.

Sarah:

No, we both said that won't fit. Because he holds it out facing him and then he turns it around and holds it up.

Mark:

Yeah. It's not going to fit him.

Sarah:

Which is what you would do if you were then going to hold it against you to see if it was your size. And now I just want to Photoshop Tom wearing that little lavender and pink majorette costume. I may have to do that. Yep. But I can't believe that after Hannah drugs him with the tea.

Sarah:

Oh, so here's a question I have. Let me see what your opinion is on this. So Hannah and Eddie are there on the blanket. Hannah brings out the tea. She's bringing out the tea before she knows Barnaby's there.

Mark:

Yes. Okay.

Sarah:

So she's got the tea on the tray. She brings it out. Barnaby comes over. She says, yes, please join us. Would you like a cup of tea?

Sarah:

He says, yes. And she hands him one that is exactly the way he likes it, and he starts to drink. And Eddie says, wait a minute. That was my tea.

Mark:

So were they killing Eddie?

Sarah:

When did Hannah drug the tea?

Mark:

Well, I'll tell you when. She said, because they were watching the game, she said, mister Barnaby, sir, what are those sacks on the clothesline over there? And Barnaby turned to look, and the drugs went

Sarah:

in his tea. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No.

Sarah:

No? No. Because he comes over and he sees Haskell drinking tea in the moodiest way possible, and Dean acting like these cricket pads have caused him a

Mark:

personal exact the cricket pad?

Sarah:

Just one leg pad. Then he sees the girls. Then he then Haskell points over to the no, the the lawnmower guy. I gotta watch that scene again. Where does that happen?

Sarah:

I think the lawnmower guy points him over to the clothesline before he even sees the girls on the rug. So maybe they saw him first and Maybe. Drug the Yeah. No, because Hannah doesn't have the tea yet. It's Eddie's tea anyway.

Sarah:

She walks out with it. Yeah. So Hannah must decided to drug Barnaby without telling Eddie. Yeah. So she must like have it in her pocket.

Mark:

Did they put the are they criminal masterminds by putting the majorette uniform on the bag line to draw Barnaby to it?

Sarah:

To bring him to the cricket pitch? Yeah. So they could drug him if you happen to drink some tea?

Mark:

Yeah. Wow. There's some problems here.

Sarah:

That's pretty smart. But and and Eddie is not smart. She's a psychopath.

Mark:

Yes. So my governor says he's gonna go to the cricket pitch and figure this out.

Sarah:

Meet me there.

Mark:

Meet me there. Hours later.

Sarah:

Apparently, but just in time. Because when Troy pulls up, yeah, it's pitch black, but he drives right onto the cricket pitch with his car

Mark:

And shines a light where Barnaby is And

Sarah:

honks horn.

Mark:

The children Disappear. Disappear.

Sarah:

Well, they run off.

Mark:

But they have legs that are long I know. In the back.

Sarah:

And they run off into, like, a clear area.

Mark:

Yeah. You would so you'd be like, there they go. Let's chase them. Troy.

Sarah:

Well, and it also seems to to take Tom quite a while to realize that Hannah drugged him. If I wake up having drunk some tea, sitting in my car in a place where I didn't intend to fall asleep, my immediate thought would be somebody drugged me, who drugged me, the person who gave me something, who gave me something, Hannah. Oh, I know. Now that they've almost strangled me, I'm gonna go to the poisoner's house for some care.

Mark:

What? Tom is smarter than that. To Moore's house to get care.

Sarah:

Tom

Mark:

is smarter than doctor like that. No.

Sarah:

And I'm just some no care anyway. I'm looking at the faces of the kids because they're kind of behind him while she's checking out his neck and they're looking at each other and I'm thinking they're not giving it away right now, but they should be Yeah. They should be looking at each other like, damn it, you should have done a better job. Like, I got away. They should be out of breath

Mark:

from running all the way home. It's just, ugh.

Sarah:

I applaud creepy kids. I think that's cool. I think the fact that they work together is cool. I think Eddie is incredibly creepy. I think their motive is nonexistent.

Mark:

Yeah. So just to clear up a couple of things, the ropes being stolen by Dean. So killer vision is both Dean and the little kids.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Okay? They find all the rope. They interrogate Dean, and he gives it up that there's three of them. And then Barnaby knows that the space project isn't gonna be complete.

Sarah:

Eddie's big space project that she's carrying around when she gets off the bus.

Mark:

So waiting for the bus, is Tom and Troy, and they bring the kids into the coffee shop. Now we have to assume that Hannah and are over 18.

Sarah:

Not Eddie.

Mark:

Not Eddie.

Sarah:

Hannah and Guy.

Mark:

Guy. We have to assume that Guy They're

Sarah:

at least age of consent to be questioned by police. I don't know if that was 16, 17, 18 at some They

Mark:

interview Hannah without her mother being there, and she puts up a fight for about thirty seconds. Yeah.

Sarah:

All Tom has to do is say, we know everything. We just need you to confirm it.

Mark:

She's like Oh, oh yeah.

Sarah:

But if I had a dollar for every time she rolls her eyes, I'd be rich.

Mark:

Oh my gosh. Or appears in floozy clothes.

Sarah:

Well, Gordon wasn't the only

Mark:

Okay. So

Sarah:

guy in town who liked his women young apparently. Yeah.

Mark:

But okay. I understand all of that. And I understand that there are men who find that attractive. But do they it felt voyeuristic how many times they showed her dolled up.

Sarah:

It was just the one time when she's walking into Martin's.

Mark:

No. When she shows up at Gordon's, she's kind of wearing skanky clothes too.

Sarah:

But to be honest, what she's wearing is no worse than any 17 year old going to a party.

Mark:

I know. It just felt voyeuristic the way they

Sarah:

looked It on just feels gross because you know what she's doing and what they what the men have in mind. You should feel gross.

Mark:

Okay. That's okay. Well then, Hetty is in the kitchen at Martin Roeth's house screaming for them to kill her.

Sarah:

Eddie Kill is sick.

Mark:

This is what we are supposed to understand. While their father was married to their mother,

Sarah:

their biological father, their real father,

Mark:

they grew jealous of the time that he wanted to spend with his wife.

Sarah:

He was so clingy with mom.

Mark:

That that made them homicidally insane.

Sarah:

So much so that they pushed him off a cliff or off of a, cliffside they were climbing.

Mark:

And what I want to know, okay, is that was three years ago.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

And then Martin Roth is at the center. Right. Why on earth did they do nothing for three years and then suddenly go on another killing spree?

Sarah:

Because she was spending a lot of time at Martin's. She was stopping by there and having a glass of wine with an alcoholic, and they thought that there was a relationship forming. They didn't realize that she was there.

Mark:

Why did they kill Gordon?

Sarah:

Because they were on a roll. Because once you once you start, you can't stop, you know?

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

It's like potato chips. They killed Martin, and then they're like, oh, let's kill Parrish. That was kind of fun. Okay. Let's kill somebody else.

Sarah:

Let's see who we can get away with. They were gonna kill a policeman.

Mark:

The scene where they kill Gordon, where they're playing the instruments while Guy strangles them, is fantastically crazy, batshit crazy Yep. Midsomer.

Sarah:

Yep. With Eddie in the bass drum. Yep. You know how I know she's psycho?

Mark:

She plays the bass drum.

Sarah:

Not just that, and not just her giggle, and not just that she thinks it's funny that her siblings killed their dad. The reason you know, the one piece of evidence you need, all you need to know Yes. To prove that Eddie is a psychopath is that when they break into the pharmacy to get the tanzine, she steals sugar free chocolate.

Mark:

What kind of crazy person does that? She's broken. Dean, get off me.

Sarah:

She is thoroughly broken. What teenager steals sugar free chocolate?

Mark:

It's the PS one that drives them all insane.

Sarah:

It's a driving game. No one will ever take our mom away from us.

Mark:

So then we have a weird moment where Joyce helps Barnaby tell the doctor Moore and that's it. And then it ends on a kind of crane shot.

Sarah:

I have to say doctor Moore is not a very good doctor because she lived with those three kids and did not pick up on the fact that they were getting weird. Yeah. Like And they don't hide it very well at all, especially Eddie. She is

Mark:

unable When to hide they go to tell her that someone had died in the village, they're giddy with excitement.

Sarah:

Yeah. But, you know, if they don't really know him, kids can be like that. I listen to true crime podcast. I'm like, oh, this is ghoulish. I gotta listen to this.

Sarah:

Yeah. But You know, when it's removed from you, that if they only did that, I wouldn't think they were too creepy.

Mark:

It's just the whole thing's creepy.

Sarah:

But wow. I understand why he wants Joyce there with him at the end. Not only does he have to say, your three children, all three of your children

Mark:

Murdering psychopaths.

Sarah:

Are murdering psychopaths, but they also killed your husband. Yeah. The love of your life. Yep. And you're a psychiatrist, and you didn't notice that they were crazy.

Sarah:

Like, it's gonna break that poor woman. Yeah. She's gonna lose it. Best corpse. Before we go to best corpse, can I tell you something else kinda interesting?

Sarah:

Yep. So Sarah Rove lives in everybody lives in an old thatched cottage.

Mark:

Yes. Oh my

Sarah:

Even Mary Mae lives in a multimillion dollar thatched cottage.

Mark:

Of course, it's a village.

Sarah:

And she's just a housekeeper.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

But Sarah Roth has a thatched cottage and you pointed out to me, I didn't even notice it before. They pan from the roof down to her door when Tom goes to visit her the second time.

Mark:

That's right.

Sarah:

And there's a cat on her roof that's made of thatch.

Mark:

Yes. Like

Sarah:

a topiary, but made out of thatch. Yes. They're actually called thatch finials.

Mark:

Thatch finials.

Sarah:

Or straw finials.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

And they're decorative things that people can add to their thatched roofs. They're usually on the ridge of the roof, kind of like where you would put a weather vane.

Mark:

Now does the guy who thatches the house make these as an artisanal thing?

Sarah:

Yep. They're almost always animals. Mhmm. So I found rabbits, birds, cats, foxes, and pigs.

Mark:

I need to have a big thatch. A thatch pig. I need to have it.

Sarah:

And according to heartofenglandthatchers.com, thatched animals are not only beautiful, they can also be useful. Thatched animals can deter pests, but only if you move them around a bit.

Mark:

The guy out on the roof moving them around.

Sarah:

I think they mean you have to change their position on the roof. I know, but I'm like, okay, so a fox might scare away birds, maybe a cat might scare away birds, but a pig?

Mark:

And they're the same color as the thatch. It's not like they're painted or anything.

Sarah:

No. But they don't have to be all that realistic to actually be useful in deterring like crows or whatever. But and so if they're along the ridge line, you get the silhouette and it looks like a cat is on the roof and maybe a bird might not land there. Yeah. Right?

Sarah:

But a pig? You know the natural enemy of the pig. Yes. It's a it's a roof dweller.

Mark:

Don't go up there. There's thatched bacon.

Sarah:

My best corpse would I think be perish.

Mark:

So that is? Tony. Tony. Yeah. See, I still like Gordon.

Mark:

I do. He spends a lot of time in the background not moving.

Sarah:

But he does move.

Mark:

He does move at first.

Sarah:

A little bit. A little bit. And Parrish has that great tongue out blue face looking kind of appearance. He does. Which I thought was good.

Mark:

So after the credits. Jeff's got to get all of his rope back. Rope guy gets his ropes back.

Sarah:

Is that what's in your notes? I don't think he'll be taking any ropes back to Mercy though. I don't think they'll be building the survival course again.

Mark:

All the kids go to juvie.

Sarah:

Two of the kids should go to prison. If they were old enough to be interviewed without an adult, they're adults. They go to prison.

Mark:

They go to

Sarah:

And Eddie should go to a nuthouse Yes. Filled with sugar free chocolate.

Mark:

Jane is terribly alone. And broken. Just her and plus, I'm sure Mercy Park is gonna fall apart.

Sarah:

She's solely responsible for it. Her chief counselor is dead. No. She's broken. A widow.

Mark:

Tully still loves Troy if she appears in another episode.

Sarah:

I don't know. I think she's over Troy in this episode.

Mark:

There better be a bookmobile in the next episode or I'm I'm out.

Sarah:

You don't realize how how few episodes Cully's in until you start watching them

Mark:

like She was gone for two whole seasons.

Sarah:

Yeah. But looking back, I would have said, Oh yeah, Collie doesn't appear in every episode, but she's in every season. And that's just not true. No. Joyce gets to make some tea, you know, and maybe help a little bit.

Mark:

No one gets paid by Martin Roth.

Sarah:

No. Nope. Mary and Mick get to run the pub and rehang their flag.

Mark:

Yep. That's it.

Sarah:

And they have to give back the porcelain figurines that they thought they could carry home in a plastic grocery sack.

Mark:

So once again, I gotta say the number of the episode is 10,000 because that's insane. Thank you all so much from the bottom of our hearts. Absolutely.

Sarah:

Yes. We have a few better written episodes coming up. I have to say this one and the last one are not the best written episodes.

Mark:

There's some problems with motive and things like that.

Sarah:

Yeah. I mean, they're still Midsomer, so they're still awesome, but there's some problems, but we have some better ones coming.

Mark:

And the next episode, episode 26, is season six episode three, which is Painted in Blood.

Sarah:

Oh yeah, baby. Where

Mark:

Joyce is in the village green painting the windows.

Sarah:

This is one of those Joyce gets a hobby and people die episodes. So thanks for listening.

Mark:

Thank you all so much.

Sarah:

Be sure to give us feedback and ideas. We're on the Twitter, the Instagram, we're on the Reddit subreddits and the Facebook pages, you know.

Mark:

All

Sarah:

those Yep. We love to hear from you.

Mark:

Absolutely.

Sarah:

So until next time. Bye, Maniacs.

Mark:

Bye, Maniacs. Like an apiary. That's a beehive. No. Not apiary.

Mark:

The things that they make animals out of

Sarah:

A topiary? Topiary. Yes.

Mark:

I knew it was some airy airy. Chisels are big. Oh, okay. But then there should be shooting bloods.

Sarah:

Hey, Maniacs.

Mark:

Hey, Maniacs.

Sarah:

Welcome to Midsomer Maniacs.

Mark:

Midsomer Maniacs is a podcast dedicated to the ITV series, Midsomer Murders. Each week, we dig into an episode of the show, including the murders, the man, the loonies, and everything we love. We're your hosts.

Sarah:

I'm Sarah.

Mark:

And I'm Mark.

Sarah:

We're both Maniacs.

Mark:

We are certainly Maniacs.

Sarah:

But you probably know that by now, episode 26.

Mark:

Yes. So just a little warning, if your show is too much for your kids, for instance, bad tacky clothing might be too much for your kids, then the podcast will be too much for them. But if they can watch the show, they can live in the podcast.

Sarah:

So can I tell you a story before we dive in?

Mark:

Yes. Please tell me a story.

Sarah:

So as you know, last week I spoke at a conference and it was a development conference for people who wanted to like grow their personal businesses or grow their small businesses. And I was talking about using social media strategically. Yes. And I just happened to kind of mention in this three hour workshop I was running that we did a podcast and how much fun it was and how interesting it was that it got us connected to all these new people that we didn't it was really fun and how podcasts had kind of made this resurgence. Like they were really big few years ago and then they kind of wold and then they came back.

Sarah:

And I think they're here to stay. I agree. And there was this little lady, she was at least in her late seventies.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

She's a volunteer helping out. And I was in the bathroom afterwards, washing my hands and she comes up and she like looks both ways, like making sure there's nobody there. And she says, your workshop was really great, but I have a question. I was too embarrassed to ask it in front of everybody else. Yes.

Sarah:

And I said, sure, I'm happy, you know, to answer any question. And she says, where do you buy podcasts? Because I don't know and everybody else seems to know and I don't even have a CD player. I said, do you have a smartphone? Oh yes.

Sarah:

My grandson gave it to me. It's awesome. Okay. So right there in the bathroom, we walked through how to download Stitcher. Yep.

Sarah:

And I found our podcast.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

And I said, you've just subscribed to my podcast. And she was so happy. So happy. She's like free. What are you talking?

Sarah:

They're all of them. I said, yeah.

Mark:

Yep. We just give them away. She just no. Yep.

Sarah:

Yeah. She's like, this isn't some trick you've put on my phone to make them free for me. No. They're free for everybody. She it was like Christmas.

Mark:

I you know, I've talked to a few of our listeners, and we have introduced podcasting to quite a few people.

Sarah:

I think so too. People who maybe weren't motivated to know much about podcasts until they heard about ours, and they thought, oh, that's something I actually am interested in, so it's worth me learning more about how they work.

Mark:

I had a a listener who was like, I'm sorry. I listen to your podcast on YouTube. I'm like, you listen to our podcast. I don't care how you listen to it. If you

Sarah:

like it, I don't care.

Mark:

Smoke signals or anything. Thank you.

Sarah:

This little old lady, her name was Martha. And I just wanted to pinch her cheek. She was the cutest thing ever. And now I just have this image of her sitting around, like listening to every true crime, like bloody podcast, like last podcast on the left and making a murder and serial and just like giggling to herself.

Mark:

What's her name again? Martha. Martha, if you're listening, thank you very much.

Sarah:

This one's for you, Martha. Yes.

Mark:

So this episode, season six episode three, what painted in blood

Sarah:

was Blood would be better than the paints that they use or at least the results they get.

Mark:

Okay. So a quick story. Okay? I love comic books. I've always loved comic books.

Mark:

2005. I'm like, this is it. I'm gonna learn how to draw. Right? I got all the books.

Mark:

I got all the pads. I got the pencils, the erasers. I worked hard

Sarah:

for

Mark:

three Every day after school and work, I worked really hard.

Sarah:

You followed every little step by step tutorial on how to become a better artist.

Mark:

And then Sarah said, I said, I don't know how to draw something. And Sarah said, let me show you. And she drew something better than I could even draw after practicing every day for three months. You quit. I was like, that's it.

Mark:

I'm done.

Sarah:

And you've never drawn anything since?

Mark:

Not a thing since.

Sarah:

I feel so bad about that.

Mark:

But I'm a better artist than these people.

Sarah:

You are. You definitely are. So this is painted in blood. Yep. Which aired when?

Mark:

Filmed in July and August 2002, and broadcast date, 01/17/2003. These episodes are as old as our kids.

Sarah:

Yeah. Yep. Well, yeah. Yeah.

Mark:

With 9,450,000 viewers directed by Sarah Hennings Hellings, and, oh, boy, I'm gonna gonna talk about her and her directing in this episode in particular, and Andrew Payne. She basically directed like almost a dozen Midsommars.

Sarah:

Yeah, there's some cinematic moments in this that are really interesting.

Mark:

Especially this one.

Sarah:

They stand out if you watch Midsommar as closely as we do. Now, I want to ask the listeners a question right up on the top. Okay. Before we dive in and we maybe, change your memory about this episode. When I realized this is the next one.

Mark:

Yes. And we both did this.

Sarah:

I confirmed with you. Oh, this is the one where Joyce is in the watercolor class, right? Yes. And you said, yes. And I said, wait a minute.

Sarah:

That's the first Scott episode. And I thought before I watched this episode that this

Mark:

was the first Scott episode.

Sarah:

It couldn't be.

Mark:

I knew it wasn't because

Sarah:

I was season six.

Mark:

Isn't this a Scott episode?

Sarah:

But I distinctly remember him being late to the crime scene and coming up into Ruth's room, her rented room and meeting Barnaby there and him criticizing his clothes or his being late or something like that.

Mark:

We were sure it was this episode.

Sarah:

Absolutely sure. I thought this can't be the right episode I'm thinking of because that's a Scott episode.

Mark:

It's not a Scott episode. And you were like, yes. It is. And I was like, I went through this in my brain already.

Sarah:

Is this a Berenstain Bears situation?

Mark:

No. Because episode in which she's in the apartment is Orcus Fatalis.

Sarah:

Is the room very similar?

Mark:

Yes. I think it probably is. It's an old lady who has a room, and they break into the safe. Remember? Yeah.

Sarah:

Man, I would have bet good money if you hadn't told me what season it was and you just said the one where Joyce has the watercolor class, which sergeant is in it? I would have said Scott, $50, Scott.

Mark:

Absolutely. I would have agreed before I started watching it.

Sarah:

Maybe it's just us. I don't know. Oh, but there's other awesome things in this episode.

Mark:

Absolutely.

Sarah:

Linda Tyrell's awesome bleed bad clothes. Okay. Wow. Pleather There pants with a

Mark:

are some spectacularly bad outfits.

Sarah:

I've never seen pleather pants that look like they've been ironed.

Mark:

And she the the thing is she pulls them off.

Sarah:

It it suits her character. In the

Mark:

in the sense that it suits her character perfectly.

Sarah:

Yeah. But she's like a diamond geezer's wife, you know?

Mark:

Totally. I get so obsessed with strange things. I spend the whole first outfit, the red

Sarah:

Mini skirt. One she's in when she gets knocked down.

Mark:

That has like velvet printing on it and then the coat. Jacket. Mhmm. Yes. I spent the entire time looking at her going, do you have a top on?

Sarah:

You wanted to know if she had something underneath the jacket?

Mark:

I don't think she does. I don't think she

Sarah:

does either.

Mark:

She bends down at one point and the jacket rides up and there's bare skin there.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

That is not work wear. That's not how you wear

Sarah:

a jacket like that. You at least wear like a camisole underneath it or something.

Mark:

Something. Something.

Sarah:

But you know, that's Linda for you. She's trashy.

Mark:

Boy, is she trashy. But she does a great job of introducing all the characters by looking

Sarah:

at them. Yes. Does. Binocular view.

Mark:

We have Mike Weatherby, the handyman.

Sarah:

Yeah. Who is the slowest window trim painter in the universe. Yes.

Mark:

We have Anne Carter.

Sarah:

Who's in the watercolor class. Yeah. And her husband is Tony Carter.

Mark:

Tony Carter. We have Jeffrey Teal who's leading the watercolor. No, that's Barrett. Oh, that's right.

Sarah:

Who's Jeffrey Teal? That's Major Teal.

Mark:

Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Mark:

And then we have Ruth Fairfax who's also in the watercolor class, and she is, hacked

Sarah:

on wheels. And don't forget Tessa Hoxley, the over sharer. Oh, Tessa. I know I've just met you, but gosh, my husband is an alcoholic, and we don't have sex anymore. Let me tell you how he's depressed.

Sarah:

My name's Tessa. Wait a minute. You just over shared all that stuff, and we haven't even exchanged names yet? Jeez, woman.

Mark:

So she's looking over the green at Tony's house to see if the curtains are closed. How

Sarah:

I know they're looking for money and they've they've got a bigger thing, but they definitely have a fling going on. Does she just stand on that hill watching his window all the time in the chance that he might close the curtains, which means he's coming over?

Mark:

Maybe at appointed times, I guess.

Sarah:

How desperate do you have to be? And she doesn't need him at all.

Mark:

No. She doesn't.

Sarah:

She's got the strong room receipt. Know. She could get the stuff and leave.

Mark:

I have no idea why Tony is involved in her life. He is not nice to her. Nope. Her husband's in prison. Yep.

Mark:

And she has the strong room receipt.

Sarah:

And she's his wife, so she could, I'm sure, claim it.

Mark:

Yep. She doesn't need Tony. 5,000,000 in cash. Goodbye.

Sarah:

It's a much shorter episode though. Linda just shows up, pecks all the money in a great big duffel bag and a trash bag and leaves. The end.

Mark:

Yes. With poor what's his name? Looking at her like

Sarah:

Major Teal?

Mark:

No. The guy in the bank.

Sarah:

Oh, Colin. Do you want a drink? Hey.

Mark:

So she's meeting Tony up there, and they're taking the world's worst passport pictures.

Sarah:

In the shade, under a tree, in front of a piece of poster board.

Mark:

It's just it's horror. On a Polaroid.

Sarah:

Yes. Now if you cut a Polaroid, doesn't it change the way it looks? Like, isn't there some kind of layer y kind ofness to the image?

Mark:

It is not going to be the same. You can't use Polaroid pictures for passports.

Sarah:

Yeah. Cause it's got kind of that film layer to it. Yeah. You need a print. Nobody's gonna I mean, I guess if they're gonna cut it out and tape it, glue it to a passport to make a fake passport, maybe they think nobody's gonna notice.

Sarah:

I'm sorry. But his big old head's too big to fit in the square of the passport.

Mark:

And I'm sorry. In the black market world of fake passports, if I'm going to get one, I want them to have a shop and like a picture thing and like I want it to be serious business.

Sarah:

You don't want Linda to just lick the back of a photo and stick it on and hope that it works? Come on, it's Linda. She can do whatever she wants.

Mark:

Some jobs go by on a bike and we know something is up. But, Tony checks to see if she has said strong room receipt and I am off. You took

Sarah:

a close look at it.

Mark:

Because the strong room receipt is close-up. So it is for Shires Bank plc. It is for George Tyrell, and his address is 74 Salters Close Edge End Midsomer HE99 FD. Now in a constant attempt to find out where Midsomer actually is. Oxfordshire.

Mark:

Yes, exactly. I looked up the HE postal code because in Britain the post the first two letters of your postal code are a location.

Sarah:

Right.

Mark:

There is no HE in England. There's Harrow, Huntersfield, Harrogate, Hemmel, Hampstead, Hereford, Hebrides, Hull, and Halifax, but no H E.

Sarah:

Well, makes sense. It's like a 555 number in

Mark:

it. And it should actually be M for Midsomer, but I'm just gonna be picky.

Sarah:

Maybe that's already taken by Middlesex or something.

Mark:

There are some numbers. One item to be stored in a strong room. That's what's written in the description, awaiting collection, and then the worst signatures I've ever seen. They're like doctor's signatures.

Sarah:

Yeah. Of what? Of Colin and George?

Mark:

Who knows? Who knows?

Sarah:

You don't know who the signatures are supposed to No.

Mark:

There are some lines on the signature. Oh,

Sarah:

easy to fake then. Are strong rooms a thing?

Mark:

I guess so. I looked it up and as far as I can tell, it's like a safety deposit box that's in a room.

Sarah:

I understand that, but I don't are they actually a thing?

Mark:

I don't know.

Sarah:

Like, you keep something at a bank that is bigger than what can fit in the biggest strong box

Mark:

they I don't think our bank, but

Sarah:

I mean, I'm sure like Christie's has a room similar to that for items that they're auctioning that are really

Mark:

Somebody valuable,

Sarah:

but I didn't think banks did.

Mark:

I didn't think banks did.

Sarah:

Especially a little middle of nowhere bank.

Mark:

But this bank is failure for so many reasons. Yeah. Why does she have 18 cups for the tea when there's only three

Sarah:

of them? How did they get that lemon pressed down that little stairway anyway? How did they get it around that corner and through that door? How did they

Mark:

get it in the building? And

Sarah:

in all the rigmarole it would have taken for them to get it down there, how did that money stay perfectly on those shelves?

Mark:

I do not.

Sarah:

It would have been all tossed around.

Mark:

Speaking of all tossed around, Tony kisses her. And I have, oh no, porno kissing in my mouth. It's like there's tongue and lips and oh, it's just bad. Well, and that's

Sarah:

right after he's like tried to twist her arm and got real nasty with her and she's clearly a woman who cannot choose men. Yes. So her husband's in prison.

Mark:

Tony is off and the odds return. Yep. But who else is there? No. It's Major Teal.

Mark:

Major Teal.

Sarah:

He's awesome. Major Teal is played by Leslie Phillips. He's the voice of the sorting hat in the Harry Potter movies.

Mark:

Oh, that's nice.

Sarah:

I mean, he's done a gazillion and a half things, of course. He was in World War two.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

And he was discharged for shell shock. Oh. And then started acting. He's 96. Yeah.

Sarah:

And still alive and kicking.

Mark:

Well, you sent me an article about him that is so sad. It's changed my entire opinion of him in this episode.

Sarah:

Yeah. He's been married three times. His most recent marriage was when he was 89. Yes. He seems very happy, his first wife was an alcoholic.

Sarah:

Yes. And his second wife had cancer and depression and committed suicide.

Mark:

Yes. So I don't want to bring us down or anything, but he he has seen tragedy.

Sarah:

Yeah. But he's also done a gazillion awesome things. He's been in all kinds of funny movies and funny shows and has done lots of stage work and he's a gem. And he's great in this too. He's lascivious and classy at the same time.

Mark:

And speaking speaking of people that do great things, it's we're recording this on the day that Terry Jones died. Any of the pythons would have been awesome on this show.

Sarah:

Terry Jones was on my list. John Cleese was on my list. But between the two of them, really, to play some kind of cameo in Midsomer, I would have gone with Terry Jones any day.

Mark:

He's a fantastic actor and a fantastic director. He directed a lot of the Python stuff.

Sarah:

Yeah. He also did this awesome documentary where he did a walking tour across Britain using old maps Yes. Like pre Victorian maps, and it's fantastic.

Mark:

He also did one. The first one that I saw that he did was he walked the crusades.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Like he walked from England to the Holy Land.

Sarah:

Super knowledgeable as a historian.

Mark:

Absolutely fantastic.

Sarah:

We'll miss him. But Leslie Phillips still alive and kicking. Yes. And he And flirting with the ladies.

Mark:

Sees the ob, steal her purse, and tries to help her, and maybe grab a little bit.

Sarah:

Let me give you a hand, my lady.

Mark:

On your butt. On your butt.

Sarah:

Her ankles is what he realized.

Mark:

He does like her ankles. And she pushes him off and almost runs him over, and he's still magnificent. Joyce can't find her brushes.

Sarah:

Yeah. And you know something bad's gonna happen because Joyce has got a new hobby.

Mark:

Yep. So somebody's gonna die.

Sarah:

I love when she's got her tote bag with her brushes in it and he's and Tom's like, they're right there. And she's like spinning around. And of course they're behind her in her bag. Yep. It's cute.

Sarah:

She's like chasing her tail.

Mark:

He's reading the paper, and I'm desperately trying to see what he's reading.

Sarah:

You're trying to read the paper.

Mark:

We don't get a good scene. And he calls, Midsomer flory. Is that what it is?

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

A haven of tranquility. This is I'm gonna say it is because we only get one bloody murder in this whole episode.

Sarah:

Yeah. Really. This is, and we've talked about this as close to a procedural as Midsomer gets. And it's also as close to sort of inner force politics that we get. I mean, a lot of police shows, you've got detectives who are constantly in conflict with their bosses, or you've got constables who are deceptive or layabouts layabouts or whatever.

Sarah:

And you just don't get that in Midsomer.

Mark:

That internal politics. You don't get it in Midsomer, but we get a call from the chief constable.

Sarah:

Yeah. But that's one of the things I've always loved about Midsomer is that you never get the sense that there are forces within the police force that are working against them.

Mark:

Until this episode.

Sarah:

Until this episode, but it's not for the usual politics reasons. Right?

Mark:

These are bad dudes.

Sarah:

They're bad cops. But I but I like that we get that little view of how Tom would respond to those kinds of politics.

Mark:

Well, and I also like how Troy relates to it honestly at first that he's excited to be part of their team from the Met basically. But then he's like, no. Wait a minute. Y'all are idiots.

Sarah:

Yeah. And Tom's happy for him. I mean, disappointed that he's off the case and he certainly doesn't like the sort of underhanded, behind the scenes way that the case has been taken away from him, but he's genuinely happy for Troy to have this opportunity.

Mark:

I agree.

Sarah:

Right. That shows a little bit about their relationship. So Joyce is in the pain class. Major Teal comes to the cop shop to report the crime that he's witnessed, even though Linda hasn't come in to report it.

Mark:

And so the watercolor class is The Costin Watercolor Society. Allen Pinkney, Anne Carter, mister and missus Bainbridge, they don't get a first name.

Sarah:

We're working in gouache.

Mark:

Gouache. If you don't know, gouache is a method of painting using opaque pigments ground in water, and thicken with a glue like substance. Yes. I didn't know that because I'm not an artist as we covered her. You know.

Mark:

Tessa Hockley, who shares too much, and Ruth, who is not really Ruth.

Sarah:

Ruth is not part of the watercolor No.

Mark:

That's true. She's not part because she's been there for six months. Yeah. She just happens to

Sarah:

be painting

Mark:

in Midsomer Florrie. How is like, wow. That's a coinky dink.

Sarah:

Yeah. I don't know. I think if you get into these kind of pastoral beautiful villages, you probably got artists all over the place.

Mark:

Then how did what's his name, who's what's his name know that she was gonna be there? Because they put her

Sarah:

there.

Mark:

Oh, I guess.

Sarah:

Undercover to observe Tony and his curtains. That's her whole job. So she pretends to be a painter so she can watch his curtains

Mark:

and work out the pattern. I need that job. I'd wear the fat suit too and the boobs.

Sarah:

You'd paint better than her.

Mark:

Well, certainly would.

Sarah:

Well, when Major Teal comes in to report the bag snatching, that's when we learned about Operation Pond Life.

Mark:

Operation Pond Life. There's a sign in the background that just says murder in giant letters and nothing else. And then some guy's face.

Sarah:

He's like Most Wanted or something. I did a little bit of research into how operations are named. Okay. And I couldn't find stuff that was specific to The UK, but I found sort of law enforcement in general. The policemen or detectives involved in an operation like this, never name it.

Mark:

No. The higher

Sarah:

ups, isn't it? No. The operation is usually named by a clerk. The person who is going to maintain the file initiates the file and they either go alphabetically through a list like the way hurricanes are named.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Or it's utterly at random.

Mark:

Oh.

Sarah:

Though they are allowed to reject names that might damage the investigation.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

So if they called this like operation pawn scum, that would be bad. Yes. Right? Or yeah, bag snatchers or yobs, yob attackers or something. And the names are seldomly, if ever even remotely related to the investigations kind of, you know, key plot.

Mark:

Have a lot of binders with pawn life right now.

Sarah:

Poor Troy looks like he's been doing data entry for months and months at this point.

Mark:

Well, Tom can't take the the colonel's is it a colonel? No. In the major.

Sarah:

Major.

Mark:

He he can't take the major's statement because he has a business meeting.

Sarah:

Yes. Because because he has a briefcase with him.

Mark:

What business means to you?

Sarah:

My business is to be somewhere else. Yeah. I think so. It was a car. It was dark, but it wasn't too dark.

Sarah:

And I don't know what color it was, and I don't know what make it was, but she had awesome ankles.

Mark:

Poor Colin. They're going to close his bank. He's taken to the drink and he doesn't have the humpy bumpy anymore.

Sarah:

And they're going to close the bank, which I understand it's a small branch in a small village. And this is actually happening now in a lot of places. These little branches are closing because people do more and more of their banking online. Right. And it's very hipstery to convert a business like a bank into a restaurant or a bar, but the fact that they're going to call it the overdraft and yet it's going to be a wine bar does not make sense to me.

Mark:

It should be

Sarah:

a beer bar.

Mark:

Exactly. A craft brewery.

Sarah:

Yes. Not well. It won't succeed.

Mark:

It's the only pleasure left to a man of certain age.

Sarah:

The pub in this episode is mysterious to me.

Mark:

Yes. The cock and

Sarah:

Cock and rabbit.

Mark:

Cock and rabbit.

Sarah:

I fell down a hole. Okay. About this pod.

Mark:

The cock and rabbit fell?

Sarah:

Yes. Better than the beaver lips hole. Don't Google anything about lips on beavers. Okay? Just don't.

Sarah:

They'll disturb you. Just go listen to the no such thing as a fish podcast and learn all about them. Anyway, you distracted me. Yes. So I wanted to know where the cock and rabbit was.

Sarah:

Like what's the pub? What's the name of the pub? Because you were talking about aptly named pubs and episodes, and this one clearly isn't.

Mark:

No, it should be called the painter's easel or the palette.

Sarah:

Something like that.

Mark:

Yes. The closed curtain.

Sarah:

So there is an actual pub called the cock

Mark:

and rabbit. The trashy ankles.

Sarah:

Clothered pants. There's an actual pub called the cock and rabbit and it's near Great Midsomer in Buckinghamshire. And it has been used in multiple Midsomer episodes.

Mark:

Now Great Midsomer is where the bank set is.

Sarah:

Right. So they use that whole village for this episode. Yes. Okay. But the cock and rabbit has only ever been used as a pub in a Midsomer in Saints and Sinners where they call it the Rose and Chalice.

Sarah:

So as near as I can tell, they filmed in the village where actual cock and rabbit pub is but didn't use it.

Mark:

Okay. But I couldn't figure out

Sarah:

what pub they did use.

Mark:

No. And they're only inside the pub. They never, like, show them going outside the pub. So it's a mystery. What pub are they actually in?

Sarah:

I don't know.

Mark:

I don't know.

Sarah:

It could be that it I just couldn't find any information about it because it's kind of like a no brainer. Like, obviously, they use the real cock and rabbit to be the cock and rabbit and that's why I can't find it anywhere. Yes. That would make the most sense, but I could not find confirmation about that. No.

Sarah:

So it's a mystery.

Mark:

Barrett wants everybody to loosen up and touches everybody in ways that miss upsetting.

Sarah:

Only the women.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

And he wears a neckerchief.

Mark:

Yes. He does. Should I use a number two pencil to poke out your eyes?

Sarah:

What I don't understand is that they're called the Midsomer Watercolor Society. Yet clearly it's a class and they seem to me every day.

Mark:

Yeah. It's like a summer camp.

Sarah:

Yeah. They they go the same place every day and paint. And they refer to the fact that they're in Midsomer Flurry in a way that leads you to believe that in prior meetings, they have met in other villages to paint.

Mark:

But these are new people to everybody.

Sarah:

So do these people not have jobs or lives at all? They just spend every single day painting?

Mark:

Apparently. There's

Sarah:

an auction coming up, though.

Mark:

They're still so bad.

Sarah:

They're really bad. Garrett Barrett is not a

Mark:

good teacher. No, he doesn't. The one thing he says to do is a good thing to loosen up on your pencil when you're sketching. Right? Is absolutely good.

Sarah:

Lightest possible touch. OPT.

Mark:

Right? But that's all he says. When he's

Sarah:

not He's just encouraging.

Mark:

He's not whispering nookie nookie nothings in people's ears.

Sarah:

No. And we never see him painting. I wonder if he's a good painter.

Mark:

I know. He's got his lips all over Ann at one point.

Sarah:

Well, but they have history, right? They know each other already. Yes. Way before the Watercolor Society.

Mark:

I'd like to talk to the Midsomer people, especially the directors. When we switched to the Barnaby house, we switched days. Yeah. And we have no concept at all that that happened.

Sarah:

It is clear at this point in the series that they have no concern with continuity about what day it is.

Mark:

No. In my notes at this point, I'm like, what day is this? Is this the same day as the bag snatch?

Sarah:

But they do that common thing where they set some kind of deadline at the end. So there's the the auction is so many days away. So we know we're at least between now and then. Yes. But what day it is in between those things?

Sarah:

No clue. No. It's just a big old flow of not so much murder.

Mark:

So after a morning of painting, they're all gonna go to the cock and rabbit

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

At 12:40, which I'm like That's a little late for lunch. A little late for lunch.

Sarah:

But they probably don't start until ten.

Mark:

I guess. Joyce notices some stuff. She notices Ruth's hat and then

Sarah:

Gets nosy about her painting. Yeah. And looks at it like, that's not bad. I'm like, what is wrong with you woman?

Mark:

She is horrendous.

Sarah:

Of course, all Joyce has done to this point is sketch. So what does she

Mark:

know? And she finds Ruth's body.

Sarah:

Of course she does. Because this

Mark:

Clearly is breathing. She's

Sarah:

the only course corpse in this episode, but she's not the best corpse.

Mark:

No. She's a And very bad

Sarah:

if you can breathe through a fat suit, like, come on. She's got pancake makeup. She's got a wig, fake eyebrows, glasses, all that stuff as an actress to disguise herself and yet she can't hide her breathing for two seconds?

Mark:

She's clearly breathing. Clearly. So then we have the shot. Yes. So we are returned to the scene of the crime with Saco there, and the director has been watching too many Steven Spielberg movies.

Sarah:

Oh, I don't think it's too many. I think it's great.

Mark:

No. No. The sorry. It's an awesome shot. It is clearly a reference to Steven Spielberg.

Mark:

It is called a winner, and it is a shot that is a long take that the camera moves to different spots, and so that long shots become medium, become close-up, become medium, become long shots again.

Sarah:

And it's continuous, there's no edit.

Mark:

Yep, if you're looking for the textbook example of this, it's in Jaws where the mayor, the chief of police, and the scientists are on the barge. So not only does Spielberg do it in that movie, a wonder like that, but he does it on a barge.

Sarah:

Yeah. So in this one, we start up in the air. Right? Bird's eye view. With an overview kind of of the crime scene.

Sarah:

George is down there in his coveralls and we see a crowd in the distance behind police tape.

Mark:

And then we do a one eighty turn that's a little fast.

Sarah:

It's a little fast. I'll give it to him though.

Mark:

Then on so the cameraman's on a crane with the Steadicam.

Sarah:

Yep. This is a Steadicam shot. This is before drone shots.

Mark:

Yep. So he's on the he's on a crane with the Steadicam that is then turned around. He does the turn and then is lowered to the ground. Now this crane has an open basket

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

So that he can walk right out of it with the Steadicam and not make it like.

Sarah:

And not only does it lower, but it it goes the arm extends forward and down.

Mark:

It skims the ground.

Sarah:

It's almost like a sweep. Yep. And then he seamlessly steps out of the crane and walks towards the police tape so that he's got Joyce and Tom in frame. Then the part that I find most amazing second only to stepping off the crane without a bump, he must have a steady cam rig on, which if you've never seen one, just Google it. You've seen them before.

Sarah:

You just didn't know it. He must use the steady cam and pivot the camera way to his left, like across his body because he goes over the police tape to film them talking without touching it or without going through it. It's contiguous there. We've seen it. And then he swipes it back across the police tape.

Mark:

And then he goes back behind the ambulance, behind where the Undertakers are, back to the scene of the crime. There is like 50 people in this scene.

Sarah:

All choreographed to move across the scene, behind the scene, back, over.

Mark:

Without a doubt, the best single shot in Midsomer so far.

Sarah:

I would say the the episode with the aliens Mhmm. With the crop circles. When they're walking through the wheat

Mark:

That's a great shot.

Sarah:

That's beautiful. But it's different. Yeah. But if you didn't notice this shot, I strongly encourage you go back and rewatch just this scene where we have the initial crime scene investigation going on and watch it closely because you don't appreciate it if you don't notice it's one continuous shot. We do notice it.

Sarah:

It's amazing.

Mark:

We've watched it five or six times. It's just a great piece of work.

Sarah:

Whoever shot it, good for you.

Mark:

It's a minute and eight seconds long of brilliance.

Sarah:

It's incredible. Yeah. Wow. We just totally nerd it out there.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

We should move on.

Mark:

She's a mystery woman. She got stabbed in the back with a palette knife.

Sarah:

Oh, with a chisel.

Mark:

With a chisel. That's not gonna kill you.

Sarah:

I don't chisels can be pretty sharp.

Mark:

I know it's gonna be pretty sharp, but like, again, the single stab wound always bothers me.

Sarah:

Chisels are big.

Mark:

Oh, okay. But then there should be shooting bloods.

Sarah:

It also depends what kind of chisel it is. And I'd have to look at it again when they recover it. Yeah. But like I have chisels that are called haftless chisels. They don't actually have a handle.

Sarah:

Yeah. And the, the handle end where a handle goes is actually much sharper than the other end. So, but I think this one has a handle on

Mark:

it,

Sarah:

but they can be pretty darn sharp. I don't know what Mike Weatherby is using it for, but

Mark:

I know they can be sharp.

Sarah:

It would still take a lot of force because didn't she have like a puffer vest on and a shirt and the But fat if you got it through all that, it would do some van damage. Okay. We go to the Carter's house because Anne and Tony are going to fight.

Mark:

The house is fucked. Everybody get out of the house.

Sarah:

That house is so weird. It is. But perfect. It's perfect. Whoever said, dressed it did such an awesome job because it's clearly like, we don't we haven't always had a lot of money.

Sarah:

Now we have a little bit of money and we wanna show off our money, but we don't really have taste yet.

Mark:

And Anne's And so we just have lots of stuff. And Anne is perfect as because she used to be like Brenda. I'm sure she

Sarah:

did. Linda.

Mark:

Linda. Yeah. I'm sure she used to be like Linda.

Sarah:

When she was younger.

Mark:

When she was younger. But now she's more comfortable and she basically got out of the life which I think she was pleased with. Yeah. When they went into witness protection scheme. Do they call it that in England?

Mark:

Because that makes it sound really skeezy. But they are. But Anne does a great job of that.

Sarah:

Yeah. But why in hell would they move him in the witness protection program to a village that is the same village where his co conspirators hid the money? Know I they don't know that's the that the money is there.

Mark:

It makes more sense that they send him up with Perez up in the Shetland Islands.

Sarah:

Yeah. They should have moved him real far away, real far away, and made them change. All they did was make Tony like shave the bad beard He didn't even change his first name. No. He's still Tony.

Sarah:

But you know, actually that's kind of common because it helps people acclimate to their new names.

Mark:

Oh, okay.

Sarah:

If they go by a version of their like maybe he was Anthony before and now he's Tony.

Mark:

I've never been in the witness protection scheme, so I don't know.

Sarah:

Well, you know, when I was, it was, you know, I was still Sarah.

Mark:

I have flee the country, but Fled? Yeah. It was under different circumstances.

Sarah:

But man, their place, they've got like 1920s bronzes next to like bobblehead dolls and China figurines.

Mark:

It's so weird. It's so stuff. It's just lots. It's like trashy Rococo.

Sarah:

Yeah. I like that. It's like Tat Rococo. Tony is like super paranoid. He thinks the house is being bugged.

Mark:

So now, Barnaby and Scott go to the flat.

Sarah:

It's Troy.

Mark:

It's Troy. Wait a minute. Missus Metcalf is the most flat, boring character ever.

Sarah:

Oh, I like her. She's nice and everything. She's proper, but secretly judgy.

Mark:

She's she's quite judgy.

Sarah:

I I wouldn't wanna live with her.

Mark:

Ruth has this room. Pictures, theatrical makeup. Yeah.

Sarah:

And Ruth's room is weird. Like Yes. She has, like, a microwave and a hot plate.

Mark:

It's like a studio, but not a studio.

Sarah:

It's a bed set. Yeah. But you usually don't have a bed set when you're renting a bedroom from somebody's cottage. They usually don't want you having cooking appliances in your room.

Mark:

Nope. Ring Ring ring.

Sarah:

The thatch roof can go

Mark:

real Ring ring. Who is it? It's doctor Bullard. The the this is weird down here. Can you come and help me?

Mark:

Because I don't understand this.

Sarah:

I got something to show you.

Mark:

Tom, bring Scott.

Sarah:

I love how many times they either holler at each other, any of them holler at each other or call each other and say, I've got something you need to see. That would make me knock and futz. Yeah. If you called me and said, Sarah, come right away. I've got something you need to see.

Sarah:

I would say, what?

Mark:

And I'd say she's got a wig on and a fat suit. I would

Sarah:

say, well, I got to come see that. Exactly. But I wouldn't say, Oh, that's okay. Just don't tell me, keep it a mystery. Let me stop everything I'm doing.

Mark:

But where would we put the commercials in our everyday life?

Sarah:

That's true. How would we have that suspense? Joyce, of course, has found the body. Oh, no. Oh, Tom.

Sarah:

And so she needs a ride home. So missus Hockley Is

Mark:

she Glendon?

Sarah:

Yes. Oh, put on your shoes.

Mark:

There's no place like home.

Sarah:

You know, every time I think of her discovering a body, I just think of her on that stage looking at Tom with that fear in her face after what's his face cuts his own throat.

Mark:

And now she's like, oh, another body.

Sarah:

Yeah. But Tom should be nervous because the last time somebody drove Joyce home after she saw a dead body Murderer. It was the killer. Murderer. I would be like, missus Hoxley, we need to talk.

Mark:

Oh, I'll talk. You're clearly By way, my husband's penis is this long.

Sarah:

But it doesn't work, so it doesn't matter. And his head's shaped like a light bulb.

Mark:

You know he has bowel problems too.

Sarah:

He has his own theme song. It sounds like music box music. That's the music that plays every time he drinks the vodka in the bottle.

Mark:

So they go to the morgue. Ruth is all in this fat suit stuff. Troy finds the murder weapon, and they go back to her flat and are basically trying to figure out what's going on. Because the first time you see this episode, you're like, what is going on?

Sarah:

Yeah. And then they're gonna go look at the body again the next morning after George has done some more investigation because it takes them all night to get the fat suit off and she's gone.

Mark:

And I'm like, that table has holes in it.

Sarah:

Yeah. For drainage. Scrubbing it.

Mark:

Yeah. I'm like, shouldn't you,

Sarah:

like, spray that or something, my man? Well, I think he's kind of drying it, really. It's been sprayed off.

Mark:

The body's gone, and it it's been released to DC Nolan and DC Barkley, or should we call him DC scumbag junior? Mark Gudgen. Mark Gudgen is their DC.

Sarah:

Mhmm. DCI. Linda finally reports to Barnaby about her bag, and Yeah. Man, he reads her right away. Yeah.

Sarah:

She thinks she's so clever and he smells a rat.

Mark:

Seeing a doctor? Immediately. Oh,

Sarah:

Pond scum. There's a little alarm going off.

Mark:

And then she gets snippy with him. Okay.

Sarah:

That's not the way to turn him around to your side of the story. The nastier you get, the more suspicious he is. I love when he has the strong room receipt in his hand and the little plastic sleeve and she goes to grab it and he just pulls it away and sets it down. Like, no, no, you're not going to have that.

Mark:

So then we have this weird scene. Barnaby goes to look and finds the medicine for Angela Brownie.

Sarah:

She was on antibiotics. Ruth's

Mark:

real name.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Right? And then Tony and I can't remember her name.

Sarah:

Tony and Linda are skulking around in the woods because Barnaby goes up there and finds the Polaroid box.

Mark:

If you're gonna skulk in the woods, don't wear bright outfits. Or pants that probably go We make the snowsuit sound for sure.

Sarah:

And Tony contemplates hitting Tom with a log.

Mark:

A conveniently placed log.

Sarah:

But, like, how to get yourself in even more trouble?

Mark:

Well, and then they're like, don't let Barnaby hear us. Yeah. I'm like, he's five feet away.

Sarah:

And it's clearly on to you anyway.

Mark:

I was expecting the poacher from the last episode to be hanging out in the bush too. And

Sarah:

Tom and Joyce have dinner where Joyce because Tom's like, I know I'm not on the case anymore, I'm not supposed to talk about it, but tell me everything you heard today when those creeps were interviewing you.

Mark:

Yeah. He doesn't really do and she's like, I hope you're not gonna get all messed up in this, but I'll tell you everything.

Sarah:

Yeah. But they have dinner by candlelight.

Mark:

They do, and that's a common theme we've seen.

Sarah:

What do you think of that?

Mark:

I think when Cully wait a minute. Cully's not in this episode.

Sarah:

No. They don't have

Mark:

a kid. Nor the bookmobile.

Sarah:

Suspicious. Yes. Elsewhere in Midsomer, people are run over by a bookmobile.

Mark:

I think it's nice, but it's also dangerous. I I'd find it like I don't like to eat in the dark.

Sarah:

That's weird. I didn't think your response would be it could be dangerous. It just seems impractical and kind of a lot of trouble, but also really sweet.

Mark:

Yes. I would agree with that.

Sarah:

Dinner is like an event for them, even though he usually runs off in the middle of it. No. I have an idea. She still makes an effort.

Mark:

She does. Well, you know, she has recipes posted on the cupboards.

Sarah:

Yeah. So the second time we see that kitchen is when Tom is there and Troy is there and okay. So there are recipe cards taped to the cabinets, I guess just to taunt Joyce with all the things that she can't make. Tom has evidence in the kitchen.

Mark:

Just hanging out. Just keeping them

Sarah:

at home, whatever. But there's a bulletin board on the back wall. Yeah. Plastered with takeout menus. I mean, they're, like, hanging off of every side dangling by one pin.

Mark:

Oh, just pick something up on the way home.

Sarah:

Taped to each other. I mean, are everywhere.

Mark:

I don't mind going out, Joyce. I'll get it.

Sarah:

I'll get something. I'll just pick

Mark:

it up

Sarah:

for us. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Barnaby uses a computer.

Sarah:

He does. He types with more than two fingers too.

Mark:

He looks up Angela Mary Browning. And, of course, I read everything on these screens, and it is full of fantastic stuff.

Sarah:

Tell us about Angela.

Mark:

So Angela was born 09/03/1971 in London. She's a detective constable. She entered the Met three nine ninety five via Hendon.

Sarah:

That's the police college.

Mark:

Yep. Then she, previous to the that she finished high school, went abroad, worked in a travel agency named Trailblazers International. I told you this was dead. But she was part of the Heathrow, bullion robbery where she arrested Keith Tyrell. So she arrested Linda's husband, now is working in NIS under Mark Gudgen.

Mark:

She was also part of something called Operation White Knight, which led to the arrest of sir Nigel Winslow. But it's sir in quotation marks because they were a group of gentlemen robbers.

Sarah:

Oh, nice.

Mark:

Oh, but wait. It goes on. She was also part of something where she arrested serial rapist Roger Manless, the terror of Tun Hill. All of this, all of this is on a Hansel monitor. Now, then I went off and tried to find Hansel monitors.

Mark:

Hansel is a South Korean monitor manufacturer whose website has not been updated from 2012. So I'm not sure if they're a real company anymore cause their entire website is in South Korean and when it came up and said would you like to translate this website? And I said yes and it did nothing.

Sarah:

You don't get a translation! It's interesting that they give a bit more information about the original heist, where this money came from, because that is a direct reference to the Brinks Matt Heathrow heist, which we've talked about before on the podcast, Where everybody was arrested afterwards, except there was this creepy curse on everybody involved. So they they were all like killed or murdered or died mysteriously, even the police that were involved in it.

Mark:

So Barnaby looks up Tony after the Midsomer Constabulary with the Badger screen.

Sarah:

I love their badger.

Mark:

The little Badger screen that we haven't seen since the very first episode.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

And Tony went as Tony Mav is and then he went states evidence, and there's still $5,000,000 missing.

Sarah:

Right. They didn't recover all of it.

Mark:

Now I have a question. It is entitled the Heathrow bullion robbery. Yeah. And there's $15,000,000 in cash Mhmm. And 5,000,000 missing.

Mark:

Mhmm. What bullion? Gold. I I know, but where's the bullion?

Sarah:

They the in the brinks Matt heist, they intended to steal bullion and instead of stole cash. Oh, because it wasn't what they thought it was. And that's kind of where it started to go wrong.

Mark:

Okay. I can see that.

Sarah:

So if they're of faking a reference to that, then then they're just following that pattern and they didn't recover all of the money. But I can't believe that Tony in his yob head brain would ever be smart enough to pull off something like that. So Yeah. But you know, he was low on the totem pole.

Mark:

Clearly, Linda's husband was the smart guy here. Yeah. Though his picture is not the best. Well, mugshot Saldamar. Speaking of ugly people, let's go to the hospital.

Mark:

Jason? Who is one of the obbs who stole the car who cracks under pressure in two seconds.

Sarah:

Oh, it's not even pressure.

Mark:

Yes. Well, I think he's Like, you hit her.

Sarah:

No. It was Richie.

Mark:

I I think he's got a little sugar high from all the Starburst, Twix, Smarties, and surfing mags that he's been reading

Sarah:

and eating. Surfing magazines?

Mark:

Surfing magazines.

Sarah:

Because, you know, Oxford sure is a place for surfing.

Mark:

And then he's listening on his Alba disc player, and he's listening to some tunes. He's jamming. And Tom just yanks it out. Gets all the information from him. Barnaby's got this whole thing figured out, but Troy has been working with the other detectives.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

And at first, Troy's pretty happy about this. And and like you said, Barnaby gives him some credit, but Troy pretty quickly figures out they're idiots.

Sarah:

When one of them runs Troy out of the interview room with Mike Weatherby, I wanna hit him on Troy's behalf. Like, how dare you talk to him like that?

Mark:

They call him a flat footed country copper.

Sarah:

And then when they're sitting in Barnaby's chair? Oh. How dare you sit in Tom's chair?

Mark:

Know what they are.

Sarah:

You don't deserve to sit in that chair.

Mark:

They're scumbags. Scumbag scum.

Sarah:

And Tom and Troy are back working together again

Mark:

on the logos. So Troy goes to see Barnaby at night and they figure out that maybe the killer is actually Pinkley.

Sarah:

Yeah. We know it's Pinkney. We know it's at least not Mike Weatherby because he's the one person with an alibi because of Joyce's drawing that's been stolen.

Mark:

Why would anyone steal that drawing? Because it's evidence. Still, it's I thought maybe there would be like this bad eraser mark over.

Sarah:

If there was gouache on it, we would know who the killer was. This this opaque pigment ground from from dust and mixed with glue has been covering my clock now.

Mark:

Now at this point in the episode, I the first time I rewatched it this week, I knew that the cops were bad. I didn't know who the main cop was.

Sarah:

Oh, you forgot who Gajin was?

Mark:

I forgot who Gajin was, and I somehow thought it was the couple who were the killer.

Sarah:

The gouache couple?

Mark:

And I was like, how could they be the people who are the killers?

Sarah:

Well, you know, gouache goes to your head.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

And some some kind some people call, like, street drugs gouache. Yo. Hey. You want some gouache? I got some gouache.

Sarah:

So want some gouache?

Mark:

Trophy and Barnaby need evidence to prove it's pinky.

Sarah:

Thinkly. Because the paintbrush. Right? They find a paintbrush underneath Ruth's body, and it's not it doesn't look like hers. And they're like,

Mark:

But they need that paintbrush.

Sarah:

They need

Mark:

to So where do they go?

Sarah:

Oh, they go to the Evidence room. Yay.

Mark:

Oh my. In the evidence room, we have a motorcycle helmet, bow and

Sarah:

arrow, shovels, Shovels. Several shovels.

Mark:

And a stuffed cat. Yes. Now we have a very special segment on Midsomer Maniacs for you. We have come up with dueling episodes for why the cat is in evidence.

Sarah:

Right. Because as soon as you see it, you think, what's that evidence for?

Mark:

And it's right near the paintbrushes.

Sarah:

Well, and at head height

Mark:

looking at you with

Sarah:

its big glass eyes. Okay. What is the case where that cat

Mark:

was important? So that's the question that Sarah posed to me. And we had to come up with imaginary Midsomer episodes where the cat, the stuffed cat was a piece of evidence.

Sarah:

And you listeners get to listen to our two contenders for episodes that include the stuffed cat and choose the one that you like best and or submit your own.

Mark:

Yes. And I will let you go first.

Sarah:

Oh, I get to go first? Yes. Okay. So I've written mine as if it was a description, like, for the episode, like a teaser. Yes.

Sarah:

Okay. It's called Meows and Murder. A writer of beloved children's books featuring Kumquat, a cantankerous cat now suffers from dementia and is reliant on caretakers around the clock. When several vicious murders take place right outside her cottage window, the old writer is the only witness. That is until Barnaby and Troy start receiving curious notes laced with clues and signed CQ with a cat's paw.

Sarah:

Is the old lady sending them, or is Kumquat speaking from beyond his now taxidermied grave or mantelpiece? That's very interesting. Meows and Mids.

Mark:

Are you going to let us know who the real murderer is?

Sarah:

Well, the story is that there's actually a nanny cam inside the taxidermied cat.

Mark:

I thought about that.

Sarah:

And she knows that, but she can't quite say it. Yeah. So she writes these little meow meow letters because she can think as kumquat now, but not quite as herself and gives them the information and then they recover the video.

Mark:

Do have any that you would see?

Sarah:

I didn't get that far.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

I I was so excited by naming the cat kumquat because he was almost marmalade and I thought that's too easy.

Mark:

It's quite a name.

Sarah:

Yeah. I was gonna sign the letters come for short, but that wasn't right. No. So he's CQ instead. The cantankerous cat.

Mark:

So what's yours? A contestant in a national baking television show in Midsomer Cockset is murdered just before she is set to compete in the camp championship. Oh. She's found with a single gunshot wound to her forehead with no weapon seen anywhere.

Sarah:

What's the name of the episode? A Slice of Murder. So where does the cat come in?

Mark:

So what happens is Cully is in this episode she works as a PA for one of the hosts because she's trying to get on the show, of course, who's actually having affair with one of the contestants, but that's a red herring. And all also, the contestants all look happy on screen, but actually hate each other. But the murderer is one of the judges who had his cat originally stolen by the by the lady and killed the cat was stolen, the woman accidentally killed it, and she stuffed it and kept it in her house.

Sarah:

And he finds out? He finds

Mark:

out and replaces it with a gun shooting robot inside of the cat.

Sarah:

Man, you kept you've kept that for the very end. Yep. That it's a Robocat. It is Robocat. I thought my nanny cam cat was pretty good.

Mark:

In in addition, she kills two other contestants during the weekend in baking related murders to throw Barnaby and Troy off the scent.

Sarah:

Nice. So I love the idea that there were like blatant, vicious bloody murders happening right in front of someone because that's so Midsomer, but they knew she couldn't tell anybody who did it because she can barely speak and has dementia and just says like, Meow meow, because she's so into her cat. And so they just like stab people right in front

Mark:

of her. See, I think I think it would be great. This My Story would be great because ITV could do a total parody job on Great British Bake Off and not be it exactly. Yeah. And and be able to make fun of the BBC show.

Sarah:

The only thing better than doing a parody Midsomer of the British Bake Off would be a parody Midsomer of Time Team. Yes. I will. We've thought several times that Time Team should have a crossover with Midsomer.

Mark:

Yep. Oh, boy.

Sarah:

So which is better, murder by the slice or meows and murder?

Mark:

Let us know. And if you have an idea why the cat is in the evidence room, let us know.

Sarah:

I'm so excited about that. I was thinking about that all week.

Mark:

Yep. So now we have arrived at the climax and this is a multi part climax to this episode.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

First of all, Tony's gonna rob the bank because he's tired of waiting because he's on edge. Yeah. Okay.

Sarah:

He's so stressed out because he can't get the strong room receipt. So because Barnaby has a strong room receipt, they'll never suspect that it's us bringing it into the bank.

Mark:

Except I'll do it with no mask on.

Sarah:

In broad daylight.

Mark:

In broad daylight. Well, it doesn't matter because Collins found the money already. He's stuffing it in his shirt, and then the old lady's like, inspector Barber, is there? And he's like, I'm just gonna put this back.

Sarah:

Poor guy. He looks so sad when he's putting it back.

Mark:

So Collins like, there's money in there? Wow.

Sarah:

I never would have guessed.

Mark:

Tony breaks in. The the multitude of decafs get spilt. Yes. And he's got a gun, a handgun. Yes.

Mark:

He's put in there.

Sarah:

Dug up from a hole.

Mark:

And he's putting in people's faces. He has one bag, so you're like, wait a minute.

Sarah:

All that money's not gonna fit in that bag.

Mark:

But he's got bin liners.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because so he thinks he's gonna leave there carrying a whole bunch of bin bags full of money.

Mark:

Yes. And he tells Barnaby to help out. Yeah.

Sarah:

Or he's gonna kill them. Now And then and then the bank clerk just quietly locks the door behind them. Yes.

Mark:

So when they have locations in which I can find where the location is, the CD store, the art shop, I try to find them based on what is seen. Okay?

Sarah:

You wanna know what storefront was used as that storefront.

Mark:

And through this whole episode, I've been trying to find what the bank is. The Shire's Bank. Shire's Bank. And I I tried really hard, and I'm sorry. I didn't wanna look it up.

Mark:

I wanted to find from the episode the quote.

Sarah:

Didn't wanna look it up. Okay. Go ahead.

Mark:

No. I didn't wanna look it up. I wanted to find I had the thrill of finding it.

Sarah:

Okay.

Mark:

Because when I found it, I was like, yes. So I find the location of this of the shop across the street. Mhmm. And I turn the Google Maps around.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

And written on the side of the building where it used to say Shires Bank is the word swig figly.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's just the swig figly.

Mark:

And I'm like What? What the fuck is this place?

Sarah:

It's the Swig Figgly. You don't know about

Mark:

the Swig Figgly? So I type Swig Figgly into my search engine, and it ends up that 8183 High Street in Great Mezenden, H P One Six O, 0 A l is the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Center, and I wanna go. I was like, wait a minute. There's a Roald Dahl Center? I wanna go.

Sarah:

But for three days you've been saying, oh, you just wait till we record because boy, do I have stuff about the location of the bank. Hoo dog. I did a bunch of research and man, I've got some good stuff. I was

Mark:

pleased with myself that I found it.

Sarah:

You called me today and before we got off the phone, said, Mark, I've got three words. And you were like, what? And I said, Roald Dahl Museum. And you were like, no. Yeah.

Sarah:

I found it real quick. I didn't even I didn't even intend to find out what it was.

Mark:

For those of you who don't know who Roald Dahl is, first of all, shame on you.

Sarah:

Get out from under your rock.

Mark:

He lived in Gypsy House, Great Marsden for thirty six years right up until his death in 1990. That's the place where he had the little shack out back where he wrote.

Sarah:

He wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Mark:

I watched videos of kids playing in this. I want to go.

Sarah:

So the interior shots are not of that building and they only used half of the museum front as the bank.

Mark:

Yes. Next time we're in England, we're going to this building. Yeah. By the way, if you wanna invite us to England, we'll come.

Sarah:

Troy comes along, sees the the dropped tea tray

Mark:

Figures out what's going on.

Sarah:

And hits the fire alarm. And now he's action Troy.

Mark:

And Tony has forgotten what things are. What's that? It's an alarm, dude.

Sarah:

Have you ever seen a fire alarm that has a reset button in the middle of it?

Mark:

No. Certainly don't have them at school.

Sarah:

It's convenient.

Mark:

Yes. Is.

Sarah:

For this. Like, oops. Sorry. No. It's not on fire.

Sarah:

Right? Troy throws

Mark:

a fire extinguisher at him, and there is a gunshot.

Sarah:

Yeah. And then they're with a gun. Yes. And it's almost aimed at Troy's head at one point.

Mark:

It is, but they subdue him.

Sarah:

They do.

Mark:

Get the bank back in order. We got more stuff to do.

Sarah:

There's more bad guys coming. Get ready for the second wave of bad guys.

Mark:

By the way, the major is fatally drawn to the dark side of angles.

Sarah:

Did you make him German there for a second?

Mark:

The dark side of ankles.

Sarah:

Love ankles. Oh, Linda. I love your ankles. They are so fabulous.

Mark:

And there's this whole bunch of other stuff that just red herrings all over

Sarah:

the place. It's just a very busy little street for a

Mark:

little while. It's very busy. Anne pulls up

Sarah:

and doesn't quite close the door of her car, though I don't know why. And then

Mark:

Teal is like, why don't we both go touch ankles?

Sarah:

We could have a threesome in the cocking rabbit. Now that he is mid jerk.

Mark:

And then there's this shot of Joyce painting. Meanwhile,

Sarah:

Joyce concocts another murder. And then there's a cat fight. Linda's like sinking in her car and Anne's like, get out of here. I'm going to knock on your window again.

Mark:

Knock knock knock knock.

Sarah:

Get out of here. I would have just grabbed the convertible top and yanked it back.

Mark:

So the DCs arrive. They have two bags.

Sarah:

They're really ready. They got two gym bags.

Mark:

Two gym bags. And they're like five mil. This is awesome. And then Barnaby and Troy are like, thank God you're here.

Sarah:

I love it. I love that Tom and Troy, after being sort of separated for part of the episode, now are in cahoots against the bad cops. It's like, yay. It's a good feeling.

Mark:

Yeah. So they find out, they're like, well, we're not used to dealing with this much money. So we're gonna have to get you, have you sign off.

Sarah:

We're sure glad you're here to help because this is above us country cops. Yes. And then Colin just locks them in.

Mark:

Yep. And we find out that Pinkney is Gudgeon. Gudgeon.

Sarah:

The actor does a great job because he goes from being this kind of, is this pencil right kind of guy to being an authoritative DCI.

Mark:

And he's like, Oh, shut up, Barnaby. You don't know what you're talking about. Barnaby's like, no. Yes I do. You're like, the murderer.

Sarah:

Yeah. And I like that his sergeants turn on him when they find out that he killed Angela. Like that's a step too far for them.

Mark:

I don't believe that. I believe they're looking for a way out and the way out is, oh, you said there would be no violence.

Sarah:

Either way, it's clever writing

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

Because it makes them a bit more interesting Yes. Than just, you know, a couple of thugs.

Mark:

So everybody's taken away, the money is taken away, and poor Colin is left in the basement.

Sarah:

Yeah. And Barrett comes along because he's looking for Anne who he loves. Yes.

Mark:

Why does he end up in the basement of the bank looking for Anne?

Sarah:

Because she said she was gonna go to the bank. He's chased her all the way there on foot.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

And then he notices the linen press that has held all the money.

Mark:

The Wilkinson linen press. He says it

Sarah:

was made by Joseph Wilkinson.

Mark:

Yes. Is that a real person?

Sarah:

You remember the cock and rabbit? Yeah. Okay. That's a bunch of cock and I fell down the rabbit hole. Looking for Joseph Wilkinson.

Sarah:

Okay. Cause I wanted to know, cause after this Tessa's like, I got brand new clothes. And Colin's like, I quit drinking. Like how much money did they get out of selling that linen press?

Mark:

A small fortune.

Sarah:

Must have been a lot. It's really Joshua Wilkinson.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

He was born in 1725 and died in 1790. Okay. And he was the first of a long line of Wilkinsons who are world renowned furniture makers, but these are Victorian furniture makers.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

He was an upholder, furniture maker, house broker, and undertaker. Oh, what's an upholder? I'm glad you asked. It took me a while to find that. I had to find the most

Mark:

Longer than me finding the Royal Doll Museum?

Sarah:

I had find the website of the most worshipable brotherhood of upholders Oh. To find out

Mark:

what it is. Excellent. I'll put that in show notes.

Sarah:

The simplest version is upholsterer. Okay. But really, it means decorator. Like, so an upholder was An somebody

Mark:

interior decorator?

Sarah:

Yeah. And like an upholder was somebody who was tasked with decorating an entire room.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Right. But they were known for not just like purchasing things, but they would make the things too.

Mark:

Oh, okay.

Sarah:

And it's interesting that his family is also known as undertakers because at this point, if you made the caskets, you ran the funeral.

Mark:

Oh, okay.

Sarah:

And they were furniture makers. So they made caskets too. And they bought and sold real estate. I could find a couple of listings of Wilkinson linen presses from this era, from the original era of Joshua Wilkinson. So these would have been made in like the 1750s or sixties.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

The most expensive one I could find was from a Christie's listing that was less than two years old and it only went for 15 ks.

Mark:

That's not a lot of money.

Sarah:

I Compared found

Mark:

to the 5,000,000 they had in their hands.

Sarah:

Yeah. And I found others that were as low as 5 ks and they looked identical to that linen press, like same, like kind of curve to the shelves and same set of shelves with drawers on the bottom. I mean, they were just as big as that. They were, these are very big pieces of furniture because they held all the linen for the house. So this would have been tablecloths, bed linens, curtains.

Sarah:

I mean, you name it. And so they had great big drawers because they held very big pieces of fabric, 15 ks, not enough to set up Tessa and Colin

Mark:

Sunning ankles and foreign climbs. No. No. So then there's the auction that is clearly glued on the end. It's cute.

Mark:

It is because Joyce's painting comes up and no one's bidding on it. It's sad.

Sarah:

And then major teal bids.

Mark:

Well, no. Bernie Bids first. He bought £50 first.

Sarah:

But then Teal in his clever little way bids a £100, which means Tom has to bid more than that.

Mark:

The episode ends with Tom bidding a 150.

Sarah:

I thought that was cute. Well, thought Major Teal was clever.

Mark:

Yep. Right? I do too.

Sarah:

So best corpse? None. Yeah. There's only one and she's not very good.

Mark:

The Wilkinson cupboard thing.

Sarah:

The linen press is the best corpse.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

And then, after the credits, a lot of people go to jail.

Mark:

A lot of people go to jail. Linda and Anne are one of them.

Sarah:

I don't know. I think Linda's probably got some charges pending.

Mark:

Tony and all the boys go to jail.

Sarah:

Yes. The two the three cops and Tony definitely go to jail. Barrett, skin of his teeth isn't associated with any of it.

Mark:

No. I think Anne probably gets away just fine. Think Barrett gets some money from the sale of the Wilkinson too.

Sarah:

Yeah. I I would think that Colin would give him a little cut. Yep. Right? I think Anne and and Barrett probably end up together.

Sarah:

They seem pretty happy together.

Mark:

They do.

Sarah:

And the end. Yep. Tessa and Colin are happy.

Mark:

I guess. She has a new outfit on.

Sarah:

And some eyeshadow.

Mark:

Yes. The end. Well, that was quite the episode.

Sarah:

Come the cat.

Mark:

Come quack the cat. It is a kind of different episode, you know, where we don't have this crazy spectacular stuff, but all that's about to change because episode 27, which is season six episode four, is Tale of Two Hamlets in which we have the house of Satan. Yes. And somebody gets blown up real good right at the beginning.

Sarah:

And Joyce is there for it again.

Mark:

Yep. As a heck.

Sarah:

And at this point, you can't shake off the suspicion that maybe Joyce is involved in bodies being made. Maybe. Just maybe. She loves Tom so much, she just doesn't want him to be bored.

Mark:

I don't like when there are only one death. I'm I'm sorry. I'm not like gruesome or anything like that, but when I it's murders plural.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's not Midsomer murder.

Mark:

Yeah. So

Sarah:

And you still get the variety when there's only one.

Mark:

And there's lots of people who could have got killed here.

Sarah:

Yeah. There's plenty of people

Mark:

They who could have got killed.

Sarah:

The gouache couple could have got

Mark:

killed. The

Sarah:

gouache couple could have like overheard something and they could have got killed. They would have been great corpses.

Mark:

The landlady could have got killed.

Sarah:

Absolutely. Oh, so many opportunities for corpses.

Mark:

And the other thing could have got killed.

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah.

Mark:

I'm very tired.

Sarah:

So let us know which of our kitty cat plots you liked best.

Mark:

Or provide one of your own.

Sarah:

Yes. You guys were so awesome in the last two weeks, giving us ideas for, actors who should play a part in an episode of Midsomer. So we had high expectations. You guys are so creative. I'm really to see what you come up with and do seriously rewatch the scene with the crane.

Mark:

And I'll post on Wednesday on the Facebook groups and stuff like that a reminder for this question so that you

Sarah:

have something to reply to.

Mark:

Something to reply to.

Sarah:

Alright. That's all for this week, Maniacs.

Mark:

Remember we're on Facebook and Instagram and the Twitters at Midsommar Maniacs dot com. We have an email address of Midsommar Maniacs Gmail dot com.

Sarah:

We're on the Reddit.

Mark:

The new episodes are being broadcast in The UK this week, so if you're in The UK and watching those new episodes remember we have mini episodes for each one of those that are spoiler free. The first one this week was mini episode one. It's pronounced Chinook.

Sarah:

They're spoiler free. So you can feel free to listen to those mini episodes. They're not going ruin it for you. No. Wouldn't do that today.

Mark:

We just there's just fifteen minutes of how we watch the show.

Sarah:

Yeah. So Alright. Until next time, Maniacs.

Mark:

Bye, Maniacs. Bye, Maniacs.

Sarah:

We need to move on. We need to hit the jackass detectives and how they treat Troy. Yep. And then we need to get to the Evidence Room.

Mark:

This says that the cock and bull, they did the interiors there.

Sarah:

Oh, it's cock and rabbit.

Mark:

It is. Also, there's a whole thing about roll call.

Sarah:

You can talk about that when they're in the strong room.

Mark:

Okay. Thou shalt not sleep with thy brother's wives.

Sarah:

Yeah. It wasn't like that.

Mark:

No. It was unfortunate, but I was Uncover her nakedness. Something like that.

Sarah:

What were they?

Mark:

I don't know.

Sarah:

Hey, Maniacs.

Mark:

Hey, Maniacs.

Sarah:

It's Midsomer Maniacs.

Mark:

Midsomer Maniacs is a podcast dedicated to the ITV series, Midsomer Murders. Each week, we dig into the episodes of the show, including the murders, the mayhem, the loonies, and everything we love.

Sarah:

I'm Sarah.

Mark:

And I'm Mark.

Sarah:

And he doesn't always talk like that.

Mark:

Nope. Most of the time I talk normally.

Sarah:

If you did, it would be really weird.

Mark:

Yeah. I don't do the DJ voice anymore.

Sarah:

So did you, before we dive in for this week, have you decided on which of us won from last week with our cat plot?

Mark:

We're currently tied. Oh. I posted on the webs on our Twitter and on the Facebook groups and we have not received any extra votes right now or suggestion.

Sarah:

Kumquat's relying on you people.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Just saying.

Mark:

Slice of Murderer is relying on you people. I know I don't have a fancy cat name, but let's go.

Sarah:

He's Kumquat, the king tanker's cat.

Mark:

Just as a warning, if you watch your kids, if the show is too much for your kids, then probably too much for this here podcast. But again, this is a pretty tame episode, which is 27, A Tale of Two Hamlets.

Sarah:

Which is season six, episode four. Yes. Before we dive in though, another thing up at the top.

Mark:

We have two things up at the top.

Sarah:

So the first thing that we want to do before we dive in to A Tale of Two Hamlets is introduce a new little segment called Midsomer in the News. So I have a Google alert for Midsomer Murders and every day in my news feeds, see random stories that mentioned Midsomer Murders and most of them are TV listings, right?

Mark:

They're like- Midsomer's on tonight.

Sarah:

There are stories about like, here's the cast of this new show it's on the same night as Midsomer Murder

Mark:

or something like Midsomer or something like that.

Sarah:

And we're not interested in those stories.

Mark:

No. They're boring.

Sarah:

There is a whole stream of reporters out there looking for clickbait search engine optimization keywords who think that mentioning Midsomer Murders in a story, no matter how tangentially related will get their story more traffic. And in the Midsomer Murders segment, we are going to point out the most egregious, reaching, desperate use of Midsomer murders in relationship to a new story.

Mark:

And oh boy, do we have one to start off with?

Sarah:

Yes. The Eastern Daily Press. Which is a know, this is not the sun. Right? This is a small newspaper.

Mark:

Published 01/23/2020. Recent article. The latest and the greatest. Here's the headline. Bid for revamped toilets that look like shed from Midsomer murders delayed.

Sarah:

It's not even like voted successfully or down voted, defeated. It's that it's delayed. That's that's not even news by itself. All by itself, it's not even news. So this is a village where, there's a proposal for some new public toilets and some designs have been submitted for these new public toilets, and people didn't like them.

Mark:

Plans to revolutionize the coastal towns public toilets have been put on hold after a debate broke out over their appearance. And their appearance? The facilities at North Norfolk District Council, NNDC, owned Steerman's Yard Car Park in Wells are set to be completely remodeled at a cost of £600,000.

Sarah:

Wait a minute. It costs £600,000 to renovate public toilets?

Mark:

Apparently, it does. Well, when you

Sarah:

design them to look like Midsomer murders.

Mark:

One of the people involved who represents Wells and Holcomb expressed his objection to the plans and said the toilets look like a tractor shed from Midsomer Murders.

Sarah:

That's the first mention. And then there's another mention.

Mark:

And further, it looks like an art designer's idea of a tractor shed for Midsomer Murders. Wells desperately needs toilets, but not looking like this.

Sarah:

Yeah. Wow. And they complained they were gonna be made out of, like, corrugated metal that would rust and look like something out of some episode of a murder show.

Mark:

That has nothing to do with Midsomer Murders.

Sarah:

I don't remember a tractor shed being a key thing in any episode. I mean, there's a lot of barns and stuff, but Yeah. Not something specifically a tractor shed that looked like a public toilet.

Mark:

No. Definitely not. What a great find, great article.

Sarah:

Who wrote this awesome piece by the way? Let's give

Mark:

them a little bit

Sarah:

of Shane credit.

Mark:

Awesome piece was written by Abigail Nicholson. Abigail Nicholson.

Sarah:

You can do better than this.

Mark:

You could do better, Abigail.

Sarah:

If you're gonna if you're gonna try to get some traffic by mentioning an awesome show in your story, do better.

Mark:

Absolutely. And number two off the top is that, Midsomer season 21 episode two airs tomorrow night in Britain. Which episode is that? That is the Miniature Murders, which will be airing on Tuesday, February 4 at eight to ten on ITV.

Sarah:

It's a good episode. Absolutely.

Mark:

And what I'm gonna tell you is we have a mini episode that has no spoilers based on that. It's mini episode two, the Midsum the Miniature Murders, don't eat the bubbles.

Sarah:

They're nice and short and sweet, and they give you some things to look for while you're watching the episode for the first time without ruining the plot or giving anything away.

Mark:

No spoilers. So if

Sarah:

you wanna watch like a maniac, listen to the mini episode before you watch the new one.

Mark:

So back to A Tale of Two Hamlets season six episode four filmed in September and October 2002, broadcast the 01/24/2003 to 9,280,000 viewers directed by Peter Smith and written by Alan Plater.

Sarah:

Summarize your feeling about this episode, just like in a sentence. What do you think of it?

Mark:

This is kind of the last gasp of the ruling class episode. Right? You get the socialist townies versus the lords and the manor, and there's all this tradition involved with an attempt to throw a hammer film in the middle of it.

Sarah:

That's a good summary. My summary is shorter.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Oops. We edited out the plot.

Mark:

Yeah. Well, there is that.

Sarah:

There's some important information on the cutting room floor that makes this one a little hard to follow.

Mark:

There are a couple of times I'm like, the what? How?

Sarah:

That's who? Who? Did what? And we're just supposed

Mark:

to know. Well, we start with the cold opening with bunch of old timey people running towards the manor house peasants. But quickly, we realize it's set in modern day because there's cameras and girls who go, oh.

Sarah:

And Joyce is one of them.

Mark:

Yes. She's a she's a milkmaid.

Sarah:

She's a hag. We need more hags. This is part of the big reveal for the house of Satan part two.

Mark:

Now we've talked about this. I was absolutely sure this was part of the filming of the movie.

Sarah:

But it clearly isn't. No. It's not. Like, in our in our memories, they were in costume because they were part of the film. Yes.

Sarah:

But there's clearly absolutely no reason for half of the crowd to be in costume.

Mark:

There's another thing there's no reason of, and that's the audio microphone noise again. I just hate it. I know you hate me insane. Rupert comes up to the microphone to explain what's going on, that this is the Ellis Bell satanic experience.

Sarah:

So Ellis Bell is the author of a book called The House of Satan. That is what the movie is loosely based on. We find out it's very loose.

Mark:

Yep. And he's played by Larry Smith.

Sarah:

Larry Smith is an actor who is playing Ellis Bell. Now the important thing to know about Ellis Bell is that they didn't pull that name out of the ether.

Mark:

Where did they get that name?

Sarah:

Ellis Bell was actually the pseudonym for Emily Bronte. Oh. And when she published Wuthering Heights, it was under the name Ellis Bell.

Mark:

No relation to

Sarah:

me. And one of her sisters also went by a male pseudonym with the last name Bell and Well,

Mark:

my name's Bell, but I don't publish books as women.

Sarah:

You're not secretly a woman? Nope. Okay. That's good to know. I'm not sure why Ellis Bell is in the movie because he wrote the book, but it's not about him.

Sarah:

It's fiction. Yeah. Maybe. So I don't really know why they need an actor to play him.

Mark:

Yeah. I don't really need to know need to know that either. But, you know, maybe it's like a rapper around the movie or something.

Sarah:

Well, doesn't matter because he goes kaboom.

Mark:

Boy, does he go kaboom.

Sarah:

He walks into the summer house where the author supposedly wrote the book and explodes.

Mark:

Well, I think it's all the cocaine up his nose.

Sarah:

The Peruvian marching powder? Yeah. Actually, it's Semtex. This is a big explosion.

Mark:

It's ginormous. It would have blown all the windows out of the back of the house.

Sarah:

Now they do do a nice effect with a fan or something against the crowd. They look like they're experiencing the blast. Yeah. But there'd be shrapnel in all

Mark:

those people. All those people. At least some of those people would die.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

And Luckily, leave all the shrapnel lying around.

Sarah:

For the whole episode. They've got it roped off, they just happen to leave, you know, just bits of vinyl siding sitting on.

Mark:

I wonder if there's bits of Larry lying around.

Sarah:

George does say he's in bits.

Mark:

He does indeed. He says most of him is in a bag.

Sarah:

When Tom and Troy, are coming to the crime scene, they stop at a crossroads and look left and look right.

Mark:

Before that before that, the last thing about the explosion is the chicken clocking.

Sarah:

Oh, yes.

Mark:

Why is there a chicken clocking noise? There's no chickens in the scene. There's a big explosion, which would have scared the crap out of any actual chicken.

Sarah:

The chicken did it.

Mark:

Yeah. I guess so.

Sarah:

That's the chicken celebrating. I blew up Larry.

Mark:

I guess so.

Sarah:

So Tom and Troy are on their way. They look left and look right at this intersection. And at first you think it's because Troy is a bad driver and he's been told that he needs to make sure there's no oncoming traffic.

Mark:

Look both ways, Troy.

Sarah:

But in reality, he's trying to decide which way to go because he's trying to decide Between Upper? Upper Warden and Lower Warden.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

And of course, Upper Warden is down the hill while Lower Warden is up the hill. That seems counterintuitive. It's because one is more north than the other. Oh. It's the one that's north that is upper.

Mark:

Oh, because I thought it might have been like one was in the upper part of the river and one was in the lower part of the river. But you said it's north you say it's north and south.

Sarah:

I say that only because I found some actual villages in The UK that are upper and lower. Okay. And that one of them is on a river.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

And it's the case that you're saying. And the other set is just by compass. So there's upper and lower slaughter. Which are in the Cotswolds.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

And these are very well known villages. If you just Google UK upper and lower, it's all slaughter.

Mark:

It's all slaughter. Everywhere. All slaughter all the time.

Sarah:

All the time. They're beautiful though. I mean, they're gorgeous places. They're in

Mark:

the Cotswolds.

Sarah:

More interesting though is a place in Swindon.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

You ready for this?

Mark:

Is there anything interesting in Swindon?

Sarah:

Yeah. There's three. Okay. There's Upper Lockmead.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Lower Lockmead. Yes. And there's another one. What do you think it's called?

Mark:

Lefty Lockmead.

Sarah:

Lockmead. Oh. It's between them. So you can drive from Upper Lotmeade to Lotmeade to Lower Lotmeade and back again.

Mark:

Excellent. I'm sure the post loves that.

Sarah:

I'm sure there's no confusion.

Mark:

None at all.

Sarah:

At all. Nope. Yeah. Those are the only ones I could find. I could find greater and lesser, big and small, but upper and lower, it's slaughter or allot meat.

Sarah:

But they really do that.

Mark:

So Troy and Barnaby get to the manor, and there's a sign outside the manor that it's Upper Warden Manor, open to non residents, guest accommodations, all rooms en suite. There's a gymnasium. A gymnasium. And to which I said, there's no more summer house.

Sarah:

Yeah. They don't lose summer house on the on the sign. So it's clear this is a manor house, a family manor house that they've now had to open for commerce. Yes. To pay for the upkeep.

Sarah:

So they've got guests accommodations. They've got a tea room or a restaurant or something like that.

Mark:

It is the Smythe Webster's.

Sarah:

Yes. You have to have a double barrel name if you own a an estate. Absolutely. I'm SmithRobbins. Can I have an estate?

Mark:

Sure. I'll give you one. Have an estate. Awesome.

Sarah:

We find out that Larry Smith was a pretty well known actor, though Tom doesn't know who he is, but Troy does.

Mark:

Troy does a lovable geezer, Diamond Geezer voice for Larry who was in a show called Diamond Geezers.

Sarah:

He's Larry Smith. Yep.

Mark:

From Diamond Geezer. And he's, Birds and Booze in the tabloids.

Sarah:

So there actually was a show called Diamond Geezer.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Or Diamond Geezer. Yes. From 2005 to 2007.

Mark:

Well, Larry was in it.

Sarah:

So there was only one season of this show, but it went from March 2005 to April 2007.

Mark:

Well, it's British shows. They don't follow a schedule and they're of indeterminate numbers of episodes.

Sarah:

Well, starred David Jason.

Mark:

David

Sarah:

Jason. Who's also in A Touch of Frost.

Mark:

Oh, okay.

Sarah:

And did that special we watched about the people who live on the long boats. Do remember on the canal boats? Yeah. So I wanted to see if our impression of what a diamond geyser was, was accurate to what the actual definition is. Cause I thought we had a pretty good grip.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

So describe what you think a diamond geezer is.

Mark:

Diamond geezer is a middle aged white man gangster from London who speaks with a Cockney accent.

Sarah:

And does he wear a lot of jewelry or?

Mark:

Track suits, jewelry. Yep.

Sarah:

Okay. So that's kind of the stereotype I had of a diamond geyser too. Yes. We are completely wrong.

Mark:

Oh, okay. What's a diamond geyser?

Sarah:

Well, a geyser is one of us. Right? Like, like a fella. A fella. Like a dude.

Sarah:

You know, a bro.

Mark:

My geysers?

Sarah:

Yeah. Okay. My geysers. Geysers. And diamond means that he's good and solid and reliable.

Sarah:

Okay. So if you said your best friend was, you know, he's a good fella. He's reliable. I can trust him. He's a diamond geyser.

Mark:

Like Joshua, I played board games with. He's a diamond geyser. Yeah. Excellent. It

Sarah:

has nothing to do with the bling in the track suits and being kind of tacky

Mark:

and gangster. Does he wear all that stuff there?

Sarah:

Never mind that Brits can pronounce geyser as geyser. So like Old Faithful is a geyser. Yeah. Which just makes me think of diamonds coming out of Old Faithful, which would be awesome. It's a geyser.

Sarah:

It's a geyser, not a geezer. Yeah. But if he was a diamond geyser, that'd be even different. You know? Anyway

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

So Danny A geezer is not what we thought it was.

Mark:

Danny the killer, sort of? So at this point in time

Sarah:

He's a co killer.

Mark:

Yeah. Okay. So at this point in time, I'd forgotten who the killer was

Sarah:

and Everybody likes Danny.

Mark:

I actually thought it was Laura for a second and I've I've fast forwarded the episode to see who the killer was and I saw that it was Danny. Okay?

Sarah:

You're like oh okay.

Mark:

Okay so Danny's the killer. Okay. He brings some drinks to the family sitting outside, and they have their own harpsichord theme.

Sarah:

They do. Every time they're in those four chairs facing the lawn

Mark:

That is some serious cautiousness. Mhmm. Do you have your own herb score theme?

Sarah:

I don't. I also don't have a

Mark:

does that do? What is a

Sarah:

is a ditch that you put around a formal garden that keeps deer from being able to get in it.

Mark:

How how on earth does that stop a deer?

Sarah:

I don't know how they actually stop deer, but that's what a is, and there is one in on their land.

Mark:

Okay. It circles around. It's a And we we meet the family. Yes. Which is

Sarah:

That's what the deer say when they walk across it.

Mark:

Is Rupert and his fourth wife Wendy. Wendy. Simon, who is the next oldest

Sarah:

He's the minister.

Mark:

And his wife Laura, and we find out that Frank, was giving Larry the coke at the beginning, is actually the youngest son.

Sarah:

Yeah, so there's three brothers Rupert, Simon, and Frank. Yes. We found out later there was a fourth brother, the oldest brother, Singin. Singin. But he died.

Sarah:

So Rupert, Simon and Frank.

Mark:

Now Rupert- Lovely eyelashes.

Sarah:

Rupert, the oldest brother, the Lord of the Menna is played by Ronald Pickup.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

And he's been in a lot of things. He was in both of the best exotic Marigold hotel movies.

Mark:

Yes, he was.

Sarah:

He's really good in those. He was also in another Midsomer episode in 2008. He's in the Magician's Nephew.

Mark:

Oh, I love that episode.

Sarah:

His daughter is also in that too.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

His daughter's name is Rachel Pickup and she plays the girl with the long blonde hair who's kind of crystal y and Looney. Looney. Yes. Okay. But the most notable thing

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

That Ronald Pickup has been in.

Mark:

The most notable.

Sarah:

We've watched the original Father Browns.

Mark:

Yes, we have.

Sarah:

Do you remember the one called the Eye Of Apollo where there's a sun cult on top of a building?

Mark:

In the building in which Flambeau has his detective agency.

Sarah:

Yes. Ronald Pickup plays Callan, the leader of the sun cult.

Mark:

That's right. He does.

Sarah:

And he has an awesome headband.

Mark:

He does. He is a fantastic that whole episode is fantastic.

Sarah:

Yes. Alright. Tons of things he's been in, but, yeah, that that was my favorite thing that he's been in.

Mark:

We'll have to put a picture of that in the show notes.

Sarah:

Simon is played by Christopher Good. He's not really been in much. But the youngest brother, Frank, is played by Jonathan Hyde.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

And he's been in a lot of awesome things.

Mark:

Yes, he has.

Sarah:

He was in Jumanji.

Mark:

Yes. He played the

Sarah:

Van Pelt.

Mark:

Van Pelt, the crazy guy.

Sarah:

Oh, he's a terrifying safari hunter.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

With a great big mustache and a huge elephant gun Yes. Who seriously wants to kill people. Yep. He also played Elbridge Palmer in The Strain. You didn't watch The Strain with me,

Mark:

did you? We watched at least a season of it.

Sarah:

He's the old kind of millionaire guy who's behind the whole, trying to capture the the strain because he wants to be infected so he can live forever because he's about to die. Yeah. He was also in Anaconda.

Mark:

Oh, well, who wasn't in Anaconda?

Sarah:

And he was in Titanic.

Mark:

Oh, that sounds like a good resume.

Sarah:

Yeah. He's been in lots of things. And he either plays the, you know, I'm an upbeat mucky muck fancy man. Yep. Or or he plays this kind of Hollywood schmoozer highlight And kinda

Mark:

has to do both here.

Sarah:

Yeah. He he does it well.

Mark:

Of the both family.

Sarah:

He did go to the tanning bed in anticipation of this role. Yeah. He is the least pasty person in the family for sure.

Mark:

Barnaby needs a room. So let's find

Sarah:

They need a room for an incident room, right?

Mark:

Let's put him in the church school room.

Sarah:

Yeah, that's a good place to put him.

Mark:

More on the church school room later.

Sarah:

You remember Simon's face when they say Rupert says, well, we can just put them up in the school room at the church. And Simon at first looks like, hey. And then he's like, oh, and you don't know why.

Mark:

I think I know why.

Sarah:

I thought it was just because Rupert was kind of imposing on him and saying they will be there whether you like it or not, which he is, but there's another layer to Simon's response.

Mark:

Yes. There is. So Phil stops by. He's a handyman, Phil Harrison. He stops by and sees Danny in the kitchen.

Mark:

And they have a good old talky talk.

Sarah:

So Danny Pinchel is the cook. Yes. Right? That's his role as he cooks for the restaurant.

Mark:

And kind of a butler too.

Sarah:

And he's sort of a butler to the family. He's obviously got a relationship with Rupert and he's kind of like a son to him because Rupert doesn't have any children with any of his four wives. We don't know what happened with the other three. Yes. And so Danny has this role and he does such a good job of being very clean-cut and presentable.

Sarah:

He's always got his little white apron on and his polo shirt. Yes. The kitchen is spotless.

Mark:

Yep. And lonely.

Sarah:

Yeah. He doesn't have any help in there.

Mark:

He does it all on his own because that's how he gives Phil a lobster and a big old bile a bottle of booze.

Sarah:

Yeah. He's played by Joe Joe Stone Fueings.

Mark:

Wow. That's a name.

Sarah:

He's, again, been in a lot of things. The most interesting thing that I found about him is that he's been married to Nancy Carroll for a long time, and you would know her as Lady Felicia in the new Father Browns.

Mark:

Oh, Lady Felicia, who shows up in the Midsomer coming up.

Sarah:

Yep. They've been married for a long The screamy, screamy woman Midsomer. Yes. But Danny is so clean-cut and nice and presentable and respectful.

Mark:

Yes. Everybody likes Danny.

Sarah:

Everybody likes Danny.

Mark:

And Danny likes the spatio so much. He drowns it.

Sarah:

Joyce has all the scoop. Right? Because either Joyce or Cully have to have the local gossip.

Mark:

Apparently, it's all a pack of lies.

Sarah:

Because Alice wrote the book in Lower Warden. We've got this battle between Upper Warden and Lower Warden.

Mark:

And then they just offhand say that the film is a travesty and it's all Oliver Cromwell's fault. What what does Oliver Cromwell have to do with this?

Sarah:

That that's, one of the things that wound up on the floor.

Mark:

Okay. Who knows? Would that be the floor of the Cricket Pavilion?

Sarah:

We'll get to the Cricket Pavilion, but right now it's on the Editing Room Floor. But you know what? Larry's death is kind of good for business. I guess so. That's what Rupert thinks.

Sarah:

Though we don't see any guests or any people in the restaurant or anything the whole time.

Mark:

But they had a good lunch. Yeah. Joyce loves Danny's meaty balls.

Sarah:

The hotel

Mark:

He just lost his mother. Such a sweet boy.

Sarah:

The hotel's really nice. They've got a reception desk desk in the foyer. Oh, I'm sorry. Foyer.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

I'm an Hoosier. And I became fascinated with this life-sized devil sculpture that is holding like the business cards for the hotel.

Mark:

It has like a big forked beard. Forked beard. Oh, look

Sarah:

for him. He's fantastic. Yes. I found one wood carved statue online. That's even closely.

Mark:

Legs and everything.

Sarah:

Yeah. He's not a satyr though. No. Cause he's got two horns. And he's got a tail, A long tail.

Mark:

Oh. So he's goatee.

Sarah:

But goats don't have long tails. No. Devils have long tails. Satyrs don't have long tails. Neither do fowlins.

Sarah:

So it's definitely a devil in a waistcoat but he's fantastic I would love to have one

Mark:

Tom goes back to the manor driving past the broken shards of the summer house

Sarah:

again this is one of those episodes where George just appears and says pithy things and then disappears Larry's in bits.

Mark:

The reason why he's come to the house is he wants Larry's help with the press conference. And the press conference is at the church school room.

Sarah:

Where they sit at a table meant for little kids. Their knees are all up in their chest.

Mark:

I wanted to see if they're they were sitting on little elementary school chairs too. Yep. But then I got completely obsessed with what the children had drawn in the church school room.

Sarah:

Because the camera pans down the hallway across all this children's art and then into the door where you see press, if you wanna call them saying inverted quotes, press, and everybody's sitting at the table to speak to them.

Mark:

So we

Sarah:

both responded to this art. You've studied it.

Mark:

There is a green devil with a house on fire, a blue devil, a grim reaper. Blue devils setting a house on fire and flying above it in what looks like tax while a girl cry. Blue devils over a fire with grim reapers, and there's this giant green snake in flames. What are they telling these children?

Sarah:

I thought I tried to figure it out. Like, is there a story in the bible that they were drawing out?

Mark:

No. Or did

Sarah:

they say, hey. Draw a picture of what you think happens after you die?

Mark:

No. I hope not. It's just all horrible.

Sarah:

It's like bad therapy painting for children. Like, show me where he touched you. Exactly. And what are your bad dreams about?

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

No wonder Simon was like, maybe we shouldn't oh, well, okay. The press are gonna be there.

Mark:

I'm assuming the production people had a blast making those pancakes.

Sarah:

They got out the watercolor and the finger paints. Yep. The glue sticks.

Mark:

So Murdoch is here.

Sarah:

Not that Murdoch.

Mark:

Not Murdoch Mystery's Murdoch. It's Murdoch of the Costin Echo. Yeah. He's skeezy, right? He is.

Mark:

He asks a drug related question. But what other press is here? Jack Wilson from the Upper Warden Church Newsletter.

Sarah:

Yes. He owns Hard hitting news.

Mark:

He owns the bookshop on the high Street, and he wants to know he wants everybody to know this is all local, and you shall just go home.

Sarah:

And it's probably people from Lower Warden anyway. Because they're evil down there.

Mark:

They are.

Sarah:

Up there, wherever they are. They immediately start to build up this hatred between the two villages. Right? But we don't really know why except that maybe Upper Warden sort of stole Alice Bell from them.

Mark:

Maybe. But there's a lot of hatred, especially between Anne and Emily with their bad

Sarah:

They both had nights of passion with Larry Smith.

Mark:

What did it give them bad makeup of being hit in the head with a

Sarah:

Flower arrangement?

Mark:

Flower arrangement? They're gonna fight.

Sarah:

I wish we'd seen the fight.

Mark:

I would have it would have been better.

Sarah:

They probably cut that out too.

Mark:

There's flowers from Darren also.

Sarah:

Darren. He's a local video nerd.

Mark:

Yeah. So about this episode, this is like it shows its age here. Yeah. You don't make fun of nerds like this anymore.

Sarah:

No. What he's

Mark:

Especially into in a show that later does an entire episode about comic book inventions.

Sarah:

Yeah, and has already done Aliens. I mean, Darren is yeah. He's into movies. That doesn't make him that fringy.

Mark:

Not at all.

Sarah:

But he does have a mimeograph machine. That's pretty fringy.

Mark:

Oh, boy. Does he have all sorts of things in the back of that bookstore.

Sarah:

Did you did you wanna have his bookstore? Not the downstairs.

Mark:

No. No. No. No. So Troy goes to the bookstore and goes up and meets with Darren, and he's running his mimeograph machine.

Mark:

Now on the wall are the following. No.

Sarah:

Before you do that, just note it's the upper warden parish newsletter. Yes. Not the upper warden church newsletter Yes. Which is what mister Wilson said.

Mark:

It's incorrect. There's a Betty Blue poster. Betty Blue was a famous sort of independent movie in the nineties. Scars of Dracula, which is our third Scars of Dracula reference.

Sarah:

It's a you know, it's just this is a hammer ish kind of thing. Right?

Mark:

The Deer Hunter, Doctor Who and the Daleks, which is a strange movie on top of everything. Mhmm. Carry on Cowboy, which really doesn't fit with the rest of it. No. Nosferatu, Horror of Frankenstein, The Man in the White Suit, Lust for a Vampire, all of which I've seen.

Sarah:

Of course, you have.

Mark:

Billy Liar and, of course, house of Satan and Groundhog Day.

Sarah:

Groundhog Day and Carry On Cowboy just don't fit.

Mark:

They don't fit.

Sarah:

They just had some empty spots.

Mark:

In the upper warden parish newsletter that is thrown in front of the screen.

Sarah:

So you paused it and read the entire thing.

Mark:

But, of course, I did. The headline is lower warden strikes again.

Sarah:

They've already convicted them of everything.

Mark:

Other headlines include confirmation classes or an early warning and upper warden floral clips. So I'm like

Sarah:

An early warning about what?

Mark:

Early warning? And so here is the following article under early warning, all in capital letters with an exclamation mark.

Sarah:

As if this is something important that we need to be warned about.

Mark:

Are you ready for this warning? Okay. Are you being warned? Okay. Okay.

Mark:

From the beginning of next month, the vestry hour will be on Thursday evenings at 6PM until 07:30 and not on Wednesday as previous. What's a vestry hour? Vestry hour is when you go to the church when you're planning a baptism or a wedding or a confirmation. When you want to book the church, you go and meet with the minister at that point in time to come up with when it's going be.

Sarah:

You have an hour a week to plan events.

Mark:

It's like office hours for the church.

Sarah:

Wow, I'm glad we're warned. Wouldn't I wanna show up at the wrong time.

Mark:

And there's two advertisements on the bottom, MJH Southern Limited Central Heating and Bob's Electric Services.

Sarah:

They sponsor the parish newsletter?

Mark:

They do indeed sponsor the parish newsletter. But then so all these movie posters and a Parish newsletter, I'm like, this is the best scene ever. And then Troy pulls out his warrant card, and I notice there's a badger on it.

Sarah:

We knew there's a badger on the Midsomer Constabulary Crest.

Mark:

I didn't know the crest was on both sides of the warrant card and he's got it all. I want one of those so bad.

Sarah:

Isn't there somebody on Etsy or something selling fake?

Mark:

Yeah. Like, fake ones.

Sarah:

But it's like a PDF you can print

Mark:

or something. Guess what? It has no better on it.

Sarah:

No badger? Nope. Bet honey badger don't care.

Mark:

Part of me is in the house of Satan.

Sarah:

He's in the, you know, basic satanic experience.

Mark:

So the idea is that the manor house is going to be sold as a hotel and a satanic experience. Okay.

Sarah:

Yes.

Mark:

Boy, Disneyland has nothing to worry about here.

Sarah:

No. They've got one old wine cellar Yeah. With some spinning lights and a big head.

Mark:

A big head and, the subtitle said spooky moaning.

Sarah:

Yeah. There's some spooky moaning coming out of a box.

Mark:

It's an homage. Yeah. That box that's supposedly playing the audio is clearly not a thing that plays audio.

Sarah:

The one that Rupert bangs on?

Mark:

And guess what? If you bang something that's playing audio, it's probably not gonna work any better. No.

Sarah:

It's not gonna help it. It starts to skip like it's a record.

Mark:

But, thankfully, there's two classic movie references in here for Jaws and Psycho. What? Yep. Where? He says, if you show them a plastic shark and or a plastic shower curtain, they'll be happy.

Sarah:

Ah, yes. I get you. I get you.

Mark:

Speaking of movie references, back at the video store, we now see some videos.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

Okay. One of them is a movie called A Town Like Alice.

Sarah:

Okay.

Mark:

Which is about a town like Alice Springs. It's an Australian movie. Oh. Pie, which is a weird independent movie from the nineties, which is great. An x files movie and Nightmare on Elm Street three.

Sarah:

So, you know, quality rentals Yes. That are gonna be really popular in upper warden.

Mark:

Yes. Darren says he knows about classic movies, the prisoner and doctor who.

Sarah:

And he doesn't have relationships as a rule.

Mark:

No. Because there's a rule

Sarah:

against having relationships with him.

Mark:

I guess so.

Sarah:

He's kinda pasty and lives with his grandma.

Mark:

He's a little bit.

Sarah:

So Tom has a conversation with Rupert. Yep. Oh no, it's Frank. I'm sorry.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

It's Frank that says, didn't, it's just like Hitchcock said, actors are cattle.

Mark:

Yes. That's not what he said.

Sarah:

No. What he said was, and I quote from Hitchcock.

Mark:

From Hitch.

Sarah:

I never said actors are cattle. What I said was all actors should be treated like cattle. Excellent.

Mark:

That's fantastic.

Sarah:

And shortly after this, so, you know, and Murdoch are in the pub and he's talking, he's coaching her into giving him a good story. That's not really true. We find out that Darren filmed the explosion, but you know, he can't produce it right away. Then Rupert and Frank are in the woods.

Mark:

Yeah. And here's where the editing problems start.

Sarah:

They're apparently leaving money because someone has demanded well, first, they they go out there, they flip a coin to decide whose plan they're gonna go with. We don't know what plan for what.

Mark:

We're gonna do it father's way. The short sharp shock. Now do you know where that's from? No. It's from the Makito.

Mark:

Oh. I I know lots of different references.

Sarah:

You mean Makoto?

Mark:

The Makoto. Sorry.

Sarah:

The three little little school girls are we that

Mark:

Yes. But it's it's from a general song.

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah. So Frank wins. He says we're gonna do it my way.

Mark:

Right? My way. That's the section in my notes. My way.

Sarah:

My way. Which means we're not gonna leave actual money.

Mark:

No. We're gonna screw these blackmailers.

Sarah:

And we're gonna

Mark:

Who are blackmailing us for I don't know.

Sarah:

Don't know. They never tell us.

Mark:

The chicken.

Sarah:

It's that chicken. It's the chicken that comes along in the motorcycle. Man, does he know how to wear a disguise? He wears all leather and a helmet to ride his motorcycle. Yeah.

Sarah:

So they're out there at night. Wow. He had to normalize that volume. Anyway, So the plan is that they will catch the blackmailer or shoot the blackmailer, but not give him any money. Instead, he'll have a note that says, screw you.

Mark:

And this isn't daytime, right?

Sarah:

Well, no. They flip the coin in daytime and then it's night.

Mark:

Okay. So they go from where they were in the woods at night at day to the nighttime woods. Right? No. No.

Mark:

They don't go there. No. They go home and change first. Well, yeah. And they come back.

Mark:

Well, only one of them changes.

Sarah:

We don't think that they sit there all day.

Mark:

Well, what one of them sat around in the same clothes all day?

Sarah:

Here's what I don't understand, though. Not only do I not understand why they're being blackmailed, why they're being asked to give money. Who knows?

Mark:

He's got some night vision specs.

Sarah:

What I really don't understand is that the blackmailer comes along on a motorcycle in a black helmet, black leathers and rides off, right?

Mark:

Mhmm.

Sarah:

It's well known to everybody that Danny has a motorcycle and wears black leathers and a black helmet, which he probably drives to work. Yeah. Why don't they know it's him?

Mark:

Well, he's a little person.

Sarah:

He's unimportant.

Mark:

I

Sarah:

guess. Rupert thinks of him as his son and he's unimportant?

Mark:

No. He thinks of him as a son for one scene and then not another scene then does think of him

Sarah:

as That's a true. Now we also find out that Phil Harrison has the same motorcycle. Yes. But not the same leathers.

Mark:

No.

Sarah:

So they might've thought it was Phil. Maybe.

Mark:

Maybe.

Sarah:

But they would've known it was one of two people and they act like, it's a complete mystery who that is. Just imagine how different this episode would be if Rupert wasn't such a bad shot and actually shot Danny right here. It'd be very different.

Mark:

That would be a problem because Danny's the killer. If Danny dies, there's a problem.

Sarah:

Wait a minute. Danny does die.

Mark:

I know. This is where I was like, who killed Danny?

Sarah:

Well, it wasn't the person who sprayed Leviticus eighteen sixteen on the church door because that was Sarah. You mean Lev?

Mark:

No. It was Laura.

Sarah:

No. It was Sarah. She's got the spray

Mark:

paint Yes. Yes.

Sarah:

In the Ellis Bell Museum.

Mark:

Oh god. Oh god. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Mark:

It it's it wasn't Lev Yashin who is an actual Russian goalie.

Sarah:

No. It's Leviticus eighteen sixteen.

Mark:

The nakedness of thy brother's wife.

Sarah:

Don't uncover the nakedness or have sex with various animals. There's ramblers in the church. That woman's got a great big stick. She does.

Mark:

What are those ramblers in the church doing? I don't know. Taking pictures.

Sarah:

Whenever I see a character like that in the background who gets a little bit of attention, but not speaking part, I always think that they held a contest. Yeah. Like, are you the biggest Midsomer fan? Enter this sweepstakes and you can be an extra in the Midsomer and those that couple won the sweepstakes or something.

Mark:

Well, the way, Frank works out too fast and dies.

Sarah:

He does. He goes 35 miles an hour on that bike.

Mark:

He actually goes above 35 miles an hour on the bike.

Sarah:

So are we supposed to think that the electric current being run through the bike makes it go faster?

Mark:

Okay. Electricity doesn't work like that.

Sarah:

Okay.

Mark:

It's a little Wiley Coyote this particular death here.

Sarah:

Well, he dies.

Mark:

Yes. And Helen finds him.

Sarah:

Oh, Helen, the receptionist with the really bad perm. I feel bad for her, though. And Laura says, and then there were four. Because they're out there in their chairs with their harpsichord music. And

Mark:

at this point I'm counting glasses and I think Laura's hat bonded her third G and T here.

Sarah:

Wouldn't you be?

Mark:

Oh, I would be for sure.

Sarah:

I mean, liked her son, but her son is still dead. Well It's sad.

Mark:

You know what they

Sarah:

deserve? Father of her son is dead.

Mark:

You know what they deserve? What? A whacking. Whack them and whack them and whack them.

Sarah:

Have you ever read Wind in the Willows?

Mark:

No. But Simon got into it pretty big time with his whacking.

Sarah:

He's a bit upset.

Mark:

I guess so.

Sarah:

So here's what actually happens in Wind in the Willows.

Mark:

Please tell me about the whacking in Window in the Willows.

Sarah:

Let me let me just read a little context. Right? So the animals are, they're getting together and making a plan. Okay. Okay.

Sarah:

We shall creep out quietly under the butler's pantry, cried the mole.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

With our pistols and swords and sticks shouted the rat. Wait a minute. And rushing upon them, said the badger. And whack them and whack them and whack them, cried the toad in ecstasy, running around and around the room and jumping over the chairs.

Mark:

This is more social commentary than Ellis Bell's novel.

Sarah:

They have pistols, swords, and sticks. The sticks, I wasn't surprised by. The pistols

Mark:

Yeah. I'm a little worried

Sarah:

about it. Makes animal sized pistols? Can they make their own pistols? Did mister Toad forge a pistol?

Mark:

And I thought mister Toad was the is mister Toad the villain?

Sarah:

Or He's not mister Toad. He's just Toad. Toad. Toad, rat, mole, and badger.

Mark:

Well, who are they going up against? Everybody else.

Sarah:

Okay. The cute and fuzzy animals

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

That people like to pet. They've funneled under the under the butler's pantry, by the way.

Mark:

Then there's this weird thing where Barnaby says he heard something about Wendy. Not Wendy. He heard something about yeah. Wendy. Wendy with Larry, but no one told him that.

Sarah:

No. It's just I I I think we're just supposed to assume that because Wendy is so much younger than Rupert and she's beautiful that maybe she's sleeping around on him and so he would be upset.

Mark:

Maybe, but they're dropping things all over the place.

Sarah:

There's a gap. Yeah. Right. Where we've not seen the scene where Tom is given some kind of information that might lead him to believe that he's not the kind of guy who would just go, well, you're pretty, so you probably screw everybody. He's not that kind of guy.

Mark:

Yeah. It's not like that. It's weird. Speaking of weird, Darren's at the Eight Bells pub. Yep.

Mark:

And we know why it's called Eight Bells now because that's a full peel. Eight Bells.

Sarah:

That's right. We know that from the Bell Ringers episode.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

Troy gives him a list of all the people who left flowers for Larry. I guess assuming that Darren's local, so he'll recognize every name on the list. Clearly, he doesn't because He doesn't even recognize his own.

Mark:

But he makes a reference to dark satanic mills. Yeah. Do you know where that's from? No. That's from Blake.

Mark:

Oh. And it is about, like, industrial mills.

Sarah:

That makes sense. Yeah. It's kind of over Darren's head though, isn't it? Yeah. Unless it's referenced in a Hammer film, I doubt he would know about that.

Mark:

He seems to.

Sarah:

Darren is in the upper warden TA.

Mark:

Yes. At which point I have a note that says TA?

Sarah:

Territorial Army.

Mark:

Yeah. I didn't know what TA was, and I didn't know how Troy knew he was in the TA.

Sarah:

And even when I heard and I knew what the TA was Territorial army, in my head that was like historical reenactment army.

Mark:

That's what I thought it was.

Sarah:

Not one with machine guns.

Mark:

Oh my gosh. The armory. We'll get there.

Sarah:

Wow. Phil lives in a windmill.

Mark:

And he's not Jonathan Creek.

Sarah:

No. That windmill is actually in Brill. Brill? Yeah. Okay.

Sarah:

That's where that windmill is. Okay. And the bookshop is called the Cottage Bookshop and it's in Penn. Oh. And it looks just like that.

Sarah:

Yes. That claustrophobic, can't get around anywhere, books up to the ceiling.

Mark:

Now when Troy goes to the the windmill, he drives up the driveway to the windmill.

Sarah:

Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Mark:

Yeah. So there is a driveway.

Sarah:

Yeah. Okay. You know what I want to know is why does Emily, Phil's fiancee, hang her bras on the line? Why doesn't she just put them on the sails of the windmill?

Mark:

Well, it's because she got no pants on anyway.

Sarah:

We do. We do get that relationship, right? We know that Emily is engaged to Phil. What we don't know at this point, I guess, and I think we're supposed to know is that Sarah Prouty is his mother.

Mark:

Yeah. We we're never told explicitly until at the end where he's like, Ma, that Phil is Sarah's son.

Sarah:

Hey, Midsomer writers, when two people have different last names, we don't assume they're related.

Mark:

Well, let's take a little trip.

Sarah:

And it it changes everything when you know they're related.

Mark:

Yes. Let's take a little trip to Lower Warden. Oh boy. How I like to call it Junk Town.

Sarah:

My my note says Lower Warden equals junky shithole post apocalyptic village.

Mark:

There's a bed and a frame in the middle of the street.

Sarah:

It's not like they've got a big junk pile to the side of town. No. It's everywhere. They went so over the top. They've even got a nasty black cat.

Mark:

But the Ellis Bell Museum's nice and clean.

Sarah:

It's like, I'm just imagining the scene setters. Like, we we need some junk to strew around this town. No. No. No.

Sarah:

We need more junk than that. Okay. Just just back up a lorry of garbage and some old appliances. We need those too.

Mark:

It's so filthy.

Sarah:

But you can't even get around. Wet and gross. Later, Rupert's trying to drive down the street, and he has to move go around an old dishwasher, a refrigerator, and a mattress to get where he's going. Like, these people have absolutely no pride.

Mark:

Like, I understand Brexit's been hard on you people, but wow.

Sarah:

Well, and you get this sense that lower warden is kind of this, like, socialist Mecca. Right? They reject the whole landed gentry thing, and they're like all about Ingalls and Marx and stuff.

Mark:

The proletariat don't clean up their messes.

Sarah:

Apparently they can't organize refuse pickup. But

Mark:

they can sure make

Sarah:

a pub. They can turn the church into a pub and organize that, raise money and do the building work themselves. But they can't pick a mattress up out of the middle of the street. Or a frame. You know what this village looks like?

Sarah:

What? If our kids ran a village.

Mark:

Our kids are great. They're not the neatest.

Sarah:

No. I take that back. There'd be more trash.

Mark:

Well, as I look into our library and see a mattress on the floor. Yes.

Sarah:

Next to a punching bag. Yeah.

Mark:

Maybe it is our kids. So the Ellis Bell Museum, there's some talking, but I'm completely stymied by this thing that happens. Tom buys the book. Mhmm. He gets some change.

Mark:

With his change, he puts some of it in the SPCA bucket.

Sarah:

Right.

Mark:

And then he picks up a spray can.

Sarah:

That I thought was like pledge, like dusting Clean.

Mark:

And then he carries it around while they're talking.

Sarah:

As if he's bought that too.

Mark:

And I was like, has Tom bought a spray can?

Sarah:

Why is he carrying it around?

Mark:

And then my notes go, oh, it's spray paint. Oh, she print sprayed on the door. And finally, the last note is worst vandal ever.

Sarah:

Yeah. But she just leaves it there next to the cash register.

Mark:

Sarah says, I don't kill people unless you're on doctor who.

Sarah:

Oh my god. She was a brain slurper on doctor who. She had a straw and everything. Yep. She says that, Laura Warden hasn't been the same since the great slump.

Sarah:

Do you know what the great slump is?

Mark:

It's a British, sort of international name for the war, worldwide depression after black Monday. The great depression.

Sarah:

Yeah. But I like great slump better than The, great picture of angles that's on the wall behind her when she's talking, when she's standing behind her counter.

Mark:

He's got a little doggy in his beard.

Sarah:

He's got a puppy in his beard. It's the weirdest picture. It's not supposed to be a puppy. Okay. It's just that the way his beard is shaded and shaped, it looks like there's a little puppy poking out in

Mark:

from It's under his weird because we didn't know who it was at first. It's clearly angles when you look at it, But I couldn't find that picture of angles anywhere.

Sarah:

No. But he does have a big weird beard.

Mark:

He does. Always. With a puppy.

Sarah:

But that one, he's got it looks like there's a chihuahua hiding under his beard. I didn't I didn't have anything to drink before I watched this episode. I swear.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

I actually saw a puppy beard.

Mark:

So Troy goes to talk to Danny in the kitchen and things go off the rails here. First of all, Mrs. Bartimaeus still wants his meatballs.

Sarah:

And we find out that Danny did some time. Right?

Mark:

Well, kind of. He was at Borestowl, which is a type of youth detention center in The United Kingdom.

Sarah:

Because he blew up a cricket pavilion when he was younger.

Mark:

What? What? What? Okay. Wait a minute.

Mark:

Such a great cold opening is blowing up a cricket pavilion? Why has it not been mentioned till now?

Sarah:

Wait a minute. In your youth, did you never wanna blow up a cricket pavilion?

Mark:

Well, I did. Just, you know. You know.

Sarah:

It pissed you off.

Mark:

Well, and we find later that it was Phil who actually did it.

Sarah:

Yeah. They worked together. So I went looking to see if that was a reference to an actual crime. Yeah. Like, did somebody actually blow up a cricket pavilion in The UK?

Sarah:

The answer is yes. Okay. But it's not a crime like Danny's. It's much more interesting

Mark:

than that. Okay. Lay it on us.

Sarah:

In 1913, the Tunbridge Wells Cricket Pavilion was blown up and burned down. Okay. By suffragettes. Oh. But here's why they did it.

Sarah:

They did it because they were banned from the cricket club. And why were well because women were banned from the quick were I can't even describe this man. Yeah. You think you've met assholes. You've not met assholes because you've never met the president of the Tunbridge Wells Cricket Club.

Mark:

Okay. Lay it on

Sarah:

me. Quote. Okay. It's not true that women are banned from the pavilion. Who do you think makes the tea?

Sarah:

Oh. He said that after they burned it down.

Mark:

Well, okay. After the second time they got burned it down, what happened?

Sarah:

Like, let's burn him down.

Mark:

You don't wanna piss off suffragettes. It just And if if you've I'm without words. If you haven't heard the story, in particular, of British suffragettes, the crap that they went through so that women could vote.

Sarah:

Oh, they were arrested. They were harassed. They were fed. Raped.

Mark:

Force fed. Hunger striked. Like

Sarah:

Their heads shaved. Just horrible.

Mark:

Things. And And this jackass That's a reason to burn down the Cricket Pavilion.

Sarah:

It's a reason to burn him down. Anyway, I'm sorry.

Mark:

Danny says rehabilitate Rehabilitation? Danny says rehabilitation works. You're the killer. Yeah.

Sarah:

Well, he's better at faking it now.

Mark:

I guess. By the way, let me show you my gun, Troy. What does that have to do with anything? Troy never asked. There's no gun involved in the the crime.

Sarah:

This beautiful gun I keep in my locker that Rupert gave me.

Mark:

That has, like, no lock on it.

Sarah:

I think he's just trying to prove that he's in with the family.

Mark:

Everybody likes Danny.

Sarah:

Everybody likes Danny. Then we get to go see the armory. Yes. This is so weird. It comes out of nowhere.

Sarah:

And folks from The UK, you're you're gonna have to tell us whether this is accurate or not.

Mark:

So they're in the bookstore, and they're talking to Jack. And then Jack says

Sarah:

He says, oh, they stole my screenplay. Blah blah blah blah blah. Yep. I Yes. I'm a member of the TA too.

Sarah:

I'm the armorer.

Mark:

Two days extra as the part of a corpse. Best corpse in this episode, maybe Jack. Yeah. Upper warden territorial army, and then they go into this American style armory, like- Militia. Yeah.

Mark:

There is easily 30 machine guns.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah. And shelves and shelves of ammunition. And they let these yobs go out and practice with these things? Let's start a war. They let Darren use a machine gun?

Sarah:

Darren can't use a mimeograph machine.

Mark:

He can't use that giant video camera at the at the end of the episode. Like, what?

Sarah:

You know, I know that during the wars, they had the home guard. That was important. And those men were armed the best they could arm them to protect, you know, people in case there was an invasion. But this is not necessary.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Not even in The United States where we've got gun toting loonies, would this be okay?

Mark:

I'm gonna tell you what else is not necessary. What is not necessary is thunder flashes could have no way created the explosion at the beginning.

Sarah:

They could if you took them apart and took the small amount of gunpowder in each one I guess. And put it together.

Mark:

Boy, that should have had a flashback because it didn't. He I saw at least one video on YouTube where a guy put six thunder flashes together and it didn't even make close to anything like that. They make a lot of smoke and a little bit of like pew pew fireworks. Yeah. And plus they're all like hand instigated, right?

Mark:

You pull the top off of it, you flip the top around, and you scratch on it like a match. Mhmm. And almost all thunder bangs are like this. Right. And to like, what do

Sarah:

But what if you took them apart and use the ingredients that were inside of them?

Mark:

That's a possibility.

Sarah:

But you can make an explosive out of fireworks if you took the little bit of gunpowder that's in each one.

Mark:

I agree. But I would have liked a montage at the very least because the flashbangs I saw the videos of and that explosion were in no way related.

Sarah:

Oh, the real question is how do you make that remote controlled from all the way at the windmill?

Mark:

Well, you just have a phone and a button.

Sarah:

The phone has nothing to do with

Mark:

That's true. That's true. Danny just goes now and and fills their paint in his windmill and presses the button on the weirdest looking remote control. I thought, like, a little RC car would come out or something.

Sarah:

No, It's got an antenna.

Mark:

It does have an antenna. So that means

Sarah:

it can reach really far. I guess so. Like 50 feet or all the way from the windmill. That's in Lower Warden. I guess.

Sarah:

He's a village away. That man is in the wrong career. If he can make remote control explosives that work counties away, not counties away, but a village away.

Mark:

Well, you know, Burnaby Park's a far pretty much a village away from the windmill to go up to it. Why is that there?

Sarah:

He's in stealth mode.

Mark:

But he's in stealth mode in a suit going across an area that is visible from the windmill.

Sarah:

What do you want him to do? Like wear like military camo? No. Put paint on his face and everything?

Mark:

Throw at dusk at the very least. Okay. So the motorcycle guy comes up and he looks at something on the windmill Mhmm. Which I at first thought, honestly, was the paint job.

Sarah:

Like, he climbed up there and looked at the paint job and went, bastard. You did a bad job painting this.

Mark:

The bastard thing is what threw me.

Sarah:

You did a horrible job painting this. Why would he the idea is that either Phil or Danny went to pick up the blackmail money that we don't know anything about and they were gonna split it and half of the money was gonna be left on the windmill sale.

Mark:

Why on earth would they just not leave the money inside or just agree to meet somewhere

Sarah:

or And they do see each other. Hey, here's half of the money. Playing

Mark:

pool with Troy.

Sarah:

But I did figure something out though. We were stumped by this whole Judas thing. Yeah. Right? So what the sign on the windmill actually says Judas.

Sarah:

Yes. Right? So this tells us Phil was the one on the motorcycle.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

He picked up the screw you note and no money. Yeah. And then wrote Judas on a note, pinned it where he was supposed to leave the money and Danny finds it and says bastard. So why does Phil leave a note to Danny that says Judas?

Mark:

Because he likes Judas Priests.

Sarah:

No. Okay. Because he thinks the reason why there was no money is that Danny told them. Oh. That Danny undermined the blackmail because he wants to get in good with the Smythe Wilbertons or whatever their

Mark:

name is. What scene is that covered in?

Sarah:

It's not. Okay. I pieced that together.

Mark:

So it's a guess? It's a guess. Okay.

Sarah:

It's a deductive reasoning guess.

Mark:

Boy, we gotta do a lot of that in this episode.

Sarah:

No. Troy's got flat tires. Yep. Darren's That's what you get when you go to the chapel pub.

Mark:

Darren's there to confess.

Sarah:

To letting the tires out. So did they do you know how they do that? They don't they don't actually poke a hole in

Mark:

the tire. Put a nail in the little

Sarah:

In the rim. Yeah. And that leaves enough gap for the air to go out. Yeah. How long does that take?

Mark:

It should take a while, but Troy was there playing pool for a while.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Sorry. Billions. Billions. Snucker. Snooker, and he noticed that Danny and Phil were having a row and we see the house of satan party and then we see Danny and Phil in the big reveal that they have the same motorcycle and the same leathers.

Sarah:

Which means Rupert and Frank should have known who was in the woods. But anyway

Mark:

Barnaby knows that. Why? I don't know. We do

Sarah:

know that Laura admits to sleeping with Frank. So Larry was actually Frank's son, not Simon's. Then we find out that Sarah Prouty is Ellis Bell's great granddaughter.

Mark:

Hold on. When we find out that Laura, who is the nakedness part, right, in the church there's hymns twenty three and forty seven. Now if you don't, if you're not familiar with the Anglican church, you don't know about the Anglican Church hymn book, which is a unified hymn book.

Sarah:

So that's that sign that's in front that has the numbers on it that the minister puts the numbers there, the hymns you're going to sing that week?

Mark:

You put the numbers in the hymns you're going to sing that week and you're always thinking three not four. You're trying to two is a real short week.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

You're in and out of there in less than an hour with two hymns.

Sarah:

Oh, okay.

Mark:

And I unfortunately I looked up hymns '23 and '47 they weren't like you should not live. Thou shalt not sleep with thy brother's wives.

Sarah:

Yeah. It wasn't like that.

Mark:

No. Was unfortunate. But I was Uncover her nakedness. Something like that.

Sarah:

What were they?

Mark:

I don't know. Oh, they

Sarah:

they weren't interesting enough to write down?

Mark:

They were not interesting enough.

Sarah:

So it it wasn't the ones that Joyce and Tom wanted at their renewals? No. Their vow renewals? That would have been a good little Easter egg.

Mark:

And then at the end, she pulls the Anglican thing that I've seen happen in so many real life situations, where you're in a conversation at a church that you don't want to be in, you're like, I'm going to go pray now.

Sarah:

I'm going to pray. You can join me if you want. I'm praying. Go away. Go away.

Sarah:

That's when we need the ramblers to come in with their sticks. What y'all doing in here? So Laura and Frank had an affair twenty years ago, but Sarah and Rupert had an affair thirty years ago.

Mark:

Okay. Did she suck his brain then? With a straw.

Sarah:

If you've never seen that Doctor Who, you don't know what we're talking about. There's these big rhino soldiers and Sarah Prouty or the actress who plays Sarah Prouty, who is Anne Reed. Thank you. Gosh. I didn't think I was gonna get there.

Sarah:

I couldn't find her name. Plays an alien who looks like a little old lady, but secretly is a brain sucker and carries a little straw to do it. Yes. Danny's good with electronics.

Mark:

Yep. He's a wizard with wires. Let's go talk to Danny. Danny's dead? Wait a minute.

Mark:

I literally had it like I was like, what? How could Danny be dead? I saw the flashbacks at the end of the episode. How could Danny be done? Dead?

Sarah:

I thought it's the same thing. So when they so Troy and Tom approach the kitchen, and of course, there's blood everywhere. Right? It looks like

Mark:

It looks

Sarah:

like blood. Somebody has been beheaded kind of level of blood.

Mark:

Yep. Is there a vicar about?

Sarah:

Then when they get closer, tumbled into the living room, by the way, the head did. When they get closer, you see, Oh no, it's not blood. It's some kind of tomato sauce or something. Right? And Danny is in the weirdest kind of semi fetal arm twisted position.

Sarah:

Wow.

Mark:

It's weird. And I thought,

Sarah:

okay, I know he's the killer because I remember that. Maybe he's not dead. Right? Maybe he's pretending to be dead so he looks like he's been attacked.

Mark:

I was there too. But no. He's dead. Dead. Drowned in gazpacho.

Mark:

Gazpach? That's a really big pot of gazpacho. And it's not cold tomato soup. I'm sorry.

Sarah:

It is.

Mark:

Troy doesn't know what it is, and part of me it is not cold tomato soup.

Sarah:

What what is it?

Mark:

It is it is tomato juice with spices in it.

Sarah:

It's a bloody Mary

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

It's you eat with a spoon.

Mark:

No. You don't eat it. You drink it.

Sarah:

From a

Mark:

bowl? No. You drink it from a glass.

Sarah:

Isn't that kinda like salsa? No. Salsa was a soup? No. No.

Sarah:

Salsa was a juice? It is

Mark:

thick, but it's not like salsa. It's a really cool refreshing drink to have in the summer. I may have had one summer where I was quite addicted to it.

Sarah:

Did you put any alcohol in it?

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Did. That would make it a Bloody Mary. Yes. Instead of gazpacho. So that's the difference.

Mark:

We called it we were fancy and called it gazpacho.

Sarah:

Sure you did. And then you think, could somebody really drown in gazpacho? Could that really happen?

Mark:

Tell me, Sarah. Has somebody drowned in gazpacho?

Sarah:

As a matter of fact, they have.

Mark:

Oh my, do tell.

Sarah:

And even better is the search results I got when looking

Mark:

for that.

Sarah:

Okay? Now you can see, Mark, you can see here I have a screenshot.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Okay? Because the fact that these three search results came up together.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Is important. So unfortunately in 2010, six people drowned in a vat. Six people. It was in India in a tomato sauce factory. One woman fell in.

Sarah:

Yeah. And five other people tried to save her.

Mark:

And they all died too.

Sarah:

And they all drowned. Wow. Which is absolutely tragic. It was actually ketchup.

Mark:

Oh. Which is not gazpachio.

Sarah:

No, it's a different base, different tomato based sauce, drink, soup, slurpy bit, but very sad. Yeah. So here are the search results. The first one, six workers drown in VAT of tomato sauce, Daily Telegraph.

Mark:

Not good.

Sarah:

Second, six people drown in VAT of ketchup. It's a safety news alert. Safetynewsalert.com. Okay. Third search result.

Sarah:

Okay. Six unbeatable tips when you're drowning in tomatoes.

Mark:

What horrible person wrote that? It's about when

Sarah:

you grow tomatoes and you have too many. You know, making a homemade marinara sauce or homemade ketchup when you're drowning in tomatoes.

Mark:

That is very unfortunate that that came up like that.

Sarah:

From offthegridnews.com.

Mark:

Wow. Yeah.

Sarah:

I was like, oh, that's so sad. Wait a minute. Six tips when you're drowning in tomatoes, like next to those two. It's like

Mark:

That is synonym synonyms gone amok.

Sarah:

Yeah. That's a bad Google search on my part, but it's yeah, it's very sad. Six people actually did drown and five of them drowned trying to save the first one. It's so tragic.

Mark:

Really,

Sarah:

Danny's drowning in the Gazpacho is kinda weak compared.

Mark:

Well, if Danny's not the killer, it has to be Phil. So let's go find Phil at the bookshop. The Ernie Ball Center. No. The the it spells center.

Mark:

Who's Ernie Ball? He makes guitar strings and guitar. Oh.

Sarah:

Well, Danny's Danny's dead. So Phil is crying to his mom because he's got a trash bag full of gazpacho covered clothes.

Mark:

You do my laundry?

Sarah:

Oh, I killed somebody. Now it's all tomatoey.

Mark:

Oh, I have heartburn too.

Sarah:

Wait a minute. You're my mom. I didn't tell anybody that. Well, everybody knows, but except the people watching.

Mark:

It was the brains, all I did was push the button.

Sarah:

Here comes Rupert, he's my dad. Wait a minute, we're a family. Oh, we're all going to prison. No, not everybody.

Mark:

So Phil is Rupert and Sarah's son, He's going to prison. He's off to the pokey. He tries to escape, but Troy has emptied his tires of air.

Sarah:

And now we know that Phil and Danny did the murders together. Let's talk about motive. Okay. Now we've already acknowledged that there are missing pieces in this episode. So we've got to kind of put this together.

Sarah:

Yeah. Why did Danny and Phil kill Larry?

Mark:

They killed Larry because they laughed. Roop Lair not Larry. Frank. Frank laughed at Sarah.

Sarah:

Okay. How is that Larry's fault?

Mark:

Well, Larry's part of the movie. Okay. And they were arguing about the movie.

Sarah:

No. No. Sorry. So Phil is the heir. Yes.

Sarah:

Technically, legally, he would be the heir. Yep. Danny knows that because his mother

Mark:

delivered Phil. And then wrote about it right away in her diary.

Sarah:

In her diary, which Danny has on him when he's drowned, but Phil doesn't take it.

Mark:

And it has no gazpacho on it? No. It's perfectly dry.

Sarah:

Yes. Because it was probably in his chino pocket underneath his apron. I guess. Maybe that's why he's in that weird position. He's trying to protect the diary.

Sarah:

Protect the diary. So the best I can string together is that Larry had to die because Larry might have been the heir Yeah. Since he was the only son of one of the brothers, the only child of one of the brothers.

Mark:

Yeah. He at least appeared to be an actual heir.

Sarah:

And Danny wants to inherit

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

Because he thinks Rupert thinks of him as a son

Mark:

And will give him everything.

Sarah:

So when he realizes that Phil is actually the heir and Phil's his buddy. He frames Phil. He tells Phil, hey, you're Rupert's son. We you should inherit everything. Mhmm.

Sarah:

Oh no. But wait, he doesn't tell him that because he doesn't know that until the final scene.

Mark:

And that's where he tells

Sarah:

him that

Mark:

he freaks out and drowns him. Right. Maybe I spot you.

Sarah:

So Danny has a motive, but Phil doesn't.

Mark:

No, Phil is just a homicidal maniac apparently.

Sarah:

Phil's upset because Frank laughed at Sarah. Yes. And until we know that Sarah is his mom, we're like, what do you Sarah, care about whatever. It's not like he laughed and pointed at her in front of a bunch of people. Just kind of guffawed and walked away.

Sarah:

He dismissed her.

Mark:

It's so weak, the motive here.

Sarah:

So there's all kinds of things not to like about this episode, but I don't like doing that to Midsomer because I love Midsomer. Yes. So what about this episode did you love? The basic satanic experience

Mark:

is quite awesome. Basic satanic experience is awesome. Darren, I love. Love Darren.

Sarah:

This place is a little weird. No. Weird's another place.

Mark:

Yep. Weird's another place. I like I like the whole argument over a book and who the authorship is and how it's owned by a certain town in another town. In the strangest way possible, I come from a place in Canada that's near another place that takes William Naismith as one of their own.

Sarah:

And who's he?

Mark:

He's the guy who invented basketball.

Sarah:

Okay.

Mark:

And this little town, like, they lord it over everybody that William Naismith came from this this town. So and there's a William Naismith museum

Sarah:

and all your town claims the Red Baron. Right?

Mark:

Or not? No. No. The guy who shot down the Red Baron was born in the town I came from.

Sarah:

See, in The US, at least in the Midwest, we're in Indiana. Indiana, Kentucky, and Illinois, and I think Ohio too, claim Abraham Lincoln.

Mark:

Lincoln's birthplace, Lincoln's, restroom place, Lincoln's kitchen place.

Sarah:

Yeah. Lincoln pissed here once. This is the home of Lincoln now. And there are artifacts that they fight over. Yeah.

Sarah:

That should be and and god forbid, you've got a log cabin that you claim is is actually his.

Mark:

So I like that. I like the harpsichord. I like the thing blowing up because that was an actual blow up. That was a That big a big Celebrity blow up right there.

Sarah:

A little SCTV reference there.

Mark:

But but there are some problems.

Sarah:

Yeah, there are problems with this.

Mark:

Rupert goes to see Sarah at the windmill, she's like, I'm gonna keep it until my son comes back. He's going up the river

Sarah:

for three murders. He's not coming back.

Mark:

He's not coming back, Sarah. No. We could still be friends.

Sarah:

No. No. I think it's too late for that. No friend zone for Rupert. So who's the best corpse?

Mark:

I think the best corpse is probably Danny.

Sarah:

Well, you can't include Larry. No. Because he's in bits.

Mark:

He's in bits.

Sarah:

And we don't even get to see the gobby bits. Yeah. So he's out. Frank

Mark:

Frank falls over, but we don't really get to see him. He should be much more burned and smoky.

Sarah:

He should be smoking. His plastic running suit should melt. Yes.

Mark:

But Danny

Sarah:

high demand. But Danny's in that weird fetal position. He's smelling like tomatoes.

Mark:

He doesn't breathe.

Sarah:

He's on the floor. Yeah. I give it to him. So after the credits, what happens?

Mark:

Oh my. I got a lit quite a list.

Sarah:

Okay.

Mark:

First of all, Rupert got no friends. Nope. No friends for Rupert. Wendy, buy some more beige clothes.

Sarah:

From the boutique? What's that place called? Fanciful Favorites or something like Oh, fashion favorites. Yes.

Mark:

Hideous clothes. Laura and Simon are sad. I'm gonna pray. Darren probably has his own YouTube channel now with millions of people who download his videos. Yeah.

Mark:

Sarah gardens for a long time.

Sarah:

She's gonna grow more than two stalks of corn.

Mark:

And Phil goes up the pokey.

Sarah:

Yeah. Jail. He goes to jail. I can't say it's the best Midsomer. It's not one of my favorites.

Mark:

I, you know, I would like this one more because I'm a Hammer horror film guy. I would like this one more if there wasn't the direct Hammer film referenced one in the later episode.

Sarah:

And that episode is a better it does a better job of this. And I think this is their first attempt to be like, Oh, let's add some creepy horror references to this. Yeah. But we don't really find out the book itself is not really about Satan. They're making it into horror.

Sarah:

Yeah. So there's not even any like creepy things.

Mark:

Well, think it's a direct reference to dark satanic mills

Sarah:

because that

Mark:

satanic mills in the poem have nothing to do with Satan.

Sarah:

Yeah. So the house of Satan is the is the the rich land owning industrialists. Yeah. Right? And it has nothing to do with Satan.

Sarah:

So they can't even pull that through.

Mark:

The other thing is, I don't know about you, but I thought the genuine satanic experience was much longer the first time I saw

Sarah:

it. I did too. Remember was long

Mark:

time and like there was weird filming and stuff.

Sarah:

We made it better in our We

Mark:

made it better in our heads.

Sarah:

Maniacs, we're sorry. Not trying to end on a down note, but

Mark:

Still a great episode. Like, it's still Midsomer. It's still much so much better than a lot of things.

Sarah:

It's still Joyce dresses and milkmaids screaming while shrapnel gets thrown at her. Still death by gazpacho. Death by gazpacho. Somebody had to clean that up.

Mark:

Some poor person had

Sarah:

The to clean it whole thing is better than the designs for those public bathrooms. Yes.

Mark:

So Maniacs we're on the Facebook, we're on

Sarah:

We're on Reddit, we're on Facebook, we're on Instagram.

Mark:

Instagram, all those things.

Sarah:

Leave us a comment, leave us a review. We'd love to hear from you. Got Mark how much you like my cat plot better than his.

Mark:

A slice of murder is much better than your little cats.

Sarah:

Then come caught the cantankerous cats? Yes. Peshaw. You're wrong.

Mark:

Thanks again for listening. I we're just keep rolling along here. It's kinda crazy. Again, I remind you that you're in Britain tomorrow night,

Sarah:

the

Mark:

new episode for Miniature Murders is on at eight to ten on ITV, and listen to our mini episode two.

Sarah:

What episode of Midsomer do we get to cover next week?

Mark:

Next week, we cover series six episode five, the birds of prey. Birds of prey. It's better. Yeah, it's a fun episode.

Sarah:

It's more fun than this one.

Mark:

It's got burns in it.

Sarah:

If you decide to make a spatcho because you know, this made you crave it, be careful.

Mark:

Okay? Yes. Be careful. Please be careful out there and be wary of restrooms. They're midsummery.

Sarah:

Feels very thin tractor shits.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

All right, Maniacs until next week. Bye, Maniacs.

Mark:

Bye, Maniacs.

Sarah:

Okay. I don't know what the other thing is

Mark:

that Okay.

Sarah:

You didn't

Mark:

tell me. We'll get there. I did tell you, but it's okay.

Sarah:

Okay. So you can edit that out. Yeah. Because it's great green globs of greasy grimy gopher guts mutilated monkey meat, little tiny birdies feet.

Mark:

There are some little tiny birdies feet right there.

Sarah:

And then I had it in my head for two days. Yep. It was awesome. Hey, Maniacs. Hey, Maniacs.

Sarah:

It's Midsomer Maniacs.

Mark:

Episode 28 covering birds of prey. Season six episode five. Yes. Midsomer Maniacs is a podcast dedicated to the ITV series Midsomer Murders. Each week, we dig into an episode of the show including the murders, the mayhem, the loonies, and everything else we love.

Sarah:

I'm Sarah.

Mark:

And I'm Mark. And just a warning, if, your kids are it's the show is too much for your kids, the podcast is too. But if let you your kids watch the show, they should be able to listen to us gabble on for a while.

Sarah:

If your kids watch the show, they're our kind of kids.

Mark:

Yes. They are our kind of kids.

Sarah:

This is the penultimate Troy episode.

Mark:

Yes. We've been doing this podcast long enough now that Troy is moving on, which seems like it was gonna be forever. We got to this point, and now we're here already.

Sarah:

Yeah. So next week's episode will be the last Troy episode.

Mark:

Yes. The Green Man Season seven Episode one.

Sarah:

We're going to try to do something a little bit special to celebrate Troy.

Mark:

Daniel Casey's amazing run on Midsomer.

Sarah:

And in anticipation of that, if you'd like to send us your favorite Troy moment from 28 episodes.

Mark:

Yep. What made you fall in love with Troy?

Sarah:

Yeah. What do you like? What's your favorite Troy moment? And we will maybe we'll include that in the episode for next week.

Mark:

Maybe. So this episode is filmed in October and November 2002, broadcast on the January 31 in 2,003, which seems to be a common occurrence. The sort of late January, February, we get new Midsommers like we're doing right now in England. Mhmm. 9,320,000 views directed by Jeremy Silverstein and written by Mark Russell.

Sarah:

Yeah. And there and there, there wasn't anything too crazy this week in the news that mentioned Midsomer. I always pay attention to that. I've been finding some gems lately, but nothing too nutsy.

Mark:

No. Nothing too nutsy.

Sarah:

So I think we can dive right in.

Mark:

Does this episode have a village?

Sarah:

Yes. It's in Midsomer Magna.

Mark:

It is Midsomer Magna? Because I didn't get any references.

Sarah:

Yep. They mentioned it. Okay. Midsomer Magna.

Mark:

Okay. So let's head right in and we start with nighttime broker.

Sarah:

We're at Edmonton Manor. Yes. Home of Mallory and Charles Edmonton.

Mark:

And Julian Shepherd is sneaking on to the estate.

Sarah:

Yeah. He's being stealthy. He's got really bad hair.

Mark:

He is. Well, luckily he conditions.

Sarah:

It's more the color of his hair I'm concerned about. It's very, very yellow.

Mark:

The moment in his bathtub later on where he's looking at the soap, the shampoo bottle and rubbing his hair is so

Sarah:

creepy. His whole bathroom's creepy. Yeah. We'll get there in a second. So Mallory is talking to George, George Hamilton.

Mark:

To which I'm like, that's not George Hamilton. He has no tan.

Sarah:

He's not that George Hamilton. He's not chilling of the night. Shut up. He's not that George Hamilton. And, she's given him stern talking to, and then he heads off and Julian climbs up the scaffolding that's conveniently placed for him to get into.

Sarah:

What? From my notes? Attic room.

Mark:

From my notes directly, luckily, was convenient scaffolding there.

Sarah:

Mhmm. And then

Mark:

There's a fridge full of dead things.

Sarah:

Yeah. So let's handle Charles, and then let's talk about the barn. Okay. So Charles is Mallory's husband.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

I remember the first time I saw this episode, later on when Mallory is talking to her sister Naomi and she says something about your husband. I'm like, what? Yeah. She's married to him? I thought that was their dad.

Mark:

I thought that was their dad too.

Sarah:

So she's keeping her husband up in an attic room with his train set and his blueprints and his very, very old tiny computer.

Mark:

Yes. All those things.

Sarah:

And Julian breaks in to say, I've invested in your company and I need my money back. Yep. He's desperate to get Absolutely his money

Mark:

desperate. And Charles is like delusional to the last. He's like, you're gonna make a fortune, young man.

Sarah:

My simple invention to support travel and live in a perfect environment without fuels, without pollution.

Mark:

It's scooters.

Sarah:

Living in a city that has been recently invaded and by recent, I mean, last year, by Lyme and bird scooters, I can say quite confidently that they do contribute to pollution just by being everywhere.

Mark:

Yeah. They're everywhere.

Sarah:

On the sidewalk, in the grass, on the street. Yep. So Mallory goes out to the barn while Julian's in the house talking to Charles and Mallory has some birds.

Mark:

Yes. Birds of prey.

Sarah:

I think this is a converted stable. It's a stable that's been converted over for her birds.

Mark:

Is this the optimum way to carry, keep birds? I don't know.

Sarah:

I don't know either, but that barn has some beautiful leaded windows. Yeah. Windows and brickwork on those that barn are better than what we have on our house. That's for sure.

Mark:

And we have two weird stained glass windows inside of our house.

Sarah:

Between rooms. They're

Mark:

not even on outside walls.

Sarah:

No. But we don't have any round ones. No. She's got round windows. So she's got falcons and, osprey hawks and Yes.

Sarah:

They wear those little helmets, and I wanted to know about those little helmets.

Mark:

They're hoods. They're not helmets. It's not like they're hockey players.

Sarah:

But they are kind of like a helmet. Yeah. They call them blinders.

Mark:

Now I see birds dressed up like hockey players.

Sarah:

Well, as long as they didn't need to see you play hockey, they'd be just fine because they're blinders.

Mark:

My team can't see anyway.

Sarah:

And I wanted to know why they wear them. Yeah. Because if I were a hawk, I wouldn't want you to strap a kangaroo skin because that's the preferred material. A kangaroo skin blinder on my head so that I couldn't see anything. I think think that would that would make make me Actually, it's the opposite.

Sarah:

Okay. So these blinders, they also call them hoods.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

You're right, not helmets. They prevent the bird from seeing sudden movement.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Which is stressful to them. They don't like sudden movement and they don't like sudden changes in light.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

So they keep the hoods on them when they're moving them, to prevent them from being stressed out. Okay. And startling them.

Mark:

They do that with horses too.

Sarah:

Yeah. Well, the blinders on horses keep their eyes forward. Yeah. Right? But these

Mark:

Cover their eyes.

Sarah:

They cover their eyes completely. Right? So it makes them feel safe and that knot on the top that looks like stupid decoration is actually a handle.

Mark:

Oh, so you can move them.

Sarah:

It's to move it forward or back on their head to position it just because it has to be just right or it will rub on their beak and stuff. And the things that stick out in the back that look like little prongy things, those are also handles. They actually cinch up a little bit of leather cord that goes along the back that keeps the blinder on.

Mark:

Okay. It's like many

Sarah:

many styles of these blinders.

Mark:

It's like a visor with a blast shield down, so they can use the force with it.

Sarah:

Yeah. That's it. You got it.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Cool. Why didn't I think of that?

Mark:

Excellent.

Sarah:

She is feeding the birds, and she goes into her little fridge full of carnage.

Mark:

Okay. Now wait a minute. This is more than just carnage. It is displayed carnage.

Sarah:

Yeah. I would have kept stuff in containers or at least wrapped up in paper. No. She just keeps it like on a sheet of wax paper right there on the fridge shelf.

Mark:

Yeah. I'm just like, my note is like, that's not sanitary. And

Sarah:

she feeds them little bird feet.

Mark:

Yeah. Like I at first, I was like, I wonder what she's feeding them. And then I'm like, I'm okay. Never knowing that.

Sarah:

It's better than what she could be feeding them.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

She could be feeding them chunks of mice.

Mark:

Oh, mice chunks.

Sarah:

Yeah. Like you take a mouse and you cut it into thirds.

Mark:

Oh, I was at Target and I saw mice chunks the other day.

Sarah:

They were probably organic, non GMO, gluten free mouse chunks.

Mark:

With Himalayan salt. Pink.

Sarah:

When I saw those little feet, my brain immediately went to that song. The great green gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts song.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Because it's great green gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts, mutilated monkey meat, little tiny birdies feet.

Mark:

There are some little tiny birdies feet right there.

Sarah:

And then I had it in my head for two days. Yep. It was awesome. Mallory Edmonton is played by Kate Buffery.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

In my notes, she is miss cowl neck side braid.

Mark:

Miss cowl neck side braid?

Sarah:

Yeah. Because every shirt she wears has a cowl neck. Those big and she has her hair in the side braid all the time.

Mark:

She does have her hair in the side braid.

Sarah:

I'd make fun of her hat, but her hats go from bad to worse because she usually wears the like paperboy hat. But then when they go to the funeral, she wears like a pirate hat.

Mark:

What is that hat in the funeral? I guess you're dead now.

Sarah:

Charles Edmonton is played by Richard Todd. Now he has had a long, long career. Of course, he's an older guy, but there's two amazing things you have to know about him.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

One is that Richard Todd played Robin Hood in Disney's 1952 live action movie of Robin Hood.

Mark:

Oh, okay.

Sarah:

He is the Robin Hood. As soon as you see him, you're like, yep, that's Charles. That's him. The other thing was that he had pretty significant roles to play in World War II. So he was an officer in the seventh battalion of the parachute regiment.

Mark:

Wow.

Sarah:

And on D day, his battalion was the one that made contact with major Howard on the Orrin Bridge to basically initiate the invasion.

Mark:

Oh.

Sarah:

And he was the one who made contact.

Mark:

Oh, he's a war hero, a d day war hero.

Sarah:

Many times over.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

So he parachuted in alone.

Mark:

Oh my gosh.

Sarah:

Behind enemy lines, found the bridge, told them that, like the troops are here.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

But then later in 1962, in a movie called The Longest Day, he played Major Howard.

Mark:

Oh, that's weird.

Sarah:

The major that he actually made contact with. And in another movie, d day the June 6, he played the commander of his own battalion.

Mark:

Oh, that's weird. That's cool though.

Sarah:

Ain't that cool? Yeah. Jeez. What a brave guy. Yeah.

Sarah:

To parachute in on alone on d day.

Mark:

Yeah. Those there there were a number of parachute guys, paratroopers dropped before d day. Right? So you drop a bunch of paratroopers behind enemy lines. They attack from the back.

Mark:

The forces They

Sarah:

sabotage and kind of soften them up a bit.

Mark:

The Germans turn around to attack them, and then the forces attack the beaches. Right? It's a it's a good strategy.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

But anybody who did that alone or with a bunch of other people is

Sarah:

I don't wanna jump out of a plane anytime.

Mark:

And that was really the first proof of paratroopers in massive action.

Sarah:

Yeah, it would have been at night.

Mark:

Yeah, was in the

Sarah:

middle But how of weird to then play the roles of people that you knew. I didn't get a chance to find out if Major Howard survived the war or not, but even if even if he did, it's still weird to play that role in the movie. But I'm I'm guessing he was perfect for it because he knew.

Mark:

I gotta think that that brought up some memories.

Sarah:

Yeah. Pretty heavy. Yeah. Julian Shepherd is played by Robert Morgan. He's in another Midsomer in 2008 called Shot at Dawn.

Sarah:

But here's the fun thing I found about him. He was in one episode of a show called Relic Hunter. Okay. Have you ever heard of Relic Hunter?

Mark:

Yes. Relic Hunter. I think we watched it. No. No, we didn't watch Relic Okay.

Sarah:

Because Relic Hunter stars Tia Carrera.

Mark:

Okay. I watched this.

Sarah:

She's kind of a Tomb Raider sort of character. Yeah. Right? Except there's paranormal stuff in it. He plays this German guy that she has to have a fight with, She wins.

Sarah:

Yes. Another cool thing though about Relic Hunter, guess who else guest starred in an episode? Who? Yannick Bisson. Bisson?

Sarah:

How do you say his name?

Mark:

Bisson. Murdoch. So this is our first this

Sarah:

is our first Murdoch Midsomer overlap. Yep. Crossover. And and Yannick, he plays like a Russian.

Mark:

Oh, that must be horribly bad.

Sarah:

And he's and he's like 22.

Mark:

Yannick and everything before Murdoch is just horrendous. And then he plays Murdoch, and it was like he was meant to play that role.

Sarah:

Yeah. Well, it's not a good role he played in in the Relic Hunters, so you can't really blame him for not being so great.

Mark:

He's in Dresden Files too.

Sarah:

He also gets to kickbox with Tia Carrerero though.

Mark:

Oh, okay. Yeah. That's good. That's good.

Sarah:

You know? So there you go. Julian leaves Charles' house.

Mark:

He's upset.

Sarah:

He's gonna get his money. And he he thinks about slashing his own wrist, but instead decides to take a pretty bubble bath.

Mark:

And rub his hair.

Sarah:

His Really? Bathroom is hideous. Slowly. This in this scene, we don't see much of the bathroom. We see it more later after he's dead, but the wallpaper Ugh.

Sarah:

I'm gonna go on a little I'm just gonna warn you. I've got some comments about wallpaper in this episode.

Mark:

That's okay.

Sarah:

Because there are crimes against humanity via wallpaper in this episode.

Mark:

So here's my first problem with our killer.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

Okay. Our killer is Naomi. Naomi. The sister of

Sarah:

Mallory. Mallory.

Mark:

She has keys to his house.

Sarah:

How? Why? How do we know she has keys? Do we see keys?

Mark:

We see keys.

Sarah:

His house may actually be on the Edmonton estate. It may be like the Dower house or something like that. He may be renting from the Edmonton's.

Mark:

We're trying really hard here.

Sarah:

But I I actually think that's the case. That's why he can walk to their house.

Mark:

Maybe. But she shouldn't have keys.

Sarah:

No. She shouldn't. And, you know, bats are bad idea people. You're vulnerable.

Mark:

Well, the only other character that we saw taking baths a lot was Brian Clapper.

Sarah:

No. The, the hotel Oh, that's guy with his mother.

Mark:

The guy was so sick. Wow. Somebody in summer hates baths. Baths are second bath death then.

Sarah:

Yeah. You get you get vulnerable in the bath.

Mark:

Yes. You do.

Sarah:

Speaking of vulnerable, Eleanor needs some sausages.

Mark:

I need some sausages. And you think this is funny at first, but then you realize that this is a really good scene from the point of view of an abused person Yeah. Dealing with the world that doesn't understand they're being abused.

Sarah:

Yeah. Because initially you think, oh, this is a persnickety old lady who prefers pork sausages. And so it it's emergency.

Mark:

No. It is it is you when when you rewatch this scene, you feel nothing but sympathy for

Sarah:

her. Especially when she says that her sister was there yesterday and they were on her list, but she lost her list. It's like she's already, she has the excuse in her head already to explain why they don't have the sausages. And it's also sort of a justification to Mr. Pilcher, butcher, they were on her list.

Sarah:

That's that means that we should have them. Yeah. Because if you put it on the list, you get it.

Mark:

Well, he's gonna set some porkers aside. Joyce has the brochures.

Sarah:

No. Wait. Because I've got something good to tell you about that butcher. Okay.

Mark:

So tell us about the butcher.

Sarah:

Mr. Pilcher the butcher is played by Edward Clayton. He's also in a twenty eleven episode of Midsomer called Echoes of the Dead. But the good thing that you need to know about Mr. Edward Clayton is that he was in a very short lived show, six episodes, a show, a comedy about, excuse me, a group of anglers from the Midlands.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Fishermen.

Mark:

That was glorious.

Sarah:

The title's better than that. Okay. It's called, Hey Brian, It's a Whopper. That's the name of the show.

Mark:

What meeting in the BBC allowed that to happen?

Sarah:

It's like if you took the people from, what is it, Talent for Life Yeah. That anglers club, but you made them sort of slapsticky and sloppy a little bit

Mark:

And gave it the worst title of a show.

Sarah:

Called it, hey, Brian, it's a whopper.

Mark:

That's worse than my mother in law's my car or whatever that other show.

Sarah:

It's not the worst title of a show I've got for you today.

Mark:

Oh, I can I can only wait?

Sarah:

I watched about thirty seconds of one episode. If you can imagine, it's sort of like, Benny Hill with fishing.

Mark:

Oh, it just makes the detector is so much better.

Sarah:

Speaking of awesome titles. Okay. So Eleanor McPherson, she's the sister who goes to the butcher. Yes. Okay.

Sarah:

She's played by Rosalyn Knight, who's also in A Midsomer in 2011 called A Sacred Trust, where she plays Mother Jerome, the nun?

Mark:

Yes. She

Sarah:

of course is an older actress, so she's been on a lot of things. I'm not going to go through everything she's been in. I what I try to do is I try to pick something that is interesting.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Okay?

Mark:

Lay it on me.

Sarah:

She was in a movie in 1969 titled the following.

Mark:

Hold on. You have to place your bets now whether or not I've seen this movie.

Sarah:

Oh, you've not seen this movie.

Mark:

Okay. Okay.

Sarah:

It is called, can Hieronymus Merkin ever forget Mercy Humpf and find true happiness?

Mark:

I have never seen that movie. I have never heard of that movie. How did that movie get made?

Sarah:

It is about a man called Hieronymus Merkin who is making a movie that is an autobiography. He is played by a marionette in the movie, and he can't figure out how it should end. Okay? Okay. He's a womanizer, but through all of his womanizing, he can't forget his first love whose name is Mary as Mercy Hump.

Mark:

Mercy that's a woman's name?

Sarah:

H u m p p e. Hump? Hump. There is both an r rated and an x rated version

Mark:

Oh, of this God. Don't tell me Eleanor shows her boobies.

Sarah:

The r rated version has a few scenes cut from a sex scene that he has with Mercy following a carousel sequence.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

The r rated version also cuts down on the suggestiveness of a song because it's a musical. What? The song is called The Princess and the Donkey. Stop. The x rated version contains all of the r rated versions footage.

Sarah:

Yes. So if you only want to see it once and you wanna see all of it, I guess you have to watch the x rated version.

Mark:

I will post in the show notes the poster to this atrocity and the link to the IMDB page, but I'm not posting scenes or

Sarah:

Just remember, this is little little old lady needing emergency sausages.

Mark:

Yep. And she plays humming.

Sarah:

Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. No. She does not play Mercy Hump. Good. Good.

Sarah:

No. Can Hieronymus Merkin ever forget Mercy Hump and Find True Happiness? 1969. There you go.

Mark:

What a strange year it was.

Sarah:

Jane McPherson, her sister, is played by Sheila Shand Gibbs. And the one thing I have to tell you about her is that she was married, then divorced. Timothy Bateson, who plays Mr. Jocelyn, the lawyer in three Midsomer episodes.

Mark:

Oh, okay. Jocelyn is You remember Jocelyn? Yeah.

Sarah:

Yeah. So Jane McPherson, the actress behind that character was married to mister Jocelyn.

Mark:

Oh, cool.

Sarah:

There you go.

Mark:

They work a lot

Sarah:

together. The princess and the donkey.

Mark:

So to cleanse our power.

Sarah:

Do I find good stuff or what? You know? And you find you think, a Brian, it's a is a long title. That's no title. Not when you can know about Hieronymus Merkin.

Sarah:

Anyway.

Mark:

So to cleanse her palate, Joyce has some brochures.

Sarah:

She wants to go to Africa on vacation.

Mark:

So I have I have a brochure story.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

So in the dawns of time of the Internet, when I ran a web design company, a very small one, this was a million years ago when people were like, what's a web design company? Mhmm. We did the website for my accountant at that point in time, who was this great guy. Yeah. He's absolutely fantastic guy who I really liked, but he had this super posh British partner

Sarah:

Okay.

Mark:

Who wanted to go over the website with me. And I had a whole meeting, an hour long meeting with this guy, and he kept saying brochure. It should be like a brochure. And I had no clue what he was talking about.

Sarah:

Because you were thinking brochure.

Mark:

I was thinking He was

Sarah:

saying brochure.

Mark:

He was saying brochure. And I had to I call you know, I went into the other guy's office. I'm like, what is the brochure? He goes, brochure. I'm like,

Sarah:

oh. Oh. So

Mark:

yes. Brochures.

Sarah:

Well, Joyce wants to go to Africa. This is one of many times that she wants them to go on a trip.

Mark:

And Tom is like, what about crime? Why does he do does he hate traveling?

Sarah:

No. All he's trying to do is reduce the disappointment because he knows as soon as he makes plans, mass murderer is gonna happen. Yes. And Joyce says she wants to go to Africa because she's always had a crush on that man from Daktari.

Mark:

So, okay.

Sarah:

To which Tom responds, he'll be drawing his pension by now.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

I'll say, that's a show from 1966.

Mark:

You did better than me because I stopped it with you have a crush on that man from Dactari. Mhmm. I stopped it there and searched for twenty minutes for Dacthari in Africa.

Sarah:

It's not a real place. No.

Mark:

It's not a real place. And I kept going, this stupid show keeps coming up. It's called Man from Deck.

Sarah:

It was just called Dactari, and it was an American TV comedy about a veterinarian who went to Africa

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

To work at a reserve, and it aired from 1966 to 1969.

Mark:

I even have a note that says, I'm not sure that's a real place. It's not a real place.

Sarah:

And I can tell you that the veterinarian is not particularly attractive either.

Mark:

He played by James Marshall Thompson.

Sarah:

So you eventually did realize that the show was a real thing.

Mark:

Realize eventually.

Sarah:

Tom's trying to leave, cause of course there has been a murder just because they talked about vacation. Yeah. And Kelly's out there cause Kelly's in this episode for about zero point five seconds.

Mark:

Well, she's a travel agent now.

Sarah:

Yeah, because she gave up on the mobile library.

Mark:

Don't worry, she has another job in the next episode.

Sarah:

She's a travel agent now. And he says, what about crime? And she says, it won't go away, dad. And my note is it will if Joyce leaves town. He could take Joyce away on a vacation and there wouldn't be any murders while she was gone.

Mark:

Well, there'd be murders in Dactari, wherever the hell that is.

Sarah:

Because I want to see that episode. I want to see Joyce and Tom on the back of an elephant and he has to hop down and run through the savannah because there's been a murder. Yep. I 'm sorry. I'll be back later.

Mark:

I made pay per view of that episode, man.

Sarah:

I would absolutely

Mark:

love that episode. So then we have Eddie Darwin looking out the window.

Sarah:

Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie.

Mark:

Eddie is such he's weird.

Sarah:

He's unpleasant. He's one of many unpleasant people in this episode.

Mark:

Very unpleasant.

Sarah:

So we see Eleanor coming home with the beef sausages that knows is not gonna be good.

Mark:

He does such a good job at being that friendly sort of person that unpleasant people are.

Sarah:

Yes. Anton Lesser, who plays Eddie Darwin

Mark:

Who is fantastic.

Sarah:

Very good at that kind of smarmy nice to your face.

Mark:

Well, it's impressive for him to do it cause he's like 12 in this episode. Jesus. He saw it superintendent bright. That's for

Sarah:

sure. His bedroom wallpaper is a crime. Somebody should be punished for that wallpaper. Later, when he's in bed and dead, having been basically run over by a car, his bruises are prettier than the wallpaper. Oh my god.

Sarah:

I don't know how you could spend five minutes in that room. They're like, they pulsate these big cabbage roses on the walls.

Mark:

And okay. So there's one production person per episode. I've been watching this. So one person has to decide a whole bunch of this.

Sarah:

That wallpaper was probably already there.

Mark:

It was already there. The production person came into that room and said, yeah. This is a great place to film.

Sarah:

This this fits two old ladies sharing a house. They would have this wallpaper.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

Was it Oscar Wilde whose last the last sentence he ever spoke before he died was me or the wallpaper one of us must go.

Mark:

Something like that.

Sarah:

Yeah. That that's how that wallpaper makes me feel. Oh,

Mark:

it's bad.

Sarah:

He has a cabinet of eggs because he's an egg collector.

Mark:

Okay. If you collect eggs, you need to store them properly. He is. No. He's not.

Mark:

They're they're, like, rolling around in the little parts. Oh. There's no, like, pillows or anything for them to want. If somebody does a bad day and falls into that cabinet, all those eggs are gone.

Sarah:

And Eddie's gonna cry.

Mark:

Yes. He will. He's very into those.

Sarah:

It's interesting that his last name is Darwin. Yeah. And he collects eggs.

Mark:

I thought that was kind of on the nose. Illegally. Yeah. Illegally.

Sarah:

It's illegal in The UK to collect eggs from wild birds. Oh, it is? Yes. Do you know how they prepare them though? Because he's not just got a drawer full of rotten eggs.

Mark:

No. They they must like put enamel on them or something.

Sarah:

They blow them out.

Mark:

Oh, okay. You know how that So they're even more fragile.

Sarah:

Yeah, because they're hollow. Yeah. Like any egg is.

Mark:

Yeah, those would be broken in a second.

Sarah:

They're very, very fragile. The Natural History Museum at Tring, which is in The UK holds the largest collection of bird eggs in the world. They have over a million eggs. Wow. From collectors because you know, in the mid eighteen hundreds, collecting eggs was a big thing.

Mark:

Put them

Sarah:

in your little cabinet of curiosities.

Mark:

And I'm sure when they like, arrest people like doing this, they don't just throw away the eggs. They probably take them to a place like that.

Sarah:

But the the collection is a historic collection. Yeah. Do you know what the study of eggs is called? No, it is called ology.

Mark:

Ology. It's

Sarah:

o o l o g y

Mark:

Oology. Okay.

Sarah:

Which makes me think of Phil from time team. He goes, oh, wow.

Mark:

Oh, wow. It's oology. Oology. What?

Sarah:

What? It's the study of bird eggs. Oology. Now you know.

Mark:

Well, Troy's doing nothing but making bird jokes. It's hard not to. I'm like, whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever. Oh, Troy has a book, and I spend easily forty minutes trying to figure out what book Troy has.

Sarah:

Well, you skipped over Eddie dropping the plate.

Mark:

Yes. He did drop the plate.

Sarah:

Did you wanna punch him? I wanted to punch him.

Mark:

He has a little sausage freak out.

Sarah:

He but not before he picks up his packed lunch that they've made for him.

Mark:

Oh, it's again, I just immediately get the sense he's an abuser, and it just makes me hate him even more.

Sarah:

How do you understand their relationship?

Mark:

So he's a lodger, and he had to have, at some point in time, physically harm them.

Sarah:

But wouldn't they just call the police and have him kicked out?

Mark:

They I know you don't remember this, but I'm sure he refers to something they are ashamed of doing.

Sarah:

Like, you think he's blackmailing them and that's why they put up with him?

Mark:

I think so. And I had first thought they were gay. And then I'm like, but they're sisters. So maybe they're gay sisters. This is Midsomer, remember.

Mark:

But I couldn't figure out what he has on them.

Sarah:

See, I think they wanted a lodger because they're both old maids and they wanted someone to take care of. And I think early on, they actually enjoyed taking care of him because he let them and that was pleasant for them. But then he started to take them for granted and then take advantage. And now they're too afraid of him to kick him out.

Mark:

You know, I think Troy could go live there and it would be better. Yeah.

Sarah:

They would take good care of Troy.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

And he would be nice to them.

Mark:

He's just an asshole.

Sarah:

So Troy is going to go off with the Sarah Pierce.

Mark:

Pierce. Pierce.

Sarah:

Of the the wildlife police.

Mark:

She's a wildlife liaison. Constable Sarah Pierce. Yes. Crime is a crime after all. And finally, he raises the book enough that I can see what the book is.

Sarah:

And it is? Sort of.

Mark:

It is Collins Birds of Prey, but I don't know what edition.

Sarah:

Well, I don't want anyone to think that the costancy ID doesn't know it's Assio from its elbow. Assio's a bird. But then Troy sees Sarah and he's like, Oh, bird crimes are relevant.

Mark:

Yes. Which I'm like, you see it that much on the make?

Sarah:

Well, she does look a lot like Cully. So

Mark:

She does.

Sarah:

She's his type.

Mark:

She's weird. He's like, I got some Wellies. And she's like, yeah.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's not gonna be enough. And they don't help if you don't put them on. Nope. Then we get a little scene with Naomi and Mallory and we understand that they're drugging Charles.

Sarah:

Naomi Sinclair, the doctor sister of Mallory is played by Alexander Gilbert. She's been in lots and lots of things. The most interesting thing I could find was that she was Juliet to David Tennant's Romeo and the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2000. Oh. When they were with wee young people.

Sarah:

We young'uns. She played Juliet as Romeo.

Mark:

The uncredited fisherman finds the body.

Sarah:

Did you think that river looked really flooded?

Mark:

The whole thing looked weird.

Sarah:

The banks are like super washed out and high and there's trees in the middle of it. It looks like there's been a flood. Yeah. But we get PC angel all of a sudden.

Mark:

PC angel. He's back. All in capital letters. PC angel and a crane. Yeah.

Mark:

Big crane. Like, they put that car in the water. Yeah.

Sarah:

They may have dipped it in with the crane and then pulled it back out again, but they did.

Mark:

They they absolutely did that.

Sarah:

And then they we get Julian in a tarp, and he plays a darn good corpse.

Mark:

He indeed plays a darn good corpse.

Sarah:

But he's one of many in this episode.

Mark:

Yes. Indeed.

Sarah:

Oh, goody, goody, goody. Then we're back with Troy and Sarah. Yes. So now they're looking for the birds.

Mark:

Okay. So before that, she gets has him get out of the car and open the gate. Mhmm. Now I'm a farm kid.

Sarah:

Mhmm. I don't like You've mentioned that a few times. You've mentioned that too.

Mark:

Farm kid. Mhmm. And I can't tell you how many stupid soakers I got on my running shoes having to get out and open the goddamn fence to let my parents or my father into the field.

Sarah:

Because you had to have it because the cows would wander away. Right?

Mark:

I literally thought I was only ever brought on certain outings to open fences.

Sarah:

Hey Mark, let's go to town. It'll be fun and you get some candy in a new comic book. Okay, dad, open this gate, open that gate. Yeah. Open that gate.

Mark:

Oh, like that all the time.

Sarah:

I'll just drive up ahead and you meet me at the gate.

Mark:

Yep. Yep.

Sarah:

So Sarah is investigating some egg thefts. Yes. And she's brought Troy along because it's a crime and she being a wildlife officer can't actually arrest people. Unlike conservation officers here in The United States that basically have carte blanche legally, they're not quite like that. And the birds that the twitchers are looking for are called sarin,

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Which are finches that have a yellow breast. They're related to canaries.

Mark:

There's just a pair.

Sarah:

They're very small birds.

Mark:

They might breed here.

Sarah:

And they're more European than they are UK. Yeah. But they're not really that rare. They would be unusual. So that got me thinking, why are they called twitchers?

Sarah:

Why do you think they're called twitchers?

Mark:

Because they twitch.

Sarah:

You think they all have palsy or something?

Mark:

Something. Sitting in those blinds all day, I'd get twitchy.

Sarah:

So I fell down a big rabbit hole.

Mark:

I can imagine.

Sarah:

And it was quite interesting. I didn't know that there was a controversy around twitching versus Controversy. What, how do they say it?

Mark:

Contravacy.

Sarah:

Contravacy. Twitching is a British term. It's more used in Britain than it is in America. For the pursuit of previously located rare birds. Okay.

Sarah:

So somebody sees a bird that is unusual for the spot that it's in. They tell their friends, the Twitchers all come out because they want to see the bird. Why they want to see the bird? Because they have a life list. They have a list of species that they want to see and it's like collecting baseball cards.

Sarah:

If you can know where and when you saw that bird, you can add them to your little notebook and then it's like, it's kind of a competitive thing.

Mark:

It's a collection thing. I completely understand.

Sarah:

It's also kind of an intrinsic motivation thing that you want to get all the ones that you hope to see. In North America, we call it chasing rather than twitching because they actually do go and chase birds. Chase the birds where they were, right? So they can tick them off their list. Prior names for people who did this before twitching became a thing were pot hunter, tally hunter and tick hunter because they took them off the list.

Mark:

Checked them

Sarah:

off the list. And I'll go back a little bit to say that twitching actually originated as a term in the fifties to describe one specific birdwatcher whose name was Howard Medhurst, who did twitch.

Mark:

Oh, I'm sorry.

Sarah:

And I don't know if it I think it was just because he was so excited. I don't think he had a condition or anything.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

So you don't have to be sorry. Apparently, was quite uptight and tense.

Mark:

What kind of excitement does he get from these birds?

Sarah:

But he sort of initiated the whole keeping of list kind of competitive nature of bird watching. Yep. I shouldn't call him a bird watcher because bird watchers will get upset.

Mark:

Okay. What are bird watchers?

Sarah:

I'm going to read you a little passage here.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Because I need to I need I need you to have the tone from from the bird's mouth as as I could say.

Mark:

I'm listening.

Sarah:

This is from the Guardian newspaper from a section called notes and queries. It's kind of like old school FAQs or old school Reddit. People would submit questions and then people from the community would write in their answers.

Mark:

Sounds like a good idea.

Sarah:

And the question was, why are bird watchers called Twitchers? Oh. Perfectly honest, straightforward question. Yep. Here is the response from, Oh, I don't know some dude.

Sarah:

Okay. Quote. Any serious birdwatcher will take great exception to being called a twitcher. There's a world of difference between the two bird watching entails making careful notes about the birds one sees, even if it's the most common boring bird imaginable. It entails having the greatest respect for them and making strenuous efforts to minimize disturbance when making observations.

Sarah:

These observations then contribute towards our knowledge of the birds, their distribution and nesting habits. Such information having been gathered can help with conservation and research. That's a bird watcher. Yes. Twitchers are only interested in adding to the list of rare birds that they have seen with their intelligence network.

Sarah:

They are ready to set set out at the drop of a hat at any time of the day or night to travel large distances for the prospect of seeing a migrant, lesser spotted scrub warbler or whatever. This poor bird, not normally a visitor to The UK has been blown off course by a freak storm or something already exhausted from its ordeal and finds itself unable to feed because it's surrounded and harried at every turn by hundreds of anorax boarding high powered telescopes like a hoard of press photographers fighting for a better view. The bird inevitably dies. Because this activity is extremely competitive, the aim to have the longest list and to have seen the rarest bird, twitchers are highly stressed, nervous individuals. The very mention of some exotic avian delight, a purple Peruvian rock thrush, for example,

Mark:

sends them into paroxysms. They literally twitch. Wow. When was this published? Oh my god.

Mark:

Wow.

Sarah:

So if you don't want to put your foot in your mouth, don't call a birdwatcher a twitcher. Wow.

Mark:

Certainly not.

Sarah:

I think twitchers are okay with being called birdwatchers, but not the other way around.

Mark:

Not the other way around.

Sarah:

There's kind of a tone in that. If you you might have picked up on

Mark:

There was a switch.

Sarah:

There's kind of a contrast being between a bird watcher and

Mark:

We're scientific and they're bird killers. The bird inevitably dies. The inevitably dies.

Sarah:

And I love the blind that Troy and Sarah are hiding behind. It looks like it's made out of bad placemats from Pier 1.

Mark:

Yeah. It's horrible. Absolutely horrible.

Sarah:

Oh, you can't see us even though this big hole is cut in it and our heads are in the hole. Yeah. No, no. We're hiding.

Mark:

And they see Eddie.

Sarah:

They see Eddie and they see Morecroft. Morecroft.

Mark:

The

Sarah:

egg man. Morecroft. The egg man.

Mark:

Cuckoo. Cuckoo.

Sarah:

He is cuckoo. He, Sean Morecroft, is played by Trevor Cooper.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Who is also in duck patrol. Remember duck Another David Tennant reference there. He was also in a show called wizards versus aliens.

Mark:

Why have we not seen this?

Sarah:

Oh, because it's mostly a kid's show.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

But he's not alone. Okay. Because Candida Benson, who plays Sarah Pierce, was also in Wizards versus Aliens.

Mark:

Oh, so they know each other.

Sarah:

They know each other. Yeah. He was also in a movie called Black Forest Gateau, which is about a bunch of British retirees on vacation in the Mediterranean that plan a bank hike.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

We need to see that.

Mark:

Yeah. We should.

Sarah:

Does Julian's cleaning lady live in his house?

Mark:

I don't know. I have the same question.

Sarah:

Her name is Maisie Cullen. Yes. And she's kinda seems to live there, but he's broke, so I don't know why she why he could afford that.

Mark:

No. How he could afford it? But he sure has a lot of booze and a lot of books and weird pictures.

Sarah:

Because he's a book dealer with a bathroom with absolutely hideous wallpaper. I might have mentioned that. Yeah. But okay. Yeah.

Sarah:

Okay, listeners, pay close attention. We need your help. Yes. In Julian's house. I think it's his dining room.

Sarah:

It's a red room. The walls are red. It's downstairs. Tom is talking to Maisie.

Mark:

The walls are hideous because all of the walls are hideous in this episode.

Sarah:

Yeah. On the wall behind Tom are two framed photographs of what looks to be a vicar or a priest making funny faces.

Mark:

They look to be promotional pictures or something. They're obviously not portraits. They're bizarre.

Sarah:

They are. And I couldn't find them anywhere. And I sure did find some funny pictures of the pope along the way, but I did not find those particular images. So if you know what they are, let us know.

Mark:

Okay. Thank you. Barnaby goes to the big house, and I'm like, why is he going to the big house? How are they in any way related to this?

Sarah:

You mean the Edmonton's?

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

Okay.

Mark:

And then he goes at the end, oh, well, he called here a bunch of times. Oh, okay. Well, you could have led with that Barnaby because at this point, was like, why are you even talking to this woman?

Sarah:

Well, because he doesn't want to tell her that's why he's there.

Mark:

In addition, as you'll see as a theme in the next couple of episodes, I didn't know who the killer was here. So I was pretty convinced it was the blonde sister, not the dark haired sister.

Sarah:

You thought it was Mallory?

Mark:

Yeah. I was kinda like, yeah, it's one of those. And so I thought that

Sarah:

because she's unpleasant and

Mark:

nasty. Thought that the birds attacked her at the end as a really kind of,

Sarah:

you know Tables turn.

Mark:

Tables turn sort of thing.

Sarah:

No. No. It's her sister.

Mark:

No. No. No. No.

Sarah:

This is also where we get to see George Hamilton's house for the first time. Yes. And learn that he's a colonialist ass. Yes. With a horrible outfit.

Mark:

He is indeed.

Sarah:

He's like on like a red and and blue striped tie with like a tan shirt with orange stripes and then some kind of tweedy jacket.

Mark:

Yeah. I wanna I wanna talk to the Midsomer writers here. Okay? Why are your marriages so bad?

Sarah:

Who hurt you?

Mark:

Who who hurt you? Because this and the next episode are all about just horrible marriages.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Go get some counseling.

Sarah:

And weird sibling relationships are also a theme. Yeah. Like The McPherson's are great sisters. They support each other and take care of each other. Yeah.

Sarah:

Naomi and Mallory, not so much.

Mark:

Yeah. But this marriage, like, why on earth are they even slightly together? They hate each other openly. Yeah. And if you're in a marriage where there's open hatred, go get some help.

Mark:

Really?

Sarah:

Well, then you have those couples that, clearly don't care for one another, but are okay with it and just lead separate lives. Yeah. That's a little bit better.

Mark:

Yeah. But this is just

Sarah:

George's wife, Aileen seems like a genuinely good person.

Mark:

She does.

Sarah:

But she has his number. Oh, yeah. She knows who he is.

Mark:

She knows exactly what's going on.

Sarah:

When Tom shows up to talk to him, she doesn't even try to cover. She's like, oh, you hear the yelling going in. Yep. Because he's talking to the investors who are so upset with him.

Mark:

There are other investors? Hillary Carlton and Vernon Surtees. Two very angry old men. Yes. Hillary.

Sarah:

They have a they have a role to play in George's very bad day later.

Mark:

Yes, they do.

Sarah:

So Morecroft puts Eddie up to stealing eggs from Mallory because Morecroft wants viable Osprey eggs. Yes. No, I'm sorry. Eddie wants an osprey egg. Morecroft wants falcon eggs.

Mark:

Falcon eggs.

Sarah:

And so he thinks that Eddie can steal them from Mallory, but instead what Eddie steals is a look at a corpse in a freezer. Yes. Oops. So Naomi has to run him over. Is Naomi

Mark:

just sitting there in the darkness in the car waiting?

Sarah:

She's just revving the engine.

Mark:

I hate everybody because I I don't know why I hate everybody. It has something to do with money. Yes. And maybe my completely absent husband.

Sarah:

Well, no. Naomi doesn't have a husband.

Mark:

She just I I kept on going, doesn't isn't she married too?

Sarah:

No. No. So at this point okay. So Eddie gets run down by Naomi. Yes.

Sarah:

We've got two deaths now. Well, no, three.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

Because Charles is in the freezer. Yes. So Julian's dead, Charles is dead, and Eddie's Eddie's not dead. Eddie's been run over. He's been run over.

Sarah:

And we know it's Naomi because we spoil everything. We assume that you've seen the episode.

Mark:

Exactly.

Sarah:

What is her motive now? Why did she kill Julian?

Mark:

She killed Julian because he was making it difficult to steal the money because he wanted his money back.

Sarah:

So Charles has started a company Yes. And a lot of people have invested including the two grumpy old guys

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

And Julian Yes. And Charles had Alzheimer's

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

And was not who he used to be.

Mark:

So they decided at some point. And this is why I think the blonde lady is going up the river for a long time.

Sarah:

Her name is Mallory.

Mark:

Mallory is part of this conspiracy

Sarah:

Yes.

Mark:

That says, we're gonna take the money that was invested in this. Charles is going to die very soon. And when he dies, we're out of here.

Sarah:

Because I get the impression. Well, we know Charles was a very successful businessman before. Yeah. Right. And I think he and Mallory actually had a good relationship.

Sarah:

I think she genuinely cared about him. But then when his Alzheimer's surfaces, she realizes that he's been continuing to make some decisions while he's not quite in his right mind and has gone bankrupt as a result of it.

Mark:

Yeah, they have no money.

Sarah:

So the only money they have is the investment money. Yes. And before he dies, she wants to move that money to secure it so that after he dies, it doesn't get taken back.

Mark:

And this has to be a lot of money because George Hamilton is only getting a tiny part of it and he bought a lodge.

Sarah:

Yeah. Naomi has been caring for Charles. She's been his doctor and is going to get a cut. Yes. So when Julian wants his money back, she's afraid he's going to go tell other people he wants his money back, maybe go talk to the other investors and make trouble, So she's got to kill him.

Mark:

I still don't see why she jumps right to killing, especially in the bathtub because that's gotta be messy. She's gonna see his junk and everything. How does she get him out of the bathtub, clean it up, and then put him in the car? Like, she is not a big woman.

Sarah:

How does she drive the car into the river and get out? And then does she walk home?

Mark:

I guess so. I guess she does.

Sarah:

And his station wagon, she drives him in a station wagon. She's driven. She's motivated. When you're motivated, you can do things.

Mark:

She's got to use the house. Might as well kill him.

Sarah:

So Charles dies of natural causes, we're told.

Mark:

We're told.

Sarah:

Yeah. The heart attack.

Mark:

Don't believe that.

Sarah:

Though we do see him being injected with things.

Mark:

Yeah. I think she totally kills Charles.

Sarah:

Yeah. I think so too. I think she sped it up anyway. Yep. But Mallory must know that he's in the freezer.

Sarah:

Yeah. And It's not like Mallory thinks he's alive. She knows he's dead.

Mark:

She keeps telling everybody that she loves him and really cared about him, then maybe not put him in the freezer. Mallory is extremely practical. I guess.

Sarah:

She doesn't seem to be a sentimental kind of person. So I can sort of understand her motivation. I don't agree with

Mark:

it,

Sarah:

but I can sort of understand her motivation and we just need forty eight hours until all the financial stuff is done before we can declare him dead. And so we need to cover up the fact that he's died because he died a little bit too soon. So we're going to shove him in the freezer, but you would have at least wrapped him in a blanket. You wouldn't have just laid him in the freezer in his pajamas.

Mark:

Yes, at least.

Sarah:

But they do. Then Naomi, because she never goes home, she just kind of hovers around apparently sees Eddie, realizes Eddie has probably seen the body and decides to run him down.

Mark:

Which I don't understand that

Sarah:

at all. Because if he goes and tells

Mark:

I don't understand how she knows that he saw the body.

Sarah:

He was looking around in the barn. It's better safe than sorry.

Mark:

I guess. And then she runs herself into a ditch.

Sarah:

Yeah. She's not a very good driver.

Mark:

No. Meanwhile, the time team jumps out and goes, a ditch? We'll dig that ditch. Oh, ah. Oh, we'll dig

Sarah:

that ditch. We

Mark:

found a Roman villa.

Sarah:

And he goes home, having been hit by a car. And Eleanor and Jane have kind of a pickle. I'm not very upset that he's hurt. Are you Jane? No, I'm not.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

They're like, yeah. Let's let him

Sarah:

die. To be fair, they say, do you want a doctor? And he says no. They're like, okay. Okay.

Sarah:

We won't insist then.

Mark:

Vernon and Hillary get some deliveries. I don't understand this at all because they get a delivery from the corporation. Yeah. So somewhere outside of Midsomer, Magma, there is corporate headquarters for this company.

Sarah:

No. I don't think so. I think there's a manufacturer in China or something who's built the scooters and they've been told that when the prototypes are done, they should send them to these addresses.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

Did you notice that Delivery Man has epaulettes on his uniform?

Mark:

I did.

Sarah:

UPS drivers don't have epaulettes. I want epaulettes on our UPS guy.

Mark:

He he should be part of a military organization to deliver things. And what they get are scooters.

Sarah:

Yeah. Not even like electric scooters.

Mark:

At least they're branded Edmunds in scooters.

Sarah:

Yeah. They're really lame. But I love the packaging. I have to say I like those triangle boxes. They're intriguing.

Mark:

But why would you do this? It just makes no sense at all.

Sarah:

Why you would send them the scooters? Yeah. Like Because Charles really thought he was sending them a groundbreaking world changing technology.

Mark:

I realized that, but it would not have gotten this far.

Sarah:

It was a secret, and everybody trusted him because they he he'd been so successful in the past, so they thought he had something going.

Mark:

I think somebody would have said

Sarah:

The moral of that story is ask a few more questions before you invest.

Mark:

Well, when they go back to Charles' room after this and find the scooter, there's pictures of scooters all over that

Sarah:

got like blueprints and engineers drawings of scooters.

Mark:

I'm like, you didn't notice that the first time you were there?

Sarah:

Instead of a train set, he should have replaced the trains with scooters that just go around the tracks. So Tom and Troy are in the bar having a beer

Mark:

and No. No. They're having lunch with talk of suicide. That's right.

Sarah:

And doctor Robert Shaw shows up

Mark:

Robert Shaw.

Sarah:

And says Eddie's dead. His bruises match the wallpaper in his room.

Mark:

He's a clerk to the council.

Sarah:

Tom says that he refers to red and tooth and claw. Yeah. Talking about nature, red and tooth and claw. He's talking about these birds. And, I knew I recognized that.

Sarah:

I couldn't put my finger on it. I'm sure some professor somewhere that I had before is mad at me for not knowing.

Mark:

I thought it was Shakespeare

Sarah:

or Tennyson.

Mark:

Tennyson. Okay.

Sarah:

It's from In Memoriam h h. Yes.

Mark:

It's a

Sarah:

poem about his friend.

Mark:

It's a

Sarah:

very long poem.

Mark:

It's in Oddin. It's in Memoriams, Oddin, isn't it?

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah. It's in Canto 56.

Mark:

Yeah. He really liked this dude.

Sarah:

Yeah. Why is Eddie smiling?

Mark:

Don't know.

Sarah:

He's dead and he's smiling.

Mark:

He's like,

Sarah:

I I'm happy. Maybe he's fucking at the wallpaper going, I'm never gonna have to see you again because I'm dying. Yay. And he grins. No more beef sausages.

Mark:

Yay. I noticed also that the undertakers were there really fast.

Sarah:

Yeah. You get the feeling that Eleanor was like, he's dead, come get him. Because Tom said, you know, don't disturb Eddie's room. It's a crime scene. And Jane and Eleanor are like, oh, you're not going to take him with you?

Sarah:

We'd prefer if you did.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

Like, yeah, I understand wanting to get the body out of the house, but they really just want him out of their lives completely and as quick And

Mark:

then they act all weird about it, which if they talked to Barnaby for two seconds and said he was not very nice to us, Barnaby would have been like, okay, I understand the whole situation.

Sarah:

Yeah, you guys clearly didn't run him down with a car. Yeah. But they did sort of neglect. I don't know. They I think they had a duty to provide him with a little bit more medical care than they did.

Mark:

No, he said he didn't want a doctor. It's not their child.

Sarah:

But when Eleanor helps him change, I think you could argue that she should have called the doctor at that point, that he wasn't able to give consent for medical care or not. He was he was too injured.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

She doesn't. I don't fault her for that, but I can see why they wouldn't have admitted that right away. Yeah. They go arrest Morcroft. What's hanging in his kitchen?

Mark:

Ribbons. It is a tradition.

Sarah:

His entire kitchen ceiling is made of ribbons.

Mark:

Yep. Because I've been in several houses where this is in fact the case. They are horse jumping and, showing ribbons. It is a tradition that if you're a horse jumper or a shower that you, put all your ribbons in one room, either on one wall or hanging from the ceiling. I've been in at least three houses that have had this.

Sarah:

Okay. I get that. I get these are our achievements, right? As a family, we raise horses. We've earned honors.

Sarah:

I don't understand hanging them from the ceiling when you already live in a cottage with a very low ceiling. Yes. And I really don't understand hanging them in the kitchen.

Mark:

You know, I've never seen them in the kitchen. I've only ever seen them in living rooms, but that's what is going on.

Sarah:

They would be so greasy. You want to talk about greasy goofy gopher guts.

Mark:

They're also not like they're not high quality ribbons or anything.

Sarah:

Oh, no. Now I just think about, you know, some four H kid I know who's like showing his sheep every year and hanging his ribbons from the kitchen.

Mark:

Yeah. It's like that.

Sarah:

Like, hey, we got third place. Yay. Yeah. If you get a ribbon, you hang a ribbon. It's gross.

Sarah:

I don't like it.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

It's not as bad as the wallpaper, but it's gross.

Mark:

The cops are here. Okay. I need to get out of here. But first, I need to put my coat on. Why does he put his coat on?

Sarah:

It's hanging there. Maybe his keys are in his coat pocket.

Mark:

I guess. He goes full aggro and Troy just trips him.

Sarah:

Yeah. He's like, oops. Face down. Troy's like real cop. Yeah.

Sarah:

Puts his arms behind his back and everything. Yeah. And Morecroft's not a little dude. No. He's a big guy.

Sarah:

Then we get to see George super drunk. Yes. In the best outfit he's in in the whole show. Yes. He's got his African shirt on with the dancers around the bottom.

Mark:

He wants more money.

Sarah:

He calls Mallory and says, want more money. Yeah. Right? He wants a bigger cut. The song that he's singing, I'm gonna absolutely butcher this.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Okay? It's called Nkosi Sikile e Africa. Okay. It means Lord bless Africa.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

And it's a Christian hymn that was kind of adopted as a anti apartheid. That's where

Mark:

I recognize it from. Yeah.

Sarah:

It became sort of a pan African liberation song in the early 1900s. And then it became the national anthem of five different countries, Zambia, Tanzania, Namibia, and Zimbabwe.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

And another country not on my list because that's only four. They have since changed to other national anthems, but that was it. And I thought it was interesting that that's what he's singing because he's so clearly somebody who just appropriates another culture that is not his own, And yet he's singing about freeing Africa. Yeah. And he just wants to go take advantage of Africa again.

Mark:

Yeah, exactly.

Sarah:

He's a hypocrite.

Mark:

He's ginormous hypocrite. He's horrible.

Sarah:

Well, he gets it.

Mark:

And his wife hates him.

Sarah:

So Because he's moved all of their money to an account in Africa without telling her and already has a ticket on

Mark:

Antelope One way.

Sarah:

A one way ticket on Antelope Air

Mark:

Antelope Air.

Sarah:

To fly to Africa and ditch her. I would be extremely angry. I understand.

Mark:

Then we have Charles' funeral, which makes the weirdest Badger's Drift reference ever. The birds. Yes. You have to go tell the birds when someone dies. No, you don't.

Sarah:

First of all, why didn't she tell them when he actually died?

Mark:

Also, we never see Charles interact with the birds. Do they even know he exists?

Sarah:

They respected him. How? I don't know. That's what she says. You have to tell them when someone they respect dies.

Sarah:

And that just got me thinking about birds and bees because you have to tell the bees when somebody dies. So is it a birds and bees thing

Mark:

that you

Sarah:

have to tell them? So then I Googled, do you have to tell an animal when someone dies? And wow, there's a lot of advice out there about how to tell somebody that an animal's died. I flipped it around. That's like, no.

Sarah:

I wanna know about telling people.

Mark:

I hate it when Google does that.

Sarah:

I wanna know about telling animals that a person has died, not telling a person that an animal's died.

Mark:

Yep. And you put it in quotation marks to get it the right way around, and Google goes, I'm gonna ignore those

Sarah:

quotation marks. Surely, that's not what you mean because that's a stupid search. Why would you be searching for

Mark:

talking to animals? Only crazy people would do that. Also judged by Google is crazy.

Sarah:

Yeah. It it wagged its finger at me. Do you yeah. It it did a a grated carrot. Do you know what a grated carrot is?

Sarah:

No. You know, when you you put you you stick the the index finger of your left hand out and you you slide down it with the index finger of your right to say, no, no, don't do that. Yeah. That's great in the carrot.

Mark:

Oh, okay.

Sarah:

That's a British thing too.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

I learned that too. The funeral directors at the, at Charles' funerals, the one, the ones who kind of direct, the hearses and all that stuff, you know, have the top hats on with the ribbons on.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

Just like in Badger's Drift. Yeah. I meant to look it up then and I didn't. I looked it up this time to find out, do they really still do that? Do they really still wear the hats?

Mark:

The top hats.

Sarah:

And it looked to me like maybe about 25% of UK funeral directors will still wear a hat.

Mark:

Fancy posh ones, I would assume.

Sarah:

They are the higher end ones. The more formal the funeral, the more likely you are to have directors who wear hats.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

But there's no, like, secret history of that hat. It's just that it's classic formal attire. That's the only reason they wear them, and the black ribbon is like wearing a black armband. That's it. Mhmm.

Sarah:

There's nothing interesting there.

Mark:

There's a race

Sarah:

Maybe I shouldn't even have mentioned it if there's nothing interesting. Sorry.

Mark:

There's a

Sarah:

race to the crematorium. The minister says, and a voice from heaven said unto me, Tom, stop this now. It's like, God said it. I was waiting for the doors to open in front of the casket and for us to see flames on the other side.

Mark:

And Mallory is like, oh, you've interrupted my thing.

Sarah:

Yeah. I wanted this to be done by noon. By the way, there wouldn't be a fire right on the other side of those doors.

Mark:

Of course not. Why would they ever do that?

Sarah:

The body the casket would go through there and the doors would close. And then on the other side, some people would handle it and probably move it to a completely different building to cremate it. Yes. It's not as if it was going into the flames right then and there.

Mark:

So we find out that Mallory's defrauding the investors, her sister signed the death warrant. Mallory lawyers up pretty quickly. She's so arrogant in this part.

Sarah:

Before she goes to the the lockup, Tom goes to the Edmonton house with George. Yes. And wants to see Charles's room. Yeah. And they walk up the stairway.

Sarah:

And? The wallpaper is hideous.

Mark:

You've mentioned it. I went back and looked and I was like, I think I threw up a little bit

Sarah:

in my mouth.

Mark:

It's really bad.

Sarah:

It's blue and white. There are very classic blue and white wallpaper patterns. Yeah. They're beautiful.

Mark:

Like nice stripes.

Sarah:

Like Willow.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

And this is like Bluebells. A little kid with a stencil went crazy on the walls.

Mark:

Yeah. It's just horrendous.

Sarah:

And it's so obnoxious. I'm sorry. I'm going on about it. Yeah. That's the last bad wallpaper.

Sarah:

I'm done.

Mark:

Aileen is searching for dirt.

Sarah:

Oh, finds it. Suspicious.

Mark:

She finds it. And she basically takes his entire African collection and burns it to the ground.

Sarah:

You go, girl. Yep. I'm cheering her on the whole time.

Mark:

Absolutely.

Sarah:

But apparently, she doesn't get all of it. She misses a giant creepy white mask because Naomi has it on to kill George.

Mark:

Why does Naomi have the mask on?

Sarah:

Because she's crazy.

Mark:

She's crazy, but, like, obviously, charl not Charles.

Sarah:

George.

Mark:

George would be like, know exactly who she like, why pretend? Why not, Mark?

Sarah:

Why not?

Mark:

She is needlessly creepy, and there's spear cam.

Sarah:

We get spear cam, and then the camera turns, and wow, that mask is so creepy and the firelight and

Mark:

everything. Yeah. It's like Africa getting its revenge.

Sarah:

It is. Oh, that's good. I never thought about that. What I really like, I was very impressed with the fact that George is, he's speared, so he falls down, but he doesn't fall into the fire because it's kind of burning down now. But man, there are real flames like a foot away from his head.

Mark:

Yeah. He's hot. He's hot. Laying there. He doesn't do No matter

Sarah:

how controlled that fire is, and I'm sure they had people all around to keep him safe. His bald head was real close to actual flames. I was impressed.

Mark:

That's a good job. And he's holding the spear, you know, against him. I love how Aileen then is like totally honest with the police. It was a great sense of relief.

Sarah:

I'm not sorry he's dead.

Mark:

He wasn't even a major.

Sarah:

I love that. You have to wonder where he got all of his money just being an accountant.

Mark:

Well, she's gonna clean up now.

Sarah:

If she can get all the money back from the African accounts, she's I

Mark:

would assume so.

Sarah:

But all that money is ill gotten gains. So I don't think she is okay.

Mark:

That's true. Well, yeah, that's true.

Sarah:

Because Tom says, you knew the money was stolen and she says, I've lived my whole life by the rules and nobody ever gave me anything.

Mark:

Yes, That's true. And

Sarah:

I don't think she'll go to jail, but I don't think she'll get to keep the money. You know

Mark:

who really is put off by this whole thing? The people he bought the lodge from.

Sarah:

They're screwed. They're totally not going through. No. And Aileen doesn't wanna go live there. No.

Sarah:

So in one evening, George's wife calls him out. He leaves, gets in a fight with the two old guys. They throw a scooter through his windshield. His wife burns all of his stuff. And then he gets stabbed by Naomi wearing a spooky African mask.

Sarah:

Yeah. That's not a good night.

Mark:

It's a very bad day. And If you're sitting alone at the pub in your own seat at your own table talking to yourself, It's a bad day.

Sarah:

It is a bad day. And it just got worse when you went home. Yeah, was impressed with the old guy throwing the scooter. Yeah, he heaved that thing. It must have been lightweight and very ergonomic.

Mark:

Well, it was also good for the environment. Absolutely.

Sarah:

Yes, I'm just going to change the

Mark:

world. Yep.

Sarah:

And then we get this nice little parallel between Aileen and the McPherson sisters. Yes. Women who are relieved that a man is dead.

Mark:

Yes. I I got that.

Sarah:

For good reason.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

They're relieved that a man is dead and they're not sorry. Yeah. But they didn't kill him. No. Because Naomi did it.

Sarah:

Yes. Naomi, who keeps incriminating voicemails on her machine.

Mark:

Who is crazy loony?

Sarah:

She is psycho.

Mark:

With no reason for it.

Sarah:

And that actress is so good at playing Psycho.

Mark:

And she Okay. She's a medical doctor. I have something in my belief system that she would have not been able to get it through medical school if she was that crazy.

Sarah:

I don't know. I think anybody who's a super high achiever like that, who works really hard, that there's a chance that they can sort of break a little bit. Like what allows you to be that driven?

Mark:

But they should have given her a reason to need the money so badly.

Sarah:

I agree. Because she's desperate. Yeah. And I don't get the sense that Mallory and Charles had been married for like fifty years or anything. Mallory's not that old.

Sarah:

So it's not as if Mallory had inherited the family money and Naomi got nothing. So she's had this grudge against her whole whole life. But I do get a feeling that Naomi was a bullied younger sister, that Mallory was not a good older sister.

Mark:

Yeah. I get that too. But again, that's us reaching to find a motive.

Sarah:

It is. And And they could have given us a little just a little bit. Just a, you know, you took all my money when I was younger and all I want is some of it back. Or You wouldn't have got to marry Charles if you hadn't had the family money.

Mark:

I had to scrimp and save to get through medical school.

Sarah:

You never offered to help me.

Mark:

Offered to help me. No, I've got two.

Sarah:

Yeah, exactly. Something like that would have been nice. Instead, she's just crazy. And when those birds attack her, it is awesome. Yes.

Sarah:

Did you watch that scene really closely when she's being attacked? No. So you get the shots of the flapping wings and hair. Yes. But then there are these shots that are from behind Naomi's head.

Sarah:

Yes. And here's what they did. They have a fake head with a wig on it that looks like her hair and they've put some meat on it. Oh, okay. So the hawk will attack it.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

And then they move it around. And there's like two frames if you watch really close, where you see a hand with a glove at the base of the head

Mark:

Oh, moving we have to put a picture of that in the show notes.

Sarah:

It's so fast because it's a brown glove and it's brown hair. It's so fast, but somebody's because they put the meat on it so the hawk will go after it, but the hawk would have just perched on it and eaten it, right? So they got to jerk it around so that it flaps its wings to keep its balance to make it look like it's attacking. Wow. It's really well done.

Sarah:

And you got to look real close.

Mark:

I'll use some of my technical magic to see if I can get that frame by frame situation.

Sarah:

I have thought that maybe they put one of those weird mating hats on it.

Mark:

Yes. So if you haven't heard about these, birds mate.

Sarah:

If you have if you have male hunting birds, they imprint on the human who trains them. Yes. And when they're in the mood.

Mark:

They only wanna have sex with that person's head.

Sarah:

Well, so to collect the semen Yeah. Because it's it's it's very valuable, they wear these hats that look almost like they have dimples like a golf ball. Yes. And the hawk will come up and sort of hump their head.

Mark:

Yeah. Yeah. Moving on.

Sarah:

It's just a wig on a hat, But it is like the birds, man. The streaks of blood and everything.

Mark:

It's definitely some reference to some Hitchcock there.

Sarah:

And then Joyce makes ostrich for dinner.

Mark:

Yes. And the Barnabas are off

Sarah:

to Africa. They're gonna go whether he likes it or not. Yes. Best corpse. We've got Julian, Charles in the freezer, Eddie in bed, George in the fire.

Sarah:

Who do you like best?

Mark:

I like Charles in the freezer the best. He's got the most makeup on. He doesn't make any sudden movements or anything. And that's a small freezer for a dude to be in.

Sarah:

I'll I'll give it to him. He does a pretty good job and they put makeup on him to make him look icy and everything, but he's not my best corpse.

Mark:

Who's your best corpse? Eddie's pretty good too.

Sarah:

I give it to Eddie because he has to lay in that bed for a pretty prolonged shot and he's got no clothes on on his chest. His chest is bare and it does not move.

Mark:

Not a second. And he's such a Anton Lesser is such a good actor.

Sarah:

And I think that would be really hard not to let your chest move at all. Yeah. That'd be tough.

Mark:

He was completely robbed of a decent storyline in Game of Thrones, but so was everybody.

Sarah:

God, was nasty in Game of Thrones though.

Mark:

He had such potential in Game of Thrones and then like everything in the last season, they just were like

Sarah:

Wrap it up. Wrap it up.

Mark:

Wrap it up. After the credits. Okay. The Barnabas are going to Africa. Mhmm.

Mark:

That's we know that for sure.

Sarah:

Mallory has no birds and is bankrupt.

Mark:

Yeah. And probably going to prison.

Sarah:

Naomi's definitely going to jail.

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

Aileen is free from George and his bad taste.

Mark:

And I'm sure she could sell the house or something. She's gonna get some money.

Sarah:

She's yeah. She's not gonna be homeless. She's gonna be okay.

Mark:

No. The two old guys got nothing though. No. They're probably gonna have shitty retirements.

Sarah:

They seem like they've got enough money.

Mark:

I guess.

Sarah:

And the McPherson sisters live happily ever after with whatever sausages they want. Yes. And they never get another lodger ever.

Mark:

And Troy goes out on a date with another woman that we never hear from again.

Sarah:

You know, when Scott starts, he doesn't have a place to live. He should have rented a room from the McPherson sisters. They would have taken good care of him.

Mark:

Yeah. They would have.

Sarah:

They would have fed him sausages.

Mark:

Yes. Oh,

Sarah:

that's birds of prey.

Mark:

Yes. You can find Midsommar Maniacs on Twitter, Instagram and email. We also post on the Facebook groups and Midsomer, for Midsomer Murders and Acorn and subreddit where wherever else we can find you Maniacs.

Sarah:

Be nice to your siblings.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Don't put up bad wallpaper.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

And be careful taking baths.

Mark:

And like, do a double check on your lodgers.

Sarah:

Yeah. That's a good idea too. Send us your favorite Troy moments.

Mark:

Yes, please. Send us your favorite Troy moments so that we can compile them into the goodbye Troy episode.

Sarah:

And if you leave us a voice message, we'll we might even include it in the episode.

Mark:

Yep. We might

Sarah:

We'd be really excited too.

Mark:

Yep. So

Sarah:

Alright, Maniacs. Until next time.

Mark:

Bye, Maniacs.

Sarah:

Bye, Maniacs.

Mark:

No. That we're probably gonna do something special for the next episode for Troy, but

Sarah:

Do you wanna ask people to send us their favorite Troy moment?

Mark:

Send us your favorite Troy moment. Do wanna do that at the top or at

Sarah:

the end? And we'll do it at the end too. Yep.

Mark:

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