This episode is in classic Midsomer form. Multiple characters, several who look just similar enough to one another to make the solution that much harder to deduce, but all in all a lovely bit of mystery. I was admittedly a bit surprised about the identity of the first murder victim, but happy (as we are secretly meant to be) about the second and third victims. The murderer was spot on when he said that neither the victims nor he himself were really likely to be missed. It worked for Agatha Christie, and it works for Midsomer Murders.
In this case we are actually meant to like the murderer until the end, as demonstrated ever-so-slightly heavy-handedly by the scene between Barnaby and his wife. In truth for most of the episode the murderer was very likeable indeed, but we weren’t given full information about him until the end was near. As Jones said, the murderer got his son's wife pregnant, gambled away his fortune, and people still liked him. Barnaby said it was because he was “a jp, a pillar of the community, and certainly not one of us at all,” but in fact it was the combination of those things plus his very self-effacing manner, which is reprised as he is taken away, that made him so very attractive.
Not enough Jones for my taste in this episode, but otherwise a terrific one for Midsomer fans like me.
First published on Simply Television on October 13, 2010 http://simplytelevision.blogspot.com/2010/10/midsomer-murders-noble-art-review.html
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