Having joked about it last week, I’m beginning to wonder if I might actually be on to something because yet again Midsomer Murders gives us only two murders as opposed to the traditional three.
Going a step further, both victims in ‘Red in Tooth and Claw’ are estate agents so one could even argue that these are victimless crimes.
The annual Belville Hall Small Pet Show provides the slightly eccentric backdrop to this week’s pair of murders. The first victim is found dead amidst a tent full of liberated rabbits, and the second suffers an allergic reaction to some maliciously-placed rabbit fur. Other than the deaths it seems a very jolly event (certainly nobody seems worried enough by the fatalities that they contemplate cancelling it) or as DS Winter wryly puts it: “the lovely estate agent in a lovely relationship with his lovely girlfriend who works for the lovely pet show which everybody loves.”
Barnaby and Winter make a good team… although despite all their investigating and detecting they don’t so much solve this case as happen upon the killer. As the ten o’clock news approaches, they track down Steve Pemberton’s Timothy Benson in the hope that he knows the whereabouts of Errol Judd (although he doesn’t); they’re keen to find Mr Judd because they believe he may be the killer (although he isn’t); and when they do finally track him down to the showdown at Belville Hall he’s unconscious and up to his neck in concrete and about to become the third victim (although he doesn’t).
Along the way they clear up the mystery of the missing furs (stored in Mrs Benson’s freezer) and the kidnapping of Hercules the prize-winning rabbit – so by the time they’re dragging Judd out of the concrete, pretty much every other loose end has been neatly tied up.
It’s not really a complaint, they’re hardly the first TV detectives to stumble upon a solution just in time for the end credits (think of the ‘Driven to Distraction’ episode of Inspector Morse, as just one example). And the flip side of it is that with nothing having pointed us towards the real killer, the eleventh-hour reveal is a genuine surprise. Up to that point my money had been on special guest star Susan Hampshire’s lovely lady of the manor, but I’m pleased to report that she is completely innocent.
The remaining episodes of Season 19, at least according to Wikipedia, are being held over until later in the year so we’ll have to wait until then for more murderous tales from Midsomer. (It would be nice to think we might be getting a further three episodes – but alas, I think it’s only two.)
Aired at 8pm on Wednesday 18 January 2017 on ITV.
Buy the complete Season 18 box set on Amazon here.
What did you think of this week’s episode? Let us know below…