Episode 198 - Poirot - "Four and Twenty Blackbirds" - Bare-naked Ladies Without The Mustard!
Roast beef without the mustard.
Sarah:Hey, maniacs.
Mark:Hey, maniacs.
Sarah:Hello from the land of snot.
Mark:Oh my gosh.
Sarah:You're listening to mystery maniacs.
Mark:I have not been this sick in 19 years. We figured out last night.
Sarah:No. You haven't. And I was sick first. Yeah. And then I gave it to you.
Sarah:Luckily, I got better
Mark:The week was sick.
Sarah:You got
Mark:sick. Luckily, it's spring break for us too. So I wasted 2 holidays.
Sarah:What a great use of spring I will give you credit though. You have not had man flu. You're not one of those people. Some men are like, oh, I'm so I'm gonna die. What?
Sarah:You know? You're you've been great. You've been a good patient. I've been happy to take care of you.
Mark:I have a head cold. It's annoying.
Sarah:You have been leaving Kleenex around, though.
Mark:It's hard not to when I blow my nose all the time.
Sarah:Yeah. But that's why we didn't make an episode last week. It it would have just been sniffling and sneezing and moaning, and that wouldn't have
Mark:been fun the last time. Very over waking up with a splitting headache.
Sarah:Oh, I hope that, that you all haven't caught this thing.
Mark:Yes. So just to reiterate We're
Sarah:both on the upswing now.
Mark:We are both on the upswing. This is Mystery Maniacs, comedy recap podcast dedicated to mystery TV. Each week, we dig into an episode of the show, including murders, the mayhem, the loonies, and everything else we love. This week, Poirot, 420 Blackbirds season 1 episode 4. I'm Mark.
Sarah:I'm Sarah.
Mark:Don't let your kids watch this episode if they can't see boobs because wow.
Sarah:There's a lot of boobs.
Mark:Boobs. Boobs.
Sarah:This is one of my favorite Poirot's.
Mark:It's the most Poirot y Poirot ever.
Sarah:If there's a Poirot knob that you can turn up, I think it's set to about 9.
Mark:And
Sarah:that's the way I like it.
Mark:It's pretty close to 11. Originally, air date is January 1989, the 29th January and directed by Renny Rai and written by Russell Murray.
Sarah:Before we dive in, though, did you wanna talk a little bit about the next couple of weeks?
Mark:Yeah. So this week so this comes out on the 18th March. So you're all listening on Monday, 18th March. And, we're doing 420 Blackbirds. And then we gotta take a week off because I'm going to a comic book convention.
Mark:Well, I'm I'm tabling at a comic book convention. Mhmm. And so we can't record that weekend much to the surprise of my wife who said that's next weekend.
Sarah:Oh, is that why you've been getting all that stuff ready in the other oh, okay.
Mark:So we'll release our next episode after this, the first of April, which will be the 3rd floor flat, an awesome episode that we love. Mhmm. And that will be episode 199 because this is episode 100 98.
Sarah:That's how numbers work?
Mark:Yes. And then April will be regular, though there will be 2 remix in episodes in it because the sun is going to stop shining
Sarah:Yes.
Mark:On the 8th April. We will release an episode. We we cannot like, Bloomington has roughly between 6,070,000 people in it when the students are here.
Sarah:Mhmm. And
Mark:they are expecting 300,000 people in our town
Sarah:Extra. Extra. To show up for the eclipse.
Mark:There's there will be nigh on half a 1000000 people here. Yeah. Which will be insane.
Sarah:Yeah. It's gonna be crazy.
Mark:I do a convention that Saturday, but I should be able to remix an episode for you on Monday and have it all ready to go.
Sarah:Maybe there will be a murder during the eclipse.
Mark:Maybe. Maybe.
Sarah:Like on Guy Fawkes and Poirot.
Mark:So we have next week off. And then the 1st April, you'll hear all about our 200th anniversary 200th episode, ask me anything, ask us anything details. We'll have a date and
Sarah:all that crazy
Mark:stuff that
Sarah:I'm looking forward to that. It's gonna be fun.
Mark:It's it it'll really be tea with the maniacs because we're just gonna sit down and talk. We're not gonna talk about a specific episode.
Sarah:Though we may have some favorite moments or something.
Mark:We might have some favorite moments, and, a couple of people have asked some stuff already that I wanna cover. So so get your questions in mind, and, we'll deal with that when it comes. So, boy, this episode, the other thing about this episode, it's very Poirot.
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:It's Poirot If that's if that's an adjective.
Sarah:It's trae Poirot.
Mark:It's also wicked expensive. Mhmm. There are a ton a ton of actors in this episode that have no bearing on the plot. Yep. And a ton of extras.
Mark:Yeah. And the the pure logistics of this episode
Sarah:because they actually shoot at Brighton. That's actually Brighton Pier.
Mark:They
Sarah:shoot. A lot of filming happens at Brighton, but period filming at Brighton takes a whole another level of prep.
Mark:So the very first shot, we see the Brighton pier. Mhmm. We see a lot of people in period costume Yep. Except for 1 dude.
Sarah:Yeah. Who's in a panic trying to get out of shot.
Mark:In a panic because he's trying to get out of shot. He literally launches himself over the, like The wall. Fence that leads to the ocean, and he jumps over it.
Sarah:Yeah. Dives out of shot.
Mark:Yeah. Like, this really I remember seeing the documentary about Poirot that Hastings in particular played by Hugh Fraser particularly was like when they showed up to start filming, they were like, wow. The this is money. Mhmm. There are a lot of people here.
Mark:Mhmm. There this these are this first 10 episodes, except for Johnny Waverly, are 10 little movies.
Sarah:Yeah. Like well, never mind the extras at the theater too. All of the dancing girls and the actors and their costumes and all of that stuff. There's there's a lot going on.
Mark:There's just there's vaudeville numbers Yes. That have nothing to do with the plot.
Sarah:There's a magician with a girl in a box. And maybe the worst doctor ever. Okay. If I'm lying in bed, barely able to breathe, I do not want my doctor to walk 4 feet away and tell my maid, yeah, he's gonna die in a couple hours. Do you think, doc?
Sarah:Could you have taken her out of the room or something? Like, please. Keep it from me a little bit.
Mark:This is the story of a family. Mhmm. We have 2 brothers.
Sarah:Yes. Arthur and Henry Gascoigne.
Mark:And there must be a third sibling that we don't know about who is dead.
Sarah:Yeah. Who has the son George, who's their nephew. And George is their nephew. The they're twin brothers.
Mark:It seems like these are the only three people from this clan left.
Sarah:Yeah. The only Gascoins remaining.
Mark:Yes. Now Arthur had a wife, but she died
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:After being painted naked
Sarah:Anthony.
Mark:By the other Anthony. Sorry.
Sarah:Yes.
Mark:Anthony had a wife
Sarah:Charlotte.
Mark:Who got painted naked by the brother. Yeah. And that's why they don't talk.
Sarah:Right. There's a lot of naked. There's a lot of naked ladies in this. Hastings is quite mature. He really holds it together.
Mark:He does. And when they're in the when they're looking down on Dulce Lane and she's completely naked, like, not here's a painting naked, it's
Sarah:actually woman naked.
Mark:Woman naked? Poirot takes a long lingering look at that naked lady.
Sarah:Yeah. But, you know, it I expect Hastings eyes to be a whole episode. When they're when they're in Henry's, studio, there's, like, life-sized portraits of her naked everywhere, and she's standing right there among them. And Yeah. Henry, Hastings isn't, like, drooling or something.
Mark:And she has to aub her hair. This is like Hastings should be going crazy.
Sarah:Yeah. Yeah. Anthony Gascoigne dies in Brighton. Yes. He lives in Brighton.
Sarah:He can look right out on the pier from his bedroom apparently.
Mark:Apparently.
Sarah:So his maid, missus Hill, calls George, the nephew
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:In London Yes. And says he's dying, and he says, well, I can't get there till, like, Sunday.
Mark:Now the doctor says they're twins, but they're not identical.
Sarah:Right.
Mark:Can you do that with same sex twins?
Sarah:The nephew says that. Yeah. Of course, you can.
Mark:Oh, you can.
Sarah:There's 2 eggs, 2 sperm. They can be either Okay. Sex. Yeah.
Mark:I wasn't sure.
Sarah:Just can't. And you can even have odd numbers of fraternal twins.
Mark:Okay.
Sarah:You just can't have odd numbers of identical unless something's gone wrong.
Mark:Well, multiples? It's a whole weird world.
Sarah:I know all about it.
Mark:Oh, I know we know all about it.
Sarah:So George is their nephew. He's the nephew of Henry and Arthur. Yep. That's what that's the only thing I can figure out. He is neither of their sons.
Sarah:No. He can't. Which means what there has to be a third sibling, but we don't know who that is. Yeah. Okay.
Sarah:Hastings is all about cricket, especially at the most inappropriate times.
Mark:He is all about cricket.
Sarah:I'm surprised he's not talking about it at the funeral. If he could have had a little ear radio, he would have like, and there's a wicket and somebody's having a tea break and there's a bowl over and something in his ear.
Mark:And, like, I know cricket especially could take over, like, a whole
Sarah:I know people who are that into cricket.
Mark:Yeah. There are definitely people that into cricket.
Sarah:We also have Poirot's dentist. Yes. Bonnington.
Mark:Besides, he likes to see the end product at work.
Sarah:What a
Mark:great lie.
Sarah:But how how does that I like I cannot imagine and I like our dentist a lot, and we've been seeing him for a long time. Yep. And I know a lot about him and he knows a lot about us. I've had a lot of conversations with him. Even when I'm not on Nitrous, I actually remember those conversations and everything else and I cannot imagine any of those conversations evolving into, let's have dinner.
Sarah:No. It just wouldn't happen.
Mark:Happen. I had the most interesting dentist in the world in Toronto. Have I told you about this guy? No. So he was, so there in his office, there was a painting from a book by this guy named Guy Gabriel Kaye.
Mark:Now why Guy Gavriel Kaye is important is he worked with the Tolkies on the cimmerillion. Oh. So he's a Tolkien expert Okay. At U of T. Okay.
Mark:So I said, oh, that's the guy Gabriel k Fiona Var Tapestry covers that you have there. He goes, yeah. That's the original. I'm like, what? He goes, yeah.
Mark:Me and Guy have been best friends all our lives. Wow. So he not only knew Guy Gavriel Kaye, who was a very nice guy, met him a couple of times, but was, like, told had great stories about, you know
Sarah:And you never asked him out to dinner? No. I never. You never said, hey. Let's go to a chop house?
Sarah:No. No. Do you wanna you wanna see my teeth in action? No.
Mark:Roast beef without the mustard. I love so So Molly is fantastic.
Sarah:Seen all these episodes so many times, and I could tell you that next to Clapham Cook, this is the episode I know the most lines from by heart. And I can, like, I can do Molly's dialogue by heart.
Mark:She's fantastic.
Sarah:She is so good. Yeah.
Mark:And And Poirot is just feeding her lines.
Sarah:Because he wants to know. He's actually intrigued Yeah. Right away. Yeah. Because he's the kind of person who little things like that that most people would just dismiss.
Sarah:He knows that there's greater meaning to those things.
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:Somebody who is like Henri Gascogne, who is that entrenched in a routine, changing his routine means something.
Mark:So I have a question.
Sarah:It's like Poirot having round toast and 2 eggs of very different sizes.
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:People would be worried about him. Yep. Or if he showed up with dirty shoes on or something.
Mark:So have you ever gone to a restaurant or a bar so often that you've had a a usual?
Sarah:Yes.
Mark:Okay.
Sarah:When I worked in publishing, there was a Chinese restaurant that we went to for lunch.
Mark:Chengdu? Yes. This is weird because Sarah and I worked in the same neighborhood, but we did not know each other. No. This was almost a half decade before
Sarah:we met each other. We didn't we didn't meet for 8 or 9 years after that. Yeah. But we went there so often for lunch when I was at work. We probably went 2 times a week sometimes because we would take stuff with us and work on stuff while we were eating.
Sarah:And but the lunches were just numbers.
Mark:Yep.
Sarah:So after a while, the waitress would just come over and just point and say, 5911 5. Yep. Okay.
Mark:Chengdu, this restaurant on the north side of Indy near the pyramids, anyone who ever worked in that area knows Chengdu and knows also that it was a miracle place. Mhmm. Because it was quick, cheap, good. Yeah. How is that possible?
Sarah:But that's the only that's the only place I can think of that I ever had a right how about you?
Mark:I had a a usual at this bar that I used to go to all the time in Waterloo. I go I DJ'd there a couple of times. I called Phil's grandson's place. I had a usual, which was because I was so poor. I had soda water.
Mark:That was my usual.
Sarah:But did you ever actually say, I'll just have my usual? Yes. You actually did that. Yes. I've never said that.
Mark:They they knew to give me soda water because that was so cheap. And eventually, they just started giving it to me for free because it's just water with soda.
Sarah:Yeah. It's just carbonate water. Yeah. Sparkling water. Yeah.
Mark:I drank a lot of it because I was very, very poor.
Sarah:Well, Henry never never eats a thick soup.
Mark:There's all those people in the restaurant.
Sarah:It's very busy in there.
Mark:It's just so many people.
Sarah:Yeah. I'm just floored by the fact that a restaurant could have roast turkey as an entree. Yeah. Like, what's the logistics of that? How many turkeys did they make?
Mark:They order so much food too.
Sarah:They have an entire fillet of fish for an appetizer. Yeah. Wow. That's how things used to work back then.
Mark:But Poirot's tooth is still sensitive.
Sarah:But Gascoigne is there. Yes. But it's not. It's not. It's actually George.
Mark:It's actually George. Because he orders the wrong thing again.
Sarah:But I love that
Mark:Barney said that he goes to that restaurant all the time, but doesn't know what he orders.
Sarah:Or what days he goes
Mark:because he
Sarah:goes on the wrong day too. He goes there twice. The uncle He goes on the wrong day Yep. As, like, a practice. Yep.
Sarah:Right? So when he does that, his uncle is alive. Yes. Okay? And at home, it's just not his day to go to bishops.
Mark:And also can you be a recluse if you go somewhere outside the house regularly?
Sarah:I think so if you if you don't speak to people when you do.
Mark:I
Sarah:guess. Bonnington says there'll be none of your fancy French kick shaws here, Poirot. Just good old fashioned English fare.
Mark:What are French kick shaw?
Sarah:A kick shaw is something that is, a mea food that is not substantial and overly fancy.
Mark:Well, we'll
Sarah:I looked it up.
Mark:We'll get to we'll get to Poirot's fancy meals.
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:Why does he cook no. Why is he cooking for
Sarah:for Hastings when he can't eat, rabbit?
Mark:Then we meet the best, ladies ever.
Sarah:The neighbors. The neighbors. Missus Mullen.
Mark:Yes. Three bottles of pills since pancake day.
Sarah:He hasn't had a bath since pancake day. For They're perfect. They're wearing their pennies. Yep. They've still got pins in their hair.
Mark:They are fantastic. For Americans who don't know, pancake day is from Tuesday before, Mardi Gras in which most of the sort of British empire eats pancakes on that day.
Sarah:Is it an Anglican thing?
Mark:It could be an Anglican thing because
Sarah:Catholics might have pancakes too.
Mark:They may. But I know I was raised on it. And every once in a while, I'll be like, oh, next week is pancake day,
Sarah:and
Mark:we have pancakes for dinner.
Sarah:This is also a time where, another thing that amazes me, about the 19 thirties and a large period of time in UK history, especially when there were multiple mail deliveries every day.
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:I don't understand I I can't imagine having multiple mail deliveries in a day.
Mark:Well, think about it. If you had to send something across town and you had no fax or email or anything like that, you put it in the post.
Sarah:And it gets there in like 2 days.
Mark:Yeah. But
Sarah:Or later today.
Mark:Yeah. That's how it was. Needless to say
Sarah:How could they have been that efficient?
Mark:Needless to say, this idea did not scale and did not work well on a national to stop eventually? Yeah.
Sarah:Yeah. It's it's still amazing to me that there are still cities that have, like, morning and evening editions of a newspaper.
Mark:Yeah. There's I don't know if there's
Sarah:There are very few, but they are out there. So Henry's dead. They know it because he's got 3 bottles of milk on his porch. Yep. 2 of which must be yogurt by now.
Mark:Go get them in.
Sarah:They bust down that door Yep. And he's in a heap on his beautiful tile floor.
Mark:Oh, it's so
Sarah:It's so pretty. He's cold as ice. You're as cold as ice.
Mark:So there's the scene of the crime, and then the other nondentistry thing happens where, yes, there's drilling and all the dangerous, horrible stuff at dentistry. And we could talk about dentistry, but my teeth already hurt because my sinuses are exploding. But not once has our dentist ever said, oh, you know that guy that we were talking about? He's dead now.
Sarah:Yeah. But he does do the I'm gonna ask you a question and then tell you not to talk. Yes. Is Paro's mouth propped open?
Mark:I think so.
Sarah:I think it is too. And his hands did you see his hands? He's, like, making fists and releasing fists over and over again. I'm like, oh, I can feel I can feel the drilling.
Mark:Yeah. Toro has these metal things. It's propping his
Sarah:mouth open.
Mark:That's propping his mouth open.
Sarah:I feel so bad for him at the dentist.
Mark:Now we kid, but I don't like the dentist, but I tend to fall asleep in a chair like that.
Sarah:It's like a possum reaction you have. I'm overwhelmed.
Mark:But Poirot is off to investigate. Mhmm. I love how the washer lady talks to him.
Sarah:As soon as he speaks, her name's Irene Mullen. She says, oh, you're not from around here, are you? You're a foreigner. Yep. And Hastings says he's Belgian.
Sarah:And from then on, she assumes he does not speak English even though he just spoke to her. Saturday. Saturday. He's very patient. Yep.
Sarah:But Dulce Lane, the model is already up in the studio. She seems to be rifling through things.
Mark:Well, okay. She knows what's up and knows that those paintings are gonna be worth a bunch.
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:And knows that she's the kind of woman that absolutely will be like, oh, I'm taking these three paintings, and there's nothing you can say about it. Mhmm. Because Poirot shouldn't be there either.
Sarah:No. No. But she's going through Henry's briefcase.
Mark:Yeah. She she's looking for money and stuff to sell as she should. Like She should? Well
Sarah:Who's gonna get it?
Mark:She's not gonna get a lot of money from all those naked pictures of her.
Sarah:Boy, Henry sure could paint a naked lady.
Mark:Boy, could he paint a naked lady? There were 2 pins in a pot. What?
Sarah:Meanwhile, Poirot whips out, not a monocle, not a magnifying glass. It's a 3 lens magnifying glass
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:From his pocket.
Mark:To look at the blotter.
Sarah:As well as a blade
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:Like an exacto knife.
Mark:It's like his everyday carrier Yes. Thing.
Sarah:Like, what else do you carry in your little vest? Your business card, your triple monocle, that doesn't make any sense. Try it trionicle? Try it. Maybe.
Sarah:Because mono's won. Yeah. That doesn't make any sense. Doesn't make any
Mark:sense.
Sarah:Make any sense.
Mark:Doesn't make any sense. I'm just glad he didn't start looking at the naked pictures of Earth
Sarah:with With the magnifying glass. But he's letting Hastings, like, distract her. Yep. Because she's too busy going through stuff, trying to grab stuff. He's like, I'm just gonna cut a square out of this blotting pad.
Sarah:Nobody will notice me. She's confrontational. She's not rude. She's not mean.
Mark:She's incredibly matter of fact, which for a woman who spends her life being naked for pictures is expected.
Sarah:I guess you have to be. Yeah. Yeah. But when she sits in that chair that she's clearly sat in nude modeling, she's being provocative. Yeah.
Sarah:Totally. She's being confrontational then, I think.
Mark:Poirot cannot accept that it was accidental, so he must go to the new forensics division.
Sarah:It's the nerd team. How many people in white coats are in that room? I counted at least 7.
Mark:Yeah.
Sarah:And there's, like, a bubbling sound, like, there's clearly a bunsen burner burning somewhere and something bubbling, Japs walking around. Japs walking around, like, this is our new forensic unit. You know, if it was today, there would be like blinking light computer banks or something. Yes. Computer phones.
Sarah:But instead, there's there's a magnifying glass and a and a guy with some tweezers and a coat on a mannequin and people with test tubes. It's all the anoraks in one place.
Mark:Yep. So he goes to see Cutter, the the
Sarah:Incredibly blunt pathologist who just whips sheets off naked old men.
Mark:Yes. That's good DB there. Yeah. Yeah. For a guy with no lines, he does pretty well.
Sarah:Yeah. Especially since they basically just flash everybody with his junk. Yep. He whips that sheet right off.
Mark:Evidence evidence evidence weird rabbit in liege scene.
Sarah:You missed something.
Mark:What did I miss?
Sarah:You missed the pathologist's office.
Mark:Okay.
Sarah:Where he just lets Poirot take evidence Yes. Though they've never met before No. While he sits in front Oh, yes. Of his jar of floating bits.
Mark:Ugh. It's the coloring is weird on that jar
Sarah:too. Like a the water is like a pinky peach color
Mark:and there's bone in front of it.
Sarah:There's, like, bits floating around.
Mark:Bones around here.
Sarah:And floaty bits. Yeah. It's not even like a specimen jar. It's like a cookie jar Yeah. Full of floating stuff.
Mark:The picture will be in the show notes, but wow.
Sarah:It's too grody. When he's talking, all I can go is, ew, what's in the jaw?
Mark:Like, he's got some medical posters. They work, but the but the bone the bone wand and concoction jar.
Sarah:I just said it was his bit collection.
Mark:His bit collection?
Sarah:Floating bit collection. And he's a pathologist named Cutter.
Mark:Yes. I did notice that.
Sarah:Why don't they just call him slice and dice?
Mark:Slice and dice. Rabbit in Liege. Are you sitting down, Hastings?
Sarah:I'm coming. I've got my really fancy smoking jacket on that I use to cook.
Mark:Do not be stenting in the prairies.
Sarah:Poor Hastings. He's like, I just came over to eat. I don't I don't know I was gonna have to perform.
Mark:Okay. If you go to somebody's house and they cook for you and they don't eat it. Don't eat it. Don't eat it. Especially if it has juniper berries in it.
Sarah:So I looked up lots of recipes that are supposedly Liege in style. Okay. The leading one is the difference between a Liege waffle and a Belgian waffle.
Mark:Okay.
Sarah:That's a big one.
Mark:Okay.
Sarah:But rabbit cooked in the style of Liege most likely has the following ingredients in it.
Mark:I like rabbit, so I'll see if I'll
Sarah:leave it. Stewed rabbit Okay. In a sauce made of prunes No. Onions, juniper berries, molasses, and vinegar.
Mark:That sounds gross.
Sarah:If it's cooked real slow, all those flavors would meld together. It would have, like, a sweet tart
Mark:I guess.
Sarah:Oniony, gravy. I think it might actually be okay.
Mark:It might be.
Sarah:I don't like rabbit, though. It's too gamey. It is. I don't like dark meat.
Mark:Use your spoon. Do not insult the chef.
Sarah:While he's sitting eating his rabbit, which is rabbitier than any other rabbit he's ever eaten, behind Hastings on the wall is a Picasso.
Mark:Yes. It's a it's a weird Picasso.
Sarah:To me, it looks like a conversation bubble dressed in a red jumpsuit playing piano. Yes. And that's pretty much what it looks like. Oh, with a flat dog. We'll we'll put a link to it.
Sarah:But that's Picasso's style.
Mark:It's a painting from Picasso. Oh, that's interesting. Done in 1957. It's a time traveling Picasso.
Sarah:Time traveling red jumpsuit conversation bubble piano playing flat dog Picasso.
Mark:The dog in the bottom is particularly bad.
Sarah:His eyes are on the same side of his head. That's Picasso though. Yeah. That's his
Mark:style. It is.
Sarah:But I would not have said if you said what kind what artist do you think Poirot would like? Would not have been on my list.
Mark:No. It's it's weird that he has a that Picasso particularly. I can see him having
Sarah:Especially since it hadn't been painted yet.
Mark:Maybe old blind guitarist. I can see that.
Sarah:See, I would have thought he was more of a, Pre Raphaelite.
Mark:Yeah. I could see that too. Kinda classic. Yeah. But everything's thirties and wrongly dated.
Sarah:And tastes rabbitier than any other rabbit
Mark:I've ever had. Or
Sarah:So they go to the gallery, and we have the typical, like, I'm staring at this painting, and I don't understand it moment.
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:But if Poirot likes Picasso, that shouldn't be too far off from him for him.
Mark:Yeah. When he goes to Paris for the tennis episode, they talk about art in that episode because they go to a museum. Mhmm. I'm not sure he says he likes this stuff.
Sarah:Did you see the metal face? Yeah. It's cool.
Mark:Yeah. There's a lot of cool art. That that is obviously an actual gallery, it looks like.
Sarah:Well and Joan Miro, the artist that they say it's a a showing of was a real artist. Yeah. He was he was Spanish. He was, from Catalan.
Mark:I'll tell you what you're not gonna do. What's gonna happen is the director is going to say, let's have them go up this spiral staircase. Mhmm. And the audio guy is gonna say, no. No.
Sarah:How do I mic them and follow them with the mic?
Mark:And the camera guy is gonna say, no. And the director's gonna say, no. I want them to go up this spiral staircase. Okay.
Sarah:Too bad. And later, I'm gonna make you film them in a rotunda.
Mark:We'll make it work, I guess. Wow.
Sarah:So Gascoigne wouldn't sell his paintings.
Mark:Yeah.
Sarah:He would sell his sketches and small watercolors, but not his larger oil paintings. And I don't know. Our the world of art is weird. Right? So perhaps by refusing to sell, it actually increased his cache in the value of his paintings.
Sarah:That could happen, I guess. What could also happen is, well, then we don't care about his paintings, and we're not gonna care about his art. And we're gonna move on.
Mark:It's implied that there were so much, but there's no real reason for it. Yeah. Plus, it's the thirties, and he's not a sort of modernist.
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:He's a very traditional painter. Yeah. I can see
Sarah:All of his ladies have 2 eyes and 2 boobs and 2 legs and Yep. You know, there's no flat dogs or anything. I mean, really.
Mark:Yeah.
Sarah:He's kinda old school. Yeah. The The paint the painting that is in, Makinson's office, his agent's office is beautiful.
Mark:And it it is again a very traditional painting, but that's the wife of the first brother. That's Charlotte.
Sarah:Yes. That's Anthony's wife.
Mark:And then something happens that I'm upset about. Poirot hands him his card. Mhmm. And we don't get a shot of the card. Nope.
Mark:And I'm upset.
Sarah:You'll just have to imagine what it is.
Mark:It has red text on it.
Sarah:It does.
Mark:What does it say?
Sarah:What does it say? I'm sure it's beautiful. Miss Lemon is listening to Raffles on the radio.
Mark:She is listening to Raffles on the radio.
Sarah:Do you know about Raffles? No. Okay. I know all about Raffles. Okay.
Sarah:I was actually quite into Raffles as a child. Oh, really? Which may not have been appropriate for me at that age. So Raffles is written by e w Hornung, who was the brother-in-law of sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Mark:Okay.
Sarah:And Raffles is the charming opposite of Sherlock Holmes.
Mark:Okay.
Sarah:So he's a gentleman thief.
Mark:Okay.
Sarah:By day, he is a gentleman cricket player.
Mark:Okay. The
Sarah:best nonprofessional cricket player because being professional would be so and would be classed.
Mark:Would Raffles be on at this time?
Sarah:I'm not sure.
Mark:Okay.
Sarah:Okay. So I've listened to the Raffles radio plays, and they were in the eighties nineties on the BBC. But CBS had a radio version of Raffles in the 19 thirties. So miss Lemon would be listening to CBS, and I don't think she can be.
Mark:No. She can't be listening to CBS.
Sarah:But she would certainly like Raffles because he's a gentleman thief. He's very rakish and very whimsical and sardonic and
Mark:And is it, like, soap opera
Sarah:y? No. He's more like a modern highwayman.
Mark:Like,
Sarah:he steals from very wealthy people who probably deserve it.
Mark:If you have the Apple TV, you should be watching the Dick Turpin.
Sarah:Yes. You should be.
Mark:Let me get the exact title of this Dick Turpin.
Sarah:The totally untrue stories of Dick Turpin. Isn't that it?
Mark:Talk about Dick Turpin while I look this up.
Sarah:It's Noel Fielding who plays Dick Turpin. From in, like, the first five minutes were like, midsummer, midsummer midsummer. Yeah. Everybody is in it.
Mark:If you're a friend of Noel Fielding or been on in midsummer, you're in this show.
Sarah:You're in this show. Yeah. It's really funny. It's so clever.
Mark:Completely made up adventures of Dick Turpin. Yeah. And in a strangely related way, I'm sorry. We're off on a tangent here. But it's really the gentleman as a half hour show.
Mark:Because the gentleman on Netflix is, a new show that's based on a film by, Guy. Guy Ritchie. Yeah. Is a show built based on a film by Guy Ritchie that we saw, but this is a series. Now it's one of those great series where you're like, maybe I could be a criminal.
Mark:Uh-huh. But it's also if your guy Ritchie's friend or been on Midsummer.
Sarah:Yeah. You're on the gentleman.
Mark:You're on the gentleman.
Sarah:Yeah. Yeah. I recommend them both, though. I'd say the Dick Turpin show is is so funny.
Mark:It is. It is
Sarah:Super clever.
Mark:It is what the black sales wanted to be. Yeah.
Sarah:I don't know. That show was great too.
Mark:It was good, but not not nearly as funny as this one.
Sarah:But you should definitely go check it out if you've got Apple TV. Yep. Okay. Back to Raffles.
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:So she could be listening to CBS radio. I don't I could not find out whether CBS radio was accessible in the UK in the 19 thirties. Otherwise, this is another anachronism.
Mark:Yeah.
Sarah:So they go to the art school to see Dulce again.
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:And she's modeling for a class in a rotunda.
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:Alright. And Hastings and Poirot go up to the second floor balcony that goes around the rotunda Yes. And look down and see all of her nudie bits and the artists surrounding her.
Mark:She is fully naked.
Sarah:But then there's a shot. The camera is in the rotunda filming up. Yep. And they're walking around and the camera is rotating Yes. With them.
Sarah:First of all, it made me feel a little bit sick, just a little. Yep. And second, I was thinking this is the echoeyest room anybody has ever filmed anything in. The camera is a gazillion miles away from them. There's no boom mic in the shot.
Sarah:How how do they even do it, and how annoying was it to film? Oh my gosh.
Mark:So it's not ADR'd.
Sarah:This is me being super nerdy.
Mark:I'm sorry. Checked. It's not ADR'd.
Sarah:Which means the audio wasn't recorded separately and put over it.
Mark:So they have to be wearing lapel mics, which in 1989 would have had to have wires.
Sarah:Yeah. Which we wouldn't see because they'd be on the floor, which we can't see because we're filming up. Up.
Mark:Yep. But literally, the sound guy and the camera guy after the the Spiral staircase. Spiral staircase were like, now we're doing what? What?
Sarah:This is the echoiest room in the universe. They're built to be echo y, and now you wanna film And
Mark:what? It is so when you have a naked person on set, you usually have what's called a closed set.
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:Right? So it's a minimal crew
Sarah:Yes.
Mark:To make the person as comfortable as possible. Mhmm. There's tons of extras in this scene.
Sarah:There's a whole art class standing around here.
Mark:Art class standing around. And so there's everybody has to work twice as hard because there there's no assistance and no nothing like that. Like, this was such a hard episode to fill.
Sarah:Yeah. And almost unnecessarily so.
Mark:Because she
Sarah:could have easily have been draped in, like, a classical, like, a toga.
Mark:Yeah.
Sarah:And they could have been drawing her, and it wouldn't have taken away from the shot at all. It's almost like somebody said we want as many naked ladies in this episode as we can fit. What can we get away with?
Mark:It's so weird.
Sarah:To prove a point or something. I'm not against nudity. Don't get me wrong. It's fine. It's all fine.
Sarah:But they're they're really they're pushing it, and they're making it difficult for themselves by doing it.
Mark:But they're also being so European in that, oh, well, whatever. It's naked.
Sarah:Exactly. It's art, Mark. Yeah. It's really not nudity. It's art.
Sarah:Okay.
Mark:Okay. Well, can we have naked ladies? Let's have a bunch of women in bikinis.
Sarah:Dancing girls. Okay. Let's talk about the actual crime and how it happened. Because I've seen this episode at least 5 times, and I still am confused. I even tried to write a timeline this time.
Mark:I love how
Sarah:Of what how George actually did it, and I'm still confused.
Mark:I love how Poirot says essentially, everyone's dead but the nephew. So he must have done it.
Sarah:And Dolce has an alibi, and missus Hill didn't do it. So it has to be George. He's the only other person.
Mark:We're running out of suspects. Okay. So the old man gets sick. The first Anthony. Anthony.
Sarah:He gets sick. Lives in Brighton, and he gets sick.
Mark:The the doctor says he's gonna die. The housekeeper calls the nephew and says he's gonna die.
Sarah:At this point I can't
Mark:come till
Sarah:Sunday. Just fine.
Mark:Yeah. I can't come till Sunday.
Sarah:Okay.
Mark:Which is, like, the most like, don't they do double shows on Sunday Saturday?
Sarah:We don't know what day it is.
Mark:Yep. Okay.
Sarah:It's earlier in the
Mark:week. I can't come till later on.
Sarah:Anthony dies on Friday.
Mark:So now Anthony dies. So the the housekeeper must call back and said he's dead.
Sarah:No. You've gotta rewind.
Mark:Okay. Okay?
Sarah:I'm writing this down. Okay. So Anthony dies on Friday. Yep. Right?
Sarah:And George goes to Brighton on Sunday. Alright?
Mark:No. Yes. He goes to Brighton on Sunday.
Sarah:Yes. However, that's the so she calls him earlier in the week.
Mark:And says he's not gonna last till Sunday.
Sarah:Right. He's not gonna last the end of the day. Yeah. Probably. Okay.
Sarah:So let's suppose she calls on Wednesday.
Mark:Okay
Sarah:okay what days does henry usually go to the chop house
Mark:isn't it Wednesday and Friday
Sarah:I think it's Wednesday Saturday.
Mark:Wednesday. No. I think
Sarah:Monday Saturday?
Mark:See, I think it's Saturday is the nephew. No.
Sarah:It is, but that's the second time he goes.
Mark:I'm probably
Sarah:lost. He goes twice. He goes once on the wrong day for Henry's schedule
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:And then he comes back the day that Poirot was there which is Saturday.
Mark:Okay.
Sarah:Okay? So on Saturday, Poirot sees him. Henry's already dead.
Mark:So this has to be the next weekend.
Sarah:It can't be. It can't be a whole week between when he dies and when they bury him.
Mark:Maybe. Maybe.
Sarah:So the way I think it went down, and this is nuts, is that missus Hill calls George on Wednesday. Yeah. Okay? It's still daylight. It's early in the day.
Sarah:Yep. And says, your uncle's dying. He's not gonna last. And hint and George immediately thinks, I gotta go kill Henry.
Mark:Yep.
Sarah:So he observes he knows Henry goes to the restaurant twice a week. So he dresses up that night and goes to the restaurant, which is not Henry's night to be there on Wednesday.
Mark:That's a dress rehearsal.
Sarah:As a dress rehearsal to see if he can pull it off. He does pull it off. So he kills Henry before Saturday when he would be going back to the restaurant on his normal schedule and goes to the restaurant dressed as Henry.
Mark:And then gives all the clothing to the guy who works
Sarah:in the bathroom. He drops. He leaves it in the bathroom after he changes and goes back to the theater.
Mark:Why didn't he just go back to the house and or the theater?
Sarah:Because then somebody would have seen him coming out of the house. Maybe. He doesn't want anybody to see him come out of the house. Right?
Mark:Yeah.
Sarah:Now how he got into the house to kill Henry and out of the house with nobody seeing him, I don't know. Because he must have. Because he had to shove him downstairs.
Mark:But the next day, Poirot goes to the house. Well, no.
Sarah:They don't know he's dead until the Sunday.
Mark:So they get Monday's milk, Tuesday's
Sarah:milk. No. No. Poirot sees But
Mark:there's 3 days
Sarah:See? This is how I'm confused. Because Poirot sees sees George dressed as Henry at the restaurant on Saturday, and Henry's already dead. He's had lunch that day and died. Yeah.
Sarah:So George has killed him and then pretended to be him and gone to the restaurant. Then the next day, he goes to Brighton.
Mark:For the funeral? No. No. No. It can't be
Sarah:confusing. The funeral's not for a few more days.
Mark:Because Poirot goes to the funeral.
Sarah:Right. That's not for a few more days.
Mark:It's confusing. The timeline is not good.
Sarah:As near as I can tell, as soon as George finds out that Anthony is dying, he immediately decides to kill his other uncle. Why? To get the money.
Mark:Okay. But his other uncle is as old. They're twins. Like
Sarah:Yes. No.
Mark:Does he need money? Like, there's no implication that he needs money.
Sarah:There's no evidence that either of them were gonna leave their money to him. No. There's just evidence that Anthony didn't have a will. So by default, hit everything he had would have gone to Henry. And maybe George knows Henry's leaving everything to him.
Sarah:Maybe. Because they did have some kind of relationship. So if Henry's will leaves everything to George, George isn't willing to wait for Henry to die knowing he's gonna inherit everything from Anthony. So he just takes him out so that they're both dead, so he can inherit both of their stuff.
Mark:Which would make him the prime suspect.
Sarah:Yes. And, we have no signal of him being desperate for cash. No. The other question I have is why does Jap move the entire forensic unit to the theater Oh, I don't to be on stage.
Mark:When Poirot would explain this to Jap before this, the scene that we're missing
Sarah:Yeah.
Mark:Jap would go, we could do that, or we could just go arrest him right now, which is what I'm gonna do.
Sarah:Because you have all of the clothing he was wearing when he was pretending to be Henry at the restaurant. So let's just take it down to the forensics unit, have them look at it while we go and arrest him.
Mark:Yeah.
Sarah:There we go. But no. Let's pack up all the nerds and all their equipment and take them to the theater and set up on the stage and put a dozen officers in the theater, even one on the spotlight.
Mark:And this is a piece of paper from your typewriter in your office
Sarah:It's very confusing. When you're watching it, you're like, oh, yeah. That all makes sense.
Mark:No. It doesn't.
Sarah:But then when you try to, like, timeline it out, I I don't understand. Yeah. Either Anthony was dead for a long time or or George was, like, the fastest acting
Mark:I don't see a reason for the nephew to do it. I need a reason.
Sarah:He wants the money.
Mark:Okay. I want like, there's no implication that there's a huge amount of money.
Sarah:Right. There's nobody says Anthony is incredibly wealthy. No. We know that Henry's estate is gonna be worth some money. But not But he must already be in line for that, and Henry's not gonna live forever.
Sarah:Yeah. But, apparently, he can't wait.
Mark:But it was another episode like Johnny Waverly where it was like, and the killer is you.
Sarah:Because it has to be. Because we've ruled everybody else out. But it that whole shebang does give Poirot and Hastings a reason to be creepy in a public bathroom. Yeah. It's the cleanest public bathroom ever.
Sarah:That guy's office is in the bathroom. He just sits in a public bathroom all day and cleans it. That's awesome that they have such clean public bathrooms. I'm so glad he gives him money because I feel really bad for the bathroom attendant. Yeah.
Sarah:All he did was pick up some stuff that somebody left. He didn't do anything wrong.
Mark:That's part kind of the perk of that job, if there is a perk.
Sarah:Yeah. That's the only perk possible.
Mark:Okay. Forensics team, we're all going downtown to the theater.
Sarah:Yeah. Oh, we get to go to the theater. We get to go somewhere. Bring all your equipment. These Not
Mark:only are there gorgeous posters at the seaside, they have some beautiful posters that were travel posters. They're railway posters in the background. But they're at the theater here at the end. There's some beautiful posters as well.
Sarah:I'm gonna say that George doesn't have any friends at that theater because the guy who's polishing the brass works at the theater and is more than willing to cooperate with the police.
Mark:He he just went over there.
Sarah:Yep. That was him. Yep. That was him. You should get him.
Mark:You can't play Othello without blacking your face. A line that did not age well. No. No. Maybe you could play Othello if you were a black person.
Sarah:The closing scene at the restaurant
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:Is both awesome and the most murder she wrote scene.
Mark:Yes. So we're back at the chop shop. Chop house.
Sarah:Hastings, Jap, the dentist, and Poirot are having dinner.
Mark:They're all eating their Jobs. Beef and mustache.
Sarah:And Poirot does his crickets get. It's awesome. But I was I was almost waiting for the all 4 of them laughing freeze frame that the credits would be on top of. That's So Murder, She Wrote. That's what I meant.
Sarah:I was like
Mark:This is
Sarah:That's not done. Right. Dun dun dun. Yeah.
Mark:This does have some of that to it.
Sarah:Pepuero is awesome. Yes. Because he pretends not to understand cricket the whole time. Yep. Because he finds it so incredibly boring and then just whips out all of the lingo.
Mark:Yep. All
Sarah:at once.
Mark:So fun.
Sarah:It is really fun. And if you if you watch the scene knowing that he's gonna do it and you just look at the other 3 people at the table while he's talking, like, Japs eyes get bigger and bigger and Hastings eyes get bigger and bigger and the dentist just looks like he's just more pleased. Yep. Like, he's like, oh, that Poirot. And the other 2 are like, what is he saying?
Sarah:Oh my gosh. She knew all this all the time.
Mark:Riley Poirot Road and mustard.
Sarah:He has flight variation, the Chinaman, and the most deadly quick of all that dips into a yorker, leg breakers and right handers. And he's doing this stuff with his hands with his hands. And
Mark:He knows all the lingo.
Sarah:Sticky wicket. Yep. Again, it's all the way up to a 9 at least. Yeah. The farrowing is it's so fun.
Sarah:Do not be stinting
Mark:in the face. Say mom, mom, I got a part because there's a 1000000 people in this episode that are
Sarah:So many people.
Mark:My god. A part.
Sarah:However, there is a horrible movie attached to this episode.
Mark:After the credits, the the nephew gets called away.
Sarah:It goes to the to jail and, doesn't get all the money.
Mark:Who gets all the stuff?
Sarah:I've got a theory.
Mark:Okay.
Sarah:So when they asked Dolce if she understands the value of the paintings that she has, she says she will never sell them. And the way she says it is adamant. Yeah. Like, how dare you even think that I would sell them? I think she and Henry were close.
Sarah:Yeah. Not like romantically, but I think she she had a great respect for him at least. And because other people wouldn't even put up with him. Yeah. Right?
Sarah:I
Mark:Well, he hadn't taken a bath since painting.
Sarah:I think that he probably left a lot to her.
Mark:Yeah. I think so.
Sarah:And I think that George doesn't know that.
Mark:Yeah. I think so.
Sarah:So she's gonna make off
Mark:with Luckily, once she shows
Sarah:up 2 estates.
Mark:Completely in the noob. She's forgotten about completely.
Sarah:Well, she has auburn hair. You know? She can get away with whatever she wants.
Mark:The the oh, she is an alibi. We don't need to talk about her anymore.
Sarah:Nope. Just a beautiful robe. Yeah. She does. It's gorgeous.
Sarah:Are you ready for a horrible movie?
Mark:I'm ready for a horrible movie.
Sarah:Hillary Mason, who plays missus Hill, Anthony's housekeeper
Mark:Okay.
Sarah:Is in this movie
Mark:Okay.
Sarah:Produced in 1989.
Mark:Okay. So same year. Mhmm. She's a working lady at this point in time.
Sarah:The tagline for this movie, 2 men, 2 machines, 2 wild. You see the the pun there? Yeah. The war play? Do you want the summary?
Sarah:Yes. It's 50 years since the nuclear holocaust almost destroyed mankind. War is now outlawed. All territorial disputes between the great alliances are settled by single combat. At the Confederation playing fields in Siberia, a battle rages between 2 gigantic fighting machines piloted by their nation's champions.
Mark:Wow. This is 89? Mhmm. Why did I not see this piece of crap?
Sarah:Oh, it's horrible.
Mark:Because it's in the future. This is Russia stuff. This is sci fi. This is giant robots. Why did I not see this movie?
Sarah:Are you ready for the name of it?
Mark:Yeah.
Sarah:It is called Robot Jox. J o x. Jox.
Mark:Robo Jox.
Sarah:It's got 2 giant fighting robots.
Mark:I've never heard of this.
Sarah:They're fighting over who should control Alaska. Oh my god. They're giant robots.
Mark:That's that's just fantastic.
Sarah:2 men, 2 machines, 2 wild.
Mark:Is there a star in this movie?
Sarah:The guy the leading man, he did a lot of TV.
Mark:Okay.
Sarah:I can't tell you his name. Okay. You'll know him as soon as you see him.
Mark:Okay. Robo Jocks.
Sarah:That's one for me. I can't believe you've never I was like, oh, I don't know. This is definitely a Marc movie. It's called Robot Jocks.
Mark:I mean, come on. Robot Jocks.
Sarah:He's definitely seen this.
Mark:Seen that movie.
Sarah:I win.
Mark:You win.
Sarah:That is 4 and 20 Blackbirds.
Mark:So just again, we will be off next week because I will be in Indianapolis at the Indiana Comic Convention. If you want to stop by from wherever, I will be there, selling my comics. And then the week after, we will return with the 3rd floor flat.
Sarah:Episode 5 season 1 of on the back staircase. Life is just a bowl of cherries.
Mark:Life is just a bowl of cherries.
Sarah:Alright. Until then, bye, maniacs.
Mark:Bye, maniacs.
Sarah:Look up Robot Joxx right now.
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 things. Subscribe, like, and share to spread the word. Bye, maniacs.
Sarah:Mostly, I just have how Poirot y this one is. Like
Mark:It's very Poirot.
Sarah:It's so
