Episode 212 | Mystery Maniacs | Poirot | "The Kidnapped Prime Minister" & "The Adventure of the Western Star" | Papa Poirot & Ice Cold Hastings Straight Outta Whitehaven!
I say.
Mark:I say. I say. I say. Rather. Rather.
Mark:Rather.
Sarah:Hey, maniacs. Hey,
Mark:maniacs.
Sarah:Stranger
Mark:thing on? Do we know how to do this anymore?
Sarah:Welcome to Mystery Maniacs, a comedy recap podcast. Each week, we dig into an episode of a mystery show to talk about the murder, the mayhem, the loonies, and everything else we love. I'm Sarah.
Mark:And I'm Mark. This week, 2. Count them. 2 episodes of Poirot.
Sarah:Because we're getting it done. Because, god,
Mark:this season of Poirot is gonna kill us.
Sarah:We're gonna talk about the kidnapped prime minister and the adventure of the western star.
Mark:Season 2 episode 89. If you let your kids get COVID, then they can listen to this podcast.
Sarah:Me.
Mark:We could do an entire podcast on the crap that has happened to us this summer.
Sarah:Where did that bus go that hit me? Because I tell you what, I'm still not I'm I might be 80%.
Mark:Ladies and gentlemen, if you haven't guessed, boys and girls, kids of all ages, I gave Sera Covey. Yeah.
Sarah:I was you know, if you work in a school of any kind, you kinda brace yourself when school starts that you're just gonna be around a whole lot more people.
Mark:We did that, plus I did a con.
Sarah:And then yeah. So the 2nd week of school, I missed 2 days of class. I missed the entire 2nd week of my class that I'm teaching.
Mark:Literally, the entire town of Bloomington get sick.
Sarah:Yeah. And
Mark:we should have known better.
Sarah:We should have braced.
Mark:I remember at one point in time in January of 2024, I remember writing in my notes to take it easy on the summer with the podcast because we have lower listenership
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:And we get really busy. Mhmm. Well, we had no idea. No. None.
Mark:No. We we have done 3 weeks in a row once since May.
Sarah:Well, summer's over now.
Mark:Yep. Summer's over, baby.
Sarah:Done.
Mark:Yep. So not only are you getting an episode, you're getting a double episode, and next week, we're right into Broken Wood.
Sarah:Heck, yeah. I'm ready. I I love Poirot, but I am so done with him.
Mark:So done with Poirot.
Sarah:I'm really done with Poirot.
Mark:Had a murder in forever.
Sarah:I know. Where are the bodies? I want bodies. We can't do best corpse if there are no corpses.
Mark:We can't do best corpse if there's no corpses, and we are gifted an amazing coroner in Broken One.
Sarah:Yeah. I'm ready for it. Yeah. Next week, that's where we're going. This week, though, we are gonna have some fun 2 things.
Sarah:Poirot finale.
Mark:Couple of things right off the top. We need to talk about this. We've messaged about it, but poor Jude Tindall has passed. And it just is upsetting to me. We she was a friend of the show and, had a short illness and passed.
Sarah:She's really fun to talk to.
Mark:She was and she she approached us because somebody on sister bonafist had heard our crazy ideas.
Sarah:Yeah. Yeah. What I really liked, and if you missed our interview with Jude, go back and find it because she really was so kind and so funny. But what I really enjoyed about talking to her was that she wasn't like the British version of a Hollywood person. No.
Sarah:She was like an average everyday person with a normal job who
Mark:Won a contest.
Sarah:Entered a contest to write an episode of a soap, won and became a writer. And she never took that for granted.
Mark:And basically created
Sarah:Shakespeare and Hathaway.
Mark:The new father Brown, Shakespeare and Hathaway
Sarah:And sister Boniface. And enjoyed every minute of it, like like, she was the luckiest person ever. The life of Riley. Yeah. So And she was really kind to us.
Sarah:She settled this this sister Boniface conspiracy for us. Absolutely did. And and other times, she answered questions that we sent her. She was always really nice with her time.
Mark:Be able we sent her a question about father Brown and said, what what's he going on about here? Yeah. And in
Sarah:less than 24 hours, she'd get right back to us, and she didn't have to do that.
Mark:So so very nice to us.
Sarah:Yeah. So So go watch an episode of sister Boniface. Serve her family. Absolutely. Shakespeare and Hathaway
Mark:or something. I would imagine the new series of father Brown and the new series of sister Boniface will be dedicated to her because they should be.
Sarah:Yeah. Never mind that I don't think she was too much older than us.
Mark:Couple of
Sarah:years maybe.
Mark:Robbins.
Sarah:Scary. Anyway
Mark:Why do we not live in England? Because we don't. Wait. I wish we did.
Sarah:What are we missing now that's going on? It's so cool.
Mark:Missing on September 7th to 15th, the Agatha Christie Festival from the grand Great Western Railway. What? You wanna hear what this is? A week long celebration.
Sarah:Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Before you do that, though, just think how mad we would be. Had we known about this in advance? Really save the money and went, and we got COVID the week before and couldn't go.
Sarah:Like, I'm okay with
Mark:Well, yeah. So couldn't go. The the thing is I miss my nephew's party because
Sarah:His wedding. My No. No. His engagement party.
Mark:His engagement party because my mother passed this summer. So I had to go to Canada early, but I wouldn't have been able to go anyway because I had the COVID. Yeah. And if I had gone, I would have made everybody at the party sick.
Sarah:Yeah. That wouldn't have been nice. Yes. So So maybe somebody we know over in England can go to the Agatha Christie Festival.
Mark:Yes. And give us, like, a little report. Yeah. That would be fantastic. A weeklong celebration of the queen of crime across the English Riviera.
Mark:Yes, please.
Sarah:That sounds awesome.
Mark:And trains. Yeah. They have, like, a twenties cover, poster. I'm just like, yes, please.
Sarah:What I really love about going to an event like that is that, you know, if you're waiting in any queue, you can strike up a conversation with somebody around you, and they will know exactly what you're talking about. You could say, so, like, what's your favorite marble? And and they'll, like, start dissertating about it. Yep. You know?
Sarah:Like, they speak your language. So last time we recorded, we had our our question of the week. Yep. And it was about fantasy crossovers. Taking characters from one show and putting them in another, and what what crossover would you like to see?
Mark:Now we're not gonna have a question this week. We're gonna have a question for Broken Wood.
Sarah:Yeah. Next week.
Mark:There is a clear break happening.
Sarah:Yes.
Mark:We're finishing.
Sarah:You're gonna scrub the decks and start over.
Mark:If we'll be back in a week. Yeah. There was somebody on the Reddit who was like, well, if there's no, asteroid that hits the planet and to which I replied
Sarah:Don't tempt fate. We're doomed. We're doomed. So did we get some crossover ideas from the audience? Because they're always so good.
Mark:Super good ones. The first one I didn't think about, but would be very good would be so there's a younger version of prime suspect.
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:But that that young version of prime suspect, the main character in that played by,
Sarah:Well, it's Helen Mirren in the other one. Right? I mean yeah. But in the younger version, it's
Mark:something She should run across young Vera.
Sarah:Oh, boy. Young Vera would be something else.
Mark:Young Vera and young prime suspect.
Sarah:She had the galoshes on already? I'm sure. She's 25.
Mark:Speaking of galoshes, at a low point this week, I watched Paddington. First of all, if you haven't watched the Paddington movie, go watch the Paddington movie.
Sarah:So fun.
Mark:Or save it for a moment
Sarah:in which you need a, like When you need to smile, it's happy.
Mark:If if something disastrous happens in this election in the fall, I will be watching Patty.
Sarah:On loop? Yes.
Mark:Because it just makes you feel good.
Sarah:We're so off on a tangent, but in between watching so Mark said, have you ever seen The Martian? I I said, no. I'd never seen it. And he said, well, we should watch it. And I'm like, okay.
Sarah:And we should watch it. But it's a long movie, and we started it kinda late. And with the COVID, we were kind of fading at about 8:45 at night. So we watched the first half of it, and I sat there the whole time thinking he's gonna die. He's gonna die.
Sarah:He's gonna die. He's gonna die. He's gonna die because everything goes wrong, you know. And then the next afternoon before we finished The Martian, we watched Paddington in which nothing bad happens. Even as chaotic and crazy as things can get, you know everything's gonna be okay.
Mark:A million guest stars.
Sarah:Yeah. You're like midsummer, midsummer, midsummer, midsummer. And then we watched the second half of The Martian later that night, and emotionally, I was just, like, wrecked. Like, I don't even I what? I said.
Mark:Nobody dies from this point on. And she was Sarah was like, thank you.
Sarah:Okay. So that's the first crossover.
Mark:Okay. Second one, doctor who in Midsummer, which would be fun with the UFOs and all that.
Sarah:Oh, yeah.
Mark:Yeah. Rachel suggested that. Paul had a very interesting one. Paul wrote a whole little scenario here.
Sarah:Oh, yeah?
Mark:It's Midsummer and Poirot. Oh. Joyce is volunteering to travel, traveling literary exhibit that has rare Agatha Christie Meng script. A murder occur occurs when the manuscript ends, is stolen. Tom has to to investigate despite having a terrible cold.
Mark:In his slight hazy state of mind, he begins to imagine Poirot appearing and helping him with the case. Poirot telling Tom about the little gray cells is a scene I need in my life.
Sarah:Yeah. That's Yeah. I like that idea a lot.
Mark:I think that that's a a great crossover.
Sarah:But I'm afraid that it would be Peter Houston off Poirot that he would imagine. He's not bad.
Mark:Peter Peter Houston off is is the 2nd best Poirot.
Sarah:He's like generic label Poirot, though. Yeah. He's like dollar store borrow.
Mark:CG Stone came up with detectorists in midsummer, which, of course, is
Sarah:Yeah. That's a natural fit.
Mark:That's a natural fit. And then Lisa made the natural suggestion that old Poirot and young miss Marple could cross over. Yeah. Thank you all
Sarah:for be really interesting too.
Mark:All of your cards and letters and messages about us being sick. Oh my gosh.
Sarah:We, yeah, we made it.
Mark:We did.
Sarah:I think we're out the other end.
Mark:We are. We are. I also made everyone in the house sick. So
Sarah:Yeah. You did. So to
Mark:kinda take care of everybody for a week.
Sarah:Okay. What's your crossover idea?
Mark:My crossover idea is that doctor t finally goes on vacation.
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:And he decides to go on vacation to New Zealand. Oh. And he runs into the Brokenwood people. And the detectives in broken wood and doctor t would not see eye to eye.
Sarah:No.
Mark:And first of all, he would go, you cannot make coffee. No. He would have no problem telling her that she could not make coffee. No. And also and and the coroner and doctor t together would be fantastic.
Sarah:Oh my gosh. I think she'd love him.
Mark:Yes. I think she would.
Sarah:She would wanna fix him so bad. So my crossover is Hastings meeting Campion and Lugg.
Mark:Oh, I like that.
Sarah:Because I imagine that Hastings and Campion would have tons in common.
Mark:They would have they would exist in the same circles.
Sarah:Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like, they would have been childhood friends and, like, then reunite later in life.
Mark:Poirot's way in Egypt.
Sarah:And I want Hastings to drive Campion's car.
Mark:Tries to to get help from Poirot, and he's left with Hastings.
Sarah:Yeah. Yeah. Or Hastings runs into Campion at, like, a school reunion, and they solve a mystery away from Poirot. Yeah. But I I wanna see Lug deal with Hastings.
Sarah:So your friend is stupid. I know you like him and all of it.
Mark:He's a little bit obsessed with women. Well, so am I.
Sarah:He's a bit dense.
Mark:Campion is the smart Hastings.
Sarah:Yeah. Kinda. Yeah. Yeah. So Little bit ponzier.
Sarah:Little bit ponzier. Younger.
Mark:Okay.
Sarah:Are you ready for the kidnapped prime minister? Wow.
Mark:Okay. Kidnap prime minister is what we're gonna do first, and I'm gonna take the lead on this one because we, kinda split the episodes up so that we could have two shots at them. Couple of things about all the episodes were broadcast in the nineties, they're stay really close to this the
Sarah:Short story.
Mark:Itself. The first one is directed by Andrew Grieve and written by Clive And so we we've heard lots of him before.
Sarah:Oh, I know. Is it must be nice to be the prime minister and get to drive your car right up to the train.
Mark:In Charing Cross. Yeah. Now I searched in Charing Cross to find that statue, and I couldn't find it.
Sarah:If anybody's been there in the past
Mark:of Charing
Sarah:Cross. Been to I've been to Charing Cross. I don't remember it. I'm sure I've also
Mark:been to Charing Cross. So let's just do a quick overview of this episode. So what happens is the prime minister is assaulted, basically.
Sarah:1st, they try to weigh lamb on a dark road Yes. On on the way back from Windsor Castle.
Mark:And there is a dark road from Windsor Castle to that that train station. Yeah. I looked.
Sarah:And they fail, but they graze his face.
Mark:Yes. So the prime minister needs to get to these disarmament talks in France the next day. Right. And when he leaves for France, he, has an aid with him that the driver and the aid are attacked and the prime minister is kidnapped. Yeah.
Mark:And the government has reached out to Poirot to solve this case.
Sarah:Mhmm. To find out where the prime minister is to rescue him in time to go to the disarmament conference to convince the rest of Europe not to let Germany rearm. Yes. So the the the ticker is on. The clock is ticking.
Mark:There's a subplot of people not from Ireland not being happy with English people. Yeah.
Sarah:There is that.
Mark:It's like a weird kind of situation. What this episode really becomes is Poirot with Keystone Government officials. They're all running around with their heads cut off.
Sarah:Well, it's
Mark:Including JAP a little bit.
Sarah:It's the I'm brilliant, and I'm not gonna let you in on my thought process until I'm ready.
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:It's it Sherlock Holmes does it a ton.
Mark:It's wowing the client totally.
Sarah:Yeah. So the government minister, sir Bernard, is totally irritated because he think he thinks Poirot is killing time and wasting time the whole time. Of course, Poirot is figuring it out. Yeah. He's just not letting anybody in on it.
Sarah:Right? Very frustrating
Mark:to me. That's that's the game of this story and this episode between Christy and us. Right? So we're given clues, and we're meant to figure it out. Right.
Mark:And though it there's not a lot of people in this episode, so it's pretty easy to figure out.
Sarah:Oh, and is being fitted for a suit.
Mark:Yes. So at at the beginning, goes to get fitted for a suit by mister Fingler.
Sarah:Yes.
Mark:Who is Jewish, and does the most charming thing here speaking to him and using Yiddish slang.
Sarah:Shop is in a rough part of town.
Mark:It is.
Sarah:Like, he doesn't even have windows. They're boarded up. Yep. And they're bad. Dis dis disreputable store.
Mark:And there are bad kids
Sarah:in there. There are lots of bad kids. There of course, they mess with Hastings' car because I imagine his car has a top, but he never puts it on. Never. So the car is, like, just there and out.
Sarah:Yeah. The kids are playing with it. And I I love that they they yell at Hastings and Poirot when they come out and tell them, get away from the car.
Mark:Marmaduke and Mont Montsere. Montseany.
Sarah:Montmorency. Yes. Okay. The kids can say it, but you can't.
Mark:Fancy ass is what they're saying.
Sarah:They say clear off, Montmorency. Like, posh dude. It's like saying screw you, Sogen.
Mark:Or Rockefeller.
Sarah:The yeah. But their first names, Marmaduke's a first name. Like, piss off, Percival.
Mark:I tried to do a search for this, and all I got was stuff about a big red dog. It's Marmaduke is everywhere on the Internet.
Sarah:Montmorency would give you different results. Yep. I just I just love that the kids know all kinds of Ponzi names to call them.
Mark:Sarah, we need a character actor. We need this guy to be slightly dodgy. He may or may not be having an affair on his wife, but she is certainly having an affair on him. Who are we gonna call? We are gonna call David Horovitch.
Mark:Yes. Because, man, he plays this guy.
Sarah:Yeah. He he's commander Daniels in this, and it is the role that he plays.
Mark:He he's played it in at least 3 other things that we've seen.
Sarah:He's usually tweetier than this, though. He's usually more, country gentlemen Yes. Or a soccer scene than this.
Mark:But I I definitely have seen shows in which he is, like, off or the bad guy or doing something he shouldn't be doing.
Sarah:Yeah. The it's a big mystery. Right? Oh, where's the prime minister? Did they kidnap him in France?
Sarah:Did he ever actually leave the country? Is there a double the prime minister? And then shouting like a beacon in the night for all to see is his incredibly Nazi like ex wife.
Mark:I thought Like
Sarah:like she may as well say Heil Hitler in her dining room when she meets Poirot. That outfit and the haircut and everything. I know she's supposed to be an an Irish sympathizer, but come on.
Mark:Well, you see Daniels at first and you go, oh, he did it. And then you see his wife and you're like, oh, they did it.
Sarah:Because he's got that bandage on his big egg head that looks like a pillow tape to it. And the next time you see him, it's gone and his head's fine. Yes. Oh, I was tied up by the bad guys. I didn't see them, and a little girl had to save me from the car.
Sarah:And, yeah, that's all real convenient in there.
Mark:Yeah. None of it's checkable and,
Sarah:you know Mhmm. Nobody else saw anything.
Mark:Yeah. So they go to Dover for some reason.
Sarah:Because they're gonna get on a destroyer and go to France.
Mark:And they see this there's this building in the background that has, like, a cupola on the top of it.
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:It's beautiful. But Oh,
Sarah:on the dock?
Mark:Yeah. It's been it's been destroyed already.
Sarah:Oh, that's too bad. It's a beautiful building.
Mark:It's, it used to be the
Sarah:It's right next to where all the sailors get out of the truck and pretend to do something. Yes. Yeah.
Mark:It used to be Dover. The people who ran the the the port worked out at it was, like, the Dover the Port of Dover main building.
Sarah:Gotcha. Like, where the Super cool.
Mark:Yeah. I love how the government guide gives Poirot a magnifying glass. He has even pulled out a magnifying glass. So then the one thing I really do like is Poirot kinda helps them along here with his explanation of the prime minister who in this episode is entitled David McAdam. No David McAdam actually was prime minister.
Sarah:Generic prime minister here.
Mark:So Generic white guy prime minister. So Poirot gets in the car and tries to recreate the shooting of the prime minister, and they do it in such a great way that you are like, yeah. That didn't happen.
Sarah:The back seat is so far away from the door. Way far away. Like, you need that strap to haul yourself out of it.
Mark:And also, like, he doesn't say it, but the prime minister would be stupid to do it.
Sarah:Like Let me stick my head out this window while people are shooting. Yeah. Like No. He'd get down.
Mark:He would never do that. And then Poirot takes them on this sort of grand hospital tour.
Sarah:Looking for the hospital where they took the prime minister to get his injury seen to. Bottom line is is that the man who comes the man who comes back with the the bandage on, is he the prime minister?
Mark:He's not the prime minister. He's already the fake. He's already the fake. So I'm like, who is that? And where is the fake guy?
Mark:Yeah. Because he goes to France with Daniels, but then runs away. We don't hear from him again.
Sarah:They let him loose in the French countryside.
Mark:I I guess.
Sarah:Run free imposter PM. I guess. He whips off his big bandage and runs off into the woods. That's where you find prime minister fakes. Don't you know that?
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:You you capture them in the woods. That's where all impostors come from. We've run across a fake prime minister. Oh, there's a whole herd of them over there.
Mark:Oh, they found the car in France.
Sarah:That little girl.
Mark:So there's this artificial clock of the of the conference, the talks, everything kind of ticks down to finally, they figure out that it's Daniels and it and his wife.
Sarah:When did you first hear the phrase Aaron go bra?
Mark:Probably when I was very young because that campsite that my parents went to all summer, there were lots of nights of traditional folk music that people would sit around the fire and play Mhmm. Folk music. And I probably heard it then.
Sarah:I don't know when I first heard it, but I was too, obviously, too young to know what it meant. Because I remember some kid I knew making fun of it and saying Aaron go Braless.
Mark:Oh, okay. So you were that age?
Sarah:Yeah. Like, we had no idea what it meant.
Mark:I also probably heard it early on in the strangest of ways. There's a Canadian band named the Irish Rovers. Yes. They're Canadian, but they're called the Irish Rovers.
Sarah:Okay.
Mark:Played traditional Irish music, and they had a variety show on in Canada. Wow. And I probably heard it there. And that's why I know so many traditional Irish songs like Black Velvet Van Band Yeah. Because of all those
Sarah:I shouldn't even say the name of that song.
Mark:Yeah.
Sarah:It is such an earworm. You've inflicted me with it so many times. Don't Google it. If you don't know that song, don't look it up. If you do, you have yourself to blame.
Sarah:You have been warned. If only every bad guy was kind enough to take all of their phone calls in front of an open window where Hastings could see them. Because missus Daniels stands right next to the window, takes the call, and basically goes, what the fuck? I like, oh, no. Like, she parks
Mark:the curtains to look outside.
Sarah:Let me stand fully in view and then hop into my car and zoom away.
Mark:Is this the episode that and I might get them mixed up where Jaff goes, oh, we should just pick up a vagrant.
Sarah:Yeah. When in doubt, arrest a vagrant. That's what he says because they've arrested a vagrant in France, like, just some random guy.
Mark:So then they're trying to find out where he is.
Sarah:Where the prime minister is being held. They figured out that Daniel's wife is involved, that it has something to do with Irish independence, that she is the daughter of aristocracy in Ireland, and they they have a home somewhere in that vicinity of the country, and they've got the map out, and they're trying to figure out where it is.
Mark:And I don't know if this is in the original story, but this is a brilliant piece of writing because Poirot does the little kid joke. Because
Sarah:miss Lemons is trying to remember the name of the village
Mark:Or she
Sarah:says the family hall.
Mark:It's like Battele.
Sarah:It's like Battele. Battele. And Poirot says Catley. Datley. Datley.
Sarah:Hatley. Fatley. He's going through The alphabet. Alphabet. He's gonna get to Ratley and Zatley eventually.
Sarah:What? It's Summer Scott.
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:Yes. That's it. But we've all done it. When you're like, I can't remember that person's name. I think it starts with a j.
Sarah:Yeah. I think it has an a j j. Mike. Yes. That's it.
Sarah:Completely different.
Mark:Did you ever have a phone list? One of those phone things that had a phone directory of your own that had enough people in it that you had by their alphabetical names? No. I I came at the very trail into that.
Sarah:But my grandmother had one of those that had the little lever on the side that you moved to the letter of the alphabet, and that would and it would
Mark:open to that page. Too.
Sarah:I always thought it was so cool.
Mark:And x, y, and zed were always together.
Sarah:Yeah. X, y, and zed were always empty.
Mark:Yeah. So then then the call that the reenactment actors have been waiting for Yes. Happens. So they find out where the prime minister is, and they need the military with them to to Surround the house. Which is what would actually have happened.
Mark:Mhmm. I'm I'm not saying that. But there is the major guy who's an actor.
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:And then there are a dozen, maybe, reenactment guys.
Sarah:I don't think they're reenactment. I think they've got warehouses of World War 1 and World War 2 uniforms in England.
Mark:I just had fun imagining. We got the call, boys. Yeah. Finally.
Sarah:If that was the case, they would all be in their seventies. Yes. It would be like dad's army. Yes. If that was the case.
Mark:That's true.
Sarah:I when they so they surround this house, and and the house is perfect because it's supposed to have been fire damaged. Right? The family seat has been fire damaged. So the windows are boarded up and it's all overgrown on the outside. It's perfect.
Sarah:Right? Unlike all the National Trust properties that they usually end up going to film that that are perfect. This one is dilapidated. It's awesome. And they're trying to be quiet.
Sarah:Right?
Mark:Yep.
Sarah:But this soldier steps on a window that's on the ground and breaks the glass and makes a noise. But we get this great shot from underground. Yep. It's like the mole view Yep. Under, like, mister mole installed that window in his little his little hole.
Sarah:It was great. He had a, you know, had a sunroof in his little hole. Oh, no. Here comes the soldier in his big boot. Crack.
Mark:And then madam Daniels does the great evil villainous move of, I need you to go out there, but I need to keep the gun. Yeah. It would be bad if they found you with it. Mhmm. Cannon fodder.
Sarah:Well, she doesn't shoot him in the back while he's leaving or anything. No. But I think she actually is sincere and then sacrifices herself for the
Mark:The guy plays the prime minister as the greatest gig here. He he's sitting down. He doesn't have any lines to remember.
Sarah:Yeah. I mean, the chauffeur fur is there.
Mark:And he stumbles out. That's, like, that's
Sarah:it. Only has any lines. Yeah. But she gets to go stand on the parapet of the tower and
Mark:How does she
Sarah:get up there? Climbs up a ladder out the roof. I guess. So they do that great shot of the the view that she would have while she falls. Yeah.
Sarah:Down to the Yep. How do they do that?
Mark:They drop a camera.
Sarah:What?
Mark:Yep. No. Yes. They do.
Sarah:Surely, they use a crane and they speed up the footage.
Mark:They may, but usually what happens is they have a pulley on the end of a crane and they drop the camera down so they They
Sarah:stop it, like, 10 feet from the ground. It doesn't have to
Mark:go all
Sarah:the way. Or
Mark:anything like that.
Sarah:Nice.
Mark:Like, they don't just toss the camera.
Sarah:Know that. I know they don't just drop it. Yeah. That's the sacrifice camera for this shot. I hope you have more than once.
Mark:Well, Clive, you drew the short straw.
Sarah:You gotta jump.
Mark:Going off the wall. Make sure everything's in focus on the way to
Sarah:Yeah. We're like, Clive panics, doesn't press record. Yeah.
Mark:Well, the divorce was just a big smoke screen, And then Poirot is
Sarah:That's a long plot Yeah.
Mark:It is.
Sarah:For them to have pulled off. Like, because they had
Mark:the years in the making.
Sarah:They had the public nasty divorce a year before. Yeah. So they've been waiting for a year, more than a year, to find one sympathetic chauffeur.
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:Like, you think they could have just written home to Ireland and said, is Davey got a job? Okay. Send him up here. We got a job for him. You know?
Sarah:Oh, no. We'll just wait until one happens to come along.
Mark:Is she a Nazi? No. Irish.
Sarah:She just dresses like Okay. It's the fashion right now.
Mark:She's Erin Erin of the s s. She double of the s s.
Sarah:Her name's like Imogen.
Mark:Erin go braless
Sarah:of the s s. Oh. I don't know how Nazis felt about bras. That's a good question. Well I wonder.
Mark:Really, the only idea I would have would be from Elsa's she devil of the SS. There are a lot of bras in that
Sarah:It's probably not historically accurate. What? Do you have anything else to say about the kidnapped prime minister? Frankly, I think this episode's kinda boring.
Mark:It is. Both these episodes are kinda like, I'm I'm glad we're covering them together. No one freaking dies.
Sarah:No. There's no murder. Let's talk about the adventure of the western star.
Mark:So my first thought is do you think that so the women's arm of the masons is called the eastern star.
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:Do you think she's playing around with that here? No. I don't think so.
Sarah:No. Okay. I think it's supposed to make it sound exotic that they call the diamond the star.
Mark:I see that. How do you make a place look mean? You put a bunch of lettuce on the
Sarah:ground.
Mark:Wow. The It is such
Sarah:a rough neighborhood. People just throw vegetables. It's just we just don't even care. Everywhere. The gutters are full of turnips.
Mark:It's like that one midsummer that has the trash all over the streets, but there is a lot of lettuce on the ground in this in this one street.
Sarah:Maybe it's supposed to be like a metaphor. Like because they used to call money lettuce.
Mark:I guess.
Sarah:You know? Like, just just throwing lettuce. Or isn't there a place in Canada called in Toronto called Cabbagetown? Yes. Is there cabbage on the ground?
Sarah:No. There should be.
Mark:It was called well, it's racist. It is called Cabbagetown because it used to be where all the Irish people lived.
Sarah:So They wanna be potato town. No. They call them carb Cabbagetown. Okay.
Mark:Okay.
Sarah:Then Brax. Van Brax.
Mark:Jap is on the case here. And then we have, like, they do a really good job with this because, like, there are 2 things that are part of the immigrant story that they get really right here. Mhmm. The two things they get right are, you're never more a citizen of the country that you left than when you go to another country. Mhmm.
Mark:I've never been more Canadian than when I left.
Sarah:Living in the United States, you're far more Canadian
Mark:than when
Sarah:you were in Canada.
Mark:And then second of all, what you think is a huge deal in
Sarah:your home country is not a huge deal. A Belgian movie star? Really? Do they
Mark:even make movies?
Sarah:Well, unless to be fair, all the Canadian movie stars are just American now.
Mark:Well, everybody comes to the states to make it big.
Sarah:Yeah. So She's the she's the most Mary Marvell. The most famous actress in all of Belgium. I'm like
Mark:Okay. DC superheroine.
Sarah:Poirot's really excited.
Mark:He is. He's very
Sarah:excited. Setting out a tea. He's getting the ruler out to make sure the sandwiches are set up right. Miss Lemon is helping. He's got
Mark:a charge. The club that Hastings goes to all the time now.
Sarah:Because he has lunch until 3. Well, she can't come.
Mark:Yes. Did you notice this episode has the worst subtitles?
Sarah:Yes. They're really bad.
Mark:They're just random. Just horrific. Poirot understands the ladies. So miss Lemon does
Mark:I don't
Sarah:know how much Poirot understands ladies, but I do know
Mark:The ladies.
Sarah:Hastings does not.
Mark:No. Big poother.
Sarah:Everybody has an in-depth knowledge of women when compared to Hastings.
Mark:So Mary Marvell is not coming, and miss Lemmon gets to play the car here and go, but she wants to see you at
Sarah:her hotel. Instead. He's home. And he's like, I'm out of here. Bye.
Mark:And then she is the weirdest cigarette holder known to me. Mhmm. It's strange.
Sarah:Everything about her is kind of an affectation.
Mark:So she's been getting notes from the scary Chinaman. Signed, the scary Chinaman.
Sarah:Nobody has seen. Nope. But they smell of jasmine. Oh, well, that narrows it down. Okay.
Sarah:Uh-huh.
Mark:And they mentioned the next full moon. And you know those foreign types, they're into naturalism.
Sarah:I if I was Poirot, he he says, leave the diamond with me when you go to the yard lease. We'll keep it safe.
Mark:Which is a completely valid thing to say.
Sarah:And she's like, no. I can't do that because I wanna wear it. He would he should have been
Mark:like He
Sarah:should have been Well then forget about it and left.
Mark:See you later.
Sarah:I'm out of here. Yeah. You don't want and and later he does say, I've given you all the advice that I can and you're not gonna take it. So that's all I can do.
Mark:Yeah.
Sarah:Oh, well, I I wanna wear it. Okay. Well, then you're asking for trouble. Goodbye.
Mark:Yeah.
Sarah:I'd be done. This whole myth of the stone, the diamond being the eye of a statue. Right? And the yard lease is supposed to be the other eye of the statue is a historical reference Okay. To not just 1 Oh.
Sarah:But 2 gems. 1, I know you've heard of. Okay. The hope diamond.
Mark:Yeah. The hope diamond is one of these.
Sarah:It was allegedly stolen from a Hindu statue where it was serving as one of the eyes.
Mark:It's a big rock, man. It's huge. And when she pulls out the rock to show them Yeah. Was like, woah. This is a big boy.
Sarah:Never mind. It's set in the ugliest setting. It's just got like a setting around it. Yeah. Like it's not even pretty, but I don't think you can make a stone that big pretty.
Mark:No. It's hard.
Sarah:So there's the hope diamond. Yeah. It's it's a bluish diamond. The one I'm far more interested in though, that I didn't know a lot about, is the black Orlov diamond. The black Orlov diamond?
Sarah:Orlov. Orlov. It is a diamond, but it's black.
Mark:Wow. And not like champagne. What? So there's a joke in beautiful girls where they're like, you bought her a brown diamond? It's champagne.
Sarah:Oh, no. It it's black. Yep. It looks it it looks like, onyx? Onyx.
Sarah:Yeah. Yeah. And it was supposedly an eye of a Hindu statue as well.
Mark:What are these Hindus doing with statues?
Sarah:So there's this whole, I've just lost the word. So there's this whole colonialism thing Yeah. Where other cultures come into your culture, and they steal all your good shit. Yeah. It's like that.
Mark:You know? Okay.
Sarah:So yeah. I'm sure that's how
Mark:it happens. See people using diamonds or gemstones for eyes to make them glow and
Sarah:They're beautiful. Yeah. And if you don't live in a culture where people kill each other for rocks, you might just think this is pretty. I'm gonna make it part of our religious decoration and not worry about some jackass coming on a boat and taking it. The guy who stole the Orlov diamond was a Jesuit priest who should have known better.
Mark:Should have known better.
Sarah:Bad dude. Bad dude. He stole it from the god Brahma and Pondicherry.
Mark:Oh, I'm sure he got cursed.
Sarah:They are both in the Natural History Museum in Washington DC now if you'd like to see the Hope Diamond or the Black Orlov Diamond.
Mark:Both of those need to be returned to the right people.
Sarah:Like lots of things.
Mark:Agreed. So
Sarah:a great podcast called stuff the British stole. Yes. If you've never listened to it, you should go check it out. It's great.
Mark:So Poirot goes to get his haircut and Jap Japs along.
Sarah:Is is Jap a verb now? When you're just Jap, Jap, Japping along.
Mark:And the it's interesting. They do some exposition, but the most interesting part is lady Yardley comes to Poirot's office, and he's not there.
Sarah:But Hastings is.
Mark:But Hastings is.
Sarah:With his cold hard logic. Stone cold, ice cold Hastings. You have been receiving blackmail letters.
Mark:How did you ever know that?
Sarah:I like the Yardleys because they are countryside Tweety Aristocrats who are not jackasses.
Mark:No. But they're dumb as turnips.
Sarah:But they're nice, and they love their kids.
Mark:Yes. They do love their kids.
Sarah:And they just don't wanna go broke. And that kid, like okay.
Mark:He's kinda he he kinda glosses over the, well, you know, I would've made some bad gambling debts. But, anyway, I wanna get the money back.
Sarah:Well and people of that class are constantly in debt to their homes. Yeah. You know? But now they've got kids. Yep.
Sarah:And he wants to do right by them by selling the big ugly stone. Why don't you wear it? It's hideous. It's not here. I've misplaced it.
Sarah:She's right that it's ugly.
Mark:The setting is horrible.
Sarah:Okay. I'll wear it to dinner.
Mark:My mom took it.
Sarah:I I loaned it to a friend, and she never gave it back.
Mark:I had it in school,
Mark:and the teacher took it.
Sarah:I love lady hardly pretending that it's stolen from her as she comes in the room.
Mark:And then she flips the light off.
Sarah:And then yanks herself out of the room and throws herself on the ground.
Mark:And who is to blame? Who is to blame?
Sarah:There was a chinaman. He had a pigtail. Look. Yellow silk stuck in the door.
Mark:First name, China. Last name, man. China man.
Sarah:I gotta tell you. This episode of the show is not a fraction as racist as the story is.
Mark:Oh, I'm sure.
Sarah:I mean, it's bad. Even later when Rolfe, who I can only think of as Dracula because he looks like Dracula, pretends to be him pretending to not be him, pretending to be him, and tapes his eyes
Mark:to look a
Sarah:little Asian.
Mark:This is the most racist episode of porn.
Sarah:No. Well
Mark:That we've covered.
Sarah:Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. You have to remember me love you long time. Me show you good time sailor boy.
Sarah:Oh, that's true. In this season. Right?
Mark:True.
Sarah:But the the whole, like well, in the prior episode, it's just arrest of vagrant. Yes. And this time, it's just blame a Chinaman. Yes. Absolutely.
Sarah:Because, obviously, they want their diamonds back, so it's gotta be them.
Mark:To go to Yardley, they take a train, and in the train car they're in, there's a picture on the
Sarah:wall. Mhmm.
Mark:Like, it's a living room.
Sarah:It's nice. That's weird. Travel used to be nice. It didn't used to be a hellhole of suffering.
Mark:Maybe. And I love how, well, we get Japcam. Yes. Who's that sneaking up in the house? I'm like, it's Jap.
Mark:Yeah.
Sarah:Japcam.
Mark:And Chap jumps out and goes, what are you guys doing here? And I'm like, because these cases are the same case and
Sarah:Obviously, they're connected. Same case. He's tracking Van Brock.
Mark:Yep.
Sarah:Meanwhile, oh, Marie Mavell's diamond has been stolen too.
Mark:So then
Sarah:I am so sad. I know who
Mark:says the thing that bothers me. He goes
Sarah:Let papa papa Poirot take care of it.
Mark:Let papa take care of it.
Sarah:Which is not easy to say, first of all. Not. I think it's nice.
Mark:I think it's a it's it's a little cringey. I think it's. But how I got through it is thinking about Papa Poirot and Ice Cold Hastings and what other rap names I could come up with. DJ JazzyJap.
Sarah:Lemon Tartlet. Or queen lemon difa. No. She'd be l l cool lemon.
Mark:Straight out of Whitehaven. Oh, we need to do a photoshopped.
Sarah:Instead of yo yo, it would be, I say.
Mark:I say. I say. I say. Brother. Brother.
Sarah:Brother. Brother. Ricky. Wiki. Wiki.
Sarah:Wicked.
Mark:Wicked. Get Poiro rapping.
Sarah:Sticky. Wicked. You don't think we could get AI to get wrapping?
Mark:Sure we could get AI to do it, but I don't like using AI.
Sarah:So May maybe
Mark:souche with the doo rag on.
Sarah:I just wanna see Hastings with a big, like, gold pound sign around his neck. Ice cold logic.
Mark:Ice cold logic.
Sarah:Meanwhile, Rolfe is showing up at the airport. The aerodrome.
Mark:Okay. No. It's not the aerodrome. It's the building used in every episode in this season.
Sarah:To meet Von Brock to exchange the diamond for the money.
Mark:Like, wasn't this the Midlands Hotel 20 minutes ago?
Sarah:No. No. This is an airfield.
Mark:Okay.
Sarah:But Ralph is dressed like Jim Carrey from the mask. Okay.
Mark:He is the biggest fur coat on ever.
Sarah:And I tell you what, one thing I know is that had I been alive at this time, I would not have been traveling.
Mark:And why is that?
Sarah:Because if some jackass is gonna make me get on a scale at the gate and yell a £180. That's a lot. You sure do. Do you have any luggage, fatty? I'm not going anywhere.
Mark:How could they have ever done that?
Sarah:Men don't care.
Mark:No. But And
Sarah:it was
Mark:men would care, but it still is horrible. And then the guy goes, you don't have any luggage? You're going to Johannesburg. Yeah. And Ralph's like,
Sarah:I keep everything in my big coat. I have Okay.
Mark:All in my big coat.
Sarah:Well, he's gotta go back through again because if he had actually sold the diamond to Von Brock, he would've had that suitcase full of cash
Mark:Yeah.
Sarah:And that would've added to his weight. Yes. The probably would've crashed because they would've miscalculated for the extra £20 of money he was bringing on.
Mark:My gosh. To fly from London to Johannesburg?
Sarah:On that putt putt of a plane Yeah. Did you hear it start up backfiring and everything? No. No. Thank you.
Mark:There's so many extras and planes and stuff like that in this
Sarah:I am not going anywhere. Oh, and you gotta balance out the fatty fats too. They they would have made you move and change seats to balance out the weight. Yeah. If you need to do that, you shouldn't fly in that plane.
Sarah:That's not safe. No. No. No. And where does Rolf thinks he think he's gonna run?
Sarah:The police show up, and he makes a break for it. Where does he think he's going? I don't know. But In his mint green suit and ankle length fur coat, he's not blending in anywhere. Before Poirot gets there,
Mark:he has to have a month long discussion in French with Mary Marvell.
Sarah:I have no idea what they say.
Mark:Their French is way too fast for me. I don't know what they're saying. She says I'm an imbecile at some point. That's all I got out of it.
Sarah:Well, she's realizing that Rolfe is not who he says he is and not all he's made out to be.
Mark:Well, considering he was stooping lady Yardley too.
Sarah:No. She says, she was only ever indiscreet, which means that she didn't sleep with him. She was just overly familiar with him. Oh, okay. Meaning that she probably shared intimate information about herself that she would not have shared with an acquaintance Oh.
Sarah:That could be used against her.
Mark:Okay.
Sarah:Like, my husband isn't that attractive anymore.
Mark:Yeah. Or something
Sarah:Something like that. Yeah. But it was enough for him to blackmail her Yeah. To get the real diamond. Because Marie Maribel never even had a diamond.
Mark:I love how Van Brak, who is said to be obsessed with diamonds, immediately goes,
Sarah:this is fake. One that big? Yeah. It would weigh significantly different if it was paste.
Mark:Definitely weigh different.
Sarah:You you would you would be able to tell Yep. If you picked it up. When Rolf is in the airport and he's waiting for Von Brock to show up, plane is about to leave. He doesn't have any time. He's waiting.
Sarah:He's waiting. He's waiting. He looks at the door because somebody is coming in and the person who is coming in is being escorted by a porter. But the person who's coming in is absolutely mysterious to me.
Mark:You took a picture of this. Right?
Sarah:He's dressed head to toe in red, and I think he has a turban on. He is the anti Von Brock. That's what he is. He's clearly not Von Brock. Oh, wow.
Mark:It may be a lady. No. Maybe I'll have to
Sarah:do that. The picture. I have to do that. It's really hard to make out because he's in between two doors.
Mark:Yeah. And it's dark.
Sarah:And they glance at him, and it's just He
Mark:definitely has high water pants and white socks
Sarah:on it. It's not Von Brock. That's what we're supposed to notice, but that is the least Von Brock person.
Mark:You're absolutely right. He kinda looks like an Oompa Loompa.
Sarah:Kind of. I don't know who he's supposed to be. Oompa Loompa Airport. Maybe that's who they bring on to balance out the weight. Maybe.
Sarah:It's like for every for every Rolfe, we need 2 Oompa Loompas to balance it out.
Mark:Everyone gets arrested.
Sarah:Know if Tubby's gonna fly, we're gonna need an extra Oompa Loompa on this plane.
Mark:Everyone gets arrested, and my dinner with Poirot begins. And we are given a piece of gold at the end.
Sarah:The notebook. The notebook. I want the notebook.
Mark:Hastings says he has a notebook, which is 2 columns. The first column is things I don't understand. Dude, I have that notebook already. And the second column is the explanation of things.
Sarah:And, like I can only imagine one column is far more filled out than the other because it's Hastings.
Mark:He's like, where did the statue come from?
Sarah:No. He says, where's the other diamond?
Mark:Where's the other diamond? And Poirot
Sarah:has to stop eating to go, oh. You're an idiot. You poor summer child. You may be ice cold Hastings. Yep.
Sarah:But you are not smart.
Mark:So we wanna see Hastings book. So I have a question for you here.
Sarah:That whole scene by the way is, if you, dear viewer, are as dumb as Hastings, you're probably wondering where the other diamond is. Let us explain to you too, stupid.
Mark:Yep. Let's tie up all the loose there.
Sarah:There was only ever one anyway. Except
Mark:who goes to jail here?
Sarah:Nobody.
Mark:No one goes to jail? Nope. Van Brack is right. Yep. He was there to buy a diamond that he thought was real Yep.
Mark:And didn't know was stolen because he was buying it from the guy who said he owned it.
Sarah:Yep. Really? Rolfe. Kind of.
Mark:For blackmailing missus Yardley? Lady Yardley. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah.
Mark:He's certainly not gonna be married for long.
Sarah:No. Marie is going to dump his ass.
Mark:I've been an imbecile. Yeah. You have, lady. You should've went to Poirot's for lunch.
Sarah:You're in your little French tears are going to be so sad. Maybe they can have a fantastic divorce like the people in the other episode.
Mark:She's not much of an actor.
Sarah:She's the only famous Belgian actress. It's a small pool to choose from. And so ends The adventure of the western star.
Mark:Adventure of the western star.
Sarah:And season 2 of Poirot.
Mark:I want some murder. Murder. Murder.
Sarah:Give me blood And not just from some Nazi falling off a tower.
Mark:And, boy, we're gonna get it.
Sarah:In season 1, episode 1 of Broken Wood, Blood and Water. It's got blood right in the name, baby.
Mark:Title. Mike talks to the dead. Oh, there's just so much good stuff coming.
Sarah:We're gonna have lots of fun.
Mark:Yep. We are a longtime friend of ours in Bloomington sent me a message on Facebook the other day. It was like, wait a minute. You guys are doing broken one now? We just finished it.
Mark:Now we have to watch it again. Yeah. I'm like, yes. You do.
Sarah:It's gonna be fun, and there's not gonna be any asteroids.
Mark:No. There will be no asteroids.
Sarah:No. So that's Poirot season 2. I'm I'm tired of Poirot, but I gotta say it will always have a place in my heart. David Suchet is the best.
Mark:Yep. Broken wood is 4 episodes in the first season. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say we're doing the first two seasons of broken ones.
Sarah:Yeah.
Mark:What I'm worried about is we have no knowledge of any new midsummers right now.
Sarah:And we usually have heard by now that they're gonna come out in December
Mark:or something like that. Now. Nothing has been filmed. I know that for sure.
Sarah:All of them, there's not gonna be any in December.
Mark:Yeah. There will be
Sarah:any filming by now.
Mark:So so we're definitely gonna do Well,
Sarah:we're not starting we're not starting rumors. We know nothing.
Mark:We know nothing.
Sarah:If there's been no filming, we're only saying that because they usually post production shots on Instagram and stuff, and they haven't. That doesn't mean that they're not filming.
Mark:Maybe this should be the official podcast. Whatever. So we return on September 16th That's next week. With Broken Woods season 1 episode 1.
Sarah:Blood and water. It's gonna be fun, people. Bye, maniacs. Bye, maniacs.
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.
Sarah:5 I wanna do the tagline, the summary of the show. The mystery maniacs is a mystery recap podcast. Okay. I'll see if I can do it from memory.
Mark:The intro. Yes. Okay.
