Episode 218 | Mystery Maniacs | The Brokenwood Mysteries | "To Die or Not to Die" | Dinosaur Skullz & Gumboot Tea!

Sarah:

Stop. Everybody's screaming stop.

Sarah:

Hey, Maniacs. Hey.

Mark:

Mystery Maniacs. Mystery Maniacs is a recap podcast dedicated to mystery TV. Each week, we dig into an episode of a show including the murders, the mayhem, the loonies, and everything else we love this week. Broken Woods season 2 episode 2, to die or not to die. I'm Mark.

Sarah:

I'm Sarah.

Mark:

We forget to introduce ourselves a lot.

Sarah:

This is a spoiler podcast. We're gonna give away who the killer is. So if you haven't watched it, stop right now. Go watch it. Come back, or we'll ruin it for you.

Mark:

I have covered mister Tim Baum with praise for this show. Yeah. This is not his best work.

Sarah:

I there are some things I like about this episode. The plot isn't one of them.

Mark:

Yeah. There's a whole it's like the whole rest of the of the organization is working to make this a better episode. Mhmm. Because it's like the stars aren't coming out today, dude.

Sarah:

Sam's fun. Sims is fun. Mike is fun. Gina is fun. Yep.

Sarah:

There's fun stuff in the background. The actors are not bad. It's just it's just it's very mid summary, but not in the quirky fun mid summary way.

Mark:

It's spin the wheel and do the 2nd year episode about Amateur theater. Amateur theater.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's

Mark:

that's it's right off of that.

Sarah:

So it's centered on Hamlet Yes. Which was Shakespeare's longest play, and Hamlet has more words, more lines than any other character written by Shakespeare.

Mark:

Yes. Well, okay. In one play.

Sarah:

In one play.

Mark:

Because Flagstaff has more lines if you put all the plays together that he's in.

Sarah:

Have you ever been in a play?

Mark:

Right from my notes, I have. Have you been in a Shakespeare or play or been on stage there?

Sarah:

I ask because I have not. I've been in musical theater

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

But not in dramatics. I've worked backstage. I've made props. I've helped build sets, all that fun stuff. But I've never had to learn that many lines, and I just don't know how people do it.

Sarah:

And I realized they learn them. They don't memorize them. They learn them.

Mark:

But And it's practice. You never start you very often don't start as a lead character. Right?

Sarah:

You start I just don't think I could pack that much into my brain. You can't mess up the words of Shakespeare. If you're doing a modern play and you flub a few words, but the but the point, you know, you deliver the message of the line, but you miss a few words, nobody's gonna notice or care. But you cannot do that with Shakespeare. There's somebody in the audience who knows it as well as you do, or you've just flubbed their favorite line.

Sarah:

Yeah. And I just can't imagine packing that much into my head.

Mark:

I've only appeared live on stage in a dramatic role once where I played Death at a party.

Sarah:

So you had no lines?

Mark:

I had two lines.

Sarah:

Death doesn't speak.

Mark:

I'm like a minor death. It was a mythology play.

Sarah:

Oh, okay. You weren't like the grim reaper.

Mark:

No. Well, I was a minor grim reaper. I had a sickle instead of the side.

Sarah:

How old were you?

Mark:

I was maybe 20. Okay. I played it like an air guitar. So Okay.

Sarah:

And that was it. Do you remember your lines?

Mark:

No. It was mostly they needed somebody and I was playing guitar in the band and they were like, well, why don't you do this? So it was funny the last night of the show when the orchestra came up, I kept my costume on for that night so that people would see that I had makeup and costume on and all that.

Sarah:

That's the other thing is that there are some stage plays that run night after night after night after night. And I know, like, the mouse trap has been on for a long time. There's more than one person who plays every role. But still, you're playing that role 5 times a week? Between I just can't imagine doing the same thing every night.

Mark:

Between That

Sarah:

would make me crazy.

Mark:

Between that play and when I was a stage manager in high school in the play, I've never been so exhausted, I don't think. Except for maybe when I was working crazy hours. We did the play I was in college, we did Thursday night, Friday night, and 2 shows on Saturday, and 2 shows on Sunday.

Sarah:

That's more than I could take.

Mark:

Just exhausted. Just completely exhausted.

Sarah:

Well, these people in Broken Wood are not exhausted.

Mark:

Well, I'm gonna tell you how invested in the plot of this episode I am. Did you have a look at the crowd who comes to see the play?

Sarah:

Not the first one. I looked closely when when Rafe is on stage at

Mark:

the end. I looked

Sarah:

at the audience, but not at the audience when the first murder happens.

Mark:

There's an incredibly awesome gothic lady and a guy who's like a caveman.

Sarah:

I always wonder if those people show up dressed like that or if they dress them like that.

Mark:

Well, he's not okay. He's not a caveman. He just looks like a caveman, and she looks quite comfortable in her gothy little outfit.

Sarah:

So you don't think they were like, you, extra. You're gonna be the gothy one.

Mark:

No. I don't think so. I think they were like people just

Sarah:

showed up in their own clothes.

Mark:

People, and we need you to be here. Now, Cayman misses the per second performance outside. And I have a okay. They have a really good theater that they go to rehearse in

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

And then they go outside. Why are they doing that?

Sarah:

I think they probably would have to pay to use that theater. Maybe. Okay. Maybe they're just using it for rehearsal because somebody died.

Mark:

But goth y lady comes back. Oh, she's there for the for the reprise. She's there for the reprise. I have in my notes, if only there was a boorish overacting white guy oh, wait. Who's the kill oh, yeah.

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah. It makes you think of Amadeus

Mark:

It does.

Sarah:

In Midsummer. Right?

Mark:

It makes you think of Amadeus in Midsummer, and there's always like, it's kind of a truism and kind of a not a truism that theater people are overly dramatic. It's it's a crutch to lean on in this episode. Yeah. And I don't like that.

Sarah:

I don't like that it's such a small group, and there's there's, like, 2 groups. Right? There's the over 50 set, and then there's, like, the under 25 set. Nobody in the middle.

Mark:

No.

Sarah:

And they seem to be so intertwined, like, in advance. I realize they're an existing theater troupe, but everybody's been married to somebody or hit on somebody or dated some like, it's just I know it's a small town, but there's just too much going on between the characters.

Mark:

Now I understand what you're saying, but there was a theater troupe in the small town where I came from. I won't mention the town name again now because you can look up that theater troop fairly easily. And, I took, part of the things I did in high school was I was a cameraman for community television

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

And then a director for them. And, wow, this was we filmed a couple of their productions, and it was a hotbed of mess.

Sarah:

It's stressful, and you have to spend so much time together.

Mark:

Stomped off stage when they weren't supposed to. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. It was just bizarre.

Sarah:

My my craze we'll get back to one thing. My craziest theater experience was in college. They put on, noises off

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Which you've probably seen the movie of. Yeah. It has it's a play about a play. Right? Yes.

Sarah:

And so we built this giant set that pivoted. So we turned the entire stage set a 180 degrees between scenes, parts of the play to show the backside of the stage or the front side of the stage Yeah. Depending on where the action was happening. And we we were supposed to make it was 2 stories, and we were supposed to make sure no matter what that there was no one on the set when we moved it. That was absolutely drilled into us.

Sarah:

Do not rotate the set if anyone is on the set. Right? Yep. Because it's basically like a 2 sided balcony with a wall in the middle.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

You know? Well, one night, some guy, props guy, he was real he was a little rat of a man dressed all in black. Right? Yep. He was on the second story, and we rotated that thing.

Sarah:

And he started screaming. And everybody in the theater, both sides of the curtain heard it. And we looked up, and he was hanging from the second story from

Mark:

the balcony. And if he had fallen, he would have

Sarah:

fallen probably about 15 feet

Mark:

Wow.

Sarah:

Onto the stage. Hard wood stage, you know. Yep. And so they

Sarah:

were like, stop. Everybody's screaming. Stop.

Mark:

We had

Sarah:

to get a ladder, get him down

Mark:

because he couldn't pull himself back up again. Oh my gosh. Poor god.

Sarah:

He was screaming, my arms. My arms. Because his arms were good. He had, like, little noodle arms.

Mark:

He wasn't gonna go and pull himself up. You're gonna have nightmares about that.

Sarah:

We kinda laughed because he was kind of a rat.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Sarah:

Well, do you have a favorite Hamlet, by the way?

Mark:

I really like Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet because well, first of all, everybody's in it. Everybody's in it. Yeah. But I like what he does with fart and bra, and I really like when when I was in undergrad is when Rosencrantz and Guildenstern came out the film. We had all read the movie, the play because we're all Nerds.

Mark:

Postmodern nerds, and that was a huge thing for us. Mhmm. That was and, like, the problem with Shakespeare is I think they do a great job because Mike falls asleep and is bored with this because Hamlet is a long play Yes. Which has boring bits.

Sarah:

It does.

Mark:

And it has incredibly dull bits in it. And then Kristen is kinda the defender of the faith here Mhmm. Too. So I think that that's all great.

Sarah:

I don't have a favorite, but I have a least favorite, and that's the Mel Gibson movie version that came out in the nineties.

Mark:

Saw that because I looked at that and went, no.

Sarah:

One reviewer said that his performance was so bad, it was, quote, subtly nuance as subtly nuanced as a paper bag and as inspired as a telemarketing call.

Mark:

Wow. Ouch. Like Mel Gibson does That's worse than that

Sarah:

movie he did with the puppet.

Mark:

Yeah. He does action and all sorts of things really well. He doesn't do inner turmoil. No. Kenneth Branagh is much better at the inner turmoil.

Sarah:

Yes. So Rafe Sinjin

Mark:

Who does a great captain Kirk went after after they come back after the cold open.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Rafe walks up to the crime scene, and he does an amazing captain Kirk. He's like, I feel like this play. I'm like, oh my gosh. That's fantastic captain Kirk.

Sarah:

He's right out of midsummer. Yeah. Like, he's a transplant. His name's Ralph Saint John, and he says it's Rafe's engine. Like, he he's right out of midsummer.

Sarah:

He's a washed up, could have been Yep. With big ideas

Mark:

Well

Sarah:

a personality larger than life.

Mark:

He and sir Ian McKellar are close friends.

Sarah:

The thing is, though, is that the actor Peter Hamilton was in the Lord of the Rings movies and does have a big role in them.

Mark:

Okay. He's in The Hobbit. He's not in Lord of the Rings.

Sarah:

He's in The Hobbit. He has a big role in The Hobbit.

Mark:

A big role, and he is Gimli's father Yeah. In The Hobbit.

Sarah:

So I think they may have put that in as a joke Oh,

Mark:

that's totally for him. Total goofing on that.

Sarah:

Plus, I think every actor in New Zealand probably has some connection to the Lord of the Rings movies.

Mark:

I agree. But his picture, and not his TV is him dressed up

Sarah:

as a as a dwarf. Yeah.

Mark:

That's the example of what I'm talking about. I think everybody was like, this plot is phoning it in, but we're gonna have fun with the rest of it.

Sarah:

Yeah. Ben dies on stage. Yes. It's not an asthma attack.

Mark:

I'm not really okay. I don't really like Ben.

Sarah:

You don't mind that he dies?

Mark:

I don't. I'm not really upset by but I don't really like anybody in the production except for Jared's.

Sarah:

Well, that's kind of what shows like Broken Wood and Midsummer do well is they make sure the person who dies is somebody you're not attached to. Oh, that's true. Anything, if they're in the episode for any amount of time, you're kinda hoping they're gonna die soon.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

And then they do, and you're like, oh, good. Okay. I mean, when the rainbirds die, you're not upset about it. You're like, good. They're awful.

Mark:

Yes. Absolutely.

Sarah:

You know? It could have been Rafe who got killed.

Mark:

It could have been.

Sarah:

Because he establishes himself as being over the top well before Ben dies.

Mark:

Again, do we have a Boris White over actor? Yes. Yes.

Sarah:

I don't it's a little bit confusing to me how they think the blood pack initially, they think the blood pack could have killed Ben.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Because yes. It does have a pin in it that breaks the balloon, but it didn't break his skin. So what how could that have possibly been the murder weapon?

Mark:

I don't know. Okay.

Sarah:

And and and I guess that they don't really. My favorite part of this episode is Sam and his visits to now smelly Nelly.

Mark:

Smelly Nelly. And his Fantastic.

Sarah:

Fear of his English teacher.

Mark:

And the fear of his English teacher. The fear of his English teacher.

Sarah:

I think are the best parts of this episode.

Mark:

They're fantastic. I love how Paula Worthington calls her dogs the twins. Yes.

Sarah:

The twins will be upset if I don't get home.

Mark:

And we are, I must admit, guilty of this also. I've said to you, is the baby outside?

Sarah:

Yeah. But I've never said to somebody, I have to get home or my 3 year old will wonder where I am.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

You know? Because you otherwise, there's no way anybody's gonna think Olive is a child, but I left my 3 year old at home alone. Yeah. That doesn't mean that you're in a hurry. That means you're a bad parent.

Mark:

Yeah. The whole blood pack thing is weird because Mike smells the bitter almonds off of it right away from his from his

Sarah:

But it's actually coming from Ben's breath. It's coming from his mouth.

Mark:

That's what I mean. Like, that's why the blood pact plot doesn't make sense.

Sarah:

Okay. So if I look this up Yeah. Because I wanna be on lists for my searches, And the smell of almonds on your breath from cyanide poisoning doesn't mean that it was orally ingested.

Mark:

Oh, it doesn't.

Sarah:

If it's injected into your blood, it still emanates from your mouth.

Mark:

We're on a list.

Sarah:

Yeah. Looked up amyl nitrate.

Mark:

So, you

Sarah:

know, I'm on that list too.

Mark:

The cops are coming to our house. I love absolutely love. It was a big fail in police college. And Mike goes, you're only fail. And then she goes, there is that.

Mark:

And that tells so much about Mike having her number.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Mike knowing what bothers her. Yeah. Her having the maturity to admit. Yeah. That that is me.

Sarah:

Yeah. Like Sims is a keener.

Mark:

Yeah. She would have

Sarah:

been an absolute keener in police college.

Mark:

Oh, she shows up early on the 1st day.

Sarah:

You know she would have. She would have had everything.

Mark:

She drops the line that every Macbeth story has. The rotten in the state of whatever. Something's rotten

Sarah:

in the state of broken wood. Yep. I wasn't aware that being able to smell cyanide was like being able to taste, Cilantro. Cilantro not badly. But it is.

Sarah:

It is. Some people just can't pick up on it.

Mark:

Mike gets out of his car, and he pats the top of it.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

It's like, good car.

Sarah:

I used to do that. With my first car, I used to I remember I would my first car was my baby. Yeah. It was a 65 Plymouth Fury 2. Yep.

Sarah:

And I knew every bolt and screw in that car. And when I walked away from it, I would pat the hood, and sometimes I would talk

Mark:

to it. Have no relationship to cars like that.

Sarah:

I wouldn't I don't know. And To a modern car

Mark:

There is so much car in male culture. Yeah. And I was so disinterested in male culture.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

And I had an awesome role model in my father who cared so little about cars. Yeah. That

Sarah:

I wouldn't have felt that way if I hadn't put so much work into that car. I wasn't so proud of it.

Mark:

Yeah. Like, my father was always like, oh, there's something wrong with the car. Take it. Go get it fixed.

Sarah:

Mike's face when they pull up to the police station and Sam has his car outside with the hood up is perfect. It's like passing your child being put in the back of an ambulance. Like, what has happened? Oh my gosh. You know?

Sarah:

And it's just his car. He goes through wives, but that car Yep. Is his steady girl.

Mark:

You know? Yep. Gina calls Hamlet the Russian play. Because Gina is Because someone makes bad decisions and bad things happen anyway. It's Russian.

Mark:

The Gina is the perfect immigrant character in that they relate everything back to their original home country. Yeah. You're never as more your country than when you're in another country.

Sarah:

Yeah. When you're when you're in Canada, you're just you. But when you're here, you are a Canadian

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

Not in Canada. Do you want to throttle Juliet from the very first second?

Mark:

About to say, can we just not talk about Juliet at all?

Sarah:

Just dislike her so much. She's so annoying. And when when Kristen suggests that maybe her mom has made her ill and has been manipulating her, you you get this little like glimpse of some of sympathy for Juliet. You think, oh, that poor woman, like, maybe maybe she's like that because somebody who is supposed to love her has broken her. Yeah.

Sarah:

But that's not the case at all. She's just like that.

Mark:

And how old is she supposed to be? At least 23,

Sarah:

24, I

Mark:

would guess. Because her parents are way too involved in her well, certainly, her father is way too involved in her romantic life. And, like, Jared seems adult Yeah. To her.

Sarah:

Yeah. But only because he acts like an adult. Yeah. I think he's supposed to be 25, 26. Yeah.

Sarah:

I think she's a little bit younger than that, but she acts like a 13 year old.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

I don't have an English teacher for a mom. I can only imagine if you were surrounded by it all the time. I have 3 English degrees, and I've got no Ruth in me.

Mark:

Okay. We have 4 English degrees in this house, and our children are not bonkers in that way.

Sarah:

And and not interested in Shakespeare or literature or drama or anything. They're not even grammar nerds. No. They're We've kinda failed, actually. We have failed.

Sarah:

But the relationship between Ruth and Juliet, they're close. If you if you take the Juliet's broken out of it, it's like they're very close. It's nice that her mom is there sticking up for her at the hospital and trying to get her good care.

Mark:

But but she is also I know better than doctors.

Sarah:

Oh, yeah. Totally. And Juliet is milking it for everything she can get to.

Mark:

Yes. When they go back into the emergency room, there's a kid there. It looks like he's in the chats. There's there's a

Sarah:

guy. In the Smoke O band.

Mark:

Yeah. Oh,

Sarah:

okay. I was like, in

Mark:

the chat. He's got long ginger hair. He doesn't say anything, or he's not, like, got a bandage on his arm or anything. But, yeah, I have Smoke O's in the ER.

Sarah:

Paula, who plays Hamlet's mother in the play, she who of lying about the twins.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

There's one thing I like about her and one thing I hate about her. What I really like about her is her hair in the play is epic.

Mark:

It is.

Sarah:

It is perfectly awesome. She has those light streaks in the front and they put them into curls. It's sort of bright of Frankenstein y

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

Just a little bit.

Mark:

But It is awesome. And she is committed.

Sarah:

Yeah. That's what I love about her. What I hate about her is that she has a charity called Awesome Orphans with a z.

Mark:

With a zed.

Sarah:

It should be awesome. Awesome. Awesome Orphans. Okay.

Mark:

This is, this is see, this is the things I don't like because they're a small theater company that's barely getting by. They're not raising money for charity. No. They're raising money for themselves.

Sarah:

They're not even paying

Mark:

for themselves. Charity plot comes in and goes out, and Ben is the only beneficiary of the

Sarah:

it's And he's a grown up. It's Like, he's not an orphan anymore.

Mark:

Yeah. Awesome orphans.

Sarah:

I think if you're 19, you're not an orphan. If you're 16, okay. But if you're over if you're an adult, you're not an orphan anymore.

Mark:

Neil Blue?

Sarah:

Not not from the outside. I'm not saying that you can't feel like one. I'm sure that people who lose their parents feel like one their whole lives.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

But charities for orphans don't often raise money for adults

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Is what I'm saying.

Mark:

I agree. Neil Blum is back, and he's got a partner in town, so he doesn't have to drive so far. They deal with that right away.

Sarah:

He's a pharmacist, not a chemist. Yep. I this is kind of the start of Neil being a regular character, though. Like, when he and Mike are talking in the the theater, it's clear that Neil's not a suspect.

Mark:

Do we see Billy again? I think we see Billy again. I don't know. I think Billy's in the Lord of the Rings episode is one of the

Sarah:

as an elf. Maybe. Yeah. Like, an extra in the Lord of the Rings thing that they do.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

The costume shop is curious to me. Even if it supports 2 towns Why? There is not enough business in 2 towns

Mark:

to support that. Giant workshop Yes. Which has a giant dinosaur skull in it. What the I didn't are they a prop shop and a workshop? And

Sarah:

They're a theater and costume shop and costume rental.

Mark:

But that doesn't include a giant dinosaur head.

Sarah:

But they're gonna do Flintstones the musical. That's the next thing

Mark:

I know.

Sarah:

So, of course, they need a giant dinosaur head.

Mark:

I know. But why is it in the costume shop?

Sarah:

Because they've got the props there for

Mark:

the show. Okay. So they do do props.

Sarah:

They do do.

Mark:

Yes. They do.

Sarah:

They do a great job of having those Flintstones costumes behind them all the time.

Mark:

Yes. Like, Betty and Barney are right there. You know? Like Yep.

Sarah:

They they're consistent with that. Is

Mark:

there are a couple of posters at the theater, and we'll deal with one of them later. One of them says make art

Sarah:

not Be merry.

Mark:

Yes. Be make art, be merry. I was like, what are the other posters? And then later on, we're given a gift of one of the posters.

Sarah:

Yeah. What do you think about smelly Nelly?

Mark:

She has a fantastic security system. So she's got the box because somebody has told her you have to have a box if you're gonna have cyanide.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

And then they were like and it has to be locked. I'm sure. Yeah. Then they left. And Smelly Nelly's like, the key should be right here.

Sarah:

It's convenient. Won't forget it. Her whole place is great. Like, how many possums are there in Brokenwood? I guess she's a licensed exterminator.

Sarah:

That's why she's allowed to have cyanide. Like, do they have a possum problem?

Mark:

I don't because her

Sarah:

whole place is covered in

Mark:

possum skin. Possum problem now because she has killed them all.

Sarah:

How many could there be?

Mark:

I I don't know. And remember, way, way back when we covered the Christmas episode of broken wood, I remember you saying there was no large mammals that were indigenous to New Zealand. New Zealand. So somebody brought all those spots.

Sarah:

And and maybe that's it. Maybe that they're not a native species, so they're invasive. So it's okay to kill all of them. And and that's what Nellie's doing, and turning them into face cream.

Mark:

Breen Breen is trying to be the professional.

Sarah:

When he shows up at the cop shop with the gray stuff under his eyes,

Sarah:

you know what it is.

Mark:

It's just

Sarah:

Before they even notice it, you notice it. I love that. We're in

Sarah:

on the joke. We get the joke before the other characters even know that there's a joke. We know what it is.

Mark:

Sure is a bull hump a heifer. That is some colorful language.

Sarah:

So Rafe is Juliet's dad.

Mark:

Yes. Which is weird.

Sarah:

Ruth is her mom. Yes. So there's that. And then we find out that Grey Jenkins, who owns the costume shop, used to be married to possum smelly Nellie.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Luckily, they don't have a child. No. I can't imagine what that would turn out like. It would either be a wild person covered in possum skins or, I guess, Billy. I guess?

Sarah:

Billy who wears a belt over a cardigan. Did you notice that?

Mark:

Yeah. Okay. It's kinda he's either got a bow tie on or that cardigan. Billy really tries hard to look guilty throughout this whole episode, and then at the end, it's the the whole ending, and we'll get to this.

Sarah:

There's just a a switch that gets flipped, and everything's okay.

Mark:

Eighties sitcom at the end. Everybody's like, oh, somebody died. It's all good

Sarah:

now. Yay.

Mark:

Are you on foot? No. No. It's Sims is like, I'll go get you.

Sarah:

I didn't understand why missus Marlow calls Rafe Bill or whatever she he shows up at her place because he's the mailman. Yes. And she calls him a different name, and he answers to that name.

Mark:

It has something to do with her mail. It's really weird, though.

Sarah:

He thinks that she likes to pretend that he's a character, and she says that it's because of the Pony Express.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

Either way, it's like they have a little ritual

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

Where she gives him tea.

Mark:

And it's everything's not gonna hit.

Sarah:

No. With the weirdness and stuff. It's just it's just a strange moment, and it's almost like, is she senile and likes to pretend that he's somebody who he's not, and he goes along with it? No. They just he she just gets to call him a different name.

Sarah:

I I don't know.

Mark:

Big guy to ride a bike. Yeah. Preen explains about the car, that it's an alternator, to which Mike says, that was original.

Sarah:

That's probably why it needed to be replaced. I think my favorite character might be Timothy, the sensitive forklift driver. He just cries

Mark:

the whole time. Fantastic. And did you notice

Sarah:

He just cries. He has. He can't talk.

Mark:

If you notice, Tim, the overly sensitive driver.

Sarah:

The sensitive forklift driver.

Mark:

He's a sane Antonio Spurs fan. That's kind of a long way. He's got a basketball shirt on. Ah. I always am He's a good crier.

Mark:

I'm always enamored with people who wear sports team shirts, like, from Different continents. Different continents. Like

Sarah:

I understand it when it's, like, a poor country because you assume they're getting clothes from, like like, knock off clothes from other, you know, larger, more developed countries or whatever. But that's not the case with New Zealand. So he must legitimately be a a fan.

Mark:

He's trying to look cool.

Sarah:

Yep. But he's weeping in his foreclaps. Ben's dead. Oh. Then the best.

Sarah:

Sims goes to talk to Paula at the theater and Paula is standing in front of a poster for a show that she and Rafe were in together before called losing my trousers.

Mark:

Yes. It is pants splittingly fun. That is the quote from the broken wood courier. Wow.

Sarah:

We will put Hence? We'll put the picture of the poster.

Mark:

Splittingly. That's not a word. Splittingly? Funny.

Sarah:

We'll put an image of the poster in the notes so you can see it if you missed it.

Mark:

Jim Stride wrote that play.

Sarah:

What is it about? I I do not It's just Paula and Rafe. It's like a 2 person show.

Mark:

I I would say that it's probably about a person who makes our men's trousers and the craziness that happens because of it.

Sarah:

I wondered if it was a reference to, like, New Zealand politics or something. Like, there was some politician who lost his pants.

Mark:

But it is really it's fantastic. And they're they have

Sarah:

They look like vaudevillian

Mark:

on the post. Vaudevillian in the poster, and they're like Frozen. Frozen.

Sarah:

Nobody can see you

Mark:

do that

Sarah:

on the podcast. He made a Posey fun clown face.

Mark:

Yes. So Mike has never seen Lord of the Rings. That is another great thing. I don't like hairy feet. And Sims is like, oh, that explains your ex wives.

Mark:

He's like, he, like, defends his ex wives here.

Sarah:

Well, kinda. But he he says that none of them had hairy feet, but he said if one of them did, he'd have a problem.

Mark:

Yeah. I think that's

Sarah:

If you love somebody and they just happen to have hairy feet, you look past it.

Mark:

But I think that's okay.

Sarah:

Or you give them gift certificates to waxing.

Mark:

I think that's 2 things. I think, 1, it's Mike being overly critical of of women he wants to get out of a relationship with. We we know that he's done that before.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

And 2, I think Mike says things like that to screw around with people.

Sarah:

Oh, definitely Sims because he knows how curious she is about his marriages.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

And and he just continues to do that. We see more and more of that as the show goes on. Gray says, Rafe didn't know sir Ian McKellen, that he was a dead orc, 3rd corpse from the left in the battle of Helm's Deep.

Mark:

Yes. That's his claim to fame. Which is great. And when you go to IMDB and you see, Peter Hamilton's picture, and you're like, oh, he was a dwarf.

Sarah:

But then the gray story about when he played ham Hamlet, I almost said Hamilton, when he played Hamlet with a paper bag on his head

Sarah:

the whole time. And then

Mark:

I saw that quote about

Sarah:

Mel Gibson's Hamlet being a subtly nuance as a paper bag. Yep.

Mark:

I think that's a reference. I think so. I also think that and I wish they had done more of this. They like, Paula wants to do Hamlet as a as a woman. Right?

Mark:

Mhmm. And Jared is Maori, but they make no reference to it.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

I I wish they had of like, when he is thrown out of the production, it feels like we throw the Maori kid out of the production, kind of. Really? That's what it felt like to me. And it's I just it has a bit of colonialism to it. Like, like, let's bring culture to the colonies.

Sarah:

See, to me, when they kick him out, the only thought I had was they're choosing Juliet over sensitivity over the sensible person who's telling them I didn't do anything.

Mark:

Which which I think I'm not into her. If we're gonna be expand this more, it it's almost, like, culturally what can happen in colonialism.

Sarah:

Like, they they they won't listen to his side. They take her side by default.

Mark:

Side. Yeah.

Sarah:

I see what you mean.

Mark:

When my I wish at the end, instead of doing Hamlet, they said, why don't we do something that is more local? Yeah. And they did some Maori stories or stuff from a Maori office.

Sarah:

Something that was New Zealand.

Mark:

That was at least New Zealand.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Mark:

Like, Singh Jin sorry. Saint John, because I will not call him Singh.

Sarah:

I spelled his name r a f e in my notes. If he wants to be Rafe, he's Rafe.

Mark:

He could be in England.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

Like, he has a bit of an Aussie accent, but not much.

Sarah:

It's subtle. Another reference to midsummer type shows is, yes, somebody died on stage, but we're gonna keep going. He would have wanted us to keep going. Now Like, no. He wouldn't have.

Sarah:

Ben would have like, somebody died. Everybody's gonna look at you guys and go, stop. That's the end of the production.

Mark:

Wants to stop.

Sarah:

He says he does. He doesn't.

Mark:

Oh, I know. Like

Sarah:

That's a double bluff completely.

Mark:

It's totally a double bluff. He just wants it

Sarah:

to be somebody else's idea. That's all.

Mark:

He

Sarah:

gaslights Juliet with those flowers saying they're for Jared.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

Knowing that she's Okay.

Mark:

Fragile or whatever reason. Horrible person. Yes. He poisons himself to get any suspicion off of him.

Sarah:

Are you surprised that he had amyl nitrate handy?

Mark:

No. Even though he's asexual.

Sarah:

Sure he is. Sure

Mark:

he is.

Sarah:

That's what he says because nobody wants to be anywhere near him.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

When not that asexuality isn't a real thing. There's people who really are. I just don't think Rafe is because he's fake in every way.

Mark:

I totally agree.

Sarah:

When Mike goes to missus Marlow's and meets, runs into Rafe there

Mark:

Yeah. She calls him Buffalo Bill.

Sarah:

Buffalo Bill. Bill. That's what she calls him Bill. He Mike says to her she says, would you like some tea? And he says, yes.

Sarah:

Gumboot with milk.

Mark:

Yeah. What does that mean?

Sarah:

It's like builder's tea. Gumboot means really dark Tea. Black tea.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

With milk. I had to look it up because I'm like, gumboot? What is this tea I've never heard of? What is gumboot tea? Where can I get some?

Mark:

I'm like It's just black tea. Is this tea out of Jared's gumboots?

Sarah:

His rubber his galoshes? Galoshes. Young Bing Faulkner was practicing homosexualism with Grey Jenkins. Practicing homosexualism. Yes.

Sarah:

Missus Marlow gets better.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

At first, she is just a gossip monger.

Mark:

And she's a little overly conservative. That goes away.

Sarah:

I don't think that she's offended No. That they would be practicing the homosexuality. She's just interested in knowing what's going on.

Mark:

And just when she doesn't know the lingo

Sarah:

to say

Mark:

it right.

Sarah:

Right. She doesn't mean anything negative by it except that it's salacious. Yes. But the whole, like, well, it's still an active investigation. Oh, yeah.

Sarah:

Of course. Of course. You know. Yep. Yeah.

Sarah:

I I respect that. So what you're telling me is, I'm right, but you can't confirm it because it's a active investigation. Like, I'm on the inside. It's okay.

Mark:

Yep. Totally.

Sarah:

She almost winks at

Mark:

it. Let's be honest. If we were approached by the police about an ongoing investigation, we would ask them more questions than they asked us.

Sarah:

Oh my god. I I still feel guilty about that. So there was a day a couple years ago, Mo and I Mo's our oldest child. His class schedule at on campus coincided with mine. So most days, we would go into school together.

Sarah:

Yep. We would ride into school together instead of him riding the public bus or whatever. And one day, we passed this very nice home in our neighborhood. It was early in the morning. It was still dark.

Sarah:

Yep. And the front door was open Yep. To this house. And it's a nice, a very nice house.

Mark:

By the way, this is a cold opening. Oh, totally.

Sarah:

So the front door is standing open, and we noticed it because the the inside lights were on. Yep. But there was no car in the drive, and I I already knew that a rather elderly woman lived there alone in this beautiful house. We drove by, and we both noticed the front door was standing open. Open.

Sarah:

I was like, that's weird. So we went a couple blocks and we agreed we needed to go back. Yep. Right? So we turn around and we go back and I pull into the drive.

Sarah:

No. I parked across street and I told Moe, stay in the car. And I went up and I stood in the open doorway and said, hello? Hello? Is anybody here?

Sarah:

Because I thought, well, maybe she just, like she couldn't be out to get the mail or the paper. I would have seen her. Yeah. But maybe she just stepped out of the house and didn't close the door. Or step came back in and didn't close it behind her.

Sarah:

And there was no answer. Well, I wasn't gonna go in.

Mark:

No. You were gonna find

Sarah:

I've watched too many shows.

Mark:

Scene. Yeah.

Sarah:

She's dead in there.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

Yeah. Somebody's broken in and killed her. So I go back to the car and I tell Moe what happened, and we call the police. We call 911. I've never called 911 before.

Sarah:

Nope. And I tell them what and then they're like, stay there. We've got units nearby. They'll be right there. So 2 cars, 2 police cars pull up fairly quickly.

Sarah:

Lights on, no sirens. Come out. We tell them, and they and, like, 3 of the 4 officers pulled their guns and went in and start yelling, like, is anybody home? Is anybody here? Whatever.

Mark:

Guns were drawn.

Sarah:

Well, well, they had their hands on their guns

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

In the holster. Holster undone, hand on gun. Right? And the 4th officer stayed out with us, and he said, thanks. You can go.

Mark:

And you were like, but why not?

Sarah:

But I don't wanna go. I don't I wanna know, like, what happened. And we were like, okay. We we were just concerned. Like, we're we'll just say some random stuff and keep talking to you so that we can kill some time while they are looking and to see what happens because, you know, we were worried, and we were just going to school.

Sarah:

And and Moe is like, yeah. We we have the same schedule, so we ride to work together. And I'm going to class, and I have a history class this morning, and and we're just, like, totally killing time. And the 3 officers come out, and they say nobody's home. Nobody's here.

Sarah:

Okay. So now we know nobody's there. Yeah. Now we have to leave. Right?

Sarah:

So so we go, and I go to work. And, of course, I tell my friend at work, like, my gosh. This thing happened this morning. This is what happened. And I completely forgot about this, but she says, well, you know, my son is on the is a policeman here in town.

Sarah:

Do you want me to ask him if he can Well, yeah.

Mark:

And I was like,

Sarah:

yeah.

Sarah:

She's like, I'll text him. I'll let you know later. And and every time I saw her, I wanted to go, so? So? And she didn't say anything, so I was like, no.

Sarah:

She doesn't know anything. Like, so? Yeah. The end of the day, she says, oh, I I forgot it. He called me earlier and said that according to the report, like, she left the house and just forgot to close the door.

Sarah:

She's fine. Which I was relieved by. But

Mark:

Yes. It's nice to know.

Sarah:

All day, Moe and I are texting going, what do you think happened? Do you think somebody drove her out of the house? Do you think she's been kidnapped? What do you was her dog there? Her dog was gone too.

Sarah:

Did they take the dog too? What did they take her her car would have been in the garage. And we were almost disappointed that she was fine. Yeah. But we certainly stood there looking like a couple of dumb yokels going, well, we just, you know, I don't know.

Sarah:

We're just killing time until they come out because we gotta know what happened.

Mark:

That is Jean Marlow to a t. I sympathize with her because I am every bit as bad, if not worse. I know that now. And I still think about it

Sarah:

when I pass that house on my way to work. Oh, if only there had been a real mystery.

Mark:

Well, there's a final rehearsal, which is horrible.

Sarah:

And okay. So Rafe tells Mike to come to the rehearsal.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

He invites him.

Mark:

Yes. He does.

Sarah:

Makes a big scene about him being there talking to the pharmacist, Neil.

Mark:

Billy calls Jared Hamlet Pans. Hamlet Pans.

Sarah:

Billy is obviously in love with Juliet Yeah. And he can have her.

Mark:

He can absolutely And, of

Sarah:

course, she has no interest in him because he actually likes her. So you know?

Mark:

I thought I thought Jared did absolutely the right thing.

Sarah:

Yeah. He's like, okay. You want me to? I'm gone.

Mark:

I didn't send those flowers. Yep. And I have no interest in you. Like, he is he is

Sarah:

He's straight up. He's not hurtful. He's not like, ew. I would never be there.

Mark:

Any of those things.

Sarah:

He's trying to be kind, but honest.

Mark:

And then when they say, we don't want you here, he goes, well, I don't wanna be here, basically.

Sarah:

Yeah. And he goes his feelings are hurt. Yeah. But he knows where he's not wanted, and he's gonna go. He doesn't make a scene.

Mark:

Unlike Rafe who makes a big scene.

Sarah:

Puts cyanide in a capsule and bites on it. Call an ambulance. I love that he he runs off goes to the bathroom snorts the amyl nitrate and then comes back. Yeah. So he knows he's okay, but he comes back and it really is an antidote for cyanide.

Sarah:

It's but only for mild cyanide put. So the way cyanide kills you is that it robs your red blood cells of oxygen.

Mark:

Okay.

Sarah:

Systemically if you have enough of it in you.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

And amyl nitrate does the opposite. It over oxygenates your red blood cells, which is why it can make you kinda high.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

It's like having to like, breathing pure oxygen can make you giddy. Yeah. Right? So he runs off to the because I when when Mike is in the bathroom on the phone with Sims, I'm like, why is he in the toilets? Yes.

Sarah:

This is weird. Yes. Talking to Sims in the toilets, but it's because he's gonna find the capsule floating in the toilet.

Mark:

He's like the worst criminal ever.

Sarah:

Rafe?

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

Yeah. I just don't know how much of it he planned ahead. Like, when when they they realized Ben can't be Hamlet, he's he didn't make Ben asthmatic. No. Now he does see his opportunity to say, we can't have an asthmatic playing Hamlet.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

Right? Which he's kind of right about.

Mark:

And I'm not annoyed by Ben's asthma.

Sarah:

No. Not at all. And I think Or Billy's asthma. And I think Ben probably understood, like, yeah. You're right.

Sarah:

I can't deliver all these lines. Yep. It's hard it's hard on my lungs. I can't do it. So so Rafe didn't plan that.

Sarah:

No. But he is the one to say, well, we can't have an asthmatic be Hamlet. He sees this opportunity because he wants to be Hamlet. As lame and stupid as that like, everybody gets older, except it. He jumps at that chance.

Sarah:

When that doesn't work, he doesn't let it go.

Mark:

No. He should let it go. He should.

Sarah:

But he he kills him when he's not even playing Hamlet.

Mark:

Yeah. Because kill Jared. Because of what he does to Juliet.

Sarah:

But that would mean that race actually cares about Juliet.

Mark:

I don't understand why Ben dumps Juliet.

Sarah:

He doesn't like her that much. What's wrong with that?

Mark:

Well, okay. Sorry. She's a dramatic, not so person. Understand why he breaks up with her.

Sarah:

I don't understand why he ever dated

Mark:

her first place. Why he dated her.

Sarah:

Well, she's pretty. Yeah. And I'm sure she can be sweet, and then you realize what she's really like.

Mark:

I

Sarah:

guess. Being in a play with her would really reveal her, I think.

Mark:

Oh, most definitely. Speaking of revealing But he

Sarah:

really should kill Jared Yes. If he wants to be Hamlet.

Mark:

Well, I think that's what thinks about that and then thinks I can get rid of Jared another way. Well, they don't

Sarah:

they both have blood packs. Yeah. So he might have

Mark:

I think Jared's blood pack at the end is It could have cyanide

Sarah:

in it too.

Mark:

Because he's touching it, I think. I think I remember.

Sarah:

He yeah. He he places it. Like, he's gonna take him out too.

Mark:

I think so. So Surely, if 2

Sarah:

people in the production die, you have to cancel the rest of the I mean, there's a limit.

Mark:

Okay. Is in the hospital.

Sarah:

It's so nice of you to come and see me.

Mark:

But so there's a tiny part right before they get to his room. Did you see that? I don't know. So a woman leaves his room.

Sarah:

Mhmm.

Mark:

And Sims goes, oh, I guess the courier has been here because that's the broken word courier. Oh, the reporter. She's a reporter.

Sarah:

Yeah. She's like death defying actor. Show will go on.

Mark:

So That's

Sarah:

what the

Mark:

headline was saying. Go on, says the headline. Other headlines in the newspaper include man found guilty of fraud charges. I'm like, who who's felt guilty of, fraud charges? And then it has 1,000 turn out for food festival.

Mark:

What broken wood food festival wouldn't have to be in would.

Sarah:

It could be in Riverstone.

Mark:

Oh, it's oh, the Riverstone Food Festival. Yeah. Okay. And then

Sarah:

the house that covers both places. They say not.

Mark:

The most innocuous written in headline ever, house prices on the rise. Of course, there are.

Sarah:

If you're a writer for a small town newspaper, you latch on to anything you can.

Mark:

Sims is like bobbing and weaving with the newspaper. I'm like, stop, woman.

Sarah:

Hold still. I need to read that. Were you able

Sarah:

to read the body of any of these stories? No. Darn it. No.

Mark:

So we have this big thing at the end where Jared gets fired, Ray's taken over. We all know that Ralph is the killer. Goth lady has returned to the theater. Mhmm. And they let him go out on state, like Well, they're

Sarah:

chasing him.

Mark:

Yeah.

Sarah:

He says there's a 150 people out there. There's 50. I counted. There's 50.

Mark:

Well, 49 in the goth lady. 49 in the goth lady. I was like, well, you

Sarah:

know, he's not the only one exaggerating crowd sizes lately. But there's not

Mark:

Or or is delusional because I have that in my notes too.

Sarah:

I don't think there's a 150 seats in that amphitheater. No. But it's an it's a nice amphitheater. Theater would have probably The indoor theater.

Mark:

I kept on going, why are they not doing it in this theater?

Sarah:

And, like, we're we're gonna arrest you on stage. Yep. Most dramatic thing to ever happen in that theater. And then they're like, Jared, put on the costume. Let's go.

Sarah:

Like, no. You just arrested a murderer. Yep. The play is canceled.

Mark:

Yes. And then it becomes a 1980 sitcom. At the end of the Yeah. Because it's like, Jared, you could still play the part.

Sarah:

We always knew you weren't a bad guy.

Mark:

Yep. Yeah. Those people are horrible to him.

Sarah:

He should be like, I'm out of here.

Mark:

Yep. And then it's like, oh, there's a little scene where Billy's not bad. Yeah. Oh, he's a cool guy now. And then there's the scene with Breen in the grade 12 paper.

Mark:

And it's like they're playing sitcom wrap it up music. Yes. And then they all hold hands and jump in the air at the end of the episode, and it freeze rings. The ending is horrendous. Yeah.

Mark:

It is

Sarah:

After the arrest Yeah. The rest of it was just like it just shouldn't

Mark:

It's just like, let's wrap all these things up at once. And poor Grace stuck in in interrogation when blood back fell over his mouth.

Sarah:

Well, it's it's, coffee and kochanile Yeah. And maple syrup. Yeah. And it's just smeared all over his face, and you just feel bad for him.

Mark:

I wonder if they have actual maple syrup in New Zealand. We'll have to ask our New Zealand people.

Sarah:

If they have maple trees where they can get maple syrup or if it's all imported? Yeah. Can you imagine how expensive it is

Mark:

if it's imported? Already.

Sarah:

It's expensive here. Yeah. And we can make it here.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

I can't imagine how expensive it would be if they didn't have their own trees.

Mark:

Only Canadian maple syrup for your boy.

Sarah:

Yeah. Elitist. Yep.

Mark:

Oh, it tastes better.

Sarah:

So this is it's so yes. You know, Ruth is nutsy bobo.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

But it's also small town school teacher, but knows every person who's ever been in her class, remembers them even as adults. Like

Mark:

That's what I don't like about the ending is that everyone is horrible to Jared, and everyone is slightly bonkers and delusional. But everyone, including Rafe, who, like, killed somebody, and then everybody's, like, back to normal.

Sarah:

Wouldn't they all be standing around going, oh my god. Rafe killed Ben?

Mark:

Yes. Like, like, would what the the dog owner lady would go insane. She would be so upset.

Sarah:

Ruth would say, my daughter's dad is a murderer.

Mark:

Yeah. And, like, I know you have to do a balancing show. Child with a killer. Like, with a cozy, you have to do a bounce.

Sarah:

To let some things go.

Mark:

Right? Yeah. Like, the fact that Mike has shown up in this town and nothing but murder has reigned supreme since then. But But this is too much. This is too much.

Sarah:

So here's how I would have ended it. Okay. Okay? The way I would have ended it is they would have confronted Rafe. He would have gotten away from them and run up on stage.

Sarah:

Right? Yeah. But Ruth or Paula would have heard the interaction and realized they were right. He was a killer and come on stage from the other side and confronted him on stage.

Mark:

Yep. Like Maybe with the sword.

Sarah:

You killed my Benny

Mark:

Yep.

Sarah:

Because she felt like a mother to Ben. Yep. You killed my awesome orphans.

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

And he would have been like, but I was born to play Hamlet. And then Jared would have run on and said, no, mate. That's my role. Thank you very much. You know?

Sarah:

And Billy would have come out and said, but you're Juliet's dad, and you manipulated her feelings and made Jared look like a bad guy? You're awful. And then they would have arrested him. So they would have acted all of that out on stage, and then the audience would have been like, bravo.

Mark:

That is a better ending.

Sarah:

Better end. Yep. All the there should have been as much drama in the resolution.

Mark:

And then you have the three principles, Breen, Sims, and Mike on stage, sitting on the edge of the stage where everybody's gone. Yeah. And then they say, well, I guess that's as you like it. Or

Sarah:

No. Then Ruth walks by behind him, taps Breen on the shoulder, and says, you still owe me a paper. Yeah. He walks off the other side. Yep.

Sarah:

That would have been better.

Mark:

That would have been better.

Sarah:

They should hire us.

Mark:

We should be writers for the show.

Sarah:

Poor Breen has to dig through the trash in his suit.

Mark:

I I just think I just think Tim Baum, who I I wanna tell Tim. I love you, Tim.

Sarah:

Oh, he's a great writer.

Mark:

He had never written mysteries before. Nope. This is his 6th mystery Yeah. In probably less than 18 months. Yeah.

Mark:

And he's writing movies. Yeah. They're 90 minutes long.

Sarah:

And I give this a 7 out of 10 Yeah. For plot. Like It's much better than many cozy mystery plots are. Yes. But he does better episodes on this show.

Mark:

Like, it's better than like, I love missus and missus murder, but those plots are not. Mm-mm. Like, you watch mister and missus murder because you love the goofy banter between them.

Sarah:

You know who did it. It's not hard to figure out. Yeah.

Mark:

Yeah. That that's what you love.

Sarah:

This is better than murder she wrote plots. Yes. It's just not the you know, if you're ranking broken wood, which is already better than most mystery TV shows

Mark:

Yes.

Sarah:

It's a 7 out of 10 for broken wood.

Mark:

I I would agree. What's next week? Well, nothing is next week. I'm gonna tell you, listeners, we've done 7 episodes in a row and 8 covered 8 shows in 7 weeks. Because remember, we did 2 on the last episode.

Mark:

Yes. So with Halloween and the election coming up, we need a bit of a break.

Sarah:

We're just gonna take 2 weeks off.

Mark:

Yep. We're gonna take

Sarah:

I also have a stupid medical test on a Saturday,

Mark:

and

Sarah:

we usually record.

Mark:

We just have a lot going on over the next 2 weeks. We will return on the 11th November, which is remembrance day in all the colonies. And with Broken Woods season 2 episode 3 catch of the day. Mhmm. And what what I noticed today is we will probably be able so the end of season 2 sorry.

Mark:

The end of season 3 is the Christmas episode. Mhmm. So we should be able to end season 3 because I think we can just go ahead on

Sarah:

Oh, yeah. Season

Mark:

3 and with the remix of that Christmas episode right on time for Christmas. Yay.

Sarah:

Awesome.

Mark:

That would be fantastic. So if the world hasn't ended before then.

Sarah:

Oh, don't talk like that.

Mark:

By the way, I have to do a kick starter too.

Sarah:

I'm very jealous of people who don't live in the United States right now.

Mark:

After 11th November, you will hear all about my kickstarter.

Sarah:

Crazy here, people. Yes.

Mark:

It is Looney Tunes in, for all sorts of reasons, but, but, we're gonna take 2 weeks off, so we will return on the 11th November.

Sarah:

Yes. I'm looking forward to it.

Mark:

We don't need to do a dead body because

Sarah:

There's just

Mark:

the one. Just one. And I think what what do you think, production they do next?

Sarah:

Maybe they'll do a reprise of losing my trousers, but with Juliet

Mark:

and Juliet.

Sarah:

I was thinking Juliet and Billy.

Mark:

Maybe.

Sarah:

I don't think Jared's gonna be doing any theater after this. I think he's gonna be done.

Mark:

I I think so. On the the reminder this week, if you didn't see it, I put, there's quite the steamy picture of Jared in costume as Hamlet.

Sarah:

He looks great in that costume.

Mark:

That I used for the

Sarah:

I wasn't able to find out if the actor who plays Jared ever played Hamlet on stage. If he did, it's not credited in IMDB. So

Mark:

Again, he shows his range in this episode He's a

Sarah:

good actor.

Mark:

That he's so much better of an actor than we realize.

Sarah:

Yeah. Alright. So that was To Die or Not to Die.

Mark:

And we will return again on the 11th November with Broken Wind Mystery season 2 episode 3, catch of the day.

Sarah:

Until then, follow us on the socials. We'll still be posting stuff even though we're not releasing an episode for 2 weeks.

Mark:

Yes. And, we will be posting the Halloween pictures and all sorts of interesting things. So

Sarah:

We'll miss you. Yes. Alright. Bye, maniacs.

Mark:

Bye, maniacs. 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.

Mark:

Bye, maniacs.

Sarah:

Until then, stay tuned on the socials. You can find us here.

Mark:

Yes. We'll have more Halloween pictures and stuff. I

Sarah:

thought you'd put the thing.

Mark:

Oh, no. Well, it's at the end of the episode anyway.

Sarah:

Oh, okay. Never mind.

Mark:

Yeah.

Creators and Guests

Sarah Smith-Robbins
Host
Sarah Smith-Robbins
Co-host of Mystery Maniacs
Episode 218 | Mystery Maniacs | The Brokenwood Mysteries | "To Die or Not to Die" | Dinosaur Skullz & Gumboot Tea!
Broadcast by