Episode 84 - "Echoes of the Dead" - She-Asses, Zedonkadonks & The Thing Jones Mentions
Summary
In Podcast 84 (S14 E03), a killer is imitating murders from the past until they run out of time. Welcome to Great Worthy, where all the men are creepy and the donkeys are well-looked after. Maniac merch! - https://shop.spreadshirt.com/midsomer-maniacs-podcast/Don't say it again. You're gonna say it again. I can see it on your face. You're gonna say it again. La la la la la.
Speaker 1:I can't hear you. You didn't say it. Hey, maniacs.
Speaker 2:Hey, maniacs. It's Midsummer Maniacs, a recap podcast dedicated to the ITV series, Midsummer Murders. Each week, we dig into an episode of the show, including the murders, the mayhem, the loonies, and everything else we love. I'm Mark.
Speaker 1:I'm Sarah, and my voice sounds bad. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:Sarah is going to apologize about her voice.
Speaker 1:I'm all froggy and the doctor doesn't know why. He said maybe I'd talk too much.
Speaker 2:But you felt you feel good.
Speaker 1:I feel fine.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I just sound scary. You don't sound bad at all.
Speaker 1:He said maybe you've been talking too much? Said me? Talk too much?
Speaker 2:We do talk a lot.
Speaker 1:He didn't know I've been sitting for two days grading nonstop, not speaking to anyone. This is the last time I'm gonna say, I'm sorry that I sound so froggy. Okay. I hope it's not too annoying.
Speaker 2:Just a warning off the top. If you let your kids watch the show, they can listen to the podcast.
Speaker 1:If they're not afraid of the exorcist voice, they can listen to the podcast.
Speaker 2:That's not an exorcist voice. Oh my god. Did we get the love this week?
Speaker 1:I know. It was so nice.
Speaker 2:So we got an email from Charia in Arizona
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Who sent just the nicest email.
Speaker 1:It's so sweet of people to take the time to do that.
Speaker 2:And she has a Socco Fox t shirt, which is awesome.
Speaker 1:Socco Fox.
Speaker 2:And then somebody asked a question on Facebook about the podcast, and there are a million people on there saying how amazing we are. And I was just overwhelmed by happiness.
Speaker 1:I was 25 into a stack of 55, 15 page projects from students that had to be graded in less than forty eight hours. Feeling miserable and trying not to take it out on my students when you sent me that. And I was like, oh, I needed that.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:There's hope out there. There are nice people out there.
Speaker 2:People think we're funny. I don't know if we're that funny.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm pretty funny. You're pretty funny. Funny sounding. Funny looking.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I'm that funny.
Speaker 1:I got funny stuff this week. Oh, boy. Okay. Because Greatworthy is a funny place.
Speaker 2:Oh, it is. Just a reminder, we have an Acorn sponsorship going on right now. If you wanna get on Acorn, look at our Twitter or Instagram, you get a code for 30 for free. It's midsummer thirty.
Speaker 1:Mark actually saw people this week.
Speaker 2:I did. I left the house and saw both work people and friend people, and I played games with my game group.
Speaker 1:Who are all vaccinated.
Speaker 2:So we had no masks on and we're all in the same room.
Speaker 1:It's like you're playing topless. It was so
Speaker 2:strange to
Speaker 1:go Let your
Speaker 2:mouth
Speaker 1:hang all out and everything. One
Speaker 2:one of the things that you probably haven't realized is you you might have gone to work, but you you've spent most of the time in your own house in the last year.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Unless And now Unless you have to go to work, which in which case, thank you for doing that.
Speaker 2:I've been to my friend's house hundreds of times. Yeah. But it was like I walked into a brand new house.
Speaker 1:You hadn't been there in a year.
Speaker 2:I hadn't been there in a year and it was like a brand new house. He hadn't changed much. He bought some more games, but yeah, but it was nice. Yes. Awkward hugs.
Speaker 2:It's you gotta remember how to be around people again.
Speaker 1:So my weird thing this week was that I have kind of a new friend at work. She's actually, like, my partner in this mentor program. So we don't know each other that well. We're getting to know each other. And she she was like, oh, I saw that you did a podcast and my wife and I had never watched that show before.
Speaker 1:So we watched the first few episodes and I don't know if I can think about you the same way anymore. I Like, what? They watched the first two. So they watched Badgers Drift. Incest and multiple murders?
Speaker 1:Yeah. And then they watched the one about the author's club written in blood.
Speaker 2:Transvestites and multiple Oh, don't forget scumbag scum. Scumbag scum. And the
Speaker 1:fact that Lenora has her brother's corpse upstairs. Yes. Yeah. She was like, is it always like that? No, no, no.
Speaker 1:Yes. No. The first two episodes are kinda heavy on the weird, and they kinda back off of it. And you just get a little taste of weird.
Speaker 2:Oh, speaking of weird, this episode has the weird.
Speaker 1:Oh, boy. So this is season fourteen episode three, Echoes of the Dead.
Speaker 2:Filmed in September 2010, broadcast on the 04/20/2011, 5,470,000 viewers, directed by Nick Laughlin and written by Peter j Hammond.
Speaker 1:We've got trains. We've got donkeys. We've got weird pups. We've got drowned people. We've got cut up people.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's we've got TV zombies. It's got everything.
Speaker 2:It's serial killer land. It is midsummer at its And professional wrestling?
Speaker 1:Oh, yes. And that sound of vinyl squeaking. Oh. Oh, it bothers me.
Speaker 2:That that coat is bad, dude. Where
Speaker 1:do you get a raincoat that shiny?
Speaker 2:At serial killers r us.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay. You know, speaking of serial killers r us, I found an awesome website this week called Murderpedia.
Speaker 2:Okay. Because I was
Speaker 1:looking up all the historical murders that John mentions in the episode. Mhmm. And Murderpedia is awesome.
Speaker 2:We'll put it in the show notes.
Speaker 1:I found good stuff there.
Speaker 2:I will put
Speaker 1:it the I'm going to mention. Excellent. Awesome. So we've got a donkey sanctuary, and that's important because John Nettles, who was the original Barnaby, Tom Barnaby, that's like his favorite charity.
Speaker 2:I think this is a little nod to Don I think. To John Nettles.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think so too. Or maybe they wrote it before they knew he was leaving.
Speaker 2:That's a
Speaker 1:possibility. Been a good episode for him because he clearly believes in that cause.
Speaker 2:He Yeah.
Speaker 1:He does a lot for donkey sanctuaries.
Speaker 2:Yeah. The the trains things seem stuck on to me here.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So that train, the one that we see at the beginning with Joe Starling, riding her bike next to it, that is train number 92212. Yes. It is a heritage line train, which means it's not connected to real train lines anymore.
Speaker 2:Nope.
Speaker 1:It's a steam train. Its nickname is the watercress line. Oh. Do you know why? No.
Speaker 1:Don't. You should know why. Why? Because we watched the Edwardian farm show. You don't remember?
Speaker 2:No. I don't.
Speaker 1:Oh. So when the train lines were first laid out in England, it made it made a big difference for farmers because they could then get their produce to town quickly. And so there was this whole area of England that was known for raising watercress and watercress was really popular for some reason.
Speaker 2:It was indeed.
Speaker 1:It's very healthy for you apparently if you, it has a lot of more vitamins than regular greens do. Anyway, there were trains that just took just tons of watercress to market every week and this is one of the trains that did that. But now it's a heritage line, and they do dining trains, and they do real ale trains.
Speaker 2:I I would gladly go on both
Speaker 1:of those. So you can try to drink a beer and not spill it while riding on a steam train.
Speaker 2:Yes. Excellent. There's a sign that says LNSWR.
Speaker 1:No, it doesn't. Yep. It says painted space S, painted space, painted space R. Oh, okay. Beware of trains.
Speaker 2:Yes. So that stands for London and Southwest Railroad. But why are the letters crossed out?
Speaker 1:Because that was the LSWR and it was amalgamated with other railway lines and so they renamed it just the Southern Railway.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:But they were cheapskates apparently, so instead of making new signs they just painted out the L and the ampersand and the W. The
Speaker 2:train engine has SC on the bottom on the front, do you know what that means? No. Okay. So what it means is, first of all, it's a standard across locomotives if they have this. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And British locomotives only. And it's a self cleaning smoke box. Oh. And what that means is the engines require different disposal procedures and basically the people who work at the train stations have to deal with it differently. So that's why it gets that SC.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Because they get underneath them. Right? They empty the ash out from underneath and they drain the water out.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, it's in a whole completely different procedure on the SC trains.
Speaker 1:Oh. Joe Starling is riding her bike.
Speaker 2:Yes. And she rides past the great worthy
Speaker 1:She's so happy.
Speaker 2:Yes. She is very, very happy.
Speaker 1:Even though she wears shorts and tights and Wellington's. I just think that's a weird combo, but I don't know.
Speaker 2:And unfortunately, this episode really should be called poor Joe.
Speaker 1:Oh, poor Joe.
Speaker 2:Because nothing but trauma happens. Joe is no okay. Let's fast forward to the end of the episode. Joe is not alright.
Speaker 1:No. She's worse off at the end.
Speaker 2:She no. She is in bad shape at the end of this episode.
Speaker 1:When they auditioned for this role, they must have just said, okay. All actresses auditioning for this role need to cry and talk at the same time. Can you do it? Go. They picked the best one who could cry and talk at
Speaker 2:the same And look completely confused.
Speaker 1:Because that's all she does. Yeah. I mean, don't blame her for it. The character definitely needs to try. She's that's the reaction she
Speaker 2:should I chose her for all the the images for the episode. This book of just utter horror on her She's so sad. She's so good
Speaker 1:at it. Greatworthy has the most complicated village sign we've seen so far.
Speaker 2:Yes. So it has a train.
Speaker 1:It has a guy with a scythe and wheat. Yes. It has some flowers. It has a carriage on the top.
Speaker 2:Maybe watercress maybe?
Speaker 1:No. It's it's wheat. He's definitely wheat. Yeah. It's like tall brown.
Speaker 1:Watercress looks like spinach almost. It's like low to the ground and green.
Speaker 2:And we go past the pub and we have an aptly named pub.
Speaker 1:Signalman. Where there are horse and carriages and pony traps for hire.
Speaker 2:Yeah, pony traps is just a way to trap a pony.
Speaker 1:No. No. It's a little two wheeled carriage.
Speaker 2:It's like a slurry kind of thing.
Speaker 1:Not a slurry,
Speaker 2:a Surry, yes.
Speaker 1:Surrey with a fringe on top.
Speaker 2:Yes. Why racing carriages.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So why is it called the signalman? I know it's a train thing.
Speaker 2:So the signalman in The UK, the signalman sits in the single single signal hut.
Speaker 1:Wow. The single signal hut?
Speaker 2:And that hut is bustling with technology. Apparently, it's
Speaker 1:just full of big levers if you believe the sign for
Speaker 2:the pub.
Speaker 1:Well, it is. Okay.
Speaker 2:Like, a a three station area because you have to control the tracks in three areas. I watched a forty minute video about this. Why?
Speaker 1:You like trains.
Speaker 2:Had close to 40 levers in it.
Speaker 1:Wow. And they're big levers.
Speaker 2:They're very big levers. But first we start at the top of the of the hut. Okay. The top of the hut includes communication devices that use electrical bells to communicate back and forth to different stations in different signal huts. Okay.
Speaker 2:So they have things like long, short, long for calling people things like Okay. Then there's a row of buttons that allow you to move those levers or not because some of these levers, as we'll get to, you do not wanna turn them on by accident.
Speaker 1:Because they move tracks and stuff. Right?
Speaker 2:Oh, boy. Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 1:You could derail a train if you bumped it.
Speaker 2:So then the color of the levers becomes super important.
Speaker 1:I saw red and white on the sign. Okay.
Speaker 2:So I got just a couple. Red, what do you think that does?
Speaker 1:Turns on a light.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Turns on a stop sign. Right? What do you think a yellow does?
Speaker 1:Slow down?
Speaker 2:Yep, absolutely. And the the black is what moves the the the tracks, the tracks,
Speaker 1:which is the track.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the first two just change the signals, the black changes the tracks and the blue locks it. Right?
Speaker 1:But it's just turning on a light. Why do they need a lever that is half as tall as they are?
Speaker 2:They're all situated the same way.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Okay. Green makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1:It's go. Right? All clear.
Speaker 2:Good. Brown. What do you think brown does?
Speaker 1:Brown is holy shit. Look out.
Speaker 2:No. No. It just it raises up barriers and stuff like that
Speaker 1:and lowers barriers. Thinking brown. Okay.
Speaker 2:Now red and white chevrons.
Speaker 1:Dining car. I don't know.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna say a word right now, and you are gonna look shocked. Okay. Okay? Okay. Okay?
Speaker 2:Are you ready?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Detonators.
Speaker 1:Bombs?
Speaker 2:Okay. The detonators are are little bombs. Okay?
Speaker 1:Uh-huh.
Speaker 2:That when the train goes over them, they make enough noise. It's an emergency signal, And you have to use those in conjunction conjunction with red levers.
Speaker 1:Wow. So that's like, no. Really? Stop. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Seriously. It's like You need to stop.
Speaker 2:You need to really stop. But there are detonators on those train tracks.
Speaker 1:And they can activate the detonators from a distance?
Speaker 2:Because it's all a charge. It's all electrical charge with an electrical fuse.
Speaker 1:As a passenger, if I heard somebody mention detonators, I would be terrified if I didn't know that that's what they meant.
Speaker 2:I I'm watching this forty minute video. I'm like, how are you green? She's showing the lights and everything. It's like that. Now this one's for the detonators.
Speaker 2:I'm like, what the detonators?
Speaker 1:That's when you absolutely have to blow a a train right off the track.
Speaker 2:Could not believe that there are detonators.
Speaker 1:Well, the train aside, this town is full of bad men.
Speaker 2:We have a bunch of bad men and one baddish man that we feel sorry for.
Speaker 1:Malcolm's not bad. He's sad.
Speaker 2:He's sad. But he's portrayed as
Speaker 1:They try to make him look bad.
Speaker 2:I I'm I call him a Ginger Harry. Ginger Harry. That actor's really good. He's great. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But he's totally he's the creepy guy. He's not creepy. He's not, though.
Speaker 1:He's unsophisticated. He's poor and he's under the thumb of his parents and he has a stutter. Yep. And everybody takes advantage of him. So he Malcolm Merriman, he runs the gas station.
Speaker 1:He's played by Andrew Buckley, who's kind of a unassuming guy.
Speaker 2:But he's been in a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1:He's been in a ton of things. And one thing one thing that he's been in that he also wrote that I would recommend is a movie called Skeletons from 2010. It's about these two guys who are like, they're exorcists, but they're like the least likely exorcists. One of them is kind of tall and heavy and bumbling, and the other one is really short and really thin, and they're like no nonsense exorcists. It's very funny and quaint and cute.
Speaker 1:And it's called Skeletons.
Speaker 2:It's a very good movie. I'll put a link in the show notes.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Like I'd watch it again and I don't watch movies again.
Speaker 2:The pub is owned by Nikki and her husband.
Speaker 1:Roundtree. Should just call them the Despicables.
Speaker 2:They for for Matt's an ex cop. She's an ex brothel fantasy. Brothel owner that have moved out to Midsummer War. The and then the the hardware store is run by the Flax. Bernard and Yvonne.
Speaker 2:Bernard and Yvonne. And then the Donkey Place is run by Sam. And his mom, Liz. Mom, Liz.
Speaker 1:Otherwise known as Laura Time.
Speaker 2:And finally, there's a vet who gets killed. Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And and then there's Malcolm's parents, Len and Olive Merriman, otherwise known as the TV zombies. Yes. They're very I just wanna shake them.
Speaker 2:Oh, they turn their television up way too loud.
Speaker 1:And then they sit five feet away from it and just stare at it.
Speaker 2:Just stare. What they remind me of is the parents in Time Bandits.
Speaker 1:Yeah. They're zombies to the TV and they watch whatever is on. Yes. They watch game shows and soap operas and wrestling matches and I just wanna shake them. Yes.
Speaker 1:And when Matt gets in Jones's face in the pub, I just wanna shake him.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like, back off, bucko. Oh. Leave Jones alone.
Speaker 2:Matt is bad news.
Speaker 1:Yeah. He's oh. Yuck. But they have a nice pub.
Speaker 2:They do. They do. I have a nice pub.
Speaker 1:Sorry. Bernard gives me the heebies too.
Speaker 2:Okay. So
Speaker 1:So I'm saying all the men in this village except Malcolm are no good at all.
Speaker 2:And they're all poor they're every one of the murders, they're all off not doing what they're supposed to
Speaker 1:be doing. Oh, and never mind, David Orchard, who is the killer, is also a man in this village. Just to just to say it. Just put it out there.
Speaker 2:And he is Oh, wow. Is he loony? He's he's had a psychotic break.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Because his girlfriend broke up with him. Oh.
Speaker 2:Well, it's not that his girlfriend broke up with him. It's that she sent him a letter a year later and said, I'm still broken up with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So she what do you call it when you stop talking to somebody all of sudden with no explanation? She ghosted him for a year and then dropped him a letter and said, sorry. I'm married. Bye.
Speaker 2:And then she go he ghosted every woman in town.
Speaker 1:Literally. Well, I I think before the year was up, he probably should have assumed that she had moved on.
Speaker 2:Yeah. There's some problems there with Motive. So But he's Looney Tunes. He is Looney Tunes. And we see that result of that Looney Tunes when Joe gets home and finds Louise in the bath.
Speaker 2:Diane. Diane. Sorry. Diane
Speaker 1:in the bath. The bride in the bath.
Speaker 2:Wow. This is a staged crime scene straight out of criminal minds almost.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It is. And the water is is running over, so it's leaking down through the floor. So it's like raining in the house on the First Floor. Yes.
Speaker 1:Or Ground Floor. And she's upstairs in the bath. And the actress who plays her, Lisa Brooks, she doesn't have a lot of credits, but she should have one big fat credit that is can hold breath for a very long time because she does such a good job.
Speaker 2:I wrote down best corpse of the episode twice Yeah. In my notes.
Speaker 1:Yeah. The competition is pretty fierce in this episode. Oh, it's really fierce. So she's got the lipstick on. She's got the curtains on.
Speaker 1:Like, they're a veil over her in the bathtub. And the window the mirror, sorry, said blessed be the bride in red lipstick. It's a dramatic murder scene.
Speaker 2:It is freaky deaky.
Speaker 1:And it's a reference to another killing. Right? A historical murder called the bride in the bath murder, which is George Joseph Smith. And he he killed three of his wives in the same way. Wow.
Speaker 1:In 1912, 1913, and in 1914, every year for three years, he he killed a new bride by drowning her in the bathtub. Wow. And the first two were written off as accidents.
Speaker 2:Accidents. Well, women really don't know how to use the newfangled bathtubs.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, and he was changing his name or going under a fake name. So it wasn't like they were like, hey George, weren't we just here a year ago when your first wife died? He was going under a pseudonym, so they didn't connect it until the third one. He's a bad dude, but he's not the worst dude mentioned in this episode.
Speaker 1:No, no, We'll get to him.
Speaker 2:Yep. You're in a crime scene.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And you're given a job at a crime scene.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And there's two important things to do when you have that job. Mhmm. The first thing is to put on your constable hat.
Speaker 1:Apparently. Yes. There's a police constable baseball hat being worn with a paper suit. But no gloves.
Speaker 2:No gloves.
Speaker 1:So many people don't wear gloves. When John touches that exhaust fan cover thing, he doesn't have gloves on.
Speaker 2:I'm like, stop touching stuff. Stop touching things. I think Jones is in the background going, stop touching things.
Speaker 1:Your psychology degree didn't teach you to put on some gloves. Stop touching them. It's like when you have a toddler in the house. Wait. You stop touching stuff.
Speaker 1:Put on your gloves.
Speaker 2:And did you notice how the house is suddenly dry?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, it stops dripping. And then we don't really focus on squishy carpet all that much. So, you know, I don't know how dry
Speaker 2:it is. It would still drip for a while. And also, I would think Joe would be drenched and she's not.
Speaker 1:Well, she doesn't touch her.
Speaker 2:No. But like just being in the house and stuff like that, she would be wet.
Speaker 1:It's a close thing that she doesn't reach in and pull her out of the water.
Speaker 2:It's very weird.
Speaker 1:But I mean, she's clearly dead. She's gray. So I don't know how I would react to that situation. Shock. She's in shock.
Speaker 1:So
Speaker 2:Joe just freaks out, as any normal human being would. Absolutely. And then uses the phone, which I'm like, you're touching stuff.
Speaker 1:I'm touching stuff. No. Gloves on. That's okay. They they do a little bit of fingerprinting around the house and they you know, the bathroom, and then they just let her have the house.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Like it's not a crime When a friend
Speaker 2:shows up and goes, I guess I'm police liaison here.
Speaker 1:Maybe I should get you out of here for a couple of nights. Oh, I'm gonna die.
Speaker 2:So Fran is the nicest human being.
Speaker 1:She is. She's kind to everybody. Including the donkeys. She tries to talk to Malcolm at the gas station. She does her very best.
Speaker 1:He's not
Speaker 2:a conversationalist. But she's, like, talking to him.
Speaker 1:Know, she's so nice. She's definitely going to die. Yep. Otherwise, why is she there? What's the purpose of just a kind person?
Speaker 2:So the reason why Barnaby touches the vent is because somebody has been looking in the bathroom.
Speaker 1:It's totally clear that somebody's been spinning it around because there's scuff marks on the dirty pebble dash on the outside of the house.
Speaker 2:I don't understand creepers at all. Okay? It's not a thing for me. But I understand why he doesn't have curtains on their windows in their bedrooms. But why does
Speaker 1:he You don't relate to it, but at least makes sense if you're a peeper that you'd wanna see somebody changing clothes.
Speaker 2:Why does he want them watch them go potty?
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:Because the
Speaker 1:only thing in view is the toilet.
Speaker 2:Also, they would be like, what are you doing watching me go potty?
Speaker 1:I would totally see him.
Speaker 2:Anybody would totally see him. He's a short guy, but he's still visible.
Speaker 1:It would just it would change the light coming in through that vent every time he stepped in front of it, and that would catch your eye. Instantaneously. Like, why are you staring at people on my toilet? Get out
Speaker 2:of Why does his wife stay with him? Because she knows all of his shit and is like, what? They sleep in separate beds. I
Speaker 1:He's not the killer. If he was, I would blame her for not stopping him because she just turned she doesn't turn a blind eye to it. She just cannot deal with him. But she calls him out. Yeah.
Speaker 1:All the time and he just goes about doing whatever he wants to do. Yeah. So all these people live on Juggs Lane.
Speaker 2:Juggs.
Speaker 1:Fran lives on Juggs Lane.
Speaker 2:Everybody lives on Juggs Lane.
Speaker 1:Like, and this is why I don't understand why Joe sits around waiting for Fran to come get her when she could just walk to Fran's. It's like right there. The donkey center is Judd's Lane.
Speaker 2:The best part is everything's on Judd's Lane, but no one sees all these crimes happening in broad daylight.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, they don't happen at broad daylight. Right? I mean, Diane died in the morning between seven and lunchtime, but Fran dies in the middle of the night.
Speaker 2:No, it's not in the middle of the night. It's it's twilight.
Speaker 1:Well, they move her in the night.
Speaker 2:Yeah. He moves her in the night. Yeah. My joke was that they see David walking around with that coat on and they go, who's that? Oh, the pub guy from dark autumn.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Because they have the same coat.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Oh, don't don't mind squeaky. He just walks around in the dark sometimes. Sorry. That sound of that vinyl makes me crazy.
Speaker 2:Malcolm had some old stuff in his shop. He has starters for cars not made in, like, forty years.
Speaker 1:You know, Malcolm And he's selling cars. He's just getting by. You know? He's just getting by.
Speaker 2:He's eating his inventory, you know.
Speaker 1:I mean, he's probably in his forties, and, you know, his parents have treated him like that since he was little. Like, the fact that he didn't kill him long before now is kind of a miracle because I would have wanted to.
Speaker 2:I think we should go pray for her right now in the church. Okay. Killer McKillers.
Speaker 1:Wow. That's an uncomfortable moment, isn't it? Wow. Everybody's like, no. Like, Nikki's not
Speaker 2:going into a church. She's gonna go right up on fire.
Speaker 1:Frank, who works at the train station, he takes his hat off like, yeah. That's sad. And everybody else is like, no. Crazy David's being crazy again. So when Nikki, the bar lady, hears that Diane's killed she says, was it a sex attack?
Speaker 1:And I've I've in England they call them sex pests too. Yes. Both of which I think almost make them sound silly. Like silly crimes. It's a sex attack.
Speaker 1:Oh, are you a sex pest? Oh, you're always pestering people with your sex. Like, it's a bit more serious than that. Yeah. I don't think they're trying to undermine it, you know, to underestimate the impact of it.
Speaker 1:But the terminology to
Speaker 2:me makes this sound I think they make up for it with grievous bodily harm instead of Yeah. Assault is like, oh, well, you know, but grievous bodily harm is serious. It sounds pretty serious. The sign for great worthy independent school is actually wood. I looked at it for far too long.
Speaker 1:Yeah. But it I mean
Speaker 2:But it's made to look stony.
Speaker 1:Yeah. They're trying. They're trying.
Speaker 2:They're trying.
Speaker 1:So we get to talk to David Orchard in his little house apparently that's on the grounds of the school because he teaches French and history. Yes. And he's refurbishing the house because the school doesn't mind if he does that as long as he pays for it himself.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Because his fiancee, Louise, who's in South Africa teaching, coming home and he wants to make it right for her so they can get married. She's not coming home. She's never coming home. No. But man, his way of redecorating is not my way of redecorating.
Speaker 1:It's like he pushes everything from one side of the room to the other and then just paints on top of it. I don't understand. He
Speaker 2:he clearly does know how to do renovations.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I don't I don't know what he's trying to do. And then we get to meet the Tomlins who run the Donkey Sanctuary. Now Liz Tomlin is played by Pam Ferris
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Who I know best as Laura Time from Rosemary and Time. Yes. She's been in a ton of things including Harry Potter movies and Madeline and all kinds of stuff. Yes. What I learned about her this week is who she is married to and has been married to since 1984.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And you will never ever guess who she's married to. He was in A Midsummer and he played a notable role. I'll even tell you what episode, in Destroying Angel, the one about the mushrooms.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:She is married to the guy in Destroying Angel who is naked except for his apron and then gets chased through the woods. Nice. That's her husband. That's awesome. Never would have guessed.
Speaker 2:Never.
Speaker 1:They've been married for thirty years. Wow. Like more than that.
Speaker 2:Well her and her son hate each other. I'm not exactly sure why. So Like, he has he has a savior complex. Yes. That's okay.
Speaker 2:Lots of people have
Speaker 1:savior complex. Applying it in a way that is good for I mean, you he's saving animals.
Speaker 2:He's he's tried to date the women in town. That is all normal. None of them said that he would Was
Speaker 1:a sex pest?
Speaker 2:Was a sex pest or anything like that. No. They kinda feel sorry for him, but him and his mom do not get along.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So Liz used to be the registrar. Right? His joke is that she's married half the town because she used to perform civil ceremonies as the registrar. Yes.
Speaker 1:Do you know what a registrar does?
Speaker 2:It signs up people for classes in a university. No. Okay.
Speaker 1:They keep the records of deaths, marriages, and births. I think they're kind of a notary too.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:It's not an elected office. You get hired to be the registrar, and there's not a lot of qualifications for it. But it's like you gotta be orderly and a good kind of record keeper.
Speaker 2:Kinda implication that get she got fired, but no one says why or anything.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I'm like, what what nefarious things could you do as a registrar that would result in conspiracy that
Speaker 2:would get you You're year older than you say you are.
Speaker 1:Dun dun dun. But so I looked into how you become a registrar because I didn't know if it was an elected position or whatever. It's not. But doctors, midwives, ministers, and funeral directors are not allowed to be registrars. Oh.
Speaker 1:Nor are people who have ever worked in the insurance industry.
Speaker 2:Oh, so I could be a registrar.
Speaker 1:You could. Nice. You're 21. Yep. And you've got some GCSEs or the equivalent of it.
Speaker 1:Yep. But I thought that was interesting. So nobody who has any kind of interest in any of the things that a registrar keeps records of Can can be the registrar.
Speaker 2:I have a question about the donkey sanctuary for you.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry. My final thought on this is I was just thinking like, okay. A funeral director, I understand. Yeah. Because they could go knocking people off
Speaker 2:for the business recording. More importantly, they could record people's death and go, do you have funeral services provided?
Speaker 1:There is that too. Right? I
Speaker 2:was thinking of
Speaker 1:But I'm more nefarious than So I'm thinking like, oh, they're knocking people off, recording their death as non suspicious Yes. Because they are also sort of the coroner kind of.
Speaker 2:Sort the coroner.
Speaker 1:Not the medical coroner, but the equivalent of what we have as a coroner, is just somebody who goes, yep, they're dead. Yep. Doesn't even have to be qualified to say that.
Speaker 2:It has to, in Indiana, you need a driver's license and a car.
Speaker 1:Yeah. To be a coroner. To be a coroner. That's it. So I could see why funeral directors could, have kind of conflicting motivations if they were registrars.
Speaker 1:But I cannot understand why midwives would be a problem.
Speaker 2:Well, midwives are always a problem.
Speaker 1:Like are they recording babies that weren't born? I
Speaker 2:don't know.
Speaker 1:Or not writing down the babies that they delivered? Health and safety.
Speaker 2:I guess. Answer to everything.
Speaker 1:Health and safety. Somebody somewhere did something bad and so now they can't be registrars anymore. Because otherwise that would be darn convenient.
Speaker 2:Yes. Anyhow. Okay. My donkey sanctuary question. Yes.
Speaker 2:Of the 12 donkeys that are available for adoption. Yes. Which one would you choose?
Speaker 1:I think her name is Jenny. She's noisy.
Speaker 2:Yes. Her name is actually Jessie.
Speaker 1:Jessie.
Speaker 2:She is the oldest and noisiest, but she likes Karen.
Speaker 1:That's because you paused it and read the little posters I adoptable monkeys. See.
Speaker 2:Only two of them are are viewable. I went through that scene over and over and over again because I, as a set dresser, would put a thousand in jokes in there. The other one viewable is Jimmy. He gives grooms the runaround.
Speaker 1:Do you know why they're Jesse and Jimmy?
Speaker 2:You know what? David gives brides the runaround. Why they're j names?
Speaker 1:Why? Because male and female donkeys are called Jacks and Jennies.
Speaker 2:Oh, that makes sense completely.
Speaker 1:Or ass and she ass. Wow. I think Jack and Jennie is better.
Speaker 2:Ass and she ass is going in the name of the title of this episode. That's for sure.
Speaker 1:Oh, no. Aren't the best names associated with donkeys. Okay. Are you ready?
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Okay. So donkeys are a they are a species. Right? Not to be confused with a mule, which is the result of a donkey and a horse having a baby. Yes.
Speaker 1:And those are sterile. Yes. Okay?
Speaker 2:A donkey is not sterile.
Speaker 1:Now, if a Jack Yes. And a female horse have a baby, it's a mule. But if a Jenny and a male horse have a baby it's called a henny henny h I n n y okay so you can have a mule or a henny okay
Speaker 2:now are they both are henny sterile also?
Speaker 1:Yes Okay. Now, donkeys can also breed with zebras.
Speaker 2:Who who finds
Speaker 1:these things out? There are wild donkeys all over the world. Okay. They may encounter zebras in the wild. You never know.
Speaker 1:If a male donkey
Speaker 2:And a female zebra.
Speaker 1:And a female zebra have a baby.
Speaker 2:This is why you turned it into this podcast. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right here. Oh, you wait. Okay. If a male donkey and a female zebra have a baby, it can be called a zebra heny. Okay.
Speaker 1:That makes sense. A zebrette.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Or a zebrini. Now, if a female donkey and a male zebra have a baby. Yes. It's called a zebras. That's not the best one.
Speaker 2:Look at the zebras on her. Prepare. Okay.
Speaker 1:A zebroid. Or my favorite. Your favorite? My favorite. A zedonk.
Speaker 1:Zedonk. Zedonk. At the ass on that zedonkadonk. That zedonkadonk's got quite the donkadonk. Badonkadonk on the zodonkadonk.
Speaker 1:You can milk donkeys. Oh, Of course. Stop. No No way. Okay.
Speaker 1:They're the only mammal that we know of. Granted, we've not milked all mammals, just humans. We're not that desperate quite yet. But they're the only mammal that we know that has milk that is completely hypoallergenic. Oh.
Speaker 1:Right out of the teat. So if you have allergies or anything, you can always drink donkey milk.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:And just so you know, if you ever see something called Pule cheese, p u l e. Yes. That's made with donkey milk. So don't eat it. It's hypoallergenic cheese.
Speaker 1:I want Zadok cheese. Yeah. Can you imagine the label for that? The Zadonkadonk cheese?
Speaker 2:Za donk a donk cheese.
Speaker 1:Yo. I'm going out with a zabrette and a za breast and a za donk later.
Speaker 2:We're gonna make cheese.
Speaker 1:Is that what you call it now? Cheese? Alright then.
Speaker 2:I cannot believe Jones and Barnaby do not see the most important sign outside the pub. Which one? Morris dancing tonight. Yeah. We don't get to see the Morris dancing.
Speaker 1:It's on a chalkboard.
Speaker 2:Yep. So Did you know Pony Trap is also Cockney slang? No. For what? Like crap or rubbish or
Speaker 1:Oh, because trap and crap rhyme. Yep. So pony trap. Yep. But why would you need slang for crap?
Speaker 1:It's already slang. It's already slang. So Liz Tomlin, because her son makes a joke about her marrying everybody, says, don't worry, I'm not Midsummer's Bluebeard or anything. Do you know who Bluebeard is?
Speaker 2:This is my history with Bluebeard.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Okay. There's a Richard Burton movie named Bluebeard Uh-huh. That stars Raquel Welch. Uh-huh. She barely has any clothes on.
Speaker 2:Uh-huh. In that movie.
Speaker 1:Is she beheaded?
Speaker 2:A couple of times. Her and a number of people die in the episode. Yeah. Okay? Yeah.
Speaker 2:So he kills his wives. This is the this is what a blue beard does. He kills his wives. I saw this movie on television when I was a kid on The Late Late Show.
Speaker 1:Oh, boy.
Speaker 2:And much like the wicker man completely changed my entire outlook on the world.
Speaker 1:You must have not have known how to feel like, oh, sexy lady. Oh, she lost her head. Oh, sexy lady. Oh, she lost her head.
Speaker 2:It was my introduction to sexy lady dead people.
Speaker 1:And you've been scarred ever since.
Speaker 2:This movie is impossible to find.
Speaker 1:I'm sure.
Speaker 2:Okay. It's not available on Acorn. It's not on Amazon anywhere. You can't stream it.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:This movie.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:I have an eBay search for this movie, both the laserdisc and the DVD of this movie, and I cannot find it for under a $100.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:This I I was like, I I would like to see that movie again mostly because
Speaker 1:Not that much.
Speaker 2:You see you see things that you saw as a kid,
Speaker 1:and you're
Speaker 2:like, oh, well, it's
Speaker 1:not Didn't understand that when I saw it.
Speaker 2:Not exactly the movie I saw when I was a kid, But I'm not paying a $100 for that stupid movie. No. You're not. So
Speaker 1:Bluebeard is from Mother Goose.
Speaker 2:Oh, really? Mhmm.
Speaker 1:It was the the the story is called the seven wives of Bluebeard. They kinda give it away in the title. Yeah. I don't think he's married to seven women at once.
Speaker 2:No. I don't think so.
Speaker 1:So the story is it was first published in 1697.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:The story is that Bluebeard is a wealthy man. He's not very attractive and his beard is blue. Yes. It is blue, blue. In Like indigo blue.
Speaker 1:The movie is blue. So he gets married and he needs to go away for business He gives his wife the keys to the castle and says
Speaker 2:Don't go in this room.
Speaker 1:Says you can use any of the keys, can go anywhere you want except this little room. Which of course she can't not go in that little And when she does, she sees the heads of his former wives. All six of them hanging up by their hair on a wall. And of course, then he comes home and is about to kill her too because I don't know how long he was gone, he just happens to come home right when she opens the door. Yep.
Speaker 1:But she's saved by her brothers.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay. Who show up.
Speaker 1:So that's why Liz is saying I'm not Bluebeard. I haven't like killed off a bunch of
Speaker 2:I remember a lot of people dying in that movie. Yeah. Was a seventies movie.
Speaker 1:So I don't know why but I had Bluebeard confused with Blackbeard in my head. I'm like, God, Blackbeard wasn't married that much. He had syphilis. He couldn't get married. He was a pirate.
Speaker 1:He was on a ship. Who was he marrying?
Speaker 2:No. No. Did you notice they did a nice little transition here? This is totally Greenland. But the smoke?
Speaker 2:No. No. The bikers.
Speaker 1:Oh,
Speaker 2:yeah. So there's a bunch of
Speaker 1:the random pack of bites cycle is Yes. That go by. Yes. Because
Speaker 2:those two scenes are filmed on different days. It's clear. Yeah. But by having the bicyclists The cyclists. They're just cyclists.
Speaker 2:The cyclists go from one scene into the next scene.
Speaker 1:It makes them look like they're the same
Speaker 2:It makes it look the same day and it it fools you. It's one of those ways that film fools you, and I thought that was a nice transition.
Speaker 1:Now you can tell it's what days are different because Nikki at the pub has different hoochie clothes on each day.
Speaker 2:Also, can tell mostly because David David, why are you in the bushes over there? We could clearly see you, David.
Speaker 1:Bernard. Bernard's in the bushes.
Speaker 2:No. I thought David was in the bushes too. We don't know. Okay.
Speaker 1:We don't know who's being creepy in the bushes because this is great worthy. It's full of creeps. It could be any random creep.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:You have creeps to choose from, a selection of creeps. Speaking. Why does Barnaby buy all those cup hooks? I don't know. I mean, I know he needs an excuse, but he buys a lot of cup hooks.
Speaker 1:Buys a lot of cup He buys two handfuls of
Speaker 2:cup And the wife is like
Speaker 1:Sarah's like, we don't have that many mugs.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Not the hardware. Oh, Yvonne is Not Sarah. Okay.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't call her the wife. They don't even count them. They just put them in a bag.
Speaker 2:You just put them in a bag and charge them.
Speaker 1:He buys another tub stopper too. Yes. Like, who needs another tub stopper? I don't know. He needs
Speaker 2:to think about brides and baths. Okay. Two things. One, the old people are watching wrestling. They're watching real American wrestling, which is raw.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Okay. A guy in big undies and a ponytail.
Speaker 2:And he's fighting a black guy in a fake tux. Mhmm. I don't know who any of these people are. But it's real. If you do, let me know because I'm interested now.
Speaker 1:It's real American wrestling. So it's not fake like WWF. It's real, Mark.
Speaker 2:I went through a web page that had all of the wrestlers from Raw to try to find these two gentlemen. Sorry. You're so dedicated. I could not find them.
Speaker 1:Could you filter by a ponytail or not?
Speaker 2:No. Could not. You should
Speaker 1:be able to do that.
Speaker 2:Okay. And the second thing is John Barnaby is unfamiliar with a rule in our house. Yeah. Okay. The rule in our house is not dinner talk.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Okay. What he talks about at dinner is not dinner talk.
Speaker 1:Especially while he's eating a rib. Yes. You talk about bodies and eat a rib. It wouldn't bother me, but Sarah's like, oh. Yeah.
Speaker 1:His wife is, I don't know about that. Fran's house is beautiful. Like, her the the grounds around them, like she's got that little courtyard full of plants. It's so pretty. But the inside is very up and down.
Speaker 1:Did you notice that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. There's
Speaker 1:like, here's three random steps followed by three more steps in the opposite direction.
Speaker 2:What's random is, I'm Nikki and I want to make sure that my man is happy. So I'm going to wander around the backyard in a bride's dress.
Speaker 1:That is a tearaway bridal gown by the way.
Speaker 2:With all this weird broca going on. And then go be with my man.
Speaker 1:It's not in good taste considering somebody was just murdered dressed like a bride. No. It's really tacky. It tells you everything you need to know about those two.
Speaker 2:If if they had done that on their own and there was no bride murderer, I would have been like
Speaker 1:Who cares? That's their business.
Speaker 2:Their thing. It's really their thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right? But they make it stupid, weird, creepy.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Because that's who they are. Yep. So Fran is supposed to pick Joe up at 07:00. Yes.
Speaker 1:But when we see Fran at her house, she's got a robe on. Yeah. And Joe falls asleep. Well, she gives up waiting for her.
Speaker 2:Every time I don't know why she
Speaker 1:just doesn't walk over to her house. They both live on Juggs Lane.
Speaker 2:Every time Joe loses consciousness or leaves the house, somebody
Speaker 1:dies. Bad things happen.
Speaker 2:Did you notice the screaming hangers? No. When Nikki goes to hang up the wedding dress after the night of passion
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:The this hanger scream.
Speaker 1:Probably because they're so repulsed by what they've seen. I'm just hanging here. I can't even get away. I can't even turn away.
Speaker 2:What the hell is John Barnaby journaling? There are some shapes.
Speaker 1:He doodles. He doodles. Because he's thinking about historical crime.
Speaker 2:And he also can't cut toast cook toast.
Speaker 1:No. Well, toasters are devious. You know that. Yes. They're tricksy.
Speaker 2:So now we are presented with Fran in the box.
Speaker 1:Oh, before we get to Fran as exciting as she is. Okay. Can I tell you a little bit about the two people he mentions in not dinner talk?
Speaker 2:Tell the two people he mentions not dinner talk, and then we'll get to the the new rule of life which is if you see a box and there's blood coming out of the box.
Speaker 1:Don't touch the box.
Speaker 2:Don't open the box.
Speaker 1:That person does not need saving. No. I think you could also have a rule about if you're gonna put a body in a box, don't make it a wicker one. No. It leaks.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't think David cares.
Speaker 1:I don't think so either.
Speaker 2:As soon as he's done killing, he's completely clean.
Speaker 1:Yeah. He's all better because he just hoses off his vinyl ring coat and goes back to doing good deeds for people.
Speaker 2:It's his favorite vinyl ring So
Speaker 1:Barnaby mentions a couple of murders when he's sitting down to dinner because he's connecting the murders that are happening now to historical murders, right? We've already talked about the Bride in the Bath. Yep. That's 1872. And we've talked before about the body in the trunk at Brighton Station.
Speaker 1:We discussed that in the Sword of Ghilim episode, season thirteen episode two.
Speaker 2:When we talked about murders in Brighton.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So if you're curious about that you can go back to that episode. But he also mentions George Henry Lansome.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And says he poisoned someone with Dundee cake. Yeah. Which he did.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Okay. Now, and we're gonna post a link because there is an entire book that is a published version of his trial.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And it's in PDF. Wow. And it's amazing.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Mean like, I had to stop reading. I'm like, okay, gotta get my notes done. Mark's waiting for me. Gotta finish. Need to read this book more and more.
Speaker 1:And you can search it and everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So this is what he does. He's hanging out with two of his friends. One of his friends is a physician. And, they were talking about ways to administer medications.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right? Casual conversation. He reaches into his coat, in his coat, and takes out several slices of cake. Okay. And passes them around.
Speaker 1:Okay. And he eats a piece of cake.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Then he reaches into his pocket and says, oh, I have these new capsules. These are new and they might be useful for giving medication. And they're like the capsules we have now with the two halves, like the gelatin capsules. So he dips one of them in the sugar bowl and fills it with sugar, puts the other end on it and hands it to his friend who's a doctor and says, see, you can give medication this way, try it, they're really easy to swallow. And so his friend just swallows it And the third guy's watching this, like, okay.
Speaker 1:Then the guy who took the pill dies, but it wasn't the pill that poisoned him.
Speaker 2:It's a cake.
Speaker 1:It was a raisin. A raisin in the cake. Okay. That was dosed with wolf's bane.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:The equivalent of wolf's bane that would be a grain of rice can kill an adult. Wow. So when they did his post mortem, they found the skin of the raisin in his stomach and it tested positive for the poison. So I don't know if it was just random, like there was raisins in the whole cake and he's like I don't know which of us is going get it, this is going be interesting. Yep.
Speaker 1:Or if he did the pill thing to just be kind of cocky. Weird. Like they're going think it was the pill but obviously it's not, it was just sugar so Yeah. Because he even ate some of the cake. Anyway, the other guy that he mentions, William Palmer, is much more interesting.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, did he kill a lot of people. He was awful. Okay. Listen to this. Okay?
Speaker 1:All these people died of strychnine poison. In January of eighteen forty nine, he killed his mother-in-law. In May of eighteen fifty, he killed his house guest. Then the following are all his own children. January of eighteen fifty one, January of eighteen fifty two, December of eighteen fifty two, January of fifty four, and November of fifty five.
Speaker 1:He doesn't like Christmas. He killed five of his own kids. His oldest child survived him. Okay. So apparently, he just wanted the one.
Speaker 1:Don't
Speaker 2:Only guess.
Speaker 1:It's not a good way to control the size of your family.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:September of fifty four, he kills his wife. August of fifty five, he kills his brother. November of fifty five, he kills his friend and then the housemaid dies too because she tastes the broth that he poisoned and gave to his friend. And finally in 1856, they hung him.
Speaker 2:You think?
Speaker 1:So that's one, two, five kids, that's seven, eight, nine, ten, 11. 11 people for sure that he killed.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, 11 people around you dying of strychnine poisoning could be an accident. Sure.
Speaker 1:He, he took, $18.53 off.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Otherwise, he killed somebody every at least one person every year, between '49 and 54 '55. Sorry.
Speaker 2:Well, it was an interesting year.
Speaker 1:No. I just think they had no children in '53.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:Because if I was his wife and my first baby died at two months and my second no. My second baby died at two months, my third a month, My fourth one, only seven hours old. My fifth one, four days old. And my sixth one So he murdered
Speaker 2:infants, not children. Infants. Infants.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Oh. Like, I can't believe that she kept on getting pregnant because she must have thought that that was a natural death.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I
Speaker 1:think that's why he got away with it for so long. Yeah. Because you're not gonna do an autopsy on a baby. They just didn't do it back then. Right?
Speaker 2:Poor woman. And then he killed her.
Speaker 1:And then he killed her. Yeah. She's 29. She had had all those babies and she was only 29. And he did it all because he was in debt.
Speaker 1:Because he was a gambler. So he was putting life insurance on as many people as he could. And apparently trying to limit his expenses. That's not how you do it dude. He's a very bad man.
Speaker 1:He was hanged outside Stafford Prison in 1856 and quite a few people came to see it. About 30,000 people I
Speaker 2:would imagine. Okay.
Speaker 1:And that is not dinner talk. Yes. By the way. Yes. Oh Fran in the box.
Speaker 2:Fran in the box.
Speaker 1:I'm impressed by this because that is the actress. Yep. With a bunch of fake legs on top of her.
Speaker 2:Yes. She is in the floor. They have a false floor with a false bottom to the wicker basket.
Speaker 1:Or she's laying and her legs are actually outside the basket but you don't see it.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's what she's doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not a false floor but she's yeah. But she's a good corpse. She's
Speaker 2:still
Speaker 1:She
Speaker 2:has a very good corpse.
Speaker 1:Even with bloody fake legs on top of her. I cannot believe he sawed her in half like that in her garden. I mean, is nuts.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Then put it in her car Yes. Drove it to the train station. Why? And put it in the train station the the station keeper's cottage.
Speaker 2:All because he was the she was the gay.
Speaker 1:She was the nicest person.
Speaker 2:She was super nice. He's so bad. And then we get to the real name of this episode.
Speaker 1:Which is? It's not asses and she asses or za donk. Za donkey donk.
Speaker 2:It is Jones says butt plug. He does. The first utterance of butt plug in Midsummer Murders.
Speaker 1:Do you know why her trunks is not wanted on voyage?
Speaker 2:I am still stunned that Jones said butt I'm
Speaker 1:trying to shake that off. I'm like, change the topic. Let's talk about not wanted on voyage. It's a tag that means when you're getting on a ship, that this is not a trunk that you need in your cabin. You won't be accessing anything in it during
Speaker 2:the Get in the hold.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So they can put it in the hold and but you can't get to it if they do that.
Speaker 2:So But
Speaker 1:Yeah. So don't say it again. You're gonna say it again. I can see it on your face. You're gonna say it again.
Speaker 1:I can't hear you. You didn't say it. Orchard drops off groceries to Malcolm's parents.
Speaker 2:Yes. He does.
Speaker 1:Don't say it again. You're horrible.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure what Liz is drinking at one point, but it's not wine. It doesn't pour like wine. It doesn't look like wine.
Speaker 1:It's grape juice in a bottle.
Speaker 2:Something different.
Speaker 1:She can't stand to have that glass be less than half full. She just keeps topping it off and drinking it down. Could you go
Speaker 2:Joe goes back to the house. Do you think you could sleep in there?
Speaker 1:No. No way. She has a
Speaker 2:nice little polar bear mug where polar bears are hugging.
Speaker 1:There is a nice little moment in the midst of all of that where George says to John, I'm glad you're here. Yeah. Like, okay. So that's official. They get along now.
Speaker 2:Well, what we're doing is building up to because the next episode is George's last one.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:So
Speaker 1:So when poor Joe is at her table talking about Fran, her second friend who's been killed.
Speaker 2:Yes. Are all Jo's friends dying? Yes. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:They are. There's a wooden support beam, I guess. Yep. Next to her dining room table and there is a little poster on it. It's not really a poster.
Speaker 1:It's like an eight and a half by 11 sheet of paper. But it looks like parchment. Yep. And it's got some printing on it. And I think I've seen it in another episode of Midsommar, but I couldn't read it in that episode.
Speaker 1:I was in what it was. I'm not sure why you would have this in your house. I looked it up. Okay. Because what I could read of it is go placidly amid the noise and the haste and remember what peace there may be in silence.
Speaker 1:Okay. There's about 500 words on this page.
Speaker 2:It's like a poem.
Speaker 1:But that's the largest part.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:It's a poem called Desiderata, which is Latin for things desired.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And it was written in the twenties by Max Airman, was an American poet. Okay. The next line is, as far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly and listen to others even to the dull and the ignorant. They too have a story.
Speaker 1:Okay. It's very nice. Yeah. Is. In the sixties, Leonard Niboy put out an album.
Speaker 1:Yes. That's Spock. Yep. Where he performed Desiderata.
Speaker 2:This is where I know it from.
Speaker 1:But called it Spock Thoughts. Spock Thoughts. But my favorite version of this is one that was published in the National Lampoon magazine called Deteriorada. Yes. Listen to the difference.
Speaker 1:Okay. I'm sorry to to I said I wouldn't say sorry anymore. To be performing poetry with this voice. This is Deteriorada.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Go placidly amidst the noise and waste and remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof. Avoid quiet and passive persons unless you are in need of sleep. Rotate your tires. Speak glowingly of those greater than oneself and heed well their advice even though they be turkeys. Know what to kiss and win.
Speaker 1:Consider that two wrong things never make a right but that three do. Wherever possible put people on hold. Be comforted that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment and despite the changing fortunes of time, there's always a big future in computer maintenance. I love it. It goes on.
Speaker 1:Love it. It's
Speaker 2:so I think it was because like it was a big hippie thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It was. It was a big sixties thing. Yeah. But that's on her wall.
Speaker 1:Desiderata.
Speaker 2:So at this point in time, I'm looking at the clock going, we need to wrap things up. And all of a sudden, David's there in his slicker.
Speaker 1:Who would get married in a village where two people have been killed in the last twenty four hours?
Speaker 2:Oh, I don't know. But luckily, the vicar has his big hitting stick. He's a prick.
Speaker 1:Yeah. If you ask Liz. Yeah. He doesn't look like a prick. He looks like a nice guy.
Speaker 1:She's like the prick vicar. Oh, okay Liz. Which I guess makes sense since she was a registrar and he's the vicar maybe they were in competition for who was going to marry people.
Speaker 2:Maybe. I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 1:So he comes along, David Orchard comes along and he's whistling. Whistling.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:That creeps me out so much.
Speaker 2:That creepy whistling might be one of the creepiest moments of the show. It is creepy. Because Joe can hear it and Joe does like the actress does such a good job of is this in my head or is this real or what's going on?
Speaker 1:He must be a really loud whistler because she can hear him inside.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And he's whistling outside.
Speaker 1:And Bernard is outside going like, what row? What row? Like what am I watching here? But I can't look away because I'm a peeper and I'm gonna peep.
Speaker 2:Well Bernard does the right thing. He goes and gets the cop.
Speaker 1:After David hits the door with a sledgehammer, like he's not in stealth mode anymore. No. It's a little weight. Do you know
Speaker 2:what that song is? It's the wedding march.
Speaker 1:No. That's here comes the bride. Yeah. That's what the song It's not called the wedding march. It's called here comes the bride.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:Do you know where it's from? No. It's from a Wagner opera.
Speaker 2:Oh, because you need to bring Wagner into your marriage. Yes. Wow.
Speaker 1:It's from, Lohengrin, the opera, which is about, one of the grail knights, Percival
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:Who gets sent to save a duchy, I guess that's what you call a place where a duke is in control, right? Yes. Because the duke has died and his widow thinks the kingdom will be lost. So he shows up on a boat pulled by swans and he says, I will save you, I will marry you but you can never ask me my name. Percival.
Speaker 1:So they get married and everything's good and they have children and then one day she just can't stand it. She says, what's your name? And he says, Percival. And then he gets back on his boat pulled by the swans and goes away for forever.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:And that's the song that's played when they get married. A dude.
Speaker 2:Who hates his name, man.
Speaker 1:Now the wedding march. This is the last episode I should be singing in. Yes. The one that you play after the wedding? Yep.
Speaker 1:That is the wedding march.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:From 1842, but it also was not written for a real wedding. It was custom written for a performance of Midsummer Night's Dream. Oh. By Felix Mendelson.
Speaker 2:Nice. It's Mendelson.
Speaker 1:I will not sing anymore. I promise. Now you know. Yes. Man, he busts in that door.
Speaker 1:Well, we've completely skimmed over the fact that the Merrymans are dead.
Speaker 2:Yes. He takes takes them out with a sledgehammer.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And then puts bridal suite do not disturb. Yeah. So creepy.
Speaker 2:Poor Melco.
Speaker 1:And decorates a car out in the parking lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah. He
Speaker 1:is. Why didn't anybody notice that?
Speaker 2:He's Looney Tunes. I thought they
Speaker 1:were gonna be in the car the first time I
Speaker 2:saw Yeah. I thought so too.
Speaker 1:So then so he busts in the door. He's looking for he's whistling. He's saying, oh, this is the best. This is the most important day of your life. Yep.
Speaker 1:You're gonna get married. Yep. Psycho. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:David is here to kill you.
Speaker 1:That vinyl squeak.
Speaker 2:Ugh. But Joan saves the day.
Speaker 1:But they don't solve this case. No. They catch him, but they don't solve it. I mean, I think Barnaby kind of gets at his motive by looking around in his room, but it took him five minutes. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But they don't solve this case.
Speaker 2:What do you mean by they don't solve it?
Speaker 1:They don't know who it is until they catch him because he's about to kill somebody. Yeah. They aren't like, oh my gosh. I just figured it out. It's David Orchard.
Speaker 1:We gotta go get him right now.
Speaker 2:No. No. No.
Speaker 1:Yeah. They don't solve it. They stop him, but they don't solve it.
Speaker 2:The hardware guy is like, David's trying to kill somebody.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Stop. But it it upsets Barnaby. He's shaking. Joe is so broken.
Speaker 1:Poor Joe. She needs to get away.
Speaker 2:Why would they take him to the school?
Speaker 1:I think they take him to his house because they need to know why he did it, and they know the clues are there.
Speaker 2:They wouldn't actually do that.
Speaker 1:They would never there's tons of things the police would never do that they do in midsummer. Come on. No gloves. Yes. They would take him to the station and then they would search his house.
Speaker 1:But it's much creepier that he's sitting there at his own dining room table with his handcuffs on drinking tea acting like nothing ever happened. He's good Yeah. He's a very good actor. Well, and he's been in Midsummer before. So that's his name is Adrian Rollins.
Speaker 1:He was also in Tainted Fruit. Yes. They ripened by their own corruption.
Speaker 2:Yes. He got thrown on the The
Speaker 1:farm Farming implement. Yeah. The thresher or whatever it is.
Speaker 2:I have an important question.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:In the flashback
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Do you think that's Fran's actual ass or that's a guest ass?
Speaker 1:A a stunt ass? Stunt ass. I don't know. It's a lot of effort to go through for one tiny scene to get a stunt ass, but it just depends whether the actress is comfortable with that or not. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's all He's about to start sawing at her thighs.
Speaker 2:It's a brave brave actress whoever it is.
Speaker 1:Laying on the gravel. Yeah. With a bare butt. Yep. But it's a real butt.
Speaker 1:It's not it's not a fake butt.
Speaker 2:I was pushed for time so I couldn't think of a murder to attach this one to.
Speaker 3:That might be my favorite part of the episode. It's
Speaker 2:just like,
Speaker 1:I was rushed. Well, Diane sent, so she had to to go. Joe had an affair with the Merryman, so she had to go. Fran was gay, so she had to go. And mister and missus Merryman, well, never got married, so they had to go.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Okay. Apparently, David Orchard's perfect. He's never done anything wrong except kill a whole bunch of people. Looney Tunes.
Speaker 1:You got a
Speaker 2:wife from a letter from your ex girlfriend. It's very brief.
Speaker 1:Brief. Yep. But Barnaby is shaken up. His hands are shaking.
Speaker 2:He is obviously upset.
Speaker 1:And then he doesn't understand how lipstick works, so he thinks he can clean it off with a towel. Yep. I
Speaker 2:have the exact same note. Barnaby clearly does not understand lipstick or chain of evidence.
Speaker 1:Alright. Because
Speaker 2:that's mirror would have been taken out of there.
Speaker 1:Maybe. I don't know. They would have photographed it a bunch. Alright. Best corpse.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm gonna go Fran because it's right on her face and she does such a good job. And if that's Fran's ass, she also does a good job in the reenactment.
Speaker 1:Even if it's not, she's still face down in gravel pretending to be dead. Yes. And she's also dead in the basket. Yep. But it's a close thing with Diane because Diane's in that water a lot.
Speaker 2:I hope it was warm water.
Speaker 1:But I'll give it to Fran only because Diane is really not in the episode other than that. And and Fran plays the world's nicest lady and then a corpse. So Yeah. She edges him out. Yes.
Speaker 1:Edges her out. After the credits. Wow. Malcolm goes on to reinvent himself.
Speaker 2:Start with Joe and her inevitable therapy bill.
Speaker 1:Joe goes away for a little bit, gets some help. Yes. And then starts over.
Speaker 2:Yes. Go Joe. Malcolm goes away for a little while, gets some help, starts over.
Speaker 1:Malcolm sells the gas station in the house, cashes in, starts over.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think so. Yvonne should do the same thing. She should get rid of Bernard.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. He's so horrible.
Speaker 2:And now Sam is the only man in town.
Speaker 1:Oh, no. Matt's still there.
Speaker 2:Well, the only eligible man in town.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. So he's got the market. I don't know you're saying.
Speaker 2:I wish we'd see Nikki and Matt in some more episodes. Like, he has passed with Jones.
Speaker 1:I hate him so much. I don't wanna see him anymore. So He's so bad. But I could see them coming back in another episode having committed a crime.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know? Absolutely. I guess they just keep running the pub. I guess. The next murder is going to be Yvonne killing Bernard.
Speaker 2:Yeah. If I was Bernard, I would be checking over my shoulder.
Speaker 1:Uh-huh. And that is echoes of the dead. Wow. Who's echoing? I don't know.
Speaker 2:Well, it's echoes from the the past crimes.
Speaker 1:Two of them. Yes. But not the Merryman.
Speaker 2:I didn't have time.
Speaker 1:And and not Joe. No. Because Joe's just gonna get sledge hammered too. No. He's got the ribbon out.
Speaker 1:He's gonna strangle her.
Speaker 2:He's gonna strangle her too.
Speaker 1:Maybe she's gonna go in the bathtub.
Speaker 2:Maybe.
Speaker 1:Because he did the the guy who did those did do three wives.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think she's got he's got plans to put her in the bathtub.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Maybe maybe Nikki was gonna be the number three.
Speaker 2:Nikki's a victim that should have happened.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You wanna talk about sinners?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:She's eligible for the treatment.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think if they had I they got to the point where they were like, oh, we need to wrap up here. Yeah.
Speaker 1:We can't let him go on a spree.
Speaker 2:There's not enough people left in town. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Otherwise, there would just be like the sad men club left and Joe. Yes. Oh, well, that's Echoes of the Dead. What's our next episode? What's episode four of season fourteen?
Speaker 2:First of all, you can find Midsommar Maniacs on Twitter, Instagram, and email. Also, post on the Facebook groups as we mentioned and Midsommar for Midsommarican Acorn and the subreddit where we find other maniacs. If you're watching on YouTube, please like and subscribe and ring that bell. It helps us out. So it helps more people find the podcast.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. So next episode is 85, which is season fourteen episode three. No. Episode four. Episode four, the oblong murders.
Speaker 1:Oh, weird cults. Weird And Jones undercover. Jones undercover. Without a cell phone. Yes.
Speaker 1:What's going to happen?
Speaker 2:Yes. And nakedness and
Speaker 1:And they say the word oblong a lot.
Speaker 2:They
Speaker 1:do. Oblong. Oblong. They do. It's not as good as the donk.
Speaker 2:Nope. Jones says butt plug.
Speaker 1:You had to do it, didn't you?
Speaker 2:I did.
Speaker 1:Oh, man. Bye, maniacs.
Speaker 2:Bye, maniacs.
Speaker 1:Guys are Racing bicyclists.
Speaker 2:Bicyclists. Bicyclists. Ah, cyclists. Yes. Wow.
Speaker 2:That's going on the end of the episode.
