Death in Paradise, Episode Five - An Episode Review

We're over halfway through the series now. So far, we've had a murder in a locked room, a speared bride, a woman who predicted her own death and a person confess to a murder that apparently didn't occur. So what happened this week? I'll tell you.

DI Richard Poole is transporting a convict guilty of embezzlement to Saint Marie to spend his last six months in jail when the convict is stabbed in the back and killed - while chained to Poole. Naturally, what occurs next is a good yelling-at from the commissioner, quickly followed by a full-on murder investigation. With little over a thousand potential suspects, can Richard and his team close the case?

The wife of the victim in the foreground.

It's Detective Inspector Richard Poole's birthday this week, and he's not keen on telling anyone about it. With embarassing parents sending him a singing birthday card, socks, a tie and a jar of mustard as a present and calling him at his place of work to sing him 'Happy Birthday', he doesn't really succeed. When Camille's mother prepares him a lovely big cocktail with a sparkler sticking out from it, he asks for it to be taken away and to just be given a cup of tea with 'no form of incendiary attatched'. Well, I say ask, but I mean snap.

   Of course, this is a side feature to the whole episode. The real problem to solve in this episode is the murder of a man guilty of stealing around two million dollars from Saint Marie residents while he is aboard a boat carrying lots of folk and linked to the good DI via handcuff. If that's not an audacious murder with embarassing consequences for Richard, then what is?

   The idea is good. In some ways it's a perfect murder. There are so many people on board that any one of them could be the killer, so the investigators have too many suspects at hand. Also, the use of an unremarkable weapon makes it almost impossible to track, even if you did want to go the long way round and attempt to trace it. There's very little to go on as far as evidence goes - little or no forensics to be had. This annoys me greatly, because I like forensics (and most of the time hate CSI - I may tell you about that some other time) and a distinct lack of tangible evidence deprives me of the proper knowledge to solve the case myself. I like solving the case myself. It's fun.

   In the character department, we have the usual selection of suspects coupled with one or two new faces who are set to return. One of these such people is a woman who we shall grant the codename 'Mad Woman'. This is because she is indeed completely nuts and drives me insane.

   Crazy woman is due to make a reappearance later in the series, so I'll give you the lowdown on her. Addicted to crime and murder, she appears to find it fun to witness a murder and then thrilled to be seen as a suspect. A complete basket case, she memorises facts and figures from 'Murders Monthly', her favourite magazine, or so it seems. She manages to make a fool of herself in front of Richard by reciting percentage chances that the murderer is a member of the public who didn't even know the victim. She drives me round the bend. She also manages to provide a key shred of knowledge that helps Richard close the case. She is an interesting character indeed, this Mad Woman. And I hate her.

   It's dawning on me at this point that I like very little about this episode.

   The other characters remain good and cool. DI Poole is as uptight as usual, and Camille seems to be hinting at taking a liking to him. He even goes as far as taking a step towards apologising for an earlier act at one point, though it's soon counteracted in true Poole fashion. Meanwhile, Fidel and Dwayne are busy with a case of their own: they're trying to catch the elusive thief that's haunting the market. Apparently an old woman, there's more to her than it seems.

   The distraction for Fidel and Dwayne serves as something to further irritate me. The thief in the marketplace doesn't really add much to the story at all, and takes them away from working on the case - although for Dwayne, it's only for a short time near the end of the thing.

   The conclusion to the whole thing was clever, but also with all manner of loopholes in it. I won't bore you with the details, but the question I have in my mind is: why? Particularly after the *cough* second murder *cough cough*. The motive to that one is clear, yet at the same time not so great. Why?

So, to ratings. I'm going to be mean and grant it a five. It certainly wasn't as clever as episode three of the series, what with the voodoo prophecy and all that good stuff. There just wasn't any forensic evidence, the suspects were too numerous and I find it hard to believe that nobody saw the murderer committing the crime. The appearance of the Mad Woman also further vexed me. Thankfully, she is a fictional character. However, the side story of it being Richard's birthday elicited some laughs from myself and another viewer that I shall not mention either my relation to nor their name. This humourous side to the whole episode is its redeeming feature, possibly the only one keeping me from announcing a lower score than five, which wouldn't be good at all.

   I am sorry to say that this is possibly my least liked episode so far out of the series. However, there's always next week.

   Speaking of next week, you know how I didn't get enough of Fidel and Dwayne this week? Well, they have an impossible murder to solve all by themselves next week!