MAJOR SPOILERS
I found this to be one of the weaker Midsomer Murder mysteries, for two reasons.
1. From a general "who-done-it point" of view, it felt like there were too few suspects. The Plummer family were the primary suspects, and that meant 4 suspects, since it was unlikely that the elderly mother was the killer (although I suppose she could have been the mastermind).
I am not one of those viewers who believe that you need multiple murders to make an episode interesting. But I do think you need multiple suspects, with various possible motives.
2. It seems to me that no matter how you look at it, killing Dexter Lockwood made no sense from the murderer's point of view.
Dexter Lockwood was the only one who could get the murderer a large chunk of money, after the sale of the factory and property. (Presumably Dexter had some sort of an agreement--written?--with the murderer). What possible benefit was there for the murderer in killing him?
The rationale given by Barnaby is that the murderer was afraid that Dexter was revealing something, a valuation report on the property. But that assumes that Dexter is about to betray the murderer.
But nothing that Dexter could have revealed, would have been to the detriment of the murderer, since, given the circumstances, anything revealed would have also jeopardized the sale for Dexter.
Th only possibility that makes sense, I suppose, is that the murder was a "spur of the moment" panic reaction. But that's weak, given who the murderer ended up being.
The episode still had fun characters. I particularly enjoyed the elderly mother, played by Annette Crosbie.
I found this to be one of the weaker Midsomer Murder mysteries, for two reasons.
1. From a general "who-done-it point" of view, it felt like there were too few suspects. The Plummer family were the primary suspects, and that meant 4 suspects, since it was unlikely that the elderly mother was the killer (although I suppose she could have been the mastermind).
I am not one of those viewers who believe that you need multiple murders to make an episode interesting. But I do think you need multiple suspects, with various possible motives.
2. It seems to me that no matter how you look at it, killing Dexter Lockwood made no sense from the murderer's point of view.
Dexter Lockwood was the only one who could get the murderer a large chunk of money, after the sale of the factory and property. (Presumably Dexter had some sort of an agreement--written?--with the murderer). What possible benefit was there for the murderer in killing him?
The rationale given by Barnaby is that the murderer was afraid that Dexter was revealing something, a valuation report on the property. But that assumes that Dexter is about to betray the murderer.
But nothing that Dexter could have revealed, would have been to the detriment of the murderer, since, given the circumstances, anything revealed would have also jeopardized the sale for Dexter.
Th only possibility that makes sense, I suppose, is that the murder was a "spur of the moment" panic reaction. But that's weak, given who the murderer ended up being.
The episode still had fun characters. I particularly enjoyed the elderly mother, played by Annette Crosbie.