The episode involves the resolution of parentage of two children by two investigators. One via notes of the victim of the episode; one via the work of recurring character Freddie Pink. The moral: knowledge and disclosure are the best course.
2 Reviews
I once was lost but now am found.
miles-3310830 November 2016
Warning: Spoilers
A man running through the woods at night is caught in an animal trap, and is found dead the next morning by the trapper. Constable Higgins has found a wild girl locked up in a cage, and is convinced she killed the man in the trap. The Constable paid 10¢ previously to view the wild child, and while he and Murdoch are talking, the girl's minder, Mick Travis, turns up, and tells them the show is not open yet, but they must still pay 10¢ each to see her.
Back at the morgue, Rebecca James has finished her first post-mortem examination, on Mrs Braxton, the woman bank robber who died falling down the bank steps when her husband Nigel was killed by Inspector Brackenreid, and whose baby Roland the Murdochs have been raising. She has a very discomforting finding: the woman's ovaries are missing, so that Roland cannot have been her son.
Back at Police Station 4, Mick Travis is telling Detective Murdoch that he found the wild girl not in Borneo as his show's advertising states, but in the Appalachian Mountains, ten years or so previously. He also has paperwork to prove that she belongs to him.
Dr Ogden tells Murdoch that the man in the trap died from loss of blood; he had been stabbed in the back, and might have survived if it were not for the trap. It is murder. Meanwhile, having learned that Roland is not the child of the Braxtons, Dr Ogden has hired Freddie Pink to find his real parents. Freddie takes care to verify that Julia really does want to know the truth.
When Travis is released from the Police Station, he gets back to his tent to discover that the wild child has escaped. Murdoch examines the padlock on the cage and sees it defective, so she could have been out of the cell on the night of the murder. Police and local farmers organise a hunt for the wild child in the woods as night falls. Murdoch equips himself and Crabtree with Murdoch's night goggles, which gives them an advantage in the hunt, and soon Crabtree has found her, but to their surprise, she had been tethered to a tree.
Murdoch arranges for the wild child to be taken to the Asylum, there to be placed in the care of Dr Ogden. There, Dr Ogden bathes her, combs her hair and dresses her in normal girl clothes. The transformation is remarkable. The wild child, whom Dr Ogden calls Fen, does not seem to have a spoken language, and keeps on making gestures by tapping her chest with her arm. She seems to take a great interest in baby Roland when Murdoch brings him to the Asylum.
Freddie Pink meets with Dr Ogden and explains what she has found. Before her career as a bank robber, Mrs Braxton had been a midwife, and there had been complications at Roland's birth from which the mother died. Mrs Braxton had reported that there was no baby born, and kept the child. The baby's father had been working away from home and accepted the official report. Thus the real mother was dead, as were the Braxtons, and the father had no knowledge of the child. Julia was effectively free to keep him without hurting anyone. However, Julia knows she could not keep such a profound secret from William.
So, what will Julia do? What will become of Fen? Who was the man, caught in the trap? Who stabbed him? And why? What kind of paperwork permits Travis to keep Fen caged and unkempt?
This is a frenetic episode, with questions multiplying at every turn. It makes for compelling viewing.
Back at the morgue, Rebecca James has finished her first post-mortem examination, on Mrs Braxton, the woman bank robber who died falling down the bank steps when her husband Nigel was killed by Inspector Brackenreid, and whose baby Roland the Murdochs have been raising. She has a very discomforting finding: the woman's ovaries are missing, so that Roland cannot have been her son.
Back at Police Station 4, Mick Travis is telling Detective Murdoch that he found the wild girl not in Borneo as his show's advertising states, but in the Appalachian Mountains, ten years or so previously. He also has paperwork to prove that she belongs to him.
Dr Ogden tells Murdoch that the man in the trap died from loss of blood; he had been stabbed in the back, and might have survived if it were not for the trap. It is murder. Meanwhile, having learned that Roland is not the child of the Braxtons, Dr Ogden has hired Freddie Pink to find his real parents. Freddie takes care to verify that Julia really does want to know the truth.
When Travis is released from the Police Station, he gets back to his tent to discover that the wild child has escaped. Murdoch examines the padlock on the cage and sees it defective, so she could have been out of the cell on the night of the murder. Police and local farmers organise a hunt for the wild child in the woods as night falls. Murdoch equips himself and Crabtree with Murdoch's night goggles, which gives them an advantage in the hunt, and soon Crabtree has found her, but to their surprise, she had been tethered to a tree.
Murdoch arranges for the wild child to be taken to the Asylum, there to be placed in the care of Dr Ogden. There, Dr Ogden bathes her, combs her hair and dresses her in normal girl clothes. The transformation is remarkable. The wild child, whom Dr Ogden calls Fen, does not seem to have a spoken language, and keeps on making gestures by tapping her chest with her arm. She seems to take a great interest in baby Roland when Murdoch brings him to the Asylum.
Freddie Pink meets with Dr Ogden and explains what she has found. Before her career as a bank robber, Mrs Braxton had been a midwife, and there had been complications at Roland's birth from which the mother died. Mrs Braxton had reported that there was no baby born, and kept the child. The baby's father had been working away from home and accepted the official report. Thus the real mother was dead, as were the Braxtons, and the father had no knowledge of the child. Julia was effectively free to keep him without hurting anyone. However, Julia knows she could not keep such a profound secret from William.
So, what will Julia do? What will become of Fen? Who was the man, caught in the trap? Who stabbed him? And why? What kind of paperwork permits Travis to keep Fen caged and unkempt?
This is a frenetic episode, with questions multiplying at every turn. It makes for compelling viewing.
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