When I recently selected “Midsomer Murders,” Season 5, Episode 7, “Sauce for the Goose,” I did not remember it as one of the stronger episodes. Nor did I remember it at all. But upon rewatch, I’m starting to wonder if this 2005 ep is the show’s finest. Finest, that is, after the first two of Season 1, which are, like, art. But “Sauce for the Goose” is maybe the perfect non-pilot-type “Midsomer.” The “Midsomer” tropes are all well-represented and well (uh) executed. Such as:
Casting
Hugo from “The Vicar of Dibley” appears as… himself? The name is different, as is the wife (more on her in a moment), but he’s a similarly slow-witted idle rich gent. And Margaret Meldrew from “One Foot in the Grave” is the possibly-batty, possibly-with-it Plummer family matriarch! With, of course, a tragic-romantic past.
And then there’s the fact that it’s a D.S. Scott episode, which is, for me, always a plus.
Decadent rich people
As with basically every “Midsomer,” there are family grudges, old histories from the right and wrong side of the tracks. The working-class side of things isn’t very developed but oh, is the upscale!
The mid-life brother-and-sister layabouts (the brother is named “Anselm”), heirs to the Plummer relish fortune (‘fortune’), squabble and accuse each other of idleness and, on one occasion, murder. Their posh-loser-sibling banter is extremely funny. It should have a spin-off sitcom, ala “Frasier.”
Sexual deviancy
This is the ne plus ultra of “Midsomer” tropes. Something a bit sexy but also a bit strange is happening behind closed doors, or in the stables, or the woods, or… you get the idea. And sexy, on “Midsomer,” means a sultry older woman, “older” as in anywhere from middle-aged to quite elderly. “Midsomer” is very much not a universe where a 27-year-old can play a matron.
So anyway in this episode, there’s a twist. A sexy red herring. You think what’s happening is, Scott is falling for the sultry blonde 40-something-plus “novelist,” and that she did the murder, and that he’s too blinded by thirst to realize this. But then there’s this incredibly subtle scene in a pub where Scott is with her, while Barnaby’s sitting at a different table with not-Hugo’s wife, a prim, cardigan-wearing, but ooh possibly a bit Barnaby’s type (older, professionally accomplished, physically a bit like Joyce Barnaby but a totally different personality).
As the scene moves along, you slowly start to see that while the novelist is doing her best Rose-from-“Keeping Up Appearances” attempt at seducing Scott, the hot young man who happens to be in the vicinity, the real chemistry is between Barnaby and Mrs. Prim Cardigan. This is going to be your clue about the murder. And yes, there is just the one.
The murder itself
Simply being crushed to death by a forklift full of folksy relish jars is already a top-notch way to be Midsomer’d. But that the body itself is then hidden in the relish-jar sterilizing equipment, such that it is found nude and sort of… cooked, goose-like, this is weird stuff. More gruesome than most, almost more “Inside No. 9” than “Midsomer” (actually goes for much of the ep now that I think of it) but so silly as to be fine to watch even for the squeamish.
DS Scott heresy right here in public :(
Sergeant Troy 4EVAH