MARLOW MURDER CLUB: SEASON FINALE ....

I KNOW, I KNOW ... I should have written a review of this by now ... 

but you will have to wait a litle longer ...

I've watched it ... but I'm not quite sure how to write what I saw without giving too much away ...

I mean - it's more than just a "Spoiler Alert" ... it's going to be very tough not to simply blurt it out ...

It was a good one though ....

Although -I think they painted the men .... all of them ... as great "pratts" ... sexist people of questionable parentage ....and, that's really unfair ... while one or two of the poicemen were pricks, the rest of them are simply ... people - they've got their own things to worry about.

Even Beck's husband is hit with this wide brush ... quite unfairly too ...

So - let's see ...

I will have to do the review of this episode later ...

I have it saved on my DVR for now ... so I can watch it again ...

And since they called it a "Season Finale" ... I am hopeful that there will be a season 2 ...

But then .... I've been disappointed by this promise before .... 

They said "season finale" for "Home Fires" as well ... only we never got Season 2 - at least not at my PBS station ..... 

and I really want to know who was in the plane that smashed into the town's church!

MARLOW MURDER CLUB: SEASON 1, EPISODE 3 .... i think

With the election last week, and my having a flu, I'm afraid I don't really know if I've lost a week or not ... but I don't think so

The ladies are up to their sleuthing still ... yet ... and Judith still hasn't learned to use a cell phone yet ....

but I'm jumping ahead already ...

Okay - I have to say ... for being a British show, and they are supposed to be way ahead of the USA on "equality" issues -- there's one male detective who needs a trip to HR ... or is it HC now??

Anyways - he is so condescending it almost makes him unbelievable .... Tikka (the lead detective) announces that she's bringing in the Club as "civilan consultants"  .... she has her supervisors okay to do this, so it's not like she's gone rogue ... but this - and pardon the potty fingers here - this ASS keeps giving Tikka grief over bringing them in.

But the three ladies (Judith/Susan/Beck) have done more than the police have!

In this episode, the ladies find out thatt there was a mysterious red-headed woman at the funeral of victim #1 (Judith's neighbor) - Beck says she remembers seeing her there and she knows the woman from her yoga class ....

The ladies go to speak to this woman ... and somehow get some trash she threw away - which they take to the police o get fingerprints off of ... 

They also find out that she had used the taxi service tha victim #2 provided, but she said she had never known him .... so the ladies go to his house, because Susan has his huose-keys - she needs those to be able to pick up/drop off the dog if he isn't home - and she seems to know exactly where to check to see who/where/when he may have picked up the red-head.

Judith opens the taxi drivers mail - which was still being delivered, btw - and reads a letter from a lawyer which the cab driver had hired.

It seems that Luna's previous owner had left all of his estate o the cab driver ... but a few weeks before the man's untimely death, he had gone to see a lawyer who had changed his will ... and appointed himself, the lawyer that is, as sole beneficiary of the will.

The ladies figure out a "sting" operation to see what he would do at the mention of Luna's former owners name .... or was it the taxi driver's name? I don't really recall now ... 

And humor insues!

First, there's Beck's use of code words ... OMG - "the chess piece is moving" for when he leaves the pub where he was eating his lunch ... and it gets better.

He then gets ttailed by Susan - no dogs though - and she almost gets caught while trying to stay on his trail.  You see, she is so intent on him, she didn't see the car driving down the road ,,, who slammed on his breaks to avoid hitting her ....

She hen pops in on the walkie-talkie thingy they are using to let Judith know he is coming her way.

Judith pops ou and says she needs to speak to him abut her aunt ... and then tells a tale, very simular to the swapping of the beneficiariies of Luna's previous owner's will.

I hope you can keep up with all this ...

Judith then sneaks into the law firm - without the lawyer knowing about it - and observes him shredding some papers in his office ... she tells the otthers about it.

Wait - the funny part isn't over yet ...

The gals plot to get the paper out of the shredder ... but they will need a distraction .... Which Beck figures out.
Susan and Judith need some sort of disguise.

Oh my - the entire show is worth seeing how they do this ... 

Beck sneaks up to he break room, where she stuffs jelly sandwiches into a toaster - one of her kids must have done it at one point - to set off the fire alarm.

But things go awry when the office gets evacuated out the front of the building instead of the back as the ladies thought it would .... so much for "fire drills" over in England!

Judith is supposed to be some wheelchair bound woman, Susan her health care aide, and they wait outtside a ground floor window for the evacuation to begin ...

Susan then uses the wheel chair to get enough of a boost to get partially up to the window ... ground floor my Aunt Petunia (I have never had an Aunt Petunia, btw) ... 

Seeing her try to struggle geting her 200 lb self through that window was hilarious!  But she did it ... and she gathered the shreds ...

But when someone finds the toaster, everyone re-enters the building too soon - Susan isn't out yet!
And there's a lawyer which entered the room - but Susan can't be seen - so Beck ttalks the lawyer ino going out for some "fresh air" ...

And Susan crawls ou from ... UNDER THE DESK!!

If she were 120 lbs, maybe - but this gal is 200 lbs and maybe 40-50 years old!  Seeing her crawl out made my back hurt!

So the ladies get away - and then they decide to look at what Susan grabbed ... the shreds ...and discover ...

This isn't going to be as easy as they thought ...

Judith remembers that the lawyer had shredded somehing shiny, like a magazine cover/paper - so hey've narrowed it dwon that far ... at least until Susan finds her fingers are sticky ...

The police in the meanwhile have gottten the fingerprints back from what they gotten from the Club ... and they are a match to the mysterious fingerprints at victim #1's house ...

The police, descend upon the boat club which the red-head and her husband own/operate ... and find her - DEAD - with anoher medallion ... this time it says "charity" on it.

When the husband shows up, he talks to Tikka (head detecive) abut his wife .... Susan is over-hearing the conversation when suddeny her phone rings ....

It's her daughter saying she has heard about the murders and will be coming home ... Susan tries to discourage her, but finally says to call her when she lands and she will pick her daughter up at the airport.

Tikka, who isn't deaf, comes around to where Susan is standing ... Susan pretends to have been checking the tires of the police vehicle ....

Tikka tells her "this isn't a joke" to which Susan replies "I know"

Well, of course she knows -- of all the members of the Club, she was the only one to actually find a body (victim #2)!!!

And that's where the episode ends.

I have left a LOT ou of this - so I highly suggest you find a copy of it someplace ....

or check my past posts to find a link to he audiobook version of it ... but I'm going to guess the humor may not be as obvious.

BODY COUNT this episode: 1

TOTAL BODY COUNT as we know it: 3

MARLOW MURDER CLUB: SEASON 1, EPISODE 1

OMG - so you might have gathered, I'm a bit of a murder mystery fan ... I was going to say "buff" but I don't dive in all that deeply.

I watch/lisen to Agatha Christie quite a bit - I have several posts about the episodes I've seen on PBS ...

I like the BBC series of Grantchester ... oh wait, that's aPBS offering too ...

And then there's Ridley - a new one for me, seems to be set in either Ireland or such ... all the red-heads which show up in the show kind of give it away, but I'm likely wrong ...
Hmmmm .... that's also on PBS ....

Hubby and I used to watch Lovejoy back in the 1990s ... oh so long ago, but very good .... but that's gone off air .... never saw that on PBS though - it was on a cable network, A&E, I think ....

Then there's Sherlock Holmes, in most of it's incarnations (not a huge fan of Robert Downing Jr's take on it hough) .... but Basil Rathbone .... Cumberbatch (at least the first couple seasons, until Mrs. Watson goes all "spy" but that's more writers than anything) .... even Young Sherlock intrigued me ....

Every notice how much Poirot resembles Sherlock? Interesting ... Miss Lemon seems the only difference to me ... oh and the cases, of course.

So .... I have found a NEW .... at least to me - I know most of these shows turn up "across the pond" well before we get them ... so .... anyways ....

THE MARLOW MURDER CLUB

OMG - it has twirled me in from the start ... I'm thinking it is likely to have been a book series first ... it makes me feel as if they have taken Miss Marple and plopped her into he 21st century!

There're cell phones .... computers .... minivans ... dog walkers ... antique pistols, but only a few generations old .... it's quite inticing.

Let's start from the beginning ....

It opens underwater, yup, a canal which butts up against residenal areas - houses, not apartments.
How quaint - to have a trickling creek/brook/canal right outside your backdoor.

An elderly lady, well, 60-70ish, so not tthat much older than me, I guess ... she is doing a crossword puzzle - not one like we know - she appears to be making the grid for it herself, and when she's finished, she snaps a shot of it on her ipad type device and saves it as "July's Crossword".

While working on the puzzle - and this is what drew me in, such a little thing, really - she opens a tin of "Traveler's Sweets".  It took quite a while for it to click in, but once it did .... it connected me to this woman.

You see, when I was a kid ... like grade school .... my mother would pick up for me these little round tins of hard candies.
They were just a little bit of fun to keep in my pockets .... kind of like Altoids are now, but these were actual candies - sweets, not mints.

They were small enough to put in my pocket ... small enough to put in my purse for Sunday Mass .... but too large to get away with taking them to school - teacher's didn't allow us sweets until the week AFTER Halloween, but then we had to bring enough for everyone - and then they'd get annoyed if you actually did it1

There wasn't a lot of candy .... but whatt sweet memories.  I would use my empty tins to hold cough drops, since the crinkling of the plastic on the boxes, or the paper lining of the box, could annoy people.

What a different world we live in now ...

So - now I'm hooked .... even after this old lady goes skinny dipping out in the canal .... they don't show nothing, but still ... yuck ...

Her neighbor puts on some opera - very familiear, but I can't place it - and goes out to sit on a bench in his yard, under a tree, near the canal/brook/creek (not really sure which it is) .... leans back to relax and listen.

Then - BOOM - there's where he gets shot .... well, I've left a bit of detail out .... 

We then get introduced to:
--Miss Judith Potts, the elderly lady, used to be an archeologist, and now is retired
--the female police detective (don' recall her name) who is in charge of the investigation.  Potts deals with her quite a bit.
--the dog walker (don't remember her name eiher), she apparently was waiting for her daughter to visit, but the daughter decided to spend extra time with her dad - I'm sure this will become more significant as time moves along
-- the vicar's new wife, but they don' t say what happened to the old wife ... she has at least 2 step children who don't listen (typical teens) ... and her husband, the vicar, is absolutely dimwitted about everything tha's being piled upon her.
-- the there's people in the village ... the Village of Marlow ... an antiques dealer who is selling forgeries (Miss Potts poins it out), his receptionist, the gal at the place where the victim worked (I think she's a receptionist as well), etc.

You HAVE to see Episode 1 if you want to understand the characters and where they are coming from ....

Death Count so far in the series: 2

The dog walker, after pulling into a driveway of a client, gets off a Facetime call with her daughter who just told her Mom she's not going to be coming home for a bit longer ... the walker then goes up to the client's door, finding it open - and NO DOG - she goes in to make sure he is okay ... and finds him dead.

So the question is .... what do an art seller and this client have in common??

Why were they killed ...

Why does Miss Potts need a posse??

More to come!

You've got to see this new series though ...

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WHY IS THIS EVEN A QUESTION???

About a week or 2 ago, I heard something about the Mendez brothers, Lyle & Eric, were trying once AGAIN to try to get out of prison ....

They are there for KILLING THEIR PARENTS!!!!!

You may not have been around in 1989 when they did it .... and it's actually quite tough to find anything on YouTube which actually deals with the ORIGINAL cases .... I think I found maybe 2, and even then, one of those was clipped to fitt into a series about what happened ....

So here's the jest:

The OLDER SON (I don't know which is which, so I just say older and younger) .... the older son was going to COLLEGE on the EAST COAST (Princeton, I think) ... he was 21 years old (don't call him a kid) ... he had come home, over the summer by the sounds of it, and at the time had intended of returning to New Jersey.

He arrived home in time to attend they YOUNGER BROTHER's high school graduation (he was 18 years old, while yung, legally he was still an ADULT) ... 

From what I can gather, between June graduation and end of July ... there was bickering - the Dad wanted to pick what the YOUNGER son was going to study, and he was going to start by living at HOME during his first year ....

Okay - I've been here .... a good parent would encourage their kid to choose a line of study which will pay the bills first, then once they have a good paying job, they can go back to school to get the Underwater Basketweaving degree.

The YOUNGER son said he was of the opinion that his parents were going to pay for him to live ON HIS OWN ....

I've been here too ... kids hear what they want to hear - whether you really say it or not .... but it's just his word about what the conversation was ....

The OLDER son said that he would move in with the YOUNGER son to keep him out of trouble, as well as ENROLL in college in CA.

Okay - So - somewhere between June and end of July, the YOUNGER brother told the OLDER brother -THEY SAY - about the s-abuse that he said he suffered at their Dad's hands ....

Remember - they were the ONLY ones who were telling this story ... 

Then in AUGUST they went to a gun shop .... in another city - some 1 1/2 hour away from their house .... and attempted to buy handguns .... yep ... the guy who waited on them (don't know if he was just a worker or the owner) testified AT THE TRIAL that they said they needed the guns for self-defense ....

When the guy told them there was a two week waiting period - they were told that shotguns were not covered by that rule .... so the bought 2 shotguns and AMMO right then ....

I have not heard how they paid for them - but they wouldn't have been cheap .... especially in CA in the 1980s ....

Then the story says, the family went on a "fishing trip" .... at the trial the BOAT CAPTAIN testified that the parents went inside, the boys went to the stern of the boat, and NOBODY fished ...

Then they went home .... and all witness statements are gone .... only 2 people remain who know what really happened ... and both of those held shotguns.

Now - when I hear the word "shotgun" I think of a Double Barrel, split in half, manual load type of weapon .... Elmer Fudd style.  But I'm guessing there are other loading systems as well .... even back in 1989.

The parents were watching tv .... together ... on the couch .... 

POLICE say the brothers came into the room after the parents were into the program they were watching, and began shooting ....

If you believe what ONE of the brothers say happened - they didn't aim, they just shot .... BUT ....

While, yes, there were shots from the FRONT of the parens (between the tv and them) which riddled the couch and the French doors behind .... scatter gun style .... someone, one of the brothers, shot their dad in the head POINT BLANK ....
This means they had enouh thought to place the BARREL of the shotgun AGAINST the BACK OF THE HEAD, and pulled the trigger.

And since the majority of the shotts went from Front to Back - it would mean that either the headshot was after the initial shots ended (wait for it) or the other brother MOVED OUT OF THE WAY before the shot occured.

I have never heard anyone ask this question .... it's kind of important ....

It was said that when they ran out of ammo they went OUTSIDE to the car an RELOADED .... at least one did ...

At least one of them, the one who reloaded presumably, went back in .... found his Mom hadn't been killed, so he finished the job by SHOOTING HER IN THE CHEEK .... in other words, he blew her head off too.

Gruesome is not the word for this ....

But .... it ges WORSE .... how??

According to the brothers, they were surprised the police didn't show up ....

They WAITTED FOR THEM in the house with the dead bodies .... but when they didn't show up, they CHANGED heir clothes and WASHED UP (remember, they would have been covered with bits of their parents)

They then went TO THE MOVIES .... so that they could get a MOVIE TICKET to prove they WEREN'T THERE .... but they also found that the tickets had TIME STAMPS on them, so it wasn't going to work ....

So, instead, they went to the "Taste of California" fair ... I know the "Taste of Minnesota" used to be so big, thatt it would have been nearly impossible to get anyone who could have POSITIVELY identified when they saw you there.

They then went home .... remember, they would have had something to EAT at the fair .... cold, man .... they got home ... and they say they thought for sure the cops would have shown up by then .... but .... nope ....

So they waited a little longer .... kicked around what the heck to do ....

The story is, the YOUNGER brother went into the house and saw his parents, and finally broke down screaming .... so the OLDER broher took this time to CALL 911 hmself ...

But he did not say "hey we killed our parents" .... he said "someone shot his parents, and they were dead" ...

You can hear the YOUNGER brother screaming in the background ...

The cops showed up, found the parents, and believed the brothers ... didn't even do a GSR test on them ....

Did I mention that on the way to eiher the movie or the fair, the brothers thught enough to ditch both the guns and their clothes??

The cops figured it was a "mob" hit, because of the shot in the back of the head of the dad ...

So for WEEKS/MONTHS the brothers got to run around FREE .... and they said NOTHING to anybody, at first.

One got a PRIVATE TENNIS COACH ... he was going to become of professional tennis player ((eye roll)) ... it had to be the younger brother ....

The other broher bought a RESTRAUNT in New Jersey (had to be the older brother), a fancy big priced car, and 3 Rolex watches .... who needs 3 watches???

It is said the brothers wen through OVER $400,000 in about a month ....

That kind of raised a red flag for the police ....

GEEZ YOU THINK?????

So .... they have tried every avenue available to them to have the verdict set aside .... to get a re-trial .... whatever it took to get out of jail.

Now remember, they had TWO TRIALS - each - the first trial, where all evidence, all witnesses were put in the witness chair, everything was put out there by their attornies ended in a MISTRIAL ....

A mistrial is where something so aggregious happened during the trial (like protestors outside the building .... remember, the trial was in the 90's .... that it could taint the way the jury looked at the case, or threatened the jury ....

OR .... as in this case, the jury could not agree on a verdict - all it takes is one, 1, juror to hold out for a significant enough time, for the jury to just give up.

Itt's also interesting, that at the time - BOTH brothers were not only tried at the same time, not only did they have seperatte lawyers to represent them, but they also had seperate juries ....

The juries had no interactions with each other, other than being in court at the same time ....

I know that the trial which convicted them beyond a reasonable doubt didn't only convince 12 jurors ... it actually convinced 24 JURORS .... because each defendant had their own set of jurors ...

You might be able to convince 12 people to think all the same ... but 24???  That's a lot tougher to do.

I'm actually surprised this case is being brought back up again ... even 20/20 has released a newer version, a newer look at the case ....

I'm sorry - but if you can find the ORIGIANL Barbara Walters interview of these guys ... and watch closely - you will find only one of them seems to talk, the other only speaks up if the talker seems to either not going to answer "correctly" or seems not to have an answer ...

I think it would have been much better if Barbara had insisted that they be interviewed seperately ... but it's too late now.

I would be likely to believe them, had they at least ONCE gone to someone of AUTHORITY ... remember, the YOUNGER son had just graduated High School - so surely there had to be a teacher, counselor, principal he trusted ...
A parent of a friend - just not from the houses that he had robbed, oh this was the first ime I heard of these too.

There is always the police or child services as well - in 1989 Child Services was very strong in the US, even in CA ... if not more so ... 

The OLDER one, if you believe the YOUNGER ones story, shouldn't be set free no matter what .... he was an ADULT ... he was LIVING ON HIS OWN ... he had plenty of oppotunity to seek help for his brother from less lethal means.

No - I am not for releasing them ...

Mostly because, I don't believe them.

TRAIL 1: Jose Menedez (I think this is Lyle)
Jury make up: 7 women, 5 men
Duration of Trial: 6 months
Deliberation time: 25 days
Possible charges & votes:
3 First Degree
3 Second Degree
6 Voluntary
0 Involuntary

They did not give any other information .... and it seems like this is only for ONE of the brothers, not both.

They did not give ANY stats on the reTrial, at that time, of how the jury was made up, nor what charges were put before them, or how they voted on those charges.

All despite this - they got LIFE sentences ....

5 things you may not know

1. BOTH brothers have gotten married - one of them got divorced and then married AGAIN!!

2. One of them was caught on jail audio (yes, the cells are wired, and they are told about it) speaking to OJ SIMPSOM ... and talking aoubt defense stragedy!!!!

3. They claimed only the father abused them, but during the 20/20 interview, suddenly one of them said Mom did it too .... to which, the oher brother looked at hm like "What??"  Even Barbara Walters mentioned the shocked look 

4. The brothers were dressed EVERY DAY in pull over knit sweaters over polo shirts, to make them appear younger.

5. When giving the eulogy - the "final farewell" - at their father's funeral, one of the brothers (I want to say Lyle) not only bought a $1000 suit, and a Rolex watch (not one of the three mentioned before) ... but he also said, in the eulogy, that his dad said he could "never fill" the dad's shoes -- and then showed that he was wearing similar shoes to those his father had worn (they never said if they were his father actual shoes, so that why I added the modifier)

Its just heartless .... and I understand that IF they had been abused like they said, it would be likely to manifest itself in several different ways .... but this is just .... beyond ....

I will keep you posted ....

I find this story very disturbing ....