Ninety minutes after the first British person is dispatched in some sleepy, picturesque corner of Midsomer County, Tom Barnaby brings the murderer(s) to accord. In that ninety minutes, four people were murdered, one of whom was a teenager, another of whom was a woman on her wedding day in her wedding dress – thus confirming the greatest fears of 45% of society.
You know when someone’s about to get it. They’re alone, content, relaxed maybe, but then something happens that alerts their attention. They go to inspect. You, as viewer, can do nothing but wait for the inevitable. Will it be a repeated ashtray bludgeon to the skull? Will it be a shotgun blast to the face? We can wait and see.
I let out a sigh of relief. Tom has wrapped things up with the good-humored help of DS Troy. Troy will have been teased, fed, or whipped in the face throughout the episode. He needs a break.
In the kitchen my dad watches Harm Rabb bring down some bad marines. He wraps things up and goes on his merry way as the credits roll. I go upstairs to check on my mom, who is just in the middle of Jesicca Fletcher’s dénouement. She lays out such a good argument and logical sequence of events that even the bad guy nods in appreciation as he’s led away by Tom Bosley as he curb stomps a Maine accent. All is well here. I go back downstairs to my bedroom, which is the living room.
There’s no mystery as to why we love mysteries in my house. In the first place, it’s damn fun to watch fictional British people get killed by other fictional British people. Damn fun. Second, you have the joy of trying to figure out who did it. In the case of Midsomer Murders, this is narrowed down to the three people in the episode who haven’t already been murdered. (hint: it’s someone very angry)
But moreover, real life is hard. There are things to worry about every day – health, stress, work, your boss or your asshole neighbors (who the residents of Midsomer take care of by just…running down with a tractor or pushing into a quarry). Then there’s the surprise bills, the late notices, and the relaxing weekend stolen by a last-second job. If you’re American or anyone in the world who has a brain, then heaped upon that is the unsurmountable stress brought on by Donald Trump. This man is a menace and an unrelenting stream of angry, crazy shit at a third-grade reading level. There is not a moment’s rest with this orange sack of shit in your life. And he just won’t go away. And, the worst part it, he could succeed. He might win. He might steal the election. It has proven insurmountably difficult to bring this clear criminal to accord. He is called Teflon Don for a reason. This is the real world.
So why wouldn’t the fictional world of good guys and bad guys appeal? At the end of the day, I know Barnaby and Troy will catch their man. Or their eighty-year-old housemaid who’s avenging 160 years of a familial snub. It’s clear-cut, done, I turn off the TV with a satisfying sigh.
It has its unintended side effects, however. Everyone is in bed and I get my bed ready and a reading light to crack open a book. Before I do that, however, I check the side door, unlock it then lock it. I check the office door, locking the two bathroom locks in between me and the front door. I lock the door to the basement, the storm door, and the three locks on the front door. I open the mudroom door to get a bottle of water and nearly pee myself when a jacking hanging up under a globe looked like the world’s biggest headed murderer. I lie in bed and read two-to-three words at a time before I glare around the room to make sure I’m not about to be set on fire (season 3, episode 4) or beaten to death with a leg of lamb (season 2, episode 2). I sleep maybe four hours a night, not in continuity.
Four days ago I visited my sister for our annual celebration of life and ethanal alcohol. We sat at her pub and watched sports, chatted with her friends, and sipped drinks. When a man called Brian walked behind the bar – a man everyone clearly knew like he was a relative – they asked him ‘where’s Jan?’
‘Needed the night off,’ Brian said.
‘Oh, is that right.’ I jotted the information in my notebook.
Lieutenant Columbo always said ‘When people don’t do what they usually do or they do something different, that sets off a little alarm in my head.’
And such is the case with me. After the bartender’s claim, I make one more note:
JAN DEAD.
My theory was burst out of the water an hour later when Jan showed up happy and healthy and not at all dead and bloated as they do in Midsomer County. Still, I kept my eye on Brian. I also kept my eye on the leary-chinned waitress who the next morning winked at me and then brought me a coffee. It’s possible she had an eyelash, but you never know. Nor did I know why my niece handed me a piece of ham first, nor why my nephew came in and sat next to me on the couch while I was watching baseball, nor why my 4-year-old niece made me hold her mermaid dolls. But I was fine. I handed that ham to my mom instead, I turned baseball off and began singing at my nephew – that got rid of him. And mermaids? I don’t think so. I put those things in the tub under a bucket.
When everyone’s out to get you, paranoia’s just good thinking.
