Special Feature: Inspector Lewis: The Academic Body Count, Season 3 Part 2

The Oxford University of ITV/PBS's Inspector Lewis is a dangerous world for academics, and in this series I bring you the lowdown on who in the academic community is most likely to kill be or be killed.  This post gives the details for episodes 4-5 of US Season Three.  Here’s a link to all previous posts in the series (in reverse order).

Ah, Season 3, we hardly knew you!  It’s only two episodes shorter than Season 2, but the difference feels much greater for some reason.  These two episodes bring us five murders.  One victim is an undergrad, one is a faculty member (of sorts), and three are unaffiliated with the university.  There are no university-affiliated murderers here, but the events of both episodes have everything to do with the victims and/or murderer’s college days.  This theme of the past coming back to haunt you is very prevalent here and episode 3.5, in particular, is very creepy in that regard.

Season 3 brings us a total of thirteen victims (two episodes have three victims instead of the usual two).  Of those, one is an undergrad, three are faculty, one is an administrator, and one is staff.  The remaining seven (just over 50%) are unaffiliated with the university.  Of the six murders (episode 3.5 has two), only one, a staff member, is university-affiliated.  I have to say, season three suggests that the university is a pretty dangerous place, but not because of those who work and go to school there!  You’re much more likely to be killed by someone outside the university than someone within it, and employees are in a lot more danger than students this season.  Also, I’m curious to rewatch seasons 5-7, because I remember thinking that there were quite a few grad students murdered on this show, and to this point not a single one has met his or her end at the hands of one of Oxford’s many deranged killers.  Maybe it’s just that grad school feels so deadly that one assumes that on a show like this, it must be.  Hmmm…  Anyway, Season Three suggests that while it’s probably safe to go to school at Oxford, you might want to think twice about working there, and watch out for your old college friends.

If you haven’t seen the season, here’s the Amazon link.  It’s included with Prime if you have it.

Details for Episodes 3.4-3.5 below the cut.  Contains spoilers.

Episode 3.4, “Your Sudden Death Question”

Original Air Date: September 19, 2010

I always find this episode a bit odd.  I mean, I love a good night of pub trivia, but spending a whole weekend at Oxford just playing quizzes, and taking it seriously?  Weird.  That bit of personal reaction of the way, let’s get to the episode.  Obviously, it concerns a group of people of a Quiz Weekend at an Oxford college.  They’ve paid good money for the chance to spend several nights in dorm rooms, answer silly questions, and possibly win $5,000 at the end of it.  The teams include new mothers, soldiers, teachers, lawyers, students, and Oxford dons, and the first victim is Ethan Croft, one of the teachers.  Croft, it turns out, used to do high-level translation work for the government and once worked on a project with one of the lawyers and one of the dons (an engineering prof).  The two were involved in a dodgy deal with some Russians, and Croft had decided to reveal what he knew.  At the quiz weekend, he has an affair with single mom Eve Rigby, so when the dirty-dealing lawyer finds out that Croft told her what he knew, he decided to kill to both of them.  There was certainly a faculty accomplice here, and the students find the bodies, plus the whole thing is set on the University campus, so there’s plenty of university involvement even though neither the victims nor the murderer is directly affiliated at the time of murders.  Also, this is another one where these people knew each other in their Oxfordian pasts and are now living out the consequences of that acquaintance—a common theme in this show is that you can’t escape your college days.  Yikes!

Totals: Two victims, both unaffiliated.  One murderer, unaffiliated.  One faculty member is an accomplice and another is a person of interest, and two undergrads find bodies (these Oxford students are going to need a lot of therapy in later life). 

Lesson: Um, try to avoid being shut up in an Oxford college for three days with someone you know to be sketchy?  Also, be careful who you sleep with, especially if they seem to be revealing that they know state secrets.

Episode 3.5, “Falling Darkness”

Original Air Date: September 26, 2010

This episode puts our favorite clarinet-playing ME front and center, and/but it’s very, very creepy.  It starts on Halloween, which is appropriate, and I recommend stalking up on chocolate before watching.  In the opening scene, Laura Hobson is on her way to a reunion with Lygeia and Ellen, who were her “flatmates” in college.  Her call to Ellen is interrupted when she’s summoned to a crime scene, where she discovers that the body is Lygeia’s.  Lygeia was a scientist who worked on stem cell research (in an Oxford lab; she seems to be a research professor), and there’s some speculation that her murder is related to her work.  That line of thinking is pretty much discounted when Rowena, an undergrad who lives with several others in the house where Laura et al lived in college, is also found murdered—the day after someone spells “Murder, help me” in those alphabet magnets on the students’ fridge.  Another part of the fridge message leads Lewis and Hathaway to one Mary Gwilliam, a retired nurse, who once arranged adoptions for twins born to… one Laura Hobson.  Does Laura have secrets in her past?  Is she involved in the murders?  Mary can’t help, because she’s dead when our detectives find her.  Eventually, Lewis and Hathaway discover that Lygeia, not Laura, was the twins’ mother.  She was raped by one of her male housemates, who has since committed suicide because of a condition called Fatal Familial Insomnia (which is exactly what it sounds like).

The twins, now a grown man and woman, were adopted by separate families.  They met, fell in love, married, and did not discover their relationship until they were trying to have a baby.  Now, they and their son live across the street from the student house where Rowena lived and where Laura lived before her.  They have also discovered that at least Charlotte, the female twin, inherited the FFI gene.  She’s slowly going mad (it’s unclear whether the man, John, inherited it as well, but he certainly helps his wife carry out her revenge) and the couple is exacting revenge for her condition on the people they believe should have stopped it, including not only Lygeia but also Laura and Ellen.  Rowena is basically collateral damage.  It’s a pretty convoluted plot, but it’s still very, very creepy.

Totals: Three victims; one faculty, one undergrad, one unaffiliated.  Two murderers, unaffiliated.  Several students and alumni are persons of interest. 

Lesson:  Tell the truth.  Lying will come back to haunt you (literally, in this case).  Also, you really can’t escape your college days, no matter how hard you try.