2011. Not bad, not great but not too bad, considering this was never one of my favourite stories.
It starts with Miss Marple listening to Macbeth on the radio.
We see father Patrick Gorman taking a dying woman’s confession, he sends his notes to Miss Marple for safekeeping. She reads it in the morning, and right after that she reads in a newspaper that he’s been murdered. She’s very sad by the news because he was a very good man. “Goodness doesn’t seem to count for very much anymore. It’s an unforgiving world and the city is a long way from country life” says the inspector.
At the Pale Horse Inn three women perform a ceremony against someone as if they were witches and in a few days that certain person dies. Actually the only murderer is Osbourne, he goes to the house of these people and plants there something poisoned, like a cream, a lotion, some means to have the skin slowly absorb the poison day by day.
The episode wasn’t bad, but the whole thing with Mr Venables was nonsense. Marple suspected Osbourne because he described the man too well, because he had seen him once... it seemed like a load of nonsense; he only said he saw a scar near the eye when he lighted a match the night of Father Gorman’s murder, which is not “describing too well”; that man was always, constantly at the Pale Horse Inn and yet he only saw him once, casually, not even knowing he was in a wheelchair? Did he never go there, to check things out? Ok I suppose it could be, nobody knew him there, still, described “too well” ? :-/
The story in detail:
Mrs Davis was a market researcher, employed by Osbourne who used her findings to find out what his victims used, so he could substitute something with a poisoned replica. She put together the names of dead people and realised something was off, and for it she got poisoned herself.
She spoke to father Gorman before dying and he sent his letter to Miss Marple before he was murdered. Marple went to the police with the letter, then she went to see the room where Mrs Davis had lived, and she was let in no problem, even left alone in the room, although she clearly was no officer and no relative either. Other times, I guess.
She opened the wardrobe and saw a note in a shoe. The policemen presumably searched the room, the inspector said they did, but didn’t see something that the sharp old lady saw with a glimpse, after a few seconds... anyway, that’s where she finds the Pale Horse Inn name. She goes there and she sees that all those dead people had been guests at the Inn.. why is that, one might wonder. They didn’t need to be. It’s the people who wished them dead that had to go to the Inn for the witches ceremony, not the victims. Doesn’t make much sense..
Anyway, Marple calls Osbourne to take a good look at Mr Venables, only to play with us :-/
Both Ginger and Mark were there for her same reason: someone had died and they were curious.
The ep was nice enough and well done enough, but the ending kind of lost it a bit here and there, didn’t it? Osbourne was always precise, yet he put Marple’s cream bottle back to front so she could notice and avoid the poison. The whole ending was also pointless because he could have been arrested before, there was no need for those tricks, which served the only purpose of inducing him to plant false evidence in Mr Venables’ house. Personally, I thought to pass for someone he wasn’t to gain access into Ginger’s home and to put there some poisoned stuff was rather more significant, and the whole ending was pointless.
I liked the casting and the acting and the places, and the kiss at the end when Mark touched Ginger’s face while Marple was leaving, and he kissed her, although I didn’t like how long they stayed on it, sort of ruining the sweetness of it (not entirely, but almost); I didn’t like the expression he made after killing father Gorman, and the things I mentioned before.
I liked Ginger and Collins, Grey was interesting and captivating. Osbourne was rather interesting too, what a shame for that disappointing scene, still overall a good job.
Miss Marple-Julia McKenzie
Gorman-Nicholas Parsons
Paul Osbourne-J J Feild
Inspector Lejeune-Neil Pearson
Mark Easterbrook-Jonathan Cake
Mr Venables-Nigel Planer
Mrs Grey-Pauline Collins
Ginger Corrigan-Amy Manson
ITA un cavallo per la strega
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