My Life Is Murder (2019) s03e08 – Gaslight Sonata

This episode seems to be setting up “My Life Is Murder: Season Four,” with Lucy Lawless unexpectedly getting an adorable niece played by Nell Fisher, who is apparently not related to anyone in “Murder” but is appearing in the next Evil Dead movie.

Lawless is married to one of the producers or executive producers or whatever. Rob Tapert. Is there a story? Maybe. Does it matter? No, because Fisher’s perfectly good. She’s ten years old and able to cyberstalk already, plus she’s sarcastic, so she’s just what Lawless needs in a protege. Fisher is Lawless’s brother Martin Henderson’s previously unknown little kid, whose mother wants to share custody now Henderson’s out of jail.

Fisher and Lawless have a great scene talking about Henderson. The show’s such an interestingly balanced ensemble this season, though Tatum Warren-Ngata has to sit this one out (to make room for Fisher, perhaps), and Rawiri Jobe again gets very little. Though Fisher does ask for a relationship update on Jobe and Lawless, which is maybe the first time this season they’ve remembered it was a thing.

While Lawless is hanging out with Fisher and doing acerbic but heartfelt bonding, Ebony Vagulans leads the field investigation. There’s a stretch of a camera brooch so Lawless can watch along, but the whole mystery feels stretched this episode. It’s too bad because Chris Hawkshaw, who wrote last episode, has a co-writer credit here with Stephen J. Campbell. The previous episode had a great mystery. This episode has similar trappings—all the suspects live in the same building, so Vagulans can quickly get from interview to interview—but the mystery’s not as good.

I think the death even involves another car.

Last episode, it was a car too. If Campbell wrote the Fisher stuff and they rushed Hawkshaw on a mystery… the episode makes a lot more sense.

Fisher’s a fine addition to the recurring cast; everybody—Lawless, Jobe, Vagulans, Naufahu–will be cute with a kid around. And Henderson’s struggling to do better ex-con makes for a nice character arc.

Really good direction from Kiel McNaughton, regardless of the pat procedural. However, the finale’s very tense, like Hawkshaw wanted to do a Rear Window homage, but there just wasn’t time. They couldn’t set it up and introduce Fisher.

So. Ho hum mystery, engaging characters; it’s a good episode for Vagulans and, of course, Lawless.

My Life Is Murder (2019) s03e07 – Breaking Bread

Dollars to sourdough loaves (it’ll make sense), I think this episode of “My Life Is Murder” is the best-plotted mystery of the season. So far, obviously, but I think it’ll go the distance. It’s an outstanding whodunit, plus Lucy Lawless gets to be petty about her baking.

The episode opens with Ebony Vagulans and Joseph Naufahu watching a YouTube food influencer review Naufahu’s cafe, including Lawless’s sourdough bread. The influencer, played by Mirabai Pease, gives it an okay but unenthusiastic rating, which does not make Lawless happy. Especially not when Rawiri Jobe’s next case involves two rival bread shops. Pease rated Lawless’s bread in seventh, and these two shops are one and two; Auckland’s apparently got a competitive, vindictive bread market.

Star bakers Aidee Walker and Rick Donald were once a married team, but their legendary bickering eventually divorced them. Messily. They owned Donald’s family business together, and when they split, Walker got some of the intellectual property (the heirloom sourdough starter). So Donald opened a spite bakery a few doors down from the original, trying to confuse the customers (the businesses have the same name). It’s hilarious and petty, with Lawless immediately disliking Donald but then not warming to Walker, either.

See, Walker got a new fiancé, and then he died. He drove into a lake while on an early morning delivery run, but something doesn’t add up.

In order to solve the mystery, Lawless will have to buddy up with unlikely allies, bite her tongue about her bread baking, and put up with the unsophisticated bread palates of Jobe and Vagulans.

Because, thank goodness, bread plays into the solution.

Chris Hawkshaw gets the script credit; again, it’s phenomenal. Not just the mystery—but also the mystery. Lawless has great grating chemistry with all the guest stars; she’s got a fellow baker thing with Walker, but Walker’s kind of a dick, Donald condescends to her, she suspects pastry chef Greg Johnson, and then there’s the animosity with Pease. Donald can’t keep up with Lawless, which is the joke, but Walker and Pease return barbs. It’s fun. It’s a fun, good episode.

Even if a recurring guest star only seems to be in the episode to give Lawless her eureka moment. It has to come from somewhere, but the guest star makes it seem shoehorned. But it again pays off.

Nice direction from Kiel McNaughton, too; great timing for the cast, and the limited locations help. There are enough to keep Lawless busy, but they’re constrained enough to be familiar.

It’s a strong episode for Lawless too. Not all that heart she’s been showing this season, just the acerbic capability.

Good stuff.

My Life Is Murder (2019) s02e06 – Sleep No More

Lucy Lawless gets an arc to herself with brother Martin Henderson this episode, and it's almost enough to make up for a lackluster murder. It seems like it'll be enough, but the epilogue is a weird whiff and reminds of the show's inability to land certain things, like jokes at Lawless's expense from Ebony Vagulans. They fall flat, Lawless looks at Vagulans to acknowledge they fall flat, then the show just pretends they work. It's a very weird fail, and one "Murder" can't stop making.

The mystery this episode is a suspicious death at a resort hotel. Bruce Hopkins was locked in the freezer overnight, and copper Rawiri Jobe suspects foul play but can't prove it. So he sends Lawless and Vagulans on holiday to figure it out. Except Henderson's up for parole, so Lawless has to bounce between home and work all episode, allowing for her to look at computer intel because Vagulans apparently doesn't bring a laptop with her to the resort.

There are a handful of suspects. Son-in-law Ryan O'Kane, presumably daughter-in-law (presumably suspect not presumably daughter-in-law) Grace Palmer, and American real estate mogul William Shatner. The widow, Carmel McGlone, was out of the country at the time, which is good because she's super suspicious all the time. Shatner's only it to give Lawless a banter partner she doesn't immediately shut down before she and McGlone can bond over being widows.

It just takes a while because everyone at the hotel assumes Lawless and Vagulans are "dark tourists"—vacationers who go to murder scenes and snoop around—and not there in any official or even consulting capacity. Eventually, McGlone gets better material (while getting more suspicious), and she and Lawless can chill out and pass Bechdel, even with dead husbands to talk about.

McGlone and Palmer give good supporting performances, and then Lawless might give her best performance of the season—it's a muted personal—but it's too bad Vagulans isn't better. Some of it's obviously the material.

Also, O'Kane is a little bit too thin. You keep assuming he will have substance because they treat him like an actual suspect, but he never delivers any. Kate McDermott's script has herky-jerky pacing to it, without ever following through on event consequences, just hopping to Lawless's next interaction with the guest stars.

Despite the insubstantial mystery plot, there's still room for Lawless to deliver on the character front. But it's the flimsiest episode in a while.

My Life Is Murder (2019) s02e05 – Crushed Dreams

While Covid-19 doesn’t exist in “My Life Is Murder”—seriously, how long does it have to go on before someone might think they should address it even for reruns; we had to deal with flag pins for a decade—Zoom has still become a thing. Unclear how Zoom became ubiquitous in a world without lockdown, but since one of the show’s central conceits is Lucy Lawless’s four loaves of sourdough bread are all Joe Naufahu ever needs for his restaurant… there’s some obvious willful suspension of disbelief.

Anyway.

Zoom figures in a lot this episode, both in the case and not in the case, with first season regular Bernard Curry popping in to remind how one can simultaneously be affable and lack charm. There’s even bad timing from Curry. It’s not a bad cameo—and much better than I expected when they showed his name pop up on Lawless’s phone—but this season is such a joyful success; why remind of the wanting first season.

This episode has a complex—no pun intended—vineyard mystery. Young vintner Tatum Warren-Ngata dies in a horrible accident, but there might be something corked—pun intended—about it, so copper Rawiri Jobe sends Lawless to investigate. The vineyard’s on an island, which requires a sleepover at a bed and breakfast, so Ebony Vagulans tags along. There’s (presumably) free wine. And studly master vintner Jay Ryan running the show. Ryan’s got such a phony-looking mustache it seems like it’s going to be a Scooby-Doo reveal at the end, but based on a quick IMDb search, it might be real. It’s not important.

Because he quickly because a prime suspect just for the suspicious creep factor. Even if he’s not a killer—he’s got the best alibi, and it’s not even a homicide for sure—there’s something shady about his wine. The solution to the mystery is going to involve a whole bunch of wine talk. “My Life Is Murder” has been very comfortable being repetitive with exposition to keep viewers caught up, but this episode—writing credit to Shoshana McCallum—demands they pay attention to winemaking minutiae. They sort of simplify it for the finish, but it’s still full of… ahem… complexities.

While the vineyard’s away from the city and presumably the cast besides Lawless and Vagulans, Jobe and Naufahu do manage to keep showing up. Lawless and Vagulans are either in the apartment, baking bread and thinking through the investigation—the episode does an excellent job with the thinking through process, and both Lawless and Vagulans are getting really good at having eureka moments—harassing one of the suspects, or just hanging out with Jobe and Naufahu. At one point, they all have a glass of champagne together, with Naufahu naturally joining in even though he’s kind of just their favorite barista.

It does actually set up a later scene in the mystery solution, so well done, episode.

Also, Jobe appears to drink on the job a lot. And Vagulans now regularly teases him about a romance with Lawless, so I wasn’t the only one who saw the chemistry.

Good supporting performances from everyone at the vineyard—Ryan, Britain Swarbrick, Nicola Kawana, Graham Vincent. Not Warren-Ngata in her social media footage (seriously, vlogging has entirely changed flashback devices), but, well, it doesn’t really matter. It all works out.

“My Life Is Murder” definitely seems to have found its formula.