Category: Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries
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I didn’t realize until five episodes into Season Three there were only eight episodes this season. I knew it was the final season, but I didn’t realize it was a short final season. Director Daina Reid handles the series finale with aplomb; there’s a list of things the show seems like it’s going to get…
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Given it’s the penultimate episode, I don’t feel too bad about generally picking the murder from the opening scenes. There are just certain “Miss Fisher’s” tropes in play—it’s episode thirty-three overall—and there are certain things the show’s never done and if it’s going to do them, now’s the time. And I didn’t have any predictions…
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It’s a single location mystery, which is always a lot of fun on “Miss Fisher’s.” Though this single location mystery turns out to be an incredibly dangerous one. It’s the local Grand Hotel, which is no longer as grand as it used to be; someone throws the concierge (Nick Mitchell) off the roof and he’s…
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Even for an episode dealing with institutionalized misogyny, which are often the heaviest “Miss Fisher’s,” Death & Hysteria is close to the heaviest because it’s about a group of women being persecuted and threatened with forced hysterectomies for… enjoying orgasms. Ysabelle Dean’s script never gives a full exposition dump—in fact, the foreshadowing to what’s going…
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“Miss Fisher’s,” as a rule, doesn’t do children in danger episodes. There’s been at least one other one, maybe another (but I don’t think really think so), but this episode opens with a kid buried in a shallow grave. It’s very intense right off. Though it’s also got some post-war things to work through and…
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So I thought this episode was one of those pre-1980s Mafia stories where they never referred to the Mafia by name because they call it the Camorra here but the Camorra is actually a different Italian criminal organization. The more you know. Miss Fisher (Essie Davis) and Inspector Jack (Nathan Page)—or should I say, Inspector…
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Season three’s Jack (Nathan Page) jealousy is a lot less morose than previously. He’s jealous for Essie Davis’s history with Royal Australian Air Force captain Rodger Corser but it takes a while before Page lets it hinder he and Davis’s working relationship. Even when Corser’s withholding evidence in a murder case—a woman’s body is found…
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“Miss Fisher’s” season three premiered almost a year and a half after the second season concluded, so the opening run-through—confirming returning cast members and breaking the show’s usual murder sans Miss Fisher intro—makes sense. Ashleigh Cummings is at a magic show with Travis McMahon and Anthony J. Sharpe, Essie Davis is getting ready for her…
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Murder Under the Mistletoe is the “Miss Fisher’s” Christmas (in July) special I obviously needed but didn’t know I needed. The episode opens with Essie Davis taking the girls—Ashleigh Cummings, Miriam Margolyes, Tammy Macintosh—to a ski lodge; Southern Hemisphere, snowy summers. But when they get there, of course there’s a murder—people are finally giving Davis…
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The episode opens with Hugo Johnstone-Burt and Ashleigh Cummings on their day off, Johnstone-Burt in his civvies somehow clashing with Cummings in her regular clothes; they’re fishing and dreaming of their honeymoon. Rude awakening when they discover a dead body in the water. Even ruder awakening when it turns out to be the latest in…
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It’s a pure delight episode of “Miss Fisher’s,” outside the murders and murderer, obviously, with Essie Davis and company going to hang out at a radio station in the pre-Golden Age of Radio. The format has caught on—especially with Ashleigh Cummings, who is the one who gets Davis involved in the investigation because the victim…
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The show’s hit a nice stride lately; this episode’s rather good, with little in common with the previous two other than Ashleigh Cummings’s detective skills continuing to develop. Otherwise, the setting is all different—Essie Davis has drug Cummings out to a vineyard (after telling her they were going to a farm but didn’t want to…
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I’m not just interested this episode because it’s all about the silent movie industry; it’s right at the transition to sound, which means we’re in the late twenties and Black Tuesday is approaching. I’m terrified what it’s going to mean for “Miss Fisher.” Especially when you consider this episode is all about one of Essie…
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Depending on the setting, there are certain predictable reactions from Miss Fisher (Essie Davis) as well as from “Miss Fisher,” the show; for instance, this episode takes place at a medical university—where Dr. Mac (Tammy Macintosh) teaches—and involves the rich male students (and the male teachers) harassing an exceptional female student, Andrea Demetriades. So it’s…
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Even if the subplot of this episode weren’t Nathan Page deciding he can’t remain friendly (friendly plus) with Essie Davis given her dangerous lifestyle and isn’t going to ask her to knock it off because Page’s non-sexism is one of the most winning parts of his personality… it’d still be a very depressing episode. The…
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Confession: I had no idea what they were talking about with footy. I assumed Australians played football—as in association football—but it looks like a big American football. My wife thought they were talking about rugby. But apparently there’s Aussie rules? Or footy? The episode’s about two footy clubs and their hooligans and a dead player.…
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It’s kind of a Dot (Ashleigh Cummings) episode. At least more of a Dot episode than the show’s ever had before. Not only does she get a real subplot with beau Hugo Johnstone-Burt, who’s very taken with the outfits he sees around a fancy dressmaker’s (at least the ones modeled on half-French model Freya Stafford),…
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One upbeat (enough) “Miss Fisher’s” was apparently all they could take because this one is a very, very sad one. It’s all about a boxing troupe and the damage done on the community because of it. The community in question is the young poor men who spend their time in street gangs. Constable Hugo Johnstone-Burt…
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Last season, “Miss Fisher’s” went out of its way not to have detective Essie Davis happen into mysteries solely because she’s a rich White lady in the 1920s. Though… I mean, it sort of did. But this episode makes no attempt to contrive a reason to get Davis involved in the Julia Blake’s mystery. Davis…
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If this episode of “Miss Fisher’s” doesn’t have the highest body, it definitely feels like it has the highest. People get killed off throughout the runtime—and before it, actually, in flashback. The episode opens with a séance, which is automatically awesome just thinking about Essie Davis going off about séances. It’s almost a surprise she’s…
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Season Two starts off with a bunch of flashy character reveals, with finally meeting Nathan Page’s ex-wife (Dee Smart) not even being the main one. Very prim, very proper, very Catholic Ashleigh Cummings’s sister, Anna Bamford, is a sex worker and works in a brothel where one of the girls has just turned up dead.…
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I’m a fan of this season finale—and season resolver—and would be even if it didn’t (unintentionally?) follow a bunch of the same narrative beats as Halloween H20. No spoilers. But… it’s H20. After the pre-title murder—a gruesome but not gory one—the action picks up the next morning after last episode. Phryne (Essie Davis) is freaking…
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It’s truly amazing what they’re able to get away with this episode in terms of red herrings, shoehorned subplots, shock tactics, exploitative tension, and so on. Director Daina Reid and writer Ysabelle Dean put everyone through the ringer—with a couple really obvious questions left open at the end—and grinds them flat. The main plot itself…
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It’s a very intense episode, with Phyrne (Essie Davis) in constant danger—whether she knows it or not, usually yes but not the extent of it—in addition to being in a very traumatic headspace. We finally find out what happens to her little sister (or at least as much as Davis knows) when Davis takes a…
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It’s hard to know where this episode goes “wrong.” It’s not a bad episode, but it’s not a great one either. It’s nowhere near as good as the last, whatever, five. And it’s co-written by Liz Doran, who adapted one of those previous excellent ones. So maybe it’s the source novel not just being that…
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It’s a very intense episode. Miss Fisher (Essie Davis) is mentoring a group of underprivileged girls for a pageant and they’re the mystery, so they’re the ones in danger. It’s the first time “Miss Fisher’s” has really done the child or youth in grave danger thing and it’s a lot. Both because the story behind…
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Once again I stand corrected as to what “Miss Fisher’s” needs to do to have a successful episode. This one has a case very tied to Essie Davis’s past—victim Heather Bolton was one of Davis’s teachers, prime suspect Deborah Kennedy is a mentor—has lots of guest stars (Phryne Fellow Philippe Sung is back, bringing arraigned…
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So this episode takes everything I said—based on the last two—was needed to make a great “Miss Fisher’s.” Turns out I’m completely wrong, because Murder in Montparnasse doesn’t just break (most) of my rules, it breaks my bigger, obvious rules for melodramatic plotting. It ties together two seemingly disparate subplots and does it as a…
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It’s an excellent episode and maybe the one most interested in the murder investigation. There aren’t any substantial subplots—Ashleigh Cummings has to deal with Hugo Johnstone-Burt being a lug of a boyfriend and not a romantic daydream like stage actor Alex Rathgeber, who’s actually a right bastard but Rathgeber figures into the main plot. Cummings’s…
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After the lackluster previous episode, the show’s back on track with this one, which almost showcases what material “Miss Fisher’s” works best with. For instance, there’s not time for the whole supporting cast. Nathan Page doesn’t get a whole bunch to do this episode, but he gets to do all of it with Essie Davis.…
The Stop Button 