As this episode of Death In Paradise begins, a young Selwyn (Marson Francisco) takes the Saint Marie Police Training Entrance Exam. In the present, Lincoln St Clair (Leon Herbert) speaks about Commissioner Selwyn Pattern (Don Warrington) at the yacht club. Later, Lincoln asks Jacqueline (Cathy Tyson) to put something in the diary about Anthony. Selwyn admits it feels like a big fuss over nothing. Jacqueline believes Selwyn is too modest for his own good. Marlon Collins (Sean Maguire) checks to make sure everything went well. Once Collins walks away, Selwyn says Collins has seen the inside of their station cell too many times for him to believe he’s changed his ways.

Selwyn steps outside by himself before he is approached by a man with a gun. He is shot in the back and falls into the water. The gunman walks away from the scene. After the intro, emergency services work on Selwyn. DI Neville Parker (Ralf Little) and DS Naomi Thomas (Shantol Jackson) speak to Marlon (Tahj Miles) about Selwyn’s condition. Marlon rides with him in the ambulance. Neville and Naomi are introduced to Marlon Collins who is the caretaker at the yacht club. Neville tells Darlene (Ginny Holder) that they’ll need to see the crime scene. Marlon Pyrce speaks to Selwyn in the back of the ambulance and asks him to hang in there. Naomi and Neville check out the crime scene.

Pyrce calls Neville to tell him Selwyn is going into surgery. Lincoln tells Neville and Naomi what happened before the shooting and how they found Selwyn in the water. Jacqueline says she saw a man driving off in a pick-up truck. She remembers he was wearing grey overhauls and he looked distracted. Collins says he saw that guy hanging around just before lunch. Jacqueline thinks the registration number was MR4. Darlene tells them about an accident involving the truck. At the scene of the crash, Naomi finds the man’s ID and identifies him as Alton Garvey. A woman checked on him after the crash, but he panicked and fled from the scene.

There is an empty bottle of rum in the truck and a gun. Neville asks for an officer to stay outside Alton’s house before learning Alton left his cell phone in the truck. He finds a cufflink on the ground with the Saint Marie Yacht Club emblem. After that, Neville checks on Selwyn at the hospital. Selwyn doesn’t remember Alton Garvey. Meanwhile, Alton (Mensah Bediako) finds a place to clean up. At the station, Naomi confirms the bullet recovered is the same caliber as the gun found in Alton’s truck. It appears Alton was moving. The landlord may have a forwarding address, but Alton’s phone wasn’t helpful. He was born and raised on the island with no brothers or sisters. Alton lost his mother last year and his father lives in the UK. He has no criminal record.

Neville wants to get his photo out there so someone can call in a sighting. Later, Darlene asks Neville if they should let Catherine know what happened. Naomi speaks to Pyrce about how he is feeling. They talk about the commissioner who changed Pyrce’s life. He stops Naomi when she is about to hug him because he is worried she is going to kiss him. They argue about that before Pyrce admits he could use a hug right now. In the morning, Naomi shows Neville a note she found in Selwyn’s study. It appears Alton was trying to blackmail Jacqueline. When they try to speak to Selwyn, they find Jacqueline sitting with him. They question them about the note.

Jacqueline had been receiving threatening messages, but she was reluctant to go to the police. Instead, she asked Selwyn to work on it for her. She was being blackmailed over an affair she was having with the yacht club manager, Romone Prince. Selwyn tried calling the pay-as-you-go number, but the blackmail never answered. In private, Neville and Naomi ask Selwyn if Alton was the blackmailer. He doesn’t know who the blackmailer was. Selwyn wonders how Alton would know what was going on behind closed doors at the yacht club. He admits he argued with Jacqueline because he didn’t like covering up her affair. Outside, they ask Jacqueline if they can look at the messages on her phone. She tells them why she had an affair. Neville replies to the blackmailer to say she’ll pay the money.

Once they’re alone, Neville and Naomi talk about the case and what was going on at the yacht club. Alton sees himself on television while trying to buy more alcohol. He pays for it and chugs it before trying to get a disguise. Darlene tells Neville that the gun belonged to Alton and it was the one used to shoot Selwyn. Pyrce found a newspaper in Alton’s truck. It has an article about Selwyn’s celebration circled. Darlene says they have a sighting of Alton near a convenience store close to Turtle Beach. Before they can leave, Alton calls. Darlene and Naomi try to figure out which payphone he is using. Alton tells Neville that he is wrong about him because he is not dangerous.

Alton insists he didn’t mean to and he wasn’t thinking straight. He claims he doesn’t know why he shot the commissioner before he hangs up. Marlon Pyrce checks out the scene of the payphone and finds nothing. Neville believes the cause of the shooting is in the yacht club. He wonders if they’re looking at a hit. Naomi finds out more about Romone Prince who has taken a sabbatical. That’s why Collins is covering his position. Romone departed two weeks ago. Pyrce and Darlene are unable to find Alton. Everyone visits Selwyn at the hospital. He receives an update on the case. Neville learns that the blackmailer has contacted Jacqueline and arranged a drop-off for the money. Selwyn and Neville argue about how that’ll actually help.

In private, Selwyn tells Neville about his frustrations. Neville asks him to trust him to do his job. Jacqueline drops off the money. Naomi talks to Pyrce about their kiss. She wants to make sure they’re cool. Pyrce promises she hasn’t ruined a good friendship. Collins arrives to pick up the money moments later so they detain him. During an interview, Collins admits to sending the messages because he needed the money. He worked so close to Romone that he knew about the affair. Collins claims not to know about Jacqueline approaching the commissioner about it. He insists he had nothing to do with the shooting. If they’re looking for a reason why someone might want the commissioner dead, they should look at the husband because he knew his wife was having an affair.

Lincoln supposedly thought Jacqueline was having an affair with Selwyn. Neville speaks to Lincoln who admits he thought Jacqueline was having an affair. He thought it was Selwyn too. Lincoln tells him not to be ridiculous about the shooting. Naomi is unable to get in touch with Romone. Pyrce says Collins has a criminal record because he was a yacht thief back in the day. Neville decides to call Camille since she had dealings with him too. Camille can’t talk because she is about to go into the delivery room. Darlene says she found out that Alton recently worked as a cashier at a gas station near Sainte-Victoire. Alton could only take part-time work because he had to take care of his mom who passed away a year ago. After that, he moved into an apartment and started looking for full-time employment.

They talk about how his life spiraled out of control. Alton sneaks into the hospital and walks past a sleeping guard to confront Selwyn. He says he is doing what he has to do before apologizing. It looks like he is pulling something out of his pocket. When Neville and Naomi make it to the station, they find that Selwyn is just fine. He says Alton gave him a letter from Saint Marie Police College. There is another sighting of Alton heading up the cliff top at Carrow Bay. Neville approaches him and says he understands why he is so angry with his life. He knows why Alton wanted to take it out on Selwyn. Alton remembers that day and the fact there was only one place for whoever passed the exam. He says Selwyn turned up late so he should’ve been the one going to police college.

Neville reminds him he didn’t pass the exam. Alton claims his life has been going downhill since that day. He explains why he targeted Selwyn that day and how he just wanted someone to listen. Alton tells Neville what he remembers about that day. He can’t live with the guilt of it. Neville pleads with him not to jump. He notices Alton is still wearing the same clothes from the day it happened so Alton didn’t do it. Once Alton goes with the police, Naomi tells Neville she is getting a bad feeling about Romone because the tracker on his yacht was turned off two weeks ago. His phone hasn’t had any activity for two weeks either. The Commissioner called Romone on the day of the lunch. Neville wants to contact the dive team to send them to the location of Romone’s yacht.

He calls Commissioner to ask if anyone else knew about his call to Romone. Neville thinks he just solved the case. He brings everyone together to blame Mr. Collins for the murder. Neville says it comes down to the cufflink. They believe Collins witnessed Alton arrive and approach Selwyn. Neville says Collins thought he could use it to his advantage if he could get it to play out like he wanted. He believes Collins helped Alton and told him to shoot the Commissioner. Neville explains that no one heard the gunshot. Instead, they heard the sound of Alton’s truck backfiring. Collins says he can’t prove any of this, but Neville says they can test the cufflink. Neville thinks Collin did it to cover up the murder of Romone. It is confirmed they found Romone’s yacht and body.

Collins says Romone confronted him about the blackmail messages and they got into a struggle. He pushed Romone who fell and hit his head. Selwyn got Romone’s number from Collins who knew he wouldn’t reach him. Neville thinks Selwyn would get to the bottom of it and that’s why he shot him. Collins tells Alton it wasn’t personal before he is taken away. Neville calls Selwyn to tell him what happened. Later, Neville gets to see Camille’s baby. She recommends writing a blog about everything that happens to him. After the call, Neville goes for a walk with Naomi, Pyrce, and Darlene. He tells them he is thinking about starting a blog about his life on the island. Pyrce thinks it’d be boring.

 

Death In Paradise Review

Despite watching a lot of pretty bad television recently, this episode of Death in Paradise easily takes the cake for being the most unimaginative, hour-filled garbage. Where does one start with the problems in this episode? First, some of the performances from the side characters aren’t particularly strong. That wouldn’t be a major issue if the writing was good and the case was genuinely interesting.

However, it was pretty clear who the culprit would be from the start just based on the makeup of the characters and that’s becoming a big problem with modern television. The writers are so afraid of offending so they’re sticking with the same scripts. Heck, it was easy to tell that Marlon Collins was the bad guy from the first second he showed up on screen.

Again, that would’ve been perfectly fine since it’s the standard nowadays. Unfortunately, the show had to take the absolute stupidest path to the conclusion possible. At the very least, write a story that is remotely possible. Furthermore, it doesn’t help that most of the characters are very unlikeable with Neville being the biggest putz. He should just be replaced at this point because he’s getting crapped on at every turn to the point that he’s a pathetic being. Yet, he goes back for more like a puppy that’s been kicked. It just makes the other characters look like mean turds.

This was a very dull, uninspired episode that just went through the motions and made the recent series of Father Brown look like an award-winner. The eye-rolling moments overwhelmed the already lifeless story. With two more seasons in the pipeline, it doesn’t matter how bad the episodes get because it’s already guaranteed. The episode scores a 3 out of 10. Recaps of Death in Paradise are available on Reel Mockery here.

Find out how to support our independent site at this link. Learn more about advertising with us here. See what others are saying about Death In Paradise on the Reel Mockery Forum.