The Show Must Go On – As this episode of Father Brown begins, Charlotte Maidland (Sonita Henry) and others rehearse for the upcoming show. Isabel Devine (Claudie Blakley) has to help Charlotte remember her lines. Charlotte complains to Patrick (Sam Phillips) that she is being put off by boozy breath after Jeremy (Mark Fleischmann) mocks her. Jeremy and Charlotte argue about his drinking. He tells Patrick that everyone may be better off if his wife had a little alcohol. Charlotte gets upset and decides to take a break. When she walks off stage, she falls and hurts herself.

Isabel will have to take her spot since her leg might be broken. After the intro, Brenda Palmer (Ruby-May Martinwood) tells Father Brown and Isabel that they’re not going to get her on that stage. Brown (Mark Williams) believes there are other ways for them to help the Kembleford Players reach opening night. Isabel says there is a friar in the play so Father Brown could be a technical adviser, but he reveals he is going to be playing the friar. When they go inside, they learn that Sergeant Goodfellow (John Burton) is going to be acting as well. Charlotte confirms they’re doing this in memory of Rose.

Isabel introduces Brenda to Millie Tucker (Elizabeth Robert) since she is going to be the new props assistant. Millie promises to teach her everything she needs to know. Jeremy approaches Isabel and calls her Beatrice. Then, he tells Millie that this is an investment and she should call the number. Brenda overhears them. Father Brown gets on the stage to rehearse alongside Isabel and Jeremy. Once they’ve finished, Patrick asks for a scene change. Father Brown sits down next to an arguing couple discussing their wedding. Brown notices that his hand is shaking.

Thomas (Jack Loxton) says his hand seems to know when he is stressed, but it usually passes. Jeremy says he was just giving Penny (Helena Barlow) the name of a wonderful florist. Chief Inspector Sullivan (Tom Chambers) interrupts and asks Jeremy to come with him to the station. Charlotte believes his past has finally caught up with him. Jeremy thinks it is about a stolen motor vehicle he reported a few months ago. He tells Isabel he has an investor’s meeting in town around seven so he invites her to come around at four for rehearsals. Sullivan suggests Devine take a chaperone with her this afternoon.

Father Brown offers to go with her. Jeremy flirts with Isabel before he leaves with Chief Inspector Sullivan. Later, Father Brown sits nearby while Jeremy and Isabel practice their lines. Then, Jeremy says he needs to meet the investors at Astwood Hotel. Father Brown asks Jeremy what he helps people invest in. Jeremy says it is a company in New York that offers a very encouraging return on their money. When Patrick and Jeremy first joined the Players, there was a mesmerizing old thesp who would anoint himself with a touch of the Napoleon for courage before rehearsals. They were so taken by him that they decided to get matching flasks made.

He says it is a shame that Charlie won’t let Patrick use his. As Father Brown and Isabel prepare to leave, she remembers she left her playbook. He says they can stroll back tomorrow before noticing someone walk into the bushes nearby. They think it was Thomas so they call his name. Patrick brings Brenda and Millie drinks. He thanks Brenda for helping out. Millie confirms she only moved there a couple of months ago. She lived with her aunt who died. Millie tells her that Patrick and Charlotte had a baby named Rose who died in her cot when she was a few months old. That’s why the show is so important to them because they’re raising money for the children’s ward.

Brown and Isabel go back into the house where they find Jeremy dead on the couch. Brown tells Chief Inspector Sullivan that they saw him drinking from a flask yesterday afternoon. He suspects someone must’ve poured poison in Jeremy’s flask. Sullivan says it looks like weed killer since the manufacturers put purple dye in it to prevent accidents. Isabel tells them about seeing someone disappear into the hedge when they were leaving yesterday. She felt sure it was Thomas Church although she doesn’t think he could do something like that. Isabel notices that Sullivan repeated a line from Much Ado.

He says Shakespeare has always been a favorite of his. Father Brown mentions that Thomas had a farming accident so his hand shakes, yet there weren’t any spills in the room. Brown chases Sullivan outside to question whether the murder might have something to do with Jeremy’s occupation. He doesn’t believe there is a company in New York and suspects Jeremy was a snake oil salesman. Brown wonders if that is why he wanted to question him yesterday, but Sullivan won’t tell him anything. Goodfellow asks Brown about the hotel where Jeremy was supposed to meet his investor. Brown remembers it was the Astwood.

Goodfellow says the Chief received an anonymous letter and a newspaper article about a conman who fleeced a widow out of all her money in Oxford six years ago. The man used an alias of Jonathan Spicer. Patrick breaks the news of Jeremy’s death to the others. He believes Jeremy would’ve wanted them to continue on. Isabel sees Penny throw something in the trash. Goodfellow tells Sullivan that Thomas’s farm is supplied with that type of weed killer. When he went to the hotel, the manager identified Jeremy and his associate. He shows a picture of the person in question. Isabel shows Brown Penny’s magazine.

It has a note inside about a meeting at the Astwood Hotel at 6:30 PM. Father Brown says he saw Jeremy writing that although he wants to talk to Thomas before Penny. When he approaches him, he notices a purple mark around his hand. Goodfellow and Sullivan interrupt because they want to talk to Thomas. Sullivan ends up arresting him for Jeremy’s murder. At the station, Thomas tells them his supplier had a visit from the police so he checked the weed killer he kept in the shed. The lid hadn’t been put back on properly and it spilled on his hand. Sullivan mentions that Isabel saw him last night close to Jeremy’s cottage.

He believes Thomas had a motive since he knew Penny was seeing Jeremy. Although Thomas knew they were meeting, he says it wasn’t to be unfaithful. Father Brown begins worrying because Goodfellow doesn’t seem comfortable in the role of Benedick. When Brenda enters, she questions whether Penny could’ve killed Jeremy since she could’ve gotten the poison. Isabel says anyone could’ve if they were passing through the farm. Millie doesn’t think Penny would let her fiancé hang. Father Brown checks with Charlotte who is busy organizing the program. She tells him about the night they lost Rose and how Patrick had to phone her to tell her.

Father Brown hopes she can find solace in God. He takes Isabel with him to see Thomas at the police station. When Brown talks to Thomas, he questions whether Penny might’ve been involved in Jeremy’s business and whether the business was illegal. Thomas reveals Penny didn’t know it was illegal. She just wanted to help out with the cost of the wedding. Jeremy wanted her to play a satisfied client to help attract future investors. They were sent a letter in cut-out newspaper print warning them to beware of Benedick. Penny dismissed it until Sullivan showed up to speak to Jeremy. She wanted out, but Jeremy wanted her to be there for the final meeting.

Jeremy had her sign fake investment documents. Brown says Penny might get prison time for confessing to fraud, but Thomas’s life is at stake. Thomas argues that telling them about that won’t take away his motive for killing Jeremy. They might even think she was an accomplice. Thomas admits to going to the cottage to get the incriminating papers back. Since he didn’t want Chief Inspector Sullivan finding them, he burned them. Father Brown promises to help. Isabel approaches Sullivan to try to get him to take part in the play. Father Brown tells Penny he is doing everything he can for Thomas. Isabel returns with Sullivan who will be playing Benedick.

Father Brown tells him he has arrested the wrong person. Then, he notices Brenda carrying a box of papers. He checks them and notices that they’re cut-up newspapers. Brown goes to Goodfellow to see if he’ll show him the newspaper article that arrived anonymously. After that, he approaches Millie to speak to her in private. She quickly admits to sending the letters and knowing about Jeremy’s criminal dealings. Her aunt was one of his victims. Jeremy worked with another man to make it look legitimate. Millie’s aunt said he was always drinking from a flask with Jonathan Spicer’s initial on it. Millie managed to track him down there.

She told him she had money to invest because she thought he might lead her to his accomplice. Millie found out that he was using Penny who seemed so decent. She sent a letter to Thomas to warn him. Millie sent another to the police and one to the Maidlands. During a break, Brown tells Devine what he found out from Millie. They wonder why Patrick and Charlotte wouldn’t say anything. Brown thinks Patrick might’ve wanted to protect his friend, but he thought Charlie would’ve wanted to tell everyone. Goodfellow enters to give Sullivan something before he is told they should check the photographs of the crime scene.

When asked by Father Brown, Millie denies sending another letter to the police station. Isabel worries it is going to be a disaster since they haven’t even rehearsed the kiss yet. Brenda brings the program and Brown notices something odd with it. Sullivan returns later to ask to speak to Patrick in private. They want to see his flask because the monogram is on the wrong side. Sullivan believes Jeremy’s flask was switched with Patrick’s flask which contained the poison. They suspect that Patrick was Jeremy’s business partner at one time. Patrick admits he played a role in Oxford and helped him out in Kembleford, but he didn’t kill Jeremy.

He also doesn’t know where the flask is because he hasn’t seen it for years. Charlotte claims to have seen it. She says it is in the glove box of the car. While they go outside, Father Brown notices a broken vase with newspapers glued inside. Outside, Charlotte tells Brown that it is weird to think Patrick could be involved. He believes it is going exactly how she planned it. He thinks she found out about Jeremy’s scam from the article Millie sent them. He suggests she decided to kill Jeremy after finding out that Patrick was involved. Father Brown also doesn’t believe her leg is broken. He goes on to say it is papier mache.

He accuses her of having JS inscribed on Patrick’s blank identical flask. It was clever to put the monogram in the wrong place because it would’ve come to someone’s attention sooner or later. She must’ve been tired of Thomas being blamed so she sent an anonymous letter to the police. Charlotte says it wasn’t the fraud. Brown suggests it was the fact that Jeremy needed Patrick’s help in Oxford on the day her daughter died. Charlotte admits Patrick was probably gone for hours. Brown argues she has constantly asked herself if there was anything she could’ve done to prevent it.

It was out of her hands, but what happens next to Patrick isn’t. Father Brown tells her that God will forgive her if she tells the truth. They go to the police station so she can speak to Sullivan. She admits to killing Jeremy because he took Patrick away from Rose when she needed him. She knows he must’ve been the accomplice and he wasn’t there when they lost Rose. Once he admits it is too, she complains that he wasn’t there when Rose might’ve been crying. After she found out what he had done, she stopped having feelings for him. Jeremy never showed any remorse. Then, he came back into their lives in the middle of the show they were putting on in Rose’s memory.

Charlotte says she had to make him pay because he was cancer. Later, Brown tells Patrick it’d be hard to discount the anguish of a mother grieving for her baby. He says it is time to show what the Kembleford Players are made of. During the performance, Isabel and Sullivan share a passionate kiss. It goes well.

 

Father Brown Review

The Show Must Go On was a slightly better episode of Father Brown even though the outcome was predictable. At the very least, it was easy to see who the main culprit was going to be within a few minutes. The cast was a lot better with the likes of Sonita Henry, Elizabeth Roberts, Mark Fleischmann, and others.

It would’ve been nice to have seen more of the performance after Charlotte’s arrest though. The episode worked on building a romance between Chief Inspector Sullivan and Isabel Devine. It has been difficult to emotionally invest in this season of Father Brown, but this was an improved episode compared to the others so far.

It scores a 6.5 out of 10. Recaps of Father Brown are available on Reel Mockery here. Want to support an independent entertainment website? Find out how to do so at this link. Learn more about advertising opportunities on Reel Mockery here.