As the opening episode of Ludwig begins, there is a murder in an office building. After the intro, John Ludwig Taylor (David Mitchell) works on a crossword puzzle at home. He receives a call from Lucy Betts-Taylor (Anna Maxwell Martin) who asks for a favor. Lucy explains it’s going to involve John leaving his house and getting into the taxi outside his house. She manages to convince John to do it. He gets into the taxi with Chris (Tom McCall) who drives him to Lucy’s. Outside of Lucy’s place, John notices a vehicle outside that reminds him of his childhood. His mom asks him why he’s so dirty. A young John explains he got pushed over and his son didn’t. John goes inside. Lucy yells for Henry Betts-Taylor (Dylan Hughes). Henry joins them just before dinner.
John asks about James. In private, Lucy says she needs his help and Henry doesn’t know why he’s there. It started a couple of months ago while James was working on some case. For the last two months, their James wasn’t the one coming home to them. Lucy explains something about the case changed him. Three nights ago, James didn’t come home at all. The next day, she received a letter from James. The envelope has B.A.R. on the front for “burn after reading”. Inside, there is an envelope with DCS Shaw’s name and information on it. Lucy explains it’s his boss and it’s a letter of resignation. James also gave Lucy a list of instructions. Lucy is supposed to leave and she’s been advised not to speak to anyone from James’s department. Lucy suspects there is more to the letter and James would know that. She wants John to pretend to be James so he can access his files at the police station.
John doesn’t want to do it. He argues that James wouldn’t abandon his family without reason because he knows what that feels like. John believes James might be trying to keep her safe. He figures out that the letter is actually a code. Then, John reluctantly agrees to go to the police station. Lucy helps him get ready before he goes to the police station. Lucy still has James’s work phone, but she’s been unable to guess the passcode. John still has the mobile phone Lucy bought him over twenty years ago. He approaches the Cambridge Police Authority building. As soon as he goes inside, he encounters DCS Carol Shawn (Dorothy Atkinson). Lucy already told him about James’s coworkers. John walks in the other direction into the elevator. He encounters someone he doesn’t know. They briefly talk about Henry before separating.
John makes it to the offices and tries to reach James’s. Although he makes it, he gets distracted when he sees the officer belonging to DI Russell Carter (Dipo Ola). In a flashback, Lucy tells John about DI Matt Neville who knows James better than anyone else. Lucy believes Neville is the only one John can trust. Russell comes out and speaks to John. He tells him that a big shot solicitor was found with an antique letter opener stuck in his chest. Russell pulls John away before he can check James’s office. As they leave, Russell tells him about the security at the office and how everyone has to sign in and out. They all did including the victim. John calls Lucy to tell her about everything that has happened. He says there is no Matt Neville. Lucy admits that doesn’t make any sense. John worries he’s going to go to prison for impersonating a police officer.
Lucy gets a call from Henry’s School. She tells John to delegate and get back to James’s office. Once they reach the crime scene, John is introduced to the youngest member of the team, DC Simon Evans (Gerran Howell). When John gets stumped, he asks Simon about his mom. Then, he visits the scene with Russell. John sees the body and attempts to leave, but he’s trapped by DS Alice Finch (Izuka Hoyle). Lucy explains she’s ambitious and probably lives for the job. Alice tells John that someone had to be at the office. The assistant and the victim signed out according to the logbook. John doesn’t want to look at the body. Alice says no one reported the victim missing. She thinks this is big. Russell thinks it’s time to speak to the witnesses. Brian (Ikky Kabir) complains that they’ve already told everything to Simon.
A woman blurts out that the victim’s name was Alan Howells (Kewell Ganas). Jamie (Christos Lawton) explains no one knew the guy because each floor houses a different company. Russell asks John if he wants to take over. John doesn’t know what he’s doing so Russell questions them. Carla (Stevie Binns) says she doesn’t just let people walk into the building. Simon points out that she left because she had to check the fire door. Carla points out that the other fire doors didn’t go off so they must’ve walked in and straight back out. Claire (Catherine Skinner) is told someone called her office using an unregistered number. The witnesses say they didn’t see anything. John steps outside for some air. He calls Lucy to say he wants to go home. He doesn’t know how anyone could ever do this including James.
Lucy believes James was just as intimidated by the world as John in many ways. John reminds her that James had her. She remembers the night their father left. It made John want to hide from it and it pushed James forward. Lucy urges him to finish the one day and return to the office. John looks through the paperwork and possibly finds something. He tells Lucy he may have just solved a murder. Lucy manages to get James’s phone open. John returns to Russell and the witnesses. He believes the case is a logic puzzle. Simon leaves as John works through the details. Simon tells Alice that she’ll want to see this. After he’s finished, John says the killer is Sarah Gilmarsh (Scarlett Brookes). He admits he doesn’t know why she’d want to do it though. Sarah begins crying and says she didn’t plan any of this.
John says otherwise since she set off the fire alarm and forged a signature. Simon arrests Sarah on the suspicion of murder. Russell takes John back to the station. Russell admits he didn’t expect to see something so brilliant in just two weeks. John finally makes it to James’s office and begins looking around. He finds a paper with pictures and names of his colleagues. Then, he finds a notebook hidden in the desk drawer. He looks at it briefly. When he’s called away, he sits it down on the desk. His colleagues praise his work since Sarah gave a full confession. However, Alice isn’t impressed. Shaw says she heard he went unorthodox on this one. Chief Constable Ziegler (Ralph Ineson) interrupts to speak to Shaw in private. Second later, Shaw talks to John about his new look.
John returns to James’s office. The woman in the elevator, Holly Pinder (Sophie Willan), watches him as he tries to drive away. John returns to Lucy who asks about the murder. She admits she doesn’t care. Lucy tells him that the passcode was the date of their dad leaving. She shows him a picture of an officer who John identified as Chief Constable Ziegler. He also shows her the notebook which contains various ciphers. John believes James was using it to keep notes on the people he was investigating. He hasn’t been able to solve the cipher so he’s going to need more data. John is going back in tomorrow because he has to solve the puzzle. Henry finds the letter from James. John remembers when his dad left his family. Lucy goes to speak to Henry. In the past, John turned to puzzles to deal with the loss of his father. In the present, he tries to figure out the cipher. A young John listens to Ludwig van Beethoven.
Ludwig Review
The opening episode of Ludwig was interesting enough and surprisingly unique despite being a crime drama. After receiving a call from Lucy, John “Ludwig” Taylor learned that his brother, James, has gone missing. Lucy convinces John to go undercover and pretend to be his brother so he can find out what he was up to and where he went. He’s still dealing with his father leaving the family years ago and James’s son, Henry, is now experiencing something similar.
John managed to sneak into James’s office after solving a murder. He retrieved James’s notebook containing his case notes, but John hasn’t been able to decipher them just yet. Therefore, he’s going to have to pretend to be a detective a little more to get enough data to decipher his brother’s work. Just based on the first episode, it’s clear that Ludwig is not for all viewers.
The characters can be a little annoying at times and some of them are worse than others. The music is fun although it feels like it’s overdone. The humor isn’t perfect so it’s not going to work for some viewers. It’s more of a quirky and even slightly obnoxious humor. There were many scenes that went on for too long and didn’t add anything to the episode. The ending scenes fit into that category even if they were neat and the music added to the experience.
Nevertheless, the opening episode of Ludwig actually improved as it continued and John settled down a bit. The series has potential. The quirkiness really removes some pressure here so the story doesn’t need to be exact or ultra-believable. There is also room for some emotional scenes depending on what actually happened to James. Overall, this was a decent starting point for anyone willing to give the oddball detective series a chance.
The episode scores a 6 out of 10. Recaps of Ludwig can be found 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 here.
Jay Skelton is a fan of all television shows and movies. He tries his best to keep up with the latest foreign television shows and movies. Jay loves skinny dipping in the dark too.
