Masonic Mysteries

Morse attends a rehearsal of the Magic Flute, there he discovers the body of Beryl Newsome, a lady he had become friendly with. He foolishly touches the murder weapon and becomes the number one suspect for the crime. Chief Inspector Bottomley is placed in charge of the crime, Morse has to battle against him, and pit his wits against Psycopath Hugo de Vries. Fortunately Morse has help from the faithful Lewis and old friend and colleague Desmond McNutt.

Masonic Mysteries stands out for me as possibly the best episodes of Morse, there are so many rich layers to it, finally Morse gets his arch nemesis, Holmes had Moriarty, Father Brown had Flambeau etc, every great detective needs a rival.

The regulars of course are on exceptional form, Thaw puts in a wonderfully strong showing, but as for guests, I thought Iain Cuthbertson was awesome in his admittedly small role, but Ian McDiarmid puts in one of the most memorable performances I can think of, he is utterly brilliant as de Vries, the closing scene between the two is an unbelievable moment.

Please introduce Hugo de Vries into an episode of Endeavour, how good would that be.

Look out for Mark Strong's small role as PC Mike Butterworth.

TV Gold 10/10 fabulously acted, awesome script, an episode that gets your heart rate going.

The atmosphere is quite menacing, a cross between Lynch movies and The X-Files. Morse has clearly been set up, and the way things defy rational explanation im going from bad to worse becomes quite creepy and unsettling in a skilfully visceral way. Ultimately, however, the episode creators bite off more than they can chew: Characters from a distant past; old mentors; old scores getting settled; a villain who represents Morse's nemesis; IT hackers; the impossibility of love... It's too much and it turns the story into a cake. I know quite a bit about Mozart and the Magic Flute and all that. But if you asked me WHY this particular investigation has masonic symbolism swirling all around, in truth I would struggle to give a coherent reply.

Perhaps, I'm just not 'getting it.' Thaw's favorite episode? Or one of them? Really? I watched it half way through before I felt compelled to check how the episode scored and was reviewed compared to the other ones. Simply shocked. Dumb-founded to find it has scored so highly. I restarted the episode to give it another chance. Perhaps, if this episode was meant as a farce? All credibility goes out the window the second grabs hold of the knife. A seasoned, cultured and highly intelligent (more so than, even, other detectives) would really grab hold of the supposed murder weapon in such a full-handed method? Even if he could spot with his keen (had to be beyond human capabilities) that it was not the murder weapon? Way to many holes.

I agree that there are a couple things played for laughs here, but the Sherlockian efforts of the bad guys makes this very entertaining. Morse finds himself singled out for a frame-up. When an attractive woman, whom he is interested in, goes to answer a phone call, she is brutally murdered. He holds her in his arms and has picked up a knife, so he immediately comes under suspicion. Of course, it seems that Morse's superiors are always looking for a way to emasculate him. A tiresome, overzealous detective is put on the case. He is a reactionary and doesn't like Morse (or he is the son of Barney Fife) and goes about boobing up the investigation. What is really fun is the variety of ways that Morse is being set up. There's just so much to point to his involvement, and that's the rub. Anyone with a shred of skepticism would find the mass of stuff way too much. The Masons are brought in as a mystical element which adds to the entertainment.

"Don't get carried away."

This episode's writer, Julian Mitchell, wrote the screenplay for one of the best Inspector Morse (IM) films I've seen so far, Ghost in the Machine. Though played serious, that episode is something of a comic masterpiece because of its main guest character, an aristocrat who's sophisticated, composed, yet oblivious at the same time.

One wonders if Mitchell was going for comedy with Masonic Mysteries (MM), too, albeit camp comedy. That might halfway explain such a ridiculous episode. IM is no stranger to melodrama, but MM goes further than any opera ever did. When an established, relatively straight series suddenly does an episode in which its detective hero is charged with murder, well, this is the kind of thing I'd expect from a series' last season, when the filmmakers have all run out of ideas. Bizarre to see this in Season 4 of IM, preceding more than fifteen episodes, at least some of which are excellent.

Clichés are at every turn. The story is one of those melodramas in which a diabolical, omnipotent villain orchestrates just about every nightmare scenario possible to drive the hero crazy. And wouldn't ya know, no one will believe Hero's claims of innocence! Thus do Bottomley -- twittiest detective ever and way dumber than Lestrade and Japp -- and Morse's own boss of many years turn against him. Mayhem ensues, dear friends die, and no corner of Morse's home and private life are safe from invasion by the ever-lurking mastermind. The film even flirts with dragging Lewis into the same web of suspicion and suffering as Morse, but noticeably it drops this quite suddenly, as if finally sensing how silly things are.

We even get the old "If I'm not back in five minutes..." line. However, the self-dramatization may be worst when Morse actually does an interior monologue voice-over, an amazing first for IM!

Morse looks stupid overall. MM always makes a fool out of him, and in fact doesn't let him participate in events to take control and redeem himself.

This features some of the worst, most affected guest acting ever. There are many culprits, led by Bottomley; he really belongs in something like Fawlty Towers rather than IM.

The actors probably got no help from director Danny Boyle, who keeps doing his own bad work. He ruins plot twists by telegraphing them to death. He frequently chooses inexplicable camera distance. He likes shooting disjointed conversation scenes, with the characters sometimes never sharing a camera shot, or not appearing at all, as if they're not even on the same set. (Maybe editor Bob Dearberg just bore a grudge.) My favorite bit of bad staging is the part where someone uses a gun to order a sitting person around, but is clearly pointing the pistol well over the person's head.

The villain keeps a room decked out in photos of Morse, many of them blown-up and artistically cut -- the villain's own Morse Museum, perhaps the wackiest set the IM crew ever made, complete with wackiest prop, the Morse-mobile dangling from the ceiling.

Unintentional giggles come from the plot's dated use of early 90s computers. Uncomfortable to think that so many officers could've been so wide-eyed and ignorant about technology, apparently unable to comprehend the department's own computer system and what "hackers" are.

More ill-advised comedy comes when a man faints to the floor upon learning he's been robbed of thousands, a shot done for laughs. (What, no spit-take?) Morse simply watches this with Lewis, straight-faced, then makes a banal comment. The filmmakers couldn't possibly be serious.

Morse speaks for MM when he says, "I've lost my sense of reality."