Dead End Street

I found this a unique and very well done episode of Murdoch Mysteries, revolving around a young woman who suffers from a form of autism, a condition undiagnosed in 1890s Toronto.

Lisa Repo-Martell, who portrays the autistic Lydia Howland, plays the character very believably and sympathetically.

The slow construction of the story, and the piecing together of what happened is not that unusual for Murdoch Mysteries. This show often does that. It is one of the genuine pleasures of the show.

What makes this episode somewhat unique is the way it presents, and keeps coming back to, the model of the neighborhood that Lydia has built. It is genuinely touching to watch how Murdoch and the rest of the Toronto constabulary--even Inspector Brackenreid-- begin to rely on Lydia's model of solid evidence, even if such "evidence" could never stand up in a court of Law.

This episode reminds me of a storyline from 7th season of CSI where there was a character that was building miniature replicas of crime scenes, paying attention to every single detail and CSI team was trying to solve the crimes being shown in those miniatures. I won't give a spoiler but it's worth a watch if you've liked this episode.

This episode is definitely one of the best episodes in the entire history of Murdoch Mysteries. I wish the show had more episodes like this. It was a fun watch where detective Murdoch was literally solving a puzzle to solve a crime that he didn't even know was committed for sure.

This whole episode could have been turned into a movie.

Many if the episodes or similar to other shows: a carnival episode, a dummy episode,...etc. this one was such a creative story. I really enjoyed it.

I have a daughter with low functioning autism and as my husband and I were watching this, we both kept remarking that she acted so well. So believably. The expressions on her face. The way she would rock. Even when she got overwhelmed and had a meltdown. I had to look up the actress's name to see if she really is autistic. She's not, but did an excellent job!

Murdoch attends some event and sees a miniaturized neighborhood on display built out of wood that is very precise and detailed. He studies it and sees in a building a person on the second floor by a window with a rifle in their hand. There are little people also created in this model that live in the neighborhood standing and watching something. They have no faces painted on them to identify who they are. He starts to think that a murder took place and seeks to find an answer.

He has the miniaturized collection brought to the police station and finds out that a woman named Lydia has mental problems and has not spoken for 25 years created this amazing creation is such detail.

In the miniature neighborhood there is a garden and a little box buried in the ground and Murdoch and Crabtree open it up and find a image of a cat in the little casket like box. A neighbor did bury his cat in his garden. It is said Lydia made everything exactly as she saw on the day she started the creation.

Murdoch and Crabtree discuss the people that lived in this area. I don't understand how the creator made Murdoch think a crime was committed because a person had a rifle in their hand but at any rate Murdoch believes one was committed. It is kind of silly the way him and Crabtree compare notes to see who might have been at the window.

One of the most surprising things to me in this episode and some others is that Murdoch came up with some solution he invented that is used today that when sprayed on an area can detect a blood stain and is seen like bluish light.

The end is interesting how a crime was committed and why.