Episode #1.2

Sidney's ex girlfriend Amanda is having an engagement party. He is loathed to attend but his sister wants him to attend and she brings her jazz loving black musician boyfriend, Johnny.

The party has a bunch of snobby people, a wannabe politician, bohemian Daphne and a married couple, William and Lillian. Amanda's wealthy father warns Sidney away as he can spot that he still pines for he.

Over the course of the evening the engagement ring goes missing and the black man gets blamed.

The next day the body of Lillian is found in the canal and her jewellery is missing that is eventually found on Johnny.

Geordie and Sidney team up hoping to exonerate Johnny but Geordie also figures that Sidney is in with these wealthy folks and will be useful.

There are red herrings and blind alleys but this murder might be a crime of passion with Johnny being framed. Sidney keeps mentioning that there are no coincidences when it comes to crime.

Like the BBC version of Father Brown, there is a modernist outlook to this 1950s set series. Not only a black boyfriend who becomes a convenient scapegoat but also the new curate Leonard is gay.

Geordie and Sidney have hit it off, they make a good team but Sidney has noticed that Geordie likes a drink.

The first episode was promising. So let's make the very next one drip with millennial / woke sensibility! Ya know - race, race, race, and sex, sex, sex! And also, addiction amd mental health and PTSD and safe spaces, while we're at it.

Because I'm sure that English landed gentry in the 1950s freely mixed with minorities and invited them to formal dinners; where the guests interrogated the local vicar about his sexual experiences; while the vicar spent every minute of every day drinking, smoking, or in one-on-one situations with married women. Right...

The TV commercial-style songs by Louis Armstrong just add to the sense of an era profoundly misunderstood by the show's writers.

In summary, I don't watch period dramas to be lectured on some youngsters' so-called social values, or to pretend that 70 years ago, people thought and spoke exactly the same way they do today.

This was the episode that got me hooked. The first episode was very good, this second one was excellent. The relationship between Sidney and Geordie has developed, we have the introduction of Leonard, plus we get a terrific story, racism is touched upon, a theme that would rear its ugly head once again.

Some great character work at play, including Sidney's sister, but it was the charismatic Norton who once again shines.

It's a great mystery, you're kept guessing until last. One thing I'm now aware of watching this, is how loathsome the character of Amanda is, Morven Christie is superb, but Amanda is totally leading him on, and playing with his feelings.

Fantastic.