British Network Television & Radio
Where does the future take us?
‘Death in Paradise’: S4.E4. “Until Death Do You Part”…
D.I. Humphrey Goodman, noticeably preoccupied with more personal issues on his mind, is called to a hotel when a bride is discovered dead. The bride, the previous night, had been celebrating with friends. Her hen party, for the most part, had gone well. Hen party, for people not familiar with the archaic term, is what Britons calls a bachelorette party.
“Until Death Do You Part”, directed by David O’Neill from a teleplay penned by Rebecca Wojciechowski, is yet another example of a Death in Paradise episode where our focus is deliberately misdirected. Television viewers are so focused on certain suspects that, obviously, we fail to see the metaphorical elephant in the room.
This second O’Neill fourth season episode, further to series regulars Kris Marshall, Sara Martins, Joséphine Jobert, Danny John-Jules, Don Warrington, and Elizabeth Bourgine, guest stars Ali Bastian, Susannah Fielding, Rosie Cavaliero, Amy Nuttall, Leo Staar, and William Ash.
Bastian, Fielding, Cavaliero, Nuttall, Staar, and Ash respectively portray Jenny Burgess, Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Floss, Ivy Marcel, Sal Tyler, Simon Parke, and Frank Mellor.
Goodman and the term, whilst the detective inspector tries to keep his personal feelings in check, work on solving the murder. the team quickly establishes the bride knew her murderer. No one with any real intelligence would have willing allowed a stranger to enter their hotel room.
Curiously, from a investigative perspective, the presence of 8-hour candles allows the police to accurately establish a time of death. The wonders of modernish science…
Goodman isn’t the only person with personal issues racing through his thoughts. D.S. Camille Bordey, questioning her continued presence on the island, ponders a future far from the Saint Marie Police Station. Bordey, with an exciting new job in her immediate future, has been offered a permanent position working in Paris. Paris, France’s capital, is a world away from both Saint Marie and Goodman.
Goodman, hoping to keep Bordey on the island, reveals how he feels. The truth of his emotional connection to Bordey, something she clearly didn’t see coming, doesn’t sway her decision to leave the island. Bordey believes her best option, despite Goodman’s feelings for her, resides in Paris and to Paris she goes.
Sara Martins, in “Until Death Do You Part”, makes her last appearance as a Death in Paradise series regular cast member.
