The second time, you barely feel it.
The chocolate factory episode.
The murder of a chocolate factory owner during a local hunt leads CID to the sleepy village of Chigton Green, where another murder, that of an employee of the factory, is quickly discovered. It seems likely that two murders are connected even before Morse hears that the village is gripped by a vicious rumour campaign. One of the targets is a beautiful single mother who captures his attention, giving him food for thought about the future.
This episode contains examples of:
- Call-Forward: We get a couple of references to Inspector Morse episodes.
- Cresswell's, the chocolate factory, is mentioned as being at risk of being taken over by larger rival Gidbury's. This mirrors the situation regarding Radford's Brewery in "Sins of the Fathers". Additionally, the murders of Murray Cresswell in this episode and Stephen Radford in "Sins of the Fathers" look very similar (respectively, their bodies are dumped in a vat of chocolate and a vat of beer).
- Cresswell's 'Happy Families' brand is named after an Inspector Morse episode in which a hate campaign features prominently - although in that episode, it's initiated by the press and directed against a rich family. And Morse.
- Chekhov's Gun: The vet's bolt-gun is used to put a horse down at the start, and is later used to kill a person.
- Continuity Nod: A couple.
- Morse notices a novel, Jolly Hard Luck by Kent Finn, at the Cresswell house. Kent Finn appeared in "Game".
- Gidbury's, the larger chocolate factory (and Fictional Counterpart to Cadbury's) rumoured to be trying to take over Cresswell's, had previously featured in "Passenger".
- Deadpan Snarker: Max De Bryn, especially when dealing with Jim Strange.Strange: [regarding a drug addict who died of asphyxia] Choked on his own puke.Max De Bryn: Been at the Keats again, sergeant?
- Determinator: Strange is still plugging away at investigating the murder of George Fancy, as a result of which he turns up at every investigation involving a heroin-related death. He has come to believe that there is a sinister reason for why Ronnie Box hasn't been thoroughly investigating the heroin deaths. As the events of the next episode will prove, he's not wrong.
- Dirty Cop: Ronnie Box outlines his outlook on this before corrupting Fred Thursday.
- Driven to Suicide: Twice. Rennett Bell kills himself after committing a double murder, and Rufus Burrough kills himself out of guilt for his role in the poison pen letters.
- Everybody Smokes: This is the only episode in which Fred Thursday is seen smoking a cigarette rather than his usual pipe — an indication, perhaps, of his moral debasement.
- Face–Heel Turn: Fred Thursday succumbs to police corruption and takes an illicit payment from Ronnie Box.
- Historical Domain Character: Mentioned, but not seen. Regarding the Rufus Burrough suicide, Morse says he spoke with an acquaintance of the deceased, a Rhodes Scholar named Clinton. This would be Bill Clinton, who won a Rhodes Scholarship to attend Oxford University and was there from 1968 to 1969.
- Idyllic English Village: Chigton Green.
- Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: Isla Fairford, the vet's daughter, is a widowed single mother ... or so she claims. She later changes her story, claiming that the father of her son Henry is alive and well but left her, and the story about him having died is just a lie to avoid embarassement. That is eventually revealed to be another lie — Henry is actually the illegitimate son of Murray Cresswell.
- Mama Bear: Isla Fairford kills Murray Cresswell, the father of her son Henry, because he was threatening to have the boy taken away from her.
- Mundane Solution: Ronnie Box is in favour of this. Rennett Bell shot his wife Mandy-Jane outside their house, then drove to Cresswell Hall and shot Greville Cresswell who he thought was sleeping with his wife. Then he committed suicide. Case closed. Morse, naturally, is not convinced.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Strange is surprised at Morse's reluctance to join him in secretly investigating the possibility that Ronnie Box's reluctance to properly investigate the heroin-related deaths is because he's somehow involved. And even more surprised to find that the reason for said reluctance is that Morse has "met someone".
- Red Herring: Shepherd, the vet, comes under suspicion when the weapon used to kill Murray Cresswell turns out to have been his bolt-gun.
- Running Gag: This is neither the first nor the last time that Morse develops feelings for a woman who is connected to the crime he's investigating. The fact that said woman actually turns out to be a murderer is, shall we say, not unprecedented in the Morseverse.
- Shout-Out: Plenty.
- The main plot — a 'poison pen' campaign with deadly results — owes much to Agatha Christie's The Moving Finger.
- Another Agatha Christie reference comes with the vet having the surname Shepherd — this being the surname of the doctor in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. The reference continues with the vet being summoned to a nearby village called King's Abbot, which is the name of the village in that novel.
- Most of the episode takes place in the village of Chigton Green, which pretty obviously takes its name from the locations in the classic 60s stop-motion Trumptonshire Trilogy, set in the villages of Camberwick Green, Trumpton and Chigley. Many of the village characters' names come from those shows:
- Farmer Bell, Carraway the fishmonger and Murphy the baker are named for characters in Camberwick Green.
- Clamp the greengrocer and PC Potter are named for characters in Trumpton.
- The Cresswell family share their name with the biscuit factory owners in Chigley.
- The vet mentions having had to deal with a lady with a very overfed Pekingese. This calls to mind the recurring storyline in All Creatures Great And Small where James Heriot had to deal with an overfed and overpampered pet Pekingese called Tricki-Woo, belonging to Mrs Pumphreys.
- Unseen No More: This episode sees the first on-screen appearance of Mrs Bright, much spoken of previously in earlier episodes, but never actually seen.
- Wham Line: Bright confides in Max that his wife has been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, and asks if Max knows anyone who might be able to give a second opinion. Max offers to put Bright in touch with a doctor whom he describes as the finest cancer specialist in the country ... to which a clearly shellshocked Bright responds that said specialist was the person who made the initial diagnosis.
