The Mask of the Demon is the first episode of the fourth season of Father Brown.
Lady Felicia receives an invitation to visit the set of a film when the production of Demon Brides arrives in Kembleford. Father Brown investigates after B-movie director Vivian Wolsey is found dead.
Tropes:
- Accidental Murder: Paulette spends the entire episode thinking that she killed Wolsey while trying to fend off his unwanted advances. This trope is eventually subverted when Father Brown reveals that she just knocked him unconscious, and that someone else finished him off after she fled the scene.
- Accidental Public Confession: Inspector Mallory discovers that Vivian Wolsey had bugged his own office and turns on the microphone just in time to hear the killer confess to the murder as he prepares to dispose of Father Brown.
- And Now You Must Marry Me: Wolsey threatened to have his now-wife blacklisted from all the major film studios if she didn't marry him. Naturally she's still nurses a serious grudge over this, making her the prime suspect when he winds up dead.
- Bookcase Passage: Wolsey has a secret room concealed behind a bookcase that he uses to secretly film his Casting Couch assignations.
- Casting Couch: Wolsey is famous for his use of this. He films his assignations, via a secret room behind a Bookcase Passage, for his own entertainment and blackmail purposes.
- Politically Correct History: Zig-zagged. Rex Bishop is only acting in Demon Brides due to Wolsey blackmailing him over his sexuality. However, Lady Felicia convinces him to bring Father Brown into the loop about the blackmail by assuring him that the Father is the last person who'd be bothered about his secret. Father Brown winds up finding and burning the incriminating evidence, knowing it will bring Rex peace.
