Recap / Lewis S 3 E 4

Episode: Season 3, Episode 4
Title: Counter Culture Blues
Directed by: Bill Anderson
Written by: Nick Dear (story), Guy Andrews (screenplay)
Air Date: April 12, 2009
Previous: The Point of Vanishing
Next: The Dead of Winter
Guest Starring: Joanna Lumley, Daniel Kaluuya, Simon Callow, Helen Baxendale, David Hayman, Perdita Weeks

"Counter Culture Blues" is the fourth and last episode of the third season of Lewis, aka Inspector Lewis in the United States.

One day, Richie Maguire, drummer for and leader of a popular 1960s rock band called The Midnight Addiction, is out on the lawn of his enormous house taking potshots at pigeons when Midnight Addiction lead singer Esme Ford (Joanna Lumley) shows up unannounced. This is a big surprise, as Midnight Addiction broke up after Esme killed herself 35 years ago. After Esme cheerfully explains that she faked her death, the band immediately gets back together. They call in Franco, their guitarist, and Richie's brother Mack, a drug burnout who can barely remember that he played bass but still knows how to play bass, and start rocking out in Richie's home studio.

Inspector Robbie Lewis, who was called out with partner James Hathaway to respond to a police call about Richie shooting at pigeons, was a Midnight Addiction fan back in the day and is absolutely thrilled to be present for an impromptu reunion. Meanwhile, teen orphans Declan (Daniel Kaluuya) and Lucas are vandalizing their orphanage. Daniel starts poking around a supervisor's computer, and tells Lucas that "you have a family." Soon Lucas is found murdered—and the crime scene is discovered to be the front gate of Richie Maguire's mansion.

Other characters include Vernon Oxe, once the manger of Midnight Addiction who knows secrets about the band's past; Kitten, Richie's beloved daughter and an Oxford music student; and Dr. Samantha Wheeler, Kitten's music professor who also happens to be a huge Midnight Addiction fan.

---

Tropes:

• Blackmail: Peter, a former friend of Kitten's and an all-around weasel, has been blackmailing her because he knows she's the one who accidentally wiped the master recording of her father's album.
• Briefcase Full of Money: Bone had £20,000 in a compartment of his Land Rover, which makes Lewis suspicious.
• Camp Gay: Vernon, who has a very effete manner and approaches the "beauteous bellhop" dressed only in briefs and an unbuttoned shirt.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Two different scenes make a specific point of showing the macerating machine on Richie's estate, the set of knives specifically dedicated to chopping human waste into goo. Guess what the killer tries to do with his last victim?
  • Esme's comment about having sex with Bone and Franco the night Lucas was murdered is a far subtler one. Bone, as it turns out, figured out she was an impostor during sex. Then it turns out that Franco found out that Esme is an impostor because she tried to have sex with him—Franco is gay and the real Esme would have known that because she made an unsuccessful attempt at him decades ago.
• Dead Person Impersonation: It turns out that Esme Ford really is dead and that the woman who showed up on Richie Maguire's lawn is Esme's sister Maureen. Maureen and Vernon were conspiring in order to pull off a reunion of The Midnight Addiction, and all three murder victims were killed because they knew the secret: Lucas because he'd traced his long-lost grandmother, and both Bone and Samantha because they'd independently figured out that "Esme" was really an impostor.
• Dramatic Drop: Jo, Richie's "butler", drops the tray she's carrying in shock after seeing Esme Ford return, back from the dead.
  Esme: I've always wanted to see someone do that.
• Dramatic Sit-Down: Richie, still outside shooting at pigeons, drops to his knees in shock after seeing Esme return.
• Ethnic Menial Labor: Richie has a Filipino servant/mechanic, Felipe, who knows little English.
• Ethical Slut: Esme, who has no problem at all telling Lewis that she has an alibi for the teenager's murder because she was having sex with Bone, and then having sex with Franco.
• Fake Band: The Midnight Addiction, a '60s/'70s group that gets back together after lead singer Esme Ford comes Back from the Dead.
• Faking the Dead: Esme says, without a hint of embarrassment, that she felt like she needed a break so she faked her own death and stayed hidden for 35 years. Eventually subverted when it's revealed that Esme really is dead and the woman that showed up on Richie's lawn is Esme's sister.
• Famous, Famous, Fictional: When Robbie Lewis the superfan is explaining to Hathaway just who these people are, he cites "Airplane, the Dead, the Addiction!" (It turns out that Hathaway is familiar with The Midnight Addiction and was just screwing with his supervisor.)
• Frozen Dinner of Loneliness: Lewis is first seen in this episode microwaving a TV dinner, taking it out, looking skeptically at it, then throwing it in the garbage uneaten. This is to show his lonely life as a widower approaching retirement age.
• Heroic BSoD: Hathaway himself parodies it when he says he's going to need therapy after jumping in "a lake full of crap with knives in it" to rescue a would-be murder victim.
• Long-Lost Relative: Lucas the teenaged orphan turns out to be Maureen Ford's grandson.
• The Main Characters Do Everything: Lewis and Hathaway are called out to Richie Maguire's mansion, so that they can get familiar with the guest characters and Lewis can find out about Esme Ford coming back from the dead. This does not explain why two plainclothes detectives, and homicide detectives at that, are responding to a complaint about a local rich guy disturbing the peace by firing off a shotgun.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: Bone's death is staged to look like a heroin overdose, but the detectives aren't fooled, because Bone has no other needle marks (he quit heroin many years ago), and the door to the bathroom stall wasn't locked.
• Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: It turns out that Kitten is actually Mack's daughter. Caroline reveals that she cleaved to Richie to be husband and father because Mack was a junkie, and it was this, not the stolen songwriting credit, that Mack really resented and what drove him "over the edge."
• Mathematician's Answer: Vernon likes to drop these, like when he comes into the hotel and is met by a stressed-out usher.
  Usher: Do you have a reservation?
  Vernon: About this place? Deep and longstanding.
• Never One Murder: An iron law of Lewis. Before the episode is halfway over, Bone the music producer is found dead in a restroom of a faked heroin overdose, and Dr. Wheeler is found still sitting at her computer, after she was smothered to death. (There's a fourth murder at the end, but that's after the story has been resolved.)
• Plagiarism in Fiction: Vernon reveals to Hathaway that, back in the day, Mack Maguire wrote Midnight Addiction song "Counter Culture Blues", then completely forgot he wrote it because he was whacked out on drugs. Richie took the credit, listing himself as the songwriter. The song became the band's biggest hit, which is part of the reason why Richie is living in an enormous mansion while Mack is a gardener at Oxford.
• Putting the Band Back Together: In-Universe. Esme Ford of the 60s rock band "Midnight Addiction", who faked her death 35 years ago, reveals to her old band mates that she is still alive. They pretty much immediately put the band back together, much to the delight of Inspector Lewis, who was a big "Midnight Addiction" fan back in the day. Unfortunately some murders ruin everything.
• Spiders Are Scary: Someone sends a tarantula to the Maguire mansion, which freaks out Jo. It also deeply disturbs the usually unflappable Hathaway, who admits to Lewis that he's an arachnophobe.
• The Stoner: Played for tragedy with Mack, who is a drug burnout. He needs a map to guide him to Oxford every day, and can barely even remember that he was a bass player. He snaps in and out of reality, like when he ruins a Midnight Addiction jam because he can't keep time, but then peels off a virtuoso bass riff after everyone else has left.
• Sword Cane: Vernon Oxe's cane has a hidden blade, apparently because Vernon thinks it's cool.
• This Is the Part Where...: "This is the bit where you tell me the truth," says Lewis to Esme, because he's pretty sure she's hiding something. (She doesn't tell him until later.)
• Title Drop: "Counter Culture Blues" is said to have been The Midnight Addiction's biggest hit.