They Seek Him Here is the seventh episode of the tenth series of Midsomer Murders and was first aired on 27th April 2008.
DCI Barnaby and DS Jones investigate the murder of Nick Cheyney, the director of a low-budget film about the French Revolution and the Scarlet Pimpernel, being filmed at Magna Manor. He is found on his film set having been decapitated by the guillotine. Chaney was found by Jed Norris, who had only recently been hired to work as a security guard by the film's tight-fisted producer, Jack Braxton. Chaney had also had a run-in with Danny Twyman who operates a local taxi service and who wanted Chaney to stay away from his girlfriend, Leonie Charteris. That Chaney fathered her child is a complicating factor. The owners of Magma Manor, Leonie's parents Terence and Diane Charteris, have spent a great deal of money on the Manor and very much want to maximize any possible returns. Then there is Raymond Clandillon, a past-his-prime actor who is prone to drink and to whom Chaney would only offer a position as an extra. Then there are Gwen Morrison and Neville Hayward who definitely had a history with the dead director. There will be a second guillotining however before Barnaby can identify the killer and the motive behind the deed.
Tropes:
- Cool Car: Raymond Clandillon arrives in a 1952 Daimler Consort.
◊ - Foreshadowing: Gwen Morrison, one of the Victim of the Week, plays a French Noble who is guillotined in the movie. Three guesses as to how she is murdered later on.
- Literary Allusion Title: The title comes from The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy:"They seek him here, they seek him there. Those Frenchies seek him everywhere. Is he in heaven or is he in hell? That demmed elusive Pimpernel."
- Not-So-Fake Prop Weapon / Off with His Head!: Nick Cheyney and Gwen Morrison die via a guillotine being used as a movie prop.
- Oh, Crap!: Barnaby sprints from the room in a panic after Jed Norris tells him that "we" hadn't found the intruder who attempted to burgle the props room, "we" being Norris and the officer who was supposed to be guarding the guillotine.
- Off with His Head!: The victims are beheaded with a prop guillotine on the set of a film adaptation of The Scarlet Pimpernel.
- Shout-Out: The title comes from The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy:"They seek him here, they seek him there. Those Frenchies seek him everywhere. Is he in heaven or is he in hell? That demmed elusive Pimpernel."
