The Noble Art is the sixth episode of the thirteenth series of the Midsomer Murders and was originally aired on 13th October 2010.
Everyone in Midsomer Morchard, including Tom and Joyce Barnaby, take great pride in local boy John Kinsella, who has just become the middle weight boxing champion of the world. The new champion is stuck in New York awaiting his flight home with his manager Frank Bishop, but much is happening in his absence. Bishop calls solicitor Giles Braithwaite, and insists that they meet immediately on his return. Several others - including Bishop's wife Grace, local Justice of the Peace Gerald Farquaharson, his daughter-in-law Camilla and, separately, Gerald's son, Sebastian, all require an urgent meeting with the solicitor as well. Everyone has a secret and when Braithwaite is found dead in his office, there is no shortage of suspects. Two others will be found dead before DCI Barnaby and DS Jones crack the case.
Tropes:
- Aesop: As the killer is led away, Tom realizes that for the first time in his life, a criminal was able to fool even him with his affable ways. Throughout the episode, Tom has done nothing but praise this man, calling him "one of us," but in the end he takes back everything he said.Ben Jones: He [Gerald] got his son's wife pregnant, he gambled away his family fortune, and people like him.
Tom Barnaby: I certainly did.
Ben Jones: Yeah. He stitched you up, didn't he, sir?
Tom Barnaby: Yes. He killed three people. Carried out those murders meticulously, clinically. Right under my nose. What kind of a man does that?
Ben Jones: [quoting the words used by Tom to previously describe Gerald] A "JP"! A "pillar of the community".
Tom Barnaby: And certainly not "one of us" at all. - All for Nothing: Shortly before his arrest, Gerald Farquaharson discovers that the match on which he had wagered his mansion was rigged, so the bet was canceled and the three murders he committed were unnecessary. Gerald himself recognizes the irony of the situation.
- Both Sides Have a Point: It's what we eventually learn regarding Sebastian and Millie. While what he does is rude and disrespectful toward her to the point that his actions can be seen as abuse, and he cheated on her with Giles Braithwaite, by the end of the episode we learn how she as well cheated on him, and did it with none other than his own father.
- The Boxing Episode
- Doomed Appointment: Iris Holman, Giles Braithwaite's assistant, finds her flat broken into and ransacked. She calls Barnaby and tells him she will tell everything about what is going on, but that she is too scared to stay in her flat, and arranges to meet Barnaby at the statue of a local boxer. As she hangs up, she hears someone entering the flat. Barnaby and Jones wait at the statue and, when she doesn't show up, go to her flat and find her dead.
- Dumb Blonde: Camilla "Millie" Farquaharson. She's blonde and while it is never made clear whether she is ignorant, stupid, or both, almost every time she opens her mouth she ends up saying something that makes her look like one or the other.
- Excessive Mourning: Subverted. Before being taken to the police station after his arrest, Gerald blithely points out that neither he nor the people he killed are a great loss to society, and it is unlikely that anyone will feel even a little sorry for them.
- I Reject Your Reality: Twice. When Iris Holman caught her openly gay employer, Giles Braithwaite, making out with Sebastian Farquaharson, instead of accepting that Giles could never love her the way she wanted, she became convinced that Sebastian had deceived Giles. When Sebastian begged her not to tell anyone about his sexual orientation by offering her money, Iris accepted it, convincing herself that it was not blackmail since she was not the one asking for it. Of course, since she accepted the money, this attempt at Loophole Abuse is so ineffective that is immediately rejected by Tom, who doesn't arrest her on the spot just because he guessed that she is hiding something else, and the nervousness of knowing that he is aware of her crimes will probably lead her to make the mistake that will allow Barnaby to solve the case.
- The Upper Crass: A modern, realistic example: Gerald Farquaharson is the local lord of the manor, but (in stark contrast to almost all other gentry in the series) he is an affable man of the people with no pretentiousness or interest in status who loves nothing more than gambling and boxing, while trying to do what is right by the people of the village.
