A star Australian Rules footballer is found dead in his team locker room, hanging by a supporter scarf of the team's hated crosstown rivals. The dead man allegedly left a suicide note, but no one believes it wasn't murder...
Tropes in this episode:
- Adaptation Expansion: Based on the short story The Vanishing of Jock McHale's Hat. No murder or police were involved in the story.
- Always Murder / Never Suicide: Harry's suicide note, despite everyone acknowledging it was written in his own hand and that he had some very good reasons to want to take his own life, is still given precisely zero credibility, although by the time it turns up it has also been found that his hands were bound when he allegedly hanged himself.
- Asshole Victim: It's implied that Harry had raped Gibbs' daughter two years prior - at the very least, he ditched her after she fell pregnant.
- Australian Rules Football: Expected, as it's an entire episode about Aussie Rules. While West Melbourne and Abbotsford are fictional teams, Phryne admits to being a 'lapsed' Collingwood supporter, which is an actual AFL team.
- Disconnected by Death: Stan Baines, alone and somewhat drunk in the West Melbourne club rooms, telephones Phryne with a confession to make. She arrives just in time to find him shot dead.
- Locked Room Mystery: The method of Harry's death has shades of this. He was tied to the overhead pipes and forced to stand on a block of ice in a running hot shower, which eventually melted the ice and left him hanging.
- Love Triangle: Harry's wife Celia and his teammate Vince were having an affair. Both note that Harry was a lousy husband who barely paid Celia any attention with Celia making plans to divorce him. Interestingly enough, Harry refused to divorce Celia.
- Opposing Sports Team: West Melbourne vs. Abbotsford. Events between the rival clubs' supporters typically start at a level of "public disturbance" and rise to "city-wide riot" with regularity.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Two years ago Gibbs had lost their daughter, which would eventually lead to Harry's death.
- Papa Wolf: Gibbs murdered Harry who is implied to have either raped his daughter or seduced her and left her in the lurch, resulting in her bleeding to death from an disastrous attempt at self-abortion.
- Plot Allergy: Dot's sensitivity to dog dander provides a very useful clue about the actual owner of the West scarf that Harry was hanged with.
- Ripped from the Headlines: Possibly (you'd have to ask the scriptwriters to know for sure). The murder plot, centered around a sex scandal with a young woman might be inspired by the real life scandal of 'The St Kilda Girl', when a teenage girl tried to sue the St Kilda football club, and later went to the press, with how she'd been sexually involved with and manipulated by several players of the St Kilda football team while they knew she was underage. note
- Serious Business: Hugh is so despondent over Abbotsford's chances in the league that he burns his supporter scarf in protest. Dot knits him a replacement and admonishes him not to do it again.
- The commissioner leans heavily on Jack to solve the case before the clubs' respective supporters decide to riot and burn the entire city. This over a sporting event.
- Figuring out which team Dot and Hugh's future children will support poses an even bigger hurdle to their nuptials than that whole Catholic-Protestant thing. Dottie sensibly suggests splitting the kids up, boys for Abbotsford (Hugh's team) and girls for West Melbourne (her team), which draws incredulous ire from all the men present:
Bert: It's people like you who bring footy clubs down, Dottie! -
WTH, Costuming Department?: Abbotsford's team colors are a rather terrible-looking shade of maroon and green.- possibly due to having to find two color combinations that don't match any real teams, whether National or State leagues.
- Working the Same Case: Jack is called to investigate Harry's death, while Phryne has been engaged to find the Abbotsford coach's missing hat. Of course, they wind up working the same case within minutes.
