The Chimes At Midnight
Falstaff
We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.
- Henry IV, Part II, Act III, Scene 2
Season One, Episode Two
Written by: David Semple
Directed by: Ian Barber
Original Air Date: February 27, 2018
A series of disturbances at a retirement home leads the administrators to seek help from Shakespeare & Hathaway, but they have scarcely started work when the wife dies in an apparent suicide.
This episode provides examples of:
- Alliterative Name: Penelope Pincott.
- Bleak Abyss Retirement Home: Played With. At first it doesn't seem like too bad a place to live, it's just that the seniors living there often resent the loss of their independence. Then it turns out that at least one resident died of a heart attack because the administrator was sick of hearing false alarms and disabled her alert button.
- Chekhov's Gun: Lu realizes that the chef's rolling pin was the murder weapon, because the menu for lunch that day changed abruptly from quiche to an Omelette (which did not require the rolling of pastry dough).
- Cool Old Guy: Mr. Falstaff, who immobilizes Sebastian (approximately one-quarter his age) in a chokehold and says during his service with the British Army in Burma he made good friends with Gurkha commandos.
- Growing Up Sucks: Mr. Falstaff admits to being behind the sabotage at the retirement home, just because he is pleading with his son to give staying with him one last try.
- Henpecked Husband: Owain Pincott, to his wife Penelope.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: The episode takes its title from Henry IV, Part II, and refers to an old man whose wild nights and epic partying are behind him.
- Mis-blamed: In-Universe. It turns out that Owain was the man who disabled the resident's alarm, but Penelope was targeted by the killer because she took the heat for him.
- Never Suicide: How Penelope Pincott died.
- Not Me This Time: Mr. Falstaff confesses to being behind the petty sabotage at the retirement home, but he didn't kill Penelope.
- Not So Above It All: Sebastian helps liven up the retirement home by racing Falstaff on electric scooters. When told he has to quit for the day, Sebastian pouts and asks if he can come back tomorrow.
- Retired Badass: Mr. Falstaff, an ex-soldier who still knows some dirty tricks the Gurkhas taught him.
- Rube Goldberg Hates Your Guts: Mrs. Pincott died from a blow to the head, then the killer set up an elaborate device to send her body plummeting from the roof at a time when the killer was elsewhere, in plain view of alibi witnesses.
- You Killed My Mother: The killer's motivation.
