The Ghost in the Machine is the first episode of the second season of Father Brown.
Father Brown is sceptical when a parishioner believes she's being haunted by her sister who went missing years ago. However, when she herself vanishes, he must investigate both disappearances.
Tropes:
- Always Murder: Averted, when it turns out that Elspeth's disappearance eight years ago wasn't murder; she found a priest's hole hidden basement under the mansion, got trapped there, and died. Her sister Charlotte gets trapped in the same priest's hole but this time Father Brown rescues her.
- Are You Sure You Can Drive This Thing?: Sid says he can't keep watch overnight at Cudeley Manor, because he has to bring the car back to Lady Felicia. Father Brown offers to bring the car back instead, but...Mrs. McCarthy: I didn't know you could drive, Father.Father Brown: How hard can it be?(later, after fiddling with shifters and going nowhere)Father Brown: Now we walk home.
- Fille Fatale: Selina, particularly to Sid.
- Give Me a Sign: During the exorcism, the lights suddenly come on, to the attendees' impressed surprise. Enter the handyman, who reports he has just repaired the rat-chewn electrical cable.
- Later, Valentine can't find Brown in the church, and decides then to pray to God and asks for a sign. He gets his response in the form of Father Brown, trapped in a tunnel under the church, banging at the walls with a candlestick.
- Mrs. McKinley is disappointed that Father Brown's exorcism doesn't end with "some kind of sign."
- Hollywood Exorcism: Averted. Father Brown reluctantly carries out the ritual, but it's very subdued, and is even interrupted more than once. Once done, Mrs. McKinley even commits Lampshade Hanging by disappointedly remarking that there wasn't a "sign" of, say, thunder and lightning, to indicate the ritual's successful completion.
- Locked in a Freezer: Actually a hiding place in the manor, but there is no way out from the inside, for security. However, without necessary precautions, the result is much more macabre. Elspeth comes to her end this way, and nearly so does Charlotte, followed by Father Brown and Selina.
- Secret Underground Passage: In Cudeley Manor, although it's a priest hole rather than a passage.
