"Kommando" is the second episode of the fourth season of the Murdoch Mysteries and the forty-first episode of the series. It first aired on February 22, 2011 (UK).
Summary[]
A soldier is hunting someone in the middle of a dark forest but his prey instead finds him. A dog walker discovers the body of Tom Meeks, a soldier at Fort York, hanging in a tree with his head twisted 180 degrees around.
After another soldier is found murdered Detective Murdoch believes that someone is hunting the men and he begins to investigate members of a Toronto military regiment. All were in the same squad under the command of British Maj. Gregory Bole, on loan to train them in a new kind of warfare using what's called kommando tactics.
When Murdoch learns that the men had signed a tontine agreement where the last man living would inherit all of the others investments, he thinks he's identified the killer, Matthew Larson who resigned from the regiment a few months before. It's not that simple however and when Murdoch learns that others in the squad are all hospitalized with a mysterious disease, he has to look to a training assignment they undertook in South Africa earlier in the year.
Murdoch discovers that the soldiers are not suffering from a disease acquired in South Africa but from a severe withdrawal from methamphetamine. He also discovers some unsanctioned actions against the Boers.
Character Revelations[]
Continuity[]
- Julia Ogden (Hélène Joy) does not appear in this episode.
Historical References[]
- This episode takes place in Toronto 1898 – Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria 1819 - 1901) is Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, and Empress of India.
- The South Africa War is heavily referenced in this episode.
- Boer is the Dutch and Afrikaans word for "farmer". In South Africa, it was used to denote the descendants of the Dutch-speaking settlers of the eastern Cape frontier in during the 18th century. The Dutch East India Company controlled this area, but it was eventually taken over by the United Kingdom and incorporated into the British Empire.
- Originally "a commando" was a type of combat unit, as opposed to an individual in that unit. In other languages, commando and kommando denote a "command", including the sense of a military or an elite special operations unit.
- The word stems from the Afrikaans word kommando, which translates roughly to "mobile infantry regiment". This term originally referred to mounted infantry regiments, who fought against the British Army in the first and second Boer Wars.
- The synthesis of methamphetamine occurred in 1893, but Ephedrine was first isolated in 1885, not 1893, by Nagai Nagayoshi.
Error[]
- The false flag operation is described to have occurred at Carletonville. While there is a real town called Carletonville in South Africa, it is named after a Canadian named Guy Carleton Jones, who was born in 1888 and became involved in gold mining operations in South Africa from 1914. The town was developed by various mining companies from 1937. The name of the town could not have appeared in an 1898 news article.
Cast[]
Main Cast[]
Yannick Bisson as William Murdoch
Hélène Joy as Julia Ogden
Thomas Craig as Thomas Brackenreid
Jonny Harris as George Crabtree
Recurring Cast[]
Lachlan Murdoch as Henry Higgins
Paul Rhys as Dr. Francis
Guest Cast[]
Stuart Hughes as Colonel Heywood
Clive Walton as Major Gregory Cole
Michael Spencer Davis as Dr. Henderson
Kjartan Hewitt as Corporal Young
Randal Edwards as Corporal Tennant
Kent Nolan as Corporal Norman
R.D. Deid as Mr. Larson
Harry Joseph Judge as Matthew Larson
Laura Schutt as Cynthia Fletcher
Daniel Petronijevic as Mr. Skinner
Gallery[]
| Murdoch Mysteries Season 4 |
|---|
| "All Tattered and Torn" • "Kommando" • "Buffalo Shuffle" • "Downstairs, Upstairs" • "Monsieur Murdoch" • "Dead End Street" • "Confederate Treasure" • "Dial M for Murdoch" • "The Black Hand" • "Voices" • "Bloodlust" • "The Kissing Bandit" • "Murdoch in Wonderland" Web-Series: The Curse of the Lost Pharaohs Season 1 • Season 2 • Season 3 • Season 5 • Season 6 • Season 7• Season 8 • Season 9 • Season 10 |