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"Murdoch Mystery Mansion" is the premiere episode of the twelfth season and the one hundred sixty-ninth of the Murdoch Mysteries series. It aired on September 24, 2018.
Summary
Detective Murdoch and Dr. Ogden have rebuilt their life after Ogden’s recent miscarriage by building a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, a Chicago architect with a burgeoning reputation. However, the house is rocked by an explosion in Murdoch’s specially designed potato-cooking room that claims a man’s life.
Character Revelations
- Julia and Murdoch have left Windsor House Hotel for their new home.
- Julia is studying to be a surgeon at the University of Toronto, “It’s so much more interesting cutting into living tissue than dead. You should have seen the size of the cyst I helped remove today.”
- While ambitious Miss Hart has her plans to be the next coroner for the City Morgue, Inspector Brackenreid gives her a straight-talk on the realities of Toronto-the-Good.
- Not having been given a middle name, Henry has chosen one: Hieronymus (Latin form of an Ancient Greek name, corresponding to the English given name Jerome.)
- Henry Hieronymus Higgins quits the constabluary after a show-down with Inspector Brackenreid, as well as insulting Mrs. Brackenreid.
Continuity
- William and Julia's home (and property) is the scene of a crime – again (ep.918, 1013, 1018).
- Henry and Ruth plan their upcoming wedding day and Ruth insists on finding George the "woman of his dreams".
- Murdoch invents the "cooking room" for their new home – a micro-wave oven precusor – that could use a turntable to solve its "even cooking" issue.
Historical References
- This episode takes place in Toronto 1906 – the Edwardian Era (1901-1910) is the time when King Edward VII rules the British Empire; It is also known as the Belle Époque era, conventionally dated from the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 to the outbreak of World War I in 1914.
- American architect, interior designer, writer, and educator Frank Lloyd Wright.
- William and Julia have brought back from their recent travels to South America a Peruvian statue of Naymlap. Julia calls the statue “Apu” (god); The term dates back to the Inca Empire. Apus are the spirits of the mountains (sometimes solitary rocks and caves) that protect the local people in the highlands in the religion and mythology of Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia.
Trivia
- This episode makes the first time Julia Ogden ( Hélène Joy) is seen riding her bicycle ( ep.101).
- Allusion to Tinder and the #MeToo movement.
- Downton Abbey’s Sophie McShera (Daisy) is the fourth member of the Downton Abbey cast to guest star (ep.602, 900) and the second in a Season Premiere (ep.1001) of Murdoch Mysteries.
- The name Ann Ryand may be an allusion (and wordplay) on Ayn Rand.
Errors
Cast
Main Cast
Yannick Bisson as Detective William Murdoch
Hélène Joy as Dr. Julia Ogden
Thomas Craig as Inspector Thomas Brackenreid
Jonny Harris as Constable George Crabtree
Recurring Cast
Daniel Maslany as Detective Watts
Lachlan Murdoch as Constable Henry Higgins
Shanice Banton as Violet Hart
Bea Santos as Louise Cherry
Siobhan Murphy as Ruth Newsome
Nathan Hoppe as Constable McNabb
Guest Cast
Sophie McShera as Ann Ryand
Aaron Poole as Frank Lloyd Wright
Nicholas Carella as Mr. Towne
Shannon Curie as Mrs. Ferguson
Shane Carty as Mr. Ferguson
Jean Pearson as Mr. Dodds
Paul Rivers as Mr. Kepner
Allan Turner as Mr. Spoud