I’ve been aware of Death in Paradise as a long-running British murder mystery show—when you spend enough time on IMDb, you get used to seeing it pop up on British actors’ pages, along with Midsomer Murders, Marple or Poirot, and stuff like that. This is the first episode of it that I’ve actually watched, though.
Very quickly, the series is set on Saint Marie, a fictional Caribbean island that’s part of the British Commonwealth. It follows the local police force, headed by a white British inspector from Scotland Yard. By series 4, that’s DI Humphrey Goodman. In this episode, he leads his team on investigating a puzzling locked-room mystery involving the murder of a surf instructor.
Besides Joel Fry, there are a few other familiar faces in the cast. Goodman is played by Kris Marshall, who I remember best from playing the horny guy desperate to go to the U.S. in Love, Actually (on the grounds that American girls go wild for sexy English accents.) Needless to say, this is a very different role for him. His fellow officers describe Goodman as “brilliant” but “very English,” a euphemistic catchall for his various eccentricities. It’s kind of standard detective stuff: he takes notes at the crime scene on scratch paper despite offers to borrow a notepad, he climbs onto the counter to examine something while another officer is sharing his theory, and he lapses into non sequiturs while musing on the case. And if we want to get really specific about it, he does a Columbo-esque, “Oh, one last thing,” after his initial meeting with the main suspects, and the episode wraps up with a Miss Marple-style “gather everyone together so I can dramatically explain how I solved the case.”
The murdered surf instructor, Jake, is played by Dean Lennox Kelley—I’ve seen him in all kinds of things now, ranging from Shadow and Bone to guest-starring as Shakespeare on new Who, but I still know him best as Kev on Shameless. And Jake’s best friend Karl is played by Will Mellor, who worked with Joel Fry on White Van Man! That’s right, it’s Ollie himself!
The episode is all right. Rather helpfully for me, one of the officers, Florence, was new for series 4, so there are multiple scenes of other characters giving her the lay of the land, particularly about Goodman and how he operates. Not that it’s a difficult show to get a feel for, but I appreciate the added context as I jump into the middle. Some interesting stuff with the mystery, although I guessed a major part of the resolution some time before Goodman got there and the final twist feels too out-there for me.. Most of the characters on the scene at the time of the murder—Jake’s wife, best friend, and surfing students—have a potential motive, while the locked-room aspect of the mystery keeps posing a challenge for the police.
Joel Fry plays Steve Taylor, an up-and-coming pro surfer who’d been working on some finer points with Jake. While the police force is mostly Black islanders led by the white English Goodman, Steve is the only “local boy” in the group of suspects, surrounded by white English expats and tourists. The racial dynamics on either side aren’t noted at all, but I noticed it.
Although most of his screentime is either at the start or the end of the episode, the subject of Steve comes up a lot for the police during the investigation. The initial rundown of the suspects mentions that he’s had “the odd run-in as a juvenile, but nothing recent,” and that description kind of follows him through the story. It’s the running question—can he be trusted? Has he really cleaned up his act? But we never learn about what kind of past run-ins Steve had with the law, so we don’t know if it was any type of violent crime. Whatever it is, it’s not enough for the police to really zero in on him over the other suspects, and as a result, they talk about him more often than they talk to him. Also, we see them question the others but search Steve’s van.
It’s hard to review an actor’s guest appearance in a crime procedural without getting into spoilers, so I’ll stay kind of general. I like Steve’s reaction during the discovery of the murder. When Goodman is initially interviewing the whole group together, I like that Steve feels the need to clarify to the cops that he wasn’t really one of Jake’s students, saying, “Actually, I’m a pro. I’m just here for some fine-tuning with the main man.” His later interactions with the police feel logical for what little we know about his character, and Fry’s performance makes them feel genuine. And since it’s a murder mystery that’s kind of a light dramedy, we get some nice physicality with a fun bit of gangly running!
Accent Watch
Caribbean. I’m not familiar enough to pinpoint anything more specific than that, and again, Saint Marie isn’t a real island. I’ll admit, to my untrained ears, it sounds kind of dubious.
Recommend?
In General - Soft maybe, if you’re into detective procedurals. It struck me as fine.
Joel Fry - Not a must, since his role is fairly small. It’s still enjoyable, though.
Warnings
Violence, sexual references, drinking, and thematic elements.
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