S07.E02: The Lions of Nemea (US)

[Zahdii]

Masterpiece
"Inspector Lewis, Series VII: The Lions of Nemea"

Lewis, Hathaway and Maddox have finally settled in as team when they are tasked with investigating the brutal murder of a student, and their abilities are tested as they delve into the case, which seems to be more than just an affair gone wrong.

[M. Darcy]

I really liked the episode.  Plus, the street where Felix was run over by the car - I've been there!  

 

Aw, poor James.  He was having a lot of feelings for Felix's wife (sorry, I can't remember her name).  I was worried in that last scene that he was sitting at home alone drinking and brooding but happily he was sitting brooding and drinking in the Lewis/Hobson house. 

 

It was driving me crazy - the actor who played Felix looked so familiar and I didn't know why.  But I finally figured it out - he also played Henry Lennox in North and South.  He's in the final scene which I have watched quite a few times. 

[pcta]

All I ask is that they don't kill of Lewis in the last episode. Liked the way the team of 3 worked together.

[Brattinella]

This was a good episode, but I'll have to watch it again, bad weather last night so I was distracted. I do love these guys!

[attica]

Felix's wife was played by Andrea Lowe, aka Annie Cabbot from DCI Banks. I figured she was so helpful to Hathaway because she knows how to work a case! ;) John Light, who played Felix, played a bad guy in that series who knocked Cabbot up. Before he tried to kill her. But she lived/delivered.

[truther]

Felix's wife was played by Andrea Lowe, aka Annie Cabbot from DCI Banks.

I thought she and Hathaway were terrific for each other.  She's exactly what (I think) he seems to need -- a well-educated woman who would challenge him without being in any way intimidated or put off by his profession. 

 

And yeah, I spent the whole show trying to figure out why I recognized her and for some reason couldn't place her as Annie Cabot.  You really can do a six degrees of separation for these British shows.  Andrea Lowe was in DCI Banks and when her character went on maternity leave in that show her replacement was played by Caroline Catz . . . who stars in Doc Martin . . . which also features Ian McNeice as Bert Large . . . who plays a recurring Winston Churchill character in Doctor Who . . . which featured Catherine Tate as the Doctor's companion . . . and Catherine Tate starred in her own show which was narrated by Rebecca Front . . . who plays DCI Innocent on Inspector Lewis. 

[peeayebee]

I liked this ep, too. I always think it's so funny when we get all the mysterious snippets of the various characters at the beginning. I was imagining watching with my BIL, and him saying, "I don't get it. Am I supposed to know what's going on?"

 

When Phillipa first told Hathaway and Lewis that Rose was a top classics scholar, I figured she had discovered that the old professor had faked the Eripides play. Then we they first mentioned the wipes at the crime scene of Felix's death, I immediately thought of the the optometrist. When Lewis was going thru the eye tests, I thought it odd that Paul cleaned the chin support (or whatever) after the exam was done. When I go to the eye doctor, the rests are always cleaned just before I use them. Anyway, that stood out to me, so I connected it pretty easily.

[attica]

Whoever writes for this show mistrusts optometrists. James Wilby played a murderous eye guy in S1.E3, diagnosing Hathaway with 'pointy eyeballs'.

[CorgiLover]

I really enjoyed this episode, but I have a question. Why was Rose murdered? Was she pressuring them to pay back the 10,000? I don't think I heard his reason.

[pzzlslvr]

With no Lewis last year I started watching DCI Banks as a replacement and Andrea Lowe was the reason that show became another one I'm addicted to - so I was happy to see her name in the credits.  Then I was all  "wait Annie didn't you learn the first time" when I realized who was playing her husband.    The actor who plays Felix must be really good at being repulsive!

 

This show is like checking in with favorite people - I hope they make Season 9, 10 etc….

 

 

[peeayebee]

I really enjoyed this episode, but I have a question. Why was Rose murdered? Was she pressuring them to pay back the 10,000? I don't think I heard his reason.

Paul worried that she might kill Felix, and they needed him for the sperm donor. I think there was another threat, like if she made the affair public, he would be sent away or to prison, so again Paul and Jenny wouldn't have access to his sperm. 

[Milz]

I liked this episode. Nice little continuity mention in the beginning when Robbie says "One of my first cases was just over there. Woman hung herself in her kitchen".  (The Dead of Jericho: One of Morse's lady friends hangs herself) and a little hint because Sophocles features in it. (those dratty classics people!)

[dcalley]

I really liked the episode.  Plus, the street where Felix was run over by the car - I've been there!

Is the bike lane basically a line? Yikes!

 

I thought she and Hathaway were terrific for each other.  She's exactly what (I think) he seems to need -- a well-educated woman who would challenge him without being in any way intimidated or put off by his profession.

But her personal life was/is so messed up that I don't really want to see her involved with him. Maybe if I can forget about all of that....

 

I really enjoyed this episode, but I have a question. Why was Rose murdered? Was she pressuring them to pay back the 10,000? I don't think I heard his reason.

Paul worried that she might kill Felix, and they needed him for the sperm donor.

How big of a risk was Rose killing Felix, really? I mean, she was crazy enough to run him off the road, but was she crazy enough to kill him? Murdering her seemed so extreme. And just because that woman's pregnant again doesn't mean Felix is now disposable. Maybe wait until the baby's there before you off the man who can save your daughter, eh? Was Felix a sperm donor (i.e., in a cup) this time, or, because he was a horrible person, did he insist on having sex with her? I wasn't sure about that.

 

I liked this episode. Nice little continuity mention in the beginning when Robbie says "One of my first cases was just over there. Woman hung herself in her kitchen".  (The Dead of Jericho: One of Morse's lady friends hangs herself) and a little hint because Sophocles features in it. (those dratty classics people!)

Hanged! I loved that Hathaway corrected him, because I'd been thinking it, too!

 

The red letters were Tisiphone.

Edited October 14, 2014 by dcalley

[j5cochran]

Those clever devils at Masterpiece!  Tisiphone is not just the name of the Fury who punished the crimes of murder.  According to Wikipedia's entry on Alcmaeon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcmaeon_%28mythology%29):

 

 

Pseudo-Apollodorus relates a different myth about this same Alcmaeon, attributing it to Euripides. During his madness, he had two children with Manto, the daughter of Teiresias. These were Amphilochus and Tisiphone. Alcmaeon entrusted them to Creon, the king of Corinth, who raised them. Creon's wife, however, feared that he might marry Tisiphone because of her great beauty, and sold the girl as a slave. Through a great coincidence, it was Alcmaeon who purchased her and kept her as his handmaid, not knowing who she was. When he returned to Corinth to fetch his children, her identity was somehow revealed, and Amphilocus went on to colonize Amphilochian Argos. This story was probably the subject of Euripides' lost Alcmaeon in Corinth, which was produced posthumously. Whether the story was invented for this play is unclear. The epic poem Alcmeonis as well as the Alcmaeon of Sophocles, and those of Agathon and Achaeus, have all been lost.

 

 

[Milz]

How big of a risk was Rose killing Felix, really? I mean, she was crazy enough to run him off the road, but was she crazy enough to kill him? Murdering her seemed so extreme. And just because that woman's pregnant again doesn't mean Felix is now disposable. Maybe wait until the baby's there before you off the man who can save your daughter, eh? Was Felix a sperm donor (i.e., in a cup) this time, or, because he was a horrible person, did he insist on having sex with her? I wasn't sure about that.

 

 

My thoughts too. Wait until baby is born, THEN bump off Felix. I wasn't certain how Felix donated his sperm either. 

 

RE: optometrists

 

I don't know why optometrists are portrayed as the go-to bad guys in British tv. Remember in Prime Suspect (I think #5), the optometrist was a Serbian mass murderer.

[attica]

I don't know why optometrists are portrayed as the go-to bad guys in British tv.

 

Seriously! You'd think it would be dentists, a more natural foe to the Brits. 

 

I keed! Because I love!

[lucindabelle]

Missing play of EURIPIDES???? Are they freaking kidding? No. Effing. Way.

And teaching yourself Classical Greek well enough to full oxford students in seven years is about as likely as teaching yourself astrophysics. NO effing way!!!

And Hathaway didn't recognize the MOST famous line from waiting for Godot and thought it was JOYCE????

Hurling things at the television. The classics universe is a small one and in academia a you don't hire people without checking references. Even if he forged letters there is NO way the department wouldn't want to see his dissertation, besides which "rhetoric of tragedy" is waaaaaaaay too broad for a dissertation topic. It's like saying style of literature.

But seriously MISSING PLAY OF EYRIPIDES????

Come ON.

[Milz]

Missing play of EURIPIDES???? Are they freaking kidding? No. Effing. Way.

And teaching yourself Classical Greek well enough to full oxford students in seven years is about as likely as teaching yourself astrophysics. NO effing way!!!

And Hathaway didn't recognize the MOST famous line from waiting for Godot and thought it was JOYCE????

Hurling things at the television. The classics universe is a small one and in academia a you don't hire people without checking references. Even if he forged letters there is NO way the department wouldn't want to see his dissertation, besides which "rhetoric of tragedy" is waaaaaaaay too broad for a dissertation topic. It's like saying style of literature.

But seriously MISSING PLAY OF EYRIPIDES????

Come ON.

 

 

Morse would have recognized Beckett because he was a classics guy, iirc. But James was a theology student at Cambridge (don't know how much classics he would have studied beyond Greek, Latin and maybe Aramaic.)

 

I think they commented that this particular College wasn't as wealthy/flashy as the other Colleges. So maybe they weren't as choosy? (Yeah, I know, that's not the best excuse but in suspended reality world it's plausible.)

[Desperately Random]

 

 

I think they commented that this particular College wasn't as wealthy/flashy as the other Colleges. So maybe they weren't as choosy? (Yeah, I know, that's not the best excuse but in suspended reality world it's plausible.)

Also, hadn't he been at that College for almost 30 years? Thirty years ago there wasn't internet and social media.  The background check that the college did would have been phone call verifications with Flaxmore providing the numbers. Things were more accepted at "face value" then than they are today so that wasn't a problem for me to accept he got away with his forgeries. And as you say, this was a small college without the resources of the bigger universities. Now if he had been hired by the college in the last 10 or 15 years then I could see that part of the story ringing false. Thirty years ago, definitely plausible.

[lucindabelle]

Sorry but no. He'd been there since 1992. Hardly the dawn of I time. Classics is a small universe. no way they wouldn't have called his committee. And missing play by Euripides, only the most popular of all Greek playwrights, is preposterous. I wouldn't be a book deal it would e front page new all over the world and there's no way every single greeks tudent in the universe wouldn't have instantly caught that gaffe. I studied Latin at stanford during the 80s and I'm here to tell you NO freaking way. Plus which it is completely completely impossible to self teach Classical Greek in 6-7 years and be good enough to fool students who at oxford when they read Latin or Greek have been studying it since age 7.

As for Beckett joyce, sorry, but that line is so famous that anyone even moderately familiar with theater knows it. Joyce was an idiotic guess. Seriously that line has been on jeopardy. Beckett was not a classical writer but a 20th century irish writer so your comment doesn't even make sense to me. Waiting for Godot is an incredibly popular play -- it was just on broadway- and better known even in uk than here so for Hathaway to get that particular line wrong and guess joyce made him look uneducated to me. It's he kind of thing I'd expect an oxford grad to know along with quotes from shakespeare Plato etc.

Oxford is a big university, colleges are branches of it. Sorry but 1992 was NOT the dawn of time and background checks were done then too. A missing play of Euripides surfacing in a forgotten Victorian translation is PREPOSTEROUS. IT WAS A RED HERRIJNG BUT A STUPID one.

Edited October 17, 2014 by lucindabelle

[Desperately Random]

OK, twenty two years earlier. Still plausible to me. He was a criminal and knew the tricks. Obviously a smart criminal too. We'll just have to agree to disagree on this one. :)

[ML89]

Okay, does anyone know what happened to Lawrence because he had his collar turned up in EVERY from behind shot, but down when it was a distance shot. The only thing I can think is that he had done something to his neck he needed covered up. It was driving me insane!

 

That nobody would have twigged to the astronomy error is a bit hard to swallow but I wanted Felix's office, it was amazing.

 

The bike riders in my summer program at Oxford said that they would get run off the road a lot. But hey, let's text and bike, shall we? Felix looked like a poor man's Benedict C to me.

 

They better not kill off either of the Chuckle Brothers!

[Florinaldo]

I am quite ready to accept a maximum of one hoary plot premise in whodunits, but this one required the viewer to swallow too many of them. We are asked to believe that until Hathaway came unto the scene and exercised his preternatural intellectual gifts, no one had an inkling that the Euripides find was a hoax? In any field, be it physics, history or literature, an equivalent claim of that magnitude would have spurred a horde of fellow researchers trying to double- and triple- check the sources or to replicate the experiment involved. Also, in 20 years no one from the false professor's alleged school days came across his bio and realised that he was never in their college; unless of course he was clever enough to select a graduating class in which every one died of food poisoning. Plus the astronomy error, that again only Hathaway was clever enough to bring to light.

 

I know we are supposed to believe that Hathaway' superior intellect is wasted in police work and that him not pursuing an academic career was one of life's major injustices, but this is laying it on much too thick.

 

They did write in his mistaken identification of the Beckett quote, perhaps to show he's faillible, but considering it's one of the author's most famous ones and not from his more obscure very short plays for example, it lacked credibility and seemed gratuitous.

 

 

[txvoodoo]

I thought she and Hathaway were terrific for each other.  She's exactly what (I think) he seems to need -- a well-educated woman who would challenge him without being in any way intimidated or put off by his profession. 

 

And yeah, I spent the whole show trying to figure out why I recognized her and for some reason couldn't place her as Annie Cabot.  You really can do a six degrees of separation for these British shows.  Andrea Lowe was in DCI Banks and when her character went on maternity leave in that show her replacement was played by Caroline Catz . . . who stars in Doc Martin . . . which also features Ian McNeice as Bert Large . . . who plays a recurring Winston Churchill character in Doctor Who . . . which featured Catherine Tate as the Doctor's companion . . . and Catherine Tate starred in her own show which was narrated by Rebecca Front . . . who plays DCI Innocent on Inspector Lewis. 

This cracked me up so much, and I love it! It's utterly true. 

 

(and I knew every reference. :D)

[cheeztoast]

At the end, when Hathaway is sitting in a chair with a drink and he starts staring - is he staring at the new DS (is her name Maddox? sorry I was watching while doing other things) or just the group of them?  I had a feeling there was that cupid-arrow-heart moment.  I like the new DS and I think they would be gorgeous together.  I'm really happy for Hobson and Lewis. 

[peeayebee]

Off the top of my head, I believe he was staring into space, thinking.

[LeGrandElephant]

I thought it was clear that thru did artificial insemination because that's how the savior sibling thing works. You don't just randomly have sex and produce another sibling, you look at the fertilized eggs under a microscope and choose the one that is a genetic match to implant. Like in the book my sisters keeper.

[officetemp]

How did the optometrist become so proficient at killing with so little experience?

The two women--Rose and Chloe, victims #1 and #3--were killed in the same way:  first knife stroke to the gut to incapacitate, second stroke to sever the carotid artery.  How did he learn how to do that?  Felix was bashed with the telescope [that belonged to Newton!!] but was still killed pretty quickly.  Is murder something that's taught in optometry school?

 

On 10/22/2014 at 9:03 AM, cheeztoast said:

At the end, when Hathaway is sitting in a chair with a drink and he starts staring - is he staring at the new DS (is her name Maddox? sorry I was watching while doing other things) or just the group of them?  I had a feeling there was that cupid-arrow-heart moment.  I like the new DS and I think they would be gorgeous together.  I'm really happy for Hobson and Lewis. 

Yeah, I'd like Hathaway and Maddox together, too; however, not sure in what episode it's mentioned, but

Spoiler

she says she's married.  It's just that her husband is away on business a lot, I think.

Edited July 25, 2016 by officetemp

[Bythebayou]

Quote

18 hours ago, officetemp said:

Yeah, I'd like Hathaway and Maddox together, too; however, not sure in what episode it's mentioned, but

  Reveal hidden contents

 

In Entry Wounds, the first episode of the season, the first time we see her talking to Hathaway.

[photo fox]

Yes, Maddox mentions that her husband went on a hunting trip to the same area in the episode. And I noticed in this episode she's wearing a wedding band. 

I like Maddox a lot, but I'm not sure where they're going with her. Even though I love the Chuckle Brothers, I'm annoyed for her that she's constantly playing third fiddle, when she's a sergeant, and seemingly capable. Even Innocent and Hobson, who both give her knowing looks in this episode as if they sympathize, default to Lewis and Hathaway being partners and sending Maddox on errands. 

But at the same time, if she gets a more prominent role in the cases, that takes away my "James and Robbie time", so I'm conflicted. 

[officetemp]

16 hours ago, Bythebayou said:

In Entry Wounds, the first episode of the season, the first time we see her talking to Hathaway.

Thanks!

 

15 hours ago, photo fox said:

Yes, Maddox mentions that her husband went on a hunting trip to the same area in the episode. And I noticed in this episode she's wearing a wedding band. 

I like Maddox a lot, but I'm not sure where they're going with her. Even though I love the Chuckle Brothers, I'm annoyed for her that she's constantly playing third fiddle, when she's a sergeant, and seemingly capable. Even Innocent and Hobson, who both give her knowing looks in this episode as if they sympathize, default to Lewis and Hathaway being partners and sending Maddox on errands. 

But at the same time, if she gets a more prominent role in the cases, that takes away my "James and Robbie time", so I'm conflicted. 

Agreed.

[M. Darcy]

Quote

Is murder something that's taught in optometry school?

Its Oxford, somehow everyone knows how to kill :-)

[SusanSunflower]

It's one of my odd problems with both Lewis and Midsomer Murders. Not only are they remarkably adept (no victims found clinging to life however briefly) and tidy (little bloody mess or evidence of an altercation) -- they're also often prolific. Somehow, one benign-appearing little-old-lady, by the time she's caught, will have killed 3-4-6 people, apparently without qualm or a loss of appetite or sleep -- also, generally remarkably remorseless.