Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries "Murder Most Scandalous" #2.1 (2013)

A solid episode, 11 May 2017

Series 2 of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries gets off to a great start. In Murder Most Scandalous, Phryne is approached by a hostess at a gentlemen's club to investigate the death of a friend and co- worker. The woman was found dead in a locked study with the incapacitated Deputy Commissioner George Sanderson. Sanderson claims to know nothing of the young woman and how she came to be in his house. Sanderson also just happens to be Detective Inspector Jack Robinson's ex-father-in-law. To get to the bottom of things, Phryne goes undercover at the gentlemen's club to find a killer.

Murder Most Scandalous is a solid episode featuring everything I've come to love and expect in a Miss Fisher episode – an interesting mystery, plenty of suspects and red herrings, and Phryne's wild and crazy antics (including scaling a building at night with rope and grappling hook). As a bonus, this episode even features a locked room mystery. The murder's resolution is handled nicely. The acting is first-rate. All the technical and artistic touches that make the series so special are present – interesting lighting, great cinematography, outstanding costuming, nice locations, and on-point musical selections. And then there's Phryne's fan dance. Like I said, it's a solid episode.

But what makes this episode really stand out is the initial development of a big, series long story arc – similar to the Foyle story in Series 1. One of the things Phryne learns while investigating the case is that there are dark secrets that go all the way to highest levels of the police and government. These secrets must be protected at all cost. Phryne discovers that the gentlemen's club kept a record of these secrets and that record has gone missing. Who has it? Who's trying to find it? And who will kill to protect it? I can't wait to find out.

7/10