User Reviews

Midsomer Murders: Destroying Angel starts as Tom (John Nettles) & Joyce Barnaby (Jane Wymark) turn up to attend the funeral of a recently deceased hotel owner named Karl Wainwright (Edward Jewesbury) & a village fête straight after. It soon becomes apparent that Gregory Chambers (Philip Bowen) who is due to perform the Punch & Judy show at the fête hasn't turned up & wasn't at the funeral either, his friend & protégé Clarice Opperman (Madeleine Worrall) presses the issue & says she is worried. Tom is also concerned & a search party is organised to scour the local woods where Gregory was know to be Mushrooming earlier that morning. Gregory is not found but his severed hand is, now Tom is faced with a murder case & plenty of suspects. Was it his unfaithful wife Suzanna (Samantha Bond)? Was it her lover Tristan (Tom Ward)? Was it someone who wanted him out of Wainwright's will? Watch it to find out..

Episode 2 from season 4 this was originally broadcast here in the UK during August 2001 (almost a year after the previous story Garden of Death which the IMDb has as Episode 1 from season 4), directed by David Tucker I have to say this is one of my very favourite Midsomer Murders episodes although shamefully it doesn't often get a mention as a classic of the series. The script by David Hoskins has it all, there are some terrific twists & turns, plenty of dead bodies, lots of red herrings & several suspects who could have done it. The script has a really nice balance & it's extremely well paced, it's absorbing & gripping, it's clever, complex & ambitious & it manages to implicate various character's but not enough for the killers identity to be obvious while managing to keep them very much in the frame for the murders so your never quite sure. The ending to destroying Angel is one of the finest in the whole series, the final 30 minutes is constant twists, turns & revelations as the whole complicated but well thought out murder mystery is solved. You need to listen & watch carefully from beginning to end as it can get very complicated but if you have kept track properly it all comes together wonderfully in a highly satisfying & unexpected twist ending. I would be willing to bet good money no-one will be able to guess the killers identity &/or motives, this one also manages to make you feel some sympathy for the killer. The one problem I do have with Destroying Angel are the unlikely co-incidences, for instance that a police officer like Barnaby would mount a search for a man who has been missing for mere hours, the fact that a dog finds the severed hand in a huge wood & takes it back to his owner & the notion that the killer 'accidently' dropped the severed hand without noticing in the first place. Having said that all of those things are possible, just not very plausible.

This is one of the few Midsomer Murders episodes in which the village it takes place in is never named, as usual picturesque British locations in Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire were used. If your interested the title Destroying Angel refers to a type of Mushroom which once eaten causes a slow painful death over several days & for which there is no antidote, I am not sure if this is a real Mushroom or specifically made up for this though. The acting is top quality as usual, Samantha Bond better know for her role as Miss Moneypenny in the Pierce Brosnan James Bond films makes an appearance. There is a fairly high body count in this including people shot with arrows, people smothered, poisoning, shotgun shootings & people being crushed. This is also slightly more gruesome than usual with a few scenes involving a severed hand.

Destroying Angel is a fantastic Midsomer Murders mystery, sure it's over-the-top & elaborate but that's what I want to see. There's plenty of murders, twists, turns & potential suspects & victims to keep fans of the series & crime dramas happy for 100 minutes. Brilliant stuff & one of my very favourite episodes.

This is one of the best episodes I've seen so far. Who the killer is, what their motives are and how they carry out the murders is quite clever and unusual. My only complaint is that damn Punch & Judy. I'll never understand why the tradition of this creepy and horribly violent doll is still kept alive but it did suit the story. I was quite amused when Troy finds Clarice attractive until she brings out that creepy Punch doll and then he's completely put off.

SPOILERS FOLLOW: I'm adding this for other viewers who would like to refresh their memory about the solution without having to watch the whole thing again.

At the start Gregory Chambers is killed in the forest while looking for mushrooms. He helped out at a hotel owned by an old man, Karl Wainwright, who was dying and planned to leave his property to Gregory, Gregory's wife, Suzanna the manager, her lover, Tristan the chef, and Julia the accountant. When Karl overhears Kenneth, Julia's husband, Suzanna and Tristan talking about how they're going to sell off some of the land he can't help letting slip that he's made a new will in which they don't inherit anything. Suzanna realises that Karl really trusted Gregory and that he must have the new will. She smothers Karl so he can't make it public that there's a new will and Tristan murders Gregory the day before Karl's funeral and takes the will before Gregory has a chance to make it known.

Tristan decides to pin the murder on Annie the gamekeeper who was having an affair with Gregory and is four months pregnant with his child. He plants Gregory's blood in her truck and burns Gregory's clothes nearby. He's dumped Gregory's body in a nearby pond and was planning to dispense with the head, hands and new will in the hotel incinerator but gets spooked by Colin running naked through the woods while being spanked by his housekeeper, Florence, and drops one of the hands, which is later found by a dog during a search of the woods.

Evelyn, who ran the local Punch & Judy puppet show with Gregory, figures out that Kenneth, Suzanna and Tristan killed Gregory. When she sees Suzanna chasing away Karl's nurse, Denise, from the funeral by implying that Denise's incompetence caused his death Evelyn realises this can't be true because Denise is a good nurse. When Denise later tells Evelyn that she had witnessed Karl's signature she realises it had to have been for a will. She also knew that Gregory was going to harvest some of the Chicken of the Woods fungus but then his basket was empty though Evelyn did spot some traces of the fungus in it. To make sure she sent her niece Clarice to take a picture of the rare fungus and the way it was cut was unique to Gregory so she realised he'd been in the woods and that the killer had taken the mushrooms Gregory had collected.

In quite a clever twist she turns out to be the one who murders Tristan, Kenneth and Suzanna because they wouldn't confess. You half expect her infirmity to be only an act but she pulled off the killings with the unwitting help of her gardener, Ben, and Clarice. First she sends Clarice to drop off death threats by telling her they are letters of commiseration for Gregory's murder. But when the killers don't confess it confirms their guilt (otherwise they would have reported the threats) and sets out to murder them. She gets Clarice to pick the Destroying Angel poisonous mushrooms and sends Ben to deliver them. He adds them to Gregory's mushrooms that Tristan kept and then eats. There's no cure for Destroying Angel so he dies a slow agonising death.

Then she phones a builder who's done work for Julia and Kenneth before and mimicking Julia's voice tells him to unscrew Kenneth's massive drinks cabinet from the wall. In quite a hilarious moment this then falls on Kenneth. She then phones Suzanna and pretends to be a hysterical Julia. When Suzanna phones Tristan about what to do he tells her to get rid of Julia, who's already been unnerved by the Punch & Judy show mentioning a piece of paper (Evelyn pretends it was written by Gregory but she was really the author) and could crack and tell the police everything. Evelyn also phones and threatens Julia in Punch's voice so she takes a shotgun to bed. When Suzanna sneaks in to murder her Julia shoots her.

In the end we find out that Annie was Karl's daughter and that he left the estate to her so at least there is a happy ending for someone who deserves it.

After "Garden of Death" was watchable, though not one of the best, I was really looking forward seeing "Destroying Angel". And I wasn't disappointed. "Destroying Angel" is easily one of the series's best and a great episode.

Let's start with good and magnificent (shall we?)

. The production values of this episode are as usual gorgeous. The direction by David Tucker( who, I must admit, is not one of my favorite directors in "Midsomer Murders") is enjoyable and the music fits the scenery perfectly. The cast's very strong too. Always liked Samantha Bond as an actress, and she is very good here, Rosemary Leach fares strong too.

. The story of "Destroying Angel" is one of "Midsomer Murders" most compelling. Clever twists and turns keep coming and coming, the characters are well-written. I agree: David Hoskins's research and effort leaps from the script. The body count is also very high here and the murders are committed in brutal manners. The puppet show aspect of "Destroying Angel" is fun, but suitable chilling at times.

But...

. I have one flaw with this episode. Even though the ending is very well acted and written- the solution to this murder mystery is a great one. The fact that we should care about Evelyn Pope as a murderess I just could not get behind. She has done the deed in such disturbing manner, which I can not sympathize with.

Overall, a great episode and one of my favorites.

9/10 HK

"Destroying Angel" starts with the murder of Gregory Chambers. Gregory was out in the woods collecting mushrooms when he falls to the ground after being shot with an bow and arrow. Karl Wainwright, owner of the local hotel, dies at the same time, and his funeral is being held. Karl Wainwright leaves his hotel and modest capital to be shared between Suzanna Chambers, Gregory Chambers, Julia Goodard and Tristan Goodfellow. Now that Gregory is dead, his shares will be taken over by his wife Suzanna. A severed hand is found it the woods, and it is later identified as Gregory's.

Someone is seen dropping of mushrooms at Tristan Goodfellow's place. He has eaten many of them and starts vomiting. Colin Salter is summoned and after a check, it is revealed that Tristan has eaten amanita verosa, common name, Destroying Angel. Colin says that there is no cure, and in a couple of days, Tristan's liver and kidneys will be severely damaged. Shortly after, Julia Goodard's husband, Kenneth Gooders is smothered to death, when a drinks cabinet collapses and falls unto him.

Someone sneaks into Julia's house and goes up to the bedroom. Julia, who had received a strange phone call the same evening, was alarmed as was prepared when she found a shotgun. As the unknown person comes into Julia's bedroom, Julia fires a shot, and when she turns on the lights, realising that the unknown person was indeed Suzanna, Julia screams and gets frightened. Julia tells the truth and admits that Suzanna, Julia, Kenneth and Tristan, all were involved in a conspiracy to murder Gregory because of a new will. Suzanna found out about the new will from Wainwright. He told her they weren't going to get anything. She realises that Gregory has the new will. She tells Tristan to lock the door. Then she puts a pillow over Wainwright's face and smothers him.

Evelyn Pope admits she is the person responsible for the Murders of Tristan, Kenneth and Suzanna. Shortly after, she dies in Woody's arms. Her time had come and she wants Woody to be as happy as he can be with the rest of the time he has left.

Samantha Bond, Abigail McKern, Tom Ward, Robert Lang and Rosemary Leach leave the best impression from the wonderful supporting cast. Many of the characters in this episode are colourful and it is a joy to watch them in this story. The only problem may be that they try to make us care about Evelyn and the murders she commits, and it is a question we should ask ourselves, if the murderer deserves to get sympathy for killing other people. The story has many different twist and turns and red herrings keep coming throughout the entire episode.

"Destroying Angel" is a wonderful second episode of the fourth series of Midsomer Murders. This is also an episode where there are more than one murderer, and that makes it a lot more intriguing. The setting about the hotel and the people who inherited it after the owner's death, was a very interesting and intriguing story. In my opinion, a classic Midsomer Murders episode. 10/10 Hossy Christie.

Look - this is not a review of the whole programme, though I enjoyed it a lot... and as it is years since I saw it, what follows is definitely not going to be 100% accurate, though it will reflect the scene which gives me a laugh every time I see it:

This episode of Midsomer Murders contains one of my favourite pieces of black humour dialogue of all time, which went something like this iirc:

(Man writhes in bed in agony)

Doctor: You have been poisoned by eating a Destroying Angel.

Patient: Aargh! (Groans).

Doctor: The good news is that you will start feeling better on the second day...

Cut to:

Patient: (Smiles bravely in expectation)

Doctor:... the bad news is that the respite will be brief. The next day, the stomach cramps will return, and on the day after that you will die!

(An absolute classic - I don't think even the Coen brothers have managed better.)

DCI Barnaby (played by John Nettles) finds himself investigating another murder when a local Punch and Judy man called Gregory Chambers (played by Philip Bowen) goes missing whilst collecting wild mushrooms in the woods near Midsomer Magna. This coincides with the death of a hotel owner called Karl Wainwright who has left the bulk of his estate, including the Easterly Grange hotel, to Chambers, his wife Suzanna (played by Samantha Bond), the chef Tristan Goodfellow (played by Tom Ward) and two other members of his most trusted staff. When a disembodied hand is found in the woods, it is confirmed that Chambers is dead meaning that his share of Wainwright's estate will now pass to his wife. Suzanna has been having an affair with Tristan and it seems Gregory had also been having one of his own with the daughter of the local gamekeeper Ann Tyson who is pregnant. When the beneficiaries of Wainwright's estate start dying in gruesome ways, including poisoning by a deadly wild mushroom known as 'Destroying Angel', Barnaby and Sgt Troy (played by Daniel Casey) must find a common motive for the murders. Could Clarice Opperman (played by Madeleine Worrall), the new Punch and Judy artist, provide a lead and does her aunt, Evelyn Pope (played by Rosemary Leech) know more than she is letting on?

Another first rate addition to the long running and popular Midsomer Murders series. Like the other best episodes it is graced by fine acting by a stellar cast, including Samantha Bond who excels as the hard-hearted businesswoman, Suzanna Chambers. Madeleine Worrall also does fine work as Clarice as does Rosemary Leech as her aunt, Evelyn. John Nettles is as good as ever as the down to earth, thoughtful and intelligent DCI Barnaby and Daniel Casey provides good support as his young sergeant, Gavin Troy. The plot development plays fair with the audience and there are a large number of twists and turns before it reaches a satisfying denouement. It is capable of being followed; it plays fair with the audience and it moves at a steady but not tiring pace. The very able direction is by David Tucker who excels with mystery dramas with a strong rural flavour creating a rich sense of atmosphere and place. As we have come to expect from this series, the production values are of a very high standard and the excellent English country locations beautifully photographed (in this case by Graham Frake0 so as to maximise their dramatic effect.

I too enjoyed this episode. I love the picturesque beauty of the locations and John Nettles is just such a unique actor. Doesn't overplay his role. One feels his sense of authority as a senior DCI. I thought the other actors/actresses were brilliantly cast as well. Samantha Bond was awesome in her role as well.

Just need clarity on a few things in this episode. What was the significance of the polaroid taken of the mushroom ? Why was that necessary for the plot ? Also , why was Evelyn so insistent on protecting Annie and Gregory ? Was she protective of them at all or have a connection to them ?

Thanks

This episode had many people murdered in different ways. It seems it was about who was going to inherit property. Four people were to get a hotel and land until the day before the owner died who made a new will.

The characters where all mean. Those who were not mean were nuts or cheating on their husbands and wives. A man is killed in the woods while picking mushrooms, a man is dieing from eating poison mushrooms called "Destroying Angel".

In one part there is a man named Colin who I think was gay but he wore a woman's apron and nothing else. He would have sex with his female house keeper in the woods. They show him running through the woods like he is being chased for fun by I suppose his house keeper. He is about 6 ft 6 and thin, with no clothes on. It is a really stupid scene as we see him from the back with his butt exposed.

This episode was good until the end. One murderer is a married female who takes pills to kill herself. She is responsible for the death of many. They play sad music and people are crying. Her husband says "she could be pretty tough at times but underneath she is the gentlest person you could ever meet." Yeah right!

Barnaby wife's says to him "Does her husband know she is a mass murderer?" Jane then says to Barnaby "you liked her didn't you? He then admits he "chief inspector liked a mass murderer."

How utterly stupid to sympathize with a person that murdered many people but show no sympathy for those who lost their loved ones murdered by this woman. I know this is a fake story but people who see it may think it is okay. I don't! Murderers are criminals. They only care about themselves. Too much sympathy and pity given in this episode. The writers must be nuts too.