Day 185: Poirot, The Veiled Lady

Show: Agatha Christie’s Poirot

Episode Particulars: S2EP2, “The Veiled Lady”, original airdate January 14^th, 1990.

 Summary: Poirot receives a request for help from the veiled lady of the title, a Lady Millicent (Frances Barber). She’s going to be married soon, but is being blackmailed for an absurd sum of money by a man named Lavington (Terence Harvey), which could put her marriage in jeopardy. When Poirot learns that Lavington will be out of the country for a few days, he decides that the natural course of action is to break into Lavington’s house and steal the letter back. After all, if Poirot is the world’s greatest detective, then surely he would also be the world’s greatest criminal, non?

Standalone Thoughts: On the one hand, there isn’t much of a mystery here. On the other hand, that may be why I liked this episode. The majority of the episode is taken up with Poirot trying to be a burglar, and because you don’t have to be on the lookout for clues, you can just sit back and enjoy the humor that’s inherent in the very concept. Plus, the fact that Poirot is turning to crime adds an interesting investment to proceedings; part of you wants him to succeed because he’s the hero, and part of you wants him to get caught so his ego will deflate a bit. Happily, the episode allows us to indulge in both, with an absolutely wonderful bit involving Hastings that’s just the icing on the cake. I don’t think I’d want all the episodes to be like this, but it definitely works as a one-off to shake things up.

Enjoyable as it is, though, I have to admit that when you get right down to it, this episode contains a gigantic amount of padding. I don’t know how much was added from the original story, but this may be a problem of text-to-screen translation. In a book, descriptions of Poirot creeping through the house and poking through things works to provide atmosphere and build tension. With movies/TV shows, you can actually see what’s going on, plus the music and lighting are helping you out, and therefore we don’t need quite as much time to get the idea. I’m not saying the robbery scene is overlong, but when you realize it takes up at least a quarter of the episode, then throw in a chase scene at the end and a solid minute of pointless shots of a band playing in the park, you can’t help but think the filmmakers were desperate to stretch the story out to fifty minutes. I still say the episode is good, but it does start to drag just a bit by the end. Still, it’s an encouraging start to this round of shorter Poirot episodes, even if it’s not your typical Poirot story. I look forward to seeing if they can at least keep the enjoyable tone up for the rest of the season.

Number of Tropes Followed/Subverted: Because this episode is so different, not a lot of the tropes even came close to applying. So we end up with 1/15 tropes and 2/15 subversions. While a murder was involved, it’s not integral to the plot, which is focused on blackmail, so I’m making a judgment call and saying we’ve got a “There’s More to Life Than Murder” here. The other subversion is a spoiler, and even if it hadn’t been, I’d debate whether or not it applied. At best, I’d call it a minor version of the form. Anyway, the one actual trope is “Playing Fair”, since they do give us all the clues, though there’s an interesting mix of some clues being too obvious and others just skirting the line of coming out of nowhere. Still, it adds up to being fair in the end, so we’ll just go with that.

Other: *Hastings’ role in the first half of the episode seems to be providing short reactions to the things people say, like “I say!” or “Good Lord…”, which was just consistent enough to be noticeable. Whether or not you find it amusing or annoying depends on your temperament, but for my part, I think I come down on the “amusing” end.

*The episode uses a variation of the Poirot theme while Poirot is in disguise that is cheerful, bouncy, and somehow even more jazzy than the original at points. The original is still the best by a mile, but I wouldn’t say no to having a copy of this version too.

*I like the little detail of Lavington’s housekeeper, Mrs. Godber (Carole Hayman), complaining about people invading Wimbledon for the tennis matches. According to Wikipedia, Wimbledon and tennis had been connected for a long time at this point, but it somehow strikes me as a nice “period” touch.

*While I am delighted that a cat makes an appearance in this episode and winds up being essential to the plot, I do feel like its being there is a bit of a Deus Ex Machina/Admiral Plot Device. Specifically, why would a cat be allowed into a museum, even if it is a section of museum currently closed to the public? Unless there’s such a thing as a museum cat, in which case, why don’t we have any of those round where I live?

*At the very end of the episode, Poirot and Japp watch Hastings sailing a toy boat on the lake, and Poirot comments that watching a sailboat is as close as he wants to get to going to sea. So explain “Problem at Sea”, then, Monsieur. As I’ve said, this isn’t a show that’s big on inter-episode continuity, but I think either cutting that line (especially since they already filmed “Problem at Sea”) or making it a recurring thing that Poirot dislikes sailing would have been better.

Most Interesting Character: There were a limited number of characters this time, although given the nature of the story, that wasn’t a hindrance in this case. After some consideration, I decided to go with…

Mrs. Godber

She doesn’t seem like much at first glance, but she helps provide some of the episode’s humor and winds up being smarter than you initially give her credit for. It’s that last bit that really gave her the edge, I think; characters always gain some points in my eyes if you underestimate them.