Agatha Christie: They Came to Baghdad

 Summary:

An energetic young woman, Victoria Jones, who is a failed shorthand dictation typist, is fired from her job, but meets a charming young man, Edward, just before he embarks on a trip to Baghdad.  Lacking any ties to London, she vows to follow after him and eventually makes the journey as a companion to Mrs Clipp, a wealthy American.

Once in Iraq, she makes an effort to find her young man, Edward, but instead gets entangled with a British intelligence officer, Mr. Dakin, who explains about powerful international forces at work to prevent a lasting peace in this post-WWII world.  Dakin tells her of two great men who have uncovered evidence of these evil forces.  Each are bringing some evidence of their activities to a peace conference in Baghdad.

That night, one of these great men, Carmichael appears at Victoria's hotel door, asking for a place to hide.  She bundles him under the blankets while the police search the room, but when she returns to him, he is already dead from a stab wound to the heart.  The other great man is Sir Rupert, a traveler of the Middle East and throughout the former British empire.  He is staying at the same hotel as Victoria.

While Victoria and Edward go sightseeing in the ancient city of Babylon, Edward urges Victoria to make friends with his former girlfriend, Catherine. Catherine takes Victoria to have her hair washed, but while at the salon, Victoria is attacked with chloroform and kidnapped.  She awakens to find herself a prisoner in a desolate Iraqi village in the middle of the desert.  She escapes her unsophisticated captors and instead finds refuge in a nearby archaeological dig run by two Englishmen.  Victoria stays with them while she recovers from her ordeal, and becomes special friends with Richard, the younger of the two academics.

There are  three fundamental issues with this story as Agatha tells it, and then a few ongoing problems.

The first is the sheer impossibility and absurdity of  the plot.  The forced coincidences and improbably outcomes that could only be attributed to the hand of the author.

Second, the espionage side of the story seems inadequately told.  For example, we spend great amounts of time and paragraphs describing how amazing are the three great men that wend their way toward this auspicious meeting in Baghdad.  Each is described as a powerful force of nature. Carmichael is the  Arab among Arabs, a man who can go anywhere, do anything, all unseen and fit into the local culture seamlessly.  He is compared to Lawrence of Arabia.   Sir Rupert strides the globe; no country, no continent barred to him.  He is at home among the heights of the Himalayas or among the farthest reaches of the dark continent. Doctor Livingstone pales in comparison. And finally, Mr Dakin is the most consummate British spymaster that he makes George Smiley a mere amateur. He operates the British intelligence service in the shadows behind the mask of a shabby civil servant.

Both of the first two men are dead within hours of our meeting them.  And master spy Dakin is powerless to prevent either of their demises.  Looked at objectively, Dakin is an utter failure.  We spend so much time building them up, but have nothing for them to do once they arrive.

In fact, most of the book sees very little action.  Nothing of any consequence to the plot actually takes place for pages and pages.  And when something does happen, such as when Victoria finds a thrilling escape from her captors in the remote desert village, walks all night and seeks shelter on the lee side of a Tell, she immediately tumbles into the refuge of the archaeologists and carries on as if nothing had happened after only escaping a few miles away.  The entire kidnapping and imprisonment plot seemed nothing more than a deus ex machina to get Victoria to meet Richard.

Further, the entire action of the plot focuses on the great men bringing proof of the evil organization to the conference and so to expose them to the world.  Victoria and Richard are successful in uncovering what that proof is, in the form of a knotted scarf and a leaf of notepaper.  But when the moment comes to unravel these two clues and obtain the proof, all that happens off-stage while Victoria is asleep.  She wakes up to find that quite a lot has happened in her absence for which she simply wasn't needed.  In fact, if she had been alert at the initial meeting, she could have handed the scarf over to Dakin on the night of Carmichael's murder and the entire second half of the book would have been unnecessary.

A mere aside, here, is that Agatha Christie occasionally wanders off into banal descriptions of the countryside, giving extended narratives of Baghdad street life, or shopping at the market, or wandering the copper bazaar.  She takes us on trips to the ancient ruins of Babylon, or a lushly planted grove of trees, or of her awkward attempt to walk around the edges of a river bay, but she makes very little effort to integrate them into the story she is telling.  The copper market has no bearing on the story at all;  nothing of interest happens there.  We can tell that these passages are the result of Christie having actually visited those places on her various travels in the Middle East, but that is not enough to merit their inclusion in her adventure novel.

Finally, Victoria herself comes across as actually a very unlikable character. 

By her own admission, she is a very poor employee, who is very bad at shorthand dictation, can't type and is an even worse speller.  What's more, she wastes time, disrupts the office with her stories and makes fun of the boss and the boss's wife behind his back.  Frankly, her firing from her job is well deserved and she admits as much.  

However when she returns to her employment agency, in order to cover up her failure she outright suggests that her boss sexually harassed her at the office.  Not only is this a complete lie, but she has savagely ruined his reputation at the employment agency, all for her spur of the moment joke to save face.  It was here that the reader began to get the impression that Victoria could be a rather nasty piece of work.

Next, she finds a elder lady traveling exactly where she wants to go, and so she lies outrageously to get an undeserved position.  Further, she hasn't been in her company for 10 minutes before she's complaining about how much of a chatterbox Mrs Clipp is and how unpleasant it is to be around her.

After having met the young man in the park on her lunch break for all of 10 minutes, she then proceeds to chase halfway round the world after him.  Then, on the strength of a 10-minute conversation in the park, she turns up in Baghdad to find that Edward has no real interest in her, and in fact already has a girlfriend, Catherine.

She immediately demands that he drop Catherine and take up with her, for no particular reason other than that she is a good English girl, and Catherine is from Iran.  Her jealous impulses are strong and immediate.  Then she demands that Edward find her a job.  Next she conspires to cheat the owner of her hotel out of paying for her meals and lodging.  In the end, she actually dodges out on the bill, which we never see her pay, and in fact later borrows money from the same hotelier with brazen impunity, completely willing to trade her time so that the hotel manager will buy her drinks.  At this point she is beginning to appear like a dance hall hostess.

 

British TV: Two models

 Enduring British Television seems to revolve around two main formulae:

First.  The principal character is an unusual hero, intellectually brilliant, physically outstanding, often with even more unusual characteristics.  They could even be supernatural in some way.   As an accompanying trait, however, they are often perceived as callous, unthinking or uncaring.  Their towering intellect makes them appear to dismiss those around them, trampling on their feelings, and appearing to discard them when they outlive their usefulness.  Sometimes verbally disparaging those of lesser acumen. 

Often their schemes seem so far fetched and unlikely to those around them that they are viewed as eccentric, but this is because they don't feel the need to fully explain what their plans are.

It is this tension between their hyper competence and their social struggles that endears them to the audience.  However, these traits often cause them to lead solitary lives, accompanied by a single companion who has grown to truly understand and tolerate the struggles of their genius.

Classic examples are Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, the Doctor (Who), James Herriot, Ford Prefect (hitchhiker's guide), Father Brown, Death in Paradise, Hercule Poirot, Peter Wimsey

 

Second.  Any zany absurdist comedy.  

Are You Being Served?, The Young Ones, Monty Python, Couplings,

Agatha Christie: Mrs. McGinty's Dead

 Poirot is drawn to a case of the murder of a poor housekeeper who was apparently murdered by her lodger, and the young man was subsequently sentenced to death for it.  However, even at the 11th hour, Poirot begins to investigate.

 Summary

Mrs. McGinty is a cleaning woman, what Christie calls a "charwoman" where she cleans wealthy people's houses.  She was fond of looking at the photos in the Sunday Comet newspaper and one week read a story commenting on two local women who ran into problems 30 years previously and had to leave the area because of the scandal.  

Mrs. McGinty recognized one of the photos from one of her houses and began talking about it when she was doing her regular rounds.  One of the people who overheard her was going to be implicated in the scandal if it was all brought up again, and so murdered Mrs. McGinty to keep her from talking. 

There were two photos in the paper.   

Lily Gamboll, as a young girl of 10, desperately poor and abandoned in a London slum, was given to be cared for by her aunt.  In a fit of rage she hit her elderly relative in the head with an butcher knife, and she eventually died.  The girl was sent to a reformatory boarding school.Eventually, Poirot decides that Lily is not involved in the present case.

Eva Kane was involved in a murder scandal.  As a 19 year old, she falls in love with a married man, Alfred Craig.  Somehow, Craig's current wife is murdered, Craig is convicted of it and Eva fled to Australia, pregnant with her first child.  There is a strong suspicion that Eva herself was involved in the poisoning, and that she had a narrow escape from the gallows. She changes her name to Eva Hope, delivers her baby, a son, and names him Evelyn Hope after herself.  The story is a little vague, at this point, but it is suggested that the young Eva cannot take care of her new son and gives it up for adoption at some point.

Later, this same son migrates back to England and takes to the stage as an actor and playwright.  During this era, he finds a wealthy woman, Laura Upward, to be his patron on the stage.  As he draws closer to her, he changes his name to match hers, Robin Upward, and adopts the role of her son.  The Upwards come to live in Bellhinney, and Robin has a successful career with his theater company.  The relationship is progressing and Robin is in line to be the sole heir in Mrs Upward's will

It is at this point that Mrs McGinty sees the photo in the paper of Eva Kane and recognizes it as one she came across while cleaning houses.  She buys ink and paper and talks about writing to the newspaper about having more information.  At this Robin Upward cannot risk that Laura Upward will find out about his scandalous past, and his mother who was suspected of being a murderess, because she is likely to terminate the relationship.  No more sponsoring of plays, and no more inheritance.  And so he kills Mrs McGinty. 

Poirot breezes into town to investigate and stirs up the local upper crust.  Each of them has minor secrets from their past but Poirot focuses on McGinty, and at a party of the Crust, he produces the two photos from the newspaper.  Mrs Upward says she recognizes one of them, and Poirot urges her to tell him all that she knows, because she will now be in danger.  She remains silent to Poirot.

However, Robin Upward (nee Evelyn Hope) is aware that she has learned something and fears the termination of their relationship.  While Ariadne Oliver waits outside in the car, Robin kills Laura Upward and then drives away to establish his alibi.  At the intermission of the play, he  pretends to make a solitious phone call to his "mother" but really calls three of the women from the village asking, as Laura, if they would come over for coffee.  Mrs Summerhays responds, and actually shows up at Laura's house but cannot get an answer to her knock, so she goes away again.  While on the premises, however, she gets a glimpse of the retreating figure of a young woman.

At this stage, Poirot is back at his lodgings, now accompanied by Robin Upward, and comes across the original of the mysterious photo in the newspaper.  Because it is found in a drawer that he had previously searched, he knew it must have been recently planted there, and the only possible source was Robin.  Therefore, he knew that Robin must be the murderer, and once confronted, Robin confesses.

As James Bentley is released from jail, and from his execution sentence, Poirot is waiting outside with his companion, Maude Williams.  He confronts her with the theory that Maude was the woman seen running away from the Upwards house on the night of the murder.  She admits that it was, and confesses that she is the child of the woman that Eva Kane poisoned and whose father was hanged for it.  She suspected that Laura Upward was actually Eva Kane, returned to the village, and she intended to kill her in revenge.  However, when she arrived at the house, Laura had already been murdered and so she went away.

 

 

1.  The Doctor.  Dr. Rendell, who employs both a housekeeper and Mrs McGinty "for scrubbing floors."  His wife, Shelagh, is presented as being of the right age to be the child of Eva Kane.

2.  The Energetic Young Woman.  Maude Williams is the friend of the accused young man, James Bentley.  She works in a real estate office in a neighboring town.

3.  The Batty Eccentric.  Maureen Summerhays "It's the ministry of Agriculture form about the bloody pig."  She is a poor cook, terribly disorganized, and generally not a very perceptive person.  Geese fly in and out of her kitchen.  She is also presented as drinking too much

3.5 The Cloud-headed Girl.  

4.  The Temptrix.   Eve Carpenter used to be an exotic dancer at the Cactus Club in Soho while she was married to a common laborer in impoverished circumstance.  But now is married to an aspiring politician.   "And did you go to Mrs Upward?  Eve:  "Why in the hell should I? Damn dreary old woman"

5.  The Young Specialist.  

6.  The Housekeeper.  

6.5.   The Maid.  Mrs. McGinty herself.  She was a "charwoman" and filled the same role, going in and out of many houses, all secrets reveal to her.  No one questions her presence.  And everyone reports that she was a hard worker.

7.   The Industrialist.  

8.  The Legal Mind.  

9.  The Efficient Professional.  

10.  The Rake.  

11. The Rival.  \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

12.  The Daughter. In this story, the daughter is a son.  "Robin is as good as a daughter to me," said Mrs Upward.  The daughter in hiding is Evelyn Hope.

13.  The Vicar.  

14.  The Politician.  Guy Carpenter, running for  Parliament. Looks down on all servants.  "Who has a great sense of his own importance."

15.  The Overseas Connection.   Maureen and John Somerhays have been away for many years in India. Miss Sweetiman grew up "abroad, never you mind where."  Mrs. Upward fled to Australia and then has returned more recently.

21. The Mirror  Poirot points out that there are three women who are the right age to be the daughter Evelyn Crane.  In the end, Evelyn turns out to be a man.

16.  The Loving/Lonely Wife. 

18.  The Cantankerous Old Woman/ Cruel Old Man.  Mrs Upward

19.  The Social Outcast. 

20. The Shopkeeper:   Miss Sweetiman runs the local general store and post office.

21. The Mirror:  Christie draws two overt parallels of her own accord.  She contrasts the accused murderer, James Bentley with Robin Upward, both "tied to their mother's apron strings" and unable to cope on their own.   The mother insulates them from real life.

Second, she says, through Poirot, that there are three women in the village of the right age to be Eva's daughter.  

22.  The Policeman.   Poirot is called in by a Chief Superintendent Spence, a friend of his who is having second thoughts about the outcome of the case.

Tropes

A.  The Ominous Event.  

B. The Time Gap.  Mrs McGinty read a newspaper article that showed photographs of women from the past who somehow met tragic ends.  Because of someone or something that she saw in the photographs of that article, McGinty was murdered.  Poirot has to track down the stories of each of these women and find how they relate to the current members of the village.  So Poirot has to investigate now, a murder that took place a year ago, that referenced photographs from 20 (30?) years prior.

 C. The Obscure Relationship. It appears that everyone in this story was given up for adoption.  Everyone has obscure parentage  that no one is really clear on and everyone is trying to hide.

D. The Convoluted Will.   Christie makes a nod toward some kind of inheritance, but dismisses it as completely above board.  Bessie Burch inherited the house from her aunt, Mrs. McGinty, when she was murdered. 

Questions:

Near the beginning, Poirot says that the only person who could be Eva Kane is Mrs Upward, which would make Robin Upward the obvious suspect to save his mother's reputation.  Poirot dismisses Robin Upward, saying that he would simply only use the publicity for one of his plays.  And yet, it really was Robin Upward who was the murderer, and instead of welcoming the publicity, avoiding scandal was offered as the reason he wanted to keep things secret.  The reason this is not fair is that we have come to rely on Poirot's judgement when it comes to human nature.  Here, he was just completely wrong, with no explanation offered.

The timeline doesn't quite work out.  Eva Kane was pregnant with the child when she fled to Australia.  Therefore Poirot tells us, that child must be 30 years old now.  Since Eva was 19 when she fled, she must now only be in her 50s, not an elderly lady who is wracked with arthritis, confined to a wheelchair, as was presented in the story.  Poirot states that Eva Kane would be over 60, a simple error in the facts.

Similarly, Maude Williams is the child of the woman that Eva Kane was supposed to have poisoned in order to marry Arthur Craig.  Since she was older than an infant at the time, she was probably 5 or 6.  That puts her nearly in her 40s. At that time, her mother was murdered, her father was executed She now has a crush on the accused James Bentley, who is compared in age to Robin, and so about 30.  Therefore we have a relatively young man who is being paired up with a woman 10 years older than he is, probably past the age for starting a family, and this is presented as a perfect romantic couple, a match made in heaven.

 Poirot says that Shelagh Rendell, the doctor's wife, is afraid of something, but he cannot discover what.  In fact, we go the entire show without discovering what it is.   Similarly, Poirot is convinced that there are skeletons in Eve Carpenter's closet, but we never find out what they are, beyond the fact that she used to be a dancer at a Soho night club. 

At the halfway point, we see Poirot almost pushed onto the tracks at the train station.  He is pleased that someone tried to murder him, because it means that he is getting close to something.  However, whatever the motive, it had nothing to do with the murder, and instead was done by Mrs Rendell.   Poirot's elation that he was getting close is actually another error in judgement.

 

Agatha Christie: Halloween Party

 Ariadne Oliver is at a Halloween party in a local village, Woodleigh Commons, when the horrifying happens and one of the children is found murdered.  Oliver brings in Poirot to investigate.  Judith Butler is Ariadne's friend, and she has a daughter Miranda.  The party takes place in the manor house, called Apple Trees, owned by the local matriarch, Mrs Drake, who is widowed.  Miranda's best friend is Joyce Reynolds, about 14 years old, who isn't well liked and notorious for telling stories.   At the party, Joyce boasts that she had seen a murder committed once years ago.  Later, this same Joyce is found drowned by the apple bobbing tub.

While the police dismiss it as a random stranger, Mrs Oliver is convinced that the murder is related to that earlier statement about witnessing a murder.  This is what she brings to Poirot.  Joyce has an older brother, Leopold and lives with her mother Mrs Reynolds.   Leopold in particular is presented as a strange young man.  In addition to the other children, there is also a gardener named Michael Garfield, who works on a celebrated garden in the area and he himself is a famous landscape architect.

Poirot picks up the thread of the witnessed murder, and in speaking to the village witch, learns that there have been three murders that have happened in the village in the past 5 years that could possibly fit the description of something that a child could have witnessed.  The result was three possibilities:  Olga, the Au pair from Czechoslovakia, Lesley Ferrier, a lawyer's apprentice clerk, and Brenda who was the companion of the church organist.  

 Ariadne Oliver remembers that during the party, she had come across Mrs. Drake, who had seemed startled and had dropped a vase of flowers and shattered it, splashing water everywhere.

Eventually, Poirot dismisses the death of Brenda as being a true suicide, when the organist reveals that the two of them were lovers, and Brenda left a suicide note which she concealed.  However, an additional murder occurs, that of the brother Leopold. 

In the end, Poirot reveals that first, it was Rowena Drake with her lover Michael Garfield who murdered Rowena's husband by running him over with a car.  Then, Rowena poisoned Madame Llewellen-Smythe so that her fortune would come to Rowena.  But instead, the old lady suspected something and changed her will to leave everything to Olga the companion.  However, Rowena hired Leslie Ferrier to create a forged copy of the changed will so that the forgery would be detected and discredited.  However, Leslie kept the original copy, and began blackmailing Rowena, so she murdered him.  

In the mean time, the last piece of the puzzle, the loose end is Olga Seminoff.  Rowena murders her as well, and gives the body to Michael Garfield to dispose of in his garden.  This burying of the body is what Miranda observes, but keeps a secret for many years, until she shares it with Joyce Reynolds.  When Joyce blurts it out for attention at Rowena's own party, she can't take a chance, and murders Joyce.

While she thinks herself safe, Joyce's brother Leopold saw the two of them, Joyce and Rowena, go into the library and Leopold confronts Rowena.  She appears to buy him off with a new watch, but eventually Rowena must kill him too, drowning him in the lake.  This brings the total deaths for which she was responsible to six.  

Eventually, Michael tried to finish what he had started with Olga, to silence the only witness to her murder.  Without Miranda's testimony, there was nothing tying him to any of the crimes, which could all be lain at the feet of Rowena.  So he lured Miranda, his daughter, to the garden and tried to poison her, until Poirot intervened and he was arrested by the police.

 

1.  The Doctor.  

2.  The Energetic Young Woman. Judith Butler, the mother of Miranda, is presented as a single young mother who is out to find the best for her daughter.

 3.  The Cloud-headed Girl.  Edmund is presented as an odd child.  Once he jokes that others say he is overcome with morbid fascination.  His mother degrades him by saying that there is no longer a man about the house.  Rather than being unpleasant, however, Edmund seem more to struggle to understand his place in the family and in the village.  Whereas Frankie was striving to become an adult, through all the wrong means, Edmund was holding on to childish philosophies.  He is dominated and henpecked by both Frankie and his mother

4.  The Temptrix.  There is some effort to make Frankie Drake into an early temptrix, but it is mild.  She smokes and drinks, and has boyfriends, and certainly she was passionate about her crush on Leslie Farrier, before her mother ended it.   But she doesn't seem to be twistedly manipulative in the way that the true temptress must be.  If she had remained under the influence of her mother, she would have turned into one, but we get the sense that she has been given a chance to choose another path.

5.  The Young Specialist.  The young scientist in this case is Michael Garfield, who, despite being the murder and an amoral predator is also apparently a wizard with constructing a garden.

6.  The Housekeeper.

6.5.   The Maid.  

7.   The Industrialist. 

8.  The Legal Mind.  The solicitor, Mr. Fullerton, spends considerable time explaining and exploring the will of old Mrs. Llewellen-Smythe and Olga, as well as the details of his clerk, Lesley 

9.  The Efficient Professional.  The law clerk Lesley Ferrier was a competent professional, "He had his points, handled clients well." 

10.  The Rake.  Michael Garfield is presented as the sequential philanderer, flirting with Frankie, seducing the young Mrs. Drake for her money, but also Judith Butler 14 years ago to father Miranda, and at the end is seducing Miranda herself into committing suicide, unsuccessfully as it turns out.

11. The Rival.  In this story, Joyce is the rival for Miranda's beautiful Daughter persona.  Both girls are about the same age; neither has a father; both are living in slightly constrained circumstances.   While Miranda is the first born and the apple of her mother's eye, Joyce is the second child and struggles for attention against the backdrop of the village.  Joyce competes with Miranda by stealing her story and telling it as her own.  Both are the victims of a murder attempt.  But while Joyce is remembered with annoyance, Miranda is pictured as the fragile and tragic hero in a gothic horror novel.  And Joyce, as a true Rival, is not quite as lovely, not quite as charming, not quite as pleasant to be around.

12.  The Daughter.  Joyce and Miranda are both candidates here, (in a story full of children).  But it is Miranda who is presented as an angel, and has personal moments with Poirot and Ariadne.  Typically, it is the Daughter who meets a tragic end, as Miranda almost does in the last act, but is saved through Poirot's heroic intervention.

13.  The Vicar.  The vicar, Reverend Cottrell, in this story arranges for impoverished girls from Old Europe (Czechoslovakia) to work in Britain as maids and become exposed to a modern society.  Olga is one of these.  The vicar seems to be constantly muttering about not having enough money, but it doesn't seem to add anything to the story.

14.  The Politician.  

15.  The Overseas Connection. Olga, from the Czech republic, is considered an Outsider.  She is a foreigner and not truly one of the village.  The comment is made several times, even to Poirot, who is also a foreigner.  As such she is not trusted, not treated with respect, and very little effort is made to find her after she disappears.  When she is cheated out of her inheritance, no one stands up for her. Poirot remarks that she is without a friend.   An odd final element is that Garfield has been on a trip to Athens, from which he has only just returned.

16.  The Loving/Lonely Wife. 

17.  The Batty Eccentric.  The village witch makes another appearance as the batty eccentric in the form of Mrs. Goodbody, who everyone dismisses.  Poirot treats her with more respect and receives vital information from her, implying that she can be very lucid when she chooses to be.

18.  The Cantankerous Old Woman/ Cruel Old Man.  We only get hints of this character in the form of Old Madam Lewellen-Smythe, who dislikes all her family and leaves her vast fortune in her will to the hired companion, ostensibly turning her own daughter and grandchildren out into the streets.  "She was always snapping at you, Francis."  "She thought you were a sniveling little mommy's boy"

19.  The Social Outcast. 

Tropes

A. The Time Gap.  The time gap was obvious in this one, but not as large.  Poirot goes looking back in the past of the murder victim, which is only about 5 years, since the girl is maybe 13 or 14.  And so we delve into Olga, the au pair, and the clerk, and the old lady - things relatively recent in the village's memory.

B.  The Ominous Event.  Again, Christie gives us a new take on the trope.  The event was a series of murders in the village, all seemingly unrelated and yet all happening relatively close together, giving everyone a feeling of unease.  The old lady died, Olga appeared to have forged the will, leaving everything to herself, and then Olga disappeared and no one knew exactly what happened to her, including her family back in Sweden.  That was the key event that led to everything that happened since that time.

 C. The Obscure Relationship. It turned out that Miranda Butler was actually the daughter of Michael Garfield, who tried to murder her at the climactic ending, her mother having had an affair with Garfield in the pre-gap time.

D. The Convoluted Will.  The old lady Llewellen-Smythe took on a companion from overseas to take care of her in her old age.  When the old lady died, she changed her will to leave everything to Olga, disinheriting her own children, whom she disliked.  In order to discredit that will, the corrupt law clerk produced an obvious forged copy that was instantly rejected and Olga was dismissed in shame. But the truth was that there was a new will, and Olga was favored in it.

 

 

 

By the Pricking of My Thumbs

 

By the Pricking of My Thumbs

Synopsis:  Tommy and Tuppence meet with Tommy's Aunt Ada in the Sunny Ridge Nursing home, where Tommy solves crosswords with Ada and Tuppence meets with the local residents.  This includes Mrs Lancaster, who asks cryptic questions about "the poor dead child."  Later, with Tommy out of the country, Tuppence learns that Aunt Ada has died and that Mrs Lancaster was hustled out of the nursing home in the dead of night.  Among Aunt Ada's things, now transferred to Tommy as next of kin, was an unusual painting.  In the back of the painting was a letter written by Aunt Ada, suggesting that something evil was happening at the nursing home, and that Tommy should look for her murderer.  Returning to investigate, Tuppence meets Miss Marple and together they begin to track down the clues present in the painting

They discover that the original painting was altered with a few additions.  They identify the location of the cottage depicted in the painting and meet the local residents who all seem hesitant and evasive when asked about the cottage.  Eventually, the whole story comes out, that a local girl, Lily Waters, was abducted as a small child, and her body was found two weeks later.  A local boy was accused of the abduction and he later hanged himself.  One by one, the clues added to the painting began to makes sense until they began to point to the wife of the local lord who had purchased a manor and was spending his money on the village children.    With Tuppence and Marple on the case, they unravel the mystery that happened 22 years ago, in that Sir Phillip Stark and his wife, Julia, lost a child.  In her grief, the wife of the manor went mad and abducted the missing Lily Waters.  When her husband learned what had happened, using the organizational skills of Nellie Bligh, he packed her off to a nursing home to keep her out of trouble.  However, she couldn't help but ramble on about her past and eventually Aunt Ada began to put the pieces together.  It was then that the mad wife poisoned Ada. 

Nellie, using Stark's car, was the one who picked her up from Sunny Ridge and brought her back to Stark's manor, keeping her out of sight in the children's bungalow that was captured in the painting.  Eventually, the Vicar decided that he could no longer keep quiet and forced a confrontation and confession, while Tuppence used the diversion to go through Nellie's desk at the manor.  What she discovered, however, was the actual presence of Mrs. Lancaster, or Julia Stark.  Julia attempted to poison Tuppence, as she had Ada and Nellie, but Tuppence fought her off and a full confession was extracted.

 

Questions:

Why did Mrs. Lancaster give Ada the painting?  This was the main clue that pointed everyone to the village, Ferrell St. Edmund. And her eventual discovery and guilt.

Who altered the painting with the telltale rope and roses and so forth?

Miss Marple suggests that Mrs. Lancaster added the clues herself.  But if so, then why?  She couldn't bear to live with the secret.

 Was there an actual child behind the fireplace?  Yes, Mrs. Lancaster abducted Rose and kept her at the cottage, but we are never actually shown the fireplace, nor how anyone could have been hidden behind it.

The Cast

The Doctor:  Doctor Waters, the father of Rose and Lily.

The Vicar,  The Reverend Septimus Bligh

The Loving Wife:   Nellie Bligh to the Vicar.  We see her bringing him food, taking care of the church.  Later we learn that Nellie is estranged from Septimus and has become emotionally attached to Phillip Stark.

The Efficient Professional:  Nellie Bligh to Sir Phillip.  It is she who actually arranges for Julia Stark, AKA Mrs. Lancaster, to be kept at Sunny Ridge.

The Energetic Young Woman:  the inn keeper Miss Hannah Beresford.

The Housekeeper; the Matron, Miss Packard, running the Sunny Ridge nursing home. It's tempting to put her as the Nurse, or as the Efficient Professional, because she is both.  But she also functions as the Housekeeper:  familiar with family secrets, sees the private comings and goings of the residents.  And she earns a clean review from Miss Marple.

The Time Gap:  Rose and Lily Waters as children.  The other element is the mysterious family of the Warrenders.  These were the ones who owned the manor house up until the 1920s when they died out, apparently due to inbreeding and genetic defect.  However, the one remaining member of the Warrender family was Julia Warrender, whom Sir Phillip Stark married and she became Julia Stark, now referred to as Mrs Lancaster or Mrs York.

The Ominous Event.  As a child, Lily was abducted in the pre-gap time and she turned up dead after two weeks.  The village pointed the finger at a hapless, slightly inbred young man, who was innocent but eventually hanged himself from the shame. At the same time, the wife of Sir Phillip gave birth to a stillborn child, and later apparently died of grief, not too much later.  The event caused great trouble for the village. It ruined the career of the Vicar for example, and the aspirations of the local lord, Sir Phillip.  People avoided the village due to the notoriety, turning it into an isolated hamlet that Tuppence and Miss Marple have trouble locating even with a map.

The Batty Eccentric.  Mrs. Lancaster, obviously.   We also could point a finger at many of the residents of Sunny Ridge.   And, Alice Perry who goes around dressed up as a witch ever since she did a play at the village hall.  Alice is Amos' mother but also the mother of Job, the simple-minded boy accused of murdering Lily. 

The Industrialist:  Sir Phillip Stark gained immense wealth through mining and came to the village to buy the "manor house".  Having "lost" his wife and child he is involved with the village in other ways.

The Daughter:  poor Lily who was killed in the former time.  She is the classic young girl who died tragically, which cast a shadow over the village for over 20 years.

 The Legal mind:  the shady solicitor whom Nellie and Stark employ to handle the financial arrangements of Mrs Lancaster's bills. 

The Rake:  the American serviceman, Chris Murphy, who has won the heart of the local darling, Rose Waters (and gotten her pregnant). 

The Rival:  the local bobby, Ethan.

The Temptrix:  Rose Waters, who became pregnant with the American and is now enticing the Constable to marry her to take care of her baby, though Ethan does not know she is pregnant.

The India Connection:  While a resident in Sunny Ridge, Mrs Lancaster was taken away in the dead of night by her relatives from "Africa", Mr and Mrs Johnson.  In actuality, there were no relatives in Africa, it was all an elaborate fiction concocted by Sir Philip and Nellie and the Solicitor.  However, the explanation is presented as completely believable and commonplace.

Agatha Christie's Cast of Characters

 Agatha Christie had a very distinctive style of storytelling.  By viewing all of her stories, a notable set of characters emerges that Christie tends to use over and over again.  These are not identified by name, but instead tend to be of the same type.  By mixing and matching from among the stable, a new cast of characters is assembled for each story.  As an example, the Housekeeper is a prominent figure that appears often in Christie murder mysteries.  This "type" is usually an older woman who plays a prominent role in a early household, often developing a close relationship with some of the children.  This makes her a very versatile character who often sees events from a different perspective, but is a figure who isn't related to the principals.

The other novel innovation is that they character types can play different roles, depending on the needs of the story.   They can be heroic, supportive, corrupt, evil, each in turn as the story demands.  To return to our example,  The Housekeeper can be a totally supportive caretaker of the abandoned child, when the mother's career takes her away from the family.  Or, she could be an abusive tyrant who oppressed the lonely child while the mother was away.  Or she could be the real mother of the infant, who couldn't afford to raise it and so gave it to the wealthy family to adopt.  Three totally different characters when written, but sharing the same basic Type in the drama.

The same "Type" of character can take on different forms, while remaining essentially the same.  For example a character can be:

reversed and play against  type, so that the doctor in one story might be portrayed as being incompetent, instead of highly skilled. Or as neurotic instead of reassuring and stable.  

Doctors are usually highly moral and sympathetic, but can be reversed to be untrustworthy and out for their own personal glory at the expense of their patients.

Of course, any of these versions of character types can be the hero or the murderer. 

 Another Christie element is having two characters who are mirrors of each other.  The most obvious is the Rake and the Rival, but you will find that same parallel in other characters as well.  Often one of them is the murderer, or the victim.  For example, two brothers - one goes off to war and is the hero while the other is the village shepherd.  One character is the garage mechanic, while the other tragically hangs himself after being wrongly accused of a murder.

1.  The Doctor.  This man is a promising/ successful doctor but with a hint that something happened in his past that cast a shadow on his present situation.  Typically intelligent, sympathetic, good in a crisis, with a developed sense of professional ethics.  Can also appear as The Nurse.  

Doctors are repositories of village information about births, illnesses, deaths, parentage and various comings and going within their records.  Doctors are sometimes called upon to give cause of death. They can be sources of tension and secrets, first because they don't wish to get their diagnosis wrong, which they invariably do when older patients are murdered and they put it down to heart failure.  Second, their records often hold the truth about things like out of wedlock births, or lost pregnancies, or terminal illnesses which might give someone a motive for murder.

In a murder set in Christie's rural countryside, the population of her cherished remote village is universally divided into a rigid class structure.  Rude mechanicals, farmers, and vagrants are in the lowest class; these are country bumpkins and uneducated, superstitious folk.  Then we have shopkeepers and servants in the second class.  Finally, there is an upper class composed of the Well-educated, the wealthy, and the Well-bred.  One of the useful things about doctors is that a doctor is one of the characters that can be relied upon to be intelligent and well educated, not given to cults and rituals, and other nonsense.  Also found in this class are vicars, and lawyers, along with any landed gentry, wealthy industrialists, movie stars, and upper ranks of the military.  In a way, Christie needs this class to make her mysteries work.

One subset of the doctor character is the Harley Street Specialist.  When a character is mentioned in reference to being seen on Harley St. it is universally bad.  You see such doctors when looking for impossible cures for obscure diseases and maladies, and particularly when one is looking for a secret illness that is likely terminal.

2.  The Energetic Young Woman.  She has history that the story will explore, but enjoys current success, possibly financially or professionally.  She is often the initial instigator of the inciting action of the plot.  One of her main charms is that she is just so full of life, so full of action and motion.  She may be "less attractive", but she "has an intelligent face, and one can tell she's capable and energetic."  Her past may be catching up with her, however, in one way or another.  She can be an accomplished artist, or musician, or dancer, but she can also be a florist or another job that Christie views as suitable for an unmarried woman.

3.  The Batty Eccentric.  This is a character who is distinctly odd and unusual.  Their behaviors may be flighty and erratic or they may perceive the world in a non-standard way.  One might describe them as batty, or absent-minded.  Sometimes they are involved with the occult (seances, astral spirits, ghosts). Other versions are beset with alcoholism, or PTSD, or true mental illness. Many around them view them with amusement, or tolerance, or even irritation and sometimes they are dismissed and inconsequential by the murderer. 

 3.5  The Cloud-headed Girl.  This is often a female figure who is portrayed as slightly odd or eccentric and is universally acknowledged to have her head in the clouds.  She will often be described that way by other characters, being "queer" or "odd", or "living in her own world."  This peculiarity is sometimes the result of an incident in her childhood, or her odd parents, or her having been raised in isolation, but she sees the world in a different way and those around her view her as a kind of oddity.  She may legitimately suffer from mental illness, or may be the only person who truly sees reality for what it is.  

The Cloud-headed girl is a subset of the Eccentric, though the former is usually younger and presented as more serene and innocent, while the older version has more direct schemes and is more assertive.

4.  The Temptrix.  This woman is motivated by using her feminine wiles to take what she wants or to steal another woman's husband, their achievements, their fame, their family, their property.  Could be rival sisters, or schoolmates.   She is a master manipulator and is typically utterly devoid of any scruples. While amoral, she isn't always the main evil of the story, and is sometimes presented with sympathy in that she's just doing what she must to get by.

5.  The Young Specialist.  A botanist, a photographer, a young engineer.  Typically a young man who is technically gifted but socially awkward. Always an expert in his chosen field.  May love hopelessly from afar.  Used as a resource to supply any obscure poisons, technical gadgets, top secret plans that the plot may require.

6.  The Housekeeper.   Often devoted to the Lady of the house, or to the neglected children.  Fiercely loyal to someone, but from her position and perspective in the household can often see details that others miss.  Presented as a "salt of the earth" character, very practical and level-headed.  Can sometimes appear as The Cook, or the Butler, or The Gardener (see below).  Sometimes Russian or a Gypsy, or French;  and if so her spoken English is not fluent.

6.5.   The Maid.  With similar characteristics to the housekeeper, often realized as a subset.  Ever present in the house, she lurks behind curtains, appears at odd hours to turn down bedclothes, or freshen up the fire.  Can go anywhere without comment but sometimes gets scolded.  Typically an audience favorite.  A similar character to the Footman, the Assistant Gardener, the Stable Boy, depending on the needs of the story.

7.   The Industrialist.  Usually a wealthy older man who is the head of a business, or a engineering company developing fighter airplanes, or working on some breakthrough chemical formula, or involved in shipping and importing goods from Japan.  

8.  The Legal Mind.  Frequently, Christie writes her stories to involve court proceedings, or to do with the execution of Wills, or the researching of family trees and marriages.  Whenever this happens, she brings in this character to be a reference to the researchers.   Always very intelligent, very methodical and logical, often hindered by how much information they can divulge.

9.  The Efficient Professional.  This is usually a woman who is good in business, and is excellent in managing business affairs. Highly intelligent. Very smartly dressed but perhaps less warm or empathetic to those around her.  Excellent in conducting research, managing large databases.  A classic example is Miss Lemon. Devoted to and respected by her employer but who easily rebuffs the foolish attention of single men.  Where the Energetic Young Woman is full of creative flair and social grace, the Efficient Professional is full of practicality and attention to detail yet often content to work behind the scenes in the shadow of some larger personality.  While the EYW is effusive and often good with people, the EP is more introverted and reclusive.

10.  The Rake.  A young man who indulges one or more vices.  Often is very successful at it, but it may catch up with him eventually.  He may be a womanizer, or a gambler, or an addict but always with extreme flair and charisma.  Usually he is brilliant in other ways, or is unreasonably charming, which hides or excuses his flaws to others.  This may be a ne'er-do-well pilot, or a race car driver, or a wealthy man about town.

11. The Rival.  A young man who is in competition with the main male character.  Often not quite as successful, never did quite as well in school or on the sports field.  This sometimes makes him bitter about life. He may have a failing that he doesn't manage well, such as drugs, gambling, alcoholism, that holds him back.

12.  The Daughter.  a young girl of between 7 and 12 years old.  May age into another character after the Time Gap.  Usually the object of affection by another character (a mother or father, Nanny or Housekeeper).  May be unusually precocious and/or may die tragically and be felt as a memory or a photograph. 

13.  The Vicar.  In every village, you'll find the resident clergyman who spends his days visiting his parishioners and learning their gossip.  He is an invaluable source of information, history, and ancient artifacts. For example, he knows about all the births, marriages, deaths and those sorts of records that are kept in the church.  This is also the place where ancient objects would tend to end up, stuffed up the bell tower, or down in the basement.

14.  The Politician.  A "stuffed shirt" more concerned about himself than anyone else.  His public image and the scandal of the situation often takes precedence over personal feelings and empathy for his fellow humans.

15.  The Dubious Man from India - The Overseas Connection.  In the cosmopolitan world of Great Britain, our characters often have occasion to travel abroad. Christie loves to include characters who have connections to "exotic" or far flung outposts of the British Empire. And while what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, this is not so for former travelers who come across people they met while in India, or Kenya, or Hong Kong, or Argentina, or Singapore or on the steamship home.  Our protagonist might be running from an unfortunate past, but these dubious travelers are there to bring it all back up again.  Sometimes a blackmailer, or simply a source of information.  This character could be a retired Colonel in the army, or a Archaeologist from Egypt, or a back ally underworld figure from the streets of Bangkok, or a movie producer from Hollywood.

16.  The Loving/Lonely Wife.  In many stories, a prominent husband can often be stubborn and prideful.  In these cases, a genuinely concerned wife can take her own initiative to try to make a situation better, often by consulting our resident detective.  Often not possessed of all the facts, nevertheless she feels compelled to act, seemingly motivated entirely by concern for her husband and family.She is often presented as being very caring, but her attention is not always appreciated.

18.  The Cantankerous Old Woman/ Cruel Old Man.  This is the older character who is past the social niceties and practices being as unpleasant as possible to everyone around them, except possibly their favorites.  This may be because she is very old, or possibly with a lingering terminal illness but she is past caring what other people think.  For Christie, this is usually a female character, because her female characters tend to be more vividly drawn.  When the character is male, it is usually because they have far too much money and are used to always getting what they want, never having to answer to anybody.  This could be the owner of a factory who bosses everybody around or an arrogant lord of the manor who owns all the property in the village.  Frequently the victim of murder.

19.  The Social Outcast.  This is the communist or socialist or temperance zealot that has very strong beliefs and attends "meetings" and distributes pamphlets but are really just misunderstood by society and no one takes them or their ideas seriously.  Often brooding and keeps to themselves because they can't get anyone to really listen.  Bonus points if they suddenly change their philosophy when they come into money or find a lovely girlfriend.

20.  The Shopkeeper.  A favorite is the local postmaster, who also runs a general store in the small town.  They know the comings and goings of everyone because they all shop there and we read their mail.  As such, they are tremendous sources of information, but typically are hard for the detective to interview because they are used to keeping secrets.  They also often are involved in a shady business of their own, because of their position of privilege.   

21. The Mirror.  A classic Christie element is having two characters who are mirrors of each other. These are characters who are roughly the same age, same gender and possibly social position, but choices made earlier in life have set them on wildly differing paths.  In this way, they have a number of characteristics that are parallels and opposites.  The most obvious is the Rake and the Rival, but you will find that same parallel in other characters as well.  It may be that the parallels are not immediately obvious because the characters are so different, until one goes looking for them. 

Often, one of them is the murderer, or the victim.  For example, two brothers - one goes off to war and is the hero while the other is the village shepherd.  One character is the garage mechanic, while the other tragically hangs himself after being wrongly accused of a murder.

Tropes

A. The Time Gap.  This is not a character but is a prominent and recurring element.   Its very rare to have an Agatha Christie story that does not span over at least two generations.  The entire story may be relating extended flashbacks, or we might see the protagonists as children and then as grown adults.  Typically, there is an obvious jump in time between the "child" and the "adult".  Sometime this time gap is wider and involved historical figures. 

B.  The Ominous Event.  This is some event that happened in the past, some instigating action who's ramifications have cast a pall over all those involved, often an extended family or the entire population of a village where it took place.  Because of this event, fortunes have been lost, careers have been scuttled, marriages have been broken, the road signs have been defaced.  Because of this cloud of doom, the villagers never speak of it and it must be kept a deadly secret.  Everyone knows, but nobody says anything.  Except that they talk about it constantly, behind closed doors, in the nook of the snug, when they think that outsiders can't hear them. Poirot calls it a polichinelle secret. And emotions run deep just below the surface.

 C. The Obscure Relationship. There is one person whose history appears to be completely transparent,  but when our hero takes the time to investigate, discovers an obscure connection to someone else related to the case.  This could be a long-lost mother from before the war, or an aunt who went to live in Canada, or the young man who fell in love with the house maid when the family was living in Cairo, but then he was recalled to military service, and the family had to evacuate because of the war, and when she turned up pregnant every body suspected but no one said anything, but what they didn't know was that the maid was the concealed grand daughter of King Farouk in hiding to escape the coup.

D. The Convoluted Will.  A great uncle whose will at his death left a great fortune to one of the other cast, unbeknownst to them, but only if he died before Tuesday and she remained unmarried until her 28th birthday.  There could be an Old will and a New will.  Extra points if one or both is currently missing, possibly destroyed, and also possibly forged.  Witnesses to the signing are often crucial to the proving of the will, but alas, they have moved to Australia.

 

The Adventure of Johnny Waverly:  14.  The Politician.

 

The Hollow:  The victim, Dr. John Cristow, is clearly the Rake, plagued by his wife, his mistress, and his former mistress, and he can't keep his hands off any of them.  And yet he is also noble, researching cures for intractable diseases and admired by all.

Henrietta is the Energetic Young Woman, a successful artist and an independent woman who loves John Cristow but refuses to marry him for his own good.

Gerda Cristow, John's wife, is the Cloud-Headed Girl, a successful wife and the mother of two children, but continually beset with lack of self confidence, comic scenes of learning how to drive a car, and an obsequious devotion to her husband, whom she seems to constantly annoy.  Often, the cloud-headed girl is portrayed as amusing, but here she is tragic.

Lady Lucy Angketell is the Batty Eccentric, constantly talking too much and saying the most inappropriate and inane things at the worst times.

Sir Henry Angketell plays the role of the Scientist/Specialist, only his fascination is for guns.  As is typical, this character supplies the murder weapon.

Veronica Cray is the obvious Temptrix, a movie starlet with a history with John Cristow some 12 years ago (the Time Gap) who's not above trying to seduce him away from his wife and family. She knew John when she worked in Hollywood, California (The Overseas Connection). 

Gudgeon, the classic Butler, with deep loyalty to the family

We even get a short cameo of Doris, The Maid, who reports to the police that she saw Gudgeon carrying the revolver, gets soundly Scolded for her impertinence.

Edward is the Rival with John, in this case for Henrietta's affections, whom she dismisses as "inadequate."   Later, he finds success with Midge Hardcastle, the classic Second who is living in the shadow of the more forceful Henrietta.  Edward knew Henrietta and Midge when they were young (The Time Gap) but could only see her as "Little Midge," the scrawny girl.  Now he recognizes her for the mature young woman she has become.

Finally, Poirot is aided by the generous Inspector Grange, who values Poirot's input and brings him into the entire investigation.

Twenty Rules For Writing Detective Stories   ca. 1928.

1.  The Doctor.  

2.  The Energetic Young Woman. 

3.  The Batty Eccentric.  

3.5 The Cloud-headed Girl.  

4.  The Temptrix.  

5.  The Young Specialist.  

6.  The Housekeeper.  

6.5.   The Maid.  

7.   The Industrialist.  

8.  The Legal Mind.  

9.  The Efficient Professional.  

10.  The Rake.  

11. The Rival.  

12.  The Daughter. 

13.  The Vicar.  

14.  The Politician.  

15.  The Dubious Man from India - The Overseas Connection. 

16.  The Loving/Lonely Wife. 

18.  The Cantankerous Old Woman/ Cruel Old Man.  

19.  The Social Outcast. 

20. The Shopkeeper

21. The Mirror

Tropes

A. The Time Gap. 

B.  The Ominous Event.  

 C. The Obscure Relationship. 

D. The Convoluted Will.  

STTNG The Neutral Zone S1:E26 Close Reading

 The show opens with Captain Picard away from the ship, summoned to an emergency conference.  This is the first cycle opening with the tension of the emergency  conference and Picard away.  From the very first note, we sense that something is wrong:  What is the purpose of this emergency conference?

The b-plot is announced in the same moment.  The ship has happened upon a capsule of Earth origin.  If left to its own devices it will eventually be destroyed, but Data wants to investigate while the ship waits for the captain.  So a second cycle of tension is begun: What is the story of the capsule?

Onboard the capsule, Worf and Data find life capsules, many have stopped working but some still contain viable humans.  The cycle continues by answering one question:  this is some kind of mini-ark ship.  But it introduces the obvious question, why are the occupants on board?  And further, What should we do with them?   We can't leave them to eventually be destroyed, Data concludes, and he brings them back to the Enterprise.

Picard returns to the ship and intends to depart immediately.  Whatever happened at the emergency conference, it has prompted decisive action.  The captains new heading will take the ship into the Neutral Zone, further heightening the tension.  Picard calls for an immediate conference, ratcheting the tension even further.

Picard doesn't wait to disclose his news to the staff.  Several outposts and star bases have gone silent along the border to the neutral zone, and the Romulans are the obvious suspects.  The stated assumption is that the Romulans are spoiling for a fight, eager to test their military capabilities against the Federation.

In a way, this is the end of the first cycle.  The first tension was,  What was the purpose of the meeting.  And now we have an answer.  We went from an uneasy waiting to getting under weigh.  The first cycle is complete  using the first story beat: Outposts along the neutral zone have gone silent.   Now the second cycle begins:  What will we find at the neutral zone?

Back on the B-plot, Crusher calls Picard to sick bay to discuss the three capsule survivors.  They were frozen after they died, having succumbed to terminal illnesses, but Crusher was able to revive and cure them. Picard is annoyed, first because he knew nothing about them, and second because he is distracted by the coming conflict in the neutral zone.  He, Data, and Dr. Crusher discuss the morality of bringing them onboard.  They wake up the first survivor, who seems normal, but when she catches sight of Worf, she is overwhelmed and passes out again.

The first B-cycle has completed.  We know what's in the capsule, and we've brought the survivors back to life.  Now the second cycle begins:  what to do with them and who is responsible for them?  The story beat is "Thawed out survivors."  They have a lot of things to adapt to in the 24th century

While Picard bows out and leaves the problem of the survivors to others, Riker, Crusher, and Data attempt to explain the situation to the people who are nearly 400 years displaced in time.  We hear their stories, and learn that they are normal people who left behind normal, if colorful, lives.  PIcard sows the seed of further tension with an ominous warning, "Keep them out of my way."

The tension is heightened as we wonder how we are going to deal with these fish-out-of-water characters.  

Back on the bridge, Deanna gives us explication about the current Romulan state.  They are fascinated with humans and are likely to be "counter-punchers".  Back in the lounge, the survivors are busy being colorful, but are beginning to insist on meeting the Captain.

We see that the B-plot is heading for a collision with the A-plot, since Picard is busy right now preparing for an impending conflict.  Data re-states the problem, "What are we to do with them?"  This is the classic comedic break in the action.

Picard is discussing possibilities with his staff when he is interrupted by one of the survivors.  He has a long discussion with them and their feelings of frustration and isolation.  He shows patience and instead of doing anything authoritarian, he sends Counselor Troi in to deal with them.  One of the survivors is a mother and she is thinking about her children.  We get a more personal and more sympathetic view of the survivors situation.

Realistically, while we have increased the tension by making the survivors more relatable, we haven't changed the circumstances of their situation.  We add several internal cycles for each of the survivors, giving them small mini-arcs.  The mother wants to find her family, The financier realizes that he has no power left in this new time, and the singer just wants to pick up partying.  One of our questions is, which of these will actually be able to pick up their lives and carry on.

Back at the A-plot, the Enterprise has reached the first outpost, which they find to be totally destroyed.  It wasn't attacked by conventional weapons, according to Worf.  It is as if it has been "scooped off the face of the planet".  Picard orders them to continue to the second outpost.

The same question hangs over us:  What is happening at the neutral zone?  We've learned a few things but the tension is only increased.

On the bridge, they begin to pick up signals that the Romulans are in the area.  Meanwhile, the financier finds his way to the bridge and disturbs the crew just as the Romulans de-cloak and appear before them.  It quickly becomes clear that the Romulans were not responsible for the destruction of Federation Outposts, having lost colonies of their own.  During the tense exchange with the condescending Romulan captain, Picard urges them to not start off their relationship with misapprehensions, to which the Romulans respond with an ominous, "Your presence is not wanted. Do you understand my meaning, Captain? We are back.".  The episode ends with this hanging in the air, while we transfer the survivors to another ship bound for Earth.

The challenge here is that the central question we've been working on - What happened in the neutral zone - remains unresolved.  This is now a 2-parter, except that there is no second episode.  This is the season finale, and the next  episode after the summer hiatus doesn't address the neutral zone problem at all.  The ending feels unsatisfying.

The resolution of the B-plot is equally flimsy.  To answer to the question we've been repeating throughout the episode ( What will we do with the survivors), we simply say, "They'll be fine."   The way this tension is resolved is not responsive to the beats laid down (the mother finds a distant relative, the financier has no money, the country singer "will be just fine.")  And again, this is the season finale of the first season.  For a show that needs to bring audiences back next season, this resolution is particularly weak.

This is a recurring problem with TNG.  There was an awareness that they needed to include family oriented content to keep primarily female viewers interested, and for the most part they were successful.  The colorful secondary characters were there to engage all facets of the audience.  The weakness of this approach is that the two plots were almost entirely unrelated to each other, and neither plot was adequately resolved.  The B-plot had no real tension, with nothing at stake.  The survivors were always going to be shipped back to Earth, and nothing they did could alter that fate.  Indeed, that was presented as the best possible outcome for them anyway.  As a result, their dialogue was meaningless, and their scenes felt staged and phony.  

The other glaring problem with the survivors' story is that it is insufferably preachy, a problem all of Star Trek is prone to.  We take these three refugees from 21st C Earth and then laugh at them mercilessly.  Riker gets in the first dig, "Well, from what I’ve seen of our guests, there’s not much to redeem them. It makes one wonder how our species survived the twenty-first century.”  One is too greedy, overcome with a lust for power.  The next is too hedonistic, to the point where it drove him to liver failure.  The third is too tied to her family, an outdated concept in the enlightened future. 

And we're convinced that none of them really deserve this second chance they've been given.  None of them have a justifiable reason for this exceptional measure they've taken. They're all kind of absurd, actually, and the crew are totally justified for not taking them seriously.  Why didn't you just leave them, Data? Picard asks at one point. Among a crew of over a thousand, no one could be found to take care of them, listen to their obvious discomfort and begin to help them re-orient to their new situation.  In fact, Deanna gets special brownie points for reaching out to help the Mother. 

For all of that, it still had interesting elements.  For example, reviving the Romulans as a traditional antagonist was an interesting move for the series as a whole and this show introduced their menacing ship design and showed a few Romulans, with their characteristic haughty condescension, in an initial interaction.  We also get a few examples of Picard's character, as he shows restraint, both to the survivors and to the provocative Romulans. The writing of individual scenes was entertaining.  The vignettes of the Mother finding meaning in her extended family, and of the tense meeting with the Romulans were fun as stand alone short stories.  The character of the country playboy was vivid, if a little shallow.  But assembling these individual elements into a larger story was poorly supported and the overall storyline failed to deliver.

Its only at the end that you realize that the story had no resolution of either of the central conflicts.  It had no discernible theme across either of its plots.  The result is a weak story with an unsatisfying ending that leaves audiences questioning, with an uneasy feeling. The Romulan plot was substantial enough that it could have stood on its own, given more time and effort to develop the plot.  And the survivors story would have been interesting, interwoven with a less chilling story - about the Ferengi, for example.  Throwing the two together is what seemed ill advised.