"You can't arrest a man because his wife won't sleep with him."
This is,perhaps, not as good an episode as some, and it feels for much of its length as though it's drifting somewhat aimlessly... but then, very late, we get the resolution, and it's all damnably clever, the clues all hidden in plain sight.
There's lots to enjoy here, even if we get the hoary old trope that the woman Morse fancies is inevitably the killer. Lewis gets to be good at cricket, and we get to learn Morse's old uni nickname of "Pagan", so-called because he wouldn't reveal his Christian name! I'm not sure that Lewis agreeing to use his leave to go undercover while the DIY was taken care of is at all realistic, but then Colin Dexter always did cheerfully refuse to do any research on police procedure.
There's an ugly look at how rampant homophobia was in 1989- and it was- but the script makrs very clear whose side it's on. Once more we get to see what a different world it was- the cars, the fashions, the technology- despite it being a time I very much remember. Sigh.
Zen philosophy is discussed, and of course E.M. Forster. But there's alsothe philosophy of cricket... and there, I suppose, I'm with Morse.
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