Loveday Writing

Steed and Peregrine go out the back to the ball return machine, where the murder occurred. Peregrine points out that there are two entry and exit points, and Steed points out to her that Milo was seen fleeing at the time of the murder. Afterwards, Steed and Peregrine speak with bowling alley employees, Don and Christine, and they tell them that a rocker girl, Jeanie, also fled and left her boots behind.

Violetta goes to the police station to see Milo, with Peregrine arriving moments later to ask him questions. When she guesses that the brawl was either about territory or a girl, Milo admits that the fight was about Jeanie, who is Rex’s girl, and she made a play for him. He also accuses Sparrow of killing Rex, as Sparrow had Rex up against a wall, and he left before Sparrow could turn on him.

Meanwhile, Birdie grabs her gun, leaves the Adventuresses’ Club and goes out of town to meet someone. She hears a branch snap but keeps walking, we see a man following her, only for Birdie to outsmart him and hold her gun to his head. When she disarms him, it’s revealed his name is Aleksander, he’s a fellow spy and her former lover.

Meanwhile, Sparrow tells Steed to take Milo to the cells, just as Violetta and Peregrine arrive at the station to apply for bail. Steed tells them that Milo won’t get bail due to prior convictions. Steed then tells Peregrine that someone has shown up at the bowling alley. Steed and Peregrine go to the bowling alley and find Jeanie banging on the doors demanding her boots back. Peregrine agrees to give Jeanie her boots back if she co-operates with the police.

They go back to the police station where she tells them she didn’t kill Rex and she was outside minding the bikes when he was killed. Peregrine notices Jeanie grimace in pain and holding her stomach. Afterwards, Peregrine asks Jeanie if she’s pregnant. Jeanie tells Peregrine that her mother kicked her out of home, which is why she was staying with Rex. Peregrine invites her to stay at her house.

When they get home, Jeanie steals a bottle of gin whilst Peregrine is out of the room. When she comes back, she asks Jeanie if Rex is the father, but she doesn’t answer. Back at the station, Steed is brainstorming with pieces of paper laid out on his desk, trying to hide listing Sparrow as a suspect, only for him to catch on. He tells Steed to wrap up the investigation and leaves. Steed goes into Sparrow’s office and steals his bloody bowling shirt. Steed takes the shirt to the Adventuresses’ Club and asks Violetta to test the DNA on Sparrow’s shirt.

Steed goes to Peregrine’s house, she tells him that Jeanie’s pregnant and asks him about her alibi. When she hears the song, Poison Ivy, she turns it up as she loves it. Steed tells her that the song was playing at the bowling alley on the night of the murder and Jeanie rushes out of the room demanding that she turn the radio off as it was Rex’s favourite. Peregrine kicks Steed out.

Later, Peregrine goes into her bedroom to check if Jeanie is okay, only to find her drinking the bottle of gin she stole earlier. Jeanie tells her she can’t have the baby. Peregrine tells her that there are women all over the place who care and can support her. Peregrine asks Jeanie why she was all over Milo at the bowling alley. Jeanie admits that Milo is the father of her baby.

The next morning, Peregrine brings Jeanie breakfast but she’s still asleep. As she walks out of the bedroom, she notices Rex’s leather jacket on a chair and finds embroidery on it, she takes pictures of it before Jeanie wakes up. When Samuel develops the pictures, he identifies the embroidered leaves as poison ivy. Peregrine questions why he’d have poison ivy embroidered on the inside of his jacket, Birdie asks where it embroidered, Peregrine tells her it was on the left, and Birdie tells her that if he closed the jacket, the embroidery would be on top of his heart. Violetta asks Peregrine to return Sparrow’s shirt, and confirms the blood on it belongs to Rex.

Peregrine meets Steed at the bowling alley and returns the shirt. Steed tells her that the coroner’s report came back and Rex’s head was decapitated after he was murdered, and the murder weapon was a heavy, round object. When Steed leaves to look for the bowling ball used to kill Rex, Peregrine feels the embroidery on Sparrow’s shirt, and goes to one of the counters and steels a spool of thread from Christine’s sewing box. When she plays Poison Ivy on the jukebox, Don immediately unplugs it.

Back at the station, Sparrow asks Steed if he has anything new on the investigation, Steed says that Jeanie was pregnant. Steed and Sparrow bring Milo back for another interrogation, with Sparrow coercing him to confess, so he gets a smaller jail sentence and is able to see his child. Meanwhile Birdie and Aleksander are on a picnic, Birdie encourages Aleksander to find a good woman, and that when their mission is done, so is their romance.

Back at Peregrine’s house, Peregrine asks Jeanie about the embroidery but she knows nothing about it. She also asks Jeanie how she knows Rex isn’t the father, Jeanie tells her that she never had sex with Rex and hooked up with Milo to make Rex jealous, but that didn’t work as Rex was seeing someone else, but she never knew who the other woman was. Meanwhile at the station, Steed checks Sparrow’s bowling ball and finds no blood on it.

Peregrine goes to the police station to show the embroidery to Steed and tell him Rex was dating someone else, only for Steed to tell her Milo confessed. Peregrine tells Steed to go to the bowling alley to confront Christine about her affair with Rex, when they get there and confront her, Don confesses. When Peregrine notices the sewing box on Don’s counter, and remembers that the power has been off at the alley, and that Rex was killed near the return-ball machine, Steed turns the power on and the ball used to kill Rex returns. Steed gets Don to put his fingers in the ball’s holes but they don’t fit. When Peregrine asks why the sewing box was on Don’s counter, Peregrine realises that he and Rex were having an affair.

Don tells Christine, Steed and Peregrine that he told Rex to stop coming by but he wouldn’t listen, the song, Poison Ivy, was their signal to meet up. Christine then tells them that she took the bowling ball and hit Rex over the head with it. Don tries to protect Christine, but she asks him why he married her, he tells her he loved her, but she tells him if he did love her, he’d never let her walk down the aisle. She confirms Peregrine’s suspicions when her fingers fit in the ball’s holes.

Milo is released and he tells Violetta he is going to marry Jeanie. She gives her blessing and tells Milo she’s proud of him. Jeanie tells Peregrine and Birdie that she’s going to marry Milo. Birdie tells her that if she doesn’t love Milo she doesn’t have to get married, but Jeanie tells her that Milo is okay and she’ll sort him out. Birdie gives Jeanie her business card in case the marriage doesn’t work out.

The episode ends with Peregrine asking Birdie about the chalk mark at the Club, but Birdie doesn’t answer the question and denies seeing it.

Overall I felt this was a weak episode due the slightly inconsistent nature of Steed’s character in this episode, the “rockers and mods” rivalry going nowhere, and some of the other subplots such as Birdie’s spying and the Steed-Sally-Peregrine love triangle touched upon but ultimately not really adding anything to the episode.

Steed didn’t step up when he needed to when Sparrow was trying to coerce a confession out of Milo as he’s trying to protect his career, yet he has no problem working with Peregrine, an unlicensed private detective, when it suits him.

In regards to my criticism of the spying and love triangle subplots, I have a feeling that these will be given the time they deserve in later episodes, however I felt that while Birdie and Aleksander’s interactions were fun and provided some insight into Birdie’s past, they didn’t add anything to the episode. I also felt that Sally’s appearance in this episode didn’t really add anything to it, as anyone else could have found Rex’s decapitated head and it would have had the same impact, and after she did find it, she wasn’t seen in the rest of the episode.

I also felt that the “rockers and mods” rivalry went nowhere as it had nothing to do with why Rex was murdered and was barely mentioned after Jeanie confirmed she was pregnant with Milo’s child. However it was a good 1960s subculture reference to include as part of the series’ setting. I also felt the reveal of Rex having an affair with Don and not Christine turned the affair-as-motive cliché on its head.

On positive notes, I did enjoy seeing another side to Violetta. As an aunt, she is incredibly fiery, shown when she reprimanded and slapped Milo for disrespecting Peregrine, but also very loving, which was shown at the end of the episode when he tells her he’s going to marry Jeanie. I also enjoyed seeing the many aspects of Sparrow’s character, from giving Steed and Sally monogrammed bowling shirts, having fun bowling with Sally, to being the racist cop trying to coerce a confession from Milo. Greg Stone’s performance in the episode was fantastic.

Stray Observations:

-As I was doing some fact checking for this episode, I looked it up on IMDb and according to them there was an error. The website states in 1964 “blood tests could only show that the blood was of the same blood group as Rex’s,” and that “only beginning in the 1980s could DNA tests match blood with a certain individual.”

Best one liners and interactions:

• “No, no, I insist. This is 1964 after all.” (Sally to Steed on her choice to pay for a round of ice-cream)
• “Peregrine’s a private detective who sometimes assists me.” “Yes, I solve things, and he takes all the credit!” “A bit like that around here, love!” (Steed and Peregrine to Don, then Christine chiming in)
• “How old are you?” “105.” “You’re looking pretty good for 105!” (Steed to Jeanie, then Peregrine to Jeanie)