I do love when you start watching a show, and you are confused because some of the details do not make sense to you, and then you discover that there is a reason for all of that. At first, you feel concerned that the show you like is making some bizarre choices just to make a good story, and then you realize that those choices, carefully made, make the story all the better.
The episode started with a man being hanged. He dropped through the floorboards, and I was slightly confused because I did not hear his neck break. Soon afterwards, he was in Dr. Ogden (Helene Joy)'s morgue, where he promptly woke up after she removed a tube from his throat. So we had the explanation as to why he did not die after hanging for more than 10 minutes. He should have suffocated, but the tube allowed him to breath.
But, why did his neck not break?
There is an art to hanging a man, to make sure that his neck breaks and that he does not suffer. If the rope is too short, he will have to wait until he is choked to death. If the rope is too long, his head will pop off. Neither are particularly pleasant...but then again neither is having your neck broke.
So it made perfect sense that the hangman had messed with the rope, making it too short for the neck to break. But while he saved the life of a convicted murderer, that was his only crime.
It turned out that murderer was innocent, set up by the real killer. Crown Dillard (Eric Peterson) was covering his own trail; he had been using false testimony to get convictions.
This, of course, spurs the debates both about executions, as well as about the necessity of trying to protect the innocent. The system wasn't perfect then, and it's hardly perfect now. Taking the law into our own hands doesn't fix it, so what does?
A delightful and philosophical episode of Murdoch Mysteries, ending with Dr. Ogden questioning her profession. How is that going to turn out?
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