The Wrong Shape is the third episode of the first season of Father Brown.
Soon after his poetry recital, Leonard Quinton is found hanging in the conservatory; when Father Brown realizes that he could not have committed suicide, the search begins for a murderer.
Tropes:
- Adaptation Deviation: To start, Quinton was murdered in the original story.
- Always Murder / Never Suicide: Averted here, as the death was actually suicide, despite all appearances to the contrary. Quinton had already committed suicide before someone tried to murder him, but the would-be killer didn't realize it.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Violet's "poem" is a very un-subtle rage fantasy of wishing her lover's wife (Martha) dead.
- Leonard's poem at first appears to be the same, but is in fact about something far more emotional.
- Due to the Dead: At the end of the episode, Martha Quinton scatters her husband's ashes over their deceased baby daughter's grave in a private service, with Father Brown officiating.
- Ingenue: Violet, to Leonard.
- May–December Romance: Leonard Quinton and his much younger mistress, though as the episode progresses, it becomes apparent that he only started a relationship with her in a vain attempt to distract himself from other stressors in his life.
- My Greatest Failure: Leonard Quinton is consumed by guilt over prescribing Thalidomide to his pregnant wife for her morning sickness, which resulted in their daughter being born severely deformed and dying at barely 3 months old. This guilt eventually drives him to take his own life.
