The Grim Reaper is the ninth episode of the second season of Father Brown.
A gruesome death on a local farm is blamed on the Kembleford physician through a series of poisoned pen letters. Father Brown must figure out who sent them in order to save his friend from the gallows.
Tropes:
- Always Murder: Alfred Tatton's death is a legitimate accident, as he fell into his own thresher while drunk. However, Dr. Crawford falsely confesses to murdering him, as he is Secretly Dying and reasons that a quick death via execution would be preferable to wasting away from cancer, sparing his wife from having to slave over him in his last days, and give Albert's father closure. Father Brown is able to convince him to reconsider.
- Break the Cutie: Poor Oona Crawford bursts into tears in her first scene, and that's before Father Brown believes she's writing poison pen letters, people think she's an adulteress and spit at her in the street — and, oh, her husband has confessed to murder.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Notably, Oona has this when she realises there was no chaff in her husband's clothing, which means he couldn't have pushed Alfred Tatton into the threshing machine — so he has made a false confession.
- False Confession: Alfred Tatton's death is a legitimate accident, as he fell into his own thresher while drunk. However, Dr. Crawford falsely confesses to murdering him, as he is Secretly Dying and reasons that a quick death via execution would be preferable to wasting away from cancer, sparing his wife from having to slave over him in his last days, and give Albert's father closure. Father Brown is able to convince him to reconsider.
- Ground by Gears: Alfred Tatton is killed in a threshing machine.
- May–December Romance: Dr. Crawford and Oona, leading to rumors that she's having an affair with a much younger man.
- My Greatest Failure: Dr. Crawford deeply regrets not being able to do more to help Alfred's mother, which is why Alfred can easily persuade him into prescribing him more and more painkillers. In the episode proper, Dr. Crawford experiences the second greatest failure of his life — inadvertently causing Alfred to fall into the wheat thresher. The guilt over this drives him to attempt to be convicted for Alfred's "murder", in the hope that him being hung will give Alfred's father some sort of peace.
