Title: Allegory of Love
Directed by: Bill Anderson
Written by: David Pirie (story), Stephen Churchett (screenplay)
Air Date: March 22, 2009
Previous: The Great and the Good
Next: The Quality of Mercy
Guest Starring: Katia Winter, Tom Mison, James Fox, Olly Alexander
"Allegory of Love" is the first episode of the third season of Lewis, aka Inspector Lewis in the United States.
Dorian Crane, a handsome, dashing young author, is giving a reading of his new fantasy novel, Boxlands. Among those in attendance are his foster mother Ginny Harris, Dorian's fiancee Alice Wishart, Alice's father Jem Wishart who is a doctor, and Alice's teenaged brother Hayden who is way too obsessed with fantasy culture. Also attending are Chief Superintendent Innocent and her loyal employee DI Robbie Lewis, who is only there to get the book signed for his daughter Lyn, a fan.
The event adjourns and segues into a party at a nearby pub, where Marina Hartner, the bartender, notices Hayden. Later that evening Marina goes to an employee's room at a hotel, then heads home—but she never makes it. She is murdered, by someone bashing a mirror over her head.
Who did it? Maybe Alice and Hayden's creepy uncle, Professor Norman Deering. Lewis and his partner DS Hathaway discover that Marina was a part-time prostitute, and that Deering was a client. Maybe Hayden the fantasy geek, who as events reveal was following Marina around and taking her picture. Dorian Crane denies knowing Marina at all, other than to order a drink from her at the bar. The detectives note that Marina and Alice Wishart have the same coloring and build, and begin to suspect that the true target of the murder was Alice, a supposition that is strengthened when Dorian is also murdered.
James Fox, Laurence Fox's father, appears as Professor Deering.
Tropes:
- Bland-Name Product: The detectives print out an article from "Netipedia
". - Couldn't Find a Pen: Next to Marina's body is a piece of paper with the word "Uqbar" written in her blood. The detectives eventually figure out that this is an allusion to a fantasy story by Jose Luis Borges. Unlike many examples of this trope, in this instance the scrawled message was done by the killer.
- Creator Cameo: One of many Lewis cameos for Colin Dexter, who wrote the Inspector Morse novels that inspired this show. He's seen leaving the Randolph Hotel.
- Depraved Bisexual: Professor Deering, who initially comes across as Camp Gay, but is eventually revealed to have imported Marina to England to be a sex worker, and who was meeting a different prostitute at the time of the murder. He also sexually harassed Dorian Crane back in the day. He's only mildly depraved, being gross and pervy and saying creepy things. He is also a little too casually dismissive of Lewis Carroll's possible attraction to underage girls.note
- "Eureka!" Moment: Lewis has his after he mentions the quote at the end of Chapter 5, the one that Ginny drew his attention to, and Hathaway says that it's from Oedipus Rex—a play about a man marrying his mother.
- High-Class Call Girl: Marina Harter was a sex worker. Lewis and Hathaway find her picture on a website dedicated to Czech call girls.
- Literary Allusion Title: The episode title is from C. S. Lewis's first successful book. The whole episode is rife with references to fantasy culture and to the Inklings, the Oxford writers' club that included both Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien.
- Murder by Mistake: Lewis was correct, and the real target of the murder was Alice. The killer had sent her a message supposedly from Dorian telling her to come back by the river path, but Alice didn't get it because she'd misplaced her phone.
- The New Rock & Roll: The whole episode is dedicated to how the fantasy genre is worthless and people who get too into it are weird and creepy.
- Off-into-the-Distance Ending: Lewis and Hathaway drive away, following the squad car that carries Ginny.
- Otaku: Hayden, a 16-year-old fantasy geek who spends way too much time in the garage at his dad's house, playing online fantasy games and creating a huge diorama filled with hand-crafted figurines.
- Parental Incest: The solution. Ginny had been carrying on a sexual affair with her foster son Dorian since he was 15. Seeing him not only getting ready to marry Alice, but calling Alice his "muse" when actually Ginny had been his muse, made her snap.
- Pun: Dr. Hobson is dishing them out this episode. When Lewis shows up at the crime scene she tells him where Hathaway is by saying "Loitering, within tent." Before that is the exchange when she and Hathaway are contemplating Marina, who was killed by a mirror.Hathaway: By a piece of the mirror.
Hobson: On reflection, yes.
Hathaway: It's too early for jokes. - Shipper on Deck: Chief Superintendent Innocent makes several none-too-subtle comments hoping to match up Lewis with her old school friend, Ginny Harris. Fortunately, it comes to nothing.
- Stealth Insult: A bartender makes an unflattering comment about Lewis's suit. As they leave the bar Hathaway says "Your suit's perfectly suitable, sir."
- Take That!: The entire episode is an extended insult to the fantasy genre and Geek culture. Lewis is made uncomfortable by a couple of dorks wearing pointed ears who come into the bar and ask if this is where the hobbits drank ale (that is, where the Inklings used to hang out). Professor Deering denigrates fantasy writers like Lewis and Tolkien and says that Lewis Carroll is the only good fantasy writer to come out of Oxford (of course, Deering is a Carroll scholar). Prof. Rutherford is also contemptuous of the fantasy genre, saying "All fantasy is infantile until it turns sinister, which it does if you don't grow out of it." And the episode ends with Hathaway quoting a member of the Inklings, who reacted to Tolkien reading some of his work by saying "No more flipping elves!"Hathaway: Only he didn't say "flipping."
