Talking to the Dead is the seventh episode of the eleventh series of Midsomer Murders and was originally aired 5th May 2010.
Postman Sam Nelms' morning delivery takes a strange turn when he discovers the occupants of neighboring cottages, the Goodfellows and the Thomases have vanished, leaving half-eaten breakfasts on the table. Some years earlier the Thomases' son died in nearby Monks Barton woods, believed to be haunted, and flamboyant psychic Cyrus Le Vanu arrives to perform an exorcism in the woods. The corpse of a known antiques burglar and those of the Thomases are discovered whilst Stanley Goodfellow is found, raving and apparently mad. An antiques theft ring is exposed, headed by the next victim, who manufactured ghostly noises in the woods to scare people away from his misdeeds. Barnaby knows who the killer is by now, but the location of Stanley's wife, alive, by Cyrus's psychic powers shows that it may be possible to be Talking to the Dead.
Tropes:
- Crime After Crime: A textbook example - The original crime (which the viewer only learns about after several murders) was the comparatively minor one of stealing goods that were already stolen. When one of the crooks they were stealing from discovered them, the murderer killed him and blackmailed his accomplice into helping him dispose of the body. However, things quickly escalated and he committed three subsequent murders to prevent his crimes from being discovered and would have committed a fourth if Barnaby had not caught him.
- Iron Maiden: Lynton Pargeter is murdered by being shoved in an iron maiden that has a mechanism that automatically extends the spikes.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Barnaby repeatedly accuses supposed psychic medium Cyrus LeVanu — who claims to be having visions of the Monksbarton Abbey massacre, where all the monks were hunted down and killed by Henry VIII's soldiers, and who has been poking his nose into the murder investigation of the week — of being a fraud who preys on people's anxiety and pain. It gradually becomes clear to the audience, however, that at the very least LeVanu's belief in his supposed abilities is real, and he has been having visions of the massacre — though whether he's actually seeing ghosts or just deluded is left ambiguous. At the end, LeVanu sees a ghostly soldier attack him and cut his head off, which causes him to die of fright.
- Obfuscating Insanity: Stanley Goodfellow pretends to have gone gibberingly mad, having been driven into a dissociative state by something he encountered in the woods. His act is very convincing, and it takes Barnaby some time to rumble him. By the end of the episode (after he confesses), Barnaby starts to think he may no longer be acting and may be genuinely going mad.
- "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: A dealer in stolen goods takes advantage of the reputation of the local woods for being haunted by playing eerie noises to keep the locals away on the nights when his deals go down.
