The Great and the Good is the seventh episode of the twelfth series of Midsomer Murders and was originally broadcast on 14th April 2010.
Nervous teacher Connie Bishop annoys the neighbours with her constant cries that there is an intruder in her house until Jim Hanley is murdered in her garden. Rich bitch Zukie Richardson tells the police Jim was obsessed with Connie and that Jim's reasons for leaving the Frobisher Night Committee, organisers of an annual charity auction subsidised by Zukie's husband, are mysterious and unexplained. Womanising handyman Laurence Mann is killed after telling Connie he knows the murderer's identity and when Justin Hooper, a shy sculptor in love with Connie, stays the night in her house, he sees her sleep-walking. Barnaby pursues his suspect to the Frobisher Night auction to denounce the murderer before The Great and the Good.
Tropes:
- Footprints of Muck: Howard Richardson uses Connie's boots to plant muddy bootprints on her doorstep as part of a Gaslighting scheme to convince her that she might be the killer. Circumstances intervene to make the bootprints less effective than they might have been, but seeds of doubt are planted in her mind.
- Gaslighting: Howard Richardson uses Connie's boots to plant Footprints of Muck on her doorstep as part of a scheme to convince her that she might be the killer. Circumstances intervene to make the bootprints less effective than they might have been, but seeds of doubt are planted in her mind.
- The Peeping Tom: Jim Hanley is a peeping tom who is spying on the attractive Connie. As it turns out, his voyeurism is only tangentially connected to the reason for his murder, but it does serve as a useful Red Herring.
- Slashed Throat: The method used by Richardson to dispose of his two victims.
- Sleepwalking: Richardson takes advantage of Connie's sleepwalking, combined with a little strategic Gaslighting, to make her believe she might be the murderer.
