The Ballad of Midsomer County is the third episode of the seventeenth series of Midsomer Murders and first aired 11th February 2015.
Folk festival organizer Toby Winning is found dead, his head held down in a bowl of water also containing eels and boiled eggs. His estranged wife Alice seems unconcerned, unlike co-organizer Brian Grey, who, with Toby, had been planning to move the festival from Lower Crosby to London - to the annoyance of local businessmen including pub landlord Frank Wainwright and sound engineer Danny Carver. Danny is also angry when his daughter Melody takes to the stage playing the guitar once owned by his brother Johnny, a famous folk singer who shot himself. Visiting musician Jay Templeton seems keen to help Melody's career but was expecting something from Toby. Two more deaths follow, both in the manner of murders in a local folk song and to solve them Barnaby must discover the importance of Johnny's lost recording of the Ballad of Midsomer County.
Tropes:
- Caught on Tape: The killings all center around a murder accidentally recorded on a master tape 20 years earlier, with the master tape then being hidden.
- Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Downplayed; Danny Carver isn't keen on his daughter Melody becoming a famous folk singer as he worries it will change her irrevocably, but he comes around at the end of the episode. Ironically, Johnny, Melody's real father, probably wouldn't have minded.
- If I Can't Have You…: When his wife Claire reveals that she was planning on leaving him of her own free will, Tom Asher points his gun at her with intent to kill her.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Frank Wainwright is killed by having a beach umbrella thrust through his chest.
- Is This Thing Still On?: The murderer is accidentally Caught on Tape when he commits a murder in a recording studio, not realising that the victim, Johnny Carver, had been recording at the time.
- Pop-Star Composer: Famous English folk singer Seth Lakeman
wrote the titular ballad. It was even available to download at one point. - Theme Serial Killer: The killer leaves items associated with the eponymous folk song with the bodies of his victims.
- Yandere: The murderer, Tom Asher, turns out to be one for his wife, Claire. He was jealous of John Carver who she dated and killed him so that he would have her all to himself. Decades later, he killed three more men under the impression that they were trying to take his wife away from him. When Tom confronts her, he claims that all his actions were done to "protect" her. When Claire reveals that she was planning on leaving him of her own free will, he pointed his gun at her with intent to kill her.
