Painted in Blood is the third episode of the sixth series of Midsomer Murders and originally aired 17th January 2003.
Joyce joins the local watercolour society for an open-air art class, upon the village green in Midsomer Florey. Shortly before taking a break, she stumbles across the body of elderly Ruth Fairfax, a fellow artist found in the undergrowth. It turns out that she had more to her than meets the eye. When Barnaby is taken off the case by the NIS, it is left to Troy to ‘apprehensively’ let Barnaby in on what’s going on with the investigation. Barnaby and Troy soon uncover a planned armed robbery, unaccounted money, former criminals, and secret liaisons before bringing the culprit/s to justice.
This episode includes examples of the following tropes:
- Artistic License – Law: Barnaby is rather shocked to discover that he's been replaced on account that his wife being a key witness causes a conflict of interest, when in reality he'd never have expected to be on the case given the circumstances.
- Camp Straight: John Sessions acts as the art teacher with some "swish", floral shirts and a lisp, but he's also seducing one of his women students.
- Detective Mole: DI Mark Gudgeon from NIS takes over the investigation. Problem is, he was the one who committed the murder.
- Dirty Cop: DI Mark Gudgeon and his NIS underlings.
- Everyone Has Standards: The two NIS officers, Noland and Backney, may be Dirty Cops and in on DI Gudgeon's scheme to swipe the missing £5 million from the bank robbery, but they're furious when they learn he's the murderer, especially as the victim was one of their own.
- Exact Words: Whenever DI Gudgeon's whereabouts are questioned, the answer is inevitably that he's "in a meeting". Technically he is: he's undercover as a member of the watercolour society.
- He Knows Too Much: The reason Ruth Fairfax was murderer: she was in actuality an undercover NIS officer who'd figured out what was going on with the stolen money but was too straight to be drawn into Gudgeon's plan to steal it.
- Never One Murder: Subverted, there is only one murder, but several bank robberies!
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Barnaby abuses Noland and Backney's attitude that he and Troy are 'flat-footed country coppers' by acting as though the missing money is way out of their league to lull them into a false sense of security, before asking for some authorization from DI Gudgeon before they remove the money to draw Gudgeon out into the open.
- Police Are Useless: A subverted trope: Gudgeon's investigation is an utter shambles, with a man who couldn't possibly have committed the murder being hauled in as the prime suspect despite clear evidence, and Troy being chewed out for pointing out possible inconsistencies in an interview. Barnaby and Troy later discover evidence (a set of paintbrushes) clumsily shoved in a bag with no regard that one clearly doesn't belong in the set, and the chief investigating officer is always 'in a meeting'. The subversion comes because Gudgeon and his officers are being deliberately incompetent: they're either the actual murderer (Gudgeon) or more interested in robbing five million pounds in lost stolen money (the underlings).
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Gudgeon attempts to intimidate Barnaby by bringing up that he has a very good working relationship with Barnaby's chief constable.
- Tempting Fate: Early on, when Barnaby comments to Joyce that she's going to have a lovely day in Midsomer Florey, she snarks that he's probably going to tell her there's been a grisly murder there (hey, it is Midsomer, after all). He assures her it's a "haven of tranquillity". Not only is there a murder there that same day, but Joyce is the one who discovers the body!
- Two Lines, No Waiting: Troy is working on a murder and Barnaby a series of petty theft, but the most recent theft leads to a bank which helps Barnaby figure out the motive for the murder.
