'The Marlow Murder Club' Makes a Disturbing Break In the Case

The Marlow Murder Club may be the most effective amateur sleuths on television. Judith, Becks, and this week's addition, Suzie (Jo Martin), convened for their first official meeting in the second episode of the series, but they've already learned how to apply their respective skills to get the results that they need. Judith is an expert at history and making connections. Suzie is a quick-thinker and clever actress, while Becks is extremely good at making people feel comfortable. 

Meanwhile, the Marlow police department is horribly inept or purposefully screwing up this case to make Tanika (Natalie Dew) look bad. Either way, Tanika should officially start letting the Murder Club in on the investigation because they've handed her every lead they have. 

The club convened at the top of the episode after Judith introduced herself to Suzie at Iqbal's (Umit Ulgen) house after the police interviewed Suzie about her client's murder. Suzie told Judith and Becks that Iqbal had said to her that he'd come into some money,  but a few weeks later, he'd rebuffed Suzie's questions about it, which implied that the money hadn't actually come through. The three added this with Becks' info that Stefan Dunwoody used to run an art scam with Elliot Howard's (Daniel Lapaine) father and realized Elliot wasn't lying when he said that Stefan was a crook. 

If that wasn't triumph enough, the trio also tracked down the man who bought the suspected murder weapon from Elliot's auction house. He was a WWII officiando by the name of Chris Bott (Tristan Sturrock). He discovered that someone had stolen the infamous pistol as he showed the trio his collection of German artifacts. The police arrived shortly afterward, arrested Chris, and scolded the trio for infiltrating police business. Still, Tanika had to admit the murder club had put together a convincing stream of evidence. 

At Iqbal's memorial service, they also discovered that Daisy Howard's (Juliet Howland) signature in the condolence book matched the handwriting on the note attached to the brick thrown through Judith's window. They immediately confronted her, and Daisy admitted it was her because she assumed that Judith and Elliot were having an affair. She also dropped the knowledge that Elliot had coveted an old Spencer painting of his father's, but when his father died, he left it to Stefan instead of Elliot. That caused an even bigger rift between the auction house owner and the art dealer…and made Elliot even more of a prime suspect.

Despite the warning to stay out of the investigation, the club convened again at Judith's house. They were mid-tea when they heard an alarm and looked out the window to find someone going through Stefan's house. Judith told Becks and Suzie to call the police while she investigated, which led to her getting knocked out by the intruder as he escaped.

When the police finally arrive and looked around to see what was taken, Becks noticed that a painting was missing from one of the walls, and Judith pointed out that it was probably what Spencer Elliot wanted so much. Could it really be this obvious? 

Tanika went back to her officers and begged them to have any other leads they could follow up on because, you know, it's embarrassing to be shown up by a group of nosy civilians. Her cops had nothing, but Judith arrived with another major breakthrough. The murders of Stefan and Iqbal were identical, except that a medallion that read "hope" on it was found with Iqbal's body. Judith convinced Tanika to drag the lake where Stefan's body was found one more time, and they found a similar medallion with "Faith" inscribed on it, making the murders completely identical. The two medallions correspond to a quote from 1 Corinthians, "And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity."

"There's going to be a third murder. We're dealing with a serial killer," Judith announced ominously just before the credits rolled. Just a few days prior, Marlow was shocked to have a single murder. Now they have a serial killer with a religious tie and a love for WWII artifacts? The question now is, who will be the third victim, and how worried do we need to be that a member of the Marlow Murder Club will be targeted? They are already our favorites! 

The Marlow Murder Club airs on Sundays on most local PBS channels at 9 p.m. ET and is available to stream on PBS.org and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel. All four episodes are available on PBS Passport for members to stream as a binge. Season 2 has already been greenlit.