'Miss Scarlet' Season 5 Stakes Out a New Normal in "The Enchanted Mirror"

Surprise, Miss Scarlet Season 5 is almost over. (Yes, really!) This may come as a shock to some, given that it feels as though we've barely had any time at all to adjust to this revamped incarnation of the series or to get to know the new leading man at its center. (No shade to Cathy Belton, but let's be honest, it's weird that Ivy's had the most significant arc of the season thus far.) To its credit, Season 5's penultimate episode finally gives us some of the much-needed character moments earlier installments had been sorely lacking, and they're ultimately what makes the hour worth watching. 

But the snooze-worthy mystery at the heart of "The Enchanted Mirror" is anything but magical, another complete dud of a case that raises some questions about what the point of these investigations is. If they're not good mysteries -- and we can probably all agree that the "cases" are and have long been the show's weakest element — then what larger purpose are they serving? One of the things that set Miss Scarlet apart was that it wasn't just a show about a female detective. (And I'm not even talking about the love story that used to be in the title here.) Yes, the series's premise inherently revolves around Eliza trying to prove herself in a man's profession. One of the big reasons that Miss Scarlet felt so fresh was that it wasn't about watching Eliza try to be a detective like a man.

Instead, the show told its stories through a deliberately female lens in ways beyond simply including female characters as clients or culprits. Instead, stories are frequently grounded in specific and unique female experiences, often revolve around nontraditional characters (like Eliza herself), and nearly always include the voices of women and other marginalized characters rarely centered in procedurals like this.

Unfortunately, there's nothing groundbreaking about "The Enchanted Mirror". (Unless the fact that a woman is the killer counts?) Though the characters' jobs are initially interesting, the show doesn't use its theater setting to say much, and everyone is so generally awful to one another that you're not going to feel particularly bad that one of them is dead. The story begins with the death of Abraham Barratt, a composer, one-half of the famous duo of Kapoor and Barratt, an operatic pairing that rivals Gilbert and Sullivan. (At least according to Detective Fitzroy.) The latter comes under immediate suspicion in his murder, especially once it's revealed that the two had been feuding about their future. Tired of being part of a double act, Barratt was planning to go solo and had written an operetta called, you guessed it, The Enchanted Mirror. 

Barratt's wife Matilda hires Eliza to prove Kapoor's innocence because the two had been having an affair, and what follows is a story of a pair of unhappy marriages, professional jealousy, and a bunch of red herrings that eventually lead to the most predictable solution possible. (It's immediately apparent Kapoor is not guilty of the crime he's been arrested for and that his lover most likely is.)

But, despite the blandness of this week's case, "The Enchanted Mirror" does give us some unexpectedly strong character moments. Eliza's decision to stand by Detective Phelps, whose marriage is failing and who has spiraled into alcoholism after William's departure didn't result in a promotion is a nice reminder of why we love her so much when she's not being her most obnoxious try-hard self. Their conversation about the ruin his life has become in the wake of Blake's arrival is warm and rich in a way we haven't seen much of this season between any characters and a moment that doesn't work at all without seasons of history between them.

Even Blake and Eliza have several charming interactions in this episode. It still doesn't make any sense that she has free reign to come and go around Scotland Yard as she pleases despite the detective's insistence that he's not working with her. (Nor thatshe keeps doing detective work for the Yard for free when we already know she couldn't have afforded it if Mrs. Parker had raised her rent last week.) But the pair finally got a couple of scenes where Eliza actually chilled out enough to be herself instead of the weird try-hard super detective she's been cosplaying as around him ever since Blake arrived. They had the sort of get-to-know-you conversation that they should have had weeks ago, and it was really nice!

Yet, for some inexplicable reason, Miss Scarlet has decided to speed run into an overt flirtation between these two, complete with random strangers suddenly assuming that they're courting, both parties getting weirdly flustered and strangely complimentary by turns, and young Sophia developing an insta-crush on Eliza. 

After spending four years waiting for Eliza and William (and, let's be honest, the show they both starred in!) to admit out loud that there was anything genuinely romantic between them, seeing these two get all flirty after four episodes feels like whiplash. Granted, maybe the folks who never liked the "Williza" relationship are the majority of viewers now, given that some portion of the audience likely tuned out with the Duke's exit, and those fans don't care. But for those still trying to adjust to the show's new normal, this all feels pretty darn abrupt, and we could probably use a little more slow in this alleged slow burn. Shouldn't we at least feel like we know them as potential partners before any hint of romance?

Blake remains charming but incredibly bland, and he still wholly lacks anything that might be called flaws or nuance. It is unclear whether the show is afraid of him looking anything less than perfect in case it makes us all miss Wiliam or if Lonely Single Dad is just his default personality. In "The Enchanted Mirror," we learn a handful of new Blake facts: He has siblings, his wife died three years ago, and he's Really Nervous About Raising a Girl. 

Miss Scarlet couldn't really be less subtle regarding what the show's doing with Blake's daughter, even including a flashback to Eliza's childhood struggles at school just in case we'd somehow missed the very obvious parallels being drawn between the two. Of course, young Sophia is obsessed with the idea of Eliza and her being a private detective (and is suddenly worried she somehow isn't real despite having met her already, but okay!). 

The three make a cute little trio at the episode's end, heading up to Eliza's messy office to hang out. But it all still feels like the laziest end run around the existential questions Eliza wrestled with back in the Season 5 premiere. In Blake, she gets professional respect from her partner and a built-in family (without taking any time off work to create it), all in one adorable little package. Maybe I'd be more into this if Eliza had ever displayed even the slightest maternal interest or domestic desire, but I guess that's what we're meant to be taking from those cooking lessons with Potts?

Miss Scarlet Season 5 airs on most local PBS stations and streams on the PBS app weekly on Sundays at 8 p.m. ET. All episodes are available for PBS Passport members and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel to binge before their on-air broadcast.