'Miss Scarlet' Season 5 Finds More Stable Ground in "The Thames Reaper"

Miss Scarlet Season 5 reaches the halfway point with the "The Thames Reaper," an hour that's far and away the best installment of this revamped new era of the show. The episode is well-balanced regarding characters and plots, and the case of the week is fascinating for once. Sure, after this season's first two episodes, the bar was pretty low, and the mystery sputters to an evident and less-than-satisfying ending, but as such things go, it's an improvement, and we should take it.

The case starts relatively strong. A serial murderer dubbed (what else?) the Thames Reaper is dumping bodies in the river and sending notes to a newspaper providing info about the crimes. Eliza, hustling for work somewhere other than Scotland Yard for once, convinces the owner of the Morning Herald to pay her if her investigation into the now-year-old case turns up anything new he can print. She joins forces with the (generally adorable) reporter covering the case. She immediately starts doing what she does best, leaning on friends and acquaintances to give her information about the victims who died.

Since these killings have been going on for at least a year, and we've never really done a serial killer on this show before, it's rather fun to speculate about whether this storyline means Jack the Ripper exists in this universe. Theoretically, Eliza's father died in 1882, six years before the Ripper murders began in 1888. Has it been long enough for this crime to be seen as a copycat? Or is Miss Scarlet just trying to lean into the Ripper vibe for this case?