You’ll be familiar with Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen’s proto-chick lit classic and you’ll also be familiar with English crime writer PD James. Put them together what you get? Murder. Specifically, Death Comes to Pemberley, James’s murder mystery sequel to Austen’s touchstone now adapted by the BBC for its docile barely conscious Christmas audience. We are 6 years down the line from the events of Pride and Prejudice. Darcy (Matthew Rhys, last seen killing and fucking his way through the 80s in The Americans) and Elizabeth (Anna Maxwell Martin) are now wed, there’s a little rat bastard son Fitzwilliam junior and Elizabeth is throwing a big kick ass ball. Spring Break! Woooooo!
PD James’s murder mystery sequel to Austen’s touchstone now adapted by the BBC for its docile barely conscious Christmas audience.
You know something bad is going to happen when two serving girls spot Mrs Reilly‘s ghost in Pemberley Woods and hare away screaming like Evander Holyfield presented with a child support subpoena. More on her later but Elizabeth also comes upon a mad skank in the woods hissing at her like a ment. Might she be related to the ghost?
Two serving girls spot Mrs Reilly’s ghost and hare away screaming like Evander Holyfield presented with a child support subpoena.
Later for that shit. Darcy’s hot sister Georgiana (Eleanor Tomlinson) is still around and still unwed. Colonel Fitzwilliam (Tom Ward), brutally friendzoned in the novel by Elizabeth, wants to put his cock into his cousin but she’s getting frothy over young buck Henry Alveston (James Norton). Is the Colonel’s nose out of joint? Oh just a bit. Oh mate. Murderously so. Mate.
Is the Colonel’s nose out of joint? Oh just a bit. Oh mate. Murderously so. Mate.
It’s really obvious that there’s no way in a trillion news Elizabeth’s idiot sister Lydia (Jenna Coleman) and her shitheel rake of a husbland Wickham (Matthew Goode) are invited to the ball but that’s not going to stop Lydia. She decides to turn up as a “jolly surprise” – the kind of jolly surprise the Visigoths gave the Romans.
She decides to turn up as a “jolly surprise” – the kind of jolly surprise the Visigoths gave the Romans.
As they ride towards Pemberley a row breaks out between Wickham and his travelling companion Captain Denny (Tom Canton) who wants no further part of a mysterious deceptive “thing” that Wickham is up to. The coach screeches to a halt and the good Captain flounces off into the woods followed by Wickham in hot pursuit. Mere hours later Lydia rolls up squealing like a stuck pig and no one can get any sense out of her until her father quite correctly socks her in the jaw. After the argument she heard shots. Two of them. She’s hysterical of course. Couple of gunshots and she thinks she’s Bushwick Bill.
Lydia rolls up squealing like a stuck pig and no one can get any sense out of her until her father quite correctly socks her in the jaw.
Darcy leads a search party and in good time they come upon Wickham dragging Captain Denny’s lifeless body, howling nonsense like “My only friend and I killed him! It’s my fault!” Whatever could this mean? Death Comes To Pemberley is what it means, my friends¹.
Now the shit really hits the fan. He has to bring in the nearest magistrate Sir Selwyn Hardcastle (Trevor Eve) whose family hanged a Pemberley boy back in the day leading to the suicide of the boy’s mother, the aforementioned Mrs Reilly. Eddie Shoestring is out for Wickham’s blood and Darcy finds himself having to play Miss Marple when all he really wants to do his bury himself so far inside Elizabeth’s vagina only his toes remain visible.
All he really wants to do his bury himself so far inside Elizabeth’s vagina only his toes remain visible.
I suppose this was alright. You can’t really go wrong with PD James channelling Jane Austen. If they don’t find a way to fuck this up in the next two episodes this may actually be a triumph.
The verdict: Jane Bosting.
Marks out of 10: 7
¹ Cross stitch your frenulum to a Spinning Jenny, cornballs. You are not Aerial Telly’s “friends”.