User Reviews

This episode is an allusion to the film, Victor, Victoria, which is a musical in which Julie Andrews plays a woman pretending to be a man who then pretends to be a woman.

Teensy spoiler, you have been warned.

Murder, mystery, mayhem at a Masonic lodge and we're off and running, we find not everybody is who they say they are, and in the course of the investigation, Dr. Ogden joins a women's basketball team, and while being complimented for her skill, she mentions growing up playing against the boys at the country club. Well, it's 1895 and the game was invented in 1891, so did she have some freakish growth disorder? Also highly unlikely a girl would have been playing against boys even in the earliest games. I love the show, but they do tend to miss a few details like this from time to time.

This episode has enough baloney in it to make a 12 foot sandwich.

It starts off with a Freemason meeting with a new recruit drinking the "Blood Oath" who dies. The Masons are all standing around in outfits like the KKK only dark with hoods. When the recruit Victor dies the hoods come off and then you see 2 cops Crabtree and Inspector Thomas Brackenreid take off their hood. Murdoch is called and Dr Ogden to investigate the death of the new recruit.

Baloney 1--The head of the Masons won't let Inspector Brackenreid investigate the murder he puts Crabtree in charge because he is a higher degree Mason. Such bull, like the cops don't have the main authority Mason property or not.

Baloney 2 --The head of the Masons does not want Dr Ogden because she is a female to examine the dead person. He does not have the authority to stop the police and I don't think there were female coroners back then anyway.

Baloney 3 --The new recruit's name is Victor who turns out to be a female in men's clothing and none of the members knew he/she was a woman.

There is so much insanity in this episode. It comes out that a group of female basketball players dress up as men and party in a pub as and adventure.

The explanation for this female basketball team is they want to feel equal to men etc. You have to be nuts to believe this. Victor/Victoria dresses like a man all the time except when she goes and plays basketball.

When Murdoch asks about the "Blood Oath" that is the Masons drinking of wine in initiation, the man mocks Murdoch you "Drink the blood of Christ" referring to Communion.

The Masons say that you cannot join if you are an atheist but they convert religious people who join them and honor "the great architect" and are engaged in cult practices. I am not a Catholic but I do believe like the Catholics that Salvation is in Jesus and that he died for our sins and that the "Blood of Christ" in Communion" is wine and symbolism for Jesus dying on the Cross to save us. It is not for " the great architect in some clandestine secret initiation.

As I watch Murdoch Mysteries I come to the conclusion that they make him a phoney Catholic so the writer can insult the Catholic beliefs and have Murdoch downplay them and make the sign of the Cross as he gives in to phoney arguments they make against his religion. They seem to have more episodes on homosexuals and other deviate practices.

So when you watch these episodes and you are a Christian, know that they are bending the beliefs and mocking the beliefs of the Bible and Murdoch is their "active bender."

This episode opens with a group of men engaged in some sort of secret ritual at the Masonic Lodge -- an attention-grabbing beginning. The intrigue continues as we learn that in the Lodge, Constable Crabtree outranks Brackenreid, primarily because of Brackenreid's "contemptous" language, which Brackenreid contemptuously dismisses with the expletive "Bollocks!" Another interesting scene occurs when Crabtree and Murdoch -- both of whom admit to owning just two pairs of shoes each -- discuss the number of shoes discovered in the victim's closet. Then the plot becomes improbable as we discover the victim was not a man, but a woman "passing" as a man in order to accomplish her goals in life. Yep, political correctness again! The producers of this show need to get off the political correctness bandwagon and concentrate on crime and investigation in late Victorian Canada.

Lots of fun in this one. We find out that both George & Brakenreid are Freemasons. A murder takes place at one of the ceremonies indoctrinating a new member. I think this was so hilarious, the ceremony and the reaction of Murdoch later on.

Murdoch: "I thought he was the head...pooh-bah." Lol.

Later, we find out from Julia when she does an autopsy, that Victor is a woman. Much to her delight. The reactions of George, Brackenreid, and Murdoch were hilarious.

Julia goes undercover on a women's basketball team and later as a man at a men's club.

George: "Dr. Ogden, you look like a man. Like a...pretty man." Lol. This was priceless. The expressions on both George and Murdoch's faces.

I've read stories before of women in history pretending to be men to get by in their lives, do jobs, and go places they otherwise wouldn't be able to. Julia was actually very suave as a man. So cool smoking and talking out of the side of her mouth.

Was Victor a transgender man? Given she was living her life as a man, at least work-wise, that might suggest she was. However, she did still play basketball as a woman on a women's team. So I don't know. It's interesting that Miriam was fascinated by Victor, knowing the truth.

Brackenreid: "You think this she-man died from peanut poisoning?" Lol. Well, I laughed. Brackenreid is unfiltered, that's for sure. And I'm not sure Victor was trans. Obviously, Brackenreid doesn't know what to make of it during this time around the turn of the century.

I thought the drinking out of the skull was kind of gross. Did George and Brackenreid have to do that at one time?

Notable guest star, Zoie Palmer, from Lost Girl. You get to see her dressed up as a man too,

Anyway, a fun episode with lots of surprise moments and reactions. The mystery was decent. 10/10.

Freemasonry is at the heart of this story. They say of themselves that they are not a secret organisation but an organisation with secrets, though as this episode unfolds it is clear that these are secrets which are easy to uncover.

The method of the killing in this episode is novel, so I shan't reveal it. However, I suspect that it is a bit anachronistic, and i'm not surprised that it took a while for the forces of law and order to figure out.

The cross-dressing part of the story is subtly amusing, raising questions about whether the same thing is a secret or a lie, depending on context. The women in this episode just want to see inside the secretive world of their menfolk, but in order to see those secrets(which are a united banal and boring anyway) they have to dress as men and possibly lie about what they are doing.

I'm a bit sorry to find myself once more at odds with fellow reviewer ctyankee1 not only about the feminist aspects of the story, but also with regard to what ctyankee1 perceives as mocking the beliefs of the Bible. I suspect that a large part of the reason for the clash between us is that ctyankee1 is based in the USA, where Protestant Christianity is on average more likely to be conservative, while here in Wales it is more likely to be liberal. This is not meant as a criticism, but rather a guess that might explain our different points of view. Anyway, whilst speaking not as a Freemason, I do gather from my faint understanding of their beliefs and practices that they do have an origin in the text of the Bible, albeit the Old Testament rather than the New, though they have diverged from it in their own particular ways. Once more, I do not perceive any anti-Christian bias in this story or in the way that Murdoch's character is written. I think it may be worth keeping in mind, when assessing the behaviour of the characters, that in general the people of the 1890's would have been much more conversant with the text of the Bible than they are today, and so it would be far more common to refer to the language and culture of the Bible, as simile and metaphor in everyday conversation. Thus, I don't feel it necessary to look for subtext all the time. Having said that, there definitely is some subtext in certain of the stories, such as when Murdoch and Dr Ogden cite verses from the Song of Songs. On the other hand, when Crabtree tries to impress Murdoch with his Biblical knowledge, but ends up confusing Samson and Solomon, the only thing that is the target of the scriptwriter is Constable Crabtree.

I do agree with the other reviewer that this episode seems weaker than some others, but perhaps that is because it is dealing with things like Freemasonry, which is a foreign country to me. If I were an initiate, I expect I would have a completely different view, though whether I would be awarding a high score or a low one, I can only speculate about.