Be careful what you wish for! This entire nineteenth season I’ve wanted Inspector Choi (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee) to do more than tag along with Detective Murdoch (Yannick Bisson). And boy, do I get my wish in this noir season finale. Simon McNabb’s tight and intricate script has Choi at odds with his colleagues over a woman who’s looking increasingly suspicious as the episode builds toward its inevitable conclusion – this was never going to end well.

Much earlier this season, in The Borden Ultimatum, Choi’s absence was explained by a throwaway comment from Chief Constable Brackenreid (Thomas Craig): Unfinished business back in New York was all he said. We now finally find out what this was: he went to visit Vivian Moon (Elena Juatco), whose private investigator husband Johnny passed away a few months earlier. She’s now in Toronto and Choi is contemplating courting her, even though that would be inappropriate. This being a murder mystery show, pretty soon people are getting killed, and as Murdoch puts it, Vivian is either involved, or in danger.

The best thing about Hell of a Woman is how we’re slowly being primed to suspect Vivian. From the outset, Brackenreid warns Choi and simultaneously plants the idea in our heads: A grieving woman doesn’t know what she wants. Someone will end up getting hurt. Juatco plays her with so much joie de vivre that we can’t help but wonder if this merry widow isn’t rather a black widow. Even before there’s an actual clue suggesting that she is mixed up in this, we view everything she says or does through the lens of suspicion. She wants to move to Florida with Choi? We ask ourselves what she is running away from. She neglects to mention that her suitcase was stolen and that she reported several break-ins to her home? But don’t you find it curious that she didn’t mention any of this to the Inspector during her interview with him? Just being under suspicion makes people behave suspiciously, even, or especially, when they’re innocent.

Chekhov’s Clock

And then there’s the clock. Russian playwright Anton Chekhov famously argued that if a gun is mentioned in the first act, it must be fired by the third. Choi’s clock – one that he gave to Vivian and Johnny and she has now given back to him – is very much a variation on this dramatic principle, albeit with a twist. Long before we find out that the clock was used to hide and transport stolen money, we realize that something must be up with this timepiece. (I half expected Murdoch to offer to fix the broken clock and find something hidden there.) But, as we’re congratulating ourselves on seeing right through this plot point, we fail to see how craftily it’s being used to further our suspicion of Vivian.

Choi’s new lady isn’t the only questionable character, though. Two of her husband’s friends, Cecil and Myrtle Winchester (Drew Scott and Gwynne Phillips) were on the same train from New York with her. While at first we don’t know whether they’re merely obnoxious, Toronto-hating snobs or something more sinister, once we hear that Cecil had hired Johnny Moon to recover some stolen money – twenty thousand dollars, enough for Murdoch to raise an eyebrow over – it’s clear they’re not exactly above-board either.

Here’s Johnny

Still, with every revelation we’re kept guessing at who killed whom and why until the very end, when it turns out that Johnny has faked his own death – what a great and unexpected twist! To keep things straight in my head and because Murdoch failed to write this out on his blackboard, here’s who did what (to whom) and why:

1. Johnny Moon kept the money he recovered for Cecil Winchester and hid it in the clock.
2. Cecil Winchester hired two criminals (Ancel Tuttle and Jasper Stokes) to get his money back and kill Johnny.
3. Johnny Moon faked his own death.
4. Vivian Moon gave the clock (including, unbeknownst to her, the twenty thousand dollars) to Albert Choi, who took it back with him to Toronto.
5. Tuttle and Stokes followed her to Toronto because they thought she had the money in her suitcase.
6. The Winchesters also followed Vivian to Toronto, although I’m struggling to see why; perhaps Cecil didn’t trust the criminals he hired?
7. Tuttle stole the suitcase and was (gruesomely!) murdered by Stokes, presumably because there is no honour among thieves.
8. Johnny found the clock was missing from his New York home and also travelled to Toronto.
9. Johnny killed Stokes so that Stokes couldn’t kill him first. Using, somehow, the exact same viscose scarf that Cecil wore.
10. Johnny killed Myrtle Winchester because she saw him. (Oh well, time comes for all of us, doesn’t it?)
11. Johnny got Vivian to retrieve the money from Choi’s office.
12. Vivian tried to end things with Choi to protect him.
13. Johnny aimed to shoot Vivian, hitting Choi instead.

As I said, an intricate plot! And that’s not even mentioning the other great elements of the script: Choi’s actions and clashes with Brackenreid and Murdoch. Choi’s character hasn’t lived up to his potential yet. Yes, he shone in He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother, but too often he’s only used as an audience stand-in for Murdoch’s explanations. Frankly, the made-up story Vivian tells about how they first met is more compelling than anything Choi has done in the two seasons we’ve known him. Brackenreid says Maybe you need to live the life you’re living right now, but Choi’s previous life just seems a lot more interesting.

A Word of Advice

Of course, Choi losing his professional objectivity over a woman is a total trope of the genre, but it does allow for some heated disagreements with Murdoch and Brackenreid – something we haven’t seen until now. At first, they’re simply advising him – well, talking about themselves really – but as Detective Watts (Daniel Maslany) sagely notes: In these moments, it is often wise to heed the advice of others. But wisdom rarely wins out over passion, and before long they’re butting heads. The scene where Choi confronts Brackenreid is quite wonderful: I don’t appreciate you interfering with the day-to-day affairs of my station house. – And I don’t appreciate having to. Choi accuses Brackenreid of having demonized the path not taken, which may have some truth to it but doesn’t mean that Brackenreid is wrong in taking Choi off the case.

Once again, Murdoch Mysteries has managed to wrong-foot me. Past seasons usually built up to a grand finale, whereas this episode came out of nowhere. At least two storylines from this season remain unresolved for now: Miss Hart’s (Shanice Banton) problematic neighbourhood protection program and Chadwick Vaughan, who was teased to be back in Tow Tags, then said to have left for Paris in The Hunting Lodge. That’s alright, though, I’m more than happy to wait to see what happens in Season 20. In the meantime, we’re left with one scary cliffhanger and can only hope that Choi will survive.

Okay, see you.