If you were to diagram Toronto’s Smartest Man — and Detective Murdoch (Yannick Bisson) surely would, with several feet of red yarn — you’d find that every thread eventually winds back to a single idea: the peril of intellect untethered by humility. The episode turns Murdoch’s greatest virtue — his formidable intelligence — into his most dangerous flaw, charting his slow, hilarious, and delightfully absurd descent from methodical genius to red-string conspiracy theorist.

Saleema Nawaz’s witty script is a blackboard of contrasts — between brilliance and folly, male and female, father and son, winners and losers, knowledge and wisdom — and it’s one of the sharpest, funniest, most self-aware episodes in years. Eleanore Lindo directs with a light touch and a twinkle in her eye: a comedy of pride disguised as a murder mystery, disguised as a trivia contest. A contest of course, that’s somewhat beneath Murdoch’s station: the pursuit of knowledge shouldn’t be a contest, after all. Unless the prize is a full set of encyclopedias, that is.

Murdoch is one of only five people to submit a perfect test, earning him a spot in a friendly competition to crown Toronto’s brightest mind. We quickly meet his fellow contenders: misogynistic blowhard Victor Fordham (Benedict Campbell), genteel yet clueless Dr. Glenn Price (Zachary Bennett), wannabe Moriarty to Murdoch’s Sherlock François Boudreau (Lindsay Owen Pierre), Professor Ved Srinivasan (Vijay Mehta), and one F. Newsome. The latter, of course, turns out to be Effie Newsome (Clare McConnell), who must first fight for the right to even compete. The scenes in which she’s rebuffed by the men ring especially true to the attitudes of the time — and are hilarious all the same.

Condescending Much?

Except for Murdoch, every man refuses to take her seriously — either because it simply doesn’t occur to them to do so — Are you lost, my dear? — or, more insidiously, because they believe they’re protecting her: She has recently been left by her husband and is no doubt emotional. Uh, competition might not be advisable, given her fragile state. Even the inept Dean Colwyn can’t help but condescend: Well, it’s, uh, it’s in the name, ma’am — Toronto’s Smartest Man. Thank you.

In a story filled with supposed geniuses, Henry Higgins (Lachlan Murdoch) is the perfect counterpoint. Despite Brackenreid’s (Thomas Craig) none-too-subtle remarks — Higgins, you’re as daft as a bloody brush, lad — he has no self-awareness at all and falls for not one but two sham products and gets pranked by Teddy Roberts (Kataem O’Connor) and Inspector Choi (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee). Not quite the city sophisticate he thinks he is.

Higgins and Roberts are becoming quite the comic duo, as are Brackenreid and Choi. Oi, Choi! Detective Watts (Daniel Maslany) is hilarious as ever — I trust their feet will make a full recovery — and even the smallest roles are well written and used to full humorous effect. I especially liked the lady from Poppy’s Confections and Gifts (Becky Johnson) and the way she described the man who bought the chocolates: A man. Normal. Not particularly attractive. Or unattractive. Height… Average. Voice… Audible. And he’s standing right behind you. Also, a special mention for Miss Ontario Wheat (Kristen Pepper) who, despite having no lines, steals the scenes with her thousand-watt smiles. In fact, for a while I suspected her to be the killer; no one can smile that much and not have something to hide.

An Unravelling Mind

It’s rare for Murdoch Mysteries to turn its microscope on Murdoch himself. Usually, he’s the steady hand at the wheel — the man of science, reason, and perfectly polished manners, standing serenely in the eye of everyone else’s storm. But Toronto’s Smartest Man flips the lens: for once, Murdoch is the one coming unglued while everyone else watches him unravel. Bit by bit, round by round, we watch him sink deeper. The first blow to his ego comes when Fordham sarcastically exposes a flaw in his logic: Did anyone see you? — When I went home alone? No. The second blow is self-inflicted: he’s first to answer a classic math problem, but wrong — because, overthinking it, he factors in real-life circumstances. All trains travelling on the Grand Trunk Railway between Montreal and Toronto hold for precisely fifteen minutes at Kingston. — It’s a hypothetical question, sir. Humiliated, he mutters about a misleading question. Oh dear, indeed.

In round two, things do not improve when Boudreau — who might not be Toronto’s Smartest Man but is most certainly Toronto’s Biggest Red Herring — pretends to cheat as a distraction to ensure that you didn’t win. Murdoch may be the first one to decode and recognize the Socrates quote The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing, but the irony of it is lost on him. By the time Fordham completes the battery circuit before Circuits Quarterly subscriber Murdoch, the latter is convinced that Fordham is cheating, and that malfeasance is somehow mixed in with these violent attacks. Something is going on here and it isn’t simply the fact that I’m not the one winning. I mean, he’s not wrong…

Comedic Timing

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Yannick Bisson is an underrated comedic actor. Because Detective Murdoch is so strait-laced, he’s usually the straight man to everyone else’s jokes. Although there’s a bit of that in this episode — his God-give-me-strength look when Watts can’t read his own handwriting — this time he gets to be the funny one, and he seizes the opportunity with both hands. Murdoch’s unraveling is conveyed through dialogue, music, and props, but mostly through Bisson’s impeccable comedic timing. His descent down the rabbit hole culminates in the laugh-out-loud scene at the heart of the episode: Murdoch, sleepless and wired, has gone full conspiracy theorist, with a red-string board to match. Yes, but we cannot forget the level of intellect that we are dealing with here. We cannot underestimate their cunning. We must see through their stratagems! Watts and Choi are the perfect straight men to Bisson’s antics as they stand looking at Murdoch, hats in hand, as if he’s gone off the deep end.

Still, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to cheat you. Higgins’s talk about getting his money back for his defective x-ray specs gives Murdoch the idea to x-ray the briefcase with the prize money. Ironically, although he’s no longer even pretending to solve the murder, it leads him to solve not one crime but two: the murder of Professor Srinivasan by Dean Colwyn, and the fraudulent fixing of the contest by his father. Anyone else got the Scooby Doo vibes when Mr. Colwyn protested that he would have gotten away with it if Murdoch hadn’t entered the contest?

Canada’s Smartest TV Show?

At its core, Toronto’s Smartest Man asks whether intelligence and wisdom are really the same thing. Socrates would say no. Murdoch might disagree — until he loses sleep, sanity, and nearly the case chasing that elusive proof that he’s right. Perhaps the smartest thing Murdoch does all episode is calm down, invent the Answer Alert, and challenge Effie to a face-off to determine who really won this thing.

A smart script, a smart episode, and one that knows exactly how ridiculous it is. Toronto’s Smartest Man balances social commentary, character study, and pure farce with ease. It’s Saleema Nawaz at her sharpest, Eleanore Lindo perfectly attuned to the tone, and Yannick Bisson proving he can do comedy just as deftly as deduction. Whether or not William Murdoch is truly Toronto’s smartest man remains debatable — but this episode is undeniably one of Murdoch Mysteries’ smartest hours.