Brilliantly flipping the script, The Borden Ultimatum is a celebration of Murdoch Mysteries’ quintessential Canadianness. It’s an episode that does everything right and perfectly captures the 2025 zeitgeist as it builds towards an apotheosis that gave even this non-Canadian viewer patriotic goosebumps.

From the first scene, where the most Canadian man ever walks into Station House 4 and, in a thick Canadian accent, says, I’d like to report something, eh?, it’s clear that Simon McNabb’s script will fully lean into what it means to be Canadian. In what feels like a complete movie but is really only 44 minutes long, a plot unfolds that is, to quote Detective Murdoch (Yannick Bisson), completely mad, yet thrilling, hilarious, fast-paced, satirical, witty, exciting, sarcastic, and topical, often all at once.

O Canada

I know I tend to go on about how good the Murdoch writers are, but if ever there was a time to sing their praises, it’s now. I mean, having a fake Prime Minister Borden (John Ralston) rope government agent Terrence Meyers (Peter Keleghan) into a scheme to annex the United States and make it Canada’s tenth province? Inspired. Calling it Project 1925 and framing it as a twelve-year plan so it fits the 1913 Murdoch timeline? Genius. And then tying every little plot point, Easter egg, inside joke, deep cut, and line of dialogue back to the question of what makes a real Canadian? Absolute perfection!

Writer Simon McNabb obviously knows Murdoch Mysteries’ history and understands its assets. Season 18 was full of references to the current U.S. administration, and there have been multiple plots in earlier seasons where America wanted to invade or annex Canada. Who better to turn those tables than Terrence Meyers — also known as Mr. X (well, Señor Equis, to be precise) — who runs an insurance agency under the alias of Lyle Anderson, has left coded messages for Murdoch before, is always being framed and accused of treason, and has even been known to voice doubts about the new Prime Minister Borden?

Elbows Up

The concept of lampooning Trump’s Project 2025 by hatching a Canadian counterpart called Project 1925 is so ingenious, I feel it deserves its own paragraph in this review. It’s got everything we’ve seen in this latest presidential term: a Russian disinformation campaign, plans to invade a southern neighbour, making an entire country the nth state — or in this case, province — of another country, patriotism and debates about who’s a real Canadian flaring up, Alaska, mentions of a weak and inexperienced leader with a background in academics, and a politician claiming to have no clue about Project XX25 since he just got back from a golf trip.

What elevates this great concept to sheer brilliance is how McNabb makes the larger storyline resonate in every detail — in a way that fits his characters and the show. From Chief Constable Brackenbridge, uh, Brackenreid (Thomas Craig) over-annunciating his zeds, to Meyers pre-empting eagle-eyed fans who are sure that PM Borden was played by a different actor previously by saying, “You look somehow different, sir. Thinner?” — even the Nanaimo cake recipe plays a role in solving the mystery. And finally, the relationship between Mr. MacKenzie — Steven McCarthy in a role that couldn’t be more different from his portrayal of Dr. Isaac Tash in seasons 1 and 2 — and his neighbour is a miniature version of the story about good neighbourly relations. As an aside, I loved how Canadian this guy was — and how much he resembled Detective Watts (Daniel Maslany) in his mannerisms. Very funny. And as another aside, if you’re going to be this explicit about the moral of the story, having Watts say it out loud is absolutely the way to go.

Land of Hope and Glory

Meyers and Murdoch always make a great pair, their clashing personalities and working styles playing perfectly off each other. I quite liked how Murdoch is portrayed here. He is extremely capable: he cracks the code, engages in spy craft and new levels of deception, rocks a strawberry-blonde wig and moustache, loses a tail, wins a train-roof fight, gets Meyers to travel to Ottawa in a trunk (bucket included, of course), and wins yet another fight using, of all things, the Senate Mace. And believe it or not, all of that still isn’t the most impressive.

In an episode that’s through and through Canadian, filmed in the nation’s capital Ottawa, that talks about curling, fridge cakes and the Shawinigan Handshake, that celebrates Canadian identity in a mix of humour, national pride, and cultural references, there’s really only one possible ending. Just kidding — although it makes total sense, I did not see this coming! To prove he is not an American, Murdoch finds the orator in himself and replicates the famous I am Canadian rant from the 2000 Molson beer ad, complete with Land of Hope and Glory playing in the background and a shy “huh, did I just do that” look when he’s done. Yannick Bisson is on fire here as he rants in an oh-so-Murdoch way — animated yet understated — and underlines that if ever there was a “real Canadian,” it’s the fictional Detective Murdoch.