Father Brown (TV Series) The Blood of the Anarchists (2019) User Reviews

Big and bold, but boasts an excellent ending.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 7/10 · 13 July 2019]

The Blood of the Anarchists is a decent episode from the seventh series, what it lacks in subtlety, it makes up for in originality. It is anything but dull, indeed it's bold, brash and loud. However it's imaginative, clever and features a clever narrative, it is character driven with some bold performers, it's well acted and offers up a good degree of mystery. Some funny scenes including Mrs McCarthy being hit in the face by flying piece of mud.

It's very watchable, and features a very powerful, emotional ending. 7/10

The Blood of the Anarchists

[Prismark10 · 6/10 · 2 March 2019]

There is anarchy in Kembleford. A radical group led by Titan Stark put on an avant-garde performance at the farmer Daffyd Clegg's field. Daffyd's wife, Sally was keen on it as she once knew Titan.

Some of the locals are bemused. Mrs McCarthy is far from amused.

The group's writer is found dead. Suicide according to Inspector Mallory. After Titan puts on a display of public affection with Sally. He too is found dead.

Daffyd Clegg is taken into custody. Mallory thinks he has a cast iron case, but Father Brown thinks that there are other reasons why members of the anarchist group are being killed off.

A nicely done story that starts with a locked room mystery. The actors playing the anarchists get to so some fruity acting while they put on their performance. The hospital ward set has been very busy this series.

Really enjoyed this one.

[harrykivi · 7/10 · 22 February 2021]

The seventh season of "Father Brown" has been pretty enjoyable one so far with only "The Demise of the Debutante" being the biggest disappointment. "The Blood of the Anarchists" is an episode, which has a very low ranking for "Father Brown", but is actually a quite good entry to the series.

Let's start with the good aspects, shall we?

. The production values are great as usual in this episode. "The Blood of the Anarchists" is well- directed and the music's marvellous. The acting is very good for the most part. The main cast is great and out of the guest stars Kevin Mains, who portrays the sympathetic killer, and Lottie Tolhurst, who gets to play a quite vicious character, do particularly well.

. The mystery is quite compelling with nice twists, emotional ending and some quirky humor on the way.

But...

. There are times, when the script is lazy. Especially when it comes to finding the bodies of the victims. Also was not a huge fan of the anarchy-theme in the story.

Overall, good, but not great.

7/10 HK

Anarchy and murder

[coltras35 · 6/10 · 18 July 2022]

Tensions rise to deadly levels when a performance troupe of anarchists arrive in Kembleford. There's murder, mayhem, locked room shooting, poisonous almonds, a wife conflicted over her feelings for former anarchist lover, and Bunty writing a poem about anarchy. It's interesting mystery, fairly engaging.

Sid Vicious would be proud

[safenoe · 6/10 · 12 June 2023]

Sid Vicious would have been incredibly proud of this episode which packs an emotional ending on a railway platform which could have tested the censors for sure.

Anyway, one of the lines in the opening was a killer line, when one of the characters demands of Father Brown, "What is it with you and dead people?" after stumbling across another murder victim. In fact there are two murder victims in this episode, and I always wonder why Father Brown and his circle of friends don't suffer any kind of PTSD over the years. I wonder about the same thing in Murder, She Wrote.

Anyway, I'm enjoying watching Father Brown for daytime viewing.

Only worthy because it's farther brown

[lustigerlumpi · 5/10 · 5 November 2022]

I usually love father brown but this episode rubbed me all the wrong way. Don't know about the anarchist at the time but this feels like a grotesque caricature of the anarchist ideas. As if anarchism is just about destruction and causing chaos for the sake of it. Let alone anarchist claiming at every occasion that this the anarchists way of doing stuff. Anarchist were amongst the most suppressed and procecuted individuals in recent history. Usually father brown seems to be more open minded even in context of his catholic faith but here he rather comes of patronizing and working from the same predjeduces as everyone else "don't you know that by destroying everything, you will also destroy good things!" give me a break.

Moral of the story: don't question authority or you end up dead

Only Bunty was a bright spot in her usual quirkiness and teasing Mrs. Mccarthy for her old fashioned views.

Better than the previous episode, but that's not saying much...

[AzSumTuk · 5/10 · 31 July 2020]

OK. There will be spoilers.

I just want to mention that when I sympathize with a man who's committed two really gruesome murders and tried to frame a somewhat innocent woman for that more than I sympathize with his victims or the people who try to catch him, there is some problem with the story I'm reading or watching. And this is precisely what happened here. Let me try to explain.

A troupe of anarchist actors travel from town to town to perform and speak out against the tyranny of things like Science and Society. For some reason their amateurish and, frankly, horrible shows manage to rile people up to the point where, when they go to Glasgow, they're warned by the police not to perform, because that may cause a riot. Being anarchists, they still do their show and cause a riot during which Angus Boyde's wife is trampled to death. He decides to take his revenge, infiltrates the troupe and when they eventually reach Kembleford. he kills two of them and successfully pins that on one of his victims' daughter - who is the only one from the troupe that remains alive. Of course, Father Brown soon solves the mystery.

Can you see where my problem is? I hope you do, but if you don't - these "actors" were just a band of dangerous criminals who got God knows how many people killed. They knew what they were doing. And not only that, but the supposedly innocent daughter said in plain text that a true anarchist owes nothing to anyone. And this woman was not innocent at all. True, she was framed for the murders, but before that she assaulted the first suspect in front of witnesses and then, after he was released, she tried to kill him right in front of a few police officers. Isn't attempted murder a crime? How about trying to claw someone's eyes out? (The way the actress performed uncontrollable rage was award worthy, though.) This is what eventually tanked the episode for me. At the end of the day, while this woman lost her father (who was shown to be a really horrible human being and possibly an abusive parent, by the way), she was not held accountable for the crimes she committed within the episode, nor was she held accountable for the lives she and her troupe ruined.

Well...