Logliney Stuff:
It’s the Roaring Twenties and the Honorable Miss Phryne Fisher, monied adventurer and avowed single lady, takes up work as a private detective in her hometown of Melbourne. Along with the clever and motley crew of her household, she flirtily solves crimes alongside Detective Inspector Jack Robinson.
What’s Up With That:
I’m a sucker for procedurals, remember? If it’s riddled with Unresolved Sexual Tension and a boatload of uber-competent people, I am powerless to resist.
Also, the show’s a beaut at getting period details as detailed as possible, in addition to dealing pretty fairly with the effects of the Great War, even a decade later.
The murders are kind of beside the point, really. This entire series seems to exist to see how closely Phryne and Jack can stand without actually snogging.
Metatext-Type Stuff:
After I did a full watch-through of all three seasons and the recent movie, I started all over again. The third time around, I started taking notes. I eagerly devoured the handful of episodes of Miss Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries, which is set a couple of decades in the future and centers on a newly-discovered niece.
I love this show enough to buy everything on Blu-ray. (I considered reading the books by Kerry Greenwood on which the TV series is based, but apparently there is no Phryne/Jack UST at all and I’m not prepared to live in that universe.)
Character Natterings:
- The Honorable Miss Phryne Fisher:
What if a flapper-era feminist happened also to be a British heiress, formerly an Australian moppet, who seems to stumble into murders every couple of weeks or so? Phryne’s the quintessential “modern woman,” and the show doesn’t apologize for it. And yet it doesn’t feel like one of those historical shows where they’re imposing current ideals onto the past. Phryne feels utterly authentic. She’s intensely empathetic, boundlessly generous, and is DTF at pretty much any moment. (She claims she’d never get down with a murder suspect, but we’ve all looked at her askance at one point or another.) She’s headstrong, stubborn, and a conwoman at heart. (It’s inherited.) She’s GREAT.
The money and influence does lead to some annoying devil-may-care-ness, though. I mean, who decides to turn being arrested into a fun photoshoot? Oh, Phryne. You laugh at the idea of consequences. On the other hand, she has a fair amount of tragedy in her life: A sister who was kidnapped and murdered when they were kids. A father who just can’t stop being a grifter. Being a battlefield nurse during World War I. Being trapped in an abusive relationship immediately after the war. Phryne’s seen some shit--that’s why she refuses to give in to anybody who finds her scandalous.
- Dorothy “Dottie” Williams:
A maid briefly accused of murder in the first episode, Dottie very quickly becomes Phryne’s official “companion,” which I guess for old-timey rich ladies meant a refined young lady who they hung out with a lot? I guess? Dottie’s role, generally, fluctuates between apprentice and maid, but the maid stuff seems to be reflexive--she grew up in an overstuffed household and is really, really good at sewing and cooking. She likes helping.
Dottie’s also intensely Catholic, which makes for some interesting points of contention, given Phryne’s a posterchild for Definitely Not Catholic. While she starts out naturally reserved, it isn’t long before she blossoms into a mini-Phryne--hyper-observant and thoughtful, and not willing to take guff from any dude, not even her fiance.
- Senior Detective Inspector Jack Robinson:
Oh, Jack.You handsome, stodgy, oblivious man. Previously a soldier in the Great War, formerly married to the daughter of a corrupt police commissioner. An Italian widow believed he was in love with her for a couple of years. And as Phryne says, he has a heart “deep as the Pacific Ocean.”
Jack’s ex-wife Rosie believed he lacked ambition, and that’s kind of true--at one point in the series, he burns all his political capital to make sure his constable gets a promotion. He loves being a detective, lovingly but exasperatedly works with Phryne, and understands the difference between the spirit and the letter of the law.
- Constable Hugh Collins:
Most of the time, Hugh’s a steady stream of comic relief--while he seems fairly good at his job, Phryne and Dot tend to run circles around him. He’s fairly old-fashioned--one of the biggest conflicts he experiences is when he realizes Dot isn’t just going to settle into being a housewife after they’re married. That one GLARING mark against him aside, though, he’s a good egg. He starts a boxing gym for local hoodlums! And trains them! In his free time! Oh, Hugh.
- Doctor Mac:
Everybody’s favorite doctor, who also happens to be a queer icon. And the tweed suits, guys! It’s incredible. We don’t know a ton about her, but she’s definitely been friends with Phryne for quite a long time--she’s the only person who already knew about a couple of tragedies in Phryne’s past, which speaks to how close they are.
- Mr Butler:
Mr Butler, an uber-competent, uh, butler, is also a widower with an outstanding sense of discretion. He also has a bit of a hidden rough side--for some reason, dude’s got a significant collection of firearms at his disposal.
- Bert Johnson and Cecil Yates:
These boys start out as a couple of Marxist cabbies who get pulled into one of Phryne’s cases. They become part of the family business pretty quickly, though, often going undercover-ish for Phryne’s cases. Cecil’s married to one of Dot’s friends; Bert’s a hopeless romantic. They’re both veterans of the Great War, as well--pretty much all the adults in this series are still recovering from wartime trauma.
Cecil on the left, Bert on the right.
- Jane:
This street moppet was a fairly good pickpocket before she got adopted by Phryne. Before she got caught up and subsequently escaped the foster system, she seemed to have been caretaker for her mother, who suffered from unspecified mental illness. After being adopted by Phryne, Jane never loses her sass, but she’s also well on her way to being as polished as Phryne is.
- Aunt Prudence:
Aunt Prudence is the sister of Phryne’s mother. She’s wealthy and constantly scandalized by pretty much everything Phryne does. But she’s also mother to an adult special needs son and another son who seems to be carousing his way through the Continent. Her husband, who passed a while back, was Denethor. (Two flashback scenes with John Noble, y’all.) She’s also pretty high up there in society, but like Phryne, her generosity abounds.
- Baron Henry George Fisher:
Phryne’s father, a scoundrel who, after inheriting a title from his cousin, became a rich scoundrel. He’s not malicious, but he’s a grifter at heart. Phryne cannot stand him, partly because he’s one of the few people who can outsmart her.
The Shipping News:
If I didn’t mention it before, Phryne and Jack are a singularity of sexual tension upon which all other fictional couples with UST are dependent. It radiates from them like sunlight and none can resist.
I mean, it’s an easy thing to do, blocking-wise, but they’re always SO CLOSE. And the whole will-they-won’t-they has some legit reasoning. For one thing, Jack’s still technically married during the first season. And second, Phryne is steadfast in not being tied down. Ever. (There is a ton of thought to be given to the weird tug between monogamy and polyamory of these two.)
There’s one kiss for the purposes of, uh, “distraction” in the first season, and then it’s three seasons of torture until OUT OF THE BLUE, Jack decides to make an overture while they’re searching for radioactive traces at an observatory riddled with murders.
Then the movie happened. That’s a whole other thing.
Dottie and Hugh are, technically, a longer-running relationship, as they got all awkward and flirty in the very first episode. They’re a pretty cute couple. (Hugh gave Dot work boots for her birthday; Phryne gave him the Kama Sutra so he could figure out how to kiss.) Even cuter, actually, is how much Phryne and Jack are in their respective proteges’ business. They are unusually gossipy about these two and it’s great.
Dot and Hugh have two major conflicts: First, Dot is very very Catholic, while Hugh’s family is very very Protestant. Second, as I mentioned earlier, Hugh gets way old-fashioned and fragilely masculine about Dot having career ambitions.
They get married in the end, though. Who knows what after that?
Live for the Memory:
Does Jack kiss Phryne during an undercover stakeout in order to preserve their cover?
Does Phryne go undercover at, basically, a bordello?
Does Phryne, for whatever reason, go undercover as a circus performer repeatedly?
Anyway, it’s possible to watch this show solely for the clothes. If you’re into that kind of thing.
World-building Obsessions:
This show is intensely feminist (most of the time), but possibly the funniest wink to the audience about this is the episode where they had the boys swimming around in bathing suits while Phryne and Dot watched whilst eating ice cream.
The nice thing about procedurals is that they follow a specific narrative pattern. They can have their season arcs and their back-and-forth relationships, but the murder always gets solved and the crimefighters always get reflective in the end. Phryne and Jack make a pretty regular habit of having a nightcap after a case gets wrapped up. There’s something pretty lovely about it, even when you end up yelling at them for not just making out already. Not, uh, that I ever do that.
What the Hell, Show?:
Look at this gif, man. LOOK AT THIS. They did this while under the eye of Jack’s ex-wife, his ex-father-in-law/boss, and an entire stadium of football fans. This is just blatant, unrepentant fanbait, really.
Capacity to Fic:
Look, even the in-world newspapers are speculating about these two. It seems like the entirety of the fandom’s fic is, yup, the RST kind. Given how many awesome side characters there are, though, it seems like there’s a lot of unexplored potential.
Does This Suffice?:
I have watched the entire series through at least three times so far. When I wrap up my current rewatch, I’ll probably loop and begin again, honestly.
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