Cluedunnit

Growing up I lived so close to my elementary school that I walked home for lunch every day. One year, for my birthday, I asked for something truly special -- to have lunch at school! And it was ... fine. The chicken nuggets were merely OK, if I remember correctly. You know what would have made my schooltime lunch epic? If Charlie Cale was my lunchlady! Luckily, POKER FACE heard the cry of my subconscious, and has given us Natasha L...

It's summertime, which means Jessica is once again trying to turn Cluedunnit into a bike racing podcast. Which is probably better than Jacob trying to remember the risque French he learned in high school. We also stumble upon the most brilliant - or just luckiest - bit of Google SEO ever related to villa rentals in the south of France. Because who hasn't always yearned for a stone farm house with a helipad? But can we fly in with t...

Is it weird that INSPECTOR MORSE'S show titles sound like a goth teenager wrote them while rebelling against their parents?

"You use to be such a sweet boy, Johnny. Why are you running around listening to the Cure and wearing black eyeliner?"

"Death is now my neighbour, Mum."

"What have you got to be so sad about?"

"The sins of the fathers."

"Who are your friends?"

"The dead of Jericho."

"Oh for goodness sake. I give up. Go ...

Let's play a game called "Would you live there?" We name a place and you tell us whether you'd live there, even with significantly higher chances of being murdered. How about Cabot Cove? Midsomer County? A smelly houseboat on the edge of Chelsea? It's the thought of the smell rather than the murders that makes the houseboat unappealing -- but CHELSEA DETECTIVE is very appealing! This slightly snarky, possibly prickly detective want...

If Elvis, Sherlock Holmes, and Will Shortz walked into a mystery -- well, we'd definitely watch that, just like we devoured LUDWIG! We paused viewing only long enough to record this episode and have a simmering feud over what, exactly, the criteria are for a locked-room mystery. Jacob's still not convinced

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It's not a noir, but it's on the moor! We stay on our British, female detective stint and head up to Manchester for one of the great villains of all time. This is also halfway to a foodie episode, too. Jacob has some great ideas for restaurants looking to extend teh QR-code menu trend into a haute-cuisine direction and Jessica teaches us all about British flapjacks.

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We leave our Kenneth Branagh interlude behind for some sun, sex, and silly gardening hacks you won't believe! Which we're sure is some kind of TikTok trend that we're absolutely going to ignore. Because there's plenty of affairs to keep track of in this episode, what with the old flames and cheating spouses -- and that's before we factor in some ribald literary humor. That's right, our English degrees are good for something!

Join ...

There's bleak, then there's Nordic Noir bleak ... And then there's Nordic Noir Bleak as personified by Kenneth Branagh -- which is technically darker than winter in Sweden. We checked! I'm not saying Wallander's ring tone is the sunniest piece of this show, but I will say it has fan pages! And after watching some episodes we're fans, too! We talk about that ringtone, shine a light on some amazing doggy acting, and get totally confu...

In this episode we are joined by mystery novelist Eloise Corvo! She regales us with stories about horrors on the hiking trail and explains how the original Scooby-Doo TV show is a lot like Agatha Christie -- and it's not because Ms. Christie liked Scooby snacks. She also dishes about her upcoming book OFF THE BEATEN PATH -- a brand new cozy mystery coming soon to a bookstore near you. Get out your Halloween candy (or your favorite ...

The only thing -- the ONLY thing -- you need to know about this episode is that this is the one where Jessica admits to licking a banana slug (not a euphemism) at Girl Scout camp in order to get high! At one point we also thought that a lizard might turn into an extra from Jurassic Park, Jacob confesses why he cleans in the buff, and we're both convinced that backstage on the set of HIGH POTENTIAL is just a mixture of show tunes an...

I'm a fan of oysters. I'm a fan of beer. Would I be a fan of oyster beer? (Stout, to be specific...) Who knows! But I am a fan of this show -- despite Mr. Grumpy-guts roaming around the docks and beaches. Apparently he is part some kind of British archetype dating back to possibly before ... checks notes ... Wuthering Heights and Heathcliff? Cue the Kate Bush and complicated female characters!

We're going to start a microbrewery o...

What do CHINATOWN, THE MUSIC MAN, and FISK have in common? Absolutely nothing! But that doesn't stop Jacob from comparing them to MATLOCK, all in a desperate attempt to delay his guesses. Jessica makes a much better case for this episode to be a lot like THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY -- but loses points for her inability to whistle the theme song. We clean up the water damage and make some guesses in this very visceral episode.

Gu...

We've seen a lot of fake dead bodies -- like, a LOT -- but none of them have been as unsettling as the ones in HARROW! Truly, extra credit to all the artisans and makeup experts on this show. This show removes a stomach from a body and empties it out on camera. If it's true that everything in Australia can kill you, then this show sets out to demonstrate how you'd figure that out. With so many lethalities populating Down Under, wil...

It's fun to approach HETTY WAINTHROPP INVESTIGATES as the biography of the world's foremost MURDER, SHE WROTE cosplayer. An English pensioner decides she's not going to let Jessica Fletcher have all the fun, and opens her own investigation agency -- after recruiting a criminally young hobbit. OK, the metaphor breaks down, people. But we had a lot of fun debating the difference between a pond and a fountain, whether or not murder ac...

How confident is this show? The pilot of this show introduces the main character as she shoots a dog. And not in an "Old Yeller" kinda way! This shows has an exposition dump about salami. This show lights a freezer like it's a portal to the Twilight Zone, has boars eating a human body, and names a pathologist after a medieval fox. My friends, this show has no f*&%$ to give -- except when it comes to closing old cases, and we lo...

Hey! We've got a Patreon now! Ever wanted to know what merchandise a show should have made? Or how Jessica learned to make smoke rings? Well all this plus early access to episodes and MORE can be yours! Join the fun over at https://www.patreon.com/c/CluedunnitPodcast. 

We've got a really trashy episode for you this week! The 20-teens version of Sherlock (nope, not that one -- the American one with Lucy Liu) goes looking for a left-...

After taking it away from Max, Netflix took Dead Boy Detectives to the max! They test the premise in simple ways (turning a crow into a heartsick teen), inventive (using a magic bag to hide from a demon from the depths of Hell) and macabre (I guarantee you have never seen sausage links used like this). And we finally get to do some legit bonkers guessing! But do we get it right? (And where do the Dead Boys get their office supplies...

It's a guest star extravanza! This show has the same number of guest stars as Maigret creator George Simenon had maids that he slept with. (It's more than you think!) This hard-boiled, early '90s take on a 1950s detective has smoking, stripping, saxophones direct from the '80s -- and famous people doing depraved things for love and drugs. Did the cognitive dissonance keep us from guessing whodunnit? Or can we actually get a win? We...

This is the end -- or the beginning of Season 2! Jess floats (and gloats) in an amazing victory while Jacob deals with his feelings. We exult in the power of the side eye in a close up, revel in the madness of a punning mass murderer, and clutch our pearls over the possibility of an Evil Ira Glass. Plus, Jacob denies every having worried about getting his nuts crushed in an elevator. We also hand out some Christies, because we fina...