Well, reader, we’re back for another season of the newly renamed Miss Scarlet. LAST season ended on a bonkers note with our pal Victoria Mars (Eliza) helping out Detective Mustache (Nash) after he got into even crazier shenanigans than usual, leaving him on the hook for kidnapping and obstruction charges. More importantly (and again I point you to the show name change), Duke Silver (William) officially left our friends to go take a job in America, leaving a lot of confusion and broken hearts in his wake. It’s been a minute since last season, so if you need a refresher, you can find all my previous recaps here .
This season begins outside an abandoned building where Hardscrabble is complaining bitterly to Baby Detective, and for once, it’s not about Victoria Mars.
Hardscrabble: Look, I just don’t like him, and it’s not because he took my job.
Baby Detective: To be fair, it wasn’t technically your job. You were just temporarily in charge.
Hardscrabble, standing in for some of the fandom here: Whatever man, if it’s not Duke Silver, I don’t want it.
Just then, the new guy, who I’ll be calling… New Guy (at least until he earns a more interesting nickname) swans in and joins the boys. Hardscrabble is about to bust down the front door of the aforementioned abandoned building when New Guy stops him and checks the handle, which is unlocked. This type of thinking, plus New Guy’s background in Hong Kong, has Baby Detective impressed, despite Hardscrabble’s protests. I myself intend to withhold judgement for at least a couple episodes, but I have to admit some grudging respect after New Guy realizes that their sneaky suspect is behind a cleverly hidden secret door and quietly goes inside to apprehend their quarry. Of course, once he gets there, he finds a dead body, and in the shadows… Victoria Mars, who obviously already found the cleverly hidden secret door herself.
New Guy’s not impressed. It’s almost like he knows it wouldn’t be Miss Scarlet if she wasn’t one step ahead of the boys at all times. Of course, being new, New Guy is still firmly in “I don’t need Victoria Mars” territory, so when she tries to explain herself, he starts by telling her he doesn’t need her help.
Me: LOL. LMAO, even.
Victoria Mars: Right? Anyway, so did you notice the rigor mortis on this corpse?
New Guy: Actually, yes, which suggests that he died in the last day. I also noticed the lack of defensive wounds, which I just KNOW you’re about to point out. What I don’t know is how you got here, and I’m going to arrest you if you don’t tell me right now.
Victoria Mars: Ugh, fine. I know who the dead guy is, and who killed him. I can tell you the whole story, or we can all waste our time arresting, booking, and questioning me. Your call!
New Guy, annoyed: Ok. Tell me.
Victoria Mars: It all started a month ago. Before you came on the scene.
Here’s the deal: about a month ago, everything was coming up Victoria Mars. Her agency was a success, and she’d been able to hire Accountant, pal and phenom, to come work for her to manage the finances. They were also getting a lot of cases from Scotland Yard due to her blossoming friendship with Hardscrabble. Life was good.
New Guy, breaking into the flashback: Seriously? There’s no way Hardscrabble would ever be nice and/or helpful to you or anyone. Also, Accountant was convicted of fraud.
Victoria Mars: Everyone deserves a second chance!
New Guy: So true, bestie. So start again, and tell me the truth, instead of this story you’ve made up to make yourself look good.
Take two: Hardscrabble did indeed visit, but he was in a BAD mood about it.
Half his staff was out sick, and his wife had just had a new baby, so he was tired and overworked. Still, he dumped a file on her desk (a wild goose chase he didn’t want to deal with) and left. The thing is, to Victoria Mars, nothing is a wild goose chase, so she picked up the file with glee.
The case? A missing earl, who disappeared 12 years ago after being accused of murdering his lover/the housemaid.
The case made a huge splash, but despite many reported sightings of Missing Earl all over the world, he was never found. Now, however, he’s been seen in London.
Accountant: If he’s been on the run this long he must be moving his money around somehow. I’ll look into that.
Victoria Mars: And I’ll see if I can talk to the main witness… his daughter.
And visit Missing Earl’s Daughter she does, only to find said daughter not totally thrilled to be visited by a contractor, and not the police.
Daughter: To be fair, it’s not like you can do any worse than the actual cops have. It’s been so long since Edith was murdered.
Victoria Mars: Edith was the housemaid?
Daughter: Yeah. I’m sure you know the whole nasty story?
Victoria Mars: Mhm. Do you think your dad was guilty?
Daughter: Yes. He caused so many people a lot of pain; I think it’s why my mother died earlier than she should have.
Victoria Mars: And a few days ago you filed a report that you’d seen your dad.
Daughter: Yes, it was Sunday. I was going to church when I saw him right across the street. We made eye contact and I was full of rage and fear. I went back inside to calm down, and when I looked out the window, he was gone. I’m SURE it was him.
Victoria Mars: Have you had any other contact with him all these years since the murder?
Daughter: We had some letters asking for money, but they were fake. Look, he’s brought so much shame on our family. You have to find him before he does any more damage.
Yikes. Later that night, back at Victoria Mars’ house, Ivy continues to be criminally under appreciated. She’s offered shepherd’s pie for dinner, which I just have to assume is delicious, given what we know about Ivy’s cooking, and is totally ignored by a very distracted Veronica Mars. Only after Ivy sarcastically begins a conversation with herself does our young friend finally get her head out of her butt and join in.
Ivy: Oh, BTW, this letter came for you today… from New York!
Me:
Ivy: Aren’t you going to read it?
Veronica Mars: Uh yeah, when you and all these people aren’t watching me?
Ivy: Not a chance, pal. I need updates!
New Guy, again butting in: Hold on, why are you telling me about this random letter I don’t care about?
Victoria Mars: You said you wanted details! And this letter was from your predecessor, telling me he’d been offered a permanent job and a promotion over in the US. A promotion he’d never get here. So. Good news!
New Guy: Wait, but why was he telling you that?
Victoria Mars: We’re… uh… old friends. Which is why I was so so SO super happy for him.
New Guy: I don’t believe you. And I think you’re stalling for time, but I can’t figure out why. Yet. So we’re off to Scotland Yard to arrest you after all.
Victoria Mars, forced to play her hand early: The dead guy’s name is Jonathan Harwall. I’ll give you his address, and you can send someone there to verify his identity.
New Guy: Baby Detective! Go check on this lead.
While Baby Detective does that, we return to the flashback, where, obviously, Victoria Mars isn’t actually so so SO super happy. In fact, she’s crying.
Ivy: I’m so sorry. I wish I could make this better. Your dad used to say that only hopeless people cry, and you’re not hopeless. You’ve got a whole future ahead of you. I’m guessing at least another season after this one, for instance, so there’s that!
It’s true, but it doesn’t make Victoria Mars any less sad. She’s still moping pretty aggressively the next morning when Accountant arrives at the office on his day off. Why? Because he heard the news and didn’t want her to be alone.
Accountant: Look, you’re going to say you’re fine, but we both know that’s not true. I think what you really need is company. I don’t know what to say, so I’ll be pretty quiet.
Victoria Mars: Well, thanks. You know, I did actually want to talk to you about something… Hardscrabble hired us to work on this case, but he’s only in the job temporarily. Now that we know Duke Silver won’t be back, I think they’ll hire someone permanent. Someone who’s likely to take us off the case.
Accountant: But who could tell us who will get the job?
You guessed it: Detective Mustache, who they head off to visit in prison. Blessedly, life in lockup hasn’t changed my favorite chaos babygirl too much; he meets Victoria Mars in the warden’s office, which Detective Mustache has sneakily taken over by paying off a guard.
Victoria Mars: I need your help.
Detective Mustache: Anything.
Victoria Mars: Duke SIlver won’t be coming back… and I’m realizing you already knew that somehow? I need to know who will be his replacement.
Detective Mustache: Smart money’s on a fella from Bristol called New Guy. He’s got a good reputation, tons of international experience, and he famously doesn’t work with private detectives.
Victoria Mars: Yikes.
Detective Mustache: Yeah. Apparently he halved the crime rate in Bristol using only in-house resources. He’ll save money, so you can see why his new boss/our collective nemesis Unpleasable Commissioner might need a new recap name around the guy. But if anyone can change his mind, it’d be you!
Victoria Mars: I guess we’ll find out. Thank you.
Detective Mustache: Duke Silver asked you to come join him in New York, didn’t he? But of course if you’d done that it would have been as his wife, and he couldn’t have a wife who was a detective. And you couldn’t give up everything you worked so hard for.
Victoria Mars: If you know so much why are you in prison?
Oh, ya know. The crimes, probably?
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Anyway, we return to the present day, where New Guy gets right back into questioning Victoria Mars.
Victoria Mars: Right. Well, I’d been hired by Hardscrabble, but when I found out he’d be replaced, I wanted to know if the contract was still valid. So I came to visit you. I assume you remember that.
New Guy: Oh yeah. I remember.
Back in the past, Victoria Mars runs into Baby Detective outside Scotland Yard, on her way in to meet the new boss.
Baby Detective: Oh, one thing before you go in there —
Victoria Mars: Look. I’ll miss Duke Silver. I know you will too. But he made his decision and we need to respect it. Thank you for worrying, but I’m fine.
Baby Detective: Um. I was just going to tell you that New Guy is in a different office.
Victoria Mars: Great! Thank you! Bye!
LOL. Inside, the halls are as bustling and bonkers as usual, except for the area right outside New Guy’s office on the second floor. And you know what that means: it’s snoopin’ time. Victoria Mars does knock, but when no one answers she just can’t help herself. Naturally, this ends with her poking through a box to look at an ornamental plate when New Guy arrives.
Victoria Mars: Hello, New Guy! Congratulations on the job; well deserved, I hear.
New Guy: Uh, whomst the heck are you, total stranger rifling through my things?
Victoria Mars: Ah. I’m the private detective Hardscrabble hired for the Missing Earl case. I came by to update you.
New Guy, doing the same annoying thing new people always do to Victoria Mars: YOU are a DETECTIVE?
Victoria Mars: Yeah, I own my agency. Thought this would be a good time to fill you in on all the ways I’ve been helpful in the first 4 seasons of my show.
New Guy: Thanks but no thanks — I don’t work with private detectives. I’ll pay you for your work on the Missing Earl thing if you have a contract, of course, but you don’t need to tell me anything. My officers can take it from here.
Unsurprisingly, this brush-off is unsuccessful. Victoria Mars, not so easily dismissed, offers to serve as a valuable resource on the London crime scene. New Guy tells her he’ll let her know if he needs help, but only to get her to leave. He then doubles down on his anti-private detective stance: her type aren’t nearly as good as the real thing, and he doesn’t trust, use, or need private detective services. Not ideal, but let’s not forget that Duke Silver said pretty much the same thing AND added a little splash of “boys rule, girls drool” back in the day. If anyone can change New Guy’s mind, we’re definitely looking at her.
Back in the present, both detectives admit that they weren’t maybe on their best behavior during that conversation (hilarious, given that I’m pretty sure that WAS Victoria Mars’ best behavior).
New Guy: Why are you telling me this when I was there? Is it perhaps that you were intent on finding a break in the case that you could use to prove I was short-sighted to not hire you?
Victoria Mars: Maybeeeee. Well, that afternoon, I visited Missing Earl’s Daughter, and that’s when I learned about the break in.
Break in is a bit of an understatement. In the flashback, we get to see that someone’s really taken the time to toss Daughter’s house. Whoever did this stole family heirlooms (jewelry and silver, so PAWNABLE family heirlooms) and even art off the walls. Daughter’s been waiting for the cops to come investigate all morning, with no success.
Daughter: He even took my mom’s wedding ring. It was my dad, I’m sure of it. He ran out of cash and came back to steal from me.
Victoria Mars: You’re positive it was him?
Daughter: There’s a safe. It was opened using the combination.
Victoria Mars: Hm. You were out when this happened — what about your staff?
Daughter: I only have one housemaid now, and she doesn’t want to live here for some odd superstitious reason.
I think it’s fair to not want to sleep in the room where your predecessor got murdered, actually, but that’s just me. Next, Victoria Mars meets up with Accountant to share the list of stolen items, and to speculate on what Missing Earl will do next.
Victoria Mars, on my wavelength: Perhaps we can check in with the local pawnshops.
Accountant: Nah, this guy needs a LOT of cash, and pawnshops will only give you a fraction of what the items are worth. There are places where you can get a lot more, but they’re dicey.
Victoria Mars: How bad could it be?
Why would you say that? Don’t you know you just jinxed yourself? Naturally, our next stop is indeed very seedy, despite Accountant smoothly referring to the place as a “club.” After trying (and failing) to remember the pass phrase, Victoria Mars finally just bribes the doorman to let the two of them inside, where they find, essentially, an underground auction house. Ye olde dark web, if you will. Everyone’s wearing masks, but that doesn’t change the fact that it would still be risky for Missing Earl to turn up in such a public space (albeit a disreputable one). Finally, a lot which might just be the missing items comes up on the block. While the bidding takes off, Victoria Mars notices a man entering the room who looks familiar in a way she can’t quite figure out.
Victoria Mars: He’s involved in this somehow. Look how he reacts when the bidding goes up!
Almost as if to conspire against our friend, this is the moment when the bidding peters out. So, of course, Victoria Mars pipes up and bids just to provoke a reaction. A completely bonkers choice, especially after I ran her bid through an inflation calculator and learned that she just dropped roughly $140,000 to prove a point. Yeah, you read that right: Victoria Mars won (or lost, depending on how you look at it). But lucky for her, right after the gavel bangs, police officers flood into the club for a raid. Intent on investigating, Victoria Mars chases the suspicious man out the back until he turns around and pulls a gun on her. This is, thankfully, short lived: evidently deciding finding out the identity of this random lady is less important than avoiding arrest, he runs off, but she’s not so lucky. Even after she tells the officer who’s dragging her inside that she’s on a case, our friend is well and truly caught.
Inside, New Guy has just sent the crowd off to jail when Victoria Mars is escorted in. She plays it pretty cool, attempting to get him to honor her original agreement in exchange for the info she’s gleaned from this club.
New Guy: That’s blackmail, and unlike some of your previous foils, I just don’t do that. Toodles.
Victoria Mars: Ugh, fine. The man who was here to sell the stolen items wasn’t Missing Earl — I got a good look at him.
Unfortunately, when New Guy brings her back to the station to look over the Big Book of Criminals, not-Earl isn’t in there.
Victoria Mars: This is driving me nuts. I KNOW I’ve seen him, I just can’t figure out where.
New Guy: I guess I will begrudgingly admit that you do work hard.
Victoria Mars: Thanks for the half-compliment. Why don’t you hire private detectives?
New Guy: A private detective killed my father. Just kidding, but IRL it hasn’t been much better. I’ve worked with firms who were also being paid by criminals. Others withheld important information to increase their fee. Anyway, I don’t respect them.
Victoria Mars: You know, there are always exceptions.
New Guy: Like you?
Me, thinking back on all the shenanigans Victoria Mars has pulled over the years: Welllllll.
Victoria Mars: Hush. New Guy, there’s a lot about me you don’t know.
New Guy, unable to resist initiating a detective-off: You’re ambitious. You don’t mind lying if it gets you a good result. Which is funny, because you have an obvious tell; you pretend you’re thinking something over when you actually already know exactly what BS you’re about to say. Also, you project a masculine confidence you don’t actually feel.
Victoria Mars, annoyed: This is fun! Here’s what I know about you, btw: you moved your office up here to assert your dominance over the others.
New Guy: Interesting, but no. I just like the view.
Victoria Mars: Sure. You also have a ton of fancy books here, but given their condition, you read them once to improve your mind, and don’t re-read them for fun. Other than “Treasure Island,” which you obviously love. Perhaps you’d like to be an adventurer?
New Guy, suddenly frosty: That book isn’t mine. Go through the mug shots again, you might have missed something.
Victoria Mars: I’m sure he’s not in there.
New Guy: Then we’re done. Good night!
Victoria Mars is, understandably, confused by this, since on the face of things she didn’t say anything mean or offensive. But something tells me that that copy of “Treasure Island” is the key to unlocking New Guy’s (probably slightly tragic) backstory, so I’m afraid we’ll all have to wait a while to learn what happened there. Back in the present, Victoria Mars explains that she went home that night to look at the Missing Earl file again. She also says that the man she saw that night is the same guy who’s dead upstairs, AND that there’s a reason he wasn’t in the Big Book of Criminals: not-Earl wasn’t a criminal. He was Missing Earl’s valet.
Victoria Mars: I’m sure Baby Detective will confirm that soon. But while we wait, I’m guessing you want to know who the killer is. Shall we?
The only way to respond to that is to follow her back upstairs, so New Guy does. There, she explains that not-Earl had been fired by Daughter soon after Missing Earl disappeared. Accountant was able to sneak out during the raid, which meant that he could follow not-Earl home when Victoria Mars was taken in. The two of them came back later to search not-Earl’s place, and found information about the abandoned building where not-Earl was later murdered.
Victoria Mars: We figured this was his backup hiding place, so we came here to investigate. And that’s when we found not-Earl dead. The knife, you’ll have noticed, is pure silver, and the maker’s mark is going to sound familiar.
New Guy: Yes, it matches the set that was stolen from Daughter.
Victoria Mars: Exactly. The set that never got sold because of your raid, and was then returned to Daughter. She arranged for not-Earl to burgle her house; I’m guessing he was going to be paid out from the auction winnings. I don’t know exactly what happened between the two of them, but she’s the one who stabbed him. I think she used her dad to cover her crimes. My colleague left right before you got here; he hired a couple of strong burly types who will have by now arrested Daughter and brought her over to Scotland Yard for you. So we should probably head back there!
New Guy: Daughter IS at Scotland Yard, but she didn’t get there because of your subcontractors. I arrested her early this morning. I’ll explain.
And annoyingly, in another flashback, he does: see, after the auction, New Guy’s first question was who to talk to first. Some people are pretty eager to blab if it’ll get them out of trouble, and New Guy realized right away that the auctioneer was exactly this kind of person. All New Guy had to do was bring the man into an interrogation room and sit quietly until his quarry panicked and agreed to figure out who’d put the silver up for sale. The next night, they met up at a shady bar, where the auctioneer blabbed. Big time. Turns out that not-Earl had approached the auctioneer with the items and during that meeting, Daughter turned up and accused not-Earl of theft.
Auctioneer: She said the agreement was off, but HE said he was going to sell everything no matter what she said. And this time he was going to keep all the money; there was nothing she could do about it.
This information, in addition to the fact that Daughter had recently renewed her insurance policy, was compelling. The police raided her house at dawn, heard she’d been out all night, and found a pair of bloody gloves, so Daughter was arrested.
Victoria Mars: But how did you find out about this place? Did she confess?
New Guy: Nope, she’s not talking. But we canvassed the cab drivers in her area and found the man who drove her here last night. He shared the address. And you know what happened after that. So I’m guessing you closed this door to delay me finding the body?
Victoria Mars: I wanted to give Accountant some time to go get Daughter. Guess that was a waste.
New Guy: Actually, I didn’t have the identity of our murder victim, so you did help there.
Victoria Mars, fully starting to realize that New Guy is very good at his job: You’d have figured it out eventually. What now? Obstruction of justice?
New Guy: No charge.... this time. But the crime scene photographer is here now, so if you can leave that’d be great.
Oof, not one of her best outings. And to make matters worse, Victoria Mars comes home to an empty house, because Ivy’s gone out to eat with her fiancé Barney the Morgue Bureaucrat. Not wanting her charge to poison herself, Ivy’s nicely left dinner on the table, but that doesn’t do as much to lift Victoria Mars’ hopes as one would wish. So instead she heads to prison to pay a visit to Detective Mustache.
Detective Mustache: I heard about the case. Is that what you’re worried about? You’ll be fine.
Victoria Mars: I don’t want to be FINE. This all needs to mean something. If I’m going to be forever alone I need to at least be the best at work, or this is all a waste. You’re just going to tell me that there are plenty of married people who are lonely.
Detective Mustache: I was going to say something else, but that’s also true.
Victoria Mars: And then you’d tell me the journey is more important than the destination.
Detective Mustache: Also no, although that does make me sound very wise. What I was GOING to say is that you should reach for short term goals. For instance, get drunk and play poker with me!
Victoria Mars: That’s the best you’ve got?
Detective Mustache: You might win!
Victoria Mars: Fine, but I’m shuffling. You cheat.
And she’s right to say it, too, because Detective Mustache literally has an ace hidden up his sleeve. Anyway, this is a convivial and fun way to handle a professional setback. I approve! But the episode doesn’t end there: remember what I said about “Treasure Island” being the key to New Guy’s whole deal? I was right! HE doesn’t go home to an empty house, because New Guy has a young daughter who’s fallen asleep reading said adventure story. This both explains why he got weird about the book and gives me hope: anyone nurturing the spirit of adventure in his teen daughter circa 1880 is probably pretty susceptible to Victoria Mars’ particular brand of charm.
Will Victoria Mars have another opportunity to impress New Guy? Will he impress her some more? What’s his deal, anyway? And will they ever find Missing Earl? We’ll just have to tune in for the second episode next week to find out!
