“The Seven Dials of Agatha Christie” Season 1 Episode 3 Recap

Bundle lost a friend, but gained a seat at the table. Photo: Simon Ridgway/Netflix/B) 2024 Netflix, Inc.

By the time Bundle solves the case (with the help of the somewhat underpowered but always stubborn Bill) and the dust settles. Brings his mother, Jimmy, and Lorraine to trial. And when she literally takes over her late father’s place at the table as a member of Seven Dials, I root for her and also feel a little awful. Everything Bundle has accomplished is substantial and worth celebrating, but in the process of learning who she can trust and thwarting Dr. Matip’s theft of her prescription, she loses Jimmy and Lorraine, who represent her only remaining connection to Jerry. She is also forced to consider the knowledge that although Mrs. Caterham loves her, she has never exactly seen the bundle and her gift. To make matters worse, Bundle realizes that he will never be good enough for his mother.

That may have always been the case, but the cold open’s flashback to 1915 suggests that the first hint to the bundle was the sealing of 18-year-old Tommy’s coffin. That moment was also likely the beginning of Mrs. Caterham’s decade-long grudge against the British government, and the seed of all the misfortune she caused in her attempt to avenge the deaths of Tommy and Lord Caterham. Well, at least she uses her grudge as the basis for masterminding the theft of Dr. Matip’s prescriptions and brokering what appears to be a highly lucrative sale to an unspecified international rival. The real reason for this whole conspiracy is the common, overwhelming reality that everyone needs money.

Lady Caterham couldn’t keep Chimney going without money, and Jimmy couldn’t get by or run for parliament without money. As for Lorraine, her needs aren’t explicitly stated, but being a young biracial woman who recently arrived from Italy, I think her options are pretty limited. Because Lorraine is not as fully portrayed as the other characters, we are left to imagine the desperation that drove her to poison Jerry and wonder whether she killed him despite her love for him, or if she even loved him at all. Either way it’s pretty terrible. Ronnie’s murder also arose out of desperation after grasping too much of Jimmy’s involvement in the case.

In other words, almost everyone underestimated Bundle, and Bundle overestimated everyone else. Maybe that’s the only area where she needs real guidance from her elders, especially the men who supposedly controlled everything in the 1920s (I’m biting my tongue as I write this, but believe me when I say: “I know”). It’s also interesting to consider how Agatha Christie’s The Seven Dials flows from the premise that the personal and the political are inevitably intertwined, and then begins to wade knee-deep into the darkest waters of that concept. Lady Caterham, Bundle, Ronnie, Battle, and Dr. Matip are all spurred into action by the deaths of their loved ones, but what to do with their own lives.

Bundle, Dr. Matip, and Battle all experience tragedy but manage to move on. They are driven by questions such as: What can they do to honor the memories of those they have lost? What can they do to make the world a better place (or at least keep it from getting worse)? With no husband or son, Mrs. Caterham chooses a self-protective life of seclusion, later admitting to Bundle that she is not entitled to the “hopes” her daughter had placed in her and that she has “rather run amok” after Lord Caterham’s death. I can’t help but feel pity for her. She is correct in her belief that World War I was a horror and that the military “threw[her]son ​​into the slaughterhouse.” The deaths of so many people, especially literally all the children sent to the front, were senseless and unnecessary. The dire financial situation she finds herself in is equally sympathetic. Even in situations like this, I can’t help but think, “It’s murder? Really?”

Before Bundle and Mrs. Caterham confront each other on the train, Bundle and everyone at Wyvern Abbey first discuss – with many interruptions, Superintendent Battle is nearly thrown out of his mind – what happened to the barely-dead Jimmy. He did sustain a gunshot wound to the arm, but it seems pretty suspicious from the start, especially since his story of being attacked by a burly man and then jumping out of a window is so flimsy. More concerning is that Dr Matip’s prescriptions were stolen and who gave him the sleeping pills. Was it the strong man who allegedly attacked Jimmy? Who threw the gun on the lawn as he fled? Sir Oswald is a big man who claims to have found the gun on the lawn while he was walking around the grounds after overcoming insomnia, but when Battle made him throw the gun out the window, his throw was so powerful that the gun landed much farther than where he found it. Jimmy has one of the best lines of the episode at this point, thinking aloud that “brandishing a gun before a guy has a chance to dissect a kipper” is “what rum does.” Send Edward Bluemel a BAFTA now. It will serve the dual purpose of honoring his performance in “My Lady Jane.”

Battle’s henchmen arrest Lorraine wandering the grounds, but no one takes her seriously as a suspect because she is the girl’s slip-up and “Jimmy is the only one who has shown me any kindness since Jerry’s death.” That may be true, and it’s also exactly the right thing to say about a literal partner in crime to deflect suspicion. The cunning Lorraine knocks out the police officer who escorted her to the room, steals the formula from his hiding place, steals a car, and escapes. The remaining puzzles unfold with what appears to be a train moving through the landscape. If so, bravo, that’s extremely difficult!

Bundle arrives with Jimmy in the baggage car where Bill cornered Lorraine at gunpoint and learns the full story of the villain. Look, Bill Eversley pulls off a feat of derring-do! After Jimmy gives up on the game and points a gun at Bundle, he explains that the seven clocks on the cloak in Jerry’s room were just a smokescreen. In the end, it’s all very mundane, with no real political or philosophical battles being fought, just three people who thought they’d found a way out of their money troubles. At least Dr. Matip’s formula has had a chance to prove its mettle in the field. In a moment in the story that is the exact opposite of Chekov’s gun, a reinforced pocket watch hidden in Bill’s jacket saves him from serious harm when Jimmy shoots him at close range.

There, Bundle captures all three of his men, but trudges home, crying tears of sadness. Like their brother Tommy, Jerry and Ronnie also died in vain. Dr. Matip’s prescription will never fall into the hands of other European powers, but we know that even if it were real, it would not end all wars. Bundle has a home to return to, but the very real financial problems that Lady Caterham dealt with so poorly and cruelly are now weighing on her. And now, her former servant Alfred has come with Seven Dials to force her to visit!

Things couldn’t get any worse, so we were happily relieved to find out that the person behind the number 7 dial mask was Superintendent Battle. To be honest, I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t. I was pretty sure Jimmy was involved and thought Lorraine needed to be involved in some way as well. Despite her fear of travel, Mrs. Caterham was the only viable mastermind behind this entire horrific incident, thanks to her social status and the international connections she would have gained through Lord Caterham’s circle. But battle! What a welcome surprise that the one person who recognized and appreciated Bundle’s talent (he exclaims that her courage and foresight will be essential to meet the challenges of his next mission of travel, danger, and peril) concludes The Seven Dials Mystery with an invitation to the Seven Dials. Basically she’s in classic Avengers, and if this means another season of fun and tense storytelling, I’m ready to watch.

• I still have some questions. How did Jimmy and Lorraine conspire with Lady Caterham? How did she recruit them? Does she realize that it was horribly reckless to delegate so much responsibility to her young partner in crime? Did Lady Caterham know that Lord Caterham died after being impaled with bull’s horns, or did she believe (as Bundle did) that his death was related to his charity work during the Spanish flu pandemic? What led Dr Matip to license his prescriptions to the UK after being drugged and robbed at the supposedly 100% safe Wyvern Abbey?

• Another contender for the funniest line in this episode is George Lomax, who stops midway through his absurd proposal to Bundle to give himself a pep talk (who else?). “Be frank, Lomax, or the world will boil!” It should be sewn onto a cushion or embellished on a tote bag right away.

• Fun fact: The large stage carriages date from the 1950s and belong to the historic West Somerset Railway. I know this because when my husband was a teenager, he spent all his free time volunteering for that railroad, and if he wasn’t doing boring adult tasks like going to work, he’d giddily fire up a restored steam engine right now.