The stories are entertaining but not really plausible - they don't withstand scrutiny. Luther tries to be a law unto himself - but one man cannot take on any criminal organisation and win - even with the help of the redoubtable Alice. He shrugs things off that he really should address and addresses things he really shouldn't. What annoys me - not just in Luther - is the way his friends and colleagues and superiors are so willing to believe that he is a bad cop - when he saves children - takes down serial murderers etc - all at the risk of his own life - but they always believe the absolute worst of him. I would not work for any organisation who treated me that way. In series 5 (no spoilers) we have yet another clever black female DS - it is so boring and predictable. In one series Alice referred to D.S. Erin Gray as "the Lesbian" and in another series the white female D.S. had a pregnant wife - so the writers are paying their pc dues it seems. The attic incident - I think the wife and the husband must have been taking the same stupidity pills - when she hears the thumping above - she just stares at the ceiling - it takes her husbands torso coming through the roof to spur her into action - and what action? Does she race out of the room down the stairs and out into the street to scream for help? God no - a much better option was to hide in a cupboard in the same room !! Yes - wounds appear and disappear on Luther with amazing regularity. The twin episode was good - if you took it at face value - but completely implausible. I hope you find series 5 because some of it is confusing to me and I would like your insights on it - you pick up on stuff I miss a lot of the time.!!

The willingness of his fellow officers to believe the worst about Luther, despite his repeated heroics and selfless courage, is like the frequent occurrence of stupid mistakes, a technique for creating crises for Luther to work himself out of. Another thing which really bugs me is when Luther is wrongly accused or perceived to have done something and he fails to immediately correct the wrong impression with the facts. This happens a lot in other shows as well. Luther (or the lead character) listens and stands there in silence, or speaks to some other unrelated point. This lacks resemblance to reality. If you're wrongly accused of something your immediate reaction is normally to refute the wrong version of events.
This is yet another trope for creating tensions and problems for the lead character. To me, it feels like an insultingly lazy way of doing it. Do the writers think we are infantile and don't notice this?

Another stupid decision designed to create a problem happened just before Paul Ellis was caught. Two girls in their flat hear a sound like someone pounding their fist against a wall 3 times, a pause, then 3 times again. One girl starts to go upstairs to investigate the sound and the other asks her what she is doing. The first girl replies "well it's not like there's anyone there", then adds it's probably the house settling. Does she think there is no one there? No one is that stupid. THUMP THUMP THUMP-oh that's just a normal sound the house makes, no need to be scared. Then she goes upstairs calling out "hello? hello". So she has to know inside that the sounds she heard were made by a person inside the flat. But she goes upstairs anyway. S3E3 When the vigilante gunned down the first guy in the hoodie, the one with the hammer, he was justified. Had he stopped there he would not have faced murder charges. But he chased down the other punks and that wasn't justified. But of course, he wasn't concerned with working within the law. If you've been victimized by criminals you have to feel compassion and sympathy for the vigilante. Even though he seems to have contempt for the rule of law, and though he metes out the ultimate punishment on his own, it can be argued that the justice system has contempt for the rule of law, and this vigilante is doing what the justice system refuses to do. He was sick of watching the courts mollycoddle brutal killers, rapists, and thugs like the boys who bashed in that boy's head. So when he chased down the other thug he just shot him dead; no chance for the courts to set him free with a promise he won't do it again. Obviously that killing wasn't legal, of course.

But he goes too far, he gets a taste for it, the popular support energizes his darker side. The idea of a pure democracy deciding a death sentence is tyrannical, it's mob rule. Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. Without the rule of law, justice depends upon the wisdom of whomever is in charge at the moment. Basic rights apply to the minority the same as they do to the majority in civilized society, i.e. not in a pure democracy. But the motivation, the desire to see criminals justly punished, taken off the street and society protected, was valid and correct. The first man was justly killed as he had a hammer which he had just proved he was willing to use, and he was close enough to close the distance and murder him in under one second. So shooting him was justified. (Of course, the gov. would probably prosecute him for just having that shotgun, and he would probably get more time for mere possession of it than the thugs would get for tuning that guy up with their hammers. But that's tangential)

I agree with you about Ripley "Ripley has been ridiculously stupid and refused to stand down to a guy with a shotgun". Right, and that guy has shown he is able to pull the trigger and kill a man, which is not an easy decision to make. Ripley also knows the guy shot at Luther, so he is not afraid of shooting at cops.

Luther is blamed for Ripley's murder. Luther didn't have a shotgun, but the man Ripley was chasing did have one; that should be enough for a defense attorney to show reasonable doubt. In fact it would be enough to prevent charges being preferred against him in the first place. Except they claimed that Luther asked Marwood to do the murder for him. Actually that was some good writing.

DSU Stark told Mary "what is it about John Luther that the people around him are always dying" or words to that effect. I would tell Mary "it's not my fault; talk to those damned script writers!" ;-)

Anyway, Alice enters the story again which is a good thing. Luther goes on the run while searching for Marwood and clearing his name. Tom the vigilante was played at first as a very sympathetic character, but we soon saw his flaws.

With regard to their claim that Luther asked Marwood to do the killing for him - how would they know that - how could they even assume it - they had no recording - no cctv - no confession from Marwood - and Marwood was chasing Luther with a shotgun not vice versa - what do they think happened - that Marwood had a radical shift of intention and settled down for coffee cakes and conspiracy with Luther? I found it most implausible that Marwood didn't shoot Luther dead when he had the chance when he had him throw his phone and his wallet over the water. Ripley was Luther's friend - what possible motive would he have had for killing him - or asking Marwood to kill him? (It's a while since I watched this episode - I may be off track here). Anyway - given that Marwood went to Luther's house with a shotgun and shot the place up and chased Luther's girlfriend Mary with the obvious intent of killing her - it kind of makes a mockery of the idea that Luther and Marwood were in collusion. I found that whole scenario somewhat confused - Marwood starts off killing people who have done something wrong and escaped justice for their crimes - he is a vigilante punishing the guilty and protecting the innocent, he is so desperate for public approval that he videotapes and streams it - then suddenly he forgets about innocence and just starts killing indiscriminately - how could he hope to maintain public sympathy by killing innocents and especially police officers whom the public see as their protectors. It seemed to me that the writers had one scenario in mind and then somebody thought they had a better idea so they swerved off course. They ALWAYS have to have Luther compromised in some way - whether it makes sense or not. The whole Paul Ellis thing was ludicrous - apparently nobody in Britain ever locks a door or a window - and if they hear suspicious noises upstairs they just get on with their supper. He must have been the noisiest burglar/killer that ever lived. It annoys me too when nobody ever addresses their accusers by denying vehemently what they are accusing them of - what innocent person would simply stand there and not comment? I wish writers would have an original thought now and again instead of depending on very old and very outworn plot devices.

OK, I watched this episode not long ago and I was paying close attention to that segment this time around. Their rationale went like this: Ripley was helping our investigation to take you down Luther, and since he worked with you he would know the dirty details of your misdeeds, so you wanted him dead. And the reason you sent Marwood to your flat to kill Mary is this: you divulged things to her when you became intimate and emotionally close to her. But now that we have opened her eyes to what a dangerous and dirty cop you are, you regret having talked to her and you now want her dead as well.

The reason Marwood didn't kill Luther at the canal seems to be that, at that time he felt that he and Luther ought to see things the same way, since both wanted criminals to go to prison and do their time. Of course it raises the question; why did he shoot at Luther in the first place? Did he only determine that he and Luther had shared goals concerning criminals (take them off the street and make them do their time) after he questioned him at the canal? He asked Luther at the canal to give him two days before arresting him. Luther put all that in his report about the incident. And Gray and Stark brought that up when they charged and questioned Luther. They speculated that Luther must have made a deal with Marwood at the canal to give him two days in return for Marwood killing the two people who had detailed knowledge of his activities. (Do you recall when Luther promised to tell Mary everything, and hold nothing back? That was at her shop when he went there to try to convince her that the file Stark showed her was untrue. In fact, I don't think he ever had the chance to share anything with her. At the shop he gave Mary his apartment key, and Marwood, having cloned Luther's phone read the text messages and knew about Mary. Perhaps he was just guessing that Mary would be at Luther's apartment, or maybe he texted her about what time he would get home. I don't recall that detail right now.) So Stark and Gray made another huge leap when they assumed that Mary knew details about Luther's nefarious activities. They made a huge assumption about that, just like the one they made about Luther making a deal with Marwood at the canal.

In reality I really doubt they would have arrested Luther based upon theories they made up, which were pure speculation, circumstantial at best. A court of law won't accept your theory as evidence just because you're a Detective Superintendent; you still need some kind of evidence.

But this is TV, and the writers have to create problems for Luther, just as you pointed out with your creative writing basic rules.
I wonder if most people even think about this stuff, do they raise their eyebrows over the unrealistic scenarios like we do? I am guessing that most don't pay much attention to such things.

Marwood started out sympathetic, someone most people could support because he was only killing bad people. But the police disappointed him when they kept trying to stop him. At the canal he tried to tell Luther that they were on the same side, and he warned Luther not to make him his enemy.
Once he determined that Ripley and Luther were his enemies, and that determination was made certain when they stopped the hanging, Marwood seems to have decided that since they were not helping him create a public outcry demanding capital punishment for the worst criminals, then the police had chosen to support the status quo, the mollycoddling of murderers, rapists, and pedophiles. And that made them fair game.

Thanks for your insights on that scenario. It is still a ludicrous premise in my book for them to make the leap based on no evidence whatsoever. Maybe Ripley had insights into Luther's methods of investigation - but he proved to them and to Luther that he had nothing but respect and admiration for him. They worked together for a good while after that. And Mary - why would he tell her his deepest secrets when he had known her all of a week - why tell her anything that he would definitely not want her to know. You don't tell a stranger things that could jeopardise your entire career. No - that arrest was too stupid for words. I don't think most people pay attention to this level of detail - they just watch it with their packet of chips and their six packs - enjoy it because it appeals to their sense of justice and the concept of the misunderstood maverick cop being a hero. I don't think it is too much to ask to make a plot plausible - especially when we are dealing with police procedurals - because people today are very well up on police investigation techniques, ballistics and forensics. (even criminals it seems watch forensic programs !) I don't think that writers really care about the analytical minority ( thee and me) they target the masses who are easily entertained. Wait until you get to watch series 5 - there is plenty to discuss in those episodes.!!

@strangebedfellows said:

people today are very well up on police investigation techniques, ballistics and forensics. (even criminals it seems watch forensic programs !) I don't think that writers really care about the analytical minority ( thee and me) they target the masses who are easily entertained.

Absolutely, I think criminals take special notice of forensics programs.

I also suspect that television shows still hold something back. I don't know that for certain, but I am pretty sure. I still see TV shows where cops are tracing a call, and the detective is trying to keep the suspect on the phone long enough for the technical guys to trace the call to an exact address. The guy hangs up just before 3 minutes is up and the technical guy says "Damn, sorry boss. He is somewhere in the NW sector but he didn't stay on the line long enough to narrow it down more than that." As I said, I don't know the actual time it takes to trace a call these days, but I do know that phone companies have replaced a lot of the copper wire connections and switches and so on, and things are done much faster these days. Things are mostly digital now, and the main trunks are fiber optic. I suspect that calls can be very quickly traced these days. AND...I think the police probably have asked for help from the entertainment industry to keep the old information about phone taps out there, and probably other disinformation, mixed in with the accurate, true information. A great number of criminals are really not very bright, and some are very stupid. I would guess that a lot of them get located because they still think they have 3 minutes to talk before the call can be traced.

One of the funniest stories I ever heard a cop tell about dumb crooks involved a technically illiterate suspect. The cop told him that they had a new lie detector to replace the old polygraph machine, and they didn't even have to hook you up to it. He pointed to a large copy machine.
His partner had already placed a piece of paper in the scanner section which had one short sentence printed on it: He's Lying. He asked the guy incriminating questions, and naturally the suspect would deny involvement. The cop pressed the Start button and the copier printed out a sheet of paper that said "He's Lying". He then showed it to the suspect who sheepishly looked down and then changed his answer a little bit, still trying to deny involvement. So he pressed the Start button again: "He's Lying". It didn't take long before the suspect decided there was no point trying to lie to the cops anymore, not since they got that high tech lie detector. He confessed. Dumb crooks.

You're right. Stark and Gray's theory was full of holes, laughable really. And you're right, it wouldn't make sense for Luther to spill everything about the corners he'd cut and the laws he had broken to a lady he'd just met, a lady who had doubts about whether he had killed his wife, even though he had been cleared of that.

Writers have it pretty easy these days in this respect; their target audience, the demographic which spends the most money, the ones the advertisers will pay the most to reach, is the younger generation. And for decades schools have skipped teaching critical thinking skills. The students are taught to feel, not to think. They don't seem to know the difference between thinking and feeling on a practical level. So the writers don't need to make a lot of sense so long as the characters are highly emotive, and there are good visual effects, and so on. (I'm reminded of a scene in the movie Arthur where Sir John Gielgud, the butler in charge of the spoiled rich young man played by Dudley Moore gave Dudley a magazine to pass the time in a waiting room telling him "Here, it has lots of pictures". The younger generation is like Dudley in that movie.)

I think it is basically just pure laziness - like they are allowed to use calculators in exams these days. I watch a program called Countdown which is a game where contestants can choose 9 letters (sight unseen which may be repeated)and then try to make the longest word they can out of them - and then they have to choose 6 numbers (all sight unseen - from 4 large which are 25-50-75-100 - and small numbers 1-10 - any combination thereof as long as they choose 6 in total ) for which the machine chooses a total and they have to use the numbers to arrive at that total. Now I have never denied that words are my thing and maths are my nemesis - yet the times I have worked out the numerical totals in my head within the thirty seconds given - sometimes within ten or fifteen seconds - without the pen and paper that they are provided with - and yet a lot of the time they simply cannot do it. It has to be their education - and lack of basic arithmetic skills. Wales has come last in the creative thinking tables for the fourth time running - it's a depressing situation. We expect our youth to do better than we did - alas - it does not seem to be happening.

The philosophy seems to be highly contagious. The "social justice" mind set, which has been around longer than the term social justice, is a narrow minded and prejudiced point of view. The modern leftist can only see, think, or feel from a predetermined set of visions, thoughts, and feelings.

They believe that "everyone should graduate from high school and college", but because some students either lack the discipline to study, or the intellectual horse power to handle the requisite course material, not all students pass the courses require to graduate. .............Since the leftist believes everyone should graduate, and not everyone does, they select from their predetermined list of reasons and decide the problem is discrimination. They cannot blame the student for not putting in the effort, because personal responsibility is not popular on the left. And they cannot admit that some students are not smart enough to handle the course material because that fact is in-congruent with their belief that everyone should graduate. So the problem is discrimination, and they are very creative about how they spin their bullshit to reach that conclusion. They may say the material is 'culturally biased', or some such nonsense. Really, it doesn't need to make any sense, it's just a leftist word salad to justify their bias toward finding discrimination.

And their solution is to lower the standards enough that everyone is able to graduate.

So for arithmetic problems the students are taught to estimate sums. 64 plus 37 equals..... 100. For goodness sake, don't say it is 101 because they will mark it wrong. You are supposed to estimate, not get it correct. I read a quote from a national educator (someone who claims to be more enlightened than the rest and who recommends curricula for schools nationwide) in which she bragged that they don't teach students facts anymore, they teach them what to think. Well, that means they keep the students ignorant and spend the time indoctrinating them with 'approved' attitudes and beliefs. No wonder these kids think there are more than two genders.

Of the industrialized nations students in America score near the bottom in every category except one: self-esteem. They don't know what they don't know. They're unskilled and ignorant, but they believe they are well educated. They are dumb and proud of it.

Oh my goodness - you have just described what I have been observing for the last twenty years !! The education system is always the first casualty of a Labour government who think that everybody - regardless of ability - should be awarded a pass in the General Certificate of Secondary Education system. (G.C.S.E - exams consisting of "O" level (ordinary) and "A" (Advanced). You can only continue to "A" if you have a certain amount of "O"s. "A" results determine if you can go on to University. The Labour government lowered the "pass" level to "G". which means basically that if you can write your name and address you get a pass. The same party is determined to educate 5 years old in all manner of deviant sex practices. The Labour Party deliberately undermine the education system because they want uneducated sheep who they can manipulate and control. They are the party of the miners who practised block voting and went on strike to try and bring the Conservative down. This is recent history - I remember the power off at 7pm every night - the freezing cold because there was no coal for our power stations or for our fires - miners begging relatives for food because they were starving and their beloved Labour party would not feed them and their families. Now they have a leader who declines to condemn the I.R.A. bombers - who runs with the hares and hunts with the hounds - and people vote for Labour because they believe they are a party for the poor - which is absolute rubbish. Tony Blair was a Tory in Labour clothing and nobody could see it - why? because the majority of Labour voters come from deprived areas with poor schooling. And it is still happening. I see posts on social media with statements like "When I goes into town" and the funniest I saw was a woman who prefaced her posts with "Methinks" which is of course correct as it goes - but some other thicko must have seen it and not knowing its origins thought it to be wrong - so now the original poster starts off her posts with "Ithinks". You couldn't make it up !! Self esteem ? The curse of the age - a must have for everybody regardless of talent or ability. One guy (gay) on Bargain Hunt - I hate to be personal but in this case it is necessary because he was not good looking by any yardstick - tiny eyes - huge nose - slit mouth - buys himself a plastic male model - when asked why he replies "Well, I'm a good looking guy and he looks just like me". He wasn't joking. You see vastly overweight plain women on Judge Judy telling us how the guy wanted a piece of "This" shakes bosom. The people who turn up on talent shows - can't sing - can't dance - can't play an instrument - but you can't knock them back with a brick. Air guitar and lip synch competitions pretty much says it all. The most frightening part is that the rich continue to be able to educate their children properly - and so the cycle continues. Off topic - what do you think of this Jeffrey Epstein suicide - he was found hanging apparently in his cell - does he seem like the kind of man who would commit suicide to you? I would have thought that with the legal team he could have paid for he would probably have walked.

I laughed out loud reading that comment. The sad thing is that the original poster of Methinks remembered and correctly used the old English Shakespearean word, but when the ignorant one challenged him, he simply folded and went with a neologism of his own making, one which sounds dumb.

The original poster behaved like so many young people today, that is, instead of thinking for himself and checking the word, he listened to someone more ignorant than himself. Was he never taught to look things up? If someone questions me on something, and I am not 100% certain that my memory serves me accurately, I check references. I don't take someone else's word for it. But the younger generations have been cheated in their education. They have not even been trained to research things for themselves, because the leftist powers-that-be don't want independent, educated people. They want dependent followers who are easily manipulated, as you said. Group conformity is highly valued in school today. Individualism is out, group-think is in.

This is why, at least in part, young liberals get so upset when people don't agree with them; they've been conditioned that everyone must conform. They were ridiculed and excluded until they learned to be a good group conforming follower, and they were conditioned to believe that non-conformers are hurting the whole group and must be punished. It is really sad to see it. Those ignorant lefties go ballistic if you fail to parrot the approved dogma. They are told what to think, and they seek to enforce group conformity so everyone thinks and says it also. It's like the novel 1984, or like communist China in the days of Mao. It really saddens me sometimes, but most of the time it pisses me off.

Epstein actually was charged back in 2006 or 7, and some judge let him off with reduced charges and a slap on the wrist. But this time there were more serious charges, and with the current #MeToo climate the way it is, and with the public criticism of the way it was handled the first time, it was clear that this trial would be too public to give him a pass as before.

When I heard he had committed "suicide" in his cell, I immediately thought of Bill Clinton. The funny thing about the Clintons is, an unusually high number of their associates who are privy to inside knowledge about the Clintons seem to become very, very depressed and kill themselves. Or they die in accidents. Ron Brown was a former Clinton administration official who was busted for something, I don't recall the details now, and it was reported that he was going to cooperate with the Justice Department in return for a lighter sentence. His plane went down killing everyone on board, and then shortly afterward the air traffic controller who oversaw that portion of the flight wound up dead as well. So if there was something funny about that crash, he could not come forward with the information.

One law enforcement officer told associates he was developing an investigative file on the OK City bombing which would shock everyone. He was first to the scene. He was found dead a few feet from his patrol car with 11 cuts to his arms and neck area, and one gunshot wound to the head. IT WAS RULED A SUICIDE. The gun wasn't found at the scene. And nobody ever found the file he was developing.

The history of the Clinton's is full of stories like that. A large number of former body guards of Bill Clinton died at young ages, not long after they stopped guarding Bill.
Their public image is somehow still shiny, but they are brutal in protecting themselves. They usually arrange things such that if they were to be prosecuted for something, scores of other powerful people would find themselves also at risk of jail time, so strings are pulled behind the scenes and the problems somehow made to disappear.

Clinton is said to have flown on Epstein' private jet (the Lolita Express) to his private Caribbean sex island over 20 times. Of course several other powerful, famous people were also visitors to the island, including on a couple occasions, Prince Andrew. Any of those people would have a motive to try to keep information from coming out at the trial. Epstein's death obviates that concern. My money is on Bill Clinton. The Clinton history is littered with bodies.

second comment. back to Luther

Season Four

Once again, a girl in her flat hears an odd noise, like perhaps someone else is in the place, and she goes walking upstairs empty handed, oblivious to any danger. This time it was a bird, but shortly thereafter she turns to find an intruder has entered and he kills her with a knife. ----I know she cannot own a pistol where she lives, but I would make it a habit to carry some sort of less than lethal defensive tool, OC spray, or even a small key-chain knife of some sort. You don't need a large knife to quickly cause a great deal of disabling pain, and depending on where you make the cut, a great deal of blood loss is possible leading to rapid loss of consciousness.

I didn't understand why those detectives who visited Luther at his cottage by the cliffs said they needed to search the place. They told him Alice Morgan had drowned and then said they had to search his cottage. I didn't get that. Was it because they knew he and Alice had been fond of each other? So what?

They had asked him if Alice had contacted him and then they told him she was dead, dental records and finger prints had confirmed it they said. Luther didn't believe it, at least not at first. The way he expressed his disbelief about the manner she was reported dying really established the idea that Alice was still alive. Then the detectives convinced him that she was dead. But that exchange left me with doubt about Alice being dead. Luther just didn't believe she could have died the way they said she did. In fact the way she was reported to have died seemed to convince Luther that she had faked her death, and we know that Alice is a genius and very crafty at fooling the police. So even though Luther became convinced of her death by the dental and fingerprint evidence, it felt like the writers had set the stage for her to eventually return to the series.

The detectives apparently wanted to know if he was already aware she was dead. We gathered that from their conversation with Schenck. Why did they want to know that? Does that mean they are not entirely convinced that she is dead? A body floating in the water for a while will get bloated and water logged and that would make a visual ID a bit difficult: which means it would be a good way to substitute another body. Alice would just have to find a way to fake the fingerprint evidence and dental evidence, and the water would do the rest.

Why did the detectives search his place? Luther didn't seem surprised by that. Did they search because they needed to rule out Alice hiding out there? It sounds like Alice's death isn't as certain as they convinced Luther it was.

[****- Have you noticed how nearly every criminal in this show has some sort of serious psychological disorder? Alice, the satanic cult murderer, the Spring Hill Jack killer, the dice twins, the Shoreditch Creeper killer case, the erotic canablism killer, and whomever comes after him. There are some relatively sane criminals as well, but not as many of them.]

Luther has made another powerful enemy in the criminal underworld in George Cornelius. Now he has a price on his head, and as I recall, it takes some doing to get the price removed. I know he did it while driven by his grief and anger over the death of Alice Morgan, but damn. Luther has a habit of unnecessarily making things bad for himself. Why not let George Cornelius go after he determined that he wasn't responsible for her death? That was a stupid error. But Luther is a flawed hero, so we have to put up with the stupid decisions. This creates problems he can work out of. Thanks again for the creative writing rules you shared. I see evidence of them everywhere now.

I have to say that if I had been Luther I would have kept a few of those uncut diamonds from that bag before I traded it to Cornelius to call off the green lit contract on my life. I've never been so depressed that I couldn't see the utility of a lot of money.

Season 5 is available on Prime but they want $9.99 for it. So I will wait to see if it becomes available for free before too much longer. How many episodes are there? I ask because Prime shows episodes 1,2,3, and 4, but it also shows episodes 101, 102, and 103 in Season 5. So I am wondering, are there 7 episodes?

Re - first reply - I doubt whether the "methinks" person would even have heard of Shakespearean English - she can't even speak modern English! I doubt if she has ever read a book. She probably reads the Sun newspaper if she reads at all - which I doubt. (I keep forgetting - you wont know what I am talking about!! The Sun is the most popular rag in Britain and famous for making up fake stories which have never happened and sensationalising the slightest thing. It is fodder for fools) She had probably noticed it used by other posters and thought she would get in on the act. What made me laugh was the conversation I imagined between her and her even thicker mate. It would not surprise me to learn that Epstein was murdered. I just cannot see an ego his size with his amount of money committing suicide - it doesn't track. Money always trumps justice. I am still awaiting the result of the Robert Durst trial - I can't find any news about it. It will no doubt take years and he will be dead before he is sentenced. With regard to Luther - the police had ample evidence of the demise of Alice and let's remember why she was imprisoned in the first place - she shot Ian Reed who was trying to kill Luther - she could quite easily have claimed that she got the gun off him during a struggle and it accidentally went off - it was Reeds gun - it would have been self defence by an unarmed woman - Luther and Mark would have backed her up - but as usual - nobody lawyers up in these shows. I think the only reason for the two officers to visit Luther was to see what - if anything - he knew about it - whether he could confirm or deny it. Did you see the woman hiding in Luther's house - as I recall it was a very brief shot of her. Well of course every killer in this show is nuts!! The writers know that people like blood and gore by the bucketful - as usual they pander to the majority. I think it was silly the way Luther kidnapped George Cornelius - you don't do that to criminal kingpins and not expect repercussions. I am unsure now of how far you are into this story - so I don't want to comment further in case I spoil it for you.

I'm done with season 4 now. Luther paid the diamonds to Cornelius and got the contract on his life canceled. If you've already seen season 5 then you must know whether Alice came back or not. Now that I think about it, it makes sense that they would kill off Alice. The story doesn't work if she lives, because then she and Luther would be able to go away somewhere and live together "happily ever after", and that doesn't seem realistic, Alice being Alice. It makes more sense for Luther to mourn her and remember the good things about her, etc. She was there from the first episode, so it sucks that she is gone now.

I'm not going to pay to watch season 5, I'll just wait til it is free.

Did I ask you if you can get Deadwood? It's pretty good. Of course I grew up on westerns, though this one is different to most. It is more of an everyday life, slow paced show. There is a LOT of foul language in the show. Apparently the people in the old west said fuck a whole lot.

It is a real shame about our educational systems. Students today really don't know what they don't know. I mean, education used to teach the classics, teach students how to think for themselves, to verify information, to think critically and discover new knowledge. Now they are indoctrinated and conditioned to respond in a predictable fashion to various triggers.
Their ideological brainwashing gives them very strong confirmation bias, leading them to see what they believe, no matter what is there. They can look at contradictory evidence and see it as validation of their bias. What irritates me the most is how smug they are, believing they are educated and have a clear picture of things. I sometimes wish I could go back in time. The world is too crazy these days. Also, I was more naive back then. There are some things I've experienced in life, things I know to be true, which are so strange that if I didn't personally know them to be true, I would never believe them to be so. I kind of liked it better when I was naive.

Robert Durst. Well, he got away with the first murder he was suspected of, but I think this time they have him on two murders and it sounds like their evidence is pretty good. The justice system doesn't like it when a bad guy beats the system and goes on to kill again because they dropped the ball the first time. Perhaps his lawyers will somehow draw out the process long enough that he will die before the trial; that's possible. But I think there are a lot of people this time around who are committed to getting justice for all those he killed. Durst has money, but to get away with murder you need money and power, like the Clintons have. Of course, they always insulate themselves from the actual deeds also, so tying them to their crimes is harder to do. But Durst did his killing himself. I think they will get him this time, provided the trial comes on a timely basis. I hope so anyway.

I just looked for Deadwood on Netflix but it isn't there - surprisingly they still have the three series of Fargo though - I might rewatch the first two. The third was awful. Robert Durst - did you ever see the documentary - I think it was called "Jinx" - I only watched it on the off chance and I was hooked !! He forgets his microphone is still on and says "did I kill them all - of course I did ". He is one weird guy - I can't imagine why any woman would be attracted to him - unless of course it wasn't him they were attracted to but his wealth - personally - there is not enough money in the world to make me marry a guy like that. He is suspected of having killed his first wife - got away with killing his neighbour - suspected again of killing his female friend - and was on his way to kill his own brother they say. I don't understand how his trial took so long to start - the evidence against him must be mountainous. I am wondering who will do the post mortem on Jeffrey Epstein - will his estate demand an independent pathologist do you think? I certainly would - a man alone in a jail cell is easy to kill - but he was pretty fit - I think he would have fought for his life and that leaves traces. The world has become a terrible place - when I was young suspicions like these would never have entered my head - but then - like you - like most young people - I was naive. I hate the cynicism of todays world - when you have talent shows where people who are absolutely dreadful are allowed to perform simply for their entertainment value and the schadenfreude of the viewers - where situations in reality shows are manipulated and stage managed and edited to provoke a reaction in the audience. It's all so fake - there is nothing in the world you can trust today - everything has it's own hidden agenda. Young people think they know everything - they believe all they are told by the media in one form or another - they have no idea of the rotten core of the world - and the joke is they call people like us who question the given version of events in the face of contradictory evidence - conspiracy theorists.!! Just because we have the nerve to challenge the liars and manipulators. Oh well - lets have a change of direction - what are your feelings on the supernatural - paranormal et al. Have you ever had a strange experience that people would likely not believe - doesn't matter how minor.

The people who got to Epstein must have people salted throughout the system. They got around the security in the jail and that could not be a simple thing to do. So I imagine any investigation will find it hard to get the kind of evidence needed. An autopsy may or may not reveal anything. He could have been stunned. He could have been strung up while sleeping. The people who do this professionally have a great deal of experience and skill.

I used to have faith in the supernatural, but now I know, I am sure of it. There are some things I don't like to talk about much, either because of painful memories or because I would sound crazy to others. But I am certain of the afterlife, and also that what we do in this physical world is very important.

Wish I could watch Fargo first two seasons again, or the movie. They're all good.