December 29, 2003
Chinoiserie
In this episode (2.5), a woman is killed in Chinatown when she comes across a soldier she recognizes from Tiananmen Square. It turns out that the soldier is involved in an antiquities smuggling operation along with a dealer and a collector.
Not a particularly thrilling episode, but there are a few twists and turns that hold your interest. The episode's best part involves a character who calls himself "Lord Pembridge." His interaction with Vincent is amusing, and there's a fitting twist (revealed by Vincent's inimitable manipulation techniques) that I won't mention here.
When Vincent reveals the true murderer in his trademark episode-ending interrogation sequence, if you give it some thought, you might be left wondering why the murderer did it. If the murder hadn't taken place, I think the murderer still would have recovered what s/he wanted. But who's going to let a little plot hole get in the way of an entertaining mystery? Certainly not the writers of CI who routinely go out of their way to squeeze far-fetched premises into their scripts. At least they didn't have Vincent spontaneously speaking Chinese. (Though they came close.)
ps. In case you're wondering, according to Christie's, chinoiserie means "Western imitations or evocations of Chinese art. The term is usually reserved for objects made in the 17th and 18th centuries." Apparently this applies to the episode because some Chinese documents related to the provenance of an antique are forged.
Posted by adm at December 29, 2003 01:59 AM