‘Dalgliesh’ Recap: ‘A Taste for Death, Parts 1 & 2’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Caution: This article contains spoilers for the season finale of ‘Dalgliesh’.
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Often times, stories that explore the consequences and dangers of unresolved trauma in life, stick to supremely intimate ramifications. The kind where incredible damage is imparted upon the ‘broken’ character’s personal life and relationships and it makes sense as to why stories in this vein stick to this type of plot. Because the thought of upsetting our natural order because of our own inaction emotionally, is terrifying to say the least. Allowing for these stories to serve as a cautionary tale of sorts and they are impactful for certain. But while they are helpful and thoughtful, they don’t offer audiences the complete picture of what happens when we don’t deal with years of buried trauma. 
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For in reality, it can do serious psychological damage to an individual, to the point where they may eventually explode and cause great harm to others or even take a life and for proof… just look at the profiles of criminals that have committed murder. Since so many of them have incredible trauma in their background and really… this is top of mind today because this particular aspect of murder and how perhaps we can address the root cause of it, was explored in great detail in the season one finale of Dalgliesh. For when we catch up with Adam and his team in ‘A Taste for Death, Parts 1 & 2’, they’re called out to a church to investigate a supremely unique and supremely suspicious pair of deaths, involving a London aristocrat named Sir Paul Berowne.

Who it seems, killed a vagrant and then himself, and well… when one considers the fact that the deceased/primary suspect, recently had someone he cared for die in a horrible accident and was despondent after their passing… it really does seem as though a murder/suicide took place in this church. But since DCI Dalgliesh always explores every possible avenue, it doesn’t take long for him and the team to discover… that this particular crime scene was staged and that they were in fact, dealing with a brutal double murder. Which in turn brought Adam to the family of the deceased to see if by chance they knew of anyone that might want to commit harm against Paul, and well, that part of the investigation led to a fascinating and powerful discovery.

For it turns out, that the man responsible for this heinous crime was the deceased’s brother-in-law, a man named Dominic Swayne. And he killed Paul and so many others… simply out of revenge and fear. For he was a broken man through and through, one filled with trauma and ugly memories, and he saw the marriage of his sister to Paul, as his ticket out, his road to mental peace through financial security. And when that union began to collapse since divorce was imminent, the thought of returning to the life of old… broke him and drove him to murder and it took a powerful and personal admission from Adam… to get Swayne to back down and be taken into custody and it is that admission that truly hammered home the root cause of this kind of murder and how we perhaps prevent it.

In that, men like Swayne, rarely have a support network of any kind. And not being able to speak to their pain and not being encouraged to do so in the slightest since they tend to be raised in environments where emotional openness is frowned upon, allows for their pain to fester, and grow and explode. Which means, we need better support networks out there for people of all walks of life, so they don’t feel alone and fall into the trap and that really is a powerful message to find within a crime drama. One that took the lesson one step further, by way of that incredible ending, wherein Adam took his own advice to Swayne and healed and well… all this finale does is hammer home the reality, that this series is downright brilliant and incredibly moving. Since it doesn’t glamorize murder in the slightest, it points out how horrific it truly is and its lasting impact and well, this writer hopes that we get many more seasons of this show. So, we can once again be treated to powerful cases full of depth, that an intelligent and caring investigator will stop at nothing to solve. Until next year.  

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