TWO AND TWO FOR TUESDAY - THE RAINBIRDS AND THE GOODINGS

As 'Midsomer Murders' is a murder mystery, expect there to be spoilers, Sweetie......

'MIDSOMER MURDERS'

"THE KILLINGS OF BADGER'S DRIFT"
An elderly woman is found dead in her own cottage and DCI Tom Barnaby is convinced the death is not a simple accident.

O'BSERVATION: This was the very first episode of this long-running series.

"DEAD LETTERS"
Barnaby and Jones investigate a series of murders linked to the death of a beauty queen which occurred several years previously.

O'BSERVATION: This was the second episode of the ninth season for 'Midsomer Murders'.

Twenty years gone since that first case investigated by DCI Barnaby (at least seen by the audience) and eleven years since the murders surrounding the Oak Apple Festival.  And despite that nine year gap between them, both episodes are more connected than some others in Barnaby's case file.

Two of the victims in that first case were Iris and Dennis Rainbird, mother and son, who were "brutally murdered" as Tom Barnaby described it.  Nine years later, he thought he was seeing ghosts when he spotted Ursula Gooding and her son Alistair, both of whom were spitting images of the Rainbirds.

IRIS RAINBIRD

URSULA GOODING

It turns out that Ursula and Iris were sisters, perhaps even twin sisters.  Dennis Rainbird and Alistair Gooding were first cousins, and a good example of that Toobworld staple, "Identical Cousins".  What heightened their resemblance to each other was that Mrs. Gooding insisted on her son dressing like his late cousin whom she always doted on.  

But you know me....  I don't want to leave it with such a simple splainin.  Where's the sport in that?

There was a reason as to why Dennis and Alistair were so identical - they shared the same father as well as having mothers with the same DNA.

ALISTAIR GOODING

DENNIS RAINBIRD

I believe it was the late Mr. Rainbird who dallied with Ursula Gooding.  This would be a good splainin as to why she was so obsessed with her nephew Dennis - he could have been the son she had with the senior Rainbird.  And after Dennis was butchered in Badger's Drift, Mrs. Gooding insisted that Alistair begin dressing like his cousin as a reminder of not only Dennis but of their common father as well.

(I think it would have been pushing it to say that Ursula gave birth to both of them but that the boys were raised separately  I doubt Mr. Gooding or Mrs. Rainbird would have put up with such a scandal.)

The best thing about this is that it supplies the splainin needed for any time an actor came back to the series in a different role.  Obviously there were a lot of offspring from illicit affairs spread throughout the villages of Midsomer.  

Mrs. Gooding had another child, a daughter named April, who was the local piano tutor.  Any resemblance between April and her brother Alistair was due solely to the genes they inherited from their mother.  Otherwise, she was the daughter by blood of Mr. Gooding.  And that's probably why Mrs. Gooding snubbed her in favor of her son.

In fact, it could be Mr. Rainbird couldn't keep it in his pants; that his wife and his sister-in-law were not the only women to bear his children.  I think he could be the father of Malcolm Wainwright, the grandson of Ben and Kathy Nightingale Wainwright.  

That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.  Don't blink.

Also cited in this post - 'Doctor Who'

BCnU!