The Inspector Lynley Mysteries (TV Series) A Suitable Vengeance (2003) User Reviews

Lynley and Helen go to his family estate

[blanche-2 · 8/10 · 24 November 2012]

Lynley and Helen (Nathanial Parker and Lesley Vickerage) travel to Lynley's family estate for their engagement party in "A Suitable Vengeance," from season 2 of the popular series. It's not the high old time one would have hoped for.

Lynley doesn't want much to do with his mother, Lady Ashton (Gabrielle Drake) and he soon confesses his reason to Helen, and it has to do with his father's doctor (Peter Egan). Lynley's brother Peter (Matthew Goode) is angry with his older brother because he thinks he abandoned the family after their father's death. Havers (Sharon Small) arrives for the party and feels out of place amidst the luxury. She's soon needed - the estate manager, John Penellin, is arrested for the murder of his son-in-law, who owned a shop with his daughter in the village.

That's the first death - others follow, as well as the surfacing of a big problem of Peter's.

Havers and Lynley decide Penellin's son-in-law must have been smuggling drugs, but then it becomes apparent that the problem goes deeper than that.

Excellent mystery, quite sad, and calling for a lot of emotion from Nathaniel Parker, who is more than up to it. Matthew Goode has since become a more prominent actor -- this is one of his first appearances. Sharon Small is lovely support as Havers, putting up, as does Helen, with Lynley's sometimes ill humor. He's pretty tense here, and with good reason. As I've often said, I could do without Vickerage's Helen. Not her fault - I just always feel like Lynley could have done better.

Minor spoilers - Which Lynley characters are NOT in the movie.

[SteveDir · 8/10 · 5 August 2005]

A good movie but somewhat of a disappointment for fans of the book. I understand a screenwriter has to make major changes in order to fit a full-length novel into a 90-minute TV show – but I was still think that deleting major characters makes it a different story. No Simon St. James, no Deborah, no Cotter – so we had to have Lynley engaged to Helen instead and made Sidney Lynley's COUSIN? I guess a lot of the changes were due to changing the chronology of Lynley's stories. This was the fourth book published, but the whole book was a flashback to before Lynley even worked with Havers. Now the TV episode was the ninth installment and set right in line with others.

Enough whining. The movie was very good, well acted, the plot points all tied together well. Sharon Small was excellent as a guest at the Lynley mansion completely out of her element. I would have really loved it if I hadn't read the book.

A Family affair.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 9/10 · 16 April 2021]

Lynley and Helen arrive at his family home to celebrate their engagement, unhappy at being in his mother's company, Tommy is almost pleased to be distracted by a murder.

I really would have to class this episode as excellent, the tables are turned somewhat, we've had a fair bit of Barbara's private life, and apart from his relationship with Helen, we didn't get to know much about Tommy, here we do, we learn why such a privileged man is in The Police.

A deep, but engrossing mystery, you'll guess at different suspects, but at conclusion, you may not be totally surprised.

A tremendous cast, what a list of names, Peter Egan and Mali Harries both stand out, but once again it's Sharon Small who steals the show.

Excellent, 9/10.

Least favorite episode

[xbatgirl-30029 · 3/10 · 11 December 2021]

Wow. Helen is worse than ever here! Completely insufferable now compared to earlier episodes. She and Lynley went from barely able to figure out dating, to now engaged, and yet they're still not able to get along. She also seems incredibly jealous of Barbara and treats her very coldly. Treats her like an outsider or even the help. Barely acknowledges her when one or the other enters or leaves the room. Really comes across like she can't wait to become lady of the manor and boss everyone around, including Lynley. Is she ever in a good mood? Glad she disappeared in the second half of the episode.

According to another review, this story is based on a book where the events happen when Lynley is much younger. The time shift needed to adapt it for the tv series is pretty unsuccessful for me. Giving the same relationships to a much older Lynley makes him seem extremely immature. Nathaniel Parker is about 40 at this time? He's behaving as if he's still maybe in his twenties, which is pretty bizarre (but I'm guessing that's his age in the book). His brother is in college, which implies he's about 20 years younger than Lynley. Matthew Goode is actually 16 years younger in real life. So they would not have grown up together. Lynley would be out of the house when his brother would be in pre-school. Lynley would almost be more like a father to him. So their constant squabbling just adds to the strangeness of this 40 year old acting like he barely is out of school. Not to mention you would think the character that we've come to know so far just wouldn't be so unhinged over something that happened with his mother when he was 17. You would think he would have made some peace by the time he hit 40 or else just stopped seeing his mother altogether, in which case he wouldn't be having a party at her house.

I understand many liked this episode. It just didn't work for me. On top of everything else I mentioned, the other characters ranged from annoying to plain old jerks, so I couldn't get engaged with their stories. The ending was pretty obvious after a point. Really both endings were obvious - discovering the murderer and then what he decides to do at the end. So there was little suspense or mystery. Maybe if the writing had showed us all along that the doctor was willing to sacrifice everything for his patients, it would seem more tragic. As it was, the ending seems oddly melodramatic, with Lynley having a breakdown out of the blue. Then his mother yelling and running off before the scene cut to black. The writing for the show in general up to this point doesn't jive with a somewhat superficial Lynley having a mother who is in love with such an unethical doctor while raising a heroin addict, plus Lynley's very weird relationship with Helen. There's something missing in the writing of his character which leaves a very artificial aftertaste.

If this had been the first episode of the show that I had seen, I never would have watched further. Better to pretend it didn't happen.