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A Farewell to Hercule Poirot
Poirot-Curtains


Brit-Stream Logo

by Greg Bakun


After over a month to try and figure out what to write to say farewell to Hercule Poirot, I have finally managed to pull myself together and look at the very final episode of Agatha Christie's Poirot. Poirot is a timeless character but to me, it will always be definitively played by David Suchet. Here is my review of his final episode.


Streaming News

Once again, Agatha Christie's Poirot is available on AcornTV with the final series being an exclusive. What is also fun is to check out a special Q&A with David Suchet about the entire series which is also an exclusive to the service. 

Image 21October 6th, Acorn TV features the U.S. Premiere of ANZAC Girls, the new hit Australian six-part miniseries based on the true and largely unknown stories of five brave nurses during World War I. AcornTV will debut a new episode every Monday through Nov. 10th

After a hugely successful decade on television, the series finale and the previous 22 feature-length mysteries of Agatha Christie's Marple starring Julia McKenzie are now available to watch any time on AcornTV, the premier British TV streaming service. In Endless Night, Miss Marple meets a handsome chauffeur who purchases a house with a curse on it for his new bride, but fairy tales do not always have happy endings. 





Series leaving AcornTV on 10/5/14:

The Last Detective: Starring Peter Davison (Highly Recommended)
Doctor Zhivago 


New Shows

Stack 7-28

New Shows Added October 6th:

Anzac Girls
Amnesia
Time Team:
Series 5
The Science of Measurement:
3 episode documentary
Beat Girl: 2013 Drama. 5 episodes
Inspector Morris: Series 5-8. 18 episodes.
Lovejoy:
Series 4 13 episodes



Brit-Streaming Spotlight

Poirot Final

Curtain: Poirot's Last Case

I know I am not the only person who gets emotional when a TV series I like comes to an end. We have gown to care about the characters and sometimes just seeing them is enough to make me happy.  It becomes even harder when the series has been around for a long time; sometimes it’s hard to say goodbye. This is the case with the very last episode of Agatha Christie’s Poirot.

I know I have been talking about this for a long time but this is a really big deal. This iteration of Agatha Christie’s Poirot has been around for 25 years. It hasn’t been 25 solid years of episodes. The series had 13 seasons spread out over 25 years. There was a sizeable chunk of time between Series 6 and 7 where no new episodes were made. There were even rumors a few years ago that David Suchet, Poirot himself, was thinking of retiring from the role before all the stories had been adapted for television. I think this was only a rumor. Yet, how does one say goodbye to a character that we have been watching for years?

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I think the greatest achievement a TV series can have is being allowed to have a final episode. Final episodes of TV series take the form of many things. It ties up loose ends or sometimes marries off a characters. For Agatha Christie’s Poirot, Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case really does become the final adventure for Poirot and it is a fitting, if not sad, ending for the series.

There are some things we do not know about this story, even by the time the episode ends. The episode takes place at Styles which is where Hastings and Poirot re-aquintaited themselves in the first Poirot novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles. I love how last episodes tie in with established continuity of the series. This is only the second time we have seen Hastings in many years. It’s the first time we have seen him since The Big Four but the question is how many years have passed between The Big Four and Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case?

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Poirot is aged and his health is rapidly deteriorating. The once vibrant Belgium detective is now wheel-chair bound and is suffering from advanced arthritis. Poirot actually calls in Hastings to help him. Poirot himself cannot get around anymore to investigate. He needs Hastings to be his eyes and ears; Hasting needs to be the investigator. What is Hastings investigating?

There is a murderer at Styles yet no one has been murdered, at least from what can be obvious. This person who is the murderer is someone Poirot has been tracking for some time. Styles is now a guest hotel but it is also a dark and mysterious place especially at night. There are many things hiding in the shadows. As far as Poirot himself, the man is now extremely short tempered and difficult. His voice is weak yet his brain is still sharp. He is not the man that we have watched for the past 25 years. It is an extreme departure from what we have seen of the detective, but a series that has been around for so long deserves to do this to its character.

Captain Hastings is very different too. Obviously he is older but is he is mourning the sudden death of his wife. This was actually a very sad concept for me. I have always adored Captain Hastings portrayed by Hugh Fraser. He is a naïve gentleman. Very innocent but a character that is from a bygone era that doesn’t exist anymore. The fact that real life caught up to Captain Hastings with the death of his wife brings a real bit of formality to this episode. This cemented the fact, to me, that this was the end of the series. It’s not like we saw his wife in the series but knowing how happy Hastings was to be married and to suddenly lose her was a major tragedy to him.

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Hastings might be the one that has the worse time of just about anyone in the episode. He is back at Styles to see his old friend Poirot who is utterly awful to him. Poirot ruthlessly abuses Hastings verbally.  Hastings has always been a bit thick but his heart was always in the right place. That is actually hard to watch. Hastings went to see Poirot but another reason for visiting Styles is to see his youngest daughter Judith who is there assisting Dr. John Franklin. Judith is Hastings favorite but he is finding that she is not very happy with him and over the course of the episode he sees that she is making life choices that Hastings simply does not agree with for his daughter. Because of what is happening around him and how his life has changed, we see a weathered and older Hastings that is kind of sad to see. It is not the same character we see at the beginning of the series all those years ago.

The type of villain Poirot is after in this story is like one that he has not run into before in his journeys. This is a killer that is not killing people in the traditional sense and that is what makes this story very interesting. The problem is that no matter how cool this premise is, the execution of how this killer is realized and the killer’s motives are actually pretty weak for this story.

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There is an idea that Poirot needs to take care of this person to save lives but how it actually comes about and how the killer acts is completely unbelievable to me. There is a lot of coincidence for the killer to be able to get to his victims. How Poirot works it out is great but the reason and the method the killer uses is completely unbelievable. The good news is that this episode is very faithful to the original novel but this is one instance that I wish some of this would have been bolstered a little more to give the killer stronger motives and means to inflict the punishment on the victims.

Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case was published in 1975 but was written in the 1940s. This was originally written during World War II. It is probably really hard for many of us, mainly us Yankees, to understand that Agatha Christie as well as manly who lived in the UK feared for their lives during the war. There was a constant fear of invasion or just death. Christie wanted to have a proper end for her Belgium detective and wrote this novel and had it locked away until she felt the time was right for the novel to be published or possibly until after her death. Agatha Christie died in 1976 though she gave her permission for the novel to be published in 1975. Her final novel she wrote of Poirot was Elephants Can Remember in 1972. The novel for Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case itself is a bit of a curiosity since it was written in the 1940s and before it was published there were many more Poirot novels, this story makes no reference to them because they weren’t written yet.

As with the other episodes of the final series, this is exclusively available on Acorn TV. This is the only way to see this amazing series conclude. Of course this is one of many series available on the service to watch. I have been on AcornTV multiple times just to watch these final episodes again and again.

I actually started to write this article about a month ago; it is really overdue. The problem was for me to put into words the end of this series. I literally grew up with Agatha Christie’s Poirot. When it started in 1989, I was 14 years old. I was not a fan of these type of series. It seemed the location and settings from the 1930s made it seem out of date. This series was still going strong when my personal tastes in television changed and I started to really enjoy this series. Once I started to get back into it, I went out of my way to track down every episode and watch it. Now, as we come to the end of the series, I am feeling rather melancholy over the fact the little Belgium detective who uses his little grey cells to solve cases is at an end. Then, I remembered, I can watch them whenever I want thanks to the Blu-ray sets and it being available on Acorn TV. That makes it easier.


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Coming Soon

Next time I want to watch something that has been on my list of programs to watch for some time. I will take a look at The Field of Blood. It stars Jayd Johnson, David Morrisey and some guy who is now some doctor on TV...oh yeah, Peter Capaldi. This series looks great and I am really looking forward to it.



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