Agatha Christie's Poirot Episode Guide - inaf iasf bologna

Agatha Christie’s Poirot Episode Guide
Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case
Season 13
Episode Number: 75
Season Episode: 5
Originally aired: Wednesday November 13, 2013
Writer:
Kevin Elyot
Director: Hettie Macdonald
Show Stars: David Suchet (Hercule Poirot)
Recurring Role: David Yelland (George), Hugh Fraser (Captain Hastings)
Guest Stars: Alice Orr-Ewing (Judith Hastings), Shaun Dingwall (Doctor Franklin),
Anna Madeley (Barbara Franklin), Claire Keelan (Nurse Craven), Helen
Baxendale (Elizabeth Cole), Philip Glenister (Sir William Boyd Carrington),
Matthew McNulty (Major Allerton), John Standing (Colonel Toby
Luttrell), Anne Reid (Daisy Luttrell), Aidan McArdle (Stephen Norton),
Gregory Cox (Coroner), Adam Englander (Curtis)
Summary: An ailing Poirot returns to Styles with Hastings nearly three decades
after solving their first mystery together there in order to prevent an
unscrupulous and ingenious serial killer from claiming more victims.
A murderer, identified by Poirot simply by the letter
X, has been completely unsuspected of involvement in
five previous murders, in all of which there was a clear
suspect. Four of these suspects have subsequently died
(one of them hanged), but in the case of Freda Clay, who
gave her aunt an overdose of morphine, there was considered
to be too little evidence to prosecute. Hastings
agrees that it is highly unlikely to be coincidence if X
was connected with all five deaths, but Poirot, now using
a wheelchair due to arthritis and attended by his
new valet Curtiss, will not give him X’s name. He merely
makes it clear that X is in the house, which has been
turned into a private hotel by the new owners: Colonel
and Mrs Luttrell.
Hastings makes certain discoveries in the next few
days. Elizabeth Cole, another guest at the hotel, reveals
to him that she is in fact the sister of Margaret Litchfield,
who had confessed to the murder of their father in one
of the five cases. Margaret had died in Broadmoor Asylum
and Elizabeth is stigmatised by the trauma. Later
that day Hastings and several others overhear an argument
between the Luttrells. Shortly afterwards, Mr
Lutrell wounds his wife with a rook rifle,[4] having apparently
mistaken her for a rabbit. Hastings reflects that
this is precisely the sort of accident with which X is associated,
but Mrs Luttrell rapidly recovers.
Hastings is concerned by the attentions paid to his daughter Judith by Major Allerton, whom
he discovers is married but estranged from his Catholic wife. While Hastings and Elizabeth are
out with Stephen Norton, a newly arrived birdwatching guest, Norton seems to see something
disturbing through his binoculars. Hastings suspects it is something to do with Allerton and,
when his clumsy attempts to persuade Judith to give Allerton up merely antagonise her, he
plans Allerton’s murder. He falls asleep while waiting to poison Allerton, and feels differently
about things when he awakes the next day.
191