As soon as I spotted that image of Rebecca and Julia decked out for a roller derby I knew Monday’s episode was going to be a good one. “Hot Wheels of Thunder” delivered on all counts, not only with a heinous crime and humour, but with nail-biting action too.

Written by Canadian Screen Award winner Peter Mitchell, Simon McNabb and Jordan Christianson and directed by Mitchell, here’s what CBC says about the episode:

Murdoch’s investigation into the death of a roller-skating champion takes him into a world of aggressive and ruthlessly competitive young women.

And here are more spoiler-free facts gleaned from watching a screener:

Medical talk with Julia and Rebecca
The pair begins the episode roller skating along a beachfront path, with Julia quizzing Rebecca about different medical definitions. If you are a guy, two may cause you to cross your legs. I did.

A lady love from Crabtree’s past returns
We won’t say who—that would ruin the fun—but I was certainly glad to see her, even if it was brief. However, her appearance does affect George when it comes to his relationship with Louise Cherry. Also? Brackenreid delivers a speech to George that is laugh-out-loud funny.

Kudos to the set design, wardrobe and construction team
The creative folks who work on the sets, set design and props always make Murdoch look amazing, but they did a particularly fantastic job this week. The roller derby set and wardrobes are astounding. The stunts, choreography and camera work is spot-on too.

Carmilla‘s Natasha Negovanlis guest stars
The fellow Shaftesbury (Murdoch‘s production company) co-worker from Carmilla turns in a villainous performance as Mildred Preston, the leader of The Buffalo Queens roller derby club.

“Whyyyyyyyyy?!?!”
You’ll get this reference on Monday night.

Murdoch Mysteries airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on CBC.

Images courtesy of CBC.

Monday’s newest episode of Murdoch Mysteries is notable for a couple of reasons. First, it brings another real-life historical character into Det. Murdoch’s world as horror writer H.P. Lovecraft (played by Tyler East)—author of favourites like “The Lurking Fear,” “At the Mountains of Madness” and “The Call of Cthulhu”—visits Toronto.

Sadly, “Master Lovecraft” also marks the final complete script written by Jordan Christianson, who passed away earlier this year. (Personally, we’ll miss talking to Jordan about his writing process and his sense of humour.) We spoke to Murdoch showrunner Peter Mitchell about Jordan, what he meant to the series and its writers’ room and got a spoiler-free preview into what fans can expect on Monday night.

Here’s CBC’s official episode description: “The discovery of a young girl’s body and some grotesque sketches leads Murdoch to suspect a gang of death-obsessed teenagers, which includes a young H.P. Lovecraft.”

Do you want to say anything about Jordan and what he meant to you and the show?
Peter Mitchell: Jordan was one of my students at the Canadian Film Centre. I gave him a couple of little jobs but didn’t hire him during my first year at Murdoch Mysteries. I brought he and Simon McNabb on shortly after. I got to watch both of them grow and develop over the four or five years since. He was turning into a mighty fine writer. He was kind of the calm centre of the writers’ room and had a delightful naivete to him that was often just a ruse so that he could basically punk us all the time. He would ask naive questions and take us down a road until we realized we’d been completely had. He learned to be a better writer and was also involved in every sports pool known to man. [Laughs.]

How did he do in the pools?
I think he was always a very close second. I think McNabb always had a close edge on him, but they were pretty much neck-in-neck. If I didn’t watch it, 40 per cent of the writers’ room was he and McNabb trading players.

I read the synopsis for this episode. If Jordan wrote perhaps the funniest episode in ‘Weekend at Murdoch’s,’ this sounds like it could be the darkest.
This is probably the most serious episode that Jordan wrote other than the one where we said goodbye to Dr. Grace. It was telling that both of Jordan’s episodes this year were indeed about death.

It was an interesting genesis. It was a story that we came up with very, very quickly. We came up with it probably in the first two weeks of the writing room getting together. I kind of broke the major elements of it very early and it was sitting there as something that just needed to be complete. We knew we were going to do it and just needed to find a Lovecraft. It was a self-contained episode so we knew it could go anywhere in the schedule. Jordan and I were supposed to co-write it, but I got busier and handed the whole thing off to him and he completed the story with the writers’ room and wrote the script. It was probably one of the scripts that I touched the least. He really nailed it.

How long has Lovecraft been a character you wanted to bring into the show?
We’re sort of drawn to writers of the period and they were often larger than life. Whether it’s Mark Twain or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle … Lovecraft was a little bit young. Obviously, he hadn’t become a full-fledged writer, but he lived in the proximity to Toronto and we were able to create a believable enough fiction to have him up in Toronto. And, as we like to do, one of our characters has influence on a major historical character much like Crabtree did with Lucy Maud Montgomery. Crabtree and Lovecraft’s relationship sort of shapes the emotional centre of it.

It’s illuminating that the dialogues between Crabtree and Lovecraft are probably the most Jordan ever talked about death, both the light and dark side. Lovecraft sees death everywhere and George sees life everywhere.

An image from the episode shows Margaret screaming and Arwen Humphreys tweeted she got her inner scream queen on. Were you on-set when she filmed those scenes?
Yeah, with my earplugs. [Laughs.] She’s a top-notch scream queen.

Anything else you can say about Lovecraft or the death-obsessed teens?
We had to create own sort of goth style that would be appropriate to the period. Working with Alex [Reda], our costume designer we tweaked on the idea to reach back in time for their fashion sense. We took a look at clothing like what Edgar Allan Poe was wearing. It’s kind of a combination of Edgar Allan Poe and Adam Ant. [Laughs.] Our composer listened to a little bit of Depeche Mode and we were off to the races.

I think it’s a really interesting episode. It gives Margaret a lot to play with, which is always nice, and there is a strange love affair between Lovecraft and Margaret. The emotional core is George and Lovecraft. I think Jordan was happy with it.

Murdoch Mysteries airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on CBC.

Images courtesy of CBC.

Wasn’t last week’s episode of Murdoch Mysteries a blast? Brackenreid was back at Station No. 4, Terrence Meyers made a hilarious reappearance and Pendrick cheated death once again.

Speaking of blasts, it looks like there is at least one in Monday’s new episode, “Hades Hath No Fury.” CBC’s teaser boasts a big boom and it appears a body is found in the rubble. Here’s what the network has said officially:

An explosion involving the mysterious woman Watts has been investigating leads Murdoch to a surreptitious community.

And here a few more story points from us after watching a screener of the episode, written by Michelle Ricci and directed by Leslie Hope.

Ka-boom!
Murdoch and Julia are on the case right out of the gate after an explosion rips through a Toronto building. And it turns out she’s someone very important to Watts’ ongoing investigation. And while Murdoch is set in the early 1900s, clues in the case reach back to the ancient Greeks.

Watts is down in the dumps
The investigation has a profound effect on Watts and actor Daniel Maslany turns in one heck of a performance. Yes, Watts’ wacky skills as a detective are fun to watch, but the serious stuff is fantastic too.

Real history is part of the storyline
We love it when real historical facts and people make it into Murdoch Mysteries scripts and there is one heck of a juicy one on Monday night.

A longtime friend of Murdoch’s visits
The teaser released by the CBC ahead of this instalment has already revealed this: Freddie Pink is back in Toronto. By the way, have you seen Alex Paxton-Beesley in Season 1 of Pure? She’s fantastic as Anna Funk, the wife of a Mennonite pastor who does some very, very bad things in order to keep him family safe from violent criminals. You can watch all six episodes at CBC.ca.

Murdoch Mysteries airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on CBC.

Images courtesy of CBC.