The Green Man

Gavin Troy is leaving. That is the real story of "The Green Man," and the two murder cases running through it almost feel like a distraction from the farewell. Promoted to Detective Inspector and moving on from Midsomer, Troy spends the episode working what turns out to be his last case with Barnaby, and the show lets the goodbye sit in the air without ever making a fuss about it. The two cases give him a proper working week to go out on, each with its own crop of suspects and red herrings.

The investigations take them across the county. There is a pub with a green man sign, a local legend, and a body, and elsewhere the Webster family are dealing with trouble of their own; Timothy and Lillian Webster and their son Daniel all come under Barnaby's quiet scrutiny. Marc Buchner's Daniel Webster is a reminder that the next generation of village villains was already queueing up. David Bradley turns up as a character called Tom, fresh from making Harry Potter fans' skin crawl as Filch, and John Carlisle's Lord Fitzgibbon supplies the aristocratic menace every good Midsomer mystery needs. Cherie Lunghi is as elegant as ever as Lillian Webster.

Michael Russell and Caroline Graham wrote it, Sarah Hellings directed, and the episode knows exactly what it is doing: giving Troy a decent send-off without announcing it. The partnership between Nettles and Casey had grown comfortable over the years, all bickering and mutual respect, and this is the last chance to watch it work. Their final scene together is quietly done, the way a real goodbye usually is.

It works as both mystery and farewell. The cases resolve, the village settles, and Troy drives off to his promotion, a little prouder than he lets on. But you miss him immediately, which is exactly the point the show was making. A gentle, melancholy opener, and one of the more affectionate hours in the series' long run.