Directed by Robert McKillop and Jill Robertson, Ludwig, the six-part BBC crime thriller, is the kind of series that keeps you hooked until the very end. It's the story of a shy but brilliant man who hated the idea of socializing and ended up fighting his fears to find his missing twin brother. So let's find out what happened in the Ludwig series and if John managed to find out what exactly happened to his brother.
To understand why it was so difficult for our protagonist, John Taylor, a genius puzzle solver, to leave his house and go to his sister-in-law's house, it's important to know the kind of man he was. John and James Taylor were twin brothers, and although both were extremely talented and intelligent, they had contrasting behavioral traits. For the past three decades, John had lived alone, met few people, and rarely left the house. He spent most of his time creating puzzles and publishing them. John's puzzle books were published under the pseudonym "Ludwig," which told us how much he hated being the center of attention.
Creator: Mark Brotherhood
Stars: David Mitchell, Anna Maxwell Martin, Dipo Ola
I think John suffered from some kind of psychological disorder, as he was terrified of leaving the house, mingling with people, and doing things that people usually do. He had a fixed routine, from his meals to every little detail of his day. He didn't like breaking that routine, so when Lucy called him and told him a taxi was waiting outside her house to take him home, John froze. He panicked, not knowing how he was going to leave the house and do something he hadn't done in 30 years. But Lucy was first John's best friend and then his sister-in-law.
John knew Lucy was in trouble, so he took a deep breath and agreed to do something that was terribly difficult for him. John met Lucy, and it was then that he learned that James had left Lucy a note and disappeared. James had left an unsigned resignation letter and asked Lucy to send it the next day. He told Lucy not to trust anyone, especially his colleagues at the police department. Lucy knew he was in trouble, which was why she had left without telling her. Lucy told John that James had a notebook, and she thought it might contain important information that could lead them to him. But the problem was that the notebook was kept in James's office, and Lucy knew she couldn't just walk into the Cambridge police station and take it without anyone noticing.
James and John were identical twins, and Lucy wanted to take advantage of that. She asked John to do something she knew would be very difficult for him: go to James's office and return the notebook. Lucy told John that she had a pretty good idea of who he might meet and that she could give him some basic information about them so that, if necessary, they could have a chat. But John was the kind of man who was extremely uncomfortable talking to anyone, and Lucy was asking him to go out and mingle with complete strangers. Surprisingly, John agreed to Lucy's plan, even though he had no idea how it would change his life forever.
John went to the Cambridge Police Department posing as his brother, hoping no one would recognize him and he wouldn't have to talk to anyone. But John's worst nightmare came true after his brother's subordinate, Detective Chief Inspector James Taylor, Detective Inspector Russell Carter, asked him to go to a crime scene to investigate a murder. John was a mess, and sometimes Carter and Detective Inspector Alice Finch, another subordinate, simply couldn't understand what had happened to him.
While Carter was interrogating the suspects, John felt so uncomfortable that he ran away. He left the building, got into a car, and something clicked in his mind. He had listened to all the witnesses' statements and realized he could solve the murder using his puzzle-solving tactics. For the next fifteen minutes, John tried to get the others to understand the basis of his conclusion, but everything he told them was so incomprehensible that no one understood a word he was saying or drawing on the board. John, with the utmost humility, stated that, according to his hypothesis, a woman named Sarah Gilmarsh was behind the murder of Allan Howells. John could not explain the motive, but based on their testimony, he deduced that Sarah was the one lying. Before anyone could say a word, Sarah confessed, and Carter and Finch were stunned by what they witnessed.
John, with Mr. Todd's help, was able to discover that the accused in that case, Mr. Bishop, the physical education teacher who had murdered Mr. Durose, had hidden in the victim's office after killing him. The locked door gave Mr. Bishop the strongest alibi, but John managed to obtain evidence that proved his guilt. John was immensely happy after meeting Mr. Todd, but at the same time, he was worried to see him in that state. Mr. Todd was a genius, and, as John said, there was no puzzle in the world he couldn't solve. But Todd had never found love, and at that age, he felt too alone, without a single person to call family. John feared suffering the same fate in the next 20 years. As much as he admired his teacher, John didn't want to end up like him.
Although John was involved in several cases, he was able to uncover certain details about his brother's disappearance that gave him insight into what might have happened to him. When James disappeared, he was in charge of the Roger Sinclair murder case. According to reports, a petty thief, Rhys Bowen, had broken into his home, stolen some things, killed him, and left. But then John discovered that the crime scene report had been altered, as in the original, James had stated that there were no signs of forced entry and that nothing had been stolen from the house. As mentioned above, James was in charge of the case, but he was later dismissed, and Chief Constable Ziegler took over. From the beginning, John saw that Ziegler didn't speak to him with due courtesy, which meant he didn't like him. It was said that Sinclair, a conspiracy theorist, had very important information that would serve as the basis for a report. After Sinclair's murder, all his investigative material was taken to the police station, and it was decided to hand it over to Scotland Yard. But another shock occurred: a truckload of documents disappeared, and no one could explain how it happened.
John, at that time in Ludwig, believed it was the work of certain people who didn't want to be exposed. Aside from that, John couldn't find out anything about James's disappearance. Holly Pinder, whom John called the IT girl and who worked in the IT department at Cambridge police station, knew what James had been up to. She had hacked into his devices and discovered what he was looking for. Holly used to sell information for money, and her plan was to blackmail James using the information she had on him. But then James disappeared, and the next day, his brother John showed up pretending to be him. It didn't take long for Holly to discover that John wasn't who he pretended to be. To make sure her speculation was correct, she set a trap for John, and he fell right into it. She told John that avoiding talking about the intimacy they had had at a party back then was the reason she wasn't speaking to him properly. John trusted his brother and knew he wouldn't cheat on Lucy, but in that situation, he didn't know what to do but go along with it. John didn't deny that they hadn't had intimacy, and Holly got her answer: he wasn't James. In episode 5 of "Ludwig," Holly called Lucy and said she wanted to tell her something about James, face to face. Holly's plan may have been to blackmail Lucy, but before she could do so, she was murdered by a man named Adam Newsum, who worked for her. Newsum took advantage of Lucy arriving at the crime scene moments after he murdered her and framed her. Lucy was in custody, and John had no choice but to tell Carter and Officer Carol Shaw that he wasn't James. Lucy was totally against it, as James had made it clear in his letter that she shouldn't trust anyone in the police department, but John didn't have much choice. He needed to trust someone and take that leap of faith.
In the "Ludwig" finale, something unprecedented happened that, for a moment, even made John doubt everything. So, after John resigned from his position and proved Lucy's innocence, he received a voicemail from James. In that message, James told John that he had run away because he no longer wanted to be with his wife. He said he was like his father, who also abandoned the family when they were children. James said he had made up all those excuses—at least, that's what John thought—because he just wanted a fresh start and lacked the courage to confront and tell his wife the truth. John was disappointed because he never expected his brother to be like that. John went and told Lucy everything, and that's when he realized his brother never spoke in metaphors, but in the message, he said he was a gardener bird, symbolizing that, like that bird, he had left his nest, never to return.
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