Death in Paradise season 1 episode 1 has made our best Death in Paradise episodes of all time list and here we look back at what happened. The episode is notable not just for being the start of the hugely popular series but also for delivering one of TV's best twists. Obviously, there are spoilers ahead, here's what happens...
Death in Paradise opens with us seeing Officer Lily Thomson (Lenora Crichlow) for the first time. She's billed as "the long-suffering rock at the heart of the Royal Saint-Marie Police force". She interrupts a man playing basketball. The man in question is Officer Dwayne Myers (Danny John-Jules) who then speaks the first-ever line in Death in Paradise which is "Oh, man!". We head to Saint Marie police station where Fidel Best (Gary Carr) is there with a man and a goat. "I'm sorry sir time's up. If she was your goat she'd have gone to you. This goat remains unclaimed," he says. Also in the station is DI Charlie Hulme (Hugo Speer).
"Got him chief," says Dwayne as he leads a man into the station who is handcuffed. The prisoner is Marlon Collins, played by Sean Maguire who'd go on to reprise the role in the show's 100th episode during Death in Paradise season 13. "Maybe you should stop stealing yachts," says Dwyane as he locks him up. Charlie announces he's leaving early for the night and departs the station.
We're then at a party, which is gatecrashed by a mysterious woman. Someone accesses a safe. Then a gunshot rings out and an alarm is set off. We see the mysterious woman again. Fidel takes a call at the police station. Lily also takes a phone call and her ringtone is "I Shot The Sherriff" (this phone call later proves vital in the case). Fidel tells Dwyane that a panic room has gone into lockdown and they have the codes to unlock it. Dwyane though is distracted by the radio and Lily says she will do it.
The mysterious woman says: "We've got a problem" on her mobile as the police arrive at the house. Lily goes into the house. Lily starts saying "No, no" as she enters the panic room and asks Lawrence (Karl Collins), one of the guests, to call an ambulance. Inside the panic room, Charlie Hulme is dead! Cue the famous title music…
We see a plane land. "I have just been informed the airline has lost my luggage," says DI Richard Poole (Ben Miller), in our opinion the best Death in Paradise detective. With him are Lily and The Commissioner. "We don't need outside help," Lily complains. "Charlie Hulme was a British cop. They want a British cop to lead the case," replies The Commissioner.
The Commissioner tells Richard that 30 percent of Saint Marie's population is French. "French, great, just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse," replies Richard.
Richard steps into the station and makes a series of demands. "This is not going to go well," comments Dwayne. "DI Hulme has been dead 48 hours, is this all you’ve got?” complains Richard to Lily as he holds a thin file. Lily shows Richard a photograph of the party and says everyone was on the guest list except for our mystery woman.
Lily takes Richard to the shack, which she explains is where Charlie was living. Richard finds the place is a tip and there's a tree in the shack! Richard has a call with his boss and Lily beeps him from the jeep. As Richard heads to the jeep, we see our mystery woman from behind a tree, watching him. "So how did a British policeman get mixed up with an aristocrat," ponders Richard as he and Lily visit the house where Charlie was found. Lawrence explains to Richard that he was outside serving guests when a gunshot was heard from the study and alarms went off. Richard shows him a picture of the mystery woman but he says he didn't see her.
Meanwhile, back at the station Dwayne does some digging about Richard and finds out the police back in London had a party to celebrate Richard going! Back at the house, Richard is using his laser tape measure. Richard wonders why Charlie was holding a travel guide to Europe when he was found dead. Richard rules out suicide. At that point, James Lavender (Rupert Graves), the aristocrat, introduces himself to Richard. He explains that when the gun went off he was down on his beach. James says he was down there for privacy with a special friend and we see him clearly cheating on his wife. So James is a cad, but is he a murderer? "My wife Sarah (Coralie Audret) spotted us," says James. James explains after a short argument he returned to the beach. He denies owning a gun. He said he hid after the gunshot sound until the police arrived.
James says only he and his wife knew the combination to the safe and he didn't tell the code to Charlie. His wife Sarah says she was in the shower when the alarm went off and she then got dressed. She denies inviting Charlie to the party. Sarah also denies opening the safe or giving Charlie the code. "She's lying," says Lily as they leave. Richard replies: "One of them must have opened the safe, but why? We've got a British policeman murdered in a rich man's panic room, an old book clutched in his hands, a safe that's open and a vase that's smashed. As for suspects, there are only two people without an alibi." James and Sarah are the two suspects. But Richard has a further issue: how did the murderer kill Charlie and then escape from a locked room? Richard is frustrated that all the evidence has been sent to another island for testing.
Meanwhile, the mystery woman is searching the shack. Richard spots her, so she pretends to be a cleaner. Richard breaks the news about Charlie and she cries.
Richard tries to chase his luggage up and freezes when he spots a lizard — yes it's the first appearance from Harry the Lizard! Richard sniffs a towel and it triggers a memory.
The next day Richard walks into the office and asks where he can get a gun with some blank rounds. Lily tells him the book and vase are back from Guadeloupe (in reality where Death in Paradise is filmed).
Richard and Lily go to the house and challenge Sarah. Richard says she lied because she did know Charlie. It turns out Richard smelt her perfume on Charlie's towel. He then accuses her of murder. She says she didn't kill him because she loved him. Sarah admits to giving Charlie the safe code because he was investigating her husband. So did James kill Charlie to stop his investigation? She explains that Charlie had said if she could get hold of the book in the safe he could put James away in prison. It's then revealed that a gun has gone missing. Back at the shack, Richard, still wearing his ridiculous suit, looks at the book and wonders why it's so important. Lily tells him he needs a break and they go for a walk. Back in the shack, he starts rebuilding the shattered vase from hundreds of tiny pieces.
While trying to have a shower, Richard finds a key. It appears to be a key for a safety deposit box. Richard and Lily head to the bank to check it out. Inside they find forged passports and loads of cash, Lily thinks Charlie was involved in human trafficking. Also inside is a photo of James Lavender's boat!
Poor Richard then gets a trip on Dwyane's motorbike to check out James's yacht. Richard, Dwayne and Lily search the boat. They find evidence of people smuggling. The mysterious woman is on the boat! She dives into the sea. Lily and Dwayne dive in. Bur Richard takes a small boat and corners the woman. They take the woman away. She is taken into the cells and refuses to answer any questions.
Lily and Richard head off to talk to James. But they find James dead on his beach. "He must have shot himself," says Lily. And it's the same gun that was used to kill Charlie.
Back at the station, Richard is shocked to find no sign of the mystery woman. The Commissioner walks in and says: "Detective Inspector, can I introduce you to Detective Sergeant Camille Bordey!" Yes, the mystery woman was Camille of course. It turns out she's been working undercover to bring James down. The Commissoner explains they couldn't tell Richard as she believes there's a corrupt police officer helping James. "It’s not likely to be me is it, I've been in Croydon for the last 13 years," says Richard, making quite a good point! Richard declares that Charlie must be the corrupt officer and he has loads of evidence. Lily suggests to Richard that she completes the paperwork on the case and he could be on the first plane off Saint Marie. "How was Charlie killed from inside a locked panic room?" wonders Richard, as it's clear he's not ready to leave just yet.
Richard reveals he's put the vase back together. The vase has a clear bullet hole in it. Richard says the whole case depends on what gun was used to shoot the vase. Fidel shines a light through the vase thus working out where the bullet should have landed. Dwayne turns up with a metal detector and they find the bullet. "The bullet that shot the vase on the night of the murder was a .38 caliber fired by a bloody loud service revolver." Richard then gets a phone call about his lost luggage which clearly triggers a thought about the case. "They never put my luggage on the plane," he says. "Yes, of course!" he shouts. He's cracked the case! Fidel and Dwayne think he's suffering from heatstroke! "Fidel, James Lavender had a mobile phone on him when he died get it for me. I'm also going to need the .22 pistol he was holding when we found his body."
In Lavender's house, Richard declares: "I should have realized the lessons of my luggage sooner. You see my case was never loaded on the plane it remained in Heathrow. So when the hold was opened in Saint Marie it looked like it had disappeared whereas in reality, it was never in there in the first place. In the same way, when the panic room was opened we thought the killer had disappeared but in reality, the murderer was never in there."
Now addressing Sarah, Richard continues: "When Charlie investigated your husband he set in motion a chain of events that would lead to his murder and your husband's."
We start seeing a flashback to the night of the murder. Richard continues: "On the night of the party I think James discovered Charlie in the panic room and realized he had to kill him. The only problem being James doesn't know his way around a gun as he told us so he only managed to shoot the vase. At which point Charlie does the only logical thing and locks himself safely in the panic room. Now James has just tried to kill a policeman. So what does he do? He goes back to his beach where I presume he disposes of the service revolver before making a call. In fact he must have made a phone call. He didn't kill Charlie Hulme so who did he get to do it?"
Richard explains everyone heard the gun James fired but didn't hear the shot that killed Charlie, meaning no one knows when that happened.
The murderer is revealed
"I know who the murderer is and so do you Sergeant Thomson because it's you. You murdered Charlie Hulme." She replies: "Are you insane?" Dwyane puts the cuffs on her.
Richard explains that the murder only bought Lily time. So she planted the safety deposit key in his shower so Richard wouldn't find Charlie's safety deposit book with evidence linking him to people smuggling that Lily had planted.
Lily then killed James Lavender and made it look like he'd killed himself. Richard says logically Charlie must have been alive as he must have been the person to shut down the panic room. "And if he was alive when he locked the room down he must have also been alive when Sergeant Thomson opened it up." We then see a flashback to Lily shooting Charlie.
Richard then gets James's phone and says if James rang Lily on the night of Charlie’s murder that is going to be very incriminating. He makes the call and appropriately Lily’s "I Shot the Sherriff" ringtone is heard.
Richard explains she killed Charlie because of the book he'd got from the safe. Richard explains that Lily swapped the book containing evidence of her wrongdoing that Charlie was holding for another book, the travel book.
Richard finds the book on her shelf and it even has Charlie's blood on it. He says it has all the evidence in it to prove James's human trafficking. Richard says Lily is repeatedly mentioned in the book and there's a fingerprint in Charlie's blood on it which is likely to be hers. Lily tries to justify her double murder by saying she'd been passed on for promotion and decided to take the money offered by James! Dwayne calls Richard "Chief" which he likes. Lily is seen in the Saint Marie cell.
Back at the shack Richard nearly steps on Harry. Then at the station, The Commissioner explains to a fuming Richard that he's going to be staying on the island a little longer. But his luggage is finally here. Camille then walks through the door and The Commissioner breaks the news to both of them that they will now be working as a team...
