forget about aunt lettie's murder, we've got a garden to plant

the absurd and delightful world of Rosemary & Thyme

Every night for the past two weeks I’ve been rushing through my skin care routine, shuffling into an ancient, fraying pair of ASOS pajamas, assembling my snacks (sunflower seeds in the shell and a tall glass of water with all my herbal tinctures squeezed into it), and settling down to enjoy the television masterpiece which is ITV’s Rosemary & Thyme (2003-2007).

It’s not my first go through the series, but I’m finding it particularly comforting this time around.

I am not a complicated woman— I like cozy murder mysteries and gardening. Thus, I’ve found myself smack dab in the middle of the Venn diagram Brian Eastman imagined when he created this show for his wife. That’s how the lore goes: Brian Eastman, successful TV writer and producer of the hit Agatha Christie series starring David Suchet, created the show for his wife who loved cozy mysteries and was an avid gardener.

I must admit, I find this elaborate love letter to his wife highly romantic. (I’m sure market research proved there would be a robust, if niche, demographic for the show, but STILL!)

It’s made all the more romantic by the fact that this is a show, written and created by a man, for the female gaze and it works.

Considering the time period this show was written in, it’s actually a marvel. It was the early 2000s, and to paint a picture, here are some other things that were happening in culture. Bridget Jones (2001) had just come out and was wildly successful, and even though I personally adore the entire Bridget series, one of the main plot points in the first film in particular is her struggle as a “fat” woman at 130lbs!!!

Britney Spears was experiencing one of the most harrowing media take downs in history. The same tabloids made it their mission to constantly harass Jessica Simpson, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Amanda Bynes and more. Taking shots at their body, their weight, their hair, their facial expressions. Sadly, not one of these women escaped those years of scrutiny and abuse unscathed.

Sex and the City was at its peak— a show supposedly about feminism, but still desperately entangled in the same toxic messaging that existed for women in most television and media at the time. While the show does celebrate female friendship and female sexual empowerment, it’s also about women who are deathly afraid of getting fat, being perceived as ugly, and terrified of not finding a man with whom to spend the rest of their lives.

I mention all of this to highlight a show about two middle-aged women, independently carving out a successful gardening consulting business, with no men around, solving murders across Europe’s most stunning vistas was unique, to say the least.

For the uninitiated, the characters Rosemary Boxer and Laura Thyme are friends and gardeners who find themselves solving murders in prestigious gardens across the UK. These two entirely fictional characters are so well-realized, they completely make what would otherwise be a bit of hokey show (more on that later!)

Rosemary Boxer (played by Felicity Kendal), according to her Wikipedia page, “has a doctorate in plant pathology and was a University of Malmesbury lecturer in applied horticulture for eighteen years, before her academic position was suddenly and sneakily removed by her former beau.”

While Laura Thyme (Pam Ferris) is a recently divorced ex-police officer, who makes a new start at life after discovering her husband is having an affair. With both her children grown and out of the home, she bravely begins again— on her own. Together the two quickly become some of the most celebrated gardeners in the country.

I love how these women are written. They are distinctly women in the second half of life, who haven’t given up on themselves or their passions. (I’d argue many women in real life do not, yet on screen we’re always presented with the woman in her 50s who doesn’t know what to do with herself after raising a family. Personally, I can’t stop making lists of things I’ll do once my kids move out! But that’s another essay.)

They have experienced enough romance (or lack thereof) to feel actualized apart from their romantic entanglements. They’re intelligent, funny, talented, and emotionally astute.

“These are just two women who are connected through the work that they do.” Felicity Kendal said when interviewed about the show. “I think it’s nice to have two women developing a close bond in a gentle, entertaining and hopefully amusing series.”

You do get a real sense Brian Eastman just observed his wife and her friends and wrote the women he saw. There’s nothing necessarily larger-than-life about these women, a la the glamorous Carrie Bradshaw, or the jaded career woman Miranda Priestly). These are women who have maintained their passions and careers throughout most of their lives, who have good relationships with their friends, children, and are cordial with their exes.

When they’re not solving murders on gorgeous estates, they’re commiserating about having to spend Christmas on their own, getting the old Range Rover fixed, or sorting out their next job.

All of this being said, the show is still often hilariously hokey. But this can be forgiven as it is keeping in line with the tropes of the genre. Watching the series this time around I kept laughing at the formula for each episode which goes like:

• Rosemary and Laura get called into consult on a “gardening emergency” (“We must fix this garden bed before the gala in two weeks!”)

• A murder happens

• Rosemary or Laura find the body

• The two tactfully ask their contractor if they should continue their work in light of the recent tragedy.

• The owner of the estate always looks at them in disbelief before saying, essentially, “Of course Aunt Lettie’s death cannot get in the way of this garden bed emergency! Tragic yes, but life goes on.”

• Given the green light to unofficially poke about the grounds, the two observe things the police aren’t privy to and ultimately solve the mystery of Aunt Lettie’s death.

• The episode always ends on a high note about three days after the initial murder where they have a big garden reveal. Everyone close to Aunt Lettie has already gone through their brief period of mourning, and together they pop bubbly on the back patio to celebrate a job well done and a murder well solved!

Of course, the absurdity is part of the charm. (I just watched an episode where the gals are working on a garden for a retired famous tennis player who owns a tennis resort where people keep getting murdered. There’s a brief discussion about the group flying back home, but it’s quickly disbanded when someone brings up the salient point that Charles would have WANTED them to stay on holiday in Spain. They will play a tournament in his honor, obviously. Ahhh!)

The murder scenes are distinctly un-gory (sometimes you can see the actor breathing). And the show never lets the murder story plot line get in the way of a good garden reveal at the end of each episode. If you like gardening, there’s tons of practical chat about soil acidity levels, rare types of protected plant species, and know-how on building a natural water reservoir for your home garden peppered throughout every episode.

Let me be clear, I don’t think the makers of this show set out with a “feminist agenda”. And honestly thank God, because viewers can always sniff out the overt preachiness in art-that-has-a-point (I’m looking at YOU Barbie— perhaps my most unpopular opinion was that I thought it was boring, but this is coming from a woman who just binged watched a series about gardening sleuths for the second time, so what do I know?)

I just think it was a show written for women to enjoy. It’s a show about pursuing your passion, about female friendship and camaraderie, where every episode resolves pleasingly and unrealistically. I don’t need realism. I need British gardeners putting down their trowel every few minutes to have a cup of tea on the terrace and spy on the housekeeper.

Maybe Rosemary & Thyme isn’t for every woman, but there’s a bit of everywoman in Rosemary & Thyme.