The Worst Episodes of The Brokenwood Mysteries

#1 Worst Episode
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4.6/10(5 votes)
#1 - Catch of the Day
S2:E310/11/2015
The bucolic coastal waters off Brokenwood support a thriving fishing industry. But when Jared discovers a severed human hand in a crayfish pot it appears to be harbouring something far more sinister. Who does the hand belong to and are they still alive?
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
5.6/10(6 votes)
#2 - Blood Pink
S2:E410/18/2015
Holly Collins is not only DSS Mike Shepherd's favourite country musician she's also playing in Brokenwood. Unfortunately it turns out to be her final gig. When she is found electrocuted it appears to be a rock'n'roll suicide. But then again it could have been a drunken accident - or, as Mike suspects, it is perhaps something less obvious. With a careless note scrawled in lipstick the only clue, Mike has to set aside his personal interest in the victim and strike the right note with Holly's dysfunctional band members: Slim Fingers, Waylon Strings and Jesse James. But the more he finds out, the more he needs to know and the less he likes what he learns.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
6.0/10(1 votes)
#3 - An Oades to Christmas
S11:E65/26/2025
When a man dressed as Santa is found dead on the side of the road, the team investigates. But after Gina examines the body and concludes the cause of death was a heart attack.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
6.7/10(3 votes)
#4 - The Dark Angel
S5:E411/18/2018
On the edge of Brokenwood sits an abandoned mental health facility, an asylum named Brokenwood Downes. Now derelict, the spooky buildings provide a great hideout for local teenagers.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
7.0/10(3 votes)
#5 - Case Six: To Die or Not To Die
S2:E210/4/2015
When a young cast member of The Brokenwood Theatre Society collapses and dies at the end of a performance of Hamlet, the initial belief is that it was from natural causes. However, Mike detects there is ‘something rotten in the state of Brokenwood’ when he gets a whiff of a lethal poison. In doing so he uncovers a complex web of ego driven dissention amongst the troupe. Was Ben Faulkner expended to create opportunity for another young rising star? Or can his death be linked to the words of the Bard himself? And how did Jared end up playing the lead role? As Mike and his team investigate the hidden secrets of this curious group of thespians ‘To be or not to be’ takes on a whole new meaning.
Director:Murray Keane
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Murray Keane
Writer:Unknown
7.0/10(2 votes)
#6 - Publish or Be Damned
S10:E35/13/2024
A writers retreat on a picturesque estate generates ample inspiration when the mentor, Dame Audrey McKinnon, is found deceased, floating under a nearby waterfall.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown

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The 20 BEST Episodes of The Brokenwood Mysteries

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7.0/10(2 votes)
#7 - Three Gold Leaves of Jesus
S10:E66/3/2024
While a visiting theatrical troupe puts on a nativity play at St. Judas, a precious holy relic goes missing, and the actor playing Jesus is killed.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
7.2/10(4 votes)
#8 - Playing the Lie
S1:E310/12/2014
A group of erstwhile members of the Brokenwood Golf Club, committee members no less, have gathered for their regular Wednesday morning round. They are playing their approaches to the first green when a zombie-like figure lurches from the early-morning gloom, coming towards them. It takes the golfers a moment or two (apparently) to realise this is actually Alison Stone, one of the 5 members of the Golf Club Committee - her face red and blistering; gasping desperately for breath. Then she falls from sight, into a greenside bunker. By the time the guys get to her, Ms Stone is very much dead. And so Mike and Kristin are called to investigate what appears to be homicide by poisoning.
Director:Michael Hurst
Writer:James Griffin
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Director:Michael Hurst
Writer:James Griffin
7.2/10(5 votes)
#9 - Over Her Dead Body
S3:E211/6/2016
Brokenwood is in mourning as beloved local poet Declan O’Grady is being farewelled at St Judas Church after being struck down by cancer. But things go from bad to worse when his coffin accidentally falls from the hearse revealing that the corpse inside is not Declan but a young woman identifiable only by a notable scarlet tattoo.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
7.2/10(4 votes)
#10 - The Killing Machine
S3:E311/13/2016
The annual Riverstone Beach Hop is a colorful festival that brings classic car enthusiasts together from far and wide to celebrate everything petrol powered and chrome plated. But on the morning of the event Charlie Baxter, the Chairman of the Classic Car Restoration Society, is found dead next to his beloved El Dorado with a lungful of gasoline. Was this a petrol siphoning accident or something more deliberate? And does it have anything to do with the unidentified dead body found in Charlie’s garage the day before?
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
7.3/10(3 votes)
#11 - Leather & Lace
S2:E19/27/2015
The Brokenwood Cheetahs are a local rugby team of legendary status. Their losing streak of 50 straight games has broken national records. So when their hapless coach, Arnie Langstone, is found dead - stripped naked and strapped to a goalpost - some think it might be blessing in disguise – perhaps now they might start winning again. But amidst this DSS Mike Shepherd is perplexed by several other issues. Firstly, why was a pair of women’s underwear stuffed down Arnie’s throat? And what do the neatly embroidered initials ‘G.G.’ signify? But then a second body is discovered and Mike and his team are stretched to the limit. Is this the work of a serial killer or merely a puzzling co-incidence?
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
7.3/10(3 votes)
#12 - Fall From Grace
S4:E110/29/2017
When Kristin, Breen, and Gina celebrate Mike’s birthday with a picnic in Brokenwood Domain, they are witness to a fatal skydiving accident. To make matters worse, Kristin knows the victim – entrepreneur Andre Barrington, an ex-boyfriend who moved onto another woman – Grace Turner, an adrenalin junkie and fellow skydiver. As the investigation unfolds, an unsettling truth is revealed. Andre’s parachute was never going to open as the cords were severed. Was it an elaborate suicide or was Grace having second thoughts about Andre? Then again – Andre’s older brother Felix was tired of living in his shadow, and his mother Lorraine’s maternal love verged on the side of sinister. Both of them were jumping with Andre too. And what about Andre’s business partner Dean Young, who was less than impressed by Andre’s work ethic? Mike and his team are forced to confront the old adage: ‘what goes up must come down’ – but not always in the way you want.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
7.3/10(3 votes)
#13 - Brokenwood: The Musical
S9:E14/10/2023
The history of Brokenwood gets new life as a musical. But the setting literally brings with it a shock for the composer.
Director:Katie Wolfe
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Katie Wolfe
Writer:Unknown
7.4/10(5 votes)
#14 - The Witches of Brokenwood
S7:E24/5/2021
The Brokenwood Health Retreat proves rather unhealthy for one unfortunate visitor, leaving the team of detectives with a very tricky case to solve.
Director:Aidee Walker
Writer:Sarah-Kate Lynch
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Director:Aidee Walker
Writer:Sarah-Kate Lynch
7.5/10(5 votes)
#15 - Sour Grapes
S1:E210/5/2014
With Brokenwood touted for its burgeoning merlot, the annual wine show is a major event. Having bought a 10-acre block with maturing grapes, no one is looking forward to it more than DI Mike Shepherd. But when a guest judge and wine critic is found dead, drowned inside a fermenting vat, the show takes second place to the murder investigation.
Director:Joshua Frizzell
Writer:Timothy Balme
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Director:Joshua Frizzell
Writer:Timothy Balme
7.5/10(4 votes)
#16 - Hunting the Stag
S1:E410/19/2014
Three close friends go hunting in the bush on a stag trip. But the groom-to-be never comes back - he was shot through the head. Initially this would seem to be just another tragic hunting accident amidst picturesque New Zealand bush. The only problem is neither of the remaining two friends own up to pulling the trigger that fired the lethal bullet - yet all three had discharged their rifles - with no deer to prove it. The question is - who shot Hayden Renner? Was he mistaken for a real stag or was there something more sinister at play?
Director:Mike Smith
Writers:Philip Dalkin, Timothy Balme
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Director:Mike Smith
Writers:Philip Dalkin, Timothy Balme
7.5/10(5 votes)
#17 - The Black Widower
S3:E110/30/2016
The Frog and Cheetah’s publican, Ray Neilson, has branched into tourism with his ‘Lord of the Ringz Tours’ tailored to non-English speaking tourists. But when Ray’s wife Debbie is discovered dead under a giant foam spider in a supposed film location of Mirklewood things get ‘mirky’. Especially when Debbie’s cause of death is revealed to be from New Zealand’s only native venomous spider – the Katipo. But if it was, how did one spider administer ten times the lethal dose?
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
7.5/10(4 votes)
#18 - A Merry Bloody Christmas
S3:E411/20/2016
With December approaching Brokenwood is alive and well with Christmas spirit. That is until a gruesome sight confronts Mike and his team; Santa Claus with his throat slit. Or as Mike insists – ‘not Santa, but a man dressed in a Santa suit’. The man is in fact the much-loved local Mayor, Evan Whitestone, who dresses as Santa every year for the Christmas parade. But with local elections looming, attention turns to his four rivals for the mayoral chains. Each of them has an axe to grind with Evan or, in this case - a cut throat razor.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
7.5/10(4 votes)
#19 - Stone Cold Dead
S4:E211/5/2017
Charity Highmore-Browne is the owner and curator of Brokenwood's Historic Village. A stickler for all things Victorian, Charity lives in a time warp. Her sudden death by an arrow brings Mike and his team into the realm of New Zealand's colonial past as they deal with a blacksmith, a missionary and the local postmaster. Not to be overlooked is Charity's sister who once represented the country at the Olympics, missing out on a bronze medal in archery. As the investigation brings up questions about Charity's lifestyle and the mysterious disappearance of her husband seven years earlier, the team are faced with the possibility that Brokenwood is dealing with its first serial killer. Things are complicated further when Mike is forced out of the office due to a health scare and Kristin takes charge of the case. But can Mike truly hand over the reins?
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
7.5/10(4 votes)
#20 - The Garotte and the Vinklebraun
S7:E13/29/2021
Mike and his team are thrust into a world of antiquities when a TV crew from the hit series All Things Old and Beautiful comes to town, and one of the hosts is murdered.
Director:Katie Wolfe
Writer:Timothy Balme
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Director:Katie Wolfe
Writer:Timothy Balme
7.5/10(2 votes)
#21 - How the Other Half Dies
S11:E45/12/2025
When Brokenwood's elite begin to act strangely, the occurrences come to a head after a wealthy man is crushed by a chandelier in his home. As Shepherd investigates, he uncovers a tangled mystery filled with greed and revenge.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
7.5/10(2 votes)
#22 - The End of the Line
S11:E55/19/2025
A science teacher mysteriously dies ziplining while staffing a leadership camp for teens. But after the victim's past reveals a web of uneasy alliances and rivalries, Shepherd must cipher through a long list of suspects.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
7.7/10(9 votes)
#23 - Blood and Water
S1:E19/28/2014
When two fishermen find the body of a local farmer in the river, Detective Inspector Mike Shepherd is sent to the small rural town of Brokenwood to investigate the death. Is this the suicide of a man guilty of his own wife’s murder or is he the victim of foul play? As Mike uncovers a family’s tragedies and secrets, he also learns that Brokenwood is a place where shadows lurk just beneath the surface.
Director:Mike Smith
Writers:Philip Dalkin, Timothy Balme
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Director:Mike Smith
Writers:Philip Dalkin, Timothy Balme
7.7/10(3 votes)
#24 - Old Blood Money
S9:E24/17/2023
Mike and the team discover more than one dead body, and a significant amount of family rivalry, in the manor house where a pair of aging siblings live.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
7.7/10(2 votes)
#25 - Shot of Love
S9:E55/8/2023
A death at a motel at first looks like an accident, but something is not right in the stories the guests tell.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown