#Birgitte Poulsen

[allthemurders]

i found your sarah barnaby whump posts and I'm desperate for more do u have any more ideas or thoughts ahdjsj

HELLO HI I AM ALWAYS DOWN TO TALK ABOUT SARAH BARNABY WHUMP!! i have So Many thoughts and ideas hehehehehe

ngl it’s been A While since i last watched midsomer tho, so my memories of it are all a bit hazy and i’ve probably misremembered some plot points / timings / etc. this is also why some of these ideas are Extremely Vague hgkfjdjfhf

(i’m gonna put it all under the cut bc the post got fairly long, wHoOpS)

ep-specific whump:

s19 ep5 - death by persuasion : the aim is a little off with the warning shot during the ball, and sarah gets hit. or she gets hit by a mirror shard. either way, she’s in a regency era ball gown and she is bleeding out while john frantically tries to help her. (this naturally gives her ideas for her book, much to john’s concern)

s20 ep2 - death of the small coppers : i was So sure sarah was gonna end up getting caught helping birgitte with her investigation and that some sort of whump would play out with that. i have no real thoughts of what or how or why exactly, but i Need it. possibly could have birgitte & sarah being caught snooping and subsequently getting whumped together??? helping each other stay strong throughout it, then working out an escape plan and getting themselves out before john & jamie can even attempt to rescue them??? also unrelated but sarah should’ve been there for the jamie whump scene at the end i stg

s21 ep2 - the miniature murders : THE MURDERER WAS LITERALLY IN JOHN & SARAH’S HOUSE WITH SARAH & BETTY. WHY DID NOTHING HAPPEN WITH THIS?????? MIDSOMER WRITERS HATE ME I STG 😭😭 anyways what if john & jamie rush in, john telling sarah to take betty to play in her room, but sarah doesn’t get the opportunity to leave?? the murderer grabs her in a panic and pulls a knife (or possibly a dangerous improvised weapon of some kind, i’m hazy on the details of this ep) and takes her hostage. jamie hurries betty upstairs on john’s orders, trying his best to console her and answer her questions while also massively worrying about his adoptive mum sarah. john is left to talk the murderer down on his own

s22 ep5 - for death prepare : things go massively wrong when sarah is on stage. i’m talking “murderer walks on stage in full costume with an actual extremely lethal sword or a period-accurate gun” kind of massively wrong. “the last guy he wants to kill is also on stage” kind of massively wrong. “sarah just gets in the way of his revenge and ends up with a severe wound” kind of massively wrong. (john and jamie get there in time to see it happen but too late to actually stop it. they both blame themselves for not getting there sooner)

s23 ep1 - the blacktrees prophecy : so many vague and depressing thoughts about sarah having a Bad Childhood™ with far too much pressure on her to always be perfect, because nothing was ever good enough for her mum no matter how hard she tried. (*literally looks so upset by the thought of her mum coming to stay that john thinks she’s straight up died* / “oh, i’m just touching up a few patches [of paint on the walls]. you know how my mother likes to point out every little imperfection” / “the house is, er… looking lovely” “well, i’m sure she’ll find fault somewhere”). HER SCENES IN THIS EP PHYSICALLY HURT ME HONESTLY. SHE IS SO STRESSED AND TENSE,,,,,,,,, and then basically as soon as she finds out her mum’s going to her sister’s instead you can See this massive weight has been lifted off her. like ik there’s a couple hours between her finding out and the actual scene at the end, bUT STILL. IT’S LIKE FLICKING A SWITCH???? SHE’S SUDDENLY HAPPY AND JOKING WITH JOHN AGAIN??????? sorry this was basically just me repeating canon but i have too many Feelings about it 😭😭

s23 ep3 - a grain of truth : look honestly i don’t really remember anything about this ep other than that sarah was at the place where a murder happened or smth and iirc exactly zero whump came out of this. some whump should’ve come out of this. also weren’t ppl being poisoned with ergot or smth?? why was sarah not poisoned with ergot??

non-ep whump:

john gets a call from betty’s school saying that it’s getting pretty late, will he or sarah be picking her up soon? and he’s a little confused, because it’s meant to be sarah’s day to do the school pickup and it’s not like her to forget, but he figures she must’ve been waylaid by something. he calls her, but it just goes to voicemail. he calls again; still nothing. he’s concerned now, wondering why she isn’t answering, but he knows she sometimes gets stuck in unplanned meetings for ages, so it’s like a low-level concern as he leaves work early to pick betty up. his worry absolutely skyrockets when he finds the front door kicked in, the living room trashed, and the house empty despite sarah’s car being parked up outside. a ransom note and proof of life photos arrive the following morning

john & sarah are held captive together for some reason. john’s being Extremely Annoying in order to get the captors to keep their focus on him, because he’s willing to take all the consequences of their anger if it keeps sarah out of harm’s way. one of the captors eventually hurts sarah to try and keep him in line, and he just goes absolutely feral

sarah should get to watch someone being killed. as a treat (..ok probably not for her, but it would be for me ✌️😎)

tbh most of the rest of my misc ideas are just various other forms of “sarah gets Beaten Up!!” or “sarah gets held hostage to get john to cooperate!!” s o o o yea that is basically all i can think of atm 👀

tysm for the ask, and i really really hope you enjoyed this whump as much as i enjoyed thinking about it!! ✨✨✨

[jxmieswxnter]

some reasons to love birgitte poulsen

- obviously the accent - could be a full on spy and i would not doubt - motherly but will kick your ass - always the smartest person in the room and makes sure you know it but not in a pretentious way, she just radiates clever - but also precious - competent - both episodes she’s in are fantastic - loves strong alcohol - soft with the ones she cares about - but will still tease - contagious smile 

[neptunium134]

Death of the Small Coopers mini-analysis, part 4

Okay, reveal scene, let’s go-

These may be a little out of order cuz I took them on different days, but I’ll do my best to put them in order

Y E E T-

I love this look- John’s face is a mixture of concern and surprise

‘You kissed my son and now he might be in danger, damnit woman’

I think this just perfectly illustrates just how much John cares for Jamie, you can see he’s trying not to panic here, or give off the impression he’s panicking, but the audience can see it, and it shows just how much John and Jamie’s relationship has developed since The Village That Rose From The Dead (S19, E1).

It’s one of those nuggets that, as the audience who have seen this development, we can pick up on.

So these two shots are effectively mirror images of each other. The top one is a medium-close up on Jamie from a narrative perspective while the bottom one is an over-the-shoulder shot placed upside-down, in the way Jamie would be seeing. Both shots are there to establish a narrative so the audience knows what’s happening.

Also, they’re pretty cool shots.

That’s one way to get someone’s attention

Okay, let me geek out over this shot for a moment

It starts out upside-down, as we’re seeing it from Jamie’s POV after Leo slaps him, then the camera rotates 180 degrees to give us a mid-shot of Leo.

I’d say the rotating motion is meant to signify things coming into perspective as Jamie realises Leo’s the killer (no duh).

Obviously Jamie isn’t moving, he’s still upside-down, so the shot is meant to be for the audience.

Then this quite fast zoom from a mid-shot into a close-up onto Jamie’s face when Leo reveals the crossbow. The speed of the zoom could represent Jamie’s sudden realisation of just how much danger he’s in.

This riddle was actually one of the first ones I ever did, and I laughed as soon as Leo started reciting it cuz I already knew the answer.

It also links back to the scene in the bar when Eddie was about to tell Jamie the riddle. It’s the irony- if Jamie had listened to Eddie then, he would know the answer and wouldn’t be held at arrowpoint for 5 minutes.

But then there was the risk of Leo firing early and killing Jamie anyway cuz Jamie knew what Leo did.

It’s that sense of irony- Mahesh was “made a victim of his obsession”, Grady was made “a victim of his lofty intelligence” and Jamie was about to become a victim of irony, of not listening to Eddie recite the riddle that was in the Circulus paper, the paper Leo took.

Once again, we see John’s concern for Jamie. In the top picture, we can hear John’s concern, his worry. He’s scared for Jamie.

In the second picture, we get a close-up of his face, he’s trying to get the info out of Leo as a distraction, to lure him away from Jamie, give Jamie a chance to try and escape.

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN KIDS ARE PUSHED

Okay, not literally, but every kid has a breaking point. Sure, kids don’t usually go around murdering people because they’ve been pushed to lengths, but it’s an allegory for kids being pushed way past their breaking point.

What makes this scenario even sadder is Leo was pushed to this point by a couple of factors; his mother died, one of his teachers was his mental support and who ended up being his dad’s mental support as well, his dad stopped his relationship with the woman who made him happy, his headteacher was going to sack the person who was there for Leo and his dad, the editor of the local newspaper for a town that thrives on gossip was going to publish a biased article about his dad and his teacher, and he thinks that this new guy is trying to steal the woman that made his dad happy from his dad.

There comes a tipping point for children. Like I said, kids don’t usually start murdering people, it’s usually something like drugs or some other kind of self-harming actions, but you can understand why Leo went as far as he did- he’d reached his tipping point and lashed out violently because he thought it was the only way to get his voice heard.

It’s a sad story, but the general understanding of it is something that a lot of kids face- a tipping point that gets ignored by adults until it’s too late. Hopefully this episode showed adults that.

Coming off from the above idea, this is another thing that kids are taught. ‘Rules are rules’, ‘stick to the rules’, ‘do as you’re told’- it accumulates, it builds up until the aforementioned tipping point.

This is another thing adults seem to forget that affects kids- stick to the rules, make sure you please the adults. Who cares if the kids grow up traumatised? Who cares if the kids grow up with this toxic mindset? They’re sticking to the rules.

Okay, enough about the issues with society-

John asks Leo what the question was so he could have a chance to save Jamie, while Jamie does what most kids do when they’re scared- they look to their parental figure for help. 

It’s just more evidence of the familial bond they have.

I find this interesting- John probably knows the answer to the riddle, or at least he could work it out quickly, yet he pleads with Leo to stop.

Why?

He’s panicking. He’s scared. He thinks Jamie is going to die and he is helpless to stop it.

It isn’t a terribly hard riddle, but it requires concentration, and what’s one thing you can’t do when you’re scared? 

Concentrate.

Neither John nor Jamie can concentrate in this situation, they’re too scared.

However, Birgitte can concentrate. She doesn’t have that bond with Jamie, she’s only known him for maybe 3 or 4 days, and she took the paper the riddles was on.

She is able to step in and give Jamie the answer, not because she has that strong bond with him, but because she knows how strong John and Jamie’s bond is.

Don’t get me wrong, she probably does care about Jamie and doesn’t want him to die, but that newer, weaker bond gives her the ability to step back and concentrate while everyone else is panicking.

John echoes Birgitte, yet his “Yes?” is slightly more panicked. Birgitte’s is calm, rational, leveled while John looks like he wants to run over to Jamie and protect him physically.

To me, it’s the bond thing again. Birgitte is more leveled because she knows she has to be in order to save Jamie. She knows there’s no use in both her and John panicking, so she keeps calm and gives the answer. The "Yes?” is the prompt to Leo to let Jamie go.

Even with Jamie reciting the right answer, Leo pushes the button and we get this moment.

Birgitte is the only one who appears shocked, she is turned to Jamie and for the first time, she looks scared. Even with her help, it’s possible Jamie could die, they could be about to witness the death of someone her friend holds dear.

Ignoring Colton and Penny, mostly because I don’t think the shot actually shows their reaction, we’re going to skip right onto John.

Leo pushes the button and John runs to Jamie. He calls him “Jamie” instead of “Winter”, like he usually does.

He panics, he rushes forward as if he’s hoping he can either put himself between Jamie and the arrow, or, even better, push Jamie out of the way and avoid anyone getting hurt.

But it’s the running compiled with the use of “Jamie” that really hits home- John cares a lot about Jamie, and this one wide shot with Jamie in slightly blurred focus and John more in-focus, really shows it. He calls Jamie by his first name, something I don’t think we’ve seen before, and rushes to get to him.

Like @tiger-moran​ said, we’ve gone from John not knowing Jamie’s name in Last Man Out (S19, E3) to this, to John wanting to protect Jamie, to save him. To calling his name in a panic the same way parents will to their child if their child is in danger.

Jamie attempted kill count: 3

And the importance of bonds come back; Jamie made a bond with Ginny after she almost shot him at her farm, and she created a bond with Birgitte when Birgitte went to see her. Without that bond Ginny created with these two, Jamie would have been hit with the arrow, not doubt about it. Ginny’s line confirms that. 

Then, once John knows Jamie’s safe, he runs to Leo, to pin him against the tree until the PCs arrive.

It’s similar to what he does in Til Death Do Us Part (S20, E5), when he finds Hazel holding a pair of gardening shears to Sarah’s neck- it’s that instinctive reaction to stop the cause of his loved one’s pain. It’s that closeness again, he has similar reactions to both Jamie and Sarah almost being killed.

He checks Jamie is safe, that Jamie is alive, then he apprehends Leo to stop Leo from potentially trying to hurt or kill Jamie again.

Gonna leave this part here cuz it’s long enough anyway. I’ll do a short Part 5 for the final scene, then this’ll be over, you’ll be happy to know

[tiger-moran]

Meanwhile in Denmark...

John is bonding with Birgitte Poulsen but entirely as a colleague and a friend.

(I love their interaction so much, like he immediately respects her, he never regards her differently because she’s a woman or from a different country and actually instead of him trying to take charge she bosses him around a bit initially, but they are portrayed as equals. Also how nice it is to see something that puts a man and a woman together and has them getting along without almost immediately trying to bring sex or romance into their relationship.) 

[moocowmoocow]

[mymanreedus]

gallerypoulsen Preparing for the preview of “Gallery Poulsen goes West” first room ready is the Reedus room.

Gallery Poulsen is going West, more specifically Grindsted, where we are going to exhibit a collection of works by our represented artists from New York. The Pop-Up is held at Lucullus on Nymarksvej, with whom we have collaborated with on many occasions for the past fifteen years. Lucullus is celebrating their 25th anniversary this year. It’s a tradition in Gallery Poulsen that we bring the art with us around the world. In February 2016 we invited Lucullus to join us in New York for a similar pop-up. Now, close to the anniversary of this event on the other side of the Atlantic, we are bringing New York and Gallery Poulsen to Lucullus in Grindsted.

With us, we are bringing an excerpt of Norman Reedus’s photo exhibition “Live the Life You Love”. Like his life on set and in the real world, Reedus’ images vacillate between the real and surreal. Certain portraits remain vivid and clear, while others are washed in intrigue: grainy, hazy and obscured. What unites all these faces are the eyes that see them: Norman’s. From those eyes come a piercing intimacy, both precious and rare. Reedus has always been an artist in the sense that there was never much of a boundary between his lifestyle and his personal aesthetic. The photographs of “Live the Life You Love” exemplify Reedus’s eye for the gritty, edgy, beautifully macabre side of life. The exhibition has garnered much attention amongst our and Reedus’s followers and before the pandemic forced us to cancel more than seventy guests had announced their participation in the planned opening reception. The photo exhibition by the American artist and actor has also been noticed here in Denmark; The newspaper Berlingske and their art critic Birgitte Ellemann Höegh visited us in the gallery in the beginning of the new year.

About the exhibition and Reedus Ellemann Höegh says, “I’m not uplifted by his universe, there is a sadness to be discovered from a man that is followed by a gang of fans and has access to worlds and cultures that for most of us are inaccessible. […] after walking around in this universe for some time a loneliness makes itself present in the portraits of people who never seem to fit in and instead hang out alone in empty spaces. I sense a sensitivity behind every shot that resonates.” and acknowledges the exhibition with 5 out of 6 stars.

[moxyphinx]

Birgitte Nyborg + Magnus + bicycle

[caustoncid]

Nelson: Hi. It's uh, it's great to be here. I love your country. It's very beautiful.

Degn: Oh, so you've been to Denmark before?

Nelson: No.

Poulsen: Then how do you know it's beautiful?

Nelson: Uh, what I've seen of it so far. I mean, you know, the uh, the journey from the airport, the, um...motorways. It's very...clean. It's very flat.

Barnaby: Are you done?

Nelson: Yes, thank you.

Barnaby: Good.

[neptunium134]

Death of the Small Coopers mini-analysis, part 1

Well, I say ‘mini-analysis’, I more mean a few screencaps with some notes

But my media mock’s coming up in, like, 2 weeks, so this my excuse to not do proper revision

So, like I said before, I just love how Birgitte asks about it being a “family affair”, which suggests she thinks Jamie is part of the family, espically as John doesn’t actually introduce Jamie as ‘DS Winter’, he calls him “Winter”, and Jamie says “I’ve heard a lot”. Talking about people you’ve met while working is a very familial thing to do, John.

This is just a mood

This entire mini-rivalry thing they have this episode, keeping score when they one-up the other is such a father-son thing to do. I’ve actually done similar things with my mum, so it’s totally a familal thing.

I love Birgitte. This would totally be me if I got questioned by the police about a murder.

Birgitte being nosy like a detective should be

Not a very good shot, sorry, but the camera follows Jamie in a tracking shot, almost as if it’s suggesting someone is following Jamie (which they were)

This Dutch tilt, or canted angle shot, is suggesting something is askew. Midsomer uses it a lot, espically when something is going to happen that throws a spanner in the works. 

The camera then tilts to level itself as Jamie notices the murder weapon.

Jamie attempted kill count: 1

Appropriate reaction

Well, that’s part 1 done. I’ll do part 2 later

[neptunium134]

Death of the Small Coopers mini-analysis, part 5

Okay, epilogue here we come:

Jamie carrying Birgitte’s bag like the dutiful son he is.

It could also be a form of thanks for saving his life, or because he’s the youngest (it’s an excuse all parents make- ‘you’re the youngest, you’re the fittest, you can carry the heavier bag’)

This suggests they’re supposed to keep in touch, and that’s something I’d love to see. There wasn’t an awful lot of interaction betweent these two in this episode, and I think that’s a shame, it’d be lovely to see them interact more, and maybe we could see Birgitte teaching Jamie some Danish?

(Sorry, if you’ve seen the rest of my blog, you’ll know I do languages and I just love hearing them being spoken. I think it’d also be quite funny if they started talking in Danish and John’s just there like ‘I have no clue what you’re saying, but you’re probably talking about me’)

This bit is said in a joking manner, but it’s obvious how much it affected John, espically if he brings it up like this.

I’m willing to bet money on John and Sarah having a go at Jamie for going AWOL and almost getting himself killed.

But we can also see how much it affected Jamie- he says “it won’t happen again”. Almost being killed will almost certainly make someone reconsider their choices.

This shot didn’t do the ‘they’re totally not a family, what are you on about fandom?’ argument any favours.

It literally looks like a family waving a relative off, and could pass as a family photo.

Yeah, they look like a family. That’s it.

And that’s end of this this “mini” analysis. Tumblr’s gonna hate me for having to process all these images, but oh well.

Thank you all so much for sticking with me as I’ve done this, and if there’s anything I missed, or you’d like to add, feel free to reblog and add to it! It’s nice to see different interpretations.  

[neptunium134]

So I was watching Death of the Small Copper (S20, E2), and this bit really tickled me:

I love how Birgitte pretty much automatically assumes the three of them are a family (which they basically are)

Plus Jamie’s bamboozled face when Sarah turns up.

[jxmieswxnter]

(the anon that was asking about requests here) ok then, i would like to request Birgitte Poulsen for the reasons to love (character name) thing

i love birgitte yes i will do this for sure yes

[tiger-moran]

apicturewithasmile said: I find the damsel in distress trope usually quite boring but in John’s case I am 100% loving those moments where he rescues someone (most of the times it’s a lady) and they fall into his arms. I love it because it’s clearly not the “and now they will fall in love bc he saved her” kind of trope.

apicturewithasmile said: it’s obvious that he’s really just… doing his job and being kind to people in the process without wanting anything in return. he then goes home to his wife whom he loves and that’s it. damsel out of distress but without having to thank him with sex.

apicturewithasmile said: really makes me wanna be held by John Barnaby and being told that everything is going to be okay

Yes, same, the trope is overused in things often as a way to shove a boring underdeveloped het romance storyline in where the writers act like a man saving a woman is enough to make the romance convincing. But with him, he’s always been shown in a stable loving healthy relationship with Sarah. He is shown as liking various other women but never in a way that would suggest anything inappropriate, either for his position or as a married man (I especially like his relationship with Birgitte Poulsen for example, where he initially respected her as a colleague and then also became friends with her). The way he holds Nina like that, it is him comforting and reassuring a traumatised women who’s nearly just been killed, not him trying to take advantage of her in any way. And he does show kindness and compassion towards male characters as well in other episodes. While there are probably more instances or at least more obvious instances with women, his compassion is definitely not limited to just women.

(Also same, I’m totally touch averse and hate being hugged but with him it feels like... that’s the kind of person who if they held you they’d make you feel completely safe and secure.)

[moocowmoocow]

[moocowmoocow]

[moocowmoocow]