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| “ | We are going to have so much fun! | „ |
| ~ Gillies to Detective William Murdoch. |
James Gillies is one of the main antagonists of the Canadian crime drama series Murdoch Mysteries.
He is a wealthy, psychopathic criminal mastermind and serial killer who possesses exceptional intelligence. After being arrested by Detective William Murdoch following his attempt at a perfect murder, he would become obsessed with the detective and continuing their "game"; thus engineering various schemes to outwit Murdoch and kill his loved ones. He is the archenemy of William Murdoch.
He was portrayed by Michael Seater.
Biography[]
Big Murderer on Campus[]
James Gillies and Robert Perry were highly intelligent students when it comes to physics. Gillies schemed a device to kill Professor Samuel Bennett.
Once Detective William Murdoch arrived on campus to investigate the professor's murder, Gillies and Perry both joined detective seemingly helping him to discover who was responsible for the murder.
By the time Detective Murdoch started to suspect the two students, they correctly deduced that Perry is weaker than Gillies and tricked him into believing that the latter was trying to kill him for his knowledge of the murder.
Murdoch later tries to pressure the two into confessing by giving a detailed lecture to their class about the hanging process, telling them that the only way for a killer to avoid it was to give up their accomplice. Believing he is convicted, to save himself from hanging, Perry confesses to the murder revealing Gillies as his partner and mastermind behind the murder. When Murdoch reveals to Perry that he was tricked, the latter is shocked and both students are arrested by the police.
In the end, Julia Ogden asks Murdoch if she is to assume that Mr. Gillies and Mr. Perry will hang, Murdoch, replies that "Their families will hire the best lawyers in the land. But at the very least, they can look forward to life in prison.". Julia then asks what was their motive, Murdoch responds that Gillies had a theory and wanted to test it (Applied physics) and Mr. Perry, for whatever reason, went along with him.
Murdoch in Toyland[]
Between episodes, Gillies was sentenced to death after Robert Perry testified against him, but he survived his execution by convincing a terminally ill guard to be hanged in his place. Gillies then escaped from jail by disguising himself as the guard and took revenge on Perry by sawing his head off while still alive.
Three weeks after his faked death, Gillies kidnaps a young girl and leaves behind a talking doll containing a message to Detective Murdoch. Using a series of clues left behind by Gillies, Murdoch recovers the girl alive and eventually discovers Mr. Perry's headless corpse. Gillies' identity is discovered through a recording of his voice left behind in a talking doll and he is arrested once the dolls are traced to his hideout.
However, Gillies has kidnapped Julia while Murdoch was investigating, and buries her alive in a cemetery. Gillies gloats that she will be dead in thirty-seven minutes if she isn't found but refuses to reveal where she is, even when Inspector Thomas Brackenreid attempts to beat the truth out of him. To prolong his "game" with Murdoch, he hints that the answer is in one of his previous clues, which leads Murdoch back to the cemetery where Perry was killed.
Eventually Julia is rescued and Gillies is transported back to prison, after admitting that he was motivated by a petty desire for revenge against Murdoch. However, the transport crashes en route to prison and Gillies escapes, sending Murdoch yet another talking doll as a warning that they will meet again.
Crime and Punishment[]
Returning to Toronto, Gillies enlists the help of a woman named Dolly Long to get revenge on Murdoch. With Gillies disguised as a cab driver, the two of them trick Julia into leaving the city under the pretext of helping Dolly to escape her abusive husband. Meanwhile, Julia's husband Darcy is killed with a booby trap rigged by Gillies in his house, and Gillies later returns to the crime scene disguised as Julia to frame her. He also murders Dolly and uses her blood to further incriminate the doctor by putting it on her clothes. Despite Murdoch's best efforts, Julia is convicted of her husband's murder and sentenced to hang; Gillies shows up at the courthouse during her sentencing to taunt Murdoch over his victory before disappearing.
The Murdoch Trap[]
Gillies abducts Murdoch and shows him a recording in which he explains how he framed Julia Ogden, saying that he will use the tape to exonerate her if Murdoch kills himself. There is a phone next to Murdoch's cage that he can use to call the police and tell them where to find the recording, but doing so will release poison gas that will kill him in a matter of minutes.
Murdoch agonises over whether he should kill himself to save Julia, and eventually decides to do it, but when he makes the call he is knocked out by the gas before he can tell the police anything helpful. Fortunately, Constable George Crabtree has already worked out his location from a coded message he sent previously and arrives with armed officers. Gillies brags that it's too late for them to save Murdoch before trying to shoot Brackenreid, but is himself shot by Crabtree, who then rescues Murdoch and retrieves Gillies' confession.
Gillies is then arrested and returned to prison.
A Midnight Train to Kingston[]
Gillies is transported on a train to Kingston to be ultimately hanged for his crimes. Having guessed that he would be put on the train, Gillies has secretly arranged a train robbery by telling some of his fellow prisoners that there will be $10,000 aboard. During the journey he is confronted by Julia who tells him she plans to remove and dissect his brain after he's hanged. Gillies responds that it "won't be happening for some time" as he isn't done with her yet.
Eventually, he is able to escape during the chaos with the help of a female passenger who pretends to be taken hostage by him. Murdoch catches up with Gillies and beats him up until the latter tells him to stop. He tells Murdoch that this is the last time for them both and asks him if that doesn't mean that Murdoch is a little bit sad, the latter responds no. Gillies tells him that he will miss him before he kisses the detective and punches him.
As Gillies is about to jump off the bridge, Murdoch warns him that the water is too shallow and he will be killed by the fall. Gillies respond that it is very possible but he already has nothing to the lose. Then Gillies jumps off the bridge, Murdoch, desperately trying to catch him jumps off the bridge as well, despite Constable Crabtree trying to stop the detective.
Later, Murdoch is found unconscious by Inspector Brackenreid and Dr. Ogden. Murdoch questions the constables if they found Gillies, they deny but Crabtree tells Murdoch that the river is deep and runs too fast, as well as being full of rocks. If he was still handcuffed, "there's no way he could escape his death". Julia tries to convince a desperate Murdoch that they have to believe that it is over.
Kung Fu Crabtree[]
A body is recovered from the river that supposedly belongs to Gillies, being the same height and with similar facial features. Murdoch is not convinced and suspects that Gillies could have killed a similar looking man and thrown his body into the river to deceive the constabulary. He is eventually persuaded when the coroner finds a bullet in the corpse's shoulder from where Crabtree shot him in The Murdoch Trap, and Gillies is declared officially dead; however, it's later discovered that Murdoch's theory was correct and Gillies is still alive, having planted the bullet in the body's shoulder post-mortem.
The Devil Inside[]
Years after faking his death, Gillies attacks a man named Foley and torturously inserts a microphone into his skull to communicate with him. Foley is driven insane as he believes he is hearing messages from the Devil.
Gillies forces Foley to kill two random men whose names provide a clue to his location. When Foley is arrested he uses the microphone to taunt Murdoch and Julia with details of their previous encounters before giving Murdoch several clues for his latest "game". Murdoch is led to the home of Veronica Bowden, the girl who was kidnapped by Gillies in his second appearance, and discovers another talking doll with a message telling him to return home.
Back in his hotel room Murdoch is confronted by Gillies, who is disfigured from falling off the bridge and wants Murdoch to kill him. He reveals that he has kidnapped Roland Connor, a baby whom Murdoch had briefly adopted in a previous season, and threatens to kill him with a heroin overdose if the detective does not shoot him. When Murdoch tries, however, the gun is unloaded.
Gillies admits that although he did want the detective to kill him, he removed all but one of the bullets to make sure he was ready to die, and now plans to continue tormenting him indefinitely. As Gillies continues to gloat, Murdoch shoots him with a rubber bullet from a concealed wrist gun, similar to the one Gillies had used to try and kill Inspector Brackenreid. In the episode's closing scenes, Murdoch and Julia watch as Gillies is finally hanged on-screen. Julia then cuts his head open and removes his brain, as she had threatened in a previous episode.
Station House of Horror[]
Despite his canonical death, Gillies returns as a ghost in a non-canon Halloween special to torment Dr. Ogden from beyond the grave.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- He and Robert Perry are based upon the real-life murderers Nathaniel Leopold and Richard Loeb, who similarly attempted to commit the "perfect crime" to prove their superior intellects. Gillies is likely based more upon Nathaniel Leopold, who was considered the most intellectual of the duo and the initiator of their schemes; he was also similarly betrayed by his partner, and was eventually able to leave prison.
- Alongside Eva Pearce, Gillies is the villain who appears the second most often in the entire series, having appeared in seven episodes.
- Gillies' relationship with Murdoch is likely inspired by Sherlock Holmes' archenemy James Moriarty, with both being criminal masterminds that possess similar intellects to their heroic counterparts. His insanity, obsession with Murdoch, and desire to continue "playing" with him are also likely inspired by Batman's archenemy, the Joker.
- His facial scars in his final appearance are also likely inspired by Two-Face, another Batman villain.
- Gillies' obsession with Murdoch is repeatedly implied to be romantic in nature, making him one of the few homosexual characters in the series, and the second villain to be so, after Percival Giles.
External Links[]
- James Gillies on the Pure Evil Wiki