Murder, She Wrote has been taken off of Netflix. So for now. This is on hold.

:(

Death Casts a Spell : A Photo Essay

Season 1, Episode 10
Dec. 30, 1984

"I took my clothes off on a swing. That doesn't make me a daredevil."

This episode is about bad entertainment in Lake Tahoe. Specifically hypnotism and how it breaks down social norms and leads to people wanting to murder.

This woman thinks she is an elephant. That is hypnotist extraordinaire Cagliostro. And his former trapeze artist assistant whose name I didn't catch.

Cagliostro works at a hotel owned by some dude and his wife Michelle Phillips. She was the pretty one who slept with everyone in the Mamas and the Papas. She gives good bitch face.

She slept with Cagliostro, but is no longer seeing him.

Jessica checks into the hotel and meets assistant editor Joan. The whole trip turns out to have been a trick to get Jessica there to see the hypnotist act and write a novel about it. Joan wants her career to go places and forcing an older woman to write a novel about bad cabaret acts is apparently the way to go.

Jessica checks into hotels a lot. At dinner we meet drunk journalist Bud and his assistant Andy.

Bud is trying to uncover the hypnotist's past. Which is creepy or something. It is never revealed. In the name of plot Cagliostro agrees to have a group of journalists up to his room to hear his story. But only if they agree to be hypnotized.

Cause. Plot.

This woman mistakes Jessica for an actress. Weird interaction. JB even goes as far as showing her a book with her picture on it. The woman continues to insist. It makes little sense and is only there so that Jessica can be held up and miss Cagliostro's murder. In a locked room. With 6 witnesses who don't remember a thing.

Then there is a shirtless golfer.

Then Jessica gets on a motorcycle.

Then it turns out Andy was wearing ear plugs so he could fake being hypnotized and kill him. It's because his dad lost his job due to a law suit filed by Cagliostro. Possibly in England? It's not clear. And then it's over with Joan telling Jessica that the editors want her to change the ending because the truth is boring.

Death Takes a Curtain Call

Season 1, Episode 9
Dec. 16, 1984

Insert 'In Soviet Russia...' joke here.

In the 80s one of the favorite things to drop into TV shows and films was the Russian defector. Someone who was so opposed to the Communist USSR that they would flee their homeland for America's Capitalist shores.

In 1974 ballet star Mikhail Baryshnikov did just that. To Canada. Eventually he would become a US citizen in 1986. In 1985 though he would make this:

White Nights would see Baryshnikov and Gregory Hines dance their way across Siberia and back to the loving embrace of the US. Hines plays a US defector TO the USSR who realizes the error of his ways through defector FROM the USSR Baryshnikov. It co-stars Helen Mirren and Isabella Rossellini and its theme song - Say You, Say Me by Lionel Richie - won an Oscar. It's a romp.

One year before White Nights would teach us all how to dance ourselves into loving Capitalism. Jessica Fletcher would help a pair of Russian dancers defect to Maine...

The best ballet a high school can produce.

So J.B. and her friend Leo go to see a really not very good ballet in Boston. At the door he is handed a special program by a gay named Palmer. Palmer is played by a man named Paul Rudd. He is sadly not the one you want him to be. The program has a number 18 written on it. It corresponds to a locker or something. We don't get to see much because it's curtain call and the stars are missing!?! Oh no!

Subtle & sophisticated.

Alexander and Natalia are pretending to be a chauffeur and a passenger. Leo is Natalia's uncle. They all run off to Cabot Cove in a Rolls Royce. Because why would you do anything low profile when you can drive a Rolls?

Ethan dresses the Russians up in silly fishermen costumes and Jessica makes friends with William Conrad. Who does his best to play a fat KGB major instead of a fat US crime solver. This is Ethan's last episode, which may or may not relate to his secreting away Russian citizens. We will never know.

This outfit is why Ethan was kicked off the show.

Jessica stays in Boston because the guard for Alex and Nat was murdered. William Conrad loves J.B. Fletcher because naturally they have her books in Soviet Russia. He lets her help solve the murder.

On a very special Dimitri and the Fat Man.

There's a smug Ruskie-hatin stage manager, an anti-Soviet protester and a gaggle of suspicious ballet dancers. This ain't no Black Swan though. Well it kinda is though. The real killer is another dancer because she LOVES Alex and would rather frame him for murder then allow him to live in peace and freedom and the Bible.

The FBI is weirdly introduced late in the game through a guy bugging Jessica's phone and faking a Maine accent worse then Tom Bosley. But it doesn't go anywhere and seems to be there for some resemblance of 'if this really happened'. But why bother?

You do not F with Americans. Even those played by English people.

Jessica gets the jealous dancer to admit her murderous ways after tricking her to drive to Cabot Cove with the creep stage manager. Then we are told that Alex and Nat have run off to Portland, Maine to defect while this was all going down. William Conrad seems to have known this and not care. He implies that he'd love to defect so he could go 'fishing' with Jessica. The end.

I mean...'fishing' isn't really a good sex metaphor but ok. He kisses her hand and tells her that every man likes to be compromised some of the time. Get it girl.

I have been a bit absent in my duties lately. J.B. would not be amused.

I will be back. Starting in September the blog will begin again on the usual schedule.

We're Off to Kill the Wizard

Season 1, Episode 8
Dec. 9, 1984

That's actually a good freeze of her. Happy. Well lit.

So maternal. How'd that work out for ya Joaquin?

Before I go anywhere on this. Joaquin Phoenix is in this episode. For like a second. Jessica plays maternal angelic whatever figure and fixes his bike.

She's staying with his family. They are mysterious relatives. Aren't they all.

So Jessica and the kids and their mother (who says like one thing the whole episode and it's about how great Jessica is) all go to a brand new theme park.

They go because a creepy man shows up in a limo and invites them...as you do.

Not that kind of hung

The theme park has a horror theme. But it looks more like a Ren Fair. And the horror elements seemed based on medieval torture porn and graveyards...so not really horror at all. The owner is Horatio Baldwin. Who sounds like Dom DeLuise and enters the show by bring fake hung.

He quickly shows himself to be a royal dick. He wants Jessica to open a Mansion of Murder with him. Which...he obviously doesn't know her...then he threatens her and gets a bit rapey with an auto door lock thing.

Jessica gets a great line about how she writes for people who read and he makes cheap attractions for children who can't tell the difference between real and fake and then walks off.

Then he locks himself in his office and dies. By gunshot? Maybe? It's a classic Sherlock Holmes locked room mystery.

Steve is such a good boy
He was in Sharknado
I'm so proud

We quickly are introduced to a bunch of suspects. The accountant, the architect, the wife, the secretary. Jessica is kidnapped by the wife. Which is apparently how these people roll because CORRUPTION!!! She wants Jessica to solve the murder because she needs the insurance money. OBVS. J. B. is offered a ton of cash for it. Then is let go.

The wife is Steve's mom from 90210 by the way.

The secretary thinks she killed him because they fought and then she left him alone. And then he died. Which is not how it works but OK Laurie.

She finds it because...there isn't much reason given

Jessica finds a secret compartment in the desk with the cunning use of matches. It's empty. Like all of the leads in this episode. So many red herrings this outing. It's kinda lame, but fun.

Did I mention that the accountant was Les in WKRP in Cincinnati? Loni Anderson isn't in the episode or it would soooo good.

Les tries to run off with a briefcase full of money but trips and the cash goes flying. This being the 80s - a huge crowd gathers to grab at it. The economy was bad in case you didn't know.

It turns out it is money he is owed. Maybe. I don't remember them actually resolving this one. It doesn't matter, we don't see Les again.

Jessica goes to the office. She discovers that the light in the phone has been cut. And the ringer. She figures out how it happened. From a cut wire. I think this stretches the audiences ability to suspend disbelief in the magic powers of deduction that J. B. Fletcher possesses but whatever.

She calls Phillip. And asks him to meet her in the Tunnel of Horrors. He beats her there and finds a secret compartment in a scary as all that is holy giant Horatio face that talks and makes groaning sounds. It's some Zozobra shit. It was all a blackmail thing, which is dull.

I think there's meant to be a metaphor of Horatio
being like the wizard of Oz, but...no

Philip tries to kill Jessica but it's a mirror and then the cops show up. It turned out that Phillip was in the room. He pushed Horatio down on accident. Then faked a suicide. He hid until after the cops broke down the door. Then ran out after they left.

Then Jessica gives Laurie the money Erica gave her for solving the case. The end.

Really this is all an excuse to talk about the favorite plot point for all the shows in the 80s - corruption in business and shady executives. The trope of the evil, sleazy, 80s businessman is so ingrained that Martin Scorsese is dredging that well for his new movie despite Wall Street having already been made.

I mean, it's a good trope. And at least in 1984 it was mostly a new one.

Hit, Run and Homicide

Season 1, Episode 7
Nov. 25, 1984

In April of 1983 Viking published Stephen King's 13th novel, Christine. Eight months later in December the John Carpenter film version of Christine came out.

This is interesting because:
A) That film got made FAST honey. Like real fast.

B) The movie was made for $9.7 million. It made $21 million. For reference - The Cabin In The Woods (2012) cost $30 million to make and made just under $66.5 million. So basically the same sort of return. Just much much bigger.

Let's talk about pop culture for a second. Stephen King was arguably at his best in the 80s. His books went from book to film in months. They influenced the way people looked at genre. King changed publishing, for better or not. People read these things and then re-read them.

Television has always been the bastard son of media. It was viewed as the last stop in a career. A wasteland of bad acting, directing, writing. Of course many don't feel this way, myself included, but it is a truth.

The trickle down effect of culture from book to film to television is kinda fascinating. It is still with us today, though often the film gets skipped in favor of a premium cable TV show. Think Game of Thrones, Dexter, True Blood, Walking Dead, Longmire, et al. In the 80s books were turned into movie of the week or mini-series. There weren't really paths to long-form series for books. So the ideas filtered into shows is more blatant rip-off kinda ways.

Thus, one year after the success of Christine, Jessica Fletcher battles her own ghost car along the forested roads of Cabot Cove.

But first! It's Founder's Day. Let's all go to the clambake!

Exactly like Google

Jessica runs into her friend Daniel, an inventor of silly things that are not so silly from a 2013 perspective. Like a thing that hooks to your bike to tell you a bunch of health facts about yourself. Or a wireless security device. Or a driverless car. Like Google, but in a shed.

He makes a weird sonic plant growing thing that only seems to attract dogs. Which could also be helpful?

Eventually we get to the clambake. We see kids riding bikes. Ethan shows up to play baseball! All is potato salad and pie until this happens:

The car chases that guy down and then mysteriously drives away after only sort of hurting him. All without a driver.

The guy is Charles Woodley. He claims to be a former employer of Daniel who was invited here to hang out. Daniel says he hates the guy and would never do such a thing. Meanwhile we are introduced quickly to Daniel's son Tony and his fiancee Leslie. And another former boss of Daniel's, named Katie. It's very confusing with all the former bosses floating around. I had to rewind the episode twice to even catch Tony's name.

Then this happens:

That's apparently is another former boss of Daniel's. He's Charles' business partner. Or something. He's only in this long enough to grumble about travel by boat and then to get run over by ghost car. Which is a sedan by the way. I've never trusted them.

Sedan of DOOM!

They make a lot of really obvious and silly car comments. Like how much they are driving, milage between things, they say sedan a bunch, Leslie is a travelling saleswoman. It gets a bit silly. Sillier than normal.

Eventually Jessica thinks out loud at a very oddly blocked BBQ that she thinks the car might be hidden somewhere remote. Like a farm nearby. Why that farm? Because it's close to where the fedora guy got squished.

She heads out there on bicycle and finds the car. She gets in the car. The car locks itself. Sort of. A really obvious, gigantic, black van is right nearby and we see someone flip a bunch of switches that turn the car 'on'.

What follows is the worlds slowest, most beautiful car chase along Maine's scenic coast line.

Jessica almost dies, but doesn't. And then she plays a video game with Ethan and figures out that the milage on Leslie's rental doesn't add up to all her travel that she says she does. So she must be the killer.

They reconstruct the picnic but purposefully send the remote car at Charles and then Leslie gives herself away by running to the black van. It's all a scam between the two to get rights to some secret security program of some kind that is never defined. The end.

I know this post is long but I need to point out another theme in this episode aside from cars.

SCIENCE.

Daniel is portrayed as a kind of proto-Doc Brown. Weird hair, messy, gadgets that don't work. The typical 80s mad scientist. They even make him take a psyche evaluation. The remote used in the car is his design. Crazy town.

So aside from the tech angle in the actual crime, there's the gadgets that Daniel builds, that lab that I showed you earlier, and the video game. It's the future! J. B. style.

Also also.

Jessica has a wealth of friends in the tiny town that we never see again for the entirety of the show. TWELVE years of it. Never a glimpse of mention of Daniel again. Does she hate her friends? Do they mysteriously die after she writes books about them? Do they sue her? THE QUESTIONS!

Look at all the fucks she gives

Lovers and Other Killers

Season 1, Episode 6
Nov. 18, 1984

My whole premise of this blog is in danger. In the first 6 episodes half do not feature a freeze frame at the end with our heroine in them. The one for this episode features a puppy-eyed pretty boy who I will get to in a minute.

J. B. Fletcher: Stealing babies since 1984

And the 5th episode features a dog in a truck. The second episode was of a truck pulling away from the camera. Clearly I need to refocus on trucks.

So in this episode we have Jessica flying off to Seattle. Where she meets Peter Graves. When she arrives, she is mysteriously holding an Asian baby. Which Peter notes and raises an eyebrow over.

Then some Chinese nuns arrive and like ALL retired highs school teachers from Maine Jessica converses in perfect Mandarin. Like perfect perfect. Because Jessica is 100% perfect. All the damn time.

Peter Graves is impressed. But not enough to not shout "sayonara" after the Chinese nuns. To which Jessica points out his racism and they laugh so much. Oh Peter graves!

Seattle

So Seattle. Which is pointed out about 100 times in the episode. You have to wonder if the Seattle tourism board didn't somehow fund this thing. First off, this is the first episode clearly shot on location in the city it references. Space Needle and all.

There's a murder at the open that ends up being a red herring to point fingers all over the place and reveal the true plot of the episode: Sluts.

Jessica arrives and needs a secretary. She's going to be doing a series of lectures and needs to also get some writing done. So this guy David shows up in the middle of the night and calls Jessica sexist for wanting an older, female secretary instead of his handsome visage. She caves because Jessica is totes not sexist how dare you. She pays him $5.60 an hour.

It turns out David was dating the woman who died at the open. And also another woman. And also is trying to get it on with Jessica. The 80s loved them some male gigolo nonsense. It turns out the old woman was killed in a normal uninteresting break in for cash/jewels by a random man. Nope! Nothing to solve there! Moving on!

David is also dating/friendly with Lila. Who is married. But not old. And Lila is also sexting with another professor who looks kinda like James Spader and is also sleeping with Peter Graves. Because you would also sleep with Peter Graves if you could.

Box maze!

Lila dies in a box maze at 10:00 PM in front of Jessica. Because when you are in Seattle you just must see the docks at night. It is to DIE.

Waka! Waka!

Lila dies mainly so everyone can admit to sleeping with her and we can all feel ok with her death because SLUT!

Jessica's lectures seem to be based around her speaking in odd accents and pointing guns at her students. In her second one she confronts the non Peter Graves professor who is sleeping with Lila in a strange way that would get anyone fired/sent to a mental institution.

Stop. Drop. MURDER!

Then Jessica is pushed down a flight of stairs by a person in black. Then Peter Graves accuses her of clouded judgement because David is so gosh darn cute she must have a thing for him. Which is very projectionist of Peter Graves since his own May/December thing went so well.

Jessica realizes that the killer might not have been a man. This happens when she catches David in her hotel room for the 3rd time without her permission. But it gets ignored because sleuthing is afoot.

The killer was a jealous WOMAN, naturally.

Seattle

Peter Graves' secretary was in love with him. Jessica tricks her into confessing. It was because he ignored her. Jessica kinda called this in the opening scenes. She turns to Peter Graves and tells him his secretary is in love with him but he says that couldn't possibly be true. Because she's older and not young and slutty like Lila.

David follows Jessica to the airport and is still creepy. He says he loves her with a puppet. She says he'll be a character in her book. But she doesn't know if he's a victim, a suspect, or a bystander. Freeze frame on his face as a smile fades into that weird slightly menacing look up there at the top. MOST AMBIGUOUS ENDING EVER!!!

Also: Jessica seems to be stealing the puppet David handed her.

Also Also: The title is a riff on the 1970 film Love and Other Strangers. It was nominated for three Oscars and featured Diane Keaton in her first role. Bea Arthur and Cloris Leachman were in it. It won the Oscar for best original song.

My computer is repaired and I will be posting again starting this Tuesday.

M I A

My computer died last week. I hoped to be back up and running by now but it looks like it will be a few more days.

In the meantime:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0_sE6pdXus&feature=youtube_gdata_player

It's A Dog's Life

Season 1, Episode 5
Nov. 4, 1984

Lynn Redgrave and horses and a beagle. Oh my!

Mmm Hmm

Jessica continues her tour of wealthy America c. 1984. What is it about horse racing that screams rich 80s? They go on a fox hunt.

In Virginia.

In 1984.

We are briefly introduced to a bunch of obnoxious rich people who I don't care about. One is named Trisha and another is called Echo. That about sums it up.

So horses. I feel that in the 80s it was shorthand to show people engaging in horse-related events. It meant they were very well off. It still might. They've done it on Mad Men.

Maybe, due to the cost, and the sort of incredibly drinks and polo aspects of it the whole world of horses just feels rich? I'm sure Mitt Romney sending his horse to the Olympics will not help change that.

Huzzah!

So then the patriarch of all those boring rich people dies in the most ridiculous way. His horse decides to jump a river or a bush or a cliff and Denton screams Tally-ho! and dies. It looks like this as it happens.

For several reasons the phrasing is odd. First...come on writers, way to make a death absolutely silly. I know this show tends to take the bite out of the violence by making with the funny but this is reaching.

Secondly, 'tally-ho' is what you yell when you see a fox or quarry. I'm assuming Denton did not see one. So is it a sly reference to HIM being the quarry? I doubt it. That is putting a lot of credit int he laps of the writers.

This is the first death that really looks like an accident. The man died because he fell from a horse. Everyone saw it. Case shut. Except not. Saving time. The horse was doped up and went crazy. Yawn.

Cut to the reading of the will. Which, because of the 80s is a video will. Denton reads his children FOR FILTH and proceeds to tell them they are terrible and get nothing. His art goes to the Smithsonian. His money...to his dog Teddy. Which delights Lynn Redgrave to no end since she hates the kids.

Lynn Redgrave is...

The only one we get to really meet is Morgana, who is psychic. Or sees ghosts. She reads tea leaves too. The only other kid we remember is Trisha, mainly because she dies next and also gets to say this line, which is the best thing on television ever:

"Electronic music. You know, tweeters, woofers, heavy metal."

Heavy metal? This is why I don't think the writers know a thing about what they are doing.

...deeply concerned. Also...holding a dog.

Lynn brings a sense of grace and calm to the proceedings. She clearly thought this was a real acting gig. Though she is pretty much only holding a dog and looking pensive the whole time.

A series of setting up the dog. He is drugged. Jailed. Sued to be declared mentally unsound. I wish I could make this up. I would guess that it's meant to be a comment of some kind about ungrateful rich kids and the whims of the very rich.

Of course people have done it in real life.

Trisha, the drunk daughter who hates music, dies in an unfortunate gate closing accident. IT WAS THE DOG! But Marcus Boswell, the family's lawyer, trained the dog to do it. He was milking the estate for money and he and Trisha drugged the horse to kill Denton. His stocks were going bad. He owed a lot to some stock broker. It is all poorly defined.

This is how I looked after this episode.

Jessica figures all of this out because of a split seam on a coat...and then uses an intercom to reveal the whole thing in a courtroom. For some reason. Again, ill-defined. Lynn is in jail, with the dog, but is freed. Which is good. And everyone goes back to their house to ride horses. The very rich dog gets to retire to a stud farm and make diddle with lots of dogs...because being rich is somehow genetic?

I just don't get any of it. Sloppy episode all around. But oddly high on the gravitas scale. Lynn's presence made Angela up her game. We get some serious FACE in the courtroom reveal.

And what can only be described as a short, half-assed Singing In The Rain homage. The episode is mainly worth watching because it makes no sense and is actually well acted. The script is probably the worst so far. Or the one that makes the least sense. But is does give us Jessica's second relative. Lynn plays a cousin of J. B. A trope that would eventually bring us dueling Lansburys.

Hooray for Homicide

Season 1, Episode 4
Oct. 29, 1984

In this episode Jessica goes to Hollywood! But first we get to see some of her creative process as she strangles a dummy that kinda looks like a man with a sack over his head. Also. How white is her house?

No really.

Segregation on television really is fascinating. The 'white' and the 'black' shows. We have Family Ties and The Cosby Show. These divisions carried through the 90s and into the 00s. This division still exists today but there are way more shows with multi-ethnic casts.

I want to talk about race later though. Because Jessica Fletcher's first book, The Corpse Danced at Midnight is being made into a movie! By John Saxon no less.

A wild Saxon in the wild.

And he's a sleazy film producer. Which is very against type for Saxon. But not really.

What's he done to Jessica's book? He's turned it into a strange neon lit sex romp in a graveyard with...dancing...and sex. And more sex. He's also cast his live-in girlfriend/meal ticket, Eve. She can't really act, and is also maybe a drunk. It's unclear. But HOLLYWOOD!

Saxon admits that he only bought the rights because the title is kinda kick-ass. He tells Jessica to her face that he thinks her work is terrible and boring and for people who read.

I know it's difficult to take your eyes off Saxon's mighty chest hair but let's play a game. Let's think of stereotypes about Hollywood!

My list is short. Yours could be way longer. Feel free to add yours in the comments. Mine:

• Sleazy producer/director/etc.
• Casting couch/sex for roles
• Dumb actor
• Crass careless handling of 'literature' and writing as art
• Nepotism
• Extravagant/wasteful

We've already checked three of those boxes with Saxon alone. Needless to say, Jessica is pissed. She calls the whole production 'debasing'  and threatens legal action against the studio, her publisher, the universe. She gets a lawyer.

Yes. That is Horshack. He apparently graduated from law school. Of note. The previous episode featured Mr. Kotter. Her sweathog lawyer tells her she can't do anything since she signed away her film rights. Which was really dumb on her part. Even in the 80s books to film was a big time thing. Just ask Stephen King.

Jessica takes the logical step of crashing the studio. There she meets the writer, costume designer, and the stars of the film. The writer is a kinda slobby looking mope. The costumer is English and uppity. The stars are stupid. Horshack's uncle runs the projectors at the studio. Because everyone is in the business in LA. E V E R Y O N E.

Likes graveyards.

She also meets the director, Gomez.

Naturally, everyone hates the producer and Saxon gets bumped off in a fake graveyard. Jessica finds the body, as usual, but becomes suspect number one.

Then the only person of color shows up. And he is super short and wears silly yellow sunglasses and kinda fauns all over the elderly white lady for the rest of the episode even though he's investigating her for murder.

Angela Lansbury is a GIANT.

Why is everyone shorter than her in this episode? Every actor seems to be at least 6 inches shorter then her. Is LA full of super tiny people? Is it a sly commentary on the shortness of actors? Maybe it's just racist.

So Gomez takes over the film and there are claims of artistic integrity thrown about. Then they film that classic J.B. Fletcher scene of the woman dancing in the neon graveyard with zombies.

The whole thing is pretty soulless. It looks more like a music video then the clear riff on Suspiria it's meat to be. CBS was not the place to do slasher parodies apparently.

In one amazing scene we are told that an entire film's worth of costumes were dumped because the lead actress didn't like one outfit. Then we see the really terrible costumes while Jessica pretends they are the finest thing she's ever seen.

Eventually Horshack tackles Gomez, who has a missing button from a jacket that proves the drunkish actress killed her own lover/roommate/producer. Supposedly because he forced her to become a famous actress.

Jessica compliments her acting and the final scene plays out in an oddly sad way for the absolute wacky episode that came before it. Eve tearfully recounts how she actually loved Saxon. How he didn't love her. How she just wanted to live their life, etc. And then Jessica gives her the best contemplative look she can as the credits roll.

If the episode before this was a sort of send up of night clubs and cabaret acts. This episode is the 'film' episode. Looking at it now, it is hard to see that anyone thought this was anything but silly. That these tropes are with us still means they must have roots in reality.

But it's pretty cynical to create these sorts of representations of the thing that you are doing. But that kinda sums up the 80s.