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.
