Murder, She Watched: The Murder of Sherlock Holmes Parts 1&2 (Season 1, Eps: 1&2)

Like I said in the introduction since the series primer is two parter I combined them into one post. Now without that out of the way let’s get this party started.

This episode begins with a fake out murder, via a play’s dress rehearsal, which introduces us to Jessica Fletcher (played by the wonderful Angela Lansbury), our resident Cabot Cove writer, and also acts has a way to establish her keen eye for detail.

The plot officially starts off when Jessica while returning from a morning run answers a phone call from her nephew Grady (Michael Horton), an account and one of the more reoccurring characters in the show, as time goes on you will learn that he has not just a revolving door of girlfriends but also jobs. This, the merry-go-round of girlfriends and jobs, is probably because of all the dead bodies that tend to pop up like weeds whenever his aunt is around. Again I still claim she is the daughter of Hades and Persephone it’s the only explanation I can think of for her marvelous garden and the pile of corpses she tends to acquire.

During the phone call she learns that her book is going to be published much to her dismay. Only to learn that it quickly becomes a best seller which leads to her being brought up to be interviewed multiple times in New York where she meets Kitty Donovon (Jessica Browne), Brady’s friend/love interest who is responsible for her getting published in her publishing house, as well as Kitty’s boss Preston Giles (Arthur Hill) who at first ignores her due to being busy, although he does get confused when Jessica suggests apples for his complexion.

So their working relationship is off to a marvelous start.

Also can I just point out that Daniel, the man who helps Jessica Fletcher whenever she shows up at the train station, is amazing and I wish he had appeared in more scenes. Also with his mustache I can’t help but think of Carl Winslow from Family Matters. Is that just me? Just me? Okay. Let’s move on! Full steam ahead!

Back to the episode at hand, the press junket is a complete disaster, thanks to Jessica being brow beat by the interviewers, which leads to her wanting to get the heck out of Dodge onto the first train back to Cabot Cove where people aren’t as openly pretentious. They just happen to know where all your bodies are buried because they are nosey and at times more than a little self righteous.

But before she can do that she is stopped at the train station by Preston, who shows up with roses and is by the way is the first in a long line of love interests/admires for Jessica, who finally remembers her and manages to convince her to join him and his friends for a party.

Bad call Pressy, bad call. Don’t spring surprises like this on people kiddies. It’s not nice.

On the drive up to the “extremely modest house” he is hosting the party at he and Jessica engage in what can generously be described as mild flirting as they talk about the interviewers. When they arrive at his house we meet a cast of interesting and annoying characters and Jessica meets the wife of Grady’s boss, Captain Caleb McCallum (Brian Keith), Louise (Anne Francis) who is a fan of Jessica’s. During the conversation Jessica learns about Preston letting her husband invite his assistant/mistress Ashley (Tricia O’Neil) as well as the fact that the party is a masquerade and everyone is coming has their favorite literary character. She jokes with a wink about showing up as Lady Godiva but in the end, with the help of Louise e, dresses up as Cinderella’s Godmother.

At the party we also meet Davis, Preston’s butler, who is SO done with everyone in the party and doesn’t get nearly enough screen time.

Anyways, the Captain dresses up as Sherlock Holmes, though Casanova would probably have been a better choice considering his character, and gets handsy with a woman dressed as Little Red Riding Hood, who is standing next to the wolf whom I can only assume is her date, much to the annoyance of Ashley, his former mistress, dressed as the Wicked Queen. While Grady, Robin Hood, and Kitty, who I guess is supposed to be a belly dancer? Jasmine? Harem Girl? (who is she supposed to be?) are heading into the party Grady sees someone sneaking around his room, which causes him to leap into action. Grady and the thief have a rather amusing fight before the other man runs off only to slip on Jessica’s casually discarded wand.

Dexter, reveals himself to be a private investigator and says he was hired by someone to investigate people, he stops Preston from phoning the police by pointing out the newspapers will have a field day with the information and how it will point at all his guests. Preston decides not to call the police but he does have Grady remove Dexter from the property, but not before the PI makes a jab at the host of the party. Right before Grady pulls him out of the room he figures out that Preston is Edmond Dante from The Count of Monte Crisco.

While I haven’t read the book I do recommend the movie its pretty good. Anyways ONWARD!

Later Louise, dressed as a flapper, is drunk and wants to go home, but her husband isn’t ready to go so she leaves on her own despite the attempts of Jessica and Grady, who does everything but tackle the woman, to stop her from getting into her car.

Don’t drink and drive kids, even if you are dressed as a flapper.

Peter (Bert Convoy), a producer of plays and dressed as Ebenezer Scrooge, talks about his woes putting on a play and inadvertently makes a crack at Ashley, who is already annoyed that Caleb is sneaking around on her with another woman spills something on her dress. Jessica, being Jessica an in her words “Frugal Yankee”, drags her into the kitchen to get some supplies from the kitchen, where Preston is on the phone with another interviewer who wants to speak with Jessica later, to get the stain out.

I almost wonder if the recipe she uses works in real life, maybe I will stain something and see if it works. If anyone wants me to try it out let me know and I will try it out.

Anyways, while this is going on Peter entertains the crowd well into the early morning.

The day after the party Jessica is out for her usual run, she tends to do this at least once almost every episode, where she runs into Louise who has arrived looking for her husband only for the two women to hear Kitty screaming bloody murder. Then again if you found a dead body in the pool, you would probably scream too. They rush to the scene and find a dead body, believed to Caleb because he is dressed as Sherlock Holmes, floating in the pool. Finally, thirty minutes into the episode, we arrive at the murder and are introduced to Chief Gunderson, the man in charge of the investigation. While he is interviewing the guests – the doctor (played by Raymond St. Jacques who is awesome but doesn’t appear in anymore scenes after this sadly but he shows up again in an episode next season), Louise, Peter, Preston, Ashley, and Grady (Kitty is laying down upstairs after being sedated) meanwhile Jessica can be seen outside the window behind the investigator examining the background for clues.

This hilariously keeps distracting the poor man during the conversation. But no one else seems to pay it any mind.

The guests point out that a lot of people hated the Captain but Louise adds that she is the one most likely to have hated her husband the most. After he finishes interviewing them he speaks with Jessica outside and she deduces it wasn’t the Captain instead it was the P.I, because of the shoes he was wearing. Caleb verifies that he’s not the dead man by showing up and insulting the Chief. He later, after being slapped by an overjoyed and angry Louise e , says that he hired the man to find who was leaking private company information. The captain claims he doesn’t know why the man was wearing his costume because he left it at the house so he could have an affair with another guest, Red Ridding Hood, at the local hotel. Once the Chief lets everyone leave and he catches a ride with Jessica in a limo, who brings up the possibility that the murderer might have thought the PI was actually the Captain and not the P.I. Therefore depending on if the murderer knew the PI was wearing his Sherlock Holmes costume the list of suspects depends on who the killer thought Sherlock Holmes was.

Back at her hotel room Grady tries to convince Jessica to stay because he sees the attraction she and Preston share for each other. Which she admits too but she doesn’t seem happy with the idea of them hitting it off so well. Awhile later at the train station intending to get back to her home only for Kitty to interrupt her departure to let her know that Grady was arrested for stealing and murder.

Jessica will be stopped from going home a lot in these two episodes; I kinda feel sorry for Daniel having to deal with this insanity. In the end he is probably glad when Jessica goes home and stays home at least for now. But we never see him again. He probably got a new job where, he hopefully, doesn’t have to deal with this crap anymore

I guess Kitty grabbed Jessica’s bags from him because Jessica sure didn’t and they are seen later when she attempts to get onto the train again. Anyways, at the police station the Chief admits that the county police have taken over the case and he points out that the facts all point to Grady. But he also says that Ashley is being questioned because she is also a suspect. Preston has hired someone to defend Grady, how sweet. The small group (Kitty, Grady, Jessica, and Preston) convene at a café and according to Preston the cops have found out the PI was a blackmailer and they believe that Grady lost his temper when the man tried to black mail him. Kitty provides a possible motive for Ashley being the thief because she was frozen out of her affair with the Captain recently. When Ashley walks into the café Jessica tries to get her to join them because she is also a suspect only for Ashley to say that thanks to Jessica she has a solid alibi.

Thus we close on part one.

The next episode starts with a recap and then segues into Jessica and Preston sharing a cab ride, to his job and her hotel, and having a heart to heart during which he invites her to dinner. Its implied at various times though not just this episode and others that Jessica is still gunshy and hurting over the loss of her husband, Frank, and doesn’t want to get involved in another relationship just yet. After Preston is dropped off she decides to go to Captain’s boat to talk to him about the investigation instead of going back to her hotel room. The captain believes Grady stole the information from him and thus killed the PI to keep him quiet. He disregards Jessica’s belief that the murder was after him. Jessica points out that Grady was with Kitty, but the Captain claims that would be like Bonnie alibing Clyde because they are an item.

Which okay sure I can see that.

The Captain refuses to believe that he was the intended target because no one has enough motive to kill him. I have a feeling he doesn’t realize or care that people seem to hate him, maybe he’s the friend no one likes in the group. Either that or he has a serious case of denial when it comes to how popular and liked he is with people.

When she gets back to her hotel room she and Grady make plans to look through Ashley’s office when the business closes. Because she believes Ashley stole the information and has an accomplice who killed the PI. Jessica searches Ashley’s office while Grady tries to find out who the company brought the properties because Jessica believes they have a connection to Ashley and her accomplice. Because Jessica believes that Ashley did it with the help of an accomplice who probably killed the PI to keep him from finding out about it. Jessica is nearly caught by Ashley but is saved by a phone call from her accomplice. When Jessica attempts to follow Ashley into a bad part of town where she loses Ashley and is nearly mugged and then saved by a fan in yet another pretty amusing fight. I keep forgetting that the fights in these old shows are pretty bad.

The bus driver Jessica meets is played by Herb Edelman who is perhaps best known for playing Stan on the Golden Girls, you will see a number of guest stars on this show who guest stared on the Golden Girls has well, and plays a couple other characters, including one reoccurring character on Murder She Wrote later on down the line. Eventually Jessica, carrying a large stack of newspapers, gets together was Kitty, Grady and Preston at her hotel room. Grady says he got prices for fish wholesale from last year instead of real estate transactions figures out the connection isn’t through she tells the Chef to look into a connection between Ashley and the composer. Preston is upset that she is so blaise about the whole thing because she could have been arrested for trespassing. Jessica calls the Chief who complains about the time while she continues to be uncaring about it.

No one in this group seems to sleep like a normal person. I guess they all inhale caffeine when no one else is looking.

Jessica says that she figured out that Ashley and Peter are connected because she lost Ashley in the same area that Peter is putting on a play. Grady takes Jessica to the theater where he hears “signs of life” and by that he means he hears someone singing out of tune. Afterward Jessica confronts him and Ashley, who comes clean about them having a partnership. Ashley says she stole the papers so Peter could stage his comeback and so she could get revenge on Captain Caleb for dropping her.

And, not for the first time, I can’t help but really wonder if this woman realizes the irony/hypocrisy to being mad at being dropped for another woman when she herself was sleeping with the same married man. But that does seem to be how these things tend to go.

“I know I am sleeping with a married person, but how dare they cheat on me with someone else!”

Anyways, the Chief of police goes to the Captain’s boat where he runs into two other I am assuming policemen, based on a tip, where they find the man’s dead body stashed in the main sail. Jessica, Preston and the Chief have a gathering in her hotel where Chief says that Ashley and the composer admitted to stealing the documents but deny any knowledge of murder. And so far everyone has alibis for both of the murders as New York City homicide takes over the case. As the Chief is leaving he invites her to help him on his case anytime and she in turn invites him to come to Maine and she’ll cook him up some lobster stew.

On that note I really wish some of these characters who befriend Jessica would show up later in Maine and help her out.

Yet again Jessica decides to go back to Maine but before he leaves her hotel room Preston and Jessica admit both admit that they like each other with Preston respecting that things are moving too fast for her (my heart is swoons) and is willing to settle for the friendship she is offering until, not to mention if, she is ready to date again. They kiss.

My heart.

As Jessica is about to board the train Kitty says there is a movie deal in the works and tells her about some other interviews that are lined up, including one with a reporter for the New York Times. Sitting down in the train she is flipping through the newspaper and she sees a photo of a woman that gives her a eureka moment and she is once more off the train and onto a different train to New Holvang. Once there she goes to Preston Preston’s place to investigate the murder some more, despite claiming she had no intention of doing so. Preston meets her there and they talk Jessica points out that they are standing 25 feet apart and they can see each other clearly. Preston says it’s the moon and Jessica points out that automatic lights made it possible for the killer to know who he was shooting. She accuses Preston and points out his inconsistencies. The PI was going to blackmail Preston who shot the PI. Preston was betrayed by 3 business partners when an apartment building collapsed and he escaped a 15 year jail sentence after 2. Preston goes on to destroy his three ex partners over the years. The PI was a detective who recognized Preston. He merely killed Caleb to divert suspicion from him. Preston turns himself in and Jessica gets onto the train this time for real and decides not to return because she’s too upset by what happened. Kitty shows up and says the cops need her help solving a double homicide of two wrestlers Jessica refuses to entertain the notion and gets on the train anyways but the last shot is her surprised reaction of one of them being drowned on dry land.

Conclusion: The episode ends sadly on a downer ending because you spend two episodes getting to know Preston and really rooting for his relationship with Jessica to go forward. And it obviously breaks both their hearts that it can’t because of his actions. What is really heartbreaking is that Preston went to jail for being falsely arrested as the scapegoat of his three partners when an apartment building they owned collapsed is now going to jail, this time for life, for actually murdering two people not to mention probably escaping jail. You also get the idea that Preston would have eventually come forward if Grady was really going to be charged with the murder.

I’ll leave it up to you to decide if he does this because he is a good man deep down or because of his affection for Jessica. Either one seems to be plausible.

The two episodes give you a good grasp of Jessica’s character which is a strong woman, even if it’s not a physical strength, with a good sense of people and a sharp wit, funny sense of humor and a compassionate heart. This is perhaps why so many people are drawn to her, not only romantically but in an almost familial sense. This is proven by how often she collects surrogate family members and invites several people to drop in on her if they are in Maine and it is my personal head cannon that several of them keep in contact with her and do indeed drop in on her.

You also wind up getting good sense of Grady’s character who shows up multiple times throughout the series has someone with a good character but repeatedly has rotten luck. But he and Jessica are both utterly devoted to each other and its rather touching seeing just how far they will go for each other. This also goes to show how far Jessica will go to find justice throughout the series, even if she does sympathize with the killers.

Well, that’s the end of the start of the show. I don’t know how this series will go though I am sure it will evolve with time as I get my feet under me and get a better idea on what I want to do with it.

Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy the ride and I will see you in the next episode Murder, She Wrote Season 1, Episode 3: Deadly lady.

#MurderSheWrote #MurderSheWatched #TheMurderofSherlockHolmes