At the beginning of the episode, Jessica is still in Cabot Cove, saying goodbye to her temporary personal assistant and getting ready to embark on a publicity tour that first takes her to Portland, Maine. It quickly turns out that her personal assistant is a pathological liar and has not properly done the research that Jessica assigned to her. And to make matters worse, she impersonated Jessica over the phone when her new boss attempted to check up on her references.
But nonetheless Jessica gets sucked into helping prove that this pathological liar is not guilty of murdering her new boss in Portland.
Just the facts:
Click on the text below to reveal spoilers.
Click to reveal the victim
It was Ethan Stephens, the owner of the securities and investment firm!Click to reveal the killer
It was Bruce Hastings, the deputy prosecutor!Click to reveal the weapon
It was a gun shot right through the heart!Click to reveal the location
It was in the victim’s office at night!Click to reveal the motive
It was to hide the fact that the killer was Ethan’s partner in the insider trading scheme!Click to reveal the major clue
It was the man’s handbag, which Dana Ballard saw on the desk when she searched the office just before the murder! Plus evidence of her being framed: blood and hair found on the desk but no dent; a bullet found wedged in the wall but no reason for why the killer would have missed.Cast of characters (in order of appearance):
- Molly Hagan as Dana Ballard, Jessica’s personal assistant who turns out to be a pathological liar.
- Ruth Anderson as Helen McCurdy, who was contacted regarding research on the New Hampshire State Fair.
- Sam Anderson as Ethan Stevens, Dana Ballard’s new boss — a big fan of J.B. Fletcher and one of Portland’s most prominent stockbrokers. This is his first of four appearances on MSW.
- Wallace Langham as Todd Merlin, an employee at Ethan Stevens’ business.
- Pamela Roylance as Gloria Jergens, Jessica’s editor. This is her second and final appearance on MSW; she previously appeared in “The Family Jewels“.
- Christine Belford as Missy Stevens, Ethan’s wife. This is her fourth and final appearance on MSW; she previously appeared in “Double Exposure“.
- Edward Winter as Baker Lawrence, a partner of Ethan Stevens’ firm who accused Ethan of illegal insider trading and wants to buy him out. This is his third and final appearance on MSW; he previously appeared in “Smooth Operators” and “The Committee“.
- Tom Henschel as Terence Gideon, a representative of Wedgewood Publications and Jessica’s dinner companion in Portland. This is his second and final appearance on MSW.
- Lorry Goldman as Saul Benson, the man with the Regitek folder.
- Richard Libertini as Lt. Gabriel Rodino, the police detective in charge of the murder investigation. This is his first of three appearances on MSW.
- Stephen T. Kay as Vincent Polaski, lawyer representing Dana Ballard. This is his first of two appearances on MSW.
- Jeffrey Nordling as Bruce Hastings, the deputy prosecutor working on Dana Ballard’s case. This is his first of two appearances on MSW.
- Evelyn Keyes as Wanda Polaski, Vincent’s grandmother and hacker. This is her third and final appearance on MSW; she previously appeared in “Old Habits Die Hard“.
Final thoughts and other trivia:
Thanks to some comments I read on IMDb, I learned that some of the establishing shots of Portland, Maine were actually filmed in Astoria, Oregon — which is curious since it can’t have been that difficult to obtain actual stock footage from Portland.
Aside from that, I thought it was interesting to hear Jessica talking about her writing style while at dinner with the publishing representative:
“My novels and character-based. I mean, a group of people, hopefully interesting, in conflict with each other, who find themselves in a situation where a murder or murders take place.”
Murder, She Watched 
Cabot Cove episode are always special.
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