The action starts out in Amsterdam, where we see a flight attendant (who later turns out to get her groceries from the same store as Jessica) is trading in some diamonds for cash.
Meanwhile, Jessica is in her New York City apartment, hosting a friend from Cabot Cove. Her friend is planning on cooking up a special dinner for some of Jessica’s connections in the hopes of getting a cook book publishing deal. As this involves procuring a lot of groceries, Jessica is getting frequent visits from her local grocery delivery boy. When the boy claims to have witnessed a murder, Jessica gets involved in the investigation.
Just the facts:
Click on the text below to reveal spoilers.
Click to reveal the victim
There were two victims. One was Monica Evers and the other was Fred Turner, both of whom were involved in the diamond smuggling!Click to reveal the killer
It was the police detective, Lt. Steve Warren!Click to reveal the weapon
The first victim was strangled/garroted; the second victim was a shot by a 32-caliber gun!Click to reveal the location
The first victim was killed in the basement of her apartment building and then dumped in the river; the second victim was found in the pool at the local high-school!Click to reveal the motive
It was greed! The first victim was killed because she was stealing from the diamond smuggling operation. The killer then killed a second time to cover up for his involvement in the diamond smuggling operation!Click to reveal the major clue
The killer mentioned seeing Tommy with his baseball cap (which he lost just after finding the body). Also, Jessica picked up on the fact that the bullet found wedged in the sugar sack in her grocery box was a 9mm bullet likely from a police-issue gun!Cast of characters (in order of appearance):
- George Ede as H. Van Houle, a diamond dealer in Amsterdam.
- Liz Vassey as Monica Evers, a flight attendant who appears to have gotten involved in smuggling cash and diamonds between Amsterdam and New York. This is her first of two appearances on MSW.
- Sheila Mac Rae as Susan Wells, Jessica’s visitor from Cabot Cove and a hopeful cookbook author.
- Neil Patrick Harris as Tommy Remsen, Jessica’s grocery delivery boy and wannabe creative writer.
- Raymond Serra as Ben Eigers, the grocery store owner.
- Kario Salem as Vic Gorman, the superintendent at Monica Evers’ building.
- Beth Howland as Sandy Oates, Monica Evers’ neighbor.
- John Bennett Perry as Dan Remsen, Tommy Remsen’s father and the swimming coach at his highschool. This is his second and final appearance on MSW; he previously appeared in “When Thieves Fall Out“.
- Joe Maruzzo as Fred Turner, the tough guy collecting the proceeds of Monica’s diamond smuggling. This is his second and final appearance on MSW; he previously appeared in “How to Make a Killing without Really Trying“.
- Laurence Luckinbill as Lt. Steve Warren, police detective in charge of the investigation. This is his third of four appearances on MSW; he previously appeared in “Murder Through the Looking Glass“.
- Clifton Powell as Det. Eddie Flowers, Lt. Warren’s partner. This is his first of two appearances on MSW.
Final thoughts and other trivia:
Similar to the previous episode, there was some effort made to incorporate Cabot Cove into an otherwise non-Cabot Cove episode. Not only was Jessica hosting a friend from Cabot Cove, she also mentioned that the friend would cook dinner for Seth, Eve, Adele, and Sheriff Mort Metzger.
In terms of filming locations and settings, I thought it was interesting that they appeared to have reused (at least part of) the set for Alice Morgan’s apartment in “Threshold of Fear” as Monica Evers apartment in this episode. I also thought it was notable that some scenes — in which Tommy is walking/running through the streets — was not filmed on a set. It appears that these were filmed from different angles of the same intersection (most likely in Los Angeles), but I wasn’t able to pick out enough clues from the background scenery in order to be able to pinpoint exactly where.
And finally, this is another episode where we briefly get to see one of Jessica’s books — her friend Susan is holding a hard-bound copy of The Dead Man Sang as she is packing at the very end of the episode.
Murder, She Watched 