Jessica is back in her New York City apartment, getting acquainted with a few more of her building residents. One such resident is a young piano prodigy who lives with her mentor in the penthouse apartment, and who had promised to play at the museum benefit Jessica is organizing. Jessica investigates after the mentor, who objected to the museum benefit gig, is murdered in his apartment shortly after she went to visit him.
Episode facts:
Click on the text below to reveal spoilers.
Click to reveal the victim
It was Tokofsky, mentor to the young piano prodigy!Click to reveal the killer
It was Vanessa, Tokofsky’s girlfriend (and Hoyt, the record company exec, was her accomplice)!Click to reveal the weapon
It was a single round (bullet shot) to the back; it came from a mechanism rigged to go off when a certain sequence of notes was played!Click to reveal the location
The victim died while sitting at the piano in the penthouse apartment; the gun mechanism was in the cabinet under the window directly behind the piano player!Click to reveal the motive
It was money: the killer was at risk of being dumped but instead wanted to get an annuity if the victim had predeceased her; while the accomplice would avoid having the young prodigy leave his record company!Click to reveal the major clue
It was the bad sheet music that Tokofsky was playing; and the fact that the window was open when the body was found but had been closed when Jessica had arrived at the penthouse earlier that evening; and the fact the accomplice mentioned having updated sound equipment at the penthouse earlier!Cast of characters (in order of appearance):
- Craig Wasson as Hank Walden, a musician who has been playing the clarinet on the street outside Jessica’s building.
- Jenny Lewis as Leslie Walden, a young piano playing prodigy and daughter of Hank Walden.
- Ronald Guttman as Byron Tokofsky, Leslie’s piano teacher and guardian.
- Eddie Barth as Richie Kanpinski, the doorman at Jessica’s building who is in her apartment to fix her kitchen sink. This is Barth’s third and final appearance on MSW, and his second appearance as Richie; he previously appeared in “Threshold of Fear“.
- Pamela Bellwood as Vanessa Cross, Tokofsky’s girlfriend of five years. This is Bellwood’s second and final appearance on MSW; she previously appeared in “Weave a Tangled Web“.
- Joseph Kell as Steven Hoyt, the head of Leslie’s record label who studied sound wave theory at MIT.
- Robert Knepper as Owen McLaglen, Leslie’s manager. This is Knepper’s second of three appearances on MSW; he previously appeared in “The Sound of Murder“.
- Matthew Ryan as Solly Prince, a musician and resident of Jessica’s building who is teaching her piano for a book she’s writing.
- Kay Tong Lim as Bok, Tokofsky’s butler.
- Wayne C. Dvorak as Martin Trilby, a guest at Tokofsky’s party who is boring Jessica with his conversation.
- Jon Polito as Lieutenant Peter DiMartini. This is Polito’s second and final appearance on MSW, both times as the same character; he previously appeared in “The Dead File“.
- Michael White as T.V. Announcer on the news channel that Jessica is watching.
Final thoughts and other trivia:
A couple little continuity details notable in this episode is that the street sign seen at the very beginning of the episode confirms that Jessica’s apartment is at W 64th Street (and also apparently near a subway entrance).
Additionally, we finally see Jessica’s doorman Richie again (after he appeared once in the previous season and then was only occasionally mentioned by name as someone who calls Jessica on the phone in a few other episodes). And once again, we meet yet another cop that Jessica had previously worked with. Jon Polito as Lieutenant DiMartini joins the likes of Terwilliger, Loughton, and of course Gelber (each of whom were brought back from Season 9 to appear in episodes in Season 10).
And finally, while doing research into this episode, it was interesting to find out that the woman who played the young piano prodigy is indeed a musician herself. Jenny Lewis has released music as a solo artists as well as part of her band Rilo Kiley, some of which appeared in TV or movie soundtracks.
Murder, She Watched 