Jessica Fletcher is attending a copyrights conference in Amsterdam (The Netherlands). When she first arrives, she meets up with a colleague with whom she’s due to present a panel talk, and they briefly part ways so they can get ready in their respective hotel rooms. But when Jessica arrives at the conference hall, she learns that her colleague not there. When it becomes clear that nobody has actually seen him since, and that people are lying about his whereabouts, Jessica is determined to get to the bottom of things.
Just the facts:
Click on the text below to reveal spoilers.
Click to reveal the victim
There were two victims in this episode, one who was shown to be killed before the main story involving Jessica Fletcher. The initial victim was Hendrik Kuyper (a police informant), and the second victim was Philip De Kooning (a diamond dealer)!Click to reveal the killer
It was Colin Biddle, the British intelligence agent!Click to reveal the weapon
The initial victim was run over by a car; the second victim was stabbed!Click to reveal the location
An initial murder occurred while the victim was in a public phone booth; the second murder occurred in the victim’s hotel room!Click to reveal the motive
The killer was part of a conspiracy to get ransom money in exchange for returning a kidnapping victim; the victim had learned of the conspiracy and tried to get in on the action!Click to reveal the major clue
Jessica was able to figure out the conspiracy after realizing one of the co-conspirators mentioned seeing the kidnapping victim with a flower in his lapel! After that, she realized the killer’s involvement as he was the only one who could have planted her finger prints on the murder weapon.Cast of characters:
- Andreas Renell (Reinl) as Hendrik Kuyper, a police informant who gets run over by a car while making a phone call to Inspector Van Horn.
- Theodore Bikel as Inspector Van Horn, whom Jessica approaches regarding the disappearance of her author friend. This is Bikel’s fourth and final appearance on MSW; he previously appeared in “The List of Yuri Lermentov“, “When the Fat Lady Sings“, and “Indian Giver“.
- Joseph Maher as Nigel Allison, a fellow mystery author who goes missing at the conference.
- Richard Lynch as Philip De Kooning, a diamond dealer who is staying at Jessica’s hotel. This is Lynch’s second and final appearance on MSW; he previously appeared in “To the Last Will I Grapple with Thee“.
- Albie Selznick as Walter Burger, the concierge at Jessica’s hotel. This is Selznick’s second and final appearance on MSW; he previously appeared in “Ship of Thieves“.
- Leann Hunley as Lydia De Kooning, Philip De Kooning’s wife. This is Hunley’s third and final appearance on MSW; she previously appeared in “Murder–According to Maggie” and “A Little Night Work“.
- Cliff Emmich as Harry Tigner, who had some financial deadings with Philip De Kooning.
- Cornelia Kiss as the Panel Chairwoman at the conference Jessica attends.
- Alex Rodine as Herr Kronin, a jewellery appraiser that Lydia De Kooning consults with.
- Camilla Soeberg as Monika Vidal, a journalist at the conference trying to get an interview with Jessica.
- Richard Young as Nick Halsey, Philip De Kooning’s private airplane pilot who is having an affair with his wife.
- Marcus Gilbert as Colin Biddle, a purported publisher’s rep checking into Jessica’s hotel who claims he saw the missing author at the airport (but who is actually a British intelligence agent).
- Nicole Eva-Maria Brandt as a Chambermaid at the hotel who lets Jessica into Nigel Allison’s old room.
- Lilyan Chauvin as the room service Dispatcher in the hotel kitchen.
- Erick Weiss as Muller, an officer working at Inspector Van Horn’s police station.
Final thoughts and other trivia:
As always, I like to document some of the prop art and paintings that appear on the show. Notably, in this episode, Jessica has her portrait painted by Inspector Van Horn. While I’m not sure who the artist was in this instance, the painting is very reminiscent of one that would later be painted by Jaroslav Gebr for the movie South by Southwest.
A final thing that struck me about this episode is that it marks one of the few times that Jessica is formally arrested/accused of committing the crime. The one episode where this also notably happens is Season 5’s “J.B.. As In Jailbird“.
Murder, She Watched 